teddy: the story of a little pickle by john conran hutcheson ________________________________________________________________ this short book is probably of more interest to ten or eleven year olds, rather than any other age group, for much of the book is taken up with describing sundry very juvenile misdemeanours. it is well written, but my personal opinion is that it is quite inconsequential. still, it was quite amusing to scan it, ocr it, and edit it. n.h. ________________________________________________________________ teddy: the story of a little pickle by john conran hutcheson. chapter one. an independent young gentleman. "i want do d'an'ma!" this sudden and unexpected exclamation, uttered as it was in a shrill little voice like that of a piping bullfinch, and coming from nowhere in particular, as far as he could make out, for he had fancied himself all alone on the platform, made the tall railway porter almost jump out of his skin, as he expressed it, startling him out of his seven senses. he was a stalwart, good-natured, black-bearded giant of a man, clad in a suit of dunduckety-mud-coloured velveteens, rather the worse for wear, and smeary with oil and engine-grease, which gave them a sort of highly- burnished appearance resembling that of a newly-polished black-leaded stove. doing nothing, and thinking of nothing specially, for the three-forty up-train had gone through the station, and it was a good hour yet before the five-ten down express was due, he had been lazily leaning in a half- dreamy and almost dozing state against the side of the booking-office. from this coign of vantage, he was, as well as his blinking eyes would allow, gazing out over the rails at the fast-falling flakes of feathery snow that were quickly covering up the metals and permanent way with a mantle of white; when, all at once, without a "by your leave," or seeing or hearing anyone approach, his attention was summarily brought back to the present by the strange announcement of the shrill little voice, while, at the same time, he felt the clutch of tiny fingers twitching at one of the legs of his shiny velveteen trousers, evidently as a further means of attracting his notice. the touch made the porter look downwards, when, perceiving that his unknown interlocutor was a small mite barely reaching up to his knees, he became more reassured; and, bending his big body so as to bring his face somewhat on a level with the young person, he proceeded to interrogate him in familiar fashion. "well, my little man," he said, desiring to learn how he might be of service, for he was a genial willing fellow, and always anxious to oblige people when he knew how--"what's the matter?" "i want do d'an'ma!" repeated the small mite in the same piping tones as before, speaking with the utmost assurance and in the most matter-of- fact way. it seemed as if, having now explicitly notified his wants and wishes, he confidently looked forward, in all the innocent trust of childhood, to their being instantly acted upon and carried out without any demur or hesitation. jupp, the porter, was quite flabbergasted by the little chap's sang- froid; so, in order the better to collect his ideas and enable him to judge what was best to be done under the circumstances, he took off his flat-peaked uniform cap with one hand and scratched his head reflectively with the fingers of the other, as is frequently the wont of those possessed of thick skulls and wits that are apt to go wool- gathering. the operation appeared to have the effect desired; for, after indulging in this species of mental and physical cogitation for a moment or two, jupp ventured upon asking the mite another question which had brilliantly suggested itself to him as opportune. "where is your grandma, sir?" he inquired with more deference than he had used before. "don-don," replied the small person nonchalantly, as if the point was quite immaterial, looking the porter calmly and straight in the eyes unflinchingly, without turning a hair as the saying goes. jupp had never come across such a self-possessed young mannikin in his life before. why, he might have been the station-master or traffic- manager, he appeared so much at his ease! but, he was a little gentleman all the same, jupp could readily see, in spite of the fact that his costume was not quite suited for travelling, the mite being attired in a very prominent and dirty pinafore, while his chubby face was tear-stained, and he had the look of having come out in a hurry and being perhaps unprepared for the journey he contemplated; although, mind you, he had his luggage with him all right--a small bundle tied up in a large pocket-handkerchief of a bright-red colour, which he held tightly clasped to his little stomach as if afraid of its being taken from him. jupp hardly knew off-hand how to deal with the case, it being of a more perplexing nature than had previously come within range of his own personal experience; still, he had his suspicions, and thought it best to entertain the young person in conversation for a bit, until he should be able to find out something about his belongings and where he came from. "london's a large place, sir," he therefore observed tentatively, by way of drawing the mite out and getting some clue towards his identity. the little chap, however, was quite equal to the occasion. "don't tare," he said defiantly, checking the porter's artful attempt at cross-examination. "i want do d'an'ma!" certainly, he was a most independent young gentleman. jupp was at a nonplus again; however, he tried to temporise with the mite, the more especially from his noticing that his little legs were quite mottled and his tiny fingers blue with cold. "well, come in here, sir, at all events, and warm yourself, and then we can talk the matter over comfortably together," he said, throwing open the door of the waiting-room as he spoke, and politely motioning the little chap to enter. the mite made no reply to the invitation, but he tacitly accepted it by following the porter into the apartment he had indicated, and the two were presently seated before a glowing fire, on which jupp immediately emptied the scuttleful of coals, there being no stint of the fuel by reason of the company standing all expense. thawed by the genial warmth, rendered all the more enjoyable by the wintry scene outside, where the snow was now swirling down faster and faster as the afternoon advanced, the little chap began to get more communicative, egged on by jupp in a series of apparently innocent questions. "nussy bad ooman," he blurted out after a long silence, looking up at jupp and putting his hand on his knee confidingly. "indeed, sir?" said the other cautiously, leading him on. "ess, man," continued the mite. "see want take way my kitty." "you don't mean that, sir!" exclaimed jupp with well-feigned horror at such unprincipled behaviour on the part of the accused nurse. "ess, man, see did," replied the little chap, nodding his small curly head with great importance; but the next instant his little roguish blue eyes twinkled with suppressed intelligence, and his red rosebud of a mouth expanded into a happy smile as he added, with much satisfaction in his tones, "but i dot kitty all wite now!" "have you really, sir?" said jupp, pretending to be much surprised at the information, the little chap evidently expecting him to be so. "ess, man," cried the mite with a triumphant shout; "i'se dot po' 'ittle kitty here!" "never, sir!" ejaculated jupp with trembling eagerness, as if his life depended on the solution of the doubt. the little chap became completely overcome with merriment at having so successfully concealed his treasured secret, as he thought, that the porter had not even guessed it. "kitty's in dundle!" he exclaimed gleefully, hugging his handkerchief parcel tighter to his little stomach as he spoke. "i dot kitty here, all wite!" "you don't mean that, sir--not in that bundle o' yours surely, sir?" repeated jupp with deep fictitious interest, appearing still not quite convinced on the point and as if wishing to have the difficulty cleared up. this diplomatic course of procedure on the part of the porter removed any lingering scruples the mite had in respect of his good faith. "ess, man. i dot kitty here in dundle all wite," he repeated earnestly in his very impressive little way. "oo musn't tell nobody and i'll so her to 'oo!" "i won't breathe a word of it to a soul, sir," protested jupp as solemnly and gravely as if he were making his last dying deposition; whereupon the mite, quite convinced of the porter's trustworthiness and abandoning all further attempt at concealment, deposited his little bundle tenderly on the floor in front of the fireplace, and began to open it with much deliberation. the little fellow appeared so very serious about the matter, that jupp could not help trying to be serious too; but it required the exercise of all the self-command he possessed to refrain from laughing when the motley contents of the red handkerchief were disclosed. before the last knot of the bundle was untied by the mite's busy fingers there crawled out a tiny tortoise-shell kitten, with its diminutive little tail erect like a young bottle-brush, which gave vent to a "phiz- phit," as if indignant at its long confinement, and then proceeded to rub itself against jupp's leg, with a purring mew on recognising a friend. "so that's kitty," said jupp, holding the little thing up on his knee and stroking it affectionately, the animal signifying its satisfaction by licking the back of his hand with its furry little red tongue, and straightening its tiny tail again as stiff as a small poker. "ess, man. dat's kitty," murmured the mite, too much occupied undoing the last knots of the bundle to waste time in further speech for the moment, struggling as he was at the job with might and main. in another second, however, he had accomplished his task; and, lifting up the corners of the red handkerchief, he rolled out the whole stock of his valued possessions on to the floor. "dere!" he exclaimed with much complacency, looking up into jupp's face in expectation of his admiring surprise. the porter was again forced to act a part, and pretend that he could not guess anything. "dear me!" he said; "you have brought a lot of things! going to take 'em with you to london, sir?" "ess. da'n'ma tate tare of zem." "no doubt, sir," replied jupp, who then went on to inspect gingerly the different articles of the collection, which was very varied in character. they consisted, in addition to the tortoise-shell kitten fore-mentioned, of a musical snuff-box, a toy model of a ship, a small noah's ark, a half-consumed slice of bread and butter, an apple with a good-sized bite taken out of one side, a thick lump of toffee, and a darkish-brown substance like gingerbread, which close association in the bundle, combined with pressure, had welded together in one almost indistinguishable mass. "i suppose, sir," observed jupp inquiringly, picking up all the eatables and putting them together apart on the seat next the little man--"i suppose as how them's your provisions for the journey?" "ess. i ate dindin; an', dat's tea." "indeed, sir! and very nice things for tea too," said jupp, beaming with admiration and good-humoured fun. "i touldn't det any milk, or i'd bought dat too," continued the mite, explaining the absence of all liquid refreshment. "ah! that's a pity," rejoined the porter, thinking how well half a pint of milk would have mixed up with the other contents of the bundle; "but, perhaps, sir, the kitty would have lapped it up and there would have been none left. would you like a cup of tea now, sir? i'm just agoing to have mine; and if you'd jine me, i'd feel that proud you wouldn't know me again!" "dank 'oo, i'm so dirsty," lisped the little man in affable acquiescence; and, the next moment, jupp had spirited out a rough basket from under the seat in the corner, when extracting a tin can with a cork stopper therefrom, he put it on the fire to warm up. from a brown-paper parcel he also turned out some thick slices of bread that quite put in the shade the half-eaten one belonging to the mite; and as soon as the tea began to simmer in the tin over the coals, he poured out some in a pannikin, and handed it to his small guest. "now, sir, we'll have a regular picnic," he said hospitably. "all wite, dat's jolly!" shouted the other in great glee; and the two were enjoying themselves in the highest camaraderie, when, suddenly, the door of the waiting-room was opened from without, and the face of a buxom young woman peered in. "my good gracious!" exclaimed the apparition, panting out the words as if suffering from short breath, or from the effects of more rapid exertion than her physique usually permitted. "if there isn't the young imp as comfortably as you please; and me a hunting and a wild-goose chasing on him all over the place! master teddy, master teddy, you'll be the death of me some day, that you will!" jupp jumped up at once, rightly imagining that this lady's unexpected appearance would, as he mentally expressed it, "put a stopper" on the mite's contemplated expedition, and so relieve him of any further personal anxiety on his behalf, he having been puzzling his brains vainly for the last half hour how to discover his whereabouts and get him home to his people again; but, as for the little man himself, he did not seem in the least put out by the interruption of his plans. "dat nussy," was all he said, clutching hold of jupp's trouser leg, as at first, in an appealing way: "don't 'et her, man, tate away poor kitty!" "i won't sir, i promise you," whispered jupp to comfort him; however, before he could say any more, the panting female had drawn nearer from the doorway and come up close to the fireplace, the flickering red light from which made her somewhat rubicund countenance appear all the ruddier. chapter two. tells all about him. "pray, don't 'ee be angry wi' him, mum," said jupp appealingly, as the somewhat flustered female advanced towards the mite, laying hands on his collar with apparently hostile intentions. "i ain't a going to be angry," she replied a trifle crossly, as perhaps was excusable under the circumstances, carrying out the while, however, what had evidently been her original idea of giving the mite "a good shaking," and thereby causing his small person to oscillate violently to and fro as if he were crossing the bay of biscay in a dutch trawler with a choppy sea running. "i ain't angry to speak of; but he's that tormenting sometimes as to drive a poor creature a'most out of her mind! didn't i tell 'ee," she continued, turning round abruptly to the object of her wrath and administering an extra shake by way of calling him to attention. "didn't i tell 'ee as you weren't to go outdoors in all the slop and slush--didn't i tell 'ee now?" but in answer the mite only harked back to his old refrain. "i want do d'an'ma," he said with stolid defiance, unmoved alike by his shaking or the nurse's expostulation. "there, that's jest it," cried she, addressing jupp the porter again, seeing that he was a fine handsome fellow and well-proportioned out of the corner of her eye without looking at him directly, in that unconscious and highly diplomatic way in which women folk are able to reckon up each other on the sly and take mental stock of mankind. "ain't he aggravating? it's all that granma of his that spoils him; and i wish she'd never come nigh the place! when master teddy doesn't see her he's as good as gold, that he is, the little man!" she then, with the natural inconsequence and variability of her sex, immediately proceeded to hug and kiss the mite as affectionately as she had been shaking and vituperating him the moment before, he putting up with the new form of treatment as calmly and indifferently as he had received the previous scolding. "he's a fine little chap," said jupp affably, conceiving a better opinion of the nurse from her change of manner as well as from noticing, now that her temporary excitement had evaporated, that she was a young and comely woman with a very kindly face. "he told me as how he were going to lun'non." "did he now?" she exclaimed admiringly. "he's the most owdacious young gen'leman as ever was, i think; for he's capable, young as he is, not long turned four year old, of doin' a'most anything. look now at all them things of his as he's brought from home!" "that were his luggage like," observed jupp, smiling and showing his white teeth, which contrasted well with his black beard, making him appear very nice-looking really, the nurse thought. "the little rogue!" said she enthusiastically, hugging the mite again with such effusion that jupp wished he could change places with him, he being unmarried and "an orphan man," as he described himself, "without chick or child to care for him." "he ought to be a good 'un with you a looking after him," he remarked with a meaning glance, which, although the nurse noticed, she did not pretend to see. "so he is--sometimes, eh, master teddy?" she said, bending down again over the mite to hide a sudden flush which had made her face somehow or other crimson again. "ess," replied the hero of the occasion, who, soothed by all these social amenities passing around him, quickly put aside his stolid demeanour and became his little prattling self again. however, such was his deep foresight that he did not forget to grasp so favourable an opportunity for settling the initial difficulty between himself and nurse in the matter of the kitten, which had led up logically to all that had happened, and so prevent any misunderstanding on the point in future. "oo won't tate way kitty?" he asked pleadingly, holding up with both hands the struggling little animal, which jupp had incontinently dropped from his knee when he rose up, on the door of the waiting-room being suddenly opened and the impromptu picnic organised by the mite and himself brought to an abrupt termination, by the unexpected advent of the nurse on the scene. "no, master teddy, i promise you i won't," she replied emphatically. "you can bathe the poor little brute in the basin and then put it all wet in your bed afterwards, as you did this morning, or anything else you like. bless you, you can eat it if it so please you, and i shan't interfere!" "all wite, den; we frens 'dain," lisped the mite, putting up his little rosebud mouth so prettily for a kiss, in token of peace and forgiveness on his part, that the nurse could not help giving him another hug. this display of affection had unfortunately the same effect on jupp as before, causing the miserable porter to feel acute pangs of envy; although, by rights, he had no direct interest in the transaction, and was only an outside observer, so to speak! by way of concealing his feelings, therefore, he turned the conversation. "and have you come far arter him, miss, if i may make so bold as to ax the question?" he said hesitatingly, being somewhat puzzled in his mind as to whether "miss" or "mum" was the correct form in which to address such a pleasant young woman, who might or might not be a matron for all he could tell. he evidently hit upon the right thing this time; for, she answered him all the more pleasantly, with a bright smile on her face. "why, ever so far!" she exclaimed. "don't you know that large red brick house t'other side of the village, where mr vernon lives--a sort of old-fashioned place, half covered with ivy, and with a big garden?" "parson vernon's, eh?" "yes, master teddy's his little son." "lor', i thought he were a single man, lone and lorn like myself, and didn't have no children," said jupp. "that's all you know about it," retorted the nurse. "you must be a stranger in these parts; and, now i come to think on it, i don't believe as i ever saw you here before." "no, miss, i was only shifted here last week from the junction, and hardly knows nobody," said jupp apologetically. "for the rights o' that, i ain't been long in the railway line at all, having sarved ten years o' my time aboard a man-o'-war, and left it thinking i'd like to see what a shore billet was like; and so i got made a porter, miss, my karacter being good on my discharge." "dear me, what a pity!" cried the nurse. "i do so love sailors." "if you'll only say the word, miss, i'll go to sea again to-morrow then!" ejaculated jupp eagerly. "oh no!" laughed the nurse; "why, then i shouldn't see any more of you; but i was telling you about master teddy. parson vernon, as you call him, has four children in all--three of them girls, and master teddy is the only boy and the youngest of the lot." "and i s'pose he's pretty well sp'ilt?" suggested jupp. "you may well say that," replied the other. "he was his mother's pet, and she, poor lady, died last year of consumption, so he's been made all the more of since by his little sisters, and the grandmother when she comes down, as she did at christmas. you'd hardly believe it, small as he looks he almost rules the house; for his father never interferes, save some terrible row is up and he hears him crying--and he can make a noise when he likes, can master teddy!" "ess," said the mite at this, thinking his testimony was appealed to, and nodding his head affirmatively. "and he comed all that way from t'other side o' the village by hisself?" asked jupp by way of putting a stop to sundry other endearments the fascinating young woman was recklessly lavishing on the little chap. "why, it's more nor a mile!" "aye, that he has. just look at him," said she, giving the mite another shake, although this time it was of a different description to the one she had first administered. he certainly was not much to look at in respect of stature, being barely three feet high; but he was a fine little fellow for all that, with good strong, sturdy limbs and a frank, fearless face, which his bright blue eyes and curling locks of brown hair ornamented to the best advantage. as before mentioned, he had evidently not been prepared for a journey when he made his unexpected appearance at the station, being without a hat on his head and having a slightly soiled pinafore over his other garments; while his little feet were encased in thin house shoes, or slippers, that were ill adapted for walking through the mud and snow. now that the slight differences that had arisen between himself and the nurse had been amicably settled, he was in the best of spirits, with his little face puckered in smiles and his blue eyes twinkling with fun as he looked up at the two observing him. "he is a jolly little chap!" exclaimed jupp, bending down and lifting him up in his strong arms, the mite the while playfully pulling at his black beard; "and i tell you what, miss, i think he's got a very good nurse to look after him!" "do you?" said she, adding a moment afterwards as she caught jupp's look of admiration, "ah, that's only what you say now. you didn't think so when i first came in here after him; for you asked me not to beat him-- as if i would!" "lor', i never dreamt of such a thing!" cried he with much emphasis, the occasion seeming to require it. "i only said that to coax you like, miss. i didn't think as you'd hurt a hair of his head." "well, let it be then," replied she, accepting this amende and setting to work gathering together the mite's goods and chattels that were still lying on the floor of the waiting-room--with the exception of the kitten, which he had himself again assumed the proprietorship of and now held tightly in his arms, even as he was clasped by jupp and elevated above the porter's shoulder. "i must see about taking him home again." "shall i carry him for you, miss?" asked jupp. "the down-train ain't due for near an hour yet, and i dessay i can get my mate to look out for me while i walks with you up the village." "you are very kind," said she; "but, i hardly like to trouble you?" "no trouble at all, miss," replied jupp heartily. "why, the little gentleman's only a featherweight." "that's because you're such a fine strong man. i find him heavy enough, i can tell you." jupp positively blushed at her implied compliment. "i ain't much to boast of ag'in a delicate young 'ooman as you," he said at last; "but, sartenly, i can carry a little shaver like this; and, besides, look how the snow's a coming down." "well, if you will be so good, i'd be obliged to you," interposed the nurse hurriedly as if to stop any further explanations on jupp's part, he having impulsively stepped nearer to her at that moment. "all right then!" cried he, his jolly face beaming with delight at the permission to escort her. "here, grigson!" "that's me!" shouted another porter appearing mysteriously from the back of the office, in answer to jupp's stentorian hail. "just look out for the down-train, 'case i ain't back in time. i'm just agoin' to take some luggage for this young woman up to the village." "aye, just so," replied the other with a sly wink, which, luckily for himself, perhaps, jupp did not see, as, holding the mite tenderly in his arms, with his jacket thrown over him to protect him from the snow, he sallied out from the little wayside station in company with the nurse, the latter carrying all master teddy's valuables, which she had re- collected and tied up again carefully within the folds of the red pocket-handkerchief bundle wherein their proprietor had originally brought them thither. strange to say, the mite did not exhibit the slightest reluctance in returning home, as might have been expected from the interruption of his projected plan of going to london to see his "d'an'ma." on the contrary, his meeting with jupp and introduction to him as a new and estimable acquaintance, as well as the settlement of all outstanding grievances between himself and his nurse, appeared to have quite changed his views as to his previously-cherished expedition; so that he was now as content and cheerful as possible, looking anything but like a disappointed truant. indeed, he more resembled a successful conqueror making a triumphal entry into his capital than a foiled strategist defeated in the very moment of victory! "i like oo," he said, pulling at jupp's black beard in high glee and chuckling out aloud in great delight as they proceeded towards the village, the nurse clinging to the porter's other and unoccupied arm to assist her progress through the snow-covered lane, down which the wind rushed every now and then in sudden scurrying gusts, whirling the white flakes round in the air and blinding the wayfarers as they plodded painfully along. "i don't know what i should have done without your help," she observed fervently after a long silence between the two, only broken by master teddy's shouts of joy when a snow-flake penetrating beneath jupp's jacket made the kitten sneeze. "i'm sure i should never have got home to master's with the boy!" "don't name it," whispered jupp hoarsely beneath his beard, which the snow had grizzled, lending it a patriarchal air. "i'm only too proud, miss, to be here!" and he somehow or other managed to squeeze her arm closer against his side with his, making the nurse think how nice it was to be tall and strong and manly like the porter! "they'll be in a rare state about master teddy at the vicarage!" she said after they had plodded on another hundred yards, making but slow headway against the drifting snow and boisterous wind. "i made him angry by taking away his kitten, i suppose, and so he determined to make off to his gran'ma; for we missed him soon after the children's dinner. i thought he was in the study with mr vernon; but when i came to look he wasn't there, and so we all turned out to search for him. master made sure we'd find him in the village; but i said i thought he'd gone to the station, far off though it was, and you see i was right!" "you're a sensible young woman," said jupp. "i'd have thought the same." "go on with your nonsense; get along!" cried she mockingly, in apparent disbelief of jupp's encomiums, and pretending to wrench her arm out of his so as to give point to her words. "i'll take my davy, then," he began earnestly; but, ere he could say any more, a voice called out in front of them, amid the eddying flakes: "hullo, mary! is that you?" "that's my master," she whispered to jupp; and then answered aloud, "yes, sir, and i've found master teddy." "is mary your name?" said jupp to her softly in the interlude, while scrunching footsteps could be heard approaching them, although no one yet could be perceived through the rifts of snow. "i think it the prettiest girl's name in the world!" "go 'long!" cried she again; but she sidled up to him and held on to his arm once more as she spoke, the blasts of the storm at the moment being especially boisterous. "is that you, mary?" repeated the voice in front, now much nearer, her answer not having been heard apparently, on account of the wind blowing from the speaker towards them. "yes, sir," she screamed out. "i've found master teddy, and he's all right." she was heard this time. "thank god!" returned the voice in trembling accents, nearer still; and then a thin, haggard, careworn-looking man in clergyman's dress rushed up to them. he was quite breathless, and his face pale with emotion. "padie! padie!" exclaimed the mite, raising himself up on jupp's shoulder and stretching out one of his little hands to the new-comer while the other grasped the kitten. "i'se turn back, i'se turn back to oo!" "my boy, my little lamb! god be praised for his mercy!" cried the other; and the next instant teddy was locked in his father's arms in a close embrace, kitten and all. "say, miss mary," whispered jupp, taking advantage of the opportunity while mr vernon's back was turned. "what?" she asked, looking up into his face demurely. "this ought to be passed round." "go 'long!" she replied; but, she didn't budge an inch when jupp put his arm round her, and nobody knows what happened before mr vernon had composed himself and turned round again! chapter three. at the vicarage. three little girls were flattening their respective little noses against the panes of glass as they stood by one of the low french windows of the old red brick house at the corner of the lane commanding the approach from the village; and three little pairs of eager eyes, now big with expectation, were peering anxiously across the snow-covered lawn through the gathering evening gloom towards the entrance gate beyond--the only gap in the thick and well-nigh impenetrable laurel hedge, some six feet high and evenly cropped all round at the top and square at the sides, which encircled the vicarage garden, shutting it in with a wall of greenery from the curious ken of all passers-by without. with eager attention the little girls were watching to see who would be the first of the trio to herald the return of the missing master teddy and those who had gone forth in search of him; but, really, seekers and sought alike had been so long absent that it seemed as if they were all lost together and never coming back! the little girls were weary almost of waiting, and being thus kept in suspense with hope deferred. besides that, they were overcome with a sense of loneliness and desertion, everyone in the house but old molly the cook and themselves having started off early in the afternoon in different directions in quest of the truant teddy; so, as the time flew by and day drew to a close, without a sight or sound in the distance to cheer their drooping spirits, their little hearts grew heavy within them. presently, too, their whilom bright eyes got so dimmed with unshed tears which would well up, that they were unable to see clearly had there been anything or anyone for them to see; while their little putty noses, when they removed them occasionally from close contact with the glass, bore a suspiciously red appearance that was not entirely due to previous pressure against the window panes. nor were their surroundings of a sufficiently enlivening character to banish the little maidens' despondency, the fire in the drawing-room grate having died out long since from inattention, making them feel cold and comfortless, and it had got so dark within that they could not distinguish the various articles of furniture, even papa's armchair in the chimney-corner; while, outside, in the gloaming, the snow-flakes were falling slowly and steadily from a leaden-hued sky overhead. the only thing breaking the stillness of the murky air was the melancholy "chirp, churp! chirp, churp" uttered at intervals by some belated sparrow who had not gone to bed in good time like all sensible bird-folk, and whose plaintive chirp was all the more aggravating from its monotonous repetition. "i'm sore sumtin d'eadfill's happened," whimpered little cissy, the youngest of the three watchers, after a long silence between them. "pa sood have been back hours and hours and hours ago." "nonsense, cissy!" said miss conny, her elder sister, who by virtue of her seniority and the fact of her having reached the mature age of ten was rather prone to giving herself certain matronly airs of superiority over the others, which they put up with in all good faith, albeit they were most amusing to outside onlookers. "you are always imagining something terrible is going to befall everybody, instead of hoping for the best! why don't you learn to look on the bright side of things, child? every cloud, you know, has its silver lining." "but not dat one up dere!" retorted cissy, unconvinced by the proverb, pointing to the sombre pall of vapour that now enveloped the whole sky overhead; when, struck more than ever with the utter dismalness of the scene, she drew out a tiny sort of doll's handkerchief from as tiny a little pocket in her tiny pinafore-apron, and began wiping away the tears from her beady eyes and blowing her little red nose vigorously. "it's all black, and no light nowhere; and i'm sore poor pa and teddy and all of dem are lost!" with that, completely overcome by her own forebodings, the little thing all at once broke down, sobbing in such a heart-broken way that it was as much as conny could do to comfort her; the elder sister drawing her to her side and hugging her affectionately, rocking her small person to and fro the while with a measured rhythm-like movement as if little cissy were a baby and she her mother, hushing her to sleep! at this moment, liz, who occupied the middle step between the two, and was of a much more sedate and equable nature than either of her sisters, suddenly effected a diversion that did more to raise cissy's spirits than all conny's whispered consolation and kisses. "i think i see a black speck moving in the lane," she exclaimed, removing her face a second from the glass to look round at the others as she spoke, and then hastily glueing it to the pane again. "yes, somebody's coming. there's an arm waving about!" conny and cissy were instantly on the alert; and before liz had hardly got out the last words they had imitated her example, wedging their little noses once more against the window, looking down the lane, and trying somewhat vainly to pierce the haze obscuring the distance. "no," said conny, after a prolonged observation of the object liz had pointed out; "it's only a branch of the lilac tree blown about by the wind." a minute later, however, and liz began to clap her hands triumphantly, although still keeping her face fixed to the window. "i was right, i was right!" she exclaimed in triumph. "the speck is getting nearer, and, see, there are two more behind." "i believe you are right," said conny, after another steady glance down the lane. "there are three people approaching the house, and--" "dat's pa in front, i know," shouted out cissy, interrupting her and clapping her hands like liz, her whilom sad little face beaming with gladness. "i see him, i see him, and he's dot teddy in his arms!" "so he has," said conny, carried away by the excitement out of her ordinarily staid and decorous demeanour. "let us all run down and meet him!" her suggestion was hailed with a shout of exclamation; and, the next moment, forgetful of the falling flakes and the risk of getting damp feet, which conny the careful was ever warning the others against, the three had run out into the hall, opened the outside door of the porch, which the wind banged against the side of the passage with a thump that shook the house, and were racing towards the entrance gate over the white expanse of lawn, now quite covered with some six inches of snow. just as the little girls reached the gate, all breathless in a batch, it was opened from without, and they were confronted by their father with master teddy on his shoulder, still holding the kitten in his arms; while, close behind, followed jupp taking care of mary the nurse. "oh, papa!" cried conny, cissy, and liz in chorus, hanging on to their father's coat-tails as if afraid he would get away from them again; and so, in a motley procession, teddy apparently king of the situation and jupp and mary still bringing up the rear, they marched into the hall, where molly the cook, having heard the door bang when the little girls rushed out, was waiting with a light to receive them. "take the porter to the kitchen, molly," said mr vernon, "and give him, mind, a good cup of tea for bringing home master teddy. but for his kindness we might not perhaps have seen the little truant again--to- night, at all events." "lawks a mercy, sir!" ejaculated molly with open-mouth astonishment, curtseying and smiling: "you doant mean that?" "yes, i do," went on mr vernon. "mind you take every care of him, for the porter is a right good fellow." "why, sir, i didn't do nothing to speak of, sir," said jupp, quite abashed at being made so much of. "the young gen'leman commed to me, and in course, seeing as how he were such a little chap and all alone out in the cold, i couldn't do nothing else." "never mind that; i'm very much obliged to you, and so are all of us. what you've got to do now is to go with molly and have a good cup of tea, the same as we are going to have after that long tramp in the snow," said the vicar cordially, shaking hands with jupp; while teddy, who was still perched on his father's shoulder, came out with a "tank oo, my dood man," which made everybody laugh. jupp hesitatingly attempted to decline the proffered hospitality, murmuring something about being wanted down at the station; but the vicar wouldn't hear of his refusal, the more especially as mary reminded him that he had asked in her hearing his fellow-porter to look after his work in his absence. so, presently, in heart nothing loth in spite of his excuses, he was following molly the cook down the passage into her warm kitchen at the back of the house; while mr vernon, opening a door on the opposite side of the hall to the drawing-room, entered the parlour, where fortunately the fire, thanks to molly's care, had not been allowed to go out, but was dancing merrily in the grate-lighting up the bright-red curtains that were closely drawn across the windows, shutting out the gloomy prospect outside, and throwing flickering shadows against the walls of the apartment as the jets of flame rose and fell. nurse mary at first wanted to march off master teddy to bed, on the plea that he must be wet through and tired out with all the exposure he had undergone during his erratic escapade; but the young gentleman protesting indignantly against his removal whilst there was a chance of his sitting up with the rest, and his clothes having been found on examination to be quite dry on the removal of the porter's protecting jacket, he was allowed to remain, seated on the hearth-rug in state, and never once leaving hold of the tabby kitten that had indirectly led to his wandering away from home, with conny and liz and little cissy grouped around him. here by the cosy fireside the reunited family had quite a festive little meal together, enlivened by the children's chatter, miss conny pouring out the tea with great dignity as her father said laughingly, and teddy, unchecked by the presence of his nurse, who was too prone to calling him to account for sundry little breaches of etiquette for him to be comfortable when she was close by. while the happy little party were so engaged, jupp was being regaled sumptuously in the kitchen with both molly the cook and mary to minister to his wants, the latter handmaiden having returned from the parlour after carrying in the tea-tray. jupp was in a state of supreme satisfaction ensconced between the two, munching away at the pile of nice hot buttered toast which the cook had expressly made for his delectation, and recounting between the mouthfuls wonderful yarns connected with his seafaring experiences for mary's edification. joe the gardener, who had also come back to the house shortly after the others, with the report that he "couldn't see nothing of master teddy nowheres," sat in the chimney-corner, gazing at the porter with envious admiration as he told of his hairbreadth scapes at sea and ashore when serving in the navy. joe wished that he had been a sailor too, as then perhaps, he thought, the nurse, for whom he had a sneaking sort of regard, might learn to smile and look upon him in the same admiring way, in which, as he could see with half an eye, she regarded the stalwart black-bearded jupp. bye and bye, however, a tinkle of the parlour bell summoning the household to prayers brought the pleasant evening to a close, too soon so far as jupp was concerned, although joe the gardener did not regard the interruption with much regret; and while mary took off the children to bed on the termination of the vicar's heart-felt thanks to the father above for the preservation of his little son, mr vernon wished him good-night, trying to press at the same time a little money present into his hand for his kind care of teddy. but this jupp would not take, declining the douceur with so much natural dignity that the vicar honoured him the more for refusing a reward, for only doing his duty as he said. mr vernon apologised to him for having hurt his feelings by offering it, adding, much to jupp's delight, that he would always be pleased to see him at the vicarage when he had an hour or so to spare if he liked to come; and, on the porter's telling him in return that he was only free as a rule on sundays, as then only one train passed through the station early in the morning, between which and the mail express late at night he had nothing to do, and being a stranger in the place and without any relations the time somewhat hung on his hands, mr vernon asked him to come up to the house after church and have dinner with the servants, saying that he could go to the evening service in company with the family. this invitation jupp gladly accepted in the same spirit in which it was given; and then, with another hearty "good-night" from the vicar, to which he responded by touching his cap and giving a salute in regular blue-jacket fashion, he went on his way back to the little railway- station beyond the village where master teddy had first made his acquaintance--much to their mutual benefit as things now looked! chapter four. in a scrape again. the winter was a long and severe one, covering the range of downs that encircle endleigh with a fleecy mantle of white which utterly eclipsed the colour of the woolly coats of the sheep for which they were famous, and heaping the valleys with huge drifts that defied locomotion; so that master teddy, being unable to get out of doors much, was prevented from wandering away from home again, had he been in that way inclined. it may be added, too, that beyond breaking one of his arms in a tumble downstairs through riding on the banisters in defiance of all commands to the contrary, he managed for the next few months to keep pretty free from scrapes--something surprising in such a long interval. during all this time jupp had been a very regular sunday visitor at the vicarage, coming up to the house after morning-service and being entertained at dinner in the kitchen, after which meal he served as a playfellow for the children until the evening, when he always accompanied the vicar to church. he had now come to be looked upon by all as a tried and valued friend, mr vernon being almost as fond of chatting with him about his old sea life as was mary, the nurse; while conny would consult him earnestly on geographical questions illustrative of those parts of the globe he had visited. as for the younger ones, he was their general factotum, teddy and cissy regarding him as a sort of good-natured giant who was their own especial property and servant. with all a sailor's ingenuity, he could carve the most wonderful things out of the least promising and worthless materials that could be imagined; while, as for making fun out of nothing, or telling thrilling stories of fairies and pirates and the different folk amongst whom he had mixed in his travels--some of them, to be sure, rather queer, as conny said--why, he hadn't an equal, and could make the dreariest afternoon pass enjoyably to young and old alike, even joe the gardener taking almost as great pleasure in his society as molly and mary. this was while the snow lay on the ground and jack frost had bound the little river running through the village and the large pond in the water meadow beyond with chains of ice, and life out of doors seemed at a standstill; but, anon, when the breath of spring banished all the snow and ice, and cowslips and violets began to peep forth from the released hedgerows, and the sparrows chuckled instead of chirped, busying themselves nest-building in the ivy round the vicarage, and when the thrush sang to the accompaniment of the blackbird's whistle, the children found that jupp was even a better playfellow in the open than he had been indoors, being nearly as much a child in heart as themselves. whenever he had half a day given him in the week free from duty he would make a point of coming up to take "master teddy and the young ladies" out into the woods, fern-hunting and flower-gathering, the vicar frequently popping upon the little picnickers unawares, whilst they were watching the rabbits and rabbitikins combing out their whiskers under the fir-trees, and jupp and mary getting an al fresco tea ready for the party. the little tabby kitten had long since been eclipsed in teddy's affections by a small maltese terrier with a white curly coat of hair, which his fond grandmother had rather foolishly given him, the poor little animal being subjected to such rough treatment in the way of petting that it must have over and over again wished itself back in its mediterranean home. "puck" was the little dog's name, and he appeared in a fair way of "putting a girdle round the earth," if not in forty minutes like his elfish namesake, at least in an appreciable limited space of time, teddy never being content except he carried about the unfortunate brute with him everywhere he went, hugging it tightly in his arms and almost smothering its life out by way of showing his affection. having once had his hair cut, too, unluckily by mary, teddy seized an opportunity, when alone in the nursery, to treat poor puck in similar fashion, the result of which was that the little animal, deprived of his long curly coat, not only shivered constantly with cold, but looked, in his closely-shorn condition, like one of those toy lambs sold in the shops in lieu of dolls for children, which emit a bleating sort of sound when pressed down on their bellows-like stands. of course, puck was as invariable an attendant at the picnic excursions in the woods as master teddy himself, and, having developed sufficient interest in the rabbits to summon up courage to run after them, which teddy graciously permitted him to do, these outings perhaps gave the little animal the only pleasure he had in existence, save eating; for he was then allowed, for a brief spell at all events, to use his own legs instead of being carried about in baby fashion. one day at the beginning of may, when the birds were gaily singing in the branches of the trees overhead, through which an occasional peep of blue sky could be had, the grass below being yellow with buttercups or patched in white with daisies, jupp and mary were grouped with the children beneath a spreading elm in the centre of a sort of fairy ring in the wood, a favourite halting-place with them all. the porter for once in a way had a whole holiday, and had spent the morning helping joe the gardener in mowing the lawn and putting out plants in the flower-beds in front of the vicarage; so after their early dinner, the children under mary's care came out with him for a regular picnic tea in the woods, carrying a kettle with them to make a fire, with plenty of milk and cakes and bread and butter, for it was intended to have quite a feast in honour of "papa's birthday," the vicar having promised to come and join them as soon as he had finished his parish work. the little ones had been romping with jupp all the way to the wood under the downs, running races with him and making detours here and there in search of wild anemones and meadow-sweet, or else chasing butterflies and the low-flying swallows that heralded the advent of summer, so they were rather tired and glad to lie down on the grass and rest when they reached their old elm-tree; albeit, on jupp setting to work to pick up sticks for the fire that was to boil the kettle, first one and then another jumped up to help, for, really, they could not be quiet very long. the sticks being collected and jupp having slung the camp-kettle over them by the means of two forked props, in campaigning fashion, as he well knew how to do as an old sailor, a match was quickly applied, and there was soon a pleasant crackling sound of burning wood, accompanied with showers of sparks like fireworks as the wind blew the blaze aside. soon, too, a nice thick column of smoke arose that reminded conny of what she had read of indian encampments, although jupp told her that if he were abroad and near any of such dark-skinned gentry he would take precious good care when making a fire to have as little smoke as possible. "why?" asked conny, always anxious for information in order to improve her mind. "because i shouldn't like them to discover my whereabouts, unless, miss, i knew 'em to be friends," said jupp in answer. "and how would you manage to have no smoke?" she next pertinently inquired, like the sensible young lady she was. "by always burning the very driest wood i could find, miss," replied jupp. "it is only the green branches and such as has sap in it that makes the smoke." "oh!" ejaculated conny, "i shall remember that. thank you, mr jupp, for telling me. i often wondered how they contrived to conceal their camp-fires." teddy, with cissy and liz, had meanwhile been lying on the grass, overcome with their exertions in stick-gathering, and were intently watching a little glade in front of the elm-tree, some distance off under a coppice. here they knew there were lots of rabbit-burrows, and they were waiting for some of the little animals to come out and perform their toilets, as they usually did in the afternoon and early evening, preparing themselves for bed-time, as the children said; but, for a long while, not one appeared in sight. "dere's a bunny at last," whispered cissy as one peeped out from its hiding-place; and, seeing no cause for alarm in the presence of the little picnic party, with whom no doubt it was now well acquainted, it came further out from the coppice, sitting up on its haunches in the usual free-and-easy fashion of rabbitikins, and beginning to comb out its whiskers with its paws. at the sight of this, puck, who of course was cuddled up tightly in teddy's arms, began to bark; but it was such a feeble little bark that not even the most timid of rabbits would have been frightened at it, while as for the one puck wished to terrify, this simply treated him with the utmost contempt, taking no notice either of bark or dog. three or four other rabbits, too, impressed with the beauty of the afternoon and the advantages of the situation, now followed their comrade's example, coming out from their burrows and squatting on the turf of the sloping glade in a semicircle opposite the children; while, the more poor puck tried to express his indignation at their free-and- easiness, the more nonchalantly they regarded him, sitting up comfortably and combing away, enjoying themselves as thoroughly as if there was no such thing as a dog in existence, puck's faint coughing bark being utterly thrown away upon them. "imp'dent tings!" said teddy, unloosing the small terrier; "do and lick 'em, puck!" the little woolly lamb-like dog, who certainly possessed a larger amount of courage than would reasonably have been imagined from his attenuated appearance, at once darted after the rabbits, who, jerking their short tails in the funniest way possible and throwing up their hind-legs as if they were going to turn somersaults and come down on the other side, darted off down the glade, making for the holes of their burrows under the coppice. the artful puck, however, having chased the gentry before, was up to all their little dodges, so, instead of running for the rabbits directly, he attacked their flank, endeavouring to cut off their retreat; and, in this object succeeding, away went the hunted animals, now scared out of their lives, down the side of the hill to the bottom, with puck charging after them, and teddy following close behind, and cissy and liz bringing up the rear. miss conny was much too dignified to chase rabbits. "stop, master teddy! stop!" cried mary. "come back, miss liz and cissy--come back at once!" the little girls immediately obeyed their nurse; but teddy, who perhaps in the ardour of the chase might not have heard her call, continued on racing down the hill after puck, as fast as his stumpy little legs could carry him, his hat flying off and his pinafore streaming behind him in the wind. "stop, master teddy, stop!" called out mary again. "why can't you let him be?" said jupp. "he's only enj'ying hisself with the rabbits, and can't come to no harm on the grass." "little you know about it," retorted mary, rather crossly it seemed to jupp. "why, the river runs round just below the coppice; and if master teddy runs on and can't stop himself, he'll fall into it--there!" "my stars and stripes!" ejaculated jupp starting up in alarm. "i'll go after him at once." "you'd better," said mary as he set off running down the hill after teddy, singing out loudly for him to stop in a sort of reef-topsails-in- a-heavy-squall voice that you could have heard more than a cable's length ahead! the momentum teddy had gained, however, from the descent of the glade prevented him from arresting his rapid footsteps, although he heard jupp's voice, the slope inclining the more abruptly towards the bottom of the hill. besides, puck in pursuit of the rabbits was right in front of him, and the dog, unable or unwilling to stop, bounded on into the mass of rushes, now quite close, that filled the lower part of the valley, and disappeared from teddy's sight. the next moment there was a wild yelp from puck as he gripped the rabbit, and both tumbled over the bank of the river into the water, which was previously concealed from view; the dog's bark being echoed immediately afterwards by a cry of alarm from teddy and a heavy plunge, as he, too, fell into the swiftly-flowing stream, and was borne out from the bank by the rapid current away towards the mill-dam below! chapter five. blown up. "well, i never!" panted out jupp as he raced down the incline at a headlong speed towards the spot where he had seen teddy disappear, and whence had come his choking cry of alarm and the splash he made as he fell into the water. "the b'y'll be drownded 'fore i can reach him!" but, such was his haste, that, at the same instant in which he uttered these words--more to himself than for anyone else's benefit, although he spoke aloud--the osiers at the foot of the slope parted on either side before the impetuous rush of his body, giving him a momentary glimpse of the river, with teddy's clutching fingers appearing just above the surface and vainly appealing for help as he was sinking for the second time; so, without pausing, the velocity he had gained in his run down the declivity carrying him on almost in spite of himself, jupp took a magnificent header off the bank. then,--rising after his plunge, with a couple of powerful strokes he reached the unconscious boy, whose struggles had now ceased from exhaustion, and, gripping fast hold of one of his little arms, he towed him ashore. another second and jupp would have been too late, teddy's nearly lifeless little form having already been caught in the whirling eddy of the mill-race. even as it was, the force of the on-sweeping current was so great that it taxed all jupp's powers to the utmost to withstand being carried over the weir as he made for the side slanting-wise, so as not to weary himself out uselessly by trying to fight against the full strength of the stream, which, swollen with the rains of april, was resistless in its flow and volume. swimming on his side, however, and striking out grandly, jupp succeeded at length in vanquishing the current, or rather made it serve his purpose; and, presently, grasping hold of the branch of an alder that hung over the river at the point of the bend, he drew himself up on the bank with one hand, holding poor teddy still with the other, to find himself at the same moment confronted by nurse mary, with cissy and liz, who had all hurried down the slope to the scene of the disaster. "oh, dear! oh, dear!--he's dead, he's dead!" wailed mary, taking the little fellow from jupp and lifting him up in her arms, preparing to start off at a run for the vicarage, while the little girls burst into a torrent of tears. "you just bide there!" said jupp, preventing her from moving, and looking like a giant triton, all dripping with water, as he stepped forward. "you just bide there!" "but he'll die if something's not done at once to restore him," expostulated mary, vainly trying to get away from the other's restraining hold. "so he might, if you took him all that long way 'fore doin' anything," replied jupp grimly. "you gie him to me; i knows what's best to be done. i've seed chaps drounded afore aboard ship, and brought to life ag'in by using the proper methods to git back the circularation, as our doctor in the _neptune_ used to call it. you gie him to me!" impressed with his words, and knowing besides now from long acquaintance that jupp was what she called "a knowledgeable man," mary accordingly surrendered the apparently lifeless body of little teddy; whereupon the porter incontinently began to strip off all the boy's clothing, which of course was wringing wet like his own. "have you got such a thing as a dry piece of flannel now, miss?" he then asked mary, hesitating somewhat to put his request into words, "like, like--" "you mean a flannel petticoat," said the girl promptly without the least embarrassment in the exigencies of the case. "just turn your back, please, mr jupp, and i'll take mine off and give it to you." no sooner was this said than it was done; when, teddy's little naked body being wrapped up warmly in the garment mary had surrendered, and turned over on the right side, she began under jupp's directions to rub his limbs, while the other alternately raised and depressed the child's arms, and thus exercising--a regular expansion and depression of his chest. after about five minutes of this work a quantity of water that he had swallowed was brought up by the little fellow; and next, mary could feel a slight pulsation of his heart. "he's coming round! he's coming round!" she cried out joyously, causing little cissy's tears to cease flowing and liz to join mary in rubbing teddy's feet. "go on, mr jupp, go on; and we'll soon bring him to." "so we will," echoed her fellow-worker heartily, redoubling his exertions to promote the circulation; and, in another minute a faint flush was observable in teddy's face, while his chest rose and fell with a rhythmical motion, showing that the lungs were now inflated again and in working order. the little fellow had been brought back to life from the very gates of death! "hooray!" shouted jupp when teddy at length opened his eyes, staring wonderingly at those bending over him, and drawing away his foot from liz as if she tickled him, whereat mary burst into a fit of violent hysterical laughter, which terminated in that "good cry" customary with her sex when carried away by excess of emotion. then, all at once, teddy appeared to recollect what had happened; for the look of bewilderment vanished from his eyes and he opened his mouth to speak in that quaint, formal way of his which jupp said always reminded him of a judge on the bench when he was had up before the court once at portsmouth for smuggling tobacco from a troopship when paid off! "were's puck an' de bunny?" he asked, as if what had occurred had been merely an interlude and he was only anxious about the result of the rabbit hunt that had so unwittingly led to his unexpected immersion and narrow escape from drowning. no one in the greater imminence of teddy's peril had previously thought of the dog or rabbit; but now, on a search being made, puck was discovered shivering by the side of the river, having managed to crawl out somehow or other. as for the rabbit, which was only a young one or the little woolly terrier could never have overtaken it in the chase down the glade, no trace could be seen of it; and, consequently, it must have been carried over the weir, where at the bottom of the river it was now safe enough from all pursuit of either puck or his master, and free from all the cares of rabbit life and those ills that even harmless bunnies have to bear! when this point was satisfactorily settled, much to the dissatisfaction, however, of master teddy, a sudden thought struck mary. "why, wherever can miss conny be all this time?" she exclaimed, on looking round and not finding her with the other children. "see's done home," said cissy laconically. "gone home!" repeated mary. "why?" "done fets dwy c'o's for teddy," lisped the little girl, who seemed to have been well informed beforehand as to her sister's movements, although she herself had hurried down with the nurse to the river bank in company with the others immediately jupp had rushed to teddy's rescue. "well, i never!" ejaculated mary, laughing again as she turned to jupp. "who would have thought the little puss would have been so thoughtful? but she has always been a funny child, older than her years, and almost like an old woman in her ways." "bless you, she ain't none the worse for that!" observed jupp in answer. "she's a real good un, to think her little brother 'ud want dry things arter his souse in the water, and to go and fetch 'em too without being told." "i expect you'd be none the worse either for going back and changing your clothes," said mary, eyeing his wet garments. "lor', it don't matter a bit about me," he replied, giving himself a good shake like a newfoundland dog, and scattering the drops about, which pleased the children mightily, as he did it in such a funny way. "i rayther likes it nor not." "but you might catch cold," suggested mary kindly. "catch your grandmother!" he retorted. "sailors ain't mollycoddles." "wat's dat?" asked teddy inquiringly, looking up at him. "why, sir," said jupp, scratching his head reflectively--he had left his cap under the elm-tree on top of the hill, where he had taken it off when he set about building the fire for the kettle--"a mollycoddle is a sort of chap as always wraps hisself up keerfully for fear the wind should blow upon him and hurt his complexion." "oh!" said teddy; but he did not seem any the wiser, and was about to ask another question which might have puzzled jupp, when liz interrupted the conversation, and changed the subject. "there's conny coming now, and pa with her," she called out, pointing to the top of the glade, where her father and elder sister could be seen hurrying swiftly towards them, followed closely by joe the gardener bearing a big bundle of blankets and other things which the vicar thought might be useful. "my! master must have been scared!" cried mary, noticing in the distance the anxious father's face. "master teddy do cause him trouble enough, he's that fond of the boy!" but, before jupp could say anything in reply, the new arrivals had approached the scene of action, conny springing forward first of all and hugging teddy and cissy and liz all round. in the exuberance of her delight, too, at their being safe and sound, when in her nervous dread she had feared the worst, she extended the same greeting to mary and jupp; for, she was an affectionate little thing, and highly emotional in spite of her usually staid demeanour and retiring nature. the vicar, too, could hardly contain himself for joy, and broke down utterly when he tried to thank jupp for rescuing his little son; while joe the gardener, not to be behindhand in this general expression of good-will and gratitude, squeezed his quondam rival's fist in his, ejaculating over and over again, with a broad grin on his bucolic face, "you be's a proper sort, you be, hey, meaister?" thereby calling upon the vicar, as it were, to testify to the truth of the encomium. he was a very funny man, joe! when the general excitement had subsided, and teddy, who had in the meantime been stalking about, a comical little figure, attired in mary's flannel petticoat, was re-dressed in the fresh suit of clothes joe had brought for him amidst the blankets, the whole party adjourned up the hill to their old rendezvous under the elm-tree. here they found, greatly to their surprise and gratification, that jupp's well-built fire had not gone out, as all expected, during the unforeseen digression that had occurred to break the even tenor of their afternoon's entertainment, although left so long unattended to. on the contrary, it was blazing away at a fine rate, with the kettle slung on the forked sticks above it singing and sputtering, emitting clouds of steam the while, "like an engine blowing off," as the porter observed; so, all their preparations having been already completed, the children carried out their original intention of having a festal tea in honour of "pa's birthday," he being set in their midst and told to do nothing, being the guest of the occasion. never did bread and butter taste more appetisingly to the little ones than when thus eaten out in the woods, away from all such stuck-up surroundings as tables and chairs, and plates, and cups and saucers, and the other absurd conventionalities of everyday life. they only had three little tin pannikins for their tea, which they passed round in turn, and a basket for their dish, using a leaf when the luxury of a plate was desired by any sybarite of the party--those nice broad ones of the dock making splendid platters. now, besides bread and butter, molly the cook had compounded a delicious dough-cake for them, having plums set in it at signal distances apart, so conspicuous that any one could know they were there without going to the trouble of counting them, which indeed would not have taken long to do, their number being rather limited; and, what with the revulsion of feeling at teddy's providential escape, and the fact of having papa with them, and all, they were in the very seventh heaven of enjoyment. conny and cissy, who were the most active of the sprites, assisted by the more deliberate teddy and liz, acted as "the grown-up people" attending as hostesses and host to the requirements of "the children," as they called their father and mary and jupp, not omitting joe the gardener, who, squatting down on the extreme circumference of their little circle, kept up a perpetual grin over the acres of bread and butter he consumed, just as if he were having a real meal and not merely playing! the worthy gardener was certainly the skeleton, or cormorant, so to speak, of the banquet, eating them almost out of house and home, it must be mentioned in all due confidence; and, taking watch of his depravity of behaviour in this respect, the thoughtful conny registered an inward determination never to invite joe to another of their al fresco feasts, if she could possibly avoid doing so without seriously wounding his sensibilities. the way he walked into that dough-cake would have made anyone almost cry. the fete, however, excepting this drawback, passed off successfully enough without any other contretemps; and after the last crumb of cake had been eaten by joe, and the things packed up, the little party wended their way home happily in the mellow may evening, through the fields green with the sprouting corn, with the swallows skimming round them and the lark high in the sky above singing her lullaby song for the night and flopping down to her nest. towards the end of the month, however, teddy managed somehow or other to get into another scrape. "there never was such a boy," as mary said. he was "always in hot water." the queen's birthday coming round soon after the vicar's, jupp, remembering how it used to be kept up when he was in the navy, great guns banging away at royal salutes while the small-arm men on board fired a _feu de joie_, or "fire of joy," as he translated it by the aid of miss conny, who happened just then to be studying french, he determined to celebrate the anniversary as a loyal subject in similar fashion at the vicarage, with the aid of a couple of toy cannon and a small bag of powder which he purchased for the purpose. teddy, of course, was taken into his confidence, the artillery experiments being planned for his especial delectation; so, coming up to the house just about noon on the day of the royal anniversary, when he was able to get away from the station for an hour, leaving his mate grigson in charge, he set about loading the ordnance and getting ready for the salute, with a train laid over the touch-holes of the cannon to set light to the moment it was twelve o'clock, according to the established etiquette in the navy, a box of matches being placed handy for the purpose. as ill luck would have it, though, some few minutes before the proper time, mary, who was trying to sling a clothes-line in the back garden, called jupp to her assistance, and he being her attentive squire on all occasions, and an assiduous cavalier of dames, hastened to help her, leaving teddy in charge of the loaded cannon, the gunpowder train, and lastly, though by no means least, the box of matches. the result can readily be foreseen. hardly had jupp reached mary's side and proceeded to hoist the obstreperous clothes-line, when "bang! bang!" came the reports of distant cannonading on the front lawn, followed by an appalling yell from the little girls, who from the safe point of vantage of the drawing-room windows were looking on at the preparations of war. to rush back through the side gate round to the front was but the work of an instant with jupp, and, followed by mary, he was almost as quickly on the spot as the sound of the explosion had been heard. he thought that master teddy had only prematurely discharged the cannon, and that was all; but when he reached the lawn what was his consternation to observe a thick black cloud of smoke hanging in the air, much greater than could possibly have been produced by the little toy cannon being fired off, while teddy, the cause of all the mischief, was nowhere to be seen at all! chapter six. the pond in the meadow. not a trace of the boy could be seen anywhere. the cause of the explosion was apparent enough; for, the little wooden box on which jupp had mounted the toy cannons, lashing them down firmly, and securing them with breechings in sailor-fashion, to prevent their kicking when fired, had been overturned, and a jug that he had brought out from the house containing water to damp the fuse with, was smashed to atoms, while of the box of matches and the bag of powder only a few smouldering fragments remained--a round hole burned in the grass near telling, if further proof were needed, that in his eagerness to start the salute, master teddy, impatient as usual, had struck a light to ignite the train, and this, accidentally communicating with the bag of powder, had resulted in a grand flare-up of the whole contents. this could be readily reasoned out at a glance; but, where could teddy be, the striker of the match, the inceptor of all the mischief? jupp could not imagine; hunt high, hunt low, as he might and did. at first, he thought that the young iconoclast, as nothing could be perceived of him on the lawn or flower-beds, had been blown up in the air over the laurel hedge and into the lane; as, however, nothing could be discovered of him here, either, after the most careful search, this theory had to be abandoned, and jupp was fairly puzzled. teddy had completely vanished! it was very strange, for his sisters had seen him on the spot the moment before the explosion. mary, of course, had followed jupp round to the front of the house, while the little girls came out on to the lawn; and molly the cook, as well as joe the gardener, attracted by the commotion, had also been assisting in the quest for the missing teddy, prying into every hole and corner. but all their exertions were in vain; and there they stood in wondering astonishment. "p'aps," suggested cissy, "he's done upstairs?" "nonsense, child!" said conny decisively; "we would have seen him from the window if he had come in." "still, we'd better look, miss," observed mary, who was all pale and trembling with anxiety as to the safety of her special charge. "he may have been frightened and rushed to the nursery to hide himself, as he has done before when he has been up to something!" so saying, she hurried into the passage, and the rest after her. it was of no use looking into the drawing-room or kitchen, the little girls having been in the former apartment all the time, and molly in the latter; but the parlour was investigated unsuccessfully, and every nook and cranny of the study, a favourite play-ground of the children when the vicar was out, as he happened to be this evening, fortunately or unfortunately as the case might be, visiting the poor of his parish. still, there was not a trace of teddy to be found. the search was then continued upstairs amongst the bed-rooms by mary and molly, accompanied by the three little girls, who marched behind their elders in silent awe, jupp and joe remaining down in the hall and listening breathlessly for some announcement to come presently from above. the nursery disclosed nothing, neither did the children's sleeping room, nor the vicar's chamber, although the beds were turned up and turned down and looked under, and every cupboard and closet inspected as cautiously as if burglars were about the premises; and mary was about to give up the pursuit as hopeless, when all at once, she thought she heard the sound of a stifled sob proceeding from a large oak wardrobe in the corner of the spare bed-room opposite the nursery, which had been left to the last, and where the searchers were all now assembled. "listen!" she exclaimed in a whisper, holding up her finger to enjoin attention; whereupon cissy and liz stopped shuffling their feet about, and a silence ensued in which a pin might have been heard to drop. then, the noise of the stifled sobs that had at first attracted mary's notice grew louder, and all could hear teddy's voice between the sobs, muttering or repeating something at intervals to himself. "i do believe he's saying his prayers!" said mary, approaching the wardrobe more closely with stealthy steps, so as not to alarm the little stowaway, a smile of satisfaction at having at last found him crossing her face, mingled with an expression of amazement--"just hear what he is repeating. hush!" they all listened; and this was what they heard proceeding from within the wardrobe, a sob coming in as a sort of hyphen between each word of the little fellow's prayer. "dod--bess pa--an' conny an' liz--an' 'ittle ciss--an' jupp, de porter man, an' mary--an'--an'--all de oders--an' make me dood boy--an' i'll neber do it again, amen!" "the little darling!" cried mary, opening the door of the wardrobe when teddy had got so far, and was just beginning all over again; but the moment she saw within, she started back with a scream which at once brought jupp upstairs. joe the gardener still stopped, however, on the mat below in the passage, as nothing short of a peremptory command from the vicar would have constrained him to put his heavy clod-hopping boots on the soft stair-carpet. indeed, it had needed all mary's persuasion to make him come into the hall, which he did as gingerly as a cat treading on a hot griddle! as jupp could see for himself, when he came up to the group assembled round the open door of the wardrobe there was nothing in the appearance of poor teddy to frighten mary, although much to bespeak her pity and sympathy--the little fellow as he knelt down in the corner showing an upturned face that had been blistered by the gunpowder as it exploded, besides being swollen to more than twice its ordinary size. his clothing was also singed and blackened like that of any sweep, while his eyelashes, eyebrows, and front hair had all been burnt off, leaving him as bare as a coot. altogether, master teddy presented a very sorry spectacle; and the little girls all burst into tears as they looked at him, even jupp passing his coat-sleeve over his eyes, and muttering something about its being "a bad job" in a very choky sort of voice. it was but the work of an instant, however, for mary to take up the unfortunate sufferer in her arms, and there he sobbed out all his woes as she cried over him on her way to the nursery, sending off jupp promptly for the doctor. "i'se not do nuzzin," explained teddy as he was being undressed, and his burns dressed with oil and cotton-wool, pending the arrival of medical advice. "i'se only zust light de match an' den dere was a whiz; an' a great big black ting lift me up an' trow me down, and den i climb up out of de smoke an' run 'way here. i was 'fraid of black ting comin' an' hide!" "there was no black thing after you, child," said conny. "it was only the force of the explosion that knocked you down, and the cloud of smoke you saw, which hid you from us when you ran indoors." "it was a black ting," repeated teddy, unconvinced by the wise miss conny's reasoning. "i see him, a big black giant, same as de jinny in story of de fairies; but i ran 'way quick!" "all right, dear! never mind what it was now," said mary soothingly. "do you feel any better now?" "poor mou's so sore," he whimpered, "an' 'ittle nosey can't breez!" "well, you shouldn't go meddling with matches and fire, as i've told you often," said mary, pointing her moral rather inopportunely. still she patted and consoled the little chap as much as she could; and when doctor jolly came up from endleigh presently, he said that she had done everything that was proper for the patient, only suggesting that his face might be covered during the night with a piece of soft rag dipped in goulard water, so as to ease the pain of the brows and let the little sufferer sleep. the vicar did not return home until some time after the doctor had left the house and jupp gone back to his duties at the railway-station; but although all traces of the explosion had been removed from the lawn and the grass smoothed over by joe the gardener, he knew before being told that something had happened from the unusual stillness around, both without and within doors, the little girls being as quiet as mice, and teddy, the general purveyor of news and noise, being not to the fore as usual. it was not long before he found out all about the accident; when there was a grand to-do, as may be expected, mr vernon expressing himself very strongly anent the fact of jupp putting such a dangerous thing as gunpowder within reach of the young scapegrace, and scolding mary for not looking after her charge better. jupp, too, got another "blowing up" from the station-master for being behind time. so, what with the general upset, and the dilapidated appearance of master teddy, with his face like a boiled vegetable marrow, when the bandages had been removed from his head and he was allowed to get up and walk about again, the celebration of the queen's birthday was a black day for weeks afterwards in the chronicles of the vicar's household! during the rest of the year, however, and indeed up to his eighth year, the course of teddy's life was uneventful as far as any leading incident was concerned. of course, he got into various little scrapes, especially on those occasions when his grandmother paid her periodic visits to the vicarage, for the old lady spoiled him dreadfully, undoing in a fortnight all that mary had effected by months of careful teaching and training in the way of obedience and manners; but, beyond these incidental episodes, he did not distinguish himself by doing anything out of the common. teddy leisurely pursued that uneven tenor of way customary to boys of his age, exhibiting a marked preference for play over lessons, and becoming a great adept at field sports through jupp's kindly tuition, albeit poor puck was no longer able to assist him in hunting rabbits, the little dog having become afflicted with chronic asthma ever since his immersion in the river when he himself had so narrowly escaped from drowning. if water, though, had worked such ill to puck, the example did not impress itself much on teddy; for, despite his own previous peril, he was for ever getting himself into disgrace by going down to the river to catch sticklebacks against express injunctions to the contrary, when left alone for any length of time without an observant and controlling eye on his movements. he was also in the habit of joining the village boys at their aquatic pranks in the cattle-pond that occupied a prominent place in the meadows below endleigh--just where the spur of one of the downs sloped before preparing for another rise, forming a hollow between the hills. here master teddy had loved to go on the sly, taking off his shoes and stockings and paddling about as the shoe and stockingless village urchins did; and this summer, not satisfied with simple paddling as of yore, he bethought himself of a great enterprise. the pond was of considerable extent, and when it was swollen with rain, as happened at this period, the month of june being more plentiful than usual of moisture, its surface covered several acres, the water being very deep between its edge and the middle, where it shallowed again, the ground rising there and forming a sort of island that had actually an alder-tree growing on it. now, teddy's ambition was to explore this island, a thing none of the village boys had dreamed of, all being unable to swim; so, as the wished-for oasis could not be reached in that fashion, the next best thing to do was to build a boat like robinson crusoe and so get at it in that way. as a preliminary, teddy sounded the ex-sailor as to the best way of building a boat, without raising jupp's suspicions--for, the worthy porter, awed by the vicar's reprimand anent the _feu de joie_ affair and mary's continual exhortations, had of late exhibited a marked disinclination to assist him in doing anything which might lead him into mischief--artfully asking him what he would do if he could find no tree near at hand large enough that he could hollow out for the purpose; but, jupp could give him no information beyond the fact that he must have a good sound piece of timber for the keel, and other pieces curved in a particular fashion for the strakes, and the outside planking would depend a good deal whether he wanted the boat clinker-built or smooth- sided. "but how then," asked teddy--he could speak more plainly now than as a five-year old--"do people get off from ships when they have no boat?" "why, they builds a raft, sir," answered jupp. "a raft--what is that?" "why, sir, it means anything that can swim," replied jupp, quite in his element when talking of the sea, and always ready to spin a yarn or tell what he knew. "it might be made of spare spars, or boards, or anything that can float. when i was in the _neptune_ off terra del faygo i've seed the natives there coming off to us seated on a couple of branches of a tree lashed together, leaves and all." "oh, thank you," said teddy, rejoiced to hear this, the very hint he wanted; "but what did they do for oars?" "they used sticks, in course, sir," answered the other, quite unconscious of what the result of his information would be, and that he was sowing the seeds of a wonderful project; and teddy presently leading on the conversation in a highly diplomatic way to other themes, jupp forgot bye and bye what he had been talking about. not so, however, master teddy. the very next day, taking up puck in his arms, and getting away unperceived from home soon after the early dinner, which the children always partook of at noon, he stole down to the pond, where, collecting some of the little villagers to assist him, a grand foray was made on the fencing of the fields and a mass of material brought to the water's edge. teddy had noted what jupp had said about the tierra del fuegans lashing their rude rafts together, so he took down with him from the house a quantity of old clothes-lines which he had discovered in the back garden. these he now utilised in tying the pieces of paling from the fences together with, after which a number of small boughs and branches from the hedges were laid on top of the structure, which was then pushed off gently from the bank on to the surface of the pond. hurrah, it floated all right! teddy therefore had it drawn in again, and stepped upon the raft, which, although it sank down lower in the water and was all awash, still seemed buoyant. he also took puck with him, and tried to incite some others of the boys to venture out in company with him. the little villagers, however, were wiser in their generation, and being unused to nautical enterprise were averse to courting danger. "you're a pack of cowards!" teddy exclaimed, indignant and angry at their drawing back thus at the last moment. "i'll go by myself." "go 'long, master," they cried, noways abashed by his comments on their conduct; "we'll all watch 'ee." naturally plucky, teddy did not need any further spurring, so, all alone on his raft, with the exception of the struggling puck, who did not like leaving _terra firma_, and was more of a hindrance than an aid, he pushed out into the pond, making for the islet in the centre by means of a long pole which he had thinned off from a piece of fencing, sticking it into the mud at the bottom and pushing against it with all his might. meanwhile, the frail structure on which he sat trembled and wobbled about in the most unseaworthy fashion, causing him almost to repent of his undertaking almost as soon as he had started, although he had the incense of popular admiration to egg him on, for the village boys were cheering and hooraying him like--"like anything," as he would himself have said! chapter seven. father and son. the road from the vicarage to the village and station beyond passed within a hundred yards or so of the pond; but from the latter being situated in a hollow and the meadows surrounding it inclosed within a hedge of thick brushwood, it could only be seen by those passing to and fro from one point--where the path began to rise above the valley as it curved round the spur of the down. it was saturday also, when, as teddy well knew, his father would be engaged on the compilation of his sunday sermon, and so not likely to be going about the parish, as was his custom of an afternoon, visiting the sick, comforting the afflicted, and warning those evil-doers who preferred idleness and ale at the "lamb" to honest toil and uprightness of living; consequently the young scapegrace was almost confident of non-interruption from any of his home folk, who, besides being too busy indoors to think of him, were ignorant of his whereabouts. it was also jupp's heaviest day at the station, so _he_ couldn't come after him he thought; and he was enjoying himself to his heart's content, when as the fates frequently rule it, the unexpected happened. miss conny, now a tall slim girl of thirteen, but more sedate and womanly even than she had been at ten, if that were possible, was occupied in the parlour "mending the children's clothes," as she expressed it in her matronly way, when she suddenly missed a large reel of darning cotton. wondering what had become of it, for, being neat and orderly in her habits, her things seldom strayed from their proper places, she began hunting about for the absent article in different directions and turning over the piles of stockings before her. "have you seen it?" she asked liz, who was sitting beside her, also engaged in needlework, but of a lighter description, the young lady devoting her energies to the manufacture of a doll's mantilla. "no," said liz abstractedly, her mouth at the time being full of pins for their more handy use when wanted, a bad habit she had acquired from a seamstress occasionally employed at the vicarage. "dear me, i wonder if i left the reel upstairs," said conny, much concerned at the loss; and she was just about prosecuting the search thither when cissy threw a little light on the subject, explaining at once the cause of the cotton's disappearance. "don't you recollect, con," she observed, "you lent it to teddy the other day? i don't s'pose he ever returned it to you, for i'm sure i saw it this morning with his things in the nursery." "no more he did," replied conny. "please go and tell him to bring it back. i know where you'll find him. mary is helping molly making a pie, and he's certain to be in the kitchen dabbling in the paste." "all right!" said cissy; and presently her little musical voice could be heard calling through the house, "teddy! teddy!" as she ran along the passage towards the back. bye and bye, however, she returned to the parlour unsuccessful. "i can't see him anywhere," she said. "he's not with mary, or in the garden, or anywhere!" "oh, that boy!" exclaimed conny. "he's up to some mischief again, and must have gone down to the village or somewhere against papa's orders. do you know where he is, liz?" "no," replied the young sempstress, taking the pins out of her mouth furtively, seeing that conny was looking at her. "he ran out of the house before we had finished dinner, and took puck with him." "then he has gone off on one of his wild pranks," said her elder sister, rising up and putting all the stockings into her work-basket. "i will go and speak to papa." the vicar had just finished the "thirdly, brethren," of his sermon; and he was just cogitating how to bring in his "lastly," and that favourite "word more in conclusion" with which he generally wound up the weekly discourse he gave his congregation, when conny tapped at the study door timidly awaiting permission to enter. "what's the matter?" called out mr vernon rather testily, not liking to be disturbed in his peroration. "i want to speak to you, papa," said conny, still from without. "then come in," he answered in a sort of resigned tone of voice, it appearing to him as one of the necessary ills of life to be interrupted, and he as a minister bound to put up with it; but this feeling of annoyance passed off in a moment, and he spoke gently and kindly enough when conny came into the room. "what is it, my dear?" he asked, smiling at his little housekeeper, as he called her, noticing her anxious air; "any trouble about to-morrow's dinner, or something equally serious?" "no, papa," she replied, taking his quizzing in earnest. "the dinner is ordered, and nothing the matter with it that i know of. i want to speak to you about teddy." "there's nothing wrong with him, i hope?" said he, jumping up from his chair and wafting some of the sheets of his sermon from the table with his flying coat-tails in his excitement and haste. "nothing wrong, i hope?" although a quiet easy-going man generally, the vicar was wrapt up in all his children, trying to be father and mother in one to them and making up as much as in him lay for the loss of that maternal love and guidance of which they were deprived at an age when they wanted it most; but of teddy he was especially fond, his wife having died soon after giving him birth, and, truth to say, he spoiled him almost as much as that grandmother whose visitations were such a vexed question with mary, causing her great additional trouble with her charge after the old lady left. "nothing wrong, papa dear, that i know of," replied conny in her formal deliberative sort of way; "but, i'm afraid he has gone off with those village boys again, for he's nowhere about the place." "dear me!" ejaculated the vicar, shoving up his spectacles over his forehead and poking his hair into an erect position like a cockatoo's crest, as he always did when fidgety. "can't you send somebody after him?" "mary is busy, and teddy doesn't mind joe, so there's no use in sending him." "dear me!" ejaculated her father again. "i'm afraid he's getting very headstrong--teddy, i mean, not poor joe! i must really get him under better control; but, i--i don't like to be harsh with him, conny, you know, little woman," added the vicar dropping his voice. "he's a brave, truthful little fellow with all his flow of animal spirits, and his eyes remind me always of your poor mother when i speak sternly to him and he looks at me in that straightforward way of his." "shall i go after him, papa?" interposed conny at this juncture, seeing that a wave of memory had carried back her father into the past, making him already forget the point at issue. "what? oh, dear me, no!" said the vicar, recalled to the present. "i'll go myself." "but your sermon, papa?" "it's just finished, and i can complete what has to be added when i come back. no--yes, i'll go; besides, now, i recollect, i have to call at job trotter's to try and get him to come to church to-morrow. yes, i'll go myself." so saying, the vicar put on the hat conny handed to him, for she had to look after him very carefully in this respect, as he would sometimes, when in a thinking fit, go out without any covering on his head at all! then, taking his stick, which the thoughtful conny likewise got out of the rack in the hall, he went out of the front door and over the lawn, through the little gate beyond. he then turned into the lane that led across the downs to the village, miss conny having suggested this as the wisest direction in which to look for teddy, from the remembrance of something the young scapegrace had casually dropped in conversation when at dinner. as he walked along the curving lane, the air was sweet with the scent of dry clover and the numerous wild flowers that twined amongst the blackberry bushes of the hedgerows. insects also buzzed about, creating a humming music of their own, while flocks of starlings startled by his approach flew over the field next him to the one further on, exhibiting their speckled plumage as they fluttered overhead, and the whistle of the blackbird and coo of the ring-dove could be heard in the distance. but the vicar was thinking of none of these things. conny's words about teddy not minding joe the gardener, or anybody else indeed, had awakened his mind to the consciousness that he had not given proper consideration to the boy's mental training. teddy's education certainly was not neglected, for he repeated his lessons regularly to his father and displayed the most promising signs of advancement; but, lessons ended, he was left entirely to the servants. the vicar reflected, that this ought not to be permitted with a child at an age when impressions of right and wrong are so easily made, never to be effaced in after life, once the budding character is formed. he would correct this error, the vicar determined; in future he would see after him more personally! just as he arrived at this sound conclusion the vicar reached the bend of the lane where it sloped round by the spur of the down, a bustling bumblebee making him notice this by brushing against his nose as he buzzed through the air in that self-satisfied important way that all bumblebees affect in their outdoor life; and, looking over the hedge that sank down at this point, he saw a group of boys gathered round the edge of the pond. he did not recognise teddy amongst them; but, fancying the urchins might be able to tell him something of his movements, he made towards them, climbing through a gap in the fence and walking down the sloping side of the hill to the meadow below. the boys, catching sight of him, immediately began to huddle together like a flock of sheep startled by the appearance of some strange dog; and he could hear them calling out some words of warning, in which his familiar title "t'parson" could be plainly distinguished. "the young imps must be doing something wrong, and are afraid of being found out," thought the vicar. "never mind, though, i sha'n't be hard on them, remembering my own young truant!" as he got nearer, he heard the yelp of a dog as if in pain or alarm. "they're surely not drowning some poor animal," said the vicar aloud, uttering the new thought that flashed across his mind. "if so, i shall most certainly be severe with them; for cruelty is detestable in man or boy!" hurrying on, he soon obtained a clear view of the pond, and he could now see that not only were a lot of boys clustered together round the edge of the water, but towards the centre something was floating like a raft with apparently another boy on it, who was holding a struggling white object in his arms, from which evidently the yelps proceeded--his ears soon confirming the supposition. "hullo! what are you doing there?" shouted the vicar, quickening his pace. "don't hurt the poor dog!" to his intense astonishment the boy on the floating substance turned his face towards him, answering his hail promptly with an explanation. "it's puck, padie, and i ain't hurting him." both the face and the voice were teddy's! the vicar was completely astounded. "teddy!" he exclaimed, "can i believe my eyes?--is it really you?" "yes, it's me, padie," replied the young scapegrace, trying to balance himself upright on the unsteady platform as he faced his father, but not succeeding in doing so very gracefully. "why, how on earth--or rather water, that would be the most correct expression," said the vicar correcting himself, being a student of paley and a keen logician as to phraseology; "how did you get there?" "i made a raft," explained teddy in short broken sentences, which were interrupted at intervals through the necessary exertion he had to make every now and then to keep from tumbling into the water and hold puck. "i made a raft like--like robinson crusoe, and--and--i've brought puck-- uck with me, 'cause i didn't have a parrot or a cat. i--i--i wanted to get to the island; b-b-but i can't go any further as the raft is stuck, and--and i've lost my stick to push it with. oh--i was nearly over there!" "it would be a wholesome lesson to you if you got a good ducking!" said the vicar sternly, albeit the reminiscences of robinson crusoe and the fact of teddy endeavouring to imitate that ideal hero of boyhood struck him in a comical light and he turned away to hide a smile. "come to the bank at once, sir!" easy enough as it was for the vicar to give this order, it was a very different thing for teddy, in spite of every desire on his part, to obey it; for, the moment he put down puck on the leafy flooring of the raft, the dog began to howl, making him take it up again in his arms. to add to his troubles, also, he had dropped his sculling pole during a lurch of his floating platform, so he had nothing now wherewith to propel it either towards the island or back to the shore, the raft wickedly oscillating midway in the water between the two, like mahomet's coffin 'twixt heaven and earth! urged on, however, by his father's command, teddy tried as gallantly as any shipwrecked mariner to reach land again; but, what with puck hampering his efforts, and his brisk movements on the frail structure, this all at once separated into its original elements through the clothes-line becoming untied, leaving teddy struggling amidst the debris of broken rails and branches--puck ungratefully abandoning his master in his extremity and making instinctively for the shore. the vicar plunged in frantically to the rescue, wading out in the mud until he was nearly out of his depth, and then swimming up to teddy, who, clutching a portion of his dismembered raft, had managed to keep afloat; although, he was glad enough when his father's arm was round him and he found himself presently deposited on the bank in safety, where they were now alone, all the village boys having rushed off _en masse_, yelling out the alarm at the pitch of their voices the moment teddy fell in and the vicar went after him. both were in a terrible pickle though, with their garments soaking wet, of course; while the vicar especially was bedraggled with mud from head to foot, looking the most unclerical object that could be well imagined. however, he took the whole matter good-humouredly enough, not scolding teddy in the least. "the best thing we can do, my son," he said when he had somewhat recovered his breath, not having gone through such violent exercise for many a long day.--"the best thing we can do is to hurry off home as fast we can, so as to arrive there before they hear anything of the accident from other sources, or the girls will be terribly alarmed about us." teddy, without speaking, tacitly assented to this plan by jumping up immediately and clutching hold of the shivering puck, whose asthma, by the way, was not improved by this second involuntary ducking; and the two were hastening towards the vicarage when they heard a horse trotting behind them, doctor jolly riding up alongside before they had proceeded very far along the lane, after clambering out of the field where the pond was situated. "bless me!" cried the doctor; "why, here are you both safe and sound, when those village urchins said you and master teddy were drownded!" "ah! i thought these boys were up to something of the sort when they all scampered off in a batch without lending us a helping hand!" replied the vicar laughing. "i was just telling teddy this, thinking the report would reach home before us." "aye, all happen, vernon? 'pon my word, you're in a fine mess!" the vicar thereupon narrated all that had occurred, much to the doctor's amusement. "well," he exclaimed at the end of the story, "that boy of yours is cut out for something, you may depend. he won't be drowned at any rate!" "no," said the vicar reflectively; "this is the second merciful escape he has had from the water." "yes, and once from fire, too," put in the other, alluding to the gunpowder episode. "he's a regular young desperado!" "i hope not, jolly," hastily interposed the vicar. "i don't like your joking about his escapades in that way. i hope he will be good--eh, my boy?" and he stroked teddy's head as he walked along by his side, father and son being alike hatless, their headgear remaining floating on the pond, along with the remains of the raft, to frighten the frogs and fishes. teddy uttered no reply; but his little heart was full, and he made many inward resolves, which, alas! his eight-year-old nature was not strong enough to keep. chapter eight. unappreciated. he really did not mean any harm; but mischief is mischief whether intentional or not, and somehow or other he seemed continually to be getting into it. circumstances, over which, of course, he had no control, continually overruled his anxious desire to be good. as doctor jolly said, with his usual strident hearty laugh that could be heard half a mile off, and which was so contagious that it made people smile whose thoughts were the reverse of gay, teddy was always in hot water, "except, by jove, when he plunged into the cold, ho, ho!" with reference to this latter point, however, it may be mentioned here, that albeit he had twice been mercifully preserved from drowning, the vicar, while trustful enough in the divine workings of providence, did not think it altogether right to allow teddy's insurance against a watery grave to be entirely dependent on chance; and so, that very evening, when jupp came up to the house after he had done his work at the station, he broached the subject to him as soon as the worthy porter had been made cognisant of all the facts connected with the raft adventure. "no," said the vicar, so carried away by his feelings that he almost added "my brethren," fancying himself in the pulpit delivering a homily to his congregation generally, instead of only addressing one hearer, "we ought not to neglect any wise precaution in guarding against those dangers that beset our everyday lives. lightly spoken as the adage is, that `god helps those who help themselves,' it is true enough." "aye, aye, sir, and so say i," assented jupp, rather mystified as to "what the parson was a-driving at," as he mentally expressed it, by this grand beginning, and thinking it had some reference to his not being present at the pond to rescue teddy in his peril, which he keenly regretted. "this being my impression," continued the vicar, completing his period, as if rounding a sentence in one of his sermons, wherein he was frequently prone to digress, "and i'm glad to learn from your acquiescent reply that you agree with me on the main issue, eh?" jupp nodded his head again, although now altogether in a fog regarding the other's meaning. "well, then," said the vicar, satisfied with having at last cleared the ground for stating his proposition, "i want you to devote any leisure time you may have in the course of the next few weeks to teaching my son to swim; so that, in the event of his unhappily falling into the water again, when neither you nor i may be near, he may be able to save himself--under providence, that is." "i was just about a-thinking on the same thing, sir, when you began a- speaking," observed jupp thoughtfully, scratching his head in his reflective way as he stood before the vicar cap in hand at the door of the study, where the conference was being held. "i fancied you didn't like me taking him down to the river, or i'd have taught him to swim long ago, i would, sir!" "then i may depend on your doing so now, eh?" "sartenly, sir! i'll be proud, that i will, to show him," answered jupp eagerly, mightily pleased with the task intrusted to him, having long wished to undertake it; and so, he being willing, and his pupil nothing loth, teddy was in a comparatively short space so well instructed how to support himself in the water that he was quite capable of swimming across the river without fear of being sucked down into the mill-race-- although he made both his father and jupp a promise, which he honourably kept, of never bathing there unless accompanied by either of the two. not only this, but he could also essay the muddy depths of the pond in the meadow whenever the fancy seized him, exploring the little island in its centre at his own sweet will; and this accomplishment, as will be seen further on, stood him in good stead at one of the most critical periods of his life, although this is anticipating. but, learning swimming, and so lessening the risk attending peril by water, did not prevent him from getting into scrapes on land; for, he was a brave, fearless boy, and these very qualities, added to a natural impulsiveness of disposition, were continually leading him into rash enterprises which almost invariably ended in mishap and disaster, if not to himself, to those who unwittingly were involved in his ventures, alas! in his ninth year, jupp got a rise on the line, being promoted to be assistant station-master at a neighbouring town, which necessarily involved his leaving endleigh; and, being now also able to keep a wife in comfort, the long courtship which had been going on between him and mary was brought to a happy conclusion by matrimony, a contingency that involved the loss to the vicar's household of mary's controlling influence, leaving master teddy more and more to himself, with no one in authority to look after him. under these circumstances, the vicar, acting on doctor jolly's advice, sent him to a small private school in the village where the farmers' sons of the vicinity were taught the rudiments of their education, teddy going thither every morning and afternoon in company with his sisters liz and cissy, who received lessons from a retired governess dwelling hard by--the three children returning home in the middle of the day for their dinner, and again on the termination of their tasks in the evening. miss conny, who had passed through the same curriculum, had grown too old for her teacher, and now remained at the vicarage, installed as her father's housekeeper and head of the family in his absence. this arrangement worked very well for a time, although teddy did not make any very rapid progress at his studies, his mind being more turned to outdoor sports than book lore; but the association with others made him, if more manly, less tractable, developing his madcap propensities to a very considerable extent, if merely from his desire to emulate his companions. one day, when going homewards with liz and cissy across the fields from endleigh, the trio came upon a group of the idle boys of the village who were assembled in front of an inclosed paddock containing farmer giles's brindled bull, a savage animal, whose implacable viciousness was the talk of the place; not even the ploughman, with whom he was more familiar than anyone else, daring to approach him without the protection of a long-handled pitchfork. neither farmer giles nor any of his men were about, and the boys, taking advantage of the opportunity, were baiting the bull by shying clods at him and otherwise rousing his temper, when teddy and his sisters came along. teddy fired up at once at the sight. "you cowards!" he cried; "you stand there behind the fence pelting the poor animal, but none of you have the pluck to go inside and do it!" "no more have you, meaister," retorted one of the biggest of the boys, a rustic lout of sixteen. "you ain't got the plook t' go inside yoursen!" "haven't i?" said teddy in answer to this taunt; and before his sisters could prevent him he had darted over to where the boys were standing, and climbing over the stout five-barred gate that gave admittance to the inclosure, let himself down into the paddock--confronting the bull without even a stick in his hand. the savage animal appeared so much surprised at the temerity of such a little fellow as teddy invading his domain, that he allowed him to advance several steps without making a movement; when, putting down his head, as if trying the points of his horns, and pawing the ground, he uttered a wild bellow that brought forth a responsive shriek from cissy. "come back, teddy, come back!" she screamed, turning quite pale with fright. "he's coming after you, and will toss you on his cruel horns. oh, do come back!" teddy, however, still continued advancing towards the infuriated brute, waving his arms and shouting in the endeavour to intimidate it. he was sorry he had gone into the paddock; but he had some idea that if he retreated the bull would make a rush at him, and thought that by showing he was not afraid, he might presently retire with all the honours of war, so he preserved a courageous front, although his heart went pit-a- pat all the while. again, the bull lowered his horns and tossed up his head. he was quite close to him now; and teddy stopped, the bull eyeing him and he looking at it steadfastly. the situation was alarming, so he stepped back gingerly, whereupon the bull advanced at the same moment, with another loud bellow, the smoke coming out of his red nostrils, and his little eyes flaming with fire. this caused all teddy's courage to evaporate, and the next moment, forgetting all his previous caution, he turned and ran as hard as he could for the gate; but, the bull, in two strides, catching him up on his horns like a bundle of hay, tossed him high in the air, amidst the screams and shouts of cissy and liz and all the village boys commingled, the triumphant roar of the animal overtopping them all as it bellowed forth a paean of victory. fortunately for teddy, a pollard elm stood just within the paddock, breaking his fall as he tumbled towards the ground, where the bull was looking up awaiting him, with the intention of catching him again on his horns; and the branches receiving his body in their friendly shelter, he was saved from tumbling down, when he would have been at the mercy of his enemy. still, there he hung, like absalom, another naughty boy before him, suspended by his clothes if not by his hair, the bull bellowing and keeping guard round the tree to prevent his further escape; and it was not until the ploughman had been called by one of the village boys and driven away the animal that teddy was able to climb down from his insecure perch and regain the others. he was glad enough to get out of the paddock, it may be safely asserted; and then, when he was examined, it was discovered, much to the wonder of everybody, including himself, that, beyond a scratch or two from the branches of the elm, he was quite unhurt, in spite of the toss the bull gave him and his unexpected flight through the air! but his daring, if unproductive of any evil consequences towards himself personally, caused harm to others, the ploughman being badly gored while driving off the violent animal through his missing his footing when aiming a blow at it with his pitchfork; while poor cissy was in such a fright at the mishap, that after screaming herself hoarse she went off in hysterics, the attack ending in a fit of convulsions on her getting home, making her so ill that the doctor had to be summoned to bring her back to consciousness. teddy in consequence had a serious lecture from the vicar, who pointed out to him the difference between real courage and foolhardiness; but the lesson did not strike very deep, and soon he was his wayward self again, his sister conny being too near his own age to have any authority over him, while his father was too much of a student and dreamer to exercise any judicious control in restraining his exuberant nature. by the time he was twelve years of age he was like a wild unbroken colt, although he had still the same honest outspoken look in his bright blue eyes, and was a fine manly little fellow who would not have, told a lie to save himself from punishment, or wilfully hurt chick or child; but, scapegrace he was still, as he had been almost from his earliest infancy. he really could not help it. when jupp and mary paid their periodical visit at the vicarage to see how the family were getting on, bringing anon another little jupp with them, they were certain to hear of something terrible that master teddy had done; for all the village talked of him now and took heed of his misdeeds, the recital of which, as is usual in such cases, lost nothing by the telling. they were only ordinary boyish freaks; but they seemed awful to the quiet, sleepy countryfolk who inhabited endleigh. once, his grandmother rather unwisely brought down a pistol for him from london; and teddy thereupon having his imagination excited by what he had read of pirates and highwaymen in the works of romance which he devoured whenever he could get hold of them, went about fancying himself a bold buccaneer and freebooter, firing at everything moving within as well as out of range, along the solitary country lanes and hedgerows-- thereby frightening passers-by frequently with untimely shots close to their ears, and making them believe their last hour had come. it was in this way that he peppered old stokes's sow, which was taking a quiet walk abroad seeking a convenient wallowing place, when the squeals of the unlucky beast were a nine days' wonder, albeit "it was all cry and little wool," as the irishman said when he shaved his pig, the animal being not much hurt. still, old stokes did not like it, and complained to the squire, who remonstrated with the vicar, and the latter in his turn lectured teddy-- the matter ending there as far as he was concerned, although the squeals of the afflicted sow were treasured up and remembered against him in the chronicles of endleigh. the place was so dull, that having nothing particular to keep him occupied--for he had long since learned all the village schoolmaster could teach him, and it was a mere farce his remaining any longer under his tutelage--the wonder was, not that teddy got into any mischief at all, but that he did not fall into more; and doctor jolly was continually speaking to his father about neglecting him in that way, urging that he should be sent to some good boarding-school at a distance to prepare him for the university, mr vernon intending that the boy should follow in his own footsteps and go into the church, having the same living after him that he had inherited from his father. but the vicar would not hear of this. "no," said he, "he shall stop here and be educated by me in the same way as i was educated by my poor father before going to oxford. he's a bright intelligent boy--you don't think him an ignoramus, jolly, eh?" "not by any means, by jove," laughed the doctor. "he knows too much already. what i think he wants is a little proper restraint and control. master teddy has too much his own way." "ah! i can't be hard with him, jolly," sighed the vicar. "whenever i try to speak to him with severity he looks me in the face with those blue eyes of his, and i think of my poor wife, his mother. he's the very image of her, jolly!" "well, well," said the doctor, putting the subject away, considering it useless to press the point; "i'm afraid you'll regret it some day, though i hope not." "i hope not, indeed," replied the vicar warmly. "teddy isn't a bad boy. he has never told me a falsehood in his life, and always confesses to any fault he has committed." "that doesn't keep him out of mischief though," said the doctor grimly as he went off, atoning to himself for having found fault with teddy by giving him a drive out to the squire's, and allowing him to take his horse and gig back by himself, an indulgence that lifted teddy into the seventh heaven of delight. however, as events turned out, the very means by which the doctor thought to clear the reproach from his own soul of having advised the vicar about teddy, indirectly led to his advice being followed. on alighting at the squire's and handing him the reins, he told teddy to be very particular in driving slowly, the horse being a high-spirited one, and apt to take the bit in his teeth if given his head or touched with the whip; so, as long as he was in sight teddy obeyed these injunctions, coaxing the bay along as quietly as if he were assisting at a funeral procession. directly he got beyond range of observation from the house, though, he made amends for his preliminary caution, shaking the reins free, and giving the horse a smart cut under the loins that made it spring forward like a goat, almost jumping out of the traces; and then, away it tore along the road towards the village at the rate of twenty miles an hour, the gig bounding from rut to rut as if it were a kangaroo, and shaking teddy's bones together like castanets. once the animal had got its head, the boy found it useless to try and stop him; while, as for guidance, the horse no more cared about his pulling at the bit than if he were a fly, plunging onward in its wild career, and whisking the gig from side to side, so that teddy was fully employed in holding on without attempting to pull the reins at all. for a mile or two the roadway was pretty clear, but on nearing endleigh it became narrower; and here, just in front, teddy could see a loaded farm wagon coming along. to have passed it safely either he or the wagoner would have had to pull up on one side; but with him now it was impossible to do this, while the driver of the other vehicle was half asleep, and nodding from amidst the pile of straw with which the wagon was loaded, letting the team jingle along at a slow walk. a collision, therefore, was inevitable, and hardly had teddy come to this conclusion than smash, bang, it followed! there was a terrible jolt, and he suddenly felt himself doing a somersault, waking up the wagoner by tumbling on top of him above the straw, whither he had hurled as from a catapult by the sudden stoppage of the gig in its mad career; and when he came to himself he saw that the fragments of the vehicle lay scattered about under the front of the wagon, against which it had been violently impelled, the bay cantering down to its own stable with its broken traces dangling behind it. teddy was thunderstruck at the mishap. he had not thought there was any danger in disobeying the doctor's instructions, and yet here was the gig smashed up and the wagoner's horses injured irreparably, one poor brute having to be shot afterwards; besides which he did not know what had become of the runaway animal. all the mishap had arisen through disobedience! he went home at once and told his father everything; but the vicar, though comforting him by saying that he would get the doctor a new gig, and recompense the farmer to whom the wagon belonged for the loss of his team, seemed to have his eyes awakened at last to the evil to which doctor jolly had so vainly tried to direct his attention. he determined that teddy should go to school. but, before this intention could be carried out, there was a most unexpected arrival at the vicarage. this was no less a personage than uncle jack, whom neither teddy nor his sisters had ever seen before, he having gone to sea the same year the vicar had married, and never been heard of again, the vessel in which he had sailed having gone down, and all hands reported lost. uncle jack hadn't foundered, though, if his ship had, for here he was as large as life, and that was very large, he weighing some fourteen or fifteen stone at the least! what was more, he had passed through the most wonderful adventures and been amongst savages. these experiences enabled him to recount the most delightful and hairbreadth yarns--yarns that knocked all poor jupp's stories of the cut-and-dried cruises he had had in the navy into a cocked hat, teddy thought, as he hung on every utterance of this newly- found uncle, longing the while to be a sailor and go through similar experiences. uncle jack took to him amazingly, too, and when he had become domesticated at the vicarage, asked one day what he was going to be. "what, make a parson of him, brother-in-law!" exclaimed the sailor in horrified accents. "you'd never spoil such a boy as that, who's cut out for a sailor, every inch of him--not, of course, that i wish to say a word against your profession. still, he can't go into the church yet; what are you going to do with him in the meantime, eh?" "send him to school," replied the other. "why, hasn't he been yet?" "oh, yes, he's not altogether ignorant," said the vicar. "i think he's a very fair scholar for his years." "then why dose him any more with book learning, eh? when you fill a water-cask too full it's apt to run over!" "i quite agree with you about cramming, jack," said the vicar, smiling at the nautical simile; "but, i'm sending teddy to a leading school more for the sake of the discipline than for anything more that i want him to learn at present." "discipline, eh! is that your reason, brother-in-law? then allow me to tell you he'll get more of that at sea than he ever will at school." "oh, father!" interrupted teddy, who had been present all the time during the confab, listening as gravely as any judge to the discussion about his future, "do let me be a sailor! i'd rather go to sea than anything." "but you might be drowned, my boy," said the vicar gravely, his thoughts wandering to every possible danger of the deep. "no fear of that," answered teddy smiling. "why, i can swim like a fish; and there's uncle jack now, whom you all thought lost, safe and sound after all his voyages!" "aye and so i am!" chorused the individual alluded to. "well, well, we'll think of it," said the vicar. "i'll hear what my old friend jolly has to say to the plan first." but he could not have consulted a more favourable authority as far as teddy was concerned. "the very thing for him!" said the doctor approvingly. "i don't think you could ever turn him into a parson, vernon. he has too much animal spirits for that; think of my gig, ho! ho!" overcome by the many arguments brought forward, and the general consensus of judgment in favour of the project, the vicar at last consented that teddy might be allowed to go to sea under the aegis of uncle jack, who started off at once to london to see about the shipping arrangements; when the rest of the household set to work preparing the young sailor's outfit in the meantime, so that no time might be lost-- little cissy making him a wonderful anti-macassar, which, in spite of all ridicule to the contrary, she asserted would do for the sofa in his cabin! of course, jupp and mary came over to wish teddy good-bye; but, albeit there was much grief among the home circle at the vicarage when they escorted him to the little railway-station, on the day he left there were not many tears shed generally at his going, for, to paraphrase not irreverently the words of the psalmist, "endleigh, at heart, was glad at his departing, and the people of the village let him go free!" chapter nine. at sea. "well, here we are, my hearty!" said uncle jack, who was on the watch for him at london bridge station, and greeted him the moment the train arrived; "but, come, look sharp, we've a lot to do before us, and precious little time to do it in!" teddy, however, was not inclined at first to "look sharp." on the contrary, he looked extremely sad, being very melancholy at leaving home, and altogether "down in the mouth," so to speak. this arose, not so much from the fact of his parting with his father and sisters, dearly as he loved them all in his way; but, on account of poor puck, who, whether through grief at his going away, which the intelligent little animal seemed quite as conscious of through the instinct of his species as if he were a human being, or from his chronic asthma coming to a crisis, breathed his last in teddy's arms the very morning of his departure from home! the doggy, faithful to the end, was buried in the garden, conny, cissy, and liz attending his obsequies, and the two latter weeping with teddy over his grave, for all were fond of puck; but none lamented him so deeply as he, and all the journey up to town, as the train sped its weary way along, his mind was busy recalling all the incidents that attended their companionship from the time when his grandmother first gave him as a present. he was a brisk young dog then, he remembered, the terror of all strange cats and hunter of rabbits, but his affection had not swerved down to the last year of their association, when, toothless and wheezy, he could hunt no more, and cats came fearlessly beneath his very nose when he went through the feeble pretence of trying to gnaw a bone on the lawn. poor puck--_requiescat in pace_! still, doggy or no doggy, uncle jack was not the sort of fellow to let teddy remain long in the dumps, especially as he had said there was a good deal to be done; and, soon, teddy was in such a whirl of excitement, with everything new and strange around him, that he had no time left to be melancholy in. first, uncle jack hailed a hansom, all teddy's belongings in the shape of luggage being left in the cloak-room at the terminus, and the two jumping in were driven off as rapidly as the crowded state of the streets would allow, to tower hill, where the offices of the shipping agents owning the _greenock_ were situated. here uncle jack deposited a cheque which the vicar had given him, and master teddy was bound over in certain indentures of a very imposing character as a first-class apprentice to the said firm, the lad then signing articles as one of the crew of the _greenock_, of which vessel, it may be mentioned, uncle jack had already been appointed chief officer, so that he would be able to keep a watchful eye over his nephew in his future nautical career. "now that job's done," said uncle jack when all the bothersome writing and signing were accomplished and the vicar's cheque paid over, "we'll have a run down to look at the ship; what say you to that, eh?" "all right!" responded teddy, much delighted at the idea; and the pair then were driven from tower hill to the fenchurch street railway- station, where they dismissed their cab and took train for the docks, the state of locomotion in the neighbourhood of which does not readily permit of the passage of wheeled vehicles, a hansom running the risk of being squashed into the semblance of a pancake against the heavy drays blocking the narrow streets and ways, should it adventure within the thoroughfares thereof. on their arrival at poplar, uncle jack threaded his way with amazing ease and familiarity through a narrow lane with high walls on either hand, and then into a wide gateway branching off at right angles. entering within this teddy found himself in a vast forest of masts, with ships loading and unloading at the various quays and jetties alongside the wharves, opposite to lines of warehouses that seemed to extend from one end of the docks to the other. uncle jack was not long in tumbling across the _greenock_, which had nearly completed taking in her cargo and was to "warp out next morning," as he told teddy, who didn't know what on earth he meant by the phrase, by the way. there appeared to be a great deal of confusion going on in front of the jetty to which she was moored; but uncle jack took him on board and introduced him to mr capstan, the second officer, as a future messmate, who showed him the cabins and everything, telling him to "make himself at home!" the _greenock_ was a fine barque-rigged vessel of some two thousand tons, with auxiliary steam-power; and she gained her living or earned her freight, whichever way of putting it may please best, by sailing to and fro in the passenger trade between the ports of london and melbourne, but doing more in the goods line on the return journey, because colonials bent on visiting the mother country generally prefer the mail steamers as a speedier route. emigrants, however, are not so squeamish, contenting themselves in getting out to australia, that land of promise to so many hard-up and despairing people at home, by whatever means they can--so long only as they may hope to arrive there at some time or other! teddy was surprised at the gorgeousness of the _greenock's_ saloons and cabins, and the height of her masts, and the multitude of ropes about running in every conceivable direction, crossing and recrossing each other with the bewildering ingenuity of a spider's web; but uncle jack took all these wonders as a matter of course, and rather pooh-poohed them. "wait till you see her at gravesend," he said. "she's all dismantled now with these shore lumpers and lubbers aboard, and won't be herself till she's down the river and feels herself in sailors' hands again. why, you won't know her! but come along, laddie, we've got to buy a sea-chest and a lot of things to complete your kit; and then, we'll go to granny's and try to see something of the sights of london." so, back they trudged again to the poplar station and were wafted once more to fenchurch street, where uncle jack dived within the shop of a friendly outfitter, who had a mackintosh and sextant swinging in front of his establishment to show his marine leanings and dealings. here, a white sea-chest, whose top was made like a washing-stand, and several other useful articles, were purchased by uncle jack without wasting any time, as he had made up his mind what he wanted before going in and knew what he was about; and these things being ordered to be forwarded to the cloak-room at the london bridge station, to be placed with teddy's other luggage, uncle jack rubbed his hands gleefully. "now that business is all settled," he said, "we can enjoy ourselves a bit, as the ship won't be ready for us till next monday. come along, my hearty! let us bear up for granny's--you haven't been to her place before, have you, eh?" no, teddy explained. granny had often been down to endleigh to see him, but he had never been up to town to see her; that first attempt of his, which had been frustrated by mary's pursuit and the machinations of jupp, having deterred him, somehow or other, from essaying the journey a second time. indeed, he had never been to london at all. "_my_!" exclaimed uncle jack. "what a lot there'll be for you to see, my hearty, eh?" what is more, he showed him, too, all that was to be seen, taking teddy to monuments and exhibitions, to galleries and even to the theatre. the time passed by rapidly enough--too rapidly, granny thought, when the day came for her to say good-bye to teddy; but he was nothing loth to go, longing to be on board the _greenock_ as one belonging to her of right, and feel himself really at sea. granny wanted him to have another little dog in place of puck; however, he couldn't make up his mind to a substitute to supersede the former animal's hold on his affections. besides this, uncle jack said the captain did not allow anybody to have dogs on board, and that was a clincher to the argument at once. monday morning came, and with it another railway journey. it really seemed to teddy as if he were "on the line," like jupp! the _greenock_, having taken in all her cargo, had been warped out of dock and then towed down the river to gravesend, where she was now lying moored in the stream off the lobster. "there she is!" cried uncle jack when they got down to the beach. "where?" asked teddy, not recognising the dirty untidy hulk he had seen in the docks, as she first appeared to him before he was taken on board and noticed the elegance of her cabins, in the thing of beauty he saw now before him; with every spar in its place and snow-white canvas extended in peaceful folds from the yards, as the vessel lay at anchor with her topsails dropped and her courses half clewed up, ready to spread her wings like an ocean bird. what a change there was in her! "look, right in front there, laddie," said uncle jack. "can't you see? she's just about making-sail, so we'd better get on board as soon as possible. hi, boatman, seen any one belonging to the _greenock_ ashore?" "aye, aye, sir," answered the man addressed, "her boat's just over there by the p'int, just agoin' to shove off." "thank you, my hearty," said uncle jack, giving him a trifle for the information; and in another minute or so teddy found himself in the _greenock's_ jolly-boat in company with a lot of the new hands, like himself, going off to join the ship. here on his arrival on board, he was introduced to captain lennard, the monarch of all he surveyed as far as the deck of the _greenock_ was concerned, and his future commander. teddy liked the look of him; while he, on his part, seemed to like the look of teddy, smiling kindly when he saw him come over the gangway after uncle jack. he had the general appearance of a brown jupp, being of the same height and with just such a smiling good-humoured face, with the exception that his hair and beard, instead of being black, was of a lighter and ruddier hue. oh, yes, teddy thought, captain lennard was the man for him. he looked easy and kind-hearted and would not bully people, as he had read of some brutal captains doing. "this your nephew?" he asked uncle jack politely. "yes, sir," replied the other, touching his cap, being in regular nautical rig now, as also was teddy, who, clad in spick-and-span reefer costume, felt as proud as punch. "ah! then, if he's like you i think we'll get along very well together, mr althorp," said the captain with a bow and smile. "he looks like a chip of the old block too!" "you're very good to say that, sir," stammered uncle jack, blushing at the compliment. "the youngster's very like my poor sister, and i suppose resembles me, as she and i were twins. i've no doubt, though, you'll find him teachable when he's licked into shape; for, he isn't a bad lad from what i have seen of him as yet, and is plucky enough, if all i've heard of him down at endleigh be true." "well, master vernon, i hope you'll justify the character your uncle gives of you. if you only obey orders there'll be no fear of our falling out. but, mind, i'm captain of this ship; so look out for squalls if you shirk duty or try on any tricks!" the captain said this pleasantly, but there was a stern look combined in the twinkle of his hazel eyes beneath their thick brown eyebrows, like penthouses overshadowing them; and teddy felt that, with all his gentleness and joking way, he was a man who intended to command and likewise to be obeyed. a moment later captain lennard changed the conversation by asking uncle jack if all the hands were on board. "aye, aye, sir," said the other. "the whole batch, i think, came out with us. isn't that so, mr capstan?" he asked, turning to the second- mate, who was standing close by. "yes, all hands aboard," replied the second-mate laconically. "then make sail at once," said captain lennard, going aft on the poop; while mr capstan bustled forwards, shouting out as he scrambled up on the windlass bitts and thence to the fo'c's'le, "all hands make sa-i- il!" drawling out the last word as if it were a chorus to some mariner's ditty he were singing. the crew were all picked men, the majority having been in the ship on one or two previous voyages; so they were quite at home, and sprang into the rigging long before the second-mate had got to the end of his refrain. in a second, the topsails were dropped and sheeted home, and the rattling of the clewgarnet blocks told of the courses following their example; after which the hands aloft then loosed the topgallant, there being a fine breeze fair for the downs. teddy was puzzled for a moment by all the seeming confusion that reigned in the ship, with ropes flying about and cordage cracking, while the hoarse orders issued by mr capstan and uncle jack were answered by the cheery cry of the men, singing out lustily as they hoisted and pulled at the halliards with a will. but, the confusion was only momentary and in appearance only; for, hardly had he begun to realise what all the bustle was about, than the ship was clothed in canvas from truck to deck, like a lady attired for a ball all in white! the headyards were then backed, and captain lennard's voice rang through the vessel fore and aft as clear as a bell-- "hands up anchor!" then, the windlass was wound; and, slip, slap, click, clack, it went round the pawl belaying every inch of cable got in. "cheerily, men! heave with a will!" urged the second-mate; and the brawny fellows bent all their strength to the handspikes, heaving them down with sheer brute force. "hove short!" presently sang out mr capstan. "up with it!" responded captain lennard from the poop, where the pilot now appeared by his side awaiting all these preparations to be completed before taking charge of the ship. half-a-dozen more heaves and the anchor-stock showed above the water. "hook cat!" cried the second-mate. "i wonder what that means!" thought teddy. "i hope they won't hurt the poor thing!" but, the next moment, he was undeceived. nothing in the shape of cruelty to animals was about to be perpetrated. mr capstan only ordered the men to hook on the tackle by which the head of the anchor was to be braced up; and, before he could say "jack robinson," if he had been that way inclined, the falls were manned and the anchor run up to the cathead with a rousing chorus as the men scampered aft with the tail-end of the rope. the headyards were then filled, and the ship bowed her head as if in salute to father neptune, the next instant gathering way as the sails began to draw. "port!" sang out the pilot from the bridge. "port it is," responded the man at the wheel, shifting the spokes with both hands like a squirrel in a cage, it seemed to teddy, who was looking at him from the break of the poop, where he had taken up his station by captain lennard's orders so that he might the more easily see all that was going on. "steady!" "steady it is," repeated the helmsman in parrot fashion. and so, conning and steering along, the _greenock_ was soon bounding on her way down channel, passing deal and rounding the south foreland before noon. teddy at last was really at sea! chapter ten. taking french leave. the weather was beautifully fine for october, with a bright warm sun shining down and lighting up the water, which curled and crested before the spanking nor'-east breeze, that brought with it that bracing tone which makes the month, in spite of its autumnal voice warning us of the approach of winter, one of the most enjoyable in our changeable climate--especially to those dwelling along the south coast, which the good ship _greenock_ now trended by on her passage out of the channel. teddy as yet, although this was his first experience of "a life on the ocean wave," was not sea-sick; for, although the vessel heeled well over to the wind on the starboard tack she did not roll, but ploughed through the little wavelets as calmly as if on a mill-pond, only rising now and again to make a graceful courtesy to some cross current that brought a swell over from the opposite shore of france, for after passing beachy head she kept well off the land on the english side. a west-nor'-west course brought the _greenock_ off saint catharine's point; but the evening had drawn in too much for teddy to see anything of the isle of wight, and when he woke up next morning the ship was abreast of the start point. from thence, he had a fair view of the devon and cornish coasts in the distance all the way to the lizard, the scene being like an ever- changing panorama, with plenty of life and movement about in the vessels the _greenock_ was continually passing either outwards or homewards bound; while the little trawlers and fishing-boats clustered in groups here and there, and there was the occasional smoke from some steamer steaming along the horizon, like a dark finger-post above the level of the sea in the distance. he enjoyed it all, as, although he had found his bunk in the cabin rather close and stuffy after his nice airy bed-room at the vicarage, he was still not sea-sick; and, as he leant over the taffrail, watching the creamy wake the ship left behind her, spreading out broader and broader until it was lost in the surrounding waste of waters, what with the sniff of the saline atmosphere and the bracing breeze, he began to feel hungry, longing for breakfast-time to come and wondering when he would hear the welcome bell sound to tell that the meal was ready. no one was on deck, at least on the poop, when he came up, save the helmsman, and mr capstan, the latter walking up and down briskly on the windward side and exchanging a word now and again with the pilot on the bridge; so teddy felt a little forlorn. presently, the second-mate, taking a longer turn in his quarterdeck walk, came up and spoke to him. "well, young shaver," he said, "how are you getting on?" "very well, thank you, sir," replied teddy, touching his cap, as uncle jack had told him he must always do to his superior officer. "ah! you're like a young bear, and have all your troubles before you," the other next remarked consolingly, adding immediately afterwards the query: "seen any of your messmates yet?" "no, sir," replied teddy, looking a bit puzzled--"that is, excepting yourself and the captain, and uncle jack, of course. are there any other midshipmen like myself?" "aye, if you call the apprentices so, young shaver," said mr capstan with an ironical grin which did not improve his rather ugly face. "there are two more of you; and the lazy young hounds must be snoozing below, for they haven't shown a leg yet. however, i'll soon rouse 'em up!" so saying, he shouted out to one of the hands in the waist forwards: "here, bill summers!" "aye, aye, sir," replied the man, looking up towards the break of the poop, whence the second-mate had hailed him, leaning over the rail. "just go and call jones and maitland. tell 'em to turn out sharp or i'll stop their grog," cried mr capstan. "aye, aye, sir," said the man, proceeding towards the deck-house, which occupied a middle position in the ship between the poop and fo'c's'le; and presently, although hidden from the gaze of those aft, he could be heard rapping at one of the doors, repeating in whispered tones the order the second-mate had given him. ere long, a couple of striplings appeared, dressed in dirty uniforms which presented a marked difference to that of teddy; and he noticed besides that one was considerably taller than he was while the second was shorter and a little slimmer. "here, you, jones and maitland, i won't have you caulking away this bright morning when the sun ought to be scorching the sleep out of your eyes. what do you mean by it, eh?" began mr capstan as if lashing himself into a passion, but had not quite got enough steam up yet. "i thought, sir, as this is our first day out and the ship still in charge of the pilot, we needn't turn out so early," said jones, the biggest of the two, acting as spokesman. "you thought!" snarled the second-mate, catching up a rope's-end with the apparent intention of laying it across the shoulders of jones, only he kept a wary distance away. "i've half a mind to give you something for answering me like that! no one has any business to think on board ship." "aye, where you're boss!" said the offender speaking aside. "what is that you're jabbering?" quickly interposed mr capstan--"some impudence, i reckon. now, just you pull off those patent-leather pumps of yours and set to work washing decks. it's gone six bells, and it ought to have been done half an hour ago." teddy thought this was a very unkind cut of the mate at poor jones's boots, which were a dilapidated pair of bluchers that needed mending badly; still, he couldn't help smiling, which didn't seem to please mr capstan, who, turning round, now addressed him: "and you, my fine young shaver, with your dandy rig, you'd better be doing something to earn your salt, and not be a useless lubber, looking on like a fine lady! you just put off and go and help jones." teddy, though he didn't relish the job, obeyed willingly; and soon he was paddling about in bare feet with his trousers rolled up to the knee, while the crew under jones's direction rigged the head pump and sluiced the decks down from end to end of the ship, beginning with the poop and ending with the midship section in the waist, where all the water was collected in a sort of small lake and had to be swabbed out of the scuttles. young maitland meanwhile had been sent up the main royal mast to clear the dog vane, which had somehow or other got fouled; so mr capstan, satisfied at seeing everybody busily employed but himself, paced contentedly up and down the poop, sniffing about and snorting occasionally like an old grampus, as if in satisfaction at "taking it out of the youngsters." the man was naturally a bully, and loved to display the little authority he had by "hazing" those under him, to use the technical sea phrase. by dint of continually nagging at the men below from his commanding position above, the second-mate hurried them up so with their work that in a very short space of time the decks were scrubbed and washed, the sun drying them almost without the use of the swab. mr capstan then set them to work coiling down the loose ropes lying about, there being nothing else to do, as the ship had not altered her course but remained on the starboard tack with the wind well on her quarter; and, although everything had been made snug before leaving the downs, he was just going to tell the hands to unship the motley contents of the long-boat and stow it again afresh in default of some other task, when eight bells struck, and uncle jack came up from below to relieve him from his watch--a relief, it may be added, to all hands in more than one sense! presently, captain lennard came on deck too; although he must not be thought lazy for being so late, for he had remained up with the pilot on the bridge all night conning the ship, only turning in for a short nap at daylight. then, the passengers, of whom there were some sixty in the first-class saloon, began to creep up the companion, one by one as if not yet accustomed to the somewhat unsteady footing of a ship's deck at sea; as for the steerage emigrants they remained below, and even after they had been weeks afloat it required almost force to drive them up into the fresh air. teddy was looking at the queer figures some of the gentlemen and ladies presented on the poop, when all at once the breakfast gong sounded, and they all scuttled down much faster than they had come up, the sea air having given those able to get out of their bunks fresh appetites after they had paid homage to neptune. he was not invited to go down with these, however, having to mess along with jones and maitland in the deck-house close to the galley, where the three mids consoled themselves with the reflection that if they were excluded from the saloon, at all events they were nearer the place where their meals were cooked, and so had the advantage of getting them hotter! after breakfast the pilot left the ship, a boat putting out for him from the land when they were near saint michael's; and then captain lennard, hauling round a bit, shaped a west-south-west course, steering out into the broad atlantic until he had reached longitude degrees west, when the vessel's head was turned to the south for madeira and the canaries. strange to say, teddy up to now had not been once sick. it is true they had not as yet had any rough weather; but the sea was brisk enough to try the stomachs of all the landsmen on board, so it was curious he was not affected in any way by the ship's motion. as uncle jack said at the first, he was a born sailor! soon he began, too, to understand his duties; and being naturally quick of intellect and active, he after a time became handier on the yards and up aloft than little maitland, who had been two voyages out and home before; while jones had to exert himself to hold his own with him--with uncle jack, besides, coaching him up in seamanship, teddy ere the vessel had reached madeira was a greenhand no longer. at teneriffe captain lennard put in to coal, the ship being, as formerly mentioned, an auxiliary screw, and able to enlist the aid of steam when she came to the calm latitudes, which they were now approaching. the passengers being allowed to go on shore for a few hours, teddy received permission to accompany those taking advantage of the opportunity of landing. there was no time to try and climb up the celebrated peak, which can be seen so far out at sea that it looks like an island in the clouds; but there was much amusement gained in donkey riding and studying the manners and customs of the natives. the garments, teddy noticed, of the ladies were rather limited in dimensions; but what they lacked in quantity they made up for in style, all the dresses being provided with those "improvers" of late fashion in england. these made the skirts of the portuguese damsels stick out all round, giving them a very funny appearance with their brown skins and bare feet! it was well they coaled here, for while they were yet in sight of the huge cloud-cap't mountain above santa cruz, the wind that had favoured them so well up to now dropped to a dead calm; so, captain lennard, ordering the sails to be furled and the screw-propeller lowered, the vessel was able to proceed under steam across the equator, making almost as good time as when sailing before a good breeze--almost, but not quite, as she was a clipper under canvas. they touched once more at the cape of good hope, to fill up the coal they had expended in case of another emergency necessitating their steaming again; but, the wind being favourable when the _greenock_ got below the forties, she bowled along steadily before it under canvas, reaching melbourne within sixty days. altogether, the voyage was uneventful except for one thing, and that was the persistent bullying of mr capstan the second-mate, who, whether from his relationship to uncle jack, his superior officer, or from some other cause, had apparently conceived such a dislike to teddy that he tyrannised over him more than he seemed to think necessary either with little maitland or jones--although they suffered, too, at his hands! teddy would not complain, though, to the captain; and as for his uncle jack, he would have thought it dishonourable to breathe a word to him. he would rather have suffered the crudest torture the bully could inflict than that! however, he and little maitland matured their plans together, and coming to the conclusion that they could not very well have any satisfaction from mr capstan without telling tales, they determined to steal away from the ship when she got into harbour, and run away ashore up into the bush, val maitland retailing for teddy's benefit the most wonderful stories anent gold-digging and bush-ranging--stories that cordially agreed with his own fancy. not long, therefore, after the _greenock_ had entered within port philip heads and got up to sandridge pier, the two boys, mixing amongst the crowd of passengers landing, touters touting for various boarding- houses, and all the different sorts of people that throng round the newly-arrived at the colonial metropolis, especially at its harbour mouth, managed easily to get into the town unobserved, giving the slip most successfully to their ship and all its belongings. "and what shall we do now?" asked teddy, his companion, although smaller than himself, taking the lead, from being an older sailor and having been previously in australia. "do! why, go into the bush, of course!" promptly answered the other. "and how shall we get there?" next inquired teddy cheerfully, wishing to start off that very moment for the golden land he had dreamt of. "why, by train," said val. "by train!" echoed teddy in a voice of consternation, the idea was such a terrible come down to what he had imagined. "yes, by train; come along with me," repeated little maitland, catching hold of his arm; and turning into collins street he soon made his way to the railway depot and took a couple of tickets for ballarat. chapter eleven. the wreck. "i say," began val presently when the train was in motion. "well?" said teddy rather grumpily. he could not stomach the fact that here they were journeying along by the aid of an ordinary railway, just as they would have done in england. when val had suggested their going to the diggings he had imagined they would tramp thither through the bush, with their blankets and swag on their shoulders, as he had often read of men doing; and that they would end by picking up a big nugget of gold that would make all their fortunes! the train disposed of all these dreams in a moment; for, how could they pick up nuggets along a line of "permanent way," as jupp would have called it--a beaten track that thousands traversed every day by the aid of the potent iron-horse and a bucket of hot water? it was scandalous that val hadn't told him of the railroad! it dispelled all the romance of the expedition at once, he thought grumblingly. despite all mr capstan's bullying, he had not run away from the ship for that; so he was not at all in a mood to have any conversation with such an unprincipled fellow as val, who ought to have enlightened him before. "well?" he said again, seeing that young maitland hesitated about proceeding, his grumpy tone acting as a sort of damper to his contemplated eloquence. "i say, old fellow," then began val again, making a fresh start and blurting out his question, "have you got any money?" teddy was all sympathy now. a comrade in distress should never appeal to him in vain! so he commenced searching his pockets. "i ought to have some," he said. "father gave me a five-pound note before i left home, and uncle jack when i was in london with him tipped me a sovereign, and i haven't spent or changed either for that matter; but, now i come to think of it, they're both in my chest in the cabin. i never thought of taking them out before we left the _greenock_." "that's precious unlucky," observed val, searching his pockets too, and trying each vainly in turn. "i've only a couple of shillings left now after paying for the railway tickets. whatever shall we do?" "oh, bother that!" replied teddy sanguinely; "we sha'n't want any. the fellows i've read about who went to the diggings never had a halfpenny, but they always met with a friendly squatter or tumbled into luck in some way or other." "that was in the old days," said val in a forlorn way. "the squatters have all been cleared out, and there are only hotels and boarding-houses left, where they expect people to pay for what they have to eat." "they're a stingy lot then, and quite unlike what i've read in books about the customs in australia; but what can you expect when they have a railway!" teddy spoke in such a scornful manner of this sign of civilisation that he made val laugh, raising his spirits again. "all right, old chap!" said the little fellow. "i daresay we'll get along very well although we haven't any money to speak of with us. two shillings, you know, is something; and no doubt it will keep us from starving till we come across luck." teddy cheerfully acquiesced in this hopeful view of things; and then the two, being alone in the carriage, chatted away merrily on all sorts of subjects until they arrived at their station, which a porter sang out the name of exactly in the same fashion as if they were at home. this quite exasperated teddy, who, when he got down and looked about him, opened his eyes with even greater wonder. surely this large town couldn't be ballarat! why, that place ought to be only a collection of hastily-run-up wooden shanties, he thought, with perhaps one big store where they sold everything, provisions, and picks and shovels, with cradles for rocking the gold-dust out of the quartz and mud. where were the canvas tents of the diggers, and the claims, and all? but, yes, ballarat it was; although the only diggings were quarries worked by public mining companies with an immense mass of machinery that crushed the rock and sent streams of water through the refuse, using quicksilver to make an amalgam with--companies that were satisfied to get a grain of gold for every ton of quartz they excavated and pounded into powder, and realised a handsome dividend at that, where ordinary diggers wouldn't have had a chance of keeping themselves from starving. he and little maitland wandered about; and then, feeling hungry, exhausted all their capital in one meal, "burning their boats," like the old athenians. they would now have either to find something to do to get lodging or food, or else tramp it back to the ship. they slept that night in the open air, under some scaffolding round a new building that was being run up on the outskirts of the town; and the next morning were wandering about again, feeling very miserable and wishing they were safely back on board the _greenock_, it being just breakfast-time, when they were accosted by a stout, hairy sort of man, dressed in a species of undress uniform. "hullo, my young friends!" the man said, his voice being much pleasanter than his looks, "where do you hail from? i don't think i've ever seen you in ballarat before." "you wouldn't again if we could help it," replied teddy so heartily that the hairy man laughed as jollily as might have been expected from his musical voice. "ah! i think i know who you are," he observed, eyeing them both critically. "well, you must be a conjuror if you do," answered little maitland, who had a good deal of native impudence about him, "considering we haven't been twenty-four hours in australia!" "what say you to maitland being your name and vernon that of your companion, eh, my young cocksparrow?" said the man with a quizzical look. "am i conjuror or not?" the boys stared at each other in amazement. "well," exclaimed teddy at length, "this is certainly the funniest country i have ever been in. the diggings that i've read about in print over and over again have all vanished into nothing, and here there are railways running through the bush, with people knowing who you are twenty thousand miles away from home. it is wonderful!" "not so very wonderful after all, master teddy vernon," suggested the hairy man at this juncture. "i'm an inspector of police here, and we received a telegram last night which had been circulated in all directions from the chief office at melbourne, saying that you two young gentlemen were missing from the ship _greenock_, just arrived from england, and that any information about you would be gladly received and rewarded by captain lennard, the commander of the vessel." "i'm very glad," said teddy, interrupting any further remark the inspector might have made. "we came away suddenly because of something that occurred on board; and now i sha'n't be at all sorry to go back again, for we have no money or anything to eat. besides, the place isn't a bit like what i expected--there!" "ah! you're hungry, my young friends, and that soon takes the pluck out of a body," observed the inspector kindly. "come along with me and have some breakfast, after which i'll see you into the train for melbourne." "but we haven't got any money," said teddy, looking at him frankly in the face. "never mind that," he replied jokingly. "i daresay i can put my hand on an odd sixpence or so, and this i've no doubt your captain will pay me back." "that he will," cried teddy and val together in one breath; "besides, we've got money of our own on board the ship, only we forgot to bring it with us." "and a very good job too," said the inspector laughing, "otherwise, you might not perhaps have been so glad to meet me this morning; but come on now, lads. let us go into the town to some restaurant, and then i will see you to the depot, if i can depend on your going back." "that you can, sir," replied val drily, "if you buy the tickets for us." "oh, i'll see about that," said the inspector; and so, under his escort, they went into the nearest restaurant and had a good meal, after which the inspector took tickets for them, seeing them into the railway- carriage. the worthy policeman must also have said something to the guard, for after he had given teddy his name, at the lad's especial request, and wished them good-bye, some official or other came up and locked the door of the compartment, so that they could not have got out again if they had wished save by climbing through the window. "he needn't have been alarmed at our giving him the slip," observed little maitland. "i am only too glad to be sent back in any fashion, ignominious though it may be to be under charge of the police." "so am i," said teddy; "but the inspector is a nice fellow after all, and has behaved very well to us." he had been even more thoughtful, however, than the boys imagined; for, on the train arriving once more at the melbourne terminus, who should be there to meet them but uncle jack! "well, you're a nice pair of young scamps," was his exclamation when the door of the carriage was opened by another policeman, and they got out right in front of where he was standing. "what have you got to say for yourselves, eh, for taking leave in french fashion like that? why, you ought to be keel-hauled both of you!" but he saved them a long explanation by telling them that jones, the other midshipman, having been knocked down with a marlinespike by the second-mate, captain lennard had both him and mr capstan brought before him, when, sifting the matter to the bottom, jones had made a clean breast of the way in which he and the other youngsters had been bullied. "and the upshot of the whole affair is," continued uncle jack, "captain lennard has dismissed capstan from his ship, giving him such a discharge certificate that i don't think he'll get another second-mate's place in a hurry! as for you, my young scamps, i don't think the skipper will be very hard on you; but, teddy, you ought to have told me of the treatment you three poor beggars were receiving at that ruffian's hands all the voyage. old bill summers, the boatswain, confirmed every word that jones said, and was quite indignant about it." "i didn't like to tell, you being my uncle and over mr capstan," said teddy; "i thought it would be mean." "it is never mean to complain of injustice," replied uncle jack gravely; "still, the matter now rests with the skipper." captain lennard gave the boys a good talking to for running away, saying that it wasn't manly for young sailors to shirk their work in that way for any reason. however, considering all the circumstances of the case and the lesson they had learnt, that boys couldn't be absolutely independent of those in authority over them, he said that he had made up his mind to forgive them, telling them they might return to their duty. the passengers having all landed and the ship cleared of her home cargo, she began immediately taking in wool for her return voyage, and in a few weeks' time set sail from the heads for england--though _via_ cape horn this time, as is generally the routine with vessels sailing to australia when coming back to the channel. there were only two passengers on board, the captain and mate of a vessel that had been sold at melbourne, she having only been navigated out by these officers for the purpose, and the vessel being unencumbered by emigrants the sailors had more room to move about. teddy found it much pleasanter than on the passage out, as captain lennard was able to spare more time in teaching him his duty, a task which he was ably backed up in by uncle jack and robins, the new second-mate, a smart young seaman whom the captain had promoted from the fo'c's'le to take capstan's vacant place, and a wonderful improvement in every way to that bully. after leaving port philip, they had a fair enough passage till they got about midway between new zealand and the american continent, captain lennard taking a more northerly route than usual on account of its being the summer season in those latitudes, and the drift-ice coming up from the south in such quantities as to be dangerous if they had run down below the forties. when the _greenock_ was in longitude somewhere about west and latitude south a fierce gale sprung up from the north-east, right in their teeth, causing the lighter sails of the ship to be handed and the topgallants to be taken in. at midnight on the same day, the wind having increased in force, the upper topsails were handed and the foresail reefed, the ship running under this reduced canvas, and steering east-south-east, the direction of the wind having shifted round more to the northward. the next evening, the wind veered to the westward, and was accompanied with such terrific squalls and high confused sea that captain lennard, who had thought at first he could weather out the storm under sail, determined to get up steam, and lowered the propeller so that the ship might lay-to more easily. later on in the afternoon, however, another shift of wind took place, the gale veering to sou'-sou'-west in a squall heavier than any of its predecessors; while a heavy sea, flooding the decks, broke through the hatchway and put out the engine fires. being a smart seaman, the captain had sail set again as soon as possible, hoisting reefed topsails and foresail to lift the vessel out of the trough of the following seas, in which she rolled from side to side like a whale in its death flurry. all seemed going on well for a short time after this; and he and uncle jack thought they had weathered the worst of it, when the foresheet parted and the clew of the foresail, going through the lower foretopsail, split it in ribbons. the barque was then brought to the wind on the port tack under the lower maintopsail, and she lay-to pretty well; but the wind kept on veering and beating with frequent squalls from sou'-sou'-west to west, so that at noon a strong gale prevailed again fiercer than before. teddy had not seen anything like this; but he wasn't a bit frightened, and he was as active as the oldest sailor in lending help to carry out the captain's orders, jumping here, there, and everywhere like a monkey. the skipper was so pleased with his behaviour that he complimented him by telling uncle jack he was as good as his right hand! later on, the weather seemed calming down and all were very busy repairing damages; but, in the evening, a tremendous sea broke on board carrying away the bulwarks and chain-plates fore and aft on the port side, the accompanying violent gust of wind jerking the maintopsail as if it had been tissue paper out of the ship. immediately after this, with the first lee roll, the foremast broke off almost flush with the deck and fell with a crash over the side, taking with it everything that stood but the lower main and mizzen masts, leaving the _greenock_ rolling a hopeless wreck on the waste of raging waters. chapter twelve. easter island. the gale suddenly ceased during the night, but all hands remained on deck; for, the sea was still rolling mountains high and coming in occasionally over the broken bulwarks, causing captain lennard much anxiety about the boats, which, fortunately, the broken top hamper kept from being washed overboard. in the morning it was quite calm again; but the poor old ship presented a piteous scene of desolation, with her broken sides, and her gay array of towering masts and spreading yards and spread of canvas all swept away. teddy could nearly have cried at the sorry sight; not reflecting that through the merciful care of a divine providence watching over all not a life had been lost. with the daylight, captain lennard took a rapid review of their position. he had caused a stout tarpaulin to be lashed over the engine-room hatch, thus preventing any more water from passing down into the hold there in any perceptible quantity; still, the carrying away of the bulwarks and chain-plates had strained the ship very much on the port side, and when the carpenter sounded the well at eight bells the ship was found to be leaking fast, having already a depth of two feet in her. "man the pumps!" cried the captain; when uncle jack lending a willing hand, the crew under his encouragement were soon working away steadily with a clink-clank, clink-clank, the water pouring out through the scuppers in a continuous stream. however, on the well being sounded again presently, it was found to be flowing in equally steadily, having risen already six inches more in spite of all their pumping! what was to be done? the captain and uncle jack deliberated together, summoning the new third mate to assist their counsels; but, they could only arrive at one opinion. the ship was sinking fast, and all hands knew it as well as they themselves; for, in addition to the damage done to the sides and bulwarks, the heavy propeller had aided the waves in wrenching away the rudder, which carried with it the greater portion of the stern-post. "we must take to the boats," said captain lennard. "thank god, they are all right, and haven't been washed away in the storm!" leaving the useless pumps, therefore, for it was of no avail fatiguing the men with the unnecessary exertion any longer, all the pumping in the world being idle to save the vessel, the hands were at once set to work clearing the boats and getting them over the side. it was a ticklish job, the long-boat especially being very heavy, and there being no means, now they had lost their masts, of rigging a tackle aloft to hoist it off the chocks amidships. still, necessity teaches men alternatives in moments of great peril; so, now, knocking away the under fastenings of the boat by main force, the crew managed at last to get it free. then, improvising rollers out of pieces of the broken topmast, they contrived by pulling and hauling and shoving, all working with a will together, to launch it over the side through the hole in the bulwarks. the jolly-boat followed suit, an easier task; and then, the two being deemed sufficient to accommodate all on board, just sixty-one in number including the two passengers, captain lennard gave the order to provision them, telling the steward to bring out all the cabin stores for this purpose, there being now no further use for them on board the ship, and officers and men being entitled to share alike without distinction. the captain himself, while this was being done, saw to the ship's log and other papers, taking also out of the cabin his best chronometer and a chart or two, as well as a sextant and some mathematical instruments. these preparations for departure, though, were abruptly cut short by a warning cry from bill summers, the boatswain. "we'd better look sharp, sir," he called out to uncle jack, who was busily engaged superintending the stowage of the provisions in the two boats. "the water is arising rapidly, and is now nearly up to the 'tween-decks!" uncle jack passed on the word to the captain, who instantly came up the companion. seeing the truth of the boatswain's statement from the deeper immersion of the ship since he had gone below, he at once ordered the men down into the boats, the passengers going first; then the foremast hands; and, lastly, the officers. "mr althorp," said the captain, "you will take charge of the jolly-boat and shove off as soon as she's got her complement. i will command the long-boat myself." "aye, aye, sir," responded uncle jack, descending into the boat when she had as many in her as she could safely hold; when, shoving off from the ship's side and rowing a few strokes, the men lay on their oars, remaining some twenty yards off so as to be out of the whirlpool or eddy that would be formed when the vessel presently foundered. the long-boat now received its quota of passengers, all descending into it and seating themselves on the thwarts and in the bottom so as not to be in the way of those rowing, captain lennard waiting till the last to get into her. just as he got in, however, he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten a compass, and hastily climbed back on board to get it. "look sharp, cap'en!" shouted bill summers from the bow as the ship gave a quiver all over. "she's just about to founder." the captain was quick enough, racing back to the companion and down the stairs in two bounds, where, although the cabin was half full of water, he contrived to wrench away the "tell-tale" compass that swung over the saloon-table; and he was on the poop again with it in an instant. the instrument, however, was heavy, but he had hard work to carry it with both hands; and he managed to get to the side with it, when bending down handed it to bill summers, who stood up in the bow of the boat to receive it. at that instant, the ship gave a violent lurch, and some one sang out to shove off; when, the oars being dropped in the water, the boat was impelled some yards from the side, leaving captain lennard still on board. "what, men, abandon your captain!" teddy cried, his voice quivering with emotion. "you cowards, row back at once!" "we can't," sang out the same voice that had before ordered the men to shove off. who it was no one noticed in the general flurry, nor knew afterwards; but, while the men were hesitating which course to adopt, teddy, without saying another word, plunged overboard and swam back to the sinking _greenock_, having no difficulty in getting up the side now for it was almost flush with the water. "come on board, sir!" said he jokingly, touching his forehead with his finger, his cap having been washed off as he dived. "my poor boy!" cried captain lennard, overcome with emotion at the gallant lad's devotion; "you have only sacrificed two lives instead of one! why did you not stay in the boat?" "because," began teddy; but ere he could complete the sentence there was a violent rush of air upwards from the hold, and a loud explosion, the decks having burst. at the same time, the ship made a deep bend forwards. then, her bows rose high in the air above the waves as the stern sank with a gurgling moan; and, the next moment, teddy and captain lennard were drawn below the surface with the vessel as she foundered! teddy was nearly suffocated; but, holding his breath bravely, as jupp had taught him, and striking downwards with all his force, he presently got his head above water, inhaling the delicious air of heaven, which he thought would never more have entered his nostrils. when he came to himself, he saw the captain's body floating face downwards amongst a lot of broken planks and other debris of the wreck, by some fragment of which he must have been struck as the _greenock_ foundered. to swim forwards and seize poor captain lennard, turning him face upwards again and supporting his head above the water, was the work of a moment only with teddy; and then, holding on to a piece of broken spar, he awaited the coming up of the launch, which, now that all danger was over from the eddy rowed up to the scene, when he and the captain were lifted on board--all hands enthusiastic about the courageous action of the little hero, and none more so than captain lennard when he recovered his consciousness. "you have saved my life!" he said. "had you not been close by to turn me over when i rose to the surface i should have been drowned before the boat could have come up. i will never forget it!" nor did he, as teddy's subsequent advancement showed; but, there was no time now for congratulation or passing compliments. the peril of those preserved from the wreck was not yet over, for, they were thousands of miles away from land floating on the wide ocean! hailing the jolly-boat, captain lennard announced what he thought the proper course should be. "the best place for us to make for now is valparaiso," he said; "and if we steer to the east-nor'-east we ought to fetch it in three weeks or so under sail; that is, if our provisions hold out so long." uncle jack approving, this course was adopted; and, day after day, the boats, setting their sails, which bill summers had not forgotten to place on board, made slow but steady progress towards the wished-for goal. one morning, all were wakened up by the welcome cry of "land ho!" from the look-out forwards in the bow of the long-boat, which kept a little ahead of the jolly-boat, although always reducing sail if she forged too much forward so as not to lose her. a signal was made, therefore, telling the glad news to uncle jack and those with him; while the boat pressed onwards towards the spot where the hazy outline of a mountain could be dimly seen in the distance. "that is not the american continent," said captain lennard to the men, in order to allay any future disappointment that might be afterwards felt. "we are nearly a thousand miles off that yet. it must be easter island. that is the only land i know of hereabouts in the pacific; and, although i have never visited the place myself, i have heard that the natives are friendly to strangers. at all events we'll pay them a call; it will be a break in our long journey!" bye and bye the boats approached the shore and all landed, when a lot of copper-coloured savages came down to the beach waving branches of trees in sign of welcome. the islanders had not much to eat; but captain lennard, seeing that their provisions were well-nigh expended, determined to stop here, while sending on uncle jack with a small party to valparaiso to charter some vessel to come and fetch them all, the boats being so crowded that misfortune might await them all if they continued the voyage in such small craft. for months and months all awaited in constant expectation uncle jack's return; but, he came not, and they at length believed that he and those with him must have been lost in some hurricane that had sprung up off the chilian coast, and so had never reached valparaiso at all! they had no fear of starvation, however, the islands abounding in poultry in a semi-wild state, which they had to hunt down for themselves; for the natives lent them no assistance. indeed they were rather hostile after a time; although the englishmen were too numerous for them to attack, especially as they were always on their guard against surprise. in wandering over the island, which is only some thirty miles round, teddy was surprised, like the others, by the numbers of stone obelisks, rudely carved into the semblance of human faces and statues, which could not possibly have been executed by the present inhabitants. it is believed by geographers that easter island must have formed a portion of a vast polynesian continent peopled by some kindred race to those that designed the colossal monuments of an extinct civilisation, now almost overgrown with vegetation, that are yet to be found as evidences of a past age amidst the forests of central america. one day, more than a year after uncle jack had left, and when they had almost given up all hope of ever seeing him again, or of being relieved from their island prison--the long-boat being dashed to pieces in the surf soon after he started--a schooner in full sail was discovered making for the island. presently, she came nearer and nearer. then she hove to, and a boat was seen to be lowered from her side, and shortly afterwards being pulled in to the shore. a moment later, and uncle jack's well-known face could be seen in the stern-sheets, a glad hurrah being raised by the shipwrecked men at the sight of him. soon, uncle jack landed, and he had a long tale to tell of the jolly- boat losing her sail, and being tossed about on the ocean till picked up by an american whaler, which first took a cruise down the south seas, there detaining him many weary months before landing him at sandy point, in the straits of magellan, from whence he got finally to valparaiso after awaiting a passage for weeks. arrived here, however, he at once got in communication with the british consul, and chartered a schooner to go to easter island and fetch his comrades. uncle jack, too, mentioned that he had written home to the owners of the _greenock_, telling of her loss and the safety of all hands on their temporary island home; and he had also sent a letter to endleigh, he said, narrating all about master teddy's adventures, and saying that he was safe and well. captain lennard did not long delay the embarkation of his little band, who were glad enough to leave easter island; so, in a couple of weeks' time all landed safely in valparaiso, where they luckily caught the outgoing mail steamer as they arrived, and started off to england, rejoicing in their timely rescue and preservation from peril amid all the dangers of the deep. chapter thirteen. at home again. it was a bright august day at endleigh. there was a scent of new-mown hay in the air, and gangs of reapers were out in the fields getting in the harvest, the whirr of the threshing- machine, which the squire had lately brought down from london, making a hideous din in the meadows by the pond, where it had been set up; puffing and panting away as if its very existence were a trial, and scandalising the old-fashioned village folk--who did not believe in such new-fangled notions, and thought a judgment would come on those having to do with the machine, depriving, as it did, honest men who could wield the flail of a job! in the garden of the vicarage, the warm sun seemed to incubate a dreamy stillness, the butterflies hardly taking the trouble to fly, and the very flowers hanging down their lazy heads; while the trees drooping their leaves, as if faint and exhausted with the heat. everything out of doors looked asleep, taking a mid-day siesta. everything, that is, but the bees, which carried on their honey- gathering business as briskly as ever, utterly impervious to the warmth. indeed, perhaps they got on all the better for it, probing the petals of the white lilies yet in bloom, and investigating the cavities of the foxglove and wonderful spider-trap of the australian balsam, or else sweeping the golden dust off the discs of the gorgeous sunflowers, a regular mine of mellifluent wealth; a host of gnats and wasps and other idle insects buzzing round them all the time and pretending to be busy too, but really doing nothing at all! the heat-laden atmosphere was so still that it had that oily sort of haze that distinguishes the mirage in the east, when the air appears composed of little waving lines wavering to and fro that dazzle your eyes with their almost-imperceptible motion as you look at them; and the silence was unbroken save by the chuck-chuck-chuck of some meddlesome blackbird in the shrubbery annoying the sparrows in their nap, and the answering click-clink-tweedle-deedle-dum-tum-tweedle-um of the yellow- hammer, telling as plainly as the little songster could tell that he at all events was wide awake, while, in the far distance, there could be heard the coo of ring-doves and the melancholy lament of the cuckoo investigating the hedgerows in quest of other birds' nests wherein to lay its solitary egg, and finding itself forestalled at every turn! but if everything was so quiet without, such was not the case indoors at the vicarage. a telegram had been received from uncle jack, saying that he and teddy, having reached london in safety, would be down by the afternoon train; so, all in the house were in a state of wild excitement at meeting again those they had thought lost for ever. even the vicar was roused out of his usual placidity, although uncle jack's letter from valparaiso had told all about the wonderful escape of the survivors of the _greenock_; while, as for miss conny, who was now a perfectly grown-up young lady of eighteen, all her sedateness was gone for the moment and she was every bit as wild as the rest. "dear me, i'm sure the afternoon will never come!" exclaimed cissy, walking to the window after arranging and re-arranging the flowers in the vases on the little table in the centre of the drawing-room and on the mantel-piece for about the one-and-twentieth time. "it's the longest day i ever knew." "don't be so impatient, dear," said conny, trying to appear cool and tranquil as usual, but failing utterly in the attempt as she followed cissy to the window and looked out over the lawn; "the time will soon pass by if you'll only try and think of something else but the hour for the train to come in." "you're a fine counsellor," cried cissy laughing, as she watched conny's hands nervously twisting within each other. "why, you are as bad as i am, and can't keep still a moment! only liz is calm--as if nothing had happened or was going to happen. i declare i could bang her, as teddy used to say, for sitting there in the corner reading that heavy-looking book. i believe it must be a treatise on metaphysics or something of that sort." "mistaken for once, miss ciss," said the student, looking up with a smile. "it's a volume of travels telling all about the pacific ocean and easter island, where teddy and uncle jack stopped so long with the natives; so, it is very interesting." "well, i'd rather for my part wait and hear about the place from our own travellers," rejoined cissy impatiently. "i do wish they would come! i think i will go and see how molly is getting on with the dinner. i'm sure she'll be late if somebody doesn't look after her." "you had better leave her alone, cissy," remonstrated conny. "molly, you know, doesn't like being interfered with; and, besides, it is very early yet, for they can't be here before three o'clock at the earliest." "oh, she won't mind me, con," replied cissy as she whisked out of the room, gaily singing now, the idea of having an object or doing something banishing her ennui; "molly and i are the best of friends." however, on entering the cook's domain cissy found the old servant the reverse of amiable, for her face was red and hot with basting a little sucking-pig that was slowly revolving on the spit before a glowing fire that seemed to send out all the more heat from the fact of its being august, as if in rivalry of the sun without. "well, how are you getting on?" asked cissy cheerfully, the sight of the little roasting piggy which molly had selected for the repast that was to welcome teddy, with some dim association of the fatted calf that was killed on the return of the prodigal son, making her feel more assured that the time was speeding on, and that the expected ones would arrive soon. but, molly was not amenable to friendly overtures at the moment. "excuse me, miss, i don't want to be bothered now," she replied, turning her perspiring countenance round an instant from her task and then instantly resuming it again and pouring a ladleful of gravy over the blistering crackling of her charge. "there, now--you almost made me burn it by interrupting me!" "i'm very sorry, i'm sure, molly," said cissy apologetically; and seeing that her room was preferred to her company, she went out into the kitchen-garden to seek solace for her listlessness there. it was a vain task, though. the bees were still busily engaged hovering from flower to flower and mixing up in their pouches the different sorts of sweet flavours they extracted with their mandibles from the scabius, whose many-hued blossoms of brown, and olive, and pink, and creamy-white, scented one especial patch near the greenhouse. this corner the industrious little insects made the headquarters of their honey campaign, sallying out from thence to taste a sweet-pea or scarlet-runner and giving a passing kiss to a gaudy fuchsia, who wore a red coat and blue corporation sort of waistcoat, as they went homeward to their hive. on the ground below quite a crowd of sparrows were taking baths in turn in a flat earthenware pan which was always kept filled with water for their particular delectation; and the butterflies, too, waking up, were poising themselves in graceful attitudes on the nasturtiums that twined over the gooseberry bushes, which were running a race with the broad- leaved pumpkins and vegetable marrow plants to see who would first clamber over the wall, the red tomatoes laughing through the greenery at the fun. but there was little amusement for cissy in all this at such a period of expectancy, when her pulses throbbed with excitement; so, she turned back towards the house with a yawn, uttering her longing wish aloud, "why can't teddy come?" it being summer time, all the doors and windows were wide open to let in all the air possible, and as she retraced her steps slowly and disconsolately from the bottom of the garden at the back she heard a noise in front like the sound of wheels in the lane. to dart through the side gate instead of returning by way of the kitchen was the work of a moment; and she reached the front of the house almost as soon as conny and liz, who had only to step out on to the smooth turf from the low french windows of the drawing-room. it was only a false alarm, though, doctor jolly having driven up from visiting a patient to know when the travellers were expected. "by the three o'clock train, eh?" he said on being told; then looking at his watch he added: "why, it's close on two now. any of you going down to the station to meet them?" "yes," answered miss conny in her prim way, "i was thinking of taking the children, if you do not consider it too warm to venture out in the heat of the sun? poor papa is not so well to-day and unable to walk so far." "pooh, pooh!" ejaculated the doctor, with his hearty laugh. "call this fine day too warm; you ought to be ashamed of yourself! you need not any of you walk. go and put on your bonnets, and tell the vicar, and i'll cram you all into my old shanderadan and drive you down." the reverend mr vernon, however, besides suffering from one of his usual nervous headaches, which always came on when he was excited by anything as he was now, wished to be alone on first meeting with his lost son again, so that none might witness his emotion, being a particularly shy man amongst strangers; so, although he came out of his study on hearing doctor jolly's voice he begged him to excuse his going, while accepting his kind offer for the girls--who were ready in less than no time, miss conny losing her primness in her anxiety not to keep the doctor waiting, and the generally slow liz being for once quick in her movements. in another minute they were all packed within the hybrid vehicle, half gig, half wagonette, which the doctor only used on state occasions, and must have brought out this afternoon with the preconceived idea of its being specially wanted. "this _is_ jolly!" exclaimed cissy as they all drove off gaily down the sleepy lane, passing neither man nor beast on their way. "you are very good to us, doctor!" "ho, ho, ho! miss cissy," laughed he; "you're getting extremely familiar to address me like that. jolly, indeed! why, that's my name, ho, ho!" "i--i didn't think," stammered poor cissy rather abashed, blushing furiously, while conny took advantage of the opportunity to point out to her the evil effects of using slang words; but the little lecture of the elder sister was soon joked away by the doctor, and they arrived at the station in the best of spirits. here they met with a wonderful surprise. some one who must have heard the news somehow or other of teddy's return home had decorated the front of the old waiting-room with evergreens and sunflowers; and a sort of triumphal arch also being erected on the arrival platform of the same floral pattern. who could have done it? why, no less a person than jupp, whose black beard seemed all the blacker, surrounding his good-humoured face, as he came out of the office with mary on his arm, and a young master jupp and another little mary toddling behind them--the whilom porter no longer dressed in grimy velveteens, but in a smart black frock-coat, his sunday best, while his wife was equally spruce. "i know it's ag'in the rules, miss," he explained to conny; "but i see the telegram as said master teddy'd be here this arternoon, god bless him, and i'm thankful, that i am, he's restored safe and sound from the bottom of the sea and davy jones's locker, as we all on us thought. so says i to grigson, my old mate as was, who's in charge here now, and we detarmined as how we'd make a kind of show like to welcome of him home." "you're a right-down brick, jupp!" said doctor jolly, shaking him by the hand, while mary kissed her former nurse children all round; and, while they were all exchanging congratulations, up came the train rumbling and whistling and panting and puffing into the station, the engine bearing a union jack tied to the funnel, for jupp's interest in two of the special passengers being brought to endleigh was well-known on the line. hardly had the train come to a standstill than out jumped teddy, a trifle taller and broader across the shoulders as might have been expected from his two years of absence, but the same open-faced boy with the curly brown hair and blue eyes that all remembered so well. what a meeting it was, to be sure, and how he hugged his sisters and dr jolly and jupp and mary all round--uncle jack almost being unnoticed for the moment, although he did not appear to mind it, looking on with a sympathetic grin of delight at the general joy expressed in every countenance present! the doctor's "shanderadan" had a full cargo back to the vicarage, everybody talking to everybody all at once and none being able to finish a complete sentence--little cissy keeping tight hold of teddy's arm the while as if fearful of losing him again and thinking it might be all a dream. when they got to the house teddy was through the gate and across the lawn in two bounds, tapping at the door of the study before his father knew that he had come. like another father, the vicar was overcome with glad emotion, clasping him in his arms and embracing him, weeping as he cried in a broken voice: "this, my son, was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!" only a word more. the terrible experiences teddy had had, and the sense of discipline inculcated in him during his short training at sea, made such a change in his character that henceforth he lost his former justly-earned titles, being never more called either "pickle" or "scapegrace." he has not, however, abandoned the profession he originally adopted, in spite of its many perils and dangers, and the fact that a sailor's life is not altogether of that rose-coloured nature which story-writers usually make out. no, he still sails under his old captain in the same line, and voyages backwards and forwards between melbourne and london with praiseworthy punctuality, in the new ship captain lennard commands in place of the old _greenock_. the vessel, too, is a regular clipper in her way, beating everything that tries to compete with her, whether outwards or inwards bound. teddy looks forward some day to taking his skipper's place when he retires from active life afloat, and following the example of uncle jack, who is already a captain too in his own right; for he is as steady and trustworthy now as he was formerly impetuous and headstrong. but, mind you, he has lost none of his pluck or fearless spirit, and is the same genial, good-tempered, and happy-dispositioned boy he was in earliest childhood--knowing now the difference between true courage and mere bravado, and the value of obedience to those in authority over him. as for miss conny, in spite of her ordinary sedateness of demeanour and constant asseveration that she would only marry a clergyman like her father, she is, to use teddy's expressive diction, "spliced to a sodger," having become engaged some time since to a gallant captain in a marching regiment that was quartered for a while at bigton, within easy access of endleigh. cissy and liz are both growing up nice girls; while the vicar is still hale and hearty, giving his parishioners the benefit every sunday of a "thirdly" and sometimes "fourthly, brethren," in addition to the first and second divisions of his sermon; and never omitting his favourite "lastly" with "a word in conclusion" to wind up with. doctor jolly, to complete our list of characters, is yet to the fore with his catching laugh, as "jolly" as ever; and, jupp and mary have likewise been so tenderly dealt with by time that they hardly look a day older than on that memorable occasion when master teddy introduced himself to public notice. don't you remember? why, when he casually mentioned to the porter and reader alike, and all whom it might concern, in the most matter-of-fact way in the world, that he wanted to "do dan'ma!" the end. transcribed from the a. c. fifield edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk the way of all flesh "we know that all things work together for good to them that love god."--rom. viii. preface samuel butleter began to write "the way of all flesh" about the year , and was engaged upon it intermittently until . it is therefore, to a great extent, contemporaneous with "life and habit," and may be taken as a practical illustration of the theory of heredity embodied in that book. he did not work at it after , but for various reasons he postponed its publication. he was occupied in other ways, and he professed himself dissatisfied with it as a whole, and always intended to rewrite or at any rate to revise it. his death in prevented him from doing this, and on his death-bed he gave me clearly to understand that he wished it to be published in its present form. i found that the ms. of the fourth and fifth chapters had disappeared, but by consulting and comparing various notes and sketches, which remained among his papers, i have been able to supply the missing chapters in a form which i believe does not differ materially from that which he finally adopted. with regard to the chronology of the events recorded, the reader will do well to bear in mind that the main body of the novel is supposed to have been written in the year , and the last chapter added as a postscript in . r. a. streatfeild. chapter i when i was a small boy at the beginning of the century i remember an old man who wore knee-breeches and worsted stockings, and who used to hobble about the street of our village with the help of a stick. he must have been getting on for eighty in the year , earlier than which date i suppose i can hardly remember him, for i was born in . a few white locks hung about his ears, his shoulders were bent and his knees feeble, but he was still hale, and was much respected in our little world of paleham. his name was pontifex. his wife was said to be his master; i have been told she brought him a little money, but it cannot have been much. she was a tall, square-shouldered person (i have heard my father call her a gothic woman) who had insisted on being married to mr pontifex when he was young and too good-natured to say nay to any woman who wooed him. the pair had lived not unhappily together, for mr pontifex's temper was easy and he soon learned to bow before his wife's more stormy moods. mr pontifex was a carpenter by trade; he was also at one time parish clerk; when i remember him, however, he had so far risen in life as to be no longer compelled to work with his own hands. in his earlier days he had taught himself to draw. i do not say he drew well, but it was surprising he should draw as well as he did. my father, who took the living of paleham about the year , became possessed of a good many of old mr pontifex's drawings, which were always of local subjects, and so unaffectedly painstaking that they might have passed for the work of some good early master. i remember them as hanging up framed and glazed in the study at the rectory, and tinted, as all else in the room was tinted, with the green reflected from the fringe of ivy leaves that grew around the windows. i wonder how they will actually cease and come to an end as drawings, and into what new phases of being they will then enter. not content with being an artist, mr pontifex must needs also be a musician. he built the organ in the church with his own hands, and made a smaller one which he kept in his own house. he could play as much as he could draw, not very well according to professional standards, but much better than could have been expected. i myself showed a taste for music at an early age, and old mr pontifex on finding it out, as he soon did, became partial to me in consequence. it may be thought that with so many irons in the fire he could hardly be a very thriving man, but this was not the case. his father had been a day labourer, and he had himself begun life with no other capital than his good sense and good constitution; now, however, there was a goodly show of timber about his yard, and a look of solid comfort over his whole establishment. towards the close of the eighteenth century and not long before my father came to paleham, he had taken a farm of about ninety acres, thus making a considerable rise in life. along with the farm there went an old-fashioned but comfortable house with a charming garden and an orchard. the carpenter's business was now carried on in one of the outhouses that had once been part of some conventual buildings, the remains of which could be seen in what was called the abbey close. the house itself, embosomed in honeysuckles and creeping roses, was an ornament to the whole village, nor were its internal arrangements less exemplary than its outside was ornamental. report said that mrs pontifex starched the sheets for her best bed, and i can well believe it. how well do i remember her parlour half filled with the organ which her husband had built, and scented with a withered apple or two from the _pyrus japonica_ that grew outside the house; the picture of the prize ox over the chimney-piece, which mr pontifex himself had painted; the transparency of the man coming to show light to a coach upon a snowy night, also by mr pontifex; the little old man and little old woman who told the weather; the china shepherd and shepherdess; the jars of feathery flowering grasses with a peacock's feather or two among them to set them off, and the china bowls full of dead rose leaves dried with bay salt. all has long since vanished and become a memory, faded but still fragrant to myself. nay, but her kitchen--and the glimpses into a cavernous cellar beyond it, wherefrom came gleams from the pale surfaces of milk cans, or it may be of the arms and face of a milkmaid skimming the cream; or again her storeroom, where among other treasures she kept the famous lipsalve which was one of her especial glories, and of which she would present a shape yearly to those whom she delighted to honour. she wrote out the recipe for this and gave it to my mother a year or two before she died, but we could never make it as she did. when we were children she used sometimes to send her respects to my mother, and ask leave for us to come and take tea with her. right well she used to ply us. as for her temper, we never met such a delightful old lady in our lives; whatever mr pontifex may have had to put up with, we had no cause for complaint, and then mr pontifex would play to us upon the organ, and we would stand round him open-mouthed and think him the most wonderfully clever man that ever was born, except of course our papa. mrs pontifex had no sense of humour, at least i can call to mind no signs of this, but her husband had plenty of fun in him, though few would have guessed it from his appearance. i remember my father once sent me down to his workship to get some glue, and i happened to come when old pontifex was in the act of scolding his boy. he had got the lad--a pudding-headed fellow--by the ear and was saying, "what? lost again--smothered o' wit." (i believe it was the boy who was himself supposed to be a wandering soul, and who was thus addressed as lost.) "now, look here, my lad," he continued, "some boys are born stupid, and thou art one of them; some achieve stupidity--that's thee again, jim--thou wast both born stupid and hast greatly increased thy birthright--and some" (and here came a climax during which the boy's head and ear were swayed from side to side) "have stupidity thrust upon them, which, if it please the lord, shall not be thy case, my lad, for i will thrust stupidity from thee, though i have to box thine ears in doing so," but i did not see that the old man really did box jim's ears, or do more than pretend to frighten him, for the two understood one another perfectly well. another time i remember hearing him call the village rat-catcher by saying, "come hither, thou three-days-and-three-nights, thou," alluding, as i afterwards learned, to the rat-catcher's periods of intoxication; but i will tell no more of such trifles. my father's face would always brighten when old pontifex's name was mentioned. "i tell you, edward," he would say to me, "old pontifex was not only an able man, but he was one of the very ablest men that ever i knew." this was more than i as a young man was prepared to stand. "my dear father," i answered, "what did he do? he could draw a little, but could he to save his life have got a picture into the royal academy exhibition? he built two organs and could play the minuet in _samson_ on one and the march in _scipio_ on the other; he was a good carpenter and a bit of a wag; he was a good old fellow enough, but why make him out so much abler than he was?" "my boy," returned my father, "you must not judge by the work, but by the work in connection with the surroundings. could giotto or filippo lippi, think you, have got a picture into the exhibition? would a single one of those frescoes we went to see when we were at padua have the remotest chance of being hung, if it were sent in for exhibition now? why, the academy people would be so outraged that they would not even write to poor giotto to tell him to come and take his fresco away. phew!" continued he, waxing warm, "if old pontifex had had cromwell's chances he would have done all that cromwell did, and have done it better; if he had had giotto's chances he would have done all that giotto did, and done it no worse; as it was, he was a village carpenter, and i will undertake to say he never scamped a job in the whole course of his life." "but," said i, "we cannot judge people with so many 'ifs.' if old pontifex had lived in giotto's time he might have been another giotto, but he did not live in giotto's time." "i tell you, edward," said my father with some severity, "we must judge men not so much by what they do, as by what they make us feel that they have it in them to do. if a man has done enough either in painting, music or the affairs of life, to make me feel that i might trust him in an emergency he has done enough. it is not by what a man has actually put upon his canvas, nor yet by the acts which he has set down, so to speak, upon the canvas of his life that i will judge him, but by what he makes me feel that he felt and aimed at. if he has made me feel that he felt those things to be loveable which i hold loveable myself i ask no more; his grammar may have been imperfect, but still i have understood him; he and i are _en rapport_; and i say again, edward, that old pontifex was not only an able man, but one of the very ablest men i ever knew." against this there was no more to be said, and my sisters eyed me to silence. somehow or other my sisters always did eye me to silence when i differed from my father. "talk of his successful son," snorted my father, whom i had fairly roused. "he is not fit to black his father's boots. he has his thousands of pounds a year, while his father had perhaps three thousand shillings a year towards the end of his life. he _is_ a successful man; but his father, hobbling about paleham street in his grey worsted stockings, broad brimmed hat and brown swallow-tailed coat was worth a hundred of george pontifexes, for all his carriages and horses and the airs he gives himself." "but yet," he added, "george pontifex is no fool either." and this brings us to the second generation of the pontifex family with whom we need concern ourselves. chapter ii old mr pontifex had married in the year , but for fifteen years his wife bore no children. at the end of that time mrs pontifex astonished the whole village by showing unmistakable signs of a disposition to present her husband with an heir or heiress. hers had long ago been considered a hopeless case, and when on consulting the doctor concerning the meaning of certain symptoms she was informed of their significance, she became very angry and abused the doctor roundly for talking nonsense. she refused to put so much as a piece of thread into a needle in anticipation of her confinement and would have been absolutely unprepared, if her neighbours had not been better judges of her condition than she was, and got things ready without telling her anything about it. perhaps she feared nemesis, though assuredly she knew not who or what nemesis was; perhaps she feared the doctor had made a mistake and she should be laughed at; from whatever cause, however, her refusal to recognise the obvious arose, she certainly refused to recognise it, until one snowy night in january the doctor was sent for with all urgent speed across the rough country roads. when he arrived he found two patients, not one, in need of his assistance, for a boy had been born who was in due time christened george, in honour of his then reigning majesty. to the best of my belief george pontifex got the greater part of his nature from this obstinate old lady, his mother--a mother who though she loved no one else in the world except her husband (and him only after a fashion) was most tenderly attached to the unexpected child of her old age; nevertheless she showed it little. the boy grew up into a sturdy bright-eyed little fellow, with plenty of intelligence, and perhaps a trifle too great readiness at book learning. being kindly treated at home, he was as fond of his father and mother as it was in his nature to be of anyone, but he was fond of no one else. he had a good healthy sense of _meum_, and as little of _tuum_ as he could help. brought up much in the open air in one of the best situated and healthiest villages in england, his little limbs had fair play, and in those days children's brains were not overtasked as they now are; perhaps it was for this very reason that the boy showed an avidity to learn. at seven or eight years old he could read, write and sum better than any other boy of his age in the village. my father was not yet rector of paleham, and did not remember george pontifex's childhood, but i have heard neighbours tell him that the boy was looked upon as unusually quick and forward. his father and mother were naturally proud of their offspring, and his mother was determined that he should one day become one of the kings and councillors of the earth. it is one thing however to resolve that one's son shall win some of life's larger prizes, and another to square matters with fortune in this respect. george pontifex might have been brought up as a carpenter and succeeded in no other way than as succeeding his father as one of the minor magnates of paleham, and yet have been a more truly successful man than he actually was--for i take it there is not much more solid success in this world than what fell to the lot of old mr and mrs pontifex; it happened, however, that about the year , when george was a boy of fifteen, a sister of mrs pontifex's, who had married a mr fairlie, came to pay a few days' visit at paleham. mr fairlie was a publisher, chiefly of religious works, and had an establishment in paternoster row; he had risen in life, and his wife had risen with him. no very close relations had been maintained between the sisters for some years, and i forget exactly how it came about that mr and mrs fairlie were guests in the quiet but exceedingly comfortable house of their sister and brother-in- law; but for some reason or other the visit was paid, and little george soon succeeded in making his way into his uncle and aunt's good graces. a quick, intelligent boy with a good address, a sound constitution, and coming of respectable parents, has a potential value which a practised business man who has need of many subordinates is little likely to overlook. before his visit was over mr fairlie proposed to the lad's father and mother that he should put him into his own business, at the same time promising that if the boy did well he should not want some one to bring him forward. mrs pontifex had her son's interest too much at heart to refuse such an offer, so the matter was soon arranged, and about a fortnight after the fairlies had left, george was sent up by coach to london, where he was met by his uncle and aunt, with whom it was arranged that he should live. this was george's great start in life. he now wore more fashionable clothes than he had yet been accustomed to, and any little rusticity of gait or pronunciation which he had brought from paleham, was so quickly and completely lost that it was ere long impossible to detect that he had not been born and bred among people of what is commonly called education. the boy paid great attention to his work, and more than justified the favourable opinion which mr fairlie had formed concerning him. sometimes mr fairlie would send him down to paleham for a few days' holiday, and ere long his parents perceived that he had acquired an air and manner of talking different from any that he had taken with him from paleham. they were proud of him, and soon fell into their proper places, resigning all appearance of a parental control, for which indeed there was no kind of necessity. in return, george was always kindly to them, and to the end of his life retained a more affectionate feeling towards his father and mother than i imagine him ever to have felt again for man, woman, or child. george's visits to paleham were never long, for the distance from london was under fifty miles and there was a direct coach, so that the journey was easy; there was not time, therefore, for the novelty to wear off either on the part of the young man or of his parents. george liked the fresh country air and green fields after the darkness to which he had been so long accustomed in paternoster row, which then, as now, was a narrow gloomy lane rather than a street. independently of the pleasure of seeing the familiar faces of the farmers and villagers, he liked also being seen and being congratulated on growing up such a fine-looking and fortunate young fellow, for he was not the youth to hide his light under a bushel. his uncle had had him taught latin and greek of an evening; he had taken kindly to these languages and had rapidly and easily mastered what many boys take years in acquiring. i suppose his knowledge gave him a self-confidence which made itself felt whether he intended it or not; at any rate, he soon began to pose as a judge of literature, and from this to being a judge of art, architecture, music and everything else, the path was easy. like his father, he knew the value of money, but he was at once more ostentatious and less liberal than his father; while yet a boy he was a thorough little man of the world, and did well rather upon principles which he had tested by personal experiment, and recognised as principles, than from those profounder convictions which in his father were so instinctive that he could give no account concerning them. his father, as i have said, wondered at him and let him alone. his son had fairly distanced him, and in an inarticulate way the father knew it perfectly well. after a few years he took to wearing his best clothes whenever his son came to stay with him, nor would he discard them for his ordinary ones till the young man had returned to london. i believe old mr pontifex, along with his pride and affection, felt also a certain fear of his son, as though of something which he could not thoroughly understand, and whose ways, notwithstanding outward agreement, were nevertheless not as his ways. mrs pontifex felt nothing of this; to her george was pure and absolute perfection, and she saw, or thought she saw, with pleasure, that he resembled her and her family in feature as well as in disposition rather than her husband and his. when george was about twenty-five years old his uncle took him into partnership on very liberal terms. he had little cause to regret this step. the young man infused fresh vigour into a concern that was already vigorous, and by the time he was thirty found himself in the receipt of not less than pounds a year as his share of the profits. two years later he married a lady about seven years younger than himself, who brought him a handsome dowry. she died in , when her youngest child alethea was born, and her husband did not marry again. chapter iii in the early years of the century five little children and a couple of nurses began to make periodical visits to paleham. it is needless to say they were a rising generation of pontifexes, towards whom the old couple, their grandparents, were as tenderly deferential as they would have been to the children of the lord lieutenant of the county. their names were eliza, maria, john, theobald (who like myself was born in ), and alethea. mr pontifex always put the prefix "master" or "miss" before the names of his grandchildren, except in the case of alethea, who was his favourite. to have resisted his grandchildren would have been as impossible for him as to have resisted his wife; even old mrs pontifex yielded before her son's children, and gave them all manner of licence which she would never have allowed even to my sisters and myself, who stood next in her regard. two regulations only they must attend to; they must wipe their shoes well on coming into the house, and they must not overfeed mr pontifex's organ with wind, nor take the pipes out. by us at the rectory there was no time so much looked forward to as the annual visit of the little pontifexes to paleham. we came in for some of the prevailing licence; we went to tea with mrs pontifex to meet her grandchildren, and then our young friends were asked to the rectory to have tea with us, and we had what we considered great times. i fell desperately in love with alethea, indeed we all fell in love with each other, plurality and exchange whether of wives or husbands being openly and unblushingly advocated in the very presence of our nurses. we were very merry, but it is so long ago that i have forgotten nearly everything save that we _were_ very merry. almost the only thing that remains with me as a permanent impression was the fact that theobald one day beat his nurse and teased her, and when she said she should go away cried out, "you shan't go away--i'll keep you on purpose to torment you." one winter's morning, however, in the year , we heard the church bell tolling while we were dressing in the back nursery and were told it was for old mrs pontifex. our man-servant john told us and added with grim levity that they were ringing the bell to come and take her away. she had had a fit of paralysis which had carried her off quite suddenly. it was very shocking, the more so because our nurse assured us that if god chose we might all have fits of paralysis ourselves that very day and be taken straight off to the day of judgement. the day of judgement indeed, according to the opinion of those who were most likely to know, would not under any circumstances be delayed more than a few years longer, and then the whole world would be burned, and we ourselves be consigned to an eternity of torture, unless we mended our ways more than we at present seemed at all likely to do. all this was so alarming that we fell to screaming and made such a hullabaloo that the nurse was obliged for her own peace to reassure us. then we wept, but more composedly, as we remembered that there would be no more tea and cakes for us now at old mrs pontifex's. on the day of the funeral, however, we had a great excitement; old mr pontifex sent round a penny loaf to every inhabitant of the village according to a custom still not uncommon at the beginning of the century; the loaf was called a dole. we had never heard of this custom before, besides, though we had often heard of penny loaves, we had never before seen one; moreover, they were presents to us as inhabitants of the village, and we were treated as grown up people, for our father and mother and the servants had each one loaf sent them, but only one. we had never yet suspected that we were inhabitants at all; finally, the little loaves were new, and we were passionately fond of new bread, which we were seldom or never allowed to have, as it was supposed not to be good for us. our affection, therefore, for our old friend had to stand against the combined attacks of archaeological interest, the rights of citizenship and property, the pleasantness to the eye and goodness for food of the little loaves themselves, and the sense of importance which was given us by our having been intimate with someone who had actually died. it seemed upon further inquiry that there was little reason to anticipate an early death for anyone of ourselves, and this being so, we rather liked the idea of someone else's being put away into the churchyard; we passed, therefore, in a short time from extreme depression to a no less extreme exultation; a new heaven and a new earth had been revealed to us in our perception of the possibility of benefiting by the death of our friends, and i fear that for some time we took an interest in the health of everyone in the village whose position rendered a repetition of the dole in the least likely. those were the days in which all great things seemed far off, and we were astonished to find that napoleon buonaparte was an actually living person. we had thought such a great man could only have lived a very long time ago, and here he was after all almost as it were at our own doors. this lent colour to the view that the day of judgement might indeed be nearer than we had thought, but nurse said that was all right now, and she knew. in those days the snow lay longer and drifted deeper in the lanes than it does now, and the milk was sometimes brought in frozen in winter, and we were taken down into the back kitchen to see it. i suppose there are rectories up and down the country now where the milk comes in frozen sometimes in winter, and the children go down to wonder at it, but i never see any frozen milk in london, so i suppose the winters are warmer than they used to be. about one year after his wife's death mr pontifex also was gathered to his fathers. my father saw him the day before he died. the old man had a theory about sunsets, and had had two steps built up against a wall in the kitchen garden on which he used to stand and watch the sun go down whenever it was clear. my father came on him in the afternoon, just as the sun was setting, and saw him with his arms resting on the top of the wall looking towards the sun over a field through which there was a path on which my father was. my father heard him say "good-bye, sun; good- bye, sun," as the sun sank, and saw by his tone and manner that he was feeling very feeble. before the next sunset he was gone. there was no dole. some of his grandchildren were brought to the funeral and we remonstrated with them, but did not take much by doing so. john pontifex, who was a year older than i was, sneered at penny loaves, and intimated that if i wanted one it must be because my papa and mamma could not afford to buy me one, whereon i believe we did something like fighting, and i rather think john pontifex got the worst of it, but it may have been the other way. i remember my sister's nurse, for i was just outgrowing nurses myself, reported the matter to higher quarters, and we were all of us put to some ignominy, but we had been thoroughly awakened from our dream, and it was long enough before we could hear the words "penny loaf" mentioned without our ears tingling with shame. if there had been a dozen doles afterwards we should not have deigned to touch one of them. george pontifex put up a monument to his parents, a plain slab in paleham church, inscribed with the following epitaph:-- sacred to the memory of john pontifex who was born august th, , and died february , , in his th year, and of ruth pontifex, his wife, who was born october , , and died january , , in her th year. they were unostentatious but exemplary in the discharge of their religious, moral, and social duties. this monument was placed by their only son. chapter iv in a year or two more came waterloo and the european peace. then mr george pontifex went abroad more than once. i remember seeing at battersby in after years the diary which he kept on the first of these occasions. it is a characteristic document. i felt as i read it that the author before starting had made up his mind to admire only what he thought it would be creditable in him to admire, to look at nature and art only through the spectacles that had been handed down to him by generation after generation of prigs and impostors. the first glimpse of mont blanc threw mr pontifex into a conventional ecstasy. "my feelings i cannot express. i gasped, yet hardly dared to breathe, as i viewed for the first time the monarch of the mountains. i seemed to fancy the genius seated on his stupendous throne far above his aspiring brethren and in his solitary might defying the universe. i was so overcome by my feelings that i was almost bereft of my faculties, and would not for worlds have spoken after my first exclamation till i found some relief in a gush of tears. with pain i tore myself from contemplating for the first time 'at distance dimly seen' (though i felt as if i had sent my soul and eyes after it), this sublime spectacle." after a nearer view of the alps from above geneva he walked nine out of the twelve miles of the descent: "my mind and heart were too full to sit still, and i found some relief by exhausting my feelings through exercise." in the course of time he reached chamonix and went on a sunday to the montanvert to see the mer de glace. there he wrote the following verses for the visitors' book, which he considered, so he says, "suitable to the day and scene":-- lord, while these wonders of thy hand i see, my soul in holy reverence bends to thee. these awful solitudes, this dread repose, yon pyramid sublime of spotless snows, these spiry pinnacles, those smiling plains, this sea where one eternal winter reigns, these are thy works, and while on them i gaze i hear a silent tongue that speaks thy praise. some poets always begin to get groggy about the knees after running for seven or eight lines. mr pontifex's last couplet gave him a lot of trouble, and nearly every word has been erased and rewritten once at least. in the visitors' book at the montanvert, however, he must have been obliged to commit himself definitely to one reading or another. taking the verses all round, i should say that mr pontifex was right in considering them suitable to the day; i don't like being too hard even on the mer de glace, so will give no opinion as to whether they are suitable to the scene also. mr pontifex went on to the great st bernard and there he wrote some more verses, this time i am afraid in latin. he also took good care to be properly impressed by the hospice and its situation. "the whole of this most extraordinary journey seemed like a dream, its conclusion especially, in gentlemanly society, with every comfort and accommodation amidst the rudest rocks and in the region of perpetual snow. the thought that i was sleeping in a convent and occupied the bed of no less a person than napoleon, that i was in the highest inhabited spot in the old world and in a place celebrated in every part of it, kept me awake some time." as a contrast to this, i may quote here an extract from a letter written to me last year by his grandson ernest, of whom the reader will hear more presently. the passage runs: "i went up to the great st bernard and saw the dogs." in due course mr pontifex found his way into italy, where the pictures and other works of art--those, at least, which were fashionable at that time--threw him into genteel paroxysms of admiration. of the uffizi gallery at florence he writes: "i have spent three hours this morning in the gallery and i have made up my mind that if of all the treasures i have seen in italy i were to choose one room it would be the tribune of this gallery. it contains the venus de' medici, the explorator, the pancratist, the dancing faun and a fine apollo. these more than outweigh the laocoon and the belvedere apollo at rome. it contains, besides, the st john of raphael and many other _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the greatest masters in the world." it is interesting to compare mr pontifex's effusions with the rhapsodies of critics in our own times. not long ago a much esteemed writer informed the world that he felt "disposed to cry out with delight" before a figure by michael angelo. i wonder whether he would feel disposed to cry out before a real michael angelo, if the critics had decided that it was not genuine, or before a reputed michael angelo which was really by someone else. but i suppose that a prig with more money than brains was much the same sixty or seventy years ago as he is now. look at mendelssohn again about this same tribune on which mr pontifex felt so safe in staking his reputation as a man of taste and culture. he feels no less safe and writes, "i then went to the tribune. this room is so delightfully small you can traverse it in fifteen paces, yet it contains a world of art. i again sought out my favourite arm chair which stands under the statue of the 'slave whetting his knife' (l'arrotino), and taking possession of it i enjoyed myself for a couple of hours; for here at one glance i had the 'madonna del cardellino,' pope julius ii., a female portrait by raphael, and above it a lovely holy family by perugino; and so close to me that i could have touched it with my hand the venus de' medici; beyond, that of titian . . . the space between is occupied by other pictures of raphael's, a portrait by titian, a domenichino, etc., etc., all these within the circumference of a small semi-circle no larger than one of your own rooms. this is a spot where a man feels his own insignificance and may well learn to be humble." the tribune is a slippery place for people like mendelssohn to study humility in. they generally take two steps away from it for one they take towards it. i wonder how many chalks mendelssohn gave himself for having sat two hours on that chair. i wonder how often he looked at his watch to see if his two hours were up. i wonder how often he told himself that he was quite as big a gun, if the truth were known, as any of the men whose works he saw before him, how often he wondered whether any of the visitors were recognizing him and admiring him for sitting such a long time in the same chair, and how often he was vexed at seeing them pass him by and take no notice of him. but perhaps if the truth were known his two hours was not quite two hours. returning to mr pontifex, whether he liked what he believed to be the masterpieces of greek and italian art or no he brought back some copies by italian artists, which i have no doubt he satisfied himself would bear the strictest examination with the originals. two of these copies fell to theobald's share on the division of his father's furniture, and i have often seen them at battersby on my visits to theobald and his wife. the one was a madonna by sassoferrato with a blue hood over her head which threw it half into shadow. the other was a magdalen by carlo dolci with a very fine head of hair and a marble vase in her hands. when i was a young man i used to think these pictures were beautiful, but with each successive visit to battersby i got to dislike them more and more and to see "george pontifex" written all over both of them. in the end i ventured after a tentative fashion to blow on them a little, but theobald and his wife were up in arms at once. they did not like their father and father-in-law, but there could be no question about his power and general ability, nor about his having been a man of consummate taste both in literature and art--indeed the diary he kept during his foreign tour was enough to prove this. with one more short extract i will leave this diary and proceed with my story. during his stay in florence mr pontifex wrote: "i have just seen the grand duke and his family pass by in two carriages and six, but little more notice is taken of them than if i, who am utterly unknown here, were to pass by." i don't think that he half believed in his being utterly unknown in florence or anywhere else! chapter v fortune, we are told, is a blind and fickle foster-mother, who showers her gifts at random upon her nurslings. but we do her a grave injustice if we believe such an accusation. trace a man's career from his cradle to his grave and mark how fortune has treated him. you will find that when he is once dead she can for the most part be vindicated from the charge of any but very superficial fickleness. her blindness is the merest fable; she can espy her favourites long before they are born. we are as days and have had our parents for our yesterdays, but through all the fair weather of a clear parental sky the eye of fortune can discern the coming storm, and she laughs as she places her favourites it may be in a london alley or those whom she is resolved to ruin in kings' palaces. seldom does she relent towards those whom she has suckled unkindly and seldom does she completely fail a favoured nursling. was george pontifex one of fortune's favoured nurslings or not? on the whole i should say that he was not, for he did not consider himself so; he was too religious to consider fortune a deity at all; he took whatever she gave and never thanked her, being firmly convinced that whatever he got to his own advantage was of his own getting. and so it was, after fortune had made him able to get it. "nos te, nos facimus, fortuna, deam," exclaimed the poet. "it is we who make thee, fortune, a goddess"; and so it is, after fortune has made us able to make her. the poet says nothing as to the making of the "nos." perhaps some men are independent of antecedents and surroundings and have an initial force within themselves which is in no way due to causation; but this is supposed to be a difficult question and it may be as well to avoid it. let it suffice that george pontifex did not consider himself fortunate, and he who does not consider himself fortunate is unfortunate. true, he was rich, universally respected and of an excellent natural constitution. if he had eaten and drunk less he would never have known a day's indisposition. perhaps his main strength lay in the fact that though his capacity was a little above the average, it was not too much so. it is on this rock that so many clever people split. the successful man will see just so much more than his neighbours as they will be able to see too when it is shown them, but not enough to puzzle them. it is far safer to know too little than too much. people will condemn the one, though they will resent being called upon to exert themselves to follow the other. the best example of mr pontifex's good sense in matters connected with his business which i can think of at this moment is the revolution which he effected in the style of advertising works published by the firm. when he first became a partner one of the firm's advertisements ran thus:-- "books proper to be given away at this season.-- "the pious country parishioner, being directions how a christian may manage every day in the course of his whole life with safety and success; how to spend the sabbath day; what books of the holy scripture ought to be read first; the whole method of education; collects for the most important virtues that adorn the soul; a discourse on the lord's supper; rules to set the soul right in sickness; so that in this treatise are contained all the rules requisite for salvation. the th edition with additions. price d. *** an allowance will be made to those who give them away." before he had been many years a partner the advertisement stood as follows:-- "the pious country parishioner. a complete manual of christian devotion. price d. a reduction will be made to purchasers for gratuitous distribution." what a stride is made in the foregoing towards the modern standard, and what intelligence is involved in the perception of the unseemliness of the old style, when others did not perceive it! where then was the weak place in george pontifex's armour? i suppose in the fact that he had risen too rapidly. it would almost seem as if a transmitted education of some generations is necessary for the due enjoyment of great wealth. adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime. nevertheless a certain kind of good fortune generally attends self-made men to the last. it is their children of the first, or first and second, generation who are in greater danger, for the race can no more repeat its most successful performances suddenly and without its ebbings and flowings of success than the individual can do so, and the more brilliant the success in any one generation, the greater as a general rule the subsequent exhaustion until time has been allowed for recovery. hence it oftens happens that the grandson of a successful man will be more successful than the son--the spirit that actuated the grandfather having lain fallow in the son and being refreshed by repose so as to be ready for fresh exertion in the grandson. a very successful man, moreover, has something of the hybrid in him; he is a new animal, arising from the coming together of many unfamiliar elements and it is well known that the reproduction of abnormal growths, whether animal or vegetable, is irregular and not to be depended upon, even when they are not absolutely sterile. and certainly mr pontifex's success was exceedingly rapid. only a few years after he had become a partner his uncle and aunt both died within a few months of one another. it was then found that they had made him their heir. he was thus not only sole partner in the business but found himself with a fortune of some , pounds into the bargain, and this was a large sum in those days. money came pouring in upon him, and the faster it came the fonder he became of it, though, as he frequently said, he valued it not for its own sake, but only as a means of providing for his dear children. yet when a man is very fond of his money it is not easy for him at all times to be very fond of his children also. the two are like god and mammon. lord macaulay has a passage in which he contrasts the pleasures which a man may derive from books with the inconveniences to which he may be put by his acquaintances. "plato," he says, "is never sullen. cervantes is never petulant. demosthenes never comes unseasonably. dante never stays too long. no difference of political opinion can alienate cicero. no heresy can excite the horror of bossuet." i dare say i might differ from lord macaulay in my estimate of some of the writers he has named, but there can be no disputing his main proposition, namely, that we need have no more trouble from any of them than we have a mind to, whereas our friends are not always so easily disposed of. george pontifex felt this as regards his children and his money. his money was never naughty; his money never made noise or litter, and did not spill things on the tablecloth at meal times, or leave the door open when it went out. his dividends did not quarrel among themselves, nor was he under any uneasiness lest his mortgages should become extravagant on reaching manhood and run him up debts which sooner or later he should have to pay. there were tendencies in john which made him very uneasy, and theobald, his second son, was idle and at times far from truthful. his children might, perhaps, have answered, had they known what was in their father's mind, that he did not knock his money about as he not infrequently knocked his children. he never dealt hastily or pettishly with his money, and that was perhaps why he and it got on so well together. it must be remembered that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the relations between parents and children were still far from satisfactory. the violent type of father, as described by fielding, richardson, smollett and sheridan, is now hardly more likely to find a place in literature than the original advertisement of messrs. fairlie & pontifex's "pious country parishioner," but the type was much too persistent not to have been drawn from nature closely. the parents in miss austen's novels are less like savage wild beasts than those of her predecessors, but she evidently looks upon them with suspicion, and an uneasy feeling that _le pere de famille est capable de tout_ makes itself sufficiently apparent throughout the greater part of her writings. in the elizabethan time the relations between parents and children seem on the whole to have been more kindly. the fathers and the sons are for the most part friends in shakespeare, nor does the evil appear to have reached its full abomination till a long course of puritanism had familiarised men's minds with jewish ideals as those which we should endeavour to reproduce in our everyday life. what precedents did not abraham, jephthah and jonadab the son of rechab offer? how easy was it to quote and follow them in an age when few reasonable men or women doubted that every syllable of the old testament was taken down _verbatim_ from the mouth of god. moreover, puritanism restricted natural pleasures; it substituted the jeremiad for the paean, and it forgot that the poor abuses of all times want countenance. mr pontifex may have been a little sterner with his children than some of his neighbours, but not much. he thrashed his boys two or three times a week and some weeks a good deal oftener, but in those days fathers were always thrashing their boys. it is easy to have juster views when everyone else has them, but fortunately or unfortunately results have nothing whatever to do with the moral guilt or blamelessness of him who brings them about; they depend solely upon the thing done, whatever it may happen to be. the moral guilt or blamelessness in like manner has nothing to do with the result; it turns upon the question whether a sufficient number of reasonable people placed as the actor was placed would have done as the actor has done. at that time it was universally admitted that to spare the rod was to spoil the child, and st paul had placed disobedience to parents in very ugly company. if his children did anything which mr pontifex disliked they were clearly disobedient to their father. in this case there was obviously only one course for a sensible man to take. it consisted in checking the first signs of self- will while his children were too young to offer serious resistance. if their wills were "well broken" in childhood, to use an expression then much in vogue, they would acquire habits of obedience which they would not venture to break through till they were over twenty-one years old. then they might please themselves; he should know how to protect himself; till then he and his money were more at their mercy than he liked. how little do we know our thoughts--our reflex actions indeed, yes; but our reflex reflections! man, forsooth, prides himself on his consciousness! we boast that we differ from the winds and waves and falling stones and plants, which grow they know not why, and from the wandering creatures which go up and down after their prey, as we are pleased to say without the help of reason. we know so well what we are doing ourselves and why we do it, do we not? i fancy that there is some truth in the view which is being put forward nowadays, that it is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us. chapter vi mr pontifex was not the man to trouble himself much about his motives. people were not so introspective then as we are now; they lived more according to a rule of thumb. dr arnold had not yet sown that crop of earnest thinkers which we are now harvesting, and men did not see why they should not have their own way if no evil consequences to themselves seemed likely to follow upon their doing so. then as now, however, they sometimes let themselves in for more evil consequences than they had bargained for. like other rich men at the beginning of this century he ate and drank a good deal more than was enough to keep him in health. even his excellent constitution was not proof against a prolonged course of overfeeding and what we should now consider overdrinking. his liver would not unfrequently get out of order, and he would come down to breakfast looking yellow about the eyes. then the young people knew that they had better look out. it is not as a general rule the eating of sour grapes that causes the children's teeth to be set on edge. well-to-do parents seldom eat many sour grapes; the danger to the children lies in the parents eating too many sweet ones. i grant that at first sight it seems very unjust, that the parents should have the fun and the children be punished for it, but young people should remember that for many years they were part and parcel of their parents and therefore had a good deal of the fun in the person of their parents. if they have forgotten the fun now, that is no more than people do who have a headache after having been tipsy overnight. the man with a headache does not pretend to be a different person from the man who got drunk, and claim that it is his self of the preceding night and not his self of this morning who should be punished; no more should offspring complain of the headache which it has earned when in the person of its parents, for the continuation of identity, though not so immediately apparent, is just as real in one case as in the other. what is really hard is when the parents have the fun after the children have been born, and the children are punished for this. on these, his black days, he would take very gloomy views of things and say to himself that in spite of all his goodness to them his children did not love him. but who can love any man whose liver is out of order? how base, he would exclaim to himself, was such ingratitude! how especially hard upon himself, who had been such a model son, and always honoured and obeyed his parents though they had not spent one hundredth part of the money upon him which he had lavished upon his own children. "it is always the same story," he would say to himself, "the more young people have the more they want, and the less thanks one gets; i have made a great mistake; i have been far too lenient with my children; never mind, i have done my duty by them, and more; if they fail in theirs to me it is a matter between god and them. i, at any rate, am guiltless. why, i might have married again and become the father of a second and perhaps more affectionate family, etc., etc." he pitied himself for the expensive education which he was giving his children; he did not see that the education cost the children far more than it cost him, inasmuch as it cost them the power of earning their living easily rather than helped them towards it, and ensured their being at the mercy of their father for years after they had come to an age when they should be independent. a public school education cuts off a boy's retreat; he can no longer become a labourer or a mechanic, and these are the only people whose tenure of independence is not precarious--with the exception of course of those who are born inheritors of money or who are placed young in some safe and deep groove. mr pontifex saw nothing of this; all he saw was that he was spending much more money upon his children than the law would have compelled him to do, and what more could you have? might he not have apprenticed both his sons to greengrocers? might he not even yet do so to-morrow morning if he were so minded? the possibility of this course being adopted was a favourite topic with him when he was out of temper; true, he never did apprentice either of his sons to greengrocers, but his boys comparing notes together had sometimes come to the conclusion that they wished he would. at other times when not quite well he would have them in for the fun of shaking his will at them. he would in his imagination cut them all out one after another and leave his money to found almshouses, till at last he was obliged to put them back, so that he might have the pleasure of cutting them out again the next time he was in a passion. of course if young people allow their conduct to be in any way influenced by regard to the wills of living persons they are doing very wrong and must expect to be sufferers in the end, nevertheless the powers of will- dangling and will-shaking are so liable to abuse and are continually made so great an engine of torture that i would pass a law, if i could, to incapacitate any man from making a will for three months from the date of each offence in either of the above respects and let the bench of magistrates or judge, before whom he has been convicted, dispose of his property as they shall think right and reasonable if he dies during the time that his will-making power is suspended. mr pontifex would have the boys into the dining-room. "my dear john, my dear theobald," he would say, "look at me. i began life with nothing but the clothes with which my father and mother sent me up to london. my father gave me ten shillings and my mother five for pocket money and i thought them munificent. i never asked my father for a shilling in the whole course of my life, nor took aught from him beyond the small sum he used to allow me monthly till i was in receipt of a salary. i made my own way and i shall expect my sons to do the same. pray don't take it into your heads that i am going to wear my life out making money that my sons may spend it for me. if you want money you must make it for yourselves as i did, for i give you my word i will not leave a penny to either of you unless you show that you deserve it. young people seem nowadays to expect all kinds of luxuries and indulgences which were never heard of when i was a boy. why, my father was a common carpenter, and here you are both of you at public schools, costing me ever so many hundreds a year, while i at your age was plodding away behind a desk in my uncle fairlie's counting house. what should i not have done if i had had one half of your advantages? you should become dukes or found new empires in undiscovered countries, and even then i doubt whether you would have done proportionately so much as i have done. no, no, i shall see you through school and college and then, if you please, you will make your own way in the world." in this manner he would work himself up into such a state of virtuous indignation that he would sometimes thrash the boys then and there upon some pretext invented at the moment. and yet, as children went, the young pontifexes were fortunate; there would be ten families of young people worse off for one better; they ate and drank good wholesome food, slept in comfortable beds, had the best doctors to attend them when they were ill and the best education that could be had for money. the want of fresh air does not seem much to affect the happiness of children in a london alley: the greater part of them sing and play as though they were on a moor in scotland. so the absence of a genial mental atmosphere is not commonly recognised by children who have never known it. young people have a marvellous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances. even if they are unhappy--very unhappy--it is astonishing how easily they can be prevented from finding it out, or at any rate from attributing it to any other cause than their own sinfulness. to parents who wish to lead a quiet life i would say: tell your children that they are very naughty--much naughtier than most children. point to the young people of some acquaintances as models of perfection and impress your own children with a deep sense of their own inferiority. you carry so many more guns than they do that they cannot fight you. this is called moral influence, and it will enable you to bounce them as much as you please. they think you know and they will not have yet caught you lying often enough to suspect that you are not the unworldly and scrupulously truthful person which you represent yourself to be; nor yet will they know how great a coward you are, nor how soon you will run away, if they fight you with persistency and judgement. you keep the dice and throw them both for your children and yourself. load them then, for you can easily manage to stop your children from examining them. tell them how singularly indulgent you are; insist on the incalculable benefit you conferred upon them, firstly in bringing them into the world at all, but more particularly in bringing them into it as your own children rather than anyone else's. say that you have their highest interests at stake whenever you are out of temper and wish to make yourself unpleasant by way of balm to your soul. harp much upon these highest interests. feed them spiritually upon such brimstone and treacle as the late bishop of winchester's sunday stories. you hold all the trump cards, or if you do not you can filch them; if you play them with anything like judgement you will find yourselves heads of happy, united, god-fearing families, even as did my old friend mr pontifex. true, your children will probably find out all about it some day, but not until too late to be of much service to them or inconvenience to yourself. some satirists have complained of life inasmuch as all the pleasures belong to the fore part of it and we must see them dwindle till we are left, it may be, with the miseries of a decrepit old age. to me it seems that youth is like spring, an overpraised season--delightful if it happen to be a favoured one, but in practice very rarely favoured and more remarkable, as a general rule, for biting east winds than genial breezes. autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. fontenelle at the age of ninety, being asked what was the happiest time of his life, said he did not know that he had ever been much happier than he then was, but that perhaps his best years had been those when he was between fifty-five and seventy-five, and dr johnson placed the pleasures of old age far higher than those of youth. true, in old age we live under the shadow of death, which, like a sword of damocles, may descend at any moment, but we have so long found life to be an affair of being rather frightened than hurt that we have become like the people who live under vesuvius, and chance it without much misgiving. chapter vii a few words may suffice for the greater number of the young people to whom i have been alluding in the foregoing chapter. eliza and maria, the two elder girls, were neither exactly pretty nor exactly plain, and were in all respects model young ladies, but alethea was exceedingly pretty and of a lively, affectionate disposition, which was in sharp contrast with those of her brothers and sisters. there was a trace of her grandfather, not only in her face, but in her love of fun, of which her father had none, though not without a certain boisterous and rather coarse quasi-humour which passed for wit with many. john grew up to be a good-looking, gentlemanly fellow, with features a trifle too regular and finely chiselled. he dressed himself so nicely, had such good address, and stuck so steadily to his books that he became a favourite with his masters; he had, however, an instinct for diplomacy, and was less popular with the boys. his father, in spite of the lectures he would at times read him, was in a way proud of him as he grew older; he saw in him, moreover, one who would probably develop into a good man of business, and in whose hands the prospects of his house would not be likely to decline. john knew how to humour his father, and was at a comparatively early age admitted to as much of his confidence as it was in his nature to bestow on anyone. his brother theobald was no match for him, knew it, and accepted his fate. he was not so good-looking as his brother, nor was his address so good; as a child he had been violently passionate; now, however, he was reserved and shy, and, i should say, indolent in mind and body. he was less tidy than john, less well able to assert himself, and less skilful in humouring the caprices of his father. i do not think he could have loved anyone heartily, but there was no one in his family circle who did not repress, rather than invite his affection, with the exception of his sister alethea, and she was too quick and lively for his somewhat morose temper. he was always the scapegoat, and i have sometimes thought he had two fathers to contend against--his father and his brother john; a third and fourth also might almost be added in his sisters eliza and maria. perhaps if he had felt his bondage very acutely he would not have put up with it, but he was constitutionally timid, and the strong hand of his father knitted him into the closest outward harmony with his brother and sisters. the boys were of use to their father in one respect. i mean that he played them off against each other. he kept them but poorly supplied with pocket money, and to theobald would urge that the claims of his elder brother were naturally paramount, while he insisted to john upon the fact that he had a numerous family, and would affirm solemnly that his expenses were so heavy that at his death there would be very little to divide. he did not care whether they compared notes or no, provided they did not do so in his presence. theobald did not complain even behind his father's back. i knew him as intimately as anyone was likely to know him as a child, at school, and again at cambridge, but he very rarely mentioned his father's name even while his father was alive, and never once in my hearing afterwards. at school he was not actively disliked as his brother was, but he was too dull and deficient in animal spirits to be popular. before he was well out of his frocks it was settled that he was to be a clergyman. it was seemly that mr pontifex, the well-known publisher of religious books, should devote at least one of his sons to the church; this might tend to bring business, or at any rate to keep it in the firm; besides, mr pontifex had more or less interest with bishops and church dignitaries and might hope that some preferment would be offered to his son through his influence. the boy's future destiny was kept well before his eyes from his earliest childhood and was treated as a matter which he had already virtually settled by his acquiescence. nevertheless a certain show of freedom was allowed him. mr pontifex would say it was only right to give a boy his option, and was much too equitable to grudge his son whatever benefit he could derive from this. he had the greatest horror, he would exclaim, of driving any young man into a profession which he did not like. far be it from him to put pressure upon a son of his as regards any profession and much less when so sacred a calling as the ministry was concerned. he would talk in this way when there were visitors in the house and when his son was in the room. he spoke so wisely and so well that his listening guests considered him a paragon of right-mindedness. he spoke, too, with such emphasis and his rosy gills and bald head looked so benevolent that it was difficult not to be carried away by his discourse. i believe two or three heads of families in the neighbourhood gave their sons absolute liberty of choice in the matter of their professions--and am not sure that they had not afterwards considerable cause to regret having done so. the visitors, seeing theobald look shy and wholly unmoved by the exhibition of so much consideration for his wishes, would remark to themselves that the boy seemed hardly likely to be equal to his father and would set him down as an unenthusiastic youth, who ought to have more life in him and be more sensible of his advantages than he appeared to be. no one believed in the righteousness of the whole transaction more firmly than the boy himself; a sense of being ill at ease kept him silent, but it was too profound and too much without break for him to become fully alive to it, and come to an understanding with himself. he feared the dark scowl which would come over his father's face upon the slightest opposition. his father's violent threats, or coarse sneers, would not have been taken _au serieux_ by a stronger boy, but theobald was not a strong boy, and rightly or wrongly, gave his father credit for being quite ready to carry his threats into execution. opposition had never got him anything he wanted yet, nor indeed had yielding, for the matter of that, unless he happened to want exactly what his father wanted for him. if he had ever entertained thoughts of resistance, he had none now, and the power to oppose was so completely lost for want of exercise that hardly did the wish remain; there was nothing left save dull acquiescence as of an ass crouched between two burdens. he may have had an ill-defined sense of ideals that were not his actuals; he might occasionally dream of himself as a soldier or a sailor far away in foreign lands, or even as a farmer's boy upon the wolds, but there was not enough in him for there to be any chance of his turning his dreams into realities, and he drifted on with his stream, which was a slow, and, i am afraid, a muddy one. i think the church catechism has a good deal to do with the unhappy relations which commonly even now exist between parents and children. that work was written too exclusively from the parental point of view; the person who composed it did not get a few children to come in and help him; he was clearly not young himself, nor should i say it was the work of one who liked children--in spite of the words "my good child" which, if i remember rightly, are once put into the mouth of the catechist and, after all, carry a harsh sound with them. the general impression it leaves upon the mind of the young is that their wickedness at birth was but very imperfectly wiped out at baptism, and that the mere fact of being young at all has something with it that savours more or less distinctly of the nature of sin. if a new edition of the work is ever required i should like to introduce a few words insisting on the duty of seeking all reasonable pleasure and avoiding all pain that can be honourably avoided. i should like to see children taught that they should not say they like things which they do not like, merely because certain other people say they like them, and how foolish it is to say they believe this or that when they understand nothing about it. if it be urged that these additions would make the catechism too long i would curtail the remarks upon our duty towards our neighbour and upon the sacraments. in the place of the paragraph beginning "i desire my lord god our heavenly father" i would--but perhaps i had better return to theobald, and leave the recasting of the catechism to abler hands. chapter viii mr pontifex had set his heart on his son's becoming a fellow of a college before he became a clergyman. this would provide for him at once and would ensure his getting a living if none of his father's ecclesiastical friends gave him one. the boy had done just well enough at school to render this possible, so he was sent to one of the smaller colleges at cambridge and was at once set to read with the best private tutors that could be found. a system of examination had been adopted a year or so before theobald took his degree which had improved his chances of a fellowship, for whatever ability he had was classical rather than mathematical, and this system gave more encouragement to classical studies than had been given hitherto. theobald had the sense to see that he had a chance of independence if he worked hard, and he liked the notion of becoming a fellow. he therefore applied himself, and in the end took a degree which made his getting a fellowship in all probability a mere question of time. for a while mr pontifex senior was really pleased, and told his son he would present him with the works of any standard writer whom he might select. the young man chose the works of bacon, and bacon accordingly made his appearance in ten nicely bound volumes. a little inspection, however, showed that the copy was a second hand one. now that he had taken his degree the next thing to look forward to was ordination--about which theobald had thought little hitherto beyond acquiescing in it as something that would come as a matter of course some day. now, however, it had actually come and was asserting itself as a thing which should be only a few months off, and this rather frightened him inasmuch as there would be no way out of it when he was once in it. he did not like the near view of ordination as well as the distant one, and even made some feeble efforts to escape, as may be perceived by the following correspondence which his son ernest found among his father's papers written on gilt-edged paper, in faded ink and tied neatly round with a piece of tape, but without any note or comment. i have altered nothing. the letters are as follows:-- "my dear father,--i do not like opening up a question which has been considered settled, but as the time approaches i begin to be very doubtful how far i am fitted to be a clergyman. not, i am thankful to say, that i have the faintest doubts about the church of england, and i could subscribe cordially to every one of the thirty-nine articles which do indeed appear to me to be the _ne plus ultra_ of human wisdom, and paley, too, leaves no loop-hole for an opponent; but i am sure i should be running counter to your wishes if i were to conceal from you that i do not feel the inward call to be a minister of the gospel that i shall have to say i have felt when the bishop ordains me. i try to get this feeling, i pray for it earnestly, and sometimes half think that i have got it, but in a little time it wears off, and though i have no absolute repugnance to being a clergyman and trust that if i am one i shall endeavour to live to the glory of god and to advance his interests upon earth, yet i feel that something more than this is wanted before i am fully justified in going into the church. i am aware that i have been a great expense to you in spite of my scholarships, but you have ever taught me that i should obey my conscience, and my conscience tells me i should do wrong if i became a clergyman. god may yet give me the spirit for which i assure you i have been and am continually praying, but he may not, and in that case would it not be better for me to try and look out for something else? i know that neither you nor john wish me to go into your business, nor do i understand anything about money matters, but is there nothing else that i can do? i do not like to ask you to maintain me while i go in for medicine or the bar; but when i get my fellowship, which should not be long first, i will endeavour to cost you nothing further, and i might make a little money by writing or taking pupils. i trust you will not think this letter improper; nothing is further from my wish than to cause you any uneasiness. i hope you will make allowance for my present feelings which, indeed, spring from nothing but from that respect for my conscience which no one has so often instilled into me as yourself. pray let me have a few lines shortly. i hope your cold is better. with love to eliza and maria, i am, your affectionate son, "theobald pontifex." "dear theobald,--i can enter into your feelings and have no wish to quarrel with your expression of them. it is quite right and natural that you should feel as you do except as regards one passage, the impropriety of which you will yourself doubtless feel upon reflection, and to which i will not further allude than to say that it has wounded me. you should not have said 'in spite of my scholarships.' it was only proper that if you could do anything to assist me in bearing the heavy burden of your education, the money should be, as it was, made over to myself. every line in your letter convinces me that you are under the influence of a morbid sensitiveness which is one of the devil's favourite devices for luring people to their destruction. i have, as you say, been at great expense with your education. nothing has been spared by me to give you the advantages, which, as an english gentleman, i was anxious to afford my son, but i am not prepared to see that expense thrown away and to have to begin again from the beginning, merely because you have taken some foolish scruples into your head, which you should resist as no less unjust to yourself than to me. "don't give way to that restless desire for change which is the bane of so many persons of both sexes at the present day. "of course you needn't be ordained: nobody will compel you; you are perfectly free; you are twenty-three years of age, and should know your own mind; but why not have known it sooner, instead of never so much as breathing a hint of opposition until i have had all the expense of sending you to the university, which i should never have done unless i had believed you to have made up your mind about taking orders? i have letters from you in which you express the most perfect willingness to be ordained, and your brother and sisters will bear me out in saying that no pressure of any sort has been put upon you. you mistake your own mind, and are suffering from a nervous timidity which may be very natural but may not the less be pregnant with serious consequences to yourself. i am not at all well, and the anxiety occasioned by your letter is naturally preying upon me. may god guide you to a better judgement.--your affectionate father, g. pontifex." on the receipt of this letter theobald plucked up his spirits. "my father," he said to himself, "tells me i need not be ordained if i do not like. i do not like, and therefore i will not be ordained. but what was the meaning of the words 'pregnant with serious consequences to yourself'? did there lurk a threat under these words--though it was impossible to lay hold of it or of them? were they not intended to produce all the effect of a threat without being actually threatening?" theobald knew his father well enough to be little likely to misapprehend his meaning, but having ventured so far on the path of opposition, and being really anxious to get out of being ordained if he could, he determined to venture farther. he accordingly wrote the following: "my dear father,--you tell me--and i heartily thank you--that no one will compel me to be ordained. i knew you would not press ordination upon me if my conscience was seriously opposed to it; i have therefore resolved on giving up the idea, and believe that if you will continue to allow me what you do at present, until i get my fellowship, which should not be long, i will then cease putting you to further expense. i will make up my mind as soon as possible what profession i will adopt, and will let you know at once.--your affectionate son, theobald pontifex." the remaining letter, written by return of post, must now be given. it has the merit of brevity. "dear theobald,--i have received yours. i am at a loss to conceive its motive, but am very clear as to its effect. you shall not receive a single sixpence from me till you come to your senses. should you persist in your folly and wickedness, i am happy to remember that i have yet other children whose conduct i can depend upon to be a source of credit and happiness to me.--your affectionate but troubled father, g. pontifex." i do not know the immediate sequel to the foregoing correspondence, but it all came perfectly right in the end. either theobald's heart failed him, or he interpreted the outward shove which his father gave him, as the inward call for which i have no doubt he prayed with great earnestness--for he was a firm believer in the efficacy of prayer. and so am i under certain circumstances. tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he has wisely refrained from saying whether they are good things or bad things. it might perhaps be as well if the world were to dream of, or even become wide awake to, some of the things that are being wrought by prayer. but the question is avowedly difficult. in the end theobald got his fellowship by a stroke of luck very soon after taking his degree, and was ordained in the autumn of the same year, . chapter ix mr allaby was rector of crampsford, a village a few miles from cambridge. he, too, had taken a good degree, had got a fellowship, and in the course of time had accepted a college living of about pounds a year and a house. his private income did not exceed pounds a year. on resigning his fellowship he married a woman a good deal younger than himself who bore him eleven children, nine of whom--two sons and seven daughters--were living. the two eldest daughters had married fairly well, but at the time of which i am now writing there were still five unmarried, of ages varying between thirty and twenty-two--and the sons were neither of them yet off their father's hands. it was plain that if anything were to happen to mr allaby the family would be left poorly off, and this made both mr and mrs allaby as unhappy as it ought to have made them. reader, did you ever have an income at best none too large, which died with you all except pounds a year? did you ever at the same time have two sons who must be started in life somehow, and five daughters still unmarried for whom you would only be too thankful to find husbands--if you knew how to find them? if morality is that which, on the whole, brings a man peace in his declining years--if, that is to say, it is not an utter swindle, can you under these circumstances flatter yourself that you have led a moral life? and this, even though your wife has been so good a woman that you have not grown tired of her, and has not fallen into such ill-health as lowers your own health in sympathy; and though your family has grown up vigorous, amiable, and blessed with common sense. i know many old men and women who are reputed moral, but who are living with partners whom they have long ceased to love, or who have ugly disagreeable maiden daughters for whom they have never been able to find husbands--daughters whom they loathe and by whom they are loathed in secret, or sons whose folly or extravagance is a perpetual wear and worry to them. is it moral for a man to have brought such things upon himself? someone should do for morals what that old pecksniff bacon has obtained the credit of having done for science. but to return to mr and mrs allaby. mrs allaby talked about having married two of her daughters as though it had been the easiest thing in the world. she talked in this way because she heard other mothers do so, but in her heart of hearts she did not know how she had done it, nor indeed, if it had been her doing at all. first there had been a young man in connection with whom she had tried to practise certain manoeuvres which she had rehearsed in imagination over and over again, but which she found impossible to apply in practice. then there had been weeks of a _wurra wurra_ of hopes and fears and little stratagems which as often as not proved injudicious, and then somehow or other in the end, there lay the young man bound and with an arrow through his heart at her daughter's feet. it seemed to her to be all a fluke which she could have little or no hope of repeating. she had indeed repeated it once, and might perhaps with good luck repeat it yet once again--but five times over! it was awful: why she would rather have three confinements than go through the wear and tear of marrying a single daughter. nevertheless it had got to be done, and poor mrs allaby never looked at a young man without an eye to his being a future son-in-law. papas and mammas sometimes ask young men whether their intentions are honourable towards their daughters. i think young men might occasionally ask papas and mammas whether their intentions are honourable before they accept invitations to houses where there are still unmarried daughters. "i can't afford a curate, my dear," said mr allaby to his wife when the pair were discussing what was next to be done. "it will be better to get some young man to come and help me for a time upon a sunday. a guinea a sunday will do this, and we can chop and change till we get someone who suits." so it was settled that mr allaby's health was not so strong as it had been, and that he stood in need of help in the performance of his sunday duty. mrs allaby had a great friend--a certain mrs cowey, wife of the celebrated professor cowey. she was what was called a truly spiritually minded woman, a trifle portly, with an incipient beard, and an extensive connection among undergraduates, more especially among those who were inclined to take part in the great evangelical movement which was then at its height. she gave evening parties once a fortnight at which prayer was part of the entertainment. she was not only spiritually minded, but, as enthusiastic mrs allaby used to exclaim, she was a thorough woman of the world at the same time and had such a fund of strong masculine good sense. she too had daughters, but, as she used to say to mrs allaby, she had been less fortunate than mrs allaby herself, for one by one they had married and left her so that her old age would have been desolate indeed if her professor had not been spared to her. mrs cowey, of course, knew the run of all the bachelor clergy in the university, and was the very person to assist mrs allaby in finding an eligible assistant for her husband, so this last named lady drove over one morning in the november of , by arrangement, to take an early dinner with mrs cowey and spend the afternoon. after dinner the two ladies retired together, and the business of the day began. how they fenced, how they saw through one another, with what loyalty they pretended not to see through one another, with what gentle dalliance they prolonged the conversation discussing the spiritual fitness of this or that deacon, and the other pros and cons connected with him after his spiritual fitness had been disposed of, all this must be left to the imagination of the reader. mrs cowey had been so accustomed to scheming on her own account that she would scheme for anyone rather than not scheme at all. many mothers turned to her in their hour of need and, provided they were spiritually minded, mrs cowey never failed to do her best for them; if the marriage of a young bachelor of arts was not made in heaven, it was probably made, or at any rate attempted, in mrs cowey's drawing-room. on the present occasion all the deacons of the university in whom there lurked any spark of promise were exhaustively discussed, and the upshot was that our friend theobald was declared by mrs cowey to be about the best thing she could do that afternoon. "i don't know that he's a particularly fascinating young man, my dear," said mrs cowey, "and he's only a second son, but then he's got his fellowship, and even the second son of such a man as mr pontifex the publisher should have something very comfortable." "why yes, my dear," rejoined mrs allaby complacently, "that's what one rather feels." chapter x the interview, like all other good things had to come to an end; the days were short, and mrs allaby had a six miles' drive to crampsford. when she was muffled up and had taken her seat, mr allaby's _factotum_, james, could perceive no change in her appearance, and little knew what a series of delightful visions he was driving home along with his mistress. professor cowey had published works through theobald's father, and theobald had on this account been taken in tow by mrs cowey from the beginning of his university career. she had had her eye upon him for some time past, and almost as much felt it her duty to get him off her list of young men for whom wives had to be provided, as poor mrs allaby did to try and get a husband for one of her daughters. she now wrote and asked him to come and see her, in terms that awakened his curiosity. when he came she broached the subject of mr allaby's failing health, and after the smoothing away of such difficulties as were only mrs cowey's due, considering the interest she had taken, it was allowed to come to pass that theobald should go to crampsford for six successive sundays and take the half of mr allaby's duty at half a guinea a sunday, for mrs cowey cut down the usual stipend mercilessly, and theobald was not strong enough to resist. ignorant of the plots which were being prepared for his peace of mind and with no idea beyond that of earning his three guineas, and perhaps of astonishing the inhabitants of crampsford by his academic learning, theobald walked over to the rectory one sunday morning early in december--a few weeks only after he had been ordained. he had taken a great deal of pains with his sermon, which was on the subject of geology--then coming to the fore as a theological bugbear. he showed that so far as geology was worth anything at all--and he was too liberal entirely to pooh-pooh it--it confirmed the absolutely historical character of the mosaic account of the creation as given in genesis. any phenomena which at first sight appeared to make against this view were only partial phenomena and broke down upon investigation. nothing could be in more excellent taste, and when theobald adjourned to the rectory, where he was to dine between the services, mr allaby complimented him warmly upon his debut, while the ladies of the family could hardly find words with which to express their admiration. theobald knew nothing about women. the only women he had been thrown in contact with were his sisters, two of whom were always correcting him, and a few school friends whom these had got their father to ask to elmhurst. these young ladies had either been so shy that they and theobald had never amalgamated, or they had been supposed to be clever and had said smart things to him. he did not say smart things himself and did not want other people to say them. besides, they talked about music--and he hated music--or pictures--and he hated pictures--or books--and except the classics he hated books. and then sometimes he was wanted to dance with them, and he did not know how to dance, and did not want to know. at mrs cowey's parties again he had seen some young ladies and had been introduced to them. he had tried to make himself agreeable, but was always left with the impression that he had not been successful. the young ladies of mrs cowey's set were by no means the most attractive that might have been found in the university, and theobald may be excused for not losing his heart to the greater number of them, while if for a minute or two he was thrown in with one of the prettier and more agreeable girls he was almost immediately cut out by someone less bashful than himself, and sneaked off, feeling as far as the fair sex was concerned, like the impotent man at the pool of bethesda. what a really nice girl might have done with him i cannot tell, but fate had thrown none such in his way except his youngest sister alethea, whom he might perhaps have liked if she had not been his sister. the result of his experience was that women had never done him any good and he was not accustomed to associate them with any pleasure; if there was a part of hamlet in connection with them it had been so completely cut out in the edition of the play in which he was required to act that he had come to disbelieve in its existence. as for kissing, he had never kissed a woman in his life except his sister--and my own sisters when we were all small children together. over and above these kisses, he had until quite lately been required to imprint a solemn flabby kiss night and morning upon his father's cheek, and this, to the best of my belief, was the extent of theobald's knowledge in the matter of kissing, at the time of which i am now writing. the result of the foregoing was that he had come to dislike women, as mysterious beings whose ways were not as his ways, nor their thoughts as his thoughts. with these antecedents theobald naturally felt rather bashful on finding himself the admired of five strange young ladies. i remember when i was a boy myself i was once asked to take tea at a girls' school where one of my sisters was boarding. i was then about twelve years old. everything went off well during tea-time, for the lady principal of the establishment was present. but there came a time when she went away and i was left alone with the girls. the moment the mistress's back was turned the head girl, who was about my own age, came up, pointed her finger at me, made a face and said solemnly, "a na-a-sty bo-o-y!" all the girls followed her in rotation making the same gesture and the same reproach upon my being a boy. it gave me a great scare. i believe i cried, and i know it was a long time before i could again face a girl without a strong desire to run away. theobald felt at first much as i had myself done at the girls' school, but the miss allabys did not tell him he was a nasty bo-o-oy. their papa and mamma were so cordial and they themselves lifted him so deftly over conversational stiles that before dinner was over theobald thought the family to be a really very charming one, and felt as though he were being appreciated in a way to which he had not hitherto been accustomed. with dinner his shyness wore off. he was by no means plain, his academic prestige was very fair. there was nothing about him to lay hold of as unconventional or ridiculous; the impression he created upon the young ladies was quite as favourable as that which they had created upon himself; for they knew not much more about men than he about women. as soon as he was gone, the harmony of the establishment was broken by a storm which arose upon the question which of them it should be who should become mrs pontifex. "my dears," said their father, when he saw that they did not seem likely to settle the matter among themselves, "wait till to-morrow, and then play at cards for him." having said which he retired to his study, where he took a nightly glass of whisky and a pipe of tobacco. chapter xi the next morning saw theobald in his rooms coaching a pupil, and the miss allabys in the eldest miss allaby's bedroom playing at cards with theobald for the stakes. the winner was christina, the second unmarried daughter, then just twenty- seven years old and therefore four years older than theobald. the younger sisters complained that it was throwing a husband away to let christina try and catch him, for she was so much older that she had no chance; but christina showed fight in a way not usual with her, for she was by nature yielding and good tempered. her mother thought it better to back her up, so the two dangerous ones were packed off then and there on visits to friends some way off, and those alone allowed to remain at home whose loyalty could be depended upon. the brothers did not even suspect what was going on and believed their father's getting assistance was because he really wanted it. the sisters who remained at home kept their words and gave christina all the help they could, for over and above their sense of fair play they reflected that the sooner theobald was landed, the sooner another deacon might be sent for who might be won by themselves. so quickly was all managed that the two unreliable sisters were actually out of the house before theobald's next visit--which was on the sunday following his first. this time theobald felt quite at home in the house of his new friends--for so mrs allaby insisted that he should call them. she took, she said, such a motherly interest in young men, especially in clergymen. theobald believed every word she said, as he had believed his father and all his elders from his youth up. christina sat next him at dinner and played her cards no less judiciously than she had played them in her sister's bedroom. she smiled (and her smile was one of her strong points) whenever he spoke to her; she went through all her little artlessnesses and set forth all her little wares in what she believed to be their most taking aspect. who can blame her? theobald was not the ideal she had dreamed of when reading byron upstairs with her sisters, but he was an actual within the bounds of possibility, and after all not a bad actual as actuals went. what else could she do? run away? she dared not. marry beneath her and be considered a disgrace to her family? she dared not. remain at home and become an old maid and be laughed at? not if she could help it. she did the only thing that could reasonably be expected. she was drowning; theobald might be only a straw, but she could catch at him and catch at him she accordingly did. if the course of true love never runs smooth, the course of true match- making sometimes does so. the only ground for complaint in the present case was that it was rather slow. theobald fell into the part assigned to him more easily than mrs cowey and mrs allaby had dared to hope. he was softened by christina's winning manners: he admired the high moral tone of everything she said; her sweetness towards her sisters and her father and mother, her readiness to undertake any small burden which no one else seemed willing to undertake, her sprightly manners, all were fascinating to one who, though unused to woman's society, was still a human being. he was flattered by her unobtrusive but obviously sincere admiration for himself; she seemed to see him in a more favourable light, and to understand him better than anyone outside of this charming family had ever done. instead of snubbing him as his father, brother and sisters did, she drew him out, listened attentively to all he chose to say, and evidently wanted him to say still more. he told a college friend that he knew he was in love now; he really was, for he liked miss allaby's society much better than that of his sisters. over and above the recommendations already enumerated, she had another in the possession of what was supposed to be a very beautiful contralto voice. her voice was certainly contralto, for she could not reach higher than d in the treble; its only defect was that it did not go correspondingly low in the bass: in those days, however, a contralto voice was understood to include even a soprano if the soprano could not reach soprano notes, and it was not necessary that it should have the quality which we now assign to contralto. what her voice wanted in range and power was made up in the feeling with which she sang. she had transposed "angels ever bright and fair" into a lower key, so as to make it suit her voice, thus proving, as her mamma said, that she had a thorough knowledge of the laws of harmony; not only did she do this, but at every pause added an embellishment of arpeggios from one end to the other of the keyboard, on a principle which her governess had taught her; she thus added life and interest to an air which everyone--so she said--must feel to be rather heavy in the form in which handel left it. as for her governess, she indeed had been a rarely accomplished musician: she was a pupil of the famous dr clarke of cambridge, and used to play the overture to _atalanta_, arranged by mazzinghi. nevertheless, it was some time before theobald could bring his courage to the sticking point of actually proposing. he made it quite clear that he believed himself to be much smitten, but month after month went by, during which there was still so much hope in theobald that mr allaby dared not discover that he was able to do his duty for himself, and was getting impatient at the number of half-guineas he was disbursing--and yet there was no proposal. christina's mother assured him that she was the best daughter in the whole world, and would be a priceless treasure to the man who married her. theobald echoed mrs allaby's sentiments with warmth, but still, though he visited the rectory two or three times a week, besides coming over on sundays--he did not propose. "she is heart-whole yet, dear mr pontifex," said mrs allaby, one day, "at least i believe she is. it is not for want of admirers--oh! no--she has had her full share of these, but she is too, too difficult to please. i think, however, she would fall before a _great and good_ man." and she looked hard at theobald, who blushed; but the days went by and still he did not propose. another time theobald actually took mrs cowey into his confidence, and the reader may guess what account of christina he got from her. mrs cowey tried the jealousy manoeuvre and hinted at a possible rival. theobald was, or pretended to be, very much alarmed; a little rudimentary pang of jealousy shot across his bosom and he began to believe with pride that he was not only in love, but desperately in love or he would never feel so jealous. nevertheless, day after day still went by and he did not propose. the allabys behaved with great judgement. they humoured him till his retreat was practically cut off, though he still flattered himself that it was open. one day about six months after theobald had become an almost daily visitor at the rectory the conversation happened to turn upon long engagements. "i don't like long engagements, mr allaby, do you?" said theobald imprudently. "no," said mr allaby in a pointed tone, "nor long courtships," and he gave theobald a look which he could not pretend to misunderstand. he went back to cambridge as fast as he could go, and in dread of the conversation with mr allaby which he felt to be impending, composed the following letter which he despatched that same afternoon by a private messenger to crampsford. the letter was as follows:-- "dearest miss christina,--i do not know whether you have guessed the feelings that i have long entertained for you--feelings which i have concealed as much as i could through fear of drawing you into an engagement which, if you enter into it, must be prolonged for a considerable time, but, however this may be, it is out of my power to conceal them longer; i love you, ardently, devotedly, and send these few lines asking you to be my wife, because i dare not trust my tongue to give adequate expression to the magnitude of my affection for you. "i cannot pretend to offer you a heart which has never known either love or disappointment. i have loved already, and my heart was years in recovering from the grief i felt at seeing her become another's. that, however, is over, and having seen yourself i rejoice over a disappointment which i thought at one time would have been fatal to me. it has left me a less ardent lover than i should perhaps otherwise have been, but it has increased tenfold my power of appreciating your many charms and my desire that you should become my wife. please let me have a few lines of answer by the bearer to let me know whether or not my suit is accepted. if you accept me i will at once come and talk the matter over with mr and mrs allaby, whom i shall hope one day to be allowed to call father and mother. "i ought to warn you that in the event of your consenting to be my wife it may be years before our union can be consummated, for i cannot marry till a college living is offered me. if, therefore, you see fit to reject me, i shall be grieved rather than surprised.--ever most devotedly yours, "theobald pontifex." and this was all that his public school and university education had been able to do for theobald! nevertheless for his own part he thought his letter rather a good one, and congratulated himself in particular upon his cleverness in inventing the story of a previous attachment, behind which he intended to shelter himself if christina should complain of any lack of fervour in his behaviour to her. i need not give christina's answer, which of course was to accept. much as theobald feared old mr allaby i do not think he would have wrought up his courage to the point of actually proposing but for the fact of the engagement being necessarily a long one, during which a dozen things might turn up to break it off. however much he may have disapproved of long engagements for other people, i doubt whether he had any particular objection to them in his own case. a pair of lovers are like sunset and sunrise: there are such things every day but we very seldom see them. theobald posed as the most ardent lover imaginable, but, to use the vulgarism for the moment in fashion, it was all "side." christina was in love, as indeed she had been twenty times already. but then christina was impressionable and could not even hear the name "missolonghi" mentioned without bursting into tears. when theobald accidentally left his sermon case behind him one sunday, she slept with it in her bosom and was forlorn when she had as it were to disgorge it on the following sunday; but i do not think theobald ever took so much as an old toothbrush of christina's to bed with him. why, i knew a young man once who got hold of his mistress's skates and slept with them for a fortnight and cried when he had to give them up. chapter xii theobald's engagement was all very well as far as it went, but there was an old gentleman with a bald head and rosy cheeks in a counting-house in paternoster row who must sooner or later be told of what his son had in view, and theobald's heart fluttered when he asked himself what view this old gentleman was likely to take of the situation. the murder, however, had to come out, and theobald and his intended, perhaps imprudently, resolved on making a clean breast of it at once. he wrote what he and christina, who helped him to draft the letter, thought to be everything that was filial, and expressed himself as anxious to be married with the least possible delay. he could not help saying this, as christina was at his shoulder, and he knew it was safe, for his father might be trusted not to help him. he wound up by asking his father to use any influence that might be at his command to help him to get a living, inasmuch as it might be years before a college living fell vacant, and he saw no other chance of being able to marry, for neither he nor his intended had any money except theobald's fellowship, which would, of course, lapse on his taking a wife. any step of theobald's was sure to be objectionable in his father's eyes, but that at three-and-twenty he should want to marry a penniless girl who was four years older than himself, afforded a golden opportunity which the old gentleman--for so i may now call him, as he was at least sixty--embraced with characteristic eagerness. "the ineffable folly," he wrote, on receiving his son's letter, "of your fancied passion for miss allaby fills me with the gravest apprehensions. making every allowance for a lover's blindness, i still have no doubt that the lady herself is a well-conducted and amiable young person, who would not disgrace our family, but were she ten times more desirable as a daughter-in-law than i can allow myself to hope, your joint poverty is an insuperable objection to your marriage. i have four other children besides yourself, and my expenses do not permit me to save money. this year they have been especially heavy, indeed i have had to purchase two not inconsiderable pieces of land which happened to come into the market and were necessary to complete a property which i have long wanted to round off in this way. i gave you an education regardless of expense, which has put you in possession of a comfortable income, at an age when many young men are dependent. i have thus started you fairly in life, and may claim that you should cease to be a drag upon me further. long engagements are proverbially unsatisfactory, and in the present case the prospect seems interminable. what interest, pray, do you suppose i have that i could get a living for you? can i go up and down the country begging people to provide for my son because he has taken it into his head to want to get married without sufficient means? "i do not wish to write unkindly, nothing can be farther from my real feelings towards you, but there is often more kindness in plain speaking than in any amount of soft words which can end in no substantial performance. of course, i bear in mind that you are of age, and can therefore please yourself, but if you choose to claim the strict letter of the law, and act without consideration for your father's feelings, you must not be surprised if you one day find that i have claimed a like liberty for myself.--believe me, your affectionate father, g. pontifex." i found this letter along with those already given and a few more which i need not give, but throughout which the same tone prevails, and in all of which there is the more or less obvious shake of the will near the end of the letter. remembering theobald's general dumbness concerning his father for the many years i knew him after his father's death, there was an eloquence in the preservation of the letters and in their endorsement "letters from my father," which seemed to have with it some faint odour of health and nature. theobald did not show his father's letter to christina, nor, indeed, i believe to anyone. he was by nature secretive, and had been repressed too much and too early to be capable of railing or blowing off steam where his father was concerned. his sense of wrong was still inarticulate, felt as a dull dead weight ever present day by day, and if he woke at night-time still continually present, but he hardly knew what it was. i was about the closest friend he had, and i saw but little of him, for i could not get on with him for long together. he said i had no reverence; whereas i thought that i had plenty of reverence for what deserved to be revered, but that the gods which he deemed golden were in reality made of baser metal. he never, as i have said, complained of his father to me, and his only other friends were, like himself, staid and prim, of evangelical tendencies, and deeply imbued with a sense of the sinfulness of any act of insubordination to parents--good young men, in fact--and one cannot blow off steam to a good young man. when christina was informed by her lover of his father's opposition, and of the time which must probably elapse before they could be married, she offered--with how much sincerity i know not--to set him free from his engagement; but theobald declined to be released--"not at least," as he said, "at present." christina and mrs allaby knew they could manage him, and on this not very satisfactory footing the engagement was continued. his engagement and his refusal to be released at once raised theobald in his own good opinion. dull as he was, he had no small share of quiet self-approbation. he admired himself for his university distinction, for the purity of his life (i said of him once that if he had only a better temper he would be as innocent as a new-laid egg) and for his unimpeachable integrity in money matters. he did not despair of advancement in the church when he had once got a living, and of course it was within the bounds of possibility that he might one day become a bishop, and christina said she felt convinced that this would ultimately be the case. as was natural for the daughter and intended wife of a clergyman, christina's thoughts ran much upon religion, and she was resolved that even though an exalted position in this world were denied to her and theobald, their virtues should be fully appreciated in the next. her religious opinions coincided absolutely with theobald's own, and many a conversation did she have with him about the glory of god, and the completeness with which they would devote themselves to it, as soon as theobald had got his living and they were married. so certain was she of the great results which would then ensue that she wondered at times at the blindness shown by providence towards its own truest interests in not killing off the rectors who stood between theobald and his living a little faster. in those days people believed with a simple downrightness which i do not observe among educated men and women now. it had never so much as crossed theobald's mind to doubt the literal accuracy of any syllable in the bible. he had never seen any book in which this was disputed, nor met with anyone who doubted it. true, there was just a little scare about geology, but there was nothing in it. if it was said that god made the world in six days, why he did make it in six days, neither in more nor less; if it was said that he put adam to sleep, took out one of his ribs and made a woman of it, why it was so as a matter of course. he, adam, went to sleep as it might be himself, theobald pontifex, in a garden, as it might be the garden at crampsford rectory during the summer months when it was so pretty, only that it was larger, and had some tame wild animals in it. then god came up to him, as it might be mr allaby or his father, dexterously took out one of his ribs without waking him, and miraculously healed the wound so that no trace of the operation remained. finally, god had taken the rib perhaps into the greenhouse, and had turned it into just such another young woman as christina. that was how it was done; there was neither difficulty nor shadow of difficulty about the matter. could not god do anything he liked, and had he not in his own inspired book told us that he had done this? this was the average attitude of fairly educated young men and women towards the mosaic cosmogony fifty, forty, or even twenty years ago. the combating of infidelity, therefore, offered little scope for enterprising young clergymen, nor had the church awakened to the activity which she has since displayed among the poor in our large towns. these were then left almost without an effort at resistance or co-operation to the labours of those who had succeeded wesley. missionary work indeed in heathen countries was being carried on with some energy, but theobald did not feel any call to be a missionary. christina suggested this to him more than once, and assured him of the unspeakable happiness it would be to her to be the wife of a missionary, and to share his dangers; she and theobald might even be martyred; of course they would be martyred simultaneously, and martyrdom many years hence as regarded from the arbour in the rectory garden was not painful, it would ensure them a glorious future in the next world, and at any rate posthumous renown in this--even if they were not miraculously restored to life again--and such things had happened ere now in the case of martyrs. theobald, however, had not been kindled by christina's enthusiasm, so she fell back upon the church of rome--an enemy more dangerous, if possible, than paganism itself. a combat with romanism might even yet win for her and theobald the crown of martyrdom. true, the church of rome was tolerably quiet just then, but it was the calm before the storm, of this she was assured, with a conviction deeper than she could have attained by any argument founded upon mere reason. "we, dearest theobald," she exclaimed, "will be ever faithful. we will stand firm and support one another even in the hour of death itself. god in his mercy may spare us from being burnt alive. he may or may not do so. oh lord" (and she turned her eyes prayerfully to heaven), "spare my theobald, or grant that he may be beheaded." "my dearest," said theobald gravely, "do not let us agitate ourselves unduly. if the hour of trial comes we shall be best prepared to meet it by having led a quiet unobtrusive life of self-denial and devotion to god's glory. such a life let us pray god that it may please him to enable us to pray that we may lead." "dearest theobald," exclaimed christina, drying the tears that had gathered in her eyes, "you are always, always right. let us be self-denying, pure, upright, truthful in word and deed." she clasped her hands and looked up to heaven as she spoke. "dearest," rejoined her lover, "we have ever hitherto endeavoured to be all of these things; we have not been worldly people; let us watch and pray that we may so continue to the end." the moon had risen and the arbour was getting damp, so they adjourned further aspirations for a more convenient season. at other times christina pictured herself and theobald as braving the scorn of almost every human being in the achievement of some mighty task which should redound to the honour of her redeemer. she could face anything for this. but always towards the end of her vision there came a little coronation scene high up in the golden regions of the heavens, and a diadem was set upon her head by the son of man himself, amid a host of angels and archangels who looked on with envy and admiration--and here even theobald himself was out of it. if there could be such a thing as the mammon of righteousness christina would have assuredly made friends with it. her papa and mamma were very estimable people and would in the course of time receive heavenly mansions in which they would be exceedingly comfortable; so doubtless would her sisters; so perhaps, even might her brothers; but for herself she felt that a higher destiny was preparing, which it was her duty never to lose sight of. the first step towards it would be her marriage with theobald. in spite, however, of these flights of religious romanticism, christina was a good-tempered kindly-natured girl enough, who, if she had married a sensible layman--we will say a hotel-keeper--would have developed into a good landlady and been deservedly popular with her guests. such was theobald's engaged life. many a little present passed between the pair, and many a small surprise did they prepare pleasantly for one another. they never quarrelled, and neither of them ever flirted with anyone else. mrs allaby and his future sisters-in-law idolised theobald in spite of its being impossible to get another deacon to come and be played for as long as theobald was able to help mr allaby, which now of course he did free gratis and for nothing; two of the sisters, however, did manage to find husbands before christina was actually married, and on each occasion theobald played the part of decoy elephant. in the end only two out of the seven daughters remained single. after three or four years, old mr pontifex became accustomed to his son's engagement and looked upon it as among the things which had now a prescriptive right to toleration. in the spring of , more than five years after theobald had first walked over to crampsford, one of the best livings in the gift of the college unexpectedly fell vacant, and was for various reasons declined by the two fellows senior to theobald, who might each have been expected to take it. the living was then offered to and of course accepted by theobald, being in value not less than pounds a year with a suitable house and garden. old mr pontifex then came down more handsomely than was expected and settled , pounds on his son and daughter-in-law for life with remainder to such of their issue as they might appoint. in the month of july, theobald and christina became man and wife. chapter xiii a due number of old shoes had been thrown at the carriage in which the happy pair departed from the rectory, and it had turned the corner at the bottom of the village. it could then be seen for two or three hundred yards creeping past a fir coppice, and after this was lost to view. "john," said mr allaby to his man-servant, "shut the gate;" and he went indoors with a sigh of relief which seemed to say: "i have done it, and i am alive." this was the reaction after a burst of enthusiastic merriment during which the old gentleman had run twenty yards after the carriage to fling a slipper at it--which he had duly flung. but what were the feelings of theobald and christina when the village was passed and they were rolling quietly by the fir plantation? it is at this point that even the stoutest heart must fail, unless it beat in the breast of one who is over head and ears in love. if a young man is in a small boat on a choppy sea, along with his affianced bride and both are sea-sick, and if the sick swain can forget his own anguish in the happiness of holding the fair one's head when she is at her worst--then he is in love, and his heart will be in no danger of failing him as he passes his fir plantation. other people, and unfortunately by far the greater number of those who get married must be classed among the "other people," will inevitably go through a quarter or half an hour of greater or less badness as the case may be. taking numbers into account, i should think more mental suffering had been undergone in the streets leading from st george's, hanover square, than in the condemned cells of newgate. there is no time at which what the italians call _la figlia della morte_ lays her cold hand upon a man more awfully than during the first half hour that he is alone with a woman whom he has married but never genuinely loved. death's daughter did not spare theobald. he had behaved very well hitherto. when christina had offered to let him go, he had stuck to his post with a magnanimity on which he had plumed himself ever since. from that time forward he had said to himself: "i, at any rate, am the very soul of honour; i am not," etc., etc. true, at the moment of magnanimity the actual cash payment, so to speak, was still distant; when his father gave formal consent to his marriage things began to look more serious; when the college living had fallen vacant and been accepted they looked more serious still; but when christina actually named the day, then theobald's heart fainted within him. the engagement had gone on so long that he had got into a groove, and the prospect of change was disconcerting. christina and he had got on, he thought to himself, very nicely for a great number of years; why--why--why should they not continue to go on as they were doing now for the rest of their lives? but there was no more chance of escape for him than for the sheep which is being driven to the butcher's back premises, and like the sheep he felt that there was nothing to be gained by resistance, so he made none. he behaved, in fact, with decency, and was declared on all hands to be one of the happiest men imaginable. now, however, to change the metaphor, the drop had actually fallen, and the poor wretch was hanging in mid air along with the creature of his affections. this creature was now thirty-three years old, and looked it: she had been weeping, and her eyes and nose were reddish; if "i have done it and i am alive," was written on mr allaby's face after he had thrown the shoe, "i have done it, and i do not see how i can possibly live much longer" was upon the face of theobald as he was being driven along by the fir plantation. this, however, was not apparent at the rectory. all that could be seen there was the bobbing up and down of the postilion's head, which just over-topped the hedge by the roadside as he rose in his stirrups, and the black and yellow body of the carriage. for some time the pair said nothing: what they must have felt during their first half hour, the reader must guess, for it is beyond my power to tell him; at the end of that time, however, theobald had rummaged up a conclusion from some odd corner of his soul to the effect that now he and christina were married the sooner they fell into their future mutual relations the better. if people who are in a difficulty will only do the first little reasonable thing which they can clearly recognise as reasonable, they will always find the next step more easy both to see and take. what, then, thought theobald, was here at this moment the first and most obvious matter to be considered, and what would be an equitable view of his and christina's relative positions in respect to it? clearly their first dinner was their first joint entry into the duties and pleasures of married life. no less clearly it was christina's duty to order it, and his own to eat it and pay for it. the arguments leading to this conclusion, and the conclusion itself, flashed upon theobald about three and a half miles after he had left crampsford on the road to newmarket. he had breakfasted early, but his usual appetite had failed him. they had left the vicarage at noon without staying for the wedding breakfast. theobald liked an early dinner; it dawned upon him that he was beginning to be hungry; from this to the conclusion stated in the preceding paragraph the steps had been easy. after a few minutes' further reflection he broached the matter to his bride, and thus the ice was broken. mrs theobald was not prepared for so sudden an assumption of importance. her nerves, never of the strongest, had been strung to their highest tension by the event of the morning. she wanted to escape observation; she was conscious of looking a little older than she quite liked to look as a bride who had been married that morning; she feared the landlady, the chamber-maid, the waiter--everybody and everything; her heart beat so fast that she could hardly speak, much less go through the ordeal of ordering dinner in a strange hotel with a strange landlady. she begged and prayed to be let off. if theobald would only order dinner this once, she would order it any day and every day in future. but the inexorable theobald was not to be put off with such absurd excuses. he was master now. had not christina less than two hours ago promised solemnly to honour and obey him, and was she turning restive over such a trifle as this? the loving smile departed from his face, and was succeeded by a scowl which that old turk, his father, might have envied. "stuff and nonsense, my dearest christina," he exclaimed mildly, and stamped his foot upon the floor of the carriage. "it is a wife's duty to order her husband's dinner; you are my wife, and i shall expect you to order mine." for theobald was nothing if he was not logical. the bride began to cry, and said he was unkind; whereon he said nothing, but revolved unutterable things in his heart. was this, then, the end of his six years of unflagging devotion? was it for this that when christina had offered to let him off, he had stuck to his engagement? was this the outcome of her talks about duty and spiritual mindedness--that now upon the very day of her marriage she should fail to see that the first step in obedience to god lay in obedience to himself? he would drive back to crampsford; he would complain to mr and mrs allaby; he didn't mean to have married christina; he hadn't married her; it was all a hideous dream; he would--but a voice kept ringing in his ears which said: "you can't, can't, can't." "can't i?" screamed the unhappy creature to himself. "no," said the remorseless voice, "you can't. you are a married man." he rolled back in his corner of the carriage and for the first time felt how iniquitous were the marriage laws of england. but he would buy milton's prose works and read his pamphlet on divorce. he might perhaps be able to get them at newmarket. so the bride sat crying in one corner of the carriage; and the bridegroom sulked in the other, and he feared her as only a bridegroom can fear. presently, however, a feeble voice was heard from the bride's corner saying: "dearest theobald--dearest theobald, forgive me; i have been very, very wrong. please do not be angry with me. i will order the--the--" but the word "dinner" was checked by rising sobs. when theobald heard these words a load began to be lifted from his heart, but he only looked towards her, and that not too pleasantly. "please tell me," continued the voice, "what you think you would like, and i will tell the landlady when we get to newmar--" but another burst of sobs checked the completion of the word. the load on theobald's heart grew lighter and lighter. was it possible that she might not be going to henpeck him after all? besides, had she not diverted his attention from herself to his approaching dinner? he swallowed down more of his apprehensions and said, but still gloomily, "i think we might have a roast fowl with bread sauce, new potatoes and green peas, and then we will see if they could let us have a cherry tart and some cream." after a few minutes more he drew her towards him, kissed away her tears, and assured her that he knew she would be a good wife to him. "dearest theobald," she exclaimed in answer, "you are an angel." theobald believed her, and in ten minutes more the happy couple alighted at the inn at newmarket. bravely did christina go through her arduous task. eagerly did she beseech the landlady, in secret, not to keep her theobald waiting longer than was absolutely necessary. "if you have any soup ready, you know, mrs barber, it might save ten minutes, for we might have it while the fowl was browning." see how necessity had nerved her! but in truth she had a splitting headache, and would have given anything to have been alone. the dinner was a success. a pint of sherry had warmed theobald's heart, and he began to hope that, after all, matters might still go well with him. he had conquered in the first battle, and this gives great prestige. how easy it had been too! why had he never treated his sisters in this way? he would do so next time he saw them; he might in time be able to stand up to his brother john, or even his father. thus do we build castles in air when flushed with wine and conquest. the end of the honeymoon saw mrs theobald the most devotedly obsequious wife in all england. according to the old saying, theobald had killed the cat at the beginning. it had been a very little cat, a mere kitten in fact, or he might have been afraid to face it, but such as it had been he had challenged it to mortal combat, and had held up its dripping head defiantly before his wife's face. the rest had been easy. strange that one whom i have described hitherto as so timid and easily put upon should prove such a tartar all of a sudden on the day of his marriage. perhaps i have passed over his years of courtship too rapidly. during these he had become a tutor of his college, and had at last been junior dean. i never yet knew a man whose sense of his own importance did not become adequately developed after he had held a resident fellowship for five or six years. true--immediately on arriving within a ten mile radius of his father's house, an enchantment fell upon him, so that his knees waxed weak, his greatness departed, and he again felt himself like an overgrown baby under a perpetual cloud; but then he was not often at elmhurst, and as soon as he left it the spell was taken off again; once more he became the fellow and tutor of his college, the junior dean, the betrothed of christina, the idol of the allaby womankind. from all which it may be gathered that if christina had been a barbary hen, and had ruffled her feathers in any show of resistance theobald would not have ventured to swagger with her, but she was not a barbary hen, she was only a common hen, and that too with rather a smaller share of personal bravery than hens generally have. chapter xiv battersby-on-the-hill was the name of the village of which theobald was now rector. it contained or inhabitants, scattered over a rather large area, and consisting entirely of farmers and agricultural labourers. the rectory was commodious, and placed on the brow of a hill which gave it a delightful prospect. there was a fair sprinkling of neighbours within visiting range, but with one or two exceptions they were the clergymen and clergymen's families of the surrounding villages. by these the pontifexes were welcomed as great acquisitions to the neighbourhood. mr pontifex, they said was so clever; he had been senior classic and senior wrangler; a perfect genius in fact, and yet with so much sound practical common sense as well. as son of such a distinguished man as the great mr pontifex the publisher he would come into a large property by-and-by. was there not an elder brother? yes, but there would be so much that theobald would probably get something very considerable. of course they would give dinner parties. and mrs pontifex, what a charming woman she was; she was certainly not exactly pretty perhaps, but then she had such a sweet smile and her manner was so bright and winning. she was so devoted too to her husband and her husband to her; they really did come up to one's ideas of what lovers used to be in days of old; it was rare to meet with such a pair in these degenerate times; it was quite beautiful, etc., etc. such were the comments of the neighbours on the new arrivals. as for theobald's own parishioners, the farmers were civil and the labourers and their wives obsequious. there was a little dissent, the legacy of a careless predecessor, but as mrs theobald said proudly, "i think theobald may be trusted to deal with _that_." the church was then an interesting specimen of late norman, with some early english additions. it was what in these days would be called in a very bad state of repair, but forty or fifty years ago few churches were in good repair. if there is one feature more characteristic of the present generation than another it is that it has been a great restorer of churches. horace preached church restoration in his ode:-- delicta majorum immeritus lues, romane, donec templa refeceris aedesque labentes deorum et foeda nigro simulacra fumo. nothing went right with rome for long together after the augustan age, but whether it was because she did restore the temples or because she did not restore them i know not. they certainly went all wrong after constantine's time and yet rome is still a city of some importance. i may say here that before theobald had been many years at battersby he found scope for useful work in the rebuilding of battersby church, which he carried out at considerable cost, towards which he subscribed liberally himself. he was his own architect, and this saved expense; but architecture was not very well understood about the year , when theobald commenced operations, and the result is not as satisfactory as it would have been if he had waited a few years longer. every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him. i may very likely be condemning myself, all the time that i am writing this book, for i know that whether i like it or no i am portraying myself more surely than i am portraying any of the characters whom i set before the reader. i am sorry that it is so, but i cannot help it--after which sop to nemesis i will say that battersby church in its amended form has always struck me as a better portrait of theobald than any sculptor or painter short of a great master would be able to produce. i remember staying with theobald some six or seven months after he was married, and while the old church was still standing. i went to church, and felt as naaman must have felt on certain occasions when he had to accompany his master on his return after having been cured of his leprosy. i have carried away a more vivid recollection of this and of the people, than of theobald's sermon. even now i can see the men in blue smock frocks reaching to their heels, and more than one old woman in a scarlet cloak; the row of stolid, dull, vacant plough-boys, ungainly in build, uncomely in face, lifeless, apathetic, a race a good deal more like the pre-revolution french peasant as described by carlyle than is pleasant to reflect upon--a race now supplanted by a smarter, comelier and more hopeful generation, which has discovered that it too has a right to as much happiness as it can get, and with clearer ideas about the best means of getting it. they shamble in one after another, with steaming breath, for it is winter, and loud clattering of hob-nailed boots; they beat the snow from off them as they enter, and through the opened door i catch a momentary glimpse of a dreary leaden sky and snow-clad tombstones. somehow or other i find the strain which handel has wedded to the words "there the ploughman near at hand," has got into my head and there is no getting it out again. how marvellously old handel understood these people! they bob to theobald as they passed the reading desk ("the people hereabouts are truly respectful," whispered christina to me, "they know their betters."), and take their seats in a long row against the wall. the choir clamber up into the gallery with their instruments--a violoncello, a clarinet and a trombone. i see them and soon i hear them, for there is a hymn before the service, a wild strain, a remnant, if i mistake not, of some pre-reformation litany. i have heard what i believe was its remote musical progenitor in the church of ss. giovanni e paolo at venice not five years since; and again i have heard it far away in mid- atlantic upon a grey sea-sabbath in june, when neither winds nor waves are stirring, so that the emigrants gather on deck, and their plaintive psalm goes forth upon the silver haze of the sky, and on the wilderness of a sea that has sighed till it can sigh no longer. or it may be heard at some methodist camp meeting upon a welsh hillside, but in the churches it is gone for ever. if i were a musician i would take it as the subject for the _adagio_ in a wesleyan symphony. gone now are the clarinet, the violoncello and the trombone, wild minstrelsy as of the doleful creatures in ezekiel, discordant, but infinitely pathetic. gone is that scarebabe stentor, that bellowing bull of bashan the village blacksmith, gone is the melodious carpenter, gone the brawny shepherd with the red hair, who roared more lustily than all, until they came to the words, "shepherds with your flocks abiding," when modesty covered him with confusion, and compelled him to be silent, as though his own health were being drunk. they were doomed and had a presentiment of evil, even when first i saw them, but they had still a little lease of choir life remaining, and they roared out [wick-ed hands have pierced and nailed him, pierced and nailed him to a tree.] but no description can give a proper idea of the effect. when i was last in battersby church there was a harmonium played by a sweet-looking girl with a choir of school children around her, and they chanted the canticles to the most correct of chants, and they sang hymns ancient and modern; the high pews were gone, nay, the very gallery in which the old choir had sung was removed as an accursed thing which might remind the people of the high places, and theobald was old, and christina was lying under the yew trees in the churchyard. but in the evening later on i saw three very old men come chuckling out of a dissenting chapel, and surely enough they were my old friends the blacksmith, the carpenter and the shepherd. there was a look of content upon their faces which made me feel certain they had been singing; not doubtless with the old glory of the violoncello, the clarinet and the trombone, but still songs of sion and no new fangled papistry. chapter xv the hymn had engaged my attention; when it was over i had time to take stock of the congregation. they were chiefly farmers--fat, very well-to- do folk, who had come some of them with their wives and children from outlying farms two and three miles away; haters of popery and of anything which any one might choose to say was popish; good, sensible fellows who detested theory of any kind, whose ideal was the maintenance of the _status quo_ with perhaps a loving reminiscence of old war times, and a sense of wrong that the weather was not more completely under their control, who desired higher prices and cheaper wages, but otherwise were most contented when things were changing least; tolerators, if not lovers, of all that was familiar, haters of all that was unfamiliar; they would have been equally horrified at hearing the christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practised. "what can there be in common between theobald and his parishioners?" said christina to me, in the course of the evening, when her husband was for a few moments absent. "of course one must not complain, but i assure you it grieves me to see a man of theobald's ability thrown away upon such a place as this. if we had only been at gaysbury, where there are the a's, the b's, the c's, and lord d's place, as you know, quite close, i should not then have felt that we were living in such a desert; but i suppose it is for the best," she added more cheerfully; "and then of course the bishop will come to us whenever he is in the neighbourhood, and if we were at gaysbury he might have gone to lord d's." perhaps i have now said enough to indicate the kind of place in which theobald's lines were cast, and the sort of woman he had married. as for his own habits, i see him trudging through muddy lanes and over long sweeps of plover-haunted pastures to visit a dying cottager's wife. he takes her meat and wine from his own table, and that not a little only but liberally. according to his lights also, he administers what he is pleased to call spiritual consolation. "i am afraid i'm going to hell, sir," says the sick woman with a whine. "oh, sir, save me, save me, don't let me go there. i couldn't stand it, sir, i should die with fear, the very thought of it drives me into a cold sweat all over." "mrs thompson," says theobald gravely, "you must have faith in the precious blood of your redeemer; it is he alone who can save you." "but are you sure, sir," says she, looking wistfully at him, "that he will forgive me--for i've not been a very good woman, indeed i haven't--and if god would only say 'yes' outright with his mouth when i ask whether my sins are forgiven me--" "but they _are_ forgiven you, mrs thompson," says theobald with some sternness, for the same ground has been gone over a good many times already, and he has borne the unhappy woman's misgivings now for a full quarter of an hour. then he puts a stop to the conversation by repeating prayers taken from the "visitation of the sick," and overawes the poor wretch from expressing further anxiety as to her condition. "can't you tell me, sir," she exclaims piteously, as she sees that he is preparing to go away, "can't you tell me that there is no day of judgement, and that there is no such place as hell? i can do without the heaven, sir, but i cannot do with the hell." theobald is much shocked. "mrs thompson," he rejoins impressively, "let me implore you to suffer no doubt concerning these two cornerstones of our religion to cross your mind at a moment like the present. if there is one thing more certain than another it is that we shall all appear before the judgement seat of christ, and that the wicked will be consumed in a lake of everlasting fire. doubt this, mrs thompson, and you are lost." the poor woman buries her fevered head in the coverlet in a paroxysm of fear which at last finds relief in tears. "mrs thompson," says theobald, with his hand on the door, "compose yourself, be calm; you must please to take my word for it that at the day of judgement your sins will be all washed white in the blood of the lamb, mrs thompson. yea," he exclaims frantically, "though they be as scarlet, yet shall they be as white as wool," and he makes off as fast as he can from the fetid atmosphere of the cottage to the pure air outside. oh, how thankful he is when the interview is over! he returns home, conscious that he has done his duty, and administered the comforts of religion to a dying sinner. his admiring wife awaits him at the rectory, and assures him that never yet was clergyman so devoted to the welfare of his flock. he believes her; he has a natural tendency to believe everything that is told him, and who should know the facts of the case better than his wife? poor fellow! he has done his best, but what does a fish's best come to when the fish is out of water? he has left meat and wine--that he can do; he will call again and will leave more meat and wine; day after day he trudges over the same plover-haunted fields, and listens at the end of his walk to the same agony of forebodings, which day after day he silences, but does not remove, till at last a merciful weakness renders the sufferer careless of her future, and theobald is satisfied that her mind is now peacefully at rest in jesus. chapter xvi he does not like this branch of his profession--indeed he hates it--but will not admit it to himself. the habit of not admitting things to himself has become a confirmed one with him. nevertheless there haunts him an ill defined sense that life would be pleasanter if there were no sick sinners, or if they would at any rate face an eternity of torture with more indifference. he does not feel that he is in his element. the farmers look as if they were in their element. they are full-bodied, healthy and contented; but between him and them there is a great gulf fixed. a hard and drawn look begins to settle about the corners of his mouth, so that even if he were not in a black coat and white tie a child might know him for a parson. he knows that he is doing his duty. every day convinces him of this more firmly; but then there is not much duty for him to do. he is sadly in want of occupation. he has no taste for any of those field sports which were not considered unbecoming for a clergyman forty years ago. he does not ride, nor shoot, nor fish, nor course, nor play cricket. study, to do him justice, he had never really liked, and what inducement was there for him to study at battersby? he reads neither old books nor new ones. he does not interest himself in art or science or politics, but he sets his back up with some promptness if any of them show any development unfamiliar to himself. true, he writes his own sermons, but even his wife considers that his _forte_ lies rather in the example of his life (which is one long act of self-devotion) than in his utterances from the pulpit. after breakfast he retires to his study; he cuts little bits out of the bible and gums them with exquisite neatness by the side of other little bits; this he calls making a harmony of the old and new testaments. alongside the extracts he copies in the very perfection of hand-writing extracts from mede (the only man, according to theobald, who really understood the book of revelation), patrick, and other old divines. he works steadily at this for half an hour every morning during many years, and the result is doubtless valuable. after some years have gone by he hears his children their lessons, and the daily oft-repeated screams that issue from the study during the lesson hours tell their own horrible story over the house. he has also taken to collecting a _hortus siccus_, and through the interest of his father was once mentioned in the saturday magazine as having been the first to find a plant, whose name i have forgotten, in the neighbourhood of battersby. this number of the saturday magazine has been bound in red morocco, and is kept upon the drawing-room table. he potters about his garden; if he hears a hen cackling he runs and tells christina, and straightway goes hunting for the egg. when the two miss allabys came, as they sometimes did, to stay with christina, they said the life led by their sister and brother-in-law was an idyll. happy indeed was christina in her choice, for that she had had a choice was a fiction which soon took root among them--and happy theobald in his christina. somehow or other christina was always a little shy of cards when her sisters were staying with her, though at other times she enjoyed a game of cribbage or a rubber of whist heartily enough, but her sisters knew they would never be asked to battersby again if they were to refer to that little matter, and on the whole it was worth their while to be asked to battersby. if theobald's temper was rather irritable he did not vent it upon them. by nature reserved, if he could have found someone to cook his dinner for him, he would rather have lived in a desert island than not. in his heart of hearts he held with pope that "the greatest nuisance to mankind is man" or words to that effect--only that women, with the exception perhaps of christina, were worse. yet for all this when visitors called he put a better face on it than anyone who was behind the scenes would have expected. he was quick too at introducing the names of any literary celebrities whom he had met at his father's house, and soon established an all-round reputation which satisfied even christina herself. who so _integer vitae scelerisque purus_, it was asked, as mr pontifex of battersby? who so fit to be consulted if any difficulty about parish management should arise? who such a happy mixture of the sincere uninquiring christian and of the man of the world? for so people actually called him. they said he was such an admirable man of business. certainly if he had said he would pay a sum of money at a certain time, the money would be forthcoming on the appointed day, and this is saying a good deal for any man. his constitutional timidity rendered him incapable of an attempt to overreach when there was the remotest chance of opposition or publicity, and his correct bearing and somewhat stern expression were a great protection to him against being overreached. he never talked of money, and invariably changed the subject whenever money was introduced. his expression of unutterable horror at all kinds of meanness was a sufficient guarantee that he was not mean himself. besides he had no business transactions save of the most ordinary butcher's book and baker's book description. his tastes--if he had any--were, as we have seen, simple; he had pounds a year and a house; the neighbourhood was cheap, and for some time he had no children to be a drag upon him. who was not to be envied, and if envied why then respected, if theobald was not enviable? yet i imagine that christina was on the whole happier than her husband. she had not to go and visit sick parishioners, and the management of her house and the keeping of her accounts afforded as much occupation as she desired. her principal duty was, as she well said, to her husband--to love him, honour him, and keep him in a good temper. to do her justice she fulfilled this duty to the uttermost of her power. it would have been better perhaps if she had not so frequently assured her husband that he was the best and wisest of mankind, for no one in his little world ever dreamed of telling him anything else, and it was not long before he ceased to have any doubt upon the matter. as for his temper, which had become very violent at times, she took care to humour it on the slightest sign of an approaching outbreak. she had early found that this was much the easiest plan. the thunder was seldom for herself. long before her marriage even she had studied his little ways, and knew how to add fuel to the fire as long as the fire seemed to want it, and then to damp it judiciously down, making as little smoke as possible. in money matters she was scrupulousness itself. theobald made her a quarterly allowance for her dress, pocket money and little charities and presents. in these last items she was liberal in proportion to her income; indeed she dressed with great economy and gave away whatever was over in presents or charity. oh, what a comfort it was to theobald to reflect that he had a wife on whom he could rely never to cost him a sixpence of unauthorised expenditure! letting alone her absolute submission, the perfect coincidence of her opinion with his own upon every subject and her constant assurances to him that he was right in everything which he took it into his head to say or do, what a tower of strength to him was her exactness in money matters! as years went by he became as fond of his wife as it was in his nature to be of any living thing, and applauded himself for having stuck to his engagement--a piece of virtue of which he was now reaping the reward. even when christina did outrun her quarterly stipend by some thirty shillings or a couple of pounds, it was always made perfectly clear to theobald how the deficiency had arisen--there had been an unusually costly evening dress bought which was to last a long time, or somebody's unexpected wedding had necessitated a more handsome present than the quarter's balance would quite allow: the excess of expenditure was always repaid in the following quarter or quarters even though it were only ten shillings at a time. i believe, however, that after they had been married some twenty years, christina had somewhat fallen from her original perfection as regards money. she had got gradually in arrear during many successive quarters, till she had contracted a chronic loan a sort of domestic national debt, amounting to between seven and eight pounds. theobald at length felt that a remonstrance had become imperative, and took advantage of his silver wedding day to inform christina that her indebtedness was cancelled, and at the same time to beg that she would endeavour henceforth to equalise her expenditure and her income. she burst into tears of love and gratitude, assured him that he was the best and most generous of men, and never during the remainder of her married life was she a single shilling behind hand. christina hated change of all sorts no less cordially than her husband. she and theobald had nearly everything in this world that they could wish for; why, then, should people desire to introduce all sorts of changes of which no one could foresee the end? religion, she was deeply convinced, had long since attained its final development, nor could it enter into the heart of reasonable man to conceive any faith more perfect than was inculcated by the church of england. she could imagine no position more honourable than that of a clergyman's wife unless indeed it were a bishop's. considering his father's influence it was not at all impossible that theobald might be a bishop some day--and then--then would occur to her that one little flaw in the practice of the church of england--a flaw not indeed in its doctrine, but in its policy, which she believed on the whole to be a mistaken one in this respect. i mean the fact that a bishop's wife does not take the rank of her husband. this had been the doing of elizabeth, who had been a bad woman, of exceeding doubtful moral character, and at heart a papist to the last. perhaps people ought to have been above mere considerations of worldly dignity, but the world was as it was, and such things carried weight with them, whether they ought to do so or no. her influence as plain mrs pontifex, wife, we will say, of the bishop of winchester, would no doubt be considerable. such a character as hers could not fail to carry weight if she were ever in a sufficiently conspicuous sphere for its influence to be widely felt; but as lady winchester--or the bishopess--which would sound quite nicely--who could doubt that her power for good would be enhanced? and it would be all the nicer because if she had a daughter the daughter would not be a bishopess unless indeed she were to marry a bishop too, which would not be likely. these were her thoughts upon her good days; at other times she would, to do her justice, have doubts whether she was in all respects as spiritually minded as she ought to be. she must press on, press on, till every enemy to her salvation was surmounted and satan himself lay bruised under her feet. it occurred to her on one of these occasions that she might steal a march over some of her contemporaries if she were to leave off eating black puddings, of which whenever they had killed a pig she had hitherto partaken freely; and if she were also careful that no fowls were served at her table which had had their necks wrung, but only such as had had their throats cut and been allowed to bleed. st paul and the church of jerusalem had insisted upon it as necessary that even gentile converts should abstain from things strangled and from blood, and they had joined this prohibition with that of a vice about the abominable nature of which there could be no question; it would be well therefore to abstain in future and see whether any noteworthy spiritual result ensued. she did abstain, and was certain that from the day of her resolve she had felt stronger, purer in heart, and in all respects more spiritually minded than she had ever felt hitherto. theobald did not lay so much stress on this as she did, but as she settled what he should have at dinner she could take care that he got no strangled fowls; as for black puddings, happily, he had seen them made when he was a boy, and had never got over his aversion for them. she wished the matter were one of more general observance than it was; this was just a case in which as lady winchester she might have been able to do what as plain mrs pontifex it was hopeless even to attempt. and thus this worthy couple jogged on from month to month and from year to year. the reader, if he has passed middle life and has a clerical connection, will probably remember scores and scores of rectors and rectors' wives who differed in no material respect from theobald and christina. speaking from a recollection and experience extending over nearly eighty years from the time when i was myself a child in the nursery of a vicarage, i should say i had drawn the better rather than the worse side of the life of an english country parson of some fifty years ago. i admit, however, that there are no such people to be found nowadays. a more united or, on the whole, happier, couple could not have been found in england. one grief only overshadowed the early years of their married life: i mean the fact that no living children were born to them. chapter xvii in the course of time this sorrow was removed. at the beginning of the fifth year of her married life christina was safely delivered of a boy. this was on the sixth of september . word was immediately sent to old mr pontifex, who received the news with real pleasure. his son john's wife had borne daughters only, and he was seriously uneasy lest there should be a failure in the male line of his descendants. the good news, therefore, was doubly welcome, and caused as much delight at elmhurst as dismay in woburn square, where the john pontifexes were then living. here, indeed, this freak of fortune was felt to be all the more cruel on account of the impossibility of resenting it openly; but the delighted grandfather cared nothing for what the john pontifexes might feel or not feel; he had wanted a grandson and he had got a grandson, and this should be enough for everybody; and, now that mrs theobald had taken to good ways, she might bring him more grandsons, which would be desirable, for he should not feel safe with fewer than three. he rang the bell for the butler. "gelstrap," he said solemnly, "i want to go down into the cellar." then gelstrap preceded him with a candle, and he went into the inner vault where he kept his choicest wines. he passed many bins: there was port, imperial tokay, claret, sherry, these and many others were passed, but it was not for them that the head of the pontifex family had gone down into his inner cellar. a bin, which had appeared empty until the full light of the candle had been brought to bear upon it, was now found to contain a single pint bottle. this was the object of mr pontifex's search. gelstrap had often pondered over this bottle. it had been placed there by mr pontifex himself about a dozen years previously, on his return from a visit to his friend the celebrated traveller dr jones--but there was no tablet above the bin which might give a clue to the nature of its contents. on more than one occasion when his master had gone out and left his keys accidentally behind him, as he sometimes did, gelstrap had submitted the bottle to all the tests he could venture upon, but it was so carefully sealed that wisdom remained quite shut out from that entrance at which he would have welcomed her most gladly--and indeed from all other entrances, for he could make out nothing at all. and now the mystery was to be solved. but alas! it seemed as though the last chance of securing even a sip of the contents was to be removed for ever, for mr pontifex took the bottle into his own hands and held it up to the light after carefully examining the seal. he smiled and left the bin with the bottle in his hands. then came a catastrophe. he stumbled over an empty hamper; there was the sound of a fall--a smash of broken glass, and in an instant the cellar floor was covered with the liquid that had been preserved so carefully for so many years. with his usual presence of mind mr pontifex gasped out a month's warning to gelstrap. then he got up, and stamped as theobald had done when christina had wanted not to order his dinner. "it's water from the jordan," he exclaimed furiously, "which i have been saving for the baptism of my eldest grandson. damn you, gelstrap, how dare you be so infernally careless as to leave that hamper littering about the cellar?" i wonder the water of the sacred stream did not stand upright as an heap upon the cellar floor and rebuke him. gelstrap told the other servants afterwards that his master's language had made his backbone curdle. the moment, however, that he heard the word "water," he saw his way again, and flew to the pantry. before his master had well noted his absence he returned with a little sponge and a basin, and had begun sopping up the waters of the jordan as though they had been a common slop. "i'll filter it, sir," said gelstrap meekly. "it'll come quite clean." mr pontifex saw hope in this suggestion, which was shortly carried out by the help of a piece of blotting paper and a funnel, under his own eyes. eventually it was found that half a pint was saved, and this was held to be sufficient. then he made preparations for a visit to battersby. he ordered goodly hampers of the choicest eatables, he selected a goodly hamper of choice drinkables. i say choice and not choicest, for although in his first exaltation he had selected some of his very best wine, yet on reflection he had felt that there was moderation in all things, and as he was parting with his best water from the jordan, he would only send some of his second best wine. before he went to battersby he stayed a day or two in london, which he now seldom did, being over seventy years old, and having practically retired from business. the john pontifexes, who kept a sharp eye on him, discovered to their dismay that he had had an interview with his solicitors. chapter xviii for the first time in his life theobald felt that he had done something right, and could look forward to meeting his father without alarm. the old gentleman, indeed, had written him a most cordial letter, announcing his intention of standing godfather to the boy--nay, i may as well give it in full, as it shows the writer at his best. it runs: "dear theobald,--your letter gave me very sincere pleasure, the more so because i had made up my mind for the worst; pray accept my most hearty congratulations for my daughter-in-law and for yourself. "i have long preserved a phial of water from the jordan for the christening of my first grandson, should it please god to grant me one. it was given me by my old friend dr jones. you will agree with me that though the efficacy of the sacrament does not depend upon the source of the baptismal waters, yet, _ceteris paribus_, there is a sentiment attaching to the waters of the jordan which should not be despised. small matters like this sometimes influence a child's whole future career. "i shall bring my own cook, and have told him to get everything ready for the christening dinner. ask as many of your best neighbours as your table will hold. by the way, i have told lesueur _not to get a lobster_--you had better drive over yourself and get one from saltness (for battersby was only fourteen or fifteen miles from the sea coast); they are better there, at least i think so, than anywhere else in england. "i have put your boy down for something in the event of his attaining the age of twenty-one years. if your brother john continues to have nothing but girls i may do more later on, but i have many claims upon me, and am not as well off as you may imagine.--your affectionate father, "g. pontifex." a few days afterwards the writer of the above letter made his appearance in a fly which had brought him from gildenham to battersby, a distance of fourteen miles. there was lesueur, the cook, on the box with the driver, and as many hampers as the fly could carry were disposed upon the roof and elsewhere. next day the john pontifexes had to come, and eliza and maria, as well as alethea, who, by her own special request, was godmother to the boy, for mr pontifex had decided that they were to form a happy family party; so come they all must, and be happy they all must, or it would be the worse for them. next day the author of all this hubbub was actually christened. theobald had proposed to call him george after old mr pontifex, but strange to say, mr pontifex over-ruled him in favour of the name ernest. the word "earnest" was just beginning to come into fashion, and he thought the possession of such a name might, like his having been baptised in water from the jordan, have a permanent effect upon the boy's character, and influence him for good during the more critical periods of his life. i was asked to be his second godfather, and was rejoiced to have an opportunity of meeting alethea, whom i had not seen for some few years, but with whom i had been in constant correspondence. she and i had always been friends from the time we had played together as children onwards. when the death of her grandfather and grandmother severed her connection with paleham my intimacy with the pontifexes was kept up by my having been at school and college with theobald, and each time i saw her i admired her more and more as the best, kindest, wittiest, most lovable, and, to my mind, handsomest woman whom i had ever seen. none of the pontifexes were deficient in good looks; they were a well-grown shapely family enough, but alethea was the flower of the flock even as regards good looks, while in respect of all other qualities that make a woman lovable, it seemed as though the stock that had been intended for the three daughters, and would have been about sufficient for them, had all been allotted to herself, her sisters getting none, and she all. it is impossible for me to explain how it was that she and i never married. we two knew exceedingly well, and that must suffice for the reader. there was the most perfect sympathy and understanding between us; we knew that neither of us would marry anyone else. i had asked her to marry me a dozen times over; having said this much i will say no more upon a point which is in no way necessary for the development of my story. for the last few years there had been difficulties in the way of our meeting, and i had not seen her, though, as i have said, keeping up a close correspondence with her. naturally i was overjoyed to meet her again; she was now just thirty years old, but i thought she looked handsomer than ever. her father, of course, was the lion of the party, but seeing that we were all meek and quite willing to be eaten, he roared to us rather than at us. it was a fine sight to see him tucking his napkin under his rosy old gills, and letting it fall over his capacious waistcoat while the high light from the chandelier danced about the bump of benevolence on his bald old head like a star of bethlehem. the soup was real turtle; the old gentleman was evidently well pleased and he was beginning to come out. gelstrap stood behind his master's chair. i sat next mrs theobald on her left hand, and was thus just opposite her father-in-law, whom i had every opportunity of observing. during the first ten minutes or so, which were taken up with the soup and the bringing in of the fish, i should probably have thought, if i had not long since made up my mind about him, what a fine old man he was and how proud his children should be of him; but suddenly as he was helping himself to lobster sauce, he flushed crimson, a look of extreme vexation suffused his face, and he darted two furtive but fiery glances to the two ends of the table, one for theobald and one for christina. they, poor simple souls, of course saw that something was exceedingly wrong, and so did i, but i couldn't guess what it was till i heard the old man hiss in christina's ear: "it was not made with a hen lobster. what's the use," he continued, "of my calling the boy ernest, and getting him christened in water from the jordan, if his own father does not know a cock from a hen lobster?" this cut me too, for i felt that till that moment i had not so much as known that there were cocks and hens among lobsters, but had vaguely thought that in the matter of matrimony they were even as the angels in heaven, and grew up almost spontaneously from rocks and sea-weed. before the next course was over mr pontifex had recovered his temper, and from that time to the end of the evening he was at his best. he told us all about the water from the jordan; how it had been brought by dr jones along with some stone jars of water from the rhine, the rhone, the elbe and the danube, and what trouble he had had with them at the custom houses, and how the intention had been to make punch with waters from all the greatest rivers in europe; and how he, mr pontifex, had saved the jordan water from going into the bowl, etc., etc. "no, no, no," he continued, "it wouldn't have done at all, you know; very profane idea; so we each took a pint bottle of it home with us, and the punch was much better without it. i had a narrow escape with mine, though, the other day; i fell over a hamper in the cellar, when i was getting it up to bring to battersby, and if i had not taken the greatest care the bottle would certainly have been broken, but i saved it." and gelstrap was standing behind his chair all the time! nothing more happened to ruffle mr pontifex, so we had a delightful evening, which has often recurred to me while watching the after career of my godson. i called a day or two afterwards and found mr pontifex still at battersby, laid up with one of those attacks of liver and depression to which he was becoming more and more subject. i stayed to luncheon. the old gentleman was cross and very difficult; he could eat nothing--had no appetite at all. christina tried to coax him with a little bit of the fleshy part of a mutton chop. "how in the name of reason can i be asked to eat a mutton chop?" he exclaimed angrily; "you forget, my dear christina, that you have to deal with a stomach that is totally disorganised," and he pushed the plate from him, pouting and frowning like a naughty old child. writing as i do by the light of a later knowledge, i suppose i should have seen nothing in this but the world's growing pains, the disturbance inseparable from transition in human things. i suppose in reality not a leaf goes yellow in autumn without ceasing to care about its sap and making the parent tree very uncomfortable by long growling and grumbling--but surely nature might find some less irritating way of carrying on business if she would give her mind to it. why should the generations overlap one another at all? why cannot we be buried as eggs in neat little cells with ten or twenty thousand pounds each wrapped round us in bank of england notes, and wake up, as the sphex wasp does, to find that its papa and mamma have not only left ample provision at its elbow, but have been eaten by sparrows some weeks before it began to live consciously on its own account? about a year and a half afterwards the tables were turned on battersby--for mrs john pontifex was safely delivered of a boy. a year or so later still, george pontifex was himself struck down suddenly by a fit of paralysis, much as his mother had been, but he did not see the years of his mother. when his will was opened, it was found that an original bequest of , pounds to theobald himself (over and above the sum that had been settled upon him and christina at the time of his marriage) had been cut down to , pounds when mr pontifex left "something" to ernest. the "something" proved to be pounds, which was to accumulate in the hands of trustees. the rest of the property went to john pontifex, except that each of the daughters was left with about , pounds over and above pounds a piece which they inherited from their mother. theobald's father then had told him the truth but not the whole truth. nevertheless, what right had theobald to complain? certainly it was rather hard to make him think that he and his were to be gainers, and get the honour and glory of the bequest, when all the time the money was virtually being taken out of theobald's own pocket. on the other hand the father doubtless argued that he had never told theobald he was to have anything at all; he had a full right to do what he liked with his own money; if theobald chose to indulge in unwarrantable expectations that was no affair of his; as it was he was providing for him liberally; and if he did take pounds of theobald's share he was still leaving it to theobald's son, which, of course, was much the same thing in the end. no one can deny that the testator had strict right upon his side; nevertheless the reader will agree with me that theobald and christina might not have considered the christening dinner so great a success if all the facts had been before them. mr pontifex had during his own lifetime set up a monument in elmhurst church to the memory of his wife (a slab with urns and cherubs like illegitimate children of king george the fourth, and all the rest of it), and had left space for his own epitaph underneath that of his wife. i do not know whether it was written by one of his children, or whether they got some friend to write it for them. i do not believe that any satire was intended. i believe that it was the intention to convey that nothing short of the day of judgement could give anyone an idea how good a man mr pontifex had been, but at first i found it hard to think that it was free from guile. the epitaph begins by giving dates of birth and death; then sets out that the deceased was for many years head of the firm of fairlie and pontifex, and also resident in the parish of elmhurst. there is not a syllable of either praise or dispraise. the last lines run as follows:-- he now lies awaiting a joyful resurrection at the last day. what manner of man he was that day will discover. chapter xix this much, however, we may say in the meantime, that having lived to be nearly seventy-three years old and died rich he must have been in very fair harmony with his surroundings. i have heard it said sometimes that such and such a person's life was a lie: but no man's life can be a very bad lie; as long as it continues at all it is at worst nine-tenths of it true. mr pontifex's life not only continued a long time, but was prosperous right up to the end. is not this enough? being in this world is it not our most obvious business to make the most of it--to observe what things do _bona fide_ tend to long life and comfort, and to act accordingly? all animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it--and they do enjoy it as much as man and other circumstances will allow. he has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most; god will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us. if mr pontifex is to be blamed it is for not having eaten and drunk less and thus suffered less from his liver, and lived perhaps a year or two longer. goodness is naught unless it tends towards old age and sufficiency of means. i speak broadly and _exceptis excipiendis_. so the psalmist says, "the righteous shall not lack anything that is good." either this is mere poetical license, or it follows that he who lacks anything that is good is not righteous; there is a presumption also that he who has passed a long life without lacking anything that is good has himself also been good enough for practical purposes. mr pontifex never lacked anything he much cared about. true, he might have been happier than he was if he had cared about things which he did not care for, but the gist of this lies in the "if he had cared." we have all sinned and come short of the glory of making ourselves as comfortable as we easily might have done, but in this particular case mr pontifex did not care, and would not have gained much by getting what he did not want. there is no casting of swine's meat before men worse than that which would flatter virtue as though her true origin were not good enough for her, but she must have a lineage, deduced as it were by spiritual heralds, from some stock with which she has nothing to do. virtue's true lineage is older and more respectable than any that can be invented for her. she springs from man's experience concerning his own well-being--and this, though not infallible, is still the least fallible thing we have. a system which cannot stand without a better foundation than this must have something so unstable within itself that it will topple over on whatever pedestal we place it. the world has long ago settled that morality and virtue are what bring men peace at the last. "be virtuous," says the copy-book, "and you will be happy." surely if a reputed virtue fails often in this respect it is only an insidious form of vice, and if a reputed vice brings no very serious mischief on a man's later years it is not so bad a vice as it is said to be. unfortunately though we are all of a mind about the main opinion that virtue is what tends to happiness, and vice what ends in sorrow, we are not so unanimous about details--that is to say as to whether any given course, such, we will say, as smoking, has a tendency to happiness or the reverse. i submit it as the result of my own poor observation, that a good deal of unkindness and selfishness on the part of parents towards children is not generally followed by ill consequences to the parents themselves. they may cast a gloom over their children's lives for many years without having to suffer anything that will hurt them. i should say, then, that it shows no great moral obliquity on the part of parents if within certain limits they make their children's lives a burden to them. granted that mr pontifex's was not a very exalted character, ordinary men are not required to have very exalted characters. it is enough if we are of the same moral and mental stature as the "main" or "mean" part of men--that is to say as the average. it is involved in the very essence of things that rich men who die old shall have been mean. the greatest and wisest of mankind will be almost always found to be the meanest--the ones who have kept the "mean" best between excess either of virtue or vice. they hardly ever have been prosperous if they have not done this, and, considering how many miscarry altogether, it is no small feather in a man's cap if he has been no worse than his neighbours. homer tells us about some one who made it his business [greek text]--always to excel and to stand higher than other people. what an uncompanionable disagreeable person he must have been! homer's heroes generally came to a bad end, and i doubt not that this gentleman, whoever he was, did so sooner or later. a very high standard, again, involves the possession of rare virtues, and rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. a virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal. people divide off vice and virtue as though they were two things, neither of which had with it anything of the other. this is not so. there is no useful virtue which has not some alloy of vice, and hardly any vice, if any, which carries not with it a little dash of virtue; virtue and vice are like life and death, or mind and matter--things which cannot exist without being qualified by their opposite. the most absolute life contains death, and the corpse is still in many respects living; so also it has been said, "if thou, lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss," which shows that even the highest ideal we can conceive will yet admit so much compromise with vice as shall countenance the poor abuses of the time, if they are not too outrageous. that vice pays homage to virtue is notorious; we call this hypocrisy; there should be a word found for the homage which virtue not unfrequently pays, or at any rate would be wise in paying, to vice. i grant that some men will find happiness in having what we all feel to be a higher moral standard than others. if they go in for this, however, they must be content with virtue as her own reward, and not grumble if they find lofty quixotism an expensive luxury, whose rewards belong to a kingdom that is not of this world. they must not wonder if they cut a poor figure in trying to make the most of both worlds. disbelieve as we may the details of the accounts which record the growth of the christian religion, yet a great part of christian teaching will remain as true as though we accepted the details. we cannot serve god and mammon; strait is the way and narrow is the gate which leads to what those who live by faith hold to be best worth having, and there is no way of saying this better than the bible has done. it is well there should be some who think thus, as it is well there should be speculators in commerce, who will often burn their fingers--but it is not well that the majority should leave the "mean" and beaten path. for most men, and most circumstances, pleasure--tangible material prosperity in this world--is the safest test of virtue. progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism. to use a commercial metaphor, competition is so keen, and the margin of profits has been cut down so closely that virtue cannot afford to throw any _bona fide_ chance away, and must base her action rather on the actual moneying out of conduct than on a flattering prospectus. she will not therefore neglect--as some do who are prudent and economical enough in other matters--the important factor of our chance of escaping detection, or at any rate of our dying first. a reasonable virtue will give this chance its due value, neither more nor less. pleasure, after all, is a safer guide than either right or duty. for hard as it is to know what gives us pleasure, right and duty are often still harder to distinguish and, if we go wrong with them, will lead us into just as sorry a plight as a mistaken opinion concerning pleasure. when men burn their fingers through following after pleasure they find out their mistake and get to see where they have gone wrong more easily than when they have burnt them through following after a fancied duty, or a fancied idea concerning right virtue. the devil, in fact, when he dresses himself in angel's clothes, can only be detected by experts of exceptional skill, and so often does he adopt this disguise that it is hardly safe to be seen talking to an angel at all, and prudent people will follow after pleasure as a more homely but more respectable and on the whole much more trustworthy guide. returning to mr pontifex, over and above his having lived long and prosperously, he left numerous offspring, to all of whom he communicated not only his physical and mental characteristics, with no more than the usual amount of modification, but also no small share of characteristics which are less easily transmitted--i mean his pecuniary characteristics. it may be said that he acquired these by sitting still and letting money run, as it were, right up against him, but against how many does not money run who do not take it when it does, or who, even if they hold it for a little while, cannot so incorporate it with themselves that it shall descend through them to their offspring? mr pontifex did this. he kept what he may be said to have made, and money is like a reputation for ability--more easily made than kept. take him, then, for all in all, i am not inclined to be so severe upon him as my father was. judge him according to any very lofty standard, and he is nowhere. judge him according to a fair average standard, and there is not much fault to be found with him. i have said what i have said in the foregoing chapter once for all, and shall not break my thread to repeat it. it should go without saying in modification of the verdict which the reader may be inclined to pass too hastily, not only upon mr george pontifex, but also upon theobald and christina. and now i will continue my story. chapter xx the birth of his son opened theobald's eyes to a good deal which he had but faintly realised hitherto. he had had no idea how great a nuisance a baby was. babies come into the world so suddenly at the end, and upset everything so terribly when they do come: why cannot they steal in upon us with less of a shock to the domestic system? his wife, too, did not recover rapidly from her confinement; she remained an invalid for months; here was another nuisance and an expensive one, which interfered with the amount which theobald liked to put by out of his income against, as he said, a rainy day, or to make provision for his family if he should have one. now he was getting a family, so that it became all the more necessary to put money by, and here was the baby hindering him. theorists may say what they like about a man's children being a continuation of his own identity, but it will generally be found that those who talk in this way have no children of their own. practical family men know better. about twelve months after the birth of ernest there came a second, also a boy, who was christened joseph, and in less than twelve months afterwards, a girl, to whom was given the name of charlotte. a few months before this girl was born christina paid a visit to the john pontifexes in london, and, knowing her condition, passed a good deal of time at the royal academy exhibition looking at the types of female beauty portrayed by the academicians, for she had made up her mind that the child this time was to be a girl. alethea warned her not to do this, but she persisted, and certainly the child turned out plain, but whether the pictures caused this or no i cannot say. theobald had never liked children. he had always got away from them as soon as he could, and so had they from him; oh, why, he was inclined to ask himself, could not children be born into the world grown up? if christina could have given birth to a few full-grown clergymen in priest's orders--of moderate views, but inclining rather to evangelicalism, with comfortable livings and in all respects facsimiles of theobald himself--why, there might have been more sense in it; or if people could buy ready-made children at a shop of whatever age and sex they liked, instead of always having to make them at home and to begin at the beginning with them--that might do better, but as it was he did not like it. he felt as he had felt when he had been required to come and be married to christina--that he had been going on for a long time quite nicely, and would much rather continue things on their present footing. in the matter of getting married he had been obliged to pretend he liked it; but times were changed, and if he did not like a thing now, he could find a hundred unexceptionable ways of making his dislike apparent. it might have been better if theobald in his younger days had kicked more against his father: the fact that he had not done so encouraged him to expect the most implicit obedience from his own children. he could trust himself, he said (and so did christina), to be more lenient than perhaps his father had been to himself; his danger, he said (and so again did christina), would be rather in the direction of being too indulgent; he must be on his guard against this, for no duty could be more important than that of teaching a child to obey its parents in all things. he had read not long since of an eastern traveller, who, while exploring somewhere in the more remote parts of arabia and asia minor, had come upon a remarkably hardy, sober, industrious little christian community--all of them in the best of health--who had turned out to be the actual living descendants of jonadab, the son of rechab; and two men in european costume, indeed, but speaking english with a broken accent, and by their colour evidently oriental, had come begging to battersby soon afterwards, and represented themselves as belonging to this people; they had said they were collecting funds to promote the conversion of their fellow tribesmen to the english branch of the christian religion. true, they turned out to be impostors, for when he gave them a pound and christina five shillings from her private purse, they went and got drunk with it in the next village but one to battersby; still, this did not invalidate the story of the eastern traveller. then there were the romans--whose greatness was probably due to the wholesome authority exercised by the head of a family over all its members. some romans had even killed their children; this was going too far, but then the romans were not christians, and knew no better. the practical outcome of the foregoing was a conviction in theobald's mind, and if in his, then in christina's, that it was their duty to begin training up their children in the way they should go, even from their earliest infancy. the first signs of self-will must be carefully looked for, and plucked up by the roots at once before they had time to grow. theobald picked up this numb serpent of a metaphor and cherished it in his bosom. before ernest could well crawl he was taught to kneel; before he could well speak he was taught to lisp the lord's prayer, and the general confession. how was it possible that these things could be taught too early? if his attention flagged or his memory failed him, here was an ill weed which would grow apace, unless it were plucked out immediately, and the only way to pluck it out was to whip him, or shut him up in a cupboard, or dock him of some of the small pleasures of childhood. before he was three years old he could read and, after a fashion, write. before he was four he was learning latin, and could do rule of three sums. as for the child himself, he was naturally of an even temper, he doted upon his nurse, on kittens and puppies, and on all things that would do him the kindness of allowing him to be fond of them. he was fond of his mother, too, but as regards his father, he has told me in later life he could remember no feeling but fear and shrinking. christina did not remonstrate with theobald concerning the severity of the tasks imposed upon their boy, nor yet as to the continual whippings that were found necessary at lesson times. indeed, when during any absence of theobald's the lessons were entrusted to her, she found to her sorrow that it was the only thing to do, and she did it no less effectually than theobald himself, nevertheless she was fond of her boy, which theobald never was, and it was long before she could destroy all affection for herself in the mind of her first-born. but she persevered. chapter xxi strange! for she believed she doted upon him, and certainly she loved him better than either of her other children. her version of the matter was that there had never yet been two parents so self-denying and devoted to the highest welfare of their children as theobald and herself. for ernest, a very great future--she was certain of it--was in store. this made severity all the more necessary, so that from the first he might have been kept pure from every taint of evil. she could not allow herself the scope for castle building which, we read, was indulged in by every jewish matron before the appearance of the messiah, for the messiah had now come, but there was to be a millennium shortly, certainly not later than , when ernest would be just about the right age for it, and a modern elias would be wanted to herald its approach. heaven would bear her witness that she had never shrunk from the idea of martyrdom for herself and theobald, nor would she avoid it for her boy, if his life was required of her in her redeemer's service. oh, no! if god told her to offer up her first-born, as he had told abraham, she would take him up to pigbury beacon and plunge the--no, that she could not do, but it would be unnecessary--some one else might do that. it was not for nothing that ernest had been baptised in water from the jordan. it had not been her doing, nor yet theobald's. they had not sought it. when water from the sacred stream was wanted for a sacred infant, the channel had been found through which it was to flow from far palestine over land and sea to the door of the house where the child was lying. why, it was a miracle! it was! it was! she saw it all now. the jordan had left its bed and flowed into her own house. it was idle to say that this was not a miracle. no miracle was effected without means of some kind; the difference between the faithful and the unbeliever consisted in the very fact that the former could see a miracle where the latter could not. the jews could see no miracle even in the raising of lazarus and the feeding of the five thousand. the john pontifexes would see no miracle in this matter of the water from the jordan. the essence of a miracle lay not in the fact that means had been dispensed with, but in the adoption of means to a great end that had not been available without interference; and no one would suppose that dr jones would have brought the water unless he had been directed. she would tell this to theobald, and get him to see it in the . . . and yet perhaps it would be better not. the insight of women upon matters of this sort was deeper and more unerring than that of men. it was a woman and not a man who had been filled most completely with the whole fulness of the deity. but why had they not treasured up the water after it was used? it ought never, never to have been thrown away, but it had been. perhaps, however, this was for the best too--they might have been tempted to set too much store by it, and it might have become a source of spiritual danger to them--perhaps even of spiritual pride, the very sin of all others which she most abhorred. as for the channel through which the jordan had flowed to battersby, that mattered not more than the earth through which the river ran in palestine itself. dr jones was certainly worldly--very worldly; so, she regretted to feel, had been her father-in-law, though in a less degree; spiritual, at heart, doubtless, and becoming more and more spiritual continually as he grew older, still he was tainted with the world, till a very few hours, probably, before his death, whereas she and theobald had given up all for christ's sake. _they_ were not worldly. at least theobald was not. she had been, but she was sure she had grown in grace since she had left off eating things strangled and blood--this was as the washing in jordan as against abana and pharpar, rivers of damascus. her boy should never touch a strangled fowl nor a black pudding--that, at any rate, she could see to. he should have a coral from the neighbourhood of joppa--there were coral insects on those coasts, so that the thing could easily be done with a little energy; she would write to dr jones about it, etc. and so on for hours together day after day for years. truly, mrs theobald loved her child according to her lights with an exceeding great fondness, but the dreams she had dreamed in sleep were sober realities in comparison with those she indulged in while awake. when ernest was in his second year, theobald, as i have already said, began to teach him to read. he began to whip him two days after he had begun to teach him. "it was painful," as he said to christina, but it was the only thing to do and it was done. the child was puny, white and sickly, so they sent continually for the doctor who dosed him with calomel and james's powder. all was done in love, anxiety, timidity, stupidity, and impatience. they were stupid in little things; and he that is stupid in little will be stupid also in much. presently old mr pontifex died, and then came the revelation of the little alteration he had made in his will simultaneously with his bequest to ernest. it was rather hard to bear, especially as there was no way of conveying a bit of their minds to the testator now that he could no longer hurt them. as regards the boy himself anyone must see that the bequest would be an unmitigated misfortune to him. to leave him a small independence was perhaps the greatest injury which one could inflict upon a young man. it would cripple his energies, and deaden his desire for active employment. many a youth was led into evil courses by the knowledge that on arriving at majority he would come into a few thousands. they might surely have been trusted to have their boy's interests at heart, and must be better judges of those interests than he, at twenty-one, could be expected to be: besides if jonadab, the son of rechab's father--or perhaps it might be simpler under the circumstances to say rechab at once--if rechab, then, had left handsome legacies to his grandchildren--why jonadab might not have found those children so easy to deal with, etc. "my dear," said theobald, after having discussed the matter with christina for the twentieth time, "my dear, the only thing to guide and console us under misfortunes of this kind is to take refuge in practical work. i will go and pay a visit to mrs thompson." on those days mrs thompson would be told that her sins were all washed white, etc., a little sooner and a little more peremptorily than on others. chapter xxii i used to stay at battersby for a day or two sometimes, while my godson and his brother and sister were children. i hardly know why i went, for theobald and i grew more and more apart, but one gets into grooves sometimes, and the supposed friendship between myself and the pontifexes continued to exist, though it was now little more than rudimentary. my godson pleased me more than either of the other children, but he had not much of the buoyancy of childhood, and was more like a puny, sallow little old man than i liked. the young people, however, were very ready to be friendly. i remember ernest and his brother hovered round me on the first day of one of these visits with their hands full of fading flowers, which they at length proffered me. on this i did what i suppose was expected: i inquired if there was a shop near where they could buy sweeties. they said there was, so i felt in my pockets, but only succeeded in finding two pence halfpenny in small money. this i gave them, and the youngsters, aged four and three, toddled off alone. ere long they returned, and ernest said, "we can't get sweeties for all this money" (i felt rebuked, but no rebuke was intended); "we can get sweeties for this" (showing a penny), "and for this" (showing another penny), "but we cannot get them for all this," and he added the halfpenny to the two pence. i suppose they had wanted a twopenny cake, or something like that. i was amused, and left them to solve the difficulty their own way, being anxious to see what they would do. presently ernest said, "may we give you back this" (showing the halfpenny) "and not give you back this and this?" (showing the pence). i assented, and they gave a sigh of relief and went on their way rejoicing. a few more presents of pence and small toys completed the conquest, and they began to take me into their confidence. they told me a good deal which i am afraid i ought not to have listened to. they said that if grandpapa had lived longer he would most likely have been made a lord, and that then papa would have been the honourable and reverend, but that grandpapa was now in heaven singing beautiful hymns with grandmamma allaby to jesus christ, who was very fond of them; and that when ernest was ill, his mamma had told him he need not be afraid of dying for he would go straight to heaven, if he would only be sorry for having done his lessons so badly and vexed his dear papa, and if he would promise never, never to vex him any more; and that when he got to heaven grandpapa and grandmamma allaby would meet him, and he would be always with them, and they would be very good to him and teach him to sing ever such beautiful hymns, more beautiful by far than those which he was now so fond of, etc., etc.; but he did not wish to die, and was glad when he got better, for there were no kittens in heaven, and he did not think there were cowslips to make cowslip tea with. their mother was plainly disappointed in them. "my children are none of them geniuses, mr overton," she said to me at breakfast one morning. "they have fair abilities, and, thanks to theobald's tuition, they are forward for their years, but they have nothing like genius: genius is a thing apart from this, is it not?" of course i said it was "a thing quite apart from this," but if my thoughts had been laid bare, they would have appeared as "give me my coffee immediately, ma'am, and don't talk nonsense." i have no idea what genius is, but so far as i can form any conception about it, i should say it was a stupid word which cannot be too soon abandoned to scientific and literary _claqueurs_. i do not know exactly what christina expected, but i should imagine it was something like this: "my children ought to be all geniuses, because they are mine and theobald's, and it is naughty of them not to be; but, of course, they cannot be so good and clever as theobald and i were, and if they show signs of being so it will be naughty of them. happily, however, they are not this, and yet it is very dreadful that they are not. as for genius--hoity-toity, indeed--why, a genius should turn intellectual summersaults as soon as it is born, and none of my children have yet been able to get into the newspapers. i will not have children of mine give themselves airs--it is enough for them that theobald and i should do so." she did not know, poor woman, that the true greatness wears an invisible cloak, under cover of which it goes in and out among men without being suspected; if its cloak does not conceal it from itself always, and from all others for many years, its greatness will ere long shrink to very ordinary dimensions. what, then, it may be asked, is the good of being great? the answer is that you may understand greatness better in others, whether alive or dead, and choose better company from these and enjoy and understand that company better when you have chosen it--also that you may be able to give pleasure to the best people and live in the lives of those who are yet unborn. this, one would think, was substantial gain enough for greatness without its wanting to ride rough-shod over us, even when disguised as humility. i was there on a sunday, and observed the rigour with which the young people were taught to observe the sabbath; they might not cut out things, nor use their paintbox on a sunday, and this they thought rather hard, because their cousins the john pontifexes might do these things. their cousins might play with their toy train on sunday, but though they had promised that they would run none but sunday trains, all traffic had been prohibited. one treat only was allowed them--on sunday evenings they might choose their own hymns. in the course of the evening they came into the drawing-room, and, as an especial treat, were to sing some of their hymns to me, instead of saying them, so that i might hear how nicely they sang. ernest was to choose the first hymn, and he chose one about some people who were to come to the sunset tree. i am no botanist, and do not know what kind of tree a sunset tree is, but the words began, "come, come, come; come to the sunset tree for the day is past and gone." the tune was rather pretty and had taken ernest's fancy, for he was unusually fond of music and had a sweet little child's voice which he liked using. he was, however, very late in being able to sound a hard it "c" or "k," and, instead of saying "come," he said "tum tum, tum." "ernest," said theobald, from the arm-chair in front of the fire, where he was sitting with his hands folded before him, "don't you think it would be very nice if you were to say 'come' like other people, instead of 'tum'?" "i do say tum," replied ernest, meaning that he had said "come." theobald was always in a bad temper on sunday evening. whether it is that they are as much bored with the day as their neighbours, or whether they are tired, or whatever the cause may be, clergymen are seldom at their best on sunday evening; i had already seen signs that evening that my host was cross, and was a little nervous at hearing ernest say so promptly "i do say tum," when his papa had said he did not say it as he should. theobald noticed the fact that he was being contradicted in a moment. he got up from his arm-chair and went to the piano. "no, ernest, you don't," he said, "you say nothing of the kind, you say 'tum,' not 'come.' now say 'come' after me, as i do." "tum," said ernest, at once; "is that better?" i have no doubt he thought it was, but it was not. "now, ernest, you are not taking pains: you are not trying as you ought to do. it is high time you learned to say 'come,' why, joey can say 'come,' can't you, joey?" "yeth, i can," replied joey, and he said something which was not far off "come." "there, ernest, do you hear that? there's no difficulty about it, nor shadow of difficulty. now, take your own time, think about it, and say 'come' after me." the boy remained silent a few seconds and then said "tum" again. i laughed, but theobald turned to me impatiently and said, "please do not laugh, overton; it will make the boy think it does not matter, and it matters a great deal;" then turning to ernest he said, "now, ernest, i will give you one more chance, and if you don't say 'come,' i shall know that you are self-willed and naughty." he looked very angry, and a shade came over ernest's face, like that which comes upon the face of a puppy when it is being scolded without understanding why. the child saw well what was coming now, was frightened, and, of course, said "tum" once more. "very well, ernest," said his father, catching him angrily by the shoulder. "i have done my best to save you, but if you will have it so, you will," and he lugged the little wretch, crying by anticipation, out of the room. a few minutes more and we could hear screams coming from the dining-room, across the hall which separated the drawing-room from the dining-room, and knew that poor ernest was being beaten. "i have sent him up to bed," said theobald, as he returned to the drawing- room, "and now, christina, i think we will have the servants in to prayers," and he rang the bell for them, red-handed as he was. chapter xxiii the man-servant william came and set the chairs for the maids, and presently they filed in. first christina's maid, then the cook, then the housemaid, then william, and then the coachman. i sat opposite them, and watched their faces as theobald read a chapter from the bible. they were nice people, but more absolute vacancy i never saw upon the countenances of human beings. theobald began by reading a few verses from the old testament, according to some system of his own. on this occasion the passage came from the fifteenth chapter of numbers: it had no particular bearing that i could see upon anything which was going on just then, but the spirit which breathed throughout the whole seemed to me to be so like that of theobald himself, that i could understand better after hearing it, how he came to think as he thought, and act as he acted. the verses are as follows-- "but the soul that doeth aught presumptuously, whether he be born in the land or a stranger, the same reproacheth the lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. "because he hath despised the word of the lord, and hath broken his commandments, that soul shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him. "and while the children of israel were in the wilderness they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. "and they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto moses and aaron, and unto all the congregation. "and they put him in ward because it was not declared what should be done to him. "and the lord said unto moses, the man shall be surely put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. "and all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the lord commanded moses. "and the lord spake unto moses, saying, "speak unto the children of israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue. "and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the lord, and do them, and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes. "that ye may remember and do all my commandments and be holy unto your god. "i am the lord your god which brought you out of the land of egypt, to be your god: i am the lord your god." my thoughts wandered while theobald was reading the above, and reverted to a little matter which i had observed in the course of the afternoon. it happened that some years previously, a swarm of bees had taken up their abode in the roof of the house under the slates, and had multiplied so that the drawing-room was a good deal frequented by these bees during the summer, when the windows were open. the drawing-room paper was of a pattern which consisted of bunches of red and white roses, and i saw several bees at different times fly up to these bunches and try them, under the impression that they were real flowers; having tried one bunch, they tried the next, and the next, and the next, till they reached the one that was nearest the ceiling, then they went down bunch by bunch as they had ascended, till they were stopped by the back of the sofa; on this they ascended bunch by bunch to the ceiling again; and so on, and so on till i was tired of watching them. as i thought of the family prayers being repeated night and morning, week by week, month by month, and year by year, i could nor help thinking how like it was to the way in which the bees went up the wall and down the wall, bunch by bunch, without ever suspecting that so many of the associated ideas could be present, and yet the main idea be wanting hopelessly, and for ever. when theobald had finished reading we all knelt down and the carlo dolci and the sassoferrato looked down upon a sea of upturned backs, as we buried our faces in our chairs. i noted that theobald prayed that we might be made "truly honest and conscientious" in all our dealings, and smiled at the introduction of the "truly." then my thoughts ran back to the bees and i reflected that after all it was perhaps as well at any rate for theobald that our prayers were seldom marked by any very encouraging degree of response, for if i had thought there was the slightest chance of my being heard i should have prayed that some one might ere long treat him as he had treated ernest. then my thoughts wandered on to those calculations which people make about waste of time and how much one can get done if one gives ten minutes a day to it, and i was thinking what improper suggestion i could make in connection with this and the time spent on family prayers which should at the same time be just tolerable, when i heard theobald beginning "the grace of our lord jesus christ" and in a few seconds the ceremony was over, and the servants filed out again as they had filed in. as soon as they had left the drawing-room, christina, who was a little ashamed of the transaction to which i had been a witness, imprudently returned to it, and began to justify it, saying that it cut her to the heart, and that it cut theobald to the heart and a good deal more, but that "it was the only thing to be done." i received this as coldly as i decently could, and by my silence during the rest of the evening showed that i disapproved of what i had seen. next day i was to go back to london, but before i went i said i should like to take some new-laid eggs back with me, so theobald took me to the house of a labourer in the village who lived a stone's throw from the rectory as being likely to supply me with them. ernest, for some reason or other, was allowed to come too. i think the hens had begun to sit, but at any rate eggs were scarce, and the cottager's wife could not find me more than seven or eight, which we proceeded to wrap up in separate pieces of paper so that i might take them to town safely. this operation was carried on upon the ground in front of the cottage door, and while we were in the midst of it the cottager's little boy, a lad much about ernest's age, trod upon one of the eggs that was wrapped up in paper and broke it. "there now, jack," said his mother, "see what you've done, you've broken a nice egg and cost me a penny--here, emma," she added, calling her daughter, "take the child away, there's a dear." emma came at once, and walked off with the youngster, taking him out of harm's way. "papa," said ernest, after we had left the house, "why didn't mrs heaton whip jack when he trod on the egg?" i was spiteful enough to give theobald a grim smile which said as plainly as words could have done that i thought ernest had hit him rather hard. theobald coloured and looked angry. "i dare say," he said quickly, "that his mother will whip him now that we are gone." i was not going to have this and said i did not believe it, and so the matter dropped, but theobald did not forget it and my visits to battersby were henceforth less frequent. on our return to the house we found the postman had arrived and had brought a letter appointing theobald to a rural deanery which had lately fallen vacant by the death of one of the neighbouring clergy who had held the office for many years. the bishop wrote to theobald most warmly, and assured him that he valued him as among the most hard-working and devoted of his parochial clergy. christina of course was delighted, and gave me to understand that it was only an instalment of the much higher dignities which were in store for theobald when his merits were more widely known. i did not then foresee how closely my godson's life and mine were in after years to be bound up together; if i had, i should doubtless have looked upon him with different eyes and noted much to which i paid no attention at the time. as it was, i was glad to get away from him, for i could do nothing for him, or chose to say that i could not, and the sight of so much suffering was painful to me. a man should not only have his own way as far as possible, but he should only consort with things that are getting their own way so far that they are at any rate comfortable. unless for short times under exceptional circumstances, he should not even see things that have been stunted or starved, much less should he eat meat that has been vexed by having been over-driven or underfed, or afflicted with any disease; nor should he touch vegetables that have not been well grown. for all these things cross a man; whatever a man comes in contact with in any way forms a cross with him which will leave him better or worse, and the better things he is crossed with the more likely he is to live long and happily. all things must be crossed a little or they would cease to live--but holy things, such for example as giovanni bellini's saints, have been crossed with nothing but what is good of its kind, chapter xxiv the storm which i have described in the previous chapter was a sample of those that occurred daily for many years. no matter how clear the sky, it was always liable to cloud over now in one quarter now in another, and the thunder and lightning were upon the young people before they knew where they were. "and then, you know," said ernest to me, when i asked him not long since to give me more of his childish reminiscences for the benefit of my story, "we used to learn mrs barbauld's hymns; they were in prose, and there was one about the lion which began, 'come, and i will show you what is strong. the lion is strong; when he raiseth himself from his lair, when he shaketh his mane, when the voice of his roaring is heard the cattle of the field fly, and the beasts of the desert hide themselves, for he is very terrible.' i used to say this to joey and charlotte about my father himself when i got a little older, but they were always didactic, and said it was naughty of me. "one great reason why clergymen's households are generally unhappy is because the clergyman is so much at home or close about the house. the doctor is out visiting patients half his time: the lawyer and the merchant have offices away from home, but the clergyman has no official place of business which shall ensure his being away from home for many hours together at stated times. our great days were when my father went for a day's shopping to gildenham. we were some miles from this place, and commissions used to accumulate on my father's list till he would make a day of it and go and do the lot. as soon as his back was turned the air felt lighter; as soon as the hall door opened to let him in again, the law with its all-reaching 'touch not, taste not, handle not' was upon us again. the worst of it was that i could never trust joey and charlotte; they would go a good way with me and then turn back, or even the whole way and then their consciences would compel them to tell papa and mamma. they liked running with the hare up to a certain point, but their instinct was towards the hounds. "it seems to me," he continued, "that the family is a survival of the principle which is more logically embodied in the compound animal--and the compound animal is a form of life which has been found incompatible with high development. i would do with the family among mankind what nature has done with the compound animal, and confine it to the lower and less progressive races. certainly there is no inherent love for the family system on the part of nature herself. poll the forms of life and you will find it in a ridiculously small minority. the fishes know it not, and they get along quite nicely. the ants and the bees, who far outnumber man, sting their fathers to death as a matter of course, and are given to the atrocious mutilation of nine-tenths of the offspring committed to their charge, yet where shall we find communities more universally respected? take the cuckoo again--is there any bird which we like better?" i saw he was running off from his own reminiscences and tried to bring him back to them, but it was no use. "what a fool," he said, "a man is to remember anything that happened more than a week ago unless it was pleasant, or unless he wants to make some use of it. "sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime. a man at five and thirty should no more regret not having had a happier childhood than he should regret not having been born a prince of the blood. he might be happier if he had been more fortunate in childhood, but, for aught he knows, if he had, something else might have happened which might have killed him long ago. if i had to be born again i would be born at battersby of the same father and mother as before, and i would not alter anything that has ever happened to me." the most amusing incident that i can remember about his childhood was that when he was about seven years old he told me he was going to have a natural child. i asked him his reasons for thinking this, and he explained that papa and mamma had always told him that nobody had children till they were married, and as long as he had believed this of course he had had no idea of having a child, till he was grown up; but not long since he had been reading mrs markham's history of england and had come upon the words "john of gaunt had several natural children" he had therefore asked his governess what a natural child was--were not all children natural? "oh, my dear," said she, "a natural child is a child a person has before he is married." on this it seemed to follow logically that if john of gaunt had had children before he was married, he, ernest pontifex, might have them also, and he would be obliged to me if i would tell him what he had better do under the circumstances. i enquired how long ago he had made this discovery. he said about a fortnight, and he did not know where to look for the child, for it might come at any moment. "you know," he said, "babies come so suddenly; one goes to bed one night and next morning there is a baby. why, it might die of cold if we are not on the look-out for it. i hope it will be a boy." "and you have told your governess about this?" "yes, but she puts me off and does not help me: she says it will not come for many years, and she hopes not then." "are you quite sure that you have not made any mistake in all this?" "oh, no; because mrs burne, you know, called here a few days ago, and i was sent for to be looked at. and mamma held me out at arm's length and said, 'is he mr pontifex's child, mrs burne, or is he mine?' of course, she couldn't have said this if papa had not had some of the children himself. i did think the gentleman had all the boys and the lady all the girls; but it can't be like this, or else mamma would not have asked mrs burne to guess; but then mrs burne said, 'oh, he's mr pontifex's child _of course_,' and i didn't quite know what she meant by saying 'of course': it seemed as though i was right in thinking that the husband has all the boys and the wife all the girls; i wish you would explain to me all about it." this i could hardly do, so i changed the conversation, after reassuring him as best i could. chapter xxv three or four years after the birth of her daughter, christina had had one more child. she had never been strong since she married, and had a presentiment that she should not survive this last confinement. she accordingly wrote the following letter, which was to be given, as she endorsed upon it, to her sons when ernest was sixteen years old. it reached him on his mother's death many years later, for it was the baby who died now, and not christina. it was found among papers which she had repeatedly and carefully arranged, with the seal already broken. this, i am afraid, shows that christina had read it and thought it too creditable to be destroyed when the occasion that had called it forth had gone by. it is as follows-- "battersby, march th, . "my two dear boys,--when this is put into your hands will you try to bring to mind the mother whom you lost in your childhood, and whom, i fear, you will almost have forgotten? you, ernest, will remember her best, for you are past five years old, and the many, many times that she has taught you your prayers and hymns and sums and told you stories, and our happy sunday evenings will not quite have passed from your mind, and you, joey, though only four, will perhaps recollect some of these things. my dear, dear boys, for the sake of that mother who loved you very dearly--and for the sake of your own happiness for ever and ever--attend to and try to remember, and from time to time read over again the last words she can ever speak to you. when i think about leaving you all, two things press heavily upon me: one, your father's sorrow (for you, my darlings, after missing me a little while, will soon forget your loss), the other, the everlasting welfare of my children. i know how long and deep the former will be, and i know that he will look to his children to be almost his only earthly comfort. you know (for i am certain that it will have been so), how he has devoted his life to you and taught you and laboured to lead you to all that is right and good. oh, then, be sure that you _are_ his comforts. let him find you obedient, affectionate and attentive to his wishes, upright, self-denying and diligent; let him never blush for or grieve over the sins and follies of those who owe him such a debt of gratitude, and whose first duty it is to study his happiness. you have both of you a name which must not be disgraced, a father and a grandfather of whom to show yourselves worthy; your respectability and well-doing in life rest mainly with yourselves, but far, far beyond earthly respectability and well-doing, and compared with which they are as nothing, your eternal happiness rests with yourselves. you know your duty, but snares and temptations from without beset you, and the nearer you approach to manhood the more strongly will you feel this. with god's help, with god's word, and with humble hearts you will stand in spite of everything, but should you leave off seeking in earnest for the first, and applying to the second, should you learn to trust in yourselves, or to the advice and example of too many around you, you will, you must fall. oh, 'let god be true and every man a liar.' he says you cannot serve him and mammon. he says that strait is the gate that leads to eternal life. many there are who seek to widen it; they will tell you that such and such self-indulgences are but venial offences--that this and that worldly compliance is excusable and even necessary. the thing _cannot be_; for in a hundred and a hundred places he tells you so--look to your bibles and seek there whether such counsel is true--and if not, oh, 'halt not between two opinions,' if god is the lord follow him; only be strong and of a good courage, and he will never leave you nor forsake you. remember, there is not in the bible one law for the rich, and one for the poor--one for the educated and one for the ignorant. to _all_ there is but one thing needful. _all_ are to be living to god and their fellow-creatures, and not to themselves. _all_ must seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness--must _deny themselves_, be pure and chaste and charitable in the fullest and widest sense--all, 'forgetting those things that are behind,' must 'press forward towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of god.' "and now i will add but two things more. be true through life to each other, love as only brothers should do, strengthen, warn, encourage one another, and let who will be against you, let each feel that in his brother he has a firm and faithful friend who will be so to the end; and, oh! be kind and watchful over your dear sister; without mother or sisters she will doubly need her brothers' love and tenderness and confidence. i am certain she will seek them, and will love you and try to make you happy; be sure then that you do not fail her, and remember, that were she to lose her father and remain unmarried, she would doubly need protectors. to you, then, i especially commend her. oh! my three darling children, be true to each other, your father, and your god. may he guide and bless you, and grant that in a better and happier world i and mine may meet again.--your most affectionate mother, christina pontifex." from enquiries i have made, i have satisfied myself that most mothers write letters like this shortly before their confinements, and that fifty per cent. keep them afterwards, as christina did. chapter xxvi the foregoing letter shows how much greater was christina's anxiety for the eternal than for the temporal welfare of her sons. one would have thought she had sowed enough of such religious wild oats by this time, but she had plenty still to sow. to me it seems that those who are happy in this world are better and more lovable people than those who are not, and that thus in the event of a resurrection and day of judgement, they will be the most likely to be deemed worthy of a heavenly mansion. perhaps a dim unconscious perception of this was the reason why christina was so anxious for theobald's earthly happiness, or was it merely due to a conviction that his eternal welfare was so much a matter of course, that it only remained to secure his earthly happiness? he was to "find his sons obedient, affectionate, attentive to his wishes, self-denying and diligent," a goodly string forsooth of all the virtues most convenient to parents; he was never to have to blush for the follies of those "who owed him such a debt of gratitude," and "whose first duty it was to study his happiness." how like maternal solicitude is this! solicitude for the most part lest the offspring should come to have wishes and feelings of its own, which may occasion many difficulties, fancied or real. it is this that is at the bottom of the whole mischief; but whether this last proposition is granted or no, at any rate we observe that christina had a sufficiently keen appreciation of the duties of children towards their parents, and felt the task of fulfilling them adequately to be so difficult that she was very doubtful how far ernest and joey would succeed in mastering it. it is plain in fact that her supposed parting glance upon them was one of suspicion. but there was no suspicion of theobald; that he should have devoted his life to his children--why this was such a mere platitude, as almost to go without saying. how, let me ask, was it possible that a child only a little past five years old, trained in such an atmosphere of prayers and hymns and sums and happy sunday evenings--to say nothing of daily repeated beatings over the said prayers and hymns, etc., about which our authoress is silent--how was it possible that a lad so trained should grow up in any healthy or vigorous development, even though in her own way his mother was undoubtedly very fond of him, and sometimes told him stories? can the eye of any reader fail to detect the coming wrath of god as about to descend upon the head of him who should be nurtured under the shadow of such a letter as the foregoing? i have often thought that the church of rome does wisely in not allowing her priests to marry. certainly it is a matter of common observation in england that the sons of clergymen are frequently unsatisfactory. the explanation is very simple, but is so often lost sight of that i may perhaps be pardoned for giving it here. the clergyman is expected to be a kind of human sunday. things must not be done in him which are venial in the week-day classes. he is paid for this business of leading a stricter life than other people. it is his _raison d'etre_. if his parishioners feel that he does this, they approve of him, for they look upon him as their own contribution towards what they deem a holy life. this is why the clergyman is so often called a vicar--he being the person whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his charge. but his home is his castle as much as that of any other englishman, and with him, as with others, unnatural tension in public is followed by exhaustion when tension is no longer necessary. his children are the most defenceless things he can reach, and it is on them in nine cases out of ten that he will relieve his mind. a clergyman, again, can hardly ever allow himself to look facts fairly in the face. it is his profession to support one side; it is impossible, therefore, for him to make an unbiassed examination of the other. we forget that every clergyman with a living or curacy, is as much a paid advocate as the barrister who is trying to persuade a jury to acquit a prisoner. we should listen to him with the same suspense of judgment, the same full consideration of the arguments of the opposing counsel, as a judge does when he is trying a case. unless we know these, and can state them in a way that our opponents would admit to be a fair representation of their views, we have no right to claim that we have formed an opinion at all. the misfortune is that by the law of the land one side only can be heard. theobald and christina were no exceptions to the general rule. when they came to battersby they had every desire to fulfil the duties of their position, and to devote themselves to the honour and glory of god. but it was theobald's duty to see the honour and glory of god through the eyes of a church which had lived three hundred years without finding reason to change a single one of its opinions. i should doubt whether he ever got as far as doubting the wisdom of his church upon any single matter. his scent for possible mischief was tolerably keen; so was christina's, and it is likely that if either of them detected in him or herself the first faint symptoms of a want of faith they were nipped no less peremptorily in the bud, than signs of self-will in ernest were--and i should imagine more successfully. yet theobald considered himself, and was generally considered to be, and indeed perhaps was, an exceptionally truthful person; indeed he was generally looked upon as an embodiment of all those virtues which make the poor respectable and the rich respected. in the course of time he and his wife became persuaded even to unconsciousness, that no one could even dwell under their roof without deep cause for thankfulness. their children, their servants, their parishioners must be fortunate _ipso facto_ that they were theirs. there was no road to happiness here or hereafter, but the road that they had themselves travelled, no good people who did not think as they did upon every subject, and no reasonable person who had wants the gratification of which would be inconvenient to them--theobald and christina. this was how it came to pass that their children were white and puny; they were suffering from _home-sickness_. they were starving, through being over-crammed with the wrong things. nature came down upon them, but she did not come down on theobald and christina. why should she? they were not leading a starved existence. there are two classes of people in this world, those who sin, and those who are sinned against; if a man must belong to either, he had better belong to the first than to the second. chapter xxvii i will give no more of the details of my hero's earlier years. enough that he struggled through them, and at twelve years old knew every page of his latin and greek grammars by heart. he had read the greater part of virgil, horace and livy, and i do not know how many greek plays: he was proficient in arithmetic, knew the first four books of euclid thoroughly, and had a fair knowledge of french. it was now time he went to school, and to school he was accordingly to go, under the famous dr skinner of roughborough. theobald had known dr skinner slightly at cambridge. he had been a burning and a shining light in every position he had filled from his boyhood upwards. he was a very great genius. everyone knew this; they said, indeed, that he was one of the few people to whom the word genius could be applied without exaggeration. had he not taken i don't know how many university scholarships in his freshman's year? had he not been afterwards senior wrangler, first chancellor's medallist and i do not know how many more things besides? and then, he was such a wonderful speaker; at the union debating club he had been without a rival, and had, of course, been president; his moral character,--a point on which so many geniuses were weak--was absolutely irreproachable; foremost of all, however, among his many great qualities, and perhaps more remarkable even than his genius was what biographers have called "the simple-minded and child-like earnestness of his character," an earnestness which might be perceived by the solemnity with which he spoke even about trifles. it is hardly necessary to say he was on the liberal side in politics. his personal appearance was not particularly prepossessing. he was about the middle height, portly, and had a couple of fierce grey eyes, that flashed fire from beneath a pair of great bushy beetling eyebrows and overawed all who came near him. it was in respect of his personal appearance, however, that, if he was vulnerable at all, his weak place was to be found. his hair when he was a young man was red, but after he had taken his degree he had a brain fever which caused him to have his head shaved; when he reappeared, he did so wearing a wig, and one which was a good deal further off red than his own hair had been. he not only had never discarded his wig, but year by year it had edged itself a little more and a little more off red, till by the time he was forty, there was not a trace of red remaining, and his wig was brown. when dr skinner was a very young man, hardly more than five-and-twenty, the head-mastership of roughborough grammar school had fallen vacant, and he had been unhesitatingly appointed. the result justified the selection. dr skinner's pupils distinguished themselves at whichever university they went to. he moulded their minds after the model of his own, and stamped an impression upon them which was indelible in after- life; whatever else a roughborough man might be, he was sure to make everyone feel that he was a god-fearing earnest christian and a liberal, if not a radical, in politics. some boys, of course, were incapable of appreciating the beauty and loftiness of dr skinner's nature. some such boys, alas! there will be in every school; upon them dr skinner's hand was very properly a heavy one. his hand was against them, and theirs against him during the whole time of the connection between them. they not only disliked him, but they hated all that he more especially embodied, and throughout their lives disliked all that reminded them of him. such boys, however, were in a minority, the spirit of the place being decidedly skinnerian. i once had the honour of playing a game of chess with this great man. it was during the christmas holidays, and i had come down to roughborough for a few days to see alethea pontifex (who was then living there) on business. it was very gracious of him to take notice of me, for if i was a light of literature at all it was of the very lightest kind. it is true that in the intervals of business i had written a good deal, but my works had been almost exclusively for the stage, and for those theatres that devoted themselves to extravaganza and burlesque. i had written many pieces of this description, full of puns and comic songs, and they had had a fair success, but my best piece had been a treatment of english history during the reformation period, in the course of which i had introduced cranmer, sir thomas more, henry the eighth, catherine of arragon, and thomas cromwell (in his youth better known as the _malleus monachorum_), and had made them dance a break-down. i had also dramatised "the pilgrim's progress" for a christmas pantomime, and made an important scene of vanity fair, with mr greatheart, apollyon, christiana, mercy, and hopeful as the principal characters. the orchestra played music taken from handel's best known works, but the time was a good deal altered, and altogether the tunes were not exactly as handel left them. mr greatheart was very stout and he had a red nose; he wore a capacious waistcoat, and a shirt with a huge frill down the middle of the front. hopeful was up to as much mischief as i could give him; he wore the costume of a young swell of the period, and had a cigar in his mouth which was continually going out. christiana did not wear much of anything: indeed it was said that the dress which the stage manager had originally proposed for her had been considered inadequate even by the lord chamberlain, but this is not the case. with all these delinquencies upon my mind it was natural that i should feel convinced of sin while playing chess (which i hate) with the great dr skinner of roughborough--the historian of athens and editor of demosthenes. dr skinner, moreover, was one of those who pride themselves on being able to set people at their ease at once, and i had been sitting on the edge of my chair all the evening. but i have always been very easily overawed by a schoolmaster. the game had been a long one, and at half-past nine, when supper came in, we had each of us a few pieces remaining. "what will you take for supper, dr skinner?" said mrs skinner in a silvery voice. he made no answer for some time, but at last in a tone of almost superhuman solemnity, he said, first, "nothing," and then "nothing whatever." by and by, however, i had a sense come over me as though i were nearer the consummation of all things than i had ever yet been. the room seemed to grow dark, as an expression came over dr skinner's face, which showed that he was about to speak. the expression gathered force, the room grew darker and darker. "stay," he at length added, and i felt that here at any rate was an end to a suspense which was rapidly becoming unbearable. "stay--i may presently take a glass of cold water--and a small piece of bread and butter." as he said the word "butter" his voice sank to a hardly audible whisper; then there was a sigh as though of relief when the sentence was concluded, and the universe this time was safe. another ten minutes of solemn silence finished the game. the doctor rose briskly from his seat and placed himself at the supper table. "mrs skinner," he exclaimed jauntily, "what are those mysterious-looking objects surrounded by potatoes?" "those are oysters, dr skinner." "give me some, and give overton some." and so on till he had eaten a good plate of oysters, a scallop shell of minced veal nicely browned, some apple tart, and a hunk of bread and cheese. this was the small piece of bread and butter. the cloth was now removed and tumblers with teaspoons in them, a lemon or two and a jug of boiling water were placed upon the table. then the great man unbent. his face beamed. "and what shall it be to drink?" he exclaimed persuasively. "shall it be brandy and water? no. it shall be gin and water. gin is the more wholesome liquor." so gin it was, hot and stiff too. who can wonder at him or do anything but pity him? was he not head-master of roughborough school? to whom had he owed money at any time? whose ox had he taken, whose ass had he taken, or whom had he defrauded? what whisper had ever been breathed against his moral character? if he had become rich it was by the most honourable of all means--his literary attainments; over and above his great works of scholarship, his "meditations upon the epistle and character of st jude" had placed him among the most popular of english theologians; it was so exhaustive that no one who bought it need ever meditate upon the subject again--indeed it exhausted all who had anything to do with it. he had made pounds by this work alone, and would very likely make another pounds before he died. a man who had done all this and wanted a piece of bread and butter had a right to announce the fact with some pomp and circumstance. nor should his words be taken without searching for what he used to call a "deeper and more hidden meaning." those who searched for this even in his lightest utterances would not be without their reward. they would find that "bread and butter" was skinnerese for oyster-patties and apple tart, and "gin hot" the true translation of water. but independently of their money value, his works had made him a lasting name in literature. so probably gallio was under the impression that his fame would rest upon the treatises on natural history which we gather from seneca that he compiled, and which for aught we know may have contained a complete theory of evolution; but the treatises are all gone and gallio has become immortal for the very last reason in the world that he expected, and for the very last reason that would have flattered his vanity. he has become immortal because he cared nothing about the most important movement with which he was ever brought into connection (i wish people who are in search of immortality would lay the lesson to heart and not make so much noise about important movements), and so, if dr skinner becomes immortal, it will probably be for some reason very different from the one which he so fondly imagined. could it be expected to enter into the head of such a man as this that in reality he was making his money by corrupting youth; that it was his paid profession to make the worse appear the better reason in the eyes of those who were too young and inexperienced to be able to find him out; that he kept out of the sight of those whom he professed to teach material points of the argument, for the production of which they had a right to rely upon the honour of anyone who made professions of sincerity; that he was a passionate half-turkey-cock half-gander of a man whose sallow, bilious face and hobble-gobble voice could scare the timid, but who would take to his heels readily enough if he were met firmly; that his "meditations on st jude," such as they were, were cribbed without acknowledgment, and would have been beneath contempt if so many people did not believe them to have been written honestly? mrs skinner might have perhaps kept him a little more in his proper place if she had thought it worth while to try, but she had enough to attend to in looking after her household and seeing that the boys were well fed and, if they were ill, properly looked after--which she took good care they were. chapter xxviii ernest had heard awful accounts of dr skinner's temper, and of the bullying which the younger boys at roughborough had to put up with at the hands of the bigger ones. he had now got about as much as he could stand, and felt as though it must go hard with him if his burdens of whatever kind were to be increased. he did not cry on leaving home, but i am afraid he did on being told that he was getting near roughborough. his father and mother were with him, having posted from home in their own carriage; roughborough had as yet no railway, and as it was only some forty miles from battersby, this was the easiest way of getting there. on seeing him cry, his mother felt flattered and caressed him. she said she knew he must feel very sad at leaving such a happy home, and going among people who, though they would be very good to him, could never, never be as good as his dear papa and she had been; still, she was herself, if he only knew it, much more deserving of pity than he was, for the parting was more painful to her than it could possibly be to him, etc., and ernest, on being told that his tears were for grief at leaving home, took it all on trust, and did not trouble to investigate the real cause of his tears. as they approached roughborough he pulled himself together, and was fairly calm by the time he reached dr skinner's. on their arrival they had luncheon with the doctor and his wife, and then mrs skinner took christina over the bedrooms, and showed her where her dear little boy was to sleep. whatever men may think about the study of man, women do really believe the noblest study for womankind to be woman, and christina was too much engrossed with mrs skinner to pay much attention to anything else; i daresay mrs skinner, too, was taking pretty accurate stock of christina. christina was charmed, as indeed she generally was with any new acquaintance, for she found in them (and so must we all) something of the nature of a cross; as for mrs skinner, i imagine she had seen too many christinas to find much regeneration in the sample now before her; i believe her private opinion echoed the dictum of a well-known head-master who declared that all parents were fools, but more especially mothers; she was, however, all smiles and sweetness, and christina devoured these graciously as tributes paid more particularly to herself, and such as no other mother would have been at all likely to have won. in the meantime theobald and ernest were with dr skinner in his library--the room where new boys were examined and old ones had up for rebuke or chastisement. if the walls of that room could speak, what an amount of blundering and capricious cruelty would they not bear witness to! like all houses, dr skinner's had its peculiar smell. in this case the prevailing odour was one of russia leather, but along with it there was a subordinate savour as of a chemist's shop. this came from a small laboratory in one corner of the room--the possession of which, together with the free chattery and smattery use of such words as "carbonate," "hyposulphite," "phosphate," and "affinity," were enough to convince even the most sceptical that dr skinner had a profound knowledge of chemistry. i may say in passing that dr skinner had dabbled in a great many other things as well as chemistry. he was a man of many small knowledges, and each of them dangerous. i remember alethea pontifex once said in her wicked way to me, that dr skinner put her in mind of the bourbon princes on their return from exile after the battle of waterloo, only that he was their exact converse; for whereas they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, dr skinner had learned everything and forgotten everything. and this puts me in mind of another of her wicked sayings about dr skinner. she told me one day that he had the harmlessness of the serpent and the wisdom of the dove. but to return to dr skinner's library; over the chimney-piece there was a bishop's half length portrait of dr skinner himself, painted by the elder pickersgill, whose merit dr skinner had been among the first to discern and foster. there were no other pictures in the library, but in the dining-room there was a fine collection, which the doctor had got together with his usual consummate taste. he added to it largely in later life, and when it came to the hammer at christie's, as it did not long since, it was found to comprise many of the latest and most matured works of solomon hart, o'neil, charles landseer, and more of our recent academicians than i can at the moment remember. there were thus brought together and exhibited at one view many works which had attracted attention at the academy exhibitions, and as to whose ultimate destiny there had been some curiosity. the prices realised were disappointing to the executors, but, then, these things are so much a matter of chance. an unscrupulous writer in a well-known weekly paper had written the collection down. moreover there had been one or two large sales a short time before dr skinner's, so that at this last there was rather a panic, and a reaction against the high prices that had ruled lately. the table of the library was loaded with books many deep; mss. of all kinds were confusedly mixed up with them,--boys' exercises, probably, and examination papers--but all littering untidily about. the room in fact was as depressing from its slatternliness as from its atmosphere of erudition. theobald and ernest as they entered it, stumbled over a large hole in the turkey carpet, and the dust that rose showed how long it was since it had been taken up and beaten. this, i should say, was no fault of mrs skinner's but was due to the doctor himself, who declared that if his papers were once disturbed it would be the death of him. near the window was a green cage containing a pair of turtle doves, whose plaintive cooing added to the melancholy of the place. the walls were covered with book shelves from floor to ceiling, and on every shelf the books stood in double rows. it was horrible. prominent among the most prominent upon the most prominent shelf were a series of splendidly bound volumes entitled "skinner's works." boys are sadly apt to rush to conclusions, and ernest believed that dr skinner knew all the books in this terrible library, and that he, if he were to be any good, should have to learn them too. his heart fainted within him. he was told to sit on a chair against the wall and did so, while dr skinner talked to theobald upon the topics of the day. he talked about the hampden controversy then raging, and discoursed learnedly about "praemunire"; then he talked about the revolution which had just broken out in sicily, and rejoiced that the pope had refused to allow foreign troops to pass through his dominions in order to crush it. dr skinner and the other masters took in the times among them, and dr skinner echoed the _times_' leaders. in those days there were no penny papers and theobald only took in the _spectator_--for he was at that time on the whig side in politics; besides this he used to receive the _ecclesiastical gazette_ once a month, but he saw no other papers, and was amazed at the ease and fluency with which dr skinner ran from subject to subject. the pope's action in the matter of the sicilian revolution naturally led the doctor to the reforms which his holiness had introduced into his dominions, and he laughed consumedly over the joke which had not long since appeared in _punch_, to the effect that pio "no, no," should rather have been named pio "yes, yes," because, as the doctor explained, he granted everything his subjects asked for. anything like a pun went straight to dr skinner's heart. then he went on to the matter of these reforms themselves. they opened up a new era in the history of christendom, and would have such momentous and far-reaching consequences, that they might even lead to a reconciliation between the churches of england and rome. dr skinner had lately published a pamphlet upon this subject, which had shown great learning, and had attacked the church of rome in a way which did not promise much hope of reconciliation. he had grounded his attack upon the letters a.m.d.g., which he had seen outside a roman catholic chapel, and which of course stood for _ad mariam dei genetricem_. could anything be more idolatrous? i am told, by the way, that i must have let my memory play me one of the tricks it often does play me, when i said the doctor proposed _ad mariam dei genetricem_ as the full harmonies, so to speak, which should be constructed upon the bass a.m.d.g., for that this is bad latin, and that the doctor really harmonised the letters thus: _ave maria dei genetrix_. no doubt the doctor did what was right in the matter of latinity--i have forgotten the little latin i ever knew, and am not going to look the matter up, but i believe the doctor said _ad mariam dei genetricem_, and if so we may be sure that _ad mariam dei genetricem_, is good enough latin at any rate for ecclesiastical purposes. the reply of the local priest had not yet appeared, and dr skinner was jubilant, but when the answer appeared, and it was solemnly declared that a.m.d.g. stood for nothing more dangerous than _ad majorem dei gloriam_, it was felt that though this subterfuge would not succeed with any intelligent englishman, still it was a pity dr skinner had selected this particular point for his attack, for he had to leave his enemy in possession of the field. when people are left in possession of the field, spectators have an awkward habit of thinking that their adversary does not dare to come to the scratch. dr skinner was telling theobald all about his pamphlet, and i doubt whether this gentleman was much more comfortable than ernest himself. he was bored, for in his heart he hated liberalism, though he was ashamed to say so, and, as i have said, professed to be on the whig side. he did not want to be reconciled to the church of rome; he wanted to make all roman catholics turn protestants, and could never understand why they would not do so; but the doctor talked in such a truly liberal spirit, and shut him up so sharply when he tried to edge in a word or two, that he had to let him have it all his own way, and this was not what he was accustomed to. he was wondering how he could bring it to an end, when a diversion was created by the discovery that ernest had begun to cry--doubtless through an intense but inarticulate sense of a boredom greater than he could bear. he was evidently in a highly nervous state, and a good deal upset by the excitement of the morning, mrs skinner therefore, who came in with christina at this juncture, proposed that he should spend the afternoon with mrs jay, the matron, and not be introduced to his young companions until the following morning. his father and mother now bade him an affectionate farewell, and the lad was handed over to mrs jay. o schoolmasters--if any of you read this book--bear in mind when any particularly timid drivelling urchin is brought by his papa into your study, and you treat him with the contempt which he deserves, and afterwards make his life a burden to him for years--bear in mind that it is exactly in the disguise of such a boy as this that your future chronicler will appear. never see a wretched little heavy-eyed mite sitting on the edge of a chair against your study wall without saying to yourselves, "perhaps this boy is he who, if i am not careful, will one day tell the world what manner of man i was." if even two or three schoolmasters learn this lesson and remember it, the preceding chapters will not have been written in vain. chapter xxix soon after his father and mother had left him ernest dropped asleep over a book which mrs jay had given him, and he did not awake till dusk. then he sat down on a stool in front of the fire, which showed pleasantly in the late january twilight, and began to muse. he felt weak, feeble, ill at ease and unable to see his way out of the innumerable troubles that were before him. perhaps, he said to himself, he might even die, but this, far from being an end of his troubles, would prove the beginning of new ones; for at the best he would only go to grandpapa pontifex and grandmamma allaby, and though they would perhaps be more easy to get on with than papa and mamma, yet they were undoubtedly not so really good, and were more worldly; moreover they were grown-up people--especially grandpapa pontifex, who so far as he could understand had been very much grown-up, and he did not know why, but there was always something that kept him from loving any grown-up people very much--except one or two of the servants, who had indeed been as nice as anything that he could imagine. besides even if he were to die and go to heaven he supposed he should have to complete his education somewhere. in the meantime his father and mother were rolling along the muddy roads, each in his or her own corner of the carriage, and each revolving many things which were and were not to come to pass. times have changed since i last showed them to the reader as sitting together silently in a carriage, but except as regards their mutual relations, they have altered singularly little. when i was younger i used to think the prayer book was wrong in requiring us to say the general confession twice a week from childhood to old age, without making provision for our not being quite such great sinners at seventy as we had been at seven; granted that we should go to the wash like table-cloths at least once a week, still i used to think a day ought to come when we should want rather less rubbing and scrubbing at. now that i have grown older myself i have seen that the church has estimated probabilities better than i had done. the pair said not a word to one another, but watched the fading light and naked trees, the brown fields with here and there a melancholy cottage by the road side, and the rain that fell fast upon the carriage windows. it was a kind of afternoon on which nice people for the most part like to be snug at home, and theobald was a little snappish at reflecting how many miles he had to post before he could be at his own fireside again. however there was nothing for it, so the pair sat quietly and watched the roadside objects flit by them, and get greyer and grimmer as the light faded. though they spoke not to one another, there was one nearer to each of them with whom they could converse freely. "i hope," said theobald to himself, "i hope he'll work--or else that skinner will make him. i don't like skinner, i never did like him, but he is unquestionably a man of genius, and no one turns out so many pupils who succeed at oxford and cambridge, and that is the best test. i have done my share towards starting him well. skinner said he had been well grounded and was very forward. i suppose he will presume upon it now and do nothing, for his nature is an idle one. he is not fond of me, i'm sure he is not. he ought to be after all the trouble i have taken with him, but he is ungrateful and selfish. it is an unnatural thing for a boy not to be fond of his own father. if he was fond of me i should be fond of him, but i cannot like a son who, i am sure, dislikes me. he shrinks out of my way whenever he sees me coming near him. he will not stay five minutes in the same room with me if he can help it. he is deceitful. he would not want to hide himself away so much if he were not deceitful. that is a bad sign and one which makes me fear he will grow up extravagant. i am sure he will grow up extravagant. i should have given him more pocket-money if i had not known this--but what is the good of giving him pocket-money? it is all gone directly. if he doesn't buy something with it he gives it away to the first little boy or girl he sees who takes his fancy. he forgets that it's my money he is giving away. i give him money that he may have money and learn to know its uses, not that he may go and squander it immediately. i wish he was not so fond of music, it will interfere with his latin and greek. i will stop it as much as i can. why, when he was translating livy the other day he slipped out handel's name in mistake for hannibal's, and his mother tells me he knows half the tunes in the 'messiah' by heart. what should a boy of his age know about the 'messiah'? if i had shown half as many dangerous tendencies when i was a boy, my father would have apprenticed me to a greengrocer, of that i'm very sure," etc., etc. then his thoughts turned to egypt and the tenth plague. it seemed to him that if the little egyptians had been anything like ernest, the plague must have been something very like a blessing in disguise. if the israelites were to come to england now he should be greatly tempted not to let them go. mrs theobald's thoughts ran in a different current. "lord lonsford's grandson--it's a pity his name is figgins; however, blood is blood as much through the female line as the male, indeed, perhaps even more so if the truth were known. i wonder who mr figgins was. i think mrs skinner said he was dead, however, i must find out all about him. it would be delightful if young figgins were to ask ernest home for the holidays. who knows but he might meet lord lonsford himself, or at any rate some of lord lonsford's other descendants?" meanwhile the boy himself was still sitting moodily before the fire in mrs jay's room. "papa and mamma," he was saying to himself, "are much better and cleverer than anyone else, but, i, alas! shall never be either good or clever." mrs pontifex continued-- "perhaps it would be best to get young figgins on a visit to ourselves first. that would be charming. theobald would not like it, for he does not like children; i must see how i can manage it, for it would be so nice to have young figgins--or stay! ernest shall go and stay with figgins and meet the future lord lonsford, who i should think must be about ernest's age, and then if he and ernest were to become friends ernest might ask him to battersby, and he might fall in love with charlotte. i think we have done _most wisely_ in sending ernest to dr skinner's. dr skinner's piety is no less remarkable than his genius. one can tell these things at a glance, and he must have felt it about me no less strongly than i about him. i think he seemed much struck with theobald and myself--indeed, theobald's intellectual power must impress any one, and i was showing, i do believe, to my best advantage. when i smiled at him and said i left my boy in his hands with the most entire confidence that he would be as well cared for as if he were at my own house, i am sure he was greatly pleased. i should not think many of the mothers who bring him boys can impress him so favourably, or say such nice things to him as i did. my smile is sweet when i desire to make it so. i never was perhaps exactly pretty, but i was always admitted to be fascinating. dr skinner is a very handsome man--too good on the whole i should say for mrs skinner. theobald says he is not handsome, but men are no judges, and he has such a pleasant bright face. i think my bonnet became me. as soon as i get home i will tell chambers to trim my blue and yellow merino with--" etc., etc. all this time the letter which has been given above was lying in christina's private little japanese cabinet, read and re-read and approved of many times over, not to say, if the truth were known, rewritten more than once, though dated as in the first instance--and this, too, though christina was fond enough of a joke in a small way. ernest, still in mrs jay's room mused onward. "grown-up people," he said to himself, "when they were ladies and gentlemen, never did naughty things, but he was always doing them. he had heard that some grown-up people were worldly, which of course was wrong, still this was quite distinct from being naughty, and did not get them punished or scolded. his own papa and mamma were not even worldly; they had often explained to him that they were exceptionally unworldly; he well knew that they had never done anything naughty since they had been children, and that even as children they had been nearly faultless. oh! how different from himself! when should he learn to love his papa and mamma as they had loved theirs? how could he hope ever to grow up to be as good and wise as they, or even tolerably good and wise? alas! never. it could not be. he did not love his papa and mamma, in spite of all their goodness both in themselves and to him. he hated papa, and did not like mamma, and this was what none but a bad and ungrateful boy would do after all that had been done for him. besides he did not like sunday; he did not like anything that was really good; his tastes were low and such as he was ashamed of. he liked people best if they sometimes swore a little, so long as it was not at him. as for his catechism and bible readings he had no heart in them. he had never attended to a sermon in his life. even when he had been taken to hear mr vaughan at brighton, who, as everyone knew, preached such beautiful sermons for children, he had been very glad when it was all over, nor did he believe he could get through church at all if it was not for the voluntary upon the organ and the hymns and chanting. the catechism was awful. he had never been able to understand what it was that he desired of his lord god and heavenly father, nor had he yet got hold of a single idea in connection with the word sacrament. his duty towards his neighbour was another bugbear. it seemed to him that he had duties towards everybody, lying in wait for him upon every side, but that nobody had any duties towards him. then there was that awful and mysterious word 'business.' what did it all mean? what was 'business'? his papa was a wonderfully good man of business, his mamma had often told him so--but he should never be one. it was hopeless, and very awful, for people were continually telling him that he would have to earn his own living. no doubt, but how--considering how stupid, idle, ignorant, self-indulgent, and physically puny he was? all grown-up people were clever, except servants--and even these were cleverer than ever he should be. oh, why, why, why, could not people be born into the world as grown-up persons? then he thought of casabianca. he had been examined in that poem by his father not long before. 'when only would he leave his position? to whom did he call? did he get an answer? why? how many times did he call upon his father? what happened to him? what was the noblest life that perished there? do you think so? why do you think so?' and all the rest of it. of course he thought casabianca's was the noblest life that perished there; there could be no two opinions about that; it never occurred to him that the moral of the poem was that young people cannot begin too soon to exercise discretion in the obedience they pay to their papa and mamma. oh, no! the only thought in his mind was that he should never, never have been like casabianca, and that casabianca would have despised him so much, if he could have known him, that he would not have condescended to speak to him. there was nobody else in the ship worth reckoning at all: it did not matter how much they were blown up. mrs hemans knew them all and they were a very indifferent lot. besides casabianca was so good-looking and came of such a good family." and thus his small mind kept wandering on till he could follow it no longer, and again went off into a doze. chapter xxx next morning theobald and christina arose feeling a little tired from their journey, but happy in that best of all happiness, the approbation of their consciences. it would be their boy's fault henceforth if he were not good, and as prosperous as it was at all desirable that he should be. what more could parents do than they had done? the answer "nothing" will rise as readily to the lips of the reader as to those of theobald and christina themselves. a few days later the parents were gratified at receiving the following letter from their son-- "my dear mamma,--i am very well. dr skinner made me do about the horse free and exulting roaming in the wide fields in latin verse, but as i had done it with papa i knew how to do it, and it was nearly all right, and he put me in the fourth form under mr templer, and i have to begin a new latin grammar not like the old, but much harder. i know you wish me to work, and i will try very hard. with best love to joey and charlotte, and to papa, i remain, your affectionate son, ernest." nothing could be nicer or more proper. it really did seem as though he were inclined to turn over a new leaf. the boys had all come back, the examinations were over, and the routine of the half year began; ernest found that his fears about being kicked about and bullied were exaggerated. nobody did anything very dreadful to him. he had to run errands between certain hours for the elder boys, and to take his turn at greasing the footballs, and so forth, but there was an excellent spirit in the school as regards bullying. nevertheless, he was far from happy. dr skinner was much too like his father. true, ernest was not thrown in with him much yet, but he was always there; there was no knowing at what moment he might not put in an appearance, and whenever he did show, it was to storm about something. he was like the lion in the bishop of oxford's sunday story--always liable to rush out from behind some bush and devour some one when he was least expected. he called ernest "an audacious reptile" and said he wondered the earth did not open and swallow him up because he pronounced thalia with a short i. "and this to me," he thundered, "who never made a false quantity in my life." surely he would have been a much nicer person if he had made false quantities in his youth like other people. ernest could not imagine how the boys in dr skinner's form continued to live; but yet they did, and even throve, and, strange as it may seem, idolised him, or professed to do so in after life. to ernest it seemed like living on the crater of vesuvius. he was himself, as has been said, in mr templer's form, who was snappish, but not downright wicked, and was very easy to crib under. ernest used to wonder how mr templer could be so blind, for he supposed mr templer must have cribbed when he was at school, and would ask himself whether he should forget his youth when he got old, as mr templer had forgotten his. he used to think he never could possibly forget any part of it. then there was mrs jay, who was sometimes very alarming. a few days after the half year had commenced, there being some little extra noise in the hall, she rushed in with her spectacles on her forehead and her cap strings flying, and called the boy whom ernest had selected as his hero the "rampingest-scampingest-rackety-tackety-tow-row-roaringest boy in the whole school." but she used to say things that ernest liked. if the doctor went out to dinner, and there were no prayers, she would come in and say, "young gentlemen, prayers are excused this evening"; and, take her for all in all, she was a kindly old soul enough. most boys soon discover the difference between noise and actual danger, but to others it is so unnatural to menace, unless they mean mischief, that they are long before they leave off taking turkey-cocks and ganders _au serieux_. ernest was one of the latter sort, and found the atmosphere of roughborough so gusty that he was glad to shrink out of sight and out of mind whenever he could. he disliked the games worse even than the squalls of the class-room and hall, for he was still feeble, not filling out and attaining his full strength till a much later age than most boys. this was perhaps due to the closeness with which his father had kept him to his books in childhood, but i think in part also to a tendency towards lateness in attaining maturity, hereditary in the pontifex family, which was one also of unusual longevity. at thirteen or fourteen he was a mere bag of bones, with upper arms about as thick as the wrists of other boys of his age; his little chest was pigeon-breasted; he appeared to have no strength or stamina whatever, and finding he always went to the wall in physical encounters, whether undertaken in jest or earnest, even with boys shorter than himself, the timidity natural to childhood increased upon him to an extent that i am afraid amounted to cowardice. this rendered him even less capable than he might otherwise have been, for as confidence increases power, so want of confidence increases impotence. after he had had the breath knocked out of him and been well shinned half a dozen times in scrimmages at football--scrimmages in which he had become involved sorely against his will--he ceased to see any further fun in football, and shirked that noble game in a way that got him into trouble with the elder boys, who would stand no shirking on the part of the younger ones. he was as useless and ill at ease with cricket as with football, nor in spite of all his efforts could he ever throw a ball or a stone. it soon became plain, therefore, to everyone that pontifex was a young muff, a mollycoddle, not to be tortured, but still not to be rated highly. he was not however, actively unpopular, for it was seen that he was quite square _inter pares_, not at all vindictive, easily pleased, perfectly free with whatever little money he had, no greater lover of his school work than of the games, and generally more inclinable to moderate vice than to immoderate virtue. these qualities will prevent any boy from sinking very low in the opinion of his schoolfellows; but ernest thought he had fallen lower than he probably had, and hated and despised himself for what he, as much as anyone else, believed to be his cowardice. he did not like the boys whom he thought like himself. his heroes were strong and vigorous, and the less they inclined towards him the more he worshipped them. all this made him very unhappy, for it never occurred to him that the instinct which made him keep out of games for which he was ill adapted, was more reasonable than the reason which would have driven him into them. nevertheless he followed his instinct for the most part, rather than his reason. _sapiens suam si sapientiam norit_. chapter xxxi with the masters ernest was ere long in absolute disgrace. he had more liberty now than he had known heretofore. the heavy hand and watchful eye of theobald were no longer about his path and about his bed and spying out all his ways; and punishment by way of copying out lines of virgil was a very different thing from the savage beatings of his father. the copying out in fact was often less trouble than the lesson. latin and greek had nothing in them which commended them to his instinct as likely to bring him peace even at the last; still less did they hold out any hope of doing so within some more reasonable time. the deadness inherent in these defunct languages themselves had never been artificially counteracted by a system of _bona fide_ rewards for application. there had been any amount of punishments for want of application, but no good comfortable bribes had baited the hook which was to allure him to his good. indeed, the more pleasant side of learning to do this or that had always been treated as something with which ernest had no concern. we had no business with pleasant things at all, at any rate very little business, at any rate not he, ernest. we were put into this world not for pleasure but duty, and pleasure had in it something more or less sinful in its very essence. if we were doing anything we liked, we, or at any rate he, ernest, should apologise and think he was being very mercifully dealt with, if not at once told to go and do something else. with what he did not like, however, it was different; the more he disliked a thing the greater the presumption that it was right. it never occurred to him that the presumption was in favour of the rightness of what was most pleasant, and that the onus of proving that it was not right lay with those who disputed its being so. i have said more than once that he believed in his own depravity; never was there a little mortal more ready to accept without cavil whatever he was told by those who were in authority over him: he thought, at least, that he believed it, for as yet he knew nothing of that other ernest that dwelt within him, and was so much stronger and more real than the ernest of which he was conscious. the dumb ernest persuaded with inarticulate feelings too swift and sure to be translated into such debateable things as words, but practically insisted as follows-- "growing is not the easy plain sailing business that it is commonly supposed to be: it is hard work--harder than any but a growing boy can understand; it requires attention, and you are not strong enough to attend to your bodily growth, and to your lessons too. besides, latin and greek are great humbug; the more people know of them the more odious they generally are; the nice people whom you delight in either never knew any at all or forgot what they had learned as soon as they could; they never turned to the classics after they were no longer forced to read them; therefore they are nonsense, all very well in their own time and country, but out of place here. never learn anything until you find you have been made uncomfortable for a good long while by not knowing it; when you find that you have occasion for this or that knowledge, or foresee that you will have occasion for it shortly, the sooner you learn it the better, but till then spend your time in growing bone and muscle; these will be much more useful to you than latin and greek, nor will you ever be able to make them if you do not do so now, whereas latin and greek can be acquired at any time by those who want them. "you are surrounded on every side by lies which would deceive even the elect, if the elect were not generally so uncommonly wide awake; the self of which you are conscious, your reasoning and reflecting self, will believe these lies and bid you act in accordance with them. this conscious self of yours, ernest, is a prig begotten of prigs and trained in priggishness; i will not allow it to shape your actions, though it will doubtless shape your words for many a year to come. your papa is not here to beat you now; this is a change in the conditions of your existence, and should be followed by changed actions. obey me, your true self, and things will go tolerably well with you, but only listen to that outward and visible old husk of yours which is called your father, and i will rend you in pieces even unto the third and fourth generation as one who has hated god; for i, ernest, am the god who made you." how shocked ernest would have been if he could have heard the advice he was receiving; what consternation too there would have been at battersby; but the matter did not end here, for this same wicked inner self gave him bad advice about his pocket money, the choice of his companions and on the whole ernest was attentive and obedient to its behests, more so than theobald had been. the consequence was that he learned little, his mind growing more slowly and his body rather faster than heretofore: and when by and by his inner self urged him in directions where he met obstacles beyond his strength to combat, he took--though with passionate compunctions of conscience--the nearest course to the one from which he was debarred which circumstances would allow. it may be guessed that ernest was not the chosen friend of the more sedate and well-conducted youths then studying at roughborough. some of the less desirable boys used to go to public-houses and drink more beer than was good for them; ernest's inner self can hardly have told him to ally himself to these young gentlemen, but he did so at an early age, and was sometimes made pitiably sick by an amount of beer which would have produced no effect upon a stronger boy. ernest's inner self must have interposed at this point and told him that there was not much fun in this, for he dropped the habit ere it had taken firm hold of him, and never resumed it; but he contracted another at the disgracefully early age of between thirteen and fourteen which he did not relinquish, though to the present day his conscious self keeps dinging it into him that the less he smokes the better. and so matters went on till my hero was nearly fourteen years old. if by that time he was not actually a young blackguard, he belonged to a debateable class between the sub-reputable and the upper disreputable, with perhaps rather more leaning to the latter except so far as vices of meanness were concerned, from which he was fairly free. i gather this partly from what ernest has told me, and partly from his school bills which i remember theobald showed me with much complaining. there was an institution at roughborough called the monthly merit money; the maximum sum which a boy of ernest's age could get was four shillings and sixpence; several boys got four shillings and few less than sixpence, but ernest never got more than half-a-crown and seldom more than eighteen pence; his average would, i should think, be about one and nine pence, which was just too much for him to rank among the downright bad boys, but too little to put him among the good ones. chapter xxxii i must now return to miss alethea pontifex, of whom i have said perhaps too little hitherto, considering how great her influence upon my hero's destiny proved to be. on the death of her father, which happened when she was about thirty-two years old, she parted company with her sisters, between whom and herself there had been little sympathy, and came up to london. she was determined, so she said, to make the rest of her life as happy as she could, and she had clearer ideas about the best way of setting to work to do this than women, or indeed men, generally have. her fortune consisted, as i have said, of pounds, which had come to her by her mother's marriage settlements, and , pounds left her by her father, over both which sums she had now absolute control. these brought her in about pounds a year, and the money being invested in none but the soundest securities, she had no anxiety about her income. she meant to be rich, so she formed a scheme of expenditure which involved an annual outlay of about pounds, and determined to put the rest by. "if i do this," she said laughingly, "i shall probably just succeed in living comfortably within my income." in accordance with this scheme she took unfurnished apartments in a house in gower street, of which the lower floors were let out as offices. john pontifex tried to get her to take a house to herself, but alethea told him to mind his own business so plainly that he had to beat a retreat. she had never liked him, and from that time dropped him almost entirely. without going much into society she yet became acquainted with most of the men and women who had attained a position in the literary, artistic and scientific worlds, and it was singular how highly her opinion was valued in spite of her never having attempted in any way to distinguish herself. she could have written if she had chosen, but she enjoyed seeing others write and encouraging them better than taking a more active part herself. perhaps literary people liked her all the better because she did not write. i, as she very well knew, had always been devoted to her, and she might have had a score of other admirers if she had liked, but she had discouraged them all, and railed at matrimony as women seldom do unless they have a comfortable income of their own. she by no means, however, railed at man as she railed at matrimony, and though living after a fashion in which even the most censorious could find nothing to complain of, as far as she properly could she defended those of her own sex whom the world condemned most severely. in religion she was, i should think, as nearly a freethinker as anyone could be whose mind seldom turned upon the subject. she went to church, but disliked equally those who aired either religion or irreligion. i remember once hearing her press a late well-known philosopher to write a novel instead of pursuing his attacks upon religion. the philosopher did not much like this, and dilated upon the importance of showing people the folly of much that they pretended to believe. she smiled and said demurely, "have they not moses and the prophets? let them hear them." but she would say a wicked thing quietly on her own account sometimes, and called my attention once to a note in her prayer-book which gave account of the walk to emmaus with the two disciples, and how christ had said to them "o fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken"--the "all" being printed in small capitals. though scarcely on terms with her brother john, she had kept up closer relations with theobald and his family, and had paid a few days' visit to battersby once in every two years or so. alethea had always tried to like theobald and join forces with him as much as she could (for they two were the hares of the family, the rest being all hounds), but it was no use. i believe her chief reason for maintaining relations with her brother was that she might keep an eye on his children and give them a lift if they proved nice. when miss pontifex had come down to battersby in old times the children had not been beaten, and their lessons had been made lighter. she easily saw that they were overworked and unhappy, but she could hardly guess how all-reaching was the regime under which they lived. she knew she could not interfere effectually then, and wisely forbore to make too many enquiries. her time, if ever it was to come, would be when the children were no longer living under the same roof as their parents. it ended in her making up her mind to have nothing to do with either joey or charlotte, but to see so much of ernest as should enable her to form an opinion about his disposition and abilities. he had now been a year and a half at roughborough and was nearly fourteen years old, so that his character had begun to shape. his aunt had not seen him for some little time and, thinking that if she was to exploit him she could do so now perhaps better than at any other time, she resolved to go down to roughborough on some pretext which should be good enough for theobald, and to take stock of her nephew under circumstances in which she could get him for some few hours to herself. accordingly in august , when ernest was just entering on his fourth half year a cab drove up to dr skinner's door with miss pontifex, who asked and obtained leave for ernest to come and dine with her at the swan hotel. she had written to ernest to say she was coming and he was of course on the look- out for her. he had not seen her for so long that he was rather shy at first, but her good nature soon set him at his ease. she was so strongly biassed in favour of anything young that her heart warmed towards him at once, though his appearance was less prepossessing than she had hoped. she took him to a cake shop and gave him whatever he liked as soon as she had got him off the school premises; and ernest felt at once that she contrasted favourably even with his aunts the misses allaby, who were so very sweet and good. the misses allaby were very poor; sixpence was to them what five shillings was to alethea. what chance had they against one who, if she had a mind, could put by out of her income twice as much as they, poor women, could spend? the boy had plenty of prattle in him when he was not snubbed, and alethea encouraged him to chatter about whatever came uppermost. he was always ready to trust anyone who was kind to him; it took many years to make him reasonably wary in this respect--if indeed, as i sometimes doubt, he ever will be as wary as he ought to be--and in a short time he had quite dissociated his aunt from his papa and mamma and the rest, with whom his instinct told him he should be on his guard. little did he know how great, as far as he was concerned, were the issues that depended upon his behaviour. if he had known, he would perhaps have played his part less successfully. his aunt drew from him more details of his home and school life than his papa and mamma would have approved of, but he had no idea that he was being pumped. she got out of him all about the happy sunday evenings, and how he and joey and charlotte quarrelled sometimes, but she took no side and treated everything as though it were a matter of course. like all the boys, he could mimic dr skinner, and when warmed with dinner, and two glasses of sherry which made him nearly tipsy, he favoured his aunt with samples of the doctor's manner and spoke of him familiarly as "sam." "sam," he said, "is an awful old humbug." it was the sherry that brought out this piece of swagger, for whatever else he was dr skinner was a reality to master ernest, before which, indeed, he sank into his boots in no time. alethea smiled and said, "i must not say anything to that, must i?" ernest said, "i suppose not," and was checked. by-and-by he vented a number of small second-hand priggishnesses which he had caught up believing them to be the correct thing, and made it plain that even at that early age ernest believed in ernest with a belief which was amusing from its absurdity. his aunt judged him charitably as she was sure to do; she knew very well where the priggishness came from, and seeing that the string of his tongue had been loosened sufficiently gave him no more sherry. it was after dinner, however, that he completed the conquest of his aunt. she then discovered that, like herself, he was passionately fond of music, and that, too, of the highest class. he knew, and hummed or whistled to her all sorts of pieces out of the works of the great masters, which a boy of his age could hardly be expected to know, and it was evident that this was purely instinctive, inasmuch as music received no kind of encouragement at roughborough. there was no boy in the school as fond of music as he was. he picked up his knowledge, he said, from the organist of st michael's church who used to practise sometimes on a week-day afternoon. ernest had heard the organ booming away as he was passing outside the church and had sneaked inside and up into the organ loft. in the course of time the organist became accustomed to him as a familiar visitant, and the pair became friends. it was this which decided alethea that the boy was worth taking pains with. "he likes the best music," she thought, "and he hates dr skinner. this is a very fair beginning." when she sent him away at night with a sovereign in his pocket (and he had only hoped to get five shillings) she felt as though she had had a good deal more than her money's worth for her money. chapter xxxiii next day miss pontifex returned to town, with her thoughts full of her nephew and how she could best be of use to him. it appeared to her that to do him any real service she must devote herself almost entirely to him; she must in fact give up living in london, at any rate for a long time, and live at roughborough where she could see him continually. this was a serious undertaking; she had lived in london for the last twelve years, and naturally disliked the prospect of a small country town such as roughborough. was it a prudent thing to attempt so much? must not people take their chances in this world? can anyone do much for anyone else unless by making a will in his favour and dying then and there? should not each look after his own happiness, and will not the world be best carried on if everyone minds his own business and leaves other people to mind theirs? life is not a donkey race in which everyone is to ride his neighbour's donkey and the last is to win, and the psalmist long since formulated a common experience when he declared that no man may deliver his brother nor make agreement unto god for him, for it cost more to redeem their souls, so that he must let that alone for ever. all these excellent reasons for letting her nephew alone occurred to her, and many more, but against them there pleaded a woman's love for children, and her desire to find someone among the younger branches of her own family to whom she could become warmly attached, and whom she could attach warmly to herself. over and above this she wanted someone to leave her money to; she was not going to leave it to people about whom she knew very little, merely because they happened to be sons and daughters of brothers and sisters whom she had never liked. she knew the power and value of money exceedingly well, and how many lovable people suffer and die yearly for the want of it; she was little likely to leave it without being satisfied that her legatees were square, lovable, and more or less hard up. she wanted those to have it who would be most likely to use it genially and sensibly, and whom it would thus be likely to make most happy; if she could find one such among her nephews and nieces, so much the better; it was worth taking a great deal of pains to see whether she could or could not; but if she failed, she must find an heir who was not related to her by blood. "of course," she had said to me, more than once, "i shall make a mess of it. i shall choose some nice-looking, well-dressed screw, with gentlemanly manners which will take me in, and he will go and paint academy pictures, or write for the _times_, or do something just as horrid the moment the breath is out of my body." as yet, however, she had made no will at all, and this was one of the few things that troubled her. i believe she would have left most of her money to me if i had not stopped her. my father left me abundantly well off, and my mode of life has been always simple, so that i have never known uneasiness about money; moreover i was especially anxious that there should be no occasion given for ill-natured talk; she knew well, therefore, that her leaving her money to me would be of all things the most likely to weaken the ties that existed between us, provided that i was aware of it, but i did not mind her talking about whom she should make her heir, so long as it was well understood that i was not to be the person. ernest had satisfied her as having enough in him to tempt her strongly to take him up, but it was not till after many days' reflection that she gravitated towards actually doing so, with all the break in her daily ways that this would entail. at least, she said it took her some days, and certainly it appeared to do so, but from the moment she had begun to broach the subject, i had guessed how things were going to end. it was now arranged she should take a house at roughborough, and go and live there for a couple of years. as a compromise, however, to meet some of my objections, it was also arranged that she should keep her rooms in gower street, and come to town for a week once in each month; of course, also, she would leave roughborough for the greater part of the holidays. after two years, the thing was to come to an end, unless it proved a great success. she should by that time, at any rate, have made up her mind what the boy's character was, and would then act as circumstances might determine. the pretext she put forward ostensibly was that her doctor said she ought to be a year or two in the country after so many years of london life, and had recommended roughborough on account of the purity of its air, and its easy access to and from london--for by this time the railway had reached it. she was anxious not to give her brother and sister any right to complain, if on seeing more of her nephew she found she could not get on with him, and she was also anxious not to raise false hopes of any kind in the boy's own mind. having settled how everything was to be, she wrote to theobald and said she meant to take a house in roughborough from the michaelmas then approaching, and mentioned, as though casually, that one of the attractions of the place would be that her nephew was at school there and she should hope to see more of him than she had done hitherto. theobald and christina knew how dearly alethea loved london, and thought it very odd that she should want to go and live at roughborough, but they did not suspect that she was going there solely on her nephew's account, much less that she had thought of making ernest her heir. if they had guessed this, they would have been so jealous that i half believe they would have asked her to go and live somewhere else. alethea however, was two or three years younger than theobald; she was still some years short of fifty, and might very well live to eighty-five or ninety; her money, therefore, was not worth taking much trouble about, and her brother and sister-in-law had dismissed it, so to speak, from their minds with costs, assuming, however, that if anything did happen to her while they were still alive, the money would, as a matter of course, come to them. the prospect of alethea seeing much of ernest was a serious matter. christina smelt mischief from afar, as indeed she often did. alethea was worldly--as worldly, that is to say, as a sister of theobald's could be. in her letter to theobald she had said she knew how much of his and christina's thoughts were taken up with anxiety for the boy's welfare. alethea had thought this handsome enough, but christina had wanted something better and stronger. "how can she know how much we think of our darling?" she had exclaimed, when theobald showed her his sister's letter. "i think, my dear, alethea would understand these things better if she had children of her own." the least that would have satisfied christina was to have been told that there never yet had been any parents comparable to theobald and herself. she did not feel easy that an alliance of some kind would not grow up between aunt and nephew, and neither she nor theobald wanted ernest to have any allies. joey and charlotte were quite as many allies as were good for him. after all, however, if alethea chose to go and live at roughborough, they could not well stop her, and must make the best of it. in a few weeks' time alethea did choose to go and live at roughborough. a house was found with a field and a nice little garden which suited her very well. "at any rate," she said to herself, "i will have fresh eggs and flowers." she even considered the question of keeping a cow, but in the end decided not to do so. she furnished her house throughout anew, taking nothing whatever from her establishment in gower street, and by michaelmas--for the house was empty when she took it--she was settled comfortably, and had begun to make herself at home. one of miss pontifex's first moves was to ask a dozen of the smartest and most gentlemanly boys to breakfast with her. from her seat in church she could see the faces of the upper-form boys, and soon made up her mind which of them it would be best to cultivate. miss pontifex, sitting opposite the boys in church, and reckoning them up with her keen eyes from under her veil by all a woman's criteria, came to a truer conclusion about the greater number of those she scrutinized than even dr skinner had done. she fell in love with one boy from seeing him put on his gloves. miss pontifex, as i have said, got hold of some of these youngsters through ernest, and fed them well. no boy can resist being fed well by a good-natured and still handsome woman. boys are very like nice dogs in this respect--give them a bone and they will like you at once. alethea employed every other little artifice which she thought likely to win their allegiance to herself, and through this their countenance for her nephew. she found the football club in a slight money difficulty and at once gave half a sovereign towards its removal. the boys had no chance against her, she shot them down one after another as easily as though they had been roosting pheasants. nor did she escape scathless herself, for, as she wrote to me, she quite lost her heart to half a dozen of them. "how much nicer they are," she said, "and how much more they know than those who profess to teach them!" i believe it has been lately maintained that it is the young and fair who are the truly old and truly experienced, inasmuch as it is they who alone have a living memory to guide them; "the whole charm," it has been said, "of youth lies in its advantage over age in respect of experience, and when this has for some reason failed or been misapplied, the charm is broken. when we say that we are getting old, we should say rather that we are getting new or young, and are suffering from inexperience; trying to do things which we have never done before, and failing worse and worse, till in the end we are landed in the utter impotence of death." miss pontifex died many a long year before the above passage was written, but she had arrived independently at much the same conclusion. she first, therefore, squared the boys. dr skinner was even more easily dealt with. he and mrs skinner called, as a matter of course, as soon as miss pontifex was settled. she fooled him to the top of his bent, and obtained the promise of a ms. copy of one of his minor poems (for dr skinner had the reputation of being quite one of our most facile and elegant minor poets) on the occasion of his first visit. the other masters and masters' wives were not forgotten. alethea laid herself out to please, as indeed she did wherever she went, and if any woman lays herself out to do this, she generally succeeds. chapter xxxiv miss pontifex soon found out that ernest did not like games, but she saw also that he could hardly be expected to like them. he was perfectly well shaped but unusually devoid of physical strength. he got a fair share of this in after life, but it came much later with him than with other boys, and at the time of which i am writing he was a mere little skeleton. he wanted something to develop his arms and chest without knocking him about as much as the school games did. to supply this want by some means which should add also to his pleasure was alethea's first anxiety. rowing would have answered every purpose, but unfortunately there was no river at roughborough. whatever it was to be, it must be something which he should like as much as other boys liked cricket or football, and he must think the wish for it to have come originally from himself; it was not very easy to find anything that would do, but ere long it occurred to her that she might enlist his love of music on her side, and asked him one day when he was spending a half-holiday at her house whether he would like her to buy an organ for him to play on. of course, the boy said yes; then she told him about her grandfather and the organs he had built. it had never entered into his head that he could make one, but when he gathered from what his aunt had said that this was not out of the question, he rose as eagerly to the bait as she could have desired, and wanted to begin learning to saw and plane so that he might make the wooden pipes at once. miss pontifex did not see how she could have hit upon anything more suitable, and she liked the idea that he would incidentally get a knowledge of carpentering, for she was impressed, perhaps foolishly, with the wisdom of the german custom which gives every boy a handicraft of some sort. writing to me on this matter, she said "professions are all very well for those who have connection and interest as well as capital, but otherwise they are white elephants. how many men do not you and i know who have talent, assiduity, excellent good sense, straightforwardness, every quality in fact which should command success, and who yet go on from year to year waiting and hoping against hope for the work which never comes? how, indeed, is it likely to come unless to those who either are born with interest, or who marry in order to get it? ernest's father and mother have no interest, and if they had they would not use it. i suppose they will make him a clergyman, or try to do so--perhaps it is the best thing to do with him, for he could buy a living with the money his grandfather left him, but there is no knowing what the boy will think of it when the time comes, and for aught we know he may insist on going to the backwoods of america, as so many other young men are doing now." . . . but, anyway, he would like making an organ, and this could do him no harm, so the sooner he began the better. alethea thought it would save trouble in the end if she told her brother and sister-in-law of this scheme. "i do not suppose," she wrote, "that dr skinner will approve very cordially of my attempt to introduce organ- building into the _curriculum_ of roughborough, but i will see what i can do with him, for i have set my heart on owning an organ built by ernest's own hands, which he may play on as much as he likes while it remains in my house and which i will lend him permanently as soon as he gets one of his own, but which is to be my property for the present, inasmuch as i mean to pay for it." this was put in to make it plain to theobald and christina that they should not be out of pocket in the matter. if alethea had been as poor as the misses allaby, the reader may guess what ernest's papa and mamma would have said to this proposal; but then, if she had been as poor as they, she would never have made it. they did not like ernest's getting more and more into his aunt's good books, still it was perhaps better that he should do so than that she should be driven back upon the john pontifexes. the only thing, said theobald, which made him hesitate, was that the boy might be thrown with low associates later on if he were to be encouraged in his taste for music--a taste which theobald had always disliked. he had observed with regret that ernest had ere now shown rather a hankering after low company, and he might make acquaintance with those who would corrupt his innocence. christina shuddered at this, but when they had aired their scruples sufficiently they felt (and when people begin to "feel," they are invariably going to take what they believe to be the more worldly course) that to oppose alethea's proposal would be injuring their son's prospects more than was right, so they consented, but not too graciously. after a time, however, christina got used to the idea, and then considerations occurred to her which made her throw herself into it with characteristic ardour. if miss pontifex had been a railway stock she might have been said to have been buoyant in the battersby market for some few days; buoyant for long together she could never be, still for a time there really was an upward movement. christina's mind wandered to the organ itself; she seemed to have made it with her own hands; there would be no other in england to compare with it for combined sweetness and power. she already heard the famous dr walmisley of cambridge mistaking it for a father smith. it would come, no doubt, in reality to battersby church, which wanted an organ, for it must be all nonsense about alethea's wishing to keep it, and ernest would not have a house of his own for ever so many years, and they could never have it at the rectory. oh, no! battersby church was the only proper place for it. of course, they would have a grand opening, and the bishop would come down, and perhaps young figgins might be on a visit to them--she must ask ernest if young figgins had yet left roughborough--he might even persuade his grandfather lord lonsford to be present. lord lonsford and the bishop and everyone else would then compliment her, and dr wesley or dr walmisley, who should preside (it did not much matter which), would say to her, "my dear mrs pontifex, i never yet played upon so remarkable an instrument." then she would give him one of her very sweetest smiles and say she feared he was flattering her, on which he would rejoin with some pleasant little trifle about remarkable men (the remarkable man being for the moment ernest) having invariably had remarkable women for their mothers--and so on and so on. the advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places. theobald wrote ernest a short and surly letter _a propos_ of his aunt's intentions in this matter. "i will not commit myself," he said, "to an opinion whether anything will come of it; this will depend entirely upon your own exertions; you have had singular advantages hitherto, and your kind aunt is showing every desire to befriend you, but you must give greater proof of stability and steadiness of character than you have given yet if this organ matter is not to prove in the end to be only one disappointment the more. "i must insist on two things: firstly that this new iron in the fire does not distract your attention from your latin and greek"--("they aren't mine," thought ernest, "and never have been")--"and secondly, that you bring no smell of glue or shavings into the house here, if you make any part of the organ during your holidays." ernest was still too young to know how unpleasant a letter he was receiving. he believed the innuendoes contained in it to be perfectly just. he knew he was sadly deficient in perseverance. he liked some things for a little while, and then found he did not like them any more--and this was as bad as anything well could be. his father's letter gave him one of his many fits of melancholy over his own worthlessness, but the thought of the organ consoled him, and he felt sure that here at any rate was something to which he could apply himself steadily without growing tired of it. it was settled that the organ was not to be begun before the christmas holidays were over, and that till then ernest should do a little plain carpentering, so as to get to know how to use his tools. miss pontifex had a carpenter's bench set up in an outhouse upon her own premises, and made terms with the most respectable carpenter in roughborough, by which one of his men was to come for a couple of hours twice a week and set ernest on the right way; then she discovered she wanted this or that simple piece of work done, and gave the boy a commission to do it, paying him handsomely as well as finding him in tools and materials. she never gave him a syllable of good advice, or talked to him about everything's depending upon his own exertions, but she kissed him often, and would come into the workshop and act the part of one who took an interest in what was being done so cleverly as ere long to become really interested. what boy would not take kindly to almost anything with such assistance? all boys like making things; the exercise of sawing, planing and hammering, proved exactly what his aunt had wanted to find--something that should exercise, but not too much, and at the same time amuse him; when ernest's sallow face was flushed with his work, and his eyes were sparkling with pleasure, he looked quite a different boy from the one his aunt had taken in hand only a few months earlier. his inner self never told him that this was humbug, as it did about latin and greek. making stools and drawers was worth living for, and after christmas there loomed the organ, which was scarcely ever absent from his mind. his aunt let him invite his friends, encouraging him to bring those whom her quick sense told her were the most desirable. she smartened him up also in his personal appearance, always without preaching to him. indeed she worked wonders during the short time that was allowed her, and if her life had been spared i cannot think that my hero would have come under the shadow of that cloud which cast so heavy a gloom over his younger manhood; but unfortunately for him his gleam of sunshine was too hot and too brilliant to last, and he had many a storm yet to weather, before he became fairly happy. for the present, however, he was supremely so, and his aunt was happy and grateful for his happiness, the improvement she saw in him, and his unrepressed affection for herself. she became fonder of him from day to day in spite of his many faults and almost incredible foolishnesses. it was perhaps on account of these very things that she saw how much he had need of her; but at any rate, from whatever cause, she became strengthened in her determination to be to him in the place of parents, and to find in him a son rather than a nephew. but still she made no will. chapter xxxv all went well for the first part of the following half year. miss pontifex spent the greater part of her holidays in london, and i also saw her at roughborough, where i spent a few days, staying at the "swan." i heard all about my godson in whom, however, i took less interest than i said i did. i took more interest in the stage at that time than in anything else, and as for ernest, i found him a nuisance for engrossing so much of his aunt's attention, and taking her so much from london. the organ was begun, and made fair progress during the first two months of the half year. ernest was happier than he had ever been before, and was struggling upwards. the best boys took more notice of him for his aunt's sake, and he consorted less with those who led him into mischief. but much as miss pontifex had done, she could not all at once undo the effect of such surroundings as the boy had had at battersby. much as he feared and disliked his father (though he still knew not how much this was), he had caught much from him; if theobald had been kinder ernest would have modelled himself upon him entirely, and ere long would probably have become as thorough a little prig as could have easily been found. fortunately his temper had come to him from his mother, who, when not frightened, and when there was nothing on the horizon which might cross the slightest whim of her husband, was an amiable, good-natured woman. if it was not such an awful thing to say of anyone, i should say that she meant well. ernest had also inherited his mother's love of building castles in the air, and--so i suppose it must be called--her vanity. he was very fond of showing off, and, provided he could attract attention, cared little from whom it came, nor what it was for. he caught up, parrot-like, whatever jargon he heard from his elders, which he thought was the correct thing, and aired it in season and out of season, as though it were his own. miss pontifex was old enough and wise enough to know that this is the way in which even the greatest men as a general rule begin to develop, and was more pleased with his receptiveness and reproductiveness than alarmed at the things he caught and reproduced. she saw that he was much attached to herself, and trusted to this rather than to anything else. she saw also that his conceit was not very profound, and that his fits of self-abasement were as extreme as his exaltation had been. his impulsiveness and sanguine trustfulness in anyone who smiled pleasantly at him, or indeed was not absolutely unkind to him, made her more anxious about him than any other point in his character; she saw clearly that he would have to find himself rudely undeceived many a time and oft, before he would learn to distinguish friend from foe within reasonable time. it was her perception of this which led her to take the action which she was so soon called upon to take. her health was for the most part excellent, and she had never had a serious illness in her life. one morning, however, soon after easter , she awoke feeling seriously unwell. for some little time there had been a talk of fever in the neighbourhood, but in those days the precautions that ought to be taken against the spread of infection were not so well understood as now, and nobody did anything. in a day or two it became plain that miss pontifex had got an attack of typhoid fever and was dangerously ill. on this she sent off a messenger to town, and desired him not to return without her lawyer and myself. we arrived on the afternoon of the day on which we had been summoned, and found her still free from delirium: indeed, the cheery way in which she received us made it difficult to think she could be in danger. she at once explained her wishes, which had reference, as i expected, to her nephew, and repeated the substance of what i have already referred to as her main source of uneasiness concerning him. then she begged me by our long and close intimacy, by the suddenness of the danger that had fallen on her and her powerlessness to avert it, to undertake what she said she well knew, if she died, would be an unpleasant and invidious trust. she wanted to leave the bulk of her money ostensibly to me, but in reality to her nephew, so that i should hold it in trust for him till he was twenty-eight years old, but neither he nor anyone else, except her lawyer and myself, was to know anything about it. she would leave pounds in other legacies, and , pounds to ernest--which by the time he was twenty-eight would have accumulated to, say, , pounds. "sell out the debentures," she said, "where the money now is--and put it into midland ordinary." "let him make his mistakes," she said, "upon the money his grandfather left him. i am no prophet, but even i can see that it will take that boy many years to see things as his neighbours see them. he will get no help from his father and mother, who would never forgive him for his good luck if i left him the money outright; i daresay i am wrong, but i think he will have to lose the greater part or all of what he has, before he will know how to keep what he will get from me." supposing he went bankrupt before he was twenty-eight years old, the money was to be mine absolutely, but she could trust me, she said, to hand it over to ernest in due time. "if," she continued, "i am mistaken, the worst that can happen is that he will come into a larger sum at twenty-eight instead of a smaller sum at, say, twenty-three, for i would never trust him with it earlier, and--if he knows nothing about it he will not be unhappy for the want of it." she begged me to take pounds in return for the trouble i should have in taking charge of the boy's estate, and as a sign of the testatrix's hope that i would now and again look after him while he was still young. the remaining pounds i was to pay in legacies and annuities to friends and servants. in vain both her lawyer and myself remonstrated with her on the unusual and hazardous nature of this arrangement. we told her that sensible people will not take a more sanguine view concerning human nature than the courts of chancery do. we said, in fact, everything that anyone else would say. she admitted everything, but urged that her time was short, that nothing would induce her to leave her money to her nephew in the usual way. "it is an unusually foolish will," she said, "but he is an unusually foolish boy;" and she smiled quite merrily at her little sally. like all the rest of her family, she was very stubborn when her mind was made up. so the thing was done as she wished it. no provision was made for either my death or ernest's--miss pontifex had settled it that we were neither of us going to die, and was too ill to go into details; she was so anxious, moreover, to sign her will while still able to do so that we had practically no alternative but to do as she told us. if she recovered we could see things put on a more satisfactory footing, and further discussion would evidently impair her chances of recovery; it seemed then only too likely that it was a case of this will or no will at all. when the will was signed i wrote a letter in duplicate, saying that i held all miss pontifex had left me in trust for ernest except as regards pounds, but that he was not to come into the bequest, and was to know nothing whatever about it directly or indirectly, till he was twenty- eight years old, and if he was bankrupt before he came into it the money was to be mine absolutely. at the foot of each letter miss pontifex wrote, "the above was my understanding when i made my will," and then signed her name. the solicitor and his clerk witnessed; i kept one copy myself and handed the other to miss pontifex's solicitor. when all this had been done she became more easy in her mind. she talked principally about her nephew. "don't scold him," she said, "if he is volatile, and continually takes things up only to throw them down again. how can he find out his strength or weakness otherwise? a man's profession," she said, and here she gave one of her wicked little laughs, "is not like his wife, which he must take once for all, for better for worse, without proof beforehand. let him go here and there, and learn his truest liking by finding out what, after all, he catches himself turning to most habitually--then let him stick to this; but i daresay ernest will be forty or five and forty before he settles down. then all his previous infidelities will work together to him for good if he is the boy i hope he is. "above all," she continued, "do not let him work up to his full strength, except once or twice in his lifetime; nothing is well done nor worth doing unless, take it all round, it has come pretty easily. theobald and christina would give him a pinch of salt and tell him to put it on the tails of the seven deadly virtues;"--here she laughed again in her old manner at once so mocking and so sweet--"i think if he likes pancakes he had perhaps better eat them on shrove tuesday, but this is enough." these were the last coherent words she spoke. from that time she grew continually worse, and was never free from delirium till her death--which took place less than a fortnight afterwards, to the inexpressible grief of those who knew and loved her. chapter xxxvi letters had been written to miss pontifex's brothers and sisters, and one and all came post-haste to roughborough. before they arrived the poor lady was already delirious, and for the sake of her own peace at the last i am half glad she never recovered consciousness. i had known these people all their lives, as none can know each other but those who have played together as children; i knew how they had all of them--perhaps theobald least, but all of them more or less--made her life a burden to her until the death of her father had made her her own mistress, and i was displeased at their coming one after the other to roughborough, and inquiring whether their sister had recovered consciousness sufficiently to be able to see them. it was known that she had sent for me on being taken ill, and that i remained at roughborough, and i own i was angered by the mingled air of suspicion, defiance and inquisitiveness, with which they regarded me. they would all, except theobald, i believe have cut me downright if they had not believed me to know something they wanted to know themselves, and might have some chance of learning from me--for it was plain i had been in some way concerned with the making of their sister's will. none of them suspected what the ostensible nature of this would be, but i think they feared miss pontifex was about to leave money for public uses. john said to me in his blandest manner that he fancied he remembered to have heard his sister say that she thought of leaving money to found a college for the relief of dramatic authors in distress; to this i made no rejoinder, and i have no doubt his suspicions were deepened. when the end came, i got miss pontifex's solicitor to write and tell her brothers and sisters how she had left her money: they were not unnaturally furious, and went each to his or her separate home without attending the funeral, and without paying any attention to myself. this was perhaps the kindest thing they could have done by me, for their behaviour made me so angry that i became almost reconciled to alethea's will out of pleasure at the anger it had aroused. but for this i should have felt the will keenly, as having been placed by it in the position which of all others i had been most anxious to avoid, and as having saddled me with a very heavy responsibility. still it was impossible for me to escape, and i could only let things take their course. miss pontifex had expressed a wish to be buried at paleham; in the course of the next few days i therefore took the body thither. i had not been to paleham since the death of my father some six years earlier. i had often wished to go there, but had shrunk from doing so though my sister had been two or three times. i could not bear to see the house which had been my home for so many years of my life in the hands of strangers; to ring ceremoniously at a bell which i had never yet pulled except as a boy in jest; to feel that i had nothing to do with a garden in which i had in childhood gathered so many a nosegay, and which had seemed my own for many years after i had reached man's estate; to see the rooms bereft of every familiar feature, and made so unfamiliar in spite of their familiarity. had there been any sufficient reason, i should have taken these things as a matter of course, and should no doubt have found them much worse in anticipation than in reality, but as there had been no special reason why i should go to paleham i had hitherto avoided doing so. now, however, my going was a necessity, and i confess i never felt more subdued than i did on arriving there with the dead playmate of my childhood. i found the village more changed than i had expected. the railway had come there, and a brand new yellow brick station was on the site of old mr and mrs pontifex's cottage. nothing but the carpenter's shop was now standing. i saw many faces i knew, but even in six years they seemed to have grown wonderfully older. some of the very old were dead, and the old were getting very old in their stead. i felt like the changeling in the fairy story who came back after a seven years' sleep. everyone seemed glad to see me, though i had never given them particular cause to be so, and everyone who remembered old mr and mrs pontifex spoke warmly of them and were pleased at their granddaughter's wishing to be laid near them. entering the churchyard and standing in the twilight of a gusty cloudy evening on the spot close beside old mrs pontifex's grave which i had chosen for alethea's, i thought of the many times that she, who would lie there henceforth, and i, who must surely lie one day in some such another place though when and where i knew not, had romped over this very spot as childish lovers together. next morning i followed her to the grave, and in due course set up a plain upright slab to her memory as like as might be to those over the graves of her grandmother and grandfather. i gave the dates and places of her birth and death, but added nothing except that this stone was set up by one who had known and loved her. knowing how fond she had been of music i had been half inclined at one time to inscribe a few bars of music, if i could find any which seemed suitable to her character, but i knew how much she would have disliked anything singular in connection with her tombstone and did not do it. before, however, i had come to this conclusion, i had thought that ernest might be able to help me to the right thing, and had written to him upon the subject. the following is the answer i received-- "dear godpapa,--i send you the best bit i can think of; it is the subject of the last of handel's six grand fugues and goes thus:-- [music score] it would do better for a man, especially for an old man who was very sorry for things, than for a woman, but i cannot think of anything better; if you do not like it for aunt alethea i shall keep it for myself.--your affectionate godson, ernest pontifex." was this the little lad who could get sweeties for two-pence but not for two-pence-halfpenny? dear, dear me, i thought to myself, how these babes and sucklings do give us the go-by surely. choosing his own epitaph at fifteen as for a man who "had been very sorry for things," and such a strain as that--why it might have done for leonardo da vinci himself. then i set the boy down as a conceited young jackanapes, which no doubt he was,--but so are a great many other young people of ernest's age. chapter xxxvii if theobald and christina had not been too well pleased when miss pontifex first took ernest in hand, they were still less so when the connection between the two was interrupted so prematurely. they said they had made sure from what their sister had said that she was going to make ernest her heir. i do not think she had given them so much as a hint to this effect. theobald indeed gave ernest to understand that she had done so in a letter which will be given shortly, but if theobald wanted to make himself disagreeable, a trifle light as air would forthwith assume in his imagination whatever form was most convenient to him. i do not think they had even made up their minds what alethea was to do with her money before they knew of her being at the point of death, and as i have said already, if they had thought it likely that ernest would be made heir over their own heads without their having at any rate a life interest in the bequest, they would have soon thrown obstacles in the way of further intimacy between aunt and nephew. this, however, did not bar their right to feeling aggrieved now that neither they nor ernest had taken anything at all, and they could profess disappointment on their boy's behalf which they would have been too proud to admit upon their own. in fact, it was only amiable of them to be disappointed under these circumstances. christina said that the will was simply fraudulent, and was convinced that it could be upset if she and theobald went the right way to work. theobald, she said, should go before the lord chancellor, not in full court but in chambers, where he could explain the whole matter; or, perhaps it would be even better if she were to go herself--and i dare not trust myself to describe the reverie to which this last idea gave rise. i believe in the end theobald died, and the lord chancellor (who had become a widower a few weeks earlier) made her an offer, which, however, she firmly but not ungratefully declined; she should ever, she said, continue to think of him as a friend--at this point the cook came in, saying the butcher had called, and what would she please to order. i think theobald must have had an idea that there was something behind the bequest to me, but he said nothing about it to christina. he was angry and felt wronged, because he could not get at alethea to give her a piece of his mind any more than he had been able to get at his father. "it is so mean of people," he exclaimed to himself, "to inflict an injury of this sort, and then shirk facing those whom they have injured; let us hope that, at any rate, they and i may meet in heaven." but of this he was doubtful, for when people had done so great a wrong as this, it was hardly to be supposed that they would go to heaven at all--and as for his meeting them in another place, the idea never so much as entered his mind. one so angry and, of late, so little used to contradiction might be trusted, however, to avenge himself upon someone, and theobald had long since developed the organ, by means of which he might vent spleen with least risk and greatest satisfaction to himself. this organ, it may be guessed, was nothing else than ernest; to ernest therefore he proceeded to unburden himself, not personally, but by letter. "you ought to know," he wrote, "that your aunt alethea had given your mother and me to understand that it was her wish to make you her heir--in the event, of course, of your conducting yourself in such a manner as to give her confidence in you; as a matter of fact, however, she has left you nothing, and the whole of her property has gone to your godfather, mr overton. your mother and i are willing to hope that if she had lived longer you would yet have succeeded in winning her good opinion, but it is too late to think of this now. "the carpentering and organ-building must at once be discontinued. i never believed in the project, and have seen no reason to alter my original opinion. i am not sorry for your own sake, that it is to be at an end, nor, i am sure, will you regret it yourself in after years. "a few words more as regards your own prospects. you have, as i believe you know, a small inheritance, which is yours legally under your grandfather's will. this bequest was made inadvertently, and, i believe, entirely through a misunderstanding on the lawyer's part. the bequest was probably intended not to take effect till after the death of your mother and myself; nevertheless, as the will is actually worded, it will now be at your command if you live to be twenty-one years old. from this, however, large deductions must be made. there will be legacy duty, and i do not know whether i am not entitled to deduct the expenses of your education and maintenance from birth to your coming of age; i shall not in all likelihood insist on this right to the full, if you conduct yourself properly, but a considerable sum should certainly be deducted, there will therefore remain very little--say pounds or pounds at the outside, as what will be actually yours--but the strictest account shall be rendered you in due time. "this, let me warn you most seriously, is all that you must expect from me (even ernest saw that it was not from theobald at all) at any rate till after my death, which for aught any of us know may be yet many years distant. it is not a large sum, but it is sufficient if supplemented by steadiness and earnestness of purpose. your mother and i gave you the name ernest, hoping that it would remind you continually of--" but i really cannot copy more of this effusion. it was all the same old will- shaking game and came practically to this, that ernest was no good, and that if he went on as he was going on now, he would probably have to go about the streets begging without any shoes or stockings soon after he had left school, or at any rate, college; and that he, theobald, and christina were almost too good for this world altogether. after he had written this theobald felt quite good-natured, and sent to the mrs thompson of the moment even more soup and wine than her usual not illiberal allowance. ernest was deeply, passionately upset by his father's letter; to think that even his dear aunt, the one person of his relations whom he really loved, should have turned against him and thought badly of him after all. this was the unkindest cut of all. in the hurry of her illness miss pontifex, while thinking only of his welfare, had omitted to make such small present mention of him as would have made his father's innuendoes stingless; and her illness being infectious, she had not seen him after its nature was known. i myself did not know of theobald's letter, nor think enough about my godson to guess what might easily be his state. it was not till many years afterwards that i found theobald's letter in the pocket of an old portfolio which ernest had used at school, and in which other old letters and school documents were collected which i have used in this book. he had forgotten that he had it, but told me when he saw it that he remembered it as the first thing that made him begin to rise against his father in a rebellion which he recognised as righteous, though he dared not openly avow it. not the least serious thing was that it would, he feared, be his duty to give up the legacy his grandfather had left him; for if it was his only through a mistake, how could he keep it? during the rest of the half year ernest was listless and unhappy. he was very fond of some of his schoolfellows, but afraid of those whom he believed to be better than himself, and prone to idealise everyone into being his superior except those who were obviously a good deal beneath him. he held himself much too cheap, and because he was without that physical strength and vigour which he so much coveted, and also because he knew he shirked his lessons, he believed that he was without anything which could deserve the name of a good quality; he was naturally bad, and one of those for whom there was no place for repentance, though he sought it even with tears. so he shrank out of sight of those whom in his boyish way he idolised, never for a moment suspecting that he might have capacities to the full as high as theirs though of a different kind, and fell in more with those who were reputed of the baser sort, with whom he could at any rate be upon equal terms. before the end of the half year he had dropped from the estate to which he had been raised during his aunt's stay at roughborough, and his old dejection, varied, however, with bursts of conceit rivalling those of his mother, resumed its sway over him. "pontifex," said dr skinner, who had fallen upon him in hall one day like a moral landslip, before he had time to escape, "do you never laugh? do you always look so preternaturally grave?" the doctor had not meant to be unkind, but the boy turned crimson, and escaped. there was one place only where he was happy, and that was in the old church of st michael, when his friend the organist was practising. about this time cheap editions of the great oratorios began to appear, and ernest got them all as soon as they were published; he would sometimes sell a school-book to a second-hand dealer, and buy a number or two of the "messiah," or the "creation," or "elijah," with the proceeds. this was simply cheating his papa and mamma, but ernest was falling low again--or thought he was--and he wanted the music much, and the sallust, or whatever it was, little. sometimes the organist would go home, leaving his keys with ernest, so that he could play by himself and lock up the organ and the church in time to get back for calling over. at other times, while his friend was playing, he would wander round the church, looking at the monuments and the old stained glass windows, enchanted as regards both ears and eyes, at once. once the old rector got hold of him as he was watching a new window being put in, which the rector had bought in germany--the work, it was supposed, of albert durer. he questioned ernest, and finding that he was fond of music, he said in his old trembling voice (for he was over eighty), "then you should have known dr burney who wrote the history of music. i knew him exceedingly well when i was a young man." that made ernest's heart beat, for he knew that dr burney, when a boy at school at chester, used to break bounds that he might watch handel smoking his pipe in the exchange coffee house--and now he was in the presence of one who, if he had not seen handel himself, had at least seen those who had seen him. these were oases in his desert, but, as a general rule, the boy looked thin and pale, and as though he had a secret which depressed him, which no doubt he had, but for which i cannot blame him. he rose, in spite of himself, higher in the school, but fell ever into deeper and deeper disgrace with the masters, and did not gain in the opinion of those boys about whom he was persuaded that they could assuredly never know what it was to have a secret weighing upon their minds. this was what ernest felt so keenly; he did not much care about the boys who liked him, and idolised some who kept him as far as possible at a distance, but this is pretty much the case with all boys everywhere. at last things reached a crisis, below which they could not very well go, for at the end of the half year but one after his aunt's death, ernest brought back a document in his portmanteau, which theobald stigmatised as "infamous and outrageous." i need hardly say i am alluding to his school bill. this document was always a source of anxiety to ernest, for it was gone into with scrupulous care, and he was a good deal cross-examined about it. he would sometimes "write in" for articles necessary for his education, such as a portfolio, or a dictionary, and sell the same, as i have explained, in order to eke out his pocket money, probably to buy either music or tobacco. these frauds were sometimes, as ernest thought, in imminent danger of being discovered, and it was a load off his breast when the cross-examination was safely over. this time theobald had made a great fuss about the extras, but had grudgingly passed them; it was another matter, however, with the character and the moral statistics, with which the bill concluded. the page on which these details were to be found was as follows: report of the conduct and progress of ernest pontifex. upper fifth form, half year ending midsummer classics--idle, listless and unimproving. mathematics " " " divinity " " " conduct in house.--orderly. general conduct--not satisfactory, on account of his great unpunctuality and inattention to duties. monthly merit money s. d. d. d. d. total s. d. number of merit marks total number of penal marks total number of extra penals total i recommend that his pocket money be made to depend upon his merit money. s. skinner, head-master. chapter xxxviii ernest was thus in disgrace from the beginning of the holidays, but an incident soon occurred which led him into delinquencies compared with which all his previous sins were venial. among the servants at the rectory was a remarkably pretty girl named ellen. she came from devonshire, and was the daughter of a fisherman who had been drowned when she was a child. her mother set up a small shop in the village where her husband had lived, and just managed to make a living. ellen remained with her till she was fourteen, when she first went out to service. four years later, when she was about eighteen, but so well grown that she might have passed for twenty, she had been strongly recommended to christina, who was then in want of a housemaid, and had now been at battersby about twelve months. as i have said the girl was remarkably pretty; she looked the perfection of health and good temper, indeed there was a serene expression upon her face which captivated almost all who saw her; she looked as if matters had always gone well with her and were always going to do so, and as if no conceivable combination of circumstances could put her for long together out of temper either with herself or with anyone else. her complexion was clear, but high; her eyes were grey and beautifully shaped; her lips were full and restful, with something of an egyptian sphinx-like character about them. when i learned that she came from devonshire i fancied i saw a strain of far away egyptian blood in her, for i had heard, though i know not what foundation there was for the story, that the egyptians made settlements on the coast of devonshire and cornwall long before the romans conquered britain. her hair was a rich brown, and her figure--of about the middle height--perfect, but erring if at all on the side of robustness. altogether she was one of those girls about whom one is inclined to wonder how they can remain unmarried a week or a day longer. her face (as indeed faces generally are, though i grant they lie sometimes) was a fair index to her disposition. she was good nature itself, and everyone in the house, not excluding i believe even theobald himself after a fashion, was fond of her. as for christina she took the very warmest interest in her, and used to have her into the dining-room twice a week, and prepare her for confirmation (for by some accident she had never been confirmed) by explaining to her the geography of palestine and the routes taken by st paul on his various journeys in asia minor. when bishop treadwell did actually come down to battersby and hold a confirmation there (christina had her wish, he slept at battersby, and she had a grand dinner party for him, and called him "my lord" several times), he was so much struck with her pretty face and modest demeanour when he laid his hands upon her that he asked christina about her. when she replied that ellen was one of her own servants, the bishop seemed, so she thought or chose to think, quite pleased that so pretty a girl should have found so exceptionally good a situation. ernest used to get up early during the holidays so that he might play the piano before breakfast without disturbing his papa and mamma--or rather, perhaps, without being disturbed by them. ellen would generally be there sweeping the drawing-room floor and dusting while he was playing, and the boy, who was ready to make friends with most people, soon became very fond of her. he was not as a general rule sensitive to the charms of the fair sex, indeed he had hardly been thrown in with any women except his aunts allaby, and his aunt alethea, his mother, his sister charlotte and mrs jay; sometimes also he had had to take off his hat to the miss skinners, and had felt as if he should sink into the earth on doing so, but his shyness had worn off with ellen, and the pair had become fast friends. perhaps it was well that ernest was not at home for very long together, but as yet his affection though hearty was quite platonic. he was not only innocent, but deplorably--i might even say guiltily--innocent. his preference was based upon the fact that ellen never scolded him, but was always smiling and good tempered; besides she used to like to hear him play, and this gave him additional zest in playing. the morning access to the piano was indeed the one distinct advantage which the holidays had in ernest's eyes, for at school he could not get at a piano except quasi- surreptitiously at the shop of mr pearsall, the music-seller. on returning this midsummer he was shocked to find his favourite looking pale and ill. all her good spirits had left her, the roses had fled from her cheek, and she seemed on the point of going into a decline. she said she was unhappy about her mother, whose health was failing, and was afraid she was herself not long for this world. christina, of course, noticed the change. "i have often remarked," she said, "that those very fresh-coloured, healthy-looking girls are the first to break up. i have given her calomel and james's powders repeatedly, and though she does not like it, i think i must show her to dr martin when he next comes here." "very well, my dear," said theobald, and so next time dr martin came ellen was sent for. dr martin soon discovered what would probably have been apparent to christina herself if she had been able to conceive of such an ailment in connection with a servant who lived under the same roof as theobald and herself--the purity of whose married life should have preserved all unmarried people who came near them from any taint of mischief. when it was discovered that in three or four months more ellen would become a mother, christina's natural good nature would have prompted her to deal as leniently with the case as she could, if she had not been panic-stricken lest any mercy on her and theobald's part should be construed into toleration, however partial, of so great a sin; hereon she dashed off into the conviction that the only thing to do was to pay ellen her wages, and pack her off on the instant bag and baggage out of the house which purity had more especially and particularly singled out for its abiding city. when she thought of the fearful contamination which ellen's continued presence even for a week would occasion, she could not hesitate. then came the question--horrid thought!--as to who was the partner of ellen's guilt? was it, could it be, her own son, her darling ernest? ernest was getting a big boy now. she could excuse any young woman for taking a fancy to him; as for himself, why she was sure he was behind no young man of his age in appreciation of the charms of a nice-looking young woman. so long as he was innocent she did not mind this, but oh, if he were guilty! she could not bear to think of it, and yet it would be mere cowardice not to look such a matter in the face--her hope was in the lord, and she was ready to bear cheerfully and make the best of any suffering he might think fit to lay upon her. that the baby must be either a boy or girl--this much, at any rate, was clear. no less clear was it that the child, if a boy, would resemble theobald, and if a girl, herself. resemblance, whether of body or mind, generally leaped over a generation. the guilt of the parents must not be shared by the innocent offspring of shame--oh! no--and such a child as this would be . . . she was off in one of her reveries at once. the child was in the act of being consecrated archbishop of canterbury when theobald came in from a visit in the parish, and was told of the shocking discovery. christina said nothing about ernest, and i believe was more than half angry when the blame was laid upon other shoulders. she was easily consoled, however, and fell back on the double reflection, firstly, that her son was pure, and secondly, that she was quite sure he would not have been so had it not been for his religious convictions which had held him back--as, of course, it was only to be expected they would. theobald agreed that no time must be lost in paying ellen her wages and packing her off. so this was done, and less than two hours after dr martin had entered the house ellen was sitting beside john the coachman, with her face muffled up so that it could not be seen, weeping bitterly as she was being driven to the station. chapter xxxix ernest had been out all the morning, but came in to the yard of the rectory from the spinney behind the house just as ellen's things were being put into the carriage. he thought it was ellen whom he then saw get into the carriage, but as her face had been hidden by her handkerchief he had not been able to see plainly who it was, and dismissed the idea as improbable. he went to the back-kitchen window, at which the cook was standing peeling the potatoes for dinner, and found her crying bitterly. ernest was much distressed, for he liked the cook, and, of course, wanted to know what all the matter was, who it was that had just gone off in the pony carriage, and why? the cook told him it was ellen, but said that no earthly power should make it cross her lips why it was she was going away; when, however, ernest took her _au pied de la lettre_ and asked no further questions, she told him all about it after extorting the most solemn promises of secrecy. it took ernest some minutes to arrive at the facts of the case, but when he understood them he leaned against the pump, which stood near the back- kitchen window, and mingled his tears with the cook's. then his blood began to boil within him. he did not see that after all his father and mother could have done much otherwise than they actually did. they might perhaps have been less precipitate, and tried to keep the matter a little more quiet, but this would not have been easy, nor would it have mended things very materially. the bitter fact remains that if a girl does certain things she must do them at her peril, no matter how young and pretty she is nor to what temptation she has succumbed. this is the way of the world, and as yet there has been no help found for it. ernest could only see what he gathered from the cook, namely, that his favourite, ellen, was being turned adrift with a matter of three pounds in her pocket, to go she knew not where, and to do she knew not what, and that she had said she should hang or drown herself, which the boy implicitly believed she would. with greater promptitude than he had shown yet, he reckoned up his money and found he had two shillings and threepence at his command; there was his knife which might sell for a shilling, and there was the silver watch his aunt alethea had given him shortly before she died. the carriage had been gone now a full quarter of an hour, and it must have got some distance ahead, but he would do his best to catch it up, and there were short cuts which would perhaps give him a chance. he was off at once, and from the top of the hill just past the rectory paddock he could see the carriage, looking very small, on a bit of road which showed perhaps a mile and a half in front of him. one of the most popular amusements at roughborough was an institution called "the hounds"--more commonly known elsewhere as "hare and hounds," but in this case the hare was a couple of boys who were called foxes, and boys are so particular about correctness of nomenclature where their sports are concerned that i dare not say they played "hare and hounds"; these were "the hounds," and that was all. ernest's want of muscular strength did not tell against him here; there was no jostling up against boys who, though neither older nor taller than he, were yet more robustly built; if it came to mere endurance he was as good as any one else, so when his carpentering was stopped he had naturally taken to "the hounds" as his favourite amusement. his lungs thus exercised had become developed, and as a run of six or seven miles across country was not more than he was used to, he did not despair by the help of the short cuts of overtaking the carriage, or at the worst of catching ellen at the station before the train left. so he ran and ran and ran till his first wind was gone and his second came, and he could breathe more easily. never with "the hounds" had he run so fast and with so few breaks as now, but with all his efforts and the help of the short cuts he did not catch up the carriage, and would probably not have done so had not john happened to turn his head and seen him running and making signs for the carriage to stop a quarter of a mile off. he was now about five miles from home, and was nearly done up. he was crimson with his exertion; covered with dust, and with his trousers and coat sleeves a trifle short for him he cut a poor figure enough as he thrust on ellen his watch, his knife, and the little money he had. the one thing he implored of her was not to do those dreadful things which she threatened--for his sake if for no other reason. ellen at first would not hear of taking anything from him, but the coachman, who was from the north country, sided with ernest. "take it, my lass," he said kindly, "take what thou canst get whiles thou canst get it; as for master ernest here--he has run well after thee; therefore let him give thee what he is minded." ellen did what she was told, and the two parted with many tears, the girl's last words being that she should never forget him, and that they should meet again hereafter, she was sure they should, and then she would repay him. then ernest got into a field by the roadside, flung himself on the grass, and waited under the shadow of a hedge till the carriage should pass on its return from the station and pick him up, for he was dead beat. thoughts which had already occurred to him with some force now came more strongly before him, and he saw that he had got himself into one mess--or rather into half-a-dozen messes--the more. in the first place he should be late for dinner, and this was one of the offences on which theobald had no mercy. also he should have to say where he had been, and there was a danger of being found out if he did not speak the truth. not only this, but sooner or later it must come out that he was no longer possessed of the beautiful watch which his dear aunt had given him--and what, pray, had he done with it, or how had he lost it? the reader will know very well what he ought to have done. he should have gone straight home, and if questioned should have said, "i have been running after the carriage to catch our housemaid ellen, whom i am very fond of; i have given her my watch, my knife and all my pocket money, so that i have now no pocket money at all and shall probably ask you for some more sooner than i otherwise might have done, and you will also have to buy me a new watch and a knife." but then fancy the consternation which such an announcement would have occasioned! fancy the scowl and flashing eyes of the infuriated theobald! "you unprincipled young scoundrel," he would exclaim, "do you mean to vilify your own parents by implying that they have dealt harshly by one whose profligacy has disgraced their house?" or he might take it with one of those sallies of sarcastic calm, of which he believed himself to be a master. "very well, ernest, very well: i shall say nothing; you can please yourself; you are not yet twenty-one, but pray act as if you were your own master; your poor aunt doubtless gave you the watch that you might fling it away upon the first improper character you came across; i think i can now understand, however, why she did not leave you her money; and, after all, your godfather may just as well have it as the kind of people on whom you would lavish it if it were yours." then his mother would burst into tears and implore him to repent and seek the things belonging to his peace while there was yet time, by falling on his knees to theobald and assuring him of his unfailing love for him as the kindest and tenderest father in the universe. ernest could do all this just as well as they could, and now, as he lay on the grass, speeches, some one or other of which was as certain to come as the sun to set, kept running in his head till they confuted the idea of telling the truth by reducing it to an absurdity. truth might be heroic, but it was not within the range of practical domestic politics. having settled then that he was to tell a lie, what lie should he tell? should he say he had been robbed? he had enough imagination to know that he had not enough imagination to carry him out here. young as he was, his instinct told him that the best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way--who husbands it too carefully to waste it where it can be dispensed with. the simplest course would be to say that he had lost the watch, and was late for dinner because he had been looking for it. he had been out for a long walk--he chose the line across the fields that he had actually taken--and the weather being very hot, he had taken off his coat and waistcoat; in carrying them over his arm his watch, his money, and his knife had dropped out of them. he had got nearly home when he found out his loss, and had run back as fast as he could, looking along the line he had followed, till at last he had given it up; seeing the carriage coming back from the station, he had let it pick him up and bring him home. this covered everything, the running and all; for his face still showed that he must have been running hard; the only question was whether he had been seen about the rectory by any but the servants for a couple of hours or so before ellen had gone, and this he was happy to believe was not the case; for he had been out except during his few minutes' interview with the cook. his father had been out in the parish; his mother had certainly not come across him, and his brother and sister had also been out with the governess. he knew he could depend upon the cook and the other servants--the coachman would see to this; on the whole, therefore, both he and the coachman thought the story as proposed by ernest would about meet the requirements of the case. chapter xl when ernest got home and sneaked in through the back door, he heard his father's voice in its angriest tones, inquiring whether master ernest had already returned. he felt as jack must have felt in the story of jack and the bean stalk, when from the oven in which he was hidden he heard the ogre ask his wife what young children she had got for his supper. with much courage, and, as the event proved, with not less courage than discretion, he took the bull by the horns, and announced himself at once as having just come in after having met with a terrible misfortune. little by little he told his story, and though theobald stormed somewhat at his "incredible folly and carelessness," he got off better than he expected. theobald and christina had indeed at first been inclined to connect his absence from dinner with ellen's dismissal, but on finding it clear, as theobald said--everything was always clear with theobald--that ernest had not been in the house all the morning, and could therefore have known nothing of what had happened, he was acquitted on this account for once in a way, without a stain upon his character. perhaps theobald was in a good temper; he may have seen from the paper that morning that his stocks had been rising; it may have been this or twenty other things, but whatever it was, he did not scold so much as ernest had expected, and, seeing the boy look exhausted and believing him to be much grieved at the loss of his watch, theobald actually prescribed a glass of wine after his dinner, which, strange to say, did not choke him, but made him see things more cheerfully than was usual with him. that night when he said his prayers, he inserted a few paragraphs to the effect that he might not be discovered, and that things might go well with ellen, but he was anxious and ill at ease. his guilty conscience pointed out to him a score of weak places in his story, through any one of which detection might even yet easily enter. next day and for many days afterwards he fled when no man was pursuing, and trembled each time he heard his father's voice calling for him. he had already so many causes of anxiety that he could stand little more, and in spite of all his endeavours to look cheerful, even his mother could see that something was preying upon his mind. then the idea returned to her that, after all, her son might not be innocent in the ellen matter--and this was so interesting that she felt bound to get as near the truth as she could. "come here, my poor, pale-faced, heavy-eyed boy," she said to him one day in her kindest manner; "come and sit down by me, and we will have a little quiet confidential talk together, will we not?" the boy went mechanically to the sofa. whenever his mother wanted what she called a confidential talk with him she always selected the sofa as the most suitable ground on which to open her campaign. all mothers do this; the sofa is to them what the dining-room is to fathers. in the present case the sofa was particularly well adapted for a strategic purpose, being an old-fashioned one with a high back, mattress, bolsters and cushions. once safely penned into one of its deep corners, it was like a dentist's chair, not too easy to get out of again. here she could get at him better to pull him about, if this should seem desirable, or if she thought fit to cry she could bury her head in the sofa cushion and abandon herself to an agony of grief which seldom failed of its effect. none of her favourite manoeuvres were so easily adopted in her usual seat, the arm-chair on the right hand side of the fireplace, and so well did her son know from his mother's tone that this was going to be a sofa conversation that he took his place like a lamb as soon as she began to speak and before she could reach the sofa herself. "my dearest boy," began his mother, taking hold of his hand and placing it within her own, "promise me never to be afraid either of your dear papa or of me; promise me this, my dear, as you love me, promise it to me," and she kissed him again and again and stroked his hair. but with her other hand she still kept hold of his; she had got him and she meant to keep him. the lad hung down his head and promised. what else could he do? "you know there is no one, dear, dear ernest, who loves you so much as your papa and i do; no one who watches so carefully over your interests or who is so anxious to enter into all your little joys and troubles as we are; but my dearest boy, it grieves me to think sometimes that you have not that perfect love for and confidence in us which you ought to have. you know, my darling, that it would be as much our pleasure as our duty to watch over the development of your moral and spiritual nature, but alas! you will not let us see your moral and spiritual nature. at times we are almost inclined to doubt whether you have a moral and spiritual nature at all. of your inner life, my dear, we know nothing beyond such scraps as we can glean in spite of you, from little things which escape you almost before you know that you have said them." the boy winced at this. it made him feel hot and uncomfortable all over. he knew well how careful he ought to be, and yet, do what he could, from time to time his forgetfulness of the part betrayed him into unreserve. his mother saw that he winced, and enjoyed the scratch she had given him. had she felt less confident of victory she had better have foregone the pleasure of touching as it were the eyes at the end of the snail's horns in order to enjoy seeing the snail draw them in again--but she knew that when she had got him well down into the sofa, and held his hand, she had the enemy almost absolutely at her mercy, and could do pretty much what she liked. "papa does not feel," she continued, "that you love him with that fulness and unreserve which would prompt you to have no concealment from him, and to tell him everything freely and fearlessly as your most loving earthly friend next only to your heavenly father. perfect love, as we know, casteth out fear: your father loves you perfectly, my darling, but he does not feel as though you loved him perfectly in return. if you fear him it is because you do not love him as he deserves, and i know it sometimes cuts him to the very heart to think that he has earned from you a deeper and more willing sympathy than you display towards him. oh, ernest, ernest, do not grieve one who is so good and noble-hearted by conduct which i can call by no other name than ingratitude." ernest could never stand being spoken to in this way by his mother: for he still believed that she loved him, and that he was fond of her and had a friend in her--up to a certain point. but his mother was beginning to come to the end of her tether; she had played the domestic confidence trick upon him times without number already. over and over again had she wheedled from him all she wanted to know, and afterwards got him into the most horrible scrape by telling the whole to theobald. ernest had remonstrated more than once upon these occasions, and had pointed out to his mother how disastrous to him his confidences had been, but christina had always joined issue with him and showed him in the clearest possible manner that in each case she had been right, and that he could not reasonably complain. generally it was her conscience that forbade her to be silent, and against this there was no appeal, for we are all bound to follow the dictates of our conscience. ernest used to have to recite a hymn about conscience. it was to the effect that if you did not pay attention to its voice it would soon leave off speaking. "my mamma's conscience has not left off speaking," said ernest to one of his chums at roughborough; "it's always jabbering." when a boy has once spoken so disrespectfully as this about his mother's conscience it is practically all over between him and her. ernest through sheer force of habit, of the sofa, and of the return of the associated ideas, was still so moved by the siren's voice as to yearn to sail towards her, and fling himself into her arms, but it would not do; there were other associated ideas that returned also, and the mangled bones of too many murdered confessions were lying whitening round the skirts of his mother's dress, to allow him by any possibility to trust her further. so he hung his head and looked sheepish, but kept his own counsel. "i see, my dearest," continued his mother, "either that i am mistaken, and that there is nothing on your mind, or that you will not unburden yourself to me: but oh, ernest, tell me at least this much; is there nothing that you repent of, nothing which makes you unhappy in connection with that miserable girl ellen?" ernest's heart failed him. "i am a dead boy now," he said to himself. he had not the faintest conception what his mother was driving at, and thought she suspected about the watch; but he held his ground. i do not believe he was much more of a coward than his neighbours, only he did not know that all sensible people are cowards when they are off their beat, or when they think they are going to be roughly handled. i believe, that if the truth were known, it would be found that even the valiant st michael himself tried hard to shirk his famous combat with the dragon; he pretended not to see all sorts of misconduct on the dragon's part; shut his eyes to the eating up of i do not know how many hundreds of men, women and children whom he had promised to protect; allowed himself to be publicly insulted a dozen times over without resenting it; and in the end when even an angel could stand it no longer he shilly-shallied and temporised an unconscionable time before he would fix the day and hour for the encounter. as for the actual combat it was much such another _wurra-wurra_ as mrs allaby had had with the young man who had in the end married her eldest daughter, till after a time behold, there was the dragon lying dead, while he was himself alive and not very seriously hurt after all. "i do not know what you mean, mamma," exclaimed ernest anxiously and more or less hurriedly. his mother construed his manner into indignation at being suspected, and being rather frightened herself she turned tail and scuttled off as fast as her tongue could carry her. "oh!" she said, "i see by your tone that you are innocent! oh! oh! how i thank my heavenly father for this; may he for his dear son's sake keep you always pure. your father, my dear"--(here she spoke hurriedly but gave him a searching look) "was as pure as a spotless angel when he came to me. like him, always be self-denying, truly truthful both in word and deed, never forgetful whose son and grandson you are, nor of the name we gave you, of the sacred stream in whose waters your sins were washed out of you through the blood and blessing of christ," etc. but ernest cut this--i will not say short--but a great deal shorter than it would have been if christina had had her say out, by extricating himself from his mamma's embrace and showing a clean pair of heels. as he got near the purlieus of the kitchen (where he was more at ease) he heard his father calling for his mother, and again his guilty conscience rose against him. "he has found all out now," it cried, "and he is going to tell mamma--this time i am done for." but there was nothing in it; his father only wanted the key of the cellaret. then ernest slunk off into a coppice or spinney behind the rectory paddock, and consoled himself with a pipe of tobacco. here in the wood with the summer sun streaming through the trees and a book and his pipe the boy forgot his cares and had an interval of that rest without which i verily believe his life would have been insupportable. of course, ernest was made to look for his lost property, and a reward was offered for it, but it seemed he had wandered a good deal off the path, thinking to find a lark's nest, more than once, and looking for a watch and purse on battersby piewipes was very like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay: besides it might have been found and taken by some tramp, or by a magpie of which there were many in the neighbourhood, so that after a week or ten days the search was discontinued, and the unpleasant fact had to be faced that ernest must have another watch, another knife, and a small sum of pocket money. it was only right, however, that ernest should pay half the cost of the watch; this should be made easy for him, for it should be deducted from his pocket money in half-yearly instalments extending over two, or even it might be three years. in ernest's own interests, then, as well as those of his father and mother, it would be well that the watch should cost as little as possible, so it was resolved to buy a second-hand one. nothing was to be said to ernest, but it was to be bought, and laid upon his plate as a surprise just before the holidays were over. theobald would have to go to the county town in a few days, and could then find some second-hand watch which would answer sufficiently well. in the course of time, therefore, theobald went, furnished with a long list of household commissions, among which was the purchase of a watch for ernest. those, as i have said, were always happy times, when theobald was away for a whole day certain; the boy was beginning to feel easy in his mind as though god had heard his prayers, and he was not going to be found out. altogether the day had proved an unusually tranquil one, but, alas! it was not to close as it had begun; the fickle atmosphere in which he lived was never more likely to breed a storm than after such an interval of brilliant calm, and when theobald returned ernest had only to look in his face to see that a hurricane was approaching. christina saw that something had gone very wrong, and was quite frightened lest theobald should have heard of some serious money loss; he did not, however, at once unbosom himself, but rang the bell and said to the servant, "tell master ernest i wish to speak to him in the dining- room." chapter xli long before ernest reached the dining-room his ill-divining soul had told him that his sin had found him out. what head of a family ever sends for any of its members into the dining-room if his intentions are honourable? when he reached it he found it empty--his father having been called away for a few minutes unexpectedly upon some parish business--and he was left in the same kind of suspense as people are in after they have been ushered into their dentist's ante-room. of all the rooms in the house he hated the dining-room worst. it was here that he had had to do his latin and greek lessons with his father. it had a smell of some particular kind of polish or varnish which was used in polishing the furniture, and neither i nor ernest can even now come within range of the smell of this kind of varnish without our hearts failing us. over the chimney-piece there was a veritable old master, one of the few original pictures which mr george pontifex had brought from italy. it was supposed to be a salvator rosa, and had been bought as a great bargain. the subject was elijah or elisha (whichever it was) being fed by the ravens in the desert. there were the ravens in the upper right- hand corner with bread and meat in their beaks and claws, and there was the prophet in question in the lower left-hand corner looking longingly up towards them. when ernest was a very small boy it had been a constant matter of regret to him that the food which the ravens carried never actually reached the prophet; he did not understand the limitation of the painter's art, and wanted the meat and the prophet to be brought into direct contact. one day, with the help of some steps which had been left in the room, he had clambered up to the picture and with a piece of bread and butter traced a greasy line right across it from the ravens to elisha's mouth, after which he had felt more comfortable. ernest's mind was drifting back to this youthful escapade when he heard his father's hand on the door, and in another second theobald entered. "oh, ernest," said he, in an off-hand, rather cheery manner, "there's a little matter which i should like you to explain to me, as i have no doubt you very easily can." thump, thump, thump, went ernest's heart against his ribs; but his father's manner was so much nicer than usual that he began to think it might be after all only another false alarm. "it had occurred to your mother and myself that we should like to set you up with a watch again before you went back to school" ("oh, that's all," said ernest to himself quite relieved), "and i have been to-day to look out for a second-hand one which should answer every purpose so long as you're at school." theobald spoke as if watches had half-a-dozen purposes besides time-keeping, but he could hardly open his mouth without using one or other of his tags, and "answering every purpose" was one of them. ernest was breaking out into the usual expressions of gratitude, when theobald continued, "you are interrupting me," and ernest's heart thumped again. "you are interrupting me, ernest. i have not yet done." ernest was instantly dumb. "i passed several shops with second-hand watches for sale, but i saw none of a description and price which pleased me, till at last i was shown one which had, so the shopman said, been left with him recently for sale, and which i at once recognised as the one which had been given you by your aunt alethea. even if i had failed to recognise it, as perhaps i might have done, i should have identified it directly it reached my hands, inasmuch as it had 'e. p., a present from a. p.' engraved upon the inside. i need say no more to show that this was the very watch which you told your mother and me that you had dropped out of your pocket." up to this time theobald's manner had been studiously calm, and his words had been uttered slowly, but here he suddenly quickened and flung off the mask as he added the words, "or some such cock and bull story, which your mother and i were too truthful to disbelieve. you can guess what must be our feelings now." ernest felt that this last home-thrust was just. in his less anxious moments he had thought his papa and mamma "green" for the readiness with which they believed him, but he could not deny that their credulity was a proof of their habitual truthfulness of mind. in common justice he must own that it was very dreadful for two such truthful people to have a son as untruthful as he knew himself to be. "believing that a son of your mother and myself would be incapable of falsehood i at once assumed that some tramp had picked the watch up and was now trying to dispose of it." this to the best of my belief was not accurate. theobald's first assumption had been that it was ernest who was trying to sell the watch, and it was an inspiration of the moment to say that his magnanimous mind had at once conceived the idea of a tramp. "you may imagine how shocked i was when i discovered that the watch had been brought for sale by that miserable woman ellen"--here ernest's heart hardened a little, and he felt as near an approach to an instinct to turn as one so defenceless could be expected to feel; his father quickly perceived this and continued, "who was turned out of this house in circumstances which i will not pollute your ears by more particularly describing. "i put aside the horrid conviction which was beginning to dawn upon me, and assumed that in the interval between her dismissal and her leaving this house, she had added theft to her other sin, and having found your watch in your bedroom had purloined it. it even occurred to me that you might have missed your watch after the woman was gone, and, suspecting who had taken it, had run after the carriage in order to recover it; but when i told the shopman of my suspicions he assured me that the person who left it with him had declared most solemnly that it had been given her by her master's son, whose property it was, and who had a perfect right to dispose of it. "he told me further that, thinking the circumstances in which the watch was offered for sale somewhat suspicious, he had insisted upon the woman's telling him the whole story of how she came by it, before he would consent to buy it of her. "he said that at first--as women of that stamp invariably do--she tried prevarication, but on being threatened that she should at once be given into custody if she did not tell the whole truth, she described the way in which you had run after the carriage, till as she said you were black in the face, and insisted on giving her all your pocket money, your knife and your watch. she added that my coachman john--whom i shall instantly discharge--was witness to the whole transaction. now, ernest, be pleased to tell me whether this appalling story is true or false?" it never occurred to ernest to ask his father why he did not hit a man his own size, or to stop him midway in the story with a remonstrance against being kicked when he was down. the boy was too much shocked and shaken to be inventive; he could only drift and stammer out that the tale was true. "so i feared," said theobald, "and now, ernest, be good enough to ring the bell." when the bell had been answered, theobald desired that john should be sent for, and when john came theobald calculated the wages due to him and desired him at once to leave the house. john's manner was quiet and respectful. he took his dismissal as a matter of course, for theobald had hinted enough to make him understand why he was being discharged, but when he saw ernest sitting pale and awe- struck on the edge of his chair against the dining-room wall, a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and turning to theobald he said in a broad northern accent which i will not attempt to reproduce: "look here, master, i can guess what all this is about--now before i goes i want to have a word with you." "ernest," said theobald, "leave the room." "no, master ernest, you shan't," said john, planting himself against the door. "now, master," he continued, "you may do as you please about me. i've been a good servant to you, and i don't mean to say as you've been a bad master to me, but i do say that if you bear hardly on master ernest here i have those in the village as 'll hear on't and let me know; and if i do hear on't i'll come back and break every bone in your skin, so there!" john's breath came and went quickly, as though he would have been well enough pleased to begin the bone-breaking business at once. theobald turned of an ashen colour--not, as he explained afterwards, at the idle threats of a detected and angry ruffian, but at such atrocious insolence from one of his own servants. "i shall leave master ernest, john," he rejoined proudly, "to the reproaches of his own conscience." ("thank god and thank john," thought ernest.) "as for yourself, i admit that you have been an excellent servant until this unfortunate business came on, and i shall have much pleasure in giving you a character if you want one. have you anything more to say?" "no more nor what i have said," said john sullenly, "but what i've said i means and i'll stick to--character or no character." "oh, you need not be afraid about your character, john," said theobald kindly, "and as it is getting late, there can be no occasion for you to leave the house before to-morrow morning." to this there was no reply from john, who retired, packed up his things, and left the house at once. when christina heard what had happened she said she could condone all except that theobald should have been subjected to such insolence from one of his own servants through the misconduct of his son. theobald was the bravest man in the whole world, and could easily have collared the wretch and turned him out of the room, but how far more dignified, how far nobler had been his reply! how it would tell in a novel or upon the stage, for though the stage as a whole was immoral, yet there were doubtless some plays which were improving spectacles. she could fancy the whole house hushed with excitement at hearing john's menace, and hardly breathing by reason of their interest and expectation of the coming answer. then the actor--probably the great and good mr macready--would say, "i shall leave master ernest, john, to the reproaches of his own conscience." oh, it was sublime! what a roar of applause must follow! then she should enter herself, and fling her arms about her husband's neck, and call him her lion-hearted husband. when the curtain dropped, it would be buzzed about the house that the scene just witnessed had been drawn from real life, and had actually occurred in the household of the rev. theobald pontifex, who had married a miss allaby, etc., etc. as regards ernest the suspicions which had already crossed her mind were deepened, but she thought it better to leave the matter where it was. at present she was in a very strong position. ernest's official purity was firmly established, but at the same time he had shown himself so susceptible that she was able to fuse two contradictory impressions concerning him into a single idea, and consider him as a kind of joseph and don juan in one. this was what she had wanted all along, but her vanity being gratified by the possession of such a son, there was an end of it; the son himself was naught. no doubt if john had not interfered, ernest would have had to expiate his offence with ache, penury and imprisonment. as it was the boy was "to consider himself" as undergoing these punishments, and as suffering pangs of unavailing remorse inflicted on him by his conscience into the bargain; but beyond the fact that theobald kept him more closely to his holiday task, and the continued coldness of his parents, no ostensible punishment was meted out to him. ernest, however, tells me that he looks back upon this as the time when he began to know that he had a cordial and active dislike for both his parents, which i suppose means that he was now beginning to be aware that he was reaching man's estate. chapter xlii about a week before he went back to school his father again sent for him into the dining-room, and told him that he should restore him his watch, but that he should deduct the sum he had paid for it--for he had thought it better to pay a few shillings rather than dispute the ownership of the watch, seeing that ernest had undoubtedly given it to ellen--from his pocket money, in payments which should extend over two half years. he would therefore have to go back to roughborough this half year with only five shillings' pocket money. if he wanted more he must earn more merit money. ernest was not so careful about money as a pattern boy should be. he did not say to himself, "now i have got a sovereign which must last me fifteen weeks, therefore i may spend exactly one shilling and fourpence in each week"--and spend exactly one and fourpence in each week accordingly. he ran through his money at about the same rate as other boys did, being pretty well cleaned out a few days after he had got back to school. when he had no more money, he got a little into debt, and when as far in debt as he could see his way to repaying, he went without luxuries. immediately he got any money he would pay his debts; if there was any over he would spend it; if there was not--and there seldom was--he would begin to go on tick again. his finance was always based upon the supposition that he should go back to school with pound in his pocket--of which he owed say a matter of fifteen shillings. there would be five shillings for sundry school subscriptions--but when these were paid the weekly allowance of sixpence given to each boy in hall, his merit money (which this half he was resolved should come to a good sum) and renewed credit, would carry him through the half. the sudden failure of /- was disastrous to my hero's scheme of finance. his face betrayed his emotions so clearly that theobald said he was determined "to learn the truth at once, and _this time_ without days and days of falsehood" before he reached it. the melancholy fact was not long in coming out, namely, that the wretched ernest added debt to the vices of idleness, falsehood and possibly--for it was not impossible--immorality. how had he come to get into debt? did the other boys do so? ernest reluctantly admitted that they did. with what shops did they get into debt? this was asking too much, ernest said he didn't know! "oh, ernest, ernest," exclaimed his mother, who was in the room, "do not so soon a second time presume upon the forbearance of the tenderest-hearted father in the world. give time for one stab to heal before you wound him with another." this was all very fine, but what was ernest to do? how could he get the school shop-keepers into trouble by owning that they let some of the boys go on tick with them? there was mrs cross, a good old soul, who used to sell hot rolls and butter for breakfast, or eggs and toast, or it might be the quarter of a fowl with bread sauce and mashed potatoes for which she would charge d. if she made a farthing out of the sixpence it was as much as she did. when the boys would come trooping into her shop after "the hounds" how often had not ernest heard her say to her servant girls, "now then, you wanches, git some cheers." all the boys were fond of her, and was he, ernest, to tell tales about her? it was horrible. "now look here, ernest," said his father with his blackest scowl, "i am going to put a stop to this nonsense once for all. either take me fully into your confidence, as a son should take a father, and trust me to deal with this matter as a clergyman and a man of the world--or understand distinctly that i shall take the whole story to dr skinner, who, i imagine, will take much sterner measures than i should." "oh, ernest, ernest," sobbed christina, "be wise in time, and trust those who have already shown you that they know but too well how to be forbearing." no genuine hero of romance should have hesitated for a moment. nothing should have cajoled or frightened him into telling tales out of school. ernest thought of his ideal boys: they, he well knew, would have let their tongues be cut out of them before information could have been wrung from any word of theirs. but ernest was not an ideal boy, and he was not strong enough for his surroundings; i doubt how far any boy could withstand the moral pressure which was brought to bear upon him; at any rate he could not do so, and after a little more writhing he yielded himself a passive prey to the enemy. he consoled himself with the reflection that his papa had not played the confidence trick on him quite as often as his mamma had, and that probably it was better he should tell his father, than that his father should insist on dr skinner's making an inquiry. his papa's conscience "jabbered" a good deal, but not as much as his mamma's. the little fool forgot that he had not given his father as many chances of betraying him as he had given to christina. then it all came out. he owed this at mrs cross's, and this to mrs jones, and this at the "swan and bottle" public house, to say nothing of another shilling or sixpence or two in other quarters. nevertheless, theobald and christina were not satiated, but rather the more they discovered the greater grew their appetite for discovery; it was their obvious duty to find out everything, for though they might rescue their own darling from this hotbed of iniquity without getting to know more than they knew at present, were there not other papas and mammas with darlings whom also they were bound to rescue if it were yet possible? what boys, then, owed money to these harpies as well as ernest? here, again, there was a feeble show of resistance, but the thumbscrews were instantly applied, and ernest, demoralised as he already was, recanted and submitted himself to the powers that were. he told only a little less than he knew or thought he knew. he was examined, re-examined, cross-examined, sent to the retirement of his own bedroom and cross-examined again; the smoking in mrs jones' kitchen all came out; which boys smoked and which did not; which boys owed money and, roughly, how much and where; which boys swore and used bad language. theobald was resolved that this time ernest should, as he called it, take him into his confidence without reserve, so the school list which went with dr skinner's half-yearly bills was brought out, and the most secret character of each boy was gone through _seriatim_ by mr and mrs pontifex, so far as it was in ernest's power to give information concerning it, and yet theobald had on the preceding sunday preached a less feeble sermon than he commonly preached, upon the horrors of the inquisition. no matter how awful was the depravity revealed to them, the pair never flinched, but probed and probed, till they were on the point of reaching subjects more delicate than they had yet touched upon. here ernest's unconscious self took the matter up and made a resistance to which his conscious self was unequal, by tumbling him off his chair in a fit of fainting. dr martin was sent for and pronounced the boy to be seriously unwell; at the same time he prescribed absolute rest and absence from nervous excitement. so the anxious parents were unwillingly compelled to be content with what they had got already--being frightened into leading him a quiet life for the short remainder of the holidays. they were not idle, but satan can find as much mischief for busy hands as for idle ones, so he sent a little job in the direction of battersby which theobald and christina undertook immediately. it would be a pity, they reasoned, that ernest should leave roughborough, now that he had been there three years; it would be difficult to find another school for him, and to explain why he had left roughborough. besides, dr skinner and theobald were supposed to be old friends, and it would be unpleasant to offend him; these were all valid reasons for not removing the boy. the proper thing to do, then, would be to warn dr skinner confidentially of the state of his school, and to furnish him with a school list annotated with the remarks extracted from ernest, which should be appended to the name of each boy. theobald was the perfection of neatness; while his son was ill upstairs, he copied out the school list so that he could throw his comments into a tabular form, which assumed the following shape--only that of course i have changed the names. one cross in each square was to indicate occasional offence; two stood for frequent, and three for habitual delinquency. smoking drinking beer swearing notes at the "swan and obscene and bottle." language. smith o o xx will smoke next half brown xxx o x jones x xx xxx robinson xx xx x and thus through the whole school. of course, in justice to ernest, dr skinner would be bound over to secrecy before a word was said to him, but, ernest being thus protected, he could not be furnished with the facts too completely. chapter xliii so important did theobald consider this matter that he made a special journey to roughborough before the half year began. it was a relief to have him out of the house, but though his destination was not mentioned, ernest guessed where he had gone. to this day he considers his conduct at this crisis to have been one of the most serious laches of his life--one which he can never think of without shame and indignation. he says he ought to have run away from home. but what good could he have done if he had? he would have been caught, brought back and examined two days later instead of two days earlier. a boy of barely sixteen cannot stand against the moral pressure of a father and mother who have always oppressed him any more than he can cope physically with a powerful full-grown man. true, he may allow himself to be killed rather than yield, but this is being so morbidly heroic as to come close round again to cowardice; for it is little else than suicide, which is universally condemned as cowardly. on the re-assembling of the school it became apparent that something had gone wrong. dr skinner called the boys together, and with much pomp excommunicated mrs cross and mrs jones, by declaring their shops to be out of bounds. the street in which the "swan and bottle" stood was also forbidden. the vices of drinking and smoking, therefore, were clearly aimed at, and before prayers dr skinner spoke a few impressive words about the abominable sin of using bad language. ernest's feelings can be imagined. next day at the hour when the daily punishments were read out, though there had not yet been time for him to have offended, ernest pontifex was declared to have incurred every punishment which the school provided for evil-doers. he was placed on the idle list for the whole half year, and on perpetual detentions; his bounds were curtailed; he was to attend junior callings-over; in fact he was so hemmed in with punishments upon every side that it was hardly possible for him to go outside the school gates. this unparalleled list of punishments inflicted on the first day of the half year, and intended to last till the ensuing christmas holidays, was not connected with any specified offence. it required no great penetration therefore, on the part of the boys to connect ernest with the putting mrs cross's and mrs jones's shops out of bounds. great indeed was the indignation about mrs cross who, it was known, remembered dr skinner himself as a small boy only just got into jackets, and had doubtless let him have many a sausage and mashed potatoes upon deferred payment. the head boys assembled in conclave to consider what steps should be taken, but hardly had they done so before ernest knocked timidly at the head-room door and took the bull by the horns by explaining the facts as far as he could bring himself to do so. he made a clean breast of everything except about the school list and the remarks he had made about each boy's character. this infamy was more than he could own to, and he kept his counsel concerning it. fortunately he was safe in doing so, for dr skinner, pedant and more than pedant though he was, had still just sense enough to turn on theobald in the matter of the school list. whether he resented being told that he did not know the characters of his own boys, or whether he dreaded a scandal about the school i know not, but when theobald had handed him the list, over which he had expended so much pains, dr skinner had cut him uncommonly short, and had then and there, with more suavity than was usual with him, committed it to the flames before theobald's own eyes. ernest got off with the head boys easier than he expected. it was admitted that the offence, heinous though it was, had been committed under extenuating circumstances; the frankness with which the culprit had confessed all, his evidently unfeigned remorse, and the fury with which dr skinner was pursuing him tended to bring about a reaction in his favour, as though he had been more sinned against than sinning. as the half year wore on his spirits gradually revived, and when attacked by one of his fits of self-abasement he was in some degree consoled by having found out that even his father and mother, whom he had supposed so immaculate, were no better than they should be. about the fifth of november it was a school custom to meet on a certain common not far from roughborough and burn somebody in effigy, this being the compromise arrived at in the matter of fireworks and guy fawkes festivities. this year it was decided that pontifex's governor should be the victim, and ernest though a good deal exercised in mind as to what he ought to do, in the end saw no sufficient reason for holding aloof from proceedings which, as he justly remarked, could not do his father any harm. it so happened that the bishop had held a confirmation at the school on the fifth of november. dr skinner had not quite liked the selection of this day, but the bishop was pressed by many engagements, and had been compelled to make the arrangement as it then stood. ernest was among those who had to be confirmed, and was deeply impressed with the solemn importance of the ceremony. when he felt the huge old bishop drawing down upon him as he knelt in chapel he could hardly breathe, and when the apparition paused before him and laid its hands upon his head he was frightened almost out of his wits. he felt that he had arrived at one of the great turning points of his life, and that the ernest of the future could resemble only very faintly the ernest of the past. this happened at about noon, but by the one o'clock dinner-hour the effect of the confirmation had worn off, and he saw no reason why he should forego his annual amusement with the bonfire; so he went with the others and was very valiant till the image was actually produced and was about to be burnt; then he felt a little frightened. it was a poor thing enough, made of paper, calico and straw, but they had christened it the rev. theobald pontifex, and he had a revulsion of feeling as he saw it being carried towards the bonfire. still he held his ground, and in a few minutes when all was over felt none the worse for having assisted at a ceremony which, after all, was prompted by a boyish love of mischief rather than by rancour. i should say that ernest had written to his father, and told him of the unprecedented way in which he was being treated; he even ventured to suggest that theobald should interfere for his protection and reminded him how the story had been got out of him, but theobald had had enough of dr skinner for the present; the burning of the school list had been a rebuff which did not encourage him to meddle a second time in the internal economics of roughborough. he therefore replied that he must either remove ernest from roughborough altogether, which would for many reasons be undesirable, or trust to the discretion of the head master as regards the treatment he might think best for any of his pupils. ernest said no more; he still felt that it was so discreditable to him to have allowed any confession to be wrung from him, that he could not press the promised amnesty for himself. it was during the "mother cross row," as it was long styled among the boys, that a remarkable phenomenon was witnessed at roughborough. i mean that of the head boys under certain conditions doing errands for their juniors. the head boys had no bounds and could go to mrs cross's whenever they liked; they actually, therefore, made themselves go-betweens, and would get anything from either mrs cross's or mrs jones's for any boy, no matter how low in the school, between the hours of a quarter to nine and nine in the morning, and a quarter to six and six in the afternoon. by degrees, however, the boys grew bolder, and the shops, though not openly declared in bounds again, were tacitly allowed to be so. chapter xliv i may spare the reader more details about my hero's school days. he rose, always in spite of himself, into the doctor's form, and for the last two years or so of his time was among the praepostors, though he never rose into the upper half of them. he did little, and i think the doctor rather gave him up as a boy whom he had better leave to himself, for he rarely made him construe, and he used to send in his exercises or not, pretty much as he liked. his tacit, unconscious obstinacy had in time effected more even than a few bold sallies in the first instance would have done. to the end of his career his position _inter pares_ was what it had been at the beginning, namely, among the upper part of the less reputable class--whether of seniors or juniors--rather than among the lower part of the more respectable. only once in the whole course of his school life did he get praise from dr skinner for any exercise, and this he has treasured as the best example of guarded approval which he has ever seen. he had had to write a copy of alcaics on "the dogs of the monks of st bernard," and when the exercise was returned to him he found the doctor had written on it: "in this copy of alcaics--which is still excessively bad--i fancy that i can discern some faint symptoms of improvement." ernest says that if the exercise was any better than usual it must have been by a fluke, for he is sure that he always liked dogs, especially st bernard dogs, far too much to take any pleasure in writing alcaics about them. "as i look back upon it," he said to me but the other day, with a hearty laugh, "i respect myself more for having never once got the best mark for an exercise than i should do if i had got it every time it could be got. i am glad nothing could make me do latin and greek verses; i am glad skinner could never get any moral influence over me; i am glad i was idle at school, and i am glad my father overtasked me as a boy--otherwise, likely enough i should have acquiesced in the swindle, and might have written as good a copy of alcaics about the dogs of the monks of st bernard as my neighbours, and yet i don't know, for i remember there was another boy, who sent in a latin copy of some sort, but for his own pleasure he wrote the following-- the dogs of the monks of st bernard go to pick little children out of the snow, and around their necks is the cordial gin tied with a little bit of bob-bin. i should like to have written that, and i did try, but i couldn't. i didn't quite like the last line, and tried to mend it, but i couldn't." i fancied i could see traces of bitterness against the instructors of his youth in ernest's manner, and said something to this effect. "oh, no," he replied, still laughing, "no more than st anthony felt towards the devils who had tempted him, when he met some of them casually a hundred or a couple of hundred years afterwards. of course he knew they were devils, but that was all right enough; there must be devils. st anthony probably liked these devils better than most others, and for old acquaintance sake showed them as much indulgence as was compatible with decorum. "besides, you know," he added, "st anthony tempted the devils quite as much as they tempted him; for his peculiar sanctity was a greater temptation to tempt him than they could stand. strictly speaking, it was the devils who were the more to be pitied, for they were led up by st anthony to be tempted and fell, whereas st anthony did not fall. i believe i was a disagreeable and unintelligible boy, and if ever i meet skinner there is no one whom i would shake hands with, or do a good turn to more readily." at home things went on rather better; the ellen and mother cross rows sank slowly down upon the horizon, and even at home he had quieter times now that he had become a praepostor. nevertheless the watchful eye and protecting hand were still ever over him to guard his comings in and his goings out, and to spy out all his ways. is it wonderful that the boy, though always trying to keep up appearances as though he were cheerful and contented--and at times actually being so--wore often an anxious, jaded look when he thought none were looking, which told of an almost incessant conflict within? doubtless theobald saw these looks and knew how to interpret them, but it was his profession to know how to shut his eyes to things that were inconvenient--no clergyman could keep his benefice for a month if he could not do this; besides he had allowed himself for so many years to say things he ought not to have said, and not to say the things he ought to have said, that he was little likely to see anything that he thought it more convenient not to see unless he was made to do so. it was not much that was wanted. to make no mysteries where nature has made none, to bring his conscience under something like reasonable control, to give ernest his head a little more, to ask fewer questions, and to give him pocket money with a desire that it should be spent upon _menus plaisirs_ . . . "call that not much indeed," laughed ernest, as i read him what i have just written. "why it is the whole duty of a father, but it is the mystery-making which is the worst evil. if people would dare to speak to one another unreservedly, there would be a good deal less sorrow in the world a hundred years hence." to return, however, to roughborough. on the day of his leaving, when he was sent for into the library to be shaken hands with, he was surprised to feel that, though assuredly glad to leave, he did not do so with any especial grudge against the doctor rankling in his breast. he had come to the end of it all, and was still alive, nor, take it all round, more seriously amiss than other people. dr skinner received him graciously, and was even frolicsome after his own heavy fashion. young people are almost always placable, and ernest felt as he went away that another such interview would not only have wiped off all old scores, but have brought him round into the ranks of the doctor's admirers and supporters--among whom it is only fair to say that the greater number of the more promising boys were found. just before saying good-bye the doctor actually took down a volume from those shelves which had seemed so awful six years previously, and gave it to him after having written his name in it, and the words [greek text], which i believe means "with all kind wishes from the donor." the book was one written in latin by a german--schomann: "de comitiis atheniensibus"--not exactly light and cheerful reading, but ernest felt it was high time he got to understand the athenian constitution and manner of voting; he had got them up a great many times already, but had forgotten them as fast as he had learned them; now, however, that the doctor had given him this book, he would master the subject once for all. how strange it was! he wanted to remember these things very badly; he knew he did, but he could never retain them; in spite of himself they no sooner fell upon his mind than they fell off it again, he had such a dreadful memory; whereas, if anyone played him a piece of music and told him where it came from, he never forgot that, though he made no effort to retain it, and was not even conscious of trying to remember it at all. his mind must be badly formed and he was no good. having still a short time to spare, he got the keys of st michael's church and went to have a farewell practice upon the organ, which he could now play fairly well. he walked up and down the aisle for a while in a meditative mood, and then, settling down to the organ, played "they loathed to drink of the river" about six times over, after which he felt more composed and happier; then, tearing himself away from the instrument he loved so well, he hurried to the station. as the train drew out he looked down from a high embankment on to the little house his aunt had taken, and where it might be said she had died through her desire to do him a kindness. there were the two well-known bow windows, out of which he had often stepped to run across the lawn into the workshop. he reproached himself with the little gratitude he had shown towards this kind lady--the only one of his relations whom he had ever felt as though he could have taken into his confidence. dearly as he loved her memory, he was glad she had not known the scrapes he had got into since she died; perhaps she might not have forgiven them--and how awful that would have been! but then, if she had lived, perhaps many of his ills would have been spared him. as he mused thus he grew sad again. where, where, he asked himself, was it all to end? was it to be always sin, shame and sorrow in the future, as it had been in the past, and the ever-watchful eye and protecting hand of his father laying burdens on him greater than he could bear--or was he, too, some day or another to come to feel that he was fairly well and happy? there was a gray mist across the sun, so that the eye could bear its light, and ernest, while musing as above, was looking right into the middle of the sun himself, as into the face of one whom he knew and was fond of. at first his face was grave, but kindly, as of a tired man who feels that a long task is over; but in a few seconds the more humorous side of his misfortunes presented itself to him, and he smiled half reproachfully, half merrily, as thinking how little all that had happened to him really mattered, and how small were his hardships as compared with those of most people. still looking into the eye of the sun and smiling dreamily, he thought how he had helped to burn his father in effigy, and his look grew merrier, till at last he broke out into a laugh. exactly at this moment the light veil of cloud parted from the sun, and he was brought to _terra firma_ by the breaking forth of the sunshine. on this he became aware that he was being watched attentively by a fellow-traveller opposite to him, an elderly gentleman with a large head and iron-grey hair. "my young friend," said he, good-naturedly, "you really must not carry on conversations with people in the sun, while you are in a public railway carriage." the old gentleman said not another word, but unfolded his _times_ and began to read it. as for ernest, he blushed crimson. the pair did not speak during the rest of the time they were in the carriage, but they eyed each other from time to time, so that the face of each was impressed on the recollection of the other. chapter xlv some people say that their school days were the happiest of their lives. they may be right, but i always look with suspicion upon those whom i hear saying this. it is hard enough to know whether one is happy or unhappy now, and still harder to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of different times of one's life; the utmost that can be said is that we are fairly happy so long as we are not distinctly aware of being miserable. as i was talking with ernest one day not so long since about this, he said he was so happy now that he was sure he had never been happier, and did not wish to be so, but that cambridge was the first place where he had ever been consciously and continuously happy. how can any boy fail to feel an ecstasy of pleasure on first finding himself in rooms which he knows for the next few years are to be his castle? here he will not be compelled to turn out of the most comfortable place as soon as he has ensconced himself in it because papa or mamma happens to come into the room, and he should give it up to them. the most cosy chair here is for himself, there is no one even to share the room with him, or to interfere with his doing as he likes in it--smoking included. why, if such a room looked out both back and front on to a blank dead wall it would still be a paradise, how much more then when the view is of some quiet grassy court or cloister or garden, as from the windows of the greater number of rooms at oxford and cambridge. theobald, as an old fellow and tutor of emmanuel--at which college he had entered ernest--was able to obtain from the present tutor a certain preference in the choice of rooms; ernest's, therefore, were very pleasant ones, looking out upon the grassy court that is bounded by the fellows' gardens. theobald accompanied him to cambridge, and was at his best while doing so. he liked the jaunt, and even he was not without a certain feeling of pride in having a full-blown son at the university. some of the reflected rays of this splendour were allowed to fall upon ernest himself. theobald said he was "willing to hope"--this was one of his tags--that his son would turn over a new leaf now that he had left school, and for his own part he was "only too ready"--this was another tag--to let bygones be bygones. ernest, not yet having his name on the books, was able to dine with his father at the fellows' table of one of the other colleges on the invitation of an old friend of theobald's; he there made acquaintance with sundry of the good things of this life, the very names of which were new to him, and felt as he ate them that he was now indeed receiving a liberal education. when at length the time came for him to go to emmanuel, where he was to sleep in his new rooms, his father came with him to the gates and saw him safe into college; a few minutes more and he found himself alone in a room for which he had a latch-key. from this time he dated many days which, if not quite unclouded, were upon the whole very happy ones. i need not however describe them, as the life of a quiet steady-going undergraduate has been told in a score of novels better than i can tell it. some of ernest's schoolfellows came up to cambridge at the same time as himself, and with these he continued on friendly terms during the whole of his college career. other schoolfellows were only a year or two his seniors; these called on him, and he thus made a sufficiently favourable _entree_ into college life. a straightforwardness of character that was stamped upon his face, a love of humour, and a temper which was more easily appeased than ruffled made up for some awkwardness and want of _savoir faire_. he soon became a not unpopular member of the best set of his year, and though neither capable of becoming, nor aspiring to become, a leader, was admitted by the leaders as among their nearer hangers-on. of ambition he had at that time not one particle; greatness, or indeed superiority of any kind, seemed so far off and incomprehensible to him that the idea of connecting it with himself never crossed his mind. if he could escape the notice of all those with whom he did not feel himself _en rapport_, he conceived that he had triumphed sufficiently. he did not care about taking a good degree, except that it must be good enough to keep his father and mother quiet. he did not dream of being able to get a fellowship; if he had, he would have tried hard to do so, for he became so fond of cambridge that he could not bear the thought of having to leave it; the briefness indeed of the season during which his present happiness was to last was almost the only thing that now seriously troubled him. having less to attend to in the matter of growing, and having got his head more free, he took to reading fairly well--not because he liked it, but because he was told he ought to do so, and his natural instinct, like that of all very young men who are good for anything, was to do as those in authority told him. the intention at battersby was (for dr skinner had said that ernest could never get a fellowship) that he should take a sufficiently good degree to be able to get a tutorship or mastership in some school preparatory to taking orders. when he was twenty-one years old his money was to come into his own hands, and the best thing he could do with it would be to buy the next presentation to a living, the rector of which was now old, and live on his mastership or tutorship till the living fell in. he could buy a very good living for the sum which his grandfather's legacy now amounted to, for theobald had never had any serious intention of making deductions for his son's maintenance and education, and the money had accumulated till it was now about five thousand pounds; he had only talked about making deductions in order to stimulate the boy to exertion as far as possible, by making him think that this was his only chance of escaping starvation--or perhaps from pure love of teasing. when ernest had a living of or pounds a year with a house, and not too many parishioners--why, he might add to his income by taking pupils, or even keeping a school, and then, say at thirty, he might marry. it was not easy for theobald to hit on any much more sensible plan. he could not get ernest into business, for he had no business connections--besides he did not know what business meant; he had no interest, again, at the bar; medicine was a profession which subjected its students to ordeals and temptations which these fond parents shrank from on behalf of their boy; he would be thrown among companions and familiarised with details which might sully him, and though he might stand, it was "only too possible" that he would fall. besides, ordination was the road which theobald knew and understood, and indeed the only road about which he knew anything at all, so not unnaturally it was the one he chose for ernest. the foregoing had been instilled into my hero from earliest boyhood, much as it had been instilled into theobald himself, and with the same result--the conviction, namely, that he was certainly to be a clergyman, but that it was a long way off yet, and he supposed it was all right. as for the duty of reading hard, and taking as good a degree as he could, this was plain enough, so he set himself to work, as i have said, steadily, and to the surprise of everyone as well as himself got a college scholarship, of no great value, but still a scholarship, in his freshman's term. it is hardly necessary to say that theobald stuck to the whole of this money, believing the pocket-money he allowed ernest to be sufficient for him, and knowing how dangerous it was for young men to have money at command. i do not suppose it even occurred to him to try and remember what he had felt when his father took a like course in regard to himself. ernest's position in this respect was much what it had been at school except that things were on a larger scale. his tutor's and cook's bills were paid for him; his father sent him his wine; over and above this he had pounds a year with which to keep himself in clothes and all other expenses; this was about the usual thing at emmanuel in ernest's day, though many had much less than this. ernest did as he had done at school--he spent what he could, soon after he received his money; he then incurred a few modest liabilities, and then lived penuriously till next term, when he would immediately pay his debts, and start new ones to much the same extent as those which he had just got rid of. when he came into his pounds and became independent of his father, or pounds served to cover the whole of his unauthorised expenditure. he joined the boat club, and was constant in his attendance at the boats. he still smoked, but never took more wine or beer than was good for him, except perhaps on the occasion of a boating supper, but even then he found the consequences unpleasant, and soon learned how to keep within safe limits. he attended chapel as often as he was compelled to do so; he communicated two or three times a year, because his tutor told him he ought to; in fact he set himself to live soberly and cleanly, as i imagine all his instincts prompted him to do, and when he fell--as who that is born of woman can help sometimes doing?--it was not till after a sharp tussle with a temptation that was more than his flesh and blood could stand; then he was very penitent and would go a fairly long while without sinning again; and this was how it had always been with him since he had arrived at years of indiscretion. even to the end of his career at cambridge he was not aware that he had it in him to do anything, but others had begun to see that he was not wanting in ability and sometimes told him so. he did not believe it; indeed he knew very well that if they thought him clever they were being taken in, but it pleased him to have been able to take them in, and he tried to do so still further; he was therefore a good deal on the look- out for cants that he could catch and apply in season, and might have done himself some mischief thus if he had not been ready to throw over any cant as soon as he had come across another more nearly to his fancy; his friends used to say that when he rose he flew like a snipe, darting several times in various directions before he settled down to a steady straight flight, but when he had once got into this he would keep to it. chapter xlvi when he was in his third year a magazine was founded at cambridge, the contributions to which were exclusively by undergraduates. ernest sent in an essay upon the greek drama, which he has declined to let me reproduce here without his being allowed to re-edit it. i have therefore been unable to give it in its original form, but when pruned of its redundancies (and this is all that has been done to it) it runs as follows-- "i shall not attempt within the limits at my disposal to make a _resume_ of the rise and progress of the greek drama, but will confine myself to considering whether the reputation enjoyed by the three chief greek tragedians, aeschylus, sophocles and euripides, is one that will be permanent, or whether they will one day be held to have been overrated. "why, i ask myself, do i see much that i can easily admire in homer, thucydides, herodotus, demosthenes, aristophanes, theocritus, parts of lucretius, horace's satires and epistles, to say nothing of other ancient writers, and yet find myself at once repelled by even those works of aeschylus, sophocles and euripides which are most generally admired. "with the first-named writers i am in the hands of men who feel, if not as i do, still as i can understand their feeling, and as i am interested to see that they should have felt; with the second i have so little sympathy that i cannot understand how anyone can ever have taken any interest in them whatever. their highest flights to me are dull, pompous and artificial productions, which, if they were to appear now for the first time, would, i should think, either fall dead or be severely handled by the critics. i wish to know whether it is i who am in fault in this matter, or whether part of the blame may not rest with the tragedians themselves. "how far i wonder did the athenians genuinely like these poets, and how far was the applause which was lavished upon them due to fashion or affectation? how far, in fact, did admiration for the orthodox tragedians take that place among the athenians which going to church does among ourselves? "this is a venturesome question considering the verdict now generally given for over two thousand years, nor should i have permitted myself to ask it if it had not been suggested to me by one whose reputation stands as high, and has been sanctioned for as long time as those of the tragedians themselves, i mean by aristophanes. "numbers, weight of authority, and time, have conspired to place aristophanes on as high a literary pinnacle as any ancient writer, with the exception perhaps of homer, but he makes no secret of heartily hating euripides and sophocles, and i strongly suspect only praises aeschylus that he may run down the other two with greater impunity. for after all there is no such difference between aeschylus and his successors as will render the former very good and the latter very bad; and the thrusts at aeschylus which aristophanes puts into the mouth of euripides go home too well to have been written by an admirer. "it may be observed that while euripides accuses aeschylus of being 'pomp-bundle-worded,' which i suppose means bombastic and given to rodomontade, aeschylus retorts on euripides that he is a 'gossip gleaner, a describer of beggars, and a rag-stitcher,' from which it may be inferred that he was truer to the life of his own times than aeschylus was. it happens, however, that a faithful rendering of contemporary life is the very quality which gives its most permanent interest to any work of fiction, whether in literature or painting, and it is a not unnatural consequence that while only seven plays by aeschylus, and the same number by sophocles, have come down to us, we have no fewer than nineteen by euripides. "this, however, is a digression; the question before us is whether aristophanes really liked aeschylus or only pretended to do so. it must be remembered that the claims of aeschylus, sophocles and euripides, to the foremost place amongst tragedians were held to be as incontrovertible as those of dante, petrarch, tasso and ariosto to be the greatest of italian poets, are held among the italians of to-day. if we can fancy some witty, genial writer, we will say in florence, finding himself bored by all the poets i have named, we can yet believe he would be unwilling to admit that he disliked them without exception. he would prefer to think he could see something at any rate in dante, whom he could idealise more easily, inasmuch as he was more remote; in order to carry his countrymen the farther with him, he would endeavour to meet them more than was consistent with his own instincts. without some such palliation as admiration for one, at any rate, of the tragedians, it would be almost as dangerous for aristophanes to attack them as it would be for an englishman now to say that he did not think very much of the elizabethan dramatists. yet which of us in his heart likes any of the elizabethan dramatists except shakespeare? are they in reality anything else than literary struldbrugs? "i conclude upon the whole that aristophanes did not like any of the tragedians; yet no one will deny that this keen, witty, outspoken writer was as good a judge of literary value, and as able to see any beauties that the tragic dramas contained as nine-tenths, at any rate, of ourselves. he had, moreover, the advantage of thoroughly understanding the standpoint from which the tragedians expected their work to be judged, and what was his conclusion? briefly it was little else than this, that they were a fraud or something very like it. for my own part i cordially agree with him. i am free to confess that with the exception perhaps of some of the psalms of david i know no writings which seem so little to deserve their reputation. i do not know that i should particularly mind my sisters reading them, but i will take good care never to read them myself." this last bit about the psalms was awful, and there was a great fight with the editor as to whether or no it should be allowed to stand. ernest himself was frightened at it, but he had once heard someone say that the psalms were many of them very poor, and on looking at them more closely, after he had been told this, he found that there could hardly be two opinions on the subject. so he caught up the remark and reproduced it as his own, concluding that these psalms had probably never been written by david at all, but had got in among the others by mistake. the essay, perhaps on account of the passage about the psalms, created quite a sensation, and on the whole was well received. ernest's friends praised it more highly than it deserved, and he was himself very proud of it, but he dared not show it at battersby. he knew also that he was now at the end of his tether; this was his one idea (i feel sure he had caught more than half of it from other people), and now he had not another thing left to write about. he found himself cursed with a small reputation which seemed to him much bigger than it was, and a consciousness that he could never keep it up. before many days were over he felt his unfortunate essay to be a white elephant to him, which he must feed by hurrying into all sorts of frantic attempts to cap his triumph, and, as may be imagined, these attempts were failures. he did not understand that if he waited and listened and observed, another idea of some kind would probably occur to him some day, and that the development of this would in its turn suggest still further ones. he did not yet know that the very worst way of getting hold of ideas is to go hunting expressly after them. the way to get them is to study something of which one is fond, and to note down whatever crosses one's mind in reference to it, either during study or relaxation, in a little note-book kept always in the waistcoat pocket. ernest has come to know all about this now, but it took him a long time to find it out, for this is not the kind of thing that is taught at schools and universities. nor yet did he know that ideas, no less than the living beings in whose minds they arise, must be begotten by parents not very unlike themselves, the most original still differing but slightly from the parents that have given rise to them. life is like a fugue, everything must grow out of the subject and there must be nothing new. nor, again, did he see how hard it is to say where one idea ends and another begins, nor yet how closely this is paralleled in the difficulty of saying where a life begins or ends, or an action or indeed anything, there being an unity in spite of infinite multitude, and an infinite multitude in spite of unity. he thought that ideas came into clever people's heads by a kind of spontaneous germination, without parentage in the thoughts of others or the course of observation; for as yet he believed in genius, of which he well knew that he had none, if it was the fine frenzied thing he thought it was. not very long before this he had come of age, and theobald had handed him over his money, which amounted now to pounds; it was invested to bring in per cent and gave him therefore an income of pounds a year. he did not, however, realise the fact (he could realise nothing so foreign to his experience) that he was independent of his father till a long time afterwards; nor did theobald make any difference in his manner towards him. so strong was the hold which habit and association held over both father and son, that the one considered he had as good a right as ever to dictate, and the other that he had as little right as ever to gainsay. during his last year at cambridge he overworked himself through this very blind deference to his father's wishes, for there was no reason why he should take more than a poll degree except that his father laid such stress upon his taking honours. he became so ill, indeed, that it was doubtful how far he would be able to go in for his degree at all; but he managed to do so, and when the list came out was found to be placed higher than either he or anyone else expected, being among the first three or four senior optimes, and a few weeks later, in the lower half of the second class of the classical tripos. ill as he was when he got home, theobald made him go over all the examination papers with him, and in fact reproduce as nearly as possible the replies that he had sent in. so little kick had he in him, and so deep was the groove into which he had got, that while at home he spent several hours a day in continuing his classical and mathematical studies as though he had not yet taken his degree. chapter xlvii ernest returned to cambridge for the may term of , on the plea of reading for ordination, with which he was now face to face, and much nearer than he liked. up to this time, though not religiously inclined, he had never doubted the truth of anything that had been told him about christianity. he had never seen anyone who doubted, nor read anything that raised a suspicion in his mind as to the historical character of the miracles recorded in the old and new testaments. it must be remembered that the year was the last of a term during which the peace of the church of england was singularly unbroken. between , when "vestiges of creation" appeared, and , when "essays and reviews" marked the commencement of that storm which raged until many years afterwards, there was not a single book published in england that caused serious commotion within the bosom of the church. perhaps buckle's "history of civilisation" and mill's "liberty" were the most alarming, but they neither of them reached the substratum of the reading public, and ernest and his friends were ignorant of their very existence. the evangelical movement, with the exception to which i shall revert presently, had become almost a matter of ancient history. tractarianism had subsided into a tenth day's wonder; it was at work, but it was not noisy. the "vestiges" were forgotten before ernest went up to cambridge; the catholic aggression scare had lost its terrors; ritualism was still unknown by the general provincial public, and the gorham and hampden controversies were defunct some years since; dissent was not spreading; the crimean war was the one engrossing subject, to be followed by the indian mutiny and the franco-austrian war. these great events turned men's minds from speculative subjects, and there was no enemy to the faith which could arouse even a languid interest. at no time probably since the beginning of the century could an ordinary observer have detected less sign of coming disturbance than at that of which i am writing. i need hardly say that the calm was only on the surface. older men, who knew more than undergraduates were likely to do, must have seen that the wave of scepticism which had already broken over germany was setting towards our own shores, nor was it long, indeed, before it reached them. ernest had hardly been ordained before three works in quick succession arrested the attention even of those who paid least heed to theological controversy. i mean "essays and reviews," charles darwin's "origin of species," and bishop colenso's "criticisms on the pentateuch." this, however, is a digression; i must revert to the one phase of spiritual activity which had any life in it during the time ernest was at cambridge, that is to say, to the remains of the evangelical awakening of more than a generation earlier, which was connected with the name of simeon. there were still a good many simeonites, or as they were more briefly called "sims," in ernest's time. every college contained some of them, but their headquarters were at caius, whither they were attracted by mr clayton who was at that time senior tutor, and among the sizars of st john's. behind the then chapel of this last-named college, there was a "labyrinth" (this was the name it bore) of dingy, tumble-down rooms, tenanted exclusively by the poorest undergraduates, who were dependent upon sizarships and scholarships for the means of taking their degrees. to many, even at st john's, the existence and whereabouts of the labyrinth in which the sizars chiefly lived was unknown; some men in ernest's time, who had rooms in the first court, had never found their way through the sinuous passage which led to it. in the labyrinth there dwelt men of all ages, from mere lads to grey-haired old men who had entered late in life. they were rarely seen except in hall or chapel or at lecture, where their manners of feeding, praying and studying, were considered alike objectionable; no one knew whence they came, whither they went, nor what they did, for they never showed at cricket or the boats; they were a gloomy, seedy-looking _conferie_, who had as little to glory in in clothes and manners as in the flesh itself. ernest and his friends used to consider themselves marvels of economy for getting on with so little money, but the greater number of dwellers in the labyrinth would have considered one-half of their expenditure to be an exceeding measure of affluence, and so doubtless any domestic tyranny which had been experienced by ernest was a small thing to what the average johnian sizar had had to put up with. a few would at once emerge on its being found after their first examination that they were likely to be ornaments to the college; these would win valuable scholarships that enabled them to live in some degree of comfort, and would amalgamate with the more studious of those who were in a better social position, but even these, with few exceptions, were long in shaking off the uncouthness they brought with them to the university, nor would their origin cease to be easily recognisable till they had become dons and tutors. i have seen some of these men attain high position in the world of politics or science, and yet still retain a look of labyrinth and johnian sizarship. unprepossessing then, in feature, gait and manners, unkempt and ill-dressed beyond what can be easily described, these poor fellows formed a class apart, whose thoughts and ways were not as the thoughts and ways of ernest and his friends, and it was among them that simeonism chiefly flourished. destined most of them for the church (for in those days "holy orders" were seldom heard of), the simeonites held themselves to have received a very loud call to the ministry, and were ready to pinch themselves for years so as to prepare for it by the necessary theological courses. to most of them the fact of becoming clergymen would be the _entree_ into a social position from which they were at present kept out by barriers they well knew to be impassable; ordination, therefore, opened fields for ambition which made it the central point in their thoughts, rather than as with ernest, something which he supposed would have to be done some day, but about which, as about dying, he hoped there was no need to trouble himself as yet. by way of preparing themselves more completely they would have meetings in one another's rooms for tea and prayer and other spiritual exercises. placing themselves under the guidance of a few well-known tutors they would teach in sunday schools, and be instant, in season and out of season, in imparting spiritual instruction to all whom they could persuade to listen to them. but the soil of the more prosperous undergraduates was not suitable for the seed they tried to sow. the small pieties with which they larded their discourse, if chance threw them into the company of one whom they considered worldly, caused nothing but aversion in the minds of those for whom they were intended. when they distributed tracts, dropping them by night into good men's letter boxes while they were asleep, their tracts got burnt, or met with even worse contumely; they were themselves also treated with the ridicule which they reflected proudly had been the lot of true followers of christ in all ages. often at their prayer meetings was the passage of st paul referred to in which he bids his corinthian converts note concerning themselves that they were for the most part neither well-bred nor intellectual people. they reflected with pride that they too had nothing to be proud of in these respects, and like st paul, gloried in the fact that in the flesh they had not much to glory. ernest had several johnian friends, and came thus to hear about the simeonites and to see some of them, who were pointed out to him as they passed through the courts. they had a repellent attraction for him; he disliked them, but he could not bring himself to leave them alone. on one occasion he had gone so far as to parody one of the tracts they had sent round in the night, and to get a copy dropped into each of the leading simeonites' boxes. the subject he had taken was "personal cleanliness." cleanliness, he said, was next to godliness; he wished to know on which side it was to stand, and concluded by exhorting simeonites to a freer use of the tub. i cannot commend my hero's humour in this matter; his tract was not brilliant, but i mention the fact as showing that at this time he was something of a saul and took pleasure in persecuting the elect, not, as i have said, that he had any hankering after scepticism, but because, like the farmers in his father's village, though he would not stand seeing the christian religion made light of, he was not going to see it taken seriously. ernest's friends thought his dislike for simeonites was due to his being the son of a clergyman who, it was known, bullied him; it is more likely, however, that it rose from an unconscious sympathy with them, which, as in st paul's case, in the end drew him into the ranks of those whom he had most despised and hated. chapter xlviii once, recently, when he was down at home after taking his degree, his mother had had a short conversation with him about his becoming a clergyman, set on thereto by theobald, who shrank from the subject himself. this time it was during a turn taken in the garden, and not on the sofa--which was reserved for supreme occasions. "you know, my dearest boy," she said to him, "that papa" (she always called theobald "papa" when talking to ernest) "is so anxious you should not go into the church blindly, and without fully realising the difficulties of a clergyman's position. he has considered all of them himself, and has been shown how small they are, when they are faced boldly, but he wishes you, too, to feel them as strongly and completely as possible before committing yourself to irrevocable vows, so that you may never, never have to regret the step you will have taken." this was the first time ernest had heard that there were any difficulties, and he not unnaturally enquired in a vague way after their nature. "that, my dear boy," rejoined christina, "is a question which i am not fitted to enter upon either by nature or education. i might easily unsettle your mind without being able to settle it again. oh, no! such questions are far better avoided by women, and, i should have thought, by men, but papa wished me to speak to you upon the subject, so that there might be no mistake hereafter, and i have done so. now, therefore, you know all." the conversation ended here, so far as this subject was concerned, and ernest thought he did know all. his mother would not have told him he knew all--not about a matter of that sort--unless he actually did know it; well, it did not come to very much; he supposed there were some difficulties, but his father, who at any rate was an excellent scholar and a learned man, was probably quite right here, and he need not trouble himself more about them. so little impression did the conversation make on him, that it was not till long afterwards that, happening to remember it, he saw what a piece of sleight of hand had been practised upon him. theobald and christina, however, were satisfied that they had done their duty by opening their son's eyes to the difficulties of assenting to all a clergyman must assent to. this was enough; it was a matter for rejoicing that, though they had been put so fully and candidly before him, he did not find them serious. it was not in vain that they had prayed for so many years to be made "_truly_ honest and conscientious." "and now, my dear," resumed christina, after having disposed of all the difficulties that might stand in the way of ernest's becoming a clergyman, "there is another matter on which i should like to have a talk with you. it is about your sister charlotte. you know how clever she is, and what a dear, kind sister she has been and always will be to yourself and joey. i wish, my dearest ernest, that i saw more chance of her finding a suitable husband than i do at battersby, and i sometimes think you might do more than you do to help her." ernest began to chafe at this, for he had heard it so often, but he said nothing. "you know, my dear, a brother can do so much for his sister if he lays himself out to do it. a mother can do very little--indeed, it is hardly a mother's place to seek out young men; it is a brother's place to find a suitable partner for his sister; all that i can do is to try to make battersby as attractive as possible to any of your friends whom you may invite. and in that," she added, with a little toss of her head, "i do not think i have been deficient hitherto." ernest said he had already at different times asked several of his friends. "yes, my dear, but you must admit that they were none of them exactly the kind of young man whom charlotte could be expected to take a fancy to. indeed, i must own to having been a little disappointed that you should have yourself chosen any of these as your intimate friends." ernest winced again. "you never brought down figgins when you were at roughborough; now i should have thought figgins would have been just the kind of boy whom you might have asked to come and see us." figgins had been gone through times out of number already. ernest had hardly known him, and figgins, being nearly three years older than ernest, had left long before he did. besides he had not been a nice boy, and had made himself unpleasant to ernest in many ways. "now," continued his mother, "there's towneley. i have heard you speak of towneley as having rowed with you in a boat at cambridge. i wish, my dear, you would cultivate your acquaintance with towneley, and ask him to pay us a visit. the name has an aristocratic sound, and i think i have heard you say he is an eldest son." ernest flushed at the sound of towneley's name. what had really happened in respect of ernest's friends was briefly this. his mother liked to get hold of the names of the boys and especially of any who were at all intimate with her son; the more she heard, the more she wanted to know; there was no gorging her to satiety; she was like a ravenous young cuckoo being fed upon a grass plot by a water wag-tail, she would swallow all that ernest could bring her, and yet be as hungry as before. and she always went to ernest for her meals rather than to joey, for joey was either more stupid or more impenetrable--at any rate she could pump ernest much the better of the two. from time to time an actual live boy had been thrown to her, either by being caught and brought to battersby, or by being asked to meet her if at any time she came to roughborough. she had generally made herself agreeable, or fairly agreeable, as long as the boy was present, but as soon as she got ernest to herself again she changed her note. into whatever form she might throw her criticisms it came always in the end to this, that his friend was no good, that ernest was not much better, and that he should have brought her someone else, for this one would not do at all. the more intimate the boy had been or was supposed to be with ernest the more he was declared to be naught, till in the end he had hit upon the plan of saying, concerning any boy whom he particularly liked, that he was not one of his especial chums, and that indeed he hardly knew why he had asked him; but he found he only fell on scylla in trying to avoid charybdis, for though the boy was declared to be more successful it was ernest who was naught for not thinking more highly of him. when she had once got hold of a name she never forgot it. "and how is so- and-so?" she would exclaim, mentioning some former friend of ernest's with whom he had either now quarrelled, or who had long since proved to be a mere comet and no fixed star at all. how ernest wished he had never mentioned so-and-so's name, and vowed to himself that he would never talk about his friends in future, but in a few hours he would forget and would prattle away as imprudently as ever; then his mother would pounce noiselessly on his remarks as a barn-owl pounces upon a mouse, and would bring them up in a pellet six months afterwards when they were no longer in harmony with their surroundings. then there was theobald. if a boy or college friend had been invited to battersby, theobald would lay himself out at first to be agreeable. he could do this well enough when he liked, and as regards the outside world he generally did like. his clerical neighbours, and indeed all his neighbours, respected him yearly more and more, and would have given ernest sufficient cause to regret his imprudence if he had dared to hint that he had anything, however little, to complain of. theobald's mind worked in this way: "now, i know ernest has told this boy what a disagreeable person i am, and i will just show him that i am not disagreeable at all, but a good old fellow, a jolly old boy, in fact a regular old brick, and that it is ernest who is in fault all through." so he would behave very nicely to the boy at first, and the boy would be delighted with him, and side with him against ernest. of course if ernest had got the boy to come to battersby he wanted him to enjoy his visit, and was therefore pleased that theobald should behave so well, but at the same time he stood so much in need of moral support that it was painful to him to see one of his own familiar friends go over to the enemy's camp. for no matter how well we may know a thing--how clearly we may see a certain patch of colour, for example, as red, it shakes us and knocks us about to find another see it, or be more than half inclined to see it, as green. theobald had generally begun to get a little impatient before the end of the visit, but the impression formed during the earlier part was the one which the visitor had carried away with him. theobald never discussed any of the boys with ernest. it was christina who did this. theobald let them come, because christina in a quiet, persistent way insisted on it; when they did come he behaved, as i have said, civilly, but he did not like it, whereas christina did like it very much; she would have had half roughborough and half cambridge to come and stay at battersby if she could have managed it, and if it would not have cost so much money: she liked their coming, so that she might make a new acquaintance, and she liked tearing them to pieces and flinging the bits over ernest as soon as she had had enough of them. the worst of it was that she had so often proved to be right. boys and young men are violent in their affections, but they are seldom very constant; it is not till they get older that they really know the kind of friend they want; in their earlier essays young men are simply learning to judge character. ernest had been no exception to the general rule. his swans had one after the other proved to be more or less geese even in his own estimation, and he was beginning almost to think that his mother was a better judge of character than he was; but i think it may be assumed with some certainty that if ernest had brought her a real young swan she would have declared it to be the ugliest and worst goose of all that she had yet seen. at first he had not suspected that his friends were wanted with a view to charlotte; it was understood that charlotte and they might perhaps take a fancy for one another; and that would be so very nice, would it not? but he did not see that there was any deliberate malice in the arrangement. now, however, that he had awoke to what it all meant, he was less inclined to bring any friend of his to battersby. it seemed to his silly young mind almost dishonest to ask your friend to come and see you when all you really meant was "please, marry my sister." it was like trying to obtain money under false pretences. if he had been fond of charlotte it might have been another matter, but he thought her one of the most disagreeable young women in the whole circle of his acquaintance. she was supposed to be very clever. all young ladies are either very pretty or very clever or very sweet; they may take their choice as to which category they will go in for, but go in for one of the three they must. it was hopeless to try and pass charlotte off as either pretty or sweet. so she became clever as the only remaining alternative. ernest never knew what particular branch of study it was in which she showed her talent, for she could neither play nor sing nor draw, but so astute are women that his mother and charlotte really did persuade him into thinking that she, charlotte, had something more akin to true genius than any other member of the family. not one, however, of all the friends whom ernest had been inveigled into trying to inveigle had shown the least sign of being so far struck with charlotte's commanding powers, as to wish to make them his own, and this may have had something to do with the rapidity and completeness with which christina had dismissed them one after another and had wanted a new one. and now she wanted towneley. ernest had seen this coming and had tried to avoid it, for he knew how impossible it was for him to ask towneley, even if he had wished to do so. towneley belonged to one of the most exclusive sets in cambridge, and was perhaps the most popular man among the whole number of undergraduates. he was big and very handsome--as it seemed to ernest the handsomest man whom he ever had seen or ever could see, for it was impossible to imagine a more lively and agreeable countenance. he was good at cricket and boating, very good-natured, singularly free from conceit, not clever but very sensible, and, lastly, his father and mother had been drowned by the overturning of a boat when he was only two years old and had left him as their only child and heir to one of the finest estates in the south of england. fortune every now and then does things handsomely by a man all round; towneley was one of those to whom she had taken a fancy, and the universal verdict in this case was that she had chosen wisely. ernest had seen towneley as every one else in the university (except, of course, dons) had seen him, for he was a man of mark, and being very susceptible he had liked towneley even more than most people did, but at the same time it never so much as entered his head that he should come to know him. he liked looking at him if he got a chance, and was very much ashamed of himself for doing so, but there the matter ended. by a strange accident, however, during ernest's last year, when the names of the crews for the scratch fours were drawn he had found himself coxswain of a crew, among whom was none other than his especial hero towneley; the three others were ordinary mortals, but they could row fairly well, and the crew on the whole was rather a good one. ernest was frightened out of his wits. when, however, the two met, he found towneley no less remarkable for his entire want of anything like "side," and for his power of setting those whom he came across at their ease, than he was for outward accomplishments; the only difference he found between towneley and other people was that he was so very much easier to get on with. of course ernest worshipped him more and more. the scratch fours being ended the connection between the two came to an end, but towneley never passed ernest thenceforward without a nod and a few good-natured words. in an evil moment he had mentioned towneley's name at battersby, and now what was the result? here was his mother plaguing him to ask towneley to come down to battersby and marry charlotte. why, if he had thought there was the remotest chance of towneley's marrying charlotte he would have gone down on his knees to him and told him what an odious young woman she was, and implored him to save himself while there was yet time. but ernest had not prayed to be made "truly honest and conscientious" for as many years as christina had. he tried to conceal what he felt and thought as well as he could, and led the conversation back to the difficulties which a clergyman might feel to stand in the way of his being ordained--not because he had any misgivings, but as a diversion. his mother, however, thought she had settled all that, and he got no more out of her. soon afterwards he found the means of escaping, and was not slow to avail himself of them. chapter xlix on his return to cambridge in the may term of , ernest and a few other friends who were also intended for orders came to the conclusion that they must now take a more serious view of their position. they therefore attended chapel more regularly than hitherto, and held evening meetings of a somewhat furtive character, at which they would study the new testament. they even began to commit the epistles of st paul to memory in the original greek. they got up beveridge on the thirty-nine articles, and pearson on the creed; in their hours of recreation they read more's "mystery of godliness," which ernest thought was charming, and taylor's "holy living and dying," which also impressed him deeply, through what he thought was the splendour of its language. they handed themselves over to the guidance of dean alford's notes on the greek testament, which made ernest better understand what was meant by "difficulties," but also made him feel how shallow and impotent were the conclusions arrived at by german neologians, with whose works, being innocent of german, he was not otherwise acquainted. some of the friends who joined him in these pursuits were johnians, and the meetings were often held within the walls of st john's. i do not know how tidings of these furtive gatherings had reached the simeonites, but they must have come round to them in some way, for they had not been continued many weeks before a circular was sent to each of the young men who attended them, informing them that the rev. gideon hawke, a well-known london evangelical preacher, whose sermons were then much talked of, was about to visit his young friend badcock of st john's, and would be glad to say a few words to any who might wish to hear them, in badcock's rooms on a certain evening in may. badcock was one of the most notorious of all the simeonites. not only was he ugly, dirty, ill-dressed, bumptious, and in every way objectionable, but he was deformed and waddled when he walked so that he had won a nick-name which i can only reproduce by calling it "here's my back, and there's my back," because the lower parts of his back emphasised themselves demonstratively as though about to fly off in different directions like the two extreme notes in the chord of the augmented sixth, with every step he took. it may be guessed, therefore, that the receipt of the circular had for a moment an almost paralysing effect on those to whom it was addressed, owing to the astonishment which it occasioned them. it certainly was a daring surprise, but like so many deformed people, badcock was forward and hard to check; he was a pushing fellow to whom the present was just the opportunity he wanted for carrying war into the enemy's quarters. ernest and his friends consulted. moved by the feeling that as they were now preparing to be clergymen they ought not to stand so stiffly on social dignity as heretofore, and also perhaps by the desire to have a good private view of a preacher who was then much upon the lips of men, they decided to accept the invitation. when the appointed time came they went with some confusion and self-abasement to the rooms of this man, on whom they had looked down hitherto as from an immeasurable height, and with whom nothing would have made them believe a few weeks earlier that they could ever come to be on speaking terms. mr hawke was a very different-looking person from badcock. he was remarkably handsome, or rather would have been but for the thinness of his lips, and a look of too great firmness and inflexibility. his features were a good deal like those of leonardo da vinci; moreover he was kempt, looked in vigorous health, and was of a ruddy countenance. he was extremely courteous in his manner, and paid a good deal of attention to badcock, of whom he seemed to think highly. altogether our young friends were taken aback, and inclined to think smaller beer of themselves and larger of badcock than was agreeable to the old adam who was still alive within them. a few well-known "sims" from st john's and other colleges were present, but not enough to swamp the ernest set, as for the sake of brevity, i will call them. after a preliminary conversation in which there was nothing to offend, the business of the evening began by mr hawke's standing up at one end of the table, and saying "let us pray." the ernest set did not like this, but they could not help themselves, so they knelt down and repeated the lord's prayer and a few others after mr hawke, who delivered them remarkably well. then, when all had sat down, mr hawke addressed them, speaking without notes and taking for his text the words, "saul, saul, why persecutest thou me?" whether owing to mr hawke's manner, which was impressive, or to his well-known reputation for ability, or whether from the fact that each one of the ernest set knew that he had been more or less a persecutor of the "sims" and yet felt instinctively that the "sims" were after all much more like the early christians than he was himself--at any rate the text, familiar though it was, went home to the consciences of ernest and his friends as it had never yet done. if mr hawke had stopped here he would have almost said enough; as he scanned the faces turned towards him, and saw the impression he had made, he was perhaps minded to bring his sermon to an end before beginning it, but if so, he reconsidered himself and proceeded as follows. i give the sermon in full, for it is a typical one, and will explain a state of mind which in another generation or two will seem to stand sadly in need of explanation. "my young friends," said mr hawke, "i am persuaded there is not one of you here who doubts the existence of a personal god. if there were, it is to him assuredly that i should first address myself. should i be mistaken in my belief that all here assembled accept the existence of a god who is present amongst us though we see him not, and whose eye is upon our most secret thoughts, let me implore the doubter to confer with me in private before we part; i will then put before him considerations through which god has been mercifully pleased to reveal himself to me, so far as man can understand him, and which i have found bring peace to the minds of others who have doubted. "i assume also that there is none who doubts but that this god, after whose likeness we have been made, did in the course of time have pity upon man's blindness, and assume our nature, taking flesh and coming down and dwelling among us as a man indistinguishable physically from ourselves. he who made the sun, moon and stars, the world and all that therein is, came down from heaven in the person of his son, with the express purpose of leading a scorned life, and dying the most cruel, shameful death which fiendish ingenuity has invented. "while on earth he worked many miracles. he gave sight to the blind, raised the dead to life, fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes, and was seen to walk upon the waves, but at the end of his appointed time he died, as was foredetermined, upon the cross, and was buried by a few faithful friends. those, however, who had put him to death set a jealous watch over his tomb. "there is no one, i feel sure, in this room who doubts any part of the foregoing, but if there is, let me again pray him to confer with me in private, and i doubt not that by the blessing of god his doubts will cease. "the next day but one after our lord was buried, the tomb being still jealously guarded by enemies, an angel was seen descending from heaven with glittering raiment and a countenance that shone like fire. this glorious being rolled away the stone from the grave, and our lord himself came forth, risen from the dead. "my young friends, this is no fanciful story like those of the ancient deities, but a matter of plain history as certain as that you and i are now here together. if there is one fact better vouched for than another in the whole range of certainties it is the resurrection of jesus christ; nor is it less well assured that a few weeks after he had risen from the dead, our lord was seen by many hundreds of men and women to rise amid a host of angels into the air upon a heavenward journey till the clouds covered him and concealed him from the sight of men. "it may be said that the truth of these statements has been denied, but what, let me ask you, has become of the questioners? where are they now? do we see them or hear of them? have they been able to hold what little ground they made during the supineness of the last century? is there one of your fathers or mothers or friends who does not see through them? is there a single teacher or preacher in this great university who has not examined what these men had to say, and found it naught? did you ever meet one of them, or do you find any of their books securing the respectful attention of those competent to judge concerning them? i think not; and i think also you know as well as i do why it is that they have sunk back into the abyss from which they for a time emerged: it is because after the most careful and patient examination by the ablest and most judicial minds of many countries, their arguments were found so untenable that they themselves renounced them. they fled from the field routed, dismayed, and suing for peace; nor have they again come to the front in any civilised country. "you know these things. why, then, do i insist upon them? my dear young friends, your own consciousness will have made the answer to each one of you already; it is because, though you know so well that these things did verily and indeed happen, you know also that you have not realised them to yourselves as it was your duty to do, nor heeded their momentous, awful import. "and now let me go further. you all know that you will one day come to die, or if not to die--for there are not wanting signs which make me hope that the lord may come again, while some of us now present are alive--yet to be changed; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, for this corruption must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality, and the saying shall be brought to pass that is written, 'death is swallowed up in victory.' "do you, or do you not believe that you will one day stand before the judgement seat of christ? do you, or do you not believe that you will have to give an account for every idle word that you have ever spoken? do you, or do you not believe that you are called to live, not according to the will of man, but according to the will of that christ who came down from heaven out of love for you, who suffered and died for you, who calls you to him, and yearns towards you that you may take heed even in this your day--but who, if you heed not, will also one day judge you, and with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning? "my dear young friends, strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth to eternal life, and few there be that find it. few, few, few, for he who will not give up all for christ's sake, has given up nothing. "if you would live in the friendship of this world, if indeed you are not prepared to give up everything you most fondly cherish, should the lord require it of you, then, i say, put the idea of christ deliberately on one side at once. spit upon him, buffet him, crucify him anew, do anything you like so long as you secure the friendship of this world while it is still in your power to do so; the pleasures of this brief life may not be worth paying for by the torments of eternity, but they are something while they last. if, on the other hand, you would live in the friendship of god, and be among the number of those for whom christ has not died in vain; if, in a word, you value your eternal welfare, then give up the friendship of this world; of a surety you must make your choice between god and mammon, for you cannot serve both. "i put these considerations before you, if so homely a term may be pardoned, as a plain matter of business. there is nothing low or unworthy in this, as some lately have pretended, for all nature shows us that there is nothing more acceptable to god than an enlightened view of our own self-interest; never let anyone delude you here; it is a simple question of fact; did certain things happen or did they not? if they did happen, is it reasonable to suppose that you will make yourselves and others more happy by one course of conduct or by another? "and now let me ask you what answer you have made to this question hitherto? whose friendship have you chosen? if, knowing what you know, you have not yet begun to act according to the immensity of the knowledge that is in you, then he who builds his house and lays up his treasure on the edge of a crater of molten lava is a sane, sensible person in comparison with yourselves. i say this as no figure of speech or bugbear with which to frighten you, but as an unvarnished unexaggerated statement which will be no more disputed by yourselves than by me." and now mr hawke, who up to this time had spoken with singular quietness, changed his manner to one of greater warmth and continued-- "oh! my young friends turn, turn, turn, now while it is called to-day--now from this hour, from this instant; stay not even to gird up your loins; look not behind you for a second, but fly into the bosom of that christ who is to be found of all who seek him, and from that fearful wrath of god which lieth in wait for those who know not the things belonging to their peace. for the son of man cometh as a thief in the night, and there is not one of us can tell but what this day his soul may be required of him. if there is even one here who has heeded me,"--and he let his eye fall for an instant upon almost all his hearers, but especially on the ernest set--"i shall know that it was not for nothing that i felt the call of the lord, and heard as i thought a voice by night that bade me come hither quickly, for there was a chosen vessel who had need of me." here mr hawke ended rather abruptly; his earnest manner, striking countenance and excellent delivery had produced an effect greater than the actual words i have given can convey to the reader; the virtue lay in the man more than in what he said; as for the last few mysterious words about his having heard a voice by night, their effect was magical; there was not one who did not look down to the ground, nor who in his heart did not half believe that he was the chosen vessel on whose especial behalf god had sent mr hawke to cambridge. even if this were not so, each one of them felt that he was now for the first time in the actual presence of one who had had a direct communication from the almighty, and they were thus suddenly brought a hundredfold nearer to the new testament miracles. they were amazed, not to say scared, and as though by tacit consent they gathered together, thanked mr hawke for his sermon, said good-night in a humble deferential manner to badcock and the other simeonites, and left the room together. they had heard nothing but what they had been hearing all their lives; how was it, then, that they were so dumbfoundered by it? i suppose partly because they had lately begun to think more seriously, and were in a fit state to be impressed, partly from the greater directness with which each felt himself addressed, through the sermon being delivered in a room, and partly to the logical consistency, freedom from exaggeration, and profound air of conviction with which mr hawke had spoken. his simplicity and obvious earnestness had impressed them even before he had alluded to his special mission, but this clenched everything, and the words "lord, is it i?" were upon the hearts of each as they walked pensively home through moonlit courts and cloisters. i do not know what passed among the simeonites after the ernest set had left them, but they would have been more than mortal if they had not been a good deal elated with the results of the evening. why, one of ernest's friends was in the university eleven, and he had actually been in badcock's rooms and had slunk off on saying good-night as meekly as any of them. it was no small thing to have scored a success like this. chapter l ernest felt now that the turning point of his life had come. he would give up all for christ--even his tobacco. so he gathered together his pipes and pouches, and locked them up in his portmanteau under his bed where they should be out of sight, and as much out of mind as possible. he did not burn them, because someone might come in who wanted to smoke, and though he might abridge his own liberty, yet, as smoking was not a sin, there was no reason why he should be hard on other people. after breakfast he left his rooms to call on a man named dawson, who had been one of mr hawke's hearers on the preceding evening, and who was reading for ordination at the forthcoming ember weeks, now only four months distant. this man had been always of a rather serious turn of mind--a little too much so for ernest's taste; but times had changed, and dawson's undoubted sincerity seemed to render him a fitting counsellor for ernest at the present time. as he was going through the first court of john's on his way to dawson's rooms, he met badcock, and greeted him with some deference. his advance was received with one of those ecstatic gleams which shone occasionally upon the face of badcock, and which, if ernest had known more, would have reminded him of robespierre. as it was, he saw it and unconsciously recognised the unrest and self-seekingness of the man, but could not yet formulate them; he disliked badcock more than ever, but as he was going to profit by the spiritual benefits which he had put in his way, he was bound to be civil to him, and civil he therefore was. badcock told him that mr hawke had returned to town immediately his discourse was over, but that before doing so he had enquired particularly who ernest and two or three others were. i believe each one of ernest's friends was given to understand that he had been more or less particularly enquired after. ernest's vanity--for he was his mother's son--was tickled at this; the idea again presented itself to him that he might be the one for whose benefit mr hawke had been sent. there was something, too, in badcock's manner which conveyed the idea that he could say more if he chose, but had been enjoined to silence. on reaching dawson's rooms, he found his friend in raptures over the discourse of the preceding evening. hardly less delighted was he with the effect it had produced on ernest. he had always known, he said, that ernest would come round; he had been sure of it, but he had hardly expected the conversion to be so sudden. ernest said no more had he, but now that he saw his duty so clearly he would get ordained as soon as possible, and take a curacy, even though the doing so would make him have to go down from cambridge earlier, which would be a great grief to him. dawson applauded this determination, and it was arranged that as ernest was still more or less of a weak brother, dawson should take him, so to speak, in spiritual tow for a while, and strengthen and confirm his faith. an offensive and defensive alliance therefore was struck up between this pair (who were in reality singularly ill assorted), and ernest set to work to master the books on which the bishop would examine him. others gradually joined them till they formed a small set or church (for these are the same things), and the effect of mr hawke's sermon instead of wearing off in a few days, as might have been expected, became more and more marked, so much so that it was necessary for ernest's friends to hold him back rather than urge him on, for he seemed likely to develop--as indeed he did for a time--into a religious enthusiast. in one matter only, did he openly backslide. he had, as i said above, locked up his pipes and tobacco, so that he might not be tempted to use them. all day long on the day after mr hawke's sermon he let them lie in his portmanteau bravely; but this was not very difficult, as he had for some time given up smoking till after hall. after hall this day he did not smoke till chapel time, and then went to chapel in self-defence. when he returned he determined to look at the matter from a common sense point of view. on this he saw that, provided tobacco did not injure his health--and he really could not see that it did--it stood much on the same footing as tea or coffee. tobacco had nowhere been forbidden in the bible, but then it had not yet been discovered, and had probably only escaped proscription for this reason. we can conceive of st paul or even our lord himself as drinking a cup of tea, but we cannot imagine either of them as smoking a cigarette or a churchwarden. ernest could not deny this, and admitted that paul would almost certainly have condemned tobacco in good round terms if he had known of its existence. was it not then taking rather a mean advantage of the apostle to stand on his not having actually forbidden it? on the other hand, it was possible that god knew paul would have forbidden smoking, and had purposely arranged the discovery of tobacco for a period at which paul should be no longer living. this might seem rather hard on paul, considering all he had done for christianity, but it would be made up to him in other ways. these reflections satisfied ernest that on the whole he had better smoke, so he sneaked to his portmanteau and brought out his pipes and tobacco again. there should be moderation he felt in all things, even in virtue; so for that night he smoked immoderately. it was a pity, however, that he had bragged to dawson about giving up smoking. the pipes had better be kept in a cupboard for a week or two, till in other and easier respects ernest should have proved his steadfastness. then they might steal out again little by little--and so they did. ernest now wrote home a letter couched in a vein different from his ordinary ones. his letters were usually all common form and padding, for as i have already explained, if he wrote about anything that really interested him, his mother always wanted to know more and more about it--every fresh answer being as the lopping off of a hydra's head and giving birth to half a dozen or more new questions--but in the end it came invariably to the same result, namely, that he ought to have done something else, or ought not to go on doing as he proposed. now, however, there was a new departure, and for the thousandth time he concluded that he was about to take a course of which his father and mother would approve, and in which they would be interested, so that at last he and they might get on more sympathetically than heretofore. he therefore wrote a gushing impulsive letter, which afforded much amusement to myself as i read it, but which is too long for reproduction. one passage ran: "i am now going towards christ; the greater number of my college friends are, i fear, going away from him; we must pray for them that they may find the peace that is in christ even as i have myself found it." ernest covered his face with his hands for shame as he read this extract from the bundle of letters he had put into my hands--they had been returned to him by his father on his mother's death, his mother having carefully preserved them. "shall i cut it out?" said i, "i will if you like." "certainly not," he answered, "and if good-natured friends have kept more records of my follies, pick out any plums that may amuse the reader, and let him have his laugh over them." but fancy what effect a letter like this--so unled up to--must have produced at battersby! even christina refrained from ecstasy over her son's having discovered the power of christ's word, while theobald was frightened out of his wits. it was well his son was not going to have any doubts or difficulties, and that he would be ordained without making a fuss over it, but he smelt mischief in this sudden conversion of one who had never yet shown any inclination towards religion. he hated people who did not know where to stop. ernest was always so _outre_ and strange; there was never any knowing what he would do next, except that it would be something unusual and silly. if he was to get the bit between his teeth after he had got ordained and bought his living, he would play more pranks than ever he, theobald, had done. the fact, doubtless, of his being ordained and having bought a living would go a long way to steady him, and if he married, his wife must see to the rest; this was his only chance and, to do justice to his sagacity, theobald in his heart did not think very highly of it. when ernest came down to battersby in june, he imprudently tried to open up a more unreserved communication with his father than was his wont. the first of ernest's snipe-like flights on being flushed by mr hawke's sermon was in the direction of ultra-evangelicalism. theobald himself had been much more low than high church. this was the normal development of the country clergyman during the first years of his clerical life, between, we will say, the years to ; but he was not prepared for the almost contempt with which ernest now regarded the doctrines of baptismal regeneration and priestly absolution (hoity toity, indeed, what business had he with such questions?), nor for his desire to find some means of reconciling methodism and the church. theobald hated the church of rome, but he hated dissenters too, for he found them as a general rule troublesome people to deal with; he always found people who did not agree with him troublesome to deal with: besides, they set up for knowing as much as he did; nevertheless if he had been let alone he would have leaned towards them rather than towards the high church party. the neighbouring clergy, however, would not let him alone. one by one they had come under the influence, directly or indirectly, of the oxford movement which had begun twenty years earlier. it was surprising how many practices he now tolerated which in his youth he would have considered popish; he knew very well therefore which way things were going in church matters, and saw that as usual ernest was setting himself the other way. the opportunity for telling his son that he was a fool was too favourable not to be embraced, and theobald was not slow to embrace it. ernest was annoyed and surprised, for had not his father and mother been wanting him to be more religious all his life? now that he had become so they were still not satisfied. he said to himself that a prophet was not without honour save in his own country, but he had been lately--or rather until lately--getting into an odious habit of turning proverbs upside down, and it occurred to him that a country is sometimes not without honour save for its own prophet. then he laughed, and for the rest of the day felt more as he used to feel before he had heard mr hawke's sermon. he returned to cambridge for the long vacation of --none too soon, for he had to go in for the voluntary theological examination, which bishops were now beginning to insist upon. he imagined all the time he was reading that he was storing himself with the knowledge that would best fit him for the work he had taken in hand. in truth, he was cramming for a pass. in due time he did pass--creditably, and was ordained deacon with half-a-dozen others of his friends in the autumn of . he was then just twenty-three years old. chapter li ernest had been ordained to a curacy in one of the central parts of london. he hardly knew anything of london yet, but his instincts drew him thither. the day after he was ordained he entered upon his duties--feeling much as his father had done when he found himself boxed up in the carriage with christina on the morning of his marriage. before the first three days were over, he became aware that the light of the happiness which he had known during his four years at cambridge had been extinguished, and he was appalled by the irrevocable nature of the step which he now felt that he had taken much too hurriedly. the most charitable excuse that i can make for the vagaries which it will now be my duty to chronicle is that the shock of change consequent upon his becoming suddenly religious, being ordained and leaving cambridge, had been too much for my hero, and had for the time thrown him off an equilibrium which was yet little supported by experience, and therefore as a matter of course unstable. everyone has a mass of bad work in him which he will have to work off and get rid of before he can do better--and indeed, the more lasting a man's ultimate good work is, the more sure he is to pass through a time, and perhaps a very long one, in which there seems very little hope for him at all. we must all sow our spiritual wild oats. the fault i feel personally disposed to find with my godson is not that he had wild oats to sow, but that they were such an exceedingly tame and uninteresting crop. the sense of humour and tendency to think for himself, of which till a few months previously he had been showing fair promise, were nipped as though by a late frost, while his earlier habit of taking on trust everything that was told him by those in authority, and following everything out to the bitter end, no matter how preposterous, returned with redoubled strength. i suppose this was what might have been expected from anyone placed as ernest now was, especially when his antecedents are remembered, but it surprised and disappointed some of his cooler-headed cambridge friends who had begun to think well of his ability. to himself it seemed that religion was incompatible with half measures, or even with compromise. circumstances had led to his being ordained; for the moment he was sorry they had, but he had done it and must go through with it. he therefore set himself to find out what was expected of him, and to act accordingly. his rector was a moderate high churchman of no very pronounced views--an elderly man who had had too many curates not to have long since found out that the connection between rector and curate, like that between employer and employed in every other walk of life, was a mere matter of business. he had now two curates, of whom ernest was the junior; the senior curate was named pryer, and when this gentleman made advances, as he presently did, ernest in his forlorn state was delighted to meet them. pryer was about twenty-eight years old. he had been at eton and at oxford. he was tall, and passed generally for good-looking; i only saw him once for about five minutes, and then thought him odious both in manners and appearance. perhaps it was because he caught me up in a way i did not like. i had quoted shakespeare for lack of something better to fill up a sentence--and had said that one touch of nature made the whole world kin. "ah," said pryer, in a bold, brazen way which displeased me, "but one touch of the unnatural makes it more kindred still," and he gave me a look as though he thought me an old bore and did not care two straws whether i was shocked or not. naturally enough, after this i did not like him. this, however, is anticipating, for it was not till ernest had been three or four months in london that i happened to meet his fellow-curate, and i must deal here rather with the effect he produced upon my godson than upon myself. besides being what was generally considered good-looking, he was faultless in his get-up, and altogether the kind of man whom ernest was sure to be afraid of and yet be taken in by. the style of his dress was very high church, and his acquaintances were exclusively of the extreme high church party, but he kept his views a good deal in the background in his rector's presence, and that gentleman, though he looked askance on some of pryer's friends, had no such ground of complaint against him as to make him sever the connection. pryer, too, was popular in the pulpit, and, take him all round, it was probable that many worse curates would be found for one better. when pryer called on my hero, as soon as the two were alone together, he eyed him all over with a quick penetrating glance and seemed not dissatisfied with the result--for i must say here that ernest had improved in personal appearance under the more genial treatment he had received at cambridge. pryer, in fact, approved of him sufficiently to treat him civilly, and ernest was immediately won by anyone who did this. it was not long before he discovered that the high church party, and even rome itself, had more to say for themselves than he had thought. this was his first snipe-like change of flight. pryer introduced him to several of his friends. they were all of them young clergymen, belonging as i have said to the highest of the high church school, but ernest was surprised to find how much they resembled other people when among themselves. this was a shock to him; it was ere long a still greater one to find that certain thoughts which he had warred against as fatal to his soul, and which he had imagined he should lose once for all on ordination, were still as troublesome to him as they had been; he also saw plainly enough that the young gentlemen who formed the circle of pryer's friends were in much the same unhappy predicament as himself. this was deplorable. the only way out of it that ernest could see was that he should get married at once. but then he did not know any one whom he wanted to marry. he did not know any woman, in fact, whom he would not rather die than marry. it had been one of theobald's and christina's main objects to keep him out of the way of women, and they had so far succeeded that women had become to him mysterious, inscrutable objects to be tolerated when it was impossible to avoid them, but never to be sought out or encouraged. as for any man loving, or even being at all fond of any woman, he supposed it was so, but he believed the greater number of those who professed such sentiments were liars. now, however, it was clear that he had hoped against hope too long, and that the only thing to do was to go and ask the first woman who would listen to him to come and be married to him as soon as possible. he broached this to pryer, and was surprised to find that this gentleman, though attentive to such members of his flock as were young and good-looking, was strongly in favour of the celibacy of the clergy, as indeed were the other demure young clerics to whom pryer had introduced ernest. chapter lii "you know, my dear pontifex," said pryer to him, some few weeks after ernest had become acquainted with him, when the two were taking a constitutional one day in kensington gardens, "you know, my dear pontifex, it is all very well to quarrel with rome, but rome has reduced the treatment of the human soul to a science, while our own church, though so much purer in many respects, has no organised system either of diagnosis or pathology--i mean, of course, spiritual diagnosis and spiritual pathology. our church does not prescribe remedies upon any settled system, and, what is still worse, even when her physicians have according to their lights ascertained the disease and pointed out the remedy, she has no discipline which will ensure its being actually applied. if our patients do not choose to do as we tell them, we cannot make them. perhaps really under all the circumstances this is as well, for we are spiritually mere horse doctors as compared with the roman priesthood, nor can we hope to make much headway against the sin and misery that surround us, till we return in some respects to the practice of our forefathers and of the greater part of christendom." ernest asked in what respects it was that his friend desired a return to the practice of our forefathers. "why, my dear fellow, can you really be ignorant? it is just this, either the priest is indeed a spiritual guide, as being able to show people how they ought to live better than they can find out for themselves, or he is nothing at all--he has no _raison d'etre_. if the priest is not as much a healer and director of men's souls as a physician is of their bodies, what is he? the history of all ages has shown--and surely you must know this as well as i do--that as men cannot cure the bodies of their patients if they have not been properly trained in hospitals under skilled teachers, so neither can souls be cured of their more hidden ailments without the help of men who are skilled in soul-craft--or in other words, of priests. what do one half of our formularies and rubrics mean if not this? how in the name of all that is reasonable can we find out the exact nature of a spiritual malady, unless we have had experience of other similar cases? how can we get this without express training? at present we have to begin all experiments for ourselves, without profiting by the organised experience of our predecessors, inasmuch as that experience is never organised and co-ordinated at all. at the outset, therefore, each one of us must ruin many souls which could be saved by knowledge of a few elementary principles." ernest was very much impressed. "as for men curing themselves," continued pryer, "they can no more cure their own souls than they can cure their own bodies, or manage their own law affairs. in these two last cases they see the folly of meddling with their own cases clearly enough, and go to a professional adviser as a matter of course; surely a man's soul is at once a more difficult and intricate matter to treat, and at the same time it is more important to him that it should be treated rightly than that either his body or his money should be so. what are we to think of the practice of a church which encourages people to rely on unprofessional advice in matters affecting their eternal welfare, when they would not think of jeopardising their worldly affairs by such insane conduct?" ernest could see no weak place in this. these ideas had crossed his own mind vaguely before now, but he had never laid hold of them or set them in an orderly manner before himself. nor was he quick at detecting false analogies and the misuse of metaphors; in fact he was a mere child in the hands of his fellow curate. "and what," resumed pryer, "does all this point to? firstly, to the duty of confession--the outcry against which is absurd as an outcry would be against dissection as part of the training of medical students. granted these young men must see and do a great deal we do not ourselves like even to think of, but they should adopt some other profession unless they are prepared for this; they may even get inoculated with poison from a dead body and lose their lives, but they must stand their chance. so if we aspire to be priests in deed as well as name, we must familiarise ourselves with the minutest and most repulsive details of all kinds of sin, so that we may recognise it in all its stages. some of us must doubtlessly perish spiritually in such investigations. we cannot help it; all science must have its martyrs, and none of these will deserve better of humanity than those who have fallen in the pursuit of spiritual pathology." ernest grew more and more interested, but in the meekness of his soul said nothing. "i do not desire this martyrdom for myself," continued the other, "on the contrary i will avoid it to the very utmost of my power, but if it be god's will that i should fall while studying what i believe most calculated to advance his glory--then, i say, not my will, oh lord, but thine be done." this was too much even for ernest. "i heard of an irish-woman once," he said, with a smile, "who said she was a martyr to the drink." "and so she was," rejoined pryer with warmth; and he went on to show that this good woman was an experimentalist whose experiment, though disastrous in its effects upon herself, was pregnant with instruction to other people. she was thus a true martyr or witness to the frightful consequences of intemperance, to the saving, doubtless, of many who but for her martyrdom would have taken to drinking. she was one of a forlorn hope whose failure to take a certain position went to the proving it to be impregnable and therefore to the abandonment of all attempt to take it. this was almost as great a gain to mankind as the actual taking of the position would have been. "besides," he added more hurriedly, "the limits of vice and virtue are wretchedly ill-defined. half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence." ernest asked timidly for an instance. "no, no," said pryer, "i will give you no instance, but i will give you a formula that shall embrace all instances. it is this, that no practice is entirely vicious which has not been extinguished among the comeliest, most vigorous, and most cultivated races of mankind in spite of centuries of endeavour to extirpate it. if a vice in spite of such efforts can still hold its own among the most polished nations, it must be founded on some immutable truth or fact in human nature, and must have some compensatory advantage which we cannot afford altogether to dispense with." "but," said ernest timidly, "is not this virtually doing away with all distinction between right and wrong, and leaving people without any moral guide whatever?" "not the people," was the answer: "it must be our care to be guides to these, for they are and always will be incapable of guiding themselves sufficiently. we should tell them what they must do, and in an ideal state of things should be able to enforce their doing it: perhaps when we are better instructed the ideal state may come about; nothing will so advance it as greater knowledge of spiritual pathology on our own part. for this, three things are necessary; firstly, absolute freedom in experiment for us the clergy; secondly, absolute knowledge of what the laity think and do, and of what thoughts and actions result in what spiritual conditions; and thirdly, a compacter organisation among ourselves. "if we are to do any good we must be a closely united body, and must be sharply divided from the laity. also we must be free from those ties which a wife and children involve. i can hardly express the horror with which i am filled by seeing english priests living in what i can only designate as 'open matrimony.' it is deplorable. the priest must be absolutely sexless--if not in practice, yet at any rate in theory, absolutely--and that too, by a theory so universally accepted that none shall venture to dispute it." "but," said ernest, "has not the bible already told people what they ought and ought not to do, and is it not enough for us to insist on what can be found here, and let the rest alone?" "if you begin with the bible," was the rejoinder, "you are three parts gone on the road to infidelity, and will go the other part before you know where you are. the bible is not without its value to us the clergy, but for the laity it is a stumbling-block which cannot be taken out of their way too soon or too completely. of course, i mean on the supposition that they read it, which, happily, they seldom do. if people read the bible as the ordinary british churchman or churchwoman reads it, it is harmless enough; but if they read it with any care--which we should assume they will if we give it them at all--it is fatal to them." "what do you mean?" said ernest, more and more astonished, but more and more feeling that he was at least in the hands of a man who had definite ideas. "your question shows me that you have never read your bible. a more unreliable book was never put upon paper. take my advice and don't read it, not till you are a few years older, and may do so safely." "but surely you believe the bible when it tells you of such things as that christ died and rose from the dead? surely you believe this?" said ernest, quite prepared to be told that pryer believed nothing of the kind. "i do not believe it, i know it." "but how--if the testimony of the bible fails?" "on that of the living voice of the church, which i know to be infallible and to be informed of christ himself." chapter liii the foregoing conversation and others like it made a deep impression upon my hero. if next day he had taken a walk with mr hawke, and heard what he had to say on the other side, he would have been just as much struck, and as ready to fling off what pryer had told him, as he now was to throw aside all he had ever heard from anyone except pryer; but there was no mr hawke at hand, so pryer had everything his own way. embryo minds, like embryo bodies, pass through a number of strange metamorphoses before they adopt their final shape. it is no more to be wondered at that one who is going to turn out a roman catholic, should have passed through the stages of being first a methodist, and then a free thinker, than that a man should at some former time have been a mere cell, and later on an invertebrate animal. ernest, however, could not be expected to know this; embryos never do. embryos think with each stage of their development that they have now reached the only condition which really suits them. this, they say, must certainly be their last, inasmuch as its close will be so great a shock that nothing can survive it. every change is a shock; every shock is a _pro tanto_ death. what we call death is only a shock great enough to destroy our power to recognise a past and a present as resembling one another. it is the making us consider the points of difference between our present and our past greater than the points of resemblance, so that we can no longer call the former of these two in any proper sense a continuation of the second, but find it less trouble to think of it as something that we choose to call new. but, to let this pass, it was clear that spiritual pathology (i confess that i do not know myself what spiritual pathology means--but pryer and ernest doubtless did) was the great desideratum of the age. it seemed to ernest that he had made this discovery himself and been familiar with it all his life, that he had never known, in fact, of anything else. he wrote long letters to his college friends expounding his views as though he had been one of the apostolic fathers. as for the old testament writers, he had no patience with them. "do oblige me," i find him writing to one friend, "by reading the prophet zechariah, and giving me your candid opinion upon him. he is poor stuff, full of yankee bounce; it is sickening to live in an age when such balderdash can be gravely admired whether as poetry or prophecy." this was because pryer had set him against zechariah. i do not know what zechariah had done; i should think myself that zechariah was a very good prophet; perhaps it was because he was a bible writer, and not a very prominent one, that pryer selected him as one through whom to disparage the bible in comparison with the church. to his friend dawson i find him saying a little later on: "pryer and i continue our walks, working out each other's thoughts. at first he used to do all the thinking, but i think i am pretty well abreast of him now, and rather chuckle at seeing that he is already beginning to modify some of the views he held most strongly when i first knew him. "then i think he was on the high road to rome; now, however, he seems to be a good deal struck with a suggestion of mine in which you, too, perhaps may be interested. you see we must infuse new life into the church somehow; we are not holding our own against either rome or infidelity." (i may say in passing that i do not believe ernest had as yet ever seen an infidel--not to speak to.) "i proposed, therefore, a few days back to pryer--and he fell in eagerly with the proposal as soon as he saw that i had the means of carrying it out--that we should set on foot a spiritual movement somewhat analogous to the young england movement of twenty years ago, the aim of which shall be at once to outbid rome on the one hand, and scepticism on the other. for this purpose i see nothing better than the foundation of an institution or college for placing the nature and treatment of sin on a more scientific basis than it rests at present. we want--to borrow a useful term of pryer's--a college of spiritual pathology where young men" (i suppose ernest thought he was no longer young by this time) "may study the nature and treatment of the sins of the soul as medical students study those of the bodies of their patients. such a college, as you will probably admit, will approach both rome on the one hand, and science on the other--rome, as giving the priesthood more skill, and therefore as paving the way for their obtaining greater power, and science, by recognising that even free thought has a certain kind of value in spiritual enquiries. to this purpose pryer and i have resolved to devote ourselves henceforth heart and soul. "of course, my ideas are still unshaped, and all will depend upon the men by whom the college is first worked. i am not yet a priest, but pryer is, and if i were to start the college, pryer might take charge of it for a time and i work under him nominally as his subordinate. pryer himself suggested this. is it not generous of him? "the worst of it is that we have not enough money; i have, it is true, pounds, but we want at least , pounds, so pryer says, before we can start; when we are fairly under weigh i might live at the college and draw a salary from the foundation, so that it is all one, or nearly so, whether i invest my money in this way or in buying a living; besides i want very little; it is certain that i shall never marry; no clergyman should think of this, and an unmarried man can live on next to nothing. still i do not see my way to as much money as i want, and pryer suggests that as we can hardly earn more now we must get it by a judicious series of investments. pryer knows several people who make quite a handsome income out of very little or, indeed, i may say, nothing at all, by buying things at a place they call the stock exchange; i don't know much about it yet, but pryer says i should soon learn; he thinks, indeed, that i have shown rather a talent in this direction, and under proper auspices should make a very good man of business. others, of course, and not i, must decide this; but a man can do anything if he gives his mind to it, and though i should not care about having more money for my own sake, i care about it very much when i think of the good i could do with it by saving souls from such horrible torture hereafter. why, if the thing succeeds, and i really cannot see what is to hinder it, it is hardly possible to exaggerate its importance, nor the proportions which it may ultimately assume," etc., etc. again i asked ernest whether he minded my printing this. he winced, but said "no, not if it helps you to tell your story: but don't you think it is too long?" i said it would let the reader see for himself how things were going in half the time that it would take me to explain them to him. "very well then, keep it by all means." i continue turning over my file of ernest's letters and find as follows-- "thanks for your last, in answer to which i send you a rough copy of a letter i sent to the _times_ a day or two back. they did not insert it, but it embodies pretty fully my ideas on the parochial visitation question, and pryer fully approves of the letter. think it carefully over and send it back to me when read, for it is so exactly my present creed that i cannot afford to lose it. "i should very much like to have a _viva voce_ discussion on these matters: i can only see for certain that we have suffered a dreadful loss in being no longer able to excommunicate. we should excommunicate rich and poor alike, and pretty freely too. if this power were restored to us we could, i think, soon put a stop to by far the greater part of the sin and misery with which we are surrounded." these letters were written only a few weeks after ernest had been ordained, but they are nothing to others that he wrote a little later on. in his eagerness to regenerate the church of england (and through this the universe) by the means which pryer had suggested to him, it occurred to him to try to familiarise himself with the habits and thoughts of the poor by going and living among them. i think he got this notion from kingsley's "alton locke," which, high churchman though he for the nonce was, he had devoured as he had devoured stanley's life of arnold, dickens's novels, and whatever other literary garbage of the day was most likely to do him harm; at any rate he actually put his scheme into practice, and took lodgings in ashpit place, a small street in the neighbourhood of drury lane theatre, in a house of which the landlady was the widow of a cabman. this lady occupied the whole ground floor. in the front kitchen there was a tinker. the back kitchen was let to a bellows-mender. on the first floor came ernest, with his two rooms which he furnished comfortably, for one must draw the line somewhere. the two upper floors were parcelled out among four different sets of lodgers: there was a tailor named holt, a drunken fellow who used to beat his wife at night till her screams woke the house; above him there was another tailor with a wife but no children; these people were wesleyans, given to drink but not noisy. the two back rooms were held by single ladies, who it seemed to ernest must be respectably connected, for well-dressed gentlemanly- looking young men used to go up and down stairs past ernest's rooms to call at any rate on miss snow--ernest had heard her door slam after they had passed. he thought, too, that some of them went up to miss maitland's. mrs jupp, the landlady, told ernest that these were brothers and cousins of miss snow's, and that she was herself looking out for a situation as a governess, but at present had an engagement as an actress at the drury lane theatre. ernest asked whether miss maitland in the top back was also looking out for a situation, and was told she was wanting an engagement as a milliner. he believed whatever mrs jupp told him. chapter liv this move on ernest's part was variously commented upon by his friends, the general opinion being that it was just like pontifex, who was sure to do something unusual wherever he went, but that on the whole the idea was commendable. christina could not restrain herself when on sounding her clerical neighbours she found them inclined to applaud her son for conduct which they idealised into something much more self-denying than it really was. she did not quite like his living in such an unaristocratic neighbourhood; but what he was doing would probably get into the newspapers, and then great people would take notice of him. besides, it would be very cheap; down among these poor people he could live for next to nothing, and might put by a great deal of his income. as for temptations, there could be few or none in such a place as that. this argument about cheapness was the one with which she most successfully met theobald, who grumbled more _suo_ that he had no sympathy with his son's extravagance and conceit. when christina pointed out to him that it would be cheap he replied that there was something in that. on ernest himself the effect was to confirm the good opinion of himself which had been growing upon him ever since he had begun to read for orders, and to make him flatter himself that he was among the few who were ready to give up _all_ for christ. ere long he began to conceive of himself as a man with a mission and a great future. his lightest and most hastily formed opinions began to be of momentous importance to him, and he inflicted them, as i have already shown, on his old friends, week by week becoming more and more _entete_ with himself and his own crotchets. i should like well enough to draw a veil over this part of my hero's career, but cannot do so without marring my story. in the spring of i find him writing-- "i cannot call the visible church christian till its fruits are christian, that is until the fruits of the members of the church of england are in conformity, or something like conformity, with her teaching. i cordially agree with the teaching of the church of england in most respects, but she says one thing and does another, and until excommunication--yes, and wholesale excommunication--be resorted to, i cannot call her a christian institution. i should begin with our rector, and if i found it necessary to follow him up by excommunicating the bishop, i should not flinch even from this. "the present london rectors are hopeless people to deal with. my own is one of the best of them, but the moment pryer and i show signs of wanting to attack an evil in a way not recognised by routine, or of remedying anything about which no outcry has been made, we are met with, 'i cannot think what you mean by all this disturbance; nobody else among the clergy sees these things, and i have no wish to be the first to begin turning everything topsy-turvy.' and then people call him a sensible man. i have no patience with them. however, we know what we want, and, as i wrote to dawson the other day, have a scheme on foot which will, i think, fairly meet the requirements of the case. but we want more money, and my first move towards getting this has not turned out quite so satisfactorily as pryer and i had hoped; we shall, however, i doubt not, retrieve it shortly." when ernest came to london he intended doing a good deal of house-to-house visiting, but pryer had talked him out of this even before he settled down in his new and strangely-chosen apartments. the line he now took was that if people wanted christ, they must prove their want by taking some little trouble, and the trouble required of them was that they should come and seek him, ernest, out; there he was in the midst of them ready to teach; if people did not choose to come to him it was no fault of his. "my great business here," he writes again to dawson, "is to observe. i am not doing much in parish work beyond my share of the daily services. i have a man's bible class, and a boy's bible class, and a good many young men and boys to whom i give instruction one way or another; then there are the sunday school children, with whom i fill my room on a sunday evening as full as it will hold, and let them sing hymns and chants. they like this. i do a great deal of reading--chiefly of books which pryer and i think most likely to help; we find nothing comparable to the jesuits. pryer is a thorough gentleman, and an admirable man of business--no less observant of the things of this world, in fact, than of the things above; by a brilliant coup he has retrieved, or nearly so, a rather serious loss which threatened to delay indefinitely the execution of our great scheme. he and i daily gather fresh principles. i believe great things are before me, and am strong in the hope of being able by and by to effect much. "as for you i bid you god speed. be bold but logical, speculative but cautious, daringly courageous, but properly circumspect withal," etc., etc. i think this may do for the present. chapter lv i had called on ernest as a matter of course when he first came to london, but had not seen him. i had been out when he returned my call, so that he had been in town for some weeks before i actually saw him, which i did not very long after he had taken possession of his new rooms. i liked his face, but except for the common bond of music, in respect of which our tastes were singularly alike, i should hardly have known how to get on with him. to do him justice he did not air any of his schemes to me until i had drawn him out concerning them. i, to borrow the words of ernest's landlady, mrs jupp, "am not a very regular church-goer"--i discovered upon cross-examination that mrs jupp had been to church once when she was churched for her son tom some five and twenty years since, but never either before or afterwards; not even, i fear, to be married, for though she called herself "mrs" she wore no wedding ring, and spoke of the person who should have been mr jupp as "my poor dear boy's father," not as "my husband." but to return. i was vexed at ernest's having been ordained. i was not ordained myself and i did not like my friends to be ordained, nor did i like having to be on my best behaviour and to look as if butter would not melt in my mouth, and all for a boy whom i remembered when he knew yesterday and to-morrow and tuesday, but not a day of the week more--not even sunday itself--and when he said he did not like the kitten because it had pins in its toes. i looked at him and thought of his aunt alethea, and how fast the money she had left him was accumulating; and it was all to go to this young man, who would use it probably in the very last ways with which miss pontifex would have sympathised. i was annoyed. "she always said," i thought to myself, "that she should make a mess of it, but i did not think she would have made as great a mess of it as this." then i thought that perhaps if his aunt had lived he would not have been like this. ernest behaved quite nicely to me and i own that the fault was mine if the conversation drew towards dangerous subjects. i was the aggressor, presuming i suppose upon my age and long acquaintance with him, as giving me a right to make myself unpleasant in a quiet way. then he came out, and the exasperating part of it was that up to a certain point he was so very right. grant him his premises and his conclusions were sound enough, nor could i, seeing that he was already ordained, join issue with him about his premises as i should certainly have done if i had had a chance of doing so before he had taken orders. the result was that i had to beat a retreat and went away not in the best of humours. i believe the truth was that i liked ernest, and was vexed at his being a clergyman, and at a clergyman having so much money coming to him. i talked a little with mrs jupp on my way out. she and i had reckoned one another up at first sight as being neither of us "very regular church- goers," and the strings of her tongue had been loosened. she said ernest would die. he was much too good for the world and he looked so sad "just like young watkins of the 'crown' over the way who died a month ago, and his poor dear skin was white as alablaster; least-ways they say he shot hisself. they took him from the mortimer, i met them just as i was going with my rose to get a pint o' four ale, and she had her arm in splints. she told her sister she wanted to go to perry's to get some wool, instead o' which it was only a stall to get me a pint o' ale, bless her heart; there's nobody else would do that much for poor old jupp, and it's a horrid lie to say she is gay; not but what i like a gay woman, i do: i'd rather give a gay woman half-a-crown than stand a modest woman a pot o' beer, but i don't want to go associating with bad girls for all that. so they took him from the mortimer; they wouldn't let him go home no more; and he done it that artful you know. his wife was in the country living with her mother, and she always spoke respectful o' my rose. poor dear, i hope his soul is in heaven. well sir, would you believe it, there's that in mr pontifex's face which is just like young watkins; he looks that worrited and scrunched up at times, but it's never for the same reason, for he don't know nothing at all, no more than a unborn babe, no he don't; why there's not a monkey going about london with an italian organ grinder but knows more than mr pontifex do. he don't know--well i suppose--" here a child came in on an errand from some neighbour and interrupted her, or i can form no idea where or when she would have ended her discourse. i seized the opportunity to run away, but not before i had given her five shillings and made her write down my address, for i was a little frightened by what she said. i told her if she thought her lodger grew worse, she was to come and let me know. weeks went by and i did not see her again. having done as much as i had, i felt absolved from doing more, and let ernest alone as thinking that he and i should only bore one another. he had now been ordained a little over four months, but these months had not brought happiness or satisfaction with them. he had lived in a clergyman's house all his life, and might have been expected perhaps to have known pretty much what being a clergyman was like, and so he did--a country clergyman; he had formed an ideal, however, as regards what a town clergyman could do, and was trying in a feeble tentative way to realise it, but somehow or other it always managed to escape him. he lived among the poor, but he did not find that he got to know them. the idea that they would come to him proved to be a mistaken one. he did indeed visit a few tame pets whom his rector desired him to look after. there was an old man and his wife who lived next door but one to ernest himself; then there was a plumber of the name of chesterfield; an aged lady of the name of gover, blind and bed-ridden, who munched and munched her feeble old toothless jaws as ernest spoke or read to her, but who could do little more; a mr brookes, a rag and bottle merchant in birdsey's rents in the last stage of dropsy, and perhaps half a dozen or so others. what did it all come to, when he did go to see them? the plumber wanted to be flattered, and liked fooling a gentleman into wasting his time by scratching his ears for him. mrs gover, poor old woman, wanted money; she was very good and meek, and when ernest got her a shilling from lady anne jones's bequest, she said it was "small but seasonable," and munched and munched in gratitude. ernest sometimes gave her a little money himself, but not, as he says now, half what he ought to have given. what could he do else that would have been of the smallest use to her? nothing indeed; but giving occasional half-crowns to mrs gover was not regenerating the universe, and ernest wanted nothing short of this. the world was all out of joint, and instead of feeling it to be a cursed spite that he was born to set it right, he thought he was just the kind of person that was wanted for the job, and was eager to set to work, only he did not exactly know how to begin, for the beginning he had made with mr chesterfield and mrs gover did not promise great developments. then poor mr brookes--he suffered very much, terribly indeed; he was not in want of money; he wanted to die and couldn't, just as we sometimes want to go to sleep and cannot. he had been a serious-minded man, and death frightened him as it must frighten anyone who believes that all his most secret thoughts will be shortly exposed in public. when i read ernest the description of how his father used to visit mrs thompson at battersby, he coloured and said--"that's just what i used to say to mr brookes." ernest felt that his visits, so far from comforting mr brookes, made him fear death more and more, but how could he help it? even pryer, who had been curate a couple of years, did not know personally more than a couple of hundred people in the parish at the outside, and it was only at the houses of very few of these that he ever visited, but then pryer had such a strong objection on principle to house visitations. what a drop in the sea were those with whom he and pryer were brought into direct communication in comparison with those whom he must reach and move if he were to produce much effect of any kind, one way or the other. why there were between fifteen and twenty thousand poor in the parish, of whom but the merest fraction ever attended a place of worship. some few went to dissenting chapels, a few were roman catholics; by far the greater number, however, were practically infidels, if not actively hostile, at any rate indifferent to religion, while many were avowed atheists--admirers of tom paine, of whom he now heard for the first time; but he never met and conversed with any of these. was he really doing everything that could be expected of him? it was all very well to say that he was doing as much as other young clergymen did; that was not the kind of answer which jesus christ was likely to accept; why, the pharisees themselves in all probability did as much as the other pharisees did. what he should do was to go into the highways and byways, and compel people to come in. was he doing this? or were not they rather compelling him to keep out--outside their doors at any rate? he began to have an uneasy feeling as though ere long, unless he kept a sharp look out, he should drift into being a sham. true, all would be changed as soon as he could endow the college for spiritual pathology; matters, however, had not gone too well with "the things that people bought in the place that was called the stock exchange." in order to get on faster, it had been arranged that ernest should buy more of these things than he could pay for, with the idea that in a few weeks, or even days, they would be much higher in value, and he could sell them at a tremendous profit; but, unfortunately, instead of getting higher, they had fallen immediately after ernest had bought, and obstinately refused to get up again; so, after a few settlements, he had got frightened, for he read an article in some newspaper, which said they would go ever so much lower, and, contrary to pryer's advice, he insisted on selling--at a loss of something like pounds. he had hardly sold when up went the shares again, and he saw how foolish he had been, and how wise pryer was, for if pryer's advice had been followed, he would have made pounds, instead of losing it. however, he told himself he must live and learn. then pryer made a mistake. they had bought some shares, and the shares went up delightfully for about a fortnight. this was a happy time indeed, for by the end of a fortnight, the lost pounds had been recovered, and three or four hundred pounds had been cleared into the bargain. all the feverish anxiety of that miserable six weeks, when the pounds was being lost, was now being repaid with interest. ernest wanted to sell and make sure of the profit, but pryer would not hear of it; they would go ever so much higher yet, and he showed ernest an article in some newspaper which proved that what he said was reasonable, and they did go up a little--but only a very little, for then they went down, down, and ernest saw first his clear profit of three or four hundred pounds go, and then the pounds loss, which he thought he had recovered, slipped away by falls of a half and one at a time, and then he lost pounds more. then a newspaper said that these shares were the greatest rubbish that had ever been imposed upon the english public, and ernest could stand it no longer, so he sold out, again this time against pryer's advice, so that when they went up, as they shortly did, pryer scored off ernest a second time. ernest was not used to vicissitudes of this kind, and they made him so anxious that his health was affected. it was arranged therefore that he had better know nothing of what was being done. pryer was a much better man of business than he was, and would see to it all. this relieved ernest of a good deal of trouble, and was better after all for the investments themselves; for, as pryer justly said, a man must not have a faint heart if he hopes to succeed in buying and selling upon the stock exchange, and seeing ernest nervous made pryer nervous too--at least, he said it did. so the money drifted more and more into pryer's hands. as for pryer himself, he had nothing but his curacy and a small allowance from his father. some of ernest's old friends got an inkling from his letters of what he was doing, and did their utmost to dissuade him, but he was as infatuated as a young lover of two and twenty. finding that these friends disapproved, he dropped away from them, and they, being bored with his egotism and high-flown ideas, were not sorry to let him do so. of course, he said nothing about his speculations--indeed, he hardly knew that anything done in so good a cause could be called speculation. at battersby, when his father urged him to look out for a next presentation, and even brought one or two promising ones under his notice, he made objections and excuses, though always promising to do as his father desired very shortly. chapter lvi by and by a subtle, indefinable _malaise_ began to take possession of him. i once saw a very young foal trying to eat some most objectionable refuse, and unable to make up its mind whether it was good or no. clearly it wanted to be told. if its mother had seen what it was doing she would have set it right in a moment, and as soon as ever it had been told that what it was eating was filth, the foal would have recognised it and never have wanted to be told again; but the foal could not settle the matter for itself, or make up its mind whether it liked what it was trying to eat or no, without assistance from without. i suppose it would have come to do so by and by, but it was wasting time and trouble, which a single look from its mother would have saved, just as wort will in time ferment of itself, but will ferment much more quickly if a little yeast be added to it. in the matter of knowing what gives us pleasure we are all like wort, and if unaided from without can only ferment slowly and toilsomely. my unhappy hero about this time was very much like the foal, or rather he felt much what the foal would have felt if its mother and all the other grown-up horses in the field had vowed that what it was eating was the most excellent and nutritious food to be found anywhere. he was so anxious to do what was right, and so ready to believe that every one knew better than himself, that he never ventured to admit to himself that he might be all the while on a hopelessly wrong tack. it did not occur to him that there might be a blunder anywhere, much less did it occur to him to try and find out where the blunder was. nevertheless he became daily more full of _malaise_, and daily, only he knew it not, more ripe for an explosion should a spark fall upon him. one thing, however, did begin to loom out of the general vagueness, and to this he instinctively turned as trying to seize it--i mean, the fact that he was saving very few souls, whereas there were thousands and thousands being lost hourly all around him which a little energy such as mr hawke's might save. day after day went by, and what was he doing? standing on professional _etiquette_, and praying that his shares might go up and down as he wanted them, so that they might give him money enough to enable him to regenerate the universe. but in the meantime the people were dying. how many souls would not be doomed to endless ages of the most frightful torments that the mind could think of, before he could bring his spiritual pathology engine to bear upon them? why might he not stand and preach as he saw the dissenters doing sometimes in lincoln's inn fields and other thoroughfares? he could say all that mr hawke had said. mr hawke was a very poor creature in ernest's eyes now, for he was a low churchman, but we should not be above learning from any one, and surely he could affect his hearers as powerfully as mr hawke had affected him if he only had the courage to set to work. the people whom he saw preaching in the squares sometimes drew large audiences. he could at any rate preach better than they. ernest broached this to pryer, who treated it as something too outrageous to be even thought of. nothing, he said, could more tend to lower the dignity of the clergy and bring the church into contempt. his manner was brusque, and even rude. ernest ventured a little mild dissent; he admitted it was not usual, but something at any rate must be done, and that quickly. this was how wesley and whitfield had begun that great movement which had kindled religious life in the minds of hundreds of thousands. this was no time to be standing on dignity. it was just because wesley and whitfield had done what the church would not that they had won men to follow them whom the church had now lost. pryer eyed ernest searchingly, and after a pause said, "i don't know what to make of you, pontifex; you are at once so very right and so very wrong. i agree with you heartily that something should be done, but it must not be done in a way which experience has shown leads to nothing but fanaticism and dissent. do you approve of these wesleyans? do you hold your ordination vows so cheaply as to think that it does not matter whether the services of the church are performed in her churches and with all due ceremony or not? if you do--then, frankly, you had no business to be ordained; if you do not, then remember that one of the first duties of a young deacon is obedience to authority. neither the catholic church, nor yet the church of england allows her clergy to preach in the streets of cities where there is no lack of churches." ernest felt the force of this, and pryer saw that he wavered. "we are living," he continued more genially, "in an age of transition, and in a country which, though it has gained much by the reformation, does not perceive how much it has also lost. you cannot and must not hawk christ about in the streets as though you were in a heathen country whose inhabitants had never heard of him. the people here in london have had ample warning. every church they pass is a protest to them against their lives, and a call to them to repent. every church-bell they hear is a witness against them, everyone of those whom they meet on sundays going to or coming from church is a warning voice from god. if these countless influences produce no effect upon them, neither will the few transient words which they would hear from you. you are like dives, and think that if one rose from the dead they would hear him. perhaps they might; but then you cannot pretend that you have risen from the dead." though the last few words were spoken laughingly, there was a sub-sneer about them which made ernest wince; but he was quite subdued, and so the conversation ended. it left ernest, however, not for the first time, consciously dissatisfied with pryer, and inclined to set his friend's opinion on one side--not openly, but quietly, and without telling pryer anything about it. chapter lvii he had hardly parted from pryer before there occurred another incident which strengthened his discontent. he had fallen, as i have shown, among a gang of spiritual thieves or coiners, who passed the basest metal upon him without his finding it out, so childish and inexperienced was he in the ways of anything but those back eddies of the world, schools and universities. among the bad threepenny pieces which had been passed off upon him, and which he kept for small hourly disbursement, was a remark that poor people were much nicer than the richer and better educated. ernest now said that he always travelled third class not because it was cheaper, but because the people whom he met in third class carriages were so much pleasanter and better behaved. as for the young men who attended ernest's evening classes, they were pronounced to be more intelligent and better ordered generally than the average run of oxford and cambridge men. our foolish young friend having heard pryer talk to this effect, caught up all he said and reproduced it _more suo_. one evening, however, about this time, whom should he see coming along a small street not far from his own but, of all persons in the world, towneley, looking as full of life and good spirits as ever, and if possible even handsomer than he had been at cambridge. much as ernest liked him he found himself shrinking from speaking to him, and was endeavouring to pass him without doing so when towneley saw him and stopped him at once, being pleased to see an old cambridge face. he seemed for the moment a little confused at being seen in such a neighbourhood, but recovered himself so soon that ernest hardly noticed it, and then plunged into a few kindly remarks about old times. ernest felt that he quailed as he saw towneley's eye wander to his white necktie and saw that he was being reckoned up, and rather disapprovingly reckoned up, as a parson. it was the merest passing shade upon towneley's face, but ernest had felt it. towneley said a few words of common form to ernest about his profession as being what he thought would be most likely to interest him, and ernest, still confused and shy, gave him for lack of something better to say his little threepenny-bit about poor people being so very nice. towneley took this for what it was worth and nodded assent, whereon ernest imprudently went further and said "don't you like poor people very much yourself?" towneley gave his face a comical but good-natured screw, and said quietly, but slowly and decidedly, "no, no, no," and escaped. it was all over with ernest from that moment. as usual he did not know it, but he had entered none the less upon another reaction. towneley had just taken ernest's threepenny-bit into his hands, looked at it and returned it to him as a bad one. why did he see in a moment that it was a bad one now, though he had been unable to see it when he had taken it from pryer? of course some poor people were very nice, and always would be so, but as though scales had fallen suddenly from his eyes he saw that no one was nicer for being poor, and that between the upper and lower classes there was a gulf which amounted practically to an impassable barrier. that evening he reflected a good deal. if towneley was right, and ernest felt that the "no" had applied not to the remark about poor people only, but to the whole scheme and scope of his own recently adopted ideas, he and pryer must surely be on a wrong track. towneley had not argued with him; he had said one word only, and that one of the shortest in the language, but ernest was in a fit state for inoculation, and the minute particle of virus set about working immediately. which did he now think was most likely to have taken the juster view of life and things, and whom would it be best to imitate, towneley or pryer? his heart returned answer to itself without a moment's hesitation. the faces of men like towneley were open and kindly; they looked as if at ease themselves, and as though they would set all who had to do with them at ease as far as might be. the faces of pryer and his friends were not like this. why had he felt tacitly rebuked as soon as he had met towneley? was he not a christian? certainly; he believed in the church of england as a matter of course. then how could he be himself wrong in trying to act up to the faith that he and towneley held in common? he was trying to lead a quiet, unobtrusive life of self-devotion, whereas towneley was not, so far as he could see, trying to do anything of the kind; he was only trying to get on comfortably in the world, and to look and be as nice as possible. and he was nice, and ernest knew that such men as himself and pryer were not nice, and his old dejection came over him. then came an even worse reflection; how if he had fallen among material thieves as well as spiritual ones? he knew very little of how his money was going on; he had put it all now into pryer's hands, and though pryer gave him cash to spend whenever he wanted it, he seemed impatient of being questioned as to what was being done with the principal. it was part of the understanding, he said, that that was to be left to him, and ernest had better stick to this, or he, pryer, would throw up the college of spiritual pathology altogether; and so ernest was cowed into acquiescence, or cajoled, according to the humour in which pryer saw him to be. ernest thought that further questions would look as if he doubted pryer's word, and also that he had gone too far to be able to recede in decency or honour. this, however, he felt was riding out to meet trouble unnecessarily. pryer had been a little impatient, but he was a gentleman and an admirable man of business, so his money would doubtless come back to him all right some day. ernest comforted himself as regards this last source of anxiety, but as regards the other, he began to feel as though, if he was to be saved, a good samaritan must hurry up from somewhere--he knew not whence. chapter lviii next day he felt stronger again. he had been listening to the voice of the evil one on the night before, and would parley no more with such thoughts. he had chosen his profession, and his duty was to persevere with it. if he was unhappy it was probably because he was not giving up all for christ. let him see whether he could not do more than he was doing now, and then perhaps a light would be shed upon his path. it was all very well to have made the discovery that he didn't very much like poor people, but he had got to put up with them, for it was among them that his work must lie. such men as towneley were very kind and considerate, but he knew well enough it was only on condition that he did not preach to them. he could manage the poor better, and, let pryer sneer as he liked, he was resolved to go more among them, and try the effect of bringing christ to them if they would not come and seek christ of themselves. he would begin with his own house. who then should he take first? surely he could not do better than begin with the tailor who lived immediately over his head. this would be desirable, not only because he was the one who seemed to stand most in need of conversion, but also because, if he were once converted, he would no longer beat his wife at two o'clock in the morning, and the house would be much pleasanter in consequence. he would therefore go upstairs at once, and have a quiet talk with this man. before doing so, he thought it would be well if he were to draw up something like a plan of a campaign; he therefore reflected over some pretty conversations which would do very nicely if mr holt would be kind enough to make the answers proposed for him in their proper places. but the man was a great hulking fellow, of a savage temper, and ernest was forced to admit that unforeseen developments might arise to disconcert him. they say it takes nine tailors to make a man, but ernest felt that it would take at least nine ernests to make a mr holt. how if, as soon as ernest came in, the tailor were to become violent and abusive? what could he do? mr holt was in his own lodgings, and had a right to be undisturbed. a legal right, yes, but had he a moral right? ernest thought not, considering his mode of life. but put this on one side; if the man were to be violent, what should he do? paul had fought with wild beasts at ephesus--that must indeed have been awful--but perhaps they were not very wild wild beasts; a rabbit and a canary are wild beasts; but, formidable or not as wild beasts go, they would, nevertheless stand no chance against st paul, for he was inspired; the miracle would have been if the wild beasts escaped, not that st paul should have done so; but, however all this might be, ernest felt that he dared not begin to convert mr holt by fighting him. why, when he had heard mrs holt screaming "murder," he had cowered under the bed clothes and waited, expecting to hear the blood dripping through the ceiling on to his own floor. his imagination translated every sound into a pat, pat, pat, and once or twice he thought he had felt it dropping on to his counterpane, but he had never gone upstairs to try and rescue poor mrs holt. happily it had proved next morning that mrs holt was in her usual health. ernest was in despair about hitting on any good way of opening up spiritual communication with his neighbour, when it occurred to him that he had better perhaps begin by going upstairs, and knocking very gently at mr holt's door. he would then resign himself to the guidance of the holy spirit, and act as the occasion, which, i suppose, was another name for the holy spirit, suggested. triply armed with this reflection, he mounted the stairs quite jauntily, and was about to knock when he heard holt's voice inside swearing savagely at his wife. this made him pause to think whether after all the moment was an auspicious one, and while he was thus pausing, mr holt, who had heard that someone was on the stairs, opened the door and put his head out. when he saw ernest, he made an unpleasant, not to say offensive movement, which might or might not have been directed at ernest and looked altogether so ugly that my hero had an instantaneous and unequivocal revelation from the holy spirit to the effect that he should continue his journey upstairs at once, as though he had never intended arresting it at mr holt's room, and begin by converting mr and mrs baxter, the methodists in the top floor front. so this was what he did. these good people received him with open arms, and were quite ready to talk. he was beginning to convert them from methodism to the church of england, when all at once he found himself embarrassed by discovering that he did not know what he was to convert them from. he knew the church of england, or thought he did, but he knew nothing of methodism beyond its name. when he found that, according to mr baxter, the wesleyans had a vigorous system of church discipline (which worked admirably in practice) it appeared to him that john wesley had anticipated the spiritual engine which he and pryer were preparing, and when he left the room he was aware that he had caught more of a spiritual tartar than he had expected. but he must certainly explain to pryer that the wesleyans had a system of church discipline. this was very important. mr baxter advised ernest on no account to meddle with mr holt, and ernest was much relieved at the advice. if an opportunity arose of touching the man's heart, he would take it; he would pat the children on the head when he saw them on the stairs, and ingratiate himself with them as far as he dared; they were sturdy youngsters, and ernest was afraid even of them, for they were ready with their tongues, and knew much for their ages. ernest felt that it would indeed be almost better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of the little holts. however, he would try not to offend them; perhaps an occasional penny or two might square them. this was as much as he could do, for he saw that the attempt to be instant out of season, as well as in season, would, st paul's injunction notwithstanding, end in failure. mrs baxter gave a very bad account of miss emily snow, who lodged in the second floor back next to mr holt. her story was quite different from that of mrs jupp the landlady. she would doubtless be only too glad to receive ernest's ministrations or those of any other gentleman, but she was no governess, she was in the ballet at drury lane, and besides this, she was a very bad young woman, and if mrs baxter was landlady would not be allowed to stay in the house a single hour, not she indeed. miss maitland in the next room to mrs baxter's own was a quiet and respectable young woman to all appearance; mrs baxter had never known of any goings on in that quarter, but, bless you, still waters run deep, and these girls were all alike, one as bad as the other. she was out at all kinds of hours, and when you knew that you knew all. ernest did not pay much heed to these aspersions of mrs baxter's. mrs jupp had got round the greater number of his many blind sides, and had warned him not to believe mrs baxter, whose lip she said was something awful. ernest had heard that women were always jealous of one another, and certainly these young women were more attractive than mrs baxter was, so jealousy was probably at the bottom of it. if they were maligned there could be no objection to his making their acquaintance; if not maligned they had all the more need of his ministrations. he would reclaim them at once. he told mrs jupp of his intention. mrs jupp at first tried to dissuade him, but seeing him resolute, suggested that she should herself see miss snow first, so as to prepare her and prevent her from being alarmed by his visit. she was not at home now, but in the course of the next day, it should be arranged. in the meantime he had better try mr shaw, the tinker, in the front kitchen. mrs baxter had told ernest that mr shaw was from the north country, and an avowed freethinker; he would probably, she said, rather like a visit, but she did not think ernest would stand much chance of making a convert of him. chapter lix before going down into the kitchen to convert the tinker ernest ran hurriedly over his analysis of paley's evidences, and put into his pocket a copy of archbishop whateley's "historic doubts." then he descended the dark rotten old stairs and knocked at the tinker's door. mr shaw was very civil; he said he was rather throng just now, but if ernest did not mind the sound of hammering he should be very glad of a talk with him. our hero, assenting to this, ere long led the conversation to whateley's "historic doubts"--a work which, as the reader may know, pretends to show that there never was any such person as napoleon buonaparte, and thus satirises the arguments of those who have attacked the christian miracles. mr shaw said he knew "historic doubts" very well. "and what you think of it?" said ernest, who regarded the pamphlet as a masterpiece of wit and cogency. "if you really want to know," said mr shaw, with a sly twinkle, "i think that he who was so willing and able to prove that what was was not, would be equally able and willing to make a case for thinking that what was not was, if it suited his purpose." ernest was very much taken aback. how was it that all the clever people of cambridge had never put him up to this simple rejoinder? the answer is easy: they did not develop it for the same reason that a hen had never developed webbed feet--that is to say, because they did not want to do so; but this was before the days of evolution, and ernest could not as yet know anything of the great principle that underlies it. "you see," continued mr shaw, "these writers all get their living by writing in a certain way, and the more they write in that way, the more they are likely to get on. you should not call them dishonest for this any more than a judge should call a barrister dishonest for earning his living by defending one in whose innocence he does not seriously believe; but you should hear the barrister on the other side before you decide upon the case." this was another facer. ernest could only stammer that he had endeavoured to examine these questions as carefully as he could. "you think you have," said mr shaw; "you oxford and cambridge gentlemen think you have examined everything. i have examined very little myself except the bottoms of old kettles and saucepans, but if you will answer me a few questions, i will tell you whether or no you have examined much more than i have." ernest expressed his readiness to be questioned. "then," said the tinker, "give me the story of the resurrection of jesus christ as told in st john's gospel." i am sorry to say that ernest mixed up the four accounts in a deplorable manner; he even made the angel come down and roll away the stone and sit upon it. he was covered with confusion when the tinker first told him without the book of some of his many inaccuracies, and then verified his criticisms by referring to the new testament itself. "now," said mr shaw good naturedly, "i am an old man and you are a young one, so perhaps you'll not mind my giving you a piece of advice. i like you, for i believe you mean well, but you've been real bad brought up, and i don't think you have ever had so much as a chance yet. you know nothing of our side of the question, and i have just shown you that you do not know much more of your own, but i think you will make a kind of carlyle sort of a man some day. now go upstairs and read the accounts of the resurrection correctly without mixing them up, and have a clear idea of what it is that each writer tells us, then if you feel inclined to pay me another visit i shall be glad to see you, for i shall know you have made a good beginning and mean business. till then, sir, i must wish you a very good morning." ernest retreated abashed. an hour sufficed him to perform the task enjoined upon him by mr shaw; and at the end of that hour the "no, no, no," which still sounded in his ears as he heard it from towneley, came ringing up more loudly still from the very pages of the bible itself, and in respect of the most important of all the events which are recorded in it. surely ernest's first day's attempt at more promiscuous visiting, and at carrying out his principles more thoroughly, had not been unfruitful. but he must go and have a talk with pryer. he therefore got his lunch and went to pryer's lodgings. pryer not being at home, he lounged to the british museum reading room, then recently opened, sent for the "vestiges of creation," which he had never yet seen, and spent the rest of the afternoon in reading it. ernest did not see pryer on the day of his conversation with mr shaw, but he did so next morning and found him in a good temper, which of late he had rarely been. sometimes, indeed, he had behaved to ernest in a way which did not bode well for the harmony with which the college of spiritual pathology would work when it had once been founded. it almost seemed as though he were trying to get a complete moral ascendency over him, so as to make him a creature of his own. he did not think it possible that he could go too far, and indeed, when i reflect upon my hero's folly and inexperience, there is much to be said in excuse for the conclusion which pryer came to. as a matter of fact, however, it was not so. ernest's faith in pryer had been too great to be shaken down all in a moment, but it had been weakened lately more than once. ernest had fought hard against allowing himself to see this, nevertheless any third person who knew the pair would have been able to see that the connection between the two might end at any moment, for when the time for one of ernest's snipe-like changes of flight came, he was quick in making it; the time, however, was not yet come, and the intimacy between the two was apparently all that it had ever been. it was only that horrid money business (so said ernest to himself) that caused any unpleasantness between them, and no doubt pryer was right, and he, ernest, much too nervous. however, that might stand over for the present. in like manner, though he had received a shock by reason of his conversation with mr shaw, and by looking at the "vestiges," he was as yet too much stunned to realise the change which was coming over him. in each case the momentum of old habits carried him forward in the old direction. he therefore called on pryer, and spent an hour and more with him. he did not say that he had been visiting among his neighbours; this to pryer would have been like a red rag to a bull. he only talked in much his usual vein about the proposed college, the lamentable want of interest in spiritual things which was characteristic of modern society, and other kindred matters; he concluded by saying that for the present he feared pryer was indeed right, and that nothing could be done. "as regards the laity," said pryer, "nothing; not until we have a discipline which we can enforce with pains and penalties. how can a sheep dog work a flock of sheep unless he can bite occasionally as well as bark? but as regards ourselves we can do much." pryer's manner was strange throughout the conversation, as though he were thinking all the time of something else. his eyes wandered curiously over ernest, as ernest had often noticed them wander before: the words were about church discipline, but somehow or other the discipline part of the story had a knack of dropping out after having been again and again emphatically declared to apply to the laity and not to the clergy: once indeed pryer had pettishly exclaimed: "oh, bother the college of spiritual pathology." as regards the clergy, glimpses of a pretty large cloven hoof kept peeping out from under the saintly robe of pryer's conversation, to the effect, that so long as they were theoretically perfect, practical peccadilloes--or even peccadaccios, if there is such a word, were of less importance. he was restless, as though wanting to approach a subject which he did not quite venture to touch upon, and kept harping (he did this about every third day) on the wretched lack of definition concerning the limits of vice and virtue, and the way in which half the vices wanted regulating rather than prohibiting. he dwelt also on the advantages of complete unreserve, and hinted that there were mysteries into which ernest had not yet been initiated, but which would enlighten him when he got to know them, as he would be allowed to do when his friends saw that he was strong enough. pryer had often been like this before, but never so nearly, as it seemed to ernest, coming to a point--though what the point was he could not fully understand. his inquietude was communicating itself to ernest, who would probably ere long have come to know as much as pryer could tell him, but the conversation was abruptly interrupted by the appearance of a visitor. we shall never know how it would have ended, for this was the very last time that ernest ever saw pryer. perhaps pryer was going to break to him some bad news about his speculations. chapter lx ernest now went home and occupied himself till luncheon with studying dean alford's notes upon the various evangelistic records of the resurrection, doing as mr shaw had told him, and trying to find out not that they were all accurate, but whether they were all accurate or no. he did not care which result he should arrive at, but he was resolved that he would reach one or the other. when he had finished dean alford's notes he found them come to this, namely, that no one yet had succeeded in bringing the four accounts into tolerable harmony with each other, and that the dean, seeing no chance of succeeding better than his predecessors had done, recommended that the whole story should be taken on trust--and this ernest was not prepared to do. he got his luncheon, went out for a long walk, and returned to dinner at half past six. while mrs jupp was getting him his dinner--a steak and a pint of stout--she told him that miss snow would be very happy to see him in about an hour's time. this disconcerted him, for his mind was too unsettled for him to wish to convert anyone just then. he reflected a little, and found that, in spite of the sudden shock to his opinions, he was being irresistibly drawn to pay the visit as though nothing had happened. it would not look well for him not to go, for he was known to be in the house. he ought not to be in too great a hurry to change his opinions on such a matter as the evidence for christ's resurrection all of a sudden--besides he need not talk to miss snow about this subject to- day--there were other things he might talk about. what other things? ernest felt his heart beat fast and fiercely, and an inward monitor warned him that he was thinking of anything rather than of miss snow's soul. what should he do? fly, fly, fly--it was the only safety. but would christ have fled? even though christ had not died and risen from the dead there could be no question that he was the model whose example we were bound to follow. christ would not have fled from miss snow; he was sure of that, for he went about more especially with prostitutes and disreputable people. now, as then, it was the business of the true christian to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. it would be inconvenient to him to change his lodgings, and he could not ask mrs jupp to turn miss snow and miss maitland out of the house. where was he to draw the line? who would be just good enough to live in the same house with him, and who just not good enough? besides, where were these poor girls to go? was he to drive them from house to house till they had no place to lie in? it was absurd; his duty was clear: he would go and see miss snow at once, and try if he could not induce her to change her present mode of life; if he found temptation becoming too strong for him he would fly then--so he went upstairs with his bible under his arm, and a consuming fire in his heart. he found miss snow looking very pretty in a neatly, not to say demurely, furnished room. i think she had bought an illuminated text or two, and pinned it up over her fireplace that morning. ernest was very much pleased with her, and mechanically placed his bible upon the table. he had just opened a timid conversation and was deep in blushes, when a hurried step came bounding up the stairs as though of one over whom the force of gravity had little power, and a man burst into the room saying, "i'm come before my time." it was towneley. his face dropped as he caught sight of ernest. "what, you here, pontifex! well, upon my word!" i cannot describe the hurried explanations that passed quickly between the three--enough that in less than a minute ernest, blushing more scarlet than ever, slunk off, bible and all, deeply humiliated as he contrasted himself and towneley. before he had reached the bottom of the staircase leading to his own room he heard towneley's hearty laugh through miss snow's door, and cursed the hour that he was born. then it flashed upon him that if he could not see miss snow he could at any rate see miss maitland. he knew well enough what he wanted now, and as for the bible, he pushed it from him to the other end of his table. it fell over on to the floor, and he kicked it into a corner. it was the bible given him at his christening by his affectionate aunt, elizabeth allaby. true, he knew very little of miss maitland, but ignorant young fools in ernest's state do not reflect or reason closely. mrs baxter had said that miss maitland and miss snow were birds of a feather, and mrs baxter probably knew better than that old liar, mrs jupp. shakespeare says: o opportunity, thy guilt is great 'tis thou that execut'st the traitor's treason: thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get; whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season; 'tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason; and in thy shady cell, where none may spy him, sits sin, to seize the souls that wander by him. if the guilt of opportunity is great, how much greater is the guilt of that which is believed to be opportunity, but in reality is no opportunity at all. if the better part of valour is discretion, how much more is not discretion the better part of vice about ten minutes after we last saw ernest, a scared, insulted girl, flushed and trembling, was seen hurrying from mrs jupp's house as fast as her agitated state would let her, and in another ten minutes two policemen were seen also coming out of mrs jupp's, between whom there shambled rather than walked our unhappy friend ernest, with staring eyes, ghastly pale, and with despair branded upon every line of his face. chapter lxi pryer had done well to warn ernest against promiscuous house to house visitation. he had not gone outside mrs jupp's street door, and yet what had been the result? mr holt had put him in bodily fear; mr and mrs baxter had nearly made a methodist of him; mr shaw had undermined his faith in the resurrection; miss snow's charms had ruined--or would have done so but for an accident--his moral character. as for miss maitland, he had done his best to ruin hers, and had damaged himself gravely and irretrievably in consequence. the only lodger who had done him no harm was the bellows' mender, whom he had not visited. other young clergymen, much greater fools in many respects than he, would not have got into these scrapes. he seemed to have developed an aptitude for mischief almost from the day of his having been ordained. he could hardly preach without making some horrid _faux pas_. he preached one sunday morning when the bishop was at his rector's church, and made his sermon turn upon the question what kind of little cake it was that the widow of zarephath had intended making when elijah found her gathering a few sticks. he demonstrated that it was a seed cake. the sermon was really very amusing, and more than once he saw a smile pass over the sea of faces underneath him. the bishop was very angry, and gave my hero a severe reprimand in the vestry after service was over; the only excuse he could make was that he was preaching _ex tempore_, had not thought of this particular point till he was actually in the pulpit, and had then been carried away by it. another time he preached upon the barren fig-tree, and described the hopes of the owner as he watched the delicate blossom unfold, and give promise of such beautiful fruit in autumn. next day he received a letter from a botanical member of his congregation who explained to him that this could hardly have been, inasmuch as the fig produces its fruit first and blossoms inside the fruit, or so nearly so that no flower is perceptible to an ordinary observer. this last, however, was an accident which might have happened to any one but a scientist or an inspired writer. the only excuse i can make for him is that he was very young--not yet four and twenty--and that in mind as in body, like most of those who in the end come to think for themselves, he was a slow grower. by far the greater part, moreover, of his education had been an attempt, not so much to keep him in blinkers as to gouge his eyes out altogether. but to return to my story. it transpired afterwards that miss maitland had had no intention of giving ernest in charge when she ran out of mrs jupp's house. she was running away because she was frightened, but almost the first person whom she ran against had happened to be a policeman of a serious turn of mind, who wished to gain a reputation for activity. he stopped her, questioned her, frightened her still more, and it was he rather than miss maitland, who insisted on giving my hero in charge to himself and another constable. towneley was still in mrs jupp's house when the policeman came. he had heard a disturbance, and going down to ernest's room while miss maitland was out of doors, had found him lying, as it were, stunned at the foot of the moral precipice over which he had that moment fallen. he saw the whole thing at a glance, but before he could take action, the policemen came in and action became impossible. he asked ernest who were his friends in london. ernest at first wanted not to say, but towneley soon gave him to understand that he must do as he was bid, and selected myself from the few whom he had named. "writes for the stage, does he?" said towneley. "does he write comedy?" ernest thought towneley meant that i ought to write tragedy, and said he was afraid i wrote burlesque. "oh, come, come," said towneley, "that will do famously. i will go and see him at once." but on second thoughts he determined to stay with ernest and go with him to the police court. so he sent mrs jupp for me. mrs jupp hurried so fast to fetch me, that in spite of the weather's being still cold she was "giving out," as she expressed it, in streams. the poor old wretch would have taken a cab, but she had no money and did not like to ask towneley to give her some. i saw that something very serious had happened, but was not prepared for anything so deplorable as what mrs jupp actually told me. as for mrs jupp, she said her heart had been jumping out of its socket and back again ever since. i got her into a cab with me, and we went off to the police station. she talked without ceasing. "and if the neighbours do say cruel things about me, i'm sure it ain't no thanks to _him_ if they're true. mr pontifex never took a bit o' notice of me no more than if i had been his sister. oh, it's enough to make anyone's back bone curdle. then i thought perhaps my rose might get on better with him, so i set her to dust him and clean him as though i were busy, and gave her such a beautiful clean new pinny, but he never took no notice of her no more than he did of me, and she didn't want no compliment neither, she wouldn't have taken not a shilling from him, though he had offered it, but he didn't seem to know anything at all. i can't make out what the young men are a-coming to; i wish the horn may blow for me and the worms take me this very night, if it's not enough to make a woman stand before god and strike the one half on 'em silly to see the way they goes on, and many an honest girl has to go home night after night without so much as a fourpenny bit and paying three and sixpence a week rent, and not a shelf nor cupboard in the place and a dead wall in front of the window. "it's not mr pontifex," she continued, "that's so bad, he's good at heart. he never says nothing unkind. and then there's his dear eyes--but when i speak about that to my rose she calls me an old fool and says i ought to be poleaxed. it's that pryer as i can't abide. oh he! he likes to wound a woman's feelings he do, and to chuck anything in her face, he do--he likes to wind a woman up and to wound her down." (mrs jupp pronounced "wound" as though it rhymed to "sound.") "it's a gentleman's place to soothe a woman, but he, he'd like to tear her hair out by handfuls. why, he told me to my face that i was a-getting old; old indeed! there's not a woman in london knows my age except mrs davis down in the old kent road, and beyond a haricot vein in one of my legs i'm as young as ever i was. old indeed! there's many a good tune played on an old fiddle. i hate his nasty insinuendos." even if i had wanted to stop her, i could not have done so. she said a great deal more than i have given above. i have left out much because i could not remember it, but still more because it was really impossible for me to print it. when we got to the police station i found towneley and ernest already there. the charge was one of assault, but not aggravated by serious violence. even so, however, it was lamentable enough, and we both saw that our young friend would have to pay dearly for his inexperience. we tried to bail him out for the night, but the inspector would not accept bail, so we were forced to leave him. towneley then went back to mrs jupp's to see if he could find miss maitland and arrange matters with her. she was not there, but he traced her to the house of her father, who lived at camberwell. the father was furious and would not hear of any intercession on towneley's part. he was a dissenter, and glad to make the most of any scandal against a clergyman; towneley, therefore, was obliged to return unsuccessful. next morning, towneley--who regarded ernest as a drowning man, who must be picked out of the water somehow or other if possible, irrespective of the way in which he got into it--called on me, and we put the matter into the hands of one of the best known attorneys of the day. i was greatly pleased with towneley, and thought it due to him to tell him what i had told no one else. i mean that ernest would come into his aunt's money in a few years' time, and would therefore then be rich. towneley was doing all he could before this, but i knew that the knowledge i had imparted to him would make him feel as though ernest was more one of his own class, and had therefore a greater claim upon his good offices. as for ernest himself, his gratitude was greater than could be expressed in words. i have heard him say that he can call to mind many moments, each one of which might well pass for the happiest of his life, but that this night stands clearly out as the most painful that he ever passed, yet so kind and considerate was towneley that it was quite bearable. but with all the best wishes in the world neither towneley nor i could do much to help beyond giving our moral support. our attorney told us that the magistrate before whom ernest would appear was very severe on cases of this description, and that the fact of his being a clergyman would tell against him. "ask for no remand," he said, "and make no defence. we will call mr pontifex's rector and you two gentlemen as witnesses for previous good character. these will be enough. let us then make a profound apology and beg the magistrate to deal with the case summarily instead of sending it for trial. if you can get this, believe me, your young friend will be better out of it than he has any right to expect." chapter lxii this advice, besides being obviously sensible, would end in saving ernest both time and suspense of mind, so we had no hesitation in adopting it. the case was called on about eleven o'clock, but we got it adjourned till three, so as to give time for ernest to set his affairs as straight as he could, and to execute a power of attorney enabling me to act for him as i should think fit while he was in prison. then all came out about pryer and the college of spiritual pathology. ernest had even greater difficulty in making a clean breast of this than he had had in telling us about miss maitland, but he told us all, and the upshot was that he had actually handed over to pryer every halfpenny that he then possessed with no other security than pryer's i.o.u.'s for the amount. ernest, though still declining to believe that pryer could be guilty of dishonourable conduct, was becoming alive to the folly of what he had been doing; he still made sure, however, of recovering, at any rate, the greater part of his property as soon as pryer should have had time to sell. towneley and i were of a different opinion, but we did not say what we thought. it was dreary work waiting all the morning amid such unfamiliar and depressing surroundings. i thought how the psalmist had exclaimed with quiet irony, "one day in thy courts is better than a thousand," and i thought that i could utter a very similar sentiment in respect of the courts in which towneley and i were compelled to loiter. at last, about three o'clock the case was called on, and we went round to the part of the court which is reserved for the general public, while ernest was taken into the prisoner's dock. as soon as he had collected himself sufficiently he recognised the magistrate as the old gentleman who had spoken to him in the train on the day he was leaving school, and saw, or thought he saw, to his great grief, that he too was recognised. mr ottery, for this was our attorney's name, took the line he had proposed. he called no other witnesses than the rector, towneley and myself, and threw himself on the mercy of the magistrate. when he had concluded, the magistrate spoke as follows: "ernest pontifex, yours is one of the most painful cases that i have ever had to deal with. you have been singularly favoured in your parentage and education. you have had before you the example of blameless parents, who doubtless instilled into you from childhood the enormity of the offence which by your own confession you have committed. you were sent to one of the best public schools in england. it is not likely that in the healthy atmosphere of such a school as roughborough you can have come across contaminating influences; you were probably, i may say certainly, impressed at school with the heinousness of any attempt to depart from the strictest chastity until such time as you had entered into a state of matrimony. at cambridge you were shielded from impurity by every obstacle which virtuous and vigilant authorities could devise, and even had the obstacles been fewer, your parents probably took care that your means should not admit of your throwing money away upon abandoned characters. at night proctors patrolled the street and dogged your steps if you tried to go into any haunt where the presence of vice was suspected. by day the females who were admitted within the college walls were selected mainly on the score of age and ugliness. it is hard to see what more can be done for any young man than this. for the last four or five months you have been a clergyman, and if a single impure thought had still remained within your mind, ordination should have removed it: nevertheless, not only does it appear that your mind is as impure as though none of the influences to which i have referred had been brought to bear upon it, but it seems as though their only result had been this--that you have not even the common sense to be able to distinguish between a respectable girl and a prostitute. "if i were to take a strict view of my duty i should commit you for trial, but in consideration of this being your first offence, i shall deal leniently with you and sentence you to imprisonment with hard labour for six calendar months." towneley and i both thought there was a touch of irony in the magistrate's speech, and that he could have given a lighter sentence if he would, but that was neither here nor there. we obtained leave to see ernest for a few minutes before he was removed to coldbath fields, where he was to serve his term, and found him so thankful to have been summarily dealt with that he hardly seemed to care about the miserable plight in which he was to pass the next six months. when he came out, he said, he would take what remained of his money, go off to america or australia and never be heard of more. we left him full of this resolve, i, to write to theobald, and also to instruct my solicitor to get ernest's money out of pryer's hands, and towneley to see the reporters and keep the case out of the newspapers. he was successful as regards all the higher-class papers. there was only one journal, and that of the lowest class, which was incorruptible. chapter lxiii i saw my solicitor at once, but when i tried to write to theobald, i found it better to say i would run down and see him. i therefore proposed this, asking him to meet me at the station, and hinting that i must bring bad news about his son. i knew he would not get my letter more than a couple of hours before i should see him, and thought the short interval of suspense might break the shock of what i had to say. never do i remember to have halted more between two opinions than on my journey to battersby upon this unhappy errand. when i thought of the little sallow-faced lad whom i had remembered years before, of the long and savage cruelty with which he had been treated in childhood--cruelty none the less real for having been due to ignorance and stupidity rather than to deliberate malice; of the atmosphere of lying and self-laudatory hallucination in which he had been brought up; of the readiness the boy had shown to love anything that would be good enough to let him, and of how affection for his parents, unless i am much mistaken, had only died in him because it had been killed anew, again and again and again, each time that it had tried to spring. when i thought of all this i felt as though, if the matter had rested with me, i would have sentenced theobald and christina to mental suffering even more severe than that which was about to fall upon them. but on the other hand, when i thought of theobald's own childhood, of that dreadful old george pontifex his father, of john and mrs john, and of his two sisters, when again i thought of christina's long years of hope deferred that maketh the heart sick, before she was married, of the life she must have led at crampsford, and of the surroundings in the midst of which she and her husband both lived at battersby, i felt as though the wonder was that misfortunes so persistent had not been followed by even graver retribution. poor people! they had tried to keep their ignorance of the world from themselves by calling it the pursuit of heavenly things, and then shutting their eyes to anything that might give them trouble. a son having been born to them they had shut his eyes also as far as was practicable. who could blame them? they had chapter and verse for everything they had either done or left undone; there is no better thumbed precedent than that for being a clergyman and a clergyman's wife. in what respect had they differed from their neighbours? how did their household differ from that of any other clergyman of the better sort from one end of england to the other? why then should it have been upon them, of all people in the world, that this tower of siloam had fallen? surely it was the tower of siloam that was naught rather than those who stood under it; it was the system rather than the people that was at fault. if theobald and his wife had but known more of the world and of the things that are therein, they would have done little harm to anyone. selfish they would have always been, but not more so than may very well be pardoned, and not more than other people would be. as it was, the case was hopeless; it would be no use their even entering into their mothers' wombs and being born again. they must not only be born again but they must be born again each one of them of a new father and of a new mother and of a different line of ancestry for many generations before their minds could become supple enough to learn anew. the only thing to do with them was to humour them and make the best of them till they died--and be thankful when they did so. theobald got my letter as i had expected, and met me at the station nearest to battersby. as i walked back with him towards his own house i broke the news to him as gently as i could. i pretended that the whole thing was in great measure a mistake, and that though ernest no doubt had had intentions which he ought to have resisted, he had not meant going anything like the length which miss maitland supposed. i said we had felt how much appearances were against him, and had not dared to set up this defence before the magistrate, though we had no doubt about its being the true one. theobald acted with a readier and acuter moral sense than i had given him credit for. "i will have nothing more to do with him," he exclaimed promptly, "i will never see his face again; do not let him write either to me or to his mother; we know of no such person. tell him you have seen me, and that from this day forward i shall put him out of my mind as though he had never been born. i have been a good father to him, and his mother idolised him; selfishness and ingratitude have been the only return we have ever had from him; my hope henceforth must be in my remaining children." i told him how ernest's fellow curate had got hold of his money, and hinted that he might very likely be penniless, or nearly so, on leaving prison. theobald did not seem displeased at this, but added soon afterwards: "if this proves to be the case, tell him from me that i will give him a hundred pounds if he will tell me through you when he will have it paid, but tell him not to write and thank me, and say that if he attempts to open up direct communication either with his mother or myself, he shall not have a penny of the money." knowing what i knew, and having determined on violating miss pontifex's instructions should the occasion arise, i did not think ernest would be any the worse for a complete estrangement from his family, so i acquiesced more readily in what theobald had proposed than that gentleman may have expected. thinking it better that i should not see christina, i left theobald near battersby and walked back to the station. on my way i was pleased to reflect that ernest's father was less of a fool than i had taken him to be, and had the greater hopes, therefore, that his son's blunders might be due to postnatal, rather than congenital misfortunes. accidents which happen to a man before he is born, in the persons of his ancestors, will, if he remembers them at all, leave an indelible impression on him; they will have moulded his character so that, do what he will, it is hardly possible for him to escape their consequences. if a man is to enter into the kingdom of heaven, he must do so, not only as a little child, but as a little embryo, or rather as a little zoosperm--and not only this, but as one that has come of zoosperms which have entered into the kingdom of heaven before him for many generations. accidents which occur for the first time, and belong to the period since a man's last birth, are not, as a general rule, so permanent in their effects, though of course they may sometimes be so. at any rate, i was not displeased at the view which ernest's father took of the situation. chapter lxiv after ernest had been sentenced, he was taken back to the cells to wait for the van which should take him to coldbath fields, where he was to serve his term. he was still too stunned and dazed by the suddenness with which events had happened during the last twenty-four hours to be able to realise his position. a great chasm had opened between his past and future; nevertheless he breathed, his pulse beat, he could think and speak. it seemed to him that he ought to be prostrated by the blow that had fallen on him, but he was not prostrated; he had suffered from many smaller laches far more acutely. it was not until he thought of the pain his disgrace would inflict on his father and mother that he felt how readily he would have given up all he had, rather than have fallen into his present plight. it would break his mother's heart. it must, he knew it would--and it was he who had done this. he had had a headache coming on all the forenoon, but as he thought of his father and mother, his pulse quickened, and the pain in his head suddenly became intense. he could hardly walk to the van, and he found its motion insupportable. on reaching the prison he was too ill to walk without assistance across the hall to the corridor or gallery where prisoners are marshalled on their arrival. the prison warder, seeing at once that he was a clergyman, did not suppose he was shamming, as he might have done in the case of an old gaol-bird; he therefore sent for the doctor. when this gentleman arrived, ernest was declared to be suffering from an incipient attack of brain fever, and was taken away to the infirmary. here he hovered for the next two months between life and death, never in full possession of his reason and often delirious, but at last, contrary to the expectation of both doctor and nurse, he began slowly to recover. it is said that those who have been nearly drowned, find the return to consciousness much more painful than the loss of it had been, and so it was with my hero. as he lay helpless and feeble, it seemed to him a refinement of cruelty that he had not died once for all during his delirium. he thought he should still most likely recover only to sink a little later on from shame and sorrow; nevertheless from day to day he mended, though so slowly that he could hardly realise it to himself. one afternoon, however, about three weeks after he had regained consciousness, the nurse who tended him, and who had been very kind to him, made some little rallying sally which amused him; he laughed, and as he did so, she clapped her hands and told him he would be a man again. the spark of hope was kindled, and again he wished to live. almost from that moment his thoughts began to turn less to the horrors of the past, and more to the best way of meeting the future. his worst pain was on behalf of his father and mother, and how he should again face them. it still seemed to him that the best thing both for him and them would be that he should sever himself from them completely, take whatever money he could recover from pryer, and go to some place in the uttermost parts of the earth, where he should never meet anyone who had known him at school or college, and start afresh. or perhaps he might go to the gold fields in california or australia, of which such wonderful accounts were then heard; there he might even make his fortune, and return as an old man many years hence, unknown to everyone, and if so, he would live at cambridge. as he built these castles in the air, the spark of life became a flame, and he longed for health, and for the freedom which, now that so much of his sentence had expired, was not after all very far distant. then things began to shape themselves more definitely. whatever happened he would be a clergyman no longer. it would have been practically impossible for him to have found another curacy, even if he had been so minded, but he was not so minded. he hated the life he had been leading ever since he had begun to read for orders; he could not argue about it, but simply he loathed it and would have no more of it. as he dwelt on the prospect of becoming a layman again, however disgraced, he rejoiced at what had befallen him, and found a blessing in this very imprisonment which had at first seemed such an unspeakable misfortune. perhaps the shock of so great a change in his surroundings had accelerated changes in his opinions, just as the cocoons of silkworms, when sent in baskets by rail, hatch before their time through the novelty of heat and jolting. but however this may be, his belief in the stories concerning the death, resurrection and ascension of jesus christ, and hence his faith in all the other christian miracles, had dropped off him once and for ever. the investigation he had made in consequence of mr shaw's rebuke, hurried though it was, had left a deep impression upon him, and now he was well enough to read he made the new testament his chief study, going through it in the spirit which mr shaw had desired of him, that is to say as one who wished neither to believe nor disbelieve, but cared only about finding out whether he ought to believe or no. the more he read in this spirit the more the balance seemed to lie in favour of unbelief, till, in the end, all further doubt became impossible, and he saw plainly enough that, whatever else might be true, the story that christ had died, come to life again, and been carried from earth through clouds into the heavens could not now be accepted by unbiassed people. it was well he had found it out so soon. in one way or another it was sure to meet him sooner or later. he would probably have seen it years ago if he had not been hoodwinked by people who were paid for hoodwinking him. what should he have done, he asked himself, if he had not made his present discovery till years later when he was more deeply committed to the life of a clergyman? should he have had the courage to face it, or would he not more probably have evolved some excellent reason for continuing to think as he had thought hitherto? should he have had the courage to break away even from his present curacy? he thought not, and knew not whether to be more thankful for having been shown his error or for having been caught up and twisted round so that he could hardly err farther, almost at the very moment of his having discovered it. the price he had had to pay for this boon was light as compared with the boon itself. what is too heavy a price to pay for having duty made at once clear and easy of fulfilment instead of very difficult? he was sorry for his father and mother, and he was sorry for miss maitland, but he was no longer sorry for himself. it puzzled him, however, that he should not have known how much he had hated being a clergyman till now. he knew that he did not particularly like it, but if anyone had asked him whether he actually hated it, he would have answered no. i suppose people almost always want something external to themselves, to reveal to them their own likes and dislikes. our most assured likings have for the most part been arrived at neither by introspection nor by any process of conscious reasoning, but by the bounding forth of the heart to welcome the gospel proclaimed to it by another. we hear some say that such and such a thing is thus or thus, and in a moment the train that has been laid within us, but whose presence we knew not, flashes into consciousness and perception. only a year ago he had bounded forth to welcome mr hawke's sermon; since then he had bounded after a college of spiritual pathology; now he was in full cry after rationalism pure and simple; how could he be sure that his present state of mind would be more lasting than his previous ones? he could not be certain, but he felt as though he were now on firmer ground than he had ever been before, and no matter how fleeting his present opinions might prove to be, he could not but act according to them till he saw reason to change them. how impossible, he reflected, it would have been for him to do this, if he had remained surrounded by people like his father and mother, or pryer and pryer's friends, and his rector. he had been observing, reflecting, and assimilating all these months with no more consciousness of mental growth than a school-boy has of growth of body, but should he have been able to admit his growth to himself, and to act up to his increased strength if he had remained in constant close connection with people who assured him solemnly that he was under a hallucination? the combination against him was greater than his unaided strength could have broken through, and he felt doubtful how far any shock less severe than the one from which he was suffering would have sufficed to free him. chapter lxv as he lay on his bed day after day slowly recovering he woke up to the fact which most men arrive at sooner or later, i mean that very few care two straws about truth, or have any confidence that it is righter and better to believe what is true than what is untrue, even though belief in the untruth may seem at first sight most expedient. yet it is only these few who can be said to believe anything at all; the rest are simply unbelievers in disguise. perhaps, after all, these last are right. they have numbers and prosperity on their side. they have all which the rationalist appeals to as his tests of right and wrong. right, according to him, is what seems right to the majority of sensible, well-to-do people; we know of no safer criterion than this, but what does the decision thus arrived at involve? simply this, that a conspiracy of silence about things whose truth would be immediately apparent to disinterested enquirers is not only tolerable but righteous on the part of those who profess to be and take money for being _par excellence_ guardians and teachers of truth. ernest saw no logical escape from this conclusion. he saw that belief on the part of the early christians in the miraculous nature of christ's resurrection was explicable, without any supposition of miracle. the explanation lay under the eyes of anyone who chose to take a moderate degree of trouble; it had been put before the world again and again, and there had been no serious attempt to refute it. how was it that dean alford for example who had made the new testament his speciality, could not or would not see what was so obvious to ernest himself? could it be for any other reason than that he did not want to see it, and if so was he not a traitor to the cause of truth? yes, but was he not also a respectable and successful man, and were not the vast majority of respectable and successful men, such for example, as all the bishops and archbishops, doing exactly as dean alford did, and did not this make their action right, no matter though it had been cannibalism or infanticide, or even habitual untruthfulness of mind? monstrous, odious falsehood! ernest's feeble pulse quickened and his pale face flushed as this hateful view of life presented itself to him in all its logical consistency. it was not the fact of most men being liars that shocked him--that was all right enough; but even the momentary doubt whether the few who were not liars ought not to become liars too. there was no hope left if this were so; if this were so, let him die, the sooner the better. "lord," he exclaimed inwardly, "i don't believe one word of it. strengthen thou and confirm my disbelief." it seemed to him that he could never henceforth see a bishop going to consecration without saying to himself: "there, but for the grace of god, went ernest pontifex." it was no doing of his. he could not boast; if he had lived in the time of christ he might himself have been an early christian, or even an apostle for aught he knew. on the whole he felt that he had much to be thankful for. the conclusion, then, that it might be better to believe error than truth should be ordered out of court at once, no matter by how clear a logic it had been arrived at; but what was the alternative? it was this, that our criterion of truth--i.e. that truth is what commends itself to the great majority of sensible and successful people--is not infallible. the rule is sound, and covers by far the greater number of cases, but it has its exceptions. he asked himself, what were they? ah! that was a difficult matter; there were so many, and the rules which governed them were sometimes so subtle, that mistakes always had and always would be made; it was just this that made it impossible to reduce life to an exact science. there was a rough and ready rule-of-thumb test of truth, and a number of rules as regards exceptions which could be mastered without much trouble, yet there was a residue of cases in which decision was difficult--so difficult that a man had better follow his instinct than attempt to decide them by any process of reasoning. instinct then is the ultimate court of appeal. and what is instinct? it is a mode of faith in the evidence of things not actually seen. and so my hero returned almost to the point from which he had started originally, namely that the just shall live by faith. and this is what the just--that is to say reasonable people--do as regards those daily affairs of life which most concern them. they settle smaller matters by the exercise of their own deliberation. more important ones, such as the cure of their own bodies and the bodies of those whom they love, the investment of their money, the extrication of their affairs from any serious mess--these things they generally entrust to others of whose capacity they know little save from general report; they act therefore on the strength of faith, not of knowledge. so the english nation entrusts the welfare of its fleet and naval defences to a first lord of the admiralty, who, not being a sailor can know nothing about these matters except by acts of faith. there can be no doubt about faith and not reason being the _ultima ratio_. even euclid, who has laid himself as little open to the charge of credulity as any writer who ever lived, cannot get beyond this. he has no demonstrable first premise. he requires postulates and axioms which transcend demonstration, and without which he can do nothing. his superstructure indeed is demonstration, but his ground is faith. nor again can he get further than telling a man he is a fool if he persists in differing from him. he says "which is absurd," and declines to discuss the matter further. faith and authority, therefore, prove to be as necessary for him as for anyone else. "by faith in what, then," asked ernest of himself, "shall a just man endeavour to live at this present time?" he answered to himself, "at any rate not by faith in the supernatural element of the christian religion." and how should he best persuade his fellow-countrymen to leave off believing in this supernatural element? looking at the matter from a practical point of view he thought the archbishop of canterbury afforded the most promising key to the situation. it lay between him and the pope. the pope was perhaps best in theory, but in practice the archbishop of canterbury would do sufficiently well. if he could only manage to sprinkle a pinch of salt, as it were, on the archbishop's tail, he might convert the whole church of england to free thought by a _coup de main_. there must be an amount of cogency which even an archbishop--an archbishop whose perceptions had never been quickened by imprisonment for assault--would not be able to withstand. when brought face to face with the facts, as he, ernest, could arrange them; his grace would have no resource but to admit them; being an honourable man he would at once resign his archbishopric, and christianity would become extinct in england within a few months' time. this, at any rate, was how things ought to be. but all the time ernest had no confidence in the archbishop's not hopping off just as the pinch was about to fall on him, and this seemed so unfair that his blood boiled at the thought of it. if this was to be so, he must try if he could not fix him by the judicious use of bird-lime or a snare, or throw the salt on his tail from an ambuscade. to do him justice it was not himself that he greatly cared about. he knew he had been humbugged, and he knew also that the greater part of the ills which had afflicted him were due, indirectly, in chief measure to the influence of christian teaching; still, if the mischief had ended with himself, he should have thought little about it, but there was his sister, and his brother joey, and the hundreds and thousands of young people throughout england whose lives were being blighted through the lies told them by people whose business it was to know better, but who scamped their work and shirked difficulties instead of facing them. it was this which made him think it worth while to be angry, and to consider whether he could not at least do something towards saving others from such years of waste and misery as he had had to pass himself. if there was no truth in the miraculous accounts of christ's death and resurrection, the whole of the religion founded upon the historic truth of those events tumbled to the ground. "my," he exclaimed, with all the arrogance of youth, "they put a gipsy or fortune-teller into prison for getting money out of silly people who think they have supernatural power; why should they not put a clergyman in prison for pretending that he can absolve sins, or turn bread and wine into the flesh and blood of one who died two thousand years ago? what," he asked himself, "could be more pure 'hanky-panky' than that a bishop should lay his hands upon a young man and pretend to convey to him the spiritual power to work this miracle? it was all very well to talk about toleration; toleration, like everything else, had its limits; besides, if it was to include the bishop let it include the fortune-teller too." he would explain all this to the archbishop of canterbury by and by, but as he could not get hold of him just now, it occurred to him that he might experimentalise advantageously upon the viler soul of the prison chaplain. it was only those who took the first and most obvious step in their power who ever did great things in the end, so one day, when mr hughes--for this was the chaplain's name--was talking with him, ernest introduced the question of christian evidences, and tried to raise a discussion upon them. mr hughes had been very kind to him, but he was more than twice my hero's age, and had long taken the measure of such objections as ernest tried to put before him. i do not suppose he believed in the actual objective truth of the stories about christ's resurrection and ascension any more than ernest did, but he knew that this was a small matter, and that the real issue lay much deeper than this. mr hughes was a man who had been in authority for many years, and he brushed ernest on one side as if he had been a fly. he did it so well that my hero never ventured to tackle him again, and confined his conversation with him for the future to such matters as what he had better do when he got out of prison; and here mr hughes was ever ready to listen to him with sympathy and kindness. chapter lxvi ernest was now so far convalescent as to be able to sit up for the greater part of the day. he had been three months in prison, and, though not strong enough to leave the infirmary, was beyond all fear of a relapse. he was talking one day with mr hughes about his future, and again expressed his intention of emigrating to australia or new zealand with the money he should recover from pryer. whenever he spoke of this he noticed that mr hughes looked grave and was silent: he had thought that perhaps the chaplain wanted him to return to his profession, and disapproved of his evident anxiety to turn to something else; now, however, he asked mr hughes point blank why it was that he disapproved of his idea of emigrating. mr hughes endeavoured to evade him, but ernest was not to be put off. there was something in the chaplain's manner which suggested that he knew more than ernest did, but did not like to say it. this alarmed him so much that he begged him not to keep him in suspense; after a little hesitation mr hughes, thinking him now strong enough to stand it, broke the news as gently as he could that the whole of ernest's money had disappeared. the day after my return from battersby i called on my solicitor, and was told that he had written to pryer, requiring him to refund the monies for which he had given his i.o.u.'s. pryer replied that he had given orders to his broker to close his operations, which unfortunately had resulted so far in heavy loss, and that the balance should be paid to my solicitor on the following settling day, then about a week distant. when the time came, we heard nothing from pryer, and going to his lodgings found that he had left with his few effects on the very day after he had heard from us, and had not been seen since. i had heard from ernest the name of the broker who had been employed, and went at once to see him. he told me pryer had closed all his accounts for cash on the day that ernest had been sentenced, and had received pounds, which was all that remained of ernest's original pounds. with this he had decamped, nor had we enough clue as to his whereabouts to be able to take any steps to recover the money. there was in fact nothing to be done but to consider the whole as lost. i may say here that neither i nor ernest ever heard of pryer again, nor have any idea what became of him. this placed me in a difficult position. i knew, of course, that in a few years ernest would have many times over as much money as he had lost, but i knew also that he did not know this, and feared that the supposed loss of all he had in the world might be more than he could stand when coupled with his other misfortunes. the prison authorities had found theobald's address from a letter in ernest's pocket, and had communicated with him more than once concerning his son's illness, but theobald had not written to me, and i supposed my godson to be in good health. he would be just twenty-four years old when he left prison, and if i followed out his aunt's instructions, would have to battle with fortune for another four years as well as he could. the question before me was whether it was right to let him run so much risk, or whether i should not to some extent transgress my instructions--which there was nothing to prevent my doing if i thought miss pontifex would have wished it--and let him have the same sum that he would have recovered from pryer. if my godson had been an older man, and more fixed in any definite groove, this is what i should have done, but he was still very young, and more than commonly unformed for his age. if, again, i had known of his illness i should not have dared to lay any heavier burden on his back than he had to bear already; but not being uneasy about his health, i thought a few years of roughing it and of experience concerning the importance of not playing tricks with money would do him no harm. so i decided to keep a sharp eye upon him as soon as he came out of prison, and to let him splash about in deep water as best he could till i saw whether he was able to swim, or was about to sink. in the first case i would let him go on swimming till he was nearly eight-and-twenty, when i would prepare him gradually for the good fortune that awaited him; in the second i would hurry up to the rescue. so i wrote to say that pryer had absconded, and that he could have pounds from his father when he came out of prison. i then waited to see what effect these tidings would have, not expecting to receive an answer for three months, for i had been told on enquiry that no letter could be received by a prisoner till after he had been three months in gaol. i also wrote to theobald and told him of pryer's disappearance. as a matter of fact, when my letter arrived the governor of the gaol read it, and in a case of such importance would have relaxed the rules if ernest's state had allowed it; his illness prevented this, and the governor left it to the chaplain and the doctor to break the news to him when they thought him strong enough to bear it, which was now the case. in the meantime i received a formal official document saying that my letter had been received and would be communicated to the prisoner in due course; i believe it was simply through a mistake on the part of a clerk that i was not informed of ernest's illness, but i heard nothing of it till i saw him by his own desire a few days after the chaplin had broken to him the substance of what i had written. ernest was terribly shocked when he heard of the loss of his money, but his ignorance of the world prevented him from seeing the full extent of the mischief. he had never been in serious want of money yet, and did not know what it meant. in reality, money losses are the hardest to bear of any by those who are old enough to comprehend them. a man can stand being told that he must submit to a severe surgical operation, or that he has some disease which will shortly kill him, or that he will be a cripple or blind for the rest of his life; dreadful as such tidings must be, we do not find that they unnerve the greater number of mankind; most men, indeed, go coolly enough even to be hanged, but the strongest quail before financial ruin, and the better men they are, the more complete, as a general rule, is their prostration. suicide is a common consequence of money losses; it is rarely sought as a means of escape from bodily suffering. if we feel that we have a competence at our backs, so that we can die warm and quietly in our beds, with no need to worry about expense, we live our lives out to the dregs, no matter how excruciating our torments. job probably felt the loss of his flocks and herds more than that of his wife and family, for he could enjoy his flocks and herds without his family, but not his family--not for long--if he had lost all his money. loss of money indeed is not only the worst pain in itself, but it is the parent of all others. let a man have been brought up to a moderate competence, and have no specially; then let his money be suddenly taken from him, and how long is his health likely to survive the change in all his little ways which loss of money will entail? how long again is the esteem and sympathy of friends likely to survive ruin? people may be very sorry for us, but their attitude towards us hitherto has been based upon the supposition that we were situated thus or thus in money matters; when this breaks down there must be a restatement of the social problem so far as we are concerned; we have been obtaining esteem under false pretences. granted, then, that the three most serious losses which a man can suffer are those affecting money, health and reputation. loss of money is far the worst, then comes ill-health, and then loss of reputation; loss of reputation is a bad third, for, if a man keeps health and money unimpaired, it will be generally found that his loss of reputation is due to breaches of parvenu conventions only, and not to violations of those older, better established canons whose authority is unquestionable. in this case a man may grow a new reputation as easily as a lobster grows a new claw, or, if he have health and money, may thrive in great peace of mind without any reputation at all. the only chance for a man who has lost his money is that he shall still be young enough to stand uprooting and transplanting without more than temporary derangement, and this i believed my godson still to be. by the prison rules he might receive and send a letter after he had been in gaol three months, and might also receive one visit from a friend. when he received my letter, he at once asked me to come and see him, which of course i did. i found him very much changed, and still so feeble, that the exertion of coming from the infirmary to the cell in which i was allowed to see him, and the agitation of seeing me were too much for him. at first he quite broke down, and i was so pained at the state in which i found him, that i was on the point of breaking my instructions then and there. i contented myself, however, for the time, with assuring him that i would help him as soon as he came out of prison, and that, when he had made up his mind what he would do, he was to come to me for what money might be necessary, if he could not get it from his father. to make it easier for him i told him that his aunt, on her death- bed, had desired me to do something of this sort should an emergency arise, so that he would only be taking what his aunt had left him. "then," said he, "i will not take the pounds from my father, and i will never see him or my mother again." i said: "take the pounds, ernest, and as much more as you can get, and then do not see them again if you do not like." this ernest would not do. if he took money from them, he could not cut them, and he wanted to cut them. i thought my godson would get on a great deal better if he would only have the firmness to do as he proposed, as regards breaking completely with his father and mother, and said so. "then don't you like them?" said he, with a look of surprise. "like them!" said i, "i think they're horrid." "oh, that's the kindest thing of all you have done for me," he exclaimed, "i thought all--all middle-aged people liked my father and mother." he had been about to call me old, but i was only fifty-seven, and was not going to have this, so i made a face when i saw him hesitating, which drove him into "middle-aged." "if you like it," said i, "i will say all your family are horrid except yourself and your aunt alethea. the greater part of every family is always odious; if there are one or two good ones in a very large family, it is as much as can be expected." "thank you," he replied, gratefully, "i think i can now stand almost anything. i will come and see you as soon as i come out of gaol. good- bye." for the warder had told us that the time allowed for our interview was at an end. chapter lxvii as soon as ernest found that he had no money to look to upon leaving prison he saw that his dreams about emigrating and farming must come to an end, for he knew that he was incapable of working at the plough or with the axe for long together himself. and now it seemed he should have no money to pay any one else for doing so. it was this that resolved him to part once and for all with his parents. if he had been going abroad he could have kept up relations with them, for they would have been too far off to interfere with him. he knew his father and mother would object to being cut; they would wish to appear kind and forgiving; they would also dislike having no further power to plague him; but he knew also very well that so long as he and they ran in harness together they would be always pulling one way and he another. he wanted to drop the gentleman and go down into the ranks, beginning on the lowest rung of the ladder, where no one would know of his disgrace or mind it if he did know; his father and mother on the other hand would wish him to clutch on to the fag-end of gentility at a starvation salary and with no prospect of advancement. ernest had seen enough in ashpit place to know that a tailor, if he did not drink and attended to his business, could earn more money than a clerk or a curate, while much less expense by way of show was required of him. the tailor also had more liberty, and a better chance of rising. ernest resolved at once, as he had fallen so far, to fall still lower--promptly, gracefully and with the idea of rising again, rather than cling to the skirts of a respectability which would permit him to exist on sufferance only, and make him pay an utterly extortionate price for an article which he could do better without. he arrived at this result more quickly than he might otherwise have done through remembering something he had once heard his aunt say about "kissing the soil." this had impressed him and stuck by him perhaps by reason of its brevity; when later on he came to know the story of hercules and antaeus, he found it one of the very few ancient fables which had a hold over him--his chiefest debt to classical literature. his aunt had wanted him to learn carpentering, as a means of kissing the soil should his hercules ever throw him. it was too late for this now--or he thought it was--but the mode of carrying out his aunt's idea was a detail; there were a hundred ways of kissing the soil besides becoming a carpenter. he had told me this during our interview, and i had encouraged him to the utmost of my power. he showed so much more good sense than i had given him credit for that i became comparatively easy about him, and determined to let him play his own game, being always, however, ready to hand in case things went too far wrong. it was not simply because he disliked his father and mother that he wanted to have no more to do with them; if it had been only this he would have put up with them; but a warning voice within told him distinctly enough that if he was clean cut away from them he might still have a chance of success, whereas if they had anything whatever to do with him, or even knew where he was, they would hamper him and in the end ruin him. absolute independence he believed to be his only chance of very life itself. over and above this--if this were not enough--ernest had a faith in his own destiny such as most young men, i suppose, feel, but the grounds of which were not apparent to any one but himself. rightly or wrongly, in a quiet way he believed he possessed a strength which, if he were only free to use it in his own way, might do great things some day. he did not know when, nor where, nor how his opportunity was to come, but he never doubted that it would come in spite of all that had happened, and above all else he cherished the hope that he might know how to seize it if it came, for whatever it was it would be something that no one else could do so well as he could. people said there were no dragons and giants for adventurous men to fight with nowadays; it was beginning to dawn upon him that there were just as many now as at any past time. monstrous as such a faith may seem in one who was qualifying himself for a high mission by a term of imprisonment, he could no more help it than he could help breathing; it was innate in him, and it was even more with a view to this than for other reasons that he wished to sever the connection between himself and his parents; for he knew that if ever the day came in which it should appear that before him too there was a race set in which it might be an honour to have run among the foremost, his father and mother would be the first to let him and hinder him in running it. they had been the first to say that he ought to run such a race; they would also be the first to trip him up if he took them at their word, and then afterwards upbraid him for not having won. achievement of any kind would be impossible for him unless he was free from those who would be for ever dragging him back into the conventional. the conventional had been tried already and had been found wanting. he had an opportunity now, if he chose to take it, of escaping once for all from those who at once tormented him and would hold him earthward should a chance of soaring open before him. he should never have had it but for his imprisonment; but for this the force of habit and routine would have been too strong for him; he should hardly have had it if he had not lost all his money; the gap would not have been so wide but that he might have been inclined to throw a plank across it. he rejoiced now, therefore, over his loss of money as well as over his imprisonment, which had made it more easy for him to follow his truest and most lasting interests. at times he wavered, when he thought of how his mother, who in her way, as he thought, had loved him, would weep and think sadly over him, or how perhaps she might even fall ill and die, and how the blame would rest with him. at these times his resolution was near breaking, but when he found i applauded his design, the voice within, which bade him see his father's and mother's faces no more, grew louder and more persistent. if he could not cut himself adrift from those who he knew would hamper him, when so small an effort was wanted, his dream of a destiny was idle; what was the prospect of a hundred pounds from his father in comparison with jeopardy to this? he still felt deeply the pain his disgrace had inflicted upon his father and mother, but he was getting stronger, and reflected that as he had run his chance with them for parents, so they must run theirs with him for a son. he had nearly settled down to this conclusion when he received a letter from his father which made his decision final. if the prison rules had been interpreted strictly, he would not have been allowed to have this letter for another three months, as he had already heard from me, but the governor took a lenient view, and considered the letter from me to be a business communication hardly coming under the category of a letter from friends. theobald's letter therefore was given to his son. it ran as follows:-- "my dear ernest, my object in writing is not to upbraid you with the disgrace and shame you have inflicted upon your mother and myself, to say nothing of your brother joey, and your sister. suffer of course we must, but we know to whom to look in our affliction, and are filled with anxiety rather on your behalf than our own. your mother is wonderful. she is pretty well in health, and desires me to send you her love. "have you considered your prospects on leaving prison? i understand from mr overton that you have lost the legacy which your grandfather left you, together with all the interest that accrued during your minority, in the course of speculation upon the stock exchange! if you have indeed been guilty of such appalling folly it is difficult to see what you can turn your hand to, and i suppose you will try to find a clerkship in an office. your salary will doubtless be low at first, but you have made your bed and must not complain if you have to lie upon it. if you take pains to please your employers they will not be backward in promoting you. "when i first heard from mr overton of the unspeakable calamity which had befallen your mother and myself, i had resolved not to see you again. i am unwilling, however, to have recourse to a measure which would deprive you of your last connecting link with respectable people. your mother and i will see you as soon as you come out of prison; not at battersby--we do not wish you to come down here at present--but somewhere else, probably in london. you need not shrink from seeing us; we shall not reproach you. we will then decide about your future. "at present our impression is that you will find a fairer start probably in australia or new zealand than here, and i am prepared to find you or even if necessary so far as pounds to pay your passage money. once in the colony you must be dependent upon your own exertions. "may heaven prosper them and you, and restore you to us years hence a respected member of society.--your affectionate father, t. pontifex." then there was a postscript in christina's writing. "my darling, darling boy, pray with me daily and hourly that we may yet again become a happy, united, god-fearing family as we were before this horrible pain fell upon us.--your sorrowing but ever loving mother, c. p." this letter did not produce the effect on ernest that it would have done before his imprisonment began. his father and mother thought they could take him up as they had left him off. they forgot the rapidity with which development follows misfortune, if the sufferer is young and of a sound temperament. ernest made no reply to his father's letter, but his desire for a total break developed into something like a passion. "there are orphanages," he exclaimed to himself, "for children who have lost their parents--oh! why, why, why, are there no harbours of refuge for grown men who have not yet lost them?" and he brooded over the bliss of melchisedek who had been born an orphan, without father, without mother, and without descent. chapter lxviii when i think over all that ernest told me about his prison meditations, and the conclusions he was drawn to, it occurs to me that in reality he was wanting to do the very last thing which it would have entered into his head to think of wanting. i mean that he was trying to give up father and mother for christ's sake. he would have said he was giving them up because he thought they hindered him in the pursuit of his truest and most lasting happiness. granted, but what is this if it is not christ? what is christ if he is not this? he who takes the highest and most self-respecting view of his own welfare which it is in his power to conceive, and adheres to it in spite of conventionality, is a christian whether he knows it and calls himself one, or whether he does not. a rose is not the less a rose because it does not know its own name. what if circumstances had made his duty more easy for him than it would be to most men? that was his luck, as much as it is other people's luck to have other duties made easy for them by accident of birth. surely if people are born rich or handsome they have a right to their good fortune. some i know, will say that one man has no right to be born with a better constitution than another; others again will say that luck is the only righteous object of human veneration. both, i daresay, can make out a very good case, but whichever may be right surely ernest had as much right to the good luck of finding a duty made easier as he had had to the bad fortune of falling into the scrape which had got him into prison. a man is not to be sneered at for having a trump card in his hand; he is only to be sneered at if he plays his trump card badly. indeed, i question whether it is ever much harder for anyone to give up father and mother for christ's sake than it was for ernest. the relations between the parties will have almost always been severely strained before it comes to this. i doubt whether anyone was ever yet required to give up those to whom he was tenderly attached for a mere matter of conscience: he will have ceased to be tenderly attached to them long before he is called upon to break with them; for differences of opinion concerning any matter of vital importance spring from differences of constitution, and these will already have led to so much other disagreement that the "giving up" when it comes, is like giving up an aching but very loose and hollow tooth. it is the loss of those whom we are not required to give up for christ's sake which is really painful to us. then there is a wrench in earnest. happily, no matter how light the task that is demanded from us, it is enough if we do it; we reap our reward, much as though it were a herculean labour. but to return, the conclusion ernest came to was that he would be a tailor. he talked the matter over with the chaplain, who told him there was no reason why he should not be able to earn his six or seven shillings a day by the time he came out of prison, if he chose to learn the trade during the remainder of his term--not quite three months; the doctor said he was strong enough for this, and that it was about the only thing he was as yet fit for; so he left the infirmary sooner than he would otherwise have done and entered the tailor's shop, overjoyed at the thoughts of seeing his way again, and confident of rising some day if he could only get a firm foothold to start from. everyone whom he had to do with saw that he did not belong to what are called the criminal classes, and finding him eager to learn and to save trouble always treated him kindly and almost respectfully. he did not find the work irksome: it was far more pleasant than making latin and greek verses at roughborough; he felt that he would rather be here in prison than at roughborough again--yes, or even at cambridge itself. the only trouble he was ever in danger of getting into was through exchanging words or looks with the more decent-looking of his fellow-prisoners. this was forbidden, but he never missed a chance of breaking the rules in this respect. any man of his ability who was at the same time anxious to learn would of course make rapid progress, and before he left prison the warder said he was as good a tailor with his three months' apprenticeship as many a man was with twelve. ernest had never before been so much praised by any of his teachers. each day as he grew stronger in health and more accustomed to his surroundings he saw some fresh advantage in his position, an advantage which he had not aimed at, but which had come almost in spite of himself, and he marvelled at his own good fortune, which had ordered things so greatly better for him than he could have ordered them for himself. his having lived six months in ashpit place was a case in point. things were possible to him which to others like him would be impossible. if such a man as towneley were told he must live henceforth in a house like those in ashpit place it would be more than he could stand. ernest could not have stood it himself if he had gone to live there of compulsion through want of money. it was only because he had felt himself able to run away at any minute that he had not wanted to do so; now, however, that he had become familiar with life in ashpit place he no longer minded it, and could live gladly in lower parts of london than that so long as he could pay his way. it was from no prudence or forethought that he had served this apprenticeship to life among the poor. he had been trying in a feeble way to be thorough in his work: he had not been thorough, the whole thing had been a _fiasco_; but he had made a little puny effort in the direction of being genuine, and behold, in his hour of need it had been returned to him with a reward far richer than he had deserved. he could not have faced becoming one of the very poor unless he had had such a bridge to conduct him over to them as he had found unwittingly in ashpit place. true, there had been drawbacks in the particular house he had chosen, but he need not live in a house where there was a mr holt and he should no longer be tied to the profession which he so much hated; if there were neither screams nor scripture readings he could be happy in a garret at three shillings a week, such as miss maitland lived in. as he thought further he remembered that all things work together for good to them that love god; was it possible, he asked himself, that he too, however imperfectly, had been trying to love him? he dared not answer yes, but he would try hard that it should be so. then there came into his mind that noble air of handel's: "great god, who yet but darkly known," and he felt it as he had never felt it before. he had lost his faith in christianity, but his faith in something--he knew not what, but that there was a something as yet but darkly known which made right right and wrong wrong--his faith in this grew stronger and stronger daily. again there crossed his mind thoughts of the power which he felt to be in him, and of how and where it was to find its vent. the same instinct which had led him to live among the poor because it was the nearest thing to him which he could lay hold of with any clearness came to his assistance here too. he thought of the australian gold and how those who lived among it had never seen it though it abounded all around them: "there is gold everywhere," he exclaimed inwardly, "to those who look for it." might not his opportunity be close upon him if he looked carefully enough at his immediate surroundings? what was his position? he had lost all. could he not turn his having lost all into an opportunity? might he not, if he too sought the strength of the lord, find, like st paul, that it was perfected in weakness? he had nothing more to lose; money, friends, character, all were gone for a very long time if not for ever; but there was something else also that had taken its flight along with these. i mean the fear of that which man could do unto him. _cantabil vacuus_. who could hurt him more than he had been hurt already? let him but be able to earn his bread, and he knew of nothing which he dared not venture if it would make the world a happier place for those who were young and loveable. herein he found so much comfort that he almost wished he had lost his reputation even more completely--for he saw that it was like a man's life which may be found of them that lose it and lost of them that would find it. he should not have had the courage to give up all for christ's sake, but now christ had mercifully taken all, and lo! it seemed as though all were found. as the days went slowly by he came to see that christianity and the denial of christianity after all met as much as any other extremes do; it was a fight about names--not about things; practically the church of rome, the church of england, and the freethinker have the same ideal standard and meet in the gentleman; for he is the most perfect saint who is the most perfect gentleman. then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. it is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies. this was the crowning point of the edifice; when he had got here he no longer wished to molest even the pope. the archbishop of canterbury might have hopped about all round him and even picked crumbs out of his hand without running risk of getting a sly sprinkle of salt. that wary prelate himself might perhaps have been of a different opinion, but the robins and thrushes that hop about our lawns are not more needlessly distrustful of the hand that throws them out crumbs of bread in winter, than the archbishop would have been of my hero. perhaps he was helped to arrive at the foregoing conclusion by an event which almost thrust inconsistency upon him. a few days after he had left the infirmary the chaplain came to his cell and told him that the prisoner who played the organ in chapel had just finished his sentence and was leaving the prison; he therefore offered the post to ernest, who he already knew played the organ. ernest was at first in doubt whether it would be right for him to assist at religious services more than he was actually compelled to do, but the pleasure of playing the organ, and the privileges which the post involved, made him see excellent reasons for not riding consistency to death. having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearance differed but little from the indifferentism from which mr hawke had aroused him. by becoming organist he was saved from the treadmill, for which the doctor had said he was unfit as yet, but which he would probably have been put to in due course as soon as he was stronger. he might have escaped the tailor's shop altogether and done only the comparatively light work of attending to the chaplain's rooms if he had liked, but he wanted to learn as much tailoring as he could, and did not therefore take advantage of this offer; he was allowed, however, two hours a day in the afternoon for practice. from that moment his prison life ceased to be monotonous, and the remaining two months of his sentence slipped by almost as rapidly as they would have done if he had been free. what with music, books, learning his trade, and conversation with the chaplain, who was just the kindly, sensible person that ernest wanted in order to steady him a little, the days went by so pleasantly that when the time came for him to leave prison, he did so, or thought he did so, not without regret. chapter lxix in coming to the conclusion that he would sever the connection between himself and his family once for all ernest had reckoned without his family. theobald wanted to be rid of his son, it is true, in so far as he wished him to be no nearer at any rate than the antipodes; but he had no idea of entirely breaking with him. he knew his son well enough to have a pretty shrewd idea that this was what ernest would wish himself, and perhaps as much for this reason as for any other he was determined to keep up the connection, provided it did not involve ernest's coming to battersby nor any recurring outlay. when the time approached for him to leave prison, his father and mother consulted as to what course they should adopt. "we must never leave him to himself," said theobald impressively; "we can neither of us wish that." "oh, no! no! dearest theobald," exclaimed christina. "whoever else deserts him, and however distant he may be from us, he must still feel that he has parents whose hearts beat with affection for him no matter how cruelly he has pained them." "he has been his own worst enemy," said theobald. "he has never loved us as we deserved, and now he will be withheld by false shame from wishing to see us. he will avoid us if he can." "then we must go to him ourselves," said christina, "whether he likes it or not we must be at his side to support him as he enters again upon the world." "if we do not want him to give us the slip we must catch him as he leaves prison." "we will, we will; our faces shall be the first to gladden his eyes as he comes out, and our voices the first to exhort him to return to the paths of virtue." "i think," said theobald, "if he sees us in the street he will turn round and run away from us. he is intensely selfish." "then we must get leave to go inside the prison, and see him before he gets outside." after a good deal of discussion this was the plan they decided on adopting, and having so decided, theobald wrote to the governor of the gaol asking whether he could be admitted inside the gaol to receive ernest when his sentence had expired. he received answer in the affirmative, and the pair left battersby the day before ernest was to come out of prison. ernest had not reckoned on this, and was rather surprised on being told a few minutes before nine that he was to go into the receiving room before he left the prison as there were visitors waiting to see him. his heart fell, for he guessed who they were, but he screwed up his courage and hastened to the receiving room. there, sure enough, standing at the end of the table nearest the door were the two people whom he regarded as the most dangerous enemies he had in all the world--his father and mother. he could not fly, but he knew that if he wavered he was lost. his mother was crying, but she sprang forward to meet him and clasped him in her arms. "oh, my boy, my boy," she sobbed, and she could say no more. ernest was as white as a sheet. his heart beat so that he could hardly breathe. he let his mother embrace him, and then withdrawing himself stood silently before her with the tears falling from his eyes. at first he could not speak. for a minute or so the silence on all sides was complete. then, gathering strength, he said in a low voice: "mother," (it was the first time he had called her anything but "mamma"?) "we must part." on this, turning to the warder, he said: "i believe i am free to leave the prison if i wish to do so. you cannot compel me to remain here longer. please take me to the gates." theobald stepped forward. "ernest, you must not, shall not, leave us in this way." "do not speak to me," said ernest, his eyes flashing with a fire that was unwonted in them. another warder then came up and took theobald aside, while the first conducted ernest to the gates. "tell them," said ernest, "from me that they must think of me as one dead, for i am dead to them. say that my greatest pain is the thought of the disgrace i have inflicted upon them, and that above all things else i will study to avoid paining them hereafter; but say also that if they write to me i will return their letters unopened, and that if they come and see me i will protect myself in whatever way i can." by this time he was at the prison gate, and in another moment was at liberty. after he had got a few steps out he turned his face to the prison wall, leant against it for support, and wept as though his heart would break. giving up father and mother for christ's sake was not such an easy matter after all. if a man has been possessed by devils for long enough they will rend him as they leave him, however imperatively they may have been cast out. ernest did not stay long where he was, for he feared each moment that his father and mother would come out. he pulled himself together and turned into the labyrinth of small streets which opened out in front of him. he had crossed his rubicon--not perhaps very heroically or dramatically, but then it is only in dramas that people act dramatically. at any rate, by hook or by crook, he had scrambled over, and was out upon the other side. already he thought of much which he would gladly have said, and blamed his want of presence of mind; but, after all, it mattered very little. inclined though he was to make very great allowances for his father and mother, he was indignant at their having thrust themselves upon him without warning at a moment when the excitement of leaving prison was already as much as he was fit for. it was a mean advantage to have taken over him, but he was glad they had taken it, for it made him realise more fully than ever that his one chance lay in separating himself completely from them. the morning was grey, and the first signs of winter fog were beginning to show themselves, for it was now the th of september. ernest wore the clothes in which he had entered prison, and was therefore dressed as a clergyman. no one who looked at him would have seen any difference between his present appearance and his appearance six months previously; indeed, as he walked slowly through the dingy crowded lane called eyre street hill (which he well knew, for he had clerical friends in that neighbourhood), the months he had passed in prison seemed to drop out of his life, and so powerfully did association carry him away that, finding himself in his old dress and in his old surroundings, he felt dragged back into his old self--as though his six months of prison life had been a dream from which he was now waking to take things up as he had left them. this was the effect of unchanged surroundings upon the unchanged part of him. but there was a changed part, and the effect of unchanged surroundings upon this was to make everything seem almost as strange as though he had never had any life but his prison one, and was now born into a new world. all our lives long, every day and every hour, we are engaged in the process of accommodating our changed and unchanged selves to changed and unchanged surroundings; living, in fact, in nothing else than this process of accommodation; when we fail in it a little we are stupid, when we fail flagrantly we are mad, when we suspend it temporarily we sleep, when we give up the attempt altogether we die. in quiet, uneventful lives the changes internal and external are so small that there is little or no strain in the process of fusion and accommodation; in other lives there is great strain, but there is also great fusing and accommodating power; in others great strain with little accommodating power. a life will be successful or not according as the power of accommodation is equal to or unequal to the strain of fusing and adjusting internal and external changes. the trouble is that in the end we shall be driven to admit the unity of the universe so completely as to be compelled to deny that there is either an external or an internal, but must see everything both as external and internal at one and the same time, subject and object--external and internal--being unified as much as everything else. this will knock our whole system over, but then every system has got to be knocked over by something. much the best way out of this difficulty is to go in for separation between internal and external--subject and object--when we find this convenient, and unity between the same when we find unity convenient. this is illogical, but extremes are alone logical, and they are always absurd, the mean is alone practicable and it is always illogical. it is faith and not logic which is the supreme arbiter. they say all roads lead to rome, and all philosophies that i have ever seen lead ultimately either to some gross absurdity, or else to the conclusion already more than once insisted on in these pages, that the just shall live by faith, that is to say that sensible people will get through life by rule of thumb as they may interpret it most conveniently without asking too many questions for conscience sake. take any fact, and reason upon it to the bitter end, and it will ere long lead to this as the only refuge from some palpable folly. but to return to my story. when ernest got to the top of the street and looked back, he saw the grimy, sullen walls of his prison filling up the end of it. he paused for a minute or two. "there," he said to himself, "i was hemmed in by bolts which i could see and touch; here i am barred by others which are none the less real--poverty and ignorance of the world. it was no part of my business to try to break the material bolts of iron and escape from prison, but now that i am free i must surely seek to break these others." he had read somewhere of a prisoner who had made his escape by cutting up his bedstead with an iron spoon. he admired and marvelled at the man's mind, but could not even try to imitate him; in the presence of immaterial barriers, however, he was not so easily daunted, and felt as though, even if the bed were iron and the spoon a wooden one, he could find some means of making the wood cut the iron sooner or later. he turned his back upon eyre street hill and walked down leather lane into holborn. each step he took, each face or object that he knew, helped at once to link him on to the life he had led before his imprisonment, and at the same time to make him feel how completely that imprisonment had cut his life into two parts, the one of which could bear no resemblance to the other. he passed down fetter lane into fleet street and so to the temple, to which i had just returned from my summer holiday. it was about half past nine, and i was having my breakfast, when i heard a timid knock at the door and opened it to find ernest. chapter lxx i had begun to like him on the night towneley had sent for me, and on the following day i thought he had shaped well. i had liked him also during our interview in prison, and wanted to see more of him, so that i might make up my mind about him. i had lived long enough to know that some men who do great things in the end are not very wise when they are young; knowing that he would leave prison on the th, i had expected him, and, as i had a spare bedroom, pressed him to stay with me, till he could make up his mind what he would do. being so much older than he was, i anticipated no trouble in getting my own way, but he would not hear of it. the utmost he would assent to was that he should be my guest till he could find a room for himself, which he would set about doing at once. he was still much agitated, but grew better as he ate a breakfast, not of prison fare and in a comfortable room. it pleased me to see the delight he took in all about him; the fireplace with a fire in it; the easy chairs, the _times_, my cat, the red geraniums in the window, to say nothing of coffee, bread and butter, sausages, marmalade, etc. everything was pregnant with the most exquisite pleasure to him. the plane trees were full of leaf still; he kept rising from the breakfast table to admire them; never till now, he said, had he known what the enjoyment of these things really was. he ate, looked, laughed and cried by turns, with an emotion which i can neither forget nor describe. he told me how his father and mother had lain in wait for him, as he was about to leave prison. i was furious, and applauded him heartily for what he had done. he was very grateful to me for this. other people, he said, would tell him he ought to think of his father and mother rather than of himself, and it was such a comfort to find someone who saw things as he saw them himself. even if i had differed from him i should not have said so, but i was of his opinion, and was almost as much obliged to him for seeing things as i saw them, as he to me for doing the same kind office by himself. cordially as i disliked theobald and christina, i was in such a hopeless minority in the opinion i had formed concerning them that it was pleasant to find someone who agreed with me. then there came an awful moment for both of us. a knock, as of a visitor and not a postman, was heard at my door. "goodness gracious," i exclaimed, "why didn't we sport the oak? perhaps it is your father. but surely he would hardly come at this time of day! go at once into my bedroom." i went to the door, and, sure enough, there were both theobald and christina. i could not refuse to let them in and was obliged to listen to their version of the story, which agreed substantially with ernest's. christina cried bitterly--theobald stormed. after about ten minutes, during which i assured them that i had not the faintest conception where their son was, i dismissed them both. i saw they looked suspiciously upon the manifest signs that someone was breakfasting with me, and parted from me more or less defiantly, but i got rid of them, and poor ernest came out again, looking white, frightened and upset. he had heard voices, but no more, and did not feel sure that the enemy might not be gaining over me. we sported the oak now, and before long he began to recover. after breakfast, we discussed the situation. i had taken away his wardrobe and books from mrs jupp's, but had left his furniture, pictures and piano, giving mrs jupp the use of these, so that she might let her room furnished, in lieu of charge for taking care of the furniture. as soon as ernest heard that his wardrobe was at hand, he got out a suit of clothes he had had before he had been ordained, and put it on at once, much, as i thought, to the improvement of his personal appearance. then we went into the subject of his finances. he had had ten pounds from pryer only a day or two before he was apprehended, of which between seven and eight were in his purse when he entered the prison. this money was restored to him on leaving. he had always paid cash for whatever he bought, so that there was nothing to be deducted for debts. besides this, he had his clothes, books and furniture. he could, as i have said, have had pounds from his father if he had chosen to emigrate, but this both ernest and i (for he brought me round to his opinion) agreed it would be better to decline. this was all he knew of as belonging to him. he said he proposed at once taking an unfurnished top back attic in as quiet a house as he could find, say at three or four shillings a week, and looking out for work as a tailor. i did not think it much mattered what he began with, for i felt pretty sure he would ere long find his way to something that suited him, if he could get a start with anything at all. the difficulty was how to get him started. it was not enough that he should be able to cut out and make clothes--that he should have the organs, so to speak, of a tailor; he must be put into a tailor's shop and guided for a little while by someone who knew how and where to help him. the rest of the day he spent in looking for a room, which he soon found, and in familiarising himself with liberty. in the evening i took him to the olympic, where robson was then acting in a burlesque on macbeth, mrs keeley, if i remember rightly, taking the part of lady macbeth. in the scene before the murder, macbeth had said he could not kill duncan when he saw his boots upon the landing. lady macbeth put a stop to her husband's hesitation by whipping him up under her arm, and carrying him off the stage, kicking and screaming. ernest laughed till he cried. "what rot shakespeare is after this," he exclaimed, involuntarily. i remembered his essay on the greek tragedians, and was more i _epris_ with him than ever. next day he set about looking for employment, and i did not see him till about five o'clock, when he came and said that he had had no success. the same thing happened the next day and the day after that. wherever he went he was invariably refused and often ordered point blank out of the shop; i could see by the expression of his face, though he said nothing, that he was getting frightened, and began to think i should have to come to the rescue. he said he had made a great many enquiries and had always been told the same story. he found that it was easy to keep on in an old line, but very hard to strike out into a new one. he talked to the fishmonger in leather lane, where he went to buy a bloater for his tea, casually as though from curiosity and without any interested motive. "sell," said the master of the shop, "why nobody wouldn't believe what can be sold by penn'orths and twopenn'orths if you go the right way to work. look at whelks, for instance. last saturday night me and my little emma here, we sold pounds worth of whelks between eight and half past eleven o'clock--and almost all in penn'orths and twopenn'orths--a few, hap'orths, but not many. it was the steam that did it. we kept a-boiling of 'em hot and hot, and whenever the steam came strong up from the cellar on to the pavement, the people bought, but whenever the steam went down they left off buying; so we boiled them over and over again till they was all sold. that's just where it is; if you know your business you can sell, if you don't you'll soon make a mess of it. why, but for the steam, i should not have sold s. worth of whelks all the night through." this, and many another yarn of kindred substance which he heard from other people determined ernest more than ever to stake on tailoring as the one trade about which he knew anything at all, nevertheless, here were three or four days gone by and employment seemed as far off as ever. i now did what i ought to have done before, that is to say, i called on my own tailor whom i had dealt with for over a quarter of a century and asked his advice. he declared ernest's plan to be hopeless. "if," said mr larkins, for this was my tailor's name, "he had begun at fourteen, it might have done, but no man of twenty-four could stand being turned to work into a workshop full of tailors; he would not get on with the men, nor the men with him; you could not expect him to be 'hail fellow, well met' with them, and you could not expect his fellow-workmen to like him if he was not. a man must have sunk low through drink or natural taste for low company, before he could get on with those who have had such a different training from his own." mr larkins said a great deal more and wound up by taking me to see the place where his own men worked. "this is a paradise," he said, "compared to most workshops. what gentleman could stand this air, think you, for a fortnight?" i was glad enough to get out of the hot, fetid atmosphere in five minutes, and saw that there was no brick of ernest's prison to be loosened by going and working among tailors in a workshop. mr larkins wound up by saying that even if my _protege_ were a much better workman than he probably was, no master would give him employment, for fear of creating a bother among the men. i left, feeling that i ought to have thought of all this myself, and was more than ever perplexed as to whether i had not better let my young friend have a few thousand pounds and send him out to the colonies, when, on my return home at about five o'clock, i found him waiting for me, radiant, and declaring that he had found all he wanted. chapter lxxi it seems he had been patrolling the streets for the last three or four nights--i suppose in search of something to do--at any rate knowing better what he wanted to get than how to get it. nevertheless, what he wanted was in reality so easily to be found that it took a highly educated scholar like himself to be unable to find it. but, however this may be, he had been scared, and now saw lions where there were none, and was shocked and frightened, and night after night his courage had failed him and he had returned to his lodgings in laystall street without accomplishing his errand. he had not taken me into his confidence upon this matter, and i had not enquired what he did with himself in the evenings. at last he had concluded that, however painful it might be to him, he would call on mrs jupp, who he thought would be able to help him if anyone could. he had been walking moodily from seven till about nine, and now resolved to go straight to ashpit place and make a mother confessor of mrs jupp without more delay. of all tasks that could be performed by mortal woman there was none which mrs jupp would have liked better than the one ernest was thinking of imposing upon her; nor do i know that in his scared and broken-down state he could have done much better than he now proposed. miss jupp would have made it very easy for him to open his grief to her; indeed, she would have coaxed it all out of him before he knew where he was; but the fates were against mrs jupp, and the meeting between my hero and his former landlady was postponed _sine die_, for his determination had hardly been formed and he had not gone more than a hundred yards in the direction of mrs jupp's house, when a woman accosted him. he was turning from her, as he had turned from so many others, when she started back with a movement that aroused his curiosity. he had hardly seen her face, but being determined to catch sight of it, followed her as she hurried away, and passed her; then turning round he saw that she was none other than ellen, the housemaid who had been dismissed by his mother eight years previously. he ought to have assigned ellen's unwillingness to see him to its true cause, but a guilty conscience made him think she had heard of his disgrace and was turning away from him in contempt. brave as had been his resolutions about facing the world, this was more than he was prepared for; "what! you too shun me, ellen?" he exclaimed. the girl was crying bitterly and did not understand him. "oh, master ernest," she sobbed, "let me go; you are too good for the likes of me to speak to now." "why, ellen," said he, "what nonsense you talk; you haven't been in prison, have you?" "oh, no, no, no, not so bad as that," she exclaimed passionately. "well, i have," said ernest, with a forced laugh, "i came out three or four days ago after six months with hard labour." ellen did not believe him, but she looked at him with a "lor'! master ernest," and dried her eyes at once. the ice was broken between them, for as a matter of fact ellen had been in prison several times, and though she did not believe ernest, his merely saying he had been in prison made her feel more at ease with him. for her there were two classes of people, those who had been in prison and those who had not. the first she looked upon as fellow-creatures and more or less christians, the second, with few exceptions, she regarded with suspicion, not wholly unmingled with contempt. then ernest told her what had happened to him during the last six months, and by-and-by she believed him. "master ernest," said she, after they had talked for a quarter of an hour or so, "there's a place over the way where they sell tripe and onions. i know you was always very fond of tripe and onions, let's go over and have some, and we can talk better there." so the pair crossed the street and entered the tripe shop; ernest ordered supper. "and how is your pore dear mamma, and your dear papa, master ernest," said ellen, who had now recovered herself and was quite at home with my hero. "oh, dear, dear me," she said, "i did love your pa; he was a good gentleman, he was, and your ma too; it would do anyone good to live with her, i'm sure." ernest was surprised and hardly knew what to say. he had expected to find ellen indignant at the way she had been treated, and inclined to lay the blame of her having fallen to her present state at his father's and mother's door. it was not so. her only recollection of battersby was as of a place where she had had plenty to eat and drink, not too much hard work, and where she had not been scolded. when she heard that ernest had quarrelled with his father and mother she assumed as a matter of course that the fault must lie entirely with ernest. "oh, your pore, pore ma!" said ellen. "she was always so very fond of you, master ernest: you was always her favourite; i can't abear to think of anything between you and her. to think now of the way she used to have me into the dining-room and teach me my catechism, that she did! oh, master ernest, you really must go and make it all up with her; indeed you must." ernest felt rueful, but he had resisted so valiantly already that the devil might have saved himself the trouble of trying to get at him through ellen in the matter of his father and mother. he changed the subject, and the pair warmed to one another as they had their tripe and pots of beer. of all people in the world ellen was perhaps the one to whom ernest could have spoken most freely at this juncture. he told her what he thought he could have told to no one else. "you know, ellen," he concluded, "i had learnt as a boy things that i ought not to have learnt, and had never had a chance of that which would have set me straight." "gentlefolks is always like that," said ellen musingly. "i believe you are right, but i am no longer a gentleman, ellen, and i don't see why i should be 'like that' any longer, my dear. i want you to help me to be like something else as soon as possible." "lor'! master ernest, whatever can you be meaning?" the pair soon afterwards left the eating-house and walked up fetter lane together. ellen had had hard times since she had left battersby, but they had left little trace upon her. ernest saw only the fresh-looking smiling face, the dimpled cheek, the clear blue eyes and lovely sphinx-like lips which he had remembered as a boy. at nineteen she had looked older than she was, now she looked much younger; indeed she looked hardly older than when ernest had last seen her, and it would have taken a man of much greater experience than he possessed to suspect how completely she had fallen from her first estate. it never occurred to him that the poor condition of her wardrobe was due to her passion for ardent spirits, and that first and last she had served five or six times as much time in gaol as he had. he ascribed the poverty of her attire to the attempts to keep herself respectable, which ellen during supper had more than once alluded to. he had been charmed with the way in which she had declared that a pint of beer would make her tipsy, and had only allowed herself to be forced into drinking the whole after a good deal of remonstrance. to him she appeared a very angel dropped from the sky, and all the more easy to get on with for being a fallen one. as he walked up fetter lane with her towards laystall street, he thought of the wonderful goodness of god towards him in throwing in his way the very person of all others whom he was most glad to see, and whom, of all others, in spite of her living so near him, he might have never fallen in with but for a happy accident. when people get it into their heads that they are being specially favoured by the almighty, they had better as a general rule mind their p's and q's, and when they think they see the devil's drift with more special clearness, let them remember that he has had much more experience than they have, and is probably meditating mischief. already during supper the thought that in ellen at last he had found a woman whom he could love well enough to wish to live with and marry had flitted across his mind, and the more they had chatted the more reasons kept suggesting themselves for thinking that what might be folly in ordinary cases would not be folly in his. he must marry someone; that was already settled. he could not marry a lady; that was absurd. he must marry a poor woman. yes, but a fallen one? was he not fallen himself? ellen would fall no more. he had only to look at her to be sure of this. he could not live with her in sin, not for more than the shortest time that could elapse before their marriage; he no longer believed in the supernatural element of christianity, but the christian morality at any rate was indisputable. besides, they might have children, and a stigma would rest upon them. whom had he to consult but himself now? his father and mother never need know, and even if they did, they should be thankful to see him married to any woman who would make him happy as ellen would. as for not being able to afford marriage, how did poor people do? did not a good wife rather help matters than not? where one could live two could do so, and if ellen was three or four years older than he was--well, what was that? have you, gentle reader, ever loved at first sight? when you fell in love at first sight, how long, let me ask, did it take you to become ready to fling every other consideration to the winds except that of obtaining possession of the loved one? or rather, how long would it have taken you if you had had no father or mother, nothing to lose in the way of money, position, friends, professional advancement, or what not, and if the object of your affections was as free from all these _impedimenta_ as you were yourself? if you were a young john stuart mill, perhaps it would have taken you some time, but suppose your nature was quixotic, impulsive, altruistic, guileless; suppose you were a hungry man starving for something to love and lean upon, for one whose burdens you might bear, and who might help you to bear yours. suppose you were down on your luck, still stunned by a horrible shock, and this bright vista of a happy future floated suddenly before you, how long under these circumstances do you think you would reflect before you would decide on embracing what chance had thrown in your way? it did not take my hero long, for before he got past the ham and beef shop near the top of fetter lane, he had told ellen that she must come home with him and live with him till they could get married, which they would do upon the first day that the law allowed. i think the devil must have chuckled and made tolerably sure of his game this time. chapter lxxii ernest told ellen of his difficulty about finding employment. "but what do you think of going into a shop for, my dear," said ellen. "why not take a little shop yourself?" ernest asked how much this would cost. ellen told him that he might take a house in some small street, say near the "elephant and castle," for s. or s. a week, and let off the two top floors for s., keeping the back parlour and shop for themselves. if he could raise five or six pounds to buy some second-hand clothes to stock the shop with, they could mend them and clean them, and she could look after the women's clothes while he did the men's. then he could mend and make, if he could get the orders. they could soon make a business of pounds a week in this way; she had a friend who began like that and had now moved to a better shop, where she made or pounds a week at least--and she, ellen, had done the greater part of the buying and selling herself. here was a new light indeed. it was as though he had got his pounds back again all of a sudden, and perhaps ever so much more later on into the bargain. ellen seemed more than ever to be his good genius. she went out and got a few rashers of bacon for his and her breakfast. she cooked them much more nicely than he had been able to do, and laid breakfast for him and made coffee, and some nice brown toast. ernest had been his own cook and housemaid for the last few days and had not given himself satisfaction. here he suddenly found himself with someone to wait on him again. not only had ellen pointed out to him how he could earn a living when no one except himself had known how to advise him, but here she was so pretty and smiling, looking after even his comforts, and restoring him practically in all respects that he much cared about to the position which he had lost--or rather putting him in one that he already liked much better. no wonder he was radiant when he came to explain his plans to me. he had some difficulty in telling all that had happened. he hesitated, blushed, hummed and hawed. misgivings began to cross his mind when he found himself obliged to tell his story to someone else. he felt inclined to slur things over, but i wanted to get at the facts, so i helped him over the bad places, and questioned him till i had got out pretty nearly the whole story as i have given it above. i hope i did not show it, but i was very angry. i had begun to like ernest. i don't know why, but i never have heard that any young man to whom i had become attached was going to get married without hating his intended instinctively, though i had never seen her; i have observed that most bachelors feel the same thing, though we are generally at some pains to hide the fact. perhaps it is because we know we ought to have got married ourselves. ordinarily we say we are delighted--in the present case i did not feel obliged to do this, though i made an effort to conceal my vexation. that a young man of much promise who was heir also to what was now a handsome fortune, should fling himself away upon such a person as ellen was quite too provoking, and the more so because of the unexpectedness of the whole affair. i begged him not to marry ellen yet--not at least until he had known her for a longer time. he would not hear of it; he had given his word, and if he had not given it he should go and give it at once. i had hitherto found him upon most matters singularly docile and easy to manage, but on this point i could do nothing with him. his recent victory over his father and mother had increased his strength, and i was nowhere. i would have told him of his true position, but i knew very well that this would only make him more bent on having his own way--for with so much money why should he not please himself? i said nothing, therefore, on this head, and yet all that i could urge went for very little with one who believed himself to be an artisan or nothing. really from his own standpoint there was nothing very outrageous in what he was doing. he had known and been very fond of ellen years before. he knew her to come of respectable people, and to have borne a good character, and to have been universally liked at battersby. she was then a quick, smart, hard-working girl--and a very pretty one. when at last they met again she was on her best behaviour, in fact, she was modesty and demureness itself. what wonder, then, that his imagination should fail to realise the changes that eight years must have worked? he knew too much against himself, and was too bankrupt in love to be squeamish; if ellen had been only what he thought her, and if his prospects had been in reality no better than he believed they were, i do not know that there is anything much more imprudent in what ernest proposed than there is in half the marriages that take place every day. there was nothing for it, however, but to make the best of the inevitable, so i wished my young friend good fortune, and told him he could have whatever money he wanted to start his shop with, if what he had in hand was not sufficient. he thanked me, asked me to be kind enough to let him do all my mending and repairing, and to get him any other like orders that i could, and left me to my own reflections. i was even more angry when he was gone than i had been while he was with me. his frank, boyish face had beamed with a happiness that had rarely visited it. except at cambridge he had hardly known what happiness meant, and even there his life had been clouded as of a man for whom wisdom at the greatest of its entrances was quite shut out. i had seen enough of the world and of him to have observed this, but it was impossible, or i thought it had been impossible, for me to have helped him. whether i ought to have tried to help him or not i do not know, but i am sure that the young of all animals often do want help upon matters about which anyone would say _a priori_ that there should be no difficulty. one would think that a young seal would want no teaching how to swim, nor yet a bird to fly, but in practice a young seal drowns if put out of its depth before its parents have taught it to swim; and so again, even the young hawk must be taught to fly before it can do so. i grant that the tendency of the times is to exaggerate the good which teaching can do, but in trying to teach too much, in most matters, we have neglected others in respect of which a little sensible teaching would do no harm. i know it is the fashion to say that young people must find out things for themselves, and so they probably would if they had fair play to the extent of not having obstacles put in their way. but they seldom have fair play; as a general rule they meet with foul play, and foul play from those who live by selling them stones made into a great variety of shapes and sizes so as to form a tolerable imitation of bread. some are lucky enough to meet with few obstacles, some are plucky enough to over-ride them, but in the greater number of cases, if people are saved at all they are saved so as by fire. while ernest was with me ellen was looking out for a shop on the south side of the thames near the "elephant and castle," which was then almost a new and a very rising neighbourhood. by one o'clock she had found several from which a selection was to be made, and before night the pair had made their choice. ernest brought ellen to me. i did not want to see her, but could not well refuse. he had laid out a few of his shillings upon her wardrobe, so that she was neatly dressed, and, indeed, she looked very pretty and so good that i could hardly be surprised at ernest's infatuation when the other circumstances of the case were taken into consideration. of course we hated one another instinctively from the first moment we set eyes on one another, but we each told ernest that we had been most favourably impressed. then i was taken to see the shop. an empty house is like a stray dog or a body from which life has departed. decay sets in at once in every part of it, and what mould and wind and weather would spare, street boys commonly destroy. ernest's shop in its untenanted state was a dirty unsavoury place enough. the house was not old, but it had been run up by a jerry-builder and its constitution had no stamina whatever. it was only by being kept warm and quiet that it would remain in health for many months together. now it had been empty for some weeks and the cats had got in by night, while the boys had broken the windows by day. the parlour floor was covered with stones and dirt, and in the area was a dead dog which had been killed in the street and been thrown down into the first unprotected place that could be found. there was a strong smell throughout the house, but whether it was bugs, or rats, or cats, or drains, or a compound of all four, i could not determine. the sashes did not fit, the flimsy doors hung badly; the skirting was gone in several places, and there were not a few holes in the floor; the locks were loose, and paper was torn and dirty; the stairs were weak and one felt the treads give as one went up them. over and above these drawbacks the house had an ill name, by reason of the fact that the wife of the last occupant had hanged herself in it not very many weeks previously. she had set down a bloater before the fire for her husband's tea, and had made him a round of toast. she then left the room as though about to return to it shortly, but instead of doing so she went into the back kitchen and hanged herself without a word. it was this which had kept the house empty so long in spite of its excellent position as a corner shop. the last tenant had left immediately after the inquest, and if the owner had had it done up then people would have got over the tragedy that had been enacted in it, but the combination of bad condition and bad fame had hindered many from taking it, who like ellen, could see that it had great business capabilities. almost anything would have sold there, but it happened also that there was no second-hand clothes shop in close proximity so that everything combined in its favour, except its filthy state and its reputation. when i saw it, i thought i would rather die than live in such an awful place--but then i had been living in the temple for the last five and twenty years. ernest was lodging in laystall street and had just come out of prison; before this he had lived in ashpit place so that this house had no terrors for him provided he could get it done up. the difficulty was that the landlord was hard to move in this respect. it ended in my finding the money to do everything that was wanted, and taking a lease of the house for five years at the same rental as that paid by the last occupant. i then sublet it to ernest, of course taking care that it was put more efficiently into repair than his landlord was at all likely to have put it. a week later i called and found everything so completely transformed that i should hardly have recognised the house. all the ceilings had been whitewashed, all the rooms papered, the broken glass hacked out and reinstated, the defective wood-work renewed, all the sashes, cupboards and doors had been painted. the drains had been thoroughly overhauled, everything in fact, that could be done had been done, and the rooms now looked as cheerful as they had been forbidding when i had last seen them. the people who had done the repairs were supposed to have cleaned the house down before leaving, but ellen had given it another scrub from top to bottom herself after they were gone, and it was as clean as a new pin. i almost felt as though i could have lived in it myself, and as for ernest, he was in the seventh heaven. he said it was all my doing and ellen's. there was already a counter in the shop and a few fittings, so that nothing now remained but to get some stock and set them out for sale. ernest said he could not begin better than by selling his clerical wardrobe and his books, for though the shop was intended especially for the sale of second-hand clothes, yet ellen said there was no reason why they should not sell a few books too; so a beginning was to be made by selling the books he had had at school and college at about one shilling a volume, taking them all round, and i have heard him say that he learned more that proved of practical use to him through stocking his books on a bench in front of his shop and selling them, than he had done from all the years of study which he had bestowed upon their contents. for the enquiries that were made of him whether he had such and such a book taught him what he could sell and what he could not; how much he could get for this, and how much for that. having made ever such a little beginning with books, he took to attending book sales as well as clothes sales, and ere long this branch of his business became no less important than the tailoring, and would, i have no doubt, have been the one which he would have settled down to exclusively, if he had been called upon to remain a tradesman; but this is anticipating. i made a contribution and a stipulation. ernest wanted to sink the gentleman completely, until such time as he could work his way up again. if he had been left to himself he would have lived with ellen in the shop back parlour and kitchen, and have let out both the upper floors according to his original programme. i did not want him, however, to cut himself adrift from music, letters and polite life, and feared that unless he had some kind of den into which he could retire he would ere long become the tradesman and nothing else. i therefore insisted on taking the first floor front and back myself, and furnishing them with the things which had been left at mrs jupp's. i bought these things of him for a small sum and had them moved into his present abode. i went to mrs jupp's to arrange all this, as ernest did not like going to ashpit place. i had half expected to find the furniture sold and mrs jupp gone, but it was not so; with all her faults the poor old woman was perfectly honest. i told her that pryer had taken all ernest's money and run away with it. she hated pryer. "i never knew anyone," she exclaimed, "as white-livered in the face as that pryer; he hasn't got an upright vein in his whole body. why, all that time when he used to come breakfasting with mr pontifex morning after morning, it took me to a perfect shadow the way he carried on. there was no doing anything to please him right. first i used to get them eggs and bacon, and he didn't like that; and then i got him a bit of fish, and he didn't like that, or else it was too dear, and you know fish is dearer than ever; and then i got him a bit of german, and he said it rose on him; then i tried sausages, and he said they hit him in the eye worse even than german; oh! how i used to wander my room and fret about it inwardly and cry for hours, and all about them paltry breakfasts--and it wasn't mr pontifex; he'd like anything that anyone chose to give him. "and so the piano's to go," she continued. "what beautiful tunes mr pontifex did play upon it, to be sure; and there was one i liked better than any i ever heard. i was in the room when he played it once and when i said, 'oh, mr pontifex, that's the kind of woman i am,' he said, 'no, mrs jupp, it isn't, for this tune is old, but no one can say you are old.' but, bless you, he meant nothing by it, it was only his mucky flattery." like myself, she was vexed at his getting married. she didn't like his being married, and she didn't like his not being married--but, anyhow, it was ellen's fault, not his, and she hoped he would be happy. "but after all," she concluded, "it ain't you and it ain't me, and it ain't him and it ain't her. it's what you must call the fortunes of matterimony, for there ain't no other word for it." in the course of the afternoon the furniture arrived at ernest's new abode. in the first floor we placed the piano, table, pictures, bookshelves, a couple of arm-chairs, and all the little household gods which he had brought from cambridge. the back room was furnished exactly as his bedroom at ashpit place had been--new things being got for the bridal apartment downstairs. these two first-floor rooms i insisted on retaining as my own, but ernest was to use them whenever he pleased; he was never to sublet even the bedroom, but was to keep it for himself in case his wife should be ill at any time, or in case he might be ill himself. in less than a fortnight from the time of his leaving prison all these arrangements had been completed, and ernest felt that he had again linked himself on to the life which he had led before his imprisonment--with a few important differences, however, which were greatly to his advantage. he was no longer a clergyman; he was about to marry a woman to whom he was much attached, and he had parted company for ever with his father and mother. true, he had lost all his money, his reputation, and his position as a gentleman; he had, in fact, had to burn his house down in order to get his roast sucking pig; but if asked whether he would rather be as he was now or as he was on the day before his arrest, he would not have had a moment's hesitation in preferring his present to his past. if his present could only have been purchased at the expense of all that he had gone through, it was still worth purchasing at the price, and he would go through it all again if necessary. the loss of the money was the worst, but ellen said she was sure they would get on, and she knew all about it. as for the loss of reputation--considering that he had ellen and me left, it did not come to much. i saw the house on the afternoon of the day on which all was finished, and there remained nothing but to buy some stock and begin selling. when i was gone, after he had had his tea, he stole up to his castle--the first floor front. he lit his pipe and sat down to the piano. he played handel for an hour or so, and then set himself to the table to read and write. he took all his sermons and all the theological works he had begun to compose during the time he had been a clergyman and put them in the fire; as he saw them consume he felt as though he had got rid of another incubus. then he took up some of the little pieces he had begun to write during the latter part of his undergraduate life at cambridge, and began to cut them about and re-write them. as he worked quietly at these till he heard the clock strike ten and it was time to go to bed, he felt that he was now not only happy but supremely happy. next day ellen took him to debenham's auction rooms, and they surveyed the lots of clothes which were hung up all round the auction room to be viewed. ellen had had sufficient experience to know about how much each lot ought to fetch; she overhauled lot after lot, and valued it; in a very short time ernest himself began to have a pretty fair idea what each lot should go for, and before the morning was over valued a dozen lots running at prices about which ellen said he would not hurt if he could get them for that. so far from disliking this work or finding it tedious, he liked it very much, indeed he would have liked anything which did not overtax his physical strength, and which held out a prospect of bringing him in money. ellen would not let him buy anything on the occasion of this sale; she said he had better see one sale first and watch how prices actually went. so at twelve o'clock when the sale began, he saw the lots sold which he and ellen had marked, and by the time the sale was over he knew enough to be able to bid with safety whenever he should actually want to buy. knowledge of this sort is very easily acquired by anyone who is in _bona fide_ want of it. but ellen did not want him to buy at auctions--not much at least at present. private dealing, she said, was best. if i, for example, had any cast-off clothes, he was to buy them from my laundress, and get a connection with other laundresses, to whom he might give a trifle more than they got at present for whatever clothes their masters might give them, and yet make a good profit. if gentlemen sold their things, he was to try and get them to sell to him. he flinched at nothing; perhaps he would have flinched if he had had any idea how _outre_ his proceedings were, but the very ignorance of the world which had ruined him up till now, by a happy irony began to work its own cure. if some malignant fairy had meant to curse him in this respect, she had overdone her malice. he did not know he was doing anything strange. he only knew that he had no money, and must provide for himself, a wife, and a possible family. more than this, he wanted to have some leisure in an evening, so that he might read and write and keep up his music. if anyone would show him how he could do better than he was doing, he should be much obliged to them, but to himself it seemed that he was doing sufficiently well; for at the end of the first week the pair found they had made a clear profit of pounds. in a few weeks this had increased to pounds, and by the new year they had made a profit of pounds in one week. ernest had by this time been married some two months, for he had stuck to his original plan of marrying ellen on the first day he could legally do so. this date was a little delayed by the change of abode from laystall street to blackfriars, but on the first day that it could be done it was done. he had never had more than pounds a year, even in the times of his affluence, so that a profit of pounds a week, if it could be maintained steadily, would place him where he had been as far as income went, and, though he should have to feed two mouths instead of one, yet his expenses in other ways were so much curtailed by his changed social position, that, take it all round, his income was practically what it had been a twelvemonth before. the next thing to do was to increase it, and put by money. prosperity depends, as we all know, in great measure upon energy and good sense, but it also depends not a little upon pure luck--that is to say, upon connections which are in such a tangle that it is more easy to say that they do not exist, than to try to trace them. a neighbourhood may have an excellent reputation as being likely to be a rising one, and yet may become suddenly eclipsed by another, which no one would have thought so promising. a fever hospital may divert the stream of business, or a new station attract it; so little, indeed, can be certainly known, that it is better not to try to know more than is in everybody's mouth, and to leave the rest to chance. luck, which certainly had not been too kind to my hero hitherto, now seemed to have taken him under her protection. the neighbourhood prospered, and he with it. it seemed as though he no sooner bought a thing and put it into his shop, than it sold with a profit of from thirty to fifty per cent. he learned book-keeping, and watched his accounts carefully, following up any success immediately; he began to buy other things besides clothes--such as books, music, odds and ends of furniture, etc. whether it was luck or business aptitude, or energy, or the politeness with which he treated all his customers, i cannot say--but to the surprise of no one more than himself, he went ahead faster than he had anticipated, even in his wildest dreams, and by easter was established in a strong position as the owner of a business which was bringing him in between four and five hundred a year, and which he understood how to extend. chapter lxxiii ellen and he got on capitally, all the better, perhaps, because the disparity between them was so great, that neither did ellen want to be elevated, nor did ernest want to elevate her. he was very fond of her, and very kind to her; they had interests which they could serve in common; they had antecedents with a good part of which each was familiar; they had each of them excellent tempers, and this was enough. ellen did not seem jealous at ernest's preferring to sit the greater part of his time after the day's work was done in the first floor front where i occasionally visited him. she might have come and sat with him if she had liked, but, somehow or other, she generally found enough to occupy her down below. she had the tact also to encourage him to go out of an evening whenever he had a mind, without in the least caring that he should take her too--and this suited ernest very well. he was, i should say, much happier in his married life than people generally are. at first it had been very painful to him to meet any of his old friends, as he sometimes accidentally did, but this soon passed; either they cut him, or he cut them; it was not nice being cut for the first time or two, but after that, it became rather pleasant than not, and when he began to see that he was going ahead, he cared very little what people might say about his antecedents. the ordeal is a painful one, but if a man's moral and intellectual constitution are naturally sound, there is nothing which will give him so much strength of character as having been well cut. it was easy for him to keep his expenditure down, for his tastes were not luxurious. he liked theatres, outings into the country on a sunday, and tobacco, but he did not care for much else, except writing and music. as for the usual run of concerts, he hated them. he worshipped handel; he liked offenbach, and the airs that went about the streets, but he cared for nothing between these two extremes. music, therefore, cost him little. as for theatres, i got him and ellen as many orders as they liked, so these cost them nothing. the sunday outings were a small item; for a shilling or two he could get a return ticket to some place far enough out of town to give him a good walk and a thorough change for the day. ellen went with him the first few times, but she said she found it too much for her, there were a few of her old friends whom she should sometimes like to see, and they and he, she said, would not hit it off perhaps too well, so it would be better for him to go alone. this seemed so sensible, and suited ernest so exactly that he readily fell into it, nor did he suspect dangers which were apparent enough to me when i heard how she had treated the matter. i kept silence, however, and for a time all continued to go well. as i have said, one of his chief pleasures was in writing. if a man carries with him a little sketch book and is continually jotting down sketches, he has the artistic instinct; a hundred things may hinder his due development, but the instinct is there. the literary instinct may be known by a man's keeping a small note-book in his waistcoat pocket, into which he jots down anything that strikes him, or any good thing that he hears said, or a reference to any passage which he thinks will come in useful to him. ernest had such a note-book always with him. even when he was at cambridge he had begun the practice without anyone's having suggested it to him. these notes he copied out from time to time into a book, which as they accumulated, he was driven into indexing approximately, as he went along. when i found out this, i knew that he had the literary instinct, and when i saw his notes i began to hope great things of him. for a long time i was disappointed. he was kept back by the nature of the subjects he chose--which were generally metaphysical. in vain i tried to get him away from these to matters which had a greater interest for the general public. when i begged him to try his hand at some pretty, graceful, little story which should be full of whatever people knew and liked best, he would immediately set to work upon a treatise to show the grounds on which all belief rested. "you are stirring mud," said i, "or poking at a sleeping dog. you are trying to make people resume consciousness about things, which, with sensible men, have already passed into the unconscious stage. the men whom you would disturb are in front of you, and not, as you fancy, behind you; it is you who are the lagger, not they." he could not see it. he said he was engaged on an essay upon the famous _quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_ of st vincent de lerins. this was the more provoking because he showed himself able to do better things if he had liked. i was then at work upon my burlesque "the impatient griselda," and was sometimes at my wits' end for a piece of business or a situation; he gave me many suggestions, all of which were marked by excellent good sense. nevertheless i could not prevail with him to put philosophy on one side, and was obliged to leave him to himself. for a long time, as i have said, his choice of subjects continued to be such as i could not approve. he was continually studying scientific and metaphysical writers, in the hope of either finding or making for himself a philosopher's stone in the shape of a system which should go on all fours under all circumstances, instead of being liable to be upset at every touch and turn, as every system yet promulgated has turned out to be. he kept to the pursuit of this will-o'-the-wisp so long that i gave up hope, and set him down as another fly that had been caught, as it were, by a piece of paper daubed over with some sticky stuff that had not even the merit of being sweet, but to my surprise he at last declared that he was satisfied, and had found what he wanted. i supposed that he had only hit upon some new "lo, here!" when to my relief, he told me that he had concluded that no system which should go perfectly upon all fours was possible, inasmuch as no one could get behind bishop berkeley, and therefore no absolutely incontrovertible first premise could ever be laid. having found this he was just as well pleased as if he had found the most perfect system imaginable. all he wanted he said, was to know which way it was to be--that is to say whether a system was possible or not, and if possible then what the system was to be. having found out that no system based on absolute certainty was possible he was contented. i had only a very vague idea who bishop berkeley was, but was thankful to him for having defended us from an incontrovertible first premise. i am afraid i said a few words implying that after a great deal of trouble he had arrived at the conclusion which sensible people reach without bothering their brains so much. he said: "yes, but i was not born sensible. a child of ordinary powers learns to walk at a year or two old without knowing much about it; failing ordinary powers he had better learn laboriously than never learn at all. i am sorry i was not stronger, but to do as i did was my only chance." he looked so meek that i was vexed with myself for having said what i had, more especially when i remembered his bringing-up, which had doubtless done much to impair his power of taking a common-sense view of things. he continued-- "i see it all now. the people like towneley are the only ones who know anything that is worth knowing, and like that of course i can never be. but to make towneleys possible there must be hewers of wood and drawers of water--men in fact through whom conscious knowledge must pass before it can reach those who can apply it gracefully and instinctively as the towneleys can. i am a hewer of wood, but if i accept the position frankly and do not set up to be a towneley, it does not matter." he still, therefore, stuck to science instead of turning to literature proper as i hoped he would have done, but he confined himself henceforth to enquiries on specific subjects concerning which an increase of our knowledge--as he said--was possible. having in fact, after infinite vexation of spirit, arrived at a conclusion which cut at the roots of all knowledge, he settled contentedly down to the pursuit of knowledge, and has pursued it ever since in spite of occasional excursions into the regions of literature proper. but this is anticipating, and may perhaps also convey a wrong impression, for from the outset he did occasionally turn his attention to work which must be more properly called literary than either scientific or metaphysical. chapter lxxiv about six months after he had set up his shop his prosperity had reached its climax. it seemed even then as though he were likely to go ahead no less fast than heretofore, and i doubt not that he would have done so, if success or non-success had depended upon himself alone. unfortunately he was not the only person to be reckoned with. one morning he had gone out to attend some sales, leaving his wife perfectly well, as usual in good spirits, and looking very pretty. when he came back he found her sitting on a chair in the back parlour, with her hair over her face, sobbing and crying as though her heart would break. she said she had been frightened in the morning by a man who had pretended to be a customer, and had threatened her unless she gave him some things, and she had had to give them to him in order to save herself from violence; she had been in hysterics ever since the man had gone. this was her story, but her speech was so incoherent that it was not easy to make out what she said. ernest knew she was with child, and thinking this might have something to do with the matter, would have sent for a doctor if ellen had not begged him not to do so. anyone who had had experience of drunken people would have seen at a glance what the matter was, but my hero knew nothing about them--nothing, that is to say, about the drunkenness of the habitual drunkard, which shows itself very differently from that of one who gets drunk only once in a way. the idea that his wife could drink had never even crossed his mind, indeed she always made a fuss about taking more than a very little beer, and never touched spirits. he did not know much more about hysterics than he did about drunkenness, but he had always heard that women who were about to become mothers were liable to be easily upset and were often rather flighty, so he was not greatly surprised, and thought he had settled the matter by registering the discovery that being about to become a father has its troublesome as well as its pleasant side. the great change in ellen's life consequent upon her meeting ernest and getting married had for a time actually sobered her by shaking her out of her old ways. drunkenness is so much a matter of habit, and habit so much a matter of surroundings, that if you completely change the surroundings you will sometimes get rid of the drunkenness altogether. ellen had intended remaining always sober henceforward, and never having had so long a steady fit before, believed she was now cured. so she perhaps would have been if she had seen none of her old acquaintances. when, however, her new life was beginning to lose its newness, and when her old acquaintances came to see her, her present surroundings became more like her past, and on this she herself began to get like her past too. at first she only got a little tipsy and struggled against a relapse; but it was no use, she soon lost the heart to fight, and now her object was not to try and keep sober, but to get gin without her husband's finding it out. so the hysterics continued, and she managed to make her husband still think that they were due to her being about to become a mother. the worse her attacks were, the more devoted he became in his attention to her. at last he insisted that a doctor should see her. the doctor of course took in the situation at a glance, but said nothing to ernest except in such a guarded way that he did not understand the hints that were thrown out to him. he was much too downright and matter of fact to be quick at taking hints of this sort. he hoped that as soon as his wife's confinement was over she would regain her health and had no thought save how to spare her as far as possible till that happy time should come. in the mornings she was generally better, as long that is to say as ernest remained at home; but he had to go out buying, and on his return would generally find that she had had another attack as soon as he had left the house. at times she would laugh and cry for half an hour together, at others she would lie in a semi-comatose state upon the bed, and when he came back he would find that the shop had been neglected and all the work of the household left undone. still he took it for granted that this was all part of the usual course when women were going to become mothers, and when ellen's share of the work settled down more and more upon his own shoulders he did it all and drudged away without a murmur. nevertheless, he began to feel in a vague way more as he had felt in ashpit place, at roughborough, or at battersby, and to lose the buoyancy of spirits which had made another man of him during the first six months of his married life. it was not only that he had to do so much household work, for even the cooking, cleaning up slops, bed-making and fire-lighting ere long devolved upon him, but his business no longer prospered. he could buy as hitherto, but ellen seemed unable to sell as she had sold at first. the fact was that she sold as well as ever, but kept back part of the proceeds in order to buy gin, and she did this more and more till even the unsuspecting ernest ought to have seen that she was not telling the truth. when she sold better--that is to say when she did not think it safe to keep back more than a certain amount, she got money out of him on the plea that she had a longing for this or that, and that it would perhaps irreparably damage the baby if her longing was denied her. all seemed right, reasonable, and unavoidable, nevertheless ernest saw that until the confinement was over he was likely to have a hard time of it. all however would then come right again. chapter lxxv in the month of september a girl was born, and ernest was proud and happy. the birth of the child, and a rather alarming talk which the doctor had given to ellen sobered her for a few weeks, and it really seemed as though his hopes were about to be fulfilled. the expenses of his wife's confinement were heavy, and he was obliged to trench upon his savings, but he had no doubt about soon recouping this now that ellen was herself again; for a time indeed his business did revive a little, nevertheless it seemed as though the interruption to his prosperity had in some way broken the spell of good luck which had attended him in the outset; he was still sanguine, however, and worked night and day with a will, but there was no more music, or reading, or writing now. his sunday outings were put a stop to, and but for the first floor being let to myself, he would have lost his citadel there too, but he seldom used it, for ellen had to wait more and more upon the baby, and, as a consequence, ernest had to wait more and more upon ellen. one afternoon, about a couple of months after the baby had been born, and just as my unhappy hero was beginning to feel more hopeful and therefore better able to bear his burdens, he returned from a sale, and found ellen in the same hysterical condition that he had found her in in the spring. she said she was again with child, and ernest still believed her. all the troubles of the preceding six months began again then and there, and grew worse and worse continually. money did not come in quickly, for ellen cheated him by keeping it back, and dealing improperly with the goods he bought. when it did come in she got it out of him as before on pretexts which it seemed inhuman to inquire into. it was always the same story. by and by a new feature began to show itself. ernest had inherited his father's punctuality and exactness as regards money; he liked to know the worst of what he had to pay at once; he hated having expenses sprung upon him which if not foreseen might and ought to have been so, but now bills began to be brought to him for things ordered by ellen without his knowledge, or for which he had already given her the money. this was awful, and even ernest turned. when he remonstrated with her--not for having bought the things, but for having said nothing to him about the moneys being owing--ellen met him with hysteria and there was a scene. she had now pretty well forgotten the hard times she had known when she had been on her own resources and reproached him downright with having married her--on that moment the scales fell from ernest's eyes as they had fallen when towneley had said, "no, no, no." he said nothing, but he woke up once for all to the fact that he had made a mistake in marrying. a touch had again come which had revealed him to himself. he went upstairs to the disused citadel, flung himself into the arm-chair, and covered his face with his hands. he still did not know that his wife drank, but he could no longer trust her, and his dream of happiness was over. he had been saved from the church--so as by fire, but still saved--but what could now save him from his marriage? he had made the same mistake that he had made in wedding himself to the church, but with a hundred times worse results. he had learnt nothing by experience: he was an esau--one of those wretches whose hearts the lord had hardened, who, having ears, heard not, having eyes saw not, and who should find no place for repentance though they sought it even with tears. yet had he not on the whole tried to find out what the ways of god were, and to follow them in singleness of heart? to a certain extent, yes; but he had not been thorough; he had not given up all for god. he knew that very well he had done little as compared with what he might and ought to have done, but still if he was being punished for this, god was a hard taskmaster, and one, too, who was continually pouncing out upon his unhappy creatures from ambuscades. in marrying ellen he had meant to avoid a life of sin, and to take the course he believed to be moral and right. with his antecedents and surroundings it was the most natural thing in the world for him to have done, yet in what a frightful position had not his morality landed him. could any amount of immorality have placed him in a much worse one? what was morality worth if it was not that which on the whole brought a man peace at the last, and could anyone have reasonable certainty that marriage would do this? it seemed to him that in his attempt to be moral he had been following a devil which had disguised itself as an angel of light. but if so, what ground was there on which a man might rest the sole of his foot and tread in reasonable safety? he was still too young to reach the answer, "on common sense"--an answer which he would have felt to be unworthy of anyone who had an ideal standard. however this might be, it was plain that he had now done for himself. it had been thus with him all his life. if there had come at any time a gleam of sunshine and hope, it was to be obscured immediately--why, prison was happier than this! there, at any rate, he had had no money anxieties, and these were beginning to weigh upon him now with all their horrors. he was happier even now than he had been at battersby or at roughborough, and he would not now go back, even if he could, to his cambridge life, but for all that the outlook was so gloomy, in fact so hopeless, that he felt as if he could have only too gladly gone to sleep and died in his arm-chair once for all. as he was musing thus and looking upon the wreck of his hopes--for he saw well enough that as long as he was linked to ellen he should never rise as he had dreamed of doing--he heard a noise below, and presently a neighbour ran upstairs and entered his room hurriedly-- "good gracious, mr pontifex," she exclaimed, "for goodness' sake come down quickly and help. o mrs pontifex is took with the horrors--and she's orkard." the unhappy man came down as he was bid and found his wife mad with _delirium tremens_. he knew all now. the neighbours thought he must have known that his wife drank all along, but ellen had been so artful, and he so simple, that, as i have said, he had had no suspicion. "why," said the woman who had summoned him, "she'll drink anything she can stand up and pay her money for." ernest could hardly believe his ears, but when the doctor had seen his wife and she had become more quiet, he went over to the public house hard by and made enquiries, the result of which rendered further doubt impossible. the publican took the opportunity to present my hero with a bill of several pounds for bottles of spirits supplied to his wife, and what with his wife's confinement and the way business had fallen off, he had not the money to pay with, for the sum exceeded the remnant of his savings. he came to me--not for money, but to tell me his miserable story. i had seen for some time that there was something wrong, and had suspected pretty shrewdly what the matter was, but of course i said nothing. ernest and i had been growing apart for some time. i was vexed at his having married, and he knew i was vexed, though i did my best to hide it. a man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage--but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends. the rift in friendship which invariably makes its appearance on the marriage of either of the parties to it was fast widening, as it no less invariably does, into the great gulf which is fixed between the married and the unmarried, and i was beginning to leave my _protege_ to a fate with which i had neither right nor power to meddle. in fact i had begun to feel him rather a burden; i did not so much mind this when i could be of use, but i grudged it when i could be of none. he had made his bed and he must lie upon it. ernest had felt all this and had seldom come near me till now, one evening late in , he called on me, and with a very woebegone face told me his troubles. as soon as i found that he no longer liked his wife i forgave him at once, and was as much interested in him as ever. there is nothing an old bachelor likes better than to find a young married man who wishes he had not got married--especially when the case is such an extreme one that he need not pretend to hope that matters will come all right again, or encourage his young friend to make the best of it. i was myself in favour of a separation, and said i would make ellen an allowance myself--of course intending that it should come out of ernest's money; but he would not hear of this. he had married ellen, he said, and he must try to reform her. he hated it, but he must try; and finding him as usual very obstinate i was obliged to acquiesce, though with little confidence as to the result. i was vexed at seeing him waste himself upon such a barren task, and again began to feel him burdensome. i am afraid i showed this, for he again avoided me for some time, and, indeed, for many months i hardly saw him at all. ellen remained very ill for some days, and then gradually recovered. ernest hardly left her till she was out of danger. when she had recovered he got the doctor to tell her that if she had such another attack she would certainly die; this so frightened her that she took the pledge. then he became more hopeful again. when she was sober she was just what she was during the first days of her married life, and so quick was he to forget pain, that after a few days he was as fond of her as ever. but ellen could not forgive him for knowing what he did. she knew that he was on the watch to shield her from temptation, and though he did his best to make her think that he had no further uneasiness about her, she found the burden of her union with respectability grow more and more heavy upon her, and looked back more and more longingly upon the lawless freedom of the life she had led before she met her husband. i will dwell no longer on this part of my story. during the spring months of she kept straight--she had had her fling of dissipation, and this, together with the impression made upon her by her having taken the pledge, tamed her for a while. the shop went fairly well, and enabled ernest to make the two ends meet. in the spring and summer of he even put by a little money again. in the autumn his wife was confined of a boy--a very fine one, so everyone said. she soon recovered, and ernest was beginning to breathe freely and be almost sanguine when, without a word of warning, the storm broke again. he returned one afternoon about two years after his marriage, and found his wife lying upon the floor insensible. from this time he became hopeless, and began to go visibly down hill. he had been knocked about too much, and the luck had gone too long against him. the wear and tear of the last three years had told on him, and though not actually ill he was overworked, below par, and unfit for any further burden. he struggled for a while to prevent himself from finding this out, but facts were too strong for him. again he called on me and told me what had happened. i was glad the crisis had come; i was sorry for ellen, but a complete separation from her was the only chance for her husband. even after this last outbreak he was unwilling to consent to this, and talked nonsense about dying at his post, till i got tired of him. each time i saw him the old gloom had settled more and more deeply upon his face, and i had about made up my mind to put an end to the situation by a _coup de main_, such as bribing ellen to run away with somebody else, or something of that kind, when matters settled themselves as usual in a way which i had not anticipated. chapter lxxvi the winter had been a trying one. ernest had only paid his way by selling his piano. with this he seemed to cut away the last link that connected him with his earlier life, and to sink once for all into the small shop-keeper. it seemed to him that however low he might sink his pain could not last much longer, for he should simply die if it did. he hated ellen now, and the pair lived in open want of harmony with each other. if it had not been for his children, he would have left her and gone to america, but he could not leave the children with ellen, and as for taking them with him he did not know how to do it, nor what to do with them when he had got them to america. if he had not lost energy he would probably in the end have taken the children and gone off, but his nerve was shaken, so day after day went by and nothing was done. he had only got a few shillings in the world now, except the value of his stock, which was very little; he could get perhaps or pounds by selling his music and what few pictures and pieces of furniture still belonged to him. he thought of trying to live by his pen, but his writing had dropped off long ago; he no longer had an idea in his head. look which way he would he saw no hope; the end, if it had not actually come, was within easy distance and he was almost face to face with actual want. when he saw people going about poorly clad, or even without shoes and stockings, he wondered whether within a few months' time he too should not have to go about in this way. the remorseless, resistless hand of fate had caught him in its grip and was dragging him down, down, down. still he staggered on, going his daily rounds, buying second-hand clothes, and spending his evenings in cleaning and mending them. one morning, as he was returning from a house at the west end where he had bought some clothes from one of the servants, he was struck by a small crowd which had gathered round a space that had been railed off on the grass near one of the paths in the green park. it was a lovely soft spring morning at the end of march, and unusually balmy for the time of year; even ernest's melancholy was relieved for a while by the look of spring that pervaded earth and sky; but it soon returned, and smiling sadly he said to himself: "it may bring hope to others, but for me there can be no hope henceforth." as these words were in his mind he joined the small crowd who were gathered round the railings, and saw that they were looking at three sheep with very small lambs only a day or two old, which had been penned off for shelter and protection from the others that ranged the park. they were very pretty, and londoners so seldom get a chance of seeing lambs that it was no wonder every one stopped to look at them. ernest observed that no one seemed fonder of them than a great lubberly butcher boy, who leaned up against the railings with a tray of meat upon his shoulder. he was looking at this boy and smiling at the grotesqueness of his admiration, when he became aware that he was being watched intently by a man in coachman's livery, who had also stopped to admire the lambs, and was leaning against the opposite side of the enclosure. ernest knew him in a moment as john, his father's old coachman at battersby, and went up to him at once. "why, master ernest," said he, with his strong northern accent, "i was thinking of you only this very morning," and the pair shook hands heartily. john was in an excellent place at the west end. he had done very well, he said, ever since he had left battersby, except for the first year or two, and that, he said, with a screw of the face, had well nigh broke him. ernest asked how this was. "why, you see," said john, "i was always main fond of that lass ellen, whom you remember running after, master ernest, and giving your watch to. i expect you haven't forgotten that day, have you?" and here he laughed. "i don't know as i be the father of the child she carried away with her from battersby, but i very easily may have been. anyhow, after i had left your papa's place a few days i wrote to ellen to an address we had agreed upon, and told her i would do what i ought to do, and so i did, for i married her within a month afterwards. why, lord love the man, whatever is the matter with him?"--for as he had spoken the last few words of his story ernest had turned white as a sheet, and was leaning against the railings. "john," said my hero, gasping for breath, "are you sure of what you say--are you quite sure you really married her?" "of course i am," said john, "i married her before the registrar at letchbury on the th of august . "give me your arm," said ernest, "and take me into piccadilly, and put me into a cab, and come with me at once, if you can spare time, to mr overton's at the temple." chapter lxxvii i do not think ernest himself was much more pleased at finding that he had never been married than i was. to him, however, the shock of pleasure was positively numbing in its intensity. as he felt his burden removed, he reeled for the unaccustomed lightness of his movements; his position was so shattered that his identity seemed to have been shattered also; he was as one waking up from a horrible nightmare to find himself safe and sound in bed, but who can hardly even yet believe that the room is not full of armed men who are about to spring upon him. "and it is i," he said, "who not an hour ago complained that i was without hope. it is i, who for weeks have been railing at fortune, and saying that though she smiled on others she never smiled at me. why, never was anyone half so fortunate as i am." "yes," said i, "you have been inoculated for marriage, and have recovered." "and yet," he said, "i was very fond of her till she took to drinking." "perhaps; but is it not tennyson who has said: ''tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have lost at all'?" "you are an inveterate bachelor," was the rejoinder. then we had a long talk with john, to whom i gave a pound note upon the spot. he said, "ellen had used to drink at battersby; the cook had taught her; he had known it, but was so fond of her, that he had chanced it and married her to save her from the streets and in the hope of being able to keep her straight. she had done with him just as she had done with ernest--made him an excellent wife as long as she kept sober, but a very bad one afterwards." "there isn't," said john, "a sweeter-tempered, handier, prettier girl than she was in all england, nor one as knows better what a man likes, and how to make him happy, if you can keep her from drink; but you can't keep her; she's that artful she'll get it under your very eyes, without you knowing it. if she can't get any more of your things to pawn or sell, she'll steal her neighbours'. that's how she got into trouble first when i was with her. during the six months she was in prison i should have felt happy if i had not known she would come out again. and then she did come out, and before she had been free a fortnight, she began shop-lifting and going on the loose again--and all to get money to drink with. so seeing i could do nothing with her and that she was just a-killing of me, i left her, and came up to london, and went into service again, and i did not know what had become of her till you and mr ernest here told me. i hope you'll neither of you say you've seen me." we assured him we would keep his counsel, and then he left us, with many protestations of affection towards ernest, to whom he had been always much attached. we talked the situation over, and decided first to get the children away, and then to come to terms with ellen concerning their future custody; as for herself, i proposed that we should make her an allowance of, say, a pound a week to be paid so long as she gave no trouble. ernest did not see where the pound a week was to come from, so i eased his mind by saying i would pay it myself. before the day was two hours older we had got the children, about whom ellen had always appeared to be indifferent, and had confided them to the care of my laundress, a good motherly sort of woman, who took to them and to whom they took at once. then came the odious task of getting rid of their unhappy mother. ernest's heart smote him at the notion of the shock the break-up would be to her. he was always thinking that people had a claim upon him for some inestimable service they had rendered him, or for some irreparable mischief done to them by himself; the case however was so clear, that ernest's scruples did not offer serious resistance. i did not see why he should have the pain of another interview with his wife, so i got mr ottery to manage the whole business. it turned out that we need not have harrowed ourselves so much about the agony of mind which ellen would suffer on becoming an outcast again. ernest saw mrs richards, the neighbour who had called him down on the night when he had first discovered his wife's drunkenness, and got from her some details of ellen's opinions upon the matter. she did not seem in the least conscience-stricken; she said: "thank goodness, at last!" and although aware that her marriage was not a valid one, evidently regarded this as a mere detail which it would not be worth anybody's while to go into more particularly. as regards his breaking with her, she said it was a good job both for him and for her. "this life," she continued, "don't suit me. ernest is too good for me; he wants a woman as shall be a bit better than me, and i want a man that shall be a bit worse than him. we should have got on all very well if we had not lived together as married folks, but i've been used to have a little place of my own, however small, for a many years, and i don't want ernest, or any other man, always hanging about it. besides he is too steady: his being in prison hasn't done him a bit of good--he's just as grave as those as have never been in prison at all, and he never swears nor curses, come what may; it makes me afeared of him, and therefore i drink the worse. what us poor girls wants is not to be jumped up all of a sudden and made honest women of; this is too much for us and throws us off our perch; what we wants is a regular friend or two, who'll just keep us from starving, and force us to be good for a bit together now and again. that's about as much as we can stand. he may have the children; he can do better for them than i can; and as for his money, he may give it or keep it as he likes, he's never done me any harm, and i shall let him alone; but if he means me to have it, i suppose i'd better have it."--and have it she did. "and i," thought ernest to himself again when the arrangement was concluded, "am the man who thought himself unlucky!" i may as well say here all that need be said further about ellen. for the next three years she used to call regularly at mr ottery's every monday morning for her pound. she was always neatly dressed, and looked so quiet and pretty that no one would have suspected her antecedents. at first she wanted sometimes to anticipate, but after three or four ineffectual attempts--on each of which occasions she told a most pitiful story--she gave it up and took her money regularly without a word. once she came with a bad black eye, "which a boy had throwed a stone and hit her by mistake"; but on the whole she looked pretty much the same at the end of the three years as she had done at the beginning. then she explained that she was going to be married again. mr ottery saw her on this, and pointed out to her that she would very likely be again committing bigamy by doing so. "you may call it what you like," she replied, "but i am going off to america with bill the butcher's man, and we hope mr pontifex won't be too hard on us and stop the allowance." ernest was little likely to do this, so the pair went in peace. i believe it was bill who had blacked her eye, and she liked him all the better for it. from one or two little things i have been able to gather that the couple got on very well together, and that in bill she has found a partner better suited to her than either john or ernest. on his birthday ernest generally receives an envelope with an american post-mark containing a book-marker with a flaunting text upon it, or a moral kettle-holder, or some other similar small token of recognition, but no letter. of the children she has taken no notice. chapter lxxviii ernest was now well turned twenty-six years old, and in little more than another year and a half would come into possession of his money. i saw no reason for letting him have it earlier than the date fixed by miss pontifex herself; at the same time i did not like his continuing the shop at blackfriars after the present crisis. it was not till now that i fully understood how much he had suffered, nor how nearly his supposed wife's habits had brought him to actual want. i had indeed noted the old wan worn look settling upon his face, but was either too indolent or too hopeless of being able to sustain a protracted and successful warfare with ellen to extend the sympathy and make the inquiries which i suppose i ought to have made. and yet i hardly know what i could have done, for nothing short of his finding out what he had found out would have detached him from his wife, and nothing could do him much good as long as he continued to live with her. after all i suppose i was right; i suppose things did turn out all the better in the end for having been left to settle themselves--at any rate whether they did or did not, the whole thing was in too great a muddle for me to venture to tackle it so long as ellen was upon the scene; now, however, that she was removed, all my interest in my godson revived, and i turned over many times in my mind, what i had better do with him. it was now three and a half years since he had come up to london and begun to live, so to speak, upon his own account. of these years, six months had been spent as a clergyman, six months in gaol, and for two and a half years he had been acquiring twofold experience in the ways of business and of marriage. he had failed, i may say, in everything that he had undertaken, even as a prisoner; yet his defeats had been always, as it seemed to me, something so like victories, that i was satisfied of his being worth all the pains i could bestow upon him; my only fear was lest i should meddle with him when it might be better for him to be let alone. on the whole i concluded that a three and a half years' apprenticeship to a rough life was enough; the shop had done much for him; it had kept him going after a fashion, when he was in great need; it had thrown him upon his own resources, and taught him to see profitable openings all around him, where a few months before he would have seen nothing but insuperable difficulties; it had enlarged his sympathies by making him understand the lower classes, and not confining his view of life to that taken by gentlemen only. when he went about the streets and saw the books outside the second-hand book-stalls, the bric-a-brac in the curiosity shops, and the infinite commercial activity which is omnipresent around us, he understood it and sympathised with it as he could never have done if he had not kept a shop himself. he has often told me that when he used to travel on a railway that overlooked populous suburbs, and looked down upon street after street of dingy houses, he used to wonder what kind of people lived in them, what they did and felt, and how far it was like what he did and felt himself. now, he said he knew all about it. i am not very familiar with the writer of the odyssey (who, by the way, i suspect strongly of having been a clergyman), but he assuredly hit the right nail on the head when he epitomised his typical wise man as knowing "the ways and farings of many men." what culture is comparable to this? what a lie, what a sickly debilitating debauch did not ernest's school and university career now seem to him, in comparison with his life in prison and as a tailor in blackfriars. i have heard him say he would have gone through all he had suffered if it were only for the deeper insight it gave him into the spirit of the grecian and the surrey pantomimes. what confidence again in his own power to swim if thrown into deep waters had not he won through his experiences during the last three years! but, as i have said, i thought my godson had now seen as much of the under currents of life as was likely to be of use to him, and that it was time he began to live in a style more suitable to his prospects. his aunt had wished him to kiss the soil, and he had kissed it with a vengeance; but i did not like the notion of his coming suddenly from the position of a small shop-keeper to that of a man with an income of between three and four thousand a year. too sudden a jump from bad fortune to good is just as dangerous as one from good to bad; besides, poverty is very wearing; it is a quasi-embryonic condition, through which a man had better pass if he is to hold his later developments securely, but like measles or scarlet fever he had better have it mildly and get it over early. no man is safe from losing every penny he has in the world, unless he has had his facer. how often do i not hear middle-aged women and quiet family men say that they have no speculative tendency; _they_ never had touched, and never would touch, any but the very soundest, best reputed investments, and as for unlimited liability, oh dear! dear! and they throw up their hands and eyes. whenever a person is heard to talk thus he may be recognised as the easy prey of the first adventurer who comes across him; he will commonly, indeed, wind up his discourse by saying that in spite of all his natural caution, and his well knowing how foolish speculation is, yet there are some investments which are called speculative but in reality are not so, and he will pull out of his pocket the prospectus of a cornish gold mine. it is only on having actually lost money that one realises what an awful thing the loss of it is, and finds out how easily it is lost by those who venture out of the middle of the most beaten path. ernest had had his facer, as he had had his attack of poverty, young, and sufficiently badly for a sensible man to be little likely to forget it. i can fancy few pieces of good fortune greater than this as happening to any man, provided, of course, that he is not damaged irretrievably. so strongly do i feel on this subject that if i had my way i would have a speculation master attached to every school. the boys would be encouraged to read the _money market review_, the _railway news_, and all the best financial papers, and should establish a stock exchange amongst themselves in which pence should stand as pounds. then let them see how this making haste to get rich moneys out in actual practice. there might be a prize awarded by the head-master to the most prudent dealer, and the boys who lost their money time after time should be dismissed. of course if any boy proved to have a genius for speculation and made money--well and good, let him speculate by all means. if universities were not the worst teachers in the world i should like to see professorships of speculation established at oxford and cambridge. when i reflect, however, that the only things worth doing which oxford and cambridge can do well are cooking, cricket, rowing and games, of which there is no professorship, i fear that the establishment of a professorial chair would end in teaching young men neither how to speculate, nor how not to speculate, but would simply turn them out as bad speculators. i heard of one case in which a father actually carried my idea into practice. he wanted his son to learn how little confidence was to be placed in glowing prospectuses and flaming articles, and found him five hundred pounds which he was to invest according to his lights. the father expected he would lose the money; but it did not turn out so in practice, for the boy took so much pains and played so cautiously that the money kept growing and growing till the father took it away again, increment and all--as he was pleased to say, in self defence. i had made my own mistakes with money about the year , when everyone else was making them. for a few years i had been so scared and had suffered so severely, that when (owing to the good advice of the broker who had advised my father and grandfather before me) i came out in the end a winner and not a loser, i played no more pranks, but kept henceforward as nearly in the middle of the middle rut as i could. i tried in fact to keep my money rather than to make more of it. i had done with ernest's money as with my own--that is to say i had let it alone after investing it in midland ordinary stock according to miss pontifex's instructions. no amount of trouble would have been likely to have increased my godson's estate one half so much as it had increased without my taking any trouble at all. midland stock at the end of august , when i sold out miss pontifex's debentures, stood at pounds per pounds. i invested the whole of ernest's , pounds at this price, and did not change the investment till a few months before the time of which i have been writing lately--that is to say until september . i then sold at pounds per share and invested in london and north-western ordinary stock, which i was advised was more likely to rise than midlands now were. i bought the london and north-western stock at pounds per pounds, and my godson now in still holds it. the original , pounds had increased in eleven years to over , pounds; the accumulated interest, which, of course, i had re-invested, had come to about , pounds more, so that ernest was then worth over , pounds. at present he is worth nearly double that sum, and all as the result of leaving well alone. large as his property now was, it ought to be increased still further during the year and a half that remained of his minority, so that on coming of age he ought to have an income of at least pounds a year. i wished him to understand book-keeping by double entry. i had myself as a young man been compelled to master this not very difficult art; having acquired it, i have become enamoured of it, and consider it the most necessary branch of any young man's education after reading and writing. i was determined, therefore, that ernest should master it, and proposed that he should become my steward, book-keeper, and the manager of my hoardings, for so i called the sum which my ledger showed to have accumulated from , to , pounds. i told him i was going to begin to spend the income as soon as it had amounted up to , pounds. a few days after ernest's discovery that he was still a bachelor, while he was still at the very beginning of the honeymoon, as it were, of his renewed unmarried life, i broached my scheme, desired him to give up his shop, and offered him pounds a year for managing (so far indeed as it required any managing) his own property. this pounds a year, i need hardly say, i made him charge to the estate. if anything had been wanting to complete his happiness it was this. here, within three or four days he found himself freed from one of the most hideous, hopeless _liaisons_ imaginable, and at the same time raised from a life of almost squalor to the enjoyment of what would to him be a handsome income. "a pound a week," he thought, "for ellen, and the rest for myself." "no," said i, "we will charge ellen's pound a week to the estate also. you must have a clear pounds for yourself." i fixed upon this sum, because it was the one which mr disraeli gave coningsby when coningsby was at the lowest ebb of his fortunes. mr disraeli evidently thought pounds a year the smallest sum on which coningsby could be expected to live, and make the two ends meet; with this, however, he thought his hero could manage to get along for a year or two. in , of which i am now writing, prices had risen, though not so much as they have since done; on the other hand ernest had had less expensive antecedents than coningsby, so on the whole i thought pounds a year would be about the right thing for him. chapter lxxix the question now arose what was to be done with the children. i explained to ernest that their expenses must be charged to the estate, and showed him how small a hole all the various items i proposed to charge would make in the income at my disposal. he was beginning to make difficulties, when i quieted him by pointing out that the money had all come to me from his aunt, over his own head, and reminded him there had been an understanding between her and me that i should do much as i was doing, if occasion should arise. he wanted his children to be brought up in the fresh pure air, and among other children who were happy and contented; but being still ignorant of the fortune that awaited him, he insisted that they should pass their earlier years among the poor rather than the rich. i remonstrated, but he was very decided about it; and when i reflected that they were illegitimate, i was not sure but that what ernest proposed might be as well for everyone in the end. they were still so young that it did not much matter where they were, so long as they were with kindly decent people, and in a healthy neighbourhood. "i shall be just as unkind to my children," he said, "as my grandfather was to my father, or my father to me. if they did not succeed in making their children love them, neither shall i. i say to myself that i should like to do so, but so did they. i can make sure that they shall not know how much they would have hated me if they had had much to do with me, but this is all i can do. if i must ruin their prospects, let me do so at a reasonable time before they are old enough to feel it." he mused a little and added with a laugh:-- "a man first quarrels with his father about three-quarters of a year before he is born. it is then he insists on setting up a separate establishment; when this has been once agreed to, the more complete the separation for ever after the better for both." then he said more seriously: "i want to put the children where they will be well and happy, and where they will not be betrayed into the misery of false expectations." in the end he remembered that on his sunday walks he had more than once seen a couple who lived on the waterside a few miles below gravesend, just where the sea was beginning, and who he thought would do. they had a family of their own fast coming on and the children seemed to thrive; both father and mother indeed were comfortable well grown folks, in whose hands young people would be likely to have as fair a chance of coming to a good development as in those of any whom he knew. we went down to see this couple, and as i thought no less well of them than ernest did, we offered them a pound a week to take the children and bring them up as though they were their own. they jumped at the offer, and in another day or two we brought the children down and left them, feeling that we had done as well as we could by them, at any rate for the present. then ernest sent his small stock of goods to debenham's, gave up the house he had taken two and a half years previously, and returned to civilisation. i had expected that he would now rapidly recover, and was disappointed to see him get as i thought decidedly worse. indeed, before long i thought him looking so ill that i insisted on his going with me to consult one of the most eminent doctors in london. this gentleman said there was no acute disease but that my young friend was suffering from nervous prostration, the result of long and severe mental suffering, from which there was no remedy except time, prosperity and rest. he said that ernest must have broken down later on, but that he might have gone on for some months yet. it was the suddenness of the relief from tension which had knocked him over now. "cross him," said the doctor, "at once. crossing is the great medical discovery of the age. shake him out of himself by shaking something else into him." i had not told him that money was no object to us and i think he had reckoned me up as not over rich. he continued:-- "seeing is a mode of touching, touching is a mode of feeding, feeding is a mode of assimilation, assimilation is a mode of recreation and reproduction, and this is crossing--shaking yourself into something else and something else into you." he spoke laughingly, but it was plain he was serious. he continued:-- "people are always coming to me who want crossing, or change, if you prefer it, and who i know have not money enough to let them get away from london. this has set me thinking how i can best cross them even if they cannot leave home, and i have made a list of cheap london amusements which i recommend to my patients; none of them cost more than a few shillings or take more than half a day or a day." i explained that there was no occasion to consider money in this case. "i am glad of it," he said, still laughing. "the homoeopathists use _aurum_ as a medicine, but they do not give it in large doses enough; if you can dose your young friend with this pretty freely you will soon bring him round. however, mr pontifex is not well enough to stand so great a change as going abroad yet; from what you tell me i should think he had had as much change lately as is good for him. if he were to go abroad now he would probably be taken seriously ill within a week. we must wait till he has recovered tone a little more. i will begin by ringing my london changes on him." he thought a little and then said:-- "i have found the zoological gardens of service to many of my patients. i should prescribe for mr pontifex a course of the larger mammals. don't let him think he is taking them medicinally, but let him go to their house twice a week for a fortnight, and stay with the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, and the elephants, till they begin to bore him. i find these beasts do my patients more good than any others. the monkeys are not a wide enough cross; they do not stimulate sufficiently. the larger carnivora are unsympathetic. the reptiles are worse than useless, and the marsupials are not much better. birds again, except parrots, are not very beneficial; he may look at them now and again, but with the elephants and the pig tribe generally he should mix just now as freely as possible. "then, you know, to prevent monotony i should send him, say, to morning service at the abbey before he goes. he need not stay longer than the _te deum_. i don't know why, but _jubilates_ are seldom satisfactory. just let him look in at the abbey, and sit quietly in poets' corner till the main part of the music is over. let him do this two or three times, not more, before he goes to the zoo. "then next day send him down to gravesend by boat. by all means let him go to the theatres in the evenings--and then let him come to me again in a fortnight." had the doctor been less eminent in his profession i should have doubted whether he was in earnest, but i knew him to be a man of business who would neither waste his own time nor that of his patients. as soon as we were out of the house we took a cab to regent's park, and spent a couple of hours in sauntering round the different houses. perhaps it was on account of what the doctor had told me, but i certainly became aware of a feeling i had never experienced before. i mean that i was receiving an influx of new life, or deriving new ways of looking at life--which is the same thing--by the process. i found the doctor quite right in his estimate of the larger mammals as the ones which on the whole were most beneficial, and observed that ernest, who had heard nothing of what the doctor had said to me, lingered instinctively in front of them. as for the elephants, especially the baby elephant, he seemed to be drinking in large draughts of their lives to the re-creation and regeneration of his own. we dined in the gardens, and i noticed with pleasure that ernest's appetite was already improved. since this time, whenever i have been a little out of sorts myself i have at once gone up to regent's park, and have invariably been benefited. i mention this here in the hope that some one or other of my readers may find the hint a useful one. at the end of his fortnight my hero was much better, more so even than our friend the doctor had expected. "now," he said, "mr pontifex may go abroad, and the sooner the better. let him stay a couple of months." this was the first ernest had heard about his going abroad, and he talked about my not being able to spare him for so long. i soon made this all right. "it is now the beginning of april," said i, "go down to marseilles at once, and take steamer to nice. then saunter down the riviera to genoa--from genoa go to florence, rome and naples, and come home by way of venice and the italian lakes." "and won't you come too?" said he, eagerly. i said i did not mind if i did, so we began to make our arrangements next morning, and completed them within a very few days. chapter lxxx we left by the night mail, crossing from dover. the night was soft, and there was a bright moon upon the sea. "don't you love the smell of grease about the engine of a channel steamer? isn't there a lot of hope in it?" said ernest to me, for he had been to normandy one summer as a boy with his father and mother, and the smell carried him back to days before those in which he had begun to bruise himself against the great outside world. "i always think one of the best parts of going abroad is the first thud of the piston, and the first gurgling of the water when the paddle begins to strike it." it was very dreamy getting out at calais, and trudging about with luggage in a foreign town at an hour when we were generally both of us in bed and fast asleep, but we settled down to sleep as soon as we got into the railway carriage, and dozed till we had passed amiens. then waking when the first signs of morning crispness were beginning to show themselves, i saw that ernest was already devouring every object we passed with quick sympathetic curiousness. there was not a peasant in a blouse driving his cart betimes along the road to market, not a signalman's wife in her husband's hat and coat waving a green flag, not a shepherd taking out his sheep to the dewy pastures, not a bank of opening cowslips as we passed through the railway cuttings, but he was drinking it all in with an enjoyment too deep for words. the name of the engine that drew us was mozart, and ernest liked this too. we reached paris by six, and had just time to get across the town and take a morning express train to marseilles, but before noon my young friend was tired out and had resigned himself to a series of sleeps which were seldom intermitted for more than an hour or so together. he fought against this for a time, but in the end consoled himself by saying it was so nice to have so much pleasure that he could afford to throw a lot of it away. having found a theory on which to justify himself, he slept in peace. at marseilles we rested, and there the excitement of the change proved, as i had half feared it would, too much for my godson's still enfeebled state. for a few days he was really ill, but after this he righted. for my own part i reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better. i remember being ill once in a foreign hotel myself and how much i enjoyed it. to lie there careless of everything, quiet and warm, and with no weight upon the mind, to hear the clinking of the plates in the far-off kitchen as the scullion rinsed them and put them by; to watch the soft shadows come and go upon the ceiling as the sun came out or went behind a cloud; to listen to the pleasant murmuring of the fountain in the court below, and the shaking of the bells on the horses' collars and the clink of their hoofs upon the ground as the flies plagued them; not only to be a lotus-eater but to know that it was one's duty to be a lotus- eater. "oh," i thought to myself, "if i could only now, having so forgotten care, drop off to sleep for ever, would not this be a better piece of fortune than any i can ever hope for?" of course it would, but we would not take it though it were offered us. no matter what evil may befall us, we will mostly abide by it and see it out. i could see that ernest felt much as i had felt myself. he said little, but noted everything. once only did he frighten me. he called me to his bedside just as it was getting dusk and said in a grave, quiet manner that he should like to speak to me. "i have been thinking," he said, "that i may perhaps never recover from this illness, and in case i do not i should like you to know that there is only one thing which weighs upon me. i refer," he continued after a slight pause, "to my conduct towards my father and mother. i have been much too good to them. i treated them much too considerately," on which he broke into a smile which assured me that there was nothing seriously amiss with him. on the walls of his bedroom were a series of french revolution prints representing events in the life of lycurgus. there was "grandeur d'ame de lycurgue," and "lycurgue consulte l'oracle," and then there was "calciope a la cour." under this was written in french and spanish: "modele de grace et de beaute, la jeune calciope non moins sage que belle avait merite l'estime et l'attachement du vertueux lycurgue. vivement epris de tant de charmes, l'illustre philosophe la conduisait dans le temple de junon, ou ils s'unirent par un serment sacre. apres cette auguste ceremonie, lycurgue s'empressa de conduire sa jeune epouse au palais de son frere polydecte, roi de lacedemon. seigneur, lui dit-il, la vertueuse calciope vient de recevoir mes voeux aux pieds des autels, j'ose vous prier d'approuver cette union. le roi temoigna d'abord quelque surprise, mais l'estime qu'il avait pour son frere lui inspira une reponse pleine de beinveillance. il s'approcha aussitot de calciope qu'il embrassa tendrement, combla ensuite lycurgue de prevenances et parut tres satisfait." he called my attention to this and then said somewhat timidly that he would rather have married ellen than calciope. i saw he was hardening and made no hesitation about proposing that in another day or two we should proceed upon our journey. i will not weary the reader by taking him with us over beaten ground. we stopped at siena, cortona, orvieto, perugia and many other cities, and then after a fortnight passed between rome and naples went to the venetian provinces and visited all those wondrous towns that lie between the southern slopes of the alps and the northern ones of the apennines, coming back at last by the s. gothard. i doubt whether he had enjoyed the trip more than i did myself, but it was not till we were on the point of returning that ernest had recovered strength enough to be called fairly well, and it was not for many months that he so completely lost all sense of the wounds which the last four years had inflicted on him as to feel as though there were a scar and a scar only remaining. they say that when people have lost an arm or a foot they feel pains in it now and again for a long while after they have lost it. one pain which he had almost forgotten came upon him on his return to england, i mean the sting of his having been imprisoned. as long as he was only a small shop-keeper his imprisonment mattered nothing; nobody knew of it, and if they had known they would not have cared; now, however, though he was returning to his old position he was returning to it disgraced, and the pain from which he had been saved in the first instance by surroundings so new that he had hardly recognised his own identity in the middle of them, came on him as from a wound inflicted yesterday. he thought of the high resolves which he had made in prison about using his disgrace as a vantage ground of strength rather than trying to make people forget it. "that was all very well then," he thought to himself, "when the grapes were beyond my reach, but now it is different." besides, who but a prig would set himself high aims, or make high resolves at all? some of his old friends, on learning that he had got rid of his supposed wife and was now comfortably off again, wanted to renew their acquaintance; he was grateful to them and sometimes tried to meet their advances half way, but it did not do, and ere long he shrank back into himself, pretending not to know them. an infernal demon of honesty haunted him which made him say to himself: "these men know a great deal, but do not know all--if they did they would cut me--and therefore i have no right to their acquaintance." he thought that everyone except himself was _sans peur et sans reproche_. of course they must be, for if they had not been, would they not have been bound to warn all who had anything to do with them of their deficiencies? well, he could not do this, and he would not have people's acquaintance under false pretences, so he gave up even hankering after rehabilitation and fell back upon his old tastes for music and literature. of course he has long since found out how silly all this was, how silly i mean in theory, for in practice it worked better than it ought to have done, by keeping him free from _liaisons_ which would have tied his tongue and made him see success elsewhere than where he came in time to see it. he did what he did instinctively and for no other reason than because it was most natural to him. so far as he thought at all, he thought wrong, but what he did was right. i said something of this kind to him once not so very long ago, and told him he had always aimed high. "i never aimed at all," he replied a little indignantly, "and you may be sure i should have aimed low enough if i had thought i had got the chance." i suppose after all that no one whose mind was not, to put it mildly, abnormal, ever yet aimed very high out of pure malice aforethought. i once saw a fly alight on a cup of hot coffee on which the milk had formed a thin skin; he perceived his extreme danger, and i noted with what ample strides and almost supermuscan effort he struck across the treacherous surface and made for the edge of the cup--for the ground was not solid enough to let him raise himself from it by his wings. as i watched him i fancied that so supreme a moment of difficulty and danger might leave him with an increase of moral and physical power which might even descend in some measure to his offspring. but surely he would not have got the increased moral power if he could have helped it, and he will not knowingly alight upon another cup of hot coffee. the more i see the more sure i am that it does not matter why people do the right thing so long only as they do it, nor why they may have done the wrong if they have done it. the result depends upon the thing done and the motive goes for nothing. i have read somewhere, but cannot remember where, that in some country district there was once a great scarcity of food, during which the poor suffered acutely; many indeed actually died of starvation, and all were hard put to it. in one village, however, there was a poor widow with a family of young children, who, though she had small visible means of subsistence, still looked well-fed and comfortable, as also did all her little ones. "how," everyone asked, "did they manage to live?" it was plain they had a secret, and it was equally plain that it could be no good one; for there came a hurried, hunted look over the poor woman's face if anyone alluded to the way in which she and hers throve when others starved; the family, moreover, were sometimes seen out at unusual hours of the night, and evidently brought things home, which could hardly have been honestly come by. they knew they were under suspicion, and, being hitherto of excellent name, it made them very unhappy, for it must be confessed that they believed what they did to be uncanny if not absolutely wicked; nevertheless, in spite of this they throve, and kept their strength when all their neighbours were pinched. at length matters came to a head and the clergyman of the parish cross- questioned the poor woman so closely that with many tears and a bitter sense of degradation she confessed the truth; she and her children went into the hedges and gathered snails, which they made into broth and ate--could she ever be forgiven? was there any hope of salvation for her either in this world or the next after such unnatural conduct? so again i have heard of an old dowager countess whose money was all in consols; she had had many sons, and in her anxiety to give the younger ones a good start, wanted a larger income than consols would give her. she consulted her solicitor and was advised to sell her consols and invest in the london and north-western railway, then at about . this was to her what eating snails was to the poor widow whose story i have told above. with shame and grief, as of one doing an unclean thing--but her boys must have their start--she did as she was advised. then for a long while she could not sleep at night and was haunted by a presage of disaster. yet what happened? she started her boys, and in a few years found her capital doubled into the bargain, on which she sold out and went back again to consols and died in the full blessedness of fund-holding. she thought, indeed, that she was doing a wrong and dangerous thing, but this had absolutely nothing to do with it. suppose she had invested in the full confidence of a recommendation by some eminent london banker whose advice was bad, and so had lost all her money, and suppose she had done this with a light heart and with no conviction of sin--would her innocence of evil purpose and the excellence of her motive have stood her in any stead? not they. but to return to my story. towneley gave my hero most trouble. towneley, as i have said, knew that ernest would have money soon, but ernest did not of course know that he knew it. towneley was rich himself, and was married now; ernest would be rich soon, had _bona fide_ intended to be married already, and would doubtless marry a lawful wife later on. such a man was worth taking pains with, and when towneley one day met ernest in the street, and ernest tried to avoid him, towneley would not have it, but with his usual quick good nature read his thoughts, caught him, morally speaking, by the scruff of his neck, and turned him laughingly inside out, telling him he would have no such nonsense. towneley was just as much ernest's idol now as he had ever been, and ernest, who was very easily touched, felt more gratefully and warmly than ever towards him, but there was an unconscious something which was stronger than towneley, and made my hero determine to break with him more determinedly perhaps than with any other living person; he thanked him in a low hurried voice and pressed his hand, while tears came into his eyes in spite of all his efforts to repress them. "if we meet again," he said, "do not look at me, but if hereafter you hear of me writing things you do not like, think of me as charitably as you can," and so they parted. "towneley is a good fellow," said i, gravely, "and you should not have cut him." "towneley," he answered, "is not only a good fellow, but he is without exception the very best man i ever saw in my life--except," he paid me the compliment of saying, "yourself; towneley is my notion of everything which i should most like to be--but there is no real solidarity between us. i should be in perpetual fear of losing his good opinion if i said things he did not like, and i mean to say a great many things," he continued more merrily, "which towneley will not like." a man, as i have said already, can give up father and mother for christ's sake tolerably easily for the most part, but it is not so easy to give up people like towneley. chapter lxxxi so he fell away from all old friends except myself and three or four old intimates of my own, who were as sure to take to him as he to them, and who like myself enjoyed getting hold of a young fresh mind. ernest attended to the keeping of my account books whenever there was anything which could possibly be attended to, which there seldom was, and spent the greater part of the rest of his time in adding to the many notes and tentative essays which had already accumulated in his portfolios. anyone who was used to writing could see at a glance that literature was his natural development, and i was pleased at seeing him settle down to it so spontaneously. i was less pleased, however, to observe that he would still occupy himself with none but the most serious, i had almost said solemn, subjects, just as he never cared about any but the most serious kind of music. i said to him one day that the very slender reward which god had attached to the pursuit of serious inquiry was a sufficient proof that he disapproved of it, or at any rate that he did not set much store by it nor wish to encourage it. he said: "oh, don't talk about rewards. look at milton, who only got pounds for 'paradise lost.'" "and a great deal too much," i rejoined promptly. "i would have given him twice as much myself not to have written it at all." ernest was a little shocked. "at any rate," he said laughingly, "i don't write poetry." this was a cut at me, for my burlesques were, of course, written in rhyme. so i dropped the matter. after a time he took it into his head to reopen the question of his getting pounds a year for doing, as he said, absolutely nothing, and said he would try to find some employment which should bring him in enough to live upon. i laughed at this but let him alone. he tried and tried very hard for a long while, but i need hardly say was unsuccessful. the older i grow, the more convinced i become of the folly and credulity of the public; but at the same time the harder do i see it is to impose oneself upon that folly and credulity. he tried editor after editor with article after article. sometimes an editor listened to him and told him to leave his articles; he almost invariably, however, had them returned to him in the end with a polite note saying that they were not suited for the particular paper to which he had sent them. and yet many of these very articles appeared in his later works, and no one complained of them, not at least on the score of bad literary workmanship. "i see," he said to me one day, "that demand is very imperious, and supply must be very suppliant." once, indeed, the editor of an important monthly magazine accepted an article from him, and he thought he had now got a footing in the literary world. the article was to appear in the next issue but one, and he was to receive proof from the printers in about ten days or a fortnight; but week after week passed and there was no proof; month after month went by and there was still no room for ernest's article; at length after about six months the editor one morning told him that he had filled every number of his review for the next ten months, but that his article should definitely appear. on this he insisted on having his ms. returned to him. sometimes his articles were actually published, and he found the editor had edited them according to his own fancy, putting in jokes which he thought were funny, or cutting out the very passage which ernest had considered the point of the whole thing, and then, though the articles appeared, when it came to paying for them it was another matter, and he never saw his money. "editors," he said to me one day about this time, "are like the people who bought and sold in the book of revelation; there is not one but has the mark of the beast upon him." at last after months of disappointment and many a tedious hour wasted in dingy anterooms (and of all anterooms those of editors appear to me to be the dreariest), he got a _bona fide_ offer of employment from one of the first class weekly papers through an introduction i was able to get for him from one who had powerful influence with the paper in question. the editor sent him a dozen long books upon varied and difficult subjects, and told him to review them in a single article within a week. in one book there was an editorial note to the effect that the writer was to be condemned. ernest particularly admired the book he was desired to condemn, and feeling how hopeless it was for him to do anything like justice to the books submitted to him, returned them to the editor. at last one paper did actually take a dozen or so of articles from him, and gave him cash down a couple of guineas apiece for them, but having done this it expired within a fortnight after the last of ernest's articles had appeared. it certainly looked very much as if the other editors knew their business in declining to have anything to do with my unlucky godson. i was not sorry that he failed with periodical literature, for writing for reviews or newspapers is bad training for one who may aspire to write works of more permanent interest. a young writer should have more time for reflection than he can get as a contributor to the daily or even weekly press. ernest himself, however, was chagrined at finding how unmarketable he was. "why," he said to me, "if i was a well-bred horse, or sheep, or a pure-bred pigeon or lop-eared rabbit i should be more saleable. if i was even a cathedral in a colonial town people would give me something, but as it is they do not want me"; and now that he was well and rested he wanted to set up a shop again, but this, of course, i would not hear of. "what care i," said he to me one day, "about being what they call a gentleman?" and his manner was almost fierce. "what has being a gentleman ever done for me except make me less able to prey and more easy to be preyed upon? it has changed the manner of my being swindled, that is all. but for your kindness to me i should be penniless. thank heaven i have placed my children where i have." i begged him to keep quiet a little longer and not talk about taking a shop. "will being a gentleman," he said, "bring me money at the last, and will anything bring me as much peace at the last as money will? they say that those who have riches enter hardly into the kingdom of heaven. by jove, they do; they are like struldbrugs; they live and live and live and are happy for many a long year after they would have entered into the kingdom of heaven if they had been poor. i want to live long and to raise my children, if i see they would be happier for the raising; that is what i want, and it is not what i am doing now that will help me. being a gentleman is a luxury which i cannot afford, therefore i do not want it. let me go back to my shop again, and do things for people which they want done and will pay me for doing for them. they know what they want and what is good for them better than i can tell them." it was hard to deny the soundness of this, and if he had been dependent only on the pounds a year which he was getting from me i should have advised him to open his shop again next morning. as it was, i temporised and raised obstacles, and quieted him from time to time as best i could. of course he read mr darwin's books as fast as they came out and adopted evolution as an article of faith. "it seems to me," he said once, "that i am like one of those caterpillars which, if they have been interrupted in making their hammock, must begin again from the beginning. so long as i went back a long way down in the social scale i got on all right, and should have made money but for ellen; when i try to take up the work at a higher stage i fail completely." i do not know whether the analogy holds good or not, but i am sure ernest's instinct was right in telling him that after a heavy fall he had better begin life again at a very low stage, and as i have just said, i would have let him go back to his shop if i had not known what i did. as the time fixed upon by his aunt drew nearer i prepared him more and more for what was coming, and at last, on his twenty-eighth birthday, i was able to tell him all and to show him the letter signed by his aunt upon her death-bed to the effect that i was to hold the money in trust for him. his birthday happened that year ( ) to be on a sunday, but on the following day i transferred his shares into his own name, and presented him with the account books which he had been keeping for the last year and a half. in spite of all that i had done to prepare him, it was a long while before i could get him actually to believe that the money was his own. he did not say much--no more did i, for i am not sure that i did not feel as much moved at having brought my long trusteeship to a satisfactory conclusion as ernest did at finding himself owner of more than , pounds. when he did speak it was to jerk out a sentence or two of reflection at a time. "if i were rendering this moment in music," he said, "i should allow myself free use of the augmented sixth." a little later i remember his saying with a laugh that had something of a family likeness to his aunt's: "it is not the pleasure it causes me which i enjoy so, it is the pain it will cause to all my friends except yourself and towneley." i said: "you cannot tell your father and mother--it would drive them mad." "no, no, no," said he, "it would be too cruel; it would be like isaac offering up abraham and no thicket with a ram in it near at hand. besides why should i? we have cut each other these four years." chapter lxxxii it almost seemed as though our casual mention of theobald and christina had in some way excited them from a dormant to an active state. during the years that had elapsed since they last appeared upon the scene they had remained at battersby, and had concentrated their affection upon their other children. it had been a bitter pill to theobald to lose his power of plaguing his first-born; if the truth were known i believe he had felt this more acutely than any disgrace which might have been shed upon him by ernest's imprisonment. he had made one or two attempts to reopen negotiations through me, but i never said anything about them to ernest, for i knew it would upset him. i wrote, however, to theobald that i had found his son inexorable, and recommended him for the present, at any rate, to desist from returning to the subject. this i thought would be at once what ernest would like best and theobald least. a few days, however, after ernest had come into his property, i received a letter from theobald enclosing one for ernest which i could not withhold. the letter ran thus:-- "to my son ernest,--although you have more than once rejected my overtures i appeal yet again to your better nature. your mother, who has long been ailing, is, i believe, near her end; she is unable to keep anything on her stomach, and dr martin holds out but little hopes of her recovery. she has expressed a wish to see you, and says she knows you will not refuse to come to her, which, considering her condition, i am unwilling to suppose you will. "i remit you a post office order for your fare, and will pay your return journey. "if you want clothes to come in, order what you consider suitable, and desire that the bill be sent to me; i will pay it immediately, to an amount not exceeding eight or nine pounds, and if you will let me know what train you will come by, i will send the carriage to meet you. believe me, your affectionate father, t. pontifex." of course there could be no hesitation on ernest's part. he could afford to smile now at his father's offering to pay for his clothes, and his sending him a post office order for the exact price of a second-class ticket, and he was of course shocked at learning the state his mother was said to be in, and touched at her desire to see him. he telegraphed that he would come down at once. i saw him a little before he started, and was pleased to see how well his tailor had done by him. towneley himself could not have been appointed more becomingly. his portmanteau, his railway wrapper, everything he had about him, was in keeping. i thought he had grown much better-looking than he had been at two or three and twenty. his year and a half of peace had effaced all the ill effects of his previous suffering, and now that he had become actually rich there was an air of _insouciance_ and good humour upon his face, as of a man with whom everything was going perfectly right, which would have made a much plainer man good-looking. i was proud of him and delighted with him. "i am sure," i said to myself, "that whatever else he may do, he will never marry again." the journey was a painful one. as he drew near to the station and caught sight of each familiar feature, so strong was the force of association that he felt as though his coming into his aunt's money had been a dream, and he were again returning to his father's house as he had returned to it from cambridge for the vacations. do what he would, the old dull weight of _home-sickness_ began to oppress him, his heart beat fast as he thought of his approaching meeting with his father and mother, "and i shall have," he said to himself, "to kiss charlotte." would his father meet him at the station? would he greet him as though nothing had happened, or would he be cold and distant? how, again, would he take the news of his son's good fortune? as the train drew up to the platform, ernest's eye ran hurriedly over the few people who were in the station. his father's well-known form was not among them, but on the other side of the palings which divided the station yard from the platform, he saw the pony carriage, looking, as he thought, rather shabby, and recognised his father's coachman. in a few minutes more he was in the carriage driving towards battersby. he could not help smiling as he saw the coachman give a look of surprise at finding him so much changed in personal appearance. the coachman was the more surprised because when ernest had last been at home he had been dressed as a clergyman, and now he was not only a layman, but a layman who was got up regardless of expense. the change was so great that it was not till ernest actually spoke to him that the coachman knew him. "how are my father and mother?" he asked hurriedly, as he got into the carriage. "the master's well, sir," was the answer, "but the missis is very sadly." the horse knew that he was going home and pulled hard at the reins. the weather was cold and raw--the very ideal of a november day; in one part of the road the floods were out, and near here they had to pass through a number of horsemen and dogs, for the hounds had met that morning at a place near battersby. ernest saw several people whom he knew, but they either, as is most likely, did not recognise him, or did not know of his good luck. when battersby church tower drew near, and he saw the rectory on the top of the hill, its chimneys just showing above the leafless trees with which it was surrounded, he threw himself back in the carriage and covered his face with his hands. it came to an end, as even the worst quarters of an hour do, and in a few minutes more he was on the steps in front of his father's house. his father, hearing the carriage arrive, came a little way down the steps to meet him. like the coachman he saw at a glance that ernest was appointed as though money were abundant with him, and that he was looking robust and full of health and vigour. this was not what he had bargained for. he wanted ernest to return, but he was to return as any respectable, well-regulated prodigal ought to return--abject, broken-hearted, asking forgiveness from the tenderest and most long-suffering father in the whole world. if he should have shoes and stockings and whole clothes at all, it should be only because absolute rags and tatters had been graciously dispensed with, whereas here he was swaggering in a grey ulster and a blue and white necktie, and looking better than theobald had ever seen him in his life. it was unprincipled. was it for this that he had been generous enough to offer to provide ernest with decent clothes in which to come and visit his mother's death-bed? could any advantage be meaner than the one which ernest had taken? well, he would not go a penny beyond the eight or nine pounds which he had promised. it was fortunate he had given a limit. why he, theobald, had never been able to afford such a portmanteau in his life. he was still using an old one which his father had turned over to him when he went up to cambridge. besides, he had said clothes, not a portmanteau. ernest saw what was passing through his father's mind, and felt that he ought to have prepared him in some way for what he now saw; but he had sent his telegram so immediately on receiving his father's letter, and had followed it so promptly that it would not have been easy to do so even if he had thought of it. he put out his hand and said laughingly, "oh, it's all paid for--i am afraid you do not know that mr overton has handed over to me aunt alethea's money." theobald flushed scarlet. "but why," he said, and these were the first words that actually crossed his lips--"if the money was not his to keep, did he not hand it over to my brother john and me?" he stammered a good deal and looked sheepish, but he got the words out. "because, my dear father," said ernest still laughing, "my aunt left it to him in trust for me, not in trust either for you or for my uncle john--and it has accumulated till it is now over , pounds. but tell me how is my mother?" "no, ernest," said theobald excitedly, "the matter cannot rest here, i must know that this is all open and above board." this had the true theobald ring and instantly brought the whole train of ideas which in ernest's mind were connected with his father. the surroundings were the old familiar ones, but the surrounded were changed almost beyond power of recognition. he turned sharply on theobald in a moment. i will not repeat the words he used, for they came out before he had time to consider them, and they might strike some of my readers as disrespectful; there were not many of them, but they were effectual. theobald said nothing, but turned almost of an ashen colour; he never again spoke to his son in such a way as to make it necessary for him to repeat what he had said on this occasion. ernest quickly recovered his temper and again asked after his mother. theobald was glad enough to take this opening now, and replied at once in the tone he would have assumed towards one he most particularly desired to conciliate, that she was getting rapidly worse in spite of all he had been able to do for her, and concluded by saying she had been the comfort and mainstay of his life for more than thirty years, but that he could not wish it prolonged. the pair then went upstairs to christina's room, the one in which ernest had been born. his father went before him and prepared her for her son's approach. the poor woman raised herself in bed as he came towards her, and weeping as she flung her arms around him, cried: "oh, i knew he would come, i knew, i knew he could come." ernest broke down and wept as he had not done for years. "oh, my boy, my boy," she said as soon as she could recover her voice. "have you never really been near us for all these years? ah, you do not know how we have loved you and mourned over you, papa just as much as i have. you know he shows his feelings less, but i can never tell you how very, very deeply he has felt for you. sometimes at night i have thought i have heard footsteps in the garden, and have got quietly out of bed lest i should wake him, and gone to the window to look out, but there has been only dark or the greyness of the morning, and i have gone crying back to bed again. still i think you have been near us though you were too proud to let us know--and now at last i have you in my arms once more, my dearest, dearest boy." how cruel, how infamously unfeeling ernest thought he had been. "mother," he said, "forgive me--the fault was mine, i ought not to have been so hard; i was wrong, very wrong"; the poor blubbering fellow meant what he said, and his heart yearned to his mother as he had never thought that it could yearn again. "but have you never," she continued, "come although it was in the dark and we did not know it--oh, let me think that you have not been so cruel as we have thought you. tell me that you came if only to comfort me and make me happier." ernest was ready. "i had no money to come with, mother, till just lately." this was an excuse christina could understand and make allowance for; "oh, then you would have come, and i will take the will for the deed--and now that i have you safe again, say that you will never, never leave me--not till--not till--oh, my boy, have they told you i am dying?" she wept bitterly, and buried her head in her pillow. chapter lxxxiii joey and charlotte were in the room. joey was now ordained, and was curate to theobald. he and ernest had never been sympathetic, and ernest saw at a glance that there was no chance of a _rapprochement_ between them. he was a little startled at seeing joey dressed as a clergyman, and looking so like what he had looked himself a few years earlier, for there was a good deal of family likeness between the pair; but joey's face was cold and was illumined with no spark of bohemianism; he was a clergyman and was going to do as other clergymen did, neither better nor worse. he greeted ernest rather _de haut en bas_, that is to say he began by trying to do so, but the affair tailed off unsatisfactorily. his sister presented her cheek to him to be kissed. how he hated it; he had been dreading it for the last three hours. she, too, was distant and reproachful in her manner, as such a superior person was sure to be. she had a grievance against him inasmuch as she was still unmarried. she laid the blame of this at ernest's door; it was his misconduct she maintained in secret, which had prevented young men from making offers to her, and she ran him up a heavy bill for consequential damages. she and joey had from the first developed an instinct for hunting with the hounds, and now these two had fairly identified themselves with the older generation--that is to say as against ernest. on this head there was an offensive and defensive alliance between them, but between themselves there was subdued but internecine warfare. this at least was what ernest gathered, partly from his recollections of the parties concerned, and partly from his observation of their little ways during the first half-hour after his arrival, while they were all together in his mother's bedroom--for as yet of course they did not know that he had money. he could see that they eyed him from time to time with a surprise not unmixed with indignation, and knew very well what they were thinking. christina saw the change which had come over him--how much firmer and more vigorous both in mind and body he seemed than when she had last seen him. she saw too how well he was dressed, and, like the others, in spite of the return of all her affection for her first-born, was a little alarmed about theobald's pocket, which she supposed would have to be mulcted for all this magnificence. perceiving this, ernest relieved her mind and told her all about his aunt's bequest, and how i had husbanded it, in the presence of his brother and sister--who, however, pretended not to notice, or at any rate to notice as a matter in which they could hardly be expected to take an interest. his mother kicked a little at first against the money's having gone to him as she said "over his papa's head." "why, my dear," she said in a deprecating tone, "this is more than ever your papa has had"; but ernest calmed her by suggesting that if miss pontifex had known how large the sum would become she would have left the greater part of it to theobald. this compromise was accepted by christina who forthwith, ill as she was, entered with ardour into the new position, and taking it as a fresh point of departure, began spending ernest's money for him. i may say in passing that christina was right in saying that theobald had never had so much money as his son was now possessed of. in the first place he had not had a fourteen years' minority with no outgoings to prevent the accumulation of the money, and in the second he, like myself and almost everyone else, had suffered somewhat in the times--not enough to cripple him or even seriously to hurt him, but enough to give him a scare and make him stick to debentures for the rest of his life. it was the fact of his son's being the richer man of the two, and of his being rich so young, which rankled with theobald even more than the fact of his having money at all. if he had had to wait till he was sixty or sixty-five, and become broken down from long failure in the meantime, why then perhaps he might have been allowed to have whatever sum should suffice to keep him out of the workhouse and pay his death-bed expenses; but that he should come in to , pounds at eight and twenty, and have no wife and only two children--it was intolerable. christina was too ill and in too great a hurry to spend the money to care much about such details as the foregoing, and she was naturally much more good-natured than theobald. "this piece of good fortune"--she saw it at a glance--"quite wiped out the disgrace of his having been imprisoned. there should be no more nonsense about that. the whole thing was a mistake, an unfortunate mistake, true, but the less said about it now the better. of course ernest would come back and live at battersby until he was married, and he would pay his father handsomely for board and lodging. in fact it would be only right that theobald should make a profit, nor would ernest himself wish it to be other than a handsome one; this was far the best and simplest arrangement; and he could take his sister out more than theobald or joey cared to do, and would also doubtless entertain very handsomely at battersby. "of course he would buy joey a living, and make large presents yearly to his sister--was there anything else? oh! yes--he would become a county magnate now; a man with nearly pounds a year should certainly become a county magnate. he might even go into parliament. he had very fair abilities, nothing indeed approaching such genius as dr skinner's, nor even as theobald's, still he was not deficient and if he got into parliament--so young too--there was nothing to hinder his being prime minister before he died, and if so, of course, he would become a peer. oh! why did he not set about it all at once, so that she might live to hear people call her son 'my lord'--lord battersby she thought would do very nicely, and if she was well enough to sit he must certainly have her portrait painted at full length for one end of his large dining-hall. it should be exhibited at the royal academy: 'portrait of lord battersby's mother,' she said to herself, and her heart fluttered with all its wonted vivacity. if she could not sit, happily, she had been photographed not so very long ago, and the portrait had been as successful as any photograph could be of a face which depended so entirely upon its expression as her own. perhaps the painter could take the portrait sufficiently from this. it was better after all that ernest had given up the church--how far more wisely god arranges matters for us than ever we can do for ourselves! she saw it all now--it was joey who would become archbishop of canterbury and ernest would remain a layman and become prime minister" . . . and so on till her daughter told her it was time to take her medicine. i suppose this reverie, which is a mere fragment of what actually ran through christina's brain, occupied about a minute and a half, but it, or the presence of her son, seemed to revive her spirits wonderfully. ill, dying indeed, and suffering as she was, she brightened up so as to laugh once or twice quite merrily during the course of the afternoon. next day dr martin said she was so much better that he almost began to have hopes of her recovery again. theobald, whenever this was touched upon as possible, would shake his head and say: "we can't wish it prolonged," and then charlotte caught ernest unawares and said: "you know, dear ernest, that these ups and downs of talk are terribly agitating to papa; he could stand whatever comes, but it is quite too wearing to him to think half-a- dozen different things backwards and forwards, up and down in the same twenty-four hours, and it would be kinder of you not to do it--i mean not to say anything to him even though dr martin does hold out hopes." charlotte had meant to imply that it was ernest who was at the bottom of all the inconvenience felt by theobald, herself, joey and everyone else, and she had actually got words out which should convey this; true, she had not dared to stick to them and had turned them off, but she had made them hers at any rate for one brief moment, and this was better than nothing. ernest noticed throughout his mother's illness, that charlotte found immediate occasion to make herself disagreeable to him whenever either doctor or nurse pronounced her mother to be a little better. when she wrote to crampsford to desire the prayers of the congregation (she was sure her mother would wish it, and that the crampsford people would be pleased at her remembrance of them), she was sending another letter on some quite different subject at the same time, and put the two letters into the wrong envelopes. ernest was asked to take these letters to the village post-office, and imprudently did so; when the error came to be discovered christina happened to have rallied a little. charlotte flew at ernest immediately, and laid all the blame of the blunder upon his shoulders. except that joey and charlotte were more fully developed, the house and its inmates, organic and inorganic, were little changed since ernest had last seen them. the furniture and the ornaments on the chimney-piece were just as they had been ever since he could remember anything at all. in the drawing-room, on either side of the fireplace there hung the carlo dolci and the sassoferrato as in old times; there was the water colour of a scene on the lago maggiore, copied by charlotte from an original lent her by her drawing master, and finished under his direction. this was the picture of which one of the servants had said that it must be good, for mr pontifex had given ten shillings for the frame. the paper on the walls was unchanged; the roses were still waiting for the bees; and the whole family still prayed night and morning to be made "truly honest and conscientious." one picture only was removed--a photograph of himself which had hung under one of his father and between those of his brother and sister. ernest noticed this at prayer time, while his father was reading about noah's ark and how they daubed it with slime, which, as it happened, had been ernest's favourite text when he was a boy. next morning, however, the photograph had found its way back again, a little dusty and with a bit of the gilding chipped off from one corner of the frame, but there sure enough it was. i suppose they put it back when they found how rich he had become. in the dining-room the ravens were still trying to feed elijah over the fireplace; what a crowd of reminiscences did not this picture bring back! looking out of the window, there were the flower beds in the front garden exactly as they had been, and ernest found himself looking hard against the blue door at the bottom of the garden to see if there was rain falling, as he had been used to look when he was a child doing lessons with his father. after their early dinner, when joey and ernest and their father were left alone, theobald rose and stood in the middle of the hearthrug under the elijah picture, and began to whistle in his old absent way. he had two tunes only, one was "in my cottage near a wood," and the other was the easter hymn; he had been trying to whistle them all his life, but had never succeeded; he whistled them as a clever bullfinch might whistle them--he had got them, but he had not got them right; he would be a semitone out in every third note as though reverting to some remote musical progenitor, who had known none but the lydian or the phrygian mode, or whatever would enable him to go most wrong while still keeping the tune near enough to be recognised. theobald stood before the middle of the fire and whistled his two tunes softly in his own old way till ernest left the room; the unchangedness of the external and changedness of the internal he felt were likely to throw him completely off his balance. he strolled out of doors into the sodden spinney behind the house, and solaced himself with a pipe. ere long he found himself at the door of the cottage of his father's coachman, who had married an old lady's maid of his mother's, to whom ernest had been always much attached as she also to him, for she had known him ever since he had been five or six years old. her name was susan. he sat down in the rocking-chair before her fire, and susan went on ironing at the table in front of the window, and a smell of hot flannel pervaded the kitchen. susan had been retained too securely by christina to be likely to side with ernest all in a moment. he knew this very well, and did not call on her for the sake of support, moral or otherwise. he had called because he liked her, and also because he knew that he should gather much in a chat with her that he should not be able to arrive at in any other way. "oh, master ernest," said susan, "why did you not come back when your poor papa and mamma wanted you? i'm sure your ma has said to me a hundred times over if she has said it once that all should be exactly as it had been before." ernest smiled to himself. it was no use explaining to susan why he smiled, so he said nothing. "for the first day or two i thought she never would get over it; she said it was a judgement upon her, and went on about things as she had said and done many years ago, before your pa knew her, and i don't know what she didn't say or wouldn't have said only i stopped her; she seemed out of her mind like, and said that none of the neighbours would ever speak to her again, but the next day mrs bushby (her that was miss cowey, you know) called, and your ma always was so fond of her, and it seemed to do her a power o' good, for the next day she went through all her dresses, and we settled how she should have them altered; and then all the neighbours called for miles and miles round, and your ma came in here, and said she had been going through the waters of misery, and the lord had turned them to a well. "'oh yes, susan,' said she, 'be sure it is so. whom the lord loveth he chasteneth, susan,' and here she began to cry again. 'as for him,' she went on, 'he has made his bed, and he must lie on it; when he comes out of prison his pa will know what is best to be done, and master ernest may be thankful that he has a pa so good and so long-suffering.' "then when you would not see them, that was a cruel blow to your ma. your pa did not say anything; you know your pa never does say very much unless he's downright waxy for the time; but your ma took on dreadful for a few days, and i never saw the master look so black; but, bless you, it all went off in a few days, and i don't know that there's been much difference in either of them since then, not till your ma was took ill." on the night of his arrival he had behaved well at family prayers, as also on the following morning; his father read about david's dying injunctions to solomon in the matter of shimei, but he did not mind it. in the course of the day, however, his corns had been trodden on so many times that he was in a misbehaving humour, on this the second night after his arrival. he knelt next charlotte and said the responses perfunctorily, not so perfunctorily that she should know for certain that he was doing it maliciously, but so perfunctorily as to make her uncertain whether he might be malicious or not, and when he had to pray to be made truly honest and conscientious he emphasised the "truly." i do not know whether charlotte noticed anything, but she knelt at some distance from him during the rest of his stay. he assures me that this was the only spiteful thing he did during the whole time he was at battersby. when he went up to his bedroom, in which, to do them justice, they had given him a fire, he noticed what indeed he had noticed as soon as he was shown into it on his arrival, that there was an illuminated card framed and glazed over his bed with the words, "be the day weary or be the day long, at last it ringeth to evensong." he wondered to himself how such people could leave such a card in a room in which their visitors would have to spend the last hours of their evening, but he let it alone. "there's not enough difference between 'weary' and 'long' to warrant an 'or,'" he said, "but i suppose it is all right." i believe christina had bought the card at a bazaar in aid of the restoration of a neighbouring church, and having been bought it had got to be used--besides, the sentiment was so touching and the illumination was really lovely. anyhow, no irony could be more complete than leaving it in my hero's bedroom, though assuredly no irony had been intended. on the third day after ernest's arrival christina relapsed again. for the last two days she had been in no pain and had slept a good deal; her son's presence still seemed to cheer her, and she often said how thankful she was to be surrounded on her death-bed by a family so happy, so god- fearing, so united, but now she began to wander, and, being more sensible of the approach of death, seemed also more alarmed at the thoughts of the day of judgment. she ventured more than once or twice to return to the subject of her sins, and implored theobald to make quite sure that they were forgiven her. she hinted that she considered his professional reputation was at stake; it would never do for his own wife to fail in securing at any rate a pass. this was touching theobald on a tender spot; he winced and rejoined with an impatient toss of the head, "but, christina, they _are_ forgiven you"; and then he entrenched himself in a firm but dignified manner behind the lord's prayer. when he rose he left the room, but called ernest out to say that he could not wish it prolonged. joey was no more use in quieting his mother's anxiety than theobald had been--indeed he was only theobald and water; at last ernest, who had not liked interfering, took the matter in hand, and, sitting beside her, let her pour out her grief to him without let or hindrance. she said she knew she had not given up all for christ's sake; it was this that weighed upon her. she had given up much, and had always tried to give up more year by year, still she knew very well that she had not been so spiritually minded as she ought to have been. if she had, she should probably have been favoured with some direct vision or communication; whereas, though god had vouchsafed such direct and visible angelic visits to one of her dear children, yet she had had none such herself--nor even had theobald. she was talking rather to herself than to ernest as she said these words, but they made him open his ears. he wanted to know whether the angel had appeared to joey or to charlotte. he asked his mother, but she seemed surprised, as though she expected him to know all about it, then, as if she remembered, she checked herself and said, "ah! yes--you know nothing of all this, and perhaps it is as well." ernest could not of course press the subject, so he never found out which of his near relations it was who had had direct communication with an immortal. the others never said anything to him about it, though whether this was because they were ashamed, or because they feared he would not believe the story and thus increase his own damnation, he could not determine. ernest has often thought about this since. he tried to get the facts out of susan, who he was sure would know, but charlotte had been beforehand with him. "no, master ernest," said susan, when he began to question her, "your ma has sent a message to me by miss charlotte as i am not to say nothing at all about it, and i never will." of course no further questioning was possible. it had more than once occurred to ernest that charlotte did not in reality believe more than he did himself, and this incident went far to strengthen his surmises, but he wavered when he remembered how she had misdirected the letter asking for the prayers of the congregation. "i suppose," he said to himself gloomily, "she does believe in it after all." then christina returned to the subject of her own want of spiritual-mindedness, she even harped upon the old grievance of her having eaten black puddings--true, she had given them up years ago, but for how many years had she not persevered in eating them after she had had misgivings about their having been forbidden! then there was something that weighed on her mind that had taken place before her marriage, and she should like-- ernest interrupted: "my dear mother," he said, "you are ill and your mind is unstrung; others can now judge better about you than you can; i assure you that to me you seem to have been the most devotedly unselfish wife and mother that ever lived. even if you have not literally given up all for christ's sake, you have done so practically as far as it was in your power, and more than this is not required of anyone. i believe you will not only be a saint, but a very distinguished one." at these words christina brightened. "you give me hope, you give me hope," she cried, and dried her eyes. she made him assure her over and over again that this was his solemn conviction; she did not care about being a distinguished saint now; she would be quite content to be among the meanest who actually got into heaven, provided she could make sure of escaping that awful hell. the fear of this evidently was omnipresent with her, and in spite of all ernest could say he did not quite dispel it. she was rather ungrateful, i must confess, for after more than an hour's consolation from ernest she prayed for him that he might have every blessing in this world, inasmuch as she always feared that he was the only one of her children whom she should never meet in heaven; but she was then wandering, and was hardly aware of his presence; her mind in fact was reverting to states in which it had been before her illness. on sunday ernest went to church as a matter of course, and noted that the ever receding tide of evangelicalism had ebbed many a stage lower, even during the few years of his absence. his father used to walk to the church through the rectory garden, and across a small intervening field. he had been used to walk in a tall hat, his master's gown, and wearing a pair of geneva bands. ernest noticed that the bands were worn no longer, and lo! greater marvel still, theobald did not preach in his master's gown, but in a surplice. the whole character of the service was changed; you could not say it was high even now, for high-church theobald could never under any circumstances become, but the old easy-going slovenliness, if i may say so, was gone for ever. the orchestral accompaniments to the hymns had disappeared while my hero was yet a boy, but there had been no chanting for some years after the harmonium had been introduced. while ernest was at cambridge, charlotte and christina had prevailed on theobald to allow the canticles to be sung; and sung they were to old-fashioned double chants by lord mornington and dr dupuis and others. theobald did not like it, but he did it, or allowed it to be done. then christina said: "my dear, do you know, i really think" (christina always "really" thought) "that the people like the chanting very much, and that it will be a means of bringing many to church who have stayed away hitherto. i was talking about it to mrs goodhew and to old miss wright only yesterday, and they _quite_ agreed with me, but they all said that we ought to chant the 'glory be to the father' at the end of each of the psalms instead of saying it." theobald looked black--he felt the waters of chanting rising higher and higher upon him inch by inch; but he felt also, he knew not why, that he had better yield than fight. so he ordered the "glory be to the father" to be chanted in future, but he did not like it. "really, mamma dear," said charlotte, when the battle was won, "you should not call it the 'glory be to the father' you should say 'gloria.'" "of course, my dear," said christina, and she said "gloria" for ever after. then she thought what a wonderfully clever girl charlotte was, and how she ought to marry no one lower than a bishop. by-and-by when theobald went away for an unusually long holiday one summer, he could find no one but a rather high-church clergyman to take his duty. this gentleman was a man of weight in the neighbourhood, having considerable private means, but without preferment. in the summer he would often help his brother clergymen, and it was through his being willing to take the duty at battersby for a few sundays that theobald had been able to get away for so long. on his return, however, he found that the whole psalms were being chanted as well as the glorias. the influential clergyman, christina, and charlotte took the bull by the horns as soon as theobald returned, and laughed it all off; and the clergyman laughed and bounced, and christina laughed and coaxed, and charlotte uttered unexceptionable sentiments, and the thing was done now, and could not be undone, and it was no use grieving over spilt milk; so henceforth the psalms were to be chanted, but theobald grisled over it in his heart, and he did not like it. during this same absence what had mrs goodhew and old miss wright taken to doing but turning towards the east while repeating the belief? theobald disliked this even worse than chanting. when he said something about it in a timid way at dinner after service, charlotte said, "really, papa dear, you _must_ take to calling it the 'creed' and not the 'belief'"; and theobald winced impatiently and snorted meek defiance, but the spirit of her aunts jane and eliza was strong in charlotte, and the thing was too small to fight about, and he turned it off with a laugh. "as for charlotte," thought christina, "i believe she knows _everything_." so mrs goodhew and old miss wright continued to turn to the east during the time the creed was said, and by-and-by others followed their example, and ere long the few who had stood out yielded and turned eastward too; and then theobald made as though he had thought it all very right and proper from the first, but like it he did not. by- and-by charlotte tried to make him say "alleluia" instead of "hallelujah," but this was going too far, and theobald turned, and she got frightened and ran away. and they changed the double chants for single ones, and altered them psalm by psalm, and in the middle of psalms, just where a cursory reader would see no reason why they should do so, they changed from major to minor and from minor back to major; and then they got "hymns ancient and modern," and, as i have said, they robbed him of his beloved bands, and they made him preach in a surplice, and he must have celebration of the holy communion once a month instead of only five times in the year as heretofore, and he struggled in vain against the unseen influence which he felt to be working in season and out of season against all that he had been accustomed to consider most distinctive of his party. where it was, or what it was, he knew not, nor exactly what it would do next, but he knew exceedingly well that go where he would it was undermining him; that it was too persistent for him; that christina and charlotte liked it a great deal better than he did, and that it could end in nothing but rome. easter decorations indeed! christmas decorations--in reason--were proper enough, but easter decorations! well, it might last his time. this was the course things had taken in the church of england during the last forty years. the set has been steadily in one direction. a few men who knew what they wanted made cats' paws of the christmas and the charlottes, and the christmas and the charlottes made cats' paws of the mrs goodhews and the old miss wrights, and mrs goodhews and old miss wrights told the mr goodhews and young miss wrights what they should do, and when the mr goodhews and the young miss wrights did it the little goodhews and the rest of the spiritual flock did as they did, and the theobalds went for nothing; step by step, day by day, year by year, parish by parish, diocese by diocese this was how it was done. and yet the church of england looks with no friendly eyes upon the theory of evolution or descent with modification. my hero thought over these things, and remembered many a _ruse_ on the part of christina and charlotte, and many a detail of the struggle which i cannot further interrupt my story to refer to, and he remembered his father's favourite retort that it could only end in rome. when he was a boy he had firmly believed this, but he smiled now as he thought of another alternative clear enough to himself, but so horrible that it had not even occurred to theobald--i mean the toppling over of the whole system. at that time he welcomed the hope that the absurdities and unrealities of the church would end in her downfall. since then he has come to think very differently, not as believing in the cow jumping over the moon more than he used to, or more, probably, than nine-tenths of the clergy themselves--who know as well as he does that their outward and visible symbols are out of date--but because he knows the baffling complexity of the problem when it comes to deciding what is actually to be done. also, now that he has seen them more closely, he knows better the nature of those wolves in sheep's clothing, who are thirsting for the blood of their victim, and exulting so clamorously over its anticipated early fall into their clutches. the spirit behind the church is true, though her letter--true once--is now true no longer. the spirit behind the high priests of science is as lying as its letter. the theobalds, who do what they do because it seems to be the correct thing, but who in their hearts neither like it nor believe in it, are in reality the least dangerous of all classes to the peace and liberties of mankind. the man to fear is he who goes at things with the cocksureness of pushing vulgarity and self-conceit. these are not vices which can be justly laid to the charge of the english clergy. many of the farmers came up to ernest when service was over, and shook hands with him. he found every one knew of his having come into a fortune. the fact was that theobald had immediately told two or three of the greatest gossips in the village, and the story was not long in spreading. "it simplified matters," he had said to himself, "a good deal." ernest was civil to mrs goodhew for her husband's sake, but he gave miss wright the cut direct, for he knew that she was only charlotte in disguise. a week passed slowly away. two or three times the family took the sacrament together round christina's death-bed. theobald's impatience became more and more transparent daily, but fortunately christina (who even if she had been well would have been ready to shut her eyes to it) became weaker and less coherent in mind also, so that she hardly, if at all, perceived it. after ernest had been in the house about a week his mother fell into a comatose state which lasted a couple of days, and in the end went away so peacefully that it was like the blending of sea and sky in mid-ocean upon a soft hazy day when none can say where the earth ends and the heavens begin. indeed she died to the realities of life with less pain than she had waked from many of its illusions. "she has been the comfort and mainstay of my life for more than thirty years," said theobald as soon as all was over, "but one could not wish it prolonged," and he buried his face in his handkerchief to conceal his want of emotion. ernest came back to town the day after his mother's death, and returned to the funeral accompanied by myself. he wanted me to see his father in order to prevent any possible misapprehension about miss pontifex's intentions, and i was such an old friend of the family that my presence at christina's funeral would surprise no one. with all her faults i had always rather liked christina. she would have chopped ernest or any one else into little pieces of mincemeat to gratify the slightest wish of her husband, but she would not have chopped him up for any one else, and so long as he did not cross her she was very fond of him. by nature she was of an even temper, more willing to be pleased than ruffled, very ready to do a good-natured action, provided it did not cost her much exertion, nor involve expense to theobald. her own little purse did not matter; any one might have as much of that as he or she could get after she had reserved what was absolutely necessary for her dress. i could not hear of her end as ernest described it to me without feeling very compassionate towards her, indeed her own son could hardly have felt more so; i at once, therefore, consented to go down to the funeral; perhaps i was also influenced by a desire to see charlotte and joey, in whom i felt interested on hearing what my godson had told me. i found theobald looking remarkably well. every one said he was bearing it so beautifully. he did indeed once or twice shake his head and say that his wife had been the comfort and mainstay of his life for over thirty years, but there the matter ended. i stayed over the next day which was sunday, and took my departure on the following morning after having told theobald all that his son wished me to tell him. theobald asked me to help him with christina's epitaph. "i would say," said he, "as little as possible; eulogies of the departed are in most cases both unnecessary and untrue. christina's epitaph shall contain nothing which shall be either the one or the other. i should give her name, the dates of her birth and death, and of course say she was my wife, and then i think i should wind up with a simple text--her favourite one for example, none indeed could be more appropriate, 'blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god.'" i said i thought this would be very nice, and it was settled. so ernest was sent to give the order to mr prosser, the stonemason in the nearest town, who said it came from "the beetitudes." chapter lxxxiv on our way to town ernest broached his plans for spending the next year or two. i wanted him to try and get more into society again, but he brushed this aside at once as the very last thing he had a fancy for. for society indeed of all sorts, except of course that of a few intimate friends, he had an unconquerable aversion. "i always did hate those people," he said, "and they always have hated and always will hate me. i am an ishmael by instinct as much as by accident of circumstances, but if i keep out of society i shall be less vulnerable than ishmaels generally are. the moment a man goes into society, he becomes vulnerable all round." i was very sorry to hear him talk in this way; for whatever strength a man may have he should surely be able to make more of it if he act in concert than alone. i said this. "i don't care," he answered, "whether i make the most of my strength or not; i don't know whether i have any strength, but if i have i dare say it will find some way of exerting itself. i will live as i like living, not as other people would like me to live; thanks to my aunt and you i can afford the luxury of a quiet unobtrusive life of self-indulgence," said he laughing, "and i mean to have it. you know i like writing," he added after a pause of some minutes, "i have been a scribbler for years. if i am to come to the fore at all it must be by writing." i had already long since come to that conclusion myself. "well," he continued, "there are a lot of things that want saying which no one dares to say, a lot of shams which want attacking, and yet no one attacks them. it seems to me that i can say things which not another man in england except myself will venture to say, and yet which are crying to be said." i said: "but who will listen? if you say things which nobody else would dare to say is not this much the same as saying what everyone except yourself knows to be better left unsaid just now?" "perhaps," said he, "but i don't know it; i am bursting with these things, and it is my fate to say them." i knew there would be no stopping him, so i gave in and asked what question he felt a special desire to burn his fingers with in the first instance. "marriage," he rejoined promptly, "and the power of disposing of his property after a man is dead. the question of christianity is virtually settled, or if not settled there is no lack of those engaged in settling it. the question of the day now is marriage and the family system." "that," said i drily, "is a hornet's nest indeed." "yes," said he no less drily, "but hornet's nests are exactly what i happen to like. before, however, i begin to stir up this particular one i propose to travel for a few years, with the especial object of finding out what nations now existing are the best, comeliest and most lovable, and also what nations have been so in times past. i want to find out how these people live, and have lived, and what their customs are. "i have very vague notions upon the subject as yet, but the general impression i have formed is that, putting ourselves on one side, the most vigorous and amiable of known nations are the modern italians, the old greeks and romans, and the south sea islanders. i believe that these nice peoples have not as a general rule been purists, but i want to see those of them who can yet be seen; they are the practical authorities on the question--what is best for man? and i should like to see them and find out what they do. let us settle the fact first and fight about the moral tendencies afterwards." "in fact," said i laughingly, "you mean to have high old times." "neither higher nor lower," was the answer, "than those people whom i can find to have been the best in all ages. but let us change the subject." he put his hand into his pocket and brought out a letter. "my father," he said, "gave me this letter this morning with the seal already broken." he passed it over to me, and i found it to be the one which christina had written before the birth of her last child, and which i have given in an earlier chapter. "and you do not find this letter," said i, "affect the conclusion which you have just told me you have come to concerning your present plans?" he smiled, and answered: "no. but if you do what you have sometimes talked about and turn the adventures of my unworthy self into a novel, mind you print this letter." "why so?" said i, feeling as though such a letter as this should have been held sacred from the public gaze. "because my mother would have wished it published; if she had known you were writing about me and had this letter in your possession, she would above all things have desired that you should publish it. therefore publish it if you write at all." this is why i have done so. within a month ernest carried his intention into effect, and having made all the arrangements necessary for his children's welfare left england before christmas. i heard from him now and again and learnt that he was visiting almost all parts of the world, but only staying in those places where he found the inhabitants unusually good-looking and agreeable. he said he had filled an immense quantity of note-books, and i have no doubt he had. at last in the spring of he returned, his luggage stained with the variation of each hotel advertisement 'twixt here and japan. he looked very brown and strong, and so well favoured that it almost seemed as if he must have caught some good looks from the people among whom he had been living. he came back to his old rooms in the temple, and settled down as easily as if he had never been away a day. one of the first things we did was to go and see the children; we took the train to gravesend, and walked thence for a few miles along the riverside till we came to the solitary house where the good people lived with whom ernest had placed them. it was a lovely april morning, but with a fresh air blowing from off the sea; the tide was high, and the river was alive with shipping coming up with wind and tide. sea-gulls wheeled around us overhead, sea-weed clung everywhere to the banks which the advancing tide had not yet covered, everything was of the sea sea-ey, and the fine bracing air which blew over the water made me feel more hungry than i had done for many a day; i did not see how children could live in a better physical atmosphere than this, and applauded the selection which ernest had made on behalf of his youngsters. while we were still a quarter of a mile off we heard shouts and children's laughter, and could see a lot of boys and girls romping together and running after one another. we could not distinguish our own two, but when we got near they were soon made out, for the other children were blue-eyed, flaxen-pated little folks, whereas ours were dark and straight-haired. we had written to say that we were coming, but had desired that nothing should be said to the children, so these paid no more attention to us than they would have done to any other stranger, who happened to visit a spot so unfrequented except by sea-faring folk, which we plainly were not. the interest, however, in us was much quickened when it was discovered that we had got our pockets full of oranges and sweeties, to an extent greater than it had entered into their small imaginations to conceive as possible. at first we had great difficulty in making them come near us. they were like a lot of wild young colts, very inquisitive, but very coy and not to be cajoled easily. the children were nine in all--five boys and two girls belonging to mr and mrs rollings, and two to ernest. i never saw a finer lot of children than the young rollings, the boys were hardy, robust, fearless little fellows with eyes as clear as hawks; the elder girl was exquisitely pretty, but the younger one was a mere baby. i felt as i looked at them, that if i had had children of my own i could have wished no better home for them, nor better companions. georgie and alice, ernest's two children, were evidently quite as one family with the others, and called mr and mrs rollings uncle and aunt. they had been so young when they were first brought to the house that they had been looked upon in the light of new babies who had been born into the family. they knew nothing about mr and mrs rollings being paid so much a week to look after them. ernest asked them all what they wanted to be. they had only one idea; one and all, georgie among the rest, wanted to be bargemen. young ducks could hardly have a more evident hankering after the water. "and what do you want, alice?" said ernest. "oh," she said, "i'm going to marry jack here, and be a bargeman's wife." jack was the eldest boy, now nearly twelve, a sturdy little fellow, the image of what mr rollings must have been at his age. as we looked at him, so straight and well grown and well done all round, i could see it was in ernest's mind as much as in mine that she could hardly do much better. "come here, jack, my boy," said ernest, "here's a shilling for you." the boy blushed and could hardly be got to come in spite of our previous blandishments; he had had pennies given him before, but shillings never. his father caught him good-naturedly by the ear and lugged him to us. "he's a good boy, jack is," said ernest to mr rollings, "i'm sure of that." "yes," said mr rollings, "he's a werry good boy, only that i can't get him to learn his reading and writing. he don't like going to school, that's the only complaint i have against him. i don't know what's the matter with all my children, and yours, mr pontifex, is just as bad, but they none of 'em likes book learning, though they learn anything else fast enough. why, as for jack here, he's almost as good a bargeman as i am." and he looked fondly and patronisingly towards his offspring. "i think," said ernest to mr rollings, "if he wants to marry alice when he gets older he had better do so, and he shall have as many barges as he likes. in the meantime, mr rollings, say in what way money can be of use to you, and whatever you can make useful is at your disposal." i need hardly say that ernest made matters easy for this good couple; one stipulation, however, he insisted on, namely, there was to be no more smuggling, and that the young people were to be kept out of this; for a little bird had told ernest that smuggling in a quiet way was one of the resources of the rollings family. mr rollings was not sorry to assent to this, and i believe it is now many years since the coastguard people have suspected any of the rollings family as offenders against the revenue law. "why should i take them from where they are," said ernest to me in the train as we went home, "to send them to schools where they will not be one half so happy, and where their illegitimacy will very likely be a worry to them? georgie wants to be a bargeman, let him begin as one, the sooner the better; he may as well begin with this as with anything else; then if he shows developments i can be on the look-out to encourage them and make things easy for him; while if he shows no desire to go ahead, what on earth is the good of trying to shove him forward?" ernest, i believe, went on with a homily upon education generally, and upon the way in which young people should go through the embryonic stages with their money as much as with their limbs, beginning life in a much lower social position than that in which their parents were, and a lot more, which he has since published; but i was getting on in years, and the walk and the bracing air had made me sleepy, so ere we had got past greenhithe station on our return journey i had sunk into a refreshing sleep. chapter lxxxv ernest being about two and thirty years old and having had his fling for the last three or four years, now settled down in london, and began to write steadily. up to this time he had given abundant promise, but had produced nothing, nor indeed did he come before the public for another three or four years yet. he lived as i have said very quietly, seeing hardly anyone but myself, and the three or four old friends with whom i had been intimate for years. ernest and we formed our little set, and outside of this my godson was hardly known at all. his main expense was travelling, which he indulged in at frequent intervals, but for short times only. do what he would he could not get through more than about fifteen hundred a year; the rest of his income he gave away if he happened to find a case where he thought money would be well bestowed, or put by until some opportunity arose of getting rid of it with advantage. i knew he was writing, but we had had so many little differences of opinion upon this head that by a tacit understanding the subject was seldom referred to between us, and i did not know that he was actually publishing till one day he brought me a book and told me flat it was his own. i opened it and found it to be a series of semi-theological, semi- social essays, purporting to have been written by six or seven different people, and viewing the same class of subjects from different standpoints. people had not yet forgotten the famous "essays and reviews," and ernest had wickedly given a few touches to at least two of the essays which suggested vaguely that they had been written by a bishop. the essays were all of them in support of the church of england, and appeared both by internal suggestion, and their prima facie purport to be the work of some half-dozen men of experience and high position who had determined to face the difficult questions of the day no less boldly from within the bosom of the church than the church's enemies had faced them from without her pale. there was an essay on the external evidences of the resurrection; another on the marriage laws of the most eminent nations of the world in times past and present; another was devoted to a consideration of the many questions which must be reopened and reconsidered on their merits if the teaching of the church of england were to cease to carry moral authority with it; another dealt with the more purely social subject of middle class destitution; another with the authenticity or rather the unauthenticity of the fourth gospel--another was headed "irrational rationalism," and there were two or three more. they were all written vigorously and fearlessly as though by people used to authority; all granted that the church professed to enjoin belief in much which no one could accept who had been accustomed to weigh evidence; but it was contended that so much valuable truth had got so closely mixed up with these mistakes, that the mistakes had better not be meddled with. to lay great stress on these was like cavilling at the queen's right to reign, on the ground that william the conqueror was illegitimate. one article maintained that though it would be inconvenient to change the words of our prayer book and articles, it would not be inconvenient to change in a quiet way the meanings which we put upon those words. this, it was argued, was what was actually done in the case of law; this had been the law's mode of growth and adaptation, and had in all ages been found a righteous and convenient method of effecting change. it was suggested that the church should adopt it. in another essay it was boldly denied that the church rested upon reason. it was proved incontestably that its ultimate foundation was and ought to be faith, there being indeed no other ultimate foundation than this for any of man's beliefs. if so, the writer claimed that the church could not be upset by reason. it was founded, like everything else, on initial assumptions, that is to say on faith, and if it was to be upset it was to be upset by faith, by the faith of those who in their lives appeared more graceful, more lovable, better bred, in fact, and better able to overcome difficulties. any sect which showed its superiority in these respects might carry all before it, but none other would make much headway for long together. christianity was true in so far as it had fostered beauty, and it had fostered much beauty. it was false in so far as it fostered ugliness, and it had fostered much ugliness. it was therefore not a little true and not a little false; on the whole one might go farther and fare worse; the wisest course would be to live with it, and make the best and not the worst of it. the writer urged that we become persecutors as a matter of course as soon as we begin to feel very strongly upon any subject; we ought not therefore to do this; we ought not to feel very strongly--even upon that institution which was dearer to the writer than any other--the church of england. we should be churchmen, but somewhat lukewarm churchmen, inasmuch as those who care very much about either religion or irreligion are seldom observed to be very well bred or agreeable people. the church herself should approach as nearly to that of laodicea as was compatible with her continuing to be a church at all, and each individual member should only be hot in striving to be as lukewarm as possible. the book rang with the courage alike of conviction and of an entire absence of conviction; it appeared to be the work of men who had a rule- of-thumb way of steering between iconoclasm on the one hand and credulity on the other; who cut gordian knots as a matter of course when it suited their convenience; who shrank from no conclusion in theory, nor from any want of logic in practice so long as they were illogical of malice prepense, and for what they held to be sufficient reason. the conclusions were conservative, quietistic, comforting. the arguments by which they were reached were taken from the most advanced writers of the day. all that these people contended for was granted them, but the fruits of victory were for the most part handed over to those already in possession. perhaps the passage which attracted most attention in the book was one from the essay on the various marriage systems of the world. it ran:-- "if people require us to construct," exclaimed the writer, "we set good breeding as the corner-stone of our edifice. we would have it ever present consciously or unconsciously in the minds of all as the central faith in which they should live and move and have their being, as the touchstone of all things whereby they may be known as good or evil according as they make for good breeding or against it." "that a man should have been bred well and breed others well; that his figure, head, hands, feet, voice, manner and clothes should carry conviction upon this point, so that no one can look at him without seeing that he has come of good stock and is likely to throw good stock himself, this is the _desiderandum_. and the same with a woman. the greatest number of these well-bred men and women, and the greatest happiness of these well-bred men and women, this is the highest good; towards this all government, all social conventions, all art, literature and science should directly or indirectly tend. holy men and holy women are those who keep this unconsciously in view at all times whether of work or pastime." if ernest had published this work in his own name i should think it would have fallen stillborn from the press, but the form he had chosen was calculated at that time to arouse curiosity, and as i have said he had wickedly dropped a few hints which the reviewers did not think anyone would have been impudent enough to do if he were not a bishop, or at any rate some one in authority. a well-known judge was spoken of as being another of the writers, and the idea spread ere long that six or seven of the leading bishops and judges had laid their heads together to produce a volume, which should at once outbid "essays and reviews" and counteract the influence of that then still famous work. reviewers are men of like passions with ourselves, and with them as with everyone else _omne ignotum pro magnifico_. the book was really an able one and abounded with humour, just satire, and good sense. it struck a new note and the speculation which for some time was rife concerning its authorship made many turn to it who would never have looked at it otherwise. one of the most gushing weeklies had a fit over it, and declared it to be the finest thing that had been done since the "provincial letters" of pascal. once a month or so that weekly always found some picture which was the finest that had been done since the old masters, or some satire that was the finest that had appeared since swift or some something which was incomparably the finest that had appeared since something else. if ernest had put his name to the book, and the writer had known that it was by a nobody, he would doubtless have written in a very different strain. reviewers like to think that for aught they know they are patting a duke or even a prince of the blood upon the back, and lay it on thick till they find they have been only praising brown, jones or robinson. then they are disappointed, and as a general rule will pay brown, jones or robinson out. ernest was not so much up to the ropes of the literary world as i was, and i am afraid his head was a little turned when he woke up one morning to find himself famous. he was christina's son, and perhaps would not have been able to do what he had done if he was not capable of occasional undue elation. ere long, however, he found out all about it, and settled quietly down to write a series of books, in which he insisted on saying things which no one else would say even if they could, or could even if they would. he has got himself a bad literary character. i said to him laughingly one day that he was like the man in the last century of whom it was said that nothing but such a character could keep down such parts. he laughed and said he would rather be like that than like a modern writer or two whom he could name, whose parts were so poor that they could be kept up by nothing but by such a character. i remember soon after one of these books was published i happened to meet mrs jupp to whom, by the way, ernest made a small weekly allowance. it was at ernest's chambers, and for some reason we were left alone for a few minutes. i said to her: "mr pontifex has written another book, mrs jupp." "lor' now," said she, "has he really? dear gentleman! is it about love?" and the old sinner threw up a wicked sheep's eye glance at me from under her aged eyelids. i forget what there was in my reply which provoked it--probably nothing--but she went rattling on at full speed to the effect that bell had given her a ticket for the opera, "so, of course," she said, "i went. i didn't understand one word of it, for it was all french, but i saw their legs. oh dear, oh dear! i'm afraid i shan't be here much longer, and when dear mr pontifex sees me in my coffin he'll say, 'poor old jupp, she'll never talk broad any more'; but bless you i'm not so old as all that, and i'm taking lessons in dancing." at this moment ernest came in and the conversation was changed. mrs jupp asked if he was still going on writing more books now that this one was done. "of course i am," he answered, "i'm always writing books; here is the manuscript of my next;" and he showed her a heap of paper. "well now," she exclaimed, "dear, dear me, and is that manuscript? i've often heard talk about manuscripts, but i never thought i should live to see some myself. well! well! so that is really manuscript?" there were a few geraniums in the window and they did not look well. ernest asked mrs jupp if she understood flowers. "i understand the language of flowers," she said, with one of her most bewitching leers, and on this we sent her off till she should choose to honour us with another visit, which she knows she is privileged from time to time to do, for ernest likes her. chapter lxxxvi and now i must bring my story to a close. the preceding chapter was written soon after the events it records--that is to say in the spring of . by that time my story had been written up to this point; but it has been altered here and there from time to time occasionally. it is now the autumn of , and if i am to say more i should do so quickly, for i am eighty years old and though well in health cannot conceal from myself that i am no longer young. ernest himself is forty-seven, though he hardly looks it. he is richer than ever, for he has never married and his london and north- western shares have nearly doubled themselves. through sheer inability to spend his income he has been obliged to hoard in self-defence. he still lives in the temple in the same rooms i took for him when he gave up his shop, for no one has been able to induce him to take a house. his house, he says, is wherever there is a good hotel. when he is in town he likes to work and to be quiet. when out of town he feels that he has left little behind him that can go wrong, and he would not like to be tied to a single locality. "i know no exception," he says, "to the rule that it is cheaper to buy milk than to keep a cow." as i have mentioned mrs jupp, i may as well say here the little that remains to be said about her. she is a very old woman now, but no one now living, as she says triumphantly, can say how old, for the woman in the old kent road is dead, and presumably has carried her secret to the grave. old, however, though she is, she lives in the same house, and finds it hard work to make the two ends meet, but i do not know that she minds this very much, and it has prevented her from getting more to drink than would be good for her. it is no use trying to do anything for her beyond paying her allowance weekly, and absolutely refusing to let her anticipate it. she pawns her flat iron every saturday for d., and takes it out every monday morning for . d. when she gets her allowance, and has done this for the last ten years as regularly as the week comes round. as long as she does not let the flat iron actually go we know that she can still worry out her financial problems in her own hugger- mugger way and had better be left to do so. if the flat iron were to go beyond redemption, we should know that it was time to interfere. i do not know why, but there is something about her which always reminds me of a woman who was as unlike her as one person can be to another--i mean ernest's mother. the last time i had a long gossip with her was about two years ago when she came to me instead of to ernest. she said she had seen a cab drive up just as she was going to enter the staircase, and had seen mr pontifex's pa put his beelzebub old head out of the window, so she had come on to me, for she hadn't greased her sides for no curtsey, not for the likes of him. she professed to be very much down on her luck. her lodgers did use her so dreadful, going away without paying and leaving not so much as a stick behind, but to-day she was as pleased as a penny carrot. she had had such a lovely dinner--a cushion of ham and green peas. she had had a good cry over it, but then she was so silly, she was. "and there's that bell," she continued, though i could not detect any appearance of connection, "it's enough to give anyone the hump to see him now that he's taken to chapel-going, and his mother's prepared to meet jesus and all that to me, and now she ain't a-going to die, and drinks half a bottle of champagne a day, and then grigg, him as preaches, you know, asked bell if i really was too gay, not but what when i was young i'd snap my fingers at any 'fly by night' in holborn, and if i was togged out and had my teeth i'd do it now. i lost my poor dear watkins, but of course that couldn't be helped, and then i lost my dear rose. silly faggot to go and ride on a cart and catch the bronchitics. i never thought when i kissed my dear rose in pullen's passage and she gave me the chop, that i should never see her again, and her gentleman friend was fond of her too, though he was a married man. i daresay she's gone to bits by now. if she could rise and see me with my bad finger, she would cry, and i should say, 'never mind, ducky, i'm all right.' oh! dear, it's coming on to rain. i do hate a wet saturday night--poor women with their nice white stockings and their living to get," etc., etc. and yet age does not wither this godless old sinner, as people would say it ought to do. whatever life she has led, it has agreed with her very sufficiently. at times she gives us to understand that she is still much solicited; at others she takes quite a different tone. she has not allowed even joe king so much as to put his lips to hers this ten years. she would rather have a mutton chop any day. "but ah! you should have seen me when i was sweet seventeen. i was the very moral of my poor dear mother, and she was a pretty woman, though i say it that shouldn't. she had such a splendid mouth of teeth. it was a sin to bury her in her teeth." i only knew of one thing at which she professes to be shocked. it is that her son tom and his wife topsy are teaching the baby to swear. "oh! it's too dreadful awful," she exclaimed, "i don't know the meaning of the words, but i tell him he's a drunken sot." i believe the old woman in reality rather likes it. "but surely, mrs jupp," said i, "tom's wife used not to be topsy. you used to speak of her as pheeb." "ah! yes," she answered, "but pheeb behaved bad, and it's topsy now." ernest's daughter alice married the boy who had been her playmate more than a year ago. ernest gave them all they said they wanted and a good deal more. they have already presented him with a grandson, and i doubt not, will do so with many more. georgie though only twenty-one is owner of a fine steamer which his father has bought for him. he began when about thirteen going with old rollings and jack in the barge from rochester to the upper thames with bricks; then his father bought him and jack barges of their own, and then he bought them both ships, and then steamers. i do not exactly know how people make money by having a steamer, but he does whatever is usual, and from all i can gather makes it pay extremely well. he is a good deal like his father in the face, but without a spark--so far as i have been able to observe--any literary ability; he has a fair sense of humour and abundance of common sense, but his instinct is clearly a practical one. i am not sure that he does not put me in mind almost more of what theobald would have been if he had been a sailor, than of ernest. ernest used to go down to battersby and stay with his father for a few days twice a year until theobald's death, and the pair continued on excellent terms, in spite of what the neighbouring clergy call "the atrocious books which mr ernest pontifex" has written. perhaps the harmony, or rather absence of discord which subsisted between the pair was due to the fact that theobald had never looked into the inside of one of his son's works, and ernest, of course, never alluded to them in his father's presence. the pair, as i have said, got on excellently, but it was doubtless as well that ernest's visits were short and not too frequent. once theobald wanted ernest to bring his children, but ernest knew they would not like it, so this was not done. sometimes theobald came up to town on small business matters and paid a visit to ernest's chambers; he generally brought with him a couple of lettuces, or a cabbage, or half-a-dozen turnips done up in a piece of brown paper, and told ernest that he knew fresh vegetables were rather hard to get in london, and he had brought him some. ernest had often explained to him that the vegetables were of no use to him, and that he had rather he would not bring them; but theobald persisted, i believe through sheer love of doing something which his son did not like, but which was too small to take notice of. he lived until about twelve months ago, when he was found dead in his bed on the morning after having written the following letter to his son:-- "dear ernest,--i've nothing particular to write about, but your letter has been lying for some days in the limbo of unanswered letters, to wit my pocket, and it's time it was answered. "i keep wonderfully well and am able to walk my five or six miles with comfort, but at my age there's no knowing how long it will last, and time flies quickly. i have been busy potting plants all the morning, but this afternoon is wet. "what is this horrid government going to do with ireland? i don't exactly wish they'd blow up mr gladstone, but if a mad bull would chivy him there, and he would never come back any more, i should not be sorry. lord hartington is not exactly the man i should like to set in his place, but he would be immeasurably better than gladstone. "i miss your sister charlotte more than i can express. she kept my household accounts, and i could pour out to her all little worries, and now that joey is married too, i don't know what i should do if one or other of them did not come sometimes and take care of me. my only comfort is that charlotte will make her husband happy, and that he is as nearly worthy of her as a husband can well be.--believe me, your affectionate father, "theobald pontifex." i may say in passing that though theobald speaks of charlotte's marriage as though it were recent, it had really taken place some six years previously, she being then about thirty-eight years old, and her husband about seven years younger. there was no doubt that theobald passed peacefully away during his sleep. can a man who died thus be said to have died at all? he has presented the phenomena of death to other people, but in respect of himself he has not only not died, but has not even thought that he was going to die. this is not more than half dying, but then neither was his life more than half living. he presented so many of the phenomena of living that i suppose on the whole it would be less trouble to think of him as having been alive than as never having been born at all, but this is only possible because association does not stick to the strict letter of its bond. this, however, was not the general verdict concerning him, and the general verdict is often the truest. ernest was overwhelmed with expressions of condolence and respect for his father's memory. "he never," said dr martin, the old doctor who brought ernest into the world, "spoke an ill word against anyone. he was not only liked, he was beloved by all who had anything to do with him." "a more perfectly just and righteously dealing man," said the family solicitor, "i have never had anything to do with--nor one more punctual in the discharge of every business obligation." "we shall miss him sadly," the bishop wrote to joey in the very warmest terms. the poor were in consternation. "the well's never missed," said one old woman, "till it's dry," and she only said what everyone else felt. ernest knew that the general regret was unaffected as for a loss which could not be easily repaired. he felt that there were only three people in the world who joined insincerely in the tribute of applause, and these were the very three who could least show their want of sympathy. i mean joey, charlotte, and himself. he felt bitter against himself for being of a mind with either joey or charlotte upon any subject, and thankful that he must conceal his being so as far as possible, not because of anything his father had done to him--these grievances were too old to be remembered now--but because he would never allow him to feel towards him as he was always trying to feel. as long as communication was confined to the merest commonplace all went well, but if these were departed from ever such a little he invariably felt that his father's instincts showed themselves in immediate opposition to his own. when he was attacked his father laid whatever stress was possible on everything which his opponents said. if he met with any check his father was clearly pleased. what the old doctor had said about theobald's speaking ill of no man was perfectly true as regards others than himself, but he knew very well that no one had injured his reputation in a quiet way, so far as he dared to do, more than his own father. this is a very common case and a very natural one. it often happens that if the son is right, the father is wrong, and the father is not going to have this if he can help it. it was very hard, however, to say what was the true root of the mischief in the present case. it was not ernest's having been imprisoned. theobald forgot all about that much sooner than nine fathers out of ten would have done. partly, no doubt, it was due to incompatibility of temperament, but i believe the main ground of complaint lay in the fact that he had been so independent and so rich while still very young, and that thus the old gentleman had been robbed of his power to tease and scratch in the way which he felt he was entitled to do. the love of teasing in a small way when he felt safe in doing so had remained part of his nature from the days when he told his nurse that he would keep her on purpose to torment her. i suppose it is so with all of us. at any rate i am sure that most fathers, especially if they are clergymen, are like theobald. he did not in reality, i am convinced, like joey or charlotte one whit better than he liked ernest. he did not like anyone or anything, or if he liked anyone at all it was his butler, who looked after him when he was not well, and took great care of him and believed him to be the best and ablest man in the whole world. whether this faithful and attached servant continued to think this after theobald's will was opened and it was found what kind of legacy had been left him i know not. of his children, the baby who had died at a day old was the only one whom he held to have treated him quite filially. as for christina he hardly ever pretended to miss her and never mentioned her name; but this was taken as a proof that he felt her loss too keenly to be able ever to speak of her. it may have been so, but i do not think it. theobald's effects were sold by auction, and among them the harmony of the old and new testaments which he had compiled during many years with such exquisite neatness and a huge collection of ms. sermons--being all in fact that he had ever written. these and the harmony fetched ninepence a barrow load. i was surprised to hear that joey had not given the three or four shillings which would have bought the whole lot, but ernest tells me that joey was far fiercer in his dislike of his father than ever he had been himself, and wished to get rid of everything that reminded him of him. it has already appeared that both joey and charlotte are married. joey has a family, but he and ernest very rarely have any intercourse. of course, ernest took nothing under his father's will; this had long been understood, so that the other two are both well provided for. charlotte is as clever as ever, and sometimes asks ernest to come and stay with her and her husband near dover, i suppose because she knows that the invitation will not be agreeable to him. there is a _de haut en bas_ tone in all her letters; it is rather hard to lay one's finger upon it but ernest never gets a letter from her without feeling that he is being written to by one who has had direct communication with an angel. "what an awful creature," he once said to me, "that angel must have been if it had anything to do with making charlotte what she is." "could you like," she wrote to him not long ago, "the thoughts of a little sea change here? the top of the cliffs will soon be bright with heather: the gorse must be out already, and the heather i should think begun, to judge by the state of the hill at ewell, and heather or no heather--the cliffs are always beautiful, and if you come your room shall be cosy so that you may have a resting corner to yourself. nineteen and sixpence is the price of a return-ticket which covers a month. would you decide just as you would yourself like, only if you come we would hope to try and make it bright for you; but you must not feel it a burden on your mind if you feel disinclined to come in this direction." "when i have a bad nightmare," said ernest to me, laughing as he showed me this letter, "i dream that i have got to stay with charlotte." her letters are supposed to be unusually well written, and i believe it is said among the family that charlotte has far more real literary power than ernest has. sometimes we think that she is writing at him as much as to say, "there now--don't you think you are the only one of us who can write; read this! and if you want a telling bit of descriptive writing for your next book, you can make what use of it you like." i daresay she writes very well, but she has fallen under the dominion of the words "hope," "think," "feel," "try," "bright," and "little," and can hardly write a page without introducing all these words and some of them more than once. all this has the effect of making her style monotonous. ernest is as fond of music as ever, perhaps more so, and of late years has added musical composition to the other irons in his fire. he finds it still a little difficult, and is in constant trouble through getting into the key of c sharp after beginning in the key of c and being unable to get back again. "getting into the key of c sharp," he said, "is like an unprotected female travelling on the metropolitan railway, and finding herself at shepherd's bush, without quite knowing where she wants to go to. how is she ever to get safe back to clapham junction? and clapham junction won't quite do either, for clapham junction is like the diminished seventh--susceptible of such enharmonic change, that you can resolve it into all the possible termini of music." talking of music reminds me of a little passage that took place between ernest and miss skinner, dr skinner's eldest daughter, not so very long ago. dr skinner had long left roughborough, and had become dean of a cathedral in one of our midland counties--a position which exactly suited him. finding himself once in the neighbourhood ernest called, for old acquaintance sake, and was hospitably entertained at lunch. thirty years had whitened the doctor's bushy eyebrows--his hair they could not whiten. i believe that but for that wig he would have been made a bishop. his voice and manner were unchanged, and when ernest remarking upon a plan of rome which hung in the hall, spoke inadvertently of the quirinal, he replied with all his wonted pomp: "yes, the quirinal--or as i myself prefer to call it, the quirinal." after this triumph he inhaled a long breath through the corners of his mouth, and flung it back again into the face of heaven, as in his finest form during his head-mastership. at lunch he did indeed once say, "next to impossible to think of anything else," but he immediately corrected himself and substituted the words, "next to impossible to entertain irrelevant ideas," after which he seemed to feel a good deal more comfortable. ernest saw the familiar volumes of dr skinner's works upon the bookshelves in the deanery dining-room, but he saw no copy of "rome or the bible--which?" "and are you still as fond of music as ever, mr pontifex?" said miss skinner to ernest during the course of lunch. "of some kinds of music, yes, miss skinner, but you know i never did like modern music." "isn't that rather dreadful?--don't you think you rather"--she was going to have added, "ought to?" but she left it unsaid, feeling doubtless that she had sufficiently conveyed her meaning. "i would like modern music, if i could; i have been trying all my life to like it, but i succeed less and less the older i grow." "and pray, where do you consider modern music to begin?" "with sebastian bach." "and don't you like beethoven?" "no, i used to think i did, when i was younger, but i know now that i never really liked him." "ah! how can you say so? you cannot understand him, you never could say this if you understood him. for me a simple chord of beethoven is enough. this is happiness." ernest was amused at her strong family likeness to her father--a likeness which had grown upon her as she had become older, and which extended even to voice and manner of speaking. he remembered how he had heard me describe the game of chess i had played with the doctor in days gone by, and with his mind's ear seemed to hear miss skinner saying, as though it were an epitaph:-- "stay: i may presently take a simple chord of beethoven, or a small semiquaver from one of mendelssohn's songs without words." after luncheon when ernest was left alone for half an hour or so with the dean he plied him so well with compliments that the old gentleman was pleased and flattered beyond his wont. he rose and bowed. "these expressions," he said, _voce sua_, "are very valuable to me." "they are but a small part, sir," rejoined ernest, "of what anyone of your old pupils must feel towards you," and the pair danced as it were a minuet at the end of the dining-room table in front of the old bay window that looked upon the smooth shaven lawn. on this ernest departed; but a few days afterwards, the doctor wrote him a letter and told him that his critics were a [greek text], and at the same time [greek text]. ernest remembered [greek text], and knew that the other words were something of like nature, so it was all right. a month or two afterwards, dr skinner was gathered to his fathers. "he was an old fool, ernest," said i, "and you should not relent towards him." "i could not help it," he replied, "he was so old that it was almost like playing with a child." sometimes, like all whose minds are active, ernest overworks himself, and then occasionally he has fierce and reproachful encounters with dr skinner or theobald in his sleep--but beyond this neither of these two worthies can now molest him further. to myself he has been a son and more than a son; at times i am half afraid--as for example when i talk to him about his books--that i may have been to him more like a father than i ought; if i have, i trust he has forgiven me. his books are the only bone of contention between us. i want him to write like other people, and not to offend so many of his readers; he says he can no more change his manner of writing than the colour of his hair, and that he must write as he does or not at all. with the public generally he is not a favourite. he is admitted to have talent, but it is considered generally to be of a queer unpractical kind, and no matter how serious he is, he is always accused of being in jest. his first book was a success for reasons which i have already explained, but none of his others have been more than creditable failures. he is one of those unfortunate men, each one of whose books is sneered at by literary critics as soon as it comes out, but becomes "excellent reading" as soon as it has been followed by a later work which may in its turn be condemned. he never asked a reviewer to dinner in his life. i have told him over and over again that this is madness, and find that this is the only thing i can say to him which makes him angry with me. "what can it matter to me," he says, "whether people read my books or not? it may matter to them--but i have too much money to want more, and if the books have any stuff in them it will work by-and-by. i do not know nor greatly care whether they are good or not. what opinion can any sane man form about his own work? some people must write stupid books just as there must be junior ops and third class poll men. why should i complain of being among the mediocrities? if a man is not absolutely below mediocrity let him be thankful--besides, the books will have to stand by themselves some day, so the sooner they begin the better." i spoke to his publisher about him not long since. "mr pontifex," he said, "is a _homo unius libri_, but it doesn't do to tell him so." i could see the publisher, who ought to know, had lost all faith in ernest's literary position, and looked upon him as a man whose failure was all the more hopeless for the fact of his having once made a _coup_. "he is in a very solitary position, mr overton," continued the publisher. "he has formed no alliances, and has made enemies not only of the religious world but of the literary and scientific brotherhood as well. this will not do nowadays. if a man wishes to get on he must belong to a set, and mr pontifex belongs to no set--not even to a club." i replied, "mr pontifex is the exact likeness of othello, but with a difference--he hates not wisely but too well. he would dislike the literary and scientific swells if he were to come to know them and they him; there is no natural solidarity between him and them, and if he were brought into contact with them his last state would be worse than his first. his instinct tells him this, so he keeps clear of them, and attacks them whenever he thinks they deserve it--in the hope, perhaps, that a younger generation will listen to him more willingly than the present." "can anything,"' said the publisher, "be conceived more impracticable and imprudent?" to all this ernest replies with one word only--"wait." such is my friend's latest development. he would not, it is true, run much chance at present of trying to found a college of spiritual pathology, but i must leave the reader to determine whether there is not a strong family likeness between the ernest of the college of spiritual pathology and the ernest who will insist on addressing the next generation rather than his own. he says he trusts that there is not, and takes the sacrament duly once a year as a sop to nemesis lest he should again feel strongly upon any subject. it rather fatigues him, but "no man's opinions," he sometimes says, "can be worth holding unless he knows how to deny them easily and gracefully upon occasion in the cause of charity." in politics he is a conservative so far as his vote and interest are concerned. in all other respects he is an advanced radical. his father and grandfather could probably no more understand his state of mind than they could understand chinese, but those who know him intimately do not know that they wish him greatly different from what he actually is. the vicar's daughter by george macdonald the vicar's daughter was originally published in by tinsley brothers, london. [illustration: "i've brought you the baby to kiss," i said, unfolding the blanket. page .] contents. chapter i. introductory chapter ii. i try chapter iii. my wedding chapter iv. judy's visit chapter v. good society chapter vi. a refuge from the heat chapter vii. connie chapter viii. connie's baby chapter ix. the foundling refound chapter x. wagtail comes to honor chapter xi. a stupid chapter chapter xii. an introduction chapter xiii. my first dinner party.--a negatived proposal chapter xiv. a picture chapter xv. rumors chapter xvi. a discovery chapter xvii. miss clare chapter xviii. miss clare's home chapter xix. her story chapter xx. a remarkable fact chapter xxi. lady bernard chapter xxii. my second dinner party chapter xxiii. the end of the evening chapter xxiv. my first terror chapter xxv. its sequel chapter xxvi. troubles chapter xxvii. miss clare amongst her friends chapter xxviii. mr. morley chapter xxix. a strange text chapter xxx. about servants chapter xxxi. about percivale chapter xxxii. my second terror chapter xxxiii. the clouds after the rain chapter xxxiv. the sunshine chapter xxxv. what lady bernard thought of it chapter xxxvi. retrospective chapter xxxvii. mrs. cromwell comes chapter xxxviii. mrs. cromwell goes chapter xxxix. ancestral wisdom chapter xl. child nonsense chapter xli. "double, double, toil and trouble" chapter xlii. roger and marion chapter xliii. a little more about roger, and about mr. blackstone chapter xliv. the dea ex chapter i. introductory. i think that is the way my father would begin. my name is ethelwyn percivale, and used to be ethelwyn walton. i always put the walton in between when i write to my father; for i think it is quite enough to have to leave father and mother behind for a husband, without leaving their name behind you also. i am fond of lumber-rooms, and in some houses consider them far the most interesting spots; but i don't choose that my old name should lie about in the one at home. i am much afraid of writing nonsense; but my father tells me that to see things in print is a great help to recognizing whether they are nonsense or not. and he tells me, too, that his friend the publisher, who,--but i will speak of him presently,--his friend the publisher is not like any other publisher he ever met with before; for he never grumbles at any alterations writers choose to make,--at least he never says any thing, although it costs a great deal to shift the types again after they are once set up. the other part of my excuse for attempting to write lies simply in telling how it came about. ten days ago, my father came up from marshmallows to pay us a visit. he is with us now, but we don't see much of him all day; for he is generally out with a friend of his in the east end, the parson of one of the poorest parishes in london,--who thanks god that he wasn't the nephew of any bishop to be put into a good living, for he learns more about the ways of god from having to do with plain, yes, vulgar human nature, than the thickness of the varnish would ever have permitted him to discover in what are called the higher orders of society. yet i must say, that, amongst those i have recognized as nearest, the sacred communism of the early church--a phrase of my father's--are two or three people of rank and wealth, whose names are written in heaven, and need not be set down in my poor story. a few days ago, then, my father, coming home to dinner, brought with him the publisher of the two books called, "the annals of a quiet neighborhood," and "the seaboard parish." the first of these had lain by him for some years before my father could publish it; and then he remodelled it a little for the magazine in which it came out, a portion at a time. the second was written at the request of mr. s., who wanted something more of the same sort; and now, after some years, he had begun again to represent to my father, at intervals, the necessity for another story to complete the _trilogy_, as he called it: insisting, when my father objected the difficulties of growing years and failing judgment, that indeed he owed it to him; for he had left him in the lurch, as it were, with an incomplete story, not to say an uncompleted series. my father still objected, and mr. s. still urged, until, at length, my father said--this i learned afterwards, of course--"what would you say if i found you a substitute?" "that depends on who the substitute might be, mr. walton," said mr. s. the result of their talk was that my father brought him home to dinner that day; and hence it comes, that, with some real fear and much metaphorical trembling, i am now writing this. i wonder if anybody will ever read it. this my first chapter shall be composed of a little of the talk that passed at our dinner-table that day. mr. blackstone was the only other stranger present; and he certainly was not much of a stranger. "do you keep a diary, mrs. percivale?" asked mr. s., with a twinkle in his eye, as if he expected an indignant repudiation. "i would rather keep a rag and bottle shop," i answered: at which mr. blackstone burst into one of his splendid roars of laughter; for if ever a man could laugh like a christian who believed the world was in a fair way after all, that man was mr. blackstone; and even my husband, who seldom laughs at any thing i say with more than his eyes, was infected by it, and laughed heartily. "that's rather a strong assertion, my love," said my father. "pray, what do you mean by it?" "i mean, papa," i answered, "that it would be a more profitable employment to keep the one than the other." "i suppose you think," said mr. blackstone, "that the lady who keeps a diary is in the same danger as the old woman who prided herself in keeping a strict account of her personal expenses. and it always was correct; for when she could not get it to balance at the end of the week, she brought it right by putting down the deficit as _charity_." "that's just what i mean," i said. "but," resumed mr. s., "i did not mean a diary of your feelings, but of the events of the day and hour." "which are never in themselves worth putting down," i said. "all that is worth remembering will find for itself some convenient cranny to go to sleep in till it is wanted, without being made a poor mummy of in a diary." "if you have such a memory, i grant that is better, even for my purpose, much better," said mr. s. "for your purpose!" i repeated, in surprise. "i beg your pardon; but what designs can you have upon my memory?" "well, i suppose i had better be as straightforward as i know you would like me to be, mrs. percivale. i want you to make up the sum your father owes me. he owed me three books; he has paid me two. i want the third from you." i laughed; for the very notion of writing a book seemed preposterous. "i want you, under feigned names of course," he went on, "as are all the names in your father's two books, to give me the further history of the family, and in particular your own experiences in london. i am confident the history of your married life must contain a number of incidents which, without the least danger of indiscretion, might be communicated to the public to the great advantage of all who read them." "you forget," i said, hardly believing him to be in earnest, "that i should be exposing my story to you and mr. blackstone at least. if i were to make the absurd attempt,--i mean absurd as regards my ability,--i should be always thinking of you two as my public, and whether it would be right for me to say this and say that; which you may see at once would render it impossible for me to write at all." "i think i can suggest a way out of that difficulty, wynnie," said my father. "you must write freely, all you feel inclined to write, and then let your husband see it. you may be content to let all pass that he passes." "you don't say you really mean it, papa! the thing is perfectly impossible. i never wrote a book in my life, and"-- "no more did i, my dear, before i began my first." "but you grew up to it by degrees, papa!" "i have no doubt that will make it the easier for you, when you try. i am so far, at least, a darwinian as to believe that." "but, really, mr. s. ought to have more sense--i beg your pardon, mr. s.; but it is perfectly absurd to suppose me capable of finishing any thing my father has begun. i assure you i don't feel flattered by your proposal. i have got a man of more consequence for a father than that would imply." all this time my tall husband sat silent at the foot of the table, as if he had nothing on earth to do with the affair, instead of coming to my assistance, when, as i thought, i really needed it, especially seeing my own father was of the combination against me; for what can be more miserable than to be taken for wiser or better or cleverer than you know perfectly well you are. i looked down the table, straight and sharp at him, thinking to rouse him by the most powerful of silent appeals; and when he opened his mouth very solemnly, staring at me in return down all the length of the table, i thought i had succeeded. but i was not a little surprised, when i heard him say,-- "i think, wynnie, as your father and mr. s. appear to wish it, you might at least try." this almost overcame me, and i was very near,--never mind what. i bit my lips, and tried to smile, but felt as if all my friends had forsaken me, and were about to turn me out to beg my bread. how on earth could i write a book without making a fool of myself? "you know, mrs. percivale," said mr. s., "you needn't be afraid about the composition, and the spelling, and all that. we can easily set those to rights at the office." he couldn't have done any thing better to send the lump out of my throat; for this made me angry. "i am not in the least anxious about the spelling," i answered; "and for the rest, pray what is to become of me, if what you print should happen to be praised by somebody who likes my husband or my father, and therefore wants to say a good word for me? that's what a good deal of reviewing comes to, i understand. am i to receive in silence what doesn't belong to me, or am i to send a letter to the papers to say that the whole thing was patched and polished at the printing-office, and that i have no right to more than perhaps a fourth part of the commendation? how would that do?" "but you forget it is not to have your name to it," he said; "and so it won't matter a bit. there will be nothing dishonest about it." "you forget, that, although nobody knows my real name, everybody will know that i am the daughter of that mr. walton who would have thrown his pen in the fire if you had meddled with any thing he wrote. they would be praising _me_, if they praised at all. the name is nothing. of all things, to have praise you don't deserve, and not to be able to reject it, is the most miserable! it is as bad as painting one's face." "hardly a case in point," said mr. blackstone. "for the artificial complexion would be your own work, and the other would not." "if you come to discuss that question," said my father, "we must all confess we have had in our day to pocket a good many more praises than we had a right to. i agree with you, however, my child, that we must not connive at any thing of the sort. so i will propose this clause in the bargain between you and mr. s.; namely, that, if he finds any fault with your work, he shall send it back to yourself to be set right, and, if you cannot do so to his mind, you shall be off the bargain." "but papa,--percivale,--both of you know well enough that nothing ever happened to me worth telling." "i am sorry your life has been so very uninteresting, wife," said my husband grimly; for his fun is always so like earnest! "you know well enough what i mean, husband. it does _not_ follow that what has been interesting enough to you and me will be interesting to people who know nothing at all about us to begin with." "it depends on how it is told," said mr. s. "then, i beg leave to say, that i never had an original thought in my life; and that, if i were to attempt to tell my history, the result would be as silly a narrative as ever one old woman told another by the workhouse fire." "and i only wish i could hear the one old woman tell her story to the other," said my father. "ah! but that's because you see ever so much more in it than shows. you always see through the words and the things to something lying behind them," i said. "well, if you told the story rightly, other people would see such things behind it too." "not enough of people to make it worth while for mr. s. to print it," i said. "he's not going to print it except he thinks it worth his while; and you may safely leave that to him," said my husband. "and so i'm to write a book as big as 'the annals;' and, after i've been slaving at it for half a century or so, i'm to be told it won't do, and all my labor must go for nothing? i must say the proposal is rather a cool one to make,--to the mother of a family." "not at all; that's not it, i mean," said mr. s.; "if you will write a dozen pages or so, i shall be able to judge by those well enough,--at least, i will take all the responsibility on myself after that." "there's a fair offer!" said my husband. "it seems to me, wynnie, that all that is wanted of you is to tell your tale so that other people can recognize the human heart in it,--the heart that is like their own, and be able to feel as if they were themselves going through the things you recount." "you describe the work of a genius, and coolly ask me to do it. besides, i don't want to be set thinking about my heart, and all that," i said peevishly. "now, don't be raising objections where none exist," he returned. "if you mean i am pretending to object, i have only to say that i feel all one great objection to the whole affair, and that i won't touch it." they were all silent; and i felt as if i had behaved ungraciously. then first i felt as if i might _have_ to do it, after all. but i couldn't see my way in the least. "now, what is there," i asked, "in all my life that is worth setting down,--i mean, as i should be able to set it down?" "what do you ladies talk about now in your morning calls?" suggested mr. blackstone, with a humorous glance from his deep black eyes. "nothing worth writing about, as i am sure _you_ will readily believe, mr. blackstone," i answered. "how comes it to be interesting, then?" "but it isn't. they--we--only talk about the weather and our children and servants, and that sort of thing." "_well!_" said mr. s., "and i wish i could get any thing sensible about the weather and children and servants, and that sort of thing, for my magazine. i have a weakness in the direction of the sensible." "but there never is any thing sensible said about any of them,--not that i know of." "now, wynnie, i am sure you are wrong," said my father. "there is your friend, mrs. cromwell: i am certain she, sometimes at least, must say what is worth hearing about such matters." "well, but she's an exception. besides, she hasn't any children." "then," said my husband, "there's lady bernard"-- "ah! but she was like no one else. besides, she is almost a public character, and any thing said about her would betray my original." "it would be no matter. she is beyond caring for that now; and not one of her friends could object to any thing you who loved her so much would say about her." the mention of this lady seemed to put some strength into me. i felt as if i did know something worth telling, and i was silent in my turn. "certainly," mr. s. resumed, "whatever is worth talking about is worth writing about,--though not perhaps in the way it is talked about. besides, mrs. percivale, my clients want to know more about your sisters, and little theodora, or dorothea, or--what was her name in the book?" the end of it was, that i agreed to try to the extent of a dozen pages or so. chapter ii. i try. i hope no one will think i try to write like my father; for that would be to go against what he always made a great point of,--that nobody whatever should imitate any other person whatever, but in modesty and humility allow the seed that god had sown in her to grow. he said all imitation tended to dwarf and distort the plant, if it even allowed the seed to germinate at all. so, if i do write like him, it will be because i cannot help it. i will just look how "the seaboard parish" ends, and perhaps that will put into my head how i ought to begin. i see my father does mention that i had then been mrs. percivale for many years. not so very many though,--five or six, if i remember rightly, and that is three or four years ago. yes; i nave been married nine years. i may as well say a word as to how it came about; and, if percivale doesn't like it, the remedy lies in his pen. i shall be far more thankful to have any thing struck out on suspicion than remain on sufferance. after our return home from kilkhaven, my father and mother had a good many talks about me and percivale, and sometimes they took different sides. i will give a shadow of one of these conversations. i think ladies can write fully as natural talk as gentlemen can, though the bits between mayn't be so good. _mother._--i am afraid, my dear husband [this was my mother's most solemn mode of addressing my father], "they are too like each other to make a suitable match." _father_.--i am sorry to learn you consider me so very unlike yourself, ethelwyn. i had hoped there was a very strong resemblance indeed, and that the match had not proved altogether unsuitable. _mother._--just think, though, what would have become of me by this time, if you had been half as unbelieving a creature as i was. indeed, i fear sometimes i am not much better now. _father._--i think i am, then; and i know you've done me nothing but good with your unbelief. it was just because i was of the same sort precisely that i was able to understand and help you. my circumstances and education and superior years-- _mother._--now, don't plume yourself on that, harry; for you know everybody says you look much the younger of the two. _father._--i had no idea that everybody was so rude. i repeat, that my more years, as well as my severer education, had, no doubt, helped me a little further on before i came to know you; but it was only in virtue of the doubt in me that i was able to understand and appreciate the doubt in you. _mother._--but then you had at least begun to leave it behind before i knew you, and so had grown able to help me. and mr. percivale does not seem, by all i can make out, a bit nearer believing in any thing than poor wynnie herself. _father._--at least, he doesn't fancy he believes when he does not, as so many do, and consider themselves superior persons in consequence. i don't know that it would have done you any great harm, miss ethelwyn, to have made my acquaintance when i was in the worst of my doubts concerning the truth of things. allow me to tell you that i was nearer making shipwreck of my faith at a certain period than i ever was before or have been since. _mother._--what period was that? _father._--just the little while when i had lost all hope of ever marrying you,--unbeliever as you counted yourself. _mother._--you don't mean to say you would have ceased to believe in god, if he hadn't given you your own way? _father._--no, my dear. i firmly believe, that, had i never married you, i should have come in the end to say, "_thy will be done_," and to believe that it must be all right, however hard to bear. but, oh, what a terrible thing it would have been, and what a frightful valley of the shadow of death i should have had to go through first! [i know my mother _said_ nothing more just then, but let my father have it all his own way for a while.] _father._--you see, this percivale is an honest man. i don't exactly know how he has been brought up; and it is quite possible he may have had such evil instruction in christianity that he attributes to it doctrines which, if i supposed they actually belonged to it, would make me reject it at once as ungodlike and bad. i have found this the case sometimes. i remember once being astonished to hear a certain noble-minded lady utter some indignant words against what i considered a very weighty doctrine of christianity; but, listening, i soon found that what she supposed the doctrine to contain was something considered vastly unchristian. this may be the case with percivale, though i never heard him say a word of the kind. i think his difficulty comes mainly from seeing so much suffering in the world, that he cannot imagine the presence and rule of a good god, and therefore lies with religion rather than with christianity as yet. i am all but certain, the only thing that will ever make him able to believe in a god at all is meditation on the christian idea of god,--i mean the idea of god _in_ christ reconciling the world to himself,--not that pagan corruption of christ in god reconciling him to the world. he will then see that suffering is not either wrath or neglect, but pure-hearted love and tenderness. but we must give him time, wife; as god has borne with us, we must believe that he bears with others, and so learn to wait in hopeful patience until they, too, see as we see. and as to trusting our wynnie with percivale, he seems to be as good as she is. i should for my part have more apprehension in giving her to one who would be called a thoroughly religious man; for not only would the unfitness be greater, but such a man would be more likely to confirm her in doubt, if the phrase be permissible. she wants what some would call homoeopathic treatment. and how should they be able to love one another, if they are not fit to be married to each other? the fitness, seems inherent to the fact. _mother._--but many a two love each other who would have loved each other a good deal more if they hadn't been married. _father._--then it was most desirable they should find out that what they thought a grand affection was not worthy of the name. but i don't think there is much fear of that between those two. _mother._--i don't, however, see how that man is to do her any good, when _you_ have tried to make her happy for so long, and all in vain. _father._--i don't know that it has been all in vain. but it is quite possible she does not understand me. she fancies, i dare say, that i believe every thing without any trouble, and therefore cannot enter into her difficulties. _mother._--but you have told her many and many a time that you do. _father._--yes: and i hope i was right; but the same things look so different to different people that the same words won't describe them to both; and it may seem to her that i am talking of something not at all like what she is feeling or thinking of. but when she sees the troubled face of percivale, she knows that he is suffering; and sympathy being thus established between them, the least word of the one will do more to help the other than oceans of argument. love is the one great instructor. and each will try to be good, and to find out for the sake of the other. _mother._--i don't like her going from home for the help that lay at her very door. _father._--you know, my dear, you like the dean's preaching much better than mine. _mother._--now, that is unkind of you! _father._--and why? [my father went on, taking no heed of my mother's expostulation.] because, in the first place, it _is_ better; because, in the second, it comes in a newer form to you, for you have got used to all my modes; in the third place, it has more force from the fact that it is not subject to the doubt of personal preference; and lastly, because he has a large, comprehensive way of asserting things, which pleases you better than my more dubitant mode of submitting them,--all very sound and good reasons: but still, why be so vexed with wynnie? [my mother was now, however, so vexed with my father for saying she preferred the dean's preaching to his,--although i doubt very much whether it wasn't true,--that she actually walked out of the octagon room where they were, and left him to meditate on his unkindness. vexed with herself the next moment, she returned as if nothing had happened. i am only telling what my mother told me; for to her grown daughters she is blessedly trusting.] _mother._--then if you will have them married, husband, will you say how on earth you expect them to live? he just makes both ends meet now: i suppose he doesn't make things out worse than they are; and that is his own account of the state of his affairs. _father._--ah, yes! that _is_--a secondary consideration, my dear. but i have hardly begun to think about it yet. there will be a difficulty there, i can easily imagine; for he is far too independent to let us do any thing for him. _mother._--and you can't do much, if they would. really, they oughtn't to marry yet. _father._--really, we must leave it to themselves. i don't think you and i need trouble our heads about it. when percivale considers himself prepared to marry, and wynnie thinks he is right, you may be sure they see their way to a livelihood without running in hopeless debt to their tradespeople. _mother._--oh, yes! i dare say: in some poky little lodging or other! _father._--for my part, ethelwyn, i think it better to build castles in the air than huts in the smoke. but seriously, a little poverty and a little struggling would be a most healthy and healing thing for wynnie. it hasn't done percivale much good yet, i confess; for he is far too indifferent to his own comforts to mind it: but it will be quite another thing when he has a young wife and perhaps children depending upon him. then his poverty may begin to hurt him, and so do him some good. * * * * * it may seem odd that my father and mother should now be taking such opposite sides to those they took when the question of our engagement was first started, as represented by my father in "the seaboard parish." but it will seem inconsistent to none of the family; for it was no unusual thing for them to take opposite sides to those they had previously advocated,--each happening at the time, possibly enlightened by the foregone arguments of the other, to be impressed with the correlate truth, as my father calls the other side of a thing. besides, engagement and marriage are two different things; and although my mother was the first to recognize the good of our being engaged, when it came to marriage she got frightened, i think. any how, i have her authority for saying that something like this passed between her and my father on the subject. discussion between them differed in this from what i have generally heard between married people, that it was always founded on a tacit understanding of certain unmentioned principles; and no doubt sometimes, if a stranger had been present, he would have been bewildered as to the very meaning of what they were saying. but we girls generally understood: and i fancy we learned more from their differences than from their agreements; for of course it was the differences that brought out their minds most, and chiefly led us to think that we might understand. in our house there were very few of those mysteries which in some houses seem so to abound; and i think the openness with which every question, for whose concealment there was no special reason, was discussed, did more than even any direct instruction we received to develop what thinking faculty might be in us. nor was there much reason to dread that my small brothers might repeat any thing. i remember hearing harry say to charley once, they being then eight and nine years old, "that is mamma's opinion, charley, not yours; and you know we must not repeat what we hear." they soon came to be of one mind about mr. percivale and me: for indeed the only _real_ ground for doubt that had ever existed was, whether i was good enough for him; and for my part, i knew then and know now, that i was and am dreadfully inferior to him. and notwithstanding the tremendous work women are now making about their rights (and, in as far as they are their rights, i hope to goodness they may get them, if it were only that certain who make me feel ashamed of myself because i, too, am a woman, might perhaps then drop out of the public regard),--notwithstanding this, i venture the sweeping assertion, that every woman is not as good as every man, and that it is not necessary to the dignity of a wife that she should assert even equality with her husband. let him assert her equality or superiority if he will; but, were it a fact, it would be a poor one for her to assert, seeing her glory is in her husband. to seek the chief place is especially unfitting the marriage-feast. whether i be a christian or not,--and i have good reason to doubt it every day of my life,--at least i see that in the new jerusalem one essential of citizenship consists in knowing how to set the good in others over against the evil in ourselves. there, now, my father might have said that! and no doubt has said so twenty times in my hearing. it is, however, only since i was married that i have come to see it for myself; and, now that i do see it, i have a right to say it. so we were married at last. my mother believes it was my father's good advice to percivale concerning the sort of pictures he painted, that brought it about. for certainly soon after we were engaged, he began to have what his artist friends called a run of luck: he sold one picture after another in a very extraordinary and hopeful manner. but percivale says it was his love for me--indeed he does--which enabled him to see not only much deeper into things, but also to see much better the bloom that hangs about every thing, and so to paint much better pictures than before. he felt, he said, that he had a hold now where before he had only a sight. however this may be, he had got on so well for a while that he wrote at last, that, if i was willing to share his poverty, it would not, he thought, be absolute starvation; and i was, of course, perfectly content. i can't put in words--indeed i dare not, for fear of writing what would be, if not unladylike, at least uncharitable--my contempt for those women who, loving a man, hesitate to run every risk with him. of course, if they cannot trust him, it is a different thing. i am not going to say any thing about that; for i should be out of my depth,--not in the least understanding how a woman can love a man to whom she cannot look up. i believe there are who can; i see some men married whom i don't believe any woman ever did or ever could respect; all i say is, i don't understand it. my father and mother made no objection, and were evidently at last quite agreed that it would be the best thing for both of us; and so, i say, we were married. i ought to just mention, that, before the day arrived, my mother went up to london at percivale's request, to help him in getting together the few things absolutely needful for the barest commencement of housekeeping. for the rest, it had been arranged that we should furnish by degrees, buying as we saw what we liked, and could afford it. the greater part of modern fashions in furniture, having both been accustomed to the stateliness of a more artistic period, we detested for their ugliness, and chiefly, therefore, we desired to look about us at our leisure. my mother came back more satisfied with the little house he had taken than i had expected. it was not so easy to get one to suit us; for of course he required a large room to paint in, with a good north light. he had however succeeded better than he had hoped. "you will find things very different from what you have been used to, wynnie," said my mother. "of course, mamma; i know that," i answered. "i hope i am prepared to meet it. if i don't like it, i shall have no one to blame but myself; and i don't see what right people have to expect what they have been used to." "there is just this advantage," said my father, "in having been used to nice things, that it ought to be easier to keep from sinking into the sordid, however straitened the new circumstances may be, compared with the old." on the evening before the wedding, my father took me into the octagon room, and there knelt down with me and my mother, and prayed for me in such a wonderful way that i was perfectly astonished and overcome. i had never known him to do any thing of the kind before. he was not favorable to extempore prayer in public, or even in the family, and indeed had often seemed willing to omit prayers for what i could not always count sufficient reason: he had a horror at their getting to be a matter of course, and a form; for then, he said, they ceased to be worship at all, and were a mere pagan rite, better far left alone. i remember also he said, that those, however good they might be, who urged attention to the forms of religion, such as going to church and saying prayers, were, however innocently, just the prophets of pharisaism; that what men had to be stirred up to was to lay hold upon god, and then they would not fail to find out what religious forms they ought to cherish. "the spirit first, and then the flesh," he would say. to put the latter before the former was a falsehood, and therefore a frightful danger, being at the root of all declensions in the church, and making ever-recurring earthquakes and persecutions and repentances and reformations needful. i find what my father used to say coming back so often now that i hear so little of it,--especially as he talks much less, accusing himself of having always talked too much,--and i understand it so much better now, that i shall be always in danger of interrupting my narrative to say something that he said. but when i commence the next chapter, i shall get on faster, i hope. my story is like a vessel i saw once being launched: it would stick on the stocks, instead of sliding away into the expectant waters. chapter iii. my wedding. i confess the first thing i did when i knew myself the next morning was to have a good cry. to leave the place where i had been born was like forsaking the laws and order of the nature i knew, for some other nature it might be, but not known to me as such. how, for instance, could one who has been used to our bright white sun, and our pale modest moon, with our soft twilights, and far, mysterious skies of night, be willing to fall in with the order of things in a planet, such as i have read of somewhere, with three or four suns, one red and another green and another yellow? only perhaps i've taken it all up wrong, and i do like looking at a landscape for a minute or so through a colored glass; and if it be so, of course it all blends, and all we want is harmony. what i mean is, that i found it a great wrench to leave the dear old place, and of course loved it more than i had ever loved it. but i would get all my crying about that over beforehand. it would be bad enough afterwards to have to part with my father and mother and connie, and the rest of them. only it wasn't like leaving them. you can't leave hearts as you do rooms. you can't leave thoughts as you do books. those you love only come nearer to you when you go away from them. the same rules don't hold with _thinks_ and _things_, as my eldest boy distinguished them the other day. but somehow i couldn't get up and dress. i seemed to have got very fond of my own bed, and the queer old crows, as i had called them from babyhood, on the chintz curtains, and the chinese paper on the walk with the strangest birds and creeping things on it. it was a lovely spring morning, and the sun was shining gloriously. i knew that the rain of the last night must be glittering on the grass and the young leaves; and i heard the birds singing as if they knew far more than mere human beings, and believed a great deal more than they knew. nobody will persuade me that the birds don't mean it; that they sing from any thing else than gladness of heart. and if they don't think about cats and guns, why should they? even when they fall on the ground, it is not without our father. how horridly dull and stupid it seems to say that "without your father" means without _his knowing it_. the father's mere _knowledge_ of a thing--if that could be, which my father says can't--is not the father. the father's tenderness and care and love of it all the time, that is the not falling without him. when the cat kills the bird, as i have seen happen so often in our poor little london garden, god yet saves his bird from his cat. there is nothing so bad as it looks to our half-sight, our blinding perceptions. my father used to say we are all walking in a spiritual twilight, and are all more or less affected with twilight blindness, as some people are physically. percivale, for one, who is as brave as any wife could wish, is far more timid than i am in crossing a london street in the twilight; he can't see what is coming, and fancies he sees what is not coming. but then he has faith in me, and never starts when i am leading him. well, the birds were singing, and dora and the boys were making a great chatter, like a whole colony of sparrows, under my window. still i felt as if i had twenty questions to settle before i could get up comfortably, and so lay on and on till the breakfast-bell rang: and i was not more than half dressed when my mother came to see why i was late; for i had not been late forever so long before. she comforted me as nobody but a mother can comfort. oh, i do hope i shall be to my children what my mother has been to me! it would be such a blessed thing to be a well of water whence they may be sure of drawing comfort. and all she said to me has come true. of course, my father gave me away, and mr. weir married us. it had been before agreed that we should have no wedding journey. we all liked the old-fashioned plan of the bride going straight from her father's house to her husband's. the other way seemed a poor invention, just for the sake of something different. so after the wedding, we spent the time as we should have done any other day, wandering about in groups, or sitting and reading, only that we were all more smartly dressed; until it was time for an early dinner, after which we drove to the station, accompanied only by my father and mother. after they left us, or rather we left them, my husband did not speak to me for nearly an hour: i knew why, and was very grateful. he would not show his new face in the midst of my old loves and their sorrows, but would give me time to re-arrange the grouping so as myself to bring him in when all was ready for him. i know that was what he was thinking, or feeling rather; and i understood him perfectly. at last, when i had got things a little tidier inside me, and had got my eyes to stop, i held out my hand to him, and then--knew that i was his wife. this is all i have got to tell, though i have plenty more to keep, till we get to london. there, instead of my father's nice carriage, we got into a jolting, lumbering, horrid cab, with my five boxes and percivale's little portmanteau on the top of it, and drove away to camden town. it _was_ to a part of it near the regent's park; and so our letters were always, according to the divisions of the post-office, addressed to regent's park, but for all practical intents we were in camden town. it was indeed a change from a fine old house in the country; but the street wasn't much uglier than belgrave square, or any other of those heaps of uglinesses, called squares, in the west end; and, after what i had been told to expect, i was surprised at the prettiness of the little house, when i stepped out of the cab and looked about me. it was stuck on like a swallow's nest to the end of a great row of commonplace houses, nearly a quarter of a mile in length, but itself was not the work of one of those wretched builders who care no more for beauty in what they build than a scavenger in the heap of mud he scrapes from the street. it had been built by a painter for himself, in the tudor style; and though percivale says the idea is not very well carried out, i like it much. i found it a little dreary when i entered though,--from its emptiness. the only sitting-room at all prepared had just a table and two or three old-fashioned chairs in it; not even a carpet on the floor. the bedroom and dressing-room were also as scantily furnished as they well could be. "don't be dismayed, my darling," said my husband. "look here,"--showing me a bunch of notes,--"we shall go out to-morrow and buy all we want,--as far as this will go,--and then wait for the rest. it will be such a pleasure to buy the things with you, and see them come home, and have you appoint their places. you and sarah will make the carpets; won't you? and i will put them down, and we shall be like birds building their nest." "we have only to line it; the nest is built already." "well, neither do the birds build the tree. i wonder if they ever sit in their old summer nests in the winter nights." "i am afraid not," i answered; "but i'm ashamed to say i can't tell." "it is the only pretty house i know in all london," he went on, "with a studio at the back of it. i have had my eye on it for a long time, but there seemed no sign of a migratory disposition in the bird who had occupied it for three years past. all at once he spread his wings and flew. i count myself very fortunate." "so do i. but now you must let me see your study," i said. "i hope i may sit in it when you've got nobody there." "as much as ever you like, my love," he answered. "only i don't want to make all my women like you, as i've been doing for the last two years. you must get me out of that somehow." "easily. i shall be so cross and disagreeable that you will get tired of me, and find no more difficulty in keeping me out of your pictures." but he got me out of his pictures without that; for when he had me always before him he didn't want to be always producing me. he led me into the little hall,--made lovely by a cast of an unfinished madonna of michael angelo's let into the wall,--and then to the back of it, where he opened a small cloth-covered door, when there yawned before me, below me, and above me, a great wide lofty room. down into it led an almost perpendicular stair. "so you keep a little private precipice here," i said. "no, my dear," he returned; "you mistake. it is a jacob's ladder,--or will be in one moment more." he gave me his hand, and led me down. "this is quite a banqueting-hall, percivale!" i cried, looking round me. "it shall be, the first time i get a thousand pounds for a picture," he returned. "how grand you talk!" i said, looking up at him with some wonder; for big words rarely came out of his mouth. "well," he answered merrily, "i had two hundred and seventy-five for the last." "that's a long way off a thousand," i returned, with a silly sigh. "quite right; and, therefore, this study is a long way off a banqueting-hall." there was literally nothing inside the seventeen feet cube except one chair, one easel, a horrible thing like a huge doll, with no end of joints, called a lay figure, but percivale called it his bishop; a number of pictures leaning their faces against the walls in attitudes of grief that their beauty was despised and no man would buy them; a few casts of legs and arms and faces, half a dozen murderous-looking weapons, and a couple of yards square of the most exquisite tapestry i ever saw. "do you like being read to when you are at work?" i asked him. "sometimes,--at certain kinds of work, but not by any means always," he answered. "will you shut your eyes for one minute," he went on, "and, whatever i do, not open them till i tell you?" "you mustn't hurt me, then, or i may open them without being able to help it, you know," i said, closing my eyes tight. "hurt you!" he repeated, with a tone i would not put on paper if i could, and the same moment i found myself in his arms, carried like a baby, for percivale is one of the strongest of men. it was only for a few yards, however. he laid me down somewhere, and told me to open my eyes. i could scarcely believe them when i did. i was lying on a couch in a room,--small, indeed, but beyond exception the loveliest i had ever seen. at first i was only aware of an exquisite harmony of color, and could not have told of what it was composed. the place was lighted by a soft lamp that hung in the middle; and when my eyes went up to see where it was fastened, i found the ceiling marvellous in deep blue, with a suspicion of green, just like some of the shades of a peacock's feathers, with a multitude of gold and red stars upon it. what the walls were i could not for some time tell, they were so covered with pictures and sketches; against one was a lovely little set of book-shelves filled with books, and on a little carved table stood a vase of white hot-house flowers, with one red camellia. one picture had a curtain of green silk before it, and by its side hung the wounded knight whom his friends were carrying home to die. "o my percivale!" i cried, and could say no more. "do you like it?" he asked quietly, but with shining eyes. "like it?" i repeated. "shall i like paradise when i get there? but what a lot of money it must have cost you!" "not much," he answered; "not more than thirty pounds or so. every spot of paint there is from my own brush." "o percivale!" i must make a conversation of it to tell it at all; but what i really did say i know no more than the man in the moon. "the carpet was the only expensive thing. that must be as thick as i could get it; for the floor is of stone, and must not come near your pretty feet. guess what the place was before." "i should say, the flower of a prickly-pear cactus, full of sunlight from behind, which a fairy took the fancy to swell into a room." "it was a shed, in which the sculptor who occupied the place before me used to keep his wet clay and blocks of marble." "seeing is hardly believing," i said. "is it to be my room? i know you mean it for my room, where i can ask you to come when i please, and where i can hide when any one comes you don't want me to see." "that is just what i meant it for, my ethelwyn,--and to let you know what i _would_ do for you if i could." "i hate the place, percivale," i said. "what right has it to come poking in between you and me, telling me what i know and have known--for, well, i won't say how long--far better than even you can tell me?" he looked a little troubled. "ah, my dear!" i said, "let my foolish words breathe and die." i wonder sometimes to think how seldom i am in that room now. but there it is; and somehow i seem to know it all the time i am busy elsewhere. he made me shut my eyes again, and carried me into the study. "now," he said, "find your way to your own room." i looked about me, but could see no sign of door. he took up a tall stretcher with a canvas on it, and revealed the door, at the same time showing a likeness of myself,--at the top of the jacob's ladder, as he called it, with me foot on the first step, and the other half way to the second. the light came from the window on my left, which he had turned into a western window, in order to get certain effects from a supposed sunset. i was represented in a white dress, tinged with the rose of the west; and he had managed, attributing the phenomenon to the inequalities of the glass in the window, to suggest one rosy wing behind me, with just the shoulder-roof of another visible. "there!" he said. "it is not finished yet, but that is how i saw you one evening as i was sitting here all alone in the twilight." "but you didn't really see me like that!" i said. "i hardly know," he answered. "i had been forgetting every thing else in dreaming about you, and--how it was i cannot tell, but either in the body or out of the body there i saw you, standing just so at the top of the stair, smiling to me as much as to say, 'have patience. my foot is on the first step. i'm coming.' i turned at once to my easel, and before the twilight was gone had sketched the vision. to-morrow, you must sit to me for an hour or so; for i will do nothing else till i have finished it, and sent it off to your father and mother." i may just add that i hear it is considered a very fine painting. it hangs in the great dining-room at home. i wish i were as good as he has made it look. the next morning, after i had given him the sitting he wanted, we set out on our furniture hunt; when, having keen enough eyes, i caught sight of this and of that and of twenty different things in the brokers' shops. we did not agree about the merits of everything by which one or the other was attracted; but an objection by the one always turned the other, a little at least, and we bought nothing we were not agreed about. yet that evening the hall was piled with things sent home to line our nest. percivale, as i have said, had saved up some money for the purpose, and i had a hundred pounds my father had given me before we started, which, never having had more than ten of my own at a time, i was eager enough to spend. so we found plenty to do for the fortnight during which time my mother had promised to say nothing to her friends in london of our arrival. percivale also keeping out of the way of his friends, everybody thought we were on the continent, or somewhere else, and left us to ourselves. and as he had sent in his pictures to the academy, he was able to take a rest, which rest consisted in working hard at all sorts of upholstery, not to mention painters' and carpenters' work; so that we soon got the little house made into a very warm and very pretty nest. i may mention that percivale was particularly pleased with a cabinet i bought for him on the sly, to stand in his study, and hold his paints and brushes and sketches; for there were all sorts of drawers in it, and some that it took us a good deal of trouble to find out, though he was clever enough to suspect them from the first, when i hadn't a thought of such a thing; and i have often fancied since that that cabinet was just like himself, for i have been going on finding out things in him that i had no idea were there when i married him. i had no idea that he was a poet, for instance. i wonder to this day why he never showed me any of his verses before we were married. he writes better poetry than my father,--at least my father says so. indeed, i soon came to feel very ignorant and stupid beside him; he could tell me so many things, and especially in art (for he had thought about all kinds of it), making me understand that there is no end to it, any more than to the nature which sets it going, and that the more we see into nature, and try to represent it, the more ignorant and helpless we find ourselves, until at length i began to wonder whether god might not have made the world so rich and full just to teach his children humility. for a while i felt quite stunned. he very much wanted me to draw; but i thought it was no use trying, and, indeed, had no heart for it. i spoke to my father about it. he said it was indeed of no use, if my object was to be able to think much of myself, for no one could ever succeed in that in the long run; but if my object was to reap the delight of the truth, it was worth while to spend hours and hours on trying to draw a single tree-leaf, or paint the wing of a moth. chapter iv. judy's visit. the very first morning after the expiry of the fortnight, when i was in the kitchen with sarah, giving her instructions about a certain dish as if i had made it twenty times, whereas i had only just learned how from a shilling cookery-book, there came a double knock at the door. i guessed who it must be. "run, sarah," i said, "and show mrs. morley into the drawing-room." when i entered, there she was,--mrs. morley, _alias_ cousin judy. "well, little cozzie!" she cried, as she kissed me three or four times, "i'm glad to see you gone the way of womankind,--wooed and married and a'! fate, child! inscrutable fate!" and she kissed me again. she always calls me little coz, though i am a head taller than herself. she is as good as ever, quite as brusque, and at the first word apparently more overbearing. but she is as ready to listen to reason as ever was woman of my acquaintance; and i think the form of her speech is but a somewhat distorted reflex of her perfect honesty. after a little trifling talk, which is sure to come first when people are more than ordinarily glad to meet, i asked after her children. i forget how many there were of them, but they were then pretty far into the plural number. "growing like ill weeds," she said; "as anxious as ever their grandfathers and mothers were to get their heads up and do mischief. for my part i wish i was jove,--to start them full grown at once. or why shouldn't they be made like eve out of their father's ribs? it would be a great comfort to their mother." my father had always been much pleased with the results of judy's training, as contrasted with those of his sister's. the little ones of my aunt martha's family were always wanting something, and always looking care-worn like their mother, while she was always reading them lectures on their duty, and never making them mind what she said. she would represent the self-same thing to them over and over, until not merely all force, but all sense as well, seemed to have forsaken it. her notion of duty was to tell them yet again the duty which they had been told at least a thousand times already, without the slightest result. they were dull children, wearisome and uninteresting. on the other hand, the little morleys were full of life and eagerness. the fault in them was that they wouldn't take petting; and what's the good of a child that won't be petted? they lacked that something which makes a woman feel motherly. "when did you arrive, cozzie?" she asked. "a fortnight ago yesterday." "ah, you sly thing! what have you been doing with yourself all the time?" "furnishing." "what! you came into an empty house?" "not quite that, but nearly." "it is very odd i should never have seen your husband. we have crossed each other twenty times." "not so _very_ odd, seeing he has been my husband only a fortnight." "what is he like?" "like nothing but himself." "is he tall?" "yes." "is he stout?" "no." "an adonis?" "no." "a hercules?" "no." "very clever, i believe." "not at all." for my father had taught me to look down on that word. "why did you marry him then?" "i didn't. he married me." "what did you marry him for then?" "for love." "what did you love him for?" "because he was a philosopher." "that's the oddest reason i ever heard for marrying a man." "i said for loving him, judy." her bright eyes were twinkling with fun. "come, cozzie," she said, "give me a proper reason for falling in love with this husband of yours." "well, i'll tell you, then," i said; "only you mustn't tell any other body; he's got such a big shaggy head, just like a lion's." "and such a huge big foot,--just like a bear's?" "yes, and such great huge hands! why, the two of them go quite round my waist! and such big eyes, that they look right through me; and such a big heart, that if he saw me doing any thing wrong, he would kill me, and bury me in it." "well, i must say, it is the most extraordinary description of a husband i ever heard. it sounds to me very like an ogre." "yes; i admit the description is rather ogrish. but then he's poor, and that makes up for a good deal." i was in the humor for talking nonsense, and of course expected of all people that judy would understand my fun. "how does that make up for any thing?" "because if he is a poor man, he isn't a rich man, and therefore not so likely to be a stupid." "how do you make that out?" "because, first of all, the rich man doesn't know what to do with his money, whereas my ogre knows what to do without it. then the rich man wonders in the morning which waistcoat he shall put on, while my ogre has but one, besides his sunday one. then supposing the rich man has slept well, and has done a fair stroke or two of business, he wants nothing but a well-dressed wife, a well-dressed dinner, a few glasses of his favorite wine, and the evening paper, well-diluted with a sleep in his easy chair, to be perfectly satisfied that this world is the best of all possible worlds. now my ogre, on the other hand"-- i was going on to point out how frightfully different from all this my ogre was,--how he would devour a half-cooked chop, and drink a pint of ale from the public-house, &c., &c., when she interrupted me, saying with an odd expression of voice,-- "you are satirical, cozzie. he's not the worst sort of man you've just described. a woman might be very happy with him. if it weren't such early days, i should doubt if you were as comfortable as you would have people think; for how else should you be so ill-natured?" it flashed upon me, that, without the least intention, i had been giving a very fair portrait of mr. morley. i felt my face grow as red as fire. "i had no intention of being satirical, judy," i replied. "i was only describing a man the very opposite of my husband." "you don't know mine yet," she said. "you may think"-- she actually broke down and cried. i had never in my life seen her cry, and i was miserable at what i had done. here was a nice beginning of social relations in my married life! i knelt down, put my arms round her, and looked up in her face. "dear judy," i said, "you mistake me quite. i never thought of mr. morley when i said that. how should i have dared to say such things if i had? he is a most kind, good man, and papa and every one is glad when he comes to see us. i dare say he does like to sleep well,--i know percivale does; and i don't doubt he likes to get on with what he's at: percivale does, for he's ever so much better company when he has got on with his picture; and i know he likes to see me well dressed,--at least i haven't tried him with any thing else yet, for i have plenty of clothes for a while; and then for the dinner, which i believe was one of the points in the description i gave, i wish percivale cared a little more for his, for then it would be easier to do something for him. as to the newspaper, there i fear i must give him up, for i have never yet seen him with one in his hand. he's _so_ stupid about some things!" "oh, you've found that out! have you? men _are_ stupid; there's no doubt of that. but you don't know my walter yet." i looked up, and, behold, percivale was in the room! his face wore such a curious expression that. i could hardly help laughing. and no wonder: for here was i on my knees, clasping my first visitor, and to all appearance pouring out the woes of my wedded life in her lap,--woes so deep that they drew tears from her as she listened. all this flashed upon me as i started to my feet: but i could give no explanation; i could only make haste to introduce my husband to my cousin judy. he behaved, of course, as if he had heard nothing. but i fancy judy caught a glimpse of the awkward position, for she plunged into the affair at once. "here is my cousin, mr. percivale, has been abusing my husband to my face, calling him rich and stupid, and i don't know what all. i confess he is so stupid as to be very fond of me, but that's all i know against him." and her handkerchief went once more to her eyes. "dear judy!" i expostulated, "you know i didn't say one word about him." "of course i do, you silly coz!" she cried, and burst out laughing. "but i won't forgive you except you make amends by dining with us to-morrow." thus for the time she carried it off; but i believe, and have since had good reason for believing, that she had really mistaken me at first, and been much annoyed. she and percivale got on very well. he showed her the portrait he was still working at,--even accepted one or two trifling hints as to the likeness, and they parted the best friends in the world. glad as i had been to see her, how i longed to see the last of her! the moment she was gone, i threw myself into his arms, and told him how it came about. he laughed heartily. "i _was_ a little puzzled," he said, "to hear you informing a lady i had never seen that i was so very stupid." "but i wasn't telling a story, either, for you know you are ve-e-e-ry stupid, percivale. you don't know a leg from a shoulder of mutton, and you can't carve a bit. how ever you can draw as you do, is a marvel to me, when you know nothing about the shapes of things. it was very wrong to say it, even for the sake of covering poor mrs. morley's husband; but it was quite true you know." "perfectly true, my love," he said, with something else where i've only put commas; "and i mean to remain so, in order that you may always have something to fall back upon when you get yourself into a scrape by forgetting that other people have husbands as well as you." chapter v. "good society." we had agreed, rather against the inclination of both of us, to dine the next evening with the morleys. we should have preferred our own society, but we could not refuse. "they will be talking to me about my pictures," said my husband, "and that is just what i hate. people that know nothing of art, that can't distinguish purple from black, will yet parade their ignorance, and expect me to be pleased." "mr. morley is a well-bred man, percivale," i said. "that's the worst of it,--they do it for good manners; i know the kind of people perfectly. i hate to have my pictures praised. it is as bad as talking to one's face about the nose upon it." i wonder if all ladies keep their husbands waiting. i did that night, i know, and, i am afraid, a good many times after,--not, however, since percivale told me very seriously that being late for dinner was the only fault of mine the blame of which he would not take on his own shoulders. the fact on this occasion was, that i could not get my hair right. it was the first time i missed what i had been used to, and longed for the deft fingers of my mother's maid to help me. when i told him the cause, he said he would do my hair for me next time, if i would teach him how. but i have managed very well since without either him or a lady's-maid. when we reached bolivar square, we found the company waiting; and, as if for a rebuke to us, the butler announced dinner the moment we entered. i was seated between mr. morley and a friend of his who took me down, mr. baddeley, a portly gentleman, with an expanse of snowy shirt from which flashed three diamond studs. a huge gold chain reposed upon his front, and on his finger shone a brilliant of great size. every thing about him seemed to say, "look how real i am! no shoddy about me!" his hands were plump and white, and looked as if they did not know what dust was. his talk sounded very rich, and yet there was no pretence in it. his wife looked less of a lady than he of a gentleman, for she betrayed conscious importance. i found afterwards that he was the only son of a railway contractor, who had himself handled the spade, but at last died enormously rich. he spoke blandly, but with a certain quiet authority which i disliked. "are you fond of the opera, mrs. percivale?" he asked me in order to make talk. "i have never been to the opera," i answered. "never been to the opera? ain't you fond of music?" "did you ever know a lady that wasn't?" "then you must go to the opera." "but it is just because i fancy myself fond of music that i don't think i should like the opera." "you can't hear such music anywhere else." "but the antics of the singers, pretending to be in such furies of passion, yet modulating every note with the cunning of a carver in ivory, seems to me so preposterous! for surely song springs from a brooding over past feeling,--i do not mean lost feeling; never from present emotion." "ah! you would change your mind after having once been. i should strongly advise you to go, if only for once. you ought now, really." "an artist's wife must do without such expensive amusements,--except her husband's pictures be very popular indeed. i might as well cry for the moon. the cost of a box at the opera for a single night would keep my little household for a fortnight." "ah, well! but you should see 'the barber,'" he said. "perhaps if i could hear without seeing, i should like it better," i answered. he fell silent, busying himself with his fish, and when he spoke again turned to the lady on his left. i went on with my dinner. i knew that our host had heard what i said, for i saw him turn rather hastily to his butler. mr. morley is a man difficult to describe, stiff in the back, and long and loose in the neck, reminding me of those toy-birds that bob head and tail up and down alternately. when he agrees with any thing you say, down comes his head with a rectangular nod; when he does not agree with you, he is so silent and motionless that he leaves you in doubt whether he has heard a word of what you have been saying. his face is hard, and was to me then inscrutable, while what he said always seemed to have little or nothing to do with what he was thinking; and i had not then learned whether he had a heart or not. his features were well formed, but they and his head and face too small for his body. he seldom smiled except when in doubt. he had, i understood, been very successful in business, and always looked full of schemes. "have you been to the academy yet?" he asked. "no; this is only the first day of it." "are your husband's pictures well hung?" "as high as haman," i answered; "skied, in fact. that is the right word, i believe." "i would advise you to avoid slang, my dear cousin,--_professional_ slang especially; and to remember that in london there are no professions after six o clock." "indeed!" i returned. "as we came along in the carriage,--cabbage, i mean,--i saw no end of shops open." "i mean in society,--at dinner,--amongst friends, you know." "my dear mr. morley, you have just done asking me about my husband's pictures; and, if you will listen a moment, you will hear that lady next my husband talking to him about leslie and turner, and i don't know who more,--all in the trade." "hush! hush! i beg," he almost whispered, looking agonized. "that's mrs. baddeley. her husband, next to you, is a great picture-buyer. that's why i asked him to meet you." "i thought there were no professions in london after six o'clock." "i am afraid i have not made my meaning quite clear to you." "not quite. yet i think i understand you." "we'll have a talk about it another time." "with pleasure." it irritated me rather that he should talk to me, a married woman, as to a little girl who did not know how to behave herself; but his patronage of my husband displeased me far more, and i was on the point of committing the terrible blunder of asking mr. baddeley if he had any poor relations; but i checked myself in time, and prayed to know whether he was a member of parliament. he answered that he was not in the house at present, and asked in return why i had wished to know. i answered that i wanted a bill brought in for the punishment of fraudulent milkmen; for i couldn't get a decent pennyworth of milk in all camden town. he laughed, and said it would be a very desirable measure, only too great an interference with the liberty of the subject. i told him that kind of liberty was just what law in general owed its existence to, and was there on purpose to interfere with; but he did not seem to see it. the fact is, i was very silly. proud of being the wife of an artist, i resented the social injustice which i thought gave artists no place but one of sufferance. proud also of being poor for percivale's sake, i made a show of my poverty before people whom i supposed, rightly enough in many cases, to be proud of their riches. but i knew nothing of what poverty really meant, and was as yet only playing at being poor; cherishing a foolish, though unacknowledged notion of protecting my husband's poverty with the ægis of my position as the daughter of a man of consequence in his county. i was thus wronging the dignity of my husband's position, and complimenting wealth by making so much of its absence. poverty or wealth ought to have been in my eyes such a trifle that i never thought of publishing whether i was rich or poor. i ought to have taken my position without wasting a thought on what it might appear in the eyes of those about me, meeting them on the mere level of humanity, and leaving them to settle with themselves how they were to think of me, and where they were to place me. i suspect also, now that i think of it, that i looked down upon my cousin judy because she had a mere man of business for her husband; forgetting that our lord had found a collector of conquered taxes,--a man, i presume, with little enough of the artistic about him,--one of the fittest in his nation to bear the message of his redemption to the hearts of his countrymen. it is his loves and his hopes, not his visions and intentions, by which a man is to be judged. my father had taught me all this; but i did not understand it then, nor until years after i had left him. "is mrs. percivale a lady of fortune?" asked mr. baddeley of my cousin judy when we were gone, for we were the first to leave. "certainly not. why do you ask?" she returned. "because, from her talk, i thought she must be," he answered. cousin judy told me this the next day, and i could see she thought i had been bragging of my family. so i recounted all the conversation i had had with him, as nearly as i could recollect, and set down the question to an impertinent irony. but i have since changed my mind: i now judge that he could not believe any poor person would joke about poverty. i never found one of those people who go about begging for charities believe me when i told him the simple truth that i could not afford to subscribe. none but a rich person, they seem to think, would dare such an excuse, and that only in the just expectation that its very assertion must render it incredible. chapter vi. a refuge from the heat. there was a little garden, one side enclosed by the house, another by the studio, and the remaining two by walls, evidently built for the nightly convenience of promenading cats. there was one pear-tree in the grass-plot which occupied the centre, and a few small fruit-trees, which, i may now safely say, never bore any thing, upon the walls. but the last occupant had cared for his garden; and, when i came to the cottage, it was, although you would hardly believe it now that my garden is inside the house, a pretty little spot,--only, if you stop thinking about a garden, it begins at once to go to the bad. used although i had been to great wide lawns and park and gardens and wilderness, the tiny enclosure soon became to me the type of the boundless universe. the streets roared about me with ugly omnibuses and uglier cabs, fine carriages, huge earth-shaking drays, and, worse far, with the cries of all the tribe, of costermongers,--one especially offensive which soon began to haunt me. i almost hated the man who sent it forth to fill the summer air with disgust. he always but his hollowed hand to his jaw, as if it were loose and he had to hold it in its place, before he uttered his hideous howl, which would send me hurrying up the stairs to bury my head under all the pillows of my bed until, coming back across the wilderness of streets and lanes like the cry of a jackal growing fainter and fainter upon the wind, it should pass, and die away in the distance. suburban london, i say, was roaring about me, and i was confined to a few square yards of grass and gravel-walk and flower-plot; but above was the depth of the sky, and thence at night the hosts of heaven looked in upon me with the same calm assured glance with which they shone upon southern forests, swarming with great butterflies and creatures that go flaming through the tropic darkness; and there the moon would come, and cast her lovely shadows; and there was room enough to feel alone and to try to pray. and what was strange, the room seemed greater, though the loneliness was gone, when my husband walked up and down in it with me. true, the greater part of the walk seemed to be the turnings, for they always came just when you wanted to go on and on; but, even with the scope of the world for your walk, you must turn and come back some time. at first, when he was smoking his great brown meerschaum, he and i would walk in opposite directions, passing each other in the middle, and so make the space double the size, for he had all the garden to himself, and i had it all to myself; and so i had his garden and mine too. that is how by degrees i got able to bear the smoke of tobacco, for i had never been used to it, and found it a small trial at first; but now i have got actually to like it, and greet a stray whiff from the study like a message from my husband. i fancy i could tell the smoke of that old black and red meerschaum from the smoke of any other pipe in creation. "you _must_ cure him of that bad habit," said cousin judy to me once. it made me angry. what right had she to call any thing my husband did a bad habit? and to expect me to agree with her was ten times worse. i am saving my money now to buy him a grand new pipe; and i may just mention here, that once i spent ninepence out of my last shilling to get him a packet of bristol bird's-eye, for he was on the point of giving up smoking altogether because of--well, because of what will appear by and by. england is getting dreadfully crowded with mean, ugly houses. if they were those of the poor and struggling, and not of the rich and comfortable, one might be consoled. but rich barbarism, in the shape of ugliness, is again pushing us to the sea. there, however, its "control stops;" and since i lived in london the sea has grown more precious to me than it was even in those lovely days at kilkhaven,--merely because no one can build upon it. ocean and sky remain as god made them. he must love space for us, though it be needless for himself; seeing that in all the magnificent notions of creation afforded us by astronomers,--shoal upon shoal of suns, each the centre of complicated and infinitely varied systems,--the spaces between are yet more overwhelming in their vast inconceivableness. i thank god for the room he thus gives us, and hence can endure to see the fair face of his england disfigured by the mud-pies of his children. there was in the garden a little summer-house, of which i was fond, chiefly because, knowing my passion for the flower, percivale had surrounded it with a multitude of sweet peas, which, as they grew, he had trained over the trellis-work of its sides. through them filtered the sweet airs of the summer as through an �olian harp of unheard harmonies. to sit there in a warm evening, when the moth-airs just woke and gave two or three wafts of their wings and ceased, was like sitting in the midst of a small gospel. the summer had come on, and the days were very hot,--so hot and changeless, with their unclouded skies and their glowing centre, that they seemed to grow stupid with their own heat. it was as if--like a hen brooding over her chickens--the day, brooding over its coming harvests, grew dull and sleepy, living only in what was to come. notwithstanding the feelings i have just recorded, i began to long for a wider horizon, whence some wind might come and blow upon me, and wake me up, not merely to live, but to know that i lived. one afternoon i left my little summer-seat, where i had been sitting at work, and went through the house, and down the precipice, into my husband's study. "it is so hot," i said, "i will try my little grotto: it may be cooler." he opened the door for me, and, with his palette on his thumb, and a brush in his hand, sat down for a moment beside me. "this heat is too much for you, darling," he said. "i do feel it. i wish i could get from the garden into my nest without going up through the house and down the jacob's ladder," i said. "it is so hot! i never felt heat like it before." he sat silent for a while, and then said,-- "i've been thinking i must get you into the country for a few weeks. it would do you no end of good." "i suppose the wind does blow somewhere," i returned. "but"-- "you don't want to leave me?" he said. "i don't. and i know with that ugly portrait on hand you can't go with me." "he happened to be painting the portrait of a plain red-faced lady, in a delicate lace cap,--a very unfit subject for art,--much needing to be made over again first, it seemed to me. only there she was, with a right to have her portrait painted if she wished it; and there was percivale, with time on his hands, and room in his pockets, and the faith that whatever god had thought worth making could not be unworthy of representation. hence he had willingly undertaken a likeness of her, to be finished within a certain time, and was now working at it as conscientiously as if it had been the portrait of a lovely young duchess or peasant-girl. i was only afraid he would make it too like to please the lady herself. his time was now getting short, and he could not leave home before fulfilling his engagement. "but," he returned, "why shouldn't you go to the hall for a week or two without me? i will take you down, and come and fetch you." "i'm so stupid you want to get rid of me!" i said. i did not in the least believe it, and yet was on the edge of crying, which is not a habit with me. "you know better than that, my wynnie," he answered gravely. "you want your mother to comfort you. and there must be some air in the country. so tell sarah to put up your things, and i'll take you down to-morrow morning. when i get this portrait done, i will come and stay a few days, if they will have me, and then take you home." the thought of seeing my mother and my father, and the old place, came over me with a rush. i felt all at once as if i had been absent for years instead of weeks. i cried in earnest now,--with delight though,--and there is no shame in that. so it was all arranged; and next afternoon i was lying on a couch in the yellow drawing-room, with my mother seated beside me, and connie in an easy-chair by the open window, through which came every now and then such a sweet wave of air as bathed me with hope, and seemed to wash all the noises, even the loose-jawed man's hateful howl, from my brain. yet, glad as i was to be once more at home, i felt, when percivale left me the next morning to return by a third-class train to his ugly portrait,--for the lady was to sit to him that same afternoon,--that the idea of home was already leaving oldcastle hall, and flitting back to the suburban cottage haunted by the bawling voice of the costermonger. but i soon felt better: for here there was plenty of shadow, and in the hottest days my father could always tell where any wind would be stirring; for he knew every out and in of the place like his own pockets, as dora said, who took a little after cousin judy in her way. it will give a notion of his tenderness if i set down just one tiniest instance of his attention to me. the forenoon was oppressive. i was sitting under a tree, trying to read when he came up to me. there was a wooden gate, with open bars near. he went and set it wide, saying,-- "there, my love! you will fancy yourself cooler if i leave the gate open." will my reader laugh at me for mentioning such a trifle? i think not, for it went deep to my heart, and i seemed to know god better for it ever after. a father is a great and marvellous truth, and one you can never get at the depth of, try how you may. then my mother! she was, if possible, yet more to me than my father. i could tell her any thing and every thing without fear, while i confess to a little dread of my father still. he is too like my own conscience to allow of my being quite confident with him. but connie is just as comfortable with him as i am with my mother. if in my childhood i was ever tempted to conceal any thing from her, the very thought of it made me miserable until i had told her. and now she would watch me with her gentle, dove-like eyes, and seemed to know at once, without being told, what was the matter with me. she never asked me what i should like, but went and brought something; and, if she saw that i didn't care for it, wouldn't press me, or offer any thing instead, but chat for a minute or two, carry it away, and return with something else. my heart was like to break at times with the swelling of the love that was in it. my eldest child, my ethelwyn,--for my husband would have her called the same name as me, only i insisted it should be after my mother and not after me,--has her very eyes, and for years has been trying to mother me over again to the best of her sweet ability. chapter vii. connie. it is high time, though, that i dropped writing about myself for a while. i don't find my self so interesting as it used to be. the worst of some kinds especially of small illnesses is, that they make you think a great deal too much about yourself. connie's, which was a great and terrible one, never made her do so. she was always forgetting herself in her interest about others. i think i was made more selfish to begin with; and yet i have a hope that a too-much-thinking about yourself may not _always_ be pure selfishness. it may be something else wrong in you that makes you uncomfortable, and keeps drawing your eyes towards the aching place. i will hope so till i get rid of the whole business, and then i shall not care much how it came or what it was. connie was now a thin, pale, delicate-looking--not handsome, but lovely girl. her eyes, some people said, were too big for her face; but that seemed to me no more to the discredit of her beauty than it would have been a reproach to say that her soul was too big for her body. she had been early ripened by the hot sun of suffering, and the self-restraint which pain had taught her. patience had mossed her over and made her warm and soft and sweet. she never looked for attention, but accepted all that was offered with a smile which seemed to say, "it is more than i need, but you are so good i mustn't spoil it." she was not confined to her sofa now, though she needed to lie down often, but could walk about pretty well, only you must give her time. you could always make her merry by saying she walked like an old woman; and it was the only way we could get rid of the sadness of seeing it. we betook ourselves to her to laugh _her_ sadness away from us. once, as i lay on a couch on the lawn, she came towards me carrying a bunch of grapes from the greenhouse,--a great bunch, each individual grape ready to burst with the sunlight it had bottled up in its swollen purple skin. "they are too heavy for you, old lady," i cried. "yes; i _am_ an old lady," she answered. "think what good use of my time i have made compared with you! i have got ever so far before you: i've nearly forgotten how to walk!" the tears gathered in my eyes as she left me with the bunch; for how could one help being sad to think of the time when she used to bound like a fawn over the grass, her slender figure borne like a feather on its own slight yet firm muscles, which used to knot so much harder than any of ours. she turned to say something, and, perceiving my emotion, came slowly back. "dear wynnie," she said, "you wouldn't have me back with my old foolishness, would you? believe me, life is ten times more precious than it was before. i feel and enjoy and love so much more! i don't know how often i thank god for what befell me." i could only smile an answer, unable to speak, not now from pity, but from shame of my own petulant restlessness and impatient helplessness. i believe she had a special affection for poor sprite, the pony which threw her,--special, i mean, since the accident,--regarding him as in some sense the angel which had driven her out of paradise into a better world. if ever he got loose, and connie was anywhere about, he was sure to find her: he was an omnivorous animal, and she had always something he would eat when his favorite apples were unattainable. more than once she had been roused from her sleep on the lawn by the lips and the breath of sprite upon her face; but, although one painful sign of her weakness was, that she started at the least noise or sudden discovery of a presence, she never started at the most unexpected intrusion of sprite, any more than at the voice of my father or mother. need i say there was one more whose voice or presence never startled her? the relation between them was lovely to see. turner was a fine, healthy, broad-shouldered fellow, of bold carriage and frank manners, above the middle height, with rather large features, keen black eyes, and great personal strength. yet to such a man, poor little wan-faced, big-eyed connie assumed imperious airs, mostly, but perhaps not entirely, for the fun of it; while he looked only enchanted every time she honored him with a little tyranny. "there! i'm tired," she would say, holding out her arms like a baby. "carry me in." and the great strong man would stoop with a worshipping look in his eyes, and, taking her carefully, would carry her in as lightly and gently and steadily as if she had been but the baby whose manners she had for the moment assumed. this began, of course, when she was unable to walk; but it did not stop then, for she would occasionally tell him to carry her after she was quite capable of crawling at least. they had now been engaged for some months; and before me, as a newly-married woman, they did not mind talking a little. one day she was lying on a rug on the lawn, with him on the grass beside her, leaning on his elbow, and looking down into her sky-like eyes. she lifted her hand, and stroked his mustache with a forefinger, while he kept as still as a statue, or one who fears to scare the bird that is picking up the crumbs at his feet. "poor, poor man!" she said; and from the tone i knew the tears had begun to gather in those eyes. "why do you pity me, connie?" he asked. "because you will have such a wretched little creature for a wife some day,--or perhaps never,--which would be best after all." he answered cheerily. "if you will kindly allow me my choice, i prefer just _such_ a wretched little creature to any one else in the world." "and why, pray? give a good reason, and i will forgive your bad taste." "because she won't be able to hurt me much when she beats me." "a better reason, or she will." "because i can punish her if she isn't good by taking her up in my arms, and carrying her about until she gives in." "a better reason, or i shall be naughty directly." "because i shall always know where to find her." "ah, yes! she must leave _you_ to find _her_. but that's a silly reason. if you don't give me a better, i'll get up and walk into the house." "because there won't be any waste of me. will that do?" "what do you mean?" she asked, with mock imperiousness. "i mean that i shall be able to lay not only my heart but my brute strength at her feet. i shall be allowed to be her beast of burden, to carry her whither she would; and so with my body her to worship more than most husbands have a chance of worshipping their wives." "there! take me, take me!" she said, stretching up her arms to him. "how good you are! i don't deserve such a great man one bit. but i _will_ love him. take me directly; for there's wynnie listening to every word we say to each other, and laughing at us. she can laugh without looking like it." the fact is, i was crying, and the creature knew it. turner brought her to me, and held her down for me to kiss; then carried her in to her mother. i believe the county people round considered our family far gone on the inclined plane of degeneracy. first my mother, the heiress, had married a clergyman of no high family; then they had given their eldest daughter to a poor artist, something of the same standing as--well, i will be rude to no order of humanity, and therefore avoid comparisons; and now it was generally known that connie was engaged to a country practitioner, a man who made up his own prescriptions. we talked and laughed over certain remarks of the kind that reached us, and compared our two with the gentlemen about us,--in no way to the advantage of any of the latter, you may be sure. it was silly work; but we were only two loving girls, with the best possible reasons for being proud of the men who had honored us with their love. chapter viii. connie's baby. it is time i told my readers something about the little theodora. she was now nearly four years old i think,--a dark-skinned, lithe-limbed, wild little creature, very pretty,--at least most people said so, while others insisted that she had a common look. i admit she was not like a lady's child--only one has seen ladies' children look common enough; neither did she look like the child of working people--though amongst such, again, one sees sometimes a child the oldest family in england might be proud of. the fact is, she had a certain tinge of the savage about her, specially manifest in a certain furtive look of her black eyes, with which she seemed now and then to be measuring you, and her prospects in relation to you. i have seen the child of cultivated parents sit and stare at a stranger from her stool in the most persistent manner, never withdrawing her eyes, as if she would pierce to his soul, and understand by very force of insight whether he was or was not one to be honored with her confidence; and i have often seen the side-long glance of sly merriment, or loving shyness, or small coquetry; but i have never, in any other child, seen _that_ look of self-protective speculation; and it used to make me uneasy, for of course, like every one else in the house, i loved the child. she was a wayward, often unmanageable creature, but affectionate,--sometimes after an insane, or, at least, very ape-like fashion. every now and then she would take an unaccountable preference for some one of the family or household, at one time for the old housekeeper, at another for the stable-boy, at another for one of us; in which fits of partiality she would always turn a blind and deaf side upon every one else, actually seeming to imagine she showed the strength of her love to the one by the paraded exclusion of the others. i cannot tell how much of this was natural to her, and how much the result of the foolish and injurious jealousy of the servants. i say _servants_, because i know such an influencing was all but impossible in the family itself. if my father heard any one utter such a phrase as "don't you love me best?"--or, "better than" such a one? or, "ain't i your favorite?"--well, you all know my father, and know him really, for he never wrote a word he did not believe--but you would have been astonished, i venture to think, and perhaps at first bewildered as well, by the look of indignation flashed from his eyes. he was not the gentle, all-excusing man some readers, i know, fancy him from his writings. he was gentle even to tenderness when he had time to think a moment, and in any quiet judgment he always took as much the side of the offender as was possible with any likelihood of justice; but in the first moments of contact with what he thought bad in principle, and that in the smallest trifle, he would speak words that made even those who were not included in the condemnation tremble with sympathetic fear. "there, harry, you take it--quick, or charley will have it," said the nurse one day, little thinking who overheard her. "woman!" cried a voice of wrath from the corridor, "do you know what you are doing? would you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourself?" an hour after, she was sent for to the study; and when she came out her eyes were very red. my father was unusually silent at dinner; and, after the younger ones were gone, he turned to my mother, and said, "ethel, i spoke the truth. all _that_ is of the devil,--horribly bad; and yet i am more to blame in my condemnation of them than she for the words themselves. the thought of so polluting the mind of a child makes me fierce, and the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of god. the old adam is only too glad to get a word in, if even in behalf of his supplanting successor." then he rose, and, taking my mother by the arm, walked away with her. i confess i honored him for his self-condemnation the most. i must add that the offending nurse had been ten years in the family, and ought to have known better. but to return to theodora. she was subject to attacks of the most furious passion, especially when any thing occurred to thwart the indulgence of the ephemeral partiality i have just described. then, wherever she was, she would throw herself down at once,--on the floor, on the walk or lawn, or, as happened on one occasion, in the water,--and kick and scream. at such times she cared nothing even for my father, of whom generally she stood in considerable awe,--a feeling he rather encouraged. "she has plenty of people about her to represent the gospel," he said once. "i will keep the department of the law, without which she will never appreciate the gospel. my part will, i trust, vanish in due time, and the law turn out to have been, after all, only the imperfect gospel, just as the leaf is the imperfect flower. but the gospel is no gospel till it gets into the heart, and it sometimes wants a torpedo to blow the gates of that open." for no torpedo or krupp gun, however, did theodora care at such times; and, after repeated experience of the inefficacy of coaxing, my father gave orders, that, when a fit occurred, every one, without exception, should not merely leave her alone, but go out of sight, and if possible out of hearing,--at least out of her hearing--that she might know she had driven her friends far from her, and be brought to a sense of loneliness and need. i am pretty sure that if she had been one of us, that is, one of his own, he would have taken sharper measures with her; but he said we must never attempt to treat other people's children as our own, for they are not our own. we did not love them enough, he said, to make severity safe either for them or for us. the plan worked so far well, that after a time, varied in length according to causes inscrutable, she would always re-appear smiling; but, as to any conscience of wrong, she seemed to have no more than nature herself, who looks out with _her_ smiling face after hours of thunder, lightning, and rain; and, although this treatment brought her out of them sooner, the fits themselves came quite as frequently as before. but she had another habit, more alarming, and more troublesome as well: she would not unfrequently vanish, and have to be long sought, for in such case she never reappeared of herself. what made it so alarming was that there were dangerous places about our house; but she would generally be found seated, perfectly quiet, in some out-of-the-way nook where she had never been before, playing, not with any of her toys, but with something she had picked up and appropriated, finding in it some shadowy amusement which no one understood but herself. she was very fond of bright colors, especially in dress; and, if she found a brilliant or gorgeous fragment of any substance, would be sure to hide it away in some hole or corner, perhaps known only to herself. her love of approbation was strong, and her affection demonstrative; but she had not yet learned to speak the truth. in a word, she must, we thought, have come of wild parentage, so many of her ways were like those of a forest animal. in our design of training her for a maid to connie, we seemed already likely enough to be frustrated; at all events, there was nothing to encourage the attempt, seeing she had some sort of aversion to connie, amounting almost to dread. we could rarely persuade her to go near her. perhaps it was a dislike to her helplessness,--some vague impression that her lying all day on the sofa indicated an unnatural condition of being, with which she could have no sympathy. those of us who had the highest spirits, the greatest exuberance of animal life, were evidently those whose society was most attractive to her. connie tried all she could to conquer her dislike, and entice the wayward thing to her heart; but nothing would do. sometimes she would seem to soften for a moment; but all at once, with a wriggle and a backward spasm in the arms of the person who carried her, she would manifest such a fresh access of repulsion, that, for fear of an outburst of fierce and objurgatory wailing which might upset poor connie altogether, she would be borne off hurriedly,--sometimes, i confess, rather ungently as well. i have seen connie cry because of the child's treatment of her. you could not interest her so much in any story, but that if the buzzing of a fly, the flutter of a bird, reached eye or ear, away she would dart on the instant, leaving the discomfited narrator in lonely disgrace. external nature, and almost nothing else, had free access to her mind: at the suddenest sight or sound, she was alive on the instant. she was a most amusing and sometimes almost bewitching little companion; but the delight in her would be not unfrequently quenched by some altogether unforeseen outbreak of heartless petulance or turbulent rebellion. indeed, her resistance to authority grew as she grew older, and occasioned my father and mother, and indeed all of us, no little anxiety. even charley and harry would stand with open mouths, contemplating aghast the unheard-of atrocity of resistance to the will of the unquestioned authorities. it was what they could not understand, being to them an impossibility. such resistance was almost always accompanied by storm and tempest; and the treatment which carried away the latter, generally carried away the former with it; after the passion had come and gone, she would obey. had it been otherwise,--had she been sullen and obstinate as well,--i do not know what would have come of it, or how we could have got on at all. miss bowdler, i am afraid, would have had a very satisfactory crow over papa. i have seen him sit for minutes in silent contemplation of the little puzzle, trying, no doubt, to fit her into his theories, or, as my mother said, to find her a three-legged stool and a corner somewhere in the kingdom of heaven; and we were certain something or other would come out of that pondering, though whether the same night or a twelvemonth after, no one could tell. i believe the main result of his thinking was, that he did less and less with her. "why do you take so little notice of the child?" my mother said to him one evening. "it is all your doing that she is here, you know. you mustn't cast her off now." "cast her off!" exclaimed my father: "what _do_ you mean, ethel?" "you never speak to her now." "oh, yes i do, sometimes!" "why only sometimes?" "because--i believe because i am a little afraid of her. i don't know how to attack the small enemy. she seems to be bomb-proof, and generally impregnable." "but you mustn't therefore make _her_ afraid of _you_." "i don't know that. i suspect it is my only chance with her. she wants a little of mount sinai, in order that she may know where the manna comes from. but indeed i am laying myself out only to catch the little soul. i am but watching and pondering how to reach her. i am biding my time to come in with my small stone for the building up of this temple of the holy ghost." at that very moment--in the last fold of the twilight, with the moon rising above the wooded brow of gorman slope--the nurse came through the darkening air, her figure hardly distinguishable from the dusk, saying,-- "please, ma'am, have you seen miss theodora?" "i don't want you to call her _miss_," said my father. "i beg your pardon, sir," said the nurse; "i forgot." "i have not seen her for an hour or more," said my mother. "i declare," said my father, "i'll get a retriever pup, and train him to find theodora. he will be capable in a few months, and she will be foolish for years." upon this occasion the truant was found in the apple-loft, sitting in a corner upon a heap of straw, quite in the dark. she was discovered only by the munching of her little teeth; for she had found some wizened apples, and was busy devouring them. but my father actually did what he had said: a favorite spaniel had pups a few days after, and he took one of them in hand. in an incredibly short space of time, the long-drawn nose of wagtail, as the children had named him, in which, doubtless, was gathered the experience of many thoughtful generations, had learned to track theodora to whatever retreat she might have chosen; and very amusing it was to watch the course of the proceedings. some one would come running to my father with the news that theo was in hiding. then my father would give a peculiar whistle, and wagtail, who (i must say _who_) very seldom failed to respond, would come bounding to his side. it was necessary that my father should _lay him on_ (is that the phrase?); for he would heed no directions from any one else. it was not necessary to follow him, however, which would have involved a tortuous and fatiguing pursuit; but in a little while a joyous barking would be heard, always kept up until the ready pursuers were guided by the sound to the place. there theo was certain to be found, hugging the animal, without the least notion of the traitorous character of his blandishments: it was long before she began to discover that there was danger in that dog's nose. thus wagtail became a very important member of the family,--a bond of union, in fact, between its parts. theo's disappearances, however, became less and less frequent,--not that she made fewer attempts to abscond, but that, every one knowing how likely she was to vanish, whoever she was with had come to feel the necessity of keeping both eyes upon her. chapter ix. the foundling re-found. one evening, during this my first visit to my home, we had gone to take tea with the widow of an old servant, who lived in a cottage on the outskirts of the home farm,--connie and i in the pony carriage, and my father and mother on foot. it was quite dark when we returned, for the moon was late. connie and i got home first, though we had a good round to make, and the path across the fields was but a third of the distance; for my father and mother were lovers, and sure to be late when left out by themselves. when we arrived, there was no one to take the pony; and when i rung the bell, no one answered. i could not leave connie in the carriage to go and look; so we waited and waited till we were getting very tired, and glad indeed we were to hear the voices of my father and mother as they came through the shrubbery. my mother went to the rear to make inquiry, and came back with the news that theo was missing, and that they had been searching for her in vain for nearly an hour. my father instantly called wagtail, and sent him after her. we then got connie in, and laid her on the sofa, where i kept her company while the rest went in different directions, listening from what quarter would come the welcome voice of the dog. this was so long delayed, however, that my father began to get alarmed. at last he whistled very loud; and in a little while wagtail came creeping to his feet, with his tail between his legs,--no wag left in it,--clearly ashamed of himself. my father was now thoroughly frightened, and began questioning the household as to the latest knowledge of the child. it then occurred to one of the servants to mention that a strange-looking woman had been seen about the place in the morning,--a tall, dark woman, with a gypsy look. she had come begging; but my father's orders were so strict concerning such cases, that nothing had been given her, and she had gone away in anger. as soon as he heard this, my father ordered his horse, and told two of the men to get ready to accompany him. in the mean time, he came to us in the little drawing-room, trying to look calm, but evidently in much perturbation. he said he had little doubt the woman had taken her. "could it be her mother?" said my mother. "who can tell?" returned my father. "it is the less likely that the deed seems to have been prompted by revenge." "if she be a gypsy's child,"--said my mother. "the gypsies," interrupted my father, "have always been more given to taking other people's children than forsaking their own. but one of them might have had reason for being ashamed of her child, and, dreading the severity of her family, might have abandoned it, with the intention of repossessing herself of it, and passing it off as the child of gentlefolks she had picked up. i don't know their habits and ways sufficiently; but, from what i have heard, that seems possible. however, it is not so easy as it might have been once to succeed in such an attempt. if we should fail in finding her to-night, the police all over the country can be apprised of the fact in a few hours, and the thief can hardly escape." "but if she _should_ be the mother?" suggested my mother. "she will have to _prove_ that." "and then?" "what then?" returned my father, and began pacing up and down the room, stopping now and then to listen for the horses' hoofs. "would you give her up?" persisted my mother. still my father made no reply. he was evidently much agitated,--more, i fancied, by my mother's question than by the present trouble. he left the room, and presently his whistle for wagtail pierced the still air. a moment more, and we heard them all ride out of the paved yard. i had never known him leave my mother without an answer before. we who were left behind were in evil plight. there was not a dry eye amongst the women, i am certain; while harry was in floods of tears, and charley was bowling. we could not send them to bed in such a state; so we kept them with us in the drawing-room, where they soon fell fast asleep, one in an easy-chair, the other on a sheepskin mat. connie lay quite still, and my mother talked so sweetly and gently that she soon made me quiet too. but i was haunted with the idea somehow,--i think i must have been wandering a little, for i was not well,--that it was a child of my own that was lost out in the dark night, and that i could not anyhow reach her. i cannot explain the odd kind of feeling it was,--as if a dream had wandered out of the region of sleep, and half-possessed my waking brain. every now and then my mother's voice would bring me back to my senses, and i would understand it all perfectly; but in a few moments i would be involved once more in a mazy search after my child. perhaps, however, as it was by that time late, sleep had, if such a thing be possible, invaded a part of my brain, leaving another part able to receive the impressions of the external about me. i can recall some of the things my mother said,--one in particular. "it is more absurd," she said, "to trust god by halves, than it is not to believe in him at all. your papa taught me that before one of you was born." when my mother said any thing in the way of teaching us, which was not often, she would generally add, "your papa taught me that," as if she would take refuge from the assumption of teaching even her own girls. but we set a good deal of such assertion down to her modesty, and the evidently inextricable blending of the thought of my father with every movement of her mental life. "i remember quite well," she went on, "how he made that truth dawn upon me one night as we sat together beside the old mill. ah, you don't remember the old mill! it was pulled down while wynnie was a mere baby." "no, mamma; i remember it perfectly," i said. "do you really?--well, we were sitting beside the mill one sunday evening after service; for we always had a walk before going home from church. you would hardly think it now; but after preaching he was then always depressed, and the more eloquently he had spoken, the more he felt as if he had made an utter failure. at first i thought it came only from fatigue, and wanted him to go home and rest; but he would say he liked nature to come before supper, for nature restored him by telling him that it was not of the slightest consequence if he had failed, whereas his supper only made him feel that he would do better next time. well, that night, you will easily believe he startled me when he said, after sitting for some time silent, 'ethel, if that yellow-hammer were to drop down dead now, and god not care, god would not be god any longer.' doubtless i showed myself something between puzzled and shocked, for he proceeded with some haste to explain to me how what he had said was true. 'whatever belongs to god is essential to god,' he said. 'he is one pure, clean essence of being, to use our poor words to describe the indescribable. nothing hangs about him that does not belong to him,--that he could part with and be nothing the worse. still less is there any thing he could part with and be the worse. whatever belongs to him is of his own kind, is part of himself, so to speak. therefore there is nothing indifferent to his character to be found in him; and therefore when our lord says not a sparrow falls to the ground without our father, that, being a fact with regard to god, must be an essential fact,--one, namely, without which he could be no god.' i understood him, i thought; but many a time since, when a fresh light has broken in upon me, i have thought i understood him then only for the first time. i told him so once; and he said he thought that would be the way forever with all truth,--we should never get to the bottom of any truth, because it was a vital portion of the all of truth, which is god." i had never heard so much philosophy from my mother before. i believe she was led into it by her fear of the effect our anxiety about the child might have upon us: with what had quieted her heart in the old time she sought now to quiet ours, helping us to trust in the great love that never ceases to watch. and she did make us quiet. but the time glided so slowly past that it seemed immovable. when twelve struck, we heard in the stillness every clock in the house, and it seemed as if they would never have done. my mother left the room, and came back with three shawls, with which, having first laid harry on the rug, she covered the boys and dora, who also was by this time fast asleep, curled up at connie's feet. still the time went on; and there was no sound of horses or any thing to break the silence, except the faint murmur which now and then the trees will make in the quietest night, as if they were dreaming, and talked in their sleep; for the motion does not seem to pass beyond them, but to swell up and die again in the heart of them. this and the occasional cry of an owl was all that broke the silent flow of the undivided moments,--glacier-like flowing none can tell how. we seldom spoke, and at length the house within seemed possessed by the silence from without; but we were all ear,--one hungry ear, whose famine was silence,--listening intently. we were not so far from the high road, but that on a night like this the penetrating sound of a horse's hoofs might reach us. hence, when my mother, who was keener of hearing than any of her daughters, at length started up, saying, "i hear them! they're coming!" the doubt remained whether it might not be the sound of some night-traveller hurrying along that high road that she had heard. but when _we_ also heard the sound of horses, we knew they must belong to our company; for, except the riders were within the gates, their noises could not have come nearer to the house. my mother hurried down to the hall. i would have staid with connie; but she begged me to go too, and come back as soon as i knew the result; so i followed my mother. as i descended the stairs, notwithstanding my anxiety, i could not help seeing what a picture lay before me, for i had learned already to regard things from the picturesque point of view,--the dim light of the low-burning lamp on the forward-bent heads of the listening, anxious group of women, my mother at the open door with the housekeeper and her maid, and the men-servants visible through the door in the moonlight beyond. the first news that reached me was my father's shout the moment he rounded the sweep that brought him in sight of the house. "all right! here she is!" he cried. and, ere i could reach the stair to run up to connie, wagtail was jumping upon me and barking furiously. he rushed up before me with the scramble of twenty feet, licked connie's face all over in spite of her efforts at self-defence, then rushed at dora and the boys one after the other, and woke them all up. he was satisfied enough with himself now; his tail was doing the wagging of forty; there was no tucking of it away now,--no drooping of the head in mute confession of conscious worthlessness; he was a dog self-satisfied because his master was well pleased with him. but here i am talking about the dog, and forgetting what was going on below. my father cantered up to the door, followed by the two men. my mother hurried to meet him, and then only saw the little lost lamb asleep in his bosom. he gave her up, and my mother ran in with her; while he dismounted, and walked merrily but wearily up the stair after her. the first thing he did was to quiet the dog; the next to sit down beside connie; the third to say, "thank god!" and the next, "god bless wagtail!" my mother was already undressing the little darling, and her maid was gone to fetch her night things. tumbled hither and thither, she did not wake, but was carried off stone-sleeping to her crib. then my father,--for whom some supper, of which he was in great need, had been brought,--as soon as he had had a glass of wine and a mouthful or two of cold chicken, began to tell us the whole story. chapter x. wagtail comes to honor. as they rode out of the gate, one of the men, a trustworthy man, who cared for his horses like his children, and knew all their individualities as few men know those of their children, rode up along side of my father, and told him that there was an encampment of gypsies on the moor about five miles away, just over gorman slope, remarking, that if the woman had taken the child, and belonged to them, she would certainly carry her thither. my father thought, in the absence of other indication, they ought to follow the suggestion, and told burton to guide them to the place as rapidly as possible. after half an hour's sharp riding, they came in view of the camp,--or rather of a rising ground behind which it lay in the hollow. the other servant was an old man, who had been whipper-in to a baronet in the next county, and knew as much of the ways of wild animals as burton did of those of his horses; it was his turn now to address my father, who had halted for a moment to think what ought to be done next. "she can't well have got here before us, sir, with that child to carry. but it's wonderful what the likes of her can do. i think i had better have a peep over the brow first. she may be there already, or she may not; but, if we find out, we shall know better what to do." "i'll go with you," said my father. "no, sir; excuse me; that won't do. you can't creep like a sarpent. i can. they'll never know i'm a stalking of them. no more you couldn't show fight if need was, you know, sir." "how did you find that out, sim?" asked my father, a little amused, notwithstanding the weight at his heart. "why, sir, they do say a clergyman mustn't show fight." "who told you that, sim?" he persisted. "well, i can't say, sir. only it wouldn't be respectable; would it, sir?" "there's nothing respectable but what's right, sim; and what's right always _is_ respectable, though it mayn't _look_ so one bit." "suppose you was to get a black eye, sir?" "did you ever hear of the martyrs, sim?" "yes, sir. i've heerd you talk on 'em in the pulpit, sir." "well, they didn't get black eyes only,--they got black all over, you know,--burnt black; and what for, do you think, now?" "don't know, sir, except it was for doing right." "that's just it. was it any disgrace to them?" "no, sure, sir." "well, if i were to get a black eye for the sake of the child, would that be any disgrace to me, sim?" "none that i knows on, sir. only it'd _look_ bad." "yes, no doubt. people might think i had got into a row at the griffin. and yet i shouldn't be ashamed of it. i should count my black eye the more respectable of the two. i should also regard the evil judgment much as another black eye, and wait till they both came round again. lead on, sim." they left their horses with burton, and went toward the camp. but when they reached the slope behind which it lay, much to sim's discomfiture, my father, instead of lying down at the foot of it, as he expected, and creeping up the side of it, after the doom of the serpent, walked right up over the brow, and straight into the camp, followed by wagtail. there was nothing going on,--neither tinkering nor cooking; all seemed asleep; but presently out of two or three of the tents, the dingy squalor of which no moonshine could silver over, came three or four men, half undressed, who demanded of my father, in no gentle tones, what he wanted there. "i'll tell you all about it," he answered. "i'm the parson of this parish, and therefore you're my own people, you see." "we don't go to _your_ church, parson," said one of them. "i don't care; you're my own people, for all that, and i want your help." "well, what's the matter? who's cow's dead?" said the same man. "this evening," returned my father, "one of my children is missing; and a woman who might be one of your clan,--mind, i say _might be_; i don't know, and i mean no offence,--but such a woman was seen about the place. all i want is the child, and if i don't find her, i shall have to raise the county. i should be very sorry to disturb you; but i am afraid, in that case, whether the woman be one of you or not, the place will be too hot for you. i'm no enemy to honest gypsies; but you know there is a set of tramps that call themselves gypsies, who are nothing of the sort,--only thieves. tell me what i had better do to find my child. you know all about such things." the men turned to each other, and began talking in undertones, and in a language of which what my father heard he could not understand. at length the spokesman of the party addressed him again. "we'll give you our word, sir, if that will satisfy you," he said, more respectfully than he had spoken before, "to send the child home directly if any one should bring her to our camp. that's all we can say." my father saw that his best chance lay in accepting the offer. "thank you," he said. "perhaps i may have an opportunity of serving you some day." they in their turn thanked him politely enough, and my father and sim left the camp. upon this side the moor was skirted by a plantation which had been gradually creeping up the hill from the more sheltered hollow. it was here bordered by a deep trench, the bottom of which was full of young firs. through the plantation there was a succession of green rides, by which the outskirts of my father's property could be reached. but, the moon being now up, my father resolved to cross the trench, and halt for a time, watching the moor from the shelter of the firs, on the chance of the woman's making her appearance; for, if she belonged to the camp, she would most probably approach it from the plantation, and might be overtaken before she could cross the moor to reach it. they had lain ensconced in the firs for about half an hour, when suddenly, without any warning, wagtail rushed into the underwood and vanished. they listened with all their ears, and in a few moments heard his joyous bark, followed instantly, however, by a howl of pain; and, before they had got many yards in pursuit, he came cowering to my father's feet, who, patting his side, found it bleeding. he bound his handkerchief round him, and, fastening the lash of sim's whip to his collar that he might not go too fast for them, told him to find theodora. instantly he pulled away through the brushwood, giving a little yelp now and then as the stiff remnant of some broken twig or stem hurt his wounded side. before we reached the spot for which he was making, however, my father heard a rustling, nearer to the outskirts of the wood, and the same moment wagtail turned, and tugged fiercely in that direction. the figure of a woman rose up against the sky, and began to run for the open space beyond. wagtail and my father pursued at speed; my father crying out, that, if she did not stop, he would loose the dog on her. she paid no heed, but ran on. "mount and head her, sim. mount, burton. ride over every thing," cried my father, as he slipped wagtail, who shot through the underwood like a bird, just as she reached the trench, and in an instant had her by the gown. my father saw something gleam in the moonlight, and again a howl broke from wagtail, who was evidently once more wounded. but he held on. and now the horsemen, having crossed the trench, were approaching her in front, and my father was hard upon her behind. she gave a peculiar cry, half a shriek, and half a howl, clasped the child to her bosom, and stood rooted like a tree, evidently in the hope that her friends, hearing her signal, would come to her rescue. but it was too late. my father rushed upon her the instant she cried out. the dog was holding her by the poor ragged skirt, and the horses were reined snorting on the bank above her. she heaved up the child over her head, but whether in appeal to heaven, or about to dash her to the earth in the rage of frustration, she was not allowed time to show; for my father caught both her uplifted arms with his, so that she could not lower them, and burton, having flung himself from his horse and come behind her, easily took theodora from them, for from their position they were almost powerless. then my father called off wagtail; and the poor creature sunk down in the bottom of the trench amongst the young firs without a sound, and there lay. my father went up to her; but she only stared at him with big blank black eyes, and yet such a lost look on her young, handsome, yet gaunt face, as almost convinced him she was the mother of the child. but, whatever might be her rights, she could not be allowed to recover possession, without those who had saved and tended the child having a word in the matter of her fate. as he was thinking what he could say to her, sim's voice reached his ear. "they're coming over the brow, sir,--five or six from the camp. we'd better be off." "the child is safe," he said, as he turned to leave her. "from _me_," she rejoined, in a pitiful tone; and this ambiguous utterance was all that fell from her. my father mounted hurriedly, took the child from burton, and rode away, followed by the two men and wagtail. through the green rides they galloped in the moonlight, and were soon beyond all danger of pursuit. when they slackened pace, my father instructed sim to find out all he could about the gypsies,--if possible to learn their names and to what tribe or community they belonged. sim promised to do what was in his power, but said he did not expect much success. the children had listened to the story wide awake. wagtail was lying at my father's feet, licking his wounds, which were not very serious, and had stopped bleeding. "it is all your doing, wagtail," said harry, patting the dog. "i think he deserves to be called _mr._ wagtail," said charley. and from that day he was no more called bare wagtail, but mr. wagtail, much to the amusement of visitors, who, hearing the name gravely uttered, as it soon came to be, saw the owner of it approach on all fours, with a tireless pendulum in his rear. chapter xi. a stupid chapter. before proceeding with my own story, i must mention that my father took every means in his power to find out something about the woman and the gang of gypsies to which she appeared to belong. i believe he had no definite end in view further than the desire to be able at some future time to enter into such relations with her, for her own and her daughter's sake,--if, indeed, theodora were her daughter,--as might be possible. but, the very next day, he found that they had already vanished from the place; and all the inquiries he set on foot, by means of friends and through the country constabulary, were of no avail. i believe he was dissatisfied with himself in what had occurred, thinking he ought to have laid himself out at the time to discover whether she was indeed the mother, and, in that case, to do for her what he could. probably, had he done so, he would only have heaped difficulty upon difficulty; but, as it was, if he was saved from trouble, he was not delivered from uneasiness. clearly, however, the child must not be exposed to the danger of the repetition of the attempt; and the whole household was now so fully alive to the necessity of not losing sight of her for a moment, that her danger was far less than it had been at any time before. i continued at the hall for six weeks, during which my husband came several times to see me; and, at the close of that period, took me back with him to my dear little home. the rooms, all but the study, looked very small after those i had left; but i felt, notwithstanding, that the place was my home. i was at first a little ashamed of the feeling; for why should i be anywhere more at home than in the house of such parents as mine? but i presume there is a certain amount of the queenly element in every woman, so that she cannot feel perfectly at ease without something to govern, however small and however troublesome her queendom may be. at my father's, i had every ministration possible, and all comforts in profusion; but i had no responsibilities, and no rule; so that sometimes i could not help feeling as if i was idle, although i knew i was not to blame. besides, i could not be at all sure that my big bear was properly attended to; and the knowledge that he was the most independent of comforts of all the men i had ever come into any relation with, made me only feel the more anxious that he should not be left to his own neglect. for although my father, for instance, was ready to part with any thing, even to a favorite volume, if the good reason of another's need showed itself, he was not at all indifferent in his own person to being comfortable. one with his intense power of enjoying the gentleness of the universe could not be so. hence it was always easy to make him a little present; whereas i have still to rack my brains for weeks before my bear's birthday comes round, to think of something that will in itself have a chance of giving him pleasure. of course, it would be comparatively easy if i had plenty of money to spare, and hadn't "to muddle it all away" in paying butchers and bakers, and such like people. so home i went, to be queen again. friends came to see me, but i returned few of their calls. i liked best to sit in my bedroom. i would have preferred sitting in my wonderful little room off the study, and i tried that first; but, the same morning, somebody called on percivale, and straightway i felt myself a prisoner. the moment i heard the strange voice through the door, i wanted to get out, and could not, of course. such a risk i would not run again. and when percivale asked me, the next day, if i would not go down with him, i told him i could not bear the feeling of confinement it gave me. "i did mean," he said, "to have had a door made into the garden for you, and i consulted an architect friend on the subject; but he soon satisfied me it would make the room much too cold for you, and so i was compelled to give up the thought." "you dear!" i said. that was all; but it was enough for percivale, who never bothered me, as i have heard of husbands doing, for demonstrations either of gratitude or affection. such must be of the mole-eyed sort, who can only read large print. so i betook myself to my chamber, and there sat and worked; for i did a good deal of needle-work now, although i had never been fond of it as a girl. the constant recurrence of similar motions of the fingers, one stitch just the same as another in countless repetition, varied only by the bother when the thread grew short and would slip out of the eye of the needle, and yet not short enough to be exchanged with still more bother for one too long, had been so wearisome to me in former days, that i spent half my pocket-money in getting the needle-work done for me which my mother and sister did for themselves. for this my father praised me, and my mother tried to scold me, and couldn't. but now it was all so different! instead of toiling at plain stitching and hemming and sewing, i seemed to be working a bit of lovely tapestry all the time,--so many thoughts and so many pictures went weaving themselves into the work; while every little bit finished appeared so much of the labor of the universe actually done,--accomplished, ended: for the first time in my life, i began to feel myself of consequence enough to be taken care of. i remember once laying down the little--what i was working at--but i am growing too communicative and important. my father used often to say that the commonest things in the world were the loveliest,--sky and water and grass and such; now i found that the commonest feelings of humanity--for what feelings could be commoner than those which now made me blessed amongst women?--are those that are fullest of the divine. surely this looks as if there were a god of the whole earth,--as if the world existed in the very foundations of its history and continuance by the immediate thought of a causing thought. for simply because the life of the world was moving on towards its unseen goal, and i knew it and had a helpless share in it, i felt as if god was with me. i do not say i always felt like this,--far from it: there were times when life itself seemed vanishing in an abyss of nothingness, when all my consciousness consisted in this, that i knew i was _not_, and when i could not believe that i should ever be restored to the well-being of existence. the worst of it was, that, in such moods, it seemed as if i had hitherto been deluding myself with rainbow fancies as often as i had been aware of blessedness, as there was, in fact, no wine of life apart from its effervescence. but when one day i told percivale--not while i was thus oppressed, for then i could not speak; but in a happier moment whose happiness i mistrusted--something of what i felt, he said one thing which has comforted me ever since in such circumstances:-- "don't grumble at the poverty, darling, by which another is made rich." i confess i did not see all at once what he meant; but i did after thinking over it for a while. and if i have learned any valuable lesson in my life, it is this, that no one's feelings are a measure of eternal facts. the winter passed slowly away,--fog, rain, frost, snow, thaw, succeeding one another in all the seeming disorder of the season. a good many things happened, i believe; but i don't remember any of them. my mother wrote, offering me dora for a companion; but somehow i preferred being without her. one great comfort was good news about connie, who was getting on famously. but even this moved me so little that i began to think i was turning into a crab, utterly incased in the shell of my own selfishness. the thought made me cry. the fact that i could cry consoled me, for how could i be heartless so long as i could cry? but then came the thought it was for myself, my own hard-heartedness i was crying,--not certainly for joy that connie was getting better. "at least, however," i said to myself, "i am not content to be selfish. i am a little troubled that i am not good." and then i tried to look up, and get my needlework, which always did me good, by helping me to reflect. it is, i can't help thinking, a great pity that needlework is going so much out of fashion; for it tends more to make a woman--one who thinks, that is--acquainted with herself than all the sermons she is ever likely to hear. my father came to see me several times, and was all himself to me; but i could not feel quite comfortable with him,--i don't in the least know why. i am afraid, much afraid, it indicates something very wrong in me somewhere. but he seemed to understand me; and always, the moment he left me, the tide of confidence began to flow afresh in the ocean that lay about the little island of my troubles. then i knew he was my own father,--something that even my husband could not be, and would not wish to be to me. in the month of march, my mother came to see me; and that was all pleasure. my father did not always see when i was not able to listen to him, though he was most considerate when he did; but my mother--why, to be with her was like being with one's own--_mother_, i was actually going to write. there is nothing better than that when a woman is in such trouble, except it be--what my father knows more about than i do: i wish i did know _all_ about it. she brought with her a young woman to take the place of cook, or rather general servant, in our little household. she had been kitchen-maid in a small family of my mother's acquaintance, and had a good character for honesty and plain cooking. percivale's more experienced ear soon discovered that she was irish. this fact had not been represented to my mother; for the girl had been in england from childhood, and her mistress seemed either not to have known it, or not to have thought of mentioning it. certainly, my mother was far too just to have allowed it to influence her choice, notwithstanding the prejudices against irish women in english families,--prejudices not without a general foundation in reason. for my part, i should have been perfectly satisfied with my mother's choice, even if i had not been so indifferent at the time to all that was going on in the lower regions of the house. but while my mother was there, i knew well enough that nothing could go wrong; and my housekeeping mind had never been so much at ease since we were married. it was very delightful not to be accountable; and, for the present, i felt exonerated from all responsibilities. chapter xii. an introduction. i woke one morning, after a sound sleep,--not so sound, however, but that i had been dreaming, and that, when i awoke, i could recall my dream. it was a very odd one. i thought i was a hen, strutting about amongst ricks of corn, picking here and scratching there, followed by a whole brood of chickens, toward which i felt exceedingly benevolent and attentive. suddenly i heard the scream of a hawk in the air above me, and instantly gave the proper cry to fetch the little creatures under my wings. they came scurrying to me as fast as their legs could carry them,--all but one, which wouldn't mind my cry, although i kept repeating it again and again. meantime the hawk kept screaming; and i felt as if i didn't care for any of those that were safe under my wings, but only for the solitary creature that kept pecking away as if nothing was the matter. about it i grew so terribly anxious, that at length i woke with a cry of misery and terror. the moment i opened my eyes, there was my mother standing beside me. the room was so dark that i thought for a moment what a fog there must be; but the next, i forgot every thing at hearing a little cry, which i verily believe, in my stupid dream, i had taken for the voice of the hawk; whereas it was the cry of my first and only chicken, which i had not yet seen, but which my mother now held in her grandmotherly arms, ready to hand her to me. i dared not speak; for i felt very weak, and was afraid of crying from delight. i looked in my mother's face; and she folded back the clothes, and laid the baby down beside me, with its little head resting on my arm. "draw back the curtain a little bit, mother dear," i whispered, "and let me see what it is like." i believe i said _it_, for i was not quite a mother yet. my mother did as i requested; a ray of clear spring light fell upon the face of the little white thing by my side,--for white she was, though most babies are red,--and if i dared not speak before, i could not now. my mother went away again, and sat down by the fireside, leaving me with my baby. never shall i forget the unutterable content of that hour. it was not gladness, nor was it thankfulness, that filled my heart, but a certain absolute contentment,--just on the point, but for my want of strength, of blossoming into unspeakable gladness and thankfulness. somehow, too, there was mingled with it a sense of dignity, as if i had vindicated for myself a right to a part in the creation; for was i not proved at least a link in the marvellous chain of existence, in carrying on the designs of the great maker? not that the thought was there,--only the feeling, which afterwards found the thought, in order to account for its own being. besides, the state of perfect repose after what had passed was in itself bliss; the very sense of weakness was delightful, for i had earned the right to be weak, to rest as much as i pleased, to be important, and to be congratulated. somehow i had got through. the trouble lay behind me; and here, for the sake of any one who will read my poor words, i record the conviction, that, in one way or other, special individual help is given to every creature to endure to the end. i think i have heard my father say, and hitherto it has been my own experience, that always when suffering, whether mental or bodily, approached the point where further endurance appeared impossible, the pulse of it began to ebb, and a lull ensued. i do not venture to found any general assertion upon this: i only state it as a fact of my own experience. he who does not allow any man to be tempted above that he is able to bear, doubtless acts in the same way in all kinds of trials. i was listening to the gentle talk about me in the darkened room--not listening, indeed, only aware that loving words were spoken. whether i was dozing, i do not know; but something touched my lips. i did not start. i had been dreadfully given to starting for a long time,--so much so that i was quite ashamed sometimes, for i would even cry out,--i who had always been so sharp on feminine affectations before; but now it seemed as if nothing could startle me. i only opened my eyes; and there was my great big huge bear looking down on me, with something in his eyes i had never seen there before. but even his presence could not ripple the waters of my deep rest. i gave him half a smile,--i knew it was but half a smile, but i thought it would do,--closed my eyes, and sunk again, not into sleep, but into that same blessed repose. i remember wondering if i should feel any thing like that for the first hour or two after i was dead. may there not one day be such a repose for all,--only the heavenly counterpart, coming of perfect activity instead of weary success? this was all but the beginning of endlessly varied pleasures. i dare say the mothers would let me go on for a good while in this direction,--perhaps even some of the fathers could stand a little more of it; but i must remember, that, if anybody reads this at all, it will have multitudes of readers in whom the chord which could alone respond to such experiences hangs loose over the sounding-board of their being. by slow degrees the daylight, the light of work, that is, began to penetrate me, or rather to rise in my being from its own hidden sun. first i began to wash and dress my baby myself. one who has not tried that kind of amusement cannot know what endless pleasure it affords. i do not doubt that to the paternal spectator it appears monotonous, unproductive, unprogressive; but then he, looking upon it from the outside, and regarding the process with a speculative compassion, and not with sympathy, so cannot know the communion into which it brings you with the baby. i remember well enough what my father has written about it in "the seaboard parish;" but he is all wrong--i mean him to confess that before this is printed. if things were done as he proposes, the tenderness of mothers would be far less developed, and the moral training of children would be postponed to an indefinite period. there, papa! that's something in your own style! next i began to order the dinners; and the very day on which i first ordered the dinner, i took my place at the head of the table. a happier little party--well, of course, i saw it all through the rose-mists of my motherhood, but i am nevertheless bold to assert that my husband was happy, and that my mother was happy; and if there was one more guest at the table concerning whom i am not prepared to assert that he was happy, i can confidently affirm that he was merry and gracious and talkative, originating three parts of the laughter of the evening. to watch him with the baby was a pleasure even to the heart of a mother, anxious as she must be when any one, especially a gentleman, more especially a bachelor, and most especially a young bachelor, takes her precious little wax-doll in his arms, and pretends to know all about the management of such. it was he indeed who introduced her to the dining-room; for, leaving the table during dessert, he returned bearing her in his arms, to my astonishment, and even mild maternal indignation at the liberty. resuming his seat, and pouring out for his charge, as he pretended, a glass of old port, he said in the soberest voice:-- "charles percivale, with all the solemnity suitable to the occasion, i, the old moon, with the new moon in my arms, propose the health of miss percivale on her first visit to this boring bullet of a world. by the way, what a mercy it is that she carries her atmosphere with her!" here i, stupidly thinking he reflected on the atmosphere of baby, rose to take her from him with suppressed indignation; for why should a man, who assumes a baby unbidden, be so very much nicer than a woman who accepts her as given, and makes the best of it? but he declined giving her up. "i'm not pinching her," he said. "no; but i am afraid you find her disagreeable." "on the contrary, she is the nicest of little ladies; for she lets you talk all the nonsense you like, and never takes the least offence." i sat down again directly. "i propose her health," he repeated, "coupled with that of her mother, to whom i, for one, am more obliged than i can explain, for at length convincing me that i belong no more to the youth of my country, but am an uncle with a homuncle in his arms." "wifie, your health! baby, yours too!" said my husband; and the ladies drank the toast in silence. it is time i explained who this fourth--or should i say fifth?--person in our family party was. he was the younger brother of my percivale, by name roger,--still more unsuccessful than he; of similar trustworthiness, but less equanimity; for he was subject to sudden elevations and depressions of the inner barometer. i shall have more to tell about him by and by. meantime it is enough to mention that my daughter--how grand i thought it when i first said _my daughter_!--now began her acquaintance with him. before long he was her chief favorite next to her mother and--i am sorry i cannot conscientiously add _father_; for, at a certain early period of her history, the child showed a decided preference for her uncle over her father. but it is time i put a stop to this ooze of maternal memories. having thus introduced my baby and her uncle roger, i close the chapter. chapter xiii. my first dinner-party. a negatived proposal. it may well be believed that we had not yet seen much company in our little house. to parties my husband had a great dislike; evening parties he eschewed utterly, and never accepted an invitation to dinner, except it were to the house of a friend, or to that of one of my few relatives in london, whom, for my sake, he would not displease. there were not many, even among his artist-acquaintances, whom he cared to visit; and, altogether, i fear he passed for an unsociable man. i am certain he would have sold more pictures if he had accepted what invitations came in his way. but to hint at such a thing would, i knew, crystallize his dislike into a resolve. one day, after i had got quite strong again, as i was sitting by him in the study, with my baby on my knee, i proposed that we should ask some friends to dinner. instead of objecting to the procedure upon general principles, which i confess i had half anticipated, he only asked me whom i thought of inviting. when i mentioned the morleys, he made no reply, but went on with his painting as if he had not heard me; whence i knew, of course, that the proposal was disagreeable to him. "you see, we have been twice to dine with them," i said. "well, don't you think that enough for a while?" "i'm talking of asking them here now." "couldn't you go and see your cousin some morning instead?" "it's not that i want to see my cousin particularly. i want to ask them to dinner." "oh!" he said, as if he couldn't in the least make out what i was after, "i thought people asked people because they desired their company." "but, you see, we owe them a dinner." "owe them a dinner! did you borrow one, then?" "percivale, why will you pretend to be so stupid?" "perhaps i'm only pretending to be the other thing." "do you consider yourself under no obligation to people who ask you to dinner?" "none in the least--if i accept the invitation. that is the natural acknowledgment of their kindness. surely my company is worth my dinner. it is far more trouble to me to put on black clothes and a white choker and go to their house, than it is for them to ask me, or, in a house like theirs, to have the necessary preparations made for receiving me in a manner befitting their dignity. i do violence to my own feelings in going: is not that enough? you know how much i prefer a chop with my wife alone to the grandest dinner the grandest of her grand relations could give me." "now, don't you make game of my grand relations. i'm not sure that you haven't far grander relations yourself, only you say so little about them, they might all have been transported for housebreaking. tell me honestly, don't you think it natural, if a friend asks you to dinner, that you should ask him again?" "yes, if it would give him any pleasure. but just imagine your cousin morley dining at our table. do you think he would enjoy it?" "of course we must have somebody in to help jemima." "and somebody to wait, i suppose?" "yes, of course, percivale." "and what thackeray calls cold balls handed about?" "well, i wouldn't have them cold." "but they would be." i was by this time so nearly crying, that i said nothing here. "my love," he resumed, "i object to the whole thing. it's all false together. i have not the least disinclination to asking a few friends who would enjoy being received in the same style as your father or my brother; namely, to one of our better dinners, and perhaps something better to drink than i can afford every day; but just think with what uneasy compassion mr. morley would regard our poor ambitions, even if you had an occasional cook and an undertaker's man. and what would he do without his glass of dry sherry after his soup, and his hock and champagne later, not to mention his fine claret or tawny port afterwards? i don't know how to get these things good enough for him without laying in a stock; and, that you know, would be as absurd as it is impossible." "oh, you gentlemen always think so much of the wine!" "believe me, it is as necessary to mr. morley's comfort as the dainties you would provide him with. indeed, it would be a cruelty to ask him. he would not, could not, enjoy it." "if he didn't like it, he needn't come again," i said, cross with the objections of which i could not but see the justice. "well, i must say you have an odd notion of hospitality," said my bear. "you may be certain," he resumed, after a moment's pause, "that a man so well aware of his own importance will take it far more as a compliment that you do not presume to invite him to your house, but are content to enjoy his society when he asks you to his." "i don't choose to take such an inferior position," i said. "you can't help it, my dear," he returned. "socially considered, you _are_ his inferior. you cannot give dinners he would regard with any thing better than a friendly contempt, combined with a certain mild indignation at your having presumed to ask _him_, used to such different ways. it is far more graceful to accept the small fact, and let him have his whim, which is not a subversive one or at all dangerous to the community, being of a sort easy to cure. ha! ha! ha!" "may i ask what you are laughing at?" i said with severity. "i was only fancying how such a man must feel,--if what your blessed father believes be true,--when he is stripped all at once of every possible source of consequence,--stripped of position, funds, house, including cellar, clothes, body, including stomach"-- "there, there! don't be vulgar. it is not like you, percivale." "my love, there is far greater vulgarity in refusing to acknowledge the inevitable, either in society or in physiology. just ask my brother his experience in regard of the word to which you object." "i will leave that to you." "don't be vexed with me, my wife," he said. "i don't like not to be allowed to pay my debts." "back to the starting-point, like a hunted hare! a woman's way," he said merrily, hoping to make me laugh; for he could not doubt i should see the absurdity of my position with a moment's reflection. but i was out of temper, and chose to pounce upon the liberty taken with my sex, and regard it as an insult. without a word i rose, pressed my baby to my bosom as if her mother had been left a widow, and swept away. percivale started to his feet. i did not see, but i knew he gazed after me for a moment; then i heard him sit down to his painting as if nothing had happened, but, i knew, with a sharp pain inside his great chest. for me, i found the precipice, or jacob's ladder, i had to climb, very subversive of my dignity; for when a woman has to hold a baby in one arm, and with the hand of the other lift the front of her skirt in order to walk up an almost perpendicular staircase, it is quite impossible for her to _sweep_ any more. when i reached the top, i don't know how it was, but the picture he had made of me, with the sunset-shine coming through the window, flashed upon my memory. all dignity forgotten, i bolted through the door at the top, flung my baby into the arms of her nurse, turned, almost tumbled headlong down the precipice, and altogether tumbled down at my husband's chair. i couldn't speak; i could only lay my head on his knees. "darling," he said, "you shall ask the great pan jan with his button atop, if you like. i'll do my best for him." between crying and laughing, i nearly did what i have never really done yet,--i nearly _went off_. there! i am sure that phrase is quite as objectionable as the word i wrote a little while ago; and there it shall stand, as a penance for having called any word my husband used _vulgar_. "i was very naughty, percivale," i said. "i will give a dinner-party, and it shall be such as you shall enjoy, and i won't ask mr. morley." "thank you, my love," he said; "and the next time mr. morley asks us i will go without a grumble, and make myself as agreeable as i can." * * * * * it may have seemed, to some of my readers, occasion for surprise that the mistress of a household should have got so far in the construction of a book without saying a word about her own or other people's servants in general. such occasion shall no longer be afforded them; for now i am going to say several things about one of mine, and thereby introduce a few results of much experience and some thought. i do not pretend to have made a single discovery, but only to have achieved what i count a certain measure of success; which, however, i owe largely to my own poverty, and the stupidity of my cook. i have had a good many servants since, but jemima seems a fixture. how this has come about, it would be impossible to say in ever so many words. over and over i have felt, and may feel again before the day is ended, a profound sympathy with sindbad the sailor, when the old man of the sea was on his back, and the hope of ever getting him off it had not yet begun to dawn. she has by turns every fault under the sun,--i say _fault_ only; will struggle with one for a day, and succumb to it for a month; while the smallest amount of praise is sufficient to render her incapable of deserving a word of commendation for a week. she is intensely stupid, with a remarkable genius--yes, genius--for cooking. my father says that all stupidity is caused, or at least maintained, by conceit. i cannot quite accompany him to his conclusions; but i have seen plainly enough that the stupidest people are the most conceited, which in some degree favors them. it was long an impossibility to make her see, or at least own, that she was to blame for any thing. if the dish she had last time cooked to perfection made its appearance the next time uneatable, she would lay it all to the _silly_ oven, which was too hot or too cold; or the silly pepper-pot, the top of which fell off as she was using it. she had no sense of the value of proportion,--would insist, for instance, that she had made the cake precisely as she had been told, but suddenly betray that she had not weighed the flour, which _could_ be of no consequence, seeing she had weighed every thing else. "please, 'm, could you eat your dinner now? for it's all ready," she came saying an hour before dinner-time, the very first day after my mother left. even now her desire to be punctual is chiefly evidenced by absurd precipitancy, to the danger of doing every thing either to a pulp or a cinder. yet here she is, and here she is likely to remain, so far as i see, till death, or some other catastrophe, us do part. the reason of it is, that, with all her faults--and they are innumerable--she has some heart; yes, after deducting all that can be laid to the account of a certain cunning perception that she is well off, she has yet a good deal of genuine attachment left; and after setting down the half of her possessions to the blarney which is the natural weapon of the weak-witted celt, there seems yet left in her of the vanishing clan instinct enough to render her a jealous partisan of her master and mistress. those who care only for being well-served will of course feel contemptuous towards any one who would put up with such a woman for a single moment after she could find another; but both i and my husband have a strong preference for living in a family, rather than in a hotel. i know many houses in which the master and mistress are far more like the lodgers, on sufferance of their own servants. i have seen a worthy lady go about wringing her hands because she could not get her orders attended to in the emergency of a slight accident, not daring to go down to her own kitchen, as her love prompted, and expedite the ministration. i am at least mistress in my own house; my servants are, if not yet so much members of the family as i could wish, gradually becoming more so; there is a circulation of common life through the household, rendering us an organization, although as yet perhaps a low one; i am sure of being obeyed, and there are no underhand out-of-door connections. when i go to the houses of my rich relations, and hear what they say concerning their servants, i feel as if they were living over a mine, which might any day be sprung, and blow them into a state of utter helplessness; and i return to my house blessed in the knowledge that my little kingdom is my own, and that, although it is not free from internal upheavings and stormy commotions, these are such as to be within the control and restraint of the general family influences; while the blunders of the cook seem such trifles beside the evil customs established in most kitchens of which i know any thing, that they are turned even into sources of congratulation as securing her services for ourselves. more than once my husband has insisted on raising her wages, on the ground of the endless good he gets in his painting from the merriment her oddities afford him,--namely, the clear insight, which, he asserts, is the invariable consequence. i must in honesty say, however, that i have seen him something else than merry with her behavior, many a time. but i find the things i have to say so crowd upon me, that i must either proceed to arrange them under heads,--which would immediately deprive them of any right to a place in my story,--or keep them till they are naturally swept from the bank of my material by the slow wearing of the current of my narrative. i prefer the latter, because i think my readers will. what with one thing and another, this thing to be done and that thing to be avoided, there was nothing more said about the dinner-party, until my father came to see us in the month of july. i was to have paid them a visit before then; but things had come in the way of that also, and now my father was commissioned by my mother to arrange for my going the next month. as soon as i had shown my father to his little room, i ran down to percivale. "papa is come," i said. "i am delighted to hear it," he answered, laying down his palette and brushes. "where is he?" "gone up stairs," i answered. "i wouldn't disturb you till he came down again." he answered with that world-wide english phrase, so suggestive of a hopeful disposition, "all right!" and with all its grumbling, and the _tristesse_ which the french consider its chief characteristic, i think my father is right, who says, that, more than any other nation, england has been, is, and will be, saved by hope. resuming his implements, my husband added,-- "i haven't quite finished my pipe,--i will go on till he comes down." although he laid it on his pipe, i knew well enough it was just that little bit of paint he wanted to finish, and not the residue of tobacco in the black and red bowl. "and now we'll have our dinner party," i said. i do believe, that, for all the nonsense i had talked about returning invitations, the real thing at my heart even then was an impulse towards hospitable entertainment, and the desire to see my husband merry with his friends, under--shall i say it?--the protecting wing of his wife. for, as mother of the family, the wife has to mother her husband also; to consider him as her first-born, and look out for what will not only give him pleasure but be good for him. and i may just add here, that for a long time my bear has fully given in to this. "and who are you going to ask?" he said. "mr. and mrs. morley to begin with, and"-- "no, no," i answered. "we are going to have a jolly evening of it, with nobody present who will make you either anxious or annoyed. mr. blackstone,"--he wasn't married then,--"miss clare, i think,--and"-- "what do you ask her for?" "i won't if you don't like her, but"-- "i haven't had a chance of liking or disliking her yet." "that is partly why i want to ask her,--i am so sure you would like her if you knew her." "where did you tell me you had met her?" "at cousin judy's. i must have one lady to keep me in countenance with so many gentlemen, you know. i have another reason for asking her, which i would rather you should find out than i tell you. do you mind?" "not in the least, if you don't think she will spoil the fun." "i am sure she won't. then there's your brother roger." "of course. who more?" "i think that will do. there will be six of us then,--quite a large enough party for our little dining-room." "why shouldn't we dine here? it wouldn't be so hot, and we should have more room." i liked the idea. the night before, percivale arranged every thing, so that not only his paintings, of which he had far too many, and which were huddled about the room, but all his _properties_ as well, should be accessory to a picturesque effect. and when the table was covered with the glass and plate,--of which latter my mother had taken care i should not be destitute,--and adorned with the flowers which roger brought me from covent garden, assisted by a few of our own, i thought the bird's-eye view from the top of jacob's ladder a very pretty one indeed. resolved that percivale should have no cause of complaint as regarded the simplicity of my arrangements, i gave orders that our little ethel, who at that time of the evening was always asleep, should be laid on the couch in my room off the study, with the door ajar, so that sarah, who was now her nurse, might wait with an easy mind. the dinner was brought in by the outer door of the study, to avoid the awkwardness and possible disaster of the private precipice. the principal dish, a small sirloin of beef, was at the foot of the table, and a couple of boiled fowls, as i thought, before me. but when the covers were removed, to my surprise i found they were roasted. "what have you got there, percivale?" i asked. "isn't it sirloin?" "i'm not an adept in such matters," he replied. "i should say it was." my father gave a glance at the joint. something seemed to be wrong. i rose and went to my husband's side. powers of cuisine! jemima had roasted the fowls, and boiled the sirloin. my exclamation was the signal for an outbreak of laughter, led by my father. i was trembling in the balance between mortification on my own account and sympathy with the evident amusement of my father and mr. blackstone. but the thought that mr. morley might have been and was not of the party came with such a pang and such a relief, that it settled the point, and i burst out laughing. "i dare say it's all right," said roger. "why shouldn't a sirloin be boiled as well as roasted? i venture to assert that it is all a whim, and we are on the verge of a new discovery to swell the number of those which already owe their being to blunders." "let us all try a slice, then," said mr. blackstone, "and compare results." this was agreed to; and a solemn silence followed, during which each sought acquaintance with the new dish. "i am sorry to say," remarked my father, speaking first, "that roger is all wrong, and we have only made the discovery that custom is right. it is plain enough why sirloin is always roasted." "i yield myself convinced," said roger. "and i am certain," said mr. blackstone, "that if the loin set before the king, whoever he was, had been boiled, he would never have knighted it." thanks to the loin, the last possible touch of constraint had vanished, and the party grew a very merry one. the apple-pudding which followed was declared perfect, and eaten up. percivale produced some good wine from somewhere, which evidently added to the enjoyment of the gentlemen, my father included, who likes a good glass of wine as well as anybody. but a tiny little whimper called me away, and miss clare accompanied me; the gentlemen insisting that we should return as soon as possible, and bring the homuncle, as roger called the baby, with us. when we returned, the two clergymen were in close conversation, and the other two gentlemen were chiefly listening. my father was saying,-- "my dear sir, i don't see how any man can do his duty as a clergyman who doesn't visit his parishioners." "in london it is simply impossible," returned mr. blackstone. "in the country you are welcome wherever you go; any visit i might pay would most likely be regarded either as an intrusion, or as giving the right to pecuniary aid, of which evils the latter is the worse. there are portions of every london parish which clergymen and their coadjutors have so degraded by the practical teaching of beggary, that they have blocked up every door to a healthy spiritual relation between them and pastor possible." "would you not give alms at all, then?" "one thing, at least, i have made up my mind upon,--that alms from any but the hand of personal friendship tend to evil, and will, in the long run, increase misery." "what, then, do you suppose the proper relation between a london clergyman and his parishioners?" "one, i am afraid, which does not at present exist,--one which it is his first business perhaps to bring about. i confess i regard with a repulsion amounting to horror the idea of walking into a poor man's house, except either i have business with him, or desire his personal acquaintance." "but if our office"-- "makes it my business to serve--not to assume authority over them especially to the degree of forcing service upon them. i will not say how far intimacy may not justify you in immediate assault upon a man's conscience; but i shrink from any plan that seems to take it for granted that the poor are more wicked than the rich. why don't we send missionaries to belgravia? the outside of the cup and platter may sometimes be dirtier than the inside." "your missionary could hardly force his way through the servants to the boudoir or drawing-room." "and the poor have no servants to defend them." i have recorded this much of the conversation chiefly for the sake of introducing miss clare, who now spoke. "don't you think, sir," she asked, addressing my father, "that the help one can give to another must always depend on the measure in which one is free one's self?" my father was silent--thinking. we were all silent. i said to myself, "there, papa! that is something after your own heart." with marked deference and solemnity he answered at length,-- "i have little doubt you are right, miss clare. that puts the question upon its own eternal foundation. the mode used must be of infinitely less importance than the person who uses it." as he spoke, he looked at her with a far more attentive regard than hitherto. indeed, the eyes of all the company seemed to be scanning the small woman; but she bore the scrutiny well, if indeed she was not unconscious of it; and my husband began to find out one of my reasons for asking her, which was simply that he might see her face. at this moment it was in one of its higher phases. it was, at its best, a grand face,--at its worst, a suffering face; a little too large, perhaps, for the small body which it crowned with a flame of soul; but while you saw her face you never thought of the rest of her; and her attire seemed to court an escape from all observation. "but," my father went on, looking at mr. blackstone, "i am anxious from the clergyman's point of view, to know what my friend here thinks he must try to do in his very difficult position." "i think the best thing i could do," returned mr. blackstone, laughing, "would be to go to school to miss clare." "i shouldn't wonder," my father responded. "but, in the mean time, i should prefer the chaplaincy of a suburban cemetery." "certainly your charge would be a less troublesome one. your congregation would be quiet enough, at least," said roger. "'then are they glad because they be quiet,'" said my father, as if unconsciously uttering his own reflections. but he was a little cunning, and would say things like that when, fearful of irreverence, he wanted to turn the current of the conversation. "but, surely," said miss clare, "a more active congregation would be quite as desirable." she had one fault--no, defect: she was slow to enter into the humor of a thing. it seemed almost as if the first aspect of any bit of fun presented to her was that of something wrong. a moment's reflection, however, almost always ended in a sunny laugh, partly at her own stupidity, as she called it. "you mistake my meaning," said mr. blackstone. "my chief, almost sole, attraction to the regions of the grave is the sexton, and not the placidity of the inhabitants; though perhaps miss clare might value that more highly if she had more experience of how noisy human nature can be." miss clare gave a little smile, which after-knowledge enabled me to interpret as meaning, "perhaps i do know a trifle about it;" but she said nothing. "my first inquiry," he went on, "before accepting such an appointment, would be as to the character and mental habits of the sexton. if i found him a man capable of regarding human nature from a stand-point of his own, i should close with the offer at once. if, on the contrary, he was a common-place man, who made faultless responses, and cherished the friendship of the undertaker, i should decline. in fact, i should regard the sexton as my proposed master; and whether i should accept the place or not would depend altogether on whether i liked him or not. think what revelations of human nature a real man in such a position could give me: 'hand me the shovel. you stop a bit,--you're out of breath. sit down on that stone there, and light your pipe; here's some tobacco. now tell me the rest of the story. how did the old fellow get on after he had buried his termagant wife?' that's how i should treat him; and i should get, in return, such a succession of peeps into human life and intent and aspirations, as, in the course of a few years, would send me to the next vicarage that turned up a sadder and wiser man, mr. walton." "i don't doubt it," said my father; but whether in sympathy with mr. blackstone, or in latent disapproval of a tone judged unbecoming to a clergyman, i cannot tell. sometimes, i confess, i could not help suspecting the source of the deficiency in humor which he often complained of in me; but i always came to the conclusion that what seemed such a deficiency in him was only occasioned by the presence of a deeper feeling. miss clare was the first to leave. "what a lovely countenance that is!" said my husband, the moment she was out of hearing. "she is a very remarkable woman," said my father. "i suspect she knows a good deal more than most of us," said mr. blackstone. "did you see how her face lighted up always before she said any thing? you can never come nearer to seeing a thought than in her face just before she speaks." "what is she?" asked roger. "can't you see what she is?" returned his brother. "she's a saint,--saint clare." "if you had been a scotchman, now," said roger "that fine name would have sunk to _sinkler_ in your mouth." "not a more vulgar corruption, however, than is common in the mouths of english lords and ladies, when they turn _st. john_ into _singen_, reminding one of nothing but the french for an ape," said my father. "but what does she do?" persisted roger. "why should you think she does any thing?" i asked. "she looks as if she had to earn her own living." "she does. she teaches music." "why didn't you ask her to play?" "because this is the first time she has been to the house." "does she go to church, do you suppose?" "i have no doubt of it; but why do you ask?" "because she looks as if she didn't want it. i never saw such an angelic expression upon a countenance." "you must take me to call upon her," said my father. "i will with pleasure," i answered. i found, however, that this was easier promised than performed; for i had asked her by word of mouth at cousin judy's, and had not the slightest idea where she lived. of course i applied to judy; but she had mislaid her address, and, promising to ask her for it, forgot more than once. my father had to return home without seeing her again. chapter xiv. a picture. things went on very quietly for some time. of course i was fully occupied, as well i might be, with a life to tend and cultivate which must blossom at length into the human flowers of love and obedience and faith. the smallest service i did the wonderful thing that lay in my lap seemed a something in itself so well worth doing, that it was worth living to do it. as i gazed on the new creation, so far beyond my understanding, yet so dependent upon me while asserting an absolute and divine right to all i did for her, i marvelled that god should intrust me with such a charge, that he did not keep the lovely creature in his own arms, and refuse her to any others. then i would bethink myself that in giving her into mine, he had not sent her out of his own; for i, too, was a child in his arms, holding and tending my live doll, until it should grow something like me, only ever so much better. was she not given to me that she might learn what i had begun to learn, namely, that a willing childhood was the flower of life? how can any mother sit with her child on her lap and not know that there is a god over all,--know it by the rising of her own heart in prayer to him? but so few have had parents like mine! if my mother felt thus when i lay in her arms, it was no wonder i should feel thus when my child lay in mine. before i had children of my own, i did not care about children, and therefore did not understand them; but i had read somewhere,--and it clung to me although i did not understand it,--that it was in laying hold of the heart of his mother that jesus laid his first hold on the world to redeem it; and now at length i began to understand it. what a divine way of saving us it was,--to let her bear him, carry him in her bosom, wash him and dress him and nurse him and sing him to sleep,--offer him the adoration of mother's love, misunderstand him, chide him, forgive him even for fancied wrong! such a love might well save a world in which were mothers enough. it was as if he had said, "ye shall no more offer vain sacrifices to one who needs them not, and cannot use them. i will need them, so require them at your hands. i will hunger and thirst and be naked and cold, and ye shall minister to me. sacrifice shall be no more a symbol, but a real giving unto god; and when i return to the father, inasmuch as ye do it to one of the least of these, ye do it unto me." so all the world is henceforth the temple of god; its worship is ministration; the commonest service is divine service. i feared at first that the new strange love i felt in my heart came only of the fact that the child was percivale's and mine; but i soon found it had a far deeper source,--that it sprung from the very humanity of the infant woman, yea, from her relation in virtue of that humanity to the father of all. the fountain _appeared_ in my heart: it arose from an infinite store in the unseen. soon, however, came jealousy of my love for my baby. i feared lest it should make me--nay, was making me--neglect my husband. the fear first arose in me one morning as i sat with her half dressed on my knees. i was dawdling over her in my fondness, as i used to dawdle over the dressing of my doll, when suddenly i became aware that never once since her arrival had i sat with my husband in his study. a pang of dismay shot through me. "is this to be a wife?" i said to myself,--"to play with a live love like a dead doll, and forget her husband!" i caught up a blanket from the cradle,--i am not going to throw away that good old word for the ugly outlandish name they give it now, reminding one only of a helmet,--i caught up a blanket from the cradle, i say, wrapped it round the treasure, which was shooting its arms and legs in every direction like a polypus feeling after its food,--and rushed down stairs, and down the precipice into the study. percivale started up in terror, thinking something fearful had happened, and i was bringing him all that was left of the child. "what--what--what's the matter?" he gasped. i could not while he was thus frightened explain to him what had driven me to him in such alarming haste. "i've brought you the baby to kiss," i said, unfolding the blanket, and holding up the sprawling little goddess towards the face that towered above me. "was it dying for a kiss then?" he said, taking her, blanket and all, from my arms. the end of the blanket swept across his easel, and smeared the face of the baby in a picture of the _three kings_, at which he was working. "o percivale!" i cried, "you've smeared your baby!" "but this is a real live baby; she may smear any thing she likes." "except her own face and hands, please, then, percivale." "or her blessed frock," said percivale. "she hasn't got one, though. why hasn't the little angel got her feathers on yet?" "i was in such a hurry to bring her." "to be kissed?" "no, not exactly. it wasn't her i was in a hurry to bring; it was myself." "ah! you wanted to be kissed, did you?" "no, sir. i didn't want to be kissed; but i did so want to kiss you, percivale." "isn't it all the same, though, darling?" he said. "it seems so to me." "sometimes, percivale, you are so very stupid! it's not the same at all. there's a world of difference between the two; and you ought to know it, or be told it, if you don't." "i shall think it over as soon as you leave me," he said. "but i'm not going to leave you for a long time. i haven't seen you paint for weeks and weeks,--not since this little troublesome thing came poking in between us." "but she's not dressed yet." "that doesn't signify. she's well wrapped up, and quite warm." he put me a chair where i could see his picture without catching the shine of the paint. i took the baby from him, and he went on with his work. "you don't think i am going to sacrifice all my privileges to this little tyrant, do you?" i said. "it would be rather hard for me, at least," he rejoined. "you did think i was neglecting you, then, percivale?" "not for a moment." "then you didn't miss me?" "i did, very much." "and you didn't grumble?" "no." "do i disturb you?" i asked, after a little pause. "can you paint just as well when i am here as when you are alone?" "better. i feel warmer to my work somehow." i was satisfied, and held my peace. when i am best pleased i don't want to talk. but percivale, perhaps not having found this out yet, looked anxiously in my face; and, as at the moment my eyes were fixed on his picture, i thought he wanted to find out whether i liked the design. "i see it now!" i cried. "i could not make out where the magi were." he had taken for the scene of his picture an old farm kitchen, or yeoman's hall, with its rich brown rafters, its fire on the hearth, and its red brick floor. a tub half full of bright water, stood on one side; and the mother was bending over her baby, which, undressed for the bath, she was holding out for the admiration of the magi. immediately behind the mother stood, in the garb of a shepherd, my father, leaning on the ordinary shepherd's crook; my mother, like a peasant-woman in her sunday-best, with a white handkerchief crossed upon her bosom, stood beside him, and both were gazing with a chastened yet profound pleasure on the lovely child. in front stood two boys and a girl,--between the ages of five and nine,--gazing each with a peculiar wondering delight on the baby. the youngest boy, with a great spotted wooden horse in his hand, was approaching to embrace the infant in such fashion as made the toy look dangerous, and the left hand of the mother was lifted with a motion of warning and defence. the little girl, the next youngest, had, in her absorption, dropped her gaudily dressed doll at her feet, and stood sucking her thumb, her big blue eyes wide with contemplation. the eldest boy had brought his white rabbit to give the baby, but had forgotten all about it, so full was his heart of his new brother. an expression of mingled love and wonder and perplexity had already begun to dawn upon the face, but it was as yet far from finished. he stood behind the other two peeping over their heads. "were you thinking of that titian in the louvre, with the white rabbit in it?" i asked percivale. "i did not think of it until after i had put in the rabbit," he replied. "and it shall remain; for it suits my purpose, and titian would not claim all the white rabbits because of that one." "did you think of the black lamb in it, then, when you laid that black pussy on the hearth?" i asked. "black lamb?" he returned. "yes," i insisted; "a black lamb, in the dark background--such a very black lamb, and in such a dark background, that it seems you never discovered it." "are you sure?" he persisted. "absolutely certain," i replied. "i pointed it out to papa in the picture itself in the louvre; he had not observed it before either." "i am very glad to know there is such a thing there. i need not answer your question, you see. it is odd enough i should have put in the black puss. upon some grounds i might argue that my puss is better than titian's lamb." "what grounds? tell me." "if the painter wanted a contrast, a lamb, be he as black as ever paint could make him, must still be a more christian animal than a cat as white as snow. under what pretence could a cat be used for a christian symbol?" "what do you make of her playfulness?" "i should count that a virtue, were it not for the fatal objection that it is always exercised at the expense of other creatures." "a ball of string, or a reel, or a bit of paper, is enough for an uncorrupted kitten." "but you must not forget that it serves only in virtue of the creature's imagination representing it as alive. if you do not make it move, she will herself set it in motion as the initiative of the game. if she cannot do that, she will take no notice of it." "yes, i see. i give in." all this time he had been painting diligently. he could now combine talking and painting far better than he used. but a knock came to the study door; and, remembering baby's unpresentable condition, i huddled her up, climbed the stair again, and finished the fledging of my little angel in a very happy frame of mind. chapter xv. rumors. hardly was it completed, when cousin judy called, and i went down to see her, carrying my baby with me. as i went, something put me in mind that i must ask her for miss clare's address. lest i should again forget, as soon as she had kissed and admired the baby, i said,-- "have you found out yet where miss clare lives, judy?" "i don't choose to find out," she answered. "i am sorry to say i have had to give her up. it is a disappointment, i confess." "what do you mean?" i said. "i thought you considered her a very good teacher." "i have no fault to find with her on that score. she was always punctual, and i must allow both played well and taught the children delightfully. but i have heard such questionable things about her!--very strange things indeed!" "what are they?" "i can't say i've been able to fix on more than one thing directly against her character, but"-- "against her character!" i exclaimed. "yes, indeed. she lives by herself in lodgings, and the house is not at all a respectable one." "but have you made no further inquiry?" "i consider that quite enough. i had already met more than one person, however, who seemed to think it very odd that i should have her to teach music in my family." "did they give any reason for thinking her unfit?" "i did not choose to ask them. one was miss clarke--you know her. she smiled in her usual supercilious manner, but in her case i believe it was only because miss clare looks so dowdy. but nobody knows any thing about her except what i've just told you." "and who told you that?" "mrs. jeffreson." "but you once told me that she was a great gossip." "else she wouldn't have heard it. but that doesn't make it untrue. in fact, she convinced me of its truth, for she knows the place she lives in, and assured me it was at great risk of infection to the children that i allowed her to enter the house; and so, of course, i felt compelled to let her know that i didn't require her services any longer." "there must be some mistake, surely!" i said. "oh, no! not the least, i am sorry to say." "how did she take it?" "very sweetly indeed. she didn't even ask me why, which was just as well, seeing i should have found it awkward to tell her. but i suppose she knew too many grounds herself to dare the question." i was dreadfully sorry, but i could not say much more then. i ventured only to express my conviction that there could not be any charge to bring against miss clare herself; for that one who looked and spoke as she did could have nothing to be ashamed of. judy, however, insisted that what she had heard was reason enough for at least ending the engagement; indeed, that no one was fit for such a situation of whom such things could be said, whether they were true or not. when she left me, i gave baby to her nurse, and went straight to the study, peeping in to see if percivale was alone. he caught sight of me, and called to me to come down. "it's only roger," he said. i was always pleased to see roger. he was a strange creature,--one of those gifted men who are capable of any thing, if not of every thing, and yet carry nothing within sight of proficiency. he whistled like a starling, and accompanied his whistling on the piano; but never played. he could copy a drawing to a hair's-breadth, but never drew. he could engrave well on wood; but although he had often been employed in that way, he had always got tired of it after a few weeks. he was forever wanting to do something other than what he was at; and the moment he got tired of a thing, he would work at it no longer; for he had never learned to _make_ himself. he would come every day to the study for a week to paint in backgrounds, or make a duplicate; and then, perhaps, we wouldn't see him for a fortnight. at other times he would work, say for a month, modelling, or carving marble, for a sculptor friend, from whom he might have had constant employment if he had pleased. he had given lessons in various branches, for he was an excellent scholar, and had the finest ear for verse, as well as the keenest appreciation of the loveliness of poetry, that i have ever known. he had stuck to this longer than to any thing else, strange to say; for one would have thought it the least attractive of employments to one of his volatile disposition. for some time indeed he had supported himself comfortably in this way; for through friends of his family he had had good introductions, and, although he wasted a good deal of money in buying nick-nacks that promised to be useful and seldom were, he had no objectionable habits except inordinate smoking. but it happened that a pupil--a girl of imaginative disposition, i presume--fell so much in love with him that she betrayed her feelings to her countess-mother, and the lessons were of course put an end to. i suspect he did not escape heart-whole himself; for he immediately dropped all his other lessons, and took to writing poetry for a new magazine, which proved of ephemeral constitution, and vanished after a few months of hectic existence. it was remarkable that with such instability his moral nature should continue uncorrupted; but this i believe he owed chiefly to his love and admiration of his brother. for my part, i could not help liking him much. there was a half-plaintive playfulness about him, alternated with gloom, and occasionally with wild merriment, which made him interesting even when one felt most inclined to quarrel with him. the worst of him was that he considered himself a generally misunderstood, if not ill-used man, who could not only distinguish himself, but render valuable service to society, if only society would do him the justice to give him a chance. were it only, however, for his love to my baby, i could not but be ready to take up his defence. when i mentioned what i had just heard about miss clare, percivale looked both astonished and troubled; but before he could speak, roger, with the air of a man of the world whom experience enabled to come at once to a decision, said,-- "depend upon it, wynnie, there is falsehood there somewhere. you will always be nearer the truth if you believe nothing, than if you believe the half of what you hear." "that's very much what papa says," i answered. "he affirms that he never searched into an injurious report in his own parish without finding it so nearly false as to deprive it of all right to go about." "besides," said roger, "look at that face! how i should like to model it. she's a good woman that, depend upon it." i was delighted with his enthusiasm. "i wish you would ask her again, as soon as you can," said percivale, who always tended to embody his conclusions in acts rather than in words. "your cousin judy is a jolly good creature, but from your father's description of her as a girl, she must have grown a good deal more worldly since her marriage. respectability is an awful snare." "yes," said roger; "one ought to be very thankful to be a bohemian, and have nothing expected of him, for respectability is a most fruitful mother of stupidity and injustice." i could not help thinking that _he_ might, however, have a little more and be none the worse. "i should be very glad to do as you desire, husband," i said, "but how can i? i haven't learned where she lives. it was asking judy for her address once more that brought it all out. i certainly didn't insist, as i might have done, notwithstanding what she told me; but, if she didn't remember it before, you may be sure she could not have given it me then." "it's very odd," said roger, stroking his long mustache, the sole ornament of the kind he wore. "it's very odd," he repeated thoughtfully, and then paused again. "what's so very odd, roger?" asked percivale. "the other evening," answered roger, after yet a short pause, "happening to be in tottenham court road, i walked for some distance behind a young woman carrying a brown beer-jug in her hand--for i sometimes amuse myself in the street by walking persistently behind some one, devising the unseen face in my mind, until the recognition of the same step following causes the person to look round at me, and give me the opportunity of comparing the two--i mean the one i had devised and the real one. when the young woman at length turned her head, it was only my astonishment that kept me from addressing her as miss clare. my surprise, however, gave me time to see how absurd it would have been. presently she turned down a yard and disappeared." "don't tell my cousin judy," i said. "she would believe it _was_ miss clare." "there isn't much danger," he returned. "even if i knew your cousin, i should not be likely to mention such an incident in her hearing." "could it have been she?" said percivale thoughtfully. "absurd!" said roger. "miss clare is a lady, wherever she may live." "i don't know," said his brother thoughtfully; "who can tell? it mightn't have been beer she was carrying." "i didn't say it was beer," returned roger. "i only said it was a beer-jug,--one of those brown, squat, stone jugs,--the best for beer that i know, after all,--brown, you know, with a dash of gray." "brown jug or not, i wish i could get a few sittings from her. she would make a lovely st. cecilia," said my husband. "brown jug and all?" asked roger. "if only she were a little taller," i objected. "and had an aureole," said my husband. "but i might succeed in omitting the jug as well as in adding the aureole and another half-foot of stature, if only i could get that lovely countenance on the canvas,--so full of life and yet of repose." "don't you think it a little hard?" i ventured to say. "i think so," said roger. "i don't," said my husband. "i know what in it looks like hardness; but i think it comes of the repression of feeling." "you have studied her well for your opportunities," i said. "i have; and i am sure, whatever mrs. morley may say, that, if there be any truth at all in those reports, there is some satisfactory explanation of whatever has given rise to them. i wish we knew anybody else that knew her. do try to find some one that does, wynnie." "i don't know how to set about it," i said. "i should be only too glad." "i will try," said roger. "does she sing?" "i have heard judy say she sang divinely; but the only occasion on which i met her--at their house, that time you couldn't go, percivale--she was never asked to sing." "i suspect," remarked roger, "it will turn out to be only that she's something of a bohemian, like ourselves." "thank you, roger; but for my part, i don't consider myself a bohemian at all," i said. "i am afraid you must rank with your husband, wifie," said _mine_, as the wives of the working people of london often call their husbands. "then you do count yourself a bohemian: pray, what significance do you attach to the epithet?" i asked. "i don't know, except it signifies our resemblance to the gypsies," he answered. "i don't understand you quite." "i believe the gypsies used to be considered bohemians," interposed roger, "though they are doubtless of indian origin. their usages being quite different from those amongst which they live, the name bohemian came to be applied to painters, musicians, and such like generally, to whom, save by courtesy, no position has yet been accorded by society--so called." "but why have they not yet vindicated for themselves a social position," i asked, "and that a high one?" "because they are generally poor, i suppose," he answered; "and society is generally stupid." "may it not be because they are so often, like the gypsies, lawless in their behavior, as well as peculiar in their habits?" i suggested. "i understand you perfectly, mrs. percivale," rejoined roger with mock offence. "but how would that apply to charlie?" "not so well as to you, i confess," i answered. "but there is ground for it with him too." "i have thought it all over many a time," said percivale; "and i suppose it comes in part from inability to understand the worth of our calling, and in part from the difficulty of knowing where to put us." "i suspect," i said, "one thing is that so many of them are content to be received as merely painters, or whatever they may be by profession. many, you have told me, for instance, accept invitations which do not include their wives." "they often go to parties, of course, where there are no ladies," said roger. "that is not what i mean," i replied. "they go to dinner-parties where there are ladies, and evening parties, too, without their wives." "whoever does that," said percivale, "has at least no right to complain that he is regarded as a bohemian; for in accepting such invitations, he accepts insult, and himself insults his wife." nothing irritated my bear so much as to be asked to dinner without me. he would not even offer the shadow of a reason for declining the invitation. "for," he would say, "if i give the real reason, namely, that i do not choose to go where my wife is excluded, they will set it down to her jealous ambition of entering a sphere beyond her reach; i will not give a false reason, and indeed have no objection to their seeing that i am offended; therefore, i assign none. if they have any chivalry in them, they may find out my reason readily enough." i don't think i ever displeased him so much as once when i entreated him to accept an invitation to dine with the earl of h----. the fact was, i had been fancying it my duty to persuade him to get over his offence at the omission of my name, for the sake of the advantage it would be to him in his profession. i laid it before him as gently and coaxingly as i could, representing how expenses increased, and how the children would be requiring education by and by,--reminding him that the reputation of more than one of the most popular painters had been brought about in some measure by their social qualities and the friendships they made. "is it likely your children will be ladies and gentlemen," he said, "if you prevail on their father to play the part of a sneaking parasite?" i was frightened. he had never spoken to me in such a tone, but i saw too well how deeply he was hurt to take offence at his roughness. i could only beg him to forgive me, and promise never to say such a word again, assuring him that i believed as strongly as himself that the best heritage of children was their father's honor. free from any such clogs as the possession of a wife encumbers a husband withal, roger could of course accept what invitations his connection with an old and honorable family procured him. one evening he came in late from a dinner at lady bernard's. "whom do you think i took down to dinner?" he asked, almost before he was seated. "lady bernard?" i said, flying high. "her dowager aunt?" said percivale. "no, no; miss clare." "miss clare!" we both repeated, with mingled question and exclamation. "yes, miss clare, incredible as it may appear," he answered. "did you ask her if it was she you saw carrying the jug of beer in tottenham court road?" said percivale. "did you ask her address?" i said. "that is a question more worthy of an answer." "yes, i did. i believe i did. i think i did." "what is it, then?" "upon my word, i haven't the slightest idea." "so, mr. roger! you have had a perfect opportunity, and have let it slip! you are a man to be trusted indeed!" "i don't know how it could have been. i distinctly remember approaching the subject more than once or twice; and now first i discover that i never asked the question. or if i did, i am certain i got no answer." "bewitched!" "yes, i suppose so." "or," suggested percivale, "she did not choose to tell you; saw the question coming, and led you away from it; never let you ask it." "i have heard that ladies can keep one from saying what they don't want to hear. but she sha'n't escape me so a second time." "indeed, you don't deserve another chance," i said. "you're not half so clever as i took you to be, roger." "when i think of it, though, it wasn't a question so easy to ask, or one you would like to be overheard asking." "clearly bewitched," i said. "but for that i forgive you. did she sing?" "no. i don't suppose any one there ever thought of asking such a dingy-feathered bird to sing." "you had some music?" "oh, yes! pretty good, and very bad. miss clare's forehead was crossed by no end of flickering shadows as she listened." "it wasn't for want of interest in her you forgot to find out where she lived! you had better take care, master roger." "take care of what?" "why, you don't know her address." "what has that to do with taking care?" "that you won't know where to find your heart if you should happen to want it." "oh! i am past that kind of thing long ago. you've made an uncle of me." and so on, with a good deal more nonsense, but no news of miss clare's retreat. i had before this remarked to my husband that it was odd she had never called since dining with us; but he made little of it, saying that people who gained their own livelihood ought to be excused from attending to rules which had their origin with another class; and i had thought no more about it, save in disappointment that she had not given me that opportunity of improving my acquaintance with her. chapter xvi. a discovery. one saturday night, my husband happening to be out, an event of rare occurrence, roger called; and as there were some things i had not been able to get during the day, i asked him to go with me to tottenham court road. it was not far from the region where we lived, and i did a great part of my small shopping there. the early closing had, if i remember rightly, begun to show itself; anyhow, several of the shops were shut, and we walked a long way down the street, looking for some place likely to supply what i required. "it was just here i came up with the girl and the brown jug," said roger, as we reached the large dissenting chapel. "that adventure seems to have taken a great hold of you, roger," i said. "she _was_ so like miss clare!" he returned. "i can't get the one face clear of the other. when i met her at lady bernard's, the first thing i thought of was the brown jug." "were you as much pleased with her conversation as at our house?" i asked. "even more," he answered. "i found her ideas of art so wide, as well as just and accurate, that i was puzzled to think where she had had opportunity of developing them. i questioned her about it, and found she was in the habit of going, as often as she could spare time, to the national gallery, where her custom was, she said, not to pass from picture to picture, but keep to one until it formed itself in her mind,--that is the expression she used, explaining herself to mean, until she seemed to know what the painter had set himself to do, and why this was and that was which she could not at first understand. clearly, without ever having taken a pencil in her hand, she has educated herself to a keen perception of what is demanded of a true picture. of course the root of it lies in her musical development.--there," he cried suddenly, as we came opposite a paved passage, "that is the place i saw her go down." "then you do think the girl with the beer-jug was miss clare, after all?" "not in the least. i told you i could not separate them in my mind." "well, i must say, it seems odd. a girl like that and miss clare! why, as often as you speak of the one, you seem to think of the other." "in fact," he returned, "i am, as i say, unable to dissociate them. but if you had seen the girl, you would not wonder. the likeness was absolutely complete." "i believe you do consider them one and the same; and i am more than half inclined to think so myself, remembering what judy said." "isn't it possible some one who knows miss clare may have seen this girl, and been misled by the likeness?" "but where, then, does miss clare live? nobody seems to know." "you have never asked any one but mrs. morley." "you have yourself, however, given me reason to think she avoids the subject. if she did live anywhere hereabout, she would have some cause to avoid it." i had stopped to look down the passage. "suppose," said roger, "some one were to come past now and see mrs. percivale, the wife of the celebrated painter, standing in tottenham court road beside the swing-door of a corner public-house, talking to a young man." "yes; it might have given occasion for scandal," i said. "to avoid it, let us go down the court and see what it is like." "it's not a fit place for you to go into." "if it were in my father's parish, i should have known everybody in it." "you haven't the slightest idea what you are saying." "come, anyhow, and let us see what the place is like," i insisted. without another word he gave me his arm, and down the court we went, past the flaring gin-shop, and into the gloom beyond. it was one of those places of which, while the general effect remains vivid in one's mind, the salient points are so few that it is difficult to say much by way of description. the houses had once been occupied by people in better circumstances than its present inhabitants; and indeed they looked all decent enough until, turning two right angles, we came upon another sort. they were still as large, and had plenty of windows; but, in the light of a single lamp at the corner, they looked very dirty and wretched and dreary. a little shop, with dried herrings and bull's-eyes in the window, was lighted by a tallow candle set in a ginger-beer bottle, with a card of "kinahan's ll whiskey" for a reflector. "they can't have many customers to the extent of a bottle," said roger. "but no doubt they have some privileges from the public-house at the corner for hanging up the card." the houses had sunk areas, just wide enough for a stair, and the basements seemed full of tenants. there was a little wind blowing, so that the atmosphere was tolerable, notwithstanding a few stray leaves of cabbage, suggestive of others in a more objectionable condition not far off. a confused noise of loud voices, calling and scolding, hitherto drowned by the tumult of the street, now reached our ears. the place took one turn more, and then the origin of it became apparent. at the farther end of the passage was another lamp, the light of which shone upon a group of men and women, in altercation, which had not yet come to blows. it might, including children, have numbered twenty, of which some seemed drunk, and all more or less excited. roger turned to go back the moment he caught sight of them; but i felt inclined, i hardly knew why, to linger a little. should any danger offer, it would be easy to gain the open thoroughfare. "it's not at all a fit place for a lady," he said. "certainly not," i answered; "it hardly seems a fit place for human beings. these are human beings, though. let us go through it." he still hesitated; but as i went on, he could but follow me. i wanted to see what the attracting centre of the little crowd was; and that it must be occupied with some affair of more than ordinary interest, i judged from the fact that a good many superterrestrial spectators looked down from the windows at various elevations upon the disputants, whose voices now and then lulled for a moment only to break out in fresh objurgation and dispute. drawing a little nearer, a slight parting of the crowd revealed its core to us. it was a little woman, without bonnet or shawl, whose back was towards us. she turned from side to side, now talking to one, and now to another of the surrounding circle. at first i thought she was setting forth her grievances, in the hope of sympathy, or perhaps of justice; but i soon perceived that her motions were too calm for that. sometimes the crowd would speak altogether, sometimes keep silent for a full minute while she went on talking. when she turned her face towards us, roger and i turned ours, and stared at each other. the face was disfigured by a swollen eye, evidently from a blow; but clearly enough, if it was not miss clare, it was the young woman of the beer-jug. neither of us spoke, but turned once more to watch the result of what seemed to have at length settled down into an almost amicable conference. after a few more grumbles and protestations, the group began to break up into twos and threes. these the young woman seemed to set herself to break up again. here, however, an ill-looking fellow like a costermonger, with a broken nose, came up to us, and with a strong irish accent and offensive manner, but still with a touch of irish breeding, requested to know what our business was. roger asked if the place wasn't a thoroughfare. "not for the likes o' you," he answered, "as comes pryin' after the likes of us. we manage our own affairs down here--_we_ do. you'd better be off, my lady." i have my doubts what sort of reply roger might have returned if he had been alone, but he certainly spoke in a very conciliatory manner, which, however, the man did not seem to appreciate, for he called it blarney; but the young woman, catching sight of our little group, and supposing, i presume, that it also required dispersion, approached us. she had come within a yard of us, when suddenly her face brightened, and she exclaimed, in a tone of surprise,-- "mrs. percivale! you here?" it was indeed miss clare. without the least embarrassment, she held out her hand to me, but i am afraid i did not take it very cordially. roger, however, behaved to her as if they stood in a drawing-room, and this brought me to a sense of propriety. "i don't look very respectable, i fear," she said, putting her hand over her eye. "the fact is, i have had a blow, and it will look worse to-morrow. were you coming to find me?" i forget what lame answer either of us gave. "will you come in?" she said. on the spur of the moment, i declined. for all my fine talk to roger, i shrunk from the idea of entering one of those houses. i can only say, in excuse, that my whole mind was in a condition of bewilderment. "can i do any thing for you, then?" she asked, in a tone slightly marked with disappointment, i thought. "thank you, no," i answered, hardly knowing what my words were. "then good-night," she said, and, nodding kindly, turned, and entered one of the houses. we also turned in silence, and walked out of the court. "why didn't you go with her?" said roger, as soon as we were in the street. "i'm sorry i didn't if you wanted to go, roger; but"-- "i think you might have gone, seeing i was with you," he said. "i don't think it would have been at all a proper thing to do, without knowing more about her," i answered, a little hurt. "you can't tell what sort of a place it may be." "it's a good place, wherever she is, or i am much mistaken," he returned. "you may be much mistaken, roger." "true. i have been mistaken more than once in my life. i am not mistaken this time, though." "i presume you would have gone if i hadn't been with you?" "certainly, if she had asked me, which is not very likely." "and you lay the disappointment of missing a glimpse into the sweet privacy of such a home to my charge?" it was a spiteful speech; and roger's silence made me feel it was, which, with the rather patronizing opinion i had of roger, i found not a little galling. so i, too, kept silence, and nothing beyond a platitude had passed between us when i found myself at my own door, my shopping utterly forgotten, and something acid on my mind. "don't you mean to come in?" i said, for he held out his hand at the top of the stairs to bid me good-night. "my husband will be home soon, if he has not come already. you needn't be bored with my company--you can sit in the study." "i think i had better not," he answered. "i am very sorry, roger, if i was rude to you," i said; "but how could you wish me to be hand-and-glove with a woman who visits people who she is well aware would not think of inviting her if they had a notion of her surroundings. that can't be right, i am certain. i protest i feel just as if i had been reading an ill-invented story,--an unnatural fiction. i cannot get these things together in my mind at all, do what i will." "there must be some way of accounting for it," said roger. "no doubt," i returned; "but who knows what that way may be?" "you may be wrong in supposing that the people at whose houses she visits know nothing about her habits." "is it at all likely they do, roger? do you think it is? i know at least that my cousin dispensed with her services as soon as she came to the knowledge of certain facts concerning these very points." "excuse me--certain rumors--very uncertain facts." when you are cross, the slightest play upon words is an offence. i knocked at the door in dudgeon, then turned and said,-- "my cousin judy, mr. roger"-- but here i paused, for i had nothing ready. anger makes some people cleverer for the moment, but when i am angry i am always stupid. roger finished the sentence for me. --"your cousin judy is, you must allow, a very conventional woman," he said. "she is very good-natured, anyhow. and what do you say to lady bernard?" "she hasn't repudiated miss clare's acquaintance, so far as i know." "but, answer me,--do you believe lady bernard would invite her to meet her friends if she knew all?" "depend upon it, lady bernard knows what she is about. people of her rank can afford to be unconventional." this irritated me yet more, for it implied that i was influenced by the conventionality which both he and my husband despised; and sarah opening the door that instant, i stepped in, without even saying good-night to him. before she closed it, however, i heard my husband's voice, and ran out again to welcome him. he and roger had already met in the little front garden. they did not shake hands--they never did--they always met as if they had parted only an hour ago. "what were you and my wife quarrelling about, rodge?" i heard percivale ask, and paused on the middle of the stair to hear his answer. "how do you know we were quarrelling?" returned roger gloomily. "i heard you from the very end of the street," said my husband. "that's not so far," said roger; for indeed one house, with, i confess, a good space of garden on each side of it, and the end of another house, finished the street. but notwithstanding the shortness of the distance it stung me to the quick. here had i been regarding, not even with contempt, only with disgust, the quarrel in which miss clare was mixed up; and half an hour after, my own voice was heard in dispute with my husband's brother from the end of the street in which we lived! i felt humiliated, and did not rush down the remaining half of the steps to implore my husband's protection against roger's crossness. "too far to hear a wife and a brother, though," returned percivale jocosely. "go on," said roger; "pray go on. _let dogs delight_ comes next. i beg mrs. percivale's pardon. i will amend the quotation: 'let dogs delight to worry'"-- "cats," i exclaimed; and rushing down the steps, i kissed roger before i kissed my husband. "i meant--i mean--i was going to say _lambs_." "now, roger, don't add to your vices flattery and"-- "and fibbing," he subjoined. "i didn't say so." "you only meant it." "don't begin again," interposed percivale: "come in, and refer the cause in dispute to me." we did go in, and we did refer the matter to him. by the time we had between us told him the facts of the case, however, the point in dispute between us appeared to have grown hazy, the fact being that neither of us cared to say any thing more about it. percivale insisted that there was no question before the court. at length roger, turning from me to his brother, said,-- "it's not worth mentioning, charley; but what led to our irreconcilable quarrel was this: i thought wynnie might have accepted miss clare's invitation to walk in and pay her a visit; and wynnie thought me, i suppose, too ready to sacrifice her dignity to the pleasure of seeing a little more of the object of our altercation. there!" my husband turned to me and said,-- "mrs. percivale, do you accept this as a correct representation of your difference?" "well," i answered, hesitating--"yes, on the whole. all i object to is the word _dignity_." "i retract it," cried roger, "and accept any substitute you prefer." "let it stand," i returned. "it will do as well as a better. i only wish to say that it was not exactly my dignity"-- "no, no; your sense of propriety," said my husband; and then sat silent for a minute or two, pondering like a judge. at length he spoke:-- "wife," he said, "you might have gone with your brother, i think; but i quite understand your disinclination. at the same time, a more generous judgment of miss clare might have prevented any difference of feeling in the matter." "but," i said, greatly inclined to cry, "i only postponed my judgment concerning her." and i only postponed my crying, for i was very much ashamed of myself. chapter xvii. miss clare. of course my husband and i talked a good deal more about what i ought to have done; and i saw clearly enough that i ought to have run any risk there might be in accepting her invitation. i had been foolishly taking more care of myself than was necessary. i told him i would write to roger, and ask him when he could take me there again. "i will tell you a better plan," he said. "i will go with you myself. and that will get rid of half the awkwardness there would be if you went with roger, after having with him refused to go in." "but would that be fair to roger? she would think i didn't like going with him, and i would go with roger anywhere. it was i who did not want to go. he did." "my plan, however, will pave the way for a full explanation--or confession rather, i suppose it will turn out to be. i know you are burning to make it, with your mania for confessing your faults." i knew he did not like me the worse for that _mania_, though. "the next time," he added, "you can go with roger, always supposing you should feel inclined to continue the acquaintance, and then you will be able to set him right in her eyes." the plan seemed unobjectionable. but just then percivale was very busy; and i being almost as much occupied with my baby as he was with his, day after day and week after week passed, during which our duty to miss clare was, i will not say either forgotten or neglected, but unfulfilled. one afternoon i was surprised by a visit from my father. he not unfrequently surprised us. "why didn't you let us know, papa?" i said. "a surprise is very nice; but an expectation is much nicer, and lasts so much longer." "i might have disappointed you." "even if you had, i should have already enjoyed the expectation. that would be safe." "there's a good deal to be said in excuse of surprises," he rejoined; "but in the present case, i have a special one to offer. i was taken with a sudden desire to see you. it was very foolish no doubt, and you are quite right in wishing i weren't here, only going to come to-morrow." "don't be so cruel, papa. scarcely a day passes in which _i_ do not long to see _you_. my baby makes me think more about my home than ever." "then she's a very healthy baby, if one may judge by her influences. but you know, if i had had to give you warning, i could not have been here before to-morrow; and surely you will acknowledge, that, however nice expectation may be, presence is better." "yes, papa. we will make a compromise, if you please. every time you think of coming to me, you must either come at once, or let me know you are coming. do you agree to that?" "i agree," he said. so i have the pleasure of a constant expectation. any day he may walk in unheralded; or by any post i may receive a letter with the news that he is coming at such a time. as we sat at dinner that evening, he asked if we had lately seen miss clare. "i've seen her only once, and percivale not at all, since you were here last, papa," i answered. "how's that?" he asked again, a little surprised. "haven't you got her address yet? i want very much to know more of her." "so do we. i haven't got her address, but i know where she lives." "what do you mean, wynnie? has she taken to dark sayings of late, percivale?" i told him the whole story of my adventure with roger, and the reports judy had prejudiced my judgment withal. he heard me through in silence, for it was a rule with him never to interrupt a narrator. he used to say, "you will generally get at more, and in a better fashion, if you let any narrative take its own devious course, without the interruption of requested explanations. by the time it is over, you will find the questions you wanted to ask mostly vanished." "describe the place to me, wynnie," he said, when i had ended. "i must go and see her. i have a suspicion, amounting almost to a conviction, that she is one whose acquaintance ought to be cultivated at any cost. there is some grand explanation of all this contradictory strangeness." "i don't think i could describe the place to you so that you would find it. but if percivale wouldn't mind my going with you instead of with him, i should be only too happy to accompany you. may i, percivale?" "certainly. it will do just as well to go with your father as with me. i only stipulate, that, if you are both satisfied, you take roger with you next time." "of course i will." "then we'll go to-morrow morning," said my father. "i don't think she is likely to be at home in the morning," i said. "she goes out giving lessons, you know; and the probability is, that at that time we should not find her." "then why not to-night?" he rejoined. "why not, if you wish it?" "i do wish it, then." "if you knew the place, though, i think you would prefer going a little earlier than we can to-night." "ah, well! we will go to-morrow evening. we could dine early, couldn't we?" so it was arranged. my father went about some business in the morning. we dined early, and set out about six o'clock. my father was getting an old man, and if any protection had been required, he could not have been half so active as roger; and yet i felt twice as safe with him. i am satisfied that the deepest sense of safety, even in respect of physical dangers, can spring only from moral causes; neither do you half so much fear evil happening to you, as fear evil happening which ought not to happen to you. i believe what made me so courageous was the undeveloped fore-feeling, that, if any evil should overtake me in my father's company, i should not care; it would be all right then, anyhow. the repose was in my father himself, and neither in his strength nor his wisdom. the former might fail, the latter might mistake; but so long as i was with him in what i did, no harm worth counting harm could come to me,--only such as i should neither lament nor feel. scarcely a shadow of danger, however, showed itself. it was a cold evening in the middle of november. the light, which had been scanty enough all day, had vanished in a thin penetrating fog. round every lamp in the street was a colored halo; the gay shops gleamed like jewel-caverns of aladdin hollowed out of the darkness; and the people that hurried or sauntered along looked inscrutable. where could they live? had they anybody to love them? were their hearts quiet under their dingy cloaks and shabby coats? "yes," returned my father, to whom i had said something to this effect, "what would not one give for a peep into the mysteries of all these worlds that go crowding past us. if we could but see through the opaque husk of them, some would glitter and glow like diamond mines; others perhaps would look mere earthy holes; some of them forsaken quarries, with a great pool of stagnant water in the bottom; some like vast coal-pits of gloom, into which you dared not carry a lighted lamp for fear of explosion. some would be mere lumber-rooms; others ill-arranged libraries, without a poets' corner anywhere. but what a wealth of creation they show, and what infinite room for hope it affords!" "but don't you think, papa, there may be something of worth lying even in the earth-pit, or at the bottom of the stagnant water in the forsaken quarry?" "indeed i do; though i _have_ met more than one in my lifetime concerning whom i felt compelled to say that it wanted keener eyes than mine to discover the hidden jewel. but then there _are_ keener eyes than mine, for there are more loving eyes. myself i have been able to see good very clearly where some could see none; and shall i doubt that god can see good where my mole-eyes can see none? be sure of this, that, as he is keen-eyed for the evil in his creatures to destroy it, he would, if it were possible, be yet keener-eyed for the good to nourish and cherish it. if men would only side with the good that is in them,--will that the seed should grow and bring forth fruit!" chapter xviii. miss clare's home. we had now arrived at the passage. the gin-shop was flaring through the fog. a man in a fustian jacket came out of it, and walked slowly down before us, with the clay of the brick-field clinging to him as high as the leather straps with which his trousers were confined, garter-wise, under the knee. the place was quiet. we and the brickmaker seemed the only people in it. when we turned the last corner, he was walking in at the very door where miss clare had disappeared. when i told my father that was the house, he called after the man, who came out again, and, standing on the pavement, waited until we came up. "does miss clare live in this house?" my father asked. "she do," answered the man curtly. "first floor?" "no. nor yet the second, nor the third. she live nearer heaven than 'ere another in the house 'cep' myself. i live in the attic, and so do she." "there is a way of living nearer to heaven than that," said my father, laying his hand, "with a right old man's grace," on his shoulder. "i dunno, 'cep' you was to go up in a belloon," said the man, with a twinkle in his eye, which my father took to mean that he understood him better than he chose to acknowledge; but he did not pursue the figure. he was a rough, lumpish young man, with good but dull features--only his blue eye was clear. he looked my father full in the face, and i thought i saw a dim smile about his mouth. "you know her, then, i suppose?" "everybody in the house knows _her_. there ain't many the likes o' her as lives wi' the likes of us. you go right up to the top. i don't know if she's in, but a'most any one'll be able to tell you. i ain't been home yet." my father thanked him, and we entered the house, and began to ascend. the stair was very much worn and rather dirty, and some of the banisters were broken away, but the walls were tolerably clean. half-way up we met a little girl with tangled hair and tattered garments, carrying a bottle. "do you know, my dear," said my father to her, "whether miss clare is at home?" "i dunno," she answered. "i dunno who you mean. i been mindin' the baby. he ain't well. mother says his head's bad. she's a-going up to tell grannie, and see if she can't do suthin' for him. you better ast mother.--mother!" she called out--"here's a lady an' a gen'lem'." "you go about yer business, and be back direckly," cried a gruff voice from somewhere above. "that's mother," said the child, and ran down the stair. when we reached the second floor, there stood a big fat woman on the landing, with her face red, and her hair looking like that of a doll ill stuck on. she did not speak, but stood waiting to see what we wanted. "i'm told miss clare lives here," said my father. "can you tell me, my good woman, whether she's at home?" "i'm neither good woman nor bad woman," she returned in an insolent tone. "i beg your pardon," said my father; "but you see i didn't know your name." "an' ye don't know it yet. you've no call to know my name. i'll ha' nothing to do wi' the likes o' you as goes about takin' poor folks's childer from 'em. there's my poor glory's been an' took atwixt you an' grannie, and shet up in a formatory as you calls it; an' i should like to know what right you've got to go about that way arter poor girls as has mothers to help." "i assure you i had nothing to do with it," said my father. "i'm a country clergyman myself, and have no duty in london." "well, that's where they've took her--down in the country. i make no doubt but you've had your finger in that pie. you don't come here to call upon us for the pleasure o' makin' our acquaintance--ha! ha! ha!--you're allus arter somethin' troublesome. i'd adwise you, sir and miss, to let well alone. sleepin' dogs won't bite; but you'd better let 'em lie--and that i tell you." "believe me," said my father quite quietly, "i haven't the least knowledge of your daughter. the country's a bigger place than you seem to think,--far bigger than london itself. all i wanted to trouble you about was to tell us whether miss clare was at home or not." "i don't know no one o' that name. if it's grannie you mean, she's at home, i know--though it's not much reason i've got to care whether she's at home or not." "it's a young--woman, i mean," said my father. "'tain't a young lady, then?--well, i don't care what you call her. i dare say it'll be all one, come judgment. you'd better go up till you can't go no further, an' knocks yer head agin the tiles, and then you may feel about for a door, and knock at that, and see if the party as opens it is the party you wants." so saying, she turned in at a door behind her, and shut it. but we could hear her still growling and grumbling. "it's very odd," said my father, with a bewildered smile. "i think we'd better do as she says, and go up till we knock our heads against the tiles." we climbed two stairs more,--the last very steep, and so dark that when we reached the top we found it necessary to follow the woman's directions literally, and feel about for a door. but we had not to feel long or far, for there was one close to the top of the stair. my father knocked. there was no reply; but we heard the sound of a chair, and presently some one opened it. the only light being behind her, i could not see her face, but the size and shape were those of miss clare. she did not leave us in doubt, however; for, without a moment's hesitation, she held out her hand to me, saying, "this _is_ kind of you, mrs. percivale;" then to my father, saying, "i'm very glad to see you, mr. walton. will you walk in?" we followed her into the room. it was not very small, for it occupied nearly the breadth of the house. on one side the roof sloped so nearly to the floor that there was not height enough to stand erect in. on the other side the sloping part was partitioned off, evidently for a bedroom. but what a change it was from the lower part of the house! by the light of a single mould candle, i saw that the floor was as clean as old boards could be made, and i wondered whether she scrubbed them herself. i know now that she did. the two dormer windows were hung with white dimity curtains. back in the angle of the roof, between the windows, stood an old bureau. there was little more than room between the top of it and the ceiling for a little plaster statuette with bound hands and a strangely crowned head. a few books on hanging shelves were on the opposite side by the door to the other room; and the walls, which were whitewashed, were a good deal covered with--whether engravings or etchings or lithographs i could not then see--none of them framed, only mounted on card-board. there was a fire cheerfully burning in the gable, and opposite to that stood a tall old-fashioned cabinet piano, in faded red silk. it was open; and on the music-rest lay handel's "verdi prati,"--for i managed to glance at it as we left. a few wooden chairs, and one very old-fashioned easy-chair, covered with striped chintz, from which not glaze only but color almost had disappeared, with an oblong table of deal, completed the furniture of the room. she made my father sit down in the easy-chair, placed me one in front of the fire, and took another at the corner opposite my father. a moment of silence followed, which i, having a guilty conscience, felt awkward. but my father never allowed awkwardness to accumulate. "i had hoped to have been able to call upon you long ago, miss clare, but there was some difficulty in finding out where you lived." "you are no longer surprised at that difficulty, i presume," she returned with a smile. "but," said my father, "if you will allow an old man to speak freely"-- "say what you please, mr. walton. i promise to answer _any_ question _you_ think proper to ask me." "my dear miss clare, i had not the slightest intention of catechising you, though, of course, i shall be grateful for what confidence you please to put in me. what i meant to say might indeed have taken the form of a question, but as such could have been intended only for you to answer to yourself,--whether, namely, it was wise to place yourself at such a disadvantage as living in this quarter must be to you." "if you were acquainted with my history, you would perhaps hesitate, mr. walton, before you said i _placed myself_ at such disadvantage." here a thought struck me. "i fancy, papa, it is not for her own sake miss clare lives here." "i hope not," she interposed. "i believe," i went on, "she has a grandmother, who probably has grown accustomed to the place, and is unwilling to leave it." she looked puzzled for a moment, then burst into a merry laugh. "i see," she exclaimed. "how stupid i am! you have heard some of the people in the house talk about _grannie_: that's me! i am known in the house as grannie, and have been for a good many years now--i can hardly, without thinking, tell for how many." again she laughed heartily, and my father and i shared her merriment. "how many grandchildren have you then, pray, miss clare?" "let me see." she thought for a minute. "i could easily tell you if it were only the people in this house i had to reckon up. they are about five and thirty; but unfortunately the name has been caught up in the neighboring houses, and i am very sorry that in consequence i cannot with certainty say how many grandchildren i have. i think i know them all, however; and i fancy that is more than many an english grandmother, with children in america, india, and australia, can say for herself." certainly she was not older than i was; and while hearing her merry laugh, and seeing her young face overflowed with smiles, which appeared to come sparkling out of her eyes as out of two well-springs, one could not help feeling puzzled how, even in the farthest-off jest, she could have got the name of grannie. but i could at the same time, recall expressions of her countenance which would much better agree with the name than that which now shone from it. "would you like to hear," she said, when our merriment had a little subsided, "how i have so easily arrived at the honorable name of grannie,--at least all i know about it?" "i should be delighted," said my father. "you don't know what you are pledging yourself to when you say so," she rejoined, again laughing. "you will have to hear the whole of my story from the beginning." "again i say i shall be delighted," returned my father, confident that her history could be the source of nothing but pleasure to him. chapter xix. her story. thereupon miss clare began. i do not pretend to give her very words, but i must tell her story as if she were telling it herself. i shall be as true as i can to the facts, and hope to catch something of the tone of the narrator as i go on. "my mother died when i was very young, and i was left alone with my father, for i was his only child. he was a studious and thoughtful man. it _may_ be the partiality of a daughter, i know, but i am not necessarily wrong in believing that diffidence in his own powers alone prevented him from distinguishing himself. as it was, he supported himself and me by literary work of, i presume, a secondary order. he would spend all his mornings for many weeks in the library of the british museum,--reading and making notes; after which he would sit writing at home for as long or longer. i should have found it very dull during the former of these times, had he not early discovered that i had some capacity for music, and provided for me what i now know to have been the best instruction to be had. his feeling alone had guided him right, for he was without musical knowledge. i believe he could not have found me a better teacher in all europe. her character was lovely, and her music the natural outcome of its harmony. but i must not forget it is about myself i have to tell you. i went to her, then, almost every day for a time--but how long that was, i can only guess. it must have been several years, i think, else i could not have attained what proficiency i had when my sorrow came upon me. "what my father wrote i cannot tell. how gladly would i now read the shortest sentence i knew to be his! he never told me for what journals he wrote, or even for what publishers. i fancy it was work in which his brain was more interested than his heart, and which he was always hoping to exchange for something more to his mind. after his death i could discover scarcely a scrap of his writings, and not a hint to guide me to what he had written. "i believe we went on living from hand to mouth, my father never getting so far ahead of the wolf as to be able to pause and choose his way. but i was very happy, and would have been no whit less happy if he had explained our circumstances, for that would have conveyed to me no hint of danger. neither has any of the suffering i have had--at least any keen enough to be worth dwelling upon--sprung from personal privation, although i am not unacquainted with hunger and cold. "my happiest time was when my father asked me to play to him while he wrote, and i sat down to my old cabinet broadwood,--the one you see there is as like it as i could find,--and played any thing and every thing i liked,--for somehow i never forgot what i had once learned,--while my father sat, as he said, like a mere extension of the instrument, operated upon, rather than listening, as he wrote. what i then _thought_, i cannot tell. i don't believe i thought at all. i only _musicated_, as a little pupil of mine once said to me, when, having found her sitting with her hands on her lap before the piano, i asked her what she was doing: 'i am only musicating,' she answered. but the enjoyment was none the less that there was no conscious thought in it. "other branches he taught me himself, and i believe i got on very fairly for my age. we lived then in the neighborhood of the museum, where i was well known to all the people of the place, for i used often to go there, and would linger about looking at things, sometimes for hours before my father came to me but he always came at the very minute he had said, and always found me at the appointed spot. i gained a great deal by thus haunting the museum--a great deal more than i supposed at the time. one gain was, that i knew perfectly where in the place any given sort of thing was to be found, if it were there at all: i had unconsciously learned something of classification. "one afternoon i was waiting as usual, but my father did not come at the time appointed. i waited on and on till it grew dark, and the hour for closing arrived, by which time i was in great uneasiness; but i was forced to go home without him. i must hasten over this part of my history, for even yet i can scarcely bear to speak of it. i found that while i was waiting, he had been seized with some kind of fit in the reading-room, and had been carried home, and that i was alone in the world. the landlady, for we only rented rooms in the house, was very kind to me, at least until she found that my father had left no money. he had then been only reading for a long time; and, when i looked back, i could see that he must have been short of money for some weeks at least. a few bills coming in, all our little effects--for the furniture was our own--were sold, without bringing sufficient to pay them. the things went for less than half their value, in consequence, i believe, of that well-known conspiracy of the brokers which they call _knocking out_. i was especially miserable at losing my father's books, which, although in ignorance, i greatly valued,--more miserable even, i honestly think, than at seeing my loved piano carried off. "when the sale was over, and every thing removed, i sat down on the floor, amidst the dust and bits of paper and straw and cord, without a single idea in my head as to what was to become of me, or what i was to do next. i didn't cry,--that i am sure of; but i doubt if in all london there was a more wretched child than myself just then. the twilight was darkening down,--the twilight of a november afternoon. of course there was no fire in the grate, and i had eaten nothing that day; for although the landlady had offered me some dinner, and i had tried to please her by taking some, i found i could not swallow, and had to leave it. while i sat thus on the floor, i heard her come into the room, and some one with her; but i did not look round, and they, not seeing me, and thinking, i suppose, that i was in one of the other rooms, went on talking about me. all i afterwards remembered of their conversation was some severe reflections on my father, and the announcement of the decree that i must go to the workhouse. though i knew nothing definite as to the import of this doom, it filled me with horror. the moment they left me alone, to look for me, as i supposed, i got up, and, walking as softly as i could, glided down the stairs, and, unbonneted and unwrapped, ran from the house, half-blind with terror. "i had not gone farther, i fancy, than a few yards, when i ran up against some one, who laid hold of me, and asked me gruffly what i meant by it. i knew the voice: it was that of an old irishwoman who did all the little charing we wanted,--for i kept the rooms tidy, and the landlady cooked for us. as soon as she saw who it was, her tone changed; and then first i broke out in sobs, and told her i was running away because they were going to send me to the workhouse. she burst into a torrent of irish indignation, and assured me that such should never be my fate while she lived. i must go back to the house with her, she said, and get my things; and then i should go home with her, until something better should turn up. i told her i would go with her anywhere, except into that house again; and she did not insist, but afterwards went by herself and got my little wardrobe. in the mean time she led me away to a large house in a square, of which she took the key from her pocket to open the door. it looked to me such a huge place!--the largest house i had ever been in; but it was rather desolate, for, except in one little room below, where she had scarcely more than a bed and a chair, a slip of carpet and a frying-pan, there was not an article of furniture in the whole place. she had been put there when the last tenant left, to take care of the place, until another tenant should appear to turn her out. she had her houseroom and a trifle a week besides for her services, beyond which she depended entirely on what she could make by charing. when she had no house to live in on the same terms, she took a room somewhere. "here i lived for several months, and was able to be of use; for as mrs. conan was bound to be there at certain times to show any one over the house who brought an order from the agent, and this necessarily took up a good part of her working time; and as, moreover, i could open the door and walk about the place as well as another, she willingly left me in charge as often as she had a job elsewhere. "on such occasions, however, i found it very dreary indeed, for few people called, and she would not unfrequently be absent the whole day. if i had had my piano, i should have cared little; but i had not a single book, except one--and what do you think that was? an odd volume of the newgate calendar. i need hardly say that it had not the effect on me which it is said to have on some of its students: it moved me, indeed, to the profoundest sympathy, not with the crimes of the malefactors, only with the malefactors themselves, and their mental condition after the deed was actually done. but it was with the fascination of a hopeless horror, making me feel almost as if i had committed every crime as i perused its tale, that i regarded them. they were to me like living crimes. it was not until long afterwards that i was able to understand that a man's actions are not the man, but may be separated from him; that his character even is not the man, but may be changed while he yet holds the same individuality,--is the man who was blind though he now sees; whence it comes, that, the deeds continuing his, all stain of them may yet be washed out of him. i did not, i say, understand all this until afterwards; but i believe, odd as it may seem, that volume of the newgate calendar threw down the first deposit of soil, from which afterwards sprung what grew to be almost a passion in me, for getting the people about me clean,--a passion which might have done as much harm as good, if its companion, patience, had not been sent me to guide and restrain it. in a word, i came at length to understand, in some measure, the last prayer of our lord for those that crucified him, and the ground on which he begged from his father their forgiveness,--that they knew not what they did. if the newgate calendar was indeed the beginning of this course of education, i need not regret having lost my piano, and having that volume for a while as my only aid to reflection. "my father had never talked much to me about religion; but when he did, it was with such evident awe in his spirit, and reverence in his demeanor, as had more effect on me, i am certain, from the very paucity of the words in which his meaning found utterance. another thing which had still more influence upon me was, that, waking one night after i had been asleep for some time, i saw him on his knees by my bedside. i did not move or speak, for fear of disturbing him; and, indeed, such an awe came over me, that it would have required a considerable effort of the will for any bodily movement whatever. when he lifted his head, i caught a glimpse of a pale, tearful face; and it is no wonder that the virtue of the sight should never have passed away. "on sundays we went to church in the morning, and in the afternoon, in fine weather, went out for a walk; or, if it were raining or cold, i played to him till he fell asleep on the sofa. then in the evening, after tea, we had more music, some poetry, which we read alternately, and a chapter of the new testament, which he always read to me. i mention this, to show you that i did not come all unprepared to the study of the newgate calendar. still, i cannot think, that, under any circumstances, it could have done an innocent child harm. even familiarity with vice is not necessarily pollution. there cannot be many women of my age as familiar with it in every shape as i am; and i do not find that i grow to regard it with one atom less of absolute abhorrence, although i neither shudder at the mention of it, nor turn with disgust from the person in whom it dwells. but the consolations of religion were not yet consciously mine. i had not yet begun to think of god in any relation to myself. "the house was in an old square, built, i believe, in the reign of queen anne, which, although many of the houses were occupied by well-to-do people, had fallen far from its first high estate. no one would believe, to look at it from the outside, what a great place it was. the whole of the space behind it, corresponding to the small gardens of the other houses, was occupied by a large music-room, under which was a low-pitched room of equal extent, while all under that were cellars, connected with the sunk story in front by a long vaulted passage, corresponding to a wooden gallery above, which formed a communication between the drawing-room floor and the music-room. most girls of my age, knowing these vast empty spaces about them, would have been terrified at being left alone there, even in mid-day. but i was, i suppose, too miserable to be frightened. even the horrible facts of the newgate calendar did not thus affect me, not even when mrs. conan was later than usual, and the night came down, and i had to sit, perhaps for hours, in the dark,--for she would not allow me to have a candle for fear of fire. but you will not wonder that i used to cry a good deal, although i did my best to hide the traces of it, because i knew it would annoy my kind old friend. she showed me a great deal of rough tenderness, which would not have been rough had not the natural grace of her irish nature been injured by the contact of many years with the dull coarseness of the uneducated saxon. you may be sure i learned to love her dearly. she shared every thing with me in the way of eating, and would have shared also the tumbler of gin and water with which she generally ended the day, but something, i don't know what, i believe a simple physical dislike, made me refuse that altogether. "one evening i have particular cause to remember, both for itself, and because of something that followed many years after. i was in the drawing-room on the first floor, a double room with folding doors and a small cabinet behind communicating with a back stair; for the stairs were double all through the house, adding much to the _eeriness_ of the place as i look back upon it in my memory. i fear, in describing the place so minutely, i may have been rousing false expectations of an adventure; but i have a reason for being rather minute, though it will not appear until afterwards. i had been looking out of the window all the afternoon upon the silent square, for, as it was no thoroughfare, it was only enlivened by the passing and returning now and then of a tradesman's cart; and, as it was winter, there were no children playing in the garden. it was a rainy afternoon. a gray cloud of fog and soot hung from the whole sky. about a score of yellow leaves yet quivered on the trees, and the statue of queen anne stood bleak and disconsolate among the bare branches. i am afraid i am getting long-winded, but somehow that afternoon seems burned into me in enamel. i gazed drearily without interest. i brooded over the past; i never, at this time, so far as i remember, dreamed of looking forward. i had no hope. it never occurred to me that things might grow better. i was dull and wretched. i may just say here in passing, that i think this experience is in a great measure what has enabled me to understand the peculiar misery of the poor in our large towns,--they have no hope, no impulse to look forward, nothing to expect; they live but in the present, and the dreariness of that soon shapes the whole atmosphere of their spirits to its own likeness. perhaps the first thing one who would help them has to do is to aid the birth of some small vital hope in them; that is better than a thousand gifts, especially those of the ordinary kind, which mostly do harm, tending to keep them what they are,--a prey to present and importunate wants. "it began to grow dark; and, tired of standing, i sat down upon the floor, for there was nothing to sit upon besides. there i still sat, long after it was quite dark. all at once a surge of self-pity arose in my heart. i burst out wailing and sobbing, and cried aloud, 'god has forgotten me altogether!' the fact was, i had had no dinner that day, for mrs. conan had expected to return long before; and the piece of bread she had given me, which was all that was in the house, i had eaten many hours ago. but i was not thinking of my dinner, though the want of it may have had to do with this burst of misery. what i was really thinking of was,--that i could do nothing for anybody. my little ambition had always been to be useful. i knew i was of some use to my father; for i kept the rooms tidy for him, and dusted his pet books--oh, so carefully! for they were like household gods to me. i had also played to him, and i knew he enjoyed that: he said so, many times. and i had begun, though not long before he left me, to think how i should be able to help him better by and by. for i saw that he worked very hard,--so hard that it made him silent; and i knew that my music-mistress made her livelihood, partly at least, by giving lessons; and i thought that i might, by and by, be able to give lessons too, and then papa would not require to work so hard, for i too should bring home money to pay for what we wanted. but now i was of use to nobody, i said, and not likely to become of any. i could not even help poor mrs. conan, except by doing what a child might do just as well as i, for i did not earn a penny of our living; i only gave the poor old thing time to work harder, that i might eat up her earnings! what added to the misery was, that i had always thought of myself as a lady; for was not papa a gentleman, let him be ever so poor? shillings and sovereigns in his pocket could not determine whether a man was a gentleman or not! and if he was a gentleman, his daughter must be a lady. but how could i be a lady if i was content to be a burden to a poor charwoman, instead of earning my own living, and something besides with which to help her? for i had the notion--_how_ it came i cannot tell, though i know well enough _whence_ it came--that position depended on how much a person was able to help other people; and here i was, useless, worse than useless to anybody! why did not god remember me, if it was only for my father's sake? he was worth something, if i was not! and i would be worth something, if only i had a chance!--'i am of no use,' i cried, 'and god has forgotten me altogether!' and i went on weeping and moaning in my great misery, until i fell fast asleep on the floor. "i have no theory about dreams and visions; and i don't know what you, mr. walton, may think as to whether these ended with the first ages of the church; but surely if one falls fast asleep without an idea in one's head, and a whole dismal world of misery in one's heart, and wakes up quiet and refreshed, without the misery, and with an idea, there can be no great fanaticism in thinking that the change may have come from somewhere near where the miracles lie,--in fact, that god may have had something--might i not say every thing?--to do with it. for my part, if i were to learn that he had no hand in this experience of mine, i couldn't help losing all interest in it, and wishing that i had died of the misery which it dispelled. certainly, if it had a physical source, it wasn't that i was more comfortable, for i was hungrier than ever, and, you may well fancy, cold enough, having slept on the bare floor without any thing to cover me on christmas eve--for christmas eve it was. no doubt my sleep had done me good, but i suspect the sleep came to quiet my mind for the reception of the new idea. "the way mrs. conan kept christmas day, as she told me in the morning, was, to comfort her old bones in bed until the afternoon, and then to have a good tea with a chop; after which she said she would have me read the newgate calendar to her. so, as soon as i had washed up the few breakfast things, i asked, if, while she lay in bed, i might not go out for a little while to look for work. she laughed at the notion of my being able to do any thing, but did not object to my trying. so i dressed myself as neatly as i could, and set out. "there were two narrow streets full of small shops, in which those of furniture-brokers predominated, leading from the two lower corners of the square down into oxford street; and in a shop in one of these, i was not sure which, i had seen an old piano standing, and a girl of about my own age watching. i found the shop at last, although it was shut up; for i knew the name, and knocked at the door. it was opened by a stout matron, with a not unfriendly expression, who asked me what i wanted. i told her i wanted work. she seemed amused at the idea,--for i was very small for my age then as well as now,--but, apparently willing to have a chat with me, asked what i could do. i told her i could teach her daughter music. she asked me what made me come to her, and i told her. then she asked me how much i should charge. i told her that some ladies had a guinea a lesson; at which she laughed so heartily, that i had to wait until the first transports of her amusement were over before i could finish by saying, that for my part i should be glad to give an hour's lesson for threepence, only, if she pleased, i should prefer it in silver. but how was she to know, she asked, that i could teach her properly. i told her i would let her hear me play; whereupon she led me into the shop, through a back room in which her husband sat smoking a long pipe, with a tankard at his elbow. having taken down a shutter, she managed with some difficulty to clear me a passage through a crowd of furniture to the instrument, and with a struggle i squeezed through and reached it; but at the first chord i struck, i gave a cry of dismay. in some alarm she asked what was the matter, calling me _child_ very kindly. i told her it was so dreadfully out of tune i couldn't play upon it at all; but, if she would get it tuned, i should not be long in showing her that i could do what i professed. she told me she could not afford to have it tuned; and if i could not teach bertha on it as it was, she couldn't help it. this, however, i assured her, was utterly impossible; upon which, with some show of offence, she reached over a chest of drawers, and shut down the cover. i believe she doubted whether i could play at all, and had not been merely amusing myself at her expense. nothing was left but to thank her, bid her good-morning, and walk out of the house, dreadfully disappointed. "unwilling to go home at once, i wandered about the neighborhood, through street after street, until i found myself in another square, with a number of business-signs in it,--one of them that of a piano-forte firm, at sight of which, a thought came into my head. the next morning i went in, and requested to see the master. the man to whom i spoke stared, no doubt; but he went, and returning after a little while, during which my heart beat very fast, invited me to walk into the counting-house. mr. perkins was amused with the story of my attempt to procure teaching, and its frustration. if i had asked him for money, to which i do not believe hunger itself could have driven me, he would probably have got rid of me quickly enough,--and small blame to him, as mrs. conan would have said; but to my request that he would spare a man to tune mrs. lampeter's piano, he replied at once that he would, provided i could satisfy him as to my efficiency. thereupon he asked me a few questions about music, of which some i could answer and some i could not. next he took me into the shop, set me a stool in front of a grand piano, and told me to play. i could not help trembling a good deal, but i tried my best. in a few moments, however, the tears were dropping on the keys; and, when he asked me what was the matter, i told him it was months since i had touched a piano. the answer did not, however, satisfy him; he asked very kindly how that was, and i had to tell him my whole story. then he not only promised to have the piano tuned for me at once, but told me that i might go and practise there as often as i pleased, so long as i was a good girl, and did not take up with bad company. imagine my delight! then he sent for a tuner, and i suppose told him a little about me, for the man spoke very kindly to me as we went to the broker's. "mr. perkins has been a good friend to me ever since. "for six months i continued to give bertha lampeter lessons. they were broken off only when she went to a dressmaker to learn her business. but her mother had by that time introduced me to several families of her acquaintance, amongst whom i found five or six pupils on the same terms. by this teaching, if i earned little, i learned much; and every day almost i practised at the music-shop. "when the house was let, mrs. conan took a room in the neighborhood, that i might keep up my connection, she said. then first i was introduced to scenes and experiences with which i am now familiar. mrs. percivale might well recoil if i were to tell her half the wretchedness, wickedness, and vulgarity i have seen, and often had to encounter. for two years or so we changed about, at one time in an empty house, at another in a hired room, sometimes better, sometimes worse off, as regarded our neighbors, until, mrs. conan having come to the conclusion that it would be better for her to confine herself to charing, we at last settled down here, where i have now lived for many years. "you may be inclined to ask why i had not kept up my acquaintance with my music-mistress. i believe the shock of losing my father, and the misery that followed, made me feel as if my former world had vanished; at all events, i never thought of going to her until mr. perkins one day, after listening to something i was playing, asked me who had taught me; and this brought her back to my mind so vividly that i resolved to go and see her. she welcomed me with more than kindness,--with tenderness,--and told me i had caused her much uneasiness by not letting her know what had become of me. she looked quite aghast when she learned in what sort of place and with whom i lived; but i told her mrs. conan had saved me from the workhouse, and was as much of a mother to me as it was possible for her to be, that we loved each other, and that it would be very wrong of me to leave her now, especially that she was not so well as she had been; and i believe she then saw the thing as i saw it. she made me play to her, was pleased,--indeed surprised, until i told her how i had been supporting myself,--and insisted on my resuming my studies with her, which i was only too glad to do. i now, of course, got on much faster; and she expressed satisfaction with my progress, but continued manifestly uneasy at the kind of thing i had to encounter, and become of necessity more and more familiar with. "when mrs. conan fell ill, i had indeed hard work of it. unlike most of her class, she had laid by a trifle of money; but as soon as she ceased to add to it, it began to dwindle, and was very soon gone. do what i could for a while, if it had not been for the kindness of the neighbors, i should sometimes have been in want of bread; and when i hear hard things said of the poor, i often think that surely improvidence is not so bad as selfishness. but, of course, there are all sorts amongst them, just as there are all sorts in every class. when i went out to teach, now one, now another of the women in the house would take charge of my friend; and when i came home, except her guardian happened to have got tipsy, i never found she had been neglected. miss harper said i must raise my terms; but i told her that would be the loss of my pupils. then she said she must see what could be done for me, only no one she knew was likely to employ a child like me, if i were able to teach ever so well. one morning, however, within a week, a note came from lady bernard, asking me to go and see her. "i went, and found--a mother. you do not know her, i think? but you must one day. good people like you must come together. i will not attempt to describe her. she awed me at first, and i could hardly speak to her,--i was not much more than thirteen then; but with the awe came a certain confidence which was far better than ease. the immediate result was, that she engaged me to go and play for an hour, five days a week, at a certain hospital for sick children in the neighborhood, which she partly supported. for she had a strong belief that there was in music a great healing power. her theory was, that all healing energy operates first on the mind, and from it passes to the body, and that medicines render aid only by removing certain physical obstacles to the healing force. she believes that when music operating on the mind has procured the peace of harmony, the peace in its turn operates outward, reducing the vital powers also into the harmonious action of health. _how much_ there may be in it, i cannot tell; but i do think that good has been and is the result of my playing to those children; for i go still, though not quite so often, and it is music to me to watch my music thrown back in light from some of those sweet, pale, suffering faces. she was too wise to pay me much for it at first. she inquired, before making me the offer, how much i was already earning, asked me upon how much i could support mrs. conan and myself comfortably, and then made the sum of my weekly earnings up to that amount. at the same time, however, she sent many things to warm and feed the old woman, so that my mind was set at ease about her. she got a good deal better for a while, but continued to suffer so much from rheumatism, that she was quite unfit to go out charing any more; and i would not hear of her again exposing herself to the damps and draughts of empty houses, so long as i was able to provide for her,--of which ability you may be sure i was not a little proud at first. "i have been talking for a long time, and yet may seem to have said nothing to account for your finding me where she left me; but i will try to come to the point as quickly as possible. "before she was entirely laid up, we had removed to this place,--a rough shelter, but far less so than some of the houses in which we had been. i remember one in which i used to dart up and down like a hunted hare at one time; at another to steal along from stair to stair like a well-meaning ghost afraid of frightening people; my mode of procedure depending in part on the time of day, and which of the inhabitants i had reason to dread meeting. it was a good while before the inmates of this house and i began to know each other. the landlord had turned out the former tenant of this garret after she had been long enough in the house for all the rest to know her; and, notwithstanding she had been no great favorite, they all took her part against the landlord; and fancying, perhaps because we kept more to ourselves, that we were his _protégées_, and that he had turned out muggy moll, as they called her, to make room for us, regarded us from the first with disapprobation. the little girls would make grimaces at me, and the bigger girls would pull my hair, slap my face, and even occasionally push me down stairs, while the boys made themselves far more terrible in my eyes. but some remark happening to be dropped one day, which led the landlord to disclaim all previous knowledge of us, things began to grow better. and this is not by any means one of the worst parts of london. i could take mr. walton to houses in the east end, where the manners are indescribable. we are all earning our bread here. some have an occasional attack of drunkenness, and idle about; but they are sick of it again after a while. i remember asking a woman once if her husband would be present at a little entertainment to which lady bernard had invited them: she answered that he would be there if he was drunk, but if he was sober he couldn't spare the time. "very soon they began to ask me after mrs. conan; and one day i invited one of them, who seemed a decent though not very tidy woman, to walk up and see her; for i was anxious she should have a visitor now and then when i was out, as she complained a good deal of the loneliness. the woman consented, and ever after was very kind to her. but my main stay and comfort was an old woman who then occupied the room opposite to this. she was such a good creature! nearly blind, she yet kept her room the very pink of neatness. i never saw a speck of dust on that chest of drawers, which was hers then, and which she valued far more than many a rich man values the house of his ancestors,--not only because it had been her mother's, but because it bore testimony to the respectability of her family. her floor and her little muslin window-curtain, her bed and every thing about her, were as clean as lady could desire. she objected to move into a better room below, which the landlord kindly offered her,--for she was a favorite from having been his tenant a long time and never having given him any trouble in collecting her rent,--on the ground that there were two windows in it, and therefore too much light for her bits of furniture. they would, she said, look nothing in that room. she was very pleased when i asked her to pay a visit to mrs. conan; and as she belonged to a far higher intellectual grade than my protectress, and as she had a strong practical sense of religion, chiefly manifested in a willing acceptance of the decrees of providence, i think she did us both good. i wish i could draw you a picture of her coming in at that door, with her all but sightless eyes, the broad borders of her white cap waving, and her hands stretched out before her; for she was more apprehensive than if she had been quite blind, because she could see things without knowing what, or even in what position they were. the most remarkable thing to me was the calmness with which she looked forward to her approaching death, although without the expectation which so many good people seem to have in connection with their departure. i talked to her about it more than once,--not with any presumption of teaching her, for i felt she was far before me, but just to find out how she felt and what she believed. her answer amounted to this, that she had never known beforehand what lay round the next corner, or what was going to happen to her, for if providence had meant her to know, it could not be by going to fortune-tellers, as some of the neighbors did; but that she always found things turn out right and good for her, and she did not doubt she would find it so when she came to the last turn. "by degrees i knew everybody in the house, and of course i was ready to do what i could to help any of them. i had much to lift me into a higher region of mental comfort than was open to them; for i had music, and lady bernard lent me books. "of course also i kept my rooms as clean and tidy as i could; and indeed, if i had been more carelessly inclined in that way, the sight of the blind woman's would have been a constant reminder to me. by degrees also i was able to get a few more articles of furniture for it, and a bit of carpet to put down before the fire. i whitewashed the walls myself, and after a while began to whitewash the walls of the landing as well, and all down the stair, which was not of much use to the eye, for there is no light. before long some of the other tenants began to whitewash their rooms also, and contrive to keep things a little tidier. others declared they had no opinion of such uppish notions; they weren't for the likes of them. these were generally such as would rejoice in wearing finery picked up at the rag-shop; but even some of them began by degrees to cultivate a small measure of order. soon this one and that began to apply to me for help in various difficulties that arose. but they didn't begin to call me grannie for a long time after this. they used then to call the blind woman grannie, and the name got associated with the top of the house; and i came to be associated with it because i also lived there and we were friends. after her death, it was used from habit, at first with a feeling of mistake, seeing its immediate owner was gone; but by degrees it settled down upon me, and i came to be called grannie by everybody in the house. even mrs. conan would not unfrequently address me, and speak of me too, as grannie, at first with a laugh, but soon as a matter of course. "i got by and by a few pupils amongst tradespeople of a class rather superior to that in which i had begun to teach, and from whom i could ask and obtain double my former fee; so that things grew, with fluctuations, gradually better. lady bernard continued a true friend to me--but she never was other than that to any. some of her friends ventured on the experiment whether i could teach their children; and it is no wonder if they were satisfied, seeing i had myself such a teacher. "having come once or twice to see mrs. conan, she discovered that we were gaining a little influence over the people in the house; and it occurred to her, as she told me afterwards, that the virtue of music might be tried there with a _moral_ end in view. hence it came that i was beyond measure astonished and delighted one evening by the arrival of a piano,--not that one, for it got more worn than i liked, and i was able afterwards to exchange it for a better. i found it an invaluable aid in the endeavor to work out my glowing desire of getting the people about me into a better condition. first i asked some of the children to come and listen while i played. everybody knows how fond the least educated children are of music; and i feel assured of its elevating power. whatever the street-organs may be to poets and mathematicians, they are certainly a godsend to the children of our courts and alleys. the music takes possession of them at once, and sets them moving to it with rhythmical grace. i should have been very sorry to make it a condition with those i invited, that they should sit still: to take from them their personal share in it would have been to destroy half the charm of the thing. a far higher development is needful before music can be enjoyed in silence and motionlessness. the only condition i made was, that they should come with clean hands and faces, and with tidy hair. considerable indignation was at first manifested on the part of those parents whose children i refused to admit because they had neglected the condition. this necessity, however, did not often occur; and the anger passed away, while the condition gathered weight. after a while, guided by what some of the children let fall; i began to invite the mothers to join them; and at length it came to be understood that, every saturday evening, whoever chose to make herself tidy would be welcome, to an hour or two of my music. some of the husbands next began to come, but there were never so many of them present. i may just add, that although the manners of some of my audience would be very shocking to cultivated people, and i understand perfectly how they must be so, i am very rarely annoyed on such occasions. "i must now glance at another point in my history, one on which i cannot dwell. never since my father's death had i attended public worship. nothing had drawn me thither; and i hardly know what induced me one evening to step into a chapel of which i knew nothing. there was not even sunday to account for it. i believe, however, it had to do with this, that all day i had been feeling tired. i think people are often ready to suppose that their bodily condition is the cause of their spiritual discomfort, when it may be only the occasion upon which some inward lack reveals itself. that the spiritual nature should be incapable of meeting and sustaining the body in its troubles is of itself sufficient to show that it is not in a satisfactory condition. for a long time the struggle for mere existence had almost absorbed my energies; but things had been easier for some time, and a re-action had at length come. it was not that i could lay any thing definite to my own charge; i only felt empty all through; i felt that something was not right with me, that something was required of me which i was not rendering. i could not, however, have told you what it was. possibly the feeling had been for some time growing; but that day, so far as i can tell, i was first aware of it; and i presume it was the dim cause of my turning at the sound of a few singing voices, and entering that chapel. i found about a dozen people present. something in the air of the place, meagre and waste as it looked, yet induced me to remain. an address followed from a pale-faced, weak-looking man of middle age, who had no gift of person, voice, or utterance, to recommend what he said. but there dwelt a more powerful enforcement in him than any of those,--that of earnestness. i went again, and again; and slowly, i cannot well explain how, the sense of life and its majesty grew upon me. mr. walton will, i trust, understand me when i say, that to one hungering for bread, it is of little consequence in what sort of platter it is handed him. this was a dissenting chapel,--of what order, it was long before i knew,--and my predilection was for the church-services, those to which my father had accustomed me; but any comparison of the two to the prejudice of either, i should still--although a communicant of the church of england--regard with absolute indifference. "it will be sufficient for my present purpose to allude to the one practical thought which was the main fruit i gathered from this good man,--the fruit by which i know that he was good. [footnote: something like this is the interpretation of the word: "by their fruits ye shall know them" given by mr. maurice,--an interpretation which opens much.--g.m.d.] it was this,--that if all the labor of god, as my teacher said, was to bring sons into glory, lifting them out of the abyss of evil bondage up to the rock of his pure freedom, the only worthy end of life must be to work in the same direction,--to be a fellow-worker with god. might i not, then, do something such, in my small way, and lose no jot of my labor? i thought. the urging, the hope, grew in me. but i was not left to feel blindly after some new and unknown method of labor. my teacher taught me that the way for _me_ to help others was not to tell them their duty, but myself to learn of him who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. as i learned of him, i should be able to help them. i have never had any theory but just to be their friend,--to do for them the best i can. when i feel i may, i tell them what has done me good, but i never urge any belief of mine upon their acceptance. "it will now seem no more wonderful to you than to me, that i should remain where i am. i simply have no choice. i was sixteen when mrs. conan died. then my friends, amongst whom lady bernard and miss harper have ever been first, expected me to remove to lodgings in another neighborhood. indeed, lady bernard came to see me, and said she knew precisely the place for me. when i told her i should remain where i was, she was silent, and soon left me?--i thought offended. i wrote to her at once, explaining why i chose my part here; saying that i would not hastily alter any thing that had been appointed me; that i loved the people; that they called me grannie; that they came to me with their troubles; that there were few changes in the house now; that the sick looked to me for help, and the children for teaching; that they seemed to be steadily rising in the moral scale; that i knew some of them were trying hard to be good; and i put it to her whether, if i were to leave them, in order merely, as servants say, to better myself, i should not be forsaking my post, almost my family; for i knew it would not be to better either myself or my friends: if i was at all necessary to them, i knew they were yet more necessary to me. "i have a burning desire to help in the making of the world clean,--if it be only by sweeping one little room in it. i want to lead some poor stray sheep home--not home to the church, mr. walton--i would not be supposed to curry favor with you. i never think of what they call the church. i only care to lead them home to the bosom of god, where alone man is true man. "i could talk to you till night about what lady bernard has been to me since, and what she has done for me and my grandchildren; but i have said enough to explain how it is that i am in such a questionable position. i fear i have been guilty of much egotism, and have shown my personal feelings with too little reserve. but i cast myself on your mercy." chapter xx. a remarkable fact. a silence followed. i need hardly say we had listened intently. during the story my father had scarcely interrupted the narrator. i had not spoken a word. she had throughout maintained a certain matter-of-fact, almost cold style, no doubt because she was herself the subject of her story; but we could read between the lines, imagine much she did not say, and supply color when she gave only outline; and it moved us both deeply. my father sat perfectly composed, betraying his emotion in silence alone. for myself, i had a great lump in my throat, but in part from the shame which mingled with my admiration. the silence had not lasted more than a few seconds, when i yielded to a struggling impulse, rose, and kneeling before her, put my hands on her knees, said, "forgive me," and could say no more. she put her hand on my shoulder, whispered. "my dear mrs. percivale!" bent down her face, and kissed me on the forehead. "how could you help being shy of me?" she said. "perhaps i ought to have come to you and explained it all; but i shrink from self-justification,--at least before a fit opportunity makes it comparatively easy." "that is the way to give it all its force," remarked my father. "i suppose it may be," she returned. "but i hate talking about myself: it is an unpleasant subject." "most people do not find it such," said my father. "i could not honestly say that i do not enjoy talking of my own experiences of life." "but there are differences, you see," she rejoined. "my history looks to me such a matter of course, such a something i could not help, or have avoided if i would, that the telling of it is unpleasant, because it implies an importance which does not belong to it." "st. paul says something of the same sort,--that a necessity of preaching the gospel was laid upon him," remarked my father; but it seemed to make no impression on miss clare, for she went on as if she had not heard him. "you see, mr. walton, it is not in the least as if, living in comfort, i had taken notice of the misery of the poor for the want of such sympathy and help as i could give them, and had therefore gone to live amongst them that i might so help them: it is quite different from that. if i had done so, i might be in danger of magnifying not merely my office but myself. on the contrary, i have been trained to it in such slow and necessitous ways, that it would be a far greater trial to me to forsake my work than it has ever been to continue it." my father said no more, but i knew he had his own thoughts. i remained kneeling, and felt for the first time as if i understood what had led to saint-worship. "won't you sit, mrs. percivale?" she said, as if merely expostulating with me for not making myself comfortable. "have you forgiven me?" i asked. "how can i say i have, when i never had any thing to forgive?" "well, then, i must go unforgiven, for i cannot forgive myself," i said. "o mrs. percivale! if you think how the world is flooded with forgiveness, you will just dip in your cup, and take what you want." i felt that i was making too much even of my own shame, rose humbled, and took my former seat. narration being over, and my father's theory now permitting him to ask questions, he did so plentifully, bringing out many lights, and elucidating several obscurities. the story grew upon me, until the work to which miss clare had given herself seemed more like that of the son of god than any other i knew. for she was not helping her friends from afar, but as one of themselves,--nor with money, but with herself; she was not condescending to them, but finding her highest life in companionship with them. it seemed at least more like what his life must have been before he was thirty, than any thing else i could think of. i held my peace however; for i felt that to hint at such a thought would have greatly shocked and pained her. no doubt the narrative i have given is plainer and more coherent for the questions my father put; but it loses much from the omission of one or two parts which she gave dramatically, with evident enjoyment of the fun that was in them. i have also omitted all the interruptions which came from her not unfrequent reference to my father on points that came up. at length i ventured to remind her of something she seemed to have forgotten. "when you were telling us, miss clare," i said, "of the help that came to you that dreary afternoon in the empty house, i think you mentioned that something which happened afterwards made it still more remarkable." "oh, yes!" she answered: "i forgot about that. i did not carry my history far enough to be reminded of it again. "somewhere about five years ago, lady bernard, having several schemes on foot for helping such people as i was interested in, asked me if it would not be nice to give an entertainment to my friends, and as many of the neighbors as i pleased, to the number of about a hundred. she wanted to put the thing entirely in my hands, and it should be my entertainment, she claiming only the privilege of defraying expenses. i told her i should be delighted to convey _her_ invitation, but that the entertainment must not pretend to be mine; which, besides that it would be a falsehood, and therefore not to be thought of, would perplex my friends, and drive them to the conclusion either that it was not mine, or that i lived amongst them under false appearances. she confessed the force of my arguments, and let me have it my own way. "she had bought a large house to be a home for young women out of employment, and in it she proposed the entertainment should be given: there were a good many nice young women inmates at the time, who, she said, would be all willing to help us to wait upon our guests. the idea was carried out, and the thing succeeded admirably. we had music and games, the latter such as the children were mostly acquainted with, only producing more merriment and conducted with more propriety than were usual in the court or the streets. i may just remark, in passing, that, had these been children of the poorest sort, we should have had to teach them; for one of the saddest things is that such, in london at least, do not know how to play. we had tea and coffee and biscuits in the lower rooms, for any who pleased; and they were to have a solid supper afterwards. with none of the arrangements, however, had i any thing to do; for my business was to be with them, and help them to enjoy themselves. all went on capitally; the parents entering into the merriment of their children, and helping to keep it up. "in one of the games, i was seated on the floor with a handkerchief tied over my eyes, waiting, i believe, for some gentle trick to be played upon me, that i might guess at the name of the person who played it. there was a delay--of only a few seconds--long enough, however, for a sudden return of that dreary november afternoon in which i sat on the floor too miserable even to think that i was cold and hungry. strange to say, it was not the picture of it that came back to me first, but the sound of my own voice calling aloud in the ringing echo of the desolate rooms that i was of no use to anybody, and that god had forgotten me utterly. with the recollection, a doubtful expectation arose which moved me to a scarce controllable degree. i jumped to my feet, and tore the bandage from my eyes. "several times during the evening i had had the odd yet well-known feeling of the same thing having happened before; but i was too busy entertaining my friends to try to account for it: perhaps what followed may suggest the theory, that in not a few of such cases the indistinct remembrance of the previous occurrence of some portion of the circumstances may cast the hue of memory over the whole. as--my eyes blinded with the light and straining to recover themselves--i stared about the room, the presentiment grew almost conviction that it was the very room in which i had so sat in desolation and despair. unable to restrain myself, i hurried into the back room: there was the cabinet beyond! in a few moments more i was absolutely satisfied that this was indeed the house in which i had first found refuge. for a time i could take no further share in what was going on, but sat down in a corner, and cried for joy. some one went for lady bernard, who was superintending the arrangements for supper in the music-room behind. she came in alarm. i told her there was nothing the matter but a little too much happiness, and, if she would come into the cabinet, i would tell her all about it. she did so, and a few words made her a hearty sharer in my pleasure. she insisted that i should tell the company all about it; 'for' she said, 'you do not know how much it may help some poor creature to trust in god.' i promised i would, if i found i could command myself sufficiently. she left me alone for a little while, and after that i was able to join in the games again. "at supper i found myself quite composed, and, at lady bernard's request, stood up, and gave them all a little sketch of grannie's history, of which sketch what had happened that evening was made the central point. many of the simpler hearts about me received it, without question, as a divine arrangement for my comfort and encouragement,--at least, thus i interpreted their looks to each other, and the remarks that reached my ear; but presently a man stood up,--one who thought more than the rest of them, perhaps because he was blind,--a man at once conceited, honest, and sceptical; and silence having been made for him,--'ladies and gentlemen,' he began, as if he had been addressing a public meeting, 'you've all heard what grannie has said. it's very kind of her to give us so much of her history. it's a very remarkable one, _i_ think, and she deserves to have it. as to what upset her this very night as is,--and i must say for her, i've knowed her now for six years, and i never knowed _her_ upset afore,--and as to what upset her, all i can say is, it may or may not ha' been what phylosophers call a coincydence; but at the same time, if it wasn't a coincydence, and if the almighty had a hand in it, it were no more than you might expect. he would look at it in this light, you see, that maybe she was wrong to fancy herself so down on her luck as all that, but she was a good soul, notwithstandin,' and he would let her know he hadn't forgotten her. and so he set her down in that room there,--wi' her eyes like them here o' mine, as never was no manner o' use to me,--for a minute, jest to put her in mind o' what had been, and what she had said there, an' how it was all so different now. in my opinion, it were no wonder as she broke down, god bless her! i beg leave to propose her health.' so they drank my health in lemonade and ginger-beer; for we were afraid to give some of them stronger drink than that, and therefore had none. then we had more music and singing; and a clergyman, who knew how to be neighbor to them that had fallen among thieves, read a short chapter and a collect or two, and said a few words to them. then grannie and her children went home together, all happy, but grannie the happiest of them all." "strange and beautiful!" said my father. "but," he added, after a pause, "you must have met with many strange and beautiful things in such a life as yours; for it seems to me that such a life is open to the entrance of all simple wonders. conventionality and routine and arbitrary law banish their very approach." "i believe," said miss clare, "that every life has its own private experience of the strange and beautiful. but i have sometimes thought that perhaps god took pains to bar out such things of the sort as we should be no better for. the reason why lazarus was not allowed to visit the brothers of dives was, that the repentance he would have urged would not have followed, and they would have been only the worse in consequence." "admirably said," remarked my father. before we took our leave, i had engaged miss clare to dine with us while my father was in town. chapter xxi. lady bernard. when she came we had no other guest, and so had plenty of talk with her. before dinner i showed her my husband's pictures; and she was especially pleased with that which hung in the little room off the study, which i called my boudoir,--a very ugly word, by the way, which i am trying to give up,--with a curtain before it. my father has described it in "the seaboard parish:" a pauper lies dead, and they are bringing in his coffin. she said it was no wonder it had not been sold, notwithstanding its excellence and force; and asked if i would allow her to bring lady bernard to see it. after dinner percivale had a long talk with her, and succeeded in persuading her to sit to him; not, however, before i had joined my entreaties with his, and my father had insisted that her face was not her own, but belonged to all her kind. the very next morning she came with lady bernard. the latter said she knew my husband well by reputation, and had, before our marriage, asked him to her house, but had not been fortunate enough to possess sufficient attraction. percivale was much taken with her, notwithstanding a certain coldness, almost sternness of manner, which was considerably repellent,--but only for the first few moments, for, when her eyes lighted up, the whole thing vanished. she was much pleased with some of his pictures, criticising freely, and with evident understanding. the immediate result was, that she bought both the pauper picture and that of the dying knight. "but i am sorry to deprive your lovely room of such treasures, mrs. percivale," she said, with a kind smile. "of course i shall miss them," i returned; "but the thought that you have them will console me. besides, it is good to have a change; and there are only too many lying in the study, from which he will let me choose to supply their place." "will you let me come and see which you have chosen?" she asked. "with the greatest pleasure," i answered. "and will you come and see me? do you think you could persuade your husband to bring you to dine with me?" i told her i could promise the one with more than pleasure, and had little doubt of being able to do the other, now that my husband had seen her. a reference to my husband's dislike to fashionable society followed, and i had occasion to mention his feeling about being asked without me. of the latter, lady bernard expressed the warmest approval; and of the former, said that it would have no force in respect of her parties, for they were not at all fashionable. this was the commencement of a friendship for which we have much cause to thank god. nor did we forget that it came through miss clare. i confess i felt glorious over my cousin judy; but i would bide my time. now that i am wiser, and i hope a little better, i see that i was rather spiteful; but i thought then i was only jealous for my new and beautiful friend. perhaps, having wronged her myself, i was the more ready to take vengeance on her wrongs from the hands of another; which was just the opposite feeling to that i ought to have had. in the mean time, our intimacy with miss clare grew. she interested me in many of her schemes for helping the poor; some of which were for providing them with work in hard times, but more for giving them an interest in life itself, without which, she said, no one would begin to inquire into its relations and duties. one of her positive convictions was, that you ought not to give them any thing they _ought_ to provide for themselves, such as food or clothing or shelter. in such circumstances as rendered it impossible for them to do so, the _ought_ was in abeyance. but she heartily approved of making them an occasional present of something they could not be expected to procure for themselves,--flowers, for instance. "you would not imagine," i have heard her say, "how they delight in flowers. all the finer instincts of their being are drawn to the surface at the sight of them. i am sure they prize and enjoy them far more, not merely than most people with gardens and greenhouses do, but far more even than they would if they were deprived of them. a gift of that sort can only do them good. but i would rather give a workman a gold watch than a leg of mutton. by a present you mean a compliment; and none feel more grateful for such an acknowledgment of your human relation to them, than those who look up to you as their superior." once, when she was talking thus, i ventured to object, for the sake of hearing her further. "but," i said, "sometimes the most precious thing you can give a man is just that compassion which you seem to think destroys the value of a gift." "when compassion itself is precious to a man," she answered, "it must be because he loves you, and believes you love him. when that is the case, you may give him any thing you like, and it will do neither you nor him harm. but the man of independent feeling, except he be thus your friend, will not unlikely resent your compassion, while the beggar will accept it chiefly as a pledge for something more to be got from you; and so it will tend to keep him in beggary." "would you never, then, give money, or any of the necessaries of life, except in extreme, and, on the part of the receiver, unavoidable necessity?" i asked. "i would not," she answered; "but in the case where a man _cannot_ help himself, the very suffering makes a way for the love which is more than compassion to manifest itself. in every other case, the true way is to provide them with work, which is itself a good thing, besides what they gain by it. if a man will not work, neither should he eat. it must be work with an object in it, however: it must not be mere labor, such as digging a hole and filling it up again, of which i have heard. no man could help resentment at being set to such work. you ought to let him feel that he is giving something of value to you for the money you give to him. but i have known a whole district so corrupted and degraded by clerical alms-giving, that one of the former recipients of it declared, as spokesman for the rest; that threepence given was far more acceptable than five shillings earned." a good part of the little time i could spare from my own family was now spent with miss clare in her work, through which it was chiefly that we became by degrees intimate with lady bernard. if ever there was a woman who lived this outer life for the sake of others, it was she. her inner life was, as it were, sufficient for herself, and found its natural outward expression in blessing others. she was like a fountain of living water that could find no vent but into the lives of her fellows. she had suffered more than falls to the ordinary lot of women, in those who were related to her most nearly, and for many years had looked for no personal blessing from without. she said to me once, that she could not think of any thing that could happen to herself to make her very happy now, except a loved grandson, who was leading a strange, wild life, were to turn out a harry the fifth,--a consummation which, however devoutly wished, was not granted her; for the young man died shortly after. i believe no one, not even miss clare, knew half the munificent things she did, or what an immense proportion of her large income she spent upon other people. but, as she said herself, no one understood the worth of money better; and no one liked better to have the worth of it: therefore she always administered her charity with some view to the value of the probable return,--with some regard, that is, to the amount of good likely to result to others from the aid given to one. she always took into consideration whether the good was likely to be propagated, or to die with the receiver. she confessed to frequent mistakes; but such, she said, was the principle upon which she sought to regulate that part of her stewardship. i wish i could give a photograph of her. she was slight, and appeared taller than she was, being rather stately than graceful, with a commanding forehead and still blue eyes. she gave at first the impression of coldness, with a touch of haughtiness. but this was, i think, chiefly the result of her inherited physique; for the moment her individuality appeared, when her being, that is, came into contact with that of another, all this impression vanished in the light that flashed into her eyes, and the smile that illumined her face. never did woman of rank step more triumphantly over the barriers which the cumulated custom of ages has built between the classes of society. she laid great stress on good manners, little on what is called good birth; although to the latter, in its deep and true sense, she attributed the greatest _à priori_ value, as the ground of obligation in the possessor, and of expectation on the part of others. but i shall have an opportunity of showing more of what she thought on this subject presently; for i bethink me that it occupied a great part of our conversation at a certain little gathering, of which i am now going to give an account. chapter xxii. my second dinner-party. for i judged that i might now give another little dinner: i thought, that, as percivale had been doing so well lately, he might afford, with his knowing brother's help, to provide, for his part of the entertainment, what might be good enough to offer even to mr. morley; and i now knew lady bernard sufficiently well to know also that she would willingly accept an invitation from me, and would be pleased to meet miss clare, or, indeed, would more likely bring her with her. i proposed the dinner, and percivale consented to it. my main object being the glorification of miss clare, who had more engagements of one kind and another than anybody i knew, i first invited her, asking her to fix her own day, at some considerable remove. next i invited mr. and mrs. morley, and next lady bernard, who went out very little. then i invited mr. blackstone, and last of all roger--though i was almost as much interested in his meeting miss clare as in any thing else connected with the gathering. for he had been absent from london for some time on a visit to an artist friend at the hague, and had never seen miss clare since the evening on which he and i quarrelled--or rather, to be honest, i quarrelled with him. all accepted, and i looked forward to the day with some triumph. i had better calm the dread of my wifely reader by at once assuring her that i shall not harrow her feelings with any account of culinary blunders. the moon was in the beginning of her second quarter, and my cook's brain tolerably undisturbed. lady bernard offered me her cook for the occasion; but i convinced her that my wisdom would be to decline the offer, seeing such external influence would probably tend to disintegration. i went over with her every item of every dish and every sauce many times,--without any resulting sense of security, i confess; but i had found, that, odd as it may seem, she always did better the more she had to do. i believe that her love of approbation, excited by the difficulty before her, in its turn excited her intellect, which then arose to meet the necessities of the case. roger arrived first, then mr. blackstone; lady bernard brought miss clare; and mr. and mrs. morley came last. there were several introductions to be gone through,--a ceremony in which percivale, being awkward, would give me no assistance; whence i failed to observe how the presence of miss clare affected mr. and mrs. morley; but my husband told me that judy turned red, and that mr. morley bowed to her with studied politeness. i took care that mr. blackstone should take her down to dinner, which was served in the study as before. the conversation was broken and desultory at first, as is generally the case at a dinner-party--and perhaps ought to be; but one after another began to listen to what was passing between lady bernard and my husband at the foot of the table, until by degrees every one became interested, and took a greater or less part in the discussion. the first of it i heard was as next follows. "then you do believe," my husband was saying, "in the importance of what some of the devonshire people call _havage_?" "allow me to ask what they mean by the word," lady bernard returned. "birth, descent,--the people you come of," he answered. "of course i believe that descent involves very important considerations." "no one," interposed mr. morley, "can have a better right than your ladyship to believe that." "one cannot nave a better right than another to believe a fact, mr. morley," she answered with a smile. "it is but a fact that you start better or worse according to the position of your starting-point." "undeniably," said mr. morley. "and for all that is feared from the growth of levelling notions in this country, it will be many generations before a profound respect for birth is eradicated from the feelings of the english people." he drew in his chin with a jerk, and devoted himself again to his plate, with the air of a "dixi." he was not permitted to eat in peace, however. "if you allow," said mr. blackstone, "that the feeling can wear out, and is wearing out, it matters little how long it may take to prove itself of a false, because corruptible nature. no growth of notions will blot love, honesty, kindness, out of the human heart." "then," said lady bernard archly, "am i to understand, mr. blackstone, that you don't believe it of the least importance to come of decent people?" "your ladyship puts it well," said mr. morley, laughing mildly, "and with authority. the longer the descent"-- "the more doubtful," interrupted lady bernard, laughing. "one can hardly have come of decent people all through, you know. let us only hope, without inquiring too closely, that their number preponderates in our own individual cases." mr. morley stared for a moment, and then tried to laugh, but unable to determine whereabout he was in respect of the question, betook himself to his glass of sherry. mr. blackstone considered it the best policy in general not to explain any remark he had made, but to say the right thing better next time instead. i suppose he believed, with another friend of mine, that "when explanations become necessary, they become impossible," a paradox well worth the consideration of those who write letters to newspapers. but lady bernard understood him well enough, and was only unwinding the clew of her idea. "on the contrary, it must be a most serious fact," he rejoined, "to any one who like myself believes that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children." "mr. blackstone," objected roger, "i can't imagine you believing such a manifest injustice." "it has been believed in all ages by the best of people," he returned. "to whom possibly the injustice of it never suggested itself. for my part, i must either disbelieve that, or disbelieve in a god." "but, my dear fellow, don't you see it is a fact? don't you see children born with the sins of their parents nestling in their very bodies? you see on which horn of your own dilemma you would impale yourself." "wouldn't you rather not believe in a god than believe in an unjust one?" "an unjust god," said mr. blackstone, with the honest evasion of one who will not answer an awful question hastily, "must be a false god, that is, no god. therefore i presume there is some higher truth involved in every fact that appears unjust, the perception of which would nullify the appearance." "i see none in the present case," said roger. "i will go farther than assert the mere opposite," returned mr. blackstone. "i will assert that it is an honor to us to have the sins of our fathers laid upon us. for thus it is given into our power to put a stop to them, so that they shall descend no farther. if i thought my father had committed any sins for which i might suffer, i should be unspeakably glad to suffer for them, and so have the privilege of taking a share in his burden, and some of the weight of it off his mind. you see the whole idea is that of a family, in which we are so grandly bound together, that we must suffer with and for each other. destroy this consequence, and you destroy the lovely idea itself, with all its thousand fold results of loveliness." "you anticipate what i was going to say, mr. blackstone," said lady bernard. "i would differ from you only in one thing. the chain of descent is linked after such a complicated pattern, that the non-conducting condition of one link, or of many links even, cannot break the transmission of qualities. i may inherit from my great-great-grandfather or mother, or some one ever so much farther back. that which was active wrong in some one or other of my ancestors, may appear in me as an impulse to that same wrong, which of course i have to overcome; and if i succeed, then it is so far checked. but it may have passed, or may yet pass, to others of his descendants, who have, or will have, to do the same--for who knows how many generations to come?--before it shall cease. married people, you see, mrs. percivale, have an awful responsibility in regard of the future of the world. you cannot tell to how many millions you may transmit your failures or your victories." "if i understand you right, lady bernard," said roger, "it is the personal character of your ancestors, and not their social position, you regard as of importance." "it was of their personal character alone i was thinking. but of course i do not pretend to believe that there are not many valuable gifts more likely to show themselves in what is called a long descent; for doubtless a continuity of education does much to develop the race." "but if it is personal character you chiefly regard, we may say we are all equally far descended," i remarked; "for we have each had about the same number of ancestors with a character of some sort or other, whose faults and virtues have to do with ours, and for both of which we are, according to mr. blackstone, in a most real and important sense accountable." "certainly," returned lady bernard; "and it is impossible to say in whose descent the good or the bad may predominate. i cannot tell, for instance, how much of the property i inherit has been honestly come by, or is the spoil of rapacity and injustice." "you are doing the best you can to atone for such a possible fact, then, by its redistribution," said my husband. "i confess," she answered, "the doubt has had some share in determining my feeling with regard to the management of my property. i have no right to throw up my stewardship, for that was none of my seeking, and i do not know any one who has a better claim to it; but i count it only a stewardship. i am not at liberty to throw my orchard open, for that would result not only in its destruction, but in a renewal of the fight of centuries ago for its possession; but i will try to distribute my apples properly. that is, i have not the same right to give away foolishly that i have to keep wisely." "then," resumed roger, who had evidently been pondering what lady bernard had previously said, "you would consider what is called kleptomania as the impulse to steal transmitted by a thief-ancestor?" "nothing seems to me more likely. i know a nobleman whose servant has to search his pockets for spoons or forks every night as soon as he is in bed." "i should find it very hard to define the difference between that and stealing," said miss clare, now first taking a part in the conversation. "i have sometimes wondered whether kleptomania was not merely the fashionable name for stealing." "the distinction is a difficult one, and no doubt the word is occasionally misapplied. but i think there is a difference. the nobleman to whom i referred makes no objection to being thus deprived of his booty; which, for one thing, appears to show that the temptation is intermittent, and partakes at least of the character of a disease." "but are there not diseases which are only so much the worse diseases that they are not intermittent?" said miss clare. "is it not hard that the privileges of kleptomania should be confined to the rich? you never hear the word applied to a poor child, even if his father was, habit and repute, a thief. surely, when hunger and cold aggravate the attacks of inherited temptation, they cannot at the same time aggravate the culpability of yielding to them?" "on the contrary," said roger, "one would naturally suppose they added immeasurable excuse." "only," said mr. blackstone, "there comes in our ignorance, and consequent inability to judge. the very fact of the presence of motives of a most powerful kind renders it impossible to be certain of the presence of the disease; whereas other motives being apparently absent, we presume disease as the readiest way of accounting for the propensity; i do not therefore think it is the only way. i believe there are cases in which it comes of pure greed, and is of the same kind as any other injustice the capability of exercising which is more generally distributed. why should a thief be unknown in a class, a proportion of the members of which is capable of wrong, chicanery, oppression, indeed any form of absolute selfishness?" "at all events," said lady bernard, "so long as we do our best to help them to grow better, we cannot make too much allowance for such as have not only been born with evil impulses, but have had every animal necessity to urge them in the same direction; while, on the other hand, they have not had one of those restraining influences which a good home and education would have afforded. such must, so far as development goes, be but a little above the beasts." "you open a very difficult question," said mr. morley: "what are we to do with them? supposing they _are_ wild beasts, we can't shoot them; though that would, no doubt, be the readiest way to put an end to the breed." "even that would not suffice," said lady bernard. "there would always be a deposit from the higher classes sufficient to keep up the breed. but, mr. morley, i did not say _wild_ beasts: i only said _beasts_. there is a great difference between a tiger and a sheep-dog." "there is nearly as much between a seven-dialsrough and a sheep-dog." "in moral attainment, i grant you," said mr. blackstone; "but in moral capacity, no. besides, you must remember, both what a descent the sheep-dog has, and what pains have been taken with his individual education, as well as that of his ancestors." "granted all that," said mr. morley, "there the fact remains. for my part, i confess i don't see what is to be done. the class to which you refer goes on increasing. there's this garrotting now. i spent a winter at algiers lately, and found even the suburbs of that city immeasurably safer than any part of london is now, to judge from the police-reports. yet i am accused of inhumanity and selfishness if i decline to write a check for every shabby fellow who calls upon me pretending to be a clergyman, and to represent this or that charity in the east end!" "things are bad enough in the west end, within a few hundred yards of portland place, for instance," murmured miss clare. "it seems to me highly unreasonable," mr. morley went on. "why should i spend my money to perpetuate such a condition of things?" "that would in all likelihood be the tendency of your subscription," said mr. blackstone. "then why should i?" repeated mr. morley with a smile of triumph. "but," said miss clare, in an apologetic tone, "it seems to me you make a mistake in regarding the poor as if their poverty were the only distinction by which they could be classified. the poor are not _all_ thieves and garroters, nor even all unthankful and unholy. there are just as strong and as delicate distinctions too, in that stratum of social existence as in the upper strata. i should imagine mr. morley knows a few, belonging to the same social grade with himself, with whom, however, he would be sorry to be on any terms of intimacy." "not a few," responded mr. morley with a righteous frown. "then i, who know the poor as well at least as you can know the rich, having lived amongst them almost from childhood, assert that i am acquainted with not a few, who, in all the essentials of human life and character, would be an honor to any circle." "i should be sorry to seem to imply that there may not be very worthy people amongst them, miss clare; but it is not such who draw our attention to the class." "not such who force themselves upon your attention certainly," said miss clare; "but the existence of such may be an additional reason for bestowing some attention on the class to which they belong. is there not such a mighty fact as the body of christ? is there no connection between the head and the feet?" "i had not the slightest purpose of disputing the matter with you, miss clare," said mr. morley--i thought rudely, for who would use the word _disputing_ at a dinner-table? "on the contrary, being a practical man, i want to know what is to be done. it is doubtless a great misfortune to the community that there should be such sinks in our cities; but who is to blame for it?--that is the question." "every man who says, am i my brother's keeper? why, just consider, mr. morley: suppose in a family there were one less gifted than the others, and that in consequence they all withdrew from him, and took no interest in his affairs: what would become of him? must he not sink?" "difference of rank is a divine appointment,--you must allow that. if there were not a variety of grades, the social machine would soon come to a stand-still." "a strong argument for taking care of the smallest wheel, for all the parts are interdependent. that there should be different classes is undoubtedly a divine intention, and not to be turned aside. but suppose the less-gifted boy is fit for some manual labor; suppose he takes to carpentering, and works well, and keeps the house tidy, and every thing in good repair, while his brothers pursue their studies and prepare for professions beyond his reach: is the inferior boy degraded by doing the best he can? is there any reason in the nature of things why he should sink? but he will most likely sink, sooner or later, if his brothers take no interest in his work, and treat him as a being of nature inferior to their own." "i beg your pardon," said mr. morley, "but is he not on the very supposition inferior to them?" "intellectually, yes; morally, no; for he is doing his work, possibly better than they, and therefore taking a higher place in the eternal scale. but granting all kinds of inferiority, his _nature_ remains the same with their own; and the question is, whether they treat him as one to be helped up, or one to be kept down; as one unworthy of sympathy, or one to be honored for filling his part: in a word, as one belonging to them, or one whom they put up with only because his work is necessary to them." "what do you mean by being 'helped up'?" asked mr. morley. "i do not mean helped out of his trade, but helped to make the best of it, and of the intellect that finds its development in that way." "very good. but yet i don't see how you apply your supposition." "for an instance of application, then: how many respectable people know or care a jot about their servants, except as creatures necessary to their comfort?" "well, miss clare," said judy, addressing her for the first time, "if you had had the half to do with servants i have had, you would alter your opinion of them." "i have expressed no opinion," returned miss clare. "i have only said that masters and mistresses know and care next to nothing about them." "they are a very ungrateful class, do what you will for them." "i am afraid they are at present growing more and more corrupt as a class," rejoined miss clare; "but gratitude is a high virtue, therefore in any case i don't see how you could look for much of it from the common sort of them. and yet while some mistresses do not get so much of it as they deserve, i fear most mistresses expect far more of it than they have any right to." "you _can't_ get them to speak the truth." "that i am afraid is a fact." "i have never known one on whose word i could depend," insisted judy. "my father says he _has_ known one," i interjected. "a sad confirmation of mrs. morley," said miss clare. "but for my part i know very few persons in any rank on whose representation of things i could absolutely depend. truth is the highest virtue, and seldom grows wild. it is difficult to speak the truth, and those who have tried it longest best know how difficult it is. servants need to be taught that as well as everybody else." "there is nothing they resent so much as being taught," said judy. "perhaps: they are very far from docile; and i believe it is of little use to attempt giving them direct lessons." "how, then, are you to teach them?" "by making it very plain to them, but without calling their attention to it, that _you_ speak the truth. in the course of a few years they may come to tell a lie or two the less for that." "not a very hopeful prospect," said judy. "not a very rapid improvement," said her husband. "i look for no rapid improvement, so early in a history as the supposition implies," said miss clare. "but would you not tell them how wicked it is?" i asked. "they know already that it is wicked to tell lies; but they do not feel that _they_ are wicked in making the assertions they do. the less said about the abstract truth, and the more shown of practical truth, the better for those whom any one would teach to forsake lying. so, at least, it appears to me. i despair of teaching others, except by learning myself." "if you do no more than that, you will hardly produce an appreciable effect in a lifetime." "why should it be appreciated?" rejoined miss clare. "i should have said, on the contrary," interposed mr. blackstone, addressing mr. morley, "if you do less--for more you cannot do--you will produce no effect whatever." "we have no right to make it a condition of our obedience, that we shall see its reflex in the obedience of others," said miss clare. "we have to pull out the beam, not the mote." "are you not, then, to pull the mote out of your brother's eye?" said judy. "in no case and on no pretence, _until_ you have pulled the beam out of your own eye," said mr. blackstone; "which i fancy will make the duty of finding fault with one's neighbor a rare one; for who will venture to say he has qualified himself for the task?" it was no wonder that a silence followed upon this; for the talk had got to be very serious for a dinner-table. lady bernard was the first to speak. it was easier to take up the dropped thread of the conversation than to begin a new reel. "it cannot be denied," she said, "whoever may be to blame for it, that the separation between the rich and the poor has either been greatly widened of late, or, which involves the same practical necessity, we have become more aware of the breadth and depth of a gulf which, however it may distinguish their circumstances, ought not to divide them from each other. certainly the rich withdraw themselves from the poor. instead, for instance, of helping them to bear their burdens, they leave the still struggling poor of whole parishes to sink into hopeless want, under the weight of those who have already sunk beyond recovery. i am not sure that to shoot them would not involve less injustice. at all events, he that hates his brother is a murderer." "but there is no question of hating here," objected mr. morley. "i am not certain that absolute indifference to one's neighbor is not as bad. it came pretty nearly to the same thing in the case of the priest and the levite, who passed by on the other side," said mr. blackstone. "still," said mr. morley, in all the self-importance of one who prided himself on the practical, "i do not see that miss clare has proposed any remedy for the state of things concerning the evil of which we are all agreed. what is to be _done_? what can _i_ do now? come, miss clare." miss clare was silent. "marion, my child," said lady bernard, turning to her, "will you answer mr. morley?" "not, certainly, as to what _he_ can do: that question i dare not undertake to answer. i can only speak of what principles i may seem to have discovered. but until a man begins to behave to those with whom he comes into personal contact as partakers of the same nature, to recognize, for instance, between himself and his trades-people a bond superior to that of supply and demand, i cannot imagine how he is to do any thing towards the drawing together of the edges of the gaping wound in the social body." "but," persisted mr. morley, who, i began to think, showed some real desire to come at a practical conclusion, "suppose a man finds himself incapable of that sort of thing--for it seems to me to want some rare qualification or other to be able to converse with an uneducated person"-- "there are many such, especially amongst those who follow handicrafts," interposed mr. blackstone, "who think a great deal more than most of the so-called educated. there is a truer education to be got in the pursuit of a handicraft than in the life of a mere scholar. but i beg your pardon, mr. morley." "suppose," resumed mr. morley, accepting the apology without disclaimer,--"suppose i find i can do nothing of that sort; is there nothing of any sort i can do?" "nothing of the best sort, i firmly believe," answered miss clare; "for the genuine recognition of the human relationship can alone give value to whatever else you may do, and indeed can alone guide you to what ought to be done. i had a rather painful illustration of this the other day. a gentleman of wealth and position offered me the use of his grounds for some of my poor friends, whom i wanted to take out for a half-holiday. in the neighborhood of london, that is a great boon. but unfortunately, whether from his mistake or mine, i was left with the impression that he would provide some little entertainment for them; i am certain that at least milk was mentioned. it was a lovely day; every thing looked beautiful; and although they were in no great spirits, poor things, no doubt the shade and the grass and the green trees wrought some good in them. unhappily, two of the men had got drunk on the way; and, fearful of giving offence, i had to take them back to the station.--for their poor helpless wives could only cry,--and send them home by train. i should have done better to risk the offence, and take them into the grounds, where they might soon have slept it off under a tree. i had some distance to go, and some difficulty in getting them along; and when i got back i found things in an unhappy condition, for nothing had been given them to eat or drink,--indeed, no attention, had been paid them whatever. there was company at dinner in the house, and i could not find any one with authority. i hurried into the neighboring village, and bought the contents of two bakers' shops, with which i returned in time to give each a piece of bread before the company came out to _look at_ them. a gayly-dressed group, they stood by themselves languidly regarding the equally languid but rather indignant groups of ill-clad and hungry men and women upon the lawn. they made no attempt to mingle with them, or arrive at a notion of what was moving in any of their minds. the nearest approach to communion i saw was a poke or two given to a child with the point of a parasol. were my poor friends likely to return to their dingy homes with any great feeling of regard for the givers of such cold welcome?" "but that was an exceptional case," said mr. morley. "chiefly in this," returned miss clare, "that it was a case at all--that they were thus presented with a little more room on the face of the earth for a few hours." "but you think the fresh air may have done them good?" "yes; but we were speaking, i thought, of what might serve towards the filling up of the gulf between the classes." "well, will not all kindness shown to the poor by persons in a superior station tend in that direction?" "i maintain that you can do nothing for them in the way of kindness that shall not result in more harm than good, except you do it from and with genuine charity of soul; with some of that love, in short, which is the heart of religion. except what is done for them is so done as to draw out their trust and affection, and so raise them consciously in the human scale, it can only tend either to hurt their feelings and generate indignation, or to encourage fawning and beggary. but"-- "i am entirely of your mind," said mr. blackstone. "but do go on." "i was going to add," said miss clare, "that while no other charity than this can touch the sore, a good deal might yet be effected by bare justice. it seems to me high time that we dropped talking about charity, and took up the cry of justice. there, now, is a ground on which a man of your influence, mr. morley, might do much." "i don't know what you mean, miss clare. so long as i pay the market value for the labor i employ, i do not see how more can be demanded of me--as a right, that is." "we will not enter on that question, marion, if you please," said lady bernard. miss clare nodded, and went on. "is it just in the nation," she said, "to abandon those who can do nothing to help themselves, to be preyed upon by bad landlords, railway-companies, and dishonest trades-people with their false weights, balances, and measures, and adulterations to boot,--from all of whom their more wealthy brethren are comparatively safe? does not a nation exist for the protection of its parts? have these no claims on the nation? would you call it just in a family to abandon its less gifted to any moral or physical spoiler who might be bred within it? to say a citizen must take care of himself _may_ be just where he _can_ take care of himself, but cannot be just where that is impossible. a thousand causes, originating mainly in the neglect of their neighbors, have combined to sink the poor into a state of moral paralysis: are we to say the paralyzed may be run over in our streets with impunity? _must_ they take care of themselves? have we not to awake them to the very sense that life is worth caring for? i cannot but feel that the bond between such a neglected class, and any nation in which it is to be found, is very little stronger than, if indeed as strong as, that between slaves and their masters. who could preach to them their duty to the nation, except on grounds which such a nation acknowledges only with the lips?" "you have to prove, miss clare," said mr. morley, in a tone that seemed intended to imply that he was not in the least affected by mistimed eloquence, "that the relation is that of a family." "i believe," she returned, "that it is closer than the mere human relation of the parts of any family. but, at all events, until we _are_ their friends it is worse than useless to pretend to be such, and until they feel that we are their friends it is worse than useless to talk to them about god and religion. they will none of it from our lips." "will they from any lips? are they not already too far sunk towards the brutes to be capable of receiving any such rousing influence?" suggested mr. blackstone with a smile, evidently wishing to draw miss clare out yet further. "you turn me aside, mr. blackstone. i wanted to urge mr. morley to go into parliament as spiritual member for the poor of our large towns. besides, i know you don't think as your question would imply. as far as my experience guides me, i am bound to believe that there is a spot of soil in every heart sufficient for the growth of a gospel seed. and i believe, moreover, that not only is he a fellow-worker with god who sows that seed, but that he also is one who opens a way for that seed to enter the soil. if such preparation were not necessary, the saviour would have come the moment adam and eve fell, and would have required no baptist to precede him." a good deal followed which i would gladly record, enabled as i now am to assist my memory by a more thorough acquaintance with the views of miss clare. but i fear i have already given too much conversation at once. chapter xxiii. the end of the evening. what specially delighted me during the evening, was the marked attention, and the serious look in the eyes, with which roger listened. it was not often that he did look serious. he preferred, if possible, to get a joke out of a thing; but when he did enter into an argument, he was always fair. although prone to take the side of objection to any religious remark, he yet never said any thing against religion itself. but his principles, and indeed his nature, seemed as yet in a state of solution,--uncrystallized, as my father would say. mr. morley, on the other hand, seemed an insoluble mass, incapable of receiving impressions from other minds. any suggestion of his own mind, as to a course of action or a mode of thinking, had a good chance of being without question regarded as reasonable and right: he was more than ordinarily prejudiced in his own favor. the day after they thus met at our house, miss clare had a letter from him, in which he took the high hand with her, rebuking her solemnly for her presumption in saying, as he represented it, that no good could be done except after the fashion she laid down, and assuring her that she would thus alienate the most valuable assistance from any scheme she might cherish for the amelioration of the condition of the lower classes. it ended with the offer of a yearly subscription of five pounds to any project of the wisdom of which she would take the trouble to convince him. she replied, thanking him both, for his advice and his offer, but saying that, as she had no scheme on foot requiring such assistance, she could not at present accept the latter; should, however, any thing show itself for which that sort of help was desirable, she would take the liberty of reminding him of it. when the ladies rose, judy took me aside, and said,-- "what does it all mean, wynnie?" "just what you hear," i answered. "you asked us, to have a triumph over me, you naughty thing!" "well--partly--if i am to be honest; but far more to make you do justice to miss clare. you being my cousin, she had a right to that at my hands." "does lady bernard know as much about her as she seems?" "she knows every thing about her, and visits her, too, in her very questionable abode. you see, judy, a report may be a fact, and yet be untrue." "i'm not going to be lectured by a chit like you. but i should like to have a little talk with miss clare." "i will make you an opportunity." i did so, and could not help overhearing a very pretty apology; to which miss clare replied, that she feared she only was to blame, inasmuch as she ought to have explained the peculiarity of her circumstances before accepting the engagement. at the time, it had not appeared to her necessary, she said; but now she would make a point of explaining before she accepted any fresh duty of the kind, for she saw it would be fairer to both parties. it was no wonder such an answer should entirely disarm cousin judy, who forthwith begged she would, if she had no objection, resume her lessons with the children at the commencement of the next quarter. "but i understand from mrs. percivale," objected miss clare, "that the office is filled to your thorough satisfaction." "yes; the lady i have is an excellent teacher; but the engagement was only for a quarter." "if you have no other reason for parting with her, i could not think of stepping into her place. it would be a great disappointment to her, and my want of openness with you would be the cause of it. if you should part with her for any other reason, i should be very glad to serve you again." judy tried to argue with her, but miss clare was immovable. "will you let me come and see you, then?" said judy. "with all my heart," she answered. "you had better come with mrs. percivale, though, for it would not be easy for you to find the place." we went up to the drawing-room to tea, passing through the study, and taking the gentlemen with us. miss clare played to us, and sang several songs,--the last a ballad of schiller's, "the pilgrim," setting forth the constant striving of the soul after something of which it never lays hold. the last verse of it i managed to remember. it was this:-- thither, ah! no footpath bendeth; ah! the heaven above, so clear, never, earth to touch, descendeth; and the there is never here!" "that is a beautiful song, and beautifully sung," said mr. blackstone; "but i am a little surprised at your choosing to sing it, for you cannot call it a christian song." "don't you find st. paul saying something very like it again and again?" miss clare returned with a smile, as if she perfectly knew what he objected to. "you find him striving, journeying, pressing on, reaching out to lay hold, but never having attained,--ever conscious of failure." "that is true; but there is this huge difference,--that st. paul expects to attain,--is confident of one day attaining; while schiller, in that lyric at least, seems--i only say seems--hopeless of any satisfaction: _das dort ist niemals hier._" "it may have been only a mood," said miss clare. "st. paul had his moods also, from which he had to rouse himself to fresh faith and hope and effort." "but st. paul writes only in his hopeful moods. such alone he counts worthy of sharing with his fellows. if there is no hope, why, upon any theory, take the trouble to say so? it is pure weakness to desire sympathy in hopelessness. hope alone justifies as well as excites either utterance or effort." "i admit all you say, mr. blackstone; and yet i think such a poem invaluable; for is not schiller therein the mouth of the whole creation groaning and travailling and inarticulately crying out for the sonship?" "unconsciously, then. he does not know what he wants." "_apparently_, not. neither does the creation. neither do we. we do know it is oneness with god we want; but of what that means we have only vague, though glowing hints." i saw mr. morley scratch his left ear like a young calf, only more impatiently. "but," miss clare went on, "is it not invaluable as the confession of one of the noblest of spirits, that he had found neither repose nor sense of attainment?" "but," said roger, "did you ever know any one of those you call christians who professed to have reached satisfaction; or, if so, whose life would justify you in believing him?" "i have never known a satisfied christian, i confess," answered miss clare. "indeed, i should take satisfaction as a poor voucher for christianity. but i have known several contented christians. i might, in respect of one or two of them, use a stronger word,--certainly not _satisfied_. i believe there is a grand, essential unsatisfaction,--i do not mean dissatisfaction,--which adds the delight of expectation to the peace of attainment; and that, i presume, is the very consciousness of heaven. but where faith may not have produced even contentment, it will yet sustain hope: which, if we may judge from the ballad, no mere aspiration can. we must believe in a living ideal, before we can have a tireless heart; an ideal which draws our poor vague ideal to itself, to fill it full and make it alive." i should have been amazed to hear miss clare talk like this, had i not often heard my father say that aspiration and obedience were the two mightiest forces for development. her own needs and her own deeds had been her tutors; and the light by which she had read their lessons was the candle of the lord within her. when my husband would have put her into lady bernard's carriage, as they were leaving, she said she should prefer walking home; and, as lady bernard did not press her to the contrary, percivale could not remonstrate. "i am sorry i cannot walk with you, miss clare," he said. "_i_ must not leave my duties, but"-- "there's not the slightest occasion," she interrupted. "i know every yard of the way. good-night." the carriage drove off in one direction, and miss clare tripped lightly along in the other. percivale darted into the house, and told roger, who snatched up his hat, and bounded after her. already she was out of sight; but he, following light-footed, overtook her in the crescent. it was, however, only after persistent entreaty that he prevailed on her to allow him to accompany her. "you do not know, mr. roger," she said pleasantly, "what you may be exposing yourself to, in going with me. i may have to do something you wouldn't like to have a share in." "i shall be only too glad to have the humblest share in any thing you draw me into," said roger. as it fell out, they had not gone far before they came upon a little crowd, chiefly of boys, who ought to have been in bed long before, gathered about a man and woman. the man was forcing his company on a woman who was evidently annoyed that she could not get rid of him. "is he your husband?" asked miss clare, making her way through the crowd. "no, miss," the woman answered. "i never saw him afore. i'm only just come in from the country." she looked more angry than frightened. roger said her black eyes flashed dangerously, and she felt about the bosom of her dress--for a knife, he was certain. "you leave her alone," he said to the man, getting between him and her. "mind your own business," returned the man, in a voice that showed he was drunk. for a moment roger was undecided what to do; for he feared involving miss clare in a _row_, as he called it. but when the fellow, pushing suddenly past him, laid his hand on miss clare, and shoved her away, he gave him a blow that sent him staggering into the street; whereupon, to his astonishment, miss clare, leaving the woman, followed the man, and as soon as he had recovered his equilibrium, laid her hand on his arm and spoke to him, but in a voice so low and gentle that roger, who had followed her, could not hear a word she said. for a moment or two the man seemed to try to listen, but his condition was too much for him; and, turning from her, he began again to follow the woman, who was now walking wearily away. roger again interposed. "don't strike him, mr. roger," cried miss clare: "he's too drunk for that. but keep him back if you can, while i take the woman away. if i see a policeman, i will send him." the man heard her last words, and they roused him to fury. he rushed at roger, who, implicitly obedient, only dodged to let him pass, and again confronted him, engaging his attention until help arrived. he was, however, by this time so fierce and violent, that roger felt bound to assist the policeman. as soon as the man was locked up, he went to lime court. the moon was shining, and the narrow passage lay bright beneath her. along the street, people were going and coming, though it was past midnight, but the court was very still. he walked into it as far as the spot where we had together seen miss clare. the door at which she had entered was open; but he knew nothing of the house or its people, and feared to compromise her by making inquiries. he walked several times up and down, somewhat anxious, but gradually persuading himself that in all probability no further annoyance had befallen her; until at last he felt able to leave the place. he came back to our house, where, finding his brother at his final pipe in the study, he told him all about their adventure. chapter xxiv. my first terror. one of the main discomforts in writing a book is, that there are so many ways in which every thing, as it comes up, might be told, and you can't tell which is the best. you believe there must be a _best_ way; but you might spend your life in trying to satisfy yourself which was that best way, and, when you came to the close of it, find you had done nothing,--hadn't even found out the way. i have always to remind myself that something, even if it be far from the best thing, is better than nothing. perhaps the only way to arrive at the best way is to make plenty of blunders, and find them out. this morning i had been sitting a long time with my pen in my hand, thinking what this chapter ought to be about,--that is, what part of my own history, or of that of my neighbors interwoven therewith, i ought to take up next,--when my third child, my little cecilia, aged five, came into the room, and said,-- "mamma, there's a poor man at the door, and jemima won't give him any thing." "quite right, my dear. we must give what we can to people we know. we are sure then that it is not wasted." "but he's so _very_ poor, mamma!" "how do you know that?" "poor man! he has _only_ three children. i heard him tell jemima. he was _so_ sorry! and _i_'m very sorry, too." "but don't you know you mustn't go to the door when any one is talking to jemima?" i said. "yes, mamma. i didn't go to the door: i stood in the hall and peeped." "but you mustn't even stand in the hall," i said. "mind that." this was, perhaps, rather an oppressive reading of a proper enough rule; but i had a very special reason for it, involving an important event in my story, which occurred about two years after what i have last set down. one morning percivale took a holiday in order to give me one, and we went to spend it at richmond. it was the anniversary of our marriage; and as we wanted to enjoy it thoroughly, and, precious as children are, _every_ pleasure is not enhanced by their company, we left ours at home,--ethel and her brother roger (named after percivale's father), who was now nearly a year old, and wanted a good deal of attention. it was a lovely day, with just a sufficient number of passing clouds to glorify--that is, to do justice to--the sunshine, and a gentle breeze, which itself seemed to be taking a holiday, for it blew only just when you wanted it, and then only enough to make you think of that wind which, blowing where it lists, always blows where it is wanted. we took the train to hammersmith; for my husband, having consulted the tide-table, and found that the river would be propitious, wished to row me from there to richmond. how gay the river-side looked, with its fine broad landing stage, and the numberless boats ready to push off on the swift water, which kept growing and growing on the shingly shore! percivale, however, would hire his boat at a certain builder's shed, that i might see it. that shed alone would have been worth coming to see--such a picture of loveliest gloom--as if it had been the cave where the twilight abode its time! you could not tell whether to call it light or shade,--that diffused presence of a soft elusive brown; but is what we call shade any thing but subdued light? all about, above, and below, lay the graceful creatures of the water, moveless and dead here on the shore, but there--launched into their own elemental world, and blown upon by the living wind--endowed at once with life and motion and quick response. not having been used to boats, i felt nervous as we got into the long, sharp-nosed, hollow fish which percivale made them shoot out on the rising tide; but the slight fear vanished almost the moment we were afloat, when, ignorant as i was of the art of rowing, i could not help seeing how perfectly percivale was at home in it. the oars in his hands were like knitting-needles in mine, so deftly, so swimmingly, so variously, did he wield them. only once my fear returned, when he stood up in the swaying thing--a mere length without breadth--to pull off his coat and waistcoat; but he stood steady, sat down gently, took his oars quietly, and the same instant we were shooting so fast through the rising tide that it seemed as if _we_ were pulling the water up to richmond. "wouldn't you like to steer?" said my husband. "it would amuse you." "i should like to learn," i said,--"not that i want to be amused; i am too happy to care for amusement." "take those two cords behind you, then, one in each hand, sitting between them. that will do. now, if you want me to go to your right, pull your right-hand cord; if you want me to go to your left, pull your left-hand one." i made an experiment or two, and found the predicted consequences follow: i ran him aground, first on one bank, then on the other. but when i did so a third time,-- "come! come!" he said: "this won't do, mrs. percivale. you're not trying your best. there is such a thing as gradation in steering as well as in painting, or music, or any thing else that is worth doing." "i pull the right line, don't i?" i said; for i was now in a mood to tease him. "yes--to a wrong result," he answered. "you must feel your rudder, as you would the mouth of your horse with the bit, and not do any thing violent, except in urgent necessity." i answered by turning the head of the boat right towards the nearer bank. "i see!" he said, with a twinkle in his eyes. "i have put a dangerous power into your hands. but never mind. the queen may decree as she likes; but the sinews of war, you know"-- i thought he meant that if i went on with my arbitrary behavior, he would drop his oars; and for a little while i behaved better. soon, however, the spirit of mischief prompting me, i began my tricks again: to my surprise i found that i had no more command over the boat than over the huge barge, which, with its great red-brown sail, was slowly ascending in front of us; i couldn't turn its head an inch in the direction i wanted. "what does it mean, percivale?" i cried, pulling with all my might, and leaning forward that i might pull the harder. "what does what mean?" he returned coolly. "that i can't move the boat." "oh! it means that i have resumed the reins of government." "but how? i can't understand it." "and i am wiser than to make you too wise. education is _not_ a panacea for moral evils. i quote your father, my dear." and he pulled away as if nothing were the matter. "please, i like steering," i said remonstratingly. "and i like rowing." "i don't see why the two shouldn't go together." "nor i. they ought. but not only does the steering depend on the rowing, but the rower can steer himself." "i will be a good girl, and steer properly." "very well; steer away." he looked shorewards as he spoke; and then first i became aware that he had been watching my hands all the time. the boat now obeyed my lightest touch. how merrily the water rippled in the sun and the wind! while so responsive were our feelings to the play of light and shade around us, that more than once when a cloud crossed us, i saw its shadow turn almost into sadness on the countenance of my companion,--to vanish the next moment when the one sun above and the thousand mimic suns below shone out in universal laughter. when a steamer came in sight, or announced its approach by the far-heard sound of its beating paddles, it brought with it a few moments of almost awful responsibility; but i found that the presence of danger and duty together, instead of making me feel flurried, composed my nerves, and enabled me to concentrate my whole attention on getting the head of the boat as nearly as possible at right angles with the waves from the paddles; for percivale had told me that if one of any size struck us on the side, it would most probably capsize us. but the way to give pleasure to my readers can hardly be to let myself grow garrulous in the memory of an ancient pleasure of my own. i will say nothing more of the delights of that day. they were such a contrast to its close, that twelve months at least elapsed before i was able to look back upon them without a shudder; for i could not rid myself of the foolish feeling that our enjoyment had been somehow to blame for what was happening at home while we were thus revelling in blessed carelessness. when we reached our little nest, rather late in the evening, i found to my annoyance that the front door was open. it had been a fault of which i thought i had cured the cook,--to leave it thus when she ran out to fetch any thing. percivale went down to the study; and i walked into the drawing-room, about to ring the bell in anger. there, to my surprise and farther annoyance, i found sarah, seated on the sofa with her head in her hands, and little roger wide awake on the floor. "what _does_ this mean?" i cried. "the front door open! master roger still up! and you seated in the drawing-room!" "o ma'am!" she almost shrieked, starting up the moment i spoke, and, by the time i had put my angry interrogation, just able to gasp out--"have you found her, ma'am?" "found whom?" i returned in alarm, both at the question and at the face of the girl; for through the dusk i now saw that it was very pale, and that her eyes were red with crying. "miss ethel," she answered in a cry choked with a sob; and dropping again on the sofa, she hid her face once more between her hands. i rushed to the study-door, and called percivale; then returned to question the girl. i wonder now that i did nothing outrageous; but fear kept down folly, and made me unnaturally calm. "sarah," i said, as quietly as i could, while i trembled all over, "tell me what has happened. where is the child?" "indeed it's not my fault, ma'am. i was busy with master roger, and miss ethel was down stairs with jemima." "where is she?" i repeated sternly. "i don't know no more than the man in the moon, ma'am." "where's jemima?" "run out to look for her?" "how long have you missed her?" "an hour. or perhaps two hours. i don't know, my head's in such a whirl. i can't remember when i saw her last. o ma'am! what _shall_ i do?" percivale had come up, and was standing beside me. when i looked round, he was as pale as death; and at the sight of his face, i nearly dropped on the floor. but he caught hold of me, and said, in a voice so dreadfully still that it frightened me more than any thing,-- "come, my love; do not give way, for we must go to the police at once." then, turning to sarah, "have you searched the house and garden?" he asked. "yes, sir; every hole and corner. we've looked under every bed, and into every cupboard and chest,--the coal-cellar, the boxroom,--everywhere." "the bathroom?" i cried. "oh, yes, ma'am! the bathroom, and everywhere." "have there been any tramps about the house since we left?" percivale asked. "not that i know of; but the nursery window looks into the garden, you know, sir. jemima didn't mention it." "come then, my dear," said my husband. he compelled me to swallow a glass of wine, and led me away, almost unconscious of my bodily movements, to the nearest cab-stand. i wondered afterwards, when i recalled the calm gaze with which he glanced along the line, and chose the horse whose appearance promised the best speed. in a few minutes we were telling the inspector at the police-station in albany street what had happened. he took a sheet of paper, and asking one question after another about her age, appearance, and dress, wrote down our answers. he then called a man, to whom he gave the paper, with some words of direction. "the men are now going on their beats for the night," he said, turning again to us. "they will all hear the description of the child, and some of them have orders to search." "thank you," said my husband. "which station had we better go to next?" "the news will be at the farthest before you can reach the nearest," he answered. "we shall telegraph to the suburbs first." "then what more is there we can do?" asked percivale. "nothing," said the inspector,--"except you find out whether any of the neighbors saw her, and when and where. it would be something to know in what direction she was going. have you any ground for suspicion? have you ever discharged a servant? were any tramps seen about the place?" "i know, who it is!" i cried. "it's the woman that took theodora! it's theodora's mother! i know it is!" percivale explained what i meant. "that's what people get, you see, when they take on themselves other people's business," returned the inspector. "that child ought to have been sent to the workhouse." he laid his head on his hand for a moment. "it seems likely enough," he added. then after another pause--"i have your address. the child shall be brought back to you the moment she's found. we can't mistake her after your description." "where are you going now?" i said to my husband, as we left the station to re-enter the cab. "i don't know," he answered, "except we go home and question all the shops in the neighborhood." "let us go to miss clare first," i said. "by all means," he answered. we were soon at the entrance of lime court. when we turned the corner in the middle of it, we heard the sound of a piano. "she's at home!" i cried, with a feeble throb of satisfaction. the fear that she might be out had for the last few moments been uppermost. we entered the house, and ascended the stairs in haste. not a creature did we meet, except a wicked-looking cat. the top of her head was black, her forehead and face white; and the black and white were shaped so as to look like hair parted over a white forehead, which gave her green eyes a frightfully human look as she crouched in the corner of a window-sill in the light of a gas-lamp outside. but before we reached the top of the first stair we heard the sounds of dancing, as well as of music. in a moment after, with our load of gnawing fear and helpless eagerness, we stood in the midst of a merry assembly of men, women, and children, who filled miss clare's room to overflowing. it was saturday night, and they were gathered according to custom for their weekly music. they made a way for us; and miss clare left the piano, and came to meet us with a smile on her beautiful face. but, when she saw our faces, hers fell. "what _is_ the matter, mrs. percivale?" she asked in alarm. i sunk on the chair from which she had risen. "we've lost ethel," said my husband quietly. "what do you mean? you don't"-- "no, no: she's gone; she's stolen. we don't know where she is," he answered with faltering voice. "we've just been to the police." miss clare turned white; but, instead of making any remark, she called out to some of her friends whose good manners were making them leave the room,-- "don't go, please; we want you." then turning to me, she asked, "may i do as i think best?" "yes, certainly," answered my husband. "my friend, mrs. percivale," she said, addressing the whole assembly, "has lost her little girl." a murmur of dismay and sympathy arose. "what can we do to find her?" she went on. they fell to talking among themselves. the next instant, two men came up to us, making their way from the neighborhood of the door. the one was a keen-faced, elderly man, with iron-gray whiskers and clean-shaved chin; the other was my first acquaintance in the neighborhood, the young bricklayer. the elder addressed my husband, while the other listened without speaking. "tell us what she's like, sir, and how she was dressed--though that ain't much use. she'll be all different by this time." the words shot a keener pang to my heart than it had yet felt. my darling stripped of her nice clothes, and covered with dirty, perhaps infected garments. but it was no time to give way to feeling. my husband repeated to the men the description he had given the police, loud enough for the whole room to hear; and the women in particular, miss clare told me afterwards, caught it up with remarkable accuracy. they would not have done so, she said, but that their feelings were touched. "tell them also, please, mr. percivale, about the child mrs. percivale's father and mother found and brought up. that may have something to do with this." my husband told them all the story; adding that the mother of the child might have found out who we were, and taken ours as a pledge for the recovery of her own. here one of the women spoke. "that dark woman you took in one night--two years ago, miss--she say something. i was astin' of her in the mornin' what her trouble was, for that trouble _she_ had on _her_ mind was plain to see, and she come over something, half-way like, about losin' of a child; but whether it were dead, or strayed, or stolen, or what, i couldn't tell; and no more, i believe, she wanted me to." here another woman spoke. "i'm 'most sure i saw her--the same woman--two days ago, and no furrer off than gower street," she said. "you're too good by half, miss," she went on, "to the likes of sich. they ain't none of them respectable." "perhaps you'll see some good come out of it before long," said miss clare in reply. the words sounded like a rebuke, for all this time i had hardly sent a thought upwards for help. the image of my child had so filled my heart, that there was no room left for the thought of duty, or even of god. miss clare went on, still addressing the company, and her words had a tone of authority. "i will tell you what you must do," she said. "you must, every one of you, run and tell everybody you know, and tell every one to tell everybody else. you mustn't stop to talk it over with each other, or let those you tell it to stop to talk to you about it; for it is of the greatest consequence no time should be lost in making it as quickly and as widely known as possible. go, please." in a few moments the room was empty of all but ourselves. the rush on the stairs was tremendous for a single minute, and then all was still. even the children had rushed out to tell what other children they could find. "what must we do next?" said my husband. miss clare thought for a moment. "i would go and tell mr. blackstone," she said. "it is a long way from here, but whoever has taken the child would not be likely to linger in the neighborhood. it is best to try every thing." "right," said my husband. "come, wynnie." "wouldn't it be better to leave mrs. percivale with me?" said miss clare. "it is dreadfully fatiguing to go driving over the stones." it was very kind of her; but if she had been a mother she would not have thought of parting me from my husband; neither would she have fancied that i could remain inactive so long as it was possible even to imagine i was doing something; but when i told her how i felt, she saw at once that it would be better for me to go. we set off instantly, and drove to mr. blackstone's. what a long way it was! down oxford street and holborn we rattled and jolted, and then through many narrow ways in which i had never been, emerging at length in a broad road, with many poor and a few fine old houses in it; then again plunging into still more shabby regions of small houses, which, alas! were new, and yet wretched! at length, near an open space, where yet not a blade of grass could grow for the trampling of many feet, and for the smoke from tall chimneys, close by a gasometer of awful size, we found the parsonage, and mr. blackstone in his study. the moment he heard our story he went to the door and called his servant. "run, jabez," he said, "and tell the sexton to ring the church-bell. i will come to him directly i hear it." i may just mention that jabez and his wife, who formed the whole of mr. blackstone's household, did not belong to his congregation, but were members of a small community in the neighborhood, calling themselves peculiar baptists. about ten minutes passed, during which little was said: mr. blackstone never seemed to have any mode of expressing his feelings except action, and where that was impossible they took hardly any recognizable shape. when the first boom of the big bell filled the little study in which we sat, i gave a cry, and jumped up from my chair: it sounded in my ears like the knell of my lost baby, for at the moment i was thinking of her as once when a baby she lay for dead in my arms. mr. blackstone got up and left the room, and my husband rose and would have followed him; but, saying he would be back in a few minutes, he shut the door and left us. it was half an hour, a dreadful half-hour, before he returned; for to sit doing nothing, not even being carried somewhere to do something, was frightful. "i've told them all about it," he said. "i couldn't do better than follow miss clare's example. but my impression is, that, if the woman you suspect be the culprit, she would make her way out to the open as quickly as possible. such people are most at home on the commons: they are of a less gregarious nature than the wild animals of the town. what shall you do next?" "that is just what i want to know," answered my husband. he never asked advice except when he did not know what to do; and never except from one whose advice he meant to follow. "well," returned mr. blackstone, "i should put an advertisement into every one of the morning papers." "but the offices will all be closed," said percivale. "yes, the publishing, but not the printing offices." "how am i to find out where they are?" "i know one or two of them, and the people there will tell us the rest." "then you mean to go with us?" "of course i do,--that is, if you will have me. you don't think i would leave you to go alone? have you had any supper?" "no. would you like something, my dear?" said percivale turning to me. "i couldn't swallow a mouthful," i said. "nor i either," said percivale. "then i'll just take a hunch of bread with me," said mr. blackstone, "for i am hungry. i've had nothing since one o'clock." we neither asked him not to go, nor offered to wait till he had had his supper. before we reached printing-house square he had eaten half a loaf. "are you sure," said my husband, as we were starting, "that they will take an advertisement at the printing-office?" "i think they will. the circumstances are pressing. they will see that we are honest people, and will make a push to help us. but for any thing i know it may be quite _en règle_." "we must pay, though," said percivale, putting his hand in his pocket, and taking out his purse. "there! just as i feared! no money!--two--three shillings--and sixpence!" mr. blackstone stopped the cab. "i've not got as much," he said. "but it's of no consequence. i'll run and write a check." "but where can you change it? the little shops about here won't be able." "there's the blue posts." "let me take it, then. you won't be seen going into a public-house?" said percivale. "pooh! pooh!" said mr. blackstone. "do you think my character won't stand that much? besides, they wouldn't change it for you. but when i think of it, i used the last check in my book in the beginning of the week. never mind; they will lend me five pounds." we drove to the blue posts. he got out, and returned in one minute with five sovereigns. "what will people say to your borrowing five pounds at a public-house?" said percivale. "if they say what is right, it won't hurt me." "but if they say what is wrong?" "that they can do any time, and that won't hurt me, either." "but what will the landlord himself think?" "i have no doubt he feels grateful to me for being so friendly. you can't oblige a man more than by asking a _light_ favor of him." "do you think it well in your position to be obliged to a man in his?" asked percivale. "i do. i am glad of the chance. it will bring me into friendly relations with him." "do you wish, then, to be in friendly relations with him?" "indubitably. in what other relations do you suppose a clergyman ought to be with one of his parishioners?" "you didn't invite _him_ into your parish, i presume." "no; and he didn't invite me. the thing was settled in higher quarters. there we are, anyhow; and i have done quite a stroke of business in borrowing that money of him." mr. blackstone laughed, and the laugh sounded frightfully harsh in my ears. "a man"--my husband went on, who was surprised that a clergyman should be so liberal--"a man who sells drink!--in whose house so many of your parishioners will to-morrow night get too drunk to be in church the next morning!" "i wish having been drunk were what _would_ keep them from being in church. drunk or sober, it would be all the same. few of them care to go. they are turning out better, however, than when first i came. as for the publican, who knows what chance of doing him a good turn it may put in my way?" "you don't expect to persuade him to shut up shop?" "no: he must persuade himself to that." "what good, then, can you expect to do him?" "who knows? i say. you can't tell what good may or may not come out of it, any more than you can tell which of your efforts, or which of your helpers, may this night be the means of restoring your child." "what do you expect the man to say about it?" "i shall provide him with something to say. i don't want him to attribute it to some foolish charity. he might. in the new testament, publicans are acknowledged to have hearts." "yes; but the word has a very different meaning in the new testament." "the feeling religious people bear towards them, however, comes very near to that with which society regarded the publicans of old." "they are far more hurtful to society than those tax-gatherers." "they may be. i dare say they are. perhaps they are worse than the sinners with whom their namesakes of the new testament are always coupled." i will not follow the conversation further. i will only give the close of it. percivale told me afterwards that he had gone on talking in the hope of diverting my thoughts a little. "what, then, do you mean to tell him?" asked percivale. "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," said mr. blackstone. "i shall go in to-morrow morning, just at the time when there will probably be far too many people at the bar,--a little after noon. i shall return him his five sovereigns, ask for a glass of ale, and tell him the whole story,--how my friend, the celebrated painter, came with his wife,--and the rest of it, adding, i trust, that the child is all right, and at the moment probably going out for a walk with her mother, who won't let her out of her sight for a moment." he laughed again, and again i thought him heartless; but i understand him better now. i wondered, too, that percivale _could_ go on talking, and yet i found that their talk did make the time go a little quicker. at length we reached the printing-office of "the times,"--near blackfriars' bridge, i think. after some delay, we saw an overseer, who, curt enough at first, became friendly when he heard our case. if he had not had children of his own, we might perhaps have fared worse. he took down the description and address, and promised that the advertisement should appear in the morning's paper in the best place he could now find for it. before we left, we received minute directions as to the whereabouts of the next nearest office. we spent the greater part of the night in driving from one printing-office to another. mr. blackstone declared he would not leave us until we had found her. "you have to preach twice to-morrow," said percivale: it was then three o'clock. "i shall preach all the better," he returned. "yes: i feel as if i should give them _one_ good sermon to-morrow." "the man talks as if the child were found already!" i thought, with indignation. "it's a pity he hasn't a child of his own! he would be more sympathetic." at the same time, if i had been honest, i should have confessed to myself that his confidence and hope helped to keep me up. at last, having been to the printing-office of every daily paper in london, we were on our dreary way home. oh, how dreary it was!--and the more dreary that the cool, sweet light of a spring dawn was growing in every street, no smoke having yet begun to pour from the multitudinous chimneys to sully its purity! from misery and want of sleep, my soul and body both felt like a gray foggy night. every now and then the thought of my child came with a fresh pang,--not that she was one moment absent from me, but that a new thought about her would dart a new sting into the ever-burning throb of the wound. if you had asked me the one blessed thing in the world, i should have said _sleep_--with my husband and children beside me. but i dreaded sleep now, both for its visions and for the frightful waking. now and then i would start violently, thinking i heard my ethel cry; but from the cab-window no child was ever to be seen, down all the lonely street. then i would sink into a succession of efforts to picture to myself her little face,--white with terror and misery, and smeared with the dirt of the pitiful hands that rubbed the streaming eyes. they might have beaten her! she might have cried herself to sleep in some wretched hovel; or, worse, in some fever-stricken and crowded lodging-house, with horrible sights about her and horrible voices in her ears! or she might at that moment be dragged wearily along a country-road, farther and farther from her mother! i could have shrieked, and torn my hair. what if i should never see her again? she might be murdered, and i never know it! o my darling! my darling! at the thought a groan escaped me. a hand was laid on my arm. that i knew was my husband's. but a voice was in my ear, and that was mr. blackstone's. "do you think god loves the child less than you do? or do you think he is less able to take care of her than you are? when the disciples thought themselves sinking, jesus rebuked them for being afraid. be still, and you will see the hand of god in this. good you cannot foresee will come out of it." i could not answer him, but i felt both rebuked and grateful. all at once i thought of roger. what would he say when he found that his pet was gone, and we had never told him? "roger!" i said to my husband. "we've never told him!" "let us go now," he returned. we were at the moment close to north crescent. after a few thundering raps at the door, the landlady came down. percivale rushed up, and in a few minutes returned with roger. they got into the cab. a great talk followed; but i heard hardly any thing, or rather i heeded nothing. i only recollect that roger was very indignant with his brother for having been out all night without him to help. "i never thought of you, roger," said percivale. "so much the worse!" said roger. "no," said mr. blackstone. "a thousand things make us forget. i dare say your brother all but forgot god in the first misery of his loss. to have thought of you, and not to have told you, would have been another thing." a few minutes after, we stopped at our desolate house, and the cabman was dismissed with one of the sovereigns from the blue posts. i wondered afterwards what manner of man or woman had changed it there. a dim light was burning in the drawing-room. percivale took his pass-key, and opened the door. i hurried in, and went straight to my own room; for i longed to be alone that i might weep--nor weep only. i fell on my knees by the bedside, buried my face, and sobbed, and tried to pray. but i could not collect my thoughts; and, overwhelmed by a fresh access of despair, i started again to my feet. could i believe my eyes? what was that in the bed? trembling as with an ague,--in terror lest the vision should by vanishing prove itself a vision,--i stooped towards it. i heard a breathing! it was the fair hair and the rosy face of my darling--fast asleep--without one trace of suffering on her angelic loveliness! i remember no more for a while. they tell me i gave a great cry, and fell on the floor. when i came to myself i was lying on the bed. my husband was bending over me, and roger and mr. blackstone were both in the room. i could not speak, but my husband understood my questioning gaze. "yes, yes, my love," he said quietly: "she's all right--safe and sound, thank god!" and i did thank god. mr. blackstone came to the bedside, with a look and a smile that seemed to my conscience to say, "i told you so." i held out my hand to him, but could only weep. then i remembered how we had vexed roger, and called him. "dear roger," i said, "forgive me, and go and tell miss clare." i had some reason to think this the best amends i could make him. "i will go at once," he said. "she will be anxious." "and i will go to my sermon," said mr. blackstone, with the same quiet smile. they shook hands with me, and went away. and my husband and i rejoiced over our first-born. chapter xxv. its sequel. my darling was recovered neither through miss clare's injunctions nor mr. blackstone's bell-ringing. a woman was walking steadily westward, carrying the child asleep in her arms, when a policeman stopped her at turnham green. she betrayed no fear, only annoyance, and offered no resistance, only begged he would not wake the child, or take her from her. he brought them in a cab to the police-station, whence the child was sent home. as soon as she arrived, sarah gave her a warm bath, and put her to bed; but she scarcely opened her eyes. jemima had run about the streets till midnight, and then fallen asleep on the doorstep, where the policeman found her when he brought the child. for a week she went about like one dazed; and the blunders she made were marvellous. she ordered a brace of cod from the poulterer, and a pound of anchovies at the crockery shop. one day at dinner, we could not think how the chops were so pulpy, and we got so many bits of bone in our mouth: she had powerfully beaten them, as if they had been steaks. she sent up melted butter for bread-sauce, and stuffed a hare with sausages. after breakfast, percivale walked to the police-station, to thank the inspector, pay what expenses had been incurred, and see the woman. i was not well enough to go with him. my marion is a white-faced thing, and her eyes look much too big for her small face. i suggested that he should take miss clare. as it was early, he was fortunate enough to find her at home, and she accompanied him willingly, and at once recognized the woman as the one she had befriended. he told the magistrate he did not wish to punish her, but that there were certain circumstances which made him desirous of detaining her until a gentleman, who, he believed, could identify her, should arrive. the magistrate therefore remanded her. the next day but one my father came. when he saw her, he had little doubt she was the same that had carried off theo; but he could not be absolutely certain, because he had seen her only by moonlight. he told the magistrate the whole story, saying, that, if she should prove the mother of the child, he was most anxious to try what he could do for her. the magistrate expressed grave doubts whether he would find it possible to befriend her to any effectual degree. my father said he would try, if he could but be certain she was the mother. "if she stole the child merely to compel the restitution of her own," he said. "i cannot regard her conduct with any abhorrence. but, if she is not the mother of the child, i must leave her to the severity of the law." "i once discharged a woman," said the magistrate, "who had committed the same offence, for i was satisfied she had done so purely from the desire to possess the child." "but might not a thief say he was influenced merely by the desire to add another sovereign to his hoard?" "the greed of the one is a natural affection; that of the other a vice." "but the injury to the loser is far greater in the one case than in the other." "to set that off, however, the child is more easily discovered. besides, the false appetite grows with indulgence; whereas one child would still the natural one." "then you would allow her to go on stealing child after child, until she succeeded in keeping one," said my father, laughing. "i dismissed her with the warning, that, if ever she did so again, this would be brought up against her, and she would have the severest punishment the law could inflict. it may be right to pass a first offence, and wrong to pass a second. i tried to make her measure the injury done to the mother, by her own sorrow at losing the child; and i think not without effect. at all events, it was some years ago, and i have not heard of her again." now came in the benefit of the kindness miss clare had shown the woman. i doubt if any one else could have got the truth from her. even she found it difficult; for to tell her that if she was theo's mother she should not be punished, might be only to tempt her to lie. all miss clare could do was to assure her of the kindness of every one concerned, and to urge her to disclose her reasons for doing such a grievous wrong as steal another woman's child. "they stole my child," she blurted out at last, when the cruelty of the action was pressed upon her. "oh, no!" said miss clare: "you left her to die in the cold." "no, no!" she cried. "i wanted somebody to hear her, and take her in. i wasn't far off, and was just going to take her again, when i saw a light, and heard them searching for her. oh, dear! oh, dear!" "then how can you say they stole her? you would have had no child at all, but for them. she was nearly dead when they found her. and in return you go and steal their grandchild!" "they took her from me afterwards. they wouldn't let me have my own flesh and blood. i wanted to let them know what it was to have _their_ child taken from them." "how could they tell she was your child, when you stole her away like a thief? it might, for any thing they knew, be some other woman stealing her, as you stole theirs the other day? what would have become of you if it had been so?" to this reasoning she made no answer. "i want my child; i want my child," she moaned. then breaking out--"i shall kill myself if i don't get my child!" she cried. "oh, lady, you don't know what it is to have a child and not have her! i shall kill myself if they don't give me her back. they can't say i did their child any harm. i was as good to her as if she had been my own." "they know that quite well, and don't want to punish you. would you like to see your child?" she clasped her hands above her head, fell on her knees at miss clare's feet, and looked up in her face without uttering a word. "i will speak to mr. walton," said miss clare; and left her. the next morning she was discharged, at the request of my husband, who brought her home with him. sympathy with the mother-passion in her bosom had melted away all my resentment. she was a fine young woman, of about five and twenty, though her weather-browned complexion made her look at first much older. with the help of the servants, i persuaded her to have a bath, during which they removed her clothes, and substituted others. she objected to putting them on; seemed half-frightened at them, as if they might involve some shape of bondage, and begged to have her own again. at last jemima, who, although so sparingly provided with brains, is not without genius, prevailed upon her, insisting that her little girl would turn away from her if she wasn't well dressed, for she had been used to see ladies about her. with a deep sigh, she yielded; begging, however, to have her old garments restored to her. she had brought with her a small bundle, tied up in a cotton handkerchief; and from it she now took a scarf of red silk, and twisted it up with her black hair in a fashion i had never seen before. in this head-dress she had almost a brilliant look; while her carriage had a certain dignity hard of association with poverty--not inconsistent, however, with what i have since learned about the gypsies. my husband admired her even more than i did, and made a very good sketch of her. her eyes were large and dark--unquestionably fine; and if there was not much of the light of thought in them, they had a certain wildness which in a measure made up for the want. she had rather a spanish than an eastern look, i thought, with an air of defiance that prevented me from feeling at ease with her; but in the presence of miss clare she seemed humbler, and answered her questions more readily than ours. if ethel was in the room, her eyes would be constantly wandering after her, with a wistful, troubled, eager look. surely, the mother-passion must have infinite relations and destinies. as i was unable to leave home, my father persuaded miss clare to accompany him and help him to take charge of her. i confess it was a relief to me when she left the house; for though i wanted to be as kind to her as i could, i felt considerable discomfort in her presence. when miss clare returned, the next day but one, i found she had got from her the main points of her history, fully justifying previous conjectures of my father's, founded on what he knew of the character and customs of the gypsies. she belonged to one of the principal gypsy families in this country. the fact that they had no settled habitation, but lived in tents, like abraham and isaac, had nothing to do with poverty. the silver buttons on her father's coat, were, she said, worth nearly twenty pounds; and when a friend of any distinction came to tea with them, they spread a table-cloth of fine linen on the grass, and set out upon it the best of china, and a tea-service of hall-marked silver. she said her friends--as much as any gentleman in the land--scorned stealing; and affirmed that no real gypsy would "risk his neck for his belly," except he were driven by hunger. all her family could read, she said, and carried a big bible about with them. one summer they were encamped for several months in the neighborhood of edinburgh, making horn-spoons and baskets, and some of them working in tin. there they were visited by a clergyman, who talked and read the bible to them, and prayed with them. but all their visitors ware not of the same sort with him. one of them was a young fellow of loose character, a clerk in the city, who, attracted by her appearance, prevailed upon her to meet him often. she was not then eighteen. any aberration from the paths of modesty is exceedingly rare among the gypsies, and regarded with severity; and her father, hearing of this, gave her a terrible punishment with the whip he used in driving his horses. in terror of what would follow when the worst came to be known, she ran away; and, soon forsaken by her so-called lover, wandered about, a common vagrant, until her baby was born--under the stars, on a summer night, in a field of long grass. for some time she wandered up and down, longing to join some tribe of her own people, but dreading unspeakably the disgrace of her motherhood. at length, having found a home for her child, she associated herself with a gang of gypsies of inferior character, amongst whom she had many hardships to endure. things, however, bettered a little after one of their number was hanged for stabbing a cousin, and her position improved. it was not, however, any intention of carrying off her child to share her present lot, but the urgings of mere mother-hunger for a sight of her, that drove her to the hall. when she had succeeded in enticing her out of sight of the house, however, the longing to possess her grew fierce; and braving all consequences, or rather, i presume, unable to weigh them, she did carry her away. foiled in this attempt, and seeing that her chances of future success in any similar one were diminished by it, she sought some other plan. learning that one of the family was married, and had removed to london, she succeeded, through gypsy acquaintances who lodged occasionally near tottenham court road, in finding out where we lived, and carried off ethel with the vague intent, as we had rightly conjectured, of using her as a means for the recovery of her own child. theodora was now about seven years of age--almost as wild as ever. although tolerably obedient, she was not nearly so much so as the other children had been at her age; partly, perhaps, because my father could not bring himself to use that severity to the child of other people with which he had judged it proper to treat his own. miss clare was present, with my father and the rest of the family, when the mother and daughter met. they were all more than curious to see how the child would behave, and whether there would be any signs of an instinct that drew her to her parent. in this, however, they were disappointed. it was a fine warm forenoon when she came running on to the lawn where they were assembled,--the gypsy mother with them. "there she is!" said my father to the woman. "make the best of yourself you can." miss clare said the poor creature turned very pale, but her eyes glowed with such a fire! with the cunning of her race, she knew better than bound forward and catch up the child in her arms. she walked away from the rest, and stood watching the little damsel, romping merrily with mr. wagtail. they thought she recognized the dog, and was afraid of him. she had put on a few silver ornaments which she had either kept or managed to procure, notwithstanding her poverty; for both the men and women of her race manifest in a strong degree that love for barbaric adornment which, as well as their other peculiarities, points to an eastern origin. the glittering of these in the sun, and the glow of her red scarf in her dark hair, along with the strangeness of her whole appearance, attracted the child, and she approached to look at her nearer. then the mother took from her pocket a large gilded ball, which had probably been one of the ornaments on the top of a clock, and rolled it gleaming golden along the grass. theo and mr. wagtail bounded after it with a shriek and a bark. having examined it for a moment, the child threw it again along the lawn; and this time the mother, lithe as a leopard and fleet as a savage, joined in the chase, caught it first, and again sent it spinning away, farther from the assembled group. once more all three followed in swift pursuit; but this time the mother took care to allow the child to seize the treasure. after the sport had continued a little while, what seemed a general consultation, of mother, child, and dog, took place over the bauble; and presently they saw that theo was eating something. "i trust," said my mother, "she won't hurt the child with any nasty stuff." "she will not do so wittingly," said my father, "you may be sure. anyhow, we must not interfere." in a few minutes more the mother approached them with a subdued look of triumph, and her eyes overflowing with light, carrying the child in her arms. theo was playing with some foreign coins which adorned her hair, and with a string of coral and silver beads round her neck. for the rest of the day they were left to do much as they pleased; only every one kept good watch. but in the joy of recovering her child, the mother seemed herself to have gained a new and childlike spirit. the more than willingness with which she hastened to do what, even in respect of her child, was requested of her, as if she fully acknowledged the right of authority in those who had been her best friends, was charming. whether this would last when the novelty of the new experience had worn off, whether jealousy would not then come in for its share in the ordering of her conduct, remained to be shown; but in the mean time the good in her was uppermost. she was allowed to spend a whole fortnight in making friends with her daughter, before a word was spoken about the future; the design of my father being through the child to win the mother. certain people considered him not eager enough to convert the wicked: whatever apparent indifference he showed in that direction arose from his utter belief in the guiding of god, and his dread of outrunning his designs. he would _follow_ the operations of the spirit. "your forced hot-house fruits," he would say, "are often finer to look at than those which have waited for god's wind and weather; but what are they worth in respect of all for the sake of which fruit exists?" until an opportunity, then, was thrown in his way, he would hold back; but when it was clear to him that he had to minister, then was he thoughtful, watchful, instant, unswerving. you might have seen him during this time, as the letters of connie informed me, often standing for minutes together watching the mother and daughter, and pondering in his heart concerning them. every advantage being thus afforded her, not without the stirring of some natural pangs in those who had hitherto mothered the child, the fortnight had not passed, before, to all appearance, the unknown mother was with the child the greatest favorite of all. and it was my father's expectation, for he was a profound believer in blood, that the natural and generic instincts of the child would be developed together; in other words, that as she grew in what was common to humanity, she would grow likewise in what belonged to her individual origin. this was not an altogether comforting expectation to those of us who neither had so much faith as he, nor saw so hopefully the good that lay in every evil. one twilight, he overheard the following talk between them. when they came near where he sat, theodora, carried by her mother, and pulling at her neck with her arms, was saying, "tell me; tell me; tell me," in the tone of one who would compel an answer to a question repeatedly asked in vain. "what do you want me to tell you?" said her mother. "you know well enough. tell me your name." in reply, she uttered a few words my father did not comprehend, and took to be zingaree. the child shook her petulantly and with violence, crying,-- "that's nonsense. i don't know what you say, and i don't know what to call you." my father had desired the household, if possible, to give no name to the woman in the child's hearing. "call me mam, if you like." "but you're not a lady, and i won't say ma'am to you," said theo, rude as a child will sometimes be when least she intends offence. her mother set her down, and gave a deep sigh. was it only that the child's restlessness and roughness tired her? my father thought otherwise. "tell me; tell me," the child persisted, beating her with her little clenched fist. "take me up again, and tell me, or i will make you." my father thought it time to interfere. he stepped forward. the mother started with a little cry, and caught up the child. "theo," said my father, "i cannot allow you to be rude, especially to one who loves you more than any one else loves you." the woman set her down again, dropped on her knees, and caught and kissed his hand. the child stared; but she stood in awe of my father,--perhaps the more that she had none for any one else,--and, when her mother lifted her once more, was carried away in silence. the difficulty was got over by the child's being told to call her mother _nurse_. my father was now sufficiently satisfied with immediate results to carry out the remainder of his contingent plan, of which my mother heartily approved. the gardener and his wife being elderly people, and having no family, therefore not requiring the whole of their cottage, which was within a short distance of the house, could spare a room, which my mother got arranged for the gypsy; and there she was housed, with free access to her child, and the understanding that when theo liked to sleep with her, she was at liberty to do so. she was always ready to make herself useful; but it was little she could do for some time, and it was with difficulty that she settled to any occupation at all continuous. before long it became evident that her old habits were working in her and making her restless. she was pining after the liberty of her old wandering life, with sun and wind, space and change, all about her. it was spring; and the reviving life of nature was rousing in her the longing for motion and room and variety engendered by the roving centuries which had passed since first her ancestors were driven from their homes in far hindostan. but my father had foreseen the probability, and had already thought over what could be done for her if the wandering passion should revive too powerfully. he reasoned that there was nothing bad in such an impulse,--one doubtless, which would have been felt in all its force by abraham himself, had he quitted his tents and gone to dwell in a city,--however much its indulgence might place her at a disadvantage in the midst of a settled social order. he saw, too, that any attempt to coerce it would probably result in entire frustration; that the passion for old forms of freedom would gather tenfold vigor in consequence. it would be far better to favor its indulgence, in the hope that the love of her child would, like an elastic but infrangible cord, gradually tame her down to a more settled life. he proposed, therefore, that she should, as a matter of duty, go and visit her parents, and let them know of her welfare. she looked alarmed. "your father will show you no unkindness, i am certain, after the lapse of so many years," he added. "think it over, and tell me to-morrow how you feel about it. you shall go by train to edinburgh, and once there you will soon be able to find them. of course you couldn't take the child with you; but she will be safe with us till you come back." the result was that she went; and having found her people, and spent a fortnight with them, returned in less than a month. the rest of the year she remained quietly at home, stilling her desires by frequent and long rambles with her child, in which mr. wagtail always accompanied them. my father thought it better to run the risk of her escaping, than force the thought of it upon her by appearing not to trust her. but it came out that she had a suspicion that the dog was there to prevent, or at least expose, any such imprudence. the following spring she went on a second visit to her friends, but was back within a week, and the next year did not go at all. meantime my father did what he could to teach her, presenting every truth as something it was necessary she should teach her child. with this duty, he said, he always baited the hook with which he fished for her; "or, to take a figure from the old hawking days, her eyas is the lure with which i would reclaim the haggard hawk." what will be the final result, who dares prophesy? at my old home she still resides; grateful, and in some measure useful, idolizing, but not altogether spoiling her child, who understands the relation between them, and now calls her mother. dora teaches theo, and the mother comes in for what share she inclines to appropriate. she does not take much to reading, but she is fond of listening; and is a regular and devout attendant at public worship. above all, they have sufficing proof that her conscience is awake, and that she gives some heed to what it says. mr. blackstone was right when he told me that good i was unable to foresee would result from the loss which then drowned me in despair. chapter xxvi. troubles. in the beginning of the following year, the lady who filled miss clare's place was married, and miss clare resumed the teaching of judy's children. she was now so handsomely paid for her lessons, that she had reduced the number of her engagements very much, and had more time to give to the plans in which she labored with lady bernard. the latter would willingly have settled such an annuity upon her as would have enabled her to devote all her time to this object; but miss clare felt that the earning of her bread was one of the natural ties that bound her in the bundle of social life; and that in what she did of a spiritual kind, she must be untrammelled by money-relations. if she could not do both,--provide for herself and assist others,--it would be a different thing, she said; for then it would be clear that providence intended her to receive the hire of the laborer for the necessity laid upon her. but what influenced her chiefly was the dread of having anything she did for her friends attributed to professional motives, instead of the recognition of eternal relations. besides, as she said, it would both lessen the means at lady bernard's disposal, and cause herself to feel bound to spend all her energies in that one direction; in which case she would be deprived of the recreative influences of change and more polished society. in her labor, she would yet feel her freedom, and would not serve even lady bernard for money, except she saw clearly that such was the will of the one master. in thus refusing her offer, she but rose in her friend's estimation. in the spring, great trouble fell upon the morleys. one of the children was taken with scarlet-fever; and then another and another was seized in such rapid succession--until five of them were lying ill together--that there was no time to think of removing them. cousin judy would accept no assistance in nursing them, beyond that of her own maids, until her strength gave way, and she took the infection herself in the form of diphtheria; when she was compelled to take to her bed, in such agony at the thought of handing her children over to hired nurses, that there was great ground for fearing her strength would yield. she lay moaning, with her eyes shut, when a hand was laid on hers, and miss clare's voice was in her ear. she had come to give her usual lesson to one of the girls who had as yet escaped the infection: for, while she took every precaution, she never turned aside from her work for any dread of consequences; and when she heard that mrs. morley had been taken ill, she walked straight to her room. "go away!" said judy. "do you want to die too?" "dear mrs. morley," said miss clare, "i will just run home, and make a few arrangements, and then come back and nurse you." "never mind me," said judy. "the children! the children! what _shall_ i do?" "i am quite able to look after you all--if you will allow me to bring a young woman to help me." "you are an angel!" said poor judy. "but there is no occasion to bring any one with you. my servants are quite competent." "i must have every thing in my own hands," said miss clare; "and therefore must have some one who will do exactly as i tell her. this girl has been with me now for some time, and i can depend upon her. servants always look down upon governesses." "do whatever you like, you blessed creature," said judy. "if any one of my servants behaves improperly to you, or neglects your orders, she shall go as soon as i am up again." "i would rather give them as little opportunity as i can of running the risk. if i may bring this friend of my own, i shall soon have the house under hospital regulations. but i have been talking too much. i might almost have returned by this time. it is a bad beginning if i have hurt you already by saying more than was necessary." she had hardly left the room before judy had fallen asleep, so much was she relieved by the offer of her services. ere she awoke, marion was in a cab on her way back to bolivar square, with her friend and two carpet-bags. within an hour, she had intrenched herself in a spare bedroom, had lighted a fire, got encumbering finery out of the way, arranged all the medicines on a chest of drawers, and set the clock on the mantle-piece going; made the round of the patients, who were all in adjoining rooms, and the round of the house, to see that the disinfectants were fresh and active, added to their number, and then gone to await the arrival of the medical attendant in mrs. morley's room. "dr. brand might have been a little more gracious," said judy; "but i thought it better not to interrupt him by explaining that you were not the professional nurse he took you for." "indeed, there was no occasion," answered miss clare. "i should have told him so myself, had it not been that i did a nurse's regular work in st. george's hospital for two months, and have been there for a week or so, several times since, so that i believe i have earned the right to be spoken to as such. anyhow, i understood every word he said." meeting mr. morley in the hall, the doctor advised him not to go near his wife, diphtheria being so infectious; but comforted him with the assurance that the nurse appeared an intelligent young person, who would attend to all his directions; adding,-- "i could have wished she had been older; but there is a great deal of illness about, and experienced nurses are scarce." miss clare was a week in the house before mr. morley saw her, or knew she was there. one evening she ran down to the dining-room, where he sat over his lonely glass of madeira, to get some brandy, and went straight to the sideboard. as she turned to leave the room, he recognized her, and said, in some astonishment,-- "you need not trouble yourself, miss clare. the nurse can get what she wants from hawkins. indeed, i don't see"-- "excuse me, mr. morley. if you wish to speak to me, i will return in a few minutes; but i have a good deal to attend to just at this moment." she left the room; and, as he had said nothing in reply, did not return. two days after, about the same hour, whether suspecting the fact, or for some other reason, he requested the butler to send the nurse to him. "the nurse from the nursery, sir; or the young person as teaches the young ladies the piano?" asked hawkins. "i mean the sick-nurse," said his master. in a few minutes miss clare entered the dining-room, and approached mr. morley. "how do you do, miss clare?" he said stiffly; for to any one in his employment he was gracious only now and then. "allow me to say that i doubt the propriety of your being here so much. you cannot fail to carry the infection. i think your lessons had better be postponed until _all_ your pupils are able to benefit by them. i have just sent for the nurse; and,--if you please"-- "yes. hawkins told me you wanted me," said miss clare. "i did not want you. he must have mistaken." "i am the nurse, mr. morley." "then i _must_ say it is not with my approval," he returned, rising from his chair in anger. "i was given to understand that a properly-qualified person was in charge of my wife and family. this is no ordinary case, where a little coddling is all that is wanted." "i am perfectly qualified, mr. morley." he walked up and down the room several times. "i must speak to mrs. morley about this." he said. "i entreat you will not disturb her. she is not so well this afternoon." "how _is_ this, miss clare? pray explain to me how it is that you come to be taking a part in the affairs of the family so very different from that for which mrs. morley--which--was arranged between mrs. morley and yourself." "it is but an illustration of the law of supply and demand," answered marion. "a nurse was wanted; mrs. morley had strong objections to a hired nurse, and i was very glad to be able to set her mind at rest." "it was very obliging in you, no doubt," he returned, forcing the admission; "but--but"-- "let us leave it for the present, if you please; for while i am nurse, i must mind my business. dr. brand expresses himself quite satisfied with me, so far as we have gone; and it is better for the children, not to mention mrs. morley, to have some one about them they are used to." she left the room without waiting further parley. dr. brand, however, not only set mr. morley's mind at rest as to her efficiency, but when a terrible time of anxiety was at length over, during which one after another, and especially judy herself, had been in great danger, assured him that, but for the vigilance and intelligence of miss clare, joined to a certain soothing influence which she exercised over every one of her patients, he did not believe he could have brought mrs. morley through. then, indeed, he changed his tone to her, in a measure, still addressing her as from a height of superiority. they had recovered so far that they were to set out the next morning for hastings, when he thus addressed her, having sent for her once more to the dining-room:-- "i hope you will accompany them, miss clare," he said. "by this time you must be in no small need of a change yourself." "the best change for me will be lime court," she answered, laughing. "now, pray don't drive your goodness to the verge of absurdity," he said pleasantly. "indeed, i am anxious about my friends there," she returned. "i fear they have not been getting on quite so well without me. a bible-woman and a roman catholic have been quarrelling dreadfully, i hear." mr. morley compressed his lips. it _was_ annoying to be so much indebted to one who, from whatever motives, called such people her friends. "oblige me, then," he said loftily, taking an envelope from the mantle-piece, and handing it to her, "by opening that at your leisure." "i will open it now, if you please," she returned. it contained a bank-note for a hundred pounds. mr. morley, though a hard man, was not by any means stingy. she replaced it in the envelope, and laid it again on the chimney-piece. "you owe me nothing, mr. morley," she said. "owe you nothing! i owe you more than i can ever repay." "then don't try it, please. you are _very_ generous; but indeed i could not accept it." "you must oblige me. you _might_ take it from _me_," he added, almost pathetically, as if the bond was so close that money was nothing between them. "you are the last--one of the last i _could_ take money from, mr. morley." "why?" "because you think so much of it, and yet would look down on me the more if i accepted it." he bit his lip, rubbed his forehead with his hand, threw back his head, and turned away from her. "i should be very sorry to offend you," she said; "and, believe me, there is hardly any thing i value less than money. i have enough, and could have plenty more if i liked. i would rather have your friendship than all the money you possess. but that cannot be, so long as"-- she stopped: she was on the point of going too far, she thought. "so long as what?" he returned sternly. "so long as you are a worshipper of mammon," she answered; and left the room. she burst out crying when she came to this point. she had narrated the whole with the air of one making a confession. "i am afraid it was very wrong," she said; "and if so, then it was very rude as well. but something seemed to force it out of me. just think: there was a generous heart, clogged up with self-importance and wealth! to me, as he stood there on the hearth-rug, he was a most pitiable object--with an impervious wall betwixt him and the kingdom of heaven! he seemed like a man in a terrible dream, from which i _must_ awake him by calling aloud in his ear--except that, alas! the dream was not terrible to him, only to me! if he had been one of my poor friends, guilty of some plain fault, i should have told him so without compunction; and why not, being what he was? there he stood,--a man of estimable qualities, of beneficence, if not bounty; no miser, nor consciously unjust; yet a man whose heart the moth and rust were eating into a sponge!--who went to church every sunday, and had many friends, not one of whom, not even his own wife, would tell him that he was a mammon-worshipper, and losing his life. it may have been useless, it may have been wrong; but i felt driven to it by bare human pity for the misery i saw before me." "it looks to me as if you had the message given you to give him," i said. "but--though i don't know it--what if i was annoyed with him for offering me that wretched hundred pounds,--in doing which he was acting up to the light that was in him?" i could not help thinking of the light which is darkness, but i did not say so. strange tableau, in this our would-be grand nineteenth century,--a young and poor woman prophet-like rebuking a wealthy london merchant on his own hearth-rug, as a worshipper of mammon! i think she was right; not because he was wrong, but because, as i firmly believe, she did it from no personal motives whatever, although in her modesty she doubted herself. i believe it was from pure regard for the man and for the truth, urging her to an irrepressible utterance. if so, should we not say that she spoke by the spirit? only i shudder to think what utterance might, with an equal outward show, be attributed to the same spirit. well, to his own master every one standeth or falleth; whether an old prophet who, with a lie in his right hand, entraps an honorable guest, or a young prophet who, with repentance in his heart, walks calmly into the jaws of the waiting lion. [footnote: see the sermons of the rev. henry whitehead, vicar of st. john's, limehouse; as remarkable for the profundity of their insight us for the noble severity of their literary modelling.--g.m.d.] and no one can tell what effects the words may have had upon him. i do not believe he ever mentioned the circumstance to his wife. at all events, there was no change in her manner to miss clare. indeed, i could not help fancying that a little halo of quiet reverence now encircled the love in every look she cast upon her. she firmly believed that marion had saved her life, and that of more than one of her children. nothing, she said, could equal the quietness and tenderness and tirelessness of her nursing. she was never flurried, never impatient, and never frightened. even when the tears would be flowing down her face, the light never left her eyes nor the music her voice; and when they were all getting better, and she had the nursery piano brought out on the landing in the middle of the sick-rooms, and there played and sung to them, it was, she said, like the voice of an angel, come fresh to the earth, with the same old news of peace and good-will. when the children--this i had from the friend she brought with her--were tossing in the fever, and talking of strange and frightful things they saw, one word from her would quiet them; and her gentle, firm command was always sufficient to make the most fastidious and rebellious take his medicine. she came out of it very pale, and a good deal worn. but the day they set off for hastings, she returned to lime court. the next day she resumed her lessons, and soon recovered her usual appearance. a change of work, she always said, was the best restorative. but before a month was over i succeeded in persuading her to accept my mother's invitation to spend a week at the hall; and from this visit she returned quite invigorated. connie, whom she went to see,--for by this time she was married to mr. turner,--was especially delighted with her delight in the simplicities of nature. born and bred in the closest town-environment, she had yet a sensitiveness to all that made the country so dear to us who were born in it, which connie said surpassed ours, and gave her special satisfaction as proving that my oft recurring dread lest such feelings might but be the result of childish associations was groundless, and that they were essential to the human nature, and so felt by god himself. driving along in the pony-carriage,--for connie is not able to walk much, although she is well enough to enjoy life thoroughly,--marion would remark upon ten things in a morning, that my sister had never observed. the various effects of light and shade, and the variety of feeling they caused, especially interested her. she would spy out a lurking sunbeam, as another would find a hidden flower. it seemed as if not a glitter in its nest of gloom could escape her. she would leave the carriage, and make a long round through the fields or woods, and, when they met at the appointed spot, would have her hands full not of flowers only, but of leaves and grasses and weedy things, showing the deepest interest in such lowly forms as few would notice except from a scientific knowledge, of which she had none: it was the thing itself--its look and its home--that drew her attention. i cannot help thinking that this insight was profoundly one with her interest in the corresponding regions of human life and circumstance. chapter xxvii. miss clare amongst her friends. i must give an instance of the way in which marion--i am tired of calling her _miss clare_, and about this time i began to drop it--exercised her influence over her friends. i trust the episode, in a story so fragmentary as mine, made up of pieces only of a quiet and ordinary life, will not seem unsuitable. how i wish i could give it you as she told it to me! so graphic was her narrative, and so true to the forms of speech amongst the london poor. i must do what i can, well assured it must come far short of the original representation. one evening, as she was walking up to her attic, she heard a noise in one of the rooms, followed by a sound of weeping. it was occupied by a journeyman house-painter and his wife, who had been married several years, but whose only child had died about six months before, since which loss things had not been going on so well between them. some natures cannot bear sorrow: it makes them irritable, and, instead of drawing them closer to their own, tends to isolate them. when she entered, she found the woman crying, and the man in a lurid sulk. "what _is_ the matter?" she asked, no doubt in her usual cheerful tone. "i little thought it would come to this when i married him," sobbed the woman, while the man remained motionless and speechless on his chair, with his legs stretched out at full length before him. "would you mind telling me about it? there may be some mistake, you know." "there ain't no mistake in _that_," said the woman, removing the apron she had been holding to her eyes, and turning a cheek towards marion, upon which the marks of an open-handed blow were visible enough. "i didn't marry him to be knocked about like that." "she calls that knocking about, do she?" growled the husband. "what did she go for to throw her cotton gownd in my teeth for, as if it was my blame she warn't in silks and satins?" after a good deal of questioning on her part, and confused and recriminative statement on theirs, marion made out the following as the facts of the case:-- for the first time since they were married, the wife had had an invitation to spend the evening with some female friends. the party had taken place the night before; and although she had returned in ill-humor, it had not broken out until just as marion entered the house. the cause was this: none of the guests were in a station much superior to her own, yet she found herself the only one who had not a silk dress: hers was a print, and shabby. now, when she was married, she had a silk dress, of which she said her husband had been proud enough when they were walking together. but when she saw the last of it, she saw the last of its sort, for never another had he given her to her back; and she didn't marry him to come down in the world--that she didn't! "of course not," said marion. "you married him because you loved him, and thought him the finest fellow you knew." "and so he was then, grannie. but just look at him now!" the man moved uneasily, but without bending his outstretched legs. the fact was, that since the death of the child he had so far taken to drink that he was not unfrequently the worse for it; which had been a rare occurrence before. "it ain't my fault," he said, "when work ain't a-goin,' if i don't dress her like a duchess. i'm as proud to see my wife rigged out as e'er a man on 'em; and that _she_ know! and when she cast the contrairy up to me, i'm blowed if i could keep my hands off on her. she ain't the woman i took her for, miss. she _'ave_ a temper!" "i don't doubt it," said marion. "temper is a troublesome thing with all of us, and makes us do things we're sorry for afterwards. _you_'re sorry for striking her--ain't you, now?" there was no response. around the sullen heart silence closed again. doubtless he would have given much to obliterate the fact, but he would not confess that he had been wrong. we are so stupid, that confession seems to us to fix the wrong upon us, instead of throwing it, as it does, into the depths of the eternal sea. "i may have my temper," said the woman, a little mollified at finding, as she thought, that miss clare took her part; "but here am i, slaving from morning to night to make both ends meet, and goin' out every job i can get a-washin' or a-charin', and never 'avin' a bit of fun from year's end to year's end, and him off to his club, as he calls it!--an' it's a club he's like to blow out my brains with some night, when he comes home in a drunken fit; for it's worse _and_ worse he'll get, miss, like the rest on 'em, till no woman could be proud, as once i was, to call him hers. and when i do go out to tea for once in a way, to be jeered at by them as is no better nor no worse 'n myself, acause i ain't got a husband as cares enough for me to dress me decent!--that do stick i' my gizzard. i do dearly love to have neighbors think my husband care a bit about me, let-a-be 'at he don't, one hair; and when he send me out like that"-- here she broke down afresh. "why didn't ye stop at home then? i didn't tell ye to go," he said fiercely, calling her a coarse name. "richard," said marion, "such words are not fit for _me_ to hear, still less for your own wife." "oh! never mind me: i'm used to sich," said the woman spitefully. "it's a lie," roared the man: "i never named sich a word to ye afore. it do make me mad to hear ye. i drink the clothes off your back, do i? if i bed the money, ye might go in velvet and lace for aught i cared!" "_she_ would care little to go in gold and diamonds, if _you_ didn't care to see her in them," said marion. at this the woman burst into fresh tears, and the man put on a face of contempt,--the worst sign, marion said, she had yet seen in him, not excepting the blow; for to despise is worse than to strike. i can't help stopping my story here to put in a reflection that forces itself upon me. many a man would regard with disgust the idea of striking his wife, who will yet cherish against her an aversion which is infinitely worse. the working-man who strikes his wife, but is sorry for it, and tries to make amends by being more tender after it, a result which many a woman will consider cheap at the price of a blow endured,--is an immeasurably superior husband to the gentleman who shows his wife the most absolute politeness, but uses that very politeness as a breastwork to fortify himself in his disregard and contempt. marion saw that while the tides ran thus high, nothing could be done; certainly, at least, in the way of argument. whether the man had been drinking she could not tell, but suspected that must have a share in the evil of his mood. she went up to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said,-- "you're out of sorts, richard. come and have a cup of tea, and i will sing to you." "i don't want no tea." "you're fond of the piano, though. and you like to hear me sing, don't you?" "well, i do," he muttered, as if the admission were forced from him. "come with me, then." he dragged himself up from his chair, and was about to follow her. "you ain't going to take him from me, grannie, after he's been and struck me?" interposed his wife, in a tone half pathetic, half injured. "come after us in a few minutes," said marion, in a low voice, and led the way from the room. quiet as a lamb richard followed her up stairs. she made him sit in the easy-chair, and began with a low, plaintive song, which she followed with other songs and music of a similar character. he neither heard nor saw his wife enter, and both sat for about twenty minutes without a word spoken. then marion made a pause, and the wife rose and approached her husband. he was fast asleep. "don't wake him," said marion; "let him have his sleep out. you go down and get the place tidy, and a nice bit of supper for him--if you can." "oh, yes! he brought me home his week's wages this very night." "the whole?" "yes, grannie" "then weren't you too hard upon him? just think: he had been trying to behave himself, and had got the better of the public-house for once, and come home fancying you'd be so pleased to see him; and you"-- "he'd been drinking," interrupted eliza. "only he said as how it was but a pot of beer he'd won in a wager from a mate of his." "well, if, after that beginning, he yet brought you home his money, he ought to have had another kind of reception. to think of the wife of a poor man making such a fuss about a silk dress! why, eliza, i never had a silk dress in my life; and i don't think i ever shall." "laws, grannie! who'd ha' thought that now!" "you see i have other uses for my money than buying things for show." "that you do, grannie! but you see," she added, somewhat inconsequently, "we ain't got no child, and dick he take it ill of me, and don't care to save his money; so he never takes me out nowheres, and i do be so tired o' stopping indoors, every day and all day long, that it turns me sour, i do believe. i didn't use to be cross-grained, miss. but, laws! i feels now as if i'd let him knock me about ever so, if only he wouldn't say as how it was nothing to him if i was dressed ever so fine." "you run and get his supper." eliza went; and marion, sitting down again to her instrument, improvised for an hour. next to her new testament, this was her greatest comfort. she sung and prayed both in one then, and nobody but god heard any thing but the piano. nor did it impede the flow of her best thoughts, that in a chair beside her slumbered a weary man, the waves of whose evil passions she had stilled, and the sting of whose disappointments she had soothed, with the sweet airs and concords of her own spirit. who could say what tender influences might not be stealing over him, borne on the fair sounds? for even the formless and the void was roused into life and joy by the wind that roamed over the face of its deep. no humanity jarred with hers. in the presence of the most degraded, she felt god there. a face, even if besotted, _was_ a face, only in virtue of being in the image of god. that a man was a man at all, must be because he was god's. and this man was far indeed from being of the worst. with him beside her, she could pray with most of the good of having the door of her closet shut, and some of the good of the gathering together as well. thus was love, as ever, the assimilator of the foreign, the harmonizer of the unlike; the builder of the temple in the desert, and of the chamber in the market-place. as she sat and discoursed with herself, she perceived that the woman was as certainly suffering from _ennui_ as any fine lady in mayfair. "have you ever been to the national gallery, richard?" she asked, without turning her head, the moment she heard him move. "no, grannie," he answered with a yawn. "don'a' most know what sort of a place it be now. waxwork, ain't it?" "no. it's a great place full of pictures, many of them hundreds of years old. they're taken care of by the government, just for people to go and look at. wouldn't you like to go and see them some day?" "donno as i should much." "if i were to go with you, now, and explain some of them to you? i want you to take your wife and me out for a holiday. you can't think, you who go out to your work every day, how tiresome it is to be in the house from morning to night, especially at this time of the year, when the sun's shining, and the very sparrows trying to sing!" "she may go out when she please, grannie. i ain't no tyrant." "but she doesn't care to go without you. you wouldn't have her like one of those slatternly women you see standing at the corners, with their fists in their sides and their elbows sticking out, ready to talk to anybody that comes in the way." "_my_ wife was never none o' sich, grannie. i knows her as well's e'er a one, though she do 'ave a temper of her own." at this moment eliza appeared in the door-way, saying,-- "will ye come to yer supper, dick? i ha' got a slice o' ham an' a hot tater for ye. come along." "well, i don't know as i mind--jest to please _you_, liza. i believe i ha' been asleep in grannie's cheer there, her a playin' an' a singin', i make no doubt, like a werry nightingerl, bless her, an' me a snorin' all to myself, like a runaway locomotive! won't _you_ come and have a slice o' the 'am, an' a tater, grannie? the more you ate, the less we'd grudge it." "i'm sure o' that," chimed in eliza. "do now, grannie; please do." "i will, with pleasure," said marion; and they went down together. eliza had got the table set out nicely, with a foaming jug of porter beside the ham and potatoes. before they had finished, marion had persuaded richard to take his wife and her to the national gallery, the next day but one, which, fortunately for her purpose, was whit monday, a day whereon richard, who was from the north always took a holiday. at the national gallery, the house-painter, in virtue of his craft, claimed the exercise of criticism; and his remarks were amusing enough. he had more than once painted a sign-board for a country inn, which fact formed a bridge between the covering of square yards with color and the painting of pictures; and he naturally used the vantage-ground thus gained to enhance his importance with his wife and miss clare. he was rather a clever fellow too, though as little educated in any other direction than that of his calling as might well be. all the woman seemed to care about in the pictures was this or that something which reminded her, often remotely enough i dare say, of her former life in the country. towards the close of their visit, they approached a picture--one of hobbima's, i think--which at once riveted her attention. "look, look, dick!" she cried. "there's just such a cart as my father used to drive to the town in. farmer white always sent _him_ when the mistress wanted any thing and he didn't care to go hisself. and, o dick! there's the very moral of the cottage we lived in! ain't it a love, now?" "nice enough," dick replied. "but it warn't there i seed you, liza. it wur at the big house where you was housemaid, you know. that'll be it, i suppose,--away there like, over the trees." they turned and looked at each other, and marion turned away. when she looked again, they were once more gazing at the picture, but close together, and hand in hand, like two children. as they went home in the omnibus, the two averred they had never spent a happier holiday in their lives; and from that day to this no sign of their quarrelling has come to marion's knowledge. they are not only her regular attendants on saturday evenings, but on sunday evenings as well, when she holds a sort of conversation-sermon with her friends. chapter xxviii. mr. morley. as soon as my cousin judy returned from hastings, i called to see her, and found them all restored, except amy, a child of between eight and nine. there was nothing very definite the matter with her, but she was white and thin, and looked wistful; the blue of her eyes had grown pale, and her fair locks had nearly lost the curl which had so well suited her rosy cheeks. she had been her father's pride for her looks, and her mother's for her sayings,--at once odd and simple. judy that morning reminded me how, one night, when she was about three years old, some time after she had gone to bed, she had called her nurse, and insisted on her mother's coming. judy went, prepared to find her feverish; for there had been jam-making that day, and she feared she had been having more than the portion which on such an occasion fell to her share. when she reached the nursery, amy begged to be taken up that she might say her prayers over again. her mother objected; but the child insisting, in that pretty, petulant way which so pleased her father, she yielded, thinking she must have omitted some clause in her prayers, and be therefore troubled in her conscience. amy accordingly kneeled by the bedside in her night-gown, and, having gone over all her petitions from beginning to end, paused a moment before the final word, and inserted the following special and peculiar request: "and, p'ease god, give me some more jam to-morrow-day, for ever and ever. amen." i remember my father being quite troubled when he heard that the child had been rebuked for offering what was probably her very first genuine prayer. the rebuke, however, had little effect on the equanimity of the petitioner, for she was fast asleep a moment after it. "there is one thing that puzzles and annoys me," said judy. "i can't think what it means. my husband tells me that miss clare was so rude to him, the day before we left for hastings, that he would rather not be aware of it any time she is in the house. those were his very words. 'i will not interfere with your doing as you think proper,' he said, 'seeing you consider yourself under such obligation to her; and i should be sorry to deprive her of the advantage of giving lessons in a house like this; but i wish you to be careful that the girls do not copy her manners. she has not by any means escaped the influence of the company she keeps.' i was utterly astonished, you may well think; but i could get no further explanation from him. he only said that when i wished to have her society of an evening, i must let him know, because he would then dine at his club. not knowing the grounds of his offence, there was little other argument i could use than the reiteration of my certainty that he must have misunderstood her. 'not in the least,' he said. 'i have no doubt she is to you every thing amiable; but she has taken some unaccountable aversion to me, and loses no opportunity of showing it. and i _don't_ think i deserve it.' i told him i was so sure he did not deserve it, that i must believe there was some mistake. but he only shook his head and raised his newspaper. you must help me, little coz." "how am i to help you, judy dear?" i returned. "i can't interfere between husband and wife, you know. if i dared such a thing, he would quarrel with me too--and rightly." "no, no," she returned, laughing: "i don't want your intercession. i only want you to find out from miss clare whether she knows how she has so mortally offended my husband. i believe she knows nothing about it. she _has_ a rather abrupt manner sometimes, you know; but then my husband is not so silly as to have taken such deep offence at that. help me, now--there's a dear!" i promised i would, and hence came the story i have already given. but marion was so distressed at the result of her words, and so anxious that judy should not be hurt, that she begged me, if i could manage it without a breach of verity, to avoid disclosing the matter; especially seeing mr. morley himself judged it too heinous to impart to his wife. how to manage it i could not think. but at length we arranged it between us. i told judy that marion confessed to having said something which had offended mr. morley; that she was very sorry, and hoped she need not say that such had not been her intention, but that, as mr. morley evidently preferred what had passed between them to remain unmentioned, to disclose it would be merely to swell the mischief. it would be better for them all, she requested me to say, that she should give up her lessons for the present; and therefore she hoped mrs. morley would excuse her. when i gave the message, judy cried, and said nothing. when the children heard that marion was not coming for a while, amy cried, the other girls looked very grave, and the boys protested. i have already mentioned that the fault i most disliked in those children was their incapacity for being petted. something of it still remains; but of late i have remarked a considerable improvement in this respect. they have not only grown in kindness, but in the gift of receiving kindness. i cannot but attribute this, in chief measure, to their illness and the lovely nursing of marion. they do not yet go to their mother for petting, and from myself will only endure it; but they are eager after such crumbs as marion, by no means lavish of it, will vouchsafe them. judy insisted that i should let mr. morley hear marion's message. "but the message is not to mr. morley," i said. "marion would never have thought of sending one to him." "but if i ask you to repeat it in his hearing, you will not refuse?" to this i consented; but i fear she was disappointed in the result. her husband only smiled sarcastically, drew in his chin, and showed himself a little more cheerful than usual. one morning, about two months after, as i was sitting in the drawing-room, with my baby on the floor beside me, i was surprised to see judy's brougham pull up at the little gate--for it was early. when she got out, i perceived at once that something was amiss, and ran to open the door. her eyes were red, and her cheeks ashy. the moment we reached the drawing-room, she sunk on the couch and burst into tears. "judy!" i cried, "what _is_ the matter? is amy worse?" "no, no, cozzy dear; but we are ruined. we haven't a penny in the world. the children will be beggars." and there were the gay little horses champing their bits at the door, and the coachman sitting in all his glory, erect and impassive! i did my best to quiet her, urging no questions. with difficulty i got her to swallow a glass of wine, after which, with many interruptions and fresh outbursts of misery, she managed to let me understand that her husband had been speculating, and had failed. i could hardly believe myself awake. mr. morley was the last man i should have thought capable either of speculating, or of failing in it if he did. knowing nothing about business, i shall not attempt to explain the particulars. coincident failures amongst his correspondents had contributed to his fall. judy said he had not been like himself for months; but it was only the night before that he had told her they must give up their house in bolivar square, and take a small one in the suburbs. for any thing he could see, he said, he must look out for a situation. "still you may be happier than ever, judy. i can tell you that happiness does not depend on riches," i said, though i could not help crying with her. "it's a different thing though, after you've been used to them," she answered. "but the question is of bread for my children, not of putting down my carriage." she rose hurriedly. "where are you going? is there any thing i can do for you?" i asked. "nothing," she answered. "i left my husband at mr. baddeley's. he is as rich as croesus, and could write him a check that would float him." "he's too rich to be generous, i'm afraid," i said. "what do you mean by that?" she asked. "if he be so generous, how does it come that he is so rich?" "why, his father made the money." "then he most likely takes after his father. percivale says he does not believe a huge fortune was ever made of nothing, without such pinching of one's self and such scraping of others, or else such speculation, as is essentially dishonorable." "he stands high," murmured judy hopelessly. "whether what is dishonorable be also disreputable depends on how many there are of his own sort in the society in which he moves." "now, coz, you know nothing to his discredit, and he's our last hope." "i will say no more," i answered. "i hope i may be quite wrong. only i should expect nothing of _him_." when she reached mr. baddeley's her husband was gone. having driven to his counting-house, and been shown into his private room, she found him there with his head between his hands. the great man had declined doing any thing for him, and had even rebuked him for his imprudence, without wasting a thought on the fact that every penny he himself possessed was the result of the boldest speculation on the part of his father. a very few days only would elapse before the falling due of certain bills must at once disclose the state of his affairs. as soon as she had left me, percivale not being at home, i put on my bonnet, and went to find marion. i must tell _her_ every thing that caused me either joy or sorrow; and besides, she had all the right that love could give to know of judy's distress. i knew all her engagements, and therefore where to find her; and sent in my card, with the pencilled intimation that i would wait the close of her lesson. in a few minutes she came out and got into the cab. at once i told her my sad news. "could you take me to cambridge square to my next engagement?" she said. i was considerably surprised at the cool way in which she received the communication, but of course i gave the necessary directions. "is there any thing to be done?" she asked, after a pause. "i know of nothing," i answered. again she sat silent for a few minutes. "one can't move without knowing all the circumstances and particulars," she said at length. "and how to get at them? he wouldn't make a confidante of _me_," she said, smiling sadly. "ah! you little think what vast sums are concerned in such a failure as his!" i remarked, astounded that one with her knowledge of the world should talk as she did. "it will be best," she said, after still another pause, "to go to mr. blackstone. he has a wonderful acquaintance with business for a clergyman, and knows many of the city people." "what could any clergyman do in such a case?" i returned. "for mr. blackstone, mr. morley would not accept even consolation at his hands." "the time for that is not come yet," said marion. "we must try to help him some other way first. we will, if we can, make friends with him by means of the very mammon that has all but ruined him." she spoke of the great merchant just as she might of richard, or any of the bricklayers or mechanics, whose spiritual condition she pondered that she might aid it. "but what could mr. blackstone do?" i insisted. "all i should want of him would be to find out for me what mr. morley's liabilities are, and how much would serve to tide him over the bar of his present difficulties. i suspect he has few friends who would risk any thing for him. i understand he is no favorite in the city; and, if friendship do not come in, he must be stranded. you believe him an honorable man,--do you not?" she asked abruptly. "it never entered my head to doubt it," i replied. the moment we reached cambridge square she jumped out, ran up the steps, and knocked at the door. i waited, wondering if she was going to leave me thus without a farewell. when the door was opened, she merely gave a message to the man, and the same instant was again in the cab by my side. "now i am free!" she said, and told the man to drive to mile end. "i fear i can't go with you so far, marion," i said. "i must go home--i have so much to see to, and you can do quite as well without me. i don't know what you intend, but _please_ don't let any thing come out. i can trust _you_, but"-- "if you can trust me, i can trust mr. blackstone. he is the most cautious man in the world. shall i get out, and take another cab?" "no. you can drop me at tottenham court road, and i will go home by omnibus. but you must let me pay the cab." "no, no; i am richer than you: i have no children. what fun it is to spend money for mr. morley, and lay him under an obligation he will never know!" she said, laughing. the result of her endeavors was, that mr. blackstone, by a circuitous succession of introductions, reached mr. morley's confidential clerk, whom he was able so far to satisfy concerning his object in desiring the information, that he made him a full disclosure of the condition of affairs, and stated what sum would be sufficient to carry them over their difficulties; though, he added, the greatest care, and every possible reduction of expenditure for some years, would be indispensable to their complete restoration. mr. blackstone carried his discoveries to miss clare and she to lady bernard. "my dear marion," said lady bernard, "this is a serious matter you suggest. the man may be honest, and yet it may be of no use trying to help him. i don't want to bolster him up for a few months in order to see my money go after his. that's not what i've got to do with it. no doubt i could lose as much as you mention, without being crippled by it, for i hope it's no disgrace in me to be rich, as it's none in you to be poor; but i hate waste, and i will _not_ be guilty of it. if mr. morley will convince me and any friend or man of business to whom i may refer the matter, that there is good probability of his recovering himself by means of it, then, and not till then, i shall feel justified in risking the amount. for, as you say, it would prevent much misery to many besides that good-hearted creature, mrs. morley, and her children. it is worth doing if it can be done--not worth trying if it can't." "shall i write for you, and ask him to come and see you?" "no, my dear. if i do a kindness, i must do it humbly. it is a great liberty to take with a man to offer him a kindness. i must go to him. i could not use the same freedom with a man in misfortune as with one in prosperity. i would have such a one feel that his money or his poverty made no difference to me; and mr. morley wants that lesson, if any man does. besides, after all, i may not be able to do it for him, and he would have good reason to be hurt if i had made him dance attendance on me." the same evening lady bernard's shabby one-horse-brougham stopped at mr. morley's door. she asked to see mrs. morley, and through her had an interview with her husband. without circumlocution, she told him that if he would lay his affairs before her and a certain accountant she named, to use their judgment regarding them in the hope of finding it possible to serve him, they would wait upon him for that purpose at any time and place he pleased. mr. morley expressed his obligation,--not very warmly, she said,--repudiating, however, the slightest objection to her ladyship's knowing now what all the world must know the next day but one. early the following morning lady bernard and the accountant met mr. morley at his place in the city, and by three o'clock in the afternoon fifteen thousand pounds were handed in to his account at his banker's. the carriage was put down, the butler, one of the footmen, and the lady's maid, were dismissed, and household arrangements fitted to a different scale. one consequence of this chastisement, as of the preceding, was, that the whole family drew yet more closely and lovingly together; and i must say for judy, that, after a few weeks of what she called poverty, her spirits seemed in no degree the worse for the trial. at marion's earnest entreaty no one told either mr. or mrs. morley of the share she had had in saving his credit and social position. for some time she suffered from doubt as to whether she had had any right to interpose in the matter, and might not have injured mr. morley by depriving him of the discipline of poverty; but she reasoned with herself, that, had it been necessary for him, her efforts would have been frustrated; and reminded herself, that, although his commercial credit had escaped, it must still be a considerable trial to him to live in reduced style. but that it was not all the trial needful for him, was soon apparent; for his favorite amy began to pine more rapidly, and judy saw, that, except some change speedily took place, they could not have her with them long. the father, however, refused to admit the idea that she was in danger. i suppose he felt as if, were he once to allow the possibility of losing her, from that moment there would be no stay between her and the grave: it would be a giving of her over to death. but whatever dr. brand suggested was eagerly followed. when the chills of autumn drew near, her mother took her to ventnor; but little change followed, and before the new year she was gone. it was the first death, beyond that of an infant, they had had in their family, and took place at a time when the pressure of business obligations rendered it impossible for her father to be out of london: he could only go to lay her in the earth, and bring back his wife. judy had never seen him weep before. certainly i never saw such a change in a man. he was literally bowed with grief, as if he bore a material burden on his back. the best feelings of his nature, unimpeded by any jar to his self-importance or his prejudices, had been able to spend themselves on the lovely little creature; and i do not believe any other suffering than the loss of such a child could have brought into play that in him which was purely human. he was at home one morning, ill for the first time in his life, when marion called on judy. while she waited in the drawing-room, he entered. he turned the moment he saw her, but had not taken two steps towards the door, when he turned again, and approached her. she went to meet him. he held out his hand. "she was very fond of you, miss clare," he said. "she was talking about you the very last time i saw her. let by-gones be by-gones between us." "i was very rough and rude to you, mr. morley, and i am very sorry," said marion. "but you spoke the truth," he rejoined. "i thought i was above being spoken to like a sinner, but i don't know now why not." he sat down on a couch, and leaned his head on his hand. marion took a chair near him, but could not speak. "it is very hard," he murmured at length. "whom the lord loveth he chasteneth," said marion. "that may be true in some cases, but i have no right to believe it applies to me. he loved the child, i would fain believe; for i dare not think of her either as having ceased to be, or as alone in the world to which she has gone. you do think, miss clare, do you not, that we shall know our friends in another world?" "i believe," answered marion, "that god sent you that child for the express purpose of enticing you back to himself; and, if i believe any thing at all, i believe that the gifts of god are without repentance." whether or not he understood her she could not tell, for at this point judy came in. seeing them together she would have withdrawn again; but her husband called her, with more tenderness in his voice than marion could have imagined belonging to it. "come, my dear. miss clare and i were talking about our little angel. i didn't think ever to speak of her again, but i fear i am growing foolish. all the strength is out of me; and i feel so tired,--so weary of every thing!" she sat down beside him, and took his hand. marion crept away to the children. an hour after, judy found her in the nursery, with the youngest on her knee, and the rest all about her. she was telling them that we were sent into this world to learn to be good, and then go back to god from whom we came, like little amy. "when i go out to-mowwow," said one little fellow, about four years old, "i'll look up into the sky vewy hard, wight up; and then i shall see amy, and god saying to her, 'hushaby, poo' amy! you bette' now, amy?' sha'n't i, mawion?" she had taught them to call her marion. "no, my pet: you might look and look, all day long, and every day, and never see god or amy." "then they _ain't_ there!" he exclaimed indignantly. "god is there, anyhow," she answered; "only you can't see him that way." "i don't care about seeing god," said the next elder: "it's amy i want to see. do tell me, marion, how we are to see amy. it's too bad if we're never to see her again; and i don't think it's fair." "i will tell you the only way i know. when jesus was in the world, he told us that all who had clean hearts should see god. that's how jesus himself saw god." "it's amy, i tell you, marion--it's not god i want to see," insisted the one who had last spoken. "well, my dear, but how can you see amy if you can't even see god? if amy be in god's arms, the first thing, in order to find her, is to find god. to be good is the only way to get near to anybody. when you're naughty, willie, you can't get near your mamma, can you?" "yes, i can. i can get close up to her." "is that near enough? would you be quite content with that? even when she turns away her face and won't look at you?" the little caviller was silent. "did you ever see god, marion?" asked one of the girls. she thought for a moment before giving an answer. "no," she said. "i've seen things just after he had done them; and i think i've heard him speak to me; but i've never seen him yet." "then you're not good, marion," said the free-thinker of the group. "no: that's just it. but i hope to be good some day, and then i _shall_ see him." "how do you grow good, marion?" asked the girl. "god is always trying to make me good," she answered; "and i try not to interfere with him." "but sometimes you forget, don't you?" "yes, i do." "and what do you do then?" "then i'm sorry and unhappy, and begin to try again." "and god don't mind much, does he?" "he minds very much until i mind; but after that he forgets it all,--takes all my naughtiness and throws it behind his back, and won't look at it." "that's very good of god," said the reasoner, but with such a self-satisfied air in his approval, that marion thought it time to stop. she came straight to me, and told me, with a face perfectly radiant, of the alteration in mr. morley's behavior to her, and, what was of much more consequence, the evident change that had begun to be wrought in him. i am not prepared to say that he has, as yet, shown a very shining light, but that some change has passed is evident in the whole man of him. i think the eternal wind must now be able to get in through some chink or other which the loss of his child has left behind. and, if the change were not going on, surely he would ere now have returned to his wallowing in the mire of mammon; for his former fortune is, i understand, all but restored to him. i fancy his growth in goodness might be known and measured by his progress in appreciating marion. he still regards her as extreme in her notions; but it is curious to see how, as they gradually sink into his understanding, he comes to adopt them as, and even to mistake them for, his own. chapter xxix. a strange text. for some time after the events last related, things went on pretty smoothly with us for several years. indeed, although i must confess that what i said in my haste, when mr. s. wanted me to write this book, namely, that nothing had ever happened to me worth telling, was by no means correct, and that i have found out my mistake in the process of writing it; yet, on the other hand, it must be granted that my story could never have reached the mere bulk required if i had not largely drawn upon the history of my friends to supplement my own. and it needs no prophetic gift to foresee that it will be the same to the end of the book. the lives of these friends, however, have had so much to do with all that is most precious to me in our own life, that, if i were to leave out only all that did not immediately touch upon the latter, the book, whatever it might appear to others, could not possibly then appear to myself any thing like a real representation of my actual life and experiences. the drawing might be correct,--but the color? what with my children, and the increase of social duty resulting from the growth of acquaintance,--occasioned in part by my success in persuading percivale to mingle a little more with his fellow-painters,--my heart and mind and hands were all pretty fully occupied; but i still managed to see marion two or three times a week, and to spend about so many hours with her, sometimes alone, sometimes with her friends as well. her society did much to keep my heart open, and to prevent it from becoming selfishly absorbed in its cares for husband and children. for love which is _only_ concentrating its force, that is, which is not at the same time widening its circle, is itself doomed, and for its objects ruinous, be those objects ever so sacred. god himself could never be content that his children should love him only; nor has he allowed the few to succeed who have tried after it: perhaps their divinest success has been their most mortifying failure. indeed, for exclusive love sharp suffering is often sent as the needful cure,--needful to break the stony crust, which, in the name of love for one's own, gathers about the divinely glowing core; a crust which, promising to cherish by keeping in the heat, would yet gradually thicken until all was crust; for truly, in things of the heart and spirit, as the warmth ceases to spread, the molten mass within ceases to glow, until at length, but for the divine care and discipline, there would be no love left for even spouse or child, only for self,--which is eternal death. for some time i had seen a considerable change in roger. it reached even to his dress. hitherto, when got up for dinner, he was what i was astonished to hear my eldest boy, the other day, call "a howling swell;" but at other times he did not even escape remark,--not for the oddity merely, but the slovenliness of his attire. he had worn, for more years than i dare guess, a brown coat, of some rich-looking stuff, whose long pile was stuck together in many places with spots and dabs of paint, so that he looked like our long-haired bedlington terrier fido, towards the end of the week in muddy weather. this was now discarded; so far at least, as to be hung up in his brother's study, to be at hand when he did any thing for him there, and replaced by a more civilized garment of tweed, of which he actually showed himself a little careful: while, if his necktie _was_ red, it was of a very deep and rich red, and he had seldom worn one at all before; and his brigand-looking felt hat was exchanged for one of half the altitude, which he did not crush on his head with quite as many indentations as its surface could hold. he also began to go to church with us sometimes. but there was a greater and more significant change than any of these. we found that he was sticking more steadily to work. i can hardly say _his_ work; for he was jack-of-all-trades, as i have already indicated. he had a small income, left him by an old maiden aunt with whom he had been a favorite, which had hitherto seemed to do him nothing but harm, enabling him to alternate fits of comparative diligence with fits of positive idleness. i have said also, i believe, that, although he could do nothing thoroughly, application alone was wanted to enable him to distinguish himself in more than one thing. his forte was engraving on wood; and my husband said, that, if he could do so well with so little practice as he had had, he must be capable of becoming an admirable engraver. to our delight, then, we discovered, all at once, that he had been working steadily for three months for the messrs. d----, whose place was not far from our house. he had said nothing about it to his brother, probably from having good reason to fear that he would regard it only as a _spurt_. having now, however, executed a block which greatly pleased himself, he had brought a proof impression to show percivale; who, more pleased with it than even roger himself, gave him a hearty congratulation, and told him it would be a shame if he did not bring his execution in that art to perfection; from which, judging by the present specimen, he said it could not be far off. the words brought into roger's face an expression of modest gratification which it rejoiced me to behold: he accepted percivale's approbation more like a son than a brother, with a humid glow in his eyes and hardly a word on his lips. it seemed to me that the child in his heart had begun to throw off the swaddling clothes which foolish manhood had wrapped around it, and the germ of his being was about to assert itself. i have seldom indeed seen percivale look so pleased. "do me a dozen as good as that," he said, "and i'll have the proofs framed in silver gilt." it _has_ been done; but the proofs had to wait longer for the frame than percivale for the proofs. but he need have held out no such bribe of brotherly love, for there was another love already at work in himself more than sufficing to the affair. but i check myself: who shall say what love is sufficing for this or for that? who, with the most enduring and most passionate love his heart can hold, will venture to say that he could have done without the love of a brother? who will say that he could have done without the love of the dog whose bones have lain mouldering in his garden for twenty years? it is enough to say that there was a more engrossing, a more marvellous love at work. roger always, however, took a half-holiday on saturdays, and now generally came to us. on one of these occasions i said to him,-- "wouldn't you like to come and hear marion play to her friends this evening, roger?" "nothing would give me greater pleasure," he answered; and we went. it was delightful. in my opinion marion is a real artist. i do not claim for her the higher art of origination, though i could claim for her a much higher faculty than the artistic itself. i suspect, for instance, that moses was a greater man than the writer of the book of job, notwithstanding that the poet moves me so much more than the divine politician. marion combined in a wonderful way the critical faculty with the artistic; which two, however much of the one may be found without the other, are mutually essential to the perfection of each. while she uttered from herself, she heard with her audience; while she played and sung with her own fingers and mouth, she at the same time listened with their ears, knowing what they must feel, as well as what she meant to utter. and hence it was, i think, that she came into such vital contact with them, even through her piano. as we returned home, roger said, after some remark of mine of a cognate sort,-- "does she never try to teach them any thing, ethel?" "she is constantly teaching them, whether she tries or not," i answered. "if you can make any one believe that there is something somewhere to be trusted, is not that the best lesson you can give him? that can be taught only by being such that people cannot but trust you." "i didn't need to be told that," he answered. "what i want to know is, whether or not she ever teaches them by word of mouth,--an ordinary and inferior mode, if you will." "if you had ever heard her, you would not call hers an ordinary or inferior mode," i returned. "her teaching is the outcome of her life, the blossom of her being, and therefore has the whole force of her living truth to back it." "have i offended you, ethel?" he asked. then i saw, that, in my eagerness to glorify my friend, i had made myself unpleasant to roger,--a fault of which i had been dimly conscious before now. marion would never have fallen into that error. she always made her friends feel that she was _with_ them, side by side with them, and turning her face in the same direction, before she attempted to lead them farther. i assured him that he had not offended me, but that i had been foolishly backing him from the front, as i once heard an irishman say,--some of whose bulls were very good milch cows. "she teaches them every sunday evening," i added. "have you ever heard her?" "more than once. and i never heard any thing like it." "could you take me with you some time?" he asked, in an assumed tone of ordinary interest, out of which, however, he could not keep a slight tremble. "i don't know. i don't quite see why i shouldn't. and yet"-- "men do go," urged roger, as if it were a mere half-indifferent suggestion. "oh, yes! you would have plenty to keep you in countenance!" i returned,--"men enough--and worth teaching, too--some of them at least!" "then, i don't see why she should object to me for another." "i don't know that she would. you are not exactly of the sort, you know--that"-- "i don't see the difference. i see no essential difference, at least. the main thing is, that i am in want of teaching, as much as any of them. and, if she stands on circumstances, i am a working-man as much as any of them--perhaps more than most of them. few of them work after midnight, i should think, as i do, not unfrequently." "still, all admitted, i should hardly like"-- "i didn't mean you were to take me without asking her," he said: "i should never have dreamed of that." "and if i were to ask her, i am certain she would refuse. but," i added, thinking over the matter a little, "i will take you without asking her. come with me to-morrow night. i don't think she will have the heart to send you away." "i will," he answered, with more gladness in his voice than he intended, i think, to manifest itself. we arranged that he should call for me at a certain hour. i told percivale, and he pretended to grumble that i was taking roger instead of him. "it was roger, and not you, that made the request," i returned. "i can't say i see why you should go because roger asked. a woman's logic is not equal to that." "i didn't mean he wasn't to go. but why shouldn't i be done good to as well as he?" "if you really want to go," i said, "i don't see why you shouldn't. it's ever so much better than going to any church i know of--except one. but we must be prudent. i can't take more than one the first time. we must get the thin edge of the wedge in first." "and you count roger the thin edge?" "yes." "i'll tell him so." "do. the thin edge, mind, without which the thicker the rest is the more useless! tell him that if you like. but, seriously, i quite expect to take you there, too, the sunday after." roger and i went. intending to be a little late, we found when we readied the house, that, as we had wished, the class was already begun. in going up the stairs, we saw very few of the grown inhabitants, but in several of the rooms, of which the doors stood open, elder girls taking care of the younger children; in one, a boy nursing the baby with as much interest as any girl could have shown. we lingered on the way, wishing to give marion time to get so thoroughly into her work that she could take no notice of our intrusion. when we reached the last stair we could at length hear her voice, of which the first words we could distinguish, as we still ascended, were,-- "i will now read to you the chapter of which i spoke." the door being open, we could hear well enough, although she was sitting where we could not see her. we would not show ourselves until the reading was ended: so much, at least, we might overhear without offence. before she had read many words, roger and i began to cast strange looks on each other. for this was the chapter she read:-- "and joseph, wheresoever he went in the city, took the lord jesus with him, where he was sent for to work, to make gates, or milk-pails, or sieves, or boxes; the lord jesus was with him wheresoever he went. and as often as joseph had any thing in his work to make longer or shorter, or wider or narrower, the lord jesus would stretch his hand towards it. and presently it became as joseph would have it. so that he had no need to finish any thing with his own hands, for he was not very skilful at his carpenter's trade. "on a certain time the king of jerusalem sent for him, and said, i would have thee make me a throne of the same dimensions with that place in which i commonly sit. joseph obeyed, and forthwith began the work, and continued two years in the king's palace before he finished. and when he came to fix it in its place, he found it wanted two spans on each side of the appointed measure. which, when the king saw, he was very angry with joseph; and joseph, afraid of the king's anger, went to bed without his supper, taking not any thing to eat. then the lord jesus asked him what he was afraid of. joseph replied, because i have lost my labor in the work which i have been about these two years. jesus said to him, fear not, neither be cast down; do thou lay hold on one side of the throne, and i will the other, and we will bring it to its just dimensions. and when joseph had done as the lord jesus said, and each of them had with strength drawn his side, the throne obeyed, and was brought to the proper dimensions of the place; which miracle when they who stood by saw, they were astonished, and praised god. the throne was made of the same wood which was in being in solomon's time, namely, wood adorned with various shapes and figures." her voice ceased, and a pause followed. "we must go in now," i whispered. "she'll be going to say something now; just wait till she's started," said roger. "now, what do you think of it?" asked marion in a meditative tone. we crept within the scope of her vision, and stood. a voice, which i knew, was at the moment replying to her question. "_i_ don't think it's much of a chapter, that, grannie." the speaker was the keen-faced, elderly man, with iron-gray whiskers, who had come forward to talk to percivale on that miserable evening when we were out searching for little ethel. he sat near where we stood by the door, between two respectable looking women, who had been listening to the chapter as devoutly as if it had been of the true gospel. "sure, grannie, that ain't out o' the bible?" said another voice, from somewhere farther off. "we'll talk about that presently," answered marion. "i want to hear what mr. jarvis has to say to it: he's a carpenter himself, you see,--a joiner, that is, you know." all the faces in the room were now turned towards jarvis. "tell me why you don't think much of it, mr. jarvis," said marion. "'tain't a bit likely," he answered. "what isn't likely?" "why, not one single thing in the whole kit of it. and first and foremost, 'tain't a bit likely the old man 'ud ha' been sich a duffer." "why not? there must have been stupid people then as well as now." "not _his_ father." said jarvis decidedly. "he wasn't but his step-father, like, you know, mr. jarvis," remarked the woman beside him in a low voice. "well, he'd never ha' been _hers_, then. _she_ wouldn't ha' had a word to say to _him_." "i have seen a good--and wise woman too--with a dull husband," said marion. "you know you don't believe a word of it yourself, grannie," said still another voice. "besides," she went on without heeding the interruption, "in those times, i suspect, such things were mostly managed by the parents, and the woman herself had little to do with them." a murmur of subdued indignation arose,--chiefly of female voices. "well, _they_ wouldn't then," said jarvis. "he might have been rich," suggested marion. "i'll go bail _he_ never made the money then," said jarvis. "an old idget! i don't believe sich a feller 'ud ha' been _let_ marry a woman like her--i _don't_." "you mean you don't think god would have let him?" "well, that's what i _do_ mean, grannie. the thing couldn't ha' been, nohow." "i agree with you quite. and now i want to hear more of what in the story you don't consider likely." "well, it ain't likely sich a workman 'ud ha' stood so high i' the trade that the king of jerusalem would ha' sent for _him_ of all the tradesmen in the town to make his new throne for him. no more it ain't likely--and let him be as big a duffer as ever was, to be a jiner at all--that he'd ha' been two year at work on that there throne--an' a carvin' of it in figures too!--and never found out it was four spans too narrer for the place it had to stand in. do ye 'appen to know now, grannie, how much is a span?" "i don't know. do you know, mrs. percivale?" the sudden reference took me very much by surprise; but i had not forgotten, happily, the answer i received to the same question, when anxious to realize the monstrous height of goliath. "i remember my father telling me," i replied, "that it was as much as you could stretch between your thumb and little finger." "there!" cried jarvis triumphantly, parting the extreme members of his right hand against the back of the woman in front of him--"that would be seven or eight inches! four times that? two foot and a half at least! think of that!" "i admit the force of both your objections," said marion. "and now, to turn to a more important part of the story, what do you think of the way in which according to it he got his father out of his evil plight?" i saw plainly enough that she was quietly advancing towards some point in her view,--guiding the talk thitherward, steadily, without haste or effort. before jarvis had time to make any reply, the blind man, mentioned in a former chapter, struck in, with the tone of one who had been watching his opportunity. "_i_ make more o' that pint than the t'other," he said. "a man as is a duffer may well make a mull of a thing; but a man as knows what he's up to can't. i don't make much o' them miracles, you know, grannie--that is, i don't know, and what i don't know, i won't say as i knows; but what i'm sure of is this here one thing,--that man or boy as _could_ work a miracle, you know, grannie, wouldn't work no miracle as there wasn't no good working of." "it was to help his father," suggested marion. here jarvis broke in almost with scorn. "to help him to pass for a clever fellow, when he was as great a duffer as ever broke bread!" "i'm quite o' your opinion, mr. jarvis," said the blind man. "it 'ud ha' been more like him to tell his father what a duffer he was, and send him home to learn his trade." "he couldn't do that, you know," said marion gently. "he _couldn't_ use such words to his father, if he were ever so stupid." "his step-father, grannie," suggested the woman who had corrected jarvis on the same point. she spoke very modestly, but was clearly bent on holding forth what light she had. "certainly, mrs. renton; but you know he couldn't be rude to any one,--leaving his own mother's husband out of the question." "true for you, grannie," returned the woman. "i think, though," said jarvis, "for as hard as he'd ha' found it, it would ha' been more like him to set to work and teach his father, than to scamp up his mulls." "certainly," acquiesced marion. "to hide any man's faults, and leave him not only stupid, but, in all probability, obstinate and self-satisfied, would not be like _him_. suppose our lord had had such a father: what do you think he would have done?" "he'd ha' done all he could to make a man of him," answered jarvis. "wouldn't he have set about making him comfortable then, in spite of his blunders?" said marion. a significant silence followed this question. "well, _no_; not first thing, i don't think," returned jarvis at length. "he'd ha' got him o' some good first, and gone in to make him comfortable arter." "then i suppose you would rather be of some good and uncomfortable, than of no good and comfortable?" said marion. "i hope so, grannie," answered jarvis; and "_i_ would;" "yes;" "that i would," came from several voices in the little crowd, showing what an influence marion must have already had upon them. "then," she said,--and i saw by the light which rose in her eyes that she was now coming to the point,--"then, surely it must be worth our while to bear discomfort in order to grow of some good! mr. jarvis has truly said, that, if jesus had had such a father, he would have made him of some good before he made him comfortable: that is just the way your father in heaven is acting with you. not many of you would say you are of much good yet; but you would like to be better. and yet,--put it to yourselves,--do you not grumble at every thing that comes to you that you don't like, and call it bad luck, and worse--yes, even when you know it comes of your own fault, and nobody else's? you think if you had only this or that to make you comfortable, you would be content; and you call it very hard that so-and-so should be getting on well, and saving money, and you down on your luck, as you say. some of you even grumble that your neighbors' children should be healthy when yours are pining. you would allow that you are not of much good yet; but you forget that to make you comfortable as you are would be the same as to pull out joseph's misfitted thrones and doors, and make his misshapen buckets over again for him. that you think so absurd that you can't believe the story a bit; but you would be helped out of all _your_ troubles, even those you bring on yourselves, not thinking what the certain consequence would be, namely, that you would grow of less and less value, until you were of no good, either to god or man. if you think about it, you will see that i am right. when, for instance, are you most willing to do right? when are you most ready to hear about good things? when are you most inclined to pray to god? when you have plenty of money in your pockets, or when you are in want? when you have had a good dinner, or when you have not enough to get one? when you are in jolly health, or when the life seems ebbing out of you in misery and pain? no matter that you may have brought it on yourselves; it is no less god's way of bringing you back to him, for he decrees that suffering shall follow sin: it is just then you most need it; and, if it drives you to god, that is its end, and there will be an end of it. the prodigal was himself to blame for the want that made him a beggar at the swine's trough; yet that want was the greatest blessing god could give to him, for it drove him home to his father. "but some of you will say you are no prodigals; nor is it your fault that you find yourselves in such difficulties that life seems hard to you. it would be very wrong in me to set myself up as your judge, and to tell you that it _was_ your fault. if it is, god will let you know it. but if it be not your fault, it does not follow that you need the less to be driven back to god. it is not only in punishment of our sins that we are made to suffer: god's runaway children must be brought back to their home and their blessedness,--back to their father in heaven. it is not always a sign that god is displeased with us when he makes us suffer. 'whom the lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. if ye endure chastening, god dealeth with you as with sons.' but instead of talking more about it, i must take it to myself; and learn not to grumble when _my_ plans fail." "that's what _you_ never goes and does, grannie," growled a voice from somewhere. i learned afterwards it was that of a young tailor, who was constantly quarrelling with his mother. "i think i have given up grumbling at my circumstances," she rejoined; "but then i have nothing to grumble at in them. i haven't known hunger or cold for a great many years now. but i do feel discontented at times when i see some of you not getting better so fast as i should like. i ought to have patience, remembering how patient god is with my conceit and stupidity, and not expect too much of you. still, it can't be wrong to wish that you tried a good deal more to do what he wants of you. why should his children not be his friends? if you would but give yourselves up to him, you would find his yoke so easy, his burden so light! but you do it half only, and some of you not at all. "now, however, that we have got a lesson from a false gospel, we may as well get one from the true." as she spoke, she turned to her new testament which lay beside her. but jarvis interrupted her. "where did you get that stuff you was a readin' of to us, grannie?" he asked. "the chapter i read to you," she answered, "is part of a pretended gospel, called, 'the first gospel of the infancy of jesus christ.' i can't tell you who wrote it, or how it came to be written. all i can say is, that, very early in the history of the church, there were people who indulged themselves in inventing things about jesus, and seemed to have had no idea of the importance of keeping to facts, or, in other words, of speaking and writing only the truth. all they seemed to have cared about was the gratifying of their own feelings of love and veneration; and so they made up tales about him, in his honor as they supposed, no doubt, just as if he had been a false god of the greeks or romans. it is long before some people learn to speak the truth, even after they know it is wicked to lie. perhaps, however, they did not expect their stories to be received as facts, intending them only as a sort of recognized fiction about him,--amazing presumption at the best." "did anybody, then, ever believe the likes of that, grannie?" asked jarvis. "yes: what i read to you seems to have been believed within a hundred years after the death of the apostles. there are several such writings, with a great deal of nonsense in them, which were generally accepted by christian people for many hundreds of years." "i can't imagine how anybody could go inwentuating such things!" said the blind man. "it is hard for us to imagine. they could not have seen how their inventions would, in later times, be judged any thing but honoring to him in whose honor they wrote them. nothing, be it ever so well invented, can be so good as the bare truth. perhaps, however, no one in particular invented some of them, but the stories grew, just as a report often does amongst yourselves. although everybody fancies he or she is only telling just what was told to him or her, yet, by degrees, the pin's-point of a fact is covered over with lies upon lies, almost everybody adding something, until the report has grown to be a mighty falsehood. why, you had such a story yourselves, not so very long ago, about one of your best friends! one comfort is, such a story is sure not to be consistent with itself; it is sure to show its own falsehood to any one who is good enough to doubt it, and who will look into it, and examine it well. you don't, for instance, want any other proof than the things themselves to show you that what i have just read to you can't be true." "but then it puzzles me to think how anybody could believe them," said the blind man. "many of the early christians were so childishly simple that they would believe almost any thing that was told them. in a time when such nonsense could be written, it is no great wonder there should be many who could believe it." "then, what was their faith worth," said the blind man, "if they believed false and true all the same?" "worth no end to them," answered marion with eagerness; "for all the false things they might believe about him could not destroy the true ones, or prevent them from believing in jesus himself, and bettering their ways for his sake. and as they grew better and better, by doing what he told them, they would gradually come to disbelieve this and that foolish or bad thing." "but wouldn't that make them stop believing in him altogether?" "on the contrary, it would make them hold the firmer to all that they saw to be true about him. there are many people, i presume, in other countries, who believe those stories still; but all the christians i know have cast aside every one of those writings, and keep only to those we call the gospels. to throw away what is not true, because it is not true, will always help the heart to be truer; will make it the more anxious to cleave to what it sees must be true. jesus remonstrated with the jews that they would not of themselves judge what was right; and the man who lets god teach him is made abler to judge what is right a thousand-fold." "then don't you think it likely this much is true, grannie,"--said jarvis, probably interested in the question, in part at least, from the fact that he was himself a carpenter,--"that he worked with his father, and helped him in his trade?" "i do, indeed," answered marion. "i believe that is the one germ of truth in the whole story. it is possible even that some incidents of that part of his life may have been handed down a little way, at length losing all their shape, however, and turning into the kind of thing i read to you. not to mention that they called him the carpenter, is it likely he who came down for the express purpose of being a true man would see his father toiling to feed him and his mother and his brothers and sisters, and go idling about, instead of putting to his hand to help him? would that have been like him?" "certainly not," said mr. jarvis. but a doubtful murmur came from the blind man, which speedily took shape in the following remark:-- "i can't help thinkin', grannie, of one time--you read it to us not long ago--when he laid down in the boat and went fast asleep, takin' no more heed o' them a slavin' o' theirselves to death at their oars, than if they'd been all comfortable like hisself; that wasn't much like takin' of his share--was it now?" "john evans," returned marion with severity, "it is quite right to put any number of questions, and express any number of doubts you honestly feel; but you have no right to make remarks you would not make if you were anxious to be as fair to another as you would have another be to you. have you considered that he had been working hard all day long, and was, in fact, worn out? you don't think what hard work it is, and how exhausting, to speak for hours to great multitudes, and in the open air too, where your voice has no help to make it heard. and that's not all; for he had most likely been healing many as well; and i believe every time the power went out of him to cure, he suffered in the relief he gave; it left him weakened,--with so much the less of strength to support his labors,--so that, even in his very body, he took our iniquities and bare our infirmities. would you, then, blame a weary man, whose perfect faith in god rendered it impossible for him to fear any thing, that he lay down to rest in god's name, and left his friends to do their part for the redemption of the world in rowing him to the other side of the lake,--a thing they were doing every other day of their lives? you ought to consider before you make such remarks, mr. evans. and you forget also that the moment they called him, he rose to help them." "and find fault with them," interposed evans, rather viciously i thought. "yes; for they were to blame for their own trouble, and ought to send it away." "what! to blame for the storm? how could they send that away?" "was it the storm that troubled them then? it was their own fear of it. the storm could not have troubled them if they had had faith in their father in heaven." "they had good cause to be afraid of it, anyhow." "he judged they had not, for he was not afraid himself. you judge they had, because you would have been afraid." "he could help himself, you see." "and they couldn't trust either him or his father, notwithstanding all he had done to manifest himself and his father to them. therefore he saw that the storm about them was not the thing that most required rebuke." "i never pretended to much o' the sort," growled evans. "quite the contrairy." "and why? because, like an honest man, you wouldn't pretend to what you hadn't got. but, if you carried your honesty far enough, you would have taken pains to understand our lord first. like his other judges, you condemn him beforehand. you will not call that honesty?" "i don't see what right you've got to badger me like this before a congregation o' people," said the blind man, rising in indignation. "if i ain't got my heyesight, i ha' got my feelin's." "and do you think _he_ has no feelings, mr. evans? you have spoken evil of _him_: i have spoken but the truth of _you_!" "come, come, grannie," said the blind man, quailing a little; "don't talk squash. i'm a livin' man afore the heyes o' this here company, an' he ain't nowheres. bless you, _he_ don't mind!" "he minds so much," returned marion, in a subdued voice, which seemed to tremble with coming tears, "that he will never rest until you think fairly of him. and he is here now; for he said, 'i am with you alway, to the end of the world;' and he has heard every word you have been saying against him. he isn't angry like me; but your words may well make him feel sad--for your sake, john evans--that you should be so unfair." she leaned her forehead on her hand, and was silent. a subdued murmur arose. the blind man, having stood irresolute for a moment, began to make for the door, saying,-- "i think i'd better go. i ain't wanted here." "if you _are_ an honest man, mr. evans," returned marion, rising, "you will sit down and hear the case out." with a waving, fin-like motion of both his hands, evans sank into his seat, and spoke no word. after but a moment's silence, she resumed as if there had been no interruption. "that he should sleep, then, during the storm was a very different thing from declining to assist his father in his workshop; just as the rebuking of the sea was a very different thing from hiding up his father's bad work in miracles. had that father been in danger, he might perhaps have aided him as he did the disciples. but"-- "why do you say _perhaps_, grannie?" interrupted a bright-eyed boy who sat on the hob of the empty grate. "wouldn't he help his father as soon as his disciples?" "certainly, if it was good for his father; certainly not, if it was not good for him: therefore i say _perhaps_. but now," she went on, turning to the joiner, "mr. jarvis, will you tell me whether you think the work of the carpenter's son would have been in any way distinguishable from that of another man?" "well, i don't know, grannie. he wouldn't want to be putting of a private mark upon it. he wouldn't want to be showing of it off--would he? he'd use his tools like another man, anyhow." "all that we may be certain of. he came to us a man, to live a man's life, and do a man's work. but just think a moment. i will put the question again: do you suppose you would have been able to distinguish his work from that of any other man?" a silence followed. jarvis was thinking. he and the blind man were of the few that can think. at last his face brightened. "well, grannie," he said, "i think it would be very difficult in any thing easy, but very easy in any thing difficult." he laughed,--for he had not perceived the paradox before uttering it. "explain yourself, if you please, mr. jarvis. i am not sure that i understand you," said marion. "i mean, that, in an easy job, which any fair workman could do well enough, it would not be easy to tell his work. but, where the job was difficult, it would be so much better done, that it would not be difficult to see the better hand in it." "i understand you, then, to indicate, that the chief distinction would lie in the quality of the work; that whatever he did, he would do in such a thorough manner, that over the whole of what he turned out, as you would say, the perfection of the work would be a striking characteristic. is that it?" "that is what i do mean, grannie." "and that is just the conclusion i had come to myself." "_i_ should like to say just one word to it, grannie, so be you won't cut up crusty," said the blind man. "if you are fair, i sha'n't be crusty, mr. evans. at least, i hope not," said marion. "well, it's this: mr. jarvis he say as how the jiner-work done by jesus christ would be better done than e'er another man's,--tip-top fashion,--and there would lie the differ. now, it do seem to me as i've got no call to come to that 'ere conclusion. you been tellin' on us, grannie, i donno how long now, as how jesus christ was the son of god, and that he come to do the works of god,--down here like, afore our faces, that we might see god at work, by way of. now, i ha' nothin' to say agin that: it may be, or it mayn't be--i can't tell. but if that be the way on it, then i don't see how mr. jarvis can be right; the two don't curryspond,--not by no means. for the works o' god--there ain't one on'em as i can see downright well managed--tip-top jiner's work, as i may say; leastways,--now stop a bit, grannie; don't trip a man up, and then say as he fell over his own dog,--leastways, i don't say about the moon an' the stars an' that; i dessay the sun he do get up the werry moment he's called of a mornin', an' the moon when she ought to for her night-work,--i ain't no 'stronomer strawnry, and i ain't heerd no complaints about _them_; but i do say as how, down here, we ha' got most uncommon bad weather more'n at times; and the walnuts they turns out, every now an' then, full o' mere dirt; an' the oranges awful. there 'ain't been a good crop o' hay, they tells me, for many's the year. an' i' furren parts, what wi' earthquakes an' wolcanies an' lions an' tigers, an' savages as eats their wisiters, an' chimley-pots blowin' about, an' ships goin' down, an' fathers o' families choked an' drownded an' burnt i' coal-pits by the hundred,--it do seem to me that if his jinerin' hadn't been tip-top, it would ha' been but like the rest on it. there, grannie! mind, i mean no offence; an' i don't doubt you ha' got somethink i' your weskit pocket as 'll turn it all topsy-turvy in a moment. anyhow, i won't purtend to nothink, and that's how it look to me." "i admit," said marion, "that the objection is a reasonable one. but why do you put it, mr. evans, in such a triumphant way, as if you were rejoiced to think it admitted of no answer, and believed the world would be ever so much better off if the storms and the tigers had it all their own way, and there were no god to look after things." "now, you ain't fair to _me_, grannie. not avin' of my heyesight like the rest on ye, i may be a bit fond of a harguyment; but i tries to hit fair, and when i hears what ain't logic, i can no more help comin' down upon it than i can help breathin' the air o' heaven. and why shouldn't i? there ain't no law agin a harguyment. an' more an' over, it do seem to me as how you and mr. jarvis is wrong i' _it is_ harguyment." "if i was too sharp upon you, mr. evans, and i may have been," said marion, "i beg your pardon." "it's granted, grannie." "i don't mean, you know, that i give in to what you say,--not one bit." "i didn't expect it of you. i'm a-waitin' here for you to knock me down." "i don't think a mere victory is worth the breath spent upon it," said marion. "but we should all be glad to get or give more light upon any subject, if it be by losing ever so many arguments. allow me just to put a question or two to mr. jarvis, because he's a joiner himself--and that's a great comfort to me to-night: what would you say, mr. jarvis, of a master who planed the timber he used for scaffolding, and tied the crosspieces with ropes of silk?" "i should say he was a fool, grannie,--not only for losin' of his money and his labor, but for weakenin' of his scaffoldin',--summat like the old throne-maker i' that chapter, i should say." "what's the object of a scaffold, mr. jarvis?" "to get at something else by means of,--say build a house." "then, so long as the house was going up all right, the probability is there wouldn't be much amiss with the scaffold?" "certainly, provided it stood till it was taken down." "and now, mr. evans," she said next, turning to the blind man, "i am going to take the liberty of putting a question or two to you." "all right, grannie. fire away." "will you tell me, then, what the object of this world is?" "well, most people makes it their object to get money, and make theirselves comfortable." "but you don't think that is what the world was made for?" "oh! as to that, how should i know, grannie? and not knowin', i won't say." "if you saw a scaffold," said marion, turning again to jarvis, "would you be in danger of mistaking it for a permanent erection?" "nobody wouldn't be such a fool," he answered. "the look of it would tell you that." "you wouldn't complain, then, if it should be a little out of the square, and if there should be no windows in it?" jarvis only laughed. "mr. evans," marion went on, turning again to the blind man, "do you think the design of this world was to make men comfortable?" "if it was, it don't seem to ha' succeeded," answered evans. "and you complain of that--don't you?" "well, yes, rather,"--said the blind man, adding, no doubt, as he recalled the former part of the evening's talk,--"for harguyment, ye know, grannie." "you think, perhaps, that god, having gone so far to make this world a pleasant and comfortable place to live in, might have gone farther and made it quite pleasant and comfortable for everybody?" "whoever could make it at all could ha' done that, grannie." "then, as he hasn't done it, the probability is he didn't mean to do it?" "of course. that's what i complain of." "then he meant to do something else?" "it looks like it." "the whole affair has an unfinished look, you think?" "i just do." "what if it were not meant to stand, then? what if it were meant only for a temporary assistance in carrying out something finished and lasting, and of unspeakably more importance? suppose god were building a palace for you, and had set up a scaffold, upon which he wanted you to help him; would it be reasonable in you to complain that you didn't find the scaffold at all a comfortable place to live in?--that it was draughty and cold? this world is that scaffold; and if you were busy carrying stones and mortar for the palace, you would be glad of all the cold to cool the glow of your labor." "i'm sure i work hard enough when i get a job as my heyesight will enable me to do," said evans, missing the spirit of her figure. "yes: i believe you do. but what will all the labor of a workman who does not fall in with the design of the builder come to? you may say you don't understand the design: will you say also that you are under no obligation to put so much faith in the builder, who is said to be your god and father, as to do the thing he tells you? instead of working away at the palace, like men, will you go on tacking bits of matting and old carpet about the corners of the scaffold to keep the wind off, while that same wind keeps tearing them away and scattering them? you keep trying to live in a scaffold, which not all you could do to all eternity would make a house of. you see what i mean, mr. evans?" "well, not ezackly," replied the blind man. "i mean that god wants to build you a house whereof the walls shall be _goodness_: you want a house whereof the walls shall be _comfort_. but god knows that such walls cannot be built,--that that kind of stone crumbles away in the foolish workman's hands. he would make you comfortable; but neither is that his first object, nor can it be gained without the first, which is to make you good. he loves you so much that he would infinitely rather have you good and uncomfortable, for then he could take you to his heart as his own children, than comfortable and not good, for then he could not come near you, or give you any thing he counted worth having for himself or worth giving to you." "so," said jarvis, "you've just brought us round, grannie, to the same thing as before." "i believe so," returned marion. "it comes to this, that when god would build a palace for himself to dwell in with his children, he does not want his scaffold so constructed that they shall be able to make a house of it for themselves, and live like apes instead of angels." "but if god can do any thing he please," said evans, "he might as well _make_ us good, and there would be an end of it." "that is just what he is doing," returned marion. "perhaps, by giving them perfect health, and every thing they wanted, with absolute good temper, and making them very fond of each other besides, god might have provided himself a people he would have had no difficulty in governing, and amongst whom, in consequence, there would have been no crime and no struggle or suffering. but i have known a dog with more goodness than that would come to. we cannot be good without having consented to be made good. god shows us the good and the bad; urges us to be good; wakes good thoughts and desires in us; helps our spirit with his spirit, our thought with his thought: but we must yield; we must turn to him; we must consent, yes, try to be made good. if we could grow good without trying, it would be a poor goodness: _we_ should not be good, after all; at best, we should only be not bad. god wants us to choose to be good, and so be partakers of his holiness; he would have us lay hold of him. he who has given his son to suffer for us will make us suffer too, bitterly if needful, that we may bethink ourselves, and turn to him. he would make us as good as good can be, that is, perfectly good; and therefore will rouse us to take the needful hand in the work ourselves,--rouse us by discomforts innumerable. "you see, then, it is not inconsistent with the apparent imperfections of the creation around us, that jesus should have done the best possible carpenter's work; for those very imperfections are actually through their imperfection the means of carrying out the higher creation god has in view, and at which he is working all the time. "now let me read you what king david thought upon this question." she read the hundred and seventh psalm. then they had some singing, in which the children took a delightful part. i have seldom heard children sing pleasantly. in sunday schools i have always found their voices painfully harsh. but marion made her children restrain their voices, and sing softly; which had, she said, an excellent moral effect on themselves, all squalling and screeching, whether in art or morals, being ruinous to either. toward the close of the singing, roger and i slipped out. we had all but tacitly agreed it would be best to make no apology, but just vanish, and come again with percivale the following sunday. the greater part of the way home we walked in silence. "what did you think of that, roger?" i asked at length. "quite socratic as to method," he answered, and said no more. i sent a full report of the evening to my father, who was delighted with it, although, of course, much was lost in the reporting of the mere words, not to mention the absence of her sweet face and shining eyes, of her quiet, earnest, musical voice. my father kept the letter, and that is how i am able to give the present report. chapter xxx. about servants. i went to call on lady bernard the next day: for there was one subject on which i could better talk with her than with marion; and that subject was marion herself. in the course of our conversation, i said that i had had more than usual need of such a lesson as she gave us the night before,--i had been, and indeed still was, so vexed with my nurse. "what is the matter?" asked lady bernard. "she has given me warning," i answered. "she has been with you some time--has she not?" "ever since we were married." "what reason does she give?" "oh! she wants _to better herself_, of course," i replied,--in such a tone, that lady bernard rejoined,-- "and why should she not better herself?" "but she has such a false notion of bettering herself. i am confident what she wants will do any thing but better her, if she gets it." "what is her notion, then? are you sure you have got at the real one?" "i believe i have _now_. when i asked her first, she said she was very comfortable, and condescended to inform me that she had nothing against either me or her master, but thought it was time she was having more wages; for a friend of hers, who had left home a year after herself, was having two more pounds than she had." "it is very natural, and certainly not wrong, that she should wish for more wages." "i told her she need not have taken such a round-about way of asking for an advance, and said i would raise her wages with pleasure. but, instead of receiving the announcement with any sign of satisfaction, she seemed put out by it; and, after some considerable amount of incoherence, blurted out that the place was dull, and she wanted a change. at length, however, i got at her real reason, which was simply ambition: she wanted to rise in the world,--to get a place where men-servants were kept,--a more fashionable place, in fact." "a very mistaken ambition certainly," said lady bernard, "but one which would be counted natural enough in any other line of life. had she given you ground for imagining higher aims in her?" "she had been so long with us, that i thought she must have some regard for us." "she has probably a good deal more than she is aware of. but change is as needful to some minds, for their education, as an even tenor of life is to others. probably she has got all the good she is capable of receiving from you, and there may be some one ready to take her place for whom you will be able to do more. however inconvenient it may be for you to change, the more young people pass through your house the better." "if it were really for her good, i hope i shouldn't mind." "you cannot tell what may be needful to cause the seed you have sown to germinate. it may be necessary for her to pass to another class in the school of life, before she can realize what she learned in yours." i was silent, for i was beginning to feel ashamed; and lady bernard went on,-- "when i hear mistresses lamenting, over some favorite servant, as marrying certain misery in exchange for a comfortable home, with plenty to eat and drink and wear, i always think of the other side to it, namely, how, through the instincts of his own implanting, god is urging her to a path in which, by passing through the fires and waters of suffering, she may be stung to the life of a true humanity. and such suffering is far more ready to work its perfect work on a girl who has passed through a family like yours." "i wouldn't say a word to keep her if she were going to be married," i said; "but you will allow there is good reason to fear she will be no better for such a change as she desires." "you have good reason to fear, my child," said lady bernard, smiling so as to take all sting out of the reproof, "that you have too little faith in the god who cares for your maid as for you. it is not indeed likely that she will have such help as yours where she goes next; but the loss of it may throw her back on herself, and bring out her individuality, which is her conscience. still, i am far from wondering at your fear for her,--knowing well what dangers she may fall into. shall i tell you what first began to open my eyes to the evils of a large establishment? wishing to get rid of part of the weight of my affairs, and at the same time to assist a relative who was in want of employment, i committed to him, along with larger matters, the oversight of my household expenses, and found that he saved me the whole of his salary. this will be easily understood from a single fact. soon after his appointment, he called on a tradesman to pay him his bill. the man, taking him for a new butler, offered him the same discount he had been in the habit of giving his supposed predecessor, namely, twenty-five per cent,--a discount, i need not say, never intended to reach my knowledge, any more than my purse. the fact was patent: i had been living in a hotel, of which i not only paid the rent, but paid the landlord for cheating me. with such a head to an establishment, you may judge what the members may become." "i remember an amusing experience my brother-in-law, roger percivale, once had of your household," i said. "i also remember it perfectly," she returned. "that was how i came to know him. but i knew something of his family long before. i remember his grandfather, a great buyer of pictures and marbles." lady bernard here gave me the story from her point of view; but roger's narrative being of necessity the more complete, i tell the tale as he told it me. at the time of the occurrence, he was assisting mr. f., the well-known sculptor, and had taken a share in both the modelling and the carving of a bust of lady bernard's father. when it was finished, and mr. f. was about to take it home, he asked roger to accompany him, and help him to get it safe into the house and properly placed. roger and the butler between them carried it to the drawing-room, where were lady bernard and a company of her friends, whom she had invited to meet mr. f, at lunch, and see the bust. there being no pedestal yet ready, mr. f. made choice of a certain small table for it to stand upon, and then accompanied her ladyship and her other guests to the dining-room, leaving roger to uncover the bust, place it in the proper light, and do whatever more might be necessary to its proper effect on the company when they should return. as she left the room, lady bernard told roger to ring for a servant to clear the table for him, and render what other assistance he might want. he did so. a lackey answered the bell, and roger requested him to remove the things from the table. the man left the room, and did not return. roger therefore cleared and moved the table himself, and with difficulty got the bust upon it. finding then several stains upon the pure half transparency of the marble, he rang the bell for a basin of water and a sponge. another man appeared, looked into the room, and went away. he rang once more, and yet another servant came. this last condescended to hear him; and, informing him that he could get what he wanted in the scullery, vanished in his turn. by this time roger confesses to have been rather in a rage; but what could he do? least of all allow mr. f.'s work, and the likeness of her ladyship's father, to make its debut with a spot on its nose; therefore, seeing he could not otherwise procure what was necessary, he set out in quest of the unknown appurtenances of the kitchen. it is unpleasant to find one's self astray, even in a moderately sized house; and roger did not at all relish wandering about the huge place, with no finger-posts to keep him in its business-thoroughfares, not to speak of directing him to the remotest recesses of a house "full," as chaucer says, "of crenkles." at last, however, he found himself at the door of the servants' hall. two men were lying on their backs on benches, with their knees above their heads in the air; a third was engaged in emptying a pewter pot, between his draughts tossing _facetiæ_ across its mouth to a damsel who was removing the remains of some private luncheon; and a fourth sat in one of the windows reading "bell's life." roger took it all in at a glance, while to one of the giants supine, or rather to a perpendicular pair of white stockings, he preferred his request for a basin and a sponge. once more he was informed that he would find what he wanted in the scullery. there was no time to waste on unavailing demands, therefore he only begged further to be directed how to find it. the fellow, without raising his head or lowering his knees, jabbered out such instructions as, from the rapidity with which he delivered them, were, if not unintelligible, at all events incomprehensible; and roger had to set out again on the quest, only not quite so bewildered as before. he found a certain long passage mentioned, however, and happily, before he arrived at the end of it, met a maid, who with the utmost civility gave him full instructions to find the place. the scullery-maid was equally civil; and roger returned with basin and sponge to the drawing-room, where he speedily removed the too troublesome stains from the face of the marble. when the company re-entered, mr. f. saw at once, from the expression and bearing of roger, that something had happened to discompose him, and asked him what was amiss. roger having briefly informed him, mr. f. at once recounted the facts to lady bernard, who immediately requested a full statement from roger himself, and heard the whole story. she walked straight to the bell, and ordered up every one of her domestics, from the butler to the scullery-maid. without one hasty word, or one bodily sign of the anger she was in, except the flashing of her eyes, she told them she could not have had a suspicion that such insolence was possible in her house; that they had disgraced her in her own eyes, as having gathered such people about her; that she would not add to mr. percivale's annoyance by asking him to point out the guilty persons, but that they might assure themselves she would henceforth keep both eyes and ears open, and if the slightest thing of the sort happened again, she would most assuredly dismiss every one of them at a moment's warning. she then turned to roger and said,-- "mr. percivale, i beg your pardon for the insults you have received from my servants." "i did think," she said, as she finished telling me the story, "to dismiss them all on the spot, but was deterred by the fear of injustice. the next morning, however, four or five of them gave my housekeeper warning: i gave orders that they should leave the house at once, and from that day i set about reducing my establishment. my principal objects were two: first, that my servants might have more work; and second, that i might be able to know something of every one of them; for one thing i saw, that, until i ruled my own house well, i had no right to go trying to do good out of doors. i think i do know a little of the nature and character of every soul under my roof now; and i am more and more confident that nothing of real and lasting benefit can be done for a class except through personal influence upon the individual persons who compose it--such influence, i mean, as at the very least sets for christianity." chapter xxxi. about percivale. i should like much, before in my narrative approaching a certain hard season we had to encounter, to say a few words concerning my husband, if i only knew how. i find women differ much, both in the degree and manner in which their feelings will permit them to talk about their husbands. i have known women set a whole community against their husbands by the way in which they trumpeted their praises; and i have known one woman set everybody against herself by the way in which she published her husband's faults. i find it difficult to believe either sort. to praise one's husband is so like praising one's self, that to me it seems immodest, and subject to the same suspicion as self-laudation; while to blame one's husband, even justly and openly, seems to me to border upon treachery itself. how, then, am i to discharge a sort of half duty my father has laid upon me by what he has said in "the seaboard parish," concerning my husband's opinions? my father is one of the few really large-minded men i have yet known; but i am not certain that he has done percivale justice. at the same time, if he has not, percivale himself is partly to blame, inasmuch as he never took pains to show my father what he was; for, had he done so, my father of all men would have understood him. on the other hand, this fault, if such it was, could have sprung only from my husband's modesty, and his horror of possibly producing an impression on my father's mind more favorable than correct. it is all right now, however. still, my difficulty remains as to how i am to write about him. i must encourage myself with the consideration that none but our own friends, with whom, whether they understood us or not, we are safe, will know to whom the veiled narrative points. but some acute reader may say,-- "you describe your husband's picture: he will be known by that." in this matter i have been cunning--i hope not deceitful, inasmuch as i now reveal my cunning. instead of describing any real picture of his, i have always substituted one he has only talked about. the picture actually associated with the facts related is not the picture i have described. although my husband left the impression on my father's mind, lasting for a long time, that he had some definite repugnance to christianity itself, i had been soon satisfied, perhaps from his being more open with me, that certain unworthy representations of christianity, coming to him with authority, had cast discredit upon the whole idea of it. in the first year or two of our married life, we had many talks on the subject; and i was astonished to find what things he imagined to be acknowledged essentials of christianity, which have no place whatever in the new testament; and i think it was in proportion as he came to see his own misconceptions, that, although there was little or no outward difference to be perceived in him, i could more and more clearly distinguish an under-current of thought and feeling setting towards the faith which christianity preaches. he said little or nothing, even when i attempted to draw him out on the matter; for he was almost morbidly careful not to seem to know any thing he did not know, or to appear what he was not. the most i could get out of him was--but i had better give a little talk i had with him on one occasion. it was some time before we began to go to marion's on a sunday evening, and i had asked him to go with me to a certain, little chapel in the neighborhood. "what!" he said merrily, "the daughter of a clergyman be seen going to a conventicle?" "if i did it, i would be seen doing it," i answered. "don't you know that the man is no conciliatory, or even mild dissenter, but a decided enemy to church and state and all that?" pursued percivale. "i don't care," i returned. "i know nothing about it. what i know is, that he's a poet and a prophet both in one. he stirs up my heart within me, and makes me long to be good. he is no orator, and yet breaks into bursts of eloquence such as none of the studied orators, to whom you profess so great an aversion, could ever reach." "you may well be right there. it is against nature for a speaker to be eloquent throughout his discourse, and the false will of course quench the true. i don't mind going if you wish it. i suppose he believes what he says, at least." "not a doubt of it. he could not speak as he does from less than a thorough belief." "do you mean to say, wynnie, that he is _sure_ of every thing,--i don't want to urge an unreasonable question,--but is he _sure_ that the story of the new testament is, in the main, actual fact? i should be very sorry to trouble your faith, but"-- "my father says," i interrupted, "that a true faith is like the pool of bethesda: it is when troubled that it shows its healing power." "that depends on where the trouble comes from, perhaps," said percivale. "anyhow," i answered, "it is only that which cannot be shaken that shall remain." "well, i will tell you what seems to me a very common-sense difficulty. how is any one to be _sure_ of the things recorded? i cannot imagine a man of our time absolutely certain of them. if you tell me i have testimony, i answer, that the testimony itself requires testimony. i never even saw the people who bear it; have just as good reason to doubt their existence, as that of him concerning whom they bear it; have positively no means of verifying it, and indeed, have so little confidence in all that is called evidence, knowing how it can be twisted, that i should distrust any conclusion i might seem about to come to on the one side or the other. it does appear to me, that, if the thing were of god, he would have taken care that it should be possible for an honest man to place a hearty confidence in its record." he had never talked to me so openly, and i took it as a sign that he had been thinking more of these things than hitherto. i felt it a serious matter to have to answer such words, for how could i have any better assurance of that external kind than percivale himself? that i was in the same intellectual position, however, enabled me the better to understand him. for a short time i was silent, while he regarded me with a look of concern,--fearful, i fancied, lest he should have involved me in his own perplexity. "isn't it possible, percivale," i said, "that god may not care so much for beginning at that end?" "i don't quite understand you, wynnie," he returned. "a man might believe every fact recorded concerning our lord, and yet not have the faith in him that god wishes him to have." "yes, certainly. but will you say the converse of that is true?" "explain, please." "will you say a man may have the faith god cares for without the faith you say he does not care for?" "i didn't say that god does not care about our having assurance of the facts; for surely, if every thing depends on those facts, much will depend on the degree of our assurance concerning them. i only expressed a doubt whether, in the present age, he cares that we should have that assurance first. perhaps he means it to be the result of the higher kind of faith which rests in the will." "i don't, at the moment, see how the higher faith, as you call it, can precede the lower." "it seems to me possible enough. for what is the test of discipleship the lord lays down? is it not obedience? 'if ye love me, keep my commandments.' 'if a man love me, he will keep my commandments.' 'i never knew you: depart from me, ye workers of iniquity.' suppose a man feels in himself that he must have some saviour or perish; suppose he feels drawn, by conscience, by admiration, by early memories, to the form of jesus, dimly seen through the mists of ages; suppose he cannot be sure there ever was such a man, but reads about him, and ponders over the words attributed to him, until he feels they are the right thing, whether _he_ said them or not, and that if he could but be sure there were such a being, he would believe in him with heart and soul; suppose also that he comes upon the words, 'if any man is willing to do the will of the father, he shall know whether i speak of myself or he sent me;' suppose all these things, might not the man then say to himself, 'i cannot tell whether all this is true, but i know nothing that seems half so good, and i will try to do the will of the father in the hope of the promised knowledge'? do you think god would, or would not, count that to the man for faith?" i had no more to say, and a silence followed. after a pause of some duration, percivale said,-- "i will go with you, my dear;" and that was all his answer. when we came out of the little chapel,--the same into which marion had stepped on that evening so memorable to her,--we walked homeward in silence, and reached our own door ere a word was spoken. but, when i went to take off my things, percivale followed me into the room and said,-- "whether that man is _certain_ of the facts or not, i cannot tell yet; but i am perfectly satisfied he believes in the manner of which you were speaking,--that of obedience, wynnie. he must believe with his heart and will and life." "if so, he can well afford to wait for what light god will give him on things that belong to the intellect and judgment." "i would rather think," he returned, "that purity of life must re-act on the judgment, so as to make it likewise clear, and enable it to recognize the true force of the evidence at command." "that is how my father came to believe," i said. "he seems to me to rest his conviction more upon external proof." "that is only because it is easier to talk about. he told me once that he was never able to estimate the force and weight of the external arguments until after he had believed for the very love of the eternal truth he saw in the story. his heart, he said, had been the guide of his intellect." "that is just what i would fain believe. but, o wynnie! the pity of it if that story should not be true, after all!" "ah, my love!" i cried, "that very word makes me surer than ever that it cannot but be true. let us go on putting it to the hardest test; let us try it until it crumbles in our hands,--try it by the touchstone of action founded on its requirements." "there may be no other way," said percivale, after a thoughtful pause, "of becoming capable of recognizing the truth. it may be beyond the grasp of all but the mind that has thus yielded to it. there may be no contact for it with any but such a mind. such a conviction, then, could neither be forestalled nor communicated. its very existence must remain doubtful until it asserts itself. i see that." chapter xxxii. my second terror. "please, ma'am, is master fido to carry master zohrab about by the back o' the neck?" said jemima, in indignant appeal, one afternoon late in november, bursting into the study where i sat with my husband. fido was our bedlington terrier, which, having been reared by newcastle colliers, and taught to draw a badger,--whatever that may mean,--i am hazy about it,--had a passion for burrowing after any thing buried. swept away by the current of the said passion, he had with his strong forepaws unearthed poor zohrab, which, being a tortoise, had ensconced himself, as he thought, for the winter, in the earth at the foot of a lilac-tree; but now, much to his jeopardy, from the cold and the shock of the surprise more than from the teeth of his friend, was being borne about the garden in triumph, though whether exactly as jemima described may be questionable. her indignation at the inroad of the dog upon the personal rights of the tortoise had possibly not lessened her general indifference to accuracy. alarmed at the danger to the poor animal, of a kind from which his natural defences were powerless to protect him, percivale threw down his palette and brushes, and ran to the door. "do put on your coat and hat, percivale!" i cried; but he was gone. cold as it was, he had been sitting in the light blouse he had worn at his work all the summer. the stove had got red-hot, and the room was like an oven, while outside a dank fog filled the air. i hurried after him with his coat, and found him pursuing fido about the garden, the brute declining to obey his call, or to drop the tortoise. percivale was equally deaf to my call, and not until he had beaten the dog did he return with the rescued tortoise in his hands. the consequences were serious,--first the death of zohrab, and next a terrible illness to my husband. he had caught cold: it settled on his lungs, and passed into bronchitis. it was a terrible time to me; for i had no doubt, for some days, that he was dying. the measures taken seemed thoroughly futile. it is an awful moment when first death looks in at the door. the positive recognition of his presence is so different from any vividest imagination of it! for the moment i believed nothing,--felt only the coming blackness of absolute loss. i cared neither for my children, nor for my father or mother. nothing appeared of any worth more. i had conscience enough left to try to pray, but no prayer would rise from the frozen depths of my spirit. i could only move about in mechanical and hopeless ministration to one whom it seemed of no use to go on loving any more; for what was nature but a soulless machine, the constant clank of whose motion sounded only, "dust to dust; dust to dust," forevermore? but i was roused from this horror-stricken mood by a look from my husband, who, catching a glimpse of my despair, motioned me to him with a smile as of sunshine upon snow, and whispered in my ear,-- "i'm afraid you haven't much more faith than myself, after all, wynnie." it stung me into life,--not for the sake of my professions, not even for the honor of our heavenly father, but by waking in me the awful thought of my beloved passing through the shadow of death with no one beside him to help or comfort him, in absolute loneliness and uncertainty. the thought was unendurable. for a moment i wished he might die suddenly, and so escape the vacuous despair of a conscious lingering betwixt life and the something or the nothing beyond it. "but i cannot go with you!" i cried; and, forgetting all my duty as a nurse, i wept in agony. "perhaps another will, my wynnie,--one who knows the way," he whispered; for he could not speak aloud, and closed his eyes. it was as if an arrow of light had slain the python coiled about my heart. if _he_ believed, _i_ could believe also; if _he_ could encounter the vague dark, _i_ could endure the cheerless light. i was myself again, and, with one word of endearment, left the bedside to do what had to be done. at length a faint hope began to glimmer in the depths of my cavernous fear. it was long ere it swelled into confidence; but, although i was then in somewhat feeble health, my strength never gave way. for a whole week i did not once undress, and for weeks i was half-awake all the time i slept. the softest whisper would rouse me thoroughly; and it was only when marion took my place that i could sleep at all. i am afraid i neglected my poor children dreadfully. i seemed for the time to have no responsibility, and even, i am ashamed to say, little care for them. but then i knew that they were well attended to: friends were very kind--especially judy--in taking them out; and marion's daily visits were like those of a mother. indeed, she was able to mother any thing human except a baby, to whom she felt no attraction,--any more than to the inferior animals, for which she had little regard beyond a negative one: she would hurt no creature that was not hurtful; but she had scarcely an atom of kindness for dog or cat, or any thing that is petted of woman. it is the only defect i am aware of in her character. my husband slowly recovered, but it was months before he was able to do any thing he would call work. but, even in labor, success is not only to the strong. working a little at the short best time of the day with him, he managed, long before his full recovery, to paint a small picture which better critics than i have thought worthy of angelico, i will attempt to describe it. through the lighted windows of a great hall, the spectator catches broken glimpses of a festive company. at the head of the table, pouring out the red wine, he sees one like unto the son of man, upon whom the eyes of all are turned. at the other end of the hall, seated high in a gallery, with rapt looks and quaint yet homely angelican instruments, he sees the orchestra pouring out their souls through their strings and trumpets. the hall is filled with a jewelly glow, as of light suppressed by color, the radiating centre of which is the red wine on the table; while mingled wings, of all gorgeous splendors, hovering in the dim height, are suffused and harmonized by the molten ruby tint that pervades the whole. outside, in the drizzly darkness, stands a lonely man. he stoops listening, with one ear laid almost against the door. his half-upturned face catches a ray of the light reflected from a muddy pool in the road. it discloses features wan and wasted with sorrow and sickness, but glorified with the joy of the music. he is like one who has been four days dead, to whose body the music has recalled the soul. down by his knee he holds a violin, fashioned like those of the orchestra within; which, as he listens, he is tuning to their pitch. to readers acquainted with a poem of dr. donne's,--"hymn to god, my god, in my sickness,"--this description of mine will at once suggest the origin of the picture. i had read some verses of it to him in his convalescence; and, having heard them once, he requested them often again. the first stanza runs thus:-- "since i am coming to that holy room where with the choir of saints forevermore i shall be made thy musique, as i come, i tune the instrument here at the door; and what i must do then, think here before." the painting is almost the only one he has yet refused to let me see before it was finished; but, when it was, he hung it up in my own little room off the study, and i became thoroughly acquainted with it. i think i love it more than any thing else he has done. i got him, without telling him why, to put a touch or two to the listening figure, which made it really like himself. during this period of recovery, i often came upon him reading his greek new testament, which he would shove aside when i entered. at length, one morning, i said to him,-- "are you ashamed of the new testament, percivale? one would think it was a bad book from the way you try to hide it." "no, my love," he said: "it is only that i am jealous of appearing to do that from suffering and weakness only, which i did not do when i was strong and well. but sickness has opened my eyes a good deal i think; and i am sure of this much, that, whatever truth there is here, i want it all the same whether i am feeling the want or not. i had no idea what there was in this book." "would you mind telling me," i said, "what made you take to reading it?" "i will try. when i thought i was dying, a black cloud seemed to fall over every thing. it was not so much that i was afraid to die,--although i did dread the final conflict,--as that i felt so forsaken and lonely. it was of little use saying to myself that i mustn't be a coward, and that it was the part of a man to meet his fate, whatever it might be, with composure; for i saw nothing worth being brave about: the heart had melted out of me; there was nothing to give me joy, nothing for my life to rest up on, no sense of love at the heart of things. didn't you feel something the same that terrible day?" "i did," i answered. "i hope i never believed in death all the time; and yet for one fearful moment the skeleton seemed to swell and grow till he blotted out the sun and the stars, and was himself all in all, while the life beyond was too shadowy to show behind him. and so death was victorious, until the thought of your loneliness in the dark valley broke the spell; and for your sake i hoped in god again." "and i thought with myself,--would god set his children down in the dark, and leave them to cry aloud in anguish at the terrors of the night? would he not make the very darkness light about them? or, if they must pass through such tortures, would he not at least let them know that he was with them? how, then, can there be a god? then arose in my mind all at once the old story, how, in the person of his son, god himself had passed through the darkness now gathering about me; had gone down to the grave, and had conquered death by dying. if this was true, this was to be a god indeed. well might he call on us to endure, who had himself borne the far heavier share. if there were an eternal life who would perfect my life, i could be brave; i could endure what he chose to lay upon me; i could go whither he led." "and were you able to think all that when you were so ill, my love?" i said. "something like it,--practically very like it," he answered. "it kept growing in my mind,--coming and going, and gathering clearer shape. i thought with myself, that, if there was a god, he certainly knew that i would give myself to him if i could; that, if i knew jesus to be verily and really his son, however it might seem strange to believe in him and hard to obey him, i would try to do so; and then a verse about the smoking flax and the bruised reed came into my head, and a great hope arose in me. i do not know if it was what the good people would call faith; but i had no time and no heart to think about words: i wanted god and his christ. a fresh spring of life seemed to burst up in my heart; all the world grew bright again: i seemed to love you and the children twice as much as before; a calmness came down upon my spirit which seemed to me like nothing but the presence of god; and, although i dare say you did not then perceive a change, i am certain that the same moment i began to recover." chapter xxxiii. the clouds after the rain. but the clouds returned after the rain. it will be easily understood how the little money we had in hand should have rapidly vanished during percivale's illness. while he was making nothing, the expenses of the family went on as usual; and not that only, but many little delicacies had to be got for him, and the doctor was yet to pay. even up to the time when he had been taken ill, we had been doing little better than living from hand to mouth; for as often as we thought income was about to get a few yards ahead in the race with expense, something invariably happened to disappoint us. i am not sorry that i have no _special_ faculty for saving; for i have never known any, in whom such was well developed, who would not do things they ought to be ashamed of. the savings of such people seem to me to come quite as much off other people as off themselves; and, especially in regard of small sums, they are in danger of being first mean, and then dishonest. certainly, whoever makes saving _the_ end of her life, must soon grow mean, and will probably grow dishonest. but i have never succeeded in drawing the line betwixt meanness and dishonesty: what is mean, so far as i can see, slides by indistinguishable gradations into what is plainly dishonest. and what is more, the savings are commonly made at the cost of the defenceless. it is better far to live in constant difficulties than to keep out of them by such vile means as must, besides, poison the whole nature, and make one's judgments, both of god and her neighbors, mean as her own conduct. it is nothing to say that you must be just before you are generous, for that is the very point i am insisting on; namely, that one must be just to others before she is generous to herself. it will never do to make your two ends meet by pulling the other ends from the hands of those who are likewise puzzled to make them meet. but i must now put myself at the bar, and cry _peccavi_; for i was often wrong on the other side, sometimes getting things for the house before it was quite clear i could afford them, and sometimes buying the best when an inferior thing would have been more suitable, if not to my ideas, yet to my purse. it is, however, far more difficult for one with an uncertain income to learn to save, or even to be prudent, than for one who knows how much exactly every quarter will bring. my husband, while he left the whole management of money matters to me, would yet spend occasionally without consulting me. in fact, he had no notion of money, and what it would or would not do. i never knew a man spend less upon himself; but he would be extravagant for me, and i dared hardly utter a foolish liking lest he should straightway turn it into a cause of shame by attempting to gratify it. he had, besides, a weakness for over-paying people, of which neither marion nor i could honestly approve, however much we might admire the disposition whence it proceeded. now that i have confessed, i shall be more easy in my mind; for, in regard of the troubles that followed, i cannot be sure that i was free of blame. one word more in self-excuse, and i have done: however imperative, it is none the less hard to cultivate two opposing virtues at one and the same time. while my husband was ill, not a picture had been disposed of; and even after he was able to work a little, i could not encourage visitors: he was not able for the fatigue, and in fact shrunk, with an irritability i had never perceived a sign of before, from seeing any one. to my growing dismay, i saw my little stock--which was bodily in my hand, for we had no banking account--rapidly approaching its final evanishment. some may think, that, with parents in the position of mine, a temporary difficulty need have caused me no anxiety: i must, therefore, mention one or two facts with regard to both my husband and my parents. in the first place, although he had as complete a confidence in him as i had, both in regard to what he said and what he seemed, my husband could not feel towards my father as i felt. he had married me as a poor man, who yet could keep a wife; and i knew it would be a bitter humiliation to him to ask my father for money, on the ground that he had given his daughter. i should have felt nothing of the kind; for i should have known that my father would do him as well as me perfect justice in the matter, and would consider any money spent upon us as used to a divine purpose. for he regarded the necessaries of life as noble, its comforts as honorable, its luxuries as permissible,--thus reversing altogether the usual judgment of rich men, who in general like nothing worse than to leave their hoards to those of their relatives who will degrade them to the purchase of mere bread and cheese, blankets and clothes and coals. but i had no right to go against my husband's feeling. so long as the children had their bread and milk, i would endure with him. i am confident i could have starved as well as he, and should have enjoyed letting him see it. but there were reasons because of which even i, in my fullest freedom, could not have asked help from my father just at this time. i am ashamed to tell the fact, but i must: before the end of his second year at oxford, just over, the elder of my two brothers had, without any vice i firmly believe, beyond that of thoughtlessness and folly, got himself so deeply mired in debt, both to tradespeople and money-lenders, that my father had to pay two thousand pounds for him. indeed, as i was well assured, although he never told me so, he had to borrow part of the money on a fresh mortgage in order to clear him. some lawyer, i believe, told him that he was not bound to pay: but my father said, that, although such creditors deserved no protection of the law, he was not bound to give them a lesson in honesty at the expense of weakening the bond between himself and his son, for whose misdeeds he acknowledged a large share of responsibility; while, on the other hand, he was bound to give his son the lesson of the suffering brought on his family by his selfishness; and therefore would pay the money--if not gladly, yet willingly. how the poor boy got through the shame and misery of it, i can hardly imagine; but this i can say for him, that it was purely of himself that he accepted a situation in ceylon, instead of returning to oxford. thither he was now on his way, with the intention of saving all he could in order to repay his father; and if at length he succeeds in doing so, he will doubtless make a fairer start the second time, because of the discipline, than if he had gone out with the money in his pocket. it was natural, then, that in such circumstances a daughter should shrink from adding her troubles to those caused by a son. i ought to add, that my father had of late been laying out a good deal in building cottages for the laborers on his farms, and that the land was not yet entirely freed from the mortgages my mother had inherited with it. percivale continued so weak, that for some time i could not bring myself to say a word to him about money. but to keep them as low as possible did not prevent the household debts from accumulating, and the servants' wages were on the point of coming due. i had been careful to keep the milkman paid; and for the rest of the tradesmen, i consoled myself with the certainty, that, if the worst came to the worst, there was plenty of furniture in the house to pay every one of them. still, of all burdens, next to sin, that of debt, i think, must be heaviest. i tried to keep cheerful; but at length, one night, during our supper of bread and cheese, which i could not bear to see my poor, pale-faced husband eating, i broke down. "what _is_ the matter, my darling?" asked percivale. i took a half-crown from my pocket, and held it out on the palm of my hand. "that's all i've got, percivale," i said. "oh! that all--is it?" he returned lightly. "yes,--isn't that enough?" i said with some indignation. "certainly--for to-night," he answered, "seeing the shops are shut. but is that all that's troubling you?" he went on. "it seems to me quite enough," i said again; "and if you had the housekeeping to do, and the bills to pay, you would think a solitary half-crown quite enough to make you miserable." "never mind--so long as it's a good one," he said. "i'll get you more to-morrow." "how can you do that?" i asked. "easily," he answered. "you'll see. don't you trouble your dear heart about it for a moment." i felt relieved, and asked him no more questions. the next morning, when i went into the study to speak to him, he was not there; and i guessed that he had gone to town to get the money, for he had not been out before since his illness, at least without me. but i hoped of all things he was not going to borrow it of a money-lender, of which i had a great and justifiable horror, having heard from himself how a friend of his had in such a case fared. i would have sold three-fourths of the things in the house rather. but as i turned to leave the study, anxious both about himself and his proceedings, i thought something was different, and soon discovered that a certain favorite picture was missing from the wall: it was clear he had gone either to sell it or raise money upon it. by our usual early dinner-hour, he returned, and put into my hands, with a look of forced cheerfulness, two five-pound notes. "is that all you got for that picture?" i said. "that is all mr. ---- would advance me upon it," he answered. "i thought he had made enough by me to have risked a little more than that; but picture-dealers--well, never mind. that is enough to give time for twenty things to happen." and no doubt twenty things did happen, but none of them of the sort he meant. the ten pounds sank through my purse like water through gravel. i paid a number of small bills at once, for they pressed the more heavily upon me that i knew the money was wanted; and by the end of another fortnight we were as badly off as before, with an additional trouble, which in the circumstances was any thing but slight. in conjunction with more than ordinary endowments of stupidity and self-conceit, jemima was possessed of a furious temper, which showed itself occasionally in outbursts of unendurable rudeness. she had been again and again on the point of leaving me, now she, now i, giving warning; but, ere the day arrived, her better nature had always got the upper hand,--she had broken down and given in. these outbursts had generally followed a season of better behavior than usual, and were all but certain if i ventured the least commendation; for she could stand any thing better than praise. at the least subsequent rebuke, self would break out in rage, vulgarity, and rudeness. on this occasion, however, i cannot tell whence it was that one of these cyclones arose in our small atmosphere; but it was jemima, you may well believe, who gave warning, for it was out of my power to pay her wages; and there was no sign of her yielding. my reader may be inclined to ask in what stead the religion i had learned of my father now stood me. i will endeavor to be honest in my answer. every now and then i tried to pray to god to deliver us; but i was far indeed from praying always, and still farther from not fainting. a whole day would sometimes pass under a weight of care that amounted often to misery; and not until its close would i bethink me that i had been all the weary hours without god. even when more hopeful, i would keep looking and looking for the impossibility of something to happen of itself, instead of looking for some good and perfect gift to come down from the father of lights; and, when i awoke to the fact, the fog would yet lie so deep on my soul, that i could not be sorry for my idolatry and want of faith. it was, indeed, a miserable time. there was, besides, one definite thought that always choked my prayers: i could not say in my conscience that i had been sufficiently careful either in my management or my expenditure. "if," i thought, "i could be certain that i had done my best, i should be able to trust in god for all that lies beyond my power; but now he may mean to punish me for my carelessness." then why should i not endure it calmly and without complaint? alas! it was not i alone that thus would be punished, but my children and my husband as well. nor could i avoid coming on my poor father at last, who, of course, would interfere to prevent a sale; and the thought was, from the circumstances i have mentioned, very bitter to me. sometimes, however, in more faithful moods, i would reason with myself that god would not be hard upon me, even if i had not been so saving as i ought. my father had taken his son's debts on himself, and would not allow him to be disgraced more than could be helped; and, if an earthly parent would act thus for his child, would our father in heaven be less tender with us? still, for very love's sake, it might be necessary to lay some disgrace upon me, for of late i had been thinking far too little of the best things. the cares more than the duties of life had been filling my mind. if it brought me nearer to god, i must then say it had been good for me to be afflicted; but while my soul was thus oppressed, how could my feelings have any scope? let come what would, however, i must try and bear it,--even disgrace, if it was _his_ will. better people than i had been thus disgraced, and it might be my turn next. meantime, it had not come to that, and i must not let the cares of to-morrow burden to-day. every day, almost, as it seems in looking back, a train of thought something like this would pass through my mind. but things went on, and grew no better. with gathering rapidity, we went sliding, to all appearance, down the inclined plane of disgrace. percivale at length asked roger if he had any money by him to lend him a little; and he gave him at once all he had, amounting to six pounds,--a wonderful amount for roger to have accumulated; with the help of which we got on to the end of jemima's month. the next step i had in view was to take my little valuables to the pawnbroker's,--amongst them a watch, whose face was encircled with a row of good-sized diamonds. it had belonged to my great-grandmother, and my mother had given it me when i was married. we had had a piece of boiled neck of mutton for dinner, of which we, that is my husband and i, had partaken sparingly, in order that there might be enough for the servants. percivale had gone out; and i was sitting in the drawing-room, lost in any thing but a blessed reverie, with all the children chattering amongst themselves beside me, when jemima entered, looking subdued. "if you please, ma'am, this is my day," she said. "have you got a place, then, jemima?" i asked; for i had been so much occupied with my own affairs that i had thought little of the future of the poor girl to whom i could have given but a lukewarm recommendation for any thing prized amongst housekeepers. "no, ma'am. please, ma'am, mayn't i stop?" "no, jemima. i am very sorry, but i can't afford to keep you. i shall have to do all the work myself when you are gone." i thought to pay her wages out of the proceeds of my jewels, but was willing to delay the step as long as possible; rather, i believe, from repugnance to enter the pawn-shop, than from disinclination to part with the trinkets. but, as soon as i had spoken, jemima burst into an irish wail, mingled with sobs and tears, crying between the convulsions of all three,-- i thought there was something wrong, mis'ess. you and master looked so scared-like. please, mis'ess, don't send me away." "i never wanted to send you away, jemima. you wanted to go yourself." "no, ma'am; _that_ i didn't. i only wanted you to ask me to stop. wirra! wirra! it's myself is sorry i was so rude. it's not me; it's my temper, mis'ess. i do believe i was born with a devil inside me." i could not help laughing, partly from amusement, partly from relief. "but you see i can't ask you to stop," i said. "i've got no money,--not even enough to pay you to-day; so i can't keep you." "i don't want no money, ma'am. let me stop, and i'll cook for yez, and wash and scrub for yez, to the end o' my days. an' i'll eat no more than'll keep the life in me. i _must_ eat something, or the smell o' the meat would turn me sick, ye see, ma'am; and then i shouldn't be no good to yez. please 'm, i ha' got fifteen pounds in the savings bank: i'll give ye all that, if ye'll let me stop wid ye." when i confess that i burst out crying, my reader will be kind enough to take into consideration that i hadn't had much to eat for some time; that i was therefore weak in body as well as in mind; and that this was the first gleam of sunshine i had had for many weeks. "thank you very much, jemima," i said, as soon as i could speak. "i won't take your money, for then you would be as poor as i am. but, if you would like to stop with us, you shall; and i won't pay you till i'm able." the poor girl was profuse in her thanks, and left the room sobbing in her apron. it was a gloomy, drizzly, dreary afternoon. the children were hard to amuse, and i was glad when their bedtime arrived. it was getting late before percivale returned. he looked pale, and i found afterwards that he had walked home. he had got wet, and had to change some of his clothes. when we went in to supper, there was the neck of mutton on the table, almost as we had left it. this led me, before asking him any questions, to relate what had passed with jemima; at which news he laughed merrily, and was evidently a good deal relieved. then i asked him where he had been. "to the city," he answered. "have you sold another picture?" i asked, with an inward tribulation, half hope, half fear; for, much as we wanted the money, i could ill bear the thought of his pictures going for the price of mere pot-boilers. "no," he replied: "the last is stopping the way. mr. ---- has been advertising it as a bargain for a hundred and fifty. but he hasn't sold it yet, and can't, he says, risk ten pounds on another. what's to come of it, i don't know," he added. "but meantime it's a comfort that jemima can wait a bit for _her_ money." as we sat at supper, i thought i saw a look on percivale's face which i had never seen there before. all at once, while i was wondering what it might mean, after a long pause, during which we had been both looking into the fire, he said,-- "wynnie, i'm going to paint a better picture than i've ever painted yet. i can, and i will." "but how are we to live in the mean time?" i said. his face fell, and i saw with shame what a job's comforter i was. instead of sympathizing with his ardor, i had quenched it. what if my foolish remark had ruined a great picture! anyhow, it had wounded a great heart, which had turned to labor as its plainest duty, and would thereby have been strengthened to endure and to hope. it was too cruel of me. i knelt by his knee, and told him i was both ashamed and sorry i had been so faithless and unkind. he made little of it, said i might well ask the question, and even tried to be merry over it; but i could see well enough that i had let a gust of the foggy night into his soul, and was thoroughly vexed with myself. we went to bed gloomy, but slept well, and awoke more cheerful. chapter xxxiv. the sunshine. as we were dressing, it came into my mind that i had forgotten to give him a black-bordered letter which had arrived the night before. i commonly opened his letters; but i had not opened this one, for it looked like a business letter, and i feared it might be a demand for the rent of the house, which was over due. indeed, at this time i dreaded opening any letter the writing on which i did not recognize. "here is a letter, percivale," i said. "i'm sorry i forgot to give it you last night." "who is it from?" he asked, talking through his towel from his dressing-room. "i don't know. i didn't open it. it looks like something disagreeable." "open it now, then, and see." "i can't just at this moment," i answered; for i had my back hair half twisted in my hands. "there it is on the chimney-piece." he came in, took it, and opened it, while i went on with my toilet. suddenly his arms were round me, and i felt his cheek on mine. "read that," he said, putting the letter into my hand. it was from a lawyer in shrewsbury, informing him that his god-mother, with whom he had been a great favorite when a boy, was dead, and had left him three hundred pounds. it was like a reprieve to one about to be executed. i could only weep and thank god, once more believing in my father in heaven. but it was a humbling thought, that, if he had not thus helped me, i might have ceased to believe in him. i saw plainly, that, let me talk to percivale as i might, my own faith was but a wretched thing. it is all very well to have noble theories about god; but where is the good of them except we actually trust in him as a real, present, living, loving being, who counts us of more value than many sparrows, and will not let one of them fall to the ground without him? "i thought, wynnie, if there was such a god as you believed in, and with you to pray to him, we shouldn't be long without a hearing," said my husband. there was more faith in his heart all the time, though he could not profess the belief i thought i had, than there ever was in mine. but our troubles weren't nearly over yet. percivale wrote, acknowledging the letter, and requesting to know when it would be convenient to let him have the money, as he was in immediate want of it. the reply was, that the trustees were not bound to pay the legacies for a year, but that possibly they might stretch a point in his favor if he applied to them. percivale did so, but received a very curt answer, with little encouragement to expect any thing but the extreme of legal delay. he received the money, however, about four months after; lightened, to the great disappointment of my ignorance, of thirty pounds legacy-duty. in the mean time, although our minds were much relieved, and percivale was working away at his new picture with great energy and courage, the immediate pressure of circumstances was nearly as painful as ever. it was a comfort, however, to know that we might borrow on the security of the legacy; but, greatly grudging the loss of the interest which that would involve, i would have persuaded percivale to ask a loan of lady bernard. he objected: on what ground do you think? that it would be disagreeable to lady bernard to be repaid the sum she had lent us! he would have finally consented, however, i have little doubt, had the absolute necessity for borrowing arrived. about a week or ten days after the blessed news, he had a note from mr. ----, whom he had authorized to part with the picture for thirty guineas. how much this was under its value, it is not easy to say, seeing the money-value of pictures is dependent on so many things: but, if the fairy godmother's executors had paid her legacy at once, that picture would not have been sold for less than five times the amount; and i may mention that the last time it changed hands it fetched five hundred and seventy pounds. mr. ---- wrote that he had an offer of five and twenty for it, desiring to know whether he might sell it for that sum. percivale at once gave his consent, and the next day received a check for eleven pounds, odd shillings; the difference being the borrowed amount upon it, its interest, the commission charged on the sale, and the price of a small picture-frame. the next day, percivale had a visitor at the studio,--no less a person than mr. baddeley, with his shirt-front in full blossom, and his diamond wallowing in light on his fifth finger,--i cannot call it his little finger, for his hands were as huge as they were soft and white,--hands descended of generations of laborious ones, but which had never themselves done any work beyond paddling in money. he greeted percivale with a jolly condescension, and told him, that, having seen and rather liked a picture of his the other day, he had come to inquire whether he had one that would do for a pendant to it; as he should like to have it, provided he did not want a fancy price for it. percivale felt as if he were setting out his children for sale, as he invited him to look about the room, and turned round a few from against the wall. the great man flitted hither and thither, spying at one after another through the cylinder of his curved hand, percivale going on with his painting as if no one were there. "how much do you want for this sketch?" asked mr. baddeley, at length, pointing to one of the most highly finished paintings in the room. "i put three hundred on it at the academy exhibition," answered percivale. "my friends thought it too little; but as it has been on my hands a long time now, and pictures don't rise in price in the keeping of the painter, i shouldn't mind taking two for it." "two tens, i suppose you mean," said mr. baddeley. "i gave him a look," said percivale, as he described the interview to me; and i knew as well as if i had seen it what kind of a phenomenon that look must have been. "come, now," mr. baddeley went on, perhaps misinterpreting the look, for it was such as a man of his property was not in the habit of receiving, "you mustn't think i'm made of money, or that i'm a green hand in the market. i know what your pictures fetch; and i'm a pretty sharp man of business, i believe. what do you really mean to say and stick to? ready money, you know." "three hundred," said percivale coolly. "why, mr. percivale!" cried mr. baddeley, drawing himself up, as my husband said, with the air of one who knew a trick worth two of that, "i paid mr. ---- fifty pounds, neither more nor less, for a picture of yours yesterday--a picture, allow me to say, worth"-- he turned again to the one in question with a critical air, as if about to estimate to a fraction its value as compared with the other. "worth three of that, some people think," said percivale. "the price of this, then, joking aside, is--?" "three hundred pounds," answered percivale,--i know well how quietly. "i understood you wished to sell it," said mr. baddeley, beginning, for all his good nature, to look offended, as well he might. "i do wish to sell it. i happen to be in want of money." "then i'll be liberal, and offer you the same i paid for the other. i'll send you a check this afternoon for fifty--with pleasure." "you cannot have that picture under three hundred." "why!" said the rich man, puzzled, "you offered it for two hundred, not five minutes ago." "yes; and you pretended to think i meant two tens." "offended you, i fear." "at all events, betrayed so much ignorance of painting, that i would rather not have a picture of mine in your house." "you're the first man ever presumed to tell me i was ignorant of painting," said mr. baddeley, now thoroughly indignant. "you have heard the truth, then, for the first time," said percivale, and resumed his work. mr. baddeley walked out of the study. i am not sure that he was so very ignorant. he had been in the way of buying popular pictures for some time, paying thousands for certain of them. i suspect he had eye enough to see that my husband's would probably rise in value, and, with the true huckster spirit, was ambitious of boasting how little he had given compared with what they were really worth. percivale in this case was doubtless rude. he had an insuperable aversion to men of mr. baddeley's class,--men who could have no position but for their money, and who yet presumed upon it, as if it were gifts and graces, genius and learning, judgment and art, all in one. he was in the habit of saying that the plutocracy, as he called it, ought to be put down,--that is, negatively and honestly,--by showing them no more respect than you really entertained for them. besides, although he had no great favors for cousin judy's husband, he yet bore mr. baddeley a grudge for the way in which he had treated one with whom, while things went well with him, he had been ready enough to exchange hospitalities. before long, through lady bernard, he sold a picture at a fair price; and soon after, seeing in a shop-window the one mr. ---- had sold to mr. baddeley, marked ten pounds, went in and bought it. within the year he sold it for a hundred and fifty. by working day and night almost, he finished his new picture in time for the academy; and, as he had himself predicted, it proved, at least in the opinion of all his artist friends, the best that he had ever painted. it was bought at once for three hundred pounds; and never since then have we been in want of money. chapter xxxv. what lady bernard thought of it. my reader may wonder, that, in my record of these troubles, i have never mentioned marion. the fact is, i could not bring myself to tell her of them; partly because she was in some trouble herself, from strangers who had taken rooms in the house, and made mischief between her and her grandchildren; and partly because i knew she would insist on going to lady bernard; and, although i should not have minded it myself, i knew that nothing but seeing the children hungry would have driven my husband to consent to it. one evening, after it was all over, i told lady bernard the story. she allowed me to finish it without saying a word. when i had ended, she still sat silent for a few moments; then, laying her hand on my arm, said,-- my dear child, you were very wrong, as well as very unkind. why did you not let me know?" "because my husband would never have allowed me," i answered. "then i must have a talk with your husband," she said. "i wish you would," i replied; "for i can't help thinking percivale too severe about such things." the very next day she called, and did have a talk with him in the study to the following effect:-- "i have come to quarrel with you, mr. percivale," said lady bernard. "i'm sorry to hear it," he returned. "you're the last person i should like to quarrel with, for it would imply some unpardonable fault in me." "it does imply a fault--and a great one," she rejoined; "though i trust not an unpardonable one. that depends on whether you can repent of it." she spoke with such a serious air, that percivale grew uneasy, and began to wonder what he could possibly have done to offend her. i had told him nothing of our conversation, wishing her to have her own way with him. when she saw him troubled, she smiled. "is it not a fault, mr. percivale, to prevent one from obeying the divine law of bearing another's burden?" "but," said percivale, "i read as well, that every man shall bear his own burden." "ah!" returned lady bernard; "but i learn from mr. conybeare that two different greek words are there used, which we translate only by the english _burden_. i cannot tell you what they are: i can only tell you the practical result. we are to bear one another's burdens of pain or grief or misfortune or doubt,--whatever weighs one down is to be borne by another; but the man who is tempted to exalt himself over his neighbor is taught to remember that he has his own load of disgrace to bear and answer for. it is just a weaker form of the lesson of the mote and the beam. you cannot get out at that door, mr. percivale. i beg you will read the passage in your greek testament, and see if you have not misapplied it. you _ought_ to have let me bear your burden." "well, you see, my dear lady bernard," returned percivale, at a loss to reply to such a vigorous assault, "i knew how it would be. you would have come here and bought pictures you didn't want; and i, knowing all the time you did it only to give me the money, should have had to talk to you as if i were taken in by it; and i really could _not_ stand it." "there you are altogether wrong. besides depriving me of the opportunity of fulfilling a duty, and of the pleasure and the honor of helping you to bear your burden, you have deprived me of the opportunity of indulging a positive passion for pictures. i am constantly compelled to restrain it lest i should spend too much of the money given me for the common good on my own private tastes; but here was a chance for me! i might have had some of your lovely pictures in my drawing-room now--with a good conscience and a happy heart--if you had only been friendly. it was too bad of you, mr. percivale! i am not pretending in the least when i assert that i am really and thoroughly disappointed." "i haven't a word to say for myself," returned percivale. "you couldn't have said a better," rejoined lady bernard; "but i hope you will never have to say it again." "that i shall not. if ever i find myself in any difficulty worth speaking of, i will let you know at once." "thank you. then we are friends again. and now i do think i am entitled to a picture,--at least, i think it will be pardonable if i yield to the _very_ strong temptation i am under at this moment to buy one. let me see: what have you in the slave-market, as your wife calls it?" she bought "the street musician," as percivale had named the picture taken from dr. donne. i was more miserable than i ought to have been when i found he had parted with it, but it was a great consolation to think it was to lady bernard's it had gone. she was the only one, except my mother or miss clare, i could have borne to think of as having become its possessor. he had asked her what i thought a very low price for it; and i judge that lady bernard thought the same, but, after what had passed between them, would not venture to expostulate. with such a man as my husband, i fancy, she thought it best to let well alone. anyhow, one day soon after this, her servant brought him a little box, containing a fine brilliant. "the good lady's kindness is long-sighted," said my husband, as he placed it on his finger. "i shall be hard up, though, before i part with this. wynnie, i've actually got a finer diamond than mr. baddeley! it _is_ a beauty, if ever there was one!" my husband, with all his carelessness of dress and adornment, has almost a passion for stones. it is delightful to hear him talk about them. but he had never possessed a single gem before lady bernard made him this present. i believe he is child enough to be happier for it all his life. chapter xxxvi. retrospective. suddenly i become aware that i am drawing nigh the close of my monthly labors for a long year. yet the year seems to have passed more rapidly because of this addition to my anxieties. not that i haven't enjoyed the labor while i have been actually engaged in it, but the prospect of the next month's work would often come in to damp the pleasure of the present; making me fancy, as the close of each chapter drew near, that i should not have material for another left in my head. i heard a friend once remark that it is not the cares of to-day, but the cares of to-morrow, that weigh a man down. for the day we have the corresponding strength given, for the morrow we are told to trust; it is not ours yet. when i get my money for my work, i mean to give my husband a long holiday. i half think of taking him to italy,--for of course i can do what i like with my own, whether husband or money,--and so have a hand in making him a still better painter. incapable of imitation, the sight of any real work is always of great service to him, widening his sense of art, enlarging his idea of what can be done, rousing what part of his being is most in sympathy with it,--a part possibly as yet only half awake; in a word, leading him another step towards that simplicity which is at the root of all diversity, being so simple that it needs all diversity to set it forth. how impossible it seemed to me that i should ever write a book! well or ill done, it is almost finished, for the next month is the twelfth. i must look back upon what i have written, to see what loose ends i may have left, and whether any allusion has not been followed up with a needful explanation; for this way of writing by portions--the only way in which i could have been persuaded to attempt the work, however--is unfavorable to artistic unity; an unnecessary remark, seeing that to such unity my work makes no pretensions. it is but a collection of portions detached from an uneventful, ordinary, and perhaps in part _therefore_ very blessed life. hence, perhaps, it was specially fitted for this mode of publication. at all events, i can cast upon it none of the blame of what failure i may have to confess. a biography cannot be constructed with the art of a novel, for this reason: that a novel is constructed on the artist's scale, with swift-returning curves; a biography on the divine scale, whose circles are so large that they shoot beyond this world, sometimes even before we are able to detect in them the curve by which they will at length round themselves back towards completion. hence, every life must look more or less fragmentary, and more or less out of drawing perhaps; not to mention the questionable effects in color and tone where the model himself will insist on taking palette and brushes, and laying childish, if not passionate, conceited, ambitious, or even spiteful hands to the work. i do not find that i have greatly blundered, or omitted much that i ought to have mentioned. one odd thing is, that, in the opening conversation in which they urge me to the attempt, i have not mentioned marion. i do not mean that she was present, but that surely some one must have suggested her and her history as affording endless material for my record. a thing apparently but not really strange is, that i have never said a word about the mrs. cromwell mentioned in the same conversation. the fact is, that i have but just arrived at the part of my story where she first comes in. she died about three months ago; and i can therefore with the more freedom narrate in the next chapter what i have known of her. i find also that i have, in the fourth chapter, by some odd cerebro-mechanical freak, substituted the name of my aunt _martha_ for that of my aunt millicent, another sister of my father, whom he has not, i believe, had occasion to mention in either of his preceding books. my aunt martha is mrs. weir, and has no children; my aunt millicent is mrs. parsons, married to a hard-working attorney, and has twelve children, now mostly grown up. i find also, in the thirteenth chapter, an unexplained allusion. there my husband says, "just ask my brother his experience in regard of the word to which you object." the word was _stomach_, at the use of which i had in my ill-temper taken umbrage: however disagreeable a word in itself, surely a husband might, if need be, use it without offence. it will be proof enough that my objection arose from pure ill-temper when i state that i have since asked roger to what percivale referred. his reply was, that, having been requested by a certain person who had a school for young ladies--probably she called it a college--to give her pupils a few lectures on physiology, he could not go far in the course without finding it necessary to make a not unfrequent use of the word, explaining the functions of the organ to which the name belonged, as resembling those of a mill. after the lecture was over, the school-mistress took him aside, and said she really could not allow her young ladies to be made familiar with such words. roger averred that the word was absolutely necessary to the subject upon which she had desired his lectures; and that he did not know how any instruction in physiology could be given without the free use of it. "no doubt," she returned, "you must recognize the existence of the organ in question; but, as the name of it is offensive to ears polite, could you not substitute another? you have just said that its operations resemble those of a mill: could you not, as often as you require to speak of it, refer to it in the future as _the mill_?" roger, with great difficulty repressing his laughter, consented; but in his next lecture made far more frequent reference to _the mill_ than was necessary, using the word every time--i know exactly how--with a certain absurd solemnity that must have been irresistible. the girls went into fits of laughter at the first utterance of it, and seemed, he said, during the whole lecture, intent only on the new term, at every recurrence of which their laughter burst out afresh. doubtless their school-mistress had herself prepared them to fall into roger's trap. the same night he received a note from her, enclosing his fee for the lectures given, and informing him that the rest of the course would not be required. roger sent back the money, saying that to accept part payment would be to renounce his claim for the whole; and that, besides, he had already received an amount of amusement quite sufficient to reward him for his labor. i told him i thought he had been rather cruel; but he said such a woman wanted a lesson. he said also, that to see the sort of women who sometimes had the responsibility of training girls must make the angels weep; none but a heartless mortal like himself could laugh where conventionality and insincerity were taught in every hint as to posture and speech. it was bad enough, he said, to shape yourself into your own ideal; but to have to fashion yourself after the ideal of one whose sole object in teaching was to make money, was something wretched indeed. i find, besides, that several intentions i had when i started have fallen out of the scheme. somehow, the subjects would not well come in, or i felt that i was in danger of injuring the persons in the attempt to set forth their opinions. chapter xxxvii. mrs. cromwell comes. the moment the legacy was paid, our liabilities being already nearly discharged, my husband took us all to hastings. i had never before been to any other seacoast town where the land was worthy of the sea, except kilkhaven. assuredly, there is no place within easy reach of london to be once mentioned with hastings. of course we kept clear of the more fashionable and commonplace st. leonard's end, where yet the sea is the same,--a sea such that, not even off cornwall, have i seen so many varieties of ocean-aspect. the immediate shore, with its earthy cliffs, is vastly inferior to the magnificent rock about tintagel; but there is no outlook on the sea that i know more satisfying than that from the heights of hastings, especially the east hill; from the west side of which also you may, when weary of the ocean, look straight down on the ancient port, with its old houses, and fine, multiform red roofs, through the gauze of blue smoke which at eve of a summer day fills the narrow valley, softening the rough goings-on of life into harmony with the gentleness of sea and shore, field and sky. no doubt the suburbs are as unsightly as mere boxes of brick and lime can be, with an ugliness mean because pretentious, an altogether modern ugliness; but even this cannot touch the essential beauty of the place. on the brow of this east hill, just where it begins to sink towards ecclesbourne glen, stands a small, old, rickety house in the midst of the sweet grass of the downs. this house my husband was fortunate in finding to let, and took for three months. i am not, however, going to give any history of how we spent them; my sole reason for mentioning hastings at all being that there i made the acquaintance of mrs. cromwell. it was on this wise. one bright day, about noon,--almost all the days of those months were gorgeous with sunlight,--a rather fashionable maid ran up our little garden, begging for some water for her mistress. sending her on with the water, i followed myself with a glass of sherry. the door in our garden-hedge opened immediately on a green hollow in the hill, sloping towards the glen. as i stepped from the little gate on to the grass, i saw, to my surprise, that a white fog was blowing in from the sea. the heights on the opposite side of the glen, partially obscured thereby, looked more majestic than was their wont, and were mottled with patches of duller and brighter color as the drifts of the fog were heaped or parted here and there. far down, at the foot of the cliffs, the waves of the rising tide, driven shore-wards with the added force of a south-west breeze, caught and threw back what sunlight reached them, and thinned with their shine the fog between. it was all so strange and fine, and had come on so suddenly,--for when i had looked out a few minutes before, sea and sky were purely resplendent,--that i stood a moment or two and gazed, almost forgetting why i was there. when i bethought myself and looked about me, i saw, in the sheltered hollow before me, a lady seated in a curiously-shaped chair; so constructed, in fact, as to form upon occasion a kind of litter. it was plain she was an invalid, from her paleness, and the tension of the skin on her face, revealing the outline of the bones beneath. her features were finely formed, but rather small, and her forehead low; a greek-like face, with large, pale-blue eyes, that reminded me of little amy morley's. she smiled very sweetly when she saw me, and shook her head at the wine. "i only wanted a little water," she said. "this fog seems to stifle me." "it has come on very suddenly," i said. "perhaps it is the cold of it that affects your breathing. you don't seem very strong, and any sudden change of temperature"-- "i am not one of the most vigorous of mortals," she answered, with a sad smile; "but the day seemed of such indubitable character, that, after my husband had brought me here in the carriage, he sent it home, and left me with my maid, while he went for a long walk across the downs. when he sees the change in the weather, though, he will turn directly." "it won't do to wait him here," i said. "we must get you in at once. would it be wrong to press you to take a little of this wine, just to counteract a chill?" "i daren't touch any thing but water," she replied, "it would make me feverish at once." "run and tell the cook," i said to the maid, "that i want her here. you and she could carry your mistress in, could you not? i will help you." "there's no occasion for that, ma'am: she's as light as a feather," was the whispered answer. "i am quite ashamed of giving you so much trouble," said the lady, either hearing or guessing at our words. "my husband will be very grateful to you." "it is only an act of common humanity," i said. but, as i spoke, i fancied her fair brow clouded a little, as if she was not accustomed to common humanity, and the word sounded harsh in her ear. the cloud, however, passed so quickly that i doubted, until i knew her better, whether it had really been there. the two maids were now ready; and, jemima instructed by the other, they lifted her with the utmost ease, and bore her gently towards the house. the garden-gate was just wide enough to let the chair through, and in a minute more she was upon the sofa. then a fit of coughing came on which shook her dreadfully. when it had passed she lay quiet, with closed eyes, and a smile hovering about her sweet, thin-lipped mouth. by and by she opened them, and looked at me with a pitiful expression. "i fear you are far from well," i said. "i'm dying," she returned quietly. "i hope not," was all i could answer. "why should you hope not?" she returned. "i am in no strait betwixt two. i desire to depart. for me to die will be all gain." "but your friends?" i ventured to suggest, feeling my way, and not quite relishing either the form or tone of her utterance. "i have none but my husband." "then your husband?" i persisted. "ah!" she said mournfully, "he will miss me, no doubt, for a while. but it _must_ be a weight off him, for i have been a sufferer so long!" at this moment i heard a heavy, hasty step in the passage; the next, the room door opened, and in came, in hot haste, wiping his red face, a burly man, clumsy and active, with an umbrella in his hand, followed by a great, lumbering newfoundland dog. "down, polyphemus!" he said to the dog, which crept under a chair; while he, taking no notice of my presence, hurried up to his wife. "my love! my little dove!" he said eagerly: "did you think i had forsaken you to the cruel elements?" "no, alcibiades," she answered, with a sweet little drawl; "but you do not observe that i am not the only lady in the room." then, turning to me, "this is my husband, mr. cromwell," she said. "i cannot tell him _your_ name." "i am mrs. percivale," i returned, almost mechanically, for the gentleman's two names had run together and were sounding in my head: _alcibiades cromwell_! how could such a conjunction have taken place without the intervention of charles dickens? "i beg your pardon, ma'am," said mr. cromwell, bowing. "permit my anxiety about my poor wife to cover my rudeness. i had climbed the other side of the glen before i saw the fog; and it is no such easy matter to get up and down these hills of yours. i am greatly obliged to you for your hospitality. you have doubtless saved her life; for she is a frail flower, shrinking from the least breath of cold." the lady closed her eyes again, and the gentleman took her hand, and felt her pulse. he seemed about twice her age,--she not thirty; he well past fifty, the top of his head bald, and his gray hair sticking out fiercely over his good-natured red cheeks. he laid her hand gently down, put his hat on the table and his umbrella in a corner, wiped his face again, drew a chair near the sofa, and took his place by her side. i thought it better to leave them. when i re-entered after a while, i saw from the windows, which looked sea-ward, that the wind had risen, and was driving thin drifts no longer, but great, thick, white masses of sea-fog landwards. it was the storm-wind of that coast, the south-west, which dashes the pebbles over the parade, and the heavy spray against the houses. mr. alcibiades cromwell was sitting as i had left him, silent, by the side of his wife, whose blue-veined eyelids had apparently never been lifted from her large eyes. "is there any thing i could offer mrs. cromwell?" i said. "could she not eat something?" "it is very little she can take," he answered; "but you are very kind. if you could let her have a little beef-tea? she generally has a spoonful or two about this time of the day." "i am sorry we have none," i said; "and it would be far too long for her to wait. i have a nice chicken, though, ready for cooking: if she could take a little chicken-broth, that would be ready in a very little while." "thank you a thousand times, ma'am," he said heartily; "nothing could be better. she might even be induced to eat a mouthful of the chicken. but i am afraid your extreme kindness prevents me from being so thoroughly ashamed as i ought to be at putting you to so much trouble for perfect strangers." "it is but a pleasure to be of service to any one in want of it," i said. mrs. cromwell opened her eyes and smiled gratefully. i left the room to give orders about the chicken, indeed, to superintend the preparation of it myself; for jemima could not be altogether trusted in such a delicate affair as cooking for an invalid. when i returned, having set the simple operation going, mr. cromwell had a little hymn-book of mine he had found on the table open in his hand, and his wife was saying to him,-- "that is lovely! thank you, husband. how can it be i never saw it before? i am quite astonished." "she little knows what multitudes of hymns there are!" i thought with myself,--my father having made a collection, whence i had some idea of the extent of that department of religious literature. "this is a hymn-book we are not acquainted with," said mr. cromwell, addressing me. "it is not much known," i answered. "it was compiled by a friend of my father's for his own schools." "and this," he went on, "is a very beautiful hymn. you may trust my wife's judgment, mrs. percivale. she lives upon hymns." he read the first line to show which he meant. i had long thought, and still think, it the most beautiful hymn i know. it was taken from the german, only much improved in the taking, and given to my father to do what he pleased with; and my father had given it to another friend for his collection. before that, however, while still in manuscript, it had fallen into the hands of a certain clergyman, by whom it had been published without leave asked, or apology made: a rudeness of which neither my father nor the author would have complained, for it was a pleasure to think it might thus reach many to whom it would be helpful; but they both felt aggrieved and indignant that he had taken the dishonest liberty of altering certain lines of it to suit his own opinions. as i am anxious to give it all the publicity i can, from pure delight in it, and love to all who are capable of the same delight, i shall here communicate it, in the full confidence of thus establishing a claim on the gratitude of my readers. o lord, how happy is the time when in thy love i rest! when from my weariness i climb even to thy tender breast! the night of sorrow endeth there: thou art brighter than the sun; and in thy pardon and thy care the heaven of heaven is won. let the world call herself my foe, or let the world allure. i care not for the world: i go to this dear friend and sure. and when life's fiercest storms are sent upon life's wildest sea, my little bark is confident, because it holds by thee. when the law threatens endless death upon the awful hill, straightway from her consuming breath my soul goes higher still,-- goeth to jesus, wounded, slain, and maketh him her home, whence she will not go out again, and where death cannot come. i do not fear the wilderness where thou hast been before; nay, rather will i daily press after thee, near thee, more. thou art my food; on thee i lean; thou makest my heart sing; and to thy heavenly pastures green all thy dear flock dost bring. and if the gate that opens there be dark to other men, it is not dark to those who share the heart of jesus then. that is not losing much of life which is not losing thee, who art as present in the strife as in the victory. therefore how happy is the time when in thy love i rest! when from my weariness i climb even to thy tender breast! the night of sorrow endeth there: thou are brighter than the sun; and in thy pardon and thy care the heaven of heaven is won. in telling them a few of the facts connected with the hymn, i presume i had manifested my admiration of it with some degree of fervor. "ah!" said mrs. cromwell, opening her eyes very wide, and letting the rising tears fill them: "ah, mrs. percivale! you are--you must be one of us!" "you must tell me first who you are," i said. she held out her hand; i gave her mine: she drew me towards her, and whispered almost in my ear--though why or whence the affectation of secrecy i can only imagine--the name of a certain small and exclusive sect. i will not indicate it, lest i should be supposed to attribute to it either the peculiar faults or virtues of my new acquaintance. "no," i answered, speaking with the calmness of self-compulsion, for i confess i felt repelled: "i am not one of you, except in as far as we all belong to the church of christ." i have thought since how much better it would have been to say, "yes: for we all belong to the church of christ." she gave a little sigh of disappointment, closed her eyes for a moment, opened them again with a smile, and said with a pleading tone,-- "but you do believe in personal religion?" "i don't see," i returned, "how religion can be any thing but personal." again she closed her eyes, in a way that made me think how convenient bad health must be, conferring not only the privilege of passing into retirement at any desirable moment, but of doing so in such a ready and easy manner as the mere dropping of the eyelids. i rose to leave the room once more. mr. cromwell, who had made way for me to sit beside his wife, stood looking out of the window, against which came sweeping the great volumes of mist. i glanced out also. not only was the sea invisible, but even the brow of the cliffs. when he turned towards me, as i passed him, i saw that his face had lost much of its rubicund hue, and looked troubled and anxious. "there is nothing for it," i said to myself, "but keep them all night," and so gave directions to have a bedroom prepared for them. i did not much like it, i confess; for i was not much interested in either of them, while of the sect to which she belonged i knew enough already to be aware that it was of the narrowest and most sectarian in christendom. it was a pity she had sought to claim me by a would-be closer bond than that of the body of christ. still i knew i should be myself a sectary if i therefore excluded her from my best sympathies. at the same time i did feel some curiosity concerning the oddly-yoked couple, and wondered whether the lady was really so ill as she would appear. i doubted whether she might not be using her illness both as an excuse for self-indulgence, and as a means of keeping her husband's interest in her on the stretch. i did not like the wearing of her religion on her sleeve, nor the mellifluous drawl in which she spoke. when the chicken-broth was ready, she partook daintily; but before she ended had made a very good meal, including a wing and a bit of the breast; after which she fell asleep. "there seems little chance of the weather clearing," said mr. cromwell in a whisper, as i approached the window where he once more stood. "you must make up your mind to remain here for the night," i said. "my dear madam, i couldn't think of it," he returned,--i thought from unwillingness to incommode a strange household. "an invalid like her, sweet lamb!" he went on, "requires so many little comforts and peculiar contrivances to entice the repose she so greatly needs, that--that--in short, i must get her home." "where do you live?" i asked, not sorry to find his intention of going so fixed. "we have a house in warrior square," he answered. "we live in london, but have been here all the past winter. i doubt if she improves, though. i doubt--i doubt." he said the last words in a yet lower and more mournful whisper; then, with a shake of his head, turned and gazed again through the window. a peculiar little cough from the sofa made us both look round. mrs. cromwell was awake, and searching for her handkerchief. her husband understood her movements, and hurried to her assistance. when she took the handkerchief from her mouth, there was a red spot upon it. mr. cromwell's face turned the color of lead; but his wife looked up at him, and smiled; a sweet, consciously pathetic smile. "he has sent for me," she said. "the messenger has come." her husband made no answer. his eyes seemed starting from his head. "who is your medical man?" i asked him. he told me, and i sent off my housemaid to fetch him. it was a long hour before he arrived; during which, as often as i peeped in, i saw him sitting silent, and holding her hand, until the last time, when i found him reading a hymn to her. she was apparently once more asleep. nothing could be more favorable to her recovery than such quietness of both body and mind. when the doctor came, and had listened to mr. cromwell's statement, he proceeded to examine her chest with much care. that over, he averred in her hearing that he found nothing serious; but told her husband apart that there was considerable mischief, and assured me afterwards that her lungs were all but gone, and that she could not live beyond a month or two. she had better be removed to her own house, he said, as speedily as possible. "but it would be cruelty to send her out a day like this," i returned. "yes, yes: i did not mean that," he said. "but to-morrow, perhaps. you'll see what the weather is like. is mrs. cromwell an old friend?" "i never saw her until to-day," i replied. "ah!" he remarked, and said no more. we got her to bed as soon as possible. i may just mention that i never saw any thing to equal the _point-devise_ of her underclothing. there was not a stitch of cotton about her, using the word _stitch_ in its metaphorical sense. but, indeed, i doubt whether her garments were not all made with linen thread. even her horse-hair petticoat was quilted with rose-colored silk inside. "surely she has no children!" i said to myself; and was right, as my mother-readers will not be surprised to learn. it was a week before she got up again, and a month before she was carried down the hill; during which time her husband sat up with her, or slept on a sofa in the room beside her, every night. during the day i took a share in the nursing, which was by no means oppressive, for she did not suffer much, and required little. her chief demand was for hymns, the only annoyance connected with which worth mentioning was, that she often wished me to admire with her such as i could only half like, and occasionally such as were thoroughly distasteful to me. her husband had brought her own collection from warrior square, volumes of hymns in manuscript, copied by her own hand, many of them strange to me, none of those i read altogether devoid of literary merit, and some of them lovely both in feeling and form. but all, even the best, which to me were unobjectionable, belonged to one class,--a class breathing a certain tone difficult to describe; one, however, which i find characteristic of all the roman catholic hymns i have read. i will not indicate any of her selection; neither, lest i should be supposed to object to this or that one answering to the general description, and yet worthy of all respect, or even sympathy, will i go further with a specification of their sort than to say that what pleased me in them was their full utterance of personal devotion to the saviour, and that what displeased me was a sort of sentimental regard of self in the matter,--an implied special, and thus partially exclusive predilection or preference of the saviour for the individual supposed to be making use of them; a certain fundamental want of humility therefore, although the forms of speech in which they were cast might be laboriously humble. they also not unfrequently manifested a great leaning to the forms of earthly show as representative of the glories of that kingdom which the lord says is _within us_. likewise the manner in which mrs. cromwell talked reminded me much of the way in which a nun would represent her individual relation to christ. i can best show what i mean by giving a conversation i had with her one day when she was recovering, which she did with wonderful rapidity up to a certain point. i confess i shrink a little from reproducing it, because of the sacred name which, as it seemed to me, was far too often upon her lips, and too easily uttered. but then, she was made so different from me! the fine weather had returned in all its summer glory, and she was lying on a couch in her own room near the window, whence she could gaze on the expanse of sea below, this morning streaked with the most delicate gradations of distance, sweep beyond sweep, line and band and ribbon of softly, often but slightly varied hue, leading the eyes on and on into the infinite. there may have been some atmospheric illusion ending off the show, for the last reaches mingled so with the air that you saw no horizon line, only a great breadth of border; no spot which could you appropriate with certainty either to sea or sky; while here and there was a vessel, to all appearance, pursuing its path in the sky, and not upon the sea. it was, as some of my readers will not require to be told, a still, gray forenoon, with a film of cloud over all the heavens, and many horizontal strata of deeper but varying density near the horizon. mrs. cromwell had lain for some time with her large eyes fixed on the farthest confusion of sea and sky. "i have been sending out my soul," she said at length, "to travel all across those distances, step by step, on to the gates of pearl. who knows but that may be the path i must travel to meet the bridegroom?" "the way is wide," i said: "what if you should miss him?" i spoke almost involuntarily. the style of her talk was very distasteful to me; and i had just been thinking of what i had once heard my father say, that at no time were people in more danger of being theatrical than when upon their death-beds. "no," she returned, with a smile of gentle superiority; "no: that cannot be. is he not waiting for me? has he not chosen me, and called me for his own? is not my jesus mine? i shall _not_ miss him. he waits to give me my new name, and clothe me in the garments of righteousness." as she spoke, she clasped her thin hands, and looked upwards with a radiant expression. far as it was from me to hint, even in my own soul, that the saviour was not hers, tenfold more hers than she was able to think, i could not at the same time but doubt whether her heart and soul and mind were as close to him as her words would indicate she thought they were. she could not be wrong in trusting him; but could she be right in her notion of the measure to which her union with him had been perfected? i could not help thinking that a little fear, soon to pass into reverence, might be to her a salutary thing. the fear, i thought, would heighten and deepen the love, and purify it from that self which haunted her whole consciousness, and of which she had not yet sickened, as one day she certainly must. "my lamp is burning," she said; "i feel it burning. i love my lord. it would be false to say otherwise." "are you sure you have oil enough in your vessel as well as in your lamp?" i said. "ah, you are one of the doubting!" she returned kindly. "don't you know that sweet hymn about feeding our lamps from the olive-trees of gethsemane? the idea is taken from the lamp the prophet zechariah saw in his vision, into which two olive-branches, through two golden pipes, emptied the golden oil out of themselves. if we are thus one with the olive-tree, the oil cannot fail us. it is not as if we had to fill our lamps from a cruse of our own. this is the cruse that cannot fail." "true, true," i said; "but ought we not to examine our own selves whether we are in the faith?" "let those examine that doubt," she replied; and i could not but yield in my heart that she had had the best of the argument. for i knew that the confidence in christ which prevents us from thinking of ourselves, and makes us eager to obey his word, leaving all the care of our feelings to him, is a true and healthy faith. hence i could not answer her, although i doubted whether her peace came from such confidence,--doubted for several reasons: one, that, so far from not thinking of herself, she seemed full of herself; another, that she seemed to find no difficulty with herself in any way; and, surely, she was too young for all struggle to be over! i perceived no reference to the will of god in regard of any thing she had to do, only in regard of what she had to suffer, and especially in regard of that smallest of matters, when she was to go. here i checked myself, for what could she _do_ in such a state of health? but then she never spoke as if she had any anxiety about the welfare of other people. that, however, might be from her absolute contentment in the will of god. but why did she always look to the saviour through a mist of hymns, and never go straight back to the genuine old good news, or to the mighty thoughts and exhortations with which the first preachers of that news followed them up and unfolded the grandeur of their goodness? after all, was i not judging her? on the other hand, ought i not to care for her state? should i not be inhuman, that is, unchristian, if i did not? in the end i saw clearly enough, that, except it was revealed to me what i ought to say, i had no right to say any thing; and that to be uneasy about her was to distrust him whose it was to teach her, and who would perfect that which he had certainly begun in her. for her heart, however poor and faulty and flimsy its faith might be, was yet certainly drawn towards the object of faith. i, therefore, said nothing more in the direction of opening her eyes to what i considered her condition: that view of it might, after all, be but a phantasm of my own projection. what was plainly my duty was to serve her as one of those the least of whom the saviour sets forth as representing himself. i would do it to her as unto him. my children were out the greater part of every day, and dora was with me, so that i had more leisure than i had had for a long time. i therefore set myself to wait upon her as a kind of lady's maid in things spiritual. her own maid, understanding her ways, was sufficient for things temporal. i resolved to try to help her after her own fashion, and not after mine; for, however strange the nourishment she preferred might seem, it must at least be of the _kind_ she could best assimilate. my care should be to give her her gruel as good as i might, and her beef-tea strong, with chicken-broth instead of barley-water and delusive jelly. but much opportunity of ministration was not afforded me; for her husband, whose business in life she seemed to regard as the care of her,--for which, in truth, she was gently and lovingly grateful,--and who not merely accepted her view of the matter, but, i was pretty sure, had had a large share in originating it, was even more constant in his attentions than she found altogether agreeable, to judge by the way in which she would insist on his going out for a second walk, when it was clear, that, besides his desire to be with her, he was not inclined to walk any more. i could set myself, however, as i have indicated, to find fitting pabulum for her, and that of her chosen sort. this was possible for me in virtue of my father's collection of hymns, and the aid he could give me. i therefore sent him a detailed description of what seemed to me her condition, and what i thought i might do for her. it was a week before he gave me an answer; but it arrived a thorough one, in the shape of a box of books, each bristling with paper marks, many of them inscribed with some fact concerning, or criticism upon, the hymn indicated. he wrote that he quite agreed with my notion of the right mode of serving her; for any other would be as if a besieging party were to batter a postern by means of boats instead of walking over a lowered drawbridge, and under a raised portcullis. having taken a survey of the hymns my father thus pointed out to me, and arranged them according to their degrees of approximation to the weakest of those in mrs. cromwell's collection, i judged that in all of them there was something she must appreciate, although the main drift of several would be entirely beyond her apprehension. even these, however, it would be well to try upon her. accordingly, the next time she asked me to read from her collection, i made the request that she would listen to some which i believed she did not know, but would, i thought, like. she consented with eagerness, was astonished to find she knew none of them, expressed much approbation of some, and showed herself delighted with others. that she must have had some literary faculty seems evident from the genuine pleasure she took in simple, quaint, sometimes even odd hymns of her own peculiar kind. but the very best of another sort she could not appreciate. for instance, the following, by john mason, in my father's opinion one of the best hymn-writers, had no attraction for her:-- "thou wast, o god, and thou was blest before the world begun; of thine eternity possest before time's glass did run. thou needest none thy praise to sing, as if thy joy could fade: couldst thou have needed any thing, thou couldst have nothing made. "great and good god, it pleaseth thee thy godhead to declare; and what thy goodness did decree, thy greatness did prepare: thou spak'st, and heaven and earth appeared, and answered to thy call; as if their maker's voice they heard, which is the creature's all. "thou spak'st the word, most mighty lord; thy word went forth with speed: thy will, o lord, it was thy word; thy word it was thy deed. thou brought'st forth adam from the ground, and eve out of his side: thy blessing made the earth abound with these two multiplied. "those three great leaves, heaven, sea, and land, thy name in figures show; brutes feel the bounty of thy hand, but i my maker know. should not i here thy servant be, whose creatures serve me here? my lord, whom should i fear but thee, who am thy creatures' fear? "to whom, lord, should i sing but thee, the maker of my tongue? lo! other lords would seize on me, but i to thee belong. as waters haste unto their sea, and earth unto its earth, so let my soul return to thee, from whom it had its birth. "but, ah! i'm fallen in the night, and cannot come to thee: yet speak the word, '_let there be light_;' it shall enlighten me. and let thy word, most mighty lord, thy fallen creature raise: oh! make me o'er again, and i shall sing my maker's praise." this and others, i say, she could not relish; but my endeavors were crowned with success in so far that she accepted better specimens of the sort she liked than any she had; and i think they must have had a good influence upon her. she seemed to have no fear of death, contemplating the change she believed at hand, not with equanimity merely, but with expectation. she even wrote hymns about it,--sweet, pretty, and weak, always with herself and the love of her saviour for _her_, in the foreground. she had not learned that the love which lays hold of that which is human in the individual, that is, which is common to the whole race, must be an infinitely deeper, tenderer, and more precious thing to the individual than any affection manifesting itself in the preference of one over another. for the sake of revealing her modes of thought, i will give one more specimen of my conversations with her, ere i pass on. it took place the evening before her departure for her own house. her husband had gone to make some final preparations, of which there had been many. for one who expected to be unclothed that she might be clothed upon, she certainly made a tolerable to-do about the garment she was so soon to lay aside; especially seeing she often spoke of it as an ill-fitting garment--never with peevishness or complaint, only, as it seemed to me, with far more interest than it was worth. she had even, as afterwards appeared, given her husband--good, honest, dog-like man--full instructions as to the ceremonial of its interment. perhaps i should have been considerably less bewildered with her conduct had i suspected that she was not half so near death as she chose to think, and that she had as yet suffered little. that evening, the stars just beginning to glimmer through the warm flush that lingered from the sunset, we sat together in the drawing-room looking out on the sea. my patient appearing, from the light in her eyes, about to go off into one of her ecstatic moods, i hastened to forestall it, if i might, with whatever came uppermost; for i felt my inability to sympathize with her in these more of a pain than my reader will, perhaps, readily imagine. "it seems like turning you out to let you go to-morrow, mrs. cromwell," i said; "but, you see, our three months are up two days after, and i cannot help it." "you have been very kind," she said, half abstractedly. "and you are really much better. who would have thought three weeks ago to see you so well to-day?" "ah! you congratulate me, do you?" she rejoined, turning her big eyes full upon me; "congratulate me that i am doomed to be still a captive in the prison of this vile body? is it kind? is it well?" "at least, you must remember, if you are _doomed_, who dooms you." "'oh that i had the wings of a dove!'" she cried, avoiding my remark, of which i doubt if she saw the drift. "think, dear mrs. percivale: the society of saints and angels!--all brightness and harmony and peace! is it not worth forsaking this world to inherit a kingdom like that? wouldn't _you_ like to go? don't _you_ wish to fly away and be at rest?" she spoke as if expostulating and reasoning with one she would persuade to some kind of holy emigration. "not until i am sent for," i answered. "i _am_ sent for," she returned. "'the wave may be cold, and the tide may be strong; but, hark! on the shore the angels' glad song!' "do you know that sweet hymn, mrs. percivale? there i shall be able to love him aright, to serve him aright! "'here all my labor is so poor! here all my love so faint! but when i reach the heavenly door, i cease the weary plaint.'" i couldn't help wishing she would cease it a little sooner. "but suppose," i ventured to say, "it were the will of god that you should live many years yet." "that cannot be. and why should you wish it for me? is it not better to depart and be with him? what pleasure could it be to a weak, worn creature like me to go on living in this isle of banishment?" "but suppose you were to recover your health: would it not be delightful to _do_ something for his sake? if you would think of how much there is to be done in the world, perhaps you would wish less to die and leave it." "do not tempt me," she returned reproachfully. and then she quoted a passage the application of which to her own case appeared to me so irreverent, that i confess i felt like abraham with the idolater; so far at least as to wish her out of the house, for i could bear with her, i thought, no longer. she did leave it the next day, and i breathed more freely than since she had entered it. my husband came down to fetch me the following day; and a walk with him along the cliffs in the gathering twilight, during which i recounted the affectations of my late visitor, completely wiped the cobwebs from my mental windows, and enabled me to come to the conclusion that mrs. cromwell was but a spoiled child, who would, somehow or other, be brought to her senses before all was over. i was ashamed of my impatience with her, and believed if i could have learned her history, of which she had told me nothing, it would have explained the rare phenomenon of one apparently able to look death in the face with so little of the really spiritual to support her, for she seemed to me to know christ only after the flesh. but had she indeed ever looked death in the face? chapter xxxviii. mrs. cromwell goes. i heard nothing more of her for about a year. a note or two passed between us, and then all communication ceased. this, i am happy to think, was not immediately my fault: not that it mattered much, for we were not then fitted for much communion; we had too little in common to commune. "did you not both believe in one lord?" i fancy a reader objecting. "how, then, can you say you had too little in common to be able to commune?" i said the same to myself, and tried the question in many ways. the fact remained, that we could not commune, that is, with any heartiness; and, although i may have done her wrong, it was, i thought, to be accounted for something in this way. the saviour of whom she spoke so often, and evidently thought so much, was in a great measure a being of her own fancy; so much so, that she manifested no desire to find out what the christ was who had spent three and thirty years in making a revelation of himself to the world. the knowledge she had about him was not even at second-hand, but at many removes. she did not study his words or his actions to learn his thoughts or his meanings; but lived in a kind of dreamland of her own, which could be interesting only to the dreamer. now, if we are to come to god through christ, it must surely be by knowing christ; it must be through the knowledge of christ that the spirit of the father mainly works in the members of his body; and it seemed to me she did not take the trouble to "know him and the power of his resurrection." therefore we had scarcely enough of common ground, as i say, to meet upon. i could not help contrasting her religion with that of marion clare. at length i had a note from her, begging me to go and see her at her house at richmond, and apologizing for her not coming to me, on the score of her health. i felt it my duty to go, but sadly grudged the loss of time it seemed, for i expected neither pleasure nor profit from the visit. percivale went with me, and left me at the door to have a row on the river, and call for me at a certain hour. the house and grounds were luxurious and lovely both, two often dissociated qualities. she could have nothing to desire of this world's gifts, i thought. but the moment she entered the room into which i had been shown, i was shocked at the change i saw in her. almost to my horror, she was in a widow's cap; and disease and coming death were plain on every feature. such was the contrast, that the face in my memory appeared that of health. "my dear mrs. cromwell!" i gasped out. "you see," she said, and sitting down, on a straight-backed chair, looked at me with lustreless eyes. death had been hovering about her windows before, but had entered at last; not to take the sickly young woman longing to die, but the hale man, who would have clung to the last edge of life. "he is taken, and i am left," she said abruptly, after a long pause. her drawl had vanished: pain and grief had made her simple. "then," i thought with myself, "she did love him!" but i could say nothing. she took my silence for the sympathy it was, and smiled a heart-rending smile, so different from that little sad smile she used to have; really pathetic now, and with hardly a glimmer in it of the old self-pity. i rose, put my arms about her, and kissed her on the forehead; she laid her head on my shoulder, and wept. "whom the lord loveth he chasteneth," i faltered out, for her sorrow filled me with a respect that was new. "yes," she returned, as gently as hopelessly; "and whom he does not love as well." "you have no ground for saying so," i answered. "the apostle does not." "my lamp is gone out," she said; "gone out in darkness, utter darkness. you warned me, and i did not heed the warning. i thought i knew better, but i was full of self-conceit. and now i am wandering where there is no way and no light. my iniquities have found me out." i did not say what i thought i saw plain enough,--that her lamp was just beginning to burn. neither did i try to persuade her that her iniquities were small. "but the bridegroom," i said, "is not yet come. there is time to go and get some oil." "where am i to get it?" she returned, in a tone of despair. "from the bridegroom himself," i said. "no," she answered. "i have talked and talked and talked, and you know he says he abhors talkers. i am one of those to whom he will say 'i know you not.'" "and you will answer him that you have eaten and drunk in his presence, and cast out devils, and--?" "no, no: i will say he is right; that it is all my own fault; that i thought i was something when i was nothing, but that i know better now." a dreadful fit of coughing interrupted her. as soon as it was over, i said,-- "and what will the lord say to you, do you think, when you have said so to him?" "depart from me," she answered in a hollow, forced voice. "no," i returned. "he will say, 'i know you well. you have told me the truth. come in.'" "_do_ you think so?" she cried. "you never used to think well of me." "those who were turned away," i said, avoiding her last words, "were trying to make themselves out better than they were: they trusted, not in the love of christ, but in what they thought their worth and social standing. perhaps, if their deeds had been as good as they thought them, they would have known better than to trust in them. if they had told him the truth; if they had said, 'lord, we are workers of iniquity; lord, we used to be hypocrites, but we speak the truth now: forgive us,'--do you think he would then have turned them away? no, surely. if your lamp has gone out, make haste and tell him how careless you have been; tell him all, and pray him for oil and light; and see whether your lamp will not straightway glimmer,--glimmer first and then glow." "ah, mrs. percivale!" she cried: "i would _do_ something for his sake now if i might, but i cannot. if i had but resisted the disease in me for the sake of serving him, i might have been able now: but my chance is over; i cannot now; i have too much pain. and death looks such a different thing now! i used to think of it only as a kind of going to sleep, easy though sad--sad, i mean, in the eyes of mourning friends. but, alas! i have no friends, now that my husband is gone. i never dreamed of him going first. he loved me: indeed he did, though you will hardly believe it; but i always took it as a matter of course. i never saw how beautiful and unselfish he was till he was gone. i have been selfish and stupid and dull, and my sins have found me out. a great darkness has fallen upon me; and although weary of life, instead of longing for death, i shrink from it with horror. my cough will not let me sleep: there is nothing but weariness in my body, and despair in my heart. oh how black and dreary the nights are! i think of the time in your house as of an earthly paradise. but where is the heavenly paradise i used to dream of then?" "would it content you," i asked, "to be able to dream of it again?" "no, no. i want something very different now. those fancies look so uninteresting and stupid now! all i want now is to hear god say, 'i forgive you.' and my husband--i must have troubled him sorely. you don't know how good he was, mrs. percivale. _he_ made no pretences like silly me. do you know," she went on, lowering her voice, and speaking with something like horror in its tone, "do you know, i cannot _bear_ hymns!" as she said it, she looked up in my face half-terrified with the anticipation of the horror she expected to see manifested there. i could not help smiling. the case was not one for argument of any kind: i thought for a moment, then merely repeated the verse,-- "when the law threatens endless death, upon the awful hill, straightway, from her consuming breath, my soul goes higher still,-- goeth to jesus, wounded, slain, and maketh him her home, whence she will not go out again, and where death cannot come." "ah! that is good," she said: "if only i could get to him! but i cannot get to him. he is so far off! he seems to be--nowhere." i think she was going to say _nobody_, but changed the word. "if you felt for a moment how helpless and wretched i feel, especially in the early morning," she went on; "how there seems nothing to look for, and no help to be had,--you would pity rather than blame me, though i know i deserve blame. i feel as if all the heart and soul and strength and mind, with which we are told to love god, had gone out of me; or, rather, as if i had never had any. i doubt if i ever had. i tried very hard for a long time to get a sight of jesus, to feel myself in his presence; but it was of no use, and i have quite given it up now." i made her lie on the sofa, and sat down beside her. "do you think," i said, "that any one, before he came, could have imagined such a visitor to the world as jesus christ?" "i suppose not," she answered listlessly. "then, no more can you come near him now by trying to imagine him. you cannot represent to yourself the reality, the being who can comfort you. in other words, you cannot take him into your heart. he only knows himself, and he only can reveal himself to you. and not until he does so, can you find any certainty or any peace." "but he doesn't--he won't reveal himself to me." "suppose you had forgotten what some friend of your childhood was like--say, if it were possible, your own mother; suppose you could not recall a feature of her face, or the color of her eyes; and suppose, that, while you were very miserable about it, you remembered all at once that you had a portrait of her in an old desk you had not opened for years: what would you do?" "go and get it," she answered like a child at the sunday school. "then why shouldn't you do so now? you have such a portrait of jesus, far truer and more complete than any other kind of portrait can be,--the portrait his own deeds and words give us of him." "i see what you mean; but that is all about long ago, and i want him now. that is in a book, and i want him in my heart." "how are you to get him into your heart? how could you have him there, except by knowing him? but perhaps you think you do know him?" "i am certain i do not know him; at least, as i want to know him," she said. "no doubt," i went on, "he can speak to your heart without the record, and, i think, is speaking to you now in this very want of him you feel. but how could he show himself to you otherwise than by helping you to understand the revelation of himself which it cost him such labor to afford? if the story were millions of years old, so long as it was true, it would be all the same as if it had been ended only yesterday; for, being what he represented himself, he never can change. to know what he was then, is to know what he is now." "but, if i knew him so, that wouldn't be to have him with me." "no; but in that knowledge he might come to you. it is by the door of that knowledge that his spirit, which is himself, comes into the soul. you would at least be more able to pray to him: you would know what kind of a being you had to cry to. _you_ would thus come nearer to him; and no one ever drew nigh to him to whom he did not also draw nigh. if you would but read the story as if you had never read it before, as if you were reading the history of a man you heard of for the first time"-- "surely you're not a unitarian, mrs. percivale!" she said, half lifting her head, and looking at me with a dim terror in her pale eyes. "god forbid!" i answered. "but i would that many who think they know better believed in him half as much as many unitarians do. it is only by understanding and believing in that humanity of his, which in such pain and labor manifested his godhead, that we can come to know it,--know that godhead, i mean, in virtue of which alone he was a true and perfect man; that godhead which alone can satisfy with peace and hope the poorest human soul, for it also is the offspring of god." i ceased, and for some moments she sat silent. then she said feebly,-- "there's a bible somewhere in the room." i found it, and read the story of the woman who came behind him in terror, and touched the hem of his garment. i could hardly read it for the emotion it caused in myself; and when i ceased i saw her weeping silently. a servant entered with the message that mr. percivale had called for me. "i cannot see him to-day," she sobbed. "of course not," i replied. "i must leave you now; but i will come again,--come often if you like." "you are as kind as ever!" she returned, with a fresh burst of tears. "will you come and be with me when--when--?" she could not finish for sobs. "i will," i said, knowing well what she meant. this is how i imagined the change to have come about: what had seemed her faith had been, in a great measure, but her hope and imagination, occupying themselves with the forms of the religion towards which all that was highest in her nature dimly urged. the two characteristics of amicability and selfishness, not unfrequently combined, rendered it easy for her to deceive herself, or rather conspired to prevent her from undeceiving herself, as to the quality and worth of her religion. for, if she had been other than amiable, the misery following the outbreaks of temper which would have been of certain occurrence in the state of her health, would have made her aware in some degree of her moral condition; and, if her thoughts had not been centred upon herself, she would, in her care for others, have learned her own helplessness; and the devotion of her good husband, not then accepted merely as a natural homage to her worth, would have shown itself as a love beyond her deserts, and would have roused the longing to be worthy of it. she saw now that he must have imagined her far better than she was: but she had not meant to deceive him; she had but followed the impulses of a bright, shallow nature. but that last epithet bids me pause, and remember that my father has taught me, and that i have found the lesson true, that there is no such thing as a shallow nature: every nature is infinitely deep, for the works of god are everlasting. also, there is no nature that is not shallow to what it must become. i suspect every nature must have the subsoil ploughing of sorrow, before it can recognize either its present poverty or its possible wealth. when her husband died, suddenly, of apoplexy, she was stunned for a time, gradually awaking to a miserable sense of unprotected loneliness, so much the more painful for her weakly condition, and the overcare to which she had been accustomed. she was an only child, and had become an orphan within a year or two after her early marriage. left thus without shelter, like a delicate plant whose house of glass has been shattered, she speedily recognized her true condition. with no one to heed her whims, and no one capable of sympathizing with the genuine misery which supervened, her disease gathered strength rapidly, her lamp went out, and she saw no light beyond; for the smoke of that lamp had dimmed the windows at which the stars would have looked in. when life became dreary, her fancies, despoiled of the halo they had cast on the fogs of selfish comfort, ceased to interest her; and the future grew a vague darkness, an uncertainty teeming with questions to which she had no answer. henceforth she was conscious of life only as a weakness, as the want of a deeper life to hold it up. existence had become a during faint, and self hateful. she saw that she was poor and miserable and blind and naked,--that she had never had faith fit to support her. but out of this darkness dawned at least a twilight, so gradual, so slow, that i cannot tell when or how the darkness began to melt. she became aware of a deeper and simpler need than hitherto she had known,--the need of life in herself, the life of the son of god. i went to see her often. at the time when i began this history, i was going every other day,--sometimes oftener, for her end seemed to be drawing nigh. her weakness had greatly increased: she could but just walk across the room, and was constantly restless. she had no great continuous pain, but oft-returning sharp fits of it. she looked genuinely sad, and her spirits never recovered themselves. she seldom looked out of the window; the daylight seemed to distress her: flowers were the only links between her and the outer world,--wild ones, for the scent of greenhouse-flowers, and even that of most garden ones, she could not bear. she had been very fond of music, but could no longer endure her piano: every note seemed struck on a nerve. but she was generally quiet in her mind, and often peaceful. the more her body decayed about her, the more her spirit seemed to come alive. it was the calm of a gray evening, not so lovely as a golden sunset or a silvery moonlight, but more sweet than either. she talked little of her feelings, but evidently longed after the words of our lord. as she listened to some of them, i could see the eyes which had now grown dim with suffering, gleam with the light of holy longing and humble adoration. for some time she often referred to her coming departure, and confessed that she "feared death; not so much what might be on the other side, as the dark way itself,--the struggle, the torture, the fainting; but by degrees her allusions to it became rarer, and at length ceased almost entirely. once i said to her,-- "are you afraid of death still, eleanor?" "no--not much," she replied, after a brief pause. "he may do with me whatever he likes." knowing so well what marion could do to comfort and support, and therefore desirous of bringing them together, i took her one day with me. but certain that the thought of seeing a stranger would render my poor eleanor uneasy, and that what discomposure a sudden introduction might cause would speedily vanish in marion's presence, i did not tell her what i was going to do. nor in this did i mistake. before we left, it was plain that marion had a far more soothing influence upon her than i had myself. she looked eagerly for her next visit, and my mind was now more at peace concerning her. one evening, after listening to some stories from marion about her friends, mrs. cromwell said,-- "ah, miss clare! to think i might have done something for _him_ by doing it for _them!_ alas! i have led a useless life, and am dying out of this world without having borne any fruit! ah, me, me!" "you are doing a good deal for him now," said marion, "and hard work too!" she added; "harder far than mine." "i am only dying," she returned--so sadly! "you are enduring chastisement," said marion. "the lord gives one one thing to do, and another another. we have no right to wish for other work than he gives us. it is rebellious and unchildlike, whatever it may seem. neither have we any right to wish to be better in _our_ way: we must wish to be better in _his_." "but i _should_ like to do something for _him_; bearing is only for myself. surely i may wish that?" "no: you may not. bearing is not only for yourself. you are quite wrong in thinking you do nothing for him in enduring," returned marion, with that abrupt decision of hers which seemed to some like rudeness. "what is the will of god? is it not your sanctification? and why did he make the captain of our salvation perfect through suffering? was it not that he might in like manner bring many sons into glory? then, if you are enduring, you are working with god,--for the perfection through suffering of one more: you are working for god in yourself, that the will of god may be done in you; that he may have his very own way with you. it is the only work he requires of you now: do it not only willingly, then, but contentedly. to make people good is all his labor: be good, and you are a fellow-worker with god in the highest region of labor. he does not want you for other people--_yet_." at the emphasis marion laid on the last word, mrs. cromwell glanced sharply up. a light broke over her face: she had understood, and with a smile was silent. one evening, when we were both with her, it had grown very sultry and breathless. "isn't it very close, dear mrs. percivale?" she said. i rose to get a fan; and marion, leaving the window as if moved by a sudden resolve, went and opened the piano. mrs. cromwell made a hasty motion, as if she must prevent her. but, such was my faith in my friend's soul as well as heart, in her divine taste as well as her human faculty, that i ventured to lay my hand on mrs. cromwell's. it was enough for sweetness like hers: she yielded instantly, and lay still, evidently nerving herself to suffer. but the first movement stole so "soft and soullike" on her ear, trembling as it were on the border-land between sound and silence, that she missed the pain she expected, and found only the pleasure she looked not for. marion's hands made the instrument sigh and sing, not merely as with a human voice, but as with a human soul. her own voice next evolved itself from the dim uncertainty, in sweet proportions and delicate modulations, stealing its way into the heart, to set first one chord, then another, vibrating, until the whole soul was filled with responses. if i add that her articulation was as nearly perfect as the act of singing will permit, my reader may well believe that a song of hers would do what a song might. where she got the song she then sung, she always avoids telling me. i had told her all i knew and understood concerning mrs. cromwell, and have my suspicions. this is the song:-- "i fancy i hear a whisper as of leaves in a gentle air: is it wrong, i wonder, to fancy it may be the tree up there?-- the tree that heals the nations, growing amidst the street, and dropping, for who will gather, its apples at their feet? "i fancy i hear a rushing as of waters down a slope: is it wrong, i wonder, to fancy it may be the river of hope? the river of crystal waters that flows from the very throne, and runs through the street of the city with a softly jubilant tone? "i fancy a twilight round me, and a wandering of the breeze, with a hush in that high city, and a going in the trees. but i know there will be no night there,-- no coming and going day; for the holy face of the father will be perfect light alway. "i could do without the darkness, and better without the sun; but, oh, i should like a twilight after the day was done! would he lay his hand on his forehead, on his hair as white as wool, and shine one hour through his fingers, till the shadow had made me cool? "but the thought is very foolish: if that face i did but see, all else would be all forgotten,-- river and twilight and tree; i should seek, i should care, for nothing, beholding his countenance; and fear only to lose one glimmer by one single sideway glance. "'tis but again a foolish fancy to picture the countenance so. which is shining in all our spirits, making them white as snow. come to me, shine in me, master, and i care not for river or tree,-- care for no sorrow or crying, if only thou shine in me. "i would lie on my bed for ages, looking out on the dusty street, where whisper nor leaves nor waters, nor any thing cool and sweet; at my heart this ghastly fainting, and this burning in my blood,-- if only i knew thou wast with me,-- wast with me and making me good." when she rose from the piano, mrs. cromwell stretched out her hand for hers, and held it some time, unable to speak. then she said,-- "that has done me good, i hope. i will try to be more patient, for i think he _is_ teaching me." she died, at length, in my arms. i cannot linger over that last time. she suffered a good deal, but dying people are generally patient. she went without a struggle. the last words i heard her utter were, "yes, lord;" after which she breathed but once. a half-smile came over her face, which froze upon it, and remained, until the coffin-lid covered it. but i shall see it, i trust, a whole smile some day. chapter xxxix. ancestral wisdom. i did think of having a chapter about children before finishing my book; but this is not going to be the kind of chapter i thought of. like most mothers, i suppose, i think myself an authority on the subject; and, which is to me more assuring than any judgment of my own, my father says that i have been in a measure successful in bringing mine up,--only they're not brought up very far yet. hence arose the temptation to lay down a few practical rules i had proved and found answer. but, as soon as i began to contemplate the writing of them down, i began to imagine so-and-so and so-and-so attempting to carry them out, and saw what a dreadful muddle they would make of it, and what mischief would thence lie at my door. only one thing can be worse than the attempt to carry out rules whose principles are not understood; and that is the neglect of those which are understood, and seen to be right. suppose, for instance, i were to say that corporal punishment was wholesome, involving less suffering than most other punishments, more effectual in the result, and leaving no sting or sense of unkindness; whereas mental punishment, considered by many to be more refined, and therefore less degrading, was often cruel to a sensitive child, and deadening to a stubborn one: suppose i said this, and a woman like my aunt millicent were to take it up: _her_ whippings would have no more effect than if her rod were made of butterflies' feathers; they would be a mockery to her children, and bring law into contempt; while if a certain father i know were to be convinced by my arguments, he would fill his children with terror of him now, and with hatred afterwards. of the last-mentioned result of severity, i know at least one instance. at present, the father to whom i refer disapproves of whipping even a man who has been dancing on his wife with hob-nailed shoes, because it would tend to brutalize him. but he taunts and stings, and confines in solitude for lengthened periods, high-spirited boys, and that for faults which i should consider very venial. then, again, if i were to lay down the rule that we must be as tender of the feelings of our children as if they were angel-babies who had to learn, alas! to understand our rough ways, how would that be taken by a certain french couple i know, who, not appearing until after the dinner to which they had accepted an invitation was over, gave as the reason, that it had been quite out of their power; for darling désirée, their only child, had declared they shouldn't go, and that she would cry if they did; nay, went so far as to insist on their going to bed, which they were, however reluctant, compelled to do. they had actually undressed, and pretended to retire for the night; but, as soon as she was safely asleep, rose and joined their friends, calm in the consciousness of abundant excuse. the marvel to me is that so many children turn out so well. after all, i think there can be no harm in mentioning a few general principles laid down by my father. they are such as to commend themselves most to the most practical. and first for a few negative ones. . never _give in_ to disobedience; and never threaten what you are not prepared to carry out. . never lose your temper. i do not say _never be angry_. anger is sometimes indispensable, especially where there has been any thing mean, dishonest, or cruel. but anger is very different from loss of temper. [footnote: my aunt millicent is always saying, "i am _grieeeved_ with you." but the announcement begets no sign of responsive grief on the face of the stolid child before her. she never whipped a child in her life. if she had, and it had but roused some positive anger in the child, instead of that undertone of complaint which is always oozing out of every one of them, i think it would have been a gain. but the poor lady is one of the whiny-piny people, and must be in preparation for a development of which i have no prevision. the only stroke of originality i thought i knew of her was this; to the register of her children's births, baptisms, and confirmations, entered on a grandly-ornamented fly-leaf of the family bible, she has subjoined the record of every disease each has had, with the year, month, and day (and in one case the hour), when each distemper made its appearance. after most of the main entries, you may read, "_cut his_ (or her) _first tooth_"--at such a date. but, alas for the originality! she has just told me that her maternal grandmother did the same. how strange that she and my father should have had the same father i if they had had the same mother, too, i should have been utterly bewildered.] . of all things, never sneer at them; and be careful, even, how you rally them. . do not try to work on their feelings. feelings are far too delicate things to be used for tools. it is like taking the mainspring out of your watch, and notching it for a saw. it may be a wonderful saw, but how fares your watch? especially avoid doing so in connection with religious things, for so you will assuredly deaden them to all that is finest. let your feelings, not your efforts on theirs, affect them with a sympathy the more powerful that it is not forced upon them; and, in order to do this, avoid being too english in the hiding of your feelings. a man's own family has a right to share in his _good_ feelings. . never show that you doubt, except you are able to convict. to doubt an honest child is to do what you can to make a liar of him; and to believe a liar, if he is not altogether shameless, is to shame him. the common-minded masters in schools, who, unlike the ideal arnold, are in the habit of _disbelieving_ boys, have a large share in making the liars they so often are. certainly the vileness of a lie is not the same in one who knows that whatever he says will be regarded with suspicion; and the master, who does not know an honest boy after he has been some time in his class, gives good reason for doubting whether he be himself an honest man, and incapable of the lying he is ready to attribute to all alike. this last is my own remark, not my father's. i have an honest boy at school, and i know how he fares. i say honest; for though, as a mother, i can hardly expect to be believed, i have ground for believing that he would rather die than lie. i know _i_ would rather he died than lied. . instil no religious doctrine apart from its duty. if it have no duty as its necessary embodiment, the doctrine may well be regarded as doubtful. . do not be hard on mere quarrelling, which, like a storm in nature, is often helpful in clearing the moral atmosphere. stop it by a judgment between the parties. but be severe as to the _kind_ of quarrelling, and the temper shown in it. especially give no quarter to any unfairness arising from greed or spite. use your strongest language with regard to that. now for a few of my father's positive rules: . always let them come to you, and always hear what they have to say. if they bring a complaint, always examine into it, and dispense pure justice, and nothing but justice. . cultivate a love of _giving_ fair-play. every one, of course, likes to _receive_ fair-play; but no one ought to be left to imagine, therefore, that he _loves fair-play_. . teach from the very first, from the infancy capable of sucking a sugar-plum, to share with neighbors. never refuse the offering a child brings you, except you have a good reason,--and _give_ it. and never _pretend_ to partake: that involves hideous possibilities in its effects on the child. the necessity of giving a reason for refusing a kindness has no relation to what is supposed by some to be the necessity of giving a reason with every command. there is no such necessity. of course there ought to be a reason in every command. that it _may_ be desirable, sometimes, to explain it, is all my father would allow. . allow a great deal of noise,--as much as is fairly endurable; but, the moment they seem getting beyond their own control, stop the noise at once. also put a stop at once to all fretting and grumbling. . favor the development of each in the direction of his own bent. help him to develop himself, but do not _push_ development. to do so is most dangerous. . mind the moral nature, and it will take care of the intellectual. in other words, the best thing for the intellect is the cultivation of the conscience, not in casuistry, but in conduct. it may take longer to arrive; but the end will be the highest possible health, vigor, and ratio of progress. . discourage emulation, and insist on duty,--not often, but strongly. having written these out, chiefly from notes i had made of a long talk with my father, i gave them to percivale to read. "rather--ponderous, don't you think, for weaving into a narrative?" was his remark. "my narrative is full of things far from light," i returned. "i didn't say they were heavy, you know. that is quite another thing." "i am afraid you mean generally uninteresting. but there are parents who might make them useful, and the rest of my readers could skip them." "i only mean that a narrative, be it ever so serious, must not intrench on the moral essay or sermon." "it is much too late, i fear, to tell me that. but, please, remember i am not giving the precepts as of my own discovery, though i _have_ sought to verify them by practice, but as what they are,--my father's." he did not seem to see the bearing of the argument. "i want my book to be useful," i said. "as a mother, i want to share the help i have had myself with other mothers." "i am only speaking from the point of art," he returned. "and that's a point i have never thought of; any farther, at least, than writing as good english as i might." "do you mean to say you have never thought of the shape of the book your monthly papers would make?" "yes. i don't think i have. scarcely at all, i believe." "then you ought." "but i know nothing about that kind of thing. i haven't an idea in my head concerning the art of book-making. and it is too late, so far at least as this book is concerned, to begin to study it now." "i wonder how my pictures would get on in that way." "you can see how my book has got on. well or ill, there it all but is. i had to do with facts, and not with art." "but even a biography, in the ordering of its parts, in the arrangement of its light and shade, and in the harmony of the"-- "it's too late, i tell you, husband. the book is all but done. besides, one who would write a biography after the fashion of a picture would probably, even without attributing a single virtue that was not present, or suppressing a single fault that was, yet produce a false book. the principle i have followed has been to try from the first to put as much value, that is, as much truth, as i could, into my story. perhaps, instead of those maxims of my father's for the education of children, you would have preferred such specimens of your own children's sermons as you made me read to you for the twentieth time yesterday?" instead of smiling with his own quiet kind smile, as he worked on at his picture of st. athanasius with "no friend but god and death," he burst into a merry laugh, and said,-- "a capital idea! if you give those, word for word, i shall yield the precepts." "are you out of your five wits, husband?" i exclaimed. "would you have everybody take me for the latest incarnation of the oldest insanity in the world,--that of maternity? but i am really an idiot, for you could never have meant it!" "i do most soberly and distinctly mean it. they would amuse your readers very much, and, without offending those who may prefer your father's maxims to your children's sermons, would incline those who might otherwise vote the former a bore, to regard them with the clemency resulting from amusement." "but i desire no such exercise of clemency. the precepts are admirable; and those need not take them who do not like them." "so the others can skip the sermons; but i am sure they will give a few mothers, at least, a little amusement. they will prove besides, that you follow your own rule of putting a very small quantity of sage into the stuffing of your goslings; as also that you have succeeded in making them capable of manifesting what nonsense is indigenous in them. i think them very funny; that may be paternal prejudice: _you_ think them very silly as well; that may be maternal solicitude. i suspect, that, the more of a philosopher any one of your readers is, the more suggestive will he find these genuine utterances of an age at which the means of expression so much exceed the matter to be expressed." the idea began to look not altogether so absurd as at first; and a little more argument sufficed to make me resolve to put the absurdities themselves to the test of passing leisurely through my brain while i copied them out, possibly for the press. the result is, that i am going to risk printing them, determined, should i find afterwards that i have made a blunder, to throw the whole blame upon my husband. what still makes me shrink the most is the recollection of how often i have condemned, as too silly to repeat, things which reporting mothers evidently regarded as proofs of a stupendous intellect. but the folly of these constitutes the chief part of their merit; and i do not see how i can be mistaken for supposing them clever, except it be in regard of a glimmer of purpose now and then, and the occasional manifestation of the cunning of the stump orator, with his subterfuges to conceal his embarrassment when he finds his oil failing him, and his lamp burning low. chapter xl. child nonsense. one word of introductory explanation. during my husband's illness, marion came often, but, until he began to recover, would generally spend with the children the whole of the time she had to spare, not even permitting me to know that she was in the house. it was a great thing for them; for, although they were well enough cared for, they were necessarily left to themselves a good deal more than hitherto. hence, perhaps, it came that they betook themselves to an amusement not uncommon with children, of which i had as yet seen nothing amongst them. one evening, when my husband had made a little progress towards recovery, marion came to sit with me in his room for an hour. "i've brought you something i want to read to you," she said, "if you think mr. percivale can bear it." i told her i believed he could, and she proceeded to explain what it was. "one morning, when i went into the nursery, i found the children playing at church, or rather at preaching; for, except a few minutes of singing, the preaching occupied the whole time. there were two clergymen, ernest and charles, alternately incumbent and curate. the chief duty of the curate for the time being was to lend his aid to the rescue of his incumbent from any difficulty in which the extemporaneous character of his discourse might land him." i interrupt marion to mention that the respective ages of ernest and charles were then eight and six. "the pulpit," she continued, "was on the top of the cupboard under the cuckoo-clock, and consisted of a chair and a cushion. there were prayer-books in abundance; of which neither of them, i am happy to say, made other than a pretended use for reference. charles, indeed, who was preaching when i entered, _can't_ read; but both have far too much reverence to use sacred words in their games, as the sermons themselves will instance. i took down almost every word they said, frequent embarrassments and interruptions enabling me to do so. ernest was acting as clerk, and occasionally prompted the speaker when his eloquence failed him, or reproved members of the congregation, which consisted of the two nurses and the other children, who were inattentive. charles spoke with a good deal of _unction_, and had quite a professional air when he looked down on the big open book, referred to one or other of the smaller ones at his side, or directed looks of reprehension at this or that hearer. you would have thought he had cultivated the imitation of popular preachers, whereas he tells me he has been to church only three times. i am sorry i cannot give the opening remarks, for i lost them by being late; but what i did hear was this." she then read from her paper as follows, and lent it me afterwards. i merely copy it. "once" (_charles was proceeding when marion entered_), "there lived an aged man, and another who was a _very_ aged man; and the very aged man was going to die, and every one but the aged man thought the other, the _very_ aged man, wouldn't die. i do this to _explain_ it to you. he, the man who was _really_ going to die, was--i will look in the dictionary" (_he looks in the book, and gives out with much confidence_), "was two thousand and eighty-eight years old. well, the other man was--well, then, the other man 'at knew he was going to die, was about four thousand and two; not nearly so old, you see." (_here charles whispers with ernest, and then announces very loud_),--"this is out of st. james. the _very_ aged man had a wife and no children; and the other had no wife, but a _great many_ children. the fact was--_this_ was how it was--the wife _died_, and so _he_ had the children. well, the man i spoke of first, well, he died in the middle of the night." (_a look as much as to say, "there! what do you think of that?_"); "an' nobody but the aged man knew he was going to die. well, in the morning, when his wife got up, she spoke to him, and he was dead!" (_a pause._) "perfectly, sure enough--_dead_!" (_then, with a change of voice and manner_), "he wasn't really dead, because you know" (_abruptly and nervously_)--"shut the door!--you know where he went, because in the morning next day" (_he pauses and looks round. ernest, out of a book, prompts_--"the angels take him away"), "came the angels to take him away, up to where you know." (_all solemn. he resumes quickly, with a change of manner_), "they, all the rest, died of grief. now, you must expect, as they all died of grief, that lots of angels must have come to take _them_ away. freddy _will_ go when the sermon isn't over! that _is_ such a bother!" at this point marion paused in her reading, and resumed the narrative form. "freddy, however, was too much for them; so ernest betook himself to the organ, which was a chest of drawers, the drawers doing duty as stops, while freddy went up to the pulpit to say 'good-by,' and shake hands, for which he was mildly reproved by both his brothers." my husband and i were so much amused, that marion said she had another sermon, also preached by charles, on the same day, after a short interval; and at our request she read it. here it is. "once upon a time--a long while ago, in a little--ready now?--well, there lived in a rather big house, with _quite_ clean windows: it was in winter, so nobody noticed them, but they were quite _white_, they were so clean. there lived some angels in the house: it was in the air, nobody knew why, but it did. no: i don't think it did--i dunno, but there lived in it lots of children--two hundred and thirty-two--and they--oh! i'm gettin' distracted! it is too bad!" (_quiet is restored._) "their mother and father had died, but they were very rich. now, you see what a heap of children,--two hundred and thirty-two! and yet it seemed like _one_ to them, they were so rich. _that_ was it! it seemed like _one_ to them because they were so rich. now, the children knew what to get, and i'll explain to you now _why_ they knew; and _this_ is how they knew. the angels came down on the earth, and told them their mother had sent messages to them; and their mother and father--_don't_ talk! i'm gettin' extracted!" (_puts his hand to his head in a frenzied manner._) "now, my brother" (_this severely to a still inattentive member_), "i'll tell you what the angels told them--what to get. what--how--now i will tell you how,--yes, _how_ they knew what they were to eat. well, the fact was, that--freddy's just towards my face, and he's laughing! i'm going to explain. the mother and father had the wings on, and so, of course--ernest, i want you!" (_they whisper._)--"they were he and she angels, and they told them what to have. well, one thing was--shall i tell you what it was? look at two hundred and two in another book--one thing was a leg of mutton. of course, as the mother and father were angels, they had to fly up again. now i'm going to explain how they got it done. they had four servants and one cook, so that would be five. well, this cook did them. the eldest girl was sixteen, and her name was snowdrop, because she had snowy arms and cheeks, and was a very nice girl. the eldest boy was seventeen, and his name was john. he always told the cook what they'd have--no, the girl did that. and the boy was now grown up. so they would be mother and father." (_signs of dissent among the audience._) "_of course_, when they were so old, they would be mother and father, and master of the servants. and they were very happy, _but_--they didn't quite like it. and--and"--(_with a great burst_) "_you_ wouldn't like it if _your_ mother were to die! and i'll end it next sunday. let us sing." "the congregation then sung 'curly locks,'" said marion, "and dispersed; ernest complaining that charley gave them such large qualities of numbers, and there weren't so many in the whole of his book. after a brief interval the sermon was resumed." "text is no. . i've a good congregation! i got to where the children did not like it without their mother and father. well, you must remember this was a long while ago, so what i'm going to speak about _could_ be possible. well, their house was on the top of a high and steep hill; and at the bottom, a little from the hill, was a knight's house. there were three knights living in it. next to it was stables with three horses in it. sometimes they went up to this house, and wondered what was in it. 'they never knew, but saw the angels come. the knights were out all day, and only came home for meals. and they wondered what _on earth_ the angels were doin', goin' in the house. they found out _what_--what, and the question was--i'll explain what it was. ernest, come here." (_ernest remarks to the audience_, "i'm curate," _and to charles_, "well, but, charles, you're going to explain, you know;" _and charles resumes_.) "the fact was, that this was--if you'd like to explain it more to yourselves, you'd better look in your books, no. . before, the angels didn't speak loud, so the knights couldn't hear; _now_ they spoke louder, so that the knights could visit them, 'cause they knew their names. they hadn't many visitors, but they had the knights in there, and that's all." i am still very much afraid that all this nonsense will hardly be interesting, even to parents. but i may as well suffer for a sheep as a lamb; and, as i had an opportunity of hearing two such sermons myself not long after, i shall give them, trusting they will occupy far less space in print than they do in my foolish heart. it was ernest who was in the pulpit and just commencing his discourse when i entered the nursery, and sat down with the congregation. sheltered by a clothes-horse, apparently set up for a screen, i took out my pencil, and reported on a fly-leaf of the book i had been reading:-- "my brother was goin' to preach about the wicked: i will preach about the good. twenty-sixth day. in the time of elizabeth there was a very old house. it was so old that it was pulled down, and a quite new one was built instead. some people who lived in it did not like it so much now as they did when it was old. i take their part, you know, and think they were quite right in preferring the old one to the ugly, bare, new one. they left it--sold it--and got into another old house instead." here, i am sorry to say, his curate interjected the scornful remark,-- "he's not lookin' in the book a bit!" but the preacher went on, without heeding the attack on his orthodoxy. "this other old house was still more uncomfortable: it was very draughty; the gutters were always leaking; and they wished themselves back in the new house. so, you see, if you wish for a better thing, you don't get it so good after all." "ernest, that _is_ about the bad, after all!" cried charles. "well, it's _silly_," remarked freddy severely. "but i wrote it myself," pleaded the preacher from the pulpit; and, in consideration of the fact, he was allowed to go on. "i was reading about them being always uncomfortable. at last they decided to go back to their own house, which they had sold. they had to pay so much to get it back, that they had hardly any money left; and then they got so unhappy, and the husband whipped his wife, and took to drinking. that's a lesson." (_here the preacher's voice became very plaintive_), "that's a lesson to show you shouldn't try to get the better thing, for it turns out worse, and then you get sadder, and every thing." he paused, evidently too mournful to proceed. freddy again remarked that it was _silly_; but charles interposed a word for the preacher. "it's a good _lesson_, i think. a good _lesson_, i say," he repeated, as if he would not be supposed to consider it much of a sermon. but here the preacher recovered himself and summed up. "see how it comes: wanting to get every thing, you come to the bad and drinking. and i think i'll leave off here. let us sing." the song was "little robin redbreast;" during which charles remarked to freddy, apparently by way of pressing home the lesson upon his younger brother,-- "fancy! floggin' his wife!" then he got into the pulpit himself, and commenced an oration. "chapter eighty-eight. _the wicked_.--well, the time when the story was, was about herod. there were some wicked people wanderin' about there, and they--not _killed_ them, you know, but--went to the judge. we shall see what they did to them. i tell you this to make you understand. now the story begins--but i must think a little. ernest, let's sing 'since first i saw your face.' "when the wicked man was taken then to the good judge--there were _some_ good people: when i said i was going to preach about the wicked, i did not mean that there were no good, only a good lot of wicked. there were pleacemans about here, and they put him in prison for a few days, and then the judge could see about what he is to do with him. at the end of the few days, the judge asked him if he would stay in prison for life or be hanged." here arose some inquiries among the congregation as to what the wicked, of whom the prisoner was one, had done that was wrong; to which charles replied,-- "oh! they murdered and killed; they stealed, and they were very wicked altogether. well," he went on, resuming his discourse, "the morning came, and the judge said, 'get the ropes and my throne, and order the people _not_ to come to see the hangin'.' for the man was decided to be hanged. now, the people _would_ come. they were the wicked, and they would _persist_ in comin'. they were the wicked; and, if that was the _fact_, the judge must do something to them. "chapter eighty-nine. _the hangin'_.--we'll have some singin' while i think." "yankee doodle" was accordingly sung with much enthusiasm and solemnity. then charles resumed. "well, they had to put the other people, who persisted in coming, in prison, till the man who murdered people was hanged. i think my brother will go on." he descended, and gave place to ernest, who began with vigor. "we were reading about herod, weren't we? then the wicked people _would_ come, and had to be put to death. they were on the man's side; and they all called out that he hadn't had his wish before he died, as they did in those days. so of course he wished for his life, and of course the judge wouldn't let him have _that_ wish; and so he wished to speak to his friends, and they let him. and the nasty wicked people took him away, and he was never seen in that country any more. and that's enough to-day, i think. let us sing 'lord lovel he stood at his castle-gate, a combing his milk-white steed.'" at the conclusion of this mournful ballad, the congregation was allowed to disperse. but, before they had gone far, they were recalled by the offer of a more secular entertainment from charles, who re-ascended the pulpit, and delivered himself as follows:-- "well, the play is called--not a proverb or a charade it isn't--it's a play called 'the birds and the babies.' well! "once there was a little cottage, and lots of little babies in it. nobody knew who the babies were. they were so happy! now, i can't explain it to you how they came together: they had no father and mother, but they were brothers and sisters. they never _grew_, and they didn't like it. now, _you_ wouldn't like _not_ to _grow_, would you? they had a little garden, and saw a great many birds in the trees. they _were_ happy, but didn't _feel_ happy--that's a funny thing now! the wicked fairies made them unhappy, and the good fairies made them happy; they gave them lots of toys. but then, how they got their living! "chapter second, called 'the babies at play.'--the fairies told them what to get--_that was it!_--and so they got their living very nicely. and now i must explain what they played with. first was a house. _a house._ another, dolls. they were very happy, and felt as if they had a mother and father; but they hadn't, and _couldn't_ make it out. _couldn't--make--it--out!_ "they had little pumps and trees. then they had babies' rattles. _babies' rattles._--oh! i've said hardly any thing about the birds, have i? an' it's called '_the birds and the babies!_' they had lots of little pretty robins and canaries hanging round the ceiling, and--_shall_ i say?"-- every one listened expectant during the pause that followed. "_--and--lived--happy--ever--after._" the puzzle in it all is chiefly what my husband hinted at,--why and how both the desire and the means of utterance should so long precede the possession of any thing ripe for utterance. i suspect the answer must lie pretty deep in some metaphysical gulf or other. at the same time, the struggle to speak where there is so little to utter can hardly fail to suggest the thought of some efforts of a more pretentious and imposing character. but more than enough! chapter xli. "double, double, toil and trouble." i had for a day or two fancied that marion was looking less bright than usual, as if some little shadow had fallen upon the morning of her life. i say _morning_, because, although marion must now have been seven or eight and twenty, her life had always seemed to me lighted by a cool, clear, dewy morning sun, over whose face it now seemed as if some film of noonday cloud had begun to gather. unwilling at once to assert the ultimate privilege of friendship, i asked her if any thing was amiss with her friends. she answered that all was going on well, at least so far that she had no special anxiety about any of them. encouraged by a half-conscious and more than half-sad smile, i ventured a little farther. "i am afraid there is something troubling you," i said. "there is," she replied, "something troubling me a good deal; but i hope it will pass away soon." the sigh which followed, however, was deep though gentle, and seemed to indicate a fear that the trouble might not pass away so very soon. "i am not to ask you any questions, i suppose," i returned. "better not at present," she answered. "i am not quite sure that"-- she paused several moments before finishing her sentence, then added,-- "--that i am at liberty to tell you about it." "then don't say another word," i rejoined. "only when i can be of service to you, you _will_ let me, won't you?" the tears rose to her eyes. "i'm afraid it may be some fault of mine," she said. "i don't know. i can't tell. i don't understand such things." she sighed again, and held her peace. it was enigmatical enough. one thing only was clear, that at present i was not wanted. so i, too, held my peace, and in a few minutes marion went, with a more affectionate leave-taking than usual, for her friendship was far less demonstrative than that of most women. i pondered, but it was not of much use. of course the first thing that suggested itself was, could my angel be in love? and with some mortal mere? the very idea was a shock, simply from its strangeness. of course, being a woman, she _might_ be in love; but the two ideas, _marion_ and _love_, refused to coalesce. and again, was it likely that such as she, her mind occupied with so many other absorbing interests, would fall in love unprovoked, unsolicited? that, indeed, was not likely. then if, solicited, she but returned love for love, why was she sad? the new experience might, it is true, cause such commotion in a mind like hers as to trouble her greatly. she would not know what to do with it, nor where to accommodate her new inmate so as to keep him from meddling with affairs he had no right to meddle with: it was easy enough to fancy him troublesome in a house like hers. but surely of all women _she_ might be able to meet her own liabilities. and if this were all, why should she have said she hoped it would soon pass? that might, however, mean only that she hoped soon to get her guest brought amenable to her existing household economy. there was yet a conjecture, however, which seemed to suit the case better. if marion knew little of what is commonly called love, that is, "the attraction of correlative unlikeness," as i once heard it defined by a metaphysical friend of my father's, there was no one who knew more of the tenderness of compassion than she; and was it not possible some one might be wanting to marry her to whom she could not give herself away? this conjecture was at least ample enough to cover the facts in my possession--which were scanty indeed, in number hardly dual. but who was there to dare offer love to my saint? roger? pooh! pooh! mr. blackstone? ah! i had seen him once lately looking at her with an expression of more than ordinary admiration. but what man that knew any thing of her could help looking at her with such an admiration? if it was mr. blackstone--why, _he_ might dare--yes, why should he not dare to love her?--especially if he couldn't help it, as, of course, he couldn't. was he not one whose love, simply because he was a _true_ man from the heart to the hands, would honor any woman, even saint clare--as she must be when the church has learned to do its business without the pope? only he mustn't blame me, if, after all, i should think he offered less than he sought; or her, if, entertaining no question of worth whatever, she should yet refuse to listen to him as, truly, there was more than a possibility she might. if it were mr. blackstone, certainly i knew no man who could understand her better, or whose modes of thinking and working would more thoroughly fall in with her own. true, he was peculiar; that is, he had kept the angles of his individuality, for all the grinding of the social mill; his manners were too abrupt, and drove at the heart of things too directly, seldom suggesting a _by-your-leave_ to those whose prejudices he overturned: true, also, that his person, though dignified, was somewhat ungainly,--with an ungainliness, however, which i could well imagine a wife learning absolutely to love; but, on the whole, the thing was reasonable. only, what would become of her friends? there, i could hardly doubt, there lay the difficulty! ay, _there_ was the rub! let no one think, when i say we went to mr. blackstone's church the next sunday, that it had any thing to do with these speculations. we often went on the first sunday of the month. "what's the matter with blackstone?" said my husband as we came home. "what do _you_ think is the matter with him?" i returned. "i don't know. he wasn't himself." "i thought he was more than himself," i rejoined; "for i never heard even _him_ read the litany with such fervor." "in some of the petitions," said percivale, "it amounted to a suppressed agony of supplication. i am certain he is in trouble." i told him my suspicions. "likely--very likely," he answered, and became thoughtful. "but you don't think she refused him?" he said at length. "if he ever asked her," i returned, "i fear she did; for she is plainly in trouble too." "she'll never stick to it," he said. "you mustn't judge marion by ordinary standards," i replied. "you must remember she has not only found her vocation, but for many years proved it. i never knew her turned aside from what she had made up her mind to. i can hardly imagine her forsaking her friends to keep house for any man, even if she loved him with all her heart. she is dedicated as irrevocably as any nun, and will, with st. paul, cling to the right of self-denial." "yet what great difficulty would there be in combining the two sets of duties, especially with such a man as blackstone? of all the men i know, he comes the nearest to her in his devotion to the well-being of humanity, especially of the poor. did you ever know a man with such a plentiful lack of condescension? his feeling of human equality amounts almost to a fault; for surely he ought sometimes to speak as knowing better than they to whom he speaks. he forgets that too many will but use his humility for mortar to build withal the shinar-tower of their own superiority." "that may be; yet it remains impossible for him to assume any thing. he is the same all through, and--i had almost said--worthy of saint clare. well, they must settle it for themselves. we can do nothing." "we can do nothing," he assented; and, although we repeatedly reverted to the subject on the long way home, we carried no conclusions to a different result. towards evening of the same sunday, roger came to accompany us, as i thought, to marion's gathering, but, as it turned out, only to tell me he couldn't go. i expressed my regret, and asked him why. he gave me no answer, and his lip trembled. a sudden conviction seized me. i laid my hand on his arm, but could only say, "dear roger!" he turned his head aside, and, sitting down on the sofa, laid his forehead on his hand. "i'm so sorry!" i said. "she has told you, then?" he murmured. "no one has told me any thing." he was silent. i sat down beside him. it was all i could do. after a moment he rose, saying,-- "there's no good whining about it, only she might have made a man of me. but she's quite right. it's a comfort to think i'm so unworthy of her. that's all the consolation left me, but there's more in that than you would think till you try it." he attempted to laugh, but made a miserable failure of it, then rose and caught up his hat to go. i rose also. "roger," i said, "i can't go, and leave you miserable. we'll go somewhere else,--anywhere you please, only you mustn't leave us." "i don't want to go somewhere else. i don't know the place," he added, with a feeble attempt at his usual gayety. "stop at home, then, and tell me all about it. it will do you good to talk. you shall have your pipe, and you shall tell me just as much as you like, and keep the rest to yourself." if you want to get hold of a man's deepest confidence, tell him to smoke in your drawing-room. i don't know how it is, but there seems no trouble in which a man can't smoke. one who scorns extraneous comfort of every other sort, will yet, in the profoundest sorrow, take kindly to his pipe. this is more wonderful than any thing i know about our kind. but i fear the sewing-machines will drive many women to tobacco. i ran to percivale, gave him a hint of how it was, and demanded his pipe and tobacco-pouch directly, telling him he must content himself with a cigar. thus armed with the calumet, as paddy might say, i returned to roger, who took it without a word of thanks, and began to fill it mechanically, but not therefore the less carefully. i sat down, laid my hands in my lap, and looked at him without a word. when the pipe was filled i rose and got him a light, for which also he made me no acknowledgment. the revenge of putting it in print is sweet. having whiffed a good many whiffs in silence, he took at length his pipe from his mouth, and, as he pressed the burning tobacco with a forefinger, said,-- "i've made a fool of myself, wynnie." "not more than a gentleman had a right to do, i will pledge myself," i returned. "she _has_ told you, then?" he said once more, looking rather disappointed than annoyed. "no one has mentioned your name to me, roger. i only guessed it from what marion said when i questioned her about her sad looks." "her sad looks?" "yes." "what did she say?" he asked eagerly. "she only confessed she had had something to trouble her, and said she hoped it would be over soon." "i dare say!" returned roger dryly, looking gratified, however, for a moment. my reader may wonder that i should compromise marion, even so far as to confess that she was troubled; but i could not bear that roger should think she had been telling his story to me. every generous woman feels that she owes the man she refuses at least silence; and a man may well reckon upon that much favor. of all failures, why should this be known to the world? the relief of finding she had not betrayed him helped him, i think, to open his mind: _he_ was under no obligation to silence. "you see, wynnie," he said, with pauses, and puffs at his pipe, "i don't mean i'm a fool for falling in love with marion. not to have fallen in love with her would have argued me a beast. being a man, it was impossible for me to help it, after what she's been to me. but i was worse than a fool to open my mouth on the subject to an angel like her. only there again, i couldn't, that is, i hadn't the strength to help it. i beg, however, you won't think me such a downright idiot as to fancy myself worthy of her. in that case, i should have deserved as much scorn as she gave me kindness. if you ask me how it was, then, that i dared to speak to her on the subject, i can only answer that i yielded to the impulse common to all kinds of love to make itself known. if you love god, you are not content with his knowing it even, but you must tell him as if he didn't know it. you may think from this cool talk of mine that i am very philosophical about it; but there are lulls in every storm, and i am in one of those lulls, else i shouldn't be sitting here with you." "dear roger!" i said, "i am very sorry for your disappointment. somehow, i can't be sorry you should have loved"-- "_have loved!_" he murmured. "_should love_ marion, then," i went on. "that can do you nothing but good, and in itself must raise you above yourself. and how could i blame you, that, loving her, you wanted her to know it? but come, now, if you can trust me, tell me all about it, and especially what she said to you. i dare not give you any hope, for i am not in her confidence in this matter; and it is well that i am not, for then i might not be able to talk to you about it with any freedom. to confess the real truth, i do not see much likelihood, knowing her as i do, that she will recall her decision." "it could hardly be called a decision," said roger. "you would not have thought, from the way she took it, there was any thing to decide about. no more there was; and i thought i knew it, only i couldn't be quiet. to think you know a thing, and to know it, are two very different matters, however. but i don't repent having spoken my mind: if i am humbled, i am not humiliated. if she _had_ listened to me, i fear i should have been ruined by pride. i should never have judged myself justly after it. i wasn't humble, though i thought i was. i'm a poor creature, ethelwyn." "not too poor a creature to be dearly loved, roger. but go on and tell me all about it. as your friend and sister, i am anxious to hear the whole." notwithstanding what i had said, i was not moved by sympathetic curiosity alone, but also by the vague desire of rendering some help beyond comfort. what he had now said, greatly heightened my opinion of him, and thereby, in my thoughts of the two, lessened the distance between him and marion. at all events, by hearing the whole, i should learn how better to comfort him. and he did tell me the whole, which, along with what i learned afterwards from marion, i will set down as nearly as i can, throwing it into the form of direct narration. i will not pledge myself for the accuracy of every trifling particular which that form may render it necessary to introduce; neither, i am sure, having thus explained, will my reader demand it of me. chapter xlii. roger and marion. during an all but sleepless night, roger had made up his mind to go and see marion: not, certainly, for the first time, for he had again and again ventured to call upon her; but hitherto he had always had some pretext sufficient to veil his deeper reason, and, happily or unhappily, sufficient also to prevent her, in her more than ordinary simplicity with regard to such matters, from suspecting one under it. she was at home, and received him with her usual kindness. feeling that he must not let an awkward silence intervene, lest she should become suspicious of his object, and thus the chance be lost of interesting, and possibly moving her before she saw his drift, he spoke at once. "i want to tell you something, miss clare," he said as lightly as he could. "well?" she returned, with the sweet smile which graced her every approach to communication. "did my sister--in--law ever tell you what an idle fellow i used to be?" "certainly not. i never heard her say a word of you that wasn't kind." "that i am sure of. but there would have been no unkindness in saying that; for an idle fellow i was, and the idler because i was conceited enough to believe i could do any thing. i actually thought at one time i could play the violin. i actually made an impertinent attempt in your presence one evening, years and years ago, i wonder if you remember it." "i do; but i don't know why you should call it impertinent." "anyhow, i caught a look on your face that cured me of that conceit. i have never touched the creature since,--a cremona too!" "i am very sorry, indeed i am. i don't remember--do you think you could have played a false note?" "nothing more likely." "then, i dare say i made an ugly face. one can't always help it, you know, when something unexpected happens. do forgive me." "forgive _you_, you angel!" cried roger, but instantly checked himself, afraid of reaching his mark before he had gathered sufficient momentum to pierce it. "i thought you would see what a good thing it was for me. i wanted to thank you for it." "it's such a pity you didn't go on, though. progress is the real cure for an overestimate of ourselves." "the fact is, i was beginning to see what small praise there is in doing many things ill and nothing well. i wish you would take my cremona. i could teach you the a b c of it well enough. how you would make it talk! that _would_ be something to live for, to hear _you_ play the violin! ladies do, nowadays, you know." "i have no time, mr. roger. i should have been delighted to be your pupil; but i am sorry to say it is out of the question." "of course it is. only i wish--well, never mind, i only wanted to tell you something. i was leading a life then that wasn't worth leading; for where's the good of being just what happens,--one time full of right feeling and impulse, and the next a prey to all wrong judgments and falsehoods? it was you made me see it. i've been trying to get put right for a long time now. i'm afraid of seeming to talk goody, but you will know what i mean. you and your sunday evenings have waked me up to know what i am, and what i ought to be. i am a little better. i work hard now. i used to work only by fits and starts. ask wynnie." "dear mr. roger, i don't need to ask wynnie about any thing you tell me. i can take your word for it just as well as hers. i am very glad if i have been of any use to you. it is a great honor to me." "but the worst of it is, i couldn't be content without letting you know, and making myself miserable." "i don't understand you, i think. surely there can be no harm in letting me know what makes me very happy! how it should make you miserable, i can't imagine." "because i can't stop there. i'm driven to say what will offend you, if it doesn't make you hate me--no, not that; for you don't know how to hate. but you must think me the most conceited and presumptuous fellow you ever knew. i'm not that, though; i'm not that; it's not me; i can't help it; i can't help loving you--dreadfully--and it's such impudence! to think of you and me in one thought! and yet i can't help it. o miss clare! don't drive me away from you." he fell on his knees as he spoke, and laid his head on her lap, sobbing like a child who had offended his mother. he almost cried again as he told me this. marion half started to her feet in confusion, almost in terror, for she had never seen such emotion in a man; but the divine compassion of her nature conquered: she sat down again, took his head in her hands, and began stroking his hair as if she were indeed a mother seeking to soothe and comfort her troubled child. she was the first to speak again, for roger could not command himself. "i'm very sorry, roger," she said. "i must be to blame somehow." "to blame!" he cried, lifting up his head. "_you_ to blame for my folly! but it's not folly," he added impetuously: "it would be downright stupidity not to love you with all my soul." "hush! hush!" said marion, in whose ears his language sounded irreverent. "you _couldn't_ love me with all your soul if you would. god only _can_ be loved with all the power of the human soul." "if i love him at all, marion, it is you who have taught me. do not drive me from you--lest--lest--i should cease to love him, and fall back into my old dreary ways." "it's a poor love to offer god,--love for the sake of another," she said very solemnly. "but if it's all one has got?" "then it won't do, roger. i wish you loved me for god's sake instead. then all would be right. that would be a grand love for me to have." "don't drive me from you, marion," he pleaded. it was all he could say. "i will not drive you from me. why should i?" "then i may come and see you again?" "yes: when you please." "you _don't_ mean i may come as often as i like?" "yes--when i have time to see you." "then," cried roger, starting to his feet with clasped hands, "--perhaps--is it possible?--you will--you will let me love you? o my god!" "roger," said marion, pale as death, and rising also; for, alas! the sunshine of her kindness had caused hopes to blossom whose buds she had taken only for leaves, "i thought you understood me! you spoke as if you understood perfectly that that could never be which i must suppose you to mean. of course it cannot. i am not my own to keep or to give away. i belong to this people,--my friends. to take personal and private duties upon me, would be to abandon them; and how dare i? you don't know what it would result in, or you would not dream of it. were i to do such a thing, i should hate and despise and condemn myself with utter reprobation. and then what a prize you would have got, my poor roger!" but even these were such precious words to hear from her lips! he fell again on his knees before her as she stood, caught her hands, and, hiding his face in them, poured forth the following words in a torrent,-- "marion, do not think me so selfish as not to have thought about that. it should be only the better for them all. i can earn quite enough for you and me too, and so you would have the more time to give to them. i should never have dreamed of asking you to leave them. there are things in which a dog may help a man, doing what the man can't do: there may be things in which a man might help an angel." deeply moved by the unselfishness of his love, marion could not help a pressure of her hands against the face which had sought refuge within them. roger fell to kissing them wildly. but marion was a woman; and women, i think, though i may be only judging by myself and my husband, look forward and round about, more than men do: they would need at all events; therefore marion saw other things. a man-reader may say, that, if she loved him, she would not have thus looked about her; and that, if she did not love him, there was no occasion for her thus to fly in the face of the future. i can only answer that it is allowed on all hands women are not amenable to logic: look about her marion did, and saw, that, as a married woman, she might be compelled to forsake her friends more or less; for there might arise other and paramount claims on her self-devotion. in a word, if she were to have children, she would have no choice in respect to whose welfare should constitute the main business of her life; and it even became a question whether she would have a right to place them in circumstances so unfavorable for growth and education. therefore, to marry might be tantamount to forsaking her friends. but where was the need of any such mental parley? of course, she couldn't marry roger. how could she marry a man she couldn't look up to? and look up to him she certainly did not, and could not. "no, roger," she said, this last thought large in her mind; and, as she spoke, she withdrew her hands, "it mustn't be. it is out of the question: i can't look up to you," she added, as simply as a child. "i should think not," he burst out. "that _would_ be a fine thing! if you looked up to a fellow like me, i think it would almost cure me of looking up to you; and what i want is to look up to you every day and all day long: only i can do that whether you let me or not." "but i don't choose to have a--a--friend to whom i can't look up." "then i shall never be even a friend," he returned sadly. "but i would have tried hard to be less unworthy of you." at this precise moment, marion caught sight of a pair of great round blue eyes, wide open under a shock of red hair, about three feet from the floor, staring as if they had not winked for the last ten minutes. the child looked so comical, that marion, reading perhaps in her looks the reflex of her own position, could not help laughing. roger started up in dismay, but, beholding the apparition, laughed also. "please, grannie," said the urchin, "mother's took bad, and want's ye." "run and tell your mother i shall be with her directly," answered marion; and the child departed. "you told me i might come again," pleaded roger. "better not. i didn't know what it would mean to you when i said it." "let it mean what you meant by it, only let me come." "but i see now it can't mean that. no: i will write to you. at all events, you must go now, for i can't stop with you when mrs. foote"-- "don't make me wretched, marion. if you can't love me, don't kill me. don't say i'm not to come and see you. i _will_ come on sundays, anyhow." the next day came the following letter:-- dear mr. roger,--i am very sorry, both for your sake and my own, that i did not speak more plainly yesterday. i was so distressed for you, and my heart was so friendly towards you, that i could hardly think of any thing at first but how to comfort you; and i fear i allowed you, after all, to go away with the idea that what you wished was not altogether impossible. but indeed it is. if even i loved you in the way you love me, i should yet make every thing yield to the duties i have undertaken. in listening to you, i should be undermining the whole of my past labors; and the very idea of becoming less of a friend to my friends is horrible to me. but much as i esteem you, and much pleasure as your society gives me, the idea you brought before me yesterday was absolutely startling; and i think i have only to remind you, as i have just done, of the peculiarities of my position, to convince you that it could never become a familiar one to me. all that friendship can do or yield, you may ever claim of me; and i thank god if i have been of the smallest service to you: but i should be quite unworthy of that honor, were i for any reason to admit even the thought of abandoning the work which has been growing up around me for so many years, and is so peculiarly mine that it could be transferred to no one else. believe me yours most truly, marion clare chapter xliii. a little more about roger, and about mr. blackstone. after telling me the greater part of what i have just written, roger handed me this letter to read, as we sat together that same sunday evening. "it seems final, roger?" i said with an interrogation, as i returned it to him. "of course it is," he replied. "how could any honest man urge his suit after that,--after she says that to grant it would be to destroy the whole of her previous life, and ruin her self-respect? but i'm not so miserable as you may think me, wynnie," he went on; "for don't you see? though i couldn't quite bring myself to go to-night, i don't feel cut off from her. she's not likely, if i know her, to listen to anybody else so long as the same reasons hold for which she wouldn't give me a chance of persuading her. she can't help me loving her, and i'm sure she'll let me help her when i've the luck to find a chance. you may be sure i shall keep a sharp lookout. if i can be her servant, that will be something; yes, much. though she won't give herself to me--and quite right, too!--why should she?--god bless her!--she can't prevent me from giving myself to her. so long as i may love her, and see her as often as i don't doubt i may, and things continue as they are, i sha'n't be down-hearted. i'll have another pipe, i think." here he half-started, and hurriedly pulled out his watch, "i declare, there's time yet!" he cried, and sprung to his feet. "let's go and hear what she's got to say to-night." "don't you think you had better not? won't you put her out?" i suggested. "if i understand her at all," he said, "she will be more put out by my absence; for she will fear i am wretched, caring only for herself, and not for what she taught me. you may come or stay--_i_'m off. you've done me so much good, wynnie!" he added, looking back in the doorway. "thank you a thousand times. there's no comforter like a sister!" "and a pipe," i said; at which he laughed, and was gone. when percivale and i reached lime court, having followed as quickly as we could, there was roger sitting in the midst, as intent on her words as if she had been, an old prophet, and marion speaking with all the composure which naturally belonged to her. when she shook hands with him after the service, a slight flush washed the white of her face with a delicate warmth,--nothing more. i said to myself, however, as we went home, and afterwards to my husband, that his case was not a desperate one. "but what's to become of blackstone?" said percivale. i will tell my reader how afterwards he seemed to me to have fared; but i have no information concerning his supposed connection with this part of my story. i cannot even be sure that he ever was in love with marion. troubled he certainly was, at this time; and marion continued so for a while,--more troubled, i think, than the necessity she felt upon her with regard to roger will quite account for. if, however, she had to make two men miserable in one week, that might well cover the case. before the week was over, my husband received a note from mr. blackstone, informing him that he was just about to start for a few weeks on the continent. when he returned i was satisfied from his appearance that a notable change had passed upon him: a certain indescribable serenity seemed to have taken possession of his whole being; every look and tone indicated a mind that knew more than tongue could utter,--a heart that had had glimpses into a region of content. i thought of the words, "he that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high," and my heart was at rest about him. he had fared, i thought, as the child who has had a hurt, but is taken up in his mother's arms and comforted. what hurt would not such comforting outweigh to the child? and who but he that has had the worst hurt man can receive, and the best comfort god can give, can tell what either is? i was present the first time he met marion after his return. she was a little embarrassed: he showed a tender dignity, a respect as if from above, like what one might fancy the embodiment of the love of a wise angel for such a woman. the thought of comparing the two had never before occurred to me; but now for the moment i felt as if mr. blackstone were a step above marion. plainly, i had no occasion to be troubled about either of them. on the supposition that marion had refused him, i argued with myself that it could not have been on the ground that she was unable to look up to him. and, notwithstanding what she had said to roger, i was satisfied that any one she felt she could help to be a nobler creature; must have a greatly better chance of rousing all the woman in her; than one whom she must regard as needing no aid from her. all her life had been spent in serving and sheltering human beings whose condition she regarded with hopeful compassion: could she now help adding roger to her number of such? and if she once looked upon him thus tenderly, was it not at least very possible, that, in some softer mood, a feeling hitherto unknown to her might surprise her consciousness with its presence,--floating to the surface of her sea from its strange depths, and leaning towards him with the outstretched arms of embrace? but i dared not think what might become of roger should his divine resolves fail,--should the frequent society of marion prove insufficient for the solace and quiet of his heart. i had heard how men will seek to drown sorrow in the ruin of the sorrowing power,--will slay themselves that they may cause their hurt to cease, and i trembled for my husband's brother. but the days went on, and i saw no sign of failure or change. he was steady at his work, and came to see us as constantly as before; never missed a chance of meeting marion: and at every treat she gave her friends, whether at the house of which i have already spoken, or at lady bernard's country-place in the neighborhood of london, whether she took them on the river, or had some one to lecture or read to them, roger was always at hand for service and help. still, i was uneasy; for might there not come a collapse, especially if some new event were to destroy the hope which he still cherished, and which i feared was his main support? would his religion then prove of a quality and power sufficient to keep him from drifting away with the receding tide of his hopes and imaginations? in this anxiety perhaps i regarded too exclusively the faith of roger, and thought too little about the faith of god. however this may be, i could not rest, but thought and thought, until at last i made up my mind to go and tell lady bernard all about it. chapter xliv. the dea ex. "and you think marion likes him?" asked lady bernard, when she had in silence heard my story. "i am sure she _likes_ him. but you know he is so far inferior to her,--in every way." "how do you know that? questions are involved there which no one but god can determine. you must remember that both are growing. what matter if any two are unequal at a given moment, seeing their relative positions may be reversed twenty times in a thousand years? besides, i doubt very much if any one who brought his favors with him would have the least chance with marion. poverty, to turn into wealth, is the one irresistible attraction for her; and, however duty may compel her to act, my impression is that she will not escape _loving_ roger." i need not say i was gratified to find lady bernard's conclusion from marion's character run parallel with my own. "but what can come of it?" i said. "why, marriage, i hope." "but marion would as soon think of falling down and worshipping baal and ashtoreth as of forsaking her grandchildren." "doubtless. but there would be no occasion for that. where two things are both of god, it is not likely they will be found mutually obstructive." "roger does declare himself quite ready to go and live amongst her friends, and do his best to help her." "that is all as it should be, so far as he--as both of them are concerned; but there are contingencies; and the question naturally arises, how would that do in regard of their children?" "if i could imagine marion consenting." i said, "i know what she would answer to that question. she would say, why should her children be better off than the children about them? she would say that the children must share the life and work of their parents." "and i think she would be right, though the obvious rejoinder would be, 'you may waive your own social privileges, and sacrifice yourselves to the good of others; but have you a right to sacrifice your children, and heap disadvantages on their future?'" "now give us the answer on the other side, seeing you think marion would be right after all." "marion's answer would, i think, be, that their children would be god's children; and he couldn't desire better for them than to be born in lowly conditions, and trained from the first to give themselves to the service of their fellows, seeing that in so far their history would resemble that of his own son, our saviour. in sacrificing their earthly future, as men would call it, their parents would but be furthering their eternal good." "that would be enough in regard of such objections. but there would be a previous one on marion's own part. how would her new position affect her ministrations?" "there can be no doubt, i think," lady bernard replied, "that what her friends would lose thereby--i mean, what amount of her personal ministrations would be turned aside from them by the necessities of her new position--would be far more than made up to them by the presence among them of a whole well-ordered and growing family, instead of a single woman only. but all this jet leaves something for her more personal friends to consider,--as regards their duty in the matter. it naturally sets them on the track of finding out what could be done to secure for the children of such parents the possession of early advantages as little lower than those their parents had as may be; for the breed of good people ought, as much as possible, to be kept up. i will turn the thing over in my mind, and let you know what comes of it." the result of lady bernard's cogitations is, in so far, to be seen in the rapid rise of a block of houses at no great distance from london, on the north-western railway, planned under the instructions of marion clare. the design of them is to provide accommodation for all marion's friends, with room to add largely to their number. lady bernard has also secured ground sufficient for great extension of the present building, should it prove desirable. each family is to have the same amount of accommodation it has now, only far better, at the same rent it pays now, with the privilege of taking an additional room or rooms at a much lower rate. marion has undertaken to collect the rents, and believes that she will thus in time gain an additional hold of the people for their good, although the plan may at first expose her to misunderstanding. from thorough calculation she is satisfied she can pay lady bernard five per cent for her money, lay out all that is necessary for keeping the property in thorough repair, and accumulate a fund besides to be spent on building more houses, should her expectations of these be answered. the removal of so many will also make a little room for the accommodation of the multitudes constantly driven from their homes by the wickedness of those, who, either for the sake of railways or fine streets, pull down crowded houses, and drive into other courts and alleys their poor inhabitants, to double the wretchedness already there from overcrowding. in the centre of the building is a house for herself, where she will have her own private advantage in the inclusion of large space primarily for the entertainment of her friends. i believe lady bernard intends to give her a hint that a married couple would, in her opinion, be far more useful in such a position than a single woman. but although i rejoice in the prospect of greater happiness for two dear friends, i must in honesty say that i doubt this. if the scheme should answer, what a strange reversion it will be to something like a right reading of the feudal system! of course it will be objected, that, should it succeed ever so well, it will all go to pieces at marion's death. to this the answer lies in the hope that her influence may extend laterally, as well as downwards; moving others to be what she has been; and, in the conviction that such a work as hers can never be lost, for the world can never be the same as if she had not lived; while in any case there will be more room for her brothers and sisters who are now being crowded out of the world by the stronger and richer. it would be sufficient answer, however, that the work is worth doing for its own sake and its immediate result. surely it will receive a _well-done_ from the judge of us all; and while his idea of right remains above hers, high as the heavens are above the earth, his approbation will be all that either lady bernard or marion will seek. if but a small proportion of those who love the right and have means to spare would, like lady bernard, use their wealth to make up to the poor for the wrongs they receive at the hands of the rich,--let me say, to defend the saviour in their persons from the tyranny of mammon, how many of the poor might they not lead with them into the joy of their lord! should the plan succeed, i say once more, i intend to urge on marion the duty of writing a history of its rise and progress from the first of her own attempts. then there would at least remain a book for all future reformers and philanthropists to study, and her influence might renew itself in other ages after she was gone. i have no more to say about myself or my people. we live in hope of the glory of god. here i was going to write, the end; but was arrested by the following conversation between two of my children,--ernest, eight, and freddy, five years of age. _ernest._--i'd do it for mamma, of course. _freddy._--wouldn't you do it for harry? _ernest._--no: harry's nobody. _freddy._--yes, he is somebody. _ernest._--you're nobody; i'm nobody; we are all nobody, compared to mamma. _freddy._ (_stolidly_).--yes, i am somebody. _ernest._--you're nothing; i'm nothing; we are all nothing in mamma's presence. _freddy._--but, ernest, _every thing_ is something; so i must be something. _ernest._--yes, freddy, but you're _no thing_; so you're nothing. you're nothing to mamma. _freddy._--_but i'm mamma's._ distributed proofreaders the three sisters by may sinclair the three sisters i north of east, in the bottom, where the road drops from the high moor, is the village of garth in garthdale. it crouches there with a crook of the dale behind and before it, between half-shut doors of the west and south. under the mystery and terror of its solitude it crouches, like a beaten thing, cowering from its topmost roof to the bowed back of its stone bridge. it is the last village up garthdale; a handful of gray houses, old and small and humble. the high road casts them off and they turn their backs to it in their fear and huddle together, humbly, down by the beck. their stone roofs and walls are naked and blackened by wind and rain as if fire had passed over them. they have the silence, the darkness and the secrecy of all ultimate habitations. north, where the high road begins to rise again, the vicarage stands all alone. it turns its face toward the village, old and gray and humble as any house there, and looks on the road sideways, through the small shy window of its gable end. it has a strip of garden in front and on its farther side and a strip of orchard at the back. the garden slopes down to the churchyard, and a lane, leading to the pastures, runs between. and all these things of stone, the village, the vicarage, the church, the churchyard and the gravestones of the dead are alike naked and black, blackened as if fire had passed over them. and in their grayness and their desolation they are one with each other and with the network of low walls that links them to the last solitary farm on the high moor. and on the breast of the earth they show, one moment, solid as if hewn out of her heart, and another, slender and wind-blown as a tangle of gray thread on her green gown. ii through four of its five front windows the house gave back darkness to the dark. one, on the ground floor, showed a golden oblong, skirted with watery gray where the lamp-light thinned the solid blackness of the wall. the three sisters, mary, gwendolen and alice, daughters of james cartaret, the vicar of garth, were sitting there in the dining-room behind the yellow blind, doing nothing. in their supine, motionless attitudes they seemed to be waiting for something to happen, to happen so soon that, if there had been anything to do, it was not worth their while doing it. all three were alike in the small, broad faces that brooded, half sullen and half sad; in the wide eyes that watched vaguely; in the little tender noses, and in the mouths, tender and sullen, too; in the arch and sweep of the upper lips, the delicate fulness of the lower; in the way of the thick hair, parted and turned back over the brows in two wide and shallow waves. mary, the eldest, sat in a low chair by the fireside. her hands were clasped loosely on the black woolen socks she had ceased to darn. she was staring into the fire with her gray eyes, the thick gray eyes that never let you know what she was thinking. the firelight woke the flame in her reddish-tawny hair. the red of her lips was turned back and crushed against the white. mary was shorter than her sisters, but she was the one that had the color. and with it she had a stillness that was not theirs. mary's face brooded more deeply than their faces, but it was untroubled in its brooding. she had learned to darn socks for her own amusement on her eleventh birthday, and she was twenty-seven now. alice, the youngest girl (she was twenty-three) lay stretched out on the sofa. she departed in no way from her sister's type but that her body was slender and small boned, that her face was lightly finished, that her gray eyes were clear and her lips pale against the honey-white of her face, and that her hair was colorless as dust except where the edge of the wave showed a dull gold. alice had spent the whole evening lying on the sofa. and now she raised her arms and bent them, pressing the backs of her hands against her eyes. and now she lowered them and lifted one sleeve of her thin blouse, and turned up the milk-white under surface of her arm and lay staring at it and feeling its smooth texture with her fingers. gwendolen, the second sister, sat leaning over the table with her arms flung out on it as they had tossed from her the book she had been reading. she was the tallest and the darkest of the three. her face followed the type obscurely; and vividly and emphatically it left it. there was dusk in her honey-whiteness, and dark blue in the gray of her eyes. the bridge of her nose and the arch of her upper lip were higher, lifted as it were in a decided and defiant manner of their own. about gwenda there was something alert and impatient. her very supineness was alive. it had distinction, the savage grace of a creature utterly abandoned to a sane fatigue. gwenda had gone fifteen miles over the moors that evening. she had run and walked and run again in the riotous energy of her youth. now she was too tired to read. gwenda was the first to speak. "is it ten yet?" "no." mary smiled, but the word shuddered in her throat like a weary moan. "how long?" "forty-three minutes." "oh, lord----" gwenda laughed the laugh of brave nerves tortured. from her sofa beyond the table alice sighed. at ten o'clock essy gale, the maid-servant, would come in from the kitchen and the vicar from the inner room. and essy would put the bible and prayer-book on the table, and the vicar would read prayers. that was all they were waiting for. it was all that could happen. it happened every night at ten o'clock. iii alice spoke next. "what day of the month is it?" "the thirtieth." mary answered. "then we've been here exactly five months to-day." "that's nothing," said mary, "to the months and years we shall be here." "i can't think what possessed papa to come and bury us all in this rotten place." "can't you?" mary's eyes turned from their brooding. her voice was very quiet, barely perceptible the significant stress. "oh, if you mean it's _me_ he wants to bury----. you needn't rub that in." "i'm not rubbing it in." "you are. you're rubbing it in every time you look like that. that's the beastly part of it. supposing he does want to get back on me, why should he go and punish you two?" "if he thinks he's punishing me he's sold," said gwenda. "he couldn't have stuck you in a rottener hole." gwenda raised her head. "a hole? why, there's no end to it. you can go for miles and miles without meeting anybody, unless some darling mountain sheep gets up and looks at you. it's--it's a divine place, ally." "wait till you've been another five months in it. you'll be as sick as i am." "i don't think so. you haven't seen the moon get up over greffington edge. if you had--if you knew what this place was like, you wouldn't lie there grizzling. you wouldn't talk about punishing. you'd wonder what you'd done to be allowed to look at it--to live in it a day. of course i'm not going to let on to papa that i'm in love with it." mary smiled again. "it's all very well for you," she said. "as long as you've got a moor to walk on _you're_ all right." "yes. i'm all right," gwenda said. her head had sunk again and rested in the hollow of her arms. her voice, muffled in her sleeve, came soft and thick. it died for drowsiness. in the extreme immobility and stillness of the three the still house stirred and became audible to them, as if it breathed. they heard the delicate fall of the ashes on the hearth, and the flame of the lamp jerking as the oil sputtered in the burnt wick. their nerves shook to the creeping, crackling sounds that came from the wainscot, infinitely minute. a tongue of fire shot hissing from the coal. it seemed to them a violent and terrifying thing. the breath of the house passed over them in thick smells of earth and must, as the fire's heat sucked at its damp. the church clock struck the half hour. once, twice; two dolorous notes that beat on the still house and died. somewhere out at the back a door opened and shut, and it was as if the house drew in its breath at the shock of the sound. presently a tremor crept through gwenda's young body as her heart shook it. she rose and went to the window. iv she was slow and rapt in her going like one walking in her sleep, moved by some impulse profounder than her sleep. she pulled up the blind. the darkness was up against the house, thick and close to the pane. she threw open the window, and the night entered palpably like slow water, black and sweet and cool. from the unseen road came the noise of wheels and of a horse that in trotting clanked forever one shoe against another. it was young rowcliffe, the new doctor, driving over from morthe to upthorne on the moor, where john greatorex lay dying. the pale light of his lamps swept over the low garden wall. suddenly the four hoofs screamed, grinding together in the slide of their halt. the doctor had jerked his horse up by the vicarage gate. the door at the back opened and shut again, suddenly, sharply, as if in fear. a voice swung out like a mournful bell into the night. a dalesman's voice; such a voice as the lonely land fashions sometimes for its own delight, drawling and tender, hushed by the hills and charged with the infinite, mysterious sadness of their beauty. it belonged to young greatorex and it came from the doorway of the vicarage yard. "that yo, dr. rawcliffe? i wuss joost gawn oop t'road t' see ef yo wuss coomin'." "of course i was coming." the new doctor was short and stern with young greatorex. the two voices, the soft and the stern, spoke together for a moment, low, inaudible. then young greatorex's voice was heard again, and in its softness there was the furtive note of shame. "i joost looked in to vicarage to leave woord with paason." the noise of the wheels and hoofs began again, the iron shoes clanked together and struck out the rhythm that the sisters knew. and with the first beat of it, and with the sound of the two voices in the road, life, secret and silent, stirred in their blood and nerves. it quivered like a hunting thing held on the leash. v their stillness, their immobility were now intense. and not one spoke a word to the other. all three of them were thinking. mary thought, "wednesday is his day. on wednesday i will go into the village and see all my sick people. then i shall see him. and he will see me. he will see that i am kind and sweet and womanly." she thought, "that is the sort of woman that a man wants." but she did not know what she was thinking. gwenda thought, "i will go out on to the moor again. i don't care if i _am_ late for prayers. he will see me when he drives back and he will wonder who is that wild, strong girl who walks by herself on the moor at night and isn't afraid. he has seen me three times, and every time he has looked at me as if he wondered. in five minutes i shall go." she thought (for she knew what she was thinking), "i shall do nothing of the sort. i don't care whether he sees me or not. i don't care if i never see him again. i don't care." alice thought, "i will make myself ill. so ill that they'll _have_ to send for him. i shall see him that way." vi alice sat up. she was thinking another thought. "if mr. greatorex is dead, dr. rowcliffe won't stay long at upthorne. he will come back soon. and he will have to call and leave word. he will come in and i shall see him." but if mr. greatorex wasn't dead? if mr. greatorex were a long time over his dying? then he might be kept at upthorne, perhaps till midnight, perhaps till morning. then, even if he called to leave word, she would not see him. when she looked deep she found herself wondering how long mr. greatorex would be over his dying. if she had looked a little deeper she would have found herself hoping that mr. greatorex was already dead. if mr. greatorex was dead before he got to upthorne he would come very soon, perhaps before prayer-time. and he would be shown into the drawing-room. would he? would essy have the sense? no. not unless the lamp was lit there. essy wouldn't show him into a dark room. and essy was stupid. she might have _no_ sense. she might take him straight into the study and papa would keep him there. trust papa. alice got up from her sofa and left the room; moving with her weary grace and a little air of boredom and of unconcern. she was always most unconcerned when she was most intent. outside in the passage she stood a moment, listening. all the ways of the house gave upon the passage in a space so narrow that by stretching out one arm she could have touched both walls. with a door open anywhere the passage became a gully for the north wind. now, with all doors shut, it was as if the breath of the house was being squeezed out there, between closing walls. the passage, instead of dividing the house, drew it together tight. and this tightness was intolerable to alice. she hated it. she hated the whole house. it was so built that there wasn't a corner in it where you could get away from papa. his study had one door opening into the passage and one into the dining-room. the window where he sat raked the garden on the far side. the window of his bedroom raked the front; its door commanded the stairhead. he was aware of everything you did, of everything you didn't do. he could hear you in the dining-room; he could hear you overhead; he could hear you going up and downstairs. he could positively hear you breathe, and he always knew whether you were in bed or not. she drew in her breath lest he should hear it now. at the far end of the passage, on the wall-space between the staircase and the kitchen door, raised on a small bracket, a small tin lamp showed a thrifty flame. under it, on a mahogany table-flap, was a row of bedroom candlesticks with their match-boxes. her progress to the table-flap was stealthy. she exalted this business of lighting the drawing-room lamp to a desperate, perilous adventure. the stone floor deadened her footsteps as she went. her pale eyes, half sullen, half afraid, slewed round to the door of the study on her right. with a noiseless hand she secured her matches and her candle. with noiseless feet she slid into the darkness of the drawing-room. she dared not light her candle out there in the passage. for the vicar was full of gloom and of suspicion in the half hour before prayer-time, and at the spurt of the match he might come out blustering and insist on knowing what she was doing and where she was going, whereas presently he would know, and he might be quiet as long as he was satisfied that she wasn't shirking prayers. stealthily, with her air of desperate adventure, she lit the drawing-room lamp. she shook out the puffs and frills of its yellow paper shade. under its gaudy skirts the light was cruel to the cramped and shabby room, to the huddled furniture, to the tarnished gilt, the perishing tones of gray and amber. alice set the lamp on the top of the cottage piano that stood slantwise in a side window beyond the fireplace. she had pulled back the muslin curtains and opened both windows wide so that the room was now bared to the south and west. then, with the abrupt and passionate gesture of desire deferred, she sat down at the little worn-out erard and began to play. sitting there, with the open window behind her, she could be seen, and she knew that she could be seen from over the wall by anybody driving past in a high dog-cart. and she played. she played the chopin grande polonaise, or as much of it as her fingers, tempestuous and inexpert, could clutch and reach. she played, neither with her hands nor with her brain, but with her temperament, febrile and frustrate, seeking its outlet in exultant and violent sound. she fell upon the erard like some fierce and hungry thing, tearing from the forlorn, humble instrument a strange and savage food. she played--with incredible omissions, discords and distortions, but she played. she flung out her music through the windows into the night as a signal and an appeal. she played (on the little worn-out erard) in ecstasy and expectation, as if something momentous hung upon her playing. there was joy and triumph and splendor in the grande polonaise; she felt them in her heart and nerves as a delicate, dangerous tremor, the almost intolerable on coming of splendor, of triumph and of joy. and as she played the excitement gathered; it swung in more and more vehement vibrations; it went warm and flooding through her brain like wine. all the life of her bloodless body swam there, poised and thinned, but urgent, aspiring to some great climax of the soul. vii the whole house was full of the chopin grande polonaise. it raged there like a demon. tortured out of all knowledge, the grande polonaise screamed and writhed in its agony. it writhed through the windows, seeking its natural attenuation in the open air. it writhed through the shut house and was beaten back, pitilessly, by the roof and walls. to let it loose thus was alice's defiance of the house and her revenge. mary and gwenda heard it in the dining-room, and set their mouths and braced themselves to bear it. the vicar in his study behind the dining-room heard it and scowled. essy, the maid-servant, heard it, she heard it worse than anybody, in her kitchen on the other side of the wall. now and then, when the polonaise screamed louder, mary drew a hissing breath of pain through her locked teeth, and gwenda grinned. not that to gwenda there was anything funny in the writhing and screaming of the grande polonaise. it was that she alone appreciated its vindictive quality; she admired the completeness, the audacity of alice's revenge. but essy in her kitchen made no effort to stand up to the grande polonaise. when it began she sat down and laid her arms on the kitchen table, and her head, muffled in her apron, on her arms, and cried. she couldn't have told you what the polonaise was like or what it did to her; all that she could have said was that it went through and through her. she didn't know, essy didn't, what had come over her; for whatever noise miss alice made, she hadn't taken any notice, not at first. it was in the last three weeks that the polonaise had found her out and had begun to go through and through her, till it was more than she could bear. but essy, crying into her apron, wouldn't have lifted a finger to stop miss alice. "poor laass," essy said to herself, "she looves to plaay. and vicar, he'll not hold out mooch longer. he'll put foot down fore she gets trow." through the screaming of the polonaise essy listened for the opening of the study door. viii the study door did not open all at once. "wisdom and patience, wisdom and patience----" the vicar kept on muttering as he scowled. those were his watchwords in his dealings with his womenkind. the vicar was making a prodigious effort to maintain what seemed to him his god-like serenity. he was unaware that he was trying to control at one and the same time his temper and his temperament. he was a man of middle height and squarish build, dark, pale-skinned and blue-eyed like his daughter gwendolen. the vicar's body stretched tight the seams of his black coat and kept up, at fifty-seven, a false show of muscular energy. the vicar's face had a subtle quality of deception. the austere nose, the lean cheek-bones, the square-cut moustache and close-clipped, pointed beard (black, slightly grizzled) made it appear, at a little distance, the face of an ascetic. it approached, and the blue of the eyes, and the black of their dilated pupils, the stare of the nostrils and the half hidden lines of the red mouth revealed its profound and secret sensuality. the interior that contained him was no less deceptive. its book-lined walls advertised him as the scholarly recluse that he was not. he had had an eye to this effect. he had placed in prominent positions the books that he had inherited from his father, who had been a schoolmaster. you were caught at the very door by the thick red line of the tudor classics; by the eleven volumes of the bekker's plato, with notes, bound in russia leather, side by side with jowett's translations in cloth; by sophocles and dean plumptre, the odyssey and butcher and lang; by �schylus and robert browning. the vicar had carried the illusion of scholarship so far as to hide his aristophanes behind a little curtain, as if it contained for him an iniquitous temptation. of his own accord and with a deliberate intention to deceive, he had added the early fathers, tillotsen's _sermons_ and farrar's _life of christ_. on another shelf, rather less conspicuous, were some bound volumes of _the record_, with the novels of mrs. henry wood and miss marie corelli. on the ledge of his bureau _blackwood's magazine_, uncut, lay ready to his hand. the _spectator_, in process of skimming, was on his knees. the _standard_, fairly gutted, was on the floor. there was no room for it anywhere else. for the vicar's study was much too small for him. sitting there, in an arm-chair and with his legs in the fender, he looked as if he had taken flight before the awful invasion of his furniture. his bookcases hemmed him in on three sides. his roll-top desk, advancing on him from the window, had driven and squeezed him into the arm-chair. his bureau, armed to the teeth, leaning from its ambush in the recess of the fireplace, threatened both the retreat and the left flank movement of the chair. the vicar was neither tall nor powerful, but his study made him look like a giant imprisoned in a cell. the room was full of the smell of tobacco, of a smoldering coal fire, of old warm leather and damp walls, and of the heavy, virile odor of the vicar. a brown felt carpet and thick serge curtains shut out the draft of the northeast window. on a september evening the vicar was snug enough in his cell; and before the grande polonaise had burst in upon him he had been at peace with god and man. * * * * * but when he heard those first exultant, challenging bars he scowled inimically. not that he acknowledged them as a challenge. he was inclined rather to the manly course of ignoring the grande polonaise altogether. and not for a moment would he have admitted that there had been anything in his behavior that could be challenged or defied, least of all by his daughter alice. to himself in his study mr. cartaret appeared as the image of righteousness established in an impregnable place. whereas his daughter alice was not at all in a position to challenge and defy. she had made a fool of herself. she knew it; he knew it; everybody knew it in the parish they had left five months ago. it had been the talk of the little southern seaside town. he thanked god that nobody knew it, or was ever likely to know it, here. for alice's folly was not any ordinary folly. it was the kind that made the parish which was so aware of it uninhabitable to a sensitive vicar. he reflected that she would be clever if she made a fool of herself here. by his decisive action in removing her from that southern seaside town he had saved her from continuing her work. in order to do it he had ruined his prospects. he had thrown up a good living for a poor one; a living that might (but for alice it certainly would) have led to preferment for a living that could lead to nothing at all; a living where he could make himself felt for a living where there was nobody to feel him. and, having done it, he was profoundly sorry for himself. so far as mr. cartaret could see there had been nothing else to do. if it had all to be done over again, he told himself that he would do it. but there mr. cartaret was wrong. he couldn't have done it or anything like it twice. it was one of those deeds, supremeful sacrificial, that strain a man's moral energies to breaking point and render him incapable of further sacrifice; if, indeed, it did not render further sacrifice superfluous. mr. cartaret honestly felt that even an exacting deity could require no more of him. and it wasn't the first time either, nor his daughter alice the first woman who had come between the vicar and his prospects. looking back he saw himself driven from pillar to post, from parish to parish, by the folly or incompetence of his womankind. strictly speaking, it was his first wife, mary gwendolen, the one the children called mother, who had begun it. she had made his first parish unendurable to him by dying in it. this she had done when alice was born, thereby making alice unendurable to him, too. poor mamie! he always thought of her as having, inscrutably, failed him. all three of them had failed him. his second wife, frances, the one the children called mamma (the vicar had made himself believe that he had married her solely on their account), had turned into a nervous invalid on his hands before she died of that obscure internal trouble which he had so wisely and patiently ignored. his third wife, robina (the one they called mummy), had run away from him in the fifth year of their marriage. when she implored him to divorce her he said that, whatever her conduct had been, that course was impossible to him as a churchman, as she well knew; but that he forgave her. he had made himself believe it. and all the time he was aware, without admitting it, that, if the thing came into court, robina's evidence might be a little damaging to the appearances of wisdom and patience, of austerity and dignity, which he had preserved so well. he had had an unacknowledged vision of robina standing in the witness box, very small and shy, with her eyes fluttering while she explained to the gentlemen of the jury that she ran away from her husband because she was afraid of him. he could hear the question, "why were you afraid?" and robina's answer--but at that point he always reminded himself that it was as a churchman that he objected to divorce. for his profession had committed him to a pose. he had posed for more than thirty years to his parish, to his three wives, to his three children, and to himself, till he had become unconscious of his real thoughts, his real motives, his real likings and dislikings. so that when he told himself that it would have been better if his third wife had died, he thought he meant that it would have been better for her and for his opinion of her, whereas what he really did mean was that it would have been better for himself. for if robina had died he could have married again. as it was, her infidelity condemned him to a celibacy for which, as she knew, he was utterly unsuited. therefore he thought of her as a cruel and unscrupulous woman. and when he thought of her he became more sorry for himself than ever. now, oddly enough, the grande polonaise had set mr. cartaret thinking of robina. it was not that robina had ever played it. robina did not play. it was not the discords introduced into it by alice, though robina had been a thing of discords. it was that something in him, obscurely but intimately associated with robina, responded to that sensual and infernal tremor that alice was wringing out of the polonaise. so that, without clearly knowing why it was abominable, mr. cartaret said to himself that the tune alice was playing was an abominable tune and must be stopped at once. he went into the drawing-room to stop it. and essy, in the kitchen, raised her head and dried her eyes on her apron. "if you must make a noise," said mr. cartaret, "be good enough to make one that is less--disturbing." * * * * * he stood in the doorway staring at his daughter alice. her excitement had missed by a hairsbreadth the spiritual climax. it had held itself in for one unspeakable moment, then surged, crowding the courses of her nerves. beaten back by the frenzy of the polonaise, it made a violent return; it rose, quivering, at her eyelids and her mouth; it broke, and, with a shudder of all her body, split itself and fell. the vicar stared. he opened his mouth to say something, and said nothing; finally he went out, muttering. "wisdom and patience. wisdom and patience." it was a prayer. alice trailed to the window and leaned out, listening for the sound of hoofs and wheels. nothing there but the darkness and stillness of the moors. she trailed back to the erard and began to play again. this time it was beethoven, the pathetic sonata. ix mr. cartaret sat in his study, manfully enduring the pathetic sonata. he was no musician and he did not certainly know when alice went wrong; therefore, except that it had some nasty loud moments, he could not honestly say that the first movement was disturbing. besides, he had scored. he had made alice change her tune. wisdom and patience required that he should be satisfied, so far. and, being satisfied, in the sense that he no longer had a grievance, meant that he was very badly bored. he began to fidget. he took his legs out of the fender and put them back again. he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, but without relief. he turned over his _spectator_ to see what it had to say about the deceased wife's sister bill, and found that he was not interested in what it had to say. he looked at his watch and compared it with the clock in the faint hope that the clock might be behindhand. the watch and clock both agreed that it was not a minute later than fifteen minutes to ten. a whole quarter of an hour before prayer-time. there was nothing but prayer-time to look forward to. he began to fidget again. he filled his pipe and thought better about smoking it. then he rang the bell for his glass of water. after more delay than was at all necessary essy appeared, bringing the glass of water on a plate. she came in, soft-footed, almost furtive, she who used to enter so suddenly and unabashed. she put the plate down on the roll-top desk and turned softly, furtively, away. the vicar looked up. his eyes were large and blue as suspicion drew in the black of their pupils. "put it down here," he said, and he indicated the ledge of the bureau. essy stood still and stared like a half-wild creature in doubt as to its way. she decided to make for the bureau by rounding the roll-top desk on the far side, thus approaching her master from behind. "what are you doing?" said the vicar. "i said, put it down here." essy turned again and came forward, tilting the plate a little in her nervousness. the large blue eyes, the stern voice, fascinated her, frightened her. the vicar looked at her steadily, remorselessly, as she came. essy's lowered eyelids had kept the stain of her tears. her thick brown hair was loose and rumpled under her white cap. but she had put on a clean, starched apron. it stood out stiffly, billowing, from her waist. essy had not always been so careless about her hair or so fastidious as to her aprons. there was a little strained droop at the corners of her tender mouth, as if they had been tied with string. her dark eyes still kept their young largeness and their light, but they looked as if they had been drawn tight with string at their corners too. all these signs the vicar noted as he stared. and he hated essy. he hated her for what he saw in her, and for her buxom comeliness, and for the softness of her youth. "did i hear young greatorex round at the back door this evening?" he said. essy started, slanting her plate a little more. "i doan knaw ef i knaw, sir." "either you know or you don't know," said the vicar. "i doan know, i'm sure, sir," said essy. the vicar was holding out his hand for his glass of water, and essy pushed the plate toward him, so blindly and at such a perilous slant that the glass slid and toppled over and broke itself against the vicar's chair. essy gave a little frightened cry. "clever girl. she did that on purpose," said the vicar to himself. essy was on her knees beside him, picking up the bits of glass and gathering them in her apron. she was murmuring, "i'll mop it oop. i'll mop it oop." "that'll do," he said roughly. "that'll do, i tell you. you can go." essy tried to go. but it was as if her knees had weights on them that fixed her to the floor. holding up her apron with one hand, she clutched the arm of her master's chair with the other and dragged herself to her feet. "i'll mop it oop," she repeated, shamefast. "i told you to go," said the vicar. "i'll fetch yo anoother glass?" she whispered. her voice was hoarse with the spasm in her throat. "no," said the vicar. essy slunk back into her kitchen with terror in her heart. x _"attacca subito l'allegro."_ alice had fallen on it suddenly. "i suppose," said mary, "it's a relief to her to make that row." "it isn't," said gwenda. "it's torture. that's how she works herself up. she's playing on her own nerves all the time. if she really _could_ play----if she cared about the music----if she cared about anything on earth except----" she paused. "molly, it must be awful to be made like that." "nothing could be worse for her than being shut up here." "i know. papa's been a frightful fool about her. after all, molly, what did she do?" "she did what you and i wouldn't have done." "how do you know what you wouldn't have done? how do i know? if we'd been in her place----" "if _i'd_ been in her place i'd have died rather." "how do you know ally wouldn't have rather died if she could have chosen? she didn't want to fall in love with that young ass, rickards. and i don't see what she did that was so very awful." "she managed to let everybody else see, anyhow." "what if she did? at least she was honest. she went straight for what she wanted. she didn't sneak and scheme to get him from any other girl. and she hadn't a mother to sneak and scheme _for_ her. that's fifty times worse, yet it's done every day and nobody thinks anything of it." she went on. "nobody would have thought anything as it was, if papa hadn't been such a frantic fool about it. it he'd had the pluck to stand by her, if he'd kept his head and laughed in their silly faces, instead of grizzling and growling and stampeding out of the parish as if poor ally had disgraced him." "well--it isn't a very pleasant thing for the vicar of the parish----" "it wasn't a very pleasant thing for any of us. but it was beastly of him to go back on her like that. and the silliness of it! caring so frightfully about what people think, and then going on so as to make them think it." "think what?" "that she really _had_ done something." "do you suppose they did?" "yes. you can't blame them. he couldn't have piled it on more if she _had_. it's enough to make her." "oh gwenda!" "it would be his own fault. just as it's his own fault that he hates her." "he doesn't hate her. he's fond of all of us, in his way." "wot of ally. don't you know why? he can't look at her without thinking of how awful _he_ is." "and if he _is_--a little----you forget what he's had to go through." "you mean mummy running away from him?" "yes. and mamma's dying. and before that--there was mother." gwenda raised her head. "he killed mother." "what do you mean?" "he did. he was told that mother would die or go mad if she had another baby. and he let her have ally. no wonder mummy ran away from him." "who told you that story?" "mummy." "it was horrid of her." "everything poor mummy did was horrid. it was horrid of her to run away from him, i suppose." "why did you tell me that? i didn't know it. i'd rather not have known." "well, now you do know, perhaps you'll be sorrier for ally." "i am sorry for ally. but i'm sorry for papa, too. you're not." "i'd be sorry for him right enough if he wasn't so sorry for himself." "gwenda, _you're_ awful." "because i won't waste my pity? ally's got nothing--he's got everything." "not what he cares most for." "he cares most for what people think of him. everybody thought him a good kind husband. everybody thinks him a good kind father." * * * * * the music suddenly ceased. a sound of voices came instead of it. "there," said gwenda. "he's gone in and stopped her." he had, that time. and in the sudden ceasing of the pathetic sonata the three sisters heard the sound of wheels and the clank of horseshoes striking together. mr. greatorex was not yet dead of his pneumonia. the doctor had passed the vicarage gate. and as he passed he had said to himself. "how execrably she plays." * * * * * the three sisters waited without a word for the striking of the church clock. xi the church clock struck ten. at the sound of the study bell essy came into the dining-room. essy was the acolyte of family prayers. though a wesleyan she could not shirk the appointed ceremonial. it was essy who took the bible and prayerbook from their place on the sideboard under the tea-urn and put them on the table, opening them where the vicar had left a marker the night before. it was essy who drew back the vicar's chair from the table and set it ready for him. it was essy whom he relied on for responses that _were_ responses and not mere mumblings and mutterings. she was wesleyan, the one faithful, the one devout person in his household. to-night there was nothing but a mumbling and a muttering. and that was mary. she was the only one who was joining in the lord's prayer. essy had failed him. * * * * * prayers over, there was nothing to sit up for. all the same, it was mr. cartaret's rule to go back into the study and to bore himself again for a whole hour till it was bed-time. he liked to be sure that the doors were all bolted and that everybody else was in bed before he went himself. but to-night he had bored himself so badly that the thought of his study was distasteful to him. so he stayed where he was with his family. he believed that he was doing this solely on his family's account. he told himself that it was not right that he should leave the three girls too much to themselves. it did not occur to him that as long as he had had a wife to sit with, he hadn't cared how much he had left them. he knew that he had rather liked mary and gwendolen when they were little, and though he had found himself liking them less and less as they grew into their teens he had never troubled to enquire whose fault that was, so certain was he that it couldn't be his. still less was it his fault if they were savage and inaccessible in their twenties. of course he didn't mean that mary was savage and inaccessible. it was gwendolen that he meant. so, since he couldn't sit there much longer without saying something, he presently addressed himself to mary. "any news of greatorex today?" "i haven't heard. shall i ask essy?" "no," said mr. cartaret, so abruptly that mary looked at him. "he was worse yesterday," said gwenda. they all looked at gwenda. "who told you that?" said mr. cartaret by way of saying something. "mrs. gale." "when did she tell you?" "yesterday, when i was up at the farm." "what were you doing at the farm?" "nothing. i went to see if i could do anything." she said to herself, "why does he go on at us like this?" aloud she said, "it was time some of us went." she had him there. she was always having him. "i shall have to go myself tomorrow," he said. "i would if i were you," said gwenda. "i wonder what jim greatorex will do if his father dies." it was mary who wondered. "he'll get married, like a shot," said alice. "who to?" said gwenda. "he can't marry _all_ the girls----" she stopped herself. essy gale was in the room. three months ago essy had been a servant at the farm where her mother worked once a fortnight. she had come in so quietly that none of them had noticed her. she brought a tray with a fresh glass of water for the vicar and a glass of milk for alice. she put it down quietly and slipped out of the room without her customary "anything more, miss?" and "good-night." "what's the matter with essy?" gwenda said. nobody spoke but alice who was saying that she didn't want her milk. more than a year ago alice had been ordered milk for her anæmia. she had milk at eleven, milk at her midday dinner, milk for supper, and milk last thing at night. she did not like milk, but she liked being ordered it. generally she would sit and drink it, in the face of her family, pathetically, with little struggling gulps. she took a half-voluptuous, half-vindictive pleasure in her anæmia. she knew that it made her sisters sorry for her, and that it annoyed her father. now she declared that she wasn't feeling well, and that she didn't want her milk. "in that case," said mr. cartaret, "you had better go to bed." alice went, raising her white arms and rubbing her eyes along the backs of her hands, like a child dropping with sleep. one after another, they rose and followed her. * * * * * at the half-landing five steep steps in a recess of the wall led aside to the door of essy's bedroom. there gwenda stopped and listened. a sound of stifled crying came from the room. gwenda went up to the door and knocked. "essy, are you in bed?" a pause. "yes, miss." "what is it? are you ill?" no answer. "is there anything wrong?" a longer pause. "i've got th' faace-ache." "oh, poor thing! can i do anything for you?" "naw, miss gwenda, thank yo." "well, call me if i can." but somehow she knew that essy wouldn't call. she went on, passing her father's door at the stair head. it was shut. she could hear him moving heavily within the room. on the other side of the landing was the room over the study that she shared with alice. the door stood wide. alice in her thin nightgown could be seen sitting by the open window. the nightgown, the small, slender body showing through, the hair, platted for the night, in two pig-tails that hung forward, one over each small breast, the tired face between the parted hair made alice look childlike and pathetic. gwendolen had a pang of compassion. "dear lamb," she said. "_that_ isn't any good. fresh air won't do it. you'd much better wait till papa gets a cold. then you can catch it." "it'll be his fault anyway," said alice. "serve him jolly well right if i get pneumonia." "pneumonia doesn't come to those who want it. i wonder what's wrong with essy." alice was tired and sullen. "you'd better ask jim greatorex," she said. "what do you mean, ally?" but ally had set her small face hard. "can't you he sorry for her?" said gwenda. "why should i be sorry for her? _she's_ all right." she had sorrow enough, but none to waste on essy. essy's way was easy. essy had only to slink out to the back door and she could have her will. _she_ didn't have to get pneumonia. xii john greatorex did not die that night. he had no mind to die: he was a man of stubborn pugnacity and he fought his pneumonia. the long gray house at upthorne looks over the marshes of the high land above garth. it stands alone, cut off by the marshes from the network of gray walls that links the village to the hill farms. the light in its upper window burned till dawn, a sign to the brooding and solitary land. up there, in the low room with its sunken ceiling, john greatorex lay in the big bed and rallied a little as the clean air from the moors lapped him like water. for the doctor had thrown open all the windows of the house before he left. presently mrs. gale, the untrained village nurse, would come and shut them in terror, and john greatorex's pneumonia would get the upper hand. that was how the fight went on, with steven rowcliffe on john greatorex's side and mrs. gale for the pneumonia. it was ten to one against john greatorex and the doctor, for john greatorex was most of the time unconscious and the doctor called but once or twice a day, while mrs. gale was always there to shut the windows as fast as he opened them. in the length and breadth of the dale there wasn't another woman who would not have done the same. she was secure from criticism. if she didn't know how to nurse pneumonia, who did? seeing that her own husband had died of it. young rowcliffe was a dalesman and he knew his people. in six months his face had grown stiff in the struggle with them. it was making his voice stern and his eyes hard, so that they could see nothing round him but stupidity and distrust and an obstinacy even greater than his own. nothing in his previous experience had prepared him for it. in his big provincial hospital he had had it practically his own way. he had faced a thousand horrible and intractable diseases with a thousand appliances and with an army of assistants and trained nurses under him. and if in his five years' private practice in leeds he had come to grips with human nature, it had been at any rate a fair fight. if his work was harder his responsibility was less. he still had trained nurses under him; and if a case was beyond him there were specialists with whom he could consult. here he was single-handed. he was physician and surgeon and specialist and nurse in one. he had few appliances and no assistant beside naked and primeval nature, the vast high spaces, the clean waters and clean air of the moors. yet it was precisely these things that his romantic youth had cried for--that solitary combat and communion, that holy and solitary aid. at thirty rowcliffe was still in his romantic youth. he had all its appearances about him. a life of continual labor and discomfort had kept his body slender; and all the edges of his face--clean-shaven except for its little dark moustache--were incomparably firm and clear. his skin was bronzed and reddened by sun and wind. the fine hard mouth under the little dark moustache was not so hard that it could not, sometimes, be tender. his irreproachable nose escaped the too high curve that would have made it arrogant. and his eyes, keen and hard in movement, by simply keeping quiet under lowered brows, became charged with a curious and engaging pathos. their pathos had appealed to the little red-haired, pink-skinned, green-eyed nurse who had worked under him in leeds. she was clever and kind--much too kind, it was supposed--to rowcliffe. there had been one or two others before the little red-haired nurse, so that, though he was growing hard, he had not grown bitter. he was not in the least afraid of growing bitter; for he knew that his eyes, as long as he could keep them quiet, would preserve him from all necessity for bitterness. rowcliffe had always trusted a great deal to his eyes. because of them he had left several young ladies, his patients, quite heart-broken in leeds. the young ladies knew nothing about the little red-haired nurse and had never ceased to wonder why dr. rowcliffe did not want to marry them. and steven rowcliffe's eyes, so disastrous to the young ladies in leeds, saw nobody in morfe whom he could possibly want to marry. the village of morfe is built in a square round its green. the doctor's house stands on a plot of rising ground on the north side of the square, and from its front windows young rowcliffe could see the inhabitants of morfe coming and going before him as on a stage, and he kept count of them all. there were the three middle-aged maiden ladies in the long house on the west side of whom all he knew was that they ate far too many pikelets and griddle cakes for tea. there were the two old ladies in the white house next door who were always worrying him to sound their chests, one for her lungs and the other for her arteries. in spite of lungs and arteries they were very gay old ladies. the tubes of rowcliffe's queer, new-fangled stethescope, appearing out of his coat pocket, sent them into ecstacies of mirth. they always made the same little joke about it; they called the stethescope his telephone. but of course he didn't want to marry them. there was the very old lady on the east side, who had had one stroke and was expecting another every day. there were the two unmarried daughters of a retired manufacturer on the far side of the green. they were plump and had red cheeks, if he had cared for plumpness and red cheeks; but they had no conversation. the only pretty girl whose prettiness appealed to rowcliffe had an "adenoid" mouth which he held to be a drawback. there was the daughter of his predecessor, but she again was well over forty, rigid and melancholy and dry. all these people became visibly excited when they saw young rowcliffe starting off in his trap and returning; but young rowcliffe was never excited, never even interested when he saw them. there was nothing about them that appealed to his romantic youth. as for morfe manor, and garth manor and greffington hall, they were nearly always empty, so that he had not very much chance of improving his acquaintance there. and he had nothing to hope for from the summer visitors, girls with queer clothes and queer manners and queer accents; bouncing, convivial girls who spread themselves four abreast on the high roads; fat, lazy girls who sat about on the green; blowsed, slouching girls who tramped the dales with knapsacks and no hats. the hard eyes of young rowcliffe never softened as he looked at the summer visitors. their behavior irritated him. it reminded him that there were women in the world and that he missed, quite unbearably at moments, the little red-haired nurse who had been so clever and so kind. moreover it offended his romantic youth. the little publicans and shop-keepers of morfe did not offend it; neither did the peasants and the farmers; they were part of the place; generations of them had been born in those gray houses, built from the gaunt ribs of the hills; whereas the presence of the summer visitors was an outrage to the silent and solitary country that his instincts inscrutably adored. no wonder that he didn't care to look at them. * * * * * but one night in september, when the moon was high in the south, as he was driving toward garth on his way to upthorne, the eyes of young rowcliffe were startled out of their aversion by the sudden and incredible appearance of a girl. it was at the bend of the road where karva lowers its head and sinks back on the moor; and she came swinging up the hill as rowcliffe's horse scraped his way slowly down it. she was in white (he couldn't have missed her) and she carried herself like a huntress; slender and quick, with high, sharp-pointed breasts. she looked at him as she passed and her face was wide-eyed and luminous under the moon. her lips were parted with her speed, so that, instinctively, his hands tightened on the reins as if he had thought that she was going to speak to him. but of course she did not speak. he looked back and saw her swing off the high road and go up karva. a flock of mountain sheep started from their couches on the heather and looked at her, and she went driving them before her. they trailed up karva slowly, in a long line, gray in the moonlight. their mournful, musical voices came to him from the hill. he saw her again late--incredibly late--that night as the moon swept from the south toward karva. she was a long way off, coming down from her hill, a white speck on the gray moor. he pulled up his horse and waited below the point where the track she followed struck the high road; he even got out of his trap and examined, deliberately, his horse's hoofs in turn, spinning out the time. when he heard her he drew himself upright and looked straight at her as she passed him. she flashed by like a huntress, like artemis carrying the young moon on her forehead. from the turn of her head and the even falling of her feet he felt her unconscious of his existence. and her unconsciousness was hateful to him. it wiped him clean out of the universe of noticeable things. the apparition fairly cried to his romantic youth. and he said to himself. "who is the strange girl who walks on the moor by herself at night and isn't afraid?" * * * * * he saw her three times after that; once in the broad daylight, on the high road near morfe, when she passed him with a still more perfect and inimical unconsciousness; once in the distance on the moor, when he caught her, short-skirted and wild, jumping the wide water courses as they came, evidently under the impression that she was unobserved. and he smiled and said to himself, "she's doing it for fun, pure fun." the third time he came upon her at dawn with the dew on her skirts and on her hair. she darted away at the clank of his horse's hoofs, half-savage, divinely shy. and he said to himself that time, "i'm getting on. she's aware of me all right." she had come down from karva, and he was on his way to morfe from upthorne. he had sat up all night with john greatorex who had died at dawn. the smell of the sick man, and of the bed and of the low close room was still in his nostrils, and in his ears the sounds of dying and of mourning, and at his heart the oppression (he was still young enough to feel it) of the secret and abominable things he knew. and in his eyes the unknown girl and her behavior became suddenly adorable. she was the darting joy and the poignant sweetness, and the sheer extravagant ardor and energy of life. his tempestuously romantic youth rose up and was troubled at the sight of her. and his eyes, that had stared at her in wonder and amusement and inquisitive interest, followed her now with that queer pathos that they had. it was the look that he relied on to move desire in women's eyes; and now it traveled, forlorn and ineffectual, abject almost in its futility, over the gray moorgrass where she went. * * * * * that was on wednesday the fourteenth. on friday the sixteenth he saw her again at nightfall, in the doorway of john greatorex's house. he had overtaken the cart that was carrying john greatorex's coffin to upthorne. low lighted, the long gray house brooded over the marshes, waiting to be disencumbered of its dead. in the east the broken shoulders of the hills receded, winding with the dale like a coast line of gray cliffs above the mist that was their sea. tortured, mutilated by the jagged cloud that held her, the moon struggled and tore her way, she lifted and freed herself high and struck the marshes white. defaced and sinister, above her battlements, she looked at the house and made it terrible, moon-haunted. its door, low lighted, stood open to the night. rowcliffe drew back from the threshold to let a woman pass out. looking up, he was aware that he had seen her again. he supposed it was the light of that detestable moon that gave her face its queer morbid whiteness. she went by without seeing him, clenching her hands and carrying her young head high; and he saw that her eyes still held the tears that she was afraid to spill. mrs. gale stood behind her with a lamp, lighting her passage. "who is that young lady?" he asked. "t' vicar's laass, gwanda." the woman leaned to him and whispered, "she's seen t' body." and in the girl's fear and blindness and defiance he saw the pride of her youth beaten and offended by that which it had seen. out there, in the bridle path leading from the high road to the farm, the cart had stopped. the men were lifting the coffin out, shouldering it, carrying it along. he saw gwenda cartaret swerve out of their way. presently he heard her running down the road. then he remembered what he had been sent for. he turned his attention to mrs. gale. she was a square-set, blunt-featured woman of forty-five or so, who had once been comely like her daughter essy. now her soft chin had sagged; in her cheeks the stagnant blood crawled through a network of little veins, and the gloss had gone from her dark hair. her brown eyes showed a dull defiance and deprecation of the human destiny. "where is he?" he said. "oop there, in t' room wi' 's feyther." "been drinking again, or what?" "naw, dr. rawcliffe, 'e 'assn't. i suddn' a sent for yo all this road for nowt." she drew him into the house place, and whispered. "i'm feared 'e'll goa queer in 'is 'head, like. 'e's sot there by t' body sence yesterda noon. 'e's not takken off 'is breeches for tree daas. 'e caaun't sleap; 'e wunna eat and 'e wunna drink. there's work to be doon and 'e wunna lay haand to it. wull yo goa oop t' 'im, dr. rawcliffe?" rowcliffe went up. xiii in the low lighted room the thing that gwenda cartaret had seen lay stretched in the middle of the great bed, covered with a sheet. the bed, with its white mound, was so much too big for the four walls that held it, the white plaster of the ceiling bulging above it stooped so low, that the body of john greatorex lay as if already closed up in its tomb. jim greatorex, his son, sat on a wooden chair at the head of the bed. his young, handsome face was loose and flushed as if he had been drinking. his eyes--the queer, blue, wide-open eyes that had hitherto looked out at you from their lodging in that ruddy, sensuous face, incongruously spiritual, high and above your head, like the eyes of a dreamer and a mystic--jim's eyes were sunken now and darkened in their red and swollen lids. they stared at the rug laid down beside the bed, while jim's mind set itself to count, stupidly and obstinately, the snippets of gray and scarlet cloth that made the pattern on the black. every now and then he would recognise a snippet as belonging to some suit his father had worn years ago, and then jim's brain would receive a shock and would stagger and have to begin its counting all over again. the door opened to let rowcliffe in. and at the sound of the door, as if a spring had been suddenly released in his spine, jim greatorex shot up and started to his feet. "well, greatorex----" "good evening, dr. rawcliffe." he came forward awkwardly, hanging his head as if detected in an act of shame. there was a silence while the two men turned their backs upon the bed, determined to ignore what was on it. they stood together by the window, pretending to stare at things out there in the night; and so they became aware of the men carrying the coffin. they could no longer ignore it. "wull yo look at 'im, doctor?" "better not----." rowcliffe would have laid his hand on the young man's arm, muttering a refusal, but greatorex had moved to the bed and drawn back the sheet. what gwenda cartaret had seen was revealed. the dead man's face, upturned with a slight tilt to the ceiling that bulged so brutally above it, the stiff dark beard accentuating the tilt, the eyes, also upturned, white under their unclosing lids, the nostrils, the half-open mouth preserved their wonder and their terror before a thing so incredible--that the walls and roof of a man's room should close round him and suffocate him. on this horrified face there were the marks of dissolution, and, at the corners of the grim beard and moustache, a stain. it left nothing to be said. it was the face of the man who had drunk hard and had told his son that he had never been the worse for drink. jim greatorex stood and looked at it as if he knew what rowcliffe was thinking of it and defied him to think. rowcliffe drew up the sheet and covered it. "you'd better come out of this. it isn't good for you," he said. "i knaw what's good for me, dr. rawcliffe." jim stuck his hands in his breeches and gazed stubbornly at the sheeted mound. "come," rowcliffe said, "don't give way like this. buck up and be a man." "a ma-an? you wait till yor turn cooms, doctor." "my turn came ten years ago, and it may come again." "and yo'll knaw then what good it doos ta-alkin'." he paused, listening. "they've coom," he said. there was a sound of scuffling on the stone floor below and on the stairs. mrs. gale's voice was heard out on the landing, calling to the men. "easy with un--easy. mind t' lamp. eh--yo'll never get un oop that road. yo mun coax un round corner." a swinging thud on the stone wall. then more and more desperate scuffling with muttering. then silence. mrs. gale put her head in at the door. "jimmy, yo mun coom and gie a haand wi' t' coffin. they've got un faasst in t' turn o' t' stair." through the open doorway rowcliffe could see the broad shoulders of the coffin jammed in the stairway. jim, flushed with resentment, strode out; and the struggling and scuffling began again, subdued, this time, and respectful. rowcliffe went out to help. mrs. gale on the landing went on talking to herself. "they sud 'ave browt trestles oop first. there's naw place to stond un in. eh dear! it's job enoof gettin' un oop. what'll it be gettin' un down again wit' 'e layin' in un? 'ere--yo get oonder un, jimmy, and 'eave un oop." jim crouched and went backward down the stair under the coffin. his flushed face, with its mournful, mystic eyes, looked out at rowcliffe for a moment under the coffin head. then, with a heave of his great back and pushing with his powerful arms against the wall and stair rail, he loosened the shoulders of the coffin and bore it, steadied by rowcliffe and the men, up the stair and into the room. they set it on its feet beside the bed, propped against the wall. and jim greatorex stood and stared at it. rowcliffe went down into the kitchen, followed by mrs. gale. "what d'yo think o' jimmy, dr. rawcliffe?" "he oughtn't to be left alone. isn't there any sister or anybody who could come to him?" "naw; 'e's got naw sisters, jimmy 'assn't." "well, you must get him to lie down and eat." "get 'im? yo can do nowt wi' jimmy. 'e'll goa 'is own road. 'is feyther an' 'e they wuss always quar'ling, yo med say. yet when t' owd gentleman was taaken bad, jimmy, 'e couldn' do too mooch for 'im. 'e was set on pullin' 's feyther round. and when 'e found 'e couldn't keep t' owd gentleman, 'e gets it on 'is mind like--broodin'. and 'e's got nowt to coomfort 'im." she sat down to it now. "yo see, dr. rawcliffe, jim's feyther and 'is granfeyther before 'im, they wuss good wesleyans. it's in t' blood. but jim's moother that died, she wuss choorch. and that slip of a laass, when john greatorex coom courtin', she turned 'im. 'e was that soft wi' laasses. 'er feyther 'e was steward to lord o' t' manor and 'e was choorch and all t' family saame as t' folk oop at manor. yo med say, jim greatorex, 'e's got naw religion. neither choorch nor chapel 'e is. nowt to coomfort 'im." upstairs the scuffling and the struggling became frightful. jim's feet and jim's voice were heard above the muttering of the undertaker's men. mrs. gale whispered. "they're gettin' 'im in. 'e's gien a haand wi' t' body. thot's soomthin'." she brooded ponderously. a sound of stamping and scraping at the back door roused her. "eh--oo's there now?" she asked irritably. willie, the farm lad, appeared on the threshold. his face was flushed and scared. "where's jim?" he said in a thick voice. "ooosh-sh! doan't yo' knaw t' coffin's coom? 'e's oopstairs w' t' owd maaster." "well--'e mun coom down. t' mare's taaken baad again in 'er insi-ide." "t' mare, daasy?" "yes." "eh dear, there's naw end to trooble. yo go oop and fatch jimmy." willie hesitated. his flush deepened. "i daarss'nt," he whispered hoarsely. "poor laad, 'e 's freetened o' t' body," she explained. "yo stay there, wullie. i'll goa. t' body's nowt to me. i've seen too many o' they," she muttered as she went. they heard her crying excitedly overhead. "jimmy! yo coom to t' ma-are! yo coom to t' ma-are!" the sounds in the room ceased instantly. jim greatorex, alert and in violent possession of all his faculties, dashed down the stairs and out into the yard. rowcliffe followed into the darkness where his horse and trap stood waiting for him. * * * * * he was lighting his lamps when jim greatorex appeared beside him with a lantern. "dr. rawcliffe, will yo joost coom an' taak a look at lil maare?" jim's sullenness was gone. his voice revealed him humble and profoundly agitated. rowcliffe sighed, smiled, pulled himself together and turned with greatorex into the stable. in the sodden straw of her stall, daisy, the mare, lay, heaving and snorting after her agony. from time to time she turned her head toward her tense and swollen flank, seeking with eyes of anguish the mysterious source of pain. the feed of oats with which willie had tried to tempt her lay untouched in the skip beside her head. "i give 'er they oats an hour ago," said willie. "an' she 'assn't so mooch as nosed 'em." "nawbody but a donmed gawpie would have doon thot with 'er stoomach raw. yo med 'ave killed t' mare." willie, appalled by his own deed and depressed, stooped down and fondled the mare's face, to show that it was not affection that he lacked. "heer--clear out o' thot and let doctor have a look in." willie slunk aside as rowcliffe knelt with greatorex in the straw and examined the sick mare. "can yo tell at all what's amiss, doctor?" "colic, i should say. has the vet seen her?" "ye-es. he sent oop soomthing--" "well, have you given it her?" jim's voice thickened. "i sud have given it her yesterda." "and why on earth didn't you?" "the domned thing went clane out o' my head." he turned to the window ledge by the stable door where, among a confusion of cobwebs and dusty bottles and tin cans, the drench of turpentine and linseed oil, the little phial of chlorodyne, and the clean tin pannikin with its wide protruding mouth, stood ready, all gleaming in the lantern light, forgotten since the day before. "thot's the stoof. will yo halp me give it 'er, doctor?" "all right. can you hold her?" "that i can. coom oop, daasy. coom oop. there, my beauty. gently, gently, owd laass." rowcliffe took off his coat and shook up the drench and poured it into the pannikin, while greatorex got the struggling mare on to her feet. together, with gentleness and dexterity they cajoled her. then jim laid his hands upon her mouth and opened it, drawing up her head against his breast. willie, suddenly competent, held the lantern while rowcliffe poured the drench down her throat. daisy, coughing and dribbling, stood and gazed at them with sad and terrified eyes. and while the undertaker's men screwed down the lid upon john greatorex in his coffin, jim greatorex, his son, watched with daisy in her stall. and steven rowcliffe watched with him, nursing the sick mare, making up a fresh, clean bed for her, rubbing and fomenting her swollen and tortured belly. when daisy rolled in another agony, rowcliffe gave her chlorodyne and waited till suddenly she lay still. in jim's face, as he looked down at her, there was an infinite tenderness and pity and compunction. rowcliffe, wriggling into his coat, regarded him with curiosity and wonder, till jim drew himself up and fixed him with his queer, unhappy eyes. "shall i save her, doctor?" "i can't tell you yet. i'd better send the vet up tomorrow hadn't i?" "ay----" jim's voice was strangled in the spasm of his throat. but he took rowcliffe's hand and wrung it, discharging many emotions in that one excruciating grip. rowcliffe pointed to the little phial of chlorodyne lying in the straw. "if i were you," he said, "i shouldn't leave that lying about." through his long last night in the gray house haunted by the moon, john greatorex lay alone, screwed down under a coffin lid, and his son, jim, wrapped in a horse-blanket and with his head on a hay sack, lay in the straw of the stable, beside daisy his mare. from time to time, as his mood took him, he turned and laid his hand on her in a poignant caress. as if she had been his first-born, or his bride, he spoke to her in the thick, soft voice of passion, with pitiful, broken words and mutterings. "what is it, daasy----what is it? there, did they, then, did they? my beauty--my lil laass. i--i wuss a domned brute to forget tha, a domned brute." all that night and the next night he lay beside her. the funeral passed like a fantastic interlude between the long acts of his passion. his great sorrow made him humble to mrs. gale so that he allowed her to sustain him with food and drink. and on the third day it was known throughout garthdale that young greatorex, who had lost his father, had saved his mare. only steven rowcliffe knew that the mare had saved young greatorex. * * * * * and the little phial of chlorodyne was put back among the cobwebs and forgotten. xiv down at the vicarage the vicar was wrangling with his youngest daughter. for the third time alice declared that she was not well and that she didn't want her milk. "whether you want it or not you've got to drink it," said the vicar. alice took the glass in her lap and looked at it. "am i to stand over you till you drink it?" alice put the rim of the glass to her mouth and shuddered. "i can't," she said. "it'll make me sick." "leave the poor child alone, papa," said gwenda. but the vicar ignored gwenda. "you'll drink it, if i stand here all night," he said. alice struggled with a spasm in her throat. he held the glass for her while she groped piteously. "oh, where's my hanky?" with superhuman clemency he produced his own. "it'll serve you right if i'm ill," said alice. "come," said the vicar in his wisdom and his patience. "come." he proffered the disgusting cup again. "i'd drink it and have done with it, if i were you," said mary in her soft voice. mary's soft voice was too much for alice. "why c-can't you leave me alone? you--you--beast, mary," she sobbed. and mr. cartaret began again, "am i to stand here----" alice got up, she broke loose from them and left the room. "you might have known she wasn't going to drink it," gwenda said. but the vicar never knew when he was beaten. "she would have drunk it," he said, "if mary hadn't interfered." * * * * * alice had not got the pneumonia that had killed john greatorex. such happiness, she reflected, was not for her. she had desired it too much. but she was doing very well with her anæmia. bloodless and slender and inert, she dragged herself about the village. she could not get away from it because of the steep hills she would have had to climb. a small, unhappy ghost, she haunted the fields in the bottom and the path along the beck that led past mrs. gale's cottage. the sight of alice was more than ever annoying to the vicar. only you wouldn't have known it. as she grew whiter and weaker he braced himself, and became more hearty and robust. when he caught her lying on the sofa he spoke to her in a robust and hearty tone. "don't lie there all day, my girl. get up and go out. what you want is a good blow on the moor." "yes. if i didn't die before i got there," alice would say, while she thought, "serve him right, too, if i did." and the vicar would turn from her in disgust. he knew what was the matter with his daughter alice. at dinner time he would pull himself together again, for, after all, he was her father. he was robust and hearty over the sirloin and the leg of mutton. he would call for a glass and press into it the red juice of the meat. "don't peak and pine, girl. drink that. it'll put some blood into you." and alice would refuse to drink it. next she refused to drink her milk at eleven. she carried it out to essy in the scullery. "i wish you'd drink my milk for me, essy. it makes me sick," she said. "i don't want your milk," said essy. "please--" she implored her. but essy was angry. her face flamed and she banged down the dishes she was drying. "i sail not drink it. what should i want your milk for? you can pour it in t' pig's bucket." and the milk would be left by the scullery window till it turned sour and essy poured it into the pig's bucket that stood under the sink. * * * * * three weeks passed, and with every week alice grew more bloodless, more slender, and more inert, and more and more like an unhappy ghost. her small face was smaller; there was a tinge of green in its honey-whiteness, and of mauve in the dull rose of her mouth. and under her shallow breast her heart seemed to rise up and grow large, while the rest of alice shrank and grew small. it was as if her fragile little body carried an enormous engine, an engine of infernal and terrifying power. when she lay down and when she got up and with every sudden movement its throbbing shook her savagely. night and morning she called to her sister: "oh gwenda, come and feel my heart. i do believe it's growing. it's getting too big for my body. it frightens me when it jumps about like that." it frightened gwenda. but it did not really frighten alice. she rejoiced in it, rather, and exulted. after all, it was a good thing that she had not got pneumonia, which might have killed her as it had killed john greatorex. she had got what served her purpose better. it served all her purposes. if she had tried she could not have hit on anything that would have annoyed her father more or put him more conspicuously in the wrong. to begin with, it was his doing. he had worried her into it. and he had brought her to a place which was the worst place conceivable for anybody with a diseased heart, since you couldn't stir out of doors without going up hill. night and morning alice stood before the looking-glass and turned out the lining of her lips and eyelids and saw with pleasure the pale rose growing paler. every other hour she laid her hand on her heart and took again the full thrill of its dangerous throbbing, or felt her pulse to assure herself of the halt, the jerk, the hurrying of the beat. night and morning and every other hour she thought of rowcliffe. "if it goes on like this, they'll _have_ to send for him," she said. but it had gone on, the three weeks had passed, and yet they had not sent. the vicar had put his foot down. he wouldn't have the doctor. he knew better than a dozen doctors what was the matter with his daughter alice. alice said nothing. she simply waited. as if some profound and dead-sure instinct had sustained her, she waited, sickening. and on the last night of the third week she fainted. she had dragged herself upstairs to bed, staggered across the little landing and fallen on the threshold of her room. they kept her in bed next day. at one o'clock she refused her chicken-broth. she would neither eat nor drink. and a little before three gwenda went for the doctor. she had not told alice she was going. she had not told anybody. xv she had to walk, for mary had taken her bicycle. nobody knew where mary had gone or when she had started or when she would be back. but the four miles between garth and morfe were nothing to gwenda, who would walk twenty for her own amusement. she would have stretched the way out indefinitely if she could; she would have piled garthdale moor on greffington edge and karva on the top of them and put them between garth and morfe, so violent was her fear of steven rowcliffe. she had no longer any desire to see him or to be seen by him. he had seen her twice too often, and too early and too late. after being caught on the moor at dawn, it was preposterous that she should show herself in the doorway of upthorne at night. how was he to know that she hadn't done it on purpose? girls did these things. poor little ally had done them. and it was because ally had done them that she had been taken and hidden away here where she couldn't do them any more. but--couldn't she? gwenda stood still, staring in her horror as the frightful thought struck her that ally could, and that she would, the very minute she realised young rowcliffe. and he would think--not that it mattered in the least what he thought--he would think that there were two of them. if only, she said to herself, if only young rowcliffe were a married man. then even ally couldn't-- not that she blamed poor little ally. she looked on little ally as the victim of a malign and tragic tendency, the fragile vehicle of an alien and overpowering impulse. little ally was doomed. it wasn't her fault if she was made like that. and this time it wouldn't be her fault at all. their father would have driven her. gwenda hated him for his persecution and exposure of the helpless creature. she walked on thinking. it wouldn't end with ally. they were all three exposed and persecuted. for supposing--it wasn't likely, but supposing--that this rowcliffe man was the sort of man she liked, supposing--what was still more unlikely--that he was the sort of man who would like her, where would be the good of it? her father would spoil it all. he spoiled everything. well, no, to be perfectly accurate, not everything. there was one thing he had not spoiled, because he had never suspected its existence--her singular passion for the place. of course, if he had suspected it, he would have stamped on it. it was his business to stamp on other people's passions. luckily, it wasn't in him to conceive a passion for a place. it had come upon her at first sight as they drove between twilight and night from reyburn through rathdale into garthdale. it was when they had left the wooded land behind them and the moors lifted up their naked shoulders, one after another, darker than dark, into a sky already whitening above the hidden moon. and she saw morfe, gray as iron, on its hill, bearing the square crown and the triple pendants of its lights; she saw the long straight line of greffington edge, hiding the secret moon, and karva with the ashen west behind it. there was something in their form and in their gesture that called to her as if they knew her, as if they waited for her; they struck her with the shock of recognition, as if she had known them and had waited too. and close beside her own wonder and excitement she had felt the deep and sullen repulsion of her companions. the vicar sat huddled in his overcoat. his nostrils, pinched with repugnance, sniffed as they drank in the cold, clean air. from time to time he shuddered, and a hoarse muttering came from under the gray woolen scarf he had wound round his mouth and beard. he was the righteous man, sent into uttermost abominable exile for his daughter's sin. behind him, on the back seat of the trap, alice and mary cowed under their capes and rugs. they had turned their shoulders to each other, hostile in their misery. gwenda was sorry for them. the gray road dipped and turned and plunged them to the bottom of garthdale. the small, scattering lights of the village waited for her in the hollow, with something humble and sad and familiar in their setting. they too stung her with that poignant and secret sense of recognition. "this is the place," the vicar had said. he had addressed himself to alice; and it had been as if he had said, this the place, the infernal, the damnable place, you've brought us to with your behavior. their hatred of it had made gwenda love it. "you can have your old garthdale all to yourself," alice had said. "nobody else wants it." that, to gwenda, was the charm of it. the adorable place was her own. nobody else wanted it. she loved it for itself. it had nothing but itself to offer her. and that was enough. it was almost, as she had said, too much. her questing youth conceived no more rapturous adventure than to follow the sheep over karva, to set out at twilight and see the immense night come down on the high moors above upthorne; to get up when alice was asleep and slip out and watch the dawn turning from gray to rose, and from rose to gold above greffington edge. as it happened you saw sunrise and moonrise best from the platform of morfe green. there greffington edge breaks and falls away, and lets slip the dawn like a rosy scarf from its shoulder, and sets the moon free of her earth and gives her to the open sky. but, just as the vicar had spoiled rowcliffe, so rowcliffe had spoiled morfe for gwenda. therefore her fear of him was mingled with resentment. it was as if he had had no business to be living there, in that house of his looking over the green. incredible that she should have wanted to see and to know this person. but now, that she didn't want to, of course she was going to see him. * * * * * at the bend of the road, within a mile of morfe, mary came riding on gwenda's bicycle. large parcels were slung from her handle bars. she had been shopping in the village. mary, bowed forward as she struggled with an upward slope, was not aware of gwenda. but gwenda was aware of mary, and, not being in the mood for her, she struck off the road on to the moor and descended upon morfe by the steep lane that leads from karva into rathdale. it never occurred to her to wonder what mary had been doing in morfe, so evident was it that she had been shopping. xvi the doctor was at home, but he was engaged, at the moment, in the surgery. the maid-servant asked if she would wait. she waited in the little cold and formal dining-room that looked through two windows on to the green. so formal and so cold, so utterly impersonal was the air of the doctor's mahogany furniture that her fear left her. it was as if the furniture assured her that she would not really _see_ rowcliffe; as for knowing him, she needn't worry. she had sent in her card, printed for convenience with the names of the three sisters: miss cartaret. miss gwendolen cartaret. miss alice cartaret. she felt somehow that it protected her. she said to herself, "he won't know which of us it is." * * * * * rowcliffe was washing his hands in the surgery when the card was brought to him. he frowned at the card. "but--you've brought this before," he said. "i've seen the lady." "no, sir. it's another lady." "another? are you certain?" "yes, sir. quite certain." "did she come on a bicycle?" "no, sir, that was the lady you've seen. i think this'll be her sister." rowcliffe was still frowning as he dried his hands with fastidious care. "she's different, sir. taller like." "taller?" "yes, sir." rowcliffe turned to the table and picked up a probe and a lancet and dropped them into a sterilising solution. the maid waited. rowcliffe's absorption was complete. "shall i ask her to call again, sir?" "no. i'll see her. where is she?" "in the dining-room, sir." "show her into the study." * * * * * nothing could have been more distant and reserved than rowcliffe's dining-room. but, to a young woman who had made up her mind that she didn't want to know anything about him, rowcliffe's study said too much. it told her that he was a ferocious and solitary reader; for in the long rows of book shelves the books leaned slantwise across the gaps where his hands had rummaged and ransacked. it told her that his gods were masculine and many--darwin and spencer and haeckel, pasteur, curie and lord lister, thomas hardy, walt whitman and bernard shaw. their photogravure portraits hung above the bookcase. he was indifferent to mere visible luxury, or how could he have endured the shabby drugget, the cheap, country wall-paper with its design of dreadful roses on a white watered ground? but the fire in the grate and the deep arm-chair drawn close to it showed that he loved warmth and comfort. that his tastes made him solitary she gathered from the chair's comparatively unused and unworn companion, lurking and sulking in the corner where it had been thrust aside. the one window of this room looked to the west upon a little orchard, gray trunks of apple trees and plum trees against green grass, green branches against gray stone, gray that was softened in the liquid autumn air, green that was subtle, exquisite, charmingly austere. he could see his little orchard as he sat by his fire. she thought she rather liked him for keeping his window so wide open. she was standing by it looking at the orchard as he came in. * * * * * he was so quiet in his coming that she did not see or hear him till he stood before her. and in his eyes, intensely quiet, there was a look of wonder and of incredulity, almost of concern. greetings and introductions over, the unused arm-chair was brought out from its lair in the corner. rowcliffe, in his own arm-chair, sat in shadow, facing her. what light there was fell full on her. "i'm sorry you should have had to come to me," he said, "your sister was here a minute or two ago." "my sister?" "i think it _must_ have been your sister. she said it was _her_ sister i was to go and see." "i didn't know she was coming. she never told me." "pity. i was coming out to see you first thing tomorrow morning." "then you know? she told you?" "she told me something." he smiled. "she must have been a little overanxious. you don't look as if there was very much the matter with you." "but there isn't. it isn't me." "who is it then?" "my other sister." "oh. i seem to have got a little mixed." "you see, there are three of us." he laughed. "three! let me get it right. i've seen miss cartaret. you are miss gwendolen cartaret. and the lady i am to see is--? "my youngest sister, alice." "now i understand. i wondered how you managed those four miles. tell me about her." she began. she was vivid and terse. he saw that she made short cuts to the root of the matter. he showed himself keen and shrewd. once or twice he said "i know, i know," and she checked herself. "my sister has told you all that." "no, she hasn't. nothing like it. please go on." she went on till he interrupted her. "how old is she?" "just twenty-three." "i see. yes." he looked so keen now that she was frightened. "does that make it more dangerous?" she said. he laughed. "no. it makes it less so. i don't suppose it's dangerous at all. but i can't tell till i've seen her. i say, you must be tired after that long walk." "i'm never tired." "that's good." he rang the bell. the maid appeared. "tell acroyd i want the trap. and bring tea--at once." "for two, sir?" "for two." gwenda rose. "thanks very much, i must be going." "please stay. it won't take five minutes. then i can drive you back." "i can walk." "i know you can. but--you see--" his keenness and shrewdness went from him. he was almost embarrassed. "i _was_ going round to see your sister in the morning. but--i think i'd rather see her to-night. and--" he was improvising freely now--"i ought, perhaps, to see you after, as you understand the case. so, if you don't _mind_ coming back with me--" she didn't mind. why should she? she stayed. she sat in rowcliffe's chair before his fire and drank his tea and ate his hot griddle-cakes (she had a healthy appetite, being young and strong). she talked to him as if she had known him a long time. all these things he made her do, and when he talked to her he made her forget what had brought her there; he made her forget alice and mary and her father. when he left her for a moment she got up, restless and eager to be gone. and when he came back to her she was standing by the open window again, looking at the orchard. rowcliffe looked at _her_, taking in her tallness, her slenderness, the lithe and beautiful line of her body, curved slightly backward as she leaned against the window wall. never before and never again, afterwards, never, that was to say, for any other woman, did rowcliffe feel what he felt then. looking back on it (afterward) he could only describe it as a sense of certainty. it lacked, surprisingly, the element of surprise. "you like my north-country orchard?" (he was certain that she did.) she turned, smiling. "i like it very much." they had been a long time over tea. it was half-past five before they started. he brought an overcoat and put it on her. he wrapped a rug round her knees and feet and tucked it well in. "you don't like rugs," he said (he knew she didn't), "but you've got to have it." she did like it. she liked his rug and his overcoat, and his little brown horse with the clanking hoofs. and she liked him, most decidedly she liked him, too. he was the sort of man you could like. they were soon out on the moor. rowcliffe's youth rose in him and put words into his mouth. "ripping country, this." she said it was ripping. for the life of them they couldn't have said more about it. there were no words for the inscrutable ecstasy it gave them. as they passed karva rowcliffe smiled. "it's all right," he said, "my driving you. of course you don't remember, but we've met--several times before." "where?" "i'll show you where. anyhow, that's your hill, isn't it?" "how did you know it was?" "because i've seen you there. the first time i ever saw you--no, _that_ was a bit farther on. at the bend of the road. we're coming to it." they came. "just here," he said. and now they were in sight of garthdale. "funny i should have thought it was you who were ill." "i'm never ill." "you won't be as long as you can walk like that. and run. and jump--" a horrid pause. "you did it very nicely." another pause, not quite so horrid. and then--"do you _always_ walk after dark and before sunrise?" and it was as if he had said, "why am i always meeting you? what do you do it for? it's queer, isn't it?" but he had given her her chance. she rose to it. "i've done it ever since we came here." (it was as if she had said "long before _you_ came.") "i do it because i like it. that's the best of this place. you can do what you like in it. there's nobody to see you." ("counting me," he thought, "as nobody.") "i should like to do it, too," he said--"to go out before sunrise--if i hadn't got to. if i did it for fun--like you." he knew he would not really have liked it. but his romantic youth persuaded him in that moment that he would. xvii mary was up in the attic, the west attic that looked on to the road through its shy gable window. she moved quietly there, her whole being suffused exquisitely with a sense of peace, of profound, indwelling goodness. every act of hers for the last three days had been incomparably good, had been, indeed, perfect. she had waited on alice hand and foot. she had made the chicken broth refused by alice. there was nothing that she would not do for poor little ally. when little ally was petulant and sullen, mary was gentle and serene. she felt toward little ally, lying there so little and so white, a poignant, yearning tenderness. today she had visited all the sick people in the village, though it was not wednesday, dr. rowcliffe's day. (only by visiting them on other days could mary justify and make blameless her habit of visiting them on wednesdays.) she had put the house in order. she had done her shopping in morfe to such good purpose that she had concealed even from herself the fact that she had gone into morfe, surreptitiously, to fetch the doctor. of course mary was aware that she had fetched him. she had been driven to that step by sheer terror. all the way home she kept on saying to herself, "i've saved ally." "i've saved ally." that thought, splendid and exciting, rushed to the lighted front of mary's mind; if the thought of rowcliffe followed its shining trail, it thrust him back, it spread its luminous wings to hide him, it substituted its heavenly form for his. so effectually did it cover him that mary herself never dreamed that he was there. neither did the vicar, when he saw her arrive, laden with parcels, wholesomely cheerful and reddened by her ride. he had said to her "you're a good girl, mary," and the sadness of his tone implied that he wished her sister gwendolen and her sister alice were more like her. and he had smiled at her under his austere moustache, and carried in the biggest parcels for her. the vicar was pleased with his daughter mary. mary had never given him an hour's anxiety. mary had never put him in the wrong, never made him feel uncomfortable. he honestly believed that he was fond of her. she was like her poor mother. goodness, he said to himself, was in her face. there had been goodness in mary's face when she went into alice's room to see what she could do for her. there was goodness in it now, up in the attic, where there was nobody but god to see it; goodness at peace with itself, and utterly content. she had been back more than an hour. and ever since teatime she had been up in the attic, putting away her summer gowns. she shook them and held them out and looked at them, the poor pretty things that she had hardly ever worn. they hung all limp, all abashed and broken in her hands, as if aware of their futility. she said to herself, "they were no good, no good at all. and next year they'll all be old-fashioned. i shall be ashamed to be seen in them." and she folded them and laid them by for their winter's rest in the black trunk. and when she saw them lying there she had a moment of remorse. after all, they had been part of herself, part of her throbbing, sensuous womanhood, warmed once by her body. it wasn't their fault, poor things, any more than hers, if they had been futile and unfit. she shut the lid down on them gently, and it was as if she buried them gently out of her sight. she could afford to forgive them, for she knew that there was no futility nor unfitness in her. deep down in her heart she knew it. she sat on the trunk in the attitude of one waiting, waiting in the utter stillness of assurance. she could afford to wait. all her being was still, all its secret impulses appeased by the slow and orderly movements of her hands. suddenly she started up and listened. she heard out on the road the sound of wheels, and of hoofs that struck together. and she frowned. she thought, he might as well have called today, if he's passing. the clanking ceased, the wheels slowed down, and mary's peaceful heart moved violently in her breast. the trap drew up at the vicarage gate. she went over to the window, the small, shy gable window that looked on to the road. she saw her sister standing in the trap and rowcliffe beneath her, standing in the road and holding out his hand. she saw the two faces, the man's face looking up, the woman's face looking down, both smiling. and mary's heart drew itself together in her breast. through her shut lips her sister's name forced itself almost audibly. "_gwen_-da!" * * * * * suddenly she shivered. a cold wind blew through the open window. yet she did not move to shut it out. to have interfered with the attic window would have been a breach of compact, an unholy invasion of her sister's rights. for the attic, the smallest, the coldest, the darkest and most thoroughly uncomfortable room in the whole house, was gwenda's, made over to her in the vicar's magnanimity, by way of compensation for the necessity that forced her to share her room with alice. as the attic was used for storing trunks and lumber, only two square yards of floor could be spared for gwenda. but the two square yards, cleared, and covered with a strip of old carpet, and furnished with a little table and one chair; the wall-space by the window with its hanging bookcase; the window itself and the corner fireplace near it were hers beyond division and dispute. nobody wanted them. and as mary from among the boxes looked toward her sister's territory, her small, brooding face took on such sadness as good women feel in contemplating a character inscrutable and unlike their own. mary was sorry for gwenda because of her inscrutability and unlikeness. then, thinking of gwenda, mary smiled. the smile began in pity for her sister and ended in a nameless, secret satisfaction. not for a moment did mary suspect its source. it seemed to her one with her sense of her own goodness. when she smiled it was as if the spirit of her small brooding face took wings and fluttered, lifting delicately the rather heavy corners of her mouth and eyes. then, quietly, and with no indecorous haste, she went down into the drawing-room to receive rowcliffe. she was the eldest and it was her duty. by the mercy of heaven the vicar had gone out. * * * * * gwenda left rowcliffe with mary and went upstairs to prepare alice for his visit. she had brushed out her sister's long pale hair and platted it, and had arranged the plats, tied with knots of white ribbon, one over each low breast, and she had helped her to put on a little white flannel jacket with a broad lace collar. thus arrayed and decorated, alice sat up in her bed, her small slender body supported by huge pillows, white against white, with no color about her but the dull gold of her hair. gwenda was still in the room, tidying it, when mary brought rowcliffe there. it was a rowcliffe whom she had not yet seen. she had her back to him as he paused in the doorway to let mary pass through. ally's bed faced the door, and the look in ally's eyes made her aware of the change in him. all of a sudden he had become taller (much taller than he really was) and rigid and austere. his youth and its charm dropped clean away from him. he looked ten years older than he had been ten minutes ago. compared with him, as he stood beside her bed, ally looked more than ever like a small child, a child vibrating with shyness and fear, a child that implacable adult authority has found out in foolishness and naughtiness; so evident was it to ally that to rowcliffe nothing was hidden, nothing veiled. it was as a child that he treated her, a child who can conceal nothing, from whom most things--all the serious and important things--must be concealed. and ally knew the terrible advantage that he took of her. it was bad enough when he asked her questions and took no more notice of her answers than if she had been a born fool. that might have been his north-country manners and probably he couldn't help them. but there was no necessity that ally could see for his brutal abruptness, and the callous and repellent look he had when she bared her breast to the stethescope that sent all her poor secrets flying through the long tubes that attached her heart to his abominable ears. neither (when he had disentangled himself from the stethescope) could she understand why he should scowl appallingly as he took hold of her poor wrist to feel her pulse. she said to herself, "he knows everything about me and he thinks i'm awful." it was anguish to ally that he should think her awful. and (to make it worse, if anything could make it) there was mary standing at the foot of the bed and staring at her. mary knew perfectly well that he was thinking how awful she was. it was what mary thought herself. if only gwenda had stayed with her! but gwenda had left the room when she saw rowcliffe take out his stethescope. and as it flashed on ally what rowcliffe was thinking of her, her heart stopped as if it was never going on again, then staggered, then gave a terrifying jump. * * * * * rowcliffe had done with ally's little wrist. he laid it down on the counterpane, not brutally at all, but gently, almost tenderly, as if it had been a thing exquisitely fragile and precious. he rose to his feet and looked at her, and then, all of a sudden, as he looked, rowcliffe became young again; charmingly young, almost boyish. and, as if faintly amused at her youth, faintly touched by her fragility, he smiled. with a mouth and with eyes from which all austerity had departed he smiled at alice. (it was all over. he had done with her. he could afford to be kind to her as he would have been kind to a little, frightened child.) and alice smiled back at him with her white face between the pale gold, serious bands of platted hair. she was no longer frightened. she forgot his austerity as if it had never been. she saw that he hadn't thought her awful in the least. he couldn't have looked at her like that if he had. a sense of warmth, of stillness, of soft happiness flooded her body and her brain, as if the stream of life had ceased troubling and ran with an even rhythm. as she lay back, her tormented heart seemed suddenly to sink into it and rest, to be part of it, poised on the stream. then, still looking down at her, he spoke. "it's pretty evident," he said, "what's the matter with you." "_is_ it?" her eyes were all wide. he had frightened her again. "it is," he said. "you've been starved." "oh," said little ally, "is _that_ all?" and rowcliffe smiled again, a little differently. mary said nothing. she had found out long ago that silence was her strength. her small face brooded. impossible to tell what she was thinking. "what has become of the other one, i wonder?" he said to himself. he wanted to see her. she was the intelligent one of the three sisters, and she was honest. he had said to her quite plainly that he would want her. why, on earth, he wondered, had she gone away and left him with this sweet and good, this quite exasperatingly sweet and good woman who had told him nothing but lies? he was aware that mary cartaret was sweet and good. but he had found that sweet and good women were not invariably intelligent. as for honesty, if they were always honest they would not always be sweet and good. through the door he opened for the eldest sister to pass out the other slipped in. she had been waiting on the landing. he stopped her. he made a sign to her to come out with him. he closed the door behind them. "can i see you for two minutes?" "yes." they whispered rapidly. at the head of the stairs mary waited. he turned. his smile acknowledged and paid deference to her sweetness and goodness, for rowcliffe was sufficiently accomplished. but not more so than mary cartaret. her face, wide and candid, quivered with subdued interrogation. her lips parted as if they said, "i am only waiting to know what i am to do. i will do what you like, only tell me." rowcliffe stood by the bedroom door, which he had opened for her to pass through again. his eyes, summoning their powerful pathos, implored forgiveness. mary, utterly submissive, passed through. * * * * * he followed gwendolen cartaret downstairs to the dining-room. he knew what he was going to say, but what he did say was unexpected. for, as she stood there in the small and old and shabby room, what struck him was her youth. "is your father in?" he said. he surprised her as he had surprised himself. "no," she said. "why? do you want to see him?" he hesitated. "i almost think i'd better." "he won't be a bit of good, you know. he never is. he doesn't even know we sent for you." "well, then--" "you'd better tell me straight out. you'll have to, in the end. is it serious?" "no. but it will be if we don't stop it. how long has it been going on?" "ever since we came to this place." "six months, you said. and she's been worse than this last month?" "much worse." "if it was only the anæmia--" "isn't it?" "yes--among other things." "not--her heart?" "no--her heart's all right." he corrected himself. "i mean there's no disease in it. you see, she ought to have got well up here in this air. it's the sort of place you send anæmic people to to cure them." "the dreadful thing is that she doesn't like the place." "ah--that's what i want to get at. she isn't happy in it?" "no. she isn't happy." he meditated. "your sister didn't tell me that.' "she couldn't." "i mean your other sister--miss cartaret." "_she_ wouldn't. she'd think it rather awful." he laughed. "heaps of people think it awful to tell the truth. do you happen to know _why_ she doesn't like the place?" she was silent. evidently there was some "awfulness" she shrank from. "too lonely for her, i suppose?" "much too lonely." "where were you before you came here?" she told him. "why did you leave it?" she hesitated again. "we couldn't help it." "well--it seems a pity. but i suppose clergymen can't choose where they'll live." she looked away from him. then, as if she were trying to divert her from the trail he followed, "you forget--she's been starving herself. isn't that enough?" "not in her case. you see, she isn't ill because she's been starving herself. she's been starving herself because she's ill. it's a symptom. the trouble is not that she starves herself--but that she's been starved." "i know. i know." "if you could get her back to that place where she was happy--" "i can't. she can never go back there. besides, it wouldn't be any good if she did." he smiled. "are you quite sure?" "certain." "does she know it?" "no. she never knew it. but she _would_ know it if she went back." "that's why you took her away?" she hesitated again. "yes." rowcliffe looked grave. "i see. that's rather unfortunate." he said to himself: "she doesn't take it in _yet_. i don't see how i'm to tell her." to her he said: "well, i'll send the medicine along to-night." as the door closed behind rowcliffe, mary appeared on the stairs. "gwenda," she said, "ally wants you. she wants to know what he said." "he said nothing." "you look as if he'd said a great deal." "he said nothing that she doesn't know." "he told her there was nothing the matter with her except that she'd been starving herself." "he told me she'd been starved." "i don't see the difference." "well," said gwenda. "_he_ did." * * * * * that night the vicar scowled over his supper. and before it was ended he broke loose. "which of you two sent for dr. rowcliffe?" "i did," said gwenda. mary said nothing. "and what--do you--mean by doing such a thing without consulting me?" "i mean," said gwenda quietly, "that he should see alice." "and _i_ meant--most particularly--that he shouldn't see her. if i'd wanted him to see her i'd have gone for him myself." "when it was a bit too late," said gwenda. his blue eyes dilated as he looked at her. "do you suppose i don't know what's the matter with her as well as he does?" as he spoke the stiff, straight moustache that guarded his mouth lifted, showing the sensual redness and fulness of the lips. and of this expression on her father's face gwenda understood nothing, divined nothing, knew nothing but that she loathed it. "you may know what's the matter with her," she said, "but can you cure it?" "can he?" said the vicar. xviii the next day, which was a tuesday, alice was up and about again. rowcliffe saw her on wednesday and on saturday, when he declared himself satisfied with her progress and a little surprised. so surprised was he that he said he would not come again unless he was sent for. and then in three days alice slid back. but they were not to worry about her, she said. there was nothing the matter with her except that she was tired. she was so tired that she lay all tuesday on the drawing-room sofa and on wednesday morning she was too tired to get up and dress. and on wednesday afternoon dr. rowcliffe found a note waiting at the blacksmith's cottage in garth village, where he had a room with a brown gauze blind in the window and the legend in gilt letters: surgery dr. s. rowcliffe, m.d., f.r.c.s. hours of attendance wednesday, . - . . the note ran: "dear dr. rowcliffe: can you come and see me this afternoon? i think i'm rather worse. but i don't want to frighten my people--so perhaps, if you just looked in about teatime, as if you'd called? "yours truly, "alice cartaret." essy gale had left the note that morning. rowcliffe looked at it dubiously. he was honest and he had the large views of a man used to a large practice. his patients couldn't complain that he lengthened his bills by paying unnecessary visits. if he wanted to add to his income in that way, he wasn't going to begin with a poor parson's hysterical daughter. but as the vicar of garth had called on him and left his card on monday, there was no reason why he shouldn't look in on wednesday about teatime. especially as he knew that the vicar was in the habit of visiting upthorne and the outlying portions of his parish on wednesday afternoons. * * * * * all day alice lay in her little bed like a happy child and waited. propped on her pillows, with her slender arms stretched out before her on the counterpane, she waited. her sullenness was gone. she had nothing but sweetness for mary and for essy. even to her father she was sweet. she could afford it. her instinct was now sure. from time to time a smile flickered on her small face like a light almost of triumph. * * * * * the vicar and miss cartaret were out when rowcliffe called at the vicarage, but miss gwendolen was in if he would like to see her. he waited in the crowded shabby gray and amber drawing-room with the erard in the corner, and it was there that she came to him. he said he had only called to ask after her sister, as he had heard in the village that she was not so well. "i'm afraid she isn't." "may i see her? i don't mean professionally--just for a talk." the formula came easily. he had used it hundreds of times in the houses of parsons and of clerks and of little shopkeepers, to whom bills were nightmares. she took him upstairs. on the landing she turned to him. "she doesn't _look_ worse. she looks better." "all right. she won't deceive me." she did look better, better than he could have believed. there was a faint opaline dawn of color in her face. heaven only knew what he talked about, but he talked; for over a quarter of an hour he kept it up. and when he rose to go he said, "you're not worse. you're better. you'll be perfectly well if you'll only get up and go out. why waste all this glorious air?" "if i could live on air!" said alice. "you can--you do to a very large extent. you certainly can't live without it." downstairs he lingered. but he refused the tea that gwenda offered him. he said he hadn't time. patients were waiting for him. "but i'll look in next wednesday, if i may." "at teatime?" "very well--at teatime." * * * * * "how's alice?" said the vicar when he returned from upthorne. "she's better." "has that fellow rowcliffe been here again?" "he called--on you, i think." (rowcliffe's cards lay on the table flap in the passage, proving plainly that his visit was not professional.) "and you made him see her?" he insisted. "he saw her." "well?" "he says she's all right. she'll be well if only she'll go out in the open air." "it's what i've been dinning into her for the last three months. she doesn't want a doctor to tell her that." he drew her into the study and closed the door. he was not angry. he had more than ever his air of wisdom and of patience. "look here, gwenda," he said gravely. "i know what i'm doing. there's nothing in the world the matter with her. but she'll never be well as long as you keep on sending for young rowcliffe." but his daughter gwendolen was not impressed. she knew what it meant--that air of wisdom and of patience. her unsubmissive silence roused his temper. "i won't have him sent for--do you hear?" and he made up his mind that he would go over to morfe again and give young rowcliffe a hint. it was to give him a hint that he had called on monday. * * * * * but the vicar did not call again in morfe. for before he could brace himself to the effort alice was well again. though the vicar did not know it, rowcliffe had looked in at teatime the next wednesday and the next after that. alice was no longer compelled to be ill in order to see him. xix "'oh gawd, our halp in a-ages paasst, our 'awp in yeears ter coom, our shal-ter from ther storm-ee blaasst, and our ee-tarnal 'oam!'" "'ark at 'im! that's jimmy arl over. t' think that 'is poor feyther's not in 'is graave aboove a moonth, an' 'e singin' fit t' eave barn roof off! they should tak' an' shoot 'im oop in t' owd powder magazine," said mrs. gale. "well--but it's a wonderful voice," said gwenda cartaret. "i've never heard another like it, and i know something about voices," alice said. they had gone up to upthorne to ask mrs. gale to look in at the vicarage on her way home, for essy wasn't very well. but mrs. gale had shied off from the subject of essy. she had done it with the laughter of deep wisdom and a shake of her head. you couldn't teach mrs. gale anything about illness, nor about essy. "i knaw assy," she had said. "there's nowt amiss with her. doan't you woorry." and then jim greatorex, though unseen, had burst out at them with his big voice. it came booming from the mistal at the back. alice told the truth when she said she had never heard anything like it; and even in the dale, so critical of strangers, it was admitted that she knew. the village had a new schoolmaster who was no musician, and hopeless with the choir. alice, as the musical one of the family, had been trained to play the organ, and she played it, not with passion, for it was her duty, but with mechanical and perfunctory correctness, as she had been taught. she was also fairly successful with the village choir. "mebbe yo 'aven't 'eard anoother," said mrs. gale. "it's rackoned there isn't anoother woon like it in t' daale." "but it's just what we want for our choir--a big barytone voice. do you think he'd sing for us, mrs. gale?" alice said it light-heartedly, for she did not know what she was asking. she knew nothing of the story of jim greatorex and his big voice. it had been carefully kept from her. "i doan knaw," said mrs. gale. "jim, look yo, 'e useter sing in t' choorch choir." "why ever did he leave it?" mrs. gale looked dark and tightened up her face. she knew perfectly well why jim greatorex had left. it was because he wasn't going to have that little milk-faced lass learning _him_ to sing. his pride wouldn't stomach it. but not for worlds would mrs. gale have been the one to let miss alice know that. her eyes sought for inspiration in a crack on the stone floor. "i can't rightly tall yo', miss olice. 'e sang fer t' owd schoolmaaster, look yo, an' wann schoolmaaster gaave it oop, jimmy, 'e said 'e'd give it oop too." "but don't you think he'd sing for _me_, if i were to ask him?" "yo' may aask 'im, miss olice, but i doan' knaw. wann jim greatorex is sat, 'e's sat." "there's no harm in asking him." "naw. naw 'aarm there isn't," said mrs. gale doubtfully. "i think i'll ask him now," said alice. "i wouldn', look yo, nat ef i wuss yo, miss olice. i wouldn' gaw to 'im in t' mistal all amoong t' doong. yo'll sha-ame 'im, and yo'll do nowt wi' jimmy ef 'e's sha-amed." "leave it, ally. we can come another day," said gwenda. "thot's it," said mrs. gale. "coom another daay." and as they turned away jim's voice thundered after them from his stronghold in the mistal. "from av-ver-lasstin'--thou art gawd! to andless ye-ears ther sa-ame!" the sisters stood listening. they looked at each other. "i say!" said gwenda. "isn't he gorgeous? we'll _have_ to come again. it would be a sin to waste him." "it would." "when shall we come?" "there's heaps of time. that voice won't run away." "no. but he might get pneumonia. he might die." "not he." but alice couldn't leave it alone. "how about sunday? just after dinner? he'll be clean then." "all right. sunday." but it was not till they had passed the schoolhouse outside garth village that alice's great idea came to her. "gwenda! the concert! wouldn't he be ripping for the concert!" xx but the concert was not till the first week in december; and it was in november that rowcliffe began to form the habit that made him remarkable in garth, of looking in at the vicarage toward teatime every wednesday afternoon. mrs. gale, informed by essy, was the first to condole with mrs. blenkiron, the blacksmith's wife, who had arranged to provide tea for rowcliffe every wednesday in the surgery. "wall, mrs. blenkiron," she said, "yo' 'aven't got to mak' tae for yore doctor now?" "naw. i 'aven't," said mrs. blenkiron. "and it's sexpence clane gone out o' me packet av'ry week." mrs. blenkiron was a distant cousin of the greatorexes. she had what was called a superior manner and was handsome, in the slender, high-nosed, florid fashion of the dale. "but there," she went on. "i doan't groodge it. 'e's yoong and you caann't blaame him. they's coompany for him oop at vicarage." "'e's coompany fer they, i rackon. and well yo' med saay yo' doan't groodge it ef yo knawed arl we knaw, mrs. blenkiron. it's no life fer yoong things oop there, long o' t' vicar. mind yo"--mrs. gale lowered her voice and looked up and down the street for possible eavesdroppers--"ef 'e was to 'ear on it, thot yoong rawcliffe wouldn't be 'lowed t' putt 's nawse in at door agen. but theer--there's nawbody'd be thot crool an' spittiful fer to goa an' tall 'im. our assy wouldn't. she'd coot 'er toong out foorst, assy would." "nawbody'll get it out of _mae_, mrs. gale, though it's wae as 'as to sooffer for 't." "eh, but dr. rawcliffe's a good maan, and 'e'll mak' it oop to yo', naw feear, mrs. blenkiron." "and which of 'em will it bae, mrs. gaale, think you?" "i caann't saay. but it woonna bae t' eldest. nor t' yoongest--joodgin'." "well--the lil' laass isn' breaaking 'er 'eart fer him, t' joodge by the looks of 'er. i naver saw sech a chaange in anybody in a moonth." "'t assn' takken mooch to maake 'er 'appy," said mrs. gale. for essy, who had informed her, was not subtle. * * * * * but of ally's happiness there could be no doubt. it lapped her, soaked into her like water and air. her small head flowered under it and put out its secret colors; the dull gold of her hair began to shine again, her face showed a shallow flush under its pallor; her gray eyes were clear as if they had been dipped in water. two slender golden arches shone above them. they hadn't been seen there for five years. "who would have believed," said mary, "that ally could have looked so pretty?" ally's prettiness (when she gazed at it in the glass) was delicious, intoxicating joy to ally. she was never tired of looking at it, of turning round and round to get new views of it, of dressing her hair in new ways to set it off. "whatever have you done your hair like that for?" said mary on a wednesday when ally came down in the afternoon with her gold spread out above her ears and twisted in a shining coil on the top of her head. "to make it grow better," said ally. "don't let papa catch you at it," said gwenda, "if you want it to grow any more." gwenda was going out. she had her hat on, and was taking her walking-stick from the stand. ally stared. "you're _not_ going out?" "i am," said gwenda. and she laughed as she went. she wasn't going to stay at home for rowcliffe every wednesday. * * * * * as for ally, the vicar did catch her at it. he caught her the very next wednesday afternoon. she thought he had started for upthorne when he hadn't. he was bound to catch her. for the best looking-glass in the house was in the vicar's bedroom. it went the whole length and width of the wardrobe door, and ally could see herself in it from head to foot. and on the vicar's dressing-table there lay a large and perfect hand-glass that had belonged to ally's mother. only by opening the wardrobe door and with the aid of the hand-glass could ally obtain a satisfactory three-quarters view of her face and figure. now, by the vicar's magnanimity, his daughters were allowed to use his bedroom twice in every two years, in the spring and in the autumn, for the purpose of trying on their new gowns; but this year they were wearing out last winter's gowns, and ally had no business in the vicar's bedroom at four o'clock in the afternoon. she was turning slowly round and round, with her head tilted back over her left shoulder; she had just caught sight of her little white nose as it appeared in a vanishing profile and was adjusting her head at another and still more interesting angle when the vicar caught her. he was well in the middle of the room, and staring at her, before she was aware of him. the wardrobe door, flung wide open, had concealed his entrance, but if ally had not been blinded and intoxicated with her own beauty she would have seen him before she began smiling, full-face first, then three-quarters, then sideways, a little tilted. then she shut to the door of the wardrobe (for the back view that was to reassure her as to the utter prettiness of her shoulders and the nape of her neck), and it was at that moment that she saw him, reflected behind her in the long looking-glass. she screamed and dropped the hand-glass. she heard it break itself at her feet. "papa," she cried, "how you frightened me!" it was not so much that he had caught her smiling at her own face, it was that _his_ face, seen in the looking-glass, was awful. and besides being awful it was evil. even to ally's innocence it was evil. if it had been any other man ally's instinct would have said that he looked horrid without ally knowing or caring to know what her instinct meant. but the look on her father's face was awful because it was mysterious. neither she nor her instinct had a word for it. there was cruelty in it, and, besides cruelty, some quality nameless and unrecognisable, subtle and secret, and yet crude somehow and vivid. the horror of it made her forget that he had caught her in one of the most deplorably humiliating situations in which a young girl can be caught--deliberately manufacturing smiles for her own amusement. "you've no business to be here," said the vicar. he picked up the broken hand-glass, and as he looked at it the cruelty and the nameless quality passed out of his face as if a hand had smoothed it, and it became suddenly weak and pathetic, the face of a child whose precious magic thing another child has played with and broken. then alice remembered that the hand-glass had been her mother's. "i'm sorry i've broken it, papa, if you liked it." her voice recalled him to himself. "ally," he said, "what am i to think of you? are you a fool--or what?" the sting of it lashed ally's brain to a retort. (all that she had needed hitherto to be effective was a little red blood in her veins, and she had got it now.) "i'd be a fool," she said, "if i cared two straws what you think of me, since you can't see what i am. i'm sorry if i've broken your old hand-glass, though i didn't break it. you broke it yourself." carrying her golden top-knot like a crown, she left the room. the vicar took the broken hand-glass and hid it in a drawer. he was sorry for himself. the only impression left on his mind was that his daughter ally had been cruel to him. * * * * * but ally didn't care a rap what he thought of her, or what impression she had left on his mind. she was much too happy. besides, if you once began caring what papa thought there would be no peace for anybody. he was so impossible that he didn't count. he wasn't even an effective serpent in her paradise. he might crawl all over it (as indeed he did crawl), but he left no trail. the thought of how he had caught her at the looking-glass might be disagreeable, but it couldn't slime those holy lawns. neither could it break the ecstasy of wednesday, that heavenly day. nothing could break it as long as dr. rowcliffe continued to look in at tea-time and her father to explore the furthest borders of his parish. the peace of paradise came down on the vicarage every wednesday the very minute the garden gate had swung back behind the vicar. he started so early and he was back so late that there was never any chance of his encountering young rowcliffe. * * * * * to be sure, young rowcliffe hardly ever said a word to her. he always talked to mary or to gwenda. but there was nothing in his reticence to disturb ally's ecstasy. it was bliss to sit and look at rowcliffe and to hear him talk. when she tried to talk to him herself her brain swam and she became unhappy and confused. intellectual effort was destructive to the blessed state, which was pure passivity, untroubled contemplation in its early stages, before the oncoming of rapture. the fact that mary and gwenda could talk to him and talk intelligently showed how little they cared for him or were likely to care, and how immeasurably far they were from the supreme act of adoration. similarly, the fact that rowcliffe could talk to mary and to gwenda showed how little _he_ cared. if he had cared, if he were ever going to care as ally understood caring, his brain would have swum like hers and his intellect would have abandoned him. whereas, it was when he turned to ally that he hadn't a word to say, any more than she had, and that he became entangled in his talk, and that the intellect he tried to summon to him tottered and vanished at his call. another thing--when he caught her looking at him (and though ally was careful he did catch her now and then) he always either lowered his eyelids or looked away. he was afraid to look at her; and _that_, as everybody knew, was an infallible sign. why, ally was afraid to look at _him_, only she couldn't help it. her eyes were dragged to the terror and the danger. so ally reasoned in her paradise. for when rowcliffe was once gone her brain was frantically busy. it never gave her any rest. from the one stuff of its dreams it span an endless shining thread; from the one thread it wove an endless web of visions. from nothing at all it built up drama after drama. it was all beautiful what ally's brain did, all noble, all marvelously pure. (the vicar would have been astonished if he had known how pure.) there was no sullen and selfish ally in ally's dreams. they were all of sacrifice, of self-immolation, of beautiful and noble things done for rowcliffe, of suffering for rowcliffe, of dying for him. all without rowcliffe being very palpably and positively there. it was only at night, when ally's brain slept among its dreams, that rowcliffe's face leaned near to hers without ever touching it, and his arms made as if they clasped her and never met. even then, always at the first intangible approach of him, she woke, terrified because dreams go by contraries. "is your sister always so silent?" rowcliffe asked that wednesday (the wednesday when ally had been caught). he was alone with mary. "who? ally? no. she isn't silent at all. what do you think of her?" "i think," said rowcliffe, "she looks extraordinarily well." "that's owing to you," said mary. "i never saw her pull round so fast before." "no? i assure you," said rowcliffe, "i haven't anything to do with it." he was very stiff and cold and stern. rowcliffe was annoyed because it was two wednesdays running that he had found himself alone with the eldest and the youngest miss cartaret. the second one had gone off heaven knew where. xxi the vicar of garth considered himself unhappy (to say the least of it) in his three children, but he had never asked himself what, after all, would he have done without them? after all (as they had frequently reminded themselves), without them he could never have lived comfortably on his income. they did the work and saved him the expenses of a second servant, a housekeeper, an under-gardener, an organist and two curates. the three divided the work of the vicarage and parish, according to the tastes and abilities of each. at home mary kept the house and did the sewing. gwenda looked after the gray and barren garden, she trimmed the narrow paths and the one flower-bed and mowed the small square of grass between. alice trailed through the lower rooms, dusting furniture feebly; she gathered and arranged the flowers when there were any in the bed. outside, mary, being sweet and good, taught in the boys' sunday-school; alice, because she was fond of children, had the infants. for the rest, mary, who was lazy, had taken over that small portion of the village that was not baptist or wesleyan or congregational. gwenda, for her own amusement, and regardless of sect and creed, the hopelessly distant hamlets and the farms scattered on the long, raking hillsides and the moors. alice declared herself satisfied with her dominion over the organ and the village choir. alice was behaving like an angel in her paradise. no longer listless and sullen, she swept through the house with an angel's energy. a benign, untiring angel sat at the organ and controlled the violent voices of the choir. the choir looked upon ally's innocent art with pride and admiration and amusement. it tickled them to see those little milk-white hands grappling with organ pieces that had beaten the old schoolmaster. ally enjoyed the pride and admiration of the choir and was unaware of its amusement. she enjoyed the importance of her office. she enjoyed the massive, voluptuous vibrations that made her body a vehicle for the organ's surging and tremendous soul. ally's body had become a more and more tremulous, a more sensitive and perfect medium for vibrations. she would not have missed one choir practice or one service. and she said to herself, "i may be a fool, but papa or the parish would have to pay an organist at least forty pounds a year. it costs less to keep me. so he needn't talk." * * * * * then in november came the preparations for the village concert. they were stupendous. all morning the little erad piano shook with the grande valse and the grande polonaise of chopin. the diabolic thing raged through the shut house, knowing that it went unchallenged, that its utmost violence was licensed until the day after the concert. rowcliffe heard it whenever he drove past the vicarage on his way over the moors. xxii rowcliffe was now beginning to form that other habit (which was to make him even more remarkable than he was already), the hunting down of gwendolen cartaret in the open. he was annoyed with gwendolen cartaret. when she had all the rest of the week to walk in she would set out on wednesdays before teatime and continue until long after dark. he had missed her twice now. and on the third wednesday he saw her swinging up the hill toward upthorne as he, leaving his surgery, came round the corner of the village by the bridge. "i believe," he thought, "she's doing it on purpose. to avoid me." he was determined not to be avoided. * * * * * "the doctor's very late this afternoon," said mary. "i suppose he's been sent for somewhere." alice said nothing. she couldn't trust herself to speak. she lived in sickening fear that on some wednesday afternoon he would be sent for. it had never happened yet, but that made it all the more likely that it had happened now. they waited till five; till a quarter-past. "i really can't wait any longer," said mary, "for a man who doesn't come." * * * * * by that time rowcliffe and gwenda were far on the road to upthorne. he had overtaken her about a hundred yards above the schoolhouse, before the road turned to upthorne moor. "i say, how you do sprint up these hills!" she turned. "is that you, dr. rowcliffe?" "of course it's me. where are you off to?" "upthorne. anywhere." "may i come too?" "if you want to." "of course i want to." "have you had any tea?" "no." "weren't they in?" "i didn't stop to ask." "why not?" "because i saw you stampeding on in front of me, and i swore i'd overtake you before you got round that corner. and i have overtaken you." "shall we go back? we've time." he frowned. "no. i never turn back. let's get on. get on." they went on at a terrific pace. and as she persisted in walking about half a foot in front of him he saw the movement of her fine long limbs and the little ripple of her shoulders under the gray tweed. presently he spoke. "it wasn't you i heard playing the other night?" "no. it must have been my youngest sister." "i knew it wasn't you." "it might have been for all you knew." "it couldn't possibly. if you played you wouldn't play that way." "what way?" "your sister's way. whatever you wanted to do you'd do it beautifully or not at all." she made no response. she did not even seem to have heard him. "i don't mean to say," he said, "that your sister doesn't play beautifully." she turned malignly. he liked her when she turned. "you mean that she plays abominably." "i didn't mean to _say_ it." "why shouldn't you say it?" "because you don't say those things. it isn't polite." "but i know alice doesn't play well--not those big things. the wonder is she can play them at all." "why does she attempt--the big things?" "why does anybody? because she loves them. she's never heard them properly played. so she doesn't know. she just trusts to her feeling." "is there anything else, after all, you _can_ trust?" "i don't know. you see, alice's feeling tells her it's all right to play like that, and _my_ feeling tells me it's all wrong." "you can trust _your_ feelings." "why mine more than hers?" "because _your_ feelings are the feelings of a beautifully sane and perfectly balanced person." "how can you possibly tell? you don't know me." "i know your type." "my type isn't me. you can't tell by that." "you can if you're a physiologist." "being a physiologist won't tell you anything about _me_." "oh, won't it?" "it can't." "why not?" "how can it?" "you think it can't tell me anything about your soul?" "oh--my soul----" her shoulders expressed disdain for it. "do you dislike my mentioning it? would you rather we didn't talk about it? perhaps you're tired of having it talked about?" "no; my poor soul has never done anything to get itself talked about." "i only thought that as your father, perhaps, specialises in souls--" "he doesn't specialise in mine. he knows nothing about it." "the specialist never does. to know anything--the least little thing--about the soul, you must know everything--everything you _can_ know--about the body. so that you're wrong even about your soul. being a physiologist tells me that your sort of body--a transparently clean and strong and utterly unconscious body--goes with a transparently clean and strong and utterly unconscious soul." "utterly unconscious?" he was silent a moment and then answered: "utterly unconscious." they walked on in silence till they came in sight of the marshes and the long gray line of upthorne farm. "that's where i met you once," he said. "do you remember? you were coming out of the door as i went in." "you seem to have been always meeting me." "always meeting you. and then---always missing you. just when i expected most to find you." "if we go much farther in this direction," said gwenda, "we shall meet papa." "well--i suppose some day i shall have to meet him. do you realise that i've never met him yet?" "haven't you?" "no. always i've been on the point of meeting him, and always some malignant fate has interfered." she smiled. he loved her smile. "why are you smiling?" "i was only wondering whether the fate was really so malignant." "you mean that if he met me he'd dislike me?" "he always _has_ disliked anybody we like. you see, he's a very funny father." "all fathers," said rowcliffe, "are more or less funny." she laughed. her laughter enchanted him. "yes. but _my_ father doesn't mean to be as funny as he is." "i see. he wouldn't really mean to dislike me. then, perhaps, if i regularly laid myself out for it, by years of tender and untiring devotion i might win him over?" she laughed again; she laughed as youth laughs, for the pure joy of laughter. she looked on her father as a persistent, delightful jest. he adored her laughter. it proved how strong and sane she was--if she could take him like that. rowcliffe had seen women made bitter, made morbid, driven into lunatic asylums by fathers who were as funny as mr. cartaret. "you wouldn't, you wouldn't," she said. "he's funnier than you've any idea of." "is he ever ill?" "never." "that of course makes it difficult." "except colds in his head. but he wouldn't have you for a cold in his head. he wouldn't have you for anything if he could help it." "well--perhaps--if he's as funny as all that, we'd better turn." they turned. they were walking so fast now that they couldn't talk. presently they slackened and he spoke. "i say, shall you ever get away from this place?" "never, i think." "do you never want to get away?" "no. never. you see, i love it." "i know you do." he said it savagely, as if he were jealous of the place. "so do you," she answered. "if i didn't i suppose i should have to." "yes, it's better, if you've got to live in it." "that wasn't what i meant." after that they were silent for a long time. she was wondering what he did mean. when they reached the vicarage gate he sheered off the path and held out his hand. "oh--aren't you coming in for tea?" she said. "thanks. no. it's a little late. i don't think i want any." he paused. "i've got what i wanted." he stepped backward, facing her, raising his cap, then he turned and hurried down the hill. gwenda walked slowly up the flagged path to the house door. she stood there, thinking. "he's got what he wanted. he only wanted to see what i was like." xxiii rowcliffe had ten minutes on his hands while they were bringing his trap round from the red lion. he was warming his hands at the surgery fire when he heard voices in the parlor on the other side of the narrow passage. one voice pleaded, the other reserved judgment. "do you think he'd do it if i were to go up and ask him?" it was alice cartaret's voice. "i caann't say, miss cartaret, i'm sure." "could you persuade him yourself, mrs. blenkiron?" "it wouldn't be a bit of good me persuadin' him. jim greatorex wouldn' boodge _that_ mooch for me." a pause. alice was wavering, aware, no doubt, of the folly of her errand. rowcliffe had only to lie low and she would go. "could mr. blenkiron?" no. rowcliffe in the surgery smiled all to himself as he warmed his hands. alice was holding her ground. she was spinning out the time. "not he. mr. blenkiron's got soomat alse to do without trapseing after jim greatorex." "oh." alice's voice was distant and defensive. he was sorry for alice. she was not yet broken in to the north country manner, and her softness winced under these blows. there was nobody to tell her that mrs. blenkiron's manner was a criticism of her young kinsman, jim greatorex. mrs. blenkiron presently made this apparent. "jim's sat oop enoof as it is. you'd think there was nawbody in this village good enoof to kape coompany wi' jimmy, the road he goas. ef i was you, miss olice, i should let him be." "i would, but it's his voice we want. i'm thinking of the concert, mrs. blenkiron. it's the only voice we've got that'll fill the room." mrs. blenkiron laughed. "eh--he'll fill it fer you, right enoof. you'll have all the yoong laads and laasses in the daale toomblin' in to hear jimmy." "we want them. we want everybody. you wesleyans and all." another pause. rowcliffe was interested. alice was really displaying considerable intelligence. almost she persuaded him that her errand was genuine. "do you think essy gale could get him to come?" in the surgery rowcliffe whistled inaudibly. _that_ was indeed a desperate shift. rowcliffe had turned and was now standing with his back to the fire. he was intensely interested. "assy gaale? he would n' coom for assy's asskin', a man like greatorex." mrs. blenkiron's blood, the blood of the greatorexes, was up. "naw," said jim greatorex's kinswoman, "if you want greatorex to sing for you as bad as all that, miss cartaret, you'd better speak to the doctor." rowcliffe became suddenly grave. he watched the door. "he'd mebbe do it for him. he sats soom store by dr. rawcliffe." "but"--ally's voice sounded nearer--"he's gone, hasn't he?" (the minx, the little, little minx!) "naw. but he's joost goin'. shall i catch him?" "you might." mrs. blenkiron caught him on the threshold of the surgery. "will you speak to miss cartaret a minute, dr. rawcliffe?" "certainly." mrs. blenkiron withdrew. the kitchen door closed on her flight. for the first time in their acquaintance rowcliffe was alone with alice cartaret, and though he was interested he didn't like it. "i thought i heard your voice," said he with reckless geniality. they stood on their thresholds looking at each other across the narrow passage. it was as if alice cartaret's feet were fixed there by an invisible force that held her fascinated and yet frightened. rowcliffe had paused too, as at a post of vantage, the better to observe her. a moment ago, warming his hands in the surgery, he could have sworn that she, the little maneuvering minx, had laid a trap for him. she had come on her fool's errand, knowing that it was a fool's errand, for nothing on earth but that she might catch him, alone and defenseless, in the surgery. it was the sort of thing she did, the sort of thing she always would do. she didn't want to know (not she!) whether jim greatorex would sing or not, she wanted to know, and she meant to know, why he, steven rowcliffe, hadn't turned up that afternoon, and where he had gone, and what he had been doing, and the rest of it. there were windows at the back of the vicarage. possibly she had seen him charging up the hill in pursuit of her sister, and she was desperate. all this he had believed and did still believe. but, as he looked across at the little hesitating figure and the scared face framed in the doorway, he had compassion on her. poor little trapper, so pitifully trapped; so ignorant of the first rules and principles of trapping that she had run hot-foot after her prey when she should have lain low and lured it silently into her snare. she was no more than a poor little frightened minx, caught in his trap, peering at him from it in terror. god knew he hadn't meant to set it for her, and god only knew how he was going to get her out of it. "poor things," he thought, "if they only knew how horribly they embarrass me!" for of course she wasn't the first. the situation had repeated itself, monotonously, scores of times in his experience. it would have been a nuisance even if alice cartaret had not been gwendolen cartaret's sister. that made it intolerable. all this complex pity and repugnance was latent in his one sense of horrible embarrassment. then their hands met. "you want to see me?" "i _did_--" she was writhing piteously in the trap. "you'd better come into the surgery. there's a fire there." he wasn't going to keep her out there in the cold; and he wasn't going to walk back with her to the vicarage. he didn't want to meet the vicar and have the door shut in his face. rowcliffe, informed by mrs. blenkiron, was aware, long before gwenda had warned him, that he ran this risk. the vicar's funniness was a byword in the parish. but he left the door ajar. "well," he said gently, "what is it?" "shall you be seeing jim greatorex soon?" "i might. why?" she told her tale again; she told it in little bursts of excitement punctuated with shy hesitations. she told it with all sorts of twists and turns, winding and entangling herself in it and coming out again breathless and frightened, like a lost creature that has been dragged through the brake. and there were long pauses when alice put her head on one side, considering, as if she held her tale in her hands and were looking at it and wondering whether she really could go on. "and what is it you want me to do?" said rowcliffe finally. "to ask him." "hadn't you better ask him yourself?" "would he do it for me?" "of course he would." "i wonder. perhaps--if i asked him prettily--" "oh, then--he couldn't help himself." there was a pause. rowcliffe, a little ashamed of himself, looked at the floor, and alice looked at rowcliffe and tried to fathom the full depth of his meaning from his face. that there was a depth and that there was a meaning she never doubted. this time rowcliffe missed the pathos of her gray eyes. an idea had come to him. "look here--miss cartaret--if you can get jim greatorex to sing for you, if you can get him to take an interest in the concert or in any mortal thing besides beer and whisky, you'll be doing the best day's work you ever did in your life." "do you think i _could_?" she said. "i think you could probably do anything with him if you gave your mind to it." he meant it. he meant it. that was really his opinion of her. her lifted face was radiant as she drank bliss at one draught from the cup he held to her. but she was not yet satisfied. "you'd _like_ me to do it?" "i should very much." his voice was firm, but his eyes looked uneasy and ashamed. "would you like me to get him back in the choir?" "i'd like you to get him back into anything that'll keep him out of mischief." she raised her chin. there was a more determined look on her small, her rather insignificant face than he would have thought to see there. she rose. "very well," she said superbly. "i'll do it." he held out his hand. "i don't say, miss cartaret, that you'll reclaim him." "nor i. but--if you want me to, i'll try." they parted on it. rowcliffe smiled as he closed the surgery door behind him. "that'll give her something else to think about," he said to himself. "and it'll take her all her time." xxiv the next sunday, early in the afternoon, alice went, all by herself, to upthorne. hitherto she had disliked going to upthorne by herself. she had no very subtle feeling for the aspects of things; but there was something about the road to upthorne that repelled her. a hundred yards or so above the schoolhouse it turned, leaving behind it the wide green bottom and winding up toward the naked moor. to the north, on her right, it narrowed and twisted; the bed of the beck lay hidden. a thin scrub of low thorn trees covered the lower slopes of the further hillside. here and there was a clearing and a cottage or a farm. on her left she had to pass the dead mining station, the roofless walls, the black window gaps, the melancholy haunted colonnades, the three chimneys of the dead furnaces, square cornered, shooting straight and high as the bell-towers of some hill city of the south, beautiful and sinister, guarding that place of ashes and of ruin. then the sallow winter marshes. south of the marshes were the high moors. their flanks showed black where they have been flayed by the cuttings of old mines. at intervals, along the line of the hillside, masses of rubble rose in hummocks or hung like avalanches, black as if they had been discharged by blasting. beyond, in the turn of the dale, the village of upthorne lay unseen. and hitherto, in all that immense and inhuman desolation nothing (to alice) had been more melancholy, more sinister, more haunted than the house where john greatorex had died. with its gray, unsleeping face, its lidless eyes, staring out over the marshes, it had lost (for alice) all likeness to a human habitation. it repudiated the living; it remembered; it kept a grim watch with its dead. but alice's mind, acutely sensitive in one direction, had become callous in every other. * * * * * greatorex was in the kitchen, smoking his sunday afternoon pipe in the chimney corner, screened from the open doorway by the three-foot thickness of the house wall. maggie, his servant, planted firmly on the threshold, jerked her head over her shoulder to call to him. "there's a yoong laady wants to see yo, mr. greatorex!" there was no response but a sharp tapping on the hob, as greatorex knocked the ashes out of his pipe. maggie stood looking at alice a little mournfully with her deep-set, blue, pathetic eyes. maggie had once been pretty in spite of her drab hair and flat features, but where her high color remained it had hardened with her thirty-five years. "well yo' coom?" maggie called again and waited. courageous in her bright blue sunday gown, she waited while her master rose, then, shame-faced as if driven by some sharp sign from him, she slunk into the scullery. jim greatorex appeared on his threshold. on his threshold, utterly sober, carrying himself with the assurance of the master in his own house, he would not have suffered by comparison with any man. instead of the black broadcloth that alice had expected, he wore a loose brown shooting jacket, drab corduroy breeches, a drab cloth waistcoat and brown leather leggings, and he wore them with a distinction that rowcliffe might have envied. his face, his whole body, alert and upright, had the charm of some shy, half-savage animal. when he stood at ease his whole face, with all its features, sensed you and took you in; the quivering eyebrows were aware of you; the nose, with its short, high bridge, its fine, wide nostrils, repeated the sensitive stare of the wide eyes; his mouth, under its golden brown moustache, was somber with a sort of sullen apprehension, till in a sudden, childlike confidence it smiled. his whole face and all its features smiled. he was smiling at alice now, as if struck all of a sudden by her smallness. "i've come to ask a favor, mr. greatorex," said alice. "ay," said greatorex. he said it as if ladies called every day to ask him favors. "will you coom in, miss cartaret?" it was the mournful and musical voice that she had heard sometimes last summer on the road outside the back door of the vicarage. she came in, pausing on the threshold and looking about her, as if she stood poised on the edge of an adventure. her smallness, and the delicious, exploring air of her melted jim's heart and made him smile at her. "it's a roough plaace fer a laady," he said. "it's a beautiful place, mr. greatorex," said alice. and she did actually think it was beautiful with its stone floor, its white-washed walls, its black oak dresser and chest and settle; not because of these things but because it was on the border of her paradise. rowcliffe had sent her there. jim greatorex had glamour for her, less on his own account than as a man in whom rowcliffe was interested. "you'd think it a bit loansoom, wouldn' yo', ef yo' staayed in it yeear in and yeear out?" "i don't know," said alice doubtfully. "perhaps--a little," she ventured, encouraged by greatorex's indulgent smile. "an' loansoom it is," said greatorex dismally. alice explored, penetrating into the interior. "oh--but aren't you glad you've got such a lovely fireplace?" "i doan' knaw as i've thought mooch about it. we get used to our own." "what are those hooks for in the chimney?" "they? they're fer 'angin' the haams on--to smoak 'em." "i see." she would have sat there on the oak settle but that greatorex was holding open the door of an inner room. "yo'd better coom into t' parlor, miss cartaret. it'll be more coomfortable for you." she rose and followed him. she had been long enough in garth to know that if you are asked to go into the parlor you must go. otherwise you risk offending the kind gods of the hearth and threshold. the parlor was a long low room that continued the line of the house to its southern end. one wide mullioned window looked east over the marsh, the other south to the hillside across a little orchard of dwarfed and twisted trees. to alice they were the trees of her paradise and the hillside was its boundary. greatorex drew close to the hearth the horsehair and mahogany armchair with the white antimacassar. "sit yo' down and i'll putt a light to the fire." "not for me," she protested. but greatorex was on his knees before her, lighting the fire. "you'll 'ave wet feet coomin' over t' moor. cauld, too, yo'll be." she sat and watched him. he was deft with his great hands, like a woman, over his fire-lighting. "there--she's burning fine." he rose, turning triumphantly on his hearth as the flame leaped in the grate. "yo'll let me mak' yo' a coop of tae, miss cartaret." there was an interrogative lilt at the end of all his sentences, even when, as now, he was making statements that admitted of no denial. but his guest missed the incontrovertible and final quality of what was said. "please don't trouble." "it's naw trooble--naw trooble at all. maaggie'll 'ave got kettle on." he strode out of his parlor into his kitchen. "maaggie! maaggie!" he called. "are yo' there? putt kettle on and bring tae into t' parlor." alice looked about her while she waited. though she didn't know it, jim greatorex's parlor was a more tolerable place than the vicarage drawing-room. brown cocoanut matting covered its stone floor. in front of the wide hearth on the inner wall was a rug of dyed sheepskin bordered with a strip of scarlet snippets. the wooden chimney-piece, the hearth-place, the black hobs, the straight barred grate with its frame of fine fluted iron, belonged to a period of simplicity. the oblong mahogany table in the center of the room, the sofa and chairs, upholstered in horsehair, were of a style austere enough to be almost beautiful. down the white ground of the wall-paper an endless succession of pink nosegays ascended and descended between parallel stripes of blue. there were no ornaments to speak of in greatorex's parlor but the grocer's tea-caddies on the mantelshelf and the little china figures, the spotted cows, the curly dogs, the boy in blue, the girl in pink; and the lustre ware and the tea-sets, the white and gold, the blue and white, crowded behind the diamond panes of the two black oak cupboards. of these one was set in the most conspicuous corner, the other in the middle of the long wall facing the east window, bare save for the framed photographs of greatorex's family, the groups, the portraits of father and mother and of grandparents, enlarged from vignettes taken in the seventies and eighties--faces defiant, stolid and pathetic; yearning, mournful, tender faces, slightly blurred. all these objects impressed themselves on ally's brain, adhering to its obsession and receiving from it an immense significance and importance. * * * * * she heard maggie's running feet, and the great leisurely steps of greatorex, and his voice, soft and kind, encouraging maggie. "theer--that's t' road. gently, laass--moor' 'aaste, less spead. now t' tray--an' a clane cloth--t' woon wi' laace on 't. thot's t' road." maggie whispered, awestruck by these preparations: "which coops will yo' 'ave, mr. greatorex?" "t' best coops, maaggie." maggie had to fetch them from the corner cupboard (they were the white and gold). at greatorex's command she brought the little round oak table from its place in the front window and set it by the hearth before the visitor. humbly, under her master's eye, yet with a sort of happy pride about her, she set out the tea-things and the glass dishes of jam and honey and tea-cakes. greatorex waited, silent and awkward, till his servant had left the room. then he came forward. "theer's caake," he said. "maaggie baaked un yesterda'. an' theer's hooney." he made no servile apologies for what he set before her. he was giving her nothing that was not good, and he knew it. and he sat down facing her and watched her pour out her tea and help herself with her little delicate hands. if he had been a common man, a peasant, his idea of courtesy would have been to leave her to herself, to turn away his eyes from her in that intimate and sacred act of eating and drinking. but greatorex was a farmer, the descendant of yeomen, and by courtesy a yeoman still, and courtesy bade him watch and see that his guest wanted for nothing. that he did not sit down at the little table and drink tea with her himself showed that his courtesy knew where to draw the dividing line. "but why aren't you having anything yourself?" said alice. she really wondered. he smiled. "it's a bit too early for me, thank yo'. maaggie'll mak' me a coop by and bye." and she said to herself, "how beautifully he did it." he was indeed doing it beautifully all through. he watched her little fingers, and the very instant they had disposed of a morsel he offered her another. it was a deep and exquisite pleasure to him to observe her in that act of eating and drinking. he had never seen anything like the prettiness, the dainty precision that she brought to it. he had never seen anything so pretty as ally herself, in the rough gray tweed that exaggerated her fineness and fragility; never anything so distracting and at the same time so heartrending as the gray muff and collar of squirrel fur, and the little gray fur hat with the bit of blue peacock's breast laid on one side of it like a folded wing. as he watched her he thought, "if i was to touch her i should break her." * * * * * then the conversation began. "i was sorry," he said, "to hear yo was so poorly, miss cartaret." "i'm all right now. you can see i'm all right." he shook his head. "i saw yo' a moonth ago, and i didn't think then i sud aver see yo' at oopthorne again." he paused. "'e's a woonderful maan, dr. rawcliffe." "he is," said alice. her voice was very soft, inaudible as a breath. all the blood in her body seemed to rush into her face and flood it and spread up her forehead to the roots of the gold hair that the east wind had crisped round the edges of her hat. she thought, "it'll be awful if he guesses, and if he talks." but when she looked at greatorex his face reassured her, it was so utterly innocent of divination. and the next moment he went straight to the matter in hand. "an' what's this thing you've coom to aassk me, miss cartaret?" "well"--she looked at him and her gray eyes were soft and charmingly candid--"it _was_ if you'd be kind enough to sing at our concert. you've heard about it?" "ay, i've heard about it, right enoof." "well--_won't_ you? you _have_ sung, you know." "yes. i've soong. but thot was in t' owd schoolmaaster's time. yo' wouldn't care to hear my singin' now. i've got out of the way of it, like." "you haven't, mr. greatorex. i've heard you. you've got a magnificent voice. there isn't one like it in the choir." "ay, there's not mooch wrong with my voice, i rackon. but it's like this, look yo. i joost soong fer t' schoolmaaster. he was a friend--a personal friend of mine. and he's gone. and i'm sure i doan' knaw--" "i know, mr. greatorex. i know exactly how you feel about it. you sang to please your friend. he's gone and you don't like the idea of singing for anybody else--for a set of people you don't know." she had said it. it was the naked truth and he wasn't going to deny it. she went on. "we're strangers and perhaps you don't like us very much, and you feel that singing for us would be like singing the lord's song in a strange country; you feel as if it would be profanation--a kind of disloyalty." "thot's it. thot's it." never had he been so well interpreted. "it's that--and it's because you miss him so awfully." "wall--" he seemed inclined, in sheer honesty, to deprecate the extreme and passionate emotion she suggested. i would n' saay--o' course, i sort o' miss him. i caann't afford to lose a friend--i 'aven't so many of 'em." "i know. it's the waters of babylon, and you're hanging up your voice in the willow tree." she could be gay and fluent enough with greatorex, who was nothing to her. "but it's an awful pity. a willow tree can't do anything with a big barytone voice hung up in it." he laughed then. and afterward, whenever he thought of it, he laughed. she saw that he had adopted his attitude first of all in resentment, that he had continued it as a passionate, melancholy pose, and that he was only keeping it up through sheer obstinacy. he would be glad of a decent excuse to abandon it, if he could find one. "and your friend must have been proud of your voice, wasn't he?" "he sat more store by it than what i do. it was he, look yo, who trained me so as i could sing proper." "well, then, he must have taken some trouble over it. do you think he'd like you to go and hang it up in a willow tree?" greatorex looked up, showing a shamefaced smile. the little lass had beaten him. "coom to think of it, i doan' knaw as he would like it mooch." "of course he wouldn't like it. it would be wasting what he'd done." "so 't would. i naver thought of it like thot." she rose. she knew the moment of surrender, and she knew, woman-like, that it must not be overpassed. she stood before him, drawing on her gloves, fastening her squirrel collar and settling her chin in the warm fur with the movement of a small burrowing animal, a movement that captivated greatorex. then, deliberately and finally, she held out her hand. "good-bye, mr. greatorex. it's all right, isn't it? you're coming to sing for _him,_ you know, not for _us_." "i'm coomin'," said greatorex. she settled her chin again, tucked her hands away in the squirrel muff and went quickly toward the door. he followed. "let me putt daasy in t' trap, miss cartaret, and drive yo' home." "i wouldn't think of it. thank you all the same." she was in the kitchen now, on the outer threshold. he followed her there. "miss cartaret--" she turned. "well?" his face was flushed to the eyes. he struggled visibly for expression. "yo' moosn' saay i doan' like yo'. fer it's nat the truth." "i'm glad it isn't," she said. he walked with her down the bridle path to the gate. he was dumb after his apocalypse. they parted at the gate. with long, slow, thoughtful strides greatorex returned along the bridle path to his house. * * * * * alice went gaily down the hill to garth. it was the hill of paradise. and if she thought of greatorex and of how she had cajoled him into singing, and of how through singing she would reclaim him, it was because greatorex and his song and his redemption were a small, hardly significant part of the immense thought of rowcliffe. "how pleased he'll be when he knows what i've done!" and her pure joy had a strain in it that was not so pure. it pleased her to please rowcliffe, but it pleased her also that he should realise her as a woman who could cajole men into doing for her what they didn't want to do. * * * * * "i've got him! i've got him!" she cried as she came, triumphant, into the dining-room where her father and her sisters still sat round the table. "no, thanks. i've had tea." "where did you get it?" the vicar asked with his customary suspicion. "at upthorne. jim greatorex gave it me." the vicar was appeased. he thought nothing of it that greatorex should have given his daughter tea. greatorex was part of the parish. xxv rowcliffe was coming to the concert. neither floods nor tempests, he declared, would keep him away from it. for hours, night after night, of the week before the concert, jim greatorex had been down at garth, in the schoolhouse, practicing with alice cartaret until she assured him he was perfect. night after night the schoolhouse, gray in its still yard, had a door kept open for them and a light in the solemn lancet windows. the tall gray ash tree that stood back in the angle of the porch knew of their coming and their going. the ash tree was friendly. when the north wind tossed its branches it beckoned to the two, it summoned them from up and down the hill. and now the tables and blackboards had been cleared out of the big schoolroom. the matchboarding of white pine that lined the lower half of its walls had been hung with red twill, with garlands of ivy and bunches of holly. oil lamps swung from the pine rafters of the ceiling and were set on brackets at intervals along the walls. a few boards raised on joists made an admirable platform. one broad strip of red felt was laid along the platform, another hid the wooden steps that led to it. on the right a cottage piano was set slantwise. in the front were chairs for the principal performers. on the left, already in their places, were the glee-singers chosen from the village choir. behind, on benches, the rest of the choir. over the whole scene, on the chalk white of the dado, the blond yellow of varnished pinewood, the blazing scarlet of the hangings, the dark glitter of the ivy and the holly; on the faces, ruddy and sallow, polished with cleanliness, on the sleek hair, on the pale frocks of the girls, the bright neckties of the men, the lamplight rioted and exulted; it rippled and flowed; it darted; it lay suave and smooth as still water; it flaunted; it veiled itself. stately and tall and in a measured order, the lancet windows shot up out of the gray walls, the leaded framework of their lozenges gray on the black and solemn night behind them. a smell of dust, of pine wood, of pomade, of burning oil, of an iron stove fiercely heated, a thin, bitter smell of ivy and holly; that wonderful, that overpowering, inspiring and revolting smell, of elements strangely fused, of flying vapors, of breathing, burning, palpitating things. greatorex, conspicuous in his front seat on the platform, drew it in with great heavings of his chest. he loved that smell. it fairly intoxicated him every time. it soared singing through his nostrils into his brain, like gin. there could be no more violent and voluptuous contrast of sensations than to come straight from the cold, biting air of upthorne and to step into that perfect smell. it was a thick, a sweet, a fiery and sustaining smell. it helped him to face without too intolerable an agony the line of alien (he deemed them alien) faces in the front row of the audience: mr. cartaret and miss cartaret (utter strangers; he had never got, he never would get used to them) and dr. rowcliffe (not altogether a stranger, after what he had done one night for greatorex's mare daisy); then miss gwendolen (not a stranger either after what she had done, and yet formidably strange, the strangest, when he came to think of it, and the queerest of them all). rowcliffe, he observed, sat between her and her sister. divided from them by a gap, more strangers, three girls whom rowcliffe had driven over from morfe and afterward (greatorex observed that also, for he kept his eye on him) had shamelessly abandoned. if greatorex had his eye on rowcliffe, rowcliffe had his eye, though less continuously, on him. he did not know very much about greatorex, after all, and he could not be sure that his man would turn up entirely sober. he was unaware of greatorex's capacity for substituting one intoxication for another. he had no conception of what the smell of that lighted and decorated room meant for this man who lived so simply and profoundly by his senses and his soul. it was interfused and tangled with greatorex's sublimest feelings. it was the draw-net of submerged memories, of secret, unsuspected passions. it held in its impalpable web his dreams, the divine and delicate things that his grosser self let slip. he would forget, forget for ages, until, in the schoolroom at concert time, at the first caress of the magical smell, those delicate and divine, those secret, submerged, and forgotten things arose, and with the undying poignancy and subtlety of odors they entered into him again. and besides these qualities which were indefinable, the smell was vividly symbolic. it was entwined with and it stood for his experience of art and ambition and the power to move men and women; for song and for the sensuous thrill and spiritual ecstasy of singing and for the subsequent applause. it was the only form of intoxication known to him that did not end in headache and in shame. suddenly the charm that had sustained him ceased to work. under it he had been sitting in suspense, waiting for something, knowing and not daring to own to himself what it was he waited for. the suspense and the waiting seemed all part of the original excitement. then alice cartaret came up the room. her passage had been obscured and obstructed by the crowd of villagers at the door. but they had cleared a way for her and she came. she carried herself like a crowned princess. the cords of her cloak (it was of dove color, lined with blue) had loosened in her passage, and the cloak had slipped, showing her naked shoulders. she wore a little dove-gray gown with some blue about it and a necklace of pale amber. her white arms hung slender as a child's from the immense puffs of the sleeves. her fair hair was piled in front of a high amber comb. as she appeared before the platform rowcliffe rose and took her cloak from her (greatorex saw him take it, but he didn't care; he knew more about the doctor than the doctor knew himself). he handed her up the steps on to the platform and then turned, like a man who has done all that chivalry requires of him, to his place between her sisters. the hand that rowcliffe had let go went suddenly to her throat, seizing her necklace and loosening it as if it choked her. rowcliffe was not looking at her. still with her hand at her throat, she smiled and bowed to the audience, to the choir, to greatorex, to the schoolmaster who came forward (greatorex cursed him) and led her to the piano. she sat down, wiped her hands on her handkerchief, and waited, enduring like an angel the voices of the villagers and the shuffling of their feet. then somebody (it was the vicar) said, "hush!" and she began to play. in her passion for the unattainable she had selected chopin's grande valse in a flat, beginning with the long shake of eight bars. greatorex did not know whether she played well or badly. he only knew it looked and sounded wonderful. he could have watched forever her little hands that were like white birds. he had never seen anything more delicious and more amusing than their fluttering in the long shake and their flying with spread wings all over the piano. then the jumping and the thumping began; and queer noises, the like of which greatorex had never heard, came out of the piano. it jarred him; but it made him smile. the little hands were marvelous the way they flew, the way they leaped across great spaces of piano. alice herself was satisfied. she had brought out the air; she had made it sing above the confusion of the bass and treble that evidently had had no clear understanding when they started; as for the bad bits, the tremendous crescendo chords that your hands must take at a flying leap or miss altogether, rowcliffe had already assured her that they were impracticable anyhow; and rowcliffe knew. flushed and softened with the applause (rowcliffe had joined in it), she took her place between greatorex and the schoolmaster. the glee-singers, two men and two women, came forward and sang their glees, turning and bowing to each other like mummers. the schoolmaster recited the "pied piper of hamelin." a young lady who had come over from morfe expressly for that purpose sang the everlasting song about the miller. leaning stiffly forward, her thin neck outstretched, her brows bent toward rowcliffe, summoning all that she knew of archness to her eyes, she sang. "oh miller, miller, miller, miller, miller, let me go!" sang the young lady from morfe. alice could see that she sang for rowcliffe and at rowcliffe; she sang into his face until he turned it away, and then, utterly unabashed, she sang into his left ear. the presence and the song of the young lady from morfe would have been torture to alice, but that her eyelids and her face were red as if perpetually smitten by the east wind and scarified with weeping. to alice, at the piano, it was terrible to be associated with the song of the young lady from morfe. she felt that rowcliffe was looking at her (he wasn't) and she strove by look and manner to detach herself. as the young lady flung herself into it and became more and more intolerably arch, alice became more and more severe. she purified the accompaniment from all taint of the young lady's intentions. it grew graver and graver. it was a hymn, a solemn chant, a dirge. the dirge of the last hope of the young lady from morfe. when it ceased there rose from the piano that was its grave the grande polonaise of chopin. it rose in splendor and defiance; alice's defiance of the young lady from morfe. it brought down the schoolhouse in a storm of clapping and thumping, of "bravos" and "encores." even rowcliffe said, "bravo!" but alice, still seated at the piano, smiled and signaled. and jim greatorex stood up to sing. * * * * * he stood facing the room, but beside her, so that she could sign to him if anything went wrong. "'oh, that we two-oo were may-ing down the stream of the so-oft spring breeze, like children with vi-olets pla-aying.'" greatorex's voice was a voice of awful volume and it ranged somewhere from fairly deep barytone almost to tenor. it was at moments unmanageable, being untrained, yet he seemed to do as much with it as if it had been bass and barytone and tenor all in one. it had grown a little thick in the last year, but he brought out of its very thickness a brooding, yearning passion and an intolerable pathos. the song, overladen with emotion, appealed to him; it expressed as nothing else could have expressed the passions that were within him at that moment. it swept the whole range of his experiences, there were sheep in it and a churchyard and children (his lady could never be anything more to him than a child). "'oh, that we two-oo were ly-ing in our nest in the chu-urch-yard sod, with our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, and our souls--at home--with god!'" that finished it. there was no other end. and as he sang it, looking nobly if a little heavily over the heads of his audience, he saw essy gale hidden away, and trying to hide herself more, beside her mother in the farthest corner of the room. he had forgotten essy. and at the sight of her his nobility went from him and only his heaviness remained. it didn't matter that they shouted for him to sing again, that they stamped and bellowed, and that he did sing, again and again, taking the roof off at the last with "john peel." nothing mattered. nothing mattered. nothing could matter now. and then something bigger than his heart, bigger than his voice, something immense and brutal and defiant, asserted itself and said that come to that essy didn't matter. she had put herself in his way. and maggie had been before and after her. and maggie didn't matter either. * * * * * for the magical smell had wrapped itself round alice cartaret, and her dove-gray gown and dove-gray eyes, and round the thought of her. it twined and tangled her in the subtle mesh. she was held and embalmed in it forever. xxvi it was wednesday, the day after the concert. mr. cartaret was standing before the fire in his study. he had just rung the bell and now he waited in an attitude of wisdom and of patience. it was only ten o'clock in the morning and wisdom and patience should not be required of any man at such an hour. but the vicar had a disagreeable duty to perform. whenever the vicar had a disagreeable duty to perform he performed it as early as possible in the morning, so that none of its disagreeableness was lost. the whole day was poisoned by it. he waited a little longer. and as he waited his patience began to suffer imperceptibly, though his wisdom remained intact. he rang again. the bell sounded through the quiet house, angry and terrifying. in another moment essy came in. she had on a clean apron. she stood by the roll-top desk. it offered her a certain cover and support. her brown eyes, liquid and gentle, gazed at him. but for all her gentleness there was a touch of defiance in her bearing. "did you not hear me ring?" said the vicar. "naw, sir." nothing more clear and pure than the candor of essy's eyes. they disconcerted him. "i have nothing to say to you, essy. you know why i sent for you." "naw, sir." she thought it was a question. he underlined it. "you--know--why." "naw. i doan' knaw, sir." "then, if you don't know, you must find out. you will go down to the surgery this afternoon and see dr. rowcliffe, and he will report on your case." she started and the red blood rose in her face. "i s'all not goa and see him, mr. cartaret." she was very quiet. "very good. then i shall pay you a month's wages and you will go on saturday." it was then that her mouth trembled so that her eyes shone large through her tears. "i wasn't gawn to staay, sir--to be a trooble. i sud a gien yo' nawtice in anoother moonth." she paused. there was a spasm in her throat as if she swallowed with difficulty her bitter pride. her voice came thick and hoarse. "woan't yo' kape me till th' and o' t' moonth, sir?" her voice cleared suddenly. "than i can see yo' trow christmas." the vicar opened his mouth to speak; but instead of speaking he stared. his open mouth stared with a supreme astonishment. up till now, in his wisdom and his patience, he had borne with essy, the essy who had come before him one evening in september, dejected and afraid. he hated essy and he hated her sin, but he had borne with her then because of her sorrow and her shame. and here was essy with not a sign of sorrow or of shame about her, offering (in the teeth of her deserved dismissal), actually offering as a favor to stay over christmas and to see them through. the naked impudence of it was what staggered him. "i have no intention of keeping you over christmas. you will take your notice and your wages from to-day, and you will go on saturday." "yes, sir." in her going essy turned. "will yo' taake me back, sir, when it's all over?" "no. no. i shouldn't think of taking you back." the vicar hid his hands in his pockets and leaned forward, thrusting his face toward essy as he spoke. "i'm afraid, my girl, it never will be all over, as long as you regard your sin as lightly as you do." essy did not see the vicar's face thrust toward her. she was sidling to the door. she had her hand on the doorknob. "come back," said the vicar. "i have something else to say to you." essy came no nearer. she remained standing by the door. "who is the man, essy?" at that essy's face began to shake piteously. standing by the door, she cried quietly, with soft sobs, neither hiding her face nor drying her tears as they came. "you had better tell me," said the vicar. "i s'all nat tall yo'," said essy, with passionate determination, between the sobs. "you must." "i s'all nat--i s'all nat." "hiding it won't help you," said the vicar. essy raised her head. "i doan' keer. i doan' keer what 'appens to mae. what wae did--what wae did--lies between him and mae." "did he tell you he'd marry you, essy?" essy sobbed for answer. "he didn't? is he going to marry you?" "'tisn' likely 'e'll marry mae. an' i'll not force him." "you think, perhaps, it doesn't matter?" she shook her head in utter helplessness. "come, make a clean breast of it." then the storm burst. she turned her tormented face to him. "a clane breast, yo' call it? i s'all mak' naw clane breasts, mr. cartaret, to yo' or anybody. i'll 'ave nawbody meddlin' between him an' mae!" "then," said the vicar, "i wash my hands of you." but he said it to an empty room. essy had left him. * * * * * in the outer room the three sisters sat silent and motionless. their faces were turned toward the closed door of the study. they were listening to the sounds that went on behind it. the burden of essy hung heavy over them. the study door opened and shut. then the kitchen door. "poor essy," said gwenda. "poor essy," said alice. she was sorry for essy now. she could afford to be sorry for her. mary said nothing, and from her silence you could not tell what she was thinking. the long day dragged on to prayer time. the burden of essy hung heavy over the whole house. * * * * * that night, at a quarter to ten, fifteen minutes before prayer time, gwenda came to her father in his study. "papa," she said, "is it true that you've sacked essy at three days' notice?" "i have dismissed essy," said the vicar, "for a sufficient reason." "there's no reason to turn her out before christmas." "there is," said the vicar, "a very grave reason. we needn't go into it." he knew that his daughter knew his reason. but he ignored her knowledge as he ignored all things that were unpleasant to him. "we must go into it," said gwenda. "it's a sin to turn her out at three days' notice." "i know what i'm doing, gwenda, and why i'm doing it." "so do i. we all do. none of us want her to go--yet. you could easily have kept her another two months. she'd have given notice herself." "i am not going to discuss it with you." the vicar put his head under the roll top of his desk and pretended to be looking for papers. gwenda seated herself familiarly on the arm of the chair he had left. "you'll have to, i'm afraid," she said. "please take your head out of the desk, papa. there's no use behaving like an ostrich. i can see you all the time. the trouble is, you know, that you won't _think_. and you _must_ think. how's essy going to do without those two months' wages she might have had? she'll want every shilling she can lay her hands on for the baby." "she should have thought of that before." the vicar was answering himself. he did not acknowledge his daughter's right to discuss essy. "she'll think of it presently," said gwenda in her unblushing calm. "look here, papa, while you're trying how you can make this awful thing more awful for her, what do you think poor essy's bothering about? she's not bothering about her sin, nor about her baby. she's bothering about how she's landed _us_." the vicar closed his eyes. his patience was exhausted. so was his wisdom. "i am not arguing with you, gwenda." "you can't. you know perfectly well what a beastly shame it is." that roused him. "you seem to think no more of essy's sin than essy does." "how do you know what essy thinks? how do i know? it isn't any business of ours what essy thinks. it's what we do. i'd rather do what essy's done, any day, than do mean or cruel things. wouldn't you?" the vicar raised his eyebrows and his shoulders. it was the gesture of a man helpless before the unspeakable. he took refuge in his pathos. "i am very tired, gwenda; and it's ten minutes to ten." * * * * * it may have been because the vicar was tired that his mind wandered somewhat that night during family prayers. foremost among the many things that the vicar's mind refused to consider was the question of the status, of the very existence, of family prayers in his household. but for essy, though the vicar did not know it, it was doubtful whether family prayers would have survived what he called his daughters' godlessness. mary, to be sure, conformed outwardly. she was not easily irritated, and, as she put it, she did not really _mind_ prayers. but to alice and gwendolen prayers were a weariness and an exasperation. alice would evade them under any pretext. by her father's action in transporting her to gardale, she considered that she was absolved from her filial allegiance. but gwendolen was loyal. in the matter of prayers, which--she made it perfectly clear to alice and mary--could not possibly annoy them more than they did her, she was going to see papa through. it would be beastly, she said, not to. they couldn't give him away before essy. but of the clemency and generosity of gwendolen's attitude mr. cartaret was not aware. he believed that the custom of prayers was maintained in his household by his inflexible authority and will. he gloried in them as an expression of his power. they were a form of coercion which it seemed he could apply quite successfully to his womenkind, those creatures of his flesh and blood, yet so alien and intractable. family prayers gave him a keener spiritual satisfaction than the church services in which, outwardly, he cut a far more imposing figure. in a countryside peopled mainly by abominable wesleyans and impure baptists (mr. cartaret spoke and thought of wesleyans and baptists as if they were abominable and impure pure) he had some difficulty in procuring a congregation. the few who came to the parish church came because it was respectable and therefore profitable, or because they had got into the habit and couldn't well get out of it, or because they liked it, not at all because his will and his authority compelled them. but to emerge from his study inevitably at ten o'clock, an hour when the souls of mary and gwendolen and alice were most reluctant and most hostile to the thought of prayers, and by sheer worrying to round up the fugitives, whatever they happened to be doing and wherever they happened to be, this (though he said it was no pleasure to him) was more agreeable to mr. cartaret than he knew. the very fact that essy was a wesleyan and so far an unwilling conformist gave a peculiar zest to the performance. it was always the same. it started with a look through his glasses, leveled at each member of his household in turn, as if he desired to satisfy himself as to the expression of their faces while at the same time he defied them to protest. for the rest, his rule was that of his father, the schoolmaster, before him. first, a chapter from the bible, the old testament in the morning, the new testament in the evening, working straight through from genesis to revelation (omitting leviticus as somewhat unsuitable for family reading). then prayers proper, beginning with what his daughter gwendolen, seventeen years ago, had called "fancy prayers," otherwise prayers not lifted from the liturgy, but compiled and composed in accordance with the freer evangelical taste in prayers. then (for both mr. cartaret and the schoolmaster, his father, held that the church must not be ignored) there followed last sunday's collect, the collect for grace, the benediction, and the lord's prayer. now, as his rule would have it, that evening of the fifth of december brought him to the eighth chapter of st. john, in the one concerning the woman taken in adultery, which was the very last chapter which mr. cartaret that evening could have desired to read. he had always considered that to some minds it might be open to misinterpretation as a defense of laxity. "'woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?' "she said, 'no man, lord.' and jesus said unto her, 'neither do i condemn thee.'" mr. cartaret lowered his voice and his eyes as he read, for he felt gwendolen's eyes upon him. but he recovered himself on the final charge. "'go'"--now he came to think of it, that was what he had said to essy--"'and sin no more.'" (after all, he was supported.) casting another and more decidedly uneasy glance at his family, he knelt down. he felt better when they were all kneeling, for now he had their backs toward him instead of their faces. he then prayed. on behalf of himself and essy and his family he prayed to a god who (so he assumed his godhead) was ever more ready to hear than they to pray, a god whom he congratulated on his ability to perform for them far more than they either desired or deserved; he thanked him for having mercifully preserved them to the close of another blessed day (as in the morning he would thank him for having spared them to see the light of another blessed day); he besought him to pardon anything which that day they had done amiss; to deliver them from disobedience and self-will, from pride and waywardness (he had inserted this clause ten years ago for gwendolen's benefit) as well as from the sins that did most easily beset them, for the temptations to which they were especially prone. this clause covered all the things he couldn't mention. it covered his wife, robina's case; it covered essy's; he had dragged alice's case as it were from under it; he had a secret fear that one day it might cover gwendolen's. gwendolen was the child who, he declared and believed, had always given him most trouble. he recalled (perversely) a certain thing that (at thirteen) she had said about this prayer. "it oughtn't to be prayed," she had said. "you don't really think you can fool god that way, papa? if i had a servant who groveled to me like that i'd tell him he must learn to keep his chin up or go." she had said it before robina who had laughed. and mr. cartaret's answer to it had been to turn his back on both of them and leave the room. at least he thought it was his answer. gwendolen had thought that in a flash of intellectual honesty he agreed with her, only that he hadn't quite enough honesty to say so before mummy. all this he recalled, and the question she had pursued him with about that time. "_what_ are the sins that do most easily beset us? _what_ are the temptations to which we are especially prone?" and his own evasive answer. "ask yourself, my child." another year and she had left off asking him questions. she drew back into herself and became every day more self-willed, more solitary, more inaccessible. and now, if he could have seen things as they really were, mr. cartaret would have perceived that he was afraid of gwenda. as it was, he thought he was only afraid of what gwenda might do. alice was capable of some things; but gwenda was capable of anything. * * * * * suddenly, to gwenda's surprise, her father sighed; a dislocating sigh. it came between the benediction and the lord's prayer. for, even as he invoked the blessing mr. cartaret suddenly felt sorry for himself again. his children were no good to him. by which he meant that his third wife, robina, was no good. but he did not know that he visited his wife's shortcomings on their heads, any more than he knew that he hated essy and her sin because he himself was an enforced, reluctant celibate. xxvii the next day at dusk, essy gale slipped out to her mother's cottage down by the beck. mrs. gale had just cleared the table after her tea, had washed up the tea-things and was putting them away in the cupboard when essy entered. she looked round sharply, inimically. essy stood by the doorway, shamefaced. "moother," she said softly, "i want to speaak to yo." mrs. gale struck an attitude of astonishment and fear, although she had expected essy to come at such an hour and with such a look, and only wondered that she had not come four months ago. "yo're nat goain' t' saay as yo've got yoresel into trooble?" for four months mrs. gale had preserved an innocent face before her neighbors and she desired to preserve it to the last possible moment. and up to the last possible moment, even to her daughter, she was determined to ignore what had happened. but she knew and essy knew that she knew. "doan yo saay it, assy. doan yo saay it." essy said nothing. "d'yo 'ear mae speaakin' to yo? caann't yo aanswer? is it thot, assy? is it thot?" "yas, moother, yo knaw 'tis thot." "an' yo dare to coom 'ear and tell mae! yo dirty 'oossy! toorn an' lat's 'ave a look at yo." now that the innocence of her face was gone, mrs. gale had a stern duty to perform by essy. "they've gien yo t' saack?" "t' vicar give it mae." "troost'im! whan did 'e gie it yo?" "yasterda'." "t'moonth's nawtice?" "naw. i aassked 'im t' kape me anoother two moonths an' 'e woonna. i aassked 'im t' kape me over christmas an' 'e woonna. i'm to leaave saturda'." "did yo expact 'im t' kape yo, yo gawpie? did yo think you'd nowt to do but t' laay oop at t' vicarage an' 'ave th yoong laadies t' do yore wark for yo, an' t' waait on yo 'and an' foot? miss gwanda t' mak' yore bafe-tae an' chicken jally and t' vicar t' daandle t' baaby? "'oo's goan t' kape yo? mae? i woonna kape yo an' i canna' kape yo. yo ain' t' baaby! i doan' waant naw squeechin', squallin' brats mookin' oop t' plaace as faast as i clanes it, an' '_e_ woonna kape yo--ef yo're raakonin' on 'im. yo need na tall mae oo t' maan is. i knaw." "'tis'n 'im, moother. 'tis'n 'im." "yo lil blaack liar! '_tis_ 'im. ooo alse could it bae? yo selly! whatten arth possessed yo t' goa an' tak oop wi' jim greatorex? ef yo mun get into trooble yo medda chawsen battern jim. what for did i tak' yo from t' farm an' put yo into t' vicarage ef 't wasn't t' get yo out o' jimmy's road? '_e_'ll naver maarry yo. nat 'e! did 'e saay as 'e'd maarry yo? naw, i warrant yo did na waat fer thot. yo was mad t' roon affter 'im afore 'e called yo. yo dirty cat!" that last taunt drew blood. essy spoke up. "naw, naw. 'e looved mae. 'e wanted mae bad." "'e wanted yo? coorse 'e wanted yo. yo sud na 'ave gien in to 'im, yo softie. d'yo think yo're the only woon thot's tampted? look at mae. i could 'a got into trooble saven times to yore woonce, ef i 'ad'n kaped my 'ead an' respected mysel. yore jim greatorex! ef a maan like jim 'ad laaid a 'and on mae, 'e'd a got soomthin' t' remamber afore i'd 'a gien in to 'im. an' yo've naw 'scuse for disgracin' yoresel. yo was brought oop ralegious an' respactable. did yo aver 'ear saw mooch aa a bad woord?" "it's doon, moother, it's doon. there's naw good taalkin'." "eh! yo saay it's doon, it's doon, an' yo think nowt o' 't. an' nowt yo think o' t' trooble yo're brengin' on mae. i sooppawse yo'll be tallin' mae naxt yo looved 'im! yo looved'im!" at that essy began to cry, softly, in her manner. "doan' yo tall mae _thot_ taale." mrs. gale suddenly paused in her tirade and began to poke the fire with fury. "it's enoof t' sicken t' cat!" she snatched the kettle that stood upon the hob; she stamped out to the scullery and re-filled it at the tap. she returned, stamping, and set it with violence upon the fire. she tore out of the cupboard a teapot, a cup and a saucer, a loaf on a plate and a jar of dripping. still with violence (slightly modulated to spare the comparative fragility of the objects she was handling) she dashed them one by one upon the table where essy, with elbows planted, propped her head upon her hands and wept. mrs. gale sat down herself in the chair facing her, and kept one eye on the kettle and the other on her daughter. from time to time mutterings came from her, breaking the sad rhythm of essy's sobs. "eh dear! i'd like t' knaw what i've doon t' ave _this_ trooble!"-- --"'tis enoof t' raaise yore pore feyther clane out of 'is graave!"-- --"'e'd sooner 'ave seed yo in yore coffin, assy."-- she rose and took down the tea-caddy from the chimney-piece and flung a reckless measure into the tea-pot. "ef 'e'd 'a been a-livin', 'e'd a _killed_ yo. thot's what 'e'd 'a doon." as she said it she grasped the kettle and poured the boiling water into the tea-pot. she set the tea-pot before essy. "there's a coop of tae. an' there's bread an' drippin'. yo'll drink it oop." but essy, desolated, shook her head. "wall," said mrs. gale. "i doan' want ter look at yo. 't mak's mae seek." as if utterly revolted by the sight of her daughter, she turned from her and left the kitchen by the staircase door. her ponderous stamping could be heard going up the staircase and on the floor overhead. there was a sound as of drawers opening and shutting and of a heavy box being dragged from under the bed. essy poured herself out a cup of tea, tried to drink it, choked and pushed it from her. she was still weeping when her mother came to her. mrs. gale came softly. all alone in the room overhead she had evidently been doing something that had pleased her. the ghost of a smile still haunted her bleak face. she carried on her arm tenderly a pile of little garments. these she began to spread out on the table before essy, having first removed the tea-things. "there!" she said. "'tis the lil cleathes fer t' baaby. look, assy, my deear--there's t' lil rawb, wi' t' lil slaves, so pretty--an' t' flanny petticut--an' t' lil vasst--see. 'tis t' lil things i maade fer 'ee afore tha was born." but essy pushed them from her. she was weeping violently now. "taake 'em away!" she cried. "i doan' want t' look at 'em." mrs. gale sat and stared at her. "coom," she said, "tha moos'n' taake it saw 'ard, like." between the sobs essy looked up with her shining eyes. she whispered. "will yo kape mae, moother?" "i sail 'ave t' kape yo. there's nawbody 'll keer mooch fer thot job but yore moother." but essy still wept. once started on the way of weeping, she couldn't stop. then, all of a sudden, mrs. gale's face became distorted. she got up and put her hand heavily on her daughter's shoulder. "there, there, assy, loove," she said. "doan' tha taake on thot road. it's doon, an' it caann't be oondoon." she stood there in a heavy silence. now and again she patted the heaving shoulder, marking time to essy's sobs. then she spoke. "tha'll feel batter whan t' lil baaby cooms." profoundly disturbed and resentful of her own emotion mrs. gale seized upon the tea-pot as a pretext and shut herself up with it in the scullery. * * * * * essy, staggering, rose and dried her eyes. for a moment or so she stared idly at the square window with the blue-black night behind it. then she looked down. she smiled faintly. one by one she took the little garments spread out in front of her. she folded them in a pile. her face was still and dreamy. she opened the scullery door and looked in. "good-night, moother." "good-night, assy." * * * * * it was striking seven as she passed the church. above the strokes of the hour she heard through the half-open door a sound of organ playing and of a big voice singing. and she began to weep again. she knew the singer, and the player too. xxviii christmas was over and gone. it was the last week in january. all through december rowcliffe's visits to the vicarage had continued. but in january they ceased. that was not to be wondered at. even ally couldn't wonder. there was influenza in every other house in the dale. then, one day, gwenda, walking past upthorne, heard wheels behind her and the clanking hoofs of the doctor's horse. she knew what would happen. rowcliffe would pull up a yard or two in front of her. he would ask her where she was going and he would make her drive with him over the moor. and she knew that she would go with him. she would not be able to refuse him. but the clanking hoofs went by and never stopped. there were two men in the trap. acroyd, rowcliffe's groom, sat in rowcliffe's place, driving. he touched his hat to her as he passed her. beside him there was a strange man. she said to herself, "he's away then. i think he might have told me." and ally, passing through the village, had seen the strange man too. "dr. rowcliffe must be away," she said at tea-time. "i wonder if he'll be back by wednesday." wednesday, the last day in january, came, but rowcliffe did not come. the strange man took his place in the surgery. mrs. gale brought the news into the vicarage dining-room at four o'clock. she had taken her daughter's place for the time being. she was a just woman and she bore no grudge against the vicar on essy's account. he had done no more than he was obliged to do. essy had given trouble enough in the vicarage, and she had received a month's wages that she hadn't worked for. mrs. gale was working double to make up for it. and the innocence of her face being gone, she went lowly and humbly, paying for essy, essy's debt of shame. that was her view. "sall i set the tae here, miss gwanda," she enquired. "sence doctor isn't coomin'?" "how do you know he isn't coming?" alice asked. mrs. gale's face was solemn and oppressed. she turned to gwenda, ignoring alice. (mary was upstairs in her room.) "'aven't yo 'eerd, miss gwanda?" gwenda looked up from her book. "no," she said. "he's away, isn't he?" "away? 'el'll nat get away fer long enoof. 'e's too ill." "ill?" alice sent the word out on a terrified breath. nobody took any notice of her. "t' poastman tell mae," said mrs. gale. "from what 'e's 'eerd, 'twas all along o' nad alderson's lil baaby up to morfe. it was took wi' the diptheery a while back. an' doctor, 'e sat oop wi' 't tree nights roonin', 'e did. 'e didn' so mooch as taak 's cleathes off. nad alderson, 'e said, 'e'd navver seen anything like what doctor 'e doon for t' lil' thing." mrs. gale's face reddened and she sniffed. "'e's saaved nad's baaby for 'm, right enoof, dr. rawcliffe 'as. but 'e's down wi't hissel, t' poastman says." it was at gwenda that she gazed. and as gwenda made no sign, mrs. gale, still more oppressed by that extraordinary silence, gave her own feelings way. "mebbe wae sall navver see 'im in t' daale again. it'll goa 'ard, look yo, wi' a girt man like 'im, what's navver saaved 'isself. naw, 'e's navver saaved 'issel." she ceased. she gazed upon both the sisters now. alice, her face white and averted, shrank back in the corner of the sofa. gwenda's face was still. neither of them had spoken. * * * * * mary had tea alone that afternoon. alice had dragged herself upstairs to her bedroom and locked herself in. she had flung herself face downward on her bed. she lay there while the room grew gray and darkened. suddenly she passed from a violent fit of writhing and of weeping into blank and motionless collapses. from time to time she hiccoughed helplessly. but in the moment before mary came downstairs gwenda had slipped on the rough coat that hung on its peg in the passage. her hat was lying about somewhere in the room where alice had locked herself in. she went out bareheaded. there was a movement in the little group of villagers gathered on the bridge before the surgery door. they slunk together and turned their backs on her as she passed. they knew where she was going as well as she did. and she didn't care. she was doing the sort of thing that alice had done, and had suffered for doing. she knew it and she didn't care. it didn't matter what alice had done or ever would do. it didn't matter what she did herself. it was quite simple. nothing mattered to her so long as rowcliffe lived. and if he died nothing would ever matter to her again. * * * * * for she knew now what it was that had happened to her. she could no longer humbug herself into insisting that it hadn't happened. the thing had been secret and treacherous with her, and she had been secret and treacherous with it. she had refused to acknowledge it, not because she had been ashamed of it but because, with the dreadful instance of alice before her eyes, she had been afraid. she had been afraid of how it would appear to rowcliffe. he might see in it something morbid and perverted, something horribly like ally. she went in terror of the taint. where it should have held its head up defiantly and beautifully, it had been beaten back; it cowered and skulked in the dark places and waited for its hour. and now that it showed itself naked, unveiled, unarmed, superbly defenseless, her terror of it ceased. it had received a sanction that had been withheld from it before. until half an hour ago (she was aware of it) there had been something lacking in her feeling. mary and ally (this she was not aware of) got more "out of" rowcliffe, so to speak, than she did. gwenda had known nothing approaching to mary's serene and brooding satisfaction or ally's ecstasy. she dreaded the secret gates, the dreamy labyrinths, the poisonous air of the paradise of fools. in rowcliffe's presence she had not felt altogether safe or altogether happy. but, if she stood on the edge of an abyss, at least she _stood_ there, firm on the solid earth. she could balance herself; she could even lean forward a little and look over, without losing her head, thrilled with the uncertainty and peril of the adventure. and of course it wasn't as if rowcliffe had left her standing. he hadn't. he had held out his hand to her, as it were, and said, "let's get on--get on!" which was as good as saying that, as long as it lasted, it was _their_ adventure, not hers. he had drawn her after him at an exciting pace, along the edge of the abyss, never losing _his_ head for a minute, so that she ought to have felt safe with him. only she hadn't. she had said to herself, "if i knew him better, if i saw what was in him, perhaps i should feel safe." there was something she wanted to see in him; something that her innermost secret self, fastidious and exacting, demanded from him before it would loosen the grip that held her back. and now she knew that it _was_ there. it had been told her in four words: "he never saved himself." she might have known it. for she remembered things, now; how he had nursed old greatorex like a woman; how he had sat up half the night with jim greatorex's mare daisy; how he kept jim greatorex from drinking; and how he had been kind to poor essy when she had the face ache; and gentle to little ally. and now ned alderson's ridiculous baby would live and rowcliffe would die. was _that_ what she had required of him? she felt as if somehow _she_ had done it; as if her innermost secret self, iniquitously exacting, had thrown down the gage into the arena and that he had picked it up. "he saved others. himself he"--never saved. he had become god-like to her. and the passion she had trampled on lifted itself and passed into the phase of adoration. it had received the dangerous sanction of the soul. * * * * * she turned off the high road at the point where, three months ago, she had seen mary cycling up the hill from morfe. now, as then, she descended upon morfe by the stony lane from the moor below karva. it came over her that she was too late, that she would see rows of yellow blinds drawn down in the long front of rowcliffe's house. the blinds were up. the windows looked open-eyed upon the green. she noticed that one of them on the first floor was half open, and she said to herself, "he is up there, in that room, dying of diphtheria." the sound of the bell, muffled funereally, at the back of the house, fulfilled her premonition. the door opened wide. the maid stood back from it to let her pass in. "how is dr. rowcliffe?" her voice sounded abrupt and brutal, as it tore its way from her tense throat. the maid raised her eyebrows. she held the door wider. "would you like to see him, miss?" "yes." her throat closed on the word and choked it. down at the end of the passage, where it was dark, a door opened, the door of the surgery, and a man came out, went in as if to look for something, and came out again. as he moved there in the darkness she thought it was the strange doctor and that he had come out to forbid her seeing rowcliffe. he would say that she mustn't risk the infection. as if she cared about the risk. perhaps he wouldn't see her. he, too, might say she mustn't risk it. while the surgery door opened and shut, opened and shut again, she saw that her seems him was of all things the most unlikely. she remembered the house at upthorne, and she knew that rowcliffe was lying dead in the room upstairs. and the man there was coming out to stop her. * * * * * only--in that case--why hadn't they drawn the blinds down? xxix she was still thinking of the blinds when she saw that the man who came towards her was rowcliffe. he was wearing his rough tweed suit and his thick boots, and he had the look of the open air about him. "is that you, miss cartaret? good!" he grasped her hand. he behaved exactly as if he had expected her. he never even wondered what she had come for. she might have come to say that her father or one of her sisters was dying, and would he go at once; but none of these possibilities occurred to him. he didn't want to account for her coming to him. it was natural and beautiful that she should come. then, as she stepped into the lighted passage, he saw that she was bareheaded and that her eyelashes were parted and gathered into little wet points. he took her arm gently and led her into his study and shut the door. they faced each other there. "i say--is anything wrong?" "i thought you were ill." she hadn't grasped the absurdity of it yet. she was still under the spell of the illusion. "i? ill? good heavens, no!" "they told me in the village you'd got diphtheria. and i came to know if it was true. it _isn't_ true?" he smiled; an odd little embarrassed smile; almost as if he were owning that it was or had been true. "_is_ it?" she persisted as he went on smiling. "of course it isn't." she frowned as if she were annoyed with him for not being ill. "then what was that other man here for?" "harker? oh, he just took my place for a day or two while i had a sore throat." "you _had_ a throat then?" thus she accused him. "and you _did_ sit up for three nights with ned alderson's baby?" she defied him to deny it. "that's nothing. anybody would. i had to." "and--you saved the baby?" he shrugged his shoulders. "i don't know. some thing or other pulled the little beggar through." "and you might have got it?" "i might but i didn't." "you _did_ get a throat. and it _might_ have been diphtheria." thus by accusing him she endeavored to justify herself. "it might," he said, "but it wasn't. i had to knock off work till i was sure." "and you're sure now?" "i can tell you _you_ wouldn't be here if i wasn't." "and they told me you were dying." (she was utterly disgusted.) at that he laughed aloud. an irresistible, extravagantly delighted laugh. when he stopped he choked and began all over again; the idea of his dying was so funny; so was her disgust. "that," she said, "was why i came." "then i'm glad they told you." "i'm not," said she. he laughed again at her sudden funny dignity. then, as suddenly, he was grave. "i say--it _was_ nice of you." she held out her hand. "and now--as you're not dead--i'm off." "oh no, you're not. you're going to stay and have tea and i'm going to walk back with you." she stayed. * * * * * they walked over the moor by karva. and as they went he talked to her as he hadn't talked before. it was all about himself and his tone was very serious. he talked about his work and (with considerable reservations and omissions) about his life in leeds, and about his ambition. he told her what he had done and why he had done it and what he was going to do. he wasn't going to stay in garthdale all his life. not he. presently he would want to get to the center of things. (he forgot to mention that this was the first time he had thought of it.) nothing would satisfy him but a big london practice and a name. he might--ultimately--specialise. if he did he rather thought it would be gynæcology. he was interested in women's cases. or it might be nervous diseases. he wasn't sure. anyhow, it must be something big. for under gwenda cartaret's eyes his romantic youth became fiery and turbulent inside him. it not only urged him to tremendous heights, it made him actually feel that he would reach them. for a solid three-quarters of an hour, walking over the moor by karva, he had ceased to be one of the obscurest of obscure little country doctors. he was sir steven rowcliffe, the great gynæcologist, or the great neurologist (as the case might be) with a row of letters after his name and a whole column under it in the medical directory. and gwenda cartaret's eyes never for a moment contradicted him. they agreed with every one of his preposterous statements. she didn't know that it was only his romantic youth and that he never had been and never would be more youthful than he was for that three-quarters of an hour. on the contrary, to _her_ youth he seemed to have left youth behind him, and to have grown suddenly serious and clear-sighted and mature. and then he stopped, right on the moor, as if he were suddenly aware of his absurdity. "i say," he said, "what must you think of me? gassing about myself like that." "i think," she said, "it's awfully nice of you." "i don't suppose i shall do anything really big. do you?" she was silent. "honestly now, do you think i shall?" "i think the things you've done already, the things that'll never be heard of, are really big." his silence said, "they are not enough for me," and hers, "for me they are enough." "but the other things," he insisted--"the things i want to do----do you think i'll do them?" "i think"--she said slowly--"in fact i'm certain that you'll do them, if you really mean to." "that's what you think of me?" "that's what i think of you." "then it's all right," he said. "for what i think of _you_ is that you'd never say a thing you didn't really mean." they parted at the turn of the road, where, as he again reminded her, he had seen her first. going home by himself over the moor, rowcliffe wondered whether he hadn't missed his opportunity. he might have told her that he cared for her. he might have asked her if she cared. if he hadn't, it was only because there was no need to be precipitate. he felt rather than knew that she was sure of him. plenty of time. plenty of time. he was so sure of _her_. xxx plenty of time. the last week of january passed. through the first weeks of february rowcliffe was kept busy, for sickness was still in the dale. whether he required it or not, rowcliffe had a respite from decision. no opportunity arose. if he looked in at the vicarage on wednesdays it was to drink a cup of tea in a hurry while his man put his horse in the trap. he took his man with him now on his longer rounds to save time and trouble. once in a while he would meet gwenda cartaret or overtake her on some road miles from garth, and he would make her get up and drive on with him, or he would give her a lift home. it pleased her to be taken up and driven. she liked the rapid motion and the ways of the little brown horse. she even loved the noise he made with his clanking hoofs. rowcliffe said it was a beastly trick. he made up his mind about once a week that he'd get rid of him. but somehow he couldn't. he was fond of the little brown horse. he'd had him so long. and she said to herself. "he's faithful then. of course. he would be." it was almost as if he had wanted her to know it. then april came and the long spring twilights. the sick people had got well. rowcliffe had whole hours on his hands that he could have spent with gwenda now, if he had known. and as yet he did not altogether know. there was something about gwenda cartaret for which rowcliffe with all his sureness and all his experience was unprepared. their whole communion rested and proceeded on undeclared, unacknowledged, unrealised assumptions, and it was somehow its very secrecy that made it so secure. rather than put it to the test he was content to leave their meetings to luck and his own imperfect ingenuity. he knew where and at what times he would have the best chance of finding her. sometimes, returning from his northerly rounds, he would send the trap on, and walk back to morfe by karva, on the chance. once, when the moon was up, he sighted her on the farther moors beyond upthorne, when he got down and walked with her for miles, while his man and the trap waited for him in garth. once, and only once, driving by himself on the rathdale moors beyond morfe, he overtook her, picked her up and drove her through morfe (to the consternation of its inhabitants) all the way to garth and to the very gate of the vicarage. but that was reckless. * * * * * and in all those hours, for his opportunities counted by hours now, he had never found his moment. there was plenty of time, and their isolation (his and hers) in garthdale left him dangerously secure. all the same, by april rowcliffe was definitely looking for the moment, the one shining moment, that must sooner or later come. it was, indeed, always coming. over and over again he had caught sight of it; it signaled, shining; he had been ready to seize it, when something happened, something obscured it, something put him off. he never knew what it was at the time, but when he looked back on these happenings he discovered that it was always something that gwenda cartaret did. you would have said that no scene on earth could have been more favorable to a lover's enterprise than these long, deserted roads and the vast, twilit moors; and that a young woman could have found nothing to distract her from her lover there. but it was not so. on the open moors, as often as not, they had to go single file through the heather, along a narrow sheep track, rowcliffe leading; and it is difficult, not to say impossible, to command the attention of a young woman walking in your rear. and a thousand things distracted gwenda: the cry of a mountain sheep, the sound and sight of a stream, the whirr of dark wings and the sudden "krenk-er-renk-errenk!" of the grouse shooting up from the heather. and on the high roads where they went abreast she was apt to be carried away by the pageant of earth and sky; the solid darkness that came up from the moor; the gray, aerial abysses of the dale; the awful, blank withdrawal of greffington edge into the night. she was off, heaven knew where, at the lighting of a star in the thin blue; the movement of a cloud excited her; or she was held enchanted by the pale aura of moonrise along the rampart of greffington edge. she shared the earth's silence and the throbbing passion of the earth as the orbed moon swung free. and in her absorption, her estranging ecstasy, rowcliffe at last found something inimical. * * * * * he told himself that it was an affectation in her, or a lure to draw him after her, as it would have been in any other woman. the little red-haired nurse would have known how to turn the earth and the moon to her own purposes and his. but all the time he knew that it was not so. there was no purpose in it at all, and it was unaware of him and of his purposes. gwenda's joy was pure and profound and sufficient to itself. he gathered that it had been with her before he came and that it would remain with her after he had gone. he hated to think that she should know any joy that had not its beginning and its end in him. it took her from him. as long as it lasted he was faced with an incomprehensible and monstrous rivalry. and as a man might leave a woman to his uninteresting rival in the certainty that she will be bored and presently return to him, rowcliffe left gwenda to the earth and moon. he sulked and was silent. * * * * * then, suddenly, he made up his mind. xxxi it was one night in april. he had met her at the crossroads on morfe green, and walked home with her by the edge of the moor. it had blown hard all day, and now the wind had dropped, but it had left darkness and commotion in the sky. the west was a solid mass of cloud that drifted slowly in the wake of the departing storm, its hindmost part shredded to mist before the path of the hidden moon. for, mercifully, the moon was hidden. rowcliffe knew his moment. he meditated--the fraction of a second too long. "i wonder----" he began. just then the rear of the cloud opened and cast out the moon, sheeted in the white mist that she had torn from it. and then, before he knew where he was, he was quarreling with gwenda. "oh, look at the moon!" she cried. "all bowed forward with the cloud wrapped round her head. something's calling her across the sky, but the mist holds her and the wind beats her back--look how she staggers and charges head-downward. she's fighting the wind. and she goes--she goes!" "she doesn't go," said rowcliffe. "at least you can't see her going, and the cloud isn't wrapped round her head, it's nowhere near her. and the wind isn't driving her, it's driving the cloud on. it's the cloud that's going. why can't you see things as they are?" she was detestable to him in that moment. "because nobody sees them as they are. and you're spoiling the idea." "the idea being so much more valuable than the truth." he longed to say cruel and biting things to her. "it isn't valuable to anybody but me, so you might have left it to me." "oh, i'll leave it to you, if you're in love with it." "i'm not in love with it because it's mine. anyhow, if i _am_ in love i'm in love with the moon and not with my idea of the moon." "you don't know how to be in love with anything--even the moon. but i suppose it's all right as long as you're happy." "of course i'm happy. why shouldn't i be?" "because you haven't got anything to make you happy." "oh, haven't i?" "you might have. but you haven't. you're too obstinate to be happy." "but i've just told you that i _am_ happy." "what have you _got?_" he persisted. "i've got heaps of things. i've got my two hands and my two feet. i've got my brain----" "so have i. and yet----" "it's absurd to say i've 'got' these things. they're me. happiness isn't in the things you've got. it's either in you or it isn't." "it generally isn't. go on. what else? you've got the moon and your idea of the moon. i don't see that you've got much more." "anyhow, i've got my liberty." "your liberty--if that's all you want!" "it's pretty nearly all. it covers most things." "it does if you're an incurable egoist." "you think i'm an egoist? and incurable?" "it doesn't matter what i think." "not much. if you think that." silence. and then rowcliffe burst out again. "there are two things that i can't stand--a woman nursing a dog and a woman in love with the moon. they mean the same thing. and it's horrible." "why?" "because if it's humbug she's a hypocrite, and if it's genuine she's a monster." "and if i'm in love with the moon--and you said i was----" "i didn't. you said it yourself." "not at all. i said _if_ i was in love with the moon, i'd be in love with _it_ and not with my idea of it. i want reality." "so do i. we're not likely to get it if we can't see it." "no. if you're only in love with what you see." "oh, you're too clever. too clever for me." "am i too clever for myself?" "probably." he laughed abominably. "i don't see the joke." "if you don't see it this minute you'll see it in another ten years." "now," she said, "you're too clever for _me_." they walked on in silence again. the mist gathered and dripped about them. abruptly she spoke. "has anything happened?" "no, it hasn't." "i mean--anything horrid?" her voice sounded such genuine distress that he dropped his hostile and contemptuous tone. "no," he said, "why should it?" "because i've noticed that, when people are unusually horrid, it always means that something horrid's happened to them." "really?" "papa, for instance, is only horrid to us because mummy--my stepmother, you know--was horrid to him." "what did mummy do to him?" "she ran away from him. it's always that way. people aren't horrid on purpose. at least i'm sure _you_ wouldn't be." "_was_ i horrid?" "well--for the last half-hour----" "you see, i find you a little exasperating at times." "not always?" "no. not by any means always." "can i tell when i am? or when i'm going to be?" he laughed (not at all abominably). "no. i don't think you can. that's rather what i resent in you." "i wish i could tell. then perhaps i might avoid it. you might just give me warning when you think i'm going to be it." "i did give you warning." "when?" "when it began." "there you are. i don't know when it did begin. what were we talking about?" "i wasn't talking about anything. you were talking about the moon." "it was the moon that did it." "i suppose it was the moon." "i see. i bored you. how awful." "i didn't say you bored me. you never have bored me. you couldn't bore me." "no--i just irritate you and drive you mad." "you just irritate me and drive me mad." the words were brutal but the voice caressed her. he took her by the arm and steered her amicably round a hidden boulder. "do you know many women?" she asked. the question was startling by reason of its context. the better to consider it rowcliffe withdrew his protecting arm. "no," he said, "not very many." "but those you do know you get on with? you get on all right with mary?" "yes. i get on all right with 'mary.'" "you'd be horrid if you didn't. mary's a dear." "well--i know where i am with _her_." "and you get on all right--really--with papa, as long as i'm not there." "as long as you're not there, yes." "so that," she pursued, "_i'm_ the horrid thing that's happened to you? it looks like it." "it feels like it. let's say you're the horrid thing that's happened to me, and leave it at that." they left it. rowcliffe had a sort of impression that he had said all that he had had to say. xxxii the vicar had called gwenda into his study one day. "what's this i hear," he said, "of you and young rowcliffe scampering about all over the country?" the vicar had drawn a bow at a venture. he had not really heard anything, but he had seen something; two forms scrambling hand in hand up karva; not too distant to be recognisable as young rowcliffe and his daughter gwenda, yet too distant to be pleasing to the vicar. it was their distance that made them so improper. "i don't know, papa," said gwenda. "perhaps you know what was said about your sister alice? do you want the same thing to be said about you?" "it won't be, papa. unless you say it yourself." she had him there; for what was said about alice had been said first of all by him. "what do you mean, gwenda?" "i mean that i'm a little different from alice." "are you? _are_ you? when you're doing the same thing?" "let me see. what _was_ the dreadful thing that ally did? she ran after young rickards, didn't she? well--if you'd really seen us scampering you'd know that i'm generally running away from young rowcliffe and that young rowcliffe is generally running after me. he says it's as much as he can do to keep up with me." "gwenda," said the vicar solemnly. "i won't have it." "how do you propose to stop it, papa?" "you'll see how." (it was thus that his god lured the vicar to destruction. for he had no plan. he knew that he couldn't move into another parish.) "it's no good locking me up in my room," said gwenda, "for i can get out at the window. and you can't very well lock young rowcliffe up in his surgery." "i can forbid him the house." "that's no good either so long as he doesn't forbid me his." "you can't go to him there, my girl." "i can do anything when i'm driven." the vicar groaned. "you're right," he said. "you _are_ different from alice. you're worse than she is--ten times worse. _you_'d stick at nothing. i've always known it." "so have i." the vicar leaned against the chimney-piece and hid his face in his hands to shut out the shame of her. and then gwenda had pity on him. "it's all right, papa. i'm not going to dr. rowcliffe, because there's no need. you're not going to lock him up in his surgery and you're not going to forbid him the house. you're not going to do anything. you're going to listen to me. it's not a bit of good trying to bully me. you'll be beaten every time. you can bully alice as much as you like. you can bully her till she's ill. you can shut her up in her bedroom and lock the door and i daresay she won't get out at the window. but even alice will beat you in the end. of course there's mary. but i shouldn't try it on with mary either. she's really more dangerous than i am, because she looks so meek and mild. but she'll beat you, too, if you begin bullying her." the vicar raised his stricken head. "gwenda," he said, "you're terrible." "no, papa, i'm not terrible. i'm really awfully kind. i'm telling you these things for your good. don't you worry. i shan't run very far after young rowcliffe." xxxiii left to himself, the vicar fairly wallowed in his gloom. he pressed his hands tightly to his face, crushing into darkness the image of his daughter gwenda that remained with him after the door had shut between them. it came over him with the very shutting of the door not only that there never was a man so cursed in his children (that thought had occurred to him before) but that, of the three, gwenda was the one in whom the curse was, so to speak, most active, through whom it was most likely to fall on him at any moment. in alice it could be averted. he knew, he had always known, how to deal with alice. and it would be hard to say exactly where it lurked in mary. therefore, in his times of profoundest self-commiseration, the vicar overlooked the existence of his daughter mary. he was an artist in gloom and mary's sweetness and goodness spoiled the picture. but in gwenda the curse was imminent and at the same time incalculable. alice's behavior could be fairly predicted and provided for. there was no knowing what gwenda would do next. the fear of what she might do hung forever over his head, and it made him jumpy. and yet in this sense of cursedness the vicar had found shelter for his self-esteem. and now his fear, his noble and righteous fear of what gwenda might do, his conviction that she would do something, disguised more than ever his humiliating fear of gwenda. she was, as he had said, terrible. there was no dealing with gwenda; there never had been. patience failed before her will and wisdom before the deadly thrust of her intelligence. she had stabbed him in several places before she had left the room. * * * * * the outcome of his brooding (it would have shocked the vicar if he could have traced its genesis) was an extraordinary revulsion in rowcliffe's favor. so far from shutting the vicarage door in the young man's face, the vicar was, positively he was, inclined to open it. he couldn't stand the idea of other people marrying since he wasn't really married himself, and couldn't be as long as robina persisted in being alive (thus cruelly was he held up by that unscrupulous and pitiless woman) and the idea of any of his daughters marrying was peculiarly disagreeable to him. he didn't know why it was disagreeable, and it would have shocked him unspeakably if you had told him why. and if you had asked him he would have had half a dozen noble and righteous reasons ready for you at his finger-ends. but the vicar with his eyes shut could see clearly that if gwenda married rowcliffe the unpleasant event would have its compensation. he would be rid of an everlasting source of unpleasantness at home. he didn't say to himself that his egoism would be rid of an everlasting fear. he said that if rowcliffe married gwenda he would keep her straight. and then another consoling thought struck him. he could deal with alice more effectually than ever. neither mary nor alice knew what he knew. they hadn't dreamed that it was gwenda that young rowcliffe wanted. he would use his knowledge to bring alice to her senses. * * * * * it was on a wednesday that he dealt with her. he was coming in some hours earlier than usual from his rounds when she delivered herself into his hands by appearing at the foot of the staircase with her hair extravagantly dressed, and wearing what he took, rightly, to be a new blue gown. he opened the study door, and, with a treacherous smile, invited her to enter. then he looked at her. "is that another new dress you've got on?" he inquired, still with his bland treachery. "yes, papa," said alice. "do you like it?" the vicar drew himself up, squared his shoulders and smiled again, not quite so blandly. his attitude gave him a sensation of exquisite and powerful virility. "do i like it? i should, perhaps, if i were a millionaire." "it didn't cost so much as all that," said alice. "i'm not asking you what it cost. but i think you must have anticipated your next allowance." alice stared with wide eyes of innocence. "what if i did? it won't make any difference in the long run." the vicar, with his hands plunged in his trousers pockets, jerked forward at her from the waist. it was his gesture when he thrust. "for all the difference it'll make to _you_, my dear child, you might have spared yourself the trouble and expense." he paused. "has young rowcliffe been here to-day?" "no," said alice defiantly, "he hasn't." "you expected him?" "i daresay mary did." "i'm not asking what mary did. did you expect him or did you not?" "he _said_ he might turn up." "he said he might turn up. you expected him. and he hasn't turned up. and you can't think why. isn't that so?" "i don't know what you mean, papa." "i mean, my child, that you're living in a fool's paradise." "i haven't a notion what you mean by _that_." "perhaps gwenda can enlighten you." the color died in ally's scared face. "i can't see," she said, "what gwenda's got to do with it." "she's got something to do with young rowcliffe's not turning up, i think. i met the two of them half way between upthorne and bar hill at half past four." he took out his watch. "and it's ten past six now." he sat down, turning his chair so as not to see her face. he did not, at the moment, care to look at her. "you might go and ask mrs. gale to send me in a cup of tea." alice went out. xxxiv "it's a quarter past six now," she said to herself. "they must come back from bar hill by upthorne. i shall meet them at upthorne if i start now." she slipped her rough coat over the new gown and started. her fear drove her, and she went up the hill at an impossible pace. she trembled, staggered, stood still and went on again. the twilight of the unborn moon was like the horrible twilight of dreams. she walked as she had walked in nightmares, with knees, weak as water, that sank under her at every step. she passed the schoolhouse with its beckoning ash-tree. the schoolhouse stirred the pain under her heart. she remembered the shining night when she had shown herself there and triumphed. the pain then was so intolerable that her mind revolted from it as from a thing that simply could not be. the idea by which she lived asserted itself against the menace of destruction. it was not so much an idea as an instinct, blind, obstinate, immovable. it had behind it the wisdom and the persistence of life. it refused to believe where belief meant death to it. she said to herself, "he's lying. he's lying. he's made it all up. he never met them." * * * * * she had passed the turn of the hill. she had come to the high towers, sinister and indistinct, to the hollow walls and haunted arcades of the dead mining station. upthorne was hidden by the shoulder of the hill. she stopped suddenly, there where the road skirted the arcades. she was struck by a shock of premonition, an instinct older and profounder than that wisdom of the blood. she had the sense that what was happening now, her coming, like this, to the towers and the arcades, had happened before, and was so related to what was about to happen that she knew this also and with the same shock of recognition. it would happen when she had come to the last arch of the colonnade. it was happening now. she had come to the last arch. * * * * * that instant she was aware of rowcliffe and gwenda coming toward her down the hill. their figures were almost indiscernible in the twilight. it was by their voices that she knew them. before they could see her she had slipped out of their path behind the shelter of the arch. she knew them by their voices. yet their voices had something in them that she did not know, something that told her that they had been with each other many times before; that they understood each other; that they were happy in each other and absorbed. the pain was no longer inside her heart but under it. it was dull rather than sharp, yet it moved there like a sharp sickle, a sickle that gathered and ground the live flesh it turned in and twisted. a sensation of deadly sickness made her draw farther yet into the corner of the arcade, feeling her way in the darkness with her hand on the wall. she stumbled on a block of stone, sank on it and cowered there, sobbing and shivering. down in garth village the church clock struck the half hour and the quarter and the hour. at the half hour blenkiron, the blacksmith, put rowcliffe's horse into the trap. the sound of the clanking hoofs came up the hill. rowcliffe heard them first. "there's something wrong down there," he said. "they're coming for me." in his heart he cursed them. for it was there, at the turn of the road, below the arches, that he had meant to say what he had not said the other night. there was no moon. the moment was propitious. and there (just like his cursed luck) was blenkiron with the trap. they met above the schoolhouse as the clock struck the quarter. "you're wanted, sir," said the blacksmith, "at mrs. gale's." "is it essy?" "ay, it's assy." * * * * * in the cottage down by the beck essy groaned and cried in her agony. and on the road to upthorne, under the arches by the sinister towers, alice cartaret, crouching on her stone, sobbed and shivered. not long after seven essy's child was born. * * * * * just before ten the three sisters sat waiting, as they had always waited, bored and motionless, for the imminent catastrophe of prayers. "i wonder how essy's getting on," said gwenda. "poor little essy!" mary said. "she's as pleased as punch," said gwenda. "it's a boy. ally--did you know that essy's had a baby?" "i don't care if she has," said ally violently. "it's got nothing to do with me. i wish you wouldn't talk about her beastly baby." as the vicar came out of his study into the dining-room, he fixed his eyes upon his youngest daughter. "what's the matter with you?" he said. "nothing's the matter," said alice defiantly. "why?" "you look," he said, "as if somebody was murdering you." xxxv ally was ill; so ill this time that even the vicar softened to her. he led her upstairs himself and made her go to bed and stay there. he would have sent for rowcliffe but that ally refused to see him. her mortal apathy passed for submission. she took her milk from her father's hand without a murmur. "there's a good girl," he said, as she drank it down. but it didn't do her any good. nothing did. the illness itself was no good to her, considering that she didn't want to be ill this time. she wanted to die. and of course she couldn't die. it would have been too much happiness and they wouldn't let her have it. at first she resented what she called their interference. she declared, as she had declared before, that there was nothing the matter with her. she was only tired. couldn't they see that she was tired? that _they_ tired her? "why can't you leave me alone? if only you'd go away," she moaned, "--all of you--and leave me alone." but very soon she was too tired even to be irritable. she lay quiet, sunk in the hollow of her bed, and kept her eyes shut, so that she never knew, she said, whether they were there or not. and it didn't matter. nothing mattered so long as she could just lie there. it was only when they talked of sending for rowcliffe that they roused her. then she sat up and became, first vehement, then violent. "you shan't send for him," she cried. "i won't see him. if he comes into the house i'll crawl out of it." * * * * * one day (it was the last wednesday in april) gwenda came to her and told her that rowcliffe was there and had asked to see her. ally's pale eyes lightened and grew large. they were transparent as glass in her white face. "did _you_ send for him?" "no." "who did then?" "papa." she closed her eyes. the old sense of ecstasy came over her, of triumph too, of solemn triumph, as if she, whom they thought so insignificant, had vindicated her tragic dignity at last. for if her father had sent for rowcliffe it could only mean that she was really dying. nothing else--nothing short of that--would have made him send. and of course that was what she wanted, that rowcliffe should see her die. he wouldn't forget her then. he would be compelled to think of her. "you _will_ see him, won't you, ally?" ally smiled her little triumphant and mysterious smile. "oh yes, i'll see him." * * * * * the vicar did not go on his rounds that afternoon. he stayed at home to talk to rowcliffe. the two were shut up together in his study for more than half an hour. as they entered the drawing-room at tea-time it could be seen from their manner and their faces that something had gone wrong. the vicar bore himself like a man profoundly aggrieved, not to say outraged, in his own house, who nevertheless was observing a punctilious courtesy towards the offending guest. rowcliffe's shoulders and his jaw were still squared in the antagonism that had closed their interview. he too observed the most perfect courtesy. only by the consummate restraint of his manner did he show how impossible he had found the vicar, while his face betrayed a grave preoccupation in which the vicar counted not at all. mary began to talk to him about the weather. neither she nor gwenda dared ask him what he thought of alice. and in ten minutes he was gone. the vicar went with him to the gate. still standing as they had stood to take leave of rowcliffe, the sisters looked at each other. mary spoke first. "whatever _can_ papa have said to him?" this time gwenda knew what mary was thinking. "it isn't that," she said. "it's something he's said to papa." xxxvi that night, about nine o'clock, gwenda came for the third time to rowcliffe at his house. she was shown into his study, where rowcliffe was reading. though the servant had prepared him for her, he showed signs of agitation. gwenda's eyes were ominously somber and she had the white face of a ghost, a face that to rowcliffe, as he looked at it, recalled the white face of alice. he disliked alice's face, he always had disliked it, he disliked it more than ever at that moment; yet the sight of this face that was so like it carried him away in an ecstasy of tenderness. he adored it because of that likeness, because of all that the likeness revealed to him and signified. and it increased, quite unendurably, his agitation. gwenda was supernaturally calm. in another instant the illusion that her presence had given him passed. he saw what she had come for. "has anything gone wrong?" he asked. she drew in her breath sharply. "it's alice." "yes, i know it's alice. _is_ anything wrong?" he said. "what is it?" "i don't know. i want you to tell me. that's what i've come for. i'm frightened." "d'you mean, is she worse?" she did not answer him. she looked at him as if she were trying to read in his eyes something that he was trying not to tell her. "yes," he said, "she _is_ worse." "i know that," she said impatiently. "i can see it. you've got to tell me more." "but i _have_ told you. you _know_ i have," he pleaded. "i know you tried to tell me." "didn't i succeed?" "you told me why she was ill--i know all that----" "do sit down." he turned from her and dragged the armchair forward. "there." he put a cushion at her back. "that's better." as she obeyed him she kept her eyes on him. the book he had been reading lay where he had put it down, on the hearthrug at her feet. its title, "_Ã�tat mental des hystériques_;" janet, stared at him. he picked it up and flung it out of sight as if it had offended him. with all his movements her head lifted and turned so that her eyes followed him. he sat down and gazed at her quietly. "well," he said, "and what didn't i tell you?" "you didn't tell me how it would end." he was silent. "is that what you told father?" "hasn't he said anything?" "he hasn't said a word. and you went away without saying anything." "there isn't much to say that you don't know----" "i know why she was ill. you told me. but i don't know why she's worse. she _was_ better. she was quite well. she was running about doing things and looking so pretty--only the other day. and look at her now." "it's like that," said rowcliffe. "it comes and goes." he said it quietly. but the blood rose into his face and forehead in a painful flush. "but why? why?" she persisted. "it's so horribly sudden." "it's like that, too," said rowcliffe. "if it's like that now what is it going to be? how is it going to end? that's what you _won't_ tell me." "it's difficult----" he began. "i don't care how difficult it is or how you hate it. you've got to." all he said to that was "you're very fond of her?" her upper lip trembled. "yes. but i don't think i knew it until now." "that's what makes it difficult." "my not knowing it?" "no. your being so fond of her." "isn't that just the reason why i ought to know?" "yes. i think it is. only----" she held him to it. "is she going to die?" "i don't say she's _going_ to die. but--in the state she's in--she _might_ get anything and die of it if something isn't done to make her happy." "happy----" "i mean of course--to get her married. after all, you know, you've got to face the facts." "you think she's dying now, and you're afraid to tell me." "no--i'm afraid i think--she's not so likely to die as to go out of her mind." "did you tell my father that?" "yes." "what did he say?" "he said she was out of her mind already." "she isn't!" "of course she isn't. no more than you and i. he talks about putting the poor child under restraint----" "oh----" "it's preposterous. but he'll make it necessary if he continues his present system. what i tried to impress on him is that she _will_ go out of her mind if she's kept shut up in that old vicarage much longer. and that she'd be all right--perfectly all right--if she was married. as far as i can make out he seems to be doing his best to prevent it. well--in her case--that's simply criminal. the worse of it is i can't make him see it. he's annoyed with me." "he never will see anything he doesn't like." "there's no reason why he should dislike it so much--i mean her illness. there's nothing awful about it." "there's nothing awful about ally. she's as good as gold." "i know she's as good as gold. and she'd be as strong as iron if she was married and had children. i've seen no end of women like that, and i'm not sure they don't make the best wives and mothers. i told your father that. but it's no good trying to tell him the truth." "no. it's the one thing he can't stand." "he seems," said rowcliffe, "to have such an extraordinary distaste for the subject. he approaches it from an impossible point of view--as if it was sin or crime or something. he talks about her controlling herself, as if she could help it. why, she's no more responsible for being like that than i am for the shape of my nose. i'm afraid i told him that if anybody was responsible _he_ was, for bringing her to the worst place imaginable." "he did that on purpose." "i know. and i told him he might as well have put her in a lunatic asylum at once." he meditated. "it's not as if he hadn't anybody but himself to think of." "that's no good. he never does think of anybody but himself. and yet he'd be awfully sorry, you know, if ally died." they sat silent, not looking at each other, until gwenda spoke again. "dr. rowcliffe--" he smiled as if it amused him to be addressed so formally. "do you _really_ mean it, or are you frightening us? will ally really die--or go mad--if she isn't--happy?" he was grave again. "i really mean it. it's a rather serious case. but it's only 'if.' as i told you, there are scores of women--" but she waived them all away. "i only wanted to know." her voice stopped suddenly, and he thought that she was going to break down. "you mustn't take it so hard," he said. "it's not as if it wasn't absolutely curable. you must take her away." suddenly he remembered that he didn't particularly want gwenda to go away. he couldn't, in fact, bear the thought of it. "better still," he said, "send her away. is there anybody you could send her to?" "only mummy--my stepmother." she smiled through her tears. "papa would never let ally go to _her_." "why not?" "because she ran away from him." he tried not to laugh. "she's really quite decent, though you mightn't think it." rowcliffe smiled. "and she's fond of ally. she's fond of all of us--except papa. and," she added, "she knows a lot of people." he smiled again. he pictured the third mrs. cartaret as a woman of affectionate gaiety and a pleasing worldliness, so well surrounded by adorers of his own sex that she could probably furnish forth her three stepdaughters from the numbers of those she had no use for. he was more than ever disgusted with the vicar who had driven from him a woman so admirably fitted to play a mother's part. "she sounds," he said, "as if she'd be the very one." "she would be. it's an awful pity." "well," he said, "we won't talk any more about it now. we'll think of something. we simply _must_ get her away." he was thinking that he knew of somebody--a doctor's widow--who also would be fitted. if they could afford to pay her. and if they couldn't, he would very soon have the right---- that was what his "we" meant. presently he excused himself and went out to see, he said, about getting her some tea. he judged that if she were left alone for a moment she would pull herself together and be as ready as ever for their walk back to garthdale. * * * * * it was in that moment when he left her that she made her choice. not that when her idea had come to her she had known a second's hesitation. she didn't know when it had come. it seemed to her that it had been with her all through their awful interview. it was she and not ally who would have to go away. she could see it now. it had been approaching her, her idea, from the very instant that she had come into the room and had begun to speak to him. and with every word that _he_ had said it had come closer. but not until her final appeal to him had she really faced it. then it became clear. it crystallised. there was no escaping from the facts. ally would die or go mad if she didn't marry. ally (though rowcliffe didn't know it) was in love with him. and, even if she hadn't been, as long as they stayed in garthdale there was nobody but rowcliffe whom she could marry. it was her one chance. and there were three of them there. three women to one man. and since _she_ was the one--she knew it--who stood between him and ally, it was she who would have to go away. it seemed to her that long ago--all the time, in fact, ever since she had known rowcliffe--she had known that this was what she would have to face. she faced it now with a strange courage and a sort of spiritual exaltation, as she would have faced any terrible truth that rowcliffe had told her, if, for instance, he had told her that she was going to die. that, of course, was what it felt like. she had known that it would feel like that. and, as sometimes happens to people who are going to die and know it, there came to her a peculiar vivid and poignant sense of her surroundings. of rowcliffe's room and the things in it,--the chair he had sat in, the pipe he had laid aside, the book he had been reading and that he had flung away. outside the open window the trees of the little orchard, whitened by the moonlight, stood as if fixed in a tender, pure and supernatural beauty. she could see the flags on the path and the stones in the gray walls. they stood out with a strange significance and importance. as if near and yet horribly far away, she could hear rowcliffe's footsteps in the passage. it came over her that she was sitting in rowcliffe's room--like this--for the last time. then her heart dragged and tore at her, as if it fought against her will to die. but it never occurred to her that this dying of hers was willed by her. it seemed foredoomed, inevitable. * * * * * and now she was looking up in rowcliffe's face and smiling at him as he brought her her tea. "that's right," he said. he was entirely reassured by her appearance. "look here, shall i drive you back or do you feel like another four-mile walk?" she hesitated. "it's late," he said. "but no matter. let's be reckless." "there's no need. i've got my bicycle." "then i'll get mine." she rose. "don't. i'm going back alone." "you're not. i'm coming with you. i want to come." "if you don't mind, i'd rather you didn't--to-night." "i'll drive you, then. i can't let you go alone." "but i _want_," she said, "to be alone." he stood looking at her with a sort of sullen tenderness. "you're not going to worry about what i told you?" "you didn't tell me. i knew." "then----" but she persisted. "no. i shall be all right," she said. "there's a moon." in the end he let her have her way. moon or no moon he saw that it was not his moment. xxxvii what gwenda had to do she did quickly. she wrote to the third mrs. cartaret that night. she told her nothing except that she wanted to get something to do in london and to get it as soon as possible, and she asked her stepmother if she could put her up for a week or two until she got it. and would mummy mind wiring yes or no on saturday morning? it was then thursday night. she slipped out into the village about midnight to post the letter, though she knew that it couldn't go one minute before three o'clock on friday afternoon. she had no conscious fear that her will would fail her, but her instinct was appeased by action. on saturday morning mrs. cartaret wired: "delighted. expect you friday. mummy." five intolerable days. they were not more intolerable than the days that would come after, when the thing she was doing would be every bit as hard. only her instinct was afraid of something happening within those five days that would make the hard thing harder. on sunday mrs. cartaret's letter came. her house, she said, was crammed with fiends till friday. there was a beast of a woman in gwenda's room who simply wouldn't go. but on friday gwenda's room would be ready. it had been waiting for her all the time. hadn't they settled it that gwenda was to come and live with her if things became impossible at home? robina supposed they _were_ impossible? she sent her love to alice and mary, and she was always gwenda's loving mummy. and she enclosed a five-pound note; for she was a generous soul. on monday gwenda told peacock the carrier to bring her a bradshaw from reyburn. * * * * * she then considered how she was to account to her family for her departure. she decided that she would tell mary first. and she might as well tell her the truth while she was about it, since, if she didn't, mary would be sure to find it out. she was sweet and good. not so sweet and good that she couldn't hold her own against papa if she was driven to it, but sweet enough and good enough to stand by ally and to see her through. it would be easy for mary. it wasn't as if she had ever even begun to care for rowcliffe. it wasn't as if rowcliffe had ever cared for her. and she could be trusted. a secret was always safe with mary. she was positively uncanny in her silence, and quite superhumanly discreet. mary, then, should be told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. her father should be told as much of it as he was likely to believe. ally, of course, mustn't have an inkling. mary herself had an inkling already when she appeared that evening in the attic where gwenda was packing a trunk. she had a new bradshaw in her hand. "peacock gave me this," said mary. "he said you ordered it." "so i did," said gwenda. "what on earth for?" "to look up trains in." "why--is anybody coming?" "does anybody _ever_ come?" mary's face admitted her absurdity. "then"--she made it out almost with difficulty--"somebody must be going away." "how clever you are. somebody _is_ going away." mary twisted her brows in her perplexity. she was evidently thinking things. "do you mean--steven rowcliffe?" "no, dear lamb." (what on earth had put steven rowcliffe into mary's head?) "it's not as bad as all that. it's only a woman. in fact, it's only me." mary's face emptied itself of all expression; it became a blank screen suddenly put up before the disarray of hurrying, eager things, unclothed and unexpressed. "i'm going to stay with mummy." gwenda closed the lid of the trunk and sat on it. (perturbation was now in mary's face.) "you can't, gwenda. papa'll never let you go." "he can't stop me." "what on earth are you going for?" "not for my own amusement, though it sounds amusing." "does mummy want you?" "whether she wants me or not, she's got to have me." "for how long?" (mary's face was heavy with thought now.) "i don't know. i'm going to get something to do." "to _do?_" (mary said to herself, then certainly it was not amusing. she pondered it.) "is it," she brought out, "because of steven rowcliffe?" "no. it's because of ally." "ally?" "yes. didn't papa tell you about her?" "not he. did he tell you?" "no. it was steven rowcliffe." and she told mary what rowcliffe had said to her. she had made room for her on her trunk and they sat there, their bodies touching, their heads drawn back, each sister staring with eyes that gave and took the other's horror. * * * * * "don't, molly, don't----" mary was crying now. "does papa know--that she'll die--or go mad?" "yes." "but"--mary lifted her stained face--"that's what they said about mother." "if she had children. it's if ally hasn't any." "and papa knew it _then_. and he knows it now--how awful." "it isn't as awful as steven rowcliffe thinks. he doesn't really know what's wrong with her. he doesn't know she's in love with _him_." "poor ally. what's the good? he isn't in love with her." "he isn't now," said gwenda. "but he will be." "not he. it's you he cares for--if he cares for anybody." "i know. that's why i'm going." "oh, gwenda----" mary's face was somber as she took it in. "that won't do ally any good. if you _know_ he cares." "i don't absolutely know it. and if i did it wouldn't make any difference." "and if--you care for him?" "that doesn't make any difference either. i've got to clear out. it's her one chance, molly. i've got to give it her. how _can_ i let her die, poor darling, or go mad? she'll be all right if he marries her." "and if he doesn't?" "he may, molly, he may, if i clear out in time. anyhow, there isn't anybody else." "if only," mary said, "papa had kept a curate." "but he hasn't kept a curate. he never will keep a curate. and if he does he'll choose a man with a wife and seven children--no, he'll choose no children. the wife mustn't have a chance of dying." "gwenda--do you think anybody _knows?_ they did, you know--before, and it was awful." "nobody knows this time, except papa and steven rowcliffe and you and me." "i wish i didn't. i wish you hadn't told me." "you _had_ to know or i wouldn't have told you. do you think steven rowcliffe would have told _me----_" "how could he? it was awful of him." "he could because he isn't a coward or a fool and he knew that i'm not a coward or a fool either. he thought ally had nobody but me. she'll have nobody but you when i'm gone. you mustn't let her see you think her awful. you mustn't _think_ it. she isn't. she's as good as gold. steven rowcliffe said so. if she wasn't, molly, i wouldn't ask you to help her--with him." "gwenda, you mustn't put it all on me. i'd do anything for poor ally, but i _can't_ make him marry her if he doesn't want to." "i think ally can make him want to, if she gets a chance. you've only got to stick to her and see her through. you'll have to ask him here, you know. _she_ can't. and you'll have to keep papa off her. if you're not very careful, he'll go and put her under restraint or something." "oh--would it come to that?" "yes. papa'd do it like a shot. i believe he'd do it just to stop her marrying him. you mustn't tell papa what i've told you. you mustn't tell ally. and you mustn't tell him. do you hear, molly? you must never tell him." "of course i won't tell him. but it's no use thinking we can do things." gwenda stood up. "we haven't got to _do_ things. that's his business. we've only got to sit tight and play the game." * * * * * gwenda went on with her packing. "it will be time enough," she thought, "to tell ally tomorrow." ally was in her room. she never came downstairs now; and this week she was worse and had stayed all day in bed. they couldn't rouse her. but something had roused her this evening. a sort of scratching on the door made gwenda look up from her packing. ally stood on the threshold. she had dressed herself completely in her tweed skirt, white blouse and knitted tie. her strength had failed her only in the struggle with her hair. the coil had fallen, and hung in a loose pigtail down her back. slowly, in the weakness of her apathy, she trailed across the floor. "ally, what is it? why didn't you send for me?" "it's all right. i wanted to get up. i'm coming down to supper. you can leave off packing that old trunk. you haven't got to go." "who told you i was going?" "nobody. i knew it." she answered gwenda's eyes. "i don't know how i knew it, but i did. and i know why you're going and it's all rot. you're going because you know that if you stay steven rowcliffe'll marry you, and you think that if you go he'll marry me." "whatever put that idea into your head?" "nothing put it. it came. it shows how awful you must think me if you think i'd go and do a beastly thing like that." "like what?" "why--sneaking him away from you behind your back when i know you like him. you needn't lie about it. you _do_ like him. "i may be awful," she went on. "in fact i know i'm awful. but i'm decent. i couldn't do a caddish thing like that--i couldn't really. and, if i couldn't, there's no need for you to go." she was sitting on the trunk where mary had sat, and when she began to speak she had looked down at her small hands that grasped the edge of the lid, their fingers picking nervously at the ragged flap. they ceased and she looked up. and in her look, a look that for the moment was divinely lucid, gwenda saw ally's secret and hidden kinship with herself. she saw it as if through some medium, once troubled and now made suddenly transparent. it was because of that queer kinship that ally had divined her. however awful she was, however tragically foredoomed and driven, ally was decent. she knew what gwenda was doing because it was what, if any sustained lucidity were ever given her, she might have done herself. but in ally no idea but the one idea was very deeply rooted. sustained lucidity never had been hers. it would be easy to delude her. "i'm going," gwenda said, "because i want to. if i stayed i wouldn't marry steven rowcliffe, and steven rowcliffe wouldn't marry me." "but--i thought--i thought----" "what did you think?" "that there was something between you. papa said so." "if papa said so you might have known there was nothing in it." "and isn't there?" "of course there isn't. you can put that idea out of your head forever." "all the same i believe that's why you're going." "i'm going because i can't stand this place any longer. you said i'd be sick of it in three months." "you're not sick of it. you love it. it's me you can't stand." "no, ally--no." she plunged for another argument and found it. "what i can't stand is living with papa." ally agreed that this was rather more than plausible. xxxviii the next person to be told was rowcliffe. it was known in the village through the telegrams that gwenda was going away. the postmistress told mrs. gale, who told mrs. blenkiron. these two persons and four or five others had known ever since sunday that the vicar's daughter was going away; and the vicar did not know it yet. and mrs. blenkiron told rowcliffe on the wednesday before alice told him. for it was alice who told him, and not gwenda. gwenda was not at home when he called at the vicarage at three o'clock. but he heard from alice that she would be back at four. and it was alice who told mrs. gale that when the doctor called again he was to be shown into the study. he had waited there thirteen minutes before gwenda came to him. he looked at her and was struck by a difference he found in her, a difference that recalled some look in her face that he had seen before. it was dead white, and in its whiteness her blue eyes, dark and dilated, quivered with defiance and a sort of fear. she looked older and at the same time younger, as young as alice and as helpless in her fear. then he remembered that she had looked like that the night she had passed him in the doorway of the house at upthorne. "how cold your hands are," he said. she hid them behind her back as if they had betrayed her. "do you want to see me about ally?" "no, i don't want to see you about ally. i want to see you about yourself." her eyes quivered again. "won't you come into the drawing-room, then?" "i'd rather stay here if you don't mind. i say, how much time have i?" "till when?" "well--till your father comes back?" "he won't be back for another hour. but--" "i hear you're going away on friday; and that you're going for good." "did mary tell you?" "no. it was alice. she said i was to try and stop you." "you can't stop me if i want to go." "i'll do my best." they stood, as they talked, in rigid attitudes that suggested that neither was going to yield an inch. "why didn't you tell me yourself, gwenda?" she closed her eyes. it was as if she had forgotten why. "was it because you knew i wouldn't let you? did you want to go as much as all that?" "it looks like it, doesn't it?" "yes. but you don't want to go a bit." "would i go if i didn't?" "yes. it's just the sort of thing you would do, if you thought it would annoy me. it's only what you've been doing for the last three months--getting away from me." "three months--?" "oh, i cared for you before that. it's only the last three months i've been trying to tell you." "you never told me anything." "because you never gave me a chance. you kept on putting me off." "and if i did, didn't that show that i didn't want you to tell me? i don't want you to tell me now." he made an impatient movement. "but you knew without telling. you knew then." "i didn't. i didn't." "well, then, you know now. will you marry me or will you not? i want it straight." "no. no." "and--why not?" he was horribly cool and calm. "because i don't want to marry you. i don't want to marry anybody." "good god! what _do_ you want, then?" "i want to go away and earn my own living as other women do." the absurdity of it melted him. he could have gone down on his knees at her feet and kissed her cold hands. he wondered afterward why on earth he hadn't. then he remembered that all the time she had kept her hands locked behind her. "you poor child, you don't want to earn your own living. i'll tell you what you _do_ want. you want to get away from home." "and what if i do? you've seen what it's like. would _you_ stay in it a day longer than you could help if you were me?" "of course i wouldn't. of course i've seen what it's like. i saw it the first time i saw you here in this detestable house. i want to take you away out of it. i think i wanted to take you away then." "oh, no. not then. not so long ago as that." it was as if she had said, "not that. that makes it too hard. any cruelty you like but that, or i can't go through with it." "yes," he said, "as long ago as that." "you can't take me away." "can't i? i can take you anywhere. and i will. anywhere you like. you've only got to say. i _know_ i can make you happy." "how do you know?" "because i know you." "that's what you're always saying. and you know nothing about me. nothing. nothing." she said to herself: "he doesn't. he doesn't even know why i'm going." "i know a lot more than you think. and a lot more than you know yourself. i know that you're not happy as you are, and i know that you can't _live_ without happiness. if you're not happy you'll be ill; more horribly ill, perhaps, than alice. look at alice." "i'm not like alice." "not now. not next year. not for ten years, perhaps, or twenty. but you don't know what you may be." she raised her head. "i shall never be like that. never." rowcliffe laughed. it struck her then that that was what she ought never to have said if she wanted to carry out her purpose. "when i say i'm not like ally i mean that i'm not so dependent on people. i'm not gentle like ally. i'm not as loving and i'm not as womanly. in fact, i'm not womanly at all." "my dear child, do you suppose it matters to me what you're not, as long as i love you as you are?" "no," she said, "you don't love me really. you only think you do." she clung to that. "why do you say that, gwenda?" "because, if you did, i should have known it before now." "well, considering that you _do_ know it now--" "i mean, you'd have said so before." "i say! i like that. i'd have said so about five times if you'd ever given me a chance." "oh, no. you had your chance." "when did i have it? when?" "the other day. up at bar hill." "you thought so then?" "i didn't say i thought so then. i think so now." "that's rather clever of you. because, you see, if you thought so then that shows--" "what does it show?" "why, that you knew all the time--and that you were thinking of me. you _did_ know. you _did_ think--" "no. no. it's only that i've got to--that you're _making_ me think of you now. but i'm not thinking of you the way you want." "if you're not--if you haven't thought of me--_the way i want_--then i can't make you out. you're beyond me." they sat down, tired out with the struggle, as if they had reached the same point of exhaustion at the same instant. "why not leave it at that?" she said. he rallied. "because i can't leave it at that. you knew i cared. you must have seen. i could have sworn you saw. i could have sworn--" she knew what he was going to swear and she stopped him. "i _did_ see that you thought you cared for me. if you'd been quite sure you'd have told me. you wouldn't have waited. you're not quite sure now. you're only telling me now because i'm going away. if i hadn't said i was going away you'd never have told me. you'd just have gone on waiting till you were quite sure." she had irritated him now beyond endurance. "gwenda," he said savagely, "you're enough to drive a man mad." "you've told me _that_ before, anyhow. don't you see that i should go on driving you mad? don't you see how unhappy you'd be with me, how impossible it all is?" she laughed. it was marvelous to her how she achieved that laugh. it was as if she had just thought of it and it came. "i can see," he said, "that _you_ don't care for me." he had given himself into her hands--hands that seemed to him diabolic in their play. "did i ever _say_ i cared?" "well--of all the women--you _are_----! no, you didn't _say_ it." "did i ever show it?" "good god, how do _i_ know what you showed? if it had been any other woman--yes, i could have sworn." "you can't swear to any woman--i'm afraid--till you've married her. perhaps--not then." "you shouldn't say things like that; they sound----" "how do they sound?" "as if you knew too much." she smiled. "well, then--there's another reason." he softened suddenly. "i didn't mean that, gwenda. you don't know what you're saying. you don't know anything. it's only that you're so beastly clever." "that's a better reason still. you don't want to marry a beastly clever woman. you really don't." "i'd risk it. that sort of cleverness doesn't last long." "it would last your time," she said. she rose. it was as much as giving him his dismissal. he stood a moment watching her. she and all her movements still seemed to him incredible. "do you mind telling me where you're going to?" "i'm going to mummy." she explained to his blankness: "my stepmother." he remembered. mummy was the lady who was "the very one," the lady of remarkable resources. it seemed to him then that he saw it all. he knew what she was going for. "i see. instead of your sister," he sneered. "papa wouldn't let ally go to her. but he can't stop _me_." "oh, no. nobody could stop _you_." she smiled softly. she had missed the brutality of his emphasis. * * * * * he said to himself that gwenda was impossible. she was obstinate and conceited and wrong-headed. she was utterly selfish, a cold mass of egoism. "cold?" he was not so sure. she might be. but she was capable, he suspected, of adventures. instead of taking her sister away to have her chance, she was rushing off to secure it herself. and the irony of the thing was that it was he who had put it into her head. well--she was no worse, and no better--than the rest of them. only unlike them in the queerness of her fascination. he wondered how long it would have lasted? you couldn't go on caring for a woman like that, who had never cared a rap about you. and yet--he could have sworn--oh, _that_ was nothing. she had only thought of him because he had been her only chance. he made himself think these things of her because they gave him unspeakable consolation. all the way back to morfe he thought them, while on his right hand karva rose and receded and rose again, and changed at every turn its aspect and its form. he thought them to an accompaniment of an interior, persistent voice, the voice of his romantic youth, that said to him, "that is her hill, her hill--do you remember? that's where you met her first. that's where you saw her jumping. that's her hill--her hill--her hill." xxxix the vicar had been fidgeting in his study, getting up and sitting down, and looking at the clock every two minutes. gwenda had told him that she wanted to speak to him, and he had stipulated that the interview should be after prayer time, for he knew that he was going to be upset. he never allowed family disturbances, if he could help it, to interfere with the attitude he kept up before his maker. he knew perfectly well she was going to tell him of her engagement to young rowcliffe; and though he had been prepared for the news any time for the last three months he had to pull himself together to receive it. he would have to pretend that he was pleased about it when he wasn't pleased at all. he was, in fact, intensely sorry for himself. it had dawned on him that, with alice left a permanent invalid on his hands, he couldn't really afford to part with gwenda. she might be terrible in the house, but in her way--a way he didn't altogether approve of--she was useful in the parish. she would cover more of it in an afternoon than mary could in a month of sundays. but, though the idea of gwenda's marrying was disagreeable to him for so many reasons, he was not going to forbid it absolutely. he was only going to insist that she should wait. it was only reasonable and decent that she should wait until alice got either better or bad enough to be put under restraint. the vicar's pity for himself reached its climax when he considered that awful alternative. he had been considering it ever since rowcliffe had spoken to him about alice. it was just like gwenda to go and get engaged at such a moment, when he was beside himself. but he smoothed his face into a smile when she appeared. "well, what is it? what is this great thing you've come to tell me?" it struck him that for the first time in her life gwenda looked embarrassed; as well she might be. "oh--it isn't very great, papa. it's only that i'm going away." "going--_away_?" "i don't mean out of the country. only to london." "ha! going to london--" he rolled it ruminatingly on his tongue. "well, if that's all you've come to say, it's very simple. you can't go." he bent his knees with the little self-liberating gesture that he had when he put his foot down. "but," said gwenda, "i'm going." he raised his eyebrows. "and why is this the first time i've heard of it?" "because i want to go without any bother, since i'm going to go." "oh--consideration for me, i suppose?" "for both of us. i don't want you to worry." "that's why you've chosen a time when i'm worried out of my wits already." "i know, papa. that's why i'm going." he was arrested both by the astounding statement and by something unusually placable in her tone. he stared at her as his way was. then, suddenly, he had a light on it. "gwenda, there must be something behind all this. you'd better tell me straight out what's happened." "nothing has happened." "you know what i mean. we've spoken about this before. is there anything between you and young rowcliffe." "nothing. nothing whatever of the sort you mean." "you're sure there hasn't been"--he paused discreetly for his word--"some misunderstanding?" "quite sure. there isn't anything to misunderstand. i'm going because i want to go. there are too many of us at home." "too many of you--in the state your sister's in?" "that's exactly why i'm going. i'm trying to tell you. ally'll go on being ill as long as there are three of us knocking about the house. you'll find she'll buck up like anything when i'm gone. there's nothing the matter with her, really." "that may be your opinion. it isn't rowcliffe's." "i know it isn't. but it soon will be. it was your own idea a little while ago." "ye--es; before this last attack, perhaps. d'you know what rowcliffe thinks of her?" "yes. but i know a lot more about ally than he does. so do you." "well--" they were sitting down to it now. "but i can't afford to keep you if you go away." "of course you can't. you won't have to keep me. i'm going to keep myself." again he stared. this was preposterous. "it's all right, papa. it's all settled." "by whom?" "by me." "you've found something to do in london?" "not yet. i'm going to look--" "and what," inquired the vicar with an even suaver irony, "_can_ you do?" "i can be somebody's secretary." "whose?" "oh," said gwenda airily, "anybody's." "and--if i may ask--what will you do, and where do you propose to stay, while you're looking for him?" (he felt that he expressed himself with perspicacity.) "that's all arranged. i'm going to mummy." the vicar was silent with the shock of it. "i'm sorry, papa," said gwenda; "but there's nowhere else to go to." "if you go there," said mr. cartaret, "you will certainly not come back here." all that had passed till now had been mere skirmishing. the real battle had begun. gwenda set her face to it. "i shall not be coming back in any case," she said. "that question can stand over till you've gone." "i shall be gone on friday by the three train." "i shall not allow you to go--by any train." "how are you going to stop me?" he had not considered it. "you don't suppose i'm going to give you any money to go with?" "you needn't. i've got heaps." "and how are you going to get your luggage to the station?" "oh--the usual way." "there'll be no way if i forbid peacock to carry it--or you." "can you forbid jim greatorex? _he_'ll take me like a shot." "i can put your luggage under lock and key." he was still stern, though, he was aware that the discussion was descending to sheer foolishness. "i'll go without it. i can carry a toothbrush and a comb, and mummy will have heaps of nightgowns." the vicar leaned forward and hid his face in his hands before that poignant evocation of robina. gwenda saw that she had gone too far. she had a queer longing to go down on her knees before him and drag his hands from his poor face and ask him to forgive her. she struggled with and overcame the morbid impulse. the vicar lifted his face, and for a moment they looked at each other while he measured, visibly, his forces against hers. she shook her head at him almost tenderly. he was purely pathetic to her now. "it's no use, papa. you'd far better give it up. you know you can't do it. you can't stop me. you can't stop jim greatorex. you can't even stop peacock. you don't want _another_ scandal in the parish." he didn't. "oh, go your own way," he said, "and take the consequences." "i _have_ taken them," said gwenda. she thought, "i wonder what he'd have said if i'd told him the truth? but, if i had, he'd never have believed it." the truth indeed was far beyond the vicar's power of belief. he only supposed (after some reflection) that gwenda was going off in a huff, because young rowcliffe had failed to come to the scratch. he knew what this running up to london and earning her own living meant--she! he would have trusted ally sooner. gwenda was capable of anything. and as he thought of what she might be capable of in london, he sighed, "god help her!" xl it was may, five weeks since gwenda had left garthdale. five wednesdays came and went and rowcliffe had not been seen or heard of at the vicarage. it struck even the vicar that considerably more had passed between his daughter and the doctor than gwenda had been willing to admit. whatever had passed, it had been something that had made rowcliffe desire not to be seen or heard of. all the same, the vicar and his daughter alice were both so profoundly aware of rowcliffe that for five weeks they had not mentioned his name to each other. when mary mentioned it on friday, in the evening of that disgraceful day, he said that he had had enough of rowcliffe and he didn't want to hear any more about the fellow. mr. cartaret had signified that his second daughter's name was not to be mentioned, either. but, becoming as his attitude was, he had not been able to keep it up. in the sixth week after gwenda's departure, he was obliged to hear (it was alice, amazed out of all reticence, who told him) that gwenda had got a berth as companion secretary to lady frances gilbey, at a salary of a hundred a year. mummy had got it for her. "you may well stare, molly, but it's what she says." the vicar, as if he had believed ally capable of fabricating this intelligence, observed that he would like to see that letter. his face darkened as he read it. he handed it back without a word. the thing was not so incredible to the vicar as it was to mary. he had always known that robina could pull wires. it was, in fact, through her ability to pull wires that robina had so successfully held him up. she had her hands on the connections of an entire social system. her superior ramifications were among those whom mr. cartaret habitually spoke and thought of as "the best people." and when it came to connections, robina's were of the very best. lady frances was her second cousin. in the days when he was trying to find excuses for marrying robina, it was in considering her connections that he found his finest. the vicar had informed his conscience that he was marrying robina because of what she could do for his three motherless daughters--and himself. preferment even lay (through the gilbeys) within robina's scope. but to have planted gwenda on lady frances robina must have pulled all the wires she knew. lady frances was a distinguished philanthropist and a rigid evangelical, so rigid and so distinguished that, in the eyes of poor parsons waiting for preferment, she constituted a pillar of the church. to the vicar, as he brooded over it, robina's act was more than mere protection of his daughter gwenda. not only was it carrying the war into the enemy's camp with a vengeance, it was an act of hostility subtler and more malignant than overt defiance. ever since she left him, robina had been trying to get hold of the girls, regarding them as the finest instruments in her relentless game. for it never occurred to mr. cartaret that his third wife's movements could by any possibility refer to anybody but himself. robina, according to mr. cartaret, was perpetually thinking of him and of how she could annoy him. she had shown a fiendish cleverness in placing gwenda with lady frances. she couldn't have done anything that could have annoyed him more. more than anything that robina had yet done, it put him in the wrong. it put him in the wrong not only with lady frances and the best people, but it put him in the wrong with gwenda and kept him there. against gwenda, with lady frances and a salary of a hundred a year at her back, he hadn't the appearance of a leg to stand on. the thing had the air of justifying gwenda's behavior by its consequences. that was what robina had been reckoning on. for, if it had been gwenda she had been thinking of, she would have kept her instead of handing her over to lady frances. the companion secretaries of that distinguished philanthropist had no sinecure even at a hundred a year. as for gwenda's accepting such a post, that proved nothing as against his view of her. it only proved, what he had always known, that you could never tell what gwenda would do next. and because nothing could be said with any dignity, the vicar had said nothing as he rose and went into his study. it was there, hidden from his daughters' scrutiny, that he pondered these things. * * * * * they waited till the door had closed on him before they spoke. "well, after all, that'll be very jolly for her," said mary. "it isn't half as jolly as it looks," said ally. "it means that she'll have to live at tunbridge wells." "oh," said mary, "it won't be all tunbridge wells." she couldn't bear to think that it would be all tunbridge wells. not that she did think it for a moment. it couldn't be all tunbridge wells for a girl like gwenda. mummy could never have contemplated that. gwenda couldn't have contemplated it. and mary refused to contemplate it either. she persuaded herself that what had happened to her sister was simply a piece of the most amazing luck. she even judged it probable that gwenda had known very well what she was doing when she went away. besides she had always wanted to do something. she had learned shorthand and typewriting at westbourne, as if, long ago, she had decided that, if home became insupportable, she would leave it. and there had always been that agreement between her and mummy. when mary put these things together, she saw that nothing could be more certain than that, sooner or later, ally or no ally, gwenda would have gone away. but this was after it had occurred to her that rowcliffe ought to know what had happened and that she had got to tell him. and that was on the day after gwenda's letter came, when mrs. gale, having brought in the tea-things, paused in her going to say, "'ave yo' seen dr. rawcliffe, miss mary? ey--but 'e's lookin' baad." "everybody," said mary, "is looking bad this muggy weather. that reminds me, how's the baby?" "'e's woorse again, miss. i tall assy she'll navver rear 'im." "has the doctor seen him to-day?" "naw, naw, nat yat. but 'e'll look in, 'e saays, afore 'e goas." mary looked at the clock. rowcliffe left the surgery at four-thirty. it was now five minutes past. she wondered: did he know, then, or did he not know? would gwenda have written to him? was it because she had not written that he was looking bad, or was it because she had written and he knew? she thought and thought it over; and under all her thinking there lurked the desire to know whether rowcliffe knew and how he was taking it, and under her desire the longing, imperious and irresistible, to see him. she would have to ask him to the house. she had not forgotten that she had to ask him, that she was pledged to ask him on ally's account if, as gwenda had put it, she was to play the game. but she had had more than one motive for her delay. it would look better if she were not in too great a hurry. (she said to herself it would look better on ally's account.) the longer he was kept away (she said to herself, that he was kept away from ally) the more he would be likely to want to come. sufficient time must elapse to allow of his forgetting gwenda. it was not well that he should be thinking all the time of gwenda when he came. (she said to herself it was not well on ally's account.) and it was well that their father should have forgotten rowcliffe. (this on ally's account, too.) for of course it was only on ally's account that she was asking rowcliffe, really. not that there seemed to be any such awful need. for ally, in those five weeks, had got gradually better. and now, in the first week of may, which had always been one of her bad months, she was marvelously well. it looked as if gwenda had known what she was talking about when she said ally would be all right when she was gone. and of course it was just as well (on ally's account) that rowcliffe should not have seen her until she was absolutely well. nobody could say that she, mary, was not doing it beautifully. nobody could say she was not discreet, since she had let five weeks pass before she asked him. and in order that her asking him should have the air of happy chance, she must somehow contrive to see him first. her seeing him could be managed any wednesday in the village. it was bound, in fact, to occur. the wonder was that it had not occurred before. well, that showed how hard, all these weeks, she had been trying not to see him. if she had had an uneasy conscience in the matter (and she said to herself that there was no occasion for one), it would have acquitted her. nobody could say she wasn't playing the game. and then it struck her that she had better go down at once and see essy's baby. it was only five and twenty past four. xli the vicar was right. rowcliffe did not want to be seen or heard of at the vicarage. he did not want to see or hear of the vicarage or of gwenda cartaret again. twice a week or more in those five weeks he had to pass the little gray house above the churchyard; twice a week or more the small shy window in its gable end looked sidelong at him as he went by. but he always pretended not to see it. and if anybody in the village spoke to him of gwenda cartaret he pretended not to hear, so that presently they left off speaking. he had sighted mary cartaret two or three times in the village, and once, on the moor below upthorne, a figure that he recognised as alice; he had also overtaken mary on her bicycle, and once he had seen her at a shop door on morfe green. and each time mary (absorbed in what she was doing) had made it possible for him not to see her. he was grateful to her for her absorption while he saw through it. he had always known that mary was a person of tact. he also knew that this preposterous avoidance could not go on forever. it was only that mary gave him a blessed respite week by week. presently one or other of the two would have to end it, and he didn't yet know which of them it would be. he rather thought it would be mary. and it _was_ mary. he met her that first wednesday in may, as he was leaving mrs. gale's cottage. she was coming along the narrow path by the beck and there was no avoiding her. she came toward him smiling. he had always rather liked her smile. it was quiet. it never broke up, as it were, her brooding face. he had noticed that it didn't even part her lips or make them thinner. if anything it made them thicker, it curved still more the crushed bow of the upper lip and the pensive sweep of the lower. but it opened doors; it lit lights. it broadened quite curiously the rather too broad nostrils; it set the wide eyes wider; it brought a sudden blue into their thick gray. in her cheeks it caused a sudden leaping and spreading of their flame. her rather high and rather prominent cheek-bones gave character and a curious charm to mary's face; they had the effect of lifting her bloom directly under the pure and candid gray of her eyes, leaving her red mouth alone in its dominion. that mouth with its rather too long upper lip and its almost perpetual brooding was saved from immobility by its alliance with her nostrils. such was mary's face. rowcliffe had often watched it, acknowledging its charm, while he said to himself that for him it could never have any meaning or fascination, any more than mary could. there wasn't much in mary's face, and there wasn't much in mary. she was too ruminant, too tranquil. he sometimes wondered how much it would take to trouble her. and yet there were times when that tranquillity was soothing. she had always, even when ally was at her worst, smiled at him as if nothing had happened or could happen, and she smiled at him as if nothing had happened now. and it struck rowcliffe, as it had frequently struck him before, how good her face was. she held out her hand to him and looked at him. and as if only then she had seen in his face the signs of a suffering she had been unaware of, her eyes rounded in a sudden wonder of distress. they said in their goodness and their candor, "oh, i see how horribly you've suffered. i didn't know and i'm so sorry." then they looked away, and it was like the quiet withdrawal of a hand that feared lest in touching it should hurt him. mary began to talk of the weather and of essy and of essy's baby, as if her eyes had never seen anything at all. then, just as they parted, she said, "when are you coming to see us again?" as if he had been to see them only the other day. he said he _would_ come as soon as he was asked. and mary reflected, as one arranging a multitude of engagements. "well, then--let me see--can you come to tea on friday? or monday? father'll be at home both days." and rowcliffe said thanks, he'd come on friday. mary went on to the cottage and rowcliffe to his surgery. he wondered why she hadn't said a word about gwenda. he supposed it was because she knew that there was nothing she could say that would not hurt him. and he said to himself, "what a nice girl she is. what a thoroughly nice girl." * * * * * but what he wanted, though he dreaded it, was news of gwenda. he didn't know whether he could bring himself to ask for it, but he rather thought that mary would know what he wanted and give it him without his asking. that was precisely what mary knew and did. she was ready for him, alone in the gray and amber drawing-room, and she did it almost at once, before alice or her father could come in. alice was out walking, she said, and her father was in the study. they would be in soon. she thus made rowcliffe realise that if she was going to be abrupt it was because she had to be; they had both of them such a short time. with admirable tact she assumed rowcliffe's interest in ally and the vicar. it made it easier to begin about gwenda. and before she began it seemed to her that she had better first find out if he knew. so she asked him point-blank if he had heard from gwenda? "no," he said. at her name he had winced visibly. but there was hope even in his hurt eyes. it sprang from mary's taking it for granted that he would be likely to hear from her sister. "we only heard--really," said mary, "the other day." "is that so?" "of course she wrote; but she didn't say much, because, at first, i'm afraid, there wasn't very much to say." "and is there?" rowcliffe's hands were trembling slightly. mary looked down at them and away. "well, yes." and she told him that gwenda had got a secretaryship to lady frances gilbey. it would have been too gross to have told him about gwenda's salary. but it might have been the salary she was thinking of when she added that it was of course an awfully good thing for gwenda. "and who," said rowcliffe, "is lady frances gilbey?" "she's a cousin of my stepmother's." he considered it. "and mrs.--er--cartaret lives in london, doesn't she?" "oh, yes." mary's tone implied that you couldn't expect that brilliant lady to live anywhere else. there was a moment in which rowcliffe again evoked the image of the third mrs. cartaret who was "the very one." if anything could have depressed him more, that did. but he pulled himself together. there were things he had to know. "and does your sister like living in london?" mary smiled. "i imagine she does very much indeed." "somehow," said rowcliffe, "i can't see her there. i thought she liked the country." "oh, you never can tell whether gwenda really likes anything. she may have liked it. she may have liked it awfully. but she couldn't go on liking it forever." and to rowcliffe it was as if mary had said that wasn't gwenda's way. "there's no doubt she's done the best thing. for herself, i mean." rowcliffe assented. "perhaps she has." and mary, as if doubt had only just occurred to her, made a sudden little tremulous appeal. "you don't really think garth was the place for her?" "i don't really think anything about it," rowcliffe said. mary was pensive. her brooding look said that she laid a secret fear to rest. "garth couldn't satisfy a girl like gwenda." rowcliffe said no, he supposed it couldn't satisfy her. his dejection was by this time terrible. it cast a visible, a palpable gloom. "she's a restless creature," said mary, smiling. she threw it out as if by way of lightening his oppression, almost as if she put it to him that if gwenda was restless (by which rowcliffe might understand, if he liked, capricious) she couldn't help it. there was no reason why he should be so horribly hurt. it was not as if there was anything personal in gwenda's changing attitudes. and rowcliffe did indeed say to himself, restless--restless. yes. that was the word for her; and he supposed she couldn't help it. * * * * * the study door opened and shut. mary's eyes made a sign to him that said, "we can't talk about this before my father. he won't like it." but mr. cartaret had gone upstairs. they could hear him moving in the room overhead. "how is your other sister getting on?" said rowcliffe abruptly. "alice? she's all right. you wouldn't know her. she can walk for miles." "you don't say so?" he was really astonished. "she's off now somewhere, goodness knows where." "ha!" rowcliffe laughed softly. "it's really wonderful," said mary. "she's generally so tired in the spring." it _was_ wonderful. the more he thought of it the more wonderful it was. "oh, well----" he said, "she mustn't overdo it." it was mary he suspected of overdoing it. on ally's account, of course. it wasn't likely that she would give the poor child away. at that point mrs. gale came in with the tea-things. and presently the vicar came down to tea. he was more than courteous this time. he was affable. he too greeted rowcliffe as if nothing had happened, and he abstained from any reference to gwenda. but he showed a certain serenity in his restraint. leaning back in his armchair, his legs crossed, his hands joined lightly at the finger-tips, his forehead smoothed, conversing affably, mr. cartaret had the air of a man who might indeed have suffered through his outrageous family, but for whom suffering was passed, a man without any trouble or anxiety. and serenity without the memory of suffering was in mary's good and happy face. the house was very still, it seemed the stillness of life that ran evenly and with no sound. and it was borne in upon rowcliffe as he sat there and talked to them that this quiet and tranquillity had come to them with gwenda's going. she was a restless creature, and she had infected them with her unrest. they had peace from her now. only for him there could be no peace from gwenda. he could feel her in the room. through the open door she came and went--restless, restless! he put the thought of her from him. * * * * * after tea the vicar took him into his study. if rowcliffe had a moment to spare, he would like, he said, to talk to him. rowcliffe looked at his watch. the idea of being talked to frightened him. the vicar observed his nervousness. "it's about my daughter alice," he said. and it was. the vicar wanted him to know and he had brought him into his study in order to tell him that alice had completely recovered. he went into it. the girl was fit. she was happy. she ate well. she slept well (he had kept her under very careful supervision) and she could walk for miles. she was, in fact, leading the healthy natural life he had hoped she would lead when he brought her into a more bracing climate. rowcliffe expressed his wonder. it was, he said, _very_ wonderful. but the vicar would not admit that it was wonderful at all. it was exactly what he had expected. he had never thought for a moment that there was anything seriously wrong with alice--anything indeed in the least the matter with her. rowcliffe was silent. but he looked at the vicar, and the vicar did not even pretend not to understand his look. "i know," he said, "the very serious view you took of her. but i think, my dear fellow, when you've seen her you'll admit that you were mistaken." rowcliffe said there was nothing he desired more than to have been mistaken, but he was afraid he couldn't admit it. miss cartaret's state, when he last saw her, had been distinctly serious. "you will perhaps admit that whatever danger there may have been then is over?" "i haven't seen her yet," said rowcliffe. "but"--he looked at him--"i told you the thing was curable." "that's my point. what is there--what can there have been to cure her?" rowcliffe ignored the vicar's point. "can you date it--this recovery?" "i date it," said the vicar, "from the time her sister left. she seemed to pull herself together after that." rowcliffe said nothing. he was reviewing all his knowledge of the case. he considered ally's disastrous infatuation for himself. in the light of his knowledge her recovery was not only wonderful, it was incomprehensible. so incomprehensible that he was inclined to suspect her father of lying for some reason of his own. family pride, no doubt. he had known instances. the vicar went on. he gave himself a long innings. "but that does not account for it altogether, though it may have started it. i really put it down to other things--the pure air--the quiet life--the absence of excitement--the regular _work_ that _takes_ her _out_ of herself----" here the vicar fell into that solemn rhythm that marked the periods of his sermons. he perorated. "the _simple_ following _out_ of _my_ prescription. you will remember" (he became suddenly cheery and conversational) "that it _was_ mine." "it certainly wasn't mine," said rowcliffe. he saw it all. _that_ was why the vicar was so affable. that was why he was so serene. and he wasn't lying. his state of mind was obviously much too simple. he was serenely certain of his facts. * * * * * by courteous movement of his hand the vicar condoned rowcliffe's rudeness, which he attributed to professional pique very natural in the circumstances. with admirable tact he changed the subject. "i also wished to consult you about another matter. nothing" (he again reassured the doctor's nervousness) "to do with my family." rowcliffe was all attention. "it's about--it's about that poor girl, essy gale." "essy," said rowcliffe, "is very well and very happy." the vicar's sudden rigidity implied that essy had no business to be happy. "if she is, it isn't your friend greatorex's fault." "i'm not so sure of that," said rowcliffe. "i suppose you know he has refused to marry her?" "i understood as much. but who asked him to?" "i did." "my dear sir, if you don't mind my saying so, i think you made a mistake--if you _want_ him to marry her. you know what he is." "i do indeed. but a certain responsibility rests with the parson of the parish." "you can't be responsible for everything that goes on." "perhaps not--when the place is packed with nonconformists. greatorex comes of bad dissenting stock. i can't hope to have any influence with him." he paused. "but i'm told that _you_ have." "influence? not i. i've a sneaking regard for greatorex. he isn't half a bad fellow if you take him the right way." "well, then, can't you take him? can't you say a judicious word?" "if it's to ask him to marry essy, that wouldn't be very judicious, i'm afraid. he'll marry her if he wants to, and if he doesn't, he won't." "but, my dear dr. rowcliffe, think of the gross injustice to that poor girl." "it might be a worse injustice if he married her. why _should_ he marry her if he doesn't want to, and if she doesn't want it? there she is, perfectly content and happy with her baby. it's been a little seedy lately, but it's absolutely sound. a very fine baby indeed, and essy knows it. there's nothing wrong with the baby." rowcliffe continued, regardless of the vicar's stare: "she's better off as she is than tied to a chap who isn't a bit too sober. especially if he doesn't care for her." the vicar rose and took up his usual defensive position on the hearth. "well, dr. rowcliffe, if those are your ideas of morality----?" "they are not my ideas of morality, only my judgment of the individual case." "well--if that's your judgment, after all, i think that the less you meddle with it the better." "i never meddle," said rowcliffe. but the vicar did not leave him. he had caught the sound of the opening and shutting of the gate. he listened. his manner changed again to a complete affability. "i think that's alice. i should like you to see her. if you--" rowcliffe gathered that the entrance of alice had better coincide with his departure. he followed the vicar as he went to open the front door. alice stood on the doorstep. she was not at first aware of him where he lingered in the half-darkness at the end of the passage. "alice," said the vicar, "dr. rowcliffe is here. you're just in time to say good-bye to him." "it's a pity if it's good-bye," said alice. her voice might have been the voice of a young woman who is sanely and innocently gay, but to rowcliffe's ear there was a sound of exaltation in it. he could see her now clearly in the light of the open door. the vicar had not lied. alice had all the appearances of health. something had almost cured her. but not quite. as she stood there with him in the doorway, chattering, rowcliffe was struck again with the excitement of her voice and manner, imperfectly restrained, and with the quivering glitter of her eyes. by these signs he gathered that if alice was happy her happiness was not complete. it was not happiness in his sense of the word. but alice's face was unmistakably the face of hope. whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him. he saw that alice's eyes faced him now with the light, unseeing look of indifference, and that they turned every second toward the wall at the bottom of the garden. she was listening to something. * * * * * he was then aware of footsteps on the road. they came down the hill, passing close under the vicarage wall and turning where it turned to skirt the little lane at the bottom between the garden and the churchyard. the lane led to the pastures, and the pastures to the manor. and from the manor grounds a field track trailed to a small wicket gate on the north side of the churchyard wall. a flagged path went from the wicket to the door of the north transept. it was a short cut for the lord of the manor to his seat in the chancel, but it was not the nearest way for anybody approaching the church from the high road. now, the slope of the vicarage garden followed the slope of the road in such wise that a person entering the churchyard from the high road could be seen from the windows of the vicarage. if that person desired to remain unseen his only chance was to go round by the lane to the wicket gate, keeping close under the garden wall. rowcliffe heard the wicket gate click softly as it was softly opened and shut. and he could have sworn that alice heard it too. * * * * * he waited twenty minutes or so in his surgery. then, instead of sending at once to the red lion for his trap, he walked back to the church. standing in the churchyard, he could hear the sound of the organ and of a man's voice singing. he opened the big west door softly and went softly in. xlii there is no rood-screen in garth church. the one aisle down the middle of the nave goes straight from the west door to the chancel-rails. standing by the west door, behind the font, rowcliffe had an uninterrupted view of the chancel. the organ was behind the choir stalls on the north side. alice was seated at the organ. jim greatorex stood behind her and so that his face was turned slantwise toward rowcliffe. alice's face was in pure profile. her head was tilted slightly backward, as if the music lifted it. rowcliffe moved softly to the sexton's bench in the left hand corner. sitting there he could see her better and ran less risk of being seen. the dull stained glass of the east window dimmed the light at that end of the church. the organ candles were lit. their jointed brackets, brought forward on each side, threw light on the music book and the keys, also on the faces of alice and greatorex. he stood so close to her as almost to touch her. she had taken off her hat and her hair showed gold against the drab of his waist-coat. on both faces there was a look of ecstasy. it was essentially the same ecstasy; only, on alice's face it was more luminous, more conscious, and at the same time more abandoned, as if all subterfuge had ceased in her and she gave herself up, willing and exulting, to the unspiritual sense that flooded her. on the man's face this look was more confused. it was also more tender and more poignant, as if in soaring jim's rapture gave him pain. you would have said that he had not given himself to it, but that he was driven by it, and that yet, with all its sensuous trouble, there ran through it, secret and profoundly pure, some strain of spiritual longing. and in his thick, his poignant and tender half-barytone, half-tenor, greatorex sang: "'at e-ee-vening e-er the soon was set, the sick, oh lo-ord, arou-ound thee laay-- oh, with what divers pains they met, and with what joy they went a-waay--'" but alice stopped playing and rowcliffe heard her say, "don't let's have that one, jim, i don't like it." it might have passed--even the name--but that rowcliffe saw greatorex put his hand on alice's head and stroke her hair. then he heard him say, "let's 'ave mine," and he saw that his hand was on alice's shoulders as he leaned over her to find the hymn. "good god!" said rowcliffe to himself. "that explains it." he got up softly. now that he knew, he felt that it was horrible to spy on her. but greatorex had begun singing again, and the sheer beauty of the voice held rowcliffe there to listen. "'lead--kindly light--amidst th' encircling gloo-oom, lead thou me o-on. keep--thou--my--feet--i do not aa-aassk too-oo see-ee-ee ther di-is-ta-aant scene, woon step enoo-oof for mee-eea.'" greatorex was singing like an angel. and as he sang it was as if two passions, two longings, the earthly and the heavenly, met and mingled in him, so that through all its emotion his face remained incongruously mystic, queerly visionary. "'o'er moor and fen--o'er crag and torrent ti-ill----'" the evocation was intolerable to rowcliffe. he turned away and greatorex's voice went after him. "'and--with--the--morn tho-ose angel fa-a-ce-es smile which i-i--a-ave looved--long since--and lo-ost awhi-ile.'" again rowcliffe turned; but not before he had seen that greatorex had his hand on alice's shoulder a second time, and that alice's hand had gone up and found it there. the latch of the west door jerked under rowcliffe's hand with a loud clashing. alice and greatorex looked round and saw him as he went out. alice got up in terror. the two stood apart on either side of the organ bench, staring into each other's faces. then alice went round to the back of the organ and addressed the small organ-blower. "go," she said, "and tell the choir we're waiting for them. it's five minutes past time." johnny ran. alice went back to the chancel where greatorex stood turning over the hymn books of the choir. "jim," she said, "that was dr. rowcliffe. do you think he saw us?" "it doesn't matter if he did," said greatorex. "he'll not tell." "he might tell father." jim turned to her. "and if he doos, ally, yo' knaw what to saay." "that's no good, jim. i've told you so. you mustn't think of it." "i shall think of it. i shall think of noothing else," said greatorex. * * * * * the choir came in, aggrieved, and explaining that it wasn't six yet, not by the church clock. xliii as rowcliffe went back to his surgery he recalled two things he had forgotten. one was a little gray figure he had seen once or twice lately wandering through the fields about upthorne farm. the other was a certain interview he had had with alice when she had come to ask him to get greatorex to sing. that was in november, not long before the concert. he remembered the suggestion he had then made that alice should turn her attention to reclaiming greatorex. and, though he had no morbid sense of responsibility in the matter, it struck him with something like compunction that he had put greatorex into alice's head chiefly to distract her from throwing herself at his. and then, he had gone and forgotten all about it. he told himself now that he had been a fool not to think of it. and if he was a fool, what was to be said of the vicar, under whose nose this singular form of choir practice had been going on for goodness knew how long? it did not occur to the doctor that if his surgery day had been a friday, which was choir practice day, he would have been certain to have thought of it. neither was he aware that what he had observed this evening was only the unforeseen result of a perfectly innocent parochial arrangement. it had begun at christmas and again at easter, when it was understood that greatorex, who was nervous about his voice, should turn up for practice ten minutes before the rest of the choir to try over his part in an anthem or cantata, so that, as alice said, he might do himself justice. since easter the ten minutes had grown to fifteen or even twenty. and twice in the last three weeks greatorex, by collusion with alice, had arrived a whole hour before his time. still, there was nothing in this circumstance itself to alarm the vicar. choir practice was choir practice, a mysterious thing he never interfered with, knowing himself to be unmusical. rowcliffe had had good reason for refusing to urge greatorex to marry essy gale. but what he had seen in garth church made him determined to say something to greatorex, after all. he went on his northerly round the very next sunday and timed it so that he overtook his man on his way home from church. he gave greatorex a lift with the result (which he had calculated) that greatorex gave him dinner, as he had done once or twice before. the after-dinner pipe made jim peculiarly approachable, and rowcliffe approached him suddenly and directly. "i say, greatorex, why don't you marry? not a bad thing for you, you know." "ay. saw they tall me," said greatorex amicably. rowcliffe went on to advise his marrying essy, not on the grounds of morality or of justice to the girl (he was a tactful person), but on greatorex's account, as the best thing greatorex could do for himself. "yo mane," said greatorex, "i ought to marry her?" rowcliffe said no, he wasn't going into that. greatorex was profoundly thoughtful. presently he said that he would speak to essy. * * * * * he spoke to her that afternoon. in the cottage down by the beck essy sat by the hearth, nursing her baby. he had recovered from his ailment and lay in her lap, gurgling and squinting at the fire. he wore the robe that mrs. gale had brought to essy five months ago. essy had turned it up above his knees, and smiling softly she watched his little pink feet curling and uncurling as she held them to the fire. essy's back and the back of the baby's head were toward the door, which stood open, the day being still warm. greatorex stood there a moment looking at them before he tapped on the door. he felt no tenderness for either of them, only a sullen pity that was half resentment. as if she had heard his footsteps and known them, essy spoke without looking round. "yo' can coom in ef yo' want," she said. "thank yo'," he said stiffly and came in. "i caan't get oop wi' t' baaby. but there's a chair soomwhere." he found it and sat down. "are yo' woondering why i've coom, essy?" "naw, jim. i wasn't woondering about yo' at all." her voice was sweet and placable. she followed the direction of his eyes. "'e's better. ef thot's what yo've coom for." "it isn' what i've coom for. i've soomthing to saay to yo', essy." "there's nat mooch good yo're saayin' anything, jim. i knaw all yo' 'ave t' saay." "yo'll 'ave t' 'ear it, essy, whether yo' knaw it or not. they're tallin' mae i ought to marry yo'." essy's eyes flashed. "who's tallin' yo'?" "t' vicar, for woon." "t' vicar! 'e's a nice woon t' taalk o' marryin', whan 'is awn wife caan't live wi' 'im, nor 'is awn daughter, neither. and 'oo alse talled yo'? 'twasn' moother?" "naw. it wasn' yore moother." "an' 'twasn' mae, jim, and navver will bae." "'twas dr. rawcliffe." "'e? 'e's anoother. 'ooo's 'e married? miss gwanda? nat' e!" "yo' let t' doctor bae, essy. 'e's right enoof. saw i ought t' marry yo'. but i'm nat goain' to." "'ave yo' coom t' tall mae thot? 's ef i didn' knaw it. 'ave i avver aassked yo' t' marry mae?" "haw, essy." "yo' _can_ aassk mae; yo'll bae saafe enoof. fer i wawn't 'ave yo'. woonce i med 'a' been maad enoof. i med 'a' said yes t' yo'. but i'd saay naw to-day." at that he smiled. "yo' wouldn' 'ave a good-fer-noothin' falla like mae, would yo, laass? look yo'--it's nat that i couldn' 'ave married yo'. i could 'ave married yo' right enoof. an' it's nat thot i dawn' think yo' pretty. yo're pretty enoof fer me. it's--it's--i caan't rightly tall whot it is." "dawn' tall mae. i dawn' want t' knaw." he looked hard at her. "i might marry yo' yat," he said. "but yo' knaw you wouldn' bae happy wi' mae. i sud bae crool t' yo'. nat because i wanted t' bae crool, but because i couldn' halp mysel. theer'd bae soomthin' alse i sud bae thinkin' on and wantin' all t' while." "i knaw. i knaw. i wouldn' lat yo', jim. i wouldn' lat yo'." "i knaw there's t' baaby an' all. it's hard on yo', essy. but--i dawn' knaw--i ned bae crool to t' baaby, too." then she looked up at him, but with more incredulity than reproach. "yo' wudn'," she said. "yo' cudn' bae crool t' lil jimmy." he scowled. "yo've called 'im thot, essy?" "an' why sudn' i call 'im? 'e's a right to thot naame, annyhow. yo' caann't taake thot awaay from 'im." "i dawn' want t' taake it away from 'im. but i wish yo' 'adn'. i wish you 'adn', essy." "why 'alf t' lads in t' village is called jimmy. yo're called jimmy yourself, coom t' thot." he considered it. "well--it's nat as ef they didn' knaw--all of 'em." "oh--they knaws!" "d'yo' mind them, essy? they dawn't maake yo' feel baad about it, do they?" she shook her head and smiled her dreamy smile. he rose and looked down at her with his grieved, resentful eyes. "yo' moosn' suppawse i dawn feel baad, essy. i've laaid awaake manny a night, thinkin' what i've doon t'yo'." "what _'ave_ yo' doon, jimmy? yo' maade mae 'appy fer sex moonths. an' there's t' baaby. i didn' want 'im before 'e coom--seemed like i'd 'ave t' 'ave 'im stead o' yo'. but yo' can goa right awaay, jimmy, an' i sudn' keer ef i navver saw yo' again, so long's i 'ad 'im." "is thot truth, essy?" "it's gawd's truth." he put out his hand and caressed the child's downy head as if it was the head of some young animal. "i wish i could do more fer 'im, essy. i will, maaybe, soom daay." "i wouldn' lat yo'. i wouldn' tooch yo're mooney now ef i could goa out t' wark an' look affter 'im too. i wouldn' tooch a panny of it, i wouldn'." "dawn' yo' saay thot, essy. yo' dawn' want to spite mae, do yo'?" "i didn' saay it t' spite yo', jimmy. i said it saw's yo' sudn' feel saw baad." he smiled mournfully. "poor essy," he said. she gave him a queer look. "yo' needn' pity _mae,_" she said. * * * * * he went away considerably relieved in his mind, but still suffering that sullen uneasiness in his soul. xliv it was the last week in june. mary cartaret sat in the door of the cottage by the beck. and in her lap she held essy's baby. essy had run in to the last cottage in the row to look after her great aunt, the widow gale, who had fallen out of bed in the night. the widow gale, in her solitude, had formed the habit of falling out of bed. but this time she had hurt her head, and essy had gone for the doctor and had met miss mary in the village and mary had come with her to help. for by good luck--better luck than the widow gale deserved--it was a wednesday. rowcliffe had sent word that he would come at three. it was three now. and as he passed along the narrow path he saw mary cartaret in the doorway with the baby in her lap. she smiled at him as he went by. "i'm making myself useful," she said. "oh, more than that!" his impression was that mary had made herself beautiful. he looked back over his shoulder and laughed as he hurried on. up till now it hadn't occurred to him that mary could be beautiful. but it didn't puzzle him. he knew how she had achieved that momentary effect. he knew and he was to remember. for the effect repeated itself. as he came back mary was standing in the path, holding the baby in her arms. she was looking, she said, for essy. would essy be coming soon? rowcliffe did not answer all at once. he stood contemplating the picture. it wasn't all mary. the baby did his part. he had been "short-coated" that month, and his thighs, crushed and delicately creased, showed rose red against the white rose of mary's arm. she leaned her head, brooding tenderly, to his, and his head (he was a dark baby) was dusk to her flame. rowcliffe smiled. "why?" he said. "do you want to get rid of him?" as if unconsciously she pressed the child closer to her. as if unconsciously she held his head against her breast. and when his fingers worked there, in their way, she covered them with her hand. "no," she said. "he's a nice baby. (aren't you a nice baby? there!) essy's unhappy because he's going to have blue eyes and dark hair. but i think they're the prettiest, don't you?" "yes," said rowcliffe. he was grave and curt. and mary remembered that that was what gwenda had--blue eyes and dark hair. it was what gwenda's children might have had, too. she felt that she had made him think of gwenda. then essy came and took the baby from her. "'e's too 'eavy fer yo', miss," she said. she laughed as she took him; she gazed at him with pride and affection unabashed. his one fault, for essy, was that, though he had got greatorex's eyes, he had not got greatorex's hair. mary and rowcliffe went back together. "you're coming in to tea, aren't you?" she said. "rather." he had got into the habit again of looking in at the vicarage for tea every wednesday. they were having tea in the orchard now. and in june the vicarage orchard was a pleasanter place than the surgery. it was in fact a very pleasant place. pleasanter than the gray and amber drawing-room. when rowcliffe came to think of it, he owed the cartarets many pleasant things. so he had formed another habit of asking them back to tea in his orchard. he had had no idea what a pleasant place his orchard could be too. now, though rowcliffe nearly always had tea alone with mary at the vicarage, mary never came to tea at rowcliffe's house alone. she always brought alice with her. and rowcliffe found that a nuisance. for one thing, alice had the air of being dragged there against her will, so completely had she recovered from him. for another, he couldn't talk to mary quite so well. he didn't know that he wanted to talk to mary. he didn't know that he particularly wanted to be alone with her, but somehow alice's being there made him want it. he was to be alone with mary to-day, in the orchard. * * * * * the window of the vicar's study raked the orchard. but that didn't matter, for the vicar was not at home this wednesday. the orchard waited for them. two wicker-work armchairs and the little round tea-table were set out under the trees. mary's knitting lay in one of the chairs. she had the habit of knitting while she talked, or while rowcliffe talked and she listened. the act of knitting disposed her to long silences. it also occupied her, so that rowcliffe, when he liked, could be silent too. but generally he talked and mary listened. they hadn't many subjects. but mary made the most of what they had. and she always knew the precise moment when rowcliffe had ceased to be interested in any one of them. she knew, as if by instinct, all his moments. they were talking now, at tea-time, about the widow gale. mary wanted to know how the poor thing was getting on. the widow gale had been rather badly shaken and she had bruised her poor old head and one hip. but she wouldn't fall out of bed again to-night. rowcliffe had barricaded the bed with a chest of drawers. afterward there must be a rail or something. mary was interested in the widow gale as long as rowcliffe liked to talk about her. but the widow gale didn't carry them very far. what would have carried them far was rowcliffe himself. but rowcliffe never wanted to talk about himself to mary. when mary tried to lead gently up to him, rowcliffe shied. he wouldn't talk about himself any more than he would talk about gwenda. but mary didn't want to talk about gwenda either now. so that her face showed the faintest flicker of dismay when rowcliffe suddenly began to talk about her. "have you any idea," he said, "when your sister's coming back?" "she won't be long," said mary. "she's only gone to upthorne village." "i meant your other sister." "oh, gwenda----" mary brooded. and the impression her brooding made on rowcliffe was that mary knew something about gwenda she did not want to tell. "i don't think," said mary gravely, "that gwenda ever will come back again. at least not if she can help it. i thought you knew that." "i suppose i must have known." he left it there. mary took up her knitting. she was making a little vest for essy's baby. rowcliffe watched it growing under her hands. "as i can't knit, do you mind my smoking?" she didn't. "if more women knitted," he said, "it would be a good thing. they wouldn't be bothered so much with nerves." "i don't do it for nerves. i haven't any," said mary. he laughed. "no, i don't think you have." she fell into one of her gentle silences. a silence not of her own brooding, he judged. it had no dreams behind it and no imagination that carried her away. a silence, rather, that brought her nearer to him, that waited on his mood. his eyes watched under half-closed lids the movements of her hands and the pretty droop of her head. and he said to himself, "how sweet she is. and how innocent. and good." their chairs were set near together in the small plot of grass. the little trees of the orchard shut them in. he began to notice things about her that he had not noticed before, the shape and color of her finger nails, the modeling of her supple wrists, the way her ears were curved and laid close to her rather broad head. he saw that her skin was milk-white at the throat, and honey-white at her ears, and green-white, the white of an elder flower, at the roots of her red hair. and as she unwound her ball of wool it rolled out of her lap and fell between her feet. she stooped suddenly, bringing under rowcliffe's eyes the nape of her neck, shining with golden down, and her shoulders, sun-warmed and rosy under the thin muslin of her blouse. they dived at the same moment, and as their heads came up again their faces would have touched but that rowcliffe suddenly drew back his own. "i say, i _do_ beg your pardon!" it was odd, but in the moment of his recoil from that imminent contact rowcliffe remembered the little red-haired nurse. not that there was much resemblance; for, though the little nurse was sweet, she was not altogether innocent, neither was she what good people like mary cartaret would call good. and mary, leaning back in her chair with the recovered ball in her lap, was smiling at his confusion with an innocence and goodness of which he could have no doubt. when he tried to account to himself for the remembrance he supposed it must have been the red hair that did it. and up to the end and to the end of the end rowcliffe never knew that, though he had been made subject to a sequence of relentless inhibitions and of suggestions overpowering in their nature and persistently sustained, it was ultimately by aid of that one incongruous and irresistible association that mary cartaret had cast her spell. he had never really come under it until that moment. * * * * * july passed. it was the end of august. to the west karva and morfe high moor were purple. to the east the bare hillsides with their limestone ramparts smouldered in mist and sun, or shimmered, burning like any hillside of the south. the light even soaked into the gray walls of garth in its pastures. the little plum-trees in the vicarage orchard might have been olive trees twinkling in the sun. mary was in the vicar's bedroom, looking now at the door, and now at her own image in the wardrobe glass. it was seven o'clock in the evening and she had chosen a perilous moment for the glass. she wore a childlike frock of rough green silk; it had no collar but was cut square at the neck showing her white throat. the square was bordered with an embroidered design of peacock's eyes. the parted waves of her red hair were burnished with hard brushing; its coils lay close, and smooth as a thick round cap. it needed neither comb nor any ornament. mary had dressed, for rowcliffe was coming to dinner. such a thing had never been heard of at the vicarage; but it had come to pass. and as mary thought of how she had accomplished it, she wondered what alice could possibly have meant when she said to her "there are moments when i hate you," as she hooked her up the back. for it never could have happened if she had not persuaded the vicar (and herself as well) that she was asking rowcliffe on alice's account. the vicar had come gradually to see that if alice must be married she had better marry rowcliffe and have done with it. he had got used to rowcliffe and he rather liked him; so he had only held out against the idea for a fortnight or so. he had even found a certain austere satisfaction in the thought that he, the doctor, who had tried to terrify him about ally's insanity, having thrown that bomb into the peaceful vicarage, should be blown up, as it were, with his own explosion. the vicar never doubted that it was ally that rowcliffe wanted. for the idea of his wanting gwenda was so unpleasant to him that he had dismissed it as preposterous; as for mary, he had made up his mind that mary would never dream of marrying and leaving him, and that, if she did, he would put his foot down. there had been changes in the vicarage in the last two months. the shabby gray and amber drawing-room was not all shabbiness and not all gray and amber now. there were new cretonne covers on the chairs and sofa, and pure white muslin curtains at the windows, and the lamp had a new frilled petticoat. every afternoon mrs. gale was arrayed in a tight black gown and irreproachable cap and apron. all day long mary and mrs. gale had worked like galley slaves over the preparations for dinner, and between them they had achieved perfection. what was more they had produced an effect of achieving it every day, clear soup, mayonnaise salad and cheese straws and all. and the black coffee made by mary and served in the orchard afterward was perfection too. and the impression made on rowcliffe by the vicarage was that of a house and a household rehabilitated after a long period of devastation, by the untiring, selfless labor of a woman who was good and sweet. after they had drunk mary's coffee the vicar strolled away to his study so as to leave rowcliffe alone with mary, and alice strolled away heaven knew where so as to leave mary alone with rowcliffe. and the vicar said to himself, "mary is really doing it very well. ally ought to be grateful to her." but ally wasn't a bit grateful. she said to herself, "i've half a mind to tell him; only gwenda would hate me." and she called over her shoulder as she strolled away, "you'd better not stay out too long, you two. it's going to rain." morfe high moor hangs over garth and a hot and swollen cloud was hanging over morfe high moor. above the gray ramparts the very east was sultry. in the orchard under the low plum-trees it was as airless as in a tent. rowcliffe didn't want to stay out too long in the orchard. he knew that the window of the vicar's study raked it. so he asked mary if she would come with him for a stroll. (his only criticism of mary was that she didn't walk enough.) mary thought, "my nice frock will be ruined if the rain comes." but she went. "shall it be the moor or the fields?" he said. mary thought again, and said, "the fields." he was glad she hadn't said "the moor." they strolled past the village and turned into the pasture that lay between the high road and the beck. the narrow paths led up a slope from field to field through the gaps in the stone walls. the fields turned with the turning of the dale and with that turning of the road that rowcliffe knew, under karva. instinctively, with a hand on her arm he steered her, away from the high road and its turning, toward the beck, so that they had their backs to the thunder storm as it came up over karva and the high moor. it was when they were down in the bottom that it burst. there was shelter on the further side of the last field. they ran to it, climbed, and crouched together under the stone wall. rowcliffe took off the light overcoat he wore and tried to put it on her. but mary wouldn't let him. she looked at his clothes, at the round dinner jacket with its silk collar and at the beautiful evening trousers with their braided seams. he insisted. she refused. he insisted still, and compromised by laying the overcoat round both of them. and they crouched together under the wall, sitting closer so that the coat might cover them. it thundered and lightened. the rain pelted them from the high batteries of karva. and rowcliffe drew mary closer. she laughed like a happy child. rowcliffe sighed. it was after he had sighed that he kissed her under the cover of the coat. * * * * * they sat there for half an hour; three-quarters; till the storm ceased with the rising of the moon. * * * * * "i'm afraid the pretty frock's spoiled," he said. "that doesn't matter. your poor suit's ruined." he laughed. "whatever's been ruined," he said, "it was worth it." hand in hand they went back together through the drenched fields. at the first gap he stopped. "it's settled?" he said. "you won't go back on it? you _do_ care for me? and you _will_ marry me?" "yes." "soon?" "yes; soon." at the last gap he stopped again. "mary," he said, "i suppose you knew about gwenda?" "i knew there was something. what was it?" he had said to himself, "i shall have to tell her. i shall have to say i cared for her." what he did say was, "there was nothing in it. it's all over. it was all over long ago." "i knew," she said, "it was all over." and the solemn white moon came up, the moon that gwenda loved; it came up over greffington edge and looked at them. xlv it was sunday afternoon, the last sunday of august, the first since that evening (it was a thursday) when steven rowcliffe had dined at the vicarage. mary had announced her engagement the next day. the news had an extraordinary effect on alice and the vicar. mary had come to her father in his study on friday evening after prayers. she informed him of the bare fact in the curtest manner, without preface or apology or explanation. a terrible scene had followed; at least the vicar's part in it had been terrible. nothing he had ever said to gwenda could compare with what he then said to mary. alice's behavior he had been prepared for. he had expected anything from gwenda; but from mary he had not expected this. it was her treachery he resented, the treachery of a creature he had depended on and trusted. he absolutely forbade the engagement. he said it was unheard of. he spoke of her "conduct" as if it had been disgraceful or improper. he declared that "that fellow" rowcliffe should never come inside his house again. he bullied and threatened and bullied again. and through it all mary sat calm and quiet and submissive. the expression of the qualities he had relied on, her sweetness and goodness, never left her face. she replied to his violence, "yes, papa. very well, papa, i see." but, as gwenda had warned him, bully as he would, mary beat him in the end. she looked meekly down at the hearth-rug and said, "i know how you feel about it, papa dear. i understand all you've got to say and i'm sorry. but it isn't any good. you know it isn't just as well as i do." it might have been gwenda who spoke to him, only that gwenda could never have looked meek. the vicar had not recovered from the shock. he was convinced that he never would recover from it. but on that sunday he had found a temporary oblivion, dozing in his study between two services. there had been no scene like that with alice. but what had passed between the sisters had been even worse. mary had gone straight from the study to ally's room. ally was undressing. ally received the news in a cruel silence. she looked coldly, sternly almost, and steadily at mary. "you needn't have told me that," she said at last. "i could see what you were doing the other night." "what _i_ was doing?" "yes, you. i don't imagine steven rowcliffe did it" "really ally--what do you suppose i did?" "i don't know what it was. but i know you did something and i know that--whatever it was--_i_ wouldn't have done it." and mary answered quietly. "if i were you, ally, i wouldn't show my feelings quite so plainly." and ally looked at her again. "it's not _my_ feelings--" she said. mary reddened. "i don't know what you mean." "you'll know, some day," ally said and turned her back on her. * * * * * mary went out, closing the door softly, as if she spared her sick sister's unreasonably irritated nerves. she felt rather miserable as she undressed alone in her bedroom. she was wounded in her sweetness and her goodness, and she was also a little afraid of what ally might take it into her head to say or do. she didn't try to think what ally had meant. her sweetness and goodness, with their instinct of self-preservation, told her that it might be better not. the august night was warm and tender, and, when mary had got into bed and lay stretched out in contentment under the white sheet, she began to think of rowcliffe to the exclusion of all other interests; and presently, between a dream and a dream, she fell asleep. * * * * * but ally could not sleep. she lay till dawn thinking and thinking, and turning from side to side between her thoughts. they were not concerned with gwenda or with rowcliffe. after her little spurt of indignation she had ceased to think about gwenda or rowcliffe either. mary's news had made her think about herself, and her thoughts were miserable. ally was so far like her father the vicar, that the idea of mary's marrying was intolerable to her and for precisely the same reason, because she saw no prospect of marrying herself. her father had begun by forbidding mary's engagement but he would end by sanctioning it. he would never sanction _her_ marriage to jim greatorex. even if she defied her father and married jim greatorex in spite of him there would be almost as much shame in it as if, like essy, she had never married him at all. and she couldn't live without him. ally had suffered profoundly from the shock that had struck her down under the arcades on the road to upthorne. it had left her more than ever helpless, more than ever subject to infatuation, more than ever morally inert. ally's social self had grown rigid in the traditions of her class, and she was still aware of the unsuitability of her intimacy with jim greatorex; but disaster had numbed her once poignant sense of it. she had yielded to his fascination partly through weakness, partly in defiance, partly in the sheer, healthy self-assertion of her suffering will and her frustrated senses. but she had not will enough to defy her father. she credited him with an infinite capacity to crush and wound. and for a day and a half the sight of mary's happiness--a spectacle which mary did not spare her---had made ally restless. under the incessant sting of it her longing for greatorex became insupportable. on sunday the vicar was still too deeply afflicted by the same circumstance to notice ally's movements, and ally took advantage of his apathy to excuse herself from sunday school that afternoon. and about three o'clock she was at upthorne farm. she and greatorex had found a moment after morning service to arrange the hour. * * * * * and now they were standing together in the doorway of the farmhouse. in the house behind them, in the mistal and the orchard, in the long marshes of the uplands and on the brooding hills there was stillness and solitude. maggie had gone up to her aunt at bar hill. the farm servants were scattered in their villages. alice had just told greatorex of mary's engagement and the vicar's opposition. "eh, i was lookin' for it," he said. "but i maade sure it was your oother sister." "so did i, jim. so it was. so it would have been, only--" she stopped herself. she wasn't going to give mary away to jim. he looked at her. "wall, it's nowt t' yo, is it?" "no. it's nothing to me--now. how did you know i cared for him?" "i knew because i looved yo. because i was always thinkin' of yo. because i watched yo with him." "oh jim--would other people know?" "naw. nat they. they didn't look at yo the saame as i did." he became thoughtful. "wall--this here sattles it," he said presently. "yo caann't be laft all aloan in t' vicarage. yo'll _'ave_ t' marry mae." "no," she said. "it won't be like that. it won't, really. if my father won't let my sister marry dr. rowcliffe, you don't suppose he'll let me marry you? it makes it more impossible than ever. that's what i came to tell you." "it's naw use yo're tallin' mae. i won't hear it." he bent to her. "ally--d'yo knaw we're aloan here?" "yes, jim." "we're saafe till naddy cooms back for t' milkin'. we've three hours." she shook her head. "only an hour and a half, jim. i must be back for tea." "yo'll 'ave tae here. yo've had it before. i'll maake it for yo." "i daren't, jim. they'll expect me. they'll wonder." "ay, 'tis thot waay always. yo're no sooner coom than yo've got to be back for this, thot and toother. i'm fair sick of it." "so am i." she sighed. "wall then--yo must end it." "how can i end it?" "yo knaw how." "oh jim--darling--haven't i told you?" "yo've toald mae noothin' that makes a hap'orth o' difference to mae. yo've coom to mae. thot's all i keer for." he put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the house-place. "let me shaw yo t' house--now you've coom." his voice pleaded and persuaded. in spite of its north-country accent ally loved his voice. it sounded musical and mournful, like the voices of the mountain sheep coming from far across the moor and purified by distance. he took her through the kitchen and the little parlor at the end of the house. as he looked round it, trying to see it with her eyes, doubt came to him. but ally, standing there, looked toward the kitchen. "will maggie be there?" she said. "ay, maaggie'll be there, ready when yo want her." "but," she said, "i don't want her." he followed her look. "i'll 'ave it all claned oop and paapered and paainted. look yo--i could have a hole knocked through t' back wall o' t' kitchen and a winder put there--and roon oop a wooden partition and make a passage for yo t' goa to yore awn plaace, soa's maaggie'll not bae in yore road." "you needn't. i like it best as it is." "do yo? d'yo mind thot soonda yo caame laasst year? yo've aassked mae whan it was i started thinkin' of yo. it was than. thot daay whan yo sot there in thot chair by t' fire, taalkin' t' mae and drinkin' yore tae so pretty." she drew closer to him. "did you really love me then?" "ay--i looved yo than." she pondered it. "jim--what would you have done if i hadn't loved you?" he choked back something in his throat before he answered her. "what sud i have doon? i sud have goan on looving yo joost the saame. "we'll goa oopstairs now." he took her back and out through the kitchen and up the stone stairs that turned sharply in their narrow place in the wall. he opened the door at the head of the landing. "this would bae our room. 'tis t' best." he took her into the room where john greatorex had died. it was the marriage chamber, the birth-chamber, and the death-chamber of all the greatorexes. the low ceiling still bulged above the big double bed john greatorex had died in. the room was tidy and spotlessly clean. the walls had been whitewashed. fresh dimity curtains hung at the window. the bed was made, a clean white counterpane was spread on it. the death room had been made ready for the living. the death-bed waited for the bride. ally stood there, under the eyes of her lover, looking at those things. she shivered slightly. she said to herself, "it's the room his father died in." and there came on her a horror of the room and of all that had happened in it, a horror of death and of the dead. she turned away to the window and looked out. the long marshland stretched below, white under the august sun. beyond it the green hills with their steep gray cliffs rose and receded, like a coast line, head after head. to ally the scene was desolate beyond all bearing and the house was terrible. her eyelids pricked. her mouth trembled. she kept her back turned to greatorex while she stifled a sob with her handkerchief pressed tight to her lips. he saw and came to her and put his arm round her. "what is it, ally? what is it, loove?" she looked up at him. "i don't know, jim. but--i think--i'm afraid." "what are you afraid of?" she thought a moment. "i'm afraid of father." "yo med bae ef yo staayed with him. thot's why i want yo t' coom to mae." he looked at her. "'tisn' thot yo're afraid of. 'tis soomthin' alse thot yo wawn't tall mae." "well--i think--i'm a little bit afraid of this house. it's--it's so horribly lonely." he couldn't deny it. "a'y; it's rackoned t' bae loanly. but i sall navver leaave yo. i'm goain' t' buy a new trap for yo, soa's yo can coom with mae and daaisy. would yo like thot, ally?" "yes, jim, i'd love it. but----" "it'll not bae soa baad. whan i'm out in t' mistal and in t' fields and thot, yo'll have maaggie with yo." she whispered. "jim--i can't bear maggie. i'm afraid of her." "afraid o' pore maaggie?" he took it in. he wondered. he thought he understood. "maaggie sall goa. i'll 'ave anoother. an' yo sall 'ave a yooung laass t' waait on yo. ef it's maaggie, shea sall nat stand in yore road." "it isn't maggie--altogether." "than--for gawd's saake, loove, what is it?" she sobbed. "it's everything. it's something in this house--in this room." he looked at her gravely now. "naw," he said slowly, "'tis noon o' thawse things. it's mae. it's mae yo're afraid of. yo think i med bae too roough with yo." but at that she cried out with a little tender cry and pressed close to him. "no--no--no--it isn't you. it isn't. it couldn't be." he crushed her in his arms. his mouth clung to her face and passed over it and covered it with kisses. "am i too roough? tall mae--tall mae." "no," she whispered. he pushed back her hat from her forehead, kissing her hair. she took off her hat and flung it on the floor. his voice came fast and thick. "kiss mae back ef yo loove mae." she kissed him. she stiffened and leaned back in the crook of his arm that held her. his senses swam. he grasped her as if he would have lifted her bodily from the floor. she was light in his arms as a child. he had turned her from the window. he looked fiercely round the room that shut them in. his eyes lowered; they fixed themselves on the bed with its white counterpane. they saw under the white counterpane the dead body of his father stretched there, and the stain on the grim beard tilted to the ceiling. he loosed her and pushed her from him. "we moost coom out o' this," he muttered. he pushed her from the room, gently, with a hand on her shoulder, and made her go before him down the stairs. he went back into the room to pick up her hat. he found her waiting for him, looking back, at the turn of the stair where john greatorex's coffin had stuck in the corner of the wall. "jim--i'm so frightened," she said. "ay. yo'll bae all right downstairs." they stood in the kitchen, each looking at the other, each panting, she in her terror and he in his agony. "take me away," she said. "out of the house. that room frightened me. there's something there." "ay;" he assented. "there med bae soomthing. sall we goa oop t' fealds?" * * * * * the three fields looked over the back of upthorne farm. naked and gray, the great stone barn looked over the three fields. a narrow track led to it, through the gaps, slantwise, from the gate of the mistal. above the fields the barren, ruined hillside ended and the moor began. it rolled away southward and westward, in dusk and purple and silver green, utterly untamed, uncaught by the network of the stone walls. the barn stood high and alone on the slope of the last field, a long, broad-built nave without its tower. a single thorn-tree crouched beside it. alice cartaret and greatorex went slowly up the three fields. there was neither thought nor purpose in their going. the quivering air was like a sheet of glass let down between plain and hill. slowly, with mournful cries, a flock of mountain sheep came down over the shoulder of the moor. behind them a solitary figure topped the rise as alice and greatorex came up the field-track. alice stopped in the track and turned. "somebody's coming over the moor. he'll see us." greatorex stood scanning the hill. "'tis nad, wi' t' dawg, drivin' t' sheep." "oh, jim, he'll see us." "nat he!" but he drew her behind the shelter of the barn. "he'll come down the fields. he'll be sure to see us." "ef he doos, caann't i walk in my awn fealds wi' my awn sweetheart?" "i don't want to be seen," she moaned. "wall--?" he pushed open the door of the barn. "wae'll creep in here than, tall he's paassed." a gray light slid through the half-shut door and through the long, narrow slits in the walls. from the open floor of the loft there came the sweet, heavy scent of hay. "he'll see the door open. he'll come in. he'll find us here." "he wawn't." but jim shut the door. "we're saafe enoof. but 'tis naw plaace for yo. yo'll mook yore lil feet. staay there--where yo are--tell i tall yo." he groped his way in the half darkness up the hay loft stair. she heard his foot going heavily on the floor over her head. he drew back the bolt and pushed open the door in the high wall. the sunlight flooded the loft; it streamed down the stair. the dust danced in it. jim stood on the stair. he smiled down at alice where she waited below. "coom oop into t' haay loft, ally." he stooped. he held out his hand and she climbed to him up the stair. they sat there on the floor of the loft, silent, in the attitude of children who crouch hiding in their play. he had strewn for her a carpet of the soft, sweet hay and piled it into cushions. "oh, jim," she said at last. "i'm so frightened. i'm so horribly frightened." she stretched out her arm and slid her hand into his. jim's hand pressed hers and let it go. he leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees, his hands clutching his forehead. and in his thick, mournful voice he spoke. "yo wouldn't bae freetened ef yo married mae. there'd bae an and of these scares, an' wae sudn't 'ave t' roon these awful risks." "i can't marry you, darling. i can't." "yo caann't, because yo're freetened o' mae. i coom back to thot. yo think i'm joost a roough man thot caann't understand yo. but i do. i couldn't bae roough with yo, ally, anny more than nad, oop yon, could bae roough wi' t' lil laambs." he was lying flat on his back now, with his arms stretched out above his head. he stared up at the rafters as he went on. "yo wouldn't bae freetened o' mae ef yo looved mae as i loove yo." that brought her to his side with her soft cry. for a moment he lay rigid and still. then he turned and put his arm round her. the light streamed on them where they lay. through the open doorway of the loft they heard the cry of the sheep coming down into the pasture. * * * * * greatorex got up and slid the door softly to. xlvi morfe fair was over and the farmers were going home. a broken, straggling traffic was on the roads from dale to dale. there were men who went gaily in spring carts and in wagons. there were men on horseback and on foot who drove their sheep and their cattle before them. a train of three were going slowly up garthdale, with much lingering to gather together and rally the weary and bewildered flocks. into this train there burst, rocking at full gallop, a trap drawn by greatorex's terrified and indignant mare. daisy was not driven by greatorex, for the reins were slack in his dropped hands, she was urged, whipped up, and maddened to her relentless speed. her open nostrils drank the wind of her going. greatorex's face flamed and his eyes were brilliant. they declared a furious ecstasy. ever and again he rose and struggled to stand upright and recover his grip of the reins. ever and again he was pitched backward on to the seat where he swayed, perilously, with the swaying of the trap. behind him, in the bottom of the trap, two young calves, netted in, pushed up their melancholy eyes and innocent noses through the mesh. hurled against each other, flung rhythmically from side to side, they shared the blind trouble of the man and the torment of the mare. for the first two miles out of morfe the trap charged, scattering men and beasts before it and taking the curves of the road at a tangent. with the third mile the pace slackened. the mare had slaked her thirst for the wind of her going and greatorex's fury was appeased. at the risk of pitching forward over the step he succeeded in gathering up the reins as they neared the dangerous descent to garthdale. he had now dropped from the violence of his ecstasy into a dream-like state in which he was borne swaying on a vague, interminable road that overhung, giddily, the bottomless pit and was flanked by hills that loomed and reeled, that oppressed him with their horrible immensity. he passed the bridge, the church, the vicarage, the schoolhouse with its beckoning tree, and by the mercy of heaven he was unaware of them. at the turn of the road, on upthorne hill, the mare, utterly sobered by the gradient, bowed her head and went with slow, wise feet, taking care of the trap and of her master. as for greatorex, he had ceased to struggle. and at the door of his house his servant maggie received him in her arms. * * * * * he stayed in bed the whole of the next day, bearing his sickness, while maggie waited on him. and in the evening when he lay under her hand, weak, but clear-headed, she delivered herself of what was in her mind. "wall--yo may thank gawd yo're laayin' saafe in yore bed, jim greatorex. it'd sarve yo right ef daaisy 'd lat yo coom hoam oopside down wi yore 'ead draggin' in t' road. soom daay yo'll bae laayin' there with yore nack brawken. "ay, yo may well scootle oonder t' sheets, though there's nawbody but mae t' look at yo. yo'd navver tooch anoother drap o' thot felthy stoof, jimmy, ef yo could sea yoreself what a sight yo bae. naw woonder assy gaale wouldn't 'ave yo, for all yo've laft her wi' t' lil baaby." "who toald yo she wouldn't 'ave mae?" "naybody toald mae. but i knaw. i knaw. i wouldn't 'ave yo myself ef yo aassked mae. i want naw droonkards to marry mae." greatorex became pensive. "yo'd bae freetened o' mae, maaggie?" he asked. and maggie, seeing her advantage, drove it home. "there's more than mae and assy thot's freetened t' marry yo," she said. he darkened. "yo 'oald yore tongue. yo dawn't knaw what yo're saayin', my laass." "dawn't i? there's more than mae thot knaws, mr. greatorex. assy isn't t' awnly woon yo've maade talk o' t' plaace." "what do yo mane? speaak oop. what d'yo mane----yo knaw?" "yo'd best aassk naddy. he med tall ye 'oo was with yo laasst soonda oop t' feald in t' girt byre." "naddy couldn't sae 'oo 't was. med a been assy. med a been yo." "'t wasn' mae, mr. greatorex, an' 't was n' assy. look yo 'ere. i tall yo assy's freetened o' yo." "'oo says she's freetened?" "i saays it. she's thot freetened thot she'd wash yore sweet'eart's dirty cleathes sooner 'n marry yo." "she doesn't wash them?" "shea does. t' kape yore baaby, jim greatorex." with that she left him. * * * * * for the next three months greatorex was more than ever uneasy in his soul. the sunday after maggie's outburst he had sat all morning and afternoon in his parlor with his father's bible. he had not even tried to see alice cartaret. for three months, off and on, in the intervals of seeing alice, he longed, with an intense and painful longing, for his god. he longed for him just because he felt that he was utterly separated from him by his sin. he wanted the thing he couldn't have and wasn't fit to have. he wanted it, just as he wanted alice cartaret. and by his sin he did not mean his getting drunk. greatorex did not think of god as likely to take his getting drunk very seriously, any more than he had seemed to take maggie and essy seriously. for greatorex measured god's reprobation by his own repentance. his real offense against god was his offense against alice cartaret. he had got drunk in order to forget it. but that resource would henceforth be denied him. he was not going to get drunk any more, because he knew that if he did alice cartaret wouldn't marry him. meanwhile he nourished his soul on its own longing, on the psalms of david and on the book of job. greatorex would have made a happy saint. but he was a most lugubrious sinner. xlvii the train from durlingham rolled slowly into reyburn station. gwenda cartaret leaned from the window of a third class carriage and looked up and down the platform. she got out, handing her suit-case to a friendly porter. nobody had come to meet her. they were much too busy up at the vicarage. from the next compartment there alighted a group of six persons, a lady in widow's weeds, an elderly lady and gentleman who addressed her affectionately as "fanny, dear," and (obviously belonging to the pair) a very young man and a still younger woman. there was also a much older man, closely attached to them, but not quite so obviously related. these six people also looked up and down the platform, expecting to be met. they were interested in gwenda cartaret. they gazed at her as they had already glanced, surreptitiously and kindly, on the platform at durlingham. now they seemed to be saying to themselves that they were sure it must be she. gwenda walked quickly away from them and disappeared through the booking-office into the station yard. and then rowcliffe, who had apparently been hiding in the general waiting-room, came out on to the platform. the six fell upon him with cries of joy and affection. they were his mother, his paternal uncle and aunt, his two youngest cousins, and dr. harker, his best friend and colleague who had taken his place in january when he had been ill. they had all come down from leeds for rowcliffe's wedding. * * * * * rowcliffe's trap and peacock's from garthdale stood side by side in the station-yard. gwenda in peacock's trap had left the town before she heard behind her the clanking hoofs of rowcliffe's little brown horse. she thought, "he will pass in another minute. i shall see him." but she did not see him. all the way up rathdale to morfe the sound of the wheels and of the clanking hoofs pursued her, and rowcliffe still hung back. he did not want to pass her. "well," said peacock, "thot beats mae. i sud navver a thought thot t' owd maare could a got away from t' doctor's horse. nat ef e'd a mind t' paass 'er." "no," said gwenda. she was thinking, "it's mary. it's mary. how could she, when she _knew_, when she was on her honor not to think of him?" and she remembered a conversation she had had with her stepmother two months ago, when the news came. (robina had seized the situation at a glance and she had probed it to its core.) "you wanted him to marry ally, did you? it wasn't much good you're going away if you left him with mary." "but," she had said, "mary knew." and robina had answered, marvelously. "you should never have let her. it was her knowing that did it. you were three women to one man, and mary was the one without a scruple. do you suppose she'd think of ally or of you, either?" and she had tried to be loyal to mary and to rowcliffe. she had said, "if we _were_ three, we all had our innings, and he made his choice." and robina, "it was mary did the choosing." she had added that gwenda was a little fool, and that she ought to have known that though mary was as meek as moses she was that sort. she went on, thinking, to the steady clanking of the hoofs. "i suppose," she said to herself, "she couldn't help it." the lights of morfe shone through the november darkness. the little slow mare crawled up the winding hill to the top of the green; rowcliffe's horse was slower. but no sooner had peacock's trap passed the doctor's house on its way out of the village square, than the clanking hoofs went fast. rowcliffe was free to go his own pace now. * * * * * "which of you two is going to hook me up?" said mary. she was in the vicar's room, putting on her wedding-gown before the wardrobe glass. her two sisters were dressing her. "i will," said gwenda. "you'd better let me," said alice. "i know where the eyes are." gwenda lifted up the wedding-veil and held it ready. and while alice pulled and fumbled mary gazed at her own reflection and at alice's. "you should have done as mummy said and had your frock made in london, like gwenda. they'd have given you a decent cut. you look as if you couldn't breathe." "my frock's all right," said alice. her fingers trembled as she strained at the hooks and eyes. and in the end it was gwenda who hooked mary up while alice held the veil. she held it in front of her. the long streaming net shivered with the trembling of her hands. * * * * * the wedding was at two o'clock. the church was crowded, so were the churchyard and the road beside the vicarage and the bridge over the beck. morfe and greffington had emptied themselves into garthdale. (greffington had lent its organist.) it was only when it was all over that somebody noticed that jim greatorex was not there with the village choir. "celebrating a bit too early," somebody said. and it was only when it was all over that rowcliffe found gwenda. he found her in the long, flat pause, the half-hour of profoundest realisation that comes when the bride disappears to put off her wedding-gown for the gown she will go away in. she had come out to the wedding-party gathered at the door, to tell them that the bride would soon be ready. rowcliffe and harker were standing apart, at the end of the path, by the door that led from the garden to the orchard. he came toward her. harker drew back into the orchard. they followed him and found themselves alone. for ten minutes they paced the narrow flagged path under the orchard wall. and they talked, quickly, like two who have but a short time. "well--so you've come back at last?" "at last? i haven't been gone six months." "you see, time feels longer to us down here." "that's odd. it goes faster." "anyhow, you're not tired of london?" she stared at him for a second and then looked away. "oh no, i'm not tired of it yet." they turned. "shall you stop long here?" "i'm going back to-morrow." "to-morrow? you're so glad to get back then?" "so glad to get back. i only came down for mary's wedding." he smiled. "you won't come for anything but a wedding?" "a funeral might fetch me." "well, gwenda, i can't say you look as if london agreed with you particularly." "i can't say you look as if garthdale agreed very well with you." "i'm only tired--tired to death." "i'm sorry." "i want a holiday. and i'm going to get one--for a month. _you_ look as if you'd been burning the candle at both ends, if you'll forgive my saying so." "oh--for all the candles i burn! it isn't such awfully hard work, you know." "what isn't?" "what i'm doing." he stopped straight in the narrow path and looked at her. "i say, what _are_ you doing?" she told him. his face expressed surprise and resentment and a curious wonder and bewilderment. "but i thought--i thought----they told me you were having no end of a time." "tunbridge wells isn't very amusing. no more is lady frances." again he stopped dead and stared at her. "but they told me--i mean i thought you were in london with mrs. cartaret, all the time." she laughed. "did papa tell you that?" "no. i don't know who told me. i--i got the impression." he almost stammered. "i must have misunderstood." she meditated. "it sounds awfully like papa. he simply can't believe, poor thing, that i'd stick to anything so respectable." "hah!" he laughed out his contempt for the vicar. he had forgotten that he too had wondered. "chuck it, gwenda," he said, "chuck it." "i can't," she said. "not yet. it's too lucrative." "but if it makes you seedy?" "it doesn't. it won't. it isn't hard work. only----" she broke off. "it's time for you to go." "steve! steve!" rowcliffe's youngest cousin was calling from the study window. "come along. mary's ready." "all right," he shouted. "i'm coming." but he stood still there at the end of the orchard under the gray wall. "good-bye, steven." gwenda put out her hand. he held her with his troubled eyes. he did not see her hand. he saw her eyes only that troubled his. "i say, is it very beastly?" "no. not a bit. you must go, steven, you must go." "if i'd only known," he persisted. they were going down the path now toward the house. "i wouldn't have let you----" "you couldn't have stopped me." (it was what she had always said to all of them.) she smiled. "you didn't stop me going, you know." "if you'd only told me--" she smiled again, a smile as of infinite wisdom. "dear steven, there was nothing to tell." they had come to the door in the wall. it led into the garden. he opened to let her pass through. the wedding-party was gathered together on the flagged path before the house. it greeted them with laughter and cries, cheerfully ironic. the bride in her traveling dress stood on the threshold. outside the carriage waited at the open gate. rowcliffe took mary's hand in his and they ran down the path. "he can sprint fast enough now," said rowcliffe's uncle. * * * * * but his youngest cousin and harker, his best friend, had gone faster. they were waiting together on the bridge, and the girl had a slipper in her hand. "were you ever," she said, "at such an awful wedding?" harker saw nothing wrong about the wedding but he admitted that his experience was small. the youngest cousin was not appeased by his confession. she went on. "why on earth didn't steven _try_ to marry gwenda?" "not much good trying," said the doctor, "if she wouldn't have him." "you believe that silly story? i don't. did you see her face?" harker admitted that he had seen her face. and then, as the carriage passed, rowcliffe's youngest cousin did an odd thing. she tossed the slipper over the bridge into the beck. harker had not time to comment on her action. they were coming for him from the house. rowcliffe's youngest sister-in-law had fainted away on the top landing. everybody remembered then that it was she who had been in love with him. xlviii alice had sent for gwenda. three months had gone by since her sister's wedding, and all her fears were gathered together in the fear of her father and of what was about to happen to her. and before gwenda could come to her, rowcliffe and mary had come to the vicar in his study. they had been a long time with him, and then rowcliffe had gone out. they had sent him to upthorne. and the two had gone into the dining-room and they had her before them there. it was early in a dull evening in february. the lamps were lit and in their yellow light ally's face showed a pale and quivering exaltation. it was the face of a hunted and terrified thing that has gathered courage in desperation to turn and stand. she defended herself with sullen defiance and denial. it had come to that. for ned, the shepherd at upthorne, had told what he had seen. he had told it to maggie, who told it to mrs. gale. he had told it to the head-gamekeeper at garthdale manor, who had a tale of his own that he too had told. and dr. harker had a tale. harker had taken his friend's practice when rowcliffe was away on his honeymoon. he had seen alice and greatorex on the moors at night as he had driven home from upthorne. and he had told rowcliffe what he had seen. and rowcliffe had told mary and the vicar. and at the cottage down by the beck essy gale and her mother had spoken together, but what they had spoken and what they had heard they had kept secret. "i haven't been with him," said alice for the third time. "i don't know what you're talking about." "ally--there's no use your saying that when you've been seen with him." it was mary who spoke. "i ha--haven't." "don't lie," said the vicar. "i'm not. they're l-l-lying," said ally, shaken into stammering now. "who do you suppose would lie about it?" mary said. "essy would." "well--i may tell you, ally, that you're wrong. essy's kept your secret. so has mrs. gale. you ought to go down on your knees and thank the poor girl--after what you did to her." "it _was_ essy. i know. she's mad to marry him herself, so she goes lying about _me_." "nobody's lying about her," said the vicar, "but herself. and she's condemning herself with every word she says. you'd better have left essy out of it, my girl." "i tell you that she's lying if she says she's seen me with him. she's never seen me." "it wasn't essy who saw you," mary said. "somebody else is lying then. who was it?" "if you _must_ know who saw you," the vicar said, "it was dr. harker. you were seen a month ago hanging about upthorne alone with that fellow." "only once," ally murmured. "you own to 'once'? you--you----" he stifled with his fury. "once is enough with a low blackguard like greatorex. and you were seen more than once. you've been seen with him after dark." he boomed. "there isn't a poor drunken slut in the village who's disgraced herself like you." mary intervened. "sh--sh--papa. they'll hear you in the kitchen." "they'll hear _her_." (ally was moaning.) "stop that whimpering and whining." "she can't help it." "she can help it if she likes. come, ally, we're all here----poor mary's come up and steven. there are things we've got to know and i insist on knowing them. you've brought the most awful trouble and shame on me and your sister and brother-in-law, and the least you can do is to answer truthfully. i can't stand any more of this distressing altercation. i'm not going to extort any painful confession. you've only got to answer a simple yes or no. were you anywhere with jim greatorex before dr. harker saw you in december? think before you speak. yes or no." she thought. "n-no." "remember, ally," said mary, "he saw you in november." "he didn't. where?" the vicar answered her. "at your sister's wedding." she recovered. "of course he did. jim greatorex wasn't there, anyhow." "he was _not_." the stress had no significance for ally. her brain was utterly bewildered. "well. you say you were never anywhere with greatorex before december. you were not with him in--when was it, mary?" "august," said mary. "the end of august." ally simply stared at him in her white bewilderment. dates had no meaning as yet for her cowed brain. he helped her. "in the three fields. on a sunday afternoon. did you or did you not go into the barn?" at that she cried out with a voice of anguish. "no--no--no!" but mary had her knife ready and she drove it home. "ally--ned langstaff _saw_ you." * * * * * when rowcliffe came back from upthorne he found alice cowering in a corner of the couch and crying out to her tormentors. "you brutes--you brutes--if gwenda was here she wouldn't let you bully me!" mary turned to her husband. "steven--will you speak to her? she won't tell us anything. we've been at it more than half an hour." rowcliffe stared at her and the vicar with strong displeasure. "i should think you had by the look of her. why can't you leave the poor child alone?" at the sound of his voice, the first voice of compassion that had yet spoken to her, alice cried to him. "steven! steven! they've been saying awful things to me. tell them it isn't true. tell them you don't believe it." "there--there----" his voice stuck in his throat. he put his hand on her shoulder, standing between her and her father. "tell them----" she looked up at him with her piteous eyes. "she's worried to death," said rowcliffe. "you might have left it for to-night at any rate." "we couldn't, steven, when you've sent for greatorex. we _must_ get at the truth before he comes." rowcliffe shrugged his shoulders. "have you brought him?" said the vicar. "no, i haven't. he's in morfe. i've sent word for him to come on here." alice looked sharply at him. "what have you sent for _him_ for? do you suppose _he'd_ give me away?" she began to weep softly. "all this," said rowcliffe, "is awfully bad for her." "you don't seem to consider what it is for us." rowcliffe took no notice of the vicar. "look here, mary--you'd better take her upstairs before he comes. put her to bed. try and get her to sleep." "very well. come, ally." mary was gentler now. then ally became wonderful. she stood up and faced them all. "i won't go," she said. "i'll stay till he comes if i sit up all night. how do i know what you're going to do to him? do you suppose i'm going to leave him with you? if anybody touches him i'll _kill_ them." "ally, dear----" mary put her hand gently on her sister's arm to lead her from the room. ally shook off the hand and turned on her in hysteric fury. "stop pawing me--you! how dare you touch me after what you've said. steven--she says i took essy's lover from her." "i didn't, ally. she doesn't know what she's saying." "you _did_ say it. she did, steven. she said i ought to thank essy for not splitting on me when i took her lover from her. as if _she_ could talk when _she_ took steven from gwenda." "oh--steven!" rowcliffe shook his head at mary, frowning, as a sign to her not to mind what alice said. "you treat me as if i was dirt, but i'd have died rather than have done what she did." "come, alice, come. you know you don't mean it," said rowcliffe, utterly gentle. "i do mean it! she sneaked you from behind gwenda's back and lied to you to make you think she didn't care for you----" "be quiet, you shameful girl!" "be quiet yourself, papa. i'm not as shameful as molly is. i'm not as shameful as you are yourself. you killed mother." "oh--my--god----" the words were almost inaudible in the vicar's shuddering groan. he advanced on her to turn her from the room. ally sank on her sofa as she saw him come. rowcliffe stepped between them. "for god's sake, sir----" ally was struggling in hysterics now, choking between her piteous and savage cries. rowcliffe laid her on the sofa and put a cushion under her head. when he tried to loosen her gown at her throat she screamed. "it's all right, ally, it's all right." "_is_ it? _is_ it?" the vicar hissed at him. "it won't be unless you leave her to me. if you go on bullying her much longer i won't answer for the consequences. you surely don't want----" "it's all right, ally. lie quiet, there--like that. that's a good girl. nobody's going to worry you any more." he was kneeling by the sofa, pressing his hand to her forehead. ally still sobbed convulsively, but she lay quiet. she closed her eyes under rowcliffe's soothing hand. "you might go and see if you can find some salvolatile, mary," he said. mary went. the vicar, who had turned his back on this scene, went, also, into his study. ally still kept her eyes shut. "has mary gone?" "yes." "and papa?" "yes. lie still." she lay still. * * * * * there was the sound of wheels on the road. it brought mary and the vicar back into the room. the wheels stopped. the gate clanged. rowcliffe rose. "that's greatorex. i'll go to him." ally lay very still now, still as a corpse, with closed eyes. the house door opened. rowcliffe drew back into the room. "it isn't greatorex," he said. "it's gwenda." "who sent for her?" said the vicar. "i did," said ally. she had opened her eyes. "thank god for that, anyhow," said rowcliffe. mary and her father looked at each other. neither of them seemed to want to go out to gwenda. it struck rowcliffe that the vicar was afraid. they waited while gwenda paid her driver and dismissed him. they could hear her speaking out there in the passage. the house door shut and she came to them. she paused in the doorway, looking at the three who stood facing her, embarrassed and expectant. she seemed to be thinking that it was odd that they should stand there. the door, thrown back, hid alice, who lay behind it on her sofa. "come in, gwenda," said the vicar with exaggerated suavity. she came in and closed the door. then she saw alice. she took the hand that rowcliffe held out to her without looking at him. she was looking at alice. alice gave a low cry and struggled to her feet. "i thought you were never coming," she said. gwenda held her in her arms. she faced them. "what have you been doing to her--all of you?" rowcliffe answered. though he was the innocent one of the three he looked the guiltiest. he looked utterly ashamed. "we've had rather a scene, and it's been a bit too much for her," he said. "so i see," said gwenda. she had not greeted mary or her father. "if you could persuade her to go upstairs to bed----" "i've told you i won't go till he comes," said ally. she sat down on the sofa as a sign that she was going to wait. "till who comes?" gwenda asked. she stared at the three with a fierce amazement. and they were abashed. "she doesn't know, steve," said mary. "i certainly don't," said gwenda. she sat down beside ally. "has anybody been bullying you, ally?" "they've all been bullying me except steven. steven's been an angel. he doesn't believe what they say. papa says i'm a shameful girl, and mary says i took jim greatorex from essy. and they think----" "never mind what they think, darling." "i must protest----" the vicar would have burst out again but that his son-in-law restrained him. "better leave her to gwenda," he said. he opened the door of the study. "really, sir, i think you'd better. and you, too, mary." and with her husband's compelling hand on her shoulder mary went into the study. the vicar followed them. * * * * * as the door closed on them alice looked furtively around. "what is it, ally?" gwenda said. "don't you know?" she whispered. "no. you haven't told me anything." "you don't know why i sent for you? can't you think?" gwenda was silent. "gwenda--i'm in the most awful trouble----" she looked around again. then she spoke rapidly and low with a fearful hoarse intensity. "i won't tell them, but i'll tell you. they've been trying to get it out of me by bullying, but i wasn't going to let them. gwenda--they wanted to make me tell straight out, there--before steven. and i wouldn't--i wouldn't. they haven't got a word out of me. but it's true, what they say." she paused. "about me." "my lamb, i don't know what they say about you." "they say that i'm going to----" crouching where she sat, bent forward, staring with her stare, she whispered. "oh--ally--darling----" "i'm not ashamed, not the least little bit ashamed. and i don't care what they think of me. but i'm not going to tell them. i've told _you_ because i know you won't hate me, you won't think me awful. but i won't tell mary, and i won't tell papa. or steven. if i do they'll make me marry him." "was it--was it----" ally's instinct heard the name that her sister spared her. "yes--yes--yes. it is." she added, "i don't care." "ally--what made you do it?" "i don't--know." "was it because of steven?" ally raised her head. "no. it was _not_. steven isn't fit to black his boots. i know that----" "but--you don't care for him?" "i did--i did. i do. i care awfully----" "well----" "oh, gwenda, can they _make_ me marry him?" "you don't want to marry him?" ally shook her head, slowly, forlornly. "i see. you're ashamed of him." "i'm _not_ ashamed. i told you i wasn't. it isn't that----" "what is it?" "i'm afraid." "afraid----" "it isn't his fault. he wants to marry me. he wanted to all the time. he never meant that it should be like this. he asked me to marry him. before it happened. over and over again he asked me and i wouldn't have him." "why wouldn't you?" "i've told you. because i'm afraid." "why are you afraid?" "i don't know. i'm not really afraid of _him_. i think i'm afraid of what he might do to me if i married him." "_do_ to you?" "yes. he might beat me. they always do, you know, those sort of men, when you marry them. i couldn't bear to be beaten." "oh----" gwenda drew in her breath. "he wouldn't do it, gwenda, if he knew what he was about. but he might if he didn't. you see, they say he drinks. that's what frightens me. that's why i daren't tell papa. papa wouldn't care if he did beat me. he'd say it was my punishment." "if you feel like that about it you mustn't marry him." "they'll make me." "they shan't make you. i won't let them. it'll be all right, darling. i'll take you away with me to-morrow, and look after you, and keep you safe." "but--they'll have to know." "yes. they'll have to know. i'll tell them." she rose. "stay here," she said. "and keep quiet. i'm going to tell them now." "not now--please, not now." "yes. now. it'll be all over. and you'll sleep." * * * * * she went in to where they waited for her. her father and her sister lifted their eyes to her as she came in. rowcliffe had turned away. "has she said anything?" (mary spoke.) "yes." the vicar looked sternly at his second daughter. "she denies it?" "no, papa. she doesn't deny it." he drove it home. "has--she--confessed?" "she's told me it's true--what you think." in the silence that fell on the four rowcliffe stayed where he stood, downcast and averted. it was as if he felt that gwenda could have charged him with betrayal of a trust. the vicar looked at his watch. he turned to rowcliffe. "is that fellow coming, or is he not?" "he won't funk it," said rowcliffe. he turned. his eyes met gwenda's. "i think i can answer for his coming." "do you mean jim greatorex?" she said. "yes." "what is it that he won't funk?" she looked from one to the other. nobody answered her. it was as if they were, all three, afraid of her. "i see," she said. "if you ask me i think he'd much better not come." "my dear gwenda----" the vicar was deferent to the power that had dragged ally's confession from her. "we _must_ get through with this. the sooner the better. it's what we're all here for." "i know. still--i think you'll have to leave it." "leave it?" "yes, papa." "we can't leave it," said rowcliffe. "something's got to be done." the vicar groaned and rowcliffe had pity on him. "if you'd like me to do it--i can interview him." "i wish you would." "very well." he moved uneasily. "i'd better see him here, hadn't i?" "you'd better not see him anywhere," said gwenda. "he can't marry her." she held them all three by the sheer shock of it. the vicar spoke first. "what do you mean, 'he can't'? he _must_." "he must not. ally doesn't want to marry him. he asked her long ago and she wouldn't have him." "do you mean," said rowcliffe, surprised out of his reticence, "before this happened?" "yes." "and she wouldn't have him?" "no. she was afraid of him." "she was afraid of him--and yet----" it was mary who spoke now. "yes, mary. and yet--she cared for him." the vicar turned on her. "you're as bad as she is. how can you bring yourself to speak of it, if you're a modest girl? you've just told us that your sister's shameless. are we to suppose that you're defending her?" "i am defending her. there's nobody else to do it. you've all set on her and tortured her----" "not all, gwenda," said rowcliffe. but she did not heed him. "she'd have told you everything if you hadn't frightened her. you haven't had an atom of pity for her. you've never thought of _her_ for a minute. you've been thinking of yourselves. you might have killed her. and you didn't care." the vicar looked at her. "it's you, gwenda, who don't care." "about what she's done, you mean? i don't. you ought to be gentle with her, papa. you drove her to it." rowcliffe answered. "we'll not say what drove her, gwenda." "she was driven," she said. "'let no man say he is tempted of god when he is driven by his own lusts and enticed,'" said the vicar. he had risen, and the movement brought him face to face with gwenda. and as she looked at him it was as if she saw vividly and for the first time the profound unspirituality of her father's face. she knew from what source his eyes drew their darkness. she understood the meaning of the gross red mouth that showed itself in the fierce lifting of the ascetic, grim moustache. and she conceived a horror of his fatherhood. "no man ought to say that of his own daughter. how does he know what's her own and what's his?" she said. rowcliffe stared at her in a sort of awful admiration. she was terrible; she was fierce; she was mad. but it was the fierceness and the madness of pity and of compassion. she went on. "you've no business to be hard on her. you must have known." "i knew nothing," said the vicar. he appealed to her with a helpless gesture of his hands. "you did know. you were warned. you were told not to shut her up. and you did shut her up. you can't blame her if she got away. you flung her to jim greatorex. there wasn't anybody who cared for her but him." "cared for her!" he snarled his disgust. "yes. cared for her. you think that's horrible of her--that she should have gone to him--and yet you want to tie her to him when she's afraid of him. and i think it's horrible of you." "she must marry him." mary spoke again. "she's brought it on herself, gwenda." "she hasn't brought it on herself. and she shan't marry him." "i'm afraid she'll have to," rowcliffe said. "she won't have to if i take her away somewhere and look after her. i mean to do it. i'll work for her. i'll take care of the child." "oh, you--_you----!_" the vicar waved her away with a frantic flapping of his hands. he turned to his son-in-law. "rowcliffe--i beg you--will you use your influence?" "i have none." that drew her. "steven--help me--can't you see how terrible it is if she's afraid of him?" "but _is_ she?" he looked at her with his miserable eyes, then turned them from her, considering gravely what she had said. it was then, while rowcliffe was considering it, that the garden gate opened violently and fell to. they waited for the sound of the front door bell. instead of it they heard two doors open and ally's voice calling to greatorex in the hall. as the vicar flung himself from his study into the other room he saw alice standing close to greatorex by the shut door. her lover's arms were round her. he laid his hands on them as if to tear them apart. "you shall not touch my daughter--until you've married her." the young man's right arm threw him off; his left arm remained round alice. "it's yo' s'all nat tooch her, mr. cartaret," he said. "ef yo' coom between her an' mae i s'all 'ave t' kill yo'. i'd think nowt of it. dawn't yo' bae freetened, my laass," he murmured tenderly. the next instant he was fierce again. "an' look yo' 'ere, mr. cartaret. it was yo' who aassked mae t' marry assy. do yo' aassk mae t' marry assy now? naw! assy may rot for all yo' care. (it's all right, my sweet'eart. it's all right.) i'd a married assy right enoof ef i'd 'a' looved her. but do yo' suppawss i'd 'a' doon it fer yore meddlin'? naw! an' yo' need n' aassk mae t' marry yore daughter--(there--there--my awn laass)--" "you are not going to be asked," said gwenda. "you are not going to marry her." "gwenda," said the vicar, "you will be good enough to leave this to me." "it can't be left to anybody but ally." "it s'all be laft to her," said greatorex. he had loosened his hold of alice, but he still stood between her and her father. "it's for her t' saay ef she'll 'aave mae." "she has said she won't, mr. greatorex." "ay, she's said it to mae, woonce. but i rackon she'll 'ave mae now." "not even now." "she's toald yo'?" he did not meet her eyes. "yes." "she's toald yo' she's afraid o' mae?" "yes. and you know why." "ay. i knaw. yo're afraid o' mae, ally, because yo've 'eard i haven't always been as sober as i might bae; but yo're nat 'aalf as afraid o' mae, droonk or sober, as yo' are of yore awn faather. yo' dawn't think i s'all bae 'aalf as 'ard an' crooil to yo' as yore faather is. she doosn't, mr. cartaret, an' thot's gawd's truth." "i protest," said the vicar. "yo' stond baack, sir. it's for 'er t' saay." he turned to her, infinitely reverent, infinitely tender. "will yo' staay with 'im? or will yo' coom with mae?" "i'll come with you." with one shoulder turned to her father, she cowered to her lover's breast. "ay, an' yo' need n' be afraaid i'll not bae sober. i'll bae sober enoof now. d'ye 'ear, mr. cartaret? yo' need n' bae afraaid, either. i'll kape sober. i'd kape sober all my life ef it was awnly t' spite yo'. an' i'll maake 'er 'appy. for i rackon theer's noothin' i could think on would spite yo' moor. yo' want mae t' marry 'er t' poonish 'er. _i_ knaw." "that'll do, greatorex," said rowcliffe. "ay. it'll do," said greatorex with a grin of satisfaction. he turned to alice, the triumph still flaming in his face. "yo're _nat_ afraaid of mae?" "no," she said gently. "not now." "yo navver were," said greatorex; and he laughed. that laugh was more than mr. cartaret could bear. he thrust out his face toward greatorex. rowcliffe, watching them, saw that he trembled and that the thrust-out, furious face was flushed deeply on the left side. the vicar boomed. "you will leave my house this instant, mr. greatorex. and you will never come into it again." but greatorex was already looking for his cap. "i'll navver coom into et again," he assented placably. * * * * * there were no prayers at the vicarage that night. * * * * * it was nearly eleven o'clock. greatorex was gone. gwenda was upstairs helping alice to undress. mary sat alone in the dining-room, crying steadily. the vicar and rowcliffe were in the study. in all this terrible business of alice, the vicar felt that his son-in-law had been a comfort to him. "rowcliffe," he said suddenly, "i feel very queer." "i don't wonder, sir. i should go to bed if i were you." "i shall. presently." the one-sided flush deepened and darkened as he brooded. it fascinated rowcliffe. "i think it would be better," said the vicar slowly, "if i left the parish. it's the only solution i can see." he meant to the problem of his respectability. rowcliffe said yes, perhaps it would be better. he was thinking that it would solve his problem too. for he knew that there would be a problem if gwenda came back to her father. the vicar rose heavily and went to his roll-top desk. he opened it and began fumbling about in it, looking for things. he was doing this, it seemed to his son-in-law, for quite a long time. but it was only eleven o'clock when mary heard sounds in the study that terrified her, of a chair overturned and of a heavy body falling to the floor. and then steven called to her. she found him kneeling on the floor beside her father, loosening his clothes. the vicar's face, which she discerned half hidden between the bending head of rowcliffe and his arms, was purple and horribly distorted. rowcliffe did not look at her. "he's in a fit," he said. "go upstairs and fetch gwenda. and for god's sake don't let ally see him." xlix the village knew all about jim greatorex and alice cartaret now. where their names had been whispered by two or three in the bar of the red lion, over the post office counter, in the schoolhouse, in the smithy, and on the open road, the loud scandal of them burst with horror. for the first time in his life jim greatorex was made aware that public opinion was against him. wherever he showed himself the men slunk from him and the women stared. he set his teeth and held his chin up and passed them as if he had not seen them. he was determined to defy public opinion. standing in the door of his kinsman's smithy, he defied it. it was the day before his wedding. he had been riding home from morfe market and his mare daisy had cast a shoe coming down the hill. he rode her up to the smithy and called for blenkiron, shouting his need. blenkiron came out and looked at him sulkily. "i'll shoe t' maare," he said, "but yo'll stand outside t' smithy, jim greatorex." for answer jim rode the mare into the smithy and dismounted there. then blenkiron spoke. "you'd best 'ave staayed where yo' were. but yo've coom in an' yo' s'all 'ave a bit o' my toongue. to-morra's yore weddin' day, i 'ear?" jim intimated that if it was his wedding day it was no business of blenkiron's. "wall," said the blacksmith, "ef they dawn't gie yo' soom roough music to-morra night, it'll bae better loock than yo' desarve--t' two o' yo'." greatorex scowled at his kinsman. "look yo' 'ere, john blenkiron, i warn yo'. any man in t' daale thot speaaks woon word agen my wife 'e s'all 'ave 'is nack wroong." "an' 'ow 'bout t' women, jimmy? there'll bae a sight o' nacks fer yo' t' wring, i rackon. they'll 'ave soomat t' saay to 'er, yore laady." "t' women? t' women? domned sight she'll keer for what they saay. there is n' woon o' they bitches as is fit t' kneel in t' mood to 'er t' tooch t' sawle of 'er boots." blenkiron peered up at him from the crook of the mare's hind leg. "nat assy gaale?" he said. "assy gaale? 'oo's she to mook _'er_ naame with 'er dirty toongue?" "yo'll not goa far thot road, jimmy. 'tis wi' t' womenfawlk yo'll 'aave t' racken." he knew it. the first he had to reckon with was maggie. maggie, being given notice, had refused to take it. "yo' can please yoresel, mr. greatorex. i can goa. i can goa. but ef i goa yo'll nat find anoother woman as'll coom to yo'. there's nat woon as'll keer mooch t' work for _yore_ laady." "wull yo' wark for 'er, maaggie?" he had said. and maggie, with a sullen look and hitching her coarse apron, had replied remarkably: "ef assy gaale can wash fer er i rackon _i_ can shift to baake an' clane." "wull yo' waait on 'er?" he had persisted. maggie had turned away her face from him. "ay, i'll waait on 'er," she said. and maggie had stayed to bake and clean. rough and sullen, without a smile, she had waited on young mrs. greatorex. * * * * * but alice was not afraid of maggie. she was not going to admit for a moment that she was afraid of her. she was not going to admit that she was afraid of anything but one thing--that her father would die. if he died she would have killed him. or, rather, she and greatorex would have killed him between them. this statement ally held to and reiterated and refused to qualify. for alice at upthorne had become a creature matchless in cunning and of subtle and marvelous resource. she had been terrified and tortured, shamed and cowed. she had been hounded to her marriage and conveyed with an appalling suddenness to upthorne, that place of sinister and terrible suggestion, and the bed in which john greatorex had died had been her marriage bed. her mind, like a thing pursued and in deadly peril, took instantaneously a line. it doubled and dodged; it hid itself; its instinct was expert in disguises, in subterfuges and shifts. in her soul she knew that she was done for if she once admitted and gave in to her fear of upthorne and of her husband's house, or if she were ever to feel again her fear of greatorex, which was the most intolerable of all her fears. it was as if nature itself were aware that, if ally were not dispossessed of that terror before greatorex's child was born her own purpose would be insecure; as if the unborn child, the flesh and blood of the greatorexes that had entered into her, protested against her disastrous cowardice. so, without ally being in the least aware of it, ally's mind, struggling toward sanity, fabricated one enormous fear, the fear of her father's death, a fear that she could own and face, and set it up in place of that secret and dangerous thing which was the fear of life itself. ally, insisting a dozen times a day that she had killed poor papa, was completely taken in by this play of her surreptitiously self-preserving soul. even rowcliffe was taken in by it. he called it a morbid obsession. and he began to wonder whether he had not been mistaken about ally after all, whether her nature was not more subtle and sensitive than he had guessed, more intricately and dangerously mixed. for the sadness of the desolate land, of the naked hillsides, of the moor marshes with their ghostly mists; the brooding of the watchful, solitary house, the horror of haunted twilights, of nightfall and of midnights now and then when greatorex was abroad looking after his cattle and she lay alone under the white ceiling that sagged above her bed and heard the weak wind picking at the pane; her fear of maggie and of what maggie had been to greatorex and might be again; her fear of the savage, violent and repulsive elements in the man who was her god; her fear of her own repulsion; the tremor of her recoiling nerves; premonitions of her alien blood, the vague melancholy of her secret motherhood; they were all mingled together and hidden from her in the vast gloom of her one fear. and once the dominant terror was set up, her instinct found a thousand ways of strengthening it. through her adoration of her lover her mind had become saturated with his mournful consciousness of sin. in their moments of contrition they were both convinced that they would be punished. but ally had borne her sin superbly; she had declared that it was hers and hers only, and that she and not greatorex would be punished. and now the punishment had come. she persuaded herself that her father's death was the retribution heaven required. * * * * * and all the time, through the perilous months, nature, mindful of her own, tightened her hold on ally through ally's fear. ally was afraid to be left alone with it. therefore she never let greatorex out of her sight if she could help it. she followed him from room to room of the sad house where he was painting and papering and whitewashing to make it fine for her. where he was she had to be. stowed away in some swept corner, she would sit with her sweet and sorrowful eyes fixed on him as he labored. she trotted after him through the house and out into the mistal and up the three fields. she would crouch on a heap of corn-sacks, wrapped in a fur coat, and watch him at his work in the stable and the cow-byre. in her need to immortalise this passion she could not have done better. her utter dependence on him flattered and softened the distrustful, violent and headstrong man. her one chance, and ally knew it, was to cling. if she had once shamed him by her fastidious shrinking she would have lost him; for, as mrs. gale had told her long ago, you could do nothing with jimmy when he was shamed. maggie, for all her coarseness, had contrived to shame him; so had essy in her freedom and her pride. ally's clinging, so far from irritating or obstructing him, drew out the infinite pity and tenderness he had for all sick and helpless things. he could no more have pushed little ally from him than he could have kicked a mothering ewe, or stamped on a new dropped lamb. he would call to her if she failed to come. he would hold out his big hand to her as he would have held it to a child. her smallness, her fineness and fragility enchanted him. the palms of her hands had the smoothness and softness of silk, and they made a sound like silk as they withdrew themselves with a lingering, stroking touch from his. he still felt, with a fearful and admiring wonder, the difference of her flesh from his. to be sure jim's tenderness was partly penitential. only it was ally alone who had moved him to a perfect and unbearable contrition. for the two women whom he had loved and left greatorex had felt nothing but a passing pang. for the woman he had made his wife he would go always with a wound in his soul. and with ally, too, the supernatural came to nature's aid. her fear had a profound strain of the uncanny in it, and jim's bodily presence was her shelter from her fear. and as it bound them flesh to flesh, closer and closer, it wedded them in one memory, one consolation and one soul. * * * * * one day she had followed him into the stable, and on the window-sill, among all the cobwebs where it had been put away and forgotten, she found the little bottle of chlorodyne. she took it up, and jim scolded her gently as if she had been a child. "yore lil haands is always maddlin'. yo' put thot down." "what is it?" "it's poison, is thot. there's enoof there t' kill a maan. yo' put it down whan i tall yo'." she put it down obediently in its place on the window-sill among the cobwebs. he made a nest for her of clean hay, where she sat and watched him as he gave daisy her feed of corn. she watched every movement of him, every gesture, thoughtful and intent. "i can't think, jim, why i ever was afraid of you. _was_ i afraid of you?" greatorex grinned. "yo' used t' saay yo' were." "how silly of me. and i used to be afraid of maggie." "_i_'ve been afraaid of maaggie afore now. she's got a roough side t' 'er toongue and she can use it. but she'll nat use it on yo'. yo've naw call to be afraaid ef annybody. there isn't woon would hoort a lil thing like yo'." "they say things about me. i know they do." "and yo' dawn't keer what they saay, do yo'?" "i don't care a rap. but i think it's cruel of them, all the same." "but yo're happy enoof, aren't yo'--all the same?" "i'm very happy. at least i would be if it wasn't for poor papa. it wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for what we did." wherever they started, whatever round they fetched, it was to this that they returned. and always jim met it with the same answer: "'tisn' what we doon; 'tis what 'e doon. an' annyhow it had to bae." every week rowcliffe came to see her and every week jim said to him: "she's at it still and i caan't move 'er." and every week rowcliffe said: "wait. she'll be better before long." and jim waited. he waited till one afternoon in february, when they were again in the stable together. he had turned his back on her for a moment. when he looked round she was gone from her seat on the cornsacks. she was standing by the window-sill with the bottle of chlorodyne in her hand and at her lips. he thought she was smelling it. she tilted her head back. her eyes slewed sidelong toward him. they quivered as he leaped to her. she had not drunk a drop and he knew it, but she clutched her bottle with a febrile obstinacy. he had to loosen her little fingers one by one. he poured the liquid into the stable gutter and flung the bottle on to the dung heap in the mistal. "what were you doing wi' thot stoof?" he said. "i don't know. i was thinking of papa." after that he never left her until rowcliffe came. rowcliffe said: "she's got it into her head he's going to die, and she thinks she's killed him. you'd better let me take her to see him." l the vicar had solved his problem by his stroke, but not quite as he had anticipated. nothing had ever turned out as he had planned or thought or willed. he had planned to leave the parish. he had thought that in his wisdom he had saved alice by shutting her up in garthdale. he had thought that she was safe at choir-practice with jim greatorex. he had thought that mary was devoted to him and that gwenda was capable of all disobedience and all iniquity. she had gone away and he had forbidden her to come back again. he had also forbidden greatorex to enter his house. and greatorex was entering it every day, for news of him to take to alice at upthorne. gwenda had come back and would never go again, and it was she and not mary who had proved herself devoted. and it was not his wisdom but greatorex's scandalous passion for her that had saved alice. as for leaving the parish because of the scandal, the vicar would never leave it now. he was tied there in his vicarage by his stroke. it left him with a paralysis of the right side and an utter confusion and enfeeblement of intellect. in three months he recovered partially from the paralysis. but the flooding of his brain had submerged or carried away whole tracts of recent memory, and the last vivid, violent impression--alice's affair--was wiped out. there was no reason why he should not stay on. what was left of his memory told him that alice was at the vicarage, and he was worried because he never saw her about. he did not know that the small gray house above the churchyard had become a place of sinister and scandalous tragedy; that his name and his youngest daughter's name were bywords in three parishes; and that alice had been married in conspicuous haste by the horrified vicar of greffington to a man whom only charitable people regarded as her seducer. and the order of time had ceased for him with this breach in the sequence of events. he had a dim but enduring impression that it was always prayer time. no hours marked the long stretches of blank darkness and of confused and crowded twilight. only, now and then, a little light pulsed feebly in his brain, a flash that renewed itself day by day; and day by day, in a fresh experience, he was aware that he was ill. it was as if the world stood still and his mind moved. it "wandered," as they said. and in its wanderings it came upon strange gaps and hollows and fantastic dislocations, landslips where a whole foreground had given way. it looked at these things with a serene and dreamlike wonder and passed on. and in the background, on some half-lit, isolated tract of memory, raised above ruin, and infinitely remote, he saw the figure of his youngest daughter. it was a girlish, innocent figure, and though, because of the whiteness of its face, he confused it now and then with the figure of alice's dead mother, his first wife, he was aware that it was really alice. this figure of alice moved him with a vague and tender yearning. what puzzled and worried him was that in his flashes of luminous experience he didn't see her there. and it was then that the vicar would make himself wonderful and piteous by asking, a dozen times a day, "where's ally?" for by the stroke that made him wonderful and piteous the vicar's character and his temperament were changed. nothing was left of ally's tyrant and robina's victim, the middle-aged celibate, filled with the fury of frustration and profoundly sorry for himself. his place was taken by a gentle old man, an old man of an appealing and childlike innocence, pure from all lust, from all self-pity, enjoying, actually enjoying, the consideration that his stroke had brought him. he was changed no less remarkably in his affections. he was utterly indifferent to mary, whom he had been fond of. he yearned for alice, whom he had hated. and he clung incessantly to gwenda, whom he had feared. when he looked round in his strange and awful gentleness and said, "where's ally?" his voice was the voice of a mother calling for her child. and when he said, "where's gwenda?" it was the voice of a child calling for its mother. and as he continually thought that alice was at the vicarage when she was at upthorne, so he was convinced that gwenda had left him when she was there. * * * * * rowcliffe judged that this confusion of the vicar's would be favorable to his experiment. and it was. when mr. cartaret saw his youngest daughter for the first time since their violent rupture he gazed at her tranquilly and said, "and where have _you_ been all this time?" "not very far, papa." he smiled sweetly. "i thought you'd run away from your poor old father. let me see--was it ally? my memory's going. no. it was gwenda who ran away. wasn't it gwenda?" "yes, papa." "well--she must come back again. i can't do without gwenda." "she has come back, papa." "she's always coming hack. but she'll go away again. where is she?" "i'm here, papa dear." "here one minute," said the vicar, "and gone the next." "no--no. i'm not going. i shall never go away and leave you." "so you say," said the vicar. "so you say." he looked round uneasily. "it's time for ally to go to bed. has essy brought her milk?" his head bowed to his breast. he fell into a doze. ally watched. and in the outer room gwenda and steven rowcliffe talked together. "steven--he's always going on like that. it breaks my heart." "i know, dear, i know." "do you think he'll ever remember?" "i don't know. i don't think so." then they sat together without speaking. she was thinking: "how good he is. surely i may love him for his goodness?" and he that the old man in there had solved _his_ problem, but that his own had been taken out of his hands. and he saw no solution. if the vicar had gone away and taken gwenda with him, that would have solved it. god knew he had been willing enough to solve it that way. but here they were, flung together, thrust toward each other when they should have torn themselves apart; tied, both of them, to a place they could not leave. week in, week out, he would be obliged to see her whether he would or no. and when her tired face rebuked his senses, she drew him by her tenderness; she held him by her goodness. there was only one thing for him to do--to clear out. it was his plain and simple duty. if it hadn't been for alice and for that old man he would have done it. but, because of them, it was his still plainer and simpler duty to stay where he was, to stick to her and see her through. he couldn't help it if his problem was taken out of his hands. they started. they looked at each other and smiled their strained and tragic smile. in the inner room the vicar was calling for gwenda. it was prayer time, he said. * * * * * rowcliffe had to drive alice back that night to upthorne. "well," he said, as they left the vicarage behind them, "you see he isn't going to die." "no," said alice. "but he's out of his mind. i haven't killed him. i've done worse. i've driven him mad." and she stuck to it. she couldn't afford to part with her fear--yet. rowcliffe was distressed at the failure of his experiment. he told greatorex that there was nothing to be done but to wait patiently till june. then--perhaps--they would see. in his own mind he had very little hope. he said to himself that he didn't like the turn ally's obsession had taken. it was _too_ morbid. but when may came alice lay in the big bed under the sagging ceiling with a lamentably small baby in her arms, and greatorex sat beside her by the hour together, with his eyes fixed on her white face. rowcliffe had told him to be on the lookout for some new thing or for some more violent sign of the old obsession. but nine days had passed and he had seen no sign. her eyes looked at him and at her child with the same lucid, drowsy ecstasy. and in nine days she had only asked him once if he knew how poor papa was? her fear had left her. it had served its purpose. li there was no prayer time at the vicarage any more. * * * * * there was no more time at all there as the world counts time. the hours no longer passed in a procession marked by distinguishable days. they rolled round and round in an interminable circle, monotonously renewed, monotonously returning upon itself. the vicar was the center of the circle. the hours were sounded and measured by his monotonously recurring needs. but the days were neither measured nor marked. they were all of one shade. there was no difference between sunday and monday in the vicarage now. they talked of the vicar's good days and his bad days, that was all. for in this house where time had ceased they talked incessantly of time. but it was always _his_ time; the time for his early morning cup of tea; the time for his medicine; the time for his breakfast; the time for reading his chapter to him while he dozed; the time for washing him, for dressing him, for taking him out (he went out now, in a wheel-chair drawn by peacock's pony); the time for his medicine again; his dinner time; the time for his afternoon sleep; his tea-time; the time for his last dose of medicine; his supper time and his time for being undressed and put to bed. and there were several times during the night which were his times also. the vicar had desired supremacy in his vicarage and he was at last supreme. he was supreme over his daughter gwenda. the stubborn, intractable creature was at his feet. she was his to bend or break or utterly destroy. she who was capable of anything was capable of an indestructible devotion. his times, the relentless, the monotonously recurring, were her times too. if it had not been for steven rowcliffe she would have had none to call her own (except night time, when the vicar slept). but rowcliffe had kept to his days for visiting the vicarage. he came twice or thrice a week; not counting wednesdays. only, though mary did not know it, he came as often as not in the evenings at dusk, just after the vicar had been put to bed. when it was wet he sat in the dining-room with gwenda. when it was fine he took her out on to the moor under karva. they always went the same way, up the green sheep-track that they knew; they always turned back at the same place, where the stream he had seen her jumping ran from the hill; and they always took the same time to go and turn. they never stopped and never lingered; but went always at the same sharp pace, and kept the same distance from each other. it was as if by saying to themselves, "never any further than the stream; never any longer than thirty-five minutes; never any nearer than we are now," they defined the limits of their whole relation. sometimes they hardly spoke as they walked. they parted with casual words and with no touching of their hands and with the same thought unspoken--"till the next time." but these times which were theirs only did not count as time. they belonged to another scale of feeling and another order of reality. their moments had another pulse, another rhythm and vibration. they burned as they beat. while they lasted gwenda's life was lived with an intensity that left time outside its measure. through this intensity she drew the strength to go on, to endure the unendurable with joy. * * * * * but rowcliffe could not endure the unendurable at all. he was savage when he thought of it. that was her life and she would never get away from it. she, who was born for the wild open air and for youth and strength and freedom, would be shut up in that house and tied to that half-paralyzed, half-imbecile old man forever. it was damnable. and he, rowcliffe, could have prevented it if he had only known. and if mary had not lied to him. and when his common sense warned him of their danger, and his conscience reproached him with leading her into it, he said to himself, "i can't help it if it is dangerous. it's been taken out of my hands. if somebody doesn't drag her out of doors, she'll get ill. if somebody doesn't talk to her she'll grow morbid. and there's nobody but me." he sheltered himself in the immensity of her tragedy. its darkness covered them. her sadness and her isolation sanctified them. alice had her husband and her child. mary had--all she wanted. gwenda had nobody but him. * * * * * she had never had anybody but him. for in the beginning the vicar and his daughters had failed to make friends among their own sort. up in the dale there had been few to make, and those few mr. cartaret had contrived to alienate one after another by his deplorable legend and by the austere unpleasantness of his personality. people had not been prepared for intimacy with a vicar separated so outrageously from his third wife. nobody knew whether it was he or his third wife who had been outrageous, but the vicar's manner was not such as to procure for him the benefit of any doubt. the fact remained that the poor man was handicapped by an outrageous daughter, and alice's behavior was obviously as much the vicar's fault as his misfortune. and it had been felt that gwenda had not done anything to redeem her father's and her sister's eccentricities, and that mary, though she was a nice girl, had hardly done enough. for the last eighteen months visits at the vicarage had been perfunctory and very brief, month by month they had diminished, and before mary's marriage they had almost ceased. still, mary's marriage had appeased the parish. mrs. steven rowcliffe had atoned for the third mrs. cartaret's suspicious absence and for gwenda cartaret's flight. lady frances gilbey's large wing had further protected gwenda. then, suddenly, the tale of alice cartaret and greatorex went round, and it was as if the vicarage had opened and given up its secret. at first, the sheer extremity of his disaster had sheltered the vicar from his own scandal. through all garthdale and rathdale, in the manors and the lodges and the granges, in the farmhouses and the cottages, in the inns and little shops, there was a stir of pity and compassion. the people who had left off calling at the vicarage called again with sympathy and kind inquiries. they were inclined to forget how impossible the cartarets had been. they were sorry for gwenda. but they had been checked in their advances by gwenda's palpable recoil. she had no time to give to callers. her father had taken all her time. the callers considered themselves absolved from calling. slowly, month by month, the vicarage was drawn back into its silence and its loneliness. it assumed, more and more, its aspect of half-sinister, half-sordid tragedy. the vicar's calamity no longer sheltered him. it took its place in the order of accepted and irremediable events. * * * * * only the village preserved its sympathy alive. the village, that obscure congregated soul, long-suffering to calamity, welded together by saner instincts and profound in memory, the soul that inhabited the small huddled, humble houses, divided from the vicarage by no more than the graveyard of its dead, the village remembered and it knew. it remembered how the vicar had come and gone over its thresholds, how no rain nor snow nor storm had stayed him in his obstinate and punctual visiting. and whereas it had once looked grimly on its vicar, it looked kindly on him now. it endured him for his daughter gwenda's sake, in spite of what it knew. for it knew why the vicar's third wife had left him. it knew why alice cartaret had gone wrong with greatorex. it knew what gwenda cartaret had gone for when she went away. it knew why and how dr. rowcliffe had married mary cartaret. and it knew why, night after night, he was to be seen coming and going on the garthdale road. * * * * * the village knew more about rowcliffe and gwenda cartaret than rowcliffe's wife knew. for rowcliffe's wife's mind was closed to this knowledge by a certain sensual assurance. when all was said and done, it was she and not gwenda who was rowcliffe's wife. and she had other grounds for complacency. her sister, a solitary miss cartaret, stowed away in garth vicarage, was of no account. she didn't matter. and as mary cartaret mary would have mattered even less. but steven rowcliffe's professional reputation served him well. he counted. people who had begun by trusting him had ended by liking him, and in two years' time his social value had become apparent. and as mrs. steven rowcliffe mary had a social value too. but while steven, who had always had it, took it for granted and never thought about it, mary could think of nothing else. her social value, obscured by the terrible two years in garthdale, had come to her as a discovery and an acquisition. for all her complacency, she could not regard it as a secure thing. she was sensitive to every breath that threatened it; she was unable to forget that, if she was steven rowcliffe's wife, she was alice greatorex's sister. even as mary cartaret she had been sensitive to alice. but in those days of obscurity and isolation it was not in her to cast alice off. she had felt bound to alice, not as gwenda was bound, but pitiably, irrevocably, for better, for worse. the solidarity of the family had held. she had not had anything to lose by sticking to her sister. now it seemed to her that she had everything to lose. the thought of alice was a perpetual annoyance to her. for the neighborhood that had received mrs. steven rowcliffe had barred her sister. as long as alice greatorex lived at upthorne mary went in fear. this fear was so intolerable to her that at last she spoke of it to rowcliffe. they were sitting together in his study after dinner. the two armchairs were always facing now, one on each side of the hearth. "i wish i knew what to do about alice," she said. "what to _do_ about her?" "yes. am i to have her at the house or not?" he stared. "of course you're to have her at the house." "i mean when we've got people here. i can't ask her to meet them." "you must ask her. it's the very least you can do for her." "people aren't going to like it, steven." "people have got to stick a great many things they aren't going to like. i'm continually meeting people i'd rather not meet. aren't you?" "i'm afraid poor alice is--" "is what?" "well, dear, a little impossible, to say the least of it. isn't she?" he shrugged his shoulders. "i don't see anything impossible about 'poor alice.' i never did." "it's nice of you to say so." he maintained himself in silence under her long gaze. "steven," she said, "you are awfully good to my people." she saw that she could hardly have said anything that would have annoyed him more. he positively writhed with irritation. "i'm not in the least good to your people." the words stung her like a blow. she flushed, and he softened. "can't you see, molly, that i hate the infernal humbug and the cruelty of it all? that poor child had a dog's life before she married. she did the only sane thing that was open to her. you've only got to look at her now to see that she couldn't have done much better for herself even if she hadn't been driven to it. what's more, she's done the best thing for greatorex. there isn't another woman in the world who could have made that chap chuck drinking. you mayn't like the connection. i don't suppose any of us like it." "my dear steven, it isn't only the connection. i could get over that. it's--the other thing." his blank stare compelled her to precision. "i mean what happened." "well--if gwenda can get over 'the other thing', i should think _you_ might. she has to see more of her." "it's different for gwenda." "how is it different for gwenda?" she hesitated. she had meant that gwenda hadn't anything to lose. what she said was, "gwenda hasn't anybody but herself to think of. she hasn't let you in for alice." "no more have you." he smiled. mary did not understand either his answer or his smile. he was saying to himself, "oh, hasn't she? it was gwenda all the time who let me in." mary had a little rush of affection. "my dear--i think i've let you in for everything. i wouldn't mind--i wouldn't really--if it wasn't for you." "you needn't bother about me," he said. "i'd rather you bothered about your sister." "which sister?" for the life of her she could not tell what had made her say that. the words seemed to leap out suddenly from her mind to her tongue. "alice," he said. "was it alice we were talking about?" "it was alice i was thinking about." "was it?" again her mind took its insane possession of her tongue. * * * * * the evening dragged on. the two chairs still faced each other, pushed forward in their attitude of polite attention and expectancy. but the persons in the chairs leaned back as if each withdrew as far as possible from the other. they made themselves stiff and upright as if they braced themselves, each against the other in the unconscious tension of hostility. and they were silent, each thinking an intolerable thought. rowcliffe had taken up a book and was pretending to read it. mary's hands were busy with her knitting. her needles went with a rapid jerk, driven by the vibration of her irritated nerves. from time to time she glanced at rowcliffe under her bent brows. she saw the same blocks of print, a deep block at the top, a short line under it, then a narrower block. she saw them as vague, meaningless blurs of gray stippled on white. she saw that rowcliffe's eyes never moved from the deep top paragraph on the left-hand page. she noted the light pressure of his thumbs on the margins. he wasn't reading at all; he was only pretending to read. he had set up his book as a barrier between them, and he was holding on to it for dear life. rowcliffe moved irritably under mary's eyes. she lowered them and waited for the silken sound that should have told her that he had turned a page. and all the time she kept on saying to herself, "he _was_ thinking about gwenda. he's sorry for alice because of gwenda, not because of me. it isn't _my_ people that he's good to." the thought went round and round in mary's mind, troubling its tranquillity. she knew that something followed from it, but she refused to see it. her mind thrust from it the conclusion. "then it's gwenda that he cares for." she said to herself, "after all i'm married to him." and as she said it she thrust up her chin in a gesture of assurance and defiance. in the chair that faced her rowcliffe shifted his position. he crossed his legs and the tilted foot kicked out, urged by a hidden savagery. the clicking of mary's needles maddened him. he glanced at her. she was knitting a silk tie for his birthday. she saw the glance. the fierceness of the small fingers slackened; they knitted off a row or two, then ceased. her hands lay quiet in her lap. she leaned her head against the back of the chair. her grieved eyes let down their lids before the smouldering hostility in his. her stillness and her shut eyes moved him to compunction. they appeased him with reminiscence, with suggestion of her smooth and innocent sleep. he had been thinking of what she had done to him; of how she had lied to him about gwenda; of the abominable thing that alice had cried out to him in her agony. the thought of mary's turpitude had consoled him mysteriously. instead of putting it from him he had dwelt on it, he had wallowed in it; he had let it soak into him till he was poisoned with it. for the sting of it and the violence of his own resentment were more tolerable to rowcliffe than the stale, dull realisation of the fact that mary bored him. it had come to that. he had nothing to say to mary now that he had married her. his romantic youth still moved uneasily within him; it found no peace in an armchair, facing mary. he dreaded these evenings that he was compelled to spend with her. he dreaded her speech. he dreaded her silences ten times more. they no longer soothed him. they were pervading, menacing, significant. he thought that mary's turpitude accounted for and justified the exasperation of his nerves. now as he looked at her, lying back in the limp pose reminiscent of her sleep, he thought, "poor thing. poor molly." he put down his book. he stood over her a moment, sighed a long sigh like a yawn, turned from her and went to bed. mary opened her eyes, sighed, stretched herself, put out the light, and followed him. lii not long after that night it struck mary that steven was run down. he worked too hard. that was how she accounted to herself for his fits of exhaustion, of irritability and depression. but secretly, for all her complacence, she had divined the cause. she watched him now; she inquired into his goings out and comings in. sometimes she knew that he had been to garthdale, and, though he went there many more times than she knew, she had noticed that these moods of his followed invariably on his going. it was as if gwenda left her mark on him. so much was certain, and by that certainty she went on to infer his going from his mood. one day she taxed him with it. rowcliffe had tried to excuse his early morning temper on the plea that he was "beastly tired." "tired?" she had said. "of course you're tired if you went up to garthdale last night." she added, "it isn't necessary." he was silent and she knew that she was on his trail. two evenings later she caught him as he was leaving the house. "where are you going?" she said. "i'm going up to garthdale to see your father." her eyes flinched. "you saw him yesterday." "i did." "is he worse?" he hesitated. lying had not as yet come lightly to him. "i'm not easy about him," he said. she was not satisfied. she had caught the hesitation. "can't you tell me," she persisted, "if he's worse?" he looked at her calmly. "i can't tell you till i've seen him." that roused her. she bit her lip. she knew that whatever she did she must not show temper. "did gwenda send for you?" her voice was quiet. "she did not." he strode out of the house. after that he never told her when he was going up to garthdale toward nightfall. he was sometimes driven to lie. it was up rathdale he was going, or to greffington, or to smoke a pipe with ned alderson, or to turn in for a game of billiards at the village club. and whenever he lied to her she saw through him. she was prepared for the lie. she said to herself, "he is going to see gwenda. he can't keep away from her." and then she remembered what alice had said to her. "you'll know some day." she knew. liii and with her knowledge there came a curious calm. she no longer watched and worried rowcliffe. she knew that no wife ever kept her husband by watching and worrying him. she was aware of danger and she faced it with restored complacency. for mary was a fount of sensual wisdom. rowcliffe was ill. and from his illness she inferred his misery, and from his misery his innocence. she told herself that nothing had happened, that she knew nothing that she had not known before. she saw that her mistake had been in showing that she knew it. that was to admit it, and to admit it was to give it a substance, a shape and color it had never had and was not likely to have. and mary, having perceived her blunder, set herself to repair it. she knew how. under all his energy she had discerned in her husband a love of bodily ease, and a capacity for laziness, undeveloped because perpetually frustrated. insidiously she had set herself to undermine his energy while she devised continual opportunities for ease. rowcliffe remained incurably energetic. his profession demanded energy. still, there were ways by which he could be captured. he was not so deeply absorbed in his profession as to be indifferent to the arrangements of his home. he liked and he showed very plainly that he liked, good food and silent service, the shining of glass and silver, white table linen and fragrant sheets for his bed. with all these things mary had provided him. and she had her own magic and her way. her way, the way she had caught him, was the way she would keep him. she had always known her power, even unpracticed. she had always known by instinct how she could enthrall him when her moment came. gwenda had put back the hour; but she had done (and mary argued that therefore she could do) no more. here mary's complacency betrayed her. she had fallen into the error of all innocent and tranquil sensualists. she trusted to the present. she had reckoned without rowcliffe's future or his past. and she had done even worse. by habituating rowcliffe's senses to her way, she had produced in him, through sheer satisfaction, that sense of security which is the most dangerous sense of all. liv one week in june rowcliffe went up to garthdale two nights running. he had never done this before and he had had to lie badly about it both to himself and mary. he had told himself that the first evening didn't count. for he had quarreled with gwenda the first evening. neither of them knew how it had happened or what it was about. but he had hardly come before he had left her in his anger. the actual outburst moved her only to laughter, but the memory of it was violent in her nerves, it shook and shattered her. she had not slept all night and in the morning she woke tired and ill. and, as if he had known what he had done to her, he came to see her the next evening, to make up. that night they stayed out later than they had meant. as they touched the moor the lambs stirred at their mothers' sides and the pewits rose and followed the white road to lure them from their secret places; they wheeled and wheeled round them, sending out their bored and weary cry. in june the young broods kept the moor and the two were forced to the white road. and at the turn they came in sight of greffington edge. she stood still. "oh--steven--look," she said. he stood with her and looked. the moon was hidden in the haze where the gray day and the white night were mixed. across the bottom on the dim, watery green of the eastern slope, the thorn trees were in flower. the hot air held them like still water. it quivered invisibly, loosening their scent and scattering it. and of a sudden she saw them as if thrown back to a distance where they stood enchanted in a great stillness and clearness and a piercing beauty. there went through her a sudden deep excitement, a subtle and mysterious joy. this passion was as distant and as pure as ecstasy. it swept her, while the white glamour lasted, into the stillness where the flowering thorn trees stood. * * * * * she wondered whether steven had seen the vision of the flowering thorn trees. she longed for him to see it. they stood a little apart and her hand moved toward him without touching him, as if she would draw him to the magic. "steven--" she said. he came to her. her hand hung limply by her side again. she felt his hand close on it and press it. she knew that he had seen the vision and felt the subtle and mysterious joy. she wanted nothing more. "say good-night now," she said. "not yet. i'm going to walk back with you." they walked back in a silence that guarded the memory of the mystic thing. they lingered a moment by the half-open door; she on the threshold, he on the garden path; the width of a flagstone separated them. "in another minute," she thought, "he will be gone." it seemed to her that he wanted to be gone and that it was she who held him there against his will and her own. she drew the door to. "don't shut it, gwenda." it was as if he said, "don't let's stand together out here like this any longer." she opened the door again, leaning a little toward it across the threshold with her hand on the latch. she smiled, raising her chin in the distant gesture that was their signal of withdrawal. but steven did not go. * * * * * "may i come in?" he said. something in her said, "don't let him come in." but she did not heed it. the voice was thin and small and utterly insignificant, as if one little brain cell had waked up and started speaking on its own account. and something seized on her tongue and made it say "yes," and the full tide of her blood surged into her throat and choked it, and neither the one voice nor the other seemed to be her own. he followed her into the little dining-room where the lamp was. the vicar was in bed. the whole house was still. rowcliffe looked at her in the lamplight. "we've walked a bit too far," he said. he made her lean back on the couch. he put a pillow at her head and a footstool at her feet. "just rest," he said, and she rested. but rowcliffe did not rest. he moved uneasily about the room. a sudden tiredness came over her. she thought, "yes. we walked too far." she leaned her head back on the cushion. her thin arms lay stretched out on either side of her, supported by the couch. rowcliffe ceased to wander. he drew up with his back against the chimney-piece, where he faced her. "close your eyes," he said. she did not close them. but the tired lids drooped. the lifted bow of her mouth drooped. the small, sharp-pointed breasts drooped. and as he watched her he remembered how he had quarreled with her in that room last night. and the thought of his brutality was intolerable to him. his heart ached with tenderness, and his tenderness was intolerable too. the small white face with its suffering eyes and drooping eyelids, the drooping breasts, the thin white arms slackened along the couch, the childlike helplessness of the tired body moved him with a vehement desire. and his strength that had withstood her in her swift, defiant beauty melted away. "steven--" "don't speak," he said. she was quiet for a moment. "but i want to, steven. i want to say something." he sighed. "well--say it." "it's something i want to ask you." "don't ask impossibilities." "i don't think it's impossible. at least it wouldn't be if you really knew. i want you to be more careful with me." she paused. he turned from her abruptly. his turning made it easier for her. she went on. "it's only a little thing--a silly little thing. i want you, when you're angry with me, not to show it quite so much." he had turned again to her suddenly. the look on his face stopped her. "i'm never angry with you," he said. "i know you aren't--really. i know. i know. but you make me think you are; and it hurts so terribly." "i didn't know you minded." "i don't always mind. but sometimes, when i'm stupid, i simply can't bear it. it makes me feel as if i'd done something. last night i got it into my head--" "what did you get into your head? tell me--" "i thought i'd made you hate me. i thought you thought i was awful--like poor ally." "_you?_" he drew a long breath and sent it out again. "you know what i think of you." he looked at her, threw up his head suddenly and went to her. his words came fast now and thick. "you know i love you. that's why i've been such a brute to you--because i couldn't have you in my arms and it made me mad. and you know it. that's what you mean when you say it hurts you. you shan't be hurt any more. i'm going to end it." he stooped over her suddenly, steadying himself by his two hands laid on the back of her chair. she put out her arms and pushed with her hands against his shoulders, as if she would have beaten him off. he sank to her knees and there caught her hands in his and kissed them. he held them together helpless with his left arm and his right arm gathered her to him violently and close. his mouth came crushing upon her parted lips and her shut eyes. her small thin hands struggled piteously in his and for pity he released them. he felt them pushing with their silk-soft palms against his face. their struggle and their resistance were pain to him and exquisite pleasure. "not that, steven! not that! oh, i didn't think--i didn't think you would." "don't send me away, gwenda. it's all right. we've suffered enough. we've got to end it this way." "no. not this way." "yes--yes. it's all right, darling. we've struggled till we can't struggle any more. you must. why not? when you love me." he pressed her closer in his arms. she lay quiet there. when she was quiet he let her speak. "i can't," she said. "it's molly. poor little molly." "don't talk to me of molly. she lied about you." "whatever she did she couldn't help it." "whatever we do now we can't help it." "we can. we're different. oh--don't! don't hold me like that. i can't bear it." his arms tightened. his mouth found hers again as if he had not heard her. she gave a faint cry that pierced him. he looked at her. the lips he had kissed were a purplish white in her thin bloodless face. "i say, are you ill?" she saw her advantage and took it. "no. but i can't stand things very well. they make me ill. that's what i meant when i asked you to be careful." her helplessness stilled his passion as it had roused it. he released her suddenly. he took the thin arm surrendered to his gentleness, turned back her sleeve and felt the tense jerking pulse. he saw what she had meant. * * * * * "do you mind my sitting beside you if i keep quiet?" she shook her head. "can you stand my talking about it?" "yes. if you don't touch me." "i won't touch you. we've got to face the thing. it's making you ill." "it isn't." "what is, then?" "living with papa." he smiled through his agony. "that's only another name for it. "it can't go on. why shouldn't we be happy? "why shouldn't we?" he insisted. "it's not as if we hadn't tried." "i--can't." "you're afraid?" "oh, no, i'm not afraid. it's simply that i can't." "you think it's a sin? it isn't. it's we who are sinned against. "if you're afraid of deceiving mary--i don't care if i do. she deceived me first. besides we can't. she knows and she doesn't mind. she can't suffer as you suffer. she can't feel as you feel. she can't care." "she does care. she must have cared horribly or she wouldn't have done it." "she didn't. anybody would have done for her as well as me. i tell you i don't want to talk about mary or to think about her." "then i must." "no. you must think of me. you don't owe anything to mary. it's me you're sinning against. you think a lot about sinning against mary, but you think nothing about sinning against me." "when did i ever sin against you?" "last year. when you went away. that was the beginning of it all. why _did_ you go, gwenda? you knew. we should have been all right if you hadn't." "i went because of ally. she had to be married. i thought--perhaps--if i wasn't there----" "that i'd marry her? good god! ally! what on earth made you think i'd do that? i wouldn't have married her if there hadn't been another woman in the world." "i couldn't be sure. but after what you said about her i had to give her a chance." "what _did_ i say?" "that she'd die or go mad if somebody didn't marry her." "i never said that. i wouldn't be likely to." "but you did, dear. you frightened me. so i went away to see if that would make it any better." "any better for whom?" "for ally." "oh--ally. i see." "i thought if it didn't--if you didn't marry her--i could come back again. and when i did come back you'd married mary." "and mary knew that?" "there's no good bothering about mary now." utterly weary of their strife, she lay back and closed her eyes. "poor gwenda." again he had compassion on her. he waited. "you see how it was," she said. "it doesn't help us much, dear. what are we going to do?" "not what you want, steven, i'm afraid." "not now. but some day. you'll see it differently when you've thought of it." "never. never any day. i've had all these months to think of it and i can't see it differently yet." "you _have_ thought of it?" "not like that." "but you did think. you knew it would come to this." "i tried not to make it come. do you know why i tried? i don't think it was for molly. it was for myself. it was because i wanted to keep you. that's why i shall never do what you want." "but that's how you _would_ keep me. there's no other way." she rose with a sudden gesture of her shoulders as if she shook off the obsession of him. she stood leaning against the chimney-piece in the attitude he knew, an attitude of long-limbed, insolent, adolescent grace that gave her the advantage. her eyes disdained their pathos. they looked at him with laughter under their dropped lids. "how funny we are," she said, "when we know all the time we couldn't really do a caddish thing like that." he smiled queerly. "i suppose we couldn't." * * * * * he too rose and faced her. "do you know what this means?" he said. "it means that i've got to clear out of this." "oh, steven----" the brave light in her face went out. "you wouldn't go away and leave me?" "god knows i don't want to leave you, gwenda. but we can't go on like this. how can we?" "i could." "well, i can't. that's what it means to me. that's what it means to a man. if we're going to be straight we simply mustn't see each other." "do you mean for always? that we're never to see each other again?" "yes, if it's to be any good." "steven, i can bear anything but that. it _can't_ mean that." "i tell you it's what it means for me. there's no good talking about it. you've seen what i've been like tonight." "this? this is nothing. you'll get over this. but think what it would mean to me." "it would be hard, i know." "hard?" "not half so hard as this." "but i can bear this. we've been so happy. we can be happy still." "this isn't happiness." "it's _my_ happiness. it's all i've got. it's all i've ever had." "what is?" "seeing you. or not even seeing you. knowing you're there." "poor child. does that make you happy?" "utterly happy. always." "i didn't know." he stooped forward, hiding his face in his hands. "you don't realise it. you've no idea what it'll mean to be boxed up in this place together, all our lives, with this between us." "it's always been between us. we shall be no worse off. it may have been bad now and then, but conceive what it'll be like when you go." "i suppose it would be pretty beastly for you if i did go." "would it be too awful for you if you stayed?" he was a long time before he answered. "not if it really made you happier." "happier?" she smiled her pitiful, strained smile. it said, "don't you see that it would kill me if you went?" and again it was by her difference, her helplessness, that she had him. he too smiled drearily. "you don't suppose i really could have left you?" he saw that it was impossible, unthinkable, that he should leave her. he rose. she went with him to the door. she thought of something there. "steven," she said, "don't worry about to-night. it was all my fault." "you--you," he murmured. "you're adorable." "it was really," she said. "i made you come in." she gave him her cold hand. he raised it and brushed it with his lips and put it from him. "your little conscience was always too tender." lv two years passed. life stirred again in the vicarage, feebly and slowly, with the slow and feeble stirring of the vicar's brain. ten o'clock was prayer time again. twice every sunday the vicar appeared in his seat in the chancel. twice he pronounced the absolution. twice he tottered to the altar rails, turned, shifted his stick from his left hand to his right, and, with his one good arm raised, he gave the benediction. these were the supreme moments of his life. once a month, kneeling at the same altar rails, he received the bread and wine from the hands of his ritualistic curate, mr. grierson. it was his uttermost abasement. but, whether he was abased or exalted, the parish was proud of its vicar. he had shown grit. his parishioners respected the indestructible instinct that had made him hold on. * * * * * for mr. cartaret was better, incredibly better. he could creep about the house and the village without any help but his stick. he could wash and feed and dress himself. he had no longer any use for his wheel-chair. once a week, on a wednesday, he was driven over his parish in an ancient pony carriage of peacock's. it was low enough for him to haul himself in and out. and he had recovered large tracts of memory, all, apparently, but the one spot submerged in the catastrophe that had brought about his stroke. he was aware of events and of their couplings and of their sequences in time, though the origin of some things was not clear to him. thus he knew that alice was married and living at upthorne, though he had forgotten why. that she should have married greatorex was a strange thing, and he couldn't think how it had happened. he supposed it must have happened when he was laid aside, for he would never have permitted it if he had known. mary's marriage also puzzled him, for he had a most distinct idea that it was gwenda who was to have married rowcliffe, and he said so. but he would own humbly that he might be mistaken, his memory not being what it was. he had settled more or less into his state of gentleness and submission, broken from time to time by fits of violent irritation and relieved by pride, pride in his feats of independence, his comings and goings, his washing, his dressing and undressing of himself. sometimes this pride was stubborn and insistent; sometimes it was sweet and joyous as a child's. his mouth, relaxed forever by his stroke, had acquired a smile of piteous and appealing innocence. it smiled upon the just and upon the unjust. it smiled even on greatorex, whom socially he disapproved of (he took care to let it be known that he disapproved of greatorex socially), though he tolerated him. he tolerated all persons except one. and that one was the ritualistic curate, mr. grierson. he had every reason for not tolerating him. not only was mr. grierson a ritualist, which was only less abominable than being a non-conformist, but he had been foisted on him without his knowledge or will. the vicar had simply waked up one day out of his confused twilight to a state of fearful lucidity and found the young man there. worse than all it was through the third mrs. cartaret that he had got there. for the vicar of greffington had applied to the additional curates aid society for a grant on behalf of his afflicted brother, the vicar of garthdale, and he had applied in vain. there was a prejudice against the vicar of garthdale. but the vicar of greffington did not relax his efforts. he applied to young mrs. rowcliffe, and young mrs. rowcliffe applied to her step-mother, and not in vain. robina, answering by return of post, offered to pay half the curate's salary. rowcliffe made himself responsible for the other half. robina, in her compact little house in st. john's wood, had become the prey of remorse. her conscience had begun to bother her by suggesting that she ought to go back to her husband now that he was helpless and utterly inoffensive. she ought not to leave him on poor gwenda's hands. she ought, at any rate, to take her turn. but robina couldn't face it. she couldn't leave her compact little house and go back to her husband. she couldn't even take her turn. flesh and blood shrank from the awful sacrifice. it would be a living death. your conscience has no business to send you to a living death. robina's heart ached for poor gwenda. she wrote and said so. she said she knew she was a brute for not going back to gwenda's father. she would do it if she could, but she simply couldn't. she hadn't got the nerve. and robina did more. she pulled wires and found the curate. that he was a ritualist was no drawback in robina's eyes. in fact, she declared it was a positive advantage. mr. grierson's practices would wake them up in garthdale. they needed waking. she had added that mr. grierson was well connected, well behaved and extremely good-looking. even charity couldn't subdue the merry devil in robina. "i can't see," said mary reading robina's letter, "what mr. grierson's good looks have got to do with it." rowcliffe's face darkened. he thought he could see. * * * * * but mr. grierson did not wake garthdale up. it opened one astonished eye on his practices and turned over in its sleep again. mr. grierson was young, and the village regarded all he did as the folly of his youth. it saw no harm in mr. grierson; not even when he conceived a platonic passion for mrs. steven rowcliffe, and spent all his spare time in her drawing-room and on his way to and from it. the curate lodged in the village at the blenkirons' over rowcliffe's surgery, and from that vantage ground he lay in wait for rowcliffe. he watched his movements. he was ready at any moment to fling open his door and spring upon rowcliffe with ardor and enthusiasm. it was as if he wanted to prove to him how heartily he forgave him for being mrs. rowcliffe's husband. there was a robust innocence about him that ignored the doctor's irony. mary had her own use for mr. grierson. his handsome figure, assiduous but restrained, the perfect image of integrity in adoration, was the very thing she wanted for her drawing-room. she knew that its presence there had the effect of heightening her own sensual attraction. it served as a reminder to rowcliffe that his wife was a woman of charm, a fact which for some time he appeared to have forgotten. she could play off her adorer against her husband, while the candid purity of young grierson's homage renewed her exquisite sense of her own goodness. and then the curate really was a cousin of lord northfleet's and mrs. rowcliffe had calculated that to have him in her pocket would increase prodigiously her social value. and it did. and mrs. rowcliffe's social value, when observed by grierson, increased his adoration. and when rowcliffe told her that young grierson's platonic friendship wasn't good for him, she made wide eyes at him and said, "poor boy! he must have _some_ amusement." she didn't suppose the curate could be much amused by calling at the vicarage. young grierson had confided to her that he couldn't "make her sister out." "i never knew anybody who could," she said, and gave him a subtle look that disturbed him horribly. "i only meant--" he stammered and stopped, for he wasn't quite sure what he did mean. his fair, fresh face was strained with the effort to express himself. he meditated. "you know, she's really rather fascinating. you can't help looking at her. only--she doesn't seem to see that you're there. i suppose that's what puts you off." "i know. it does, dreadfully," said mary. she summoned a flash and let him have it. "but she's magnificent." "magnificent!" he echoed with his robust enthusiasm. but what he thought was that it was magnificent of mrs. rowcliffe to praise her sister. and rowcliffe smiled grimly at young grierson and his platonic passion. he said to himself, "if i'd only known. if i'd only had the sense to wait six months. grierson would have done just as well for molly." still, though grierson had come too late, he welcomed him and his platonic passion. it wasn't good for grierson but it was good for molly. at least, he supposed it was better for her than nothing. and for him it was infinitely better. it kept grierson off gwenda. * * * * * young grierson was right when he said that gwenda didn't see that he was there. he had been two years in garthdale and she was as far from seeing it as ever. he didn't mind; he was even amused by her indifference, only he couldn't help thinking that it was rather odd of her, considering that he _was_ there. the village, as simple in its thinking as young grierson, shared his view. it thought that it was something more than odd. and it had a suspicion that mrs. rowcliffe was at the bottom of it. she wouldn't be happy if she didn't get that young man away from her sister. the village hinted that it wouldn't be for the first time. * * * * * but in two years, with the gradual lifting of the pressure that had numbed her, gwenda had become aware. not of young grierson, but of her own tragedy, of the slow life that dragged her, of its relentless motion and its mass. now that her father's need of her was intermittent she was alive to the tightness of the tie. it had been less intolerable when it had bound her tighter; when she hadn't had a moment; when it had dragged her all the time. its slackening was torture. she pulled then, and was jerked on her chain. it was not only that rowcliffe's outburst had waked her and made her cruelly aware. he had timed it badly, in her moment of revived lucidity, the moment when she had become vulnerable again. she was the more sensitive because of her previous apathy, as if she had died and was new-born to suffering and virgin to pain. what hurt her most was her father's gentleness. she could stand his fits of irritation and obstinacy; they braced her, they called forth her will. but she was defenseless against his pathos, and he knew it. he had phrases that wrung her heart. "you're a good girl, gwenda." "i'm only an irritable old man, my dear. you mustn't mind what i say." she suffered from the incessant drain on her pity; for she wanted all her will if she was to stand against rowcliffe. pity was a dangerous solvent in which her will sank and was melted away. there were moments when she saw herself as two women. one had still the passion and the memory of freedom. the other was a cowed and captive creature who had forgotten; whose cramped motions guided her; whose instinct of submission she abhorred. * * * * * her isolation was now extreme. she had had nothing to give to any friends she might have made. rowcliffe had taken all that was left of her. and now, when intercourse was possible, it was they who had withdrawn. they shared mr. grierson's inability to make her out. they had heard rumors; they imagined things; they remembered also. she was the girl who had raced all over the country with dr. rowcliffe, the girl whom dr. rowcliffe, for all their racing, had not cared to marry. she was the girl who had run away from home to live with a dubious step-mother; and she was the sister of that awful mrs. greatorex, who--well, everybody knew what mrs. greatorex was. gwenda cartaret, like her younger sister, had been talked about. not so much in the big houses of the dale. the queer facts had been tossed up and down a smokeroom for one season and then dropped. in the big houses they didn't remember gwenda cartaret. they only remembered to forget her. but in the little shops and in the little houses in morfe there had been continual whispering. they said that even after dr. rowcliffe's marriage to that nice wife of his, who was her own sister, the two had been carrying on. if there wasn't any actual harm done, and maybe there wasn't, the doctor had been running into danger. he was up at garthdale more than he need be now that the old vicar was about again. and they had been seen together. the head gamekeeper at garthdale had caught them more than once out on the moor, and after dark too. it was said in the little houses that it wasn't the doctor's fault. (in the big houses judgment had been more impartial, but morfe was loyal to its doctor.) it was hers, every bit, you might depend on it. of rowcliffe it was said that maybe he'd been tempted, but he was a good man, was dr. rowcliffe, and he'd stopped in time. because they didn't know what gwenda cartaret was capable of, they believed, like the vicar, that she was capable of anything. it was only in her own village that they knew. the head gamekeeper had never told his tale in garth. it would have made him too unpopular. * * * * * gwenda cartaret remained unaware of what was said. rumor protected her by cutting her off from its own sources. and she had other consolations besides her ignorance. so long as she knew that rowcliffe cared for her and always had cared, it did not seem to matter to her so much that he had married mary. she actually considered that, of the two, mary was the one to be pitied; it was so infinitely worse to be married to a man who didn't care for you than not to be married to a man who did. of course, there was the tie. her sister had outward and visible possession of him. but she said to herself "i wouldn't give what i have for _that,_ if i can't have both." and of course there was steven, and steven's misery which was more unbearable to her than her own. at least she thought it was more unbearable. she didn't ask herself how bearable it would have been if steven's marriage had brought him a satisfaction that denied her and cast her out. for she was persuaded that steven also had his consolation. he knew that she cared for him. she conceived this knowledge of theirs as constituting an immaterial and immutable possession of each other. and it did not strike her that this knowledge might be less richly compensating to steven than to her. * * * * * her woman's passion, forced inward, sustained her with an inward peace, an inward exaltation. and in this peace, this exaltation, it became one with her passion for the place. she was unaware of what was happening in her. she did not know that her soul had joined the two beyond its own power to put asunder. she still looked on her joy in the earth as a solitary emotion untouched by any other. she still said to herself "nothing can take this away from me." for she had hours, now and again, when she shook off the slave-woman who held her down. in those hours her inner life moved with the large rhythm of the seasons and was soaked in the dyes of the visible world; and the visible world, passing into her inner life, took on its radiance and intensity. everything that happened and that was great and significant in its happening, happened there. outside nothing happened; nothing stood out; nothing moved. no procession of events trod down or blurred her perfect impressions of the earth and sky. they eternalised themselves in memory. they became her memory. the days were carved for her in the lines of the hills and painted for her in their colors; days that were dim green and gray, when the dreaming land was withdrawn under a veil so fine that it had the transparency of water, or when the stone walls, the humble houses and the high ramparts, drenched with mist and with secret sunlight, became insubstantial; days when all the hills were hewn out of one opal; days that had the form of karva under snow, and the thin blues and violets of the snow. she remembered purely, without thinking, "it was in april that i went away from steven," or, "it was in november that he married mary," or "it was in february that we knew about ally, and father had his stroke." her nature was sound and sane; it refused to brood over suffering. she was not like alice and in her unlikeness she lacked some of alice's resources. she couldn't fling herself on to a polonaise of a sonata any more than she could lie on a couch all day and look at her own white hands and dream. her passion found no outlet in creating violent and voluptuous sounds. it was passive, rather, and attentive. cut off from all contacts of the flesh, it turned to the distant and the undreamed. its very senses became infinitely subtle; they discerned the hidden soul of the land that had entranced her. there were no words for this experience. she had no sense of self in it and needed none. it seemed to her that she _was_ what she contemplated, as if all her senses were fused together in the sense of seeing and what her eyes saw they heard and touched and felt. but when she came to and saw herself seeing, she said, "at least this is mine. nobody, not even steven, can take it away from me." * * * * * she also reminded herself that she had alice. she meant alice greatorex. alice cartaret, oppressed by her own "awfulness," had loved her with a sullen selfish love, the love of a frustrated and unhappy child. but there was no awfulness in alice greatorex. in the fine sanity of happiness she showed herself as good as gold. marriage, that had made mary hard, made alice tender. mary was wrapped up in her husband and her house, and in her social relations and young grierson's platonic passion, so tightly wrapped that these things formed round her an impenetrable shell. they hid a secret and inaccessible mary. alice was wrapped up in her husband and children, in the boy of three who was so like gwenda, and in the baby girl who was so like greatorex. but through them she had become approachable. she had the ways of some happy household animal, its quick rushes of affection, and its gaze, the long, spiritual gaze of its maternity, mysterious and appealing. she loved gwenda with a sad-eyed, remorseful love. she said to herself, "if i hadn't been so awful, gwenda might have married steven." she saw the appalling extent of gwenda's sacrifice. she saw it as it was, monstrous, absurd, altogether futile. it was the futility of it that troubled alice most. even if gwenda had been capable of sacrificing herself for mary, which had been by no means her intention, that would have been futile too. alice was of rowcliffe's opinion that young grierson would have done every bit as well for mary. better, for mary had no children. "and how," said alice, "could she expect to have them?" she saw in mary's childlessness not only god's but nature's justice. * * * * * there were moments when mary saw it too. but she left god out of it and called it nature's cruelty. if it was not really gwenda. for in flashes of extreme lucidity mary put it down to rowcliffe's coldness. and she had come to know that gwenda was responsible for that. lvi but one day in april, in the fourth year of her marriage, mary sent for gwenda. rowcliffe was out on his rounds. she had thought of that. she was fond of having gwenda with her in rowcliffe's absence, when she could talk to her about him in a way that assumed his complete indifference to gwenda and utter devotion to herself. gwenda was used to this habit of mary's and thought nothing of it. she found her in rowcliffe's study, the room that she knew better than any other in his house. the window was closed. the panes cut up the colors of the orchard and framed them in small squares. mary received her with a gentle voice and a show of tenderness. she said very little. they had tea together, and when gwenda would have gone mary kept her. she still said very little. she seemed to brood over some happy secret. presently she spoke. she told her secret. and when she had told it she turned her eyes to gwenda with a look of subtle penetration and of triumph. "at last," she said,--"after three years." and she added, "i knew you would be glad." "i _am_ glad," said gwenda. she _was_ glad. she was determined to be glad. she looked glad. and she kissed mary and said again that she was very glad. but as she walked back the four miles up garthdale under karva, she felt an aching at her heart which was odd considering how glad she was. she said to herself, "i _will_ be glad. i want mary to be happy. why shouldn't i be glad? it's not as if it could make any difference." lvii in september mary sent for her again. mary was very ill. she lay on her bed, and rowcliffe and her sister stood on either side of her. she gazed from one to the other with eyes of terror and entreaty. it was as if she cried out to them--the two who were so strong--to help her. she stretched out her arms on the counterpane, one arm toward each of them; her little hands, palm-upward, implored them. each of them laid a hand in mary's hand that closed on it with a clutch of agony. rowcliffe had sat up all night with her. his face was white and haggard and there was fear and misery in his eyes. they never looked at gwenda's lest they should see the same fear and the same misery there. it was as if they had no love for each other, only a profound and secret pity that sprang in both of them from their fear. only once they found each other, outside on the landing, when they had left mary alone with hyslop, the old doctor from reyburn, and the nurse. each spoke once. "steven, is there really any danger?" "yes. i wish to god i'd had harker. do you mind sending him a wire? i must go and see what that fool hyslop's doing." he turned back again into the room. gwenda went out and sent the wire. but at noon, before harker could come to them, it was over. mary lay as alice had lain, weak and happy, with her child tucked in the crook of her arm. and she smiled at it dreamily. the old doctor and the nurse smiled at rowcliffe. it couldn't, they said, have gone off more easily. there hadn't been any danger, nor any earthly reason to have sent for harker. though, of course, if it had made rowcliffe happier--! the old doctor added that if it had been anybody else's wife rowcliffe would have known that it was going all right. and in the evening, when her sister stood again at her bedside, as mary lifted the edge of the flannel that hid her baby's face, she looked at gwenda and smiled, not dreamily but subtly in a triumph that was almost malign. that night gwenda dreamed that she saw mary lying dead and with a dead child in the crook of her arm. she woke in anguish and terror. lviii three years passed and six months. the cartarets had been in garthdale nine years. gwenda cartaret sat in the dining-room at the vicarage alone with her father. it was nearly ten o'clock of the march evening. they waited for the striking of the clock. it would be prayer time then, and after prayers the vicar would drag himself upstairs to bed, and in the peace that slid into the room when he left it gwenda would go on with her reading. she had her sewing in her lap and her book, bergson's _Ã�volution créatrice_ propped open before her on the table. she sewed as she read. for the vicar considered that sewing was an occupation and that reading was not. he was silent as long as his daughter sewed and when she read he talked. toward ten his silence would be broken by a continual sighing and yearning. the vicar longed for prayer time to come and end his day. but he had decreed that prayer time was ten o'clock and he would not have permitted it to come a minute sooner. he nursed a book on his knees, but he made no pretence of reading it. he had taken off his glasses and sat with his hands folded, in an attitude of utter resignation to his own will. in the kitchen essy gale sat by the dying fire and waited for the stroke of ten. and as she waited she stitched at the torn breeches of her little son. essy had come back to the house where she had been turned away. for her mother was wanted by mrs. greatorex at upthorne and what mrs. greatorex wanted she got. there were two more children now at the farm and work enough for three women in the house. and essy, with all her pride, had not been too proud to come back. she had no feeling but pity for the old man, her master, who had bullied her and put her to shame. if it pleased god to afflict him that was god's affair, and, even as a devout wesleyan, essy considered that god had about done enough. as essy sat and stitched, she smiled, thinking of greatorex's son who lay in her bed in the little room over the kitchen. miss gwenda let her have him with her on the nights when mrs. gale slept up at the farm. it was quiet in the vicarage kitchen. the door into the back yard was shut, the door that essy used to keep open when she listened for a footstep and a whisper. that door had betrayed her many a time when the wind slammed it to. essy's heart was quiet as the heart of her sleeping child. she had forgotten how madly it had leaped to her lover's footsteps, how it had staggered at the slamming of the door. she had forgotten the tears that she had shed when alice's wild music had rocked the house, and what the vicar had said to her that night when she spilled the glass of water in the study. but she remembered that gwenda had given her son his first little sunday suit; and that, before jimmy came, when essy was in bed, crying with the face-ache, she had knocked at her door and said, "what is it, essy? can i do anything for you?" she could hear her saying it now. essy's memory was like that. she had thought of gwenda just then because she heard the sound of dr. rowcliffe's motor car tearing up the dale. * * * * * the woman in the other room heard it too. she had heard its horn hooting on the moor road nearly a mile away. she raised her hand and listened. it hooted again, once, twice, placably, at the turning of the road, under karva. she shivered at the sound. it hooted irritably, furiously, as the car tore through the village. its lamps swung a shaft of light over the low garden wall. at the garden gate the car made a shuddering pause. gwenda's face and all her body listened. a little unborn, undying hope quivered in her heart always at that pausing of the car at her gate. it hardly gave her time for one heart-beat before she heard the grinding of the gear as the car took the steep hill to upthorne. but she was always taken in by it. she had always that insane hope that the course of things had changed and that steven had really stopped at the gate and was coming to her. * * * * * it _was_ insanity, for she knew that rowcliffe would never come to see her in the evening now. after his outburst, more than five years ago, there was no use pretending to each other that they were safe. he had told her plainly that, if she wanted him to hold out, he must never be long alone with her at any time, and he must give up coming to see her late at night. it was much too risky. "when i can come and see you _that_ way," he had said, "it'll mean that i've left off caring. but i'll look in every wednesday if i can. every wednesday as long as i live." he _had_ come now and then, not on a wednesday, but "that way." he had not been able to help it. but he had left longer and longer intervals between. and he had never come ("that way") since last year, when his second child was born. nothing but life or death would bring rowcliffe out in his car after nightfall. yet the thing had her every time. and it was as if her heart was ground with the grinding and torn with the tearing of the car. then she said to herself, "i must end it somehow. it's horrible to go on caring like this. he was right. it would be better not to see him at all." and she began counting the days and the hours till wednesday when she would see him. lix wednesday was still the vicar's day for visiting his parish. it was also rowcliffe's day for visiting his daughter. but the vicar was not going to change it on that account. on wednesday, if it was a fine afternoon, she was always sure of having rowcliffe to herself. rowcliffe himself had become the creature of unalterable habit. she was conscious now of the normal pulse of time, a steady pulse that beat with a large rhythm, a measure of seven days, from wednesday to wednesday. she filled the days between with reading and walking and parish work. there had been changes in garthdale. mr. grierson had got married in one of his bursts of enthusiasm and had gone away. his place had been taken by mr. macey, the strenuous son of a durlingham grocer. mr. macey had got into the church by sheer strenuousness and had married, strenuously, a sharp and sallow wife. between them they left very little parish work for gwenda. she had become a furious reader. she liked hard stuff that her brain could bite on. it fell on a book and gutted it, throwing away the trash. she read all the modern poets and novelists she cared about, english and foreign. they left her stimulated but unsatisfied. there were not enough good ones to keep her going. she worked through the elizabethan dramatists and all the vicar's tudor classics, and came on jowett's translations of the platonic dialogues by the way, and was lured on the quest of ultimate reality, and found that there was nothing like thought to keep you from thinking. she took to metaphysics as you take to dram-drinking. she must have strong, heavy stuff that drugged her brain. and when she found that she could trust her intellect she set it deliberately to fight her passion. at first it was an even match, for gwenda's intellect, like her body, was robust. it generally held its ground from thursday morning till tuesday night. but the night that followed wednesday afternoon would see its overthrow. this wednesday it fought gallantly till the very moment of steven's arrival. she was still reading bergson, and her brain struggled to make out the sense and rhythm of the sentences across the beating of her heart. after seven years her heart still beat at steven's coming. it remained an excitement and adventure, for she never knew how he would be. sometimes he hadn't a word to say to her and left her miserable. sometimes, after a hard day's work, he would be tired and heavy; she saw him middle-aged and her heart would ache for him. sometimes he would be young almost as he used to be. she knew that he was only young for her. he was young because he loved her. she had never seen him so with mary. sometimes he would be formal and frigid. he talked to her as a man talks to a woman he is determined to keep at a distance. she hated steven then, as passion hates. he had come before now in a downright bad temper and was the old, irritable steven who found fault with everything she said and did. and she had loved him for it as she had loved the old steven. it was his queer way of showing that he loved her. but he had not been like that for a very long time. he had grown gentler as he had grown older. to-day he showed her more than one of his familiar moods. she took them gladly as so many signs of his unchanging nature. he still kept up his way of coming in, the careful closing of the door, the slight pause there by the threshold, the look that sought her and that held her for an instant before their hands met. she saw it still as the look that pleaded with her while it caressed her, that said, "i know we oughtn't to be so pleased to see each other, but we can't help it, can we?" it was the look of his romantic youth. as long as she saw it there it was nothing to her that rowcliffe had changed physically, that he moved more heavily, that his keenness and his slenderness were going, that she saw also a slight thickening of his fine nose, a perceptible slackening of the taut muscles of his mouth, and a decided fulness about his jaw and chin. she saw all these things; but she did not see that his romantic youth lay dying in the pathos of his eyes and that if it pleaded still it pleaded forgiveness for the sin of dying. his hand fell slackly from hers as she took it. it was as if they were still on their guard, still afraid of each other's touch. as he sat in the chair that faced hers he held his hands clasped loosely in front of him, and looked at them with a curious attention, as if he wondered what kind of hands they were that could resist holding her. when he saw that she was looking at him they fell apart with a nervous gesture. they picked up the book she had laid down and turned it. his eyes examined the title page. their pathos lightened and softened; it became compassion; they smiled at her with a little pitiful smile, half tender, half ironic, as if they said, "poor gwenda, is that what you're driven to?" he opened the book and turned the pages, reading a little here and there. he scowled. his look changed. it darkened. it was angry, resentful, inimical. the dying youth in it came a little nearer to death. rowcliffe had found that he could not understand what he had read. "huh! what do you addle your brains with that stuff for?" he said. "it amuses me." "oh--so long as you're amused." he pushed away the book that had offended him. they talked--about the vicar, about alice, about rowcliffe's children, about the changes in the dale, the coming of the maceys and the going of young grierson. "he wasn't a bad chap, grierson." he softened, remembering grierson. "i can't think why you didn't care about him." and at the thought of how gwenda might have cared for grierson and hadn't cared his youth revived; it came back into his eyes and lit them; it passed into his scowling face and caressed and smoothed it to the perfect look of reminiscent satisfaction. rowcliffe did not know, neither did she, how his egoism hung upon her passion, how it drew from it food and fire. he raised his head and squared his shoulders with the unconscious gesture of his male pride. * * * * * it was then that she saw for the first time that he wore the black tie and had the black band of mourning on his sleeve. "oh steven--what do you wear that for?" "this? my poor old uncle died last week." "not the one i saw?" "when?" "at mary's wedding." "no. another one. my father's brother." he paused. "it's made a great difference to me and mary." he said it gravely, mournfully almost. she looked at him with tender eyes. "i'm sorry, steven." he smiled faintly. "sorry, are you?" "yes. if you cared for him." "i'm afraid i didn't very much. it's not as if i'd seen a lot of him." "you said it's made a difference." "so it has. he's left me a good four hundred a year." "oh--_that_ sort of difference." "my dear girl, four hundred a year makes all the difference; it's no use pretending that it doesn't." "i'm not pretending. you sounded sorry and i was sorry for you. that was all." at that his egoism winced. it was as if she had accused him of pretending to be sorry. he looked at her sharply. his romantic youth died in that look. * * * * * silence fell between them. but she was used to that. she even welcomed it. steven's silences brought him nearer to her than his speech. essy came in with the tea-tray. he lingered uneasily after the meal, glancing now and then at the clock. she was used to that, too. she also had her eyes on the clock, measuring the priceless moments. * * * * * "is anything worrying you, steven?" she said presently. "why? do i look worried?" "not exactly, but you don't look well." "i'm getting a bit rusty. that's what's the matter with me. i want some hard work to rub me up and put a polish on me and i can't get it here. i've never had enough to do since i left leeds. harker was a wise chap to stick to it. it would do me all the good in the world if i went back." "then," she said, "you'll _have_ to go, steven." she did not know, in her isolation, that rowcliffe had been going about saying that sort of thing for the last seven years. she thought it was the formidable discovery of time. "you ought to go if you feel like that about it. why don't you?" "i don't know." "you _do_ know." she did not look at him as she spoke, so she missed his bewilderment. "you know why you stayed, steven." he understood. he remembered. the dull red of his face flushed with the shock of the memory. "do i?" he said. "i made you." his flush darkened. but he gave no other sign of having heard her. "i don't know why i'm staying now." he rose and looked at his watch. "i must be going home," he said. he turned at the threshold. "i forgot to give you mary's message. she sent her love and she wants to know when you're coming again to see the babies." "oh--some day soon." "you must make it very soon or they won't be babies any more. she's dying to show them to you." "she showed them to me the other day." "she says it's ages since you've been. and if she says it is she thinks it is." gwenda was silent. "i'm coming all right, tell her." "well, but what day? we'd better fix it. don't come on a tuesday or a friday, i'll be out." "i must come when i can." lx she went on a tuesday. she had had tea with her father first. meal-time had become sacred to the vicar and he hated her to be away for any one of them. she walked the four miles, going across the moor under karva and loitering by the way, and it was past six before she reached morfe. she was shown into the room that was once rowcliffe's study. it had been mary's drawing-room ever since last year when the second child was born and they turned the big room over the dining-room into a day nursery. mary had made it snug and gay with cushions and shining, florid chintzes. there were a great many things in rosewood and brass; a piano took the place of rowcliffe's writing table; a bureau and a cabinet stood against the wall where his bookcases had been; and a tall palm-tree in a pot filled the little window that looked on to the orchard. she had only to close her eyes and shut out these objects and she saw the room as it used to be. she closed them now and instantly she opened them again, for the vision hurt her. she went restlessly about the room, picking up things and looking at them without seeing them. in the room upstairs she heard the cries of rowcliffe's children, bumping and the scampering of feet. she stood still then and clenched her hands. the pain at her heart was like no other pain. it was as if she hated rowcliffe's children. presently she would have to go up and see them. she waited. mary was taking her own time. upstairs the doors opened and shut on the sharp grief of little children carried unwillingly to bed. gwenda's heart melted and grew tender at the sound. but its tenderness was more unbearable to her than its pain. the maid-servant came to the door. "mrs. rowcliffe says will you please go upstairs to the night nursery, miss gwenda. she can't leave the children." that was the message mary invariably sent. she left the children for hours together when other visitors were there. she could never leave them for a minute when her sister came. unless steven happened to be in. then mary would abandon whatever she was doing and hurry to the two. in the last year gwenda had never found herself alone with steven for ten minutes in his house. if mary couldn't come at once she sent the nurse in with the children. upstairs in the night nursery mary sat in the nurse's low chair. her year-old baby sprawled naked in her lap. the elder infant stood whining under the nurse's hands. mary had changed a little in three and a half years. she was broader and stouter; the tender rose had hardened over her high cheek bones. her face still kept its tranquil brooding, but her slow gray eyes had a secret tremor, they were almost alert, as if she were on the watch. and mary's mouth, with its wide, turned back lips, had lost its subtlety, it had coarsened slightly and loosened, under her senses' continual content. gwenda brushed mary's mouth lightly with the winged arch of her upper lip. mary laughed. "you don't know how to kiss," she said. "if you're going to treat baby that way, and molly too--" gwenda stooped over the soft red down of the baby's head. to gwenda it was as if her heart kept her hands off rowcliffe's children, as if her flesh shrank from their flesh while her lips brushed theirs in tenderness and repulsion. but seeing them was always worse in anticipation than reality. for there was no trace of rowcliffe in his children. the little red-haired, white-faced things were all cartaret. molly, the elder, had a look of ally, sullen and sickly, as if some innermost reluctance had held back the impulse that had given it being. even the younger child showed fragile as if implacable memory had come between it and perfect life. gwenda did not know why her fierceness was appeased by this unlikeness, nor why she wanted to see mary and nothing but mary in rowcliffe's children, nor why she refused to think of them as his; she only knew that to see rowcliffe in mary's children would have been more than her flesh and blood could bear. "you've come just in time to see baby in her bath," said mary. "i seem to be always in time for that." "well, you're not in time to see steven. he won't be home till nine at least." "i didn't expect to see him. he told me he'd be out." she saw the hidden watcher in mary's eyes looking out at her. "when did he tell you that?" "last wednesday." the watcher hid again, suddenly appeased. mary busied herself with the washing of her babies. she did it thoroughly and efficiently, with no sentimental tendernesses, but with soft, sensual pattings and strokings of the white, satin-smooth skins. and when they were tucked into their cots and disposed of for the night mary turned to gwenda. "come into my room a minute," she said. mary's joy was to take her sister into her room and watch her to see if she would flinch before the signs of steven's occupation. she drew her attention to these if gwenda seemed likely to miss any of them. "we've had the beds turned," she said. "the light hurt steven's eyes. i can't say i like sleeping with my head out in the middle of the room." "why don't you lie the other way then?" "my dear, steven wouldn't like that. oh, what a mess my hair's in!" she turned to the glass and smoothed her disordered waves and coils, while she kept her eyes fixed on gwenda's image there, appraising her clothes, her slenderness and straightness, the set of her head on her shoulders, the air that she kept up of almost insolent adolescence. she noted the delicate lines on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes; she saw that her small defiant face was still white and firm, and that her eyes looked violet blue with the dark shadows under them. time was the only power that had been good to gwenda. "she ought to look more battered," mary thought. "she _does_ carry it off well. and she's only two years younger than i am. "it's her figure, really, not her face. she's got more lines than i have. but if i wore that long straight coat i should look awful in it." "it's all very well for you," she said. "you haven't had two children." "no. i haven't. but what's all very well?" "the good looks you contrive to keep, my dear. nobody would know you were thirty-three." "_i_ shouldn't, molly, if you didn't remind me every time." mary flushed. "you'll say next that's why you don't come." "why--i--don't come?" "yes. it's ages since you've been here." that was always mary's cry. "i haven't much time, molly, for coming on the off-chance." "the off chance! as if i'd never asked you! you can go to alice." "poor ally wouldn't have anybody to show the baby to if i didn't. you haven't seen one of ally's babies." "i can't, gwenda. i must think of the children. i can't let them grow up with little greatorexes. there are three of them, aren't there?" "didn't you know there's been another?" "steven _did_ tell me. she had rather a bad time, hadn't she?" "she had. molly--it wouldn't do you any harm now to go and see her. i think it's horrid of you not to. it's such rotten humbug. why, you used to say _i_ was ten times more awful than poor little ally." "there are moments, gwenda, when i think you are." "moments? you always did think it. you think it still. and yet you'll have me here but you won't have her. just because she's gone a technical howler and i haven't." "you haven't. but you'd have gone a worse one if you'd had the chance." gwenda raised her head. "you know, molly, that that isn't true." "i said if. i suppose you think you had your chance, then?" "i don't think anything. except that i've got to go." "you haven't. you're going to stay for dinner now you're here." "i can't, really, mary." but mary was obstinate. whether her sister stayed or went she made it hard for her. she kept it up on the stairs and at the door and at the garden gate. "perhaps you'll come some night when steven's here. you know he's always glad to see you." the sting of it was in mary's watching eyes. for, when you came to think of it, there was nothing else she could very well have said. lxi that year, when spring warmed into summer, gwenda's strength went from her. she was always tired. she fought with her fatigue and got the better of it, but in a week or two it returned. rowcliffe told her to rest and she rested, for a day or two, lying on the couch in the dining-room where ally used to lie, and when she felt better she crawled out on to the moor and lay there. one day she said to herself, "there's ally. i'll go and see how she's getting on." she dragged herself up the hill to upthorne. it was a day of heat and hidden sunlight. the moor and the marshes were drenched in the gray june mist. the hillside wore soft vapor like a cloak hiding its nakedness. at the top of the three fields the nave of the old barn showed as if lifted up and withdrawn into the distance. but it was no longer solitary. the thorn-tree beside it had burst into white flower; it shimmered far-off under the mist in the dim green field, like a magic thing, half-hidden and about to disappear, remaining only for the hour of its enchantment. it gave her the same subtle and mysterious joy that she had had on the night she and rowcliffe walked together and saw the thorn-trees on greffington edge white under the hidden moon. the gray farm-house was changed, for jim greatorex had got on. he had built himself another granary on the north side of the mistal. he built it long and low, of hewn stone, with a corrugated iron roof. and he had made himself two fine new rooms, a dining-room and a nursery, one above the other, within the blind walls of the house where the old granary had been. the walls were blind no longer, for he had knocked four large windows out of them. and it was as if one-half of the house were awake and staring while the other half, in its old and alien beauty, dozed and dreamed under its scowling mullions. as gwenda came to it she wondered how the farm could ever have seemed sinister and ghost-haunted; it had become so entirely the place of happy life. loud noises came from the open windows of the dining-room where the family were at tea; the barking of dogs, the competitive laughter of small children, a gurgling and crowing and spluttering; with now and then the sudden delicate laughter of ally and the bellowing of jim. "oh--there's gwenda!" said ally. jim stopped between a bellowing and a choking, for his mouth was full. "ay--it's 'er." he washed down his mouthful. "coom, ally, and open door t' 'er." but ally did not come. she had her year-old baby on her knees and was feeding him. at the door of the old kitchen jim grasped his sister-in-law by the hand. "thot's right," he said. "yo've joost coom in time for a cup o' tae. t' misses is in there wi' t' lil uns." he jerked his thumb toward his dining-room and led the way there. jim was not quite so alert and slender as he had been. he had lost his savage grace. but he moved with his old directness and dignity, and he still looked at you with his pathetic, mystic gaze. ally was contrite; she raised her face to her sister to be kissed. "i can't get up," she said, "i'm feeding baby. he'd howl if i left off." "i'd let 'im howl. i'd spank him ef 'twas me," said jim. "he wouldn't, gwenda." "ay, thot i would. an' 'e knows it, doos johnny, t' yoong rascal." gwenda kissed the four children; jimmy, and gwendolen alice, and little steven and the baby john. they lifted little sticky faces and wiped them on gwenda's face, and the happy din went on. ally didn't seem to mind it. she had grown plump and pink and rather like mary without her subtlety. she sat smiling, tranquil among the cries of her offspring. jim turned three dogs out into the yard by way of discipline. he and ally tried to talk to each other across the tumult that remained. now and then ally and the children talked to gwenda. they told her that the black and white cow had calved, and that the blue lupins had come up in the garden, that the old sow had died, that jenny, the chintz cat, had kittened and that the lop-eared rabbit had a litter. "and baby's got another tooth," said ally. "i'm breaakin' in t' yoong chestnut," said jim. "poor daasy's gettin' paasst 'er work." all these happenings were exciting and wonderful to ally. "but you're not interested, gwenda." "i am, darling, i am." she was. ally knew it but she wanted perpetual reassurance. "but you never tell us anything." "there's nothing to tell. nothing happens." "oh, come," said ally, "how's papa?" "much the same except that he drove into morfe yesterday to see molly." "yes, darling, of course you may." ally was abstracted, for gwenny had slipped from her chair and was whispering in her ear. it never occurred to ally to ask what gwenda had been doing, or what she had been thinking of, or what she felt, or to listen to anything she had to say. her sister might just as well not have existed for all the interest ally showed in her. she hadn't really forgotten what gwenda had done for her, but she couldn't go on thinking about it forever. it was the sort of thing that wasn't easy or agreeable to think about and ally's instinct of self-preservation urged her to turn from it. she tended to forget it, as she tended to forget all dreadful things, such as her own terrors and her father's illness and the noises greatorex made when he was eating. gwenda was used to this apathy of ally's and it had never hurt her till to-day. to-day she wanted something from ally. she didn't know what it was exactly, but it was something ally hadn't got. she only said, "have you seen the thorn-trees on greffington edge?" and ally never answered. she was heading off a stream of jam that was creeping down stevey's chin to plunge into his neck. "gwenda's aasskin' yo 'ave yo seen t' thorn-trees on greffington edge," said greatorex. he spoke to ally as if she were deaf. she made a desperate effort to detach herself from stevey. "the thorn-trees? has anybody set fire to them?" "tha silly laass!----" "what about the thorn-trees, gwenda?" "only that they're all in flower," gwenda said. she didn't know where it had come from, the sudden impulse to tell ally about the beauty of the thorn-trees. but the impulse had gone. she thought sadly, "they want me. but they don't want me for myself. they don't want to talk to me. they don't know what to say. they don't know anything about me. they don't care--really. jim likes me because i've stuck to ally. ally loves me because i would have given steven to her. they love what i was, not what i am now, nor what i shall be. "they have nothing for me." it was jim who answered her. "i knaw," he said, "i knaw." "oh! you little, little--lamb!" baby john had his fingers in his mother's hair. * * * * * greatorex rose. "you'll not get mooch out o' ally as long as t' kids are about. yo'd best coom wi' mae into t' garden and see t' loopins." she went with him. he was silent as they threaded the garden path together. she thought, "i know why i like him." they came to a standstill at the south wall where the tall blue lupins rose between them, vivid in the tender air and very still. greatorex also was still. his eyes looked away over the blue spires of the lupins to the naked hillside. they saw neither the hillside nor anything between. when he spoke his voice was thick, almost as though he were in love or intoxicated. "i knaw what yo mane about those thorn-trees. 'tisn' no earthly beauty what yo see in 'em." "jim," she said, "shall i always see it?" "i dawn--knaw. it cooms and it goas, doos sech-like." "what makes it come?" "what maakes it coom? yo knaw better than i can tall yo." "if i only did know. i'm afraid it's going." "i can tell yo this for your coomfort. ef yo soofer enoof mebbe it'll coom t' yo again. ef yo're snoog and 'appy sure's death it'll goa." he paused. "it 'assn't coom t' mae sence i married ally." she was wrong about jim. he had not forgotten her. he was not saying these things for himself; he was saying them for her, getting them out of himself with pain and difficulty. it was odd to think that nobody but she understood jim, and that nobody but jim had ever really understood her. steven didn't understand her, any more than ally understood her husband. and it made no difference to her, and it made no difference to jim. "i'll tell yo anoother quare thing. 't' assn't got mooch t' do wi' good and baad. t' drink 'll nat drive it from yo, an' sin'll nat drive it from yo. saw i raakon 't is mooch t' saame thing as t' graace o' gawd." "did the grace of god go away from you when you married, jim?" "mebbe t' would 'aave ef i'd roon aaffter it. 'tis a tricky thing is gawd's graace." "but _it's_ gone," she said. "you gave your _soul_ for ally when you married her." he smiled. "i toald 'er i'd give my sawl t' marry 'er," he said. lxii as she went home she tried to recapture the magic of the flowering thorn-trees. but it had gone and she could not be persuaded that it would come again. she was still too young to draw joy from the memory of joy, and what greatorex had told her seemed incredible. she said to herself, "is it going to be taken from me like everything else?" and a dreadful duologue went on in her. "it looks like it." "but it _was_ mine. it was mine like nothing else." "it never had anything for you but what you gave it." "am i to go on giving the whole blessed time? am i never to have anything for myself?" "there never is anything for anybody but what they give. or what they take from somebody else. you should have taken. you had your chance." "i'd have died, rather." "do you call this living?" "i _have_ lived." "he hasn't. why did you sacrifice him?" "for mary." "it wasn't for mary. it was for yourself. for your own wretched soul." "for _his_ soul." "how much do you suppose mary cares about his soul? it would have had a chance with you. its one chance." the unconsoling voice had the last word. for it was not in answer to it that a certain phrase came into her brooding mind. "i couldn't do a caddish thing like that." it puzzled her. she had said it to steven that night. but it came to her now attached to an older memory. somebody had said it to her before then. years before. she remembered. it was ally. lxiii a year passed. it was june again. for more than a year there had been rumors of changes in morfe. the doctor talked of going. he was always talking of going and nobody had yet believed that he would go. this time, they said, he was serious, it had been a toss-up whether he stayed or went. but in the end he stayed. things had happened in rowcliffe's family. his mother had died and his wife had had a son. rowcliffe's son was the image of rowcliffe. the doctor had no brothers or sisters, and by his mother's death he came into possession both of his father's income and of hers. he had now more than a thousand a year over and above what he earned. on an unearned thousand a year you can live like a rich man in rathdale. not that rowcliffe had any idea of giving up. he was well under forty and as soon as old hyslop at reyburn died or retired he would step into his practice. he hadn't half enough to do in morfe and he wanted more. meanwhile he had bought the house that joined on to his own and thrown the two and their gardens into one. they had been one twenty years ago, when the wide-fronted building, with its long rows of windows, was the dominating house in morfe village. rowcliffe was now the dominating man in it. he had given the old place back its own. and he had spent any amount of money on it. he had had all the woodwork painted white, and the whole house repapered and redecorated. he had laid down parquet flooring in the big square hall that he had made and in the new drawing-room upstairs; and he had bought a great deal of beautiful and expensive furniture. and now he was building a garage and laying out a croquet ground and tennis lawns at the back. he and mary had been superintending these works all afternoon till a shower sent them indoors. and now they were sitting together in the drawing-room, in the breathing-space that came between the children's hour and dinner. mary had sent the children back to the nursery a little earlier than usual. rowcliffe had complained of headache. he was always complaining of headaches. they dated from his marriage, and more particularly from one night in june eight years ago. but rowcliffe ignored the evidence of dates. he ignored everything that made him feel uncomfortable. he had put gwenda from him. he had said plainly to mary (in one poignant moment not long before the birth of their third child), "if you're worrying about me and gwenda, you needn't. she was never anything to me." that was not saying there had never been anything between them, but mary knew what he had meant. he said to himself, and mary said that he had got over it. but he hadn't got over it. he might say to himself and mary, "she was never anything to me"; he might put her and the thought of her away from him, but she had left her mark on him. he hadn't put her away. she was there, in his heavy eyes and in the irritable gestures of his hands, in his nerves and in his wounded memory. she had knitted herself into his secret being. mary was unaware of the cause of his malady. if it had been suggested to her that he had got into this state because of gwenda she would have dismissed the idea with contempt. she didn't worry about rowcliffe's state. on the contrary, rowcliffe's state was a consolation and a satisfaction to her for all that she had endured through gwenda. she would have thought you mad if you had told her so, for she was sorry for steven and tender to him when he was nervous or depressed. but to mary her sorrow and her tenderness were a voluptuous joy. she even encouraged rowcliffe in his state. she liked to make it out worse than it really was, so that he might be more dependent on her. and she had found that it could be induced in him by suggestion. she had only to say to him, "steven, you're thoroughly worn out," and he _was_ thoroughly worn out. she had more pleasure, because she had more confidence, in this lethargic, middle-aged rowcliffe than in rowcliffe young and energetic. his youth had attracted him to gwenda and his energy had driven him out of doors. and mary had set herself, secretly, insidiously, to destroy them. it had taken her seven years. for the first five years it had been hard work for mary. it had meant, for her body, an ignominious waiting and watching for the moment when its appeal would be irresistible, for her soul a complete subservience to her husband's moods, and for her mind perpetual attention to his comfort, a thousand cares that had seemed to go unnoticed. but in the sixth year they had begun to tell. once rowcliffe had made up his mind that gwenda couldn't be anything to him he had let go and through sheer exhaustion had fallen more and more into his wife's hands, and for the last two years her labor had been easy and its end sure. she had him, bound to her bed and to her fireside. he said and thought that he was happy. he meant that he was extremely comfortable. * * * * * "is your head very bad, steven?" he shook his head. it wasn't very bad, but he was worried. he was worried about himself. from time to time his old self rose against this new self that was the slave of comfort. it made desperate efforts to shake off the strangling lethargy. when he went about saying that he was getting rusty, that he ought never to have left leeds, and that it would do him all the good in the world to go back there, he was saying what he knew to be the truth. the life he was leading was playing the devil with his nerves and brain. his brain had nothing to do. hard work might not be the cure for every kind of nervous trouble, but it was the one cure for the kind that he had got. he ought to have gone away seven years ago. it was gwenda's fault that he hadn't gone. he felt a dull anger against her as against a woman who had wrecked his chance. he had a chance of going now if he cared to take it. he had had a letter that morning from dr. harker asking if he had meant what he had said a year ago, and if he'd care to exchange his rathdale practice for his old practice in leeds. harker's wife was threatened with lung trouble, and they would have to live in the country somewhere, and harker himself wouldn't be sorry for the exchange. his present practice was worth twice what it had been ten years ago and it was growing. there were all sorts of interesting things to be done in leeds by a man of rowcliffe's keenness and energy. "do you know, steven, you're getting quite stout?" "i do know," he said almost with bitterness. "i don't mean horridly stout, dear, just nicely and comfortably stout." "i'm _too_ comfortable," he said. "i don't do enough work to keep me fit." "is that what's bothering you?" he frowned. it was harker's letter that was bothering him. he said so. for one instant mary looked impatient. "i thought we'd settled that," she said. rowcliffe sighed. "what on earth makes you want to go and leave this place when you've spent hundreds on it?" "i should make pots of money in leeds." "but we couldn't live there." "why not?" "it would be too awful. my dear, if it were a big london practice i shouldn't say no. that might be worth while. but whatever should we have in leeds?" "we haven't much here." "we've got the county. you might think of the children." "i do," he said mournfully. "i do. i think of nothing else but the children--and you. if you wouldn't like it there's an end of it." "you might think of yourself, dear. you really are not strong enough for it." he felt that he really was not. he changed the subject. "i saw gwenda the other day." "looking as young as ever, i suppose?" "no. not quite so young. i thought she was looking rather ill." he meditated. "i wonder why she never comes." he really did wonder. * * * * * "it's a quarter past seven, steven." he rose and stretched himself. they went together to the night nursery where the three children lay in their cots, the little red-haired girls awake and restless, and the dark-haired baby in his first sleep. they bent over them together. mary's lips touched the red hair and the dark where steven's lips had been. they spent the evening sitting by the fire in rowcliffe's study. the doctor dozed. mary, silent over her sewing, was the perfect image of tranquillity. from time to time she looked at her husband and smiled as his chin dropped to his breast and recovered itself with a start. at the stroke of ten she murmured, "steven, are you ready for bed?" he rose, stumbling for drowsiness. as they passed into the square hall he paused and looked round him before putting out the lights. "yes" (he yawned). "ye-hes. i think we shall do very comfortably here for the next seven years." he was thinking of old hyslop. he had given him seven years. lxiv the next day (it was a friday), when mary came home to tea after a round of ineffectual calling she was told that miss gwenda was in the drawing-room. mary inquired whether the doctor was in. dr. rowcliffe was in but he was engaged in the surgery. mary thought she knew why gwenda had come to-day. for the last two or three wednesdays rowcliffe had left garthdale without calling at the vicarage. he had not meant to break his habit, but it happened so. for, this year, mary had decided to have a day, from may to october. and her day was wednesday. her sister had ignored her day, and mary was offended. she had every reason. mary believed in keeping up appearances, and the appearance she most desired to keep up was that of behaving beautifully to her sister. this required her sister's co-operation. it couldn't appear if gwenda didn't. and gwenda hadn't given it a chance. she meant to have it out with her. she greeted her therefore with a certain challenge. "what are you keeping away for? do you suppose we aren't glad to see you?" "i'm not keeping away," said gwenda. "it looks uncommonly like it. do you know it's two months since you've been here?" "is it? i've lost count." "i should think you did lose count!" "i'm sorry, molly. i couldn't come." "you talk as if you had engagements every day in garthdale." "if it comes to that, it's months since you've been to us." "it's different for me. i _have_ engagements. and i've my husband and children too. steven hates it if i'm out when he comes home." "and papa hates it if _i'm_ out." "it's no use minding what papa hates. what's making you so sensitive?" "living with him." "then for goodness sake get away from him when you can. one afternoon here can't matter to him." gwenda said nothing, neither did she look at her. but she answered her in her heart. "it matters to _me_. it matters to _me_. how stupid you are if you don't see how it matters. yet i'd die rather than you should see." mary went on, exasperated by her sister's silence. "we may as well have it out while we're about it. why can't you look me straight in the face and say plump out what i've done?" "you've done nothing." "well, is it steven, then? has he done anything?" "of course he hasn't. what _could_ he do?" "poor steven, goodness knows! i'm sure i don't. no more does he. unless----" she stopped. her sister was looking her straight in the face now. "unless what?" "my dear gwenda, don't glare at me like that. i'm not saying things and i'm not thinking them. i don't know what _you're_ thinking. if you weren't so nervy you'd own that i've always been decent to you. i'm sure i _have_ been. i've always stood up for you. i've always wanted to have you here----" "and why shouldn't you?" mary blinked. she had seen her blunder. "i never said you weren't decent to me, molly." "you behave as if i weren't." "how am i to behave?" "i know it's difficult," said mary. the memory of her blunder rankled. "are you offended because steven hasn't been to see you?" "my _dear_ molly----" mary ignored her look of weary tolerance. "because you can't expect him to keep on running up to garthdale when papa's all right." "i don't expect him." "well then----!" said mary with the air of having exhausted all plausible interpretations. "if i were offended," said gwenda, "should i be here?" the appearance of the tea-tray and the parlormaid absolved mary from the embarrassing compulsion to reply. she addressed herself to the parlormaid. "tell dr. rowcliffe that tea is ready and that miss gwendolen is here." she really wanted steven to come and deliver her from the situation she had created. but rowcliffe delayed his coming. "is it true that steven's going to give up his practice?" gwenda said presently. "well no--whatever he does he won't do that," said mary. she thought, "so that's what she came for. steven hasn't told her anything." "what put that idea into your head?" she asked. "somebody told me so." "he _has_ had an offer of dr. harker's practice in leeds, and he'd some idea of taking it. he seemed to think it might be a good thing." there was a flicker in the whiteness of gwenda's face. it arrested mary. it was not excitement nor dismay nor eagerness, nor even interest. it was a sort of illumination, the movement of some inner light, the shining passage of some idea. and in gwenda's attitude, as it now presented itself to mary, there was a curious still withdrawal and detachment. she seemed hardly to listen but to be preoccupied with her idea. "he thought it would be a good thing," she said. "i think i've convinced him," said mary, "that it wouldn't." gwenda was stiller and more withdrawn than ever, guarding her idea. "can i see steven before i go?" she said presently. "of course. he'll be up in a second----" "i can't--here." mary stared. she understood. "you're ill. poor dear, you shall see him this minute." she rang the bell. lxv five minutes passed before rowcliffe came to gwenda in the study. "forgive me," he said. "i had a troublesome patient." "don't be afraid. you're not going to have another." "come, _you_ haven't troubled me much, anyhow. this is the first time, isn't it?" yes, she thought, it was the first time. and it would be the last. there had not been many ways of seeing steven, but this way had always been open to her if she had cared to take it. but it had been of all ways the most repugnant to her, and she had never taken it till now when she was driven to it. "mary tells me you're not feeling very fit." he was utterly gentle, as he was with all sick and suffering things. "i'm all right. that's not why i want to see you." he was faintly surprised. "what is it, then? sit down and tell me." she sat down. they had steven's table as a barrier between them. "you've been thinking of leaving rathdale, haven't you?" she said. "i've been thinking of leaving it for the last seven years. but i haven't left it yet. i don't suppose i shall leave it now." "even when you've got the chance?" "even when i've got the chance." "you said you wanted to go, and you do, don't you?" "well, yes--for some things." "would you think me an awful brute if i said i wanted you to go?" he gave her a little queer, puzzled look. "i wouldn't think you a brute whatever you wanted. do you mind my smoking a cigarette?" "no." she waited. "steven-- "i wish i hadn't made you stay." "you're not making me stay." "i mean--that time. do you remember?" he smiled a little smile of reminiscent tenderness. "yes, yes. i remember." "i didn't understand, steven." "well, well. there's no need to go back on that now. it's done, gwenda." "yes. and i did it. i wouldn't have done it if i'd known what it meant. i didn't think it would have been like this." "like what?" rowcliffe's smile that had been reminiscent was now vague and obscurely speculative. "i ought to have let you go when you wanted to," she said. rowcliffe looked down at the table. she sat leaning sideways against it; one thin arm was stretched out on it. the hand gripped the paper weight that he had pushed away. it was this hand, so tense and yet so helpless, that he was looking at. he laid his own over it gently. its grip slackened then. it lay lax under the sheltering hand. "don't worry about that, my dear," he said. "it's been all right----" "it hasn't. it hasn't." rowcliffe's nerves winced before her fierce intensity. he withdrew his sheltering hand. "just at first," she said, "it was all right. but you see--it's broken down. you said it would." "you mustn't keep on bothering about what i said." "it isn't what you said. it's what is. it's this place. we're all tied up together in it, tight. we can't get away from each other. it isn't as if i could leave. i'm stuck here with papa." "my dear gwenda, did i ever say you ought to leave?" "no. you said _you_ ought. it's the same thing." "it isn't. and i don't say it now. what is the earthly use of going back on things? that's what makes you ill. put it straight out of your mind. you know i can't help you if you go on like this." "you can." "my dear, i wish i knew how. you asked me to stay and i stayed. i can understand _that_." "if i asked you to go, would you go, steven? would you understand that too?" "my dear child, what good would that do you?" "i want you to go, steven." "you want me to go?" he screwed up his eyes as if he were trying to see the thing clearly. "yes," she said. he shook his head. he had given it up. "no, my dear, you don't want me to go. you only think you do. you don't know what you want." "i shouldn't say it if i didn't." "wouldn't you! it's exactly what you would say. do you suppose i don't know you?" she had both her arms stretched before him on the table now. the hands were clasped. the little thin hands implored him. her eyes implored him. in the tense clasp and in the gaze there was the passion of entreaty that she kept out of her voice. but rowcliffe did not see it. he had shifted his position, sinking a little lower into his chair, and his head was bowed before her. his eyes, somberly reflective, looked straight in front of him under their bent brows. he seemed to be really considering whether he would go or stay. "no," he said presently. "no, i'm not going." but he was dubious and deliberate. it was as if he still weighed it, still watched for the turning of the scale. the clock across the market-place struck eight. he gathered himself together. and it was then as if the strokes, falling on his ear, set free some blocked movement in his brain. "no," he said, "i don't see how i can go, as things are. besides--it isn't necessary." "i see," she said. * * * * * she rose. she gave him a long look. a look that was still incredulous of what it saw. his eyes refused to meet it as he rose also. they stood so for a moment without any speech but that of eyes lifted and eyes lowered. still without a word, she turned from him to the door. he sprang to open it. * * * * * five minutes later he was aware that his wife had come into the room. "has gwenda gone?" he said. "yes. steven----" there was a small, fluttering fright in mary's eyes. "is there anything the matter with her?" "no," he said. "nothing. except living with your father." lxvi gwenda had no feeling in her as she left rowcliffe's house. her heart hid in her breast. it was so mortally wounded as to be unaware that it was hurt. but at the turn of the white road her heart stirred in its hiding-place. it stirred at the sight of karva and with the wind that brought her the smell of the flowering thorn-trees. it discerned in these things a power that would before long make her suffer. she had no other sense of them. * * * * * she came to the drop of the road under karva where she had seen rowcliffe for the first time. she thought, "i shall never get away from it." far off in the bottom the village waited for her. it had always waited for her; but she was afraid of it now, afraid of what it might have in store for her. it shared her fear as it crouched there, like a beaten thing, with its huddled houses, naked and blackened as if fire had passed over them. and essy gale stood at the vicarage gate and waited. she had her child at her side. the two were looking for gwenda. "i thought mebbe something had 'appened t' yo," she said. as if she had seen what had happened to her she hurried the child in out of her sight. ten minutes to ten. in the small dull room gwenda waited for the hour of her deliverance. she had taken up her sewing and her book. the vicar sat silent, waiting, he too, with his hands folded on his lap. and, loud through the quiet house, she heard the sound of crying and essy's voice scolding her little son, avenging on him the cruelty of life. on greffington edge, under the risen moon, the white thorn-trees flowered in their glory. the end. the following pages contain advertisements of macmillan books by the same author, and new fiction. by the same author the return of the prodigal cloth, mo. $ . net. "these are stories to be read leisurely with a feeling for the stylish and the careful workmanship which is always a part of may sinclair's work. they need no recommendation to those who know the author's work and one of the things on which we may congratulate ourselves is the fact that so many americans are her reading friends."--_kansas city gazette-globe._ "they are the product of a master workman who has both skill and art, and who scorns to produce less than the best."--_buffalo express._ "always a clever writer, miss sinclair at her best is an exceptionally interesting one, and in several of the tales bound together in this new volume we have her at her best."--_n.y. times._ "... all of which show the same sensitive apprehension of unusual cases and delicate relations, and reveal a truth which would be hidden from the hasty or blunt observer."--_boston transcript._ "one of the best of the many collections of stories published this season."--_n.y. sun._ "... all these stories are of deep interest because all of them are out of the rut."--_kentucky post._ "let no one who cares for good and sincere work neglect this book."--_london post._ "the stories are touched with a peculiar delicacy and whimsicality."--_los angeles times._ * * * * * published by the macmillan company - fifth avenue, new york new macmillan fiction * * * * * the wife of sir isaac harman by h.g. wells. cloth, mo. $ . net. the name of h.g. wells upon a title page is an assurance of merit. it is a guarantee that on the pages which follow will be found an absorbing story told with master skill. in the present book mr. wells surpasses even his previous efforts. he is writing of modern society life, particularly of one very charming young woman, lady harman, who finds herself so bound in by conventions, so hampered by restrictions, largely those of a well intentioned but short sighted husband, that she is ultimately moved to revolt. the real meaning of this revolt, its effect upon her life and those of her associates are narrated by one who goes beneath the surface in his analysis of human motives. in the group of characters, writers, suffragists, labor organizers, social workers and society lights surrounding lady harman, and in the dramatic incidents which compose the years of her existence which are described by mr. wells, there is a novel which is significant in its interpretation of the trend of affairs today, and fascinatingly interesting as fiction. it is mr. wells at his best. * * * * * published by the macmillan company - fifth avenue, new york new macmillan fiction * * * * * thracian sea a novel by john helston, author of "aphrodite," etc. with frontispiece in colors. decorated cloth, mo. $ . net. probably no author to-day has written more powerfully or frankly on the conventions of modern society than john helston, who, however, has hitherto confined himself to the medium of verse. in this novel, the theme of which occasionally touches upon the same problems--problems involving love, freedom of expression, the right to live one's life in one's own way--he is revealed to be no less a master of the prose form than of the poetical. while the book is one for mature minds, the skill with which delicate situations are handled and the reserve everywhere exhibited remove it from possible criticism even by the most exacting. the title, it should be explained, refers to a spirited race horse with the fortunes of which the lives of two of the leading characters are bound up. faces in the dawn a story by hermann hagedorn with frontispiece in colors. cloth, mo. $ . net. a great many people already know mr. hagedorn through his verse. _faces in the dawn_ will, however, be their introduction to him as a novelist. the same qualities that have served to raise his poetry above the common level help to distinguish this story of a german village. the theme of the book is the transformation that was wrought in the lives of an irritable, domineering german pastor and his wife through the influence of a young german girl and her american lover. sentiment, humor and a human feeling, all present in just the right measure, warm the heart and contribute to the enjoyment which the reader derives in following the experiences of the well drawn characters. * * * * * published by the macmillan company - fifth avenue new york new macmillan fiction * * * * * the mutiny of the elsinore by jack london, author of "the sea wolf," "the call of the wild," etc. with frontispiece in colors by anton fischer. _cloth, mo. $ . net._ everyone who remembers _the sea wolf_ with pleasure will enjoy this vigorous narrative of a voyage from new york around cape horn in a large sailing vessel. _the mutiny of the elsinore_ is the same kind of tale as its famous predecessor, and by those who have read it, it is pronounced even more stirring. mr. london is here writing of scenes and types of people with which he is very familiar, the sea and ships and those who live in ships. in addition to the adventure element, of which there is an abundance of the usual london kind, a most satisfying kind it is, too, there is a thread of romance involving a wealthy, tired young man who takes the trip on the _elsinore_, and the captain's daughter. the play of incident, on the one hand the ship's amazing crew and on the other the lovers, gives a story in which the interest never lags and which demonstrates anew what a master of his art mr. london is. * * * * * published by the macmillan company - fifth avenue, new york new macmillan fiction * * * * * saturday's child by kathleen norris, author of "mother," "the treasure," etc. with frontispiece in colors, by f. graham cootes. decorated cloth, mo. $ . net. _"friday's child is loving and giving, saturday's child must work for her living."_ the title of mrs. norris's new novel at once indicates its theme. it is the life story of a girl who has her own way to make in the world. the various experiences through which she passes, the various viewpoints which she holds until she comes finally to realize that service for others is the only thing that counts, are told with that same intimate knowledge of character, that healthy optimism and the belief in the ultimate goodness of mankind that have distinguished all of this author's writing. the book is intensely alive with human emotions. the reader is bound to sympathize with mrs. norris's people because they seem like real people and because they are actuated by motives which one is able to understand. _saturday's child_ is mrs. norris's longest work. into it has gone the very best of her creative talent. it is a volume which the many admirers of _mother_ will gladly accept. neighborhood stories by zona gale, author of "friendship village," "the love of pelleas and etarre," etc. with frontispiece. decorated cloth, mo. boxed. $ . net. in _neighborhood stories_ miss gale has a book after her own heart, a book which, with its intimate stories of real folks, is not unlike _friendship village_. miss gale has humor; she has lightness of touch; she has, above all, a keen appreciation of human nature. these qualities are reflected in the new volume. miss gale's audience, moreover, is a constantly increasing one. to it her beautiful little holiday novel, _christmas_, added many admirers. _neighborhood stories_ will not only keep these, but is certain to attract many more as well. john marchmont's legacy. by [m.e. braddon] the author of "lady audley's secret," etc. etc. etc. published by tinsley brothers of london in (third edition). this story is dedicated to my mother contents. volume i chapter i. the man with the banner. chapter ii. little mary. chapter iii. about the lincolnshire property. chapter iv. going away. chapter v. marchmont towers. chapter vi. the young soldier's return. chapter vii. olivia. chapter viii. "my life is cold, and dark, and dreary." chapter ix. "when shall i cease to be all alone?" chapter x. mary's stepmother. chapter xi. the day of desolation. chapter xii. paul. chapter xiii. olivia's despair. chapter xiv. driven away. * * * * * volume ii. chapter i. mary's letter. chapter ii. a new protector. chapter iii. paul's sister. chapter iv. a stolen honeymoon. chapter v. sounding the depths. chapter vi. risen from the grave. chapter vii. face to face. chapter viii. the painting-room by the river. chapter ix. in the dark. chapter x. the paragraph in the newspaper. chapter xi. edward arundel's despair. chapter xii. edward's visitors. chapter xiii. one more sacrifice. chapter xiv. the child's voice in the pavilion by the water. * * * * * volume iii chapter i. captain arundel's revenge. chapter ii. the deserted chambers. chapter iii. taking it quietly. chapter iv. miss lawford speaks her mind. chapter v. the return of the wanderer. chapter vi. a widower's proposal. chapter vii. how the tidings were received in lincolnshire. chapter viii. mr. weston refuses to be trampled on. chapter ix. "going to be married!" chapter x. the turning of the tide. chapter xi. belinda's wedding day. chapter xii. mary's story. chapter xiii. "all within is dark as night." chapter xiv. "there is confusion worse than death." chapter the last. "dear is the memory of our wedded lives." the epilogue. john marchmont's legacy. volume i. chapter i. the man with the banner. the history of edward arundel, second son of christopher arundel dangerfield arundel, of dangerfield park, devonshire, began on a certain dark winter's night upon which the lad, still a schoolboy, went with his cousin, martin mostyn, to witness a blank-verse tragedy at one of the london theatres. there are few men who, looking back at the long story of their lives, cannot point to one page in the record of the past at which the actual history of life began. the page may come in the very middle of the book, perhaps; perhaps almost at the end. but let it come where it will, it is, after all, only the actual commencement. at an appointed hour in man's existence, the overture which has been going on ever since he was born is brought to a sudden close by the sharp vibration of the prompter's signal-bell; the curtain rises, and the drama of life begins. very insignificant sometimes are the first scenes of the play,--common-place, trite, wearisome; but watch them closely, and interwoven with every word, dimly recognisable in every action, may be seen the awful hand of destiny. the story has begun: already we, the spectators, can make vague guesses at the plot, and predicate the solemn climax; it is only the actors who are ignorant of the meaning of their several parts, and who are stupidly reckless of the obvious catastrophe. the story of young arundel's life began when he was a light-hearted, heedless lad of seventeen, newly escaped for a brief interval from the care of his pastors and masters. the lad had come to london on a christmas visit to his father's sister, a worldly-minded widow, with a great many sons and daughters, and an income only large enough to enable her to keep up the appearances of wealth essential to the family pride of one of the arundels of dangerfield. laura arundel had married a colonel mostyn, of the east india company's service, and had returned from india after a wandering life of some years, leaving her dead husband behind her, and bringing away with her five daughters and three sons, most of whom had been born under canvas. mrs. mostyn bore her troubles bravely, and contrived to do more with her pension, and an additional income of four hundred a year from a small fortune of her own, than the most consummate womanly management can often achieve. her house in montague square was elegantly furnished, her daughters were exquisitely dressed, her sons sensibly educated, her dinners well cooked. she was not an agreeable woman; she was perhaps, if any thing, too sensible,--so very sensible as to be obviously intolerant of anything like folly in others. she was a good mother; but by no means an indulgent one. she expected her sons to succeed in life, and her daughters to marry rich men; and would have had little patience with any disappointment in either of these reasonable expectations. she was attached to her brother christopher arundel, and she was very well pleased to spend the autumn months at dangerfield, where the hunting-breakfasts gave her daughters an excellent platform for the exhibition of charming demi-toilettes and social and domestic graces, perhaps more dangerous to the susceptible hearts of rich young squires than the fascinations of a _valse à deux temps_ or an italian scena. but the same mrs. mostyn, who never forgot to keep up her correspondence with the owner of dangerfield park, utterly ignored the existence of another brother, a certain hubert arundel, who had, perhaps, much more need of her sisterly friendship than the wealthy devonshire squire. heaven knows, the world seemed a lonely place to this younger son, who had been educated for the church, and was fain to content himself with a scanty living in one of the dullest and dampest towns in fenny lincolnshire. his sister might have very easily made life much more pleasant to the rector of swampington and his only daughter; but hubert arundel was a great deal too proud to remind her of this. if mrs. mostyn chose to forget him,--the brother and sister had been loving friends and dear companions long ago, under the beeches at dangerfield,--she was welcome to do so. she was better off than he was; and it is to be remarked, that if a's income is three hundred a year, and b's a thousand, the chances are as seven to three that b will forget any old intimacy that may have existed between himself and a. hubert arundel had been wild at college, and had put his autograph across so many oblong slips of blue paper, acknowledging value received that had been only half received, that by the time the claims of all the holders of these portentous morsels of stamped paper had been satisfied, the younger son's fortune had melted away, leaving its sometime possessor the happy owner of a pair of pointers, a couple of guns by crack makers, a good many foils, single-sticks, boxing-gloves, wire masks, basket helmets, leathern leg-guards, and other paraphernalia, a complete set of the old _sporting magazine_, from to the current year, bound in scarlet morocco, several boxes of very bad cigars, a scotch terrier, and a pipe of undrinkable port. of all these possessions, only the undrinkable port now remained to show that hubert arundel had once had a decent younger son's fortune, and had succeeded most admirably in making ducks and drakes of it. the poor about swampington believed in the sweet red wine, which had been specially concocted for israelitish dealers in jewelry, cigars, pictures, wines, and specie. the rector's pensioners smacked their lips over the mysterious liquid and confidently affirmed that it did them more good than all the doctor's stuff the parish apothecary could send them. poor hubert arundel was well content to find that at least this scanty crop of corn had grown up from the wild oats he had sown at cambridge. the wine pleased the poor creatures who drank it, and was scarcely likely to do them any harm; and there was a reasonable prospect that the last bottle would by-and-by pass out of the rectory cellars, and with it the last token of that bitterly regretted past. i have no doubt that hubert arundel felt the sting of his only sister's neglect, as only a poor and proud man can feel such an insult; but he never let any confession of this sentiment escape his lips; and when mrs. mostyn, being seized with a fancy for doing this forgotten brother a service, wrote him a letter of insolent advice, winding up with an offer to procure his only child a situation as nursery governess, the rector of swampington only crushed the missive in his strong hand, and flung it into his study-fire, with a muttered exclamation that sounded terribly like an oath. "a _nursery_ governess!" he repeated, savagely; "yes; an underpaid drudge, to teach children their a b c, and mend their frocks and make their pinafores. i should like mrs. mostyn to talk to my little livy for half an hour. i think my girl would have put the lady down so completely by the end of that time, that we should never hear any more about nursery governesses." he laughed bitterly as he repeated the obnoxious phrase; but his laugh changed to a sigh. was it strange that the father should sigh as he remembered how he had seen the awful hand of death fall suddenly upon younger and stronger men than himself? what if he were to die, and leave his only child unmarried? what would become of her, with her dangerous gifts, with her fatal dowry of beauty and intellect and pride? "but she would never do any thing wrong," the father thought. "her religious principles are strong enough to keep her right under any circumstances, in spite of any temptation. her sense of duty is more powerful than any other sentiment. she would never be false to that; she would never be false to that." in return for the hospitality of dangerfield park, mrs. mostyn was in the habit of opening her doors to either christopher arundel or his sons, whenever any one of the three came to london. of course she infinitely preferred seeing arthur arundel, the eldest son and heir, seated at her well-spread table, and flirting with one of his pretty cousins, than to be bored with his rackety younger brother, a noisy lad of seventeen, with no better prospects than a commission in her majesty's service, and a hundred and fifty pounds a year to eke out his pay; but she was, notwithstanding, graciously pleased to invite edward to spend his christmas holidays in her comfortable household; and it was thus it came to pass that on the th of december, in the year , the story of edward arundel's life began in a stage-box at drury lane theatre. the box had been sent to mrs. mostyn by the fashionable editor of a fashionable newspaper; but that lady and her daughters being previously engaged, had permitted the two boys to avail themselves of the editorial privilege. the tragedy was the dull production of a distinguished literary amateur, and even the great actor who played the principal character could not make the performance particularly enlivening. he certainly failed in impressing mr. edward arundel, who flung himself back in his chair and yawned dolefully during the earlier part of the entertainment. "it ain't particularly jolly, is it, martin?" he said naïvely, "let's go out and have some oysters, and come in again just before the pantomime begins." "mamma made me promise that we wouldn't leave the theatre till we left for good, ned," his cousin answered; "and then we're to go straight home in a cab." edward arundel sighed. "i wish we hadn't come till half-price, old fellow," he said drearily. "if i'd known it was to be a tragedy, i wouldn't have come away from the square in such a hurry. i wonder why people write tragedies, when nobody likes them." he turned his back to the stage, and folded his arms upon the velvet cushion of the box preparatory to indulging himself in a deliberate inspection of the audience. perhaps no brighter face looked upward that night towards the glare and glitter of the great chandelier than that of the fair-haired lad in the stage-box. his candid blue eyes beamed with a more radiant sparkle than any of the myriad lights in the theatre; a nimbus of golden hair shone about his broad white forehead; glowing health, careless happiness, truth, good-nature, honesty, boyish vivacity, and the courage of a young lion,--all were expressed in the fearless smile, the frank yet half-defiant gaze. above all, this lad of seventeen looked especially what he was,--a thorough gentleman. martin mostyn was prim and effeminate, precociously tired of life, precociously indifferent to everything but his own advantage; but the devonshire boy's talk was still fragrant with the fresh perfume of youth and innocence, still gay with the joyous recklessness of early boyhood. he was as impatient for the noisy pantomime overture, and the bright troops of fairies in petticoats of spangled muslin, as the most inveterate cockney cooling his snub-nose against the iron railing of the gallery. he was as ready to fall in love with the painted beauty of the ill-paid ballet-girls, as the veriest child in the wide circle of humanity about him. fresh, untainted, unsuspicious, he looked out at the world, ready to believe in everything and everybody. "how you do fidget, edward!" whispered martin mostyn peevishly; "why don't you look at the stage? it's capital fun." "fun!" "yes; i don't mean the tragedy you know, but the supernumeraries. did you ever see such an awkward set of fellows in all your life? there's a man there with weak legs and a heavy banner, that i've been watching all the evening. he's more fun than all the rest of it put together." mr. mostyn, being of course much too polite to point out the man in question, indicated him with a twitch of his light eyebrows; and edward arundel, following that indication, singled out the banner-holder from a group of soldiers in medieval dress, who had been standing wearily enough upon one side of the stage during a long, strictly private and confidential dialogue between the princely hero of the tragedy and one of his accommodating satellites. the lad uttered a cry of surprise as he looked at the weak-legged banner-holder. mr. mostyn turned upon his cousin with some vexation. "i can't help it, martin," exclaimed young arundel; "i can't be mistaken--yes--poor fellow, to think that he should come to this!--you haven't forgotten him, martin, surely?" "forgotten what--forgotten whom? my dear edward, what _do_ you mean?" "john marchmont, the poor fellow who used to teach us mathematics at vernon's; the fellow the governor sacked because----" "well, what of him?" "the poor chap with the banner!" exclaimed the boy, in a breathless whisper; "don't you see, martin? didn't you recognise him? it's marchmont, poor old marchmont, that we used to chaff, and that the governor sacked because he had a constitutional cough, and wasn't strong enough for his work." "oh, yes, i remember him well enough," mr. mostyn answered, indifferently. "nobody could stand his cough, you know; and he was a vulgar fellow, into the bargain." "he wasn't a vulgar fellow," said edward indignantly;--"there, there's the curtain down again;--he belonged to a good family in lincolnshire, and was heir-presumptive to a stunning fortune. i've heard him say so twenty times." martin mostyn did not attempt to repress an involuntary sneer, which curled his lips as his cousin spoke. "oh, i dare say you've heard _him_ say so, my dear boy," he murmured superciliously. "ah, and it was true," cried edward; "he wasn't a fellow to tell lies; perhaps he'd have suited mr. vernon better if he had been. he had bad health, and was weak, and all that sort of thing; but he wasn't a snob. he showed me a signet-ring once that he used to wear on his watch-chain----" "a _silver_ watch-chain," simpered mr. mostyn, "just like a carpenter's." "don't be such a supercilious cad, martin. he was very kind to me, poor marchmont; and i know i was always a nuisance to him, poor old fellow; for you know i never could get on with euclid. i'm sorry to see him here. think, martin, what an occupation for him! i don't suppose he gets more than nine or ten shillings a week for it." "a shilling a night is, i believe, the ordinary remuneration of a stage-soldier. they pay as much for the real thing as for the sham, you see; the defenders of our country risk their lives for about the same consideration. where are you going, ned?" edward arundel had left his place, and was trying to undo the door of the box. "to see if i can get at this poor fellow." "you persist in declaring, then, that the man with the weak legs is our old mathematical drudge? well, i shouldn't wonder. the fellow was coughing all through the five acts, and that's uncommonly like marchmont. you're surely not going to renew your acquaintance with him?" but young arundel had just succeeded in opening the door, and he left the box without waiting to answer his cousin's question. he made his way very rapidly out of the theatre, and fought manfully through the crowds who were waiting about the pit and gallery doors, until he found himself at the stage-entrance. he had often looked with reverent wonder at the dark portal; but he had never before essayed to cross the sacred threshold. but the guardian of the gate to this theatrical paradise, inhabited by fairies at a guinea a week, and baronial retainers at a shilling a night, is ordinarily a very inflexible individual, not to be corrupted by any mortal persuasion, and scarcely corruptible by the more potent influence of gold or silver. poor edward's half-a-crown had no effect whatever upon the stern door-keeper, who thanked him for his donation, but told him that it was against his orders to let anybody go up-stairs. "but i want to see some one so particularly," the boy said eagerly. "don't you think you could manage it for me, you know? he's an old friend of mine,--one of the supernu--what's-its-names?" added edward, stumbling over the word. "he carried a banner in the tragedy, you know; and he's got such an awful cough, poor chap." "ze man who garried ze panner vith a gough," said the door-keeper reflectively. he was an elderly german, and had kept guard at that classic doorway for half-a-century or so; "parking cheremiah." "barking jeremiah!" "yes, sir. they gall him parking pecause he's berbetually goughin' his poor veag head off; and they gall him cheremiah pecause he's alvays belangholy." "oh, do let me see him," cried mr. edward arundel. "i know you can manage it; so do, that's a good fellow. i tell you he's a friend of mine, and quite a gentleman too. bless you, there isn't a move in mathematics he isn't up to; and he'll come into a fortune some of these days--" "yaase," interrupted the door-keeper, sarcastically, "zey bake von of him pegause off dad." "and can i see him?" "i phill dry and vind him vor you. here, you chim," said the door-keeper, addressing a dirty youth, who had just nailed an official announcement of the next morning's rehearsal upon the back of a stony-hearted swing-door, which was apt to jam the fingers of the uninitiated,--"vot is ze name off zat zuber vith ze pad gough, ze man zay gall parking." "oh, that's mortimore." "to you know if he's on in ze virsd zene?" "yes. he's one of the demons; but the scene's just over. do you want him?" "you gan dake ub zis young chendleman's gard do him, and dell him to slib town here if he has kod a vaid," said the door-keeper. mr. arundel handed his card to the dirty boy. "he'll come to me fast enough, poor fellow," he muttered. "i usen't to chaff him as the others did, and i'm glad i didn't, now." edward arundel could not easily forget that one brief scrutiny in which he had recognised the wasted face of the schoolmaster's hack, who had taught him mathematics only two years before. could there be anything more piteous than that degrading spectacle? the feeble frame, scarcely able to sustain that paltry one-sided banner of calico and tinsel; the two rude daubs of coarse vermilion upon the hollow cheeks; the black smudges that were meant for eyebrows; the wretched scrap of horsehair glued upon the pinched chin in dismal mockery of a beard; and through all this the pathetic pleading of large hazel eyes, bright with the unnatural lustre of disease, and saying perpetually, more plainly than words can speak, "do not look at me; do not despise me; do not even pity me. it won't last long." that fresh-hearted schoolboy was still thinking of this, when a wasted hand was laid lightly and tremulously on his arm, and looking up he saw a man in a hideous mask and a tight-fitting suit of scarlet and gold standing by his side. "i'll take off my mask in a minute, arundel," said a faint voice, that sounded hollow and muffled within a cavern of pasteboard and wickerwork. "it was very good of you to come round; very, very good!" "i was so sorry to see you here, marchmont; i knew you in a moment, in spite of the disguise." the supernumerary had struggled out of his huge head-gear by this time, and laid the fabric of papier-mâché and tinsel carefully aside upon a shelf. he had washed his face before putting on the mask, for he was not called upon to appear before a british public in martial semblance any more upon that evening. the pale wasted face was interesting and gentlemanly, not by any means handsome, but almost womanly in its softness of expression. it was the face of a man who had not yet seen his thirtieth birthday; who might never live to see it, edward arundel thought mournfully. "why do you do this, marchmont?" the boy asked bluntly. "because there was nothing else left for me to do," the stage-demon answered with a sad smile. "i can't get a situation in a school, for my health won't suffer me to take one; or it won't suffer any employer to take me, for fear of my falling ill upon his hands, which comes to the same thing; so i do a little copying for the law-stationers, and this helps out that, and i get on as well as i can. i wouldn't so much mind if it wasn't for--" he stopped suddenly, interrupted by a paroxysm of coughing. "if it wasn't for whom, old fellow?" "my poor little girl; my poor little motherless mary." edward arundel looked grave, and perhaps a little ashamed of himself. he had forgotten until this moment that his old tutor had been left a widower at four-and-twenty, with a little daughter to support out of his scanty stipend. "don't be down-hearted, old fellow," the lad whispered, tenderly; "perhaps i shall be able to help you, you know. and the little girl can go down to dangerfield; i know my mother would take care of her, and will keep her there till you get strong and well. and then you might start a fencing-room, or a shooting-gallery, or something of that sort, at the west end; and i'd come to you, and bring lots of fellows to you, and you'd get on capitally, you know." poor john marchmont, the asthmatic supernumerary, looked perhaps the very last person in the world whom it could be possible to associate with a pair of foils, or a pistol and a target; but he smiled faintly at his old pupil's enthusiastic talk. "you were always a good fellow, arundel," he said, gravely. "i don't suppose i shall ever ask you to do me a service; but if, by-and-by, this cough makes me knock under, and my little polly should be left--i--i think you'd get your mother to be kind to her,--wouldn't you, arundel?" a picture rose before the supernumerary's weary eyes as he said this; the picture of a pleasant lady whose description he had often heard from the lips of a loving son, a rambling old mansion, wide-spreading lawns, and long arcades of oak and beeches leading away to the blue distance. if this mrs. arundel, who was so tender and compassionate and gentle to every red-cheeked cottage-girl who crossed her pathway,--edward had told him this very often,--would take compassion also upon this little one! if she would only condescend to see the child, the poor pale neglected flower, the fragile lily, the frail exotic blossom, that was so cruelly out of place upon the bleak pathways of life! "if that's all that troubles you," young arundel cried eagerly, "you may make your mind easy, and come and have some oysters. we'll take care of the child. i'll adopt her, and my mother shall educate her, and she shall marry a duke. run away, now, old fellow, and change your clothes, and come and have oysters, and stout out of the pewter." mr. marchmont shook his head. "my time's just up," he said; "i'm on in the next scene. it was very kind of you to come round, arundel; but this isn't exactly the best place for you. go back to your friends, my dear boy, and don't think any more of me. i'll write to you some day about little mary." "you'll do nothing of the kind," exclaimed the boy. "you'll give me your address instanter, and i'll come to see you the first thing to-morrow morning, and you'll introduce me to little mary; and if she and i are not the best friends in the world, i shall never again boast of my successes with lovely woman. what's the number, old fellow?" mr. arundel had pulled out a smart morocco pocket-book and a gold pencil-case. "twenty-seven, oakley street, lambeth. but i'd rather you wouldn't come, arundel; your friends wouldn't like it." "my friends may go hang themselves. i shall do as i like, and i'll be with you to breakfast, sharp ten." the supernumerary had no time to remonstrate. the progress of the music, faintly audible from the lobby in which this conversation had taken place, told him that his scene was nearly on. "i can't stop another moment. go back to your friends, arundel. good night. god bless you!" "stay; one word. the lincolnshire property--" "will never come to me, my boy," the demon answered sadly, through his mask; for he had been busy re-investing himself in that demoniac guise. "i tried to sell my reversion, but the jews almost laughed in my face when they heard me cough. good night." he was gone, and the swing-door slammed in edward arundel's face. the boy hurried back to his cousin, who was cross and dissatisfied at his absence. martin mostyn had discovered that the ballet-girls were all either old or ugly, the music badly chosen, the pantomime stupid, the scenery a failure. he asked a few supercilious questions about his old tutor, but scarcely listened to edward's answers; and was intensely aggravated with his companion's pertinacity in sitting out the comic business--in which poor john marchmont appeared and re-appeared; now as a well-dressed passenger carrying a parcel, which he deliberately sacrificed to the felonious propensities of the clown; now as a policeman, now as a barber, now as a chemist, now as a ghost; but always buffeted, or cajoled, or bonneted, or imposed upon; always piteous, miserable, and long-suffering; with arms that ached from carrying a banner through five acts of blank-verse weariness, with a head that had throbbed under the weight of a ponderous edifice of pasteboard and wicker, with eyes that were sore with the evil influence of blue-fire and gunpowder smoke, with a throat that had been poisoned by sulphurous vapours, with bones that were stiff with the playful pummelling of clown and pantaloon; and all for--a shilling a night! chapter ii. little mary. poor john marchmont had given his address unwillingly enough to his old pupil. the lodging in oakley street was a wretched back-room upon the second-floor of a house whose lower regions were devoted to that species of establishment commonly called a "ladies' wardrobe." the poor gentleman, the teacher of mathematics, the law-writer, the drury-lane supernumerary, had shrunk from any exposure of his poverty; but his pupil's imperious good-nature had overridden every objection, and john marchmont awoke upon the morning after the meeting at drury-lane to the rather embarrassing recollection that he was to expect a visitor to breakfast with him. how was he to entertain this dashing, high-spirited young schoolboy, whose lot was cast in the pleasant pathways of life, and who was no doubt accustomed to see at his matutinal meal such luxuries as john marchmont had only beheld in the fairy-like realms of comestible beauty exhibited to hungry foot-passengers behind the plate-glass windows of italian warehouses? "he has hams stewed in madeira, and perigord pies, i dare say, at his aunt mostyn's," john thought, despairingly. "what can i give him to eat?" but john marchmont, after the manner of the poor, was apt to over-estimate the extravagance of the rich. if he could have seen the mostyn breakfast then preparing in the lower regions of montague square, he might have been considerably relieved; for he would have only beheld mild infusions of tea and coffee--in silver vessels, certainly--four french rolls hidden under a glistening damask napkin, six triangular fragments of dry toast, cut from a stale half-quartern, four new-laid eggs, and about half a pound of bacon cut into rashers of transcendental delicacy. widow ladies who have daughters to marry do not plunge very deep into the books of messrs. fortnum and mason. "he used to like hot rolls when i was at vernon's," john thought, rather more hopefully; "i wonder whether he likes hot rolls still?" pondering thus, mr. marchmont dressed himself,--very neatly, very carefully; for he was one of those men whom even poverty cannot rob of man's proudest attribute, his individuality. he made no noisy protest against the humiliations to which he was compelled to submit; he uttered no boisterous assertions of his own merit; he urged no clamorous demand to be treated as a gentleman in his day of misfortune; but in his own mild, undemonstrative way he did assert himself, quite as effectually as if he had raved all day upon the hardship of his lot, and drunk himself mad and blind under the pressure of his calamities. he never abandoned the habits which had been peculiar to him from his childhood. he was as neat and orderly in his second-floor-back as he had been seven or eight years before in his simple apartments at cambridge. he did not recognise that association which most men perceive between poverty and shirt-sleeves, or poverty and beer. he was content to wear threadbare cloth, but adhered most obstinately to a prejudice in favour of clean linen. he never acquired those lounging vagabond habits peculiar to some men in the day of trouble. even amongst the supernumeraries of drury lane, he contrived to preserve his self-respect; if they nicknamed him barking jeremiah, they took care only to pronounce that playful sobriquet when the gentleman-super was safely out of hearing. he was so polite in the midst of his reserve, that the person who could wilfully have offended him must have been more unkindly than any of her majesty's servants. it is true, that the great tragedian, on more than one occasion, apostrophised the weak-kneed banner-holder as "beast" when the super's cough had peculiarly disturbed his composure; but the same great man gave poor john marchmont a letter to a distinguished physician, compassionately desiring the relief of the same pulmonary affection. if john marchmont had not been prompted by his own instincts to struggle against the evil influences of poverty, he would have done battle sturdily for the sake of one who was ten times dearer to him than himself. if he _could_ have become a swindler or a reprobate,--it would have been about as easy for him to become either as to have burst at once, and without an hour's practice, into a full-blown léotard or olmar,--his daughter's influence would have held him back as securely as if the slender arms twined tenderly about him had been chains of adamant forged by an enchanter's power. how could he be false to his little one, this helpless child, who had been confided to him in the darkest hour of his existence; the hour in which his wife had yielded to the many forces arrayed against her in life's battle, and had left him alone in the world to fight for his little girl? "if i were to die, i think arundel's mother would be kind to her," john marchmont thought, as he finished his careful toilet. "heaven knows, i have no right to ask or expect such a thing; but polly will be rich by-and-by, perhaps, and will be able to repay them." a little hand knocked lightly at the door of his room while he was thinking this, and a childish voice said, "may i come in, papa?" the little girl slept with one of the landlady's children, in a room above her father's. john opened the door, and let her in. the pale wintry sunshine, creeping in at the curtainless window near which mr. marchmont sat, shone full upon the child's face as she came towards him. it was a small, pale face, with singularly delicate features, a tiny straight nose, a pensive mouth, and large thoughtful hazel eyes. the child's hair fell loosely upon her shoulders; not in those corkscrew curls so much affected by mothers in the humbler walks of life, nor yet in those crisp undulations lately adopted in belgravian nurseries; but in soft silken masses, only curling at the extreme end of each tress. miss marchmont--she was always called miss marchmont in that oakley street household--wore her brown-stuff frock and scanty diaper pinafore as neatly as her father wore his threadbare coat and darned linen. she was very pretty, very lady-like, very interesting; but it was impossible to look at her without a vague feeling of pain, that was difficult to understand. you knew, by-and-by, why you were sorry for this little girl. she had never been a child. that divine period of perfect innocence,--innocence of all sorrow and trouble, falsehood and wrong,--that bright holiday-time of the soul, had never been hers. the ruthless hand of poverty had snatched away from her the gift which god had given her in her cradle; and at eight years old she was a woman,--a woman invested with all that is most beautiful amongst womanly attributes--love, tenderness, compassion, carefulness for others, unselfish devotion, uncomplaining patience, heroic endurance. she was a woman by reason of all these virtues; but she was no longer a child. at three years old she had bidden farewell for ever to the ignorant selfishness, the animal enjoyment of childhood, and had learned what it was to be sorry for poor papa and mamma; and from that first time of awakening to the sense of pity and love, she had never ceased to be the comforter of the helpless young husband who was so soon to be left wifeless. john had been compelled to leave his child, in order to get a living for her and for himself in the hard service of mr. laurence vernon, the principal of the highly select and expensive academy at which edward arundel and martin mostyn had been educated. but he had left her in good hands; and when the bitter day of his dismissal came, he was scarcely as sorry as he ought to have been for the calamity which brought him back to his little mary. it is impossible for any words of mine to tell how much he loved the child; but take into consideration his hopeless poverty, his sensitive and reserved nature, his utter loneliness, the bereavement that had cast a shadow upon his youth, and you will perhaps understand an affection that was almost morbid in its intensity, and which was reciprocated most fully by its object. the little girl loved her father _too much_. when he was with her, she was content to sit by his side, watching him as he wrote; proud to help him, if even by so much as wiping his pens or handing him his blotting-paper; happy to wait upon him, to go out marketing for him, to prepare his scanty meals, to make his tea, and arrange and re-arrange every object in the slenderly furnished second-floor back-room. they talked sometimes of the lincolnshire fortune,--the fortune which _might_ come to mr. marchmont, if three people, whose lives when mary's father had last heard of them, were each worth three times his own feeble existence, would be so obliging as to clear the way for the heir-at-law, by taking an early departure to the churchyard. a more practical man than john marchmont would have kept a sharp eye upon these three lives, and by some means or other contrived to find out whether number one was consumptive, or number two dropsical, or number three apoplectic; but john was utterly incapable of any such machiavellian proceeding. i think he sometimes beguiled his weary walks between oakley street and drury lane by the dreaming of such childish day-dreams as i should be almost ashamed to set down upon this sober page. the three lives might all happen to be riding in the same express upon the occasion of a terrible collision; but the poor fellow's gentle nature shrank appalled before the vision he had invoked. he could not sacrifice a whole train-full of victims, even for little mary. he contented himself with borrowing a "times" newspaper now and then, and looking at the top of the second column, with the faint hope that he should see his own name in large capitals, coupled with the announcement that by applying somewhere he might hear of something to his advantage. he contented himself with this, and with talking about the future to little mary in the dim firelight. they spent long hours in the shadowy room, only lighted by the faint flicker of a pitiful handful of coals; for the commonest dip-candles are sevenpence-halfpenny a pound, and were dearer, i dare say, in the year ' . heaven knows what splendid castles in the air these two simple-hearted creatures built for each other's pleasure by that comfortless hearth. i believe that, though the father made a pretence of talking of these things only for the amusement of his child, he was actually the more childish of the two. it was only when he left that fire-lit room, and went back into the hard, reasonable, commonplace world, that he remembered how foolish the talk was, and how it was impossible--yes, impossible--that he, the law-writer and supernumerary, could ever come to be master of marchmont towers. poor little mary was in this less practical than her father. she carried her day-dreams into the street, until all lambeth was made glorious by their supernal radiance. her imagination ran riot in a vision of a happy future, in which her father would be rich and powerful. i am sorry to say that she derived most of her ideas of grandeur from the new cut. she furnished the drawing-room at marchmont towers from the splendid stores of an upholsterer in that thoroughfare. she laid flaming brussels carpets upon the polished oaken floors which her father had described to her, and hung cheap satin damask of gorgeous colours before the great oriel windows. she put gilded vases of gaudy artificial flowers on the high carved mantel-pieces in the old rooms, and hung a disreputable gray parrot--for sale at a greengrocer's, and given to the use of bad language--under the stone colonnnade at the end of the western wing. she appointed the tradespeople who should serve the far-away lincolnshire household; the small matter of distance would, of course, never stand in the way of her gratitude and benevolence. her papa would employ the civil greengrocer who gave such excellent halfpennyworths of watercresses; the kind butterman who took such pains to wrap up a quarter of a pound of the best eighteenpenny fresh butter for the customer whom he always called "little lady;" the considerate butcher who never cut _more_ than the three-quarters of a pound of rump-steak, which made an excellent dinner for mr. marchmont and his little girl. yes, all these people should be rewarded when the lincolnshire property came to mary's papa. miss marchmont had some thoughts of building a shop close to marchmont towers for the accommodating butcher, and of adopting the greengrocer's eldest daughter for her confidante and companion. heaven knows how many times the little girl narrowly escaped being run over while walking the material streets in some ecstatic reverie such as this; but providence was very careful of the motherless girl, and she always returned safely to oakley street with her pitiful little purchases of tea and sugar, butter and meat. you will say, perhaps, that at least these foolish day-dreams were childish; but i maintain still, that mary's soul had long ago bade adieu to infancy, and that even in these visions she was womanly; for she was always thoughtful of others rather than of herself, and there was a great deal more of the practical business of life mingled with the silvery web of her fancies than there should have been so soon after her eighth birthday. at times, too, an awful horror would quicken the pulses of her loving heart as she heard the hacking sound of her father's cough; and a terrible dread would seize her,--the fear that john marchmont might never live to inherit the lincolnshire fortune. the child never said her prayers without adding a little extempore supplication, that she might die when her father died. it was a wicked prayer, perhaps; and a clergyman might have taught her that her life was in the hands of providence; and that it might please him who had created her to doom her to many desolate years of loneliness; and that it was not for her, in her wretched and helpless ignorance, to rebel against his divine will. i think if the archbishop of canterbury had driven from lambeth palace to oakley street to tell little mary this, he would have taught her in vain; and that she would have fallen asleep that night with the old prayer upon her lips, the fond foolish prayer that the bonds which love had woven so firmly might never be roughly broken by death. miss marchmont heard the story of last night's meeting with great pleasure, though it must be owned she looked a little grave when she was told that the generous-hearted school-boy was coming to breakfast; but her gravity was only that of a thoughtful housekeeper, who ponders ways and means, and even while you are telling her the number and quality of your guests, sketches out a rough ground-plan of her dishes, considers the fish in season, and the soups most fitting to precede them, and balances the contending advantages of palestine and julienne or hare and italian. "a 'nice' breakfast you say, papa," she said, when her father had finished speaking; "then we must have watercresses, _of course_." "and hot rolls, polly dear. arundel was always fond of hot rolls." "and hot rolls, four for threepence-halfpenny in the cut."--(i am ashamed to say that this benighted child talked as deliberately of the "cut" as she might have done of the "row.")--"there'll be one left for tea, papa; for we could never eat four rolls. they'll take _such_ a lot of butter, though." the little housekeeper took out an antediluvian bead-purse, and began to examine her treasury. her father handed all his money to her, as he would have done to his wife; and mary doled him out the little sums he wanted,--money for half an ounce of tobacco, money for a pint of beer. there were no penny papers in those days, or what a treat an occasional "telegraph" would have been to poor john marchmont! mary had only one personal extravagance. she read novels,--dirty, bloated, ungainly volumes,--which she borrowed from a snuffy old woman in a little back street, who charged her the smallest hire ever known in the circulating-library business, and who admired her as a wonder of precocious erudition. the only pleasure the child knew in her father's absence was the perusal of these dingy pages; she neglected no duty, she forgot no tender office of ministering care for the loved one who was absent; but when all the little duties had been finished, how delicious it was to sit down to "madeleine the deserted," or "cosmo the pirate," and to lose herself far away in illimitable regions, peopled by wandering princesses in white satin, and gentlemanly bandits, who had been stolen from their royal fathers' halls by vengeful hordes of gipsies. during these early years of poverty and loneliness, john marchmont's daughter stored up, in a mind that was morbidly sensitive rather than strong, a terrible amount of dim poetic sentiment; the possession of which is scarcely, perhaps, the best or safest dower for a young lady who has life's journey all before her. at half-past nine o'clock, all the simple preparations necessary for the reception of a visitor had been completed by mr. marchmont and his daughter. all vestiges of john's bed had disappeared; leaving, it is true, rather a suspicious-looking mahogany chest of drawers to mark the spot where once a bed had been. the window had been opened, the room aired and dusted, a bright little fire burned in the shining grate, and the most brilliant of tin tea-kettles hissed upon the hob. the white table-cloth was darned in several places; but it was a remnant of the small stock of linen with which john had begun married life; and the irish damask asserted its superior quality, in spite of many darns, as positively as mr. marchmont's good blood asserted itself in spite of his shabby coat. a brown teapot full of strong tea, a plate of french rolls, a pat of fresh butter, and a broiled haddock, do not compose a very epicurean repast; but mary marchmont looked at the humble breakfast as a prospective success. "we could have haddocks every day at marchmont towers, couldn't we, papa?" she said naïvely. but the little girl was more than delighted when edward arundel dashed up the narrow staircase, and burst into the room, fresh, radiant, noisy, splendid, better dressed even than the waxen preparations of elegant young gentlemen exhibited at the portal of a great outfitter in the new cut, and yet not at all like either of those red-lipped types of fashion. how delighted the boy declared himself with every thing! he had driven over in a cabriolet, and he was awfully hungry, he informed his host. the rolls and watercresses disappeared before him as if by magic; little mary shivered at the slashing cuts he made at the butter; the haddock had scarcely left the gridiron before it was no more. "this is ten times better than aunt mostyn's skinny breakfasts," the young gentleman observed candidly. "you never get enough with her. why does she say, 'you won't take another egg, will you, edward?' if she wants me to have one? you should see our hunting-breakfasts at dangerfield, marchmont. four sorts of claret, and no end of moselle and champagne. you shall go to dangerfield some day, to see my mother, miss mary." he called her "miss mary," and seemed rather shy of speaking to her. her womanliness impressed him in spite of himself. he had a fancy that she was old enough to feel the humiliation of her father's position, and to be sensitive upon the matter of the two-pair back; and he was sorry the moment after he had spoken of dangerfield. "what a snob i am!" he thought; "always bragging of home." but mr. arundel was not able to stop very long in oakley street, for the supernumerary had to attend a rehearsal at twelve o'clock; so at half-past eleven john marchmont and his pupil went out together, and little mary was left alone to clear away the breakfast, and perform the rest of her household duties. she had plenty of time before her, so she did not begin at once, but sat upon a stool near the fender, gazing dreamily at the low fire. "how good and kind he is!" she thought; "just like cosmo,--only cosmo was dark; or like reginald ravenscroft,--but then he was dark too. i wonder why the people in novels are always dark? how kind he is to papa! shall we ever go to dangerfield, i wonder, papa and i? of course i wouldn't go without papa." chapter iii. about the lincolnshire property. while mary sat absorbed in such idle visions as these, mr. marchmont and his old pupil walked towards waterloo bridge together. "i'll go as far as the theatre with you, marchmont," the boy said; "it's my holidays now, you know, and i can do as i like. i am going to a private tutor in another month, and he's to prepare me for the army. i want you to tell me all about that lincolnshire property, old boy. is it anywhere near swampington?" "yes; within nine miles." "goodness gracious me! lord bless my soul! what an extraordinary coincidence! my uncle hubert's rector of swampington--such a hole! i go there sometimes to see him and my cousin olivia. isn't she a stunner, though! knows more greek and latin than i, and more mathematics than you. could eat our heads off at any thing." john marchmont did not seem very much impressed by the coincidence that appeared so extraordinary to edward arundel; but, in order to oblige his friend, he explained very patiently and lucidly how it was that only three lives stood between him and the possession of marchmont towers, and all lands and tenements appertaining thereto. "the estate's a very large one," he said finally; "but the idea of _my_ ever getting it is, of course, too preposterous." "good gracious me! i don't see that at all," exclaimed edward with extraordinary vivacity. "let me see, old fellow; if i understand your story right, this is how the case stands: your first cousin is the present possessor of marchmont towers; he has a son, fifteen years of age, who may or may not marry; only one son, remember. but he has also an uncle--a bachelor uncle, and your uncle, too--who, by the terms of your grandfather's will, must get the property before you can succeed to it. now, this uncle is an old man: so of course _he'll_ die soon. the present possessor himself is a middle-aged man; so i shouldn't think _he_ can be likely to last long. i dare say he drinks too much port, or hunts, or something of that sort; goes to sleep after dinner, and does all manner of apoplectic things, i'll be bound. then there's the son, only fifteen, and not yet marriageable; consumptive, i dare say. now, will you tell me the chances are not six to six he dies unmarried? so you see, my dear old boy, you're sure to get the fortune; for there's nothing to keep you out of it, except--" "except three lives, the worst of which is better than mine. it's kind of you to look at it in this sanguine way, arundel; but i wasn't born to be a rich man. perhaps, after all, providence has used me better than i think. i mightn't have been happy at marchmont towers. i'm a shy, awkward, humdrum fellow. if it wasn't for mary's sake--" "ah, to be sure!" cried edward arundel. "you're not going to forget all about--miss marchmont!" he was going to say "little mary," but had checked himself abruptly at the sudden recollection of the earnest hazel eyes that had kept wondering watch upon his ravages at the breakfast-table. "i'm sure miss marchmont's born to be an heiress. i never saw such a little princess." "what!" demanded john marchmont sadly, "in a darned pinafore and a threadbare frock?" the boy's face flushed, almost indignantly, as his old master said this. "you don't think i'm such a snob as to admire a lady"--he spoke thus of miss mary marchmont, yet midway between her eighth and ninth birthday--"the less because she isn't rich? but of course your daughter will have the fortune by-and-by, even if--" he stopped, ashamed of his want of tact; for he knew john would divine the meaning of that sudden pause. "even if i should die before philip marchmont," the teacher of mathematics answered, quietly. "as far as that goes, mary's chance is as remote as my own. the fortune can only come to her in the event of arthur dying without issue, or, having issue, failing to cut off the entail, i believe they call it." "arthur! that's the son of the present possessor?" "yes. if i and my poor little girl, who is delicate like her mother, should die before either of these three men, there is another who will stand in my shoes, and will look out perhaps more eagerly than i have done for his chances of getting the property." "another!" exclaimed mr. arundel. "by jove, marchmont, it's the most complicated affair i ever heard of. it's worse than those sums you used to set me in barter: 'if a. sells b. stilton cheeses at / _d_ a pound,' and all that sort of thing, you know. do make me understand it, old fellow, if you can." john marchmont sighed. "it's a wearisome story, arundel," he said. "i don't know why i should bore you with it." "but you don't bore me with it," cried the boy energetically. "i'm awfully interested in it, you know; and i could walk up and down here all day talking about it." the two gentlemen had passed the surrey toll-gate of waterloo bridge by this time. the south-western terminus had not been built in the year ' , and the bridge was about the quietest thoroughfare any two companions confidentially inclined could have chosen. the shareholders knew this, to their cost. perhaps mr. marchmont might have been beguiled into repeating the old story, which he had told so often in the dim firelight to his little girl; but the great clock of st. paul's boomed forth the twelve ponderous strokes that told the hour of noon, and a hundred other steeples upon either side of the water made themselves clamorous with the same announcement. "i must leave you, arundel," the supernumerary said hurriedly; he had just remembered that it was time for him to go and be browbeaten by a truculent stage-manager. "god bless you, my dear boy! it was very good of you to want to see me, and the sight of your fresh face has made me very happy. i _should_ like you to understand all about the lincolnshire property. god knows there's small chance of its ever coming to me or to my child; but when i am dead and gone, mary will be left alone in the world, and it would be some comfort to me to know that she was not without _one_ friend--generous and disinterested like you, arundel,--who, if the chance _did_ come, would see her righted." "and so i would," cried the boy eagerly. his face flushed, and his eyes fired. he was a preux chevalier already, in thought, going forth to do battle for a hazel-eyed mistress. "i'll _write_ the story, arundel," john marchmont said; "i've no time to tell it, and you mightn't remember it either. once more, good-bye; once more, god bless you!" "stop!" exclaimed edward arundel, flushing a deeper red than before,--he had a very boyish habit of blushing,--"stop, dear old boy. you must borrow this of me, please. i've lots of them. i should only spend it on all sorts of bilious things; or stop out late and get tipsy. you shall pay me with interest when you get marchmont towers. i shall come and see you again soon. good-bye." the lad forced some crumpled scrap of paper into his old tutor's hand, bolted through the toll-bar, and jumped into a cabriolet, whose high-stepping charger was dawdling along lancaster place. the supernumerary hurried on to drury lane as fast as his weak legs could carry him. he was obliged to wait for a pause in the rehearsal before he could find an opportunity of looking at the parting gift which his old pupil had forced upon him. it was a crumpled and rather dirty five-pound note, wrapped round two half-crowns, a shilling, and half-a-sovereign. the boy had given his friend the last remnant of his slender stock of pocket-money. john marchmont turned his face to the dark wing that sheltered him, and wept silently. he was of a gentle and rather womanly disposition, be it remembered; and he was in that weak state of health in which a man's eyes are apt to moisten, in spite of himself, under the influence of any unwonted emotion. he employed a part of that afternoon in writing the letter which he had promised to send to his boyish friend:-- "my dear arundel, "my purpose in writing to you to-day is so entirely connected with the future welfare of my beloved and only child, that i shall carefully abstain from any subject not connected with her interests. i say nothing, therefore, respecting your conduct of this morning, which, together with my previous knowledge of your character, has decided me upon confiding to you the doubts and fears which have long tormented me upon the subject of my darling's future. "i am a doomed man, arundel! the doctors have told me this; but they have told me also that, though i can never escape the sentence of death which was passed upon me long ago, i may live for some years if i live the careful life which only a rich man can lead. if i go on carrying banners and breathing sulphur, i cannot last long. my little girl will be left penniless, but not quite friendless; for there are humble people, relatives of her poor mother, who would help her kindly, i am sure, in their own humble way. the trials which i fear for my orphan girl are not so much the trials of poverty as the dangers of wealth. if the three men who, on my death, would alone stand between mary and the lincolnshire property die childless, my poor darling will become the only obstacle in the pathway of a man whom, i will freely own to you, i distrust. "my father, john marchmont, was the third of four brothers. the eldest, philip, died leaving one son, also called philip, and the present possessor of marchmont towers. the second, marmaduke, is still alive, a bachelor. the third, john, left four children, of whom i alone survive. the fourth, paul, left a son and two daughters. the son is an artist, exercising his profession now in london; one of the daughters is married to a parish surgeon, who practises at stanfield, in lincolnshire; the other is an old maid, and entirely dependent upon her brother. "it is this man, paul marchmont the artist, whom i fear. "do not think me weak, or foolishly suspicious, arundel, when i tell you that the very thought of this man brings the cold sweat upon my forehead, and seems to stop the beating of my heart. i know that this is a prejudice, and an unworthy one. i do not believe paul marchmont is a good man; but i can assign no sufficient reason for my hatred and terror of him. it is impossible for you, a frank and careless boy, to realise the feelings of a man who looks at his only child, and remembers that she may soon be left, helpless and defenceless, to fight the battle of life with a bad man. sometimes i pray to god that the marchmont property may never come to my child after my death; for i cannot rid myself of the thought--may heaven forgive me for its unworthiness!--that paul marchmont would leave no means untried, however foul, to wrest the fortune from her. i dare say worldly people would laugh at me for writing this letter to you, my dear arundel; but i address myself to the best friend i have,--the only creature i know whom the influence of a bad man is never likely to corrupt. _noblesse oblige!_ i am not afraid that edward dangerfield arundel will betray any trust, however foolish, that may have been confided to him. "perhaps, in writing to you thus, i may feel something of that blind hopefulness--amid the shipwreck of all that commonly gives birth to hope--which the mariner cast away upon some desert island feels, when he seals his simple story in a bottle, and launches it upon the waste of waters that close him in on every side. before my little girl is four years older, you will be a man, arundel--with a man's intellect, a man's courage, and, above all, a man's keen sense of honour. so long as my darling remains poor, her humble friends will be strong enough to protect her; but if ever providence should think fit to place her in a position of antagonism to paul marchmont,--for he would look upon any one as an enemy who stood between him and fortune,--she would need a far more powerful protector than any she could find amongst her poor mother's relatives. will _you_ be that protector, edward arundel? i am a drowning man, you see, and catch at the frailest straw that floats past me. i believe in you, edward, as much as i distrust paul marchmont. if the day ever comes in which my little girl should have to struggle with this man, will you help her to fight the battle? it will not be an easy one. "subjoined to this letter i send you an extract from the copy of my grandfather's will, which will explain to you how he left his property. do not lose either the letter or the extract. if you are willing to undertake the trust which i confide to you to-day, you may have need to refer to them after my death. the legacy of a child's helplessness is the only bequest which i can leave to the only friend i have. "john marchmont. " , oakley street, lambeth, "_december_ _th_, . * * * * * "extract from the will of philip marchmont, senior, of marchmont towers. "'i give and devise all that my estate known as marchmont towers and appurtenances thereto belonging to the use of my eldest son philip marchmont during his natural life without impeachment of waste and from and after his decease then to the use of my grandson philip the first son of my said son philip during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and after the decease of my said grandson philip to the use of the first and every other son of my said grandson severally and successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said grandson philip as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if all the daughters of my said grandson philip except one shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use of the second and every other son of my said eldest son severally and successively according to his respective seniority in tail and in default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said eldest son philip as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and in default of such issue to the use of my second son marmaduke and his assigns during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and after his decease to the use of the first and every son of my said son marmaduke severally and successively according to their respective seniorities in tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said son marmaduke as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if all the daughters of my said son marmaduke except one shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use of my third son john during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and from and after his decease then to the use of my grandson john the first son of my said son john during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and after the decease of my said grandson john to the use of the first and every other son of my said grandson john severally and successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said grandson john as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or among them in tail and if all the daughters of my said grandson john except one shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter' [_this, you will see, is my little mary_] 'then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use of the second and every other son of my said third son john severally and successively according to his respective seniority in tail and in default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said third son john as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and in default of such issue to the use of my fourth son paul during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and from and after his decease then to the use of my grandson paul the son of my said son paul during his natural life without impeachment of waste and after the decease of my said grandson paul to the use of the first and every other son of my said grandson severally and successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said grandson paul as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if all the daughters of my said grandson paul except one shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use of the second and every other son of my said fourth son paul severally and successively according to his respective seniority in tail and in default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said fourth son paul as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail,' &c. &c. "p.s.--then comes what the lawyers call a general devise to trustees, to preserve the contingent remainders before devised from being destroyed; but what that means, perhaps you can get somebody to tell you. i hope it may be some legal jargon to preserve my _very_ contingent remainder." * * * * * the tone of edward arundel's answer to this letter was more characteristic of the writer than in harmony with poor john's solemn appeal. "you dear, foolish old marchmont," the lad wrote, "of course i shall take care of miss mary; and my mother shall adopt her, and she shall live at dangerfield, and be educated with my sister letitia, who has the jolliest french governess, and a german maid for conversation; and don't let paul marchmont try on any of his games with me, that's all! but what do you mean, you ridiculous old boy, by talking about dying, and drowning, and shipwrecked mariners, and catching at straws, and all that sort of humbug, when you know very well that you'll live to inherit the lincolnshire property, and that i'm coming to you every year to shoot, and that you're going to build a tennis-court,--of course there _is_ a billiard-room,--and that you're going to have a stud of hunters, and be master of the hounds, and no end of bricks to "your ever devoted roman countryman and lover, "edward" " , montague square, "_december_ l_st_, . "p.s.--by-the-bye, don't you think a situation in a lawyer's office would suit you better than the t. r. d. l.? if you do, i think i could manage it. a happy new year to miss mary!" * * * * * it was thus that mr. edward arundel accepted the solemn trust which his friend confided to him in all simplicity and good faith. mary marchmont herself was not more innocent in the ways of the world outside oakley street, the waterloo road, and the new cut, than was the little girl's father; nothing seemed more natural to him than to intrust the doubtful future of his only child to the bright-faced handsome boy, whose early boyhood had been unblemished by a mean sentiment or a dishonourable action. john marchmont had spent three years in the berkshire academy at which edward and his cousin, martin mostyn, had been educated; and young arundel, who was far behind his kinsman in the comprehension of a problem in algebra, had been wise enough to recognise that paradox which martin mostyn could not understand--a gentleman in a shabby coat. it was thus that a friendship had arisen between the teacher of mathematics and his handsome pupil; and it was thus that an unreasoning belief in edward arundel had sprung up in john's simple mind. "if my little girl were certain of inheriting the fortune," mr. marchmont thought, "i might find many who would be glad to accept my trust, and to serve her well and faithfully. but the chance is such a remote one. i cannot forget how the jews laughed at me two years ago, when i tried to borrow money upon my reversionary interest. no! i must trust this brave-hearted boy, for i have no one else to confide in; and who else is there who would not ridicule my fear of my cousin paul?" indeed, mr. marchmont had some reason to be considerably ashamed of his antipathy to the young artist working for his bread, and for the bread of his invalid mother and unmarried sister, in that bitter winter of ' ; working patiently and hopefully, in despite of all discouragement, and content to live a joyless and monotonous life in a dingy lodging near fitzroy square. i can find no excuse for john marchmont's prejudice against an industrious and indefatigable young man, who was the sole support of two helpless women. heaven knows, if to be adored by two women is any evidence of a man's virtue, paul must have been the best of men; for stephanie marchmont, and her daughter clarisse, regarded the artist with a reverential idolatry that was not without a tinge of romance. i can assign no reason, then, for john's dislike of his cousin. they had been schoolfellows at a wretched suburban school, where the children of poor people were boarded, lodged, and educated all the year round for a pitiful stipend of something under twenty pounds. one of the special points of the prospectus was the announcement that there were no holidays; for the jovial christmas gatherings of merry faces, which are so delightful to the wealthy citizens of bloomsbury or tyburnia, take another complexion in poverty-stricken households, whose scantily-stocked larders can ill support the raids of rawboned lads clamorous for provender. the two boys had met at a school of this calibre, and had never met since. they may not have been the best friends, perhaps, at the classical academy; but their quarrels were by no means desperate. they may have rather freely discussed their several chances of the lincolnshire property; but i have no romantic story to tell of a stirring scene in the humble schoolroom--no exciting record of deadly insult and deep vows of vengeance. no inkstand was ever flung by one boy into the face of the other; no savage blow from a horsewhip ever cut a fatal scar across the brow of either of the cousins. john marchmont would have been almost as puzzled to account for his objection to his kinsman, as was the nameless gentleman who so naïvely confessed his dislike of dr. fell. i fear that a great many of our likings and dislikings are too apt to be upon the dr. fell principle. mr. wilkie collins's basil could not tell _why_ he fell madly in love with the lady whom it was his evil fortune to meet in an omnibus; nor why he entertained an uncomfortable feeling about the gentleman who was to be her destroyer. david copperfield disliked uriah heep even before he had any substantial reason for objecting to the evil genius of agnes wickfield's father. the boy disliked the snake-like schemer of canterbury because his eyes were round and red, and his hands clammy and unpleasant to the touch. perhaps john marchmont's reasons for his aversion to his cousin were about as substantial as those of master copperfield. it may be that the schoolboy disliked his comrade because paul marchmont's handsome grey eyes were a little too near together; because his thin and delicately chiselled lips were a thought too tightly compressed; because his cheeks would fade to an awful corpse-like whiteness under circumstances which would have brought the rushing life-blood, hot and red, into another boy's face; because he was silent and suppressed when it would have been more natural to be loud and clamorous; because he could smile under provocations that would have made another frown; because, in short, there was that about him which, let it be found where it will, always gives birth to suspicion,--mystery! so the cousins had parted, neither friends nor foes, to tread their separate roads in the unknown country, which is apt to seem barren and desolate enough to travellers who foot it in hobnailed boots considerably the worse for wear; and as the iron hand of poverty held john marchmont even further back than paul upon the hard road which each had to tread, the quiet pride of the teacher of mathematics most effectually kept him out of his kinsman's way. he had only heard enough of paul to know that he was living in london, and working hard for a living; working as hard as john himself, perhaps; but at least able to keep afloat in a higher social position than the law-stationer's hack and the banner-holder of drury lane. but edward arundel did not forget his friends in oakley street. the boy made a morning call upon his father's solicitors, messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson, of lincoln's inn fields, and was so extremely eloquent in his needy friend's cause, as to provoke the good-natured laughter of one of the junior partners, who declared that mr. edward arundel ought to wear a silk gown before he was thirty. the result of this interview was, that before the first month of the new year was out, john marchmont had abandoned the classic banner and the demoniac mask to a fortunate successor, and had taken possession of a hard-seated, slim-legged stool in one of the offices of messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson, as copying and out-door clerk, at a salary of thirty shillings a week. so little mary entered now upon a golden age, in which her evenings were no longer desolate and lonely, but spent pleasantly with her father in the study of such learning as was suited to her years, or perhaps rather to her capacity, which was far beyond her years; and on certain delicious nights, to be remembered ever afterwards, john marchmont took his little girl to the gallery of one or other of the transpontine theatres; and i am sorry to say that my heroine--for she is to be my heroine by-and-by--sucked oranges, ate abernethy biscuits, and cooled her delicate nose against the iron railing of the gallery, after the manner of the masses when they enjoy the british drama. but all this time john marchmont was utterly ignorant of one rather important fact in the history of those three lives which he was apt to speak of as standing between him and marchmont towers. young arthur marchmont, the immediate heir of the estate, had been shot to death upon the st of september, , without blame to anyone or anything but his own boyish carelessness, which had induced him to scramble through a hedge with his fowling-piece, the costly present of a doating father, loaded and on full-cock. this melancholy event, which had been briefly recorded in all the newspapers, had never reached the knowledge of poor john marchmont, who had no friends to busy themselves about his interests, or to rush eagerly to carry him any intelligence affecting his prosperity. nor had he read the obituary notice respecting marmaduke marchmont, the bachelor, who had breathed his last stertorous breath in a fit of apoplexy exactly one twelvemonth before the day upon which edward arundel breakfasted in oakley street. chapter iv. going away. edward arundel went from montague square straight into the household of the private tutor of whom he had spoken, there to complete his education, and to be prepared for the onerous duties of a military life. from the household of this private tutor he went at once into a cavalry regiment; after sundry examinations, which were not nearly so stringent in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty, as they have since become. indeed, i think the unfortunate young cadets who are educated upon the high-pressure system, and who are expected to give a synopsis of portuguese political intrigue during the eighteenth century, a scientific account of the currents of the red sea, and a critical disquisition upon the comedies of aristophanes as compared with those of pedro calderon de la barca, not forgetting to glance at the effect of different ages and nationalities upon the respective minds of the two playwrights, within a given period of, say half-an-hour,--would have envied mr. arundel for the easy manner in which he obtained his commission in a distinguished cavalry regiment. mr. edward arundel therefore inaugurated the commencement of the year by plunging very deeply into the books of a crack military-tailor in new burlington street, and by a visit to dangerfield park; where he went to make his adieux before sailing for india, whither his regiment had just been ordered. i do not doubt that mrs arundel was very sorrowful at this sudden parting with her yellow-haired younger son. the boy and his mother walked together in the wintry sunset under the leafless beeches at dangerfield, and talked of the dreary voyage that lay before the lad; the arid plains and cruel jungles far away; perils by sea and perils by land; but across them all, fame waving her white beckoning arms to the young soldier, and crying, "come, conqueror that shall be! come, through trial and danger, through fever and famine,--come to your rest upon my bloodstained lap!" surely this boy, being only just eighteen years of age, may be forgiven if he is a little romantic, a little over eager and impressionable, a little too confident that the next thing to going out to india as a sea-sick subaltern in a great transport-ship is coming home with the reputation of a clive. perhaps he may be forgiven, too, if, in his fresh enthusiasm, he sometimes forgot the shabby friend whom he had helped little better than a twelvemonth before, and the earnest hazel eyes that had shone upon him in the pitiful oakley street chamber. i do not say that he was utterly unmindful of his old teacher of mathematics. it was not in his nature to forget anyone who had need of his services; for this boy, so eager to be a soldier, was of the chivalrous temperament, and would have gone out to die for his mistress, or his friend, if need had been. he had received two or three grateful letters from john marchmont; and in these letters the lawyer's clerk had spoken pleasantly of his new life, and hopefully of his health, which had improved considerably, he said, since his resignation of the tragic banner and the pantomimic mask. neither had edward quite forgotten his promise of enlisting mrs. arundel's sympathies in aid of the motherless little girl. in one of these wintry walks beneath the black branches at dangerfield, the lad had told the sorrowful story of his well-born tutor's poverty and humiliation. "only think, mother!" he cried at the end of the little history. "i saw the poor fellow carrying a great calico flag, and marching about at the heel of a procession, to be laughed at by the costermongers in the gallery; and i know that he belongs to a capital lincolnshire family, and will come in for no end of money if he only lives long enough. but if he should die, mother, and leave his little girl destitute, you'll look after her, won't you?" i don't know whether mrs. arundel quite entered into her son's ideas upon the subject of adopting mary marchmont, or whether she had any definite notion of bringing the little girl home to dangerfield for the natural term of her life, in the event of the child being left an orphan. but she was a kind and charitable lady, and she scarcely cared to damp her boy's spirits by holding forth upon the doubtful wisdom of his adopting, or promising to adopt, any stray orphans who might cross his pathway. "i hope the little girl may not lose her father, edward," she said gently. "besides, dear, you say that mr. marchmont tells you he has humble friends, who would take the child if anything happened to him. he does not wish us to adopt the little girl; he only asks us to interest ourselves in her fate." "and you will do that, mother darling?" cried the boy. "you will take an interest in her, won't you? you couldn't help doing so, if you were to see her. she's not like a child, you know,--not a bit like letitia. she's as grave and quiet as you are, mother,--or graver, i think; and she looks like a lady, in spite of her poor, shabby pinafore and frock." "does she wear shabby frocks?" said the mother. "i could help her in that matter, at all events, ned. i might send her a great trunk-full of letitia's things: she outgrows them before they have been worn long enough to be shabby." the boy coloured, and shook his head. "it's very kind of you to think of it, mother dear; but i don't think that would quite answer," he said. "why not?" "because, you see, john marchmont is a gentleman; and, you know, though he's so dreadfully poor now, he _is_ heir to marchmont towers. and though he didn't mind doing any thing in the world to earn a few shillings a week, he mightn't like to take cast-off clothes." so nothing more was to be said or done upon the subject. edward arundel wrote his humble friend a pleasant letter, in which he told john that he had enlisted his mother's sympathy in mary's cause, and in which he spoke in very glowing terms of the indian expedition that lay before him. "i wish i could come to say good-bye to you and miss mary before i go," he wrote; "but that's impossible. i go straight from here to southampton by coach at the end of this month, and the _auckland_ sails on the nd of february. tell miss mary i shall bring her home all kinds of pretty presents from affghanistan,--ivory fans, and cashmere shawls, and chinese puzzles, and embroidered slippers with turned-up toes, and diamonds, and attar-of-roses, and suchlike; and remember that i expect you to write to me, and to give me the earliest news of your coming into the lincolnshire property." john marchmont received this letter in the middle of january. he gave a despondent sigh as he refolded the boyish epistle, after reading it to his little girl. "we haven't so many friends, polly," he said, "that we should be indifferent to the loss of this one." mary marchmont's cheek grew paler at her father's sorrowful speech. that imaginative temperament, which was, as i have said, almost morbid in its intensity, presented every object to the little girl in a light in which things are looked at by very few children. only these few words, and her fancy roamed far away to that cruel land whose perils her father had described to her. only these few words, and she was away in the rocky bolan pass, under hurricanes of drifting snow; she saw the hungry soldiers fighting with savage dogs for the possession of foul carrion. she had heard all the perils and difficulties which had befallen the army of the indus in the year ' , and the womanly heart ached with the pain of those cruel memories. "he will go to india and be killed, papa dear," she said. "oh! why, why do they let him go? his mother can't love him, can she? she would never let him go, if she did." john marchmont was obliged to explain to his daughter that motherly love must not go so far as to deprive a nation of its defenders; and that the richest jewels which cornelia can give to her country are those ruby life-drops which flow from the hearts of her bravest and brightest sons. mary was no political economist; she could not reason upon the necessity of chastising persian insolence, or checking russian encroachments upon the far-away shores of the indus. was edward arundel's bright head, with its aureola of yellow hair, to be cloven asunder by an affghan renegade's sabre, because the young shah of persia had been contumacious? mary marchmont wept silently that day over a three-volume novel, while her father was away serving writs upon wretched insolvents, in his capacity of out-door clerk to messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson. the young lady no longer spent her quiet days in the two-pair back. mr. marchmont and his daughter had remained faithful to oakley street and the proprietress of the ladies' wardrobe, who was a good, motherly creature; but they had descended to the grandeur of the first floor, whose gorgeous decorations mary had glanced at furtively in the days gone by, when the splendid chambers were occupied by an elderly and reprobate commission-agent, who seemed utterly indifferent to the delights of a convex mirror, surmounted by a maimed eagle, whose dignity was somewhat impaired by the loss of a wing; but which bijou appeared, to mary, to be a fitting adornment for the young queen's palace in st. james's park. but neither the eagle nor the third volume of a thrilling romance could comfort mary upon this bleak january day. she shut her book, and stood by the window, looking out into the dreary street, that seemed so blotted and dim under the falling snow. "it snowed in the pass of bolan," she thought; "and the treacherous indians harassed the brave soldiers, and killed their camels. what will become of him in that dreadful country? shall we ever see him again?" yes, mary, to your sorrow! indian scimitars will let him go scatheless; famine and fever will pass him by; but the hand which points to that far-away day on which you and he are to meet, will never fail or falter in its purpose until the hour of your meeting comes. * * * * * we have no need to dwell upon the preparations which were made for the young soldier's departure from home, nor on the tender farewells between the mother and her son. mr. arundel was a country gentleman _pur et simple_; a hearty, broad-shouldered squire, who had no thought above his farm and his dog-kennel, or the hunting of the red deer with which his neighbourhood abounded. he sent his younger son to india as coolly as he had sent the elder to oxford. the boy had little to inherit, and must be provided for in a gentlemanly manner. other younger sons of the house of arundel had fought and conquered in the honourable east india company's service; and was edward any better than they, that there should be sentimental whining because the lad was going away to fight his way to fortune, if he could? mr. arundel went even further than this, and declared that master edward was a lucky dog to be going out at such a time, when there was plenty of fighting, and a very fair chance of speedy promotion for a good soldier. he gave the young cadet his blessing, reminded him of the limit of such supplies as he was to expect from home, bade him keep clear of the brandy-bottle and the dice-box; and having done this, believed that he had performed his duty as an englishman and a father. if mrs. arundel wept, she wept in secret, loth to discourage her son by the sight of those natural, womanly tears. if miss letitia arundel was sorry to lose her brother, she mourned with most praiseworthy discretion, and did not forget to remind the young traveller that she expected to receive a muslin frock, embroidered with beetle-wings, by an early mail. and as algernon fairfax dangerfield arundel, the heir, was away at college, there was no one else to mourn. so edward left the home of his forefathers by a branch-coach, which started from the "arundel arms" in time to meet the "telegraph" at exeter; and no noisy lamentations shook the sky above dangerfield park--no mourning voices echoed through the spacious rooms. the old servants were sorry to lose the younger-born, whose easy, genial temperament had made him an especial favourite; but there was a certain admixture of joviality with their sorrow, as there generally is with all mourning in the basement; and the strong ale, the famous dangerfield october, went faster upon that st of january than on any day since christmas. i doubt if any one at dangerfield park sorrowed as bitterly for the departure of the boyish soldier as a romantic young lady, of nine years old, in oakley street, lambeth; whose one sentimental day-dream--half-childish, half-womanly--owned edward arundel as its centre figure. so the curtain falls on the picture of a brave ship sailing eastward, her white canvas strained against the cold grey february sky, and a little girl weeping over the tattered pages of a stupid novel in a shabby london lodging. chapter v. marchmont towers. there is a lapse of three years and a half between the acts; and the curtain rises to reveal a widely-different picture:--the picture of a noble mansion in the flat lincolnshire country; a stately pile of building, standing proudly forth against a background of black woodland; a noble building, supported upon either side by an octagon tower, whose solid masonry is half-hidden by the ivy which clings about the stonework, trailing here and there, and flapping restlessly with every breath of wind against the narrow casements. a broad stone terrace stretches the entire length of the grim façade, from tower to tower; and three flights of steps lead from the terrace to the broad lawn, which loses itself in a vast grassy flat, only broken by a few clumps of trees and a dismal pool of black water, but called by courtesy a park. grim stone griffins surmount the terrace-steps, and griffins' heads and other architectural monstrosities, worn and moss-grown, keep watch and ward over every door and window, every archway and abutment--frowning threat and defiance upon the daring visitor who approaches the great house by this, the formidable chief entrance. the mansion looks westward: but there is another approach, a low archway on the southern side, which leads into a quadrangle, where there is a quaint little door under a stone portico, ivy-covered like the rest; a comfortable little door of massive oak, studded with knobs of rusty iron,--a door generally affected by visitors familiar with the house. this is marchmont towers,--a grand and stately mansion, which had been a monastery in the days when england and the pope were friends and allies; and which had been bestowed upon hugh marchmont, gentleman, by his sovereign lord and most christian majesty the king henry viii, of blessed memory, and by that gentleman-commoner extended and improved at considerable outlay. this is marchmont towers,--a splendid and a princely habitation truly, but perhaps scarcely the kind of dwelling one would choose for the holy resting-place we call home. the great mansion is a little too dismal in its lonely grandeur: it lacks shelter when the dreary winds come sweeping across the grassy flats in the bleak winter weather; it lacks shade when the western sun blazes on every window-pane in the stifling summer evening. it is at all times rather too stony in its aspect; and is apt to remind one almost painfully of every weird and sorrowful story treasured in the storehouse of memory. ancient tales of enchantment, dark german legends, wild scottish fancies, grim fragments of half-forgotten demonology, strange stories of murder, violence, mystery, and wrong, vaguely intermingle in the stranger's mind as he looks, for the first time, at marchmont towers. but of course these feelings wear off in time. so invincible is the power of custom, that we might make ourselves comfortable in the castle of otranto, after a reasonable sojourn within its mysterious walls: familiarity would breed contempt for the giant helmet, and all the other grim apparitions of the haunted dwelling. the commonplace and ignoble wants of every-day life must surely bring disenchantment with them. the ghost and the butcher's boy cannot well exist contemporaneously; and the avenging shade can scarcely continue to lurk beneath the portal which is visited by the matutinal milkman. indeed, this is doubtless the reason that the most restless and impatient spirit, bent on early vengeance and immediate retribution, will yet wait until the shades of night have fallen before he reveals himself, rather than run the risk of an ignominious encounter with the postman or the parlour-maid. be it how it might, the phantoms of marchmont towers were not intrusive. they may have perambulated the long tapestried corridors, the tenantless chambers, the broad black staircase of shining oak; but, happily, no dweller in the mansion was ever scared by the sight of their pale faces. all the dead-and-gone beauties, and soldiers, and lawyers, and parsons, and simple country-squires of the marchmont race may have descended from their picture-frames to hold a witches' sabbath in the old mansion; but as the lincolnshire servants were hearty eaters and heavy sleepers, the ghosts had it all to themselves. i believe there was one dismal story attached to the house,--the story of a marchmont of the time of charles i, who had murdered his coachman in a fit of insensate rage; and it was even asserted, upon the authority of an old housekeeper, that john marchmont's grandmother, when a young woman and lately come as a bride to the towers, had beheld the murdered coachman stalk into her chamber, ghastly and blood-bedabbled, in the dim summer twilight. but as this story was not particularly romantic, and possessed none of the elements likely to insure popularity,--such as love, jealousy, revenge, mystery, youth, and beauty,--it had never been very widely disseminated. i should think that the new owner of marchmont towers--new within the last six months--was about the last person in christendom to be hypercritical, or to raise fanciful objections to his dwelling; for inasmuch as he had come straight from a wretched transpontine lodging to this splendid lincolnshire mansion, and had at the same time exchanged a stipend of thirty shillings a week for an income of eleven thousand a year (derivable from lands that spread far away, over fenny flats and low-lying farms, to the solitary seashore), he had ample reason to be grateful to providence, and well pleased with his new abode. yes; philip marchmont, the childless widower, had died six months before, at the close of the year ' , of a broken heart,--his old servants said, broken by the loss of his only and idolised son; after which loss he had never been known to smile. he was one of those undemonstrative men who can take a great sorrow quietly, and only--die of it. philip marchmont lay in a velvet-covered coffin, above his son's, in the stone recess set apart for them in the marchmont vault beneath kemberling church, three miles from the towers; and john reigned in his stead. john marchmont, the supernumerary, the banner-holder of drury lane, the patient, conscientious copying and outdoor clerk of lincoln's inn, was now sole owner of the lincolnshire estate, sole master of a household of well-trained old servants, sole proprietor of a very decent country-gentleman's stud, and of chariots, barouches, chaises, phaetons, and other vehicles--a little shabby and out of date it may be, but very comfortable to a man for whom an omnibus ride had long been a treat and a rarity. nothing had been touched or disturbed since philip marchmont's death. the rooms he had used were still the occupied apartments; the chambers he had chosen to shut up were still kept with locked doors; the servants who had served him waited upon his successor, whom they declared to be a quiet, easy gentleman, far too wise to interfere with old servants, every one of whom knew the ways of the house a great deal better than he did, though he was the master of it. there was, therefore, no shadow of change in the stately mansion. the dinner-bell still rang at the same hour; the same tradespeople left the same species of wares at the low oaken door; the old housekeeper, arranging her simple _menu_, planned her narrow round of soups and roasts, sweets and made-dishes, exactly as she had been wont to do, and had no new tastes to consult. a grey-haired bachelor, who had been own-man to philip, was now own-man to john. the carriage which had conveyed the late lord every sunday to morning and afternoon service at kemberling conveyed the new lord, who sat in the same seat that his predecessor had occupied in the great family-pew, and read his prayers out of the same book,--a noble crimson, morocco-covered volume, in which george, our most gracious king and governor, and all manner of dead-and-gone princes and princesses were prayed for. the presence of mary marchmont made the only change in the old house; and even that change was a very trifling one. mary and her father were as closely united at marchmont towers as they had been in oakley street. the little girl clung to her father as tenderly as ever--more tenderly than ever perhaps; for she knew something of that which the physicians had said, and she knew that john marchmont's lease of life was not a long one. perhaps it would be better to say that he had no lease at all. his soul was a tenant on sufferance in its frail earthly habitation, receiving a respite now and again, when the flicker of the lamp was very low--every chance breath of wind threatening to extinguish it for ever. it was only those who knew john marchmont very intimately who were fully acquainted with the extent of his danger. he no longer bore any of those fatal outward signs of consumption, which fatigue and deprivation had once made painfully conspicuous. the hectic flush and the unnatural brightness of the eyes had subsided; indeed, john seemed much stronger and heartier than of old; and it is only great medical practitioners who can tell to a nicety what is going on _inside_ a man, when he presents a very fair exterior to the unprofessional eye. but john was decidedly better than he had been. he might live three years, five, seven, possibly even ten years; but he must live the life of a man who holds himself perpetually upon his defence against death; and he must recognise in every bleak current of wind, in every chilling damp, or perilous heat, or over-exertion, or ill-chosen morsel of food, or hasty emotion, or sudden passion, an insidious ally of his dismal enemy. mary marchmont knew all this,--or divined it, perhaps, rather than knew it, with the child-woman's subtle power of divination, which is even stronger than the actual woman's; for her father had done his best to keep all sorrowful knowledge from her. she knew that he was in danger; and she loved him all the more dearly, as the one precious thing which was in constant peril of being snatched away. the child's love for her father has not grown any less morbid in its intensity since edward arundel's departure for india; nor has mary become more childlike since her coming to marchmont towers, and her abandonment of all those sordid cares, those pitiful every-day duties, which had made her womanly. it may be that the last lingering glamour of childhood had for ever faded away with the realisation of the day-dream which she had carried about with her so often in the dingy transpontine thoroughfares around oakley street. marchmont towers, that fairy palace, whose lighted windows had shone upon her far away across a cruel forest of poverty and trouble, like the enchanted castle which appears to the lost wanderer of the child's story, was now the home of the father she loved. the grim enchanter death, the only magician of our modern histories, had waved his skeleton hand, more powerful than the star-gemmed wand of any fairy godmother, and the obstacles which had stood between john marchmont and his inheritance had one by one been swept away. but was marchmont towers quite as beautiful as that fairy palace of mary's day-dream? no, not quite--not quite. the rooms were handsome,--handsomer and larger, even, than the rooms she had dreamed of; but perhaps none the better for that. they were grand and gloomy and magnificent; but they were not the sunlit chambers which her fancy had built up, and decorated with such shreds and patches of splendour as her narrow experience enabled her to devise. perhaps it was rather a disappointment to miss marchmont to discover that the mansion was completely furnished, and that there was no room in it for any of those splendours which she had so often contemplated in the new cut. the parrot at the greengrocer's was a vulgar bird, and not by any means admissible in lincolnshire. the carrying away and providing for mary's favourite tradespeople was not practicable; and john marchmont had demurred to her proposal of adopting the butcher's daughter. there is always something to be given up even when our brightest visions are realised; there is always some one figure (a low one perhaps) missing in the fullest sum of earthly happiness. i dare say if alnaschar had married the vizier's daughter, he would have found her a shrew, and would have looked back yearningly to the humble days in which he had been an itinerant vendor of crockery-ware. if, therefore, mary marchmont found her sunlit fancies not quite realised by the great stony mansion that frowned upon the fenny countryside, the wide grassy flat, the black pool, with its dismal shelter of weird pollard-willows, whose ugly reflections, distorted on the bosom of the quiet water, looked like the shadows of hump-backed men;--if these things did not compose as beautiful a picture as that which the little girl had carried so long in her mind, she had no more reason to be sorry than the rest of us, and had been no more foolish than other dreamers. i think she had built her airy castle too much after the model of a last scene in a pantomime, and that she expected to find spangled waters twinkling in perpetual sunshine, revolving fountains, ever-expanding sunflowers, and gilded clouds of rose-coloured gauze,--every thing except the fairies, in short,--at marchmont towers. well, the dream was over: and she was quite a woman now, and very grateful to providence when she remembered that her father had no longer need to toil for his daily bread, and that he was luxuriously lodged, and could have the first physicians in the land at his beck and call. "oh, papa, it is so nice to be rich!" the young lady would exclaim now and then, in a fleeting transport of enthusiasm. "how good we ought to be to the poor people, when we remember how poor we once were!" and the little girl did not forget to be good to the poor about kemberling and marchmont towers. there were plenty of poor, of course--free-and-easy pensioners, who came to the towers for brandy, and wine, and milk, and woollen stuffs, and grocery, precisely as they would have gone to a shop, except that there was to be no bill. the housekeeper doled out her bounties with many short homilies upon the depravity and ingratitude of the recipients, and gave tracts of an awful and denunciatory nature to the pitiful petitioners--tracts interrogatory, and tracts fiercely imperative; tracts that asked, "where are you going?" "why are you wicked?" "what will become of you?" and other tracts which cried, "stop, and think!" "pause, while there is time!" "sinner, consider!" "evil-doer, beware!" perhaps it may not be the wisest possible plan to begin the work of reformation by frightening, threatening, and otherwise disheartening the wretched sinner to be reformed. there is a certain sermon in the new testament, containing sacred and comforting words which were spoken upon a mountain near at hand to jerusalem, and spoken to an auditory amongst which there must have been many sinful creatures; but there is more of blessing than cursing in that sublime discourse, and it might be rather a tender father pleading gently with his wayward children than an offended deity dealing out denunciation upon a stubborn and refractory race. but the authors of the tracts may have never read this sermon, perhaps; and they may take their ideas of composition from that comforting service which we read on ash-wednesday, cowering in fear and trembling in our pews, and calling down curses upon ourselves and our neighbours. be it as it might, the tracts were not popular amongst the pensioners of marchmont towers. they infinitely preferred to hear mary read a chapter in the new testament, or some pretty patriarchal story of primitive obedience and faith. the little girl would discourse upon the scripture histories in her simple, old-fashioned manner; and many a stout lincolnshire farm-labourer was content to sit over his hearth, with a pipe of shag-tobacco and a mug of fettled beer, while miss marchmont read and expounded the history of abraham and isaac, or joseph and his brethren. "it's joost loike a story-book to hear her," the man would say to his wife; "and yet she brings it all hoame, too, loike. if she reads about abraham, she'll say, maybe, 'that's joost how you gave your only son to be a soldier, you know, muster moggins;'--she allus says muster moggins;--'you gave un into god's hands, and you troosted god would take care of un; and whatever cam' to un would be the best, even if it was death.' that's what she'll say, bless her little heart! so gentle and tender loike. the wust o' chaps couldn't but listen to her." mary marchmont's morbidly sensitive nature adapted her to all charitable offices. no chance word in her simple talk ever inflicted a wound upon the listener. she had a subtle and intuitive comprehension of other people's feelings, derived from the extreme susceptibility of her own. she had never been vulgarised by the associations of poverty; for her self-contained nature took no colour from the things that surrounded her, and she was only at marchmont towers that which she had been from the age of six--a little lady, grave and gentle, dignified, discreet, and wise. there was one bright figure missing out of the picture which mary had been wont of late years to make of the lincolnshire mansion, and that was the figure of the yellow-haired boy who had breakfasted upon haddocks and hot rolls in oakley street. she had imagined edward arundel an inhabitant of that fair utopia. he would live with them; or, if he could not live with them, he would be with them as a visitor,--often--almost always. he would leave off being a soldier, for of course her papa could give him more money than he could get by being a soldier--(you see that mary's experience of poverty had taught her to take a mercantile and sordid view of military life)--and he would come to marchmont towers, and ride, and drive, and play tennis (what was tennis? she wondered), and read three-volume novels all day long. but that part of the dream was at least broken. marchmont towers was mary's home, but the young soldier was far away; in the pass of bolan, perhaps,--mary had a picture of that cruel rocky pass almost always in her mind,--or cutting his way through a black jungle, with the yellow eyes of hungry tigers glaring out at him through the rank tropical foliage; or dying of thirst and fever under a scorching sun, with no better pillow than the neck of a dead camel, with no more tender watcher than the impatient vulture flapping her wings above his head, and waiting till he, too, should be carrion. what was the good of wealth, if it could not bring this young soldier home to a safe shelter in his native land? john marchmont smiled when his daughter asked this question, and implored her father to write to edward arundel, recalling him to england. "god knows how glad i should be to have the boy here, polly!" john said, as he drew his little girl closer to his breast,--she sat on his knee still, though she was thirteen years of age. "but edward has a career before him, my dear, and could not give it up for an inglorious life in this rambling old house. it isn't as if i could hold out any inducement to him: you know, polly, i can't; for i mustn't leave any money away from my little girl." "but he might have half my money, papa, or all of it," mary added piteously. "what could i do with money, if----?" she didn't finish the sentence; she never could complete any such sentence as this; but her father knew what she meant. so six months had passed since a dreary january day upon which john marchmont had read, in the second column of the "times," that he could hear of something greatly to his advantage by applying to a certain solicitor, whose offices were next door but one to those of messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson's. his heart began to beat very violently when he read that advertisement in the supplement, which it was one of his duties to air before the fire in the clerks' office; but he showed no other sign of emotion. he waited until he took the papers to his employer; and as he laid them at mr. mathewson's elbow, murmured a respectful request to be allowed to go out for half-an-hour, upon his own business. "good gracious me, marchmont!" cried the lawyer; "what can you want to go out for at this time in the morning? you've only just come; and there's that agreement between higgs and sandyman must be copied before----" "yes, i know, sir. i'll be back in time to attend to it; but i--i think i've come into a fortune, sir; and i should like to go and see about it." the solicitor turned in his revolving library-chair, and looked aghast at his clerk. had this marchmont--always rather unnaturally reserved and eccentric--gone suddenly mad? no; the copying-clerk stood by his employer's side, grave, self-possessed as ever, with his forefinger upon the advertisement. "marchmont--john--call--messrs. tindal and trollam--" gasped mr. mathewson. "do you mean to tell me it's _you_?" "yes, sir." "egad, i'll go with you!" cried the solicitor, hooking his arm through that of his clerk, snatching his hat from an adjacent stand, and dashing through the outer office, down the great staircase, and into the next door but one before john marchmont knew where he was. john had not deceived his employer. marchmont towers was his, with all its appurtenances. messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson took him in hand, much to the chagrin of messrs. tindal and trollam, and proved his identity in less than a week. on a shelf above the high wooden desk at which john had sat, copying law-papers, with a weary hand and an aching spine, appeared two bran-new deed-boxes, inscribed, in white letters, with the name and address of john marchmont, esq., marchmont towers. the copying-clerk's sudden accession to fortune was the talk of all the _employés_ in "the fields." marchmont towers was exaggerated into half lincolnshire, and a tidy slice of yorkshire; eleven thousand a year was expanded into an annual million. everybody expected largesse from the legatee. how fond people had been of the quiet clerk, and how magnanimously they had concealed their sentiments during his poverty, lest they should wound him, as they urged, "which" they knew he was sensitive; and how expansively they now dilated on their long-suppressed emotions! of course, under these circumstances, it is hardly likely that everybody could be satisfied; so it is a small thing to say that the dinner which john gave--by his late employers' suggestion (he was about the last man to think of giving a dinner)--at the "albion tavern," to the legal staff of messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson, and such acquaintance of the legal profession as they should choose to invite, was a failure; and that gentlemen who were pretty well used to dine upon liver and bacon, or beefsteak and onions, or the joint, vegetables, bread, cheese, and celery for a shilling, turned up their noses at the turbot, murmured at the paucity of green fat in the soup, made light of red mullet and ortolans, objected to the flavour of the truffles, and were contemptuous about the wines. john knew nothing of this. he had lived a separate and secluded existence; and his only thought now was of getting away to marchmont towers, which had been familiar to him in his boyhood, when he had been wont to go there on occasional visits to his grandfather. he wanted to get away from the turmoil and confusion of the big, heartless city, in which he had endured so much; he wanted to carry away his little girl to a quiet country home, and live and die there in peace. he liberally rewarded all the good people about oakley street who had been kind to little mary; and there was weeping in the regions of the ladies' wardrobe when mr. marchmont and his daughter went away one bitter winter's morning in a cab, which was to carry them to the hostelry whence the coach started for lincoln. it is strange to think how far those oakley-street days of privation and endurance seem to have receded in the memories of both father and daughter. the impalpable past fades away, and it is difficult for john and his little girl to believe that they were once so poor and desolate. it is oakley street now that is visionary and unreal. the stately county families bear down upon marchmont towers in great lumbering chariots, with brazen crests upon the hammer-cloths, and sulky coachmen in brown-george wigs. the county mammas patronise and caress miss marchmont--what a match she will be for one of the county sons by-and-by!--the county daughters discourse with mary about her poor, and her fancy-work, and her piano. she is getting on slowly enough with her piano, poor little girl! under the tuition of the organist of swampington, who gives lessons to that part of the county. and there are solemn dinners now and then at marchmont towers--dinners at which miss mary appears when the cloth has been removed, and reflects in silent wonder upon the change that has come to her father and herself. can it be true that she has ever lived in oakley street, whither came no more aristocratic visitors than her aunt sophia, who was the wife of a berkshire farmer, and always brought hogs' puddings, and butter, and home-made bread, and other rustic delicacies to her brother-in-law; or mrs. brigsome, the washer-woman, who made a morning-call every monday, to fetch john marchmont's shabby shirts? the shirts were not shabby now; and it was no longer mary's duty to watch them day by day, and manipulate them tenderly when the linen grew frayed at the sharp edges of the folds, or the buttonholes gave signs of weakness. corson, mr. marchmont's own-man, had care of the shirts now: and john wore diamond-studs and a black-satin waistcoat, when he gave a dinner-party. they were not very lively, those lincolnshire dinner-parties; though the dessert was a sight to look upon, in mary's eyes. the long shining table, the red and gold and purple indian china, the fluffy woollen d'oyleys, the sparkling cut-glass, the sticky preserved ginger and guava-jelly, and dried orange rings and chips, and all the stereotyped sweetmeats, were very grand and beautiful, no doubt; but mary had seen livelier desserts in oakley street, though there had been nothing better than a brown-paper bag of oranges from the westminster road, and a bottle of two-and-twopenny marsala from a licensed victualler's in the borough, to promote conviviality. chapter vi. the young soldier's return. the rain beats down upon the battlemented roof of marchmont towers this july day, as if it had a mind to flood the old mansion. the flat waste of grass, and the lonely clumps of trees, are almost blotted out by the falling rain. the low grey sky shuts out the distance. this part of lincolnshire--fenny, misty, and flat always--seems flatter and mistier than usual to-day. the rain beats hopelessly upon the leaves in the wood behind marchmont towers, and splashes into great pools beneath the trees, until the ground is almost hidden by the fallen water, and the trees seem to be growing out of a black lake. the land is lower behind marchmont towers, and slopes down gradually to the bank of a dismal river, which straggles through the marchmont property at a snail's pace, to gain an impetus farther on, until it hurries into the sea somewhere northward of grimsby. the wood is not held in any great favour by the household at the towers; and it has been a pet project of several marchmonts to level and drain it, but a project not very easily to be carried out. marchmont towers is said to be unhealthy, as a dwelling-house, by reason of this wood, from which miasmas rise in certain states of the weather; and it is on this account that the back of the house--the eastern front, at least, as it is called--looking to the wood is very little used. mary marchmont sits at a window in the western drawing-room, watching the ceaseless falling of the rain upon this dreary summer afternoon. she is little changed since the day upon which edward arundel saw her in oakley street. she is taller, of course, but her figure is as slender and childish as ever: it is only her face in which the earnestness of premature womanhood reveals itself in a grave and sweet serenity very beautiful to contemplate. her soft brown eyes have a pensive shadow in their gentle light; her mouth is even more pensive. it has been said of jane grey, of mary stuart, of marie antoinette, charlotte corday, and other fated women, that in the gayest hours of their youth they bore upon some feature, or in some expression, the shadow of the end--an impalpable, indescribable presage of an awful future, vaguely felt by those who looked upon them. is it thus with mary marchmont? has the solemn hand of destiny set that shadowy brand upon the face of this child, that even in her prosperity, as in her adversity, she should be so utterly different from all other children? is she already marked out for some womanly martyrdom--already set apart for more than common suffering? she sits alone this afternoon, for her father is busy with his agent. wealth does not mean immunity from all care and trouble; and mr. marchmont has plenty of work to get through, in conjunction with his land-steward, a hard-headed yorkshireman, who lives at kemberling, and insists on doing his duty with pertinacious honesty. the large brown eyes looked wistfully out at the dismal waste and the falling rain. there was a wretched equestrian making his way along the carriage-drive. "who can come to see us on such a day?" mary thought. "it must be mr. gormby, i suppose;"--the agent's name was gormby. "mr. gormby never cares about the wet; but then i thought he was with papa. oh, i hope it isn't anybody coming to call." but mary forgot all about the struggling equestrian the next moment. she had some morsel of fancy-work upon her lap, and picked it up and went on with it, setting slow stitches, and letting her thoughts wander far away from marchmont towers--to india, i am afraid; or to that imaginary india which she had created for herself out of such images as were to be picked up in the "arabian nights." she was roused suddenly by the opening of a door at the farther end of the room, and by the voice of a servant, who mumbled a name which sounded something like mr. armenger. she rose, blushing a little, to do honour to one of her father's county acquaintance, as she thought; when a fair-haired gentleman dashed in, very much excited and very wet, and made his way towards her. "i _would_ come, miss marchmont," he said,--"i would come, though the day was so wet. everybody vowed i was mad to think of it, and it was as much as my poor brute of a horse could do to get over the ten miles of swamp between this and my uncle's house; but i would come! where's john? i want to see john. didn't i always tell him he'd come into the lincolnshire property? didn't i always say so, now? you should have seen martin mostyn's face--he's got a capital berth in the war office, and he's such a snob!--when i told him the news: it was as long as my arm! but i must see john, dear old fellow! i long to congratulate him." mary stood with her hands clasped, and her breath coming quickly. the blush had quite faded out, and left her unusually pale. but edward arundel did not see this: young gentlemen of four-and-twenty are not very attentive to every change of expression in little girls of thirteen. "oh, is it you, mr. arundel? is it really you?" she spoke in a low voice, and it was almost difficult to keep the rushing tears back while she did so. she had pictured him so often in peril, in famine, in sickness, in death, that to see him here, well, happy, light-hearted, cordial, handsome, and brave, as she had seen him four-and-a-half years before in the two-pair back in oakley street, was almost too much for her to bear without the relief of tears. but she controlled her emotion as bravely as if she had been a woman of twenty. "i am so glad to see you," she said quietly; "and papa will be so glad too! it is the only thing we want, now we are rich; to have you with us. we have talked of you so often; and i--we--have been so unhappy sometimes, thinking that----" "that i should be killed, i suppose?" "yes; or wounded very, very badly. the battles in india have been dreadful, have they not?" mr. arundel smiled at her earnestness. "they have not been exactly child's play," he said, shaking back his chesnut hair and smoothing his thick moustache. he was a man now, and a very handsome one; something of that type which is known in this year of grace as "swell"; but brave and chivalrous withal, and not afflicted with any impediment in his speech. "the men who talk of the affghans as a chicken-hearted set of fellows are rather out of their reckoning. the indians can fight, miss mary, and fight like the devil; but we can lick 'em!" he walked over to the fireplace, where--upon this chilly wet day, there was a fire burning--and began to shake himself dry. mary, following him with her eyes, wondered if there was such another soldier in all her majesty's dominions, and how soon he would be made general-in-chief of the army of the indus. "then you've not been wounded at all, mr. arundel?" she said, after a pause. "oh, yes, i've been wounded; i got a bullet in my shoulder from an affghan musket, and i'm home on sick-leave." this time he saw the expression of her face, and interpreted her look of alarm. "but i'm not ill, you know, miss marchmont," he said, laughing. "our fellows are very glad of a wound when they feel home-sick. the th come home before long, all of 'em; and i've a twelvemonth's leave of absence; and we're pretty sure to be ordered out again by the end of that time, as i don't believe there's much chance of quiet over there." "you will go out again!----" edward arundel smiled at her mournful tone. "to be sure, miss mary. i have my captaincy to win, you know; i'm only a lieutenant, as yet." it was only a twelvemonth's reprieve, after all, then, mary thought. he would go back again--to suffer, and to be wounded, and to die, perhaps. but then, on the other hand, there was a twelvemonth's respite; and her father might in that time prevail upon the young soldier to stay at marchmont towers. it was such inexpressible happiness to see him once more, to know that he was safe and well, that mary could scarcely do otherwise than see all things in a sunny light just now. she ran to john marchmont's study to tell him of the coming of this welcome visitor; but she wept upon her father's shoulder before she could explain who it was whose coming had made her so glad. very few friendships had broken the monotony of her solitary existence; and edward arundel was the only chivalrous image she had ever known, out of her books. john marchmont was scarcely less pleased than his child to see the man who had befriended him in his poverty. never has more heartfelt welcome been given than that which greeted edward arundel at marchmont towers. "you will stay with us, of course, my dear arundel," john said; "you will stop for september and the shooting. you know you promised you'd make this your shooting-box; and we'll build the tennis-court. heaven knows, there's room enough for it in the great quadrangle; and there's a billiard-room over this, though i'm afraid the table is out of order. but we can soon set that right, can't we, polly?" "yes, yes, papa; out of my pocket-money, if you like." mary marchmont said this in all good faith. it was sometimes difficult for her to remember that her father was really rich, and had no need of help out of her pocket-money. the slender savings in her little purse had often given him some luxury that he would not otherwise have had, in the time gone by. "you got my letter, then?" john said; "the letter in which i told you----" "that marchmont towers was yours. yes, my dear old boy. that letter was amongst a packet my agent brought me half-an-hour before i left calcutta. god bless you, dear old fellow; how glad i was to hear of it! i've only been in england a fortnight. i went straight from southampton to dangerfield to see my father and mother, stayed there little over ten days, and then offended them all by running away. i reached swampington yesterday, slept at my uncle hubert's, paid my respects to my cousin olivia, who is,--well, i've told you what she is,--and rode over here this morning, much to the annoyance of the inhabitants of the rectory. so, you see, i've been doing nothing but offending people for your sake, john; and for yours, miss mary. by-the-by, i've brought you such a doll!" a doll! mary's pale face flushed a faint crimson. did he think her still a child, then, this soldier; did he think her only a silly child, with no thought above a doll, when she would have gone out to india, and braved every peril of that cruel country, to be his nurse and comfort in fever and sickness, like the brave sisters of mercy she had read of in some of her novels? edward arundel saw that faint crimson glow lighting up in her face. "i beg your pardon, miss marchmont," he said. "i was only joking; of course you are a young lady now, almost grown up, you know. can you play chess?" "no, mr. arundel." "i am sorry for that; for i have brought you a set of chessmen that once belonged to dost mahommed khan. but i'll teach you the game, if you like?" "oh, yes, mr. arundel; i should like it very, very much." the young soldier could not help being amused by the little girl's earnestness. she was about the same age as his sister letitia; but, oh, how widely different to that bouncing and rather wayward young lady, who tore the pillow-lace upon her muslin frocks, rumpled her long ringlets, rasped the skin off the sharp points of her elbows, by repeated falls upon the gravel-paths at dangerfield, and tormented a long-suffering swiss attendant, half-lady's-maid, half-governess, from morning till night. no fold was awry in mary marchmont's simple black-silk frock; no plait disarranged in the neat cambric tucker that encircled the slender white throat. intellect here reigned supreme. instead of the animal spirits of a thoughtless child, there was a woman's loving carefulness for others, a woman's unselfishness and devotion. edward arundel did not understand all this, but i think he had a dim comprehension of the greater part of it. "she is a dear little thing," he thought, as he watched her clinging to her father's arm; and then he began to talk about marchmont towers, and insisted upon being shown over the house; and, perhaps for the first time since the young heir had shot himself to death upon a bright september morning in a stubble-field within earshot of the park, the sound of merry laughter echoed through the long corridors, and resounded in the unoccupied rooms. edward arundel was in raptures with everything. "there never was such a dear old place," he said. "'gloomy?' 'dreary?' 'draughty?' pshaw! cut a few logs out of that wood at the back there, pile 'em up in the wide chimneys, and set a light to 'em, and marchmont towers would be like a baronial mansion at christmas-time." he declared that every dingy portrait he looked at was a rubens or a velasquez, or a vandyke, a holbein, or a lely. "look at that fur border to the old woman's black-velvet gown, john; look at the colouring of the hands! do you think anybody but peter paul could have painted that? do you see that girl with the blue-satin stomacher and the flaxen ringlets?--one of your ancestresses, miss mary, and very like you. if that isn't in sir peter lely's best style,--his earlier style, you know, before he was spoiled by royal patronage, and got lazy,--i know nothing of painting." the young soldier ran on in this manner, as he hurried his host from room to room; now throwing open windows to look out at the wet prospect; now rapping against the wainscot to find secret hiding-places behind sliding panels; now stamping on the oak-flooring in the hope of discovering a trap-door. he pointed out at least ten eligible sites for the building of the tennis-court; he suggested more alterations and improvements than a builder could have completed in a lifetime. the place brightened under the influence of his presence, as a landscape lights up under a burst of sudden sunshine breaking through a dull grey sky. mary marchmont did not wait for the removal of the table-cloth that evening, but dined with her father and his friend in a snug oak-panelled chamber, half-breakfast-room, half-library, which opened out of the western drawing-room. how different edward arundel was to all the rest of the world, miss marchmont thought; how gay, how bright, how genial, how happy! the county families, mustered in their fullest force, couldn't make such mirth amongst them as this young soldier created in his single person. the evening was an evening in fairy-land. life was sometimes like the last scene in a pantomime, after all, with rose-coloured cloud and golden sunlight. one of the marchmont servants went over to swampington early the next day to fetch mr. arundel's portmanteaus from the rectory; and after dinner upon that second evening, mary marchmont took her seat opposite edward, and listened reverently while he explained to her the moves upon the chessboard. "so you don't know my cousin olivia?" the young soldier said by-and-by. "that's odd! i should have thought she would have called upon you long before this." mary marchmont shook her head. "no," she said; "miss arundel has never been to see us; and i should so like to have seen her, because she would have told me about you. mr. arundel has called one or twice upon papa; but i have never seen him. he is not our clergyman, you know; marchmont towers belongs to kemberling parish." "to be sure; and swampington is ten miles off. but, for all that, i should have thought olivia would have called upon you. i'll drive you over to-morrow, if john thinks me whip enough to trust you with me, and you shall see livy. the rectory's such a queer old place!" perhaps mr. marchmont was rather doubtful as to the propriety of committing his little girl to edward arundel's charioteership for a ten-mile drive upon a wretched road. be it as it might, a lumbering barouche, with a pair of over-fed horses, was ordered next morning, instead of the high, old-fashioned gig which the soldier had proposed driving; and the safety of the two young people was confided to a sober old coachman, rather sulky at the prospect of a drive to swampington so soon after the rainy weather. it does not rain always, even in this part of lincolnshire; and the july morning was bright and pleasant, the low hedges fragrant with starry opal-tinted wild roses and waxen honeysuckle, the yellowing corn waving in the light summer breeze. mary assured her companion that she had no objection whatever to the odour of cigar-smoke; so mr. arundel lolled upon the comfortable cushions of the barouche, with his back to the horses, smoking cheroots, and talking gaily, while miss marchmont sat in the place of state opposite to him. a happy drive; a drive in a fairy chariot through regions of fairyland, for ever and for ever to be remembered by mary marchmont. they left the straggling hedges and the yellowing corn behind them by-and-by, as they drew near the outskirts of swampington. the town lies lower even than the surrounding country, flat and low as that country is. a narrow river crawls at the base of a half-ruined wall, which once formed part of the defences of the place. black barges lie at anchor here; and a stone bridge, guarded by a toll-house, spans the river. mr. marchmont's carriage lumbered across this bridge, and under an archway, low, dark, stony, and grim, into a narrow street of solid, well-built houses, low, dark, stony, and grim, like the archway, but bearing the stamp of reputable occupation. i believe the grass grew, and still grows, in this street, as it does in all the other streets and in the market-place of swampington. they are all pretty much in the same style, these streets,--all stony, narrow, dark, and grim; and they wind and twist hither and thither, and in and out, in a manner utterly bewildering to the luckless stranger, who, seeing that they are all alike, has no landmarks for his guidance. there are two handsome churches, both bearing an early date in the history of norman supremacy: one crowded into an inconvenient corner of a back street, and choked by the houses built up round about it; the other lying a little out of the town, upon a swampy waste looking towards the sea, which flows within a mile of swampington. indeed, there is no lack of water in that lincolnshire borough. the river winds about the outskirts of the town; unexpected creeks and inlets meet you at every angle; shallow pools lie here and there about the marshy suburbs; and in the dim distance the low line of the grey sea meets the horizon. but perhaps the positive ugliness of the town is something redeemed by a vague air of romance and old-world mystery which pervades it. it is an exceptional place, and somewhat interesting thereby. the great norman church upon the swampy waste, the scattered tombstones, bordered by the low and moss-grown walls, make a picture which is apt to dwell in the minds of those who look upon it, although it is by no means a pretty picture. the rectory lies close to the churchyard; and a wicket-gate opens from mr. arundel's garden into a narrow pathway, leading across a patch of tangled grass and through a lane of sunken and lopsided tombstones, to the low vestry door. the rectory itself is a long irregular building, to which one incumbent after another has built the additional chamber, or chimney, or porch, or bow-window, necessary for his accommodation. there is very little garden in front of the house, but a patch of lawn and shrubbery and a clump of old trees at the back. "it's not a pretty house, is it, miss marchmont?" asked edward, as he lifted his companion out of the carriage. "no, not very pretty," mary answered; "but i don't think any thing is pretty in lincolnshire. oh, there's the sea!" she cried, looking suddenly across the marshes to the low grey line in the distance. "how i wish we were as near the sea at marchmont towers!" the young lady had something of a romantic passion for the wide-spreading ocean. it was an unknown region, that stretched far away, and was wonderful and beautiful by reason of its solemn mystery. all her corsair stories were allied to that far, fathomless deep. the white sail in the distance was conrad's, perhaps; and he was speeding homeward to find medora dead in her lonely watch-tower, with fading flowers upon her breast. the black hull yonder, with dirty canvas spread to the faint breeze, was the bark of some terrible pirate bound on rapine and ravage. (she was a coal-barge, i have no doubt, sailing londonward with her black burden.) nymphs and lurleis, mermaids and mermen, and tiny water-babies with silvery tails, for ever splashing in the sunshine, were all more or less associated with the long grey line towards which mary marchmont looked with solemn, yearning eyes. "we'll drive down to the seashore some morning, polly," said mr. arundel. he was beginning to call her polly, now and then, in the easy familiarity of their intercourse. "we'll spend a long day on the sands, and i'll smoke cheroots while you pick up shells and seaweed." miss marchmont clasped her hands in silent rapture. her face was irradiated by the new light of happiness. how good he was to her, this brave soldier, who must undoubtedly be made commander-in-chief of the army of the indus in a year or so! edward arundel led his companion across the flagged way between the iron gate of the rectory garden and a half-glass door leading into the hall. out of this simple hall, only furnished with a couple of chairs, a barometer, and an umbrella-stand, they went, without announcement, into a low, old-fashioned room, half-study, half-parlour, where a young lady was sitting at a table writing. she rose as edward opened the door, and came to meet him. "at last!" she said; "i thought your rich friends engrossed all your attention." she paused, seeing mary. "this is miss marchmont, olivia," said edward; "the only daughter of my old friend. you must be very fond of her, please; for she is a dear little girl, and i know she means to love you." mary lifted her soft brown eyes to the face of the young lady, and then dropped her eyelids suddenly, as if half-frightened by what she had seen there. what was it? what was it in olivia arundel's handsome face from which those who looked at her so often shrank, repelled and disappointed? every line in those perfectly-modelled features was beautiful to look at; but, as a whole, the face was not beautiful. perhaps it was too much like a marble mask, exquisitely chiselled, but wanting in variety of expression. the handsome mouth was rigid; the dark grey eyes had a cold light in them. the thick bands of raven-black hair were drawn tightly off a square forehead, which was the brow of an intellectual and determined man rather than of a woman. yes; womanhood was the something wanted in olivia arundel's face. intellect, resolution, courage, are rare gifts; but they are not the gifts whose tokens we look for most anxiously in a woman's face. if miss arundel had been a queen, her diadem would have become her nobly; and she might have been a very great queen: but heaven help the wretched creature who had appealed from minor tribunals to _her_ mercy! heaven help delinquents of every kind whose last lingering hope had been in her compassion! perhaps mary marchmont vaguely felt something of all this. at any rate, the enthusiasm with which she had been ready to regard edward arundel's cousin cooled suddenly beneath the winter in that pale, quiet face. miss arundel said a few words to her guest; kindly enough; but rather too much as if she had been addressing a child of six. mary, who was accustomed to be treated as a woman, was wounded by her manner. "how different she is from edward!" thought miss marchmont. "i shall never like her as i like him." "so this is the pale-faced child who is to have marchmont towers by-and-by," thought miss arundel; "and these rich friends are the people for whom edward stays away from us." the lines about the rigid mouth grew harder, the cold light in the grey eyes grew colder, as the young lady thought this. it was thus that these two women met: while one was but a child in years; while the other was yet in the early bloom of womanhood: these two, who were predestined to hate each other, and inflict suffering upon each other in the days that were to come. it was thus that they thought of one another; each with an unreasonable dread, an undefined aversion gathering in her breast. * * * * * six weeks passed, and edward arundel kept his promise of shooting the partridges on the marchmont preserves. the wood behind the towers, and the stubbled corn-fields on the home-farm, bristled with game. the young soldier heartily enjoyed himself through that delicious first week in september; and came home every afternoon, with a heavy game-bag and a light heart, to boast of his prowess before mary and her father. the young man was by this time familiar with every nook and corner of marchmont towers; and the builders were already at work at the tennis-court which john had promised to erect for his friend's pleasure. the site ultimately chosen was a bleak corner of the eastern front, looking to the wood; but as edward declared the spot in every way eligible, john had no inclination to find fault with his friend's choice. there was other work for the builders; for mr. arundel had taken a wonderful fancy to a ruined boat-house upon the brink of the river; and this boat-house was to be rebuilt and restored, and made into a delightful pavilion, in the upper chambers of which mary might sit with her father in the hot summer weather, while mr. arundel kept a couple of trim wherries in the recesses below. so, you see, the young man made himself very much at home, in his own innocent, boyish fashion, at marchmont towers. but as he had brought life and light to the old lincolnshire mansion, nobody was inclined to quarrel with him for any liberties which he might choose to take: and every one looked forward sorrowfully to the dark days before christmas, at which time he was under a promise to return to dangerfield park; there to spend the remainder of his leave of absence. chapter vii. olivia. while busy workmen were employed at marchmont towers, hammering at the fragile wooden walls of the tennis-court,--while mary marchmont and edward arundel wandered, with the dogs at their heels, amongst the rustle of the fallen leaves in the wood behind the great gaunt lincolnshire mansion,--olivia, the rector's daughter, sat in her father's quiet study, or walked to and fro in the gloomy streets of swampington, doing her duty day by day. yes, the life of this woman is told in these few words: she did her duty. from the earliest age at which responsibility can begin, she had done her duty, uncomplainingly, unswervingly, as it seemed to those who watched her. she was a good woman. the bishop of the diocese had specially complimented her for her active devotion to that holy work which falls somewhat heavily upon the only daughter of a widowed rector. all the stately dowagers about swampington were loud in their praises of olivia arundel. such devotion, such untiring zeal in a young person of three-and-twenty years of age, were really most laudable, these solemn elders said, in tones of supreme patronage; for the young saint of whom they spoke wore shabby gowns, and was the portionless daughter of a poor man who had let the world slip by him, and who sat now amid the dreary ruins of a wasted life, looking yearningly backward, with hollow regretful eyes, and bewailing the chances he had lost. hubert arundel loved his daughter; loved her with that sorrowful affection we feel for those who suffer for our sins, whose lives have been blighted by our follies. every shabby garment which olivia wore was a separate reproach to her father; every deprivation she endured stung him as cruelly as if she had turned upon him and loudly upbraided him for his wasted life and his squandered patrimony. he loved her; and he watched her day after day, doing her duty to him as to all others; doing her duty for ever and for ever; but when he most yearned to take her to his heart, her own cold perfections arose, and separated him from the child he loved. what was he but a poor, vacillating, erring creature; weak, supine, idle, epicurean; unworthy to approach this girl, who never seemed to sicken of the hardness of her life, who never grew weary of well-doing? but how was it that, for all her goodness, olivia arundel won so small a share of earthly reward? i do not allude to the gold and jewels and other worldly benefits with which the fairies in our children's story-books reward the benevolent mortals who take compassion upon them when they experimentalise with human nature in the guise of old women; but i speak rather of the love and gratitude, the tenderness and blessings, which usually wait upon the footsteps of those who do good deeds. olivia arundel's charities were never ceasing; her life was one perpetual sacrifice to her father's parishioners. there was no natural womanly vanity, no simple girlish fancy, which this woman had not trodden under foot, and trampled out in the hard pathway she had chosen for herself. the poor people knew this. rheumatic men and women, crippled and bed-ridden, knew that the blankets which covered them had been bought out of money that would have purchased silk dresses for the rector's handsome daughter, or luxuries for the frugal table at the rectory. they knew this. they knew that, through frost and snow, through storm and rain, olivia arundel would come to sit beside their dreary hearths, their desolate sick-beds, and read holy books to them; sublimely indifferent to the foul weather without, to the stifling atmosphere within, to dirt, discomfort, poverty, inconvenience; heedless of all, except the performance of the task she had set herself. people knew this; and they were grateful to miss arundel, and submissive and attentive in her presence; they gave her such return as they were able to give for the benefits, spiritual and temporal, which she bestowed upon them: but they did not love her. they spoke of her in reverential accents, and praised her whenever her name was mentioned; but they spoke with tearless eyes and unfaltering voices. her virtues were beautiful, of course, as virtue in the abstract must always be; but i think there was a want of individuality in her goodness, a lack of personal tenderness in her kindness, which separated her from the people she benefited. perhaps there was something almost chilling in the dull monotony of miss arundel's benevolence. there was no blemish of mortal weakness upon the good deeds she performed; and the recipients of her bounties, seeing her so far off, grew afraid of her, even by reason of her goodness, and _could_ not love her. she made no favourites amongst her father's parishioners. of all the school-children she had taught, she had never chosen one curly-headed urchin for a pet. she had no good days and bad days; she was never foolishly indulgent or extravagantly cordial. she was always the same,--church-of-england charity personified; meting out all mercies by line and rule; doing good with a note-book and a pencil in her hand; looking on every side with calm, scrutinising eyes; rigidly just, terribly perfect. it was a fearfully monotonous, narrow, and uneventful life which olivia arundel led at swampington rectory. at three-and-twenty years of age she could have written her history upon a few pages. the world outside that dull lincolnshire town might be shaken by convulsions, and made irrecognisable by repeated change; but all those outer changes and revolutions made themselves but little felt in the quiet grass-grown streets, and the flat surrounding swamps, within whose narrow boundary olivia arundel had lived from infancy to womanhood; performing and repeating the same duties from day to day, with no other progress to mark the lapse of her existence than the slow alternation of the seasons, and the dark hollow circles which had lately deepened beneath her grey eyes, and the depressed lines about the corners of her firm lower-lip. these outward tokens, beyond her own control, alone betrayed this woman's secret. she was weary of her life. she sickened under the dull burden which she had borne so long, and carried so patiently. the slow round of duty was loathsome to her. the horrible, narrow, unchanging existence, shut in by cruel walls, which bounded her on every side and kept her prisoner to herself, was odious to her. the powerful intellect revolted against the fetters that bound and galled it. the proud heart beat with murderous violence against the bonds that kept it captive. "is my life always to be this--always, always, always?" the passionate nature burst forth sometimes, and the voice that had so long been stifled cried aloud in the black stillness of the night, "is it to go on for ever and for ever; like the slow river that creeps under the broken wall? o my god! is the lot of other women never to be mine? am i never to be loved and admired; never to be sought and chosen? is my life to be all of one dull, grey, colourless monotony; without one sudden gleam of sunshine, without one burst of rainbow-light?" how shall i anatomise this woman, who, gifted with no womanly tenderness of nature, unendowed with that pitiful and unreasoning affection which makes womanhood beautiful, yet tried, and tried unceasingly, to do her duty, and to be good; clinging, in the very blindness of her soul, to the rigid formulas of her faith, but unable to seize upon its spirit? some latent comprehension of the want in her nature made her only the more scrupulous in the performance of those duties which she had meted out for herself. the holy sentences she had heard, sunday after sunday, feebly read by her father, haunted her perpetually, and would not be put away from her. the tenderness in every word of those familiar gospels was a reproach to the want of tenderness in her own heart. she could be good to her father's parishioners, and she could make sacrifices for them; but she could not love them, any more than they could love her. that divine and universal pity, that spontaneous and boundless affection, which is the chief loveliness of womanhood and christianity, had no part in her nature. she could understand judith with the assyrian general's gory head held aloft in her uplifted hand; but she could not comprehend that diviner mystery of sinful magdalene sitting at her master's feet, with the shame and love in her face half hidden by a veil of drooping hair. no; olivia arundel was not a good woman, in the commoner sense we attach to the phrase. it was not natural to her to be gentle and tender, to be beneficent, compassionate, and kind, as it is to the women we are accustomed to call "good." she was a woman who was for ever fighting against her nature; who was for ever striving to do right; for ever walking painfully upon the difficult road mapped out for her; for ever measuring herself by the standard she had set up for her self-abasement. and who shall say that such a woman as this, if she persevere unto the end, shall not wear a brighter crown than her more gentle sisters,--the starry circlet of a martyr? if she persevere unto the end! but was olivia arundel the woman to do this? the deepening circles about her eyes, the hollowing cheeks, and the feverish restlessness of manner which she could not always control, told how terrible the long struggle had become to her. if she could have died then,--if she had fallen beneath the weight of her burden,--what a record of sin and anguish might have remained unwritten in the history of woman's life! but this woman was one of those who can suffer, and yet not die. she bore her burden a little longer; only to fling it down by-and-by, and to abandon herself to the eager devils who had been watching for her so untiringly. hubert arundel was afraid of his daughter. the knowledge that he had wronged her,--wronged her even before her birth by the foolish waste of his patrimony, and wronged her through life by his lack of energy in seeking such advancement as a more ambitious man might have won,--the knowledge of this, and of his daughter's superior virtues, combined to render the father ashamed and humiliated by the presence of his only child. the struggle between this fear and his remorseful love of her was a very painful one; but fear had the mastery, and the rector of swampington was content to stand aloof, mutely watchful of his daughter, wondering feebly whether she was happy, striving vainly to discover that one secret, that keystone of the soul, which must exist in every nature, however outwardly commonplace. mr. arundel had hoped that his daughter would marry, and marry well, even at swampington; for there were rich young landowners who visited at the rectory. but olivia's handsome face won her few admirers, and at three-and-twenty miss arundel had received no offer of marriage. the father reproached himself for this. it was he who had blighted the life of his penniless girl; it was his fault that no suitors came to woo his motherless child. yet many dowerless maidens have been sought and loved; and i do not think it was olivia's lack of fortune which kept admirers at bay. i believe it was rather that inherent want of tenderness which chilled and dispirited the timid young lincolnshire squires. had olivia ever been in love? hubert arundel constantly asked himself this question. he did so because he saw that some blighting influence, even beyond the poverty and dulness of her home, had fallen upon the life of his only child. what was it? what was it? was it some hopeless attachment, some secret tenderness, which had never won the sweet return of love for love? he would no more have ventured to question his daughter upon this subject than he would have dared to ask his fair young queen, newly married in those days, whether she was happy with her handsome husband. miss arundel stood by the rectory gate in the early september evening, watching the western sunlight on the low sea-line beyond the marshes. she was wearied and worn out by a long day devoted to visiting amongst her parishioners; and she stood with her elbow leaning on the gate, and her head resting on her hand, in an attitude peculiarly expressive of fatigue. she had thrown off her bonnet, and her black hair was pushed carelessly from her forehead. those masses of hair had not that purple lustre, nor yet that wandering glimmer of red gold, which gives peculiar beauty to some raven tresses. olivia's hair was long and luxuriant; but it was of that dead, inky blackness, which is all shadow. it was dark, fathomless, inscrutable, like herself. the cold grey eyes looked thoughtfully seaward. another day's duty had been done. long chapters of holy writ had been read to troublesome old women afflicted with perpetual coughs; stifling, airless cottages had been visited; the dull, unvarying track had been beaten by the patient feet, and the yellow sun was going down upon another joyless day. but did the still evening hour bring peace to that restless spirit? no; by the rigid compression of the lips, by the feverish lustre in the eyes, by the faint hectic flush in the oval cheeks, by every outward sign of inward unrest, olivia arundel was not at peace! the listlessness of her attitude was merely the listlessness of physical fatigue. the mental struggle was not finished with the close of the day's work. the young lady looked up suddenly as the tramp of a horse's hoofs, slow and lazy-sounding on the smooth road, met her ear. her eyes dilated, and her breath went and came more rapidly; but she did not stir from her weary attitude. the horse was from the stables at marchmont towers, and the rider was mr. arundel. he came smiling to the rectory gate, with the low sunshine glittering in his chesnut hair, and the light of careless, indifferent happiness irradiating his handsome face. "you must have thought i'd forgotten you and my uncle, my dear livy," he said, as he sprang lightly from his horse. "we've been so busy with the tennis-court, and the boat-house, and the partridges, and goodness knows what besides at the towers, that i couldn't get the time to ride over till this evening. but to-day we dined early, on purpose that i might have the chance of getting here. i come upon an important mission, livy, i assure you." "what do you mean?" there was no change in miss arundel's voice when she spoke to her cousin; but there was a change, not easily to be defined, in her face when she looked at him. it seemed as if that weary hopelessness of expression which had settled on her countenance lately grew more weary, more hopeless, as she turned towards this bright young soldier, glorious in the beauty of his own light-heartedness. it may have been merely the sharpness of contrast which produced this effect. it may have been an actual change arising out of some secret hidden in olivia's breast. "what do you mean by an important mission, edward?" she said. she had need to repeat the question; for the young man's attention had wandered from her, and he was watching his horse as the animal cropped the tangled herbage about the rectory gate. "why, i've come with an invitation to a dinner at marchmont towers. there's to be a dinner-party; and, in point of fact, it's to be given on purpose for you and my uncle. john and polly are full of it. you'll come, won't you, livy?" miss arundel shrugged her shoulders, with an impatient sigh. "i hate dinner-parties," she said; "but, of course, if papa accepts mr. marchmont's invitation, i cannot refuse to go. papa must choose for himself." there had been some interchange of civilities between marchmont towers and swampington rectory during the six weeks which had passed since mary's introduction to olivia arundel; and this dinner-party was the result of john's simple desire to do honour to his friend's kindred. "oh, you must come, livy," mr. arundel exclaimed. "the tennis-court is going on capitally. i want you to give us your opinion again. shall i take my horse round to the stables? i am going to stop an hour or two, and ride back by moonlight." edward arundel took the bridle in his hand, and the cousins walked slowly round by the low garden-wall to a dismal and rather dilapidated stable-yard at the back of the rectory, where hubert arundel kept a wall-eyed white horse, long-legged, shallow-chested, and large-headed, and a fearfully and wonderfully made phaëton, with high wheels and a mouldy leathern hood. olivia walked by the young soldier's side with that air of hopeless indifference that had so grown upon her very lately. her eyelids drooped with a look of sullen disdain; but the grey eyes glanced furtively now and again at her companion's handsome face. he was very handsome. the glitter of reddish gold in his hair, and the light in his fearless blue eyes; the careless grace peculiar to the kind of man we call "a swell;" the gay _insouciance_ of an easy, candid, generous nature,--all combined to make edward arundel singularly attractive. these spoiled children of nature demand our admiration, in very spite of ourselves. these beautiful, useless creatures call upon us to rejoice in their valueless beauty, like the flaunting poppies in the cornfield, and the gaudy wild-flowers in the grass. the darkness of olivia's face deepened after each furtive glance she cast at her cousin. could it be that this girl, to whom nature had given strength but denied grace, envied the superficial attractions of the young man at her side? she did envy him; she envied him that sunny temperament which was so unlike her own; she envied him that wondrous power of taking life lightly. why should existence be so bright and careless to him; while to her it was a terrible fever-dream, a long sickness, a never-ceasing battle? "is my uncle in the house?" mr. arundel asked, as he strolled from the stable into the garden with his cousin by his side. "no; he has been out since dinner," olivia answered; "but i expect him back every minute. i came out into the garden,--the house seemed so hot and stifling to-night, and i have been sitting in close cottages all day." "sitting in close cottages!" repeated edward. "ah, to be sure; visiting your rheumatic old pensioners, i suppose. how good you are, olivia!" "good!" she echoed the word in the very bitterness of a scorn that could not be repressed. "yes; everybody says so. the millwards were at marchmont towers the other day, and they were talking of you, and praising your goodness, and speaking of your schools, and your blanket-associations, and your invalid-societies, and your mutual-help clubs, and all your plans for the parish. why, you must work as hard as a prime-minister, livy, by their account; you, who are only a few years older than i." only a few years! she started at the phrase, and bit her lip. "i was three-and-twenty last month," she said. "ah, yes; to be sure. and i'm one-and-twenty. then you're only two years older than i, livy. but, then, you see, you're so clever, that you seem much older than you are. you'd make a fellow feel rather afraid of you, you know. upon my word you do, livy." miss arundel did not reply to this speech of her cousin's. she was walking by his side up and down a narrow gravelled pathway, bordered by a hazel-hedge; she had gathered one of the slender twigs, and was idly stripping away the fluffy buds. "what do you think, livy?" cried edward suddenly, bursting out laughing at the end of the question. "what do you think? it's my belief you've made a conquest." "what do you mean?" "there you go; turning upon a fellow as if you could eat him. yes, livy; it's no use your looking savage. you've made a conquest; and of one of the best fellows in the world, too. john marchmont's in love with you." olivia arundel's face flushed a vivid crimson to the roots of her black hair. "how dare you come here to insult me, edward arundel?" she cried passionately. "insult you? now, livy dear, that's too bad, upon my word," remonstrated the young man. "i come and tell you that as good a man as ever breathed is over head and ears in love with you, and that you may be mistress of one of the finest estates in lincolnshire if you please, and you turn round upon me like no end of furies." "because i hate to hear you talk nonsense," answered olivia, her bosom still heaving with that first outburst of emotion, but her voice suppressed and cold. "am i so beautiful, or so admired or beloved, that a man who has not seen me half a dozen times should fall in love with me? do those who know me estimate me so much, or prize me so highly, that a stranger should think of me? you _do_ insult me, edward arundel, when you talk as you have talked to-night." she looked out towards the low yellow light in the sky with a black gloom upon her face, which no reflected glimmer of the sinking sun could illumine; a settled darkness, near akin to the utter blackness of despair. "but, good heavens, olivia, what do you mean?" cried the young man. "i tell you something that i think a good joke, and you go and make a tragedy out of it. if i'd told letitia that a rich widower had fallen in love with her, she'd think it the finest fun in the world." "i'm not your sister letitia." "no; but i wish you'd half as good a temper as she has, livy. however, never mind; i'll say no more. if poor old marchmont has fallen in love with you, that's his look-out. poor dear old boy, he's let out the secret of his weakness half a dozen ways within these last few days. it's miss arundel this, and miss arundel the other; so unselfish, so accomplished, so ladylike, so good! that's the way he goes on, poor simple old dear; without having the remotest notion that he's making a confounded fool of himself." olivia tossed the rumpled hair from her forehead with an impatient gesture of her hand. "why should this mr. marchmont think all this of me?" she said, "when--" she stopped abruptly. "when--what, livy?" "when other people don't think it." "how do you know what other people think? you haven't asked them, i suppose?" the young soldier treated his cousin in very much the same free-and-easy manner which he displayed towards his sister letitia. it would have been almost difficult for him to recognise any degree in his relationship to the two girls. he loved letitia better than olivia; but his affection for both was of exactly the same character. hubert arundel came into the garden, wearied out, like his daughter, while the two cousins were walking under the shadow of the neglected hazels. he declared his willingness to accept the invitation to marchmont towers, and promised to answer john's ceremonious note the next day. "cookson, from kemberling, will be there, i suppose," he said, alluding to a brother parson, "and the usual set? well, i'll come, ned, if you wish it. you'd like to go, olivia?" "if you like, papa." there was a duty to be performed now--the duty of placid obedience to her father; and miss arundel's manner changed from angry impatience to grave respect. she owed no special duty, be it remembered, to her cousin. she had no line or rule by which to measure her conduct to him. she stood at the gate nearly an hour later, and watched the young man ride away in the dim moonlight. if every separate tramp of his horse's hoofs had struck upon her heart, it could scarcely have given her more pain than she felt as the sound of those slow footfalls died away in the distance. "o my god," she cried, "is this madness to undo all that i have done? is this folly to be the climax of my dismal life? am i to die for the love of a frivolous, fair-haired boy, who laughs in my face when he tells me that his friend has pleased to 'take a fancy to me'?" she walked away towards the house; then stopping, with a sudden shiver, she turned, and went back to the hazel-alley she had paced with edward arundel. "oh, my narrow life!" she muttered between her set teeth; "my narrow life! it is that which has made me the slave of this madness. i love him because he is the brightest and fairest thing i have ever seen. i love him because he brings me all i have ever known of a more beautiful world than that i live in. bah! why do i reason with myself?" she cried, with a sudden change of manner. "i love him because i am mad." she paced up and down the hazel-shaded pathway till the moonlight grew broad and full, and every ivy-grown gable of the rectory stood sharply out against the vivid purple of the sky. she paced up and down, trying to trample the folly within her under her feet as she went; a fierce, passionate, impulsive woman, fighting against her mad love for a bright-faced boy. "two years older--only two years!" she said; "but he spoke of the difference between us as if it had been half a century. and then i am so clever, that i seem older than i am; and he is afraid of me! is it for this that i have sat night after night in my father's study, poring over the books that were too difficult for him? what have i made of myself in my pride of intellect? what reward have i won for my patience?" olivia arundel looked back at her long life of duty--a dull, dead level, unbroken by one of those monuments which mark the desert of the past; a desolate flat, unlovely as the marshes between the low rectory wall and the shimmering grey sea. chapter viii. "my life is cold, and dark, and dreary." mr. richard paulette, of that eminent legal firm, paulette, paulette, and mathewson, coming to marchmont towers on business, was surprised to behold the quiet ease with which the sometime copying-clerk received the punctilious country gentry who came to sit at his board and do him honour. of all the legal fairy-tales, of all the parchment-recorded romances, of all the poetry run into affidavits, in which the solicitor had ever been concerned, this story seemed the strangest. not so very strange in itself, for such romances are not uncommon in the history of a lawyer's experience; but strange by reason of the tranquil manner in which john marchmont accepted his new position, and did the honours of his house to his late employer. "ah, paulette," edward arundel said, clapping the solicitor on the back, "i don't suppose you believed me when i told you that my friend here was heir-presumptive to a handsome fortune." the dinner-party at the towers was conducted with that stately grandeur peculiar to such solemnities. there was the usual round of country-talk and parish-talk; the hunting squires leading the former section of the discourse, the rectors and rectors' wives supporting the latter part of the conversation. you heard on one side that martha harris' husband had left off drinking, and attended church morning and evening; and on the other that the old grey fox that had been hunted nine seasons between crackbin bottom and hollowcraft gorse had perished ignobly in the poultry-yard of a recusant farmer. while your left ear became conscious of the fact that little billy smithers had fallen into a copper of scalding water, your right received the dismal tidings that all the young partridges had been drowned by the rains after st. swithin, and that there were hardly any of this year's birds, sir, and it would be a very blue look-out for next season. mary marchmont had listened to gayer talk in oakley street than any that was to be heard that night in her father's drawing-rooms, except indeed when edward arundel left off flirting with some pretty girls in blue, and hovered near her side for a little while, quizzing the company. heaven knows the young soldier's jokes were commonplace enough; but mary admired him as the most brilliant and accomplished of wits. "how do you like my cousin, polly?" he asked at last. "your cousin, miss arundel?" "yes." "she is very handsome." "yes, i suppose so," the young man answered carelessly. "everybody says that livy's handsome; but it's rather a cold style of beauty, isn't it? a little too much of the pallas athenë about it for my taste. i like those girls in blue, with the crinkly auburn hair,--there's a touch of red in it in the light,--and the dimples. you've a dimple, polly, when you smile." miss marchmont blushed as she received this information, and her brown eyes wandered away, looking very earnestly at the pretty girls in blue. she looked at them with a strange interest, eager to discover what it was that edward admired. "but you haven't answered my question, polly," said mr. arundel. "i am afraid you have been drinking too much wine, miss marchmont, and muddling that sober little head of yours with the fumes of your papa's tawny port. i asked you how you liked olivia." mary blushed again. "i don't know miss arundel well enough to like her--yet," she answered timidly. "but shall you like her when you've known her longer? don't be jesuitical, polly. likings and dislikings are instantaneous and instinctive. i liked you before i'd eaten half a dozen mouthfuls of the roll you buttered for me at that breakfast in oakley street, polly. you don't like my cousin olivia, miss; i can see that very plainly. you're jealous of her." "jealous of her!" the bright colour faded out of mary marchmont's face, and left her ashy pale. "do _you_ like her, then?" she asked. but mr. arundel was not such a coxcomb as to catch at the secret so naïvely betrayed in that breathless question. "no, polly," he said, laughing; "she's my cousin, you know, and i've known her all my life; and cousins are like sisters. one likes to tease and aggravate them, and all that; but one doesn't fall in love with them. but i think i could mention somebody who thinks a great deal of olivia." "who?" "your papa." mary looked at the young soldier in utter bewilderment. "papa!" she echoed. "yes, polly. how would you like a stepmamma? how would you like your papa to marry again?" mary marchmont started to her feet, as if she would have gone to her father in the midst of all those spectators. john was standing near olivia and her father, talking to them, and playing nervously with his slender watch-chain when he addressed the young lady. "my papa--marry again!" gasped mary. "how dare you say such a thing, mr. arundel?" her childish devotion to her father arose in all its force; a flood of passionate emotion that overwhelmed her sensitive nature. marry again! marry a woman who would separate him from his only child! could he ever dream for one brief moment of such a horrible cruelty? she looked at olivia's sternly handsome face, and trembled. she could almost picture that very woman standing between her and her father, and putting her away from him. her indignation quickly melted into grief. indignation, however intense, was always short-lived in that gentle nature. "oh, mr arundel!" she said, piteously appealing to the young man, "papa would never, never, never marry again,--would he?" "not if it was to grieve you, polly, i dare say," edward answered soothingly. he had been dumbfounded by mary's passionate sorrow. he had expected that she would have been rather pleased, than otherwise, at the idea of a young stepmother,--a companion in those vast lonely rooms, an instructress and a friend as she grew to womanhood. "i was only talking nonsense, polly darling," he said. "you mustn't make yourself unhappy about any absurd fancies of mine. i think your papa admires my cousin olivia: and i thought, perhaps, you'd be glad to have a stepmother." "glad to have any one who'd take papa's love away from me?" mary said plaintively. "oh, mr. arundel, how could you think so?" in all their familiarity the little girl had never learned to call her father's friend by his christian name, though he had often told her to do so. she trembled to pronounce that simple saxon name, which was so beautiful and wonderful because it was his: but when she read a very stupid novel, in which the hero was a namesake of mr. arundel's, the vapid pages seemed to be phosphorescent with light wherever the name appeared upon them. i scarcely know why john marchmont lingered by miss arundel's chair. he had heard her praises from every one. she was a paragon of goodness, an uncanonised saint, for ever sacrificing herself for the benefit of others. perhaps he was thinking that such a woman as this would be the best friend he could win for his little girl. he turned from the county matrons, the tender, kindly, motherly creatures, who would have been ready to take little mary to the loving shelter of their arms, and looked to olivia arundel--this cold, perfect benefactress of the poor--for help in his difficulty. "she, who is so good to all her father's parishioners, could not refuse to be kind to my poor mary?" he thought. but how was he to win this woman's friendship for his darling? he asked himself this question even in the midst of the frivolous people about him, and with the buzz of their conversation in his ears. he was perpetually tormenting himself about his little girl's future, which seemed more dimly perplexing now than it had ever appeared in oakley street, when the lincolnshire property was a far-away dream, perhaps never to be realised. he felt that his brief lease of life was running out; he felt as if he and mary had been standing upon a narrow tract of yellow sand; very bright, very pleasant under the sunshine; but with the slow-coming tide rising like a wall about them, and creeping stealthily onward to overwhelm them. mary might gather bright-coloured shells and wet seaweed in her childish ignorance; but he, who knew that the flood was coming, could but grow sick at heart with the dull horror of that hastening doom. if the black waters had been doomed to close over them both, the father might have been content to go down under the sullen waves, with his daughter clasped to his breast. but it was not to be so. he was to sink in that unknown stream while she was left upon the tempest-tossed surface, to be beaten hither and thither, feebly battling with the stormy billows. could john marchmont be a christian, and yet feel this horrible dread of the death which must separate him from his daughter? i fear this frail, consumptive widower loved his child with an intensity of affection that is scarcely reconcilable with christianity. such great passions as these must be put away before the cross can be taken up, and the troublesome path followed. in all love and kindness towards his fellow-creatures, in all patient endurance of the pains and troubles that befel himself, it would have been difficult to find a more single-hearted follower of gospel-teaching than john marchmont; but in this affection for his motherless child he was a very pagan. he set up an idol for himself, and bowed down before it. doubtful and fearful of the future, he looked hopelessly forward. he _could_ not trust his orphan child into the hands of god; and drop away himself into the fathomless darkness, serene in the belief that she would be cared for and protected. no; he could not trust. he could be faithful for himself; simple and confiding as a child; but not for her. he saw the gloomy rocks louring black in the distance; the pitiless waves beating far away yonder, impatient to devour the frail boat that was so soon to be left alone upon the waters. in the thick darkness of the future he could see no ray of light, except one,--a new hope that had lately risen in his mind; the hope of winning some noble and perfect woman to be the future friend of his daughter. the days were past in which, in his simplicity, he had looked to edward arundel as the future shelter of his child. the generous boy had grown into a stylish young man, a soldier, whose duty lay far away from marchmont towers. no; it was to a good woman's guardianship the father must leave his child. thus the very intensity of his love was the one motive which led john marchmont to contemplate the step that mary thought such a cruel and bitter wrong to her. * * * * * it was not till long after the dinner-party at marchmont towers that these ideas resolved themselves into any positive form, and that john began to think that for his daughter's sake he might be led to contemplate a second marriage. edward arundel had spoken the truth when he told his cousin that john marchmont had repeatedly mentioned her name; but the careless and impulsive young man had been utterly unable to fathom the feeling lurking in his friend's mind. it was not olivia arundel's handsome face which had won john's admiration; it was the constant reiteration of her praises upon every side which had led him to believe that this woman, of all others, was the one whom he would do well to win for his child's friend and guardian in the dark days that were to come. the knowledge that olivia's intellect was of no common order, together with the somewhat imperious dignity of her manner, strengthened this belief in john marchmont's mind. it was not a good woman only whom he must seek in the friend he needed for his child; it was a woman powerful enough to shield her in the lonely path she would have to tread; a woman strong enough to help her, perhaps, by-and-by to do battle with paul marchmont. so, in the blind paganism of his love, john refused to trust his child into the hands of providence, and chose for himself a friend and guardian who should shelter his darling. he made his choice with so much deliberation, and after such long nights and days of earnest thought, that he may be forgiven if he believed he had chosen wisely. thus it was that in the dark november days, while edward and mary played chess by the wide fireplace in the western drawing-room, or ball in the newly-erected tennis-court, john marchmont sat in his study examining his papers, and calculating the amount of money at his own disposal, in serious contemplation of a second marriage. did he love olivia arundel? no. he admired her and respected her, and he firmly believed her to be the most perfect of women. no impulse of affection had prompted the step he contemplated taking. he had loved his first wife truly and tenderly; but he had never suffered very acutely from any of those torturing emotions which form the several stages of the great tragedy called love. but had he ever thought of the likelihood of his deliberate offer being rejected by the young lady who had been the object of such careful consideration? yes; he had thought of this, and was prepared to abide the issue. he should, at least, have tried his uttermost to secure a friend for his darling. with such unloverlike feelings as these the owner of marchmont towers drove into swampington one morning, deliberately bent upon offering olivia arundel his hand. he had consulted with his land-steward, and with messrs. paulette, and had ascertained how far he could endow his bride with the goods of this world. it was not much that he could give her, for the estate was strictly entailed; but there would be his own savings for the brief term of his life, and if he lived only a few years these savings might accumulate to a considerable amount, so limited were the expenses of the quiet lincolnshire household; and there was a sum of money, something over nine thousand pounds, left him by philip marchmont, senior. he had something, then, to offer to the woman he sought to make his wife; and, above all, he had a supreme belief in olivia arundel's utter disinterestedness. he had seen her frequently since the dinner-party, and had always seen her the same,--grave, reserved, dignified; patiently employed in the strict performance of her duty. he found miss arundel sitting in her father's study, busily cutting out coarse garments for her poor. a newly-written sermon lay open on the table. had mr. marchmont looked closely at the manuscript, he would have seen that the ink was wet, and that the writing was olivia's. it was a relief to this strange woman to write sermons sometimes--fierce denunciatory protests against the inherent wickedness of the human heart. can you imagine a woman with a wicked heart steadfastly trying to do good, and to be good? it is a dark and horrible picture; but it is the only true picture of the woman whom john marchmont sought to win for his wife. the interview between mary's father and olivia arundel was not a very sentimental one; but it was certainly the very reverse of commonplace. john was too simple-hearted to disguise the purpose of his wooing. he pleaded, not for a wife for himself, but a mother for his orphan child. he talked of mary's helplessness in the future, not of his own love in the present. carried away by the egotism of his one affection, he let his motives appear in all their nakedness. he spoke long and earnestly; he spoke until the blinding tears in his eyes made the face of her he looked at seem blotted and dim. miss arundel watched him as he pleaded; sternly, unflinchingly. but she uttered no word until he had finished; and then, rising suddenly, with a dusky flush upon her face, she began to pace up and down the narrow room. she had forgotten john marchmont. in the strength and vigour of her intellect, this weak-minded widower, whose one passion was a pitiful love for his child, appeared to her so utterly insignificant, that for a few moments she had forgotten his presence in that room--his very existence, perhaps. she turned to him presently, and looked him full in the face. "you do not love me, mr. marchmont?" she said. "pardon me," john stammered; "believe me, miss arundel, i respect, i esteem you so much, that--" "that you choose me as a fitting friend for your child. i understand. i am not the sort of woman to be loved. i have long comprehended that. my cousin edward arundel has often taken the trouble to tell me as much. and you wish me to be your wife in order that you may have a guardian for your child? it is very much the same thing as engaging a governess; only the engagement is to be more binding." "miss arundel," exclaimed john marchmont, "forgive me! you misunderstand me; indeed you do. had i thought that i could have offended you--" "i am not offended. you have spoken the truth where another man would have told a lie. i ought to be flattered by your confidence in me. it pleases me that people should think me good, and worthy of their trust." she broke into a sigh as she finished speaking. "and you will not reject my appeal?" "i scarcely know what to do," answered olivia, pressing her hand to her forehead. she leaned against the angle of the deep casement window, looking out at the garden, desolate and neglected in the bleak winter weather. she was silent for some minutes. john marchmont did not interrupt her; he was content to wait patiently until she should choose to speak. "mr. marchmont," she said at last, turning upon poor john with an abrupt vehemence that almost startled him, "i am three-and-twenty; and in the long, dull memory of the three-and-twenty years that have made my life, i cannot look back upon one joy--no, so help me heaven, not one!" she cried passionately. "no prisoner in the bastille, shut in a cell below the level of the seine, and making companions of rats and spiders in his misery, ever led a life more hopelessly narrow, more pitifully circumscribed, than mine has been. these grass-grown streets have made the boundary of my existence. the flat fenny country round me is not flatter or more dismal than my life. you will say that i should take an interest in the duties which i do; and that they should be enough for me. heaven knows i have tried to do so; but my life is hard. do you think there has been nothing in all this to warp my nature? do you think after hearing this, that i am the woman to be a second mother to your child?" she sat down as she finished speaking, and her hands dropped listlessly in her lap. the unquiet spirit raging in her breast had been stronger than herself, and had spoken. she had lifted the dull veil through which the outer world beheld her, and had showed john marchmont her natural face. "i think you are a good woman, miss arundel," he said earnestly. "if i had thought otherwise, i should not have come here to-day. i want a good woman to be kind to my child; kind to her when i am dead and gone," he added, in a lower voice. olivia arundel sat silent and motionless, looking straight before her out into the black dulness of the garden. she was trying to think out the dark problem of her life. strange as it may seem, there was a certain fascination for her in john marchmont's offer. he offered her something, no matter what; it would be a change. she had compared herself to a prisoner in the bastille; and i think she felt very much as such a prisoner might have felt upon his gaoler's offering to remove him to vincennes. the new prison might be worse than the old one, perhaps; but it would be different. life at marchmont towers might be more monotonous, more desolate, than at swampington; but it would be a new monotony, another desolation. have you never felt, when suffering the hideous throes of toothache, that it would be a relief to have the earache or the rheumatism; that variety even in torture would be agreeable? then, again, olivia arundel, though unblest with many of the charms of womanhood, was not entirely without its weaknesses. to marry john marchmont would be to avenge herself upon edward arundel. alas! she forgot how impossible it is to inflict a dagger-thrust upon him who is guarded by the impenetrable armour of indifference. she saw herself the mistress of marchmont towers, waited upon by liveried servants, courted, not patronised by the country gentry; avenged upon the mercenary aunt who had slighted her, who had bade her go out and get her living as a nursery governess. she saw this; and all that was ignoble in her nature arose, and urged her to snatch the chance offered her--the one chance of lifting herself out of the horrible obscurity of her life. the ambition which might have made her an empress lowered its crest, and cried, "take this; at least it is something." but, through all, the better voices which she had enlisted to do battle with the natural voice of her soul cried, "this is a temptation of the devil; put it away from thee." but this temptation came to her at the very moment when her life had become most intolerable; too intolerable to be borne, she thought. she knew now, fatally, certainly, that edward arundel did not love her; that the one only day-dream she had ever made for herself had been a snare and a delusion. the radiance of that foolish dream had been the single light of her life. that taken away from her, the darkness was blacker than the blackness of death; more horrible than the obscurity of the grave. in all the future she had not one hope: no, not one. she had loved edward arundel with all the strength of her soul; she had wasted a world of intellect and passion upon this bright-haired boy. this foolish, grovelling madness had been the blight of her life. but for this, she might have grown out of her natural self by force of her conscientious desire to do right; and might have become, indeed, a good and perfect woman. if her life had been a wider one, this wasted love would, perhaps, have shrunk into its proper insignificance; she would have loved, and suffered, and recovered; as so many of us recover from this common epidemic. but all the volcanic forces of an impetuous nature, concentrated into one narrow focus, wasted themselves upon this one feeling, until that which should have been a sentiment became a madness. to think that in some far-away future time she might cease to love edward arundel, and learn to love somebody else, would have seemed about as reasonable to olivia as to hope that she could have new legs and arms in that distant period. she could cut away this fatal passion with a desperate stroke, it may be, just as she could cut off her arm; but to believe that a new love would grow in its place was quite as absurd as to believe in the growing of a new arm. some cork monstrosity might replace the amputated limb; some sham and simulated affection might succeed the old love. olivia arundel thought of all these things, in about ten minutes by the little skeleton clock upon the mantel-piece, and while john marchmont fidgeted rather nervously, with a pair of gloves in the crown of his hat, and waited for some definite answer to his appeal. her mind came back at last, after all its passionate wanderings, to the rigid channel she had so laboriously worn for it,--the narrow groove of duty. her first words testified this. "if i accept this responsibility, i will perform it faithfully," she said, rather to herself than to mr. marchmont. "i am sure you will, miss arundel," john answered eagerly; "i am sure you will. you mean to undertake it, then? you mean to consider my offer? may i speak to your father? may i tell him that i have spoken to you? may i say that you have given me a hope of your ultimate consent?" "yes, yes," olivia said, rather impatiently; "speak to my father; tell him anything you please. let him decide for me; it is my duty to obey him." there was a terrible cowardice in this. olivia arundel shrank from marrying a man she did not love, prompted by no better desire than the mad wish to wrench herself away from her hated life. she wanted to fling the burden of responsibility in this matter away from her. let another decide, let another urge her to do this wrong; and let the wrong be called a sacrifice. so for the first time she set to work deliberately to cheat her own conscience. for the first time she put a false mark upon the standard she had made for the measurement of her moral progress. she sank into a crouching attitude on a low stool by the fire-place, in utter prostration of body and mind, when john marchmont had left her. she let her weary head fall heavily against the carved oaken shaft that supported the old-fashioned mantel-piece, heedless that her brow struck sharply against the corner of the wood-work. if she could have died then, with no more sinful secret than a woman's natural weakness hidden in her breast; if she could have died then, while yet the first step upon the dark pathway of her life was untrodden,--how happy for herself, how happy for others! how miserable a record of sin and suffering might have remained unwritten in the history of woman's life! * * * * * she sat long in the same attitude. once, and once only, two solitary tears gathered in her eyes, and rolled slowly down her pale cheeks. "will you be sorry when i am married, edward arundel?" she murmured; "will you be sorry?" chapter ix. "when shall i cease to be all alone?" hubert arundel was not so much surprised as might have been anticipated at the proposal made him by his wealthy neighbour. edward had prepared his uncle for the possibility of such a proposal by sundry jocose allusions and arch hints upon the subject of john marchmont's admiration for olivia. the frank and rather frivolous young man thought it was his cousin's handsome face that had captivated the master of marchmont towers, and was quite unable to fathom the hidden motive underlying all john's talk about miss arundel. the rector of swampington, being a simple-hearted and not very far-seeing man, thanked god heartily for the chance that had befallen his daughter. she would be well off and well cared for, then, by the mercy of providence, in spite of his own shortcomings, which had left her with no better provision for the future than a pitiful policy of assurance upon her father's life. she would be well provided for henceforward, and would live in a handsome house; and all those noble qualities which had been dwarfed and crippled in a narrow sphere would now expand, and display themselves in unlooked-for grandeur. "people have called her a good girl," he thought; "but how could they ever know her goodness, unless they had seen, as i have, the deprivations she has borne so uncomplainingly?" john marchmont, being newly instructed by his lawyer, was able to give mr. arundel a very clear statement of the provision he could make for his wife's future. he could settle upon her the nine thousand pounds left him by philip marchmont. he would allow her five hundred a year pin-money during his lifetime; he would leave her his savings at his death; and he would effect an insurance upon his life for her benefit. the amount of these savings would, of course, depend upon the length of john's life; but the money would accumulate very quickly, as his income was eleven thousand a year, and his expenditure was not likely to exceed three. the swampington living was worth little more than three hundred and fifty pounds a year; and out of that sum hubert arundel and his daughter had done treble as much good for the numerous poor of the parish as ever had been achieved by any previous rector or his family. hubert and his daughter had patiently endured the most grinding poverty, the burden ever falling heavier on olivia, who had the heroic faculty of endurance as regards all physical discomfort. can it be wondered, then, that the rector of swampington thought the prospect offered to his child a very brilliant one? can it be wondered that he urged his daughter to accept this altered lot? he did urge her, pleading john marchmont's cause a great deal more warmly than the widower had himself pleaded. "my darling," he said, "my darling girl! if i can live to see you mistress of marchmont towers, i shall go to my grave contented and happy. think, my dear, of the misery from which this marriage will save you. oh, my dear girl, i can tell you now what i never dared tell you before; i can tell you of the long, sleepless nights i have passed thinking of you, and of the wicked wrongs i have done you. not wilful wrongs, my love," the rector added, with the tears gathering in his eyes; "for you know how dearly i have always loved you. but a father's responsibility towards his children is a very heavy burden. i have only looked at it in this light lately, my dear,--now that i've let the time slip by, and it is too late to redeem the past. i've suffered very much, olivia; and all this has seemed to separate us, somehow. but that's past now, isn't it, my dear? and you'll marry this mr. marchmont. he appears to be a very good, conscientious man, and i think he'll make you happy." the father and daughter were sitting together after dinner in the dusky november twilight, the room only lighted by the fire, which was low and dim. hubert arundel could not see his daughter's face as he talked to her; he could only see the black outline of her figure sharply defined against the grey window behind her, as she sat opposite to him. he could see by her attitude that she was listening to him, with her head drooping and her hands lying idle in her lap. she was silent for some little time after he had finished speaking; so silent that he feared his words might have touched her too painfully, and that she was crying. heaven help this simple-hearted father! she had scarcely heard three consecutive words that he had spoken, but had only gathered dimly from his speech that he wanted her to accept john marchmont's offer. every great passion is a supreme egotism. it is not the object which we hug so determinedly; it is not the object which coils itself about our weak hearts: it is our own madness we worship and cleave to, our own pitiable folly which we refuse to put away from us. what is bill sykes' broken nose or bull-dog visage to nancy? the creature she loves and will not part from is not bill, but her own love for bill,--the one delusion of a barren life; the one grand selfishness of a feeble nature. olivia arundel's thoughts had wandered far away while her father had spoken so piteously to her. she had been thinking of her cousin edward, and had been asking herself the same question over and over again. would he be sorry? would he be sorry if she married john marchmont? but she understood presently that her father was waiting for her to speak; and, rising from her chair, she went towards him, and laid her hand upon his shoulder. "i am afraid i have not done my duty to you, papa," she said. latterly she had been for ever harping upon this one theme,--her duty! that word was the keynote of her life; and her existence had latterly seemed to her so inharmonious, that it was scarcely strange she should repeatedly strike that leading note in the scale. "my darling," cried mr. arundel, "you have been all that is good!" "no, no, papa; i have been cold, reserved, silent." "a little silent, my dear," the rector answered meekly; "but you have not been happy. i have watched you, my love, and i know you have not been happy. but that is not strange. this place is so dull, and your life has been so fatiguing. how different that would all be at marchmont towers!" "you wish me to many mr. marchmont, then, papa?" "i do, indeed, my love. for your own sake, of course," the rector added deprecatingly. "you really wish it?" "very, very much, my dear." "then i will marry him, papa." she took her hand from the rector's shoulder, and walked away from him to the uncurtained window, against which she stood with her back to her father, looking out into the grey obscurity. i have said that hubert arundel was not a very clever or far-seeing person; but he vaguely felt that this was not exactly the way in which a brilliant offer of marriage should be accepted by a young lady who was entirely fancy-free, and he had an uncomfortable apprehension that there was something hidden under his daughter's quiet manner. "but, my dear olivia," he said nervously, "you must not for a moment suppose that i would force you into this marriage, if it is in any way repugnant to yourself. you--you may have formed some prior attachment--or, there may be somebody who loves you, and has loved you longer than mr. marchmont, who--" his daughter turned upon him sharply as he rambled on. "somebody who loves me!" she echoed. "what have you ever seen that should make you think any one loved me?" the harshness of her tone jarred upon mr. arundel, and made him still more nervous. "my love, i beg your pardon, i have seen nothing. i--" "nobody loves me, or has ever loved me,--but you," resumed olivia, taking no heed of her father's feeble interruption. "i am not the sort of woman to be loved; i feel and know that. i have an aquiline nose, and a clear skin, and dark eyes, and people call me handsome; but nobody loves me, or ever will, so long as i live." "but mr. marchmont, my dear,--surely he loves and admires you?" remonstrated the rector. "mr. marchmont wants a governess and _chaperone_ for his daughter, and thinks me a suitable person to fill such a post; that is all the _love_ mr. marchmont has for me. no, papa; there is no reason i should shrink from this marriage. there is no one who will be sorry for it; no one! i am asked to perform a duty towards this little girl, and i am prepared to perform it faithfully. that is my part of the bargain. do i commit a sin in marrying john marchmont in this spirit, papa?" she asked the question eagerly, almost breathlessly; as if her decision depended upon her father's answer. "a sin, my dear! how can you ask such a question?" "very well, then; if i commit no sin in accepting this offer, i will accept it." it was thus olivia paltered with her conscience, holding back half the truth. the question she should have asked was this, "do i commit a sin in marrying one man, while my heart is racked by a mad passion for another?" miss arundel could not visit her poor upon the day after this interview with her father. her monotonous round of duty seemed more than ever abhorrent to her. she wandered across the dreary marshes, down by the lonely seashore, in the grey november fog. she stood for a long time, shivering with the cold dampness of the atmosphere, but not even conscious that she was cold, looking at a dilapidated boat that lay upon the rugged beach. the waters before her and the land behind her were hidden by a dense veil of mist. it seemed as if she stood alone in the world,--utterly isolated, utterly forgotten. "o my god!" she murmured, "if this boat at my feet could drift me away to some desert island, i could never be more desolate than i am, amongst the people who do not love me." dim lights in distant windows were gleaming across the flats when she returned to swampington, to find her father sitting alone and dispirited at his frugal dinner. miss arundel took her place quietly at the bottom of the table, no trace of emotion upon her face. "i am sorry i stayed out so long, papa" she said; "i had no idea it was so late." "never mind, my dear, i know you have always enough to occupy you. mr. marchmont called while you were out. he seemed very anxious to hear your decision, and was delighted when he found that it was favourable to himself." olivia dropped her knife and fork, and rose from her chair suddenly, with a strange look, which was almost terror, in her face. "it is quite decided, then?" she said. "yes, my love. but you are not sorry, are you?" "sorry! no; i am glad." she sank back into her chair with a sigh of relief. she _was_ glad. the prospect of this strange marriage offered a relief from the horrible oppression of her life. "henceforward to think of edward arundel will be a sin," she thought. "i have not won another man's love; but i shall be another man's wife." chapter x. mary's stepmother. perhaps there was never a quieter courtship than that which followed olivia's acceptance of john marchmont's offer. there had been no pretence of sentiment on either side; yet i doubt if john had been much more sentimental during his early love-making days, though he had very tenderly and truly loved his first wife. there were few sparks of the romantic or emotional fire in his placid nature. his love for his daughter, though it absorbed his whole being, was a silent and undemonstrative affection; a thoughtful and almost fearful devotion, which took the form of intense but hidden anxiety for his child's future, rather than any outward show of tenderness. had his love been of a more impulsive and demonstrative character, he would scarcely have thought of taking such a step as that he now contemplated, without first ascertaining whether it would be agreeable to his daughter. but he never for a moment dreamt of consulting mary's will upon this important matter. he looked with fearful glances towards the dim future, and saw his darling, a lonely figure upon a barren landscape, beset by enemies eager to devour her; and he snatched at this one chance of securing her a protectress, who would be bound to her by a legal as well as a moral tie; for john marchmont meant to appoint his second wife the guardian of his child. he thought only of this; and he hurried on his suit at the rectory, fearful lest death should come between him and his loveless bride, and thus deprive his darling of a second mother. this was the history of john marchmont's marriage. it was not till a week before the day appointed for the wedding that he told his daughter what he was about to do. edward arundel knew the secret, but he had been warned not to reveal it to mary. the father and daughter sat together late one evening in the first week of december, in the great western drawing-room. edward had gone to a party at swampington, and was to sleep at the rectory; so mary and her father were alone. it was nearly eleven o'clock; but miss marchmont had insisted upon sitting up until her father should retire to rest. she had always sat up in oakley street, she had remonstrated, though she was much younger then. she sat on a velvet-covered hassock at her father's feet, with her loose hair falling over his knee, as her head lay there in loving abandonment. she was not talking to him; for neither john nor mary were great talkers; but she was with him--that was quite enough. mr. marchmont's thin fingers twined themselves listlessly in and out of the fair curls upon his knee. mary was thinking of edward and the party at swampington. would he enjoy himself very, very much? would he be sorry that she was not there? it was a grown-up party, and she wasn't old enough for grown-up parties yet. would the pretty girls in blue be there? and would he dance with them? her father's face was clouded by a troubled expression, as he looked absently at the red embers in the low fireplace. he spoke presently, but his observation was a very commonplace one. the opening speeches of a tragedy are seldom remarkable for any ominous or solemn meaning. two gentlemen meet each other in a street very near the footlights, and converse rather flippantly about the aspect of affairs in general; there is no hint of bloodshed and agony till we get deeper into the play. so mr. marchmont, bent upon making rather an important communication to his daughter, and for the first time feeling very fearful as to how she would take it, began thus: "you really ought to go to bed earlier, polly dear; you've been looking very pale lately, and i know such hours as these must be bad for you." "oh, no, papa dear," cried the young lady; "i'm always pale; that's natural to me. sitting up late doesn't hurt me, papa. it never did in oakley street, you know." john marchmont shook his head sadly. "i don't know that," he said. "my darling had to suffer many evils through her father's poverty. if you had some one who loved you, dear, a lady, you know,--for a man does not understand these sort of things,--your health would be looked after more carefully, and--and--your education--and--in short, you would be altogether happier; wouldn't you, polly darling?" he asked the question in an almost piteously appealing tone. a terrible fear was beginning to take possession of him. his daughter might be grieved at this second marriage. the very step which he had taken for her happiness might cause her loving nature pain and sorrow. in the utter cowardice of his affection he trembled at the thought of causing his darling any distress in the present, even for her own welfare,--even for her future good; and he _knew_ that the step he was about to take would secure that. mary started from her reclining position, and looked up into her father's face. "you're not going to engage a governess for me, papa?" she cried eagerly. "oh, please don't. we are so much better as it is. a governess would keep me away from you, papa; i know she would. the miss llandels, at impley grange, have a governess; and they only come down to dessert for half an hour, or go out for a drive sometimes, so that they very seldom see their papa. lucy told me so; and they said they'd give the world to be always with their papa, as i am with you. oh, pray, pray, papa darling, don't let me have a governess." the tears were in her eyes as she pleaded to him. the sight of those tears made him terribly nervous. "my own dear polly," he said, "i'm not going to engage a governess. i--; polly, polly dear, you must be reasonable. you mustn't grieve your poor father. you are old enough to understand these things now, dear. you know what the doctors have said. i may die, polly, and leave you alone in the world." she clung closely to her father, and looked up, pale and trembling, as she answered him. "when you die, papa, i shall die too. i could never, never live without you." "yes, yes, my darling, you would. you will live to lead a happy life, please god, and a safe one; but if i die, and leave you very young, very inexperienced, and innocent, as i may do, my dear, you must not be without a friend to watch over you, to advise, to protect you. i have thought of this long and earnestly, polly; and i believe that what i am going to do is right." "what you are going to do!" mary cried, repeating her father's words, and looking at him in sudden terror. "what do you mean, papa? what are you going to do? nothing that will part us! o papa, papa, you will never do anything to part us!" "no, polly darling," answered mr. marchmont. "whatever i do, i do for your sake, and for that alone. i'm going to be married, my dear." mary burst into a low wail, more pitiful than any ordinary weeping. "o papa, papa," she cried, "you never will, you never will!" the sound of that piteous voice for a few moments quite unmanned john marchmont; but he armed himself with a desperate courage. he determined not to be influenced by this child to relinquish the purpose which he believed was to achieve her future welfare. "mary, mary dear," he said reproachfully, "this is very cruel of you. do you think i haven't consulted your happiness before my own? do you think i shall love you less because i take this step for your sake? you are very cruel to me, mary." the little girl rose from her kneeling attitude, and stood before her father, with the tears streaming down her white cheeks, but with a certain air of resolution about her. she had been a child for a few moments; a child, with no power to look beyond the sudden pang of that new sorrow which had come to her. she was a woman now, able to rise superior to her sorrow in the strength of her womanhood. "i won't be cruel, papa," she said; "i was selfish and wicked to talk like that. if it will make you happy to have another wife, papa, i'll not be sorry. no, i won't be sorry, even if your new wife separates us--a little." "but, my darling," john remonstrated, "i don't mean that she should separate us at all. i wish you to have a second friend, polly; some one who can understand you better than i do, who may love you perhaps almost as well." mary marchmont shook her head; she could not realise this possibility. "do you understand me, my dear?" her father continued earnestly. "i want you to have some one who will be a mother to you; and i hope--i am sure that olivia--" mary interrupted him by a sudden exclamation, that was almost like a cry of pain. "not miss arundel!" she said. "o papa, it is not miss arundel you're going to marry!" her father bent his head in assent. "what is the matter with you, mary?" he said, almost fretfully, as he saw the look of mingled grief and terror in his daughter's face. "you are really quite unreasonable to-night. if i am to marry at all, who should i choose for a wife? who could be better than olivia arundel? everybody knows how good she is. everybody talks of her goodness." in these two sentences mr. marchmont made confession of a fact he had never himself considered. it was not his own impulse, it was no instinctive belief in her goodness, that had led him to choose olivia arundel for his wife. he had been influenced solely by the reiterated opinions of other people. "i know she is very good, papa," mary cried; "but, oh, why, why do you marry her? do you love her so very, very much?" "love her!" exclaimed mr. marchmont naïvely; "no, polly dear; you know i never loved any one but you." "why do you marry her then?" "for your sake, polly; for your sake." "but don't then, papa; oh, pray, pray don't. i don't want her. i don't like her. i could never be happy with her." "mary! mary!" "yes, i know it's very wicked to say so, but it's true, papa; i never, never, never could be happy with her. i know she is good, but i don't like her. if i did anything wrong, i should never expect her to forgive me for it; i should never expect her to have mercy upon me. don't marry her, papa; pray, pray don't marry her." "mary," said mr. marchmont resolutely, "this is very wrong of you. i have given my word, my dear, and i cannot recall it. i believe that i am acting for the best. you must not be childish now, mary. you have been my comfort ever since you were a baby; you mustn't make me unhappy now." her father's appeal went straight to her heart. yes, she had been his help and comfort since her earliest infancy, and she was not unused to self-sacrifice: why should she fail him now? she had read of martyrs, patient and holy creatures, to whom suffering was glory; she would be a martyr, if need were, for his sake. she would stand steadfast amid the blazing fagots, or walk unflinchingly across the white-hot ploughshare, for his sake, for his sake. "papa, papa," she cried, flinging herself upon her father's neck, "i will not make you sorry. i will be good and obedient to miss arundel, if you wish it." mr. marchmont carried his little girl up to her comfortable bedchamber, close at hand to his own. she was very calm when she bade him good night, and she kissed him with a smile upon her face; but all through the long hours before the late winter morning mary marchmont lay awake, weeping silently and incessantly in her new sorrow; and all through the same weary hours the master of that noble lincolnshire mansion slept a fitful and troubled slumber, rendered hideous by confused and horrible dreams, in which the black shadow that came between him and his child, and the cruel hand that thrust him for ever from his darling, were olivia arundel's. but the morning light brought relief to john marchmont and his child. mary arose with the determination to submit patiently to her father's choice, and to conceal from him all traces of her foolish and unreasoning sorrow. john awoke from troubled dreams to believe in the wisdom of the step he had taken, and to take comfort from the thought that in the far-away future his daughter would have reason to thank and bless him for the choice he had made. so the few days before the marriage passed away--miserably short days, that flitted by with terrible speed; and the last day of all was made still more dismal by the departure of edward arundel, who left marchmont towers to go to dangerfield park, whence he was most likely to start once more for india. mary felt that her narrow world of love was indeed crumbling away from her. edward was lost, and to-morrow her father would belong to another. mr. marchmont dined at the rectory upon that last evening; for there were settlements to be signed, and other matters to be arranged; and mary was alone--quite alone--weeping over her lost happiness. "this would never have happened," she thought, "if we hadn't come to marchmont towers. i wish papa had never had the fortune; we were so happy in oakley street,--so very happy. i wouldn't mind a bit being poor again, if i could be always with papa." mr. marchmont had not been able to make himself quite comfortable in his mind, after that unpleasant interview with his daughter in which he had broken to her the news of his approaching marriage. argue with himself as he might upon the advisability of the step he was about to take, he could not argue away the fact that he had grieved the child he loved so intensely. he could not blot away from his memory the pitiful aspect of her terror-stricken face as she had turned it towards him when he uttered the name of olivia arundel. no; he had grieved and distressed her. the future might reconcile her to that grief, perhaps, as a bygone sorrow which she had been allowed to suffer for her own ultimate advantage. but the future was a long way off: and in the meantime there was mary's altered face, calm and resigned, but bearing upon it a settled look of sorrow, very close at hand; and john marchmont could not be otherwise than unhappy in the knowledge of his darling's grief. i do not believe that any man or woman is ever suffered to take a fatal step upon the roadway of life without receiving ample warning by the way. the stumbling-blocks are placed in the fatal path by a merciful hand; but we insist upon clambering over them, and surmounting them in our blind obstinacy, to reach that shadowy something beyond, which we have in our ignorance appointed to be our goal. a thousand ominous whispers in his own breast warned john marchmont that the step he considered so wise was not a wise one: and yet, in spite of all these subtle warnings, in spite of the ever-present reproach of his daughter's altered face, this man, who was too weak to trust blindly in his god, went on persistently upon his way, trusting, with a thousand times more fatal blindness, in his own wisdom. he could not be content to confide his darling and her altered fortunes to the providence which had watched over her in her poverty, and sheltered her from every harm. he could not trust his child to the mercy of god; but he cast her upon the love of olivia arundel. a new life began for mary marchmont after the quiet wedding at swampington church. the bride and bridegroom went upon a brief honeymoon excursion far away amongst snow-clad scottish mountains and frozen streams, upon whose bloomless margins poor john shivered dismally. i fear that mr. marchmont, having been, by the hard pressure of poverty, compelled to lead a cockney life for the better half of his existence, had but slight relish for the grand and sublime in nature. i do not think he looked at the ruined walls which had once sheltered macbeth and his strong-minded partner with all the enthusiasm which might have been expected of him. he had but one idea about macbeth, and he was rather glad to get out of the neighbourhood associated with the warlike thane; for his memories of the past presented king duncan's murderer as a very stern and uncompromising gentleman, who was utterly intolerant of banners held awry, or turned with the blank and ignoble side towards the audience, and who objected vehemently to a violent fit of coughing on the part of any one of his guests during the blank barmecide feast of pasteboard and dutch metal with which he was wont to entertain them. no; john marchmont had had quite enough of macbeth, and rather wondered at the hot enthusiasm of other red-nosed tourists, apparently indifferent to the frosty weather. i fear that the master of marchmont towers would have preferred oakley street, lambeth, to princes street, edinburgh; for the nipping and eager airs of the modern athens nearly blew him across the gulf between the new town and the old. a visit to the calton hill produced an attack of that chronic cough which had so severely tormented the weak-kneed supernumerary in the draughty corridors of drury lane. melrose and abbotsford fatigued this poor feeble tourist; he tried to be interested in the stereotyped round of associations beloved by other travellers, but he had a weary craving for rest, which was stronger than any hero-worship; and he discovered, before long, that he had done a very foolish thing in coming to scotland in december and january, without having consulted his physician as to the propriety of such a step. but above all personal inconvenience, above all personal suffering, there was one feeling ever present in his heart--a sick yearning for the little girl he had left behind him; a mournful longing to be back with his child. already mary's sad forebodings had been in some way realised; already his new wife had separated him, unintentionally of course, from his daughter. the aches and pains he endured in the bleak scottish atmosphere reminded him only too forcibly of the warnings he had received from his physicians. he was seized with a panic, almost, when he remembered his own imprudence. what if he had needlessly curtailed the short span of his life? what if he were to die soon--before olivia had learned to love her stepdaughter; before mary had grown affectionately familiar with her new guardian? again and again he appealed to his wife, imploring her to be tender to the orphan child, if he should be snatched away suddenly. "i know you will love her by-and-by, olivia," he said; "as much as i do, perhaps; for you will discover how good she is, how patient and unselfish. but just at first, and before you know her very well, you will be kind to her, won't you, olivia? she has been used to great indulgence; she has been spoiled, perhaps; but you'll remember all that, and be very kind to her?" "i will try and do my duty," mrs. marchmont answered. "i pray that i never may do less." there was no tender yearning in olivia marchmont's heart towards the motherless girl. she herself felt that such a sentiment was wanting, and comprehended that it should have been there. she would have loved her stepdaughter in those early days, if she could have done so; but _she could not_--she could not. all that was tender or womanly in her nature had been wasted upon her hopeless love for edward arundel. the utter wreck of that small freight of affection had left her nature warped and stunted, soured, disappointed, unwomanly. how was she to love this child, this hazel-haired, dove-eyed girl, before whom woman's life, with all its natural wealth of affection, stretched far away, a bright and fairy vista? how was _she_ to love her,--she, whose black future was unchequered by one ray of light; who stood, dissevered from the past, alone in the dismal, dreamless monotony of the present? "no" she thought; "beggars and princes can never love one another. when this girl and i are equals,--when she, like me, stands alone upon a barren rock, far out amid the waste of waters, with not one memory to hold her to the past, with not one hope to lure her onward to the future, with nothing but the black sky above and the black waters around,--_then_ we may grow fond of each other." but always more or less steadfast to the standard she had set up for herself, olivia marchmont intended to do her duty to her stepdaughter. she had not failed in other duties, though no glimmer of love had brightened them, no natural affection had made them pleasant. why should she fail in this? if this belief in her own power should appear to be somewhat arrogant, let it be remembered that she had set herself hard tasks before now, and had performed them. would the new furnace through which she was to pass be more terrible than the old fires? she had gone to god's altar with a man for whom she had no more love than she felt for the lowest or most insignificant of the miserable sinners in her father's flock. she had sworn to honour and obey him, meaning at least faithfully to perform that portion of her vow; and on the night before her loveless bridal she had grovelled, white, writhing, mad, and desperate, upon the ground, and had plucked out of her lacerated heart her hopeless love for another man. yes; she had done this. another woman might have spent that bridal eve in vain tears and lamentations, in feeble prayers, and such weak struggles as might have been evidenced by the destruction of a few letters, a tress of hair, some fragile foolish tokens of a wasted love. she would have burnt five out of six letters, perhaps, that helpless, ordinary sinner, and would have kept the sixth, to hoard away hidden among her matrimonial trousseau; she would have thrown away fifteen-sixteenths of that tress of hair, and would have kept the sixteenth portion,--one delicate curl of gold, slender as the thread by which her shattered hopes had hung,--to be wept over and kissed in the days that were to come. an ordinary woman would have played fast and loose with love and duty; and so would have been true to neither. but olivia arundel did none of these things. she battled with her weakness as st george battled with the fiery dragon. she plucked the rooted serpent from her heart, reckless as to how much of that desperate heart was to be wrenched away with its roots. a cowardly woman would have killed herself, perhaps, rather than endure this mortal agony. olivia arundel killed more than herself; she killed the passion that had become stronger than herself. "alone she did it;" unaided by any human sympathy or compassion, unsupported by any human counsel, not upheld by her god; for the religion she had made for herself was a hard creed, and the many words of tender comfort which must have been familiar to her were unremembered in that long night of anguish. it was the roman's stern endurance, rather than the meek faithfulness of the christian, which upheld this unhappy girl under her torture. she did not do this thing because it pleased her to be obedient to her god. she did not do it because she believed in the mercy of him who inflicted the suffering, and looked forward hopefully, even amid her passionate grief, to the day when she should better comprehend that which she now saw so darkly. no; she fought the terrible fight, and she came forth out of it a conqueror, by reason of her own indomitable power of suffering, by reason of her own extraordinary strength of will. but she did conquer. if her weapon was the classic sword and not the christian cross, she was nevertheless a conqueror. when she stood before the altar and gave her hand to john marchmont, edward arundel was dead to her. the fatal habit of looking at him as the one centre of her narrow life was cured. in all her scottish wanderings, her thoughts never once went back to him; though a hundred chance words and associations tempted her, though a thousand memories assailed her, though some trick of his face in the faces of other people, though some tone of his voice in the voices of strangers, perpetually offered to entrap her. no; she was steadfast. dutiful as a wife as she had been dutiful as a daughter, she bore with her husband when his feeble health made him a wearisome companion. she waited upon him when pain made him fretful, and her duties became little less arduous than those of a hospital nurse. when, at the bidding of the scotch physician who had been called in at edinburgh, john marchmont turned homewards, travelling slowly and resting often on the way, his wife was more devoted to him than his experienced servant, more watchful than the best-trained sick-nurse. she recoiled from nothing, she neglected nothing; she gave him full measure of the honour and obedience which she had promised upon her wedding-day. and when she reached marchmont towers upon a dreary evening in january, she passed beneath the solemn portal of the western front, carrying in her heart the full determination to hold as steadfastly to the other half of her bargain, and to do her duty to her stepchild. mary ran out of the western drawing-room to welcome her father and his wife. she had cast off her black dresses in honour of mr. marchmont's marriage, and she wore some soft, silken fabric, of a pale shimmering blue, which contrasted exquisitely with her soft, brown hair, and her fair, tender face. she uttered a cry of mingled alarm and sorrow when she saw her father, and perceived the change that had been made in his looks by the northern journey; but she checked herself at a warning glance from her stepmother, and bade that dear father welcome, clinging about him with an almost desperate fondness. she greeted olivia gently and respectfully. "i will try to be very good, mamma," she said, as she took the passive hand of the lady who had come to rule at marchmont towers. "i believe you will, my dear," olivia answered, kindly. she had been startled a little as mary addressed her by that endearing corruption of the holy word mother. the child had been so long motherless, that she felt little of that acute anguish which some orphans suffer when they have to look up in a strange face and say "mamma." she had taught herself the lesson of resignation, and she was prepared to accept this stranger as her new mother, and to look up to her and obey her henceforward. no thought of her own future position, as sole owner of that great house and all appertaining to it, ever crossed mary marchmont's mind, womanly as that mind had become in the sharp experiences of poverty. if her father had told her that he had cut off the entail, and settled marchmont towers upon his new wife, i think she would have submitted meekly to his will, and would have seen no injustice in the act. she loved him blindly and confidingly. indeed, she could only love after one fashion. the organ of veneration must have been abnormally developed in mary marchmont's head. to believe that any one she loved was otherwise than perfect, would have been, in her creed, an infidelity against love. had any one told her that edward arundel was not eminently qualified for the post of general-in-chief of the army of the indus; or that her father could by any possible chance be guilty of a fault or folly: she would have recoiled in horror from the treasonous slanderer. a dangerous quality, perhaps, this quality of guilelessness which thinketh no evil, which cannot be induced to see the evil under its very nose. but surely, of all the beautiful and pure things upon this earth, such blind confidence is the purest and most beautiful. i knew a lady, dead and gone,--alas for this world, which could ill afford to lose so good a christian!--who carried this trustfulness of spirit, this utter incapacity to believe in wrong, through all the strife and turmoil of a troubled life, unsullied and unlessened, to her grave. she was cheated and imposed upon, robbed and lied to, by people who loved her, perhaps, while they wronged her,--for to know her was to love her. she was robbed systematically by a confidential servant for years, and for years refused to believe those who told her of his delinquencies. she _could_ not believe that people were wicked. to the day of her death she had faith in the scoundrels and scamps who had profited by her sweet compassion and untiring benevolence; and indignantly defended them against those who dared to say that they were anything more than "unfortunate." to go to her was to go to a never-failing fountain of love and tenderness. to know her goodness was to understand the goodness of god; for her love approached the infinite, and might have taught a sceptic the possibility of divinity. three-score years and ten of worldly experience left her an accomplished lady, a delightful companion; but in guilelessness a child. so mary marchmont, trusting implicitly in those she loved, submitted to her father's will, and prepared to obey her stepmother. the new life at the towers began very peacefully; a perfect harmony reigned in the quiet household. olivia took the reins of management with so little parade, that the old housekeeper, who had long been paramount in the lincolnshire mansion, found herself superseded before she knew where she was. it was olivia's nature to govern. her strength of will asserted itself almost unconsciously. she took possession of mary marchmont as she had taken possession of her school-children at swampington, making her own laws for the government of their narrow intellects. she planned a routine of study that was actually terrible to the little girl, whose education had hitherto been conducted in a somewhat slip-slop manner by a weakly-indulgent father. she came between mary and her one amusement,--the reading of novels. the half-bound romances were snatched ruthlessly from this young devourer of light literature, and sent back to the shabby circulating library at swampington. even the gloomy old oak book-cases in the library at the towers, and the abbotsford edition of the waverley novels, were forbidden to poor mary; for, though sir walter scott's morality is irreproachable, it will not do for a young lady to be weeping over lucy ashton or amy robsart when she should be consulting her terrestrial globe, and informing herself as to the latitude and longitude of the fiji islands. so a round of dry and dreary lessons began for poor miss marchmont, and her brain grew almost dazed under that continuous and pelting shower of hard facts which many worthy people consider the one sovereign method of education. i have said that her mind was far in advance of her years; olivia perceived this, and set her tasks in advance of her mind: in order that the perfection attained by a sort of steeple-chase of instruction might not be lost to her. if mary learned difficult lessons with surprising rapidity, mrs. marchmont plied her with even yet more difficult lessons, thus keeping the spur perpetually in the side of this heavily-weighted racer on the road to learning. but it must not be thought that olivia wilfully tormented or oppressed her stepdaughter. it was not so. in all this, john marchmont's second wife implicitly believed that she was doing her duty to the child committed to her care. she fully believed that this dreary routine of education was wise and right, and would be for mary's ultimate advantage. if she caused miss marchmont to get up at abnormal hours on bleak wintry mornings, for the purpose of wrestling with a difficult variation by hertz or schubert, she herself rose also, and sat shivering by the piano, counting the time of the music which her stepdaughter played. whatever pains and trouble she inflicted on mary, she most unshrinkingly endured herself. she waded through the dismal slough of learning side by side with the younger sufferer: roman emperors, medieval schisms, early british manufactures, philippa of hainault, flemish woollen stuffs, magna charta, the sidereal heavens, luther, newton, huss, galileo, calvin, loyola, sir robert walpole, cardinal wolsey, conchology, arianism in the early church, trial by jury, habeas corpus, zoology, mr. pitt, the american war, copernicus, confucius, mahomet, harvey, jenner, lycurgus, and catherine of arragon; through a very diabolical dance of history, science, theology, philosophy, and instruction of all kinds, did this devoted priestess lead her hapless victim, struggling onward towards that distant altar at which pallas athenë waited, pale and inscrutable, to receive a new disciple. but olivia marchmont did not mean to be unmerciful; she meant to be good to her stepdaughter. she did not love her; but, on the other hand, she did not dislike her. her feelings were simply negative. mary understood this, and the submissive obedience she rendered to her stepmother was untempered by affection. so for nearly two years these two people led a monotonous life, unbroken by any more important event than a dinner party at marchmont towers, or a brief visit to harrowgate or scarborough. this monotonous existence was not to go on for ever. the fatal day, so horribly feared by john marchmont, was creeping closer and closer. the sorrow which had been shadowed in every childish dream, in every childish prayer, came at last; and mary marchmont was left an orphan. poor john had never quite recovered the effects of his winter excursion to scotland; neither his wife's devoted nursing, nor his physician's care, could avail for ever; and, late in the autumn of the second year of his marriage, he sank, slowly and peacefully enough as regards physical suffering, but not without bitter grief of mind. in vain hubert arundel talked to him; in vain did he himself pray for faith and comfort in this dark hour of trial. he _could_ not bear to leave his child alone in the world. in the foolishness of his love, he would have trusted in the strength of his own arm to shield her in the battle; yet he could not trust her hopefully to the arm of god. he prayed for her night and day during the last week of his illness; while she was praying passionately, almost madly, that he might be spared to her, or that she might die with him. better for her, according to all mortal reasoning, if she had. happier for her, a thousand times, if she could have died as she wished to die, clinging to her father's breast. the blow fell at last upon those two loving hearts. these were the awful shadows of death that shut his child's face from john marchmont's fading sight. his feeble arms groped here and there for her in that dim and awful obscurity. yes, this was death. the narrow tract of yellow sand had little by little grown narrower and narrower. the dark and cruel waters were closing in; the feeble boat went down into the darkness: and mary stood alone, with her dead father's hand clasped in hers,--the last feeble link which bound her to the past,--looking blankly forward to an unknown future. chapter xi. the day of desolation. yes; the terrible day had come. mary marchmont roamed hither and thither in the big gaunt rooms, up and down the long dreary corridors, white and ghostlike in her mute anguish, while the undertaker's men were busy in her father's chamber, and while john's widow sat in the study below, writing business letters, and making all necessary arrangements for the funeral. in those early days no one attempted to comfort the orphan. there was something more terrible than the loudest grief in the awful quiet of the girl's anguish. the wan eyes, looking wearily out of a white haggard face, that seemed drawn and contracted as if by some hideous physical torture, were tearless. except the one long wail of despair which had burst from her lips in the awful moment of her father's death agony, no cry of sorrow, no utterance of pain, had given relief to mary marchmont's suffering. she suffered, and was still. she shrank away from all human companionship; she seemed specially to avoid the society of her stepmother. she locked the door of her room upon all who would have intruded on her, and flung herself upon the bed, to lie there in a dull stupor for hour after hour. but when the twilight was grey in the desolate corridors, the wretched girl wandered out into the gallery on which her father's room opened, and hovered near that solemn death-chamber; fearful to go in, fearful to encounter the watchers of the dead, lest they should torture her by their hackneyed expressions of sympathy, lest they should agonise her by their commonplace talk of the lost. once during that brief interval, while the coffin still held terrible tenancy of the death-chamber, the girl wandered in the dead of the night, when all but the hired watchers were asleep, to the broad landing of the oaken staircase, and into a deep recess formed by an embayed window that opened over the great stone porch which sheltered the principal entrance to marchmont towers. the window had been left open; for even in the bleak autumn weather the atmosphere of the great house seemed hot and oppressive to its living inmates, whose spirits were weighed down by a vague sense of the awful presence in that lincolnshire mansion. mary had wandered to this open window, scarcely knowing whither she went, after remaining for a long time on her knees by the threshold of her father's room, with her head resting against the oaken panel of the door,--not praying; why should she pray now, unless her prayers could have restored the dead? she had come out upon the wide staircase, and past the ghostly pictured faces, that looked grimly down upon her from the oaken wainscot against which they hung; she had wandered here in the dim grey light--there was light somewhere in the sky, but only a shadowy and uncertain glimmer of fading starlight or coming dawn--and she stood now with her head resting against one of the angles of the massive stonework, looking out of the open window. the morning which was already glimmering dimly in the eastern sky behind marchmont towers was to witness poor john's funeral. for nearly six days mary marchmont had avoided all human companionship: for nearly six days she had shunned all human sympathy and comfort. during all that time she had never eaten, except when forced to do so by her stepmother; who had visited her from time to time, and had insisted upon sitting by her bedside while she took the food that had been brought to her. heaven knows how often the girl had slept during those six dreary days; but her feverish slumbers had brought her very little rest or refreshment. they had brought her nothing but cruel dreams, in which her father was still alive; in which she felt his thin arms clasped round her neck, his faint and fitful breath warm upon her cheek. a great clock in the stables struck five while mary marchmont stood looking out of the tudor window. the broad grey flat before the house stretched far away, melting into the shadowy horizon. the pale stars grew paler as mary looked at them; the black-water pools began to glimmer faintly under the widening patch of light in the eastern sky. the girl's senses were bewildered by her suffering, and her head was light and dizzy. her father's death had made so sudden and terrible a break in her existence, that she could scarcely believe the world had not come to an end, with all the joys and sorrows of its inhabitants. would there be anything more after to-morrow? she thought; would the blank days and nights go monotonously on when the story that had given them a meaning and a purpose had come to its dismal end? surely not; surely, after those gaunt iron gates, far away across the swampy waste that was called a park, had closed upon her father's funeral train, the world would come to an end, and there would be no more time or space. i think she really believed this in the semi-delirium into which she had fallen within the last hour. she believed that all would be over; and that she and her despair would melt away into the emptiness that was to engulf the universe after her father's funeral. then suddenly the full reality of her grief flashed upon her with horrible force. she clasped her hands upon her forehead, and a low faint cry broke from her white lips. it was _not_ all over. time and space would _not_ be annihilated. the weary, monotonous, workaday world would still go on upon its course. _nothing_ would be changed. the great gaunt stone mansion would still stand, and the dull machinery of its interior would still go on: the same hours; the same customs; the same inflexible routine. john marchmont would be carried out of the house that had owned him master, to lie in the dismal vault under kemberling church; and the world in which he had made so little stir would go on without him. the easy-chair in which he had been wont to sit would be wheeled away from its corner by the fireplace in the western drawing-room. the papers in his study would be sorted and put away, or taken possession of by strange hands. cromwells and napoleons die, and the earth reels for a moment, only to be "alive and bold" again in the next instant, to the astonishment of poets, and the calm satisfaction of philosophers; and ordinary people eat their breakfasts while the telegram lies beside them upon the table, and while the ink in which mr. reuter's message is recorded is still wet from the machine in printing-house square. anguish and despair more terrible than any of the tortures she had felt yet took possession of mary marchmont's breast. for the first time she looked out at her own future. until now she had thought only of her father's death. she had despaired because he was gone; but she had never contemplated the horror of her future life,--a life in which she was to exist without him. a sudden agony, that was near akin to madness, seized upon this girl, in whose sensitive nature affection had always had a morbid intensity. she shuddered with a wild dread at the prospect of that blank future; and as she looked out at the wide stone steps below the window from which she was leaning, for the first time in her young life the idea of self-destruction flashed across her mind. she uttered a cry, a shrill, almost unearthly cry, that was notwithstanding low and feeble, and clambered suddenly upon the broad stone sill of the tudor casement. she wanted to fling herself down and dash her brains out upon the stone steps below; but in the utter prostration of her state she was too feeble to do this, and she fell backwards and dropped in a heap upon the polished oaken flooring of the recess, striking her forehead as she fell. she lay there unconscious until nearly seven o'clock, when one of the women-servants found her, and carried her off to her own room, where she suffered herself to be undressed and put to bed. mary marchmont did not speak until the good-hearted lincolnshire housemaid had laid her in her bed, and was going away to tell olivia of the state in which she had found the orphan girl. "don't tell my stepmother anything about me, susan," she said; "i think i was mad last night." this speech frightened the housemaid, and she went straight to the widow's room. mrs. marchmont, always an early riser, had been up and dressed for some time, and went at once to look at her stepdaughter. she found mary very calm and reasonable. there was no trace of bewilderment or delirium now in her manner; and when the principal doctor of swampington came a couple of hours afterwards to look at the young heiress, he declared that there was no cause for any alarm. the young lady was sensitive, morbidly sensitive, he said, and must be kept very quiet for a few days, and watched by some one whose presence would not annoy her. if there was any girl of her own age whom she had ever shown a predilection for, that girl would be the fittest companion for her just now. after a few days, it would be advisable that she should have change of air and change of scene. she must not be allowed to brood continuously on her father's death. the doctor repeated this last injunction more than once. it was most important that she should not give way too perpetually to her grief. so mary marchmont lay in her darkened room while her father's funeral train was moving slowly away from the western entrance. it happened that the orphan girl's apartments looked out into the quadrangle; so she heard none of the subdued sounds which attended the departure of that solemn procession. in her weakness she had grown submissive to the will of others. she thought this feebleness and exhaustion gave warning of approaching death. her prayers would be granted, after all. this anguish and despair would be but of brief duration, and she would ere long be carried to the vault under kemberling church, to lie beside her father in the black stillness of that solemn place. mrs. marchmont strictly obeyed the doctor's injunctions. a girl of seventeen, the daughter of a small tenant farmer near the towers, had been a special favourite with mary, who was not apt to make friends amongst strangers. this girl, hester pollard, was sent for, and came willingly and gladly to watch her young patroness. she brought her needlework with her, and sat near the window busily employed, while mary lay shrouded by the curtains of the bed. all active services necessary for the comfort of the invalid were performed by olivia or her own special attendant--an old servant who had lived with the rector ever since his daughter's birth, and had only left him to follow that daughter to marchmont towers after her marriage. so hester pollard had nothing to do but to keep very quiet, and patiently await the time when mary might be disposed to talk to her. the farmer's daughter was a gentle, unobtrusive creature, very well fitted for the duty imposed upon her. chapter xii. paul. olivia marchmont sat in her late husband's study while john's funeral train was moving slowly along under the misty october sky. a long stream of carriages followed the stately hearse, with its four black horses, and its voluminous draperies of rich velvet, and nodding plumes that were damp and heavy with the autumn atmosphere. the unassuming master of marchmont towers had won for himself a quiet popularity amongst the simple country gentry, and the best families in lincolnshire had sent their chiefs to do honour to his burial, or at the least their empty carriages to represent them at that mournful ceremonial. olivia sat in her dead husband's favourite chamber. her head lay back upon the cushion of the roomy morocco-covered arm-chair in which he had so often sat. she had been working hard that morning, and indeed every morning since john marchmont's death, sorting and arranging papers, with the aid of richard paulette, the lincoln's inn solicitor, and james gormby, the land-steward. she knew that she had been left sole guardian of her stepdaughter, and executrix to her husband's will; and she had lost no time in making herself acquainted with the business details of the estate, and the full nature of the responsibilities intrusted to her. she was resting now. she had done all that could be done until after the reading of the will. she had attended to her stepdaughter. she had stood in one of the windows of the western drawing-room, watching the departure of the funeral _cortège_; and now she abandoned herself for a brief space to that idleness which was so unusual to her. a fire burned in the low grate at her feet, and a rough cur--half shepherd's dog, half scotch deer-hound, who had been fond of john, but was not fond of olivia--lay at the further extremity of the hearth-rug, watching her suspiciously. mrs. marchmont's personal appearance had not altered during the two years of her married life. her face was thin and haggard; but it had been thin and haggard before her marriage. and yet no one could deny that the face was handsome, and the features beautifully chiselled. but the grey eyes were hard and cold, the line of the faultless eyebrows gave a stern expression to the countenance; the thin lips were rigid and compressed. the face wanted both light and colour. a sculptor copying it line by line would have produced a beautiful head. a painter must have lent his own glowing tints if he wished to represent olivia marchmont as a lovely woman. her pale face looked paler, and her dead black hair blacker, against the blank whiteness of her widow's cap. her mourning dress clung closely to her tall, slender figure. she was little more than twenty-five, but she looked a woman of thirty. it had been her misfortune to look older than she was from a very early period in her life. she had not loved her husband when she married him, nor had she ever felt for him that love which in most womanly natures grows out of custom and duty. it was not in her nature to love. her passionate idolatry of her boyish cousin had been the one solitary affection that had ever held a place in her cold heart. all the fire of her nature had been concentrated in this one folly, this one passion, against which only heroic endurance had been able to prevail. mrs. marchmont felt no grief, therefore, at her husband's loss. she had felt the shock of his death, and the painful oppression of his dead presence in the house. she had faithfully nursed him through many illnesses; she had patiently tended him until the very last; she had done her duty. and now, for the first time, she had leisure to contemplate the past, and look forward to the future. so far this woman had fulfilled the task which she had taken upon herself; she had been true and loyal to the vow she had made before god's altar, in the church of swampington. and now she was free. no, not quite free; for she had a heavy burden yet upon her hands; the solemn charge of her stepdaughter during the girl's minority. but as regarded marriage-vows and marriage-ties she was free. she was free to love edward arundel again. the thought came upon her with a rush and an impetus, wild and strong as the sudden uprising of a whirlwind, or the loosing of a mountain-torrent that had long been bound. she was a wife no longer. it was no longer a sin to think of the bright-haired soldier, fighting far away. she was free. when edward returned to england by-and-by, he would find her free once more; a young widow,--young, handsome, and rich enough to be no bad prize for a younger son. he would come back and find her thus; and then--and then--! she flung one of her clenched hands up into the air, and struck it on her forehead in a sudden paroxysm of rage. what then? would he love her any better then than he had loved her two years ago? no; he would treat her with the same cruel indifference, the same commonplace cousinly friendliness, with which he had mocked and tortured her before. oh, shame! oh, misery! was there no pride in women, that there could be one among them fallen so low as her; ready to grovel at the feet of a fair-haired boy, and to cry aloud, "love me, love me! or be pitiful, and strike me dead!" better that john marchmont should have lived for ever, better that edward arundel should die far away upon some eastern battle-field, before some affghan fortress, than that he should return to inflict upon her the same tortures she had writhed under two years before. "god grant that he may never come back!" she thought. "god grant that he may marry out yonder, and live and die there! god keep him from me for ever and for ever in this weary world!" and yet in the next moment, with the inconsistency which is the chief attribute of that madness we call love, her thoughts wandered away dreamily into visions of the future; and she pictured edward arundel back again at swampington, at marchmont towers. her soul burst its bonds and expanded, and drank in the sunlight of gladness: and she dared to think that it _might_ be so--there _might_ be happiness yet for her. he had been a boy when he went back to india--careless, indifferent. he would return a man,--graver, wiser, altogether changed: changed so much as to love her perhaps. she knew that, at least, no rival had shut her cousin's heart against her, when she and he had been together two years before. he had been indifferent to her; but he had been indifferent to others also. there was comfort in that recollection. she had questioned him very sharply as to his life in india and at dangerfield, and she had discovered no trace of any tender memory of the past, no hint of a cherished dream of the future. his heart had been empty: a boyish, unawakened heart: a temple in which the niches were untenanted, the shrine unhallowed by the presence of a goddess. olivia marchmont thought of these things. for a few moments, if only for a few moments, she abandoned herself to such thoughts as these. she let herself go. she released the stern hold which it was her habit to keep upon her own mind; and in those bright moments of delicious abandonment the glorious sunshine streamed in upon her narrow life, and visions of a possible future expanded before her like a fairy panorama, stretching away into realms of vague light and splendour. it was _possible_; it was at least possible. but, again, in the next moment the magical panorama collapsed and shrivelled away, like a burning scroll; the fairy picture, whose gorgeous colouring she had looked upon with dazzled eyes, almost blinded by its overpowering glory, shrank into a handful of black ashes, and was gone. the woman's strong nature reasserted itself; the iron will rose up, ready to do battle with the foolish heart. "i _will_ not be fooled a second time," she cried. "did i suffer so little when i blotted that image out of my heart? did the destruction of my cruel juggernaut cost me so small an agony that i must needs be ready to elevate the false god again, and crush out my heart once more under the brazen wheels of his chariot? _he will never love me!_" she writhed; this self-sustained and resolute woman writhed in her anguish as she uttered those five words, "he will never love me!" she knew that they were true; that of all the changes that time could bring to pass, it would never bring such a change as that. there was not one element of sympathy between herself and the young soldier; they had not one thought in common. nay, more; there was an absolute antagonism between them, which, in spite of her love, olivia fully recognised. over the gulf that separated them no coincidence of thought or fancy, no sympathetic emotion, ever stretched its electric chain to draw them together in mysterious union. they stood aloof, divided by the width of an intellectual universe. the woman knew this, and hated herself for her folly, scorning alike her love and its object; but her love was not the less because of her scorn. it was a madness, an isolated madness, which stood alone in her soul, and fought for mastery over her better aspirations, her wiser thoughts. we are all familiar with strange stories of wise and great minds which have been ridden by some hobgoblin fancy, some one horrible monomania; a bleeding head upon a dish, a grinning skeleton playing hide-and-seek in the folds of the bed-curtains; some devilry or other before which the master-spirit shrank and dwindled until the body withered and the victim died. had olivia marchmont lived a couple of centuries before, she would have gone straight to the nearest old crone, and would have boldly accused the wretched woman of being the author of her misery. "you harbour a black cat and other noisome vermin, and you prowl about muttering to yourself o' nights" she might have said. "you have been seen to gather herbs, and you make strange and uncanny signs with your palsied old fingers. the black cat is the devil, your colleague; and the rats under your tumble-down roof are his imps, your associates. it is _you_ who have instilled this horrible madness into my soul; for it _could_ not come of itself." and olivia marchmont, being resolute and strong-minded, would not have rested until her tormentor had paid the penalty of her foul work at a stake in the nearest market-place. and indeed some of our madnesses are so mad, some of our follies are so foolish, that we might almost be forgiven if we believed that there was a company of horrible crones meeting somewhere on an invisible brocken, and making incantations for our destruction. take up a newspaper and read its hideous revelations of crime and folly; and it will be scarcely strange if you involuntarily wonder whether witchcraft is a dark fable of the middle ages, or a dreadful truth of the nineteenth century. must not some of these miserable creatures whose stories we read be _possessed_; possessed by eager, relentless demons, who lash and goad them onward, until no black abyss of vice, no hideous gulf of crime, is black or hideous enough to content them? olivia marchmont might have been a good and great woman. she had all the elements of greatness. she had genius, resolution, an indomitable courage, an iron will, perseverance, self-denial, temperance, chastity. but against all these qualities was set a fatal and foolish love for a boy's handsome face and frank and genial manner. if edward arundel had never crossed her path, her unfettered soul might have taken the highest and grandest flight; but, chained down, bound, trammelled by her love for him, she grovelled on the earth like some maimed and wounded eagle, who sees his fellows afar off, high in the purple empyrean, and loathes himself for his impotence. "what do i love him for?" she thought. "is it because he has blue eyes and chestnut hair, with wandering gleams of golden light in it? is it because he has gentlemanly manners, and is easy and pleasant, genial and light-hearted? is it because he has a dashing walk, and the air of a man of fashion? it must be for some of these attributes, surely; for i know nothing more in him. of all the things he has ever said, i can remember nothing--and i remember his smallest words, heaven help me!--that any sensible person could think worth repeating. he is brave, i dare say, and generous; but what of that? he is neither braver nor more generous than other men of his rank and position." she sat lost in such a reverie as this while her dead husband was being carried to the roomy vault set apart for the owners of marchmont towers and their kindred; she was absorbed in some such thoughts as these, when one of the grave, grey-headed old servants brought her a card upon a heavy salver emblazoned with the marchmont arms. olivia took the card almost mechanically. there are some thoughts which carry us a long way from the ordinary occupations of every-day life, and it is not always easy to return to the dull jog-trot routine. the widow passed her left hand across her brow before she looked at the name inscribed upon the card in her right. "mr. paul marchmont." she started as she read the name. paul marchmont! she remembered what her husband had told her of this man. it was not much; for john's feelings on the subject of his cousin had been of so vague a nature that he had shrunk from expounding them to his stern, practical wife. he had told her, therefore, that he did not very much care for paul, and that he wished no intimacy ever to arise between the artist and mary; but he had said nothing more than this. "the gentleman is waiting to see me, i suppose?" mrs. marchmont said. "yes, ma'am. the gentleman came to kemberling by the . train from london, and has driven over here in one of harris's flys." "tell him i will come to him immediately. is he in the drawing-room?" "yes, ma'am." the man bowed and left the room. olivia rose from her chair and lingered by the fireplace with her foot on the fender, her elbow resting on the carved oak chimneypiece. "paul marchmont! he has come to the funeral, i suppose. and he expects to find himself mentioned in the will, i dare say. i think, from what my husband told me, he will be disappointed in that. paul marchmont! if mary were to die unmarried, this man or his sisters would inherit marchmont towers." there was a looking-glass over the mantelpiece; a narrow, oblong glass, in an old-fashioned carved ebony frame, which was inclined forward. olivia looked musingly in this glass, and smoothed the heavy bands of dead-black hair under her cap. "there are people who would call me handsome," she thought, as she looked with a moody frown at her image in the glass; "and yet i have seen edward arundel's eyes wander away from my face, even while i have been talking to him, to watch the swallows skimming by in the sun, or the ivy-leaves flapping against the wall." she turned from the glass with a sigh, and went out into a dusky corridor. the shutters of all the principal rooms and the windows upon the grand staircase were still closed; the wide hall was dark and gloomy, and drops of rain spattered every now and then upon the logs that smouldered on the wide old-fashioned hearth. the misty october morning had heralded a wet day. paul marchmont was sitting in a low easy-chair before a blazing fire in the western drawing-room, the red light full upon his face. it was a handsome face, or perhaps, to speak more exactly, it was one of those faces that are generally called "interesting." the features were very delicate and refined, the pale greyish-blue eyes were shaded by long brown lashes, and the small and rather feminine mouth was overshadowed by a slender auburn moustache, under which the rosy tint of the lips was very visible. but it was paul marchmont's hair which gave a peculiarity to a personal appearance that might otherwise have been in no way out of the common. this hair, fine, silky, and luxuriant, was _white_, although its owner could not have been more than thirty-seven years of age. the uninvited guest rose as olivia marchmont entered the room. "i have the honour of speaking to my cousin's widow?" he said, with a courteous smile. "yes, i am mrs. marchmont." olivia seated herself near the fire. the wet day was cold and cheerless. mrs. marchmont shivered as she extended her long thin hand to the blaze. "and you are doubtless surprised to see me here, mrs. marchmont?" the artist said, leaning upon the back of his chair in the easy attitude of a man who means to make himself at home. "but believe me, that although i never took advantage of a very friendly letter written to me by poor john----" paul marchmont paused for a moment, keeping sharp watch upon the widow's face; but no sorrowful expression, no evidence of emotion, was visible in that inflexible countenance. "although, i repeat, i never availed myself of a sort of general invitation to come and shoot his partridges, or borrow money of him, or take advantage of any of those other little privileges generally claimed by a man's poor relations, it is not to be supposed, my dear mrs. marchmont, that i was altogether forgetful of either marchmont towers or its owner, my cousin. i did not come here, because i am a hard-working man, and the idleness of a country house would have been ruin to me. but i heard sometimes of my cousin from neighbours of his." "neighbours!" repeated olivia, in a tone of surprise. "yes; people near enough to be called neighbours in the country. my sister lives at stanfield. she is married to a surgeon who practises in that delightful town. you know stanfield, of course?" "no, i have never been there. it is five-and-twenty miles from here." "indeed! too far for a drive, then. yes, my sister lives at stanfield. john never knew much of her in his adversity; and therefore may be forgiven if he forgot her in his prosperity. but she did not forget him. we poor relations have excellent memories. the stanfield people have so little to talk about, that it is scarcely any wonder if they are inquisitive about the affairs of the grand country gentry round about them. i heard of john through my sister; i heard of his marriage through her,"--he bowed to olivia as he said this,--"and i wrote immediately to congratulate him upon that happy event,"--he bowed again here;--"and it was through lavinia weston, my sister, that i heard of poor john's death; one day before the announcement appeared in the columns of the 'times.' i am sorry to find that i am too late for the funeral. i could have wished to have paid my cousin the last tribute of esteem that one man can pay another." "you would wish to hear the reading of the will?" olivia said, interrogatively. paul marchmont shrugged his shoulders, with a low, careless laugh; not an indecorous laugh,--nothing that this man did or said ever appeared ill-advised or out of place. the people who disliked him were compelled to acknowledge that they disliked him unreasonably, and very much on the doctor-fell principle; for it was impossible to take objection to either his manners or his actions. "that important legal document can have very little interest for me, my dear mrs. marchmont," he said gaily. "john can have had nothing to leave me. i am too well acquainted with the terms of my grandfather's will to have any mercenary hopes in coming to marchmont towers." he stopped, and looked at olivia's impassible face. "what on earth could have induced this woman to marry my cousin?" he thought. "john could have had very little to leave his widow." he played with the ornaments at his watch-chain, looking reflectively at the fire for some moments. "miss marchmont,--my cousin, mary marchmont, i should say,--bears her loss pretty well, i hope?" olivia shrugged her shoulders. "i am sorry to say that my stepdaughter displays very little christian resignation," she said. and then a spirit within her arose and whispered, with a mocking voice, "what resignation do _you_ show beneath _your_ affliction,--you, who should be so good a christian? how have _you_ learned to school your rebellious heart?" "my cousin is very young," paul marchmont said, presently. "she was fifteen last july." "fifteen! very young to be the owner of marchmont towers and an income of eleven thousand a year," returned the artist. he walked to one of the long windows, and drawing aside the edge of the blind, looked out upon the terrace and the wide flats before the mansion. the rain dripped and splashed upon the stone steps; the rain-drops hung upon the grim adornments of the carved balustrade, soaking into moss-grown escutcheons and half-obliterated coats-of-arms. the weird willows by the pools far away, and a group of poplars near the house, looked gaunt and black against the dismal grey sky. paul marchmont dropped the blind, and turned away from the gloomy landscape with a half-contemptuous gesture. "i don't know that i envy my cousin, after all," he said: "the place is as dreary as tennyson's moated grange." there was the sound of wheels on the carriage-drive before the terrace, and presently a subdued murmur of hushed voices in the hall. mr. richard paulette, and the two medical men who had attended john marchmont, had returned to the towers, for the reading of the will. hubert arundel had returned with them; but the other followers in the funeral train had departed to their several homes. the undertaker and his men had come back to the house by the side-entrance, and were making themselves very comfortable in the servants'-hall after the fulfilment of their mournful duties. the will was to be read in the dining-room; and mr. paulette and the clerk who had accompanied him to marchmont towers were already seated at one end of the long carved-oak table, busy with their papers and pens and ink, assuming an importance the occasion did not require. olivia went out into the hall to speak to her father. "you will find mr. marchmont's solicitor in the dining-room," she said to paul, who was looking at some of the old pictures on the drawing-room walls. a large fire was blazing in the wide grate at the end of the dining-room. the blinds had been drawn up. there was no longer need that the house should be wrapped in darkness. the awful presence had departed; and such light as there was in the gloomy october sky was free to enter the rooms, which the death of one quiet, unobtrusive creature had made for a time desolate. there was no sound in the room but the low voice of the two doctors talking of their late patient in undertones near the fireplace, and the occasional fluttering of the papers under the lawyer's hand. the clerk, who sat respectfully a little way behind his master, and upon the very edge of his ponderous morocco-covered chair, had been wont to give john marchmont his orders, and to lecture him for being tardy with his work a few years before, in the lincoln's inn office. he was wondering now whether he should find himself remembered in the dead man's will, to the extent of a mourning ring or an old-fashioned silver snuff-box. richard paulette looked up as olivia and her father entered the room, followed at a little distance by paul marchmont, who walked at a leisurely pace, looking at the carved doorways and the pictures against the wainscot, and appearing, as he had declared himself, very little concerned in the important business about to be transacted. "we shall want miss marchmont here, if you please," mr. paulette said, as he looked up from his papers. "is it necessary that she should be present?" olivia asked. "very necessary." "but she is ill; she is in bed." "it is most important that she should be here when the will is read. perhaps mr. bolton"--the lawyer looked towards one of the medical men--"will see. he will be able to tell us whether miss marchmont can safely come downstairs." mr. bolton, the swampington surgeon who had attended mary that morning, left the room with olivia. the lawyer rose and warmed his hands at the blaze, talking to hubert arundel and the london physician as he did so. paul marchmont, who had not been introduced to any one, occupied himself entirely with the pictures for a little time; and then, strolling over to the fireplace, fell into conversation with the three gentlemen, contriving, adroitly enough, to let them know who he was. the lawyer looked at him with some interest,--a professional interest, no doubt; for mr. paulette had a copy of old philip marchmont's will in one of the japanned deed-boxes inscribed with poor john's name. he knew that this easy-going, pleasant-mannered, white-haired gentleman was the paul marchmont named in that document, and stood next in succession to mary. mary might die unmarried, and it was as well to be friendly and civil to a man who was at least a possible client. the four gentlemen stood upon the broad turkey hearth-rug for some time, talking of the dead man, the wet weather, the cold autumn, the dearth of partridges, and other very safe topics of conversation. olivia and the swampington doctor were a long time absent; and richard paulette, who stood with his back to the fire, glanced every now and then towards the door. it opened at last, and mary marchmont came into the room, followed by her stepmother. paul marchmont turned at the sound of the opening of that ponderous oaken door, and for the first time saw his second cousin, the young mistress of marchmont towers. he started as he looked at her, though with a scarcely perceptible movement, and a change came over his face. the feminine pinky hue in his cheeks faded suddenly, and left them white. it had been a peculiarity of paul marchmont's, from his boyhood, always to turn pale with every acute emotion. what was the emotion which had now blanched his cheeks? was he thinking, "is _this_ fragile creature the mistress of marchmont towers? is _this_ frail life all that stands between me and eleven thousand a year?" the light which shone out of that feeble earthly tabernacle did indeed seem a frail and fitful flame, likely to be extinguished by any rude breath from the coarse outer world. mary marchmont was deadly pale; black shadows encircled her wistful hazel eyes. her new mourning-dress, with its heavy trimmings of lustreless crape, seemed to hang loose upon her slender figure; her soft brown hair, damp with the water with which her burning forehead had been bathed, fell in straight lank tresses about her shoulders. her eyes were tearless, her mouth terribly compressed. the rigidity of her face betokened the struggle by which her sorrow was repressed. she sat in an easy-chair which olivia indicated to her, and with her hands lying on the white handkerchief in her lap, and her swollen eyelids drooping over her eyes, waited for the reading of her father's will. it would be the last, the very last, she would ever hear of that dear father's words. she remembered this, and was ready to listen attentively; but she remembered nothing else. what was it to her that she was sole heiress of that great mansion, and of eleven thousand a year? she had never in her life thought of the lincolnshire fortune with any reference to herself or her own pleasures; and she thought of it less than ever now. the will was dated february th, , exactly two months after john's marriage. it had been made by the master of marchmont towers without the aid of a lawyer, and was only witnessed by john's housekeeper, and by corson the old valet, a confidential servant who had attended upon mr. marchmont's predecessor. richard paulette began to read; and mary, for the first time since she had taken her seat near the fire, lifted her eyes, and listened breathlessly, with faintly tremulous lips. olivia sat near her stepdaughter; and paul marchmont stood in a careless attitude at one corner of the fireplace, with his shoulders resting against the massive oaken chimneypiece. the dead man's will ran thus: "i john marchmont of marchmont towers declare this to be my last will and testament being persuaded that my end is approaching i feel my dear little daughter mary will be left unprotected by any natural guardian my young friend edward arundel i had hoped when in my poverty would have been a friend and adviser to her if not a protector but her tender years and his position in life must place this now out of the question and i may die before a fond hope which i have long cherished can be realised and which may now never be realised i now desire to make my will more particularly to provide as well as i am permitted for the guardianship and care of my dear little mary during her minority now i will and desire that my wife olivia shall act as guardian adviser and mother to my dear little mary and that she place herself under the charge and guardianship of my wife and as she will be an heiress of very considerable property i would wish her to be guided by the advice of my said wife in the management of her property and particularly in the choice of a husband as my dear little mary will be amply provided for on my death i make no provision for her by this my will but i direct my executrix to present to her a diamond-ring which i wish her to wear in memory of her loving father so that she may always have me in her thoughts and particularly of these my wishes as to her future life until she shall be of age and capable of acting on her own judgment. i also request my executrix to present my young friend edward arundel also with a diamond-ring of the value of at least one hundred guineas as a slight tribute of the regard and esteem which i have ever entertained for him. . . . as to all the property as well real as personal over which i may at the time of my death have any control and capable of claiming or bequeathing i give devise and bequeath to my wife olivia absolutely and i appoint my said wife sole executrix of this my will and guardian of my dear little mary." there were a few very small legacies, including a mourning-ring to the expectant clerk; and this was all. paul marchmont had been quite right; nobody could be less interested than himself in this will. but he was apparently very much interested in john's widow and daughter. he tried to enter into conversation with mary, but the girl's piteous manner seemed to implore him to leave her unmolested; and mr. bolton approached his patient almost immediately after the reading of the will, and in a manner took possession of her. mary was very glad to leave the room once more, and to return to the dim chamber where hester pollard sat at needlework. olivia left her stepdaughter to the care of this humble companion, and went back to the long dining-room, where the gentlemen still hung listlessly over the fire, not knowing very well what to do with themselves. mrs. marchmont could not do less than invite paul to stay a few days at the towers. she was virtually mistress of the house during mary's minority, and on her devolved all the troubles, duties, and responsibilities attendant on such a position. her father was going to stay with her till the end of the week; and he therefore would be able to entertain mr. marchmont. paul unhesitatingly accepted the widow's hospitality. the old place was picturesque and interesting, he said; there were some genuine holbeins in the hall and dining-room, and one good lely in the drawing-room. he would give himself a couple of days' holiday, and go to stanfield by an early train on saturday. "i have not seen my sister for a long time," he said; "her life is dull enough and hard enough, heaven knows, and she will be glad to see me upon my way back to london." olivia bowed. she did not persuade mr. marchmont to extend his visit. the common courtesy she offered him was kept within the narrowest limits. she spent the best part of the time in the dead man's study during paul's two-days' stay, and left the artist almost entirely to her father's companionship. but she was compelled to appear at dinner, and she took her accustomed place at the head of the table. paul therefore had some opportunity of sounding the depths of the strangest nature he had ever tried to fathom. he talked to her very much, listening with unvarying attention to every word she uttered. he watched her--but with no obtrusive gaze--almost incessantly; and when he went away from marchmont towers, without having seen mary since the reading of the will, it was of olivia he thought; it was the recollection of olivia which interested as much as it perplexed him. the few people waiting for the london train looked at the artist as he strolled up and down the quiet platform at kemberling station, with his head bent and his eyebrows slightly contracted. he had a certain easy, careless grace of dress and carriage, which harmonised well with his delicate face, his silken silvery hair, his carefully-trained auburn moustache, and rosy, womanish mouth. he was a romantic-looking man. he was the beau-ideal of the hero in a young lady's novel. he was a man whom schoolgirls would have called "a dear." but it had been better, i think, for any helpless wretch to be in the bull-dog hold of the sturdiest bill sykes ever loosed upon society by right of his ticket-of-leave, than in the power of paul marchmont, artist and teacher of drawing, of charlotte street, fitzroy square. he was thinking of olivia as he walked slowly up and down the bare platform, only separated by a rough wooden paling from the flat open fields on the outskirts of kemberling. "the little girl is as feeble as a pale february butterfly." he thought; "a puff of frosty wind might wither her away. but that woman, that woman--how handsome she is, with her accurate profile and iron mouth; but what a raging fire there is hidden somewhere in her breast, and devouring her beauty by day and night! if i wanted to paint the sleeping scene in _macbeth_, i'd ask her to sit for the thane's wicked wife. perhaps she has some bloody secret as deadly as the murder of a grey-headed duncan upon her conscience, and leaves her bedchamber in the stillness of the night to walk up and down those long oaken corridors at the towers, and wring her hands and wail aloud in her sleep. why did she marry john marchmont? his life gave her little more than a fine house to live in; his death leaves her with nothing but ten or twelve thousand pounds in the three per cents. what is her mystery--what is her secret, i wonder? for she must surely have one." such thoughts as these filled his mind as the train carried him away from the lonely little station, and away from the neighbourhood of marchmont towers, within whose stony walls mary lay in her quiet chamber, weeping for her dead father, and wishing--god knows in what utter singleness of heart!--that she had been buried in the vault by his side. chapter xiii. olivia's despair. the life which mary and her stepmother led at marchmont towers after poor john's death was one of those tranquil and monotonous existences that leave very little to be recorded, except the slow progress of the weeks and months, the gradual changes of the seasons. mary bore her sorrows quietly, as it was her nature to bear all things. the doctor's advice was taken, and olivia removed her stepdaughter to scarborough soon after the funeral. but the change of scene was slow to effect any change in the state of dull despairing sorrow into which the girl had fallen. the sea-breezes brought no colour into her pale cheeks. she obeyed her stepmother's behests unmurmuringly, and wandered wearily by the dreary seashore in the dismal november weather, in search of health and strength. but wherever she went, she carried with her the awful burden of her grief; and in every changing cadence of the low winter winds, in every varying murmur of the moaning waves, she seemed to hear her dead father's funeral dirge. i think that, young as mary marchmont was, this mournful period was the grand crisis of her life. the past, with its one great affection, had been swept away from her, and as yet there was no friendly figure to fill the dismal blank of the future. had any kindly matron, any gentle christian creature been ready to stretch out her arms to the desolate orphan, mary's heart would have melted, and she would have crept to the shelter of that womanly embrace, to nestle there for ever. but there was no one. olivia marchmont obeyed the letter of her husband's solemn appeal, as she had obeyed the letter of those gospel sentences that had been familiar to her from her childhood, but was utterly unable to comprehend its spirit. she accepted the charge intrusted to her. she was unflinching in the performance of her duty; but no one glimmer of the holy light of motherly love and tenderness, the semi-divine compassion of womanhood, ever illumined the dark chambers of her heart. every night she questioned herself upon her knees as to her rigid performance of the level round of duty she had allotted to herself; every night--scrupulous and relentless as the hardest judge who ever pronounced sentence upon a criminal--she took note of her own shortcomings, and acknowledged her deficiencies. but, unhappily, this self-devotion of olivia's pressed no less heavily upon mary than on the widow herself. the more rigidly mrs. marchmont performed the duties which she understood to be laid upon her by her dead husband's last will and testament, the harder became the orphan's life. the weary treadmill of education worked on, when the young student was well-nigh fainting upon every step in that hopeless revolving ladder of knowledge. if olivia, on communing with herself at night, found that the day just done had been too easy for both mistress and pupil, the morrow's allowance of roman emperors and french grammar was made to do penance for yesterday's shortcomings. "this girl has been intrusted to my care, and one of my first duties is to give her a good education," olivia marchmont thought. "she is inclined to be idle; but i must fight against her inclination, whatever trouble the struggle entails upon myself. the harder the battle, the better for me if i am conqueror." it was only thus that olivia marchmont could hope to be a good woman. it was only by the rigid performance of hard duties, the patient practice of tedious rites, that she could hope to attain that eternal crown which simpler christians seem to win so easily. morning and night the widow and her stepdaughter read the bible together; morning and night they knelt side by side to join in the same familiar prayers; yet all these readings and all these prayers failed to bring them any nearer together. no tender sentence of inspiration, not the words of christ himself, ever struck the same chord in these two women's hearts, bringing both into sudden unison. they went to church three times upon every dreary sunday,--dreary from the terrible uniformity which made one day a mechanical repetition of another,--and sat together in the same pew; and there were times when some solemn word, some sublime injunction, seemed to fall with a new meaning upon the orphan girl's heart; but if she looked at her stepmother's face, thinking to see some ray of that sudden light which had newly shone into her own mind reflected _there_, the blank gloom of olivia's countenance seemed like a dead wall, across which no glimmer of radiance ever shone. they went back to marchmont towers in the early spring. people imagined that the young widow would cultivate the society of her husband's old friends, and that morning callers would be welcome at the towers, and the stately dinner-parties would begin again, when mrs. marchmont's year of mourning was over. but it was not so; olivia closed her doors upon almost all society, and devoted herself entirely to the education of her stepdaughter. the gossips of swampington and kemberling, the county gentry who had talked of her piety and patience, her unflinching devotion to the poor of her father's parish, talked now of her self-abnegation, the sacrifices she made for her stepdaughter's sake, the noble manner in which she justified john marchmont's confidence in her goodness. other women would have intrusted the heiress's education to some hired governess, people said; other women would have been upon the look-out for a second husband; other women would have grown weary of the dulness of that lonely lincolnshire mansion, the monotonous society of a girl of sixteen. they were never tired of lauding mrs. marchmont as a model for all stepmothers in time to come. did she sacrifice much, this woman, whose spirit was a raging fire, who had the ambition of a semiramis, the courage of a boadicea, the resolution of a lady macbeth? did she sacrifice much in resigning such provincial gaieties as might have adorned her life,--a few dinner-parties, an occasional county ball, a flirtation with some ponderous landed gentleman or hunting squire? no; these things would very soon have grown odious to her--more odious than the monotony of her empty life, more wearisome even than the perpetual weariness of her own spirit. i said, that when she accepted a new life by becoming the wife of john marchmont, she acted in the spirit of a prisoner, who is glad to exchange his old dungeon for a new one. but, alas! the novelty of the prison-house had very speedily worn off, and that which olivia arundel had been at swampington rectory, olivia marchmont was now in the gaunt country mansion,--a wretched woman, weary of herself and all the world, devoured by a slow-consuming and perpetual fire. this woman was, for two long melancholy years, mary marchmont's sole companion and instructress. i say sole companion advisedly; for the girl was not allowed to become intimate with the younger members of such few county families as still called occasionally at the towers, lest she should become empty-headed and frivolous by their companionship. alas, there was little fear of mary becoming empty-headed! as she grew taller, and more slender, she seemed to get weaker and paler; and her heavy head drooped wearily under the load of knowledge which it had been made to carry, like some poor sickly flower oppressed by the weight of the dew-drops, which would have revivified a hardier blossom. heaven knows to what end mrs. marchmont educated her stepdaughter! poor mary could have told the precise date of any event in universal history, ancient or modern; she could have named the exact latitude and longitude of the remotest island in the least navigable ocean, and might have given an accurate account of the manners and customs of its inhabitants, had she been called upon to do so. she was alarmingly learned upon the subject of tertiary and old red sandstone, and could have told you almost as much as mr. charles kingsley himself about the history of a gravel-pit,--though i doubt if she could have conveyed her information in quite such a pleasant manner; she could have pointed out every star in the broad heavens above lincolnshire, and could have told the history of its discovery; she knew the hardest names that science had given to the familiar field-flowers she met in her daily walks;--yet i cannot say that her conversation was any the more brilliant because of this, or that her spirits grew lighter under the influence of this general mental illumination. but mrs. marchmont did most earnestly believe that this laborious educationary process was one of the duties she owed her stepdaughter; and when, at seventeen years of age, mary emerged from the struggle, laden with such intellectual spoils as i have described above, the widow felt a quiet satisfaction as she contemplated her work, and said to herself, "in this, at least, i have done my duty." amongst all the dreary mass of instruction beneath which her health had very nearly succumbed, the girl had learned one thing that was a source of pleasure to herself; she had learned to become a very brilliant musician. she was not a musical genius, remember; for no such vivid flame as the fire of genius had ever burned in her gentle breast; but all the tenderness of her nature, all the poetry of a hyper-poetical mind, centred in this one accomplishment, and, condemned to perpetual silence in every other tongue, found a new and glorious language here. the girl had been forbidden to read byron and scott; but she was not forbidden to sit at her piano, when the day's toils were over, and the twilight was dusky in her quiet room, playing dreamy melodies by beethoven and mozart, and making her own poetry to mendelssohn's wordless songs. i think her soul must have shrunk and withered away altogether had it not been for this one resource, this one refuge, in which her mind regained its elasticity, springing up, like a trampled flower, into new life and beauty. olivia was well pleased to see the girl sit hour after hour at her piano. she had learned to play well and brilliantly herself, mastering all difficulties with the proud determination which was a part of her strong nature; but she had no special love for music. all things that compose the poetry and beauty of life had been denied to this woman, in common with the tenderness which makes the chief loveliness of womankind. she sat by the piano and listened while mary's slight hands wandered over the keys, carrying the player's soul away into trackless regions of dream-land and beauty; but she heard nothing in the music except so many chords, so many tones and semitones, played in such or such a time. it would have been scarcely natural for mary marchmont, reserved and self-contained though she had been ever since her father's death, to have had no yearning for more genial companionship than that of her stepmother. the girl who had kept watch in her room, by the doctor's suggestion, was the one friend and confidante whom the young mistress of marchmont towers fain would have chosen. but here olivia interposed, sternly forbidding any intimacy between the two girls. hester pollard was the daughter of a small tenant-farmer, and no fit associate for mrs. marchmont's stepdaughter. olivia thought that this taste for obscure company was the fruit of mary's early training--the taint left by those bitter, debasing days of poverty, in which john marchmont and his daughter had lived in some wretched lambeth lodging. "but hester pollard is fond of me, mamma," the girl pleaded; "and i feel so happy at the old farm house! they are all so kind to me when i go there,--hester's father and mother, and little brothers and sisters, you know; and the poultry-yard, and the pigs and horses, and the green pond, with the geese cackling round it, remind me of my aunt's, in berkshire. i went there once with poor papa for a day or two; it was _such_ a change after oakley street." but mrs. marchmont was inflexible upon this point. she would allow her stepdaughter to pay a ceremonial visit now and then to farmer pollard's, and to be entertained with cowslip-wine and pound-cake in the low, old-fashioned parlour, where all the polished mahogany chairs were so shining and slippery that it was a marvel how anybody ever contrived to sit down upon them. olivia allowed such solemn visits as these now and then, and she permitted mary to renew the farmer's lease upon sufficiently advantageous terms, and to make occasional presents to her favourite, hester. but all stolen visits to the farmyard, all evening rambles with the farmer's daughter in the apple orchard at the back of the low white farmhouse, were sternly interdicted; and though mary and hester were friends still, they were fain to be content with a chance meeting once in the course of a dreary interval of months, and a silent pressure of the hand. "you mustn't think that i am proud of my money, hester," mary said to her friend, "or that i forget you now that we see each other so seldom. papa used to let me come to the farm whenever i liked; but papa had seen a great deal of poverty. mamma keeps me almost always at home at my studies; but she is very good to me, and of course i am bound to obey her; papa wished me to obey her." the orphan girl never for a moment forgot the terms of her father's will. _he_ had wished her to obey; what should she do, then, but be obedient? her submission to olivia's lightest wish was only a part of the homage which she paid to that beloved father's memory. it was thus she grew to early womanhood; a child in gentle obedience and docility; a woman by reason of that grave and thoughtful character which had been peculiar to her from her very infancy. it was in a life such as this, narrow, monotonous, joyless, that her seventeenth birthday came and went, scarcely noticed, scarcely remembered, in the dull uniformity of the days which left no track behind them; and mary marchmont was a woman,--a woman with all the tragedy of life before her; infantine in her innocence and inexperience of the world outside marchmont towers. the passage of time had been so long unmarked by any break in its tranquil course, the dull routine of life had been so long undisturbed by change, that i believe the two women thought their lives would go on for ever and ever. mary, at least, had never looked beyond the dull horizon of the present. her habit of castle-building had died out with her father's death. what need had she to build castles, now that he could no longer inhabit them? edward arundel, the bright boy she remembered in oakley street, the dashing young officer who had come to marchmont towers, had dropped back into the chaos of the past. her father had been the keystone in the arch of mary's existence: he was gone, and a mass of chaotic ruins alone remained of the familiar visions which had once beguiled her. the world had ended with john marchmont's death, and his daughter's life since that great sorrow had been at best only a passive endurance of existence. they had heard very little of the young soldier at marchmont towers. now and then a letter from some member of the family at dangerfield had come to the rector of swampington. the warfare was still raging far away in the east, cruel and desperate battles were being fought, and brave englishmen were winning loot and laurels, or perishing under the scimitars of sikhs and affghans, as the case might be. squire arundel's youngest son was not doing less than his duty, the letters said. he had gained his captaincy, and was well spoken of by great soldiers, whose very names were like the sound of the war-trumpet to english ears. olivia heard all this. she sat by her father, sometimes looking over his shoulder at the crumpled letter, as he read aloud to her of her cousin's exploits. the familiar name seemed to be all ablaze with lurid light as the widow's greedy eyes devoured it. how commonplace the letters were! what frivolous nonsense letitia arundel intermingled with the news of her brother!--"you'll be glad to hear that my grey pony has got the better of his lameness. papa gave a hunting-breakfast on tuesday week. lord mountlitchcombe was present; but the hunting-men are very much aggravated about the frost, and i fear we shall have no crocuses. edward has got his captaincy, papa told me to tell you. sir charles napier and major outram have spoken very highly of him; but he--edward, i mean--got a sabre-cut on his left arm, besides a wound on his forehead, and was laid up for nearly a month. i daresay you remember old colonel tollesly, at halburton lodge? he died last november; and has left all his money to----" and the young lady ran on thus, with such gossip as she thought might be pleasing to her uncle; and there were no more tidings of the young soldier, whose life-blood had so nearly been spilt for his country's glory. olivia thought of him as she rode back to marchmont towers. she thought of the sabre-cut upon his arm, and pictured him wounded and bleeding, lying beneath the canvass-shelter of a tent, comfortless, lonely, forsaken. "better for me if he had died," she thought; "better for me if i were to hear of his death to-morrow!" and with the idea the picture of such a calamity arose before her so vividly and hideously distinct, that she thought for one brief moment of agony, "this is not a fancy, it is a presentiment; it is second sight; the thing will occur." she imagined herself going to see her father as she had gone that morning. all would be the same: the low grey garden-wall of the rectory; the ceaseless surging of the sea; the prim servant-maid; the familiar study, with its litter of books and papers; the smell of stale cigar-smoke; the chintz curtains flapping in the open window; the dry leaves fluttering in the garden without. there would be nothing changed except her father's face, which would be a little graver than usual. and then, after a little hesitation--after a brief preamble about the uncertainty of life, the necessity for looking always beyond this world, the horrors of war,--the dreadful words would be upon his lips, when she would read all the hideous truth in his face, and fall prone to the ground, before he could say, "edward arundel is dead!" yes; she felt all the anguish. it would be this--this sudden paralysis of black despair. she tested the strength of her endurance by this imaginary torture,--scarcely imaginary, surely, when it seemed so real,--and asked herself a strange question: "am i strong enough to bear this, or would it be less terrible to go on, suffering for ever--for ever abased and humiliated by the degradation of my love for a man who does not care for me?" so long as john marchmont had lived, this woman would have been true to the terrible victory she had won upon the eve of her bridal. she would have been true to herself and to her marriage-vow; but her husband's death, in setting her free, had cast her back upon the madness of her youth. it was no longer a sin to think of edward arundel. having once suffered this idea to arise in her mind, her idol grew too strong for her, and she thought of him by night and day. yes; she thought of him for ever and ever. the narrow life to which she doomed herself, the self-immolation which she called duty, left her a prey to this one thought. her work was not enough for her. her powerful mind wasted and shrivelled for want of worthy employment. it was like one vast roll of parchment whereon half the wisdom of the world might have been inscribed, but on which was only written over and over again, in maddening repetition, the name of edward arundel. if olivia marchmont could have gone to america, and entered herself amongst the feminine professors of law or medicine,--if she could have turned field-preacher, like simple dinah morris, or set up a printing-press in bloomsbury, or even written a novel,--i think she might have been saved. the superabundant energy of her mind would have found a new object. as it was, she did none of these things. she had only dreamt one dream, and by force of perpetual repetition the dream had become a madness. but the monotonous life was not to go on for ever. the dull, grey, leaden sky was to be illumined by sudden bursts of sunshine, and swept by black thunder-clouds, whose stormy violence was to shake the very universe for these two solitary women. john marchmont had been dead nearly three years. mary's humble friend, the farmer's daughter, had married a young tradesman in the village of kemberling, a mile and a half from the towers. mary was a woman now, and had seen the last of the roman emperors and all the dry-as-dust studies of her early girlhood. she had nothing to do but accompany her stepmother hither and thither amongst the poor cottagers about kemberling and two or three other small parishes within a drive of the towers, "doing good," after olivia's fashion, by line and rule. at home the young lady did what she pleased, sitting for hours together at her piano, or wading through gigantic achievements in the way of embroidery-work. she was even allowed to read novels now, but only such novels as were especially recommended to olivia, who was one of the patronesses of a book-club at swampington: novels in which young ladies fell in love with curates, and didn't marry them: novels in which everybody suffered all manner of misery, and rather liked it: novels in which, if the heroine did marry the man she loved--and this happy conclusion was the exception, and not the rule--the smallpox swept away her beauty, or a fatal accident deprived him of his legs, or eyes, or arms before the wedding-day. the two women went to kemberling church together three times every sunday. it was rather monotonous--the same church, the same rector and curate, the same clerk, the same congregation, the same old organ-tunes and droning voices of lincolnshire charity-children, the same sermons very often. but mary had grown accustomed to monotony. she had ceased to hope or care for anything since her father's death, and was very well contented to be let alone, and allowed to dawdle through a dreary life which was utterly without aim or purpose. she sat opposite her stepmother on one particular afternoon in the state-pew at kemberling, which was lined with faded red baize, and raised a little above the pews of meaner worshippers; she was sitting with her listless hands lying in her lap, looking thoughtfully at her stepmother's stony face, and listening to the dull droning of the rector's voice above her head. it was a sunny afternoon in early june, and the church was bright with a warm yellow radiance; one of the old diamond-paned windows was open, and the tinkling of a sheep-bell far away in the distance, and the hum of bees in the churchyard, sounded pleasantly in the quiet of the hot atmosphere. the young mistress of marchmont towers felt the drowsy influence of that tranquil summer weather creeping stealthily upon her. the heavy eyelids drooped over her soft brown eyes, those wistful eyes which had so long looked wearily out upon a world in which there seemed so little joy. the rector's sermon was a very long one this warm afternoon, and there was a low sound of snoring somewhere in one of the shadowy and sheltered pews beneath the galleries. mary tried very hard to keep herself awake. mrs. marchmont had frowned darkly at her once or twice already, for to fall asleep in church was a dire iniquity in olivia's rigid creed; but the drowsiness was not easily to be conquered, and the girl was sinking into a peaceful slumber in spite of her stepmother's menacing frowns, when the sound of a sharp footfall on one of the gravel pathways in the churchyard aroused her attention. heaven knows why she should have been awoke out of her sleep by the sound of that step. it was different, perhaps, to the footsteps of the kemberling congregation. the brisk, sharp sound of the tread striking lightly but firmly on the gravel was not compatible with the shuffling gait of the tradespeople and farmers' men who formed the greater part of the worshippers at that quiet lincolnshire church. again, it would have been a monstrous sin in that tranquil place for any one member of the congregation to disturb the devotions of the rest by entering at such a time as this. it was a stranger, then, evidently. what did it matter? miss marchmont scarcely cared to lift her eyelids to see who or what the stranger was; but the intruder let in such a flood of june sunshine when he pushed open the ponderous oaken door under the church-porch, that she was dazzled by that sudden burst of light, and involuntarily opened her eyes. the stranger let the door swing softly to behind him, and stood beneath the shadow of the porch, not caring to advance any further, or to disturb the congregation by his presence. mary could not see him very plainly at first. she could only dimly define the outline of his tall figure, the waving masses of chestnut hair tinged with gleams of gold; but little by little his face seemed to grow out of the shadow, until she saw it all,--the handsome patrician features, the luminous blue eyes, the amber moustache,--the face which, in oakley street eight years ago, she had elected as her type of all manly perfection, her ideal of heroic grace. yes; it was edward arundel. her eyes lighted up with an unwonted rapture as she looked at him; her lips parted; and her breath came in faint gasps. all the monotonous years, the terrible agonies of sorrow, dropped away into the past; and mary marchmont was conscious of nothing except the unutterable happiness of the present. the one friend of her childhood had come back. the one link, the almost forgotten link, that bound her to every day-dream of those foolish early days, was united once more by the presence of the young soldier. all that happy time, nearly five years ago,--that happy time in which the tennis-court had been built, and the boat-house by the river restored,--those sunny autumn days before her father's second marriage,--returned to her. there was pleasure and joy in the world, after all; and then the memory of her father came back to her mind, and her eyes filled with tears. how sorry edward would be to see his old friend's empty place in the western drawing-room; how sorry for her, and for her loss! olivia marchmont saw the change in her stepdaughter's face, and looked at her with stern amazement. but, after the first shock of that delicious surprise, mary's training asserted itself. she folded her hands,--they trembled a little, but olivia did not see that,--and waited patiently, with her eyes cast down and a faint flush lighting up her pale cheeks, until the sermon was finished, and the congregation began to disperse. she was not impatient. she felt as if she could have waited thus peacefully and contentedly for ever, knowing that the only friend she had on earth was near her. olivia was slow to leave her pew; but at last she opened the door and went out into the quiet aisle, followed by mary, out under the shadowy porch and into the gravel-walk in the churchyard, where edward arundel was waiting for the two ladies. john marchmont's widow uttered no cry of surprise when she saw her cousin standing a little way apart from the slowly-dispersing kemberling congregation. her dark face faded a little, and her heart seemed to stop its pulsation suddenly, as if she had been turned into stone; but this was only for a moment. she held out her hand to mr. arundel in the next instant, and bade him welcome to lincolnshire. "i did not know you were in england," she said. "scarcely any one knows it yet," the young man answered; "and i have not even been home. i came to marchmont towers at once." he turned from his cousin to mary, who was standing a little behind her stepmother. "dear polly," he said, taking both her hands in his, "i was so sorry for you, when i heard----" he stopped, for he saw the tears welling up to her eyes. it was not his allusion to her father's death that had distressed her. he had called her polly, the old familiar name, which she had never heard since that dead father's lips had last spoken it. the carriage was waiting at the gate of the churchyard, and edward arundel went back to marchmont towers with the two ladies. he had reached the house a quarter of an hour after they had left it for afternoon church, and had walked over to kemberling. "i was so anxious to see you, polly," he said, "after all this long time, that i had no patience to wait until you and livy came back from church." olivia started as the young man said this. it was mary marchmont whom he had come to see, then--not herself. was _she_ never to be anything? was she to be for ever insulted by this humiliating indifference? a dark flush came over her face, as she drew her head up with the air of an offended empress, and looked angrily at her cousin. alas! he did not even see that indignant glance. he was bending over mary, telling her, in a low tender voice, of the grief he had felt at learning the news of her father's death. olivia marchmont looked with an eager, scrutinising gaze at her stepdaughter. could it be possible that edward arundel might ever come to love this girl? _could_ such a thing be possible? a hideous depth of horror and confusion seemed to open before her with the thought. in all the past, amongst all things she had imagined, amongst all the calamities she had pictured to herself, she had never thought of anything like this. would such a thing ever come to pass? would she ever grow to hate this girl--this girl, who had been intrusted to her by her dead husband--with the most terrible hatred that one woman can feel towards another? in the next moment she was angry with herself for the abject folly of this new terror. she had never yet learned to think of mary as a woman. she had never thought of her otherwise than as the pale childlike girl who had come to her meekly, day after day, to recite difficult lessons, standing in a submissive attitude before her, and rendering obedience to her in all things. was it likely, was it possible, that this pale-faced girl would enter into the lists against her in the great battle of her life? was it likely that she was to find her adversary and her conqueror here, in the meek child who had been committed to her charge? she watched her stepdaughter's face with a jealous, hungry gaze. was it beautiful? no! the features were delicate; the brown eyes soft and dovelike, almost lovely, now that they were irradiated by a new light, as they looked shyly up at edward arundel. but the girl's face was wan and colourless. it lacked the splendour of beauty. it was only after you had looked at mary for a very long time that you began to think her rather pretty. the five years during which edward arundel had been away had made little alteration in him. he was rather taller, perhaps; his amber moustache thicker; his manner more dashing than of old. the mark of a sabre-cut under the clustering chestnut curls upon the temple gave him a certain soldierly dignity. he seemed a man of the world now, and mary marchmont was rather afraid of him. he was so different to the lincolnshire squires, the bashful younger sons who were to be educated for the church: he was so dashing, so elegant, so splendid! from the waving grace of his hair to the tip of the polished boot peeping out of his well-cut trouser (there were no pegtops in , and it was _le genre_ to show very little of the boot), he was a creature to be wondered at, to be almost reverenced, mary thought. she could not help admiring the cut of his coat, the easy _nonchalance_ of his manner, the waxed ends of his curved moustache, the dangling toys of gold and enamel that jingled at his watch-chain, the waves of perfume that floated away from his cambric handkerchief. she was childish enough to worship all these external attributes in her hero. "shall i invite him to marchmont towers?" olivia thought; and while she was deliberating upon this question, mary marchmont cried out, "you will stop at the towers, won't you, mr. arundel, as you did when poor papa was alive?" "most decidedly, miss marchmont," the young man answered. "i mean to throw myself upon your hospitality as confidingly as i did a long time ago in oakley street, when you gave me hot rolls for my breakfast." mary laughed aloud--perhaps for the first time since her father's death. olivia bit her lip. she was of so little account, then, she thought, that they did not care to consult her. a gloomy shadow spread itself over her face. already, already she began to hate this pale-faced, childish orphan girl, who seemed to be transformed into a new being under the spell of edward arundel's presence. but she made no attempt to prevent his stopping at the towers, though a word from her would have effectually hindered his coming. a dull torpor of despair took possession of her; a black apprehension paralysed her mind. she felt that a pit of horror was opening before her ignorant feet. all that she had suffered was as nothing to what she was about to suffer. let it be, then! what could she do to keep this torture away from her? let it come, since it seemed that it must come in some shape or other. she thought all this, while she sat back in a corner of the carriage watching the two faces opposite to her, as edward and mary, seated with their backs to the horses, talked together in low confidential tones, which scarcely reached her ear. she thought all this during the short drive between kemberling and marchmont towers; and when the carriage drew up before the low tudor portico, the dark shadow had settled on her face. her mind was made up. let edward arundel come; let the worst come. she had struggled; she had tried to do her duty; she had striven to be good. but her destiny was stronger than herself, and had brought this young soldier over land and sea, safe out of every danger, rescued from every peril, to be her destruction. i think that in this crisis of her life the last faint ray of christian light faded out of this lost woman's soul, leaving utter darkness and desolation. the old landmarks, dimly descried in the weary desert, sank for ever down into the quicksands, and she was left alone,--alone with her despair. her jealous soul prophesied the evil which she dreaded. this man, whose indifference to her was almost an insult, would fall in love with mary marchmont,--with mary marchmont, whose eyes lit up into new beauty under the glances of his, whose pale face blushed into faint bloom as he talked to her. the girl's undisguised admiration would flatter the young man's vanity, and he would fall in love with her out of very frivolity and weakness of purpose. "he is weak and vain, and foolish and frivolous, i daresay," olivia thought; "and if i were to fling myself upon my knees at his feet, and tell him that i loved him, he would be flattered and grateful, and would be ready to return my affection. if i could tell him what this girl tells him in every look and word, he would be as pleased with me as he is with her." her lip curled with unutterable scorn as she thought this. she was so despicable to herself by the deep humiliation of her wasted love, that the object of that foolish passion seemed despicable also. she was for ever weighing edward arundel against all the tortures she had endured for his sake, and for ever finding him wanting. he must have been a demigod if his perfections could have outweighed so much misery; and for this reason she was unjust to her cousin, and could not accept him for that which he really was,--a generous-hearted, candid, honourable young man (not a great man or a wonderful man),--a brave and honest-minded soldier, very well worthy of a good woman's love. * * * * * mr. arundel stayed at the towers, occupying the room which had been his in john marchmont's lifetime; and a new existence began for mary. the young man was delighted with his old friend's daughter. among all the calcutta belles whom he had danced with at government-house balls and flirted with upon the indian racecourse, he could remember no one as fascinating as this girl, who seemed as childlike now, in her early womanhood, as she had been womanly while she was a child. her naïve tenderness for himself bewitched and enraptured him. who could have avoided being charmed by that pure and innocent affection, which was as freely given by the girl of eighteen as it had been by the child, and was unchanged in character by the lapse of years? the young officer had been so much admired and caressed in calcutta, that perhaps, by reason of his successes, he had returned to england heart-whole; and he abandoned himself, without any _arrière-pensée_, to the quiet happiness which he felt in mary marchmont's society. i do not say that he was intoxicated by her beauty, which was by no means of the intoxicating order, or that he was madly in love with her. the gentle fascination of her society crept upon him before he was aware of its influence. he had never taken the trouble to examine his own feelings; they were disengaged,--as free as butterflies to settle upon which flower might seem the fairest; and he had therefore no need to put himself under a course of rigorous self-examination. as yet he believed that the pleasure he now felt in mary's society was the same order of enjoyment he had experienced five years before, when he had taught her chess, and promised her long rambles by the seashore. they had no long rambles now in solitary lanes and under flowering hedgerows beside the waving green corn. olivia watched them with untiring eyes. the tortures to which a jealous woman may condemn herself are not much greater than those she can inflict upon others. mrs. marchmont took good care that her ward and her cousin were not _too_ happy. wherever they went, she went also; whenever they spoke, she listened; whatever arrangement was most likely to please them was opposed by her. edward was not coxcomb enough to have any suspicion of the reason of this conduct on his cousin's part. he only smiled and shrugged his shoulders; and attributed her watchfulness to an overstrained sense of her responsibility, and the necessity of _surveillance_. "does she think me such a villain and a traitor," he thought, "that she fears to leave me alone with my dead friend's orphan daughter, lest i should whisper corruption into her innocent ear? how little these good women know of us, after all! what vulgar suspicions and narrow-minded fears influence them against us! are they honourable and honest towards one another, i wonder, that they can entertain such pitiful doubts of our honour and honesty?" so, hour after hour, and day after day, olivia marchmont kept watch and ward over edward and mary. it seems strange that love could blossom in such an atmosphere; it seems strange that the cruel gaze of those hard grey eyes did not chill the two innocent hearts, and prevent their free expansion. but it was not so; the egotism of love was all-omnipotent. neither edward nor mary was conscious of the evil light in the glance that so often rested upon them. the universe narrowed itself to the one spot of earth upon which these two stood side by side. edward arundel had been more than a month at marchmont towers when olivia went, upon a hot july evening, to swampington, on a brief visit to the rector,--a visit of duty. she would doubtless have taken mary marchmont with her; but the girl had been suffering from a violent headache throughout the burning summer day, and had kept her room. edward arundel had gone out early in the morning upon a fishing excursion to a famous trout-stream seven or eight miles from the towers, and was not likely to return until after nightfall. there was no chance, therefore, of a meeting between mary and the young officer, olivia thought--no chance of any confidential talk which she would not be by to hear. did edward arundel love the pale-faced girl, who revealed her devotion to him with such childlike unconsciousness? olivia marchmont had not been able to answer that question. she had sounded the young man several times upon his feelings towards her stepdaughter; but he had met her hints and insinuations with perfect frankness, declaring that mary seemed as much a child to him now as she had appeared nearly nine years before in oakley street, and that the pleasure he took in her society was only such as he might have felt in that of any innocent and confiding child. "her simplicity is so bewitching, you know, livy," he said; "she looks up in my face, and trusts me with all her little secrets, and tells me her dreams about her dead father, and all her foolish, innocent fancies, as confidingly as if i were some playfellow of her own age and sex. she's so refreshing after the artificial belles of a calcutta ballroom, with their stereotyped fascinations and their complete manual of flirtation, the same for ever and ever. she is such a pretty little spontaneous darling, with her soft, shy, brown eyes, and her low voice, which always sounds to me like the cooing of the doves in the poultry-yard." i think that olivia, in the depth of her gloomy despair, took some comfort from such speeches as these. was this frank expression of regard for mary marchmont a token of _love_? no; not as the widow understood the stormy madness. love to her had been a dark and terrible passion, a thing to be concealed, as monomaniacs have sometimes contrived to keep the secret of their mania, until it burst forth at last, fatal and irrepressible, in some direful work of wreck and ruin. so olivia marchmont took an early dinner alone, and drove away from the towers at four o'clock on a blazing summer afternoon, more at peace perhaps than she had been since edward arundel's coming. she paid her dutiful visit to her father, sat with him for some time, talked to the two old servants who waited upon him, walked two or three times up and down the neglected garden, and then drove back to the towers. the first object upon which her eyes fell as she entered the hall was edward arundel's fishing-tackle lying in disorder upon an oaken bench near the broad arched door that opened out into the quadrangle. an angry flush mounted to her face as she turned upon the servant near her. "mr. arundel has come home?" she said. "yes, ma'am, he came in half an hour ago; but he went out again almost directly with miss marchmont." "indeed! i thought miss marchmont was in her room?" "no, ma'am; she came down to the drawing-room about an hour after you left. her head was better, ma'am, she said." "and she went out with mr. arundel? do you know which way they went?" "yes, ma'am; i heard mr. arundel say he wanted to look at the old boat-house by the river." "and they have gone there?" "i think so, ma'am." "very good; i will go down to them. miss marchmont must not stop out in the night-air. the dew is falling already." the door leading into the quadrangle was open; and olivia swept across the broad threshold, haughty and self-possessed, very stately-looking in her long black garments. she still wore mourning for her dead husband. what inducement had she ever had to cast off that sombre attire; what need had she to trick herself out in gay colours? what loving eyes would be charmed by her splendour? she went out of the door, across the quadrangle, under a stone archway, and into the low stunted wood, which was gloomy even in the summer-time. the setting sun was shining upon the western front of the towers; but here all seemed cold and desolate. the damp mists were rising from the sodden ground beneath the tree; the frogs were croaking down by the river-side. with her small white teeth set, and her breath coming in fitful gasps, olivia marchmont hurried to the water's edge, winding in and out between the trees, tearing her black dress amongst the brambles, scorning all beaten paths, heedless where she trod, so long as she made her way speedily to the spot she wanted to reach. at last the black sluggish river and the old boat-house came in sight, between a long vista of ugly distorted trunks and gnarled branches of pollard oak and willow. the building was dreary and dilapidated-looking, for the improvements commenced by edward arundel five years ago had never been fully carried out; but it was sufficiently substantial, and bore no traces of positive decay. down by the water's edge there was a great cavernous recess for the shelter of the boats, and above this there was a pavilion, built of brick and stone, containing two decent-sized chambers, with latticed windows overlooking the river. a flight of stone steps with an iron balustrade led up to the door of this pavilion, which was supported upon the solid side-walls of the boat-house below. in the stillness of the summer twilight olivia heard the voices of those whom she came to seek. they were standing down by the edge of the water, upon a narrow pathway that ran along by the sedgy brink of the river, and only a few paces from the pavilion. the door of the boat-house was open; a long-disused wherry lay rotting upon the damp and mossy flags. olivia crept into the shadowy recess. the door that faced the river had fallen from its rusty hinges, and the slimy woodwork lay in ruins upon the shore. sheltered by the stone archway that had once been closed by this door, olivia listened to the voices beside the still water. mary marchmont was standing close to the river's edge; edward stood beside her, leaning against the trunk of a willow that hung over the water. "my childish darling," the young man murmured, as if in reply to something his companion had said, "and so you think, because you are simple-minded and innocent, i am not to love you. it is your innocence i love, polly dear,--let me call you polly, as i used five years ago,--and i wouldn't have you otherwise for all the world. do you know that sometimes i am almost sorry i ever came back to marchmont towers?" "sorry you came back?" cried mary, in a tone of alarm. "oh, why do you say that, mr. arundel?" "because you are heiress to eleven thousand a year, mary, and the moated grange behind us; and this dreary wood, and the river,--the river is yours, i daresay, miss marchmont;--and i wish you joy of the possession of so much sluggish water and so many square miles of swamp and fen." "but what then?" mary asked wonderingly. "what then? do you know, polly darling, that if i ask you to marry me people will call me a fortune-hunter, and declare that i came to marchmont towers bent upon stealing its heiress's innocent heart, before she had learned the value of the estate that must go along with it? god knows they'd wrong me, polly, as cruelly as ever an honest man was wronged; for, so long as i have money to pay my tailor and tobacconist,--and i've more than enough for both of them,--i want nothing further of the world's wealth. what should i do with all this swamp and fen, miss marchmont--with all that horrible complication of expired leases to be renewed, and income-taxes to be appealed against, that rich people have to endure? if you were not rich, polly, i----" he stopped and laughed, striking the toe of his boot amongst the weeds, and knocking the pebbles into the water. the woman crouching in the shadow of the archway listened with whitened cheeks and glaring eyes; listened as she might have listened to the sentence of her death, drinking in every syllable, in her ravenous desire to lose no breath that told her of her anguish. "if i were not rich!" murmured mary; "what if i were not rich?" "i should tell you how dearly i love you, polly, and ask you to be my wife by-and-by." the girl looked up at him for a few moments in silence, shyly at first, and then more boldly, with a beautiful light kindling in her eyes. "i love you dearly too, mr. arundel," she said at last; "and i would rather you had my money than any one else in the world; and there was something in papa's will that made me think--" "there was something that made you think he would wish this, polly," cried the young man, clasping the trembling little figure to his breast. "mr. paulette sent me a copy of the will, polly, when he sent my diamond-ring; and i think there were some words in it that hinted at such a wish. your father said he left me this legacy, darling,--i have his letter still,--the legacy of a helpless girl. god knows i will try to be worthy of such a trust, mary dearest; god knows i will be faithful to my promise, made nine years ago." the woman listening in the dark archway sank down upon the damp flags at her feet, amongst the slimy rotten wood and rusty iron nails and broken bolts and hinges. she sat there for a long time, not unconscious, but quite motionless, her white face leaning against the moss-grown arch, staring blankly out of the black shadows. she sat there and listened, while the lovers talked in low tender murmurs of the sorrowful past and of the unknown future; that beautiful untrodden region, in which they were to go hand in hand through all the long years of quiet happiness between the present moment and the grave. she sat and listened till the moonlight faintly shimmered upon the water, and the footsteps of the lovers died away upon the narrow pathway by which they went back to the house. olivia marchmont did not move until an hour after they had gone. then she raised herself with an effort, and walked with stiffened limbs slowly and painfully to the house, and to her own room, where she locked her door, and flung herself upon the ground in the darkness. mary came to her to ask why she did not come to the drawing-room, and mrs. marchmont answered, with a hoarse voice, that she was ill, and wished to be alone. neither mary, nor the old woman-servant who had been olivia's nurse long ago, and who had some little influence over her, could get any other answer than this. chapter xiv. driven away. mary marchmont and edward arundel were happy. they were happy; and how should they guess the tortures of that desperate woman, whose benighted soul was plunged in a black gulf of horror by reason of their innocent love? how should these two--very children in their ignorance of all stormy passions, all direful emotions--know that in the darkened chamber where olivia marchmont lay, suffering under some vague illness, for which the swampington doctor was fain to prescribe quinine, in utter unconsciousness as to the real nature of the disease which he was called upon to cure,--how should they know that in that gloomy chamber a wicked heart was abandoning itself to all the devils that had so long held patient watch for this day? yes; the struggle was over. olivia marchmont flung aside the cross she had borne in dull, mechanical obedience, rather than in christian love and truth. better to have been sorrowful magdalene, forgiven for her love and tears, than this cold, haughty, stainless woman, who had never been able to learn the sublime lessons which so many sinners have taken meekly to heart. the religion which was wanting in the vital principle of christianity, the faith which showed itself only in dogged obedience, failed this woman in the hour of her agony. her pride arose; the defiant spirit of the fallen angel asserted its gloomy grandeur. "what have i done that i should suffer like this?" she thought. "what am i that an empty-headed soldier should despise me, and that i should go mad because of his indifference? is this the recompense for my long years of obedience? is this the reward heaven bestows upon me for my life of duty!" she remembered the histories of other women,--women who had gone their own way and had been happy; and a darker question arose in her mind; almost the question which job asked in his agony. "is there neither truth nor justice in the dealings of god?" she thought. "is it useless to be obedient and submissive, patient and untiring? has all my life been a great mistake, which is to end in confusion and despair?" and then she pictured to herself the life that might have been hers if edward arundel had loved her. how good she would have been! the hardness of her iron nature would have been melted and subdued. by force of her love and tenderness for him, she would have learned to be loving and tender to others. her wealth of affection for him would have overflowed in gentleness and consideration for every creature in the universe. the lurking bitterness which had lain hidden in her heart ever since she had first loved edward arundel, and first discovered his indifference to her; and the poisonous envy of happier women, who had loved and were beloved,--would have been blotted away. her whole nature would have undergone a wondrous transfiguration, purified and exalted by the strength of her affection. all this might have come to pass if he had loved her,--if he had only loved her. but a pale-faced child had come between her and this redemption; and there was nothing left for her but despair. nothing but despair? yes; perhaps something further,--revenge. but this last idea took no tangible shape. she only knew that, in the black darkness of the gulf into which her soul had gone down, there was, far away somewhere, one ray of lurid light. she only knew this as yet, and that she hated mary marchmont with a mad and wicked hatred. if she could have thought meanly of edward arundel,--if she could have believed him to be actuated by mercenary motives in his choice of the orphan girl,--she might have taken some comfort from the thought of his unworthiness, and of mary's probable sorrow in the days to come. but she _could_ not think this. little as the young soldier had said in the summer twilight beside the river, there had been that in his tones and looks which had convinced the wretched watcher of his truth. mary might have been deceived by the shallowest pretender; but olivia's eyes devoured every glance; olivia's greedy ears drank in every tone; and she _knew_ that edward arundel loved her stepdaughter. she knew this, and she hated mary marchmont. what had she done, this girl, who had never known what it was to fight a battle with her own rebellious heart? what had she done, that all this wealth of love and happiness should drop into her lap unsought,--comparatively unvalued, perhaps? john marchmont's widow lay in her darkened chamber thinking over these things; no longer fighting the battle with her own heart, but utterly abandoning herself to her desperation,--reckless, hardened, impenitent. edward arundel could not very well remain at the towers while the reputed illness of his hostess kept her to her room. he went over to swampington, therefore, upon a dutiful visit to his uncle; but rode to the towers every day to inquire very particularly after his cousin's progress, and to dawdle on the sunny western terrace with mary marchmont. their innocent happiness needs little description. edward arundel retained a good deal of that boyish chivalry which had made him so eager to become the little girl's champion in the days gone by. contact with the world had not much sullied the freshness of the young man's spirit. he loved his innocent, childish companion with the purest and truest devotion; and he was proud of the recollection that in the day of his poverty john marchmont had chosen _him_ as the future shelterer of this tender blossom. "you must never grow any older or more womanly, polly," he said sometimes to the young mistress of marchmont towers. "remember that i always love you best when i think of you as the little girl in the shabby pinafore, who poured out my tea for me one bleak december morning in oakley street." they talked a great deal of john marchmont. it was such a happiness to mary to be able to talk unreservedly of her father to some one who had loved and comprehended him. "my stepmamma was very good to poor papa, you know, edward," she said, "and of course he was very grateful to her; but i don't think he ever loved her quite as he loved you. you were the friend of his poverty, edward; he never forgot that." once, as they strolled side by side together upon the terrace in the warm summer noontide, mary marchmont put her little hand through her lover's arm, and looked up shyly in his face. "did papa say that, edward?" she whispered; "did he really say that?" "did he really say what, darling?" "that he left me to you as a legacy?" "he did indeed, polly," answered the young man. "i'll bring you the letter to-morrow." and the next day he showed mary marchmont the yellow sheet of letter-paper and the faded writing, which had once been black and wet under her dead father's hand. mary looked through her tears at the old familiar oakley-street address, and the date of the very day upon which edward arundel had breakfasted in the shabby lodging. yes--there were the words: "the legacy of a child's helplessness is the only bequest i can leave to the only friend i have." "and you shall never know what it is to be helpless while i am near you, polly darling," the soldier said, as he refolded his dead friend's epistle. "you may defy your enemies henceforward, mary--if you have any enemies. o, by-the-bye, you have never heard any thing of that paul marchmont, i suppose?" "papa's cousin--mr marchmont the artist?" "yes." "he came to the reading of papa's will." "indeed! and did you see much of him?" "oh, no, very little. i was ill, you know," the girl added, the tears rising to her eyes at the recollection of that bitter time,--"i was ill, and i didn't notice any thing. i know that mr. marchmont talked to me a little; but i can't remember what he said." "and he has never been here since?" "never." edward arundel shrugged his shoulders. this paul marchmont could not be such a designing villain, after all, or surely he would have tried to push his acquaintance with his rich cousin! "i dare say john's suspicion of him was only one of the poor fellow's morbid fancies," he thought. "he was always full of morbid fancies." mrs. marchmont's rooms were in the western front of the house; and through her open windows she heard the fresh young voices of the lovers as they strolled up and down the terrace. the cavalry officer was content to carry a watering-pot full of water, for the refreshment of his young mistress's geraniums in the stone vases on the balustrade, and to do other under-gardener's work for her pleasure. he talked to her of the indian campaign; and she asked a hundred questions about midnight marches and solitary encampments, fainting camels, lurking tigers in the darkness of the jungle, intercepted supplies of provisions, stolen ammunition, and all the other details of the war. olivia arose at last, before the swampington surgeon's saline draughts and quinine mixtures had subdued the fiery light in her eyes, or cooled the raging fever that devoured her. she arose because she could no longer lie still in her desolation knowing that, for two hours in each long summer's day, edward arundel and mary marchmont could be happy together in spite of her. she came down stairs, therefore, and renewed her watch--chaining her stepdaughter to her side, and interposing herself for ever between the lovers. the widow arose from her sick-bed an altered woman, as it appeared to all who knew her. a mad excitement seemed to have taken sudden possession of her. she flung off her mourning garments, and ordered silks and laces, velvets and satins, from a london milliner; she complained of the absence of society, the monotonous dulness of her lincolnshire life; and, to the surprise of every one, sent out cards of invitation for a ball at the towers in honour of edward arundel's return to england. she seemed to be seized with a desire to do something, she scarcely cared what, to disturb the even current of her days. during the brief interval between mrs. marchmont's leaving her room and the evening appointed for the ball, edward arundel found no very convenient opportunity of informing his cousin of the engagement entered into between himself and mary. he had no wish to hurry this disclosure; for there was something in the orphan girl's childishness and innocence that kept all definite ideas of an early marriage very far away from her lover's mind. he wanted to go back to india, and win more laurels, to lay at the feet of the mistress of marchmont towers. he wanted to make a name for himself, which should cause the world to forget that he was a younger son,--a name that the vilest tongue would never dare to blacken with the epithet of fortune-hunter. the young man was silent therefore, waiting for a fitting opportunity in which to speak to mary's stepmother. perhaps he rather dreaded the idea of discussing his attachment with olivia; for she had looked at him with cold angry eyes, and a brow as black as thunder, upon those occasions on which she had sounded him as to his feelings for mary. "she wants poor polly to marry some grandee, i dare say," he thought, "and will do all she can to oppose my suit. but her trust will cease with mary's majority; and i don't want my confiding little darling to marry me until she is old enough to choose for herself, and to choose wisely. she will be one-and-twenty in three years; and what are three years? i would wait as long as jacob for my pet, and serve my fourteen years' apprenticeship under sir charles napier, and be true to her all the time." olivia marchmont hated her stepdaughter. mary was not slow to perceive the change in the widow's manner towards her. it had always been cold, and sometimes severe; but it was now almost abhorrent. the girl shrank appalled from the sinister light in her stepmother's gray eyes, as they followed her unceasingly, dogging her footsteps with a hungry and evil gaze. the gentle girl wondered what she had done to offend her guardian, and then, being unable to think of any possible delinquency by which she might have incurred mrs. marchmont's displeasure, was fain to attribute the change in olivia's manner to the irritation consequent upon her illness, and was thus more gentle and more submissive than of old; enduring cruel looks, returning no answer to bitter speeches, but striving to conciliate the supposed invalid by her sweetness and obedience. but the girl's amiability only irritated the despairing woman. her jealousy fed upon every charm of the rival who had supplanted her. that fatal passion fed upon edward arundel's every look and tone, upon the quiet smile which rested on mary's face as the girl sat over her embroidery, in meek silence, thinking of her lover. the self-tortures which olivia marchmont inflicted upon herself were so horrible to bear, that she turned, with a mad desire for relief, upon those she had the power to torture. day by day, and hour by hour, she contrived to distress the gentle girl, who had so long obeyed her, now by a word, now by a look, but always with that subtle power of aggravation which some women possess in such an eminent degree--until mary marchmont's life became a burden to her, or would have so become, but for that inexpressible happiness, of which her tormentor could not deprive her,--the joy she felt in her knowledge of edward arundel's love. she was very careful to keep the secret of her stepmother's altered manner from the young soldier. olivia was his cousin, and he had said long ago that she was to love her. heaven knows she had tried to do so, and had failed most miserably; but her belief in olivia's goodness was still unshaken. if mrs. marchmont was now irritable, capricious, and even cruel, there was doubtless some good reason for the alteration in her conduct; and it was mary's duty to be patient. the orphan girl had learned to suffer quietly when the great affliction of her father's death had fallen upon her; and she suffered so quietly now, that even her lover failed to perceive any symptoms of her distress. how could she grieve him by telling him of her sorrows, when his very presence brought such unutterable joy to her? so, on the morning of the ball at marchmont towers,--the first entertainment of the kind that had been given in that grim lincolnshire mansion since young arthur marchmont's untimely death,--mary sat in her room, with her old friend farmer pollard's daughter, who was now mrs. jobson, the wife of the most prosperous carpenter in kemberling. hester had come up to the towers to pay a dutiful visit to her young patroness; and upon this particular occasion olivia had not cared to prevent mary and her humble friend spending half an hour together. mrs. marchmont roamed from room to room upon this day, with a perpetual restlessness. edward arundel was to dine at the towers, and was to sleep there after the ball. he was to drive his uncle over from swampington, as the rector had promised to show himself for an hour or two at his daughter's entertainment. mary had met her stepmother several times that morning, in the corridors and on the staircase; but the widow had passed her in silence, with a dark face, and a shivering, almost abhorrent gesture. the bright july day dragged itself out at last, with hideous slowness for the desperate woman, who could not find peace or rest in all those splendid rooms, on all that grassy flat, dry and burning under the blazing summer sun. she had wandered out upon the waste of barren turf, with her head bared to the hot sky, and had loitered here and there by the still pools, looking gloomily at the black tideless water, and wondering what the agony of drowning was like. not that she had any thought of killing herself. no: the idea of death was horrible to her; for after her death edward and mary would be happy. could she ever find rest in the grave, knowing this? could there be any possible extinction that would blot out her jealous fury? surely the fire of her hate--it was no longer love, but hate, that raged in her heart--would defy annihilation, eternal by reason of its intensity. when the dinner-hour came, and edward and his uncle arrived at the towers, olivia marchmont's pale face was lit up with eyes that flamed like fire; but she took her accustomed place very quietly, with her father opposite to her, and mary and edward upon either side. "i'm sure you're ill, livy," the young man said; "you're as pale as death, and your hand is dry and burning. i'm afraid you've not been obedient to the swampington doctor." mrs. marchmont shrugged her shoulders with a short contemptuous laugh. "i am well enough," she said. "who cares whether i am well or ill?" her father looked up at her in mute surprise. the bitterness of her tone startled and alarmed him; but mary never lifted her eyes. it was in such a tone as this that her stepmother had spoken constantly of late. but two or three hours afterwards, when the flats before the house were silvered by the moonlight, and the long ranges of windows glittered with the lamps within, mrs. marchmont emerged from her dressing-room another creature, as it seemed. edward and his uncle were walking up and down the great oaken banqueting-hall, which had been decorated and fitted up as a ballroom for the occasion, when olivia crossed the wide threshold of the chamber. the young officer looked up with an involuntary expression of surprise. in all his acquaintance with his cousin, he had never seen her thus. the gloomy black-robed woman was transformed into a semiramis. she wore a voluminous dress of a deep claret-coloured velvet, that glowed with the warm hues of rich wine in the lamplight. her massive hair was coiled in a knot at the back of her head, and diamonds glittered amidst the thick bands that framed her broad white brow. her stern classical beauty was lit up by the unwonted splendour of her dress, and asserted itself as obviously as if she had said, "am i a woman to be despised for the love of a pale-faced child?" mary marchmont came into the room a few minutes after her stepmother. her lover ran to welcome her, and looked fondly at her simple dress of shadowy white crape, and the pearl circlet that crowned her soft brown hair. the pearls she wore upon this night had been given to her by her father on her fourteenth birthday. olivia watched the young man as he bent over mary marchmont. he wore his uniform to-night for the special gratification of his young mistress, and he was looking down with a tender smile at her childish admiration of the bullion ornaments upon his coat, and the decoration he had won in india. the widow looked from the two lovers to an antique glass upon an ebony bureau in a niche opposite to her, which reflected her own face,--her own face, more beautiful than she had ever seen it before, with a feverish glow of vivid crimson lighting up her hollow cheeks. "i might have been beautiful if he had loved me," she thought; and then she turned to her father, and began to talk to him of his parishioners, the old pensioners upon her bounty, whose little histories were so hatefully familiar to her. once more she made a feeble effort to tread the old hackneyed pathway, which she had toiled upon with such weary feet; but she could not,--she could not. after a few minutes she turned abruptly from the rector, and seated herself in a recess of the window, from which she could see edward and mary. but mrs. marchmont's duties as hostess soon demanded her attention. the county families began to arrive; the sound of carriage-wheels seemed perpetual upon the crisp gravel-drive before the western front; the names of half the great people in lincolnshire were shouted by the old servants in the hall. the band in the music-gallery struck up a quadrille, and edward arundel led the youthful mistress of the mansion to her place in the dance. to olivia that long night seemed all glare and noise and confusion. she did the honours of the ballroom, she received her guests, she meted out due attention to all; for she had been accustomed from her earliest girlhood to the stereotyped round of country society. she neglected no duty; but she did all mechanically, scarcely knowing what she said or did in the feverish tumult of her soul. yet, amidst all the bewilderment of her senses, in all the confusion of her thoughts, two figures were always before her. wherever edward arundel and mary marchmont went, her eyes followed them--her fevered imagination pursued them. once, and once only, in the course of that long night she spoke to her stepdaughter. "how often do you mean to dance with captain arundel, miss marchmont?" she said. but before mary could answer, her stepmother had moved away upon the arm of a portly country squire, and the girl was left in sorrowful wonderment as to the reason of mrs. marchmont's angry tone. edward and mary were standing in one of the deep embayed windows of the banqueting-hall, when the dancers began to disperse, long after supper. the girl had been very happy that evening, in spite of her stepmother's bitter words and disdainful glances. for almost the first time in her life, the young mistress of marchmont towers had felt the contagious influence of other people's happiness. the brilliantly-lighted ballroom, the fluttering dresses of the dancers, the joyous music, the low sound of suppressed laughter, the bright faces which smiled at each other upon every side, were as new as any thing in fairyland to this girl, whose narrow life had been overshadowed by the gloomy figure of her stepmother, for ever interposed between her and the outer world. the young spirit arose and shook off its fetters, fresh and radiant as the butterfly that escapes from its chrysalis. the new light of happiness illumined the orphan's delicate face, until edward arundel began to wonder at her loveliness, as he had wondered once before that night at the fiery splendour of his cousin olivia. "i had no idea that olivia was so handsome, or you so pretty, my darling," he said, as he stood with mary in the embrasure of the window. "you look like titania, the queen of the fairies, polly, with your cloudy draperies and crown of pearls." the window was open, and captain arundel looked wistfully at the broad flagged quadrangle beautified by the light of the full summer moon. he glanced back into the room; it was nearly empty now; and mrs. marchmont was standing near the principal doorway, bidding the last of her guests goodnight. "come into the quadrangle, polly," he said, "and take a turn with me under the colonnade. it was a cloister once, i dare say, in the good old days before harry the eighth was king; and cowled monks have paced up and down under its shadow, muttering mechanical aves and paternosters, as the beads of their rosaries dropped slowly through their shrivelled old fingers. come out into the quadrangle, polly; all the people we know or care about are gone; and we'll go out and walk in the moonlight as true lovers ought." the soldier led his young companion across the threshold of the window, and out into a cloister-like colonnade that ran along one side of the house. the shadows of the gothic pillars were black upon the moonlit flags of the quadrangle, which was as light now as in the day; but a pleasant obscurity reigned in the sheltered colonnade. "i think this little bit of pre-lutheran masonry is the best of all your possessions, polly," the young man said, laughing. "by-and-by, when i come home from india a general,--as i mean to do, miss marchmont, before i ask you to become mrs. arundel,--i shall stroll up and down here in the still summer evenings, smoking my cheroots. you will let me smoke out of doors, won't you, polly? but suppose i should leave some of my limbs on the banks of the sutlej, and come limping home to you with a wooden leg, would you have me then, mary; or would you dismiss me with ignominy from your sweet presence, and shut the doors of your stony mansion upon myself and my calamities? i'm afraid, from your admiration of my gold epaulettes and silk sash, that glory in the abstract would have very little attraction for you." mary marchmont looked up at her lover with widely-opened and wondering eyes, and the clasp of her hand tightened a little upon his arm. "there is nothing that could ever happen to you that would make me love you less _now_," she said naïvely. "i dare say at first i liked you a little because you were handsome, and different to every one else i had ever seen. you were so very handsome, you know," she added apologetically; "but it was not because of that _only_ that i loved you. i loved you because papa told me you were good and generous, and his true friend when he was in cruel need of a friend. yes; you were his friend at school, when your cousin, martin mostyn, and the other pupils sneered at him and ridiculed him. how can i ever forget that, edward? how can i ever love you enough to repay you for that?" in the enthusiasm of her innocent devotion, she lifted her pure young brow, and the soldier bent down and kissed that white throne of all virginal thoughts, as the lovers stood side by side; half in the moonlight, half in the shadow. olivia marchmont came into the embrasure of the open window, and took her place there to watch them. she came again to the torture. from the remotest end of the long banqueting-room she had seen the two figures glide out into the moonlight. she had seen them, and had gone on with her courteous speeches, and had repeated her formula of hospitality, with the fire in her heart devouring and consuming her. she came again, to watch and to listen, and to endure her self-imposed agonies--as mad and foolish in her fatal passion as some besotted wretch who should come willingly to the wheel upon which his limbs had been well-nigh broken, and supplicate for a renewal of the torture. she stood rigid and motionless in the shadow of the arched window, hiding herself, as she had hidden in the dark cavernous recess by the river; she stood and listened to all the childish babble of the lovers as they loitered up and down the vaulted cloister. how she despised them, in the haughty superiority of an intellect which might have planned a revolution, or saved a sinking state! what bitter scorn curled her lip, as their foolish talk fell upon her ear! they talked like florizel and perdita, like romeo and juliet, like paul and virginia; and they talked a great deal of nonsense, no doubt--soft harmonious foolishness, with little more meaning in it than there is in the cooing of doves, but tender and musical, and more than beautiful, to each other's ears. a tigress, famished and desolate, and but lately robbed of her whelps, would not be likely to listen very patiently to the communing of a pair of prosperous ringdoves. olivia marchmont listened with her brain on fire, and the spirit of a murderess raging in her breast. what was she that she should be patient? all the world was lost to her. she was thirty years of age, and she had never yet won the love of any human being. she was thirty years of age, and all the sublime world of affection was a dismal blank for her. from the outer darkness in which she stood, she looked with wild and ignorant yearning into that bright region which her accursed foot had never trodden, and saw mary marchmont wandering hand-in-hand with the only man _she_ could have loved--the only creature who had ever had the power to awake the instinct of womanhood in her soul. she stood and waited until the clock in the quadrangle struck the first quarter after three: the moon was fading out, and the colder light of early morning glimmered in the eastern sky. "i mustn't keep you out here any longer, polly," captain arundel said, pausing near the window. "it's getting cold, my dear, and it's high time the mistress of marchmont should retire to her stony bower. good-night, and god bless you, my darling! i'll stop in the quadrangle and smoke a cheroot before i go to my room. your stepmamma will be wondering what has become of you, mary, and we shall have a lecture upon the proprieties to-morrow; so, once more, good-night." he kissed the fair young brow under the coronal of pearls, stopped to watch mary while she crossed the threshold of the open window, and then strolled away into the flagged court, with his cigar-case in his hand. olivia marchmont stood a few paces from the window when her stepdaughter entered the room, and mary paused involuntarily, terrified by the cruel aspect of the face that frowned upon her: terrified by something that she had never seen before,--the horrible darkness that overshadows the souls of the lost. "mamma!" the girl cried, clasping her hands in sudden affright--"mamma! why do you look at me like that? why have you been so changed to me lately? i cannot tell you how unhappy i have been. mamma, mamma! what have i done to offend you?" olivia marchmont grasped the trembling hands uplifted entreatingly to her, and held them in her own,--held them as if in a vice. she stood thus, with her stepdaughter pinioned in her grasp, and her eyes fixed upon the girl's face. two streams of lurid light seemed to emanate from those dilated gray eyes; two spots of crimson blazed in the widow's hollow cheeks. "_what_ have you done?" she cried. "do you think i have toiled for nothing to do the duty which i promised my dead husband to perform for your sake? has all my care of you been so little, that i am to stand by now and be silent, when i see what you are? do you think that i am blind, or deaf, or besotted; that you defy me and outrage me, day by day, and hour by hour, by your conduct?" "mamma, mamma! what do you mean?" "heaven knows how rigidly you have been educated; how carefully you have been secluded from all society, and sheltered from every influence, lest harm or danger should come to you. i have done my duty, and i wash my hands of you. the debasing taint of your mother's low breeding reveals itself in your every action. you run after my cousin edward arundel, and advertise your admiration of him, to himself, and every creature who knows you. you fling yourself into his arms, and offer him yourself and your fortune: and in your low cunning you try to keep the secret from me, your protectress and guardian, appointed by the dead father whom you pretend to have loved so dearly." olivia marchmont still held her stepdaughter's wrists in her iron grasp. the girl stared wildly at her with her trembling lips apart. she began to think that the widow had gone mad. "i blush for you--i am ashamed of you!" cried olivia. it seemed as if the torrent of her words burst forth almost in spite of herself. "there is not a village girl in kemberling, there is not a scullerymaid in this house, who would have behaved as you have done. i have watched you, mary marchmont, remember, and i know all. i know your wanderings down by the river-side. i heard you--yes, by the heaven above me!--i heard you offer yourself to my cousin." mary drew herself up with an indignant gesture, and over the whiteness of her face there swept a sudden glow of vivid crimson that faded as quickly as it came. her submissive nature revolted against her stepmother's horrible tyranny. the dignity of innocence arose and asserted itself against olivia's shameful upbraiding. "if i offered myself to edward arundel, mamma," she said, "it was because we love each other very truly, and because i think and believe papa wished me to marry his old friend." "because _we_ love each other very truly!" olivia echoed in a tone of unmitigated scorn. "you can answer for captain arundel's heart, i suppose, then, as well as for your own? you must have a tolerably good opinion of yourself, miss marchmont, to be able to venture so much. bah!" she cried suddenly, with a disdainful gesture of her head; "do you think your pitiful face has won edward arundel? do you think he has not had women fifty times your superior, in every quality of mind and body, at his feet out yonder in india? are you idiotic and besotted enough to believe that it is anything but your fortune this man cares for? do you know the vile things people will do, the lies they will tell, the base comedies of guilt and falsehood they will act, for the love of eleven thousand a year? and you think that he loves you! child, dupe, fool! are you weak enough to be deluded by a fortune-hunter's pretty pastoral flatteries? are you weak enough to be duped by a man of the world, worn out and jaded, no doubt, as to the world's pleasures--in debt perhaps, and in pressing need of money, who comes here to try and redeem his fortunes by a marriage with a semi-imbecile heiress?" olivia marchmont released her hold of the shrinking girl, who seemed to have become transfixed to the spot upon which she stood, a pale statue of horror and despair. the iron will of the strong and resolute woman rode roughshod over the simple confidence of the ignorant girl. until this moment, mary marchmont had believed in edward arundel as implicitly as she had trusted in her dead father. but now, for the first time, a dreadful region of doubt opened before her; the foundations of her world reeled beneath her feet. edward arundel a fortune-hunter! this woman, whom she had obeyed for five weary years, and who had acquired that ascendancy over her which a determined and vigorous nature must always exercise over a morbidly sensitive disposition, told her that she had been deluded. this woman laughed aloud in bitter scorn of her credulity. this woman, who could have no possible motive for torturing her, and who was known to be scrupulously conscientious in all her dealings, told her, as plainly as the most cruel words could tell a cruel truth, that her own charms could not have won edward arundel's affection. all the beautiful day-dreams of her life melted away from her. she had never questioned herself as to her worthiness of her lover's devotion. she had accepted it as she accepted the sunshine and the starlight--as something beautiful and incomprehensible, that came to her by the beneficence of god, and not through any merits of her own. but as the fabric of her happiness dwindled away, the fatal spell exercised over the girl's weak nature by olivia's violent words evoked a hundred doubts. how should he love her? why should he love her in preference to every other woman in the world? set any woman to ask herself this question, and you fill her mind with a thousand suspicions, a thousand jealous doubts of her lover, though he were the truest and noblest in the universe. olivia marchmont stood a few paces from her stepdaughter, watching her while the black shadow of doubt blotted every joy from her heart, and utter despair crept slowly into her innocent breast. the widow expected that the girl's self-esteem would assert itself--that she would contradict and defy the traducer of her lover's truth; but it was not so. when mary spoke again, her voice was low and subdued, her manner as submissive as it had been two or three years before, when she had stood before her stepmother, waiting to repeat some difficult lesson. "i dare say you are right, mamma," she said in a low dreamy tone, looking not at her stepmother, but straight before her into vacancy, as if her tearless eyes ware transfixed by the vision of all her shattered hopes, filling with wreck and ruin the desolate foreground of a blank future. "i dare say you are right, mamma; it was very foolish of me to think that edward--that captain arundel could care for me, for--for--my own sake; but if--if he wants my fortune, i should wish him to have it. the money will never be any good to me, you know, mamma; and he was so kind to papa in his poverty--so kind! i will never, never believe anything against him;--but i couldn't expect him to love me. i shouldn't have offered to be his wife; i ought only to have offered him my fortune." she heard her lover's footstep in the quadrangle without, in the stillness of the summer morning, and shivered at the sound. it was less than a quarter of an hour since she had been walking with him up and down that cloistered way, in which his footsteps were echoing with a hollow sound; and now----. even in the confusion of her anguish, mary marchmont could not help wondering, as she thought in how short a time the happiness of a future might be swept away into chaos. "good-night, mamma," she said presently, with an accent of weariness. she did not look at her stepmother (who had turned away from her now, and had walked towards the open window), but stole quietly from the room, crossed the hall, and went up the broad staircase to her own lonely chamber. heiress though she was, she had no special attendant of her own: she had the privilege of summoning olivia's maid whenever she had need of assistance; but she retained the simple habits of her early life, and very rarely troubled mrs. marchmont's grim and elderly abigail. olivia stood looking out into the stony quadrangle. it was broad daylight now; the cocks were crowing in the distance, and a skylark singing somewhere in the blue heaven, high up above marchmont towers. the faded garlands in the banqueting-room looked wan in the morning sunshine; the lamps were burning still, for the servants waited until mrs. marchmont should have retired, before they entered the room. edward arundel was walking up and down the cloister, smoking his second cigar. he stopped presently, seeing his cousin at the window. "what, livy!" he cried, "not gone to bed yet?" "no; i am going directly." "mary has gone, i hope?" "yes; she has gone. good-night." "good _morning_, my dear mrs. marchmont," the young man answered, laughing. "if the partridges were in, i should be going out shooting, this lovely morning, instead of crawling ignominiously to bed, like a worn-out reveller who has drunk too much sparkling hock. i like the still best, by-the-bye,--the johannisberger, that poor john's predecessor imported from the rhine. but i suppose there is no help for it, and i must go to bed in the face of all that eastern glory. i should be mounting for a gallop on the race-course, if i were in calcutta. but i'll go to bed, mrs marchmont, and humbly await your breakfast-hour. they're stacking the new hay in the meadows beyond the park. don't you smell it?" olivia shrugged her shoulders with an impatient frown. good heavens! how frivolous and senseless this man's talk seemed to her! she was plunging her soul into an abyss of sin and ruin for his sake; and she hated him, and rebelled against him, because he was so little worthy of the sacrifice. "good morning," she said abruptly; "i'm tired to death." she moved away, and left him. five minutes afterwards, he went up the great oak-staircase after her, whistling a serenade from _fra diavolo_ as he went. he was one of those people to whom life seems all holiday. younger son though he was, he had never known any of the pitfalls of debt and difficulty into which the junior members of rich families are so apt to plunge headlong in early youth, and from which they emerge enfeebled and crippled, to endure an after-life embittered by all the shabby miseries which wait upon aristocratic pauperism. brave, honourable, and simple-minded, edward arundel had fought the battle of life like a good soldier, and had carried a stainless shield when the fight was thickest, and victory hard to win. his sunshiny nature won him friends, and his better qualities kept them. young men trusted and respected him; and old men, gray in the service of their country, spoke well of him. his handsome face was a pleasant decoration at any festival; his kindly voice and hearty laugh at a dinner-table were as good as music in the gallery at the end of the banqueting-chamber. he had that freshness of spirit which is the peculiar gift of some natures; and he had as yet never known sorrow, except, indeed, such tender and compassionate sympathy as he had often felt for the calamities of others. olivia marchmont heard her cousin's cheery tenor voice as he passed her chamber. "how happy he is!" she thought. "his very happiness is one insult the more to me." the widow paced up and down her room in the morning sunshine, thinking of the things she had said in the banqueting-hall below, and of her stepdaughter's white despairing face. what had she done? what was the extent of the sin she had committed? olivia marchmont asked herself these two questions. the old habit of self-examination was not quite abandoned yet. she sinned, and then set herself to work to try and justify her sin. "how should he love her?" she thought. "what is there in her pale unmeaning face that should win the love of a man who despises me?" she stopped before a cheval-glass, and surveyed herself from head to foot, frowning angrily at her handsome image, hating herself for her despised beauty. her white shoulders looked like stainless marble against the rich ruby darkness of her velvet dress. she had snatched the diamond ornaments from her head, and her long black hair fell about her bosom in thick waveless tresses. "i am handsomer than she is, and cleverer; and i love him better, ten thousand times, than she loves him," olivia marchmont thought, as she turned contemptuously from the glass. "is it likely, then, that he cares for anything but her fortune? any other woman in the world would have argued as i argued to-night. any woman would have believed that she did her duty in warning this besotted girl against her folly. what do i know of edward arundel that should lead me to think him better or nobler than other men? and how many men sell themselves for the love of a woman's wealth! perhaps good may come of my mad folly, after all; and i may have saved this girl from a life of misery by the words i have spoken to-night." the devils--for ever lying in wait for this woman, whose gloomy pride rendered her in some manner akin to themselves--may have laughed at her as she argued thus with herself. she lay down at last to sleep, worn out by the excitement of the long night, and to dream horrible dreams. the servants, with the exception of one who rose betimes to open the great house, slept long after the unwonted festival. edward arundel slumbered as heavily as any member of that wearied household; and thus it was that there was no one in the way to see a shrinking, trembling figure creep down the sunlit-staircase, and steal across the threshold of the wide hall door. there was no one to see mary marchmont's silent flight from the gaunt lincolnshire mansion in which she had known so little real happiness. there was no one to comfort the sorrow-stricken girl in her despair and desolation of spirit. she crept away, like some escaped prisoner, in the early morning, from the house which the law called her own. and the hand of the woman whom john marchmont had chosen to be his daughter's friend and counsellor was the hand which drove that daughter from the shelter of her home. the voice of her whom the weak father had trusted in, fearful to confide his child into the hand of god, but blindly confident in his own judgment--was the voice which had uttered the lying words, whose every syllable had been as a separate dagger thrust in the orphan girl's lacerated heart. it was her father,--her father, who had placed this woman over her, and had entailed upon her the awful agony that drove her out into an unknown world, careless whither she went in her despair. volume ii. chapter i. mary's letter. it was past twelve o'clock when edward arundel strolled into the dining-room. the windows were open, and the scent of the mignionette upon the terrace was blown in upon the warm summer breeze. mrs. marchmont was sitting at one end of the long table, reading a newspaper. she looked up as edward entered the room. she was pale, but not much paler than usual. the feverish light had faded out of her eyes, and they looked dim and heavy. "good morning, livy," the young man said. "mary is not up yet, i suppose?" "i believe not." "poor little girl! a long rest will do her good after her first ball. how pretty and fairy-like she looked in her white gauze dress, and with that circlet of pearls round her hair! your taste, i suppose, olivia? she looked like a snow-drop among all the other gaudy flowers,--the roses and tiger-lilies, and peonies and dahlias. that eldest miss hickman is handsome, but she's so terribly conscious of her attractions. that little girl from swampington with the black ringlets is rather pretty; and laura filmer is a jolly, dashing girl; she looks you full in the face, and talks to you about hunting with as much gusto as an old whipper-in. i don't think much of major hawley's three tall sandy-haired daughters; but fred hawley's a capital fellow: it's a pity he's a civilian. in short, my dear olivia, take it altogether, i think your ball was a success, and i hope you'll give us another in the hunting-season." mrs. marchmont did not condescend to reply to her cousin's meaningless rattle. she sighed wearily, and began to fill the tea-pot from the old-fashioned silver urn. edward loitered in one of the windows, whistling to a peacock that was stalking solemnly backwards and forwards upon the stone balustrade. "i should like to drive you and mary down to the seashore, livy, after breakfast. will you go?" mrs. marchmont shook her head. "i am a great deal too tired to think of going out to-day," she said ungraciously. "and i never felt fresher in my life," the young man responded, laughing; "last night's festivities seem to have revivified me. i wish mary would come down," he added, with a yawn; "i could give her another lesson in billiards, at any rate. poor little girl, i am afraid she'll never make a cannon." captain arundel sat down to his breakfast, and drank the cup of tea poured out for him by olivia. had she been a sinful woman of another type, she would have put arsenic into the cup perhaps, and so have made an end of the young officer and of her own folly. as it was, she only sat by, with her own untasted breakfast before her, and watched him while he ate a plateful of raised pie, and drank his cup of tea, with the healthy appetite which generally accompanies youth and a good conscience. he sprang up from the table directly he had finished his meal, and cried out impatiently, "what can make mary so lazy this morning? she is usually such an early riser." mrs. marchmont rose as her cousin said this, and a vague feeling of uneasiness took possession of her mind. she remembered the white face which had blanched beneath the angry glare of her eyes, the blank look of despair that had come over mary's countenance a few hours before. "i will go and call her myself," she said. "n--no; i'll send barbara." she did not wait to ring the bell, but went into the hall, and called sharply, "barbara! barbara!" a woman came out of a passage leading to the housekeeper's room, in answer to mrs. marchmont's call; a woman of about fifty years of age, dressed in gray stuff, and with a grave inscrutable face, a wooden countenance that gave no token of its owner's character. barbara simmons might have been the best or the worst of women, a mrs. fry or a mrs. brownrigg, for any evidence her face afforded against either hypothesis. "i want you to go up-stairs, barbara, and call miss marchmont," olivia said. "captain arundel and i have finished breakfast." the woman obeyed, and mrs. marchmont returned to the dining-room, where edward was trying to amuse himself with the "times" of the previous day. ten minutes afterwards barbara simmons came into the room carrying a letter on a silver waiter. had the document been a death-warrant, or a telegraphic announcement of the landing of the french at dover, the well-trained servant would have placed it upon a salver before presenting it to her mistress. "miss marchmont is not in her room, ma'am," she said; "the bed has not been slept on; and i found this letter, addressed to captain arundel, upon the table." olivia's face grew livid; a horrible dread rushed into her mind. edward snatched the letter which the servant held towards him. "mary not in her room! what, in heaven's name, can it mean?" he cried. he tore open the letter. the writing was not easily decipherable for the tears which the orphan girl had shed over it. "my own dear edward,--i have loved you so dearly and so foolishly, and you have been so kind to me, that i have quite forgotten how unworthy i am of your affection. but i am forgetful no longer. something has happened which has opened my eyes to my own folly,--i know now that you did not love me; that i had no claim to your love; no charms or attractions such as so many other women possess, and for which you might have loved me. i know this now, dear edward, and that all my happiness has been a foolish dream; but do not think that i blame any one but myself for what has happened. take my fortune: long ago, when i was a little girl, i asked my father to let me share it with you. i ask you now to take it all, dear friend; and i go away for ever from a house in which i have learnt how little happiness riches can give. do not be unhappy about me. i shall pray for you always,--always remembering your goodness to my dead father; always looking back to the day upon which you came to see us in our poor lodging. i am very ignorant of all worldly business, but i hope the law will let me give you marchmont towers, and all my fortune, whatever it may be. let mr. paulette see this latter part of my letter, and let him fully understand that i abandon all my rights to you from this day. good-bye, dear friend; think of me sometimes, but never think of me sorrowfully. "mary marchmont." this was all. this was the letter which the heart-broken girl had written to her lover. it was in no manner different from the letter she might have written to him nine years before in oakley street. it was as childish in its ignorance and inexperience; as womanly in its tender self-abnegation. edward arundel stared at the simple lines like a man in a dream, doubtful of his own identity, doubtful of the reality of the world about him, in his hopeless wonderment. he read the letter line by line again and again, first in dull stupefaction, and muttering the words mechanically as he read them, then with the full light of their meaning dawning gradually upon him. her fortune! he had never loved her! she had discovered her own folly! what did it all mean? what was the clue to the mystery of this letter, which had stunned and bewildered him, until the very power of reflection seemed lost? the dawning of that day had seen their parting, and the innocent face had been lifted to his, beaming with love and trust. and now--? the letter dropped from his hand, and fluttered slowly to the ground. olivia marchmont stooped to pick it up. her movement aroused the young man from his stupor, and in that moment he caught the sight of his cousin's livid face. he started as if a thunderbolt had burst at his feet. an idea, sudden as some inspired revelation, rushed into his mind. "read that letter, olivia marchmont!" he said. the woman obeyed. slowly and deliberately she read the childish epistle which mary had written to her lover. in every line, in every word, the widow saw the effect of her own deadly work; she saw how deeply the poison, dropped from her own envenomed tongue, had sunk into the innocent heart of the girl. edward arundel watched her with flaming eyes. his tall soldierly frame trembled in the intensity of his passion. he followed his cousin's eyes along the lines in mary marchmont's letter, waiting till she should come to the end. then the tumultuous storm of indignation burst forth, until olivia cowered beneath the lightning of her cousin's glance. was this the man she had called frivolous? was this the boyish red-coated dandy she had despised? was this the curled and perfumed representative of swelldom, whose talk never soared to higher flights than the description of a day's snipe-shooting, or a run with the burleigh fox-hounds? the wicked woman's eyelids drooped over her averted eyes; she turned away, shrinking from this fearless accuser. "this mischief is some of _your_ work, olivia marchmont!" edward arundel cried. "it is you who have slandered and traduced me to my dead friend's daughter! who else would dare accuse a dangerfield arundel of baseness? who else would be vile enough to call my father's son a liar and a traitor? it is you who have whispered shameful insinuations into this poor child's innocent ear! i scarcely need the confirmation of your ghastly face to tell me this. it is you who have driven mary marchmont from the home in which you should have sheltered and protected her! you envied her, i suppose,--envied her the thousands which might have ministered to your wicked pride and ambition;--the pride which has always held you aloof from those who might have loved you; the ambition that has made you a soured and discontented woman, whose gloomy face repels all natural affection. you envied the gentle girl whom your dead husband committed to your care, and who should have been most sacred to you. you envied her, and seized the first occasion upon which you might stab her to the very core of her tender heart. what other motive could you have had for doing this deadly wrong? none, so help me heaven!" no other motive! olivia marchmont dropped down in a heap on the ground near her cousin's feet; not kneeling, but grovelling upon the carpeted floor, writhing convulsively, with her hands twisted one in the other, and her head falling forward on her breast. she uttered no syllable of self-justification or denial. the pitiless words rained down upon her provoked no reply. but in the depths of her heart sounded the echo of edward arundel's words: "the pride which has always held you aloof from those who might have loved you; . . . a discontented woman, whose gloomy face repels all natural affection." "o god!" she thought, "he might have loved me, then! he _might_ have loved me, if i could have locked my anguish in my own heart, and smiled at him and flattered him." and then an icy indifference took possession of her. what did it matter that edward arundel repudiated and hated her? he had never loved her. his careless friendliness had made as wide a gulf between them as his bitterest hate could ever make. perhaps, indeed, his new-born hate would be nearer to love than his indifference had been, for at least he would think of her now, if he thought ever so bitterly. "listen to me, olivia marchmont," the young man said, while the woman still crouched upon the ground near his feet, self-confessed in the abandonment of her despair. "wherever this girl may have gone, driven hence by your wickedness, i will follow her. my answer to the lie you have insinuated against me shall be my immediate marriage with my old friend's orphan child. _he_ knew me well enough to know how far i was above the baseness of a fortune-hunter, and he wished that i should be his daughter's husband. i should be a coward and a fool were i to be for one moment influenced by such a slander as that which you have whispered in mary marchmont's ear. it is not the individual only whom you traduce. you slander the cloth i wear, the family to which i belong; and my best justification will be the contempt in which i hold your infamous insinuations. when you hear that i have squandered mary marchmont's fortune, or cheated the children i pray god she may live to bear me, it will be time enough for you to tell the world that your kinsman edward dangerfield arundel is a swindler and a traitor." he strode out into the hall, leaving his cousin on the ground; and she heard his voice outside the dining-room door making inquiries of the servants. they could tell him nothing of mary's flight. her bed had not been slept in; nobody had seen her leave the house; it was most likely, therefore, that she had stolen away very early, before the servants were astir. where had she gone? edward arundel's heart beat wildly as he asked himself that question. he remembered how often he had heard of women, as young and innocent as mary marchmont, who had rushed to destroy themselves in a tumult of agony and despair. how easily this poor child, who believed that her dream of happiness was for ever broken, might have crept down through the gloomy wood to the edge of the sluggish river, to drop into the weedy stream, and hide her sorrow under the quiet water. he could fancy her, a new ophelia, pale and pure as the danish prince's slighted love, floating past the weird branches of the willows, borne up for a while by the current, to sink in silence amongst the shadows farther down the stream. he thought of these things in one moment, and in the next dismissed the thought. mary's letter breathed the spirit of gentle resignation rather than of wild despair. "i shall always pray for you; i shall always remember you," she had written. her lover remembered how much sorrow the orphan girl had endured in her brief life. he looked back to her childish days of poverty and self-denial; her early loss of her mother; her grief at her father's second marriage; the shock of that beloved father's death. her sorrows had followed each other in gloomy succession, with only narrow intervals of peace between them. she was accustomed, therefore, to grief. it is the soul untutored by affliction, the rebellious heart that has never known calamity, which becomes mad and desperate, and breaks under the first blow. mary marchmont had learned the habit of endurance in the hard school of sorrow. edward arundel walked out upon the terrace, and re-read the missing girl's letter. he was calmer now, and able to face the situation with all its difficulties and perplexities. he was losing time perhaps in stopping to deliberate; but it was no use to rush off in reckless haste, undetermined in which direction he should seek for the lost mistress of marchmont towers. one of the grooms was busy in the stables saddling captain arundel's horse, and in the mean time the young man went out alone upon the sunny terrace to deliberate upon mary's letter. complete resignation was expressed in every line of that childish epistle. the heiress spoke most decisively as to her abandonment of her fortune and her home. it was clear, then, that she meant to leave lincolnshire; for she would know that immediate steps would be taken to discover her hiding-place, and bring her back to marchmont towers. where was she likely to go in her inexperience of the outer world? where but to those humble relations of her dead mother's, of whom her father had spoken in his letter to edward arundel, and with whom the young man knew she had kept up an occasional correspondence, sending them many little gifts out of her pocket-money. these people were small tenant-farmers, at a place called marlingford, in berkshire. edward knew their name and the name of the farm. "i'll make inquiries at the kemberling station to begin with," he thought. "there's a through train from the north that stops at kemberling at a little before six. my poor darling may have easily caught that, if she left the house at five." captain arundel went back into the hall, and summoned barbara simmons. the woman replied with rather a sulky air to his numerous questions; but she told him that miss marchmont had left her ball-dress upon the bed, and had put on a gray cashmere dress trimmed with black ribbon, which she had worn as half-mourning for her father; a black straw bonnet, with a crape veil, and a silk mantle trimmed with crape. she had taken with her a small carpet-bag, some linen,--for the linen-drawer of her wardrobe was open, and the things scattered confusedly about,--and the little morocco case in which she kept her pearl ornaments, and the diamond ring left her by her father. "had she any money?" edward asked. "yes, sir; she was never without money. she spent a good deal amongst the poor people she visited with my mistress; but i dare say she may have had between ten and twenty pounds in her purse." "she will go to berkshire," edward arundel thought: "the idea of going to her humble friends would be the first to present itself to her mind. she will go to her dead mother's sister, and give her all her jewels, and ask for shelter in the quiet farmhouse. she will act like one of the heroines in the old-fashioned novels she used to read in oakley street, the simple-minded damsels of those innocent story-books, who think nothing of resigning a castle and a coronet, and going out into the world to work for their daily bread in a white satin gown, and with a string of pearls to bind their dishevelled locks." captain arundel's horse was brought round to the terrace-steps, as he stood with mary's letter in his hand, waiting to hurry away to the rescue of his sorrowful love. "tell mrs. marchmont that i shall not return to the towers till i bring her stepdaughter with me," he said to the groom; and then, without stopping to utter another word, he shook the rein on his horse's neck, and galloped away along the gravelled drive leading to the great iron gates of marchmont towers. olivia heard his message, which had been spoken in a clear loud voice, like some knightly defiance, sounding trumpet-like at a castle-gate. she stood in one of the windows of the dining-room, hidden by the faded velvet curtain, and watched her cousin ride away, brave and handsome as any knight-errant of the chivalrous past, and as true as bayard himself. chapter ii. a new protector. captain arundel's inquiries at the kemberling station resulted in an immediate success. a young lady--a young woman, the railway official called her--dressed in black, wearing a crape veil over her face, and carrying a small carpet-bag in her hand, had taken a second-class ticket for london, by the . ., a parliamentary train, which stopped at almost every station on the line, and reached euston square at half-past twelve. edward looked at his watch. it was ten minutes to two o'clock. the express did not stop at kemberling; but he would be able to catch it at swampington at a quarter past three. even then, however, he could scarcely hope to get to berkshire that night. "my darling girl will not discover how foolish her doubts have been until to-morrow," he thought. "silly child! has my love so little the aspect of truth that she _can_ doubt me?" he sprang on his horse again, flung a shilling to the railway porter who had held the bridle, and rode away along the swampington road. the clocks in the gray old norman turrets were striking three as the young man crossed the bridge, and paid his toll at the little toll-house by the stone archway. the streets were as lonely as usual in the hot july afternoon; and the long line of sea beyond the dreary marshes was blue in the sunshine. captain arundel passed the two churches, and the low-roofed rectory, and rode away to the outskirts of the town, where the station glared in all the brilliancy of new red bricks, and dazzling stuccoed chimneys, athwart a desert of waste ground. the express-train came tearing up to the quiet platform two minutes after edward had taken his ticket; and in another minute the clanging bell pealed out its discordant signal, and the young man was borne, with a shriek and a whistle, away upon the first stage of his search for mary marchmont. it was nearly seven o'clock when he reached euston square; and he only got to the paddington station in time to hear that the last train for marlingford had just started. there was no possibility of his reaching the little berkshire village that night. no mail-train stopped within a reasonable distance of the obscure station. there was no help for it, therefore, captain arundel had nothing to do but to wait for the next morning. he walked slowly away from the station, very much disheartened by this discovery. "i'd better sleep at some hotel up this way," he thought, as he strolled listlessly in the direction of oxford street, "so as to be on the spot to catch the first train to-morrow morning. what am i to do with myself all this night, racked with uncertainty about mary?" he remembered that one of his brother officers was staying at the hotel in covent garden where edward himself stopped, when business detained him in london for a day or two. "shall i go and see lucas?" captain arundel thought. "he's a good fellow, and won't bore me with a lot of questions, if he sees i've something on my mind. there may be some letters for me at e----'s. poor little polly!" he could never think of her without something of that pitiful tenderness which he might have felt for a young and helpless child, whom it was his duty and privilege to protect and succour. it may be that there was little of the lover's fiery enthusiasm mingled with the purer and more tender feelings with which edward arundel regarded his dead friend's orphan daughter; but in place of this there was a chivalrous devotion, such as woman rarely wins in these degenerate modern days. the young soldier walked through the lamp-lit western streets thinking of the missing girl; now assuring himself that his instinct had not deceived him, and that mary must have gone straight to the berkshire farmer's house, and in the next moment seized with a sudden terror that it might be otherwise: the helpless girl might have gone out into a world of which she was as ignorant as a child, determined to hide herself from all who had ever known her. if it should be thus: if, on going down to marlingford, he obtained no tidings of his friend's daughter, what was he to do? where was he to look for her next? he would put advertisements in the papers, calling upon his betrothed to trust him and return to him. perhaps mary marchmont was, of all people in this world, the least likely to look into a newspaper; but at least it would be doing something to do this, and edward arundel determined upon going straight off to printing-house square, to draw up an appeal to the missing girl. it was past ten o'clock when captain arundel came to this determination, and he had reached the neighbourhood of covent garden and of the theatres. the staring play-bills adorned almost every threshold, and fluttered against every door-post; and the young soldier, going into a tobacconist's to fill his cigar-case, stared abstractedly at a gaudy blue-and-red announcement of the last dramatic attraction to be seen at drury lane. it was scarcely strange that the captain's thoughts wandered back to his boyhood, that shadowy time, far away behind his later days of indian warfare and glory, and that he remembered the december night upon which he had sat with his cousin in a box at the great patent theatre, watching the consumptive supernumerary struggling under the weight of his banner. from the box at drury lane to the next morning's breakfast in oakley street, was but a natural transition of thought; but with that recollection of the humble lambeth lodging, with the picture of a little girl in a pinafore sitting demurely at her father's table, and meekly waiting on his guest, an idea flashed across edward arundel's mind, and brought the hot blood into his face. what if mary had gone to oakley street? was not this even more likely than that she should seek refuge with her kinsfolk in berkshire? she had lived in the lambeth lodging for years, and had only left that plebeian shelter for the grandeur of marchmont towers. what more natural than that she should go back to the familiar habitation, dear to her by reason of a thousand associations with her dead father? what more likely than that she should turn instinctively, in the hour of her desolation, to the humble friends whom she had known in her childhood? edward arundel was almost too impatient to wait while the smart young damsel behind the tobacconist's counter handed him change for the half-sovereign which he had just tendered her. he darted out into the street, and shouted violently to the driver of a passing hansom,--there are always loitering hansoms in the neighbourhood of covent garden,--who was, after the manner of his kind, looking on any side rather than that upon which providence had sent him a fare. "oakley street, lambeth," the young man cried. "double fare if you get there in ten minutes." the tall raw-boned horse rattled off at that peculiar pace common to his species, making as much noise upon the pavement as if he had been winning a metropolitan derby, and at about twenty minutes past nine drew up, smoking and panting, before the dimly lighted windows of the ladies' wardrobe, where a couple of flaring tallow-candles illuminated the splendour of a foreground of dirty artificial flowers, frayed satin shoes, and tarnished gilt combs; a middle distance of blue gauzy tissue, embroidered with beetles' wings; and a background of greasy black silk. edward arundel flung back the doors of the hansom with a bang, and leaped out upon the pavement. the proprietress of the ladies' wardrobe was lolling against the door-post, refreshing herself with the soft evening breezes from the roads of westminster and waterloo, and talking to her neighbour. "bless her pore dear innercent 'art!" the woman was saying; "she's cried herself to sleep at last. but you never hear any think so pitiful as she talked to me at fust, sweet love!--and the very picture of my own poor eliza jane, as she looked. you might have said it was eliza jane come back to life, only paler and more sickly like, and not that beautiful fresh colour, and ringlets curled all round in a crop, as eliza ja--" edward arundel burst in upon the good woman's talk, which rambled on in an unintermitting stream, unbroken by much punctuation. "miss marchmont is here," he said; "i know she is. thank god, thank god! let me see her please, directly. i am captain arundel, her father's friend, and her affianced husband. you remember me, perhaps? i came here nine years ago to breakfast, one december morning. i can recollect you perfectly, and i know that you were always good to my poor friend's daughter. to think that i should find her here! you shall be well rewarded for your kindness to her. but take me to her; pray take me to her at once!" the proprietress of the wardrobe snatched up one of the candles that guttered in a brass flat-candlestick upon the counter, and led the way up the narrow staircase. she was a good lazy creature, and she was so completely borne down by edward's excitement, that she could only mutter disjointed sentences, to the effect that the gentleman had brought her heart into her mouth, and that her legs felt all of a jelly; and that her poor knees was a'most giving way under her, and other incoherent statements concerning the physical effect of the mental shocks she had that day received. she opened the door of that shabby sitting-room upon the first-floor, in which the crippled eagle brooded over the convex mirror, and stood aside upon the threshold while captain arundel entered the room. a tallow candle was burning dimly upon the table, and a girlish form lay upon the narrow horsehair sofa, shrouded by a woollen shawl. "she went to sleep about half-an-hour ago, sir," the woman said, in a whisper; "and she cried herself to sleep, pore lamb, i think. i made her some tea, and got her a few creases and a french roll, with a bit of best fresh; but she wouldn't touch nothin', or only a few spoonfuls of the tea, just to please me. what is it that's drove her away from her 'ome, sir, and such a good 'ome too? she showed me a diamont ring as her pore par gave her in his will. he left me twenty pound, pore gentleman,--which he always acted like a gentleman bred and born; and mr. pollit, the lawyer, sent his clerk along with it and his compliments,--though i'm sure i never looked for nothink, having always had my rent faithful to the very minute: and miss mary used to bring it down to me so pretty, and--" but the whispering had grown louder by this time, and mary marchmont awoke from her feverish sleep, and lifted her weary head from the hard horsehair pillow and looked about her, half forgetful of where she was, and of what had happened within the last eighteen hours of her life. her eyes wandered here and there, doubtful as to the reality of what they looked upon, until the girl saw her lover's figure, tall and splendid in the humble apartment, a tender half-reproachful smile upon his face, and his handsome blue eyes beaming with love and truth. she saw him, and a faint shriek broke from her tremulous lips, as she rose and fell upon his breast. "you love me, then, edward," she cried; "you do love me!" "yes, my darling, as truly and tenderly as ever woman was loved upon this earth." and then the soldier sat down upon the hard bristly sofa, and with mary's head still resting upon his breast, and his strong hand straying amongst her disordered hair, he reproached her for her foolishness, and comforted and soothed her; while the proprietress of the apartment stood, with the brass candlestick in her hand, watching the young lovers and weeping over their sorrows, as if she had been witnessing a scene in a play. their innocent affection was unrestrained by the good woman's presence; and when mary had smiled upon her lover, and assured him that she would never, never, never doubt him again, captain arundel was fain to kiss the soft-hearted landlady in his enthusiasm, and to promise her the handsomest silk dress that had ever been seen in oakley street, amongst all the faded splendours of silk and satin that ladies'-maids brought for her consideration. "and now my darling, my foolish run-away polly, what is to be done with you?" asked the young soldier. "will you go back to the towers to-morrow morning?" mary marchmont clasped her hands before her face, and began to tremble violently. "oh, no, no, no!" she cried; "don't ask me to do that, don't ask me to go back, edward. i can never go back to that house again, while--" she stopped suddenly, looking piteously at her lover. "while my cousin olivia marchmont lives there," captain arundel said with an angry frown. "god knows it's a bitter thing for me to think that your troubles should come from any of my kith and kin, polly. she has used you very badly, then, this woman? she has been very unkind to you?" "no, no! never before last night. it seems so long ago; but it was only last night, was it? until then she was always kind to me. i didn't love her, you know, though i tried to do so for papa's sake, and out of gratitude to her for taking such trouble with my education; but one can be grateful to people without loving them, and i never grew to love her. but last night--last night--she said such cruel things to me--such cruel things. o edward, edward!" the girl cried suddenly, clasping her hands and looking imploringly at captain arundel, "were the cruel things she said true? did i do wrong when i offered to be your wife?" how could the young man answer this question except by clasping his betrothed to his heart? so there was another little love-scene, over which mrs. pimpernel,--the proprietress's name was pimpernel--wept fresh tears, murmuring that the capting was the sweetest young man, sweeter than mr. macready in claude melnock; and that the scene altogether reminded her of that "cutting" episode where the proud mother went on against the pore young man, and miss faucit came out so beautiful. they are a playgoing population in oakley street, and compassionate and sentimental like all true playgoers. "what shall i do with you, miss marchmont?" edward arundel asked gaily, when the little love-scene was concluded. "my mother and sister are away, at a german watering-place, trying some unpronounceable spa for the benefit of poor letty's health. reginald is with them, and my father's alone at dangerfield. so i can't take you down there, as i might have done if my mother had been at home; i don't much care for the mostyns, or you might have stopped in montague square. there are no friendly friars nowadays who will marry romeo and juliet at half-an-hour's notice. you must live a fortnight somewhere, polly: where shall it be?" "oh, let me stay here, please," miss marchmont pleaded; "i was always so happy here!" "lord love her precious heart!" exclaimed mrs. pimpernel, lifting up her hands in a rapture of admiration. "to think as she shouldn't have a bit of pride, after all the money as her pore par come into! to think as she should wish to stay in her old lodgins, where everythink shall be done to make her comfortable; and the air back and front is very 'ealthy, though you might not believe it, and the blind school and bedlam hard by, and kennington common only a pleasant walk, and beautiful and open this warm summer weather." "yes, i should like to stop here, please," mary murmured. even in the midst of her agitation, overwhelmed as she was by the emotions of the present, her thoughts went back to the past, and she remembered how delightful it would be to go and see the accommodating butcher, and the greengrocer's daughter, the kind butterman who had called her "little lady," and the disreputable gray parrot. how delightful it would be to see these humble friends, now that she was grown up, and had money wherewith to make them presents in token of her gratitude! "very well, then, polly," captain arundel said, "you'll stay here. and mrs.----" "pimpernel," the landlady suggested. "mrs. pimpernel will take as good care of you as if you were queen of england, and the welfare of the nation depended upon your safety. and i'll stop at my hotel in covent garden; and i'll see richard paulette,--he's my lawyer as well as yours, you know, polly,--and tell him something of what has happened, and make arrangements for our immediate marriage." "our marriage!" mary marchmont echoed her lover's last words, and looked up at him almost with a bewildered air. she had never thought of an early marriage with edward arundel as the result of her flight from lincolnshire. she had a vague notion that she would live in oakley street for years, and that in some remote time the soldier would come to claim her. "yes, polly darling, olivia marchmont's conduct has made me decide upon a very bold step. it is evident to me that my cousin hates you; for what reason, heaven only knows, since you can have done nothing to provoke her hate. when your father was a poor man, it was to me he would have confided you. he changed his mind afterwards, very naturally, and chose another guardian for his orphan child. if my cousin had fulfilled this trust, mary, i would have deferred to her authority, and would have held myself aloof until your minority was passed, rather than ask you to marry me without your stepmother's consent. but olivia marchmont has forfeited her right to be consulted in this matter. she has tortured you and traduced me by her poisonous slander. if you believe in me, mary, you will consent to be my wife. my justification lies in the future. you will not find that i shall sponge upon your fortune, my dear, or lead an idle life because my wife is a rich woman." mary marchmont looked up with shy tenderness at her lover. "i would rather the fortune were yours than mine, edward," she said. "i will do whatever you wish; i will be guided by you in every thing." it was thus that john marchmont's daughter consented to become the wife of the man she loved, the man whose image she had associated since her childhood with all that was good and beautiful in mankind. she knew none of those pretty stereotyped phrases, by means of which well-bred young ladies can go through a graceful fencing-match of hesitation and equivocation, to the anguish of a doubtful and adoring suitor. she had no notion of that delusive negative, that bewitching feminine "no," which is proverbially understood to mean "yes." weary courses of roman emperors, south-sea islands, sidereal heavens, tertiary and old red sandstone, had very ill-prepared this poor little girl for the stern realities of life. "i will be guided by you, dear edward," she said; "my father wished me to be your wife; and if i did not love you, it would please me to obey him." it was eleven o'clock when captain arundel left oakley street. the hansom had been waiting all the time, and the driver, seeing that his fare was young, handsome, dashing, and what he called "milingtary-like," demanded an enormous sum when he landed the soldier before the portico of the hotel in covent garden. edward took a hasty breakfast the next morning, and then hurried off to lincoln's-inn fields. but here a disappointment awaited him. richard paulette had started for scotland upon a piscatorial excursion. the elder paulette was an octogenarian, who lived in the south of france, and kept his name in the business as a fiction, by means of which elderly and obstinate country clients were deluded into the belief that the solicitor who conducted their affairs was the same legal practitioner who had done business for their fathers and grandfathers before them. mathewson, a grim man, was away amongst the yorkshire wolds, superintending the foreclosure of certain mortgages upon a bankrupt baronet's estate. a confidential clerk, who received clients, and kept matters straight during the absence of his employers, was very anxious to be of use to captain arundel: but it was not likely that edward could sit down and pour his secrets into the bosom of a clerk, however trustworthy a personage that employé might be. the young man's desire had been that his marriage with mary marchmont should take place at least with the knowledge and approbation of her dead father's lawyer: but he was impatient to assume the only title by which he might have a right to be the orphan girl's champion and protector; and he had therefore no inclination to wait until the long vacation was over, and messrs. paulette and mathewson returned from their northern wanderings. again, mary marchmont suffered from a continual dread that her stepmother would discover the secret of her humble retreat, and would follow her and reassume authority over her. "let me be your wife before i see her again, edward," the girl pleaded innocently, when this terror was uppermost in her mind. "she could not say cruel things to me if i were your wife. i know it is wicked to be so frightened of her; because she was always good to me until that night: but i cannot tell you how i tremble at the thought of being alone with her at marchmont towers. i dream sometimes that i am with her in the gloomy old house, and that we two are alone there, even the servants all gone, and you far away in india, edward,--at the other end of the world." it was as much as her lover could do to soothe and reassure the trembling girl when these thoughts took possession of her. had he been less sanguine and impetuous, less careless in the buoyancy of his spirits, captain arundel might have seen that mary's nerves had been terribly shaken by the scene between her and olivia, and all the anguish which had given rise to her flight from marchmont towers. the girl trembled at every sound. the shutting of a door, the noise of a cab stopping in the street below, the falling of a book from the table to the floor, startled her almost as much as if a gunpowder-magazine had exploded in the neighbourhood. the tears rose to her eyes at the slightest emotion. her mind was tortured by vague fears, which she tried in vain to explain to her lover. her sleep was broken by dismal dreams, foreboding visions of shadowy evil. for a little more than a fortnight edward arundel visited his betrothed daily in the shabby first-floor in oakley street, and sat by her side while she worked at some fragile scrap of embroidery, and talked gaily to her of the happy future; to the intense admiration of mrs. pimpernel, who had no greater delight than to assist in the pretty little sentimental drama that was being enacted on her first-floor. thus it was that, on a cloudy and autumnal august morning, edward arundel and mary marchmont were married in a great empty-looking church in the parish of lambeth, by an indifferent curate, who shuffled through the service at railroad speed, and with far less reverence for the solemn rite than he would have displayed had he known that the pale-faced girl kneeling before the altar-rails was undisputed mistress of eleven thousand a-year. mrs. pimpernel, the pew-opener, and the registrar who was in waiting in the vestry, and was beguiled thence to give away the bride, were the only witnesses to this strange wedding. it seemed a dreary ceremonial to mrs. pimpernel, who had been married at the same church five-and-twenty years before, in a cinnamon satin spencer, and a coal-scuttle bonnet, and with a young person in the dressmaking line in attendance upon her as bridesmaid. it _was_ rather a dreary wedding, no doubt. the drizzling rain dripped ceaselessly in the street without, and there was a smell of damp plaster in the great empty church. the melancholy street-cries sounded dismally from the outer world, while the curate was hurrying through those portentous words which were to unite edward arundel and mary marchmont until the final day of earthly separation. the girl clung shivering to her lover, her husband now, as they went into the vestry to sign their names in the marriage-register. throughout the service she had expected to hear a footstep in the aisle behind her, and olivia marchmont's cruel voice crying out to forbid the marriage. "i am your wife now, edward, am i not?" she said, when she had signed her name in the register. "yes, my darling, for ever and for ever." "and nothing can part us now?" "nothing but death, my dear." in the exuberance of his spirits, edward arundel spoke of the king of terrors as if he had been a mere nobody, whose power to change or mar the fortunes of mankind was so trifling as to be scarcely worth mentioning. the vehicle in waiting to carry the mistress of marchmont towers upon the first stage of her bridal tour was nothing better than a hack cab. the driver's garments exhaled stale tobacco-smoke in the moist atmosphere, and in lieu of the flowers which are wont to bestrew the bridal path of an heiress, miss marchmont trod upon damp and mouldy straw. but she was happy,--happy, with a fearful apprehension that her happiness could not be real,--a vague terror of olivia's power to torture and oppress her, which even the presence of her lover-husband could not altogether drive away. she kissed mrs. pimpernel, who stood upon the edge of the pavement, crying bitterly, with the slippery white lining of a new silk dress, which edward arundel had given her for the wedding, gathered tightly round her. "god bless you, my dear!" cried the honest dealer in frayed satins and tumbled gauzes; "i couldn't take this more to heart if you was my own eliza jane going away with the young man as she was to have married, and as is now a widower with five children, two in arms, and the youngest brought up by hand. god bless your pretty face, my dear; and oh, pray take care of her, captain arundel, for she's a tender flower, sir, and truly needs your care. and it's but a trifle, my own sweet young missy, for the acceptance of such as you, but it's given from a full heart, and given humbly." the latter part of mrs. pimpernel's speech bore relation to a hard newspaper parcel, which she dropped into mary's lap. mrs. arundel opened the parcel presently, when she had kissed her humble friend for the last time, and the cab was driving towards nine elms, and found that mrs. pimpernel's wedding-gift was a scotch shepherdess in china, with a great deal of gilding about her tartan garments, very red legs, a hat and feathers, and a curly sheep. edward put this article of _virtù_ very carefully away in his carpet-bag; for his bride would not have the present treated with any show of disrespect. "how good of her to give it me!" mary said; "it used to stand upon the back-parlour chimney-piece when i was a little girl; and i was so fond of it. of course i am not fond of scotch shepherdesses now, you know, dear; but how should mrs. pimpernel know that? she thought it would please me to have this one." "and you'll put it in the western drawing-room at the towers, won't you, polly?" captain arundel asked, laughing. "i won't put it anywhere to be made fun of, sir," the young bride answered, with some touch of wifely dignity; "but i'll take care of it, and never have it broken or destroyed; and mrs. pimpernel shall see it, when she comes to the towers,--if i ever go back there," she added, with a sudden change of manner. "_if_ you ever go back there!" cried edward. "why, polly, my dear, marchmont towers is your own house. my cousin olivia is only there upon sufferance, and her own good sense will tell her she has no right to stay there, when she ceases to be your friend and protectress. she is a proud woman, and her pride will surely never suffer her to remain where she must feel she can be no longer welcome." the young wife's face turned white with terror at her husband's words. "but i could never ask her to go, edward," she said. "i wouldn't turn her out for the world. she may stay there for ever if she likes. i never have cared for the place since papa's death; and i couldn't go back while she is there, i'm so frightened of her, edward, i'm so frightened of her." the vague apprehension burst forth in this childish cry. edward arundel clasped his wife to his breast, and bent over her, kissing her pale forehead, and murmuring soothing words, as he might have done to a child. "my dear, my dear," he said, "my darling mary, this will never do; my own love, this is so very foolish." "i know, i know, edward; but i can't help it, i can't indeed; i was frightened of her long ago; frightened of her even the first day i saw her, the day you took me to the rectory. i was frightened of her when papa first told me he meant to marry her; and i am frightened of her now; even now that i am your wife, edward, i'm frightened of her still." captain arundel kissed away the tears that trembled on his wife's eyelids; but she had scarcely grown quite composed even when the cab stopped at the nine elms railway station. it was only when she was seated in the carriage with her husband, and the rain cleared away as they advanced farther into the heart of the pretty pastoral country, that the bride's sense of happiness and safety in her husband's protection, returned to her. but by that time she was able to smile in his face, and to look forward with delight to a brief sojourn in that pretty hampshire village, which edward had chosen for the scene of his honeymoon. "only a few days of quiet happiness, polly," he said; "a few days of utter forgetfulness of all the world except you; and then i must be a man of business again, and write to your stepmother and my father and mother, and messrs. paulette and mathewson, and all the people who ought to know of our marriage." chapter iii. paul's sister. olivia marchmont shut herself once more in her desolate chamber, making no effort to find the runaway mistress of the towers; indifferent as to what the slanderous tongues of her neighbours might say of her; hardened, callous, desperate. to her father, and to any one else who questioned her about mary's absence,--for the story of the girl's flight was soon whispered abroad, the servants at the towers having received no injunctions to keep the matter secret,--mrs. marchmont replied with such an air of cold and determined reserve as kept the questioners at bay ever afterwards. so the kemberling people, and the swampington people, and all the country gentry within reach of marchmont towers, had a mystery and a scandal provided for them, which afforded ample scope for repeated discussion, and considerably relieved the dull monotony of their lives. but there were some questioners whom mrs. marchmont found it rather difficult to keep at a distance; there were some intruders who dared to force themselves upon the gloomy woman's solitude, and who _would_ not understand that their presence was abhorrent to her. these people were a surgeon and his wife, who had newly settled at kemberling; the best practice in the village falling into the market by reason of the death of a steady-going, gray-headed old practitioner, who for many years had shared with one opponent the responsibility of watching over the health of the lincolnshire village. it was about three weeks after mary marchmont's flight when these unwelcome guests first came to the towers. olivia sat alone in her dead husband's study,--the same room in which she had sat upon the morning of john marchmont's funeral,--a dark and gloomy chamber, wainscoted with blackened oak, and lighted only by a massive stone-framed tudor window looking out into the quadrangle, and overshadowed by that cloistered colonnade beneath whose shelter edward and mary had walked upon the morning of the girl's flight. this wainscoted study was an apartment which most women, having all the rooms in marchmont towers at their disposal, would have been likely to avoid; but the gloom of the chamber harmonised with that horrible gloom which had taken possession of olivia's soul, and the widow turned from the sunny western front, as she turned from all the sunlight and gladness in the universe, to come here, where the summer radiance rarely crept through the diamond-panes of the window, where the shadow of the cloister shut out the glory of the blue sky. she was sitting in this room,--sitting near the open window, in a high-backed chair of carved and polished oak, with her head resting against the angle of the embayed window, and her handsome profile thrown into sharp relief by the dark green-cloth curtain, which hung in straight folds from the low ceiling to the ground, and made a sombre background to the widow's figure. mrs. marchmont had put away all the miserable gew-gaws and vanities which she had ordered from london in a sudden excess of folly or caprice, and had reassumed her mourning-robes of lustreless black. she had a book in her hand,--some new and popular fiction, which all lincolnshire was eager to read; but although her eyes were fixed upon the pages before her, and her hand mechanically turned over leaf after leaf at regular intervals of time, the fashionable romance was only a weary repetition of phrases, a dull current of words, always intermingled with the images of edward arundel and mary marchmont, which arose out of every page to mock the hopeless reader. olivia flung the book away from her at last, with a smothered cry of rage. "is there no cure for this disease?" she muttered. "is there no relief except madness or death?" but in the infidelity which had arisen out of her despair this woman had grown to doubt if either death or madness could bring her oblivion of her anguish. she doubted the quiet of the grave; and half-believed that the torture of jealous rage and slighted love might mingle even with that silent rest, haunting her in her coffin, shutting her out of heaven, and following her into a darker world, there to be her torment everlastingly. there were times when she thought madness must mean forgetfulness; but there were other moments when she shuddered, horror-stricken, at the thought that, in the wandering brain of a mad woman, the image of that grief which had caused the shipwreck of her senses might still hold its place, distorted and exaggerated,--a gigantic unreality, ten thousand times more terrible than the truth. remembering the dreams which disturbed her broken sleep,--those dreams which, in their feverish horror, were little better than intervals of delirium,--it is scarcely strange if olivia marchmont thought thus. she had not succumbed without many struggles to her sin and despair. again and again she had abandoned herself to the devils at watch to destroy her, and again and again she had tried to extricate her soul from their dreadful power; but her most passionate endeavours were in vain. perhaps it was that she did not strive aright; it was for this reason, surely, that she failed so utterly to arise superior to her despair; for otherwise that terrible belief attributed to the calvinists, that some souls are foredoomed to damnation, would be exemplified by this woman's experience. she could not forget. she could not put away the vengeful hatred that raged like an all-devouring fire in her breast, and she cried in her agony, "there is no cure for this disease!" i think her mistake was in this, that she did not go to the right physician. she practised quackery with her soul, as some people do with their bodies; trying their own remedies, rather than the simple prescriptions of the divine healer of all woes. self-reliant, and scornful of the weakness against which her pride revolted, she trusted to her intellect and her will to lift her out of the moral slough into which her soul had gone down. she said: "i am not a woman to go mad for the love of a boyish face; i am not a woman to die for a foolish fancy, which the veriest schoolgirl might be ashamed to confess to her companion. i am not a woman to do this, and i _will_ cure myself of my folly." mrs. marchmont made an effort to take up her old life, with its dull round of ceaseless duty, its perpetual self-denial. if she had been a roman catholic, she would have gone to the nearest convent, and prayed to be permitted to take such vows as might soonest set a barrier between herself and the world; she would have spent the long weary days in perpetual and secret prayer; she would have worn deeper indentations upon the stones already hollowed by faithful knees. as it was, she made a routine of penance for herself, after her own fashion: going long distances on foot to visit her poor, when she might have ridden in her carriage; courting exposure to rain and foul weather; wearing herself out with unnecessary fatigue, and returning footsore to her desolate home, to fall fainting into the strong arms of her grim attendant, barbara. but this self-appointed penance could not shut edward arundel and mary marchmont from the widow's mind. walking through a fiery furnace their images would have haunted her still, vivid and palpable even in the agony of death. the fatigue of the long weary walks made mrs. marchmont wan and pale; the exposure to storm and rain brought on a tiresome, hacking cough, which worried her by day and disturbed her fitful slumbers by night. no good whatever seemed to come of her endeavours; and the devils who rejoiced at her weakness and her failure claimed her as their own. they claimed her as their own; and they were not without terrestrial agents, working patiently in their service, and ready to help in securing their bargain. the great clock in the quadrangle had struck the half-hour after three; the atmosphere of the august afternoon was sultry and oppressive. mrs. marchmont had closed her eyes after flinging aside her book, and had fallen into a doze: her nights were broken and wakeful, and the hot stillness of the day had made her drowsy. she was aroused from this half-slumber by barbara simmons, who came into the room carrying two cards upon a salver,--the same old-fashioned and emblazoned salver upon which paul marchmont's card had been brought to the widow nearly three years before. the abigail stood halfway between the door and the window by which the widow sat, looking at her mistress's face with a glance of sharp scrutiny. "she's changed since he came back, and changed again since he went away," the woman thought; "just as she always changed at the rectory at his coming and going. why didn't he take to her, i wonder? he might have known her fancy for him, if he'd had eyes to watch her face, or ears to listen to her voice. she's handsomer than the other one, and cleverer in book-learning; but she keeps 'em off--she seems allers to keep 'em off." i think olivia marchmont would have torn the very heart out of this waiting-woman's breast, had she known the thoughts that held a place in it: had she known that the servant who attended upon her, and took wages from her, dared to pluck out her secret, and to speculate upon her suffering. the widow awoke suddenly, and looked up with an impatient frown. she had not been awakened by the opening of the door, but by that unpleasant sensation which almost always reveals the presence of a stranger to a sleeper of nervous temperament. "what is it, barbara?" she asked; and then, as her eyes rested on the cards, she added, angrily, "haven't i told you that i would not see any callers to-day? i am worn out with my cough, and feel too ill to see any one." "yes, miss livy," the woman answered;--she called her mistress by this name still, now and then, so familiar had it grown to her during the childhood and youth of the rector's daughter;--"i didn't forget that, miss livy: i told richardson you was not to be disturbed. but the lady and gentleman said, if you saw what was wrote upon the back of one of the cards, you'd be sure to make an exception in their favour. i think that was what the lady said. she's a middle-aged lady, very talkative and pleasant-mannered," added the grim barbara, in nowise relaxing the stolid gravity of her own manner as she spoke. olivia snatched the cards from the salver. "why do people worry me so?" she cried, impatiently. "am i not to be allowed even five minutes' sleep without being broken in upon by some intruder or other?" barbara simmons looked at her mistress's face. anxiety and sadness dimly showed themselves in the stolid countenance of the lady's-maid. a close observer, penetrating below that aspect of wooden solemnity which was barbara's normal expression, might have discovered a secret: the quiet waiting-woman loved her mistress with a jealous and watchful affection, that took heed of every change in its object. mrs. marchmont examined the two cards, which bore the names of mr. and mrs. weston, kemberling. on the back of the lady's card these words were written in pencil: "will mrs. marchmont be so good as to see lavinia weston, paul marchmont's younger sister, and a connection of mrs. m.'s?" olivia shrugged her shoulders, as she threw down the card. "paul marchmont! lavinia weston!" she muttered; "yes, i remember he said something about a sister married to a surgeon at stanfield. let these people come to me, barbara." the waiting-woman looked doubtfully at her mistress. "you'll maybe smooth your hair, and freshen yourself up a bit, before ye see the folks, miss livy," she said, in a tone of mingled suggestion and entreaty. "ye've had a deal of worry lately, and it's made ye look a little fagged and haggard-like. i'd not like the kemberling folks to say as you was ill." mrs. marchmont turned fiercely upon the abigail. "let me alone!" she cried. "what is it to you, or to any one, how i look? what good have my looks done me, that i should worry myself about them?" she added, under her breath. "show these people in here, if they want to see me." "they've been shown into the western drawing-room, ma'am;--richardson took 'em in there." barbara simmons fought hard for the preservation of appearances. she wanted the rector's daughter to receive these strange people, who had dared to intrude upon her, in a manner befitting the dignity of john marchmont's widow. she glanced furtively at the disorder of the gloomy chamber. books and papers were scattered here and there; the hearth and low fender were littered with heaps of torn letters,--for olivia marchmont had no tenderness for the memorials of the past, and indeed took a fierce delight in sweeping away the unsanctified records of her joyless, loveless life. the high-backed oaken chairs had been pushed out of their places; the green-cloth cover had been drawn half off the massive table, and hung in trailing folds upon the ground. a book flung here; a shawl there; a handkerchief in another place; an open secretaire, with scattered documents and uncovered inkstand,--littered the room, and bore mute witness of the restlessness of its occupant. it needed no very subtle psychologist to read aright those separate tokens of a disordered mind; of a weary spirit which had sought distraction in a dozen occupations, and had found relief in none. it was some vague sense of this that caused barbara simmons's anxiety. she wished to keep strangers out of this room, in which her mistress, wan, haggard, and weary-looking, revealed her secret by so many signs and tokens. but before olivia could make any answer to her servant's suggestion, the door, which barbara had left ajar, was pushed open by a very gentle hand, and a sweet voice said, in cheery chirping accents, "i am sure i may come in; may i not, mrs. marchmont? the impression my brother paul's description gave me of you is such a very pleasant one, that i venture to intrude uninvited, almost forbidden, perhaps." the voice and manner of the speaker were so airy and self-possessed, there was such a world of cheerfulness and amiability in every tone, that, as olivia marchmont rose from her chair, she put her hand to her head, dazed and confounded, as if by the too boisterous carolling of some caged bird. what did they mean, these accents of gladness, these clear and untroubled tones, which sounded shrill, and almost discordant, in the despairing woman's ears? she stood, pale and worn, the very picture of all gloom and misery, staring hopelessly at her visitor; too much abandoned to her grief to remember, in that first moment, the stern demands of pride. she stood still; revealing, by her look, her attitude, her silence, her abstraction, a whole history to the watchful eyes that were looking at her. mrs. weston lingered on the threshold of the chamber in a pretty half-fluttering manner; which was charmingly expressive of a struggle between a modest poor-relation-like diffidence and an earnest desire to rush into olivia's arms. the surgeon's wife was a delicate-looking little woman, with features that seemed a miniature and feminine reproduction of her brother paul's, and with very light hair,--hair so light and pale that, had it turned as white as the artist's in a single night, very few people would have been likely to take heed of the change. lavinia weston was eminently what is generally called a _lady-like_ woman. she always conducted herself in that especial and particular manner which was exactly fitted to the occasion. she adjusted her behaviour by the nicest shades of colour and hair-breadth scale of measurement. she had, as it were, made for herself a homoeopathic system of good manners, and could mete out politeness and courtesy in the veriest globules, never administering either too much or too little. to her husband she was a treasure beyond all price; and if the lincolnshire surgeon, who was a fat, solemn-faced man, with a character as level and monotonous as the flats and fens of his native county, was henpecked, the feminine autocrat held the reins of government so lightly, that her obedient subject was scarcely aware how very irresponsible his wife's authority had become. as olivia marchmont stood confronting the timid hesitating figure of the intruder, with the width of the chamber between them, lavinia weston, in her crisp muslin-dress and scarf, her neat bonnet and bright ribbons and primly-adjusted gloves, looked something like an adventurous canary who had a mind to intrude upon the den of a hungry lioness. the difference, physical and moral, between the timid bird and the savage forest-queen could be scarcely wider than that between the two women. but olivia did not stand for ever embarrassed and silent in her visitor's presence. her pride came to her rescue. she turned sternly upon the polite intruder. "walk in, if you please, mrs. weston," she said, "and sit down. i was denied to you just now because i have been ill, and have ordered my servants to deny me to every one." "but, my dear mrs. marchmont," murmured lavinia weston in soft, almost dove-like accents, "if you have been ill, is not your illness another reason for seeing us, rather than for keeping us away from you? i would not, of course, say a word which could in any way be calculated to give offence to your regular medical attendant,--you have a regular medical attendant, no doubt; from swampington, i dare say,--but a doctor's wife may often be useful when a doctor is himself out of place. there are little nervous ailments--depression of spirits, mental uneasiness--from which women, and sensitive women, suffer acutely, and which perhaps a woman's more refined nature alone can thoroughly comprehend. you are not looking well, my dear mrs. marchmont. i left my husband in the drawing-room, for i was so anxious that our first meeting should take place without witnesses. men think women sentimental when they are only impulsive. weston is a good simple-hearted creature, but he knows as much about a woman's mind as he does of an Æolian harp. when the strings vibrate, he hears the low plaintive notes, but he has no idea whence the melody comes. it is thus with us, mrs. marchmont. these medical men watch us in the agonies of hysteria; they hear our sighs, they see our tears, and in their awkwardness and ignorance they prescribe commonplace remedies out of the pharmacopoeia. no, dear mrs. marchmont, you do not look well. i fear it is the mind, the mind, which has been over-strained. is it not so?" mrs. weston put her head on one side as she asked this question, and smiled at olivia with an air of gentle insinuation. if the doctor's wife wished to plumb the depths of the widow's gloomy soul, she had an advantage here; for mrs. marchmont was thrown off her guard by the question, which had been perhaps asked hap-hazard, or it may be with a deeply considered design. olivia turned fiercely upon the polite questioner. "i have been suffering from nothing but a cold which i caught the other day," she said; "i am not subject to any fine-ladylike hysteria, i can assure you, mrs. weston." the doctor's wife pursed up her lips into a sympathetic smile, not at all abashed by this rebuff. she had seated herself in one of the high-backed chairs, with her muslin skirt spread out about her. she looked a living exemplification of all that is neat and prim and commonplace, in contrast with the pale, stern-faced woman, standing rigid and defiant in her long black robes. "how very chy-arming!" exclaimed mrs. weston. "you are really _not_ nervous. dee-ar me; and from what my brother paul said, i should have imagined that any one so highly organised must be rather nervous. but i really fear i am impertinent, and that i presume upon our very slight relationship. it _is_ a relationship, is it not, although such a very slight one?" "i have never thought of the subject," mrs. marchmont replied coldly. "i suppose, however, that my marriage with your brother's cousin--" "and _my_ cousin--" "made a kind of connexion between us. but mr. marchmont gave me to understand that you lived at stanfield, mrs. weston." "until last week, positively until last week," answered the surgeon's wife. "i see you take very little interest in village gossip, mrs. marchmont, or you would have heard of the change at kemberling." "what change?" "my husband's purchase of poor old mr. dawnfield's practice. the dear old man died a month ago,--you heard of his death, of course,--and mr. weston negotiated the purchase with mrs. dawnfield in less than a fortnight. we came here early last week, and already we are making friends in the neighbourhood. how strange that you should not have heard of our coming!" "i do not see much society," olivia answered indifferently, "and i hear nothing of the kemberling people." "indeed!" cried mrs. weston; "and we hear so much of marchmont towers at kemberling." she looked full in the widow's face as she spoke, her stereotyped smile subsiding into a look of greedy curiosity; a look whose intense eagerness could not be concealed. that look, and the tone in which her last sentence had been spoken, said as plainly as the plainest words could have done, "i have heard of mary marchmont's flight." olivia understood this; but in the passionate depth of her own madness she had no power to fathom the meanings or the motives of other people. she revolted against this mrs. weston, and disliked her because the woman intruded upon her in her desolation; but she never once thought of lavinia weston's interest in mary's movements; she never once remembered that the frail life of that orphan girl only stood between this woman's brother and the rich heritage of marchmont towers. blind and forgetful of everything in the hideous egotism of her despair, what was olivia marchmont but a fitting tool, a plastic and easily-moulded instrument, in the hands of unscrupulous people, whose hard intellects had never been beaten into confused shapelessness in the fiery furnace of passion? mrs. weston had heard of mary marchmont's flight; but she had heard half a dozen different reports of that event, as widely diversified in their details as if half a dozen heiresses had fled from marchmont towers. every gossip in the place had a separate story as to the circumstances which had led to the girl's running away from her home. the accounts vied with each other in graphic force and minute elaboration; the conversations that had taken place between mary and her stepmother, between edward arundel and mrs. marchmont, between the rector of swampington and nobody in particular, would have filled a volume, as related by the gossips of kemberling; but as everybody assigned a different cause for the terrible misunderstanding at the towers, and a different direction for mary's flight,--and as the railway official at the station, who could have thrown some light on the subject, was a stern and moody man, who had little sympathy with his kind, and held his tongue persistently,--it was not easy to get very near the truth. under these circumstances, then, mrs. weston determined upon seeking information at the fountain-head, and approaching the cruel stepmother, who, according to some of the reports, had starved and beaten her dead husband's child. "yes, dear mrs. marchmont," said lavinia weston, seeing that it was necessary to come direct to the point if she wished to wring the truth from olivia; "yes, we hear of everything at kemberling; and i need scarcely tell you, that we heard of the sad trouble which you have had to endure since your ball--the ball that is spoken of as the most chy-arming entertainment remembered in the neighbourhood for a long time. we heard of this sad girl's flight." mrs. marchmont looked up with a dark frown, but made no answer. "was she--it really is such a very painful question, that i almost shrink from--but was miss marchmont at all--eccentric--a little mentally deficient? pray pardon me, if i have given you pain by such a question; but----" olivia started, and looked sharply at her visitor. "mentally deficient? no!" she said. but as she spoke her eyes dilated, her pale cheeks grew paler, her upper lip quivered with a faint convulsive movement. it seemed as if some idea presented itself to her with a sudden force that almost took away her breath. "_not_ mentally deficient!" repeated lavinia weston; "dee-ar me! it's a great comfort to hear that. of course paul saw very little of his cousin, and he was not therefore in a position to judge,--though his opinions, however rapidly arrived at, are generally so _very_ accurate;--but he gave me to understand that he thought miss marchmont appeared a little--just a little--weak in her intellect. i am very glad to find he was mistaken." olivia made no reply to this speech. she had seated herself in her chair by the window; she looked straight before her into the flagged quadrangle, with her hands lying idle in her lap. it seemed as if she were actually unconscious of her visitor's presence, or as if, in her scornful indifference, she did not even care to affect any interest in that visitor's conversation. lavinia weston returned again to the attack. "pray, mrs. marchmont, do not think me intrusive or impertinent," she said pleadingly, "if i ask you to favour me with the true particulars of this sad event. i am sure you will be good enough to remember that my brother paul, my sister, and myself are mary marchmont's nearest relatives on her father's side, and that we have therefore some right to feel interested in her?" by this very polite speech lavinia weston plainly reminded the widow of the insignificance of her own position at marchmont towers. in her ordinary frame of mind olivia would have resented the ladylike slight, but to-day she neither heard nor heeded it; she was brooding with a stupid, unreasonable persistency over the words "mental deficiency," "weak intellect." she only roused herself by a great effort to answer mrs. weston's question, when that lady had repeated it in very plain words. "i can tell you nothing about miss marchmont's flight," she said, coldly, "except that she chose to run away from her home. i found reason to object to her conduct upon the night of the ball; and the next morning she left the house, assigning no reason--to me, at any rate--for her absurd and improper behaviour." "she assigned no reason to _you_, my dear mrs. marchmont; but she assigned a reason to somebody, i infer, from what you say?" "yes; she wrote a letter to my cousin, captain arundel." "telling him the reason of her departure?" "i don't know--i forget. the letter told nothing clearly; it was wild and incoherent." mrs. weston sighed,--a long-drawn, desponding sigh. "wild and incoherent!" she murmured, in a pensive tone. "how grieved paul will be to hear of this! he took such an interest in his cousin--a delicate and fragile-looking young creature, he told me. yes, he took a very great interest in her, mrs. marchmont, though you may perhaps scarcely believe me when i say so. he kept himself purposely aloof from this place; his sensitive nature led him to abstain from even revealing his interest in miss marchmont. his position, you must remember, with regard to this poor dear girl, is a very delicate--i may say a very painful--one." olivia remembered nothing of the kind. the value of the marchmont estates; the sordid worth of those wide-stretching farms, spreading far-away into yorkshire; the pitiful, closely-calculated revenue, which made mary a wealthy heiress,--were so far from the dark thoughts of this woman's desperate heart, that she no more suspected mrs. weston of any mercenary design in coming to the towers, than of burglarious intentions with regard to the silver spoons in the plate-room. she only thought that the surgeon's wife was a tiresome woman, against whose pertinacious civility her angry spirit chafed and rebelled, until she was almost driven to order her from the room. in this cruel weariness of spirit mrs. marchmont gave a short impatient sigh, which afforded a sufficient hint to such an accomplished tactician as her visitor. "i know i have tired you, my dear mrs. marchmont," the doctor's wife said, rising and arranging her muslin scarf as she spoke, in token of her immediate departure. "i am so sorry to find you a sufferer from that nasty hacking cough; but of course you have the best advice,--mr. barlow from swampington, i think you said?"--olivia had said nothing of the kind;--"and i trust the warm weather will prevent the cough taking any hold of your chest. if i might venture to suggest flannels--so many young women quite ridicule the idea of flannels--but, as the wife of a humble provincial practitioner, i have learned their value. good-bye, dear mrs. marchmont. i may come again, may i not, now that the ice is broken, and we are so well acquainted with each other? good-bye." olivia could not refuse to take at least _one_ of the two plump and tightly-gloved hands which were held out to her with an air of frank cordiality; but the widow's grasp was loose and nerveless, and, inasmuch as two consentient parties are required to the shaking of hands as well as to the getting up of a quarrel, the salutation was not a very hearty one. the surgeon's pony must have been weary of standing before the flight of shallow steps leading to the western portico, when mrs. weston took her seat by her husband's side in the gig, which had been newly painted and varnished since the worthy couple's hegira from stanfield. the surgeon was not an ambitious man, nor a designing man; he was simply stupid and lazy--lazy although, in spite of himself, he led an active and hard-working life; but there are many square men whose sides are cruelly tortured by the pressure of the round holes into which they are ill-advisedly thrust, and if our destinies were meted out to us in strict accordance with our temperaments, mr. weston should have been a lotus-eater. as it was, he was content to drudge on, mildly complying with every desire of his wife; doing what she told him, because it was less trouble to do the hardest work at her bidding than to oppose her. it would have been surely less painful for macbeth to have finished that ugly business of the murder than to have endured my lady's black contemptuous scowl, and the bitter scorn and contumely concentrated in those four words, "give _me_ the daggers." mr. weston asked one or two commonplace questions about his wife's interview with john marchmont's widow; but, slowly apprehending that lavinia did not care to discuss the matter, he relapsed into meek silence, and devoted all his intellectual powers to the task of keeping the pony out of the deeper ruts in the rugged road between marchmont towers and kemberling high street. "what is the secret of that woman's life?" thought lavinia weston during that homeward drive. "has she ill-treated the girl, or is she plotting in some way or other to get hold of the marchmont fortune? pshaw! that's impossible. and yet she may be making a purse, somehow or other, out of the estate. anyhow, there is bad blood between the two women." chapter iv. a stolen honeymoon. the village to which edward arundel took his bride was within a few miles of winchester. the young soldier had become familiar with the place in his early boyhood, when he had gone to spend a part of one bright midsummer holiday at the house of a schoolfellow; and had ever since cherished a friendly remembrance of the winding trout-streams, the rich verdure of the valleys, and the sheltering hills that shut in the pleasant little cluster of thatched cottages, the pretty white-walled villas, and the grey old church. but to mary, whose experiences of town and country were limited to the dingy purlieus of oakley street and the fenny flats of lincolnshire, this hampshire village seemed a rustic paradise, which neither trouble nor sorrow could ever approach. she had trembled at the thought of olivia's coming in oakley street; but here she seemed to lose all terror of her stern stepmother,--here, sheltered and protected by her young husband's love, she fancied that she might live her life out happy and secure. she told edward this one sunny morning, as they sat by the young man's favourite trout-stream. captain arundel's fishing-tackle lay idle on the turf at his side, for he had been beguiled into forgetfulness of a ponderous trout he had been watching and finessing with for upwards of an hour, and had flung himself at full length upon the mossy margin of the water, with his uncovered head lying in mary's lap. the childish bride would have been content to sit for ever thus in that rural solitude, with her fingers twisted in her husband's chestnut curls, and her soft eyes keeping timid watch upon his handsome face,--so candid and unclouded in its careless repose. the undulating meadow-land lay half-hidden in a golden haze, only broken here and there by the glitter of the brighter sunlight that lit up the waters of the wandering streams that intersected the low pastures. the massive towers of the cathedral, the grey walls of st. cross, loomed dimly in the distance; the bubbling plash of a mill-stream sounded like some monotonous lullaby in the drowsy summer atmosphere. mary looked from the face she loved to the fair landscape about her, and a tender solemnity crept into her mind--a reverent love and admiration for this beautiful earth, which was almost akin to awe. "how pretty this place is, edward!" she said. "i had no idea there were such places in all the wide world. do you know, i think i would rather be a cottage-girl here than an heiress in lincolnshire. edward, if i ask you a favour, will you grant it?" she spoke very earnestly, looking down at her husband's upturned face; but captain arundel only laughed at her question, without even caring to lift the drowsy eyelids that drooped over his blue eyes. "well, my pet, if you want anything short of the moon, i suppose your devoted husband is scarcely likely to refuse it. our honeymoon is not a fortnight old yet, polly dear; you wouldn't have me turn tyrant quite as soon as this. speak out, mrs. arundel, and assert your dignity as a british matron. what is the favour i am to grant?" "i want you to live here always, edward darling," pleaded the girlish voice. "not for a fortnight or a month, but for ever and ever. i have never been happy at marchmont towers. papa died there, you know, and i cannot forget that. perhaps that ought to have made the place sacred to me, and so it has; but it is sacred like papa's tomb in kemberling church, and it seems like profanation to be happy in it, or to forget my dead father even for a moment. don't let us go back there, edward. let my stepmother live there all her life. it would seem selfish and cruel to turn her out of the house she has so long been mistress of. mr. gormby will go on collecting the rents, you know, and can send us as much money as we want; and we can take that pretty house we saw to let on the other side of milldale,--the house with the rookery, and the dovecotes, and the sloping lawn leading down to the water. you know you don't like lincolnshire, edward, any more than i do, and there's scarcely any trout-fishing near the towers." captain arundel opened his eyes, and lifted himself out of his reclining position before he answered his wife. "my own precious polly," he said, smiling fondly at the gentle childish face turned in such earnestness towards his own; "my runaway little wife, rich people have their duties to perform as well as poor people; and i am afraid it would never do for you to hide in this out-of-the-way hampshire village, and play absentee from stately marchmont and all its dependencies. i love that pretty, infantine, unworldly spirit of yours, my darling; and i sometimes wish we were two grown-up babes in the wood, and could wander about gathering wild flowers, and eating blackberries and hazel-nuts, until the shades of evening closed in, and the friendly robins came to bury us. don't fancy i am tired of our honeymoon, polly, or that i care for marchmont towers any more than you do; but i fear the non-residence plan would never answer. the world would call my little wife eccentric, if she ran away from her grandeur; and paul marchmont the artist,--of whom your poor father had rather a bad opinion, by the way,--would be taking out a statute of lunacy against you." "paul marchmont!" repeated mary. "did papa dislike mr. paul marchmont?" "well, poor john had a sort of a prejudice against the man, i believe; but it was only a prejudice, for he freely confessed that he could assign no reason for it. but whatever mr. paul marchmont may be, you must live at the towers, mary, and be lady bountiful-in-chief in your neighbourhood, and look after your property, and have long interviews with mr. gormby, and become altogether a woman of business; so that when i go back to india----" mary interrupted him with a little cry: "go back to india!" she exclaimed. "what do you mean, edward?" "i mean, my darling, that my business in life is to fight for my queen and country, and not to spunge upon my wife's fortune. you don't suppose i'm going to lay down my sword at seven-and-twenty years of age, and retire upon my pension? no, polly; you remember what lord nelson said on the deck of the _victory_ at trafalgar. that saying can never be so hackneyed as to lose its force. i must do my duty, polly--i must do my duty, even if duty and love pull different ways, and i have to leave my darling, in the service of my country." mary clasped her hands in despair, and looked piteously at her lover-husband, with the tears streaming down her pale cheeks. "o edward," she cried, "how cruel you are; how very, very cruel you are to me! what is the use of my fortune if you won't share it with me, if you won't take it all; for it is yours, my dearest--it is all yours? i remember the words in the marriage service, 'with all my goods i thee endow.' i have given you marchmont towers, edward; nobody in the world can take it away from you. you never, never, never could be so cruel as to leave me! i know how brave and good you are, and i am proud to think of your noble courage and all the brave deeds you did in india. but you _have_ fought for your country, edward; you _have_ done your duty. nobody can expect more of you; nobody shall take you from me. o my darling, my husband, you promised to shelter and defend me while our lives last! you won't leave me--you won't leave me, will you?" edward arundel kissed the tears away from his wife's pale face, and drew her head upon his bosom. "my love," he said tenderly, "you cannot tell how much pain it gives me to hear you talk like this. what can i do? to give up my profession would be to make myself next kin to a pauper. what would the world say of me, mary? think of that. this runaway marriage would be a dreadful dishonour to me, if it were followed by a life of lazy dependence on my wife's fortune. nobody can dare to slander the soldier who spends the brightest years of his life in the service of his country. you would not surely have me be less than true to myself, mary darling? for my honour's sake, i must leave you." "o no, no, no!" cried the girl, in a low wailing voice. unselfish and devoted as she had been in every other crisis of her young life, she could not be reasonable or self-denying here; she was seized with despair at the thought of parting with her husband. no, not even for his honour's sake could she let him go. better that they should both die now, in this early noontide of their happiness. "edward, edward," she sobbed, clinging convulsively about the young man's neck, "don't leave me--don't leave me!" "will you go with me to india, then, mary?" she lifted her head suddenly, and looked her husband in the face, with the gladness in her eyes shining through her tears, like an april sun through a watery sky. "i would go to the end of the world with you, my own darling," she said; "the burning sands and the dreadful jungles would have no terrors for me, if i were with you, edward." captain arundel smiled at her earnestness. "i won't take you into the jungle, my love," he answered, playfully; "or if i do, your palki shall be well guarded, and all ravenous beasts kept at a respectful distance from my little wife. a great many ladies go to india with their husbands, polly, and come back very little the worse for the climate or the voyage; and except your money, there is no reason you should not go with me." "oh, never mind my money; let anybody have that." "polly," cried the soldier, very seriously, "we must consult richard paulette as to the future. i don't think i did right in marrying you during his absence; and i have delayed writing to him too long, polly. those letters must be written this afternoon." "the letter to mr. paulette and to your father?" "yes; and the letter to my cousin olivia." mary's face grew sorrowful again, as captain arundel said this. "_must_ you tell my stepmother of our marriage?" she said. "most assuredly, my dear. why should we keep her in ignorance of it? your father's will gave her the privilege of advising you, but not the power to interfere with your choice, whatever that choice might be. you were your own mistress, mary, when you married me. what reason have you to fear my cousin olivia?" "no reason, perhaps," the girl answered, sadly; "but i do fear her. i know i am very foolish, edward, and you have reason to despise me,--you who are so brave. but i could never tell you how i tremble at the thought of being once more in my stepmother's power. she said cruel things to me, edward. every word she spoke seemed to stab me to the heart; but it isn't that only. there's something more than that; something that i can't describe, that i can't understand; something which tells me that she hates me." "hates you, darling?" "yes, edward; yes, she hates me. it wasn't always so, you know. she used to be only cold and reserved, but lately her manner has changed. i thought that she was ill, perhaps, and that my presence worried her. people often wish to be alone, i know, when they are ill. o edward, i have seen her shrink from me, and shudder if her dress brushed against mine, as if i had been some horrible creature. what have i done, edward, that she should hate me?" captain arundel knitted his brows, and set himself to work out this womanly problem, but he could make nothing of it. yes, what mary had said was perfectly true: olivia hated her. the young man had seen that upon the morning of the girl's flight from marchmont towers; he had seen vengeful fury and vindictive passion raging in the dark face of john marchmont's widow. but what reason could the woman have for her hatred of this innocent girl? again and again olivia's cousin asked himself this question; and he was so far away from the truth at last, that he could only answer it by imagining the lowest motive for the widow's bad feeling. "she envies my poor little girl her fortune and position," he thought. "but you won't leave me alone with my stepmother, will you, edward?" mary said, recurring to her old prayer. "i am not afraid of her, nor of anybody or anything in the world, while you are with me,--how should i be?--but i think if i were to be alone with her again, i should die. she would speak to me again as she spoke upon the night of the ball, and her bitter taunts would kill me. i _could_ not bear to be in her power again, edward." "and you shall not, my darling," answered the young man, enfolding the slender, trembling figure in his strong arms. "my own childish pet, you shall never be exposed to any woman's insolence or tyranny. you shall be sheltered and protected, and hedged in on every side by your husband's love. and when i go to india, you shall sail with me, my pearl. mary, look up and smile at me, and let's have no more talk of cruel stepmothers. how strange it seems to me, polly dear, that you should have been so womanly when you were a child, and yet are so childlike now you are a woman!" the mistress of marchmont towers looked doubtfully at her husband, as if she feared her childishness might be displeasing to him. "you don't love me any the less because of that, do you, edward?" she asked timidly. "because of what, my treasure?" "because i am so--childish?" "polly," cried the young man, "do you think jupiter liked hebe any the less because she was as fresh and innocent as the nectar she served out to him? if he had, my dear, he'd have sent for clotho, or atropos, or some one or other of the elderly maiden ladies of hades, to wait upon him as cupbearer. i wouldn't have you otherwise than you are, polly, by so much as one thought." the girl looked up at her husband in a rapture of innocent affection. "i am too happy, edward," she said, in a low awe-stricken whisper--"i am too happy! so much happiness can never last." alas! the orphan girl's experience of this life had early taught her the lesson which some people learn so late. she had learnt to distrust the equal blue of a summer sky, the glorious splendour of the blazing sunlight. she was accustomed to sorrow; but these brief glimpses of perfect happiness filled her with a dim sense of terror. she felt like some earthly wanderer who had strayed across the threshold of paradise. in the midst of her delight and admiration, she trembled for the moment in which the ruthless angels, bearing flaming swords, should drive her from the celestial gates. "it can't last, edward," she murmured. "can't last, polly!" cried the young man; "why, my dove is transformed all at once into a raven. we have outlived our troubles, polly, like the hero and heroine in one of your novels; and what is to prevent our living happy ever afterwards, like them? if you remember, my dear, no sorrows or trials ever fall to the lot of people _after_ marriage. the persecutions, the separations, the estrangements, are all ante-nuptial. when once your true novelist gets his hero and heroine up to the altar-rails in real earnest,--he gets them into the church sometimes, and then forbids the banns, or brings a former wife, or a rightful husband, pale and denouncing, from behind a pillar, and drives the wretched pair out again, to persecute them through three hundred pages more before he lets them get back again,--but when once the important words are spoken and the knot tied, the story's done, and the happy couple get forty or fifty years' wedded bliss, as a set-off against the miseries they have endured in the troubled course of a twelvemonth's courtship. that's the sort of thing, isn't it, polly?" the clock of st. cross, sounding faintly athwart the meadows, struck three as the young man finished speaking. "three o'clock, polly!" he cried; "we must go home, my pet. i mean to be businesslike to-day." upon each day in that happy honeymoon holiday captain arundel had made some such declaration with regard to his intention of being businesslike; that is to say, setting himself deliberately to the task of writing those letters which should announce and explain his marriage to the people who had a right to hear of it. but the soldier had a dislike to all letter-writing, and a special horror of any epistolary communication which could come under the denomination of a business-letter; so the easy summer days slipped by,--the delicious drowsy noontides, the soft and dreamy twilight, the tender moonlit nights,--and the captain put off the task for which he had no fancy, from after breakfast until after dinner, and from after dinner until after breakfast; always beguiled away from his open travelling-desk by a word from mary, who called him to the window to look at a pretty child on the village green before the inn, or at the blacksmith's dog, or the tinker's donkey, or a tired italian organ-boy who had strayed into that out-of-the-way nook, or at the smart butcher from winchester, who rattled over in a pony-cart twice a week to take orders from the gentry round about, and to insult and defy the local purveyor, whose stock-in-trade generally seemed to consist of one leg of mutton and a dish of pig's fry. the young couple walked slowly through the meadows, crossing rustic wooden bridges that spanned the winding stream, loitering to look down into the clear water at the fish which captain arundel pointed out, but which mary could never see;--that young lady always fixing her eyes upon some long trailing weed afloat in the transparent water, while the silvery trout indicated by her husband glided quietly away to the sedgy bottom of the stream. they lingered by the water-mill, beneath whose shadow some children were fishing; they seized upon every pretext for lengthening that sunny homeward walk, and only reached the inn as the village clocks were striking four, at which hour captain arundel had ordered dinner. but after the simple little repast, mild and artless in its nature as the fair young spirit of the bride herself; after the landlord, sympathetic yet respectful, had in his own person attended upon his two guests; after the pretty rustic chamber had been cleared of all evidence of the meal that had been eaten, edward arundel began seriously to consider the business in hand. "the letters must be written, polly," he said, seating himself at a table near the open window. trailing branches of jasmine and honeysuckle made a framework round the diamond-paned casement; the perfumed blossoms blew into the room with every breath of the warm august breeze, and hung trembling in the folds of the chintz curtains. mr. arundel's gaze wandered dreamily away through this open window to the primitive picture without,--the scattered cottages upon the other side of the green, the cattle standing in the pond, the cackling geese hurrying homeward across the purple ridge of common, the village gossips loitering beneath the faded sign that hung before the low white tavern at the angle of the road. he looked at all these things as he flung his leathern desk upon the table, and made a great parade of unlocking and opening it. "the letters must be written," he repeated, with a smothered sigh. "did you ever notice a peculiar property in stationery, polly?" mrs. edward arundel only opened her brown eyes to their widest extent, and stared at her husband. "no, i see you haven't," said the young man. "how should you, you fortunate polly? you've never had to write any business-letters yet, though you are an heiress. the peculiarity of all stationery, my dear, is, that it is possessed of an intuitive knowledge of the object for which it is to be used. if one has to write an unpleasant letter, polly, it might go a little smoother, you know; one might round one's paragraphs, and spell the difficult words--the 'believes' and 'receives,' the 'tills' and 'untils,' and all that sort of thing--better with a pleasant pen, an easy-going, jolly, soft-nibbed quill, that would seem to say, 'cheer up, old fellow! i'll carry you through it; we'll get to "your very obedient servant" before you know where you are,' and so on. but, bless your heart, polly! let a poor unbusinesslike fellow try to write a business-letter, and everything goes against him. the pen knows what he's at, and jibs, and stumbles, and shies about the paper, like a broken-down screw; the ink turns thick and lumpy; the paper gets as greasy as a london pavement after a fall of snow, till a poor fellow gives up, and knocks under to the force of circumstances. you see if my pen doesn't splutter, polly, the moment i address richard paulette." captain arundel was very careful in the adjustment of his sheet of paper, and began his letter with an air of resolution. "white hart inn, milldale, near winchester, "august th. "my dear sir," he wrote as much as this with great promptitude, and then, with his elbow on the table, fell to staring at his pretty young wife and drumming his fingers on his chin. mary was sitting opposite her husband at the open window, working, or making a pretence of being occupied with some impossible fragment of berlin wool-work, while she watched her husband. "how pretty you look in that white frock, polly!" said the soldier; "you call those things frocks, don't you? and that blue sash, too,--you ought always to wear white, mary, like your namesakes abroad who are _vouée au blanc_ by their faithful mothers, and who are a blessing to the laundresses for the first seven or fourteen years of their lives. what shall i say to paulette? he's such a jolly fellow, there oughtn't to be much difficulty about the matter. 'my dear sir,' seems absurdly stiff; 'my dear paulette,'--that's better,--'i write this to inform you that your client, miss mary march----' what's that, polly?" it was the postman, a youth upon a pony, with the afternoon letters from london. captain arundel flung down his pen and went to the window. he had some interest in this young man's arrival, as he had left orders that such letters as were addressed to him at the hotel in covent garden should be forwarded to him at milldale. "i daresay there's a letter from germany, polly," he said eagerly. "my mother and letitia are capital correspondents; i'll wager anything there's a letter, and i can answer it in the one i'm going to write this evening, and that'll be killing two birds with one stone. i'll run down to the postman, polly." captain arundel had good reason to go after his letters, for there seemed little chance of those missives being brought to him. the youthful postman was standing in the porch drinking ale out of a ponderous earthenware mug, and talking to the landlord, when edward went down. "any letters for me, dick?" the captain asked. he knew the christian name of almost every visitor or hanger-on at the little inn, though he had not stayed there an entire fortnight, and was as popular and admired as if he had been some free-spoken young squire to whom all the land round about belonged. "'ees, sir," the young man answered, shuffling off his cap; "there be two letters for ye." he handed the two packets to captain arundel, who looked doubtfully at the address of the uppermost, which, like the other, had been re-directed by the people at the london hotel. the original address of this letter was in a handwriting that was strange to him; but it bore the postmark of the village from which the dangerfield letters were sent. the back of the inn looked into an orchard, and through an open door opposite to the porch edward arundel saw the low branches of the trees, and the ripening fruit red and golden in the afternoon sunlight. he went out into this orchard to read his letters, his mind a little disturbed by the strange handwriting upon the dangerfield epistle. the letter was from his father's housekeeper, imploring him most earnestly to go down to the park without delay. squire arundel had been stricken with paralysis, and was declared to be in imminent danger. mrs. and miss arundel and mr. reginald were away in germany. the faithful old servant implored the younger son to lose no time in hurrying home, if he wished to see his father alive. the soldier leaned against the gnarled grey trunk of an old apple-tree, and stared at this letter with a white awe-stricken face. what was he to do? he must go to his father, of course. he must go without a moment's delay. he must catch the first train that would carry him westward from southampton. there could be no question as to his duty. he must go; he must leave his young wife. his heart sank with a sharp thrill of pain, and with perhaps some faint shuddering sense of an unknown terror, as he thought of this. "it was lucky i didn't write the letters," he reflected; "no one will guess the secret of my darling's retreat. she can stay here till i come back to her. god knows i shall hurry back the moment my duty sets me free. these people will take care of her. no one will know where to look for her. i'm very glad i didn't write to olivia. we were so happy this morning! who could think that sorrow would come between us so soon?" captain arundel looked at his watch. it was a quarter to six o'clock, and he knew that an express left southampton for the west at eight. there would be time for him to catch that train with the help of a sturdy pony belonging to the landlord of the white hart, which would rattle him over to the station in an hour and a half. there would be time for him to catch the train; but, oh! how little time to comfort his darling--how little time to reconcile his young wife to the temporary separation! he hurried back to the porch, briefly explained to the landlord what had happened, ordered the pony and gig to be got ready immediately, and then went very, very slowly upstairs, to the room in which his young wife sat by the open window waiting for his return. mary looked up at his face as he entered the room, and that one glance told her of some new sorrow. "edward," she cried, starting up from her chair with a look of terror, "my stepmother has come." even in his trouble the young man smiled at his foolish wife's all-absorbing fear of olivia marchmont. "no, my darling," he said; "i wish to heaven our worst trouble were the chance of your father's widow breaking in upon us. something has happened, mary; something very sorrowful, very serious for me. my father is ill, polly dear, dangerously ill, and i must go to him." mary arundel drew a long breath. her face had grown very white, and the hands that were linked tightly round her husband's arm trembled a little. "i will try to bear it," she said; "i will try to bear it." "god bless you, my darling!" the soldier answered fervently, clasping his young wife to his breast. "i know you will. it will be a very short parting, mary dearest. i will come back to you directly i have seen my father. if he is worse, there will be little need for me to stop at dangerfield; if he is better, i can take you back there with me. my own darling love, it is very bitter for us to be parted thus; but i know that you will bear it like a heroine. won't you, polly?" "i will try to bear it, dear." she said very little more than this, but clung about her husband, not with any desperate force, not with any clamorous and tumultuous grief, but with a half-despondent resignation; as a drowning man, whose strength is well-nigh exhausted, may cling, in his hopelessness, to a spar, which he knows he must presently abandon. mary arundel followed her husband hither and thither while he made his brief and hurried preparations for the sudden journey; but although she was powerless to assist him,--for her trembling hands let fall everything she tried to hold, and there was a mist before her eyes, which distorted and blotted the outline of every object she looked at,--she hindered him by no noisy lamentations, she distressed him by no tears. she suffered, as it was her habit to suffer, quietly and uncomplainingly. the sun was sinking when she went with edward downstairs to the porch, before which the landlord's pony and gig were in waiting, in custody of a smart lad who was to accompany mr. arundel to southampton. there was no time for any protracted farewell. it was better so, perhaps, edward thought. he would be back so soon, that the grief he felt in this parting--and it may be that his suffering was scarcely less than mary's--seemed wasted anguish, to which it would have been sheer cowardice to give way. but for all this the soldier very nearly broke down when he saw his childish wife's piteous face, white in the evening sunlight, turned to him in mute appeal, as if the quivering lips would fain have entreated him to abandon all and to remain. he lifted the fragile figure in his arms,--alas! it had never seemed so fragile as now,--and covered the pale face with passionate kisses and fast-dropping tears. "god bless and defend you, mary! god keep----" he was ashamed of the huskiness of his voice, and putting his wife suddenly away from him, he sprang into the gig, snatched the reins from the boy's hand, and drove away at the pony's best speed. the old-fashioned vehicle disappeared in a cloud of dust; and mary, looking after her husband with eyes that were as yet tearless, saw nothing but glaring light and confusion, and a pastoral landscape that reeled and heaved like a stormy sea. it seemed to her, as she went slowly back to her room, and sat down amidst the disorder of open portmanteaus and overturned hatboxes, which the young man had thrown here and there in his hurried selection of the few things necessary for him to take on his hasty journey--it seemed as if the greatest calamity of her life had now befallen her. as hopelessly as she had thought of her father's death, she now thought of edward arundel's departure. she could not see beyond the acute anguish of this separation. she could not realise to herself that there was no cause for all this terrible sorrow; that the parting was only a temporary one; and that her husband would return to her in a few days at the furthest. now that she was alone, now that the necessity for heroism was past, she abandoned herself utterly to the despair that had held possession of her soul from the moment in which captain arundel had told her of his father's illness. the sun went down behind the purple hills that sheltered the western side of the little village. the tree-tops in the orchard below the open window of mrs. arundel's bedroom grew dim in the grey twilight. little by little the sound of voices in the rooms below died away into stillness. the fresh rosy-cheeked country girl who had waited upon the young husband and wife, came into the sitting-room with a pair of wax-candles in old-fashioned silver candlesticks, and lingered in the room for a little time, expecting to receive some order from the lonely watcher. but mary had locked the door of her bedchamber, and sat with her head upon the sill of the open window, looking out into the dim orchard. it was only when the stars glimmered in the tranquil sky that the girl's blank despair gave way before a sudden burst of tears, and she flung herself down beside the white-curtained bed to pray for her young husband. she prayed for him in an ecstatic fervour of love and faith, carried away by the new hopefulness that arose out of her ardent supplications, and picturing him going triumphant on his course, to find his father out of danger,--restored to health, perhaps,--and to return to her before the stars glimmered through the darkness of another summer's night. she prayed for him, hoping and believing everything; though at the hour in which she knelt, with the faint starlight shimmering upon her upturned face and clasped hands, edward arundel was lying, maimed and senseless, in the wretched waiting-room of a little railway-station in dorsetshire, watched over by an obscure country surgeon, while the frightened officials scudded here and there in search of some vehicle in which the young man might be conveyed to the nearest town. there had been one of those accidents which seem terribly common on every line of railway, however well managed. a signalman had mistaken one train for another; a flag had been dropped too soon; and the down-express had run into a heavy luggage-train blundering up from exeter with farm-produce for the london markets. two men had been killed, and a great many passengers hurt; some very seriously. edward arundel's case was perhaps one of the most serious amongst these. chapter v. sounding the depths. lavinia weston spent the evening after her visit to marchmont towers at her writing-desk, which, like everything else appertaining to her, was a model of neatness and propriety; perfect in its way, although it was no marvellous specimen of walnut-wood and burnished gold, no elegant structure of papier-mâché and mother-of-pearl, but simply a schoolgirl's homely rosewood desk, bought for fifteen shillings or a guinea. mrs. weston had administered the evening refreshment of weak tea, stale bread, and strong butter to her meek husband, and had dismissed him to the surgery, a sunken and rather cellar-like apartment opening out of the prim second-best parlour, and approached from the village street by a side-door. the surgeon was very well content to employ himself with the preparation of such draughts and boluses as were required by the ailing inhabitants of kemberling, while his wife sat at her desk in the room above him. he left his gallipots and pestle and mortar once or twice in the course of the evening, to clamber ponderously up the three or four stairs leading to the sitting-room, and stare through the keyhole of the door at mrs. weston's thoughtful face, and busy hand gliding softly over the smooth note-paper. he did this in no prying or suspicious spirit, but out of sheer admiration for his wife. "what a mind she has!" he murmured rapturously, as he went back to his work; "what a mind!" the letter which lavinia weston wrote that evening was a very long one. she was one of those women who write long letters upon every convenient occasion. to-night she covered two sheets of note-paper with her small neat handwriting. those two sheets contained a detailed account of the interview that had taken place that day between the surgeon's wife and olivia; and the letter was addressed to the artist, paul marchmont. perhaps it was in consequence of the receipt of this letter that paul marchmont arrived at his sister's house at kemberling two days after mrs. weston's visit to marchmont towers. he told the surgeon that he came to lincolnshire for a few days' change of air, after a long spell of very hard work; and george weston, who looked upon his brother-in-law as an intellectual demigod, was very well content to accept any explanation of mr. marchmont's visit. "kemberling isn't a very lively place for you, mr. paul," he said apologetically,--he always called his wife's brother mr. paul,--"but i dare say lavinia will contrive to make you comfortable. she persuaded me to come here when old dawnfield died; but i can't say she acted with her usual tact, for the business ain't as good as my stanfield practice; but i don't tell lavinia so." paul marchmont smiled. "the business will pick up by-and-by, i daresay," he said. "you'll have the marchmont towers family to attend to in good time, i suppose." "that's what lavinia said," answered the surgeon. "'mrs. john marchmont can't refuse to employ a relation,' she says; 'and, as first-cousin to mary marchmont's father, i ought'--meaning herself, you know--'to have some influence in that quarter.' but then, you see, the very week we come here the gal goes and runs away; which rather, as one may say, puts a spoke in our wheel, you know." mr. george weston rubbed his chin reflectively as he concluded thus. he was a man given to spending his leisure-hours--when he had any leisure, which was not very often--in tavern parlours, where the affairs of the nation were settled and unsettled every evening over sixpenny glasses of hollands and water; and he regretted his removal from stanfield, which had been as the uprooting of all his dearest associations. he was a solemn man, who never hazarded an opinion lightly,--perhaps because he never had an opinion to hazard,--and his stolidity won him a good deal of respect from strangers; but in the hands of his wife he was meeker than the doves that cooed in the pigeon-house behind his dwelling, and more plastic than the knob of white wax upon which industrious mrs. weston was wont to rub her thread when engaged in the mysteries of that elaborate and terrible science which women paradoxically call _plain_ needlework. paul marchmont presented himself at the towers upon the day after his arrival at kemberling. his interview with the widow was a very long one. he had studied every line of his sister's letter; he had weighed every word that had fallen from olivia's lips and had been recorded by lavinia weston; and taking the knowledge thus obtained as his starting-point, he took his dissecting-knife and went to work at an intellectual autopsy. he anatomised the wretched woman's soul. he made her tell her secret, and bare her tortured breast before him; now wringing some hasty word from her impatience, now entrapping her into some admission,--if only so much as a defiant look, a sudden lowering of the dark brows, an involuntary compression of the lips. he _made_ her reveal herself to him. poor rosencranz and guildenstern were sorry blunderers in that art which is vulgarly called pumping, and were easily put out by a few quips and quaint retorts from the mad danish prince; but paul marchmont _would_ have played upon hamlet more deftly than ever mortal musician played upon pipe or recorder, and would have fathomed the remotest depths of that sorrowful and erratic soul. olivia writhed under the torture of that polite inquisition, for she knew that her secrets were being extorted from her; that her pitiful folly--that folly which she would have denied even to herself, if possible--was being laid bare in all its weak foolishness. she knew this; but she was compelled to smile in the face of her bland inquisitor, to respond to his commonplace expressions of concern about the protracted absence of the missing girl, and meekly to receive his suggestions respecting the course it was her duty to take. he had the air of responding to _her_ suggestions, rather than of himself dictating any particular line of conduct. he affected to believe that he was only agreeing with some understood ideas of hers, while he urged his own views upon her. "then we are quite of one mind in this, my dear mrs. marchmont," he said at last; "this unfortunate girl must not be suffered to remain away from her legitimate home any longer than we can help. it is our duty to find and bring her back. i need scarcely say that you, being bound to her by every tie of affection, and having, beyond this, the strongest claim upon her gratitude for your devoted fulfilment of the trust confided in you,--one hears of these things, mrs. marchmont, in a country village like kemberling,--i need scarcely say that you are the most fitting person to win the poor child back to a sense of her duty--if she _can_ be won to such a sense." paul marchmont added, after a sudden pause and a thoughtful sigh, "i sometimes fear----" he stopped abruptly, waiting until olivia should question him. "you sometimes fear----?" "that--that the error into which miss marchmont has fallen is the result of a mental rather than of a moral deficiency." "what do you mean?" "i mean this, my dear mrs. marchmont," answered the artist, gravely; "one of the most powerful evidences of the soundness of a man's brain is his capability of assigning a reasonable motive for every action of his life. no matter how unreasonable the action in itself may seem, if the motive for that action can be demonstrated. but the moment a man acts _without_ motive, we begin to take alarm and to watch him. he is eccentric; his conduct is no longer amenable to ordinary rule; and we begin to trace his eccentricities to some weakness or deficiency in his judgment or intellect. now, i ask you what motive mary marchmont can have had for running away from this house?" olivia quailed under the piercing scrutiny of the artist's cold grey eyes, but she did not attempt to reply to his question. "the answer is very simple," he continued, after that long scrutiny; "the girl could have had no cause for flight; while, on the other hand, every reasonable motive that can be supposed to actuate a woman's conduct was arrayed against her. she had a happy home, a kind stepmother. she was within a few years of becoming undisputed mistress of a very large estate. and yet, immediately after having assisted at a festive entertainment, to all appearance as gay and happy as the gayest and happiest there, this girl runs away in the dead of the night, abandoning the mansion which is her own property, and assigning no reason whatever for what she does. can you wonder, then, if i feel confirmed in an opinion that i formed upon the day on which i heard the reading of my cousin's will?" "what opinion?" "that mary marchmont is as feeble in mind as she is fragile in body." he launched this sentence boldly, and waited for olivia's reply. he had discovered the widow's secret. he had fathomed the cause of her jealous hatred of mary marchmont; but even _he_ did not yet understand the nature of the conflict in the desperate woman's breast. she could not be wicked all at once. against every fresh sin she made a fresh struggle, and she would not accept the lie which the artist tried to force upon her. "i do not think that there is any deficiency in my stepdaughter's intellect," she said, resolutely. she was beginning to understand that paul marchmont wanted to ally himself with her against the orphan heiress, but as yet she did not understand why he should do so. she was slow to comprehend feelings that were utterly foreign to her own nature. there was so little of mercenary baseness in this strange woman's soul, that had the flame of a candle alone stood between her and the possession of marchmont towers, i doubt if she would have cared to waste a breath upon its extinction. she had lived away from the world, and out of the world; and it was difficult for her to comprehend the mean and paltry wickedness which arise out of the worship of baal. paul marchmont recoiled a little before the straight answer which the widow had given him. "you think miss marchmont strong-minded, then, perhaps?" he said. "no; not strong minded." "my dear mrs. marchmont, you deal in paradoxes," exclaimed the artist. "you say that your stepdaughter is neither weak-minded nor strong-minded?" "weak enough, perhaps, to be easily influenced by other people; weak enough to believe anything my cousin edward arundel might choose to tell her; but not what is generally called deficient in intellect." "you think her perfectly able to take care of herself?" "yes; i think so." "and yet this running away looks almost as if----. but i have no wish to force any unpleasant belief upon you, my dear madam. i think--as you yourself appear to suggest--that the best thing we can do is to get this poor girl home again as quickly as possible. it will never do for the mistress of marchmont towers to be wandering about the world with mr. edward arundel. pray pardon me, mrs. marchmont, if i speak rather disrespectfully of your cousin; but i really cannot think that the gentleman has acted very honourably in this business." olivia was silent. she remembered the passionate indignation of the young soldier, the angry defiance hurled at her, as edward arundel galloped away from the gaunt western façade. she remembered these things, and involuntarily contrasted them with the smooth blandness of paul marchmont's talk, and the deadly purpose lurking beneath it--of which deadly purpose some faint suspicion was beginning to dawn upon her. if she could have thought mary marchmont mad,--if she could have thought edward arundel base, she would have been glad; for then there would have been some excuse for her own wickedness. but she could not think so. she slipped little by little down into the black gulf; now dragged by her own mad passion; now lured yet further downward by paul marchmont. between this man and eleven thousand a year the life of a fragile girl was the solitary obstacle. for three years it had been so, and for three years paul marchmont had waited--patiently, as it was his habit to wait--the hour and the opportunity for action. the hour and opportunity had come, and this woman, olivia marchmont, only stood in his way. she must become either his enemy or his tool, to be baffled or to be made useful. he had now sounded the depths of her nature, and he determined to make her his tool. "it shall be my business to discover this poor child's hiding-place," he said; "when that is found i will communicate with you, and i know you will not refuse to fulfil the trust confided to you by your late husband. you will bring your stepdaughter back to this house, and henceforward protect her from the dangerous influence of edward arundel." olivia looked at the speaker with an expression which seemed like terror. it was as if she said,-- "are you the devil, that you hold out this temptation to me, and twist my own passions to serve your purpose?" and then she paltered with her conscience. "do you consider that it is my duty to do this?" she asked. "my dear mrs. marchmont, most decidedly." "i will do it, then. i--i--wish to do my duty." "and you can perform no greater act of charity than by bringing this unhappy girl back to a sense of _her_ duty. remember, that her reputation, her future happiness, may fall a sacrifice to this foolish conduct, which, i regret to say, is very generally known in the neighbourhood. forgive me if i express my opinion too freely; but i cannot help thinking, that if mr. arundel's intentions had been strictly honourable, he would have written to you before this, to tell you that his search for the missing girl had failed; or, in the event of his finding her, he would have taken the earliest opportunity of bringing her back to her own home. my poor cousin's somewhat unprotected position, her wealth, and her inexperience of the world, place her at the mercy of a fortune-hunter; and mr. arundel has himself to thank if his conduct gives rise to the belief that he wishes to compromise this girl in the eyes of the scandalous, and thus make sure of your consent to a marriage which would give him command of my cousin's fortune." olivia marchmont's bosom heaved with the stormy beating of her heart. was she to sit calmly by and hold her peace while this man slandered the brave young soldier, the bold, reckless, generous-hearted lad, who had shone upon her out of the darkness of her life, as the very incarnation of all that is noble and admirable in mankind? was she to sit quietly by and hear a stranger lie away her kinsman's honour, truth, and manhood? yes, she must do so. this man had offered her a price for her truth and her soul. he was ready to help her to the revenge she longed for. he was ready to give her his aid in separating the innocent young lovers, whose pure affection had poisoned her life, whose happiness was worse than the worst death to her. she kept silent, therefore, and waited for paul to speak again. "i will go up to town to-morrow, and set to work about this business," the artist said, as he rose to take leave of mrs. marchmont. "i do not believe that i shall have much difficulty in finding the young lady's hiding-place. my first task shall be to look for mr. arundel. you can perhaps give me the address of some place in london where your cousin is in the habit of staying?" "i can." "thank you; that will very much simplify matters. i shall write you immediate word of any discovery i make, and will then leave all the rest to you. my influence over mary marchmont as an entire stranger could be nothing. yours, on the contrary, must be unbounded. it will be for you to act upon my letter." * * * * * olivia marchmont waited for two days and nights for the promised letter. upon the third morning it came. the artist's epistle was very brief: "my dear mrs. marchmont,--i have made the necessary discovery. miss marchmont is to be found at the white hart inn, milldale, near winchester. may i venture to urge your proceeding there in search of her without delay? "yours very faithfully, "paul marchmont. "_charlotte street, fitzroy square,_ "_aug._ _th_." chapter vi. risen from the grave. the rain dripped ceaselessly upon the dreary earth under a grey november sky,--a dull and lowering sky, that seemed to brood over this lower world with some menace of coming down to blot out and destroy it. the express-train, rushing headlong across the wet flats of lincolnshire, glared like a meteor in the gray fog; the dismal shriek of the engine was like the cry of a bird of prey. the few passengers who had chosen that dreary winter's day for their travels looked despondently out at the monotonous prospect, seeking in vain to descry some spot of hope in the joyless prospect; or made futile attempts to read their newspapers by the dim light of the lamp in the roof of the carriage. sulky passengers shuddered savagely as they wrapped themselves in huge woollen rugs or ponderous coverings made from the skins of wild beasts. melancholy passengers drew grotesque and hideous travelling-caps over their brows, and, coiling themselves in the corner of their seats, essayed to sleep away the weary hours. everything upon this earth seemed dismal and damp, cold and desolate, incongruous and uncomfortable. but there was one first-class passenger in that lincolnshire express who made himself especially obnoxious to his fellows by the display of an amount of restlessness and superabundant energy quite out of keeping with the lazy despondency of those about him. this was a young man with a long tawny beard and a white face,--a very handsome face, though wan and attenuated, as if with some terrible sickness, and somewhat disfigured by certain strappings of plaister, which were bound about a patch of his skull a little above the left temple. this young man had one side of the carriage to himself; and a sort of bed had been made up for him with extra cushions, upon which he lay at full length, when he was still, which was never for very long together. he was enveloped almost to the chin in voluminous railway-rugs, but, in spite of these coverings, shuddered every now and then, as if with cold. he had a pocket-pistol amongst his travelling paraphernalia, which he applied occasionally to his dry lips. sometimes drops of perspiration broke suddenly out upon his forehead, and were brushed away by a tremulous hand, that was scarcely strong enough to hold a cambric handkerchief. in short, it was sufficiently obvious to every one that this young man with the tawny beard had only lately risen from a sick-bed, and had risen therefrom considerably before the time at which any prudent medical practitioner would have given him licence to do so. it was evident that he was very, very ill, but that he was, if anything, more ill at ease in mind than in body; and that some terrible gnawing anxiety, some restless care, some horrible uncertainty or perpetual foreboding of trouble, would not allow him to be at peace. it was as much as the three fellow-passengers who sat opposite to him could do to bear with his impatience, his restlessness, his short half-stifled moans, his long weary sighs; the horror of his fidgety feet shuffled incessantly upon the cushions; the suddenly convulsive jerks with which he would lift himself upon his elbow to stare fiercely into the dismal fog outside the carriage window; the groans that were wrung from him as he flung himself into new and painful positions; the frightful aspect of physical agony which came over his face as he looked at his watch,--and he drew out and consulted that ill-used chronometer, upon an average, once in a quarter of an hour; his impatient crumpling of the crisp leaves of a new "bradshaw," which he turned over ever and anon, as if, by perpetual reference to that mysterious time-table, he might hasten the advent of the hour at which he was to reach his destination. he was, altogether, a most aggravating and exasperating travelling companion; and it was only out of christian forbearance with the weakness of his physical state that his irritated fellow-passengers refrained from uniting themselves against him, and casting him bodily out of the window of the carriage; as a clown sometimes flings a venerable but tiresome pantaloon through a square trap or pitfall, lurking, undreamed of, in the façade of an honest tradesman's dwelling. the three passengers had, in divers manners, expressed their sympathy with the invalid traveller; but their courtesies had not been responded to with any evidence of gratitude or heartiness. the young man had answered his companions in an absent fashion, scarcely deigning to look at them as he spoke;--speaking altogether with the air of some sleep-walker, who roams hither and thither absorbed in a dreadful dream, making a world for himself, and peopling it with horrible images unknown to those about him. had he been ill?--yes, very ill. he had had a railway accident, and then brain-fever. he had been ill for a long time. somebody asked him how long. he shuffled about upon the cushions, and groaned aloud at this question, to the alarm of the man who had asked it. "how long?" he cried, in a fierce agony of mental or bodily uneasiness;--"how long? two months,--three months,--ever since the th of august." then another passenger, looking at the young man's very evident sufferings from a commercial point of view, asked him whether he had had any compensation. "compensation!" cried the invalid. "what compensation?" "compensation from the railway company. i hope you've a strong case against them, for you've evidently been a terrible sufferer." it was dreadful to see the way in which the sick man writhed under this question. "compensation!" he cried. "what compensation can they give me for an accident that shut me in a living grave for three months, that separated me from----? you don't know what you're talking about, sir," he added suddenly; "i can't think of this business patiently; i can't be reasonable. if they'd hacked _me_ to pieces, i shouldn't have cared. i've been under a red-hot indian sun, when we fellows couldn't see the sky above us for the smoke of the cannons and the flashing of the sabres about our heads, and i'm not afraid of a little cutting and smashing more or less; but when i think what others may have suffered through----i'm almost mad, and----!" he couldn't say any more, for the intensity of his passion had shaken him as a leaf is shaken by a whirlwind; and he fell back upon the cushions, trembling in every limb, and groaning aloud. his fellow-passengers looked at each other rather nervously, and two out of the three entertained serious thoughts of changing carriages when the express stopped midway between london and lincoln. but they were reassured by-and-by; for the invalid, who was captain edward arundel, or that pale shadow of the dashing young cavalry officer which had risen from a sick-bed, relapsed into silence, and displayed no more alarming symptoms than that perpetual restlessness and disquietude which is cruelly wearying even to the strongest nerves. he only spoke once more, and that was when the short day, in which there had been no actual daylight, was closing in, and the journey nearly finished, when he startled his companions by crying out suddenly,-- "o my god! will this journey never come to an end? shall i never be put out of this horrible suspense?" the journey, or at any rate captain arundel's share of it, came to an end almost immediately afterwards, for the train stopped at swampington; and while the invalid was staggering feebly to his feet, eager to scramble out of the carriage, his servant came to the door to assist and support him. "you seem to have borne the journey wonderful, sir," the man said respectfully, as he tried to rearrange his master's wrappings, and to do as much as circumstances, and the young man's restless impatience, would allow of being done for his comfort. "i have suffered the tortures of the infernal regions, morrison," captain arundel ejaculated, in answer to his attendant's congratulatory address. "get me a fly directly; i must go to the towers at once." "not to-night, sir, surely?" the servant remonstrated, in a tone of alarm. "your mar and the doctors said you _must_ rest at swampington for a night." "i'll rest nowhere till i've been to marchmont towers," answered the young soldier passionately. "if i must walk there,--if i'm to drop down dead on the road,--i'll go. if the cornfields between this and the towers were a blazing prairie or a raging sea, i'd go. get me a fly, man; and don't talk to me of my mother or the doctors. i'm going to look for my wife. get me a fly." this demand for a commonplace hackney vehicle sounded rather like an anti-climax, after the young man's talk of blazing prairies and raging seas; but passionate reality has no ridiculous side, and edward arundel's most foolish words were sublime by reason of their earnestness. "get me a fly, morrison," he said, grinding his heel upon the platform in the intensity of his impatience. "or, stay; we should gain more in the end if you were to go to the george--it's not ten minutes' walk from here; one of the porters will take you--the people there know me, and they'll let you have some vehicle, with a pair of horses and a clever driver. tell them it's for an errand of life and death, and that captain arundel will pay them three times their usual price, or six times, if they wish. tell them anything, so long as you get what we want." the valet, an old servant of edward arundel's father, was carried away by the young man's mad impetuosity. the vitality of this broken-down invalid, whose physical weakness contrasted strangely with his mental energy, bore down upon the grave man-servant like an avalanche, and carried him whither it would. he was fain to abandon all hope of being true to the promises which he had given to mrs. arundel and the medical men, and to yield himself to the will of the fiery young soldier. he left edward arundel sitting upon a chair in the solitary waiting-room, and hurried after the porter who had volunteered to show him the way to the george inn, the most prosperous hotel in swampington. the valet had good reason to be astonished by his young master's energy and determination; for mary marchmont's husband was as one rescued from the very jaws of death. for eleven weeks after that terrible concussion upon the south-western railway, edward arundel had lain in a state of coma,--helpless, mindless; all the story of his life blotted away, and his brain transformed into as blank a page as if he had been an infant lying on his mother's knees. a fractured skull had been the young captain's chief share in those injuries which were dealt out pretty freely to the travellers in the exeter mail on the th of august; and the young man had been conveyed to dangerfield park, whilst his father's corpse lay in stately solemnity in one of the chief rooms, almost as much a corpse as that dead father. mrs. arundel's troubles had come, as the troubles of rich and prosperous people often do come, in a sudden avalanche, that threatened to overwhelm the tender-hearted matron. she had been summoned from germany to attend her husband's deathbed; and she was called away from her faithful watch beside that deathbed, to hear tidings of the accident that had befallen her younger son. neither the dorsetshire doctor who attended the stricken traveller upon his homeward journey, and brought the strong man, helpless as a child, to claim the same tender devotion that had watched over his infancy, nor the devonshire doctors who were summoned to dangerfield, gave any hope of their patient's recovery. the sufferer might linger for years, they said; but his existence would be only a living death, a horrible blank, which it was a cruelty to wish prolonged. but when a great london surgeon appeared upon the scene, a new light, a wonderful gleam of hope, shone in upon the blackness of the mother's despair. this great london surgeon, who was a very unassuming and matter-of-fact little man, and who seemed in a great hurry to earn his fee and run back to saville row by the next express, made a brief examination of the patient, asked a very few sharp and trenchant questions of the reverential provincial medical practitioners, and then declared that the chief cause of edward arundel's state lay in the fact that a portion of the skull was depressed,--a splinter pressed upon the brain. the provincial practitioners opened their eyes very wide; and one of them ventured to mutter something to the effect that he had thought as much for a long time. the london surgeon further stated, that until the pressure was removed from the patient's brain, captain edward arundel would remain in precisely the same state as that into which he had fallen immediately upon the accident. the splinter could only be removed by a very critical operation, and this operation must be deferred until the patient's bodily strength was in some measure restored. the surgeon gave brief but decisive directions to the provincial medical men as to the treatment of their patient during this interregnum, and then departed, after promising to return as soon as captain arundel was in a fit state for the operation. this period did not arrive till the first week in november, when the devonshire doctors ventured to declare their patient's shattered frame in a great measure renovated by their devoted attention, and the tender care of the best of mothers. the great surgeon came. the critical operation was performed, with such eminent success as to merit a very long description, which afterwards appeared in the _lancet_; and slowly, like the gradual lifting of a curtain, the black shadows passed away from edward arundel's mind, and the memory of the past returned to him. it was then that he raved madly about his young wife, perpetually demanding that she might be summoned to him; continually declaring that some great misfortune would befall her if she were not brought to his side, that, even in his feebleness, he might defend and protect her. his mother mistook his vehemence for the raving of delirium. the doctors fell into the same error, and treated him for brain-fever. it was only when the young soldier demonstrated to them that he could, by making an effort over himself, be as reasonable as they were, that he convinced them of their mistake. then he begged to be left alone with his mother; and, with his feverish hands clasped in hers, asked her the meaning of her black dress, and the reason why his young wife had not come to him. he learned that his mother's mourning garments were worn in memory of his dead father. he learned also, after much bewilderment and passionate questioning, that no tidings of mary marchmont had ever come to dangerfield. it was then that the young man told his mother the story of his marriage: how that marriage had been contracted in haste, but with no real desire for secrecy; how he had, out of mere idleness, put off writing to his friends until that last fatal night; and how, at the very moment when the pen was in his hand and the paper spread out before him, the different claims of a double duty had torn him asunder, and he had been summoned from the companionship of his bride to the deathbed of his father. mrs. arundel tried in vain to set her son's mind at rest upon the subject of his wife's silence. "no, mother!" he cried; "it is useless talking to me. you don't know my poor darling. she has the courage of a heroine, as well as the simplicity of a child. there has been some foul play at the bottom of this; it is treachery that has kept my wife from me. she would have come here on foot, had she been free to come. i know whose hand is in this business. olivia marchmont has kept my poor girl a prisoner; olivia marchmont has set herself between me and my darling!" "but you don't know this, edward. i'll write to mr. paulette; he will be able to tell us what has happened." the young man writhed in a sudden paroxysm of mental agony. "write to mr. paulette!" he exclaimed. "no, mother; there shall be no delay, no waiting for return-posts. that sort of torture would kill me in a few hours. no, mother; i will go to my wife by the first train that will take me on my way to lincolnshire." "you will go! you, edward! in your state!" there was a terrible outburst of remonstrance and entreaty on the part of the poor mother. mrs. arundel went down upon her knees before her son, imploring him not to leave dangerfield till his strength was recovered; imploring him to let her telegraph a summons to richard paulette; to let her go herself to marchmont towers in search of mary; to do anything rather than carry out the one mad purpose that he was bent on,--the purpose of going himself to look for his wife. the mother's tears and prayers were vain; no adamant was ever firmer than the young soldier. "she is my wife, mother," he said; "i have sworn to protect and cherish her; and i have reason to think she has fallen into merciless hands. if i die upon the road, i must go to her. it is not a case in which i can do my duty by proxy. every moment i delay is a wrong to that poor helpless girl. be reasonable, dear mother, i implore you; i should suffer fifty times more by the torture of suspense if i stayed here, than i can possibly suffer in a railroad journey from here to lincolnshire." the soldier's strong will triumphed over every opposition. the provincial doctors held up their hands, and protested against the madness of their patient; but without avail. all that either mrs. arundel or the doctors could do, was to make such preparations and arrangements as would render the weary journey easier; and it was under the mother's superintendence that the air-cushions, the brandy-flasks, the hartshorn, sal-volatile, and railway-rugs, had been provided for the captain's comfort. it was thus that, after a blank interval of three months, edward arundel, like some creature newly risen from the grave, returned to swampington, upon his way to marchmont towers. the delay seemed endless to this restless passenger, sitting in the empty waiting-room of the quiet lincolnshire station, though the ostler and stable-boys at the "george" were bestirring themselves with good-will, urged on by mr. morrison's promises of liberal reward for their trouble, and though the man who was to drive the carriage lost no time in arraying himself for the journey. captain arundel looked at his watch three times while he sat in that dreary swampington waiting-room. there was a clock over the mantelpiece, but he would not trust to that. "eight o'clock!" he muttered. "it will be ten before i get to the towers, if the carriage doesn't come directly." he got up, and walked from the waiting-room to the platform, and from the platform to the door of the station. he was so weak as to be obliged to support himself with his stick; and even with that help he tottered and reeled sometimes like a drunken man. but, in his eager impatience, he was almost unconscious of his own weakness. "will it never come?" he muttered. "will it never come?" at last, after an intolerable delay, as it seemed to the young man, the carriage-and-pair from the george inn rattled up to the door of the station, with mr. morrison upon the box, and a postillion loosely balanced upon one of the long-legged, long-backed, bony grey horses. edward arundel got into the vehicle before his valet could alight to assist him. "marchmont towers!" he cried to the postillion; "and a five-pound note if you get there in less than an hour." he flung some money to the officials who had gathered about the door to witness his departure, and who had eagerly pressed forward to render him that assistance which, even in his weakness, he disdained. these men looked gravely at each other as the carriage dashed off into the fog, blundering and reeling as it went along the narrow half-made road, that led from the desert patch of waste ground upon which the station was built into the high-street of swampington. "marchmont towers!" said one of the men, in a tone that seemed to imply that there was something ominous even in the name of the lincolnshire mansion. "what does _he_ want at marchmont towers, i wonder?" "why, don't you know who he is, mate?" responded the other man, contemptuously. "no." "he's parson arundel's nevy,--the young officer that some folks said ran away with the poor young miss oop at the towers." "my word! is he now? why, i shouldn't ha' known him." "no; he's a'most like the ghost of what he was, poor young chap. i've heerd as he was in that accident as happened last august on the sou'-western." the railway official shrugged his shoulders. "it's all a queer story," he said. "i can't make out naught about it; but i know _i_ shouldn't care to go up to the towers after dark." marchmont towers had evidently fallen into rather evil repute amongst these simple lincolnshire people. * * * * * the carriage in which edward arundel rode was a superannuated old chariot, whose uneasy springs rattled and shook the sick man to pieces. he groaned aloud every now and then from sheer physical agony; and yet i almost doubt if he knew that he suffered, so superior in its intensity was the pain of his mind to every bodily torture. whatever consciousness he had of his racked and aching limbs was as nothing in comparison to the racking anguish of suspense, the intolerable agony of anxiety, which seemed multiplied by every moment. he sat with his face turned towards the open window of the carriage, looking out steadily into the night. there was nothing before him but a blank darkness and thick fog, and a flat country blotted out by the falling rain; but he strained his eyes until the pupils dilated painfully, in his desire to recognise some landmark in the hidden prospect. "_when_ shall i get there?" he cried aloud, in a paroxysm of rage and grief. "my own one, my pretty one, my wife, when shall i get to you?" he clenched his thin hands until the nails cut into his flesh. he stamped upon the floor of the carriage. he cursed the rusty, creaking springs, the slow-footed horses, the pools of water through which the wretched animals floundered pastern-deep. he cursed the darkness of the night, the stupidity of the postillion, the length of the way,--everything, and anything, that kept him back from the end which he wanted to reach. at last the end came. the carriage drew up before the tall iron gates, behind which stretched, dreary and desolate as some patch of common-land, that melancholy waste which was called a park. a light burned dimly in the lower window of the lodge,--a little spot that twinkled faintly red and luminous through the darkness and the rain; but the iron gates were as closely shut as if marchmont towers had been a prison-house. edward arundel was in no humour to linger long for the opening of those gates. he sprang from the carriage, reckless of the weakness of his cramped limbs, before the valet could descend from the rickety box-seat, or the postillion could get off his horse, and shook the wet and rusty iron bars with his own wasted hands. the gates rattled, but resisted the concussion; they had evidently been locked for the night. the young man seized an iron ring, dangling at the end of a chain, which hung beside one of the stone pillars, and rang a peal that resounded like an alarm-signal through the darkness. a fierce watchdog far away in the distance howled dismally at the summons, and the dissonant shriek of a peacock sounded across the flat. the door of the lodge was opened about five minutes after the bell had rung, and an old man peered out into the night, holding a candle shaded by his feeble hand, and looking suspiciously towards the gate. "who is it?" he said. "it is i, captain arundel. open the gate, please." the man, who was very old, and whose intellect seemed to have grown as dim and foggy as the night itself, reflected for a few moments, and then mumbled,-- "cap'en arundel! ay, to be sure, to be sure. parson arundel's nevy; ay, ay." he went back into the lodge, to the disgust and aggravation of the young soldier, who rattled fiercely at the gate once more in his impatience. but the old man emerged presently, as tranquil as if the blank november night had been some sunshiny noontide in july, carrying a lantern and a bunch of keys, one of which he proceeded in a leisurely manner to apply to the great lock of the gate. "let me in!" cried edward arundel. "man alive! do you think i came down here to stand all night staring through these iron bars? is marchmont towers a prison, that you shut your gates as if they were never to be opened until the day of judgment?" the old man responded with a feeble, chirpy laugh, an audible grin, senile and conciliatory. "we've no need to keep t' geates open arter dark," he said; "folk doan't coome to the toowers arter dark." he had succeeded by this time in turning the key in the lock; one of the gates rolled slowly back upon its rusty hinges, creaking and groaning as if in hoarse protest against all visitors to the towers; and edward arundel entered the dreary domain which john marchmont had inherited from his kinsman. the postillion turned his horses from the highroad without the gates into the broad drive leading up to the mansion. far away, across the wet flats, the broad western front of that gaunt stone dwelling-place frowned upon the travellers, its black grimness only relieved by two or three dim red patches, that told of lighted windows and human habitation. it was rather difficult to associate friendly flesh and blood with marchmont towers on this dark november night. the nervous traveller would have rather expected to find diabolical denizens lurking within those black and stony walls; hideous enchantments beneath that rain-bespattered roof; weird and incarnate horrors brooding by deserted hearths, and fearful shrieks of souls in perpetual pain breaking upon the stillness of the night. edward arundel had no thought of these things. he knew that the place was darksome and gloomy, and that, in very spite of himself, he had always been unpleasantly impressed by it; but he knew nothing more. he only wanted to reach the house without delay, and to ask for the young wife whom he had parted with upon a balmy august evening three months before. he wanted this passionately, almost madly; and every moment made his impatience wilder, his anxiety more intense. it seemed as if all the journey from dangerfield park to lincolnshire was as nothing compared to the space that still lay between him and marchmont towers. "we've done it in double-quick time, sir," the postillion said, complacently pointing to the steaming sides of his horses. "master'll gie it to me for driving the beasts like this." edward arundel looked at the panting animals. they had brought him quickly, then, though the way had seemed so long. "you shall have a five-pound note, my lad," he said, "if you get me up to yonder house in five minutes." he had his hand upon the door of the carriage, and was leaning against it for support, while he tried to recover enough strength with which to clamber into the vehicle, when his eye was caught by some white object flapping in the rain against the stone pillar of the gate, and made dimly visible in a flickering patch of light from the lodge-keeper's lantern. "what's that?" he cried, pointing to this white spot upon the moss-grown stone. the old man slowly raised his eyes to the spot towards which the soldier's finger pointed. "that?" he mumbled. "ay, to be sure, to be sure. poor young lady! that's the printed bill as they stook oop. it's the printed bill, to be sure, to be sure. i'd a'most forgot it. it ain't been much good, anyhow; and i'd a'most forgot it." "the printed bill! the young lady!" gasped edward arundel, in a hoarse, choking voice. he snatched the lantern from the lodge-keeper's hand with a force that sent the old man reeling and tottering several paces backward; and, rushing to the stone pillar, held the light up above his head, on a level with the white placard which had attracted his notice. it was damp and dilapidated at the edges; but that which was printed upon it was as visible to the soldier as though each commonplace character had been a fiery sign inscribed upon a blazing scroll. this was the announcement which edward arundel read upon the gate-post of marchmont towers:-- "one hundred pounds reward.--whereas miss mary marchmont left her home on wednesday last, october th, and has not since been heard of, this is to give notice that the above reward will be given to any one who shall afford such information as will lead to her recovery if she be alive, or to the discovery of her body if she be dead. the missing young lady is eighteen years of age, rather below the middle height, of fair complexion, light-brown hair, and hazel eyes. when she left her home, she had on a grey silk dress, grey shawl, and straw bonnet. she was last seen near the river-side upon the afternoon of wednesday, the th instant. "_marchmont towers, october_ _th_, ." chapter vii. face to face. it is not easy to imagine a lion-hearted young cavalry officer, whose soldiership in the punjaub had won the praises of a napier and an outram, fainting away like a heroine of romance at the coming of evil tidings; but edward arundel, who had risen from a sick-bed to take a long and fatiguing journey in utter defiance of the doctors, was not strong enough to bear the dreadful welcome that greeted him upon the gate-post at marchmont towers. he staggered, and would have fallen, had not the extended arms of his father's confidential servant been luckily opened to receive and support him. but he did not lose his senses. "get me into the carriage, morrison," he cried. "get me up to that house. they've tortured and tormented my wife while i've been lying like a log on my bed at dangerfield. for god's sake, get me up there as quick as you can!" mr. morrison had read the placard on the gate across his young master's shoulder. he lifted the captain into the carriage, shouted to the postillion to drive on, and took his seat by the young man's side. "begging you pardon, mr. edward," he said, gently; "but the young lady may be found by this time. that bill's been sticking there for upwards of a month, you see, sir, and it isn't likely but what miss marchmont has been found between that time and this." the invalid passed his hand across his forehead, down which the cold sweat rolled in great beads. "give me some brandy," he whispered; "pour some brandy down my throat, morrison, if you've any compassion upon me; i must get strength somehow for the struggle that lies before me." the valet took a wicker-covered flask from his pocket, and put the neck of it to edward arundel's lips. "she may be found, morrison," muttered the young man, after drinking a long draught of the fiery spirit; he would willingly have drunk living fire itself, in his desire to obtain unnatural strength in this crisis. "yes; you're right there. she may be found. but to think that she should have been driven away! to think that my poor, helpless, tender girl should have been driven a second time from the home that is her own! yes; her own by every law and every right. oh, the relentless devil, the pitiless devil!--what can be the motive of her conduct? is it madness, or the infernal cruelty of a fiend incarnate?" mr. morrison thought that his young master's brain had been disordered by the shock he had just undergone, and that this wild talk was mere delirium. "keep your heart up, mr. edward," he murmured, soothingly; "you may rely upon it, the young lady has been found." but edward was in no mind to listen to any mild consolatory remarks from his valet. he had thrust his head out of the carriage-window, and his eyes were fixed upon the dimly-lighted casements of the western drawing-room. "the room in which john and polly and i used to sit together when first i came from india," he murmured. "how happy we were!--how happy we were!" the carriage stopped before the stone portico, and the young man got out once more, assisted by his servant. his breath came short and quick now that he stood upon the threshold. he pushed aside the servant who opened the familiar door at the summons of the clanging bell, and strode into the hall. a fire burned on the wide hearth; but the atmosphere of the great stone-paved chamber was damp and chilly. captain arundel walked straight to the door of the western drawing-room. it was there that he had seen lights in the windows; it was there that he expected to find olivia marchmont. he was not mistaken. a shaded lamp burnt dimly on a table near the fire. there was a low invalid-chair beside this table, an open book upon the floor, and an indian shawl, one he had sent to his cousin, flung carelessly upon the pillows. the neglected fire burned low in the old-fashioned grate, and above the dull-red blaze stood the figure of a woman, tall, dark, and gloomy of aspect. it was olivia marchmont, in the mourning-robes that she had worn, with but one brief intermission, ever since her husband's death. her profile was turned towards the door by which edward arundel entered the room; her eyes were bent steadily upon the low heap of burning ashes in the grate. even in that doubtful light the young man could see that her features were sharpened, and that a settled frown had contracted her straight black brows. in her fixed attitude, in her air of deathlike tranquillity, this woman resembled some sinful vestal sister, set, against her will, to watch a sacred fire, and brooding moodily over her crimes. she did not hear the opening of the door; she had not even heard the trampling of the horses' hoofs, or the crashing of the wheels upon the gravel before the house. there were times when her sense of external things was, as it were, suspended and absorbed in the intensity of her obstinate despair. "olivia!" said the soldier. mrs. marchmont looked up at the sound of that accusing voice, for there was something in edward arundel's simple enunciation of her name which seemed like an accusation or a menace. she looked up, with a great terror in her face, and stared aghast at her unexpected visitor. her white cheeks, her trembling lips, and dilated eyes could not have more palpably expressed a great and absorbing horror, had the young man standing quietly before her been a corpse newly risen from its grave. "olivia marchmont," said captain arundel, after a brief pause, "i have come here to look for my wife." the woman pushed her trembling hands across her forehead, brushing the dead black hair from her temples, and still staring with the same unutterable horror at the face of her cousin. several times she tried to speak; but the broken syllables died away in her throat in hoarse, inarticulate mutterings. at last, with a great effort, the words came. "i--i--never expected to see you," she said; "i heard that you were very ill; i heard that you----" "you heard that i was dying," interrupted edward arundel; "or that, if i lived, i should drag out the rest of my existence in hopeless idiocy. the doctors thought as much a week ago, when one of them, cleverer than the rest i suppose, had the courage to perform an operation that restored me to consciousness. sense and memory came back to me by degrees. the thick veil that had shrouded the past was rent asunder; and the first image that came to me was the image of my young wife, as i had seen her upon the night of our parting. for more than three months i had been dead. i was suddenly restored to life. i asked those about me to give me tidings of my wife. had she sought me out?--had she followed me to dangerfield? no! they could tell me nothing. they thought that i was delirious, and tried to soothe me with compassionate speeches, merciful falsehoods, promising me that i should see my darling. but i soon read the secret of their scared looks. i saw pity and wonder mingled in my mother's face, and i entreated her to be merciful to me, and to tell me the truth. she had compassion upon me, and told me all she knew, which was very little. she had never heard from my wife. she had never heard of any marriage between mary marchmont and me. the only communication which she had received from any of her lincolnshire relations had been a letter from my uncle hubert, in reply to one of hers telling him of my hopeless state. "this was the shock that fell upon me when life and memory came back. i could not bear the imprisonment of a sick-bed. i felt that for the second time i must go out into the world to look for my darling; and in defiance of the doctors, in defiance of my poor mother, who thought that my departure from dangerfield was a suicide, i am here. it is here that i come first to seek for my wife. i might have stopped in london to see richard paulette; i might sooner have gained tidings of my darling. but i came here; i came here without stopping by the way, because an uncontrollable instinct and an unreasoning impulse tells me that it is here i ought to seek her. i am here, her husband, her only true and legitimate defender; and woe be to those who stand between me and my wife!" he had spoken rapidly in his passion; and he stopped, exhausted by his own vehemence, and sank heavily into a chair near the lamplit table. then for the first time that night olivia marchmont plainly saw her cousin's face, and saw the terrible change that had transformed the handsome young soldier, since the bright august morning on which he had gone forth from marchmont towers. she saw the traces of a long and wearisome illness sadly visible in his waxen-hued complexion, his hollow cheeks, the faded lustre of his eyes, his dry and pallid lips. she saw all this, the woman whose one great sin had been to love this man wickedly and madly, in spite of her better self, in spite of her womanly pride; she saw the change in him that had altered him from a young apollo to a shattered and broken invalid. and did any revulsion of feeling arise in her breast? did any corresponding transformation in her own heart bear witness to the baseness of her love? no; a thousand times, no! there was no thrill of disgust, how transient soever; not so much as one passing shudder of painful surprise, one pang of womanly regret. no! in place of these, a passionate yearning arose in this woman's haughty soul; a flood of sudden tenderness rushed across the black darkness of her mind. she fain would have flung herself upon her knees, in loving self-abasement, at the sick man's feet. she fain would have cried aloud, amid a tempest of passionate sobs,-- "o my love, my love! you are dearer to me a hundred times by this cruel change. it was _not_ your bright-blue eyes and waving chestnut hair,--it was not your handsome face, your brave, soldier-like bearing that i loved. my love was not so base as that. i inflicted a cruel outrage upon myself when i thought that i was the weak fool of a handsome face. whatever _i_ have been, my love, at least, has been pure. my love is pure, though i am base. i will never slander that again, for i know now that it is immortal." in the sudden rush of that flood-tide of love and tenderness, all these thoughts welled into olivia marchmont's mind. in all her sin and desperation she had never been so true a woman as now; she had never, perhaps, been so near being a good woman. but the tender emotion was swept out of her breast the next moment by the first words of edward arundel. "why do you not answer my question?" he said. she drew herself up in the erect and rigid attitude that had become almost habitual to her. every trace of womanly feeling faded out of her face, as the sunlight disappears behind the sudden darkness of a thundercloud. "what question?" she asked, with icy indifference. "the question i have come to lincolnshire to ask--the question i have perilled my life, perhaps, to ask," cried the young man. "where is my wife?" the widow turned upon him with a horrible smile. "i never heard that you were married," she said. "who is your wife?" "mary marchmont, the mistress of this house." olivia opened her eyes, and looked at him in half-sardonic surprise. "then it was not a fable?" she said. "what was not a fable?" "the unhappy girl spoke the truth when she said that you had married her at some out-of-the-way church in lambeth." "the truth! yes!" cried edward arundel. "who should dare to say that she spoke other than the truth? who should dare to disbelieve her?" olivia marchmont smiled again,--that same strange smile which was almost too horrible for humanity, and yet had a certain dark and gloomy grandeur of its own. satan, the star of the morning, may have so smiled despairing defiance upon the archangel michael. "unfortunately," she said, "no one believed the poor child. her story was such a very absurd one, and she could bring forward no shred of evidence in support of it." "o my god!" ejaculated edward arundel, clasping his hands above his head in a paroxysm of rage and despair. "i see it all--i see it all! my darling has been tortured to death. woman!" he cried, "are you possessed by a thousand fiends? is there no one sentiment of womanly compassion left in your breast? if there is one spark of womanhood in your nature, i appeal to that; i ask you what has happened to my wife?" "my wife! my wife!" the reiteration of that familiar phrase was to olivia marchmont like the perpetual thrust of a dagger aimed at an open wound. it struck every time upon the same tortured spot, and inflicted the same agony. "the placard upon the gates of this place can tell you as much as i can," she said. the ghastly whiteness of the soldier's face told her that he had seen the placard of which she spoke. "she has not been found, then?" he said, hoarsely. "no." "how did she disappear?" "as she disappeared upon the morning on which you followed her. she wandered out of the house, this time leaving no letter, nor message, nor explanation of any kind whatever. it was in the middle of the day that she went out; and for some time her absence caused no alarm. but, after some hours, she was waited for and watched for very anxiously. then a search was made." "where?" "wherever she had at any time been in the habit of walking,--in the park; in the wood; along the narrow path by the water; at pollard's farm; at hester's house at kemberling,--in every place where it might be reasonably imagined there was the slightest chance of finding her." "and all this was without result?" "it was." "_why_ did she leave this place? god help you, olivia marchmont, if it was your cruelty that drove her away!" the widow took no notice of the threat implied in these words. was there anything upon earth that she feared now? no--nothing. had she not endured the worst long ago, in edward arundel's contempt? she had no fear of a battle with this man; or with any other creature in the world; or with the whole world arrayed and banded together against her, if need were. amongst all the torments of those black depths to which her soul had gone down, there was no such thing as fear. that cowardly baseness is for the happy and prosperous, who have something to lose. this woman was by nature dauntless and resolute as the hero of some classic story; but in her despair she had the desperate and reckless courage of a starving wolf. the hand of death was upon her; what could it matter how she died? "i am very grateful to you, edward arundel," she said, bitterly, "for the good opinion you have always had of me. the blood of the dangerfield arundels must have had some drop of poison intermingled with it, i should think, before it could produce so vile a creature as myself; and yet i have heard people say that my mother was a good woman." the young man writhed impatiently beneath the torture of his cousin's deliberate speech. was there to be no end to this unendurable delay? even now,--now that he was in this house, face to face with the woman he had come to question--it seemed as if he _could_ not get tidings of his wife. so, often in his dreams, he had headed a besieging-party against the affghans, with the scaling-ladders reared against the wall; he had seen the dark faces grinning down upon him--all savage glaring eyes and fierce glistening teeth--and had heard the voices of his men urging him on to the encounter, but had felt himself paralysed and helpless, with his sabre weak as a withered reed in his nerveless hand. "for god's sake, let there be no quarrelling with phrases between you and me, olivia!" he cried. "if you or any other living being have injured my wife, the reckoning between us shall be no light one. but there will be time enough to talk of that by-and-by. i stand before you, newly risen from a grave in which i have lain for more than three months, as dead to the world, and to every creature i have ever loved or hated, as if the funeral service had been read over my coffin. i come to demand from you an account of what has happened during that interval. if you palter or prevaricate with me, i shall know that it is because you fear to tell me the truth." "fear!" "yes; you have good reason to fear, if you have wronged mary arundel. why did she leave this house?" "because she was not happy in it, i suppose. she chose to shut herself up in her own room, and to refuse to be governed, or advised, or consoled. i tried to do my duty to her; yes," cried olivia marchmont, suddenly raising her voice, as if she had been vehemently contradicted;--"yes, i did try to do my duty to her. i urged her to listen to reason; i begged her to abandon her foolish falsehood about a marriage with you in london." "you disbelieved in that marriage?" "i did," answered olivia. "you lie!" cried edward arundel. "you knew the poor child had spoken the truth. you knew her--you knew me--well enough to know that i should not have detained her away from her home an hour, except to make her my wife--except to give myself the strongest right to love and defend her." "i knew nothing of the kind, captain arundel; you and mary marchmont had taken good care to keep your secrets from me. i knew nothing of your plots, your intentions. _i_ should have considered that one of the dangerfield arundels would have thought his honour sullied by such an act as a stolen marriage with an heiress, considerably under age, and nominally in the guardianship of her stepmother. i did, therefore, disbelieve the story mary marchmont told me. another person, much more experienced than i, also disbelieved the unhappy girl's account of her absence." "another person! what other person?" "mr. marchmont." "mr. marchmont!" "yes; paul marchmont,--my husband's first-cousin." a sudden cry of rage and grief broke from edward arundel's lips. "o my god!" he exclaimed, "there was some foundation for the warning in john marchmont's letter, after all. and i laughed at him; i laughed at my poor friend's fears." the widow looked at her kinsman in mute wonder. "has paul marchmont been in this house?" he asked. "yes." "when was he here?" "he has been here often; he comes here constantly. he has been living at kemberling for the last three months." "why?" "for his own pleasure, i suppose," olivia answered haughtily. "it is no business of mine to pry into mr. marchmont's motives." edward arundel ground his teeth in an access of ungovernable passion. it was not against olivia, but against himself this time that he was enraged. he hated himself for the arrogant folly, the obstinate presumption, with which he had ridiculed and slighted john marchmont's vague fears of his kinsman paul. "so this man has been here,--is here constantly," he muttered. "of course, it is only natural that he should hang about the place. and you and he are stanch allies, i suppose?" he added, turning upon olivia. "stanch allies! why?" "because you both hate my wife." "what do you mean?" "you both hate her. you, out of a base envy of her wealth; because of her superior rights, which made you a secondary person in this house, perhaps,--there is nothing else for which you _could_ hate her. paul marchmont, because she stands between him and a fortune. heaven help her! heaven help my poor, gentle, guileless darling! surely heaven must have had some pity upon her when her husband was not by!" the young man dashed the blinding tears from his eyes. they were the first that he had shed since he had risen from that which many people had thought his dying-bed, to search for his wife. but this was no time for tears or lamentations. stern determination took the place of tender pity and sorrowful love. it was a time for resolution and promptitude. "olivia marchmont," he said, "there has been some foul play in this business. my wife has been missing a month; yet when i asked my mother what had happened at this house during my illness, she could tell me nothing. why did you not write to tell her of mary's flight?" "because mrs. arundel has never done me the honour to cultivate any intimacy between us. my father writes to his sister-in-law sometimes; i scarcely ever write to my aunt. on the other hand, your mother had never seen mary marchmont, and could not be expected to take any great interest in her proceedings. there was, therefore, no reason for my writing a special letter to announce the trouble that had befallen me." "you might have written to my mother about my marriage. you might have applied to her for confirmation of the story which you disbelieved." olivia marchmont smiled. "should i have received that confirmation?" she said. "no. i saw your mother's letters to my father. there was no mention in those letters of any marriage; no mention whatever of mary marchmont. this in itself was enough to confirm my disbelief. was it reasonable to imagine that you would have married, and yet have left your mother in total ignorance of the fact?" "o god, help me!" cried edward arundel, wringing his hands. "it seems as if my own folly, my own vile procrastination, have brought this trouble upon my wife. olivia marchmont, have pity upon me. if you hate this girl, your malice must surely have been satisfied by this time. she has suffered enough. pity me, and help me; if you have any human feeling in your breast. she left this house because her life here had grown unendurable; because she saw herself doubted, disbelieved, widowed in the first month of her marriage, utterly desolate and friendless. another woman might have borne up against all this misery. another woman would have known how to assert herself, and to defend herself, even in the midst of her sorrow and desolation. but my poor darling is a child; a baby in ignorance of the world. how should _she_ protect herself against her enemies? her only instinct was to run away from her persecutors,--to hide herself from those whose pretended doubts flung the horror of dishonour upon her. i can understand all now; i can understand. olivia marchmont, this man paul has a strong reason for being a villain. the motives that have induced you to do wrong must be very small in comparison to his. he plays an infamous game, i believe; but he plays for a high stake." a high stake! had not _she_ perilled her soul upon the casting of this die? had _she_ not flung down her eternal happiness in that fatal game of hazard? "help me, then, olivia," said edward, imploringly; "help me to find my wife; and atone for all that you have ever done amiss in the past. it is not too late." his voice softened as he spoke. he turned to her, with his hands clasped, waiting anxiously for her answer. perhaps this appeal was the last cry of her good angel, pleading against the devils for her redemption. but the devils had too long held possession of this woman's breast. they arose, arrogant and unpitying, and hardened her heart against that pleading voice. "how much he loves her!" thought olivia marchmont; "how dearly he loves her! for her sake he humiliates himself to me." then, with no show of relenting in her voice or manner, she said deliberately: "i can only tell you again what i told you before. the placard you saw at the park-gates can tell you as much as i can. mary marchmont ran away. she was sought for in every direction, but without success. mr. marchmont, who is a man of the world, and better able to suggest what is right in such a case as this, advised that mr. paulette should be sent for. he was accordingly communicated with. he came, and instituted a fresh search. he also caused a bill to be printed and distributed through the country. advertisements were inserted in the 'times' and other papers. for some reason--i forget what reason--mary marchmont's name did not appear in these advertisements. they were so worded as to render the publication of the name unnecessary." edward arundel pushed his hand across his forehead. "richard paulette has been here?" he murmured, in a low voice. he had every confidence in the lawyer; and a deadly chill came over him at the thought that the cool, hard-headed solicitor had failed to find the missing girl. "yes; he was here two or three days." "and he could do nothing?" "nothing, except what i have told you." the young man thrust his hand into his breast to still the cruel beating of his heart. a sudden terror had taken possession of him,--a horrible dread that he should never look upon his young wife's face again. for some minutes there was a dead silence in the room, only broken once or twice by the falling of some ashes on the hearth. captain arundel sat with his face hidden behind his hand. olivia still stood as she had stood when her cousin entered the room, erect and gloomy, by the old-fashioned chimney-piece. "there was something in that placard," the soldier said at last, in a hoarse, altered voice,--"there was something about my wife having been seen last by the water-side. who saw her there?" "mr. weston, a surgeon of kemberling,--paul marchmont's brother-in-law." "was she seen by no one else?" "yes; she was seen at about the same time--a little sooner or later, we don't know which--by one of farmer pollard's men." "and she has never been seen since?" "never; that is to say, we can hear of no one who has seen her." "at what time in the day was she seen by this mr. weston?" "at dusk; between five and six o'clock." edward arundel put his hand suddenly to his throat, as if to check some choking sensation that prevented his speaking. "olivia," he said, "my wife was last seen by the river-side. does any one think that, by any unhappy accident, by any terrible fatality, she lost her way after dark, and fell into the water? or that--o god, that would be too horrible!--does any one suspect that she drowned herself?" "many things have been said since her disappearance," olivia marchmont answered. "some people say one thing, some another." "and it has been said that she--that she was drowned?" "yes; many people have said so. the river was dragged while mr. paulette was here, and after he went away. the men were at work with the drags for more than a week." "and they found nothing?" "nothing." "was there any other reason for supposing that--that my wife fell into the river?" "only one reason." "what was that?" "i will show you," olivia marchmont answered. she took a bunch of keys from her pocket, and went to an old-fashioned bureau or cabinet upon the other side of the room. she unlocked the upper part of this bureau, opened one of the drawers, and took from it something which she brought to edward arundel. this something was a little shoe; a little shoe of soft bronzed leather, stained and discoloured with damp and moss, and trodden down upon one side, as if the wearer had walked a weary way in it, and had been unaccustomed to so much walking. edward arundel remembered, in that brief, childishly-happy honeymoon at the little village near winchester, how often he had laughed at his young wife's propensity for walking about damp meadows in such delicate little slippers as were better adapted to the requirements of a ballroom. he remembered the slender foot, so small that he could take it in his hand; the feeble little foot that had grown tired in long wanderings by the hampshire trout-streams, but which had toiled on in heroic self-abnegation so long as it was the will of the sultan to pedestrianise. "was this found by the river-side?" he asked, looking piteously at the slipper which mrs. marchmont had put into his hand. "yes; it was found amongst the rushes on the shore, a mile below the spot at which mr. weston saw my step-daughter." edward arundel put the little shoe into his bosom. "i'll not believe it," he cried suddenly; "i'll not believe that my darling is lost to me. she was too good, far too good, to think of suicide; and providence would never suffer my poor lonely child to be led away to a dreary death upon that dismal river-shore. no, no; she fled away from this place because she was too wretched here. she went away to hide herself amongst those whom she could trust, until her husband came to claim her. i will believe anything in the world except that she is lost to me. and i will not believe that, i will never believe that, until i look down at her corpse; until i lay my hand on her cold breast, and feel that her true heart has ceased beating. as i went out of this place four months ago to look for her, i will go again now. my darling, my darling, my innocent pet, my childish bride; i will go to the very end of the world in search of you." the widow ground her teeth as she listened to her kinsman's passionate words. why did he for ever goad her to blacker wickedness by this parade of his love for mary? why did he force her to remember every moment how much cause she had to hate this pale-faced girl? captain arundel rose, and walked a few paces, leaning on his stick as he went. "you will sleep here to-night, of course?" olivia marchmont said. "sleep here!" his tone expressed plainly enough that the place was abhorrent to him. "yes; where else should you stay?" "i meant to have stopped at the nearest inn." "the nearest inn is at kemberling." "that would suit me well enough," the young man answered indifferently; "i must be in kemberling early to-morrow, for i must see paul marchmont. i am no nearer the comprehension of my wife's flight by anything that you have told me. it is to paul marchmont that i must look next. heaven help him if he tries to keep the truth from me." "you will see mr. marchmont here as easily as at kemberling," olivia answered; "he comes here every day." "what for?" "he has built a sort of painting-room down by the river-side, and he paints there whenever there is light." "indeed!" cried edward arundel; "he makes himself at home at marchmont towers, then?" "he has a right to do so, i suppose," answered the widow indifferently. "if mary marchmont is dead, this place and all belonging to it is his. as it is, i am only here on sufferance." "he has taken possession, then?" "on the contrary, he shrinks from doing so." "and, by the heaven above us, he does wisely," cried edward arundel. "no man shall seize upon that which belongs to my darling. no foul plot of this artist-traitor shall rob her of her own. god knows how little value _i_ set upon her wealth; but i will stand between her and those who try to rob her, until my last gasp. no, olivia; i'll not stay here; i'll accept no hospitality from mr. marchmont. i suspect him too much." he walked to the door; but before he reached it the widow went to one of the windows, and pushed aside the blind. "look at the rain," she said; "hark at it; don't you hear it, drip, drip, drip upon the stone? i wouldn't turn a dog out of doors upon such a night as this; and you--you are so ill--so weak. edward arundel, do you hate me so much that you refuse to share the same shelter with me, even for a night?" there is nothing so difficult of belief to a man, who is not a coxcomb, as the simple fact that he is beloved by a woman whom he does not love, and has never wooed by word or deed. but for this, surely edward arundel must, in that sudden burst of tenderness, that one piteous appeal, have discovered a clue to his cousin's secret. he discovered nothing; he guessed nothing. but he was touched by her tone, even in spite of his utter ignorance of its meaning, and he replied, in an altered manner, "certainly, olivia, if you really wish it, i will stay. heaven knows i have no desire that you and i should be ill friends. i want your help; your pity, perhaps. i am quite willing to believe that any cruel things you said to mary arose from an outbreak of temper. i cannot think that you could be base at heart. i will even attribute your disbelief of the statement made by my poor girl as to our marriage to the narrow prejudices learnt in a small country town. let us be friends, olivia." he held out his hand. his cousin laid her cold fingers in his open palm, and he shuddered as if he had come in contact with a corpse. there was nothing very cordial in the salutation. the two hands seemed to drop asunder, lifeless and inert; as if to bear mute witness that between these two people there was no possibility of sympathy or union. but captain arundel accepted his cousin's hospitality. indeed he had need to do so; for he found that his valet had relied upon his master's stopping at the towers, and had sent the carriage back to swampington. a tray with cold meat and wine was brought into the drawing-room for the young soldier's refreshment. he drank a glass of madeira, and made some pretence of eating a few mouthfuls, out of courtesy to olivia; but he did this almost mechanically. he sat silent and gloomy, brooding over the terrible shock that he had so newly received; brooding over the hidden things that had happened in that dreary interval, during which he had been as powerless to defend his wife from trouble as a dead man. again and again the cruel thought returned to him, each time with a fresh agony,--that if he had written to his mother, if he had told her the story of his marriage, the things which had happened could never have come to pass. mary would have been sheltered and protected by a good and loving woman. this thought, this horrible self-reproach, was the bitterest thing the young man had to bear. "it is too great a punishment," he thought; "i am too cruelly punished for having forgotten everything in my happiness with my darling." the widow sat in her low easy-chair near the fire, with her eyes fixed upon the burning coals; the grate had been replenished, and the light of the red blaze shone full upon olivia marchmont's haggard face. edward arundel, aroused for a few moments out of his gloomy abstraction, was surprised at the change which an interval of a few months had made in his cousin. the gloomy shadow which he had often seen on her face had become a fixed expression; every line had deepened, as if by the wear and tear of ten years, rather than by the progress of a few months. olivia marchmont had grown old before her time. nor was this the only change. there was a look, undefined and undefinable, in the large luminous grey eyes, unnaturally luminous now, which filled edward arundel with a vague sense of terror; a terror which he would not--which he dared not--attempt to analyse. he remembered mary's unreasoning fear of her stepmother, and he now scarcely wondered at that fear. there was something almost weird and unearthly in the aspect of the woman sitting opposite to him by the broad hearth: no vestige of colour in her gloomy face, a strange light burning in her eyes, and her black draperies falling round her in straight, lustreless folds. "i fear you have been ill, olivia," the young man said, presently. another sentiment had arisen in his breast side by side with that vague terror,--a fancy that perhaps there was some reason why his cousin should be pitied. "yes," she answered indifferently; as if no subject of which captain arundel could have spoken would have been of less concern to her,--"yes, i have been very ill." "i am sorry to hear it." olivia looked up at him and smiled. her smile was the strangest he had ever seen upon a woman's face. "i am very sorry to hear it. what has been the matter with you?" "slow fever, mr. weston said." "mr. weston?" "yes; mr. marchmont's brother-in-law. he has succeeded to mr. dawnfield's practice at kemberling. he attended me, and he attended my step-daughter." "my wife was ill, then?" "yes; she had brain-fever: she recovered from that, but she did not recover strength. her low spirits alarmed me, and i considered it only right--mr. marchmont suggested also--that a medical man should be consulted." "and what did this man, this mr. weston, say?" "very little; there was nothing the matter with mary, he said. he gave her a little medicine, but only in the desire of strengthening her nervous system. he could give her no medicine that would have any very good effect upon her spirits, while she chose to keep herself obstinately apart from every one." the young man's head sank upon his breast. the image of his desolate young wife arose before him; the image of a pale, sorrowful girl, holding herself apart from her persecutors, abandoned, lonely, despairing. why had she remained at marchmont towers? why had she ever consented to go there, when she had again and again expressed such terror of her stepmother? why had she not rather followed her husband down to devonshire, and thrown herself upon his relatives for protection? was it like this girl to remain quietly here in lincolnshire, when the man she loved with such innocent devotion was lying between life and death in the west? "she is such a child," he thought,--"such a child in her ignorance of the world. i must not reason about her as i would about another woman." and then a sudden flush of passionate emotion rose to his face, as a new thought flashed into his mind. what if this helpless girl had been detained by force at marchmont towers? "olivia," he cried, "whatever baseness this man, paul marchmont, may be capable of, you at least must be superior to any deliberate sin. i have all my life believed in you, and respected you, as a good woman. tell me the truth, then, for pity's sake. nothing that you can tell me will fill up the dead blank that the horrible interval since my accident has made in my life. but you can give me some help. a few words from you may clear away much of this darkness. how did you find my wife? how did you induce her to come back to this place? i know that she had an unreasonable dread of returning here." "i found her through the agency of mr. marchmont," olivia answered, quietly. "i had some difficulty in inducing her to return here; but after hearing of your accident--" "how was the news of that broken to her?" "unfortunately she saw a paper that had happened to be left in her way." "by whom?" "by mr. marchmont." "where was this?" "in hampshire." "indeed! then paul marchmont went with you to hampshire?" "he did. he was of great service to me in this crisis. after seeing the paper, my stepdaughter was seized with brain-fever. she was unconscious when we brought her back to the towers. she was nursed by my old servant barbara, and had the highest medical care. i do not think that anything more could have been done for her." "no," answered edward arundel, bitterly; "unless you could have loved her." "we cannot force our affections," the widow said, in a hard voice. another voice in her breast seemed to whisper, "why do you reproach me for not having loved this girl? if you had loved _me_, the whole world would have been different." "olivia marchmont," said captain arundel, "by your own avowal there has never been any affection for this orphan girl in your heart. it is not my business to dwell upon the fact, as something almost unnatural under the peculiar circumstances through which that helpless child was cast upon your protection. it is needless to try to understand why you have hardened your heart against my poor wife. enough that it is so. but i may still believe that, whatever your feelings may be towards your dead husband's daughter, you would not be guilty of any deliberate act of treachery against her. i can afford to believe this of you; but i cannot believe it of paul marchmont. that man is my wife's natural enemy. if he has been here during my illness, he has been here to plot against her. when he came here, he came to attempt her destruction. she stands between him and this estate. long ago, when i was a careless schoolboy, my poor friend, john marchmont, told me that, if ever the day came upon which mary's interests should be opposed to the interests of her cousin, that man would be a dire and bitter enemy; so much the more terrible because in all appearance her friend. the day came; and i, to whom the orphan girl had been left as a sacred legacy, was not by to defend her. but i have risen from a bed that many have thought a bed of death; and i come to this place with one indomitable resolution paramount in my breast,--the determination to find my wife, and to bring condign punishment upon the man who has done her wrong." captain arundel spoke in a low voice; but his passion was all the more terrible because of the suppression of those common outward evidences by which anger ordinarily betrays itself. he relapsed into thoughtful silence. olivia made no answer to anything that he had said. she sat looking at him steadily, with an admiring awe in her face. how splendid he was--this young hero--even in his sickness and feebleness! how splendid, by reason of the grand courage, the chivalrous devotion, that shone out of his blue eyes! the clock struck eleven while the cousins sat opposite to each other,--only divided, physically, by the width of the tapestried hearth-rug; but, oh, how many weary miles asunder in spirit!--and edward arundel rose, startled from his sorrowful reverie. "if i were a strong man," he said, "i would see paul marchmont to-night. but i must wait till to-morrow morning. at what time does he come to his painting-room?"' "at eight o'clock, when the mornings are bright; but later when the weather is dull." "at eight o'clock! i pray heaven the sun may shine early to-morrow! i pray heaven i may not have to wait long before i find myself face to face with that man! good-night, olivia." he took a candle from a table near the door, and lit it almost mechanically. he found mr. morrison waiting for him, very sleepy and despondent, in a large bedchamber in which captain arundel had never slept before,--a dreary apartment, decked out with the faded splendours of the past; a chamber in which the restless sleeper might expect to see a phantom lady in a ghostly sacque, cowering over the embers, and spreading her transparent hands above the red light. "it isn't particular comfortable, after dangerfield," the valet muttered in a melancholy voice; "and all i 'ope, mr. edward, is, that the sheets are not damp. i've been a stirrin' of the fire and puttin' on fresh coals for the last hour. there's a bed for me in the dressin' room, within call." captain arundel scarcely heard what his servant said to him. he was standing at the door of the spacious chamber, looking out into a long low-roofed corridor, in which he had just encountered barbara, mrs. marchmont's confidential attendant,--the wooden-faced, inscrutable-looking woman, who, according to olivia, had watched and ministered to his wife. "was that the tenderest face that looked down upon my darling as she lay on her sick-bed?" he thought. "i had almost as soon have had a ghoul to watch by my poor dear's pillow." chapter viii. the painting-room by the river. edward arundel lay awake through the best part of that november night, listening to the ceaseless dripping of the rain upon the terrace, and thinking of paul marchmont. it was of this man that he must demand an account of his wife. nothing that olivia had told him had in any way lessened this determination. the little slipper found by the water's edge; the placard flapping on the moss-grown pillar at the entrance to the park; the story of a possible suicide, or a more probable accident;--all these things were as nothing beside the young man's suspicion of paul marchmont. he had pooh-poohed john's dread of his kinsman as weak and unreasonable; and now, with the same unreason, he was ready to condemn this man, whom he had never seen, as a traitor and a plotter against his young wife. he lay tossing from side to side all that night, weak and feverish, with great drops of cold perspiration rolling down his pale face, sometimes falling into a fitful sleep, in whose distorted dreams paul marchmont was for ever present, now one man, now another. there was no sense of fitness in these dreams; for sometimes edward arundel and the artist were wrestling together with newly-sharpened daggers in their eager hands, each thirsting for the other's blood; and in the next moment they were friends, and had been friendly--as it seemed--for years. the young man woke from one of these last dreams, with words of good-fellowship upon his lips, to find the morning light gleaming through the narrow openings in the damask window-curtains, and mr. morrison laying out his master's dressing apparatus upon the carved oak toilette-table. captain arundel dressed himself as fast as he could, with the assistance of the valet, and then made his way down the broad staircase, with the help of his cane, upon which he had need to lean pretty heavily, for he was as weak as a child. "you had better give me the brandy-flask, morrison," he said. "i am going out before breakfast. you may as well come with me, by-the-by; for i doubt if i could walk as far as i want to go, without the help of your arm." in the hall captain arundel found one of the servants. the western door was open, and the man was standing on the threshold looking out at the morning. the rain had ceased; but the day did not yet promise to be very bright, for the sun gleamed like a ball of burnished copper through a pale november mist. "do you know if mr. paul marchmont has gone down to the boat-house?" edward asked. "yes, sir," the man answered; "i met him just now in the quadrangle. he'd been having a cup of coffee with my mistress." edward started. they were friends, then, paul marchmont and olivia!--friends, but surely not allies! whatever villany this man might be capable of committing, olivia must at least be guiltless of any deliberate treachery? captain arundel took his servant's arm and walked out into the quadrangle, and from the quadrangle to the low-lying woody swamp, where the stunted trees looked grim and weird-like in their leafless ugliness. weak as the young man was, he walked rapidly across the sloppy ground, which had been almost flooded by the continual rains. he was borne up by his fierce desire to be face to face with paul marchmont. the savage energy of his mind was stronger than any physical debility. he dismissed mr. morrison as soon as he was within sight of the boat-house, and went on alone, leaning on his stick, and pausing now and then to draw breath, angry with himself for his weakness. the boat-house, and the pavilion above it, had been patched up by some country workmen. a handful of plaster here and there, a little new brickwork, and a mended window-frame bore witness of this. the ponderous old-fashioned wooden shutters had been repaired, and a good deal of the work which had been begun in john marchmont's lifetime had now, in a certain rough manner, been completed. the place, which had hitherto appeared likely to fall into utter decay, had been rendered weather-tight and habitable; the black smoke creeping slowly upward from the ivy-covered chimney, gave evidence of occupation. beyond this, a large wooden shed, with a wide window fronting the north, had been erected close against the boat-house. this rough shed edward arundel at once understood to be the painting-room which the artist had built for himself. he paused a moment outside the door of this shed. a man's voice--a tenor voice, rather thin and metallic in quality--was singing a scrap of rossini upon the other side of the frail woodwork. edward arundel knocked with the handle of his stick upon the door. the voice left off singing, to say "come in." the soldier opened the door, crossed the threshold, and stood face to face with paul marchmont in the bare wooden shed. the painter had dressed himself for his work. his coat and waistcoat lay upon a chair near the door. he had put on a canvas jacket, and had drawn a loose pair of linen trousers over those which belonged to his usual costume. so far as this paint-besmeared coat and trousers went, nothing could have been more slovenly than paul marchmont's appearance; but some tincture of foppery exhibited itself in the black velvet smoking-cap, which contrasted with and set off the silvery whiteness of his hair, as well as in the delicate curve of his amber moustache. a moustache was not a very common adornment in the year . it was rather an eccentricity affected by artists, and permitted as the wild caprice of irresponsible beings, not amenable to the laws that govern rational and respectable people. edward arundel sharply scrutinised the face and figure of the artist. he cast a rapid glance round the bare whitewashed walls of the shed, trying to read even in those bare walls some chance clue to the painter's character. but there was not much to be gleaned from the details of that almost empty chamber. a dismal, black-looking iron stove, with a crooked chimney, stood in one corner. a great easel occupied the centre of the room. a sheet of tin, nailed upon a wooden shutter, swung backwards and forwards against the northern window, blown to and fro by the damp wind that crept in through the crevices in the framework of the roughly-fashioned casement. a heap of canvases were piled against the walls, and here and there a half-finished picture--a lurid turneresque landscape; a black stormy sky; or a rocky mountain-pass, dyed blood-red by the setting sun--was propped up against the whitewashed background. scattered scraps of water-colour, crayon, old engravings, sketches torn and tumbled, bits of rockwork and foliage, lay littered about the floor; and on a paint-stained deal-table of the roughest and plainest fashion were gathered the colour-tubes and palettes, the brushes and sponges and dirty cloths, the greasy and sticky tin-cans, which form the paraphernalia of an artist. opposite the northern window was the moss-grown stone-staircase leading up to the pavilion over the boat-house. mr. marchmont had built his painting-room against the side of the pavilion, in such a manner as to shut in the staircase and doorway which formed the only entrance to it. his excuse for the awkwardness of this piece of architecture was the impossibility of otherwise getting the all-desirable northern light for the illumination of his rough studio. this was the chamber in which edward arundel found the man from whom he came to demand an account of his wife's disappearance. the artist was evidently quite prepared to receive his visitor. he made no pretence of being taken off his guard, as a meaner pretender might have done. one of paul marchmont's theories was, that as it is only a fool who would use brass where he could as easily employ gold, so it is only a fool who tells a lie when he can conveniently tell the truth. "captain arundel, i believe?" he said, pushing a chair forward for his visitor. "i am sorry to say i recognise you by your appearance of ill health. mrs. marchmont told me you wanted to see me. does my meerschaum annoy you? i'll put it out if it does. no? then, if you'll allow me, i'll go on smoking. some people say tobacco-smoke gives a tone to one's pictures. if so, mine ought to be rembrandts in depth of colour." edward arundel dropped into the chair that had been offered to him. if he could by any possibility have rejected even this amount of hospitality from paul marchmont, he would have done so; but he was a great deal too weak to stand, and he knew that his interview with the artist must be a long one. "mr. marchmont," he said, "if my cousin olivia told you that you might expect to see me here to-day, she most likely told you a great deal more. did she tell you that i looked to you to account to me for the disappearance of my wife?" paul marchmont shrugged his shoulders, as who should say, "this young man is an invalid. i must not suffer myself to be aggravated by his absurdity." then taking his meerschaum from his lips, he set it down, and seated himself at a few paces from edward arundel on the lowest of the moss-grown steps leading up to the pavilion. "my dear captain arundel," he said, very gravely, "your cousin did repeat to me a great deal of last night's conversation. she told me that you had spoken of me with a degree of violence, natural enough perhaps to a hot-tempered young soldier, but in no manner justified by our relations. when you call upon me to account for the disappearance of mary marchmont, you act about as rationally as if you declared me answerable for the pulmonary complaint that carried away her father. if, on the other hand, you call upon me to assist you in the endeavour to fathom the mystery of her disappearance, you will find me ready and willing to aid you to the very uttermost. it is to my interest as much as to yours that this mystery should be cleared up." "and in the meantime you take possession of this estate?" "no, captain arundel. the law would allow me to do so; but i decline to touch one farthing of the revenue which this estate yields, or to commit one act of ownership, until the mystery of mary marchmont's disappearance, or of her death, is cleared up." "the mystery of her death?" said edward arundel; "you believe, then, that she is dead?" "i anticipate nothing; i think nothing," answered the artist; "i only wait. the mysteries of life are so many and so incomprehensible,--the stories, which are every day to be read by any man who takes the trouble to look through a newspaper, are so strange, and savour so much of the improbabilities of a novel-writer's first wild fiction,--that i am ready to believe everything and anything. mary marchmont struck me, from the first moment in which i saw her, as sadly deficient in mental power. nothing she could do would astonish me. she may be hiding herself away from us, prompted only by some eccentric fancy of her own. she may have fallen into the power of designing people. she may have purposely placed her slipper by the water-side, in order to give the idea of an accident or a suicide; or she may have dropped it there by chance, and walked barefoot to the nearest railway-station. she acted unreasonably before when she ran away from marchmont towers; she may have acted unreasonably again." "you do not think, then, that she is dead?" "i hesitate to form any opinion; i positively decline to express one." edward arundel gnawed savagely at the ends of his moustache. this man's cool imperturbability, which had none of the studied smoothness of hypocrisy, but which seemed rather the plain candour of a thorough man of the world, who had no wish to pretend to any sentiment he did not feel, baffled and infuriated the passionate young soldier. was it possible that this man, who met him with such cool self-assertion, who in no manner avoided any discussion of mary marchmont's disappearance,--was it possible that he could have had any treacherous and guilty part in that calamity? olivia's manner looked like guilt; but paul marchmont's seemed the personification of innocence. not angry innocence, indignant that its purity should have been suspected; but the matter-of-fact, commonplace innocence of a man of the world, who is a great deal too clever to play any hazardous and villanous game. "you can perhaps answer me this question, mr. marchmont," said edward arundel. "why was my wife doubted when she told the story of her marriage?" the artist smiled, and rising from his seat upon the stone step, took a pocket-book from one of the pockets of the coat that he had been wearing. "i _can_ answer that question," he said, selecting a paper from amongst others in the pocket-book. "this will answer it." he handed edward arundel the paper, which was a letter folded lengthways, and indorsed, "from mrs. arundel, august st." within this letter was another paper, indorsed, "copy of letter to mrs. arundel, august th." "you had better read the copy first," mr. marchmont said, as edward looked doubtfully at the inner paper. the copy was very brief, and ran thus: "marchmont towers, august , . "madam,--i have been given to understand that your son, captain arundel, within a fortnight of his sad accident, contracted a secret marriage with a young lady, whose name i, for several reasons, prefer to withhold. if you can oblige me by informing me whether there is any foundation for this statement, you will confer a very great favour upon "your obedient servant, "paul marchmont." the answer to this letter, in the hand of edward arundel's mother, was equally brief: "dangerfield park, august , . "sir,--in reply to your inquiry, i beg to state that there can be no foundation whatever for the report to which you allude. my son is too honourable to contract a secret marriage; and although his present unhappy state renders it impossible for me to receive the assurance from his own lips, my confidence in his high principles justifies me in contradicting any such report as that which forms the subject of your letter. "i am, sir, "yours obediently, "letitia arundel." the soldier stood, mute and confounded, with his mother's letter in his hand. it seemed as if every creature had been against the helpless girl whom he had made his wife. every hand had been lifted to drive her from the house that was her own; to drive her out upon the world, of which she was ignorant, a wanderer and an outcast; perhaps to drive her to a cruel death. "you can scarcely wonder if the receipt of that letter confirmed me in my previous belief that mary marchmont's story of a marriage arose out of the weakness of a brain, never too strong, and at that time very much enfeebled by the effect of a fever." edward arundel was silent. he crushed his mother's letter in his hand. even his mother--even his mother--that tender and compassionate woman, whose protection he had so freely promised, ten years before, in the lobby of drury lane, to john marchmont's motherless child,--even she, by some hideous fatality, had helped to bring grief and shame upon the lonely girl. all this story of his young wife's disappearance seemed enveloped in a wretched obscurity, through whose thick darkness he could not penetrate. he felt himself encompassed by a web of mystery, athwart which it was impossible to cut his way to the truth. he asked question after question, and received answers which seemed freely given; but the story remained as dark as ever. what did it all mean? what was the clue to the mystery? was this man, paul marchmont,--busy amongst his unfinished pictures, and bearing in his every action, in his every word, the stamp of an easy-going, free-spoken soldier of fortune,--likely to have been guilty of any dark and subtle villany against the missing girl? he had disbelieved in the marriage; but he had had some reason for his doubt of a fact that could not very well be welcome to him. the young man rose from his chair, and stood irresolute, brooding over these things. "come, captain arundel," cried paul marchmont, heartily, "believe me, though i have not much superfluous sentimentality left in my composition after a pretty long encounter with the world, still i can truly sympathise with your regret for this poor silly child. i hope, for your sake, that she still lives, and is foolishly hiding herself from us all. perhaps, now you are able to act in the business, there may be a better chance of finding her. i am old enough to be your father, and am ready to give you the help of any knowledge of the world which i may have gathered in the experience of a lifetime. will you accept my help?" edward arundel paused for a moment, with his head still bent, and his eyes fixed upon the ground. then suddenly lifting his head, he looked full in the artist's face as he answered him. "no!" he cried. "your offer may be made in all good faith, and if so, i thank you for it; but no one loves this missing girl as i love her; no one has so good a right as i have to protect and shelter her. i will look for my wife, alone, unaided; except by such help as i pray that god may give me." chapter ix. in the dark. edward arundel walked slowly back to the towers, shaken in body, perplexed in mind, baffled, disappointed, and most miserable; the young husband, whose married life had been shut within the compass of a brief honeymoon, went back to that dark and gloomy mansion within whose encircling walls mary had pined and despaired. "why did she stop here?" he thought; "why didn't she come to me? i thought her first impulse would have brought her to me. i thought my poor childish love would have set out on foot to seek her husband, if need were." he groped his way feebly and wearily amidst the leafless wood, and through the rotting vegetation decaying in oozy slime beneath the black shelter of the naked trees. he groped his way towards the dismal eastern front of the great stone dwelling-house, his face always turned towards the blank windows, that stared down at him from the discoloured walls. "oh, if they could speak!" he exclaimed, almost beside himself in his perplexity and desperation; "if they could speak! if those cruel walls could find a voice, and tell me what my darling suffered within their shadow! if they could tell me why she despaired, and ran away to hide herself from her husband and protector! _if_ they could speak!" he ground his teeth in a passion of sorrowful rage. "i should gain as much by questioning yonder stone wall as by talking to my cousin, olivia marchmont," he thought, presently. "why is that woman so venomous a creature in her hatred of my innocent wife? why is it that, whether i threaten, or whether i appeal, i can gain nothing from her--nothing? she baffles me as completely by her measured answers, which seem to reply to my questions, and which yet tell me nothing, as if she were a brazen image set up by the dark ignorance of a heathen people, and dumb in the absence of an impostor-priest. she baffles me, question her how i will. and paul marchmont, again,--what have i learned from him? am i a fool, that people can prevaricate and lie to me like this? has my brain no sense, and my arm no strength, that i cannot wring the truth from the false throats of these wretches?" the young man gnashed his teeth again in the violence of his rage. yes, it was like a dream; it was like nothing but a dream. in dreams he had often felt this terrible sense of impotence wrestling with a mad desire to achieve something or other. but never before in his waking hours had the young soldier experienced such a sensation. he stopped, irresolute, almost bewildered, looking back at the boat-house, a black spot far away down by the sedgy brink of the slow river, and then again turning his face towards the monotonous lines of windows in the eastern frontage of marchmont towers. "i let that man play with me to-day," he thought; "but our reckoning is to come. we have not done with each other yet." he walked on towards the low archway leading into the quadrangle. the room which had been john marchmont's study, and which his widow had been wont to occupy since his death, looked into this quadrangle. edward arundel saw his cousin's dark head bending over a book, or a desk perhaps, behind the window. "let her beware of me, if she has done any wrong to my wife!" he thought. "to which of these people am i to look for an account of my poor lost girl? to which of these two am i to look! heaven guide me to find the guilty one; and heaven have mercy upon that wretched creature when the hour of reckoning comes; for i will have none." olivia marchmont, looking through the window, saw her kinsman's face while this thought was in his mind. the expression which she saw there was so terrible, so merciless, so sublime in its grand and vengeful beauty, that her own face blanched even to a paler hue than that which had lately become habitual to it. "am i afraid of him?" she thought, as she pressed her forehead against the cold glass, and by a physical effort restrained the convulsive trembling that had suddenly shaken her frame. "am i afraid of him? no; what injury can he inflict upon me worse than that which he has done me from the very first? if he could drag me to a scaffold, and deliver me with his own hands into the grasp of the hangman, he would do me no deeper wrong than he has done me from the hour of my earliest remembrance of him. he could inflict no new pangs, no sharper tortures, than i have been accustomed to suffer at his hands. he does not love me. he has never loved me. he never will love me. _that_ is my wrong; and it is for that i take my revenge!" she lifted her head, which had rested in a sullen attitude against the glass, and looked at the soldier's figure slowly advancing towards the western side of the house. then, with a smile,--the same horrible smile which edward arundel had seen light up her face on the previous night,--she muttered between her set teeth:-- "shall i be sorry because this vengeance has fallen across my pathway? shall i repent, and try to undo what i have done? shall i thrust myself between others and mr. edward arundel? shall _i_ make myself the ally and champion of this gallant soldier, who seldom speaks to me except to insult and upbraid me? shall _i_ take justice into my hands, and interfere for my kinsman's benefit? no; he has chosen to threaten me; he has chosen to believe vile things of me. from the first his indifference has been next kin to insolence. let him take care of himself." edward arundel took no heed of the grey eyes that watched him with such a vengeful light in their fixed gaze. he was still thinking of his missing wife, still feeling, to a degree that was intolerably painful, that miserable dream-like sense of helplessness and prostration. "what am i to do?" he thought. "shall i be for ever going backwards and forwards between my cousin olivia and paul marchmont; for ever questioning them, first one and then the other, and never getting any nearer to the truth?" he asked himself this question, because the extreme anguish, the intense anxiety, which he had endured, seemed to have magnified the smallest events, and to have multiplied a hundred-fold the lapse of time. it seemed as if he had already spent half a lifetime in his search after john marchmont's lost daughter. "o my friend, my friend!" he thought, as some faint link of association, some memory thrust upon him by the aspect of the place in which he was, brought back the simple-minded tutor who had taught him mathematics eighteen years before,--"my poor friend, if this girl had not been my love and my wife, surely the memory of your trust in me would be enough to make me a desperate and merciless avenger of her wrongs." he went into the hall, and from the hall to the tenantless western drawing-room,--a dreary chamber, with its grim and faded splendour, its stiff, old-fashioned furniture; a chamber which, unadorned by the presence of youth and innocence, had the aspect of belonging to a day that was gone, and people that were dead. so might have looked one of those sealed-up chambers in the buried cities of italy, when the doors were opened, and eager living eyes first looked in upon the habitations of the dead. edward arundel walked up and down the empty drawing-room. there were the ivory chessmen that he had brought from india, under a glass shade on an inlaid table in a window. how often he and mary had played together in that very window; and how she had always lost her pawns, and left bishops and knights undefended, while trying to execute impossible manoeuvres with her queen! the young man paced slowly backwards and forwards across the old-fashioned bordered carpet, trying to think what he should do. he must form some plan of action in his own mind, he thought. there was foul work somewhere, he most implicitly believed; and it was for him to discover the motive of the treachery, and the person of the traitor. paul marchmont! paul marchmont! his mind always travelled back to this point. paul marchmont was mary's natural enemy. paul marchmont was therefore surely the man to be suspected, the man to be found out and defeated. and yet, if there was any truth in appearances, it was olivia who was most inimical to the missing girl; it was olivia whom mary had feared; it was olivia who had driven john marchmont's orphan-child from her home once, and who might, by the same power to tyrannise and torture a weak and yielding nature, have so banished her again. or these two, paul and olivia, might both hate the defenceless girl, and might have between them plotted a wrong against her. "who will tell me the truth about my lost darling?" cried edward arundel. "who will help me to look for my missing love?" his lost darling; his missing love. it was thus that the young man spoke of his wife. that dark thought which had been suggested to him by the words of olivia, by the mute evidence of the little bronze slipper picked up near the river-brink, had never taken root, or held even a temporary place in his breast. he would not--nay, more, he could not--think that his wife was dead. in all his confused and miserable dreams that dreary november night, no dream had ever shown him _that_. no image of death had mingled itself with the distorted shadows that had tormented his sleep. no still white face had looked up at him through a veil of murky waters. no moaning sob of a rushing stream had mixed its dismal sound with the many voices of his slumbers. no; he feared all manner of unknown sorrows; he looked vaguely forward to a sea of difficulty, to be waded across in blindness and bewilderment before he could clasp his rescued wife in his arms; but he never thought that she was dead. presently the idea came to him that it was outside marchmont towers,--away, beyond the walls of this grim, enchanted castle, where evil spirits seemed to hold possession,--that he should seek for the clue to his wife's hiding-place. "there is hester, that girl who was fond of mary," he thought; "she may be able to tell me something, perhaps. i will go to her." he went out into the hall to look for his servant, the faithful morrison, who had been eating a very substantial breakfast with the domestics of the towers--"the sauce to meat" being a prolonged discussion of the facts connected with mary marchmont's disappearance and her relations with edward arundel--and who came, radiant and greasy from the enjoyment of hot buttered cakes and lincolnshire bacon, at the sound of his master's voice. "i want you to get me some vehicle, and a lad who will drive me a few miles, morrison," the young soldier said; "or you can drive me yourself, perhaps?" "certainly, master edward; i have driven your pa often, when we was travellin' together. i'll go and see if there's a phee-aton or a shay that will suit you, sir; something that goes easy on its springs." "get anything," muttered captain arundel, "so long as you can get it without loss of time." all fuss and anxiety upon the subject of his health worried the young man. he felt his head dizzied with weakness and excitement; his arm--that muscular right arm, which had done him good service two years before in an encounter with a tigress--was weaker than the jewel-bound wrist of a woman. but he chafed against anything like consideration of his weakness; he rebelled against anything that seemed likely to hinder him in that one object upon which all the powers of his mind were bent. mr. morrison went away with some show of briskness, but dropped into a very leisurely pace as soon as he was fairly out of his master's sight. he went straight to the stables, where he had a pleasant gossip with the grooms and hangers-on, and amused himself further by inspecting every bit of horseflesh in the marchmont stables, prior to selecting a quiet grey cob which he felt himself capable of driving, and an old-fashioned gig with a yellow body and black and yellow wheels, bearing a strong resemblance to a monstrous wooden wasp. while the faithful attendant to whom mrs. arundel had delegated the care of her son was thus employed, the soldier stood in the stone hall, looking out at the dreary wintry landscape, and pining to hurry away across the dismal swamps to the village in which he hoped to hear tidings of her he sought. he was lounging in a deep oaken window-seat, looking hopelessly at that barren prospect, that monotonous expanse of flat morass and leaden sky, when he heard a footstep behind him; and turning round saw olivia's confidential servant, barbara simmons, the woman who had watched by his wife's sick-bed,--the woman whom he had compared to a ghoule. she was walking slowly across the hall towards olivia's room, whither a bell had just summoned her. mrs. marchmont had lately grown fretful and capricious, and did not care to be waited upon by any one except this woman, who had known her from her childhood, and was no stranger to her darkest moods. edward arundel had determined to appeal to every living creature who was likely to know anything of his wife's disappearance, and he snatched the first opportunity of questioning this woman. "stop, mrs. simmons," he said, moving away from the window; "i want to speak to you; i want to talk to you about my wife." the woman turned to him with a blank face, whose expressionless stare might mean either genuine surprise or an obstinate determination not to understand anything that might be said to her. "your wife, captain arundel!" she said, in cold measured tones, but with an accent of astonishment. "yes; my wife. mary marchmont, my lawfully-wedded wife. look here, woman," cried edward arundel; "if you cannot accept the word of a soldier, and an honourable man, you can perhaps believe the evidence of your eyes." he took a morocco memorandum-book from his breast-pocket. it was full of letters, cards, bank-notes, and miscellaneous scraps of paper carelessly stuffed into it, and amongst them captain arundel found the certificate of his marriage, which he had put away at random upon his wedding morning, and which had lain unheeded in his pocket-book ever since. "look here," he cried, spreading the document before the waiting-woman's eyes, and pointing, with a shaking hand, to the lines. "you believe that, i suppose?" "o yes, sir," barbara simmons answered, after deliberately reading the certificate. "i have no reason to disbelieve it; no wish to disbelieve it." "no; i suppose not," muttered edward arundel, "unless you too are leagued with paul marchmont." the woman did not flinch at this hinted accusation, but answered the young man in that slow and emotionless manner which no change of circumstance seemed to have power to alter. "i am leagued with no one, sir," she said, coldly. "i serve no one except my mistress, miss olivia--i mean mrs. marchmont." the study-bell rang for the second time while she was speaking. "i must go to my mistress now, sir," she said. "you heard her ringing for me." "go, then, and let me see you as you come back. i tell you i must and will speak to you. everybody in this house tries to avoid me. it seems as if i was not to get a straight answer from any one of you. but i _will_ know all that is to be known about my lost wife. do you hear, woman? i will know!" "i will come back to you directly, sir," barbara simmons answered quietly. the leaden calmness of this woman's manner irritated edward arundel beyond all power of expression. before his cousin olivia's gloomy coldness he had been flung back upon himself as before an iceberg; but every now and then some sudden glow of fiery emotion had shot up amid that frigid mass, lurid and blazing, and the iceberg had been transformed into an angry and passionate woman, who might, in that moment of fierce emotion, betray the dark secrets of her soul. but _this_ woman's manner presented a passive barrier, athwart which the young soldier was as powerless to penetrate as he would have been to walk through a block of solid stone. olivia was like some black and stony castle, whose barred windows bade defiance to the besieger, but behind whose narrow casements transient flashes of light gleamed fitfully upon the watchers without, hinting at the mysteries that were hidden within the citadel. barbara simmons resembled a blank stone wall, grimly confronting the eager traveller, and giving no indication whatever of the unknown country on the other side. she came back almost immediately, after being only a few moments in olivia's room,--certainly not long enough to consult with her mistress as to what she was to say or to leave unsaid,--and presented herself before captain arundel. "if you have any questions to ask, sir, about miss marchmont--about your wife--i shall be happy to answer them," she said. "i have a hundred questions to ask," exclaimed the young man; "but first answer me this one plainly and truthfully--where do you think my wife has gone? what do you think has become of her?" the woman was silent for a few moments, and then answered very gravely,-- "i would rather not say what i think, sir." "why not?" "because i might say that which would make you unhappy." "can anything be more miserable to me than the prevarication which i meet with on every side?" cried edward arundel. "if you or any one else will be straightforward with me--remembering that i come to this place like a man who has risen from the grave, depending wholly on the word of others for the knowledge of that which is more vital to me than anything upon this earth--that person will be the best friend i have found since i rose from my sick-bed to come hither. you can have had no motive--if you are not in paul marchmont's pay--for being cruel to my poor girl. tell me the truth, then; speak, and speak fearlessly." "i have no reason to fear, sir," answered barbara simmons, lifting her faded eyes to the young man's eager face, with a gaze that seemed to say, "i have done no wrong, and i do not shrink from justifying myself." "i have no reason to fear, sir; i was piously brought up, and have done my best always to do my duty in the state of life in which providence has been pleased to place me. i have not had a particularly happy life, sir; for thirty years ago i lost all that made me happy, in them that loved me, and had a claim to love me. i have attached myself to my mistress; but it isn't for me to expect a lady like her would stoop to make me more to her or nearer to her than i have a right to be as a servant." there was no accent of hypocrisy or cant in any one of these deliberately-spoken words. it seemed as if in this speech the woman had told the history of her life; a brief, unvarnished history of a barren life, out of which all love and sunlight had been early swept away, leaving behind a desolate blank, that was not destined to be filled up by any affection from the young mistress so long and patiently served. "i am faithful to my mistress, sir," barbara simmons added, presently; "and i try my best to do my duty to her. i owe no duty to any one else." "you owe a duty to humanity," answered edward arundel. "woman, do you think duty is a thing to be measured by line and rule? christ came to save the lost sheep of the children of israel; but was he less pitiful to the canaanitish woman when she carried her sorrows to his feet? you and your mistress have made hard precepts for yourselves, and have tried to live by them. you try to circumscribe the area of your christian charity, and to do good within given limits. the traveller who fell among thieves would have died of his wounds, for any help he might have had from you, if he had lain beyond your radius. have you yet to learn that christianity is cosmopolitan, illimitable, inexhaustible, subject to no laws of time or space? the duty you owe to your mistress is a duty that she buys and pays for--a matter of sordid barter, to be settled when you take your wages; the duty you owe to every miserable creature in your pathway is a sacred debt, to be accounted for to god." as the young soldier spoke thus, carried away by his passionate agitation, suddenly eloquent by reason of the intensity of his feeling, a change came over barbara's face. there was no very palpable evidence of emotion in that stolid countenance; but across the wooden blankness of the woman's face flitted a transient shadow, which was like the shadow of fear. "i tried to do my duty to miss marchmont as well as to my mistress," she said. "i waited on her faithfully while she was ill. i sat up with her six nights running; i didn't take my clothes off for a week. there are folks in the house who can tell you as much." "god knows i am grateful to you, and will reward you for any pity you may have shown my poor darling," the young man answered, in a more subdued tone; "only, if you pity me, and wish to help me, speak out, and speak plainly. what do you think has become of my lost girl?" "i cannot tell you, sir. as god looks down upon me and judges me, i declare to you that i know no more than you know. but i think----" "you think what?" "that you will never see miss marchmont again." edward arundel started as violently as if, of all sentences, this was the last he had expected to hear pronounced. his sanguine temperament, fresh in its vigorous and untainted youth, could not grasp the thought of despair. he could be mad with passionate anger against the obstacles that separated him from his wife; but he could not believe those obstacles to be insurmountable. he could not doubt the power of his own devotion and courage to bring him back his lost love. "never--see her--again!" he repeated these words as if they had belonged to a strange language, and he were trying to make out their meaning. "you think," he gasped hoarsely, after a long pause,--"you think--that--she is--dead?" "i think that she went out of this house in a desperate state of mind. she was seen--not by me, for i should have thought it my duty to stop her if i had seen her so--she was seen by one of the servants crying and sobbing awfully as she went away upon that last afternoon." "and she was never seen again?" "never by me." "and--you--you think she went out of this house with the intention of--of--destroying herself?" the words died away in a hoarse whisper, and it was by the motion of his white lips that barbara simmons perceived what the young man meant. "i do, sir." "have you any--particular reason for thinking so?" "no reason beyond what i have told you, sir." edward arundel bent his head, and walked away to hide his blanched face. he tried instinctively to conceal this mental suffering, as he had sometimes hidden physical torture in an indian hospital, prompted by the involuntary impulse of a brave man. but though the woman's words had come upon him like a thunderbolt, he had no belief in the opinion they expressed. no; his young spirit wrestled against and rejected the awful conclusion. other people might think what they chose; but he knew better than they. his wife was _not_ dead. his life had been so smooth, so happy, so prosperous, so unclouded and successful, that it was scarcely strange he should be sceptical of calamity,--that his mind should be incapable of grasping the idea of a catastrophe so terrible as mary's suicide. "she was intrusted to me by her father," he thought. "she gave her faith to me before god's altar. she _cannot_ have perished body and soul; she _cannot_ have gone down to destruction for want of my arm outstretched to save her. god is too good to permit such misery." the young soldier's piety was of the simplest and most unquestioning order, and involved an implicit belief that a right cause must always be ultimately victorious. with the same blind faith in which he had often muttered a hurried prayer before plunging in amidst the mad havoc of an indian battle-field, confident that the justice of heaven would never permit heathenish affghans to triumph over christian british gentlemen, he now believed that, in the darkest hour of mary marchmont's life, god's arm had held her back from the dread horror--the unatonable offence--of self-destruction. "i thank you for having spoken frankly to me," he said to barbara simmons; "i believe that you have spoken in good faith. but i do not think my darling is for ever lost to me. i anticipate trouble and anxiety, disappointment, defeat for a time,--for a long time, perhaps; but i _know_ that i shall find her in the end. the business of my life henceforth is to look for her." barbara's dull eyes held earnest watch upon the young man's countenance as he spoke. anxiety and even fear were in that gaze, palpable to those who knew how to read the faint indications of the woman's stolid face. chapter x. the paragraph in the newspaper. mr. morrison brought the gig and pony to the western porch while captain arundel was talking to his cousin's servant, and presently the invalid was being driven across the flat between the towers and the high-road to kemberling. mary's old favourite, farmer pollard's daughter, came out of a low rustic shop as the gig drew up before her husband's door. this good-natured, tender-hearted hester, advanced to matronly dignity under the name of mrs. jobson, carried a baby in her arms, and wore a white dimity hood, that made a penthouse over her simple rosy face. but at the sight of captain arundel nearly all the rosy colour disappeared from the country-woman's plump cheeks, and she stared aghast at the unlooked-for visitor, almost ready to believe that, if anything so substantial as a pony and gig could belong to the spiritual world, it was the phantom only of the soldier that she looked upon. "o sir!" she said; "o captain arundel, is it really you?" edward alighted before hester could recover from the surprise occasioned by his appearance. "yes, mrs. jobson," he said. "may i come into your house? i wish to speak to you." hester curtseyed, and stood aside to allow her visitor to pass her. her manner was coldly respectful, and she looked at the young officer with a grave, reproachful face, which was strange to him. she ushered her guest into a parlour at the back of the shop; a prim apartment, splendid with varnished mahogany, shell-work boxes--bought during hester's honeymoon-trip to a lincolnshire watering-place--and voluminous achievements in the way of crochet-work; a gorgeous and sabbath-day chamber, looking across a stand of geraniums into a garden that was orderly and trimly kept even in this dull november weather. mrs. jobson drew forward an uneasy easy-chair, covered with horsehair, and veiled by a crochet-work representation of a peacock embowered among roses. she offered this luxurious seat to captain arundel, who, in his weakness, was well content to sit down upon the slippery cushions. "i have come here to ask you to help me in my search for my wife, hester," edward arundel said, in a scarcely audible voice. it is not given to the bravest mind to be utterly independent and defiant of the body; and the soldier was beginning to feel that he had very nearly run the length of his tether, and must soon submit himself to be prostrated by sheer physical weakness. "your wife!" cried hester eagerly. "o sir, is that true?" "is what true?" "that poor miss mary was your lawful wedded wife?" "she was," replied edward arundel sternly, "my true and lawful wife. what else should she have been, mrs. jobson?" the farmer's daughter burst into tears. "o sir," she said, sobbing violently as she spoke,--"o sir, the things that was said against that poor dear in this place and all about the towers! the things that was said! it makes my heart bleed to think of them; it makes my heart ready to break when i think what my poor sweet young lady must have suffered. and it set me against you, sir; and i thought you was a bad and cruel-hearted man!" "what did they say?" cried edward. "what did they dare to say against her or against me?" "they said that you had enticed her away from her home, sir, and that--that--there had been no marriage; and that you had deluded that poor innocent dear to run away with you; and that you'd deserted her afterwards, and the railway accident had come upon you as a punishment like; and that mrs. marchmont had found poor miss mary all alone at a country inn, and had brought her back to the towers." "but what if people did say this?" exclaimed captain arundel. "you could have contradicted their foul slanders; you could have spoken in defence of my poor helpless girl." "me, sir!" "yes. you must have heard the truth from my wife's own lips." hester jobson burst into a new flood of tears as edward arundel said this. "o no, sir," she sobbed; "that was the most cruel thing of all. i never could get to see miss mary; they wouldn't let me see her." "who wouldn't let you?" "mrs. marchmont and mr. paul marchmont. i was laid up, sir, when the report first spread about that miss mary had come home. things was kept very secret, and it was said that mrs. marchmont was dreadfully cut up by the disgrace that had come upon her stepdaughter. my baby was born about that time, sir; but as soon as ever i could get about, i went up to the towers, in the hope of seeing my poor dear miss. but mrs. simmons, mrs. marchmont's own maid, told me that miss mary was ill, very ill, and that no one was allowed to see her except those that waited upon her and that she was used to. and i begged and prayed that i might be allowed to see her, sir, with the tears in my eyes; for my heart bled for her, poor darling dear, when i thought of the cruel things that was said against her, and thought that, with all her riches and her learning, folks could dare to talk of her as they wouldn't dare talk of a poor man's wife like me. and i went again and again, sir; but it was no good; and, the last time i went, mrs. marchmont came out into the hall to me, and told me that i was intrusive and impertinent, and that it was me, and such as me, as had set all manner of scandal afloat about her stepdaughter. but i went again, sir, even after that; and i saw mr. paul marchmont, and he was very kind to me, and frank and free-spoken,--almost like you, sir; and he told me that mrs. marchmont was rather stern and unforgiving towards the poor young lady,--he spoke very kind and pitiful of poor miss mary,--and that he would stand my friend, and he'd contrive that i should see my poor dear as soon as ever she picked up her spirits a bit, and was more fit to see me; and i was to come again in a week's time, he said." "well; and when you went----?" "when i went, sir," sobbed the carpenter's wife, "it was the th of october, and miss mary had run away upon the day before, and every body at the towers was being sent right and left to look for her. i saw mrs. marchmont for a minute that afternoon; and she was as white as a sheet, and all of a tremble from head to foot, and she walked about the place as if she was out of her mind like." "guilt," thought the young soldier; "guilt of some sort. god only knows what that guilt has been!" he covered his face with his hands, and waited to hear what more hester jobson had to tell him. there was no need of questioning here--no reservation or prevarication. with almost as tender regret as he himself could have felt, the carpenter's wife told him all that she knew of the sad story of mary's disappearance. "nobody took much notice of me, sir, in the confusion of the place," mrs. jobson continued; "and there is a parlour-maid at the towers called susan rose, that had been a schoolfellow with me ten years before, and i got her to tell me all about it. and she said that poor dear miss mary had been weak and ailing ever since she had recovered from the brain-fever, and that she had shut herself up in her room, and had seen no one except mrs. marchmont, and mr. paul, and barbara simmons; but on the th mrs. marchmont sent for her, asking her to come to the study. and the poor young lady went; and then susan rose thinks that there was high words between mrs. marchmont and her stepdaughter; for as susan was crossing the hall poor miss came out of the study, and her face was all smothered in tears, and she cried out, as she came into the hall, 'i can't bear it any longer. my life is too miserable; my fate is too wretched!' and then she ran upstairs, and susan rose followed up to her room and listened outside the door; and she heard the poor dear sobbing and crying out again and again, 'o papa, papa! if you knew what i suffer! o papa, papa, papa!'--so pitiful, that if susan rose had dared she would have gone in to try and comfort her; but miss mary had always been very reserved to all the servants, and susan didn't dare intrude upon her. it was late that evening when my poor young lady was missed, and the servants sent out to look for her." "and you, hester,--you knew my wife better than any of these people,--where do you think she went?" hester jobson looked piteously at the questioner. "o sir!" she cried; "o captain arundel, don't ask me; pray, pray don't ask me." "you think like these other people,--you think that she went away to destroy herself?" "o sir, what can i think, what can i think except that? she was last seen down by the water-side, and one of her shoes was picked up amongst the rushes; and for all there's been such a search made after her, and a reward offered, and advertisements in the papers, and everything done that mortal could do to find her, there's been no news of her, sir,--not a trace to tell of her being living; not a creature to come forward and speak to her being seen by them after that day. what can i think, sir, what can i think, except--" "except that she threw herself into the river behind marchmont towers." "i've tried to think different, sir; i've tried to hope i should see that poor sweet lamb again; but i can't, i can't. i've worn mourning for these three last sundays, sir; for i seemed to feel as if it was a sin and a disrespectfulness towards her to wear colours, and sit in the church where i have seen her so often, looking so meek and beautiful, sunday after sunday." edward arundel bowed his head upon his hands and wept silently. this woman's belief in mary's death afflicted him more than he dared confess to himself. he had defied olivia and paul marchmont, as enemies, who tried to force a false conviction upon him; but he could neither doubt nor defy this honest, warm-hearted creature, who wept aloud over the memory of his wife's sorrows. he could not doubt her sincerity; but he still refused to accept the belief which on every side was pressed upon him. he still refused to think that his wife was dead. "the river was dragged for more than a week," he said, presently, "and my wife's body was never found." hester jobson shook her head mournfully. "that's a poor sign, sir," she answered; "the river's full of holes, i've heard say. my husband had a fellow-'prentice who drowned himself in that river seven year ago, and _his_ body was never found." edward arundel rose and walked towards the door. "i do not believe that my wife is dead," he cried. he held out his hand to the carpenter's wife. "god bless you!" he said. "i thank you from my heart for your tender feeling towards my lost girl." he went out to the gig, in which mr. morrison waited for him, rather tired of his morning's work. "there is an inn a little way farther along the street, morrison," captain arundel said. "i shall stop there." the man stared at his master. "and not go back to marchmont towers, mr. edward?" "no." edward arundel had held nature in abeyance for more than four-and-twenty hours, and this outraged nature now took her revenge by flinging the young man prostrate and powerless upon his bed at the simple kemberling hostelry, and holding him prisoner there for three dreary days; three miserable days, with long, dark interminable evenings, during which the invalid had no better employment than to lie brooding over his sorrows, while mr. morrison read the "times" newspaper in a monotonous and droning voice, for his sick master's entertainment. how that helpless and prostrate prisoner, bound hand and foot in the stern grasp of retaliative nature, loathed the leading-articles, the foreign correspondence, in the leviathan journal! how he sickened at the fiery english of printing-house square, as expounded by mr. morrison! the sound of the valet's voice was like the unbroken flow of a dull river. the great names that surged up every now and then upon that sluggish tide of oratory made no impression upon the sick man's mind. what was it to him if the glory of england were in danger, the freedom of a mighty people wavering in the balance? what was it to him if famine-stricken ireland were perishing, and the far-away indian possessions menaced by contumacious and treacherous sikhs? what was it to him if the heavens were shrivelled like a blazing scroll, and the earth reeling on its shaken foundations? what had he to do with any catastrophe except that which had fallen upon his innocent young wife? "o my broken trust!" he muttered sometimes, to the alarm of the confidential servant; "o my broken trust!" but during the three days in which captain arundel lay in the best chamber at the black bull--the chief inn of kemberling, and a very splendid place of public entertainment long ago, when all the northward-bound coaches had passed through that quiet lincolnshire village--he was not without a medical attendant to give him some feeble help in the way of drugs and doctor's stuff, in the battle which he was fighting with offended nature. i don't know but that the help, however well intended, may have gone rather to strengthen the hand of the enemy; for in those days--the year ' is very long ago when we take the measure of time by science--country practitioners were apt to place themselves upon the side of the disease rather than of the patient, and to assist grim death in his siege, by lending the professional aid of purgatives and phlebotomy. on this principle mr. george weston, the surgeon of kemberling, and the submissive and well-tutored husband of paul marchmont's sister, would fain have set to work with the prostrate soldier, on the plea that the patient's skin was hot and dry, and his white lips parched with fever. but captain arundel protested vehemently against any such treatment. "you shall not take an ounce of blood out of my veins," he said, "or give me one drop of medicine that will weaken me. what i want is strength; strength to get up and leave this intolerable room, and go about the business that i have to do. as to fever," he added scornfully, "as long as i have to lie here and am hindered from going about the business of my life, every drop of my blood will boil with a fever that all the drugs in apothecaries' hall would have no power to subdue. give me something to strengthen me. patch me up somehow or other, mr. weston, if you can. but i warn you that, if you keep me long here, i shall leave this place either a corpse or a madman." the surgeon, drinking tea with his wife and brother-in-law half an hour afterwards, related the conversation that had taken place between himself and his patient, breaking up his narrative with a great many "i said's" and "said he's," and with a good deal of rambling commentary upon the text. lavinia weston looked at her brother while the surgeon told his story. "he is very desperate about his wife, then, this dashing young captain?" mr. marchmont said, presently. "awful," answered the surgeon; "regular awful. i never saw anything like it. really it was enough to cut a man up to hear him go on so. he asked me all sorts of questions about the time when she was ill and i attended upon her, and what did she say to me, and did she seem very unhappy, and all that sort of thing. upon my word, you know, mr. paul,--of course i am very glad to think of your coming into the fortune, and i'm very much obliged to you for the kind promises you've made to me and lavinia; but i almost felt as if i could have wished the poor young lady hadn't drowned herself." mrs. weston shrugged her shoulders, and looked at her brother. "_imbécile!_" she muttered. she was accustomed to talk to her brother very freely in rather school-girl french before her husband, to whom that language was as the most recondite of tongues, and who heartily admired her for superior knowledge. he sat staring at her now, and eating bread-and-butter with a simple relish, which in itself was enough to mark him out as a man to be trampled upon. * * * * * on the fourth day after his interview with hester, edward arundel was strong enough to leave his chamber at the black bull. "i shall go to london by to-night's mail, morrison," he said to his servant; "but before i leave lincolnshire, i must pay another visit to marchmont towers. you can stop here, and pack my portmanteau while i go." a rumbling old fly--looked upon as a splendid equipage by the inhabitants of kemberling--was furnished for captain arundel's accommodation by the proprietor of the black bull; and once more the soldier approached that ill-omened dwelling-place which had been the home of his wife. he was ushered without any delay to the study in which olivia spent the greater part of her time. the dusky afternoon was already closing in. a low fire burned in the old-fashioned grate, and one lighted wax-candle stood upon an open davenport, before which the widow sat amid a confusion of torn papers, cast upon the ground about her. the open drawers of the davenport, the littered scraps of paper and loosely-tied documents, thrust, without any show of order, into the different compartments of the desk, bore testimony to that state of mental distraction which had been common to olivia marchmont for some time past. she herself, the gloomy tenant of the towers, sat with her elbow resting on her desk, looking hopelessly and absently at the confusion before her. "i am very tired," she said, with a sigh, as she motioned her cousin to a chair. "i have been trying to sort my papers, and to look for bills that have to be paid, and receipts. they come to me about everything. i am very tired." her manner was changed from that stern defiance with which she had last confronted her kinsman to an air of almost piteous feebleness. she rested her head on her hand, repeating, in a low voice, "yes, i am very tired." edward arundel looked earnestly at her faded face, so faded from that which he remembered it in its proud young beauty, that, in spite of his doubt of this woman, he could scarcely refrain from some touch of pity for her. "you are ill, olivia," he said. "yes, i am ill; i am worn out; i am tired of my life. why does not god have pity upon me, and take the bitter burden away? i have carried it too long." she said this not so much to her cousin as to herself. she was like job in his despair, and cried aloud to the supreme himself in a gloomy protest against her anguish. "olivia," said edward arundel very earnestly, "what is it that makes you unhappy? is the burden that you carry a burden on your conscience? is the black shadow upon your life a guilty secret? is the cause of your unhappiness that which i suspect it to be? is it that, in some hour of passion, you consented to league yourself with paul marchmont against my poor innocent girl? for pity's sake, speak, and undo what you have done. you cannot have been guilty of a crime. there has been some foul play, some conspiracy, some suppression; and my darling has been lured away by the machinations of this man. but he could not have got her into his power without your help. you hated her,--heaven alone knows for what reason,--and in an evil hour you helped him, and now you are sorry for what you have done. but it is not too late, olivia; olivia, it is surely not too late. speak, speak, woman, and undo what you have done. as you hope for mercy and forgiveness from god, undo what you have done. i will exact no atonement from you. paul marchmont, this smooth traitor, this frank man of the world, who defied me with a smile,--he only shall be called upon to answer for the wrong done against my darling. speak, olivia, for pity's sake," cried the young man, casting himself upon his knees at his cousin's feet. "you are of my own blood; you must have some spark of regard for me; have compassion upon me, then, or have compassion upon your own guilty soul, which must perish everlastingly if you withhold the truth. have pity, olivia, and speak!" the widow had risen to her feet, recoiling from the soldier as he knelt before her, and looking at him with an awful light in the eyes that alone gave life to her corpse-like face. suddenly she flung her arms up above her head, stretching her wasted hands towards the ceiling. "by the god who has renounced and abandoned me," she cried, "i have no more knowledge than you have of mary marchmont's fate. from the hour in which she left this house, upon the th of october, until this present moment, i have neither seen her nor heard of her. if i have lied to you, edward arundel," she added, dropping her extended arms, and turning quietly to her cousin,--"if i have lied to you in saying this, may the tortures which i suffer be doubled to me,--if in the infinite of suffering there is any anguish worse than that i now endure." edward arundel paused for a little while, brooding over this strange reply to his appeal. could he disbelieve his cousin? it is common to some people to make forcible and impious asseverations of an untruth shamelessly, in the very face of an insulted heaven. but olivia marchmont was a woman who, in the very darkest hour of her despair, knew no wavering from her faith in the god she had offended. "i cannot refuse to believe you, olivia," captain arundel said presently. "i do believe in your solemn protestations, and i no longer look for help from you in my search for my lost love. i absolve you from all suspicion of being aware of her fate _after_ she left this house. but so long as she remained beneath this roof she was in your care, and i hold you responsible for the ills that may have then befallen her. you, olivia, must have had some hand in driving that unhappy girl away from her home." the widow had resumed her seat by the open davenport. she sat with her head bent, her brows contracted, her mouth fixed and rigid, her left hand trifling absently with the scattered papers before her. "you accused me of this once before, when mary marchmont left this house," she said sullenly. "and you were guilty then," answered edward. "i cannot hold myself answerable for the actions of others. mary marchmont left this time, as she left before, of her own free will." "driven away by your cruel words." "she must have been very weak," answered olivia, with a sneer, "if a few harsh words were enough to drive her away from her own house." "you deny, then, that you were guilty of causing this poor deluded child's flight from this house?" olivia marchmont sat for some moments in moody silence; then suddenly raising her head, she looked her cousin full in the face. "i do," she exclaimed; "if any one except herself is guilty of an act which was her own, i am not that person." "i understand," said edward arundel; "it was paul marchmont's hand that drove her out upon the dreary world. it was paul marchmont's brain that plotted against her. you were only a minor instrument; a willing tool, in the hands of a subtle villain. but he shall answer; he shall answer!" the soldier spoke the last words between his clenched teeth. then with his chin upon his breast, he sat thinking over what he had just heard. "how was it?" he muttered; "how was it? he is too consummate a villain to use violence. his manner the other morning told me that the law was on his side. he had done nothing to put himself into my power, and he defied me. how was it, then? by what means did he drive my darling to her despairing flight?" as captain arundel sat thinking of these things, his cousin's idle fingers still trifled with the papers on the desk; while, with her chin resting on her other hand, and her eyes fixed upon the wall before her, she stared blankly at the reflection of the flame of the candle on the polished oaken panel. her idle fingers, following no design, strayed here and there among the scattered papers, until a few that lay nearest the edge of the desk slid off the smooth morocco, and fluttered to the ground. edward arundel, as absent-minded as his cousin, stooped involuntarily to pick up the papers. the uppermost of those that had fallen was a slip cut from a country newspaper, to which was pinned an open letter, a few lines only. the paragraph in the newspaper slip was marked by double ink-lines, drawn round it by a neat penman. again almost involuntarily, edward arundel looked at this marked paragraph. it was very brief: "we regret to be called upon to state that another of the sufferers in the accident which occurred last august on the south-western railway has expired from injuries received upon that occasion. captain arundel, of the h.e.i.c.s., died on friday night at dangerfield park, devon, the seat of his elder brother." the letter was almost as brief as the paragraph: "kemberling, october th. "my dear mrs. marchmont,--the enclosed has just come to hand. let us hope it is not true. but, in case of the worst, it should be shown to miss marchmont _immediately_. better that she should hear the news from you than from a stranger. "yours sincerely, "paul marchmont." "i understand everything now," said edward arundel, laying these two papers before his cousin; "it was with this printed lie that you and paul marchmont drove my wife to despair--perhaps to death. my darling, my darling," cried the young man, in a burst of uncontrollable agony, "i refused to believe that you were dead; i refused to believe that you were lost to me. i can believe it now; i can believe it now." chapter xi. edward arundel's despair. yes; edward arundel could believe the worst now. he could believe now that his young wife, on hearing tidings of his death, had rushed madly to her own destruction; too desolate, too utterly unfriended and miserable, to live under the burden of her sorrows. mary had talked to her husband in the happy, loving confidence of her bright honeymoon; she had talked to him of her father's death, and the horrible grief she had felt; the heart-sickness, the eager yearning to be carried to the same grave, to rest in the same silent sleep. "i think i tried to throw myself from the window upon the night before papa's funeral," she had said; "but i fainted away. i know it was very wicked of me. but i was mad. my wretchedness had driven me mad." he remembered this. might not this girl, this helpless child, in the first desperation of her grief, have hurried down to that dismal river, to hide her sorrows for ever under its slow and murky tide? henceforward it was with a new feeling that edward arundel looked for his missing wife. the young and hopeful spirit which had wrestled against conviction, which had stubbornly preserved its own sanguine fancies against the gloomy forebodings of others, had broken down before the evidence of that false paragraph in the country newspaper. that paragraph was the key to the sad mystery of mary arundel's disappearance. her husband could understand now why she ran away, why she despaired; and how, in that desperation and despair, she might have hastily ended her short life. it was with altered feelings, therefore, that he went forth to look for her. he was no longer passionate and impatient, for he no longer believed that his young wife lived to yearn for his coming, and to suffer for the want of his protection; he no longer thought of her as a lonely and helpless wanderer driven from her rightful home, and in her childish ignorance straying farther and farther away from him who had the right to succour and to comfort her. no; he thought of her now with sullen despair at his heart; he thought of her now in utter hopelessness; he thought of her with a bitter and agonising regret, which we only feel for the dead. but this grief was not the only feeling that held possession of the young soldier's breast. stronger even than his sorrow was his eager yearning for vengeance, his savage desire for retaliation. "i look upon paul marchmont as the murderer of my wife," he said to olivia, on that november evening on which he saw the paragraph in the newspaper; "i look upon that man as the deliberate destroyer of a helpless girl; and he shall answer to me for her life. he shall answer to me for every pang she suffered, for every tear she shed. god have mercy upon her poor erring soul, and help me to my vengeance upon her destroyer." he lifted his eyes to heaven as he spoke, and a solemn shadow overspread his pale face, like a dark cloud upon a winter landscape. i have said that edward arundel no longer felt a frantic impatience to discover his wife's fate. the sorrowful conviction which at last had forced itself upon him left no room for impatience. the pale face he had loved was lying hidden somewhere beneath those dismal waters. he had no doubt of that. there was no need of any other solution to the mystery of his wife's disappearance. that which he had to seek for was the evidence of paul marchmont's guilt. the outspoken young soldier, whose nature was as transparent as the stainless soul of a child, had to enter into the lists with a man who was so different from himself, that it was almost difficult to believe the two individuals belonged to the same species. captain arundel went back to london, and betook himself forthwith to the office of messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson. he had the idea, common to many of his class, that all lawyers, whatever claims they might have to respectability, are in a manner past-masters in every villanous art; and, as such, the proper people to deal with a villain. "richard paulette will be able to help me," thought the young man; "richard paulette saw through paul marchmont, i dare say." but richard paulette had very little to say about the matter. he had known edward arundel's father, and he had known the young soldier from his early boyhood, and he seemed deeply grieved to witness his client's distress; but he had nothing to say against paul marchmont. "i cannot see what right you have to suspect mr. marchmont of any guilty share in your wife's disappearance," he said. "do not think i defend him because he is our client. you know that we are rich enough, and honourable enough, to refuse the business of any man whom we thought a villain. when i was in lincolnshire, mr. marchmont did everything that a man could do to testify his anxiety to find his cousin." "oh, yes," edward arundel answered bitterly; "that is only consistent with the man's diabolical artifice; _that_ was a part of his scheme. he wished to testify that anxiety, and he wanted you as a witness to his conscientious search after my--poor--lost girl." his voice and manner changed for a moment as he spoke of mary. richard paulette shook his head. "prejudice, prejudice, my dear arundel," he said; "this is all prejudice upon your part, i assure you. mr. marchmont behaved with perfect honesty and candour. 'i won't tell you that i'm sorry to inherit this fortune,' he said, 'because if i did you wouldn't believe me--what man in his senses _could_ believe that a poor devil of a landscape painter would regret coming into eleven thousand a year?--but i am very sorry for this poor little girl's unhappy fate.' and i believe," added mr. paulette, decisively, "that the man was heartily sorry." edward arundel groaned aloud. "o god! this is too terrible," he muttered. "everybody will believe in this man rather than in me. how am i to be avenged upon the wretch who caused my darling's death?" he talked for a long time to the lawyer, but with no result. richard paulette considered the young man's hatred of paul marchmont only a natural consequence of his grief for mary's death. "i can't wonder that you are prejudiced against mr. marchmont," he said; "it's natural; it's only natural; but, believe me, you are wrong. nothing could be more straightforward, and even delicate, than his conduct. he refuses to take possession of the estate, or to touch a farthing of the rents. 'no,' he said, when i suggested to him that he had a right to enter in possession,--'no; we will not shut the door against hope. my cousin may be hiding herself somewhere; she may return by-and-by. let us wait a twelvemonth. if at the end of that time, she does not return, and if in the interim we receive no tidings from her, no evidence of her existence, we may reasonably conclude that she is dead; and i may fairly consider myself the rightful owner of marchmont towers. in the mean time, you will act as if you were still mary marchmont's agent, holding all moneys as in trust for her, but to be delivered up to me at the expiration of a year from the day on which she disappeared.' i do not think anything could be more straightforward than that," added richard paulette, in conclusion. "no," edward answered, with a sigh; "it _seems_ very straightforward. but the man who could strike at a helpless girl by means of a lying paragraph in a newspaper--" "mr. marchmont may have believed in that paragraph." edward arundel rose, with a gesture of impatience. "i came to you for help, mr. paulette," he said; "but i see you don't mean to help me. good day." he left the office before the lawyer could remonstrate with him. he walked away, with passionate anger against all the world raging in his breast. "why, what a smooth-spoken, false-tongued world it is!" he thought. "let a man succeed in the vilest scheme, and no living creature will care to ask by what foul means he may have won his success. what weapons can i use against this paul marchmont, who twists truth and honesty to his own ends, and masks his basest treachery under an appearance of candour?" from lincoln's inn fields captain arundel drove over waterloo bridge to oakley street. he went to mrs. pimpernel's establishment, without any hope of the glad surprise that had met him there a few months before. he believed implicitly that his wife was dead, and wherever he went in search of her he went in utter hopelessness, only prompted by the desire to leave no part of his duty undone. the honest-hearted dealer in cast-off apparel wept bitterly when she heard how sadly the captain's honeymoon had ended. she would have been content to detain the young soldier all day, while she bemoaned the misfortunes that had come upon him; and now, for the first time, edward heard of dismal forebodings, and horrible dreams, and unaccountable presentiments of evil, with which this honest woman had been afflicted on and before his wedding-day, and of which she had made special mention at the time to divers friends and acquaintances. "i never shall forget how shivery-like i felt as the cab drove off, with that pore dear a-lookin' and smilin' at me out of the winder. i says to mrs. polson, as her husband is in the shoemakin' line, two doors further down,--i says, 'i do hope capting harungdell's lady will get safe to the end of her journey.' i felt the cold shivers a-creepin' up my back just azackly like i did a fortnight before my pore jane died, and i couldn't get it off my mind as somethink was goin' to happen." from london captain arundel went to winchester, much to the disgust of his valet, who was accustomed to a luxuriously idle life at dangerfield park, and who did not by any means relish this desultory wandering from place to place. perhaps there was some faint ray of hope in the young man's mind, as he drew near to that little village-inn beneath whose shelter he had been so happy with his childish bride. if she had _not_ committed suicide; if she had indeed wandered away, to try and bear her sorrows in gentle christian resignation; if she had sought some retreat where she might be safe from her tormentors,--would not every instinct of her loving heart have led her here?--here, amid these low meadows and winding streams, guarded and surrounded by the pleasant shelter of grassy hill-tops, crowned by waving trees?--here, where she had been so happy with the husband of her choice? but, alas! that newly-born hope, which had made the soldier's heart beat and his cheek flush, was as delusive as many other hopes that lure men and women onward in their weary wanderings upon this earth. the landlord of the white hart inn answered edward arundel's question with stolid indifference. no; the young lady had gone away with her ma, and a gentleman who came with her ma. she had cried a deal, poor thing, and had seemed very much cut up. (it was from the chamber-maid edward heard this.) but her ma and the gentleman had seemed in a great hurry to take her away. the gentleman said that a village inn wasn't the place for her, and he said he was very much shocked to find her there; and he had a fly got ready, and took the two ladies away in it to the george, at winchester, and they were to go from there to london; and the young lady was crying when she went away, and was as pale as death, poor dear. this was all that captain arundel gained by his journey to milldale. he went across country to the farming people near reading, his wife's poor relations. but they had heard nothing of her. they had wondered, indeed, at having no letters from her, for she had been very kind to them. they were terribly distressed when they were told of her disappearance. this was the forlorn hope. it was all over now. edward arundel could no longer struggle against the cruel truth. he could do nothing now but avenge his wife's sorrows. he went down to devonshire, saw his mother, and told her the sad story of mary's flight. but he could not rest at dangerfield, though mrs. arundel implored him to stay long enough to recruit his shattered health. he hurried back to london, made arrangements with his agent for being bought out of his regiment by his brother officers, and then, turning his back upon the career that had been far dearer to him than his life, he went down to lincolnshire once more, in the dreary winter weather, to watch and wait patiently, if need were, for the day of retribution. there was a detached cottage, a lonely place enough, between kemberling and marchmont towers, that had been to let for a long time, being very much out of repair, and by no means inviting in appearance. edward arundel took this cottage. all necessary repairs and alterations were executed under the direction of mr. morrison, who was to remain permanently in the young man's service. captain arundel had a couple of horses brought down to his new stable, and hired a country lad, who was to act as groom under the eye of the factotum. mr. morrison and this lad, with one female servant, formed edward's establishment. paul marchmont lifted his auburn eyebrows when he heard of the new tenant of kemberling retreat. the lonely cottage had been christened kemberling retreat by a sentimental tenant; who had ultimately levanted, leaving his rent three quarters in arrear. the artist exhibited a gentlemanly surprise at this new vagary of edward arundel's, and publicly expressed his pity for the foolish young man. "i am so sorry that the poor fellow should sacrifice himself to a romantic grief for my unfortunate cousin," mr. marchmont said, in the parlour of the black bull, where he condescended to drop in now and then with his brother-in-law, and to make himself popular amongst the magnates of kemberling, and the tenant-farmers, who looked to him as their future, if not their actual, landlord. "i am really sorry for the poor lad. he's a handsome, high-spirited fellow, and i'm sorry he's been so weak as to ruin his prospects in the company's service. yes; i am heartily sorry for him." mr. marchmont discussed the matter very lightly in the parlour of the black bull, but he kept silence as he walked home with the surgeon; and mr. george weston, looking askance at his brother-in-law's face, saw that something was wrong, and thought it advisable to hold his peace. paul marchmont sat up late that night talking to lavinia after the surgeon had gone to bed. the brother and sister conversed in subdued murmurs as they stood close together before the expiring fire, and the faces of both were very grave, indeed, almost apprehensive. "he must be terribly in earnest," paul marchmont said, "or he would never have sacrificed his position. he has planted himself here, close upon us, with a determination of watching us. we shall have to be very careful." * * * * * it was early in the new year that edward arundel completed all his arrangements, and took possession of kemberling retreat. he knew that, in retiring from the east india company's service, he had sacrificed the prospect of a brilliant and glorious career, under some of the finest soldiers who ever fought for their country. but he had made this sacrifice willingly--as an offering to the memory of his lost love; as an atonement for his broken trust. for it was one of his most bitter miseries to remember that his own want of prudence had been the first cause of all mary's sorrows. had he confided in his mother,--had he induced her to return from germany to be present at his marriage, and to accept the orphan girl as a daughter,--mary need never again have fallen into the power of olivia marchmont. his own imprudence, his own rashness, had flung this poor child, helpless and friendless, into the hands of the very man against whom john marchmont had written a solemn warning,--a warning that it should have been edward's duty to remember. but who could have calculated upon the railway accident; and who could have foreseen a separation in the first blush of the honeymoon? edward arundel had trusted in his own power to protect his bride from every ill that might assail her. in the pride of his youth and strength he had forgotten that he was not immortal, and the last idea that could have entered his mind was the thought that he should be stricken down by a sudden calamity, and rendered even more helpless than the girl he had sworn to shield and succour. the bleak winter crept slowly past, and the shrill march winds were loud amidst the leafless trees in the wood behind marchmont towers. this wood was open to any foot-passenger who might choose to wander that way; and edward arundel often walked upon the bank of the slow river, and past the boat-house, beneath whose shadow he had wooed his young wife in the bright summer that was gone. the place had a mournful attraction for the young man, by reason of the memory of the past, and a different and far keener fascination in the fact of paul marchmont's frequent occupation of his roughly-built painting-room. in a purposeless and unsettled frame of mind, edward arundel kept watch upon the man he hated, scarcely knowing why he watched, or for what he hoped, but with a vague belief that something would be discovered; that some accident might come to pass which would enable him to say to paul marchmont, "it was by your treachery my wife perished; and it is you who must answer to me for her death." edward arundel had seen nothing of his cousin olivia during that dismal winter. he had held himself aloof from the towers,--that is to say, he had never presented himself there as a guest, though he had been often on horseback and on foot in the wood by the river. he had not seen olivia, but he had heard of her through his valet, mr. morrison, who insisted on repeating the gossip of kemberling for the benefit of his listless and indifferent master. "they do say as mr. paul marchmont is going to marry mrs. john marchmont, sir," mr. morrison said, delighted at the importance of his information. "they say as mr. paul is always up at the towers visitin' mrs. john, and that she takes his advice about everything as she does, and that she's quite wrapped up in him like." edward arundel looked at his attendant with unmitigated surprise. "my cousin olivia marry paul marchmont!" he exclaimed. "you should be wiser than to listen to such foolish gossip, morrison. you know what country people are, and you know they can't keep their tongues quiet." mr. morrison took this reproach as a compliment to his superior intelligence. "it ain't oftentimes as i listens to their talk, sir," he said; "but if i've heard this said once, i've heard it twenty times; and i've heard it at the black bull, too, mr. edward, where mr. marchmont fre_quents_ sometimes with his sister's husband; and the landlord told me as it had been spoken of once before his face, and he didn't deny it." edward arundel pondered gravely over this gossip of the kemberling people. it was not so very improbable, perhaps, after all. olivia only held marchmont towers on sufferance. it might be that, rather than be turned out of her stately home, she would accept the hand of its rightful owner. she would marry paul marchmont, perhaps, as she had married his brother,--for the sake of a fortune and a position. she had grudged mary her wealth, and now she sought to become a sharer in that wealth. "oh, the villany, the villany!" cried the soldier. "it is all one base fabric of treachery and wrong. a marriage between these two will be only a part of the scheme. between them they have driven my darling to her death, and they will now divide the profits of their guilty work." the young man determined to discover whether there had been any foundation for the kemberling gossip. he had not seen his cousin since the day of his discovery of the paragraph in the newspaper, and he went forthwith to the towers, bent on asking olivia the straight question as to the truth of the reports that had reached his ears. he walked over to the dreary mansion. he had regained his strength by this time, and he had recovered his good looks; but something of the brightness of his youth was gone; something of the golden glory of his beauty had faded. he was no longer the young apollo, fresh and radiant with the divinity of the skies. he had suffered; and suffering had left its traces on his countenance. that smiling hopefulness, that supreme confidence in a bright future, which is the virginity of beauty, had perished beneath the withering influence of affliction. mrs. marchmont was not to be seen at the towers. she had gone down to the boat-house with mr. paul marchmont and mrs. weston, the servant said. "i will see them together," edward arundel thought. "i will see if my cousin dares to tell me that she means to marry this man." he walked through the wood to the lonely building by the river. the march winds were blowing among the leafless trees, ruffling the black pools of water that the rain had left in every hollow; the smoke from the chimney of paul marchmont's painting-room struggled hopelessly against the wind, and was beaten back upon the roof from which it tried to rise. everything succumbed before that pitiless north-easter. edward arundel knocked at the door of the wooden edifice erected by his foe. he scarcely waited for the answer to his summons, but lifted the latch, and walked across the threshold, uninvited, unwelcome. there were four people in the painting-room. two or three seemed to have been talking together when edward knocked at the door; but the speakers had stopped simultaneously and abruptly, and there was a dead silence when he entered. olivia marchmont was standing under the broad northern window; the artist was sitting upon one of the steps leading up to the pavilion; and a few paces from him, in an old cane-chair near the easel, sat george weston, the surgeon, with his wife leaning over the back of his chair. it was at this man that edward arundel looked longest, riveted by the strange expression of his face. the traces of intense agitation have a peculiar force when seen in a usually stolid countenance. your mobile faces are apt to give an exaggerated record of emotion. we grow accustomed to their changeful expression, their vivid betrayal of every passing sensation. but this man's was one of those faces which are only changed from their apathetic stillness by some moral earthquake, whose shock arouses the most impenetrable dullard from his stupid imperturbability. such a shock had lately affected george weston, the quiet surgeon of kemberling, the submissive husband of paul marchmont's sister. his face was as white as death; a slow trembling shook his ponderous frame; with one of his big fat hands he pulled a cotton handkerchief from his pocket, and tremulously wiped the perspiration from his bald forehead. his wife bent over him, and whispered a few words in his ear; but he shook his head with a piteous gesture, as if to testify his inability to comprehend her. it was impossible for a man to betray more obvious signs of violent agitation than this man betrayed. "it's no use, lavinia," he murmured hopelessly, as his wife whispered to him for the second time; "it's no use, my dear; i can't get over it." mrs. weston cast one rapid, half-despairing, half-appealing glance at her brother, and in the next moment recovered herself, by an effort only such as great women, or wicked women, are capable of. "oh, you men!" she cried, in her liveliest voice; "oh, you men! what big silly babies, what nervous creatures you are! come, george, i won't have you giving way to this foolish nonsense, just because an extra glass or so of mrs. marchmont's very fine old port has happened to disagree with you. you must not think we are a drunkard, mr. arundel," added the lady, turning playfully to edward, and patting her husband's clumsy shoulder as she spoke; "we are only a poor village surgeon, with a limited income, and a very weak head, and quite unaccustomed to old light port. come, mr. george weston, walk out into the open air, sir, and let us see if the march wind will bring you back your senses." and without another word lavinia weston hustled her husband, who walked like a man in a dream, out of the painting-room, and closed the door behind her. paul marchmont laughed as the door shut upon his brother-in-law. "poor george!" he said, carelessly; "i thought he helped himself to the port a little too liberally. he never could stand a glass of wine; and he's the most stupid creature when he is drunk." excellent as all this by-play was, edward arundel was not deceived by it. "the man was not drunk," he thought; "he was frightened. what could have happened to throw him into that state? what mystery are these people hiding amongst themselves; and what should _he_ have to do with it?" "good evening, captain arundel," paul marchmont said. "i congratulate you on the change in your appearance since you were last in this place. you seem to have quite recovered the effects of that terrible railway accident." edward arundel drew himself up stiffly as the artist spoke to him. "we cannot meet except as enemies, mr. marchmont," he said. "my cousin has no doubt told you what i said of you when i discovered the lying paragraph which you caused to be shown to my wife." "i only did what any one else would have done under the circumstances," paul marchmont answered quietly. "i was deceived by a penny-a-liner's false report. how should i know the effect that report would have upon my unhappy cousin?" "i cannot discuss this matter with you," cried edward arundel, his voice tremulous with passion; "i am almost mad when i think of it. i am not safe; i dare not trust myself. i look upon you as the deliberate assassin of a helpless girl; but so skilful an assassin, that nothing less than the vengeance of god can touch you. i cry aloud to him night and day, in the hope that he will hear me and avenge my wife's death. i cannot look to any earthly law for help: but i trust in god; i put my trust in god." there are very few positive and consistent atheists in this world. mr. paul marchmont was a philosopher of the infidel school, a student of voltaire and the brotherhood of the encyclopedia, and a believer in those liberal days before the reign of terror, when frenchmen, in coffee-houses, discussed the supreme under the soubriquet of mons. l'etre; but he grew a little paler as edward arundel, with kindling eyes and uplifted hand, declared his faith in a divine avenger. the sceptical artist may have thought, "what if there should be some reality in the creed so many weak fools confide in? what if there _is_ a god who cannot abide iniquity?" "i came here to look for you, olivia," edward arundel said presently. "i want to ask you a question. will you come into the wood with me?" "yes, if you wish it," mrs. marchmont answered quietly. the cousins went out of the painting-room together, leaving paul marchmont alone. they walked on for a few yards in silence. "what is the question you came here to ask me?" olivia asked abruptly. "the kemberling people have raised a report about you which i should fancy would be scarcely agreeable to yourself," answered edward. "you would hardly wish to benefit by mary's death, would you, olivia?" he looked at her searchingly as he spoke. her face was at all times so expressive of hidden cares, of cruel mental tortures, that there was little room in her countenance for any new emotion. her cousin looked in vain for any change in it now. "benefit by her death!" she exclaimed. "how should i benefit by her death?" "by marrying the man who inherits this estate. they say you are going to marry paul marchmont." olivia looked at him with an expression of surprise. "do they say that of me?" she asked. "do people say that?" "they do. is it true, olivia?" the widow turned upon him almost fiercely. "what does it matter to you whether it is true or not? what do you care whom i marry, or what becomes of me?" "i care this much," edward arundel answered, "that i would not have your reputation lied away by the gossips of kemberling. i should despise you if you married this man. but if you do not mean to marry him, you have no right to encourage his visits; you are trifling with your own good name. you should leave this place, and by that means give the lie to any false reports that have arisen about you." "leave this place!" cried olivia marchmont, with a bitter laugh. "leave this place! o my god, if i could; if i could go away and bury myself somewhere at the other end of the world, and forget,--and forget!" she said this as if to herself; as if it had been a cry of despair wrung from her in despite of herself; then, turning to edward arundel, she added, in a quieter voice, "i can never leave this place till i leave it in my coffin. i am a prisoner here for life." she turned from him, and walked slowly away, with her face towards the dying sunlight in the low western sky. chapter xii. edward's visitors. perhaps no greater sacrifice had ever been made by an english gentleman than that which edward arundel willingly offered up as an atonement for his broken trust, as a tribute to his lost wife. brave, ardent, generous, and sanguine, this young soldier saw before him a brilliant career in the profession which he loved. he saw glory and distinction beckoning to him from afar, and turned his back upon those shining sirens. he gave up all, in the vague hope of, sooner or later, avenging mary's wrongs upon paul marchmont. he made no boast, even to himself, of that which he had done. again and again memory brought back to him the day upon which he breakfasted in oakley street, and walked across waterloo bridge with the drury lane supernumerary. every word that john marchmont had spoken; every look of the meek and trusting eyes, the pale and thoughtful face; every pressure of the thin hand which had grasped his in grateful affection, in friendly confidence,--came back to edward arundel after an interval of nearly ten years, and brought with it a bitter sense of self-reproach. "he trusted his daughter to me," the young man thought. "those last words in the poor fellow's letter are always in my mind: 'the only bequest which i can leave to the only friend i have is the legacy of a child's helplessness.' and i have slighted his solemn warning: and i have been false to my trust." in his scrupulous sense of honour, the soldier reproached himself as bitterly for that imprudence, out of which so much evil had arisen, as another man might have done after a wilful betrayal of his trust. he could not forgive himself. he was for ever and ever repeating in his own mind that one brief phase which is the universal chorus of erring men's regret: "if i had acted differently, if i had done otherwise, this or that would not have come to pass." we are perpetually wandering amid the hopeless deviations of a maze, finding pitfalls and precipices, quicksands and morasses, at every turn in the painful way; and we look back at the end of our journey to discover a straight and pleasant roadway by which, had we been wise enough to choose it, we might have travelled safely and comfortably to our destination. but wisdom waits for us at the goal instead of accompanying us upon our journey. she is a divinity whom we meet very late in life; when we are too near the end of our troublesome march to derive much profit from her counsels. we can only retail them to our juniors, who, not getting them from the fountain-head, have very small appreciation of their value. the young captain of east indian cavalry suffered very cruelly from the sacrifice which he had made. day after day, day after day, the slow, dreary, changeless, eventless, and unbroken life dragged itself out; and nothing happened to bring him any nearer to the purpose of this monotonous existence; no promise of even ultimate success rewarded his heroic self-devotion. afar, he heard of the rush and clamour of war, of dangers and terror, of conquest and glory. his own regiment was in the thick of the strife, his brothers in arms were doing wonders. every mail brought some new record of triumph and glory. the soldier's heart sickened as he read the story of each new encounter; his heart sickened with that terrible yearning,--that yearning which seems physically palpable in its perpetual pain; the yearning with which a child at a hard school, lying broad awake in the long, gloomy, rush-lit bedchamber in the dead of the silent night, remembers the soft resting-place of his mother's bosom; the yearning with which a faithful husband far away from home sighs for the presence of the wife he loves. even with such a heart-sickness as this edward arundel pined to be amongst the familiar faces yonder in the east,--to hear the triumphant yell of his men as they swarmed after him through the breach in an affghan wall,--to see the dark heathens blanch under the terror of christian swords. he read the records of the war again and again, again and again, till every scene arose before him,--a picture, flaming and lurid, grandly beautiful, horribly sublime. the very words of those newspaper reports seemed to blaze upon the paper on which they were written, so palpable were the images which they evoked in the soldier's mind. he was frantic in his eager impatience for the arrival of every mail, for the coming of every new record of that indian warfare. he was like a devourer of romances, who reads a thrilling story link by link, and who is impatient for every new chapter of the fiction. his dreams were of nothing but battle and victory, danger, triumph, and death; and he often woke in the morning exhausted by the excitement of those visionary struggles, those phantom terrors. his sabre hung over the chimney-piece in his simple bedchamber. he took it down sometimes, and drew it from the sheath. he could have almost wept aloud over that idle sword. he raised his arm, and the weapon vibrated with a whirring noise as he swept the glittering steel in a wide circle through the empty air. an infidel's head should have been swept from his vile carcass in that rapid circle of the keen-edged blade. the soldier's arm was as strong as ever, his wrist as supple, his muscular force unwasted by mental suffering. thank heaven for that! but after that brief thanksgiving his arm dropped inertly, and the idle sword fell out of his relaxing grasp. "i seem a craven to myself," he cried; "i have no right to be here--i have no right to be here while those other fellows are fighting for their lives out yonder. o god, have mercy upon me! my brain gets dazed sometimes; and i begin to wonder whether i am most bound to remain here and watch paul marchmont, or to go yonder and fight for my country and my queen." there were many phases in this mental fever. at one time the young man was seized with a savage jealousy of the officer who had succeeded to his captaincy. he watched this man's name, and every record of his movements, and was constantly taking objection to his conduct. he was grudgingly envious of this particular officer's triumphs, however small. he could not feel generously towards this happy successor, in the bitterness of his own enforced idleness. "what opportunities this man has!" he thought; "_i_ never had such chances." it is almost impossible for me to faithfully describe the tortures which this monotonous existence inflicted upon the impetuous young man. it is the speciality of a soldier's career that it unfits most men for any other life. they cannot throw off the old habitudes. they cannot turn from the noisy stir of war to the tame quiet of every-day life; and even when they fancy themselves wearied and worn out, and willingly retire from service, their souls are stirred by every sound of the distant contest, as the war-steed is aroused by the blast of a trumpet. but edward arundel's career had been cut suddenly short at the very hour in which it was brightest with the promise of future glory. it was as if a torrent rushing madly down a mountain-side had been dammed up, and its waters bidden to stagnate upon a level plain. the rebellious waters boiled and foamed in a sullen fury. the soldier could not submit himself contentedly to his fate. he might strip off his uniform, and accept sordid coin as the price of the epaulettes he had won so dearly; but he was at heart a soldier still. when he received the sum which had been raised amongst his juniors as the price of his captaincy, it seemed to him almost as if he had sold his brother's blood. it was summer-time now. ten months had elapsed since his marriage with mary marchmont, and no new light had been thrown upon the disappearance of his young wife. no one could feel a moment's doubt as to her fate. she had perished in that lonely river which flowed behind marchmont towers, and far away down to the sea. the artist had kept his word, and had as yet taken no step towards entering into possession of the estate which he inherited by his cousin's death. but mr. paul marchmont spent a great deal of time at the towers, and a great deal more time in the painting-room by the river-side, sometimes accompanied by his sister, sometimes alone. the kemberling gossips had grown by no means less talkative upon the subject of olivia and the new owner of marchmont towers. on the contrary, the voices that discussed mrs. marchmont's conduct were a great deal more numerous than heretofore; in other words, john marchmont's widow was "talked about." everything is said in this phrase. it was scarcely that people said bad things of her; it was rather that they talked more about her than any woman can suffer to be talked of with safety to her fair fame. they began by saying that she was going to marry paul marchmont; they went on to wonder _whether_ she was going to marry him; then they wondered _why_ she didn't marry him. from this they changed the venue, and began to wonder whether paul marchmont meant to marry her,--there was an essential difference in this new wonderment,--and next, why paul marchmont didn't marry her. and by this time olivia's reputation was overshadowed by a terrible cloud, which had arisen no bigger than a man's hand, in the first conjecturings of a few ignorant villagers. people made it their business first to wonder about mrs. marchmont, and then to set up their own theories about her; to which theories they clung with a stupid persistence, forgetting, as people generally do forget, that there might be some hidden clue, some secret key, to the widow's conduct, for want of which the cleverest reasoning respecting her was only so much groping in the dark. edward arundel heard of the cloud which shadowed his cousin's name. her father heard of it, and went to remonstrate with her, imploring her to come to him at swampington, and to leave marchmont towers to the new lord of the mansion. but she only answered him with gloomy, obstinate reiteration, and almost in the same terms as she had answered edward arundel; declaring that she would stay at the towers till her death; that she would never leave the place till she was carried thence in her coffin. hubert arundel, always afraid of his daughter, was more than ever afraid of her now; and he was as powerless to contend against her sullen determination as he would have been to float up the stream of a rushing river. so olivia was talked about. she had scared away all visitors, after the ball at the towers, by the strangeness of her manner and the settled gloom in her face; and she lived unvisited and alone in the gaunt stony mansion; and people said that paul marchmont was almost perpetually with her, and that she went to meet him in the painting-room by the river. edward arundel sickened of his wearisome life, and no one helped him to endure his sufferings. his mother wrote to him imploring him to resign himself to the loss of his young wife, to return to dangerfield, to begin a new existence, and to blot out the memory of the past. "you have done all that the most devoted affection could prompt you to do," mrs. arundel wrote. "come back to me, my dearest boy. i gave you up to the service of your country because it was my duty to resign you then. but i cannot afford to lose you now; i cannot bear to see you sacrificing yourself to a chimera. return to me; and let me see you make a new and happier choice. let me see my son the father of little children who will gather round my knees when i grow old and feeble." "a new and happier choice!" edward arundel repeated the words with a melancholy bitterness. "no, my poor lost girl; no, my blighted wife; i will not be false to you. the smiles of happy women can have no sunlight for me while i cherish the memory of the sad eyes that watched me when i drove away from milldale, the sweet sorrowful face that i was never to look upon again." the dull empty days succeeded each other, and _did_ resemble each other, with a wearisome similitude that well-nigh exhausted the patience of the impetuous young man. his fiery nature chafed against this miserable delay. it was so hard to have to wait for his vengeance. sometimes he could scarcely refrain from planting himself somewhere in paul marchmont's way, with the idea of a hand-to-hand struggle in which either he or his enemy must perish. once he wrote the artist a desperate letter, denouncing him as an arch-plotter and villain; calling upon him, if his evil nature was redeemed by one spark of manliness, to fight as men had been in the habit of fighting only a few years before, with a hundred times less reason than these two men had for their quarrel. "i have called you a villain and traitor; in india we fellows would kill each other for smaller words than those," wrote the soldier. "but i have no wish to take any advantage of my military experience. i may be a better shot than you. let us have only one pistol, and draw lots for it. let us fire at each other across a dinner-table. let us do anything; so that we bring this miserable business to an end." mr. marchmont read this letter slowly and thoughtfully, more than once; smiling as he read. "he's getting tired," thought the artist. "poor young man, i thought he would be the first to grow tired of this sort of work." he wrote edward arundel a long letter; a friendly but rather facetious letter; such as he might have written to a child who had asked him to jump over the moon. he ridiculed the idea of a duel, as something utterly quixotic and absurd. "i am fifteen years older than you, my dear mr. arundel," he wrote, "and a great deal too old to have any inclination to fight with windmills; or to represent the windmill which a high-spirited young quixote may choose to mistake for a villanous knight, and run his hot head against in that delusion. i am not offended with you for calling me bad names, and i take your anger merely as a kind of romantic manner you have of showing your love for my poor cousin. we are not enemies, and we never shall be enemies; for i will never suffer myself to be so foolish as to get into a passion with a brave and generous-hearted young soldier, whose only error is an unfortunate hallucination with regard to "your very humble servant, "paul marchmont." edward ground his teeth with savage fury as he read this letter. "is there no making this man answer for his infamy?" he muttered. "is there no way of making him suffer?" * * * * * june was nearly over, and the year was wearing round to the anniversary of edward's wedding-day, the anniversaries of those bright days which the young bride and bridegroom had loitered away by the trout-streams in the hampshire meadows, when some most unlooked-for visitors made their appearance at kemberling retreat. the cottage lay back behind a pleasant garden, and was hidden from the dusty high road by a hedge of lilacs and laburnums which grew within the wooden fence. it was edward's habit, in this hot summer-time, to spend a great deal of his time in the garden; walking up and down the neglected paths, with a cigar in his mouth; or lolling in an easy chair on the lawn reading the papers. perhaps the garden was almost prettier, by reason of the long neglect which it had suffered, than it would have been if kept in the trimmest order by the industrious hands of a skilful gardener. everything grew in a wild and wanton luxuriance, that was very beautiful in this summer-time, when the earth was gorgeous with all manner of blossoms. trailing branches from the espaliered apple-trees hung across the pathways, intermingled with roses that had run wild; and made "bits" that a landscape-painter might have delighted to copy. even the weeds, which a gardener would have looked upon with horror, were beautiful. the wild convolvulus flung its tendrils into fantastic wreaths about the bushes of sweetbrier; the honeysuckle, untutored by the pruning-knife, mixed its tall branches with seringa and clematis; the jasmine that crept about the house had mounted to the very chimney-pots, and strayed in through the open windows; even the stable-roof was half hidden by hardy monthly roses that had clambered up to the thatch. but the young soldier took very little interest in this disorderly garden. he pined to be far away in the thick jungle, or on the burning plain. he hated the quiet and repose of an existence which seemed little better than the living death of a cloister. the sun was low in the west at the close of a long midsummer day, when mr. arundel strolled up and down the neglected pathways, backwards and forwards amid the long tangled grass of the lawn, smoking a cigar, and brooding over his sorrows. he was beginning to despair. he had defied paul marchmont, and no good had come of his defiance. he had watched him, and there had been no result of his watching. day after day he had wandered down to the lonely pathway by the river side; again and again he had reconnoitered the boat-house, only to hear paul marchmont's treble voice singing scraps out of modern operas as he worked at his easel; or on one or two occasions to see mr. george weston, the surgeon, or lavinia his wife, emerge from the artist's painting-room. upon one of these occasions edward arundel had accosted the surgeon of kemberling, and had tried to enter into conversation with him. but mr. weston had exhibited such utterly hopeless stupidity, mingled with a very evident terror of his brother-in-law's foe, that edward had been fain to abandon all hope of any assistance from this quarter. "i'm sure i'm very sorry for you, mr. arundel," the surgeon said, looking, not at edward, but about and around him, in a hopeless, wandering manner, like some hunted animal that looks far and near for a means of escape from his pursuer,--"i'm very sorry for you--and for all your trouble--and i was when i attended you at the black bull--and you were the first patient i ever had there--and it led to my having many more--as i may say--though that's neither here nor there. and i'm very sorry for you, and for the poor young woman too--particularly for the poor young woman--and i always tell paul so--and--and paul--" and at this juncture mr. weston stopped abruptly, as if appalled by the hopeless entanglement of his own ideas, and with a brief "good evening, mr. arundel," shot off in the direction of the towers, leaving edward at a loss to understand his manner. so, on this midsummer evening, the soldier walked up and down the neglected grass-plat, thinking of the men who had been his comrades, and of the career which he had abandoned for the love of his lost wife. he was aroused from his gloomy reverie by the sound of a fresh girlish voice calling to him by his name. "edward! edward!" who could there be in lincolnshire with the right to call to him thus by his christian name? he was not long left in doubt. while he was asking himself the question, the same feminine voice cried out again. "edward! edward! will you come and open the gate for me, please? or do you mean to keep me out here for ever?" this time mr. arundel had no difficulty in recognising the familiar tones of his sister letitia, whom he had believed, until that moment, to be safe under the maternal wing at dangerfield. and lo, here she was, on horseback at his own gate; with a cavalier hat and feathers overshadowing her girlish face; and with another young amazon on a thorough-bred chestnut, and an elderly groom on a thorough-bred bay, in the background. edward arundel, utterly confounded by the advent of such visitors, flung away his cigar, and went to the low wooden gate beyond which his sister's steed was pawing the dusty road, impatient of this stupid delay, and eager to be cantering stablewards through the scented summer air. "why, letitia!" cried the young man, "what, in mercy's name, has brought you here?" miss arundel laughed aloud at her brother's look of surprise. "you didn't know i was in lincolnshire, did you?" she asked; and then answered her own question in the same breath: "of course you didn't, because i wouldn't let mamma tell you i was coming; for i wanted to surprise you, you know. and i think i have surprised you, haven't i? i never saw such a scared-looking creature in all my life. if i were a ghost coming here in the gloaming, you couldn't look more frightened than you did just now. i only came the day before yesterday--and i'm staying at major lawford's, twelve miles away from here--and this is miss lawford, who was at school with me at bath. you've heard me talk of belinda lawford, my dearest, dearest friend? miss lawford, my brother; my brother, miss lawford. are you going to open the gate and let us in, or do you mean to keep your citadel closed upon us altogether, mr. edward arundel?" at this juncture the young lady in the background drew a little nearer to her friend, and murmured a remonstrance to the effect that it was very late, and that they were expected home before dark; but miss arundel refused to hear the voice of wisdom. "why, we've only an hour's ride back," she cried; "and if it should be dark, which i don't think it will be, for it's scarcely dark all night through at this time of year, we've got hoskins with us, and hoskins will take care of us. won't you, hoskins?" demanded the young lady, turning to the elderly groom. of course hoskins declared that he was ready to achieve all that man could do or dare in the defence of his liege ladies, or something pretty nearly to that effect; but delivered in a vile lincolnshire patois, not easily rendered in printer's ink. miss arundel waited for no further discussion, but gave her hand to her brother, and vaulted lightly from her saddle. then, of course, edward arundel offered his services to his sister's companion, and then for the first time he looked in belinda lawford's face, and even in that one first glance saw that she was a good and beautiful creature, and that her hair, of which she had a great quantity, was of the colour of her horse's chestnut coat; that her eyes were the bluest he had ever seen, and that her cheeks were like the neglected roses in his garden. he held out his hand to her. she took it with a frank smile, and dismounted, and came in amongst the grass-grown pathways, amid the confusion of trailing branches and bright garden-flowers growing wild. * * * * * in that moment began the second volume of edward arundel's life. the first volume had begun upon the christmas night on which the boy of seventeen went to see the pantomime at drury lane theatre. the old story had been a long, sad story, fall of tenderness and pathos, but with a cruel and dismal ending. the new story began to-night, in this fading western sunshine, in this atmosphere of balmy perfume, amidst these dew-laden garden-flowers growing wild. * * * * * but, as i think i observed before at the outset of this story, we are rarely ourselves aware of the commencement of any new section in our lives. it is only after the fact that we recognise the awful importance which actions, in themselves most trivial, assume by reason of their consequences; and when the action, in itself so unimportant, in its consequences so fatal, has been in any way a deviation from the right, how bitterly we reproach ourselves for that false step! "i am so _glad_ to see you, edward!" miss arundel exclaimed, as she looked about her, criticising her brother's domain; "but you don't seem a bit glad to see me, you poor gloomy old dear. and how much better you look than you did when you left dangerfield! only a little careworn, you know, still. and to think of your coming and burying yourself here, away from all the people who love you, you silly old darling! and belinda knows the story, and she's so sorry for you. ain't you, linda? i call her linda for short, and because it's prettier than _be_-linda," added the young lady aside to her brother, and with a contemptuous emphasis upon the first syllable of her friend's name. miss lawford, thus abruptly appealed to, blushed, and said nothing. if edward arundel had been told that any other young lady was acquainted with the sad story of his married life, i think he would have been inclined to revolt against the very idea of her pity. but although he had only looked once at belinda lawford, that one look seemed to have told him a great deal. he felt instinctively that she was as good as she was beautiful, and that her pity must be a most genuine and tender emotion, not to be despised by the proudest man upon earth. the two ladies seated themselves upon a dilapidated rustic bench amid the long grass, and mr. arundel sat in the low basket-chair in which he was wont to lounge a great deal of his time away. "why don't you have a gardener, ned?" letitia arundel asked, after looking rather contemptuously at the flowery luxuriance around her. her brother shrugged his shoulders with a despondent gesture. "why should i take any care of the place?" he said. "i only took it because it was near the spot where--where my poor girl--where i wanted to be. i have no object in beautifying it. i wish to heaven i could leave it, and go back to india." he turned his face eastward as he spoke, and the two girls saw that half-eager, half-despairing yearning that was always visible in his face when he looked to the east. it was over yonder, the scene of strife, the red field of glory, only separated from him by a patch of purple ocean and a strip of yellow sand. it was yonder. he could almost feel the hot blast of the burning air. he could almost hear the shouts of victory. and he was a prisoner here, bound by a sacred duty,--by a duty which he owed to the dead. "major lawford--major lawford is belinda's papa; rd foot--major lawford knew that we were coming here, and he begged me to ask you to dinner; but i said you wouldn't come, for i knew you had shut yourself out of all society--though the major's the dearest creature, and the grange is a most delightful place to stay at. i was down here in the midsummer holidays once, you know, while you were in india. but i give the message as the major gave it to me; and you are to come to dinner whenever you like." edward arundel murmured a few polite words of refusal. no; he saw no society; he was in lincolnshire to achieve a certain object; he should remain there no longer than was necessary in order for him to do so. "and you don't even say that you're glad to see me!" exclaimed miss arundel, with an offended air, "though it's six months since you were last at dangerfield! upon my word, you're a nice brother for an unfortunate girl to waste her affections upon!" edward smiled faintly at his sister's complaint. "i am very glad to see you, letitia," he said; "very, very glad." and indeed the young hermit could not but confess to himself that those two innocent young faces seemed to bring light and brightness with them, and to shed a certain transitory glimmer of sunshine upon the horrible gloom of his life. mr. morrison had come out to offer his duty to the young lady--whom he had been intimate with from a very early period of her existence, and had carried upon his shoulder some fifteen years before--under the pretence of bringing wine for the visitors; and the stable-lad had been sent to a distant corner of the garden to search for strawberries for their refreshment. even the solitary maid-servant had crept into the parlour fronting the lawn, and had shrouded herself behind the window-curtains, whence she could peep out at the two amazons, and gladden her eyes with the sight of something that was happy and beautiful. but the young ladies would not stop to drink any wine, though mr. morrison informed letitia that the sherry was from the dangerfield cellar, and had been sent to master edward by his ma; nor to eat any strawberries, though the stable-boy, who made the air odorous with the scent of hay and oats, brought a little heap of freshly-gathered fruit piled upon a cabbage-leaf, and surmounted by a rampant caterpillar of the woolly species. they could not stay any longer, they both declared, lest there should be terror at lawford grange because of their absence. so they went back to the gate, escorted by edward and his confidential servant; and after letitia had given her brother a kiss, which resounded almost like the report of a pistol through the still evening air, the two ladies mounted their horses, and cantered away in the twilight. "i shall come and see you again, ned," miss arundel cried, as she shook the reins upon her horse's neck; "and so will belinda--won't you, belinda?" miss lawford's reply, if she spoke at all, was quite inaudible amidst the clattering of the horses' hoofs upon the hard highroad. chapter xiii. one more sacrifice. letitia arundel kept her word, and came very often to kemberling retreat; sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a little pony-carriage; sometimes accompanied by belinda lawford, sometimes accompanied by a younger sister of belinda's, as chestnut-haired and blue-eyed as belinda herself, but at the school-room and bread-and-butter period of life, and not particularly interesting. major lawford came one day with his daughter and her friend, and edward and the half-pay officer walked together up and down the grass-plat, smoking and talking of the indian war, while the two girls roamed about the garden amidst the roses and butterflies, tearing the skirts of their riding-habits every now and then amongst the briers and gooseberry-bushes. it was scarcely strange after this visit that edward arundel should consent to accept major lawford's invitation to name a day for dining at the grange; he could not, with a very good grace, have refused. and yet--and yet--it seemed to him almost a treason against his lost love, his poor pensive mary,--whose face, with the very look it had worn upon that last day, was ever present with him,--to mix with happy people who had never known sorrow. but he went to the grange nevertheless, and grew more and more friendly with the major, and walked in the gardens--which were very large and old-fashioned, but most beautifully kept--with his sister and belinda lawford; with belinda lawford, who knew his story and was sorry for him. he always remembered _that_ as he looked at her bright face, whose varying expression gave perpetual evidence of a compassionate and sympathetic nature. "if my poor darling had had this girl for a friend," he thought sometimes, "how much happier she might have been!" i dare say there have been many lovelier women in this world than belinda lawford; many women whose faces, considered artistically, came nearer perfection; many noses more exquisitely chiselled, and scores of mouths bearing a closer affinity to cupid's bow; but i doubt if any face was ever more pleasant to look upon than the face of this blooming english maiden. she had a beauty that is sometimes wanting in perfect faces, and, lacking which, the most splendid loveliness will pall at last upon eyes that have grown weary of admiring; she had a charm for want of which the most rigidly classical profiles, the most exquisitely statuesque faces, have seemed colder and harder than the marble it was their highest merit to resemble. she had the beauty of goodness, and to admire her was to do homage to the purest and brightest attributes of womanhood. it was not only that her pretty little nose was straight and well-shaped, that her lips were rosy red, that her eyes were bluer than the summer heavens, and her chestnut hair tinged with the golden light of a setting sun; above and beyond such commonplace beauties as these, the beauties of tenderness, truth, faith, earnestness, hope and charity, were enthroned upon her broad white brow, and crowned her queen by right divine of womanly perfection. a loving and devoted daughter, an affectionate sister, a true and faithful friend, an untiring benefactress to the poor, a gentle mistress, a well-bred christian lady; in every duty and in every position she bore out and sustained the impression which her beauty made on the minds of those who looked upon her. she was only nineteen years of age, and no sorrow had ever altered the brightness of her nature. she lived a happy life with a father who was proud of her, and with a mother who resembled her in almost every attribute. she led a happy but a busy life, and did her duty to the poor about her as scrupulously as even olivia had done in the old days at swampington rectory; but in such a genial and cheerful spirit as to win, not cold thankfulness, but heartfelt love and devotion from all who partook of her benefits. upon the egyptian darkness of edward arundel's life this girl arose as a star, and by-and-by all the horizon brightened under her influence. the soldier had been very little in the society of women. his mother, his sister letitia, his cousin olivia, and john marchmont's gentle daughter were the only women whom he had ever known in the familiar freedom of domestic intercourse; and he trusted himself in the presence of this beautiful and noble-minded girl in utter ignorance of any danger to his own peace of mind. he suffered himself to be happy at lawford grange; and in those quiet hours which he spent there he put away his old life, and forgot the stern purpose that alone held him a prisoner in england. but when he went back to his lonely dwelling-place, he reproached himself bitterly for that which he considered a treason against his love. "what right have i to be happy amongst these people?" he thought; "what right have i to take life easily, even for an hour, while my darling lies in her unhallowed grave, and the man who drove her to her death remains unpunished? i will never go to lawford grange again." it seemed, however, as if everybody, except belinda, was in a plot against this idle soldier; for sometimes letitia coaxed him to ride back with her after one of her visits to kemberling retreat, and very often the major himself insisted, in a hearty military fashion, upon the young man's taking the empty seat in his dog-cart, to be driven over to the grange. edward arundel had never once mentioned mary's name to any member of this hospitable and friendly family. they were very good to him, and were prepared, he knew, to sympathise with him; but he could not bring himself to talk of his lost wife. the thought of that rash and desperate act which had ended her short life was too cruel to him. he would not speak of her, because he would have had to plead excuses for that one guilty act; and her image to him was so stainless and pure, that he could not bear to plead for her as for a sinner who had need of men's pity, rather than a claim to their reverence. "her life had been so sinless," he cried sometimes; "and to think that it should have ended in sin! if i could forgive paul marchmont for all the rest--if i could forgive him for my loss of her, i would never forgive him for that." the young widower kept silence, therefore, upon the subject which occupied so large a share of his thoughts, which was every day and every night the theme of his most earnest prayers; and mary's name was never spoken in his presence at lawford grange. but in edward arundel's absence the two girls sometimes talked of the sad story. "do you really think, letitia, that your brother's wife committed suicide?" belinda asked her friend. "oh, as for that, there can't be any doubt about it, dear," answered miss arundel, who was of a lively, not to say a flippant, disposition, and had no very great reverence for solemn things; "the poor dear creature drowned herself. i think she must have been a little wrong in her head. i don't say so to edward, you know; at least, i did say so once when he was at dangerfield, and he flew into an awful passion, and called me hard-hearted and cruel, and all sorts of shocking things; so, of course, i have never said so since. but really, the poor dear thing's goings-on were so eccentric: first she ran away from her stepmother and went and hid herself in a horrid lodging; and then she married edward at a nasty church in lambeth, without so much as a wedding-dress, or a creature to give her away, or a cake, or cards, or anything christian-like; and then she ran away again; and as her father had been a super--what's its name?--a man who carries banners in pantomimes, and all that--i dare say she'd seen mr. macready as hamlet, and had ophelia's death in her head when she ran down to the river-side and drowned herself. i'm sure it's a very sad story; and, of course, i'm awfully sorry for edward." the young lady said no more than this; but belinda brooded over the story of that early marriage,--the stolen honeymoon, the sudden parting. how dearly they must have loved each other, the young bride and bridegroom, absorbed in their own happiness, and forgetful of all the outer world! she pictured edward arundel's face as it must have been before care and sorrow had blotted out the brightest attribute of his beauty. she thought of him, and pitied him, with such tender sympathy, that by-and-by the thought of this young man's sorrow seemed to shut almost every idea out of her mind. she went about all her duties still, cheerfully and pleasantly, as it was her nature to do everything; but the zest with which she had performed every loving office--every act of sweet benevolence, seemed lost to her now. remember that she was a simple country damsel, leading a quiet life, whose peaceful course was almost as calm and eventless as the existence of a cloister; a life so quiet that a decently-written romance from the swampington book-club was a thing to be looked forward to with impatience, to read with breathless excitement, and to brood upon afterwards for months. was it strange, then, that this romance in real life--this sweet story of love and devotion, with its sad climax,--this story, the scene of which lay within a few miles of her home, the hero of which was her father's constant guest,--was it strange that this story, whose saddest charm was its truth, should make a strong impression upon the mind of an innocent and unworldly woman, and that day by day and hour by hour she should, all unconsciously to herself, feel a stronger interest in the hero of the tale? she was interested in him. alas! the truth must be set down, even if it has to be in the plain old commonplace words. _she fell in love with him_. but love in this innocent and womanly nature was so different a sentiment to that which had raged in olivia's stormy breast, that even she who felt it was unconscious of its gradual birth. it was not "an adam at its birth," by-the-by. it did not leap, minerva-like, from the brain; for i believe that love is born of the brain oftener than of the heart, being a strange compound of ideality, benevolence, and veneration. it came rather like the gradual dawning of a summer's day,--first a little patch of light far away in the east, very faint and feeble; then a slow widening of the rosy brightness; and at last a great blaze of splendour over all the width of the vast heavens. and then miss lawford grew more reserved in her intercourse with her friend's brother. her frank good-nature gave place to a timid, shrinking bashfulness, that made her ten times more fascinating than she had been before. she was so very young, and had mixed so little with the world, that she had yet to learn the comedy of life. she had yet to learn to smile when she was sorry, or to look sorrowful when she was pleased, as prudence might dictate--to blush at will, or to grow pale when it was politic to sport the lily tint. she was a natural, artless, spontaneous creature; and she was utterly powerless to conceal her emotions, or to pretend a sentiment she did not feel. she blushed rosy red when edward arundel spoke to her suddenly. she betrayed herself by a hundred signs; mutely confessing her love almost as artlessly as mary had revealed her affection a twelvemonth before. but if edward saw this, he gave no sign of having made the discovery. his voice, perhaps, grew a little lower and softer in its tone when he spoke to belinda; but there was a sad cadence in that low voice, which was too mournful for the accent of a lover. sometimes, when his eyes rested for a moment on the girl's blushing face, a shadow would darken his own, and a faint quiver of emotion stir his lower lip; but it is impossible to say what this emotion may have been. belinda hoped nothing, expected nothing. i repeat, that she was unconscious of the nature of her own feeling; and she had never for a moment thought of edward otherwise than as a man who would go to his grave faithful to that sad love-story which had blighted the promise of his youth. she never thought of him otherwise than as mary's constant mourner; she never hoped that time would alter his feelings or wear out his constancy; yet she loved him, notwithstanding. all through july and august the young man visited at the grange, and at the beginning of september letitia arundel went back to dangerfield. but even then edward was still a frequent guest at major lawford's; for his enthusiasm upon all military matters had made him a favourite with the old officer. but towards the end of september mr. arundel's visits suddenly were restricted to an occasional call upon the major; he left off dining at the grange; his evening rambles in the gardens with mrs. lawford and her blooming daughters--belinda had no less than four blue-eyed sisters, all more or less resembling herself--ceased altogether, to the wonderment of every one in the old-fashioned country-house. edward arundel shut out the new light which had dawned upon his life, and withdrew into the darkness. he went back to the stagnant monotony, the hopeless despondency, the bitter regret of his old existence. "while my sister was at the grange, i had an excuse for going there," he said to himself sternly. "i have no excuse now." but the old monotonous life was somehow or other a great deal more difficult to bear than it had been before. nothing seemed to interest the young man now. even the records of indian victories were "flat, stale, and unprofitable." he wondered as he remembered with what eager impatience he had once pined for the coming of the newspapers, with what frantic haste he had devoured every syllable of the indian news. all his old feelings seemed to have gone away, leaving nothing in his mind but a blank waste, a weary sickness of life and all belonging to it. leaving nothing else--positively nothing? "no!" he answered, in reply to these mute questionings of his own spirit,--"no," he repeated doggedly, "nothing." it was strange to find what a blank was left in his life by reason of his abandonment of the grange. it seemed as if he had suddenly retired from an existence full of pleasure and delight into the gloomy solitude of la trappe. and yet what was it that he had lost, after all? a quiet dinner at a country-house, and an evening spent half in the leafy silence of an old-fashioned garden, half in a pleasant drawing-room amongst a group of well-bred girls, and only enlivened by simple english ballads, or pensive melodies by mendelssohn. it was not much to forego, surely. and yet edward arundel felt, in sacrificing these new acquaintances at the grange to the stern purpose of his life, almost as if he had resigned a second captaincy for mary's sake. chapter xiv. the child's voice in the pavilion by the water. the year wore slowly on. letitia arundel wrote very long letters to her friend and confidante, belinda lawford, and in each letter demanded particular intelligence of her brother's doings. had he been to the grange? how had he looked? what had he talked about? &c., &c. but to these questions miss lawford could only return one monotonous reply: mr. arundel had not been to the grange; or mr. arundel had called on papa one morning, but had only stayed a quarter of an hour, and had not been seen by any female member of the family. the year wore slowly on. edward endured his self-appointed solitude, and waited, waited, with a vengeful hatred for ever brooding in his breast, for the day of retribution. the year wore on, and the anniversary of the day upon which mary ran away from the towers, the th of october, came at last. paul marchmont had declared his intention of taking possession of the towers upon the day following this. the twelvemonth's probation which he had imposed upon himself had expired; every voice was loud in praise of his conscientious and honourable conduct. he had grown very popular during his residence at kemberling. tenant farmers looked forward to halcyon days under his dominion; to leases renewed on favourable terms; to repairs liberally executed; to everything that is delightful between landlord and tenant. edward arundel heard all this through his faithful servitor, mr. morrison, and chafed bitterly at the news. this traitor was to be happy and prosperous, and to have the good word of honest men; while mary lay in her unhallowed grave, and people shrugged their shoulders, half compassionately, half contemptuously, as they spoke of the mad heiress who had committed suicide. mr. morrison brought his master tidings of all paul marchmont's doings about this time. he was to take possession of the towers on the th. he had already made several alterations in the arrangement of the different rooms. he had ordered new furniture from swampington,--another man would have ordered it from london; but mr. marchmont was bent upon being popular, and did not despise even the good opinion of a local tradesman,--and by several other acts, insignificant enough in themselves, had asserted his ownership of the mansion which had been the airy castle of mary marchmont's day-dreams ten years before. the coming-in of the new master of marchmont towers was to be, take it altogether, a very grand affair. the chorley-castle foxhounds were to meet at eleven o'clock, upon the great grass-flat, or lawn, as it was popularly called, before the western front. the county gentry from far and near had been invited to a hunting breakfast. open house was to be kept all day for rich and poor. every male inhabitant of the district who could muster anything in the way of a mount was likely to join the friendly gathering. poor reynard is decidedly england's most powerful leveller. all differences of rank and station, all distinctions which mammon raises in every other quarter, melt away before the friendly contact of the hunting-field. the man who rides best is the best man; and the young butcher who makes light of sunk fences, and skims, bird-like, over bullfinches and timber, may hold his own with the dandy heir to half the country-side. the cook at marchmont towers had enough to do to prepare for this great day. it was the first meet of the season, and in itself a solemn festival. paul marchmont knew this; and though the cockney artist of fitzroy square knew about as much of fox-hunting as he did of the source of the nile, he seized upon the opportunity of making himself popular, and determined to give such a hunting-breakfast as had never been given within the walls of marchmont towers since the time of a certain rackety hugh marchmont, who had drunk himself to death early in the reign of george iii. he spent the morning of the th in the steward's room, looking through the cellar-book with the old butler, selecting the wines that were to be drunk the following day, and planning the arrangements for the mass of visitors, who were to be entertained in the great stone entrance-hall, in the kitchens, in the housekeeper's room, in the servants' hall, in almost every chamber that afforded accommodation for a guest. "you will take care that people get placed according to their rank," paul said to the grey-haired servant. "you know everybody about here, i dare say, and will be able to manage so that we may give no offence." the gentry were to breakfast in the long dining-room and in the western drawing-room. sparkling hocks and burgundies, fragrant moselles, champagnes of choicest brand and rarest bouquet, were to flow like water for the benefit of the country gentlemen who should come to do honour to paul marchmont's installation. great cases of comestibles had been sent by rail from fortnum and mason's; and the science of the cook at the towers had been taxed to the utmost, in the struggles which she made to prove herself equal to the occasion. twenty-one casks of ale, every cask containing twenty-one gallons, had been brewed long ago, at the birth of arthur marchmont, and had been laid in the cellar ever since, waiting for the majority of the young heir who was never to come of age. this very ale, with a certain sense of triumph, paul marchmont ordered to be brought forth for the refreshment of the commoners. "poor young arthur!" he thought, after he had given this order. "i saw him once when he was a pretty boy with fair ringlets, dressed in a suit of black velvet. his father brought him to my studio one day, when he came to patronise me and buy a picture of me,--out of sheer charity, of course, for he cared as much for pictures as i care for foxhounds. _i_ was a poor relation then, and never thought to see the inside of marchmont towers. it was a lucky september morning that swept that bright-faced boy out of my pathway, and left only sickly john marchmont and his daughter between me and fortune." yes; mr. paul marchmont's year of probation was past. he had asserted himself to messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson, and before the face of all lincolnshire, in the character of an honourable and high-minded man; slow to seize upon the fortune that had fallen to him, conscientious, punctilious, generous, and unselfish. he had done all this; and now the trial was over, and the day of triumph had come. there has been a race of villains of late years very popular with the novel-writer and the dramatist, but not, i think, quite indigenous to this honest british soil; a race of pale-faced, dark-eyed, and all-accomplished scoundrels, whose chiefest attribute is imperturbability. the imperturbable villain has been guilty of every iniquity in the black catalogue of crimes; but he has never been guilty of an emotion. he wins a million of money at _trente et quarante_, to the terror and astonishment of all homburg; and by not so much as one twinkle of his eye or one quiver of his lip does that imperturbable creature betray a sentiment of satisfaction. ruin or glory, shame or triumph, defeat, disgrace, or death,--all are alike to the callous ruffian of the anglo-gallic novel. he smiles, and murders while he smiles, and smiles while he murders. he kills his adversary, unfairly, in a duel, and wipes his sword on a cambric handkerchief; and withal he is so elegant, so fascinating, and so handsome, that the young hero of the novel has a very poor chance against him; and the reader can scarcely help being sorry when retribution comes with the last chapter, and some crushing catastrophe annihilates the well-bred scoundrel. paul marchmont was not this sort of man. he was a hypocrite when it was essential to his own safety to practice hypocrisy; but he did not accept life as a drama, in which he was for ever to be acting a part. life would scarcely be worth the having to any man upon such terms. it is all very well to wear heavy plate armour, and a casque that weighs fourteen pounds or so, when we go into the thick of the fight. but to wear the armour always, to live in it, to sleep in it, to carry the ponderous protection about us for ever and ever! safety would be too dear if purchased by such a sacrifice of all personal ease. paul marchmont, therefore, being a selfish and self-indulgent man, only wore his armour of hypocrisy occasionally, and when it was vitally necessary for his preservation. he had imposed upon himself a penance, and acted a part in holding back for a year from the enjoyment of a splendid fortune; and he had made this one great sacrifice in order to give the lie to edward arundel's vague accusations, which might have had an awkward effect upon the minds of other people, had the artist grasped too eagerly at his missing cousin's wealth. paul marchmont had made this sacrifice; but he did not intend to act a part all his life. he meant to enjoy himself, and to get the fullest possible benefit out of his good fortune. he meant to do this; and upon the th of october he made no effort to restrain his spirits, but laughed and talked joyously with whoever came in his way, winning golden opinions from all sorts of men; for happiness is contagious, and everybody likes happy people. forty years of poverty is a long apprenticeship to the very hardest of masters,--an apprenticeship calculated to give the keenest possible zest to newly-acquired wealth. paul marchmont rejoiced in his wealth with an almost delirious sense of delight. it was his at last. at last! he had waited, and waited patiently; and at last, while his powers of enjoyment were still in their zenith, it had come. how often he had dreamed of this; how often he had dreamed of that which was to take place to-morrow! how often in his dreams he had seen the stone-built mansion, and heard the voices of the crowd doing him honour. he had felt all the pride and delight of possession, to awake suddenly in the midst of his triumph, and gnash his teeth at the remembrance of his poverty. and now the poverty was a thing to be dreamt about, and the wealth was his. he had always been a good son and a kind brother; and his mother and sister were to arrive upon the eve of his installation, and were to witness his triumph. the rooms that had been altered were those chosen by paul for his mother and maiden sister, and the new furniture had been ordered for their comfort. it was one of his many pleasures upon this day to inspect these apartments, to see that all his directions had been faithfully carried out, and to speculate upon the effect which these spacious and luxurious chambers would have upon the minds of mrs. marchmont and her daughter, newly come from shabby lodgings in charlotte street. "my poor mother!" thought the artist, as he looked round the pretty sitting-room. this sitting-room opened into a noble bedchamber, beyond which there was a dressing-room. "my poor mother!" he thought; "she has suffered a long time, and she has been patient. she has never ceased to believe in me; and she will see now that there was some reason for that belief. i told her long ago, when our fortunes were at the lowest ebb, when i was painting landscapes for the furniture-brokers at a pound a-piece,--i told her i was meant for something better than a tradesman's hack; and i have proved it--i have proved it." he walked about the room, arranging the furniture with his own hands; walking a few paces backwards now and then to contemplate such and such an effect from an artistic point of view; flinging the rich stuff of the curtains into graceful folds; admiring and examining everything, always with a smile on his face. he seemed thoroughly happy. if he had done any wrong; if by any act of treachery he had hastened mary arundel's death, no recollection of that foul work arose in his breast to disturb the pleasant current of his thoughts. selfish and self-indulgent, only attached to those who were necessary to his own happiness, his thoughts rarely wandered beyond the narrow circle of his own cares or his own pleasures. he was thoroughly selfish. he could have sat at a lord mayor's feast with a famine-stricken population clamouring at the door of the banquet-chamber. he believed in himself as his mother and sister had believed; and he considered that he had a right to be happy and prosperous, whosoever suffered sorrow or adversity. upon this th of october olivia marchmont sat in the little study looking out upon the quadrangle, while the household was busied with the preparations for the festival of the following day. she was to remain at marchmont towers as a guest of the new master of the mansion. she would be protected from all scandal, paul had said, by the presence of his mother and sister. she could retain the apartments she had been accustomed to occupy; she could pursue her old mode of life. he himself was not likely to be very much at the towers. he was going to travel and to enjoy life now that he was a rich man. these were the arguments which mr. marchmont used when openly discussing the widow's residence in his house. but in a private conversation between olivia and himself he had only said a very few words upon the subject. "you _must_ remain," he said; and olivia submitted, obeying him with a sullen indifference that was almost like the mechanical submission of an irresponsible being. john marchmont's widow seemed entirely under the dominion of the new master of the towers. it was as if the stormy passions which had arisen out of a slighted love had worn out this woman's mind, and had left her helpless to stand against the force of paul marchmont's keen and vigorous intellect. a remarkable change had come over olivia's character. a dull apathy had succeeded that fiery energy of soul which had enfeebled and well-nigh worn out her body. there were no outbursts of passion now. she bore the miserable monotony of her life uncomplainingly. day after day, week after week, month after month, idle and apathetic, she sat in her lonely room, or wandered slowly in the grounds about the towers. she very rarely went beyond those grounds. she was seldom seen now in her old pew at kemberling church; and when her father went to her and remonstrated with her for her non-attendance, she told him sullenly that she was too ill to go. she _was_ ill. george weston attended her constantly; but he found it very difficult to administer to such a sickness as hers, and he could only shake his head despondently when he felt her feeble pulse, or listened to the slow beating of her heart. sometimes she would shut herself up in her room for a month at a time, and see no one but her faithful servant barbara, and mr. weston--whom, in her utter indifference, she seemed to regard as a kind of domestic animal, whose going or coming were alike unimportant. this stolid, silent barbara waited upon her mistress with untiring patience. she bore with every change of olivia's gloomy temper; she was a perpetual shield and protection to her. even upon this day of preparation and disorder mrs. simmons kept guard over the passage leading to the study, and took care that no one intruded upon her mistress. at about four o'clock all paul marchmont's orders had been given, and the new master of the house dined for the first time by himself at the head of the long carved-oak dining-table, waited upon in solemn state by the old butler. his mother and sister were to arrive by a train that would reach swampington at ten o'clock, and one of the carriages from the towers was to meet them at the station. the artist had leisure in the meantime for any other business he might have to transact. he ate his dinner slowly, thinking deeply all the time. he did not stop to drink any wine after dinner; but, as soon as the cloth was removed, rose from the table, and went straight to olivia's room. "i am going down to the painting-room," he said. "will you come there presently? i want very much to say a few words to you." olivia was sitting near the window, with her hands lying idle in her lap. she rarely opened a book now, rarely wrote a letter, or occupied herself in any manner. she scarcely raised her eyes as she answered him. "yes," she said; "i will come." "don't be long, then. it will be dark very soon. i am not going down there to paint; i am going to fetch a landscape that i want to hang in my mother's room, and to say a few words about--" he closed the door without stopping to finish the sentence, and went out into the quadrangle. ten minutes afterwards olivia marchmont rose, and taking a heavy woollen shawl from a chair near her, wrapped it loosely about her head and shoulders. "i am his slave and his prisoner," she muttered to herself. "i must do as he bids me." a cold wind was blowing in the quadrangle, and the stone pavement was wet with a drizzling rain. the sun had just gone down, and the dull autumn sky was darkening. the fallen leaves in the wood were sodden with damp, and rotted slowly on the swampy ground. olivia took her way mechanically along the narrow pathway leading to the river. half-way between marchmont towers and the boat-house she came suddenly upon the figure of a man walking towards her through the dusk. this man was edward arundel. the two cousins had not met since the march evening upon which edward had gone to seek the widow in paul marchmont's painting-room. olivia's pale face grew whiter as she recognised the soldier. "i was coming to the house to speak to you, mrs. marchmont," edward said sternly. "i am lucky in meeting you here, for i don't want any one to overhear what i've got to say." he had turned in the direction in which olivia had been walking; but she made a dead stop, and stood looking at him. "you were going to the boat-house," he said. "i will go there with you." she looked at him for a moment, as if doubtful what to do, and then said, "very well. you can say what you have to say to me, and then leave me. there is no sympathy between us, there is no regard between us; we are only antagonists." "i hope not, olivia. i hope there is some spark of regard still, in spite of all. i separate you in my own mind from paul marchmont. i pity you; for i believe you to be his tool." "is this what you have to say to me?" "no; i came here, as your kinsman, to ask you what you mean to do now that paul marchmont has taken possession of the towers?" "i mean to stay there." "in spite of the gossip that your remaining will give rise to amongst these country-people!" "in spite of everything. mr. marchmont wishes me to stay. it suits me to stay. what does it matter what people say of me? what do i care for any one's opinion--now?" "olivia," cried the young man, "are you mad?" "perhaps i am," she answered, coldly. "why is it that you shut yourself from the sympathy of those who have a right to care for you? what is the mystery of your life?" his cousin laughed bitterly. "would you like to know, edward arundel?" she said. "you _shall_ know, perhaps, some day. you have despised me all my life; you will despise me more then." they had reached paul marchmont's painting-room by this time. olivia opened the door and walked in, followed by edward. paul was not there. there was a picture covered with green-baize upon the easel, and the artist's hat stood upon the table amidst the litter of brushes and palettes; but the room was empty. the door at the top of the stone steps leading to the pavilion was ajar. "have you anything more to say to me?" olivia asked, turning upon her cousin as if she would have demanded why he had followed her. "only this: i want to know your determination; whether you will be advised by me--and by your father,--i saw my uncle hubert this morning, and his opinion exactly coincides with mine,--or whether you mean obstinately to take your own course in defiance of everybody?" "i do," olivia answered. "i shall take my own course. i defy everybody. i have not been gifted with the power of winning people's affection. other women possess that power, and trifle with it, and turn it to bad account. i have prayed, edward arundel,--yes, i have prayed upon my knees to the god who made me, that he would give me some poor measure of that gift which nature has lavished upon other women; but he would not hear me, he would not hear me! i was not made to be loved. why, then, should i make myself a slave for the sake of winning people's esteem? if they have despised me, i can despise them." "who has despised you, olivia?" edward asked, perplexed by his cousin's manner. "you have!" she cried, with flashing eyes; "you have! from first to last--from first to last!" she turned away from him impatiently. "go," she said; "why should we keep up a mockery of friendliness and cousinship? we are nothing to each other." edward walked towards the door; but he paused upon the threshold, with his hat in his hand, undecided as to what he ought to do. as he stood thus, perplexed and irresolute, a cry, the feeble cry of a child, sounded within the pavilion. the young man started, and looked at his cousin. even in the dusk he could see that her face had suddenly grown livid. "there is a child in that place," he said pointing to the door at the top of the steps. the cry was repeated as he spoke,--the low, complaining wail of a child. there was no other voice to be heard,--no mother's voice soothing a helpless little one. the cry of the child was followed by a dead silence. "there is a child in that pavilion," edward arundel repeated. "there is," olivia answered. "whose child?" "what does it matter to you?" "whose child?" "i cannot tell you, edward arundel." the soldier strode towards the steps, but before he could reach them, olivia flung herself across his pathway. "i will see whose child is hidden in that place," he said. "scandalous things have been said of you, olivia. i will know the reason of your visits to this place." she clung about his knees, and hindered him from moving; half kneeling, half crouching on the lowest of the stone steps, she blocked his pathway, and prevented him from reaching the door of the pavilion. it had been ajar a few minutes ago; it was shut now. but edward had not noticed this. "no, no, no!" shrieked olivia; "you shall trample me to death before you enter that place. you shall walk over my corpse before you cross that threshold." the young man struggled with her for a few moments; then he suddenly flung her from him; not violently, but with a contemptuous gesture. "you are a wicked woman, olivia marchmont," he said; "and it matters very little to me what you do, or what becomes of you. i know now the secret of the mystery between you and paul marchmont. i can guess your motive for perpetually haunting this place." he left the solitary building by the river, and walked slowly back through the wood. his mind--predisposed to think ill of olivia by the dark rumours he had heard through his servant, and which had had a certain amount of influence upon him, as all scandals have, however baseless--could imagine only one solution to the mystery of a child's presence in the lonely building by the river. outraged and indignant at the discovery he had made, he turned his back upon marchmont towers. "i will stay in this hateful place no longer," he thought, as he went back to his solitary home; "but before i leave lincolnshire the whole county shall know what i think of paul marchmont." volume iii. chapter i. captain arundel's revenge. edward arundel went back to his lonely home with a settled purpose in his mind. he would leave lincolnshire,--and immediately. he had no motive for remaining. it may be, indeed, that he had a strong motive for going away from the neighbourhood of lawford grange. there was a lurking danger in the close vicinage of that pleasant, old-fashioned country mansion, and the bright band of blue-eyed damsels who inhabited there. "i will turn my back upon lincolnshire for ever," edward arundel said to himself once more, upon his way homeward through the october twilight; "but before i go, the whole country shall know what i think of paul marchmont." he clenched his fists and ground his teeth involuntarily as he thought this. it was quite dark when he let himself in at the old-fashioned half-glass door that led into his humble sitting-room at kemberling retreat. he looked round the little chamber, which had been furnished forty years before by the proprietor of the cottage, and had served for one tenant after another, until it seemed as if the spindle-legged chairs and tables had grown attenuated and shadowy by much service. he looked at the simple room, lighted by a bright fire and a pair of wax-candles in antique silver candlesticks. the red firelight flickered and trembled upon the painted roses on the walls, on the obsolete engravings in clumsy frames of imitation-ebony and tarnished gilt. a silver tea-service and a sèvres china cup and saucer, which mrs. arundel had sent to the cottage for her son's use, stood upon the small oval table: and a brown setter, a favourite of the young man's, lay upon the hearth-rug, with his chin upon his outstretched paws, blinking at the blaze. as mr. arundel lingered in the doorway, looking at these things, an image rose before him, as vivid and distinct as any apparition of professor pepper's manufacture; and he thought of what that commonplace cottage-chamber might have been if his young wife had lived. he could fancy her bending over the low silver teapot,--the sprawling inartistic teapot, that stood upon quaint knobs like gouty feet, and had been long ago banished from the dangerfield breakfast-table as utterly rococo and ridiculous. he conjured up the dear dead face, with faint blushes flickering amidst its lily pallor, and soft hazel eyes looking up at him through the misty steam of the tea-table, innocent and virginal as the eyes of that mythic nymph who was wont to appear to the old roman king. how happy she would have been! how willing to give up fortune and station, and to have lived for ever and ever in that queer old cottage, ministering to him and loving him! presently the face changed. the hazel-brown hair was suddenly lit up with a glitter of barbaric gold; the hazel eyes grew blue and bright; and the cheeks blushed rosy red. the young man frowned at this new and brighter vision; but he contemplated it gravely for some moments, and then breathed a long sigh, which was somehow or other expressive of relief. "no," he said to himself, "i am _not_ false to my poor lost girl; i do _not_ forget her. her image is dearer to me than any living creature. the mournful shadow of her face is more precious to me than the brightest reality." he sat down in one of the spindle-legged arm-chairs, and poured out a cup of tea. he drank it slowly, brooding over the fire as he sipped the innocuous beverage, and did not deign to notice the caresses of the brown setter, who laid his cold wet nose in his master's hand, and performed a species of spirit-rapping upon the carpet with his tail. after tea the young man rang the bell, which was answered by mr. morrison. "have i any clothes that i can hunt in, morrison?" mr. arundel asked. his factotum stared aghast at this question. "you ain't a-goin' to 'unt, are you, mr. edward?" he inquired, anxiously. "never mind that. i asked you a question about my clothes, and i want a straightforward answer." "but, mr. edward," remonstrated the old servant, "i don't mean no offence; and the 'orses is very tidy animals in their way; but if you're thinkin' of goin' across country,--and a pretty stiffish country too, as i've heard, in the way of bulfinches and timber,--neither of them 'orses has any more of a 'unter in him than i have." "i know that as well as you do," edward arundel answered coolly; "but i am going to the meet at marchmont towers to-morrow morning, and i want you to look me out a decent suit of clothes--that's all. you can have desperado saddled ready for me a little after eleven o'clock." mr. morrison looked even more astonished than before. he knew his master's savage enmity towards paul marchmont; and yet that very master now deliberately talked of joining in an assembly which was to gather together for the special purpose of doing the same paul marchmont honour. however, as he afterwards remarked to the two fellow-servants with whom he sometimes condescended to be familiar, it wasn't his place to interfere or to ask any questions, and he had held his tongue accordingly. perhaps this respectful reticence was rather the result of prudence than of inclination; for there was a dangerous light in edward arundel's eyes upon this particular evening which mr. morrison never had observed before. the factotum said something about this later in the evening. "i do really think," he remarked, "that, what with that young 'ooman's death, and the solitood of this most dismal place, and the rainy weather,--which those as says it always rains in lincolnshire ain't far out,--my poor young master is not the man he were." he tapped his forehead ominously to give significance to his words, and sighed heavily over his supper-beer. * * * * * the sun shone upon paul marchmont on the morning of the th of october. the autumn sunshine streamed into his bedchamber, and awoke the new master of marchmont towers. he opened his eyes and looked about him. he raised himself amongst the down pillows, and contemplated the figures upon the tapestry in a drowsy reverie. he had been dreaming of his poverty, and had been disputing a poor-rate summons with an impertinent tax-collector in the dingy passage of the house in charlotte street, fitzroy square. ah! that horrible house had so long been the only scene of his life, that it had grown almost a part of his mind, and haunted him perpetually in his sleep, like a nightmare of brick and mortar, now that he was rich, and had done with it for ever. mr. marchmont gave a faint shudder, and shook off the influence of the bad dream. then, propped up by the pillows, he amused himself by admiring his new bedchamber. it was a handsome room, certainly--the very room for an artist and a sybarite. mr. marchmont had not chosen it without due consideration. it was situated in an angle of the house; and though its chief windows looked westward, being immediately above those of the western drawing-room, there was another casement, a great oriel window, facing the east, and admitting all the grandeur of the morning sun through painted glass, on which the marchmont escutcheon was represented in gorgeous hues of sapphire and ruby, emerald and topaz, amethyst and aqua-marine. bright splashes of these colours flashed and sparkled on the polished oaken floor, and mixed themselves with the oriental gaudiness of a persian carpet, stretched beneath the low arabian bed, which was hung with ruby-coloured draperies that trailed upon the ground. paul marchmont was fond of splendour, and meant to have as much of it as money could buy. there was a voluptuous pleasure in all this finery, which only a parvenu could feel; it was the sharpness of the contrast between the magnificence of the present and the shabby miseries of the past that gave a piquancy to the artist's enjoyment of his new habitation. all the furniture and draperies of the chamber had been made by paul marchmont's direction; but its chief beauty was the tapestry that covered the walls, which had been worked, two hundred and fifty years before, by a patient chatelaine of the house of marchmont. this tapestry lined the room on every side. the low door had been cut in it; so that a stranger going into that apartment at night, a little under the influence of the marchmont cellars, and unable to register the topography of the chamber upon the tablet of his memory, might have been sorely puzzled to find an exit the next morning. most tapestried chambers have a certain dismal grimness about them, which is more pleasant to the sightseer than to the constant inhabitant; but in this tapestry the colours were almost as bright and glowing to-day as when the fingers that had handled the variegated worsteds were still warm and flexible. the subjects, too, were of a more pleasant order than usual. no mailed ruffians or drapery-clad barbarians menaced the unoffending sleeper with uplifted clubs, or horrible bolts, in the very act of being launched from ponderous crossbows; no wicked-looking saracens, with ferocious eyes and copper-coloured visages, brandished murderous scimitars above their turbaned heads. no; here all was pastoral gaiety and peaceful delight. maidens, with flowing kirtles and crisped yellow hair, danced before great wagons loaded with golden wheat. youths, in red and purple jerkins, frisked as they played the pipe and tabor. the flemish horses dragging the heavy wain were hung with bells and garlands as for a rustic festival, and tossed their untrimmed manes into the air, and frisked and gamboled with their awkward legs, in ponderous imitation of the youths and maidens. afar off, in the distance, wonderful villages, very queer as to perspective, but all a-bloom with gaudy flowers and quaint roofs of bright-red tiles, stood boldly out against a bluer sky than the most enthusiastic pre-raphaelite of to-day would care to send to the academy in trafalgar square. paul marchmont smiled at the youths and maidens, the laden wagons, the revellers, and the impossible village. he was in a humour to be pleased with everything to-day. he looked at his dressing-table, which stood opposite to him, in the deep oriel window. his valet--he had a valet now--had opened the great inlaid dressing-case, and the silver-gilt fittings reflected the crimson hues of the velvet lining, as if the gold had been flecked with blood. glittering bottles of diamond-cut glass, that presented a thousand facets to the morning light, stood like crystal obelisks amid the litter of carved-ivory brushes and sèvres boxes of pomatum; and one rare hothouse flower, white and fragile, peeped out of a slender crystal vase, against a background of dark shining leaves. "it's better than charlotte street, fitzroy square," said mr. marchmont, throwing himself back amongst the pillows until such time as his valet should bring him a cup of strong tea to refresh and invigorate his nerves withal. "i remember the paper in my room: drab hexagons and yellow spots upon a brown ground. _so_ pretty! and then the dressing-table: deal, gracefully designed; with a shallow drawer, in which my razors used to rattle like castanets when i tried to pull it open; a most delicious table, exquisitely painted in stripes, olive-green upon stone colour, picked out with the favourite brown. oh, it was a most delightful life; but it's over, thank providence; it's over!" mr. paul marchmont thanked providence as devoutly as if he had been the most patient attendant upon the divine pleasure, and had never for one moment dreamed of intruding his own impious handiwork amid the mysterious designs of omnipotence. the sun shone upon the new master of marchmont towers. this bright october morning was not the very best for hunting purposes; for there was a fresh breeze blowing from the north, and a blue unclouded sky. but it was most delightful weather for the breakfast, and the assembling on the lawn, and all the pleasant preliminaries of the day's sport. mr. paul marchmont, who was a thorough-bred cockney, troubled himself very little about the hunt as he basked in that morning light. he only thought that the sun was shining upon him, and that he had come at last--no matter by what crooked ways--to the realisation of his great day-dream, and that he was to be happy and prosperous for the rest of his life. he drank his tea, and then got up and dressed himself. he wore the conventional "pink," the whitest buckskins, the most approved boots and tops; and he admired himself very much in the cheval glass when this toilet was complete. he had put on the dress for the gratification of his vanity, rather than from any serious intention of doing what he was about as incapable of doing, as he was of becoming a modern rubens or a new raphael. he would receive his friends in this costume, and ride to cover, and follow the hounds, perhaps,--a little way. at any rate, it was very delightful to him to play the country gentleman; and he had never felt so much a country gentleman as at this moment, when he contemplated himself from head to heel in his hunting costume. at ten o'clock the guests began to assemble; the meet was not to take place until twelve, so that there might be plenty of time for the breakfast. i don't think paul marchmont ever really knew what took place at that long table, at which he sat for the first time in the place of host and master. he was intoxicated from the first with the sense of triumph and delight in his new position; and he drank a great deal, for he drank unconsciously, emptying his glass every time it was filled, and never knowing who filled it, or what was put into it. by this means he took a very considerable quantity of various sparkling and effervescing wines; sometimes hock, sometimes moselle, very often champagne, to say nothing of a steady undercurrent of unpronounceable german hocks and crusted burgundies. but he was not drunk after the common fashion of mortals; he could not be upon this particular day. he was not stupid, or drowsy, or unsteady upon his legs; he was only preternaturally excited, looking at everything through a haze of dazzling light, as if all the gold of his newly-acquired fortune had been melted into the atmosphere. he knew that the breakfast was a great success; that the long table was spread with every delicious comestible that the science of a first-rate cook, to say nothing of fortnum and mason, could devise; that the profusion of splendid silver, the costly china, the hothouse flowers, and the sunshine, made a confused mass of restless glitter and glowing colour that dazzled his eyes as he looked at it. he knew that everybody courted and flattered him, and that he was almost stifled by the overpowering sense of his own grandeur. perhaps he felt this most when a certain county magnate, a baronet, member of parliament, and great landowner, rose,--primed with champagne, and rather thicker of utterance than a man should be who means to be in at the death, by-and-by,--and took the opportunity of--hum--expressing, in a few words,--haw--the very great pleasure which he--aw, yes--and he thought he might venture to remark,--aw--everybody about him--ha--felt on this most--arrah, arrah--interesting--er--occasion; and said a great deal more, which took a very long time to say, but the gist of which was, that all these country gentlemen were so enraptured by the new addition to their circle, and so altogether delighted with mr. paul marchmont, that they really were at a loss to understand how it was they had ever managed to endure existence without him. and then there was a good deal of rather unnecessary but very enthusiastic thumping of the table, whereat the costly glass shivered, and the hothouse blossoms trembled, amidst the musical chinking of silver forks; while the foxhunters declared in chorus that the new owner of marchmont towers was a jolly good fellow, which--_i.e._, the fact of his jollity--nobody could deny. it was not a very fine demonstration, but it was a very hearty one. moreover, these noisy foxhunters were all men of some standing in the county; and it is a proof of the artist's inherent snobbery that to him the husky voices of these half-drunken men were more delicious than the sweet soprano tones of an equal number of pattis--penniless and obscure pattis, that is to say--sounding his praises. he was lifted at last out of that poor artist-life, in which he had always been a groveller,--not so much for lack of talent as by reason of the smallness of his own soul,--into a new sphere, where everybody was rich and grand and prosperous, and where the pleasant pathways were upon the necks of prostrate slaves, in the shape of grooms and hirelings, respectful servants, and reverential tradespeople. yes, paul marchmont was more drunken than any of his guests; but his drunkenness was of a different kind to theirs. it was not the wine, but his own grandeur that intoxicated and besotted him. these foxhunters might get the better of their drunkenness in half an hour or so; but his intoxication was likely to last for a very long time, unless he should receive some sudden shock, powerful enough to sober him. meanwhile the hounds were yelping and baying upon the lawn, and the huntsmen and whippers-in were running backwards and forwards from the lawn to the servants' hall, devouring snacks of beef and ham,--a pound and a quarter or so at one sitting; or crunching the bones of a frivolous young chicken,--there were not half a dozen mouthfuls on such insignificant half-grown fowls; or excavating under the roof of a great game-pie; or drinking a quart or so of strong ale, or half a tumbler of raw brandy, _en passant_; and doing a great deal more in the same way, merely to beguile the time until the gentlefolks should appear upon the broad stone terrace. it was half-past twelve o'clock, and mr. marchmont's guests were still drinking and speechifying. they had been on the point of making a move ever so many times; but it had happened every time that some gentleman, who had been very quiet until that moment, suddenly got upon his legs, and began to make swallowing and gasping noises, and to wipe his lips with a napkin; whereby it was understood that he was going to propose somebody's health. this had considerably lengthened the entertainment, and it seemed rather likely that the ostensible business of the day would be forgotten altogether. but at half-past twelve, the county magnate, who had bidden paul marchmont a stately welcome to lincolnshire, remembered that there were twenty couple of impatient hounds scratching up the turf in front of the long windows of the banquet-chamber, while as many eager young tenant-farmers, stalwart yeomen, well-to-do butchers, and a herd of tag-rag and bobtail, were pining for the sport to begin;--at last, i say, sir lionel boport remembered this, and led the way to the terrace, leaving the renegades to repose on the comfortable sofas lurking here and there in the spacious rooms. then the grim stone front of the house was suddenly lighted up into splendour. the long terrace was one blaze of "pink," relieved here and there by patches of sober black and forester's green. amongst all these stalwart, florid-visaged country gentlemen, paul marchmont, very elegant, very picturesque, but extremely unsportsmanlike, the hero of the hour, walked slowly down the broad stone steps amidst the vociferous cheering of the crowd, the snapping and yelping of impatient hounds, and the distant braying of a horn. it was the crowning moment of his life; the moment he had dreamed of again and again in the wretched days of poverty and obscurity. the scene was scarcely new to him,--he had acted it so often in his imagination; he had heard the shouts and seen the respectful crowd. there was a little difference in detail; that was all. there was no disappointment, no shortcoming in the realisation; as there so often is when our brightest dreams are fulfilled, and the one great good, the all-desired, is granted to us. no; the prize was his, and it was worth all that he had sacrificed to win it. he looked up, and saw his mother and his sisters in the great window over the porch. he could see the exultant pride in his mother's pale face; and the one redeeming sentiment of his nature, his love for the womankind who depended upon him, stirred faintly in his breast, amid the tumult of gratified ambition and selfish joy. this one drop of unselfish pleasure filled the cup to the brim. he took off his hat and waved it high up above his head in answer to the shouting of the crowd. he had stopped halfway down the flight of steps to bow his acknowledgment of the cheering. he waved his hat, and the huzzas grew still louder; and a band upon the other side of the lawn played that familiar and triumphant march which is supposed to apply to every living hero, from a wellington just come home from waterloo, to the winner of a boat-race, or a patent-starch proprietor newly elected by an admiring constituency. there was nothing wanting. i think that in that supreme moment paul marchmont quite forgot the tortuous and perilous ways by which he had reached this all-glorious goal. i don't suppose the young princes smothered in the tower were ever more palpably present in tyrant richard's memory than when the murderous usurper grovelled in bosworth's miry clay, and knew that the great game of life was lost. it was only when henry the eighth took away the great seal that wolsey was able to see the foolishness of man's ambition. in that moment memory and conscience, never very wakeful in the breast of paul marchmont, were dead asleep, and only triumph and delight reigned in their stead. no; there was nothing wanting. this glory and grandeur paid him a thousandfold for his patience and self-abnegation during the past year. he turned half round to look up at those eager watchers at the window. good god! it was his sister lavinia's face he saw; no longer full of triumph and pleasure, but ghastly pale, and staring at someone or something horrible in the crowd. paul marchmont turned to look for this horrible something the sight of which had power to change his sister's face; and found himself confronted by a young man,--a young man whose eyes flamed like coals of fire, whose cheeks were as white as a sheet of paper, and whose firm lips were locked as tightly as if they had been chiseled out of a block of granite. this man was edward arundel,--the young widower, the handsome soldier,--whom everybody remembered as the husband of poor lost mary marchmont. he had sprung out from amidst the crowd only one moment before, and had dashed up the steps of the terrace before any one had time to think of hindering him or interfering with him. it seemed to paul marchmont as if his foe must have leaped out of the solid earth, so sudden and so unlooked-for was his coming. he stood upon the step immediately below the artist; but as the terrace-steps were shallow, and as he was taller by half a foot than paul, the faces of the two men were level, and they confronted each other. the soldier held a heavy hunting-whip in his hand--no foppish toy, with a golden trinket for its head, but a stout handle of stag-horn, and a formidable leathern thong. he held this whip in his strong right hand, with the thong twisted round the handle; and throwing out his left arm, nervous and muscular as the limb of a young gladiator, he seized paul marchmont by the collar of that fashionably-cut scarlet coat which the artist had so much admired in the cheval-glass that morning. there was a shout of surprise and consternation from the gentlemen on the terrace and the crowd upon the lawn, a shrill scream from the women; and in the next moment paul marchmont was writhing under a shower of blows from the hunting-whip in edward arundel's hand. the artist was not physically brave, yet he was not such a cur as to submit unresistingly to this hideous disgrace; but the attack was so sudden and unexpected as to paralyse him--so rapid in its execution as to leave him no time for resistance. before he had recovered his presence of mind; before he knew the meaning of edward arundel's appearance in that place; even before he could fully realise the mere fact of his being there,--the thing was done; he was disgraced for ever. he had sunk in that one moment from the very height of his new grandeur to the lowest depth of social degradation. "gentlemen!" edward arundel cried, in a loud voice, which was distinctly heard by every member of the gaping crowd, "when the law of the land suffers a scoundrel to prosper, honest men must take the law into their own hands. i wished you to know my opinion of the new master of marchmont towers; and i think i've expressed it pretty clearly. i know him to be a most consummate villain; and i give you fair warning that he is no fit associate for honourable men. good morning." edward arundel lifted his hat, bowed to the assembly, and then ran down the steps. paul marchmont, livid, and foaming at the mouth, rushed after him, brandishing his clenched fists, and gesticulating in impotent rage; but the young man's horse was waiting for him at a few paces from the terrace, in the care of a butcher's apprentice, and he was in the saddle before the artist could overtake him. "i shall not leave kemberling for a week, mr. marchmont," he called out; and then he walked his horse away, holding himself erect as a dart, and staring defiance at the crowd. i am sorry to have to testify to the fickle nature of the british populace; but i am bound to own that a great many of the stalwart yeomen who had eaten game-pies and drunk strong liquors at paul marchmont's expense not half an hour before, were base enough to feel an involuntary admiration for edward arundel, as he rode slowly away, with his head up and his eyes flaming. there is seldom very much genuine sympathy for a man who has been horsewhipped; and there is a pretty universal inclination to believe that the man who inflicts chastisement upon him must be right in the main. it is true that the tenant-farmers, especially those whose leases were nearly run out, were very loud in their indignation against mr. arundel, and one adventurous spirit made a dash at the young man's bridle as he went by; but the general feeling was in favour of the conqueror, and there was a lack of heartiness even in the loudest expressions of sympathy. the crowd made a lane for paul marchmont as he went back to the house, white and helpless, and sick with shame. several of the gentlemen upon the terrace came forward to shake hands with him, and to express their indignation, and to offer any friendly service that he might require of them by-and-by,--such as standing by to see him shot, if he should choose an old-fashioned mode of retaliation; or bearing witness against edward arundel in a law-court, if mr. marchmont preferred to take legal measures. but even these men recoiled when they felt the cold dampness of the artist's hands, and saw that _he had been frightened_. these sturdy, uproarious foxhunters, who braved the peril of sudden death every time they took a day's sport, entertained a sovereign contempt for a man who _could_ be frightened of anybody or anything. they made no allowance for paul marchmont's cockney education; they were not in the dark secrets of his life, and knew nothing of his guilty conscience; and it was _that_ which had made him more helpless than a child in the fierce grasp of edward arundel. so one by one, after this polite show of sympathy, the rich man's guests fell away from him; and the yelping hounds and the cantering horses left the lawn before marchmont towers; the sound of the brass band and the voices of the people died away in the distance; and the glory of the day was done. paul marchmont crawled slowly back to that luxurious bedchamber which he had left only a few hours before, and, throwing himself at full length upon the bed, sobbed like a frightened child. he was panic-stricken; not because of the horsewhipping, but because of a sentence that edward arundel had whispered close to his ear in the midst of the struggle. "i know _everything_," the young man had said; "i know the secrets you hide in the pavilion by the river!" chapter ii. the deserted chambers. edward arundel kept his word. he waited for a week and upwards, but paul marchmont made no sign; and after having given him three days' grace over and above the promised time, the young man abandoned kemberling retreat, for ever, as he thought, and went away from lincolnshire. he had waited; hoping that paul marchmont would try to retaliate, and that some desperate struggle, physical or legal,--he scarcely cared which,--would occur between them. he would have courted any hazard which might have given him some chance of revenge. but nothing happened. he sent out mr. morrison to beat up information about the master of marchmont towers; and the factotum came back with the intelligence that mr. marchmont was ill, and would see no one--"leastways" excepting his mother and mr. george weston. edward arundel shrugged his shoulders when he heard these tidings. "what a contemptible cur the man is!" he thought. "there was a time when i could have suspected him of any foul play against my lost girl. i know him better now, and know that he is not even capable of a great crime. he was only strong enough to stab his victim in the dark, with lying paragraphs in newspapers, and dastardly hints and inuendoes." it would have been only perhaps an act of ordinary politeness had edward arundel paid a farewell visit to his friends at the grange. but he did not go near the hospitable old house. he contented himself with writing a cordial letter to major lawford, thanking him for his hospitality and kindness, and referring, vaguely enough, to the hope of a future meeting. he despatched this letter by mr. morrison, who was in very high spirits at the prospect of leaving kemberling, and who went about his work with almost boyish activity in the exuberance of his delight. the valet worked so briskly as to complete all necessary arrangements in a couple of days; and on the th of october, late in the afternoon, all was ready, and he had nothing to do but to superintend the departure of the two horses from the kemberling railway-station, under the guardianship of the lad who had served as edward's groom. throughout that last day mr. arundel wandered here and there about the house and garden that so soon were to be deserted. he was dreadfully at a loss what to do with himself, and, alas! it was not to-day only that he felt the burden of his hopeless idleness. he felt it always; a horrible load, not to be cast away from him. his life had been broken off short, as it were, by the catastrophe which had left him a widower before his honeymoon was well over. the story of his existence was abruptly broken asunder; all the better part of his life was taken away from him, and he did not know what to do with the blank and useless remnant. the ravelled threads of a once-harmonious web, suddenly wrenched in twain, presented a mass of inextricable confusion; and the young man's brain grew dizzy when he tried to draw them out, or to consider them separately. his life was most miserable, most hopeless, by reason of its emptiness. he had no duty to perform, no task to achieve. that nature must be utterly selfish, entirely given over to sybarite rest and self-indulgence, which does not feel a lack of something wanting these,--a duty or a purpose. better to be sisyphus toiling up the mountain-side, than sisyphus with the stone taken away from him, and no hope of ever reaching the top. i heard a man once--a bill-sticker, and not by any means a sentimental or philosophical person--declare that he had never known real prosperity until he had thirteen orphan grandchildren to support; and surely there was a universal moral in that bill-sticker's confession. he had been a drunkard before, perhaps,--he didn't say anything about that,--and a reprobate, it may be; but those thirteen small mouths clamoring for food made him sober and earnest, brave and true. he had a duty to do, and was happy in its performance. he was wanted in the world, and he was somebody. from napoleon iii., holding the destinies of civilised europe in his hands, and debating whether he shall re-create poland or build a new boulevard, to paterfamilias in a government office, working for the little ones at home,--and from paterfamilias to the crossing-sweeper, who craves his diurnal halfpenny from busy citizens, tramping to their daily toil,--every man has his separate labour and his different responsibility. for ever and for ever the busy wheel of life turns round; but duty and ambition are the motive powers that keep it going. edward arundel felt the barrenness of his life, now that he had taken the only revenge which was possible for him upon the man who had persecuted his wife. _that_ had been a rapturous but brief enjoyment. it was over. he could do no more to the man; since there was no lower depth of humiliation--in these later days, when pillories and whipping-posts and stocks are exploded from our market-places--to which a degraded creature could descend. no; there was no more to be done. it was useless to stop in lincolnshire. the sad suggestion of the little slipper found by the water-side was but too true. paul marchmont had not murdered his helpless cousin; he had only tortured her to death. he was quite safe from the law of the land, which, being of a positive and arbitrary nature, takes no cognisance of indefinable offences. this most infamous man was safe; and was free to enjoy his ill-gotten grandeur--if he could take much pleasure in it, after the scene upon the stone terrace. the only joy that had been left for edward arundel after his retirement from the east india company's service was this fierce delight of vengeance. he had drained the intoxicating cup to the dregs, and had been drunken at first in the sense of his triumph. but he was sober now; and he paced up and down the neglected garden beneath a chill october sky, crunching the fallen leaves under his feet, with his arms folded and his head bent, thinking of the barren future. it was all bare,--a blank stretch of desert land, with no city in the distance; no purple domes or airy minarets on the horizon. it was in the very nature of this young man to be a soldier; and he was nothing if not a soldier. he could never remember having had any other aspiration than that eager thirst for military glory. before he knew the meaning of the word "war," in his very infancy, the sound of a trumpet or the sight of a waving banner, a glittering weapon, a sentinel's scarlet coat, had moved him to a kind of rapture. the unvarnished schoolroom records of greek and roman warfare had been as delightful to him as the finest passages of a macaulay or a froude, a thiers or lamartine. he was a soldier by the inspiration of heaven, as all great soldiers are. he had never known any other ambition, or dreamed any other dream. other lads had talked of the bar, and the senate, and _their_ glories. bah! how cold and tame they seemed! what was the glory of a parliamentary triumph, in which words were the only weapons wielded by the combatants, compared with a hand-to-hand struggle, ankle deep in the bloody mire of a crowded trench, or a cavalry charge, before which a phalanx of fierce affghans fled like frightened sheep upon a moor! edward arundel was a soldier, like the duke of wellington or sir colin campbell,--one writes the old romantic name involuntarily, because one loves it best,--or othello. the moor's first lamentation when he believes that desdemona is false, and his life is broken, is that sublime farewell to all the glories of the battle-field. it was almost the same with edward arundel. the loss of his wife and of his captaincy were blent and mingled in his mind and he could only bewail the one great loss which left life most desolate. he had never felt the full extent of his desolation until now; for heretofore he had been buoyed up by the hope of vengeance upon paul marchmont; and now that his solitary hope had been realised to the fullest possible extent, there was nothing left,--nothing but to revoke the sacrifice he had made, and to regain his place in the indian army at any cost. he tried not to think of the possibility of this. it seemed to him almost an infidelity towards his dead wife to dream of winning honours and distinction, now that she, who would have been so proud of any triumph won by him, was for ever lost. so, under the grey october sky he paced up and down upon the grass-grown pathways, amidst the weeds and briars, the brambles and broken branches that crackled as he trod upon them; and late in the afternoon, when the day, which had been sunless and cold, was melting into dusky twilight, he opened the low wooden gateway and went out into the road. an impulse which he could not resist took him towards the river-bank and the wood behind marchmont towers. once more, for the last time in his life perhaps, he went down to that lonely shore. he went to look at the bleak unlovely place which had been the scene of his betrothal. it was not that he had any thought of meeting olivia marchmont; he had dismissed her from his mind ever since his last visit to the lonely boat-house. whatever the mystery of her life might be, her secret lay at the bottom of a black depth which the impetuous soldier did not care to fathom. he did not want to discover that hideous secret. tarnished honour, shame, falsehood, disgrace, lurked in the obscurity in which john marchmont's widow had chosen to enshroud her life. let them rest. it was not for him to drag away the curtain that sheltered his kinswoman from the world. he had no thought, therefore, of prying into any secrets that might be hidden in the pavilion by the water. the fascination that lured him to the spot was the memory of the past. he could not go to mary's grave; but he went, in as reverent a spirit as he would have gone thither, to the scene of his betrothal, to pay his farewell visit to the spot which had been for ever hallowed by the confession of her innocent love. it was nearly dark when he got to the river-side. he went by a path which quite avoided the grounds about marchmont towers,--a narrow footpath, which served as a towing-path sometimes, when some black barge crawled by on its way out to the open sea. to-night the river was hidden by a mist,--a white fog,--that obscured land and water; and it was only by the sound of the horses' hoofs that edward arundel had warning to step aside, as a string of them went by, dragging a chain that grated on the pebbles by the river-side. "why should they say my darling committed suicide?" thought edward arundel, as he groped his way along the narrow pathway. "it was on such an evening as this that she ran away from home. what more likely than that she lost the track, and wandered into the river? oh, my own poor lost one, god grant it was so! god grant it was by his will, and not your own desperate act, that you were lost to me!" sorrowful as the thought of his wife's death was to him, it soothed him to believe that death might have been accidental. there was all the difference betwixt sorrow and despair in the alternative. wandering ignorantly and helplessly through this autumnal fog, edward arundel found himself at the boat-house before he was aware of its vicinity. there was a light gleaming from the broad north window of the painting-room, and a slanting line of light streamed out of the half-open door. in this lighted doorway edward saw the figure of a girl,--an unkempt, red-headed girl, with a flat freckled face; a girl who wore a lavender-cotton pinafore and hob-nailed boots, with a good deal of brass about the leathern fronts, and a redundancy of rusty leathern boot-lace twisted round the ankles. the young man remembered having seen this girl once in the village of kemberling. she had been in mrs. weston's service as a drudge, and was supposed to have received her education in the swampington union. this young lady was supporting herself against the half-open door, with her arms a-kimbo, and her hands planted upon her hips, in humble imitation of the matrons whom she had been wont to see lounging at their cottage-doors in the high street of kemberling, when the labours of the day were done. edward arundel started at the sudden apparition of this damsel. "who are you, girl?" he asked; "and what brings you to this place?" he trembled as he spoke. a sudden agitation had seized upon him, which he had no power to account for. it seemed as if providence had brought him to this spot to-night, and had placed this ignorant country-girl in his way, for some special purpose. whatever the secrets of this place might be, he was to know them, it appeared, since he had been led here, not by the promptings of curiosity, but only by a reverent love for a scene that was associated with his dead wife. "who are you, girl?" he asked again. "oi be betsy murrel, sir," the damsel answered; "some on 'em calls me 'wuk-us bet;' and i be coom here to cle-an oop a bit." "to clean up what?" "the paa-intin' room. there's a de-al o' moock aboot, and aw'm to fettle oop, and make all toidy agen t' squire gets well." "are you all alone here?" "all alo-an? oh, yes, sir." "have you been here long?" the girl looked at mr. arundel with a cunning leer, which was one of her "wuk-us" acquirements. "aw've bin here off an' on ever since t' squire ke-ame," she said. "there's a deal o' cleanin' down 'ere." edward arundel looked at her sternly; but there was nothing to be gathered from her stolid countenance after its agreeable leer had melted away. the young man might have scrutinised the figure-head of the black barge creeping slowly past upon the hidden river with quite as much chance of getting any information out of its play of feature. he walked past the girl into paul marchmont's painting-room. miss betsy murrel made no attempt to hinder him. she had spoken the truth as to the cleaning of the place, for the room smelt of soapsuds, and a pail and scrubbing-brush stood in the middle of the floor. the young man looked at the door behind which he had heard the crying of the child. it was ajar, and the stone-steps leading up to it were wet, bearing testimony to betsy murrel's industry. edward arundel took the flaming tallow-candle from the table in the painting-room, and went up the steps into the pavilion. the girl followed, but she did not try to restrain him, or to interfere with him. she followed him with her mouth open, staring at him after the manner of her kind, and she looked the very image of rustic stupidity. with the flaring candle shaded by his left hand, edward arundel examined the two chambers in the pavilion. there was very little to reward his scrutiny. the two small rooms were bare and cheerless. the repairs that had been executed had only gone so far as to make them tolerably inhabitable, and secure from wind and weather. the furniture was the same that edward remembered having seen on his last visit to the towers; for mary had been fond of sitting in one of the little rooms, looking out at the slow river and the trembling rushes on the shore. there was no trace of recent occupation in the empty rooms, no ashes in the grates. the girl grinned maliciously as mr. arundel raised the light above his head, and looked about him. he walked in and out of the two rooms. he stared at the obsolete chairs, the rickety tables, the dilapidated damask curtains, flapping every now and then in the wind that rushed in through the crannies of the doors and windows. he looked here and there, like a man bewildered; much to the amusement of miss betsy murrel, who, with her arms crossed, and her elbows in the palms of her moist hands, followed him backwards and forwards between the two small chambers. "there was some one living here a week ago," he said; "some one who had the care of a----" he stopped suddenly. if he had guessed rightly at the dark secret, it was better that it should remain for ever hidden. this girl was perhaps more ignorant than himself. it was not for him to enlighten her. "do you know if anybody has lived here lately?" he asked. betsy murrel shook her head. "nobody has lived here--not that _oi_ knows of," she replied; "not to take their victuals, and such loike. missus brings her work down sometimes, and sits in one of these here rooms, while muster poll does his pictur' paa-intin'; that's all _oi_ knows of." edward went back to the painting-room, and set down his candle. the mystery of those empty chambers was no business of his. he began to think that his cousin olivia was mad, and that her outbursts of terror and agitation had been only the raving of a mad woman, after all. there had been a great deal in her manner during the last year that had seemed like insanity. the presence of the child might have been purely accidental; and his cousin's wild vehemence only a paroxysm of insanity. he sighed as he left miss murrel to her scouring. the world seemed out of joint; and he, whose energetic nature fitted him for the straightening of crooked things, had no knowledge of the means by which it might be set right. "good-bye, lonely place," he said; "good-bye to the spot where my young wife first told me of her love." he walked back to the cottage, where the bustle of packing and preparation was all over, and where mr. morrison was entertaining a select party of friends in the kitchen. early the next morning mr. arundel and his servant left lincolnshire; the key of kemberling retreat was given up to the landlord; and a wooden board, flapping above the dilapidated trellis-work of the porch, gave notice that the habitation was to be let. chapter iii. taking it quietly. all the county, or at least all that part of the county within a certain radius of marchmont towers, waited very anxiously for mr. paul marchmont to make some move. the horsewhipping business had given quite a pleasant zest, a flavour of excitement, a dash of what it is the fashion nowadays to call "sensation," to the wind-up of the hunting breakfast. poor paul's thrashing had been more racy and appetising than the finest olives that ever grew, and his late guests looked forward to a great deal more excitement and "sensation" before the business was done with. of course paul marchmont would do something. he _must_ make a stir; and the sooner he made it the better. matters would have to be explained. people expected to know the _cause_ of edward arundel's enmity; and of course the new master of the towers would see the propriety of setting himself right in the eyes of his influential acquaintance, his tenantry, and retainers; especially if he contemplated standing for swampington at the next general election. this was what people said to each other. the scene at the hunting-breakfast was a most fertile topic of conversation. it was almost as good as a popular murder, and furnished scandalous paragraphs _ad infinitum_ for the provincial papers, most of them beginning, "it is understood--," or "it has been whispered in our hearing that--," or "rochefoucault has observed that--." everybody expected that paul marchmont would write to the papers, and that edward arundel would answer him in the papers; and that a brisk and stirring warfare would be carried on in printer's-ink--at least. but no line written by either of the gentlemen appeared in any one of the county journals; and by slow degrees it dawned upon people that there was no further amusement to be got out of paul's chastisement, and that the master of the towers meant to take the thing quietly, and to swallow the horrible outrage, taking care to hide any wry faces he made during that operation. yes; paul marchmont let the matter drop. the report was circulated that he was very ill, and had suffered from a touch of brain-fever, which kept him a victim to incessant delirium until after mr. arundel had left the county. this rumour was set afloat by mr. weston the surgeon; and as he was the only person admitted to his brother-in-law's apartment, it was impossible for any one to contradict his assertion. the fox-hunting squires shrugged their shoulders; and i am sorry to say that the epithets, "hound," "cur," "sneak," and "mongrel," were more often applied to mr. marchmont than was consistent with christian feeling on the part of the gentlemen who uttered them. but a man who can swallow a sound thrashing, administered upon his own door-step, has to contend with the prejudices of society, and must take the consequences of being in advance of his age. so, while his new neighbours talked about him, paul marchmont lay in his splendid chamber, with the frisking youths and maidens staring at him all day long, and simpering at him with their unchanging faces, until he grew sick at heart, and began to loathe all this new grandeur, which had so delighted him a little time ago. he no longer laughed at the recollection of shabby charlotte street. he dreamt one night that he was back again in the old bedroom, with the painted deal furniture, and the hideous paper on the walls, and that the marchmont-towers magnificence had been only a feverish vision; and he was glad to be back in that familiar place, and was sorry on awaking to find that marchmont towers was a splendid reality. there was only one faint red streak upon his shoulders, for the thrashing had not been a brutal one. it was _disgrace_ edward arundel had wanted to inflict, not physical pain, the commonplace punishment with which a man corrects his refractory horse. the lash of the hunting-whip had done very little damage to the artist's flesh; but it had slashed away his manhood, as the sickle sweeps the flowers amidst the corn. he could never look up again. the thought of going out of this house for the first time, and the horror of confronting the altered faces of his neighbours, was as dreadful to him as the anticipation of that awful exit from the debtor's door, which is the last step but one into eternity, must be to the condemned criminal. "i shall go abroad," he said to his mother, when he made his appearance in the western drawing-room, a week after edward's departure. "i shall go on the continent, mother; i have taken a dislike to this place, since that savage attacked me the other day." mrs. marchmont sighed. "it will seem hard to lose you, paul, now that you are rich. you were so constant to us through all our poverty; and we might be so happy together now." the artist was walking up and down the room, with his hands in the pockets of his braided velvet coat. he knew that in the conventional costume of a well-bred gentleman he showed to a disadvantage amongst other men; and he affected a picturesque and artistic style of dress, whose brighter hues and looser outlines lighted up his pale face, and gave a grace to his spare figure. "you think it worth something, then, mother?" he said presently, half kneeling, half lounging in a deep-cushioned easy chair near the table at which his mother sat. "you think our money is worth something to us? all these chairs and tables, this great rambling house, the servants who wait upon us, and the carriages we ride in, are worth something, are they not? they make us happier, i suppose. i know i always thought such things made up the sum of happiness when i was poor. i have seen a hearse going away from a rich man's door, carrying his cherished wife, or his only son, perhaps; and i've thought, 'ah, but he has forty thousand a year!' you are happier here than you were in charlotte street, eh, mother?" mrs. marchmont was a frenchwoman by birth, though she had lived so long in london as to become anglicised. she only retained a slight accent of her native tongue, and a good deal more vivacity of look and gesture than is common to englishwomen. her elder daughter was sitting on the other side of the broad fireplace. she was only a quieter and older likeness of lavinia weston. "_am_ i happier?" exclaimed mrs. marchmont. "need you ask me the question, paul? but it is not so much for myself as for your sake that i value all this grandeur." she held out her long thin hand, which was covered with rings, some old-fashioned and comparatively valueless, others lately purchased by her devoted son, and very precious. the artist took the shrunken fingers in his own, and raised them to his lips. "i'm very glad that i've made you happy, mother," he said; "that's something gained, at any rate." he left the fireplace, and walked slowly up and down the room, stopping now and then to look out at the wintry sky, or the flat expanse of turf below it; but he was quite a different creature to that which he had been before his encounter with edward arundel. the chairs and tables palled upon him. the mossy velvet pile of the new carpets seemed to him like the swampy ground of a morass. the dark-green draperies of genoa velvet deepened into black with the growing twilight, and seemed as if they had been fashioned out of palls. what was it worth, this fine house, with the broad flat before it? nothing, if he had lost the respect and consideration of his neighbours. he wanted to be a great man as well as a rich one. he wanted admiration and flattery, reverence and esteem; not from poor people, whose esteem and admiration were scarcely worth having, but from wealthy squires, his equals or his superiors by birth and fortune. he ground his teeth at the thought of his disgrace. he had drunk of the cup of triumph, and had tasted the very wine of life; and at the moment when that cup was fullest, it had been snatched away from him by the ruthless hand of his enemy. christmas came, and gave paul marchmont a good opportunity of playing the country gentleman of the olden time. what was the cost of a couple of bullocks, a few hogsheads of ale, and a waggon-load of coals, if by such a sacrifice the master of the towers could secure for himself the admiration due to a public benefactor? paul gave _carte blanche_ to the old servants; and tents were erected on the lawn, and monstrous bonfires blazed briskly in the frosty air; while the populace, who would have accepted the bounties of a new nero fresh from the burning of a modern rome, drank to the health of their benefactor, and warmed themselves by the unlimited consumption of strong beer. mrs. marchmont and her invalid daughter assisted paul in his attempt to regain the popularity he had lost upon the steps of the western terrace. the two women distributed square miles of flannel and blanketing amongst greedy claimants; they gave scarlet cloaks and poke-bonnets to old women; they gave an insipid feast, upon temperance principles, to the children of the national schools. and they had their reward; for people began to say that this paul marchmont was a very noble fellow, after all, by jove, sir and that fellow arundel must have been in the wrong, sir; and no doubt marchmont had his own reasons for not resenting the outrage, sir; and a great deal more to the like effect. after this roasting of the two bullocks the wind changed altogether. mr. marchmont gave a great dinner-party upon new-year's day. he sent out thirty invitations, and had only two refusals. so the long dining-room was filled with all the notabilities of the district, and paul held his head up once more, and rejoiced in his own grandeur. after all, one horsewhipping cannot annihilate a man with a fine estate and eleven thousand a year, if he knows how to make a splash with his money. olivia marchmont shared in none of the festivals that were held. her father was very ill this winter; and she spent a good deal of her time at swampington rectory, sitting in hubert arundel's room, and reading to him. but her presence brought very little comfort to the sick man; for there was something in his daughter's manner that filled him with inexpressible terror; and he would lie for hours together watching her blank face, and wondering at its horrible rigidity. what was it? what was the dreadful secret which had transformed this woman? he tormented himself perpetually with this question, but he could imagine no answer to it. he did not know the power which a master-passion has upon these strong-minded women, whose minds are strong because of their narrowness, and who are the bonden slaves of one idea. he did not know that in a breast which holds no pure affection the master-fiend passion rages like an all-devouring flame, perpetually consuming its victim. he did not know that in these violent and concentrative natures the line that separates reason from madness is so feeble a demarcation, that very few can perceive the hour in which it is passed. olivia marchmont had never been the most lively or delightful of companions. the tenderness which is the common attribute of a woman's nature had not been given to her. she ought to have been a great man. nature makes these mistakes now and then, and the victim expiates the error. hence comes such imperfect histories as that of english elizabeth and swedish christina. the fetters that had bound olivia's narrow life had eaten into her very soul, and cankered there. if she could have been edward arundel's wife, she would have been the noblest and truest wife that ever merged her identity into that of another, and lived upon the refracted glory of her husband's triumphs. she would have been a rachel russell, a mrs. hutchinson, a lady nithisdale, a madame de lavalette. she would have been great by reason of her power of self-abnegation; and there would have been a strange charm in the aspect of this fierce nature attuned to harmonise with its master's soul, all the barbaric discords melting into melody, all the harsh combinations softening into perfect music; just as in mr. buckstone's most poetic drama we are bewitched by the wild huntress sitting at the feet of her lord, and admire her chiefly because we know that only that one man upon all the earth could have had power to tame her. to any one who had known olivia's secret, there could have been no sadder spectacle than this of her decay. the mind and body decayed together, bound by a mysterious sympathy. all womanly roundness disappeared from the spare figure, and mrs. marchmont's black dresses hung about her in loose folds. her long, dead, black hair was pushed away from her thin face, and twisted into a heavy knot at the back of her head. every charm that she had ever possessed was gone. the oldest women generally retain some traits of their lost beauty, some faint reflection of the sun that has gone down, to light up the soft twilight of age, and even glimmer through the gloom of death. but this woman's face retained no token of the past. no empty hull, with shattered bulwarks crumbled by the fury of fierce seas, cast on a desert shore to rot and perish there, was ever more complete a wreck than she was. upon her face and figure, in every look and gesture, in the tone of every word she spoke, there was an awful something, worse than the seal of death. little by little the miserable truth dawned upon hubert arundel. his daughter was mad! he knew this; but he kept the dreadful knowledge hidden in his own breast,--a hideous secret, whose weight oppressed him like an actual burden. he kept the secret; for it would have seemed to him the most cruel treason against his daughter to have confessed his discovery to any living creature, unless it should be absolutely necessary to do so. meanwhile he set himself to watch olivia, detaining her at the rectory for a week together, in order that he might see her in all moods, under all phases. he found that there were no violent or outrageous evidences of this mental decay. the mind had given way under the perpetual pressure of one set of thoughts. hubert arundel, in his ignorance of his daughter's secrets, could not discover the cause of her decadence; but that cause was very simple. if the body is a wonderful and complex machine which must not be tampered with, surely that still more complex machine the mind must need careful treatment. if such and such a course of diet is fatal to the body's health, may not some thoughts be equally fatal to the health of the brain? may not a monotonous recurrence of the same ideas be above all injurious? if by reason of the peculiar nature of a man's labour, he uses one limb or one muscle more than the rest, strange bosses rise up to testify to that ill usage, the idle limbs wither, and the harmonious perfection of nature gives place to deformity. so the brain, perpetually pressed upon, for ever strained to its utmost tension by the wearisome succession of thoughts, becomes crooked and one-sided, always leaning one way, continually tripping up the wretched thinker. john marchmont's widow had only one set of ideas. on every subject but that one which involved edward arundel and his fortunes her memory had decayed. she asked her father the same questions--commonplace questions relating to his own comfort, or to simple household matters, twenty times a day, always forgetting that he had answered her. she had that impatience as to the passage of time which is one of the most painful signs of madness. she looked at her watch ten times an hour, and would wander out into the cheerless garden, indifferent to the bitter weather, in order to look at the clock in the church-steeple, under the impression that her own watch, and her father's, and all the time-keepers in the house, were slow. she was sometimes restless, taking up one occupation after another, to throw all aside with equal impatience, and sometimes immobile for hours together. but as she was never violent, never in any way unreasonable, hubert arundel had not the heart to call science to his aid, and to betray her secret. the thought that his daughter's malady might be cured never entered his mind as within the range of possibility. there was nothing to cure; no delusions to be exorcised by medical treatment; no violent vagaries to be held in check by drugs and nostrums. the powerful intellect had decayed; its force and clearness were gone. no drugs that ever grew upon this earth could restore that which was lost. this was the conviction which kept the rector silent. it would have given him unutterable anguish to have told his daughter's secret to any living being; but he would have endured that misery if she could have been benefitted thereby. he most firmly believed that she could not, and that her state was irremediable. "my poor girl!" he thought to himself; "how proud i was of her ten years ago! i can do nothing for her; nothing except to love and cherish her, and hide her humiliation from the world." but hubert arundel was not allowed to do even this much for the daughter he loved; for when olivia had been with him a little more than a week, paul marchmont and his mother drove over to swampington rectory one morning and carried her away with them. the rector then saw for the first time that his once strong-minded daughter was completely under the dominion of these two people, and that they knew the nature of her malady quite as well as he did. he resisted her return to the towers; but his resistance was useless. she submitted herself willingly to her new friends, declaring that she was better in their house than anywhere else. so she went back to her old suite of apartments, and her old servant barbara waited upon her; and she sat alone in dead john marchmont's study, listening to the january winds shrieking in the quadrangle, the distant rooks calling to each other amongst the bare branches of the poplars, the banging of the doors in the corridor, and occasional gusts of laughter from the open door of the dining-room,--while paul marchmont and his guests gave a jovial welcome to the new year. while the master of the towers re-asserted his grandeur, and made stupendous efforts to regain the ground he had lost, edward arundel wandered far away in the depths of brittany, travelling on foot, and making himself familiar with the simple peasants, who were ignorant of his troubles. he had sent mr. morrison down to dangerfield with the greater part of his luggage; but he had not the heart to go back himself--yet awhile. he was afraid of his mother's sympathy, and he went away into the lonely breton villages, to try and cure himself of his great grief, before he began life again as a soldier. it was useless for him to strive against his vocation. nature had made him a soldier, and nothing else; and wherever there was a good cause to be fought for, his place was on the battle-field. chapter iv. miss lawford speaks her mind. major lawford and his blue-eyed daughters were not amongst those guests who accepted paul marchmont's princely hospitalities. belinda lawford had never heard the story of edward's lost bride as he himself could have told it; but she had heard an imperfect version of the sorrowful history from letitia, and that young lady had informed her friend of edward's animus against the new master of the towers. "the poor dear foolish boy will insist upon thinking that mr. marchmont was at the bottom of it all," she had said in a confidential chat with belinda, "somehow or other; but whether he was, or whether he wasn't, i'm sure i can't say. but if one attempts to take mr. marchmont's part with edward, he does get so violent and go on so, that one's obliged to say all sorts of dreadful things about mary's cousin for the sake of peace. but really, when i saw him one day in kemberling, with a black velvet shooting-coat, and his beautiful smooth white hair and auburn moustache, i thought him most interesting. and so would you, belinda, if you weren't so wrapped up in that doleful brother of mine." whereupon, of course, miss lawford had been compelled to declare that she was not "wrapped up" in edward, whatever state of feeling that obscure phrase might signify; and to express, by the vehemence of her denial, that, if anything, she rather detested miss arundel's brother. by-the-by, did you ever know a young lady who could understand the admiration aroused in the breast of other young ladies for that most uninteresting object, a _brother_? or a gentleman who could enter with any warmth of sympathy into his friend's feelings respecting the auburn tresses or the grecian nose of "a sister"? belinda lawford, i say, knew something of the story of mary arundel's death, and she implored her father to reject all hospitalities offered by paul marchmont. "you won't go to the towers, papa dear?" she said, with her hands clasped upon her father's arm, her cheeks kindling, and her eyes filling with tears as she spoke to him; "you won't go and sit at paul marchmont's table, and drink his wine, and shake hands with him? i know that he had something to do with mary arundel's death. he had indeed, papa. i don't mean anything that the world calls crime; i don't mean any act of open violence. but he was cruel to her, papa; he was cruel to her. he tortured her and tormented her until she--" the girl paused for a moment, and her voice faltered a little. "oh, how i wish that i had known her, papa," she cried presently, "that i might have stood by her, and comforted her, all through that sad time!" the major looked down at his daughter with a tender smile,--a smile that was a little significant, perhaps, but full of love and admiration. "you would have stood by arundel's poor little wife, my dear?" he said. "you would stand by her _now_, if she were alive, and needed your friendship?" "i would indeed, papa," miss lawford answered resolutely. "i believe it, my dear; i believe it with all my heart. you are a good girl, my linda; you are a noble girl. you are as good as a son to me, my dear." major lawford was silent for a few moments, holding his daughter in his arms and pressing his lips upon her broad forehead. "you are fit to be a soldier's daughter, my darling," he said, "or--or a soldier's wife." he kissed her once more, and then left her, sighing thoughtfully as he went away. this is how it was that neither major lawford nor any of his family were present at those splendid entertainments which paul marchmont gave to his new friends. mr. marchmont knew almost as well as the lawfords themselves why they did not come, and the absence of them at his glittering board made his bread bitter to him and his wine tasteless. he wanted these people as much as the others,--more than the others, perhaps, for they had been edward arundel's friends; and he wanted them to turn their backs upon the young man, and join in the general outcry against his violence and brutality. the absence of major lawford at the lighted banquet-table tormented this modern rich man as the presence of mordecai at the gate tormented haman. it was not enough that all the others should come if these stayed away, and by their absence tacitly testified to their contempt for the master of the towers. he met belinda sometimes on horseback with the old grey-headed groom behind her, a fearless young amazon, breasting the january winds, with her blue eyes sparkling, and her auburn hair blowing away from her candid face: he met her, and looked out at her from the luxurious barouche in which it was his pleasure to loll by his mother's side, half-buried amongst soft furry rugs and sleek leopard-skins, making the chilly atmosphere through which he rode odorous with the scent of perfumed hair, and smiling over cruelly delicious criticisms in newly-cut reviews. he looked out at this fearless girl whose friends so obstinately stood by edward arundel; and the cold contempt upon miss lawford's face cut him more keenly than the sharpest wind of that bitter january. then he took counsel with his womankind; not telling them his thoughts, fears, doubts, or wishes--it was not his habit to do that--but taking _their_ ideas, and only telling them so much as it was necessary for them to know in order that they might be useful to him. paul marchmont's life was regulated by a few rules, so simple that a child might have learned them; indeed i regret to say that some children are very apt pupils in that school of philosophy to which the master of marchmont towers belonged, and cause astonishment to their elders by the precocity of their intelligence. mr. marchmont might have inscribed upon a very small scrap of parchment the moral maxims by which he regulated his dealings with mankind. "always conciliate," said this philosopher. "never tell an unnecessary lie. be agreeable and generous to those who serve you. n.b. no good carpenter would allow his tools to get rusty. make yourself master of the opinions of others, but hold your own tongue. seek to obtain the maximum of enjoyment with the minimum of risk." such golden saws as these did mr. marchmont make for his own especial guidance; and he hoped to pass smoothly onwards upon the railway of life, riding in a first-class carriage, on the greased wheels of a very easy conscience. as for any unfortunate fellow-travellers pitched out of the carriage-window in the course of the journey, or left lonely and helpless at desolate stations on the way, providence, and not mr. marchmont, was responsible for _their_ welfare. paul had a high appreciation of providence, and was fond of talking--very piously, as some people said; very impiously, as others secretly thought--about the inestimable wisdom which governed all the affairs of this lower world. nowhere, according to the artist, had the hand of providence been more clearly visible than in this matter about paul's poor little cousin mary. if providence had intended john marchmont's daughter to be a happy bride, a happy wife, the prosperous mistress of that stately habitation, why all that sad business of old mr. arundel's sudden illness, edward's hurried journey, the railway accident, and all the complications that had thereupon arisen? nothing would have been easier than for providence to have prevented all this; and then he, paul, would have been still in charlotte street, fitzroy square, patiently waiting for a friendly lift upon the high-road of life. nobody could say that he had ever been otherwise than patient. nobody could say that he had ever intruded himself upon his rich cousins at the towers, or had been heard to speculate upon his possible inheritance of the estate; or that he had, in short, done any thing but that which the best, truest, most conscientious and disinterested of mankind should do. in the course of that bleak, frosty january, mr. marchmont sent his mother and his sister lavinia to make a call at the grange. the grange people had never called upon mrs. marchmont; but paul did not allow any flimsy ceremonial law to stand in his way when he had a purpose to achieve. so the ladies went to the grange, and were politely received; for miss lawford and her mother were a great deal too innocent and noble-minded to imagine that these pale-faced, delicate-looking women could have had any part, either directly or indirectly, in that cruel treatment which had driven edward's young wife from her home. mrs. marchmont and mrs. weston were kindly received, therefore; and in a little conversation with belinda about birds, and dahlias, and worsted work, and the most innocent subjects imaginable, the wily lavinia contrived to lead up to miss letitia arundel, and thence, by the easiest conversational short-cut, to edward and his lost wife. mrs. weston was obliged to bring her cambric handkerchief out of her muff when she talked about her cousin mary; but she was a clever woman, and she had taken to heart paul's pet maxim about the folly of _unnecessary_ lies; and she was so candid as to entirely disarm miss lawford, who had a schoolgirlish notion that every kind of hypocrisy and falsehood was outwardly visible in a servile and slavish manner. she was not upon her guard against those practised adepts in the art of deception, who have learnt to make that subtle admixture of truth and falsehood which defies detection; like some fabrics in whose woof silk and cotton are so cunningly blended that only a practised eye can discover the inferior material. so when lavinia dried her eyes and put her handkerchief back in her muff, and said, betwixt laughing and crying,-- "now you know, my dear miss lawford, you mustn't think that i would for a moment pretend to be sorry that my brother has come into this fortune. of course any such pretence as that would be ridiculous, and quite useless into the bargain, as it isn't likely anybody would believe me. paul is a dear, kind creature, the best of brothers, the most affectionate of sons, and deserves any good fortune that could fall to his lot; but i am truly sorry for that poor little girl. i am truly sorry, believe me, miss lawford; and i only regret that mr. weston and i did not come to kemberling sooner, so that i might have been a friend to the poor little thing; for then, you know, i might have prevented that foolish runaway match, out of which almost all the poor child's troubles arose. yes, miss lawford; i wish i had been able to befriend that unhappy child, although by my so doing paul would have been kept out of the fortune he now enjoys--for some time, at any rate. i say for some time, because i do not believe that mary marchmont would have lived to be old, under the happiest circumstances. her mother died very young; and her father, and her father's father, were consumptive." then mrs. weston took occasion, incidentally of course, to allude to her brother's goodness; but even then she was on her guard, and took care not to say too much. "the worst actors are those who over-act their parts." that was another of paul marchmont's golden maxims. "i don't know what my brother may be to the rest of the world," lavinia said; "but i know how good he is to those who belong to him. i should be ashamed to tell you all he has done for mr. weston and me. he gave me this cashmere shawl at the beginning of the winter, and a set of sables fit for a duchess; though i told him they were not at all the thing for a village surgeon's wife, who keeps only one servant, and dusts her own best parlour." and mrs. marchmont talked of her son; with no loud enthusiasm, but with a tone of quiet conviction that was worth any money to paul. to have an innocent person, some one not in the secret, to play a small part in the comedy of his life, was a desideratum with the artist. his mother had always been this person, this unconscious performer, instinctively falling into the action of the play, and shedding real tears, and smiling actual smiles,--the most useful assistant to a great schemer. but during the whole of the visit nothing was said as to paul's conduct towards his unhappy cousin; nothing was said either to praise or to exculpate; and when mrs. marchmont and her daughter drove away, in one of the new equipages which paul had selected for his mother, they left only a vague impression in belinda's breast. she didn't quite know what to think. these people were so frank and candid, they had spoken of paul with such real affection, that it was almost impossible to doubt them. paul marchmont might be a bad man, but his mother and sister loved him, and surely they were ignorant of his wickedness. mrs. lawford troubled herself very little about this unexpected morning call. she was an excellent, warm-hearted, domestic creature, and thought a great deal more about the grand question as to whether she should have new damask curtains for the drawing-room, or send the old ones to be dyed; or whether she should withdraw her custom from the kemberling grocer, whose "best black" at four-and-sixpence was really now so very inferior; or whether belinda's summer silk dress could be cut down into a frock for isabella to wear in the winter evenings,--than about the rights or wrongs of that story of the horsewhipping which had been administered to mr. marchmont. "i'm sure those marchmont-towers people seem very nice, my dear," the lady said to belinda; "and i really wish your papa would go and dine there. you know i like him to dine out a good deal in the winter, linda; not that i want to save the housekeeping money,--only it is so difficult to vary the side-dishes for a man who has been accustomed to mess-dinners, and a french cook." but belinda stuck fast to her colours. she was a soldier's daughter, as her father said, and she was almost as good as a son. the major meant this latter remark for very high praise; for the great grief of his life had been the want of a boy's brave face at his fireside. she was as good as a son; that is to say, she was braver and more outspoken than most women; although she was feminine and gentle withal, and by no means strong-minded. she would have fainted, perhaps, at the first sight of blood upon a battle-field; but she would have bled to death with the calm heroism of a martyr, rather than have been false to a noble cause. "i think papa is quite right not to go to marchmont towers, mamma," she said; the artful minx omitted to state that it was by reason of her entreaties her father had stayed away. "i think he is quite right. mrs. marchmont and mrs. weston may be very nice, and of course it isn't likely _they_ would be cruel to poor young mrs. arundel; but i _know_ that mr. marchmont must have been unkind to that poor girl, or mr. arundel would never have done what he did." it is in the nature of good and brave men to lay down their masculine rights when they leave their hats in the hall, and to submit themselves meekly to feminine government. it is only the whippersnapper, the sneak, the coward out of doors who is a tyrant at home. see how meekly the conqueror of italy went home to his charming creole wife! see how pleasantly the liberator of italy lolls in the carriage of his golden-haired empress, when the young trees in that fair wood beyond the triumphal arch are green in the bright spring weather, and all the hired vehicles in paris are making towards the cascade! major lawford's wife was too gentle, and too busy with her store-room and her domestic cares, to tyrannise over her lord and master; but the major was duly henpecked by his blue-eyed daughters, and went here and there as they dictated. so he stayed away from marchmont towers to please belinda; and only said, "haw," "yes," "'pon my honour, now!" "bless my soul!" when his friends told him of the magnificence of paul's dinners. but although the major and his eldest daughter did not encounter mr. marchmont in his own house, they met him sometimes on the neutral ground of other people's dining-rooms, and upon one especial evening at a pleasant little dinner-party given by the rector of the parish in which the grange was situated. paul made himself particularly agreeable upon this occasion; but in the brief interval before dinner he was absorbed in a conversation with mr. davenant, the rector, upon the subject of ecclesiastical architecture,--he knew everything, and could talk about everything, this dear paul,--and made no attempt to approach miss lawford. he only looked at her now and then, with a furtive, oblique glance out of his almond-shaped, pale-grey eyes; a glance that was wisely hidden by the light auburn lashes, for it had an unpleasant resemblance to the leer of an evil-natured sprite. mr. marchmont contented himself with keeping this furtive watch upon belinda, while she talked gaily with the rector's two daughters in a pleasant corner near the piano. and as the artist took mrs. davenant down to the dining-room, and sat next her at dinner, he had no opportunity of fraternising with belinda during that meal; for the young lady was divided from him by the whole length of the table and, moreover, very much occupied by the exclusive attentions of two callow-looking officers from the nearest garrison-town, who were afflicted with extreme youth, and were painfully conscious of their degraded state, but tried notwithstanding to carry it off with a high hand, and affected the opinions of used-up fifty. mr. marchmont had none of his womankind with him at this dinner; for his mother and invalid sister had neither of them felt strong enough to come, and mr. and mrs. weston had not been invited. the artist's special object in coming to this dinner was the conquest of miss belinda lawford: she sided with edward arundel against him: she must be made to believe edward wrong, and himself right; or she might go about spreading her opinions, and doing him mischief. beyond that, he had another idea about belinda; and he looked to this dinner as likely to afford him an opportunity of laying the foundation of a very diplomatic scheme, in which miss lawford should unconsciously become his tool. he was vexed at being placed apart from her at the dinner-table, but he concealed his vexation; and he was aggravated by the rector's old-fashioned hospitality, which detained the gentlemen over their wine for some time after the ladies left the dining-room. but the opportunity that he wanted came nevertheless, and in a manner that he had not anticipated. the two callow defenders of their country had sneaked out of the dining-room, and rejoined the ladies in the cosy countrified drawing-rooms. they had stolen away, these two young men; for they were oppressed by the weight of a fearful secret. _they couldn't drink claret!_ no; they had tried to like it; they had smacked their lips and winked their eyes--both at once, for even winking with _one_ eye is an accomplishment scarcely compatible with extreme youth--over vintages that had seemed to them like a happy admixture of red ink and green-gooseberry juice. they had perjured their boyish souls with hideous falsehoods as to their appreciation of pale tawny port, light dry wines, ' -ports, ' -ports, kopke roriz, thompson and croft's, and sandemann's; when, in the secret recesses of their minds, they affected sweet and "slab" compounds, sold by publicans, and facetiously called "our prime old port, at four-and-sixpence." they were very young, these beardless soldiers. they liked strawberry ices, and were on the verge of insolvency from a predilection for clammy bath-buns, jam-tarts, and cherry-brandy. they liked gorgeous waistcoats; and varnished boots in a state of virgin brilliancy; and little bouquets in their button-holes; and a deluge of _millefleurs_ upon their flimsy handkerchiefs. they were very young. the men they met at dinner-parties to-day had tipped them at eton or woolwich only yesterday, as it seemed, and remembered it and despised them. it was only a few months since they had been snubbed for calling the douro a mountain in switzerland, and the himalayas a cluster of islands in the pacific, at horrible examinations, in which the cold perspiration had bedewed their pallid young cheeks. they were delighted to get away from those elderly creatures in the rector's dining-room to the snug little back drawing-room, where belinda lawford and the two misses davenant were murmuring softly in the firelight, like young turtles in a sheltered dove-cote; while the matrons in the larger apartment sipped their coffee, and conversed in low awful voices about the iniquities of housemaids, and the insubordination of gardeners and grooms. belinda and her two companions were very polite to the helpless young wanderers from the dining-room; and they talked pleasantly enough of all manner of things; until somehow or other the conversation came round to the marchmont-towers scandal, and edward's treatment of his lost wife's kinsman. one of the young men had been present at the hunting-breakfast on that bright october morning, and he was not a little proud of his superior acquaintance with the whole business. "i was the-aw, miss lawford," he said. "i was on the tew-wace after bweakfast,--and a vewy excellent bweakfast it was, i ass-haw you; the still moselle was weally admiwable, and marchmont has some medewa that immeasuwably surpasses anything i can indooce my wine-merchant to send me;--i was on the tew-wace, and i saw awundel comin' up the steps, awful pale, and gwasping his whip; and i was a witness of all the west that occurred; and if i had been marchmont i should have shot awundel befaw he left the pawk, if i'd had to swing for it, miss lawford; for i should have felt, b'jove, that my own sense of honaw demanded the sacwifice. howevaw, marchmont seems a vewy good fella; so i suppose it's all wight as far as he goes; but it was a bwutal business altogethaw, and that fella awundel must be a scoundwel." belinda could not bear this. she had borne a great deal already. she had been obliged to sit by very often, and hear edward arundel's conduct discussed by thomas, richard, and henry, or anybody else who chose to talk about it; and she had been patient, and had held her peace, with her heart bumping indignantly in her breast, and passionate crimson blushes burning her cheeks. but she could _not_ submit to hear a beardless, pale-faced, and rather weak-eyed young ensign--who had never done any greater service for his queen and country than to cry "shuddruph!" to a detachment of raw recruits in a barrack-yard, in the early bleakness of a winter's morning--take upon himself to blame edward arundel, the brave soldier, the noble indian hero, the devoted lover and husband, the valiant avenger of his dead wife's wrongs. "i don't think you know anything of the real story, mr. palliser," belinda said boldly to the half-fledged ensign. "if you did, i'm sure you would admire mr. arundel's conduct instead of blaming it. mr. marchmont fully deserved the disgrace which edward--which mr. arundel inflicted upon him." the words were still upon her lips, when paul marchmont himself came softly through the flickering firelight to the low chair upon which belinda sat. he came behind her, and laying his hand lightly upon the scroll-work at the back of her chair, bent over her, and said, in a low confidential voice,-- "you are a noble girl, miss lawford. i am sorry that you should think ill of me: but i like you for having spoken so frankly. you are a most noble girl. you are worthy to be your father's daughter." this was said with a tone of suppressed emotion; but it was quite a random shot. paul didn't know anything about the major, except that he had a comfortable income, drove a neat dog-cart, and was often seen riding on the flat lincolnshire roads with his eldest daughter. for all paul knew to the contrary, major lawford might have been the veriest bully and coward who ever made those about him miserable; but mr. marchmont's tone as good as expressed that he was intimately acquainted with the old soldier's career, and had long admired and loved him. it was one of paul's happy inspirations, this allusion to belinda's father; one of those bright touches of colour laid on with a skilful recklessness, and giving sudden brightness to the whole picture; a little spot of vermilion dabbed upon the canvas with the point of the palette-knife, and lighting up all the landscape with sunshine. "you know my father?" said belinda, surprised. "who does not know him?" cried the artist. "do you think, miss lawford, that it is necessary to sit at a man's dinner-table before you know what he is? i know your father to be a good man and a brave soldier, as well as i know that the duke of wellington is a great general, though i never dined at apsley house. i respect your father, miss lawford; and i have been very much distressed by his evident avoidance of me and mine." this was coming to the point at once. mr. marchmont's manner was candour itself. belinda looked at him with widely-opened, wondering eyes. she was looking for the evidence of his wickedness in his face. i think she half-expected that mr. marchmont would have corked eyebrows, and a slouched hat, like a stage ruffian. she was so innocent, this simple young belinda, that she imagined wicked people must necessarily look wicked. paul marchmont saw the wavering of her mind in that half-puzzled expression, and he went on boldly. "i like your father, miss lawford," he said; "i like him, and i respect him; and i want to know him. other people may misunderstand me, if they please. i can't help their opinions. the truth is generally strongest in the end; and i can afford to wait. but i can_not_ afford to forfeit the friendship of a man i esteem; i cannot afford to be misunderstood by your father, miss lawford; and i have been very much pained--yes, very much pained--by the manner in which the major has repelled my little attempts at friendliness." belinda's heart smote her. she knew that it was her influence that had kept her father away from marchmont towers. this young lady was very conscientious. she was a christian, too; and a certain sentence touching wrongful judgments rose up against her while mr. marchmont was speaking. if she had wronged this man; if edward arundel has been misled by his passionate grief for mary; if she had been deluded by edward's error,--how very badly mr. marchmont had been treated between them! she didn't say anything, but sat looking thoughtfully at the fire; and paul saw that she was more and more perplexed. this was just what the artist wanted. to talk his antagonist into a state of intellectual fog was almost always his manner of commencing an argument. belinda was silent, and paul seated himself in a chair close to hers. the callow ensigns had gone into the lamp-lit front drawing-room, and were busy turning over the leaves--and never turning them over at the right moment--of a thundering duet which the misses davenant were performing for the edification of their papa's visitors. miss lawford and mr. marchmont were alone, therefore, in that cosy inner chamber, and a very pretty picture they made: the rosy-cheeked girl and the pale, sentimental-looking artist sitting side by side in the glow of the low fire, with a background of crimson curtains and gleaming picture-frames; winter flowers piled in grim indian jars; the fitful light flickering now and then upon one sharp angle of the high carved mantelpiece, with all its litter of antique china; and the rest of the room in sombre shadow. paul had the field all to himself, and felt that victory would be easy. he began to talk about edward arundel. if he had said one word against the young soldier, i think this impetuous girl, who had not yet learned to count the cost of what she did, would have been passionately eloquent in defence of her friend's brother--for no other reason than that he was the brother of her friend, of course; what other reason should she have for defending mr. arundel? but paul marchmont did not give her any occasion for indignation. on the contrary, he spoke in praise of the hot-headed young soldier who had assaulted him, making all manner of excuses for the young man's violence, and using that tone of calm superiority with which a man of the world might naturally talk about a foolish boy. "he has been very unreasonable, miss lawford," paul said by-and-by; "he has been very unreasonable, and has most grossly insulted me. but, in spite of all, i believe him to be a very noble young fellow, and i cannot find it in my heart to be really angry with him. what his particular grievance against me may be, i really do not know." the furtive glance from the long narrow grey eyes kept close watch upon belinda's face as paul said this. mr. marchmont wanted to ascertain exactly how much belinda knew of that grievance of edward's; but he could see only perplexity in her face. she knew nothing definite, therefore; she had only heard edward talk vaguely of his wrongs. paul marchmont was convinced of this; and he went on boldly now, for he felt that the ground was all clear before him. "this foolish young soldier chooses to be angry with me because of a calamity which i was as powerless to avert, as to prevent that accident upon the south-western railway by which mr. arundel so nearly lost his life. i cannot tell you how sincerely i regret the misconception that has arisen in his mind. because i have profited by the death of john marchmont's daughter, this impetuous young husband imagines--what? i cannot answer that question; nor can he himself, it seems, since he has made no definite statement of his wrongs to any living being." the artist looked more sharply than ever at belinda's listening face. there was no change in its expression; the same wondering look, the same perplexity,--that was all. "when i say that i regret the young man's folly, miss lawford," paul continued, "believe me, it is chiefly on his account rather than my own. any insult which he can inflict upon me can only rebound upon himself, since everybody in lincolnshire knows that i am in the right, and he in the wrong." mr. marchmont was going on very smoothly; but at this point miss lawford, who had by no means deserted her colours, interrupted his easy progress. "it remains to be proved who is right and who wrong, mr. marchmont," she said. "mr. arundel is the brother of my friend. i cannot easily believe him to have done wrong." paul looked at her with a smile--a smile that brought hot blushes to her face; but she returned his look without flinching. the brave girl looked full into the narrow grey eyes sheltered under pale auburn lashes, and her steadfast gaze did not waver. "ah, miss lawford," said the artist, still smiling, "when a young man is handsome, chivalrous, and generous-hearted, it is very difficult to convince a woman that he can do wrong. edward arundel has done wrong. his ultra-quixotism has made him blind to the folly of his own acts. i can afford to forgive him. but i repeat that i regret his infatuation about this poor lost girl far more upon his account than on my own; for i know--at least i venture to think--that a way lies open to him of a happier and a better life than he could ever have known with my poor childish cousin mary marchmont. i have reason to know that he has formed another attachment, and that it is only a chivalrous delusion about that poor girl--whom he was never really in love with, and whom he only married because of some romantic notion inspired by my cousin john--that withholds him from that other and brighter prospect." he was silent for a few moments, and then he said hastily,-- "pardon me, miss lawford; i have been betrayed into saying much that i had better have left unsaid, more especially to you. i----" he hesitated a little, as if embarrassed; and then rose and looked into the next room, where the duet had been followed by a solo. one of the rector's daughters came towards the inner drawing-room, followed by a callow ensign. "we want belinda to sing," exclaimed miss davenant. "we want you to sing, you tiresome belinda, instead of hiding yourself in that dark room all the evening." belinda came out of the darkness, with her cheeks flushed and her eyelids drooping. her heart was beating so fast as to make it quite impossible to speak just yet, or to sing either. but she sat down before the piano, and, with hands that trembled in spite of herself, began to play one of her pet sonatas. unhappily, beethoven requires precision of touch in the pianist who is bold enough to seek to interpret him; and upon this occasion i am compelled to admit that miss lawford's fingering was eccentric, not to say ridiculous,--in common parlance, she made a mess of it; and just as she was going to break down, friendly clara davenant cried out,-- "that won't do, belinda! we want you to sing, not to play. you are trying to cheat us. we would rather have one of moore's melodies than all beethoven's sonatas." so miss lawford, still blushing, with her eyelids still drooping, played sir john stevenson's simple symphony, and in a fresh swelling voice, that filled the room with melody, began: "oh, the days are gone when beauty bright my heart's chain wove; when my dream of life, from morn till night, was love, still love!" and paul marchmont, sitting at the other end of the room turning over miss davenant's scrap-book, looked up through his auburn lashes, and smiled at the beaming face of the singer. he felt that he had improved the occasion. "i am not afraid of miss lawford now," he thought to himself. this candid, fervent girl was only another piece in the schemer's game of chess; and he saw a way of making her useful in the attainment of that great end which, in the strange simplicity of cunning, he believed to be the one purpose of _every_ man's life,--self-aggrandisement. it never for a moment entered into his mind that edward arundel was any more _real_ than he was himself. there can be no perfect comprehension where there is no sympathy. paul believed that edward had tried to become master of mary marchmont's heritage; and had failed; and was angry because of his failure. he believed this passionate young man to be a schemer like himself; only a little more impetuous and blundering in his manner of going to work. chapter v. the return of the wanderer. the march winds were blowing amongst the oaks in dangerfield park, when edward arundel went back to the house which had never been his home since his boyhood. he went back because he had grown weary of lonely wanderings in that strange breton country. he had grown weary of himself and of his own thoughts. he was worn out by the eager desire that devoured him by day and by night,--the passionate yearning to be far away beyond that low eastern horizon line; away amid the carnage and riot of an indian battle-field. so he went back at last to his mother, who had written to him again and again, imploring him to return to her, and to rest, and to be happy in the familiar household where he was beloved. he left his luggage at the little inn where the coach that had brought him from exeter stopped, and then he walked quietly homewards in the gloaming. the early spring evening was bleak and chill. the blacksmith's fire roared at him as he went by the smithy. all the lights in the queer latticed windows twinkled and blinked at him, as if in friendly welcome to the wanderer. he remembered them all: the quaint, misshapen, lopsided roofs; the tumble-down chimneys; the low doorways, that had sunk down below the level of the village street, until all the front parlours became cellars, and strange pedestrians butted their heads against the flower-pots in the bedroom windows; the withered iron frame and pitiful oil-lamp hung out at the corner of the street, and making a faint spot of feeble light upon the rugged pavement; mysterious little shops in diamond-paned parlour windows, where dutch dolls and stationery, stale gingerbread and pickled cabbage, were mixed up with wooden pegtops, squares of yellow soap, rickety paper kites, green apples, and string; they were all familiar to him. it had been a fine thing once to come into this village with letitia, and buy stale gingerbread and rickety kites of a snuffy old pensioner of his mother's. the kites had always stuck in the upper branches of the oaks, and the gingerbread had invariably choked him; but with the memory of the kites and gingerbread came back all the freshness of his youth, and he looked with a pensive tenderness at the homely little shops, the merchandise flickering in the red firelight, that filled each quaint interior with a genial glow of warmth and colour. he passed unquestioned by a wicket at the side of the great gates. the firelight was rosy in the windows of the lodge, and he heard a woman's voice singing a monotonous song to a sleepy child. everywhere in this pleasant england there seemed to be the glow of cottage-fires, and friendliness, and love, and home. the young man sighed as he remembered that great stone mansion far away in dismal lincolnshire, and thought how happy he might have been in this bleak spring twilight, if he could have sat by mary marchmont's side in the western drawing-room, watching the firelight and the shadows trembling on her fair young face. it never had been; and it never was to be. the happiness of a home; the sweet sense of ownership; the delight of dispensing pleasure to others; all the simple domestic joys which make life beautiful,--had never been known to john marchmont's daughter, since that early time in which she shared her father's lodging in oakley street, and went out in the cold december morning to buy rolls for edward arundel's breakfast. from the bay-window of his mother's favourite sitting-room the same red light that he had seen in every lattice in the village streamed out upon the growing darkness of the lawn. there was a half-glass door leading into a little lobby near this sitting-room. edward arundel opened it and went in, very quietly. he expected to find his mother and his sister in the room with the bay-window. the door of this familiar apartment was ajar; he pushed it open, and went in. it was a very pretty room, and all the womanly litter of open books and music, needlework and drawing materials, made it homelike. the firelight flickered upon everything--on the pictures and picture-frames, the black oak paneling, the open piano, a cluster of snowdrops in a tall glass on the table, the scattered worsteds by the embroidery-frame, the sleepy dogs upon the hearth-rug. a young lady stood in the bay-window with her back to the fire. edward arundel crept softly up to her, and put his arm round her waist. "letty!" it was not letitia, but a young lady with very blue eyes, who blushed scarlet, and turned upon the young man rather fiercely; and then recognising him, dropped into the nearest chair and began to tremble and grow pale. "i am sorry i startled you, miss lawford," edward said, gently; "i really thought you were my sister. i did not even know that you were here." "no, of course not. i--you didn't startle me much, mr. arundel; only you were not expected home. i thought you were far away in brittany. i had no idea that there was any chance of your returning. i thought you meant to be away all the summer--mrs. arundel told me so." belinda lawford said all this in that fresh girlish voice which was familiar to mr. arundel; but she was still very pale, and she still trembled a little, and there was something almost apologetic in the way in which she assured edward that she had believed he would be abroad throughout the summer. it seemed almost as if she had said: "i did not come here because i thought i should see you. i had no thought or hope of meeting you." but edward arundel was not a coxcomb, and he was very slow to understand any such signs as these. he saw that he had startled the young lady, and that she had turned pale and trembled as she recognised him; and he looked at her with a half-wondering, half-pensive expression in his face. she blushed as he looked at her. she went to the table and began to gather together the silks and worsteds, as if the arrangement of her workbasket were a matter of vital importance, to be achieved at any sacrifice of politeness. then, suddenly remembering that she ought to say something to mr. arundel, she gave evidence of the originality of her intellect by the following remark: "how surprised mrs. arundel and letitia will be to see you!" even as she said this her eyes were still bent upon the skeins of worsted in her hand. "yes; i think they will be surprised. i did not mean to come home until the autumn. but i got so tired of wandering about a strange country alone. where are they--my mother and letitia?" "they have gone down the village, to the school. they will be back to tea. your brother is away; and we dine at three o'clock, and drink tea at eight. it is so much pleasanter than dining late." this was quite an effort of genius; and miss lawford went on sorting the skeins of worsted in the firelight. edward arundel had been standing all this time with his hat in his hand, almost as if he had been a visitor making a late morning call upon belinda; but he put his hat down now, and seated himself near the table by which the young lady stood, busy with the arrangement of her workbasket. her heart was beating very fast, and she was straining her arithmetical powers to the uttermost, in the endeavour to make a very abstruse calculation as to the time in which mrs. arundel and letitia could walk to the village schoolhouse and back to dangerfield, and the delay that might arise by reason of sundry interruptions from obsequious gaffers and respectful goodies, eager for a word of friendly salutation from their patroness. the arrangement of the workbasket could not last for ever. it had become the most pitiful pretence by the time miss lawford shut down the wicker lid, and seated herself primly in a low chair by the fireplace. she sat looking down at the fire, and twisting a slender gold chain in and out between her smooth white fingers. she looked very pretty in that fitful firelight, with her waving brown hair pushed off her forehead, and her white eyelids hiding the tender blue eyes. she sat twisting the chain in her fingers, and dared not lift her eyes to mr. arundel's face; and if there had been a whole flock of geese in the room, she could not have said "bo!" to one of them. and yet she was not a stupid girl. her father could have indignantly refuted any such slander as that against the azure-eyed hebe who made his home pleasant to him. to the major's mind belinda was all that man could desire in the woman of his choice, whether as daughter or wife. she was the bright genius of the old man's home, and he loved her with that chivalrous devotion which is common to brave soldiers, who are the simplest and gentlest of men when you chain them to their firesides, and keep them away from the din of the camp and the confusion of the transport-ship. belinda lawford was clever; but only just clever enough to be charming. i don't think she could have got through "paradise lost," or gibbon's "decline and fall," or a volume by adam smith or mcculloch, though you had promised her a diamond necklace when she came conscientiously to "finis." but she could read shakespeare for the hour together, and did read him aloud to her father in a fresh, clear voice, that was like music on the water. and she read macaulay's "history of england," with eyes that kindled with indignation against cowardly, obstinate james, or melted with pity for poor weak foolish monmouth, as the case might be. she could play mendelssohn and beethoven,--plaintive sonatas; tender songs, that had no need of words to expound the mystic meaning of the music. she could sing old ballads and irish melodies, that thrilled the souls of those who heard her, and made hard men pitiful to brazen hibernian beggars in the london streets for the memory of that pensive music. she could read the leaders in the "times," with no false quantities in the latin quotations, and knew what she was reading about; and had her favourites at st. stephen's; and adored lord palmerston, and was liberal to the core of her tender young heart. she was as brave as a true englishwoman should be, and would have gone to the wars with her old father, and served him as his page; or would have followed him into captivity, and tended him in prison, if she had lived in the days when there was such work for a high-spirited girl to do. but she sat opposite mr. edward arundel, and twisted her chain round her fingers, and listened for the footsteps of the returning mistress of the house. she was like a bashful schoolgirl who has danced with an officer at her first ball. and yet amidst her shy confusion, her fears that she should seem agitated and embarrassed, her struggles to appear at her ease, there was a sort of pleasure in being seated there by the low fire with edward arundel opposite to her. there was a strange pleasure, an almost painful pleasure, mingled with her feelings in those quiet moments. she was acutely conscious of every sound that broke the stillness--the sighing of the wind in the wide chimney; the falling of the cinders on the hearth; the occasional snort of one of the sleeping dogs; and the beating of her own restless heart. and though she dared not lift her eyelids to the young soldier's face, that handsome, earnest countenance, with the chestnut hair lit up with gleams of gold, the firm lips shaded by a brown moustache, the pensive smile, the broad white forehead, the dark-blue handkerchief tied loosely under a white collar, the careless grey travelling-dress, even the attitude of the hand and arm, the bent head drooping a little over the fire,--were as present to her inner sight as if her eyes had kept watch all this time, and had never wavered in their steady gaze. there is a second-sight that is not recognised by grave professors of magic--a second-sight which common people call love. but by-and-by edward began to talk, and then miss lawford found courage, and took heart to question him about his wanderings in brittany. she had only been a few weeks in devonshire, she said. her thoughts went back to the dreary autumn in lincolnshire as she spoke; and she remembered the dull october day upon which her father had come into the girl's morning-room at the grange with edward's farewell letter in his hand. she remembered this, and all the talk that there had been about the horsewhipping of mr. paul marchmont upon his own threshold. she remembered all the warm discussions, the speculations, the ignorant conjectures, the praise, the blame; and how it had been her business to sit by and listen and hold her peace, except upon that one never-to-be-forgotten night at the rectory, when paul marchmont had hinted at something whose perfect meaning she had never dared to imagine, but which had, somehow or other, mingled vaguely with all her day-dreams ever since. was there any truth in that which paul marchmont had said to her? was it true that edward arundel had never really loved his young bride? letitia had said as much, not once, but twenty times. "it's quite ridiculous to suppose that he could have ever been in love with the poor, dear, sickly thing," miss arundel had exclaimed; "it was only the absurd romance of the business that captivated him; for edward is really ridiculously romantic, and her father having been a supernumer--(it's no use, i don't think anybody ever did know how many syllables there are in that word)--and having lived in oakley street, and having written a pitiful letter to edward, about this motherless daughter and all that sort of thing, just like one of those tiresome old novels with a baby left at a cottage-door, and all the _s's_ looking like _f's_, and the last word of one page repeated at the top of the next page, and printed upon thick yellow-looking ribbed paper, you know. _that_ was why my brother married miss marchmont, you may depend upon it, linda; and all i hope is, that he'll be sensible enough to marry again soon, and to have a christianlike wedding, with carriages, and a breakfast, and two clergymen; and _i_ should wear white glacé silk, with tulle puffings, and a tulle bonnet (i suppose i must wear a bonnet, being only a bridesmaid?), all showered over with clematis, as if i'd stood under a clematis-bush when the wind was blowing, you know, linda." with such discourse as this miss arundel had frequently entertained her friend; and she had indulged in numerous inuendoes of an embarrassing nature as to the propriety of old friends and schoolfellows being united by the endearing tie of sister-in-lawhood, and other observations to the like effect. belinda knew that if edward ever came to love her,--whenever she did venture to speculate upon such a chance, she never dared to come at all near it, but thought of it as a thing that might come to pass in half a century or so--if he should choose her for his second wife, she knew that she would be gladly and tenderly welcomed at dangerfield. mrs. arundel had hinted as much as this. belinda knew how anxiously that loving mother hoped that her son might, by-and-by, form new ties, and cease to lead a purposeless life, wasting his brightest years in lamentations for his lost bride: she knew all this; and sitting opposite to the young man in the firelight, there was a dull pain at her heart; for there was something in the soldier's sombre face that told her he had not yet ceased to lament that irrevocable past. but mrs. arundel and letitia came in presently, and gave utterance to loud rejoicings; and preparations were made for the physical comfort of the wanderer,--bells were rung, lighted wax-candles and a glittering tea-service were brought in, a cloth was laid, and cold meats and other comestibles spread forth, with that profusion which has made the west country as proverbial as the north for its hospitality. i think miss lawford would have sat opposite the traveller for a week without asking any such commonplace question as to whether mr. arundel required refreshment. she had read in her hort's "pantheon" that the gods sometimes ate and drank like ordinary mortals; yet it had never entered into her mind that edward could be hungry. but she now had the satisfaction of seeing mr. arundel eat a very good dinner; while she herself poured out the tea, to oblige letitia, who was in the middle of the third volume of a new novel, and went on reading it as coolly as if there had been no such person as that handsome young soldier in the world. "the books must go back to the club to-morrow morning, you know, mamma dear, or i wouldn't read at tea-time," the young lady remarked apologetically. "i want to know whether _he'll_ marry theodora or that nasty miss st. ledger. linda thinks he'll marry miss st. ledger, and be miserable, and theodora will die. i believe linda likes love-stories to end unhappily. i don't. i hope if he _does_ marry miss st. ledger--and he'll be a wicked wretch if he does, after the _things_ he has said to theodora--i hope, if he does, she'll die--catch cold at a _déjeuner_ at twickenham, or something of that kind, you know; and then he'll marry theodora afterwards, and all will end happily. do you know, linda, i always fancy that you're like theodora, and that edward's like _him_." after which speech miss arundel went back to her book, and edward helped himself to a slice of tongue rather awkwardly, and belinda lawford, who had her hand upon the urn, suffered the teapot to overflow amongst the cups and saucers. chapter vi. a widower's proposal. for some time after his return edward arundel was very restless and gloomy: roaming about the country by himself, under the influence of a pretended passion for pedestrianism; reading hard for the first time in his life, shutting himself in his dead father's library, and sitting hour after hour in a great easy-chair, reading the histories of all the wars that have ever ravaged this earth--from the days in which the elephants of a carthaginian ruler trampled upon the soldiery of rome, to the era of that corsican barrister's wonderful son, who came out of his simple island home to conquer the civilised half of a world. edward arundel showed himself a very indifferent brother; for, do what she would, letitia could not induce him to join in any of her pursuits. she caused a butt to be set up upon the lawn; but all she could say about belinda's "best gold" could not bring the young man out upon the grass to watch the two girls shooting. he looked at them by stealth sometimes through the window of the library, and sighed as he thought of the blight upon his manhood, and of all the things that might have been. might not these things even yet come to pass? had he not done his duty to the dead; and was he not free now to begin a fresh life? his mother was perpetually hinting at some bright prospect that lay smiling before him, if he chose to take the blossom-bestrewn path that led to that fair country. his sister told him still more plainly of a prize that was within his reach, if he were but brave enough to stretch out his hand and claim the precious treasure for his own. but when he thought of all this,--when he pondered whether it would not be wise to drop the dense curtain of forgetfulness over that sad picture of the past,--whether it would not be well to let the dead bury their dead, and to accept that other blessing which the same providence that had blighted his first hope seemed to offer to him now,--the shadowy phantom of john marchmont arose out of the mystic realms of the dead, and a ghostly voice cried to him, "i charged you with my daughter's safe keeping; i trusted you with her innocent love; i gave you the custody of her helplessness. what have you done to show yourself worthy of my faith in you?" these thoughts tormented the young widower perpetually, and deprived him of all pleasure in the congenial society of his sister and belinda lawford; or infused so sharp a flavour of remorse into his cup of enjoyment, that pleasure was akin to pain. so i don't know how it was that, in the dusky twilight of a bright day in early may, nearly two months after his return to dangerfield, edward arundel, coming by chance upon miss lawford as she sat alone in the deep bay-window where he had found her on his first coming, confessed to her the terrible struggle of feeling that made the great trouble of his life, and asked her if she was willing to accept a love which, in its warmest fervour, was not quite unclouded by the shadows of the sorrowful past. "i love you dearly, linda," he said; "i love, i esteem, i admire you; and i know that it is in your power to give me the happiest future that ever a man imagined in his youngest, brightest dreams. but if you do accept my love, dear, you must take my memory with it. i cannot forget, linda. i have tried to forget. i have prayed that god, in his mercy, might give me forgetfulness of that irrevocable past. but the prayer has never been granted; the boon has never been bestowed. i think that love for the living and remorse for the dead must for ever reign side by side in my heart. it is no falsehood to you that makes me remember her; it is no forgetfulness of her that makes me love you. i offer my brighter and happier self to you, belinda; i consecrate my sorrow and my tears to her. i love you with all my heart, belinda; but even for the sake of your love i will not pretend that i can forget her. if john marchmont's daughter had died with her head upon my breast, and a prayer on her lips, i might have regretted her as other men regret their wives; and i might have learned by-and-by to look back upon my grief with only a tender and natural regret, that would have left my future life unclouded. but it can never be so. the poison of remorse is blended with that sorrowful memory. if i had done otherwise,--if i had been wiser and more thoughtful,--my darling need never have suffered; my darling need never have sinned. it is the thought that her death may have been a sinful one, that is most cruel to me, belinda. i have seen her pray, with her pale earnest face uplifted, and the light of faith shining in her gentle eyes; i have seen the inspiration of god upon her face; and i cannot bear to think that, in the darkness that came down upon her young life, that holy light was quenched; i cannot bear to think that heaven was ever deaf to the pitiful cry of my innocent lamb." and here mr. arundel paused, and sat silently, looking out at the long shadows of the trees upon the darkening lawn; and i fear that, for the time being, he forgot that he had just made miss lawford an offer of his hand, and so much of his heart as a widower may be supposed to have at his disposal. ah me! we can only live and die _once_. there are some things, and those the most beautiful of all things, that can never be renewed: the bloom on a butterfly's wing; the morning dew upon a newly-blown rose; our first view of the ocean; our first pantomime, when all the fairies were fairies for ever, and when the imprudent consumption of the contents of a pewter quart-measure in sight of the stage-box could not disenchant us with that elfin creature, harlequin the graceful, faithful betrothed of columbine the fair. the firstlings of life are most precious. when the black wing of the angel of death swept over agonised egypt, and the children were smitten, offended heaven, eager for a sacrifice, took the firstborn. the young mothers would have other children, perhaps; but between those others and the mother's love there would be the pale shadow of that lost darling whose tiny hands _first_ drew undreamed-of melodies from the sleeping chords, _first_ evoked the slumbering spirit of maternal love. amongst the later lines--the most passionate, the most sorrowful--that george gordon noel byron wrote, are some brief verses that breathed a lament for the lost freshness, the never-to-be-recovered youth. "oh, could i feel as i have felt; or be what i have been; or weep as i could once have wept!" cried the poet, when he complained of that "mortal coldness of the soul," which is "like death itself." it is a pity certainly that so great a man should die in the prime of life; but if byron had survived to old age after writing these lines, he would have been a living anticlimax. when a man writes that sort of poetry he pledges himself to die young. edward arundel had grown to love belinda lawford unconsciously, and in spite of himself; but the first love of his heart, the first fruit of his youth, had perished. he could not feel quite the same devotion, the same boyish chivalry, that he had felt for the innocent bride who had wandered beside him in the sheltered meadows near winchester. he might begin a _new_ life, but he could not live the _old_ life over again. he must wear his rue with a difference this time. but he loved belinda very dearly, nevertheless; and he told her so, and by-and-by won from her a tearful avowal of affection. alas! she had no power to question the manner of his wooing. he loved her--he had said as much; and all the good she had desired in this universe became hers from the moment of edward arundel's utterance of those words. he loved her; that was enough. that he should cherish a remorseful sorrow for that lost wife, made him only the truer, nobler, and dearer in belinda's sight. she was not vain, or exacting, or selfish. it was not in her nature to begrudge poor dead mary the tender thoughts of her husband. she was generous, impulsive, believing; and she had no more inclination to doubt edward's love for her, after he had once avowed such a sentiment, than to disbelieve in the light of heaven when she saw the sun shining. unquestioning, and unutterably happy, she received her lover's betrothal kiss, and went with him to his mother, blushing and trembling, to receive that lady's blessing. "ah, if you knew how i have prayed for this, linda!" mrs. arundel exclaimed, as she folded the girl's slight figure in her arms. "and i shall wear white glacé with pinked flounces, instead of tulle puffings, you sly linda," cried letitia. "and i'll give ted the home-farm, and the white house to live in, if he likes to try his hand at the new system of farming," said reginald arundel, who had come home from the continent, and had amused himself for the last week by strolling about his estate and staring at his timber, and almost wishing that there was a necessity for cutting down all the oaks in the avenue, so that he might have something to occupy him until the th of august. never was promised bride more welcome to a household than bright belinda lawford; and as for the young lady herself, i must confess that she was almost childishly happy, and that it was all that she could do to prevent her light step from falling into a dance as she floated hither and thither through the house at dangerfield,--a fresh young hebe in crisp muslin robes; a gentle goddess, with smiles upon her face and happiness in her heart. "i loved you from the first, edward," she whispered one day to her lover. "i knew that you were good, and brave, and noble; and i loved you because of that." and a little for the golden glimmer in his clustering curls; and a little for his handsome profile, his flashing eyes, and that distinguished air peculiar to the defenders of their country; more especially peculiar, perhaps, to those who ride on horseback when they sally forth to defend her. once a soldier for ever a soldier, i think. you may rob the noble warrior of his uniform, if you will; but the _je ne sais quoi_, the nameless air of the "long-sword, saddle, bridle," will hang round him still. mrs. arundel and letitia took matters quite out of the hands of the two lovers. the elderly lady fixed the wedding-day, by agreement with major lawford, and sketched out the route for the wedding-tour. the younger lady chose the fabrics for the dresses of the bride and her attendants; and all was done before edward and belinda well knew what their friends were about. i think that mrs. arundel feared her son might change his mind if matters were not brought swiftly to a climax, and that she hurried on the irrevocable day in order that he might have no breathing time until the vows had been spoken and belinda lawford was his wedded wife. it had been arranged that edward should escort belinda back to lincolnshire, and that his mother and letitia, who was to be chief bridesmaid, should go with them. the marriage was to be solemnised at hillingsworth church, which was within a mile and a half of the grange. the st of july was the day appointed by agreement between major and mrs. lawford and mrs. arundel; and on the th of june edward was to accompany his mother, letitia, and belinda to london. they were to break the journey by stopping in town for a few days, in order to make a great many purchases necessary for miss lawford's wedding paraphernalia, for which the major had sent a bouncing cheque to his favourite daughter. and all this time the only person at all unsettled, the only person whose mind was ill at ease, was edward arundel, the young widower who was about to take to himself a second wife. his mother, who watched him with a maternal comprehension of every change in his face, saw this, and trembled for her son's happiness. "and yet he cannot be otherwise than happy with belinda lawford," mrs. arundel thought to herself. but upon the eve of that journey to london edward sat alone with his mother in the drawing-room at dangerfield, after the two younger ladies had retired for the night. they slept in adjoining apartments, these two young ladies; and i regret to say that a great deal of their conversation was about valenciennes lace, and flounces cut upon the cross, moire antique, mull muslin, glacé silk, and the last "sweet thing" in bonnets. it was only when loquacious letitia was shut out that miss lawford knelt alone in the still moonlight, and prayed that she might be a good wife to the man who had chosen her. i don't think she ever prayed that she might be faithful and true and pure; for it never entered into her mind that any creature bearing the sacred name of wife could be otherwise. she only prayed for the mysterious power to preserve her husband's affection, and make his life happy. mrs. arundel, sitting _tête-à-tête_ with her younger son in the lamp-lit drawing-room, was startled by hearing the young man breathe a deep sigh. she looked up from her work to see a sadder expression in his face than perhaps ever clouded the countenance of an expectant bridegroom. "edward!" she exclaimed. "what, mother?" "how heavily you sighed just now!" "did i?" said mr. arundel, abstractedly. then, after a brief pause, he said, in a different tone, "it is no use trying to hide these things from you, mother. the truth is, i am not happy." "not happy, edward!" cried mrs. arundel; "but surely you----?" "i know what you are going to say, mother. yes, mother, i love this dear girl linda with all my heart; i love her most sincerely; and i could look forward to a life of unalloyed happiness with her, if--if there was not some inexplicable dread, some vague and most miserable feeling always coming between me and my hopes. i have tried to look forward to the future, mother; i have tried to think of what my life may be with belinda; but i cannot, i cannot. i cannot look forward; all is dark to me. i try to build up a bright palace, and an unknown hand shatters it. i try to turn away from the memory of my old sorrows; but the same hand plucks me back, and chains me to the past. if i could retract what i have done; if i could, with any show of honour, draw back, even now, and not go upon this journey to lincolnshire; if i _could_ break my faith to this poor girl who loves me, and whom i love, as god knows, with all truth and earnestness, i would do so--i would do so." "edward!" "yes, mother; i would do it. it is not in me to forget. my dead wife haunts me by night and day. i hear her voice crying to me, 'false, false, false; cruel and false; heartless and forgetful!' there is never a night that i do not dream of that dark sluggish river down in lincolnshire. there is never a dream that i have--however purposeless, however inconsistent in all its other details--in which i do not see _her_ dead face looking up at me through the murky waters. even when i am talking to linda, when words of love for her are on my lips, my mind wanders away, back--always back--to the sunset by the boat-house, when my little wife gave me her hand; to the trout-stream in the meadow, where we sat side by side and talked about the future." for a few minutes mrs. arundel was quite silent. she abandoned herself for that brief interval to complete despair. it was all over. the bridegroom would cry off; insulted major lawford would come post-haste to dangerfield, to annihilate this dismal widower, who did not know his own mind. all the shimmering fabrics--the gauzes, and laces, and silks, and velvets--that were in course of preparation in the upper chambers would become so much useless finery, to be hidden in out-of-the-way cupboards, and devoured by misanthropical moths,--insect iconoclasts, who take a delight in destroying the decorations of the human temple. poor mrs. arundel took a mental photograph of all the complicated horrors of the situation. an offended father; a gentle, loving girl crushed like some broken lily; gossip, slander; misery of all kinds. and then the lady plucked up courage and gave her recreant son a sound lecture, to the effect that this conduct was atrociously wicked; and that if this trusting young bride, this fair young second wife, were to be taken away from him as the first had been, such a calamity would only be a fitting judgment upon him for his folly. but edward told his mother, very quietly, that he had no intention of being false to his newly-plighted troth. "i love belinda," he said; "and i will be true to her, mother. but i cannot forget the past; it hangs about me like a bad dream." chapter vii. how the tidings were received in lincolnshire. the young widower made no further lamentation, but did his duty to his betrothed bride with a cheerful visage. ah! what a pleasant journey it was to belinda, that progress through london on the way to lincolnshire! it was like that triumphant journey of last march, when the royal bridegroom led his northern bride through a surging sea of eager, smiling faces, to the musical jangling of a thousand bells. if there were neither populace nor joy-bells on this occasion, i scarcely think miss lawford knew that those elements of a triumphal progress were missing. to her ears all the universe was musical with the sound of mystic joy-bells; all the earth was glad with the brightness of happy faces. the railway-carriage,--the commonplace vehicle,--frouzy with the odour of wool and morocco, was a fairy chariot, more wonderful than queen mab's; the white chalk-cutting in the hill was a shining cleft in a mountain of silver; the wandering streams were melted diamonds; the stations were enchanted castles. the pale sherry, carried in a pocket-flask, and sipped out of a little silver tumbler--there is apt to be a warm flatness about sherry taken out of pocket-flasks that is scarcely agreeable to the connoisseur--was like nectar newly brewed for the gods; even the anchovies in the sandwiches were like the enchanted fish in the arabian story. a magical philter had been infused into the atmosphere: the flavour of first love was in every sight and sound. was ever bridegroom more indulgent, more devoted, than edward arundel? he sat at the counters of silk-mercers for the hour together, while mrs. arundel and the two girls deliberated over crisp fabrics unfolded for their inspection. he was always ready to be consulted, and gave his opinion upon the conflicting merits of peach-colour and pink, apple-green and maize, with unwearying attention. but sometimes, even while belinda was smiling at him, with the rippling silken stuff held up in her white hands, and making a lustrous cascade upon the counter, the mystic hand plucked him back, and his mind wandered away to that childish bride who had chosen no splendid garments for her wedding, but had gone with him to the altar as trustfully as a baby goes in its mother's arms to the cradle. if he had been left alone with belinda, with tender, sympathetic belinda,--who loved him well enough to understand him, and was always ready to take her cue from his face, and to be joyous or thoughtful according to his mood,--it might have been better for him. but his mother and letitia reigned paramount during this ante-nuptial week, and mr. arundel was scarcely suffered to take breath. he was hustled hither and thither in the hot summer noontide. he was taken to choose a dressing-case for his bride; and he was made to look at glittering objects until his eyes ached, and he could see nothing but a bewildering dazzle of ormolu and silver-gilt. he was taken to a great emporium in bond street to select perfumery, and made to sniff at divers essences until his nostrils were unnaturally distended, and his olfactory nerves afflicted with temporary paralysis. there was jewellery of his mother and of belinda's mother to be re-set; and the hymeneal victim was compelled to sit for an hour or so, blinking at fiery-crested serpents that were destined to coil up his wife's arms, and emerald padlocks that were to lie upon her breast. and then, when his soul was weary of glaring splendours and glittering confusions, they took him round the park, in a whirlpool of diaphanous bonnets, and smiling faces, and brazen harness, and emblazoned hammer-cloths, on the margin of a river whose waters were like molten gold under the blazing sun. and then they gave him a seat in an opera-box, and the crash of a monster orchestra, blended with the hum of a thousand voices, to soothe his nerves withal. but the more wearied this young man became with glitter, and dazzle, and sunshine, and silk-mercer's ware, the more surely his mind wandered back to the still meadows, and the limpid trout-stream, the sheltering hills, the solemn shadows of the cathedral, the distant voices of the rooks high up in the waving elms. the bustle of preparation was over at last, and the bridal party went down to lincolnshire. pleasant chambers had been prepared at the grange for mr. arundel and his mother and sister; and the bridegroom was received with enthusiasm by belinda's blue-eyed younger sisters, who were enchanted to find that there was going to be a wedding and that they were to have new frocks. so edward would have been a churl indeed had he seemed otherwise than happy, had he been anything but devoted to the bright girl who loved him. tidings of the coming wedding flew like wildfire through lincolnshire. edward arundel's romantic story had elevated him into a hero; all manner of reports had been circulated about his devotion to his lost young wife. he had sworn never to mingle in society again, people said. he had sworn never to have a new suit of clothes, or to have his hair cut, or to shave, or to eat a hot dinner. and lincolnshire by no means approved of the defection implied by his approaching union with belinda. he was only a commonplace widower, after all, it seemed; ready to be consoled as soon as the ceremonious interval of decent grief was over. people had expected something better of him. they had expected to see him in a year or two with long grey hair, dressed in shabby raiment, and, with his beard upon his breast, prowling about the village of kemberling, baited by little children. lincolnshire was very much disappointed by the turn that affairs had taken. shakesperian aphorisms were current among the gossips at comfortable tea-tables; and people talked about funeral baked meats, and the propriety of building churches if you have any ambitious desire that your memory should outlast your life; and indulged in other bitter observations, familiar to all admirers of the great dramatist. but there were some people in lincolnshire to whom the news of edward arundel's intended marriage was more welcome than the early may-flowers to rustic children eager for a festival. paul marchmont heard the report, and rubbed his hands stealthily, and smiled to himself as he sat reading in the sunny western drawing-room. the good seed that he had sown that night at the rectory had borne this welcome fruit. edward arundel with a young wife would be very much less formidable than edward arundel single and discontented, prowling about the neighbourhood of marchmont towers, and perpetually threatening vengeance upon mary's cousin. it was busy little lavinia weston who first brought her brother the tidings. he took both her hands in his, and kissed them in his enthusiasm. "my best of sisters," he said, "you shall have a pair of diamond earrings for this." "for only bringing you the news, paul?" "for only bringing me the news. when a messenger carries the tidings of a great victory to his king, the king makes him a knight upon the spot. this marriage is a victory to me, lavinia. from to-day i shall breathe freely." "but they are not married yet. something may happen, perhaps, to prevent----" "what should happen?" asked paul, rather sharply. "by-the-bye, it will be as well to keep this from mrs. john," he added, thoughtfully; "though really now i fancy it matters very little what she hears." he tapped his forehead lightly with his two slim fingers, and there was a horrible significance in the action. "she is not likely to hear anything," mrs. weston said; "she sees no one but barbara simmons." "then i should be glad if you would give simmons a hint to hold her tongue. this news about the wedding would disturb her mistress." "yes, i'll tell her so. barbara is a very excellent person. i can always manage barbara. but oh, paul, i don't know what i'm to do with that poor weak-witted husband of mine." "how do you mean?" "oh, paul, i have had such a scene with him to-day--such a scene! you remember the way he went on that day down in the boat-house when edward arundel came in upon us unexpectedly? well, he's been going on as badly as that to-day, paul,--or worse, i really think." mr. marchmont frowned, and flung aside his newspaper, with a gesture expressive of considerable vexation. "now really, lavinia, this is too bad," he said; "if your husband is a fool, i am not going to be bored about his folly. you have managed him for fifteen years: surely you can go on managing him now without annoying _me_ about him? if mr. george weston doesn't know when he's well off, he's an ungrateful cur, and you may tell him so, with my compliments." he picked up his newspaper again, and began to read. but lavinia weston, looking anxiously at her brother's face, saw that his pale auburn brows were contracted in a thoughtful frown, and that, if he read at all, the words upon which his eyes rested could convey very little meaning to his brain. she was right; for presently he spoke to her, still looking at the page before him, and with an attempt at carelessness. "do you think that fellow would go to australia, lavinia?" "alone?" asked his sister. "yes, alone of course," said mr. marchmont, putting down his paper, and looking at mrs. weston rather dubiously. "i don't want you to go to the antipodes; but if--if the fellow refused to go without you, i'd make it well worth your while to go out there, lavinia. you shouldn't have any reason to regret obliging me, my dear girl." the dear girl looked rather sharply at her affectionate brother. "it's like your selfishness, paul, to propose such a thing," she said, "after all i've done----!" "i have not been illiberal to you, lavinia." "no; you've been generous enough to me, i know, in the matter of gifts; but you're rich, paul, and you can afford to give. i don't like the idea that you're so willing to pack me out of the way now that i can be no longer useful to you." mr. marchmont shrugged his shoulders. "for heaven's sake, lavinia, don't be sentimental. if there's one thing i despise more than another, it is this kind of mawkish sentimentality. you've been a very good sister to me; and i've been a very decent brother to you. if you have served me, i have made it answer your purpose to do so. i don't want you to go away. you may bring all your goods and chattels to this house to-morrow, if you like, and live at free quarters here for the rest of your existence. but if george weston is a pig-headed brute, who can't understand upon which side his bread is buttered, he must be got out of the way somehow. i don't care what it costs me; but he must be got out of the way. i'm not going to live the life of a modern damocles, with a blundering sword always dangling over my head, in the person of mr. george weston. and if the man objects to leave the country without you, why, i think your going with him would be only a sisterly act towards me. i hate selfishness, lavinia, almost as much as i detest sentimentality." mrs. weston was silent for some minutes, absorbed in reflection. paul got up, kicked aside a footstool, and walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets. "perhaps i might get george to leave england, if i promised to join him as soon as he was comfortably settled in the colonies," mrs. weston said, at last. "yes," cried paul; "nothing could be more easy. i'll act very liberally towards him, lavinia; i'll treat him well; but he shall not stay in england. no, lavinia; after what you have told me to-day, i feel that he must be got out of the country." mr. marchmont went to the door and looked out, to see if by chance any one had been listening to him. the coast was quite clear. the stone-paved hall looked as desolate as some undiscovered chamber in an egyptian temple. the artist went back to lavinia, and seated himself by her side. for some time the brother and sister talked together earnestly. they settled everything for poor henpecked george weston. he was to sail for sydney immediately. nothing could be more easy than for lavinia to declare that her brother had accidentally heard of some grand opening for a medical practitioner in the metropolis of the antipodes. the surgeon was to have a very handsome sum given him, and lavinia would _of course_ join him as soon as he was settled. paul marchmont even looked through the "shipping gazette" in search of an australian vessel which should speedily convey his brother-in-law to a distant shore. lavinia weston went home armed with all necessary credentials. she was to promise almost anything to her husband, provided that he gave his consent to an early departure. chapter viii. mr. weston refuses to be trampled upon. upon the st of june, the eve of edward arundel's wedding-day, olivia marchmont sat in her own room,--the room that she had chiefly occupied ever since her husband's death,--the study looking out into the quadrangle. she sat alone in that dismal chamber, dimly lighted by a pair of wax-candles, in tall tarnished silver candlesticks. there could be no greater contrast than that between this desolate woman and the master of the house. all about him was bright and fresh, and glittering and splendid; around her there was only ruin and decay, thickening dust and gathering cobwebs,--outward evidences of an inner wreck. john marchmont's widow was of no importance in that household. the servants did not care to trouble themselves about her whims or wishes, nor to put her rooms in order. they no longer curtseyed to her when they met her, wandering--with a purposeless step and listless feet that dragged along the ground--up and down the corridor, or out in the dreary quadrangle. what was to be gained by any show of respect to her, whose brain was too weak to hold the memory of their conduct for five minutes together? barbara simmons only was faithful to her mistress with an unvarying fidelity. she made no boast of her devotion; she expected neither fee nor reward for her self-abnegation. that rigid religion of discipline which had not been strong enough to preserve olivia's stormy soul from danger and ruin was at least all-sufficient for this lower type of woman. barbara simmons had been taught to do her duty, and she did it without question or complaint. as she went through rain, snow, hail, or sunshine twice every sunday to kemberling church,--as she sat upon a cushionless seat in an uncomfortable angle of the servants' pew, with the sharp edges of the woodwork cutting her thin shoulders, to listen patiently to dull rambling sermons upon the hardest texts of st. paul,--so she attended upon her mistress, submitting to every caprice, putting up with every hardship; because it was her duty so to do. the only relief she allowed herself was an hour's gossip now and then in the housekeeper's room; but she never alluded to her mistress's infirmities, nor would it have been safe for any other servant to have spoken lightly of mrs. john marchmont in stern barbara's presence. upon this summer evening, when happy people were still lingering amongst the wild flowers in shady lanes, or in the dusky pathways by the quiet river, olivia sat alone, staring at the candles. was there anything in her mind; or was she only a human automaton, slowly decaying into dust? there was no speculation in those large lustreless eyes, fixed upon the dim light of the candles. but, for all that, the mind was not a blank. the pictures of the past, for ever changing like the scenes in some magic panorama, revolved before her. she had no memory of that which had happened a quarter of an hour ago; but she could remember every word that edward arundel had said to her in the rectory-garden at swampington,--every intonation of the voice in which those words had been spoken. there was a tea-service on the table: an attenuated little silver teapot; a lopsided cream-jug, with thin worn edges and one dumpy little foot missing; and an antique dragon china cup and saucer with the gilding washed off. that meal, which is generally called social, has but a dismal aspect when it is only prepared for one. the solitary teacup, half filled with cold, stagnant tea, with a leaf or two floating upon the top, like weeds on the surface of a tideless pond; the teaspoon, thrown askew across a little pool of spilt milk in the tea-tray,--looked as dreary as the ruins of a deserted city. in the western drawing-room paul was strolling backwards and forwards, talking to his mother and sisters, and admiring his pictures. he had spent a great deal of money upon art since taking possession of the towers, and the western drawing-room was quite a different place to what it had been in john marchmont's lifetime. etty's divinities smiled through hazy draperies, more transparent than the summer vapours that float before the moon. pearly-complexioned nymphs, with faces archly peeping round the corner of soft rosy shoulders, frolicked amidst the silver spray of classic fountains. turner's grecian temples glimmered through sultry summer mists; while glimpses of ocean sparkled here and there, and were as beautiful as if the artist's brush had been dipped in melted opals. stanfield's breezy beaches made cool spots of freshness on the wall, and sturdy sailor-boys, with their hands up to their mouths and their loose hair blowing in the wind, shouted to their comrades upon the decks of brown-sailed fishing-smacks. panting deer upon dizzy crags, amid the misty highlands, testified to the hand of landseer. low down, in the corners of the room, there lurked quaint cottage-scenes by faed and nichol. ward's patched and powdered beaux and beauties,--a rochester, in a light perriwig; a nell gwynne, showing her white teeth across a basket of oranges; a group of _incroyables_, with bunches of ribbons hanging from their low topboots, and two sets of dangling seals at their waists--made a blaze of colour upon the walls: and amongst all these glories of to-day there were prim madonnas and stiff-necked angels by raphael and tintoretto; a brown-faced grinning boy by murillo (no collection ever was complete without that inevitable brown-faced boy); an obese venus, by the great peter paul; and a pale charles the first, with martyrdom foreshadowed in his pensive face, by vandyke. paul marchmont contemplated his treasures complacently, as he strolled about the room, with his coffee-cup in his hand; while his mother watched him admiringly from her comfortable cushioned nest at one end of a luxurious sofa. "well, mother," mr. marchmont said presently, "let people say what they may of me, they can never say that i have used my money badly. when i am dead and gone, these pictures will remain to speak for me; posterity will say, 'at any rate the fellow was a man of taste.' now what, in heaven's name, could that miserable little mary have done with eleven thousand a year, if--if she had lived to enjoy it?" * * * * * the minute-hand of the little clock in mrs. john marchmont's study was creeping slowly towards the quarter before eleven, when olivia was aroused suddenly from that long reverie, in which the images of the past had shone upon her across the dull stagnation of the present like the domes and minarets in a phantasm city gleaming athwart the barren desert-sands. she was aroused by a cautious tap upon the outside of her window. she got up, opened the window, and looked out. the night was dark and starless, and there was a faint whisper of wind among the trees. "don't be frightened," whispered a timid voice; "it's only me, george weston. i want to talk to you, mrs. john. i've got something particular to tell you--awful particular; but _they_ mustn't hear it; _they_ mustn't know i'm here. i came round this way on purpose. you can let me in at the little door in the lobby, can't you, mrs. john? i tell you, i must tell you what i've got to tell you," cried mr. weston, indifferent to tautology in his excitement. "do let me in, there's a dear good soul. the little door in the lobby, you know; it's locked, you know, but i dessay the key's there." "the door in the lobby?" repeated olivia, in a dreamy voice. "yes, _you_ know. do let me in now, that's a good creature. it's awful particular, i tell you. it's about edward arundel." edward arundel! the sound of that name seemed to act upon the woman's shattered nerves like a stroke of electricity. the drooping head reared itself erect. the eyes, so lustreless before, flashed fire from their sombre depths. comprehension, animation, energy returned; as suddenly as if the wand of an enchanter had summoned the dead back to life. "edward arundel!" she cried, in a clear voice, which was utterly unlike the dull deadness of her usual tones. "hush," whispered mr. weston; "don't speak loud, for goodness gracious sake. i dessay there's all manner of spies about. let me in, and i'll tell you everything." "yes, yes; i'll let you in. the door by the lobby--i understand; come, come." olivia disappeared from the window. the lobby of which the surgeon had spoken was close to her own apartment. she found the key in the lock of the door. the place was dark; she opened the door almost noiselessly, and mr. weston crept in on tiptoe. he followed olivia into the study, closed the door behind him, and drew a long breath. "i've got in," he said; "and now i am in, wild horses shouldn't hold me from speaking my mind, much less paul marchmont." he turned the key in the door as he spoke, and even as he did so glanced rather suspiciously towards the window. to his mind the very atmosphere of that house was pervaded by the presence of his brother-in-law. "o mrs. john!" exclaimed the surgeon, in piteous accents, "the way that i've been trampled upon. _you've_ been trampled upon, mrs. john, but you don't seem to mind it; and perhaps it's better to bring oneself to that, if one can; but i can't. i've tried to bring myself to it; i've even taken to drinking, mrs. john, much as it goes against me; and i've tried to drown my feelings as a man in rum-and-water. but the more spirits i consume, mrs. john, the more of a man i feel." mr. weston struck the top of his hat with his clenched fist, and stared fiercely at olivia, breathing very hard, and breathing rum-and-water with a faint odour of lemon-peel. "edward arundel!--what about edward arundel?" said olivia, in a low eager voice. "i'm coming to that, mrs. john, in due c'course," returned mr. weston, with an air of dignity that was superior even to hiccough. "what i say, mrs. john," he added, in a confidential and argumentative tone, "is this: _i won't be trampled upon!_" here his voice sank to an awful whisper. "of course it's pleasant enough to have one's rent provided for, and not to be kept awake by poor's-rates, mrs. john; but, good gracious me! i'd rather have the queen's taxes and the poor-rates following me up day and night, and a man in possession to provide for at every meal--and you don't know how contemptuous a man in possession can look at you if you offer him salt butter, or your table in a general way don't meet his views--than the conscience i've had since paul marchmont came into lincolnshire. i feel, mrs. john, as if i'd committed oceans of murders. it's a miracle to me that my hair hasn't turned white before this; and it would have done it, mrs. j., if it wasn't of that stubborn nature which is too wiry to give expression to a man's sufferings. o mrs. john, when i think how my pangs of conscience have been made game of,--when i remember the insulting names i have been called, because my heart didn't happen to be made of adamant,--my blood boils; it boils, mrs. john, to that degree, that i feel the time has come for action. i have been put upon until the spirit of manliness within me blazes up like a fiery furnace. i have been trodden upon, mrs. john; but i'm not the worm they took me for. to-day they've put the finisher upon it." the surgeon paused to take breath. his mild and rather sheep-like countenance was flushed; his fluffy eyebrows twitched convulsively in his endeavours to give expression to the violence of his feelings. "to-day they've put the finisher upon it," he repeated. "i'm to go to australia, am i? ha! ha! we'll see about that. there's a nice opening in the medical line, is there? and dear paul will provide the funds to start me! ha! ha! two can play at that game. it's all brotherly kindness, of course, and friendly interest in my welfare--that's what it's _called_, mrs. j. shall i tell you what it _is_? i'm to be got rid of, at any price, for fear my conscience should get the better of me, and i should speak. i've been made a tool of, and i've been trampled upon; but they've been _obliged_ to trust me. i've got a conscience, and i don't suit their views. if i hadn't got a conscience, i might stop here and have my rent and taxes provided for, and riot in rum-and-water to the end of my days. but i've a conscience that all the pineapple rum in jamaica wouldn't drown, and they're frightened of me." olivia listened to all this with an impatient frown upon her face. i doubt if she knew the meaning of mr. weston's complaints. she had been listening only for the one name that had power to transform her from a breathing automaton into a living, thinking, reasoning woman. she grasped the surgeon's wrist fiercely. "you told me you came here to speak about edward arundel," she said. "have you been only trying to make a fool of me." "no, mrs. john; i have come to speak about him, and i come to you, because i think you're not so bad as paul marchmont. i think that you've been a tool, like myself; and they've led you on, step by step, from bad to worse, pretty much as they have led me. you're edward arundel's blood-relation, and it's your business to look to any wrong that's done him, more than it is mine. but if you don't speak, mrs. john, i will. edward arundel is going to be married." "going to be married!" the words burst from olivia's lips in a kind of shriek, and she stood glaring hideously at the surgeon, with her lips apart and her eyes dilated. mr. weston was fascinated by the horror of that gaze, and stared at her in silence for some moments. "you are a madman!" she exclaimed, after a pause; "you are a madman! why do you come here with your idiotic fancies? surely my life is miserable enough without this!" "i ain't mad, mrs. john, any more than"--mr. weston was going to say, "than you are;" but it struck him that, under existing circumstances, the comparison might be ill-advised--"i ain't any madder than other people," he said, presently. "edward arundel is going to be married. i have seen the young lady in kemberling with her pa; and she's a very sweet young woman to look at; and her name is belinda lawford; and the wedding is to be at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning at hillingsworth church." olivia slowly lifted her hands to her head, and swept the loose hair away from her brow. all the mists that had obscured her brain melted slowly away, and showed her the past as it had really been in all its naked horror. yes; step by step the cruel hand had urged her on from bad to worse; from bad to worse; until it had driven her _here_. it was for _this_ that she had sold her soul to the powers of hell. it was for _this_ that she had helped to torture that innocent girl whom a dying father had given into her pitiless hand. for this! for this! to find at last that all her iniquity had been wasted, and that edward arundel had chosen another bride--fairer, perhaps, than the first. the mad, unholy jealousy of her nature awoke from the obscurity of mental decay, a fierce ungovernable spirit. but another spirit arose in the next moment. conscience, which so long had slumbered, awoke and cried to her, in an awful voice, "sinner, whose sin has been wasted, repent! restore! it is not yet too late." the stern precepts of her religion came back to her. she had rebelled against those rigid laws, she had cast off those iron fetters, only to fall into a worse bondage; only to submit to a stronger tyranny. she had been a servant of the god of sacrifice, and had rebelled when an offering was demanded of her. she had cast off the yoke of her master, and had yielded herself up the slave of sin. and now, when she discovered whither her chains had dragged her, she was seized with a sudden panic, and wanted to go back to her old master. she stood for some minutes with her open palms pressed upon her forehead, and her chest heaving as if a stormy sea had raged in her bosom. "this marriage must not take place," she cried, at last. "of course it mustn't," answered mr. weston; "didn't i say so just now? and if you don't speak to paul and prevent it, i will. i'd rather you spoke to him, though," added the surgeon thoughtfully, "because, you see, it would come better from you, wouldn't it now?" olivia marchmont did not answer. her hands had dropped from her head, and she was standing looking at the floor. "there shall be no marriage," she muttered, with a wild laugh. "there's another heart to be broken--that's all. stand aside, man," she cried; "stand aside, and let me go to _him_; let me go to him." she pushed the terrified surgeon out of her pathway, and locked the door, hurried along the passage and across the hall. she opened the door of the western drawing-room, and went in. mr. weston stood in the corridor looking after her. he waited for a few minutes, listening for any sound that might come from the western drawing-room. but the wide stone hall was between him and that apartment; and however loudly the voices might have been uplifted, no breath of them could have reached the surgeon's ear. he waited for about five minutes, and then crept into the lobby and let himself out into the quadrangle. "at any rate, nobody can say that i'm a coward," he thought complacently, as he went under a stone archway that led into the park. "but what a whirlwind that woman is! o my gracious, what a perfect whirlwind she is!" chapter ix. "going to be married!" paul marchmont was still strolling hither and thither about the room, admiring his pictures, and smiling to himself at the recollection of the easy manner in which he had obtained george weston's consent to the australian arrangement. for in his sober moments the surgeon was ready to submit to anything his wife and brother-in-law imposed upon him; it was only under the influence of pineapple rum that his manhood asserted itself. paul was still contemplating his pictures when olivia burst into the room; but mrs. marchmont and her invalid daughter had retired for the night, and the artist was alone,--alone with his own thoughts, which were rather of a triumphal and agreeable character just now; for edward's marriage and mr. weston's departure were equally pleasant to him. he was startled a little by olivia's abrupt entrance, for it was not her habit to intrude upon him or any member of that household; on the contrary, she had shown an obstinate determination to shut herself up in her own room, and to avoid every living creature except her servant barbara simmons. paul turned and confronted her very deliberately, and with the smile that was almost habitual to him upon his thin pale lips. her sudden appearance had blanched his face a little; but beyond this he betrayed no sign of agitation. "my dear mrs. marchmont, you quite startle me. it is so very unusual to see you here, and at this hour especially." it did not seem as if she had heard his voice. she went sternly up to him, with her thin listless arms hanging at her side, and her haggard eyes fixed upon his face. "is this true?" she asked. he started a little, in spite of himself; for he understood in a moment what she meant. some one, it scarcely mattered who, had told her of the coming marriage. "is what true, my dear mrs. john?" he said carelessly. "is this true that george weston tells me?" she cried, laying her thin hand upon his shoulder. her wasted fingers closed involuntarily upon the collar of his coat, her lips contracted into a ghastly smile, and a sudden fire kindled in her eyes. a strange sensation awoke in the tips of those tightening fingers, and thrilled through every vein of the woman's body,--such a horrible thrill as vibrates along the nerves of a monomaniac, when the sight of a dreadful terror in his victim's face first arouses the murderous impulse in his breast. paul's face whitened as he felt the thin finger-points tightening upon his neck. he was afraid of olivia. "my dear mrs. john, what is it you want of me?" he said hastily. "pray do not be violent." "i am not violent." she dropped her hand from his breast. it was true, she was not violent. her voice was low; her hand fell loosely by her side. but paul was frightened of her, nevertheless; for he saw that if she was not violent, she was something worse--she was dangerous. "did george weston tell me the truth just now?" she said. paul bit his nether-lip savagely. george weston had tricked him, then, after all, and had communicated with this woman. but what of that? she would scarcely be likely to trouble herself about this business of edward arundel's marriage. she must be past any such folly as that. she would not dare to interfere in the matter. she could not. "is it true?" she said; "_is_ it? is it true that edward arundel is going to be married to-morrow?" she waited, looking with fixed, widely-opened eyes at paul's face. "my dear mrs. john, you take me so completely by surprise, that i----" "that you have not got a lying answer ready for me," said olivia, interrupting him. "you need not trouble yourself to invent one. i see that george weston told me the truth. there was reality in his words. there is nothing but falsehood in yours." paul stood looking at her, but not listening to her. let her abuse and upbraid him to her heart's content; it gave him leisure to reflect, and plan his course of action; and perhaps these bitter words might exhaust the fire within her, and leave her malleable to his skilful hands once more. he had time to think this, and to settle his own line of conduct while olivia was speaking to him. it was useless to deny the marriage. she had heard of it from george weston, and she might hear of it from any one else whom she chose to interrogate. it was useless to try to stifle this fact. "yes, mrs. john," he said, "it is quite true. your cousin, mr. arundel, is going to marry belinda lawford; a very lucky thing for us, believe me, as it will put an end to all questioning and watching and suspicion, and place us beyond all danger." olivia looked at him, with her bosom heaving, her breath growing shorter and louder with every word he spoke. "you mean to let this be, then?" she said, when he had finished speaking. "to let what be?" "this marriage. you will let it take place?" "most certainly. why should i prevent it?" "why should you prevent it?" she cried fiercely; and then, in an altered voice, in tones of anguish that were like a wail of despair, she exclaimed, "o my god! my god! what a dupe i have been; what a miserable tool in this man's hands! o my offended god! why didst thou so abandon me, when i turned away from thee, and made edward arundel the idol of my wicked heart?" paul sank into the nearest chair, with a faint sigh of relief. "she will wear herself out," he thought, "and then i shall be able to do what i like with her." but olivia turned to him again while he was thinking this. "do you imagine that _i_ will let this marriage take place?" she asked. "i do not think that you will be so mad as to prevent it. that little mystery which you and i have arranged between us is not exactly child's play, mrs. john. we can neither of us afford to betray the other. let edward arundel marry, and work for his wife, and be happy; nothing could be better for us than his marriage. indeed, we have every reason to be thankful to providence for the turn that affairs have taken," mr. marchmont concluded, piously. "indeed!" said olivia; "and edward arundel is to have another bride. he is to be happy with another wife; and i am to hear of their happiness, to see him some day, perhaps, sitting by her side and smiling at her, as i have seen him smile at mary marchmont. he is to be happy, and i am to know of his happiness. another baby-faced girl is to glory in the knowledge of his love; and i am to be quiet--i am to be quiet. is it for this that i have sold my soul to you, paul marchmont? is it for this i have shared your guilty secrets? is it for this i have heard _her_ feeble wailing sounding in my wretched feverish slumbers, as i have heard it every night, since the day she left this house? do you remember what you said to me? do you remember _how_ you tempted me? do you remember how you played upon my misery, and traded on the tortures of my jealous heart? 'he has despised your love,' you said: 'will you consent to see him happy with another woman?' that was your argument, paul marchmont. you allied yourself with the devil that held possession of my breast, and together you were too strong for me. i was set apart to be damned, and you were the chosen instrument of my damnation. you bought my soul, paul marchmont. you shall not cheat me of the price for which i sold it. you shall hinder this marriage!" "you are a madwoman, mrs. john marchmont, or you would not propose any such thing." "go," she said, pointing to the door; "go to edward arundel, and do something, no matter what, to prevent this marriage." "i shall do nothing of the kind." he had heard that a monomaniac was always to be subdued by indomitable resolution, and he looked at olivia, thinking to tame her by his unfaltering glance. he might as well have tried to look the raging sea into calmness. "i am not a fool, mrs. john marchmont," he said, "and i shall do nothing of the kind." he had risen, and stood by the lamp-lit table, trifling rather nervously with its elegant litter of delicately-bound books, jewel-handled paper-knives, newly-cut periodicals, and pretty fantastical toys collected by the women of the household. the faces of the two were nearly upon a level as they stood opposite to each other, with only the table between them. "then _i_ will prevent it!" olivia cried, turning towards the door. paul marchmont saw the resolution stamped upon her face. she would do what she threatened. he ran to the door and had his hand upon the lock before she could reach it. "no, mrs. john," he said, standing at the door, with his back turned to olivia, and his fingers busy with the bolts and key. in spite of himself, this woman had made him a little nervous, and it was as much as he could do to find the handle of the key. "no, no, my dear mrs. john; you shall not leave this house, nor this room, in your present state of mind. if you choose to be violent and unmanageable, we will give you the full benefit of your violence, and we will give you a better sphere of action. a padded room will be more suitable to your present temper, my dear madam. if you favour us with this sort of conduct, we will find people more fitted to restrain you." he said all this in a sneering tone that had a trifling tremulousness in it, while he locked the door and assured himself that it was safely secured. then he turned, prepared to fight out the battle somehow or other. at the very moment of his turning there was a sudden crash, a shiver of broken glass, and the cold night-wind blew into the room. one of the long french windows was wide open, and olivia marchmont was gone. he was out upon the terrace in the next moment; but even then he was too late, for he could not see her right or left of him upon the long stone platform. there were three separate flights of steps, three different paths, widely diverging across the broad grassy flat before marchmont towers. how could he tell which of these ways olivia might have chosen? there was the great porch, and there were all manner of stone abutments along the grim façade of the house. she might have concealed herself behind any one of them. the night was hopelessly dark. a pair of ponderous bronze lamps, which paul had placed before the principal doorway, only made two spots of light in the gloom. he ran along the terrace, looking into every nook and corner which might have served as a hiding-place; but he did not find olivia. she had left the house with the avowed intention of doing something to prevent the marriage. what would she do? what course would this desperate woman take in her jealous rage? would she go straight to edward arundel and tell him----? yes, this was most likely; for how else could she hope to prevent the marriage? paul stood quite still upon the terrace for a few minutes, thinking. there was only one course for him. to try and find olivia would be next to hopeless. there were half-a-dozen outlets from the park. there were ever so many different pathways through the woody labyrinth at the back of the towers. this woman might have taken any one of them. to waste the night in searching for her would be worse than useless. there was only one thing to be done. he must countercheck this desperate creature's movements. he went back to the drawing-room, shut the window, and then rang the bell. there were not many of the old servants who had waited upon john marchmont at the towers now. the man who answered the bell was a person whom paul had brought down from london. "get the chesnut saddled for me, peterson," said mr. marchmont. "my poor cousin's widow has left the house, and i am going after her. she has given me very great alarm to-night by her conduct. i tell you this in confidence; but you can say as much to mrs. simmons, who knows more about her mistress than i do. see that there's no time lost in saddling the chesnut. i want to overtake this unhappy woman, if i can. go and give the order, and then bring me my hat." the man went away to obey his master. paul walked to the chimneypiece and looked at the clock. "they'll be gone to bed at the grange," he thought to himself. "will she go there and knock them up, i wonder? does she know that edward's there? i doubt that; and yet weston may have told her. at any rate, i can be there before her. it would take her a long time to get there on foot. i think i did the right thing in saying what i said to peterson. i must have the report of her madness spread everywhere. i must face it out. but how--but how? so long as she was quiet, i could manage everything. but with her against me, and george weston--oh, the cur, the white-hearted villain, after all that i've done for him and lavinia! but what can a man expect when he's obliged to put his trust in a fool?" he went to the window, and stood there looking out until he saw the groom coming along the gravel roadway below the terrace, leading a horse by the bridle. then he put on the hat that the servant had brought him, ran down the steps, and got into the saddle. "all right, jeffreys," he said; "tell them not to expect me back till to-morrow morning. let mrs. simmons sit up for her mistress. mrs. john may return at any hour in the night." he galloped away along the smooth carriage-drive. at the lodge he stopped to inquire if any one had been through that way. no, the woman said; she had opened the gates for no one. paul had expected no other answer. there was a footpath that led to a little wicket-gate opening on the high-road; and of course olivia had chosen that way, which was a good deal shorter than the carriage-drive. chapter x. the turning of the tide. it was past two o'clock in the morning of the day which had been appointed for edward arundel's wedding, when paul marchmont drew rein before the white gate that divided major lawford's garden from the high-road. there was no lodge, no pretence of grandeur here. an old-fashioned garden surrounded an old-fashioned red-brick house. there was an apple-orchard upon one side of the low white gate, and a flower-garden, with a lawn and fish-pond, upon the other. the carriage-drive wound sharply round to a shallow flight of steps, and a broad door with a narrow window upon each side of it. paul got off his horse at the gate, and went in, leading the animal by the bridle. he was a cockney, heart and soul, and had no sense of any enjoyments that were not of a cockney nature. so the horse he had selected for himself was anything but a fiery creature. he liked plenty of bone and very little blood in the steed he rode, and was contented to go at a comfortable, jog-trot, seven-miles-an-hour pace, along the wretched country roads. there was a row of old-fashioned wooden posts, with iron chains swinging between them, upon both sides of the doorway. paul fastened the horse's bridle to one of these, and went up the steps. he rang a bell that went clanging and jangling through the house in the stillness of the summer night. all the way along the road he had looked right and left, expecting to pass olivia; but he had seen no sign of her. this was nothing, however; for there were byways by which she might come from marchmont towers to lawford grange. "i must be before her, at any rate," paul thought to himself, as he waited patiently for an answer to his summons. the time seemed very long to him, of course; but at last he saw a light glimmering through the mansion windows, and heard a shuffling foot in the hall. then the door was opened very cautiously, and a woman's scared face peered out at mr. marchmont through the opening. "what is it?" the woman asked, in a frightened voice. "it is i, mr. marchmont, of marchmont towers. your master knows me. mr. arundel is here, is he not?" "yes, and mrs. arundel too; but they're all abed." "never mind that; i must see major lawford immediately." "but they're all abed." "never mind that, my good woman; i tell you i must see him." "but won't to-morrow mornin' do? it's near three o'clock, and to-morrow's our eldest miss's weddin'-day; and they're all abed." "i _must_ see your master. for mercy's sake, my good woman, do what i tell you! go and call up major lawford,--you can do it quietly,--and tell him i must speak to him at once." the woman, with the chain of the door still between her and mr. marchmont, took a timid survey of paul's face. she had heard of him often enough, but had never seen him before, and she was rather doubtful as to his identity. she knew that thieves and robbers resorted to all sorts of tricks in the course of their evil vocation. mightn't this application for admittance in the dead of the night be only a part of some burglarious plot against the spoons and forks, and that hereditary silver urn with lions' heads holding rings in their mouths for handles, the fame of which had no doubt circulated throughout all lincolnshire? mr. marchmont had neither a black mask nor a dark-lantern, and to martha philpot's mind these were essential attributes of the legitimate burglar; but he might be burglariously disposed, nevertheless, and it would be well to be on the safe side. "i'll go and tell 'em," the discreet martha said civilly; "but perhaps you won't mind my leaving the chain oop. it ain't like as if it was winter," she added apologetically. "you may shut the door, if you like," answered paul; "only be quick and wake your master. you can tell him that i want to see him upon a matter of life and death." martha hurried away, and paul stood upon the broad stone steps waiting for her return. every moment was precious to him, for he wanted to be beforehand with olivia. he had no thought except that she would come straight to the grange to see edward arundel; unless, indeed, she was by any chance ignorant of his whereabouts. presently the light appeared again in the narrow windows, and this time a man's foot sounded upon the stone-flagged hall. this time, too, martha let down the chain, and opened the door wide enough for mr. marchmont to enter. she had no fear of burglarious marauders now that the valiant major was at her elbow. "mr. marchmont," exclaimed the old soldier, opening a door leading into a little study, "you will excuse me if i seem rather bewildered by your visit. when an old fellow like me is called up in the middle of the night, he can't be expected to have his wits about him just at first. (martha, bring us a light.) sit down, mr. marchmont; there's a chair at your elbow. and now may i ask the reason----?" "the reason i have disturbed you in this abrupt manner. the occasion that brings me here is a very painful one; but i believe that my coming may save you and yours from much annoyance." "save us from annoyance! really, my dear sir, you----" "i mystify you for the moment, no doubt," paul interposed blandly; "but if you will have a little patience with me, major lawford, i think i can make everything very clear,--only too painfully clear. you have heard of my relative, mrs. john marchmont,--my cousin's widow?" "i have," answered the major, gravely. the dark scandals that had been current about wretched olivia marchmont came into his mind with the mention of her name, and the memory of those miserable slanders overshadowed his frank face. paul waited while martha brought in a smoky lamp, with the half-lighted wick sputtering and struggling in its oily socket. then he went on, in a calm, dispassionate voice, which seemed the voice of a benevolent christian, sublimely remote from other people's sorrows, but tenderly pitiful of suffering humanity, nevertheless. "you have heard of my unhappy cousin. you have no doubt heard that she is--mad?" he dropped his voice into so low a whisper, that he only seemed to shape this last word with his thin flexible lips. "i have heard some rumour to that effect," the major answered; "that is to say, i have heard that mrs. john marchmont has lately become eccentric in her habits." "it has been my dismal task to watch the slow decay of a very powerful intellect," continued paul. "when i first came to marchmont towers, about the time of my cousin mary's unfortunate elopement with mr. arundel, that mental decay had already set in. already the compass of olivia marchmont's mind had become reduced to a monotone, and the one dominant thought was doing its ruinous work. it was my fate to find the clue to that sad decay; it was my fate very speedily to discover the nature of that all-absorbing thought which, little by little, had grown into monomania." major lawford stared at his visitor's face. he was a plain-spoken man, and could scarcely see his way clearly through all this obscurity of fine words. "you mean to say you found out what had driven your cousin's widow mad?" he said bluntly. "you put the question very plainly, major lawford. yes; i discovered the secret of my unhappy relative's morbid state of mind. that secret lies in the fact, that for the last ten years olivia marchmont has cherished a hopeless affection for her cousin, mr. edward arundel." the major almost bounded off his chair in horrified surprise. "good gracious!" he exclaimed; "you surprise me, mr. marchmont, and--and--rather unpleasantly." "i should never have revealed this secret to you or to any other living creature, major lawford, had not circumstances compelled me to do so. as far as mr. arundel is concerned, i can set your mind quite at ease. he has chosen to insult me very grossly; but let that pass. i must do him the justice to state that i believe him to have been from first to last utterly ignorant of the state of his cousin's mind." "i hope so, sir; egad, i hope so!" exclaimed the major, rather fiercely. "if i thought that this young man had trifled with the lady's affection; if i thought----" "you need think nothing to the detriment of mr. arundel," answered paul, with placid politeness, "except that he is hot-headed, obstinate, and foolish. he is a young man of excellent principles, and has never fathomed the secret of his cousin's conduct towards him. i am rather a close observer,--something of a student of human nature,--and i have watched this unhappy woman. she loves, and has loved, her cousin edward arundel; and hers is one of those concentrative natures in which a great passion is nearly akin to a monomania. it was this hopeless, unreturned affection that embittered her character, and made her a harsh stepmother to my poor cousin mary. for a long time this wretched woman has been very quiet; but her tranquillity has been only a deceitful calm. to-night the storm broke. olivia marchmont heard of the marriage that is to take place to-morrow; and, for the first time, a state of melancholy mania developed into absolute violence. she came to me, and attacked me upon the subject of this intended marriage. she accused me of having plotted to give edward arundel another bride; and then, after exhausting herself by a torrent of passionate invective against me, against her cousin edward, your daughter,--every one concerned in to-morrow's event,--this wretched woman rushed out of the house in a jealous fury, declaring that she would do something--no matter what--to hinder the celebration of edward arundel's second marriage." "good heavens!" gasped the major. "and you mean to say----" "i mean to say, that there is no knowing what may be attempted by a madwoman, driven mad by a jealousy in itself almost as terrible as madness. olivia marchmont has sworn to hinder your daughter's marriage. what has not been done by unhappy creatures in this woman's state of mind? every day we read of such things in the newspapers--deeds of horror at which the blood grows cold in our veins; and we wonder that heaven can permit such misery. it is not any frivolous motive that brings me here in the dead of the night, major lawford. i come to tell you that a desperate woman has sworn to hinder to-morrow's marriage. heaven knows what she may do in her jealous frenzy! she _may_ attack your daughter." the father's face grew pale. his linda, his darling, exposed to the fury of a madwoman! he could conjure up the scene: the fair girl clinging to her lover's breast, and desperate olivia marchmont swooping down upon her like an angry tigress. "for mercy's sake, tell me what i am to do, mr. marchmont!" cried the major. "god bless you, sir, for bringing me this warning! but what am i to do? what do you advise? shall we postpone the wedding?" "on no account. all you have to do is to keep this wretched woman at bay. shut your doors upon her. do not let her be admitted to this house upon any pretence whatever. get the wedding over an hour earlier than has been intended, if it is possible for you to do so, and hurry the bride and bridegroom away upon the first stage of their wedding-tour. if you wish to escape all the wretchedness of a public scandal, avoid seeing this woman." "i will, i will," answered the bewildered major. "it's a most awful situation. my poor belinda! her wedding-day! and a mad woman to attempt--upon my word, mr. marchmont, i don't know how to thank you for the trouble you have taken." "don't speak of that. this woman is my cousin's widow: any shame of hers is disgrace to me. avoid seeing her. if by any chance she does contrive to force herself upon you, turn a deaf ear to all she may say. she horrified me to-night by her mad assertions. be prepared for anything she may declare. she is possessed by all manner of delusions, remember, and may make the most ridiculous assertions. there is no limit to her hallucinations. she may offer to bring edward arundel's dead wife from the grave, perhaps. but you will not, on any account, allow her to obtain access to your daughter." "no, no--on no account. my poor belinda! i am very grateful to you, mr. marchmont, for this warning. you'll stop here for the rest of the night? martha's beds are always aired. you'll accept the shelter of our spare room until to-morrow morning?" "you are very good, major lawford; but i must hurry away directly. remember that i am quite ignorant as to where my unhappy relative may be wandering at this hour of the night. she may have returned to the towers. her jealous fury may have exhausted itself; and in that case i have exaggerated the danger. but, at any rate i thought it best to give you this warning." "most decidedly, my dear sir; i thank you from the bottom of my heart. but you'll take something--wine, tea, brandy-and-water--eh?" paul had put on his hat and made his way into the hall by this time. there was no affectation in his eagerness to be away. he glanced uneasily towards the door every now and then while the major was offering hospitable hindrance to his departure. he was very pale, with a haggard, ashen pallor that betrayed his anxiety, in spite of his bland calmness of manner. "you are very kind. no; i will get away at once. i have done my duty here; i must now try and do what i can for this wretched woman. good night. remember; shut your doors upon her." he unfastened the bridle of his horse, mounted, and rode away slowly, so long as there was any chance of the horse's tread being heard at the grange. but when he was a quarter of a mile away from major lawford's house, he urged the horse into a gallop. he had no spurs; but he used his whip with a ruthless hand, and went off at a tearing pace along a narrow lane, where the ruts were deep. he rode for fifteen miles; and it was grey morning when he drew rein at a dilapidated five-barred gate leading into the great, tenantless yard of an uninhabited farmhouse. the place had been unlet for some years; and the land was in the charge of a hind in mr. marchmont's service. the hind lived in a cottage at the other extremity of the farm; and paul had erected new buildings, with engine-houses and complicated machinery for pumping the water off the low-lying lands. thus it was that the old farmhouse and the old farmyard were suffered to fall into decay. the empty sties, the ruined barns and outhouses, the rotting straw, and pools of rank corruption, made this tenantless farmyard the very abomination of desolation. paul marchmont opened the gate and went in. he picked his way very cautiously through the mud and filth, leading his horse by the bridle till he came to an outhouse, where he secured the animal. then he crossed the yard, lifted the rusty latch of a narrow wooden door set in a plastered wall, and went into a dismal stone court, where one lonely hen was moulting in miserable solitude. long rank grass grew in the interstices of the flags. the lonely hen set up a roopy cackle, and fluttered into a corner at sight of paul marchmont. there were some rabbit-hutches, tenantless; a dovecote, empty; a dog-kennel, and a broken chain rusting slowly in a pool of water, but no dog. the courtyard was at the back of the house, looked down upon by a range of latticed windows, some with closed shutters, others with shutters swinging in the wind, as if they had been fain to beat themselves to death in very desolation of spirit. mr. marchmont opened a door and went into the house. there were empty cellars and pantries, dairies and sculleries, right and left of him. the rats and mice scuttled away at sound of the intruder's footfall. the spiders ran upon the damp-stained walls, and the disturbed cobwebs floated slowly down from the cracked ceilings and tickled mr. marchmont's face. farther on in the interior of the gloomy habitation paul found a great stone-paved kitchen, at the darkest end of which there was a rusty grate, in which a minimum of flame struggled feebly with a maximum of smoke. an open oven-door revealed a dreary black cavern; and the very manner of the rusty door, and loose, half-broken handle, was an advertisement of incapacity for any homely hospitable use. pale, sickly fungi had sprung up in clusters at the corners of the damp hearthstone. spiders and rats, damp and cobwebs, every sign by which decay writes its name upon the dwelling man has deserted, had set its separate mark upon this ruined place. paul marchmont looked round him with a contemptuous shudder. he called "mrs. brown! mrs. brown!" two or three times, each time waiting for an answer; but none came, and mr. marchmont passed on into another room. here at least there was some poor pretence of comfort. the room was in the front of the house, and the low latticed window looked out upon a neglected garden, where some tall foxgloves reared their gaudy heads amongst the weeds. at the end of the garden there was a high brick wall, with pear-trees trained against it, and dragon's-mouth and wallflower waving in the morning-breeze. there was a bed in this room, empty; an easy-chair near the window; near that a little table, and a _set of indian chessmen_. upon the bed there were some garments scattered, as if but lately flung there; and on the floor, near the fireplace, there were the fragments of a child's first toys--a tiny trumpet, bought at some village fair, a baby's rattle, and a broken horse. paul marchmont looked about him--a little puzzled at first; then with a vague dread in his haggard face. "mrs. brown!" he cried, in a loud voice, hurrying across the room towards an inner door as he spoke. the inner door was opened before paul could reach it, and a woman appeared; a tall, gaunt-looking woman, with a hard face and bare, brawny arms. "where, in heaven's name, have you been hiding yourself, woman?" paul cried impatiently. "and where's--your patient?" "gone, sir." "gone! where?" "with her stepmamma, mrs. marchmont--not half an hour ago. as it was your wish i should stop behind to clear up, i've done so, sir; but i did think it would have been better for me to have gone with----" paul clutched the woman by the arm, and dragged her towards him. "are you mad?" he cried, with an oath. "are you mad, or drunk? who gave you leave to let that woman go? who----?" he couldn't finish the sentence. his throat grew dry, and he gasped for breath; while all the blood in his body seemed to rush into his swollen forehead. "you sent mrs. marchmont to fetch my patient away, sir," exclaimed the woman, looking frightened. "you did, didn't you? she said so!" "she is a liar; and you are a fool or a cheat. she paid you, i dare say! can't you speak, woman? has the person i left in your care, whom you were paid, and paid well, to take care of,--have you let her go? answer me that." "i have, sir," the woman faltered,--she was big and brawny, but there was that in paul marchmont's face that frightened her notwithstanding,--"seeing as it was your orders." "that will do," cried paul marchmont, holding up his hand and looking at the woman with a ghastly smile; "that will do. you have ruined me; do you hear? you have undone a work that has cost me--o my god! why do i waste my breath in talking to such a creature as this? all my plots, my difficulties, my struggles and victories, my long sleepless nights, my bad dreams,--has it all come to this? ruin, unutterable ruin, brought upon me by a madwoman!" he sat down in the chair by the window, and leaned upon the table, scattering the indian chessmen with his elbow. he did not weep. that relief--terrible relief though it be for a man's breast--was denied him. he sat there with his face covered, moaning aloud. that helpless moan was scarcely like the complaint of a man; it was rather like the hopeless, dreary utterance of a brute's anguish; it sounded like the miserable howling of a beaten cur. chapter xi. belinda's wedding-day. the sun shone upon belinda lawford's wedding-day. the birds were singing in the garden under her window as she opened her lattice and looked out. the word lattice is not a poetical license in this case; for miss lawford's chamber was a roomy, old-fashioned apartment at the back of the house, with deep window-seats and diamond-paned casements. the sun shone, and the roses bloomed in all their summer glory. "'twas in the time of roses," as gentle-minded thomas hood so sweetly sang; surely the time of all others for a bridal morning. the girl looked out into the sunshine with her loose hair falling about her shoulders, and lingered a little looking at the familiar garden, with a half-pensive smile. "oh, how often, how often," she said, "i have walked up and down by those laburnums, letty!" there were two pretty white-curtained bedsteads in the old-fashioned room, and miss arundel had shared her friend's apartment for the last week. "how often mamma and i have sat under the dear old cedar, making our poor children's frocks! people say monotonous lives are not happy: mine has been the same thing over and over again; and yet how happy, how happy! and to think that we"--she paused a moment, and the rosy colour in her cheeks deepened by just one shade; it was so sweet to use that simple monosyllable "we" when edward arundel was the other half of the pronoun,--"to think that we shall be in paris to-morrow!" "driving in the bois," exclaimed miss arundel; "and dining at the maison dorée, or the café de paris. don't dine at meurice's, linda; it's dreadfully slow dining at one's hotel. and you'll be a young married woman, and can do anything, you know. if i were a young married woman, i'd ask my husband to take me to the mabille, just for half an hour, with an old bonnet and a thick veil. i knew a girl whose first-cousin married a cornet in the guards, and they went to the mabille one night. come, belinda, if you mean to have your back-hair done at all, you'd better sit down at once and let me commence operations." miss arundel had stipulated that, upon this particular morning, she was to dress her friend's hair; and she turned up the frilled sleeves of her white dressing-gown, and set to work in the orthodox manner, spreading a network of shining tresses about miss lawford's shoulders, prior to the weaving of elaborate plaits that were to make a crown for the fair young bride. letitia's tongue went as fast as her fingers; but belinda was very silent. she was thinking of the bounteous providence that had given her the man she loved for her husband. she had been on her knees in the early morning, long before letitia's awakening, breathing out innocent thanksgiving for the happiness that overflowed her fresh young heart. a woman had need to be country-bred, and to have been reared in the narrow circle of a happy home, to feel as belinda lawford felt. such love as hers is only given to bright and innocent spirits, untarnished even by the knowledge of sin. downstairs edward arundel was making a wretched pretence of breakfasting _tête-à-tête_ with his future father-in-law. the major had held his peace as to the unlooked-for visitant of the past night. he had given particular orders that no stranger should be admitted to the house, and that was all. but being of a naturally frank, not to say loquacious disposition, the weight of this secret was a very terrible burden to the honest half-pay soldier. he ate his dry toast uneasily, looking at the door every now and then, in the perpetual expectation of beholding that barrier burst open by mad olivia marchmont. the breakfast was not a very cheerful meal, therefore. i don't suppose any ante-nuptial breakfast ever is very jovial. there was the state banquet--_the_ wedding breakfast--to be eaten by-and-by; and mrs. lawford, attended by all the females of the establishment, was engaged in putting the last touches to the groups of fruit and confectionery, the pyramids of flowers, and that crowning glory, the wedding-cake. "remember the madeira and still hock are to go round first, and then the sparkling; and tell gogram to be particular about the corks, martha," mrs. lawford said to her confidential maid, as she gave a nervous last look at the table. "i was at a breakfast once where a champagne-cork hit the bridegroom on the bridge of his nose at the very moment he rose to return thanks; and being a nervous man, poor fellow,--in point of fact, he was a curate, and the bride was the rector's daughter, with two hundred a year of her own,--it quite overcame him, and he didn't get over it all through the breakfast. and now i must run and put on my bonnet." there was nothing but putting on bonnets, and pinning lace-shawls, and wild outcries for hair-pins, and interchanging of little feminine services, upon the bedroom floor for the next half-hour. major lawford walked up and down the hall, putting on his white gloves, which were too large for him,--elderly men's white gloves always are too large for them,--and watching the door of the citadel. olivia must pass over a father's body, the old soldier thought, before she should annoy belinda on her bridal morning. by-and-by the carriages came round to the door. the girl bridesmaids came crowding down the stairs, hustling each other's crisped garments, and disputing a little in a sisterly fashion; then letitia arundel, with nine rustling flounces of white silk ebbing and flowing and surging about her, and with a pleased simper upon her face; and then followed mrs. arundel, stately in silver-grey moire, and mrs. lawford, in violet silk--until the hall was a show of bonnets and bouquets and muslin. and last of all, belinda lawford, robed in cloudlike garments of spotless lace, with bridal flowers trembling round her hair, came slowly down the broad old-fashioned staircase, to see her lover loitering in the hall below. he looked very grave; but he greeted his bride with a tender smile. he loved her, but he could not forget. even upon this, his wedding-day, the haunting shadow of the past was with him: not to be shaken off. he did not wait till belinda reached the bottom of the staircase. there was a sort of ceremonial law to be observed, and he was not to speak to miss lawford upon this special morning until he met her in the vestry at hillingsworth church; so letitia and mrs. arundel hustled the young man into one of the carriages, while major lawford ran to receive his daughter at the foot of the stairs. the arundel carriage drove off about five minutes before the vehicle that was to convey major lawford, belinda, and as many of the girl bridesmaids as could be squeezed into it without detriment to lace and muslin. the rest went with mrs. lawford in the third and last carriage. hillingsworth church was about three-quarters of a mile from the grange. it was a pretty irregular old place, lying in a little nook under the shadow of a great yew-tree. behind the square norman tower there was a row of poplars, black against the blue summer sky; and between the low gate of the churchyard and the grey, moss-grown porch, there was an avenue of good old elms. the rooks were calling to each other in the topmost branches of the trees as major lawford's carriage drew up at the churchyard gate. belinda was a great favourite amongst the poor of hillingsworth parish, and the place had put on a gala-day aspect in honour of her wedding. garlands of honeysuckle and wild clematis were twined about the stout oaken gate-posts. the school-children were gathered in clusters in the churchyard, with their pinafores full of fresh flowers from shadowy lanes and from prim cottage-gardens,--bright homely blossoms, with the morning dew still upon them. the rector and his curate were standing in the porch waiting for the coming of the bride; and there were groups of well-dressed people dotted about here and there in the drowsy-sheltered pews near the altar. there were humbler spectators clustered under the low ceiling of the gallery--tradesmen's wives and daughters, radiant with new ribbons, and whispering to one another in delighted anticipation of the show. everybody round about the grange loved pretty, genial belinda lawford, and there was universal rejoicing because of her happiness. the wedding party came out of the vestry presently in appointed order: the bride with her head drooping, and her face hidden by her veil; the bridesmaids' garments making a fluttering noise as they came up the aisle, like the sound of a field of corn faintly stirred by summer breezes. then the grave voice of the rector began the service with the brief preliminary exordium; and then, in a tone that grew more solemn with the increasing solemnity of the words, he went on to that awful charge which is addressed especially to the bridegroom and the bride: "i require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it. for be ye well assured----" the rector read no further; for a woman's voice from out the dusky shadows at the further end of the church cried "stop!" there was a sudden silence; people stared at each other with scared faces, and then turned in the direction whence the voice had come. the bride lifted her head for the first time since leaving the vestry, and looked round about her, ashy pale and trembling. "o edward, edward!" she cried, "what is it?" the rector waited, with his hand still upon the open book. he waited, looking towards the other end of the chancel. he had no need to wait long: a woman, with a black veil thrown back from a white, haggard face, and with dusty garments dragging upon the church-floor, came slowly up the aisle. her two hands were clasped upon her breast, and her breath came in gasps, as if she had been running. "olivia!" cried edward arundel, "what, in heaven's name--" but major lawford stepped forward, and spoke to the rector. "pray let her be got out of the way," he said, in a low voice. "i was warned of this. i was quite prepared for some such disturbance." he sank his voice to a whisper. "_she is mad!_" he said, close in the rector's ear. the whisper was like whispering in general,--more distinctly audible than the rest of the speech. olivia marchmont heard it. "mad until to-day," she cried; "but not mad to-day. o edward arundel! a hideous wrong has been done by me and through me. your wife--your wife--" "my wife! what of her? she--" "she is alive!" gasped olivia; "an hour's walk from here. i came on foot. i was tired, and i have been long coming. i thought that i should be in time to stop you before you got to the church; but i am very weak. i ran the last part of the way--" she dropped her hands upon the altar-rails, and seemed as if she would have fallen. the rector put his arm about her to support her, and she went on: "i thought i should have spared her this," she said, pointing to belinda; "but i can't help it. _she_ must bear her misery as well as others. it can't be worse for her than it has been for others. she must bear--" "my wife!" said edward arundel; "mary, my poor sorrowful darling--alive?" belinda turned away, and buried her face upon her mother's shoulder. she could have borne anything better than this. his heart--that supreme treasure, for which she had rendered up thanks to her god--had never been hers after all. a word, a breath, and she was forgotten; his thoughts went back to that other one. there was unutterable joy, there was unspeakable tenderness in his tone, as he spoke of mary marchmont, though _she_ stood by his side, in all her foolish bridal finery, with her heart newly broken. "o mother," she cried, "take me away! take me away, before i die!" olivia flung herself upon her knees by the altar-rails. where the pure young bride was to have knelt by her lover's side this wretched sinner cast herself down, sunk far below all common thoughts in the black depth of her despair. "o my sin, my sin!" she cried, with clasped hands lifted up above her head. "will god ever forgive my sin? will god ever have pity upon me? can he pity, can he forgive, such guilt as mine? even this work of to-day is no atonement to be reckoned against my wickedness. i was jealous of this other woman; i was jealous! earthly passion was still predominant in this miserable breast." she rose suddenly, as if this outburst had never been, and laid her hand upon edward arundel's arm. "come!" she said; "come!" "to her--to mary--my wife?" they had taken belinda away by this time; but major lawford stood looking on. he tried to draw edward aside; but olivia's hand upon the young man's arm held him like a vice. "she is mad," whispered the major. "mr. marchmont came to me last night, and warned me of all this. he told me to be prepared for anything; she has all sorts of delusions. get her away, if you can, while i go and explain matters to belinda. edward, if you have a spark of manly feeling, get this woman away." but olivia held the bridegroom's arm with a tightening grasp. "come!" she said; "come! are you turned to stone, edward arundel? is your love worth no more than this? i tell you, your wife, mary marchmont, is alive. let those who doubt me come and see for themselves." the eager spectators, standing up in the pews or crowding in the narrow aisle, were only too ready to respond to this invitation. olivia led her cousin out into the churchyard; she led him to the gate where the carriages were waiting. the crowd flocked after them; and the people outside began to cheer as they came out. that cheer was the signal for which the school-children had waited; and they set to work scattering flowers upon the narrow pathway, before they looked up to see who was coming to trample upon the rosebuds and jessamine, the woodbine and seringa. but they drew back, scared and wondering, as olivia came along the pathway, sweeping those tender blossoms after her with her trailing black garments, and leading the pale bridegroom by his arm. she led him to the door of the carriage beside which major lawford's gray-haired groom was waiting, with a big white satin favour pinned upon his breast, and a bunch of roses in his button hole. there were favours in the horses' ears, and favours upon the breasts of the hillingsworth tradespeople who supplied bread and butcher's meat and grocery to the family at the grange. the bell-ringers up in the church-tower saw the crowd flock out of the porch, and thought the marriage ceremony was over. the jangling bells pealed out upon the hot summer air as edward stood by the churchyard-gate, with olivia marchmont by his side. "lend me your carriage," he said to major lawford, "and come with me. i must see the end of this. it may be all a delusion; but i must see the end of it. if there is any truth in instinct, i believe that i shall see my wife--alive." he got into the carriage without further ceremony, and olivia and major lawford followed him. "where is my wife?" the young man asked, letting down the front window as he spoke. "at kemberling, at hester jobson's." "drive to kemberling," edward said to the coachman,--"to kemberling high street, as fast as you can go." the man drove away from the churchyard-gate. the humbler spectators, who were restrained by no niceties of social etiquette, hurried after the vehicle, raising white clouds of dust upon the high road with their eager feet. the higher classes lingered about the churchyard, talking to each other and wondering. very few people stopped to think of belinda lawford. "let the stricken deer go weep." a stricken deer is a very uninteresting object when there are hounds in full cry hard by, and another deer to be hunted. "since when has my wife been at kemberling?" edward arundel asked olivia, as the carriage drove along the high road between the two villages. "since daybreak this morning." "where was she before then?" "at stony-stringford farm." "and before then?" "in the pavilion over the boat-house at marchmont." "my god! and--" the young man did not finish his sentence. he put his head out of the window, looking towards kemberling, and straining his eyes to catch the earliest sight of the straggling village street. "faster!" he cried every now and then to the coachman; "faster!" in little more than half an hour from the time at which it had left the churchyard-gate, the carriage stopped before the little carpenter's shop. mr. jobson's doorway was adorned by a painted representation of two very doleful-looking mutes standing at a door; for hester's husband combined the more aristocratic avocation of undertaker with the homely trade of carpenter and joiner. olivia marchmont got out of the carriage before either of the two men could alight to assist her. power was the supreme attribute of this woman's mind. her purpose never faltered; from the moment she had left marchmont towers until now, she had known neither rest of body nor wavering of intention. "come," she said to edward arundel, looking back as she stood upon the threshold of mr. jobson's door; "and you too," she added, turning to major lawford,--"follow us, and _see_ whether i am mad." she passed through the shop, and into that prim, smart parlour in which edward arundel had lamented his lost wife. the latticed windows were wide open, and the warm summer sunshine filled the room. a girl, with loose tresses of hazel-brown hair falling about her face, was sitting on the floor, looking down at a beautiful fair-haired nursling of a twelvemonth old. the girl was john marchmont's daughter; the child was edward arundel's son. it was _his_ childish cry that the young man had heard upon that october night in the pavilion by the water. "mary arundel," said olivia, in a hard voice, "i give you back your husband." the young mother got up from the ground with a low cry, tottered forward, and fell into her husband's arms. "they told me you were dead! they made me believe that you were dead!" she said, and then fainted on the young man's breast. edward carried her to a sofa and laid her down, white and senseless; and then knelt down beside her, crying over her, and sobbing out inarticulate thanksgiving to the god who had given his lost wife back to him. "poor sweet lamb!" murmured hester jobson; "she's as weak as a baby; and she's gone through so much a'ready this morning." it was some time before edward arundel raised his head from the pillow upon which his wife's pale face lay, half hidden amid the tangled hair. but when he did look up, he turned to major lawford and stretched out his hand. "have pity upon me," he said. "i have been the dupe of a villain. tell your poor child how much i esteem her, how much i regret that--that--we should have loved each other as we have. the instinct of my heart would have kept me true to the past; but it was impossible to know your daughter and not love her. the villain who has brought this sorrow upon us shall pay dearly for his infamy. go back to your daughter; tell her everything. tell her what you have seen here. i know her heart, and i know that she will open her arms to this poor ill-used child." the major went away very downcast. hester jobson bustled about bringing restoratives and pillows, stopping every now and then in an outburst of affection by the slippery horsehair couch on which mary lay. mrs. jobson had prepared her best bedroom for her beloved visitor, and edward carried his young wife up to the clean, airy chamber. he went back to the parlour to fetch the child. he carried the fair-haired little one up-stairs in his own arms; but i regret to say that the infant showed an inclination to whimper in his newly-found father's embrace. it is only in the british drama that newly discovered fathers are greeted with an outburst of ready-made affection. edward arundel went back to the sitting-room presently, and sat down, waiting till hester should bring him fresh tidings of his wife. olivia marchmont stood by the window, with her eyes fixed upon edward. "why don't you speak to me?" she said presently. "can you find no words that are vile enough to express your hatred of me? is that why you are silent?" "no, olivia," answered the young man, calmly. "i am silent, because i have nothing to say to you. why you have acted as you have acted,--why you have chosen to be the tool of a black-hearted villain,--is an unfathomable mystery to me. i thank god that your conscience was aroused this day, and that you have at least hindered the misery of an innocent girl. but why you have kept my wife hidden from me,--why you have been the accomplice of paul marchmont's crime,--is more than i can even attempt to guess." "not yet?" said olivia, looking at him with a strange smile. "even yet i am a mystery to you?" "you are, indeed, olivia." she turned away from him with a laugh. "then i had better remain so till the end," she said, looking out into the garden. but after a moment's silence she turned her head once more towards the young man. "i will speak," she said; "i _will_ speak, edward arundel. i hope and believe that i have not long to live, and that all my shame and misery, my obstinate wickedness, my guilty passion, will come to an end, like a long feverish dream. o god, have mercy on my waking, and make it brighter than this dreadful sleep! i loved you, edward arundel. ah! you start. thank god at least for that. i kept my secret well. you don't know what that word 'love' means, do you? you think you love that childish girl yonder, perhaps; but i can tell you that you don't know what love is. _i_ know what it is. i have loved. for ten years,--for ten long, dreary, desolate, miserable years, fifty-two weeks in every year, fifty-two sundays, with long idle hours between the two church services--i have loved you, edward. shall i tell you what it is to love? it is to suffer, to hate, yes, to hate even the object of your love, when that love is hopeless; to hate him for the very attributes that have made you love him; to grudge the gifts and graces that have made him dear. it is to hate every creature on whom his eyes look with greater tenderness than they look on you; to watch one face until its familiar lines become a perpetual torment to you, and you cannot sleep because of its eternal presence staring at you in all your dreams. it is to be like some wretched drunkard, who loathes the fiery spirit that is destroying him, body and soul, and yet goes on, madly drinking, till he dies. love! how many people upon this great earth know the real meaning of that hideous word! i have learnt it until my soul loathes the lesson. they will tell you that i am mad, edward, and they will tell you something near the truth; but not quite the truth. my madness has been my love. from long ago, when you were little more than a boy--you remember, don't you, the long days at the rectory? _i_ remember every word you ever spoke to me, every sentiment you ever expressed, every look of your changing face--you were the first bright thing that came across my barren life; and i loved you. i married john marchmont--why, do you think?--because i wanted to make a barrier between you and me. i wanted to make my love for you impossible by making it a sin. so long as my husband lived, i shut your image out of my mind as i would have shut out the prince of darkness, if he had come to me in a palpable shape. but since then--oh, i hope i have been mad since then; i hope that god may forgive my sins because i have been mad!" her thoughts wandered away to that awful question which had been so lately revived in her mind--could she be forgiven? was it within the compass of heavenly mercy to forgive such a sin as hers? chapter xii. mary's story. one of the minor effects of any great shock, any revolution, natural or political, social or domestic, is a singular unconsciousness, or an exaggerated estimate, of the passage of time. sometimes we fancy that the common functions of the universe have come to a dead stop during the tempest which has shaken our being to its remotest depths. sometimes, on the other hand, it seems to us that, because we have endured an age of suffering, or half a lifetime of bewildered joy, the terrestrial globe has spun round in time to the quickened throbbing of our passionate hearts, and that all the clocks upon earth have been standing still. when the sun sank upon the summer's day that was to have been the day of belinda's bridal, edward arundel thought that it was still early in the morning. he wondered at the rosy light all over the western sky, and that great ball of molten gold dropping down below the horizon. he was fain to look at his watch, in order to convince himself that the low light was really the familiar sun, and not some unnatural appearance in the heavens. and yet, although he wondered at the closing of the day, with a strange inconsistency his mind could scarcely grapple with the idea that only last night he had sat by belinda lawford's side, her betrothed husband, and had pondered, heaven only knows with what sorrowful regret, upon the unknown grave in which his dead wife lay. "i only knew it this morning," he thought; "i only knew this morning that my young wife still lives, and that i have a son." he was sitting by the open window in hester jobson's best bedroom. he was sitting in an old-fashioned easy-chair, placed between the head of the bed and the open window,--a pure cottage window, with diamond panes of thin greenish glass, and a broad painted ledge, with a great jug of homely garden-flowers standing on it. the young man was sitting by the side of the bed upon which his newly-found wife and son lay asleep; the child's head nestled on his mother's breast, one flushed cheek peeping out of a tangled confusion of hazel-brown and babyish flaxen hair. the white dimity curtains overshadowed the loving sleepers. the pretty fluffy knotted fringe--neat hester's handiwork--made fantastical tracery upon the sunlit counterpane. mary slept with one arm folded round her child, and with her face turned to her husband. she had fallen asleep with her hand clasped in his, after a succession of fainting-fits that had left her terribly prostrate. edward arundel watched that tender picture with a smile of ineffable affection. "i can understand now why roman catholics worship the virgin mary," he thought. "i can comprehend the inspiration that guided raphael's hand when he painted the madonna de la chaise. in all the world there is no picture so beautiful. from all the universe he could have chosen no subject more sublime. o my darling wife, given back to me out of the grave, restored to me,--and not alone restored! my little son! my baby-son! whose feeble voice i heard that dark october night. to think that i was so wretched a dupe! to think that my dull ears could hear that sound, and no instinct rise up in my heart to reveal the presence of my child! i was so near them, not once, but several times,--so near, and i never knew--i never guessed!" he clenched his fists involuntarily at the remembrance of those purposeless visits to the lonely boat-house. his young wife was restored to him. but nothing could wipe away the long interval of agony in which he and she had been the dupe of a villanous trickster and a jealous woman. nothing could give back the first year of that baby's life,--that year which should have been one long holiday of love and rejoicing. upon what a dreary world those innocent eyes had opened, when they should have looked only upon sunshine and flowers, and the tender light of a loving father's smile! "o my darling, my darling!" the young husband thought, as he looked at his wife's wan face, upon which the evidence of all that past agony was only too painfully visible,--"how bitterly we two have suffered! but how much more terrible must have been your suffering than mine, my poor gentle darling, my broken lily!" in his rapture at finding the wife he had mourned as dead, the young man had for a time almost forgotten the villanous plotter who had kept her hidden from him. but now, as he sat quietly by the bed upon which mary and her baby lay, he had leisure to think of paul marchmont. what was he to do with that man? what vengeance could he wreak upon the head of that wretch who, for nearly two years, had condemned an innocent girl to cruel suffering and shame? to shame; for edward knew now that one of the most bitter tortures which paul marchmont had inflicted upon his cousin had been his pretended disbelief in her marriage. "what can i do to him?" the young man asked himself. "_what_ can i do to him? there is no personal chastisement worse than that which he has endured already at my hands. the scoundrel! the heartless villain! the false, cold-blooded cur! what can i do to him? i can only repeat that shameful degradation, and i _will_ repeat it. this time he shall howl under the lash like some beaten hound. this time i will drag him through the village-street, and let every idle gossip in kemberling see how a scoundrel writhes under an honest man's whip. i will--" edward arundel's wife woke while he was thinking what chastisement he should inflict upon her deadly foe; and the baby opened his round innocent blue eyes in the next moment, and sat up, staring at his new parent. mr. arundel took the child in his arms, and held him very tenderly, though perhaps rather awkwardly. the baby's round eyes opened wider at sight of those golden absurdities dangling at his father's watch-chain, and the little pudgy hands began to play with the big man's lockets and seals. "he comes to me, you see, mary!" edward said, with naïve wonder. and then he turned the baby's face towards him, and tenderly contemplated the bright surprised blue eyes, the tiny dimples, the soft moulded chin. i don't know whether fatherly vanity prompted the fancy, but edward arundel certainly did believe that he saw some faint reflection of his own features in that pink and white baby-face; a shadowy resemblance, like a tremulous image looking up out of a river. but while edward was half-thinking this, half-wondering whether there could be any likeness to him in that infant countenance, mary settled the question with womanly decision. "isn't he like you, edward?" she whispered. "it was only for his sake that i bore my life all through that miserable time; and i don't think i could have lived even for him, if he hadn't been so like you. i used to look at his face sometimes for hours and hours together, crying over him, and thinking of you. i don't think i ever cried except when he was in my arms. then something seemed to soften my heart, and the tears came to my eyes. i was very, very, very ill, for a long time before my baby was born; and i didn't know how the time went, or where i was. i used to fancy sometimes i was back in oakley street, and that papa was alive again, and that we were quite happy together, except for some heavy hammer that was always beating, beating, beating upon both our heads, and the dreadful sound of the river rushing down the street under our windows. i heard mr. weston tell his wife that it was a miracle i lived through that time." hester jobson came in presently with a tea-tray, that made itself heard, by a jingling of teaspoons and rattling of cups and saucers, all the way up the narrow staircase. the friendly carpenter's wife had produced her best china and her silver teapot,--an heirloom inherited from a wealthy maiden aunt of her husband's. she had been busy all the afternoon, preparing that elegant little collation of cake and fruit which accompanied the tea-tray; and she spread the lavender-scented table-cloth, and arranged the cups and saucers, the plates and dishes, with mingled pride and delight. but she had to endure a terrible disappointment by-and-by; for neither of her guests was in a condition to do justice to her hospitality. mary got up and sat in the roomy easy-chair, propped up with pillows. her pensive eyes kept a loving watch upon the face of her husband, turned towards her own, and slightly crimsoned by that rosy flush fading out in the western sky. she sat up and sipped a cup of tea; and in that lovely summer twilight, with the scent of the flowers blowing in through the open window, and a stupid moth doing his best to beat out his brains against one of the diamond panes in the lattice, the tortured heart, for the first time since the ruthless close of that brief honeymoon, felt the heavenly delight of repose. "o edward!" murmured the young wife, "how strange it seems to be happy!" he was at her feet, half-kneeling, half-sitting on a hassock of hester's handiwork, with both his wife's hands clasped in his, and his head leaning upon the arm of her chair. hester jobson had carried off the baby, and these two were quite alone, all in all to each other, with a cruel gap of two years to be bridged over by sorrowful memories, by tender words of consolation. they were alone, and they could talk quite freely now, without fear of interruption; for although in purity and beauty an infant is first cousin to the angels, and although i most heartily concur in all that mr. bennett and mr. buchanan can say or sing about the species, still it must be owned that a baby _is_ rather a hindrance to conversation, and that a man's eloquence does not flow quite so smoothly when he has to stop every now and then to rescue his infant son from the imminent peril of strangulation, caused by a futile attempt at swallowing one of his own fists. mary and edward were alone; they were together once more, as they had been by the trout-stream in the winchester meadows. a curtain had fallen upon all the wreck and ruin of the past, and they could hear the soft, mysterious music that was to be the prelude of a new act in life's drama. "i shall try to forget all that time," mary said presently; "i shall try to forget it, edward. i think the very memory of it would kill me, if it was to come back perpetually in the midst of my joy, as it does now, even now, when i am so happy--so happy that i dare not speak of my happiness." she stopped, and her face drooped upon her husband's clustering hair. "you are crying, mary!" "yes, dear. there is something painful in happiness when it comes after such suffering." the young man lifted his head, and looked in his wife's face. how deathly pale it was, even in that shadowy twilight; how worn and haggard and wasted since it had smiled at him in his brief honeymoon. yes, joy is painful when it comes after a long continuance of suffering; it is painful because we have become sceptical by reason of the endurance of such anguish. we have lost the power to believe in happiness. it comes, the bright stranger; but we shrink appalled from its beauty, lest, after all, it should be nothing but a phantom. heaven knows how anxiously edward arundel looked at his wife's altered face. her eyes shone upon him with the holy light of love. she smiled at him with a tender, reassuring smile; but it seemed to him that there was something almost supernal in the brightness of that white, wasted face; something that reminded him of the countenance of a martyr who has ceased to suffer the anguish of death in a foretaste of the joys of heaven. "mary," he said, presently, "tell me every cruelty that paul marchmont or his tools inflicted upon you; tell me everything, and i will never speak of our miserable separation again. i will only punish the cause of it," he added, in an undertone. "tell me, dear. it will be painful for you to speak of it; but it will be only once. there are some things i must know. remember, darling, that you are in my arms now, and that nothing but death can ever again part us." the young man had his arms round his wife. he felt, rather than heard, a low plaintive sigh as he spoke those last words. "nothing but death, edward; nothing but death," mary said, in a solemn whisper. "death would not come to me when i was very miserable. i used to pray that i might die, and the baby too; for i could not have borne to leave him behind. i thought that we might both be buried with you, edward. i have dreamt sometimes that i was lying by your side in a tomb, and i have stretched out my dead hand to clasp yours. i used to beg and entreat them to let me be buried with you when i died; for i believed that you were dead, edward. i believed it most firmly. i had not even one lingering hope that you were alive. if i had felt such a hope, no power upon earth would have kept me prisoner." "the wretches!" muttered edward between his set teeth; "the dastardly wretches! the foul liars!" "don't, edward; don't, darling. there is a pain in my heart when i hear you speak like that. i know how wicked they have been; how cruel--how cruel. i look back at all my suffering as if it were some one else who suffered; for now that you are with me i cannot believe that miserable, lonely, despairing creature was really me, the same creature whose head now rests upon your shoulder, whose breath is mixed with yours. i look back and see all my past misery, and i cannot forgive them, edward; i am very wicked, for i cannot forgive my cousin paul and his sister--yet. but i don't want you to speak of them; i only want you to love me; i only want you to smile at me, and tell me again and again and again that nothing can part us now--but death." she paused for a few moments, exhausted by having spoken so long. her head lay upon her husband's shoulder, and she clung a little closer to him, with a slight shiver. "what is the matter, darling?" "i feel as if it couldn't be real." "what, dear?" "the present--all this joy. edward, is it real? is it--is it? or am i only dreaming? shall i wake presently and feel the cold air blowing in at the window, and see the moonlight on the wainscot at stony stringford? is it all real?" "it is, my precious one. as real as the mercy of god, who will give you compensation for all you have suffered; as real as god's vengeance, which will fall most heavily upon your persecutors. and now, darling, tell me,--tell me all. i must know the story of these two miserable years during which i have mourned for my lost love." mr. arundel forgot to mention that during those two miserable years he had engaged himself to become the husband of another woman. but perhaps, even when he is best and truest, a man is always just a shade behind a woman in the matter of constancy. "when you left me in hampshire, edward, i was very, very miserable," mary began, in a low voice; "but i knew that it was selfish and wicked of me to think only of myself. i tried to think of your poor father, who was ill and suffering; and i prayed for him, and hoped that he would recover, and that you would come back to me very soon. the people at the inn were very kind to me. i sat at the window from morning till night upon the day after you left me, and upon the day after that; for i was so foolish as to fancy, every time i heard the sound of horses' hoofs or carriage-wheels upon the high-road, that you were coming back to me, and that all my grief was over. i sat at the window and watched the road till i knew the shape of every tree and housetop, every ragged branch of the hawthorn-bushes in the hedge. at last--it was the third day after you went away--i heard carriage-wheels, that slackened as they came to the inn. a fly stopped at the door, and oh, edward, i did not wait to see who was in it,--i never imagined the possibility of its bringing anybody but you. i ran down-stairs, with my heart beating so that i could hardly breathe; and i scarcely felt the stairs under my feet. but when i got to the door--o my love, my love!--i cannot bear to think of it; i cannot endure the recollection of it--" she stopped, gasping for breath, and clinging to her husband; and then, with an effort, went on again: "yes; i will tell you, dear; i must tell you. my cousin paul and my stepmother were standing in the little hall at the foot of the stairs. i think i fainted in my stepmother's arms; and when my consciousness came back, i was in our sitting-room,--the pretty rustic room, edward, in which you and i had been so happy together. "i must not stop to tell you everything. it would take me so long to speak of all that happened in that miserable time. i knew that something must be wrong, from my cousin paul's manner; but neither he nor my stepmother would tell me what it was. i asked them if you were dead; but they said, 'no, you were not dead.' still i could see that something dreadful had happened. but by-and-by, by accident, i saw your name in a newspaper that was lying on the table with paul's hat and gloves. i saw the description of an accident on the railway, by which i knew you had travelled. my heart sank at once, and i think i guessed all that had happened. i read your name amongst those of the people who had been dangerously hurt. paul shook his head when i asked him if there was any hope. "they brought me back here. i scarcely know how i came, how i endured all that misery. i implored them to let me come to you, again and again, on my knees at their feet. but neither of them would listen to me. it was impossible, paul said. he always seemed very, very kind to me; always spoke softly; always told me that he pitied me, and was sorry for me. but though my stepmother looked sternly at me, and spoke, as she always used to speak, in a harsh, cold voice, i sometimes think she might have given way at last and let me come to you, but for him--but for my cousin paul. he could look at me with a smile upon his face when i was almost mad with my misery; and he never wavered; he never hesitated. "so they took me back to the towers. i let them take me; for i scarcely felt my sorrow any longer. i only felt tired; oh, so dreadfully tired; and i wanted to lie down upon the ground in some quiet place, where no one could come near me. i thought that i was dying. i believe i was very ill when we got back to the towers. my stepmother and barbara simmons watched by my bedside, day after day, night after night. sometimes i knew them; sometimes i had all sorts of fancies. and often--ah, how often, darling!--i thought that you were with me. my cousin paul came every day, and stood by my bedside. i can't tell you how hateful it was to me to have him there. he used to come into the room as silently as if he had been walking upon snow; but however noiselessly he came, however fast asleep i was when he entered the room, i always knew that he was there, standing by my bedside, smiling at me. i always woke with a shuddering horror thrilling through my veins, as if a rat had run across my face. "by-and-by, when the delirium was quite gone, i felt ashamed of myself for this. it seemed so wicked to feel this unreasonable antipathy to my dear father's cousin; but he had brought me bad news of you, edward, and it was scarcely strange that i should hate him. one day he sat down by my bedside, when i was getting better, and was strong enough to talk. there was no one besides ourselves in the room, except my stepmother, and she was standing at the window, with her head turned away from us, looking out. my cousin paul sat down by the bedside, and began to talk to me in that gentle, compassionate way that used to torture me and irritate me in spite of myself. "he asked me what had happened to me after my leaving the towers on the day after the ball. "i told him everything, edward--about your coming to me in oakley street; about our marriage. but, oh, my darling, my husband, he wouldn't believe me; he wouldn't believe. nothing that i could say would make him believe me. though i swore to him again and again--by my dead father in heaven, as i hoped for the mercy of my god--that i had spoken the truth, and the truth only, he wouldn't believe me; he wouldn't believe. he shook his head, and said he scarcely wondered i should try to deceive him; that it was a very sad story, a very miserable and shameful story, and my attempted falsehood was little more than natural. "and then he spoke against you, edward--against you. he talked of my childish ignorance, my confiding love, and your villany. o edward, he said such shameful things; such shameful, horrible things! you had plotted to become master of my fortune; to get me into your power, because of my money; and you had not married me. you had _not_ married me; he persisted in saying that. "i was delirious again after this; almost mad, i think. all through the delirium i kept telling my cousin paul of our marriage. though he was very seldom in the room, i constantly thought that he was there, and told him the same thing--the same thing--till my brain was on fire. i don't know how long it lasted. i know that, once in the middle of the night, i saw my stepmother lying upon the ground, sobbing aloud and crying out about her wickedness; crying out that god would never forgive her sin. "i got better at last, and then i went downstairs; and i used to sit sometimes in poor papa's study. the blind was always down, and none of the servants, except barbara simmons, ever came into the room. my cousin paul did not live at the towers; but he came there every day, and often stayed there all day. he seemed the master of the house. my stepmother obeyed him in everything, and consulted him about everything. "sometimes mrs. weston came. she was like her brother. she always smiled at me with a grave compassionate smile, just like his; and she always seemed to pity me. but she wouldn't believe in my marriage. she spoke cruelly about you, edward; cruelly, but in soft words, that seemed only spoken out of compassion for me. no one would believe in my marriage. "no stranger was allowed to see me. i was never suffered to go out. they treated me as if i was some shameful creature, who must be hidden away from the sight of the world. "one day i entreated my cousin paul to go to london and see mrs. pimpernel. she would be able to tell him of our marriage. i had forgotten the name of the clergyman who married us, and the church at which we were married. and i could not tell paul those; but i gave him mrs. pimpernel's address. and i wrote to her, begging her to tell my cousin, all about my marriage; and i gave him the note unsealed. "he went to london about a week afterwards; and when he came back, he brought me my note. he had been to oakley street, he said; but mrs. pimpernel had left the neighbourhood, and no one knew where she was gone." "a lie! a villanous lie!" muttered edward arundel. "oh, the scoundrel! the infernal scoundrel!" "no words would ever tell the misery of that time; the bitter anguish; the unendurable suspense. when i asked them about you, they would tell me nothing. sometimes i thought that you had forgotten me; that you had only married me out of pity for my loneliness; and that you were glad to be freed from me. oh, forgive me, edward, for that wicked thought; but i was so very miserable, so utterly desolate. at other times i fancied that you were very ill, helpless, and unable to come to me. i dared not think that you were dead. i put away that thought from me with all my might; but it haunted me day and night. it was with me always like a ghost. i tried to shut it away from my sight; but i knew that it was there. "the days were all alike,--long, dreary, and desolate; so i scarcely know how the time went. my stepmother brought me religious books, and told me to read them; but they were hard, difficult books, and i couldn't find one word of comfort in them. they must have been written to frighten very obstinate and wicked people, i think. the only book that ever gave me any comfort, was that dear book i used to read to papa on a sunday evening in oakley street. i read that, edward, in those miserable days; i read the story of the widow's only son who was raised up from the dead because his mother was so wretched without him. i read that sweet, tender story again and again, until i used to see the funeral train, the pale, still face upon the bier, the white, uplifted hand, and that sublime and lovely countenance, whose image always comes to us when we are most miserable, the tremulous light upon the golden hair, and in the distance the glimmering columns of white temples, the palm-trees standing out against the purple eastern sky. i thought that he who raised up a miserable woman's son chiefly because he was her only son, and she was desolate without him, would have more pity upon me than the god in olivia's books: and i prayed to him, edward, night and day, imploring him to bring you back to me. "i don't know what day it was, except that it was autumn, and the dead leaves were blowing about in the quadrangle, when my stepmother sent for me one afternoon to my room, where i was sitting, not reading, not even thinking--only sitting with my head upon my hands, staring stupidly out at the drifting leaves and the gray, cold sky. my stepmother was in papa's study; and i was to go to her there. i went, and found her standing there, with a letter crumpled up in her clenched hand, and a slip of newspaper lying on the table before her. she was as white as death, and she was trembling violently from head to foot. "'see,' she said, pointing to the paper; 'your lover is dead. but for you he would have received the letter that told him of his father's illness upon an earlier day; he would have gone to devonshire by a different train. it was by your doing that he travelled when he did. if this is true, and he is dead, his blood be upon your head; his blood be upon your head!' "i think her cruel words were almost exactly those. i did not hope for a minute that those horrible lines in the newspaper were false. i thought they must be true, and i was mad, edward--i was mad; for utter despair came to me with the knowledge of your death. i went to my own room, and put on my bonnet and shawl; and then i went out of the house, down into that dreary wood, and along the narrow pathway by the river-side. i wanted to drown myself; but the sight of the black water filled me with a shuddering horror. i was frightened, edward; and i went on by the river, scarcely knowing where i was going, until it was quite dark; and i was tired, and sat down upon the damp ground by the brink of the river, all amongst the broad green flags and the wet rushes. i sat there for hours, and i saw the stars shining feebly in a dark sky. i think i was delirious, for sometimes i knew that i was there by the water side, and then the next minute i thought that i was in my bedroom at the towers; sometimes i fancied that i was with you in the meadows near winchester, and the sun was shining, and you were sitting by my side, and i could see your float dancing up and down in the sunlit water. at last, after i had been there a very, very long time, two people came with a lantern, a man and a woman; and i heard a startled voice say, 'here she is; here, lying on the ground!' and then another voice, a woman's voice, very low and frightened, said, 'alive!' and then two people lifted me up; the man carried me in his arms, and the woman took the lantern. i couldn't speak to them; but i knew that they were my cousin paul and his sister, mrs. weston. i remember being carried some distance in paul's arms; and then i think i must have fainted away, for i can recollect nothing more until i woke up one day and found myself lying in a bed in the pavilion over the boat-house, with mr. weston watching by my bedside. "i don't know how the time passed; i only know that it seemed endless. i think my illness was rheumatic fever, caught by lying on the damp ground nearly all that night when i ran away from the towers. a long time went by--there was frost and snow. i saw the river once out of the window when i was lifted out of bed for an hour or two, and it was frozen; and once at midnight i heard the kemberling church-bells ringing in the new year. i was very ill, but i had no doctor; and all that time i saw no one but my cousin paul, and lavinia weston, and a servant called betsy, a rough country girl, who took care of me when my cousins were away. they were kind to me, and took great care of me." "you did not see olivia, then, all this time?" edward asked eagerly. "no; i did not see my stepmother till some time after the new year began. she came in suddenly one evening, when mrs. weston was with me, and at first she seemed frightened at seeing me. she spoke to me kindly afterwards, but in a strange, terror-stricken voice; and she laid her head down upon the counterpane of the bed, and sobbed aloud; and then paul took her away, and spoke to her cruelly, very cruelly--taunting her with her love for you. i never understood till then why she hated me: but i pitied her after that; yes, edward, miserable as i was, i pitied her, because you had never loved her. in all my wretchedness i was happier than her; for you had loved me, edward--you had loved me!" mary lifted her face to her husband's lips, and those dear lips were pressed tenderly upon her pale forehead. "o my love, my love!" the young man murmured; "my poor suffering angel! can god ever forgive these people for their cruelty to you? but, my darling, why did you make no effort to escape?" "i was too ill to move; i believed that i was dying." "but afterwards, darling, when you were better, stronger,--did you make no effort then to escape from your persecutors?" mary shook her head mournfully. "why should i try to escape from them?" she said. "what was there for me beyond that place? it was as well for me to be there as anywhere else. i thought you were dead, edward; i thought you were dead, and life held nothing more for me. i could do nothing but wait till he who raised the widow's son should have pity upon me, and take me to the heaven where i thought you and papa had gone before me. i didn't want to go away from those dreary rooms over the boat-house. what did it matter to me whether i was there or at marchmont towers? i thought you were dead, and all the glories and grandeurs of the world were nothing to me. nobody ill-treated me; i was let alone. mrs. weston told me that it was for my own sake they kept me hidden from everybody about the towers. i was a poor disgraced girl, she told me; and it was best for me to stop quietly in the pavilion till people had got tired of talking of me, and then my cousin paul would take me away to the continent, where no one would know who i was. she told me that the honour of my father's name, and of my family altogether, would be saved by this means. i replied that i had brought no dishonour on my dear father's name; but she only shook her head mournfully, and i was too weak to dispute with her. what did it matter? i thought you were dead, and that the world was finished for me. i sat day after day by the window; not looking out, for there was a venetian blind that my cousin paul had nailed down to the window-sill, and i could only see glimpses of the water through the long, narrow openings between the laths. i used to sit there listening to the moaning of the wind amongst the trees, or the sounds of horses' feet upon the towing-path, or the rain dripping into the river upon wet days. i think that even in my deepest misery god was good to me, for my mind sank into a dull apathy, and i seemed to lose even the capacity of suffering. "one day,--one day in march, when the wind was howling, and the smoke blew down the narrow chimney and filled the room,--mrs. weston brought her husband, and he talked to me a little, and then talked to his wife in whispers. he seemed terribly frightened, and he trembled all the time, and kept saying, 'poor thing; poor young woman!' but his wife was cross to him, and wouldn't let him stop long in the room. after that, mr. weston came very often, always with lavinia, who seemed cleverer than he was, even as a doctor; for she dictated to him, and ordered him about in everything. then, by-and-by, when the birds were singing, and the warm sunshine came into the room, my baby was born, edward; my baby was born. i thought that god, who raised the widow's son, had heard my prayer, and had raised you up from the dead; for the baby's eyes were like yours, and i used to think sometimes that your soul was looking out of them and comforting me. "do you remember that poor foolish german woman who believed that the spirit of a dead king came to her in the shape of a blackbird? she was not a good woman, i know, dear; but she must have loved the king very truly, or she never could have believed anything so foolish. i don't believe in people's love when they love 'wisely,' edward: the truest love is that which loves 'too well.' "from the time of my baby's birth everything was changed. i was more miserable, perhaps, because that dull, dead apathy cleared away, and my memory came back, and i thought of you, dear, and cried over my little angel's face as he slept. but i wasn't alone any longer. the world seemed narrowed into the little circle round my darling's cradle. i don't think he is like other babies, edward. i think he has known of my sorrow from the very first, and has tried in his mute way to comfort me. the god who worked so many miracles, all separate tokens of his love and tenderness and pity for the sorrows of mankind, could easily make my baby different from other children, for a wretched mother's consolation. "in the autumn after my darling's birth, paul and his sister came for me one night, and took me away from the pavilion by the water to a deserted farmhouse, where there was a woman to wait upon me and take care of me. she was not unkind to me, but she was rather neglectful of me. i did not mind that, for i wanted nothing except to be alone with my precious boy--your son, edward; your son. the woman let me walk in the garden sometimes. it was a neglected garden, but there were bright flowers growing wild, and when the spring came again my pet used to lie on the grass and play with the buttercups and daisies that i threw into his lap; and i think we were both of us happier and better than we had been in those two close rooms over the boat-house. "i have told you all now, edward, all except what happened this morning, when my stepmother and hester jobson came into my room in the early daybreak, and told me that i had been deceived, and that you were alive. my stepmother threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and asked me to forgive her, for she was a miserable sinner, she said, who had been abandoned by god; and i forgave her, edward, and kissed her; and you must forgive her too, dear, for i know that she has been very, very wretched. and she took the baby in her arms, and kissed him,--oh, so passionately!--and cried over him. and then they brought me here in mr. jobson's cart, for mr. jobson was with them, and hester held me in her arms all the time. and then, darling, then after a long time you came to me." edward put his arms round his wife, and kissed her once more. "we will never speak of this again, darling," he said. "i know all now; i understand it all. i will never again distress you by speaking of your cruel wrongs." "and you will forgive olivia, dear?" "yes, my pet, i will forgive--olivia." he said no more, for there was a footstep on the stair, and a glimmer of light shone through the crevices of the door. hester jobson came into the room with a pair of lighted wax-candles, in white crockery-ware candlesticks. but hester was not alone; close behind her came a lady in a rustling silk gown, a tall matronly lady, who cried out,-- "where is she, edward? where is she? let me see this poor ill-used child." it was mrs. arundel, who had come to kemberling to see her newly-found daughter-in-law. "oh, my dear mother," cried the young man, "how good of you to come! now, mary, you need never again know what it is to want a protector, a tender womanly protector, who will shelter you from every harm." mary got up and went to mrs. arundel, who opened her arms to receive her son's young wife. but before she folded mary to her friendly breast, she took the girl's two hands in hers, and looked earnestly at her pale, wasted face. she gave a long sigh as she contemplated those wan features, the shining light in the eyes, that looked unnaturally large by reason of the girl's hollow cheeks. "oh, my dear," cried mrs. arundel, "my poor long-suffering child, how cruelly they have treated you!" edward looked at his mother, frightened by the earnestness of her manner; but she smiled at him with a bright, reassuring look. "i shall take you home to dangerfield with me, my poor love," she said to mary; "and i shall nurse you, and make you as plump as a partridge, my poor wasted pet. and i'll be a mother to you, my motherless child. oh, to think that there should be any wretch vile enough to--but i won't agitate you, my dear. i'll take you away from this bleak horrid county by the first train to-morrow morning, and you shall sleep to-morrow night in the blue bedroom at dangerfield, with the roses and myrtles waving against your window; and edward shall go with us, and you shan't come back here till you are well and strong; and you'll try and love me, won't you, dear? and, oh, edward, i've seen the boy! and he's a _superb_ creature, the very _image_ of what you were at a twelvemonth old; and he came to me, and smiled at me, almost as if he knew i was his grandmother; and he has got five teeth, but i'm _sorry_ to tell you he's cutting them crossways, the top first instead of the bottom, hester says." "and belinda, mother dear?" edward said presently, in a grave undertone. "belinda is an angel," mrs. arundel answered, quite as gravely. "she has been in her own room all day, and no one has seen her but her mother; but she came down to the hall as i was leaving the house this evening, and said to me, 'dear mrs. arundel, tell him that he must not think i am so selfish as to be sorry for what has happened. tell him that i am very glad to think his young wife has been saved.' she put her hand up to my lips to stop my speaking, and then went back again to her room; and if that isn't acting like an angel, i don't know what is." chapter xiii. "all within is dark as night." paul marchmont did not leave stony-stringford farmhouse till dusk upon that bright summer's day; and the friendly twilight is slow to come in the early days of july, however a man may loathe the sunshine. paul marchmont stopped at the deserted farmhouse, wandering in and out of the empty rooms, strolling listlessly about the neglected garden, or coming to a dead stop sometimes, and standing stock-still for ten minutes at a time, staring at the wall before him, and counting the slimy traces of the snails upon the branches of a plum-tree, or the flies in a spider's web. paul marchmont was afraid to leave that lonely farmhouse. he was afraid as yet. he scarcely knew what he feared, for a kind of stupor had succeeded the violent emotions of the past few hours; and the time slipped by him, and his brain grew bewildered when he tried to realise his position. it was very difficult for him to do this. the calamity that had come upon him was a calamity that he had never anticipated. he was a clever man, and he had put his trust in his own cleverness. he had never expected to be _found out_. until this hour everything had been in his favour. his dupes and victims had played into his hands. mary's grief, which had rendered her a passive creature, utterly indifferent to her own fate,--her peculiar education, which had taught her everything except knowledge of the world in which she was to live,--had enabled paul marchmont to carry out a scheme so infamous and daring that it was beyond the suspicion of honest men, almost too base for the comprehension of ordinary villains. he had never expected to be found out. all his plans had been deliberately and carefully prepared. immediately after edward's marriage and safe departure for the continent, paul had intended to convey mary and the child, with the grim attendant whom he had engaged for them, far away, to one of the remotest villages in wales. alone he would have done this; travelling by night, and trusting no one; for the hired attendant knew nothing of mary's real position. she had been told that the girl was a poor relation of paul's, and that her story was a very sorrowful one. if the poor creature had strange fancies and delusions, it was no more than might be expected; for she had suffered enough to turn a stronger brain than her own. everything had been arranged, and so cleverly arranged, that mary and the child would disappear after dusk one summer's evening, and not even lavinia weston would be told whither they had gone. paul had never expected to be found out. but he had least of all expected betrayal from the quarter whence it had come. he had made olivia his tool; but he had acted cautiously even with her. he had confided nothing to her; and although she had suspected some foul play in the matter of mary's disappearance, she had been certain of nothing. she had uttered no falsehood when she swore to edward arundel that she did not know where his wife was. but for her accidental discovery of the secret of the pavilion, she would never have known of mary's existence after that october afternoon on which the girl left marchmont towers. but here paul had been betrayed by the carelessness of the hired girl who acted as mary arundel's gaoler and attendant. it was olivia's habit to wander often in that dreary wood by the water during the winter in which mary was kept prisoner in the pavilion over the boat-house. lavinia weston and paul marchmont spent each of them a great deal of their time in the pavilion; but they could not be always on guard there. there was the world to be hoodwinked; and the surgeon's wife had to perform all her duties as a matron before the face of kemberling, and had to give some plausible account of her frequent visits to the boat-house. paul liked the place for his painting, mrs. weston informed her friends; and he was _so_ enthusiastic in his love of art, that it was really a pleasure to participate in his enthusiasm; so she liked to sit with him, and talk to him or read to him while he painted. this explanation was quite enough for kemberling; and mrs. weston went to the pavilion at marchmont towers three or four times a week without causing any scandal thereby. but however well you may manage things yourself, it is not always easy to secure the careful co-operation of the people you employ. betsy murrel was a stupid, narrow-minded young person, who was very safe so far as regarded the possibility of any sympathy with, or compassion for, mary arundel arising in her stolid nature; but the stupid stolidity which made her safe in one way rendered her dangerous in another. one day, while mrs. weston was with the hapless young prisoner, miss murrel went out upon the water-side to converse with a good-looking young bargeman, who was a connexion of her family, and perhaps an admirer of the young lady herself; and the door of the painting-room being left wide open, olivia marchmont wandered listlessly into the pavilion--there was a dismal fascination for her in that spot, on which she had heard edward arundel declare his love for john marchmont's daughter--and heard mary's voice in the chamber at the top of the stone steps. this was how olivia had surprised paul's secret; and from that hour it had been the artist's business to rule this woman by the only weapon which he possessed against her,--her own secret, her own weak folly, her mad love of edward arundel and jealous hatred of the woman whom he had loved. this weapon was a very powerful one, and paul used it unsparingly. when the woman who, for seven-and-twenty years of her life, had lived without sin; who from the hour in which she had been old enough to know right from wrong, until edward arundel's second return from india, had sternly done her duty,--when this woman, who little by little had slipped away from her high standing-point and sunk down into a morass of sin; when this woman remonstrated with mr. marchmont, he turned upon her and lashed her with the scourge of her own folly. "you come and upbraid me," he said, "and you call me villain and arch-traitor, and say that you cannot abide this, your sin; and that your guilt, in keeping our secret, cries to you in the dead hours of the night; and you call upon me to undo what i have done, and to restore mary marchmont to her rights. do you remember what her highest right is? do you remember that which i must restore to her when i give her back this house and the income that goes along with it? if i restore marchmont towers, i must restore to her _edward arundel's love!_ you have forgotten that, perhaps. if she ever re-enters this house, she will come back to it leaning on his arm. you will see them together--you will hear of their happiness; and do you think that _he_ will ever forgive you for your part of the conspiracy? yes, it is a conspiracy, if you like; if you are not afraid to call it by a hard name, why should i fear to do so? will he ever forgive you, do you think, when he knows that his young wife has been the victim of a senseless, vicious love? yes, olivia marchmont; any love is vicious which is given unsought, and is so strong a passion, so blind and unreasoning a folly, that honour, mercy, truth, and christianity are trampled down before it. how will you endure edward arundel's contempt for you? how will you tolerate his love for mary, multiplied twentyfold by all this romantic business of separation and persecution? "you talk to me of my sin. who was it who first sinned? who was it who drove mary marchmont from this house,--not once only, but twice, by her cruelty? who was it who persecuted her and tortured her day by day and hour by hour, not openly, not with an uplifted hand or blows that could be warded off, but by cruel hints and inuendoes, by unwomanly sneers and hellish taunts? look into your heart, olivia marchmont; and when you make atonement for your sin, i will make restitution for mine. in the meantime, if this business is painful to you, the way lies open before you: go and take edward arundel to the pavilion yonder, and give him back his wife; give the lie to all your past life, and restore these devoted young lovers to each other's arms." this weapon never failed in its effect. olivia marchmont might loathe herself, and her sin, and her life, which was made hideous to her because of her sin; but she _could_ not bring herself to restore mary to her lover-husband; she could not tolerate the idea of their happiness. every night she grovelled on her knees, and swore to her offended god that she would do this thing, she would render this sacrifice of atonement; but every morning, when her weary eyes opened on the hateful sunlight, she cried, "not to-day--not to-day." again and again, during edward arundel's residence at kemberling retreat, she had set out from marchmont towers with the intention of revealing to him the place where his young wife was hidden; but, again and again, she had turned back and left her work undone. she _could_ not--she could not. in the dead of the night, under pouring rain, with the bleak winds of winter blowing in her face, she had set out upon that unfinished journey, only to stop midway, and cry out, "no, no, no--not to-night; i cannot endure it yet!" it was only when another and a fiercer jealousy was awakened in this woman's breast, that she arose all at once, strong, resolute, and undaunted, to do the work she had so miserably deferred. as one poison is said to neutralise the evil power of another, so olivia marchmont's jealousy of belinda seemed to blot out and extinguish her hatred of mary. better anything than that edward arundel should have a new, and perhaps a fairer, bride. the jealous woman had always looked upon mary marchmont as a despicable rival. better that edward should be tied to this girl, than that he should rejoice in the smiles of a lovelier woman, worthier of his affection. _this_ was the feeling paramount in olivia's breast, although she was herself half unconscious how entirely this was the motive power which had given her new strength and resolution. she tried to think that it was the awakening of her conscience that had made her strong enough to do this one good work; but in the semi-darkness of her own mind there was still a feeble glimmer of the light of truth, and it was this that had prompted her to cry out on her knees before the altar in hillingsworth church, and declare the sinfulness of her nature. * * * * * paul marchmont stopped several times before the ragged, untrimmed fruit-trees in his purposeless wanderings in the neglected garden at stony stringford, before the vaporous confusion cleared away from his brain, and he was able to understand what had happened to him. his first reasonable action was to take out his watch; but even then he stood for some moments staring at the dial before he remembered why he had taken the watch from his pocket, or what it was that he wanted to know. by mr. marchmont's chronometer it was ten minutes past seven o'clock; but the watch had been unwound upon the previous night, and had run down. paul put it back in his waistcoat-pocket, and then walked slowly along the weedy pathway to that low latticed window in which he had often seen mary arundel standing with her child in her arms. he went to this window and looked in, with his face against the glass. the room was neat and orderly now; for the woman whom mr. marchmont had hired had gone about her work as usual, and was in the act of filling a little brown earthenware teapot from a kettle on the hob when paul stared in at her. she looked up as mr. marchmont's figure came between her and the light, and nearly dropped the little brown teapot in her terror of her offended employer. but paul pulled open the window, and spoke to her very quietly. "stop where you are," he said; "i want to speak to you. i'll come in." he went into the house by a door, that had once been the front and principal entrance, which opened into a low wainscoted hall. from this room he went into the parlour, which had been mary arundel's apartment, and in which the hired nurse was now preparing her breakfast. "i thought i might as well get a cup of tea, sir, whiles i waited for your orders," the woman murmured, apologetically; "for bein' knocked up so early this morning, you see, sir, has made my head _that_ bad, i could scarcely bear myself; and----" paul lifted his hand to stop the woman's talk, as he had done before. he had no consciousness of what she was saying, but the sound of her voice pained him. his eyebrows contracted with a spasmodic action, as if something had hurt his head. there was a dutch clock in the corner of the room, with a long pendulum swinging against the wall. by this clock it was half-past eight. "is your clock right?" paul asked. "yes, sir. leastways, it may be five minutes too slow, but not more." mr. marchmont took out his watch, wound it up, and regulated it by the dutch clock. "now," he said, "perhaps you can tell me clearly what happened. i want no excuses, remember; i only want to know what occurred, and what was said--word for word, remember." he sat down but got up again directly, and walked to the window; then he paced up and down the room two or three times, and then went back to the fireplace and sat down again. he was like a man who, in the racking torture of some physical pain, finds a miserable relief in his own restlessness. "come," he said; "i am waiting." "yes, sir; which, begging your parding, if you wouldn't mind sitting still like, while i'm a-telling of you, which it do remind me of the wild beastes in the zoological, sir, to that degree, that the boil, to which i am subjeck, sir, and have been from a child, might prevent me bein' as truthful as i should wish. mrs. marchmont, sir, she come before it was light, _in_ a cart, sir, which it was a shaycart, and made comfortable with cushions and straw, and suchlike, or i should not have let the young lady go away in it; and she bring with her a respectable, homely-looking young person, which she call hester jobling or gobson, or somethink of that sound like, which my memory is treechrous, and i don't wish to tell a story on no account; and mrs. marchmont she go straight up to my young lady, and she shakes her by the shoulder; and then the young woman called hester, she wakes up my young lady quite gentle like, and kisses her and cries over her; and a man as drove the cart, which looked a small tradesman well-to-do, brings his trap round to the front-door,--you may see the trax of the wheels upon the gravel now, sir, if you disbelieve me. and mrs. marchmont and the young woman called hester, between 'em they gets my young lady up, and dresses her, and dresses the child; and does it all so quick, and overrides me to such a degree, that i hadn't no power to prevent 'em; but i say to mrs. marchmont, i say: 'is it mr. marchmont's orders as his cousin should be took away this morning?' and she stare at me hard, and say, 'yes;' and she have allus an abrumpt way, but was abrumpter than ordinary this morning. and, oh sir, bein' a poor lone woman, what was i to do?" "have you nothing more to tell me?" "nothing, sir; leastways, except as they lifted my young lady into the cart, and the man got in after 'em, and drove away as fast as his horse would go; and they had been gone two minutes when i began to feel all in a tremble like, for fear as i might have done wrong in lettin' of 'em go." "you have done wrong," paul answered, sternly; "but no matter. if these officious friends of my poor weak-witted cousin choose to take her away, so much the better for me, who have been burdened with her long enough. since your charge has gone, your services are no longer wanted. i shan't act illiberally to you, though i am very much annoyed by your folly and stupidity. is there anything due to you?" mrs. brown hesitated for a moment, and then replied, in a very insinuating tone,-- "not _wages_, sir; there ain't no _wages_ doo to me,--which you paid me a quarter in advance last saturday was a week, and took a receipt, sir, for the amount. but i have done my dooty, sir, and had but little sleep and rest, which my 'ealth ain't what it was when i answered your advertisement, requirin' a respectable motherly person, to take charge of a invalid lady, not objectin' to the country--which i freely tell you, sir, if i'd known that the country was a rheumatic old place like this, with rats enough to scare away a regyment of soldiers, i would not have undertook the situation; so any present as you might think sootable, considerin' all things, and----" "that will do," said paul marchmont, taking a handful of loose money from his waistcoat pocket; "i suppose a ten-pound note would satisfy you?" "indeed it would, sir, and very liberal of you too----" "very well. i've got a five-pound note here, and five sovereigns. the best thing you can do is to get back to london at once; there's a train leaves milsome station at eleven o'clock--milsome's not more than a mile and a half from here. you can get your things together; there's a boy about the place who will carry them for you, i suppose?" "yes, sir; there's a boy by the name of william." "he can go with you, then; and if you look sharp, you can catch the eleven-o'clock train." "yes, sir; and thank you kindly, sir." "i don't want any thanks. see that you don't miss the train; that's all you have to take care of." mr. marchmont went out into the garden again. he had done something, at any rate; he had arranged for getting this woman out of the way. if--if by any remote chance there might be yet a possibility of keeping the secret of mary's existence, here was one witness already got rid of. but was there any chance? mr. marchmont sat down on a rickety old garden-seat, and tried to think--tried to take a deliberate survey of his position. no; there was no hope for him. look which way he could, there was not one ray of light. with george weston and olivia, betsy murrel the servant-girl, and hester jobson to bear witness against him, what could he hope? the surgeon would be able to declare that the child was mary's son, her legitimate son, sole heir to that estate of which paul had taken possession. there was no hope. there was no possibility that olivia should waver in her purpose; for had she not brought with her two witnesses--hester jobson and her husband? from that moment the case was taken out of her hands. the honest carpenter and his wife would see that mary had her rights. "it will be a glorious speculation for them," thought paul marchmont, who naturally measured other people's characters by a standard derived from an accurate knowledge of his own. yes, his ruin was complete. destruction had come upon him, swift and sudden as the caprice of a madwoman--or--the thunderbolt of an offended providence. what should he do? run away, sneak away by back-lanes and narrow footpaths to the nearest railway-station, hide himself in a third-class carriage going londonwards, and from london get away to liverpool, to creep on board some emigrant vessel bound for new york? he could not even do this, for he was without the means of getting so much as the railway-ticket that should carry him on the first stage of his flight. after having given ten pounds to mrs. brown, he had only a few shillings in his waistcoat-pocket. he had only one article of any great value about him, and that was his watch, which had cost fifty pounds. but the marchmont arms were emblazoned on the outside of the case; and paul's name in full, and the address of marchmont towers, were ostentatiously engraved inside, so that any attempt to dispose of the watch must inevitably lead to the identification of the owner. paul marchmont had made no provision for this evil day. supreme in the consciousness of his own talents, he had never imagined discovery and destruction. his plans had been so well arranged. on the very day after edward's second marriage, mary and her child would have been conveyed away to the remotest district in wales; and the artist would have laughed at the idea of danger. the shallowest schemer might have been able to manage this poor broken-hearted girl, whose many sorrows had brought her to look upon life as a thing which was never meant to be joyful, and which was only to be endured patiently, like some slow disease that would be surely cured in the grave. it had been so easy to deal with this ignorant and gentle victim that paul had grown bold and confident, and had ignored the possibility of such ruin as had now come down upon him. what was he to do? what was the nature of his crime, and what penalty had he incurred? he tried to answer these questions; but as his offence was of no common kind, he knew of no common law which could apply to it. was it a felony, this appropriation of another person's property, this concealment of another person's existence; or was it only a conspiracy, amenable to no criminal law; and would he be called upon merely to make restitution of that which he had spent and wasted? what did it matter? either way, there was nothing for him but ruin--irretrievable ruin. there are some men who can survive discovery and defeat, and begin a new life in a new world, and succeed in a new career. but paul marchmont was not one of these. he could not stick a hunting-knife and a brace of revolvers in his leathern belt, sling a game-bag across his shoulders, take up his breech-loading rifle, and go out into the backwoods of an uncivilised country, to turn sheep-breeder, and hold his own against a race of agricultural savages. he was a cockney, and for him there was only one world--a world in which men wore varnished boots and enamelled shirt-studs with portraits of la montespan or la dubarry, and lived in chambers in the albany, and treated each other to little dinners at greenwich and richmond, or cut a grand figure at a country-house, and collected a gallery of art and a museum of _bric à brac_. this was the world upon the outer edge of which paul marchmont had lived so long, looking in at the brilliant inhabitants with hungry, yearning eyes through all the days of his poverty and obscurity. this was the world into which he had pushed himself at last by means of a crime. he was forty years of age; and in all his life he had never had but one ambition,--and that was to be master of marchmont towers. the remote chance of that inheritance had hung before him ever since his boyhood, a glittering prize, far away in the distance, but so brilliant as to blind him to the brightness of all nearer chances. why should he slave at his easel, and toil to become a great painter? when would art earn him eleven thousand a year? the greatest painter of mr. marchmont's time lived in a miserable lodging at chelsea. it was before the days of the "railway station" and the "derby day;" or perhaps paul might have made an effort to become that which heaven never meant him to be--a great painter. no; art was only a means of living with this man. he painted, and sold his pictures to his few patrons, who beat him down unmercifully, giving him a small profit upon his canvas and colours, for the encouragement of native art; but he only painted to live. he was waiting. from the time when he could scarcely speak plain, marchmont towers had been a familiar word in his ears and on his lips. he knew the number of lives that stood between his father and the estate, and had learned to say, naïvely enough then,-- "o pa, don't you wish that uncle philip and uncle marmaduke and cousin john would die soon?" he was two-and-twenty years of age when his father died; and he felt a faint thrill of satisfaction, even in the midst of his sorrow, at the thought that there was one life the less between him and the end of his hopes. but other lives had sprung up in the interim. there was young arthur, and little mary; and marchmont towers was like a caravanserai in the desert, which seems to be farther and farther away as the weary traveller strives to reach it. still paul hoped, and watched, and waited. he had all the instincts of a sybarite, and he fancied, therefore, that he was destined to be a rich man. he watched, and waited, and hoped, and cheered his mother and sister when they were downcast with the hope of better days. when the chance came, he seized upon it, and plotted, and succeeded, and revelled in his brief success. but now ruin had come to him, what was he to do? he tried to make some plan for his own conduct; but he could not. his brain reeled with the effort which he made to realise his own position. he walked up and down one of the pathways in the garden until a quarter to ten o'clock; then he went into the house, and waited till mrs. brown had departed from stony-stringford farm, attended by the boy, who carried two bundles, a bandbox, and a carpet-bag. "come back here when you have taken those things to the station," paul said; "i shall want you." he watched the dilapidated five-barred gate swing to after the departure of mrs. brown and her attendant, and then went to look at his horse. the patient animal had been standing in a shed all this time, and had had neither food nor water. paul searched amongst the empty barns and outhouses, and found a few handfuls of fodder. he took this to the animal, and then went back again to the garden,--to that quiet garden, where the bees were buzzing about in the sunshine with a drowsy, booming sound, and where a great tabby-cat was sleeping stretched flat upon its side, on one of the flower-beds. paul marchmont waited here very impatiently till the boy came back. "i must see lavinia," he thought. "i dare not leave this place till i have seen lavinia. i don't know what may be happening at hillingsworth or kemberling. these things are taken up sometimes by the populace. they may make a party against me; they may--" he stood still, gnawing the edges of his nails, and staring down at the gravel-walk. he was thinking of things that he had read in the newspapers,--cases in which some cruel mother who had ill-used her child, or some suspected assassin who, in all human probability, had poisoned his wife, had been well-nigh torn piecemeal by an infuriated mob, and had been glad to cling for protection to the officers of justice, or to beg leave to stay in prison after acquittal, for safe shelter from honest men and women's indignation. he remembered one special case in which the populace, unable to get at a man's person, tore down his house, and vented their fury upon unsentient bricks and mortar. mr. marchmont took out a little memorandum book, and scrawled a few lines in pencil: "i am here, at stony-stringford farmhouse," he wrote. "for god's sake, come to me, lavinia, and at once; you can drive here yourself. i want to know what has happened at kemberling and at hillingsworth. find out everything for me, and come. p. m." it was nearly twelve o'clock when the boy returned. paul gave him this letter, and told the lad to get on his own horse, and ride to kemberling as fast as he could go. he was to leave the horse at kemberling, in mr. weston's stable, and was to come back to stony-stringford with mrs. weston. this order paul particularly impressed upon the boy, lest he should stop in kemberling, and reveal the secret of paul's hiding-place. mr. paul marchmont was afraid. a terrible sickening dread had taken possession of him, and what little manliness there had ever been in his nature seemed to have deserted him to-day. oh, the long dreary hours of that miserable day! the hideous sunshine, that scorched mr. marchmont's bare head, as he loitered about the garden!--he had left his hat in the house; but he did not even know that he was bareheaded. oh, the misery of that long day of suspense and anguish! the sick consciousness of utter defeat, the thought of the things that he might have done, the purse that he might have made with the money that he had lavished on pictures, and decorations, and improvements, and the profligate extravagance of splendid entertainments. this is what he thought of, and these were the thoughts that tortured him. but in all that miserable day he never felt one pang of remorse for the agonies that he had inflicted upon his innocent victim; on the contrary, he hated her because of this discovery, and gnashed his teeth as he thought how she and her young husband would enjoy all the grandeur of marchmont towers,--all that noble revenue which he had hoped to hold till his dying day. it was growing dusk when mr. marchmont heard the sound of wheels in the dusty lane outside the garden-wall. he went through the house, and into the farmyard, in time to receive his sister lavinia at the gate. it was the wheels of her pony-carriage he had heard. she drove a pair of ponies, which paul had given her. he was angry with himself as he remembered that this was another piece of extravagance,--another sum of money recklessly squandered, when it might have gone towards the making of a rich provision for this evil day. mrs. weston was very pale; and her brother could see by her face that she brought him no good news. she left her ponies to the care of the boy, and went into the garden with her brother. "well, lavinia?" "well, paul, it is a dreadful business," mrs. weston said, in a low voice. "it's all george's doing! it's all the work of that infernal scoundrel!" cried paul, passionately. "but he shall pay bitterly for----" "don't let us talk of him, paul; no good can come of that. what are you going to do?" "i don't know. i sent for you because i wanted your help and advice. what's the good of your coming if you bring me no help?" "don't be cruel, paul. heaven knows, i'll do my best. but i can't see what's to be done--except for you to get away, paul. everything's known. olivia stopped the marriage publicly in hillingsworth church; and all the hillingsworth people followed edward arundel's carriage to kemberling. the report spread like wildfire; and, oh paul, the kemberling people have taken it up, and our windows have been broken, and there's been a crowd all day upon the terrace before the towers, and they've tried to get into the house, declaring that they know you're hiding somewhere. paul, paul, what are we to do? the people hooted after me as i drove away from the high street, and the boys threw stones at the ponies. almost all the servants have left the towers. the constables have been up there trying to get the crowd off the terrace. but what are we to do, paul? what are we to do?" "kill ourselves," answered the artist savagely. "what else should we do? what have we to live for? you have a little money, i suppose; i have none. do you think i can go back to the old life? do you think i can go back, and live in that shabby house in charlotte street, and paint the same rocks and boulders, the same long stretch of sea, the same low lurid streaks of light,--all the old subjects over again,--for the same starvation prices? do you think i can ever tolerate shabby clothes again, or miserable make-shift dinners,--hashed mutton, with ill-cut hunks of lukewarm meat floating about in greasy slop called gravy, and washed down with flat porter fetched half an hour too soon from a public-house,--do you think i can go back to _that_? no; i have tasted the wine of life: i have lived; and i'll never go back to the living death called poverty. do you think i can stand in that passage in charlotte street again, lavinia, to be bullied by an illiterate tax-gatherer, or insulted by an infuriated baker? no, lavinia; i have made my venture, and i have failed." "but what will you do, paul?" "i don't know," he answered, moodily. this was a lie. he knew well enough what he meant to do: he would kill himself. that resolution inspired him with a desperate kind of courage. he would escape from the mob; he would get away somewhere or other quietly and there kill himself. he didn't know how, as yet; but he would deliberate upon that point at his leisure, and choose the death that was supposed to be least painful. "where are my mother and clarissa?" he asked presently. "they are at our house; they came to me directly they heard the rumour of what had happened. i don't know how they heard it; but every one heard of it, simultaneously, as it seemed. my mother is in a dreadful state. i dared not tell her that i had known it all along." "oh, of course not," answered paul, with a sneer; "let me bear the burden of my guilt alone. what did my mother say?" "she kept saying again and again, 'i can't believe it. i can't believe that he could do anything cruel; he has been such a good son.'" "i was not cruel," paul cried vehemently; "the girl had every comfort. i never grudged money for her comfort. she was a miserable, apathetic creature, to whom fortune was almost a burden rather than an advantage. if i separated her from her husband--bah!--was that such a cruelty? she was no worse off than if edward arundel had been killed in that railway accident; and it might have been so." he didn't waste much time by reasoning on this point. he thought of his mother and sisters. from first to last he had been a good son and a good brother. "what money have you, lavinia?" "a good deal; you have been very generous to me, paul; and you shall have it all back again, if you want it. i have got upwards of two thousand pounds altogether; for i have been very careful of the money you have given me." "you have been wise. now listen to me, lavinia. i _have_ been a good son, and i have borne my burdens uncomplainingly. it is your turn now to bear yours. i must get back to marchmont towers, if i can, and gather together whatever personal property i have there. it isn't much--only a few trinkets, and suchlike. you must send me some one you can trust to fetch those to-night; for i shall not stay an hour in the place. i may not even be admitted into it; for edward arundel may have already taken possession in his wife's name. then you will have to decide where you are to go. you can't stay in this part of the country. weston must be liable to some penalty or other for his share in the business, unless he's bought over as a witness to testify to the identity of mary's child. i haven't time to think of all this. i want you to promise me that you will take care of your mother and your invalid sister." "i will, paul; i will indeed. but tell me what you are going to do yourself, and where you are going?" "i don't know," paul marchmont answered, in the same tone as before; "but whatever i do, i want you to give me your solemn promise that you will be good to my mother and sister." "i will, paul; i promise you to do as you have done." "you had better leave kemberling by the first train to-morrow morning; take my mother and clarissa with you; take everything that is worth taking, and leave weston behind you to bear the brunt of this business. you can get a lodging in the old neighbourhood, and no one will molest you when you once get away from this place. but remember one thing, lavinia: if mary arundel's child should die, and mary herself should die childless, clarissa will inherit marchmont towers. don't forget that. there's a chance yet for you: it's far away, and unlikely enough; but it _is_ a chance." "but you are more likely to outlive mary and her child than clarissa is," mrs. weston answered, with a feeble attempt at hopefulness; "try and think of that, paul, and let the hope cheer you." "hope!" cried mr. marchmont, with a discordant laugh. "yes; i'm forty years old, and for five-and-thirty of those years i've hoped and waited for marchmont towers. i can't hope any longer, or wait any longer. i give it up; i've fought hard, but i'm beaten." it was nearly dark by this time, the shadowy darkness of a midsummer's evening; and there were stars shining faintly out of the sky. "you can drive me back to the towers," paul marchmont said. "i don't want to lose any time in getting there; i may be locked out by mr. edward arundel if i don't take care." mrs. weston and her brother went back to the farmyard. it was sixteen miles from kemberling to stony stringford; and the ponies were steaming, for lavinia had come at a good rate. but it was no time for the consideration of horseflesh. paul took a rug from the empty seat, and wrapped himself in it. he would not be likely to be recognised in the darkness, sitting back in the low seat, and made bulky by the ponderous covering in which he had enveloped himself. mrs. weston took the whip from the boy, gathered up the reins, and drove off. paul had left no orders about the custody of the old farmhouse. the boy went home to his master, at the other end of the farm; and the night-winds wandered wherever they listed through the deserted habitation. chapter xiv. there is confusion worse than death. the brother and sister exchanged very few words during the drive between stony stringford and marchmont towers. it was arranged between them that mrs. weston should drive by a back-way leading to a lane that skirted the edge of the river, and that paul should get out at a gate opening into the wood, and by that means make his way, unobserved, to the house which had so lately been to all intents and purposes his own. he dared not attempt to enter the towers by any other way; for the indignant populace might still be lurking about the front of the house, eager to inflict summary vengeance upon the persecutor of a helpless girl. it was between nine and ten o'clock when mr. marchmont got out at the little gate. all here was very still; and paul heard the croaking of the frogs upon the margin of a little pool in the wood, and the sound of horses' hoofs a mile away upon the loose gravel by the water-side. "good night, lavinia," he said. "send for the things as soon as you go back; and be sure you send a safe person for them." "o yes, dear; but hadn't you better take any thing of value yourself?" mrs. weston asked anxiously. "you say you have no money. perhaps it would be best for you to send me the jewellery, though, and i can send you what money you want by my messenger." "i shan't want any money--at least i have enough for what i want. what have you done with your savings?" "they are in a london bank. but i have plenty of ready money in the house. you must want money, paul?" "i tell you, no; i have as much as i want." "but tell me your plans, paul; i must know your plans before i leave lincolnshire myself. are _you_ going away?" "yes." "immediately?" "immediately." "shall you go to london?" "perhaps. i don't know yet." "but when shall we see you again, paul? or how shall we hear of you?" "i'll write to you." "where?" "at the post-office in rathbone place. don't bother me with a lot of questions to-night lavinia; i'm not in the humour to answer them." paul marchmont turned away from his sister impatiently, and opened the gate; but before she had driven off, he went back to her. "shake hands, lavinia," he said; "shake hands, my dear; it may be a long time before you and i meet again." he bent down and kissed his sister. "drive home as fast as you can, and send the messenger directly. he had better come to the door of the lobby, near olivia's room. where is olivia, by-the-bye? is she still with the stepdaughter she loves so dearly?" "no; she went to swampington early in the afternoon. a fly was ordered from the black bull, and she went away in it." "so much the better," answered mr. marchmont. "good night, lavinia. don't let my mother think ill of me. i tried to do the best i could to make her happy. good-bye." "good-bye, dear paul; god bless you!" the blessing was invoked with as much sincerity as if lavinia weston had been a good woman, and her brother a good man. perhaps neither of those two was able to realise the extent of the crime which they had assisted each other to commit. mrs. weston drove away; and paul went up to the back of the towers, and under an archway leading into the quadrangle. all about the house was as quiet as if the sleeping beauty and her court had been its only occupants. the inhabitants of kemberling and the neighbourhood were an orderly people, who burnt few candles between may and september; and however much they might have desired to avenge mary arundel's wrongs by tearing paul marchmont to pieces, their patience had been exhausted by nightfall, and they had been glad to return to their respective abodes, to discuss paul's iniquities comfortably over the nine-o'clock beer. paul stood still in the quadrangle for a few moments, and listened. he could hear no human breath or whisper; he only heard the sound of the corn-crake in the fields to the right of the towers, and the distant rumbling of wagon-wheels on the high-road. there was a glimmer of light in one of the windows belonging to the servants' offices,--only one dim glimmer, where there had usually been a row of brilliantly-lighted casements. lavinia was right, then; almost all the servants had left the towers. paul tried to open the half-glass door leading into the lobby; but it was locked. he rang a bell; and after about three minutes' delay, a buxom country-girl appeared in the lobby carrying a candle. she was some kitchenmaid or dairymaid or scullerymaid, whom paul could not remember to have ever seen until now. she opened the door, and admitted him, dropping a curtsey as he passed her. there was some relief even in this. mr. marchmont had scarcely expected to get into the house at all; still less to be received with common civility by any of the servants, who had so lately obeyed him and fawned upon him. "where are all the rest of the servants?" he asked. "they're all gone, sir; except him as you brought down from london,--mr. peterson,--and me and mother. mother's in the laundry, sir; and i'm scullerymaid." "why did the other servants leave the place?" "mostly because they was afraid of the mob upon the terrace, i think, sir; for there's been people all the afternoon throwin' stones, and breakin' the windows; and i don't think as there's a whole pane of glass in the front of the house, sir; and mr. gormby, sir, he come about four o'clock, and he got the people to go away, sir, by tellin' 'em as it wern't your property, sir, but the young lady's, miss mary marchmont,--leastways, mrs. airendale,--as they was destroyin' of; but most of the servants had gone before that, sir, except mr. peterson; and mr. gormby gave orders as me and mother was to lock all the doors, and let no one in upon no account whatever; and he's coming to-morrow mornin' to take possession, he says; and please, sir, you can't come in; for his special orders to me and mother was, no one, and you in particklar." "nonsense, girl!" exclaimed mr. marchmont, decisively; "who is mr. gormby, that he should give orders as to who comes in or stops out? i'm only coming in for half an hour, to pack my portmanteau. where's peterson?" "in the dinin'-room, sir; but please, sir, you mustn't----" the girl made a feeble effort to intercept mr. marchmont, in accordance with the steward's special orders; which were, that paul should, upon no pretence whatever, be suffered to enter the house. but the artist snatched the candlestick from her hand, and went towards the dining-room, leaving her to stare after him in amazement. paul found his valet peterson, taking what he called a snack, in the dining-room. a cloth was spread upon the corner of the table; and there was a fore-quarter of cold roast-lamb, a bottle of french brandy, and a decanter half-full of madeira before the valet. he started as his master entered the room, and looked up, not very respectfully, but with no unfriendly glance. "give me half a tumbler of that brandy, peterson," said mr. marchmont. the man obeyed; and paul drained the fiery spirit as if it had been so much water. it was four-and-twenty hours since meat or drink had crossed his dry white lips. "why didn't you go away with the rest?" he asked, as he set down the empty glass. "it's only rats, sir, that run away from a falling house. i stopped, thinkin' you'd be goin' away somewhere, and that you'd want me." the solid and unvarnished truth of the matter was, that peterson had taken it for granted that his master had made an excellent purse against this evil day, and would be ready to start for the continent or america, there to lead a pleasant life upon the proceeds of his iniquity. the valet never imagined his master guilty of such besotted folly as to be _un_prepared for this catastrophe. "i thought you might still want me, sir," he said; "and wherever you're going, i'm quite ready to go too. you've been a good master to me, sir; and i don't want to leave a good master because things go against him." paul marchmont shook his head, and held out the empty tumbler for his servant to pour more brandy into it. "i am going away," he said; "but i want no servant where i'm going; but i'm grateful to you for your offer, peterson. will you come upstairs with me? i want to pack a few things." "they're all packed, sir. i knew you'd be leaving, and i've packed everything." "my dressing-case?" "yes, sir. you've got the key of that." "yes; i know, i know." paul marchmont was silent for a few minutes, thinking. everything that he had in the way of personal property of any value was in the dressing-case of which he had spoken. there was five or six hundred pounds' worth of jewellery in mr. marchmont's dressing-case; for the first instinct of the _nouveau riche_ exhibits itself in diamond shirt-studs, cameo rings, malachite death's-heads with emerald eyes; grotesque and pleasing charms in the form of coffins, coal-scuttles, and hobnailed boots; fantastical lockets of ruby and enamel; wonderful bands of massive yellow gold, studded with diamonds, wherein to insert the two ends of flimsy lace cravats. mr. marchmont reflected upon the amount of his possessions, and their security in the jewel-drawer of his dressing-case. the dressing-case was furnished with a chubb's lock, the key of which he carried in his waistcoat-pocket. yes, it was all safe. "look here, peterson," said paul marchmont; "i think i shall sleep at mrs. weston's to-night. i should like you to take my dressing-case down there at once." "and how about the other luggage, sir,--the portmanteaus and hat-boxes?" "never mind those. i want you to put the dressing-case safe in my sister's hands. i can send here for the rest to-morrow morning. you needn't wait for me now. i'll follow you in half an hour." "yes, sir. you want the dressing-case carried to mrs. weston's house, and i'm to wait for you there?" "yes; you can wait for me." "but is there nothing else i can do, sir?" "nothing whatever. i've only got to collect a few papers, and then i shall follow you." "yes, sir." the discreet peterson bowed, and retired to fetch the dressing-case. he put his own construction upon mr. marchmont's evident desire to get rid of him, and to be left alone at the towers. paul had, of course, made a purse, and had doubtless put his money away in some very artful hiding-place, whence he now wanted to take it at his leisure. he had stuffed one of his pillows with bank-notes, perhaps; or had hidden a cash-box behind the tapestry in his bedchamber; or had buried a bag of gold in the flower-garden below the terrace. mr. peterson went upstairs to paul's dressing-room, put his hand through the strap of the dressing-case, which was very heavy, went downstairs again, met his master in the hall, and went out at the lobby-door. paul locked the door upon his valet, and then went back into the lonely house, where the ticking of the clocks in the tenantless rooms sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness. all the windows had been broken; and though the shutters were shut, the cold night-air blew in at many a crack and cranny, and well-nigh extinguished mr. marchmont's candle as he went from room to room looking about him. he went into the western drawing-room, and lighted some of the lamps in the principal chandelier. the shutters were shut, for the windows here, as well as elsewhere, had been broken; fragments of shivered glass, great jagged stones, and handfuls of gravel, lay about upon the rich carpet,--the velvet-pile which he had chosen with such artistic taste, such careful deliberation. he lit the lamps and walked about the room, looking for the last time at his treasures. yes, _his_ treasures. it was he who had transformed this chamber from a prim, old-fashioned sitting-room--with quaint japanned cabinets, shabby chintz-cushioned cane-chairs, cracked indian vases, and a faded carpet--into a saloon that would have been no discredit to buckingham palace or alton towers. it was he who had made the place what it was. he had squandered the savings of mary's minority upon pictures that the richest collector in england might have been proud to own; upon porcelain that would have been worthy of a place in the vienna museum or the bernal collection. he had done this, and these things were to pass into the possession of the man he hated,--the fiery young soldier who had horsewhipped him before the face of wondering lincolnshire. he walked about the room, thinking of his life since he had come into possession of this place, and of what it had been before that time, and what it must be again, unless he summoned up a desperate courage--and killed himself. his heart beat fast and loud, and he felt an icy chill creeping slowly through his every vein as he thought of this. how was he to kill himself? he had no poison in his possession,--no deadly drug that would reduce the agony of death to the space of a lightning-flash. there were pistols, rare gems of choicest workmanship, in one of the buhl-cabinets in that very room; there were both fowling-piece and ammunition in mr. marchmont's dressing-room: but the artist was not expert with the use of firearms, and he might fail in the attempt to blow out his brains, and only maim or disfigure himself hideously. there was the river,--the black, sluggish river: but then, drowning is a slow death, and heaven only knows how long the agony may seem to the wretch who endures it! alas! the ghastly truth of the matter is that mr. marchmont was afraid of death. look at the king of terrors how he would, he could not discover any pleasing aspect under which he could meet the grim monarch without flinching. he looked at life; but if life was less terrible than death, it was not less dreary. he looked forward with a shudder to see--what? humiliation, disgrace, perhaps punishment,--life-long transportation, it may be; for this base conspiracy might be a criminal offence, amenable to criminal law. or, escaping all this, what was there for him? what was there for this man even then? for forty years he had been steeped to the lips in poverty, and had endured his life. he looked back now, and wondered how it was that he had been patient; he wondered why he had not made an end of himself and his obscure troubles twenty years before this night. but after looking back a little longer, he saw the star which had illumined the darkness of that miserable and sordid existence, and he understood the reason of his endurance. he had hoped. day after day he had got up to go through the same troubles, to endure the same humiliations: but every day, when his life had been hardest to him, he had said, "to-morrow i may be master of marchmont towers." but he could never hope this any more; he could not go back to watch and wait again, beguiled by the faint hope that mary arundel's son might die, and to hear by-and-by that other children were born to her to widen the great gulf betwixt him and fortune. he looked back, and he saw that he had lived from day to day, from year to year, lured on by this one hope. he looked forward, and he saw that he could not live without it. there had never been but this one road to good fortune open to him. he was a clever man, but his was not the cleverness which can transmute itself into solid cash. he could only paint indifferent pictures; and he had existed long enough by picture-painting to realise the utter hopelessness of success in that career. he had borne his life while he was in it, but he could not bear to go back to it. he had been out of it, and had tasted another phase of existence; and he could see it all now plainly, as if he had been a spectator sitting in the boxes and watching a dreary play performed upon a stage before him. the performers in the remotest provincial theatre believe in the play they are acting. the omnipotence of passion creates dewy groves and moonlit atmospheres, ducal robes and beautiful women. but the metropolitan spectator, in whose mind the memory of better things is still fresh, sees that the moonlit trees are poor distemper daubs, pushed on by dirty carpenters, and the moon a green bottle borrowed from a druggist's shop, the ducal robes threadbare cotton velvet and tarnished tinsel, and the heroine of the drama old and ugly. so paul looked at the life he had endured, and wondered as he saw how horrible it was. he could see the shabby lodging, the faded furniture, the miserable handful of fire struggling with the smoke in a shallow grate, that had been half-blocked up with bricks by some former tenant as badly off as himself. he could look back at that dismal room, with the ugly paper on the walls, the scanty curtains flapping in the wind which they pretended to shut out; the figure of his mother sitting near the fireplace, with that pale, anxious face, which was a perpetual complaint against hardship and discomfort. he could see his sister standing at the window in the dusky twilight, patching up some worn-out garment, and straining her eyes for the sake of economising in the matter of half an inch of candle. and the street below the window,--the shabby-genteel street, with a dingy shop breaking out here and there, and children playing on the doorsteps, and a muffin-bell jingling through the evening fog, and a melancholy italian grinding "home, sweet home!" in the patch of lighted road opposite the pawnbroker's. he saw it all; and it was all alike--sordid, miserable, hopeless. paul marchmont had never sunk so low as his cousin john. he had never descended so far in the social scale as to carry a banner at drury lane, or to live in one room in oakley street, lambeth. but there had been times when to pay the rent of three rooms had been next kin to an impossibility to the artist, and when the honorarium of a shilling a night would have been very acceptable to him. he had drained the cup of poverty to the dregs; and now the cup was filled again, and the bitter draught was pushed once more into his unwilling hand. he must drink that, or another potion,--a sleeping-draught, which is commonly called death. he must die! but how? his coward heart sank as the awful alternative pressed closer upon him. he must die!--to-night,--at once,--in that house; so that when they came in the morning to eject him, they would have little trouble; they would only have to carry out a corpse. he walked up and down the room, biting his finger-nails to the quick, but coming to no resolution, until he was interrupted by the ringing of the bell at the lobby-door. it was the messenger from his sister, no doubt. paul drew his watch from his waistcoat-pocket, unfastened his chain, took a set of gold-studs from the breast of his shirt, and a signet-ring from his finger; then he sat down at a writing-table, and packed the watch and chain, the studs and signet-ring, and a bunch of keys, in a large envelope. he sealed this packet, and addressed it to his sister; then he took a candle, and went to the lobby. mrs. weston had sent a young man who was an assistant and pupil of her husband's--a good-tempered young fellow, who willingly served her in her hour of trouble. paul gave this messenger the key of his dressing-case and packet. "you will be sure and put that in my sister's hands," he said. "o yes, sir. mrs. weston gave me this letter for you, sir. am i to wait for an answer?" "no; there will be no answer. good night." "good night, sir." the young man went away; and paul marchmont heard him whistle a popular melody as he walked along the cloistered way and out of the quadrangle by a low archway commonly used by the tradespeople who came to the towers. the artist stood and listened to the young man's departing footsteps. then, with a horrible thrill of anguish, he remembered that he had seen his last of humankind--he had heard his last of human voices: for he was to kill himself that night. he stood in the dark lobby, looking out into the quadrangle. he was quite alone in the house; for the girl who had let him in was in the laundry with her mother. he could see the figures of the two women moving about in a great gaslit chamber upon the other side of the quadrangle--a building which had no communication with the rest of the house. he was to die that night; and he had not yet even determined how he was to die. he mechanically opened mrs. weston's letter: it was only a few lines, telling him that peterson had arrived with the portmanteau and dressing-case, and that there would be a comfortable room prepared for him. "i am so glad you have changed your mind, and are coming to me, paul," mrs. weston concluded. "your manner, when we parted to-night, almost alarmed me." paul groaned aloud as he crushed the letter in his hand. then he went back to the western drawing-room. he heard strange noises in the empty rooms as he passed by their open doors, weird creaking sounds and melancholy moanings in the wide chimneys. it seemed as if all the ghosts of marchmont towers were astir to-night, moved by an awful prescience of some coming horror. paul marchmont was an atheist; but atheism, although a very pleasant theme for a critical and argumentative discussion after a lobster-supper and unlimited champagne, is but a poor staff to lean upon when the worn-out traveller approaches the mysterious portals of the unknown land. the artist had boasted of his belief in annihilation; and had declared himself perfectly satisfied with a materialistic or pantheistic arrangement of the universe, and very indifferent as to whether he cropped up in future years as a summer-cabbage, or a new raphael; so long as the ten stone or so of matter of which he was composed was made use of somehow or other, and did its duty in the great scheme of a scientific universe. but, oh! how that empty, soulless creed slipped away from him now, when he stood alone in this tenantless house, shuddering at strange spirit-noises, and horrified by a host of mystic fears--gigantic, shapeless terrors--that crowded in his empty, godless mind, and filled it with their hideous presence! he had refused to believe in a personal god. he had laughed at the idea that there was any deity to whom the individual can appeal, in his hour of grief or trouble, with the hope of any separate mercy, any special grace. he had rejected the christian's simple creed, and now--now that he had floated away from the shores of life, and felt himself borne upon an irresistible current to that mysterious other side, what did he _not_ believe in? every superstition that has ever disturbed the soul of ignorant man lent some one awful feature to the crowd of hideous images uprising in this man's mind:--awful chaldean gods and carthaginian goddesses, thirsting for the hot blood of human sacrifices, greedy for hecatombs of children flung shrieking into fiery furnaces, or torn limb from limb by savage beasts; babylonian abominations; egyptian isis and osiris; classical divinities, with flaming swords and pale impassible faces, rigid as the destiny whose type they were; ghastly germanic demons and witches.--all the dread avengers that man, in the knowledge of his own wickedness, has ever shadowed for himself out of the darkness of his ignorant mind, swelled that ghastly crowd, until the artist's brain reeled, and he was fain to sit with his head in his hands, trying, by a great effort of the will, to exorcise these loathsome phantoms. "i must be going mad," he muttered to himself. "i am going mad." but still the great question was unanswered--how was he to kill himself? "i must settle that," he thought. "i dare not think of anything that may come afterwards. besides, what _should_ come? i _know_ that there is nothing. haven't i heard it demonstrated by cleverer men than i am? haven't i looked at it in every light, and weighed it in every scale--always with the same result? yes; i know that there is nothing _after_ the one short pang, any more than there is pain in the nerve of a tooth when the tooth is gone. the nerve was the soul of the tooth, i suppose; but wrench away the body, and the soul is dead. why should i be afraid? one short pain--it will seem long, i dare say--and then i shall lie still for ever and ever, and melt slowly back into the elements out of which i was created. yes; i shall lie still--and be _nothing_." paul marchmont sat thinking of this for a long time. was it such a great advantage, after all, this annihilation, the sovereign good of the atheist's barren creed? it seemed to-night to this man as if it would be better to be anything--to suffer any anguish, any penalty for his sins, than to be blotted out for ever and ever from any conscious part in the grand harmony of the universe. if he could have believed in that roman catholic doctrine of purgatory, and that after cycles of years of suffering he might rise at last, purified from his sins, worthy to dwell among the angels, how differently would death have appeared to him! he might have gone away to hide himself in some foreign city, to perform patient daily sacrifices, humble acts of self-abnegation, every one of which should be a new figure, however small a one, to be set against the great sum of his sin. but he could not believe. there is a vulgar proverb which says, "you cannot have your loaf and eat it;" or if proverbs would only be grammatical, it might be better worded, "you cannot eat your loaf, and have it to eat on some future occasion." neither can you indulge in rationalistic discussions or epigrammatic pleasantry about the great creator who made you, and then turn and cry aloud to him in the dreadful hour of your despair: "o my god, whom i have insulted and offended, help the miserable wretch who for twenty years has obstinately shut his heart against thee!" it may be that god would forgive and hear even at that last supreme moment, as he heard the penitent thief upon the cross; but the penitent thief had been a sinner, not an unbeliever, and he _could_ pray. the hard heart of the atheist freezes in his breast when he would repent and put away his iniquities. when he would fain turn to his offended maker, the words that he tries to speak die away upon his lips; for the habit of blasphemy is too strong upon him; he can _blague_ upon all the mighty mysteries of heaven and hell, but he _cannot_ pray. paul marchmont could not fashion a prayer. horrible witticisms arose up between him and the words he would have spoken--ghastly _bon mots_, that had seemed so brilliant at a lamp-lit dinner-table, spoken to a joyous accompaniment of champagne-corks and laughter. ah, me! the world was behind this man now, with all its pleasures; and he looked back upon it, and thought that, even when it seemed gayest and brightest, it was only like a great roaring fair, with flaring lights, and noisy showmen clamoring for ever to a struggling crowd. how should he die? should he go upstairs and cut his throat? he stood before one of his pictures--a pet picture; a girl's face by millais, looking through the moonlight, fantastically beautiful. he stood before this picture, and he felt one small separate pang amid all his misery as he remembered that edward and mary arundel were now possessors of this particular gem. "they sha'n't have it," he muttered to himself; "they sha'n't have _this_, at any rate." he took a penknife from his pocket, and hacked and ripped the canvas savagely, till it hung in ribbons from the deep gilded frame. then he smiled to himself, for the first time since he had entered that house, and his eyes flashed with a sudden light. "i have lived like sardanapalus for the last year," he cried aloud; "and i will die like sardanapalus!" there was a fragile piece of furniture near him,--an _étagère_ of marqueterie work, loaded with costly _bric à brac_, oriental porcelain, sèvres and dresden, old chelsea and crown derby cups and saucers, and quaint teapots, crawling vermin in pallissy ware, indian monstrosities, and all manner of expensive absurdities, heaped together in artistic confusion. paul marchmont struck the slim leg of the _étagère_ with his foot, and laughed aloud as the fragile toys fell into a ruined heap upon the carpet. he stamped upon the broken china; and the frail cups and saucers crackled like eggshells under his savage feet. "i will die like sardanapalus!" he cried; "the king arbaces shall never rest in the palace i have beautified. 'now order here fagots, pine-nuts, and wither'd leaves, and such things as catch fire with one sole spark; bring cedar, too, and precious drugs, and spices, and mighty planks, to nourish a tall pile; bring frankincense and myrrh, too; for it is for a great sacrifice i build the pyre.' i don't think much of your blank verse, george gordon noel byron. your lines end on lame syllables; your ten-syllable blank verse lacks the fiery ring of your rhymes. i wonder whether marchmont towers is insured? yes, i remember paying a premium last christmas. they may have a sharp tussle with the insurance companies though. yes, i will die like sardanapalus--no, not like him, for i have no myrrha to mount the pile and cling about me to the last. pshaw! a modern myrrha would leave sardanapalus to perish alone, and be off to make herself safe with the new king." paul snatched up the candle, and went out into the hall. he laughed discordantly, and spoke in loud ringing tones. his manner had that feverish excitement which the french call exaltation. he ran up the broad stairs leading to the long corridor, out of which his own rooms, and his mother's and sister's rooms, opened. ah, how pretty they were! how elegant he had made them in his reckless disregard of expense, his artistic delight in the task of beautification! there were no shutters here, and the summer breeze blew in through the broken windows, and stirred the gauzy muslin curtains, the gay chintz draperies, the cloudlike festoons of silk and lace. paul marchmont went from room to room with the flaring candle in his hand; and wherever there were curtains or draperies about the windows, the beds, the dressing-tables, the low lounging-chairs, and cosy little sofas, he set alight to them. he did this with wonderful rapidity, leaving flames behind him as he traversed the long corridor, and coming back thus to the stairs. he went downstairs again, and returned to the western drawing-room. then he blew out his candle, turned out the gas, and waited. "how soon will it come?" he thought. the shutters were shut, and the room was quite dark. "shall i ever have courage to stop till it comes?" paul marchmont groped his way to the door, double-locked it, and then took the key from the lock. he went to one of the windows, clambered upon a chair, opened the top shutter, and flung the key out through the broken window. he heard it strike jingling upon the stone terrace and then bound away, heaven knows where. "i shan't be able to go out by the door, at any rate," he thought. it was quite dark in the room, but the reflection of the spreading flames was growing crimson in the sky outside. mr. marchmont went away from the window, feeling his way amongst the chairs and tables. he could see the red light through the crevices of the shutters, and a lurid patch of sky through that one window, the upper half of which he had left open. he sat down, somewhere near the centre of the room, and waited. "the smoke will kill me," he thought. "i shall know nothing of the fire." he sat quite still. he had trembled violently while he had gone from room to room doing his horrible work; but his nerves seemed steadier now. steadier! why, he was transformed to stone! his heart seemed to have stopped beating; and he only knew by a sick anguish, a dull aching pain, that it was still in his breast. he sat waiting and thinking. in that time all the long story of the past was acted before him, and he saw what a wretch he had been. i do not know whether this was penitence; but looking at that enacted story, paul marchmont thought that his own part in the play was a mistake, and that it was a foolish thing to be a villain. * * * * * when a great flock of frightened people, with a fire-engine out of order, and drawn by whooping men and boys, came hurrying up to the towers, they found a blazing edifice, which looked like an enchanted castle--great stone-framed windows vomiting flame; tall chimneys toppling down upon a fiery roof; molten lead, like water turned to fire, streaming in flaming cataracts upon the terrace; and all the sky lit up by that vast pile of blazing ruin. only salamanders, or poor mr. braidwood's own chosen band, could have approached marchmont towers that night. the kemberling firemen and the swampington firemen, who came by-and-by, were neither salamanders nor braidwoods. they stood aloof and squirted water at the flames, and recoiled aghast by-and-by when the roof came down like an avalanche of blazing timber, leaving only a gaunt gigantic skeleton of red-hot stone where marchmont towers once had been. when it was safe to venture in amongst the ruins--and this was not for many hours after the fire had burnt itself out--people looked for paul marchmont; but amidst all that vast chaos of smouldering ashes, there was nothing found that could be identified as the remains of a human being. no one knew where the artist had been at the time of the fire, or indeed whether he had been in the house at all; and the popular opinion was, that paul had set fire to the mansion, and had fled away before the flames began to spread. but lavinia weston knew better than this. she knew now why her brother had sent her every scrap of valuable property belonging to him. she understood now why he had come back to her to bid her good-night for the second time, and press his cold lips to hers. chapter the last. "dear is the memory of our wedded lives." mary and edward arundel saw the awful light in the sky, and heard the voices of the people shouting in the street below, and calling to one another that marchmont towers was on fire. the young mistress of the burning pile had very little concern for her property. she only kept saying, again and again, "o edward! i hope there is no one in the house. god grant there may be no one in the house!" and when the flames were highest, and it seemed by the light in the sky as if all lincolnshire had been blazing, edward arundel's wife flung herself upon her knees, and prayed aloud for any unhappy creature that might be in peril. oh, if we could dare to think that this innocent girl's prayer was heard before the throne of an awful judge, pleading for the soul of a wicked man! early the next morning mrs. arundel came from lawford grange with her confidential maid, and carried off her daughter-in-law and the baby, on the first stage of the journey into devonshire. before she left kemberling, mary was told that no dead body had been found amongst the ruins of the towers; and this assertion deluded her into the belief that no unhappy creature had perished. so she went to dangerfield happier than she had ever been since the sunny days of her honeymoon, to wait there for the coming of edward arundel, who was to stay behind to see richard paulette and mr. gormby, and to secure the testimony of mr. weston and betsy murrel with a view to the identification of mary's little son, who had been neither registered nor christened. i have no need to dwell upon this process of identification, registration, and christening, through which master edward arundel had to pass in the course of the next month. i had rather skip this dry-as-dust business, and go on to that happy time which edward and his young wife spent together under the oaks at dangerfield--that bright second honeymoon season, while they were as yet houseless; for a pretty villa-like mansion was being built on the marchmont property, far away from the dank wood and the dismal river, in a pretty pastoral little nook, which was a fair oasis amidst the general dreariness of lincolnshire. i need scarcely say that the grand feature of this happy time was the baby. it will be of course easily understood that this child stood alone amongst babies. there never had been another such infant; it was more than probable there would never again be such a one. in every attribute of babyhood he was a twelvemonth in advance of the rest of his race. prospective greatness was stamped upon his brow. he would be a clive or a wellington, unless indeed he should have a fancy for the bar and the woolsack, in which case he would be a little more erudite than lyndhurst, a trifle more eloquent than brougham. all this was palpable to the meanest capacity in the very manner in which this child crowed in his nurse's arms, or choked himself with farinaceous food, or smiled recognition at his young father, or performed the simplest act common to infancy. i think mr. sant would have been pleased to paint one of those summer scenes at dangerfield--the proud soldier-father; the pale young wife; the handsome, matronly grandmother; and, as the mystic centre of that magic circle, the toddling flaxen-haired baby, held up by his father's hands, and taking caricature strides in imitation of papa's big steps. to my mind, it is a great pity that children are not children for ever--that the pretty baby-boy by sant, all rosy and flaxen and blue-eyed, should ever grow into a great angular pre-raphaelite hobadahoy, horribly big and out of drawing. but neither edward nor mary nor, above all, mrs. arundel were of this opinion. they were as eager for the child to grow up and enter for the great races of this life, as some speculative turf magnate who has given a fancy price for a yearling, and is pining to see the animal a far-famed three-year-old, and winner of the double event. before the child had cut a double-tooth mrs. arundel senior had decided in favour of eton as opposed to harrow, and was balancing the conflicting advantages of classical oxford and mathematical cambridge; while edward could not see the baby-boy rolling on the grass, with blue ribbons and sashes fluttering in the breeze, without thinking of his son's future appearance in the uniform of his own regiment, gorgeous in the splendid crush of a levee at st. james's. how many airy castles were erected in that happy time, with the baby for the foundation-stone of all of them! _the_ baby! why, that definite article alone expresses an infinity of foolish love and admiration. nobody says _the_ father, the husband, the mother; it is "my" father, my husband, as the case may be. but every baby, from st. giles's to belgravia, from tyburnia to st. luke's, is "the" baby. the infant's reign is short, but his royalty is supreme, and no one presumes to question his despotic rule. edward arundel almost worshipped the little child whose feeble cry he had heard in the october twilight, and had _not_ recognised. he was never tired of reproaching himself for this omission. that baby-voice _ought_ to have awakened a strange thrill in the young father's breast. that time at dangerfield was the happiest period of mary's life. all her sorrows had melted away. they did not tell her of paul marchmont's suspected fate; they only told her that her enemy had disappeared, and that no one knew whither he had gone. mary asked once, and once only, about her stepmother; and she was told that olivia was at swampington rectory, living with her father, and that people said she was mad. george weston had emigrated to australia, with his wife, and his wife's mother and sister. there had been no prosecution for conspiracy; the disappearance of the principal criminal had rendered that unnecessary. this was all that mary ever heard of her persecutors. she did not wish to hear of them; she had forgiven them long ago. i think that in the inner depths of her innocent heart she had forgiven them from the moment she had fallen on her husband's breast in hester's parlour at kemberling, and had felt his strong arms clasped about her, sheltering her from all harm for evermore. she was very happy; and her nature, always gentle, seemed sublimated by the sufferings she had endured, and already akin to that of the angels. alas, this was edward arundel's chief sorrow! this young wife, so precious to him in her fading loveliness, was slipping away from him, even in the hour when they were happiest together--was separated from him even when they were most united. she was separated from him by that unconquerable sadness in his heart, which was prophetic of a great sorrow to come. sometimes, when mary saw her husband looking at her with a mournful tenderness, an almost despairing love in his eyes, she would throw herself into his arms, and say to him: "you must remember how happy i have been, edward. o my darling! promise me always to remember how happy i have been." when the first chill breezes of autumn blew among the dangerfield oaks, edward arundel took his wife southwards, with his mother and the inevitable baby in her train. they went to nice, and they were very quiet, very happy, in the pretty southern town, with snow-clad mountains behind them, and the purple mediterranean before. the villa was building all this time in lincolnshire. edward's agent sent him plans and sketches for mrs. arundel's approval; and every evening there was some fresh talk about the arrangement of the rooms, and the laying-out of gardens. mary was always pleased to see the plans and drawings, and to discuss the progress of the work with her husband. she would talk of the billiard-room, and the cosy little smoking-room, and the nurseries for the baby, which were to have a southern aspect, and every advantage calculated to assist the development of that rare and marvellous blossom; and she would plan the comfortable apartments that were to be specially kept for dear grandmamma, who would of course spend a great deal of her time at the sycamores--the new place was to be called the sycamores. but edward could never get his wife to talk of a certain boudoir opening into a tiny conservatory, which he himself had added on to the original architect's plan. he could never get mary to speak of this particular chamber; and once, when he asked her some question about the colour of the draperies, she said to him, very gently,-- "i would rather you would not think of that room, darling." "why, my pet?" "because it will make you sorry afterwards." "mary, my darling----" "o edward! you know,--you must know, dearest,--that i shall never see that place?" but her husband took her in his arms, and declared that this was only a morbid fancy, and that she was getting better and stronger every day, and would live to see her grandchildren playing under the maples that sheltered the northern side of the new villa. edward told his wife this, and he believed in the truth of what he said. he could not believe that he was to lose this young wife, restored to him after so many trials. mary did not contradict him just then; but that night, when he was sitting in her room reading by the light of a shaded lamp after she had gone to bed,--mary went to bed very early, by order of the doctors, and indeed lived altogether according to medical _régime_,--she called her husband to her. "i want to speak to you, dear," she said; "there is something that i must say to you." the young man knelt down by his wife's bed. "what is it, darling?" he asked. "you know what we said to-day, edward?" "what, darling? we say so many things every day--we are so happy together, and have so much to talk about." "but you remember, edward,--you remember what i said about never seeing the sycamores? ah! don't stop me, dear love," mary said reproachfully, for edward put his lips to hers to stay the current of mournful words,--"don't stop me, dear, for i must speak to you. i want you to know that _it must be_, edward darling. i want you to remember how happy i have been, and how willing i am to part with you, dear, since it is god's will that we should be parted. and there is something else that i want to say, edward. grandmamma told me something--all about belinda. i want you to promise me that belinda shall be happy by-and-by; for she has suffered so much, poor girl! and you will love her, and she will love the baby. but you won't love her quite the same way that you loved me, will you, dear? because you never knew her when she was a little child, and very poor. she has never been an orphan, and quite lonely, as i have been. you have never been _all the world_ to her." * * * * * the sycamores was finished by the following midsummer, but no one took possession of the newly-built house; no brisk upholsterer's men came, with three-foot rules and pencils and memorandum-books, to take measurements of windows and floors; no wagons of splendid furniture made havoc of the gravel-drive before the principal entrance. the only person who came to the new house was a snuff-taking crone from stanfield, who brought a turn-up bedstead, a dutch clock, and a few minor articles of furniture, and encamped in a corner of the best bedroom. edward arundel, senior, was away in india, fighting under napier and outram; and edward arundel, junior, was at dangerfield, under the charge of his grandmother. perhaps the most beautiful monument in one of the english cemeteries at nice is that tall white marble cross and kneeling figure, before which strangers pause to read an inscription to the memory of mary, the beloved wife of edward dangerfield arundel. the epilogue. four years after the completion of that pretty stuccoed villa, which seemed destined never to be inhabited, belinda lawford walked alone up and down the sheltered shrubbery-walk in the grange garden in the fading september daylight. miss lawford was taller and more womanly-looking than she had been on the day of her interrupted wedding. the vivid bloom had left her cheeks; but i think she was all the prettier because of that delicate pallor, which gave a pensive cast to her countenance. she was very grave and gentle and good; but she had never forgotten the shock of that broken bridal ceremonial in hillingsworth church. the major had taken his eldest daughter abroad almost immediately after that july day; and belinda and her father had travelled together very peacefully, exploring quiet belgian cities, looking at celebrated altar-pieces in dusky cathedrals, and wandering round battle-fields, which the intermingled blood of rival nations had once made one crimson swamp. they had been nearly a twelvemonth absent, and then belinda returned to assist at the marriage of a younger sister, and to hear that edward arundel's wife had died of a lingering pulmonary complaint at nice. she was told this: and she was told how olivia marchmont still lived with her father at swampington, and how day by day she went the same round from cottage to cottage, visiting the sick; teaching little children, or sometimes rough-bearded men, to read and write and cipher; reading to old decrepit pensioners; listening to long histories of sickness and trial, and exhibiting an unwearying patience that was akin to sublimity. passion had burnt itself out in this woman's breast, and there was nothing in her mind now but remorse, and the desire to perform a long penance, by reason of which she might in the end be forgiven. but mrs. marchmont never visited anyone alone. wherever she went, barbara simmons accompanied her, constant as her shadow. the swampington people said this was because the rector's daughter was not quite right in her mind; and there were times when she forgot where she was, and would have wandered away in a purposeless manner, heaven knows where, had she not been accompanied by her faithful servant. clever as the swampington people and the kemberling people might be in finding out the business of their neighbours, they never knew that olivia marchmont had been consentient to the hiding-away of her stepdaughter. they looked upon her, indeed, with considerable respect, as a heroine by whose exertions paul marchmont's villany had been discovered. in the hurry and confusion of the scene at hillingsworth church, nobody had taken heed of olivia's incoherent self-accusations: hubert arundel was therefore spared the misery of knowing the extent of his daughter's sin. belinda lawford came home in order to be present at her sister's wedding; and the old life began again for her, with all the old duties that had once been so pleasant. she went about them very cheerfully now. she worked for her poor pensioners, and took the chief burden of the housekeeping off her mother's hands. but though she jingled her keys with a cheery music as she went about the house, and though she often sang to herself over her work, the old happy smile rarely lit up her face. she went about her duties rather like some widowed matron who had lived her life, than a girl before whom the future lies, mysterious and unknown. it has been said that happiness comes to the sleeper--the meaning of which proverb i take to be, that joy generally comes to us when we least look for her lovely face. and it was on this september afternoon, when belinda loitered in the garden after her round of small duties was finished, and she was free to think or dream at her leisure, that happiness came to her,--unexpected, unhoped-for, supreme; for, turning at one end of the sheltered alley, she saw edward arundel standing at the other end, with his hat in his hand, and the summer wind blowing amongst his hair. miss lawford stopped quite still. the old-fashioned garden reeled before her eyes, and the hard-gravelled path seemed to become a quaking bog. she could not move; she stood still, and waited while edward came towards her. "letitia has told me about you, linda," he said; "she has told me how true and noble you have been; and she sent me here to look for a wife, to make new sunshine in my empty home,--a young mother to smile upon my motherless boy." edward and belinda walked up and down the sheltered alley for a long time, talking a great deal of the sad past, a little of the fair-seeming future. it was growing dusk before they went in at the old-fashioned half-glass door leading into the drawing-room, where mrs. lawford and her younger daughters were sitting, and where lydia, who was next to belinda, and had been three years married to the curate of hillingsworth, was nursing her second baby. "has she said 'yes'?" this young matron cried directly; for she had been told of edward's errand to the grange. "but of course she has. what else should she say, after refusing all manner of people, and giving herself the airs of an old-maid? yes, um pressus pops, um aunty lindy's going to be marriedy-pariedy," concluded the curate's wife, addressing her three-months-old baby in that peculiar patois which is supposed to be intelligible to infants by reason of being unintelligible to everybody else. "i suppose you are not aware that my future brother-in-law is a major?" said belinda's third sister, who had been struggling with a variation by thalberg, all octaves and accidentals, and who twisted herself round upon her music-stool to address her sister. "i suppose you are not aware that you have been talking to major arundel, who has done all manner of splendid things in the punjaub? papa told us all about it five minutes ago." it was as much as belinda could do to support the clamorous felicitations of her sisters, especially the unmarried damsels, who were eager to exhibit themselves in the capacity of bridesmaids; but by-and-by, after dinner, the curate's wife drew her sisters away from that shadowy window in which edward arundel and belinda were sitting, and the lovers were left to themselves. that evening was very peaceful, very happy, and there were many other evenings like it before edward and belinda completed that ceremonial which they had left unfinished more than five years before. the sycamores was very prettily furnished, under belinda's superintendence; and as reginald arundel had lately married, edward's mother came to live with her younger son, and brought with her the idolised grandchild, who was now a tall, yellow-haired boy of six years old. there was only one room in the sycamores which was never tenanted by any one of that little household except edward himself, who kept the key of the little chamber in his writing-desk, and only allowed the servants to go in at stated intervals to keep everything bright and orderly in the apartment. the shut-up chamber was the boudoir which edward arundel had planned for his first wife. he had ordered it to be furnished with the very furniture which he had intended for mary. the rosebuds and butterflies on the walls, the guipure curtains lined with pale blush-rose silk, the few chosen books in the little cabinet near the fireplace, the dresden breakfast-service, the statuettes and pictures, were things he had fixed upon long ago in his own mind as the decorations for his wife's apartment. he went into the room now and then, and looked at his first wife's picture--a crayon sketch taken in london before mary and her husband started for the south of france. he looked a little wistfully at this picture, even when he was happiest in the new ties that bound him to life, and all that is brightest in life. major arundel took his eldest son into this room one day, when young edward was eight or nine years old, and showed the boy his mother's portrait. "when you are a man, this place will be yours, edward," the father said. "_you_ can give your wife this room, although i have never given it to mine. you will tell her that it was built for your mother, and that it was built for her by a husband who, even when most grateful to god for every new blessing he enjoyed, never ceased to be sorry for the loss of his first love." and so i leave my soldier-hero, to repose upon laurels that have been hardly won, and secure in that modified happiness which is chastened by the memory of sorrow. i leave him with bright children crowding round his knees, a loving wife smiling at him across those fair childish heads. i leave him happy and good and useful, filling his place in the world, and bringing up his children to be wise and virtuous men and women in the days that are to come. i leave him, above all, with the serene lamp of faith for ever burning in his soul, lighting the image of that other world in which there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, and where his dead wife will smile upon him from amidst the vast throng of angel faces--a child for ever and ever before the throne of god! the end. john marchmont's legacy. by [m.e. braddon] the author of "lady audley's secret," etc. etc. etc. in three volumes. vol.i. published by tinsley brothers of london in (third edition). this story is dedicated to my mother contents. chapter i. the man with the banner. chapter ii. little mary. chapter iii. about the lincolnshire property. chapter iv. going away. chapter v. marchmont towers. chapter vi. the young soldier's return. chapter vii. olivia. chapter viii. "my life is cold, and dark, and dreary." chapter ix. "when shall i cease to be all alone?" chapter x. mary's stepmother. chapter xi. the day of desolation. chapter xii. paul. chapter xiii. olivia's despair. chapter xiv. driven away. john marchmont's legacy. volume i. chapter i. the man with the banner. the history of edward arundel, second son of christopher arundel dangerfield arundel, of dangerfield park, devonshire, began on a certain dark winter's night upon which the lad, still a schoolboy, went with his cousin, martin mostyn, to witness a blank-verse tragedy at one of the london theatres. there are few men who, looking back at the long story of their lives, cannot point to one page in the record of the past at which the actual history of life began. the page may come in the very middle of the book, perhaps; perhaps almost at the end. but let it come where it will, it is, after all, only the actual commencement. at an appointed hour in man's existence, the overture which has been going on ever since he was born is brought to a sudden close by the sharp vibration of the prompter's signal-bell; the curtain rises, and the drama of life begins. very insignificant sometimes are the first scenes of the play,--common-place, trite, wearisome; but watch them closely, and interwoven with every word, dimly recognisable in every action, may be seen the awful hand of destiny. the story has begun: already we, the spectators, can make vague guesses at the plot, and predicate the solemn climax; it is only the actors who are ignorant of the meaning of their several parts, and who are stupidly reckless of the obvious catastrophe. the story of young arundel's life began when he was a light-hearted, heedless lad of seventeen, newly escaped for a brief interval from the care of his pastors and masters. the lad had come to london on a christmas visit to his father's sister, a worldly-minded widow, with a great many sons and daughters, and an income only large enough to enable her to keep up the appearances of wealth essential to the family pride of one of the arundels of dangerfield. laura arundel had married a colonel mostyn, of the east india company's service, and had returned from india after a wandering life of some years, leaving her dead husband behind her, and bringing away with her five daughters and three sons, most of whom had been born under canvas. mrs. mostyn bore her troubles bravely, and contrived to do more with her pension, and an additional income of four hundred a year from a small fortune of her own, than the most consummate womanly management can often achieve. her house in montague square was elegantly furnished, her daughters were exquisitely dressed, her sons sensibly educated, her dinners well cooked. she was not an agreeable woman; she was perhaps, if any thing, too sensible,--so very sensible as to be obviously intolerant of anything like folly in others. she was a good mother; but by no means an indulgent one. she expected her sons to succeed in life, and her daughters to marry rich men; and would have had little patience with any disappointment in either of these reasonable expectations. she was attached to her brother christopher arundel, and she was very well pleased to spend the autumn months at dangerfield, where the hunting-breakfasts gave her daughters an excellent platform for the exhibition of charming demi-toilettes and social and domestic graces, perhaps more dangerous to the susceptible hearts of rich young squires than the fascinations of a _valse à deux temps_ or an italian scena. but the same mrs. mostyn, who never forgot to keep up her correspondence with the owner of dangerfield park, utterly ignored the existence of another brother, a certain hubert arundel, who had, perhaps, much more need of her sisterly friendship than the wealthy devonshire squire. heaven knows, the world seemed a lonely place to this younger son, who had been educated for the church, and was fain to content himself with a scanty living in one of the dullest and dampest towns in fenny lincolnshire. his sister might have very easily made life much more pleasant to the rector of swampington and his only daughter; but hubert arundel was a great deal too proud to remind her of this. if mrs. mostyn chose to forget him,--the brother and sister had been loving friends and dear companions long ago, under the beeches at dangerfield,--she was welcome to do so. she was better off than he was; and it is to be remarked, that if a's income is three hundred a year, and b's a thousand, the chances are as seven to three that b will forget any old intimacy that may have existed between himself and a. hubert arundel had been wild at college, and had put his autograph across so many oblong slips of blue paper, acknowledging value received that had been only half received, that by the time the claims of all the holders of these portentous morsels of stamped paper had been satisfied, the younger son's fortune had melted away, leaving its sometime possessor the happy owner of a pair of pointers, a couple of guns by crack makers, a good many foils, single-sticks, boxing-gloves, wire masks, basket helmets, leathern leg-guards, and other paraphernalia, a complete set of the old _sporting magazine_, from to the current year, bound in scarlet morocco, several boxes of very bad cigars, a scotch terrier, and a pipe of undrinkable port. of all these possessions, only the undrinkable port now remained to show that hubert arundel had once had a decent younger son's fortune, and had succeeded most admirably in making ducks and drakes of it. the poor about swampington believed in the sweet red wine, which had been specially concocted for israelitish dealers in jewelry, cigars, pictures, wines, and specie. the rector's pensioners smacked their lips over the mysterious liquid and confidently affirmed that it did them more good than all the doctor's stuff the parish apothecary could send them. poor hubert arundel was well content to find that at least this scanty crop of corn had grown up from the wild oats he had sown at cambridge. the wine pleased the poor creatures who drank it, and was scarcely likely to do them any harm; and there was a reasonable prospect that the last bottle would by-and-by pass out of the rectory cellars, and with it the last token of that bitterly regretted past. i have no doubt that hubert arundel felt the sting of his only sister's neglect, as only a poor and proud man can feel such an insult; but he never let any confession of this sentiment escape his lips; and when mrs. mostyn, being seized with a fancy for doing this forgotten brother a service, wrote him a letter of insolent advice, winding up with an offer to procure his only child a situation as nursery governess, the rector of swampington only crushed the missive in his strong hand, and flung it into his study-fire, with a muttered exclamation that sounded terribly like an oath. "a _nursery_ governess!" he repeated, savagely; "yes; an underpaid drudge, to teach children their a b c, and mend their frocks and make their pinafores. i should like mrs. mostyn to talk to my little livy for half an hour. i think my girl would have put the lady down so completely by the end of that time, that we should never hear any more about nursery governesses." he laughed bitterly as he repeated the obnoxious phrase; but his laugh changed to a sigh. was it strange that the father should sigh as he remembered how he had seen the awful hand of death fall suddenly upon younger and stronger men than himself? what if he were to die, and leave his only child unmarried? what would become of her, with her dangerous gifts, with her fatal dowry of beauty and intellect and pride? "but she would never do any thing wrong," the father thought. "her religious principles are strong enough to keep her right under any circumstances, in spite of any temptation. her sense of duty is more powerful than any other sentiment. she would never be false to that; she would never be false to that." in return for the hospitality of dangerfield park, mrs. mostyn was in the habit of opening her doors to either christopher arundel or his sons, whenever any one of the three came to london. of course she infinitely preferred seeing arthur arundel, the eldest son and heir, seated at her well-spread table, and flirting with one of his pretty cousins, than to be bored with his rackety younger brother, a noisy lad of seventeen, with no better prospects than a commission in her majesty's service, and a hundred and fifty pounds a year to eke out his pay; but she was, notwithstanding, graciously pleased to invite edward to spend his christmas holidays in her comfortable household; and it was thus it came to pass that on the th of december, in the year , the story of edward arundel's life began in a stage-box at drury lane theatre. the box had been sent to mrs. mostyn by the fashionable editor of a fashionable newspaper; but that lady and her daughters being previously engaged, had permitted the two boys to avail themselves of the editorial privilege. the tragedy was the dull production of a distinguished literary amateur, and even the great actor who played the principal character could not make the performance particularly enlivening. he certainly failed in impressing mr. edward arundel, who flung himself back in his chair and yawned dolefully during the earlier part of the entertainment. "it ain't particularly jolly, is it, martin?" he said naïvely, "let's go out and have some oysters, and come in again just before the pantomime begins." "mamma made me promise that we wouldn't leave the theatre till we left for good, ned," his cousin answered; "and then we're to go straight home in a cab." edward arundel sighed. "i wish we hadn't come till half-price, old fellow," he said drearily. "if i'd known it was to be a tragedy, i wouldn't have come away from the square in such a hurry. i wonder why people write tragedies, when nobody likes them." he turned his back to the stage, and folded his arms upon the velvet cushion of the box preparatory to indulging himself in a deliberate inspection of the audience. perhaps no brighter face looked upward that night towards the glare and glitter of the great chandelier than that of the fair-haired lad in the stage-box. his candid blue eyes beamed with a more radiant sparkle than any of the myriad lights in the theatre; a nimbus of golden hair shone about his broad white forehead; glowing health, careless happiness, truth, good-nature, honesty, boyish vivacity, and the courage of a young lion,--all were expressed in the fearless smile, the frank yet half-defiant gaze. above all, this lad of seventeen looked especially what he was,--a thorough gentleman. martin mostyn was prim and effeminate, precociously tired of life, precociously indifferent to everything but his own advantage; but the devonshire boy's talk was still fragrant with the fresh perfume of youth and innocence, still gay with the joyous recklessness of early boyhood. he was as impatient for the noisy pantomime overture, and the bright troops of fairies in petticoats of spangled muslin, as the most inveterate cockney cooling his snub-nose against the iron railing of the gallery. he was as ready to fall in love with the painted beauty of the ill-paid ballet-girls, as the veriest child in the wide circle of humanity about him. fresh, untainted, unsuspicious, he looked out at the world, ready to believe in everything and everybody. "how you do fidget, edward!" whispered martin mostyn peevishly; "why don't you look at the stage? it's capital fun." "fun!" "yes; i don't mean the tragedy you know, but the supernumeraries. did you ever see such an awkward set of fellows in all your life? there's a man there with weak legs and a heavy banner, that i've been watching all the evening. he's more fun than all the rest of it put together." mr. mostyn, being of course much too polite to point out the man in question, indicated him with a twitch of his light eyebrows; and edward arundel, following that indication, singled out the banner-holder from a group of soldiers in medieval dress, who had been standing wearily enough upon one side of the stage during a long, strictly private and confidential dialogue between the princely hero of the tragedy and one of his accommodating satellites. the lad uttered a cry of surprise as he looked at the weak-legged banner-holder. mr. mostyn turned upon his cousin with some vexation. "i can't help it, martin," exclaimed young arundel; "i can't be mistaken--yes--poor fellow, to think that he should come to this!--you haven't forgotten him, martin, surely?" "forgotten what--forgotten whom? my dear edward, what _do_ you mean?" "john marchmont, the poor fellow who used to teach us mathematics at vernon's; the fellow the governor sacked because----" "well, what of him?" "the poor chap with the banner!" exclaimed the boy, in a breathless whisper; "don't you see, martin? didn't you recognise him? it's marchmont, poor old marchmont, that we used to chaff, and that the governor sacked because he had a constitutional cough, and wasn't strong enough for his work." "oh, yes, i remember him well enough," mr. mostyn answered, indifferently. "nobody could stand his cough, you know; and he was a vulgar fellow, into the bargain." "he wasn't a vulgar fellow," said edward indignantly;--"there, there's the curtain down again;--he belonged to a good family in lincolnshire, and was heir-presumptive to a stunning fortune. i've heard him say so twenty times." martin mostyn did not attempt to repress an involuntary sneer, which curled his lips as his cousin spoke. "oh, i dare say you've heard _him_ say so, my dear boy," he murmured superciliously. "ah, and it was true," cried edward; "he wasn't a fellow to tell lies; perhaps he'd have suited mr. vernon better if he had been. he had bad health, and was weak, and all that sort of thing; but he wasn't a snob. he showed me a signet-ring once that he used to wear on his watch-chain----" "a _silver_ watch-chain," simpered mr. mostyn, "just like a carpenter's." "don't be such a supercilious cad, martin. he was very kind to me, poor marchmont; and i know i was always a nuisance to him, poor old fellow; for you know i never could get on with euclid. i'm sorry to see him here. think, martin, what an occupation for him! i don't suppose he gets more than nine or ten shillings a week for it." "a shilling a night is, i believe, the ordinary remuneration of a stage-soldier. they pay as much for the real thing as for the sham, you see; the defenders of our country risk their lives for about the same consideration. where are you going, ned?" edward arundel had left his place, and was trying to undo the door of the box. "to see if i can get at this poor fellow." "you persist in declaring, then, that the man with the weak legs is our old mathematical drudge? well, i shouldn't wonder. the fellow was coughing all through the five acts, and that's uncommonly like marchmont. you're surely not going to renew your acquaintance with him?" but young arundel had just succeeded in opening the door, and he left the box without waiting to answer his cousin's question. he made his way very rapidly out of the theatre, and fought manfully through the crowds who were waiting about the pit and gallery doors, until he found himself at the stage-entrance. he had often looked with reverent wonder at the dark portal; but he had never before essayed to cross the sacred threshold. but the guardian of the gate to this theatrical paradise, inhabited by fairies at a guinea a week, and baronial retainers at a shilling a night, is ordinarily a very inflexible individual, not to be corrupted by any mortal persuasion, and scarcely corruptible by the more potent influence of gold or silver. poor edward's half-a-crown had no effect whatever upon the stern door-keeper, who thanked him for his donation, but told him that it was against his orders to let anybody go up-stairs. "but i want to see some one so particularly," the boy said eagerly. "don't you think you could manage it for me, you know? he's an old friend of mine,--one of the supernu--what's-its-names?" added edward, stumbling over the word. "he carried a banner in the tragedy, you know; and he's got such an awful cough, poor chap." "ze man who garried ze panner vith a gough," said the door-keeper reflectively. he was an elderly german, and had kept guard at that classic doorway for half-a-century or so; "parking cheremiah." "barking jeremiah!" "yes, sir. they gall him parking pecause he's berbetually goughin' his poor veag head off; and they gall him cheremiah pecause he's alvays belangholy." "oh, do let me see him," cried mr. edward arundel. "i know you can manage it; so do, that's a good fellow. i tell you he's a friend of mine, and quite a gentleman too. bless you, there isn't a move in mathematics he isn't up to; and he'll come into a fortune some of these days--" "yaase," interrupted the door-keeper, sarcastically, "zey bake von of him pegause off dad." "and can i see him?" "i phill dry and vind him vor you. here, you chim," said the door-keeper, addressing a dirty youth, who had just nailed an official announcement of the next morning's rehearsal upon the back of a stony-hearted swing-door, which was apt to jam the fingers of the uninitiated,--"vot is ze name off yat zuber vith ze pad gough, ze man zay gall parking." "oh, that's morti-more." "to you know if he's on in ze virsd zene?" "yes. he's one of the demons; but the scene's just over. do you want him?" "you gan dake ub zis young chendleman's gard do him, and dell him to slib town here if he has kod a vaid," said the door-keeper. mr. arundel handed his card to the dirty boy. "he'll come to me fast enough, poor fellow," he muttered. "i usen't to chaff him as the others did, and i'm glad i didn't, now." edward arundel could not easily forget that one brief scrutiny in which he had recognised the wasted face of the schoolmaster's hack, who had taught him mathematics only two years before. could there be anything more piteous than that degrading spectacle? the feeble frame, scarcely able to sustain that paltry one-sided banner of calico and tinsel; the two rude daubs of coarse vermilion upon the hollow cheeks; the black smudges that were meant for eyebrows; the wretched scrap of horsehair glued upon the pinched chin in dismal mockery of a beard; and through all this the pathetic pleading of large hazel eyes, bright with the unnatural lustre of disease, and saying perpetually, more plainly than words can speak, "do not look at me; do not despise me; do not even pity me. it won't last long." that fresh-hearted schoolboy was still thinking of this, when a wasted hand was laid lightly and tremulously on his arm, and looking up he saw a man in a hideous mask and a tight-fitting suit of scarlet and gold standing by his side. "i'll take off my mask in a minute, arundel," said a faint voice, that sounded hollow and muffled within a cavern of pasteboard and wickerwork. "it was very good of you to come round; very, very good!" "i was so sorry to see you here, marchmont; i knew you in a moment, in spite of the disguise." the supernumerary had struggled out of his huge head-gear by this time, and laid the fabric of papier-mâché and tinsel carefully aside upon a shelf. he had washed his face before putting on the mask, for he was not called upon to appear before a british public in martial semblance any more upon that evening. the pale wasted face was interesting and gentlemanly, not by any means handsome, but almost womanly in its softness of expression. it was the face of a man who had not yet seen his thirtieth birthday; who might never live to see it, edward arundel thought mournfully. "why do you do this, marchmont?" the boy asked bluntly. "because there was nothing else left for me to do," the stage-demon answered with a sad smile. "i can't get a situation in a school, for my health won't suffer me to take one; or it won't suffer any employer to take me, for fear of my falling ill upon his hands, which comes to the same thing; so i do a little copying for the law-stationers, and this helps out that, and i get on as well as i can. i wouldn't so much mind if it wasn't for--" he stopped suddenly, interrupted by a paroxysm of coughing. "if it wasn't for whom, old fellow?" "my poor little girl; my poor little motherless mary." edward arundel looked grave, and perhaps a little ashamed of himself. he had forgotten until this moment that his old tutor had been left a widower at four-and-twenty, with a little daughter to support out of his scanty stipend. "don't be down-hearted, old fellow," the lad whispered, tenderly; "perhaps i shall be able to help you, you know. and the little girl can go down to dangerfield; i know my mother would take care of her, and will keep her there till you get strong and well. and then you might start a fencing-room, or a shooting-gallery, or something of that sort, at the west end; and i'd come to you, and bring lots of fellows to you, and you'd get on capitally, you know." poor john marchmont, the asthmatic supernumerary, looked perhaps the very last person in the world whom it could be possible to associate with a pair of foils, or a pistol and a target; but he smiled faintly at his old pupil's enthusiastic talk. "you were always a good fellow, arundel," he said, gravely. "i don't suppose i shall ever ask you to do me a service; but if, by-and-by, this cough makes me knock under, and my little polly should be left--i--i think you'd get your mother to be kind to her,--wouldn't you, arundel?" a picture rose before the supernumerary's weary eyes as he said this; the picture of a pleasant lady whose description he had often heard from the lips of a loving son, a rambling old mansion, wide-spreading lawns, and long arcades of oak and beeches leading away to the blue distance. if this mrs. arundel, who was so tender and compassionate and gentle to every red-cheeked cottage-girl who crossed her pathway,--edward had told him this very often,--would take compassion also upon this little one! if she would only condescend to see the child, the poor pale neglected flower, the fragile lily, the frail exotic blossom, that was so cruelly out of place upon the bleak pathways of life! "if that's all that troubles you," young arundel cried eagerly, "you may make your mind easy, and come and have some oysters. we'll take care of the child. i'll adopt her, and my mother shall educate her, and she shall marry a duke. run away, now, old fellow, and change your clothes, and come and have oysters, and stout out of the pewter." mr. marchmont shook his head. "my time's just up," he said; "i'm on in the next scene. it was very kind of you to come round, arundel; but this isn't exactly the best place for you. go back to your friends, my dear boy, and don't think any more of me. i'll write to you some day about little mary." "you'll do nothing of the kind," exclaimed the boy. "you'll give me your address instanter, and i'll come to see you the first thing to-morrow morning, and you'll introduce me to little mary; and if she and i are not the best friends in the world, i shall never again boast of my successes with lovely woman. what's the number, old fellow?" mr. arundel had pulled out a smart morocco pocket-book and a gold pencil-case. "twenty-seven, oakley street, lambeth. but i'd rather you wouldn't come, arundel; your friends wouldn't like it." "my friends may go hang themselves. i shall do as i like, and i'll be with you to breakfast, sharp ten." the supernumerary had no time to remonstrate. the progress of the music, faintly audible from the lobby in which this conversation had taken place, told him that his scene was nearly on. "i can't stop another moment. go back to your friends, arundel. good night. god bless you!" "stay; one word. the lincolnshire property--" "will never come to me, my boy," the demon answered sadly, through his mask; for he had been busy re-investing himself in that demoniac guise. "i tried to sell my reversion, but the jews almost laughed in my face when they heard me cough. good night." he was gone, and the swing-door slammed in edward arundel's face. the boy hurried back to his cousin, who was cross and dissatisfied at his absence. martin mostyn had discovered that the ballet-girls were all either old or ugly, the music badly chosen, the pantomime stupid, the scenery a failure. he asked a few supercilious questions about his old tutor, but scarcely listened to edward's answers; and was intensely aggravated with his companion's pertinacity in sitting out the comic business--in which poor john marchmont appeared and re-appeared; now as a well-dressed passenger carrying a parcel, which he deliberately sacrificed to the felonious propensities of the clown; now as a policeman, now as a barber, now as a chemist, now as a ghost; but always buffeted, or cajoled, or bonneted, or imposed upon; always piteous, miserable, and long-suffering; with arms that ached from carrying a banner through five acts of blank-verse weariness, with a head that had throbbed under the weight of a ponderous edifice of pasteboard and wicker, with eyes that were sore with the evil influence of blue-fire and gunpowder smoke, with a throat that had been poisoned by sulphurous vapours, with bones that were stiff with the playful pummelling of clown and pantaloon; and all for--a shilling a night! chapter ii. little mary. poor john marchmont had given his address unwillingly enough to his old pupil. the lodging in oakley street was a wretched back-room upon the second-floor of a house whose lower regions were devoted to that species of establishment commonly called a "ladies' wardrobe." the poor gentleman, the teacher of mathematics, the law-writer, the drury-lane supernumerary, had shrunk from any exposure of his poverty; but his pupil's imperious good-nature had overridden every objection, and john marchmont awoke upon the morning after the meeting at drury-lane to the rather embarrassing recollection that he was to expect a visitor to breakfast with him. how was he to entertain this dashing, high-spirited young schoolboy, whose lot was cast in the pleasant pathways of life, and who was no doubt accustomed to see at his matutinal meal such luxuries as john marchmont had only beheld in the fairy-like realms of comestible beauty exhibited to hungry foot-passengers behind the plate-glass windows of italian warehouses? "he has hams stewed in madeira, and perigord pies, i dare say, at his aunt mostyn's," john thought, despairingly. "what can i give him to eat?" but john marchmont, after the manner of the poor, was apt to over-estimate the extravagance of the rich. if he could have seen the mostyn breakfast then preparing in the lower regions of montague square, he might have been considerably relieved; for he would have only beheld mild infusions of tea and coffee--in silver vessels, certainly--four french rolls hidden under a glistening damask napkin, six triangular fragments of dry toast, cut from a stale half-quartern, four new-laid eggs, and about half a pound of bacon cut into rashers of transcendental delicacy. widow ladies who have daughters to marry do not plunge very deep into the books of messrs. fortnum and mason. "he used to like hot rolls when i was at vernon's," john thought, rather more hopefully; "i wonder whether he likes hot rolls still?" pondering thus, mr. marchmont dressed himself,--very neatly, very carefully; for he was one of those men whom even poverty cannot rob of man's proudest attribute, his individuality. he made no noisy protest against the humiliations to which he was compelled to submit; he uttered no boisterous assertions of his own merit; he urged no clamorous demand to be treated as a gentleman in his day of misfortune; but in his own mild, undemonstrative way he did assert himself, quite as effectually as if he had raved all day upon the hardship of his lot, and drunk himself mad and blind under the pressure of his calamities. he never abandoned the habits which had been peculiar to him from his childhood. he was as neat and orderly in his second-floor-back as he had been seven or eight years before in his simple apartments at cambridge. he did not recognise that association which most men perceive between poverty and shirt-sleeves, or poverty and beer. he was content to wear threadbare cloth, but adhered most obstinately to a prejudice in favour of clean linen. he never acquired those lounging vagabond habits peculiar to some men in the day of trouble. even amongst the supernumeraries of drury lane, he contrived to preserve his self-respect; if they nicknamed him barking jeremiah, they took care only to pronounce that playful sobriquet when the gentleman-super was safely out of hearing. he was so polite in the midst of his reserve, that the person who could wilfully have offended him must have been more unkindly than any of her majesty's servants. it is true, that the great tragedian, on more than one occasion, apostrophised the weak-kneed banner-holder as "beast" when the super's cough had peculiarly disturbed his composure; but the same great man gave poor john marchmont a letter to a distinguished physician, compassionately desiring the relief of the same pulmonary affection. if john marchmont had not been prompted by his own instincts to struggle against the evil influences of poverty, he would have done battle sturdily for the sake of one who was ten times dearer to him than himself. if he _could_ have become a swindler or a reprobate,--it would have been about as easy for him to become either as to have burst at once, and without an hour's practice, into a full-blown léotard or olmar,--his daughter's influence would have held him back as securely as if the slender arms twined tenderly about him had been chains of adamant forged by an enchanter's power. how could he be false to his little one, this helpless child, who had been confided to him in the darkest hour of his existence; the hour in which his wife had yielded to the many forces arrayed against her in life's battle, and had left him alone in the world to fight for his little girl? "if i were to die, i think arundel's mother would be kind to her," john marchmont thought, as he finished his careful toilet. "heaven knows, i have no right to ask or expect such a thing; but polly will be rich by-and-by, perhaps, and will be able to repay them." a little hand knocked lightly at the door of his room while he was thinking this, and a childish voice said, "may i come in, papa?" the little girl slept with one of the landlady's children, in a room above her father's. john opened the door, and let her in. the pale wintry sunshine, creeping in at the curtainless window near which mr. marchmont sat, shone full upon the child's face as she came towards him. it was a small, pale face, with singularly delicate features, a tiny straight nose, a pensive mouth, and large thoughtful hazel eyes. the child's hair fell loosely upon her shoulders; not in those corkscrew curls so much affected by mothers in the humbler walks of life, nor yet in those crisp undulations lately adopted in belgravian nurseries; but in soft silken masses, only curling at the extreme end of each tress. miss marchmont--she was always called miss marchmont in that oakley street household--wore her brown-stuff frock and scanty diaper pinafore as neatly as her father wore his threadbare coat and darned linen. she was very pretty, very lady-like, very interesting; but it was impossible to look at her without a vague feeling of pain, that was difficult to understand. you knew, by-and-by, why you were sorry for this little girl. she had never been a child. that divine period of perfect innocence,--innocence of all sorrow and trouble, falsehood and wrong,--that bright holiday-time of the soul, had never been hers. the ruthless hand of poverty had snatched away from her the gift which god had given her in her cradle; and at eight years old she was a woman,--a woman invested with all that is most beautiful amongst womanly attributes--love, tenderness, compassion, carefulness for others, unselfish devotion, uncomplaining patience, heroic endurance. she was a woman by reason of all these virtues; but she was no longer a child. at three years old she had bidden farewell for ever to the ignorant selfishness, the animal enjoyment of childhood, and had learned what it was to be sorry for poor papa and mamma; and from that first time of awakening to the sense of pity and love, she had never ceased to be the comforter of the helpless young husband who was so soon to be left wifeless. john had been compelled to leave his child, in order to get a living for her and for himself in the hard service of mr. laurence vernon, the principal of the highly select and expensive academy at which edward arundel and martin mostyn had been educated. but he had left her in good hands; and when the bitter day of his dismissal came, he was scarcely as sorry as he ought to have been for the calamity which brought him back to his little mary. it is impossible for any words of mine to tell how much he loved the child; but take into consideration his hopeless poverty, his sensitive and reserved nature, his utter loneliness, the bereavement that had cast a shadow upon his youth, and you will perhaps understand an affection that was almost morbid in its intensity, and which was reciprocated most fully by its object. the little girl loved her father _too much_. when he was with her, she was content to sit by his side, watching him as he wrote; proud to help him, if even by so much as wiping his pens or handing him his blotting-paper; happy to wait upon him, to go out marketing for him, to prepare his scanty meals, to make his tea, and arrange and re-arrange every object in the slenderly furnished second-floor back-room. they talked sometimes of the lincolnshire fortune,--the fortune which _might_ come to mr. marchmont, if three people, whose lives when mary's father had last heard of them, were each worth three times his own feeble existence, would be so obliging as to clear the way for the heir-at-law, by taking an early departure to the churchyard. a more practical man than john marchmont would have kept a sharp eye upon these three lives, and by some means or other contrived to find out whether number one was consumptive, or number two dropsical, or number three apoplectic; but john was utterly incapable of any such machiavellian proceeding. i think he sometimes beguiled his weary walks between oakley street and drury lane by the dreaming of such childish day-dreams as i should be almost ashamed to set down upon this sober page. the three lives might all happen to be riding in the same express upon the occasion of a terrible collision; but the poor fellow's gentle nature shrank appalled before the vision he had invoked. he could not sacrifice a whole train-full of victims, even for little mary. he contented himself with borrowing a "times" newspaper now and then, and looking at the top of the second column, with the faint hope that he should see his own name in large capitals, coupled with the announcement that by applying somewhere he might hear of something to his advantage. he contented himself with this, and with talking about the future to little mary in the dim firelight. they spent long hours in the shadowy room, only lighted by the faint flicker of a pitiful handful of coals; for the commonest dip-candles are sevenpence-halfpenny a pound, and were dearer, i dare say, in the year ' . heaven knows what splendid castles in the air these two simple-hearted creatures built for each other's pleasure by that comfortless hearth. i believe that, though the father made a pretence of talking of these things only for the amusement of his child, he was actually the more childish of the two. it was only when he left that fire-lit room, and went back into the hard, reasonable, commonplace world, that he remembered how foolish the talk was, and how it was impossible--yes, impossible--that he, the law-writer and supernumerary, could ever come to be master of marchmont towers. poor little mary was in this less practical than her father. she carried her day-dreams into the street, until all lambeth was made glorious by their supernal radiance. her imagination ran riot in a vision of a happy future, in which her father would be rich and powerful. i am sorry to say that she derived most of her ideas of grandeur from the new cut. she furnished the drawing-room at marchmont towers from the splendid stores of an upholsterer in that thoroughfare. she laid flaming brussels carpets upon the polished oaken floors which her father had described to her, and hung cheap satin damask of gorgeous colours before the great oriel windows. she put gilded vases of gaudy artificial flowers on the high carved mantel-pieces in the old rooms, and hung a disreputable gray parrot--for sale at a greengrocer's, and given to the use of bad language--under the stone colonnnade at the end of the western wing. she appointed the tradespeople who should serve the far-away lincolnshire household; the small matter of distance would, of course, never stand in the way of her gratitude and benevolence. her papa would employ the civil greengrocer who gave such excellent halfpennyworths of watercresses; the kind butterman who took such pains to wrap up a quarter of a pound of the best eighteenpenny fresh butter for the customer whom he always called "little lady;" the considerate butcher who never cut _more_ than the three-quarters of a pound of rump-steak, which made an excellent dinner for mr. marchmont and his little girl. yes, all these people should be rewarded when the lincolnshire property came to mary's papa. miss marchmont had some thoughts of building a shop close to marchmont towers for the accommodating butcher, and of adopting the greengrocer's eldest daughter for her confidante and companion. heaven knows how many times the little girl narrowly escaped being run over while walking the material streets in some ecstatic reverie such as this; but providence was very careful of the motherless girl, and she always returned safely to oakley street with her pitiful little purchases of tea and sugar, butter and meat. you will say, perhaps, that at least these foolish day-dreams were childish; but i maintain still, that mary's soul had long ago bade adieu to infancy, and that even in these visions she was womanly; for she was always thoughtful of others rather than of herself, and there was a great deal more of the practical business of life mingled with the silvery web of her fancies than there should have been so soon after her eighth birthday. at times, too, an awful horror would quicken the pulses of her loving heart as she heard the hacking sound of her father's cough; and a terrible dread would seize her,--the fear that john marchmont might never live to inherit the lincolnshire fortune. the child never said her prayers without adding a little extempore supplication, that she might die when her father died. it was a wicked prayer, perhaps; and a clergyman might have taught her that her life was in the hands of providence; and that it might please him who had created her to doom her to many desolate years of loneliness; and that it was not for her, in her wretched and helpless ignorance, to rebel against his divine will. i think if the archbishop of canterbury had driven from lambeth palace to oakley street to tell little mary this, he would have taught her in vain; and that she would have fallen asleep that night with the old prayer upon her lips, the fond foolish prayer that the bonds which love had woven so firmly might never be roughly broken by death. miss marchmont heard the story of last night's meeting with great pleasure, though it must be owned she looked a little grave when she was told that the generous-hearted school-boy was coming to breakfast; but her gravity was only that of a thoughtful housekeeper, who ponders ways and means, and even while you are telling her the number and quality of your guests, sketches out a rough ground-plan of her dishes, considers the fish in season, and the soups most fitting to precede them, and balances the contending advantages of palestine and julienne or hare and italian. "a 'nice' breakfast you say, papa," she said, when her father had finished speaking; "then we must have watercresses, _of course_." "and hot rolls, polly dear. arundel was always fond of hot rolls." "and hot rolls, four for threepence-halfpenny in the cut."--(i am ashamed to say that this benighted child talked as deliberately of the "cut" as she might have done of the "row.")--"there'll be one left for tea, papa; for we could never eat four rolls. they'll take _such_ a lot of butter, though." the little housekeeper took out an antediluvian bead-purse, and began to examine her treasury. her father handed all his money to her, as he would have done to his wife; and mary doled him out the little sums he wanted,--money for half an ounce of tobacco, money for a pint of beer. there were no penny papers in those days, or what a treat an occasional "telegraph" would have been to poor john marchmont! mary had only one personal extravagance. she read novels,--dirty, bloated, ungainly volumes,--which she borrowed from a snuffy old woman in a little back street, who charged her the smallest hire ever known in the circulating-library business, and who admired her as a wonder of precocious erudition. the only pleasure the child knew in her father's absence was the perusal of these dingy pages; she neglected no duty, she forgot no tender office of ministering care for the loved one who was absent; but when all the little duties had been finished, how delicious it was to sit down to "madeleine the deserted," or "cosmo the pirate," and to lose herself far away in illimitable regions, peopled by wandering princesses in white satin, and gentlemanly bandits, who had been stolen from their royal fathers' halls by vengeful hordes of gipsies. during these early years of poverty and loneliness, john marchmont's daughter stored up, in a mind that was morbidly sensitive rather than strong, a terrible amount of dim poetic sentiment; the possession of which is scarcely, perhaps, the best or safest dower for a young lady who has life's journey all before her. at half-past nine o'clock, all the simple preparations necessary for the reception of a visitor had been completed by mr. marchmont and his daughter. all vestiges of john's bed had disappeared; leaving, it is true, rather a suspicious-looking mahogany chest of drawers to mark the spot where once a bed had been. the window had been opened, the room aired and dusted, a bright little fire burned in the shining grate, and the most brilliant of tin tea-kettles hissed upon the hob. the white table-cloth was darned in several places; but it was a remnant of the small stock of linen with which john had begun married life; and the irish damask asserted its superior quality, in spite of many darns, as positively as mr. marchmont's good blood asserted itself in spite of his shabby coat. a brown teapot full of strong tea, a plate of french rolls, a pat of fresh butter, and a broiled haddock, do not compose a very epicurean repast; but mary marchmont looked at the humble breakfast as a prospective success. "we could have haddocks every day at marchmont towers, couldn't we, papa?" she said naïvely. but the little girl was more than delighted when edward arundel dashed up the narrow staircase, and burst into the room, fresh, radiant, noisy, splendid, better dressed even than the waxen preparations of elegant young gentlemen exhibited at the portal of a great outfitter in the new cut, and yet not at all like either of those red-lipped types of fashion. how delighted the boy declared himself with every thing! he had driven over in a cabriolet, and he was awfully hungry, he informed his host. the rolls and watercresses disappeared before him as if by magic; little mary shivered at the slashing cuts he made at the butter; the haddock had scarcely left the gridiron before it was no more. "this is ten times better than aunt mostyn's skinny breakfasts," the young gentleman observed candidly. "you never get enough with her. why does she say, 'you won't take another egg, will you, edward?' if she wants me to have one? you should see our hunting-breakfasts at dangerfield, marchmont. four sorts of claret, and no end of moselle and champagne. you shall go to dangerfield some day, to see my mother, miss mary." he called her "miss mary," and seemed rather shy of speaking to her. her womanliness impressed him in spite of himself. he had a fancy that she was old enough to feel the humiliation of her father's position, and to be sensitive upon the matter of the two-pair back; and he was sorry the moment after he had spoken of dangerfield. "what a snob i am!" he thought; "always bragging of home." but mr. arundel was not able to stop very long in oakley street, for the supernumerary had to attend a rehearsal at twelve o'clock; so at half-past eleven john marchmont and his pupil went out together, and little mary was left alone to clear away the breakfast, and perform the rest of her household duties. she had plenty of time before her, so she did not begin at once, but sat upon a stool near the fender, gazing dreamily at the low fire. "how good and kind he is!" she thought; "just like cosmo,--only cosmo was dark; or like reginald ravenscroft,--but then he was dark too. i wonder why the people in novels are always dark? how kind he is to papa! shall we ever go to dangerfield, i wonder, papa and i? of course i wouldn't go without papa." chapter iii. about the lincolnshire property. while mary sat absorbed in such idle visions as these, mr. marchmont and his old pupil walked towards waterloo bridge together. "i'll go as far as the theatre with you, marchmont," the boy said; "it's my holidays now, you know, and i can do as i like. i am going to a private tutor in another month, and he's to prepare me for the army. i want you to tell me all about that lincolnshire property, old boy. is it anywhere near swampington?" "yes; within nine miles." "goodness gracious me! lord bless my soul! what an extraordinary coincidence! my uncle hubert's rector of swampington--such a hole! i go there sometimes to see him and my cousin olivia. isn't she a stunner, though! knows more greek and latin than i, and more mathematics than you. could eat our heads off at any thing." john marchmont did not seem very much impressed by the coincidence that appeared so extraordinary to edward arundel; but, in order to oblige his friend, he explained very patiently and lucidly how it was that only three lives stood between him and the possession of marchmont towers, and all lands and tenements appertaining thereto. "the estate's a very large one," he said finally; "but the idea of _my_ ever getting it is, of course, too preposterous." "good gracious me! i don't see that at all," exclaimed edward with extraordinary vivacity. "let me see, old fellow; if i understand your story right, this is how the case stands: your first cousin is the present possessor of marchmont towers; he has a son, fifteen years of age, who may or may not marry; only one son, remember. but he has also an uncle--a bachelor uncle, and your uncle, too--who, by the terms of your grandfather's will, must get the property before you can succeed to it. now, this uncle is an old man: so of course _he'll_ die soon. the present possessor himself is a middle-aged man; so i shouldn't think _he_ can be likely to last long. i dare say he drinks too much port, or hunts, or something of that sort; goes to sleep after dinner, and does all manner of apoplectic things, i'll be bound. then there's the son, only fifteen, and not yet marriageable; consumptive, i dare say. now, will you tell me the chances are not six to six he dies unmarried? so you see, my dear old boy, you're sure to get the fortune; for there's nothing to keep you out of it, except--" "except three lives, the worst of which is better than mine. it's kind of you to look at it in this sanguine way, arundel; but i wasn't born to be a rich man. perhaps, after all, providence has used me better than i think. i mightn't have been happy at marchmont towers. i'm a shy, awkward, humdrum fellow. if it wasn't for mary's sake--" "ah, to be sure!" cried edward arundel. "you're not going to forget all about--miss marchmont!" he was going to say "little mary," but had checked himself abruptly at the sudden recollection of the earnest hazel eyes that had kept wondering watch upon his ravages at the breakfast-table. "i'm sure miss marchmont's born to be an heiress. i never saw such a little princess." "what!" demanded john marchmont sadly, "in a darned pinafore and a threadbare frock?" the boy's face flushed, almost indignantly, as his old master said this. "you don't think i'm such a snob as to admire a lady"--he spoke thus of miss mary marchmont, yet midway between her eighth and ninth birthday--"the less because she isn't rich? but of course your daughter will have the fortune by-and-by, even if--" he stopped, ashamed of his want of tact; for he knew john would divine the meaning of that sudden pause. "even if i should die before philip marchmont," the teacher of mathematics answered, quietly. "as far as that goes, mary's chance is as remote as my own. the fortune can only come to her in the event of arthur dying without issue, or, having issue, failing to cut off the entail, i believe they call it." "arthur! that's the son of the present possessor?" "yes. if i and my poor little girl, who is delicate like her mother, should die before either of these three men, there is another who will stand in my shoes, and will look out perhaps more eagerly than i have done for his chances of getting the property." "another!" exclaimed mr. arundel. "by jove, marchmont, it's the most complicated affair i ever heard of. it's worse than those sums you used to set me in barter: 'if a. sells b. stilton cheeses at / _d_ a pound,' and all that sort of thing, you know. do make me understand it, old fellow, if you can." john marchmont sighed. "it's a wearisome story, arundel," he said. "i don't know why i should bore you with it." "but you don't bore me with it," cried the boy energetically. "i'm awfully interested in it, you know; and i could walk up and down here all day talking about it." the two gentlemen had passed the surrey toll-gate of waterloo bridge by this time. the south-western terminus had not been built in the year ' , and the bridge was about the quietest thoroughfare any two companions confidentially inclined could have chosen. the shareholders knew this, to their cost. perhaps mr. marchmont might have been beguiled into repeating the old story, which he had told so often in the dim firelight to his little girl; but the great clock of st. paul's boomed forth the twelve ponderous strokes that told the hour of noon, and a hundred other steeples upon either side of the water made themselves clamorous with the same announcement. "i must leave you, arundel," the supernumerary said hurriedly; he had just remembered that it was time for him to go and be browbeaten by a truculent stage-manager. "god bless you, my dear boy! it was very good of you to want to see me, and the sight of your fresh face has made me very happy. i _should_ like you to understand all about the lincolnshire property. god knows there's small chance of its ever coming to me or to my child; but when i am dead and gone, mary will be left alone in the world, and it would be some comfort to me to know that she was not without _one_ friend--generous and disinterested like you, arundel,--who, if the chance _did_ come, would see her righted." "and so i would," cried the boy eagerly. his face flushed, and his eyes fired. he was a preux chevalier already, in thought, going forth to do battle for a hazel-eyed mistress. "i'll _write_ the story, arundel," john marchmont said; "i've no time to tell it, and you mightn't remember it either. once more, good-bye; once more, god bless you!" "stop!" exclaimed edward arundel, flushing a deeper red than before,--he had a very boyish habit of blushing,--"stop, dear old boy. you must borrow this of me, please. i've lots of them. i should only spend it on all sorts of bilious things; or stop out late and get tipsy. you shall pay me with interest when you get marchmont towers. i shall come and see you again soon. good-bye." the lad forced some crumpled scrap of paper into his old tutor's hand, bolted through the toll-bar, and jumped into a cabriolet, whose high-stepping charger was dawdling along lancaster place. the supernumerary hurried on to drury lane as fast as his weak legs could carry him. he was obliged to wait for a pause in the rehearsal before he could find an opportunity of looking at the parting gift which his old pupil had forced upon him. it was a crumpled and rather dirty five-pound note, wrapped round two half-crowns, a shilling, and half-a-sovereign. the boy had given his friend the last remnant of his slender stock of pocket-money. john marchmont turned his face to the dark wing that sheltered him, and wept silently. he was of a gentle and rather womanly disposition, be it remembered; and he was in that weak state of health in which a man's eyes are apt to moisten, in spite of himself, under the influence of any unwonted emotion. he employed a part of that afternoon in writing the letter which he had promised to send to his boyish friend:-- "my dear arundel, "my purpose in writing to you to-day is so entirely connected with the future welfare of my beloved and only child, that i shall carefully abstain from any subject not connected with her interests. i say nothing, therefore, respecting your conduct of this morning, which, together with my previous knowledge of your character, has decided me upon confiding to you the doubts and fears which have long tormented me upon the subject of my darling's future. "i am a doomed man, arundel! the doctors have told me this; but they have told me also that, though i can never escape the sentence of death which was passed upon me long ago, i may live for some years if i live the careful life which only a rich man can lead. if i go on carrying banners and breathing sulphur, i cannot last long. my little girl will be left penniless, but not quite friendless; for there are humble people, relatives of her poor mother, who would help her kindly, i am sure, in their own humble way. the trials which i fear for my orphan girl are not so much the trials of poverty as the dangers of wealth. if the three men who, on my death, would alone stand between mary and the lincolnshire property die childless, my poor darling will become the only obstacle in the pathway of a man whom, i will freely own to you, i distrust. "my father, john marchmont, was the third of four brothers. the eldest, philip, died leaving one son, also called philip, and the present possessor of marchmont towers. the second, marmaduke, is still alive, a bachelor. the third, john, left four children, of whom i alone survive. the fourth, paul, left a son and two daughters. the son is an artist, exercising his profession now in london; one of the daughters is married to a parish surgeon, who practises at stanfield, in lincolnshire; the other is an old maid, and entirely dependent upon her brother. "it is this man, paul marchmont the artist, whom i fear. "do not think me weak, or foolishly suspicious, arundel, when i tell you that the very thought of this man brings the cold sweat upon my forehead, and seems to stop the beating of my heart. i know that this is a prejudice, and an unworthy one. i do not believe paul marchmont is a good man; but i can assign no sufficient reason for my hatred and terror of him. it is impossible for you, a frank and careless boy, to realise the feelings of a man who looks at his only child, and remembers that she may soon be left, helpless and defenceless, to fight the battle of life with a bad man. sometimes i pray to god that the marchmont property may never come to my child after my death; for i cannot rid myself of the thought--may heaven forgive me for its unworthiness!--that paul marchmont would leave no means untried, however foul, to wrest the fortune from her. i dare say worldly people would laugh at me for writing this letter to you, my dear arundel; but i address myself to the best friend i have,--the only creature i know whom the influence of a bad man is never likely to corrupt. _noblesse oblige!_ i am not afraid that edward dangerfield arundel will betray any trust, however foolish, that may have been confided to him. "perhaps, in writing to you thus, i may feel something of that blind hopefulness--amid the shipwreck of all that commonly gives birth to hope--which the mariner cast away upon some desert island feels, when he seals his simple story in a bottle, and launches it upon the waste of waters that close him in on every side. before my little girl is four years older, you will be a man, arundel--with a man's intellect, a man's courage, and, above all, a man's keen sense of honour. so long as my darling remains poor, her humble friends will be strong enough to protect her; but if ever providence should think fit to place her in a position of antagonism to paul marchmont,--for he would look upon any one as an enemy who stood between him and fortune,--she would need a far more powerful protector than any she could find amongst her poor mother's relatives. will _you_ be that protector, edward arundel? i am a drowning man, you see, and catch at the frailest straw that floats past me. i believe in you, edward, as much as i distrust paul marchmont. if the day ever comes in which my little girl should have to struggle with this man, will you help her to fight the battle? it will not be an easy one. "subjoined to this letter i send you an extract from the copy of my grandfather's will, which will explain to you how he left his property. do not lose either the letter or the extract. if you are willing to undertake the trust which i confide to you to-day, you may have need to refer to them after my death. the legacy of a child's helplessness is the only bequest which i can leave to the only friend i have. "john marchmont. " , oakley street, lambeth, "_december_ _th_, . * * * * * "extract from the will of philip marchmont, senior, of marchmont towers. "'i give and devise all that my estate known as marchmont towers and appurtenances thereto belonging to the use of my eldest son philip marchmont during his natural life without impeachment of waste and from and after his decease then to the use of my grandson philip the first son of my said son philip during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and after the decease of my said grandson philip to the use of the first and every other son of my said grandson severally and successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said grandson philip as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if all the daughters of my said grandson philip except one shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use of the second and every other son of my said eldest son severally and successively according to his respective seniority in tail and in default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said eldest son philip as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and in default of such issue to the use of my second son marmaduke and his assigns during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and after his decease to the use of the first and every son of my said son marmaduke severally and successively according to their respective seniorities in tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said son marmaduke as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if all the daughters of my said son marmaduke except one shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use of my third son john during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and from and after his decease then to the use of my grandson john the first son of my said son john during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and after the decease of my said grandson john to the use of the first and every other son of my said grandson john severally and successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said grandson john as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or among them in tail and if all the daughters of my said grandson john except one shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter' [_this, you will see, is my little mary_] 'then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use of the second and every other son of my said third son john severally and successively according to his respective seniority in tail and in default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said third son john as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and in default of such issue to the use of my fourth son paul during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and from and after his decease then to the use of my grandson paul the son of my said son paul during his natural life without impeachment of waste and after the decease of my said grandson paul to the use of the first and every other son of my said grandson severally and successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said grandson paul as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if all the daughters of my said grandson paul except one shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use of the second and every other son of my said fourth son paul severally and successively according to his respective seniority in tail and in default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said fourth son paul as tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail,' &c. &c. "p.s.--then comes what the lawyers call a general devise to trustees, to preserve the contingent remainders before devised from being destroyed; but what that means, perhaps you can get somebody to tell you. i hope it may be some legal jargon to preserve my _very_ contingent remainder." * * * * * the tone of edward arundel's answer to this letter was more characteristic of the writer than in harmony with poor john's solemn appeal. "you dear, foolish old marchmont," the lad wrote, "of course i shall take care of miss mary; and my mother shall adopt her, and she shall live at dangerfield, and be educated with my sister letitia, who has the jolliest french governess, and a german maid for conversation; and don't let paul marchmont try on any of his games with me, that's all! but what do you mean, you ridiculous old boy, by talking about dying, and drowning, and shipwrecked mariners, and catching at straws, and all that sort of humbug, when you know very well that you'll live to inherit the lincolnshire property, and that i'm coming to you every year to shoot, and that you're going to build a tennis-court,--of course there _is_ a billiard-room,--and that you're going to have a stud of hunters, and be master of the hounds, and no end of bricks to "your ever devoted roman countryman and lover, "edgardo? " , montague square, "_december_ l_st_, . "p.s.--by-the-bye, don't you think a situation in a lawyer's office would suit you better than the t. r. d. l.? if you do, i think i could manage it. a happy new year to miss mary!" * * * * * it was thus that mr. edward arundel accepted the solemn trust which his friend confided to him in all simplicity and good faith. mary marchmont herself was not more innocent in the ways of the world outside oakley street, the waterloo road, and the new cut, than was the little girl's father; nothing seemed more natural to him than to intrust the doubtful future of his only child to the bright-faced handsome boy, whose early boyhood had been unblemished by a mean sentiment or a dishonourable action. john marchmont had spent three years in the berkshire academy at which edward and his cousin, martin mostyn, had been educated; and young arundel, who was far behind his kinsman in the comprehension of a problem in algebra, had been wise enough to recognise that paradox which martin mostyn could not understand--a gentleman in a shabby coat. it was thus that a friendship had arisen between the teacher of mathematics and his handsome pupil; and it was thus that an unreasoning belief in edward arundel had sprung up in john's simple mind. "if my little girl were certain of inheriting the fortune," mr. marchmont thought, "i might find many who would be glad to accept my trust, and to serve her well and faithfully. but the chance is such a remote one. i cannot forget how the jews laughed at me two years ago, when i tried to borrow money upon my reversionary interest. no! i must trust this brave-hearted boy, for i have no one else to confide in; and who else is there who would not ridicule my fear of my cousin paul?" indeed, mr. marchmont had some reason to be considerably ashamed of his antipathy to the young artist working for his bread, and for the bread of his invalid mother and unmarried sister, in that bitter winter of ' ; working patiently and hopefully, in despite of all discouragement, and content to live a joyless and monotonous life in a dingy lodging near fitzroy square. i can find no excuse for john marchmont's prejudice against an industrious and indefatigable young man, who was the sole support of two helpless women. heaven knows, if to be adored by two women is any evidence of a man's virtue, paul must have been the best of men; for stephanie marchmont, and her daughter clarisse, regarded the artist with a reverential idolatry that was not without a tinge of romance. i can assign no reason, then, for john's dislike of his cousin. they had been schoolfellows at a wretched suburban school, where the children of poor people were boarded, lodged, and educated all the year round for a pitiful stipend of something under twenty pounds. one of the special points of the prospectus was the announcement that there were no holidays; for the jovial christmas gatherings of merry faces, which are so delightful to the wealthy citizens of bloomsbury or tyburnia, take another complexion in poverty-stricken households, whose scantily-stocked larders can ill support the raids of rawboned lads clamorous for provender. the two boys had met at a school of this calibre, and had never met since. they may not have been the best friends, perhaps, at the classical academy; but their quarrels were by no means desperate. they may have rather freely discussed their several chances of the lincolnshire property; but i have no romantic story to tell of a stirring scene in the humble schoolroom--no exciting record of deadly insult and deep vows of vengeance. no inkstand was ever flung by one boy into the face of the other; no savage blow from a horsewhip ever cut a fatal scar across the brow of either of the cousins. john marchmont would have been almost as puzzled to account for his objection to his kinsman, as was the nameless gentleman who so naïvely confessed his dislike of dr. fell. i fear that a great many of our likings and dislikings are too apt to be upon the dr. fell principle. mr. wilkie collins's basil could not tell _why_ he fell madly in love with the lady whom it was his evil fortune to meet in an omnibus; nor why he entertained an uncomfortable feeling about the gentleman who was to be her destroyer. david copperfield disliked uriah heep even before he had any substantial reason for objecting to the evil genius of agnes wickfield's father. the boy disliked the snake-like schemer of canterbury because his eyes were round and red, and his hands clammy and unpleasant to the touch. perhaps john marchmont's reasons for his aversion to his cousin were about as substantial as those of master copperfield. it may be that the schoolboy disliked his comrade because paul marchmont's handsome grey eyes were a little too near together; because his thin and delicately chiselled lips were a thought too tightly compressed; because his cheeks would fade to an awful corpse-like whiteness under circumstances which would have brought the rushing life-blood, hot and red, into another boy's face; because he was silent and suppressed when it would have been more natural to be loud and clamorous; because he could smile under provocations that would have made another frown; because, in short, there was that about him which, let it be found where it will, always gives birth to suspicion,--mystery! so the cousins had parted, neither friends nor foes, to tread their separate roads in the unknown country, which is apt to seem barren and desolate enough to travellers who foot it in hobnailed boots considerably the worse for wear; and as the iron hand of poverty held john marchmont even further back than paul upon the hard road which each had to tread, the quiet pride of the teacher of mathematics most effectually kept him out of his kinsman's way. he had only heard enough of paul to know that he was living in london, and working hard for a living; working as hard as john himself, perhaps; but at least able to keep afloat in a higher social position than the law-stationer's hack and the banner-holder of drury lane. but edward arundel did not forget his friends in oakley street. the boy made a morning call upon his father's solicitors, messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson, of lincoln's inn fields, and was so extremely eloquent in his needy friend's cause, as to provoke the good-natured laughter of one of the junior partners, who declared that mr. edward arundel ought to wear a silk gown before he was thirty. the result of this interview was, that before the first month of the new year was out, john marchmont had abandoned the classic banner and the demoniac mask to a fortunate successor, and had taken possession of a hard-seated, slim-legged stool in one of the offices of messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson, as copying and out-door clerk, at a salary of thirty shillings a week. so little mary entered now upon a golden age, in which her evenings were no longer desolate and lonely, but spent pleasantly with her father in the study of such learning as was suited to her years, or perhaps rather to her capacity, which was far beyond her years; and on certain delicious nights, to be remembered ever afterwards, john marchmont took his little girl to the gallery of one or other of the transpontine theatres; and i am sorry to say that my heroine--for she is to be my heroine by-and-by--sucked oranges, ate abernethy biscuits, and cooled her delicate nose against the iron railing of the gallery, after the manner of the masses when they enjoy the british drama. but all this time john marchmont was utterly ignorant of one rather important fact in the history of those three lives which he was apt to speak of as standing between him and marchmont towers. young arthur marchmont, the immediate heir of the estate, had been shot to death upon the st of september, , without blame to anyone or anything but his own boyish carelessness, which had induced him to scramble through a hedge with his fowling-piece, the costly present of a doating father, loaded and on full-cock. this melancholy event, which had been briefly recorded in all the newspapers, had never reached the knowledge of poor john marchmont, who had no friends to busy themselves about his interests, or to rush eagerly to carry him any intelligence affecting his prosperity. nor had he read the obituary notice respecting marmaduke marchmont, the bachelor, who had breathed his last stertorous breath in a fit of apoplexy exactly one twelvemonth before the day upon which edward arundel breakfasted in oakley street. chapter iv. going away. edward arundel went from montague square straight into the household of the private tutor of whom he had spoken, there to complete his education, and to be prepared for the onerous duties of a military life. from the household of this private tutor he went at once into a cavalry regiment; after sundry examinations, which were not nearly so stringent in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty, as they have since become. indeed, i think the unfortunate young cadets who are educated upon the high-pressure system, and who are expected to give a synopsis of portuguese political intrigue during the eighteenth century, a scientific account of the currents of the red sea, and a critical disquisition upon the comedies of aristophanes as compared with those of pedro calderon de la barca, not forgetting to glance at the effect of different ages and nationalities upon the respective minds of the two playwrights, within a given period of, say half-an-hour,--would have envied mr. arundel for the easy manner in which he obtained his commission in a distinguished cavalry regiment. mr. edward arundel therefore inaugurated the commencement of the year by plunging very deeply into the books of a crack military-tailor in new burlington street, and by a visit to dangerfield park; where he went to make his adieux before sailing for india, whither his regiment had just been ordered. i do not doubt that mrs arundel was very sorrowful at this sudden parting with her yellow-haired younger son. the boy and his mother walked together in the wintry sunset under the leafless beeches at dangerfield, and talked of the dreary voyage that lay before the lad; the arid plains and cruel jungles far away; perils by sea and perils by land; but across them all, fame waving her white beckoning arms to the young soldier, and crying, "come, conqueror that shall be! come, through trial and danger, through fever and famine,--come to your rest upon my bloodstained lap!" surely this boy, being only just eighteen years of age, may be forgiven if he is a little romantic, a little over eager and impressionable, a little too confident that the next thing to going out to india as a sea-sick subaltern in a great transport-ship is coming home with the reputation of a clive. perhaps he may be forgiven, too, if, in his fresh enthusiasm, he sometimes forgot the shabby friend whom he had helped little better than a twelvemonth before, and the earnest hazel eyes that had shone upon him in the pitiful oakley street chamber. i do not say that he was utterly unmindful of his old teacher of mathematics. it was not in his nature to forget anyone who had need of his services; for this boy, so eager to be a soldier, was of the chivalrous temperament, and would have gone out to die for his mistress, or his friend, if need had been. he had received two or three grateful letters from john marchmont; and in these letters the lawyer's clerk had spoken pleasantly of his new life, and hopefully of his health, which had improved considerably, he said, since his resignation of the tragic banner and the pantomimic mask. neither had edward quite forgotten his promise of enlisting mrs. arundel's sympathies in aid of the motherless little girl. in one of these wintry walks beneath the black branches at dangerfield, the lad had told the sorrowful story of his well-born tutor's poverty and humiliation. "only think, mother!" he cried at the end of the little history. "i saw the poor fellow carrying a great calico flag, and marching about at the heel of a procession, to be laughed at by the costermongers in the gallery; and i know that he belongs to a capital lincolnshire family, and will come in for no end of money if he only lives long enough. but if he should die, mother, and leave his little girl destitute, you'll look after her, won't you?" i don't know whether mrs. arundel quite entered into her son's ideas upon the subject of adopting mary marchmont, or whether she had any definite notion of bringing the little girl home to dangerfield for the natural term of her life, in the event of the child being left an orphan. but she was a kind and charitable lady, and she scarcely cared to damp her boy's spirits by holding forth upon the doubtful wisdom of his adopting, or promising to adopt, any stray orphans who might cross his pathway. "i hope the little girl may not lose her father, edward," she said gently. "besides, dear, you say that mr. marchmont tells you he has humble friends, who would take the child if anything happened to him. he does not wish us to adopt the little girl; he only asks us to interest ourselves in her fate." "and you will do that, mother darling?" cried the boy. "you will take an interest in her, won't you? you couldn't help doing so, if you were to see her. she's not like a child, you know,--not a bit like letitia. she's as grave and quiet as you are, mother,--or graver, i think; and she looks like a lady, in spite of her poor, shabby pinafore and frock." "does she wear shabby frocks?" said the mother. "i could help her in that matter, at all events, ned. i might send her a great trunk-full of letitia's things: she outgrows them before they have been worn long enough to be shabby." the boy coloured, and shook his head. "it's very kind of you to think of it, mother dear; but i don't think that would quite answer," he said. "why not?" "because, you see, john marchmont is a gentleman; and, you know, though he's so dreadfully poor now, he _is_ heir to marchmont towers. and though he didn't mind doing any thing in the world to earn a few shillings a week, he mightn't like to take cast-off clothes." so nothing more was to be said or done upon the subject. edward arundel wrote his humble friend a pleasant letter, in which he told john that he had enlisted his mother's sympathy in mary's cause, and in which he spoke in very glowing terms of the indian expedition that lay before him. "i wish i could come to say good-bye to you and miss mary before i go," he wrote; "but that's impossible. i go straight from here to southampton by coach at the end of this month, and the _auckland_ sails on the nd of february. tell miss mary i shall bring her home all kinds of pretty presents from affghanistan,--ivory fans, and cashmere shawls, and chinese puzzles, and embroidered slippers with turned-up toes, and diamonds, and attar-of-roses, and suchlike; and remember that i expect you to write to me, and to give me the earliest news of your coming into the lincolnshire property." john marchmont received this letter in the middle of january. he gave a despondent sigh as he refolded the boyish epistle, after reading it to his little girl. "we haven't so many friends, polly," he said, "that we should be indifferent to the loss of this one." mary marchmont's cheek grew paler at her father's sorrowful speech. that imaginative temperament, which was, as i have said, almost morbid in its intensity, presented every object to the little girl in a light in which things are looked at by very few children. only these few words, and her fancy roamed far away to that cruel land whose perils her father had described to her. only these few words, and she was away in the rocky bolan pass, under hurricanes of drifting snow; she saw the hungry soldiers fighting with savage dogs for the possession of foul carrion. she had heard all the perils and difficulties which had befallen the army of the indus in the year ' , and the womanly heart ached with the pain of those cruel memories. "he will go to india and be killed, papa dear," she said. "oh! why, why do they let him go? his mother can't love him, can she? she would never let him go, if she did." john marchmont was obliged to explain to his daughter that motherly love must not go so far as to deprive a nation of its defenders; and that the richest jewels which cornelia can give to her country are those ruby life-drops which flow from the hearts of her bravest and brightest sons. mary was no political economist; she could not reason upon the necessity of chastising persian insolence, or checking russian encroachments upon the far-away shores of the indus. was edward arundel's bright head, with its aureola of yellow hair, to be cloven asunder by an affghan renegade's sabre, because the young shah of persia had been contumacious? mary marchmont wept silently that day over a three-volume novel, while her father was away serving writs upon wretched insolvents, in his capacity of out-door clerk to messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson. the young lady no longer spent her quiet days in the two-pair back. mr. marchmont and his daughter had remained faithful to oakley street and the proprietress of the ladies' wardrobe, who was a good, motherly creature; but they had descended to the grandeur of the first floor, whose gorgeous decorations mary had glanced at furtively in the days gone by, when the splendid chambers were occupied by an elderly and reprobate commission-agent, who seemed utterly indifferent to the delights of a convex mirror, surmounted by a maimed eagle, whose dignity was somewhat impaired by the loss of a wing; but which bijou appeared, to mary, to be a fitting adornment for the young queen's palace in st. james's park. but neither the eagle nor the third volume of a thrilling romance could comfort mary upon this bleak january day. she shut her book, and stood by the window, looking out into the dreary street, that seemed so blotted and dim under the falling snow. "it snowed in the pass of bolan," she thought; "and the treacherous indians harassed the brave soldiers, and killed their camels. what will become of him in that dreadful country? shall we ever see him again?" yes, mary, to your sorrow! indian scimitars will let him go scatheless; famine and fever will pass him by; but the hand which points to that far-away day on which you and he are to meet, will never fail or falter in its purpose until the hour of your meeting comes. * * * * * we have no need to dwell upon the preparations which were made for the young soldier's departure from home, nor on the tender farewells between the mother and her son. mr. arundel was a country gentleman _pur et simple_; a hearty, broad-shouldered squire, who had no thought above his farm and his dog-kennel, or the hunting of the red deer with which his neighbourhood abounded. he sent his younger son to india as coolly as he had sent the elder to oxford. the boy had little to inherit, and must be provided for in a gentlemanly manner. other younger sons of the house of arundel had fought and conquered in the honourable east india company's service; and was edward any better than they, that there should be sentimental whining because the lad was going away to fight his way to fortune, if he could? mr. arundel went even further than this, and declared that master edward was a lucky dog to be going out at such a time, when there was plenty of fighting, and a very fair chance of speedy promotion for a good soldier. he gave the young cadet his blessing, reminded him of the limit of such supplies as he was to expect from home, bade him keep clear of the brandy-bottle and the dice-box; and having done this, believed that he had performed his duty as an englishman and a father. if mrs. arundel wept, she wept in secret, loth to discourage her son by the sight of those natural, womanly tears. if miss letitia arundel was sorry to lose her brother, she mourned with most praiseworthy discretion, and did not forget to remind the young traveller that she expected to receive a muslin frock, embroidered with beetle-wings, by an early mail. and as algernon fairfax dangerfield arundel, the heir, was away at college, there was no one else to mourn. so edward left the home of his forefathers by a branch-coach, which started from the "arundel arms" in time to meet the "telegraph" at exeter; and no noisy lamentations shook the sky above dangerfield park--no mourning voices echoed through the spacious rooms. the old servants were sorry to lose the younger-born, whose easy, genial temperament had made him an especial favourite; but there was a certain admixture of joviality with their sorrow, as there generally is with all mourning in the basement; and the strong ale, the famous dangerfield october, went faster upon that st of january than on any day since christmas. i doubt if any one at dangerfield park sorrowed as bitterly for the departure of the boyish soldier as a romantic young lady, of nine years old, in oakley street, lambeth; whose one sentimental day-dream--half-childish, half-womanly--owned edward arundel as its centre figure. so the curtain falls on the picture of a brave ship sailing eastward, her white canvas strained against the cold grey february sky, and a little girl weeping over the tattered pages of a stupid novel in a shabby london lodging. chapter v. marchmont towers. there is a lapse of three years and a half between the acts; and the curtain rises to reveal a widely-different picture:--the picture of a noble mansion in the flat lincolnshire country; a stately pile of building, standing proudly forth against a background of black woodland; a noble building, supported upon either side by an octagon tower, whose solid masonry is half-hidden by the ivy which clings about the stonework, trailing here and there, and flapping restlessly with every breath of wind against the narrow casements. a broad stone terrace stretches the entire length of the grim façade, from tower to tower; and three flights of steps lead from the terrace to the broad lawn, which loses itself in a vast grassy flat, only broken by a few clumps of trees and a dismal pool of black water, but called by courtesy a park. grim stone griffins surmount the terrace-steps, and griffins' heads and other architectural monstrosities, worn and moss-grown, keep watch and ward over every door and window, every archway and abutment--frowning threat and defiance upon the daring visitor who approaches the great house by this, the formidable chief entrance. the mansion looks westward: but there is another approach, a low archway on the southern side, which leads into a quadrangle, where there is a quaint little door under a stone portico, ivy-covered like the rest; a comfortable little door of massive oak, studded with knobs of rusty iron,--a door generally affected by visitors familiar with the house. this is marchmont towers,--a grand and stately mansion, which had been a monastery in the days when england and the pope were friends and allies; and which had been bestowed upon hugh marchmont, gentleman, by his sovereign lord and most christian majesty the king henry viii, of blessed memory, and by that gentleman-commoner extended and improved at considerable outlay. this is marchmont towers,--a splendid and a princely habitation truly, but perhaps scarcely the kind of dwelling one would choose for the holy resting-place we call home. the great mansion is a little too dismal in its lonely grandeur: it lacks shelter when the dreary winds come sweeping across the grassy flats in the bleak winter weather; it lacks shade when the western sun blazes on every window-pane in the stifling summer evening. it is at all times rather too stony in its aspect; and is apt to remind one almost painfully of every weird and sorrowful story treasured in the storehouse of memory. ancient tales of enchantment, dark german legends, wild scottish fancies, grim fragments of half-forgotten demonology, strange stories of murder, violence, mystery, and wrong, vaguely intermingle in the stranger's mind as he looks, for the first time, at marchmont towers. but of course these feelings wear off in time. so invincible is the power of custom, that we might make ourselves comfortable in the castle of otranto, after a reasonable sojourn within its mysterious walls: familiarity would breed contempt for the giant helmet, and all the other grim apparitions of the haunted dwelling. the commonplace and ignoble wants of every-day life must surely bring disenchantment with them. the ghost and the butcher's boy cannot well exist contemporaneously; and the avenging shade can scarcely continue to lurk beneath the portal which is visited by the matutinal milkman. indeed, this is doubtless the reason that the most restless and impatient spirit, bent on early vengeance and immediate retribution, will yet wait until the shades of night have fallen before he reveals himself, rather than run the risk of an ignominious encounter with the postman or the parlour-maid. be it how it might, the phantoms of marchmont towers were not intrusive. they may have perambulated the long tapestried corridors, the tenantless chambers, the broad black staircase of shining oak; but, happily, no dweller in the mansion was ever scared by the sight of their pale faces. all the dead-and-gone beauties, and soldiers, and lawyers, and parsons, and simple country-squires of the marchmont race may have descended from their picture-frames to hold a witches' sabbath in the old mansion; but as the lincolnshire servants were hearty eaters and heavy sleepers, the ghosts had it all to themselves. i believe there was one dismal story attached to the house,--the story of a marchmont of the time of charles i, who had murdered his coachman in a fit of insensate rage; and it was even asserted, upon the authority of an old housekeeper, that john marchmont's grandmother, when a young woman and lately come as a bride to the towers, had beheld the murdered coachman stalk into her chamber, ghastly and blood-bedabbled, in the dim summer twilight. but as this story was not particularly romantic, and possessed none of the elements likely to insure popularity,--such as love, jealousy, revenge, mystery, youth, and beauty,--it had never been very widely disseminated. i should think that the new owner of marchmont towers--new within the last six months--was about the last person in christendom to be hypercritical, or to raise fanciful objections to his dwelling; for inasmuch as he had come straight from a wretched transpontine lodging to this splendid lincolnshire mansion, and had at the same time exchanged a stipend of thirty shillings a week for an income of eleven thousand a year (derivable from lands that spread far away, over fenny flats and low-lying farms, to the solitary seashore), he had ample reason to be grateful to providence, and well pleased with his new abode. yes; philip marchmont, the childless widower, had died six months before, at the close of the year ' , of a broken heart,--his old servants said, broken by the loss of his only and idolised son; after which loss he had never been known to smile. he was one of those undemonstrative men who can take a great sorrow quietly, and only--die of it. philip marchmont lay in a velvet-covered coffin, above his son's, in the stone recess set apart for them in the marchmont vault beneath kemberling church, three miles from the towers; and john reigned in his stead. john marchmont, the supernumerary, the banner-holder of drury lane, the patient, conscientious copying and outdoor clerk of lincoln's inn, was now sole owner of the lincolnshire estate, sole master of a household of well-trained old servants, sole proprietor of a very decent country-gentleman's stud, and of chariots, barouches, chaises, phaetons, and other vehicles--a little shabby and out of date it may be, but very comfortable to a man for whom an omnibus ride had long been a treat and a rarity. nothing had been touched or disturbed since philip marchmont's death. the rooms he had used were still the occupied apartments; the chambers he had chosen to shut up were still kept with locked doors; the servants who had served him waited upon his successor, whom they declared to be a quiet, easy gentleman, far too wise to interfere with old servants, every one of whom knew the ways of the house a great deal better than he did, though he was the master of it. there was, therefore, no shadow of change in the stately mansion. the dinner-bell still rang at the same hour; the same tradespeople left the same species of wares at the low oaken door; the old housekeeper, arranging her simple _menu_, planned her narrow round of soups and roasts, sweets and made-dishes, exactly as she had been wont to do, and had no new tastes to consult. a grey-haired bachelor, who had been own-man to philip, was now own-man to john. the carriage which had conveyed the late lord every sunday to morning and afternoon service at kemberling conveyed the new lord, who sat in the same seat that his predecessor had occupied in the great family-pew, and read his prayers out of the same book,--a noble crimson, morocco-covered volume, in which george, our most gracious king and governor, and all manner of dead-and-gone princes and princesses were prayed for. the presence of mary marchmont made the only change in the old house; and even that change was a very trifling one. mary and her father were as closely united at marchmont towers as they had been in oakley street. the little girl clung to her father as tenderly as ever--more tenderly than ever perhaps; for she knew something of that which the physicians had said, and she knew that john marchmont's lease of life was not a long one. perhaps it would be better to say that he had no lease at all. his soul was a tenant on sufferance in its frail earthly habitation, receiving a respite now and again, when the flicker of the lamp was very low--every chance breath of wind threatening to extinguish it for ever. it was only those who knew john marchmont very intimately who were fully acquainted with the extent of his danger. he no longer bore any of those fatal outward signs of consumption, which fatigue and deprivation had once made painfully conspicuous. the hectic flush and the unnatural brightness of the eyes had subsided; indeed, john seemed much stronger and heartier than of old; and it is only great medical practitioners who can tell to a nicety what is going on _inside_ a man, when he presents a very fair exterior to the unprofessional eye. but john was decidedly better than he had been. he might live three years, five, seven, possibly even ten years; but he must live the life of a man who holds himself perpetually upon his defence against death; and he must recognise in every bleak current of wind, in every chilling damp, or perilous heat, or over-exertion, or ill-chosen morsel of food, or hasty emotion, or sudden passion, an insidious ally of his dismal enemy. mary marchmont knew all this,--or divined it, perhaps, rather than knew it, with the child-woman's subtle power of divination, which is even stronger than the actual woman's; for her father had done his best to keep all sorrowful knowledge from her. she knew that he was in danger; and she loved him all the more dearly, as the one precious thing which was in constant peril of being snatched away. the child's love for her father has not grown any less morbid in its intensity since edward arundel's departure for india; nor has mary become more childlike since her coming to marchmont towers, and her abandonment of all those sordid cares, those pitiful every-day duties, which had made her womanly. it may be that the last lingering glamour of childhood had for ever faded away with the realisation of the day-dream which she had carried about with her so often in the dingy transpontine thoroughfares around oakley street. marchmont towers, that fairy palace, whose lighted windows had shone upon her far away across a cruel forest of poverty and trouble, like the enchanted castle which appears to the lost wanderer of the child's story, was now the home of the father she loved. the grim enchanter death, the only magician of our modern histories, had waved his skeleton hand, more powerful than the star-gemmed wand of any fairy godmother, and the obstacles which had stood between john marchmont and his inheritance had one by one been swept away. but was marchmont towers quite as beautiful as that fairy palace of mary's day-dream? no, not quite--not quite. the rooms were handsome,--handsomer and larger, even, than the rooms she had dreamed of; but perhaps none the better for that. they were grand and gloomy and magnificent; but they were not the sunlit chambers which her fancy had built up, and decorated with such shreds and patches of splendour as her narrow experience enabled her to devise. perhaps it was rather a disappointment to miss marchmont to discover that the mansion was completely furnished, and that there was no room in it for any of those splendours which she had so often contemplated in the new cut. the parrot at the greengrocer's was a vulgar bird, and not by any means admissible in lincolnshire. the carrying away and providing for mary's favourite tradespeople was not practicable; and john marchmont had demurred to her proposal of adopting the butcher's daughter. there is always something to be given up even when our brightest visions are realised; there is always some one figure (a low one perhaps) missing in the fullest sum of earthly happiness. i dare say if alnaschar had married the vizier's daughter, he would have found her a shrew, and would have looked back yearningly to the humble days in which he had been an itinerant vendor of crockery-ware. if, therefore, mary marchmont found her sunlit fancies not quite realised by the great stony mansion that frowned upon the fenny countryside, the wide grassy flat, the black pool, with its dismal shelter of weird pollard-willows, whose ugly reflections, distorted on the bosom of the quiet water, looked like the shadows of hump-backed men;--if these things did not compose as beautiful a picture as that which the little girl had carried so long in her mind, she had no more reason to be sorry than the rest of us, and had been no more foolish than other dreamers. i think she had built her airy castle too much after the model of a last scene in a pantomime, and that she expected to find spangled waters twinkling in perpetual sunshine, revolving fountains, ever-expanding sunflowers, and gilded clouds of rose-coloured gauze,--every thing except the fairies, in short,--at marchmont towers. well, the dream was over: and she was quite a woman now, and very grateful to providence when she remembered that her father had no longer need to toil for his daily bread, and that he was luxuriously lodged, and could have the first physicians in the land at his beck and call. "oh, papa, it is so nice to be rich!" the young lady would exclaim now and then, in a fleeting transport of enthusiasm. "how good we ought to be to the poor people, when we remember how poor we once were!" and the little girl did not forget to be good to the poor about kemberling and marchmont towers. there were plenty of poor, of course--free-and-easy pensioners, who came to the towers for brandy, and wine, and milk, and woollen stuffs, and grocery, precisely as they would have gone to a shop, except that there was to be no bill. the housekeeper doled out her bounties with many short homilies upon the depravity and ingratitude of the recipients, and gave tracts of an awful and denunciatory nature to the pitiful petitioners--tracts interrogatory, and tracts fiercely imperative; tracts that asked, "where are you going?" "why are you wicked?" "what will become of you?" and other tracts which cried, "stop, and think!" "pause, while there is time!" "sinner, consider!" "evil-doer, beware!" perhaps it may not be the wisest possible plan to begin the work of reformation by frightening, threatening, and otherwise disheartening the wretched sinner to be reformed. there is a certain sermon in the new testament, containing sacred and comforting words which were spoken upon a mountain near at hand to jerusalem, and spoken to an auditory amongst which there must have been many sinful creatures; but there is more of blessing than cursing in that sublime discourse, and it might be rather a tender father pleading gently with his wayward children than an offended deity dealing out denunciation upon a stubborn and refractory race. but the authors of the tracts may have never read this sermon, perhaps; and they may take their ideas of composition from that comforting service which we read on ash-wednesday, cowering in fear and trembling in our pews, and calling down curses upon ourselves and our neighbours. be it as it might, the tracts were not popular amongst the pensioners of marchmont towers. they infinitely preferred to hear mary read a chapter in the new testament, or some pretty patriarchal story of primitive obedience and faith. the little girl would discourse upon the scripture histories in her simple, old-fashioned manner; and many a stout lincolnshire farm-labourer was content to sit over his hearth, with a pipe of shag-tobacco and a mug of fettled beer, while miss marchmont read and expounded the history of abraham and isaac, or joseph and his brethren. "it's joost loike a story-book to hear her," the man would say to his wife; "and yet she brings it all hoame, too, loike. if she reads about abraham, she'll say, maybe, 'that's joost how you gave your only son to be a soldier, you know, muster moggins;'--she allus says muster moggins;--'you gave un into god's hands, and you troosted god would take care of un; and whatever cam' to un would be the best, even if it was death.' that's what she'll say, bless her little heart! so gentle and tender loike. the wust o' chaps couldn't but listen to her." mary marchmont's morbidly sensitive nature adapted her to all charitable offices. no chance word in her simple talk ever inflicted a wound upon the listener. she had a subtle and intuitive comprehension of other people's feelings, derived from the extreme susceptibility of her own. she had never been vulgarised by the associations of poverty; for her self-contained nature took no colour from the things that surrounded her, and she was only at marchmont towers that which she had been from the age of six--a little lady, grave and gentle, dignified, discreet, and wise. there was one bright figure missing out of the picture which mary had been wont of late years to make of the lincolnshire mansion, and that was the figure of the yellow-haired boy who had breakfasted upon haddocks and hot rolls in oakley street. she had imagined edward arundel an inhabitant of that fair utopia. he would live with them; or, if he could not live with them, he would be with them as a visitor,--often--almost always. he would leave off being a soldier, for of course her papa could give him more money than he could get by being a soldier--(you see that mary's experience of poverty had taught her to take a mercantile and sordid view of military life)--and he would come to marchmont towers, and ride, and drive, and play tennis (what was tennis? she wondered), and read three-volume novels all day long. but that part of the dream was at least broken. marchmont towers was mary's home, but the young soldier was far away; in the pass of bolan, perhaps,--mary had a picture of that cruel rocky pass almost always in her mind,--or cutting his way through a black jungle, with the yellow eyes of hungry tigers glaring out at him through the rank tropical foliage; or dying of thirst and fever under a scorching sun, with no better pillow than the neck of a dead camel, with no more tender watcher than the impatient vulture flapping her wings above his head, and waiting till he, too, should be carrion. what was the good of wealth, if it could not bring this young soldier home to a safe shelter in his native land? john marchmont smiled when his daughter asked this question, and implored her father to write to edward arundel, recalling him to england. "god knows how glad i should be to have the boy here, polly!" john said, as he drew his little girl closer to his breast,--she sat on his knee still, though she was thirteen years of age. "but edward has a career before him, my dear, and could not give it up for an inglorious life in this rambling old house. it isn't as if i could hold out any inducement to him: you know, polly, i can't; for i mustn't leave any money away from my little girl." "but he might have half my money, papa, or all of it," mary added piteously. "what could i do with money, if----?" she didn't finish the sentence; she never could complete any such sentence as this; but her father knew what she meant. so six months had passed since a dreary january day upon which john marchmont had read, in the second column of the "times," that he could hear of something greatly to his advantage by applying to a certain solicitor, whose offices were next door but one to those of messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson's. his heart began to beat very violently when he read that advertisement in the supplement, which it was one of his duties to air before the fire in the clerks' office; but he showed no other sign of emotion. he waited until he took the papers to his employer; and as he laid them at mr. mathewson's elbow, murmured a respectful request to be allowed to go out for half-an-hour, upon his own business. "good gracious me, marchmont!" cried the lawyer; "what can you want to go out for at this time in the morning? you've only just come; and there's that agreement between higgs and sandyman must be copied before----" "yes, i know, sir. i'll be back in time to attend to it; but i--i think i've come into a fortune, sir; and i should like to go and see about it." the solicitor turned in his revolving library-chair, and looked aghast at his clerk. had this marchmont--always rather unnaturally reserved and eccentric--gone suddenly mad? no; the copying-clerk stood by his employer's side, grave, self-possessed as ever, with his forefinger upon the advertisement. "marchmont--john--call--messrs. tindal and trollam--" gasped mr. mathewson. "do you mean to tell me it's _you_?" "yes, sir." "egad, i'll go with you!" cried the solicitor, hooking his arm through that of his clerk, snatching his hat from an adjacent stand, and dashing through the outer office, down the great staircase, and into the next door but one before john marchmont knew where he was. john had not deceived his employer. marchmont towers was his, with all its appurtenances. messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson took him in hand, much to the chagrin of messrs. tindal and trollam, and proved his identity in less than a week. on a shelf above the high wooden desk at which john had sat, copying law-papers, with a weary hand and an aching spine, appeared two bran-new deed-boxes, inscribed, in white letters, with the name and address of john marchmont, esq., marchmont towers. the copying-clerk's sudden accession to fortune was the talk of all the _employés_ in "the fields." marchmont towers was exaggerated into half lincolnshire, and a tidy slice of yorkshire; eleven thousand a year was expanded into an annual million. everybody expected largesse from the legatee. how fond people had been of the quiet clerk, and how magnanimously they had concealed their sentiments during his poverty, lest they should wound him, as they urged, "which" they knew he was sensitive; and how expansively they now dilated on their long-suppressed emotions! of course, under these circumstances, it is hardly likely that everybody could be satisfied; so it is a small thing to say that the dinner which john gave--by his late employers' suggestion (he was about the last man to think of giving a dinner)--at the "albion tavern," to the legal staff of messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson, and such acquaintance of the legal profession as they should choose to invite, was a failure; and that gentlemen who were pretty well used to dine upon liver and bacon, or beefsteak and onions, or the joint, vegetables, bread, cheese, and celery for a shilling, turned up their noses at the turbot, murmured at the paucity of green fat in the soup, made light of red mullet and ortolans, objected to the flavour of the truffles, and were contemptuous about the wines. john knew nothing of this. he had lived a separate and secluded existence; and his only thought now was of getting away to marchmont towers, which had been familiar to him in his boyhood, when he had been wont to go there on occasional visits to his grandfather. he wanted to get away from the turmoil and confusion of the big, heartless city, in which he had endured so much; he wanted to carry away his little girl to a quiet country home, and live and die there in peace. he liberally rewarded all the good people about oakley street who had been kind to little mary; and there was weeping in the regions of the ladies' wardrobe when mr. marchmont and his daughter went away one bitter winter's morning in a cab, which was to carry them to the hostelry whence the coach started for lincoln. it is strange to think how far those oakley-street days of privation and endurance seem to have receded in the memories of both father and daughter. the impalpable past fades away, and it is difficult for john and his little girl to believe that they were once so poor and desolate. it is oakley street now that is visionary and unreal. the stately county families bear down upon marchmont towers in great lumbering chariots, with brazen crests upon the hammer-cloths, and sulky coachmen in brown-george wigs. the county mammas patronise and caress miss marchmont--what a match she will be for one of the county sons by-and-by!--the county daughters discourse with mary about her poor, and her fancy-work, and her piano. she is getting on slowly enough with her piano, poor little girl! under the tuition of the organist of swampington, who gives lessons to that part of the county. and there are solemn dinners now and then at marchmont towers--dinners at which miss mary appears when the cloth has been removed, and reflects in silent wonder upon the change that has come to her father and herself. can it be true that she has ever lived in oakley street, whither came no more aristocratic visitors than her aunt sophia, who was the wife of a berkshire farmer, and always brought hogs' puddings, and butter, and home-made bread, and other rustic delicacies to her brother-in-law; or mrs. brigsome, the washer-woman, who made a morning-call every monday, to fetch john marchmont's shabby shirts? the shirts were not shabby now; and it was no longer mary's duty to watch them day by day, and manipulate them tenderly when the linen grew frayed at the sharp edges of the folds, or the buttonholes gave signs of weakness. corson, mr. marchmont's own-man, had care of the shirts now: and john wore diamond-studs and a black-satin waistcoat, when he gave a dinner-party. they were not very lively, those lincolnshire dinner-parties; though the dessert was a sight to look upon, in mary's eyes. the long shining table, the red and gold and purple indian china, the fluffy woollen d'oyleys, the sparkling cut-glass, the sticky preserved ginger and guava-jelly, and dried orange rings and chips, and all the stereotyped sweetmeats, were very grand and beautiful, no doubt; but mary had seen livelier desserts in oakley street, though there had been nothing better than a brown-paper bag of oranges from the westminster road, and a bottle of two-and-twopenny marsala from a licensed victualler's in the borough, to promote conviviality. chapter vi. the young soldier's return. the rain beats down upon the battlemented roof of marchmont towers this july day, as if it had a mind to flood the old mansion. the flat waste of grass, and the lonely clumps of trees, are almost blotted out by the falling rain. the low grey sky shuts out the distance. this part of lincolnshire--fenny, misty, and flat always--seems flatter and mistier than usual to-day. the rain beats hopelessly upon the leaves in the wood behind marchmont towers, and splashes into great pools beneath the trees, until the ground is almost hidden by the fallen water, and the trees seem to be growing out of a black lake. the land is lower behind marchmont towers, and slopes down gradually to the bank of a dismal river, which straggles through the marchmont property at a snail's pace, to gain an impetus farther on, until it hurries into the sea somewhere northward of grimsby. the wood is not held in any great favour by the household at the towers; and it has been a pet project of several marchmonts to level and drain it, but a project not very easily to be carried out. marchmont towers is said to be unhealthy, as a dwelling-house, by reason of this wood, from which miasmas rise in certain states of the weather; and it is on this account that the back of the house--the eastern front, at least, as it is called--looking to the wood is very little used. mary marchmont sits at a window in the western drawing-room, watching the ceaseless falling of the rain upon this dreary summer afternoon. she is little changed since the day upon which edward arundel saw her in oakley street. she is taller, of course, but her figure is as slender and childish as ever: it is only her face in which the earnestness of premature womanhood reveals itself in a grave and sweet serenity very beautiful to contemplate. her soft brown eyes have a pensive shadow in their gentle light; her mouth is even more pensive. it has been said of jane grey, of mary stuart, of marie antoinette, charlotte corday, and other fated women, that in the gayest hours of their youth they bore upon some feature, or in some expression, the shadow of the end--an impalpable, indescribable presage of an awful future, vaguely felt by those who looked upon them. is it thus with mary marchmont? has the solemn hand of destiny set that shadowy brand upon the face of this child, that even in her prosperity, as in her adversity, she should be so utterly different from all other children? is she already marked out for some womanly martyrdom--already set apart for more than common suffering? she sits alone this afternoon, for her father is busy with his agent. wealth does not mean immunity from all care and trouble; and mr. marchmont has plenty of work to get through, in conjunction with his land-steward, a hard-headed yorkshireman, who lives at kemberling, and insists on doing his duty with pertinacious honesty. the large brown eyes looked wistfully out at the dismal waste and the falling rain. there was a wretched equestrian making his way along the carriage-drive. "who can come to see us on such a day?" mary thought. "it must be mr. gormby, i suppose;"--the agent's name was gormby. "mr. gormby never cares about the wet; but then i thought he was with papa. oh, i hope it isn't anybody coming to call." but mary forgot all about the struggling equestrian the next moment. she had some morsel of fancy-work upon her lap, and picked it up and went on with it, setting slow stitches, and letting her thoughts wander far away from marchmont towers--to india, i am afraid; or to that imaginary india which she had created for herself out of such images as were to be picked up in the "arabian nights." she was roused suddenly by the opening of a door at the farther end of the room, and by the voice of a servant, who mumbled a name which sounded something like mr. armenger. she rose, blushing a little, to do honour to one of her father's county acquaintance, as she thought; when a fair-haired gentleman dashed in, very much excited and very wet, and made his way towards her. "i _would_ come, miss marchmont," he said,--"i would come, though the day was so wet. everybody vowed i was mad to think of it, and it was as much as my poor brute of a horse could do to get over the ten miles of swamp between this and my uncle's house; but i would come! where's john? i want to see john. didn't i always tell him he'd come into the lincolnshire property? didn't i always say so, now? you should have seen martin mostyn's face--he's got a capital berth in the war office, and he's such a snob!--when i told him the news: it was as long as my arm! but i must see john, dear old fellow! i long to congratulate him." mary stood with her hands clasped, and her breath coming quickly. the blush had quite faded out, and left her unusually pale. but edward arundel did not see this: young gentlemen of four-and-twenty are not very attentive to every change of expression in little girls of thirteen. "oh, is it you, mr. arundel? is it really you?" she spoke in a low voice, and it was almost difficult to keep the rushing tears back while she did so. she had pictured him so often in peril, in famine, in sickness, in death, that to see him here, well, happy, light-hearted, cordial, handsome, and brave, as she had seen him four-and-a-half years before in the two-pair back in oakley street, was almost too much for her to bear without the relief of tears. but she controlled her emotion as bravely as if she had been a woman of twenty. "i am so glad to see you," she said quietly; "and papa will be so glad too! it is the only thing we want, now we are rich; to have you with us. we have talked of you so often; and i--we--have been so unhappy sometimes, thinking that----" "that i should be killed, i suppose?" "yes; or wounded very, very badly. the battles in india have been dreadful, have they not?" mr. arundel smiled at her earnestness. "they have not been exactly child's play," he said, shaking back his chesnut hair and smoothing his thick moustache. he was a man now, and a very handsome one; something of that type which is known in this year of grace as "swell"; but brave and chivalrous withal, and not afflicted with any impediment in his speech. "the men who talk of the affghans as a chicken-hearted set of fellows are rather out of their reckoning. the indians can fight, miss mary, and fight like the devil; but we can lick 'em!" he walked over to the fireplace, where--upon this chilly wet day, there was a fire burning--and began to shake himself dry. mary, following him with her eyes, wondered if there was such another soldier in all her majesty's dominions, and how soon he would be made general-in-chief of the army of the indus. "then you've not been wounded at all, mr. arundel?" she said, after a pause. "oh, yes, i've been wounded; i got a bullet in my shoulder from an affghan musket, and i'm home on sick-leave." this time he saw the expression of her face, and interpreted her look of alarm. "but i'm not ill, you know, miss marchmont," he said, laughing. "our fellows are very glad of a wound when they feel home-sick. the th come home before long, all of 'em; and i've a twelvemonth's leave of absence; and we're pretty sure to be ordered out again by the end of that time, as i don't believe there's much chance of quiet over there." "you will go out again!----" edward arundel smiled at her mournful tone. "to be sure, miss mary. i have my captaincy to win, you know; i'm only a lieutenant, as yet." it was only a twelvemonth's reprieve, after all, then, mary thought. he would go back again--to suffer, and to be wounded, and to die, perhaps. but then, on the other hand, there was a twelvemonth's respite; and her father might in that time prevail upon the young soldier to stay at marchmont towers. it was such inexpressible happiness to see him once more, to know that he was safe and well, that mary could scarcely do otherwise than see all things in a sunny light just now. she ran to john marchmont's study to tell him of the coming of this welcome visitor; but she wept upon her father's shoulder before she could explain who it was whose coming had made her so glad. very few friendships had broken the monotony of her solitary existence; and edward arundel was the only chivalrous image she had ever known, out of her books. john marchmont was scarcely less pleased than his child to see the man who had befriended him in his poverty. never has more heartfelt welcome been given than that which greeted edward arundel at marchmont towers. "you will stay with us, of course, my dear arundel," john said; "you will stop for september and the shooting. you know you promised you'd make this your shooting-box; and we'll build the tennis-court. heaven knows, there's room enough for it in the great quadrangle; and there's a billiard-room over this, though i'm afraid the table is out of order. but we can soon set that right, can't we, polly?" "yes, yes, papa; out of my pocket-money, if you like." mary marchmont said this in all good faith. it was sometimes difficult for her to remember that her father was really rich, and had no need of help out of her pocket-money. the slender savings in her little purse had often given him some luxury that he would not otherwise have had, in the time gone by. "you got my letter, then?" john said; "the letter in which i told you----" "that marchmont towers was yours. yes, my dear old boy. that letter was amongst a packet my agent brought me half-an-hour before i left calcutta. god bless you, dear old fellow; how glad i was to hear of it! i've only been in england a fortnight. i went straight from southampton to dangerfield to see my father and mother, stayed there little over ten days, and then offended them all by running away. i reached swampington yesterday, slept at my uncle hubert's, paid my respects to my cousin olivia, who is,--well, i've told you what she is,--and rode over here this morning, much to the annoyance of the inhabitants of the rectory. so, you see, i've been doing nothing but offending people for your sake, john; and for yours, miss mary. by-the-by, i've brought you such a doll!" a doll! mary's pale face flushed a faint crimson. did he think her still a child, then, this soldier; did he think her only a silly child, with no thought above a doll, when she would have gone out to india, and braved every peril of that cruel country, to be his nurse and comfort in fever and sickness, like the brave sisters of mercy she had read of in some of her novels? edward arundel saw that faint crimson glow lighting up in her face. "i beg your pardon, miss marchmont," he said. "i was only joking; of course you are a young lady now, almost grown up, you know. can you play chess?" "no, mr. arundel." "i am sorry for that; for i have brought you a set of chessmen that once belonged to dost mahommed khan. but i'll teach you the game, if you like?" "oh, yes, mr. arundel; i should like it very, very much." the young soldier could not help being amused by the little girl's earnestness. she was about the same age as his sister letitia; but, oh, how widely different to that bouncing and rather wayward young lady, who tore the pillow-lace upon her muslin frocks, rumpled her long ringlets, rasped the skin off the sharp points of her elbows, by repeated falls upon the gravel-paths at dangerfield, and tormented a long-suffering swiss attendant, half-lady's-maid, half-governess, from morning till night. no fold was awry in mary marchmont's simple black-silk frock; no plait disarranged in the neat cambric tucker that encircled the slender white throat. intellect here reigned supreme. instead of the animal spirits of a thoughtless child, there was a woman's loving carefulness for others, a woman's unselfishness and devotion. edward arundel did not understand all this, but i think he had a dim comprehension of the greater part of it. "she is a dear little thing," he thought, as he watched her clinging to her father's arm; and then he began to talk about marchmont towers, and insisted upon being shown over the house; and, perhaps for the first time since the young heir had shot himself to death upon a bright september morning in a stubble-field within earshot of the park, the sound of merry laughter echoed through the long corridors, and resounded in the unoccupied rooms. edward arundel was in raptures with everything. "there never was such a dear old place," he said. "'gloomy?' 'dreary?' 'draughty?' pshaw! cut a few logs out of that wood at the back there, pile 'em up in the wide chimneys, and set a light to 'em, and marchmont towers would be like a baronial mansion at christmas-time." he declared that every dingy portrait he looked at was a rubens or a velasquez, or a vandyke, a holbein, or a lely. "look at that fur border to the old woman's black-velvet gown, john; look at the colouring of the hands! do you think anybody but peter paul could have painted that? do you see that girl with the blue-satin stomacher and the flaxen ringlets?--one of your ancestresses, miss mary, and very like you. if that isn't in sir peter lely's best style,--his earlier style, you know, before he was spoiled by royal patronage, and got lazy,--i know nothing of painting." the young soldier ran on in this manner, as he hurried his host from room to room; now throwing open windows to look out at the wet prospect; now rapping against the wainscot to find secret hiding-places behind sliding panels; now stamping on the oak-flooring in the hope of discovering a trap-door. he pointed out at least ten eligible sites for the building of the tennis-court; he suggested more alterations and improvements than a builder could have completed in a lifetime. the place brightened under the influence of his presence, as a landscape lights up under a burst of sudden sunshine breaking through a dull grey sky. mary marchmont did not wait for the removal of the table-cloth that evening, but dined with her father and his friend in a snug oak-panelled chamber, half-breakfast-room, half-library, which opened out of the western drawing-room. how different edward arundel was to all the rest of the world, miss marchmont thought; how gay, how bright, how genial, how happy! the county families, mustered in their fullest force, couldn't make such mirth amongst them as this young soldier created in his single person. the evening was an evening in fairy-land. life was sometimes like the last scene in a pantomime, after all, with rose-coloured cloud and golden sunlight. one of the marchmont servants went over to swampington early the next day to fetch mr. arundel's portmanteaus from the rectory; and after dinner upon that second evening, mary marchmont took her seat opposite edward, and listened reverently while he explained to her the moves upon the chessboard. "so you don't know my cousin olivia?" the young soldier said by-and-by. "that's odd! i should have thought she would have called upon you long before this." mary marchmont shook her head. "no," she said; "miss arundel has never been to see us; and i should so like to have seen her, because she would have told me about you. mr. arundel has called one or twice upon papa; but i have never seen him. he is not our clergyman, you know; marchmont towers belongs to kemberling parish." "to be sure; and swampington is ten miles off. but, for all that, i should have thought olivia would have called upon you. i'll drive you over to-morrow, if john thinks me whip enough to trust you with me, and you shall see livy. the rectory's such a queer old place!" perhaps mr. marchmont was rather doubtful as to the propriety of committing his little girl to edward arundel's charioteership for a ten-mile drive upon a wretched road. be it as it might, a lumbering barouche, with a pair of over-fed horses, was ordered next morning, instead of the high, old-fashioned gig which the soldier had proposed driving; and the safety of the two young people was confided to a sober old coachman, rather sulky at the prospect of a drive to swampington so soon after the rainy weather. it does not rain always, even in this part of lincolnshire; and the july morning was bright and pleasant, the low hedges fragrant with starry opal-tinted wild roses and waxen honeysuckle, the yellowing corn waving in the light summer breeze. mary assured her companion that she had no objection whatever to the odour of cigar-smoke; so mr. arundel lolled upon the comfortable cushions of the barouche, with his back to the horses, smoking cheroots, and talking gaily, while miss marchmont sat in the place of state opposite to him. a happy drive; a drive in a fairy chariot through regions of fairyland, for ever and for ever to be remembered by mary marchmont. they left the straggling hedges and the yellowing corn behind them by-and-by, as they drew near the outskirts of swampington. the town lies lower even than the surrounding country, flat and low as that country is. a narrow river crawls at the base of a half-ruined wall, which once formed part of the defences of the place. black barges lie at anchor here; and a stone bridge, guarded by a toll-house, spans the river. mr. marchmont's carriage lumbered across this bridge, and under an archway, low, dark, stony, and grim, into a narrow street of solid, well-built houses, low, dark, stony, and grim, like the archway, but bearing the stamp of reputable occupation. i believe the grass grew, and still grows, in this street, as it does in all the other streets and in the market-place of swampington. they are all pretty much in the same style, these streets,--all stony, narrow, dark, and grim; and they wind and twist hither and thither, and in and out, in a manner utterly bewildering to the luckless stranger, who, seeing that they are all alike, has no landmarks for his guidance. there are two handsome churches, both bearing an early date in the history of norman supremacy: one crowded into an inconvenient corner of a back street, and choked by the houses built up round about it; the other lying a little out of the town, upon a swampy waste looking towards the sea, which flows within a mile of swampington. indeed, there is no lack of water in that lincolnshire borough. the river winds about the outskirts of the town; unexpected creeks and inlets meet you at every angle; shallow pools lie here and there about the marshy suburbs; and in the dim distance the low line of the grey sea meets the horizon. but perhaps the positive ugliness of the town is something redeemed by a vague air of romance and old-world mystery which pervades it. it is an exceptional place, and somewhat interesting thereby. the great norman church upon the swampy waste, the scattered tombstones, bordered by the low and moss-grown walls, make a picture which is apt to dwell in the minds of those who look upon it, although it is by no means a pretty picture. the rectory lies close to the churchyard; and a wicket-gate opens from mr. arundel's garden into a narrow pathway, leading across a patch of tangled grass and through a lane of sunken and lopsided tombstones, to the low vestry door. the rectory itself is a long irregular building, to which one incumbent after another has built the additional chamber, or chimney, or porch, or bow-window, necessary for his accommodation. there is very little garden in front of the house, but a patch of lawn and shrubbery and a clump of old trees at the back. "it's not a pretty house, is it, miss marchmont?" asked edward, as he lifted his companion out of the carriage. "no, not very pretty," mary answered; "but i don't think any thing is pretty in lincolnshire. oh, there's the sea!" she cried, looking suddenly across the marshes to the low grey line in the distance. "how i wish we were as near the sea at marchmont towers!" the young lady had something of a romantic passion for the wide-spreading ocean. it was an unknown region, that stretched far away, and was wonderful and beautiful by reason of its solemn mystery. all her corsair stories were allied to that far, fathomless deep. the white sail in the distance was conrad's, perhaps; and he was speeding homeward to find medora dead in her lonely watch-tower, with fading flowers upon her breast. the black hull yonder, with dirty canvas spread to the faint breeze, was the bark of some terrible pirate bound on rapine and ravage. (she was a coal-barge, i have no doubt, sailing londonward with her black burden.) nymphs and lurleis, mermaids and mermen, and tiny water-babies with silvery tails, for ever splashing in the sunshine, were all more or less associated with the long grey line towards which mary marchmont looked with solemn, yearning eyes. "we'll drive down to the seashore some morning, polly," said mr. arundel. he was beginning to call her polly, now and then, in the easy familiarity of their intercourse. "we'll spend a long day on the sands, and i'll smoke cheroots while you pick up shells and seaweed." miss marchmont clasped her hands in silent rapture. her face was irradiated by the new light of happiness. how good he was to her, this brave soldier, who must undoubtedly be made commander-in-chief of the army of the indus in a year or so! edward arundel led his companion across the flagged way between the iron gate of the rectory garden and a half-glass door leading into the hall. out of this simple hall, only furnished with a couple of chairs, a barometer, and an umbrella-stand, they went, without announcement, into a low, old-fashioned room, half-study, half-parlour, where a young lady was sitting at a table writing. she rose as edward opened the door, and came to meet him. "at last!" she said; "i thought your rich friends engrossed all your attention." she paused, seeing mary. "this is miss marchmont, olivia," said edward; "the only daughter of my old friend. you must be very fond of her, please; for she is a dear little girl, and i know she means to love you." mary lifted her soft brown eyes to the face of the young lady, and then dropped her eyelids suddenly, as if half-frightened by what she had seen there. what was it? what was it in olivia arundel's handsome face from which those who looked at her so often shrank, repelled and disappointed? every line in those perfectly-modelled features was beautiful to look at; but, as a whole, the face was not beautiful. perhaps it was too much like a marble mask, exquisitely chiselled, but wanting in variety of expression. the handsome mouth was rigid; the dark grey eyes had a cold light in them. the thick bands of raven-black hair were drawn tightly off a square forehead, which was the brow of an intellectual and determined man rather than of a woman. yes; womanhood was the something wanted in olivia arundel's face. intellect, resolution, courage, are rare gifts; but they are not the gifts whose tokens we look for most anxiously in a woman's face. if miss arundel had been a queen, her diadem would have become her nobly; and she might have been a very great queen: but heaven help the wretched creature who had appealed from minor tribunals to _her_ mercy! heaven help delinquents of every kind whose last lingering hope had been in her compassion! perhaps mary marchmont vaguely felt something of all this. at any rate, the enthusiasm with which she had been ready to regard edward arundel's cousin cooled suddenly beneath the winter in that pale, quiet face. miss arundel said a few words to her guest; kindly enough; but rather too much as if she had been addressing a child of six. mary, who was accustomed to be treated as a woman, was wounded by her manner. "how different she is from edward!" thought miss marchmont. "i shall never like her as i like him." "so this is the pale-faced child who is to have marchmont towers by-and-by," thought miss arundel; "and these rich friends are the people for whom edward stays away from us." the lines about the rigid mouth grew harder, the cold light in the grey eyes grew colder, as the young lady thought this. it was thus that these two women met: while one was but a child in years; while the other was yet in the early bloom of womanhood: these two, who were predestined to hate each other, and inflict suffering upon each other in the days that were to come. it was thus that they thought of one another; each with an unreasonable dread, an undefined aversion gathering in her breast. * * * * * six weeks passed, and edward arundel kept his promise of shooting the partridges on the marchmont preserves. the wood behind the towers, and the stubbled corn-fields on the home-farm, bristled with game. the young soldier heartily enjoyed himself through that delicious first week in september; and came home every afternoon, with a heavy game-bag and a light heart, to boast of his prowess before mary and her father. the young man was by this time familiar with every nook and corner of marchmont towers; and the builders were already at work at the tennis-court which john had promised to erect for his friend's pleasure. the site ultimately chosen was a bleak corner of the eastern front, looking to the wood; but as edward declared the spot in every way eligible, john had no inclination to find fault with his friend's choice. there was other work for the builders; for mr. arundel had taken a wonderful fancy to a ruined boat-house upon the brink of the river; and this boat-house was to be rebuilt and restored, and made into a delightful pavilion, in the upper chambers of which mary might sit with her father in the hot summer weather, while mr. arundel kept a couple of trim wherries in the recesses below. so, you see, the young man made himself very much at home, in his own innocent, boyish fashion, at marchmont towers. but as he had brought life and light to the old lincolnshire mansion, nobody was inclined to quarrel with him for any liberties which he might choose to take: and every one looked forward sorrowfully to the dark days before christmas, at which time he was under a promise to return to dangerfield park; there to spend the remainder of his leave of absence. chapter vii. olivia. while busy workmen were employed at marchmont towers, hammering at the fragile wooden walls of the tennis-court,--while mary marchmont and edward arundel wandered, with the dogs at their heels, amongst the rustle of the fallen leaves in the wood behind the great gaunt lincolnshire mansion,--olivia, the rector's daughter, sat in her father's quiet study, or walked to and fro in the gloomy streets of swampington, doing her duty day by day. yes, the life of this woman is told in these few words: she did her duty. from the earliest age at which responsibility can begin, she had done her duty, uncomplainingly, unswervingly, as it seemed to those who watched her. she was a good woman. the bishop of the diocese had specially complimented her for her active devotion to that holy work which falls somewhat heavily upon the only daughter of a widowed rector. all the stately dowagers about swampington were loud in their praises of olivia arundel. such devotion, such untiring zeal in a young person of three-and-twenty years of age, were really most laudable, these solemn elders said, in tones of supreme patronage; for the young saint of whom they spoke wore shabby gowns, and was the portionless daughter of a poor man who had let the world slip by him, and who sat now amid the dreary ruins of a wasted life, looking yearningly backward, with hollow regretful eyes, and bewailing the chances he had lost. hubert arundel loved his daughter; loved her with that sorrowful affection we feel for those who suffer for our sins, whose lives have been blighted by our follies. every shabby garment which olivia wore was a separate reproach to her father; every deprivation she endured stung him as cruelly as if she had turned upon him and loudly upbraided him for his wasted life and his squandered patrimony. he loved her; and he watched her day after day, doing her duty to him as to all others; doing her duty for ever and for ever; but when he most yearned to take her to his heart, her own cold perfections arose, and separated him from the child he loved. what was he but a poor, vacillating, erring creature; weak, supine, idle, epicurean; unworthy to approach this girl, who never seemed to sicken of the hardness of her life, who never grew weary of well-doing? but how was it that, for all her goodness, olivia arundel won so small a share of earthly reward? i do not allude to the gold and jewels and other worldly benefits with which the fairies in our children's story-books reward the benevolent mortals who take compassion upon them when they experimentalise with human nature in the guise of old women; but i speak rather of the love and gratitude, the tenderness and blessings, which usually wait upon the footsteps of those who do good deeds. olivia arundel's charities were never ceasing; her life was one perpetual sacrifice to her father's parishioners. there was no natural womanly vanity, no simple girlish fancy, which this woman had not trodden under foot, and trampled out in the hard pathway she had chosen for herself. the poor people knew this. rheumatic men and women, crippled and bed-ridden, knew that the blankets which covered them had been bought out of money that would have purchased silk dresses for the rector's handsome daughter, or luxuries for the frugal table at the rectory. they knew this. they knew that, through frost and snow, through storm and rain, olivia arundel would come to sit beside their dreary hearths, their desolate sick-beds, and read holy books to them; sublimely indifferent to the foul weather without, to the stifling atmosphere within, to dirt, discomfort, poverty, inconvenience; heedless of all, except the performance of the task she had set herself. people knew this; and they were grateful to miss arundel, and submissive and attentive in her presence; they gave her such return as they were able to give for the benefits, spiritual and temporal, which she bestowed upon them: but they did not love her. they spoke of her in reverential accents, and praised her whenever her name was mentioned; but they spoke with tearless eyes and unfaltering voices. her virtues were beautiful, of course, as virtue in the abstract must always be; but i think there was a want of individuality in her goodness, a lack of personal tenderness in her kindness, which separated her from the people she benefited. perhaps there was something almost chilling in the dull monotony of miss arundel's benevolence. there was no blemish of mortal weakness upon the good deeds she performed; and the recipients of her bounties, seeing her so far off, grew afraid of her, even by reason of her goodness, and _could_ not love her. she made no favourites amongst her father's parishioners. of all the school-children she had taught, she had never chosen one curly-headed urchin for a pet. she had no good days and bad days; she was never foolishly indulgent or extravagantly cordial. she was always the same,--church-of-england charity personified; meting out all mercies by line and rule; doing good with a note-book and a pencil in her hand; looking on every side with calm, scrutinising eyes; rigidly just, terribly perfect. it was a fearfully monotonous, narrow, and uneventful life which olivia arundel led at swampington rectory. at three-and-twenty years of age she could have written her history upon a few pages. the world outside that dull lincolnshire town might be shaken by convulsions, and made irrecognisable by repeated change; but all those outer changes and revolutions made themselves but little felt in the quiet grass-grown streets, and the flat surrounding swamps, within whose narrow boundary olivia arundel had lived from infancy to womanhood; performing and repeating the same duties from day to day, with no other progress to mark the lapse of her existence than the slow alternation of the seasons, and the dark hollow circles which had lately deepened beneath her grey eyes, and the depressed lines about the corners of her firm lower-lip. these outward tokens, beyond her own control, alone betrayed this woman's secret. she was weary of her life. she sickened under the dull burden which she had borne so long, and carried so patiently. the slow round of duty was loathsome to her. the horrible, narrow, unchanging existence, shut in by cruel walls, which bounded her on every side and kept her prisoner to herself, was odious to her. the powerful intellect revolted against the fetters that bound and galled it. the proud heart beat with murderous violence against the bonds that kept it captive. "is my life always to be this--always, always, always?" the passionate nature burst forth sometimes, and the voice that had so long been stifled cried aloud in the black stillness of the night, "is it to go on for ever and for ever; like the slow river that creeps under the broken wall? o my god! is the lot of other women never to be mine? am i never to be loved and admired; never to be sought and chosen? is my life to be all of one dull, grey, colourless monotony; without one sudden gleam of sunshine, without one burst of rainbow-light?" how shall i anatomise this woman, who, gifted with no womanly tenderness of nature, unendowed with that pitiful and unreasoning affection which makes womanhood beautiful, yet tried, and tried unceasingly, to do her duty, and to be good; clinging, in the very blindness of her soul, to the rigid formulas of her faith, but unable to seize upon its spirit? some latent comprehension of the want in her nature made her only the more scrupulous in the performance of those duties which she had meted out for herself. the holy sentences she had heard, sunday after sunday, feebly read by her father, haunted her perpetually, and would not be put away from her. the tenderness in every word of those familiar gospels was a reproach to the want of tenderness in her own heart. she could be good to her father's parishioners, and she could make sacrifices for them; but she could not love them, any more than they could love her. that divine and universal pity, that spontaneous and boundless affection, which is the chief loveliness of womanhood and christianity, had no part in her nature. she could understand judith with the assyrian general's gory head held aloft in her uplifted hand; but she could not comprehend that diviner mystery of sinful magdalene sitting at her master's feet, with the shame and love in her face half hidden by a veil of drooping hair. no; olivia arundel was not a good woman, in the commoner sense we attach to the phrase. it was not natural to her to be gentle and tender, to be beneficent, compassionate, and kind, as it is to the women we are accustomed to call "good." she was a woman who was for ever fighting against her nature; who was for ever striving to do right; for ever walking painfully upon the difficult road mapped out for her; for ever measuring herself by the standard she had set up for her self-abasement. and who shall say that such a woman as this, if she persevere unto the end, shall not wear a brighter crown than her more gentle sisters,--the starry circlet of a martyr? if she persevere unto the end! but was olivia arundel the woman to do this? the deepening circles about her eyes, the hollowing cheeks, and the feverish restlessness of manner which she could not always control, told how terrible the long struggle had become to her. if she could have died then,--if she had fallen beneath the weight of her burden,--what a record of sin and anguish might have remained unwritten in the history of woman's life! but this woman was one of those who can suffer, and yet not die. she bore her burden a little longer; only to fling it down by-and-by, and to abandon herself to the eager devils who had been watching for her so untiringly. hubert arundel was afraid of his daughter. the knowledge that he had wronged her,--wronged her even before her birth by the foolish waste of his patrimony, and wronged her through life by his lack of energy in seeking such advancement as a more ambitious man might have won,--the knowledge of this, and of his daughter's superior virtues, combined to render the father ashamed and humiliated by the presence of his only child. the struggle between this fear and his remorseful love of her was a very painful one; but fear had the mastery, and the rector of swampington was content to stand aloof, mutely watchful of his daughter, wondering feebly whether she was happy, striving vainly to discover that one secret, that keystone of the soul, which must exist in every nature, however outwardly commonplace. mr. arundel had hoped that his daughter would marry, and marry well, even at swampington; for there were rich young landowners who visited at the rectory. but olivia's handsome face won her few admirers, and at three-and-twenty miss arundel had received no offer of marriage. the father reproached himself for this. it was he who had blighted the life of his penniless girl; it was his fault that no suitors came to woo his motherless child. yet many dowerless maidens have been sought and loved; and i do not think it was olivia's lack of fortune which kept admirers at bay. i believe it was rather that inherent want of tenderness which chilled and dispirited the timid young lincolnshire squires. had olivia ever been in love? hubert arundel constantly asked himself this question. he did so because he saw that some blighting influence, even beyond the poverty and dulness of her home, had fallen upon the life of his only child. what was it? what was it? was it some hopeless attachment, some secret tenderness, which had never won the sweet return of love for love? he would no more have ventured to question his daughter upon this subject than he would have dared to ask his fair young queen, newly married in those days, whether she was happy with her handsome husband. miss arundel stood by the rectory gate in the early september evening, watching the western sunlight on the low sea-line beyond the marshes. she was wearied and worn out by a long day devoted to visiting amongst her parishioners; and she stood with her elbow leaning on the gate, and her head resting on her hand, in an attitude peculiarly expressive of fatigue. she had thrown off her bonnet, and her black hair was pushed carelessly from her forehead. those masses of hair had not that purple lustre, nor yet that wandering glimmer of red gold, which gives peculiar beauty to some raven tresses. olivia's hair was long and luxuriant; but it was of that dead, inky blackness, which is all shadow. it was dark, fathomless, inscrutable, like herself. the cold grey eyes looked thoughtfully seaward. another day's duty had been done. long chapters of holy writ had been read to troublesome old women afflicted with perpetual coughs; stifling, airless cottages had been visited; the dull, unvarying track had been beaten by the patient feet, and the yellow sun was going down upon another joyless day. but did the still evening hour bring peace to that restless spirit? no; by the rigid compression of the lips, by the feverish lustre in the eyes, by the faint hectic flush in the oval cheeks, by every outward sign of inward unrest, olivia arundel was not at peace! the listlessness of her attitude was merely the listlessness of physical fatigue. the mental struggle was not finished with the close of the day's work. the young lady looked up suddenly as the tramp of a horse's hoofs, slow and lazy-sounding on the smooth road, met her ear. her eyes dilated, and her breath went and came more rapidly; but she did not stir from her weary attitude. the horse was from the stables at marchmont towers, and the rider was mr. arundel. he came smiling to the rectory gate, with the low sunshine glittering in his chesnut hair, and the light of careless, indifferent happiness irradiating his handsome face. "you must have thought i'd forgotten you and my uncle, my dear livy," he said, as he sprang lightly from his horse. "we've been so busy with the tennis-court, and the boat-house, and the partridges, and goodness knows what besides at the towers, that i couldn't get the time to ride over till this evening. but to-day we dined early, on purpose that i might have the chance of getting here. i come upon an important mission, livy, i assure you." "what do you mean?" there was no change in miss arundel's voice when she spoke to her cousin; but there was a change, not easily to be defined, in her face when she looked at him. it seemed as if that weary hopelessness of expression which had settled on her countenance lately grew more weary, more hopeless, as she turned towards this bright young soldier, glorious in the beauty of his own light-heartedness. it may have been merely the sharpness of contrast which produced this effect. it may have been an actual change arising out of some secret hidden in olivia's breast. "what do you mean by an important mission, edward?" she said. she had need to repeat the question; for the young man's attention had wandered from her, and he was watching his horse as the animal cropped the tangled herbage about the rectory gate. "why, i've come with an invitation to a dinner at marchmont towers. there's to be a dinner-party; and, in point of fact, it's to be given on purpose for you and my uncle. john and polly are full of it. you'll come, won't you, livy?" miss arundel shrugged her shoulders, with an impatient sigh. "i hate dinner-parties," she said; "but, of course, if papa accepts mr. marchmont's invitation, i cannot refuse to go. papa must choose for himself." there had been some interchange of civilities between marchmont towers and swampington rectory during the six weeks which had passed since mary's introduction to olivia arundel; and this dinner-party was the result of john's simple desire to do honour to his friend's kindred. "oh, you must come, livy," mr. arundel exclaimed. "the tennis-court is going on capitally. i want you to give us your opinion again. shall i take my horse round to the stables? i am going to stop an hour or two, and ride back by moonlight." edward arundel took the bridle in his hand, and the cousins walked slowly round by the low garden-wall to a dismal and rather dilapidated stable-yard at the back of the rectory, where hubert arundel kept a wall-eyed white horse, long-legged, shallow-chested, and large-headed, and a fearfully and wonderfully made phaëton, with high wheels and a mouldy leathern hood. olivia walked by the young soldier's side with that air of hopeless indifference that had so grown upon her very lately. her eyelids drooped with a look of sullen disdain; but the grey eyes glanced furtively now and again at her companion's handsome face. he was very handsome. the glitter of reddish gold in his hair, and the light in his fearless blue eyes; the careless grace peculiar to the kind of man we call "a swell;" the gay _insouciance_ of an easy, candid, generous nature,--all combined to make edward arundel singularly attractive. these spoiled children of nature demand our admiration, in very spite of ourselves. these beautiful, useless creatures call upon us to rejoice in their valueless beauty, like the flaunting poppies in the cornfield, and the gaudy wild-flowers in the grass. the darkness of olivia's face deepened after each furtive glance she cast at her cousin. could it be that this girl, to whom nature had given strength but denied grace, envied the superficial attractions of the young man at her side? she did envy him; she envied him that sunny temperament which was so unlike her own; she envied him that wondrous power of taking life lightly. why should existence be so bright and careless to him; while to her it was a terrible fever-dream, a long sickness, a never-ceasing battle? "is my uncle in the house?" mr. arundel asked, as he strolled from the stable into the garden with his cousin by his side. "no; he has been out since dinner," olivia answered; "but i expect him back every minute. i came out into the garden,--the house seemed so hot and stifling to-night, and i have been sitting in close cottages all day." "sitting in close cottages!" repeated edward. "ah, to be sure; visiting your rheumatic old pensioners, i suppose. how good you are, olivia!" "good!" she echoed the word in the very bitterness of a scorn that could not be repressed. "yes; everybody says so. the millwards were at marchmont towers the other day, and they were talking of you, and praising your goodness, and speaking of your schools, and your blanket-associations, and your invalid-societies, and your mutual-help clubs, and all your plans for the parish. why, you must work as hard as a prime-minister, livy, by their account; you, who are only a few years older than i." only a few years! she started at the phrase, and bit her lip. "i was three-and-twenty last month," she said. "ah, yes; to be sure. and i'm one-and-twenty. then you're only two years older than i, livy. but, then, you see, you're so clever, that you seem much older than you are. you'd make a fellow feel rather afraid of you, you know. upon my word you do, livy." miss arundel did not reply to this speech of her cousin's. she was walking by his side up and down a narrow gravelled pathway, bordered by a hazel-hedge; she had gathered one of the slender twigs, and was idly stripping away the fluffy buds. "what do you think, livy?" cried edward suddenly, bursting out laughing at the end of the question. "what do you think? it's my belief you've made a conquest." "what do you mean?" "there you go; turning upon a fellow as if you could eat him. yes, livy; it's no use your looking savage. you've made a conquest; and of one of the best fellows in the world, too. john marchmont's in love with you." olivia arundel's face flushed a vivid crimson to the roots of her black hair. "how dare you come here to insult me, edward arundel?" she cried passionately. "insult you? now, livy dear, that's too bad, upon my word," remonstrated the young man. "i come and tell you that as good a man as ever breathed is over head and ears in love with you, and that you may be mistress of one of the finest estates in lincolnshire if you please, and you turn round upon me like no end of furies." "because i hate to hear you talk nonsense," answered olivia, her bosom still heaving with that first outburst of emotion, but her voice suppressed and cold. "am i so beautiful, or so admired or beloved, that a man who has not seen me half a dozen times should fall in love with me? do those who know me estimate me so much, or prize me so highly, that a stranger should think of me? you _do_ insult me, edward arundel, when you talk as you have talked to-night." she looked out towards the low yellow light in the sky with a black gloom upon her face, which no reflected glimmer of the sinking sun could illumine; a settled darkness, near akin to the utter blackness of despair. "but, good heavens, olivia, what do you mean?" cried the young man. "i tell you something that i think a good joke, and you go and make a tragedy out of it. if i'd told letitia that a rich widower had fallen in love with her, she'd think it the finest fun in the world." "i'm not your sister letitia." "no; but i wish you'd half as good a temper as she has, livy. however, never mind; i'll say no more. if poor old marchmont has fallen in love with you, that's his look-out. poor dear old boy, he's let out the secret of his weakness half a dozen ways within these last few days. it's miss arundel this, and miss arundel the other; so unselfish, so accomplished, so ladylike, so good! that's the way he goes on, poor simple old dear; without having the remotest notion that he's making a confounded fool of himself." olivia tossed the rumpled hair from her forehead with an impatient gesture of her hand. "why should this mr. marchmont think all this of me?" she said, "when--" she stopped abruptly. "when--what, livy?" "when other people don't think it." "how do you know what other people think? you haven't asked them, i suppose?" the young soldier treated his cousin in very much the same free-and-easy manner which he displayed towards his sister letitia. it would have been almost difficult for him to recognise any degree in his relationship to the two girls. he loved letitia better than olivia; but his affection for both was of exactly the same character. hubert arundel came into the garden, wearied out, like his daughter, while the two cousins were walking under the shadow of the neglected hazels. he declared his willingness to accept the invitation to marchmont towers, and promised to answer john's ceremonious note the next day. "cookson, from kemberling, will be there, i suppose," he said, alluding to a brother parson, "and the usual set? well, i'll come, ned, if you wish it. you'd like to go, olivia?" "if you like, papa." there was a duty to be performed now--the duty of placid obedience to her father; and miss arundel's manner changed from angry impatience to grave respect. she owed no special duty, be it remembered, to her cousin. she had no line or rule by which to measure her conduct to him. she stood at the gate nearly an hour later, and watched the young man ride away in the dim moonlight. if every separate tramp of his horse's hoofs had struck upon her heart, it could scarcely have given her more pain than she felt as the sound of those slow footfalls died away in the distance. "o my god," she cried, "is this madness to undo all that i have done? is this folly to be the climax of my dismal life? am i to die for the love of a frivolous, fair-haired boy, who laughs in my face when he tells me that his friend has pleased to 'take a fancy to me'?" she walked away towards the house; then stopping, with a sudden shiver, she turned, and went back to the hazel-alley she had paced with edward arundel. "oh, my narrow life!" she muttered between her set teeth; "my narrow life! it is that which has made me the slave of this madness. i love him because he is the brightest and fairest thing i have ever seen. i love him because he brings me all i have ever known of a more beautiful world than that i live in. bah! why do i reason with myself?" she cried, with a sudden change of manner. "i love him because i am mad." she paced up and down the hazel-shaded pathway till the moonlight grew broad and full, and every ivy-grown gable of the rectory stood sharply out against the vivid purple of the sky. she paced up and down, trying to trample the folly within her under her feet as she went; a fierce, passionate, impulsive woman, fighting against her mad love for a bright-faced boy. "two years older--only two years!" she said; "but he spoke of the difference between us as if it had been half a century. and then i am so clever, that i seem older than i am; and he is afraid of me! is it for this that i have sat night after night in my father's study, poring over the books that were too difficult for him? what have i made of myself in my pride of intellect? what reward have i won for my patience?" olivia arundel looked back at her long life of duty--a dull, dead level, unbroken by one of those monuments which mark the desert of the past; a desolate flat, unlovely as the marshes between the low rectory wall and the shimmering grey sea. chapter viii. "my life is cold, and dark, and dreary." mr. richard paulette, of that eminent legal firm, paulette, paulette, and mathewson, coming to marchmont towers on business, was surprised to behold the quiet ease with which the sometime copying-clerk received the punctilious country gentry who came to sit at his board and do him honour. of all the legal fairy-tales, of all the parchment-recorded romances, of all the poetry run into affidavits, in which the solicitor had ever been concerned, this story seemed the strangest. not so very strange in itself, for such romances are not uncommon in the history of a lawyer's experience; but strange by reason of the tranquil manner in which john marchmont accepted his new position, and did the honours of his house to his late employer. "ah, paulette," edward arundel said, clapping the solicitor on the back, "i don't suppose you believed me when i told you that my friend here was heir-presumptive to a handsome fortune." the dinner-party at the towers was conducted with that stately grandeur peculiar to such solemnities. there was the usual round of country-talk and parish-talk; the hunting squires leading the former section of the discourse, the rectors and rectors' wives supporting the latter part of the conversation. you heard on one side that martha harris' husband had left off drinking, and attended church morning and evening; and on the other that the old grey fox that had been hunted nine seasons between crackbin bottom and hollowcraft gorse had perished ignobly in the poultry-yard of a recusant farmer. while your left ear became conscious of the fact that little billy smithers had fallen into a copper of scalding water, your right received the dismal tidings that all the young partridges had been drowned by the rains after st. swithin, and that there were hardly any of this year's birds, sir, and it would be a very blue look-out for next season. mary marchmont had listened to gayer talk in oakley street than any that was to be heard that night in her father's drawing-rooms, except indeed when edward arundel left off flirting with some pretty girls in blue, and hovered near her side for a little while, quizzing the company. heaven knows the young soldier's jokes were commonplace enough; but mary admired him as the most brilliant and accomplished of wits. "how do you like my cousin, polly?" he asked at last. "your cousin, miss arundel?" "yes." "she is very handsome." "yes, i suppose so," the young man answered carelessly. "everybody says that livy's handsome; but it's rather a cold style of beauty, isn't it? a little too much of the pallas athenë about it for my taste. i like those girls in blue, with the crinkly auburn hair,--there's a touch of red in it in the light,--and the dimples. you've a dimple, polly, when you smile." miss marchmont blushed as she received this information, and her brown eyes wandered away, looking very earnestly at the pretty girls in blue. she looked at them with a strange interest, eager to discover what it was that edward admired. "but you haven't answered my question, polly," said mr. arundel. "i am afraid you have been drinking too much wine, miss marchmont, and muddling that sober little head of yours with the fumes of your papa's tawny port. i asked you how you liked olivia." mary blushed again. "i don't know miss arundel well enough to like her--yet," she answered timidly. "but shall you like her when you've known her longer? don't be jesuitical, polly. likings and dislikings are instantaneous and instinctive. i liked you before i'd eaten half a dozen mouthfuls of the roll you buttered for me at that breakfast in oakley street, polly. you don't like my cousin olivia, miss; i can see that very plainly. you're jealous of her." "jealous of her!" the bright colour faded out of mary marchmont's face, and left her ashy pale. "do _you_ like her, then?" she asked. but mr. arundel was not such a coxcomb as to catch at the secret so naïvely betrayed in that breathless question. "no, polly," he said, laughing; "she's my cousin, you know, and i've known her all my life; and cousins are like sisters. one likes to tease and aggravate them, and all that; but one doesn't fall in love with them. but i think i could mention somebody who thinks a great deal of olivia." "who?" "your papa." mary looked at the young soldier in utter bewilderment. "papa!" she echoed. "yes, polly. how would you like a stepmamma? how would you like your papa to marry again?" mary marchmont started to her feet, as if she would have gone to her father in the midst of all those spectators. john was standing near olivia and her father, talking to them, and playing nervously with his slender watch-chain when he addressed the young lady. "my papa--marry again!" gasped mary. "how dare you say such a thing, mr. arundel?" her childish devotion to her father arose in all its force; a flood of passionate emotion that overwhelmed her sensitive nature. marry again! marry a woman who would separate him from his only child! could he ever dream for one brief moment of such a horrible cruelty? she looked at olivia's sternly handsome face, and trembled. she could almost picture that very woman standing between her and her father, and putting her away from him. her indignation quickly melted into grief. indignation, however intense, was always short-lived in that gentle nature. "oh, mr arundel!" she said, piteously appealing to the young man, "papa would never, never, never marry again,--would he?" "not if it was to grieve you, polly, i dare say," edward answered soothingly. he had been dumbfounded by mary's passionate sorrow. he had expected that she would have been rather pleased, than otherwise, at the idea of a young stepmother,--a companion in those vast lonely rooms, an instructress and a friend as she grew to womanhood. "i was only talking nonsense, polly darling," he said. "you mustn't make yourself unhappy about any absurd fancies of mine. i think your papa admires my cousin olivia: and i thought, perhaps, you'd be glad to have a stepmother." "glad to have any one who'd take papa's love away from me?" mary said plaintively. "oh, mr. arundel, how could you think so?" in all their familiarity the little girl had never learned to call her father's friend by his christian name, though he had often told her to do so. she trembled to pronounce that simple saxon name, which was so beautiful and wonderful because it was his: but when she read a very stupid novel, in which the hero was a namesake of mr. arundel's, the vapid pages seemed to be phosphorescent with light wherever the name appeared upon them. i scarcely know why john marchmont lingered by miss arundel's chair. he had heard her praises from every one. she was a paragon of goodness, an uncanonised saint, for ever sacrificing herself for the benefit of others. perhaps he was thinking that such a woman as this would be the best friend he could win for his little girl. he turned from the county matrons, the tender, kindly, motherly creatures, who would have been ready to take little mary to the loving shelter of their arms, and looked to olivia arundel--this cold, perfect benefactress of the poor--for help in his difficulty. "she, who is so good to all her father's parishioners, could not refuse to be kind to my poor mary?" he thought. but how was he to win this woman's friendship for his darling? he asked himself this question even in the midst of the frivolous people about him, and with the buzz of their conversation in his ears. he was perpetually tormenting himself about his little girl's future, which seemed more dimly perplexing now than it had ever appeared in oakley street, when the lincolnshire property was a far-away dream, perhaps never to be realised. he felt that his brief lease of life was running out; he felt as if he and mary had been standing upon a narrow tract of yellow sand; very bright, very pleasant under the sunshine; but with the slow-coming tide rising like a wall about them, and creeping stealthily onward to overwhelm them. mary might gather bright-coloured shells and wet seaweed in her childish ignorance; but he, who knew that the flood was coming, could but grow sick at heart with the dull horror of that hastening doom. if the black waters had been doomed to close over them both, the father might have been content to go down under the sullen waves, with his daughter clasped to his breast. but it was not to be so. he was to sink in that unknown stream while she was left upon the tempest-tossed surface, to be beaten hither and thither, feebly battling with the stormy billows. could john marchmont be a christian, and yet feel this horrible dread of the death which must separate him from his daughter? i fear this frail, consumptive widower loved his child with an intensity of affection that is scarcely reconcilable with christianity. such great passions as these must be put away before the cross can be taken up, and the troublesome path followed. in all love and kindness towards his fellow-creatures, in all patient endurance of the pains and troubles that befel himself, it would have been difficult to find a more single-hearted follower of gospel-teaching than john marchmont; but in this affection for his motherless child he was a very pagan. he set up an idol for himself, and bowed down before it. doubtful and fearful of the future, he looked hopelessly forward. he _could_ not trust his orphan child into the hands of god; and drop away himself into the fathomless darkness, serene in the belief that she would be cared for and protected. no; he could not trust. he could be faithful for himself; simple and confiding as a child; but not for her. he saw the gloomy rocks louring black in the distance; the pitiless waves beating far away yonder, impatient to devour the frail boat that was so soon to be left alone upon the waters. in the thick darkness of the future he could see no ray of light, except one,--a new hope that had lately risen in his mind; the hope of winning some noble and perfect woman to be the future friend of his daughter. the days were past in which, in his simplicity, he had looked to edward arundel as the future shelter of his child. the generous boy had grown into a stylish young man, a soldier, whose duty lay far away from marchmont towers. no; it was to a good woman's guardianship the father must leave his child. thus the very intensity of his love was the one motive which led john marchmont to contemplate the step that mary thought such a cruel and bitter wrong to her. * * * * * it was not till long after the dinner-party at marchmont towers that these ideas resolved themselves into any positive form, and that john began to think that for his daughter's sake he might be led to contemplate a second marriage. edward arundel had spoken the truth when he told his cousin that john marchmont had repeatedly mentioned her name; but the careless and impulsive young man had been utterly unable to fathom the feeling lurking in his friend's mind. it was not olivia arundel's handsome face which had won john's admiration; it was the constant reiteration of her praises upon every side which had led him to believe that this woman, of all others, was the one whom he would do well to win for his child's friend and guardian in the dark days that were to come. the knowledge that olivia's intellect was of no common order, together with the somewhat imperious dignity of her manner, strengthened this belief in john marchmont's mind. it was not a good woman only whom he must seek in the friend he needed for his child; it was a woman powerful enough to shield her in the lonely path she would have to tread; a woman strong enough to help her, perhaps, by-and-by to do battle with paul marchmont. so, in the blind paganism of his love, john refused to trust his child into the hands of providence, and chose for himself a friend and guardian who should shelter his darling. he made his choice with so much deliberation, and after such long nights and days of earnest thought, that he may be forgiven if he believed he had chosen wisely. thus it was that in the dark november days, while edward and mary played chess by the wide fireplace in the western drawing-room, or ball in the newly-erected tennis-court, john marchmont sat in his study examining his papers, and calculating the amount of money at his own disposal, in serious contemplation of a second marriage. did he love olivia arundel? no. he admired her and respected her, and he firmly believed her to be the most perfect of women. no impulse of affection had prompted the step he contemplated taking. he had loved his first wife truly and tenderly; but he had never suffered very acutely from any of those torturing emotions which form the several stages of the great tragedy called love. but had he ever thought of the likelihood of his deliberate offer being rejected by the young lady who had been the object of such careful consideration? yes; he had thought of this, and was prepared to abide the issue. he should, at least, have tried his uttermost to secure a friend for his darling. with such unloverlike feelings as these the owner of marchmont towers drove into swampington one morning, deliberately bent upon offering olivia arundel his hand. he had consulted with his land-steward, and with messrs. paulette, and had ascertained how far he could endow his bride with the goods of this world. it was not much that he could give her, for the estate was strictly entailed; but there would be his own savings for the brief term of his life, and if he lived only a few years these savings might accumulate to a considerable amount, so limited were the expenses of the quiet lincolnshire household; and there was a sum of money, something over nine thousand pounds, left him by philip marchmont, senior. he had something, then, to offer to the woman he sought to make his wife; and, above all, he had a supreme belief in olivia arundel's utter disinterestedness. he had seen her frequently since the dinner-party, and had always seen her the same,--grave, reserved, dignified; patiently employed in the strict performance of her duty. he found miss arundel sitting in her father's study, busily cutting out coarse garments for her poor. a newly-written sermon lay open on the table. had mr. marchmont looked closely at the manuscript, he would have seen that the ink was wet, and that the writing was olivia's. it was a relief to this strange woman to write sermons sometimes--fierce denunciatory protests against the inherent wickedness of the human heart. can you imagine a woman with a wicked heart steadfastly trying to do good, and to be good? it is a dark and horrible picture; but it is the only true picture of the woman whom john marchmont sought to win for his wife. the interview between mary's father and olivia arundel was not a very sentimental one; but it was certainly the very reverse of commonplace. john was too simple-hearted to disguise the purpose of his wooing. he pleaded, not for a wife for himself, but a mother for his orphan child. he talked of mary's helplessness in the future, not of his own love in the present. carried away by the egotism of his one affection, he let his motives appear in all their nakedness. he spoke long and earnestly; he spoke until the blinding tears in his eyes made the face of her he looked at seem blotted and dim. miss arundel watched him as he pleaded; sternly, unflinchingly. but she uttered no word until he had finished; and then, rising suddenly, with a dusky flush upon her face, she began to pace up and down the narrow room. she had forgotten john marchmont. in the strength and vigour of her intellect, this weak-minded widower, whose one passion was a pitiful love for his child, appeared to her so utterly insignificant, that for a few moments she had forgotten his presence in that room--his very existence, perhaps. she turned to him presently, and looked him full in the face. "you do not love me, mr. marchmont?" she said. "pardon me," john stammered; "believe me, miss arundel, i respect, i esteem you so much, that--" "that you choose me as a fitting friend for your child. i understand. i am not the sort of woman to be loved. i have long comprehended that. my cousin edward arundel has often taken the trouble to tell me as much. and you wish me to be your wife in order that you may have a guardian for your child? it is very much the same thing as engaging a governess; only the engagement is to be more binding." "miss arundel," exclaimed john marchmont, "forgive me! you misunderstand me; indeed you do. had i thought that i could have offended you--" "i am not offended. you have spoken the truth where another man would have told a lie. i ought to be flattered by your confidence in me. it pleases me that people should think me good, and worthy of their trust." she broke into a sigh as she finished speaking. "and you will not reject my appeal?" "i scarcely know what to do," answered olivia, pressing her hand to her forehead. she leaned against the angle of the deep casement window, looking out at the garden, desolate and neglected in the bleak winter weather. she was silent for some minutes. john marchmont did not interrupt her; he was content to wait patiently until she should choose to speak. "mr. marchmont," she said at last, turning upon poor john with an abrupt vehemence that almost startled him, "i am three-and-twenty; and in the long, dull memory of the three-and-twenty years that have made my life, i cannot look back upon one joy--no, so help me heaven, not one!" she cried passionately. "no prisoner in the bastille, shut in a cell below the level of the seine, and making companions of rats and spiders in his misery, ever led a life more hopelessly narrow, more pitifully circumscribed, than mine has been. these grass-grown streets have made the boundary of my existence. the flat fenny country round me is not flatter or more dismal than my life. you will say that i should take an interest in the duties which i do; and that they should be enough for me. heaven knows i have tried to do so; but my life is hard. do you think there has been nothing in all this to warp my nature? do you think after hearing this, that i am the woman to be a second mother to your child?" she sat down as she finished speaking, and her hands dropped listlessly in her lap. the unquiet spirit raging in her breast had been stronger than herself, and had spoken. she had lifted the dull veil through which the outer world beheld her, and had showed john marchmont her natural face. "i think you are a good woman, miss arundel," he said earnestly. "if i had thought otherwise, i should not have come here to-day. i want a good woman to be kind to my child; kind to her when i am dead and gone," he added, in a lower voice. olivia arundel sat silent and motionless, looking straight before her out into the black dulness of the garden. she was trying to think out the dark problem of her life. strange as it may seem, there was a certain fascination for her in john marchmont's offer. he offered her something, no matter what; it would be a change. she had compared herself to a prisoner in the bastille; and i think she felt very much as such a prisoner might have felt upon his gaoler's offering to remove him to vincennes. the new prison might be worse than the old one, perhaps; but it would be different. life at marchmont towers might be more monotonous, more desolate, than at swampington; but it would be a new monotony, another desolation. have you never felt, when suffering the hideous throes of toothache, that it would be a relief to have the earache or the rheumatism; that variety even in torture would be agreeable? then, again, olivia arundel, though unblest with many of the charms of womanhood, was not entirely without its weaknesses. to marry john marchmont would be to avenge herself upon edward arundel. alas! she forgot how impossible it is to inflict a dagger-thrust upon him who is guarded by the impenetrable armour of indifference. she saw herself the mistress of marchmont towers, waited upon by liveried servants, courted, not patronised by the country gentry; avenged upon the mercenary aunt who had slighted her, who had bade her go out and get her living as a nursery governess. she saw this; and all that was ignoble in her nature arose, and urged her to snatch the chance offered her--the one chance of lifting herself out of the horrible obscurity of her life. the ambition which might have made her an empress lowered its crest, and cried, "take this; at least it is something." but, through all, the better voices which she had enlisted to do battle with the natural voice of her soul cried, "this is a temptation of the devil; put it away from thee." but this temptation came to her at the very moment when her life had become most intolerable; too intolerable to be borne, she thought. she knew now, fatally, certainly, that edward arundel did not love her; that the one only day-dream she had ever made for herself had been a snare and a delusion. the radiance of that foolish dream had been the single light of her life. that taken away from her, the darkness was blacker than the blackness of death; more horrible than the obscurity of the grave. in all the future she had not one hope: no, not one. she had loved edward arundel with all the strength of her soul; she had wasted a world of intellect and passion upon this bright-haired boy. this foolish, grovelling madness had been the blight of her life. but for this, she might have grown out of her natural self by force of her conscientious desire to do right; and might have become, indeed, a good and perfect woman. if her life had been a wider one, this wasted love would, perhaps, have shrunk into its proper insignificance; she would have loved, and suffered, and recovered; as so many of us recover from this common epidemic. but all the volcanic forces of an impetuous nature, concentrated into one narrow focus, wasted themselves upon this one feeling, until that which should have been a sentiment became a madness. to think that in some far-away future time she might cease to love edward arundel, and learn to love somebody else, would have seemed about as reasonable to olivia as to hope that she could have new legs and arms in that distant period. she could cut away this fatal passion with a desperate stroke, it may be, just as she could cut off her arm; but to believe that a new love would grow in its place was quite as absurd as to believe in the growing of a new arm. some cork monstrosity might replace the amputated limb; some sham and simulated affection might succeed the old love. olivia arundel thought of all these things, in about ten minutes by the little skeleton clock upon the mantel-piece, and while john marchmont fidgeted rather nervously, with a pair of gloves in the crown of his hat, and waited for some definite answer to his appeal. her mind came back at last, after all its passionate wanderings, to the rigid channel she had so laboriously worn for it,--the narrow groove of duty. her first words testified this. "if i accept this responsibility, i will perform it faithfully," she said, rather to herself than to mr. marchmont. "i am sure you will, miss arundel," john answered eagerly; "i am sure you will. you mean to undertake it, then? you mean to consider my offer? may i speak to your father? may i tell him that i have spoken to you? may i say that you have given me a hope of your ultimate consent?" "yes, yes," olivia said, rather impatiently; "speak to my father; tell him anything you please. let him decide for me; it is my duty to obey him." there was a terrible cowardice in this. olivia arundel shrank from marrying a man she did not love, prompted by no better desire than the mad wish to wrench herself away from her hated life. she wanted to fling the burden of responsibility in this matter away from her. let another decide, let another urge her to do this wrong; and let the wrong be called a sacrifice. so for the first time she set to work deliberately to cheat her own conscience. for the first time she put a false mark upon the standard she had made for the measurement of her moral progress. she sank into a crouching attitude on a low stool by the fire-place, in utter prostration of body and mind, when john marchmont had left her. she let her weary head fall heavily against the carved oaken shaft that supported the old-fashioned mantel-piece, heedless that her brow struck sharply against the corner of the wood-work. if she could have died then, with no more sinful secret than a woman's natural weakness hidden in her breast; if she could have died then, while yet the first step upon the dark pathway of her life was untrodden,--how happy for herself, how happy for others! how miserable a record of sin and suffering might have remained unwritten in the history of woman's life! * * * * * she sat long in the same attitude. once, and once only, two solitary tears gathered in her eyes, and rolled slowly down her pale cheeks. "will you be sorry when i am married, edward arundel?" she murmured; "will you be sorry?" chapter ix. "when shall i cease to be all alone?" hubert arundel was not so much surprised as might have been anticipated at the proposal made him by his wealthy neighbour. edward had prepared his uncle for the possibility of such a proposal by sundry jocose allusions and arch hints upon the subject of john marchmont's admiration for olivia. the frank and rather frivolous young man thought it was his cousin's handsome face that had captivated the master of marchmont towers, and was quite unable to fathom the hidden motive underlying all john's talk about miss arundel. the rector of swampington, being a simple-hearted and not very far-seeing man, thanked god heartily for the chance that had befallen his daughter. she would be well off and well cared for, then, by the mercy of providence, in spite of his own shortcomings, which had left her with no better provision for the future than a pitiful policy of assurance upon her father's life. she would be well provided for henceforward, and would live in a handsome house; and all those noble qualities which had been dwarfed and crippled in a narrow sphere would now expand, and display themselves in unlooked-for grandeur. "people have called her a good girl," he thought; "but how could they ever know her goodness, unless they had seen, as i have, the deprivations she has borne so uncomplainingly?" john marchmont, being newly instructed by his lawyer, was able to give mr. arundel a very clear statement of the provision he could make for his wife's future. he could settle upon her the nine thousand pounds left him by philip marchmont. he would allow her five hundred a year pin-money during his lifetime; he would leave her his savings at his death; and he would effect an insurance upon his life for her benefit. the amount of these savings would, of course, depend upon the length of john's life; but the money would accumulate very quickly, as his income was eleven thousand a year, and his expenditure was not likely to exceed three. the swampington living was worth little more than three hundred and fifty pounds a year; and out of that sum hubert arundel and his daughter had done treble as much good for the numerous poor of the parish as ever had been achieved by any previous rector or his family. hubert and his daughter had patiently endured the most grinding poverty, the burden ever falling heavier on olivia, who had the heroic faculty of endurance as regards all physical discomfort. can it be wondered, then, that the rector of swampington thought the prospect offered to his child a very brilliant one? can it be wondered that he urged his daughter to accept this altered lot? he did urge her, pleading john marchmont's cause a great deal more warmly than the widower had himself pleaded. "my darling," he said, "my darling girl! if i can live to see you mistress of marchmont towers, i shall go to my grave contented and happy. think, my dear, of the misery from which this marriage will save you. oh, my dear girl, i can tell you now what i never dared tell you before; i can tell you of the long, sleepless nights i have passed thinking of you, and of the wicked wrongs i have done you. not wilful wrongs, my love," the rector added, with the tears gathering in his eyes; "for you know how dearly i have always loved you. but a father's responsibility towards his children is a very heavy burden. i have only looked at it in this light lately, my dear,--now that i've let the time slip by, and it is too late to redeem the past. i've suffered very much, olivia; and all this has seemed to separate us, somehow. but that's past now, isn't it, my dear? and you'll marry this mr. marchmont. he appears to be a very good, conscientious man, and i think he'll make you happy." the father and daughter were sitting together after dinner in the dusky november twilight, the room only lighted by the fire, which was low and dim. hubert arundel could not see his daughter's face as he talked to her; he could only see the black outline of her figure sharply defined against the grey window behind her, as she sat opposite to him. he could see by her attitude that she was listening to him, with her head drooping and her hands lying idle in her lap. she was silent for some little time after he had finished speaking; so silent that he feared his words might have touched her too painfully, and that she was crying. heaven help this simple-hearted father! she had scarcely heard three consecutive words that he had spoken, but had only gathered dimly from his speech that he wanted her to accept john marchmont's offer. every great passion is a supreme egotism. it is not the object which we hug so determinedly; it is not the object which coils itself about our weak hearts: it is our own madness we worship and cleave to, our own pitiable folly which we refuse to put away from us. what is bill sykes' broken nose or bull-dog visage to nancy? the creature she loves and will not part from is not bill, but her own love for bill,--the one delusion of a barren life; the one grand selfishness of a feeble nature. olivia arundel's thoughts had wandered far away while her father had spoken so piteously to her. she had been thinking of her cousin edward, and had been asking herself the same question over and over again. would he be sorry? would he be sorry if she married john marchmont? but she understood presently that her father was waiting for her to speak; and, rising from her chair, she went towards him, and laid her hand upon his shoulder. "i am afraid i have not done my duty to you, papa," she said. latterly she had been for ever harping upon this one theme,--her duty! that word was the keynote of her life; and her existence had latterly seemed to her so inharmonious, that it was scarcely strange she should repeatedly strike that leading note in the scale. "my darling," cried mr. arundel, "you have been all that is good!" "no, no, papa; i have been cold, reserved, silent." "a little silent, my dear," the rector answered meekly; "but you have not been happy. i have watched you, my love, and i know you have not been happy. but that is not strange. this place is so dull, and your life has been so fatiguing. how different that would all be at marchmont towers!" "you wish me to many mr. marchmont, then, papa?" "i do, indeed, my love. for your own sake, of course," the rector added deprecatingly. "you really wish it?" "very, very much, my dear." "then i will marry him, papa." she took her hand from the rector's shoulder, and walked away from him to the uncurtained window, against which she stood with her back to her father, looking out into the grey obscurity. i have said that hubert arundel was not a very clever or far-seeing person; but he vaguely felt that this was not exactly the way in which a brilliant offer of marriage should be accepted by a young lady who was entirely fancy-free, and he had an uncomfortable apprehension that there was something hidden under his daughter's quiet manner. "but, my dear olivia," he said nervously, "you must not for a moment suppose that i would force you into this marriage, if it is in any way repugnant to yourself. you--you may have formed some prior attachment--or, there may be somebody who loves you, and has loved you longer than mr. marchmont, who--" his daughter turned upon him sharply as he rambled on. "somebody who loves me!" she echoed. "what have you ever seen that should make you think any one loved me?" the harshness of her tone jarred upon mr. arundel, and made him still more nervous. "my love, i beg your pardon, i have seen nothing. i--" "nobody loves me, or has ever loved me,--but you," resumed olivia, taking no heed of her father's feeble interruption. "i am not the sort of woman to be loved; i feel and know that. i have an aquiline nose, and a clear skin, and dark eyes, and people call me handsome; but nobody loves me, or ever will, so long as i live." "but mr. marchmont, my dear,--surely he loves and admires you?" remonstrated the rector. "mr. marchmont wants a governess and _chaperone_ for his daughter, and thinks me a suitable person to fill such a post; that is all the _love_ mr. marchmont has for me. no, papa; there is no reason i should shrink from this marriage. there is no one who will be sorry for it; no one! i am asked to perform a duty towards this little girl, and i am prepared to perform it faithfully. that is my part of the bargain. do i commit a sin in marrying john marchmont in this spirit, papa?" she asked the question eagerly, almost breathlessly; as if her decision depended upon her father's answer. "a sin, my dear! how can you ask such a question?" "very well, then; if i commit no sin in accepting this offer, i will accept it." it was thus olivia paltered with her conscience, holding back half the truth. the question she should have asked was this, "do i commit a sin in marrying one man, while my heart is racked by a mad passion for another?" miss arundel could not visit her poor upon the day after this interview with her father. her monotonous round of duty seemed more than ever abhorrent to her. she wandered across the dreary marshes, down by the lonely seashore, in the grey november fog. she stood for a long time, shivering with the cold dampness of the atmosphere, but not even conscious that she was cold, looking at a dilapidated boat that lay upon the rugged beach. the waters before her and the land behind her were hidden by a dense veil of mist. it seemed as if she stood alone in the world,--utterly isolated, utterly forgotten. "o my god!" she murmured, "if this boat at my feet could drift me away to some desert island, i could never be more desolate than i am, amongst the people who do not love me." dim lights in distant windows were gleaming across the flats when she returned to swampington, to find her father sitting alone and dispirited at his frugal dinner. miss arundel took her place quietly at the bottom of the table, no trace of emotion upon her face. "i am sorry i stayed out so long, papa" she said; "i had no idea it was so late." "never mind, my dear, i know you have always enough to occupy you. mr. marchmont called while you were out. he seemed very anxious to hear your decision, and was delighted when he found that it was favourable to himself." olivia dropped her knife and fork, and rose from her chair suddenly, with a strange look, which was almost terror, in her face. "it is quite decided, then?" she said. "yes, my love. but you are not sorry, are you?" "sorry! no; i am glad." she sank back into her chair with a sigh of relief. she _was_ glad. the prospect of this strange marriage offered a relief from the horrible oppression of her life. "henceforward to think of edward arundel will be a sin," she thought. "i have not won another man's love; but i shall be another man's wife." chapter x. mary's stepmother. perhaps there was never a quieter courtship than that which followed olivia's acceptance of john marchmont's offer. there had been no pretence of sentiment on either side; yet i doubt if john had been much more sentimental during his early love-making days, though he had very tenderly and truly loved his first wife. there were few sparks of the romantic or emotional fire in his placid nature. his love for his daughter, though it absorbed his whole being, was a silent and undemonstrative affection; a thoughtful and almost fearful devotion, which took the form of intense but hidden anxiety for his child's future, rather than any outward show of tenderness. had his love been of a more impulsive and demonstrative character, he would scarcely have thought of taking such a step as that he now contemplated, without first ascertaining whether it would be agreeable to his daughter. but he never for a moment dreamt of consulting mary's will upon this important matter. he looked with fearful glances towards the dim future, and saw his darling, a lonely figure upon a barren landscape, beset by enemies eager to devour her; and he snatched at this one chance of securing her a protectress, who would be bound to her by a legal as well as a moral tie; for john marchmont meant to appoint his second wife the guardian of his child. he thought only of this; and he hurried on his suit at the rectory, fearful lest death should come between him and his loveless bride, and thus deprive his darling of a second mother. this was the history of john marchmont's marriage. it was not till a week before the day appointed for the wedding that he told his daughter what he was about to do. edward arundel knew the secret, but he had been warned not to reveal it to mary. the father and daughter sat together late one evening in the first week of december, in the great western drawing-room. edward had gone to a party at swampington, and was to sleep at the rectory; so mary and her father were alone. it was nearly eleven o'clock; but miss marchmont had insisted upon sitting up until her father should retire to rest. she had always sat up in oakley street, she had remonstrated, though she was much younger then. she sat on a velvet-covered hassock at her father's feet, with her loose hair falling over his knee, as her head lay there in loving abandonment. she was not talking to him; for neither john nor mary were great talkers; but she was with him--that was quite enough. mr. marchmont's thin fingers twined themselves listlessly in and out of the fair curls upon his knee. mary was thinking of edward and the party at swampington. would he enjoy himself very, very much? would he be sorry that she was not there? it was a grown-up party, and she wasn't old enough for grown-up parties yet. would the pretty girls in blue be there? and would he dance with them? her father's face was clouded by a troubled expression, as he looked absently at the red embers in the low fireplace. he spoke presently, but his observation was a very commonplace one. the opening speeches of a tragedy are seldom remarkable for any ominous or solemn meaning. two gentlemen meet each other in a street very near the footlights, and converse rather flippantly about the aspect of affairs in general; there is no hint of bloodshed and agony till we get deeper into the play. so mr. marchmont, bent upon making rather an important communication to his daughter, and for the first time feeling very fearful as to how she would take it, began thus: "you really ought to go to bed earlier, polly dear; you've been looking very pale lately, and i know such hours as these must be bad for you." "oh, no, papa dear," cried the young lady; "i'm always pale; that's natural to me. sitting up late doesn't hurt me, papa. it never did in oakley street, you know." john marchmont shook his head sadly. "i don't know that," he said. "my darling had to suffer many evils through her father's poverty. if you had some one who loved you, dear, a lady, you know,--for a man does not understand these sort of things,--your health would be looked after more carefully, and--and--your education--and--in short, you would be altogether happier; wouldn't you, polly darling?" he asked the question in an almost piteously appealing tone. a terrible fear was beginning to take possession of him. his daughter might be grieved at this second marriage. the very step which he had taken for her happiness might cause her loving nature pain and sorrow. in the utter cowardice of his affection he trembled at the thought of causing his darling any distress in the present, even for her own welfare,--even for her future good; and he _knew_ that the step he was about to take would secure that. mary started from her reclining position, and looked up into her father's face. "you're not going to engage a governess for me, papa?" she cried eagerly. "oh, please don't. we are so much better as it is. a governess would keep me away from you, papa; i know she would. the miss llandels, at impley grange, have a governess; and they only come down to dessert for half an hour, or go out for a drive sometimes, so that they very seldom see their papa. lucy told me so; and they said they'd give the world to be always with their papa, as i am with you. oh, pray, pray, papa darling, don't let me have a governess." the tears were in her eyes as she pleaded to him. the sight of those tears made him terribly nervous. "my own dear polly," he said, "i'm not going to engage a governess. i--; polly, polly dear, you must be reasonable. you mustn't grieve your poor father. you are old enough to understand these things now, dear. you know what the doctors have said. i may die, polly, and leave you alone in the world." she clung closely to her father, and looked up, pale and trembling, as she answered him. "when you die, papa, i shall die too. i could never, never live without you." "yes, yes, my darling, you would. you will live to lead a happy life, please god, and a safe one; but if i die, and leave you very young, very inexperienced, and innocent, as i may do, my dear, you must not be without a friend to watch over you, to advise, to protect you. i have thought of this long and earnestly, polly; and i believe that what i am going to do is right." "what you are going to do!" mary cried, repeating her father's words, and looking at him in sudden terror. "what do you mean, papa? what are you going to do? nothing that will part us! o papa, papa, you will never do anything to part us!" "no, polly darling," answered mr. marchmont. "whatever i do, i do for your sake, and for that alone. i'm going to be married, my dear." mary burst into a low wail, more pitiful than any ordinary weeping. "o papa, papa," she cried, "you never will, you never will!" the sound of that piteous voice for a few moments quite unmanned john marchmont; but he armed himself with a desperate courage. he determined not to be influenced by this child to relinquish the purpose which he believed was to achieve her future welfare. "mary, mary dear," he said reproachfully, "this is very cruel of you. do you think i haven't consulted your happiness before my own? do you think i shall love you less because i take this step for your sake? you are very cruel to me, mary." the little girl rose from her kneeling attitude, and stood before her father, with the tears streaming down her white cheeks, but with a certain air of resolution about her. she had been a child for a few moments; a child, with no power to look beyond the sudden pang of that new sorrow which had come to her. she was a woman now, able to rise superior to her sorrow in the strength of her womanhood. "i won't be cruel, papa," she said; "i was selfish and wicked to talk like that. if it will make you happy to have another wife, papa, i'll not be sorry. no, i won't be sorry, even if your new wife separates us--a little." "but, my darling," john remonstrated, "i don't mean that she should separate us at all. i wish you to have a second friend, polly; some one who can understand you better than i do, who may love you perhaps almost as well." mary marchmont shook her head; she could not realise this possibility. "do you understand me, my dear?" her father continued earnestly. "i want you to have some one who will be a mother to you; and i hope--i am sure that olivia--" mary interrupted him by a sudden exclamation, that was almost like a cry of pain. "not miss arundel!" she said. "o papa, it is not miss arundel you're going to marry!" her father bent his head in assent. "what is the matter with you, mary?" he said, almost fretfully, as he saw the look of mingled grief and terror in his daughter's face. "you are really quite unreasonable to-night. if i am to marry at all, who should i choose for a wife? who could be better than olivia arundel? everybody knows how good she is. everybody talks of her goodness." in these two sentences mr. marchmont made confession of a fact he had never himself considered. it was not his own impulse, it was no instinctive belief in her goodness, that had led him to choose olivia arundel for his wife. he had been influenced solely by the reiterated opinions of other people. "i know she is very good, papa," mary cried; "but, oh, why, why do you marry her? do you love her so very, very much?" "love her!" exclaimed mr. marchmont naïvely; "no, polly dear; you know i never loved any one but you." "why do you marry her then?" "for your sake, polly; for your sake." "but don't then, papa; oh, pray, pray don't. i don't want her. i don't like her. i could never be happy with her." "mary! mary!" "yes, i know it's very wicked to say so, but it's true, papa; i never, never, never could be happy with her. i know she is good, but i don't like her. if i did anything wrong, i should never expect her to forgive me for it; i should never expect her to have mercy upon me. don't marry her, papa; pray, pray don't marry her." "mary," said mr. marchmont resolutely, "this is very wrong of you. i have given my word, my dear, and i cannot recall it. i believe that i am acting for the best. you must not be childish now, mary. you have been my comfort ever since you were a baby; you mustn't make me unhappy now." her father's appeal went straight to her heart. yes, she had been his help and comfort since her earliest infancy, and she was not unused to self-sacrifice: why should she fail him now? she had read of martyrs, patient and holy creatures, to whom suffering was glory; she would be a martyr, if need were, for his sake. she would stand steadfast amid the blazing fagots, or walk unflinchingly across the white-hot ploughshare, for his sake, for his sake. "papa, papa," she cried, flinging herself upon her father's neck, "i will not make you sorry. i will be good and obedient to miss arundel, if you wish it." mr. marchmont carried his little girl up to her comfortable bedchamber, close at hand to his own. she was very calm when she bade him good night, and she kissed him with a smile upon her face; but all through the long hours before the late winter morning mary marchmont lay awake, weeping silently and incessantly in her new sorrow; and all through the same weary hours the master of that noble lincolnshire mansion slept a fitful and troubled slumber, rendered hideous by confused and horrible dreams, in which the black shadow that came between him and his child, and the cruel hand that thrust him for ever from his darling, were olivia arundel's. but the morning light brought relief to john marchmont and his child. mary arose with the determination to submit patiently to her father's choice, and to conceal from him all traces of her foolish and unreasoning sorrow. john awoke from troubled dreams to believe in the wisdom of the step he had taken, and to take comfort from the thought that in the far-away future his daughter would have reason to thank and bless him for the choice he had made. so the few days before the marriage passed away--miserably short days, that flitted by with terrible speed; and the last day of all was made still more dismal by the departure of edward arundel, who left marchmont towers to go to dangerfield park, whence he was most likely to start once more for india. mary felt that her narrow world of love was indeed crumbling away from her. edward was lost, and to-morrow her father would belong to another. mr. marchmont dined at the rectory upon that last evening; for there were settlements to be signed, and other matters to be arranged; and mary was alone--quite alone--weeping over her lost happiness. "this would never have happened," she thought, "if we hadn't come to marchmont towers. i wish papa had never had the fortune; we were so happy in oakley street,--so very happy. i wouldn't mind a bit being poor again, if i could be always with papa." mr. marchmont had not been able to make himself quite comfortable in his mind, after that unpleasant interview with his daughter in which he had broken to her the news of his approaching marriage. argue with himself as he might upon the advisability of the step he was about to take, he could not argue away the fact that he had grieved the child he loved so intensely. he could not blot away from his memory the pitiful aspect of her terror-stricken face as she had turned it towards him when he uttered the name of olivia arundel. no; he had grieved and distressed her. the future might reconcile her to that grief, perhaps, as a bygone sorrow which she had been allowed to suffer for her own ultimate advantage. but the future was a long way off: and in the meantime there was mary's altered face, calm and resigned, but bearing upon it a settled look of sorrow, very close at hand; and john marchmont could not be otherwise than unhappy in the knowledge of his darling's grief. i do not believe that any man or woman is ever suffered to take a fatal step upon the roadway of life without receiving ample warning by the way. the stumbling-blocks are placed in the fatal path by a merciful hand; but we insist upon clambering over them, and surmounting them in our blind obstinacy, to reach that shadowy something beyond, which we have in our ignorance appointed to be our goal. a thousand ominous whispers in his own breast warned john marchmont that the step he considered so wise was not a wise one: and yet, in spite of all these subtle warnings, in spite of the ever-present reproach of his daughter's altered face, this man, who was too weak to trust blindly in his god, went on persistently upon his way, trusting, with a thousand times more fatal blindness, in his own wisdom. he could not be content to confide his darling and her altered fortunes to the providence which had watched over her in her poverty, and sheltered her from every harm. he could not trust his child to the mercy of god; but he cast her upon the love of olivia arundel. a new life began for mary marchmont after the quiet wedding at swampington church. the bride and bridegroom went upon a brief honeymoon excursion far away amongst snow-clad scottish mountains and frozen streams, upon whose bloomless margins poor john shivered dismally. i fear that mr. marchmont, having been, by the hard pressure of poverty, compelled to lead a cockney life for the better half of his existence, had but slight relish for the grand and sublime in nature. i do not think he looked at the ruined walls which had once sheltered macbeth and his strong-minded partner with all the enthusiasm which might have been expected of him. he had but one idea about macbeth, and he was rather glad to get out of the neighbourhood associated with the warlike thane; for his memories of the past presented king duncan's murderer as a very stern and uncompromising gentleman, who was utterly intolerant of banners held awry, or turned with the blank and ignoble side towards the audience, and who objected vehemently to a violent fit of coughing on the part of any one of his guests during the blank barmecide feast of pasteboard and dutch metal with which he was wont to entertain them. no; john marchmont had had quite enough of macbeth, and rather wondered at the hot enthusiasm of other red-nosed tourists, apparently indifferent to the frosty weather. i fear that the master of marchmont towers would have preferred oakley street, lambeth, to princes street, edinburgh; for the nipping and eager airs of the modern athens nearly blew him across the gulf between the new town and the old. a visit to the calton hill produced an attack of that chronic cough which had so severely tormented the weak-kneed supernumerary in the draughty corridors of drury lane. melrose and abbotsford fatigued this poor feeble tourist; he tried to be interested in the stereotyped round of associations beloved by other travellers, but he had a weary craving for rest, which was stronger than any hero-worship; and he discovered, before long, that he had done a very foolish thing in coming to scotland in december and january, without having consulted his physician as to the propriety of such a step. but above all personal inconvenience, above all personal suffering, there was one feeling ever present in his heart--a sick yearning for the little girl he had left behind him; a mournful longing to be back with his child. already mary's sad forebodings had been in some way realised; already his new wife had separated him, unintentionally of course, from his daughter. the aches and pains he endured in the bleak scottish atmosphere reminded him only too forcibly of the warnings he had received from his physicians. he was seized with a panic, almost, when he remembered his own imprudence. what if he had needlessly curtailed the short span of his life? what if he were to die soon--before olivia had learned to love her stepdaughter; before mary had grown affectionately familiar with her new guardian? again and again he appealed to his wife, imploring her to be tender to the orphan child, if he should be snatched away suddenly. "i know you will love her by-and-by, olivia," he said; "as much as i do, perhaps; for you will discover how good she is, how patient and unselfish. but just at first, and before you know her very well, you will be kind to her, won't you, olivia? she has been used to great indulgence; she has been spoiled, perhaps; but you'll remember all that, and be very kind to her?" "i will try and do my duty," mrs. marchmont answered. "i pray that i never may do less." there was no tender yearning in olivia marchmont's heart towards the motherless girl. she herself felt that such a sentiment was wanting, and comprehended that it should have been there. she would have loved her stepdaughter in those early days, if she could have done so; but _she could not_--she could not. all that was tender or womanly in her nature had been wasted upon her hopeless love for edward arundel. the utter wreck of that small freight of affection had left her nature warped and stunted, soured, disappointed, unwomanly. how was she to love this child, this hazel-haired, dove-eyed girl, before whom woman's life, with all its natural wealth of affection, stretched far away, a bright and fairy vista? how was _she_ to love her,--she, whose black future was unchequered by one ray of light; who stood, dissevered from the past, alone in the dismal, dreamless monotony of the present? "no" she thought; "beggars and princes can never love one another. when this girl and i are equals,--when she, like me, stands alone upon a barren rock, far out amid the waste of waters, with not one memory to hold her to the past, with not one hope to lure her onward to the future, with nothing but the black sky above and the black waters around,--_then_ we may grow fond of each other." but always more or less steadfast to the standard she had set up for herself, olivia marchmont intended to do her duty to her stepdaughter. she had not failed in other duties, though no glimmer of love had brightened them, no natural affection had made them pleasant. why should she fail in this? if this belief in her own power should appear to be somewhat arrogant, let it be remembered that she had set herself hard tasks before now, and had performed them. would the new furnace through which she was to pass be more terrible than the old fires? she had gone to god's altar with a man for whom she had no more love than she felt for the lowest or most insignificant of the miserable sinners in her father's flock. she had sworn to honour and obey him, meaning at least faithfully to perform that portion of her vow; and on the night before her loveless bridal she had grovelled, white, writhing, mad, and desperate, upon the ground, and had plucked out of her lacerated heart her hopeless love for another man. yes; she had done this. another woman might have spent that bridal eve in vain tears and lamentations, in feeble prayers, and such weak struggles as might have been evidenced by the destruction of a few letters, a tress of hair, some fragile foolish tokens of a wasted love. she would have burnt five out of six letters, perhaps, that helpless, ordinary sinner, and would have kept the sixth, to hoard away hidden among her matrimonial trousseau; she would have thrown away fifteen-sixteenths of that tress of hair, and would have kept the sixteenth portion,--one delicate curl of gold, slender as the thread by which her shattered hopes had hung,--to be wept over and kissed in the days that were to come. an ordinary woman would have played fast and loose with love and duty; and so would have been true to neither. but olivia arundel did none of these things. she battled with her weakness as st george battled with the fiery dragon. she plucked the rooted serpent from her heart, reckless as to how much of that desperate heart was to be wrenched away with its roots. a cowardly woman would have killed herself, perhaps, rather than endure this mortal agony. olivia arundel killed more than herself; she killed the passion that had become stronger than herself. "alone she did it;" unaided by any human sympathy or compassion, unsupported by any human counsel, not upheld by her god; for the religion she had made for herself was a hard creed, and the many words of tender comfort which must have been familiar to her were unremembered in that long night of anguish. it was the roman's stern endurance, rather than the meek faithfulness of the christian, which upheld this unhappy girl under her torture. she did not do this thing because it pleased her to be obedient to her god. she did not do it because she believed in the mercy of him who inflicted the suffering, and looked forward hopefully, even amid her passionate grief, to the day when she should better comprehend that which she now saw so darkly. no; she fought the terrible fight, and she came forth out of it a conqueror, by reason of her own indomitable power of suffering, by reason of her own extraordinary strength of will. but she did conquer. if her weapon was the classic sword and not the christian cross, she was nevertheless a conqueror. when she stood before the altar and gave her hand to john marchmont, edward arundel was dead to her. the fatal habit of looking at him as the one centre of her narrow life was cured. in all her scottish wanderings, her thoughts never once went back to him; though a hundred chance words and associations tempted her, though a thousand memories assailed her, though some trick of his face in the faces of other people, though some tone of his voice in the voices of strangers, perpetually offered to entrap her. no; she was steadfast. dutiful as a wife as she had been dutiful as a daughter, she bore with her husband when his feeble health made him a wearisome companion. she waited upon him when pain made him fretful, and her duties became little less arduous than those of a hospital nurse. when, at the bidding of the scotch physician who had been called in at edinburgh, john marchmont turned homewards, travelling slowly and resting often on the way, his wife was more devoted to him than his experienced servant, more watchful than the best-trained sick-nurse. she recoiled from nothing, she neglected nothing; she gave him full measure of the honour and obedience which she had promised upon her wedding-day. and when she reached marchmont towers upon a dreary evening in january, she passed beneath the solemn portal of the western front, carrying in her heart the full determination to hold as steadfastly to the other half of her bargain, and to do her duty to her stepchild. mary ran out of the western drawing-room to welcome her father and his wife. she had cast off her black dresses in honour of mr. marchmont's marriage, and she wore some soft, silken fabric, of a pale shimmering blue, which contrasted exquisitely with her soft, brown hair, and her fair, tender face. she uttered a cry of mingled alarm and sorrow when she saw her father, and perceived the change that had been made in his looks by the northern journey; but she checked herself at a warning glance from her stepmother, and bade that dear father welcome, clinging about him with an almost desperate fondness. she greeted olivia gently and respectfully. "i will try to be very good, mamma," she said, as she took the passive hand of the lady who had come to rule at marchmont towers. "i believe you will, my dear," olivia answered, kindly. she had been startled a little as mary addressed her by that endearing corruption of the holy word mother. the child had been so long motherless, that she felt little of that acute anguish which some orphans suffer when they have to look up in a strange face and say "mamma." she had taught herself the lesson of resignation, and she was prepared to accept this stranger as her new mother, and to look up to her and obey her henceforward. no thought of her own future position, as sole owner of that great house and all appertaining to it, ever crossed mary marchmont's mind, womanly as that mind had become in the sharp experiences of poverty. if her father had told her that he had cut off the entail, and settled marchmont towers upon his new wife, i think she would have submitted meekly to his will, and would have seen no injustice in the act. she loved him blindly and confidingly. indeed, she could only love after one fashion. the organ of veneration must have been abnormally developed in mary marchmont's head. to believe that any one she loved was otherwise than perfect, would have been, in her creed, an infidelity against love. had any one told her that edward arundel was not eminently qualified for the post of general-in-chief of the army of the indus; or that her father could by any possible chance be guilty of a fault or folly: she would have recoiled in horror from the treasonous slanderer. a dangerous quality, perhaps, this quality of guilelessness which thinketh no evil, which cannot be induced to see the evil under its very nose. but surely, of all the beautiful and pure things upon this earth, such blind confidence is the purest and most beautiful. i knew a lady, dead and gone,--alas for this world, which could ill afford to lose so good a christian!--who carried this trustfulness of spirit, this utter incapacity to believe in wrong, through all the strife and turmoil of a troubled life, unsullied and unlessened, to her grave. she was cheated and imposed upon, robbed and lied to, by people who loved her, perhaps, while they wronged her,--for to know her was to love her. she was robbed systematically by a confidential servant for years, and for years refused to believe those who told her of his delinquencies. she _could_ not believe that people were wicked. to the day of her death she had faith in the scoundrels and scamps who had profited by her sweet compassion and untiring benevolence; and indignantly defended them against those who dared to say that they were anything more than "unfortunate." to go to her was to go to a never-failing fountain of love and tenderness. to know her goodness was to understand the goodness of god; for her love approached the infinite, and might have taught a sceptic the possibility of divinity. three-score years and ten of worldly experience left her an accomplished lady, a delightful companion; but in guilelessness a child. so mary marchmont, trusting implicitly in those she loved, submitted to her father's will, and prepared to obey her stepmother. the new life at the towers began very peacefully; a perfect harmony reigned in the quiet household. olivia took the reins of management with so little parade, that the old housekeeper, who had long been paramount in the lincolnshire mansion, found herself superseded before she knew where she was. it was olivia's nature to govern. her strength of will asserted itself almost unconsciously. she took possession of mary marchmont as she had taken possession of her school-children at swampington, making her own laws for the government of their narrow intellects. she planned a routine of study that was actually terrible to the little girl, whose education had hitherto been conducted in a somewhat slip-slop manner by a weakly-indulgent father. she came between mary and her one amusement,--the reading of novels. the half-bound romances were snatched ruthlessly from this young devourer of light literature, and sent back to the shabby circulating library at swampington. even the gloomy old oak book-cases in the library at the towers, and the abbotsford edition of the waverley novels, were forbidden to poor mary; for, though sir walter scott's morality is irreproachable, it will not do for a young lady to be weeping over lucy ashton or amy robsart when she should be consulting her terrestrial globe, and informing herself as to the latitude and longitude of the fiji islands. so a round of dry and dreary lessons began for poor miss marchmont, and her brain grew almost dazed under that continuous and pelting shower of hard facts which many worthy people consider the one sovereign method of education. i have said that her mind was far in advance of her years; olivia perceived this, and set her tasks in advance of her mind: in order that the perfection attained by a sort of steeple-chase of instruction might not be lost to her. if mary learned difficult lessons with surprising rapidity, mrs. marchmont plied her with even yet more difficult lessons, thus keeping the spur perpetually in the side of this heavily-weighted racer on the road to learning. but it must not be thought that olivia wilfully tormented or oppressed her stepdaughter. it was not so. in all this, john marchmont's second wife implicitly believed that she was doing her duty to the child committed to her care. she fully believed that this dreary routine of education was wise and right, and would be for mary's ultimate advantage. if she caused miss marchmont to get up at abnormal hours on bleak wintry mornings, for the purpose of wrestling with a difficult variation by hertz or schubert, she herself rose also, and sat shivering by the piano, counting the time of the music which her stepdaughter played. whatever pains and trouble she inflicted on mary, she most unshrinkingly endured herself. she waded through the dismal slough of learning side by side with the younger sufferer: roman emperors, medieval schisms, early british manufactures, philippa of hainault, flemish woollen stuffs, magna charta, the sidereal heavens, luther, newton, huss, galileo, calvin, loyola, sir robert walpole, cardinal wolsey, conchology, arianism in the early church, trial by jury, habeas corpus, zoology, mr. pitt, the american war, copernicus, confucius, mahomet, harvey, jenner, lycurgus, and catherine of arragon; through a very diabolical dance of history, science, theology, philosophy, and instruction of all kinds, did this devoted priestess lead her hapless victim, struggling onward towards that distant altar at which pallas athenë waited, pale and inscrutable, to receive a new disciple. but olivia marchmont did not mean to be unmerciful; she meant to be good to her stepdaughter. she did not love her; but, on the other hand, she did not dislike her. her feelings were simply negative. mary understood this, and the submissive obedience she rendered to her stepmother was untempered by affection. so for nearly two years these two people led a monotonous life, unbroken by any more important event than a dinner party at marchmont towers, or a brief visit to harrowgate or scarborough. this monotonous existence was not to go on for ever. the fatal day, so horribly feared by john marchmont, was creeping closer and closer. the sorrow which had been shadowed in every childish dream, in every childish prayer, came at last; and mary marchmont was left an orphan. poor john had never quite recovered the effects of his winter excursion to scotland; neither his wife's devoted nursing, nor his physician's care, could avail for ever; and, late in the autumn of the second year of his marriage, he sank, slowly and peacefully enough as regards physical suffering, but not without bitter grief of mind. in vain hubert arundel talked to him; in vain did he himself pray for faith and comfort in this dark hour of trial. he _could_ not bear to leave his child alone in the world. in the foolishness of his love, he would have trusted in the strength of his own arm to shield her in the battle; yet he could not trust her hopefully to the arm of god. he prayed for her night and day during the last week of his illness; while she was praying passionately, almost madly, that he might be spared to her, or that she might die with him. better for her, according to all mortal reasoning, if she had. happier for her, a thousand times, if she could have died as she wished to die, clinging to her father's breast. the blow fell at last upon those two loving hearts. these were the awful shadows of death that shut his child's face from john marchmont's fading sight. his feeble arms groped here and there for her in that dim and awful obscurity. yes, this was death. the narrow tract of yellow sand had little by little grown narrower and narrower. the dark and cruel waters were closing in; the feeble boat went down into the darkness: and mary stood alone, with her dead father's hand clasped in hers,--the last feeble link which bound her to the past,--looking blankly forward to an unknown future. chapter xi. the day of desolation. yes; the terrible day had come. mary marchmont roamed hither and thither in the big gaunt rooms, up and down the long dreary corridors, white and ghostlike in her mute anguish, while the undertaker's men were busy in her father's chamber, and while john's widow sat in the study below, writing business letters, and making all necessary arrangements for the funeral. in those early days no one attempted to comfort the orphan. there was something more terrible than the loudest grief in the awful quiet of the girl's anguish. the wan eyes, looking wearily out of a white haggard face, that seemed drawn and contracted as if by some hideous physical torture, were tearless. except the one long wail of despair which had burst from her lips in the awful moment of her father's death agony, no cry of sorrow, no utterance of pain, had given relief to mary marchmont's suffering. she suffered, and was still. she shrank away from all human companionship; she seemed specially to avoid the society of her stepmother. she locked the door of her room upon all who would have intruded on her, and flung herself upon the bed, to lie there in a dull stupor for hour after hour. but when the twilight was grey in the desolate corridors, the wretched girl wandered out into the gallery on which her father's room opened, and hovered near that solemn death-chamber; fearful to go in, fearful to encounter the watchers of the dead, lest they should torture her by their hackneyed expressions of sympathy, lest they should agonise her by their commonplace talk of the lost. once during that brief interval, while the coffin still held terrible tenancy of the death-chamber, the girl wandered in the dead of the night, when all but the hired watchers were asleep, to the broad landing of the oaken staircase, and into a deep recess formed by an embayed window that opened over the great stone porch which sheltered the principal entrance to marchmont towers. the window had been left open; for even in the bleak autumn weather the atmosphere of the great house seemed hot and oppressive to its living inmates, whose spirits were weighed down by a vague sense of the awful presence in that lincolnshire mansion. mary had wandered to this open window, scarcely knowing whither she went, after remaining for a long time on her knees by the threshold of her father's room, with her head resting against the oaken panel of the door,--not praying; why should she pray now, unless her prayers could have restored the dead? she had come out upon the wide staircase, and past the ghostly pictured faces, that looked grimly down upon her from the oaken wainscot against which they hung; she had wandered here in the dim grey light--there was light somewhere in the sky, but only a shadowy and uncertain glimmer of fading starlight or coming dawn--and she stood now with her head resting against one of the angles of the massive stonework, looking out of the open window. the morning which was already glimmering dimly in the eastern sky behind marchmont towers was to witness poor john's funeral. for nearly six days mary marchmont had avoided all human companionship: for nearly six days she had shunned all human sympathy and comfort. during all that time she had never eaten, except when forced to do so by her stepmother; who had visited her from time to time, and had insisted upon sitting by her bedside while she took the food that had been brought to her. heaven knows how often the girl had slept during those six dreary days; but her feverish slumbers had brought her very little rest or refreshment. they had brought her nothing but cruel dreams, in which her father was still alive; in which she felt his thin arms clasped round her neck, his faint and fitful breath warm upon her cheek. a great clock in the stables struck five while mary marchmont stood looking out of the tudor window. the broad grey flat before the house stretched far away, melting into the shadowy horizon. the pale stars grew paler as mary looked at them; the black-water pools began to glimmer faintly under the widening patch of light in the eastern sky. the girl's senses were bewildered by her suffering, and her head was light and dizzy. her father's death had made so sudden and terrible a break in her existence, that she could scarcely believe the world had not come to an end, with all the joys and sorrows of its inhabitants. would there be anything more after to-morrow? she thought; would the blank days and nights go monotonously on when the story that had given them a meaning and a purpose had come to its dismal end? surely not; surely, after those gaunt iron gates, far away across the swampy waste that was called a park, had closed upon her father's funeral train, the world would come to an end, and there would be no more time or space. i think she really believed this in the semi-delirium into which she had fallen within the last hour. she believed that all would be over; and that she and her despair would melt away into the emptiness that was to engulf the universe after her father's funeral. then suddenly the full reality of her grief flashed upon her with horrible force. she clasped her hands upon her forehead, and a low faint cry broke from her white lips. it was _not_ all over. time and space would _not_ be annihilated. the weary, monotonous, workaday world would still go on upon its course. _nothing_ would be changed. the great gaunt stone mansion would still stand, and the dull machinery of its interior would still go on: the same hours; the same customs; the same inflexible routine. john marchmont would be carried out of the house that had owned him master, to lie in the dismal vault under kemberling church; and the world in which he had made so little stir would go on without him. the easy-chair in which he had been wont to sit would be wheeled away from its corner by the fireplace in the western drawing-room. the papers in his study would be sorted and put away, or taken possession of by strange hands. cromwells and napoleons die, and the earth reels for a moment, only to be "alive and bold" again in the next instant, to the astonishment of poets, and the calm satisfaction of philosophers; and ordinary people eat their breakfasts while the telegram lies beside them upon the table, and while the ink in which mr. reuter's message is recorded is still wet from the machine in printing-house square. anguish and despair more terrible than any of the tortures she had felt yet took possession of mary marchmont's breast. for the first time she looked out at her own future. until now she had thought only of her father's death. she had despaired because he was gone; but she had never contemplated the horror of her future life,--a life in which she was to exist without him. a sudden agony, that was near akin to madness, seized upon this girl, in whose sensitive nature affection had always had a morbid intensity. she shuddered with a wild dread at the prospect of that blank future; and as she looked out at the wide stone steps below the window from which she was leaning, for the first time in her young life the idea of self-destruction flashed across her mind. she uttered a cry, a shrill, almost unearthly cry, that was notwithstanding low and feeble, and clambered suddenly upon the broad stone sill of the tudor casement. she wanted to fling herself down and dash her brains out upon the stone steps below; but in the utter prostration of her state she was too feeble to do this, and she fell backwards and dropped in a heap upon the polished oaken flooring of the recess, striking her forehead as she fell. she lay there unconscious until nearly seven o'clock, when one of the women-servants found her, and carried her off to her own room, where she suffered herself to be undressed and put to bed. mary marchmont did not speak until the good-hearted lincolnshire housemaid had laid her in her bed, and was going away to tell olivia of the state in which she had found the orphan girl. "don't tell my stepmother anything about me, susan," she said; "i think i was mad last night." this speech frightened the housemaid, and she went straight to the widow's room. mrs. marchmont, always an early riser, had been up and dressed for some time, and went at once to look at her stepdaughter. she found mary very calm and reasonable. there was no trace of bewilderment or delirium now in her manner; and when the principal doctor of swampington came a couple of hours afterwards to look at the young heiress, he declared that there was no cause for any alarm. the young lady was sensitive, morbidly sensitive, he said, and must be kept very quiet for a few days, and watched by some one whose presence would not annoy her. if there was any girl of her own age whom she had ever shown a predilection for, that girl would be the fittest companion for her just now. after a few days, it would be advisable that she should have change of air and change of scene. she must not be allowed to brood continuously on her father's death. the doctor repeated this last injunction more than once. it was most important that she should not give way too perpetually to her grief. so mary marchmont lay in her darkened room while her father's funeral train was moving slowly away from the western entrance. it happened that the orphan girl's apartments looked out into the quadrangle; so she heard none of the subdued sounds which attended the departure of that solemn procession. in her weakness she had grown submissive to the will of others. she thought this feebleness and exhaustion gave warning of approaching death. her prayers would be granted, after all. this anguish and despair would be but of brief duration, and she would ere long be carried to the vault under kemberling church, to lie beside her father in the black stillness of that solemn place. mrs. marchmont strictly obeyed the doctor's injunctions. a girl of seventeen, the daughter of a small tenant farmer near the towers, had been a special favourite with mary, who was not apt to make friends amongst strangers. this girl, hester pollard, was sent for, and came willingly and gladly to watch her young patroness. she brought her needlework with her, and sat near the window busily employed, while mary lay shrouded by the curtains of the bed. all active services necessary for the comfort of the invalid were performed by olivia or her own special attendant--an old servant who had lived with the rector ever since his daughter's birth, and had only left him to follow that daughter to marchmont towers after her marriage. so hester pollard had nothing to do but to keep very quiet, and patiently await the time when mary might be disposed to talk to her. the farmer's daughter was a gentle, unobtrusive creature, very well fitted for the duty imposed upon her. chapter xii. paul. olivia marchmont sat in her late husband's study while john's funeral train was moving slowly along under the misty october sky. a long stream of carriages followed the stately hearse, with its four black horses, and its voluminous draperies of rich velvet, and nodding plumes that were damp and heavy with the autumn atmosphere. the unassuming master of marchmont towers had won for himself a quiet popularity amongst the simple country gentry, and the best families in lincolnshire had sent their chiefs to do honour to his burial, or at the least their empty carriages to represent them at that mournful ceremonial. olivia sat in her dead husband's favourite chamber. her head lay back upon the cushion of the roomy morocco-covered arm-chair in which he had so often sat. she had been working hard that morning, and indeed every morning since john marchmont's death, sorting and arranging papers, with the aid of richard paulette, the lincoln's inn solicitor, and james gormby, the land-steward. she knew that she had been left sole guardian of her stepdaughter, and executrix to her husband's will; and she had lost no time in making herself acquainted with the business details of the estate, and the full nature of the responsibilities intrusted to her. she was resting now. she had done all that could be done until after the reading of the will. she had attended to her stepdaughter. she had stood in one of the windows of the western drawing-room, watching the departure of the funeral _cortège_; and now she abandoned herself for a brief space to that idleness which was so unusual to her. a fire burned in the low grate at her feet, and a rough cur--half shepherd's dog, half scotch deer-hound, who had been fond of john, but was not fond of olivia--lay at the further extremity of the hearth-rug, watching her suspiciously. mrs. marchmont's personal appearance had not altered during the two years of her married life. her face was thin and haggard; but it had been thin and haggard before her marriage. and yet no one could deny that the face was handsome, and the features beautifully chiselled. but the grey eyes were hard and cold, the line of the faultless eyebrows gave a stern expression to the countenance; the thin lips were rigid and compressed. the face wanted both light and colour. a sculptor copying it line by line would have produced a beautiful head. a painter must have lent his own glowing tints if he wished to represent olivia marchmont as a lovely woman. her pale face looked paler, and her dead black hair blacker, against the blank whiteness of her widow's cap. her mourning dress clung closely to her tall, slender figure. she was little more than twenty-five, but she looked a woman of thirty. it had been her misfortune to look older than she was from a very early period in her life. she had not loved her husband when she married him, nor had she ever felt for him that love which in most womanly natures grows out of custom and duty. it was not in her nature to love. her passionate idolatry of her boyish cousin had been the one solitary affection that had ever held a place in her cold heart. all the fire of her nature had been concentrated in this one folly, this one passion, against which only heroic endurance had been able to prevail. mrs. marchmont felt no grief, therefore, at her husband's loss. she had felt the shock of his death, and the painful oppression of his dead presence in the house. she had faithfully nursed him through many illnesses; she had patiently tended him until the very last; she had done her duty. and now, for the first time, she had leisure to contemplate the past, and look forward to the future. so far this woman had fulfilled the task which she had taken upon herself; she had been true and loyal to the vow she had made before god's altar, in the church of swampington. and now she was free. no, not quite free; for she had a heavy burden yet upon her hands; the solemn charge of her stepdaughter during the girl's minority. but as regarded marriage-vows and marriage-ties she was free. she was free to love edward arundel again. the thought came upon her with a rush and an impetus, wild and strong as the sudden uprising of a whirlwind, or the loosing of a mountain-torrent that had long been bound. she was a wife no longer. it was no longer a sin to think of the bright-haired soldier, fighting far away. she was free. when edward returned to england by-and-by, he would find her free once more; a young widow,--young, handsome, and rich enough to be no bad prize for a younger son. he would come back and find her thus; and then--and then--! she flung one of her clenched hands up into the air, and struck it on her forehead in a sudden paroxysm of rage. what then? would he love her any better then than he had loved her two years ago? no; he would treat her with the same cruel indifference, the same commonplace cousinly friendliness, with which he had mocked and tortured her before. oh, shame! oh, misery! was there no pride in women, that there could be one among them fallen so low as her; ready to grovel at the feet of a fair-haired boy, and to cry aloud, "love me, love me! or be pitiful, and strike me dead!" better that john marchmont should have lived for ever, better that edward arundel should die far away upon some eastern battle-field, before some affghan fortress, than that he should return to inflict upon her the same tortures she had writhed under two years before. "god grant that he may never come back!" she thought. "god grant that he may marry out yonder, and live and die there! god keep him from me for ever and far ever in this weary world!" and yet in the next moment, with the inconsistency which is the chief attribute of that madness we call love, her thoughts wandered away dreamily into visions of the future; and she pictured edward arundel back again at swampington, at marchmont towers. her soul burst its bonds and expanded, and drank in the sunlight of gladness: and she dared to think that it _might_ be so--there _might_ be happiness yet for her. he had been a boy when he went back to india--careless, indifferent. he would return a man,--graver, wiser, altogether changed: changed so much as to love her perhaps. she knew that, at least, no rival had shut her cousin's heart against her, when she and he had been together two years before. he had been indifferent to her; but he had been indifferent to others also. there was comfort in that recollection. she had questioned him very sharply as to his life in india and at dangerfield, and she had discovered no trace of any tender memory of the past, no hint of a cherished dream of the future. his heart had been empty: a boyish, unawakened heart: a temple in which the niches were untenanted, the shrine unhallowed by the presence of a goddess. olivia marchmont thought of these things. for a few moments, if only for a few moments, she abandoned herself to such thoughts as these. she let herself go. she released the stern hold which it was her habit to keep upon her own mind; and in those bright moments of delicious abandonment the glorious sunshine streamed in upon her narrow life, and visions of a possible future expanded before her like a fairy panorama, stretching away into realms of vague light and splendour. it was _possible_; it was at least possible. but, again, in the next moment the magical panorama collapsed and shrivelled away, like a burning scroll; the fairy picture, whose gorgeous colouring she had looked upon with dazzled eyes, almost blinded by its overpowering glory, shrank into a handful of black ashes, and was gone. the woman's strong nature reasserted itself; the iron will rose up, ready to do battle with the foolish heart. "i _will_ not be fooled a second time," she cried. "did i suffer so little when i blotted that image out of my heart? did the destruction of my cruel juggernaut cost me so small an agony that i must needs be ready to elevate the false god again, and crush out my heart once more under the brazen wheels of his chariot? _he will never love me!_" she writhed; this self-sustained and resolute woman writhed in her anguish as she uttered those five words, "he will never love me!" she knew that they were true; that of all the changes that time could bring to pass, it would never bring such a change as that. there was not one element of sympathy between herself and the young soldier; they had not one thought in common. nay, more; there was an absolute antagonism between them, which, in spite of her love, olivia fully recognised. over the gulf that separated them no coincidence of thought or fancy, no sympathetic emotion, ever stretched its electric chain to draw them together in mysterious union. they stood aloof, divided by the width of an intellectual universe. the woman knew this, and hated herself for her folly, scorning alike her love and its object; but her love was not the less because of her scorn. it was a madness, an isolated madness, which stood alone in her soul, and fought for mastery over her better aspirations, her wiser thoughts. we are all familiar with strange stories of wise and great minds which have been ridden by some hobgoblin fancy, some one horrible monomania; a bleeding head upon a dish, a grinning skeleton playing hide-and-seek in the folds of the bed-curtains; some devilry or other before which the master-spirit shrank and dwindled until the body withered and the victim died. had olivia marchmont lived a couple of centuries before, she would have gone straight to the nearest old crone, and would have boldly accused the wretched woman of being the author of her misery. "you harbour a black cat and other noisome vermin, and you prowl about muttering to yourself o' nights" she might have said. "you have been seen to gather herbs, and you make strange and uncanny signs with your palsied old fingers. the black cat is the devil, your colleague; and the rats under your tumble-down roof are his imps, your associates. it is _you_ who have instilled this horrible madness into my soul; for it _could_ not come of itself." and olivia marchmont, being resolute and strong-minded, would not have rested until her tormentor had paid the penalty of her foul work at a stake in the nearest market-place. and indeed some of our madnesses are so mad, some of our follies are so foolish, that we might almost be forgiven if we believed that there was a company of horrible crones meeting somewhere on an invisible brocken, and making incantations for our destruction. take up a newspaper and read its hideous revelations of crime and folly; and it will be scarcely strange if you involuntarily wonder whether witchcraft is a dark fable of the middle ages, or a dreadful truth of the nineteenth century. must not some of these miserable creatures whose stories we read be _possessed_; possessed by eager, relentless demons, who lash and goad them onward, until no black abyss of vice, no hideous gulf of crime, is black or hideous enough to content them? olivia marchmont might have been a good and great woman. she had all the elements of greatness. she had genius, resolution, an indomitable courage, an iron will, perseverance, self-denial, temperance, chastity. but against all these qualities was set a fatal and foolish love for a boy's handsome face and frank and genial manner. if edward arundel had never crossed her path, her unfettered soul might have taken the highest and grandest flight; but, chained down, bound, trammelled by her love for him, she grovelled on the earth like some maimed and wounded eagle, who sees his fellows afar off, high in the purple empyrean, and loathes himself for his impotence. "what do i love him for?" she thought. "is it because he has blue eyes and chestnut hair, with wandering gleams of golden light in it? is it because he has gentlemanly manners, and is easy and pleasant, genial and light-hearted? is it because he has a dashing walk, and the air of a man of fashion? it must be for some of these attributes, surely; for i know nothing more in him. of all the things he has ever said, i can remember nothing--and i remember his smallest words, heaven help me!--that any sensible person could think worth repeating. he is brave, i dare say, and generous; but what of that? he is neither braver nor more generous than other men of his rank and position." she sat lost in such a reverie as this while her dead husband was being carried to the roomy vault set apart for the owners of marchmont towers and their kindred; she was absorbed in some such thoughts as these, when one of the grave, grey-headed old servants brought her a card upon a heavy salver emblazoned with the marchmont arms. olivia took the card almost mechanically. there are some thoughts which carry us a long way from the ordinary occupations of every-day life, and it is not always easy to return to the dull jog-trot routine. the widow passed her left hand across her brow before she looked at the name inscribed upon the card in her right. "mr. paul marchmont." she started as she read the name. paul marchmont! she remembered what her husband had told her of this man. it was not much; for john's feelings on the subject of his cousin had been of so vague a nature that he had shrunk from expounding them to his stern, practical wife. he had told her, therefore, that he did not very much care for paul, and that he wished no intimacy ever to arise between the artist and mary; but he had said nothing more than this. "the gentleman is waiting to see me, i suppose?" mrs. marchmont said. "yes, ma'am. the gentleman came to kemberling by the . train from london, and has driven over here in one of harris's flys." "tell him i will come to him immediately. is he in the drawing-room?" "yes, ma'am." the man bowed and left the room. olivia rose from her chair and lingered by the fireplace with her foot on the fender, her elbow resting on the carved oak chimneypiece. "paul marchmont! he has come to the funeral, i suppose. and he expects to find himself mentioned in the will, i dare say. i think, from what my husband told me, he will be disappointed in that. paul marchmont! if mary were to die unmarried, this man or his sisters would inherit marchmont towers." there was a looking-glass over the mantelpiece; a narrow, oblong glass, in an old-fashioned carved ebony frame, which was inclined forward. olivia looked musingly in this glass, and smoothed the heavy bands of dead-black hair under her cap. "there are people who would call me handsome," she thought, as she looked with a moody frown at her image in the glass; "and yet i have seen edward arundel's eyes wander away from my face, even while i have been talking to him, to watch the swallows skimming by in the sun, or the ivy-leaves flapping against the wall." she turned from the glass with a sigh, and went out into a dusky corridor. the shutters of all the principal rooms and the windows upon the grand staircase were still closed; the wide hall was dark and gloomy, and drops of rain spattered every now and then upon the logs that smouldered on the wide old-fashioned hearth. the misty october morning had heralded a wet day. paul marchmont was sitting in a low easy-chair before a blazing fire in the western drawing-room, the red light full upon his face. it was a handsome face, or perhaps, to speak more exactly, it was one of those faces that are generally called "interesting." the features were very delicate and refined, the pale greyish-blue eyes were shaded by long brown lashes, and the small and rather feminine mouth was overshadowed by a slender auburn moustache, under which the rosy tint of the lips was very visible. but it was paul marchmont's hair which gave a peculiarity to a personal appearance that might otherwise have been in no way out of the common. this hair, fine, silky, and luxuriant, was _white_, although its owner could not have been more than thirty-seven years of age. the uninvited guest rose as olivia marchmont entered the room. "i have the honour of speaking to my cousin's widow?" he said, with a courteous smile. "yes, i am mrs. marchmont." olivia seated herself near the fire. the wet day was cold and cheerless. mrs. marchmont shivered as she extended her long thin hand to the blaze. "and you are doubtless surprised to see me here, mrs. marchmont?" the artist said, leaning upon the back of his chair in the easy attitude of a man who means to make himself at home. "but believe me, that although i never took advantage of a very friendly letter written to me by poor john----" paul marchmont paused for a moment, keeping sharp watch upon the widow's face; but no sorrowful expression, no evidence of emotion, was visible in that inflexible countenance. "although, i repeat, i never availed myself of a sort of general invitation to come and shoot his partridges, or borrow money of him, or take advantage of any of those other little privileges generally claimed by a man's poor relations, it is not to be supposed, my dear mrs. marchmont, that i was altogether forgetful of either marchmont towers or its owner, my cousin. i did not come here, because i am a hard-working man, and the idleness of a country house would have been ruin to me. but i heard sometimes of my cousin from neighbours of his." "neighbours!" repeated olivia, in a tone of surprise. "yes; people near enough to be called neighbours in the country. my sister lives at stanfield. she is married to a surgeon who practises in that delightful town. you know stanfield, of course?" "no, i have never been there. it is five-and-twenty miles from here." "indeed! too far for a drive, then. yes, my sister lives at stanfield. john never knew much of her in his adversity; and therefore may be forgiven if he forgot her in his prosperity. but she did not forget him. we poor relations have excellent memories. the stanfield people have so little to talk about, that it is scarcely any wonder if they are inquisitive about the affairs of the grand country gentry round about them. i heard of john through my sister; i heard of his marriage through her,"--he bowed to olivia as he said this,--"and i wrote immediately to congratulate him upon that happy event,"--he bowed again here;--"and it was through lavinia weston, my sister, that i heard of poor john's death; one day before the announcement appeared in the columns of the 'times.' i am sorry to find that i am too late for the funeral. i could have wished to have paid my cousin the last tribute of esteem that one man can pay another." "you would wish to hear the reading of the will?" olivia said, interrogatively. paul marchmont shrugged his shoulders, with a low, careless laugh; not an indecorous laugh,--nothing that this man did or said ever appeared ill-advised or out of place. the people who disliked him were compelled to acknowledge that they disliked him unreasonably, and very much on the doctor-fell principle; for it was impossible to take objection to either his manners or his actions. "that important legal document can have very little interest for me, my dear mrs. marchmont," he said gaily. "john can have had nothing to leave me. i am too well acquainted with the terms of my grandfather's will to have any mercenary hopes in coming to marchmont towers." he stopped, and looked at olivia's impassible face. "what on earth could have induced this woman to marry my cousin?" he thought. "john could have had very little to leave his widow." he played with the ornaments at his watch-chain, looking reflectively at the fire for some moments. "miss marchmont,--my cousin, mary marchmont, i should say,--bears her loss pretty well, i hope?" olivia shrugged her shoulders. "i am sorry to say that my stepdaughter displays very little christian resignation," she said. and then a spirit within her arose and whispered, with a mocking voice, "what resignation do _you_ show beneath _your_ affliction,--you, who should be so good a christian? how have _you_ learned to school your rebellious heart?" "my cousin is very young," paul marchmont said, presently. "she was fifteen last july." "fifteen! very young to be the owner of marchmont towers and an income of eleven thousand a year," returned the artist. he walked to one of the long windows, and drawing aside the edge of the blind, looked out upon the terrace and the wide flats before the mansion. the rain dripped and splashed upon the stone steps; the rain-drops hung upon the grim adornments of the carved balustrade, soaking into moss-grown escutcheons and half-obliterated coats-of-arms. the weird willows by the pools far away, and a group of poplars near the house, looked gaunt and black against the dismal grey sky. paul marchmont dropped the blind, and turned away from the gloomy landscape with a half-contemptuous gesture. "i don't know that i envy my cousin, after all," he said: "the place is as dreary as tennyson's moated grange." there was the sound of wheels on the carriage-drive before the terrace, and presently a subdued murmur of hushed voices in the hall. mr. richard paulette, and the two medical men who had attended john marchmont, had returned to the towers, for the reading of the will. hubert arundel had returned with them; but the other followers in the funeral train had departed to their several homes. the undertaker and his men had come back to the house by the side-entrance, and were making themselves very comfortable in the servants'-hall after the fulfilment of their mournful duties. the will was to be read in the dining-room; and mr. paulette and the clerk who had accompanied him to marchmont towers were already seated at one end of the long carved-oak table, busy with their papers and pens and ink, assuming an importance the occasion did not require. olivia went out into the hall to speak to her father. "you will find mr. marchmont's solicitor in the dining-room," she said to paul, who was looking at some of the old pictures on the drawing-room walls. a large fire was blazing in the wide grate at the end of the dining-room. the blinds had been drawn up. there was no longer need that the house should be wrapped in darkness. the awful presence had departed; and such light as there was in the gloomy october sky was free to enter the rooms, which the death of one quiet, unobtrusive creature had made for a time desolate. there was no sound in the room but the low voice of the two doctors talking of their late patient in undertones near the fireplace, and the occasional fluttering of the papers under the lawyer's hand. the clerk, who sat respectfully a little way behind his master, and upon the very edge of his ponderous morocco-covered chair, had been wont to give john marchmont his orders, and to lecture him for being tardy with his work a few years before, in the lincoln's inn office. he was wondering now whether he should find himself remembered in the dead man's will, to the extent of a mourning ring or an old-fashioned silver snuff-box. richard paulette looked up as olivia and her father entered the room, followed at a little distance by paul marchmont, who walked at a leisurely pace, looking at the carved doorways and the pictures against the wainscot, and appearing, as he had declared himself, very little concerned in the important business about to be transacted. "we shall want miss marchmont here, if you please," mr. paulette said, as he looked up from his papers. "is it necessary that she should be present?" olivia asked. "very necessary." "but she is ill; she is in bed." "it is most important that she should be here when the will is read. perhaps mr. bolton"--the lawyer looked towards one of the medical men--"will see. he will be able to tell us whether miss marchmont can safely come downstairs." mr. bolton, the swampington surgeon who had attended mary that morning, left the room with olivia. the lawyer rose and warmed his hands at the blaze, talking to hubert arundel and the london physician as he did so. paul marchmont, who had not been introduced to any one, occupied himself entirely with the pictures for a little time; and then, strolling over to the fireplace, fell into conversation with the three gentlemen, contriving, adroitly enough, to let them know who he was. the lawyer looked at him with some interest,--a professional interest, no doubt; for mr. paulette had a copy of old philip marchmont's will in one of the japanned deed-boxes inscribed with poor john's name. he knew that this easy-going, pleasant-mannered, white-haired gentleman was the paul marchmont named in that document, and stood next in succession to mary. mary might die unmarried, and it was as well to be friendly and civil to a man who was at least a possible client. the four gentlemen stood upon the broad turkey hearth-rug for some time, talking of the dead man, the wet weather, the cold autumn, the dearth of partridges, and other very safe topics of conversation. olivia and the swampington doctor were a long time absent; and richard paulette, who stood with his back to the fire, glanced every now and then towards the door. it opened at last, and mary marchmont came into the room, followed by her stepmother. paul marchmont turned at the sound of the opening of that ponderous oaken door, and for the first time saw his second cousin, the young mistress of marchmont towers. he started as he looked at her, though with a scarcely perceptible movement, and a change came over his face. the feminine pinky hue in his cheeks faded suddenly, and left them white. it had been a peculiarity of paul marchmont's, from his boyhood, always to turn pale with every acute emotion. what was the emotion which had now blanched his cheeks? was he thinking, "is _this_ fragile creature the mistress of marchmont towers? is _this_ frail life all that stands between me and eleven thousand a year?" the light which shone out of that feeble earthly tabernacle did indeed seem a frail and fitful flame, likely to be extinguished by any rude breath from the coarse outer world. mary marchmont was deadly pale; black shadows encircled her wistful hazel eyes. her new mourning-dress, with its heavy trimmings of lustreless crape, seemed to hang loose upon her slender figure; her soft brown hair, damp with the water with which her burning forehead had been bathed, fell in straight lank tresses about her shoulders. her eyes were tearless, her mouth terribly compressed. the rigidity of her face betokened the struggle by which her sorrow was repressed. she sat in an easy-chair which olivia indicated to her, and with her hands lying on the white handkerchief in her lap, and her swollen eyelids drooping over her eyes, waited for the reading of her father's will. it would be the last, the very last, she would ever hear of that dear father's words. she remembered this, and was ready to listen attentively; but she remembered nothing else. what was it to her that she was sole heiress of that great mansion, and of eleven thousand a year? she had never in her life thought of the lincolnshire fortune with any reference to herself or her own pleasures; and she thought of it less than ever now. the will was dated february th, , exactly two months after john's marriage. it had been made by the master of marchmont towers without the aid of a lawyer, and was only witnessed by john's housekeeper, and by corson the old valet, a confidential servant who had attended upon mr. marchmont's predecessor. richard paulette began to read; and mary, for the first time since she had taken her seat near the fire, lifted her eyes, and listened breathlessly, with faintly tremulous lips. olivia sat near her stepdaughter; and paul marchmont stood in a careless attitude at one corner of the fireplace, with his shoulders resting against the massive oaken chimneypiece. the dead man's will ran thus: "i john marchmont of marchmont towers declare this to be my last will and testament being persuaded that my end is approaching i feel my dear little daughter mary will be left unprotected by any natural guardian my young friend edward arundel i had hoped when in my poverty would have been a friend and adviser to her if not a protector but her tender years and his position in life must place this now out of the question and i may die before a fond hope which i have long cherished can be realised and which may now never be realised i now desire to make my will more particularly to provide as well as i am permitted for the guardianship and care of my dear little mary during her minority now i will and desire that my wife olivia shall act as guardian adviser and mother to my dear little mary and that she place herself under the charge and guardianship of my wife and as she will be an heiress of very considerable property i would wish her to be guided by the advice of my said wife in the management of her property and particularly in the choice of a husband as my dear little mary will be amply provided for on my death i make no provision for her by this my will but i direct my executrix to present to her a diamond-ring which i wish her to wear in memory of her loving father so that she may always have me in her thoughts and particularly of these my wishes as to her future life until she shall be of age and capable of acting on her own judgment. i also request my executrix to present my young friend edward arundel also with a diamond-ring of the value of at least one hundred guineas as a slight tribute of the regard and esteem which i have ever entertained for him. . . . as to all the property as well real as personal over which i may at the time of my death have any control and capable of claiming or bequeathing i give devise and bequeath to my wife olivia absolutely and i appoint my said wife sole executrix of this my will and guardian of my dear little mary." there were a few very small legacies, including a mourning-ring to the expectant clerk; and this was all. paul marchmont had been quite right; nobody could be less interested than himself in this will. but he was apparently very much interested in john's widow and daughter. he tried to enter into conversation with mary, but the girl's piteous manner seemed to implore him to leave her unmolested; and mr. bolton approached his patient almost immediately after the reading of the will, and in a manner took possession of her. mary was very glad to leave the room once more, and to return to the dim chamber where hester pollard sat at needlework. olivia left her stepdaughter to the care of this humble companion, and went back to the long dining-room, where the gentlemen still hung listlessly over the fire, not knowing very well what to do with themselves. mrs. marchmont could not do less than invite paul to stay a few days at the towers. she was virtually mistress of the house during mary's minority, and on her devolved all the troubles, duties, and responsibilities attendant on such a position. her father was going to stay with her till the end of the week; and he therefore would be able to entertain mr. marchmont. paul unhesitatingly accepted the widow's hospitality. the old place was picturesque and interesting, he said; there were some genuine holbeins in the hall and dining-room, and one good lely in the drawing-room. he would give himself a couple of days' holiday, and go to stanfield by an early train on saturday. "i have not seen my sister for a long time," he said; "her life is dull enough and hard enough, heaven knows, and she will be glad to see me upon my way back to london." olivia bowed. she did not persuade mr. marchmont to extend his visit. the common courtesy she offered him was kept within the narrowest limits. she spent the best part of the time in the dead man's study during paul's two-days' stay, and left the artist almost entirely to her father's companionship. but she was compelled to appear at dinner, and she took her accustomed place at the head of the table. paul therefore had some opportunity of sounding the depths of the strangest nature he had ever tried to fathom. he talked to her very much, listening with unvarying attention to every word she uttered. he watched her--but with no obtrusive gaze--almost incessantly; and when he went away from marchmont towers, without having seen mary since the reading of the will, it was of olivia he thought; it was the recollection of olivia which interested as much as it perplexed him. the few people waiting for the london train looked at the artist as he strolled up and down the quiet platform at kemberling station, with his head bent and his eyebrows slightly contracted. he had a certain easy, careless grace of dress and carriage, which harmonised well with his delicate face, his silken silvery hair, his carefully-trained auburn moustache, and rosy, womanish mouth. he was a romantic-looking man. he was the beau-ideal of the hero in a young lady's novel. he was a man whom schoolgirls would have called "a dear." but it had been better, i think, for any helpless wretch to be in the bull-dog hold of the sturdiest bill sykes ever loosed upon society by right of his ticket-of-leave, than in the power of paul marchmont, artist and teacher of drawing, of charlotte street, fitzroy square. he was thinking of olivia as he walked slowly up and down the bare platform, only separated by a rough wooden paling from the flat open fields on the outskirts of kemberling. "the little girl is as feeble as a pale february butterfly." he thought; "a puff of frosty wind might wither her away. but that woman, that woman--how handsome she is, with her accurate profile and iron mouth; but what a raging fire there is hidden somewhere in her breast, and devouring her beauty by day and night! if i wanted to paint the sleeping scene in _macbeth_, i'd ask her to sit for the thane's wicked wife. perhaps she has some bloody secret as deadly as the murder of a grey-headed duncan upon her conscience, and leaves her bedchamber in the stillness of the night to walk up and down those long oaken corridors at the towers, and wring her hands and wail aloud in her sleep. why did she marry john marchmont? his life gave her little more than a fine house to live in; his death leaves her with nothing but ten or twelve thousand pounds in the three per cents. what is her mystery--what is her secret, i wonder? for she must surely have one." such thoughts as these filled his mind as the train carried him away from the lonely little station, and away from the neighbourhood of marchmont towers, within whose stony walls mary lay in her quiet chamber, weeping for her dead father, and wishing--god knows in what utter singleness of heart!--that she had been buried in the vault by his side. chapter xiii. olivia's despair. the life which mary and her stepmother led at marchmont towers after poor john's death was one of those tranquil and monotonous existences that leave very little to be recorded, except the slow progress of the weeks and months, the gradual changes of the seasons. mary bore her sorrows quietly, as it was her nature to bear all things. the doctor's advice was taken, and olivia removed her stepdaughter to scarborough soon after the funeral. but the change of scene was slow to effect any change in the state of dull despairing sorrow into which the girl had fallen. the sea-breezes brought no colour into her pale cheeks. she obeyed her stepmother's behests unmurmuringly, and wandered wearily by the dreary seashore in the dismal november weather, in search of health and strength. but wherever she went, she carried with her the awful burden of her grief; and in every changing cadence of the low winter winds, in every varying murmur of the moaning waves, she seemed to hear her dead father's funeral dirge. i think that, young as mary marchmont was, this mournful period was the grand crisis of her life. the past, with its one great affection, had been swept away from her, and as yet there was no friendly figure to fill the dismal blank of the future. had any kindly matron, any gentle christian creature been ready to stretch out her arms to the desolate orphan, mary's heart would have melted, and she would have crept to the shelter of that womanly embrace, to nestle there for ever. but there was no one. olivia marchmont obeyed the letter of her husband's solemn appeal, as she had obeyed the letter of those gospel sentences that had been familiar to her from her childhood, but was utterly unable to comprehend its spirit. she accepted the charge intrusted to her. she was unflinching in the performance of her duty; but no one glimmer of the holy light of motherly love and tenderness, the semi-divine compassion of womanhood, ever illumined the dark chambers of her heart. every night she questioned herself upon her knees as to her rigid performance of the level round of duty she had allotted to herself; every night--scrupulous and relentless as the hardest judge who ever pronounced sentence upon a criminal--she took note of her own shortcomings, and acknowledged her deficiencies. but, unhappily, this self-devotion of olivia's pressed no less heavily upon mary than on the widow herself. the more rigidly mrs. marchmont performed the duties which she understood to be laid upon her by her dead husband's last will and testament, the harder became the orphan's life. the weary treadmill of education worked on, when the young student was well-nigh fainting upon every step in that hopeless revolving ladder of knowledge. if olivia, on communing with herself at night, found that the day just done had been too easy for both mistress and pupil, the morrow's allowance of roman emperors and french grammar was made to do penance for yesterday's shortcomings. "this girl has been intrusted to my care, and one of my first duties is to give her a good education," olivia marchmont thought. "she is inclined to be idle; but i must fight against her inclination, whatever trouble the struggle entails upon myself. the harder the battle, the better for me if i am conqueror." it was only thus that olivia marchmont could hope to be a good woman. it was only by the rigid performance of hard duties, the patient practice of tedious rites, that she could hope to attain that eternal crown which simpler christians seem to win so easily. morning and night the widow and her stepdaughter read the bible together; morning and night they knelt side by side to join in the same familiar prayers; yet all these readings and all these prayers failed to bring them any nearer together. no tender sentence of inspiration, not the words of christ himself, ever struck the same chord in these two women's hearts, bringing both into sudden unison. they went to church three times upon every dreary sunday,--dreary from the terrible uniformity which made one day a mechanical repetition of another,--and sat together in the same pew; and there were times when some solemn word, some sublime injunction, seemed to fall with a new meaning upon the orphan girl's heart; but if she looked at her stepmother's face, thinking to see some ray of that sudden light which had newly shone into her own mind reflected _there_, the blank gloom of olivia's countenance seemed like a dead wall, across which no glimmer of radiance ever shone. they went back to marchmont towers in the early spring. people imagined that the young widow would cultivate the society of her husband's old friends, and that morning callers would be welcome at the towers, and the stately dinner-parties would begin again, when mrs. marchmont's year of mourning was over. but it was not so; olivia closed her doors upon almost all society, and devoted herself entirely to the education of her stepdaughter. the gossips of swampington and kemberling, the county gentry who had talked of her piety and patience, her unflinching devotion to the poor of her father's parish, talked now of her self-abnegation, the sacrifices she made for her stepdaughter's sake, the noble manner in which she justified john marchmont's confidence in her goodness. other women would have intrusted the heiress's education to some hired governess, people said; other women would have been upon the look-out for a second husband; other women would have grown weary of the dulness of that lonely lincolnshire mansion, the monotonous society of a girl of sixteen. they were never tired of lauding mrs. marchmont as a model for all stepmothers in time to come. did she sacrifice much, this woman, whose spirit was a raging fire, who had the ambition of a semiramis, the courage of a boadicea, the resolution of a lady macbeth? did she sacrifice much in resigning such provincial gaieties as might have adorned her life,--a few dinner-parties, an occasional county ball, a flirtation with some ponderous landed gentleman or hunting squire? no; these things would very soon have grown odious to her--more odious than the monotony of her empty life, more wearisome even than the perpetual weariness of her own spirit. i said, that when she accepted a new life by becoming the wife of john marchmont, she acted in the spirit of a prisoner, who is glad to exchange his old dungeon for a new one. but, alas! the novelty of the prison-house had very speedily worn off, and that which olivia arundel had been at swampington rectory, olivia marchmont was now in the gaunt country mansion,--a wretched woman, weary of herself and all the world, devoured by a slow-consuming and perpetual fire. this woman was, for two long melancholy years, mary marchmont's sole companion and instructress. i say sole companion advisedly; for the girl was not allowed to become intimate with the younger members of such few county families as still called occasionally at the towers, lest she should become empty-headed and frivolous by their companionship. alas, there was little fear of mary becoming empty-headed! as she grew taller, and more slender, she seemed to get weaker and paler; and her heavy head drooped wearily under the load of knowledge which it had been made to carry, like some poor sickly flower oppressed by the weight of the dew-drops, which would have revivified a hardier blossom. heaven knows to what end mrs. marchmont educated her stepdaughter! poor mary could have told the precise date of any event in universal history, ancient or modern; she could have named the exact latitude and longitude of the remotest island in the least navigable ocean, and might have given an accurate account of the manners and customs of its inhabitants, had she been called upon to do so. she was alarmingly learned upon the subject of tertiary and old red sandstone, and could have told you almost as much as mr. charles kingsley himself about the history of a gravel-pit,--though i doubt if she could have conveyed her information in quite such a pleasant manner; she could have pointed out every star in the broad heavens above lincolnshire, and could have told the history of its discovery; she knew the hardest names that science had given to the familiar field-flowers she met in her daily walks;--yet i cannot say that her conversation was any the more brilliant because of this, or that her spirits grew lighter under the influence of this general mental illumination. but mrs. marchmont did most earnestly believe that this laborious educationary process was one of the duties she owed her stepdaughter; and when, at seventeen years of age, mary emerged from the struggle, laden with such intellectual spoils as i have described above, the widow felt a quiet satisfaction as she contemplated her work, and said to herself, "in this, at least, i have done my duty." amongst all the dreary mass of instruction beneath which her health had very nearly succumbed, the girl had learned one thing that was a source of pleasure to herself; she had learned to become a very brilliant musician. she was not a musical genius, remember; for no such vivid flame as the fire of genius had ever burned in her gentle breast; but all the tenderness of her nature, all the poetry of a hyper-poetical mind, centred in this one accomplishment, and, condemned to perpetual silence in every other tongue, found a new and glorious language here. the girl had been forbidden to read byron and scott; but she was not forbidden to sit at her piano, when the day's toils were over, and the twilight was dusky in her quiet room, playing dreamy melodies by beethoven and mozart, and making her own poetry to mendelssohn's wordless songs. i think her soul must have shrunk and withered away altogether had it not been for this one resource, this one refuge, in which her mind regained its elasticity, springing up, like a trampled flower, into new life and beauty. olivia was well pleased to see the girl sit hour after hour at her piano. she had learned to play well and brilliantly herself, mastering all difficulties with the proud determination which was a part of her strong nature; but she had no special love for music. all things that compose the poetry and beauty of life had been denied to this woman, in common with the tenderness which makes the chief loveliness of womankind. she sat by the piano and listened while mary's slight hands wandered over the keys, carrying the player's soul away into trackless regions of dream-land and beauty; but she heard nothing in the music except so many chords, so many tones and semitones, played in such or such a time. it would have been scarcely natural for mary marchmont, reserved and self-contained though she had been ever since her father's death, to have had no yearning for more genial companionship than that of her stepmother. the girl who had kept watch in her room, by the doctor's suggestion, was the one friend and confidante whom the young mistress of marchmont towers fain would have chosen. but here olivia interposed, sternly forbidding any intimacy between the two girls. hester pollard was the daughter of a small tenant-farmer, and no fit associate for mrs. marchmont's stepdaughter. olivia thought that this taste for obscure company was the fruit of mary's early training--the taint left by those bitter, debasing days of poverty, in which john marchmont and his daughter had lived in some wretched lambeth lodging. "but hester pollard is fond of me, mamma," the girl pleaded; "and i feel so happy at the old farm house! they are all so kind to me when i go there,--hester's father and mother, and little brothers and sisters, you know; and the poultry-yard, and the pigs and horses, and the green pond, with the geese cackling round it, remind me of my aunt's, in berkshire. i went there once with poor papa for a day or two; it was _such_ a change after oakley street." but mrs. marchmont was inflexible upon this point. she would allow her stepdaughter to pay a ceremonial visit now and then to farmer pollard's, and to be entertained with cowslip-wine and pound-cake in the low, old-fashioned parlour, where all the polished mahogany chairs were so shining and slippery that it was a marvel how anybody ever contrived to sit down upon them. olivia allowed such solemn visits as these now and then, and she permitted mary to renew the farmer's lease upon sufficiently advantageous terms, and to make occasional presents to her favourite, hester. but all stolen visits to the farmyard, all evening rambles with the farmer's daughter in the apple orchard at the back of the low white farmhouse, were sternly interdicted; and though mary and hester were friends still, they were fain to be content with a chance meeting once in the course of a dreary interval of months, and a silent pressure of the hand. "you mustn't think that i am proud of my money, hester," mary said to her friend, "or that i forget you now that we see each other so seldom. papa used to let me come to the farm whenever i liked; but papa had seen a great deal of poverty. mamma keeps me almost always at home at my studies; but she is very good to me, and of course i am bound to obey her; papa wished me to obey her." the orphan girl never for a moment forgot the terms of her father's will. _he_ had wished her to obey; what should she do, then, but be obedient? her submission to olivia's lightest wish was only a part of the homage which she paid to that beloved father's memory. it was thus she grew to early womanhood; a child in gentle obedience and docility; a woman by reason of that grave and thoughtful character which had been peculiar to her from her very infancy. it was in a life such as this, narrow, monotonous, joyless, that her seventeenth birthday came and went, scarcely noticed, scarcely remembered, in the dull uniformity of the days which left no track behind them; and mary marchmont was a woman,--a woman with all the tragedy of life before her; infantine in her innocence and inexperience of the world outside marchmont towers. the passage of time had been so long unmarked by any break in its tranquil course, the dull routine of life had been so long undisturbed by change, that i believe the two women thought their lives would go on for ever and ever. mary, at least, had never looked beyond the dull horizon of the present. her habit of castle-building had died out with her father's death. what need had she to build castles, now that he could no longer inhabit them? edward arundel, the bright boy she remembered in oakley street, the dashing young officer who had come to marchmont towers, had dropped back into the chaos of the past. her father had been the keystone in the arch of mary's existence: he was gone, and a mass of chaotic ruins alone remained of the familiar visions which had once beguiled her. the world had ended with john marchmont's death, and his daughter's life since that great sorrow had been at best only a passive endurance of existence. they had heard very little of the young soldier at marchmont towers. now and then a letter from some member of the family at dangerfield had come to the rector of swampington. the warfare was still raging far away in the east, cruel and desperate battles were being fought, and brave englishmen were winning loot and laurels, or perishing under the scimitars of sikhs and affghans, as the case might be. squire arundel's youngest son was not doing less than his duty, the letters said. he had gained his captaincy, and was well spoken of by great soldiers, whose very names were like the sound of the war-trumpet to english ears. olivia heard all this. she sat by her father, sometimes looking over his shoulder at the crumpled letter, as he read aloud to her of her cousin's exploits. the familiar name seemed to be all ablaze with lurid light as the widow's greedy eyes devoured it. how commonplace the letters were! what frivolous nonsense letitia arundel intermingled with the news of her brother!--"you'll be glad to hear that my grey pony has got the better of his lameness. papa gave a hunting-breakfast on tuesday week. lord mountlitchcombe was present; but the hunting-men are very much aggravated about the frost, and i fear we shall have no crocuses. edward has got his captaincy, papa told me to tell you. sir charles napier and major outram have spoken very highly of him; but he--edward, i mean--got a sabre-cut on his left arm, besides a wound on his forehead, and was laid up for nearly a month. i daresay you remember old colonel tollesly, at halburton lodge? he died last november; and has left all his money to----" and the young lady ran on thus, with such gossip as she thought might be pleasing to her uncle; and there were no more tidings of the young soldier, whose life-blood had so nearly been spilt for his country's glory. olivia thought of him as she rode back to marchmont towers. she thought of the sabre-cut upon his arm, and pictured him wounded and bleeding, lying beneath the canvass-shelter of a tent, comfortless, lonely, forsaken. "better for me if he had died," she thought; "better for me if i were to hear of his death to-morrow!" and with the idea the picture of such a calamity arose before her so vividly and hideously distinct, that she thought for one brief moment of agony, "this is not a fancy, it is a presentiment; it is second sight; the thing will occur." she imagined herself going to see her father as she had gone that morning. all would be the same: the low grey garden-wall of the rectory; the ceaseless surging of the sea; the prim servant-maid; the familiar study, with its litter of books and papers; the smell of stale cigar-smoke; the chintz curtains flapping in the open window; the dry leaves fluttering in the garden without. there would be nothing changed except her father's face, which would be a little graver than usual. and then, after a little hesitation--after a brief preamble about the uncertainty of life, the necessity for looking always beyond this world, the horrors of war,--the dreadful words would be upon his lips, when she would read all the hideous truth in his face, and fall prone to the ground, before he could say, "edward arundel is dead!" yes; she felt all the anguish. it would be this--this sudden paralysis of black despair. she tested the strength of her endurance by this imaginary torture,--scarcely imaginary, surely, when it seemed so real,--and asked herself a strange question: "am i strong enough to bear this, or would it be less terrible to go on, suffering for ever--for ever abased and humiliated by the degradation of my love for a man who does not care for me?" so long as john marchmont had lived, this woman would have been true to the terrible victory she had won upon the eve of her bridal. she would have been true to herself and to her marriage-vow; but her husband's death, in setting her free, had cast her back upon the madness of her youth. it was no longer a sin to think of edward arundel. having once suffered this idea to arise in her mind, her idol grew too strong for her, and she thought of him by night and day. yes; she thought of him for ever and ever. the narrow life to which she doomed herself, the self-immolation which she called duty, left her a prey to this one thought. her work was not enough for her. her powerful mind wasted and shrivelled for want of worthy employment. it was like one vast roll of parchment whereon half the wisdom of the world might have been inscribed, but on which was only written over and over again, in maddening repetition, the name of edward arundel. if olivia marchmont could have gone to america, and entered herself amongst the feminine professors of law or medicine,--if she could have turned field-preacher, like simple dinah morris, or set up a printing-press in bloomsbury, or even written a novel,--i think she might have been saved. the superabundant energy of her mind would have found a new object. as it was, she did none of these things. she had only dreamt one dream, and by force of perpetual repetition the dream had become a madness. but the monotonous life was not to go on for ever. the dull, grey, leaden sky was to be illumined by sudden bursts of sunshine, and swept by black thunder-clouds, whose stormy violence was to shake the very universe for these two solitary women. john marchmont had been dead nearly three years. mary's humble friend, the farmer's daughter, had married a young tradesman in the village of kemberling, a mile and a half from the towers. mary was a woman now, and had seen the last of the roman emperors and all the dry-as-dust studies of her early girlhood. she had nothing to do but accompany her stepmother hither and thither amongst the poor cottagers about kemberling and two or three other small parishes within a drive of the towers, "doing good," after olivia's fashion, by line and rule. at home the young lady did what she pleased, sitting for hours together at her piano, or wading through gigantic achievements in the way of embroidery-work. she was even allowed to read novels now, but only such novels as were especially recommended to olivia, who was one of the patronesses of a book-club at swampington: novels in which young ladies fell in love with curates, and didn't marry them: novels in which everybody suffered all manner of misery, and rather liked it: novels in which, if the heroine did marry the man she loved--and this happy conclusion was the exception, and not the rule--the smallpox swept away her beauty, or a fatal accident deprived him of his legs, or eyes, or arms before the wedding-day. the two women went to kemberling church together three times every sunday. it was rather monotonous--the same church, the same rector and curate, the same clerk, the same congregation, the same old organ-tunes and droning voices of lincolnshire charity-children, the same sermons very often. but mary had grown accustomed to monotony. she had ceased to hope or care for anything since her father's death, and was very well contented to be let alone, and allowed to dawdle through a dreary life which was utterly without aim or purpose. she sat opposite her stepmother on one particular afternoon in the state-pew at kemberling, which was lined with faded red baize, and raised a little above the pews of meaner worshippers; she was sitting with her listless hands lying in her lap, looking thoughtfully at her stepmother's stony face, and listening to the dull droning of the rector's voice above her head. it was a sunny afternoon in early june, and the church was bright with a warm yellow radiance; one of the old diamond-paned windows was open, and the tinkling of a sheep-bell far away in the distance, and the hum of bees in the churchyard, sounded pleasantly in the quiet of the hot atmosphere. the young mistress of marchmont towers felt the drowsy influence of that tranquil summer weather creeping stealthily upon her. the heavy eyelids drooped over her soft brown eyes, those wistful eyes which had so long looked wearily out upon a world in which there seemed so little joy. the rector's sermon was a very long one this warm afternoon, and there was a low sound of snoring somewhere in one of the shadowy and sheltered pews beneath the galleries. mary tried very hard to keep herself awake. mrs. marchmont had frowned darkly at her once or twice already, for to fall asleep in church was a dire iniquity in olivia's rigid creed; but the drowsiness was not easily to be conquered, and the girl was sinking into a peaceful slumber in spite of her stepmother's menacing frowns, when the sound of a sharp footfall on one of the gravel pathways in the churchyard aroused her attention. heaven knows why she should have been awoke out of her sleep by the sound of that step. it was different, perhaps, to the footsteps of the kemberling congregation. the brisk, sharp sound of the tread striking lightly but firmly on the gravel was not compatible with the shuffling gait of the tradespeople and farmers' men who formed the greater part of the worshippers at that quiet lincolnshire church. again, it would have been a monstrous sin in that tranquil place for any one member of the congregation to disturb the devotions of the rest by entering at such a time as this. it was a stranger, then, evidently. what did it matter? miss marchmont scarcely cared to lift her eyelids to see who or what the stranger was; but the intruder let in such a flood of june sunshine when he pushed open the ponderous oaken door under the church-porch, that she was dazzled by that sudden burst of light, and involuntarily opened her eyes. the stranger let the door swing softly to behind him, and stood beneath the shadow of the porch, not caring to advance any further, or to disturb the congregation by his presence. mary could not see him very plainly at first. she could only dimly define the outline of his tall figure, the waving masses of chestnut hair tinged with gleams of gold; but little by little his face seemed to grow out of the shadow, until she saw it all,--the handsome patrician features, the luminous blue eyes, the amber moustache,--the face which, in oakley street eight years ago, she had elected as her type of all manly perfection, her ideal of heroic grace. yes; it was edward arundel. her eyes lighted up with an unwonted rapture as she looked at him; her lips parted; and her breath came in faint gasps. all the monotonous years, the terrible agonies of sorrow, dropped away into the past; and mary marchmont was conscious of nothing except the unutterable happiness of the present. the one friend of her childhood had come back. the one link, the almost forgotten link, that bound her to every day-dream of those foolish early days, was united once more by the presence of the young soldier. all that happy time, nearly five years ago,--that happy time in which the tennis-court had been built, and the boat-house by the river restored,--those sunny autumn days before her father's second marriage,--returned to her. there was pleasure and joy in the world, after all; and then the memory of her father came back to her mind, and her eyes filled with tears. how sorry edward would be to see his old friend's empty place in the western drawing-room; how sorry for her, and for her loss! olivia marchmont saw the change in her stepdaughter's face, and looked at her with stern amazement. but, after the first shock of that delicious surprise, mary's training asserted itself. she folded her hands,--they trembled a little, but olivia did not see that,--and waited patiently, with her eyes cast down and a faint flush lighting up her pale cheeks, until the sermon was finished, and the congregation began to disperse. she was not impatient. she felt as if she could have waited thus peacefully and contentedly for ever, knowing that the only friend she had on earth was near her. olivia was slow to leave her pew; but at last she opened the door and went out into the quiet aisle, followed by mary, out under the shadowy porch and into the gravel-walk in the churchyard, where edward arundel was waiting for the two ladies. john marchmont's widow uttered no cry of surprise when she saw her cousin standing a little way apart from the slowly-dispersing kemberling congregation. her dark face faded a little, and her heart seemed to stop its pulsation suddenly, as if she had been turned into stone; but this was only for a moment. she held out her hand to mr. arundel in the next instant, and bade him welcome to lincolnshire. "i did not know you were in england," she said. "scarcely any one knows it yet," the young man answered; "and i have not even been home. i came to marchmont towers at once." he turned from his cousin to mary, who was standing a little behind her stepmother. "dear polly," he said, taking both her hands in his, "i was so sorry for you, when i heard----" he stopped, for he saw the tears welling up to her eyes. it was not his allusion to her father's death that had distressed her. he had called her polly, the old familiar name, which she had never heard since that dead father's lips had last spoken it. the carriage was waiting at the gate of the churchyard, and edward arundel went back to marchmont towers with the two ladies. he had reached the house a quarter of an hour after they had left it for afternoon church, and had walked over to kemberling. "i was so anxious to see you, polly," he said, "after all this long time, that i had no patience to wait until you and livy came back from church." olivia started as the young man said this. it was mary marchmont whom he had come to see, then--not herself. was _she_ never to be anything? was she to be for ever insulted by this humiliating indifference? a dark flush came over her face, as she drew her head up with the air of an offended empress, and looked angrily at her cousin. alas! he did not even see that indignant glance. he was bending over mary, telling her, in a low tender voice, of the grief he had felt at learning the news of her father's death. olivia marchmont looked with an eager, scrutinising gaze at her stepdaughter. could it be possible that edward arundel might ever come to love this girl? _could_ such a thing be possible? a hideous depth of horror and confusion seemed to open before her with the thought. in all the past, amongst all things she had imagined, amongst all the calamities she had pictured to herself, she had never thought of anything like this. would such a thing ever come to pass? would she ever grow to hate this girl--this girl, who had been intrusted to her by her dead husband--with the most terrible hatred that one woman can feel towards another? in the next moment she was angry with herself for the abject folly of this new terror. she had never yet learned to think of mary as a woman. she had never thought of her otherwise than as the pale childlike girl who had come to her meekly, day after day, to recite difficult lessons, standing in a submissive attitude before her, and rendering obedience to her in all things. was it likely, was it possible, that this pale-faced girl would enter into the lists against her in the great battle of her life? was it likely that she was to find her adversary and her conqueror here, in the meek child who had been committed to her charge? she watched her stepdaughter's face with a jealous, hungry gaze. was it beautiful? no! the features were delicate; the brown eyes soft and dovelike, almost lovely, now that they were irradiated by a new light, as they looked shyly up at edward arundel. but the girl's face was wan and colourless. it lacked the splendour of beauty. it was only after you had looked at mary for a very long time that you began to think her rather pretty. the five years during which edward arundel had been away had made little alteration in him. he was rather taller, perhaps; his amber moustache thicker; his manner more dashing than of old. the mark of a sabre-cut under the clustering chestnut curls upon the temple gave him a certain soldierly dignity. he seemed a man of the world now, and mary marchmont was rather afraid of him. he was so different to the lincolnshire squires, the bashful younger sons who were to be educated for the church: he was so dashing, so elegant, so splendid! from the waving grace of his hair to the tip of the polished boot peeping out of his well-cut trouser (there were no pegtops in , and it was _le genre_ to show very little of the boot), he was a creature to be wondered at, to be almost reverenced, mary thought. she could not help admiring the cut of his coat, the easy _nonchalance_ of his manner, the waxed ends of his curved moustache, the dangling toys of gold and enamel that jingled at his watch-chain, the waves of perfume that floated away from his cambric handkerchief. she was childish enough to worship all these external attributes in her hero. "shall i invite him to marchmont towers?" olivia thought; and while she was deliberating upon this question, mary marchmont cried out, "you will stop at the towers, won't you, mr. arundel, as you did when poor papa was alive?" "most decidedly, miss marchmont," the young man answered. "i mean to throw myself upon your hospitality as confidingly as i did a long time ago in oakley street, when you gave me hot rolls for my breakfast." mary laughed aloud--perhaps for the first time since her father's death. olivia bit her lip. she was of so little account, then, she thought, that they did not care to consult her. a gloomy shadow spread itself over her face. already, already she began to hate this pale-faced, childish orphan girl, who seemed to be transformed into a new being under the spell of edward arundel's presence. but she made no attempt to prevent his stopping at the towers, though a word from her would have effectually hindered his coming. a dull torpor of despair took possession of her; a black apprehension paralysed her mind. she felt that a pit of horror was opening before her ignorant feet. all that she had suffered was as nothing to what she was about to suffer. let it be, then! what could she do to keep this torture away from her? let it come, since it seemed that it must come in some shape or other. she thought all this, while she sat back in a corner of the carriage watching the two faces opposite to her, as edward and mary, seated with their backs to the horses, talked together in low confidential tones, which scarcely reached her ear. she thought all this during the short drive between kemberling and marchmont towers; and when the carriage drew up before the low tudor portico, the dark shadow had settled on her face. her mind was made up. let edward arundel come; let the worst come. she had struggled; she had tried to do her duty; she had striven to be good. but her destiny was stronger than herself, and had brought this young soldier over land and sea, safe out of every danger, rescued from every peril, to be her destruction. i think that in this crisis of her life the last faint ray of christian light faded out of this lost woman's soul, leaving utter darkness and desolation. the old landmarks, dimly descried in the weary desert, sank for ever down into the quicksands, and she was left alone,--alone with her despair. her jealous soul prophesied the evil which she dreaded. this man, whose indifference to her was almost an insult, would fall in love with mary marchmont,--with mary marchmont, whose eyes lit up into new beauty under the glances of his, whose pale face blushed into faint bloom as he talked to her. the girl's undisguised admiration would flatter the young man's vanity, and he would fall in love with her out of very frivolity and weakness of purpose. "he is weak and vain, and foolish and frivolous, i daresay," olivia thought; "and if i were to fling myself upon my knees at his feet, and tell him that i loved him, he would be flattered and grateful, and would be ready to return my affection. if i could tell him what this girl tells him in every look and word, he would be as pleased with me as he is with her." her lip curled with unutterable scorn as she thought this. she was so despicable to herself by the deep humiliation of her wasted love, that the object of that foolish passion seemed despicable also. she was for ever weighing edward arundel against all the tortures she had endured for his sake, and for ever finding him wanting. he must have been a demigod if his perfections could have outweighed so much misery; and for this reason she was unjust to her cousin, and could not accept him for that which he really was,--a generous-hearted, candid, honourable young man (not a great man or a wonderful man),--a brave and honest-minded soldier, very well worthy of a good woman's love. * * * * * mr. arundel stayed at the towers, occupying the room which had been his in john marchmont's lifetime; and a new existence began for mary. the young man was delighted with his old friend's daughter. among all the calcutta belles whom he had danced with at government-house balls and flirted with upon the indian racecourse, he could remember no one as fascinating as this girl, who seemed as childlike now, in her early womanhood, as she had been womanly while she was a child. her naïve tenderness for himself bewitched and enraptured him. who could have avoided being charmed by that pure and innocent affection, which was as freely given by the girl of eighteen as it had been by the child, and was unchanged in character by the lapse of years? the young officer had been so much admired and caressed in calcutta, that perhaps, by reason of his successes, he had returned to england heart-whole; and he abandoned himself, without any _arrière-pensée_, to the quiet happiness which he felt in mary marchmont's society. i do not say that he was intoxicated by her beauty, which was by no means of the intoxicating order, or that he was madly in love with her. the gentle fascination of her society crept upon him before he was aware of its influence. he had never taken the trouble to examine his own feelings; they were disengaged,--as free as butterflies to settle upon which flower might seem the fairest; and he had therefore no need to put himself under a course of rigorous self-examination. as yet he believed that the pleasure he now felt in mary's society was the same order of enjoyment he had experienced five years before, when he had taught her chess, and promised her long rambles by the seashore. they had no long rambles now in solitary lanes and under flowering hedgerows beside the waving green corn. olivia watched them with untiring eyes. the tortures to which a jealous woman may condemn herself are not much greater than those she can inflict upon others. mrs. marchmont took good care that her ward and her cousin were not _too_ happy. wherever they went, she went also; whenever they spoke, she listened; whatever arrangement was most likely to please them was opposed by her. edward was not coxcomb enough to have any suspicion of the reason of this conduct on his cousin's part. he only smiled and shrugged his shoulders; and attributed her watchfulness to an overstrained sense of her responsibility, and the necessity of _surveillance_. "does she think me such a villain and a traitor," he thought, "that she fears to leave me alone with my dead friend's orphan daughter, lest i should whisper corruption into her innocent ear? how little these good women know of us, after all! what vulgar suspicions and narrow-minded fears influence them against us! are they honourable and honest towards one another, i wonder, that they can entertain such pitiful doubts of our honour and honesty?" so, hour after hour, and day after day, olivia marchmont kept watch and ward over edward and mary. it seems strange that love could blossom in such an atmosphere; it seems strange that the cruel gaze of those hard grey eyes did not chill the two innocent hearts, and prevent their free expansion. but it was not so; the egotism of love was all-omnipotent. neither edward nor mary was conscious of the evil light in the glance that so often rested upon them. the universe narrowed itself to the one spot of earth upon which these two stood side by side. edward arundel had been more than a month at marchmont towers when olivia went, upon a hot july evening, to swampington, on a brief visit to the rector,--a visit of duty. she would doubtless have taken mary marchmont with her; but the girl had been suffering from a violent headache throughout the burning summer day, and had kept her room. edward arundel had gone out early in the morning upon a fishing excursion to a famous trout-stream seven or eight miles from the towers, and was not likely to return until after nightfall. there was no chance, therefore, of a meeting between mary and the young officer, olivia thought--no chance of any confidential talk which she would not be by to hear. did edward arundel love the pale-faced girl, who revealed her devotion to him with such childlike unconsciousness? olivia marchmont had not been able to answer that question. she had sounded the young man several times upon his feelings towards her stepdaughter; but he had met her hints and insinuations with perfect frankness, declaring that mary seemed as much a child to him now as she had appeared nearly nine years before in oakley street, and that the pleasure he took in her society was only such as he might have felt in that of any innocent and confiding child. "her simplicity is so bewitching, you know, livy," he said; "she looks up in my face, and trusts me with all her little secrets, and tells me her dreams about her dead father, and all her foolish, innocent fancies, as confidingly as if i were some playfellow of her own age and sex. she's so refreshing after the artificial belles of a calcutta ballroom, with their stereotyped fascinations and their complete manual of flirtation, the same for ever and ever. she is such a pretty little spontaneous darling, with her soft, shy, brown eyes, and her low voice, which always sounds to me like the cooing of the doves in the poultry-yard." i think that olivia, in the depth of her gloomy despair, took some comfort from such speeches as these. was this frank expression of regard for mary marchmont a token of _love_? no; not as the widow understood the stormy madness. love to her had been a dark and terrible passion, a thing to be concealed, as monomaniacs have sometimes contrived to keep the secret of their mania, until it burst forth at last, fatal and irrepressible, in some direful work of wreck and ruin. so olivia marchmont took an early dinner alone, and drove away from the towers at four o'clock on a blazing summer afternoon, more at peace perhaps than she had been since edward arundel's coming. she paid her dutiful visit to her father, sat with him for some time, talked to the two old servants who waited upon him, walked two or three times up and down the neglected garden, and then drove back to the towers. the first object upon which her eyes fell as she entered the hall was edward arundel's fishing-tackle lying in disorder upon an oaken bench near the broad arched door that opened out into the quadrangle. an angry flush mounted to her face as she turned upon the servant near her. "mr. arundel has come home?" she said. "yes, ma'am, he came in half an hour ago; but he went out again almost directly with miss marchmont." "indeed! i thought miss marchmont was in her room?" "no, ma'am; she came down to the drawing-room about an hour after you left. her head was better, ma'am, she said." "and she went out with mr. arundel? do you know which way they went?" "yes, ma'am; i heard mr. arundel say he wanted to look at the old boat-house by the river." "and they have gone there?" "i think so, ma'am." "very good; i will go down to them. miss marchmont must not stop out in the night-air. the dew is falling already." the door leading into the quadrangle was open; and olivia swept across the broad threshold, haughty and self-possessed, very stately-looking in her long black garments. she still wore mourning for her dead husband. what inducement had she ever had to cast off that sombre attire; what need had she to trick herself out in gay colours? what loving eyes would be charmed by her splendour? she went out of the door, across the quadrangle, under a stone archway, and into the low stunted wood, which was gloomy even in the summer-time. the setting sun was shining upon the western front of the towers; but here all seemed cold and desolate. the damp mists were rising from the sodden ground beneath the tree; the frogs were croaking down by the river-side. with her small white teeth set, and her breath coming in fitful gasps, olivia marchmont hurried to the water's edge, winding in and out between the trees, tearing her black dress amongst the brambles, scorning all beaten paths, heedless where she trod, so long as she made her way speedily to the spot she wanted to reach. at last the black sluggish river and the old boat-house came in sight, between a long vista of ugly distorted trunks and gnarled branches of pollard oak and willow. the building was dreary and dilapidated-looking, for the improvements commenced by edward arundel five years ago had never been fully carried out; but it was sufficiently substantial, and bore no traces of positive decay. down by the water's edge there was a great cavernous recess for the shelter of the boats, and above this there was a pavilion, built of brick and stone, containing two decent-sized chambers, with latticed windows overlooking the river. a flight of stone steps with an iron balustrade led up to the door of this pavilion, which was supported upon the solid side-walls of the boat-house below. in the stillness of the summer twilight olivia heard the voices of those whom she came to seek. they were standing down by the edge of the water, upon a narrow pathway that ran along by the sedgy brink of the river, and only a few paces from the pavilion. the door of the boat-house was open; a long-disused wherry lay rotting upon the damp and mossy flags. olivia crept into the shadowy recess. the door that faced the river had fallen from its rusty hinges, and the slimy woodwork lay in ruins upon the shore. sheltered by the stone archway that had once been closed by this door, olivia listened to the voices beside the still water. mary marchmont was standing close to the river's edge; edward stood beside her, leaning against the trunk of a willow that hung over the water. "my childish darling," the young man murmured, as if in reply to something his companion had said, "and so you think, because you are simple-minded and innocent, i am not to love you. it is your innocence i love, polly dear,--let me call you polly, as i used five years ago,--and i wouldn't have you otherwise for all the world. do you know that sometimes i am almost sorry i ever came back to marchmont towers?" "sorry you came back?" cried mary, in a tone of alarm. "oh, why do you say that, mr. arundel?" "because you are heiress to eleven thousand a year, mary, and the moated grange behind us; and this dreary wood, and the river,--the river is yours, i daresay, miss marchmont;--and i wish you joy of the possession of so much sluggish water and so many square miles of swamp and fen." "but what then?" mary asked wonderingly. "what then? do you know, polly darling, that if i ask you to marry me people will call me a fortune-hunter, and declare that i came to marchmont towers bent upon stealing its heiress's innocent heart, before she had learned the value of the estate that must go along with it? god knows they'd wrong me, polly, as cruelly as ever an honest man was wronged; for, so long as i have money to pay my tailor and tobacconist,--and i've more than enough for both of them,--i want nothing further of the world's wealth. what should i do with all this swamp and fen, miss marchmont--with all that horrible complication of expired leases to be renewed, and income-taxes to be appealed against, that rich people have to endure? if you were not rich, polly, i----" he stopped and laughed, striking the toe of his boot amongst the weeds, and knocking the pebbles into the water. the woman crouching in the shadow of the archway listened with whitened cheeks and glaring eyes; listened as she might have listened to the sentence of her death, drinking in every syllable, in her ravenous desire to lose no breath that told her of her anguish. "if i were not rich!" murmured mary; "what if i were not rich?" "i should tell you how dearly i love you, polly, and ask you to be my wife by-and-by." the girl looked up at him for a few moments in silence, shyly at first, and then more boldly, with a beautiful light kindling in her eyes. "i love you dearly too, mr. arundel," she said at last; "and i would rather you had my money than any one else in the world; and there was something in papa's will that made me think--" "there was something that made you think he would wish this, polly," cried the young man, clasping the trembling little figure to his breast. "mr. paulette sent me a copy of the will, polly, when he sent my diamond-ring; and i think there were some words in it that hinted at such a wish. your father said he left me this legacy, darling,--i have his letter still,--the legacy of a helpless girl. god knows i will try to be worthy of such a trust, mary dearest; god knows i will be faithful to my promise, made nine years ago." the woman listening in the dark archway sank down upon the damp flags at her feet, amongst the slimy rotten wood and rusty iron nails and broken bolts and hinges. she sat there for a long time, not unconscious, but quite motionless, her white face leaning against the moss-grown arch, staring blankly out of the black shadows. she sat there and listened, while the lovers talked in low tender murmurs of the sorrowful past and of the unknown future; that beautiful untrodden region, in which they were to go hand in hand through all the long years of quiet happiness between the present moment and the grave. she sat and listened till the moonlight faintly shimmered upon the water, and the footsteps of the lovers died away upon the narrow pathway by which they went back to the house. olivia marchmont did not move until an hour after they had gone. then she raised herself with an effort, and walked with stiffened limbs slowly and painfully to the house, and to her own room, where she locked her door, and flung herself upon the ground in the darkness. mary came to her to ask why she did not come to the drawing-room, and mrs. marchmont answered, with a hoarse voice, that she was ill, and wished to be alone. neither mary, nor the old woman-servant who had been olivia's nurse long ago, and who had some little influence over her, could get any other answer than this. chapter xiv. driven away. mary marchmont and edward arundel were happy. they were happy; and how should they guess the tortures of that desperate woman, whose benighted soul was plunged in a black gulf of horror by reason of their innocent love? how should these two--very children in their ignorance of all stormy passions, all direful emotions--know that in the darkened chamber where olivia marchmont lay, suffering under some vague illness, for which the swampington doctor was fain to prescribe quinine, in utter unconsciousness as to the real nature of the disease which he was called upon to cure,--how should they know that in that gloomy chamber a wicked heart was abandoning itself to all the devils that had so long held patient watch for this day? yes; the struggle was over. olivia marchmont flung aside the cross she had borne in dull, mechanical obedience, rather than in christian love and truth. better to have been sorrowful magdalene, forgiven for her love and tears, than this cold, haughty, stainless woman, who had never been able to learn the sublime lessons which so many sinners have taken meekly to heart. the religion which was wanting in the vital principle of christianity, the faith which showed itself only in dogged obedience, failed this woman in the hour of her agony. her pride arose; the defiant spirit of the fallen angel asserted its gloomy grandeur. "what have i done that i should suffer like this?" she thought. "what am i that an empty-headed soldier should despise me, and that i should go mad because of his indifference? is this the recompense for my long years of obedience? is this the reward heaven bestows upon me for my life of duty!" she remembered the histories of other women,--women who had gone their own way and had been happy; and a darker question arose in her mind; almost the question which job asked in his agony. "is there neither truth nor justice in the dealings of god?" she thought. "is it useless to be obedient and submissive, patient and untiring? has all my life been a great mistake, which is to end in confusion and despair?" and then she pictured to herself the life that might have been hers if edward arundel had loved her. how good she would have been! the hardness of her iron nature would have teen melted and subdued. by force of her love and tenderness for him, she would have learned to be loving and tender to others. her wealth of affection for him would have overflowed in gentleness and consideration for every creature in the universe. the lurking bitterness which had lain hidden in her heart ever since she had first loved edward arundel, and first discovered his indifference to her; and the poisonous envy of happier women, who had loved and were beloved,--would have been blotted away. her whole nature would have undergone a wondrous transfiguration, purified and exalted by the strength of her affection. all this might have come to pass if he had loved her,--if he had only loved her. but a pale-faced child had come between her and this redemption; and there was nothing left for her but despair. nothing but despair? yes; perhaps something further,--revenge. but this last idea took no tangible shape. she only knew that, in the black darkness of the gulf into which her soul had gone down, there was, far away somewhere, one ray of lurid light. she only knew this as yet, and that she hated mary marchmont with a mad and wicked hatred. if she could have thought meanly of edward arundel,--if she could have believed him to be actuated by mercenary motives in his choice of the orphan girl,--she might have taken some comfort from the thought of his unworthiness, and of mary's probable sorrow in the days to come. but she _could_ not think this. little as the young soldier had said in the summer twilight beside the river, there had been that in his tones and looks which had convinced the wretched watcher of his truth. mary might have been deceived by the shallowest pretender; but olivia's eyes devoured every glance; olivia's greedy ears drank in every tone; and she _knew_ that edward arundel loved her stepdaughter. she knew this, and she hated mary marchmont. what had she done, this girl, who had never known what it was to fight a battle with her own rebellious heart? what had she done, that all this wealth of love and happiness should drop into her lap unsought,--comparatively unvalued, perhaps? john marchmont's widow lay in her darkened chamber thinking over these things; no longer fighting the battle with her own heart, but utterly abandoning herself to her desperation,--reckless, hardened, impenitent. edward arundel could not very well remain at the towers while the reputed illness of his hostess kept her to her room. he went over to swampington, therefore, upon a dutiful visit to his uncle; but rode to the towers every day to inquire very particularly after his cousin's progress, and to dawdle on the sunny western terrace with mary marchmont. their innocent happiness needs little description. edward arundel retained a good deal of that boyish chivalry which had made him so eager to become the little girl's champion in the days gone by. contact with the world had not much sullied the freshness of the young man's spirit. he loved his innocent, childish companion with the purest and truest devotion; and he was proud of the recollection that in the day of his poverty john marchmont had chosen _him_ as the future shelterer of this tender blossom. "you must never grow any older or more womanly, polly," he said sometimes to the young mistress of marchmont towers. "remember that i always love you best when i think of you as the little girl in the shabby pinafore, who poured out my tea for me one bleak december morning in oakley street." they talked a great deal of john marchmont. it was such a happiness to mary to be able to talk unreservedly of her father to some one who had loved and comprehended him. "my stepmamma was very good to poor papa, you know, edward," she said, "and of course he was very grateful to her; but i don't think he ever loved her quite as he loved you. you were the friend of his poverty, edward; he never forgot that." once, as they strolled side by side together upon the terrace in the warm summer noontide, mary marchmont put her little hand through her lover's arm, and looked up shyly in his face. "did papa say that, edward?" she whispered; "did he really say that?" "did he really say what, darling?" "that he left me to you as a legacy?" "he did indeed, polly," answered the young man. "i'll bring you the letter to-morrow." and the next day he showed mary marchmont the yellow sheet of letter-paper and the faded writing, which had once been black and wet under her dead father's hand. mary looked through her tears at the old familiar oakley-street address, and the date of the very day upon which edward arundel had breakfasted in the shabby lodging. yes--there were the words: "the legacy of a child's helplessness is the only bequest i can leave to the only friend i have." "and you shall never know what it is to be helpless while i am near you, polly darling," the soldier said, as he refolded his dead friend's epistle. "you may defy your enemies henceforward, mary--if you have any enemies. o, by-the-bye, you have never heard any thing of that paul marchmont, i suppose?" "papa's cousin--mr marchmont the artist?" "yes." "he came to the reading of papa's will." "indeed! and did you see much of him?" "oh, no, very little. i was ill, you know," the girl added, the tears rising to her eyes at the recollection of that bitter time,--"i was ill, and i didn't notice any thing. i know that mr. marchmont talked to me a little; but i can't remember what he said." "and he has never been here since?" "never." edward arundel shrugged his shoulders. this paul marchmont could not be such a designing villain, after all, or surely he would have tried to push his acquaintance with his rich cousin! "i dare say john's suspicion of him was only one of the poor fellow's morbid fancies," he thought. "he was always full of morbid fancies." mrs. marchmont's rooms were in the western front of the house; and through her open windows she heard the fresh young voices of the lovers as they strolled up and down the terrace. the cavalry officer was content to carry a watering-pot full of water, for the refreshment of his young mistress's geraniums in the stone vases on the balustrade, and to do other under-gardener's work for her pleasure. he talked to her of the indian campaign; and she asked a hundred questions about midnight marches and solitary encampments, fainting camels, lurking tigers in the darkness of the jungle, intercepted supplies of provisions, stolen ammunition, and all the other details of the war. olivia arose at last, before the swampington surgeon's saline draughts and quinine mixtures had subdued the fiery light in her eyes, or cooled the raging fever that devoured her. she arose because she could no longer lie still in her desolation knowing that, for two hours in each long summer's day, edward arundel and mary marchmont could be happy together in spite of her. she came down stairs, therefore, and renewed her watch--chaining her stepdaughter to her side, and interposing herself for ever between the lovers. the widow arose from her sick-bed an altered woman, as it appeared to all who knew her. a mad excitement seemed to have taken sudden possession of her. she flung off her mourning garments, and ordered silks and laces, velvets and satins, from a london milliner; she complained of the absence of society, the monotonous dulness of her lincolnshire life; and, to the surprise of every one, sent out cards of invitation for a ball at the towers in honour of edward arundel's return to england. she seemed to be seized with a desire to do something, she scarcely cared what, to disturb the even current of her days. during the brief interval between mrs. marchmont's leaving her room and the evening appointed for the ball, edward arundel found no very convenient opportunity of informing his cousin of the engagement entered into between himself and mary. he had no wish to hurry this disclosure; for there was something in the orphan girl's childishness and innocence that kept all definite ideas of an early marriage very far away from her lover's mind. he wanted to go back to india, and win more laurels, to lay at the feet of the mistress of marchmont towers. he wanted to make a name for himself, which should cause the world to forget that he was a younger son,--a name that the vilest tongue would never dare to blacken with the epithet of fortune-hunter. the young man was silent therefore, waiting for a fitting opportunity in which to speak to mary's stepmother. perhaps he rather dreaded the idea of discussing his attachment with olivia; for she had looked at him with cold angry eyes, and a brow as black as thunder, upon those occasions on which she had sounded him as to his feelings for mary. "she wants poor polly to marry some grandee, i dare say," he thought, "and will do all she can to oppose my suit. but her trust will cease with mary's majority; and i don't want my confiding little darling to marry me until she is old enough to choose for herself, and to choose wisely. she will be one-and-twenty in three years; and what are three years? i would wait as long as jacob for my pet, and serve my fourteen years' apprenticeship under sir charles napier, and be true to her all the time." olivia marchmont hated her stepdaughter. mary was not slow to perceive the change in the widow's manner towards her. it had always been cold, and sometimes severe; but it was now almost abhorrent. the girl shrank appalled from the sinister light in her stepmother's gray eyes, as they followed her unceasingly, dogging her footsteps with a hungry and evil gaze. the gentle girl wondered what she had done to offend her guardian, and then, being unable to think of any possible delinquency by which she might have incurred mrs. marchmont's displeasure, was fain to attribute the change in olivia's manner to the irritation consequent upon her illness, and was thus more gentle and more submissive than of old; enduring cruel looks, returning no answer to bitter speeches, but striving to conciliate the supposed invalid by her sweetness and obedience. but the girl's amiability only irritated the despairing woman. her jealousy fed upon every charm of the rival who had supplanted her. that fatal passion fed upon edward arundel's every look and tone, upon the quiet smile which rested on mary's face as the girl sat over her embroidery, in meek silence, thinking of her lover. the self-tortures which olivia marchmont inflicted upon herself were so horrible to bear, that she turned, with a mad desire for relief, upon those she had the power to torture. day by day, and hour by hour, she contrived to distress the gentle girl, who had so long obeyed her, now by a word, now by a look, but always with that subtle power of aggravation which some women possess in such an eminent degree--until mary marchmont's life became a burden to her, or would have so become, but for that inexpressible happiness, of which her tormentor could not deprive her,--the joy she felt in her knowledge of edward arundel's love. she was very careful to keep the secret of her stepmother's altered manner from the young soldier. olivia was his cousin, and he had said long ago that she was to love her. heaven knows she had tried to do so, and had failed most miserably; but her belief in olivia's goodness was still unshaken. if mrs. marchmont was now irritable, capricious, and even cruel, there was doubtless some good reason for the alteration in her conduct; and it was mary's duty to be patient. the orphan girl had learned to suffer quietly when the great affliction of her father's death had fallen upon her; and she suffered so quietly now, that even her lover failed to perceive any symptoms of her distress. how could she grieve him by telling him of her sorrows, when his very presence brought such unutterable joy to her? so, on the morning of the ball at marchmont towers,--the first entertainment of the kind that had been given in that grim lincolnshire mansion since young arthur marchmont's untimely death,--mary sat in her room, with her old friend farmer pollard's daughter, who was now mrs. jobson, the wife of the most prosperous carpenter in kemberling. hester had come up to the towers to pay a dutiful visit to her young patroness; and upon this particular occasion olivia had not cared to prevent mary and her humble friend spending half an hour together. mrs. marchmont roamed from room to room upon this day, with a perpetual restlessness. edward arundel was to dine at the towers, and was to sleep there after the ball. he was to drive his uncle over from swampington, as the rector had promised to show himself for an hour or two at his daughter's entertainment. mary had met her stepmother several times that morning, in the corridors and on the staircase; but the widow had passed her in silence, with a dark face, and a shivering, almost abhorrent gesture. the bright july day dragged itself out at last, with hideous slowness for the desperate woman, who could not find peace or rest in all those splendid rooms, on all that grassy flat, dry and burning under the blazing summer sun. she had wandered out upon the waste of barren turf, with her head bared to the hot sky, and had loitered here and there by the still pools, looking gloomily at the black tideless water, and wondering what the agony of drowning was like. not that she had any thought of killing herself. no: the idea of death was horrible to her; for after her death edward and mary would be happy. could she ever find rest in the grave, knowing this? could there be any possible extinction that would blot out her jealous fury? surely the fire of her hate--it was no longer love, but hate, that raged in her heart--would defy annihilation, eternal by reason of its intensity. when the dinner-hour came, and edward and his uncle arrived at the towers, olivia marchmont's pale face was lit up with eyes that flamed like fire; but she took her accustomed place very quietly, with her father opposite to her, and mary and edward upon either side. "i'm sure you're ill, livy," the young man said; "you're as pale as death, and your hand is dry and burning. i'm afraid you've not been obedient to the swampington doctor." mrs. marchmont shrugged her shoulders with a short contemptuous laugh. "i am well enough," she said. "who cares whether i am well or ill?" her father looked up at her in mute surprise. the bitterness of her tone startled and alarmed him; but mary never lifted her eyes. it was in such a tone as this that her stepmother had spoken constantly of late. but two or three hours afterwards, when the flats before the house were silvered by the moonlight, and the long ranges of windows glittered with the lamps within, mrs. marchmont emerged from her dressing-room another creature, as it seemed. edward and his uncle were walking up and down the great oaken banqueting-hall, which had been decorated and fitted up as a ballroom for the occasion, when olivia crossed the wide threshold of the chamber. the young officer looked up with an involuntary expression of surprise. in all his acquaintance with his cousin, he had never seen her thus. the gloomy black-robed woman was transformed into a semiramis. she wore a voluminous dress of a deep claret-coloured velvet, that glowed with the warm hues of rich wine in the lamplight. her massive hair was coiled in a knot at the back of her head, and diamonds glittered amidst the thick bands that framed her broad white brow. her stern classical beauty was lit up by the unwonted splendour of her dress, and asserted itself as obviously as if she had said, "am i a woman to be despised for the love of a pale-faced child?" mary marchmont came into the room a few minutes after her stepmother. her lover ran to welcome her, and looked fondly at her simple dress of shadowy white crape, and the pearl circlet that crowned her soft brown hair. the pearls she wore upon this night had been given to her by her father on her fourteenth birthday. olivia watched the young man as he bent over mary marchmont. he wore his uniform to-night for the special gratification of his young mistress, and he was looking down with a tender smile at her childish admiration of the bullion ornaments upon his coat, and the decoration he had won in india. the widow looked from the two lovers to an antique glass upon an ebony bureau in a niche opposite to her, which reflected her own face,--her own face, more beautiful than she had ever seen it before, with a feverish glow of vivid crimson lighting up her hollow cheeks. "i might have been beautiful if he had loved me," she thought; and then she turned to her father, and began to talk to him of his parishioners, the old pensioners upon her bounty, whose little histories were so hatefully familiar to her. once more she made a feeble effort to tread the old hackneyed pathway, which she had toiled upon with such weary feet; but she could not,--she could not. after a few minutes she turned abruptly from the rector, and seated herself in a recess of the window, from which she could see edward and mary. but mrs. marchmont's duties as hostess soon demanded her attention. the county families began to arrive; the sound of carriage-wheels seemed perpetual upon the crisp gravel-drive before the western front; the names of half the great people in lincolnshire were shouted by the old servants in the hall. the band in the music-gallery struck up a quadrille, and edward arundel led the youthful mistress of the mansion to her place in the dance. to olivia that long night seemed all glare and noise and confusion. she did the honours of the ballroom, she received her guests, she meted out due attention to all; for she had been accustomed from her earliest girlhood to the stereotyped round of country society. she neglected no duty; but she did all mechanically, scarcely knowing what she said or did in the feverish tumult of her soul. yet, amidst all the bewilderment of her senses, in all the confusion of her thoughts, two figures were always before her. wherever edward arundel and mary marchmont went, her eyes followed them--her fevered imagination pursued them. once, and once only, in the course of that long night she spoke to her stepdaughter. "how often do you mean to dance with captain arundel, miss marchmont?" she said. but before mary could answer, her stepmother had moved away upon the arm of a portly country squire, and the girl was left in sorrowful wonderment as to the reason of mrs. marchmont's angry tone. edward and mary were standing in one of the deep embayed windows of the banqueting-hall, when the dancers began to disperse, long after supper. the girl had been very happy that evening, in spite of her stepmother's bitter words and disdainful glances. for almost the first time in her life, the young mistress of marchmont towers had felt the contagious influence of other people's happiness. the brilliantly-lighted ballroom, the fluttering dresses of the dancers, the joyous music, the low sound of suppressed laughter, the bright faces which smiled at each other upon every side, were as new as any thing in fairyland to this girl, whose narrow life had been overshadowed by the gloomy figure of her stepmother, for ever interposed between her and the outer world. the young spirit arose and shook off its fetters, fresh and radiant as the butterfly that escapes from its chrysalis. the new light of happiness illumined the orphan's delicate face, until edward arundel began to wonder at her loveliness, as he had wondered once before that night at the fiery splendour of his cousin olivia. "i had no idea that olivia was so handsome, or you so pretty, my darling," he said, as he stood with mary in the embrasure of the window. "you look like titania, the queen of the fairies, polly, with your cloudy draperies and crown of pearls." the window was open, and captain arundel looked wistfully at the broad flagged quadrangle beautified by the light of the full summer moon. he glanced back into the room; it was nearly empty now; and mrs. marchmont was standing near the principal doorway, bidding the last of her guests goodnight. "come into the quadrangle, polly," he said, "and take a turn with me under the colonnade. it was a cloister once, i dare say, in the good old days before harry the eighth was king; and cowled monks have paced up and down under its shadow, muttering mechanical aves and paternosters, as the beads of their rosaries dropped slowly through their shrivelled old fingers. come out into the quadrangle, polly; all the people we know or case about are gone; and we'll go out and walk in the moonlight as true lovers ought." the soldier led his young companion across the threshold of the window, and out into a cloister-like colonnade that ran along one side of the house. the shadows of the gothic pillars were black upon the moonlit flags of the quadrangle, which was as light now as in the day; but a pleasant obscurity reigned in the sheltered colonnade. "i think this little bit of pre-lutheran masonry is the best of all your possessions, polly," the young man said, laughing. "by-and-by, when i come home from india a general,--as i mean to do, miss marchmont, before i ask you to become mrs. arundel,--i shall stroll up and down here in the still summer evenings, smoking my cheroots. you will let me smoke out of doors, won't you, polly? but suppose i should leave some of my limbs on the banks of the sutlej, and come limping home to you with a wooden leg, would you have me then, mary; or would you dismiss me with ignominy from your sweet presence, and shut the doors of your stony mansion upon myself and my calamities? i'm afraid, from your admiration of my gold epaulettes and silk sash, that glory in the abstract would have very little attraction for you." mary marchmont looked up at her lover with widely-opened and wondering eyes, and the clasp of her hand tightened a little upon his arm. "there is nothing that could ever happen to you that would make me love you less _now_," she said naïvely. "i dare say at first i liked you a little because you were handsome, and different to every one else i had ever seen. you were so very handsome, you know," she added apologetically; "but it was not because of that _only_ that i loved you. i loved you because papa told me you were good and generous, and his true friend when he was in cruel need of a friend. yes; you were his friend at school, when your cousin, martin mostyn, and the other pupils sneered at him and ridiculed him. how can i ever forget that, edward? how can i ever love you enough to repay you for that?" in the enthusiasm of her innocent devotion, she lifted her pure young brow, and the soldier bent down and kissed that white throne of all virginal thoughts, as the lovers stood side by side; half in the moonlight, half in the shadow. olivia marchmont came into the embrasure of the open window, and took her place there to watch them. she came again to the torture. from the remotest end of the long banqueting-room she had seen the two figures glide out into the moonlight. she had seen them, and had gone on with her courteous speeches, and had repeated her formula of hospitality, with the fire in her heart devouring and consuming her. she came again, to watch and to listen, and to endure her self-imposed agonies--as mad and foolish in her fatal passion as some besotted wretch who should come willingly to the wheel upon which his limbs had been well-nigh broken, and supplicate for a renewal of the torture. she stood rigid and motionless in the shadow of the arched window, hiding herself, as she had hidden in the dark cavernous recess by the river; she stood and listened to all the childish babble of the lovers as they loitered up and down the vaulted cloister. how she despised them, in the haughty superiority of an intellect which might have planned a revolution, or saved a sinking state! what bitter scorn curled her lip, as their foolish talk fell upon her ear! they talked like florizel and perdita, like romeo and juliet, like paul and virginia; and they talked a great deal of nonsense, no doubt--soft harmonious foolishness, with little more meaning in it than there is in the cooing of doves, but tender and musical, and more than beautiful, to each other's ears. a tigress, famished and desolate, and but lately robbed of her whelps, would not be likely to listen very patiently to the communing of a pair of prosperous ringdoves. olivia marchmont listened with her brain on fire, and the spirit of a murderess raging in her breast. what was she that she should be patient? all the world was lost to her. she was thirty years of age, and she had never yet won the love of any human being. she was thirty years of age, and all the sublime world of affection was a dismal blank for her. from the outer darkness in which she stood, she looked with wild and ignorant yearning into that bright region which her accursed foot had never trodden, and saw mary marchmont wandering hand-in-hand with the only man _she_ could have loved--the only creature who had ever had the power to awake the instinct of womanhood in her soul. she stood and waited until the clock in the quadrangle struck the first quarter after three: the moon was fading out, and the colder light of early morning glimmered in the eastern sky. "i mustn't keep you out here any longer, polly," captain arundel said, pausing near the window. "it's getting cold, my dear, and it's high time the mistress of marchmont should retire to her stony bower. good-night, and god bless you, my darling! i'll stop in the quadrangle and smoke a cheroot before i go to my room. your stepmamma will be wondering what has become of you, mary, and we shall have a lecture upon the proprieties to-morrow; so, once more, good-night." he kissed the fair young brow under the coronal of pearls, stopped to watch mary while she crossed the threshold of the open window, and then strolled away into the flagged court, with his cigar-case in his hand. olivia marchmont stood a few paces from the window when her stepdaughter entered the room, and mary paused involuntarily, terrified by the cruel aspect of the face that frowned upon her: terrified by something that she had never seen before,--the horrible darkness that overshadows the souls of the lost. "mamma!" the girl cried, clasping her hands in sudden affright--"mamma! why do you look at me like that? why have you been so changed to me lately? i cannot tell you how unhappy i have been. mamma, mamma! what have i done to offend you?" olivia marchmont grasped the trembling hands uplifted entreatingly to her, and held them in her own,--held them as if in a vice. she stood thus, with her stepdaughter pinioned in her grasp, and her eyes fixed upon the girl's face. two streams of lurid light seemed to emanate from those dilated gray eyes; two spots of crimson blazed in the widow's hollow cheeks. "_what_ have you done?" she cried. "do you think i have toiled for nothing to do the duty which i promised my dead husband to perform for your sake? has all my care of you been so little, that i am to stand by now and be silent, when i see what you are? do you think that i am blind, or deaf, or besotted; that you defy me and outrage me, day by day, and hour by hour, by your conduct?" "mamma, mamma! what do you mean?" "heaven knows how rigidly you have been educated; how carefully you have been secluded from all society, and sheltered from every influence, lest harm or danger should come to you. i have done my duty, and i wash my hands of you. the debasing taint of your mother's low breeding reveals itself in your every action. you run after my cousin edward arundel, and advertise your admiration of him, to himself, and every creature who knows you. you fling yourself into his arms, and offer him yourself and your fortune: and in your low cunning you try to keep the secret from me, your protectress and guardian, appointed by the dead father whom you pretend to have loved so dearly." olivia marchmont still held her stepdaughter's wrists in her iron grasp. the girl stared wildly at her with her trembling lips apart. she began to think that the widow had gone mad. "i blush for you--i am ashamed of you!" cried olivia. it seemed as if the torrent of her words burst forth almost in spite of herself. "there is not a village girl in kemberling, there is not a scullerymaid in this house, who would have behaved as you have done. i have watched you, mary marchmont, remember, and i know all. i know your wanderings down by the river-side. i heard you--yes, by the heaven above me!--i heard you offer yourself to my cousin." mary drew herself up with an indignant gesture, and over the whiteness of her face there swept a sudden glow of vivid crimson that faded as quickly as it came. her submissive nature revolted against her stepmother's horrible tyranny. the dignity of innocence arose and asserted itself against olivia's shameful upbraiding. "if i offered myself to edward arundel, mamma," she said, "it was because we love each other very truly, and because i think and believe papa wished me to marry his old friend." "because _we_ love each other very truly!" olivia echoed in a tone of unmitigated scorn. "you can answer for captain arundel's heart, i suppose, then, as well as for your own? you must have a tolerably good opinion of yourself, miss marchmont, to be able to venture so much. bah!" she cried suddenly, with a disdainful gesture of her head; "do you think your pitiful face has won edward arundel? do you think he has not had women fifty times your superior, in every quality of mind and body, at his feet out yonder in india? are you idiotic and besotted enough to believe that it is anything but your fortune this man cares for? do you know the vile things people will do, the lies they will tell, the base comedies of guilt and falsehood they will act, for the love of eleven thousand a year? and you think that he loves you! child, dupe, fool! are you weak enough to be deluded by a fortune-hunter's pretty pastoral flatteries? are you weak enough to be duped by a man of the world, worn out and jaded, no doubt, as to the world's pleasures--in debt perhaps, and in pressing need of money, who comes here to try and redeem his fortunes by a marriage with a semi-imbecile heiress?" olivia marchmont released her hold of the shrinking girl, who seemed to have become transfixed to the spot upon which she stood, a pale statue of horror and despair. the iron will of the strong and resolute woman rode roughshod over the simple confidence of the ignorant girl. until this moment, mary marchmont had believed in edward arundel as implicitly as she had trusted in her dead father. but now, for the first time, a dreadful region of doubt opened before her; the foundations of her world reeled beneath her feet. edward arundel a fortune-hunter! this woman, whom she had obeyed for five weary years, and who had acquired that ascendancy over her which a determined and vigorous nature must always exercise over a morbidly sensitive disposition, told her that she had been deluded. this woman laughed aloud in bitter scorn of her credulity. this woman, who could have no possible motive for torturing her, and who was known to be scrupulously conscientious in all her dealings, told her, as plainly as the most cruel words could tell a cruel truth, that her own charms could not have won edward arundel's affection. all the beautiful day-dreams of her life melted away from her. she had never questioned herself as to her worthiness of her lover's devotion. she had accepted it as she accepted the sunshine and the starlight--as something beautiful and incomprehensible, that came to her by the beneficence of god, and not through any merits of her own. but as the fabric of her happiness dwindled away, the fatal spell exercised over the girl's weak nature by olivia's violent words evoked a hundred doubts. how should he love her? why should he love her in preference to every other woman in the world? set any woman to ask herself this question, and you fill her mind with a thousand suspicions, a thousand jealous doubts of her lover, though he were the truest and noblest in the universe. olivia marchmont stood a few paces from her stepdaughter, watching her while the black shadow of doubt blotted every joy from her heart, and utter despair crept slowly into her innocent breast. the widow expected that the girl's self-esteem would assert itself--that she would contradict and defy the traducer of her lover's truth; but it was not so. when mary spoke again, her voice was low and subdued, her manner as submissive as it had been two or three years before, when she had stood before her stepmother, waiting to repeat some difficult lesson. "i dare say you are right, mamma," she said in a low dreamy tone, looking not at her stepmother, but straight before her into vacancy, as if her tearless eyes ware transfixed by the vision of all her shattered hopes, filling with wreck and ruin the desolate foreground of a blank future. "i dare say you are right, mamma; it was very foolish of me to think that edward--that captain arundel could care for me, for--for--my own sake; but if--if he wants my fortune, i should wish him to have it. the money will never be any good to me, you know, mamma; and he was so kind to papa in his poverty--so kind! i will never, never believe anything against him;--but i couldn't expect him to love me. i shouldn't have offered to be his wife; i ought only to have offered him my fortune." she heard her lover's footstep in the quadrangle without, in the stillness of the summer morning, and shivered at the sound. it was less than a quarter of an hour since she had been walking with him up and down that cloistered way, in which his footsteps were echoing with a hollow sound; and now----. even in the confusion of her anguish, mary marchmont could not help wondering, as she thought in how short a time the happiness of a future might be swept away into chaos. "good-night, mamma," she said presently, with an accent of weariness. she did not look at her stepmother (who had turned away from her now, and had walked towards the open window), but stole quietly from the room, crossed the hall, and went up the broad staircase to her own lonely chamber. heiress though she was, she had no special attendant of her own: she had the privilege of summoning olivia's maid whenever she had need of assistance; but she retained the simple habits of her early life, and very rarely troubled mrs. marchmont's grim and elderly abigail. olivia stood looking out into the stony quadrangle. it was broad daylight now; the cocks were crowing in the distance, and a skylark singing somewhere in the blue heaven, high up above marchmont towers. the faded garlands in the banqueting-room looked wan in the morning sunshine; the lamps were burning still, for the servants waited until mrs. marchmont should have retired, before they entered the room. edward arundel was walking up and down the cloister, smoking his second cigar. he stopped presently, seeing his cousin at the window. "what, livy!" he cried, "not gone to bed yet?" "no; i am going directly." "mary has gone, i hope?" "yes; she has gone. good-night." "good _morning_, my dear mrs. marchmont," the young man answered, laughing. "if the partridges were in, i should be going out shooting, this lovely morning, instead of crawling ignominiously to bed, like a worn-out reveller who has drunk too much sparkling hock. i like the still best, by-the-bye,--the johannisberger, that poor john's predecessor imported from the rhine. but i suppose there is no help for it, and i must go to bed in the face of all that eastern glory. i should be mounting for a gallop on the race-course, if i were in calcutta. but i'll go to bed, mrs marchmont, and humbly await your breakfast-hour. they're stacking the new hay in the meadows beyond the park. don't you smell it?" olivia shrugged her shoulders with an impatient frown. good heavens! how frivolous and senseless this man's talk seemed to her! she was plunging her soul into an abyss of sin and ruin for his sake; and she hated him, and rebelled against him, because he was so little worthy of the sacrifice. "good morning," she said abruptly; "i'm tired to death." she moved away, and left him. five minutes afterwards, he went up the great oak-staircase after her, whistling a serenade from _fra diavolo_ as he went. he was one of those people to whom life seems all holiday. younger son though he was, he had never known any of the pitfalls of debt and difficulty into which the junior members of rich families are so apt to plunge headlong in early youth, and from which they emerge enfeebled and crippled, to endure an after-life embittered by all the shabby miseries which wait upon aristocratic pauperism. brave, honourable, and simple-minded, edward arundel had fought the battle of life like a good soldier, and had carried a stainless shield when the fight was thickest, and victory hard to win. his sunshiny nature won him friends, and his better qualities kept them. young men trusted and respected him; and old men, gray in the service of their country, spoke well of him. his handsome face was a pleasant decoration at any festival; his kindly voice and hearty laugh at a dinner-table were as good as music in the gallery at the end of the banqueting-chamber. he had that freshness of spirit which is the peculiar gift of some natures; and he had as yet never known sorrow, except, indeed, such tender and compassionate sympathy as he had often felt for the calamities of others. olivia marchmont heard her cousin's cheery tenor voice as he passed her chamber. "how happy he is!" she thought. "his very happiness is one insult the more to me." the widow paced up and down her room in the morning sunshine, thinking of the things she had said in the banqueting-hall below, and of her stepdaughter's white despairing face. what had she done? what was the extent of the sin she had committed? olivia marchmont asked herself these two questions. the old habit of self-examination was not quite abandoned yet. she sinned, and then set herself to work to try and justify her sin. "how should he love her?" she thought. "what is there in her pale unmeaning face that should win the love of a man who despises me?" she stopped before a cheval-glass, and surveyed herself from head to foot, frowning angrily at her handsome image, hating herself for her despised beauty. her white shoulders looked like stainless marble against the rich ruby darkness of her velvet dress. she had snatched the diamond ornaments from her head, and her long black hair fell about her bosom in thick waveless tresses. "i am handsomer than she is, and cleverer; and i love him better, ten thousand times, than she loves him," olivia marchmont thought, as she turned contemptuously from the glass. "is it likely, then, that he cares for anything but her fortune? any other woman in the world would have argued as i argued to-night. any woman would have believed that she did her duty in warning this besotted girl against her folly. what do i know of edward arundel that should lead me to think him better or nobler than other men? and how many men sell themselves for the love of a woman's wealth! perhaps good may come of my mad folly, after all; and i may have saved this girl from a life of misery by the words i have spoken to-night." the devils--for ever lying in wait for this woman, whose gloomy pride rendered her in some manner akin to themselves--may have laughed at her as she argued thus with herself. she lay down at last to sleep, worn out by the excitement of the long night, and to dream horrible dreams. the servants, with the exception of one who rose betimes to open the great house, slept long after the unwonted festival. edward arundel slumbered as heavily as any member of that wearied household; and thus it was that there was no one in the way to see a shrinking, trembling figure creep down the sunlit-staircase, and steal across the threshold of the wide hall door. there was no one to see mary marchmont's silent flight from the gaunt lincolnshire mansion in which she had known so little real happiness. there was no one to comfort the sorrow-stricken girl in her despair and desolation of spirit. she crept away, like some escaped prisoner, in the early morning, from the house which the law called her own. and the hand of the woman whom john marchmont had chosen to be his daughter's friend and counsellor was the hand which drove that daughter from the shelter of her home. the voice of her whom the weak father had trusted in, fearful to confide his child into the hand of god, but blindly confident in his own judgment--was the voice which had uttered the lying words, whose every syllable had been as a separate dagger thrust in the orphan girl's lacerated heart. it was her father,--her father, who had placed this woman over her, and had entailed upon her the awful agony that drove her out into an unknown world, careless whither she went in her despair. end of vol. i. john marchmont's legacy. by [m.e. braddon] the author of "lady audley's secret," etc. etc. etc. in three volumes vol. iii. published by tinsley brothers of london in (third edition). contents. chapter i. captain arundel's revenge. chapter ii. the deserted chambers. chapter iii. taking it quietly. chapter iv. miss lawford speaks her mind. chapter v. the return of the wanderer. chapter vi. a widower's proposal. chapter vii. how the tidings were received in lincolnshire. chapter viii. mr. weston refuses to be trampled on. chapter ix. "going to be married!" chapter x. the turning of the tide. chapter xi. belinda's wedding day. chapter xii. mary's story. chapter xiii. "all within is dark as night." chapter xiv. "there is confusion worse than death." chapter the last. "dear is the memory of our wedded lives." the epilogue. john marchmont's legacy. volume iii. chapter i. captain arundel's revenge. edward arundel went back to his lonely home with a settled purpose in his mind. he would leave lincolnshire,--and immediately. he had no motive for remaining. it may be, indeed, that he had a strong motive for going away from the neighbourhood of lawford grange. there was a lurking danger in the close vicinage of that pleasant, old-fashioned country mansion, and the bright band of blue-eyed damsels who inhabited there. "i will turn my back upon lincolnshire for ever," edward arundel said to himself once more, upon his way homeward through the october twilight; "but before i go, the whole country shall know what i think of paul marchmont." he clenched his fists and ground his teeth involuntarily as he thought this. it was quite dark when he let himself in at the old-fashioned half-glass door that led into his humble sitting-room at kemberling retreat. he looked round the little chamber, which had been furnished forty years before by the proprietor of the cottage, and had served for one tenant after another, until it seemed as if the spindle-legged chairs and tables had grown attenuated and shadowy by much service. he looked at the simple room, lighted by a bright fire and a pair of wax-candles in antique silver candlesticks. the red firelight flickered and trembled upon the painted roses on the walls, on the obsolete engravings in clumsy frames of imitation-ebony and tarnished gilt. a silver tea-service and a sèvres china cup and saucer, which mrs. arundel had sent to the cottage for her son's use, stood upon the small oval table: and a brown setter, a favourite of the young man's, lay upon the hearth-rug, with his chin upon his outstretched paws, blinking at the blaze. as mr. arundel lingered in the doorway, looking at these things, an image rose before him, as vivid and distinct as any apparition of professor pepper's manufacture; and he thought of what that commonplace cottage-chamber might have been if his young wife had lived. he could fancy her bending over the low silver teapot,--the sprawling inartistic teapot, that stood upon quaint knobs like gouty feet, and had been long ago banished from the dangerfield breakfast-table as utterly rococo and ridiculous. he conjured up the dear dead face, with faint blushes flickering amidst its lily pallor, and soft hazel eyes looking up at him through the misty steam of the tea-table, innocent and virginal as the eyes of that mythic nymph who was wont to appear to the old roman king. how happy she would have been! how willing to give up fortune and station, and to have lived for ever and ever in that queer old cottage, ministering to him and loving him! presently the face changed. the hazel-brown hair was suddenly lit up with a glitter of barbaric gold; the hazel eyes grew blue and bright; and the cheeks blushed rosy red. the young man frowned at this new and brighter vision; but he contemplated it gravely for some moments, and then breathed a long sigh, which was somehow or other expressive of relief. "no," he said to himself, "i am _not_ false to my poor lost girl; i do _not_ forget her. her image is dearer to me than any living creature. the mournful shadow of her face is more precious to me than the brightest reality." he sat down in one of the spindle-legged arm-chairs, and poured out a cup of tea. he drank it slowly, brooding over the fire as he sipped the innocuous beverage, and did not deign to notice the caresses of the brown setter, who laid his cold wet nose in his master's hand, and performed a species of spirit-rapping upon the carpet with his tail. after tea the young man rang the bell, which was answered by mr. morrison. "have i any clothes that i can hunt in, morrison?" mr. arundel asked. his factotum stared aghast at this question. "you ain't a-goin' to 'unt, are you, mr. edward?" he inquired, anxiously. "never mind that. i asked you a question about my clothes, and i want a straightforward answer." "but, mr. edward," remonstrated the old servant, "i don't mean no offence; and the 'orses is very tidy animals in their way; but if you're thinkin' of goin' across country,--and a pretty stiffish country too, as i've heard, in the way of bulfinches and timber,--neither of them 'orses has any more of a 'unter in him than i have." "i know that as well as you do," edward arundel answered coolly; "but i am going to the meet at marchmont towers to-morrow morning, and i want you to look me out a decent suit of clothes--that's all. you can have desperado saddled ready for me a little after eleven o'clock." mr. morrison looked even more astonished than before. he knew his master's savage enmity towards paul marchmont; and yet that very master now deliberately talked of joining in an assembly which was to gather together for the special purpose of doing the same paul marchmont honour. however, as he afterwards remarked to the two fellow-servants with whom he sometimes condescended to be familiar, it wasn't his place to interfere or to ask any questions, and he had held his tongue accordingly. perhaps this respectful reticence was rather the result of prudence than of inclination; for there was a dangerous light in edward arundel's eyes upon this particular evening which mr. morrison never had observed before. the factotum said something about this later in the evening. "i do really think," he remarked, "that, what with that young 'ooman's death, and the solitood of this most dismal place, and the rainy weather,--which those as says it always rains in lincolnshire ain't far out,--my poor young master is not the man he were." he tapped his forehead ominously to give significance to his words, and sighed heavily over his supper-beer. * * * * * the sun shone upon paul marchmont on the morning of the th of october. the autumn sunshine streamed into his bedchamber, and awoke the new master of marchmont towers. he opened his eyes and looked about him. he raised himself amongst the down pillows, and contemplated the figures upon the tapestry in a drowsy reverie. he had been dreaming of his poverty, and had been disputing a poor-rate summons with an impertinent tax-collector in the dingy passage of the house in charlotte street, fitzroy square. ah! that horrible house had so long been the only scene of his life, that it had grown almost a part of his mind, and haunted him perpetually in his sleep, like a nightmare of brick and mortar, now that he was rich, and had done with it for ever. mr. marchmont gave a faint shudder, and shook off the influence of the bad dream. then, propped up by the pillows, he amused himself by admiring his new bedchamber. it was a handsome room, certainly--the very room for an artist and a sybarite. mr. marchmont had not chosen it without due consideration. it was situated in an angle of the house; and though its chief windows looked westward, being immediately above those of the western drawing-room, there was another casement, a great oriel window, facing the east, and admitting all the grandeur of the morning sun through painted glass, on which the marchmont escutcheon was represented in gorgeous hues of sapphire and ruby, emerald and topaz, amethyst and aqua-marine. bright splashes of these colours flashed and sparkled on the polished oaken floor, and mixed themselves with the oriental gaudiness of a persian carpet, stretched beneath the low arabian bed, which was hung with ruby-coloured draperies that trailed upon the ground. paul marchmont was fond of splendour, and meant to have as much of it as money could buy. there was a voluptuous pleasure in all this finery, which only a parvenu could feel; it was the sharpness of the contrast between the magnificence of the present and the shabby miseries of the past that gave a piquancy to the artist's enjoyment of his new habitation. all the furniture and draperies of the chamber had been made by paul marchmont's direction; but its chief beauty was the tapestry that covered the walls, which had been worked, two hundred and fifty years before, by a patient chatelaine of the house of marchmont. this tapestry lined the room on every side. the low door had been cut in it; so that a stranger going into that apartment at night, a little under the influence of the marchmont cellars, and unable to register the topography of the chamber upon the tablet of his memory, might have been sorely puzzled to find an exit the next morning. most tapestried chambers have a certain dismal grimness about them, which is more pleasant to the sightseer than to the constant inhabitant; but in this tapestry the colours were almost as bright and glowing to-day as when the fingers that had handled the variegated worsteds were still warm and flexible. the subjects, too, were of a more pleasant order than usual. no mailed ruffians or drapery-clad barbarians menaced the unoffending sleeper with uplifted clubs, or horrible bolts, in the very act of being launched from ponderous crossbows; no wicked-looking saracens, with ferocious eyes and copper-coloured visages, brandished murderous scimitars above their turbaned heads. no; here all was pastoral gaiety and peaceful delight. maidens, with flowing kirtles and crisped yellow hair, danced before great wagons loaded with golden wheat. youths, in red and purple jerkins, frisked as they played the pipe and tabor. the flemish horses dragging the heavy wain were hung with bells and garlands as for a rustic festival, and tossed their untrimmed manes into the air, and frisked and gamboled with their awkward legs, in ponderous imitation of the youths and maidens. afar off, in the distance, wonderful villages, very queer as to perspective, but all a-bloom with gaudy flowers and quaint roofs of bright-red tiles, stood boldly out against a bluer sky than the most enthusiastic pre-raphaelite of to-day would care to send to the academy in trafalgar square. paul marchmont smiled at the youths and maidens, the laden wagons, the revellers, and the impossible village. he was in a humour to be pleased with everything to-day. he looked at his dressing-table, which stood opposite to him, in the deep oriel window. his valet--he had a valet now--had opened the great inlaid dressing-case, and the silver-gilt fittings reflected the crimson hues of the velvet lining, as if the gold had been flecked with blood. glittering bottles of diamond-cut glass, that presented a thousand facets to the morning light, stood like crystal obelisks amid the litter of carved-ivory brushes and sèvres boxes of pomatum; and one rare hothouse flower, white and fragile, peeped out of a slender crystal vase, against a background of dark shining leaves. "it's better than charlotte street, fitzroy square," said mr. marchmont, throwing himself back amongst the pillows until such time as his valet should bring him a cup of strong tea to refresh and invigorate his nerves withal. "i remember the paper in my room: drab hexagons and yellow spots upon a brown ground. _so_ pretty! and then the dressing-table: deal, gracefully designed; with a shallow drawer, in which my razors used to rattle like castanets when i tried to pull it open; a most delicious table, exquisitely painted in stripes, olive-green upon stone colour, picked out with the favourite brown. oh, it was a most delightful life; but it's over, thank providence; it's over!" mr. paul marchmont thanked providence as devoutly as if he had been the most patient attendant upon the divine pleasure, and had never for one moment dreamed of intruding his own impious handiwork amid the mysterious designs of omnipotence. the sun shone upon the new master of marchmont towers. this bright october morning was not the very best for hunting purposes; for there was a fresh breeze blowing from the north, and a blue unclouded sky. but it was most delightful weather for the breakfast, and the assembling on the lawn, and all the pleasant preliminaries of the day's sport. mr. paul marchmont, who was a thorough-bred cockney, troubled himself very little about the hunt as he basked in that morning light. he only thought that the sun was shining upon him, and that he had come at last--no matter by what crooked ways--to the realisation of his great day-dream, and that he was to be happy and prosperous for the rest of his life. he drank his tea, and then got up and dressed himself. he wore the conventional "pink," the whitest buckskins, the most approved boots and tops; and he admired himself very much in the cheval glass when this toilet was complete. he had put on the dress for the gratification of his vanity, rather than from any serious intention of doing what he was about as incapable of doing, as he was of becoming a modern rubens or a new raphael. he would receive his friends in this costume, and ride to cover, and follow the hounds, perhaps,--a little way. at any rate, it was very delightful to him to play the country gentleman; and he had never felt so much a country gentleman as at this moment, when he contemplated himself from head to heel in his hunting costume. at ten o'clock the guests began to assemble; the meet was not to take place until twelve, so that there might be plenty of time for the breakfast. i don't think paul marchmont ever really knew what took place at that long table, at which he sat for the first time in the place of host and master. he was intoxicated from the first with the sense of triumph and delight in his new position; and he drank a great deal, for he drank unconsciously, emptying his glass every time it was filled, and never knowing who filled it, or what was put into it. by this means he took a very considerable quantity of various sparkling and effervescing wines; sometimes hock, sometimes moselle, very often champagne, to say nothing of a steady undercurrent of unpronounceable german hocks and crusted burgundies. but he was not drunk after the common fashion of mortals; he could not be upon this particular day. he was not stupid, or drowsy, or unsteady upon his legs; he was only preternaturally excited, looking at everything through a haze of dazzling light, as if all the gold of his newly-acquired fortune had been melted into the atmosphere. he knew that the breakfast was a great success; that the long table was spread with every delicious comestible that the science of a first-rate cook, to say nothing of fortnum and mason, could devise; that the profusion of splendid silver, the costly china, the hothouse flowers, and the sunshine, made a confused mass of restless glitter and glowing colour that dazzled his eyes as he looked at it. he knew that everybody courted and flattered him, and that he was almost stifled by the overpowering sense of his own grandeur. perhaps he felt this most when a certain county magnate, a baronet, member of parliament, and great landowner, rose,--primed with champagne, and rather thicker of utterance than a man should be who means to be in at the death, by-and-by,--and took the opportunity of--hum--expressing, in a few words,--haw--the very great pleasure which he--aw, yes--and he thought he might venture to remark,--aw--everybody about him--ha--felt on this most--arrah, arrah--interesting--er--occasion; and said a great deal more, which took a very long time to say, but the gist of which was, that all these country gentlemen were so enraptured by the new addition to their circle, and so altogether delighted with mr. paul marchmont, that they really were at a loss to understand how it was they had ever managed to endure existence without him. and then there was a good deal of rather unnecessary but very enthusiastic thumping of the table, whereat the costly glass shivered, and the hothouse blossoms trembled, amidst the musical chinking of silver forks; while the foxhunters declared in chorus that the new owner of marchmont towers was a jolly good fellow, which--_i.e._, the fact of his jollity--nobody could deny. it was not a very fine demonstration, but it was a very hearty one. moreover, these noisy foxhunters were all men of some standing in the county; and it is a proof of the artist's inherent snobbery that to him the husky voices of these half-drunken men were more delicious than the sweet soprano tones of an equal number of pattis--penniless and obscure pattis, that is to say--sounding his praises. he was lifted at last out of that poor artist-life, in which he had always been a groveller,--not so much for lack of talent as by reason of the smallness of his own soul,--into a new sphere, where everybody was rich and grand and prosperous, and where the pleasant pathways were upon the necks of prostrate slaves, in the shape of grooms and hirelings, respectful servants, and reverential tradespeople. yes, paul marchmont was more drunken than any of his guests; but his drunkenness was of a different kind to theirs. it was not the wine, but his own grandeur that intoxicated and besotted him. these foxhunters might get the better of their drunkenness in half an hour or so; but his intoxication was likely to last for a very long time, unless he should receive some sudden shock, powerful enough to sober him. meanwhile the hounds were yelping and baying upon the lawn, and the huntsmen and whippers-in were running backwards and forwards from the lawn to the servants' hall, devouring snacks of beef and ham,--a pound and a quarter or so at one sitting; or crunching the bones of a frivolous young chicken,--there were not half a dozen mouthfuls on such insignificant half-grown fowls; or excavating under the roof of a great game-pie; or drinking a quart or so of strong ale, or half a tumbler of raw brandy, _en passant_; and doing a great deal more in the same way, merely to beguile the time until the gentlefolks should appear upon the broad stone terrace. it was half-past twelve o'clock, and mr. marchmont's guests were still drinking and speechifying. they had been on the point of making a move ever so many times; but it had happened every time that some gentleman, who had been very quiet until that moment, suddenly got upon his legs, and began to make swallowing and gasping noises, and to wipe his lips with a napkin; whereby it was understood that he was going to propose somebody's health. this had considerably lengthened the entertainment, and it seemed rather likely that the ostensible business of the day would be forgotten altogether. but at half-past twelve, the county magnate, who had bidden paul marchmont a stately welcome to lincolnshire, remembered that there were twenty couple of impatient hounds scratching up the turf in front of the long windows of the banquet-chamber, while as many eager young tenant-farmers, stalwart yeomen, well-to-do butchers, and a herd of tag-rag and bobtail, were pining for the sport to begin;--at last, i say, sir lionel boport remembered this, and led the way to the terrace, leaving the renegades to repose on the comfortable sofas lurking here and there in the spacious rooms. then the grim stone front of the house was suddenly lighted up into splendour. the long terrace was one blaze of "pink," relieved here and there by patches of sober black and forester's green. amongst all these stalwart, florid-visaged country gentlemen, paul marchmont, very elegant, very picturesque, but extremely unsportsmanlike, the hero of the hour, walked slowly down the broad stone steps amidst the vociferous cheering of the crowd, the snapping and yelping of impatient hounds, and the distant braying of a horn. it was the crowning moment of his life; the moment he had dreamed of again and again in the wretched days of poverty and obscurity. the scene was scarcely new to him,--he had acted it so often in his imagination; he had heard the shouts and seen the respectful crowd. there was a little difference in detail; that was all. there was no disappointment, no shortcoming in the realisation; as there so often is when our brightest dreams are fulfilled, and the one great good, the all-desired, is granted to us. no; the prize was his, and it was worth all that he had sacrificed to win it. he looked up, and saw his mother and his sisters in the great window over the porch. he could see the exultant pride in his mother's pale face; and the one redeeming sentiment of his nature, his love for the womankind who depended upon him, stirred faintly in his breast, amid the tumult of gratified ambition and selfish joy. this one drop of unselfish pleasure filled the cup to the brim. he took off his hat and waved it high up above his head in answer to the shouting of the crowd. he had stopped halfway down the flight of steps to bow his acknowledgment of the cheering. he waved his hat, and the huzzas grew still louder; and a band upon the other side of the lawn played that familiar and triumphant march which is supposed to apply to every living hero, from a wellington just come home from waterloo, to the winner of a boat-race, or a patent-starch proprietor newly elected by an admiring constituency. there was nothing wanting. i think that in that supreme moment paul marchmont quite forgot the tortuous and perilous ways by which he had reached this all-glorious goal. i don't suppose the young princes smothered in the tower were ever more palpably present in tyrant richard's memory than when the murderous usurper grovelled in bosworth's miry clay, and knew that the great game of life was lost. it was only when henry the eighth took away the great seal that wolsey was able to see the foolishness of man's ambition. in that moment memory and conscience, never very wakeful in the breast of paul marchmont, were dead asleep, and only triumph and delight reigned in their stead. no; there was nothing wanting. this glory and grandeur paid him a thousandfold for his patience and self-abnegation during the past year. he turned half round to look up at those eager watchers at the window. good god! it was his sister lavinia's face he saw; no longer full of triumph and pleasure, but ghastly pale, and staring at someone or something horrible in the crowd. paul marchmont turned to look for this horrible something the sight of which had power to change his sister's face; and found himself confronted by a young man,--a young man whose eyes flamed like coals of fire, whose cheeks were as white as a sheet of paper, and whose firm lips were locked as tightly as if they had been chiseled out of a block of granite. this man was edward arundel,--the young widower, the handsome soldier,--whom everybody remembered as the husband of poor lost mary marchmont. he had sprung out from amidst the crowd only one moment before, and had dashed up the steps of the terrace before any one had time to think of hindering him or interfering with him. it seemed to paul marchmont as if his foe must have leaped out of the solid earth, so sudden and so unlooked-for was his coming. he stood upon the step immediately below the artist; but as the terrace-steps were shallow, and as he was taller by half a foot than paul, the faces of the two men were level, and they confronted each other. the soldier held a heavy hunting-whip in his hand--no foppish toy, with a golden trinket for its head, but a stout handle of stag-horn, and a formidable leathern thong. he held this whip in his strong right hand, with the thong twisted round the handle; and throwing out his left arm, nervous and muscular as the limb of a young gladiator, he seized paul marchmont by the collar of that fashionably-cut scarlet coat which the artist had so much admired in the cheval-glass that morning. there was a shout of surprise and consternation from the gentlemen on the terrace and the crowd upon the lawn, a shrill scream from the women; and in the next moment paul marchmont was writhing under a shower of blows from the hunting-whip in edward arundel's hand. the artist was not physically brave, yet he was not such a cur as to submit unresistingly to this hideous disgrace; but the attack was so sudden and unexpected as to paralyse him--so rapid in its execution as to leave him no time for resistance. before he had recovered his presence of mind; before he knew the meaning of edward arundel's appearance in that place; even before he could fully realise the mere fact of his being there,--the thing was done; he was disgraced for ever. he had sunk in that one moment from the very height of his new grandeur to the lowest depth of social degradation. "gentlemen!" edward arundel cried, in a loud voice, which was distinctly heard by every member of the gaping crowd, "when the law of the land suffers a scoundrel to prosper, honest men must take the law into their own hands. i wished you to know my opinion of the new master of marchmont towers; and i think i've expressed it pretty clearly. i know him to be a most consummate villain; and i give you fair warning that he is no fit associate for honourable men. good morning." edward arundel lifted his hat, bowed to the assembly, and then ran down the steps. paul marchmont, livid, and foaming at the mouth, rushed after him, brandishing his clenched fists, and gesticulating in impotent rage; but the young man's horse was waiting for him at a few paces from the terrace, in the care of a butcher's apprentice, and he was in the saddle before the artist could overtake him. "i shall not leave kemberling for a week, mr. marchmont," he called out; and then he walked his horse away, holding himself erect as a dart, and staring defiance at the crowd. i am sorry to have to testify to the fickle nature of the british populace; but i am bound to own that a great many of the stalwart yeomen who had eaten game-pies and drunk strong liquors at paul marchmont's expense not half an hour before, were base enough to feel an involuntary admiration for edward arundel, as he rode slowly away, with his head up and his eyes flaming. there is seldom very much genuine sympathy for a man who has been horsewhipped; and there is a pretty universal inclination to believe that the man who inflicts chastisement upon him must be right in the main. it is true that the tenant-farmers, especially those whose leases were nearly run out, were very loud in their indignation against mr. arundel, and one adventurous spirit made a dash at the young man's bridle as he went by; but the general feeling was in favour of the conqueror, and there was a lack of heartiness even in the loudest expressions of sympathy. the crowd made a lane for paul marchmont as he went back to the house, white and helpless, and sick with shame. several of the gentlemen upon the terrace came forward to shake hands with him, and to express their indignation, and to offer any friendly service that he might require of them by-and-by,--such as standing by to see him shot, if he should choose an old-fashioned mode of retaliation; or bearing witness against edward arundel in a law-court, if mr. marchmont preferred to take legal measures. but even these men recoiled when they felt the cold dampness of the artist's hands, and saw that _he had been frightened_. these sturdy, uproarious foxhunters, who braved the peril of sudden death every time they took a day's sport, entertained a sovereign contempt for a man who _could_ be frightened of anybody or anything. they made no allowance for paul marchmont's cockney education; they were not in the dark secrets of his life, and knew nothing of his guilty conscience; and it was _that_ which had made him more helpless than a child in the fierce grasp of edward arundel. so one by one, after this polite show of sympathy, the rich man's guests fell away from him; and the yelping hounds and the cantering horses left the lawn before marchmont towers; the sound of the brass band and the voices of the people died away in the distance; and the glory of the day was done. paul marchmont crawled slowly back to that luxurious bedchamber which he had left only a few hours before, and, throwing himself at full length upon the bed, sobbed like a frightened child. he was panic-stricken; not because of the horsewhipping, but because of a sentence that edward arundel had whispered close to his ear in the midst of the struggle. "i know _everything_," the young man had said; "i know the secrets you hide in the pavilion by the river!" chapter ii. the deserted chambers. edward arundel kept his word. he waited for a week and upwards, but paul marchmont made no sign; and after having given him three days' grace over and above the promised time, the young man abandoned kemberling retreat, for ever, as he thought, and went away from lincolnshire. he had waited; hoping that paul marchmont would try to retaliate, and that some desperate struggle, physical or legal,--he scarcely cared which,--would occur between them. he would have courted any hazard which might have given him some chance of revenge. but nothing happened. he sent out mr. morrison to beat up information about the master of marchmont towers; and the factotum came back with the intelligence that mr. marchmont was ill, and would see no one--"leastways" excepting his mother and mr. george weston. edward arundel shrugged his shoulders when he heard these tidings. "what a contemptible cur the man is!" he thought. "there was a time when i could have suspected him of any foul play against my lost girl. i know him better now, and know that he is not even capable of a great crime. he was only strong enough to stab his victim in the dark, with lying paragraphs in newspapers, and dastardly hints and inuendoes." it would have been only perhaps an act of ordinary politeness had edward arundel paid a farewell visit to his friends at the grange. but he did not go near the hospitable old house. he contented himself with writing a cordial letter to major lawford, thanking him for his hospitality and kindness, and referring, vaguely enough, to the hope of a future meeting. he despatched this letter by mr. morrison, who was in very high spirits at the prospect of leaving kemberling, and who went about his work with almost boyish activity in the exuberance of his delight. the valet worked so briskly as to complete all necessary arrangements in a couple of days; and on the th of october, late in the afternoon, all was ready, and he had nothing to do but to superintend the departure of the two horses from the kemberling railway-station, under the guardianship of the lad who had served as edward's groom. throughout that last day mr. arundel wandered here and there about the house and garden that so soon were to be deserted. he was dreadfully at a loss what to do with himself, and, alas! it was not to-day only that he felt the burden of his hopeless idleness. he felt it always; a horrible load, not to be cast away from him. his life had been broken off short, as it were, by the catastrophe which had left him a widower before his honeymoon was well over. the story of his existence was abruptly broken asunder; all the better part of his life was taken away from him, and he did not know what to do with the blank and useless remnant. the ravelled threads of a once-harmonious web, suddenly wrenched in twain, presented a mass of inextricable confusion; and the young man's brain grew dizzy when he tried to draw them out, or to consider them separately. his life was most miserable, most hopeless, by reason of its emptiness. he had no duty to perform, no task to achieve. that nature must be utterly selfish, entirely given over to sybarite rest and self-indulgence, which does not feel a lack of something wanting these,--a duty or a purpose. better to be sisyphus toiling up the mountain-side, than sisyphus with the stone taken away from him, and no hope of ever reaching the top. i heard a man once--a bill-sticker, and not by any means a sentimental or philosophical person--declare that he had never known real prosperity until he had thirteen orphan grandchildren to support; and surely there was a universal moral in that bill-sticker's confession. he had been a drunkard before, perhaps,--he didn't say anything about that,--and a reprobate, it may be; but those thirteen small mouths clamoring for food made him sober and earnest, brave and true. he had a duty to do, and was happy in its performance. he was wanted in the world, and he was somebody. from napoleon iii., holding the destinies of civilised europe in his hands, and debating whether he shall re-create poland or build a new boulevard, to paterfamilias in a government office, working for the little ones at home,--and from paterfamilias to the crossing-sweeper, who craves his diurnal halfpenny from busy citizens, tramping to their daily toil,--every man has his separate labour and his different responsibility. for ever and for ever the busy wheel of life turns round; but duty and ambition are the motive powers that keep it going. edward arundel felt the barrenness of his life, now that he had taken the only revenge which was possible for him upon the man who had persecuted his wife. _that_ had been a rapturous but brief enjoyment. it was over. he could do no more to the man; since there was no lower depth of humiliation--in these later days, when pillories and whipping-posts and stocks are exploded from our market-places--to which a degraded creature could descend. no; there was no more to be done. it was useless to stop in lincolnshire. the sad suggestion of the little slipper found by the water-side was but too true. paul marchmont had not murdered his helpless cousin; he had only tortured her to death. he was quite safe from the law of the land, which, being of a positive and arbitrary nature, takes no cognisance of indefinable offences. this most infamous man was safe; and was free to enjoy his ill-gotten grandeur--if he could take much pleasure in it, after the scene upon the stone terrace. the only joy that had been left for edward arundel after his retirement from the east india company's service was this fierce delight of vengeance. he had drained the intoxicating cup to the dregs, and had been drunken at first in the sense of his triumph. but he was sober now; and he paced up and down the neglected garden beneath a chill october sky, crunching the fallen leaves under his feet, with his arms folded and his head bent, thinking of the barren future. it was all bare,--a blank stretch of desert land, with no city in the distance; no purple domes or airy minarets on the horizon. it was in the very nature of this young man to be a soldier; and he was nothing if not a soldier. he could never remember having had any other aspiration than that eager thirst for military glory. before he knew the meaning of the word "war," in his very infancy, the sound of a trumpet or the sight of a waving banner, a glittering weapon, a sentinel's scarlet coat, had moved him to a kind of rapture. the unvarnished schoolroom records of greek and roman warfare had been as delightful to him as the finest passages of a macaulay or a froude, a thiers or lamartine. he was a soldier by the inspiration of heaven, as all great soldiers are. he had never known any other ambition, or dreamed any other dream. other lads had talked of the bar, and the senate, and _their_ glories. bah! how cold and tame they seemed! what was the glory of a parliamentary triumph, in which words were the only weapons wielded by the combatants, compared with a hand-to-hand struggle, ankle deep in the bloody mire of a crowded trench, or a cavalry charge, before which a phalanx of fierce affghans fled like frightened sheep upon a moor! edward arundel was a soldier, like the duke of wellington or sir colin campbell,--one writes the old romantic name involuntarily, because one loves it best,--or othello. the moor's first lamentation when he believes that desdemona is false, and his life is broken, is that sublime farewell to all the glories of the battle-field. it was almost the same with edward arundel. the loss of his wife and of his captaincy were blent and mingled in his mind and he could only bewail the one great loss which left life most desolate. he had never felt the full extent of his desolation until now; for heretofore he had been buoyed up by the hope of vengeance upon paul marchmont; and now that his solitary hope had been realised to the fullest possible extent, there was nothing left,--nothing but to revoke the sacrifice he had made, and to regain his place in the indian army at any cost. he tried not to think of the possibility of this. it seemed to him almost an infidelity towards his dead wife to dream of winning honours and distinction, now that she, who would have been so proud of any triumph won by him, was for ever lost. so, under the grey october sky he paced up and down upon the grass-grown pathways, amidst the weeds and briars, the brambles and broken branches that crackled as he trod upon them; and late in the afternoon, when the day, which had been sunless and cold, was melting into dusky twilight, he opened the low wooden gateway and went out into the road. an impulse which he could not resist took him towards the river-bank and the wood behind marchmont towers. once more, for the last time in his life perhaps, he went down to that lonely shore. he went to look at the bleak unlovely place which had been the scene of his betrothal. it was not that he had any thought of meeting olivia marchmont; he had dismissed her from his mind ever since his last visit to the lonely boat-house. whatever the mystery of her life might be, her secret lay at the bottom of a black depth which the impetuous soldier did not care to fathom. he did not want to discover that hideous secret. tarnished honour, shame, falsehood, disgrace, lurked in the obscurity in which john marchmont's widow had chosen to enshroud her life. let them rest. it was not for him to drag away the curtain that sheltered his kinswoman from the world. he had no thought, therefore, of prying into any secrets that might be hidden in the pavilion by the water. the fascination that lured him to the spot was the memory of the past. he could not go to mary's grave; but he went, in as reverent a spirit as he would have gone thither, to the scene of his betrothal, to pay his farewell visit to the spot which had been for ever hallowed by the confession of her innocent love. it was nearly dark when he got to the river-side. he went by a path which quite avoided the grounds about marchmont towers,--a narrow footpath, which served as a towing-path sometimes, when some black barge crawled by on its way out to the open sea. to-night the river was hidden by a mist,--a white fog,--that obscured land and water; and it was only by the sound of the horses' hoofs that edward arundel had warning to step aside, as a string of them went by, dragging a chain that grated on the pebbles by the river-side. "why should they say my darling committed suicide?" thought edward arundel, as he groped his way along the narrow pathway. "it was on such an evening as this that she ran away from home. what more likely than that she lost the track, and wandered into the river? oh, my own poor lost one, god grant it was so! god grant it was by his will, and not your own desperate act, that you were lost to me!" sorrowful as the thought of his wife's death was to him, it soothed him to believe that death might have been accidental. there was all the difference betwixt sorrow and despair in the alternative. wandering ignorantly and helplessly through this autumnal fog, edward arundel found himself at the boat-house before he was aware of its vicinity. there was a light gleaming from the broad north window of the painting-room, and a slanting line of light streamed out of the half-open door. in this lighted doorway edward saw the figure of a girl,--an unkempt, red-headed girl, with a flat freckled face; a girl who wore a lavender-cotton pinafore and hob-nailed boots, with a good deal of brass about the leathern fronts, and a redundancy of rusty leathern boot-lace twisted round the ankles. the young man remembered having seen this girl once in the village of kemberling. she had been in mrs. weston's service as a drudge, and was supposed to have received her education in the swampington union. this young lady was supporting herself against the half-open door, with her arms a-kimbo, and her hands planted upon her hips, in humble imitation of the matrons whom she had been wont to see lounging at their cottage-doors in the high street of kemberling, when the labours of the day were done. edward arundel started at the sudden apparition of this damsel. "who are you, girl?" he asked; "and what brings you to this place?" he trembled as he spoke. a sudden agitation had seized upon him, which he had no power to account for. it seemed as if providence had brought him to this spot to-night, and had placed this ignorant country-girl in his way, for some special purpose. whatever the secrets of this place might be, he was to know them, it appeared, since he had been led here, not by the promptings of curiosity, but only by a reverent love for a scene that was associated with his dead wife. "who are you, girl?" he asked again. "oi be betsy murrel, sir," the damsel answered; "some on 'em calls me 'wuk-us bet;' and i be coom here to cle-an oop a bit." "to clean up what?" "the paa-intin' room. there's a de-al o' moock aboot, and aw'm to fettle oop, and make all toidy agen t' squire gets well." "are you all alone here?" "all alo-an? oh, yes, sir." "have you been here long?" the girl looked at mr. arundel with a cunning leer, which was one of her "wuk-us" acquirements. "aw've bin here off an' on ever since t' squire ke-ame," she said. "there's a deal o' cleanin' down 'ere." edward arundel looked at her sternly; but there was nothing to be gathered from her stolid countenance after its agreeable leer had melted away. the young man might have scrutinised the figure-head of the black barge creeping slowly past upon the hidden river with quite as much chance of getting any information out of its play of feature. he walked past the girl into paul marchmont's painting-room. miss betsy murrel made no attempt to hinder him. she had spoken the truth as to the cleaning of the place, for the room smelt of soapsuds, and a pail and scrubbing-brush stood in the middle of the floor. the young man looked at the door behind which he had heard the crying of the child. it was ajar, and the stone-steps leading up to it were wet, bearing testimony to betsy murrel's industry. edward arundel took the flaming tallow-candle from the table in the painting-room, and went up the steps into the pavilion. the girl followed, but she did not try to restrain him, or to interfere with him. she followed him with her mouth open, staring at him after the manner of her kind, and she looked the very image of rustic stupidity. with the flaring candle shaded by his left hand, edward arundel examined the two chambers in the pavilion. there was very little to reward his scrutiny. the two small rooms were bare and cheerless. the repairs that had been executed had only gone so far as to make them tolerably inhabitable, and secure from wind and weather. the furniture was the same that edward remembered having seen on his last visit to the towers; for mary had been fond of sitting in one of the little rooms, looking out at the slow river and the trembling rushes on the shore. there was no trace of recent occupation in the empty rooms, no ashes in the grates. the girl grinned maliciously as mr. arundel raised the light above his head, and looked about him. he walked in and out of the two rooms. he stared at the obsolete chairs, the rickety tables, the dilapidated damask curtains, flapping every now and then in the wind that rushed in through the crannies of the doors and windows. he looked here and there, like a man bewildered; much to the amusement of miss betsy murrel, who, with her arms crossed, and her elbows in the palms of her moist hands, followed him backwards and forwards between the two small chambers. "there was some one living here a week ago," he said; "some one who had the care of a----" he stopped suddenly. if he had guessed rightly at the dark secret, it was better that it should remain for ever hidden. this girl was perhaps more ignorant than himself. it was not for him to enlighten her. "do you know if anybody has lived here lately?" he asked. betsy murrel shook her head. "nobody has lived here--not that _oi_ knows of," she replied; "not to take their victuals, and such loike. missus brings her work down sometimes, and sits in one of these here rooms, while muster poll does his pictur' paa-intin'; that's all _oi_ knows of." edward went back to the painting-room, and set down his candle. the mystery of those empty chambers was no business of his. he began to think that his cousin olivia was mad, and that her outbursts of terror and agitation had been only the raving of a mad woman, after all. there had been a great deal in her manner during the last year that had seemed like insanity. the presence of the child might have been purely accidental; and his cousin's wild vehemence only a paroxysm of insanity. he sighed as he left miss murrel to her scouring. the world seemed out of joint; and he, whose energetic nature fitted him for the straightening of crooked things, had no knowledge of the means by which it might be set right. "good-bye, lonely place," he said; "good-bye to the spot where my young wife first told me of her love." he walked back to the cottage, where the bustle of packing and preparation was all over, and where mr. morrison was entertaining a select party of friends in the kitchen. early the next morning mr. arundel and his servant left lincolnshire; the key of kemberling retreat was given up to the landlord; and a wooden board, flapping above the dilapidated trellis-work of the porch, gave notice that the habitation was to be let. chapter iii. taking it quietly. all the county, or at least all that part of the county within a certain radius of marchmont towers, waited very anxiously for mr. paul marchmont to make some move. the horsewhipping business had given quite a pleasant zest, a flavour of excitement, a dash of what it is the fashion nowadays to call "sensation," to the wind-up of the hunting breakfast. poor paul's thrashing had been more racy and appetising than the finest olives that ever grew, and his late guests looked forward to a great deal more excitement and "sensation" before the business was done with. of course paul marchmont would do something. he _must_ make a stir; and the sooner he made it the better. matters would have to be explained. people expected to know the _cause_ of edward arundel's enmity; and of course the new master of the towers would see the propriety of setting himself right in the eyes of his influential acquaintance, his tenantry, and retainers; especially if he contemplated standing for swampington at the next general election. this was what people said to each other. the scene at the hunting-breakfast was a most fertile topic of conversation. it was almost as good as a popular murder, and furnished scandalous paragraphs _ad infinitum_ for the provincial papers, most of them beginning, "it is understood--," or "it has been whispered in our hearing that--," or "rochefoucault has observed that--." everybody expected that paul marchmont would write to the papers, and that edward arundel would answer him in the papers; and that a brisk and stirring warfare would be carried on in printer's-ink--at least. but no line written by either of the gentlemen appeared in any one of the county journals; and by slow degrees it dawned upon people that there was no further amusement to be got out of paul's chastisement, and that the master of the towers meant to take the thing quietly, and to swallow the horrible outrage, taking care to hide any wry faces he made during that operation. yes; paul marchmont let the matter drop. the report was circulated that he was very ill, and had suffered from a touch of brain-fever, which kept him a victim to incessant delirium until after mr. arundel had left the county. this rumour was set afloat by mr. weston the surgeon; and as he was the only person admitted to his brother-in-law's apartment, it was impossible for any one to contradict his assertion. the fox-hunting squires shrugged their shoulders; and i am sorry to say that the epithets, "hound," "cur," "sneak," and "mongrel," were more often applied to mr. marchmont than was consistent with christian feeling on the part of the gentlemen who uttered them. but a man who can swallow a sound thrashing, administered upon his own door-step, has to contend with the prejudices of society, and must take the consequences of being in advance of his age. so, while his new neighbours talked about him, paul marchmont lay in his splendid chamber, with the frisking youths and maidens staring at him all day long, and simpering at him with their unchanging faces, until he grew sick at heart, and began to loathe all this new grandeur, which had so delighted him a little time ago. he no longer laughed at the recollection of shabby charlotte street. he dreamt one night that he was back again in the old bedroom, with the painted deal furniture, and the hideous paper on the walls, and that the marchmont-towers magnificence had been only a feverish vision; and he was glad to be back in that familiar place, and was sorry on awaking to find that marchmont towers was a splendid reality. there was only one faint red streak upon his shoulders, for the thrashing had not been a brutal one. it was _disgrace_ edward arundel had wanted to inflict, not physical pain, the commonplace punishment with which a man corrects his refractory horse. the lash of the hunting-whip had done very little damage to the artist's flesh; but it had slashed away his manhood, as the sickle sweeps the flowers amidst the corn. he could never look up again. the thought of going out of this house for the first time, and the horror of confronting the altered faces of his neighbours, was as dreadful to him as the anticipation of that awful exit from the debtor's door, which is the last step but one into eternity, must be to the condemned criminal. "i shall go abroad," he said to his mother, when he made his appearance in the western drawing-room, a week after edward's departure. "i shall go on the continent, mother; i have taken a dislike to this place, since that savage attacked me the other day." mrs. marchmont sighed. "it will seem hard to lose you, paul, now that you are rich. you were so constant to us through all our poverty; and we might be so happy together now." the artist was walking up and down the room, with his hands in the pockets of his braided velvet coat. he knew that in the conventional costume of a well-bred gentleman he showed to a disadvantage amongst other men; and he affected a picturesque and artistic style of dress, whose brighter hues and looser outlines lighted up his pale face, and gave a grace to his spare figure. "you think it worth something, then, mother?" he said presently, half kneeling, half lounging in a deep-cushioned easy chair near the table at which his mother sat. "you think our money is worth something to us? all these chairs and tables, this great rambling house, the servants who wait upon us, and the carriages we ride in, are worth something, are they not? they make us happier, i suppose. i know i always thought such things made up the sum of happiness when i was poor. i have seen a hearse going away from a rich man's door, carrying his cherished wife, or his only son, perhaps; and i've thought, 'ah, but he has forty thousand a year!' you are happier here than you were in charlotte street, eh, mother?" mrs. marchmont was a frenchwoman by birth, though she had lived so long in london as to become anglicised. she only retained a slight accent of her native tongue, and a good deal more vivacity of look and gesture than is common to englishwomen. her elder daughter was sitting on the other side of the broad fireplace. she was only a quieter and older likeness of lavinia weston. "_am_ i happier?" exclaimed mrs. marchmont. "need you ask me the question, paul? but it is not so much for myself as for your sake that i value all this grandeur." she held out her long thin hand, which was covered with rings, some old-fashioned and comparatively valueless, others lately purchased by her devoted son, and very precious. the artist took the shrunken fingers in his own, and raised them to his lips. "i'm very glad that i've made you happy, mother," he said; "that's something gained, at any rate." he left the fireplace, and walked slowly up and down the room, stopping now and then to look out at the wintry sky, or the flat expanse of turf below it; but he was quite a different creature to that which he had been before his encounter with edward arundel. the chairs and tables palled upon him. the mossy velvet pile of the new carpets seemed to him like the swampy ground of a morass. the dark-green draperies of genoa velvet deepened into black with the growing twilight, and seemed as if they had been fashioned out of palls. what was it worth, this fine house, with the broad flat before it? nothing, if he had lost the respect and consideration of his neighbours. he wanted to be a great man as well as a rich one. he wanted admiration and flattery, reverence and esteem; not from poor people, whose esteem and admiration were scarcely worth having, but from wealthy squires, his equals or his superiors by birth and fortune. he ground his teeth at the thought of his disgrace. he had drunk of the cup of triumph, and had tasted the very wine of life; and at the moment when that cup was fullest, it had been snatched away from him by the ruthless hand of his enemy. christmas came, and gave paul marchmont a good opportunity of playing the country gentleman of the olden time. what was the cost of a couple of bullocks, a few hogsheads of ale, and a waggon-load of coals, if by such a sacrifice the master of the towers could secure for himself the admiration due to a public benefactor? paul gave _carte blanche_ to the old servants; and tents were erected on the lawn, and monstrous bonfires blazed briskly in the frosty air; while the populace, who would have accepted the bounties of a new nero fresh from the burning of a modern rome, drank to the health of their benefactor, and warmed themselves by the unlimited consumption of strong beer. mrs. marchmont and her invalid daughter assisted paul in his attempt to regain the popularity he had lost upon the steps of the western terrace. the two women distributed square miles of flannel and blanketing amongst greedy claimants; they gave scarlet cloaks and poke-bonnets to old women; they gave an insipid feast, upon temperance principles, to the children of the national schools. and they had their reward; for people began to say that this paul marchmont was a very noble fellow, after all, by jove, sir and that fellow arundel must have been in the wrong, sir; and no doubt marchmont had his own reasons for not resenting the outrage, sir; and a great deal more to the like effect. after this roasting of the two bullocks the wind changed altogether. mr. marchmont gave a great dinner-party upon new-year's day. he sent out thirty invitations, and had only two refusals. so the long dining-room was filled with all the notabilities of the district, and paul held his head up once more, and rejoiced in his own grandeur. after all, one horsewhipping cannot annihilate a man with a fine estate and eleven thousand a year, if he knows how to make a splash with his money. olivia marchmont shared in none of the festivals that were held. her father was very ill this winter; and she spent a good deal of her time at swampington rectory, sitting in hubert arundel's room, and reading to him. but her presence brought very little comfort to the sick man; for there was something in his daughter's manner that filled him with inexpressible terror; and he would lie for hours together watching her blank face, and wondering at its horrible rigidity. what was it? what was the dreadful secret which had transformed this woman? he tormented himself perpetually with this question, but he could imagine no answer to it. he did not know the power which a master-passion has upon these strong-minded women, whose minds are strong because of their narrowness, and who are the bonden slaves of one idea. he did not know that in a breast which holds no pure affection the master-fiend passion rages like an all-devouring flame, perpetually consuming its victim. he did not know that in these violent and concentrative natures the line that separates reason from madness is so feeble a demarcation, that very few can perceive the hour in which it is passed. olivia marchmont had never been the most lively or delightful of companions. the tenderness which is the common attribute of a woman's nature had not been given to her. she ought to have been a great man. nature makes these mistakes now and then, and the victim expiates the error. hence comes such imperfect histories as that of english elizabeth and swedish christina. the fetters that had bound olivia's narrow life had eaten into her very soul, and cankered there. if she could have been edward arundel's wife, she would have been the noblest and truest wife that ever merged her identity into that of another, and lived upon the refracted glory of her husband's triumphs. she would have been a rachel russell, a mrs. hutchinson, a lady nithisdale, a madame de lavalette. she would have been great by reason of her power of self-abnegation; and there would have been a strange charm in the aspect of this fierce nature attuned to harmonise with its master's soul, all the barbaric discords melting into melody, all the harsh combinations softening into perfect music; just as in mr. buckstone's most poetic drama we are bewitched by the wild huntress sitting at the feet of her lord, and admire her chiefly because we know that only that one man upon all the earth could have had power to tame her. to any one who had known olivia's secret, there could have been no sadder spectacle than this of her decay. the mind and body decayed together, bound by a mysterious sympathy. all womanly roundness disappeared from the spare figure, and mrs. marchmont's black dresses hung about her in loose folds. her long, dead, black hair was pushed away from her thin face, and twisted into a heavy knot at the back of her head. every charm that she had ever possessed was gone. the oldest women generally retain some traits of their lost beauty, some faint reflection of the sun that has gone down, to light up the soft twilight of age, and even glimmer through the gloom of death. but this woman's face retained no token of the past. no empty hull, with shattered bulwarks crumbled by the fury of fierce seas, cast on a desert shore to rot and perish there, was ever more complete a wreck than she was. upon her face and figure, in every look and gesture, in the tone of every word she spoke, there was an awful something, worse than the seal of death. little by little the miserable truth dawned upon hubert arundel. his daughter was mad! he knew this; but he kept the dreadful knowledge hidden in his own breast,--a hideous secret, whose weight oppressed him like an actual burden. he kept the secret; for it would have seemed to him the most cruel treason against his daughter to have confessed his discovery to any living creature, unless it should be absolutely necessary to do so. meanwhile he set himself to watch olivia, detaining her at the rectory for a week together, in order that he might see her in all moods, under all phases. he found that there were no violent or outrageous evidences of this mental decay. the mind had given way under the perpetual pressure of one set of thoughts. hubert arundel, in his ignorance of his daughter's secrets, could not discover the cause of her decadence; but that cause was very simple. if the body is a wonderful and complex machine which must not be tampered with, surely that still more complex machine the mind must need careful treatment. if such and such a course of diet is fatal to the body's health, may not some thoughts be equally fatal to the health of the brain? may not a monotonous recurrence of the same ideas be above all injurious? if by reason of the peculiar nature of a man's labour, he uses one limb or one muscle more than the rest, strange bosses rise up to testify to that ill usage, the idle limbs wither, and the harmonious perfection of nature gives place to deformity. so the brain, perpetually pressed upon, for ever strained to its utmost tension by the wearisome succession of thoughts, becomes crooked and one-sided, always leaning one way, continually tripping up the wretched thinker. john marchmont's widow had only one set of ideas. on every subject but that one which involved edward arundel and his fortunes her memory had decayed. she asked her father the same questions--commonplace questions relating to his own comfort, or to simple household matters, twenty times a day, always forgetting that he had answered her. she had that impatience as to the passage of time which is one of the most painful signs of madness. she looked at her watch ten times an hour, and would wander out into the cheerless garden, indifferent to the bitter weather, in order to look at the clock in the church-steeple, under the impression that her own watch, and her father's, and all the time-keepers in the house, were slow. she was sometimes restless, taking up one occupation after another, to throw all aside with equal impatience, and sometimes immobile for hours together. but as she was never violent, never in any way unreasonable, hubert arundel had not the heart to call science to his aid, and to betray her secret. the thought that his daughter's malady might be cured never entered his mind as within the range of possibility. there was nothing to cure; no delusions to be exorcised by medical treatment; no violent vagaries to be held in check by drugs and nostrums. the powerful intellect had decayed; its force and clearness were gone. no drugs that ever grew upon this earth could restore that which was lost. this was the conviction which kept the rector silent. it would have given him unutterable anguish to have told his daughter's secret to any living being; but he would have endured that misery if she could have been benefitted thereby. he most firmly believed that she could not, and that her state was irremediable. "my poor girl!" he thought to himself; "how proud i was of her ten years ago! i can do nothing for her; nothing except to love and cherish her, and hide her humiliation from the world." but hubert arundel was not allowed to do even this much for the daughter he loved; for when olivia had been with him a little more than a week, paul marchmont and his mother drove over to swampington rectory one morning and carried her away with them. the rector then saw for the first time that his once strong-minded daughter was completely under the dominion of these two people, and that they knew the nature of her malady quite as well as he did. he resisted her return to the towers; but his resistance was useless. she submitted herself willingly to her new friends, declaring that she was better in their house than anywhere else. so she went back to her old suite of apartments, and her old servant barbara waited upon her; and she sat alone in dead john marchmont's study, listening to the january winds shrieking in the quadrangle, the distant rooks calling to each other amongst the bare branches of the poplars, the banging of the doors in the corridor, and occasional gusts of laughter from the open door of the dining-room,--while paul marchmont and his guests gave a jovial welcome to the new year. while the master of the towers re-asserted his grandeur, and made stupendous efforts to regain the ground he had lost, edward arundel wandered far away in the depths of brittany, travelling on foot, and making himself familiar with the simple peasants, who were ignorant of his troubles. he had sent mr. morrison down to dangerfield with the greater part of his luggage; but he had not the heart to go back himself--yet awhile. he was afraid of his mother's sympathy, and he went away into the lonely breton villages, to try and cure himself of his great grief, before he began life again as a soldier. it was useless for him to strive against his vocation. nature had made him a soldier, and nothing else; and wherever there was a good cause to be fought for, his place was on the battle-field. chapter iv. miss lawford speaks her mind. major lawford and his blue-eyed daughters were not amongst those guests who accepted paul marchmont's princely hospitalities. belinda lawford had never heard the story of edward's lost bride as he himself could have told it; but she had heard an imperfect version of the sorrowful history from letitia, and that young lady had informed her friend of edward's animus against the new master of the towers. "the poor dear foolish boy will insist upon thinking that mr. marchmont was at the bottom of it all," she had said in a confidential chat with belinda, "somehow or other; but whether he was, or whether he wasn't, i'm sure i can't say. but if one attempts to take mr. marchmont's part with edward, he does get so violent and go on so, that one's obliged to say all sorts of dreadful things about mary's cousin for the sake of peace. but really, when i saw him one day in kemberling, with a black velvet shooting-coat, and his beautiful smooth white hair and auburn moustache, i thought him most interesting. and so would you, belinda, if you weren't so wrapped up in that doleful brother of mine." whereupon, of course, miss lawford had been compelled to declare that she was not "wrapped up" in edward, whatever state of feeling that obscure phrase might signify; and to express, by the vehemence of her denial, that, if anything, she rather detested miss arundel's brother. by-the-by, did you ever know a young lady who could understand the admiration aroused in the breast of other young ladies for that most uninteresting object, a _brother_? or a gentleman who could enter with any warmth of sympathy into his friend's feelings respecting the auburn tresses or the grecian nose of "a sister"? belinda lawford, i say, knew something of the story of mary arundel's death, and she implored her father to reject all hospitalities offered by paul marchmont. "you won't go to the towers, papa dear?" she said, with her hands clasped upon her father's arm, her cheeks kindling, and her eyes filling with tears as she spoke to him; "you won't go and sit at paul marchmont's table, and drink his wine, and shake hands with him? i know that he had something to do with mary arundel's death. he had indeed, papa. i don't mean anything that the world calls crime; i don't mean any act of open violence. but he was cruel to her, papa; he was cruel to her. he tortured her and tormented her until she--" the girl paused for a moment, and her voice faltered a little. "oh, how i wish that i had known her, papa," she cried presently, "that i might have stood by her, and comforted her, all through that sad time!" the major looked down at his daughter with a tender smile,--a smile that was a little significant, perhaps, but full of love and admiration. "you would have stood by arundel's poor little wife, my dear?" he said. "you would stand by her _now_, if she were alive, and needed your friendship?" "i would indeed, papa," miss lawford answered resolutely. "i believe it, my dear; i believe it with all my heart. you are a good girl, my linda; you are a noble girl. you are as good as a son to me, my dear." major lawford was silent for a few moments, holding his daughter in his arms and pressing his lips upon her broad forehead. "you are fit to be a soldier's daughter, my darling," he said, "or--or a soldier's wife." he kissed her once more, and then left her, sighing thoughtfully as he went away. this is how it was that neither major lawford nor any of his family were present at those splendid entertainments which paul marchmont gave to his new friends. mr. marchmont knew almost as well as the lawfords themselves why they did not come, and the absence of them at his glittering board made his bread bitter to him and his wine tasteless. he wanted these people as much as the others,--more than the others, perhaps, for they had been edward arundel's friends; and he wanted them to turn their backs upon the young man, and join in the general outcry against his violence and brutality. the absence of major lawford at the lighted banquet-table tormented this modern rich man as the presence of mordecai at the gate tormented haman. it was not enough that all the others should come if these stayed away, and by their absence tacitly testified to their contempt for the master of the towers. he met belinda sometimes on horseback with the old grey-headed groom behind her, a fearless young amazon, breasting the january winds, with her blue eyes sparkling, and her auburn hair blowing away from her candid face: he met her, and looked out at her from the luxurious barouche in which it was his pleasure to loll by his mother's side, half-buried amongst soft furry rugs and sleek leopard-skins, making the chilly atmosphere through which he rode odorous with the scent of perfumed hair, and smiling over cruelly delicious criticisms in newly-cut reviews. he looked out at this fearless girl whose friends so obstinately stood by edward arundel; and the cold contempt upon miss lawford's face cut him more keenly than the sharpest wind of that bitter january. then he took counsel with his womankind; not telling them his thoughts, fears, doubts, or wishes--it was not his habit to do that--but taking _their_ ideas, and only telling them so much as it was necessary for them to know in order that they might be useful to him. paul marchmont's life was regulated by a few rules, so simple that a child might have learned them; indeed i regret to say that some children are very apt pupils in that school of philosophy to which the master of marchmont towers belonged, and cause astonishment to their elders by the precocity of their intelligence. mr. marchmont might have inscribed upon a very small scrap of parchment the moral maxims by which he regulated his dealings with mankind. "always conciliate," said this philosopher. "never tell an unnecessary lie. be agreeable and generous to those who serve you. n.b. no good carpenter would allow his tools to get rusty. make yourself master of the opinions of others, but hold your own tongue. seek to obtain the maximum of enjoyment with the minimum of risk." such golden saws as these did mr. marchmont make for his own especial guidance; and he hoped to pass smoothly onwards upon the railway of life, riding in a first-class carriage, on the greased wheels of a very easy conscience. as for any unfortunate fellow-travellers pitched out of the carriage-window in the course of the journey, or left lonely and helpless at desolate stations on the way, providence, and not mr. marchmont, was responsible for _their_ welfare. paul had a high appreciation of providence, and was fond of talking--very piously, as some people said; very impiously, as others secretly thought--about the inestimable wisdom which governed all the affairs of this lower world. nowhere, according to the artist, had the hand of providence been more clearly visible than in this matter about paul's poor little cousin mary. if providence had intended john marchmont's daughter to be a happy bride, a happy wife, the prosperous mistress of that stately habitation, why all that sad business of old mr. arundel's sudden illness, edward's hurried journey, the railway accident, and all the complications that had thereupon arisen? nothing would have been easier than for providence to have prevented all this; and then he, paul, would have been still in charlotte street, fitzroy square, patiently waiting for a friendly lift upon the high-road of life. nobody could say that he had ever been otherwise than patient. nobody could say that he had ever intruded himself upon his rich cousins at the towers, or had been heard to speculate upon his possible inheritance of the estate; or that he had, in short, done any thing but that which the best, truest, most conscientious and disinterested of mankind should do. in the course of that bleak, frosty january, mr. marchmont sent his mother and his sister lavinia to make a call at the grange. the grange people had never called upon mrs. marchmont; but paul did not allow any flimsy ceremonial law to stand in his way when he had a purpose to achieve. so the ladies went to the grange, and were politely received; for miss lawford and her mother were a great deal too innocent and noble-minded to imagine that these pale-faced, delicate-looking women could have had any part, either directly or indirectly, in that cruel treatment which had driven edward's young wife from her home. mrs. marchmont and mrs. weston were kindly received, therefore; and in a little conversation with belinda about birds, and dahlias, and worsted work, and the most innocent subjects imaginable, the wily lavinia contrived to lead up to miss letitia arundel, and thence, by the easiest conversational short-cut, to edward and his lost wife. mrs. weston was obliged to bring her cambric handkerchief out of her muff when she talked about her cousin mary; but she was a clever woman, and she had taken to heart paul's pet maxim about the folly of _unnecessary_ lies; and she was so candid as to entirely disarm miss lawford, who had a schoolgirlish notion that every kind of hypocrisy and falsehood was outwardly visible in a servile and slavish manner. she was not upon her guard against those practised adepts in the art of deception, who have learnt to make that subtle admixture of truth and falsehood which defies detection; like some fabrics in whose woof silk and cotton are so cunningly blended that only a practised eye can discover the inferior material. so when lavinia dried her eyes and put her handkerchief back in her muff, and said, betwixt laughing and crying,-- "now you know, my dear miss lawford, you mustn't think that i would for a moment pretend to be sorry that my brother has come into this fortune. of course any such pretence as that would be ridiculous, and quite useless into the bargain, as it isn't likely anybody would believe me. paul is a dear, kind creature, the best of brothers, the most affectionate of sons, and deserves any good fortune that could fall to his lot; but i am truly sorry for that poor little girl. i am truly sorry, believe me, miss lawford; and i only regret that mr. weston and i did not come to kemberling sooner, so that i might have been a friend to the poor little thing; for then, you know, i might have prevented that foolish runaway match, out of which almost all the poor child's troubles arose. yes, miss lawford; i wish i had been able to befriend that unhappy child, although by my so doing paul would have been kept out of the fortune he now enjoys--for some time, at any rate. i say for some time, because i do not believe that mary marchmont would have lived to be old, under the happiest circumstances. her mother died very young; and her father, and her father's father, were consumptive." then mrs. weston took occasion, incidentally of course, to allude to her brother's goodness; but even then she was on her guard, and took care not to say too much. "the worst actors are those who over-act their parts." that was another of paul marchmont's golden maxims. "i don't know what my brother may be to the rest of the world," lavinia said; "but i know how good he is to those who belong to him. i should be ashamed to tell you all he has done for mr. weston and me. he gave me this cashmere shawl at the beginning of the winter, and a set of sables fit for a duchess; though i told him they were not at all the thing for a village surgeon's wife, who keeps only one servant, and dusts her own best parlour." and mrs. marchmont talked of her son; with no loud enthusiasm, but with a tone of quiet conviction that was worth any money to paul. to have an innocent person, some one not in the secret, to play a small part in the comedy of his life, was a desideratum with the artist. his mother had always been this person, this unconscious performer, instinctively falling into the action of the play, and shedding real tears, and smiling actual smiles,--the most useful assistant to a great schemer. but during the whole of the visit nothing was said as to paul's conduct towards his unhappy cousin; nothing was said either to praise or to exculpate; and when mrs. marchmont and her daughter drove away, in one of the new equipages which paul had selected for his mother, they left only a vague impression in belinda's breast. she didn't quite know what to think. these people were so frank and candid, they had spoken of paul with such real affection, that it was almost impossible to doubt them. paul marchmont might be a bad man, but his mother and sister loved him, and surely they were ignorant of his wickedness. mrs. lawford troubled herself very little about this unexpected morning call. she was an excellent, warm-hearted, domestic creature, and thought a great deal more about the grand question as to whether she should have new damask curtains for the drawing-room, or send the old ones to be dyed; or whether she should withdraw her custom from the kemberling grocer, whose "best black" at four-and-sixpence was really now so very inferior; or whether belinda's summer silk dress could be cut down into a frock for isabella to wear in the winter evenings,--than about the rights or wrongs of that story of the horsewhipping which had been administered to mr. marchmont. "i'm sure those marchmont-towers people seem very nice, my dear," the lady said to belinda; "and i really wish your papa would go and dine there. you know i like him to dine out a good deal in the winter, linda; not that i want to save the housekeeping money,--only it is so difficult to vary the side-dishes for a man who has been accustomed to mess-dinners, and a french cook." but belinda stuck fast to her colours. she was a soldier's daughter, as her father said, and she was almost as good as a son. the major meant this latter remark for very high praise; for the great grief of his life had been the want of a boy's brave face at his fireside. she was as good as a son; that is to say, she was braver and more outspoken than most women; although she was feminine and gentle withal, and by no means strong-minded. she would have fainted, perhaps, at the first sight of blood upon a battle-field; but she would have bled to death with the calm heroism of a martyr, rather than have been false to a noble cause. "i think papa is quite right not to go to marchmont towers, mamma," she said; the artful minx omitted to state that it was by reason of her entreaties her father had stayed away. "i think he is quite right. mrs. marchmont and mrs. weston may be very nice, and of course it isn't likely _they_ would be cruel to poor young mrs. arundel; but i _know_ that mr. marchmont must have been unkind to that poor girl, or mr. arundel would never have done what he did." it is in the nature of good and brave men to lay down their masculine rights when they leave their hats in the hall, and to submit themselves meekly to feminine government. it is only the whippersnapper, the sneak, the coward out of doors who is a tyrant at home. see how meekly the conqueror of italy went home to his charming creole wife! see how pleasantly the liberator of italy lolls in the carriage of his golden-haired empress, when the young trees in that fair wood beyond the triumphal arch are green in the bright spring weather, and all the hired vehicles in paris are making towards the cascade! major lawford's wife was too gentle, and too busy with her store-room and her domestic cares, to tyrannise over her lord and master; but the major was duly henpecked by his blue-eyed daughters, and went here and there as they dictated. so he stayed away from marchmont towers to please belinda; and only said, "haw," "yes," "'pon my honour, now!" "bless my soul!" when his friends told him of the magnificence of paul's dinners. but although the major and his eldest daughter did not encounter mr. marchmont in his own house, they met him sometimes on the neutral ground of other people's dining-rooms, and upon one especial evening at a pleasant little dinner-party given by the rector of the parish in which the grange was situated. paul made himself particularly agreeable upon this occasion; but in the brief interval before dinner he was absorbed in a conversation with mr. davenant, the rector, upon the subject of ecclesiastical architecture,--he knew everything, and could talk about everything, this dear paul,--and made no attempt to approach miss lawford. he only looked at her now and then, with a furtive, oblique glance out of his almond-shaped, pale-grey eyes; a glance that was wisely hidden by the light auburn lashes, for it had an unpleasant resemblance to the leer of an evil-natured sprite. mr. marchmont contented himself with keeping this furtive watch upon belinda, while she talked gaily with the rector's two daughters in a pleasant corner near the piano. and as the artist took mrs. davenant down to the dining-room, and sat next her at dinner, he had no opportunity of fraternising with belinda during that meal; for the young lady was divided from him by the whole length of the table and, moreover, very much occupied by the exclusive attentions of two callow-looking officers from the nearest garrison-town, who were afflicted with extreme youth, and were painfully conscious of their degraded state, but tried notwithstanding to carry it off with a high hand, and affected the opinions of used-up fifty. mr. marchmont had none of his womankind with him at this dinner; for his mother and invalid sister had neither of them felt strong enough to come, and mr. and mrs. weston had not been invited. the artist's special object in coming to this dinner was the conquest of miss belinda lawford: she sided with edward arundel against him: she must be made to believe edward wrong, and himself right; or she might go about spreading her opinions, and doing him mischief. beyond that, he had another idea about belinda; and he looked to this dinner as likely to afford him an opportunity of laying the foundation of a very diplomatic scheme, in which miss lawford should unconsciously become his tool. he was vexed at being placed apart from her at the dinner-table, but he concealed his vexation; and he was aggravated by the rector's old-fashioned hospitality, which detained the gentlemen over their wine for some time after the ladies left the dining-room. but the opportunity that he wanted came nevertheless, and in a manner that he had not anticipated. the two callow defenders of their country had sneaked out of the dining-room, and rejoined the ladies in the cosy countrified drawing-rooms. they had stolen away, these two young men; for they were oppressed by the weight of a fearful secret. _they couldn't drink claret!_ no; they had tried to like it; they had smacked their lips and winked their eyes--both at once, for even winking with _one_ eye is an accomplishment scarcely compatible with extreme youth--over vintages that had seemed to them like a happy admixture of red ink and green-gooseberry juice. they had perjured their boyish souls with hideous falsehoods as to their appreciation of pale tawny port, light dry wines, ' -ports, ' -ports, kopke roriz, thompson and croft's, and sandemann's; when, in the secret recesses of their minds, they affected sweet and "slab" compounds, sold by publicans, and facetiously called "our prime old port, at four-and-sixpence." they were very young, these beardless soldiers. they liked strawberry ices, and were on the verge of insolvency from a predilection for clammy bath-buns, jam-tarts, and cherry-brandy. they liked gorgeous waistcoats; and varnished boots in a state of virgin brilliancy; and little bouquets in their button-holes; and a deluge of _millefleurs_ upon their flimsy handkerchiefs. they were very young. the men they met at dinner-parties to-day had tipped them at eton or woolwich only yesterday, as it seemed, and remembered it and despised them. it was only a few months since they had been snubbed for calling the douro a mountain in switzerland, and the himalayas a cluster of islands in the pacific, at horrible examinations, in which the cold perspiration had bedewed their pallid young cheeks. they were delighted to get away from those elderly creatures in the rector's dining-room to the snug little back drawing-room, where belinda lawford and the two misses davenant were murmuring softly in the firelight, like young turtles in a sheltered dove-cote; while the matrons in the larger apartment sipped their coffee, and conversed in low awful voices about the iniquities of housemaids, and the insubordination of gardeners and grooms. belinda and her two companions were very polite to the helpless young wanderers from the dining-room; and they talked pleasantly enough of all manner of things; until somehow or other the conversation came round to the marchmont-towers scandal, and edward's treatment of his lost wife's kinsman. one of the young men had been present at the hunting-breakfast on that bright october morning, and he was not a little proud of his superior acquaintance with the whole business. "i was the-aw, miss lawford," he said. "i was on the tew-wace after bweakfast,--and a vewy excellent bweakfast it was, i ass-haw you; the still moselle was weally admiwable, and marchmont has some medewa that immeasuwably surpasses anything i can indooce my wine-merchant to send me;--i was on the tew-wace, and i saw awundel comin' up the steps, awful pale, and gwasping his whip; and i was a witness of all the west that occurred; and if i had been marchmont i should have shot awundel befaw he left the pawk, if i'd had to swing for it, miss lawford; for i should have felt, b'jove, that my own sense of honaw demanded the sacwifice. howevaw, marchmont seems a vewy good fella; so i suppose it's all wight as far as he goes; but it was a bwutal business altogethaw, and that fella awundel must be a scoundwel." belinda could not bear this. she had borne a great deal already. she had been obliged to sit by very often, and hear edward arundel's conduct discussed by thomas, richard, and henry, or anybody else who chose to talk about it; and she had been patient, and had held her peace, with her heart bumping indignantly in her breast, and passionate crimson blushes burning her cheeks. but she could _not_ submit to hear a beardless, pale-faced, and rather weak-eyed young ensign--who had never done any greater service for his queen and country than to cry "shuddruph!" to a detachment of raw recruits in a barrack-yard, in the early bleakness of a winter's morning--take upon himself to blame edward arundel, the brave soldier, the noble indian hero, the devoted lover and husband, the valiant avenger of his dead wife's wrongs. "i don't think you know anything of the real story, mr. palliser," belinda said boldly to the half-fledged ensign. "if you did, i'm sure you would admire mr. arundel's conduct instead of blaming it. mr. marchmont fully deserved the disgrace which edward--which mr. arundel inflicted upon him." the words were still upon her lips, when paul marchmont himself came softly through the flickering firelight to the low chair upon which belinda sat. he came behind her, and laying his hand lightly upon the scroll-work at the back of her chair, bent over her, and said, in a low confidential voice,-- "you are a noble girl, miss lawford. i am sorry that you should think ill of me: but i like you for having spoken so frankly. you are a most noble girl. you are worthy to be your father's daughter." this was said with a tone of suppressed emotion; but it was quite a random shot. paul didn't know anything about the major, except that he had a comfortable income, drove a neat dog-cart, and was often seen riding on the flat lincolnshire roads with his eldest daughter. for all paul knew to the contrary, major lawford might have been the veriest bully and coward who ever made those about him miserable; but mr. marchmont's tone as good as expressed that he was intimately acquainted with the old soldier's career, and had long admired and loved him. it was one of paul's happy inspirations, this allusion to belinda's father; one of those bright touches of colour laid on with a skilful recklessness, and giving sudden brightness to the whole picture; a little spot of vermilion dabbed upon the canvas with the point of the palette-knife, and lighting up all the landscape with sunshine. "you know my father?" said belinda, surprised. "who does not know him?" cried the artist. "do you think, miss lawford, that it is necessary to sit at a man's dinner-table before you know what he is? i know your father to be a good man and a brave soldier, as well as i know that the duke of wellington is a great general, though i never dined at apsley house. i respect your father, miss lawford; and i have been very much distressed by his evident avoidance of me and mine." this was coming to the point at once. mr. marchmont's manner was candour itself. belinda looked at him with widely-opened, wondering eyes. she was looking for the evidence of his wickedness in his face. i think she half-expected that mr. marchmont would have corked eyebrows, and a slouched hat, like a stage ruffian. she was so innocent, this simple young belinda, that she imagined wicked people must necessarily look wicked. paul marchmont saw the wavering of her mind in that half-puzzled expression, and he went on boldly. "i like your father, miss lawford," he said; "i like him, and i respect him; and i want to know him. other people may misunderstand me, if they please. i can't help their opinions. the truth is generally strongest in the end; and i can afford to wait. but i can_not_ afford to forfeit the friendship of a man i esteem; i cannot afford to be misunderstood by your father, miss lawford; and i have been very much pained--yes, very much pained--by the manner in which the major has repelled my little attempts at friendliness." belinda's heart smote her. she knew that it was her influence that had kept her father away from marchmont towers. this young lady was very conscientious. she was a christian, too; and a certain sentence touching wrongful judgments rose up against her while mr. marchmont was speaking. if she had wronged this man; if edward arundel has been misled by his passionate grief for mary; if she had been deluded by edward's error,--how very badly mr. marchmont had been treated between them! she didn't say anything, but sat looking thoughtfully at the fire; and paul saw that she was more and more perplexed. this was just what the artist wanted. to talk his antagonist into a state of intellectual fog was almost always his manner of commencing an argument. belinda was silent, and paul seated himself in a chair close to hers. the callow ensigns had gone into the lamp-lit front drawing-room, and were busy turning over the leaves--and never turning them over at the right moment--of a thundering duet which the misses davenant were performing for the edification of their papa's visitors. miss lawford and mr. marchmont were alone, therefore, in that cosy inner chamber, and a very pretty picture they made: the rosy-cheeked girl and the pale, sentimental-looking artist sitting side by side in the glow of the low fire, with a background of crimson curtains and gleaming picture-frames; winter flowers piled in grim indian jars; the fitful light flickering now and then upon one sharp angle of the high carved mantelpiece, with all its litter of antique china; and the rest of the room in sombre shadow. paul had the field all to himself, and felt that victory would be easy. he began to talk about edward arundel. if he had said one word against the young soldier, i think this impetuous girl, who had not yet learned to count the cost of what she did, would have been passionately eloquent in defence of her friend's brother--for no other reason than that he was the brother of her friend, of course; what other reason should she have for defending mr. arundel? but paul marchmont did not give her any occasion for indignation. on the contrary, he spoke in praise of the hot-headed young soldier who had assaulted him, making all manner of excuses for the young man's violence, and using that tone of calm superiority with which a man of the world might naturally talk about a foolish boy. "he has been very unreasonable, miss lawford," paul said by-and-by; "he has been very unreasonable, and has most grossly insulted me. but, in spite of all, i believe him to be a very noble young fellow, and i cannot find it in my heart to be really angry with him. what his particular grievance against me may be, i really do not know." the furtive glance from the long narrow grey eyes kept close watch upon belinda's face as paul said this. mr. marchmont wanted to ascertain exactly how much belinda knew of that grievance of edward's; but he could see only perplexity in her face. she knew nothing definite, therefore; she had only heard edward talk vaguely of his wrongs. paul marchmont was convinced of this; and he went on boldly now, for he felt that the ground was all clear before him. "this foolish young soldier chooses to be angry with me because of a calamity which i was as powerless to avert, as to prevent that accident upon the south-western railway by which mr. arundel so nearly lost his life. i cannot tell you how sincerely i regret the misconception that has arisen in his mind. because i have profited by the death of john marchmont's daughter, this impetuous young husband imagines--what? i cannot answer that question; nor can he himself, it seems, since he has made no definite statement of his wrongs to any living being." the artist looked more sharply than ever at belinda's listening face. there was no change in its expression; the same wondering look, the same perplexity,--that was all. "when i say that i regret the young man's folly, miss lawford," paul continued, "believe me, it is chiefly on his account rather than my own. any insult which he can inflict upon me can only rebound upon himself, since everybody in lincolnshire knows that i am in the right, and he in the wrong." mr. marchmont was going on very smoothly; but at this point miss lawford, who had by no means deserted her colours, interrupted his easy progress. "it remains to be proved who is right and who wrong, mr. marchmont," she said. "mr. arundel is the brother of my friend. i cannot easily believe him to have done wrong." paul looked at her with a smile--a smile that brought hot blushes to her face; but she returned his look without flinching. the brave girl looked full into the narrow grey eyes sheltered under pale auburn lashes, and her steadfast gaze did not waver. "ah, miss lawford," said the artist, still smiling, "when a young man is handsome, chivalrous, and generous-hearted, it is very difficult to convince a woman that he can do wrong. edward arundel has done wrong. his ultra-quixotism has made him blind to the folly of his own acts. i can afford to forgive him. but i repeat that i regret his infatuation about this poor lost girl far more upon his account than on my own; for i know--at least i venture to think--that a way lies open to him of a happier and a better life than he could ever have known with my poor childish cousin mary marchmont. i have reason to know that he has formed another attachment, and that it is only a chivalrous delusion about that poor girl--whom he was never really in love with, and whom he only married because of some romantic notion inspired by my cousin john--that withholds him from that other and brighter prospect." he was silent for a few moments, and then he said hastily,-- "pardon me, miss lawford; i have been betrayed into saying much that i had better have left unsaid, more especially to you. i----" he hesitated a little, as if embarrassed; and then rose and looked into the next room, where the duet had been followed by a solo. one of the rector's daughters came towards the inner drawing-room, followed by a callow ensign. "we want belinda to sing," exclaimed miss davenant. "we want you to sing, you tiresome belinda, instead of hiding yourself in that dark room all the evening." belinda came out of the darkness, with her cheeks flushed and her eyelids drooping. her heart was beating so fast as to make it quite impossible to speak just yet, or to sing either. but she sat down before the piano, and, with hands that trembled in spite of herself, began to play one of her pet sonatas. unhappily, beethoven requires precision of touch in the pianist who is bold enough to seek to interpret him; and upon this occasion i am compelled to admit that miss lawford's fingering was eccentric, not to say ridiculous,--in common parlance, she made a mess of it; and just as she was going to break down, friendly clara davenant cried out,-- "that won't do, belinda! we want you to sing, not to play. you are trying to cheat us. we would rather have one of moore's melodies than all beethoven's sonatas." so miss lawford, still blushing, with her eyelids still drooping, played sir john stevenson's simple symphony, and in a fresh swelling voice, that filled the room with melody, began: "oh, the days are gone when beauty bright my heart's chain wove; when my dream of life, from morn till night, was love, still love!" and paul marchmont, sitting at the other end of the room turning over miss davenant's scrap-book, looked up through his auburn lashes, and smiled at the beaming face of the singer. he felt that he had improved the occasion. "i am not afraid of miss lawford now," he thought to himself. this candid, fervent girl was only another piece in the schemer's game of chess; and he saw a way of making her useful in the attainment of that great end which, in the strange simplicity of cunning, he believed to be the one purpose of _every_ man's life,--self-aggrandisement. it never for a moment entered into his mind that edward arundel was any more _real_ than he was himself. there can be no perfect comprehension where there is no sympathy. paul believed that edward had tried to become master of mary marchmont's heritage; and had failed; and was angry because of his failure. he believed this passionate young man to be a schemer like himself; only a little more impetuous and blundering in his manner of going to work. chapter v. the return of the wanderer. the march winds were blowing amongst the oaks in dangerfield park, when edward arundel went back to the house which had never been his home since his boyhood. he went back because he had grown weary of lonely wanderings in that strange breton country. he had grown weary of himself and of his own thoughts. he was worn out by the eager desire that devoured him by day and by night,--the passionate yearning to be far away beyond that low eastern horizon line; away amid the carnage and riot of an indian battle-field. so he went back at last to his mother, who had written to him again and again, imploring him to return to her, and to rest, and to be happy in the familiar household where he was beloved. he left his luggage at the little inn where the coach that had brought him from exeter stopped, and then he walked quietly homewards in the gloaming. the early spring evening was bleak and chill. the blacksmith's fire roared at him as he went by the smithy. all the lights in the queer latticed windows twinkled and blinked at him, as if in friendly welcome to the wanderer. he remembered them all: the quaint, misshapen, lopsided roofs; the tumble-down chimneys; the low doorways, that had sunk down below the level of the village street, until all the front parlours became cellars, and strange pedestrians butted their heads against the flower-pots in the bedroom windows; the withered iron frame and pitiful oil-lamp hung out at the corner of the street, and making a faint spot of feeble light upon the rugged pavement; mysterious little shops in diamond-paned parlour windows, where dutch dolls and stationery, stale gingerbread and pickled cabbage, were mixed up with wooden pegtops, squares of yellow soap, rickety paper kites, green apples, and string; they were all familiar to him. it had been a fine thing once to come into this village with letitia, and buy stale gingerbread and rickety kites of a snuffy old pensioner of his mother's. the kites had always stuck in the upper branches of the oaks, and the gingerbread had invariably choked him; but with the memory of the kites and gingerbread came back all the freshness of his youth, and he looked with a pensive tenderness at the homely little shops, the merchandise flickering in the red firelight, that filled each quaint interior with a genial glow of warmth and colour. he passed unquestioned by a wicket at the side of the great gates. the firelight was rosy in the windows of the lodge, and he heard a woman's voice singing a monotonous song to a sleepy child. everywhere in this pleasant england there seemed to be the glow of cottage-fires, and friendliness, and love, and home. the young man sighed as he remembered that great stone mansion far away in dismal lincolnshire, and thought how happy he might have been in this bleak spring twilight, if he could have sat by mary marchmont's side in the western drawing-room, watching the firelight and the shadows trembling on her fair young face. it never had been; and it never was to be. the happiness of a home; the sweet sense of ownership; the delight of dispensing pleasure to others; all the simple domestic joys which make life beautiful,--had never been known to john marchmont's daughter, since that early time in which she shared her father's lodging in oakley street, and went out in the cold december morning to buy rolls for edward arundel's breakfast. from the bay-window of his mother's favourite sitting-room the same red light that he had seen in every lattice in the village streamed out upon the growing darkness of the lawn. there was a half-glass door leading into a little lobby near this sitting-room. edward arundel opened it and went in, very quietly. he expected to find his mother and his sister in the room with the bay-window. the door of this familiar apartment was ajar; he pushed it open, and went in. it was a very pretty room, and all the womanly litter of open books and music, needlework and drawing materials, made it homelike. the firelight flickered upon everything--on the pictures and picture-frames, the black oak paneling, the open piano, a cluster of snowdrops in a tall glass on the table, the scattered worsteds by the embroidery-frame, the sleepy dogs upon the hearth-rug. a young lady stood in the bay-window with her back to the fire. edward arundel crept softly up to her, and put his arm round her waist. "letty!" it was not letitia, but a young lady with very blue eyes, who blushed scarlet, and turned upon the young man rather fiercely; and then recognising him, dropped into the nearest chair and began to tremble and grow pale. "i am sorry i startled you, miss lawford," edward said, gently; "i really thought you were my sister. i did not even know that you were here." "no, of course not. i--you didn't startle me much, mr. arundel; only you were not expected home. i thought you were far away in brittany. i had no idea that there was any chance of your returning. i thought you meant to be away all the summer--mrs. arundel told me so." belinda lawford said all this in that fresh girlish voice which was familiar to mr. arundel; but she was still very pale, and she still trembled a little, and there was something almost apologetic in the way in which she assured edward that she had believed he would be abroad throughout the summer. it seemed almost as if she had said: "i did not come here because i thought i should see you. i had no thought or hope of meeting you." but edward arundel was not a coxcomb, and he was very slow to understand any such signs as these. he saw that he had startled the young lady, and that she had turned pale and trembled as she recognised him; and he looked at her with a half-wondering, half-pensive expression in his face. she blushed as he looked at her. she went to the table and began to gather together the silks and worsteds, as if the arrangement of her workbasket were a matter of vital importance, to be achieved at any sacrifice of politeness. then, suddenly remembering that she ought to say something to mr. arundel, she gave evidence of the originality of her intellect by the following remark: "how surprised mrs. arundel and letitia will be to see you!" even as she said this her eyes were still bent upon the skeins of worsted in her hand. "yes; i think they will be surprised. i did not mean to come home until the autumn. but i got so tired of wandering about a strange country alone. where are they--my mother and letitia?" "they have gone down the village, to the school. they will be back to tea. your brother is away; and we dine at three o'clock, and drink tea at eight. it is so much pleasanter than dining late." this was quite an effort of genius; and miss lawford went on sorting the skeins of worsted in the firelight. edward arundel had been standing all this time with his hat in his hand, almost as if he had been a visitor making a late morning call upon belinda; but he put his hat down now, and seated himself near the table by which the young lady stood, busy with the arrangement of her workbasket. her heart was beating very fast, and she was straining her arithmetical powers to the uttermost, in the endeavour to make a very abstruse calculation as to the time in which mrs. arundel and letitia could walk to the village schoolhouse and back to dangerfield, and the delay that might arise by reason of sundry interruptions from obsequious gaffers and respectful goodies, eager for a word of friendly salutation from their patroness. the arrangement of the workbasket could not last for ever. it had become the most pitiful pretence by the time miss lawford shut down the wicker lid, and seated herself primly in a low chair by the fireplace. she sat looking down at the fire, and twisting a slender gold chain in and out between her smooth white fingers. she looked very pretty in that fitful firelight, with her waving brown hair pushed off her forehead, and her white eyelids hiding the tender blue eyes. she sat twisting the chain in her fingers, and dared not lift her eyes to mr. arundel's face; and if there had been a whole flock of geese in the room, she could not have said "bo!" to one of them. and yet she was not a stupid girl. her father could have indignantly refuted any such slander as that against the azure-eyed hebe who made his home pleasant to him. to the major's mind belinda was all that man could desire in the woman of his choice, whether as daughter or wife. she was the bright genius of the old man's home, and he loved her with that chivalrous devotion which is common to brave soldiers, who are the simplest and gentlest of men when you chain them to their firesides, and keep them away from the din of the camp and the confusion of the transport-ship. belinda lawford was clever; but only just clever enough to be charming. i don't think she could have got through "paradise lost," or gibbon's "decline and fall," or a volume by adam smith or mcculloch, though you had promised her a diamond necklace when she came conscientiously to "finis." but she could read shakespeare for the hour together, and did read him aloud to her father in a fresh, clear voice, that was like music on the water. and she read macaulay's "history of england," with eyes that kindled with indignation against cowardly, obstinate james, or melted with pity for poor weak foolish monmouth, as the case might be. she could play mendelssohn and beethoven,--plaintive sonatas; tender songs, that had no need of words to expound the mystic meaning of the music. she could sing old ballads and irish melodies, that thrilled the souls of those who heard her, and made hard men pitiful to brazen hibernian beggars in the london streets for the memory of that pensive music. she could read the leaders in the "times," with no false quantities in the latin quotations, and knew what she was reading about; and had her favourites at st. stephen's; and adored lord palmerston, and was liberal to the core of her tender young heart. she was as brave as a true englishwoman should be, and would have gone to the wars with her old father, and served him as his page; or would have followed him into captivity, and tended him in prison, if she had lived in the days when there was such work for a high-spirited girl to do. but she sat opposite mr. edward arundel, and twisted her chain round her fingers, and listened for the footsteps of the returning mistress of the house. she was like a bashful schoolgirl who has danced with an officer at her first ball. and yet amidst her shy confusion, her fears that she should seem agitated and embarrassed, her struggles to appear at her ease, there was a sort of pleasure in being seated there by the low fire with edward arundel opposite to her. there was a strange pleasure, an almost painful pleasure, mingled with her feelings in those quiet moments. she was acutely conscious of every sound that broke the stillness--the sighing of the wind in the wide chimney; the falling of the cinders on the hearth; the occasional snort of one of the sleeping dogs; and the beating of her own restless heart. and though she dared not lift her eyelids to the young soldier's face, that handsome, earnest countenance, with the chestnut hair lit up with gleams of gold, the firm lips shaded by a brown moustache, the pensive smile, the broad white forehead, the dark-blue handkerchief tied loosely under a white collar, the careless grey travelling-dress, even the attitude of the hand and arm, the bent head drooping a little over the fire,--were as present to her inner sight as if her eyes had kept watch all this time, and had never wavered in their steady gaze. there is a second-sight that is not recognised by grave professors of magic--a second-sight which common people call love. but by-and-by edward began to talk, and then miss lawford found courage, and took heart to question him about his wanderings in brittany. she had only been a few weeks in devonshire, she said. her thoughts went back to the dreary autumn in lincolnshire as she spoke; and she remembered the dull october day upon which her father had come into the girl's morning-room at the grange with edward's farewell letter in his hand. she remembered this, and all the talk that there had been about the horsewhipping of mr. paul marchmont upon his own threshold. she remembered all the warm discussions, the speculations, the ignorant conjectures, the praise, the blame; and how it had been her business to sit by and listen and hold her peace, except upon that one never-to-be-forgotten night at the rectory, when paul marchmont had hinted at something whose perfect meaning she had never dared to imagine, but which had, somehow or other, mingled vaguely with all her day-dreams ever since. was there any truth in that which paul marchmont had said to her? was it true that edward arundel had never really loved his young bride? letitia had said as much, not once, but twenty times. "it's quite ridiculous to suppose that he could have ever been in love with the poor, dear, sickly thing," miss arundel had exclaimed; "it was only the absurd romance of the business that captivated him; for edward is really ridiculously romantic, and her father having been a supernumer--(it's no use, i don't think anybody ever did know how many syllables there are in that word)--and having lived in oakley street, and having written a pitiful letter to edward, about this motherless daughter and all that sort of thing, just like one of those tiresome old novels with a baby left at a cottage-door, and all the _s's_ looking like _f's_, and the last word of one page repeated at the top of the next page, and printed upon thick yellow-looking ribbed paper, you know. _that_ was why my brother married miss marchmont, you may depend upon it, linda; and all i hope is, that he'll be sensible enough to marry again soon, and to have a christianlike wedding, with carriages, and a breakfast, and two clergymen; and _i_ should wear white glacé silk, with tulle puffings, and a tulle bonnet (i suppose i must wear a bonnet, being only a bridesmaid?), all showered over with clematis, as if i'd stood under a clematis-bush when the wind was blowing, you know, linda." with such discourse as this miss arundel had frequently entertained her friend; and she had indulged in numerous inuendoes of an embarrassing nature as to the propriety of old friends and schoolfellows being united by the endearing tie of sister-in-lawhood, and other observations to the like effect. belinda knew that if edward ever came to love her,--whenever she did venture to speculate upon such a chance, she never dared to come at all near it, but thought of it as a thing that might come to pass in half a century or so--if he should choose her for his second wife, she knew that she would be gladly and tenderly welcomed at dangerfield. mrs. arundel had hinted as much as this. belinda knew how anxiously that loving mother hoped that her son might, by-and-by, form new ties, and cease to lead a purposeless life, wasting his brightest years in lamentations for his lost bride: she knew all this; and sitting opposite to the young man in the firelight, there was a dull pain at her heart; for there was something in the soldier's sombre face that told her he had not yet ceased to lament that irrevocable past. but mrs. arundel and letitia came in presently, and gave utterance to loud rejoicings; and preparations were made for the physical comfort of the wanderer,--bells were rung, lighted wax-candles and a glittering tea-service were brought in, a cloth was laid, and cold meats and other comestibles spread forth, with that profusion which has made the west country as proverbial as the north for its hospitality. i think miss lawford would have sat opposite the traveller for a week without asking any such commonplace question as to whether mr. arundel required refreshment. she had read in her hort's "pantheon" that the gods sometimes ate and drank like ordinary mortals; yet it had never entered into her mind that edward could be hungry. but she now had the satisfaction of seeing mr. arundel eat a very good dinner; while she herself poured out the tea, to oblige letitia, who was in the middle of the third volume of a new novel, and went on reading it as coolly as if there had been no such person as that handsome young soldier in the world. "the books must go back to the club to-morrow morning, you know, mamma dear, or i wouldn't read at tea-time," the young lady remarked apologetically. "i want to know whether _he'll_ marry theodora or that nasty miss st. ledger. linda thinks he'll marry miss st. ledger, and be miserable, and theodora will die. i believe linda likes love-stories to end unhappily. i don't. i hope if he _does_ marry miss st. ledger--and he'll be a wicked wretch if he does, after the _things_ he has said to theodora--i hope, if he does, she'll die--catch cold at a _déjeuner_ at twickenham, or something of that kind, you know; and then he'll marry theodora afterwards, and all will end happily. do you know, linda, i always fancy that you're like theodora, and that edward's like _him_." after which speech miss arundel went back to her book, and edward helped himself to a slice of tongue rather awkwardly, and belinda lawford, who had her hand upon the urn, suffered the teapot to overflow amongst the cups and saucers. chapter vi. a widower's proposal. for some time after his return edward arundel was very restless and gloomy: roaming about the country by himself, under the influence of a pretended passion for pedestrianism; reading hard for the first time in his life, shutting himself in his dead father's library, and sitting hour after hour in a great easy-chair, reading the histories of all the wars that have ever ravaged this earth--from the days in which the elephants of a carthaginian ruler trampled upon the soldiery of rome, to the era of that corsican barrister's wonderful son, who came out of his simple island home to conquer the civilised half of a world. edward arundel showed himself a very indifferent brother; for, do what she would, letitia could not induce him to join in any of her pursuits. she caused a butt to be set up upon the lawn; but all she could say about belinda's "best gold" could not bring the young man out upon the grass to watch the two girls shooting. he looked at them by stealth sometimes through the window of the library, and sighed as he thought of the blight upon his manhood, and of all the things that might have been. might not these things even yet come to pass? had he not done his duty to the dead; and was he not free now to begin a fresh life? his mother was perpetually hinting at some bright prospect that lay smiling before him, if he chose to take the blossom-bestrewn path that led to that fair country. his sister told him still more plainly of a prize that was within his reach, if he were but brave enough to stretch out his hand and claim the precious treasure for his own. but when he thought of all this,--when he pondered whether it would not be wise to drop the dense curtain of forgetfulness over that sad picture of the past,--whether it would not be well to let the dead bury their dead, and to accept that other blessing which the same providence that had blighted his first hope seemed to offer to him now,--the shadowy phantom of john marchmont arose out of the mystic realms of the dead, and a ghostly voice cried to him, "i charged you with my daughter's safe keeping; i trusted you with her innocent love; i gave you the custody of her helplessness. what have you done to show yourself worthy of my faith in you?" these thoughts tormented the young widower perpetually, and deprived him of all pleasure in the congenial society of his sister and belinda lawford; or infused so sharp a flavour of remorse into his cup of enjoyment, that pleasure was akin to pain. so i don't know how it was that, in the dusky twilight of a bright day in early may, nearly two months after his return to dangerfield, edward arundel, coming by chance upon miss lawford as she sat alone in the deep bay-window where he had found her on his first coming, confessed to her the terrible struggle of feeling that made the great trouble of his life, and asked her if she was willing to accept a love which, in its warmest fervour, was not quite unclouded by the shadows of the sorrowful past. "i love you dearly, linda," he said; "i love, i esteem, i admire you; and i know that it is in your power to give me the happiest future that ever a man imagined in his youngest, brightest dreams. but if you do accept my love, dear, you must take my memory with it. i cannot forget, linda. i have tried to forget. i have prayed that god, in his mercy, might give me forgetfulness of that irrevocable past. but the prayer has never been granted; the boon has never been bestowed. i think that love for the living and remorse for the dead must for ever reign side by side in my heart. it is no falsehood to you that makes me remember her; it is no forgetfulness of her that makes me love you. i offer my brighter and happier self to you, belinda; i consecrate my sorrow and my tears to her. i love you with all my heart, belinda; but even for the sake of your love i will not pretend that i can forget her. if john marchmont's daughter had died with her head upon my breast, and a prayer on her lips, i might have regretted her as other men regret their wives; and i might have learned by-and-by to look back upon my grief with only a tender and natural regret, that would have left my future life unclouded. but it can never be so. the poison of remorse is blended with that sorrowful memory. if i had done otherwise,--if i had been wiser and more thoughtful,--my darling need never have suffered; my darling need never have sinned. it is the thought that her death may have been a sinful one, that is most cruel to me, belinda. i have seen her pray, with her pale earnest face uplifted, and the light of faith shining in her gentle eyes; i have seen the inspiration of god upon her face; and i cannot bear to think that, in the darkness that came down upon her young life, that holy light was quenched; i cannot bear to think that heaven was ever deaf to the pitiful cry of my innocent lamb." and here mr. arundel paused, and sat silently, looking out at the long shadows of the trees upon the darkening lawn; and i fear that, for the time being, he forgot that he had just made miss lawford an offer of his hand, and so much of his heart as a widower may be supposed to have at his disposal. ah me! we can only live and die _once_. there are some things, and those the most beautiful of all things, that can never be renewed: the bloom on a butterfly's wing; the morning dew upon a newly-blown rose; our first view of the ocean; our first pantomime, when all the fairies were fairies for ever, and when the imprudent consumption of the contents of a pewter quart-measure in sight of the stage-box could not disenchant us with that elfin creature, harlequin the graceful, faithful betrothed of columbine the fair. the firstlings of life are most precious. when the black wing of the angel of death swept over agonised egypt, and the children were smitten, offended heaven, eager for a sacrifice, took the firstborn. the young mothers would have other children, perhaps; but between those others and the mother's love there would be the pale shadow of that lost darling whose tiny hands _first_ drew undreamed-of melodies from the sleeping chords, _first_ evoked the slumbering spirit of maternal love. amongst the later lines--the most passionate, the most sorrowful--that george gordon noel byron wrote, are some brief verses that breathed a lament for the lost freshness, the never-to-be-recovered youth. "oh, could i feel as i have felt; or be what i have been; or weep as i could once have wept!" cried the poet, when he complained of that "mortal coldness of the soul," which is "like death itself." it is a pity certainly that so great a man should die in the prime of life; but if byron had survived to old age after writing these lines, he would have been a living anticlimax. when a man writes that sort of poetry he pledges himself to die young. edward arundel had grown to love belinda lawford unconsciously, and in spite of himself; but the first love of his heart, the first fruit of his youth, had perished. he could not feel quite the same devotion, the same boyish chivalry, that he had felt for the innocent bride who had wandered beside him in the sheltered meadows near winchester. he might begin a _new_ life, but he could not live the _old_ life over again. he must wear his rue with a difference this time. but he loved belinda very dearly, nevertheless; and he told her so, and by-and-by won from her a tearful avowal of affection. alas! she had no power to question the manner of his wooing. he loved her--he had said as much; and all the good she had desired in this universe became hers from the moment of edward arundel's utterance of those words. he loved her; that was enough. that he should cherish a remorseful sorrow for that lost wife, made him only the truer, nobler, and dearer in belinda's sight. she was not vain, or exacting, or selfish. it was not in her nature to begrudge poor dead mary the tender thoughts of her husband. she was generous, impulsive, believing; and she had no more inclination to doubt edward's love for her, after he had once avowed such a sentiment, than to disbelieve in the light of heaven when she saw the sun shining. unquestioning, and unutterably happy, she received her lover's betrothal kiss, and went with him to his mother, blushing and trembling, to receive that lady's blessing. "ah, if you knew how i have prayed for this, linda!" mrs. arundel exclaimed, as she folded the girl's slight figure in her arms. "and i shall wear white glacé with pinked flounces, instead of tulle puffings, you sly linda," cried letitia. "and i'll give ted the home-farm, and the white house to live in, if he likes to try his hand at the new system of farming," said reginald arundel, who had come home from the continent, and had amused himself for the last week by strolling about his estate and staring at his timber, and almost wishing that there was a necessity for cutting down all the oaks in the avenue, so that he might have something to occupy him until the th of august. never was promised bride more welcome to a household than bright belinda lawford; and as for the young lady herself, i must confess that she was almost childishly happy, and that it was all that she could do to prevent her light step from falling into a dance as she floated hither and thither through the house at dangerfield,--a fresh young hebe in crisp muslin robes; a gentle goddess, with smiles upon her face and happiness in her heart. "i loved you from the first, edward," she whispered one day to her lover. "i knew that you were good, and brave, and noble; and i loved you because of that." and a little for the golden glimmer in his clustering curls; and a little for his handsome profile, his flashing eyes, and that distinguished air peculiar to the defenders of their country; more especially peculiar, perhaps, to those who ride on horseback when they sally forth to defend her. once a soldier for ever a soldier, i think. you may rob the noble warrior of his uniform, if you will; but the _je ne sais quoi_, the nameless air of the "long-sword, saddle, bridle," will hang round him still. mrs. arundel and letitia took matters quite out of the hands of the two lovers. the elderly lady fixed the wedding-day, by agreement with major lawford, and sketched out the route for the wedding-tour. the younger lady chose the fabrics for the dresses of the bride and her attendants; and all was done before edward and belinda well knew what their friends were about. i think that mrs. arundel feared her son might change his mind if matters were not brought swiftly to a climax, and that she hurried on the irrevocable day in order that he might have no breathing time until the vows had been spoken and belinda lawford was his wedded wife. it had been arranged that edward should escort belinda back to lincolnshire, and that his mother and letitia, who was to be chief bridesmaid, should go with them. the marriage was to be solemnised at hillingsworth church, which was within a mile and a half of the grange. the st of july was the day appointed by agreement between major and mrs. lawford and mrs. arundel; and on the th of june edward was to accompany his mother, letitia, and belinda to london. they were to break the journey by stopping in town for a few days, in order to make a great many purchases necessary for miss lawford's wedding paraphernalia, for which the major had sent a bouncing cheque to his favourite daughter. and all this time the only person at all unsettled, the only person whose mind was ill at ease, was edward arundel, the young widower who was about to take to himself a second wife. his mother, who watched him with a maternal comprehension of every change in his face, saw this, and trembled for her son's happiness. "and yet he cannot be otherwise than happy with belinda lawford," mrs. arundel thought to herself. but upon the eve of that journey to london edward sat alone with his mother in the drawing-room at dangerfield, after the two younger ladies had retired for the night. they slept in adjoining apartments, these two young ladies; and i regret to say that a great deal of their conversation was about valenciennes lace, and flounces cut upon the cross, moire antique, mull muslin, glacé silk, and the last "sweet thing" in bonnets. it was only when loquacious letitia was shut out that miss lawford knelt alone in the still moonlight, and prayed that she might be a good wife to the man who had chosen her. i don't think she ever prayed that she might be faithful and true and pure; for it never entered into her mind that any creature bearing the sacred name of wife could be otherwise. she only prayed for the mysterious power to preserve her husband's affection, and make his life happy. mrs. arundel, sitting _tête-à-tête_ with her younger son in the lamp-lit drawing-room, was startled by hearing the young man breathe a deep sigh. she looked up from her work to see a sadder expression in his face than perhaps ever clouded the countenance of an expectant bridegroom. "edward!" she exclaimed. "what, mother?" "how heavily you sighed just now!" "did i?" said mr. arundel, abstractedly. then, after a brief pause, he said, in a different tone, "it is no use trying to hide these things from you, mother. the truth is, i am not happy." "not happy, edward!" cried mrs. arundel; "but surely you----?" "i know what you are going to say, mother. yes, mother, i love this dear girl linda with all my heart; i love her most sincerely; and i could look forward to a life of unalloyed happiness with her, if--if there was not some inexplicable dread, some vague and most miserable feeling always coming between me and my hopes. i have tried to look forward to the future, mother; i have tried to think of what my life may be with belinda; but i cannot, i cannot. i cannot look forward; all is dark to me. i try to build up a bright palace, and an unknown hand shatters it. i try to turn away from the memory of my old sorrows; but the same hand plucks me back, and chains me to the past. if i could retract what i have done; if i could, with any show of honour, draw back, even now, and not go upon this journey to lincolnshire; if i _could_ break my faith to this poor girl who loves me, and whom i love, as god knows, with all truth and earnestness, i would do so--i would do so." "edward!" "yes, mother; i would do it. it is not in me to forget. my dead wife haunts me by night and day. i hear her voice crying to me, 'false, false, false; cruel and false; heartless and forgetful!' there is never a night that i do not dream of that dark sluggish river down in lincolnshire. there is never a dream that i have--however purposeless, however inconsistent in all its other details--in which i do not see _her_ dead face looking up at me through the murky waters. even when i am talking to linda, when words of love for her are on my lips, my mind wanders away, back--always back--to the sunset by the boat-house, when my little wife gave me her hand; to the trout-stream in the meadow, where we sat side by side and talked about the future." for a few minutes mrs. arundel was quite silent. she abandoned herself for that brief interval to complete despair. it was all over. the bridegroom would cry off; insulted major lawford would come post-haste to dangerfield, to annihilate this dismal widower, who did not know his own mind. all the shimmering fabrics--the gauzes, and laces, and silks, and velvets--that were in course of preparation in the upper chambers would become so much useless finery, to be hidden in out-of-the-way cupboards, and devoured by misanthropical moths,--insect iconoclasts, who take a delight in destroying the decorations of the human temple. poor mrs. arundel took a mental photograph of all the complicated horrors of the situation. an offended father; a gentle, loving girl crushed like some broken lily; gossip, slander; misery of all kinds. and then the lady plucked up courage and gave her recreant son a sound lecture, to the effect that this conduct was atrociously wicked; and that if this trusting young bride, this fair young second wife, were to be taken away from him as the first had been, such a calamity would only be a fitting judgment upon him for his folly. but edward told his mother, very quietly, that he had no intention of being false to his newly-plighted troth. "i love belinda," he said; "and i will be true to her, mother. but i cannot forget the past; it hangs about me like a bad dream." chapter vii. how the tidings were received in lincolnshire. the young widower made no further lamentation, but did his duty to his betrothed bride with a cheerful visage. ah! what a pleasant journey it was to belinda, that progress through london on the way to lincolnshire! it was like that triumphant journey of last march, when the royal bridegroom led his northern bride through a surging sea of eager, smiling faces, to the musical jangling of a thousand bells. if there were neither populace nor joy-bells on this occasion, i scarcely think miss lawford knew that those elements of a triumphal progress were missing. to her ears all the universe was musical with the sound of mystic joy-bells; all the earth was glad with the brightness of happy faces. the railway-carriage,--the commonplace vehicle,--frouzy with the odour of wool and morocco, was a fairy chariot, more wonderful than queen mab's; the white chalk-cutting in the hill was a shining cleft in a mountain of silver; the wandering streams were melted diamonds; the stations were enchanted castles. the pale sherry, carried in a pocket-flask, and sipped out of a little silver tumbler--there is apt to be a warm flatness about sherry taken out of pocket-flasks that is scarcely agreeable to the connoisseur--was like nectar newly brewed for the gods; even the anchovies in the sandwiches were like the enchanted fish in the arabian story. a magical philter had been infused into the atmosphere: the flavour of first love was in every sight and sound. was ever bridegroom more indulgent, more devoted, than edward arundel? he sat at the counters of silk-mercers for the hour together, while mrs. arundel and the two girls deliberated over crisp fabrics unfolded for their inspection. he was always ready to be consulted, and gave his opinion upon the conflicting merits of peach-colour and pink, apple-green and maize, with unwearying attention. but sometimes, even while belinda was smiling at him, with the rippling silken stuff held up in her white hands, and making a lustrous cascade upon the counter, the mystic hand plucked him back, and his mind wandered away to that childish bride who had chosen no splendid garments for her wedding, but had gone with him to the altar as trustfully as a baby goes in its mother's arms to the cradle. if he had been left alone with belinda, with tender, sympathetic belinda,--who loved him well enough to understand him, and was always ready to take her cue from his face, and to be joyous or thoughtful according to his mood,--it might have been better for him. but his mother and letitia reigned paramount during this ante-nuptial week, and mr. arundel was scarcely suffered to take breath. he was hustled hither and thither in the hot summer noontide. he was taken to choose a dressing-case for his bride; and he was made to look at glittering objects until his eyes ached, and he could see nothing but a bewildering dazzle of ormolu and silver-gilt. he was taken to a great emporium in bond street to select perfumery, and made to sniff at divers essences until his nostrils were unnaturally distended, and his olfactory nerves afflicted with temporary paralysis. there was jewellery of his mother and of belinda's mother to be re-set; and the hymeneal victim was compelled to sit for an hour or so, blinking at fiery-crested serpents that were destined to coil up his wife's arms, and emerald padlocks that were to lie upon her breast. and then, when his soul was weary of glaring splendours and glittering confusions, they took him round the park, in a whirlpool of diaphanous bonnets, and smiling faces, and brazen harness, and emblazoned hammer-cloths, on the margin of a river whose waters were like molten gold under the blazing sun. and then they gave him a seat in an opera-box, and the crash of a monster orchestra, blended with the hum of a thousand voices, to soothe his nerves withal. but the more wearied this young man became with glitter, and dazzle, and sunshine, and silk-mercer's ware, the more surely his mind wandered back to the still meadows, and the limpid trout-stream, the sheltering hills, the solemn shadows of the cathedral, the distant voices of the rooks high up in the waving elms. the bustle of preparation was over at last, and the bridal party went down to lincolnshire. pleasant chambers had been prepared at the grange for mr. arundel and his mother and sister; and the bridegroom was received with enthusiasm by belinda's blue-eyed younger sisters, who were enchanted to find that there was going to be a wedding and that they were to have new frocks. so edward would have been a churl indeed had he seemed otherwise than happy, had he been anything but devoted to the bright girl who loved him. tidings of the coming wedding flew like wildfire through lincolnshire. edward arundel's romantic story had elevated him into a hero; all manner of reports had been circulated about his devotion to his lost young wife. he had sworn never to mingle in society again, people said. he had sworn never to have a new suit of clothes, or to have his hair cut, or to shave, or to eat a hot dinner. and lincolnshire by no means approved of the defection implied by his approaching union with belinda. he was only a commonplace widower, after all, it seemed; ready to be consoled as soon as the ceremonious interval of decent grief was over. people had expected something better of him. they had expected to see him in a year or two with long grey hair, dressed in shabby raiment, and, with his beard upon his breast, prowling about the village of kemberling, baited by little children. lincolnshire was very much disappointed by the turn that affairs had taken. shakesperian aphorisms were current among the gossips at comfortable tea-tables; and people talked about funeral baked meats, and the propriety of building churches if you have any ambitious desire that your memory should outlast your life; and indulged in other bitter observations, familiar to all admirers of the great dramatist. but there were some people in lincolnshire to whom the news of edward arundel's intended marriage was more welcome than the early may-flowers to rustic children eager for a festival. paul marchmont heard the report, and rubbed his hands stealthily, and smiled to himself as he sat reading in the sunny western drawing-room. the good seed that he had sown that night at the rectory had borne this welcome fruit. edward arundel with a young wife would be very much less formidable than edward arundel single and discontented, prowling about the neighbourhood of marchmont towers, and perpetually threatening vengeance upon mary's cousin. it was busy little lavinia weston who first brought her brother the tidings. he took both her hands in his, and kissed them in his enthusiasm. "my best of sisters," he said, "you shall have a pair of diamond earrings for this." "for only bringing you the news, paul?" "for only bringing me the news. when a messenger carries the tidings of a great victory to his king, the king makes him a knight upon the spot. this marriage is a victory to me, lavinia. from to-day i shall breathe freely." "but they are not married yet. something may happen, perhaps, to prevent----" "what should happen?" asked paul, rather sharply. "by-the-bye, it will be as well to keep this from mrs. john," he added, thoughtfully; "though really now i fancy it matters very little what she hears." he tapped his forehead lightly with his two slim fingers, and there was a horrible significance in the action. "she is not likely to hear anything," mrs. weston said; "she sees no one but barbara simmons." "then i should be glad if you would give simmons a hint to hold her tongue. this news about the wedding would disturb her mistress." "yes, i'll tell her so. barbara is a very excellent person. i can always manage barbara. but oh, paul, i don't know what i'm to do with that poor weak-witted husband of mine." "how do you mean?" "oh, paul, i have had such a scene with him to-day--such a scene! you remember the way he went on that day down in the boat-house when edward arundel came in upon us unexpectedly? well, he's been going on as badly as that to-day, paul,--or worse, i really think." mr. marchmont frowned, and flung aside his newspaper, with a gesture expressive of considerable vexation. "now really, lavinia, this is too bad," he said; "if your husband is a fool, i am not going to be bored about his folly. you have managed him for fifteen years: surely you can go on managing him now without annoying _me_ about him? if mr. george weston doesn't know when he's well off, he's an ungrateful cur, and you may tell him so, with my compliments." he picked up his newspaper again, and began to read. but lavinia weston, looking anxiously at her brother's face, saw that his pale auburn brows were contracted in a thoughtful frown, and that, if he read at all, the words upon which his eyes rested could convey very little meaning to his brain. she was right; for presently he spoke to her, still looking at the page before him, and with an attempt at carelessness. "do you think that fellow would go to australia, lavinia?" "alone?" asked his sister. "yes, alone of course," said mr. marchmont, putting down his paper, and looking at mrs. weston rather dubiously. "i don't want you to go to the antipodes; but if--if the fellow refused to go without you, i'd make it well worth your while to go out there, lavinia. you shouldn't have any reason to regret obliging me, my dear girl." the dear girl looked rather sharply at her affectionate brother. "it's like your selfishness, paul, to propose such a thing," she said, "after all i've done----!" "i have not been illiberal to you, lavinia." "no; you've been generous enough to me, i know, in the matter of gifts; but you're rich, paul, and you can afford to give. i don't like the idea that you're so willing to pack me out of the way now that i can be no longer useful to you." mr. marchmont shrugged his shoulders. "for heaven's sake, lavinia, don't be sentimental. if there's one thing i despise more than another, it is this kind of mawkish sentimentality. you've been a very good sister to me; and i've been a very decent brother to you. if you have served me, i have made it answer your purpose to do so. i don't want you to go away. you may bring all your goods and chattels to this house to-morrow, if you like, and live at free quarters here for the rest of your existence. but if george weston is a pig-headed brute, who can't understand upon which side his bread is buttered, he must be got out of the way somehow. i don't care what it costs me; but he must be got out of the way. i'm not going to live the life of a modern damocles, with a blundering sword always dangling over my head, in the person of mr. george weston. and if the man objects to leave the country without you, why, i think your going with him would be only a sisterly act towards me. i hate selfishness, lavinia, almost as much as i detest sentimentality." mrs. weston was silent for some minutes, absorbed in reflection. paul got up, kicked aside a footstool, and walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets. "perhaps i might get george to leave england, if i promised to join him as soon as he was comfortably settled in the colonies," mrs. weston said, at last. "yes," cried paul; "nothing could be more easy. i'll act very liberally towards him, lavinia; i'll treat him well; but he shall not stay in england. no, lavinia; after what you have told me to-day, i feel that he must be got out of the country." mr. marchmont went to the door and looked out, to see if by chance any one had been listening to him. the coast was quite clear. the stone-paved hall looked as desolate as some undiscovered chamber in an egyptian temple. the artist went back to lavinia, and seated himself by her side. for some time the brother and sister talked together earnestly. they settled everything for poor henpecked george weston. he was to sail for sydney immediately. nothing could be more easy than for lavinia to declare that her brother had accidentally heard of some grand opening for a medical practitioner in the metropolis of the antipodes. the surgeon was to have a very handsome sum given him, and lavinia would _of course_ join him as soon as he was settled. paul marchmont even looked through the "shipping gazette" in search of an australian vessel which should speedily convey his brother-in-law to a distant shore. lavinia weston went home armed with all necessary credentials. she was to promise almost anything to her husband, provided that he gave his consent to an early departure. chapter viii. mr. weston refuses to be trampled upon. upon the st of june, the eve of edward arundel's wedding-day, olivia marchmont sat in her own room,--the room that she had chiefly occupied ever since her husband's death,--the study looking out into the quadrangle. she sat alone in that dismal chamber, dimly lighted by a pair of wax-candles, in tall tarnished silver candlesticks. there could be no greater contrast than that between this desolate woman and the master of the house. all about him was bright and fresh, and glittering and splendid; around her there was only ruin and decay, thickening dust and gathering cobwebs,--outward evidences of an inner wreck. john marchmont's widow was of no importance in that household. the servants did not care to trouble themselves about her whims or wishes, nor to put her rooms in order. they no longer curtseyed to her when they met her, wandering--with a purposeless step and listless feet that dragged along the ground--up and down the corridor, or out in the dreary quadrangle. what was to be gained by any show of respect to her, whose brain was too weak to hold the memory of their conduct for five minutes together? barbara simmons only was faithful to her mistress with an unvarying fidelity. she made no boast of her devotion; she expected neither fee nor reward for her self-abnegation. that rigid religion of discipline which had not been strong enough to preserve olivia's stormy soul from danger and ruin was at least all-sufficient for this lower type of woman. barbara simmons had been taught to do her duty, and she did it without question or complaint. as she went through rain, snow, hail, or sunshine twice every sunday to kemberling church,--as she sat upon a cushionless seat in an uncomfortable angle of the servants' pew, with the sharp edges of the woodwork cutting her thin shoulders, to listen patiently to dull rambling sermons upon the hardest texts of st. paul,--so she attended upon her mistress, submitting to every caprice, putting up with every hardship; because it was her duty so to do. the only relief she allowed herself was an hour's gossip now and then in the housekeeper's room; but she never alluded to her mistress's infirmities, nor would it have been safe for any other servant to have spoken lightly of mrs. john marchmont in stern barbara's presence. upon this summer evening, when happy people were still lingering amongst the wild flowers in shady lanes, or in the dusky pathways by the quiet river, olivia sat alone, staring at the candles. was there anything in her mind; or was she only a human automaton, slowly decaying into dust? there was no speculation in those large lustreless eyes, fixed upon the dim light of the candles. but, for all that, the mind was not a blank. the pictures of the past, for ever changing like the scenes in some magic panorama, revolved before her. she had no memory of that which had happened a quarter of an hour ago; but she could remember every word that edward arundel had said to her in the rectory-garden at swampington,--every intonation of the voice in which those words had been spoken. there was a tea-service on the table: an attenuated little silver teapot; a lopsided cream-jug, with thin worn edges and one dumpy little foot missing; and an antique dragon china cup and saucer with the gilding washed off. that meal, which is generally called social, has but a dismal aspect when it is only prepared for one. the solitary teacup, half filled with cold, stagnant tea, with a leaf or two floating upon the top, like weeds on the surface of a tideless pond; the teaspoon, thrown askew across a little pool of spilt milk in the tea-tray,--looked as dreary as the ruins of a deserted city. in the western drawing-room paul was strolling backwards and forwards, talking to his mother and sisters, and admiring his pictures. he had spent a great deal of money upon art since taking possession of the towers, and the western drawing-room was quite a different place to what it had been in john marchmont's lifetime. etty's divinities smiled through hazy draperies, more transparent than the summer vapours that float before the moon. pearly-complexioned nymphs, with faces archly peeping round the corner of soft rosy shoulders, frolicked amidst the silver spray of classic fountains. turner's grecian temples glimmered through sultry summer mists; while glimpses of ocean sparkled here and there, and were as beautiful as if the artist's brush had been dipped in melted opals. stanfield's breezy beaches made cool spots of freshness on the wall, and sturdy sailor-boys, with their hands up to their mouths and their loose hair blowing in the wind, shouted to their comrades upon the decks of brown-sailed fishing-smacks. panting deer upon dizzy crags, amid the misty highlands, testified to the hand of landseer. low down, in the corners of the room, there lurked quaint cottage-scenes by faed and nichol. ward's patched and powdered beaux and beauties,--a rochester, in a light perriwig; a nell gwynne, showing her white teeth across a basket of oranges; a group of _incroyables_, with bunches of ribbons hanging from their low topboots, and two sets of dangling seals at their waists--made a blaze of colour upon the walls: and amongst all these glories of to-day there were prim madonnas and stiff-necked angels by raphael and tintoretto; a brown-faced grinning boy by murillo (no collection ever was complete without that inevitable brown-faced boy); an obese venus, by the great peter paul; and a pale charles the first, with martyrdom foreshadowed in his pensive face, by vandyke. paul marchmont contemplated his treasures complacently, as he strolled about the room, with his coffee-cup in his hand; while his mother watched him admiringly from her comfortable cushioned nest at one end of a luxurious sofa. "well, mother," mr. marchmont said presently, "let people say what they may of me, they can never say that i have used my money badly. when i am dead and gone, these pictures will remain to speak for me; posterity will say, 'at any rate the fellow was a man of taste.' now what, in heaven's name, could that miserable little mary have done with eleven thousand a year, if--if she had lived to enjoy it?" * * * * * the minute-hand of the little clock in mrs. john marchmont's study was creeping slowly towards the quarter before eleven, when olivia was aroused suddenly from that long reverie, in which the images of the past had shone upon her across the dull stagnation of the present like the domes and minarets in a phantasm city gleaming athwart the barren desert-sands. she was aroused by a cautious tap upon the outside of her window. she got up, opened the window, and looked out. the night was dark and starless, and there was a faint whisper of wind among the trees. "don't be frightened," whispered a timid voice; "it's only me, george weston. i want to talk to you, mrs. john. i've got something particular to tell you--awful particular; but _they_ mustn't hear it; _they_ mustn't know i'm here. i came round this way on purpose. you can let me in at the little door in the lobby, can't you, mrs. john? i tell you, i must tell you what i've got to tell you," cried mr. weston, indifferent to tautology in his excitement. "do let me in, there's a dear good soul. the little door in the lobby, you know; it's locked, you know, but i dessay the key's there." "the door in the lobby?" repeated olivia, in a dreamy voice. "yes, _you_ know. do let me in now, that's a good creature. it's awful particular, i tell you. it's about edward arundel." edward arundel! the sound of that name seemed to act upon the woman's shattered nerves like a stroke of electricity. the drooping head reared itself erect. the eyes, so lustreless before, flashed fire from their sombre depths. comprehension, animation, energy returned; as suddenly as if the wand of an enchanter had summoned the dead back to life. "edward arundel!" she cried, in a clear voice, which was utterly unlike the dull deadness of her usual tones. "hush," whispered mr. weston; "don't speak loud, for goodness gracious sake. i dessay there's all manner of spies about. let me in, and i'll tell you everything." "yes, yes; i'll let you in. the door by the lobby--i understand; come, come." olivia disappeared from the window. the lobby of which the surgeon had spoken was close to her own apartment. she found the key in the lock of the door. the place was dark; she opened the door almost noiselessly, and mr. weston crept in on tiptoe. he followed olivia into the study, closed the door behind him, and drew a long breath. "i've got in," he said; "and now i am in, wild horses shouldn't hold me from speaking my mind, much less paul marchmont." he turned the key in the door as he spoke, and even as he did so glanced rather suspiciously towards the window. to his mind the very atmosphere of that house was pervaded by the presence of his brother-in-law. "o mrs. john!" exclaimed the surgeon, in piteous accents, "the way that i've been trampled upon. _you've_ been trampled upon, mrs. john, but you don't seem to mind it; and perhaps it's better to bring oneself to that, if one can; but i can't. i've tried to bring myself to it; i've even taken to drinking, mrs. john, much as it goes against me; and i've tried to drown my feelings as a man in rum-and-water. but the more spirits i consume, mrs. john, the more of a man i feel." mr. weston struck the top of his hat with his clenched fist, and stared fiercely at olivia, breathing very hard, and breathing rum-and-water with a faint odour of lemon-peel. "edward arundel!--what about edward arundel?" said olivia, in a low eager voice. "i'm coming to that, mrs. john, in due c'course," returned mr. weston, with an air of dignity that was superior even to hiccough. "what i say, mrs. john," he added, in a confidential and argumentative tone, "is this: _i won't be trampled upon!_" here his voice sank to an awful whisper. "of course it's pleasant enough to have one's rent provided for, and not to be kept awake by poor's-rates, mrs. john; but, good gracious me! i'd rather have the queen's taxes and the poor-rates following me up day and night, and a man in possession to provide for at every meal--and you don't know how contemptuous a man in possession can look at you if you offer him salt butter, or your table in a general way don't meet his views--than the conscience i've had since paul marchmont came into lincolnshire. i feel, mrs. john, as if i'd committed oceans of murders. it's a miracle to me that my hair hasn't turned white before this; and it would have done it, mrs. j., if it wasn't of that stubborn nature which is too wiry to give expression to a man's sufferings. o mrs. john, when i think how my pangs of conscience have been made game of,--when i remember the insulting names i have been called, because my heart didn't happen to be made of adamant,--my blood boils; it boils, mrs. john, to that degree, that i feel the time has come for action. i have been put upon until the spirit of manliness within me blazes up like a fiery furnace. i have been trodden upon, mrs. john; but i'm not the worm they took me for. to-day they've put the finisher upon it." the surgeon paused to take breath. his mild and rather sheep-like countenance was flushed; his fluffy eyebrows twitched convulsively in his endeavours to give expression to the violence of his feelings. "to-day they've put the finisher upon it," he repeated. "i'm to go to australia, am i? ha! ha! we'll see about that. there's a nice opening in the medical line, is there? and dear paul will provide the funds to start me! ha! ha! two can play at that game. it's all brotherly kindness, of course, and friendly interest in my welfare--that's what it's _called_, mrs. j. shall i tell you what it _is_? i'm to be got rid of, at any price, for fear my conscience should get the better of me, and i should speak. i've been made a tool of, and i've been trampled upon; but they've been _obliged_ to trust me. i've got a conscience, and i don't suit their views. if i hadn't got a conscience, i might stop here and have my rent and taxes provided for, and riot in rum-and-water to the end of my days. but i've a conscience that all the pineapple rum in jamaica wouldn't drown, and they're frightened of me." olivia listened to all this with an impatient frown upon her face. i doubt if she knew the meaning of mr. weston's complaints. she had been listening only for the one name that had power to transform her from a breathing automaton into a living, thinking, reasoning woman. she grasped the surgeon's wrist fiercely. "you told me you came here to speak about edward arundel," she said. "have you been only trying to make a fool of me." "no, mrs. john; i have come to speak about him, and i come to you, because i think you're not so bad as paul marchmont. i think that you've been a tool, like myself; and they've led you on, step by step, from bad to worse, pretty much as they have led me. you're edward arundel's blood-relation, and it's your business to look to any wrong that's done him, more than it is mine. but if you don't speak, mrs. john, i will. edward arundel is going to be married." "going to be married!" the words burst from olivia's lips in a kind of shriek, and she stood glaring hideously at the surgeon, with her lips apart and her eyes dilated. mr. weston was fascinated by the horror of that gaze, and stared at her in silence for some moments. "you are a madman!" she exclaimed, after a pause; "you are a madman! why do you come here with your idiotic fancies? surely my life is miserable enough without this!" "i ain't mad, mrs. john, any more than"--mr. weston was going to say, "than you are;" but it struck him that, under existing circumstances, the comparison might be ill-advised--"i ain't any madder than other people," he said, presently. "edward arundel is going to be married. i have seen the young lady in kemberling with her pa; and she's a very sweet young woman to look at; and her name is belinda lawford; and the wedding is to be at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning at hillingsworth church." olivia slowly lifted her hands to her head, and swept the loose hair away from her brow. all the mists that had obscured her brain melted slowly away, and showed her the past as it had really been in all its naked horror. yes; step by step the cruel hand had urged her on from bad to worse; from bad to worse; until it had driven her _here_. it was for _this_ that she had sold her soul to the powers of hell. it was for _this_ that she had helped to torture that innocent girl whom a dying father had given into her pitiless hand. for this! for this! to find at last that all her iniquity had been wasted, and that edward arundel had chosen another bride--fairer, perhaps, than the first. the mad, unholy jealousy of her nature awoke from the obscurity of mental decay, a fierce ungovernable spirit. but another spirit arose in the next moment. conscience, which so long had slumbered, awoke and cried to her, in an awful voice, "sinner, whose sin has been wasted, repent! restore! it is not yet too late." the stern precepts of her religion came back to her. she had rebelled against those rigid laws, she had cast off those iron fetters, only to fall into a worse bondage; only to submit to a stronger tyranny. she had been a servant of the god of sacrifice, and had rebelled when an offering was demanded of her. she had cast off the yoke of her master, and had yielded herself up the slave of sin. and now, when she discovered whither her chains had dragged her, she was seized with a sudden panic, and wanted to go back to her old master. she stood for some minutes with her open palms pressed upon her forehead, and her chest heaving as if a stormy sea had raged in her bosom. "this marriage must not take place," she cried, at last. "of course it mustn't," answered mr. weston; "didn't i say so just now? and if you don't speak to paul and prevent it, i will. i'd rather you spoke to him, though," added the surgeon thoughtfully, "because, you see, it would come better from you, wouldn't it now?" olivia marchmont did not answer. her hands had dropped from her head, and she was standing looking at the floor. "there shall be no marriage," she muttered, with a wild laugh. "there's another heart to be broken--that's all. stand aside, man," she cried; "stand aside, and let me go to _him_; let me go to him." she pushed the terrified surgeon out of her pathway, and locked the door, hurried along the passage and across the hall. she opened the door of the western drawing-room, and went in. mr. weston stood in the corridor looking after her. he waited for a few minutes, listening for any sound that might come from the western drawing-room. but the wide stone hall was between him and that apartment; and however loudly the voices might have been uplifted, no breath of them could have reached the surgeon's ear. he waited for about five minutes, and then crept into the lobby and let himself out into the quadrangle. "at any rate, nobody can say that i'm a coward," he thought complacently, as he went under a stone archway that led into the park. "but what a whirlwind that woman is! o my gracious, what a perfect whirlwind she is!" chapter ix. "going to be married!" paul marchmont was still strolling hither and thither about the room, admiring his pictures, and smiling to himself at the recollection of the easy manner in which he had obtained george weston's consent to the australian arrangement. for in his sober moments the surgeon was ready to submit to anything his wife and brother-in-law imposed upon him; it was only under the influence of pineapple rum that his manhood asserted itself. paul was still contemplating his pictures when olivia burst into the room; but mrs. marchmont and her invalid daughter had retired for the night, and the artist was alone,--alone with his own thoughts, which were rather of a triumphal and agreeable character just now; for edward's marriage and mr. weston's departure were equally pleasant to him. he was startled a little by olivia's abrupt entrance, for it was not her habit to intrude upon him or any member of that household; on the contrary, she had shown an obstinate determination to shut herself up in her own room, and to avoid every living creature except her servant barbara simmons. paul turned and confronted her very deliberately, and with the smile that was almost habitual to him upon his thin pale lips. her sudden appearance had blanched his face a little; but beyond this he betrayed no sign of agitation. "my dear mrs. marchmont, you quite startle me. it is so very unusual to see you here, and at this hour especially." it did not seem as if she had heard his voice. she went sternly up to him, with her thin listless arms hanging at her side, and her haggard eyes fixed upon his face. "is this true?" she asked. he started a little, in spite of himself; for he understood in a moment what she meant. some one, it scarcely mattered who, had told her of the coming marriage. "is what true, my dear mrs. john?" he said carelessly. "is this true that george weston tells me?" she cried, laying her thin hand upon his shoulder. her wasted fingers closed involuntarily upon the collar of his coat, her lips contracted into a ghastly smile, and a sudden fire kindled in her eyes. a strange sensation awoke in the tips of those tightening fingers, and thrilled through every vein of the woman's body,--such a horrible thrill as vibrates along the nerves of a monomaniac, when the sight of a dreadful terror in his victim's face first arouses the murderous impulse in his breast. paul's face whitened as he felt the thin finger-points tightening upon his neck. he was afraid of olivia. "my dear mrs. john, what is it you want of me?" he said hastily. "pray do not be violent." "i am not violent." she dropped her hand from his breast. it was true, she was not violent. her voice was low; her hand fell loosely by her side. but paul was frightened of her, nevertheless; for he saw that if she was not violent, she was something worse--she was dangerous. "did george weston tell me the truth just now?" she said. paul bit his nether-lip savagely. george weston had tricked him, then, after all, and had communicated with this woman. but what of that? she would scarcely be likely to trouble herself about this business of edward arundel's marriage. she must be past any such folly as that. she would not dare to interfere in the matter. she could not. "is it true?" she said; "_is_ it? is it true that edward arundel is going to be married to-morrow?" she waited, looking with fixed, widely-opened eyes at paul's face. "my dear mrs. john, you take me so completely by surprise, that i----" "that you have not got a lying answer ready for me," said olivia, interrupting him. "you need not trouble yourself to invent one. i see that george weston told me the truth. there was reality in his words. there is nothing but falsehood in yours." paul stood looking at her, but not listening to her. let her abuse and upbraid him to her heart's content; it gave him leisure to reflect, and plan his course of action; and perhaps these bitter words might exhaust the fire within her, and leave her malleable to his skilful hands once more. he had time to think this, and to settle his own line of conduct while olivia was speaking to him. it was useless to deny the marriage. she had heard of it from george weston, and she might hear of it from any one else whom she chose to interrogate. it was useless to try to stifle this fact. "yes, mrs. john," he said, "it is quite true. your cousin, mr. arundel, is going to marry belinda lawford; a very lucky thing for us, believe me, as it will put an end to all questioning and watching and suspicion, and place us beyond all danger." olivia looked at him, with her bosom heaving, her breath growing shorter and louder with every word he spoke. "you mean to let this be, then?" she said, when he had finished speaking. "to let what be?" "this marriage. you will let it take place?" "most certainly. why should i prevent it?" "why should you prevent it?" she cried fiercely; and then, in an altered voice, in tones of anguish that were like a wail of despair, she exclaimed, "o my god! my god! what a dupe i have been; what a miserable tool in this man's hands! o my offended god! why didst thou so abandon me, when i turned away from thee, and made edward arundel the idol of my wicked heart?" paul sank into the nearest chair, with a faint sigh of relief. "she will wear herself out," he thought, "and then i shall be able to do what i like with her." but olivia turned to him again while he was thinking this. "do you imagine that _i_ will let this marriage take place?" she asked. "i do not think that you will be so mad as to prevent it. that little mystery which you and i have arranged between us is not exactly child's play, mrs. john. we can neither of us afford to betray the other. let edward arundel marry, and work for his wife, and be happy; nothing could be better for us than his marriage. indeed, we have every reason to be thankful to providence for the turn that affairs have taken," mr. marchmont concluded, piously. "indeed!" said olivia; "and edward arundel is to have another bride. he is to be happy with another wife; and i am to hear of their happiness, to see him some day, perhaps, sitting by her side and smiling at her, as i have seen him smile at mary marchmont. he is to be happy, and i am to know of his happiness. another baby-faced girl is to glory in the knowledge of his love; and i am to be quiet--i am to be quiet. is it for this that i have sold my soul to you, paul marchmont? is it for this i have shared your guilty secrets? is it for this i have heard _her_ feeble wailing sounding in my wretched feverish slumbers, as i have heard it every night, since the day she left this house? do you remember what you said to me? do you remember _how_ you tempted me? do you remember how you played upon my misery, and traded on the tortures of my jealous heart? 'he has despised your love,' you said: 'will you consent to see him happy with another woman?' that was your argument, paul marchmont. you allied yourself with the devil that held possession of my breast, and together you were too strong for me. i was set apart to be damned, and you were the chosen instrument of my damnation. you bought my soul, paul marchmont. you shall not cheat me of the price for which i sold it. you shall hinder this marriage!" "you are a madwoman, mrs. john marchmont, or you would not propose any such thing." "go," she said, pointing to the door; "go to edward arundel, and do something, no matter what, to prevent this marriage." "i shall do nothing of the kind." he had heard that a monomaniac was always to be subdued by indomitable resolution, and he looked at olivia, thinking to tame her by his unfaltering glance. he might as well have tried to look the raging sea into calmness. "i am not a fool, mrs. john marchmont," he said, "and i shall do nothing of the kind." he had risen, and stood by the lamp-lit table, trifling rather nervously with its elegant litter of delicately-bound books, jewel-handled paper-knives, newly-cut periodicals, and pretty fantastical toys collected by the women of the household. the faces of the two were nearly upon a level as they stood opposite to each other, with only the table between them. "then _i_ will prevent it!" olivia cried, turning towards the door. paul marchmont saw the resolution stamped upon her face. she would do what she threatened. he ran to the door and had his hand upon the lock before she could reach it. "no, mrs. john," he said, standing at the door, with his back turned to olivia, and his fingers busy with the bolts and key. in spite of himself, this woman had made him a little nervous, and it was as much as he could do to find the handle of the key. "no, no, my dear mrs. john; you shall not leave this house, nor this room, in your present state of mind. if you choose to be violent and unmanageable, we will give you the full benefit of your violence, and we will give you a better sphere of action. a padded room will be more suitable to your present temper, my dear madam. if you favour us with this sort of conduct, we will find people more fitted to restrain you." he said all this in a sneering tone that had a trifling tremulousness in it, while he locked the door and assured himself that it was safely secured. then he turned, prepared to fight out the battle somehow or other. at the very moment of his turning there was a sudden crash, a shiver of broken glass, and the cold night-wind blew into the room. one of the long french windows was wide open, and olivia marchmont was gone. he was out upon the terrace in the next moment; but even then he was too late, for he could not see her right or left of him upon the long stone platform. there were three separate flights of steps, three different paths, widely diverging across the broad grassy flat before marchmont towers. how could he tell which of these ways olivia might have chosen? there was the great porch, and there were all manner of stone abutments along the grim façade of the house. she might have concealed herself behind any one of them. the night was hopelessly dark. a pair of ponderous bronze lamps, which paul had placed before the principal doorway, only made two spots of light in the gloom. he ran along the terrace, looking into every nook and corner which might have served as a hiding-place; but he did not find olivia. she had left the house with the avowed intention of doing something to prevent the marriage. what would she do? what course would this desperate woman take in her jealous rage? would she go straight to edward arundel and tell him----? yes, this was most likely; for how else could she hope to prevent the marriage? paul stood quite still upon the terrace for a few minutes, thinking. there was only one course for him. to try and find olivia would be next to hopeless. there were half-a-dozen outlets from the park. there were ever so many different pathways through the woody labyrinth at the back of the towers. this woman might have taken any one of them. to waste the night in searching for her would be worse than useless. there was only one thing to be done. he must countercheck this desperate creature's movements. he went back to the drawing-room, shut the window, and then rang the bell. there were not many of the old servants who had waited upon john marchmont at the towers now. the man who answered the bell was a person whom paul had brought down from london. "get the chesnut saddled for me, peterson," said mr. marchmont. "my poor cousin's widow has left the house, and i am going after her. she has given me very great alarm to-night by her conduct. i tell you this in confidence; but you can say as much to mrs. simmons, who knows more about her mistress than i do. see that there's no time lost in saddling the chesnut. i want to overtake this unhappy woman, if i can. go and give the order, and then bring me my hat." the man went away to obey his master. paul walked to the chimneypiece and looked at the clock. "they'll be gone to bed at the grange," he thought to himself. "will she go there and knock them up, i wonder? does she know that edward's there? i doubt that; and yet weston may have told her. at any rate, i can be there before her. it would take her a long time to get there on foot. i think i did the right thing in saying what i said to peterson. i must have the report of her madness spread everywhere. i must face it out. but how--but how? so long as she was quiet, i could manage everything. but with her against me, and george weston--oh, the cur, the white-hearted villain, after all that i've done for him and lavinia! but what can a man expect when he's obliged to put his trust in a fool?" he went to the window, and stood there looking out until he saw the groom coming along the gravel roadway below the terrace, leading a horse by the bridle. then he put on the hat that the servant had brought him, ran down the steps, and got into the saddle. "all right, jeffreys," he said; "tell them not to expect me back till to-morrow morning. let mrs. simmons sit up for her mistress. mrs. john may return at any hour in the night." he galloped away along the smooth carriage-drive. at the lodge he stopped to inquire if any one had been through that way. no, the woman said; she had opened the gates for no one. paul had expected no other answer. there was a footpath that led to a little wicket-gate opening on the high-road; and of course olivia had chosen that way, which was a good deal shorter than the carriage-drive. chapter x. the turning of the tide. it was past two o'clock in the morning of the day which had been appointed for edward arundel's wedding, when paul marchmont drew rein before the white gate that divided major lawford's garden from the high-road. there was no lodge, no pretence of grandeur here. an old-fashioned garden surrounded an old-fashioned red-brick house. there was an apple-orchard upon one side of the low white gate, and a flower-garden, with a lawn and fish-pond, upon the other. the carriage-drive wound sharply round to a shallow flight of steps, and a broad door with a narrow window upon each side of it. paul got off his horse at the gate, and went in, leading the animal by the bridle. he was a cockney, heart and soul, and had no sense of any enjoyments that were not of a cockney nature. so the horse he had selected for himself was anything but a fiery creature. he liked plenty of bone and very little blood in the steed he rode, and was contented to go at a comfortable, jog-trot, seven-miles-an-hour pace, along the wretched country roads. there was a row of old-fashioned wooden posts, with iron chains swinging between them, upon both sides of the doorway. paul fastened the horse's bridle to one of these, and went up the steps. he rang a bell that went clanging and jangling through the house in the stillness of the summer night. all the way along the road he had looked right and left, expecting to pass olivia; but he had seen no sign of her. this was nothing, however; for there were byways by which she might come from marchmont towers to lawford grange. "i must be before her, at any rate," paul thought to himself, as he waited patiently for an answer to his summons. the time seemed very long to him, of course; but at last he saw a light glimmering through the mansion windows, and heard a shuffling foot in the hall. then the door was opened very cautiously, and a woman's scared face peered out at mr. marchmont through the opening. "what is it?" the woman asked, in a frightened voice. "it is i, mr. marchmont, of marchmont towers. your master knows me. mr. arundel is here, is he not?" "yes, and mrs. arundel too; but they're all abed." "never mind that; i must see major lawford immediately." "but they're all abed." "never mind that, my good woman; i tell you i must see him." "but won't to-morrow mornin' do? it's near three o'clock, and to-morrow's our eldest miss's weddin'-day; and they're all abed." "i _must_ see your master. for mercy's sake, my good woman, do what i tell you! go and call up major lawford,--you can do it quietly,--and tell him i must speak to him at once." the woman, with the chain of the door still between her and mr. marchmont, took a timid survey of paul's face. she had heard of him often enough, but had never seen him before, and she was rather doubtful as to his identity. she knew that thieves and robbers resorted to all sorts of tricks in the course of their evil vocation. mightn't this application for admittance in the dead of the night be only a part of some burglarious plot against the spoons and forks, and that hereditary silver urn with lions' heads holding rings in their mouths for handles, the fame of which had no doubt circulated throughout all lincolnshire? mr. marchmont had neither a black mask nor a dark-lantern, and to martha philpot's mind these were essential attributes of the legitimate burglar; but he might be burglariously disposed, nevertheless, and it would be well to be on the safe side. "i'll go and tell 'em," the discreet martha said civilly; "but perhaps you won't mind my leaving the chain oop. it ain't like as if it was winter," she added apologetically. "you may shut the door, if you like," answered paul; "only be quick and wake your master. you can tell him that i want to see him upon a matter of life and death." martha hurried away, and paul stood upon the broad stone steps waiting for her return. every moment was precious to him, for he wanted to be beforehand with olivia. he had no thought except that she would come straight to the grange to see edward arundel; unless, indeed, she was by any chance ignorant of his whereabouts. presently the light appeared again in the narrow windows, and this time a man's foot sounded upon the stone-flagged hall. this time, too, martha let down the chain, and opened the door wide enough for mr. marchmont to enter. she had no fear of burglarious marauders now that the valiant major was at her elbow. "mr. marchmont," exclaimed the old soldier, opening a door leading into a little study, "you will excuse me if i seem rather bewildered by your visit. when an old fellow like me is called up in the middle of the night, he can't be expected to have his wits about him just at first. (martha, bring us a light.) sit down, mr. marchmont; there's a chair at your elbow. and now may i ask the reason----?" "the reason i have disturbed you in this abrupt manner. the occasion that brings me here is a very painful one; but i believe that my coming may save you and yours from much annoyance." "save us from annoyance! really, my dear sir, you----" "i mystify you for the moment, no doubt," paul interposed blandly; "but if you will have a little patience with me, major lawford, i think i can make everything very clear,--only too painfully clear. you have heard of my relative, mrs. john marchmont,--my cousin's widow?" "i have," answered the major, gravely. the dark scandals that had been current about wretched olivia marchmont came into his mind with the mention of her name, and the memory of those miserable slanders overshadowed his frank face. paul waited while martha brought in a smoky lamp, with the half-lighted wick sputtering and struggling in its oily socket. then he went on, in a calm, dispassionate voice, which seemed the voice of a benevolent christian, sublimely remote from other people's sorrows, but tenderly pitiful of suffering humanity, nevertheless. "you have heard of my unhappy cousin. you have no doubt heard that she is--mad?" he dropped his voice into so low a whisper, that he only seemed to shape this last word with his thin flexible lips. "i have heard some rumour to that effect," the major answered; "that is to say, i have heard that mrs. john marchmont has lately become eccentric in her habits." "it has been my dismal task to watch the slow decay of a very powerful intellect," continued paul. "when i first came to marchmont towers, about the time of my cousin mary's unfortunate elopement with mr. arundel, that mental decay had already set in. already the compass of olivia marchmont's mind had become reduced to a monotone, and the one dominant thought was doing its ruinous work. it was my fate to find the clue to that sad decay; it was my fate very speedily to discover the nature of that all-absorbing thought which, little by little, had grown into monomania." major lawford stared at his visitor's face. he was a plain-spoken man, and could scarcely see his way clearly through all this obscurity of fine words. "you mean to say you found out what had driven your cousin's widow mad?" he said bluntly. "you put the question very plainly, major lawford. yes; i discovered the secret of my unhappy relative's morbid state of mind. that secret lies in the fact, that for the last ten years olivia marchmont has cherished a hopeless affection for her cousin, mr. edward arundel." the major almost bounded off his chair in horrified surprise. "good gracious!" he exclaimed; "you surprise me, mr. marchmont, and--and--rather unpleasantly." "i should never have revealed this secret to you or to any other living creature, major lawford, had not circumstances compelled me to do so. as far as mr. arundel is concerned, i can set your mind quite at ease. he has chosen to insult me very grossly; but let that pass. i must do him the justice to state that i believe him to have been from first to last utterly ignorant of the state of his cousin's mind." "i hope so, sir; egad, i hope so!" exclaimed the major, rather fiercely. "if i thought that this young man had trifled with the lady's affection; if i thought----" "you need think nothing to the detriment of mr. arundel," answered paul, with placid politeness, "except that he is hot-headed, obstinate, and foolish. he is a young man of excellent principles, and has never fathomed the secret of his cousin's conduct towards him. i am rather a close observer,--something of a student of human nature,--and i have watched this unhappy woman. she loves, and has loved, her cousin edward arundel; and hers is one of those concentrative natures in which a great passion is nearly akin to a monomania. it was this hopeless, unreturned affection that embittered her character, and made her a harsh stepmother to my poor cousin mary. for a long time this wretched woman has been very quiet; but her tranquillity has been only a deceitful calm. to-night the storm broke. olivia marchmont heard of the marriage that is to take place to-morrow; and, for the first time, a state of melancholy mania developed into absolute violence. she came to me, and attacked me upon the subject of this intended marriage. she accused me of having plotted to give edward arundel another bride; and then, after exhausting herself by a torrent of passionate invective against me, against her cousin edward, your daughter,--every one concerned in to-morrow's event,--this wretched woman rushed out of the house in a jealous fury, declaring that she would do something--no matter what--to hinder the celebration of edward arundel's second marriage." "good heavens!" gasped the major. "and you mean to say----" "i mean to say, that there is no knowing what may be attempted by a madwoman, driven mad by a jealousy in itself almost as terrible as madness. olivia marchmont has sworn to hinder your daughter's marriage. what has not been done by unhappy creatures in this woman's state of mind? every day we read of such things in the newspapers--deeds of horror at which the blood grows cold in our veins; and we wonder that heaven can permit such misery. it is not any frivolous motive that brings me here in the dead of the night, major lawford. i come to tell you that a desperate woman has sworn to hinder to-morrow's marriage. heaven knows what she may do in her jealous frenzy! she _may_ attack your daughter." the father's face grew pale. his linda, his darling, exposed to the fury of a madwoman! he could conjure up the scene: the fair girl clinging to her lover's breast, and desperate olivia marchmont swooping down upon her like an angry tigress. "for mercy's sake, tell me what i am to do, mr. marchmont!" cried the major. "god bless you, sir, for bringing me this warning! but what am i to do? what do you advise? shall we postpone the wedding?" "on no account. all you have to do is to keep this wretched woman at bay. shut your doors upon her. do not let her be admitted to this house upon any pretence whatever. get the wedding over an hour earlier than has been intended, if it is possible for you to do so, and hurry the bride and bridegroom away upon the first stage of their wedding-tour. if you wish to escape all the wretchedness of a public scandal, avoid seeing this woman." "i will, i will," answered the bewildered major. "it's a most awful situation. my poor belinda! her wedding-day! and a mad woman to attempt--upon my word, mr. marchmont, i don't know how to thank you for the trouble you have taken." "don't speak of that. this woman is my cousin's widow: any shame of hers is disgrace to me. avoid seeing her. if by any chance she does contrive to force herself upon you, turn a deaf ear to all she may say. she horrified me to-night by her mad assertions. be prepared for anything she may declare. she is possessed by all manner of delusions, remember, and may make the most ridiculous assertions. there is no limit to her hallucinations. she may offer to bring edward arundel's dead wife from the grave, perhaps. but you will not, on any account, allow her to obtain access to your daughter." "no, no--on no account. my poor belinda! i am very grateful to you, mr. marchmont, for this warning. you'll stop here for the rest of the night? martha's beds are always aired. you'll accept the shelter of our spare room until to-morrow morning?" "you are very good, major lawford; but i must hurry away directly. remember that i am quite ignorant as to where my unhappy relative may be wandering at this hour of the night. she may have returned to the towers. her jealous fury may have exhausted itself; and in that case i have exaggerated the danger. but, at any rate i thought it best to give you this warning." "most decidedly, my dear sir; i thank you from the bottom of my heart. but you'll take something--wine, tea, brandy-and-water--eh?" paul had put on his hat and made his way into the hall by this time. there was no affectation in his eagerness to be away. he glanced uneasily towards the door every now and then while the major was offering hospitable hindrance to his departure. he was very pale, with a haggard, ashen pallor that betrayed his anxiety, in spite of his bland calmness of manner. "you are very kind. no; i will get away at once. i have done my duty here; i must now try and do what i can for this wretched woman. good night. remember; shut your doors upon her." he unfastened the bridle of his horse, mounted, and rode away slowly, so long as there was any chance of the horse's tread being heard at the grange. but when he was a quarter of a mile away from major lawford's house, he urged the horse into a gallop. he had no spurs; but he used his whip with a ruthless hand, and went off at a tearing pace along a narrow lane, where the ruts were deep. he rode for fifteen miles; and it was grey morning when he drew rein at a dilapidated five-barred gate leading into the great, tenantless yard of an uninhabited farmhouse. the place had been unlet for some years; and the land was in the charge of a hind in mr. marchmont's service. the hind lived in a cottage at the other extremity of the farm; and paul had erected new buildings, with engine-houses and complicated machinery for pumping the water off the low-lying lands. thus it was that the old farmhouse and the old farmyard were suffered to fall into decay. the empty sties, the ruined barns and outhouses, the rotting straw, and pools of rank corruption, made this tenantless farmyard the very abomination of desolation. paul marchmont opened the gate and went in. he picked his way very cautiously through the mud and filth, leading his horse by the bridle till he came to an outhouse, where he secured the animal. then he crossed the yard, lifted the rusty latch of a narrow wooden door set in a plastered wall, and went into a dismal stone court, where one lonely hen was moulting in miserable solitude. long rank grass grew in the interstices of the flags. the lonely hen set up a roopy cackle, and fluttered into a corner at sight of paul marchmont. there were some rabbit-hutches, tenantless; a dovecote, empty; a dog-kennel, and a broken chain rusting slowly in a pool of water, but no dog. the courtyard was at the back of the house, looked down upon by a range of latticed windows, some with closed shutters, others with shutters swinging in the wind, as if they had been fain to beat themselves to death in very desolation of spirit. mr. marchmont opened a door and went into the house. there were empty cellars and pantries, dairies and sculleries, right and left of him. the rats and mice scuttled away at sound of the intruder's footfall. the spiders ran upon the damp-stained walls, and the disturbed cobwebs floated slowly down from the cracked ceilings and tickled mr. marchmont's face. farther on in the interior of the gloomy habitation paul found a great stone-paved kitchen, at the darkest end of which there was a rusty grate, in which a minimum of flame struggled feebly with a maximum of smoke. an open oven-door revealed a dreary black cavern; and the very manner of the rusty door, and loose, half-broken handle, was an advertisement of incapacity for any homely hospitable use. pale, sickly fungi had sprung up in clusters at the corners of the damp hearthstone. spiders and rats, damp and cobwebs, every sign by which decay writes its name upon the dwelling man has deserted, had set its separate mark upon this ruined place. paul marchmont looked round him with a contemptuous shudder. he called "mrs. brown! mrs. brown!" two or three times, each time waiting for an answer; but none came, and mr. marchmont passed on into another room. here at least there was some poor pretence of comfort. the room was in the front of the house, and the low latticed window looked out upon a neglected garden, where some tall foxgloves reared their gaudy heads amongst the weeds. at the end of the garden there was a high brick wall, with pear-trees trained against it, and dragon's-mouth and wallflower waving in the morning-breeze. there was a bed in this room, empty; an easy-chair near the window; near that a little table, and a _set of indian chessmen_. upon the bed there were some garments scattered, as if but lately flung there; and on the floor, near the fireplace, there were the fragments of a child's first toys--a tiny trumpet, bought at some village fair, a baby's rattle, and a broken horse. paul marchmont looked about him--a little puzzled at first; then with a vague dread in his haggard face. "mrs. brown!" he cried, in a loud voice, hurrying across the room towards an inner door as he spoke. the inner door was opened before paul could reach it, and a woman appeared; a tall, gaunt-looking woman, with a hard face and bare, brawny arms. "where, in heaven's name, have you been hiding yourself, woman?" paul cried impatiently. "and where's--your patient?" "gone, sir." "gone! where?" "with her stepmamma, mrs. marchmont--not half an hour ago. as it was your wish i should stop behind to clear up, i've done so, sir; but i did think it would have been better for me to have gone with----" paul clutched the woman by the arm, and dragged her towards him. "are you mad?" he cried, with an oath. "are you mad, or drunk? who gave you leave to let that woman go? who----?" he couldn't finish the sentence. his throat grew dry, and he gasped for breath; while all the blood in his body seemed to rush into his swollen forehead. "you sent mrs. marchmont to fetch my patient away, sir," exclaimed the woman, looking frightened. "you did, didn't you? she said so!" "she is a liar; and you are a fool or a cheat. she paid you, i dare say! can't you speak, woman? has the person i left in your care, whom you were paid, and paid well, to take care of,--have you let her go? answer me that." "i have, sir," the woman faltered,--she was big and brawny, but there was that in paul marchmont's face that frightened her notwithstanding,--"seeing as it was your orders." "that will do," cried paul marchmont, holding up his hand and looking at the woman with a ghastly smile; "that will do. you have ruined me; do you hear? you have undone a work that has cost me--o my god! why do i waste my breath in talking to such a creature as this? all my plots, my difficulties, my struggles and victories, my long sleepless nights, my bad dreams,--has it all come to this? ruin, unutterable ruin, brought upon me by a madwoman!" he sat down in the chair by the window, and leaned upon the table, scattering the indian chessmen with his elbow. he did not weep. that relief--terrible relief though it be for a man's breast--was denied him. he sat there with his face covered, moaning aloud. that helpless moan was scarcely like the complaint of a man; it was rather like the hopeless, dreary utterance of a brute's anguish; it sounded like the miserable howling of a beaten cur. chapter xi. belinda's wedding-day. the sun shone upon belinda lawford's wedding-day. the birds were singing in the garden under her window as she opened her lattice and looked out. the word lattice is not a poetical license in this case; for miss lawford's chamber was a roomy, old-fashioned apartment at the back of the house, with deep window-seats and diamond-paned casements. the sun shone, and the roses bloomed in all their summer glory. "'twas in the time of roses," as gentle-minded thomas hood so sweetly sang; surely the time of all others for a bridal morning. the girl looked out into the sunshine with her loose hair falling about her shoulders, and lingered a little looking at the familiar garden, with a half-pensive smile. "oh, how often, how often," she said, "i have walked up and down by those laburnums, letty!" there were two pretty white-curtained bedsteads in the old-fashioned room, and miss arundel had shared her friend's apartment for the last week. "how often mamma and i have sat under the dear old cedar, making our poor children's frocks! people say monotonous lives are not happy: mine has been the same thing over and over again; and yet how happy, how happy! and to think that we"--she paused a moment, and the rosy colour in her cheeks deepened by just one shade; it was so sweet to use that simple monosyllable "we" when edward arundel was the other half of the pronoun,--"to think that we shall be in paris to-morrow!" "driving in the bois," exclaimed miss arundel; "and dining at the maison dorée, or the café de paris. don't dine at meurice's, linda; it's dreadfully slow dining at one's hotel. and you'll be a young married woman, and can do anything, you know. if i were a young married woman, i'd ask my husband to take me to the mabille, just for half an hour, with an old bonnet and a thick veil. i knew a girl whose first-cousin married a cornet in the guards, and they went to the mabille one night. come, belinda, if you mean to have your back-hair done at all, you'd better sit down at once and let me commence operations." miss arundel had stipulated that, upon this particular morning, she was to dress her friend's hair; and she turned up the frilled sleeves of her white dressing-gown, and set to work in the orthodox manner, spreading a network of shining tresses about miss lawford's shoulders, prior to the weaving of elaborate plaits that were to make a crown for the fair young bride. letitia's tongue went as fast as her fingers; but belinda was very silent. she was thinking of the bounteous providence that had given her the man she loved for her husband. she had been on her knees in the early morning, long before letitia's awakening, breathing out innocent thanksgiving for the happiness that overflowed her fresh young heart. a woman had need to be country-bred, and to have been reared in the narrow circle of a happy home, to feel as belinda lawford felt. such love as hers is only given to bright and innocent spirits, untarnished even by the knowledge of sin. downstairs edward arundel was making a wretched pretence of breakfasting _tête-à-tête_ with his future father-in-law. the major had held his peace as to the unlooked-for visitant of the past night. he had given particular orders that no stranger should be admitted to the house, and that was all. but being of a naturally frank, not to say loquacious disposition, the weight of this secret was a very terrible burden to the honest half-pay soldier. he ate his dry toast uneasily, looking at the door every now and then, in the perpetual expectation of beholding that barrier burst open by mad olivia marchmont. the breakfast was not a very cheerful meal, therefore. i don't suppose any ante-nuptial breakfast ever is very jovial. there was the state banquet--_the_ wedding breakfast--to be eaten by-and-by; and mrs. lawford, attended by all the females of the establishment, was engaged in putting the last touches to the groups of fruit and confectionery, the pyramids of flowers, and that crowning glory, the wedding-cake. "remember the madeira and still hock are to go round first, and then the sparkling; and tell gogram to be particular about the corks, martha," mrs. lawford said to her confidential maid, as she gave a nervous last look at the table. "i was at a breakfast once where a champagne-cork hit the bridegroom on the bridge of his nose at the very moment he rose to return thanks; and being a nervous man, poor fellow,--in point of fact, he was a curate, and the bride was the rector's daughter, with two hundred a year of her own,--it quite overcame him, and he didn't get over it all through the breakfast. and now i must run and put on my bonnet." there was nothing but putting on bonnets, and pinning lace-shawls, and wild outcries for hair-pins, and interchanging of little feminine services, upon the bedroom floor for the next half-hour. major lawford walked up and down the hall, putting on his white gloves, which were too large for him,--elderly men's white gloves always are too large for them,--and watching the door of the citadel. olivia must pass over a father's body, the old soldier thought, before she should annoy belinda on her bridal morning. by-and-by the carriages came round to the door. the girl bridesmaids came crowding down the stairs, hustling each other's crisped garments, and disputing a little in a sisterly fashion; then letitia arundel, with nine rustling flounces of white silk ebbing and flowing and surging about her, and with a pleased simper upon her face; and then followed mrs. arundel, stately in silver-grey moire, and mrs. lawford, in violet silk--until the hall was a show of bonnets and bouquets and muslin. and last of all, belinda lawford, robed in cloudlike garments of spotless lace, with bridal flowers trembling round her hair, came slowly down the broad old-fashioned staircase, to see her lover loitering in the hall below. he looked very grave; but he greeted his bride with a tender smile. he loved her, but he could not forget. even upon this, his wedding-day, the haunting shadow of the past was with him: not to be shaken off. he did not wait till belinda reached the bottom of the staircase. there was a sort of ceremonial law to be observed, and he was not to speak to miss lawford upon this special morning until he met her in the vestry at hillingsworth church; so letitia and mrs. arundel hustled the young man into one of the carriages, while major lawford ran to receive his daughter at the foot of the stairs. the arundel carriage drove off about five minutes before the vehicle that was to convey major lawford, belinda, and as many of the girl bridesmaids as could be squeezed into it without detriment to lace and muslin. the rest went with mrs. lawford in the third and last carriage. hillingsworth church was about three-quarters of a mile from the grange. it was a pretty irregular old place, lying in a little nook under the shadow of a great yew-tree. behind the square norman tower there was a row of poplars, black against the blue summer sky; and between the low gate of the churchyard and the grey, moss-grown porch, there was an avenue of good old elms. the rooks were calling to each other in the topmost branches of the trees as major lawford's carriage drew up at the churchyard gate. belinda was a great favourite amongst the poor of hillingsworth parish, and the place had put on a gala-day aspect in honour of her wedding. garlands of honeysuckle and wild clematis were twined about the stout oaken gate-posts. the school-children were gathered in clusters in the churchyard, with their pinafores full of fresh flowers from shadowy lanes and from prim cottage-gardens,--bright homely blossoms, with the morning dew still upon them. the rector and his curate were standing in the porch waiting for the coming of the bride; and there were groups of well-dressed people dotted about here and there in the drowsy-sheltered pews near the altar. there were humbler spectators clustered under the low ceiling of the gallery--tradesmen's wives and daughters, radiant with new ribbons, and whispering to one another in delighted anticipation of the show. everybody round about the grange loved pretty, genial belinda lawford, and there was universal rejoicing because of her happiness. the wedding party came out of the vestry presently in appointed order: the bride with her head drooping, and her face hidden by her veil; the bridesmaids' garments making a fluttering noise as they came up the aisle, like the sound of a field of corn faintly stirred by summer breezes. then the grave voice of the rector began the service with the brief preliminary exordium; and then, in a tone that grew more solemn with the increasing solemnity of the words, he went on to that awful charge which is addressed especially to the bridegroom and the bride: "i require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it. for be ye well assured----" the rector read no further; for a woman's voice from out the dusky shadows at the further end of the church cried "stop!" there was a sudden silence; people stared at each other with scared faces, and then turned in the direction whence the voice had come. the bride lifted her head for the first time since leaving the vestry, and looked round about her, ashy pale and trembling. "o edward, edward!" she cried, "what is it?" the rector waited, with his hand still upon the open book. he waited, looking towards the other end of the chancel. he had no need to wait long: a woman, with a black veil thrown back from a white, haggard face, and with dusty garments dragging upon the church-floor, came slowly up the aisle. her two hands were clasped upon her breast, and her breath came in gasps, as if she had been running. "olivia!" cried edward arundel, "what, in heaven's name--" but major lawford stepped forward, and spoke to the rector. "pray let her be got out of the way," he said, in a low voice. "i was warned of this. i was quite prepared for some such disturbance." he sank his voice to a whisper. "_she is mad!_" he said, close in the rector's ear. the whisper was like whispering in general,--more distinctly audible than the rest of the speech. olivia marchmont heard it. "mad until to-day," she cried; "but not mad to-day. o edward arundel! a hideous wrong has been done by me and through me. your wife--your wife--" "my wife! what of her? she--" "she is alive!" gasped olivia; "an hour's walk from here. i came on foot. i was tired, and i have been long coming. i thought that i should be in time to stop you before you got to the church; but i am very weak. i ran the last part of the way--" she dropped her hands upon the altar-rails, and seemed as if she would have fallen. the rector put his arm about her to support her, and she went on: "i thought i should have spared her this," she said, pointing to belinda; "but i can't help it. _she_ must bear her misery as well as others. it can't be worse for her than it has been for others. she must bear--" "my wife!" said edward arundel; "mary, my poor sorrowful darling--alive?" belinda turned away, and buried her face upon her mother's shoulder. she could have borne anything better than this. his heart--that supreme treasure, for which she had rendered up thanks to her god--had never been hers after all. a word, a breath, and she was forgotten; his thoughts went back to that other one. there was unutterable joy, there was unspeakable tenderness in his tone, as he spoke of mary marchmont, though _she_ stood by his side, in all her foolish bridal finery, with her heart newly broken. "o mother," she cried, "take me away! take me away, before i die!" olivia flung herself upon her knees by the altar-rails. where the pure young bride was to have knelt by her lover's side this wretched sinner cast herself down, sunk far below all common thoughts in the black depth of her despair. "o my sin, my sin!" she cried, with clasped hands lifted up above her head. "will god ever forgive my sin? will god ever have pity upon me? can he pity, can he forgive, such guilt as mine? even this work of to-day is no atonement to be reckoned against my wickedness. i was jealous of this other woman; i was jealous! earthly passion was still predominant in this miserable breast." she rose suddenly, as if this outburst had never been, and laid her hand upon edward arundel's arm. "come!" she said; "come!" "to her--to mary--my wife?" they had taken belinda away by this time; but major lawford stood looking on. he tried to draw edward aside; but olivia's hand upon the young man's arm held him like a vice. "she is mad," whispered the major. "mr. marchmont came to me last night, and warned me of all this. he told me to be prepared for anything; she has all sorts of delusions. get her away, if you can, while i go and explain matters to belinda. edward, if you have a spark of manly feeling, get this woman away." but olivia held the bridegroom's arm with a tightening grasp. "come!" she said; "come! are you turned to stone, edward arundel? is your love worth no more than this? i tell you, your wife, mary marchmont, is alive. let those who doubt me come and see for themselves." the eager spectators, standing up in the pews or crowding in the narrow aisle, were only too ready to respond to this invitation. olivia led her cousin out into the churchyard; she led him to the gate where the carriages were waiting. the crowd flocked after them; and the people outside began to cheer as they came out. that cheer was the signal for which the school-children had waited; and they set to work scattering flowers upon the narrow pathway, before they looked up to see who was coming to trample upon the rosebuds and jessamine, the woodbine and seringa. but they drew back, scared and wondering, as olivia came along the pathway, sweeping those tender blossoms after her with her trailing black garments, and leading the pale bridegroom by his arm. she led him to the door of the carriage beside which major lawford's gray-haired groom was waiting, with a big white satin favour pinned upon his breast, and a bunch of roses in his button hole. there were favours in the horses' ears, and favours upon the breasts of the hillingsworth tradespeople who supplied bread and butcher's meat and grocery to the family at the grange. the bell-ringers up in the church-tower saw the crowd flock out of the porch, and thought the marriage ceremony was over. the jangling bells pealed out upon the hot summer air as edward stood by the churchyard-gate, with olivia marchmont by his side. "lend me your carriage," he said to major lawford, "and come with me. i must see the end of this. it may be all a delusion; but i must see the end of it. if there is any truth in instinct, i believe that i shall see my wife--alive." he got into the carriage without further ceremony, and olivia and major lawford followed him. "where is my wife?" the young man asked, letting down the front window as he spoke. "at kemberling, at hester jobson's." "drive to kemberling," edward said to the coachman,--"to kemberling high street, as fast as you can go." the man drove away from the churchyard-gate. the humbler spectators, who were restrained by no niceties of social etiquette, hurried after the vehicle, raising white clouds of dust upon the high road with their eager feet. the higher classes lingered about the churchyard, talking to each other and wondering. very few people stopped to think of belinda lawford. "let the stricken deer go weep." a stricken deer is a very uninteresting object when there are hounds in full cry hard by, and another deer to be hunted. "since when has my wife been at kemberling?" edward arundel asked olivia, as the carriage drove along the high road between the two villages. "since daybreak this morning." "where was she before then?" "at stony-stringford farm." "and before then?" "in the pavilion over the boat-house at marchmont." "my god! and--" the young man did not finish his sentence. he put his head out of the window, looking towards kemberling, and straining his eyes to catch the earliest sight of the straggling village street. "faster!" he cried every now and then to the coachman; "faster!" in little more than half an hour from the time at which it had left the churchyard-gate, the carriage stopped before the little carpenter's shop. mr. jobson's doorway was adorned by a painted representation of two very doleful-looking mutes standing at a door; for hester's husband combined the more aristocratic avocation of undertaker with the homely trade of carpenter and joiner. olivia marchmont got out of the carriage before either of the two men could alight to assist her. power was the supreme attribute of this woman's mind. her purpose never faltered; from the moment she had left marchmont towers until now, she had known neither rest of body nor wavering of intention. "come," she said to edward arundel, looking back as she stood upon the threshold of mr. jobson's door; "and you too," she added, turning to major lawford,--"follow us, and _see_ whether i am mad." she passed through the shop, and into that prim, smart parlour in which edward arundel had lamented his lost wife. the latticed windows were wide open, and the warm summer sunshine filled the room. a girl, with loose tresses of hazel-brown hair falling about her face, was sitting on the floor, looking down at a beautiful fair-haired nursling of a twelvemonth old. the girl was john marchmont's daughter; the child was edward arundel's son. it was _his_ childish cry that the young man had heard upon that october night in the pavilion by the water. "mary arundel," said olivia, in a hard voice, "i give you back your husband." the young mother got up from the ground with a low cry, tottered forward, and fell into her husband's arms. "they told me you were dead! they made me believe that you were dead!" she said, and then fainted on the young man's breast. edward carried her to a sofa and laid her down, white and senseless; and then knelt down beside her, crying over her, and sobbing out inarticulate thanksgiving to the god who had given his lost wife back to him. "poor sweet lamb!" murmured hester jobson; "she's as weak as a baby; and she's gone through so much a'ready this morning." it was some time before edward arundel raised his head from the pillow upon which his wife's pale face lay, half hidden amid the tangled hair. but when he did look up, he turned to major lawford and stretched out his hand. "have pity upon me," he said. "i have been the dupe of a villain. tell your poor child how much i esteem her, how much i regret that--that--we should have loved each other as we have. the instinct of my heart would have kept me true to the past; but it was impossible to know your daughter and not love her. the villain who has brought this sorrow upon us shall pay dearly for his infamy. go back to your daughter; tell her everything. tell her what you have seen here. i know her heart, and i know that she will open her arms to this poor ill-used child." the major went away very downcast. hester jobson bustled about bringing restoratives and pillows, stopping every now and then in an outburst of affection by the slippery horsehair couch on which mary lay. mrs. jobson had prepared her best bedroom for her beloved visitor, and edward carried his young wife up to the clean, airy chamber. he went back to the parlour to fetch the child. he carried the fair-haired little one up-stairs in his own arms; but i regret to say that the infant showed an inclination to whimper in his newly-found father's embrace. it is only in the british drama that newly discovered fathers are greeted with an outburst of ready-made affection. edward arundel went back to the sitting-room presently, and sat down, waiting till hester should bring him fresh tidings of his wife. olivia marchmont stood by the window, with her eyes fixed upon edward. "why don't you speak to me?" she said presently. "can you find no words that are vile enough to express your hatred of me? is that why you are silent?" "no, olivia," answered the young man, calmly. "i am silent, because i have nothing to say to you. why you have acted as you have acted,--why you have chosen to be the tool of a black-hearted villain,--is an unfathomable mystery to me. i thank god that your conscience was aroused this day, and that you have at least hindered the misery of an innocent girl. but why you have kept my wife hidden from me,--why you have been the accomplice of paul marchmont's crime,--is more than i can even attempt to guess." "not yet?" said olivia, looking at him with a strange smile. "even yet i am a mystery to you?" "you are, indeed, olivia." she turned away from him with a laugh. "then i had better remain so till the end," she said, looking out into the garden. but after a moment's silence she turned her head once more towards the young man. "i will speak," she said; "i _will_ speak, edward arundel. i hope and believe that i have not long to live, and that all my shame and misery, my obstinate wickedness, my guilty passion, will come to an end, like a long feverish dream. o god, have mercy on my waking, and make it brighter than this dreadful sleep! i loved you, edward arundel. ah! you start. thank god at least for that. i kept my secret well. you don't know what that word 'love' means, do you? you think you love that childish girl yonder, perhaps; but i can tell you that you don't know what love is. _i_ know what it is. i have loved. for ten years,--for ten long, dreary, desolate, miserable years, fifty-two weeks in every year, fifty-two sundays, with long idle hours between the two church services--i have loved you, edward. shall i tell you what it is to love? it is to suffer, to hate, yes, to hate even the object of your love, when that love is hopeless; to hate him for the very attributes that have made you love him; to grudge the gifts and graces that have made him dear. it is to hate every creature on whom his eyes look with greater tenderness than they look on you; to watch one face until its familiar lines become a perpetual torment to you, and you cannot sleep because of its eternal presence staring at you in all your dreams. it is to be like some wretched drunkard, who loathes the fiery spirit that is destroying him, body and soul, and yet goes on, madly drinking, till he dies. love! how many people upon this great earth know the real meaning of that hideous word! i have learnt it until my soul loathes the lesson. they will tell you that i am mad, edward, and they will tell you something near the truth; but not quite the truth. my madness has been my love. from long ago, when you were little more than a boy--you remember, don't you, the long days at the rectory? _i_ remember every word you ever spoke to me, every sentiment you ever expressed, every look of your changing face--you were the first bright thing that came across my barren life; and i loved you. i married john marchmont--why, do you think?--because i wanted to make a barrier between you and me. i wanted to make my love for you impossible by making it a sin. so long as my husband lived, i shut your image out of my mind as i would have shut out the prince of darkness, if he had come to me in a palpable shape. but since then--oh, i hope i have been mad since then; i hope that god may forgive my sins because i have been mad!" her thoughts wandered away to that awful question which had been so lately revived in her mind--could she be forgiven? was it within the compass of heavenly mercy to forgive such a sin as hers? chapter xii. mary's story. one of the minor effects of any great shock, any revolution, natural or political, social or domestic, is a singular unconsciousness, or an exaggerated estimate, of the passage of time. sometimes we fancy that the common functions of the universe have come to a dead stop during the tempest which has shaken our being to its remotest depths. sometimes, on the other hand, it seems to us that, because we have endured an age of suffering, or half a lifetime of bewildered joy, the terrestrial globe has spun round in time to the quickened throbbing of our passionate hearts, and that all the clocks upon earth have been standing still. when the sun sank upon the summer's day that was to have been the day of belinda's bridal, edward arundel thought that it was still early in the morning. he wondered at the rosy light all over the western sky, and that great ball of molten gold dropping down below the horizon. he was fain to look at his watch, in order to convince himself that the low light was really the familiar sun, and not some unnatural appearance in the heavens. and yet, although he wondered at the closing of the day, with a strange inconsistency his mind could scarcely grapple with the idea that only last night he had sat by belinda lawford's side, her betrothed husband, and had pondered, heaven only knows with what sorrowful regret, upon the unknown grave in which his dead wife lay. "i only knew it this morning," he thought; "i only knew this morning that my young wife still lives, and that i have a son." he was sitting by the open window in hester jobson's best bedroom. he was sitting in an old-fashioned easy-chair, placed between the head of the bed and the open window,--a pure cottage window, with diamond panes of thin greenish glass, and a broad painted ledge, with a great jug of homely garden-flowers standing on it. the young man was sitting by the side of the bed upon which his newly-found wife and son lay asleep; the child's head nestled on his mother's breast, one flushed cheek peeping out of a tangled confusion of hazel-brown and babyish flaxen hair. the white dimity curtains overshadowed the loving sleepers. the pretty fluffy knotted fringe--neat hester's handiwork--made fantastical tracery upon the sunlit counterpane. mary slept with one arm folded round her child, and with her face turned to her husband. she had fallen asleep with her hand clasped in his, after a succession of fainting-fits that had left her terribly prostrate. edward arundel watched that tender picture with a smile of ineffable affection. "i can understand now why roman catholics worship the virgin mary," he thought. "i can comprehend the inspiration that guided raphael's hand when he painted the madonna de la chaise. in all the world there is no picture so beautiful. from all the universe he could have chosen no subject more sublime. o my darling wife, given back to me out of the grave, restored to me,--and not alone restored! my little son! my baby-son! whose feeble voice i heard that dark october night. to think that i was so wretched a dupe! to think that my dull ears could hear that sound, and no instinct rise up in my heart to reveal the presence of my child! i was so near them, not once, but several times,--so near, and i never knew--i never guessed!" he clenched his fists involuntarily at the remembrance of those purposeless visits to the lonely boat-house. his young wife was restored to him. but nothing could wipe away the long interval of agony in which he and she had been the dupe of a villanous trickster and a jealous woman. nothing could give back the first year of that baby's life,--that year which should have been one long holiday of love and rejoicing. upon what a dreary world those innocent eyes had opened, when they should have looked only upon sunshine and flowers, and the tender light of a loving father's smile! "o my darling, my darling!" the young husband thought, as he looked at his wife's wan face, upon which the evidence of all that past agony was only too painfully visible,--"how bitterly we two have suffered! but how much more terrible must have been your suffering than mine, my poor gentle darling, my broken lily!" in his rapture at finding the wife he had mourned as dead, the young man had for a time almost forgotten the villanous plotter who had kept her hidden from him. but now, as he sat quietly by the bed upon which mary and her baby lay, he had leisure to think of paul marchmont. what was he to do with that man? what vengeance could he wreak upon the head of that wretch who, for nearly two years, had condemned an innocent girl to cruel suffering and shame? to shame; for edward knew now that one of the most bitter tortures which paul marchmont had inflicted upon his cousin had been his pretended disbelief in her marriage. "what can i do to him?" the young man asked himself. "_what_ can i do to him? there is no personal chastisement worse than that which he has endured already at my hands. the scoundrel! the heartless villain! the false, cold-blooded cur! what can i do to him? i can only repeat that shameful degradation, and i _will_ repeat it. this time he shall howl under the lash like some beaten hound. this time i will drag him through the village-street, and let every idle gossip in kemberling see how a scoundrel writhes under an honest man's whip. i will--" edward arundel's wife woke while he was thinking what chastisement he should inflict upon her deadly foe; and the baby opened his round innocent blue eyes in the next moment, and sat up, staring at his new parent. mr. arundel took the child in his arms, and held him very tenderly, though perhaps rather awkwardly. the baby's round eyes opened wider at sight of those golden absurdities dangling at his father's watch-chain, and the little pudgy hands began to play with the big man's lockets and seals. "he comes to me, you see, mary!" edward said, with naïve wonder. and then he turned the baby's face towards him, and tenderly contemplated the bright surprised blue eyes, the tiny dimples, the soft moulded chin. i don't know whether fatherly vanity prompted the fancy, but edward arundel certainly did believe that he saw some faint reflection of his own features in that pink and white baby-face; a shadowy resemblance, like a tremulous image looking up out of a river. but while edward was half-thinking this, half-wondering whether there could be any likeness to him in that infant countenance, mary settled the question with womanly decision. "isn't he like you, edward?" she whispered. "it was only for his sake that i bore my life all through that miserable time; and i don't think i could have lived even for him, if he hadn't been so like you. i used to look at his face sometimes for hours and hours together, crying over him, and thinking of you. i don't think i ever cried except when he was in my arms. then something seemed to soften my heart, and the tears came to my eyes. i was very, very, very ill, for a long time before my baby was born; and i didn't know how the time went, or where i was. i used to fancy sometimes i was back in oakley street, and that papa was alive again, and that we were quite happy together, except for some heavy hammer that was always beating, beating, beating upon both our heads, and the dreadful sound of the river rushing down the street under our windows. i heard mr. weston tell his wife that it was a miracle i lived through that time." hester jobson came in presently with a tea-tray, that made itself heard, by a jingling of teaspoons and rattling of cups and saucers, all the way up the narrow staircase. the friendly carpenter's wife had produced her best china and her silver teapot,--an heirloom inherited from a wealthy maiden aunt of her husband's. she had been busy all the afternoon, preparing that elegant little collation of cake and fruit which accompanied the tea-tray; and she spread the lavender-scented table-cloth, and arranged the cups and saucers, the plates and dishes, with mingled pride and delight. but she had to endure a terrible disappointment by-and-by; for neither of her guests was in a condition to do justice to her hospitality. mary got up and sat in the roomy easy-chair, propped up with pillows. her pensive eyes kept a loving watch upon the face of her husband, turned towards her own, and slightly crimsoned by that rosy flush fading out in the western sky. she sat up and sipped a cup of tea; and in that lovely summer twilight, with the scent of the flowers blowing in through the open window, and a stupid moth doing his best to beat out his brains against one of the diamond panes in the lattice, the tortured heart, for the first time since the ruthless close of that brief honeymoon, felt the heavenly delight of repose. "o edward!" murmured the young wife, "how strange it seems to be happy!" he was at her feet, half-kneeling, half-sitting on a hassock of hester's handiwork, with both his wife's hands clasped in his, and his head leaning upon the arm of her chair. hester jobson had carried off the baby, and these two were quite alone, all in all to each other, with a cruel gap of two years to be bridged over by sorrowful memories, by tender words of consolation. they were alone, and they could talk quite freely now, without fear of interruption; for although in purity and beauty an infant is first cousin to the angels, and although i most heartily concur in all that mr. bennett and mr. buchanan can say or sing about the species, still it must be owned that a baby _is_ rather a hindrance to conversation, and that a man's eloquence does not flow quite so smoothly when he has to stop every now and then to rescue his infant son from the imminent peril of strangulation, caused by a futile attempt at swallowing one of his own fists. mary and edward were alone; they were together once more, as they had been by the trout-stream in the winchester meadows. a curtain had fallen upon all the wreck and ruin of the past, and they could hear the soft, mysterious music that was to be the prelude of a new act in life's drama. "i shall try to forget all that time," mary said presently; "i shall try to forget it, edward. i think the very memory of it would kill me, if it was to come back perpetually in the midst of my joy, as it does now, even now, when i am so happy--so happy that i dare not speak of my happiness." she stopped, and her face drooped upon her husband's clustering hair. "you are crying, mary!" "yes, dear. there is something painful in happiness when it comes after such suffering." the young man lifted his head, and looked in his wife's face. how deathly pale it was, even in that shadowy twilight; how worn and haggard and wasted since it had smiled at him in his brief honeymoon. yes, joy is painful when it comes after a long continuance of suffering; it is painful because we have become sceptical by reason of the endurance of such anguish. we have lost the power to believe in happiness. it comes, the bright stranger; but we shrink appalled from its beauty, lest, after all, it should be nothing but a phantom. heaven knows how anxiously edward arundel looked at his wife's altered face. her eyes shone upon him with the holy light of love. she smiled at him with a tender, reassuring smile; but it seemed to him that there was something almost supernal in the brightness of that white, wasted face; something that reminded him of the countenance of a martyr who has ceased to suffer the anguish of death in a foretaste of the joys of heaven. "mary," he said, presently, "tell me every cruelty that paul marchmont or his tools inflicted upon you; tell me everything, and i will never speak of our miserable separation again. i will only punish the cause of it," he added, in an undertone. "tell me, dear. it will be painful for you to speak of it; but it will be only once. there are some things i must know. remember, darling, that you are in my arms now, and that nothing but death can ever again part us." the young man had his arms round his wife. he felt, rather than heard, a low plaintive sigh as he spoke those last words. "nothing but death, edward; nothing but death," mary said, in a solemn whisper. "death would not come to me when i was very miserable. i used to pray that i might die, and the baby too; for i could not have borne to leave him behind. i thought that we might both be buried with you, edward. i have dreamt sometimes that i was lying by your side in a tomb, and i have stretched out my dead hand to clasp yours. i used to beg and entreat them to let me be buried with you when i died; for i believed that you were dead, edward. i believed it most firmly. i had not even one lingering hope that you were alive. if i had felt such a hope, no power upon earth would have kept me prisoner." "the wretches!" muttered edward between his set teeth; "the dastardly wretches! the foul liars!" "don't, edward; don't, darling. there is a pain in my heart when i hear you speak like that. i know how wicked they have been; how cruel--how cruel. i look back at all my suffering as if it were some one else who suffered; for now that you are with me i cannot believe that miserable, lonely, despairing creature was really me, the same creature whose head now rests upon your shoulder, whose breath is mixed with yours. i look back and see all my past misery, and i cannot forgive them, edward; i am very wicked, for i cannot forgive my cousin paul and his sister--yet. but i don't want you to speak of them; i only want you to love me; i only want you to smile at me, and tell me again and again and again that nothing can part us now--but death." she paused for a few moments, exhausted by having spoken so long. her head lay upon her husband's shoulder, and she clung a little closer to him, with a slight shiver. "what is the matter, darling?" "i feel as if it couldn't be real." "what, dear?" "the present--all this joy. edward, is it real? is it--is it? or am i only dreaming? shall i wake presently and feel the cold air blowing in at the window, and see the moonlight on the wainscot at stony stringford? is it all real?" "it is, my precious one. as real as the mercy of god, who will give you compensation for all you have suffered; as real as god's vengeance, which will fall most heavily upon your persecutors. and now, darling, tell me,--tell me all. i must know the story of these two miserable years during which i have mourned for my lost love." mr. arundel forgot to mention that during those two miserable years he had engaged himself to become the husband of another woman. but perhaps, even when he is best and truest, a man is always just a shade behind a woman in the matter of constancy. "when you left me in hampshire, edward, i was very, very miserable," mary began, in a low voice; "but i knew that it was selfish and wicked of me to think only of myself. i tried to think of your poor father, who was ill and suffering; and i prayed for him, and hoped that he would recover, and that you would come back to me very soon. the people at the inn were very kind to me. i sat at the window from morning till night upon the day after you left me, and upon the day after that; for i was so foolish as to fancy, every time i heard the sound of horses' hoofs or carriage-wheels upon the high-road, that you were coming back to me, and that all my grief was over. i sat at the window and watched the road till i knew the shape of every tree and housetop, every ragged branch of the hawthorn-bushes in the hedge. at last--it was the third day after you went away--i heard carriage-wheels, that slackened as they came to the inn. a fly stopped at the door, and oh, edward, i did not wait to see who was in it,--i never imagined the possibility of its bringing anybody but you. i ran down-stairs, with my heart beating so that i could hardly breathe; and i scarcely felt the stairs under my feet. but when i got to the door--o my love, my love!--i cannot bear to think of it; i cannot endure the recollection of it--" she stopped, gasping for breath, and clinging to her husband; and then, with an effort, went on again: "yes; i will tell you, dear; i must tell you. my cousin paul and my stepmother were standing in the little hall at the foot of the stairs. i think i fainted in my stepmother's arms; and when my consciousness came back, i was in our sitting-room,--the pretty rustic room, edward, in which you and i had been so happy together. "i must not stop to tell you everything. it would take me so long to speak of all that happened in that miserable time. i knew that something must be wrong, from my cousin paul's manner; but neither he nor my stepmother would tell me what it was. i asked them if you were dead; but they said, 'no, you were not dead.' still i could see that something dreadful had happened. but by-and-by, by accident, i saw your name in a newspaper that was lying on the table with paul's hat and gloves. i saw the description of an accident on the railway, by which i knew you had travelled. my heart sank at once, and i think i guessed all that had happened. i read your name amongst those of the people who had been dangerously hurt. paul shook his head when i asked him if there was any hope. "they brought me back here. i scarcely know how i came, how i endured all that misery. i implored them to let me come to you, again and again, on my knees at their feet. but neither of them would listen to me. it was impossible, paul said. he always seemed very, very kind to me; always spoke softly; always told me that he pitied me, and was sorry for me. but though my stepmother looked sternly at me, and spoke, as she always used to speak, in a harsh, cold voice, i sometimes think she might have given way at last and let me come to you, but for him--but for my cousin paul. he could look at me with a smile upon his face when i was almost mad with my misery; and he never wavered; he never hesitated. "so they took me back to the towers. i let them take me; for i scarcely felt my sorrow any longer. i only felt tired; oh, so dreadfully tired; and i wanted to lie down upon the ground in some quiet place, where no one could come near me. i thought that i was dying. i believe i was very ill when we got back to the towers. my stepmother and barbara simmons watched by my bedside, day after day, night after night. sometimes i knew them; sometimes i had all sorts of fancies. and often--ah, how often, darling!--i thought that you were with me. my cousin paul came every day, and stood by my bedside. i can't tell you how hateful it was to me to have him there. he used to come into the room as silently as if he had been walking upon snow; but however noiselessly he came, however fast asleep i was when he entered the room, i always knew that he was there, standing by my bedside, smiling at me. i always woke with a shuddering horror thrilling through my veins, as if a rat had run across my face. "by-and-by, when the delirium was quite gone, i felt ashamed of myself for this. it seemed so wicked to feel this unreasonable antipathy to my dear father's cousin; but he had brought me bad news of you, edward, and it was scarcely strange that i should hate him. one day he sat down by my bedside, when i was getting better, and was strong enough to talk. there was no one besides ourselves in the room, except my stepmother, and she was standing at the window, with her head turned away from us, looking out. my cousin paul sat down by the bedside, and began to talk to me in that gentle, compassionate way that used to torture me and irritate me in spite of myself. "he asked me what had happened to me after my leaving the towers on the day after the ball. "i told him everything, edward--about your coming to me in oakley street; about our marriage. but, oh, my darling, my husband, he wouldn't believe me; he wouldn't believe. nothing that i could say would make him believe me. though i swore to him again and again--by my dead father in heaven, as i hoped for the mercy of my god--that i had spoken the truth, and the truth only, he wouldn't believe me; he wouldn't believe. he shook his head, and said he scarcely wondered i should try to deceive him; that it was a very sad story, a very miserable and shameful story, and my attempted falsehood was little more than natural. "and then he spoke against you, edward--against you. he talked of my childish ignorance, my confiding love, and your villany. o edward, he said such shameful things; such shameful, horrible things! you had plotted to become master of my fortune; to get me into your power, because of my money; and you had not married me. you had _not_ married me; he persisted in saying that. "i was delirious again after this; almost mad, i think. all through the delirium i kept telling my cousin paul of our marriage. though he was very seldom in the room, i constantly thought that he was there, and told him the same thing--the same thing--till my brain was on fire. i don't know how long it lasted. i know that, once in the middle of the night, i saw my stepmother lying upon the ground, sobbing aloud and crying out about her wickedness; crying out that god would never forgive her sin. "i got better at last, and then i went downstairs; and i used to sit sometimes in poor papa's study. the blind was always down, and none of the servants, except barbara simmons, ever came into the room. my cousin paul did not live at the towers; but he came there every day, and often stayed there all day. he seemed the master of the house. my stepmother obeyed him in everything, and consulted him about everything. "sometimes mrs. weston came. she was like her brother. she always smiled at me with a grave compassionate smile, just like his; and she always seemed to pity me. but she wouldn't believe in my marriage. she spoke cruelly about you, edward; cruelly, but in soft words, that seemed only spoken out of compassion for me. no one would believe in my marriage. "no stranger was allowed to see me. i was never suffered to go out. they treated me as if i was some shameful creature, who must be hidden away from the sight of the world. "one day i entreated my cousin paul to go to london and see mrs. pimpernel. she would be able to tell him of our marriage. i had forgotten the name of the clergyman who married us, and the church at which we were married. and i could not tell paul those; but i gave him mrs. pimpernel's address. and i wrote to her, begging her to tell my cousin, all about my marriage; and i gave him the note unsealed. "he went to london about a week afterwards; and when he came back, he brought me my note. he had been to oakley street, he said; but mrs. pimpernel had left the neighbourhood, and no one knew where she was gone." "a lie! a villanous lie!" muttered edward arundel. "oh, the scoundrel! the infernal scoundrel!" "no words would ever tell the misery of that time; the bitter anguish; the unendurable suspense. when i asked them about you, they would tell me nothing. sometimes i thought that you had forgotten me; that you had only married me out of pity for my loneliness; and that you were glad to be freed from me. oh, forgive me, edward, for that wicked thought; but i was so very miserable, so utterly desolate. at other times i fancied that you were very ill, helpless, and unable to come to me. i dared not think that you were dead. i put away that thought from me with all my might; but it haunted me day and night. it was with me always like a ghost. i tried to shut it away from my sight; but i knew that it was there. "the days were all alike,--long, dreary, and desolate; so i scarcely know how the time went. my stepmother brought me religious books, and told me to read them; but they were hard, difficult books, and i couldn't find one word of comfort in them. they must have been written to frighten very obstinate and wicked people, i think. the only book that ever gave me any comfort, was that dear book i used to read to papa on a sunday evening in oakley street. i read that, edward, in those miserable days; i read the story of the widow's only son who was raised up from the dead because his mother was so wretched without him. i read that sweet, tender story again and again, until i used to see the funeral train, the pale, still face upon the bier, the white, uplifted hand, and that sublime and lovely countenance, whose image always comes to us when we are most miserable, the tremulous light upon the golden hair, and in the distance the glimmering columns of white temples, the palm-trees standing out against the purple eastern sky. i thought that he who raised up a miserable woman's son chiefly because he was her only son, and she was desolate without him, would have more pity upon me than the god in olivia's books: and i prayed to him, edward, night and day, imploring him to bring you back to me. "i don't know what day it was, except that it was autumn, and the dead leaves were blowing about in the quadrangle, when my stepmother sent for me one afternoon to my room, where i was sitting, not reading, not even thinking--only sitting with my head upon my hands, staring stupidly out at the drifting leaves and the gray, cold sky. my stepmother was in papa's study; and i was to go to her there. i went, and found her standing there, with a letter crumpled up in her clenched hand, and a slip of newspaper lying on the table before her. she was as white as death, and she was trembling violently from head to foot. "'see,' she said, pointing to the paper; 'your lover is dead. but for you he would have received the letter that told him of his father's illness upon an earlier day; he would have gone to devonshire by a different train. it was by your doing that he travelled when he did. if this is true, and he is dead, his blood be upon your head; his blood be upon your head!' "i think her cruel words were almost exactly those. i did not hope for a minute that those horrible lines in the newspaper were false. i thought they must be true, and i was mad, edward--i was mad; for utter despair came to me with the knowledge of your death. i went to my own room, and put on my bonnet and shawl; and then i went out of the house, down into that dreary wood, and along the narrow pathway by the river-side. i wanted to drown myself; but the sight of the black water filled me with a shuddering horror. i was frightened, edward; and i went on by the river, scarcely knowing where i was going, until it was quite dark; and i was tired, and sat down upon the damp ground by the brink of the river, all amongst the broad green flags and the wet rushes. i sat there for hours, and i saw the stars shining feebly in a dark sky. i think i was delirious, for sometimes i knew that i was there by the water side, and then the next minute i thought that i was in my bedroom at the towers; sometimes i fancied that i was with you in the meadows near winchester, and the sun was shining, and you were sitting by my side, and i could see your float dancing up and down in the sunlit water. at last, after i had been there a very, very long time, two people came with a lantern, a man and a woman; and i heard a startled voice say, 'here she is; here, lying on the ground!' and then another voice, a woman's voice, very low and frightened, said, 'alive!' and then two people lifted me up; the man carried me in his arms, and the woman took the lantern. i couldn't speak to them; but i knew that they were my cousin paul and his sister, mrs. weston. i remember being carried some distance in paul's arms; and then i think i must have fainted away, for i can recollect nothing more until i woke up one day and found myself lying in a bed in the pavilion over the boat-house, with mr. weston watching by my bedside. "i don't know how the time passed; i only know that it seemed endless. i think my illness was rheumatic fever, caught by lying on the damp ground nearly all that night when i ran away from the towers. a long time went by--there was frost and snow. i saw the river once out of the window when i was lifted out of bed for an hour or two, and it was frozen; and once at midnight i heard the kemberling church-bells ringing in the new year. i was very ill, but i had no doctor; and all that time i saw no one but my cousin paul, and lavinia weston, and a servant called betsy, a rough country girl, who took care of me when my cousins were away. they were kind to me, and took great care of me." "you did not see olivia, then, all this time?" edward asked eagerly. "no; i did not see my stepmother till some time after the new year began. she came in suddenly one evening, when mrs. weston was with me, and at first she seemed frightened at seeing me. she spoke to me kindly afterwards, but in a strange, terror-stricken voice; and she laid her head down upon the counterpane of the bed, and sobbed aloud; and then paul took her away, and spoke to her cruelly, very cruelly--taunting her with her love for you. i never understood till then why she hated me: but i pitied her after that; yes, edward, miserable as i was, i pitied her, because you had never loved her. in all my wretchedness i was happier than her; for you had loved me, edward--you had loved me!" mary lifted her face to her husband's lips, and those dear lips were pressed tenderly upon her pale forehead. "o my love, my love!" the young man murmured; "my poor suffering angel! can god ever forgive these people for their cruelty to you? but, my darling, why did you make no effort to escape?" "i was too ill to move; i believed that i was dying." "but afterwards, darling, when you were better, stronger,--did you make no effort then to escape from your persecutors?" mary shook her head mournfully. "why should i try to escape from them?" she said. "what was there for me beyond that place? it was as well for me to be there as anywhere else. i thought you were dead, edward; i thought you were dead, and life held nothing more for me. i could do nothing but wait till he who raised the widow's son should have pity upon me, and take me to the heaven where i thought you and papa had gone before me. i didn't want to go away from those dreary rooms over the boat-house. what did it matter to me whether i was there or at marchmont towers? i thought you were dead, and all the glories and grandeurs of the world were nothing to me. nobody ill-treated me; i was let alone. mrs. weston told me that it was for my own sake they kept me hidden from everybody about the towers. i was a poor disgraced girl, she told me; and it was best for me to stop quietly in the pavilion till people had got tired of talking of me, and then my cousin paul would take me away to the continent, where no one would know who i was. she told me that the honour of my father's name, and of my family altogether, would be saved by this means. i replied that i had brought no dishonour on my dear father's name; but she only shook her head mournfully, and i was too weak to dispute with her. what did it matter? i thought you were dead, and that the world was finished for me. i sat day after day by the window; not looking out, for there was a venetian blind that my cousin paul had nailed down to the window-sill, and i could only see glimpses of the water through the long, narrow openings between the laths. i used to sit there listening to the moaning of the wind amongst the trees, or the sounds of horses' feet upon the towing-path, or the rain dripping into the river upon wet days. i think that even in my deepest misery god was good to me, for my mind sank into a dull apathy, and i seemed to lose even the capacity of suffering. "one day,--one day in march, when the wind was howling, and the smoke blew down the narrow chimney and filled the room,--mrs. weston brought her husband, and he talked to me a little, and then talked to his wife in whispers. he seemed terribly frightened, and he trembled all the time, and kept saying, 'poor thing; poor young woman!' but his wife was cross to him, and wouldn't let him stop long in the room. after that, mr. weston came very often, always with lavinia, who seemed cleverer than he was, even as a doctor; for she dictated to him, and ordered him about in everything. then, by-and-by, when the birds were singing, and the warm sunshine came into the room, my baby was born, edward; my baby was born. i thought that god, who raised the widow's son, had heard my prayer, and had raised you up from the dead; for the baby's eyes were like yours, and i used to think sometimes that your soul was looking out of them and comforting me. "do you remember that poor foolish german woman who believed that the spirit of a dead king came to her in the shape of a blackbird? she was not a good woman, i know, dear; but she must have loved the king very truly, or she never could have believed anything so foolish. i don't believe in people's love when they love 'wisely,' edward: the truest love is that which loves 'too well.' "from the time of my baby's birth everything was changed. i was more miserable, perhaps, because that dull, dead apathy cleared away, and my memory came back, and i thought of you, dear, and cried over my little angel's face as he slept. but i wasn't alone any longer. the world seemed narrowed into the little circle round my darling's cradle. i don't think he is like other babies, edward. i think he has known of my sorrow from the very first, and has tried in his mute way to comfort me. the god who worked so many miracles, all separate tokens of his love and tenderness and pity for the sorrows of mankind, could easily make my baby different from other children, for a wretched mother's consolation. "in the autumn after my darling's birth, paul and his sister came for me one night, and took me away from the pavilion by the water to a deserted farmhouse, where there was a woman to wait upon me and take care of me. she was not unkind to me, but she was rather neglectful of me. i did not mind that, for i wanted nothing except to be alone with my precious boy--your son, edward; your son. the woman let me walk in the garden sometimes. it was a neglected garden, but there were bright flowers growing wild, and when the spring came again my pet used to lie on the grass and play with the buttercups and daisies that i threw into his lap; and i think we were both of us happier and better than we had been in those two close rooms over the boat-house. "i have told you all now, edward, all except what happened this morning, when my stepmother and hester jobson came into my room in the early daybreak, and told me that i had been deceived, and that you were alive. my stepmother threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and asked me to forgive her, for she was a miserable sinner, she said, who had been abandoned by god; and i forgave her, edward, and kissed her; and you must forgive her too, dear, for i know that she has been very, very wretched. and she took the baby in her arms, and kissed him,--oh, so passionately!--and cried over him. and then they brought me here in mr. jobson's cart, for mr. jobson was with them, and hester held me in her arms all the time. and then, darling, then after a long time you came to me." edward put his arms round his wife, and kissed her once more. "we will never speak of this again, darling," he said. "i know all now; i understand it all. i will never again distress you by speaking of your cruel wrongs." "and you will forgive olivia, dear?" "yes, my pet, i will forgive--olivia." he said no more, for there was a footstep on the stair, and a glimmer of light shone through the crevices of the door. hester jobson came into the room with a pair of lighted wax-candles, in white crockery-ware candlesticks. but hester was not alone; close behind her came a lady in a rustling silk gown, a tall matronly lady, who cried out,-- "where is she, edward? where is she? let me see this poor ill-used child." it was mrs. arundel, who had come to kemberling to see her newly-found daughter-in-law. "oh, my dear mother," cried the young man, "how good of you to come! now, mary, you need never again know what it is to want a protector, a tender womanly protector, who will shelter you from every harm." mary got up and went to mrs. arundel, who opened her arms to receive her son's young wife. but before she folded mary to her friendly breast, she took the girl's two hands in hers, and looked earnestly at her pale, wasted face. she gave a long sigh as she contemplated those wan features, the shining light in the eyes, that looked unnaturally large by reason of the girl's hollow cheeks. "oh, my dear," cried mrs. arundel, "my poor long-suffering child, how cruelly they have treated you!" edward looked at his mother, frightened by the earnestness of her manner; but she smiled at him with a bright, reassuring look. "i shall take you home to dangerfield with me, my poor love," she said to mary; "and i shall nurse you, and make you as plump as a partridge, my poor wasted pet. and i'll be a mother to you, my motherless child. oh, to think that there should be any wretch vile enough to--but i won't agitate you, my dear. i'll take you away from this bleak horrid county by the first train to-morrow morning, and you shall sleep to-morrow night in the blue bedroom at dangerfield, with the roses and myrtles waving against your window; and edward shall go with us, and you shan't come back here till you are well and strong; and you'll try and love me, won't you, dear? and, oh, edward, i've seen the boy! and he's a _superb_ creature, the very _image_ of what you were at a twelvemonth old; and he came to me, and smiled at me, almost as if he knew i was his grandmother; and he has got five teeth, but i'm _sorry_ to tell you he's cutting them crossways, the top first instead of the bottom, hester says." "and belinda, mother dear?" edward said presently, in a grave undertone. "belinda is an angel," mrs. arundel answered, quite as gravely. "she has been in her own room all day, and no one has seen her but her mother; but she came down to the hall as i was leaving the house this evening, and said to me, 'dear mrs. arundel, tell him that he must not think i am so selfish as to be sorry for what has happened. tell him that i am very glad to think his young wife has been saved.' she put her hand up to my lips to stop my speaking, and then went back again to her room; and if that isn't acting like an angel, i don't know what is." chapter xiii. "all within is dark as night." paul marchmont did not leave stony-stringford farmhouse till dusk upon that bright summer's day; and the friendly twilight is slow to come in the early days of july, however a man may loathe the sunshine. paul marchmont stopped at the deserted farmhouse, wandering in and out of the empty rooms, strolling listlessly about the neglected garden, or coming to a dead stop sometimes, and standing stock-still for ten minutes at a time, staring at the wall before him, and counting the slimy traces of the snails upon the branches of a plum-tree, or the flies in a spider's web. paul marchmont was afraid to leave that lonely farmhouse. he was afraid as yet. he scarcely knew what he feared, for a kind of stupor had succeeded the violent emotions of the past few hours; and the time slipped by him, and his brain grew bewildered when he tried to realise his position. it was very difficult for him to do this. the calamity that had come upon him was a calamity that he had never anticipated. he was a clever man, and he had put his trust in his own cleverness. he had never expected to be _found out_. until this hour everything had been in his favour. his dupes and victims had played into his hands. mary's grief, which had rendered her a passive creature, utterly indifferent to her own fate,--her peculiar education, which had taught her everything except knowledge of the world in which she was to live,--had enabled paul marchmont to carry out a scheme so infamous and daring that it was beyond the suspicion of honest men, almost too base for the comprehension of ordinary villains. he had never expected to be found out. all his plans had been deliberately and carefully prepared. immediately after edward's marriage and safe departure for the continent, paul had intended to convey mary and the child, with the grim attendant whom he had engaged for them, far away, to one of the remotest villages in wales. alone he would have done this; travelling by night, and trusting no one; for the hired attendant knew nothing of mary's real position. she had been told that the girl was a poor relation of paul's, and that her story was a very sorrowful one. if the poor creature had strange fancies and delusions, it was no more than might be expected; for she had suffered enough to turn a stronger brain than her own. everything had been arranged, and so cleverly arranged, that mary and the child would disappear after dusk one summer's evening, and not even lavinia weston would be told whither they had gone. paul had never expected to be found out. but he had least of all expected betrayal from the quarter whence it had come. he had made olivia his tool; but he had acted cautiously even with her. he had confided nothing to her; and although she had suspected some foul play in the matter of mary's disappearance, she had been certain of nothing. she had uttered no falsehood when she swore to edward arundel that she did not know where his wife was. but for her accidental discovery of the secret of the pavilion, she would never have known of mary's existence after that october afternoon on which the girl left marchmont towers. but here paul had been betrayed by the carelessness of the hired girl who acted as mary arundel's gaoler and attendant. it was olivia's habit to wander often in that dreary wood by the water during the winter in which mary was kept prisoner in the pavilion over the boat-house. lavinia weston and paul marchmont spent each of them a great deal of their time in the pavilion; but they could not be always on guard there. there was the world to be hoodwinked; and the surgeon's wife had to perform all her duties as a matron before the face of kemberling, and had to give some plausible account of her frequent visits to the boat-house. paul liked the place for his painting, mrs. weston informed her friends; and he was _so_ enthusiastic in his love of art, that it was really a pleasure to participate in his enthusiasm; so she liked to sit with him, and talk to him or read to him while he painted. this explanation was quite enough for kemberling; and mrs. weston went to the pavilion at marchmont towers three or four times a week without causing any scandal thereby. but however well you may manage things yourself, it is not always easy to secure the careful co-operation of the people you employ. betsy murrel was a stupid, narrow-minded young person, who was very safe so far as regarded the possibility of any sympathy with, or compassion for, mary arundel arising in her stolid nature; but the stupid stolidity which made her safe in one way rendered her dangerous in another. one day, while mrs. weston was with the hapless young prisoner, miss murrel went out upon the water-side to converse with a good-looking young bargeman, who was a connexion of her family, and perhaps an admirer of the young lady herself; and the door of the painting-room being left wide open, olivia marchmont wandered listlessly into the pavilion--there was a dismal fascination for her in that spot, on which she had heard edward arundel declare his love for john marchmont's daughter--and heard mary's voice in the chamber at the top of the stone steps. this was how olivia had surprised paul's secret; and from that hour it had been the artist's business to rule this woman by the only weapon which he possessed against her,--her own secret, her own weak folly, her mad love of edward arundel and jealous hatred of the woman whom he had loved. this weapon was a very powerful one, and paul used it unsparingly. when the woman who, for seven-and-twenty years of her life, had lived without sin; who from the hour in which she had been old enough to know right from wrong, until edward arundel's second return from india, had sternly done her duty,--when this woman, who little by little had slipped away from her high standing-point and sunk down into a morass of sin; when this woman remonstrated with mr. marchmont, he turned upon her and lashed her with the scourge of her own folly. "you come and upbraid me," he said, "and you call me villain and arch-traitor, and say that you cannot abide this, your sin; and that your guilt, in keeping our secret, cries to you in the dead hours of the night; and you call upon me to undo what i have done, and to restore mary marchmont to her rights. do you remember what her highest right is? do you remember that which i must restore to her when i give her back this house and the income that goes along with it? if i restore marchmont towers, i must restore to her _edward arundel's love!_ you have forgotten that, perhaps. if she ever re-enters this house, she will come back to it leaning on his arm. you will see them together--you will hear of their happiness; and do you think that _he_ will ever forgive you for your part of the conspiracy? yes, it is a conspiracy, if you like; if you are not afraid to call it by a hard name, why should i fear to do so? will he ever forgive you, do you think, when he knows that his young wife has been the victim of a senseless, vicious love? yes, olivia marchmont; any love is vicious which is given unsought, and is so strong a passion, so blind and unreasoning a folly, that honour, mercy, truth, and christianity are trampled down before it. how will you endure edward arundel's contempt for you? how will you tolerate his love for mary, multiplied twentyfold by all this romantic business of separation and persecution? "you talk to me of my sin. who was it who first sinned? who was it who drove mary marchmont from this house,--not once only, but twice, by her cruelty? who was it who persecuted her and tortured her day by day and hour by hour, not openly, not with an uplifted hand or blows that could be warded off, but by cruel hints and inuendoes, by unwomanly sneers and hellish taunts? look into your heart, olivia marchmont; and when you make atonement for your sin, i will make restitution for mine. in the meantime, if this business is painful to you, the way lies open before you: go and take edward arundel to the pavilion yonder, and give him back his wife; give the lie to all your past life, and restore these devoted young lovers to each other's arms." this weapon never failed in its effect. olivia marchmont might loathe herself, and her sin, and her life, which was made hideous to her because of her sin; but she _could_ not bring herself to restore mary to her lover-husband; she could not tolerate the idea of their happiness. every night she grovelled on her knees, and swore to her offended god that she would do this thing, she would render this sacrifice of atonement; but every morning, when her weary eyes opened on the hateful sunlight, she cried, "not to-day--not to-day." again and again, during edward arundel's residence at kemberling retreat, she had set out from marchmont towers with the intention of revealing to him the place where his young wife was hidden; but, again and again, she had turned back and left her work undone. she _could_ not--she could not. in the dead of the night, under pouring rain, with the bleak winds of winter blowing in her face, she had set out upon that unfinished journey, only to stop midway, and cry out, "no, no, no--not to-night; i cannot endure it yet!" it was only when another and a fiercer jealousy was awakened in this woman's breast, that she arose all at once, strong, resolute, and undaunted, to do the work she had so miserably deferred. as one poison is said to neutralise the evil power of another, so olivia marchmont's jealousy of belinda seemed to blot out and extinguish her hatred of mary. better anything than that edward arundel should have a new, and perhaps a fairer, bride. the jealous woman had always looked upon mary marchmont as a despicable rival. better that edward should be tied to this girl, than that he should rejoice in the smiles of a lovelier woman, worthier of his affection. _this_ was the feeling paramount in olivia's breast, although she was herself half unconscious how entirely this was the motive power which had given her new strength and resolution. she tried to think that it was the awakening of her conscience that had made her strong enough to do this one good work; but in the semi-darkness of her own mind there was still a feeble glimmer of the light of truth, and it was this that had prompted her to cry out on her knees before the altar in hillingsworth church, and declare the sinfulness of her nature. * * * * * paul marchmont stopped several times before the ragged, untrimmed fruit-trees in his purposeless wanderings in the neglected garden at stony stringford, before the vaporous confusion cleared away from his brain, and he was able to understand what had happened to him. his first reasonable action was to take out his watch; but even then he stood for some moments staring at the dial before he remembered why he had taken the watch from his pocket, or what it was that he wanted to know. by mr. marchmont's chronometer it was ten minutes past seven o'clock; but the watch had been unwound upon the previous night, and had run down. paul put it back in his waistcoat-pocket, and then walked slowly along the weedy pathway to that low latticed window in which he had often seen mary arundel standing with her child in her arms. he went to this window and looked in, with his face against the glass. the room was neat and orderly now; for the woman whom mr. marchmont had hired had gone about her work as usual, and was in the act of filling a little brown earthenware teapot from a kettle on the hob when paul stared in at her. she looked up as mr. marchmont's figure came between her and the light, and nearly dropped the little brown teapot in her terror of her offended employer. but paul pulled open the window, and spoke to her very quietly. "stop where you are," he said; "i want to speak to you. i'll come in." he went into the house by a door, that had once been the front and principal entrance, which opened into a low wainscoted hall. from this room he went into the parlour, which had been mary arundel's apartment, and in which the hired nurse was now preparing her breakfast. "i thought i might as well get a cup of tea, sir, whiles i waited for your orders," the woman murmured, apologetically; "for bein' knocked up so early this morning, you see, sir, has made my head _that_ bad, i could scarcely bear myself; and----" paul lifted his hand to stop the woman's talk, as he had done before. he had no consciousness of what she was saying, but the sound of her voice pained him. his eyebrows contracted with a spasmodic action, as if something had hurt his head. there was a dutch clock in the corner of the room, with a long pendulum swinging against the wall. by this clock it was half-past eight. "is your clock right?" paul asked. "yes, sir. leastways, it may be five minutes too slow, but not more." mr. marchmont took out his watch, wound it up, and regulated it by the dutch clock. "now," he said, "perhaps you can tell me clearly what happened. i want no excuses, remember; i only want to know what occurred, and what was said--word for word, remember." he sat down but got up again directly, and walked to the window; then he paced up and down the room two or three times, and then went back to the fireplace and sat down again. he was like a man who, in the racking torture of some physical pain, finds a miserable relief in his own restlessness. "come," he said; "i am waiting." "yes, sir; which, begging your parding, if you wouldn't mind sitting still like, while i'm a-telling of you, which it do remind me of the wild beastes in the zoological, sir, to that degree, that the boil, to which i am subjeck, sir, and have been from a child, might prevent me bein' as truthful as i should wish. mrs. marchmont, sir, she come before it was light, _in_ a cart, sir, which it was a shaycart, and made comfortable with cushions and straw, and suchlike, or i should not have let the young lady go away in it; and she bring with her a respectable, homely-looking young person, which she call hester jobling or gobson, or somethink of that sound like, which my memory is treechrous, and i don't wish to tell a story on no account; and mrs. marchmont she go straight up to my young lady, and she shakes her by the shoulder; and then the young woman called hester, she wakes up my young lady quite gentle like, and kisses her and cries over her; and a man as drove the cart, which looked a small tradesman well-to-do, brings his trap round to the front-door,--you may see the trax of the wheels upon the gravel now, sir, if you disbelieve me. and mrs. marchmont and the young woman called hester, between 'em they gets my young lady up, and dresses her, and dresses the child; and does it all so quick, and overrides me to such a degree, that i hadn't no power to prevent 'em; but i say to mrs. marchmont, i say: 'is it mr. marchmont's orders as his cousin should be took away this morning?' and she stare at me hard, and say, 'yes;' and she have allus an abrumpt way, but was abrumpter than ordinary this morning. and, oh sir, bein' a poor lone woman, what was i to do?" "have you nothing more to tell me?" "nothing, sir; leastways, except as they lifted my young lady into the cart, and the man got in after 'em, and drove away as fast as his horse would go; and they had been gone two minutes when i began to feel all in a tremble like, for fear as i might have done wrong in lettin' of 'em go." "you have done wrong," paul answered, sternly; "but no matter. if these officious friends of my poor weak-witted cousin choose to take her away, so much the better for me, who have been burdened with her long enough. since your charge has gone, your services are no longer wanted. i shan't act illiberally to you, though i am very much annoyed by your folly and stupidity. is there anything due to you?" mrs. brown hesitated for a moment, and then replied, in a very insinuating tone,-- "not _wages_, sir; there ain't no _wages_ doo to me,--which you paid me a quarter in advance last saturday was a week, and took a receipt, sir, for the amount. but i have done my dooty, sir, and had but little sleep and rest, which my 'ealth ain't what it was when i answered your advertisement, requirin' a respectable motherly person, to take charge of a invalid lady, not objectin' to the country--which i freely tell you, sir, if i'd known that the country was a rheumatic old place like this, with rats enough to scare away a regyment of soldiers, i would not have undertook the situation; so any present as you might think sootable, considerin' all things, and----" "that will do," said paul marchmont, taking a handful of loose money from his waistcoat pocket; "i suppose a ten-pound note would satisfy you?" "indeed it would, sir, and very liberal of you too----" "very well. i've got a five-pound note here, and five sovereigns. the best thing you can do is to get back to london at once; there's a train leaves milsome station at eleven o'clock--milsome's not more than a mile and a half from here. you can get your things together; there's a boy about the place who will carry them for you, i suppose?" "yes, sir; there's a boy by the name of william." "he can go with you, then; and if you look sharp, you can catch the eleven-o'clock train." "yes, sir; and thank you kindly, sir." "i don't want any thanks. see that you don't miss the train; that's all you have to take care of." mr. marchmont went out into the garden again. he had done something, at any rate; he had arranged for getting this woman out of the way. if--if by any remote chance there might be yet a possibility of keeping the secret of mary's existence, here was one witness already got rid of. but was there any chance? mr. marchmont sat down on a rickety old garden-seat, and tried to think--tried to take a deliberate survey of his position. no; there was no hope for him. look which way he could, there was not one ray of light. with george weston and olivia, betsy murrel the servant-girl, and hester jobson to bear witness against him, what could he hope? the surgeon would be able to declare that the child was mary's son, her legitimate son, sole heir to that estate of which paul had taken possession. there was no hope. there was no possibility that olivia should waver in her purpose; for had she not brought with her two witnesses--hester jobson and her husband? from that moment the case was taken out of her hands. the honest carpenter and his wife would see that mary had her rights. "it will be a glorious speculation for them," thought paul marchmont, who naturally measured other people's characters by a standard derived from an accurate knowledge of his own. yes, his ruin was complete. destruction had come upon him, swift and sudden as the caprice of a madwoman--or--the thunderbolt of an offended providence. what should he do? run away, sneak away by back-lanes and narrow footpaths to the nearest railway-station, hide himself in a third-class carriage going londonwards, and from london get away to liverpool, to creep on board some emigrant vessel bound for new york? he could not even do this, for he was without the means of getting so much as the railway-ticket that should carry him on the first stage of his flight. after having given ten pounds to mrs. brown, he had only a few shillings in his waistcoat-pocket. he had only one article of any great value about him, and that was his watch, which had cost fifty pounds. but the marchmont arms were emblazoned on the outside of the case; and paul's name in full, and the address of marchmont towers, were ostentatiously engraved inside, so that any attempt to dispose of the watch must inevitably lead to the identification of the owner. paul marchmont had made no provision for this evil day. supreme in the consciousness of his own talents, he had never imagined discovery and destruction. his plans had been so well arranged. on the very day after edward's second marriage, mary and her child would have been conveyed away to the remotest district in wales; and the artist would have laughed at the idea of danger. the shallowest schemer might have been able to manage this poor broken-hearted girl, whose many sorrows had brought her to look upon life as a thing which was never meant to be joyful, and which was only to be endured patiently, like some slow disease that would be surely cured in the grave. it had been so easy to deal with this ignorant and gentle victim that paul had grown bold and confident, and had ignored the possibility of such ruin as had now come down upon him. what was he to do? what was the nature of his crime, and what penalty had he incurred? he tried to answer these questions; but as his offence was of no common kind, he knew of no common law which could apply to it. was it a felony, this appropriation of another person's property, this concealment of another person's existence; or was it only a conspiracy, amenable to no criminal law; and would he be called upon merely to make restitution of that which he had spent and wasted? what did it matter? either way, there was nothing for him but ruin--irretrievable ruin. there are some men who can survive discovery and defeat, and begin a new life in a new world, and succeed in a new career. but paul marchmont was not one of these. he could not stick a hunting-knife and a brace of revolvers in his leathern belt, sling a game-bag across his shoulders, take up his breech-loading rifle, and go out into the backwoods of an uncivilised country, to turn sheep-breeder, and hold his own against a race of agricultural savages. he was a cockney, and for him there was only one world--a world in which men wore varnished boots and enamelled shirt-studs with portraits of la montespan or la dubarry, and lived in chambers in the albany, and treated each other to little dinners at greenwich and richmond, or cut a grand figure at a country-house, and collected a gallery of art and a museum of _bric à brac_. this was the world upon the outer edge of which paul marchmont had lived so long, looking in at the brilliant inhabitants with hungry, yearning eyes through all the days of his poverty and obscurity. this was the world into which he had pushed himself at last by means of a crime. he was forty years of age; and in all his life he had never had but one ambition,--and that was to be master of marchmont towers. the remote chance of that inheritance had hung before him ever since his boyhood, a glittering prize, far away in the distance, but so brilliant as to blind him to the brightness of all nearer chances. why should he slave at his easel, and toil to become a great painter? when would art earn him eleven thousand a year? the greatest painter of mr. marchmont's time lived in a miserable lodging at chelsea. it was before the days of the "railway station" and the "derby day;" or perhaps paul might have made an effort to become that which heaven never meant him to be--a great painter. no; art was only a means of living with this man. he painted, and sold his pictures to his few patrons, who beat him down unmercifully, giving him a small profit upon his canvas and colours, for the encouragement of native art; but he only painted to live. he was waiting. from the time when he could scarcely speak plain, marchmont towers had been a familiar word in his ears and on his lips. he knew the number of lives that stood between his father and the estate, and had learned to say, naïvely enough then,-- "o pa, don't you wish that uncle philip and uncle marmaduke and cousin john would die soon?" he was two-and-twenty years of age when his father died; and he felt a faint thrill of satisfaction, even in the midst of his sorrow, at the thought that there was one life the less between him and the end of his hopes. but other lives had sprung up in the interim. there was young arthur, and little mary; and marchmont towers was like a caravanserai in the desert, which seems to be farther and farther away as the weary traveller strives to reach it. still paul hoped, and watched, and waited. he had all the instincts of a sybarite, and he fancied, therefore, that he was destined to be a rich man. he watched, and waited, and hoped, and cheered his mother and sister when they were downcast with the hope of better days. when the chance came, he seized upon it, and plotted, and succeeded, and revelled in his brief success. but now ruin had come to him, what was he to do? he tried to make some plan for his own conduct; but he could not. his brain reeled with the effort which he made to realise his own position. he walked up and down one of the pathways in the garden until a quarter to ten o'clock; then he went into the house, and waited till mrs. brown had departed from stony-stringford farm, attended by the boy, who carried two bundles, a bandbox, and a carpet-bag. "come back here when you have taken those things to the station," paul said; "i shall want you." he watched the dilapidated five-barred gate swing to after the departure of mrs. brown and her attendant, and then went to look at his horse. the patient animal had been standing in a shed all this time, and had had neither food nor water. paul searched amongst the empty barns and outhouses, and found a few handfuls of fodder. he took this to the animal, and then went back again to the garden,--to that quiet garden, where the bees were buzzing about in the sunshine with a drowsy, booming sound, and where a great tabby-cat was sleeping stretched flat upon its side, on one of the flower-beds. paul marchmont waited here very impatiently till the boy came back. "i must see lavinia," he thought. "i dare not leave this place till i have seen lavinia. i don't know what may be happening at hillingsworth or kemberling. these things are taken up sometimes by the populace. they may make a party against me; they may--" he stood still, gnawing the edges of his nails, and staring down at the gravel-walk. he was thinking of things that he had read in the newspapers,--cases in which some cruel mother who had illused her child, or some suspected assassin who, in all human probability, had poisoned his wife, had been well-nigh torn piecemeal by an infuriated mob, and had been glad to cling for protection to the officers of justice, or to beg leave to stay in prison after acquittal, for safe shelter from honest men and women's indignation. he remembered one special case in which the populace, unable to get at a man's person, tore down his house, and vented their fury upon unsentient bricks and mortar. mr. marchmont took out a little memorandum book, and scrawled a few lines in pencil: "i am here, at stony-stringford farmhouse," he wrote. "for god's sake, come to me, lavinia, and at once; you can drive here yourself. i want to know what has happened at kemberling and at hillingsworth. find out everything for me, and come. p. m." it was nearly twelve o'clock when the boy returned. paul gave him this letter, and told the lad to get on his own horse, and ride to kemberling as fast as he could go. he was to leave the horse at kemberling, in mr. weston's stable, and was to come back to stony-stringford with mrs. weston. this order paul particularly impressed upon the boy, lest he should stop in kemberling, and reveal the secret of paul's hiding-place. mr. paul marchmont was afraid. a terrible sickening dread had taken possession of him, and what little manliness there had ever been in his nature seemed to have deserted him to-day. oh, the long dreary hours of that miserable day! the hideous sunshine, that scorched mr. marchmont's bare head, as he loitered about the garden!--he had left his hat in the house; but he did not even know that he was bareheaded. oh, the misery of that long day of suspense and anguish! the sick consciousness of utter defeat, the thought of the things that he might have done, the purse that he might have made with the money that he had lavished on pictures, and decorations, and improvements, and the profligate extravagance of splendid entertainments. this is what he thought of, and these were the thoughts that tortured him. but in all that miserable day he never felt one pang of remorse for the agonies that he had inflicted upon his innocent victim; on the contrary, he hated her because of this discovery, and gnashed his teeth as he thought how she and her young husband would enjoy all the grandeur of marchmont towers,--all that noble revenue which he had hoped to hold till his dying day. it was growing dusk when mr. marchmont heard the sound of wheels in the dusty lane outside the garden-wall. he went through the house, and into the farmyard, in time to receive his sister lavinia at the gate. it was the wheels of her pony-carriage he had heard. she drove a pair of ponies, which paul had given her. he was angry with himself as he remembered that this was another piece of extravagance,--another sum of money recklessly squandered, when it might have gone towards the making of a rich provision for this evil day. mrs. weston was very pale; and her brother could see by her face that she brought him no good news. she left her ponies to the care of the boy, and went into the garden with her brother. "well, lavinia?" "well, paul, it is a dreadful business," mrs. weston said, in a low voice. "it's all george's doing! it's all the work of that infernal scoundrel!" cried paul, passionately. "but he shall pay bitterly for----" "don't let us talk of him, paul; no good can come of that. what are you going to do?" "i don't know. i sent for you because i wanted your help and advice. what's the good of your coming if you bring me no help?" "don't be cruel, paul. heaven knows, i'll do my best. but i can't see what's to be done--except for you to get away, paul. everything's known. olivia stopped the marriage publicly in hillingsworth church; and all the hillingsworth people followed edward arundel's carriage to kemberling. the report spread like wildfire; and, oh paul, the kemberling people have taken it up, and our windows have been broken, and there's been a crowd all day upon the terrace before the towers, and they've tried to get into the house, declaring that they know you're hiding somewhere. paul, paul, what are we to do? the people hooted after me as i drove away from the high street, and the boys threw stones at the ponies. almost all the servants have left the towers. the constables have been up there trying to get the crowd off the terrace. but what are we to do, paul? what are we to do?" "kill ourselves," answered the artist savagely. "what else should we do? what have we to live for? you have a little money, i suppose; i have none. do you think i can go back to the old life? do you think i can go back, and live in that shabby house in charlotte street, and paint the same rocks and boulders, the same long stretch of sea, the same low lurid streaks of light,--all the old subjects over again,--for the same starvation prices? do you think i can ever tolerate shabby clothes again, or miserable make-shift dinners,--hashed mutton, with ill-cut hunks of lukewarm meat floating about in greasy slop called gravy, and washed down with flat porter fetched half an hour too soon from a public-house,--do you think i can go back to _that_? no; i have tasted the wine of life: i have lived; and i'll never go back to the living death called poverty. do you think i can stand in that passage in charlotte street again, lavinia, to be bullied by an illiterate tax-gatherer, or insulted by an infuriated baker? no, lavinia; i have made my venture, and i have failed." "but what will you do, paul?" "i don't know," he answered, moodily. this was a lie. he knew well enough what he meant to do: he would kill himself. that resolution inspired him with a desperate kind of courage. he would escape from the mob; he would get away somewhere or other quietly and there kill himself. he didn't know how, as yet; but he would deliberate upon that point at his leisure, and choose the death that was supposed to be least painful. "where are my mother and clarissa?" he asked presently. "they are at our house; they came to me directly they heard the rumour of what had happened. i don't know how they heard it; but every one heard of it, simultaneously, as it seemed. my mother is in a dreadful state. i dared not tell her that i had known it all along." "oh, of course not," answered paul, with a sneer; "let me bear the burden of my guilt alone. what did my mother say?" "she kept saying again and again, 'i can't believe it. i can't believe that he could do anything cruel; he has been such a good son.'" "i was not cruel," paul cried vehemently; "the girl had every comfort. i never grudged money for her comfort. she was a miserable, apathetic creature, to whom fortune was almost a burden rather than an advantage. if i separated her from her husband--bah!--was that such a cruelty? she was no worse off than if edward arundel had been killed in that railway accident; and it might have been so." he didn't waste much time by reasoning on this point. he thought of his mother and sisters. from first to last he had been a good son and a good brother. "what money have you, lavinia?" "a good deal; you have been very generous to me, paul; and you shall have it all back again, if you want it. i have got upwards of two thousand pounds altogether; for i have been very careful of the money you have given me." "you have been wise. now listen to me, lavinia. i _have_ been a good son, and i have borne my burdens uncomplainingly. it is your turn now to bear yours. i must get back to marchmont towers, if i can, and gather together whatever personal property i have there. it isn't much--only a few trinkets, and suchlike. you must send me some one you can trust to fetch those to-night; for i shall not stay an hour in the place. i may not even be admitted into it; for edward arundel may have already taken possession in his wife's name. then you will have to decide where you are to go. you can't stay in this part of the country. weston must be liable to some penalty or other for his share in the business, unless he's bought over as a witness to testify to the identity of mary's child. i haven't time to think of all this. i want you to promise me that you will take care of your mother and your invalid sister." "i will, paul; i will indeed. but tell me what you are going to do yourself, and where you are going?" "i don't know," paul marchmont answered, in the same tone as before; "but whatever i do, i want you to give me your solemn promise that you will be good to my mother and sister." "i will, paul; i promise you to do as you have done." "you had better leave kemberling by the first train to-morrow morning; take my mother and clarissa with you; take everything that is worth taking, and leave weston behind you to bear the brunt of this business. you can get a lodging in the old neighbourhood, and no one will molest you when you once get away from this place. but remember one thing, lavinia: if mary arundel's child should die, and mary herself should die childless, clarissa will inherit marchmont towers. don't forget that. there's a chance yet for you: it's far away, and unlikely enough; but it _is_ a chance." "but you are more likely to outlive mary and her child than clarissa is," mrs. weston answered, with a feeble attempt at hopefulness; "try and think of that, paul, and let the hope cheer you." "hope!" cried mr. marchmont, with a discordant laugh. "yes; i'm forty years old, and for five-and-thirty of those years i've hoped and waited for marchmont towers. i can't hope any longer, or wait any longer. i give it up; i've fought hard, but i'm beaten." it was nearly dark by this time, the shadowy darkness of a midsummer's evening; and there were stars shining faintly out of the sky. "you can drive me back to the towers," paul marchmont said. "i don't want to lose any time in getting there; i may be locked out by mr. edward arundel if i don't take care." mrs. weston and her brother went back to the farmyard. it was sixteen miles from kemberling to stony stringford; and the ponies were steaming, for lavinia had come at a good rate. but it was no time for the consideration of horseflesh. paul took a rug from the empty seat, and wrapped himself in it. he would not be likely to be recognised in the darkness, sitting back in the low seat, and made bulky by the ponderous covering in which he had enveloped himself. mrs. weston took the whip from the boy, gathered up the reins, and drove off. paul had left no orders about the custody of the old farmhouse. the boy went home to his master, at the other end of the farm; and the night-winds wandered wherever they listed through the deserted habitation. chapter xiv. there is confusion worse than death. the brother and sister exchanged very few words during the drive between stony stringford and marchmont towers. it was arranged between them that mrs. weston should drive by a back-way leading to a lane that skirted the edge of the river, and that paul should get out at a gate opening into the wood, and by that means make his way, unobserved, to the house which had so lately been to all intents and purposes his own. he dared not attempt to enter the towers by any other way; for the indignant populace might still be lurking about the front of the house, eager to inflict summary vengeance upon the persecutor of a helpless girl. it was between nine and ten o'clock when mr. marchmont got out at the little gate. all here was very still; and paul heard the croaking of the frogs upon the margin of a little pool in the wood, and the sound of horses' hoofs a mile away upon the loose gravel by the water-side. "good night, lavinia," he said. "send for the things as soon as you go back; and be sure you send a safe person for them." "o yes, dear; but hadn't you better take any thing of value yourself?" mrs. weston asked anxiously. "you say you have no money. perhaps it would be best for you to send me the jewellery, though, and i can send you what money you want by my messenger." "i shan't want any money--at least i have enough for what i want. what have you done with your savings?" "they are in a london bank. but i have plenty of ready money in the house. you must want money, paul?" "i tell you, no; i have as much as i want." "but tell me your plans, paul; i must know your plans before i leave lincolnshire myself. are _you_ going away?" "yes." "immediately?" "immediately." "shall you go to london?" "perhaps. i don't know yet." "but when shall we see you again, paul? or how shall we hear of you?" "i'll write to you." "where?" "at the post-office in rathbone place. don't bother me with a lot of questions to-night lavinia; i'm not in the humour to answer them." paul marchmont turned away from his sister impatiently, and opened the gate; but before she had driven off, he went back to her. "shake hands, lavinia," he said; "shake hands, my dear; it may be a long time before you and i meet again." he bent down and kissed his sister. "drive home as fast as you can, and send the messenger directly. he had better come to the door of the lobby, near olivia's room. where is olivia, by-the-bye? is she still with the stepdaughter she loves so dearly?" "no; she went to swampington early in the afternoon. a fly was ordered from the black bull, and she went away in it." "so much the better," answered mr. marchmont. "good night, lavinia. don't let my mother think ill of me. i tried to do the best i could to make her happy. good-bye." "good-bye, dear paul; god bless you!" the blessing was invoked with as much sincerity as if lavinia weston had been a good woman, and her brother a good man. perhaps neither of those two was able to realise the extent of the crime which they had assisted each other to commit. mrs. weston drove away; and paul went up to the back of the towers, and under an archway leading into the quadrangle. all about the house was as quiet as if the sleeping beauty and her court had been its only occupants. the inhabitants of kemberling and the neighbourhood were an orderly people, who burnt few candles between may and september; and however much they might have desired to avenge mary arundel's wrongs by tearing paul marchmont to pieces, their patience had been exhausted by nightfall, and they had been glad to return to their respective abodes, to discuss paul's iniquities comfortably over the nine-o'clock beer. paul stood still in the quadrangle for a few moments, and listened. he could hear no human breath or whisper; he only heard the sound of the corn-crake in the fields to the right of the towers, and the distant rumbling of wagon-wheels on the high-road. there was a glimmer of light in one of the windows belonging to the servants' offices,--only one dim glimmer, where there had usually been a row of brilliantly-lighted casements. lavinia was right, then; almost all the servants had left the towers. paul tried to open the half-glass door leading into the lobby; but it was locked. he rang a bell; and after about three minutes' delay, a buxom country-girl appeared in the lobby carrying a candle. she was some kitchenmaid or dairymaid or scullerymaid, whom paul could not remember to have ever seen until now. she opened the door, and admitted him, dropping a curtsey as he passed her. there was some relief even in this. mr. marchmont had scarcely expected to get into the house at all; still less to be received with common civility by any of the servants, who had so lately obeyed him and fawned upon him. "where are all the rest of the servants?" he asked. "they're all gone, sir; except him as you brought down from london,--mr. peterson,--and me and mother. mother's in the laundry, sir; and i'm scullerymaid." "why did the other servants leave the place?" "mostly because they was afraid of the mob upon the terrace, i think, sir; for there's been people all the afternoon throwin' stones, and breakin' the windows; and i don't think as there's a whole pane of glass in the front of the house, sir; and mr. gormby, sir, he come about four o'clock, and he got the people to go away, sir, by tellin' 'em as it wern't your property, sir, but the young lady's, miss mary marchmont,--leastways, mrs. airendale,--as they was destroyin' of; but most of the servants had gone before that, sir, except mr. peterson; and mr. gormby gave orders as me and mother was to lock all the doors, and let no one in upon no account whatever; and he's coming to-morrow mornin' to take possession, he says; and please, sir, you can't come in; for his special orders to me and mother was, no one, and you in particklar." "nonsense, girl!" exclaimed mr. marchmont, decisively; "who is mr. gormby, that he should give orders as to who comes in or stops out? i'm only coming in for half an hour, to pack my portmanteau. where's peterson?" "in the dinin'-room, sir; but please, sir, you mustn't----" the girl made a feeble effort to intercept mr. marchmont, in accordance with the steward's special orders; which were, that paul should, upon no pretence whatever, be suffered to enter the house. but the artist snatched the candlestick from her hand, and went towards the dining-room, leaving her to stare after him in amazement. paul found his valet peterson, taking what he called a snack, in the dining-room. a cloth was spread upon the corner of the table; and there was a fore-quarter of cold roast-lamb, a bottle of french brandy, and a decanter half-full of madeira before the valet. he started as his master entered the room, and looked up, not very respectfully, but with no unfriendly glance. "give me half a tumbler of that brandy, peterson," said mr. marchmont. the man obeyed; and paul drained the fiery spirit as if it had been so much water. it was four-and-twenty hours since meat or drink had crossed his dry white lips. "why didn't you go away with the rest?" he asked, as he set down the empty glass. "it's only rats, sir, that run away from a falling house. i stopped, thinkin' you'd be goin' away somewhere, and that you'd want me." the solid and unvarnished truth of the matter was, that peterson had taken it for granted that his master had made an excellent purse against this evil day, and would be ready to start for the continent or america, there to lead a pleasant life upon the proceeds of his iniquity. the valet never imagined his master guilty of such besotted folly as to be _un_prepared for this catastrophe. "i thought you might still want me, sir," he said; "and wherever you're going, i'm quite ready to go too. you've been a good master to me, sir; and i don't want to leave a good master because things go against him." paul marchmont shook his head, and held out the empty tumbler for his servant to pour more brandy into it. "i am going away," he said; "but i want no servant where i'm going; but i'm grateful to you for your offer, peterson. will you come upstairs with me? i want to pack a few things." "they're all packed, sir. i knew you'd be leaving, and i've packed everything." "my dressing-case?" "yes, sir. you've got the key of that." "yes; i know, i know." paul marchmont was silent for a few minutes, thinking. everything that he had in the way of personal property of any value was in the dressing-case of which he had spoken. there was five or six hundred pounds' worth of jewellery in mr. marchmont's dressing-case; for the first instinct of the _nouveau riche_ exhibits itself in diamond shirt-studs, cameo rings, malachite death's-heads with emerald eyes; grotesque and pleasing charms in the form of coffins, coal-scuttles, and hobnailed boots; fantastical lockets of ruby and enamel; wonderful bands of massive yellow gold, studded with diamonds, wherein to insert the two ends of flimsy lace cravats. mr. marchmont reflected upon the amount of his possessions, and their security in the jewel-drawer of his dressing-case. the dressing-case was furnished with a chubb's lock, the key of which he carried in his waistcoat-pocket. yes, it was all safe. "look here, peterson," said paul marchmont; "i think i shall sleep at mrs. weston's to-night. i should like you to take my dressing-case down there at once." "and how about the other luggage, sir,--the portmanteaus and hat-boxes?" "never mind those. i want you to put the dressing-case safe in my sister's hands. i can send here for the rest to-morrow morning. you needn't wait for me now. i'll follow you in half an hour." "yes, sir. you want the dressing-case carried to mrs. weston's house, and i'm to wait for you there?" "yes; you can wait for me." "but is there nothing else i can do, sir?" "nothing whatever. i've only got to collect a few papers, and then i shall follow you." "yes, sir." the discreet peterson bowed, and retired to fetch the dressing-case. he put his own construction upon mr. marchmont's evident desire to get rid of him, and to be left alone at the towers. paul had, of course, made a purse, and had doubtless put his money away in some very artful hiding-place, whence he now wanted to take it at his leisure. he had stuffed one of his pillows with bank-notes, perhaps; or had hidden a cash-box behind the tapestry in his bedchamber; or had buried a bag of gold in the flower-garden below the terrace. mr. peterson went upstairs to paul's dressing-room, put his hand through the strap of the dressing-case, which was very heavy, went downstairs again, met his master in the hall, and went out at the lobby-door. paul locked the door upon his valet, and then went back into the lonely house, where the ticking of the clocks in the tenantless rooms sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness. all the windows had been broken; and though the shutters were shut, the cold night-air blew in at many a crack and cranny, and well-nigh extinguished mr. marchmont's candle as he went from room to room looking about him. he went into the western drawing-room, and lighted some of the lamps in the principal chandelier. the shutters were shut, for the windows here, as well as elsewhere, had been broken; fragments of shivered glass, great jagged stones, and handfuls of gravel, lay about upon the rich carpet,--the velvet-pile which he had chosen with such artistic taste, such careful deliberation. he lit the lamps and walked about the room, looking for the last time at his treasures. yes, _his_ treasures. it was he who had transformed this chamber from a prim, old-fashioned sitting-room--with quaint japanned cabinets, shabby chintz-cushioned cane-chairs, cracked indian vases, and a faded carpet--into a saloon that would have been no discredit to buckingham palace or alton towers. it was he who had made the place what it was. he had squandered the savings of mary's minority upon pictures that the richest collector in england might have been proud to own; upon porcelain that would have been worthy of a place in the vienna museum or the bernal collection. he had done this, and these things were to pass into the possession of the man he hated,--the fiery young soldier who had horsewhipped him before the face of wondering lincolnshire. he walked about the room, thinking of his life since he had come into possession of this place, and of what it had been before that time, and what it must be again, unless he summoned up a desperate courage--and killed himself. his heart beat fast and loud, and he felt an icy chill creeping slowly through his every vein as he thought of this. how was he to kill himself? he had no poison in his possession,--no deadly drug that would reduce the agony of death to the space of a lightning-flash. there were pistols, rare gems of choicest workmanship, in one of the buhl-cabinets in that very room; there were both fowling-piece and ammunition in mr. marchmont's dressing-room: but the artist was not expert with the use of firearms, and he might fail in the attempt to blow out his brains, and only maim or disfigure himself hideously. there was the river,--the black, sluggish river: but then, drowning is a slow death, and heaven only knows how long the agony may seem to the wretch who endures it! alas! the ghastly truth of the matter is that mr. marchmont was afraid of death. look at the king of terrors how he would, he could not discover any pleasing aspect under which he could meet the grim monarch without flinching. he looked at life; but if life was less terrible than death, it was not less dreary. he looked forward with a shudder to see--what? humiliation, disgrace, perhaps punishment,--life-long transportation, it may be; for this base conspiracy might be a criminal offence, amenable to criminal law. or, escaping all this, what was there for him? what was there for this man even then? for forty years he had been steeped to the lips in poverty, and had endured his life. he looked back now, and wondered how it was that he had been patient; he wondered why he had not made an end of himself and his obscure troubles twenty years before this night. but after looking back a little longer, he saw the star which had illumined the darkness of that miserable and sordid existence, and he understood the reason of his endurance. he had hoped. day after day he had got up to go through the same troubles, to endure the same humiliations: but every day, when his life had been hardest to him, he had said, "to-morrow i may be master of marchmont towers." but he could never hope this any more; he could not go back to watch and wait again, beguiled by the faint hope that mary arundel's son might die, and to hear by-and-by that other children were born to her to widen the great gulf betwixt him and fortune. he looked back, and he saw that he had lived from day to day, from year to year, lured on by this one hope. he looked forward, and he saw that he could not live without it. there had never been but this one road to good fortune open to him. he was a clever man, but his was not the cleverness which can transmute itself into solid cash. he could only paint indifferent pictures; and he had existed long enough by picture-painting to realise the utter hopelessness of success in that career. he had borne his life while he was in it, but he could not bear to go back to it. he had been out of it, and had tasted another phase of existence; and he could see it all now plainly, as if he had been a spectator sitting in the boxes and watching a dreary play performed upon a stage before him. the performers in the remotest provincial theatre believe in the play they are acting. the omnipotence of passion creates dewy groves and moonlit atmospheres, ducal robes and beautiful women. but the metropolitan spectator, in whose mind the memory of better things is still fresh, sees that the moonlit trees are poor distemper daubs, pushed on by dirty carpenters, and the moon a green bottle borrowed from a druggist's shop, the ducal robes threadbare cotton velvet and tarnished tinsel, and the heroine of the drama old and ugly. so paul looked at the life he had endured, and wondered as he saw how horrible it was. he could see the shabby lodging, the faded furniture, the miserable handful of fire struggling with the smoke in a shallow grate, that had been half-blocked up with bricks by some former tenant as badly off as himself. he could look back at that dismal room, with the ugly paper on the walls, the scanty curtains flapping in the wind which they pretended to shut out; the figure of his mother sitting near the fireplace, with that pale, anxious face, which was a perpetual complaint against hardship and discomfort. he could see his sister standing at the window in the dusky twilight, patching up some worn-out garment, and straining her eyes for the sake of economising in the matter of half an inch of candle. and the street below the window,--the shabby-genteel street, with a dingy shop breaking out here and there, and children playing on the doorsteps, and a muffin-bell jingling through the evening fog, and a melancholy italian grinding "home, sweet home!" in the patch of lighted road opposite the pawnbroker's. he saw it all; and it was all alike--sordid, miserable, hopeless. paul marchmont had never sunk so low as his cousin john. he had never descended so far in the social scale as to carry a banner at drury lane, or to live in one room in oakley street, lambeth. but there had been times when to pay the rent of three rooms had been next kin to an impossibility to the artist, and when the honorarium of a shilling a night would have been very acceptable to him. he had drained the cup of poverty to the dregs; and now the cup was filled again, and the bitter draught was pushed once more into his unwilling hand. he must drink that, or another potion,--a sleeping-draught, which is commonly called death. he must die! but how? his coward heart sank as the awful alternative pressed closer upon him. he must die!--to-night,--at once,--in that house; so that when they came in the morning to eject him, they would have little trouble; they would only have to carry out a corpse. he walked up and down the room, biting his finger-nails to the quick, but coming to no resolution, until he was interrupted by the ringing of the bell at the lobby-door. it was the messenger from his sister, no doubt. paul drew his watch from his waistcoat-pocket, unfastened his chain, took a set of gold-studs from the breast of his shirt, and a signet-ring from his finger; then he sat down at a writing-table, and packed the watch and chain, the studs and signet-ring, and a bunch of keys, in a large envelope. he sealed this packet, and addressed it to his sister; then he took a candle, and went to the lobby. mrs. weston had sent a young man who was an assistant and pupil of her husband's--a good-tempered young fellow, who willingly served her in her hour of trouble. paul gave this messenger the key of his dressing-case and packet. "you will be sure and put that in my sister's hands," he said. "o yes, sir. mrs. weston gave me this letter for you, sir. am i to wait for an answer?" "no; there will be no answer. good night." "good night, sir." the young man went away; and paul marchmont heard him whistle a popular melody as he walked along the cloistered way and out of the quadrangle by a low archway commonly used by the tradespeople who came to the towers. the artist stood and listened to the young man's departing footsteps. then, with a horrible thrill of anguish, he remembered that he had seen his last of humankind--he had heard his last of human voices: for he was to kill himself that night. he stood in the dark lobby, looking out into the quadrangle. he was quite alone in the house; for the girl who had let him in was in the laundry with her mother. he could see the figures of the two women moving about in a great gaslit chamber upon the other side of the quadrangle--a building which had no communication with the rest of the house. he was to die that night; and he had not yet even determined how he was to die. he mechanically opened mrs. weston's letter: it was only a few lines, telling him that peterson had arrived with the portmanteau and dressing-case, and that there would be a comfortable room prepared for him. "i am so glad you have changed your mind, and are coming to me, paul," mrs. weston concluded. "your manner, when we parted to-night, almost alarmed me." paul groaned aloud as he crushed the letter in his hand. then he went back to the western drawing-room. he heard strange noises in the empty rooms as he passed by their open doors, weird creaking sounds and melancholy moanings in the wide chimneys. it seemed as if all the ghosts of marchmont towers were astir to-night, moved by an awful prescience of some coming horror. paul marchmont was an atheist; but atheism, although a very pleasant theme for a critical and argumentative discussion after a lobster-supper and unlimited champagne, is but a poor staff to lean upon when the worn-out traveller approaches the mysterious portals of the unknown land. the artist had boasted of his belief in annihilation; and had declared himself perfectly satisfied with a materialistic or pantheistic arrangement of the universe, and very indifferent as to whether he cropped up in future years as a summer-cabbage, or a new raphael; so long as the ten stone or so of matter of which he was composed was made use of somehow or other, and did its duty in the great scheme of a scientific universe. but, oh! how that empty, soulless creed slipped away from him now, when he stood alone in this tenantless house, shuddering at strange spirit-noises, and horrified by a host of mystic fears--gigantic, shapeless terrors--that crowded in his empty, godless mind, and filled it with their hideous presence! he had refused to believe in a personal god. he had laughed at the idea that there was any deity to whom the individual can appeal, in his hour of grief or trouble, with the hope of any separate mercy, any special grace. he had rejected the christian's simple creed, and now--now that he had floated away from the shores of life, and felt himself borne upon an irresistible current to that mysterious other side, what did he _not_ believe in? every superstition that has ever disturbed the soul of ignorant man lent some one awful feature to the crowd of hideous images uprising in this man's mind:--awful chaldean gods and carthaginian goddesses, thirsting for the hot blood of human sacrifices, greedy for hecatombs of children flung shrieking into fiery furnaces, or torn limb from limb by savage beasts; babylonian abominations; egyptian isis and osiris; classical divinities, with flaming swords and pale impassible faces, rigid as the destiny whose type they were; ghastly germanic demons and witches.--all the dread avengers that man, in the knowledge of his own wickedness, has ever shadowed for himself out of the darkness of his ignorant mind, swelled that ghastly crowd, until the artist's brain reeled, and he was fain to sit with his head in his hands, trying, by a great effort of the will, to exorcise these loathsome phantoms. "i must be going mad," he muttered to himself. "i am going mad." but still the great question was unanswered--how was he to kill himself? "i must settle that," he thought. "i dare not think of anything that may come afterwards. besides, what _should_ come? i _know_ that there is nothing. haven't i heard it demonstrated by cleverer men than i am? haven't i looked at it in every light, and weighed it in every scale--always with the same result? yes; i know that there is nothing _after_ the one short pang, any more than there is pain in the nerve of a tooth when the tooth is gone. the nerve was the soul of the tooth, i suppose; but wrench away the body, and the soul is dead. why should i be afraid? one short pain--it will seem long, i dare say--and then i shall lie still for ever and ever, and melt slowly back into the elements out of which i was created. yes; i shall lie still--and be _nothing_." paul marchmont sat thinking of this for a long time. was it such a great advantage, after all, this annihilation, the sovereign good of the atheist's barren creed? it seemed to-night to this man as if it would be better to be anything--to suffer any anguish, any penalty for his sins, than to be blotted out for ever and ever from any conscious part in the grand harmony of the universe. if he could have believed in that roman catholic doctrine of purgatory, and that after cycles of years of suffering he might rise at last, purified from his sins, worthy to dwell among the angels, how differently would death have appeared to him! he might have gone away to hide himself in some foreign city, to perform patient daily sacrifices, humble acts of self-abnegation, every one of which should be a new figure, however small a one, to be set against the great sum of his sin. but he could not believe. there is a vulgar proverb which says, "you cannot have your loaf and eat it;" or if proverbs would only be grammatical, it might be better worded, "you cannot eat your loaf, and have it to eat on some future occasion." neither can you indulge in rationalistic discussions or epigrammatic pleasantry about the great creator who made you, and then turn and cry aloud to him in the dreadful hour of your despair: "o my god, whom i have insulted and offended, help the miserable wretch who for twenty years has obstinately shut his heart against thee!" it may be that god would forgive and hear even at that last supreme moment, as he heard the penitent thief upon the cross; but the penitent thief had been a sinner, not an unbeliever, and he _could_ pray. the hard heart of the atheist freezes in his breast when he would repent and put away his iniquities. when he would fain turn to his offended maker, the words that he tries to speak die away upon his lips; for the habit of blasphemy is too strong upon him; he can _blague_ upon all the mighty mysteries of heaven and hell, but he _cannot_ pray. paul marchmont could not fashion a prayer. horrible witticisms arose up between him and the words he would have spoken--ghastly _bon mots_, that had seemed so brilliant at a lamp-lit dinner-table, spoken to a joyous accompaniment of champagne-corks and laughter. ah, me! the world was behind this man now, with all its pleasures; and he looked back upon it, and thought that, even when it seemed gayest and brightest, it was only like a great roaring fair, with flaring lights, and noisy showmen clamoring for ever to a struggling crowd. how should he die? should he go upstairs and cut his throat? he stood before one of his pictures--a pet picture; a girl's face by millais, looking through the moonlight, fantastically beautiful. he stood before this picture, and he felt one small separate pang amid all his misery as he remembered that edward and mary arundel were now possessors of this particular gem. "they sha'n't have it," he muttered to himself; "they sha'n't have _this_, at any rate." he took a penknife from his pocket, and hacked and ripped the canvas savagely, till it hung in ribbons from the deep gilded frame. then he smiled to himself, for the first time since he had entered that house, and his eyes flashed with a sudden light. "i have lived like sardanapalus for the last year," he cried aloud; "and i will die like sardanapalus!" there was a fragile piece of furniture near him,--an _étagère_ of marqueterie work, loaded with costly _bric à brac_, oriental porcelain, sèvres and dresden, old chelsea and crown derby cups and saucers, and quaint teapots, crawling vermin in pallissy ware, indian monstrosities, and all manner of expensive absurdities, heaped together in artistic confusion. paul marchmont struck the slim leg of the _étagère_ with his foot, and laughed aloud as the fragile toys fell into a ruined heap upon the carpet. he stamped upon the broken china; and the frail cups and saucers crackled like eggshells under his savage feet. "i will die like sardanapalus!" he cried; "the king arbaces shall never rest in the palace i have beautified. 'now order here fagots, pine-nuts, and wither'd leaves, and such things as catch fire with one sole spark; bring cedar, too, and precious drugs, and spices, and mighty planks, to nourish a tall pile; bring frankincense and myrrh, too; for it is for a great sacrifice i build the pyre.' i don't think much of your blank verse, george gordon noel byron. your lines end on lame syllables; your ten-syllable blank verse lacks the fiery ring of your rhymes. i wonder whether marchmont towers is insured? yes, i remember paying a premium last christmas. they may have a sharp tussle with the insurance companies though. yes, i will die like sardanapalus--no, not like him, for i have no myrrha to mount the pile and cling about me to the last. pshaw! a modern myrrha would leave sardanapalus to perish alone, and be off to make herself safe with the new king." paul snatched up the candle, and went out into the hall. he laughed discordantly, and spoke in loud ringing tones. his manner had that feverish excitement which the french call exaltation. he ran up the broad stairs leading to the long corridor, out of which his own rooms, and his mother's and sister's rooms, opened. ah, how pretty they were! how elegant he had made them in his reckless disregard of expense, his artistic delight in the task of beautification! there were no shutters here, and the summer breeze blew in through the broken windows, and stirred the gauzy muslin curtains, the gay chintz draperies, the cloudlike festoons of silk and lace. paul marchmont went from room to room with the flaring candle in his hand; and wherever there were curtains or draperies about the windows, the beds, the dressing-tables, the low lounging-chairs, and cosy little sofas, he set alight to them. he did this with wonderful rapidity, leaving flames behind him as he traversed the long corridor, and coming back thus to the stairs. he went downstairs again, and returned to the western drawing-room. then he blew out his candle, turned out the gas, and waited. "how soon will it come?" he thought. the shutters were shut, and the room was quite dark. "shall i ever have courage to stop till it comes?" paul marchmont groped his way to the door, double-locked it, and then took the key from the lock. he went to one of the windows, clambered upon a chair, opened the top shutter, and flung the key out through the broken window. he heard it strike jingling upon the stone terrace and then bound away, heaven knows where. "i shan't be able to go out by the door, at any rate," he thought. it was quite dark in the room, but the reflection of the spreading flames was growing crimson in the sky outside. mr. marchmont went away from the window, feeling his way amongst the chairs and tables. he could see the red light through the crevices of the shutters, and a lurid patch of sky through that one window, the upper half of which he had left open. he sat down, somewhere near the centre of the room, and waited. "the smoke will kill me," he thought. "i shall know nothing of the fire." he sat quite still. he had trembled violently while he had gone from room to room doing his horrible work; but his nerves seemed steadier now. steadier! why, he was transformed to stone! his heart seemed to have stopped beating; and he only knew by a sick anguish, a dull aching pain, that it was still in his breast. he sat waiting and thinking. in that time all the long story of the past was acted before him, and he saw what a wretch he had been. i do not know whether this was penitence; but looking at that enacted story, paul marchmont thought that his own part in the play was a mistake, and that it was a foolish thing to be a villain. * * * * * when a great flock of frightened people, with a fire-engine out of order, and drawn by whooping men and boys, came hurrying up to the towers, they found a blazing edifice, which looked like an enchanted castle--great stone-framed windows vomiting flame; tall chimneys toppling down upon a fiery roof; molten lead, like water turned to fire, streaming in flaming cataracts upon the terrace; and all the sky lit up by that vast pile of blazing ruin. only salamanders, or poor mr. braidwood's own chosen band, could have approached marchmont towers that night. the kemberling firemen and the swampington firemen, who came by-and-by, were neither salamanders nor braidwoods. they stood aloof and squirted water at the flames, and recoiled aghast by-and-by when the roof came down like an avalanche of blazing timber, leaving only a gaunt gigantic skeleton of red-hot stone where marchmont towers once had been. when it was safe to venture in amongst the ruins--and this was not for many hours after the fire had burnt itself out--people looked for paul marchmont; but amidst all that vast chaos of smouldering ashes, there was nothing found that could be identified as the remains of a human being. no one knew where the artist had been at the time of the fire, or indeed whether he had been in the house at all; and the popular opinion was, that paul had set fire to the mansion, and had fled away before the flames began to spread. but lavinia weston knew better than this. she knew now why her brother had sent her every scrap of valuable property belonging to him. she understood now why he had come back to her to bid her good-night for the second time, and press his cold lips to hers. chapter the last. "dear is the memory of our wedded lives." mary and edward arundel saw the awful light in the sky, and heard the voices of the people shouting in the street below, and calling to one another that marchmont towers was on fire. the young mistress of the burning pile had very little concern for her property. she only kept saying, again and again, "o edward! i hope there is no one in the house. god grant there may be no one in the house!" and when the flames were highest, and it seemed by the light in the sky as if all lincolnshire had been blazing, edward arundel's wife flung herself upon her knees, and prayed aloud for any unhappy creature that might be in peril. oh, if we could dare to think that this innocent girl's prayer was heard before the throne of an awful judge, pleading for the soul of a wicked man! early the next morning mrs. arundel came from lawford grange with her confidential maid, and carried off her daughter-in-law and the baby, on the first stage of the journey into devonshire. before she left kemberling, mary was told that no dead body had been found amongst the ruins of the towers; and this assertion deluded her into the belief that no unhappy creature had perished. so she went to dangerfield happier than she had ever been since the sunny days of her honeymoon, to wait there for the coming of edward arundel, who was to stay behind to see richard paulette and mr. gormby, and to secure the testimony of mr. weston and betsy murrel with a view to the identification of mary's little son, who had been neither registered nor christened. i have no need to dwell upon this process of identification, registration, and christening, through which master edward arundel had to pass in the course of the next month. i had rather skip this dry-as-dust business, and go on to that happy time which edward and his young wife spent together under the oaks at dangerfield--that bright second honeymoon season, while they were as yet houseless; for a pretty villa-like mansion was being built on the marchmont property, far away from the dank wood and the dismal river, in a pretty pastoral little nook, which was a fair oasis amidst the general dreariness of lincolnshire. i need scarcely say that the grand feature of this happy time was the baby. it will be of course easily understood that this child stood alone amongst babies. there never had been another such infant; it was more than probable there would never again be such a one. in every attribute of babyhood he was a twelvemonth in advance of the rest of his race. prospective greatness was stamped upon his brow. he would be a clive or a wellington, unless indeed he should have a fancy for the bar and the woolsack, in which case he would be a little more erudite than lyndhurst, a trifle more eloquent than brougham. all this was palpable to the meanest capacity in the very manner in which this child crowed in his nurse's arms, or choked himself with farinaceous food, or smiled recognition at his young father, or performed the simplest act common to infancy. i think mr. sant would have been pleased to paint one of those summer scenes at dangerfield--the proud soldier-father; the pale young wife; the handsome, matronly grandmother; and, as the mystic centre of that magic circle, the toddling flaxen-haired baby, held up by his father's hands, and taking caricature strides in imitation of papa's big steps. to my mind, it is a great pity that children are not children for ever--that the pretty baby-boy by sant, all rosy and flaxen and blue-eyed, should ever grow into a great angular pre-raphaelite hobadahoy, horribly big and out of drawing. but neither edward nor mary nor, above all, mrs. arundel were of this opinion. they were as eager for the child to grow up and enter for the great races of this life, as some speculative turf magnate who has given a fancy price for a yearling, and is pining to see the animal a far-famed three-year-old, and winner of the double event. before the child had cut a double-tooth mrs. arundel senior had decided in favour of eton as opposed to harrow, and was balancing the conflicting advantages of classical oxford and mathematical cambridge; while edward could not see the baby-boy rolling on the grass, with blue ribbons and sashes fluttering in the breeze, without thinking of his son's future appearance in the uniform of his own regiment, gorgeous in the splendid crush of a levee at st. james's. how many airy castles were erected in that happy time, with the baby for the foundation-stone of all of them! _the_ baby! why, that definite article alone expresses an infinity of foolish love and admiration. nobody says _the_ father, the husband, the mother; it is "my" father, my husband, as the case may be. but every baby, from st. giles's to belgravia, from tyburnia to st. luke's, is "the" baby. the infant's reign is short, but his royalty is supreme, and no one presumes to question his despotic rule. edward arundel almost worshipped the little child whose feeble cry he had heard in the october twilight, and had _not_ recognised. he was never tired of reproaching himself for this omission. that baby-voice _ought_ to have awakened a strange thrill in the young father's breast. that time at dangerfield was the happiest period of mary's life. all her sorrows had melted away. they did not tell her of paul marchmont's suspected fate; they only told her that her enemy had disappeared, and that no one knew whither he had gone. mary asked once, and once only, about her stepmother; and she was told that olivia was at swampington rectory, living with her father, and that people said she was mad. george weston had emigrated to australia, with his wife, and his wife's mother and sister. there had been no prosecution for conspiracy; the disappearance of the principal criminal had rendered that unnecessary. this was all that mary ever heard of her persecutors. she did not wish to hear of them; she had forgiven them long ago. i think that in the inner depths of her innocent heart she had forgiven them from the moment she had fallen on her husband's breast in hester's parlour at kemberling, and had felt his strong arms clasped about her, sheltering her from all harm for evermore. she was very happy; and her nature, always gentle, seemed sublimated by the sufferings she had endured, and already akin to that of the angels. alas, this was edward arundel's chief sorrow! this young wife, so precious to him in her fading loveliness, was slipping away from him, even in the hour when they were happiest together--was separated from him even when they were most united. she was separated from him by that unconquerable sadness in his heart, which was prophetic of a great sorrow to come. sometimes, when mary saw her husband looking at her with a mournful tenderness, an almost despairing love in his eyes, she would throw herself into his arms, and say to him: "you must remember how happy i have been, edward. o my darling! promise me always to remember how happy i have been." when the first chill breezes of autumn blew among the dangerfield oaks, edward arundel took his wife southwards, with his mother and the inevitable baby in her train. they went to nice, and they were very quiet, very happy, in the pretty southern town, with snow-clad mountains behind them, and the purple mediterranean before. the villa was building all this time in lincolnshire. edward's agent sent him plans and sketches for mrs. arundel's approval; and every evening there was some fresh talk about the arrangement of the rooms, and the laying-out of gardens. mary was always pleased to see the plans and drawings, and to discuss the progress of the work with her husband. she would talk of the billiard-room, and the cosy little smoking-room, and the nurseries for the baby, which were to have a southern aspect, and every advantage calculated to assist the development of that rare and marvellous blossom; and she would plan the comfortable apartments that were to be specially kept for dear grandmamma, who would of course spend a great deal of her time at the sycamores--the new place was to be called the sycamores. but edward could never get his wife to talk of a certain boudoir opening into a tiny conservatory, which he himself had added on to the original architect's plan. he could never get mary to speak of this particular chamber; and once, when he asked her some question about the colour of the draperies, she said to him, very gently,-- "i would rather you would not think of that room, darling." "why, my pet?" "because it will make you sorry afterwards." "mary, my darling----" "o edward! you know,--you must know, dearest,--that i shall never see that place?" but her husband took her in his arms, and declared that this was only a morbid fancy, and that she was getting better and stronger every day, and would live to see her grandchildren playing under the maples that sheltered the northern side of the new villa. edward told his wife this, and he believed in the truth of what he said. he could not believe that he was to lose this young wife, restored to him after so many trials. mary did not contradict him just then; but that night, when he was sitting in her room reading by the light of a shaded lamp after she had gone to bed,--mary went to bed very early, by order of the doctors, and indeed lived altogether according to medical _régime_,--she called her husband to her. "i want to speak to you, dear," she said; "there is something that i must say to you." the young man knelt down by his wife's bed. "what is it, darling?" he asked. "you know what we said to-day, edward?" "what, darling? we say so many things every day--we are so happy together, and have so much to talk about." "but you remember, edward,--you remember what i said about never seeing the sycamores? ah! don't stop me, dear love," mary said reproachfully, for edward put his lips to hers to stay the current of mournful words,--"don't stop me, dear, for i must speak to you. i want you to know that _it must be_, edward darling. i want you to remember how happy i have been, and how willing i am to part with you, dear, since it is god's will that we should be parted. and there is something else that i want to say, edward. grandmamma told me something--all about belinda. i want you to promise me that belinda shall be happy by-and-by; for she has suffered so much, poor girl! and you will love her, and she will love the baby. but you won't love her quite the same way that you loved me, will you, dear? because you never knew her when she was a little child, and very poor. she has never been an orphan, and quite lonely, as i have been. you have never been _all the world_ to her." * * * * * the sycamores was finished by the following midsummer, but no one took possession of the newly-built house; no brisk upholsterer's men came, with three-foot rules and pencils and memorandum-books, to take measurements of windows and floors; no wagons of splendid furniture made havoc of the gravel-drive before the principal entrance. the only person who came to the new house was a snuff-taking crone from stanfield, who brought a turn-up bedstead, a dutch clock, and a few minor articles of furniture, and encamped in a corner of the best bedroom. edward arundel, senior, was away in india, fighting under napier and outram; and edward arundel, junior, was at dangerfield, under the charge of his grandmother. perhaps the most beautiful monument in one of the english cemeteries at nice is that tall white marble cross and kneeling figure, before which strangers pause to read an inscription to the memory of mary, the beloved wife of edward dangerfield arundel. the epilogue. four years after the completion of that pretty stuccoed villa, which seemed destined never to be inhabited, belinda lawford walked alone up and down the sheltered shrubbery-walk in the grange garden in the fading september daylight. miss lawford was taller and more womanly-looking than she had been on the day of her interrupted wedding. the vivid bloom had left her cheeks; but i think she was all the prettier because of that delicate pallor, which gave a pensive cast to her countenance. she was very grave and gentle and good; but she had never forgotten the shock of that broken bridal ceremonial in hillingsworth church. the major had taken his eldest daughter abroad almost immediately after that july day; and belinda and her father had travelled together very peacefully, exploring quiet belgian cities, looking at celebrated altar-pieces in dusky cathedrals, and wandering round battle-fields, which the intermingled blood of rival nations had once made one crimson swamp. they had been nearly a twelvemonth absent, and then belinda returned to assist at the marriage of a younger sister, and to hear that edward arundel's wife had died of a lingering pulmonary complaint at nice. she was told this: and she was told how olivia marchmont still lived with her father at swampington, and how day by day she went the same round from cottage to cottage, visiting the sick; teaching little children, or sometimes rough-bearded men, to read and write and cipher; reading to old decrepid pensioners; listening to long histories of sickness and trial, and exhibiting an unwearying patience that was akin to sublimity. passion had burnt itself out in this woman's breast, and there was nothing in her mind now but remorse, and the desire to perform a long penance, by reason of which she might in the end be forgiven. but mrs. marchmont never visited anyone alone. wherever she went, barbara simmons accompanied her, constant as her shadow. the swampington people said this was because the rector's daughter was not quite right in her mind; and there were times when she forgot where she was, and would have wandered away in a purposeless manner, heaven knows where, had she not been accompanied by her faithful servant. clever as the swampington people and the kemberling people might be in finding out the business of their neighbours, they never knew that olivia marchmont had been consentient to the hiding-away of her stepdaughter. they looked upon her, indeed, with considerable respect, as a heroine by whose exertions paul marchmont's villany had been discovered. in the hurry and confusion of the scene at hillingsworth church, nobody had taken heed of olivia's incoherent self-accusations: hubert arundel was therefore spared the misery of knowing the extent of his daughter's sin. belinda lawford came home in order to be present at her sister's wedding; and the old life began again for her, with all the old duties that had once been so pleasant. she went about them very cheerfully now. she worked for her poor pensioners, and took the chief burden of the housekeeping off her mother's hands. but though she jingled her keys with a cheery music as she went about the house, and though she often sang to herself over her work, the old happy smile rarely lit up her face. she went about her duties rather like some widowed matron who had lived her life, than a girl before whom the future lies, mysterious and unknown. it has been said that happiness comes to the sleeper--the meaning of which proverb i take to be, that joy generally comes to us when we least look for her lovely face. and it was on this september afternoon, when belinda loitered in the garden after her round of small duties was finished, and she was free to think or dream at her leisure, that happiness came to her,--unexpected, unhoped-for, supreme; for, turning at one end of the sheltered alley, she saw edward arundel standing at the other end, with his hat in his hand, and the summer wind blowing amongst his hair. miss lawford stopped quite still. the old-fashioned garden reeled before her eyes, and the hard-gravelled path seemed to become a quaking bog. she could not move; she stood still, and waited while edward came towards her. "letitia has told me about you, linda," he said; "she has told me how true and noble you have been; and she sent me here to look for a wife, to make new sunshine in my empty home,--a young mother to smile upon my motherless boy." edward and belinda walked up and down the sheltered alley for a long time, talking a great deal of the sad past, a little of the fair-seeming future. it was growing dusk before they went in at the old-fashioned half-glass door leading into the drawing-room, where mrs. lawford and her younger daughters were sitting, and where lydia, who was next to belinda, and had been three years married to the curate of hillingsworth, was nursing her second baby. "has she said 'yes'?" this young matron cried directly; for she had been told of edward's errand to the grange. "but of course she has. what else should she say, after refusing all manner of people, and giving herself the airs of an old-maid? yes, um pressus pops, um aunty lindy's going to be marriedy-pariedy," concluded the curate's wife, addressing her three-months-old baby in that peculiar patois which is supposed to be intelligible to infants by reason of being unintelligible to everybody else. "i suppose you are not aware that my future brother-in-law is a major?" said belinda's third sister, who had been struggling with a variation by thalberg, all octaves and accidentals, and who twisted herself round upon her music-stool to address her sister. "i suppose you are not aware that you have been talking to major arundel, who has done all manner of splendid things in the punjaub? papa told us all about it five minutes ago." it was as much as belinda could do to support the clamorous felicitations of her sisters, especially the unmarried damsels, who were eager to exhibit themselves in the capacity of bridesmaids; but by-and-by, after dinner, the curate's wife drew her sisters away from that shadowy window in which edward arundel and belinda were sitting, and the lovers were left to themselves. that evening was very peaceful, very happy, and there were many other evenings like it before edward and belinda completed that ceremonial which they had left unfinished more than five years before. the sycamores was very prettily furnished, under belinda's superintendence; and as reginald arundel had lately married, edward's mother came to live with her younger son, and brought with her the idolised grandchild, who was now a tall, yellow-haired boy of six years old. there was only one room in the sycamores which was never tenanted by any one of that little household except edward himself, who kept the key of the little chamber in his writing-desk, and only allowed the servants to go in at stated intervals to keep everything bright and orderly in the apartment. the shut-up chamber was the boudoir which edward arundel had planned for his first wife. he had ordered it to be furnished with the very furniture which he had intended for mary. the rosebuds and butterflies on the walls, the guipure curtains lined with pale blush-rose silk, the few chosen books in the little cabinet near the fireplace, the dresden breakfast-service, the statuettes and pictures, were things he had fixed upon long ago in his own mind as the decorations for his wife's apartment. he went into the room now and then, and looked at his first wife's picture--a crayon sketch taken in london before mary and her husband started for the south of france. he looked a little wistfully at this picture, even when he was happiest in the new ties that bound him to life, and all that is brightest in life. major arundel took his eldest son into this room one day, when young edward was eight or nine years old, and showed the boy his mother's portrait. "when you are a man, this place will be yours, edward," the father said. "_you_ can give your wife this room, although i have never given it to mine. you will tell her that it was built for your mother, and that it was built for her by a husband who, even when most grateful to god for every new blessing he enjoyed, never ceased to be sorry for the loss of his first love." and so i leave my soldier-hero, to repose upon laurels that have been hardly won, and secure in that modified happiness which is chastened by the memory of sorrow. i leave him with bright children crowding round his knees, a loving wife smiling at him across those fair childish heads. i leave him happy and good and useful, filling his place in the world, and bringing up his children to be wise and virtuous men and women in the days that are to come. i leave him, above all, with the serene lamp of faith for ever burning in his soul, lighting the image of that other world in which there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, and where his dead wife will smile upon him from amidst the vast throng of angel faces--a child for ever and ever before the throne of god! the end. john marchmont's legacy. by [m.e. braddon] the author of "lady audley's secret," etc. etc. etc. in three volumes. vol. ii. published by tinsley brothers of london in (third edition). contents. chapter i. mary's letter. chapter ii. a new protector. chapter iii. paul's sister. chapter iv. a stolen honeymoon. chapter v. sounding the depths. chapter vi. risen from the grave. chapter vii. face to face. chapter viii. the painting-room by the river. chapter ix. in the dark. chapter x. the paragraph in the newspaper. chapter xi. edward arundel's despair. chapter xii. edward's visitors. chapter xiii. one more sacrifice. chapter xiv. the child's voice in the pavilion by the water. john marchmont's legacy. volume ii. chapter i. mary's letter. it was past twelve o'clock when edward arundel strolled into the dining-room. the windows were open, and the scent of the mignionette upon the terrace was blown in upon the warm summer breeze. mrs. marchmont was sitting at one end of the long table, reading a newspaper. she looked up as edward entered the room. she was pale, but not much paler than usual. the feverish light had faded out of her eyes, and they looked dim and heavy. "good morning, livy," the young man said. "mary is not up yet, i suppose?" "i believe not." "poor little girl! a long rest will do her good after her first ball. how pretty and fairy-like she looked in her white gauze dress, and with that circlet of pearls round her hair! your taste, i suppose, olivia? she looked like a snow-drop among all the other gaudy flowers,--the roses and tiger-lilies, and peonies and dahlias. that eldest miss hickman is handsome, but she's so terribly conscious of her attractions. that little girl from swampington with the black ringlets is rather pretty; and laura filmer is a jolly, dashing girl; she looks you full in the face, and talks to you about hunting with as much gusto as an old whipper-in. i don't think much of major hawley's three tall sandy-haired daughters; but fred hawley's a capital fellow: it's a pity he's a civilian. in short, my dear olivia, take it altogether, i think your ball was a success, and i hope you'll give us another in the hunting-season." mrs. marchmont did not condescend to reply to her cousin's meaningless rattle. she sighed wearily, and began to fill the tea-pot from the old-fashioned silver urn. edward loitered in one of the windows, whistling to a peacock that was stalking solemnly backwards and forwards upon the stone balustrade. "i should like to drive you and mary down to the seashore, livy, after breakfast. will you go?" mrs. marchmont shook her head. "i am a great deal too tired to think of going out to-day," she said ungraciously. "and i never felt fresher in my life," the young man responded, laughing; "last night's festivities seem to have revivified me. i wish mary would come down," he added, with a yawn; "i could give her another lesson in billiards, at any rate. poor little girl, i am afraid she'll never make a cannon." captain arundel sat down to his breakfast, and drank the cup of tea poured out for him by olivia. had she been a sinful woman of another type, she would have put arsenic into the cup perhaps, and so have made an end of the young officer and of her own folly. as it was, she only sat by, with her own untasted breakfast before her, and watched him while he ate a plateful of raised pie, and drank his cup of tea, with the healthy appetite which generally accompanies youth and a good conscience. he sprang up from the table directly he had finished his meal, and cried out impatiently, "what can make mary so lazy this morning? she is usually such an early riser." mrs. marchmont rose as her cousin said this, and a vague feeling of uneasiness took possession of her mind. she remembered the white face which had blanched beneath the angry glare of her eyes, the blank look of despair that had come over mary's countenance a few hours before. "i will go and call her myself," she said. "n--no; i'll send barbara." she did not wait to ring the bell, but went into the hall, and called sharply, "barbara! barbara!" a woman came out of a passage leading to the housekeeper's room, in answer to mrs. marchmont's call; a woman of about fifty years of age, dressed in gray stuff, and with a grave inscrutable face, a wooden countenance that gave no token of its owner's character. barbara simmons might have been the best or the worst of women, a mrs. fry or a mrs. brownrigg, for any evidence her face afforded against either hypothesis. "i want you to go up-stairs, barbara, and call miss marchmont," olivia said. "captain arundel and i have finished breakfast." the woman obeyed, and mrs. marchmont returned to the dining-room, where edward was trying to amuse himself with the "times" of the previous day. ten minutes afterwards barbara simmons came into the room carrying a letter on a silver waiter. had the document been a death-warrant, or a telegraphic announcement of the landing of the french at dover, the well-trained servant would have placed it upon a salver before presenting it to her mistress. "miss marchmont is not in her room, ma'am," she said; "the bed has not been slept on; and i found this letter, addressed to captain arundel, upon the table." olivia's face grew livid; a horrible dread rushed into her mind. edward snatched the letter which the servant held towards him. "mary not in her room! what, in heaven's name, can it mean?" he cried. he tore open the letter. the writing was not easily decipherable for the tears which the orphan girl had shed over it. "my own dear edward,--i have loved you so dearly and so foolishly, and you have been so kind to me, that i have quite forgotten how unworthy i am of your affection. but i am forgetful no longer. something has happened which has opened my eyes to my own folly,--i know now that you did not love me; that i had no claim to your love; no charms or attractions such as so many other women possess, and for which you might have loved me. i know this now, dear edward, and that all my happiness has been a foolish dream; but do not think that i blame any one but myself for what has happened. take my fortune: long ago, when i was a little girl, i asked my father to let me share it with you. i ask you now to take it all, dear friend; and i go away for ever from a house in which i have learnt how little happiness riches can give. do not be unhappy about me. i shall pray for you always,--always remembering your goodness to my dead father; always looking back to the day upon which you came to see us in our poor lodging. i am very ignorant of all worldly business, but i hope the law will let me give you marchmont towers, and all my fortune, whatever it may be. let mr. paulette see this latter part of my letter, and let him fully understand that i abandon all my rights to you from this day. good-bye, dear friend; think of me sometimes, but never think of me sorrowfully. "mary marchmont." this was all. this was the letter which the heart-broken girl had written to her lover. it was in no manner different from the letter she might have written to him nine years before in oakley street. it was as childish in its ignorance and inexperience; as womanly in its tender self-abnegation. edward arundel stared at the simple lines like a man in a dream, doubtful of his own identity, doubtful of the reality of the world about him, in his hopeless wonderment. he read the letter line by line again and again, first in dull stupefaction, and muttering the words mechanically as he read them, then with the full light of their meaning dawning gradually upon him. her fortune! he had never loved her! she had discovered her own folly! what did it all mean? what was the clue to the mystery of this letter, which had stunned and bewildered him, until the very power of reflection seemed lost? the dawning of that day had seen their parting, and the innocent face had been lifted to his, beaming with love and trust. and now--? the letter dropped from his hand, and fluttered slowly to the ground. olivia marchmont stooped to pick it up. her movement aroused the young man from his stupor, and in that moment he caught the sight of his cousin's livid face. he started as if a thunderbolt had burst at his feet. an idea, sudden as some inspired revelation, rushed into his mind. "read that letter, olivia marchmont!" he said. the woman obeyed. slowly and deliberately she read the childish epistle which mary had written to her lover. in every line, in every word, the widow saw the effect of her own deadly work; she saw how deeply the poison, dropped from her own envenomed tongue, had sunk into the innocent heart of the girl. edward arundel watched her with flaming eyes. his tall soldierly frame trembled in the intensity of his passion. he followed his cousin's eyes along the lines in mary marchmont's letter, waiting till she should come to the end. then the tumultuous storm of indignation burst forth, until olivia cowered beneath the lightning of her cousin's glance. was this the man she had called frivolous? was this the boyish red-coated dandy she had despised? was this the curled and perfumed representative of swelldom, whose talk never soared to higher flights than the description of a day's snipe-shooting, or a run with the burleigh fox-hounds? the wicked woman's eyelids drooped over her averted eyes; she turned away, shrinking from this fearless accuser. "this mischief is some of _your_ work, olivia marchmont!" edward arundel cried. "it is you who have slandered and traduced me to my dead friend's daughter! who else would dare accuse a dangerfield arundel of baseness? who else would be vile enough to call my father's son a liar and a traitor? it is you who have whispered shameful insinuations into this poor child's innocent ear! i scarcely need the confirmation of your ghastly face to tell me this. it is you who have driven mary marchmont from the home in which you should have sheltered and protected her! you envied her, i suppose,--envied her the thousands which might have ministered to your wicked pride and ambition;--the pride which has always held you aloof from those who might have loved you; the ambition that has made you a soured and discontented woman, whose gloomy face repels all natural affection. you envied the gentle girl whom your dead husband committed to your care, and who should have been most sacred to you. you envied her, and seized the first occasion upon which you might stab her to the very core of her tender heart. what other motive could you have had for doing this deadly wrong? none, so help me heaven!" no other motive! olivia marchmont dropped down in a heap on the ground near her cousin's feet; not kneeling, but grovelling upon the carpeted floor, writhing convulsively, with her hands twisted one in the other, and her head falling forward on her breast. she uttered no syllable of self-justification or denial. the pitiless words rained down upon her provoked no reply. but in the depths of her heart sounded the echo of edward arundel's words: "the pride which has always held you aloof from those who might have loved you; . . . a discontented woman, whose gloomy face repels all natural affection." "o god!" she thought, "he might have loved me, then! he _might_ have loved me, if i could have locked my anguish in my own heart, and smiled at him and flattered him." and then an icy indifference took possession of her. what did it matter that edward arundel repudiated and hated her? he had never loved her. his careless friendliness had made as wide a gulf between them as his bitterest hate could ever make. perhaps, indeed, his new-born hate would be nearer to love than his indifference had been, for at least he would think of her now, if he thought ever so bitterly. "listen to me, olivia marchmont," the young man said, while the woman still crouched upon the ground near his feet, self-confessed in the abandonment of her despair. "wherever this girl may have gone, driven hence by your wickedness, i will follow her. my answer to the lie you have insinuated against me shall be my immediate marriage with my old friend's orphan child. _he_ knew me well enough to know how far i was above the baseness of a fortune-hunter, and he wished that i should be his daughter's husband. i should be a coward and a fool were i to be for one moment influenced by such a slander as that which you have whispered in mary marchmont's ear. it is not the individual only whom you traduce. you slander the cloth i wear, the family to which i belong; and my best justification will be the contempt in which i hold your infamous insinuations. when you hear that i have squandered mary marchmont's fortune, or cheated the children i pray god she may live to bear me, it will be time enough for you to tell the world that your kinsman edward dangerfield arundel is a swindler and a traitor." he strode out into the hall, leaving his cousin on the ground; and she heard his voice outside the dining-room door making inquiries of the servants. they could tell him nothing of mary's flight. her bed had not been slept in; nobody had seen her leave the house; it was most likely, therefore, that she had stolen away very early, before the servants were astir. where had she gone? edward arundel's heart beat wildly as he asked himself that question. he remembered how often he had heard of women, as young and innocent as mary marchmont, who had rushed to destroy themselves in a tumult of agony and despair. how easily this poor child, who believed that her dream of happiness was for ever broken, might have crept down through the gloomy wood to the edge of the sluggish river, to drop into the weedy stream, and hide her sorrow under the quiet water. he could fancy her, a new ophelia, pale and pure as the danish prince's slighted love, floating past the weird branches of the willows, borne up for a while by the current, to sink in silence amongst the shadows farther down the stream. he thought of these things in one moment, and in the next dismissed the thought. mary's letter breathed the spirit of gentle resignation rather than of wild despair. "i shall always pray for you; i shall always remember you," she had written. her lover remembered how much sorrow the orphan girl had endured in her brief life. he looked back to her childish days of poverty and self-denial; her early loss of her mother; her grief at her father's second marriage; the shock of that beloved father's death. her sorrows had followed each other in gloomy succession, with only narrow intervals of peace between them. she was accustomed, therefore, to grief. it is the soul untutored by affliction, the rebellious heart that has never known calamity, which becomes mad and desperate, and breaks under the first blow. mary marchmont had learned the habit of endurance in the hard school of sorrow. edward arundel walked out upon the terrace, and re-read the missing girl's letter. he was calmer now, and able to face the situation with all its difficulties and perplexities. he was losing time perhaps in stopping to deliberate; but it was no use to rush off in reckless haste, undetermined in which direction he should seek for the lost mistress of marchmont towers. one of the grooms was busy in the stables saddling captain arundel's horse, and in the mean time the young man went out alone upon the sunny terrace to deliberate upon mary's letter. complete resignation was expressed in every line of that childish epistle. the heiress spoke most decisively as to her abandonment of her fortune and her home. it was clear, then, that she meant to leave lincolnshire; for she would know that immediate steps would be taken to discover her hiding-place, and bring her back to marchmont towers. where was she likely to go in her inexperience of the outer world? where but to those humble relations of her dead mother's, of whom her father had spoken in his letter to edward arundel, and with whom the young man knew she had kept up an occasional correspondence, sending them many little gifts out of her pocket-money. these people were small tenant-farmers, at a place called marlingford, in berkshire. edward knew their name and the name of the farm. "i'll make inquiries at the kemberling station to begin with," he thought. "there's a through train from the north that stops at kemberling at a little before six. my poor darling may have easily caught that, if she left the house at five." captain arundel went back into the hall, and summoned barbara simmons. the woman replied with rather a sulky air to his numerous questions; but she told him that miss marchmont had left her ball-dress upon the bed, and had put on a gray cashmere dress trimmed with black ribbon, which she had worn as half-mourning for her father; a black straw bonnet, with a crape veil, and a silk mantle trimmed with crape. she had taken with her a small carpet-bag, some linen,--for the linen-drawer of her wardrobe was open, and the things scattered confusedly about,--and the little morocco case in which she kept her pearl ornaments, and the diamond ring left her by her father. "had she any money?" edward asked. "yes, sir; she was never without money. she spent a good deal amongst the poor people she visited with my mistress; but i dare say she may have had between ten and twenty pounds in her purse." "she will go to berkshire," edward arundel thought: "the idea of going to her humble friends would be the first to present itself to her mind. she will go to her dead mother's sister, and give her all her jewels, and ask for shelter in the quiet farmhouse. she will act like one of the heroines in the old-fashioned novels she used to read in oakley street, the simple-minded damsels of those innocent story-books, who think nothing of resigning a castle and a coronet, and going out into the world to work for their daily bread in a white satin gown, and with a string of pearls to bind their dishevelled locks." captain arundel's horse was brought round to the terrace-steps, as he stood with mary's letter in his hand, waiting to hurry away to the rescue of his sorrowful love. "tell mrs. marchmont that i shall not return to the towers till i bring her stepdaughter with me," he said to the groom; and then, without stopping to utter another word, he shook the rein on his horse's neck, and galloped away along the gravelled drive leading to the great iron gates of marchmont towers. olivia heard his message, which had been spoken in a clear loud voice, like some knightly defiance, sounding trumpet-like at a castle-gate. she stood in one of the windows of the dining-room, hidden by the faded velvet curtain, and watched her cousin ride away, brave and handsome as any knight-errant of the chivalrous past, and as true as bayard himself. chapter ii. a new protector. captain arundel's inquiries at the kemberling station resulted in an immediate success. a young lady--a young woman, the railway official called her--dressed in black, wearing a crape veil over her face, and carrying a small carpet-bag in her hand, had taken a second-class ticket for london, by the . ., a parliamentary train, which stopped at almost every station on the line, and reached euston square at half-past twelve. edward looked at his watch. it was ten minutes to two o'clock. the express did not stop at kemberling; but he would be able to catch it at swampington at a quarter past three. even then, however, he could scarcely hope to get to berkshire that night. "my darling girl will not discover how foolish her doubts have been until to-morrow," he thought. "silly child! has my love so little the aspect of truth that she _can_ doubt me?" he sprang on his horse again, flung a shilling to the railway porter who had held the bridle, and rode away along the swampington road. the clocks in the gray old norman turrets were striking three as the young man crossed the bridge, and paid his toll at the little toll-house by the stone archway. the streets were as lonely as usual in the hot july afternoon; and the long line of sea beyond the dreary marshes was blue in the sunshine. captain arundel passed the two churches, and the low-roofed rectory, and rode away to the outskirts of the town, where the station glared in all the brilliancy of new red bricks, and dazzling stuccoed chimneys, athwart a desert of waste ground. the express-train came tearing up to the quiet platform two minutes after edward had taken his ticket; and in another minute the clanging bell pealed out its discordant signal, and the young man was borne, with a shriek and a whistle, away upon the first stage of his search for mary marchmont. it was nearly seven o'clock when he reached euston square; and he only got to the paddington station in time to hear that the last train for marlingford had just started. there was no possibility of his reaching the little berkshire village that night. no mail-train stopped within a reasonable distance of the obscure station. there was no help for it, therefore, captain arundel had nothing to do but to wait for the next morning. he walked slowly away from the station, very much disheartened by this discovery. "i'd better sleep at some hotel up this way," he thought, as he strolled listlessly in the direction of oxford street, "so as to be on the spot to catch the first train to-morrow morning. what am i to do with myself all this night, racked with uncertainty about mary?" he remembered that one of his brother officers was staying at the hotel in covent garden where edward himself stopped, when business detained him in london for a day or two. "shall i go and see lucas?" captain arundel thought. "he's a good fellow, and won't bore me with a lot of questions, if he sees i've something on my mind. there may be some letters for me at e----'s. poor little polly!" he could never think of her without something of that pitiful tenderness which he might have felt for a young and helpless child, whom it was his duty and privilege to protect and succour. it may be that there was little of the lover's fiery enthusiasm mingled with the purer and more tender feelings with which edward arundel regarded his dead friend's orphan daughter; but in place of this there was a chivalrous devotion, such as woman rarely wins in these degenerate modern days. the young soldier walked through the lamp-lit western streets thinking of the missing girl; now assuring himself that his instinct had not deceived him, and that mary must have gone straight to the berkshire farmer's house, and in the next moment seized with a sudden terror that it might be otherwise: the helpless girl might have gone out into a world of which she was as ignorant as a child, determined to hide herself from all who had ever known her. if it should be thus: if, on going down to marlingford, he obtained no tidings of his friend's daughter, what was he to do? where was he to look for her next? he would put advertisements in the papers, calling upon his betrothed to trust him and return to him. perhaps mary marchmont was, of all people in this world, the least likely to look into a newspaper; but at least it would be doing something to do this, and edward arundel determined upon going straight off to printing-house square, to draw up an appeal to the missing girl. it was past ten o'clock when captain arundel came to this determination, and he had reached the neighbourhood of covent garden and of the theatres. the staring play-bills adorned almost every threshold, and fluttered against every door-post; and the young soldier, going into a tobacconist's to fill his cigar-case, stared abstractedly at a gaudy blue-and-red announcement of the last dramatic attraction to be seen at drury lane. it was scarcely strange that the captain's thoughts wandered back to his boyhood, that shadowy time, far away behind his later days of indian warfare and glory, and that he remembered the december night upon which he had sat with his cousin in a box at the great patent theatre, watching the consumptive supernumerary struggling under the weight of his banner. from the box at drury lane to the next morning's breakfast in oakley street, was but a natural transition of thought; but with that recollection of the humble lambeth lodging, with the picture of a little girl in a pinafore sitting demurely at her father's table, and meekly waiting on his guest, an idea flashed across edward arundel's mind, and brought the hot blood into his face. what if mary had gone to oakley street? was not this even more likely than that she should seek refuge with her kinsfolk in berkshire? she had lived in the lambeth lodging for years, and had only left that plebeian shelter for the grandeur of marchmont towers. what more natural than that she should go back to the familiar habitation, dear to her by reason of a thousand associations with her dead father? what more likely than that she should turn instinctively, in the hour of her desolation, to the humble friends whom she had known in her childhood? edward arundel was almost too impatient to wait while the smart young damsel behind the tobacconist's counter handed him change for the half-sovereign which he had just tendered her. he darted out into the street, and shouted violently to the driver of a passing hansom,--there are always loitering hansoms in the neighbourhood of covent garden,--who was, after the manner of his kind, looking on any side rather than that upon which providence had sent him a fare. "oakley street, lambeth," the young man cried. "double fare if you get there in ten minutes." the tall raw-boned horse rattled off at that peculiar pace common to his species, making as much noise upon the pavement as if he had been winning a metropolitan derby, and at about twenty minutes past nine drew up, smoking and panting, before the dimly lighted windows of the ladies' wardrobe, where a couple of flaring tallow-candles illuminated the splendour of a foreground of dirty artificial flowers, frayed satin shoes, and tarnished gilt combs; a middle distance of blue gauzy tissue, embroidered with beetles' wings; and a background of greasy black silk. edward arundel flung back the doors of the hansom with a bang, and leaped out upon the pavement. the proprietress of the ladies' wardrobe was lolling against the door-post, refreshing herself with the soft evening breezes from the roads of westminster and waterloo, and talking to her neighbour. "bless her pore dear innercent 'art!" the woman was saying; "she's cried herself to sleep at last. but you never hear any think so pitiful as she talked to me at fust, sweet love!--and the very picture of my own poor eliza jane, as she looked. you might have said it was eliza jane come back to life, only paler and more sickly like, and not that beautiful fresh colour, and ringlets curled all round in a crop, as eliza ja--" edward arundel burst in upon the good woman's talk, which rambled on in an unintermitting stream, unbroken by much punctuation. "miss marchmont is here," he said; "i know she is. thank god, thank god! let me see her please, directly. i am captain arundel, her father's friend, and her affianced husband. you remember me, perhaps? i came here nine years ago to breakfast, one december morning. i can recollect you perfectly, and i know that you were always good to my poor friend's daughter. to think that i should find her here! you shall be well rewarded for your kindness to her. but take me to her; pray take me to her at once!" the proprietress of the wardrobe snatched up one of the candles that guttered in a brass flat-candlestick upon the counter, and led the way up the narrow staircase. she was a good lazy creature, and she was so completely borne down by edward's excitement, that she could only mutter disjointed sentences, to the effect that the gentleman had brought her heart into her mouth, and that her legs felt all of a jelly; and that her poor knees was a'most giving way under her, and other incoherent statements concerning the physical effect of the mental shocks she had that day received. she opened the door of that shabby sitting-room upon the first-floor, in which the crippled eagle brooded over the convex mirror, and stood aside upon the threshold while captain arundel entered the room. a tallow candle was burning dimly upon the table, and a girlish form lay upon the narrow horsehair sofa, shrouded by a woollen shawl. "she went to sleep about half-an-hour ago, sir," the woman said, in a whisper; "and she cried herself to sleep, pore lamb, i think. i made her some tea, and got her a few creases and a french roll, with a bit of best fresh; but she wouldn't touch nothin', or only a few spoonfuls of the tea, just to please me. what is it that's drove her away from her 'ome, sir, and such a good 'ome too? she showed me a diamont ring as her pore par gave her in his will. he left me twenty pound, pore gentleman,--which he always acted like a gentleman bred and born; and mr. pollit, the lawyer, sent his clerk along with it and his compliments,--though i'm sure i never looked for nothink, having always had my rent faithful to the very minute: and miss mary used to bring it down to me so pretty, and--" but the whispering had grown louder by this time, and mary marchmont awoke from her feverish sleep, and lifted her weary head from the hard horsehair pillow and looked about her, half forgetful of where she was, and of what had happened within the last eighteen hours of her life. her eyes wandered here and there, doubtful as to the reality of what they looked upon, until the girl saw her lover's figure, tall and splendid in the humble apartment, a tender half-reproachful smile upon his face, and his handsome blue eyes beaming with love and truth. she saw him, and a faint shriek broke from her tremulous lips, as she rose and fell upon his breast. "you love me, then, edward," she cried; "you do love me!" "yes, my darling, as truly and tenderly as ever woman was loved upon this earth." and then the soldier sat down upon the hard bristly sofa, and with mary's head still resting upon his breast, and his strong hand straying amongst her disordered hair, he reproached her for her foolishness, and comforted and soothed her; while the proprietress of the apartment stood, with the brass candlestick in her hand, watching the young lovers and weeping over their sorrows, as if she had been witnessing a scene in a play. their innocent affection was unrestrained by the good woman's presence; and when mary had smiled upon her lover, and assured him that she would never, never, never doubt him again, captain arundel was fain to kiss the soft-hearted landlady in his enthusiasm, and to promise her the handsomest silk dress that had ever been seen in oakley street, amongst all the faded splendours of silk and satin that ladies'-maids brought for her consideration. "and now my darling, my foolish run-away polly, what is to be done with you?" asked the young soldier. "will you go back to the towers to-morrow morning?" mary marchmont clasped her hands before her face, and began to tremble violently. "oh, no, no, no!" she cried; "don't ask me to do that, don't ask me to go back, edward. i can never go back to that house again, while--" she stopped suddenly, looking piteously at her lover. "while my cousin olivia marchmont lives there," captain arundel said with an angry frown. "god knows it's a bitter thing for me to think that your troubles should come from any of my kith and kin, polly. she has used you very badly, then, this woman? she has been very unkind to you?" "no, no! never before last night. it seems so long ago; but it was only last night, was it? until then she was always kind to me. i didn't love her, you know, though i tried to do so for papa's sake, and out of gratitude to her for taking such trouble with my education; but one can be grateful to people without loving them, and i never grew to love her. but last night--last night--she said such cruel things to me--such cruel things. o edward, edward!" the girl cried suddenly, clasping her hands and looking imploringly at captain arundel, "were the cruel things she said true? did i do wrong when i offered to be your wife?" how could the young man answer this question except by clasping his betrothed to his heart? so there was another little love-scene, over which mrs. pimpernel,--the proprietress's name was pimpernel--wept fresh tears, murmuring that the capting was the sweetest young man, sweeter than mr. macready in claude melnock; and that the scene altogether reminded her of that "cutting" episode where the proud mother went on against the pore young man, and miss faucit came out so beautiful. they are a playgoing population in oakley street, and compassionate and sentimental like all true playgoers. "what shall i do with you, miss marchmont?" edward arundel asked gaily, when the little love-scene was concluded. "my mother and sister are away, at a german watering-place, trying some unpronounceable spa for the benefit of poor letty's health. reginald is with them, and my father's alone at dangerfield. so i can't take you down there, as i might have done if my mother had been at home; i don't much care for the mostyns, or you might have stopped in montague square. there are no friendly friars nowadays who will marry romeo and juliet at half-an-hour's notice. you must live a fortnight somewhere, polly: where shall it be?" "oh, let me stay here, please," miss marchmont pleaded; "i was always so happy here!" "lord love her precious heart!" exclaimed mrs. pimpernel, lifting up her hands in a rapture of admiration. "to think as she shouldn't have a bit of pride, after all the money as her pore par come into! to think as she should wish to stay in her old lodgins, where everythink shall be done to make her comfortable; and the air back and front is very 'ealthy, though you might not believe it, and the blind school and bedlam hard by, and kennington common only a pleasant walk, and beautiful and open this warm summer weather." "yes, i should like to stop here, please," mary murmured. even in the midst of her agitation, overwhelmed as she was by the emotions of the present, her thoughts went back to the past, and she remembered how delightful it would be to go and see the accommodating butcher, and the greengrocer's daughter, the kind butterman who had called her "little lady," and the disreputable gray parrot. how delightful it would be to see these humble friends, now that she was grown up, and had money wherewith to make them presents in token of her gratitude! "very well, then, polly," captain arundel said, "you'll stay here. and mrs.----" "pimpernel," the landlady suggested. "mrs. pimpernel will take as good care of you as if you were queen of england, and the welfare of the nation depended upon your safety. and i'll stop at my hotel in covent garden; and i'll see richard paulette,--he's my lawyer as well as yours, you know, polly,--and tell him something of what has happened, and make arrangements for our immediate marriage." "our marriage!" mary marchmont echoed her lover's last words, and looked up at him almost with a bewildered air. she had never thought of an early marriage with edward arundel as the result of her flight from lincolnshire. she had a vague notion that she would live in oakley street for years, and that in some remote time the soldier would come to claim her. "yes, polly darling, olivia marchmont's conduct has made me decide upon a very bold step. it is evident to me that my cousin hates you; for what reason, heaven only knows, since you can have done nothing to provoke her hate. when your father was a poor man, it was to me he would have confided you. he changed his mind afterwards, very naturally, and chose another guardian for his orphan child. if my cousin had fulfilled this trust, mary, i would have deferred to her authority, and would have held myself aloof until your minority was passed, rather than ask you to marry me without your stepmother's consent. but olivia marchmont has forfeited her right to be consulted in this matter. she has tortured you and traduced me by her poisonous slander. if you believe in me, mary, you will consent to be my wife. my justification lies in the future. you will not find that i shall sponge upon your fortune, my dear, or lead an idle life because my wife is a rich woman." mary marchmont looked up with shy tenderness at her lover. "i would rather the fortune were yours than mine, edward," she said. "i will do whatever you wish; i will be guided by you in every thing." it was thus that john marchmont's daughter consented to become the wife of the man she loved, the man whose image she had associated since her childhood with all that was good and beautiful in mankind. she knew none of those pretty stereotyped phrases, by means of which well-bred young ladies can go through a graceful fencing-match of hesitation and equivocation, to the anguish of a doubtful and adoring suitor. she had no notion of that delusive negative, that bewitching feminine "no," which is proverbially understood to mean "yes." weary courses of roman emperors, south-sea islands, sidereal heavens, tertiary and old red sandstone, had very ill-prepared this poor little girl for the stern realities of life. "i will be guided by you, dear edward," she said; "my father wished me to be your wife; and if i did not love you, it would please me to obey him." it was eleven o'clock when captain arundel left oakley street. the hansom had been waiting all the time, and the driver, seeing that his fare was young, handsome, dashing, and what he called "milingtary-like," demanded an enormous sum when he landed the soldier before the portico of the hotel in covent garden. edward took a hasty breakfast the next morning, and then hurried off to lincoln's-inn fields. but here a disappointment awaited him. richard paulette had started for scotland upon a piscatorial excursion. the elder paulette was an octogenarian, who lived in the south of france, and kept his name in the business as a fiction, by means of which elderly and obstinate country clients were deluded into the belief that the solicitor who conducted their affairs was the same legal practitioner who had done business for their fathers and grandfathers before them. mathewson, a grim man, was away amongst the yorkshire wolds, superintending the foreclosure of certain mortgages upon a bankrupt baronet's estate. a confidential clerk, who received clients, and kept matters straight during the absence of his employers, was very anxious to be of use to captain arundel: but it was not likely that edward could sit down and pour his secrets into the bosom of a clerk, however trustworthy a personage that employé might be. the young man's desire had been that his marriage with mary marchmont should take place at least with the knowledge and approbation of her dead father's lawyer: but he was impatient to assume the only title by which he might have a right to be the orphan girl's champion and protector; and he had therefore no inclination to wait until the long vacation was over, and messrs. paulette and mathewson returned from their northern wanderings. again, mary marchmont suffered from a continual dread that her stepmother would discover the secret of her humble retreat, and would follow her and reassume authority over her. "let me be your wife before i see her again, edward," the girl pleaded innocently, when this terror was uppermost in her mind. "she could not say cruel things to me if i were your wife. i know it is wicked to be so frightened of her; because she was always good to me until that night: but i cannot tell you how i tremble at the thought of being alone with her at marchmont towers. i dream sometimes that i am with her in the gloomy old house, and that we two are alone there, even the servants all gone, and you far away in india, edward,--at the other end of the world." it was as much as her lover could do to soothe and reassure the trembling girl when these thoughts took possession of her. had he been less sanguine and impetuous, less careless in the buoyancy of his spirits, captain arundel might have seen that mary's nerves had been terribly shaken by the scene between her and olivia, and all the anguish which had given rise to her flight from marchmont towers. the girl trembled at every sound. the shutting of a door, the noise of a cab stopping in the street below, the falling of a book from the table to the floor, startled her almost as much as if a gunpowder-magazine had exploded in the neighbourhood. the tears rose to her eyes at the slightest emotion. her mind was tortured by vague fears, which she tried in vain to explain to her lover. her sleep was broken by dismal dreams, foreboding visions of shadowy evil. for a little more than a fortnight edward arundel visited his betrothed daily in the shabby first-floor in oakley street, and sat by her side while she worked at some fragile scrap of embroidery, and talked gaily to her of the happy future; to the intense admiration of mrs. pimpernel, who had no greater delight than to assist in the pretty little sentimental drama that was being enacted on her first-floor. thus it was that, on a cloudy and autumnal august morning, edward arundel and mary marchmont were married in a great empty-looking church in the parish of lambeth, by an indifferent curate, who shuffled through the service at railroad speed, and with far less reverence for the solemn rite than he would have displayed had he known that the pale-faced girl kneeling before the altar-rails was undisputed mistress of eleven thousand a-year. mrs. pimpernel, the pew-opener, and the registrar who was in waiting in the vestry, and was beguiled thence to give away the bride, were the only witnesses to this strange wedding. it seemed a dreary ceremonial to mrs. pimpernel, who had been married at the same church five-and-twenty years before, in a cinnamon satin spencer, and a coal-scuttle bonnet, and with a young person in the dressmaking line in attendance upon her as bridesmaid. it _was_ rather a dreary wedding, no doubt. the drizzling rain dripped ceaselessly in the street without, and there was a smell of damp plaster in the great empty church. the melancholy street-cries sounded dismally from the outer world, while the curate was hurrying through those portentous words which were to unite edward arundel and mary marchmont until the final day of earthly separation. the girl clung shivering to her lover, her husband now, as they went into the vestry to sign their names in the marriage-register. throughout the service she had expected to hear a footstep in the aisle behind her, and olivia marchmont's cruel voice crying out to forbid the marriage. "i am your wife now, edward, am i not?" she said, when she had signed her name in the register. "yes, my darling, for ever and for ever." "and nothing can part us now?" "nothing but death, my dear." in the exuberance of his spirits, edward arundel spoke of the king of terrors as if he had been a mere nobody, whose power to change or mar the fortunes of mankind was so trifling as to be scarcely worth mentioning. the vehicle in waiting to carry the mistress of marchmont towers upon the first stage of her bridal tour was nothing better than a hack cab. the driver's garments exhaled stale tobacco-smoke in the moist atmosphere, and in lieu of the flowers which are wont to bestrew the bridal path of an heiress, miss marchmont trod upon damp and mouldy straw. but she was happy,--happy, with a fearful apprehension that her happiness could not be real,--a vague terror of olivia's power to torture and oppress her, which even the presence of her lover-husband could not altogether drive away. she kissed mrs. pimpernel, who stood upon the edge of the pavement, crying bitterly, with the slippery white lining of a new silk dress, which edward arundel had given her for the wedding, gathered tightly round her. "god bless you, my dear!" cried the honest dealer in frayed satins and tumbled gauzes; "i couldn't take this more to heart if you was my own eliza jane going away with the young man as she was to have married, and as is now a widower with five children, two in arms, and the youngest brought up by hand. god bless your pretty face, my dear; and oh, pray take care of her, captain arundel, for she's a tender flower, sir, and truly needs your care. and it's but a trifle, my own sweet young missy, for the acceptance of such as you, but it's given from a full heart, and given humbly." the latter part of mrs. pimpernel's speech bore relation to a hard newspaper parcel, which she dropped into mary's lap. mrs. arundel opened the parcel presently, when she had kissed her humble friend for the last time, and the cab was driving towards nine elms, and found that mrs. pimpernel's wedding-gift was a scotch shepherdess in china, with a great deal of gilding about her tartan garments, very red legs, a hat and feathers, and a curly sheep. edward put this article of _virtù_ very carefully away in his carpet-bag; for his bride would not have the present treated with any show of disrespect. "how good of her to give it me!" mary said; "it used to stand upon the back-parlour chimney-piece when i was a little girl; and i was so fond of it. of course i am not fond of scotch shepherdesses now, you know, dear; but how should mrs. pimpernel know that? she thought it would please me to have this one." "and you'll put it in the western drawing-room at the towers, won't you, polly?" captain arundel asked, laughing. "i won't put it anywhere to be made fun of, sir," the young bride answered, with some touch of wifely dignity; "but i'll take care of it, and never have it broken or destroyed; and mrs. pimpernel shall see it, when she comes to the towers,--if i ever go back there," she added, with a sudden change of manner. "_if_ you ever go back there!" cried edward. "why, polly, my dear, marchmont towers is your own house. my cousin olivia is only there upon sufferance, and her own good sense will tell her she has no right to stay there, when she ceases to be your friend and protectress. she is a proud woman, and her pride will surely never suffer her to remain where she must feel she can be no longer welcome." the young wife's face turned white with terror at her husband's words. "but i could never ask her to go, edward," she said. "i wouldn't turn her out for the world. she may stay there for ever if she likes. i never have cared for the place since papa's death; and i couldn't go back while she is there, i'm so frightened of her, edward, i'm so frightened of her." the vague apprehension burst forth in this childish cry. edward arundel clasped his wife to his breast, and bent over her, kissing her pale forehead, and murmuring soothing words, as he might have done to a child. "my dear, my dear," he said, "my darling mary, this will never do; my own love, this is so very foolish." "i know, i know, edward; but i can't help it, i can't indeed; i was frightened of her long ago; frightened of her even the first day i saw her, the day you took me to the rectory. i was frightened of her when papa first told me he meant to marry her; and i am frightened of her now; even now that i am your wife, edward, i'm frightened of her still." captain arundel kissed away the tears that trembled on his wife's eyelids; but she had scarcely grown quite composed even when the cab stopped at the nine elms railway station. it was only when she was seated in the carriage with her husband, and the rain cleared away as they advanced farther into the heart of the pretty pastoral country, that the bride's sense of happiness and safety in her husband's protection, returned to her. but by that time she was able to smile in his face, and to look forward with delight to a brief sojourn in that pretty hampshire village, which edward had chosen for the scene of his honeymoon. "only a few days of quiet happiness, polly," he said; "a few days of utter forgetfulness of all the world except you; and then i must be a man of business again, and write to your stepmother and my father and mother, and messrs. paulette and mathewson, and all the people who ought to know of our marriage." chapter iii. paul's sister. olivia marchmont shut herself once more in her desolate chamber, making no effort to find the runaway mistress of the towers; indifferent as to what the slanderous tongues of her neighbours might say of her; hardened, callous, desperate. to her father, and to any one else who questioned her about mary's absence,--for the story of the girl's flight was soon whispered abroad, the servants at the towers having received no injunctions to keep the matter secret,--mrs. marchmont replied with such an air of cold and determined reserve as kept the questioners at bay ever afterwards. so the kemberling people, and the swampington people, and all the country gentry within reach of marchmont towers, had a mystery and a scandal provided for them, which afforded ample scope for repeated discussion, and considerably relieved the dull monotony of their lives. but there were some questioners whom mrs. marchmont found it rather difficult to keep at a distance; there were some intruders who dared to force themselves upon the gloomy woman's solitude, and who _would_ not understand that their presence was abhorrent to her. these people were a surgeon and his wife, who had newly settled at kemberling; the best practice in the village falling into the market by reason of the death of a steady-going, gray-headed old practitioner, who for many years had shared with one opponent the responsibility of watching over the health of the lincolnshire village. it was about three weeks after mary marchmont's flight when these unwelcome guests first came to the towers. olivia sat alone in her dead husband's study,--the same room in which she had sat upon the morning of john marchmont's funeral,--a dark and gloomy chamber, wainscoted with blackened oak, and lighted only by a massive stone-framed tudor window looking out into the quadrangle, and overshadowed by that cloistered colonnade beneath whose shelter edward and mary had walked upon the morning of the girl's flight. this wainscoted study was an apartment which most women, having all the rooms in marchmont towers at their disposal, would have been likely to avoid; but the gloom of the chamber harmonised with that horrible gloom which had taken possession of olivia's soul, and the widow turned from the sunny western front, as she turned from all the sunlight and gladness in the universe, to come here, where the summer radiance rarely crept through the diamond-panes of the window, where the shadow of the cloister shut out the glory of the blue sky. she was sitting in this room,--sitting near the open window, in a high-backed chair of carved and polished oak, with her head resting against the angle of the embayed window, and her handsome profile thrown into sharp relief by the dark green-cloth curtain, which hung in straight folds from the low ceiling to the ground, and made a sombre background to the widow's figure. mrs. marchmont had put away all the miserable gew-gaws and vanities which she had ordered from london in a sudden excess of folly or caprice, and had reassumed her mourning-robes of lustreless black. she had a book in her hand,--some new and popular fiction, which all lincolnshire was eager to read; but although her eyes were fixed upon the pages before her, and her hand mechanically turned over leaf after leaf at regular intervals of time, the fashionable romance was only a weary repetition of phrases, a dull current of words, always intermingled with the images of edward arundel and mary marchmont, which arose out of every page to mock the hopeless reader. olivia flung the book away from her at last, with a smothered cry of rage. "is there no cure for this disease?" she muttered. "is there no relief except madness or death?" but in the infidelity which had arisen out of her despair this woman had grown to doubt if either death or madness could bring her oblivion of her anguish. she doubted the quiet of the grave; and half-believed that the torture of jealous rage and slighted love might mingle even with that silent rest, haunting her in her coffin, shutting her out of heaven, and following her into a darker world, there to be her torment everlastingly. there were times when she thought madness must mean forgetfulness; but there were other moments when she shuddered, horror-stricken, at the thought that, in the wandering brain of a mad woman, the image of that grief which had caused the shipwreck of her senses might still hold its place, distorted and exaggerated,--a gigantic unreality, ten thousand times more terrible than the truth. remembering the dreams which disturbed her broken sleep,--those dreams which, in their feverish horror, were little better than intervals of delirium,--it is scarcely strange if olivia marchmont thought thus. she had not succumbed without many struggles to her sin and despair. again and again she had abandoned herself to the devils at watch to destroy her, and again and again she had tried to extricate her soul from their dreadful power; but her most passionate endeavours were in vain. perhaps it was that she did not strive aright; it was for this reason, surely, that she failed so utterly to arise superior to her despair; for otherwise that terrible belief attributed to the calvinists, that some souls are foredoomed to damnation, would be exemplified by this woman's experience. she could not forget. she could not put away the vengeful hatred that raged like an all-devouring fire in her breast, and she cried in her agony, "there is no cure for this disease!" i think her mistake was in this, that she did not go to the right physician. she practised quackery with her soul, as some people do with their bodies; trying their own remedies, rather than the simple prescriptions of the divine healer of all woes. self-reliant, and scornful of the weakness against which her pride revolted, she trusted to her intellect and her will to lift her out of the moral slough into which her soul had gone down. she said: "i am not a woman to go mad for the love of a boyish face; i am not a woman to die for a foolish fancy, which the veriest schoolgirl might be ashamed to confess to her companion. i am not a woman to do this, and i _will_ cure myself of my folly." mrs. marchmont made an effort to take up her old life, with its dull round of ceaseless duty, its perpetual self-denial. if she had been a roman catholic, she would have gone to the nearest convent, and prayed to be permitted to take such vows as might soonest set a barrier between herself and the world; she would have spent the long weary days in perpetual and secret prayer; she would have worn deeper indentations upon the stones already hollowed by faithful knees. as it was, she made a routine of penance for herself, after her own fashion: going long distances on foot to visit her poor, when she might have ridden in her carriage; courting exposure to rain and foul weather; wearing herself out with unnecessary fatigue, and returning footsore to her desolate home, to fall fainting into the strong arms of her grim attendant, barbara. but this self-appointed penance could not shut edward arundel and mary marchmont from the widow's mind. walking through a fiery furnace their images would have haunted her still, vivid and palpable even in the agony of death. the fatigue of the long weary walks made mrs. marchmont wan and pale; the exposure to storm and rain brought on a tiresome, hacking cough, which worried her by day and disturbed her fitful slumbers by night. no good whatever seemed to come of her endeavours; and the devils who rejoiced at her weakness and her failure claimed her as their own. they claimed her as their own; and they were not without terrestrial agents, working patiently in their service, and ready to help in securing their bargain. the great clock in the quadrangle had struck the half-hour after three; the atmosphere of the august afternoon was sultry and oppressive. mrs. marchmont had closed her eyes after flinging aside her book, and had fallen into a doze: her nights were broken and wakeful, and the hot stillness of the day had made her drowsy. she was aroused from this half-slumber by barbara simmons, who came into the room carrying two cards upon a salver,--the same old-fashioned and emblazoned salver upon which paul marchmont's card had been brought to the widow nearly three years before. the abigail stood halfway between the door and the window by which the widow sat, looking at her mistress's face with a glance of sharp scrutiny. "she's changed since he came back, and changed again since he went away," the woman thought; "just as she always changed at the rectory at his coming and going. why didn't he take to her, i wonder? he might have known her fancy for him, if he'd had eyes to watch her face, or ears to listen to her voice. she's handsomer than the other one, and cleverer in book-learning; but she keeps 'em off--she seems allers to keep 'em off." i think olivia marchmont would have torn the very heart out of this waiting-woman's breast, had she known the thoughts that held a place in it: had she known that the servant who attended upon her, and took wages from her, dared to pluck out her secret, and to speculate upon her suffering. the widow awoke suddenly, and looked up with an impatient frown. she had not been awakened by the opening of the door, but by that unpleasant sensation which almost always reveals the presence of a stranger to a sleeper of nervous temperament. "what is it, barbara?" she asked; and then, as her eyes rested on the cards, she added, angrily, "haven't i told you that i would not see any callers to-day? i am worn out with my cough, and feel too ill to see any one." "yes, miss livy," the woman answered;--she called her mistress by this name still, now and then, so familiar had it grown to her during the childhood and youth of the rector's daughter;--"i didn't forget that, miss livy: i told richardson you was not to be disturbed. but the lady and gentleman said, if you saw what was wrote upon the back of one of the cards, you'd be sure to make an exception in their favour. i think that was what the lady said. she's a middle-aged lady, very talkative and pleasant-mannered," added the grim barbara, in nowise relaxing the stolid gravity of her own manner as she spoke. olivia snatched the cards from the salver. "why do people worry me so?" she cried, impatiently. "am i not to be allowed even five minutes' sleep without being broken in upon by some intruder or other?" barbara simmons looked at her mistress's face. anxiety and sadness dimly showed themselves in the stolid countenance of the lady's-maid. a close observer, penetrating below that aspect of wooden solemnity which was barbara's normal expression, might have discovered a secret: the quiet waiting-woman loved her mistress with a jealous and watchful affection, that took heed of every change in its object. mrs. marchmont examined the two cards, which bore the names of mr. and mrs. weston, kemberling. on the back of the lady's card these words were written in pencil: "will mrs. marchmont be so good as to see lavinia weston, paul marchmont's younger sister, and a connection of mrs. m.'s?" olivia shrugged her shoulders, as she threw down the card. "paul marchmont! lavinia weston!" she muttered; "yes, i remember he said something about a sister married to a surgeon at stanfield. let these people come to me, barbara." the waiting-woman looked doubtfully at her mistress. "you'll maybe smooth your hair, and freshen yourself up a bit, before ye see the folks, miss livy," she said, in a tone of mingled suggestion and entreaty. "ye've had a deal of worry lately, and it's made ye look a little fagged and haggard-like. i'd not like the kemberling folks to say as you was ill." mrs. marchmont turned fiercely upon the abigail. "let me alone!" she cried. "what is it to you, or to any one, how i look? what good have my looks done me, that i should worry myself about them?" she added, under her breath. "show these people in here, if they want to see me." "they've been shown into the western drawing-room, ma'am;--richardson took 'em in there." barbara simmons fought hard for the preservation of appearances. she wanted the rector's daughter to receive these strange people, who had dared to intrude upon her, in a manner befitting the dignity of john marchmont's widow. she glanced furtively at the disorder of the gloomy chamber. books and papers were scattered here and there; the hearth and low fender were littered with heaps of torn letters,--for olivia marchmont had no tenderness for the memorials of the past, and indeed took a fierce delight in sweeping away the unsanctified records of her joyless, loveless life. the high-backed oaken chairs had been pushed out of their places; the green-cloth cover had been drawn half off the massive table, and hung in trailing folds upon the ground. a book flung here; a shawl there; a handkerchief in another place; an open secretaire, with scattered documents and uncovered inkstand,--littered the room, and bore mute witness of the restlessness of its occupant. it needed no very subtle psychologist to read aright those separate tokens of a disordered mind; of a weary spirit which had sought distraction in a dozen occupations, and had found relief in none. it was some vague sense of this that caused barbara simmons's anxiety. she wished to keep strangers out of this room, in which her mistress, wan, haggard, and weary-looking, revealed her secret by so many signs and tokens. but before olivia could make any answer to her servant's suggestion, the door, which barbara had left ajar, was pushed open by a very gentle hand, and a sweet voice said, in cheery chirping accents, "i am sure i may come in; may i not, mrs. marchmont? the impression my brother paul's description gave me of you is such a very pleasant one, that i venture to intrude uninvited, almost forbidden, perhaps." the voice and manner of the speaker were so airy and self-possessed, there was such a world of cheerfulness and amiability in every tone, that, as olivia marchmont rose from her chair, she put her hand to her head, dazed and confounded, as if by the too boisterous carolling of some caged bird. what did they mean, these accents of gladness, these clear and untroubled tones, which sounded shrill, and almost discordant, in the despairing woman's ears? she stood, pale and worn, the very picture of all gloom and misery, staring hopelessly at her visitor; too much abandoned to her grief to remember, in that first moment, the stern demands of pride. she stood still; revealing, by her look, her attitude, her silence, her abstraction, a whole history to the watchful eyes that were looking at her. mrs. weston lingered on the threshold of the chamber in a pretty half-fluttering manner; which was charmingly expressive of a struggle between a modest poor-relation-like diffidence and an earnest desire to rush into olivia's arms. the surgeon's wife was a delicate-looking little woman, with features that seemed a miniature and feminine reproduction of her brother paul's, and with very light hair,--hair so light and pale that, had it turned as white as the artist's in a single night, very few people would have been likely to take heed of the change. lavinia weston was eminently what is generally called a _lady-like_ woman. she always conducted herself in that especial and particular manner which was exactly fitted to the occasion. she adjusted her behaviour by the nicest shades of colour and hair-breadth scale of measurement. she had, as it were, made for herself a homoeopathic system of good manners, and could mete out politeness and courtesy in the veriest globules, never administering either too much or too little. to her husband she was a treasure beyond all price; and if the lincolnshire surgeon, who was a fat, solemn-faced man, with a character as level and monotonous as the flats and fens of his native county, was henpecked, the feminine autocrat held the reins of government so lightly, that her obedient subject was scarcely aware how very irresponsible his wife's authority had become. as olivia marchmont stood confronting the timid hesitating figure of the intruder, with the width of the chamber between them, lavinia weston, in her crisp muslin-dress and scarf, her neat bonnet and bright ribbons and primly-adjusted gloves, looked something like an adventurous canary who had a mind to intrude upon the den of a hungry lioness. the difference, physical and moral, between the timid bird and the savage forest-queen could be scarcely wider than that between the two women. but olivia did not stand for ever embarrassed and silent in her visitor's presence. her pride came to her rescue. she turned sternly upon the polite intruder. "walk in, if you please, mrs. weston," she said, "and sit down. i was denied to you just now because i have been ill, and have ordered my servants to deny me to every one." "but, my dear mrs. marchmont," murmured lavinia weston in soft, almost dove-like accents, "if you have been ill, is not your illness another reason for seeing us, rather than for keeping us away from you? i would not, of course, say a word which could in any way be calculated to give offence to your regular medical attendant,--you have a regular medical attendant, no doubt; from swampington, i dare say,--but a doctor's wife may often be useful when a doctor is himself out of place. there are little nervous ailments--depression of spirits, mental uneasiness--from which women, and sensitive women, suffer acutely, and which perhaps a woman's more refined nature alone can thoroughly comprehend. you are not looking well, my dear mrs. marchmont. i left my husband in the drawing-room, for i was so anxious that our first meeting should take place without witnesses. men think women sentimental when they are only impulsive. weston is a good simple-hearted creature, but he knows as much about a woman's mind as he does of an Ã�olian harp. when the strings vibrate, he hears the low plaintive notes, but he has no idea whence the melody comes. it is thus with us, mrs. marchmont. these medical men watch us in the agonies of hysteria; they hear our sighs, they see our tears, and in their awkwardness and ignorance they prescribe commonplace remedies out of the pharmacopoeia. no, dear mrs. marchmont, you do not look well. i fear it is the mind, the mind, which has been over-strained. is it not so?" mrs. weston put her head on one side as she asked this question, and smiled at olivia with an air of gentle insinuation. if the doctor's wife wished to plumb the depths of the widow's gloomy soul, she had an advantage here; for mrs. marchmont was thrown off her guard by the question, which had been perhaps asked hap-hazard, or it may be with a deeply considered design. olivia turned fiercely upon the polite questioner. "i have been suffering from nothing but a cold which i caught the other day," she said; "i am not subject to any fine-ladylike hysteria, i can assure you, mrs. weston." the doctor's wife pursed up her lips into a sympathetic smile, not at all abashed by this rebuff. she had seated herself in one of the high-backed chairs, with her muslin skirt spread out about her. she looked a living exemplification of all that is neat and prim and commonplace, in contrast with the pale, stern-faced woman, standing rigid and defiant in her long black robes. "how very chy-arming!" exclaimed mrs. weston. "you are really _not_ nervous. dee-ar me; and from what my brother paul said, i should have imagined that any one so highly organised must be rather nervous. but i really fear i am impertinent, and that i presume upon our very slight relationship. it _is_ a relationship, is it not, although such a very slight one?" "i have never thought of the subject," mrs. marchmont replied coldly. "i suppose, however, that my marriage with your brother's cousin--" "and _my_ cousin--" "made a kind of connexion between us. but mr. marchmont gave me to understand that you lived at stanfield, mrs. weston." "until last week, positively until last week," answered the surgeon's wife. "i see you take very little interest in village gossip, mrs. marchmont, or you would have heard of the change at kemberling." "what change?" "my husband's purchase of poor old mr. dawnfield's practice. the dear old man died a month ago,--you heard of his death, of course,--and mr. weston negotiated the purchase with mrs. dawnfield in less than a fortnight. we came here early last week, and already we are making friends in the neighbourhood. how strange that you should not have heard of our coming!" "i do not see much society," olivia answered indifferently, "and i hear nothing of the kemberling people." "indeed!" cried mrs. weston; "and we hear so much of marchmont towers at kemberling." she looked full in the widow's face as she spoke, her stereotyped smile subsiding into a look of greedy curiosity; a look whose intense eagerness could not be concealed. that look, and the tone in which her last sentence had been spoken, said as plainly as the plainest words could have done, "i have heard of mary marchmont's flight." olivia understood this; but in the passionate depth of her own madness she had no power to fathom the meanings or the motives of other people. she revolted against this mrs. weston, and disliked her because the woman intruded upon her in her desolation; but she never once thought of lavinia weston's interest in mary's movements; she never once remembered that the frail life of that orphan girl only stood between this woman's brother and the rich heritage of marchmont towers. blind and forgetful of everything in the hideous egotism of her despair, what was olivia marchmont but a fitting tool, a plastic and easily-moulded instrument, in the hands of unscrupulous people, whose hard intellects had never been beaten into confused shapelessness in the fiery furnace of passion? mrs. weston had heard of mary marchmont's flight; but she had heard half a dozen different reports of that event, as widely diversified in their details as if half a dozen heiresses had fled from marchmont towers. every gossip in the place had a separate story as to the circumstances which had led to the girl's running away from her home. the accounts vied with each other in graphic force and minute elaboration; the conversations that had taken place between mary and her stepmother, between edward arundel and mrs. marchmont, between the rector of swampington and nobody in particular, would have filled a volume, as related by the gossips of kemberling; but as everybody assigned a different cause for the terrible misunderstanding at the towers, and a different direction for mary's flight,--and as the railway official at the station, who could have thrown some light on the subject, was a stern and moody man, who had little sympathy with his kind, and held his tongue persistently,--it was not easy to get very near the truth. under these circumstances, then, mrs. weston determined upon seeking information at the fountain-head, and approaching the cruel stepmother, who, according to some of the reports, had starved and beaten her dead husband's child. "yes, dear mrs. marchmont," said lavinia weston, seeing that it was necessary to come direct to the point if she wished to wring the truth from olivia; "yes, we hear of everything at kemberling; and i need scarcely tell you, that we heard of the sad trouble which you have had to endure since your ball--the ball that is spoken of as the most chy-arming entertainment remembered in the neighbourhood for a long time. we heard of this sad girl's flight." mrs. marchmont looked up with a dark frown, but made no answer. "was she--it really is such a very painful question, that i almost shrink from--but was miss marchmont at all--eccentric--a little mentally deficient? pray pardon me, if i have given you pain by such a question; but----" olivia started, and looked sharply at her visitor. "mentally deficient? no!" she said. but as she spoke her eyes dilated, her pale cheeks grew paler, her upper lip quivered with a faint convulsive movement. it seemed as if some idea presented itself to her with a sudden force that almost took away her breath. "_not_ mentally deficient!" repeated lavinia weston; "dee-ar me! it's a great comfort to hear that. of course paul saw very little of his cousin, and he was not therefore in a position to judge,--though his opinions, however rapidly arrived at, are generally so _very_ accurate;--but he gave me to understand that he thought miss marchmont appeared a little--just a little--weak in her intellect. i am very glad to find he was mistaken." olivia made no reply to this speech. she had seated herself in her chair by the window; she looked straight before her into the flagged quadrangle, with her hands lying idle in her lap. it seemed as if she were actually unconscious of her visitor's presence, or as if, in her scornful indifference, she did not even care to affect any interest in that visitor's conversation. lavinia weston returned again to the attack. "pray, mrs. marchmont, do not think me intrusive or impertinent," she said pleadingly, "if i ask you to favour me with the true particulars of this sad event. i am sure you will be good enough to remember that my brother paul, my sister, and myself are mary marchmont's nearest relatives on her father's side, and that we have therefore some right to feel interested in her?" by this very polite speech lavinia weston plainly reminded the widow of the insignificance of her own position at marchmont towers. in her ordinary frame of mind olivia would have resented the ladylike slight, but to-day she neither heard nor heeded it; she was brooding with a stupid, unreasonable persistency over the words "mental deficiency," "weak intellect." she only roused herself by a great effort to answer mrs. weston's question, when that lady had repeated it in very plain words. "i can tell you nothing about miss marchmont's flight," she said, coldly, "except that she chose to run away from her home. i found reason to object to her conduct upon the night of the ball; and the next morning she left the house, assigning no reason--to me, at any rate--for her absurd and improper behaviour." "she assigned no reason to _you_, my dear mrs. marchmont; but she assigned a reason to somebody, i infer, from what you say?" "yes; she wrote a letter to my cousin, captain arundel." "telling him the reason of her departure?" "i don't know--i forget. the letter told nothing clearly; it was wild and incoherent." mrs. weston sighed,--a long-drawn, desponding sigh. "wild and incoherent!" she murmured, in a pensive tone. "how grieved paul will be to hear of this! he took such an interest in his cousin--a delicate and fragile-looking young creature, he told me. yes, he took a very great interest in her, mrs. marchmont, though you may perhaps scarcely believe me when i say so. he kept himself purposely aloof from this place; his sensitive nature led him to abstain from even revealing his interest in miss marchmont. his position, you must remember, with regard to this poor dear girl, is a very delicate--i may say a very painful--one." olivia remembered nothing of the kind. the value of the marchmont estates; the sordid worth of those wide-stretching farms, spreading far-away into yorkshire; the pitiful, closely-calculated revenue, which made mary a wealthy heiress,--were so far from the dark thoughts of this woman's desperate heart, that she no more suspected mrs. weston of any mercenary design in coming to the towers, than of burglarious intentions with regard to the silver spoons in the plate-room. she only thought that the surgeon's wife was a tiresome woman, against whose pertinacious civility her angry spirit chafed and rebelled, until she was almost driven to order her from the room. in this cruel weariness of spirit mrs. marchmont gave a short impatient sigh, which afforded a sufficient hint to such an accomplished tactician as her visitor. "i know i have tired you, my dear mrs. marchmont," the doctor's wife said, rising and arranging her muslin scarf as she spoke, in token of her immediate departure. "i am so sorry to find you a sufferer from that nasty hacking cough; but of course you have the best advice,--mr. barlow from swampington, i think you said?"--olivia had said nothing of the kind;--"and i trust the warm weather will prevent the cough taking any hold of your chest. if i might venture to suggest flannels--so many young women quite ridicule the idea of flannels--but, as the wife of a humble provincial practitioner, i have learned their value. good-bye, dear mrs. marchmont. i may come again, may i not, now that the ice is broken, and we are so well acquainted with each other? good-bye." olivia could not refuse to take at least _one_ of the two plump and tightly-gloved hands which were held out to her with an air of frank cordiality; but the widow's grasp was loose and nerveless, and, inasmuch as two consentient parties are required to the shaking of hands as well as to the getting up of a quarrel, the salutation was not a very hearty one. the surgeon's pony must have been weary of standing before the flight of shallow steps leading to the western portico, when mrs. weston took her seat by her husband's side in the gig, which had been newly painted and varnished since the worthy couple's hegira from stanfield. the surgeon was not an ambitious man, nor a designing man; he was simply stupid and lazy--lazy although, in spite of himself, he led an active and hard-working life; but there are many square men whose sides are cruelly tortured by the pressure of the round holes into which they are ill-advisedly thrust, and if our destinies were meted out to us in strict accordance with our temperaments, mr. weston should have been a lotus-eater. as it was, he was content to drudge on, mildly complying with every desire of his wife; doing what she told him, because it was less trouble to do the hardest work at her bidding than to oppose her. it would have been surely less painful for macbeth to have finished that ugly business of the murder than to have endured my lady's black contemptuous scowl, and the bitter scorn and contumely concentrated in those four words, "give _me_ the daggers." mr. weston asked one or two commonplace questions about his wife's interview with john marchmont's widow; but, slowly apprehending that lavinia did not care to discuss the matter, he relapsed into meek silence, and devoted all his intellectual powers to the task of keeping the pony out of the deeper ruts in the rugged road between marchmont towers and kemberling high street. "what is the secret of that woman's life?" thought lavinia weston during that homeward drive. "has she ill-treated the girl, or is she plotting in some way or other to get hold of the marchmont fortune? pshaw! that's impossible. and yet she may be making a purse, somehow or other, out of the estate. anyhow, there is bad blood between the two women." chapter iv. a stolen honeymoon. the village to which edward arundel took his bride was within a few miles of winchester. the young soldier had become familiar with the place in his early boyhood, when he had gone to spend a part of one bright midsummer holiday at the house of a schoolfellow; and had ever since cherished a friendly remembrance of the winding trout-streams, the rich verdure of the valleys, and the sheltering hills that shut in the pleasant little cluster of thatched cottages, the pretty white-walled villas, and the grey old church. but to mary, whose experiences of town and country were limited to the dingy purlieus of oakley street and the fenny flats of lincolnshire, this hampshire village seemed a rustic paradise, which neither trouble nor sorrow could ever approach. she had trembled at the thought of olivia's coming in oakley street; but here she seemed to lose all terror of her stern stepmother,--here, sheltered and protected by her young husband's love, she fancied that she might live her life out happy and secure. she told edward this one sunny morning, as they sat by the young man's favourite trout-stream. captain arundel's fishing-tackle lay idle on the turf at his side, for he had been beguiled into forgetfulness of a ponderous trout he had been watching and finessing with for upwards of an hour, and had flung himself at full length upon the mossy margin of the water, with his uncovered head lying in mary's lap. the childish bride would have been content to sit for ever thus in that rural solitude, with her fingers twisted in her husband's chestnut curls, and her soft eyes keeping timid watch upon his handsome face,--so candid and unclouded in its careless repose. the undulating meadow-land lay half-hidden in a golden haze, only broken here and there by the glitter of the brighter sunlight that lit up the waters of the wandering streams that intersected the low pastures. the massive towers of the cathedral, the grey walls of st. cross, loomed dimly in the distance; the bubbling plash of a mill-stream sounded like some monotonous lullaby in the drowsy summer atmosphere. mary looked from the face she loved to the fair landscape about her, and a tender solemnity crept into her mind--a reverent love and admiration for this beautiful earth, which was almost akin to awe. "how pretty this place is, edward!" she said. "i had no idea there were such places in all the wide world. do you know, i think i would rather be a cottage-girl here than an heiress in lincolnshire. edward, if i ask you a favour, will you grant it?" she spoke very earnestly, looking down at her husband's upturned face; but captain arundel only laughed at her question, without even caring to lift the drowsy eyelids that drooped over his blue eyes. "well, my pet, if you want anything short of the moon, i suppose your devoted husband is scarcely likely to refuse it. our honeymoon is not a fortnight old yet, polly dear; you wouldn't have me turn tyrant quite as soon as this. speak out, mrs. arundel, and assert your dignity as a british matron. what is the favour i am to grant?" "i want you to live here always, edward darling," pleaded the girlish voice. "not for a fortnight or a month, but for ever and ever. i have never been happy at marchmont towers. papa died there, you know, and i cannot forget that. perhaps that ought to have made the place sacred to me, and so it has; but it is sacred like papa's tomb in kemberling church, and it seems like profanation to be happy in it, or to forget my dead father even for a moment. don't let us go back there, edward. let my stepmother live there all her life. it would seem selfish and cruel to turn her out of the house she has so long been mistress of. mr. gormby will go on collecting the rents, you know, and can send us as much money as we want; and we can take that pretty house we saw to let on the other side of milldale,--the house with the rookery, and the dovecotes, and the sloping lawn leading down to the water. you know you don't like lincolnshire, edward, any more than i do, and there's scarcely any trout-fishing near the towers." captain arundel opened his eyes, and lifted himself out of his reclining position before he answered his wife. "my own precious polly," he said, smiling fondly at the gentle childish face turned in such earnestness towards his own; "my runaway little wife, rich people have their duties to perform as well as poor people; and i am afraid it would never do for you to hide in this out-of-the-way hampshire village, and play absentee from stately marchmont and all its dependencies. i love that pretty, infantine, unworldly spirit of yours, my darling; and i sometimes wish we were two grown-up babes in the wood, and could wander about gathering wild flowers, and eating blackberries and hazel-nuts, until the shades of evening closed in, and the friendly robins came to bury us. don't fancy i am tired of our honeymoon, polly, or that i care for marchmont towers any more than you do; but i fear the non-residence plan would never answer. the world would call my little wife eccentric, if she ran away from her grandeur; and paul marchmont the artist,--of whom your poor father had rather a bad opinion, by the way,--would be taking out a statute of lunacy against you." "paul marchmont!" repeated mary. "did papa dislike mr. paul marchmont?" "well, poor john had a sort of a prejudice against the man, i believe; but it was only a prejudice, for he freely confessed that he could assign no reason for it. but whatever mr. paul marchmont may be, you must live at the towers, mary, and be lady bountiful-in-chief in your neighbourhood, and look after your property, and have long interviews with mr. gormby, and become altogether a woman of business; so that when i go back to india----" mary interrupted him with a little cry: "go back to india!" she exclaimed. "what do you mean, edward?" "i mean, my darling, that my business in life is to fight for my queen and country, and not to spunge upon my wife's fortune. you don't suppose i'm going to lay down my sword at seven-and-twenty years of age, and retire upon my pension? no, polly; you remember what lord nelson said on the deck of the _victory_ at trafalgar. that saying can never be so hackneyed as to lose its force. i must do my duty, polly--i must do my duty, even if duty and love pull different ways, and i have to leave my darling, in the service of my country." mary clasped her hands in despair, and looked piteously at her lover-husband, with the tears streaming down her pale cheeks. "o edward," she cried, "how cruel you are; how very, very cruel you are to me! what is the use of my fortune if you won't share it with me, if you won't take it all; for it is yours, my dearest--it is all yours? i remember the words in the marriage service, 'with all my goods i thee endow.' i have given you marchmont towers, edward; nobody in the world can take it away from you. you never, never, never could be so cruel as to leave me! i know how brave and good you are, and i am proud to think of your noble courage and all the brave deeds you did in india. but you _have_ fought for your country, edward; you _have_ done your duty. nobody can expect more of you; nobody shall take you from me. o my darling, my husband, you promised to shelter and defend me while our lives last! you won't leave me--you won't leave me, will you?" edward arundel kissed the tears away from his wife's pale face, and drew her head upon his bosom. "my love," he said tenderly, "you cannot tell how much pain it gives me to hear you talk like this. what can i do? to give up my profession would be to make myself next kin to a pauper. what would the world say of me, mary? think of that. this runaway marriage would be a dreadful dishonour to me, if it were followed by a life of lazy dependence on my wife's fortune. nobody can dare to slander the soldier who spends the brightest years of his life in the service of his country. you would not surely have me be less than true to myself, mary darling? for my honour's sake, i must leave you." "o no, no, no!" cried the girl, in a low wailing voice. unselfish and devoted as she had been in every other crisis of her young life, she could not be reasonable or self-denying here; she was seized with despair at the thought of parting with her husband. no, not even for his honour's sake could she let him go. better that they should both die now, in this early noontide of their happiness. "edward, edward," she sobbed, clinging convulsively about the young man's neck, "don't leave me--don't leave me!" "will you go with me to india, then, mary?" she lifted her head suddenly, and looked her husband in the face, with the gladness in her eyes shining through her tears, like an april sun through a watery sky. "i would go to the end of the world with you, my own darling," she said; "the burning sands and the dreadful jungles would have no terrors for me, if i were with you, edward." captain arundel smiled at her earnestness. "i won't take you into the jungle, my love," he answered, playfully; "or if i do, your palki shall be well guarded, and all ravenous beasts kept at a respectful distance from my little wife. a great many ladies go to india with their husbands, polly, and come back very little the worse for the climate or the voyage; and except your money, there is no reason you should not go with me." "oh, never mind my money; let anybody have that." "polly," cried the soldier, very seriously, "we must consult richard paulette as to the future. i don't think i did right in marrying you during his absence; and i have delayed writing to him too long, polly. those letters must be written this afternoon." "the letter to mr. paulette and to your father?" "yes; and the letter to my cousin olivia." mary's face grew sorrowful again, as captain arundel said this. "_must_ you tell my stepmother of our marriage?" she said. "most assuredly, my dear. why should we keep her in ignorance of it? your father's will gave her the privilege of advising you, but not the power to interfere with your choice, whatever that choice might be. you were your own mistress, mary, when you married me. what reason have you to fear my cousin olivia?" "no reason, perhaps," the girl answered, sadly; "but i do fear her. i know i am very foolish, edward, and you have reason to despise me,--you who are so brave. but i could never tell you how i tremble at the thought of being once more in my stepmother's power. she said cruel things to me, edward. every word she spoke seemed to stab me to the heart; but it isn't that only. there's something more than that; something that i can't describe, that i can't understand; something which tells me that she hates me." "hates you, darling?" "yes, edward; yes, she hates me. it wasn't always so, you know. she used to be only cold and reserved, but lately her manner has changed. i thought that she was ill, perhaps, and that my presence worried her. people often wish to be alone, i know, when they are ill. o edward, i have seen her shrink from me, and shudder if her dress brushed against mine, as if i had been some horrible creature. what have i done, edward, that she should hate me?" captain arundel knitted his brows, and set himself to work out this womanly problem, but he could make nothing of it. yes, what mary had said was perfectly true: olivia hated her. the young man had seen that upon the morning of the girl's flight from marchmont towers; he had seen vengeful fury and vindictive passion raging in the dark face of john marchmont's widow. but what reason could the woman have for her hatred of this innocent girl? again and again olivia's cousin asked himself this question; and he was so far away from the truth at last, that he could only answer it by imagining the lowest motive for the widow's bad feeling. "she envies my poor little girl her fortune and position," he thought. "but you won't leave me alone with my stepmother, will you, edward?" mary said, recurring to her old prayer. "i am not afraid of her, nor of anybody or anything in the world, while you are with me,--how should i be?--but i think if i were to be alone with her again, i should die. she would speak to me again as she spoke upon the night of the ball, and her bitter taunts would kill me. i _could_ not bear to be in her power again, edward." "and you shall not, my darling," answered the young man, enfolding the slender, trembling figure in his strong arms. "my own childish pet, you shall never be exposed to any woman's insolence or tyranny. you shall be sheltered and protected, and hedged in on every side by your husband's love. and when i go to india, you shall sail with me, my pearl. mary, look up and smile at me, and let's have no more talk of cruel stepmothers. how strange it seems to me, polly dear, that you should have been so womanly when you were a child, and yet are so childlike now you are a woman!" the mistress of marchmont towers looked doubtfully at her husband, as if she feared her childishness might be displeasing to him. "you don't love me any the less because of that, do you, edward?" she asked timidly. "because of what, my treasure?" "because i am so--childish?" "polly," cried the young man, "do you think jupiter liked hebe any the less because she was as fresh and innocent as the nectar she served out to him? if he had, my dear, he'd have sent for clotho, or atropos, or some one or other of the elderly maiden ladies of hades, to wait upon him as cupbearer. i wouldn't have you otherwise than you are, polly, by so much as one thought." the girl looked up at her husband in a rapture of innocent affection. "i am too happy, edward," she said, in a low awe-stricken whisper--"i am too happy! so much happiness can never last." alas! the orphan girl's experience of this life had early taught her the lesson which some people learn so late. she had learnt to distrust the equal blue of a summer sky, the glorious splendour of the blazing sunlight. she was accustomed to sorrow; but these brief glimpses of perfect happiness filled her with a dim sense of terror. she felt like some earthly wanderer who had strayed across the threshold of paradise. in the midst of her delight and admiration, she trembled for the moment in which the ruthless angels, bearing flaming swords, should drive her from the celestial gates. "it can't last, edward," she murmured. "can't last, polly!" cried the young man; "why, my dove is transformed all at once into a raven. we have outlived our troubles, polly, like the hero and heroine in one of your novels; and what is to prevent our living happy ever afterwards, like them? if you remember, my dear, no sorrows or trials ever fall to the lot of people _after_ marriage. the persecutions, the separations, the estrangements, are all ante-nuptial. when once your true novelist gets his hero and heroine up to the altar-rails in real earnest,--he gets them into the church sometimes, and then forbids the banns, or brings a former wife, or a rightful husband, pale and denouncing, from behind a pillar, and drives the wretched pair out again, to persecute them through three hundred pages more before he lets them get back again,--but when once the important words are spoken and the knot tied, the story's done, and the happy couple get forty or fifty years' wedded bliss, as a set-off against the miseries they have endured in the troubled course of a twelvemonth's courtship. that's the sort of thing, isn't it, polly?" the clock of st. cross, sounding faintly athwart the meadows, struck three as the young man finished speaking. "three o'clock, polly!" he cried; "we must go home, my pet. i mean to be businesslike to-day." upon each day in that happy honeymoon holiday captain arundel had made some such declaration with regard to his intention of being businesslike; that is to say, setting himself deliberately to the task of writing those letters which should announce and explain his marriage to the people who had a right to hear of it. but the soldier had a dislike to all letter-writing, and a special horror of any epistolary communication which could come under the denomination of a business-letter; so the easy summer days slipped by,--the delicious drowsy noontides, the soft and dreamy twilight, the tender moonlit nights,--and the captain put off the task for which he had no fancy, from after breakfast until after dinner, and from after dinner until after breakfast; always beguiled away from his open travelling-desk by a word from mary, who called him to the window to look at a pretty child on the village green before the inn, or at the blacksmith's dog, or the tinker's donkey, or a tired italian organ-boy who had strayed into that out-of-the-way nook, or at the smart butcher from winchester, who rattled over in a pony-cart twice a week to take orders from the gentry round about, and to insult and defy the local purveyor, whose stock-in-trade generally seemed to consist of one leg of mutton and a dish of pig's fry. the young couple walked slowly through the meadows, crossing rustic wooden bridges that spanned the winding stream, loitering to look down into the clear water at the fish which captain arundel pointed out, but which mary could never see;--that young lady always fixing her eyes upon some long trailing weed afloat in the transparent water, while the silvery trout indicated by her husband glided quietly away to the sedgy bottom of the stream. they lingered by the water-mill, beneath whose shadow some children were fishing; they seized upon every pretext for lengthening that sunny homeward walk, and only reached the inn as the village clocks were striking four, at which hour captain arundel had ordered dinner. but after the simple little repast, mild and artless in its nature as the fair young spirit of the bride herself; after the landlord, sympathetic yet respectful, had in his own person attended upon his two guests; after the pretty rustic chamber had been cleared of all evidence of the meal that had been eaten, edward arundel began seriously to consider the business in hand. "the letters must be written, polly," he said, seating himself at a table near the open window. trailing branches of jasmine and honeysuckle made a framework round the diamond-paned casement; the perfumed blossoms blew into the room with every breath of the warm august breeze, and hung trembling in the folds of the chintz curtains. mr. arundel's gaze wandered dreamily away through this open window to the primitive picture without,--the scattered cottages upon the other side of the green, the cattle standing in the pond, the cackling geese hurrying homeward across the purple ridge of common, the village gossips loitering beneath the faded sign that hung before the low white tavern at the angle of the road. he looked at all these things as he flung his leathern desk upon the table, and made a great parade of unlocking and opening it. "the letters must be written," he repeated, with a smothered sigh. "did you ever notice a peculiar property in stationery, polly?" mrs. edward arundel only opened her brown eyes to their widest extent, and stared at her husband. "no, i see you haven't," said the young man. "how should you, you fortunate polly? you've never had to write any business-letters yet, though you are an heiress. the peculiarity of all stationery, my dear, is, that it is possessed of an intuitive knowledge of the object for which it is to be used. if one has to write an unpleasant letter, polly, it might go a little smoother, you know; one might round one's paragraphs, and spell the difficult words--the 'believes' and 'receives,' the 'tills' and 'untils,' and all that sort of thing--better with a pleasant pen, an easy-going, jolly, soft-nibbed quill, that would seem to say, 'cheer up, old fellow! i'll carry you through it; we'll get to "your very obedient servant" before you know where you are,' and so on. but, bless your heart, polly! let a poor unbusinesslike fellow try to write a business-letter, and everything goes against him. the pen knows what he's at, and jibs, and stumbles, and shies about the paper, like a broken-down screw; the ink turns thick and lumpy; the paper gets as greasy as a london pavement after a fall of snow, till a poor fellow gives up, and knocks under to the force of circumstances. you see if my pen doesn't splutter, polly, the moment i address richard paulette." captain arundel was very careful in the adjustment of his sheet of paper, and began his letter with an air of resolution. "white hart inn, milldale, near winchester, "august th. "my dear sir," he wrote as much as this with great promptitude, and then, with his elbow on the table, fell to staring at his pretty young wife and drumming his fingers on his chin. mary was sitting opposite her husband at the open window, working, or making a pretence of being occupied with some impossible fragment of berlin wool-work, while she watched her husband. "how pretty you look in that white frock, polly!" said the soldier; "you call those things frocks, don't you? and that blue sash, too,--you ought always to wear white, mary, like your namesakes abroad who are _vouée au blanc_ by their faithful mothers, and who are a blessing to the laundresses for the first seven or fourteen years of their lives. what shall i say to paulette? he's such a jolly fellow, there oughtn't to be much difficulty about the matter. 'my dear sir,' seems absurdly stiff; 'my dear paulette,'--that's better,--'i write this to inform you that your client, miss mary march----' what's that, polly?" it was the postman, a youth upon a pony, with the afternoon letters from london. captain arundel flung down his pen and went to the window. he had some interest in this young man's arrival, as he had left orders that such letters as were addressed to him at the hotel in covent garden should be forwarded to him at milldale. "i daresay there's a letter from germany, polly," he said eagerly. "my mother and letitia are capital correspondents; i'll wager anything there's a letter, and i can answer it in the one i'm going to write this evening, and that'll be killing two birds with one stone. i'll run down to the postman, polly." captain arundel had good reason to go after his letters, for there seemed little chance of those missives being brought to him. the youthful postman was standing in the porch drinking ale out of a ponderous earthenware mug, and talking to the landlord, when edward went down. "any letters for me, dick?" the captain asked. he knew the christian name of almost every visitor or hanger-on at the little inn, though he had not stayed there an entire fortnight, and was as popular and admired as if he had been some free-spoken young squire to whom all the land round about belonged. "'ees, sir," the young man answered, shuffling off his cap; "there be two letters for ye." he handed the two packets to captain arundel, who looked doubtfully at the address of the uppermost, which, like the other, had been re-directed by the people at the london hotel. the original address of this letter was in a handwriting that was strange to him; but it bore the postmark of the village from which the dangerfield letters were sent. the back of the inn looked into an orchard, and through an open door opposite to the porch edward arundel saw the low branches of the trees, and the ripening fruit red and golden in the afternoon sunlight. he went out into this orchard to read his letters, his mind a little disturbed by the strange handwriting upon the dangerfield epistle. the letter was from his father's housekeeper, imploring him most earnestly to go down to the park without delay. squire arundel had been stricken with paralysis, and was declared to be in imminent danger. mrs. and miss arundel and mr. reginald were away in germany. the faithful old servant implored the younger son to lose no time in hurrying home, if he wished to see his father alive. the soldier leaned against the gnarled grey trunk of an old apple-tree, and stared at this letter with a white awe-stricken face. what was he to do? he must go to his father, of course. he must go without a moment's delay. he must catch the first train that would carry him westward from southampton. there could be no question as to his duty. he must go; he must leave his young wife. his heart sank with a sharp thrill of pain, and with perhaps some faint shuddering sense of an unknown terror, as he thought of this. "it was lucky i didn't write the letters," he reflected; "no one will guess the secret of my darling's retreat. she can stay here till i come back to her. god knows i shall hurry back the moment my duty sets me free. these people will take care of her. no one will know where to look for her. i'm very glad i didn't write to olivia. we were so happy this morning! who could think that sorrow would come between us so soon?" captain arundel looked at his watch. it was a quarter to six o'clock, and he knew that an express left southampton for the west at eight. there would be time for him to catch that train with the help of a sturdy pony belonging to the landlord of the white hart, which would rattle him over to the station in an hour and a half. there would be time for him to catch the train; but, oh! how little time to comfort his darling--how little time to reconcile his young wife to the temporary separation! he hurried back to the porch, briefly explained to the landlord what had happened, ordered the pony and gig to be got ready immediately, and then went very, very slowly upstairs, to the room in which his young wife sat by the open window waiting for his return. mary looked up at his face as he entered the room, and that one glance told her of some new sorrow. "edward," she cried, starting up from her chair with a look of terror, "my stepmother has come." even in his trouble the young man smiled at his foolish wife's all-absorbing fear of olivia marchmont. "no, my darling," he said; "i wish to heaven our worst trouble were the chance of your father's widow breaking in upon us. something has happened, mary; something very sorrowful, very serious for me. my father is ill, polly dear, dangerously ill, and i must go to him." mary arundel drew a long breath. her face had grown very white, and the hands that were linked tightly round her husband's arm trembled a little. "i will try to bear it," she said; "i will try to bear it." "god bless you, my darling!" the soldier answered fervently, clasping his young wife to his breast. "i know you will. it will be a very short parting, mary dearest. i will come back to you directly i have seen my father. if he is worse, there will be little need for me to stop at dangerfield; if he is better, i can take you back there with me. my own darling love, it is very bitter for us to be parted thus; but i know that you will bear it like a heroine. won't you, polly?" "i will try to bear it, dear." she said very little more than this, but clung about her husband, not with any desperate force, not with any clamorous and tumultuous grief, but with a half-despondent resignation; as a drowning man, whose strength is well-nigh exhausted, may cling, in his hopelessness, to a spar, which he knows he must presently abandon. mary arundel followed her husband hither and thither while he made his brief and hurried preparations for the sudden journey; but although she was powerless to assist him,--for her trembling hands let fall everything she tried to hold, and there was a mist before her eyes, which distorted and blotted the outline of every object she looked at,--she hindered him by no noisy lamentations, she distressed him by no tears. she suffered, as it was her habit to suffer, quietly and uncomplainingly. the sun was sinking when she went with edward downstairs to the porch, before which the landlord's pony and gig were in waiting, in custody of a smart lad who was to accompany mr. arundel to southampton. there was no time for any protracted farewell. it was better so, perhaps, edward thought. he would be back so soon, that the grief he felt in this parting--and it may be that his suffering was scarcely less than mary's--seemed wasted anguish, to which it would have been sheer cowardice to give way. but for all this the soldier very nearly broke down when he saw his childish wife's piteous face, white in the evening sunlight, turned to him in mute appeal, as if the quivering lips would fain have entreated him to abandon all and to remain. he lifted the fragile figure in his arms,--alas! it had never seemed so fragile as now,--and covered the pale face with passionate kisses and fast-dropping tears. "god bless and defend you, mary! god keep----" he was ashamed of the huskiness of his voice, and putting his wife suddenly away from him, he sprang into the gig, snatched the reins from the boy's hand, and drove away at the pony's best speed. the old-fashioned vehicle disappeared in a cloud of dust; and mary, looking after her husband with eyes that were as yet tearless, saw nothing but glaring light and confusion, and a pastoral landscape that reeled and heaved like a stormy sea. it seemed to her, as she went slowly back to her room, and sat down amidst the disorder of open portmanteaus and overturned hatboxes, which the young man had thrown here and there in his hurried selection of the few things necessary for him to take on his hasty journey--it seemed as if the greatest calamity of her life had now befallen her. as hopelessly as she had thought of her father's death, she now thought of edward arundel's departure. she could not see beyond the acute anguish of this separation. she could not realise to herself that there was no cause for all this terrible sorrow; that the parting was only a temporary one; and that her husband would return to her in a few days at the furthest. now that she was alone, now that the necessity for heroism was past, she abandoned herself utterly to the despair that had held possession of her soul from the moment in which captain arundel had told her of his father's illness. the sun went down behind the purple hills that sheltered the western side of the little village. the tree-tops in the orchard below the open window of mrs. arundel's bedroom grew dim in the grey twilight. little by little the sound of voices in the rooms below died away into stillness. the fresh rosy-cheeked country girl who had waited upon the young husband and wife, came into the sitting-room with a pair of wax-candles in old-fashioned silver candlesticks, and lingered in the room for a little time, expecting to receive some order from the lonely watcher. but mary had locked the door of her bedchamber, and sat with her head upon the sill of the open window, looking out into the dim orchard. it was only when the stars glimmered in the tranquil sky that the girl's blank despair gave way before a sudden burst of tears, and she flung herself down beside the white-curtained bed to pray for her young husband. she prayed for him in an ecstatic fervour of love and faith, carried away by the new hopefulness that arose out of her ardent supplications, and picturing him going triumphant on his course, to find his father out of danger,--restored to health, perhaps,--and to return to her before the stars glimmered through the darkness of another summer's night. she prayed for him, hoping and believing everything; though at the hour in which she knelt, with the faint starlight shimmering upon her upturned face and clasped hands, edward arundel was lying, maimed and senseless, in the wretched waiting-room of a little railway-station in dorsetshire, watched over by an obscure country surgeon, while the frightened officials scudded here and there in search of some vehicle in which the young man might be conveyed to the nearest town. there had been one of those accidents which seem terribly common on every line of railway, however well managed. a signalman had mistaken one train for another; a flag had been dropped too soon; and the down-express had run into a heavy luggage-train blundering up from exeter with farm-produce for the london markets. two men had been killed, and a great many passengers hurt; some very seriously. edward arundel's case was perhaps one of the most serious amongst these. chapter v. sounding the depths. lavinia weston spent the evening after her visit to marchmont towers at her writing-desk, which, like everything else appertaining to her, was a model of neatness and propriety; perfect in its way, although it was no marvellous specimen of walnut-wood and burnished gold, no elegant structure of papier-mâché and mother-of-pearl, but simply a schoolgirl's homely rosewood desk, bought for fifteen shillings or a guinea. mrs. weston had administered the evening refreshment of weak tea, stale bread, and strong butter to her meek husband, and had dismissed him to the surgery, a sunken and rather cellar-like apartment opening out of the prim second-best parlour, and approached from the village street by a side-door. the surgeon was very well content to employ himself with the preparation of such draughts and boluses as were required by the ailing inhabitants of kemberling, while his wife sat at her desk in the room above him. he left his gallipots and pestle and mortar once or twice in the course of the evening, to clamber ponderously up the three or four stairs leading to the sitting-room, and stare through the keyhole of the door at mrs. weston's thoughtful face, and busy hand gliding softly over the smooth note-paper. he did this in no prying or suspicious spirit, but out of sheer admiration for his wife. "what a mind she has!" he murmured rapturously, as he went back to his work; "what a mind!" the letter which lavinia weston wrote that evening was a very long one. she was one of those women who write long letters upon every convenient occasion. to-night she covered two sheets of note-paper with her small neat handwriting. those two sheets contained a detailed account of the interview that had taken place that day between the surgeon's wife and olivia; and the letter was addressed to the artist, paul marchmont. perhaps it was in consequence of the receipt of this letter that paul marchmont arrived at his sister's house at kemberling two days after mrs. weston's visit to marchmont towers. he told the surgeon that he came to lincolnshire for a few days' change of air, after a long spell of very hard work; and george weston, who looked upon his brother-in-law as an intellectual demigod, was very well content to accept any explanation of mr. marchmont's visit. "kemberling isn't a very lively place for you, mr. paul," he said apologetically,--he always called his wife's brother mr. paul,--"but i dare say lavinia will contrive to make you comfortable. she persuaded me to come here when old dawnfield died; but i can't say she acted with her usual tact, for the business ain't as good as my stanfield practice; but i don't tell lavinia so." paul marchmont smiled. "the business will pick up by-and-by, i daresay," he said. "you'll have the marchmont towers family to attend to in good time, i suppose." "that's what lavinia said," answered the surgeon. "'mrs. john marchmont can't refuse to employ a relation,' she says; 'and, as first-cousin to mary marchmont's father, i ought'--meaning herself, you know--'to have some influence in that quarter.' but then, you see, the very week we come here the gal goes and runs away; which rather, as one may say, puts a spoke in our wheel, you know." mr. george weston rubbed his chin reflectively as he concluded thus. he was a man given to spending his leisure-hours--when he had any leisure, which was not very often--in tavern parlours, where the affairs of the nation were settled and unsettled every evening over sixpenny glasses of hollands and water; and he regretted his removal from stanfield, which had been as the uprooting of all his dearest associations. he was a solemn man, who never hazarded an opinion lightly,--perhaps because he never had an opinion to hazard,--and his stolidity won him a good deal of respect from strangers; but in the hands of his wife he was meeker than the doves that cooed in the pigeon-house behind his dwelling, and more plastic than the knob of white wax upon which industrious mrs. weston was wont to rub her thread when engaged in the mysteries of that elaborate and terrible science which women paradoxically call _plain_ needlework. paul marchmont presented himself at the towers upon the day after his arrival at kemberling. his interview with the widow was a very long one. he had studied every line of his sister's letter; he had weighed every word that had fallen from olivia's lips and had been recorded by lavinia weston; and taking the knowledge thus obtained as his starting-point, he took his dissecting-knife and went to work at an intellectual autopsy. he anatomised the wretched woman's soul. he made her tell her secret, and bare her tortured breast before him; now wringing some hasty word from her impatience, now entrapping her into some admission,--if only so much as a defiant look, a sudden lowering of the dark brows, an involuntary compression of the lips. he _made_ her reveal herself to him. poor rosencranz and guildenstern were sorry blunderers in that art which is vulgarly called pumping, and were easily put out by a few quips and quaint retorts from the mad danish prince; but paul marchmont _would_ have played upon hamlet more deftly than ever mortal musician played upon pipe or recorder, and would have fathomed the remotest depths of that sorrowful and erratic soul. olivia writhed under the torture of that polite inquisition, for she knew that her secrets were being extorted from her; that her pitiful folly--that folly which she would have denied even to herself, if possible--was being laid bare in all its weak foolishness. she knew this; but she was compelled to smile in the face of her bland inquisitor, to respond to his commonplace expressions of concern about the protracted absence of the missing girl, and meekly to receive his suggestions respecting the course it was her duty to take. he had the air of responding to _her_ suggestions, rather than of himself dictating any particular line of conduct. he affected to believe that he was only agreeing with some understood ideas of hers, while he urged his own views upon her. "then we are quite of one mind in this, my dear mrs. marchmont," he said at last; "this unfortunate girl must not be suffered to remain away from her legitimate home any longer than we can help. it is our duty to find and bring her back. i need scarcely say that you, being bound to her by every tie of affection, and having, beyond this, the strongest claim upon her gratitude for your devoted fulfilment of the trust confided in you,--one hears of these things, mrs. marchmont, in a country village like kemberling,--i need scarcely say that you are the most fitting person to win the poor child back to a sense of her duty--if she _can_ be won to such a sense." paul marchmont added, after a sudden pause and a thoughtful sigh, "i sometimes fear----" he stopped abruptly, waiting until olivia should question him. "you sometimes fear----?" "that--that the error into which miss marchmont has fallen is the result of a mental rather than of a moral deficiency." "what do you mean?" "i mean this, my dear mrs. marchmont," answered the artist, gravely; "one of the most powerful evidences of the soundness of a man's brain is his capability of assigning a reasonable motive for every action of his life. no matter how unreasonable the action in itself may seem, if the motive for that action can be demonstrated. but the moment a man acts _without_ motive, we begin to take alarm and to watch him. he is eccentric; his conduct is no longer amenable to ordinary rule; and we begin to trace his eccentricities to some weakness or deficiency in his judgment or intellect. now, i ask you what motive mary marchmont can have had for running away from this house?" olivia quailed under the piercing scrutiny of the artist's cold grey eyes, but she did not attempt to reply to his question. "the answer is very simple," he continued, after that long scrutiny; "the girl could have had no cause for flight; while, on the other hand, every reasonable motive that can be supposed to actuate a woman's conduct was arrayed against her. she had a happy home, a kind stepmother. she was within a few years of becoming undisputed mistress of a very large estate. and yet, immediately after having assisted at a festive entertainment, to all appearance as gay and happy as the gayest and happiest there, this girl runs away in the dead of the night, abandoning the mansion which is her own property, and assigning no reason whatever for what she does. can you wonder, then, if i feel confirmed in an opinion that i formed upon the day on which i heard the reading of my cousin's will?" "what opinion?" "that mary marchmont is as feeble in mind as she is fragile in body." he launched this sentence boldly, and waited for olivia's reply. he had discovered the widow's secret. he had fathomed the cause of her jealous hatred of mary marchmont; but even _he_ did not yet understand the nature of the conflict in the desperate woman's breast. she could not be wicked all at once. against every fresh sin she made a fresh struggle, and she would not accept the lie which the artist tried to force upon her. "i do not think that there is any deficiency in my stepdaughter's intellect," she said, resolutely. she was beginning to understand that paul marchmont wanted to ally himself with her against the orphan heiress, but as yet she did not understand why he should do so. she was slow to comprehend feelings that were utterly foreign to her own nature. there was so little of mercenary baseness in this strange woman's soul, that had the flame of a candle alone stood between her and the possession of marchmont towers, i doubt if she would have cared to waste a breath upon its extinction. she had lived away from the world, and out of the world; and it was difficult for her to comprehend the mean and paltry wickedness which arise out of the worship of baal. paul marchmont recoiled a little before the straight answer which the widow had given him. "you think miss marchmont strong-minded, then, perhaps?" he said. "no; not strong minded." "my dear mrs. marchmont, you deal in paradoxes," exclaimed the artist. "you say that your stepdaughter is neither weak-minded nor strong-minded?" "weak enough, perhaps, to be easily influenced by other people; weak enough to believe anything my cousin edward arundel might choose to tell her; but not what is generally called deficient in intellect." "you think her perfectly able to take care of herself?" "yes; i think so." "and yet this running away looks almost as if----. but i have no wish to force any unpleasant belief upon you, my dear madam. i think--as you yourself appear to suggest--that the best thing we can do is to get this poor girl home again as quickly as possible. it will never do for the mistress of marchmont towers to be wandering about the world with mr. edward arundel. pray pardon me, mrs. marchmont, if i speak rather disrespectfully of your cousin; but i really cannot think that the gentleman has acted very honourably in this business." olivia was silent. she remembered the passionate indignation of the young soldier, the angry defiance hurled at her, as edward arundel galloped away from the gaunt western façade. she remembered these things, and involuntarily contrasted them with the smooth blandness of paul marchmont's talk, and the deadly purpose lurking beneath it--of which deadly purpose some faint suspicion was beginning to dawn upon her. if she could have thought mary marchmont mad,--if she could have thought edward arundel base, she would have been glad; for then there would have been some excuse for her own wickedness. but she could not think so. she slipped little by little down into the black gulf; now dragged by her own mad passion; now lured yet further downward by paul marchmont. between this man and eleven thousand a year the life of a fragile girl was the solitary obstacle. for three years it had been so, and for three years paul marchmont had waited--patiently, as it was his habit to wait--the hour and the opportunity for action. the hour and opportunity had come, and this woman, olivia marchmont, only stood in his way. she must become either his enemy or his tool, to be baffled or to be made useful. he had now sounded the depths of her nature, and he determined to make her his tool. "it shall be my business to discover this poor child's hiding-place," he said; "when that is found i will communicate with you, and i know you will not refuse to fulfil the trust confided to you by your late husband. you will bring your stepdaughter back to this house, and henceforward protect her from the dangerous influence of edward arundel." olivia looked at the speaker with an expression which seemed like terror. it was as if she said,-- "are you the devil, that you hold out this temptation to me, and twist my own passions to serve your purpose?" and then she paltered with her conscience. "do you consider that it is my duty to do this?" she asked. "my dear mrs. marchmont, most decidedly." "i will do it, then. i--i--wish to do my duty." "and you can perform no greater act of charity than by bringing this unhappy girl back to a sense of _her_ duty. remember, that her reputation, her future happiness, may fall a sacrifice to this foolish conduct, which, i regret to say, is very generally known in the neighbourhood. forgive me if i express my opinion too freely; but i cannot help thinking, that if mr. arundel's intentions had been strictly honourable, he would have written to you before this, to tell you that his search for the missing girl had failed; or, in the event of his finding her, he would have taken the earliest opportunity of bringing her back to her own home. my poor cousin's somewhat unprotected position, her wealth, and her inexperience of the world, place her at the mercy of a fortune-hunter; and mr. arundel has himself to thank if his conduct gives rise to the belief that he wishes to compromise this girl in the eyes of the scandalous, and thus make sure of your consent to a marriage which would give him command of my cousin's fortune." olivia marchmont's bosom heaved with the stormy beating of her heart. was she to sit calmly by and hold her peace while this man slandered the brave young soldier, the bold, reckless, generous-hearted lad, who had shone upon her out of the darkness of her life, as the very incarnation of all that is noble and admirable in mankind? was she to sit quietly by and hear a stranger lie away her kinsman's honour, truth, and manhood? yes, she must do so. this man had offered her a price for her truth and her soul. he was ready to help her to the revenge she longed for. he was ready to give her his aid in separating the innocent young lovers, whose pure affection had poisoned her life, whose happiness was worse than the worst death to her. she kept silent, therefore, and waited for paul to speak again. "i will go up to town to-morrow, and set to work about this business," the artist said, as he rose to take leave of mrs. marchmont. "i do not believe that i shall have much difficulty in finding the young lady's hiding-place. my first task shall be to look for mr. arundel. you can perhaps give me the address of some place in london where your cousin is in the habit of staying?" "i can." "thank you; that will very much simplify matters. i shall write you immediate word of any discovery i make, and will then leave all the rest to you. my influence over mary marchmont as an entire stranger could be nothing. yours, on the contrary, must be unbounded. it will be for you to act upon my letter." * * * * * olivia marchmont waited for two days and nights for the promised letter. upon the third morning it came. the artist's epistle was very brief: "my dear mrs. marchmont,--i have made the necessary discovery. miss marchmont is to be found at the white hart inn, milldale, near winchester. may i venture to urge your proceeding there in search of her without delay? "yours very faithfully, "paul marchmont. "_charlotte street, fitzroy square,_ "_aug._ _th_." chapter vi. risen from the grave. the rain dripped ceaselessly upon the dreary earth under a grey november sky,--a dull and lowering sky, that seemed to brood over this lower world with some menace of coming down to blot out and destroy it. the express-train, rushing headlong across the wet flats of lincolnshire, glared like a meteor in the gray fog; the dismal shriek of the engine was like the cry of a bird of prey. the few passengers who had chosen that dreary winter's day for their travels looked despondently out at the monotonous prospect, seeking in vain to descry some spot of hope in the joyless prospect; or made futile attempts to read their newspapers by the dim light of the lamp in the roof of the carriage. sulky passengers shuddered savagely as they wrapped themselves in huge woollen rugs or ponderous coverings made from the skins of wild beasts. melancholy passengers drew grotesque and hideous travelling-caps over their brows, and, coiling themselves in the corner of their seats, essayed to sleep away the weary hours. everything upon this earth seemed dismal and damp, cold and desolate, incongruous and uncomfortable. but there was one first-class passenger in that lincolnshire express who made himself especially obnoxious to his fellows by the display of an amount of restlessness and superabundant energy quite out of keeping with the lazy despondency of those about him. this was a young man with a long tawny beard and a white face,--a very handsome face, though wan and attenuated, as if with some terrible sickness, and somewhat disfigured by certain strappings of plaister, which were bound about a patch of his skull a little above the left temple. this young man had one side of the carriage to himself; and a sort of bed had been made up for him with extra cushions, upon which he lay at full length, when he was still, which was never for very long together. he was enveloped almost to the chin in voluminous railway-rugs, but, in spite of these coverings, shuddered every now and then, as if with cold. he had a pocket-pistol amongst his travelling paraphernalia, which he applied occasionally to his dry lips. sometimes drops of perspiration broke suddenly out upon his forehead, and were brushed away by a tremulous hand, that was scarcely strong enough to hold a cambric handkerchief. in short, it was sufficiently obvious to every one that this young man with the tawny beard had only lately risen from a sick-bed, and had risen therefrom considerably before the time at which any prudent medical practitioner would have given him licence to do so. it was evident that he was very, very ill, but that he was, if anything, more ill at ease in mind than in body; and that some terrible gnawing anxiety, some restless care, some horrible uncertainty or perpetual foreboding of trouble, would not allow him to be at peace. it was as much as the three fellow-passengers who sat opposite to him could do to bear with his impatience, his restlessness, his short half-stifled moans, his long weary sighs; the horror of his fidgety feet shuffled incessantly upon the cushions; the suddenly convulsive jerks with which he would lift himself upon his elbow to stare fiercely into the dismal fog outside the carriage window; the groans that were wrung from him as he flung himself into new and painful positions; the frightful aspect of physical agony which came over his face as he looked at his watch,--and he drew out and consulted that ill-used chronometer, upon an average, once in a quarter of an hour; his impatient crumpling of the crisp leaves of a new "bradshaw," which he turned over ever and anon, as if, by perpetual reference to that mysterious time-table, he might hasten the advent of the hour at which he was to reach his destination. he was, altogether, a most aggravating and exasperating travelling companion; and it was only out of christian forbearance with the weakness of his physical state that his irritated fellow-passengers refrained from uniting themselves against him, and casting him bodily out of the window of the carriage; as a clown sometimes flings a venerable but tiresome pantaloon through a square trap or pitfall, lurking, undreamed of, in the façade of an honest tradesman's dwelling. the three passengers had, in divers manners, expressed their sympathy with the invalid traveller; but their courtesies had not been responded to with any evidence of gratitude or heartiness. the young man had answered his companions in an absent fashion, scarcely deigning to look at them as he spoke;--speaking altogether with the air of some sleep-walker, who roams hither and thither absorbed in a dreadful dream, making a world for himself, and peopling it with horrible images unknown to those about him. had he been ill?--yes, very ill. he had had a railway accident, and then brain-fever. he had been ill for a long time. somebody asked him how long. he shuffled about upon the cushions, and groaned aloud at this question, to the alarm of the man who had asked it. "how long?" he cried, in a fierce agony of mental or bodily uneasiness;--"how long? two months,--three months,--ever since the th of august." then another passenger, looking at the young man's very evident sufferings from a commercial point of view, asked him whether he had had any compensation. "compensation!" cried the invalid. "what compensation?" "compensation from the railway company. i hope you've a strong case against them, for you've evidently been a terrible sufferer." it was dreadful to see the way in which the sick man writhed under this question. "compensation!" he cried. "what compensation can they give me for an accident that shut me in a living grave for three months, that separated me from----? you don't know what you're talking about, sir," he added suddenly; "i can't think of this business patiently; i can't be reasonable. if they'd hacked _me_ to pieces, i shouldn't have cared. i've been under a red-hot indian sun, when we fellows couldn't see the sky above us for the smoke of the cannons and the flashing of the sabres about our heads, and i'm not afraid of a little cutting and smashing more or less; but when i think what others may have suffered through----i'm almost mad, and----!" he couldn't say any more, for the intensity of his passion had shaken him as a leaf is shaken by a whirlwind; and he fell back upon the cushions, trembling in every limb, and groaning aloud. his fellow-passengers looked at each other rather nervously, and two out of the three entertained serious thoughts of changing carriages when the express stopped midway between london and lincoln. but they were reassured by-and-by; for the invalid, who was captain edward arundel, or that pale shadow of the dashing young cavalry officer which had risen from a sick-bed, relapsed into silence, and displayed no more alarming symptoms than that perpetual restlessness and disquietude which is cruelly wearying even to the strongest nerves. he only spoke once more, and that was when the short day, in which there had been no actual daylight, was closing in, and the journey nearly finished, when he startled his companions by crying out suddenly,-- "o my god! will this journey never come to an end? shall i never be put out of this horrible suspense?" the journey, or at any rate captain arundel's share of it, came to an end almost immediately afterwards, for the train stopped at swampington; and while the invalid was staggering feebly to his feet, eager to scramble out of the carriage, his servant came to the door to assist and support him. "you seem to have borne the journey wonderful, sir," the man said respectfully, as he tried to rearrange his master's wrappings, and to do as much as circumstances, and the young man's restless impatience, would allow of being done for his comfort. "i have suffered the tortures of the infernal regions, morrison," captain arundel ejaculated, in answer to his attendant's congratulatory address. "get me a fly directly; i must go to the towers at once." "not to-night, sir, surely?" the servant remonstrated, in a tone of alarm. "your mar and the doctors said you _must_ rest at swampington for a night." "i'll rest nowhere till i've been to marchmont towers," answered the young soldier passionately. "if i must walk there,--if i'm to drop down dead on the road,--i'll go. if the cornfields between this and the towers were a blazing prairie or a raging sea, i'd go. get me a fly, man; and don't talk to me of my mother or the doctors. i'm going to look for my wife. get me a fly." this demand for a commonplace hackney vehicle sounded rather like an anti-climax, after the young man's talk of blazing prairies and raging seas; but passionate reality has no ridiculous side, and edward arundel's most foolish words were sublime by reason of their earnestness. "get me a fly, morrison," he said, grinding his heel upon the platform in the intensity of his impatience. "or, stay; we should gain more in the end if you were to go to the george--it's not ten minutes' walk from here; one of the porters will take you--the people there know me, and they'll let you have some vehicle, with a pair of horses and a clever driver. tell them it's for an errand of life and death, and that captain arundel will pay them three times their usual price, or six times, if they wish. tell them anything, so long as you get what we want." the valet, an old servant of edward arundel's father, was carried away by the young man's mad impetuosity. the vitality of this broken-down invalid, whose physical weakness contrasted strangely with his mental energy, bore down upon the grave man-servant like an avalanche, and carried him whither it would. he was fain to abandon all hope of being true to the promises which he had given to mrs. arundel and the medical men, and to yield himself to the will of the fiery young soldier. he left edward arundel sitting upon a chair in the solitary waiting-room, and hurried after the porter who had volunteered to show him the way to the george inn, the most prosperous hotel in swampington. the valet had good reason to be astonished by his young master's energy and determination; for mary marchmont's husband was as one rescued from the very jaws of death. for eleven weeks after that terrible concussion upon the south-western railway, edward arundel had lain in a state of coma,--helpless, mindless; all the story of his life blotted away, and his brain transformed into as blank a page as if he had been an infant lying on his mother's knees. a fractured skull had been the young captain's chief share in those injuries which were dealt out pretty freely to the travellers in the exeter mail on the th of august; and the young man had been conveyed to dangerfield park, whilst his father's corpse lay in stately solemnity in one of the chief rooms, almost as much a corpse as that dead father. mrs. arundel's troubles had come, as the troubles of rich and prosperous people often do come, in a sudden avalanche, that threatened to overwhelm the tender-hearted matron. she had been summoned from germany to attend her husband's deathbed; and she was called away from her faithful watch beside that deathbed, to hear tidings of the accident that had befallen her younger son. neither the dorsetshire doctor who attended the stricken traveller upon his homeward journey, and brought the strong man, helpless as a child, to claim the same tender devotion that had watched over his infancy, nor the devonshire doctors who were summoned to dangerfield, gave any hope of their patient's recovery. the sufferer might linger for years, they said; but his existence would be only a living death, a horrible blank, which it was a cruelty to wish prolonged. but when a great london surgeon appeared upon the scene, a new light, a wonderful gleam of hope, shone in upon the blackness of the mother's despair. this great london surgeon, who was a very unassuming and matter-of-fact little man, and who seemed in a great hurry to earn his fee and run back to saville row by the next express, made a brief examination of the patient, asked a very few sharp and trenchant questions of the reverential provincial medical practitioners, and then declared that the chief cause of edward arundel's state lay in the fact that a portion of the skull was depressed,--a splinter pressed upon the brain. the provincial practitioners opened their eyes very wide; and one of them ventured to mutter something to the effect that he had thought as much for a long time. the london surgeon further stated, that until the pressure was removed from the patient's brain, captain edward arundel would remain in precisely the same state as that into which he had fallen immediately upon the accident. the splinter could only be removed by a very critical operation, and this operation must be deferred until the patient's bodily strength was in some measure restored. the surgeon gave brief but decisive directions to the provincial medical men as to the treatment of their patient during this interregnum, and then departed, after promising to return as soon as captain arundel was in a fit state for the operation. this period did not arrive till the first week in november, when the devonshire doctors ventured to declare their patient's shattered frame in a great measure renovated by their devoted attention, and the tender care of the best of mothers. the great surgeon came. the critical operation was performed, with such eminent success as to merit a very long description, which afterwards appeared in the _lancet_; and slowly, like the gradual lifting of a curtain, the black shadows passed away from edward arundel's mind, and the memory of the past returned to him. it was then that he raved madly about his young wife, perpetually demanding that she might be summoned to him; continually declaring that some great misfortune would befall her if she were not brought to his side, that, even in his feebleness, he might defend and protect her. his mother mistook his vehemence for the raving of delirium. the doctors fell into the same error, and treated him for brain-fever. it was only when the young soldier demonstrated to them that he could, by making an effort over himself, be as reasonable as they were, that he convinced them of their mistake. then he begged to be left alone with his mother; and, with his feverish hands clasped in hers, asked her the meaning of her black dress, and the reason why his young wife had not come to him. he learned that his mother's mourning garments were worn in memory of his dead father. he learned also, after much bewilderment and passionate questioning, that no tidings of mary marchmont had ever come to dangerfield. it was then that the young man told his mother the story of his marriage: how that marriage had been contracted in haste, but with no real desire for secrecy; how he had, out of mere idleness, put off writing to his friends until that last fatal night; and how, at the very moment when the pen was in his hand and the paper spread out before him, the different claims of a double duty had torn him asunder, and he had been summoned from the companionship of his bride to the deathbed of his father. mrs. arundel tried in vain to set her son's mind at rest upon the subject of his wife's silence. "no, mother!" he cried; "it is useless talking to me. you don't know my poor darling. she has the courage of a heroine, as well as the simplicity of a child. there has been some foul play at the bottom of this; it is treachery that has kept my wife from me. she would have come here on foot, had she been free to come. i know whose hand is in this business. olivia marchmont has kept my poor girl a prisoner; olivia marchmont has set herself between me and my darling!" "but you don't know this, edward. i'll write to mr. paulette; he will be able to tell us what has happened." the young man writhed in a sudden paroxysm of mental agony. "write to mr. paulette!" he exclaimed. "no, mother; there shall be no delay, no waiting for return-posts. that sort of torture would kill me in a few hours. no, mother; i will go to my wife by the first train that will take me on my way to lincolnshire." "you will go! you, edward! in your state!" there was a terrible outburst of remonstrance and entreaty on the part of the poor mother. mrs. arundel went down upon her knees before her son, imploring him not to leave dangerfield till his strength was recovered; imploring him to let her telegraph a summons to richard paulette; to let her go herself to marchmont towers in search of mary; to do anything rather than carry out the one mad purpose that he was bent on,--the purpose of going himself to look for his wife. the mother's tears and prayers were vain; no adamant was ever firmer than the young soldier. "she is my wife, mother," he said; "i have sworn to protect and cherish her; and i have reason to think she has fallen into merciless hands. if i die upon the road, i must go to her. it is not a case in which i can do my duty by proxy. every moment i delay is a wrong to that poor helpless girl. be reasonable, dear mother, i implore you; i should suffer fifty times more by the torture of suspense if i stayed here, than i can possibly suffer in a railroad journey from here to lincolnshire." the soldier's strong will triumphed over every opposition. the provincial doctors held up their hands, and protested against the madness of their patient; but without avail. all that either mrs. arundel or the doctors could do, was to make such preparations and arrangements as would render the weary journey easier; and it was under the mother's superintendence that the air-cushions, the brandy-flasks, the hartshorn, sal-volatile, and railway-rugs, had been provided for the captain's comfort. it was thus that, after a blank interval of three months, edward arundel, like some creature newly risen from the grave, returned to swampington, upon his way to marchmont towers. the delay seemed endless to this restless passenger, sitting in the empty waiting-room of the quiet lincolnshire station, though the ostler and stable-boys at the "george" were bestirring themselves with good-will, urged on by mr. morrison's promises of liberal reward for their trouble, and though the man who was to drive the carriage lost no time in arraying himself for the journey. captain arundel looked at his watch three times while he sat in that dreary swampington waiting-room. there was a clock over the mantelpiece, but he would not trust to that. "eight o'clock!" he muttered. "it will be ten before i get to the towers, if the carriage doesn't come directly." he got up, and walked from the waiting-room to the platform, and from the platform to the door of the station. he was so weak as to be obliged to support himself with his stick; and even with that help he tottered and reeled sometimes like a drunken man. but, in his eager impatience, he was almost unconscious of his own weakness. "will it never come?" he muttered. "will it never come?" at last, after an intolerable delay, as it seemed to the young man, the carriage-and-pair from the george inn rattled up to the door of the station, with mr. morrison upon the box, and a postillion loosely balanced upon one of the long-legged, long-backed, bony grey horses. edward arundel got into the vehicle before his valet could alight to assist him. "marchmont towers!" he cried to the postillion; "and a five-pound note if you get there in less than an hour." he flung some money to the officials who had gathered about the door to witness his departure, and who had eagerly pressed forward to render him that assistance which, even in his weakness, he disdained. these men looked gravely at each other as the carriage dashed off into the fog, blundering and reeling as it went along the narrow half-made road, that led from the desert patch of waste ground upon which the station was built into the high-street of swampington. "marchmont towers!" said one of the men, in a tone that seemed to imply that there was something ominous even in the name of the lincolnshire mansion. "what does _he_ want at marchmont towers, i wonder?" "why, don't you know who he is, mate?" responded the other man, contemptuously. "no." "he's parson arundel's nevy,--the young officer that some folks said ran away with the poor young miss oop at the towers." "my word! is he now? why, i shouldn't ha' known him." "no; he's a'most like the ghost of what he was, poor young chap. i've heerd as he was in that accident as happened last august on the sou'-western." the railway official shrugged his shoulders. "it's all a queer story," he said. "i can't make out naught about it; but i know _i_ shouldn't care to go up to the towers after dark." marchmont towers had evidently fallen into rather evil repute amongst these simple lincolnshire people. * * * * * the carriage in which edward arundel rode was a superannuated old chariot, whose uneasy springs rattled and shook the sick man to pieces. he groaned aloud every now and then from sheer physical agony; and yet i almost doubt if he knew that he suffered, so superior in its intensity was the pain of his mind to every bodily torture. whatever consciousness he had of his racked and aching limbs was as nothing in comparison to the racking anguish of suspense, the intolerable agony of anxiety, which seemed multiplied by every moment. he sat with his face turned towards the open window of the carriage, looking out steadily into the night. there was nothing before him but a blank darkness and thick fog, and a flat country blotted out by the falling rain; but he strained his eyes until the pupils dilated painfully, in his desire to recognise some landmark in the hidden prospect. "_when_ shall i get there?" he cried aloud, in a paroxysm of rage and grief. "my own one, my pretty one, my wife, when shall i get to you?" he clenched his thin hands until the nails cut into his flesh. he stamped upon the floor of the carriage. he cursed the rusty, creaking springs, the slow-footed horses, the pools of water through which the wretched animals floundered pastern-deep. he cursed the darkness of the night, the stupidity of the postillion, the length of the way,--everything, and anything, that kept him back from the end which he wanted to reach. at last the end came. the carriage drew up before the tall iron gates, behind which stretched, dreary and desolate as some patch of common-land, that melancholy waste which was called a park. a light burned dimly in the lower window of the lodge,--a little spot that twinkled faintly red and luminous through the darkness and the rain; but the iron gates were as closely shut as if marchmont towers had been a prison-house. edward arundel was in no humour to linger long for the opening of those gates. he sprang from the carriage, reckless of the weakness of his cramped limbs, before the valet could descend from the rickety box-seat, or the postillion could get off his horse, and shook the wet and rusty iron bars with his own wasted hands. the gates rattled, but resisted the concussion; they had evidently been locked for the night. the young man seized an iron ring, dangling at the end of a chain, which hung beside one of the stone pillars, and rang a peal that resounded like an alarm-signal through the darkness. a fierce watchdog far away in the distance howled dismally at the summons, and the dissonant shriek of a peacock sounded across the flat. the door of the lodge was opened about five minutes after the bell had rung, and an old man peered out into the night, holding a candle shaded by his feeble hand, and looking suspiciously towards the gate. "who is it?" he said. "it is i, captain arundel. open the gate, please." the man, who was very old, and whose intellect seemed to have grown as dim and foggy as the night itself, reflected for a few moments, and then mumbled,-- "cap'en arundel! ay, to be sure, to be sure. parson arundel's nevy; ay, ay." he went back into the lodge, to the disgust and aggravation of the young soldier, who rattled fiercely at the gate once more in his impatience. but the old man emerged presently, as tranquil as if the blank november night had been some sunshiny noontide in july, carrying a lantern and a bunch of keys, one of which he proceeded in a leisurely manner to apply to the great lock of the gate. "let me in!" cried edward arundel. "man alive! do you think i came down here to stand all night staring through these iron bars? is marchmont towers a prison, that you shut your gates as if they were never to be opened until the day of judgment?" the old man responded with a feeble, chirpy laugh, an audible grin, senile and conciliatory. "we've no need to keep t' geates open arter dark," he said; "folk doan't coome to the toowers arter dark." he had succeeded by this time in turning the key in the lock; one of the gates rolled slowly back upon its rusty hinges, creaking and groaning as if in hoarse protest against all visitors to the towers; and edward arundel entered the dreary domain which john marchmont had inherited from his kinsman. the postillion turned his horses from the highroad without the gates into the broad drive leading up to the mansion. far away, across the wet flats, the broad western front of that gaunt stone dwelling-place frowned upon the travellers, its black grimness only relieved by two or three dim red patches, that told of lighted windows and human habitation. it was rather difficult to associate friendly flesh and blood with marchmont towers on this dark november night. the nervous traveller would have rather expected to find diabolical denizens lurking within those black and stony walls; hideous enchantments beneath that rain-bespattered roof; weird and incarnate horrors brooding by deserted hearths, and fearful shrieks of souls in perpetual pain breaking upon the stillness of the night. edward arundel had no thought of these things. he knew that the place was darksome and gloomy, and that, in very spite of himself, he had always been unpleasantly impressed by it; but he knew nothing more. he only wanted to reach the house without delay, and to ask for the young wife whom he had parted with upon a balmy august evening three months before. he wanted this passionately, almost madly; and every moment made his impatience wilder, his anxiety more intense. it seemed as if all the journey from dangerfield park to lincolnshire was as nothing compared to the space that still lay between him and marchmont towers. "we've done it in double-quick time, sir," the postillion said, complacently pointing to the steaming sides of his horses. "master'll gie it to me for driving the beasts like this." edward arundel looked at the panting animals. they had brought him quickly, then, though the way had seemed so long. "you shall have a five-pound note, my lad," he said, "if you get me up to yonder house in five minutes." he had his hand upon the door of the carriage, and was leaning against it for support, while he tried to recover enough strength with which to clamber into the vehicle, when his eye was caught by some white object flapping in the rain against the stone pillar of the gate, and made dimly visible in a flickering patch of light from the lodge-keeper's lantern. "what's that?" he cried, pointing to this white spot upon the moss-grown stone. the old man slowly raised his eyes to the spot towards which the soldier's finger pointed. "that?" he mumbled. "ay, to be sure, to be sure. poor young lady! that's the printed bill as they stook oop. it's the printed bill, to be sure, to be sure. i'd a'most forgot it. it ain't been much good, anyhow; and i'd a'most forgot it." "the printed bill! the young lady!" gasped edward arundel, in a hoarse, choking voice. he snatched the lantern from the lodge-keeper's hand with a force that sent the old man reeling and tottering several paces backward; and, rushing to the stone pillar, held the light up above his head, on a level with the white placard which had attracted his notice. it was damp and dilapidated at the edges; but that which was printed upon it was as visible to the soldier as though each commonplace character had been a fiery sign inscribed upon a blazing scroll. this was the announcement which edward arundel read upon the gate-post of marchmont towers:-- "one hundred pounds reward.--whereas miss mary marchmont left her home on wednesday last, october th, and has not since been heard of, this is to give notice that the above reward will be given to any one who shall afford such information as will lead to her recovery if she be alive, or to the discovery of her body if she be dead. the missing young lady is eighteen years of age, rather below the middle height, of fair complexion, light-brown hair, and hazel eyes. when she left her home, she had on a grey silk dress, grey shawl, and straw bonnet. she was last seen near the river-side upon the afternoon of wednesday, the th instant. "_marchmont towers, october_ _th_, ." chapter vii. face to face. it is not easy to imagine a lion-hearted young cavalry officer, whose soldiership in the punjaub had won the praises of a napier and an outram, fainting away like a heroine of romance at the coming of evil tidings; but edward arundel, who had risen from a sick-bed to take a long and fatiguing journey in utter defiance of the doctors, was not strong enough to bear the dreadful welcome that greeted him upon the gate-post at marchmont towers. he staggered, and would have fallen, had not the extended arms of his father's confidential servant been luckily opened to receive and support him. but he did not lose his senses. "get me into the carriage, morrison," he cried. "get me up to that house. they've tortured and tormented my wife while i've been lying like a log on my bed at dangerfield. for god's sake, get me up there as quick as you can!" mr. morrison had read the placard on the gate across his young master's shoulder. he lifted the captain into the carriage, shouted to the postillion to drive on, and took his seat by the young man's side. "begging you pardon, mr. edward," he said, gently; "but the young lady may be found by this time. that bill's been sticking there for upwards of a month, you see, sir, and it isn't likely but what miss marchmont has been found between that time and this." the invalid passed his hand across his forehead, down which the cold sweat rolled in great beads. "give me some brandy," he whispered; "pour some brandy down my throat, morrison, if you've any compassion upon me; i must get strength somehow for the struggle that lies before me." the valet took a wicker-covered flask from his pocket, and put the neck of it to edward arundel's lips. "she may be found, morrison," muttered the young man, after drinking a long draught of the fiery spirit; he would willingly have drunk living fire itself, in his desire to obtain unnatural strength in this crisis. "yes; you're right there. she may be found. but to think that she should have been driven away! to think that my poor, helpless, tender girl should have been driven a second time from the home that is her own! yes; her own by every law and every right. oh, the relentless devil, the pitiless devil!--what can be the motive of her conduct? is it madness, or the infernal cruelty of a fiend incarnate?" mr. morrison thought that his young master's brain had been disordered by the shock he had just undergone, and that this wild talk was mere delirium. "keep your heart up, mr. edward," he murmured, soothingly; "you may rely upon it, the young lady has been found." but edward was in no mind to listen to any mild consolatory remarks from his valet. he had thrust his head out of the carriage-window, and his eyes were fixed upon the dimly-lighted casements of the western drawing-room. "the room in which john and polly and i used to sit together when first i came from india," he murmured. "how happy we were!--how happy we were!" the carriage stopped before the stone portico, and the young man got out once more, assisted by his servant. his breath came short and quick now that he stood upon the threshold. he pushed aside the servant who opened the familiar door at the summons of the clanging bell, and strode into the hall. a fire burned on the wide hearth; but the atmosphere of the great stone-paved chamber was damp and chilly. captain arundel walked straight to the door of the western drawing-room. it was there that he had seen lights in the windows; it was there that he expected to find olivia marchmont. he was not mistaken. a shaded lamp burnt dimly on a table near the fire. there was a low invalid-chair beside this table, an open book upon the floor, and an indian shawl, one he had sent to his cousin, flung carelessly upon the pillows. the neglected fire burned low in the old-fashioned grate, and above the dull-red blaze stood the figure of a woman, tall, dark, and gloomy of aspect. it was olivia marchmont, in the mourning-robes that she had worn, with but one brief intermission, ever since her husband's death. her profile was turned towards the door by which edward arundel entered the room; her eyes were bent steadily upon the low heap of burning ashes in the grate. even in that doubtful light the young man could see that her features were sharpened, and that a settled frown had contracted her straight black brows. in her fixed attitude, in her air of deathlike tranquillity, this woman resembled some sinful vestal sister, set, against her will, to watch a sacred fire, and brooding moodily over her crimes. she did not hear the opening of the door; she had not even heard the trampling of the horses' hoofs, or the crashing of the wheels upon the gravel before the house. there were times when her sense of external things was, as it were, suspended and absorbed in the intensity of her obstinate despair. "olivia!" said the soldier. mrs. marchmont looked up at the sound of that accusing voice, for there was something in edward arundel's simple enunciation of her name which seemed like an accusation or a menace. she looked up, with a great terror in her face, and stared aghast at her unexpected visitor. her white cheeks, her trembling lips, and dilated eyes could not have more palpably expressed a great and absorbing horror, had the young man standing quietly before her been a corpse newly risen from its grave. "olivia marchmont," said captain arundel, after a brief pause, "i have come here to look for my wife." the woman pushed her trembling hands across her forehead, brushing the dead black hair from her temples, and still staring with the same unutterable horror at the face of her cousin. several times she tried to speak; but the broken syllables died away in her throat in hoarse, inarticulate mutterings. at last, with a great effort, the words came. "i--i--never expected to see you," she said; "i heard that you were very ill; i heard that you----" "you heard that i was dying," interrupted edward arundel; "or that, if i lived, i should drag out the rest of my existence in hopeless idiocy. the doctors thought as much a week ago, when one of them, cleverer than the rest i suppose, had the courage to perform an operation that restored me to consciousness. sense and memory came back to me by degrees. the thick veil that had shrouded the past was rent asunder; and the first image that came to me was the image of my young wife, as i had seen her upon the night of our parting. for more than three months i had been dead. i was suddenly restored to life. i asked those about me to give me tidings of my wife. had she sought me out?--had she followed me to dangerfield? no! they could tell me nothing. they thought that i was delirious, and tried to soothe me with compassionate speeches, merciful falsehoods, promising me that i should see my darling. but i soon read the secret of their scared looks. i saw pity and wonder mingled in my mother's face, and i entreated her to be merciful to me, and to tell me the truth. she had compassion upon me, and told me all she knew, which was very little. she had never heard from my wife. she had never heard of any marriage between mary marchmont and me. the only communication which she had received from any of her lincolnshire relations had been a letter from my uncle hubert, in reply to one of hers telling him of my hopeless state. "this was the shock that fell upon me when life and memory came back. i could not bear the imprisonment of a sick-bed. i felt that for the second time i must go out into the world to look for my darling; and in defiance of the doctors, in defiance of my poor mother, who thought that my departure from dangerfield was a suicide, i am here. it is here that i come first to seek for my wife. i might have stopped in london to see richard paulette; i might sooner have gained tidings of my darling. but i came here; i came here without stopping by the way, because an uncontrollable instinct and an unreasoning impulse tells me that it is here i ought to seek her. i am here, her husband, her only true and legitimate defender; and woe be to those who stand between me and my wife!" he had spoken rapidly in his passion; and he stopped, exhausted by his own vehemence, and sank heavily into a chair near the lamplit table. then for the first time that night olivia marchmont plainly saw her cousin's face, and saw the terrible change that had transformed the handsome young soldier, since the bright august morning on which he had gone forth from marchmont towers. she saw the traces of a long and wearisome illness sadly visible in his waxen-hued complexion, his hollow cheeks, the faded lustre of his eyes, his dry and pallid lips. she saw all this, the woman whose one great sin had been to love this man wickedly and madly, in spite of her better self, in spite of her womanly pride; she saw the change in him that had altered him from a young apollo to a shattered and broken invalid. and did any revulsion of feeling arise in her breast? did any corresponding transformation in her own heart bear witness to the baseness of her love? no; a thousand times, no! there was no thrill of disgust, how transient soever; not so much as one passing shudder of painful surprise, one pang of womanly regret. no! in place of these, a passionate yearning arose in this woman's haughty soul; a flood of sudden tenderness rushed across the black darkness of her mind. she fain would have flung herself upon her knees, in loving self-abasement, at the sick man's feet. she fain would have cried aloud, amid a tempest of passionate sobs,-- "o my love, my love! you are dearer to me a hundred times by this cruel change. it was _not_ your bright-blue eyes and waving chestnut hair,--it was not your handsome face, your brave, soldier-like bearing that i loved. my love was not so base as that. i inflicted a cruel outrage upon myself when i thought that i was the weak fool of a handsome face. whatever _i_ have been, my love, at least, has been pure. my love is pure, though i am base. i will never slander that again, for i know now that it is immortal." in the sudden rush of that flood-tide of love and tenderness, all these thoughts welled into olivia marchmont's mind. in all her sin and desperation she had never been so true a woman as now; she had never, perhaps, been so near being a good woman. but the tender emotion was swept out of her breast the next moment by the first words of edward arundel. "why do you not answer my question?" he said. she drew herself up in the erect and rigid attitude that had become almost habitual to her. every trace of womanly feeling faded out of her face, as the sunlight disappears behind the sudden darkness of a thundercloud. "what question?" she asked, with icy indifference. "the question i have come to lincolnshire to ask--the question i have perilled my life, perhaps, to ask," cried the young man. "where is my wife?" the widow turned upon him with a horrible smile. "i never heard that you were married," she said. "who is your wife?" "mary marchmont, the mistress of this house." olivia opened her eyes, and looked at him in half-sardonic surprise. "then it was not a fable?" she said. "what was not a fable?" "the unhappy girl spoke the truth when she said that you had married her at some out-of-the-way church in lambeth." "the truth! yes!" cried edward arundel. "who should dare to say that she spoke other than the truth? who should dare to disbelieve her?" olivia marchmont smiled again,--that same strange smile which was almost too horrible for humanity, and yet had a certain dark and gloomy grandeur of its own. satan, the star of the morning, may have so smiled despairing defiance upon the archangel michael. "unfortunately," she said, "no one believed the poor child. her story was such a very absurd one, and she could bring forward no shred of evidence in support of it." "o my god!" ejaculated edward arundel, clasping his hands above his head in a paroxysm of rage and despair. "i see it all--i see it all! my darling has been tortured to death. woman!" he cried, "are you possessed by a thousand fiends? is there no one sentiment of womanly compassion left in your breast? if there is one spark of womanhood in your nature, i appeal to that; i ask you what has happened to my wife?" "my wife! my wife!" the reiteration of that familiar phrase was to olivia marchmont like the perpetual thrust of a dagger aimed at an open wound. it struck every time upon the same tortured spot, and inflicted the same agony. "the placard upon the gates of this place can tell you as much as i can," she said. the ghastly whiteness of the soldier's face told her that he had seen the placard of which she spoke. "she has not been found, then?" he said, hoarsely. "no." "how did she disappear?" "as she disappeared upon the morning on which you followed her. she wandered out of the house, this time leaving no letter, nor message, nor explanation of any kind whatever. it was in the middle of the day that she went out; and for some time her absence caused no alarm. but, after some hours, she was waited for and watched for very anxiously. then a search was made." "where?" "wherever she had at any time been in the habit of walking,--in the park; in the wood; along the narrow path by the water; at pollard's farm; at hester's house at kemberling,--in every place where it might be reasonably imagined there was the slightest chance of finding her." "and all this was without result?" "it was." "_why_ did she leave this place? god help you, olivia marchmont, if it was your cruelty that drove her away!" the widow took no notice of the threat implied in these words. was there anything upon earth that she feared now? no--nothing. had she not endured the worst long ago, in edward arundel's contempt? she had no fear of a battle with this man; or with any other creature in the world; or with the whole world arrayed and banded together against her, if need were. amongst all the torments of those black depths to which her soul had gone down, there was no such thing as fear. that cowardly baseness is for the happy and prosperous, who have something to lose. this woman was by nature dauntless and resolute as the hero of some classic story; but in her despair she had the desperate and reckless courage of a starving wolf. the hand of death was upon her; what could it matter how she died? "i am very grateful to you, edward arundel," she said, bitterly, "for the good opinion you have always had of me. the blood of the dangerfield arundels must have had some drop of poison intermingled with it, i should think, before it could produce so vile a creature as myself; and yet i have heard people say that my mother was a good woman." the young man writhed impatiently beneath the torture of his cousin's deliberate speech. was there to be no end to this unendurable delay? even now,--now that he was in this house, face to face with the woman he had come to question--it seemed as if he _could_ not get tidings of his wife. so, often in his dreams, he had headed a besieging-party against the affghans, with the scaling-ladders reared against the wall; he had seen the dark faces grinning down upon him--all savage glaring eyes and fierce glistening teeth--and had heard the voices of his men urging him on to the encounter, but had felt himself paralysed and helpless, with his sabre weak as a withered reed in his nerveless hand. "for god's sake, let there be no quarrelling with phrases between you and me, olivia!" he cried. "if you or any other living being have injured my wife, the reckoning between us shall be no light one. but there will be time enough to talk of that by-and-by. i stand before you, newly risen from a grave in which i have lain for more than three months, as dead to the world, and to every creature i have ever loved or hated, as if the funeral service had been read over my coffin. i come to demand from you an account of what has happened during that interval. if you palter or prevaricate with me, i shall know that it is because you fear to tell me the truth." "fear!" "yes; you have good reason to fear, if you have wronged mary arundel. why did she leave this house?" "because she was not happy in it, i suppose. she chose to shut herself up in her own room, and to refuse to be governed, or advised, or consoled. i tried to do my duty to her; yes," cried olivia marchmont, suddenly raising her voice, as if she had been vehemently contradicted;--"yes, i did try to do my duty to her. i urged her to listen to reason; i begged her to abandon her foolish falsehood about a marriage with you in london." "you disbelieved in that marriage?" "i did," answered olivia. "you lie!" cried edward arundel. "you knew the poor child had spoken the truth. you knew her--you knew me--well enough to know that i should not have detained her away from her home an hour, except to make her my wife--except to give myself the strongest right to love and defend her." "i knew nothing of the kind, captain arundel; you and mary marchmont had taken good care to keep your secrets from me. i knew nothing of your plots, your intentions. _i_ should have considered that one of the dangerfield arundels would have thought his honour sullied by such an act as a stolen marriage with an heiress, considerably under age, and nominally in the guardianship of her stepmother. i did, therefore, disbelieve the story mary marchmont told me. another person, much more experienced than i, also disbelieved the unhappy girl's account of her absence." "another person! what other person?" "mr. marchmont." "mr. marchmont!" "yes; paul marchmont,--my husband's first-cousin." a sudden cry of rage and grief broke from edward arundel's lips. "o my god!" he exclaimed, "there was some foundation for the warning in john marchmont's letter, after all. and i laughed at him; i laughed at my poor friend's fears." the widow looked at her kinsman in mute wonder. "has paul marchmont been in this house?" he asked. "yes." "when was he here?" "he has been here often; he comes here constantly. he has been living at kemberling for the last three months." "why?" "for his own pleasure, i suppose," olivia answered haughtily. "it is no business of mine to pry into mr. marchmont's motives." edward arundel ground his teeth in an access of ungovernable passion. it was not against olivia, but against himself this time that he was enraged. he hated himself for the arrogant folly, the obstinate presumption, with which he had ridiculed and slighted john marchmont's vague fears of his kinsman paul. "so this man has been here,--is here constantly," he muttered. "of course, it is only natural that he should hang about the place. and you and he are stanch allies, i suppose?" he added, turning upon olivia. "stanch allies! why?" "because you both hate my wife." "what do you mean?" "you both hate her. you, out of a base envy of her wealth; because of her superior rights, which made you a secondary person in this house, perhaps,--there is nothing else for which you _could_ hate her. paul marchmont, because she stands between him and a fortune. heaven help her! heaven help my poor, gentle, guileless darling! surely heaven must have had some pity upon her when her husband was not by!" the young man dashed the blinding tears from his eyes. they were the first that he had shed since he had risen from that which many people had thought his dying-bed, to search for his wife. but this was no time for tears or lamentations. stern determination took the place of tender pity and sorrowful love. it was a time for resolution and promptitude. "olivia marchmont," he said, "there has been some foul play in this business. my wife has been missing a month; yet when i asked my mother what had happened at this house during my illness, she could tell me nothing. why did you not write to tell her of mary's flight?" "because mrs. arundel has never done me the honour to cultivate any intimacy between us. my father writes to his sister-in-law sometimes; i scarcely ever write to my aunt. on the other hand, your mother had never seen mary marchmont, and could not be expected to take any great interest in her proceedings. there was, therefore, no reason for my writing a special letter to announce the trouble that had befallen me." "you might have written to my mother about my marriage. you might have applied to her for confirmation of the story which you disbelieved." olivia marchmont smiled. "should i have received that confirmation?" she said. "no. i saw your mother's letters to my father. there was no mention in those letters of any marriage; no mention whatever of mary marchmont. this in itself was enough to confirm my disbelief. was it reasonable to imagine that you would have married, and yet have left your mother in total ignorance of the fact?" "o god, help me!" cried edward arundel, wringing his hands. "it seems as if my own folly, my own vile procrastination, have brought this trouble upon my wife. olivia marchmont, have pity upon me. if you hate this girl, your malice must surely have been satisfied by this time. she has suffered enough. pity me, and help me; if you have any human feeling in your breast. she left this house because her life here had grown unendurable; because she saw herself doubted, disbelieved, widowed in the first month of her marriage, utterly desolate and friendless. another woman might have borne up against all this misery. another woman would have known how to assert herself, and to defend herself, even in the midst of her sorrow and desolation. but my poor darling is a child; a baby in ignorance of the world. how should _she_ protect herself against her enemies? her only instinct was to run away from her persecutors,--to hide herself from those whose pretended doubts flung the horror of dishonour upon her. i can understand all now; i can understand. olivia marchmont, this man paul has a strong reason for being a villain. the motives that have induced you to do wrong must be very small in comparison to his. he plays an infamous game, i believe; but he plays for a high stake." a high stake! had not _she_ perilled her soul upon the casting of this die? had _she_ not flung down her eternal happiness in that fatal game of hazard? "help me, then, olivia," said edward, imploringly; "help me to find my wife; and atone for all that you have ever done amiss in the past. it is not too late." his voice softened as he spoke. he turned to her, with his hands clasped, waiting anxiously for her answer. perhaps this appeal was the last cry of her good angel, pleading against the devils for her redemption. but the devils had too long held possession of this woman's breast. they arose, arrogant and unpitying, and hardened her heart against that pleading voice. "how much he loves her!" thought olivia marchmont; "how dearly he loves her! for her sake he humiliates himself to me." then, with no show of relenting in her voice or manner, she said deliberately: "i can only tell you again what i told you before. the placard you saw at the park-gates can tell you as much as i can. mary marchmont ran away. she was sought for in every direction, but without success. mr. marchmont, who is a man of the world, and better able to suggest what is right in such a case as this, advised that mr. paulette should be sent for. he was accordingly communicated with. he came, and instituted a fresh search. he also caused a bill to be printed and distributed through the country. advertisements were inserted in the 'times' and other papers. for some reason--i forget what reason--mary marchmont's name did not appear in these advertisements. they were so worded as to render the publication of the name unnecessary." edward arundel pushed his hand across his forehead. "richard paulette has been here?" he murmured, in a low voice. he had every confidence in the lawyer; and a deadly chill came over him at the thought that the cool, hard-headed solicitor had failed to find the missing girl. "yes; he was here two or three days." "and he could do nothing?" "nothing, except what i have told you." the young man thrust his hand into his breast to still the cruel beating of his heart. a sudden terror had taken possession of him,--a horrible dread that he should never look upon his young wife's face again. for some minutes there was a dead silence in the room, only broken once or twice by the falling of some ashes on the hearth. captain arundel sat with his face hidden behind his hand. olivia still stood as she had stood when her cousin entered the room, erect and gloomy, by the old-fashioned chimney-piece. "there was something in that placard," the soldier said at last, in a hoarse, altered voice,--"there was something about my wife having been seen last by the water-side. who saw her there?" "mr. weston, a surgeon of kemberling,--paul marchmont's brother-in-law." "was she seen by no one else?" "yes; she was seen at about the same time--a little sooner or later, we don't know which--by one of farmer pollard's men." "and she has never been seen since?" "never; that is to say, we can hear of no one who has seen her." "at what time in the day was she seen by this mr. weston?" "at dusk; between five and six o'clock." edward arundel put his hand suddenly to his throat, as if to check some choking sensation that prevented his speaking. "olivia," he said, "my wife was last seen by the river-side. does any one think that, by any unhappy accident, by any terrible fatality, she lost her way after dark, and fell into the water? or that--o god, that would be too horrible!--does any one suspect that she drowned herself?" "many things have been said since her disappearance," olivia marchmont answered. "some people say one thing, some another." "and it has been said that she--that she was drowned?" "yes; many people have said so. the river was dragged while mr. paulette was here, and after he went away. the men were at work with the drags for more than a week." "and they found nothing?" "nothing." "was there any other reason for supposing that--that my wife fell into the river?" "only one reason." "what was that?" "i will show you," olivia marchmont answered. she took a bunch of keys from her pocket, and went to an old-fashioned bureau or cabinet upon the other side of the room. she unlocked the upper part of this bureau, opened one of the drawers, and took from it something which she brought to edward arundel. this something was a little shoe; a little shoe of soft bronzed leather, stained and discoloured with damp and moss, and trodden down upon one side, as if the wearer had walked a weary way in it, and had been unaccustomed to so much walking. edward arundel remembered, in that brief, childishly-happy honeymoon at the little village near winchester, how often he had laughed at his young wife's propensity for walking about damp meadows in such delicate little slippers as were better adapted to the requirements of a ballroom. he remembered the slender foot, so small that he could take it in his hand; the feeble little foot that had grown tired in long wanderings by the hampshire trout-streams, but which had toiled on in heroic self-abnegation so long as it was the will of the sultan to pedestrianise. "was this found by the river-side?" he asked, looking piteously at the slipper which mrs. marchmont had put into his hand. "yes; it was found amongst the rushes on the shore, a mile below the spot at which mr. weston saw my step-daughter." edward arundel put the little shoe into his bosom. "i'll not believe it," he cried suddenly; "i'll not believe that my darling is lost to me. she was too good, far too good, to think of suicide; and providence would never suffer my poor lonely child to be led away to a dreary death upon that dismal river-shore. no, no; she fled away from this place because she was too wretched here. she went away to hide herself amongst those whom she could trust, until her husband came to claim her. i will believe anything in the world except that she is lost to me. and i will not believe that, i will never believe that, until i look down at her corpse; until i lay my hand on her cold breast, and feel that her true heart has ceased beating. as i went out of this place four months ago to look for her, i will go again now. my darling, my darling, my innocent pet, my childish bride; i will go to the very end of the world in search of you." the widow ground her teeth as she listened to her kinsman's passionate words. why did he for ever goad her to blacker wickedness by this parade of his love for mary? why did he force her to remember every moment how much cause she had to hate this pale-faced girl? captain arundel rose, and walked a few paces, leaning on his stick as he went. "you will sleep here to-night, of course?" olivia marchmont said. "sleep here!" his tone expressed plainly enough that the place was abhorrent to him. "yes; where else should you stay?" "i meant to have stopped at the nearest inn." "the nearest inn is at kemberling." "that would suit me well enough," the young man answered indifferently; "i must be in kemberling early to-morrow, for i must see paul marchmont. i am no nearer the comprehension of my wife's flight by anything that you have told me. it is to paul marchmont that i must look next. heaven help him if he tries to keep the truth from me." "you will see mr. marchmont here as easily as at kemberling," olivia answered; "he comes here every day." "what for?" "he has built a sort of painting-room down by the river-side, and he paints there whenever there is light." "indeed!" cried edward arundel; "he makes himself at home at marchmont towers, then?" "he has a right to do so, i suppose," answered the widow indifferently. "if mary marchmont is dead, this place and all belonging to it is his. as it is, i am only here on sufferance." "he has taken possession, then?" "on the contrary, he shrinks from doing so." "and, by the heaven above us, he does wisely," cried edward arundel. "no man shall seize upon that which belongs to my darling. no foul plot of this artist-traitor shall rob her of her own. god knows how little value _i_ set upon her wealth; but i will stand between her and those who try to rob her, until my last gasp. no, olivia; i'll not stay here; i'll accept no hospitality from mr. marchmont. i suspect him too much." he walked to the door; but before he reached it the widow went to one of the windows, and pushed aside the blind. "look at the rain," she said; "hark at it; don't you hear it, drip, drip, drip upon the stone? i wouldn't turn a dog out of doors upon such a night as this; and you--you are so ill--so weak. edward arundel, do you hate me so much that you refuse to share the same shelter with me, even for a night?" there is nothing so difficult of belief to a man, who is not a coxcomb, as the simple fact that he is beloved by a woman whom he does not love, and has never wooed by word or deed. but for this, surely edward arundel must, in that sudden burst of tenderness, that one piteous appeal, have discovered a clue to his cousin's secret. he discovered nothing; he guessed nothing. but he was touched by her tone, even in spite of his utter ignorance of its meaning, and he replied, in an altered manner, "certainly, olivia, if you really wish it, i will stay. heaven knows i have no desire that you and i should be ill friends. i want your help; your pity, perhaps. i am quite willing to believe that any cruel things you said to mary arose from an outbreak of temper. i cannot think that you could be base at heart. i will even attribute your disbelief of the statement made by my poor girl as to our marriage to the narrow prejudices learnt in a small country town. let us be friends, olivia." he held out his hand. his cousin laid her cold fingers in his open palm, and he shuddered as if he had come in contact with a corpse. there was nothing very cordial in the salutation. the two hands seemed to drop asunder, lifeless and inert; as if to bear mute witness that between these two people there was no possibility of sympathy or union. but captain arundel accepted his cousin's hospitality. indeed he had need to do so; for he found that his valet had relied upon his master's stopping at the towers, and had sent the carriage back to swampington. a tray with cold meat and wine was brought into the drawing-room for the young soldier's refreshment. he drank a glass of madeira, and made some pretence of eating a few mouthfuls, out of courtesy to olivia; but he did this almost mechanically. he sat silent and gloomy, brooding over the terrible shock that he had so newly received; brooding over the hidden things that had happened in that dreary interval, during which he had been as powerless to defend his wife from trouble as a dead man. again and again the cruel thought returned to him, each time with a fresh agony,--that if he had written to his mother, if he had told her the story of his marriage, the things which had happened could never have come to pass. mary would have been sheltered and protected by a good and loving woman. this thought, this horrible self-reproach, was the bitterest thing the young man had to bear. "it is too great a punishment," he thought; "i am too cruelly punished for having forgotten everything in my happiness with my darling." the widow sat in her low easy-chair near the fire, with her eyes fixed upon the burning coals; the grate had been replenished, and the light of the red blaze shone full upon olivia marchmont's haggard face. edward arundel, aroused for a few moments out of his gloomy abstraction, was surprised at the change which an interval of a few months had made in his cousin. the gloomy shadow which he had often seen on her face had become a fixed expression; every line had deepened, as if by the wear and tear of ten years, rather than by the progress of a few months. olivia marchmont had grown old before her time. nor was this the only change. there was a look, undefined and undefinable, in the large luminous grey eyes, unnaturally luminous now, which filled edward arundel with a vague sense of terror; a terror which he would not--which he dared not--attempt to analyse. he remembered mary's unreasoning fear of her stepmother, and he now scarcely wondered at that fear. there was something almost weird and unearthly in the aspect of the woman sitting opposite to him by the broad hearth: no vestige of colour in her gloomy face, a strange light burning in her eyes, and her black draperies falling round her in straight, lustreless folds. "i fear you have been ill, olivia," the young man said, presently. another sentiment had arisen in his breast side by side with that vague terror,--a fancy that perhaps there was some reason why his cousin should be pitied. "yes," she answered indifferently; as if no subject of which captain arundel could have spoken would have been of less concern to her,--"yes, i have been very ill." "i am sorry to hear it." olivia looked up at him and smiled. her smile was the strangest he had ever seen upon a woman's face. "i am very sorry to hear it. what has been the matter with you?" "slow fever, mr. weston said." "mr. weston?" "yes; mr. marchmont's brother-in-law. he has succeeded to mr. dawnfield's practice at kemberling. he attended me, and he attended my step-daughter." "my wife was ill, then?" "yes; she had brain-fever: she recovered from that, but she did not recover strength. her low spirits alarmed me, and i considered it only right--mr. marchmont suggested also--that a medical man should be consulted." "and what did this man, this mr. weston, say?" "very little; there was nothing the matter with mary, he said. he gave her a little medicine, but only in the desire of strengthening her nervous system. he could give her no medicine that would have any very good effect upon her spirits, while she chose to keep herself obstinately apart from every one." the young man's head sank upon his breast. the image of his desolate young wife arose before him; the image of a pale, sorrowful girl, holding herself apart from her persecutors, abandoned, lonely, despairing. why had she remained at marchmont towers? why had she ever consented to go there, when she had again and again expressed such terror of her stepmother? why had she not rather followed her husband down to devonshire, and thrown herself upon his relatives for protection? was it like this girl to remain quietly here in lincolnshire, when the man she loved with such innocent devotion was lying between life and death in the west? "she is such a child," he thought,--"such a child in her ignorance of the world. i must not reason about her as i would about another woman." and then a sudden flush of passionate emotion rose to his face, as a new thought flashed into his mind. what if this helpless girl had been detained by force at marchmont towers? "olivia," he cried, "whatever baseness this man, paul marchmont, may be capable of, you at least must be superior to any deliberate sin. i have all my life believed in you, and respected you, as a good woman. tell me the truth, then, for pity's sake. nothing that you can tell me will fill up the dead blank that the horrible interval since my accident has made in my life. but you can give me some help. a few words from you may clear away much of this darkness. how did you find my wife? how did you induce her to come back to this place? i know that she had an unreasonable dread of returning here." "i found her through the agency of mr. marchmont," olivia answered, quietly. "i had some difficulty in inducing her to return here; but after hearing of your accident--" "how was the news of that broken to her?" "unfortunately she saw a paper that had happened to be left in her way." "by whom?" "by mr. marchmont." "where was this?" "in hampshire." "indeed! then paul marchmont went with you to hampshire?" "he did. he was of great service to me in this crisis. after seeing the paper, my stepdaughter was seized with brain-fever. she was unconscious when we brought her back to the towers. she was nursed by my old servant barbara, and had the highest medical care. i do not think that anything more could have been done for her." "no," answered edward arundel, bitterly; "unless you could have loved her." "we cannot force our affections," the widow said, in a hard voice. another voice in her breast seemed to whisper, "why do you reproach me for not having loved this girl? if you had loved _me_, the whole world would have been different." "olivia marchmont," said captain arundel, "by your own avowal there has never been any affection for this orphan girl in your heart. it is not my business to dwell upon the fact, as something almost unnatural under the peculiar circumstances through which that helpless child was cast upon your protection. it is needless to try to understand why you have hardened your heart against my poor wife. enough that it is so. but i may still believe that, whatever your feelings may be towards your dead husband's daughter, you would not be guilty of any deliberate act of treachery against her. i can afford to believe this of you; but i cannot believe it of paul marchmont. that man is my wife's natural enemy. if he has been here during my illness, he has been here to plot against her. when he came here, he came to attempt her destruction. she stands between him and this estate. long ago, when i was a careless schoolboy, my poor friend, john marchmont, told me that, if ever the day came upon which mary's interests should be opposed to the interests of her cousin, that man would be a dire and bitter enemy; so much the more terrible because in all appearance her friend. the day came; and i, to whom the orphan girl had been left as a sacred legacy, was not by to defend her. but i have risen from a bed that many have thought a bed of death; and i come to this place with one indomitable resolution paramount in my breast,--the determination to find my wife, and to bring condign punishment upon the man who has done her wrong." captain arundel spoke in a low voice; but his passion was all the more terrible because of the suppression of those common outward evidences by which anger ordinarily betrays itself. he relapsed into thoughtful silence. olivia made no answer to anything that he had said. she sat looking at him steadily, with an admiring awe in her face. how splendid he was--this young hero--even in his sickness and feebleness! how splendid, by reason of the grand courage, the chivalrous devotion, that shone out of his blue eyes! the clock struck eleven while the cousins sat opposite to each other,--only divided, physically, by the width of the tapestried hearth-rug; but, oh, how many weary miles asunder in spirit!--and edward arundel rose, startled from his sorrowful reverie. "if i were a strong man," he said, "i would see paul marchmont to-night. but i must wait till to-morrow morning. at what time does he come to his painting-room?"' "at eight o'clock, when the mornings are bright; but later when the weather is dull." "at eight o'clock! i pray heaven the sun may shine early to-morrow! i pray heaven i may not have to wait long before i find myself face to face with that man! good-night, olivia." he took a candle from a table near the door, and lit it almost mechanically. he found mr. morrison waiting for him, very sleepy and despondent, in a large bedchamber in which captain arundel had never slept before,--a dreary apartment, decked out with the faded splendours of the past; a chamber in which the restless sleeper might expect to see a phantom lady in a ghostly sacque, cowering over the embers, and spreading her transparent hands above the red light. "it isn't particular comfortable, after dangerfield," the valet muttered in a melancholy voice; "and all i 'ope, mr. edward, is, that the sheets are not damp. i've been a stirrin' of the fire and puttin' on fresh coals for the last hour. there's a bed for me in the dressin' room, within call." captain arundel scarcely heard what his servant said to him. he was standing at the door of the spacious chamber, looking out into a long low-roofed corridor, in which he had just encountered barbara, mrs. marchmont's confidential attendant,--the wooden-faced, inscrutable-looking woman, who, according to olivia, had watched and ministered to his wife. "was that the tenderest face that looked down upon my darling as she lay on her sick-bed?" he thought. "i had almost as soon have had a ghoul to watch by my poor dear's pillow." chapter viii. the painting-room by the river. edward arundel lay awake through the best part of that november night, listening to the ceaseless dripping of the rain upon the terrace, and thinking of paul marchmont. it was of this man that he must demand an account of his wife. nothing that olivia had told him had in any way lessened this determination. the little slipper found by the water's edge; the placard flapping on the moss-grown pillar at the entrance to the park; the story of a possible suicide, or a more probable accident;--all these things were as nothing beside the young man's suspicion of paul marchmont. he had pooh-poohed john's dread of his kinsman as weak and unreasonable; and now, with the same unreason, he was ready to condemn this man, whom he had never seen, as a traitor and a plotter against his young wife. he lay tossing from side to side all that night, weak and feverish, with great drops of cold perspiration rolling down his pale face, sometimes falling into a fitful sleep, in whose distorted dreams paul marchmont was for ever present, now one man, now another. there was no sense of fitness in these dreams; for sometimes edward arundel and the artist were wrestling together with newly-sharpened daggers in their eager hands, each thirsting for the other's blood; and in the next moment they were friends, and had been friendly--as it seemed--for years. the young man woke from one of these last dreams, with words of good-fellowship upon his lips, to find the morning light gleaming through the narrow openings in the damask window-curtains, and mr. morrison laying out his master's dressing apparatus upon the carved oak toilette-table. captain arundel dressed himself as fast as he could, with the assistance of the valet, and then made his way down the broad staircase, with the help of his cane, upon which he had need to lean pretty heavily, for he was as weak as a child. "you had better give me the brandy-flask, morrison," he said. "i am going out before breakfast. you may as well come with me, by-the-by; for i doubt if i could walk as far as i want to go, without the help of your arm." in the hall captain arundel found one of the servants. the western door was open, and the man was standing on the threshold looking out at the morning. the rain had ceased; but the day did not yet promise to be very bright, for the sun gleamed like a ball of burnished copper through a pale november mist. "do you know if mr. paul marchmont has gone down to the boat-house?" edward asked. "yes, sir," the man answered; "i met him just now in the quadrangle. he'd been having a cup of coffee with my mistress." edward started. they were friends, then, paul marchmont and olivia!--friends, but surely not allies! whatever villany this man might be capable of committing, olivia must at least be guiltless of any deliberate treachery? captain arundel took his servant's arm and walked out into the quadrangle, and from the quadrangle to the low-lying woody swamp, where the stunted trees looked grim and weird-like in their leafless ugliness. weak as the young man was, he walked rapidly across the sloppy ground, which had been almost flooded by the continual rains. he was borne up by his fierce desire to be face to face with paul marchmont. the savage energy of his mind was stronger than any physical debility. he dismissed mr. morrison as soon as he was within sight of the boat-house, and went on alone, leaning on his stick, and pausing now and then to draw breath, angry with himself for his weakness. the boat-house, and the pavilion above it, had been patched up by some country workmen. a handful of plaster here and there, a little new brickwork, and a mended window-frame bore witness of this. the ponderous old-fashioned wooden shutters had been repaired, and a good deal of the work which had been begun in john marchmont's lifetime had now, in a certain rough manner, been completed. the place, which had hitherto appeared likely to fall into utter decay, had been rendered weather-tight and habitable; the black smoke creeping slowly upward from the ivy-covered chimney, gave evidence of occupation. beyond this, a large wooden shed, with a wide window fronting the north, had been erected close against the boat-house. this rough shed edward arundel at once understood to be the painting-room which the artist had built for himself. he paused a moment outside the door of this shed. a man's voice--a tenor voice, rather thin and metallic in quality--was singing a scrap of rossini upon the other side of the frail woodwork. edward arundel knocked with the handle of his stick upon the door. the voice left off singing, to say "come in." the soldier opened the door, crossed the threshold, and stood face to face with paul marchmont in the bare wooden shed. the painter had dressed himself for his work. his coat and waistcoat lay upon a chair near the door. he had put on a canvas jacket, and had drawn a loose pair of linen trousers over those which belonged to his usual costume. so far as this paint-besmeared coat and trousers went, nothing could have been more slovenly than paul marchmont's appearance; but some tincture of foppery exhibited itself in the black velvet smoking-cap, which contrasted with and set off the silvery whiteness of his hair, as well as in the delicate curve of his amber moustache. a moustache was not a very common adornment in the year . it was rather an eccentricity affected by artists, and permitted as the wild caprice of irresponsible beings, not amenable to the laws that govern rational and respectable people. edward arundel sharply scrutinised the face and figure of the artist. he cast a rapid glance round the bare whitewashed walls of the shed, trying to read even in those bare walls some chance clue to the painter's character. but there was not much to be gleaned from the details of that almost empty chamber. a dismal, black-looking iron stove, with a crooked chimney, stood in one corner. a great easel occupied the centre of the room. a sheet of tin, nailed upon a wooden shutter, swung backwards and forwards against the northern window, blown to and fro by the damp wind that crept in through the crevices in the framework of the roughly-fashioned casement. a heap of canvases were piled against the walls, and here and there a half-finished picture--a lurid turneresque landscape; a black stormy sky; or a rocky mountain-pass, dyed blood-red by the setting sun--was propped up against the whitewashed background. scattered scraps of water-colour, crayon, old engravings, sketches torn and tumbled, bits of rockwork and foliage, lay littered about the floor; and on a paint-stained deal-table of the roughest and plainest fashion were gathered the colour-tubes and palettes, the brushes and sponges and dirty cloths, the greasy and sticky tin-cans, which form the paraphernalia of an artist. opposite the northern window was the moss-grown stone-staircase leading up to the pavilion over the boat-house. mr. marchmont had built his painting-room against the side of the pavilion, in such a manner as to shut in the staircase and doorway which formed the only entrance to it. his excuse for the awkwardness of this piece of architecture was the impossibility of otherwise getting the all-desirable northern light for the illumination of his rough studio. this was the chamber in which edward arundel found the man from whom he came to demand an account of his wife's disappearance. the artist was evidently quite prepared to receive his visitor. he made no pretence of being taken off his guard, as a meaner pretender might have done. one of paul marchmont's theories was, that as it is only a fool who would use brass where he could as easily employ gold, so it is only a fool who tells a lie when he can conveniently tell the truth. "captain arundel, i believe?" he said, pushing a chair forward for his visitor. "i am sorry to say i recognise you by your appearance of ill health. mrs. marchmont told me you wanted to see me. does my meerschaum annoy you? i'll put it out if it does. no? then, if you'll allow me, i'll go on smoking. some people say tobacco-smoke gives a tone to one's pictures. if so, mine ought to be rembrandts in depth of colour." edward arundel dropped into the chair that had been offered to him. if he could by any possibility have rejected even this amount of hospitality from paul marchmont, he would have done so; but he was a great deal too weak to stand, and he knew that his interview with the artist must be a long one. "mr. marchmont," he said, "if my cousin olivia told you that you might expect to see me here to-day, she most likely told you a great deal more. did she tell you that i looked to you to account to me for the disappearance of my wife?" paul marchmont shrugged his shoulders, as who should say, "this young man is an invalid. i must not suffer myself to be aggravated by his absurdity." then taking his meerschaum from his lips, he set it down, and seated himself at a few paces from edward arundel on the lowest of the moss-grown steps leading up to the pavilion. "my dear captain arundel," he said, very gravely, "your cousin did repeat to me a great deal of last night's conversation. she told me that you had spoken of me with a degree of violence, natural enough perhaps to a hot-tempered young soldier, but in no manner justified by our relations. when you call upon me to account for the disappearance of mary marchmont, you act about as rationally as if you declared me answerable for the pulmonary complaint that carried away her father. if, on the other hand, you call upon me to assist you in the endeavour to fathom the mystery of her disappearance, you will find me ready and willing to aid you to the very uttermost. it is to my interest as much as to yours that this mystery should be cleared up." "and in the meantime you take possession of this estate?" "no, captain arundel. the law would allow me to do so; but i decline to touch one farthing of the revenue which this estate yields, or to commit one act of ownership, until the mystery of mary marchmont's disappearance, or of her death, is cleared up." "the mystery of her death?" said edward arundel; "you believe, then, that she is dead?" "i anticipate nothing; i think nothing," answered the artist; "i only wait. the mysteries of life are so many and so incomprehensible,--the stories, which are every day to be read by any man who takes the trouble to look through a newspaper, are so strange, and savour so much of the improbabilities of a novel-writer's first wild fiction,--that i am ready to believe everything and anything. mary marchmont struck me, from the first moment in which i saw her, as sadly deficient in mental power. nothing she could do would astonish me. she may be hiding herself away from us, prompted only by some eccentric fancy of her own. she may have fallen into the power of designing people. she may have purposely placed her slipper by the water-side, in order to give the idea of an accident or a suicide; or she may have dropped it there by chance, and walked barefoot to the nearest railway-station. she acted unreasonably before when she ran away from marchmont towers; she may have acted unreasonably again." "you do not think, then, that she is dead?" "i hesitate to form any opinion; i positively decline to express one." edward arundel gnawed savagely at the ends of his moustache. this man's cool imperturbability, which had none of the studied smoothness of hypocrisy, but which seemed rather the plain candour of a thorough man of the world, who had no wish to pretend to any sentiment he did not feel, baffled and infuriated the passionate young soldier. was it possible that this man, who met him with such cool self-assertion, who in no manner avoided any discussion of mary marchmont's disappearance,--was it possible that he could have had any treacherous and guilty part in that calamity? olivia's manner looked like guilt; but paul marchmont's seemed the personification of innocence. not angry innocence, indignant that its purity should have been suspected; but the matter-of-fact, commonplace innocence of a man of the world, who is a great deal too clever to play any hazardous and villanous game. "you can perhaps answer me this question, mr. marchmont," said edward arundel. "why was my wife doubted when she told the story of her marriage?" the artist smiled, and rising from his seat upon the stone step, took a pocket-book from one of the pockets of the coat that he had been wearing. "i _can_ answer that question," he said, selecting a paper from amongst others in the pocket-book. "this will answer it." he handed edward arundel the paper, which was a letter folded lengthways, and indorsed, "from mrs. arundel, august st." within this letter was another paper, indorsed, "copy of letter to mrs. arundel, august th." "you had better read the copy first," mr. marchmont said, as edward looked doubtfully at the inner paper. the copy was very brief, and ran thus: "marchmont towers, august , . "madam,--i have been given to understand that your son, captain arundel, within a fortnight of his sad accident, contracted a secret marriage with a young lady, whose name i, for several reasons, prefer to withhold. if you can oblige me by informing me whether there is any foundation for this statement, you will confer a very great favour upon "your obedient servant, "paul marchmont." the answer to this letter, in the hand of edward arundel's mother, was equally brief: "dangerfield park, august , . "sir,--in reply to your inquiry, i beg to state that there can be no foundation whatever for the report to which you allude. my son is too honourable to contract a secret marriage; and although his present unhappy state renders it impossible for me to receive the assurance from his own lips, my confidence in his high principles justifies me in contradicting any such report as that which forms the subject of your letter. "i am, sir, "yours obediently, "letitia arundel." the soldier stood, mute and confounded, with his mother's letter in his hand. it seemed as if every creature had been against the helpless girl whom he had made his wife. every hand had been lifted to drive her from the house that was her own; to drive her out upon the world, of which she was ignorant, a wanderer and an outcast; perhaps to drive her to a cruel death. "you can scarcely wonder if the receipt of that letter confirmed me in my previous belief that mary marchmont's story of a marriage arose out of the weakness of a brain, never too strong, and at that time very much enfeebled by the effect of a fever." edward arundel was silent. he crushed his mother's letter in his hand. even his mother--even his mother--that tender and compassionate woman, whose protection he had so freely promised, ten years before, in the lobby of drury lane, to john marchmont's motherless child,--even she, by some hideous fatality, had helped to bring grief and shame upon the lonely girl. all this story of his young wife's disappearance seemed enveloped in a wretched obscurity, through whose thick darkness he could not penetrate. he felt himself encompassed by a web of mystery, athwart which it was impossible to cut his way to the truth. he asked question after question, and received answers which seemed freely given; but the story remained as dark as ever. what did it all mean? what was the clue to the mystery? was this man, paul marchmont,--busy amongst his unfinished pictures, and bearing in his every action, in his every word, the stamp of an easy-going, free-spoken soldier of fortune,--likely to have been guilty of any dark and subtle villany against the missing girl? he had disbelieved in the marriage; but he had had some reason for his doubt of a fact that could not very well be welcome to him. the young man rose from his chair, and stood irresolute, brooding over these things. "come, captain arundel," cried paul marchmont, heartily, "believe me, though i have not much superfluous sentimentality left in my composition after a pretty long encounter with the world, still i can truly sympathise with your regret for this poor silly child. i hope, for your sake, that she still lives, and is foolishly hiding herself from us all. perhaps, now you are able to act in the business, there may be a better chance of finding her. i am old enough to be your father, and am ready to give you the help of any knowledge of the world which i may have gathered in the experience of a lifetime. will you accept my help?" edward arundel paused for a moment, with his head still bent, and his eyes fixed upon the ground. then suddenly lifting his head, he looked full in the artist's face as he answered him. "no!" he cried. "your offer may be made in all good faith, and if so, i thank you for it; but no one loves this missing girl as i love her; no one has so good a right as i have to protect and shelter her. i will look for my wife, alone, unaided; except by such help as i pray that god may give me." chapter ix. in the dark. edward arundel walked slowly back to the towers, shaken in body, perplexed in mind, baffled, disappointed, and most miserable; the young husband, whose married life had been shut within the compass of a brief honeymoon, went back to that dark and gloomy mansion within whose encircling walls mary had pined and despaired. "why did she stop here?" he thought; "why didn't she come to me? i thought her first impulse would have brought her to me. i thought my poor childish love would have set out on foot to seek her husband, if need were." he groped his way feebly and wearily amidst the leafless wood, and through the rotting vegetation decaying in oozy slime beneath the black shelter of the naked trees. he groped his way towards the dismal eastern front of the great stone dwelling-house, his face always turned towards the blank windows, that stared down at him from the discoloured walls. "oh, if they could speak!" he exclaimed, almost beside himself in his perplexity and desperation; "if they could speak! if those cruel walls could find a voice, and tell me what my darling suffered within their shadow! if they could tell me why she despaired, and ran away to hide herself from her husband and protector! _if_ they could speak!" he ground his teeth in a passion of sorrowful rage. "i should gain as much by questioning yonder stone wall as by talking to my cousin, olivia marchmont," he thought, presently. "why is that woman so venomous a creature in her hatred of my innocent wife? why is it that, whether i threaten, or whether i appeal, i can gain nothing from her--nothing? she baffles me as completely by her measured answers, which seem to reply to my questions, and which yet tell me nothing, as if she were a brazen image set up by the dark ignorance of a heathen people, and dumb in the absence of an impostor-priest. she baffles me, question her how i will. and paul marchmont, again,--what have i learned from him? am i a fool, that people can prevaricate and lie to me like this? has my brain no sense, and my arm no strength, that i cannot wring the truth from the false throats of these wretches?" the young man gnashed his teeth again in the violence of his rage. yes, it was like a dream; it was like nothing but a dream. in dreams he had often felt this terrible sense of impotence wrestling with a mad desire to achieve something or other. but never before in his waking hours had the young soldier experienced such a sensation. he stopped, irresolute, almost bewildered, looking back at the boat-house, a black spot far away down by the sedgy brink of the slow river, and then again turning his face towards the monotonous lines of windows in the eastern frontage of marchmont towers. "i let that man play with me to-day," he thought; "but our reckoning is to come. we have not done with each other yet." he walked on towards the low archway leading into the quadrangle. the room which had been john marchmont's study, and which his widow had been wont to occupy since his death, looked into this quadrangle. edward arundel saw his cousin's dark head bending over a book, or a desk perhaps, behind the window. "let her beware of me, if she has done any wrong to my wife!" he thought. "to which of these people am i to look for an account of my poor lost girl? to which of these two am i to look! heaven guide me to find the guilty one; and heaven have mercy upon that wretched creature when the hour of reckoning comes; for i will have none." olivia marchmont, looking through the window, saw her kinsman's face while this thought was in his mind. the expression which she saw there was so terrible, so merciless, so sublime in its grand and vengeful beauty, that her own face blanched even to a paler hue than that which had lately become habitual to it. "am i afraid of him?" she thought, as she pressed her forehead against the cold glass, and by a physical effort restrained the convulsive trembling that had suddenly shaken her frame. "am i afraid of him? no; what injury can he inflict upon me worse than that which he has done me from the very first? if he could drag me to a scaffold, and deliver me with his own hands into the grasp of the hangman, he would do me no deeper wrong than he has done me from the hour of my earliest remembrance of him. he could inflict no new pangs, no sharper tortures, than i have been accustomed to suffer at his hands. he does not love me. he has never loved me. he never will love me. _that_ is my wrong; and it is for that i take my revenge!" she lifted her head, which had rested in a sullen attitude against the glass, and looked at the soldier's figure slowly advancing towards the western side of the house. then, with a smile,--the same horrible smile which edward arundel had seen light up her face on the previous night,--she muttered between her set teeth:-- "shall i be sorry because this vengeance has fallen across my pathway? shall i repent, and try to undo what i have done? shall i thrust myself between others and mr. edward arundel? shall _i_ make myself the ally and champion of this gallant soldier, who seldom speaks to me except to insult and upbraid me? shall _i_ take justice into my hands, and interfere for my kinsman's benefit? no; he has chosen to threaten me; he has chosen to believe vile things of me. from the first his indifference has been next kin to insolence. let him take care of himself." edward arundel took no heed of the grey eyes that watched him with such a vengeful light in their fixed gaze. he was still thinking of his missing wife, still feeling, to a degree that was intolerably painful, that miserable dream-like sense of helplessness and prostration. "what am i to do?" he thought. "shall i be for ever going backwards and forwards between my cousin olivia and paul marchmont; for ever questioning them, first one and then the other, and never getting any nearer to the truth?" he asked himself this question, because the extreme anguish, the intense anxiety, which he had endured, seemed to have magnified the smallest events, and to have multiplied a hundred-fold the lapse of time. it seemed as if he had already spent half a lifetime in his search after john marchmont's lost daughter. "o my friend, my friend!" he thought, as some faint link of association, some memory thrust upon him by the aspect of the place in which he was, brought back the simple-minded tutor who had taught him mathematics eighteen years before,--"my poor friend, if this girl had not been my love and my wife, surely the memory of your trust in me would be enough to make me a desperate and merciless avenger of her wrongs." he went into the hall, and from the hall to the tenantless western drawing-room,--a dreary chamber, with its grim and faded splendour, its stiff, old-fashioned furniture; a chamber which, unadorned by the presence of youth and innocence, had the aspect of belonging to a day that was gone, and people that were dead. so might have looked one of those sealed-up chambers in the buried cities of italy, when the doors were opened, and eager living eyes first looked in upon the habitations of the dead. edward arundel walked up and down the empty drawing-room. there were the ivory chessmen that he had brought from india, under a glass shade on an inlaid table in a window. how often he and mary had played together in that very window; and how she had always lost her pawns, and left bishops and knights undefended, while trying to execute impossible manoeuvres with her queen! the young man paced slowly backwards and forwards across the old-fashioned bordered carpet, trying to think what he should do. he must form some plan of action in his own mind, he thought. there was foul work somewhere, he most implicitly believed; and it was for him to discover the motive of the treachery, and the person of the traitor. paul marchmont! paul marchmont! his mind always travelled back to this point. paul marchmont was mary's natural enemy. paul marchmont was therefore surely the man to be suspected, the man to be found out and defeated. and yet, if there was any truth in appearances, it was olivia who was most inimical to the missing girl; it was olivia whom mary had feared; it was olivia who had driven john marchmont's orphan-child from her home once, and who might, by the same power to tyrannise and torture a weak and yielding nature, have so banished her again. or these two, paul and olivia, might both hate the defenceless girl, and might have between them plotted a wrong against her. "who will tell me the truth about my lost darling?" cried edward arundel. "who will help me to look for my missing love?" his lost darling; his missing love. it was thus that the young man spoke of his wife. that dark thought which had been suggested to him by the words of olivia, by the mute evidence of the little bronze slipper picked up near the river-brink, had never taken root, or held even a temporary place in his breast. he would not--nay, more, he could not--think that his wife was dead. in all his confused and miserable dreams that dreary november night, no dream had ever shown him _that_. no image of death had mingled itself with the distorted shadows that had tormented his sleep. no still white face had looked up at him through a veil of murky waters. no moaning sob of a rushing stream had mixed its dismal sound with the many voices of his slumbers. no; he feared all manner of unknown sorrows; he looked vaguely forward to a sea of difficulty, to be waded across in blindness and bewilderment before he could clasp his rescued wife in his arms; but he never thought that she was dead. presently the idea came to him that it was outside marchmont towers,--away, beyond the walls of this grim, enchanted castle, where evil spirits seemed to hold possession,--that he should seek for the clue to his wife's hiding-place. "there is hester, that girl who was fond of mary," he thought; "she may be able to tell me something, perhaps. i will go to her." he went out into the hall to look for his servant, the faithful morrison, who had been eating a very substantial breakfast with the domestics of the towers--"the sauce to meat" being a prolonged discussion of the facts connected with mary marchmont's disappearance and her relations with edward arundel--and who came, radiant and greasy from the enjoyment of hot buttered cakes and lincolnshire bacon, at the sound of his master's voice. "i want you to get me some vehicle, and a lad who will drive me a few miles, morrison," the young soldier said; "or you can drive me yourself, perhaps?" "certainly, master edward; i have driven your pa often, when we was travellin' together. i'll go and see if there's a phee-aton or a shay that will suit you, sir; something that goes easy on its springs." "get anything," muttered captain arundel, "so long as you can get it without loss of time." all fuss and anxiety upon the subject of his health worried the young man. he felt his head dizzied with weakness and excitement; his arm--that muscular right arm, which had done him good service two years before in an encounter with a tigress--was weaker than the jewel-bound wrist of a woman. but he chafed against anything like consideration of his weakness; he rebelled against anything that seemed likely to hinder him in that one object upon which all the powers of his mind were bent. mr. morrison went away with some show of briskness, but dropped into a very leisurely pace as soon as he was fairly out of his master's sight. he went straight to the stables, where he had a pleasant gossip with the grooms and hangers-on, and amused himself further by inspecting every bit of horseflesh in the marchmont stables, prior to selecting a quiet grey cob which he felt himself capable of driving, and an old-fashioned gig with a yellow body and black and yellow wheels, bearing a strong resemblance to a monstrous wooden wasp. while the faithful attendant to whom mrs. arundel had delegated the care of her son was thus employed, the soldier stood in the stone hall, looking out at the dreary wintry landscape, and pining to hurry away across the dismal swamps to the village in which he hoped to hear tidings of her he sought. he was lounging in a deep oaken window-seat, looking hopelessly at that barren prospect, that monotonous expanse of flat morass and leaden sky, when he heard a footstep behind him; and turning round saw olivia's confidential servant, barbara simmons, the woman who had watched by his wife's sick-bed,--the woman whom he had compared to a ghoule. she was walking slowly across the hall towards olivia's room, whither a bell had just summoned her. mrs. marchmont had lately grown fretful and capricious, and did not care to be waited upon by any one except this woman, who had known her from her childhood, and was no stranger to her darkest moods. edward arundel had determined to appeal to every living creature who was likely to know anything of his wife's disappearance, and he snatched the first opportunity of questioning this woman. "stop, mrs. simmons," he said, moving away from the window; "i want to speak to you; i want to talk to you about my wife." the woman turned to him with a blank face, whose expressionless stare might mean either genuine surprise or an obstinate determination not to understand anything that might be said to her. "your wife, captain arundel!" she said, in cold measured tones, but with an accent of astonishment. "yes; my wife. mary marchmont, my lawfully-wedded wife. look here, woman," cried edward arundel; "if you cannot accept the word of a soldier, and an honourable man, you can perhaps believe the evidence of your eyes." he took a morocco memorandum-book from his breast-pocket. it was full of letters, cards, bank-notes, and miscellaneous scraps of paper carelessly stuffed into it, and amongst them captain arundel found the certificate of his marriage, which he had put away at random upon his wedding morning, and which had lain unheeded in his pocket-book ever since. "look here," he cried, spreading the document before the waiting-woman's eyes, and pointing, with a shaking hand, to the lines. "you believe that, i suppose?" "o yes, sir," barbara simmons answered, after deliberately reading the certificate. "i have no reason to disbelieve it; no wish to disbelieve it." "no; i suppose not," muttered edward arundel, "unless you too are leagued with paul marchmont." the woman did not flinch at this hinted accusation, but answered the young man in that slow and emotionless manner which no change of circumstance seemed to have power to alter. "i am leagued with no one, sir," she said, coldly. "i serve no one except my mistress, miss olivia--i mean mrs. marchmont." the study-bell rang for the second time while she was speaking. "i must go to my mistress now, sir," she said. "you heard her ringing for me." "go, then, and let me see you as you come back. i tell you i must and will speak to you. everybody in this house tries to avoid me. it seems as if i was not to get a straight answer from any one of you. but i _will_ know all that is to be known about my lost wife. do you hear, woman? i will know!" "i will come back to you directly, sir," barbara simmons answered quietly. the leaden calmness of this woman's manner irritated edward arundel beyond all power of expression. before his cousin olivia's gloomy coldness he had been flung back upon himself as before an iceberg; but every now and then some sudden glow of fiery emotion had shot up amid that frigid mass, lurid and blazing, and the iceberg had been transformed into an angry and passionate woman, who might, in that moment of fierce emotion, betray the dark secrets of her soul. but _this_ woman's manner presented a passive barrier, athwart which the young soldier was as powerless to penetrate as he would have been to walk through a block of solid stone. olivia was like some black and stony castle, whose barred windows bade defiance to the besieger, but behind whose narrow casements transient flashes of light gleamed fitfully upon the watchers without, hinting at the mysteries that were hidden within the citadel. barbara simmons resembled a blank stone wall, grimly confronting the eager traveller, and giving no indication whatever of the unknown country on the other side. she came back almost immediately, after being only a few moments in olivia's room,--certainly not long enough to consult with her mistress as to what she was to say or to leave unsaid,--and presented herself before captain arundel. "if you have any questions to ask, sir, about miss marchmont--about your wife--i shall be happy to answer them," she said. "i have a hundred questions to ask," exclaimed the young man; "but first answer me this one plainly and truthfully--where do you think my wife has gone? what do you think has become of her?" the woman was silent for a few moments, and then answered very gravely,-- "i would rather not say what i think, sir." "why not?" "because i might say that which would make you unhappy." "can anything be more miserable to me than the prevarication which i meet with on every side?" cried edward arundel. "if you or any one else will be straightforward with me--remembering that i come to this place like a man who has risen from the grave, depending wholly on the word of others for the knowledge of that which is more vital to me than anything upon this earth--that person will be the best friend i have found since i rose from my sick-bed to come hither. you can have had no motive--if you are not in paul marchmont's pay--for being cruel to my poor girl. tell me the truth, then; speak, and speak fearlessly." "i have no reason to fear, sir," answered barbara simmons, lifting her faded eyes to the young man's eager face, with a gaze that seemed to say, "i have done no wrong, and i do not shrink from justifying myself." "i have no reason to fear, sir; i was piously brought up, and have done my best always to do my duty in the state of life in which providence has been pleased to place me. i have not had a particularly happy life, sir; for thirty years ago i lost all that made me happy, in them that loved me, and had a claim to love me. i have attached myself to my mistress; but it isn't for me to expect a lady like her would stoop to make me more to her or nearer to her than i have a right to be as a servant." there was no accent of hypocrisy or cant in any one of these deliberately-spoken words. it seemed as if in this speech the woman had told the history of her life; a brief, unvarnished history of a barren life, out of which all love and sunlight had been early swept away, leaving behind a desolate blank, that was not destined to be filled up by any affection from the young mistress so long and patiently served. "i am faithful to my mistress, sir," barbara simmons added, presently; "and i try my best to do my duty to her. i owe no duty to any one else." "you owe a duty to humanity," answered edward arundel. "woman, do you think duty is a thing to be measured by line and rule? christ came to save the lost sheep of the children of israel; but was he less pitiful to the canaanitish woman when she carried her sorrows to his feet? you and your mistress have made hard precepts for yourselves, and have tried to live by them. you try to circumscribe the area of your christian charity, and to do good within given limits. the traveller who fell among thieves would have died of his wounds, for any help he might have had from you, if he had lain beyond your radius. have you yet to learn that christianity is cosmopolitan, illimitable, inexhaustible, subject to no laws of time or space? the duty you owe to your mistress is a duty that she buys and pays for--a matter of sordid barter, to be settled when you take your wages; the duty you owe to every miserable creature in your pathway is a sacred debt, to be accounted for to god." as the young soldier spoke thus, carried away by his passionate agitation, suddenly eloquent by reason of the intensity of his feeling, a change came over barbara's face. there was no very palpable evidence of emotion in that stolid countenance; but across the wooden blankness of the woman's face flitted a transient shadow, which was like the shadow of fear. "i tried to do my duty to miss marchmont as well as to my mistress," she said. "i waited on her faithfully while she was ill. i sat up with her six nights running; i didn't take my clothes off for a week. there are folks in the house who can tell you as much." "god knows i am grateful to you, and will reward you for any pity you may have shown my poor darling," the young man answered, in a more subdued tone; "only, if you pity me, and wish to help me, speak out, and speak plainly. what do you think has become of my lost girl?" "i cannot tell you, sir. as god looks down upon me and judges me, i declare to you that i know no more than you know. but i think----" "you think what?" "that you will never see miss marchmont again." edward arundel started as violently as if, of all sentences, this was the last he had expected to hear pronounced. his sanguine temperament, fresh in its vigorous and untainted youth, could not grasp the thought of despair. he could be mad with passionate anger against the obstacles that separated him from his wife; but he could not believe those obstacles to be insurmountable. he could not doubt the power of his own devotion and courage to bring him back his lost love. "never--see her--again!" he repeated these words as if they had belonged to a strange language, and he were trying to make out their meaning. "you think," he gasped hoarsely, after a long pause,--"you think--that--she is--dead?" "i think that she went out of this house in a desperate state of mind. she was seen--not by me, for i should have thought it my duty to stop her if i had seen her so--she was seen by one of the servants crying and sobbing awfully as she went away upon that last afternoon." "and she was never seen again?" "never by me." "and--you--you think she went out of this house with the intention of--of--destroying herself?" the words died away in a hoarse whisper, and it was by the motion of his white lips that barbara simmons perceived what the young man meant. "i do, sir." "have you any--particular reason for thinking so?" "no reason beyond what i have told you, sir." edward arundel bent his head, and walked away to hide his blanched face. he tried instinctively to conceal this mental suffering, as he had sometimes hidden physical torture in an indian hospital, prompted by the involuntary impulse of a brave man. but though the woman's words had come upon him like a thunderbolt, he had no belief in the opinion they expressed. no; his young spirit wrestled against and rejected the awful conclusion. other people might think what they chose; but he knew better than they. his wife was _not_ dead. his life had been so smooth, so happy, so prosperous, so unclouded and successful, that it was scarcely strange he should be sceptical of calamity,--that his mind should be incapable of grasping the idea of a catastrophe so terrible as mary's suicide. "she was intrusted to me by her father," he thought. "she gave her faith to me before god's altar. she _cannot_ have perished body and soul; she _cannot_ have gone down to destruction for want of my arm outstretched to save her. god is too good to permit such misery." the young soldier's piety was of the simplest and most unquestioning order, and involved an implicit belief that a right cause must always be ultimately victorious. with the same blind faith in which he had often muttered a hurried prayer before plunging in amidst the mad havoc of an indian battle-field, confident that the justice of heaven would never permit heathenish affghans to triumph over christian british gentlemen, he now believed that, in the darkest hour of mary marchmont's life, god's arm had held her back from the dread horror--the unatonable offence--of self-destruction. "i thank you for having spoken frankly to me," he said to barbara simmons; "i believe that you have spoken in good faith. but i do not think my darling is for ever lost to me. i anticipate trouble and anxiety, disappointment, defeat for a time,--for a long time, perhaps; but i _know_ that i shall find her in the end. the business of my life henceforth is to look for her." barbara's dull eyes held earnest watch upon the young man's countenance as he spoke. anxiety and even fear were in that gaze, palpable to those who knew how to read the faint indications of the woman's stolid face. chapter x. the paragraph in the newspaper. mr. morrison brought the gig and pony to the western porch while captain arundel was talking to his cousin's servant, and presently the invalid was being driven across the flat between the towers and the high-road to kemberling. mary's old favourite, farmer pollard's daughter, came out of a low rustic shop as the gig drew up before her husband's door. this good-natured, tender-hearted hester, advanced to matronly dignity under the name of mrs. jobson, carried a baby in her arms, and wore a white dimity hood, that made a penthouse over her simple rosy face. but at the sight of captain arundel nearly all the rosy colour disappeared from the country-woman's plump cheeks, and she stared aghast at the unlooked-for visitor, almost ready to believe that, if anything so substantial as a pony and gig could belong to the spiritual world, it was the phantom only of the soldier that she looked upon. "o sir!" she said; "o captain arundel, is it really you?" edward alighted before hester could recover from the surprise occasioned by his appearance. "yes, mrs. jobson," he said. "may i come into your house? i wish to speak to you." hester curtseyed, and stood aside to allow her visitor to pass her. her manner was coldly respectful, and she looked at the young officer with a grave, reproachful face, which was strange to him. she ushered her guest into a parlour at the back of the shop; a prim apartment, splendid with varnished mahogany, shell-work boxes--bought during hester's honeymoon-trip to a lincolnshire watering-place--and voluminous achievements in the way of crochet-work; a gorgeous and sabbath-day chamber, looking across a stand of geraniums into a garden that was orderly and trimly kept even in this dull november weather. mrs. jobson drew forward an uneasy easy-chair, covered with horsehair, and veiled by a crochet-work representation of a peacock embowered among roses. she offered this luxurious seat to captain arundel, who, in his weakness, was well content to sit down upon the slippery cushions. "i have come here to ask you to help me in my search for my wife, hester," edward arundel said, in a scarcely audible voice. it is not given to the bravest mind to be utterly independent and defiant of the body; and the soldier was beginning to feel that he had very nearly run the length of his tether, and must soon submit himself to be prostrated by sheer physical weakness. "your wife!" cried hester eagerly. "o sir, is that true?" "is what true?" "that poor miss mary was your lawful wedded wife?" "she was," replied edward arundel sternly, "my true and lawful wife. what else should she have been, mrs. jobson?" the farmer's daughter burst into tears. "o sir," she said, sobbing violently as she spoke,--"o sir, the things that was said against that poor dear in this place and all about the towers! the things that was said! it makes my heart bleed to think of them; it makes my heart ready to break when i think what my poor sweet young lady must have suffered. and it set me against you, sir; and i thought you was a bad and cruel-hearted man!" "what did they say?" cried edward. "what did they dare to say against her or against me?" "they said that you had enticed her away from her home, sir, and that--that--there had been no marriage; and that you had deluded that poor innocent dear to run away with you; and that you'd deserted her afterwards, and the railway accident had come upon you as a punishment like; and that mrs. marchmont had found poor miss mary all alone at a country inn, and had brought her back to the towers." "but what if people did say this?" exclaimed captain arundel. "you could have contradicted their foul slanders; you could have spoken in defence of my poor helpless girl." "me, sir!" "yes. you must have heard the truth from my wife's own lips." hester jobson burst into a new flood of tears as edward arundel said this. "o no, sir," she sobbed; "that was the most cruel thing of all. i never could get to see miss mary; they wouldn't let me see her." "who wouldn't let you?" "mrs. marchmont and mr. paul marchmont. i was laid up, sir, when the report first spread about that miss mary had come home. things was kept very secret, and it was said that mrs. marchmont was dreadfully cut up by the disgrace that had come upon her stepdaughter. my baby was born about that time, sir; but as soon as ever i could get about, i went up to the towers, in the hope of seeing my poor dear miss. but mrs. simmons, mrs. marchmont's own maid, told me that miss mary was ill, very ill, and that no one was allowed to see her except those that waited upon her and that she was used to. and i begged and prayed that i might be allowed to see her, sir, with the tears in my eyes; for my heart bled for her, poor darling dear, when i thought of the cruel things that was said against her, and thought that, with all her riches and her learning, folks could dare to talk of her as they wouldn't dare talk of a poor man's wife like me. and i went again and again, sir; but it was no good; and, the last time i went, mrs. marchmont came out into the hall to me, and told me that i was intrusive and impertinent, and that it was me, and such as me, as had set all manner of scandal afloat about her stepdaughter. but i went again, sir, even after that; and i saw mr. paul marchmont, and he was very kind to me, and frank and free-spoken,--almost like you, sir; and he told me that mrs. marchmont was rather stern and unforgiving towards the poor young lady,--he spoke very kind and pitiful of poor miss mary,--and that he would stand my friend, and he'd contrive that i should see my poor dear as soon as ever she picked up her spirits a bit, and was more fit to see me; and i was to come again in a week's time, he said." "well; and when you went----?" "when i went, sir," sobbed the carpenter's wife, "it was the th of october, and miss mary had run away upon the day before, and every body at the towers was being sent right and left to look for her. i saw mrs. marchmont for a minute that afternoon; and she was as white as a sheet, and all of a tremble from head to foot, and she walked about the place as if she was out of her mind like." "guilt," thought the young soldier; "guilt of some sort. god only knows what that guilt has been!" he covered his face with his hands, and waited to hear what more hester jobson had to tell him. there was no need of questioning here--no reservation or prevarication. with almost as tender regret as he himself could have felt, the carpenter's wife told him all that she knew of the sad story of mary's disappearance. "nobody took much notice of me, sir, in the confusion of the place," mrs. jobson continued; "and there is a parlour-maid at the towers called susan rose, that had been a schoolfellow with me ten years before, and i got her to tell me all about it. and she said that poor dear miss mary had been weak and ailing ever since she had recovered from the brain-fever, and that she had shut herself up in her room, and had seen no one except mrs. marchmont, and mr. paul, and barbara simmons; but on the th mrs. marchmont sent for her, asking her to come to the study. and the poor young lady went; and then susan rose thinks that there was high words between mrs. marchmont and her stepdaughter; for as susan was crossing the hall poor miss came out of the study, and her face was all smothered in tears, and she cried out, as she came into the hall, 'i can't bear it any longer. my life is too miserable; my fate is too wretched!' and then she ran upstairs, and susan rose followed up to her room and listened outside the door; and she heard the poor dear sobbing and crying out again and again, 'o papa, papa! if you knew what i suffer! o papa, papa, papa!'--so pitiful, that if susan rose had dared she would have gone in to try and comfort her; but miss mary had always been very reserved to all the servants, and susan didn't dare intrude upon her. it was late that evening when my poor young lady was missed, and the servants sent out to look for her." "and you, hester,--you knew my wife better than any of these people,--where do you think she went?" hester jobson looked piteously at the questioner. "o sir!" she cried; "o captain arundel, don't ask me; pray, pray don't ask me." "you think like these other people,--you think that she went away to destroy herself?" "o sir, what can i think, what can i think except that? she was last seen down by the water-side, and one of her shoes was picked up amongst the rushes; and for all there's been such a search made after her, and a reward offered, and advertisements in the papers, and everything done that mortal could do to find her, there's been no news of her, sir,--not a trace to tell of her being living; not a creature to come forward and speak to her being seen by them after that day. what can i think, sir, what can i think, except--" "except that she threw herself into the river behind marchmont towers." "i've tried to think different, sir; i've tried to hope i should see that poor sweet lamb again; but i can't, i can't. i've worn mourning for these three last sundays, sir; for i seemed to feel as if it was a sin and a disrespectfulness towards her to wear colours, and sit in the church where i have seen her so often, looking so meek and beautiful, sunday after sunday." edward arundel bowed his head upon his hands and wept silently. this woman's belief in mary's death afflicted him more than he dared confess to himself. he had defied olivia and paul marchmont, as enemies, who tried to force a false conviction upon him; but he could neither doubt nor defy this honest, warm-hearted creature, who wept aloud over the memory of his wife's sorrows. he could not doubt her sincerity; but he still refused to accept the belief which on every side was pressed upon him. he still refused to think that his wife was dead. "the river was dragged for more than a week," he said, presently, "and my wife's body was never found." hester jobson shook her head mournfully. "that's a poor sign, sir," she answered; "the river's full of holes, i've heard say. my husband had a fellow-'prentice who drowned himself in that river seven year ago, and _his_ body was never found." edward arundel rose and walked towards the door. "i do not believe that my wife is dead," he cried. he held out his hand to the carpenter's wife. "god bless you!" he said. "i thank you from my heart for your tender feeling towards my lost girl." he went out to the gig, in which mr. morrison waited for him, rather tired of his morning's work. "there is an inn a little way farther along the street, morrison," captain arundel said. "i shall stop there." the man stared at his master. "and not go back to marchmont towers, mr. edward?" "no." edward arundel had held nature in abeyance for more than four-and-twenty hours, and this outraged nature now took her revenge by flinging the young man prostrate and powerless upon his bed at the simple kemberling hostelry, and holding him prisoner there for three dreary days; three miserable days, with long, dark interminable evenings, during which the invalid had no better employment than to lie brooding over his sorrows, while mr. morrison read the "times" newspaper in a monotonous and droning voice, for his sick master's entertainment. how that helpless and prostrate prisoner, bound hand and foot in the stern grasp of retaliative nature, loathed the leading-articles, the foreign correspondence, in the leviathan journal! how he sickened at the fiery english of printing-house square, as expounded by mr. morrison! the sound of the valet's voice was like the unbroken flow of a dull river. the great names that surged up every now and then upon that sluggish tide of oratory made no impression upon the sick man's mind. what was it to him if the glory of england were in danger, the freedom of a mighty people wavering in the balance? what was it to him if famine-stricken ireland were perishing, and the far-away indian possessions menaced by contumacious and treacherous sikhs? what was it to him if the heavens were shrivelled like a blazing scroll, and the earth reeling on its shaken foundations? what had he to do with any catastrophe except that which had fallen upon his innocent young wife? "o my broken trust!" he muttered sometimes, to the alarm of the confidential servant; "o my broken trust!" but during the three days in which captain arundel lay in the best chamber at the black bull--the chief inn of kemberling, and a very splendid place of public entertainment long ago, when all the northward-bound coaches had passed through that quiet lincolnshire village--he was not without a medical attendant to give him some feeble help in the way of drugs and doctor's stuff, in the battle which he was fighting with offended nature. i don't know but that the help, however well intended, may have gone rather to strengthen the hand of the enemy; for in those days--the year ' is very long ago when we take the measure of time by science--country practitioners were apt to place themselves upon the side of the disease rather than of the patient, and to assist grim death in his siege, by lending the professional aid of purgatives and phlebotomy. on this principle mr. george weston, the surgeon of kemberling, and the submissive and well-tutored husband of paul marchmont's sister, would fain have set to work with the prostrate soldier, on the plea that the patient's skin was hot and dry, and his white lips parched with fever. but captain arundel protested vehemently against any such treatment. "you shall not take an ounce of blood out of my veins," he said, "or give me one drop of medicine that will weaken me. what i want is strength; strength to get up and leave this intolerable room, and go about the business that i have to do. as to fever," he added scornfully, "as long as i have to lie here and am hindered from going about the business of my life, every drop of my blood will boil with a fever that all the drugs in apothecaries' hall would have no power to subdue. give me something to strengthen me. patch me up somehow or other, mr. weston, if you can. but i warn you that, if you keep me long here, i shall leave this place either a corpse or a madman." the surgeon, drinking tea with his wife and brother-in-law half an hour afterwards, related the conversation that had taken place between himself and his patient, breaking up his narrative with a great many "i said's" and "said he's," and with a good deal of rambling commentary upon the text. lavinia weston looked at her brother while the surgeon told his story. "he is very desperate about his wife, then, this dashing young captain?" mr. marchmont said, presently. "awful," answered the surgeon; "regular awful. i never saw anything like it. really it was enough to cut a man up to hear him go on so. he asked me all sorts of questions about the time when she was ill and i attended upon her, and what did she say to me, and did she seem very unhappy, and all that sort of thing. upon my word, you know, mr. paul,--of course i am very glad to think of your coming into the fortune, and i'm very much obliged to you for the kind promises you've made to me and lavinia; but i almost felt as if i could have wished the poor young lady hadn't drowned herself." mrs. weston shrugged her shoulders, and looked at her brother. "_imbecile!_" she muttered. she was accustomed to talk to her brother very freely in rather school-girl french before her husband, to whom that language was as the most recondite of tongues, and who heartily admired her for superior knowledge. he sat staring at her now, and eating bread-and-butter with a simple relish, which in itself was enough to mark him out as a man to be trampled upon. * * * * * on the fourth day after his interview with hester, edward arundel was strong enough to leave his chamber at the black bull. "i shall go to london by to-night's mail, morrison," he said to his servant; "but before i leave lincolnshire, i must pay another visit to marchmont towers. you can stop here, and pack my portmanteau while i go." a rumbling old fly--looked upon as a splendid equipage by the inhabitants of kemberling--was furnished for captain arundel's accommodation by the proprietor of the black bull; and once more the soldier approached that ill-omened dwelling-place which had been the home of his wife. he was ushered without any delay to the study in which olivia spent the greater part of her time. the dusky afternoon was already closing in. a low fire burned in the old-fashioned grate, and one lighted wax-candle stood upon an open davenport, before which the widow sat amid a confusion of torn papers, cast upon the ground about her. the open drawers of the davenport, the littered scraps of paper and loosely-tied documents, thrust, without any show of order, into the different compartments of the desk, bore testimony to that state of mental distraction which had been common to olivia marchmont for some time past. she herself, the gloomy tenant of the towers, sat with her elbow resting on her desk, looking hopelessly and absently at the confusion before her. "i am very tired," she said, with a sigh, as she motioned her cousin to a chair. "i have been trying to sort my papers, and to look for bills that have to be paid, and receipts. they come to me about everything. i am very tired." her manner was changed from that stern defiance with which she had last confronted her kinsman to an air of almost piteous feebleness. she rested her head on her hand, repeating, in a low voice, "yes, i am very tired." edward arundel looked earnestly at her faded face, so faded from that which he remembered it in its proud young beauty, that, in spite of his doubt of this woman, he could scarcely refrain from some touch of pity for her. "you are ill, olivia," he said. "yes, i am ill; i am worn out; i am tired of my life. why does not god have pity upon me, and take the bitter burden away? i have carried it too long." she said this not so much to her cousin as to herself. she was like job in his despair, and cried aloud to the supreme himself in a gloomy protest against her anguish. "olivia," said edward arundel very earnestly, "what is it that makes you unhappy? is the burden that you carry a burden on your conscience? is the black shadow upon your life a guilty secret? is the cause of your unhappiness that which i suspect it to be? is it that, in some hour of passion, you consented to league yourself with paul marchmont against my poor innocent girl? for pity's sake, speak, and undo what you have done. you cannot have been guilty of a crime. there has been some foul play, some conspiracy, some suppression; and my darling has been lured away by the machinations of this man. but he could not have got her into his power without your help. you hated her,--heaven alone knows for what reason,--and in an evil hour you helped him, and now you are sorry for what you have done. but it is not too late, olivia; olivia, it is surely not too late. speak, speak, woman, and undo what you have done. as you hope for mercy and forgiveness from god, undo what you have done. i will exact no atonement from you. paul marchmont, this smooth traitor, this frank man of the world, who defied me with a smile,--he only shall be called upon to answer for the wrong done against my darling. speak, olivia, for pity's sake," cried the young man, casting himself upon his knees at his cousin's feet. "you are of my own blood; you must have some spark of regard for me; have compassion upon me, then, or have compassion upon your own guilty soul, which must perish everlastingly if you withhold the truth. have pity, olivia, and speak!" the widow had risen to her feet, recoiling from the soldier as he knelt before her, and looking at him with an awful light in the eyes that alone gave life to her corpse-like face. suddenly she flung her arms up above her head, stretching her wasted hands towards the ceiling. "by the god who has renounced and abandoned me," she cried, "i have no more knowledge than you have of mary marchmont's fate. from the hour in which she left this house, upon the th of october, until this present moment, i have neither seen her nor heard of her. if i have lied to you, edward arundel," she added, dropping her extended arms, and turning quietly to her cousin,--"if i have lied to you in saying this, may the tortures which i suffer be doubled to me,--if in the infinite of suffering there is any anguish worse than that i now endure." edward arundel paused for a little while, brooding over this strange reply to his appeal. could he disbelieve his cousin? it is common to some people to make forcible and impious asseverations of an untruth shamelessly, in the very face of an insulted heaven. but olivia marchmont was a woman who, in the very darkest hour of her despair, knew no wavering from her faith in the god she had offended. "i cannot refuse to believe you, olivia," captain arundel said presently. "i do believe in your solemn protestations, and i no longer look for help from you in my search for my lost love. i absolve you from all suspicion of being aware of her fate _after_ she left this house. but so long as she remained beneath this roof she was in your care, and i hold you responsible for the ills that may have then befallen her. you, olivia, must have had some hand in driving that unhappy girl away from her home." the widow had resumed her seat by the open davenport. she sat with her head bent, her brows contracted, her mouth fixed and rigid, her left hand trifling absently with the scattered papers before her. "you accused me of this once before, when mary marchmont left this house," she said sullenly. "and you were guilty then," answered edward. "i cannot hold myself answerable for the actions of others. mary marchmont left this time, as she left before, of her own free will." "driven away by your cruel words." "she must have been very weak," answered olivia, with a sneer, "if a few harsh words were enough to drive her away from her own house." "you deny, then, that you were guilty of causing this poor deluded child's flight from this house?" olivia marchmont sat for some moments in moody silence; then suddenly raising her head, she looked her cousin full in the face. "i do," she exclaimed; "if any one except herself is guilty of an act which was her own, i am not that person." "i understand," said edward arundel; "it was paul marchmont's hand that drove her out upon the dreary world. it was paul marchmont's brain that plotted against her. you were only a minor instrument; a willing tool, in the hands of a subtle villain. but he shall answer; he shall answer!" the soldier spoke the last words between his clenched teeth. then with his chin upon his breast, he sat thinking over what he had just heard. "how was it?" he muttered; "how was it? he is too consummate a villain to use violence. his manner the other morning told me that the law was on his side. he had done nothing to put himself into my power, and he defied me. how was it, then? by what means did he drive my darling to her despairing flight?" as captain arundel sat thinking of these things, his cousin's idle fingers still trifled with the papers on the desk; while, with her chin resting on her other hand, and her eyes fixed upon the wall before her, she stared blankly at the reflection of the flame of the candle on the polished oaken panel. her idle fingers, following no design, strayed here and there among the scattered papers, until a few that lay nearest the edge of the desk slid off the smooth morocco, and fluttered to the ground. edward arundel, as absent-minded as his cousin, stooped involuntarily to pick up the papers. the uppermost of those that had fallen was a slip cut from a country newspaper, to which was pinned an open letter, a few lines only. the paragraph in the newspaper slip was marked by double ink-lines, drawn round it by a neat penman. again almost involuntarily, edward arundel looked at this marked paragraph. it was very brief: "we regret to be called upon to state that another of the sufferers in the accident which occurred last august on the south-western railway has expired from injuries received upon that occasion. captain arundel, of the h.e.i.c.s., died on friday night at dangerfield park, devon, the seat of his elder brother." the letter was almost as brief as the paragraph: "kemberling, october th. "my dear mrs. marchmont,--the enclosed has just come to hand. let us hope it is not true. but, in case of the worst, it should be shown to miss marchmont _immediately_. better that she should hear the news from you than from a stranger. "yours sincerely, "paul marchmont." "i understand everything now," said edward arundel, laying these two papers before his cousin; "it was with this printed lie that you and paul marchmont drove my wife to despair--perhaps to death. my darling, my darling," cried the young man, in a burst of uncontrollable agony, "i refused to believe that you were dead; i refused to believe that you were lost to me. i can believe it now; i can believe it now." chapter xi. edward arundel's despair. yes; edward arundel could believe the worst now. he could believe now that his young wife, on hearing tidings of his death, had rushed madly to her own destruction; too desolate, too utterly unfriended and miserable, to live under the burden of her sorrows. mary had talked to her husband in the happy, loving confidence of her bright honeymoon; she had talked to him of her father's death, and the horrible grief she had felt; the heart-sickness, the eager yearning to be carried to the same grave, to rest in the same silent sleep. "i think i tried to throw myself from the window upon the night before papa's funeral," she had said; "but i fainted away. i know it was very wicked of me. but i was mad. my wretchedness had driven me mad." he remembered this. might not this girl, this helpless child, in the first desperation of her grief, have hurried down to that dismal river, to hide her sorrows for ever under its slow and murky tide? henceforward it was with a new feeling that edward arundel looked for his missing wife. the young and hopeful spirit which had wrestled against conviction, which had stubbornly preserved its own sanguine fancies against the gloomy forebodings of others, had broken down before the evidence of that false paragraph in the country newspaper. that paragraph was the key to the sad mystery of mary arundel's disappearance. her husband could understand now why she ran away, why she despaired; and how, in that desperation and despair, she might have hastily ended her short life. it was with altered feelings, therefore, that he went forth to look for her. he was no longer passionate and impatient, for he no longer believed that his young wife lived to yearn for his coming, and to suffer for the want of his protection; he no longer thought of her as a lonely and helpless wanderer driven from her rightful home, and in her childish ignorance straying farther and farther away from him who had the right to succour and to comfort her. no; he thought of her now with sullen despair at his heart; he thought of her now in utter hopelessness; he thought of her with a bitter and agonising regret, which we only feel for the dead. but this grief was not the only feeling that held possession of the young soldier's breast. stronger even than his sorrow was his eager yearning for vengeance, his savage desire for retaliation. "i look upon paul marchmont as the murderer of my wife," he said to olivia, on that november evening on which he saw the paragraph in the newspaper; "i look upon that man as the deliberate destroyer of a helpless girl; and he shall answer to me for her life. he shall answer to me for every pang she suffered, for every tear she shed. god have mercy upon her poor erring soul, and help me to my vengeance upon her destroyer." he lifted his eyes to heaven as he spoke, and a solemn shadow overspread his pale face, like a dark cloud upon a winter landscape. i have said that edward arundel no longer felt a frantic impatience to discover his wife's fate. the sorrowful conviction which at last had forced itself upon him left no room for impatience. the pale face he had loved was lying hidden somewhere beneath those dismal waters. he had no doubt of that. there was no need of any other solution to the mystery of his wife's disappearance. that which he had to seek for was the evidence of paul marchmont's guilt. the outspoken young soldier, whose nature was as transparent as the stainless soul of a child, had to enter into the lists with a man who was so different from himself, that it was almost difficult to believe the two individuals belonged to the same species. captain arundel went back to london, and betook himself forthwith to the office of messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson. he had the idea, common to many of his class, that all lawyers, whatever claims they might have to respectability, are in a manner past-masters in every villanous art; and, as such, the proper people to deal with a villain. "richard paulette will be able to help me," thought the young man; "richard paulette saw through paul marchmont, i dare say." but richard paulette had very little to say about the matter. he had known edward arundel's father, and he had known the young soldier from his early boyhood, and he seemed deeply grieved to witness his client's distress; but he had nothing to say against paul marchmont. "i cannot see what right you have to suspect mr. marchmont of any guilty share in your wife's disappearance," he said. "do not think i defend him because he is our client. you know that we are rich enough, and honourable enough, to refuse the business of any man whom we thought a villain. when i was in lincolnshire, mr. marchmont did everything that a man could do to testify his anxiety to find his cousin." "oh, yes," edward arundel answered bitterly; "that is only consistent with the man's diabolical artifice; _that_ was a part of his scheme. he wished to testify that anxiety, and he wanted you as a witness to his conscientious search after my--poor--lost girl." his voice and manner changed for a moment as he spoke of mary. richard paulette shook his head. "prejudice, prejudice, my dear arundel," he said; "this is all prejudice upon your part, i assure you. mr. marchmont behaved with perfect honesty and candour. 'i won't tell you that i'm sorry to inherit this fortune,' he said, 'because if i did you wouldn't believe me--what man in his senses _could_ believe that a poor devil of a landscape painter would regret coming into eleven thousand a year?--but i am very sorry for this poor little girl's unhappy fate.' and i believe," added mr. paulette, decisively, "that the man was heartily sorry." edward arundel groaned aloud. "o god! this is too terrible," he muttered. "everybody will believe in this man rather than in me. how am i to be avenged upon the wretch who caused my darling's death?" he talked for a long time to the lawyer, but with no result. richard paulette considered the young man's hatred of paul marchmont only a natural consequence of his grief for mary's death. "i can't wonder that you are prejudiced against mr. marchmont," he said; "it's natural; it's only natural; but, believe me, you are wrong. nothing could be more straightforward, and even delicate, than his conduct. he refuses to take possession of the estate, or to touch a farthing of the rents. 'no,' he said, when i suggested to him that he had a right to enter in possession,--'no; we will not shut the door against hope. my cousin may be hiding herself somewhere; she may return by-and-by. let us wait a twelvemonth. if at the end of that time, she does not return, and if in the interim we receive no tidings from her, no evidence of her existence, we may reasonably conclude that she is dead; and i may fairly consider myself the rightful owner of marchmont towers. in the mean time, you will act as if you were still mary marchmont's agent, holding all moneys as in trust for her, but to be delivered up to me at the expiration of a year from the day on which she disappeared.' i do not think anything could be more straightforward than that," added richard paulette, in conclusion. "no," edward answered, with a sigh; "it _seems_ very straightforward. but the man who could strike at a helpless girl by means of a lying paragraph in a newspaper--" "mr. marchmont may have believed in that paragraph." edward arundel rose, with a gesture of impatience. "i came to you for help, mr. paulette," he said; "but i see you don't mean to help me. good day." he left the office before the lawyer could remonstrate with him. he walked away, with passionate anger against all the world raging in his breast. "why, what a smooth-spoken, false-tongued world it is!" he thought. "let a man succeed in the vilest scheme, and no living creature will care to ask by what foul means he may have won his success. what weapons can i use against this paul marchmont, who twists truth and honesty to his own ends, and masks his basest treachery under an appearance of candour?" from lincoln's inn fields captain arundel drove over waterloo bridge to oakley street. he went to mrs. pimpernel's establishment, without any hope of the glad surprise that had met him there a few months before. he believed implicitly that his wife was dead, and wherever he went in search of her he went in utter hopelessness, only prompted by the desire to leave no part of his duty undone. the honest-hearted dealer in cast-off apparel wept bitterly when she heard how sadly the captain's honeymoon had ended. she would have been content to detain the young soldier all day, while she bemoaned the misfortunes that had come upon him; and now, for the first time, edward heard of dismal forebodings, and horrible dreams, and unaccountable presentiments of evil, with which this honest woman had been afflicted on and before his wedding-day, and of which she had made special mention at the time to divers friends and acquaintances. "i never shall forget how shivery-like i felt as the cab drove off, with that pore dear a-lookin' and smilin' at me out of the winder. i says to mrs. polson, as her husband is in the shoemakin' line, two doors further down,--i says, 'i do hope capting harungdell's lady will get safe to the end of her journey.' i felt the cold shivers a-creepin' up my back just azackly like i did a fortnight before my pore jane died, and i couldn't get it off my mind as somethink was goin' to happen." from london captain arundel went to winchester, much to the disgust of his valet, who was accustomed to a luxuriously idle life at dangerfield park, and who did not by any means relish this desultory wandering from place to place. perhaps there was some faint ray of hope in the young man's mind, as he drew near to that little village-inn beneath whose shelter he had been so happy with his childish bride. if she had _not_ committed suicide; if she had indeed wandered away, to try and bear her sorrows in gentle christian resignation; if she had sought some retreat where she might be safe from her tormentors,--would not every instinct of her loving heart have led her here?--here, amid these low meadows and winding streams, guarded and surrounded by the pleasant shelter of grassy hill-tops, crowned by waving trees?--here, where she had been so happy with the husband of her choice? but, alas! that newly-born hope, which had made the soldier's heart beat and his cheek flush, was as delusive as many other hopes that lure men and women onward in their weary wanderings upon this earth. the landlord of the white hart inn answered edward arundel's question with stolid indifference. no; the young lady had gone away with her ma, and a gentleman who came with her ma. she had cried a deal, poor thing, and had seemed very much cut up. (it was from the chamber-maid edward heard this.) but her ma and the gentleman had seemed in a great hurry to take her away. the gentleman said that a village inn wasn't the place for her, and he said he was very much shocked to find her there; and he had a fly got ready, and took the two ladies away in it to the george, at winchester, and they were to go from there to london; and the young lady was crying when she went away, and was as pale as death, poor dear. this was all that captain arundel gained by his journey to milldale. he went across country to the farming people near reading, his wife's poor relations. but they had heard nothing of her. they had wondered, indeed, at having no letters from her, for she had been very kind to them. they were terribly distressed when they were told of her disappearance. this was the forlorn hope. it was all over now. edward arundel could no longer struggle against the cruel truth. he could do nothing now but avenge his wife's sorrows. he went down to devonshire, saw his mother, and told her the sad story of mary's flight. but he could not rest at dangerfield, though mrs. arundel implored him to stay long enough to recruit his shattered health. he hurried back to london, made arrangements with his agent for being bought out of his regiment by his brother officers, and then, turning his back upon the career that had been far dearer to him than his life, he went down to lincolnshire once more, in the dreary winter weather, to watch and wait patiently, if need were, for the day of retribution. there was a detached cottage, a lonely place enough, between kemberling and marchmont towers, that had been to let for a long time, being very much out of repair, and by no means inviting in appearance. edward arundel took this cottage. all necessary repairs and alterations were executed under the direction of mr. morrison, who was to remain permanently in the young man's service. captain arundel had a couple of horses brought down to his new stable, and hired a country lad, who was to act as groom under the eye of the factotum. mr. morrison and this lad, with one female servant, formed edward's establishment. paul marchmont lifted his auburn eyebrows when he heard of the new tenant of kemberling retreat. the lonely cottage had been christened kemberling retreat by a sentimental tenant; who had ultimately levanted, leaving his rent three quarters in arrear. the artist exhibited a gentlemanly surprise at this new vagary of edward arundel's, and publicly expressed his pity for the foolish young man. "i am so sorry that the poor fellow should sacrifice himself to a romantic grief for my unfortunate cousin," mr. marchmont said, in the parlour of the black bull, where he condescended to drop in now and then with his brother-in-law, and to make himself popular amongst the magnates of kemberling, and the tenant-farmers, who looked to him as their future, if not their actual, landlord. "i am really sorry for the poor lad. he's a handsome, high-spirited fellow, and i'm sorry he's been so weak as to ruin his prospects in the company's service. yes; i am heartily sorry for him." mr. marchmont discussed the matter very lightly in the parlour of the black bull, but he kept silence as he walked home with the surgeon; and mr. george weston, looking askance at his brother-in-law's face, saw that something was wrong, and thought it advisable to hold his peace. paul marchmont sat up late that night talking to lavinia after the surgeon had gone to bed. the brother and sister conversed in subdued murmurs as they stood close together before the expiring fire, and the faces of both were very grave, indeed, almost apprehensive. "he must be terribly in earnest," paul marchmont said, "or he would never have sacrificed his position. he has planted himself here, close upon us, with a determination of watching us. we shall have to be very careful." * * * * * it was early in the new year that edward arundel completed all his arrangements, and took possession of kemberling retreat. he knew that, in retiring from the east india company's service, he had sacrificed the prospect of a brilliant and glorious career, under some of the finest soldiers who ever fought for their country. but he had made this sacrifice willingly--as an offering to the memory of his lost love; as an atonement for his broken trust. for it was one of his most bitter miseries to remember that his own want of prudence had been the first cause of all mary's sorrows. had he confided in his mother,--had he induced her to return from germany to be present at his marriage, and to accept the orphan girl as a daughter,--mary need never again have fallen into the power of olivia marchmont. his own imprudence, his own rashness, had flung this poor child, helpless and friendless, into the hands of the very man against whom john marchmont had written a solemn warning,--a warning that it should have been edward's duty to remember. but who could have calculated upon the railway accident; and who could have foreseen a separation in the first blush of the honeymoon? edward arundel had trusted in his own power to protect his bride from every ill that might assail her. in the pride of his youth and strength he had forgotten that he was not immortal, and the last idea that could have entered his mind was the thought that he should be stricken down by a sudden calamity, and rendered even more helpless than the girl he had sworn to shield and succour. the bleak winter crept slowly past, and the shrill march winds were loud amidst the leafless trees in the wood behind marchmont towers. this wood was open to any foot-passenger who might choose to wander that way; and edward arundel often walked upon the bank of the slow river, and past the boat-house, beneath whose shadow he had wooed his young wife in the bright summer that was gone. the place had a mournful attraction for the young man, by reason of the memory of the past, and a different and far keener fascination in the fact of paul marchmont's frequent occupation of his roughly-built painting-room. in a purposeless and unsettled frame of mind, edward arundel kept watch upon the man he hated, scarcely knowing why he watched, or for what he hoped, but with a vague belief that something would be discovered; that some accident might come to pass which would enable him to say to paul marchmont, "it was by your treachery my wife perished; and it is you who must answer to me for her death." edward arundel had seen nothing of his cousin olivia during that dismal winter. he had held himself aloof from the towers,--that is to say, he had never presented himself there as a guest, though he had been often on horseback and on foot in the wood by the river. he had not seen olivia, but he had heard of her through his valet, mr. morrison, who insisted on repeating the gossip of kemberling for the benefit of his listless and indifferent master. "they do say as mr. paul marchmont is going to marry mrs. john marchmont, sir," mr. morrison said, delighted at the importance of his information. "they say as mr. paul is always up at the towers visitin' mrs. john, and that she takes his advice about everything as she does, and that she's quite wrapped up in him like." edward arundel looked at his attendant with unmitigated surprise. "my cousin olivia marry paul marchmont!" he exclaimed. "you should be wiser than to listen to such foolish gossip, morrison. you know what country people are, and you know they can't keep their tongues quiet." mr. morrison took this reproach as a compliment to his superior intelligence. "it ain't oftentimes as i listens to their talk, sir," he said; "but if i've heard this said once, i've heard it twenty times; and i've heard it at the black bull, too, mr. edward, where mr. marchmont fre_quents_ sometimes with his sister's husband; and the landlord told me as it had been spoken of once before his face, and he didn't deny it." edward arundel pondered gravely over this gossip of the kemberling people. it was not so very improbable, perhaps, after all. olivia only held marchmont towers on sufferance. it might be that, rather than be turned out of her stately home, she would accept the hand of its rightful owner. she would marry paul marchmont, perhaps, as she had married his brother,--for the sake of a fortune and a position. she had grudged mary her wealth, and now she sought to become a sharer in that wealth. "oh, the villany, the villany!" cried the soldier. "it is all one base fabric of treachery and wrong. a marriage between these two will be only a part of the scheme. between them they have driven my darling to her death, and they will now divide the profits of their guilty work." the young man determined to discover whether there had been any foundation for the kemberling gossip. he had not seen his cousin since the day of his discovery of the paragraph in the newspaper, and he went forthwith to the towers, bent on asking olivia the straight question as to the truth of the reports that had reached his ears. he walked over to the dreary mansion. he had regained his strength by this time, and he had recovered his good looks; but something of the brightness of his youth was gone; something of the golden glory of his beauty had faded. he was no longer the young apollo, fresh and radiant with the divinity of the skies. he had suffered; and suffering had left its traces on his countenance. that smiling hopefulness, that supreme confidence in a bright future, which is the virginity of beauty, had perished beneath the withering influence of affliction. mrs. marchmont was not to be seen at the towers. she had gone down to the boat-house with mr. paul marchmont and mrs. weston, the servant said. "i will see them together," edward arundel thought. "i will see if my cousin dares to tell me that she means to marry this man." he walked through the wood to the lonely building by the river. the march winds were blowing among the leafless trees, ruffling the black pools of water that the rain had left in every hollow; the smoke from the chimney of paul marchmont's painting-room struggled hopelessly against the wind, and was beaten back upon the roof from which it tried to rise. everything succumbed before that pitiless north-easter. edward arundel knocked at the door of the wooden edifice erected by his foe. he scarcely waited for the answer to his summons, but lifted the latch, and walked across the threshold, uninvited, unwelcome. there were four people in the painting-room. two or three seemed to have been talking together when edward knocked at the door; but the speakers had stopped simultaneously and abruptly, and there was a dead silence when he entered. olivia marchmont was standing under the broad northern window; the artist was sitting upon one of the steps leading up to the pavilion; and a few paces from him, in an old cane-chair near the easel, sat george weston, the surgeon, with his wife leaning over the back of his chair. it was at this man that edward arundel looked longest, riveted by the strange expression of his face. the traces of intense agitation have a peculiar force when seen in a usually stolid countenance. your mobile faces are apt to give an exaggerated record of emotion. we grow accustomed to their changeful expression, their vivid betrayal of every passing sensation. but this man's was one of those faces which are only changed from their apathetic stillness by some moral earthquake, whose shock arouses the most impenetrable dullard from his stupid imperturbability. such a shock had lately affected george weston, the quiet surgeon of kemberling, the submissive husband of paul marchmont's sister. his face was as white as death; a slow trembling shook his ponderous frame; with one of his big fat hands he pulled a cotton handkerchief from his pocket, and tremulously wiped the perspiration from his bald forehead. his wife bent over him, and whispered a few words in his ear; but he shook his head with a piteous gesture, as if to testify his inability to comprehend her. it was impossible for a man to betray more obvious signs of violent agitation than this man betrayed. "it's no use, lavinia," he murmured hopelessly, as his wife whispered to him for the second time; "it's no use, my dear; i can't get over it." mrs. weston cast one rapid, half-despairing, half-appealing glance at her brother, and in the next moment recovered herself, by an effort only such as great women, or wicked women, are capable of. "oh, you men!" she cried, in her liveliest voice; "oh, you men! what big silly babies, what nervous creatures you are! come, george, i won't have you giving way to this foolish nonsense, just because an extra glass or so of mrs. marchmont's very fine old port has happened to disagree with you. you must not think we are a drunkard, mr. arundel," added the lady, turning playfully to edward, and patting her husband's clumsy shoulder as she spoke; "we are only a poor village surgeon, with a limited income, and a very weak head, and quite unaccustomed to old light port. come, mr. george weston, walk out into the open air, sir, and let us see if the march wind will bring you back your senses." and without another word lavinia weston hustled her husband, who walked like a man in a dream, out of the painting-room, and closed the door behind her. paul marchmont laughed as the door shut upon his brother-in-law. "poor george!" he said, carelessly; "i thought he helped himself to the port a little too liberally. he never could stand a glass of wine; and he's the most stupid creature when he is drunk." excellent as all this by-play was, edward arundel was not deceived by it. "the man was not drunk," he thought; "he was frightened. what could have happened to throw him into that state? what mystery are these people hiding amongst themselves; and what should _he_ have to do with it?" "good evening, captain arundel," paul marchmont said. "i congratulate you on the change in your appearance since you were last in this place. you seem to have quite recovered the effects of that terrible railway accident." edward arundel drew himself up stiffly as the artist spoke to him. "we cannot meet except as enemies, mr. marchmont," he said. "my cousin has no doubt told you what i said of you when i discovered the lying paragraph which you caused to be shown to my wife." "i only did what any one else would have done under the circumstances," paul marchmont answered quietly. "i was deceived by a penny-a-liner's false report. how should i know the effect that report would have upon my unhappy cousin?" "i cannot discuss this matter with you," cried edward arundel, his voice tremulous with passion; "i am almost mad when i think of it. i am not safe; i dare not trust myself. i look upon you as the deliberate assassin of a helpless girl; but so skilful an assassin, that nothing less than the vengeance of god can touch you. i cry aloud to him night and day, in the hope that he will hear me and avenge my wife's death. i cannot look to any earthly law for help: but i trust in god; i put my trust in god." there are very few positive and consistent atheists in this world. mr. paul marchmont was a philosopher of the infidel school, a student of voltaire and the brotherhood of the encyclopedia, and a believer in those liberal days before the reign of terror, when frenchmen, in coffee-houses, discussed the supreme under the soubriquet of mons. l'etre; but he grew a little paler as edward arundel, with kindling eyes and uplifted hand, declared his faith in a divine avenger. the sceptical artist may have thought, "what if there should be some reality in the creed so many weak fools confide in? what if there _is_ a god who cannot abide iniquity?" "i came here to look for you, olivia," edward arundel said presently. "i want to ask you a question. will you come into the wood with me?" "yes, if you wish it," mrs. marchmont answered quietly. the cousins went out of the painting-room together, leaving paul marchmont alone. they walked on for a few yards in silence. "what is the question you came here to ask me?" olivia asked abruptly. "the kemberling people have raised a report about you which i should fancy would be scarcely agreeable to yourself," answered edward. "you would hardly wish to benefit by mary's death, would you, olivia?" he looked at her searchingly as he spoke. her face was at all times so expressive of hidden cares, of cruel mental tortures, that there was little room in her countenance for any new emotion. her cousin looked in vain for any change in it now. "benefit by her death!" she exclaimed. "how should i benefit by her death?" "by marrying the man who inherits this estate. they say you are going to marry paul marchmont." olivia looked at him with an expression of surprise. "do they say that of me?" she asked. "do people say that?" "they do. is it true, olivia?" the widow turned upon him almost fiercely. "what does it matter to you whether it is true or not? what do you care whom i marry, or what becomes of me?" "i care this much," edward arundel answered, "that i would not have your reputation lied away by the gossips of kemberling. i should despise you if you married this man. but if you do not mean to marry him, you have no right to encourage his visits; you are trifling with your own good name. you should leave this place, and by that means give the lie to any false reports that have arisen about you." "leave this place!" cried olivia marchmont, with a bitter laugh. "leave this place! o my god, if i could; if i could go away and bury myself somewhere at the other end of the world, and forget,--and forget!" she said this as if to herself; as if it had been a cry of despair wrung from her in despite of herself; then, turning to edward arundel, she added, in a quieter voice, "i can never leave this place till i leave it in my coffin. i am a prisoner here for life." she turned from him, and walked slowly away, with her face towards the dying sunlight in the low western sky. chapter xii. edward's visitors. perhaps no greater sacrifice had ever been made by an english gentleman than that which edward arundel willingly offered up as an atonement for his broken trust, as a tribute to his lost wife. brave, ardent, generous, and sanguine, this young soldier saw before him a brilliant career in the profession which he loved. he saw glory and distinction beckoning to him from afar, and turned his back upon those shining sirens. he gave up all, in the vague hope of, sooner or later, avenging mary's wrongs upon paul marchmont. he made no boast, even to himself, of that which he had done. again and again memory brought back to him the day upon which he breakfasted in oakley street, and walked across waterloo bridge with the drury lane supernumerary. every word that john marchmont had spoken; every look of the meek and trusting eyes, the pale and thoughtful face; every pressure of the thin hand which had grasped his in grateful affection, in friendly confidence,--came back to edward arundel after an interval of nearly ten years, and brought with it a bitter sense of self-reproach. "he trusted his daughter to me," the young man thought. "those last words in the poor fellow's letter are always in my mind: 'the only bequest which i can leave to the only friend i have is the legacy of a child's helplessness.' and i have slighted his solemn warning: and i have been false to my trust." in his scrupulous sense of honour, the soldier reproached himself as bitterly for that imprudence, out of which so much evil had arisen, as another man might have done after a wilful betrayal of his trust. he could not forgive himself. he was for ever and ever repeating in his own mind that one brief phase which is the universal chorus of erring men's regret: "if i had acted differently, if i had done otherwise, this or that would not have come to pass." we are perpetually wandering amid the hopeless deviations of a maze, finding pitfalls and precipices, quicksands and morasses, at every turn in the painful way; and we look back at the end of our journey to discover a straight and pleasant roadway by which, had we been wise enough to choose it, we might have travelled safely and comfortably to our destination. but wisdom waits for us at the goal instead of accompanying us upon our journey. she is a divinity whom we meet very late in life; when we are too near the end of our troublesome march to derive much profit from her counsels. we can only retail them to our juniors, who, not getting them from the fountain-head, have very small appreciation of their value. the young captain of east indian cavalry suffered very cruelly from the sacrifice which he had made. day after day, day after day, the slow, dreary, changeless, eventless, and unbroken life dragged itself out; and nothing happened to bring him any nearer to the purpose of this monotonous existence; no promise of even ultimate success rewarded his heroic self-devotion. afar, he heard of the rush and clamour of war, of dangers and terror, of conquest and glory. his own regiment was in the thick of the strife, his brothers in arms were doing wonders. every mail brought some new record of triumph and glory. the soldier's heart sickened as he read the story of each new encounter; his heart sickened with that terrible yearning,--that yearning which seems physically palpable in its perpetual pain; the yearning with which a child at a hard school, lying broad awake in the long, gloomy, rush-lit bedchamber in the dead of the silent night, remembers the soft resting-place of his mother's bosom; the yearning with which a faithful husband far away from home sighs for the presence of the wife he loves. even with such a heart-sickness as this edward arundel pined to be amongst the familiar faces yonder in the east,--to hear the triumphant yell of his men as they swarmed after him through the breach in an affghan wall,--to see the dark heathens blanch under the terror of christian swords. he read the records of the war again and again, again and again, till every scene arose before him,--a picture, flaming and lurid, grandly beautiful, horribly sublime. the very words of those newspaper reports seemed to blaze upon the paper on which they were written, so palpable were the images which they evoked in the soldier's mind. he was frantic in his eager impatience for the arrival of every mail, for the coming of every new record of that indian warfare. he was like a devourer of romances, who reads a thrilling story link by link, and who is impatient for every new chapter of the fiction. his dreams were of nothing but battle and victory, danger, triumph, and death; and he often woke in the morning exhausted by the excitement of those visionary struggles, those phantom terrors. his sabre hung over the chimney-piece in his simple bedchamber. he took it down sometimes, and drew it from the sheath. he could have almost wept aloud over that idle sword. he raised his arm, and the weapon vibrated with a whirring noise as he swept the glittering steel in a wide circle through the empty air. an infidel's head should have been swept from his vile carcass in that rapid circle of the keen-edged blade. the soldier's arm was as strong as ever, his wrist as supple, his muscular force unwasted by mental suffering. thank heaven for that! but after that brief thanksgiving his arm dropped inertly, and the idle sword fell out of his relaxing grasp. "i seem a craven to myself," he cried; "i have no right to be here--i have no right to be here while those other fellows are fighting for their lives out yonder. o god, have mercy upon me! my brain gets dazed sometimes; and i begin to wonder whether i am most bound to remain here and watch paul marchmont, or to go yonder and fight for my country and my queen." there were many phases in this mental fever. at one time the young man was seized with a savage jealousy of the officer who had succeeded to his captaincy. he watched this man's name, and every record of his movements, and was constantly taking objection to his conduct. he was grudgingly envious of this particular officer's triumphs, however small. he could not feel generously towards this happy successor, in the bitterness of his own enforced idleness. "what opportunities this man has!" he thought; "_i_ never had such chances." it is almost impossible for me to faithfully describe the tortures which this monotonous existence inflicted upon the impetuous young man. it is the speciality of a soldier's career that it unfits most men for any other life. they cannot throw off the old habitudes. they cannot turn from the noisy stir of war to the tame quiet of every-day life; and even when they fancy themselves wearied and worn out, and willingly retire from service, their souls are stirred by every sound of the distant contest, as the war-steed is aroused by the blast of a trumpet. but edward arundel's career had been cut suddenly short at the very hour in which it was brightest with the promise of future glory. it was as if a torrent rushing madly down a mountain-side had been dammed up, and its waters bidden to stagnate upon a level plain. the rebellious waters boiled and foamed in a sullen fury. the soldier could not submit himself contentedly to his fate. he might strip off his uniform, and accept sordid coin as the price of the epaulettes he had won so dearly; but he was at heart a soldier still. when he received the sum which had been raised amongst his juniors as the price of his captaincy, it seemed to him almost as if he had sold his brother's blood. it was summer-time now. ten months had elapsed since his marriage with mary marchmont, and no new light had been thrown upon the disappearance of his young wife. no one could feel a moment's doubt as to her fate. she had perished in that lonely river which flowed behind marchmont towers, and far away down to the sea. the artist had kept his word, and had as yet taken no step towards entering into possession of the estate which he inherited by his cousin's death. but mr. paul marchmont spent a great deal of time at the towers, and a great deal more time in the painting-room by the river-side, sometimes accompanied by his sister, sometimes alone. the kemberling gossips had grown by no means less talkative upon the subject of olivia and the new owner of marchmont towers. on the contrary, the voices that discussed mrs. marchmont's conduct were a great deal more numerous than heretofore; in other words, john marchmont's widow was "talked about." everything is said in this phrase. it was scarcely that people said bad things of her; it was rather that they talked more about her than any woman can suffer to be talked of with safety to her fair fame. they began by saying that she was going to marry paul marchmont; they went on to wonder _whether_ she was going to marry him; then they wondered _why_ she didn't marry him. from this they changed the venue, and began to wonder whether paul marchmont meant to marry her,--there was an essential difference in this new wonderment,--and next, why paul marchmont didn't marry her. and by this time olivia's reputation was overshadowed by a terrible cloud, which had arisen no bigger than a man's hand, in the first conjecturings of a few ignorant villagers. people made it their business first to wonder about mrs. marchmont, and then to set up their own theories about her; to which theories they clung with a stupid persistence, forgetting, as people generally do forget, that there might be some hidden clue, some secret key, to the widow's conduct, for want of which the cleverest reasoning respecting her was only so much groping in the dark. edward arundel heard of the cloud which shadowed his cousin's name. her father heard of it, and went to remonstrate with her, imploring her to come to him at swampington, and to leave marchmont towers to the new lord of the mansion. but she only answered him with gloomy, obstinate reiteration, and almost in the same terms as she had answered edward arundel; declaring that she would stay at the towers till her death; that she would never leave the place till she was carried thence in her coffin. hubert arundel, always afraid of his daughter, was more than ever afraid of her now; and he was as powerless to contend against her sullen determination as he would have been to float up the stream of a rushing river. so olivia was talked about. she had scared away all visitors, after the ball at the towers, by the strangeness of her manner and the settled gloom in her face; and she lived unvisited and alone in the gaunt stony mansion; and people said that paul marchmont was almost perpetually with her, and that she went to meet him in the painting-room by the river. edward arundel sickened of his wearisome life, and no one helped him to endure his sufferings. his mother wrote to him imploring him to resign himself to the loss of his young wife, to return to dangerfield, to begin a new existence, and to blot out the memory of the past. "you have done all that the most devoted affection could prompt you to do," mrs. arundel wrote. "come back to me, my dearest boy. i gave you up to the service of your country because it was my duty to resign you then. but i cannot afford to lose you now; i cannot bear to see you sacrificing yourself to a chimera. return to me; and let me see you make a new and happier choice. let me see my son the father of little children who will gather round my knees when i grow old and feeble." "a new and happier choice!" edward arundel repeated the words with a melancholy bitterness. "no, my poor lost girl; no, my blighted wife; i will not be false to you. the smiles of happy women can have no sunlight for me while i cherish the memory of the sad eyes that watched me when i drove away from milldale, the sweet sorrowful face that i was never to look upon again." the dull empty days succeeded each other, and _did_ resemble each other, with a wearisome similitude that well-nigh exhausted the patience of the impetuous young man. his fiery nature chafed against this miserable delay. it was so hard to have to wait for his vengeance. sometimes he could scarcely refrain from planting himself somewhere in paul marchmont's way, with the idea of a hand-to-hand struggle in which either he or his enemy must perish. once he wrote the artist a desperate letter, denouncing him as an arch-plotter and villain; calling upon him, if his evil nature was redeemed by one spark of manliness, to fight as men had been in the habit of fighting only a few years before, with a hundred times less reason than these two men had for their quarrel. "i have called you a villain and traitor; in india we fellows would kill each other for smaller words than those," wrote the soldier. "but i have no wish to take any advantage of my military experience. i may be a better shot than you. let us have only one pistol, and draw lots for it. let us fire at each other across a dinner-table. let us do anything; so that we bring this miserable business to an end." mr. marchmont read this letter slowly and thoughtfully, more than once; smiling as he read. "he's getting tired," thought the artist. "poor young man, i thought he would be the first to grow tired of this sort of work." he wrote edward arundel a long letter; a friendly but rather facetious letter; such as he might have written to a child who had asked him to jump over the moon. he ridiculed the idea of a duel, as something utterly quixotic and absurd. "i am fifteen years older than you, my dear mr. arundel," he wrote, "and a great deal too old to have any inclination to fight with windmills; or to represent the windmill which a high-spirited young quixote may choose to mistake for a villanous knight, and run his hot head against in that delusion. i am not offended with you for calling me bad names, and i take your anger merely as a kind of romantic manner you have of showing your love for my poor cousin. we are not enemies, and we never shall be enemies; for i will never suffer myself to be so foolish as to get into a passion with a brave and generous-hearted young soldier, whose only error is an unfortunate hallucination with regard to "your very humble servant, "paul marchmont." edward ground his teeth with savage fury as he read this letter. "is there no making this man answer for his infamy?" he muttered. "is there no way of making him suffer?" * * * * * june was nearly over, and the year was wearing round to the anniversary of edward's wedding-day, the anniversaries of those bright days which the young bride and bridegroom had loitered away by the trout-streams in the hampshire meadows, when some most unlooked-for visitors made their appearance at kemberling retreat. the cottage lay back behind a pleasant garden, and was hidden from the dusty high road by a hedge of lilacs and laburnums which grew within the wooden fence. it was edward's habit, in this hot summer-time, to spend a great deal of his time in the garden; walking up and down the neglected paths, with a cigar in his mouth; or lolling in an easy chair on the lawn reading the papers. perhaps the garden was almost prettier, by reason of the long neglect which it had suffered, than it would have been if kept in the trimmest order by the industrious hands of a skilful gardener. everything grew in a wild and wanton luxuriance, that was very beautiful in this summer-time, when the earth was gorgeous with all manner of blossoms. trailing branches from the espaliered apple-trees hung across the pathways, intermingled with roses that had run wild; and made "bits" that a landscape-painter might have delighted to copy. even the weeds, which a gardener would have looked upon with horror, were beautiful. the wild convolvulus flung its tendrils into fantastic wreaths about the bushes of sweetbrier; the honeysuckle, untutored by the pruning-knife, mixed its tall branches with seringa and clematis; the jasmine that crept about the house had mounted to the very chimney-pots, and strayed in through the open windows; even the stable-roof was half hidden by hardy monthly roses that had clambered up to the thatch. but the young soldier took very little interest in this disorderly garden. he pined to be far away in the thick jungle, or on the burning plain. he hated the quiet and repose of an existence which seemed little better than the living death of a cloister. the sun was low in the west at the close of a long midsummer day, when mr. arundel strolled up and down the neglected pathways, backwards and forwards amid the long tangled grass of the lawn, smoking a cigar, and brooding over his sorrows. he was beginning to despair. he had defied paul marchmont, and no good had come of his defiance. he had watched him, and there had been no result of his watching. day after day he had wandered down to the lonely pathway by the river side; again and again he had reconnoitered the boat-house, only to hear paul marchmont's treble voice singing scraps out of modern operas as he worked at his easel; or on one or two occasions to see mr. george weston, the surgeon, or lavinia his wife, emerge from the artist's painting-room. upon one of these occasions edward arundel had accosted the surgeon of kemberling, and had tried to enter into conversation with him. but mr. weston had exhibited such utterly hopeless stupidity, mingled with a very evident terror of his brother-in-law's foe, that edward had been fain to abandon all hope of any assistance from this quarter. "i'm sure i'm very sorry for you, mr. arundel," the surgeon said, looking, not at edward, but about and around him, in a hopeless, wandering manner, like some hunted animal that looks far and near for a means of escape from his pursuer,--"i'm very sorry for you--and for all your trouble--and i was when i attended you at the black bull--and you were the first patient i ever had there--and it led to my having many more--as i may say--though that's neither here nor there. and i'm very sorry for you, and for the poor young woman too--particularly for the poor young woman--and i always tell paul so--and--and paul--" and at this juncture mr. weston stopped abruptly, as if appalled by the hopeless entanglement of his own ideas, and with a brief "good evening, mr. arundel," shot off in the direction of the towers, leaving edward at a loss to understand his manner. so, on this midsummer evening, the soldier walked up and down the neglected grass-plat, thinking of the men who had been his comrades, and of the career which he had abandoned for the love of his lost wife. he was aroused from his gloomy reverie by the sound of a fresh girlish voice calling to him by his name. "edward! edward!" who could there be in lincolnshire with the right to call to him thus by his christian name? he was not long left in doubt. while he was asking himself the question, the same feminine voice cried out again. "edward! edward! will you come and open the gate for me, please? or do you mean to keep me out here for ever?" this time mr. arundel had no difficulty in recognising the familiar tones of his sister letitia, whom he had believed, until that moment, to be safe under the maternal wing at dangerfield. and lo, here she was, on horseback at his own gate; with a cavalier hat and feathers overshadowing her girlish face; and with another young amazon on a thorough-bred chestnut, and an elderly groom on a thorough-bred bay, in the background. edward arundel, utterly confounded by the advent of such visitors, flung away his cigar, and went to the low wooden gate beyond which his sister's steed was pawing the dusty road, impatient of this stupid delay, and eager to be cantering stablewards through the scented summer air. "why, letitia!" cried the young man, "what, in mercy's name, has brought you here?" miss arundel laughed aloud at her brother's look of surprise. "you didn't know i was in lincolnshire, did you?" she asked; and then answered her own question in the same breath: "of course you didn't, because i wouldn't let mamma tell you i was coming; for i wanted to surprise you, you know. and i think i have surprised you, haven't i? i never saw such a scared-looking creature in all my life. if i were a ghost coming here in the gloaming, you couldn't look more frightened than you did just now. i only came the day before yesterday--and i'm staying at major lawford's, twelve miles away from here--and this is miss lawford, who was at school with me at bath. you've heard me talk of belinda lawford, my dearest, dearest friend? miss lawford, my brother; my brother, miss lawford. are you going to open the gate and let us in, or do you mean to keep your citadel closed upon us altogether, mr. edward arundel?" at this juncture the young lady in the background drew a little nearer to her friend, and murmured a remonstrance to the effect that it was very late, and that they were expected home before dark; but miss arundel refused to hear the voice of wisdom. "why, we've only an hour's ride back," she cried; "and if it should be dark, which i don't think it will be, for it's scarcely dark all night through at this time of year, we've got hoskins with us, and hoskins will take care of us. won't you, hoskins?" demanded the young lady, turning to the elderly groom. of course hoskins declared that he was ready to achieve all that man could do or dare in the defence of his liege ladies, or something pretty nearly to that effect; but delivered in a vile lincolnshire patois, not easily rendered in printer's ink. miss arundel waited for no further discussion, but gave her hand to her brother, and vaulted lightly from her saddle. then, of course, edward arundel offered his services to his sister's companion, and then for the first time he looked in belinda lawford's face, and even in that one first glance saw that she was a good and beautiful creature, and that her hair, of which she had a great quantity, was of the colour of her horse's chestnut coat; that her eyes were the bluest he had ever seen, and that her cheeks were like the neglected roses in his garden. he held out his hand to her. she took it with a frank smile, and dismounted, and came in amongst the grass-grown pathways, amid the confusion of trailing branches and bright garden-flowers growing wild. * * * * * in that moment began the second volume of edward arundel's life. the first volume had begun upon the christmas night on which the boy of seventeen went to see the pantomime at drury lane theatre. the old story had been a long, sad story, fall of tenderness and pathos, but with a cruel and dismal ending. the new story began to-night, in this fading western sunshine, in this atmosphere of balmy perfume, amidst these dew-laden garden-flowers growing wild. * * * * * but, as i think i observed before at the outset of this story, we are rarely ourselves aware of the commencement of any new section in our lives. it is only after the fact that we recognise the awful importance which actions, in themselves most trivial, assume by reason of their consequences; and when the action, in itself so unimportant, in its consequences so fatal, has been in any way a deviation from the right, how bitterly we reproach ourselves for that false step! "i am so _glad_ to see you, edward!" miss arundel exclaimed, as she looked about her, criticising her brother's domain; "but you don't seem a bit glad to see me, you poor gloomy old dear. and how much better you look than you did when you left dangerfield! only a little careworn, you know, still. and to think of your coming and burying yourself here, away from all the people who love you, you silly old darling! and belinda knows the story, and she's so sorry for you. ain't you, linda? i call her linda for short, and because it's prettier than _be_-linda," added the young lady aside to her brother, and with a contemptuous emphasis upon the first syllable of her friend's name. miss lawford, thus abruptly appealed to, blushed, and said nothing. if edward arundel had been told that any other young lady was acquainted with the sad story of his married life, i think he would have been inclined to revolt against the very idea of her pity. but although he had only looked once at belinda lawford, that one look seemed to have told him a great deal. he felt instinctively that she was as good as she was beautiful, and that her pity must be a most genuine and tender emotion, not to be despised by the proudest man upon earth. the two ladies seated themselves upon a dilapidated rustic bench amid the long grass, and mr. arundel sat in the low basket-chair in which he was wont to lounge a great deal of his time away. "why don't you have a gardener, ned?" letitia arundel asked, after looking rather contemptuously at the flowery luxuriance around her. her brother shrugged his shoulders with a despondent gesture. "why should i take any care of the place?" he said. "i only took it because it was near the spot where--where my poor girl--where i wanted to be. i have no object in beautifying it. i wish to heaven i could leave it, and go back to india." he turned his face eastward as he spoke, and the two girls saw that half-eager, half-despairing yearning that was always visible in his face when he looked to the east. it was over yonder, the scene of strife, the red field of glory, only separated from him by a patch of purple ocean and a strip of yellow sand. it was yonder. he could almost feel the hot blast of the burning air. he could almost hear the shouts of victory. and he was a prisoner here, bound by a sacred duty,--by a duty which he owed to the dead. "major lawford--major lawford is belinda's papa; rd foot--major lawford knew that we were coming here, and he begged me to ask you to dinner; but i said you wouldn't come, for i knew you had shut yourself out of all society--though the major's the dearest creature, and the grange is a most delightful place to stay at. i was down here in the midsummer holidays once, you know, while you were in india. but i give the message as the major gave it to me; and you are to come to dinner whenever you like." edward arundel murmured a few polite words of refusal. no; he saw no society; he was in lincolnshire to achieve a certain object; he should remain there no longer than was necessary in order for him to do so. "and you don't even say that you're glad to see me!" exclaimed miss arundel, with an offended air, "though it's six months since you were last at dangerfield! upon my word, you're a nice brother for an unfortunate girl to waste her affections upon!" edward smiled faintly at his sister's complaint. "i am very glad to see you, letitia," he said; "very, very glad." and indeed the young hermit could not but confess to himself that those two innocent young faces seemed to bring light and brightness with them, and to shed a certain transitory glimmer of sunshine upon the horrible gloom of his life. mr. morrison had come out to offer his duty to the young lady--whom he had been intimate with from a very early period of her existence, and had carried upon his shoulder some fifteen years before--under the pretence of bringing wine for the visitors; and the stable-lad had been sent to a distant corner of the garden to search for strawberries for their refreshment. even the solitary maid-servant had crept into the parlour fronting the lawn, and had shrouded herself behind the window-curtains, whence she could peep out at the two amazons, and gladden her eyes with the sight of something that was happy and beautiful. but the young ladies would not stop to drink any wine, though mr. morrison informed letitia that the sherry was from the dangerfield cellar, and had been sent to master edward by his ma; nor to eat any strawberries, though the stable-boy, who made the air odorous with the scent of hay and oats, brought a little heap of freshly-gathered fruit piled upon a cabbage-leaf, and surmounted by a rampant caterpillar of the woolly species. they could not stay any longer, they both declared, lest there should be terror at lawford grange because of their absence. so they went back to the gate, escorted by edward and his confidential servant; and after letitia had given her brother a kiss, which resounded almost like the report of a pistol through the still evening air, the two ladies mounted their horses, and cantered away in the twilight. "i shall come and see you again, ned," miss arundel cried, as she shook the reins upon her horse's neck; "and so will belinda--won't you, belinda?" miss lawford's reply, if she spoke at all, was quite inaudible amidst the clattering of the horses' hoofs upon the hard highroad. chapter xiii. one more sacrifice. letitia arundel kept her word, and came very often to kemberling retreat; sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a little pony-carriage; sometimes accompanied by belinda lawford, sometimes accompanied by a younger sister of belinda's, as chestnut-haired and blue-eyed as belinda herself, but at the school-room and bread-and-butter period of life, and not particularly interesting. major lawford came one day with his daughter and her friend, and edward and the half-pay officer walked together up and down the grass-plat, smoking and talking of the indian war, while the two girls roamed about the garden amidst the roses and butterflies, tearing the skirts of their riding-habits every now and then amongst the briers and gooseberry-bushes. it was scarcely strange after this visit that edward arundel should consent to accept major lawford's invitation to name a day for dining at the grange; he could not, with a very good grace, have refused. and yet--and yet--it seemed to him almost a treason against his lost love, his poor pensive mary,--whose face, with the very look it had worn upon that last day, was ever present with him,--to mix with happy people who had never known sorrow. but he went to the grange nevertheless, and grew more and more friendly with the major, and walked in the gardens--which were very large and old-fashioned, but most beautifully kept--with his sister and belinda lawford; with belinda lawford, who knew his story and was sorry for him. he always remembered _that_ as he looked at her bright face, whose varying expression gave perpetual evidence of a compassionate and sympathetic nature. "if my poor darling had had this girl for a friend," he thought sometimes, "how much happier she might have been!" i dare say there have been many lovelier women in this world than belinda lawford; many women whose faces, considered artistically, came nearer perfection; many noses more exquisitely chiselled, and scores of mouths bearing a closer affinity to cupid's bow; but i doubt if any face was ever more pleasant to look upon than the face of this blooming english maiden. she had a beauty that is sometimes wanting in perfect faces, and, lacking which, the most splendid loveliness will pall at last upon eyes that have grown weary of admiring; she had a charm for want of which the most rigidly classical profiles, the most exquisitely statuesque faces, have seemed colder and harder than the marble it was their highest merit to resemble. she had the beauty of goodness, and to admire her was to do homage to the purest and brightest attributes of womanhood. it was not only that her pretty little nose was straight and well-shaped, that her lips were rosy red, that her eyes were bluer than the summer heavens, and her chestnut hair tinged with the golden light of a setting sun; above and beyond such commonplace beauties as these, the beauties of tenderness, truth, faith, earnestness, hope and charity, were enthroned upon her broad white brow, and crowned her queen by right divine of womanly perfection. a loving and devoted daughter, an affectionate sister, a true and faithful friend, an untiring benefactress to the poor, a gentle mistress, a well-bred christian lady; in every duty and in every position she bore out and sustained the impression which her beauty made on the minds of those who looked upon her. she was only nineteen years of age, and no sorrow had ever altered the brightness of her nature. she lived a happy life with a father who was proud of her, and with a mother who resembled her in almost every attribute. she led a happy but a busy life, and did her duty to the poor about her as scrupulously as even olivia had done in the old days at swampington rectory; but in such a genial and cheerful spirit as to win, not cold thankfulness, but heartfelt love and devotion from all who partook of her benefits. upon the egyptian darkness of edward arundel's life this girl arose as a star, and by-and-by all the horizon brightened under her influence. the soldier had been very little in the society of women. his mother, his sister letitia, his cousin olivia, and john marchmont's gentle daughter were the only women whom he had ever known in the familiar freedom of domestic intercourse; and he trusted himself in the presence of this beautiful and noble-minded girl in utter ignorance of any danger to his own peace of mind. he suffered himself to be happy at lawford grange; and in those quiet hours which he spent there he put away his old life, and forgot the stern purpose that alone held him a prisoner in england. but when he went back to his lonely dwelling-place, he reproached himself bitterly for that which he considered a treason against his love. "what right have i to be happy amongst these people?" he thought; "what right have i to take life easily, even for an hour, while my darling lies in her unhallowed grave, and the man who drove her to her death remains unpunished? i will never go to lawford grange again." it seemed, however, as if everybody, except belinda, was in a plot against this idle soldier; for sometimes letitia coaxed him to ride back with her after one of her visits to kemberling retreat, and very often the major himself insisted, in a hearty military fashion, upon the young man's taking the empty seat in his dog-cart, to be driven over to the grange. edward arundel had never once mentioned mary's name to any member of this hospitable and friendly family. they were very good to him, and were prepared, he knew, to sympathise with him; but he could not bring himself to talk of his lost wife. the thought of that rash and desperate act which had ended her short life was too cruel to him. he would not speak of her, because he would have had to plead excuses for that one guilty act; and her image to him was so stainless and pure, that he could not bear to plead for her as for a sinner who had need of men's pity, rather than a claim to their reverence. "her life had been so sinless," he cried sometimes; "and to think that it should have ended in sin! if i could forgive paul marchmont for all the rest--if i could forgive him for my loss of her, i would never forgive him for that." the young widower kept silence, therefore, upon the subject which occupied so large a share of his thoughts, which was every day and every night the theme of his most earnest prayers; and mary's name was never spoken in his presence at lawford grange. but in edward arundel's absence the two girls sometimes talked of the sad story. "do you really think, letitia, that your brother's wife committed suicide?" belinda asked her friend. "oh, as for that, there can't be any doubt about it, dear," answered miss arundel, who was of a lively, not to say a flippant, disposition, and had no very great reverence for solemn things; "the poor dear creature drowned herself. i think she must have been a little wrong in her head. i don't say so to edward, you know; at least, i did say so once when he was at dangerfield, and he flew into an awful passion, and called me hard-hearted and cruel, and all sorts of shocking things; so, of course, i have never said so since. but really, the poor dear thing's goings-on were so eccentric: first she ran away from her stepmother and went and hid herself in a horrid lodging; and then she married edward at a nasty church in lambeth, without so much as a wedding-dress, or a creature to give her away, or a cake, or cards, or anything christian-like; and then she ran away again; and as her father had been a super--what's its name?--a man who carries banners in pantomimes, and all that--i dare say she'd seen mr. macready as hamlet, and had ophelia's death in her head when she ran down to the river-side and drowned herself. i'm sure it's a very sad story; and, of course, i'm awfully sorry for edward." the young lady said no more than this; but belinda brooded over the story of that early marriage,--the stolen honeymoon, the sudden parting. how dearly they must have loved each other, the young bride and bridegroom, absorbed in their own happiness, and forgetful of all the outer world! she pictured edward arundel's face as it must have been before care and sorrow had blotted out the brightest attribute of his beauty. she thought of him, and pitied him, with such tender sympathy, that by-and-by the thought of this young man's sorrow seemed to shut almost every idea out of her mind. she went about all her duties still, cheerfully and pleasantly, as it was her nature to do everything; but the zest with which she had performed every loving office--every act of sweet benevolence, seemed lost to her now. remember that she was a simple country damsel, leading a quiet life, whose peaceful course was almost as calm and eventless as the existence of a cloister; a life so quiet that a decently-written romance from the swampington book-club was a thing to be looked forward to with impatience, to read with breathless excitement, and to brood upon afterwards for months. was it strange, then, that this romance in real life--this sweet story of love and devotion, with its sad climax,--this story, the scene of which lay within a few miles of her home, the hero of which was her father's constant guest,--was it strange that this story, whose saddest charm was its truth, should make a strong impression upon the mind of an innocent and unworldly woman, and that day by day and hour by hour she should, all unconsciously to herself, feel a stronger interest in the hero of the tale? she was interested in him. alas! the truth must be set down, even if it has to be in the plain old commonplace words. _she fell in love with him_. but love in this innocent and womanly nature was so different a sentiment to that which had raged in olivia's stormy breast, that even she who felt it was unconscious of its gradual birth. it was not "an adam at its birth," by-the-by. it did not leap, minerva-like, from the brain; for i believe that love is born of the brain oftener than of the heart, being a strange compound of ideality, benevolence, and veneration. it came rather like the gradual dawning of a summer's day,--first a little patch of light far away in the east, very faint and feeble; then a slow widening of the rosy brightness; and at last a great blaze of splendour over all the width of the vast heavens. and then miss lawford grew more reserved in her intercourse with her friend's brother. her frank good-nature gave place to a timid, shrinking bashfulness, that made her ten times more fascinating than she had been before. she was so very young, and had mixed so little with the world, that she had yet to learn the comedy of life. she had yet to learn to smile when she was sorry, or to look sorrowful when she was pleased, as prudence might dictate--to blush at will, or to grow pale when it was politic to sport the lily tint. she was a natural, artless, spontaneous creature; and she was utterly powerless to conceal her emotions, or to pretend a sentiment she did not feel. she blushed rosy red when edward arundel spoke to her suddenly. she betrayed herself by a hundred signs; mutely confessing her love almost as artlessly as mary had revealed her affection a twelvemonth before. but if edward saw this, he gave no sign of having made the discovery. his voice, perhaps, grew a little lower and softer in its tone when he spoke to belinda; but there was a sad cadence in that low voice, which was too mournful for the accent of a lover. sometimes, when his eyes rested for a moment on the girl's blushing face, a shadow would darken his own, and a faint quiver of emotion stir his lower lip; but it is impossible to say what this emotion may have been. belinda hoped nothing, expected nothing. i repeat, that she was unconscious of the nature of her own feeling; and she had never for a moment thought of edward otherwise than as a man who would go to his grave faithful to that sad love-story which had blighted the promise of his youth. she never thought of him otherwise than as mary's constant mourner; she never hoped that time would alter his feelings or wear out his constancy; yet she loved him, notwithstanding. all through july and august the young man visited at the grange, and at the beginning of september letitia arundel went back to dangerfield. but even then edward was still a frequent guest at major lawford's; for his enthusiasm upon all military matters had made him a favourite with the old officer. but towards the end of september mr. arundel's visits suddenly were restricted to an occasional call upon the major; he left off dining at the grange; his evening rambles in the gardens with mrs. lawford and her blooming daughters--belinda had no less than four blue-eyed sisters, all more or less resembling herself--ceased altogether, to the wonderment of every one in the old-fashioned country-house. edward arundel shut out the new light which had dawned upon his life, and withdrew into the darkness. he went back to the stagnant monotony, the hopeless despondency, the bitter regret of his old existence. "while my sister was at the grange, i had an excuse for going there," he said to himself sternly. "i have no excuse now." but the old monotonous life was somehow or other a great deal more difficult to bear than it had been before. nothing seemed to interest the young man now. even the records of indian victories were "flat, stale, and unprofitable." he wondered as he remembered with what eager impatience he had once pined for the coming of the newspapers, with what frantic haste he had devoured every syllable of the indian news. all his old feelings seemed to have gone away, leaving nothing in his mind but a blank waste, a weary sickness of life and all belonging to it. leaving nothing else--positively nothing? "no!" he answered, in reply to these mute questionings of his own spirit,--"no," he repeated doggedly, "nothing." it was strange to find what a blank was left in his life by reason of his abandonment of the grange. it seemed as if he had suddenly retired from an existence full of pleasure and delight into the gloomy solitude of la trappe. and yet what was it that he had lost, after all? a quiet dinner at a country-house, and an evening spent half in the leafy silence of an old-fashioned garden, half in a pleasant drawing-room amongst a group of well-bred girls, and only enlivened by simple english ballads, or pensive melodies by mendelssohn. it was not much to forego, surely. and yet edward arundel felt, in sacrificing these new acquaintances at the grange to the stern purpose of his life, almost as if he had resigned a second captaincy for mary's sake. chapter xiv. the child's voice in the pavilion by the water. the year wore slowly on. letitia arundel wrote very long letters to her friend and confidante, belinda lawford, and in each letter demanded particular intelligence of her brother's doings. had he been to the grange? how had he looked? what had he talked about? &c., &c. but to these questions miss lawford could only return one monotonous reply: mr. arundel had not been to the grange; or mr. arundel had called on papa one morning, but had only stayed a quarter of an hour, and had not been seen by any female member of the family. the year wore slowly on. edward endured his self-appointed solitude, and waited, waited, with a vengeful hatred for ever brooding in his breast, for the day of retribution. the year wore on, and the anniversary of the day upon which mary ran away from the towers, the th of october, came at last. paul marchmont had declared his intention of taking possession of the towers upon the day following this. the twelvemonth's probation which he had imposed upon himself had expired; every voice was loud in praise of his conscientious and honourable conduct. he had grown very popular during his residence at kemberling. tenant farmers looked forward to halcyon days under his dominion; to leases renewed on favourable terms; to repairs liberally executed; to everything that is delightful between landlord and tenant. edward arundel heard all this through his faithful servitor, mr. morrison, and chafed bitterly at the news. this traitor was to be happy and prosperous, and to have the good word of honest men; while mary lay in her unhallowed grave, and people shrugged their shoulders, half compassionately, half contemptuously, as they spoke of the mad heiress who had committed suicide. mr. morrison brought his master tidings of all paul marchmont's doings about this time. he was to take possession of the towers on the th. he had already made several alterations in the arrangement of the different rooms. he had ordered new furniture from swampington,--another man would have ordered it from london; but mr. marchmont was bent upon being popular, and did not despise even the good opinion of a local tradesman,--and by several other acts, insignificant enough in themselves, had asserted his ownership of the mansion which had been the airy castle of mary marchmont's day-dreams ten years before. the coming-in of the new master of marchmont towers was to be, take it altogether, a very grand affair. the chorley-castle foxhounds were to meet at eleven o'clock, upon the great grass-flat, or lawn, as it was popularly called, before the western front. the county gentry from far and near had been invited to a hunting breakfast. open house was to be kept all day for rich and poor. every male inhabitant of the district who could muster anything in the way of a mount was likely to join the friendly gathering. poor reynard is decidedly england's most powerful leveller. all differences of rank and station, all distinctions which mammon raises in every other quarter, melt away before the friendly contact of the hunting-field. the man who rides best is the best man; and the young butcher who makes light of sunk fences, and skims, bird-like, over bullfinches and timber, may hold his own with the dandy heir to half the country-side. the cook at marchmont towers had enough to do to prepare for this great day. it was the first meet of the season, and in itself a solemn festival. paul marchmont knew this; and though the cockney artist of fitzroy square knew about as much of fox-hunting as he did of the source of the nile, he seized upon the opportunity of making himself popular, and determined to give such a hunting-breakfast as had never been given within the walls of marchmont towers since the time of a certain rackety hugh marchmont, who had drunk himself to death early in the reign of george iii. he spent the morning of the th in the steward's room, looking through the cellar-book with the old butler, selecting the wines that were to be drunk the following day, and planning the arrangements for the mass of visitors, who were to be entertained in the great stone entrance-hall, in the kitchens, in the housekeeper's room, in the servants' hall, in almost every chamber that afforded accommodation for a guest. "you will take care that people get placed according to their rank," paul said to the grey-haired servant. "you know everybody about here, i dare say, and will be able to manage so that we may give no offence." the gentry were to breakfast in the long dining-room and in the western drawing-room. sparkling hocks and burgundies, fragrant moselles, champagnes of choicest brand and rarest bouquet, were to flow like water for the benefit of the country gentlemen who should come to do honour to paul marchmont's installation. great cases of comestibles had been sent by rail from fortnum and mason's; and the science of the cook at the towers had been taxed to the utmost, in the struggles which she made to prove herself equal to the occasion. twenty-one casks of ale, every cask containing twenty-one gallons, had been brewed long ago, at the birth of arthur marchmont, and had been laid in the cellar ever since, waiting for the majority of the young heir who was never to come of age. this very ale, with a certain sense of triumph, paul marchmont ordered to be brought forth for the refreshment of the commoners. "poor young arthur!" he thought, after he had given this order. "i saw him once when he was a pretty boy with fair ringlets, dressed in a suit of black velvet. his father brought him to my studio one day, when he came to patronise me and buy a picture of me,--out of sheer charity, of course, for he cared as much for pictures as i care for foxhounds. _i_ was a poor relation then, and never thought to see the inside of marchmont towers. it was a lucky september morning that swept that bright-faced boy out of my pathway, and left only sickly john marchmont and his daughter between me and fortune." yes; mr. paul marchmont's year of probation was past. he had asserted himself to messrs. paulette, paulette, and mathewson, and before the face of all lincolnshire, in the character of an honourable and high-minded man; slow to seize upon the fortune that had fallen to him, conscientious, punctilious, generous, and unselfish. he had done all this; and now the trial was over, and the day of triumph had come. there has been a race of villains of late years very popular with the novel-writer and the dramatist, but not, i think, quite indigenous to this honest british soil; a race of pale-faced, dark-eyed, and all-accomplished scoundrels, whose chiefest attribute is imperturbability. the imperturbable villain has been guilty of every iniquity in the black catalogue of crimes; but he has never been guilty of an emotion. he wins a million of money at _trente et quarante_, to the terror and astonishment of all homburg; and by not so much as one twinkle of his eye or one quiver of his lip does that imperturbable creature betray a sentiment of satisfaction. ruin or glory, shame or triumph, defeat, disgrace, or death,--all are alike to the callous ruffian of the anglo-gallic novel. he smiles, and murders while he smiles, and smiles while he murders. he kills his adversary, unfairly, in a duel, and wipes his sword on a cambric handkerchief; and withal he is so elegant, so fascinating, and so handsome, that the young hero of the novel has a very poor chance against him; and the reader can scarcely help being sorry when retribution comes with the last chapter, and some crushing catastrophe annihilates the well-bred scoundrel. paul marchmont was not this sort of man. he was a hypocrite when it was essential to his own safety to practice hypocrisy; but he did not accept life as a drama, in which he was for ever to be acting a part. life would scarcely be worth the having to any man upon such terms. it is all very well to wear heavy plate armour, and a casque that weighs fourteen pounds or so, when we go into the thick of the fight. but to wear the armour always, to live in it, to sleep in it, to carry the ponderous protection about us for ever and ever! safety would be too dear if purchased by such a sacrifice of all personal ease. paul marchmont, therefore, being a selfish and self-indulgent man, only wore his armour of hypocrisy occasionally, and when it was vitally necessary for his preservation. he had imposed upon himself a penance, and acted a part in holding back for a year from the enjoyment of a splendid fortune; and he had made this one great sacrifice in order to give the lie to edward arundel's vague accusations, which might have had an awkward effect upon the minds of other people, had the artist grasped too eagerly at his missing cousin's wealth. paul marchmont had made this sacrifice; but he did not intend to act a part all his life. he meant to enjoy himself, and to get the fullest possible benefit out of his good fortune. he meant to do this; and upon the th of october he made no effort to restrain his spirits, but laughed and talked joyously with whoever came in his way, winning golden opinions from all sorts of men; for happiness is contagious, and everybody likes happy people. forty years of poverty is a long apprenticeship to the very hardest of masters,--an apprenticeship calculated to give the keenest possible zest to newly-acquired wealth. paul marchmont rejoiced in his wealth with an almost delirious sense of delight. it was his at last. at last! he had waited, and waited patiently; and at last, while his powers of enjoyment were still in their zenith, it had come. how often he had dreamed of this; how often he had dreamed of that which was to take place to-morrow! how often in his dreams he had seen the stone-built mansion, and heard the voices of the crowd doing him honour. he had felt all the pride and delight of possession, to awake suddenly in the midst of his triumph, and gnash his teeth at the remembrance of his poverty. and now the poverty was a thing to be dreamt about, and the wealth was his. he had always been a good son and a kind brother; and his mother and sister were to arrive upon the eve of his installation, and were to witness his triumph. the rooms that had been altered were those chosen by paul for his mother and maiden sister, and the new furniture had been ordered for their comfort. it was one of his many pleasures upon this day to inspect these apartments, to see that all his directions had been faithfully carried out, and to speculate upon the effect which these spacious and luxurious chambers would have upon the minds of mrs. marchmont and her daughter, newly come from shabby lodgings in charlotte street. "my poor mother!" thought the artist, as he looked round the pretty sitting-room. this sitting-room opened into a noble bedchamber, beyond which there was a dressing-room. "my poor mother!" he thought; "she has suffered a long time, and she has been patient. she has never ceased to believe in me; and she will see now that there was some reason for that belief. i told her long ago, when our fortunes were at the lowest ebb, when i was painting landscapes for the furniture-brokers at a pound a-piece,--i told her i was meant for something better than a tradesman's hack; and i have proved it--i have proved it." he walked about the room, arranging the furniture with his own hands; walking a few paces backwards now and then to contemplate such and such an effect from an artistic point of view; flinging the rich stuff of the curtains into graceful folds; admiring and examining everything, always with a smile on his face. he seemed thoroughly happy. if he had done any wrong; if by any act of treachery he had hastened mary arundel's death, no recollection of that foul work arose in his breast to disturb the pleasant current of his thoughts. selfish and self-indulgent, only attached to those who were necessary to his own happiness, his thoughts rarely wandered beyond the narrow circle of his own cares or his own pleasures. he was thoroughly selfish. he could have sat at a lord mayor's feast with a famine-stricken population clamouring at the door of the banquet-chamber. he believed in himself as his mother and sister had believed; and he considered that he had a right to be happy and prosperous, whosoever suffered sorrow or adversity. upon this th of october olivia marchmont sat in the little study looking out upon the quadrangle, while the household was busied with the preparations for the festival of the following day. she was to remain at marchmont towers as a guest of the new master of the mansion. she would be protected from all scandal, paul had said, by the presence of his mother and sister. she could retain the apartments she had been accustomed to occupy; she could pursue her old mode of life. he himself was not likely to be very much at the towers. he was going to travel and to enjoy life now that he was a rich man. these were the arguments which mr. marchmont used when openly discussing the widow's residence in his house. but in a private conversation between olivia and himself he had only said a very few words upon the subject. "you _must_ remain," he said; and olivia submitted, obeying him with a sullen indifference that was almost like the mechanical submission of an irresponsible being. john marchmont's widow seemed entirely under the dominion of the new master of the towers. it was as if the stormy passions which had arisen out of a slighted love had worn out this woman's mind, and had left her helpless to stand against the force of paul marchmont's keen and vigorous intellect. a remarkable change had come over olivia's character. a dull apathy had succeeded that fiery energy of soul which had enfeebled and well-nigh worn out her body. there were no outbursts of passion now. she bore the miserable monotony of her life uncomplainingly. day after day, week after week, month after month, idle and apathetic, she sat in her lonely room, or wandered slowly in the grounds about the towers. she very rarely went beyond those grounds. she was seldom seen now in her old pew at kemberling church; and when her father went to her and remonstrated with her for her non-attendance, she told him sullenly that she was too ill to go. she _was_ ill. george weston attended her constantly; but he found it very difficult to administer to such a sickness as hers, and he could only shake his head despondently when he felt her feeble pulse, or listened to the slow beating of her heart. sometimes she would shut herself up in her room for a month at a time, and see no one but her faithful servant barbara, and mr. weston--whom, in her utter indifference, she seemed to regard as a kind of domestic animal, whose going or coming were alike unimportant. this stolid, silent barbara waited upon her mistress with untiring patience. she bore with every change of olivia's gloomy temper; she was a perpetual shield and protection to her. even upon this day of preparation and disorder mrs. simmons kept guard over the passage leading to the study, and took care that no one intruded upon her mistress. at about four o'clock all paul marchmont's orders had been given, and the new master of the house dined for the first time by himself at the head of the long carved-oak dining-table, waited upon in solemn state by the old butler. his mother and sister were to arrive by a train that would reach swampington at ten o'clock, and one of the carriages from the towers was to meet them at the station. the artist had leisure in the meantime for any other business he might have to transact. he ate his dinner slowly, thinking deeply all the time. he did not stop to drink any wine after dinner; but, as soon as the cloth was removed, rose from the table, and went straight to olivia's room. "i am going down to the painting-room," he said. "will you come there presently? i want very much to say a few words to you." olivia was sitting near the window, with her hands lying idle in her lap. she rarely opened a book now, rarely wrote a letter, or occupied herself in any manner. she scarcely raised her eyes as she answered him. "yes," she said; "i will come." "don't be long, then. it will be dark very soon. i am not going down there to paint; i am going to fetch a landscape that i want to hang in my mother's room, and to say a few words about--" he closed the door without stopping to finish the sentence, and went out into the quadrangle. ten minutes afterwards olivia marchmont rose, and taking a heavy woollen shawl from a chair near her, wrapped it loosely about her head and shoulders. "i am his slave and his prisoner," she muttered to herself. "i must do as he bids me." a cold wind was blowing in the quadrangle, and the stone pavement was wet with a drizzling rain. the sun had just gone down, and the dull autumn sky was darkening. the fallen leaves in the wood were sodden with damp, and rotted slowly on the swampy ground. olivia took her way mechanically along the narrow pathway leading to the river. half-way between marchmont towers and the boat-house she came suddenly upon the figure of a man walking towards her through the dusk. this man was edward arundel. the two cousins had not met since the march evening upon which edward had gone to seek the widow in paul marchmont's painting-room. olivia's pale face grew whiter as she recognised the soldier. "i was coming to the house to speak to you, mrs. marchmont," edward said sternly. "i am lucky in meeting you here, for i don't want any one to overhear what i've got to say." he had turned in the direction in which olivia had been walking; but she made a dead stop, and stood looking at him. "you were going to the boat-house," he said. "i will go there with you." she looked at him for a moment, as if doubtful what to do, and then said, "very well. you can say what you have to say to me, and then leave me. there is no sympathy between us, there is no regard between us; we are only antagonists." "i hope not, olivia. i hope there is some spark of regard still, in spite of all. i separate you in my own mind from paul marchmont. i pity you; for i believe you to be his tool." "is this what you have to say to me?" "no; i came here, as your kinsman, to ask you what you mean to do now that paul marchmont has taken possession of the towers?" "i mean to stay there." "in spite of the gossip that your remaining will give rise to amongst these country-people!" "in spite of everything. mr. marchmont wishes me to stay. it suits me to stay. what does it matter what people say of me? what do i care for any one's opinion--now?" "olivia," cried the young man, "are you mad?" "perhaps i am," she answered, coldly. "why is it that you shut yourself from the sympathy of those who have a right to care for you? what is the mystery of your life?" his cousin laughed bitterly. "would you like to know, edward arundel?" she said. "you _shall_ know, perhaps, some day. you have despised me all my life; you will despise me more then." they had reached paul marchmont's painting-room by this time. olivia opened the door and walked in, followed by edward. paul was not there. there was a picture covered with green-baize upon the easel, and the artist's hat stood upon the table amidst the litter of brushes and palettes; but the room was empty. the door at the top of the stone steps leading to the pavilion was ajar. "have you anything more to say to me?" olivia asked, turning upon her cousin as if she would have demanded why he had followed her. "only this: i want to know your determination; whether you will be advised by me--and by your father,--i saw my uncle hubert this morning, and his opinion exactly coincides with mine,--or whether you mean obstinately to take your own course in defiance of everybody?" "i do," olivia answered. "i shall take my own course. i defy everybody. i have not been gifted with the power of winning people's affection. other women possess that power, and trifle with it, and turn it to bad account. i have prayed, edward arundel,--yes, i have prayed upon my knees to the god who made me, that he would give me some poor measure of that gift which nature has lavished upon other women; but he would not hear me, he would not hear me! i was not made to be loved. why, then, should i make myself a slave for the sake of winning people's esteem? if they have despised me, i can despise them." "who has despised you, olivia?" edward asked, perplexed by his cousin's manner. "you have!" she cried, with flashing eyes; "you have! from first to last--from first to last!" she turned away from him impatiently. "go," she said; "why should we keep up a mockery of friendliness and cousinship? we are nothing to each other." edward walked towards the door; but he paused upon the threshold, with his hat in his hand, undecided as to what he ought to do. as he stood thus, perplexed and irresolute, a cry, the feeble cry of a child, sounded within the pavilion. the young man started, and looked at his cousin. even in the dusk he could see that her face had suddenly grown livid. "there is a child in that place," he said pointing to the door at the top of the steps. the cry was repeated as he spoke,--the low, complaining wail of a child. there was no other voice to be heard,--no mother's voice soothing a helpless little one. the cry of the child was followed by a dead silence. "there is a child in that pavilion," edward arundel repeated. "there is," olivia answered. "whose child?" "what does it matter to you?" "whose child?" "i cannot tell you, edward arundel." the soldier strode towards the steps, but before he could reach them, olivia flung herself across his pathway. "i will see whose child is hidden in that place," he said. "scandalous things have been said of you, olivia. i will know the reason of your visits to this place." she clung about his knees, and hindered him from moving; half kneeling, half crouching on the lowest of the stone steps, she blocked his pathway, and prevented him from reaching the door of the pavilion. it had been ajar a few minutes ago; it was shut now. but edward had not noticed this. "no, no, no!" shrieked olivia; "you shall trample me to death before you enter that place. you shall walk over my corpse before you cross that threshold." the young man struggled with her for a few moments; then he suddenly flung her from him; not violently, but with a contemptuous gesture. "you are a wicked woman, olivia marchmont," he said; "and it matters very little to me what you do, or what becomes of you. i know now the secret of the mystery between you and paul marchmont. i can guess your motive for perpetually haunting this place." he left the solitary building by the river, and walked slowly back through the wood. his mind--predisposed to think ill of olivia by the dark rumours he had heard through his servant, and which had had a certain amount of influence upon him, as all scandals have, however baseless--could imagine only one solution to the mystery of a child's presence in the lonely building by the river. outraged and indignant at the discovery he had made, he turned his back upon marchmont towers. "i will stay in this hateful place no longer," he thought, as he went back to his solitary home; "but before i leave lincolnshire the whole county shall know what i think of paul marchmont." end of vol. ii. in the roar of the sea by s. baring-gould author of "the pennycomequicks," "urith," etc. new york national book company mission place copyright, , by united states book company. [_all rights reserved._] contents. chapter page i. over and done ii. a passage of arms iii. captain cruel iv. hop-o'-my-thumb v. the buttons vi. uncle zachie vii. a visit viii. a patched peace ix. c. c. x. ego et regina mea xi. jessamine xii. the cave xiii. in the dusk xiv. warning of danger xv. chained xvi. on the shingle xvii. for life or death xviii. una xix. a goldfish xx. bought and sold xxi. othello cottage xxii. jamie's ride xxiii. all is for the best in the best of worlds xxiv. a night excursion xxv. found xxvi. an unwilling prisoner xxvii. a rescue xxviii. an examination xxix. on a peacock's feather xxx. through the tamarisks xxxi. among the sand-heaps xxxii. a dangerous gift xxxiii. half a marriage xxxiv. a breakfast xxxv. jack o' lantern xxxvi. the sea-wolves xxxvii. bruised not broken xxxviii. a change of wind xxxix. a first lie xl. the diamond butterfly xli. a dead-lock xlii. two letters xliii. the second time xliv. the whip falls xlv. gone from its place xlvi. a second lie xlvii. fast in his hands xlviii. two alternatives xlix. nothing like grog l. playing forfeits li. surrender lii. to judith liii. in the smoke liv. squab pie in the roar of the sea. chapter i. over and done. sitting in the parsonage garden, in a white frock, with a pale green sash about her waist, leaning back against the red-brick wall, her glowing copper hair lit by the evening sun, was judith trevisa. she was tossing guelder-roses into the air; some dozens were strewn about her feet on the gravel, but one remained of the many she had plucked and thrown and caught, and thrown and caught again for a sunny afternoon hour. as each greenish-white ball of flowers went up into the air it diffused a faint but pleasant fragrance. "when i have done with you, my beauty, i have done altogether," said judith. "with what?" her father spoke. he had come up unperceived by the girl, burdened with a shovel in one hand and a bucket in the other, looking pale, weary, and worn. "papa, you nearly spoiled my game. let me finish, and i will speak." "is it a very serious matter, judith, and engrossing?" "engrossing, but not serious, _je m'amuse_." the old rector seated himself on the bench beside her, and he also leaned back against the red-brick, gold-and-gray-lichen-spotted wall, and looked into the distance before him, waiting till his daughter was ready to speak, not, perhaps, sorry to have a little rest first, for he was overtired. had judith not been absorbed in her ball-play with the guelder-rose bunch she would have noticed his haggard appearance, the green hue about his mouth, the sunken eyes, the beaded brow. but she was counting the rebounds of her ball, bent on sustaining her play as long as was possible to her. she formed a charming picture, fresh and pure, and had the old man not been overtired, he would have thought so with a throb of parental pride. she was a child in size, slender in build, delicate in bone, with face and hands of porcelain transparency and whiteness, with, moreover, that incomparable complexion only seen in the british isles, and then only with red-gold hair. her bronze-leather shoes were the hue of some large flies that basked and frisked on the warm wall, only slightly disturbed by the girl's play, to return again and run and preen themselves again, and glitter jewel-like as studs on that sun-baked, lichen-enamelled wall. her eyes, moreover, were lustrous as the backs of these flies, iridescent with the changing lights of the declining sun, and the changed direction of her glance following the dancing ball of guelder-rose. her long fingers might have been of china, but that when raised so that the sun struck their backs they were turned to a translucent rose. there was no color in her cheek, only the faintest suffusion of pink on the temples below where the hair was rolled back in waves of luminous molten copper dashing against the brick wall. "i have done my work," said the rector. "and i my play," responded the girl, letting the ball drop into her lap and rock there from one knee to the other. "papa, this fellow is the conqueror; i have made him dance thirty-five great leaps, and he has not yet fallen--wilfully. i let him go down and get breath just now. there lie all my dancers dead about me. they failed very speedily." "you cannot be forever playing, ju." "that is why i play now, papa. when playtime is over i shall be in earnest indeed." "indeed?" the old man sighed. judith looked round, and was shocked to see how ill her father appeared to be. "are you very tired, darling papa?" "yes--overtired." "have you been at your usual task?" "yes, ju--an unprofitable task." "oh, papa!" "yes, unprofitable. the next wind from the sea that blows--one will blow in an hour--and all my work is undone." "but, my dear papa!" judith stooped and looked into the bucket. "why!--what has made you bring a load of sand up here? we want none in the garden. and such a distance too!--from the church. no wonder you are tired." "have i brought it?" he asked, without looking at the bucket. "you have, indeed. that, if you please, is unprofitable work, not the digging of the church out of the sand-heaps that swallow it." "my dear, i did not know that i had not emptied the pail outside the church-yard gate. i am very tired; perhaps that explains it." "no doubt about it, papa. it was work quite as unprofitable but much more exhausting than my ball-play. now, papa, while you have been digging your church out of the sand, which will blow over it again to-night, you say, i have been pitching and tossing guelder-roses. we have been both wasting time, one as much as the other." "one as much as the other," repeated the old man. "yes, dear, one as much as the other, and i have been doing it all my time here--morally, spiritually, as well as materially, digging the church out of the smothering sands, and all in vain--all profitless work. you are right, ju." "papa," said judith hastily, seeing his discouragement and knowing his tendency to depression, "papa, do you hear the sea how it roars? i have stood on the bench, more than once, to look out seaward, and find a reason for it; but there is none--all blue, blue as a larkspur; and not a cloud in the sky--all blue, blue there too. no wind either, and that is why i have done well with my ball-play. do you hear the roar of the sea, papa?" she repeated. "yes, ju. there will be a storm shortly. the sea is thrown into great swells of rollers, a sure token that something is coming. before night a gale will be on us." then ensued silence. judith with one finger trifled with the guelder-rose bunch in her lap musingly, not desirous to resume her play with it. something in her father's manner was unusual, and made her uneasy. "my dear!" he began, after a pause, "one must look out to sea--into the vast mysterious sea of the future--and prepare for what is coming from it. just now the air is still, and we sit in this sweet, sunny garden, and lean our backs against the warm wall, and smell the fragrance of the flowers; but we hear the beating of the sea, and know that a mighty tempest, with clouds and darkness, is coming. so in other matters we must look out and be ready--count the time till it comes. my dear, when i am gone----" "papa!" "we were looking out to sea and listening. that must come at some time--it may come sooner than you anticipate." he paused, heaved a sigh, and said, "oh, jamie! what are we to do about jamie?" "papa, i will always take care of jamie." "but who will take care of you?" "of me? oh, papa, surely i can take care of myself!" he shook his head doubtfully. "papa, you know how strong i am in will--how firm i can be with jamie." "but all mankind are not jamies. it is not for you i fear, as much as for you and him together. he is a trouble and a difficulty." "jamie is not so silly and troublesome as you think. all he needs is application. he cannot screw his mind down to his books--to any serious occupation. but that will come. i have heard say that the stupidest children make the sharpest men. little by little it will come, but it will come certainly. i will set myself as my task to make jamie apply his mind and become a useful man, and i shall succeed, papa." she caught her father's hand between hers, and slapped it joyously, confidently. "how cold your hand is, papa! and yet you look warm." "you were always jamie's champion," said her father, not noticing her remark relative to himself. "he is my twin brother, so of course i am his champion. who else would be that, were not i?" "no--no one else. he is mischievous and troublesome--poor, poor fellow. you will always be to jamie what you are now, ju--his protector or champion? he is weak and foolish, and if he were to fall into bad hands--i shudder to think what might become of him." "rely on me, dearest father." then he lifted the hand of his daughter, and looked at it with a faint smile. "it is very small, it is very weak, to fight for self alone, let alone yourself encumbered with jamie." "i will do it, papa, do not fear." "judith, i must talk very gravely with you, for the future is very dark to me; and i am unable with hand or brain to provide anything against the evil day. numbness is on me, and i have been hampered on every side. for one thing, the living has been so poor, and my parishioners so difficult to deal with, that i have been able to lay by but a trifle. i believe i have not a relative in the world--none, at all events, near enough and known to me that i dare ask him to care for you----" "papa, there is aunt dionysia." "aunt dionysia," he repeated, with a hesitating voice. "yes; but aunt dionysia is--is not herself capable of taking charge of you. she has nothing but what she earns, and then--aunt dionysia is--is--well--aunt dionysia. i don't think you could be happy with her, even if, in the event of my departure, she were able to take care of you. then--and that chiefly--she has chosen, against my express wishes--i may say, in defiance of me--to go as housekeeper into the service of the man, of all others, who has been a thorn in my side, a hinderer of god's work, a--but i will say no more." "what! cruel coppinger?" "yes, cruel coppinger. i might have been the means of doing a little good in this place, god knows! i only _think_ i might; but i have been thwarted, defied, insulted by that man. as i have striven to dig my buried church out of the overwhelming sands, so have i striven to lift the souls of my poor parishioners out of the dead engulfing sands of savagery, brutality, very heathenism of their mode of life, and i have been frustrated. the winds have blown the sands back with every gale over my work with spade, and that stormblast coppinger has devastated every trace of good that i have done, or tried to do, in spiritual matters. the lord reward him according to his works." judith felt her father's hand tremble in hers. "never mind coppinger now," she said, soothingly. "i must mind him," said the old man, with severe vehemence. "and--that my own sister should go, go--out of defiance, into his house and serve him! that was too much. i might well say, i have none to whom to look as your protector." he paused awhile, and wiped his brow. his pale lips were quivering. "i do not mean to say," said he, "that i acted with judgment, when first i came to s. enodoc, when i spoke against smuggling. i did not understand it then. i thought with the thoughts of an inlander. here--the sands sweep over the fields, and agriculture is in a measure impossible. the bays and creeks seem to invite--well--i leave it an open question. but with regard to wrecking--" his voice, which had quavered in feebleness, according with the feebleness of his judgment relative to smuggling, now gained sonorousness. "wrecking, deliberate wrecking, is quite another matter. i do not say that our people are not justified in gathering the harvest the sea casts up. there always must be, there will be wrecks on this terrible coast; but there has been--i know there has been, though i have not been able to prove it--deliberate provocation of wrecks, and that is the sin of cain. had i been able to prove----" "never mind that now, dear papa. neither i nor jamie are, or will be, wreckers. talk of something else. you over-excite yourself." judith was accustomed to hear her father talk in an open manner to her. she had been his sole companion for several years, since his wife's death, and she had become the _confidante_ of his inmost thoughts, his vacillations, his discouragements, not of his hopes--for he had none, nor of his schemes--for he formed none. "i do not think i have been of any use in this world," said the old parson, relapsing into his tone of discouragement, the temporary flame of anger having died away. "my sowing has produced no harvest. i have brought light, help, strength to none. i have dug all day in the vineyard, and not a vine is the better for it; all cankered and fruitless." "papa--and me! have you done nothing for me!" "you!" he had not thought of his child. "papa! do you think that i have gained naught from you? no strength, no resolution from seeing you toil on in your thankless work, without apparent results? if i have any energy and principle to carry me through i owe it to you." he was moved, and raised his trembling hand and laid it on her golden head. he said no more, and was very still. presently she spoke. his hands weighed heavily on her head. "papa, you are listening to the roar of the sea?" he made no reply. "papa, i felt a cold breath; and see, the sun has a film over it. surely the sea is roaring louder!" his hand slipped from her head and struck her shoulder--roughly, she thought. she turned, startled, and looked at him. his eyes were open, he was leaning back, almost fallen against the wall, and was deadly pale. "papa, you are listening to the roar?" then a thought struck her like a bullet in the heart. "papa! papa! my papa!--speak--speak!" she sprang from the bench--was before him. her left guelder-rose had rolled, had bounded from her lap, and had fallen on the sand the old man had listlessly brought up from the church. his work, her play, were forever over. chapter ii. a passage of arms. the stillness preceding the storm had yielded. a gale had broken over the coast, raged against the cliffs of pentyre, and battered the walls of the parsonage, without disturbing the old rector, whom no storm would trouble again, soon to be laid under the sands of his buried church-yard, his very mound to be heaped over in a few years, and obliterated by waves of additional encroaching sand. judith had not slept all night. she--she, a mere child, had to consider and arrange everything consequent on the death of the master of the house. the servants--cook and house-maid--had been of little, if any, assistance to her. when jane, the house-maid, had rushed into the kitchen with the tidings that the old parson was dead, cook, in her agitation, upset the kettle and scalded her foot. the gardener's wife had come in on hearing the news, and had volunteered help. judith had given her the closet-key to fetch from the stores something needed; and jamie, finding access to the closet, had taken possession of a pot of raspberry jam, carried it to bed with him, and spilled it over the sheets, besides making himself ill. the house-maid, jane, had forgotten in her distraction to shut the best bedroom casement, and the gale during the night had wrenched it from its hinges, flung it into the garden on the roof of the small conservatory, and smashed both. moreover, the casement being open, the rain had driven into the room unchecked, had swamped the floor, run through and stained the drawing-room ceiling underneath, the drips had fallen on the mahogany table and blistered the veneer. a messenger was sent to pentyre glaze for miss dionysia trevisa, and she would probably arrive in an hour or two. mr. trevisa, as he had told judith, was solitary, singularly so. he was of a good cornish family, but it was one that had dwindled till it had ceased to have other representative than himself. once well estated, at crockadon, in s. mellion, all the lands of the family had been lost; once with merchants in the family, all the fortunes of these merchants industriously gathered had been dissipated, and nothing had remained to the reverend peter trevisa but his family name and family coat, a garb or, on a field gules. it really seemed as though the tinctures of the shield had been fixed in the crown of splendor that covered the head of judith. but she did not derive this wealth of red-gold hair from her cornish ancestors, but from a scottish mother, a poor governess whom mr. peter trevisa had married, thereby exciting the wrath of his only sister and relative, miss dionysia, who had hitherto kept house for him, and vexed his soul with her high-handed proceedings. it was owing to some insolent words used by her to mrs. trevisa that peter had quarrelled with his sister at first. then when his wife died, she had forced herself on him as housekeeper, but again her presence in the house had become irksome to him, and when she treated his children--his delicate and dearly loved judith--with roughness, and his timid, silly jamie with harshness, amounting in his view to cruelty--harsh words had passed between them; sharp is, however, hardly the expression to use for the carefully worded remonstrances of the mild rector, though appropriate enough to her rejoinders. then she had taken herself off and had become housekeeper to curll coppinger, cruel coppinger, as he was usually called, who occupied pentyre glaze, and was a fairly well-to-do single man. mr. trevisa had not been a person of energy, but one of culture and refinement; a dispirited, timid man. finding no neighbors of the same mental texture, nor sympathetic, he had been driven to make of judith, though a child, his companion, and he had poured into her ear all his troubles, which largely concerned the future of his children. in his feebleness he took comfort from her sanguine confidence, though he was well aware that it was bred of ignorance, and he derived a weak satisfaction from the thought that he had prepared her morally, at all events, if in no other fashion, for the crisis that must come when he was withdrawn. mr. peter trevisa--peter was a family christian name--was for twenty-five years rector of s. enodoc, on the north coast of cornwall at the mouth of the camel. the sand dunes had encroached on the church of s. enodoc, and had enveloped the sacred structure. a hole was broken through a window, through which the interior could be reached, where divine service was performed occasionally in the presence of the church-wardens, so as to establish the right of the rectors, and through this same hole bridal parties entered to be coupled, with their feet ankle-deep in sand that filled the interior to above the pew-tops. but mr. trevisa was not the man to endure such a condition of affairs without a protest and an effort to remedy it. he had endeavored to stimulate the farmers and land-owners of the parish to excavate the buried church, but his endeavors had proved futile. there were several reasons for this. in the first place, and certainly foremost, stood this reason: as long as the church was choked with sand and could not be employed for regular divine service, the tithe-payers could make a grievance of it, and excuse themselves from paying their tithes in full, because, as they argued, "parson don't give us sarvice, so us ain't obliged to pay'n." they knew their man, that he was tender-conscienced, and would not bring the law to bear upon them; he would see that there was a certain measure of justness in the argument, and would therefore not demand of them a tithe for which he did not give them the _quid pro quo_. but they had sufficient shrewdness to pay a portion of their tithes, so as not to drive him to extremities and exhaust his patience. it will be seen, therefore, that in the interests of their pockets the tithe-payers did not want to have their parish church excavated. excavation meant weekly service regularly performed, and weekly service regularly performed would be followed by exaction of the full amount of rent-charge. then, again, in the second place, should divine service be resumed in the church of s. enodoc, the parishioners would feel a certain uneasiness in their consciences if they disregarded the summons of the bell; it might not be a very lively uneasiness, but just such an irritation as might be caused by a fly crawling over the face. so long as there was no service they could soothe their consciences with the thought that there was no call to make an effort to pull on sunday breeches and assume a sunday hat, and trudge to the church. therefore, secondly, for the ease of their own consciences, it was undesirable that s. enodoc should be dug out of the sand. then lastly, and thirdly, the engulfment of the church gave them a cherished opportunity for being nasty to the rector, and retailing upon him for his incaution in condemning smuggling and launching out into anathema against wrecking. as he had made matters disagreeable to them--tried, as they put it, to take bread out of their mouths, they saw no reason why they should spend money to please him. mr. trevisa had made very little provision for his children, principally, if not wholly, because he could not. he had received from the farmers and land-owners a portion of tithe, and had been contented with that rather than raise angry feelings by demanding the whole. out of that portion he was able to put aside but little. aunt dionysia arrived, a tall, bony woman, with hair turning gray, light eyes and an aquiline nose, a hard, self-seeking woman, who congratulated herself that she did not give way to feelings. "i feel," said she, "as do others, but i don't show my feelings as beggars expose their bad legs." she went into the kitchen. "hoity-toity!" she said to the cook, "fine story this--scalding yourself. mind this, you cook meals or no wage for you." to jane, "the mischief you have done shall be valued and deducted from any little trifle my brother may have left you in his will. where is jamie? give me that joint of fishing-rod; i'll beat him for stealing raspberry jam." jamie, however, on catching a glimpse of his aunt had escaped into the garden and concealed himself. the cook, offended, began to clatter the saucepans. "now, then," said mrs. trevisa--she bore the brevet-rank--"in a house of mourning what do you mean by making this noise, it is impertinent to me." the house-maid swung out of the kitchen, muttering. mrs. trevisa now betook herself up-stairs in quest of her niece, and found her with red eyes. "i call it rank _felo-de-se_," said aunt dionysia. "every one knew--_he_ knew, that he had a feeble heart, and ought not to be digging and delving in the old church. who sent the sand upon it? why, providence, i presume. not man. then it was a flying in the face of providence to try to dig it out. who wanted the church? he might have waited till the parishioners asked for it. but there--where is jamie? i shall teach him a lesson for stealing raspberry jam." "oh, aunt, not now--not now!" mrs. trevisa considered a moment, then laid aside the fishing-rod. "perhaps you are right. i am not up to it after my walk from pentyre glaze. now, then, what about mourning? i do not suppose jamie can be measured by guesswork. you must bring him here. tell him the whipping is put off till another day. of course you have seen to black things for yourself. not? why, gracious heavens! is everything to be thrown on my shoulders? am i to be made a beast of burden of? now, no mewling and pewking. there is no time for that. whatever _your_ time may be, _mine_ is valuable. i can't be here forever. of course every responsibility has been put on me. just like peter--no consideration. and what can i do with a set of babies? i have to work hard enough to keep myself. peter did not want my services at one time; now i am put upon. have you sent for the undertaker? what about clothing again? i suppose you know that you must have mourning? bless my heart! what a lot of trouble you give me." mrs. trevisa was in a very bad temper, which even the knowledge that it was seemly that she should veil it could not make her restrain. she was, no doubt, to a certain extent fond of her brother--not much, because he had not been of any advantage to her; and no doubt she was shocked at his death, but chiefly because it entailed on herself responsibilities and trouble that she grudged. she would be obliged to do something for her nephew and niece; she would have to provide a home for them somewhere. she could not take them with her to coppinger's house, as she was there as a salaried servant, and not entitled to invite thither her young relatives. moreover, she did not want to have them near her. she disliked young people; they gave trouble, they had to be looked after, they entailed expenses. what was she to do with them? where was she to put them? what would they have to live upon? would they call on her to part-maintain them? miss dionysia had a small sum put away, and she had no intention of breaking into it for them. it was a nest-egg, and was laid by against an evil day that might come on herself. she had put the money away for herself, in her old age, not for the children of her feeble brother and his lack-penny wife to consume as moth and rust. as these thoughts and questions passed through her mind, aunt dionysia pulled open drawers, examined cupboards, pried open closets, and searched chests and wardrobes. "i wonder now what he has put by for them," she said aloud. "do you mean my dear papa?" asked judith, whose troubled heart and shaken spirits were becoming angry and restless under the behavior of the hard, unfeeling woman. "yes, i do," answered mrs. trevisa, facing round, and glaring malevolently at her niece. "it is early days to talk of this, but it must be done sooner or later, and if so, the sooner the better. there is money in the house, i suppose?" "i do not know." "i must know. you will want it--bills must be paid. you will eat and drink, i suppose? you must be clothed. i'll tell you what: i'll put the whole case into the hands of lawyer jenkyns, and he shall demand arrears of tithes. i know what quixotish conduct peter----" "aunt, i will not allow this." a light flush came into the girl's cheek. "it is all very well talking," said aunt dionysia; "but black is not white, and no power on earth can make me say that it is so. money must be found. money must be paid for expenses, and it is hard that i should have to find it; so i think. what money is there in the house for present necessities? i must know." suddenly a loud voice was heard shouting through the house-- "mother dunes! old dunes! i want you." judith turned cold and white. who was this that dared to bellow in the house of death, when her dear, dear father lay up-stairs with the blinds down, asleep? it was an insult, an outrage. her nerves had already been thrilled, and her heart roused into angry revolt by the cold, unfeeling conduct of the woman who was her sole relative in the world. and now, as she was thus quivering, there came this boisterous shout. "it is the master!" said mrs. trevisa, in an awestruck voice, lowered as much as was possible to her. to coppinger alone she was submissive, cringing, obsequious. "what does he mean by this--this conduct?" asked judith, trembling with wrath. "he wants me." again a shout. "dunes! old fool! the keys!" then judith started forward, and went through the door to the head of the staircase. at the foot stood a middle-sized, strongly built, firmly knit man, in a dress half belonging to the land and half to the sea, with high boots on his legs, and slouched hat on his head. his complexion was olive, his hair abundant and black, covering cheeks and chin and upper lip. his eyes were hard and dark. he had one brown hand on the banister, and a foot on the first step, as though about to ascend, when arrested by seeing the girl at the head of the stairs before him. the house was low, and the steps led without a break directly from the hall to the landing which gave communication to the bedrooms. there was a skylight in the roof over the staircase, through which a brilliant flood of pure white light fell over judith, whereas every window had been darkened by drawn blinds. the girl had found no sombre dress suitable to wear, and had been forced to assume the same white gown as the day before, but she had discarded the green sash and had bound a black ribbon about her waist, and another about her abundant hair. a black lace kerchief was drawn over her shoulders across her breast and tied at her back. she wore long, black mittens. judith stood motionless, her bosom rising and falling quickly, her lips set, the breath racing through her nostrils, and one hand resting on the banister at the stair-head. in a moment her eyes met those of coppinger, and it was at once as though a thrill of electric force had passed between them. he desisted from his attempt to ascend, and said, without moving his eyes from hers, in a subdued tone, "she has taken the keys," but he said no more. he drew his foot from the step hesitatingly, and loosened his hand from the banister, down which went a thrill from judith's quivering nerves, and he stepped back. at the same moment she descended a step, still looking steadily into the dark, threatening pupils, without blinking or lowering her orbs. emboldened by her boiling indignation, she stood on the step she had reached with both feet firmly planted there, and finding that the banister rattled under her hand she withdrew it, and folded her arms. coppinger raised his hand to his head and took off his hat. he had a profusion of dark, curly, flowing hair, that fell and encircled his saturnine face. then judith descended another step, and as she did so he retreated a step backwards. behind him was the hall door, open; the light lay wan and white there on the gravel, for no sunshine had succeeded the gale. at every step that judith took down the stair coppinger retreated. neither spoke; the hall was still, save for the sound of their breath, and his came as fast as hers. when judith had reached the bottom she turned--coppinger stood in the doorway now--and signed to her aunt to come down with the keys. "take them to him--do not give them here--outside." mrs. trevisa, surprised, confounded, descended the stair, went by her, and out through the door. then judith stepped after her, shut the door to exclude both aunt dionysia and that man coppinger, who had dared, uninvited, on such a day to invade the house. she turned now to remount the stairs, but her strength failed her, her knees yielded, and she sank upon a step, and burst into a flood of tears and convulsive sobs. chapter iii. captain cruel. captain coppinger occupied an old farmhouse, roomy, low-built, granite quoined and mullioned, called pentyre glaze, in a slight dip of the hills near the cliffs above the thundering atlantic. one ash shivered at the end of the house--that was the only tree to be seen near pentyre glaze. and--who was coppinger? that is more than can be told. he had come--no one knew whence. his arrival on the north coast of cornwall was mysterious. there had been haze over the sea for three days. when it lifted, a strange vessel of foreign rig was seen lying off the coast. had she got there in the fog, not knowing her course; or had she come there knowingly, and was making for the mouth of the camel? a boat was seen to leave the ship, and in it a man came ashore; the boat returned to the vessel, that thereupon spread sail and disappeared in the fog that re-descended over the water. the man gave his name as coppinger--his christian name, he said, was curll, and he was a dane; but though his intonation was not that of the cornish, it was not foreign. he took up his residence in s. enodoc at a farm, and suddenly, to the surprise of every one, became by purchase the possessor of pentyre glaze, then vacant and for sale. had he known that the estate was obtainable when he had come suddenly out of the clouds into the place to secure it? nobody knew, and coppinger was silent. thenceforth pentyre glaze became the harbor and den of every lawless character along the coast. all kinds of wild uproar and reckless revelry appalled the neighborhood day and night. it was discovered that an organized band of smugglers, wreckers, and poachers made this house the centre of their operations, and that "cruel coppinger" was their captain. there were at that time--just a century ago--no resident magistrates or gentry in the immediate neighborhood. the yeomen were bribed, by kegs of spirits left at their doors, to acquiesce in a traffic in illicit goods, and in the matter of exchange they took their shares. it was said that on one occasion a preventive man named ewan wyvill, who had pursued coppinger in his boat, was taken by him, and his head chopped off by the captain, with his boat axe, on the gunwale. such was the story. it was never proved. wyvill had disappeared, and the body was recovered headless on the doom bar. that violence had been used was undoubted, but who had committed the crime was not known, though suspicion pointed to coppinger. thenceforth none ever called him curll; by one consent he was named cruel. in the west of england every one is given his christian name. an old man is uncle, and an old woman aunt, and any one in command is a captain. so coppinger was known as captain cruel, or as cruel coppinger. strange vessels were often seen appearing at regular intervals on the coast, and signals were flashed from the one window of pentyre glaze that looked out to sea. among these vessels, one, a full-rigged schooner, soon became ominously conspicuous. she was for long the terror of the cornish coast. her name was the black prince. once, with coppinger on board, she led a revenue cutter into an intricate channel among the rocks, where, from knowledge of the bearings, the black prince escaped scathless, while the king's vessel perished with all on board. immunity increased coppinger's daring. there were certain bridle-roads along the fields over which he exercised exclusive control. he issued orders that no man should pass over them by night, and accordingly from that hour none ever did.[a] [a] many stories of cruel coppinger may be found in hawker's footprints of former men in cornwall. i have also told them in my vicar of morwenstow. i have ventured to translate the scene of coppinger's activity further west, from wellcombe to s. enodoc. but, indeed, he is told of in many places on this coast. moreover, if report spoke true--and reports do not arise without cause--coppinger was not averse from taking advantage, and that unlawful advantage, of a wreck. by "lawful" and "unlawful" two categories of acts are distinguished, not by the laws of the land but by common consent of the cornish conscience. that same cornish conscience distinguished wrecking into two classes, as it distinguished then, and distinguishes still, witchcraft into two classes. the one, white witchcraft, is legitimate and profitable, and to be upheld; the other, black witchcraft, is reprehensible, unlawful, and to be put down. so with wrecking. the bristol channel teemed with shipping, flights of white sails passed in the offing, and these vessels were, when inward bound, laden with sugars and spices from the indies, or with spirits and wines from france. if outward bound they were deep in the water with a cargo of the riches of england. now, should a gale spring up suddenly and catch any of these vessels, and should the gale be--as it usually is, and to the cornish folk, favorably is--from the northwest, then there was no harbor of refuge along that rock-bound coast, and a ship that could not make for the open was bound inevitably to be pounded to pieces against the precipitous walls of the peninsula. if such were the case, it was perfectly legitimate for every householder in the district to come down on the wreck and strip it of everything it contained. but, on the other hand, there was wrecking that was disapproved of, though practised by a few, so rumor said, and that consisted in luring a vessel that was in doubt as to her course, by false signals, upon a reef or bar, and then, having made a wreck of her, to pillage her. when on a morning after a night in which there had been no gale, a ship was found on the rocks, and picked as clean as the carcase of a camel in the desert, it was open to suspicion that this ship had not been driven there by wind or current; and when the survivors, if they reached the shore, told that they had been led to steer in the direction where they had been cast away by certain lights that had wholly deceived them, then it was also open to suspicion that these lights had been purposely exhibited for the sake of bringing that vessel to destruction; and when, further, it was proved that a certain set or gang of men had garnered all the profits, or almost all the profits, that accrued from a wreck, before the countryside was aware that a wreck had occurred, then it was certainly no very random conjecture that the wreck had been contrived in some fashion by those who profited by it. there were atrocious tales of murder of shipwrecked men circulating, but these were probably wholly, or at all events in part, untrue. if when a vessel ran upon the rocks she was deserted by her crew, if they took to the boats and made for shore, then there remained no impediment to the wreckers taking possession; it was only in the event of their finding a skipper on board to maintain right over the grounded vessel, or the mariners still on her engaged in getting her off, that any temptation to violence could arise. but it was improbable that a crew would cling to a ship on such a coast when once she was on the breakers. it was a moral certainty that they would desert her, and leave the wreck to be pillaged by the rats from shore, without offer of resistance. the character of the coast-wreckers was known to seamen, or rather a legend full of horror circulated relative to their remorseless savagery. the fear of wreckers added to the fear of the sea would combine to drive a crew, to the last man, into the boats. consequently, though it is possible that in some cases murder of castaway men may have occurred, such cases must have been most exceptional. the wreckers were only too glad to build a golden bridge by which the wrecked might escape. morally, without a question, those who lured a hapless merchantman upon the rocks were guilty of the deaths of those sailors who were upset in their boats in escaping from the vessel, or were dashed against the cliffs in their attempts to land, but there was no direct blood-guiltiness felt in such cases; and those who had reaped a harvest from the sea counted their gains individually, and made no estimate of the misery accruing thereby to others. chapter iv. hop-o'-my-thumb. "listen to me," said judith. "yes, ju!" the orphans were together in the room that had been their father's, the room in which for some days he had lain with the blinds down, the atmosphere heavy with the perfume of flowers, and that indescribable, unmistakable scent of death. often, every day, almost every hour, had judith stolen into the room while he lay there, to wonder with infinite reverence and admiration at the purity and dignity of the dead face. it was that of the dear, dear father, but sublimed beyond her imagination. all the old vacillation was gone, the expression of distress and discouragement had passed away, and in their place had come a fixity and a calm, such as one sees in the busts of the ancient roman cæsars, but with a superadded ethereality, if such a word can be used, that a piece of pagan statuary never reached. marvellous, past finding out, it is that death, which takes from man the spiritual element, should give to the mere clay a look of angelic spirituality, yet so it is--so it was with the dead peter trevisa; and judith, with eyes filling as fast as dried, stood, her hands folded, looking into his face, felt that she had never loved, never admired him half enough when he was alive. life had been the simmer in which all the scum of trivialities, of infirmities, of sordidness had come to and shown itself on the surface. now death had cleared these all away, and in the peaceful face of the dead was seen the _real_ man, the nobility, sanctity, delicacy that formed the texture of his soul, and which had impressed the very clay wrapped about that volatile essence. as long as the dear father's body lay in the house judith had not realized her utter desolation. but now the funeral was over, and she had returned with her brother to the parsonage, to draw up the blinds, and let the light once more enter, and search out, and revivify the dead rooms. she was very pale, with reddened eyes, and looking more fragile and transparent than ever she did before, worn and exhausted by tearful, wakeful nights, and by days of alternating gusts of sorrow and busy preparation for the funeral, of painful recollections of joyous days that were past, and of doubtful searchings into a future that was full of cloud. her black frock served to enhance her pallor, and to make her look thinner, smaller than when in white or in color. she had taken her place in her father's high-backed leather chair, studded thick with brass nails, the leather dulled and fretted by constant use, but the nail-heads burnished by the same treatment. her brother was in the same chair with her; both his arms were round her neck, and his head was on her shoulder. she had her right arm about his waist, her left was bowed, the elbow leaning on the chair arm, her hand folded inward, and her weary head rested on its back. the fine weather broken in upon by the gale had returned; the sun shone in unhindered at the window, and blazed on the children's hair; the brass nails, polished by friction, twinkled as little suns, but were naught in lustre to the gorgeous red of the hair of the twins, for the first were but brass, and the other of living gold. two more lonely beings could hardly be discovered on the face of the earth--at all events in the peninsula of cornwall--but the sense of this loneliness was summed in the heart of judith, and was there articulate; jamie was but dimly conscious of discomfort and bereavement. she knew what her father's death entailed on her, or knew in part, and conjectured more. had she been left absolutely alone in the world her condition would have been less difficult than it was actually, encumbered with her helpless brother. swimming alone in the tossing sea, she might have struck out with confidence that she could keep her head above water, but it was quite otherwise when clinging to her was a poor, half-witted boy, incapable of doing anything to save himself, and all whose movements tended only to embarrass her. not that she regretted for an instant having to care for jamie, for she loved him with sisterly and motherly love combined, intensified in force by fusion; if to her a future seemed inconceivable without jamie, a future without him would be one without ambition, pleasure, or interest. the twin brother was very like her, with the same beautiful and abundant hair, delicate in build, and with the same refined face, but without the flashes of alternating mood that lightened and darkened her face. his had a searching, bewildered, distressed expression on it--the only expression it ever bore except when he was out of temper, and then it mirrored on its surface his inward ill-humor. his was an appealing face, a face that told of a spirit infantile, innocent, and ignorant, that would never grow stronger, but which could deteriorate by loss of innocence--the only charge of which it was capable. the boy had no inherent naughtiness in him, but was constantly falling into mischief through thoughtlessness, and he was difficult to manage because incapable of reasoning. what every one saw--that he never would be other than what he was--judith would not admit. she acknowledged his inaptitude at his books, his frivolity, his restlessness, but believed that these were infirmities to be overcome, and that when overcome the boy would be as other boys are. now these children--they were aged eighteen, but jamie looked four years younger--sat in their father's chair, clinging to each other, all in all to one another, for they had no one else to love and who loved them. "listen to me, jamie." "yes, ju, i be----" "don't say 'i be'--say 'i am.'" "yes, ju." "jamie, dear!" she drew her arm tighter about him; her heart was bounding, and every beat caused her pain. "jamie, dear, you know that, now dear papa is gone, and you will never see him in this world again, that----" "yes, ju." "that i have to look to you, my brother, to stand up for me like a man, to think and do for me as well as for yourself--a brave, stout, industrious fellow." "yes, ju." "i am a girl, and you will soon be a man, and must work for both of us. you must earn the money, and i will spend it frugally as we both require it. then we shall be happy again, and dear papa in paradise will be glad and smile on us. you will make an effort, will you not, jamie? hitherto you have been able to run about and play and squander your time, but now serious days have come upon us, and you must fix your mind on work and determine--jamie--mind, screw your heart to a strong determination to put away childish things and be a man, and a strength and a comfort to me." he put up his lips to kiss her cheek, but could not reach it, as her head was leaning on her hand away from him. "what are you fidgeting at, my dear?" she asked, without stirring, feeling his body restless under her arm. "a nail is coming out," he answered. it was so; whilst she had been speaking to him he was working at one of the brass studs, and had loosened its bite in the chair. "oh, jamie! you are making work by thus drawing out a nail. can you not help me a little, and reduce the amount one has to think of and do? you have not been attending to what i said, and i was so much in earnest." she spoke in a tone of discouragement, and the tone, more than the words, impressed the susceptible heart of the boy. he began to cry. "you are cross." "i am not cross, my pet; i am never cross with you, i love you too dearly; but you try my patience sometimes, and just now i am overstrained--and then i did want to make you understand." "now papa's dead i'll do no more lessons, shall i?" asked jamie, coaxingly. "you must, indeed, and with me instead of papa." "not _rosa_, _rosæ_?" "yes, _rosa_, _rosæ_." then he sulked. "i don't love you a bit. it is not fair. papa is dead, so i ought not to have any more lessons. i hate _rosa_, _rosæ_!" he kicked the legs of the chair peevishly with his heels. as his sister said nothing, seemed to be inattentive--for she was weary and dispirited--he slapped her cheek by raising his hand over his head. "what, jamie, strike me, your only friend?" then he threw his arms round her again, and kissed her. "i'll love you; only, ju, say i am not to do _rosa_, _rosæ_!" "how long have you been working at the first declension in the latin grammar, jamie?" he tried for an instant to think, gave up the effort, laid his head on her shoulder, and said: "i don't know and don't care. say i am not to do _rosa_, _rosæ_!" "what! not if papa wished it?" "i hate the latin grammar!" for a while both remained silent. judith felt the tension to which her mind and nerves had been subjected, and lapsed momentarily into a condition of something like unconsciousness, in which she was dimly sensible of a certain satisfaction rising out of the pause in thought and effort. the boy lay quiet, with his head on her shoulder, for a while, then withdrew his arms, folded his hands on his lap, and began to make a noise by compressing the air between the palms. "there's a finch out there going 'chink! chink!' and listen, ju, i can make 'chink! chink!' too." judith recovered herself from her distraction, and said: "never mind the finch now. think of what i say. we shall have to leave this house." "why?" "of course we must, sooner or later, and the sooner the better. it is no more ours." "yes, it is ours. i have my rabbits here." "now that papa is dead it is no longer ours." "it's a wicked shame." "not at all, jamie. this house was given to papa for his life only; now it will go to a new rector, and aunt dunes[b] is going to fetch us away to another house." [b] dunes is the short for dionysia. "when?" "to-day." "i won't go," said the boy. "i swear i won't." "hush, hush, jamie! don't use such expressions. i do not know where you have picked them up. we must go." "and my rabbits, are they to go too?" "the rabbits? we'll see about them. aunt----" "i hate aunt dunes!" "you really must not call her that; if she hears you she will be very angry. and consider, she has been taking a great deal of trouble about us." "i don't care." "my dear, she is dear papa's sister." "why didn't papa get a nicer sister--like you?" "because he had to take what god gave him." the boy pouted, and began to kick his heels against the chair-legs once more. "jamie, we must leave this house to-day. aunt is coming to take us both away." "i won't go." "but, jamie, i am going, and the cook is going, and so is jane." "are cook and jane coming with us?" "no, dear." "why not?" "we shall not want them. we cannot afford to keep them any more, to pay their wages; and then we shall not go into a house of our own. you must come with me, and be a joy and rest to me, dear jamie." she turned her head over, and leaned it on his head. the sun glowed in their mingled hair--all of one tinge and lustre. it sparkled in the tears on her cheek. "ju, may i have these buttons?" "what buttons?" "look!" he shook himself free from his sister, slid his feet to the ground, went to a bureau, and brought to his sister a large open basket that had been standing on the top of the bureau. it had been turned out of a closet by aunt dionysia, and contained an accumulation of those most profitless of collected remnants--odd buttons, coat buttons, brass, smoked mother-of-pearl, shirt buttons, steel clasps--buttons of all kinds, the gathering together made during twenty-five years. why the basket, after having been turned out of a lumber closet, had been left in the room of death, or why, if turned out elsewhere, it had been brought there, is more than even the novelist can tell. suffice it that there it was, and by whom put there could not be said. "oh! what a store of pretty buttons!" exclaimed the boy. "do look, ju, these great big ones are just like those on cheap jack's red waistcoat. here is a brass one with a horse on it. do see! oh, ju, please get your needle and thread and sew this one on to my black dress." judith sighed. it was in vain for her to impress the realities of the situation on his wandering mind. "hark!" she exclaimed. "there is aunt dunes. i hear her voice--how loud she speaks! she has come to fetch us away." "where is she going to take us to?" "i do not know, jamie." "she will take us into the forest and lose us, like as did hop-o'-my-thumb's father." "there are no forests here--hardly any trees." "she will leave us in the forest and run away." "nonsense, jamie!" "i am sure she will. she doesn't like us. she wants to get rid of us. i don't care. may i have the basket of buttons?" "yes, jamie." "then i'll be hop-o'-my-thumb." chapter v. the buttons. it was as judith surmised. mrs. dionysia trevisa had come to remove her nephew and niece from the rectory. she was a woman decided in character, especially in all that concerned her interests. she had made up her mind that the children could not be left unprotected in the parsonage, and she could not be with them. therefore they must go. the servants must leave; they would be paid their month's wage, but by dismissing them their keep would be economized. there was a factotum living in a cottage near, who did the gardening, the cinder-sifting, and boot-cleaning for the rectory inmates, he would look after the empty house, and wait on in hopes of being engaged to garden, sift cinders, and clean boots for the new rector. as it was settled that the children must leave the house, the next thing to consider was where they were to be placed. the aunt could not take them to pentyre glaze; that was not to be thought of. they must be disposed of in some other way. mrs. trevisa had determined on a sale of her brother's effects: his furniture, bedding, curtains, carpets, books, plate, and old sermons. she was anxious to realize as soon as possible, so as to know for certain what she could calculate upon as being left her for the support of judith and her brother. to herself the rector had left only a ring and five guineas. she had not expected more. his decease was not likely to be a benefit, but, on the contrary, an embarrassment to her. he had left about a thousand pounds, but then mrs. trevisa did not yet know how large a bite out of this thousand pounds would be taken by the dilapidations on rectory, glebe, and chancel. the chancel of the church was in that condition that it afforded a wide margin for the adjudication of dilapidations. they might be set down at ten shillings or a thousand pounds, and no one could say which was the fairest sum, as the chancel was deep in sand and invisible. the imagination of the valuer might declare it to be sound or to be rotten, and till dug out no one could impeach his judgment. in those days, when an incumbent died, the widow and orphans of the deceased appointed a valuer, and the incoming rector nominated his valuer, and these two cormorants looked each other in the eyes--said to each other, "brother, what pickings?" and as less resistance to being lacerated and cleaned to the bone was to be anticipated from a broken-hearted widow and helpless children than from a robust, red-faced rector, the cormorants contrived to rob the widow and the fatherless. then that cormorant who had been paid to look after the interest of the widow and children and had not done it said to the other cormorant, "brother, i've done you a turn this time; do me the like when the chance falls to you." now, although nominally the money picked off the sufferers was to go to the account of the incomer, it was not allowed to pass till the cormorants had taken toll of it. moreover, these cormorants were architects, builders, solicitors, or contractors of some sort, and looked to get something further out of the incoming man they favored, whereas they knew they could get nothing at all out of the departed man who was buried. now we have pretended to change all this; let us persuade ourselves we have made the conduct of these matters more honest and just. aunt dionysia did not know by experience what valuers for dilapidations were, but she had always heard that valuation for dilapidations materially diminished the property of a deceased incumbent. she was consequently uneasy, and anxious to know the worst, and make the best of the circumstances that she could. she saw clearly enough that the sum that would remain when debts and valuation were paid would be insufficient to support the orphans, and she saw also with painful clearness that there would be a necessity for her to supplement their reduced income from her own earnings. this conviction did not sweeten her temper and increase the cordiality with which she treated her nephew and niece. "now, hoity-toity!" said aunt dionysia; "i'm not one of your mewlers and pewkers. i have my work to do, and can't afford to waste time in the luxury of tears. you children shall come with me. i will see you settled in, and then balhachet shall wheel over your boxes and whatever we want for the night. i have been away from my duties longer than i ought, and the maids are running wild, are after every one who comes near the place like horse-flies round the cattle on a sultry day. i will see you to your quarters, and then you must shift for yourselves. balhachet can come and go between the rectory and zachie menaida as much as you want." "are we going to mr. menaida's, aunt?" asked judith. "did i not say zachie menaida! if i said zachie menaida i suppose i meant what i said, or are you hard of hearing? come--time to _me_ is precious. bustle--bustle--don't keep me waiting while you gape." after a while mrs. trevisa succeeded in getting her nephew and niece to start. judith, indeed, was ready at the first suggestion to go with her aunt, glad to get over the pang of leaving the house as quickly as might be. it was to be the rupture of one thread of the tie that bound her to the past, but an important thread. she was to leave the house as a home, though she would return to it again and again to carry away from it such of her possessions as she required and could find a place for at zachary menaida's. but with jamie it was otherwise. he had run away, and had to be sought, and when found coaxed and cajoled into following his aunt and sister. judith had found him, for she knew his nooks and dens. he was seated in a laurel bush playing with the buttons. "look, ju! there is some broken mirror among the buttons. stand still, and i will make the sun jump into your eyes. open your mouth, and i will send him down your throat. won't it be fun; i'll tease old dunes with it." "then come along with me." he obeyed. the distance to zachary menaida's cottage was about a mile and a quarter, partly through parish roads, partly through lanes, the way in parts walled and hedged up against the winds, in others completely exposed to every breath of air where it traversed a down. judith walked forward with her aunt, and jamie lagged. occasionally his sister turned her head to reassure herself that he had not given them the slip; otherwise she attended as closely as she was able to the instructions and exhortations of her aunt. she and her brother were to be lodged temporarily at uncle zachie's, that is to say, with mr. menaida, an elderly, somewhat eccentric man, who occupied a double cottage at the little hamlet of polzeath. no final arrangement as to the destination of the orphans could be made till aunt dunes knew the result of the sale, and how much remained to the children after the father's trifling debts had been paid, and the considerable slice had been cut out of it by the valuers for dilapidations. mrs. trevisa talked fast in her harsh tones, and in a loud voice, without undulation or softness in it, and expected her niece to hear and give account for everything she told her, goading her to attention with a sharp reminder when she deemed that her mind was relaxed, and whipping her thoughts together when she found them wandering. but, indeed, it was not possible to forget for one moment the presence and personality of dionysia, though the subject of her discourse might be unnoticed. every fibre of judith's heart was strung and strained to the uttermost, to acutest feeling, and a sympathetic hand drawn across them would have produced a soft, thrilling, musical wail. her bosom was so full to overflow that a single word of kindness, a look even that told of love, would have sufficed to make the child cast herself in a convulsion of grief into her aunt's arms, bury her face in her bosom, and weep out her pent-up tears. then, after perhaps half an hour, she would have looked up through the rain into her aunt's face, and have smiled, and have loved that aunt passionately, self-sacrificingly, to her dying day. she was disposed to love her--for was not dionysia the only relative she had; and was she not the very sister of that father who had been to her so much? but mrs. trevisa was not the woman to touch the taught cords with a light hand, or to speak or look in love. she was hard, angular, unsympathetic; and her manner, the intonations of her voice, her mode of address, the very movements of her body, acted on the strained nerves as a rasping file, that would fret till it had torn them through. suddenly round a corner, where the narrow road turned, two hundred yards ahead, dashed a rider on a black steed, and judith immediately recognized coppinger on his famous mare black bess; a mare much talked of, named after the horse ridden by dick turpin. the recognition was mutual. he knew her instantly; with a jerk of the rein and a set of the brow he showed that he was not indifferent. coppinger wore his slouched hat, tied under his chin and beard, a necessary precaution in that gale-swept country; on his feet to his knees were high boots. he wore a blue knitted jersey, and a red kerchief about his throat. captain cruel slightly slackened his pace, as the lane was narrow; and as he rode past his dark brow was knit, and his eyes flashed angrily at judith. he deigned neither a glance nor a word to his housekeeper, who courtesied and assumed a fawning expression. when he had passed the two women he dug his spurs into black bess and muttered some words they did not hear. judith, who had stood aside, now came forward into the midst of the roadway and rejoined her aunt, who began to say something, when her words and judith's attention was arrested by shouts, oaths, and cries in their rear. judith and her aunt turned to discover the occasion of this disturbance, and saw that coppinger was off his horse, on his feet, dragging the brute by the rein, and was hurling his crop, or hunting-whip, as he pursued jamie flying from him with cries of terror. but that he held the horse and could not keep up with the boy, jamie would have suffered severely, for coppinger was in a livid fury. jamie flew to his sister. "save me, ju! he wants to kill me." "what have you done?" "it is only the buttons." "buttons, dear?" but the boy was too frightened to explain. then judith drew her brother behind her, took from him the basket he was carrying, and stepped to encounter the angry man, who came on, now struggling with his horse, cursing bess because she drew back, then plunging forward with his whip above his head brandished menacingly, and by this conduct further alarmed black bess. judith met coppinger, and he was forced to stay his forward course. "what has he done?" asked the girl. "why do you threaten?" "the cursed idiot has strewn bits of glass and buttons along the road," answered the captain, angrily. "stand aside that i may lash him, and teach him to frighten horses and endanger men's lives." "i am sorry for what jamie has done. i will pick up the things he has thrown down." cruel coppinger's eyes glistened with wrath. he gathered the lash of his whip into his palm along with the handle, and gripped them passionately. "curse the fool! my bess was frightened, dashed up the bank, and all but rolled over. do you know he might have killed me?" "you must excuse him; he is a very child." "i will not excuse him. i will cut the flesh off his back if i catch him." he put the end of the crop handle into his mouth, and, putting his right hand behind him, gathered the reins up shorter and wound them more securely about his left hand. judith walked backward, facing him, and he turned with his horse and went after her. she stooped and gathered up a splinter of glass. the sun striking through the gaps in the hedge had flashed on these scraps of broken mirror and of white bone, or burnished brass buttons, and the horse had been frightened at them. as judith stooped and took up now a buckle, then a button, and then some other shining trifle, she hardly for an instant withdrew her eyes from coppinger; they had in them the same dauntless defiance as when she encountered him on the stairs of the rectory. but now it was she who retreated, step by step, and he who advanced, and yet he could not flatter himself that he was repelling her. she maintained her strength and mastery unbroken as she retreated. "why do you look at me so? why do you walk backward?" "because i mistrust you. i do not know what you might do were i not to confront you." "what i might do? what do you think i would do?" "i cannot tell. i mistrust you." "do you think me capable of lashing at you with my crop?" "i think you capable of anything." "flattering that!" he shouted, angrily. "you would have lashed at jamie." "and why not? he might have killed me." "he might have killed you, but you should not have touched him--not have thought of touching him." "indeed! why not?" "why not?" she raised herself upright and looked straight into his eyes, in which fire flickered, flared, then decayed, then flared again. "you are no dane, or you would not have asked 'why not?' twice. nay, you would not have asked it once." "not a dane?" his beard and mustache were quivering, and he snorted with anger. "a dane, i have read in history, is too noble and brave to threaten women and to strike children." he uttered an oath and ground his teeth. "no; a dane would never have thought of asking why not?--why not lash a poor little silly boy?" "you insult me! you dare to do it?" her blood was surging in her heart. as she looked into this man's dark and evil face she thought of all the distress he had caused her father, and a wave of loathing swept over her, nerved her to defy him to the uttermost, and to proclaim all the counts she had against him. "i dare do it," she said, "because you made my own dear papa's life full of bitterness and pain----" "i! i never touched him, hardly spoke to him. i don't care to have to do with parsons." "you made his life one of sorrow through your godless, lawless ways, leading his poor flock astray, and bidding them mock at his warnings and despise his teachings. almost with his last breath he spoke of you, and the wretchedness of heart you had caused him. and then you dared--yes--you dared--you dared to burst into our house where he lay dead, with shameful insolence to disturb its peace. and now--" she gasped, "and now, ah! you lie when you say you are a dane, and talk of cutting and lashing the dead father's little boy on his father's burial day. you are but one thing i can name--a coward!" did he mean it? no! but blinded, stung to madness by her words, especially that last, he raised his right arm with the crop. did she mean it? no! but in the instinct of self-preservation, thinking he was about to strike her, she dashed the basket of buttons in his face, and they flew right and left over him, against the head of black bess, a rain of fragments of mirror, brass, steel, mother-of-pearl, and bone. the effect was instantaneous. the mare plunged, reared, threw coppinger backward from off his feet, dashed him to the ground, dragged him this way, that way, bounded, still drawing him about by the twisted reins, into the hedge, then back, with her hoofs upon him, near, if not on, his head, his chest--then, released by the snap of the rein, or through its becoming disengaged, bess darted down the lane, was again brought to a standstill by the glittering fragments on the ground, turned, rushed back in the direction whence she had come, and disappeared. judith stood panting, paralyzed with fear and dismay. was he dead, broken to pieces, pounded by those strong hoofs? he was not dead. he was rolling himself on the ground, struggling clumsily to his knees. "are you satisfied?" he shouted, glaring at her like a wild beast through his tangled black hair that had fallen over his face. "i cannot strike you nor your brother now. my arm and the lord knows what other bones are broken. you have done that--and i owe you something for it." chapter vi. uncle zachie. the astonishment, the consternation of mrs. trevisa at what had occurred, which she could not fully comprehend, took from her the power to speak. she had seen her niece in conversation with cruel coppinger, and had caught snatches of what had passed between them. all his words had reached her, and some of judith's. when, suddenly, she saw the girl dash the basket of buttons in the face of the captain, saw him thrown to the ground, drawn about by his frantic horse, and left, as she thought, half dead, her dismay was unbounded. it might have been that coppinger threatened judith with his whip, but nothing could excuse her temerity in resisting him, in resisting him and protecting herself in the way she did. the consequences of that resistance she could not measure. coppinger was bruised, bones were broken, and aunt dionysia knew the nature of the man too well not to expect his deadly animosity, and to feel sure of implacable revenge against the girl who had injured him--a revenge that would envelop all who belonged to her, and would therefore strike herself. the elderly spinster had naturally plenty of strength and hardness that would bear her through most shocks without discomposure, but such an incident as that which had just taken place before her eyes entirely unnerved and dismayed her. coppinger was conveyed home by men called to the spot, and mrs. trevisa walked on with her niece and nephew in silence to the house of mr. zachary menaida. jamie had escaped over the hedge, to put a stone-and-earth barrier between himself and his assailant directly judith interposed between him and coppinger. now that the latter was gone, he came, laughing, over the hedge again. to him what had occurred was fun. at menaida's the aunt departed, leaving her nephew and niece with the old man, that she might hurry to pentyre glaze and provide what was needed for coppinger. she took no leave of judith. in the haze of apprehension that enveloped her mind glowed anger against the girl for having increased her difficulties and jeopardized her position with coppinger. mr. zachary menaida was an old man, or rather a man who had passed middle age, with grizzled hair that stood up above his brow, projecting like the beak of a ship or the horn of an unicorn. he had a big nose inclined to redness, and kindly, watery eyes, was close shaven, and had lips that, whenever he was in perplexity, or worried with work or thought, he thrust forward and curled. he was a middle-statured man, inclined to stoop. uncle zachie, as he was commonly called behind his back, was a gentleman by birth. in the roman catholic church there is a religious order called that of minims. in england we have, perhaps, the most widely-diffused of orders, not confined to religion--it is that of crotchets. to this order mr. menaida certainly belonged. he was made up of hobbies and prejudices that might bore, but never hurt others. probably the most difficult achievement one can conceive for a man to execute is to stand in his own light; yet mr. menaida had succeeded in doing this all through his life. in the first place, he had been bred up for the law, but had never applied himself to the duties of the profession to which he had been articled. as he had manifested as a boy a love of music, his mother and sister had endeavored to make him learn to play on an instrument; but, because so urged, he had refused to qualify himself to play on pianoforte, violin, or flute, till his fingers had stiffened, whereupon he set to work zealously to practise, when it was no longer possible for him to acquire even tolerable proficiency. as he had been set by his father to work on skins of parchment, he turned his mind to skins of another sort, and became an eager naturalist and taxidermist. that he had genius, or rather a few scattered sparks of talent in his muddled brain, was certain. every one who knew him said he was clever, but pitied his inability to turn his cleverness to purpose. but one must take into consideration, before accepting the general verdict that he was clever, the intellectual abilities of those who formed this judgment. when we do this, we doubt much whether their opinion is worth much. mr. menaida was not clever. he had flashes of wit, no steady light of understanding. above all, he had no application, a little of which might have made him a useful member of society. when his articleship was over he set up as a solicitor, but what business was offered him he neglected or mismanaged, till business ceased to be offered. he would have starved had not a small annuity of fifty pounds been left him to keep the wolf from the door, and that he was able to supplement this small income with money made by the sale of his stuffed specimens of sea-fowl. taxidermy was the only art in which he was able to do anything profitable. he loved to observe the birds, to wander on the cliffs listening to their cries, watching their flight, their positions when at rest, the undulations in their feathers under the movement of the muscles as they turned their heads or raised their feet; and when he set himself to stuff the skins he was able to imitate the postures and appearance of living birds with rare fidelity. consequently his specimens were in request, and ornithologists and country gentlemen whose game-keepers had shot rare birds desired to have the skins dealt with, and set in cases, by the dexterous fingers of mr. zachary menaida. he might have done more work of the same kind, but that his ingrained inactivity and distaste for work limited his output. in certain cases mr. menaida would not do what was desired of him till coaxed and flattered, and then he did it grumblingly and with sighs at being subjected to killing toil. mr. menaida was a widower; his married life had not been long; he had been left with a son, now grown to manhood, who was no longer at home. he was abroad, in portugal, in the service of a bristol merchant, an importer of wines. as already said, uncle zachie did not begin the drudgery of music till it was too late for him to acquire skill on any instrument. his passion for music grew with his inability to give himself pleasure from it. he occupied a double cottage at polzeath, and a hole knocked through the wall that had separated the lower rooms enabled him to keep his piano in one room and his bird-stuffing apparatus in the other, and to run from one to the other in his favorite desultory way, that never permitted him to stick to one thing at a time. into this house judith and her brother were introduced. mr. menaida had been attached to the late rector, the only other gentleman in culture, as in birth, that lived in the place, and when he was told by miss--or, as she was usually called, mrs.--trevisa that the children must leave the parsonage and be put temporarily with some one suitable, and that no other suitable house was available, he consented without making much objection to receive them into his cottage. he was a kindly man, gentle at heart, and he was touched at the bereavement of the children whom he had known since they were infants. after the first salutation mr. menaida led judith and the boy into his parlor, the room opening out of his workshop. "look here," said he, "what is that?" he pointed to his piano. "a piano, sir," answered judith. "yes--and mind you, i hate strumming, though i love music. when i am in, engaged at my labors, no strumming. i come in here now and then as relaxation, and run over this and that; then, refreshed, go back to my work, but, if there is any strumming, i shall be put out. i shall run my knife or needle into my hand, and it will upset me for the day. you understand--no strumming. when i am out, then you may touch the keys, but only when i am out. you understand clearly? say the words after me: 'i allow no strumming.'" judith did as required. the same was exacted of jamie. then mr. menaida said-- "very well; now we shall have a dish of tea. i daresay you are tired. dear me, you look so. goodness bless me! indeed you do. what has tired you has been the trial you have gone through. poor things, poor things! there, go to your rooms; my maid, jump, will show you where they are, and i will see about making tea. it will do you good. you want it. i see it." the kind-hearted man ran about. "bless my soul! where have i put the key of the caddy? and--really--my fingers are all over arsenical soap. i think i will leave jump to make the tea. jump, have you seen where i put the key? bless my soul! where did i have it last? never mind; i will break open the caddy." "please, mr. menaida, do not do that for us. we can very well wait till the key is found." "oh! i don't know when that will be. i shall have forgotten about it if i do not find the key at once, or break open the caddy. but, if you prefer it, i have some cherry-brandy, or i would give you some milk-punch." "no--no, indeed, mr. menaida." "but jamie--i am sure he looks tired. a little cherry-brandy to draw the threads in him together. and suffer me, though not a doctor, to recommend it to you. bless my soul! my fingers are all over arsenical soap. if i don't have some cherry-brandy myself i shall have the arsenic get into my system. i hope you have no cuts or scratches on your hand. i forgot the arsenic when i shook hands with you. now, look here, jump, bring in the saffron cake, and i will cut them each a good hunch. it will do you good, on my word it will. i have not spared either figs or saffron, and then--i will help you, as i love you. come and see my birds. that is a cormorant--a splendid fellow--looks as if run out of metal, all his plumage, you know, and in the attitude as if swallowing a fish. do you see!--the morsel is going down his throat. and--how much luggage have you? jump! show the young lady where she can put away her gowns and all that sort of thing. oh, not come yet? all right--a lady and her dresses are not long parted. they will be here soon. now, then. what will you have?--some cold beef--and cider? upon my soul!--you must excuse me. i was just wiring that kittiwake. excuse me--i shall be ready in a moment. in the meantime there are books--rollin's 'ancient history,' a very reliable book. no--upon my word, my mind is distracted. i cannot get that kittiwake right without a glass of port. i have some good port. oliver guarantees it--from portugal, you know. he is there--first-rate business, and will make his fortune, which is more than his father ever did." mr. menaida went to a closet, and produced a bottle. "come here, jamie. i know what is good for you." "no--please, mr. menaida, do not. he has not been accustomed to anything of the sort. please not, sir." "fudge!" said uncle zachie, holding up a glass and pouring cherry-brandy into it. "what is your age?--seventeen or eighteen, and i am fifty-two. i have over thirty years' more experience of the world than you. jamie, don't be tied to your sister's apron-string. i know what is best for you. girls drink water, men something better. come here, jamie!" "no, sir--i beseech you." "bless my soul! i know what is good for him. come to me, jamie. look the other way, judith, if i cannot persuade you." judith sighed, and covered her face with her hands. there was to be no help, no support in uncle zachie. on the contrary, he would break down her power over jamie. "jamie," she said, "if you love me, go up-stairs." "presently, ju. i want that first." and he took it, ran to his sister, and said: "it is good, ju!" "you have disobeyed me, jamie--that is bad." she stood on the threshold of further trouble, and she knew it. chapter vii. a visit. no sleep visited judith's eyes that night till the first streaks of dawn appeared, though she was weary, and her frail body and over-exerted brain needed the refreshment of sleep. but sleep she could not, for cares were gathering upon her. she had often heard her father, when speaking of mr. menaida, lament that he was not a little more self-controlled in his drinking. it was not that the old fellow ever became inebriated, but that he hankered after the bottle, and was wont to take a nip continually to strengthen his nerves, steady his hand, or clear his brain. there was ever ready some excuse satisfactory to his own conscience; and it was due to these incessant applications to the bottle that his hand shook, his eyes became watery, and his nose red. it was a danger judith must guard against, lest this trick should be picked up by the childish jamie, always apt to imitate what he should not, and acquire habits easily gained, hardly broken, that were harmful to himself. uncle zachie, in his good-nature, would lead the boy after him into the same habits that marred his own life. this was one thought that worked like a mole all night in judith's brain; but she had other troubles as well to keep her awake. she was alarmed at the consequences of her conduct in the lane. she wondered whether coppinger were more seriously hurt than had at first appeared. she asked herself whether she had not acted wrongly when she acted inconsiderately, whether in her precipitation to protect herself she had not misjudged coppinger, whether, if he had attempted to strike her, it would not have been a lesser evil to receive the blow, than to ward it off in such a manner as to break his bones. knowing by report the character of the man, she feared that she had incurred his deadly animosity. he could not, that she could see, hurt herself in the execution of his resentment, but he might turn her aunt out of his house. that she had affronted her aunt she was aware; mrs. trevisa's manner in parting with her had shown that with sufficient plainness. a strange jumble of sounds on the piano startled judith. her first thought and fear were that her brother had gone to the instrument, and was amusing himself on the keys. but on listening attentively she was aware that there was sufficient sequence in the notes to make it certain that the performer was a musician, though lacking in facility of execution. she descended the stairs and entered the little sitting-room. uncle zachie was seated on the music-stool, and was endeavoring to play a sonata of beethoven that was vastly beyond the capacity of his stiff-jointed fingers. whenever he made a false note he uttered a little grunt and screwed up his eyes, endeavored to play the bar again, and perhaps accomplish it only to break down in the next. judith did not venture to interrupt him. she took up some knitting, and seated herself near the piano, where he might see her without her disturbing him. he raised his brows, grunted, floundered into false harmony, and exclaimed, "bless me! how badly they do print music nowadays. who, without the miraculous powers of a prophet, could tell that b should be natural?" then, turning his head over his shoulder, addressed judith, "good-morning, missie. are you fond of music?" "yes, sir, very." "so you think. everyone says he or she is fond of music, because that person can hammer out a psalm tune or play the 'rogue's march.' i hate to hear those who call themselves musical strum on a piano. they can't feel, they only execute." "but they can play their notes correctly," said judith, and then flushed with vexation at having made this pointed and cutting remark. but it did not cause mr. menaida to wince. "what of that? i give not a thank-you for mere literal music-reading. call jump, set 'shakespeare' before her, and she will hammer out a scene--correctly as to words; but where is the sense? where the life? you must play with the spirit and play with the understanding also, as you must read with the spirit and read with the understanding also. it is the same thing with bird-stuffing. any fool can ram tow into a skin and thrust wires into the neck, but what is the result? you must stuff birds with the spirit and stuff with the understanding also--or it is naught." "i suppose it is the same with everything one does--one must do it heartily and intelligently." "exactly! now you should see my boy, oliver. have you ever met him?" "i think i have; but, to be truthful, i do not recollect him, sir." "i will bring you his likeness--in miniature. it is in the next room." up jumped mr. menaida, and ran through the opening in the wall, and returned in another moment with the portrait, and gave it into judith's hands. "a fine fellow is oliver! look at his nose how straight it is. not like mine--that is a pump-handle. he got his good looks from his mother, not from me. ah!" he reseated himself at the piano, and ran--incorrectly--over a scale. "it is all the pleasure i have in life, to think of my boy, and to look at his picture, and read his letters, and drink the port he sends me--first-rate stuff. he writes admirable letters, and never a month passes but i receive one. it would come expensive if he wrote direct, so his letter is enclosed in the business papers sent to the house at bristol, and they forward it to me. you shall read his last--out loud. it will give me a pleasure to hear it read by you." "if i read properly, mr. menaida--with the spirit and with the understanding." "exactly! but you could not fail to do that looking at the cheerful face in the miniature, and reading his words--pleasant and bright as himself. pity you have not seen him; well, that makes something to live for. he has dark hair and blue eyes--not often met together, and when associated, very refreshing. wait! i'll go after the letter: only, bless my soul! where is it? what coat did i have on when i read it? i'll call jump. she may remember. wait! do you recall this?" he stumbled over something on the keys which might have been anything. "it is haydn. i will tell you what i think: mozart i delight in as a companion; beethoven i revere as a master; but haydn i love as a friend. you were about to say something?" judith had set an elbow on the piano and put her hand to her head, her fingers through the hair, and was looking into uncle zachie's face with an earnestness he could not mistake. she did desire to say something to him; but if she waited till he gave her an opportunity she might wait a long time. he jumped from one subject to another with alacrity, and with rapid forgetfulness of what he was last speaking about. "oh, sir, i am so very, very grateful to you for having received us into your snug little house----" "you like it? well, i only pay seven pounds for it. cheap, is it not? two cottages--laborers' cottages--thrown together. well, i might go farther and fare worse." "and, mr. menaida, i venture to ask you another favor, which, if you will grant me, you will lay me under an eternal obligation." "you may command me, my dear." "it is only this: not to let jamie have anything stronger than a glass of cider. i do not mind his having that; but a boy like him does not need what is, no doubt, wanted by you who are getting old. i am so afraid of the habit growing on him of looking for and liking what is too strong for him. he is such a child, so easily led, and so unable to control himself. it may be a fancy, a prejudice of mine"--she passed her nervous hand over her face--"i do hope i am not offending you, dear mr. menaida; but i know jamie so well, and i know how carefully he must be watched and checked. if it be a silly fancy of mine--and perhaps it is only a silly fancy--yet," she put on a pleading tone, "you will humor me in this, will you not, mr. menaida?" "bless my soul! you have only to express a wish and i will fulfil it. for myself, you must know, i am a little weak; i feel a chill when the wind turns north or east, and am always relaxed when it is in the south or west; that forces me to take something just to save me from serious inconvenience, you understand." "oh quite, sir." "and then--confound it!--i am goaded on to work when disinclined. why, there's a letter come to me now from plymouth--a naturalist there, asking for more birds; and what can i do? i slave, i am at it all day, half the night; i have no time to eat or sleep. i was not born to stuff birds. i take it as an amusement, a pastime, and it is converted into a toil. i must brace up my exhausted frame; it is necessary to my health, you understand!" "oh, yes, mr. menaida. and you really will humor my childish whim?" "certainly, you may rely on me." "that is one thing i wanted to say. you see, sir, we have but just come into your house, and already, last night, jamie was tempted to disobey me, and take what i thought unadvisable, so--i have been turning it over and over in my head--i thought i would like to come to a clear understanding with you, mr. menaida. it seems ungracious in me, but you must pity me. i have now all responsibility for jamie on my head, and i have to do what my conscience tells me i should do; only, i pray you, do not take offence at what i have said." "fudge! my dear; you are right, i dare say." "and now that i have your promise--i have that, have i not?" "yes, certainly." "now i want your opinion, if you will kindly give it me. i have no father, no mother, to go to for advice; and so i venture to appeal to you--it is about captain coppinger." "captain coppinger!" repeated uncle zachie, screwing up his brows and mouth. "umph! he is a bold man who can give help against captain coppinger, and a strong man as well as bold. how has he wronged you?" "oh! he has not wronged me. it is i who have hurt him." "you--you!" uncle zachie laughed. "a little creature such as you could not hurt captain cruel!" "but, indeed, i have; i have thrown him down and broken his arms and some of his bones." "you--you?" uncle zachie's face of astonishment and dismay was so comical that judith, in spite of her anxiety and exhaustion, smiled; but the smile was without brightness. "and pray, how in the name of wonder did you do that? upon my word, you will deserve the thanks of the preventive men. they have no love for him; they have old scores they would gladly wipe off with a broken arm, or, better still, a cracked skull. and pray how did you do this? with the flour-roller?" "no, sir, i will tell you the whole story." then, in its true sequence, with great clearness, she related the entire narrative of events. she told how her father, even with his last breath, had spoken of coppinger as the man who had troubled his life by marring his work; how that the captain had entered the parsonage without ceremony when her dear father was lying dead up-stairs, and how he had called there boisterously for aunt dionysia because he wanted something of her. she told the old man how that her own feelings had been wrought, by this affront, into anger against coppinger. then she related the incident in the lane, and how that, when he raised his arm against her, she had dashed the buttons into his face, frightened his horse, and so produced an accident that might have cost the captain his life. "bless my soul!" exclaimed mr. menaida, "and what do you want? is it an assault? i will run to my law-books and find out; i don't know that it can quite be made out a case of misadventure." "it is not that, sir." "then what do you want?" "i have been racking my head to think what i ought to do under the circumstances. there can be no doubt that i aggravated him. i was very angry, both because he had been a trouble to my darling papa, and then because he had been so insolent as to enter our house and shout for aunt dunes; but there was something more--he had tried to beat jamie, and it was my father's day of burial. all that roused a bad spirit in me, and i did say very bad words to him--words a man of metal would not bear from even a child, and i suppose i really did lash him to madness, and he would have struck me--but perhaps not, he might have thought better of it. i provoked him, and then i brought about what happened. i have been considering what i ought to do. if i remain here and take no notice, then he will think me very unfeeling, and that i do not care that i have hurt him in mind and body. it came into my head last night that i would ask aunt to apologize to him for what i had done, or, better still, should aunt not come here to-day, which is very likely, that i might walk with jamie to pentyre and inquire how captain coppinger is, and send in word by my aunt that i am sorry--very sorry." "upon my soul, i don't know what to say. i could not have done this to coppinger myself for a good deal of money. i think if i had, i would get out of the place as quickly as possible, while he was crippled by his broken bones. but then, you are a girl, and he may take it better from you than from me. well--yes; i think it would be advisable to allay his anger if you can. upon my word, you have put yourself into a difficult position. i'll go and look at my law-books, just for my own satisfaction." a heavy blow on the door, and without waiting for a response and invitation to enter, it was thrown open, and there entered cruel coppinger, his arm bandaged, tied in splints, and bound to his body, with his heavy walking-stick brandished by the uninjured hand. he stood for a moment glowering in, searching the room with his keen eyes till they rested on judith. then he made an attempt to raise his hand to his head, but ineffectually. "curse it!" said he, "i cannot do it; don't tear it off my head with your eyes, girl. here, you menaida, come here and take my hat off. come instantly, or she--she will do--the devil knows what she will not do to me." he turned, and with his stick beat the door back, that it slammed behind him. chapter viii. a patched peace. "look at her!" cried coppinger, with his back against the house door, and pointing to judith with his stick. she was standing near the piano, with one hand on it, and was half turned toward him. she was in black, but had a white kerchief about her neck. the absence of all color in her dress heightened the lustre of her abundant and glowing hair. coppinger remained for a moment, pointing with a half sneer on his dark face. mr. menaida had nervously complied with his demand, and had removed the hat from the smuggler, and his dark hair fell about his face. that face was livid and pale; he had evidently suffered much, and now every movement was attended with pain. not only had some of his bones been broken, but he was bruised and strained. "look at her!" he shouted again, in his deep commanding tones, and he fixed his fierce eyes on her and knitted his brows. she remained immovable, awaiting what he had to say. though there was a flutter in her bosom, her hand on the piano did not shake. "i am very sorry, captain coppinger," said judith, in a low, sweet voice, in which there was but a slight tremulousness. "i profess that i believe i acted wrongly yesterday, and i repeat that i am sorry--very sorry, captain coppinger." he made no reply. he lowered the stick that had been pointed at her, and leaned on it. his hand shook because he was in pain. "i acted wrongly yesterday," continued judith, "but i acted under provocation that, if it does not justify what i did, palliates the wrong. i can say no more--that is the exact truth." "is that all?" "i am sorry for what was wrong in my conduct--frankly sorry that you are hurt." "you hear her?" laughed coppinger, bitterly. "a little chit like that to speak to me thus"--then, turning sharply on her, "are you not afraid?" "no, i am not afraid; why should i be?" "why? ask any one in s. enodoc--any one in cornwall--who has heard my name." "i beg your pardon. i do not want to ask any one else in s. enodoc, any one else in cornwall. i ask you." "me? you ask me why you should be afraid of me?" he paused, drew his thick brows together till they formed a band across his forehead. "i tell you that none has ever wronged me by a blade of grass or a flock of wool but has paid for it a thousand-fold. and none has ever hurt me as you have done--none has ever dared to attempt it." "i have said that i am sorry." "you talk like one cold as a mermaid. i do not believe in your fearlessness. why do you lean on the piano. there, touch the wires with the very tips of your fingers, and let me hear if they give a sound--and sound they will if you tremble." judith exposed some of the wires by raising the top of the piano. then she smiled, and stood with the tips of her delicate fingers just touching the chords. coppinger listened, so did uncle zachie, and not a vibration could they detect. presently she withdrew her hand, and said, "is not that enough? when a girl says, 'i am sorry,' i supposed the chapter was done and the book closed." "you have strange ideas." "i have those in which i was brought up by the best of fathers." coppinger thrust his stick along the floor. "is it due to the ideas in which you have been brought up that you are not afraid--when you have reduced me to a wreck?" "and you?--are you afraid of the wreck that you have made?" the dark blood sprang into and suffused his whole face. uncle zachie drew back against the wall and made signs to judith not to provoke their self-invited visitor; but she was looking steadily at the captain, and did not observe the signals. in coppinger's presence she felt nerved to stand on the defensive, and more, to attack. a threat in his whole bearing, in his manner of addressing her, roused every energy she possessed. "i tell you," said he, harshly, "if any man had used the word you threw at me yesterday, i would have murdered him; i would have split his skull with the handle of my crop." "you raised your hand to do it to me," said judith. "no!" he exclaimed, violently. "it is false; come here, and let me see if you have the courage, the fearlessness you affect. you women are past-masters of dissembling. come here; kneel before me and let me raise my stick over you. see; there is lead in the handle, and with one blow i can split your skull and dash the brains over the floor." judith remained immovable. "i thought it--you are afraid." she shook her head. he let himself, with some pain, slowly into a chair. "you are afraid. you know what to expect. ah! i could fell you and trample on you and break your bones, as i was cast down, trampled on, and broken in my bones yesterday--by you, or through you. are you afraid?" she took a step toward him. then uncle zachie waved her back, in great alarm. he caught judith's attention, and she answered him, "i am not afraid. i gave him a word i should not have given him yesterday. i will show him that i retract it fully." then she stepped up to coppinger and sank on her knees before him. he raised his whip, with the loaded handle, brandishing it over her. "now i am here," she said, "i again ask your forgiveness, but i protest an apology is due to me." he threw his stick away. "by heaven, it is!" then in an altered tone, "take it so, that i ask your forgiveness. get up; do not kneel to me. i could not have struck you down had i willed, my arm is stiff. perhaps you knew it." he rose with effort to his feet again. judith drew back to her former position by the piano, two hectic spots of flame were in her cheek, and her eyes were preternaturally bright. coppinger looked steadily at her for a while, then he said, "are you ill? you look as if you were." "i have had much to go through of late." "true." he remained looking at her, brooding over something in his mind. she perplexed him; he wondered at her. he could not comprehend the spirit that was in her, that sustained a delicate little frame, and made her defy him. his eyes wandered round the room, and he signed to uncle zachie to give him his stick again. "what is that?" said he, pointing to the miniature on the stand for music, where mr. menaida had put it, over a sheet of the music he had been playing, or attempting to play. "it is my son, oliver," said uncle zachie. "why is it there? has she been looking at it? let me see it." mr. menaida hesitated, but presently handed it to the redoubted captain, with nervous twitches in his face. "i value it highly--my only child." coppinger looked at it, with a curl of his lips; then handed it back to mr. menaida. "why is it here?" "i brought it here to show it her. i am very proud of my son," said uncle zachie. coppinger was in an irritable mood, captious about trifles. why did he ask questions about this little picture? why look suspiciously at judith as he did so--suspiciously and threateningly? "do you play on the piano?" asked coppinger. "when the evil spirit was on saul, david struck the harp and sent the spirit away. let me hear how you can touch the notes. it may do me good. heaven knows it is not often i have the leisure, or the occasion, or am in the humor for music. i would hear what you can do." judith looked at uncle zachie. "i cannot play," she said; "that is to say, i can play, but not now, and on this piano." but mr. menaida interfered and urged her to play. he was afraid of coppinger. she seated herself on the music-stool and considered for a moment. the miniature was again on the stand. coppinger put out his stick and thrust it off, and it would have fallen had not judith caught it. she gave it to mr. menaida, who hastily carried it into the adjoining room, where the sight of it might no longer irritate the captain. "what shall i play? i mean, strum?" asked judith, looking at uncle zachie. "beethoven! no--haydn. here are his 'seasons.' i can play 'spring.'" she had a light, but firm touch. her father had been a man of great musical taste, and he had instructed her. but she had, moreover, the musical faculty in her, and she played with the spirit and with the understanding also. wondrous is the power of music, passing that of fabled necromancy. it takes a man up out of his most sordid surroundings, and sets him in heavenly places. it touches fibres of the inner nature, lost, forgotten, ignored, and makes them thrill with a new life. it seals the eyes to outward sights, and unfurls new vistas full of transcendental beauty; it breathes over hot wounds and heals them; it calls to the surface springs of pure delight, and bids them gush forth in an arid desert. it was so now, as, under the sympathetic fingers of judith, haydn's song of the "spring" was sung. a may world arose in that little dingy room; the walls fell back and disclosed green woods thick with red robin and bursting bluebells, fields golden with buttercups, hawthorns clothed in flower, from which sang the blackbird, thrush, the finch, and the ouzel. the low ceiling rose and overarched as the speed-well blue vault of heaven, the close atmosphere was dispelled by a waft of crisp, pure air; shepherds piped, boy blue blew his horn, and milkmaids rattled their pails and danced a ballet on the turf; and over all, down into every corner of the soul, streamed the glorious, golden sun, filling the heart with gladness. uncle zachie had been standing at the door leading into his workshop, hesitating whether to remain, with a pish! and a pshaw! or to fly away beyond hearing. but he was arrested, then drawn lightly, irresistibly, step by step, toward the piano, and he noiselessly sank upon a chair, with his eyes fixed on judith's fingers as they danced over the keys. his features assumed a more refined character as he listened; the water rose into his eyes, his lips quivered, and when, before reaching the end of the piece, judith faltered and stopped, he laid his hand on her wrist and said: "my dear--you play, you do not strum. play when you will--never can it be too long, too much for me. it may steady my hand, it may dispel the chill and the damp better than--but never mind--never mind." why had judith failed to accomplish the piece? whilst engaged on the notes she had felt that the searching, beaming eyes of the smuggler were on her, fixed with fierce intensity. she could meet them, looking straight at him, without shrinking, and without confusion, but to be searched by them whilst off her guard, her attention engaged on her music, was what she could not endure. coppinger made no remark on what he had heard, but his face gave token that the music had not swept across him without stirring and softening his hard nature. "how long is she to be here with you?" he asked, turning to uncle zachie. "captain, i cannot tell. she and her brother had to leave the rectory. they could not remain in that house alone. mrs. trevisa asked me to lodge them here, and i consented. i knew their father." "she did not ask me. i would have taken them in." "perhaps she was diffident of doing that," said uncle zachie. "but really, on my word, it is no inconvenience to me. i have room in this house, and my maid, jump, has not enough to do to attend on me." "when you are tired of them send them to me." "i am not likely to be tired of judith, now that i have heard her play." "judith--is that her name?" "yes--judith." "judith!" he repeated, and thrust his stick along the floor, meditatively. "judith!" then, after a pause, with his eyes on the ground, "why did not your aunt speak to me! why does she not love you?--she does not, i know. why did she not go to see you when your father was alive! why did you not come to the glaze?" "my dear papa did not wish me to go to your house," said judith, answering one of his many questions, the last, and perhaps the easiest to reply to. "why not?" he glanced up at her, then down on the floor again. "papa was not very pleased with aunt dunes--it was no fault on either side, only a misunderstanding," said judith. "why did he not let you come to my house to salute your aunt?" judith hesitated. he again looked up at her searchingly. "if you really must know the truth, captain coppinger, papa thought your house was hardly one to which to send two children--it was said to harbor such wild folk." "and he did not know how fiercely and successfully you could defend yourself against wild folk," said coppinger, with a harsh laugh. "it is we wild men that must fear you, for you dash us about and bruise and break us when displeased with our ways. we are not so bad at the glaze as we are painted, not by a half--here is my hand on it." judith was still seated on the music-stool, her hands resting in her lap. coppinger came toward her, walking stiffly, and extending his palm. she looked down in her lap. what did this fierce, strange man, mean? "will you give me your hand?" he asked. "is there peace between us?" she was doubtful what to say. he remained, awaiting her answer. "i really do not know what reply to make," she said, after awhile. "of course, so far as i'm concerned, it is peace. i have myself no quarrel with you, and you are good enough to say that you forgive me." "then why not peace?" again she let him wait before answering. she was uneasy and unhappy. she wanted neither his goodwill nor his hostility. "in all that affects me, i bear you no ill-will," she said, in a low, tremulous voice; "but in that you were a grief to my dear, dear father, discouraging his heart, i cannot be forgetful, and so full of charity as to blot it out as though it had not been." "then let it be a patched peace--a peace with evasions and reservations. better that than none. give me your hand." "on that understanding," said judith, and laid her hand in his. his iron fingers closed round it, and he drew her up from the stool on which she sat, drew her forward near the window, and thrust her in front of him. then he raised her hand, held it by the wrist, and looked at it. "it is very small, very weak," he said, musingly. then there rushed over her mind the recollection of her last conversation with her father. he, too, had taken and looked at her hand, and had made the same remark. coppinger lowered her hand and his, and, looking at her, said: "you are very wonderful to me." "i--why so?" he did not answer, but let go his hold of her, and turned away to the door. judith saw that he was leaving, and she hastened to bring him his stick, and she opened the door for him. "i thank you," he said, turned, pointed his stick at her, and added, "it is peace--though a patched one." chapter ix. c. c. days ensued, not of rest to body, but of relaxation to mind. judith's overstrained nerves had now given them a period of numbness, a sleep of sensibility with occasional turnings and wakenings, in which they recovered their strength. she and jamie were settled into their rooms at mr. menaida's, and the hours were spent in going to and from the rectory removing their little treasures to the new home--if a temporary place of lodging could be called a home--and in arranging them there. there were a good many farewells to be taken, and judith marvelled sometimes at the insensibility with which she said them--farewells to a thousand nooks and corners of the house and garden, the shrubbery, and the glebe farm, all endeared by happy recollections, now having their brightness dashed with rain. to judith this was a first revelation of the mutability of things on earth. hitherto, as a child, with a child's eyes and a child's confidence, she had regarded the rectory, the glebe, the contents of the house, the flowers in the garden, as belonging inalienably to her father and brother and herself. they belonged to them together. there was nothing that was her father's that did not belong to jamie and to her, nothing of her brother's or her own that was not likewise the property of papa. there was no mine or thine in that little family of love--save only a few birthday presents given from one to the other, and these only special property by a playful concession. but now the dear father was gone, and every right seemed to dissolve. from the moment that he leaned back against the brick, lichen-stained wall, and sighed--and was dead, house and land had been snatched from them. and though the contents of the rectory, the books, and the furniture, and the china belonged to them, it was but for a little while; these things must be parted with also, turned into silver. not because the money was needed, but because judith had no settled home, and no prospect of one. therefore she must not encumber herself with many belongings. for a little while she would lodge with mr. menaida, but she could not live there forever; she must remove elsewhere, and she must consider, in the first place, that there was not room in uncle zachie's cottage for accumulations of furniture, and that, in the next place, she would probably have to part with them on her next remove, even if she did retain them for a while. if these things were to be parted with, it would be advisable to part with them at once. but to this determination judith could not bring herself at first. though she had put aside, to be kept, things too sacred to her, too much part of her past life, to be allowed to go into the sale, after a few days she relinquished even these. those six delightful old colored prints, in frames, of a fox-hunt--how jamie had laughed at them, and followed the incidents in them, and never wearied of them--must they go--perhaps for a song? it must be so. that work-table of her mother's, of dark rosewood, with a crimson bag beneath it to contain wools and silks, one of the few remembrances she had of that mother whom she but dimly recalled--must that go?--what, and all those skeins in it of colored floss silk, and the piece of embroidery half finished? the work of her mother, broken off by death--that also? it must be so. and that rusty leather chair in which papa had sat, with one golden-headed child on each knee cuddled into his breast, with the flaps of his coat drawn over their heads, which listened to the tick-tick of his great watch, and to the tale of little snowflake, or gracieuse and percinet?--must that go also? it must be so. every day showed to judith some fresh link that had to be broken. she could not bear to think that the mother's work-table should be contended for at a vulgar auction, and struck down to a blousy farmer's wife; that her father's chair should go to some village inn to be occupied by sots. she would rather have seen them destroyed; but to destroy them would not be right. after a while she longed for the sale; she desired to have it over, that an entirely new page of life might be opened, and her thoughts might not be carried back to the past by everything she saw. of coppinger nothing further was seen. nor did aunt dionysia appear at the rectory to superintend the assortment of the furniture, nor at mr. menaida's to inquire into the welfare of her nephew and niece. to judith it was a relief not to have her aunt in the parsonage while she was there; that hard voice and unsympathetic manner would have kept her nerves on the quiver. it was best as it was, that she should have time, by herself, with no interference from any one, to select what was to be kept and put away what was to be sold; to put away gently, with her own trembling hand, and with eyes full of tears, the old black gown and the oxford hood that papa had worn in church, and to burn his old sermons and bundles of letters, unread and uncommented on by aunt dunes. in these days judith did not think much of coppinger. uncle zachie informed her that he was worse, he was confined to his bed, he had done himself harm by coming over to polzeath the day after his accident, and the doctor had ordered him not to stir from pentyre glaze for some time--not till his bones were set. nothing was known of the occasion of coppinger's injuries, so uncle zachie said; it was reported in the place that he had been thrown from his horse. judith entreated the old man not to enlighten the ignorance of the public; she was convinced that naught would transpire through jamie, who could not tell a story intelligibly; and miss dionysia trevisa was not likely to publish what she knew. judith had a pleasant little chamber at mr. menaida's; it was small, low, plastered against the roof, the rafters showing, and whitewashed like the walls and ceiling. the light entered from a dormer in the roof, a low window glazed with diamond quarries set in lead that clickered incessantly in the wind. it faced the south, and let the sun flow in. a scrap of carpet was on the floor, and white curtains to the window. in this chamber judith ranged such of her goods as she had resolved on retaining, either as indispensable, or as being too dear to her to part with unnecessarily, and which, as being of small size, she might keep without difficulty. her father's old travelling trunk, covered with hide with the hair on, and his initials in brass nails--a trunk he had taken with him to college--was there, thrust against the wall; it contained her clothes. suspended above it was her little bookcase, with the shelves laden with "the travels of rolando," dr. aitkin's "evenings at home," magnal's "questions," a french dictionary, "paul and virginia," and a few other works such as were the delight of children from ninety to a hundred years ago. books for children were rare in those days, and such as were produced were read and re-read till they were woven into the very fibre of the mind, never more to be extricated and cast aside. now it is otherwise. a child reads a story-book every week, and each new story-book effaces the impression produced by the book that went before. the result of much reading is the same as the result of no reading--the production of a blank. how judith and jamie had sat together perched up in a sycamore, in what they called their nest, and had revelled in the adventures of rolando, she reading aloud, he listening a little, then lapsing into observation of the birds that flew and hopped about, or the insects that spun and crept, or dropped on silky lines, or fluttered humming about the nest, then returned to attention to the book again! rolando would remain through life the friend and companion of judith. she could not part with the four-volumed, red-leather-backed book. for the first day or two jamie had accompanied his sister to the rectory, and had somewhat incommoded her by his restlessness and his mischief, but on the third day, and thenceforth, he no longer attended her. he had made fast friends with uncle zachie. he was amused with watching the process of bird-stuffing, and the old man made use of the boy by giving him tow to pick to pieces and wires to straighten. mr. menaida was pleased to have some one by him in his workshop to whom he could talk. it was unimportant to him whether the listener followed the thread of his conversation or not, so long as he was a listener. mr. menaida, in his solitude, had been wont to talk to himself, to grumble to himself at the impatience of his customers, to lament to himself the excess of work that pressed upon him and deprived him of time for relaxation. he was wont to criticise, to himself, his success or want of success in the setting-up of a bird. it was far more satisfactory to him to be able to address all these remarks to a second party. he was, moreover, surprised to find how keen and just had been jamie's observation of birds, their ways, their attitudes. judith was delighted to think that jamie had discovered talent of some sort, and he had, so uncle zachie assured her, that imitative ability which is often found to exist alongside with low intellectual power, and this enabled him to assist mr. menaida in giving a natural posture to his birds. it flattered the boy to find that he was appreciated, that he was consulted, and asked to assist in a kind of work that exacted nothing of his mind. when uncle zachie was tired of his task, which was every ten minutes or quarter of an hour, and that was the extreme limit to which he could continue regular work, he lit his pipe, left his bench, and sat in his arm-chair. then jamie also left his tow-picking or wire-punching, and listened, or seemed to listen, to mr. menaida's talk. when the old man had finished his pipe, and, with a sigh, went back to his task, jamie was tired of hearing him talk, and was glad to resume his work. thus the two desultory creatures suited each other admirably, and became attached friends. "jamie! what is the meaning of this?" asked judith, with a start and a rush of blood to her heart. she had returned in the twilight from the parsonage. there was something in the look of her brother, something in his manner that was unusual. "jamie! what have you been taking? who gave it you?" she caught the boy by the arm. distress and shame were in her face, in the tones of her voice. mr. menaida grunted. "i'm sorry, but it can't be helped--really it can't," said he, apologetically. "but captain coppinger has sent me down a present of a keg of cognac--real cognac, splendid, amber-like--and, you know, it was uncommonly kind. he never did it before. so there was no avoidance; we had to tap it and taste it, and give a sup to the fellow who brought us the keg, and drink the health of the captain. one could not be churlish; and, naturally, i could not abstain from letting jamie try the spirit. perfectly pure--quite wholesome--first-rate quality. upon my word, he had not more than a fly could dip his legs in and feel the bottom; but he is unaccustomed to anything stronger than cider, and this is stronger than i supposed." "mr. menaida, you promised me--" "bless me! there are contingencies, you know. i never for a moment thought that captain coppinger would show me such a favor, would have such courtesy. but, upon my honor, i think it is your doing, my dear! you shook hands and made peace with him, and he has sent this in token of the cessation of hostilities and the ratification of the agreement." "mr. menaida, i trusted you. i did believe, when you passed your word to me, that you would hold to it." "now--there, don't take it in that way. jamie, you rascal, hop off to bed. he'll be right as a trivet to-morrow morning, i stake my reputation on that. there, there, i will help him up-stairs." judith suffered mr. menaida to do as he proposed. when he had left the room with jamie, who was reluctant to go, and struggled to remain, she seated herself on the sofa, and covering her face with her hands burst into tears. whom could she trust? no one. had she been alone in the world she would have been more confident of the future, been able to look forward with a good courage; but she had to carry jamie with her, who must be defended from himself, and from the weak good-nature of those he was with. when uncle zachie came down-stairs he slunk into his workroom and was very quiet. no lamp or candle was lighted, and it was too dark for him to continue his employment on the birds. what was he doing? nothing. he was ashamed of himself, and keeping out of judith's way. but judith would not let him escape so easily; she went to him, as he avoided her, and found him seated in a corner turning his pipe about. he had been afraid of striking a light, lest he should call her attention to his presence. "oh, my dear, come in here into the workshop to me! this is an honor, an unexpected pleasure. jamie and i have been drudging like slaves all day, and we're fagged--fagged to the ends of our fingers and toes." "mr. menaida, i am sorry to say it, but if such a thing happens again as has taken place this evening, jamie and i must leave your house. i thank you with an overflowing heart for your goodness to us; but i must consider jamie above everything else, and i must see that he be not exposed to temptation." "where will you take him?" "i cannot tell; but i must shield him." "there, there, not a word! it shall never happen again. now let by-gones be by-gones, and play me something of beethoven, while i sit here and listen in the twilight." "no, mr. menaida, i cannot. i have not the spirit to do it. i can think only of jamie." "so you punish me!" "take it so. i am sorry; but i cannot do otherwise." "now, look here! bless my soul! i had almost forgotten it. here is a note for you, from the captain, i believe." he went to the chimney-piece and took down a scrap of paper, folded and sealed. judith looked at it and went to the window, broke the seal, and opened the paper. she read-- "why do you not come and see me? you do not care for what you have done. they call me cruel; but you are that.--c. c." chapter x. ego et regina mea. the strange, curt note from cruel coppinger served in a measure to divert the current of judith's thoughts from her trouble about jamie. it was, perhaps, as well, or she would have fretted over that throughout the night, not only because of jamie, but because she felt that her father had left his solemn injunction on her to protect and guide her twin-brother, and she knew that whatsoever harm, physical or moral, came to him, argued a lack of attention to her duty. her father had not been dead many days, and already jamie had been led from the path she had undertaken to keep him in. but when she began to worry herself about jamie, the bold characters, "c. c.," with which the letter was signed, rose before her, and glowed in the dark as characters of fire. she had gone to her bedroom, and had retired for the night, but could not sleep. the moon shone through the lattice into her chamber, and on the stool by the window lay the letter, where she had cast it. her mind turned to it. why did coppinger call her cruel? was she cruel? not intentionally so. she had not wilfully injured him. he did not suppose that. he meant that she was heartless and indifferent in letting him suffer without making any inquiry concerning him. he had injured himself by coming to polzeath to see her the day following his accident. uncle zachie had assured her of that. she went on in her busy mind to ask why he had come to see her? surely there had been no need for him to do so! his motive--the only motive she could imagine--was a desire to relieve her from anxiety and distress of mind; a desire to show her that he bore no ill-will toward her for what she had done. that was generous and considerate of him. had he not come she certainly would have been unhappy and in unrest, would have imagined all kinds of evil as likely to ensue through his hostility--for one thing, her aunt's dismissal from her post might have been expected. but coppinger, though in pain, and at a risk to his health, had walked to where she was lodging to disabuse her of any such impression. she was grateful to him for so doing. she felt that such a man could not be utterly abandoned by god, entirely void of good qualities, as she had supposed, viewing him only through the representations of his character and the tales circulating relative to his conduct that had reached her. a child divides mankind into two classes--the good and the bad, and supposes that there is no debatable land between them, where light and shade are blended into neutral tint; certainly not that there are blots on the white leaf of the lives of the good, and luminous glimpses in the darkness of the histories of the bad. as they grow older they rectify their judgments, and such a rectification judith had now to make. she was assisted in this by compassion for coppinger, who was in suffering, and by self-reproach, because she was the occasion of this suffering. what were the exact words captain cruel had employed? she was not certain; she turned the letter over and over in her mind, and could not recall every expression, and she could not sleep till she was satisfied. therefore she rose from bed, stole to the window, took up the letter, seated herself on the stool, and conned it in the moonlight. "why do you not come and see me? you do not care for what you have done." that was not true; she was greatly troubled at what she had done. she was sick at heart when she thought of that scene in the lane, when the black mare was leaping and pounding with her hoofs, and coppinger lay on the ground. one kick of the hoof on his head, and he would have been dead. his blood would have rested on her conscience, never to be wiped off. horrible was the recollection now, in the stillness of the night. it was marvellous that life had not been beaten out of the prostrate man, that, dragged about by the arm, he had not been torn to pieces, that every bone had not been shattered, that his face had not been battered out of recognition. judith felt the perspiration stand on her brow at the thought. god had been very good to her in sending his angel to save coppinger from death and her from blood-guiltiness. she slid to her knees at the window, and held up her hands, the moonlight illuminating her white upturned face, as she gave thanks to heaven that no greater evil had ensued from her inconsidered act with the button-basket than a couple of broken bones. oh! it was very far indeed from true that she did not care for what she had done. coppinger must have been blind indeed not to have seen how she felt her conduct. his letter concluded: "they call me cruel; but you are that." he meant that she was cruel in not coming to the glaze to inquire after him. he had thought of her trouble of mind, and had gone to polzeath to relieve her of anxiety, and she had shown no consideration for him--or not in like manner. she had been very busy at the rectory. her mind had been concerned with her own affairs, that was her excuse. cruel she was not. she took no pleasure in his pain. but she hesitated about going to see him. that was more than was to be expected of a young girl. she would go on the morrow to coppinger's house, and ask to speak to her aunt; that she might do, and from aunt dionysia she would learn in what condition captain cruel was, and might send him her respects and wishes for his speedy recovery. as she still knelt in her window, looking up through the diamond panes into the clear, gray-blue sky, she heard a sound without, and, looking down, saw a convoy of horses pass, laden with bales and kegs, and followed or accompanied by men wearing slouched hats. so little noise did the beasts make in traversing the road, that judith was convinced their hoofs must be muffled in felt. she had heard that this was done by the smugglers. it was said that all coppinger's horses had their boots drawn on when engaged in conveying run goods from the place where stored to their destination. these were coppinger's men, this his convoy, doubtless. judith thrust the letter from her. he was a bad man, a very bad man; and if he had met with an accident, it was his due, a judgment on his sins. she rose from her knees, turned away, and went back to her bed. next day, after a morning spent at the rectory, in the hopes that her aunt might arrive and obviate the need of her going in quest of her, judith, disappointed in this hope, prepared to walk to pentyre. mrs. dionysia had not acted with kindness toward her. judith felt this, without allowing herself to give to the feeling articulate expression. she made what excuses she could for aunt dunes: she was hindered by duties that had crowded upon her, she had been forbidden going by captain cruel; but none of these excuses satisfied judith. judith must go herself to the glaze, and she had reasons of her own for wishing to see her aunt, independent of the sense of obligation on her, more or less acknowledged, that she must obey the summons of c. c. there were matters connected with the rectory, with the furniture there, the cow, and the china, that mrs. trevisa must give her judgment upon. there were bills that had come in, which mrs. trevisa must pay, as judith had been left without any money in her pocket. as the girl walked through the lanes she turned over in her mind the stories she had heard of the smuggler captain, the wild tales of his wrecking ships, of his contests with the preventive men, and the ghastly tragedy of wyvill, who had been washed up headless on doombar. in former days she had accepted all these stories as true, had not thought of questioning them; but now that she had looked coppinger in the face, had spoken with him, experienced his consideration, she could not believe that they were to be accepted without question. that story of wyvill--that captain cruel had hacked off his head on the gunwale with his axe--seemed to her now utterly incredible. but if true! she shuddered to think that her hand had been held in that stained with so hideous a crime. thus musing, judith arrived at pentyre glaze, and entering the porch, turned from the sea, knocked at the door. a loud voice bade her enter. she knew that the voice proceeded from coppinger, and her heart fluttered with fear and uncertainty. she halted, with her hand on the door, inclined to retreat without entering; but again the voice summoned her to come in, and gathering up her courage she opened the door, and, still holding the latch, took a few steps forward into the hall or kitchen, into which it opened. a fire was smouldering in the great open fireplace, and beside it, in a carved oak arm-chair, sat cruel coppinger, with a small table at his side, on which were a bottle and glass, a canister of tobacco and a pipe. his arm was strapped across his breast as she had seen it a few days before. entering from the brilliant light of day, judith could not at first observe his face, but, as her eyes became accustomed to the twilight of the smoke-blackened and gloomy hall, she saw that he looked more worn and pale than he had seemed the day after the accident. nor could she understand the expression on his countenance when he was aware who was his visitor. "i beg your pardon," said judith; "i am sorry to have intruded; but i wished to speak to my aunt." "your aunt? old mother dunes? come in. let go your hold of the door and shut it. your aunt started a quarter of an hour ago for the rectory." "and i came along the lane from polzeath." "then no wonder you did not meet her. she went by the church path, of course, and over the down." "i am sorry to have missed her. thank you, captain coppinger, for telling me." "stay!" he roared, as he observed her draw back into the porch. "you are not going yet!" "i cannot stay for more than a moment in which to ask how you do, and whether you are somewhat better? i was sorry to hear you had been worse." "i have been worse, yes. come in. you shall not go. i am mewed in as a prisoner, and have none to speak to, and no one to look at but old dunes. come in, and take that stool by the fire, and let me hear you speak, and let me rest my eyes a while on your golden hair--gold more golden than that of the indies." "i hope you are better, sir," said judith, ignoring the compliment. "i am better now i have seen you. i shall be worse if you do not come in." she refused to do this by a light shake of the head. "i suppose you are afraid. we are wild and lawless men here, ogres that eat children! come, child, i have something to show you." "thank you for your kindness; but i must run to the parsonage; i really _must_ see my aunt." "then i will send her to polzeath to you when she returns. she will keep; she's stale enough." "i would spare her the trouble." "pshaw! she shall do what i will. now see--i am wearied to death with solitude and sickness. come, amuse yourself, if you will, with insulting me--calling me what you like; i do not mind, so long as you remain." "i have no desire whatever, captain coppinger, to insult you and call you names." "you insult me by standing there holding the latch--standing on one foot, as if afraid to sully the soles by treading my tainted floor. is it not an insult that you refuse to come in? is it not so much as saying to me, 'you are false, cruel, not to be trusted; you are not worthy that i should be under the same roof with you, and breathe the same air?'" "oh, captain coppinger, i do not mean that!" "then let go the latch and come in. stand, if you will not sit, opposite me. how can i see you there, in the doorway?" "there is not much to see when i am visible," said judith, laughing. "oh, no! not much! only a little creature who has more daring than any man in cornwall--who will stand up to, and cast at her feet, cruel coppinger, at whose name men tremble." judith let go her hold on the door, and moved timidly into the hall; but she let the door remain half open that the light and air flowed in. "and now," said captain coppinger, "here is a key on this table by me. do you see a small door by the clock-case? unlock that door with the key." "you want something from thence!" "i want you to unlock the door. there are beautiful and costly things within that you shall see." "thank you; but i would rather look at them some other day, when my aunt is here, and i have more time." "will you refuse me even the pleasure of letting you see what is there?" "if you particularly desire it, captain coppinger, i will peep in--but only peep." she took the key from his table, and crossed the hall to the door. the lock was large and clumsy, but she turned the key by putting both hands to it. then, swinging open the door, she looked inside. the door opened into an apartment crowded with a collection of sundry articles of value: bales of silk from italy, genoa laces, spanish silver-inlaid weapons, chinese porcelain, bronzes from japan, gold and silver ornaments, bracelets, brooches, watches, inlaid mother-of-pearl cabinets--an amazing congeries of valuables heaped together. "well, now!" shouted cruel coppinger. "what say you to the gay things there? choose--take what you will. i care not for them one rush. what do you most admire, most covet? put out both hands and take--take all you would have; fill your lap, carry off all you can. it is yours." judith drew hastily back and relocked the door. "what have you taken?" "nothing." "nothing? take what you will; i give it freely." "i cannot take anything, though i thank you, captain coppinger, for your kind and generous offer." "you will accept nothing?" she shook her head. "that is like you. you do it to anger me. as you throw hard words at me--coward, wrecker, robber--and as you dash broken glass, buttons, buckles, in my face, so do you throw back my offers." "it is not through ingratitude--" "i care not through what it is! you seek to anger, and not to please me. why will you take nothing? there are beautiful things there to charm a woman." "i am not a woman; i am a little girl." "why do you refuse me!" "for one thing, because i want none of the things there, beautiful and costly though they be." "and for the other thing----?" "for the other thing--excuse my plain speaking--i do not think they have been honestly got." "by heavens!" shouted coppinger. "there you attack and stab at me again. i like your plainness of speech. you do not spare me. i would not have you false and double like old dunes." "oh, captain coppinger! i give you thanks from the depths of my heart. it is kindly intended, and it is so good and noble of you, i feel that; for i have hurt you and reduced you to the state in which you now are, and yet you offer me the best things in your house--things of priceless value. i acknowledge your goodness; but just because i know i do not deserve this goodness i must decline what you offer." "then come here and give me the key." she stepped lightly over the floor to him and handed him the great iron key to his store chamber. as she did so he caught her hand, bowed his dark head, and kissed her fingers. "captain coppinger!" she started back, trembling, and snatched her hand from him. "what! have i offended you again? why not? a subject kisses the hand of his queen; and i am a subject, and you--you my queen." chapter xi. jessamine. "how are you, old man?" "middlin', thanky'; and how be you, gov'nor?" "middlin' also; and your missus?" "only sadly. i fear she's goin' slow but sure the way of all flesh." "bless us! 'tis a trouble and expense them sort o' things. now to work, shall we? what do you figure up?" "and you?" "oh, well, i'm not here on reg'lar business. huntin' on my own score to-day." "oh, ay! nice port this." "best the old fellow had in his cellar. i told the executrix i should like the taste of it, and advise thereon." the valuers for dilapidations, vulgarly termed dilapidators, were met in the dining-room of the deserted parsonage. mr. scantlebray was on one side, mr. cargreen on the other. mr. scantlebray was on that of the "orphings," as he termed his clients, and mr. cargreen on that of the rev. mr. mules, the recently nominated rector to s. enodoc. mr. scantlebray was a tall, lean man, with light gray eyes, a red face, and legs and arms that he shook every now and then as though they were encumbrances to his trunk and he was going to shake them off, as a poodle issuing from a bath shakes the water out of his locks. mr. cargreen was a bullet-headed man, with a white neckcloth, gray whiskers, a solemn face, and a sort of perpetual "let-us-pray" expression on his lips and in his eyes--a composing of his interior faculties and abstraction from worldly concerns. "i am here," said mr. scantlebray, "as adviser and friend--you understand, old man--of the orphings and their haunt." "and i," said mr. cargreen, "am ditto to the incoming rector." "and what do you get out of this visit!" asked mr. scantlebray, who was a frank man. "only three guineas as a fee," said mr. cargreen. "and you?" "ditto, old man--three guineas. you understand, i am not here as valuer to-day." "nor i--only as adviser." "exactly! taste this port. 'taint bad--out of the cellar of the old chap. told auntie i must have it, to taste and give opinion on." "and what are you going to do to-day?" "i'm going to have one or two little things pulled down, and other little things put to rights." "humph! i'm here to see nothing is pulled down." "we won't quarrel. there's the conservatory, and the linney in willa park." "i don't know," said cargreen, shaking his head. "now look here, old man," said mr. scantlebray. "you let me tear the linney down, and i'll let the conservatory stand." "the conservatory----" "i know; the casement of the best bedroom went through the roof of it. i'll mend the roof and repaint it. you can try the timber, and find it rotten, and lay on dilapidations enough to cover a new conservatory. pass the linney; i want to make pickings out of that." it may perhaps be well to let the reader understand the exact situation of the two men engaged in sipping port. directly it was known that a rector had been nominated to s. enodoc, mr. cargreen, a bodmin valuer, agent, and auctioneer, had written to the happy nominee, mr. mules, of birmingham, inclosing his card in the letter, to state that he was a member of an old-established firm, enjoying the confidence, not to say the esteem of the principal county families in the north of cornwall, that he was a sincere churchman, that deploring, as a true son of the church, the prevalence of dissent, he felt it his duty to call the attention of the reverend gentleman to certain facts that concerned him, but especially the church, and facts that he himself, as a devoted son of the church, on conviction, after mature study of its tenets, felt called upon, in the interest of that church he so had at heart, to notice. he had heard, said mr. cargreen, that the outgoing parties from s. enodoc were removing, or causing to be removed, or were proposing to remove, certain fixtures in the parsonage, and certain out-buildings, barns, tenements, sheds, and linneys on the glebe and parsonage premises, to the detriment of its value, inasmuch as that such removal would be prejudicial to the letting of the land, and render it impossible for the incoming rector to farm it himself without re-erecting the very buildings now in course of destruction, or which were purposed to be destroyed: to wit, certain out-buildings, barns, cattle-sheds, and linneys, together with other tenements that need not be specified. mr. cargreen added that, roughly speaking, the dilapidations of these buildings, if allowed to stand, might be assessed at £ ; but that, if pulled down, it would cost the new rector about £ to re-erect them, and their re-erection would be an imperative necessity. mr. cargreen had himself, personally, no interest in the matter; but, as a true son of the church, etc., etc. by return of post mr. cargreen received an urgent request from the rev. mr. mules to act as his agent, and to act with precipitation in the protection of his interests. in the meantime mr. scantlebray had not been neglectful of other people's interest. he had written to miss dionysia trevisa to inform her that, though he did not enjoy a present acquaintance, it was the solace and joy of his heart to remember that some years ago, before that infelicitous marriage of mr. trevisa, which had led to miss dionysia's leaving the rectory, it had been his happiness to meet her at the house of a mutual acquaintance, mrs. scaddon, where he had respectfully, and, at this distance of time, he ventured to add, humbly and hopelessly admired her; that, as he was riding past the rectory he had chanced to observe the condition of dilapidation certain tenements, pig-sties, cattle-sheds, and other out-buildings were in, and that, though it in no way concerned him, yet, for auld lang syne's sake, and a desire to assist one whom he had always venerated, and, at this distance of time might add, had admired, he ventured to offer a suggestion: to wit, that a number of unnecessary out-buildings should be torn down and utterly effaced before a new rector was nominated, and had appointed a valuer; also that certain obvious repairs should be undertaken and done at once, so as to give to the parsonage the appearance of being in excellent order, and cut away all excuse for piling up dilapidations. mr. scantlebray ventured humbly to state that he had had a good deal of experience with those gentlemen who acted as valuers for dilapidations, and with pain he was obliged to add that a more unscrupulous set of men it had never been his bad fortune to come into contact with. he ventured to assert that, were he to tell all he knew, or only half of what he knew, as to their proceedings in valuing for dilapidations, he would make both of miss trevisa's ears tingle. at once miss dionysia entreated mr. scantlebray to superintend and carry out with expedition such repairs and such demolitions as he deemed expedient, so as to forestall the other party. "chicken!" said mr. cargreen. "that's what i've brought for my lunch." "and 'am is what i've got," said mr. scantlebray. "they'll go lovely together." then, in a loud tone--"come in!" the door opened, and a carpenter entered with a piece of deal board in his hand. "you won't mind looking out of the winder, mr. cargreen?" said mr. scantlebray. "some business that's partick'ler my own. you'll find the jessamine--the white jessamine--smells beautiful." mr. cargreen rose, and went to the dining-room window that was embowered in white jessamine, then in full flower and fragrance. "what is it, davy?" "well, sir, i ain't got no dry old board for the floor where it be rotten, nor for the panelling of the doors where broken through." "no board at all?" "no, sir--all is green. only cut last winter." "won't it take paint?" "well, sir, not well. i've dried this piece by the kitchen fire, and i find it'll take the paint for a time." "run, dry all the panels at the kitchen fire, and then paint 'em." "thanky', sir; but, how about the boarding of the floor? the boards'll warp and start." "look here, davy, that gentleman who's at the winder a-smelling to the jessamine is the surveyor and valuer to t'other party. i fancy you'd best go round outside and have a word with him and coax him to pass the boards." "come in!" in a loud voice. then there entered a man in a cloth coat, with very bushy whiskers. "how d'y' do, spargo? what do you want?" "well, mr. scantlebray, i understand the linney and cow-shed is to be pulled down." "so it is, spargo." "well, sir!" mr. spargo drew his sleeve across his mouth. "there's a lot of very fine oak timber in it--beams, and such like--that i don't mind buying. as a timber merchant i could find a use for it." "say ten pound." "ten pun'! that's a long figure!" "not a pound too much; but come--we'll say eight." "i reckon i'd thought five." "five! pshaw! it's dirt cheap to _you_ at eight." "why to me, sir?" "why, because the new rector will want to rebuild both cattle-shed and linney, and he'll have to go to you for timber." "but suppose he don't, and cuts down some on the glebe?" "no, spargo--not a bit. there at the winder, smelling to the jessamine, is the new rector's adviser and agent. go round by the front door into the garding, and say a word to him--you understand, and--" mr. scantlebray tapped his palm. "do now go round and have a sniff of the jessamine, mr. spargo, and i don't fancy mr. cargreen will advise the rector to use home-grown timber. he'll tell him it sleeps away, gets the rot, comes more expensive in the long run." the valuer took a wing of chicken and a little ham, and then shouted, with his mouth full--"come in!" the door opened and admitted a farmer. "how do, mr. joshua? middlin'?" "middlin', sir, thanky'." "and what have you come about, sir?" "well--mr. scantlebray, sir! i fancy you ha'n't offered me quite enough for carting away of all the rummage from them buildings as is coming down. 'tis a terrible lot of stone, and i'm to take 'em so far away." "why not?" "well, sir, it's such a lot of work for the bosses, and the pay so poor." "not a morsel, joshua--not a morsel." "well, sir, i can't do it at the price." "oh, joshua! joshua! i thought you'd a better eye to the future. don't you see that the new rector will have to build up all these out-buildings again, and where else is he to get stone except out of your quarry, or some of the old stone you have carted away, which you will have the labor of carting back?" "well, sir, i don't know." "but i do, joshua." "the new rector might go elsewhere for stone." "not he. look there, at the winder is mr. cargreen, and he's in with the new parson, like a brother--knows his very soul. the new parson comes from birmingham. what can he tell about building-stone here? mr. cargreen will tell him yours is the only stuff that ain't powder." "but, sir, he may not rebuild." "he must. mr. cargreen will tell him that he can't let the glebe without buildings; and he can't build without your quarry stone: and if he has your quarry stone--why, you will be given the carting also. are you satisfied?" "yes--if mr. cargreen would be sure----" "he's there at the winder, a-smelling to the jessamine. you go round and have a talk to him, and make him understand--you know. he's a little hard o' hearing; but the drum o' his ear is here," said scantlebray, tapping his palm. mr. scantlebray was now left to himself to discuss the chicken wing--the liver wing he had taken--and sip the port; a conversation was going on in an undertone at the window; but that concerned mr. cargreen and not himself, so he paid no attention to it. after a while, however, when this hum ceased, he turned his head, and called out: "old man! how about your lunch?" "i'm coming." "and you found the jessamine very sweet?" "beautiful! beautiful!" "taste this port. it is not what it should be: some the old fellow laid in when he could afford it--before he married. it is passed, and going back; should have been drunk five years ago." mr. cargreen came to the table, and seated himself. then mr. scantlebray flapped his arms, shook out his legs, and settled himself to the enjoyment of the lunch, in the society of mr. cargreen. "the merry-thought! pull with me, old man?" "certainly!" mr. scantlebray and mr. cargreen were engaged on the merry-thought, each endeavoring to steal an advantage on the other, by working the fingers up the bone unduly, when the window was darkened. without desisting from pulling at the merry-thought each turned his head, and scantlebray at once let go his end of the bone. at the window stood captain coppinger looking in at the couple, with his elbow resting on the window-sill. mr. scantlebray flattered himself that he was on good terms with all the world, and he at once with hilarity saluted the captain by raising the fingers greased by the bone to his brow. "didn't reckon on seeing you here, cap'n." "i suppose not." "come and pick a bone with us?" coppinger laughed a short snort through his nostrils. "i have a bone to pick with you already." "never! no, never!" "you have forced yourself on miss trevisa to act as her agent and valuer in the matter of dilapidations." "not forced, captain. she asked me to give her friendly counsel. we are old acquaintances." "i will not waste words. give me her letter. she no longer requires your advice and counsel. i am going to act for her." "you, cap'n! lor' bless me! you don't mean to say so!" "yes. i will protect her against being pillaged. she is my housekeeper." "but see! she is only executrix. she gets nothing out of the property." "no--but her niece and nephew do. take it that i act for them. give me up her letter." mr. scantlebray hesitated. "but, cap'n, i've been to vast expense. i've entered into agreements----" "with whom?" "with carpenter and mason about the repairs." "give me the agreements." "not agreements exactly. they sent me in their estimates, and i accepted them, and set them to work." "give me the estimates." mr. scantlebray flapped all his limbs, and shook his head. "you don't suppose i carry these sort of things about with me?" "i have no doubt whatever they are in your pocket." scantlebray fidgeted. "cap'n, try this port--a little going back, but not to be sneezed at." coppinger leaned forward through the window. "who is that man with you?" "mr. cargreen." "what is he here for?" "i am agent for the reverend mules, the newly appointed rector," said mr. cargreen, with some dignity. "then i request you both to step to the window to me." the two men looked at each other. scantlebray jumped up, and cargreen followed. they stood in the window-bay at a respectful distance from cruel coppinger. "i suppose you know who i am?" said the latter, fixing his eyes on cargreen. "i believe i can form a guess." "and your duty to your client is to make out as bad a case as you can against the two children. they have had just one thousand pounds left them. you are going to get as much of that away from them as you are permitted." "my good sir--allow me to explain----" "there is no need," said coppinger. "suffice it that you are one side. i--cruel coppinger--on the other. do you understand what that means?" mr. cargreen became alarmed, his face became very blank. "i am not a man to waste words. i am not a man that many in cornwall would care to have as an adversary. do you ever travel at night, mr. cargreen?" "yes, sir, sometimes." "through the lanes and along the lonely roads?" "perhaps, sir--now and then." "so do i," said coppinger. he drew a pistol from his pocket, and played with it. the two "dilapidators" shrank back. "so do i," said coppinger; "but i never go unarmed. i would advise you to do the same--if you are my adversary." "i hope, captain, that--that----" "if those children suffer through you more than what i allow"--coppinger drew up his one shoulder that he could move--"i should advise you to consider what mrs. cargreen will have to live on when a widow." then he turned to scantlebray, who was sneaking behind the window-curtain. "miss trevisa's letter, authorizing you to act for her?" scantlebray, with shaking hand, groped for his pocket-book. "and the two agreements or estimates you signed." scantlebray gave him the letter. "the agreements also." nervously the surveyor groped again, and reluctantly produced them. captain coppinger opened them with his available hand. "what is this? five pounds in pencil added to each, and then summed up in the total? what is the meaning of that, pray?" mr. scantlebray again endeavored to disappear behind the curtain. "come forward!" shouted captain cruel, striking the window-sill with the pistol. scantlebray jumped out of his retreat at once. "what is the meaning of these two five pounds?" "well, sir--captain--it is usual; every one does it. it is my--what d'y' call it!--consideration for accepting the estimates." "and added to each, and then charged to the orphans, who pay you to act in their interest--so they pay wittingly, directly, and unwittingly, indirectly. well for you and for mrs. scantlebray that i release you of your obligation to act for mother dunes--i mean miss trevisa." "sir," said cargreen, "under the circumstances, under intimidation, i decline to sully my fingers with the business. i shall withdraw." "no, you shall not," said cruel coppinger, resolutely. "you shall act, and act as i approve; and in the end it shall not be to your disadvantage." then, without a word of farewell, he stood up, slipped the pistol back into his pocket, and strode away. mr. cargreen had become white, or rather, the color of dough. after a moment he recovered himself somewhat, and, turning to scantlebray, with a sarcastic air, said-- "i hope _you_ enjoy the jessamine. they don't smell particularly sweet to me." "orful!" groaned scantlebray. he shook himself--almost shaking off all his limbs in the convulsion--"old man--them jessamines is orful!" chapter xii. the cave. some weeks slipped by without bringing to judith any accession of anxiety. she did not go again to pentyre glaze, but her aunt came once or twice in the week to polzeath to see her. moreover, miss dionysia's manner toward her was somewhat less contrary and vexatious, and she seemed to put on a conciliatory manner, as far as was possible for one so angular and crabbed. gracious she could not be; nature had made it as impossible for her to be gracious in manner as to be lovely in face and graceful in movement. moreover, judith observed that her aunt looked at her with an expression of perplexity, as though seeking in her to find an answer to a riddle that vexed her brain. and so it was. aunt dunes could not understand the conduct of coppinger toward judith and her brother. nor could she understand how a child like her niece could have faced and defied a man of whom she herself stood in abject fear. judith had behaved to the smuggler in a way that no man in the whole countryside would have ventured to behave. she had thrown him at her feet, half killed him, and yet cruel coppinger did not resent what had been done; on the contrary, he went out of his way to interfere in the interest of the orphans. he was not the man to concern himself in other people's affairs; why should he take trouble on behalf of judith and her brother? that he did it out of consideration for herself, miss trevisa had not the assurance to believe. aunt dunes put a few searching questions to judith, but drew from her nothing that explained the mystery. the girl frankly told her of her visit to the glaze and interview with the crippled smuggler, of his offer to her of some of his spoil, and of her refusal to receive a present from him. miss trevisa approved of her niece's conduct in this respect. it would not have befitted her to accept anything. judith, however, did not communicate to her aunt the closing scene in that interview. she did not tell her that coppinger had kissed her hand, nor his excuse for having done so, that he was offering homage to a queen. for one thing, judith did not attach any importance to this incident. she had always heard that coppinger was a wild and insolent man, wild and insolent in his dealings with his fellow-men, therefore doubtless still more so in his treatment of defenceless women. he had behaved to her in the rude manner in which he would behave to any peasant girl or sailor's daughter who caught his fancy, and she resented his act as an indignity, and his excuse for it as a prevarication. and, precisely, because he had offended her maidenly dignity, she blushed to mention it, even to her aunt, resolving in her own mind not to subject herself to the like again. miss trevisa, on several occasions, invited judith to come and see her at pentyre glaze, but the girl always declined the invitation. judith's estimate of cruel coppinger was modified. he could not be the utter reprobate she had always held him to be. she fully acknowledged that there was an element of good in the man, otherwise he would not have forgiven the injury done him, nor would he have interfered to protect her and jamie from the fraud and extortion of the "dilapidators." she trusted that the stories she had heard of coppinger's wild and savage acts were false, or overcolored. her dear father had been misled by reports, as she had been, and it was possible that coppinger had not really been the impediment in her father's way that the late rector had supposed. jamie was happy. he was even, in a fashion, making himself useful. he helped mr. menaida in his bird-stuffing on rainy days; he did more, he ran about the cliffs, learned the haunts of the wild-fowl, ascertained where they nested, made friends with preventive men, and some of those fellows living on shore, without any very fixed business, who rambled over the country with their guns, and from these he was able to obtain birds that he believed mr. menaida wanted. judith was glad that the boy should be content, and enjoy the fresh air and some freedom. she would have been less pleased had she seen the companions jamie made. but the men had rough good-humor, and were willing to oblige the half-witted boy, and they encouraged him to go with them shooting, or to sit with them in their huts. jamie manifested so strong a distaste for books, and lesson time being one of resistance, pouting, tears, and failures, that judith thought it not amiss to put off the resumption of these irksome tasks for a little while, and to let the boy have his run of holidays. she fancied that the loss of his father and of his old home preyed on him more than was actually the case; and believed that by giving him freedom till the first pangs were over, he might not suffer in the way that she had done. for a fortnight or three weeks judith's time had been so fully engaged at the parsonage, that she could not have devoted much of it to jamie, even had she thought it desirable to keep him to his lessons; nor could she be with him much. she did not press him to accompany her to the rectory, there to spend the time that she was engaged sorting her father's letters and memoranda, his account-books and collection of extracts made from volumes he had borrowed, as not only would it be tedious to him, but he would distract her mind. she must see that he was amused, and must also provide that he was not at mischief. she did take him with her on one or two occasions, and found that he had occupied himself in disarranging much that she had put together for the sale. but she would not allow him wholly to get out of the way of looking to her as his companion, and she abandoned an afternoon to him now and then, as her work became less arduous, to walk with him on the cliffs or in the lanes, to listen to his childish prattle, and throw herself into his new pursuits. the link between them must not be allowed to become relaxed, and, so far as in her lay, she did her utmost to maintain it in its former security. but, with his father's death, and his removal to mr. menaida's cottage, a new world had opened to jamie; he was brought into association with men and boys whom he had hardly known by sight previously, and without any wish to disengage himself from his sister's authority, he was led to look to others as comrades, and to listen to and follow their promptings. "come, jamie," said judith, one day. "now i really have some hours free, and i will go a stroll with you on the downs." the boy jumped with pleasure, and caught her hand. "i may take tib with me?" "oh yes, certainly, dear." tib was a puppy that had been given to jamie by one of his new acquaintances. the day was fresh. clouds driving before the wind, now obscuring the sun and threatening rain, then clearing and allowing the sun to turn the sea green and gild the land. owing to the breeze the sea was ruffled and strewn with breakers shaking their white foam. "i am going to show you something i have found, ju," said the boy. "you will follow, will you not?" "lead the way. what is it?" "come and see. i found it by myself. i shan't tell any one but you." he conducted his sister down the cliffs to the beach of a cove. judith halted a moment to look along the coast with its mighty, sombre cliffs, and the sea glancing with sun or dulled by shadow to tintagel head standing up at the extreme point to the northeast, with the white surf lashing and heaving around it. then she drew her skirts together, and descended by the narrow path along which, with the lightness and confidence of a kid, jamie was skipping. "jamie!" she said. "have you seen?--there is a ship standing in the offing." "yes; she has been there all the morning." then she went further. the cove was small, with precipitous cliffs rising from the sand to the height of two to three hundred feet. the seagulls screamed and flashed to and fro, and the waves foamed and threw up their waters lashed into froth as white and light as the feathers on the gulls. in the concave bay the roar of the plunging tide reverberated from every side. neither the voice of jamie, when he shouted to his sister from some feet below, nor the barking of his little dog that ran with him, could be distinguished by her. the descent was rapid and rugged, yet not so precipitous but that it could be gone over by asses or mules. evidence that these creatures had passed that way remained in the impression of their hoofs in the soil, wherever a soft stratum intervened between the harder shelves of the rock, and had crumbled on the path into clay. judith observed that several paths--not all mule-paths--converged lower down at intervals in the way by which she descended, so that it would be possible, apparently, to reach the sand from various points in the down, as well as by the main track by which she was stepping to the beach. "jamie!" called judith, as she stood on the last shoulder of rock before reaching the beach over a wave-washed and smoothed surface. "jamie! i can see that same ship from here." but her brother could not hear her. he was throwing stones for the dog to run after, and meet a wave as it rushed in. the tide was going out: it had marked its highest elevation by a bow of foam and strips of dark seaweed and broken shells. judith stepped along this line, and picked out the largest ribbon of weed she could find. she would hang it in her bedroom to tell her the weather. the piece that had been wont to act as barometer was old, and, besides, it had been lost in the recent shift and confusion. jamie came up to her. "now, ju, mind and watch me, or you will lose me altogether." then he ran forward, with tib dancing and yelping round him. presently he scrambled up a shelf of rock inclined from the sea, and up after him, yelping, scrambled tib. in a moment both disappeared over the crest. judith went up to the ridge and called to her brother. "i cannot climb this, jamie." but in another moment, a hundred yards to her right, round the extremity of the reef, came tib and his master, the boy dancing and laughing, the dog ducking his head, shaking his ears, and, all but laughing also, evidently enjoying the fun as much as jamie. "this way, ju!" shouted the boy, and signed to his sister. she could not hear his voice, but obeyed his gestures. the reef ran athwart the top of the bay, like the dorsal, jagged ridge of a crocodile half buried in the sand. judith drew her skirts higher and closer, as the sand was wet, and there were pools by the rock. then, holding her ribbon of seaweed by the harsh, knotted root, torn up along with the leaf, and trailing it behind her, she followed her brother, reached the end of the rock, turned and went in the traces of jamie and tib in the sand parallel to her former course. suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, on the right hand there opened before her, in the face of the cliff, a cave, the entrance to which was completely masked by the ridge she had turned. into this cave went jamie with his dog. "i am not obliged to follow you there!" protested judith; but he made such vehement signs to her to follow him that she good-humoredly obeyed. the cave ran in a long way, at first at no great incline, then it became low overhead, and immediately after the floor inclined rapidly upward, and the vault took a like direction. moreover, light appeared in front. here, to judith's surprise, she saw a large boat, painted gray, furnished with oars and boat-hook. she was attached by a chain to a staple in the rock. judith examined her with a little uneasiness. no name was on her. the sides of the cave at this point formed shelves, not altogether natural, and that these were made use of was evident, because on them lay staves of broken casks, a four-flanged boat-anchor, and some oars. out of the main trunk cave branched another that was quite dark, and smaller; in this, judith, whose eyes were becoming accustomed to the twilight, thought she saw the bows of a smaller boat, also painted gray. "jamie!" said judith, now in serious alarm; "we ought not to be here. it is not safe. do--do come away at once." "why, what is there to harm us?" "my dear, do come away." she turned to retrace her steps, but jamie stopped her. "not that way, ju! i have another by which to get out. follow me still." he led the way up the steep rubble slope, and the light fell fuller from above. the cave was one of those into which when the sea rolls and chokes the entrance, the compressed air is driven out by a second orifice. they reached a sort of well or shaft, at the bottom of which they stood, but it did not open vertically but bent over somewhat, so that from below the sky could not be seen, though the light entered. a narrow path was traced in the side, and up this jamie and the dog scrambled, followed by judith, who was most anxious to escape from a place which she had no doubt was one of the shelter caves of the smugglers--perhaps of cruel coppinger, whose house was not a mile distant. the ascent was steep, the path slippery in places, and therefore dangerous. jamie made nothing of it, nor did the little dog, but judith picked her way with care; she had a good steady head, and did not feel giddy, but she was not sure that her feet might not slide in the clay where wet with water that dripped from the sides. as she neared the entrance she saw that hartstongue and maidenhair fern had rooted themselves in the sheltered nooks of this tunnel. after a climb of a hundred feet she came out on a ledge in the face of the cliff above the bay, to see, with a gasp of dismay, her brother in the hand of cruel coppinger, the boy paralyzed with fear so that he could neither stir nor cry out. "what!" exclaimed the captain, "you here?" as he saw judith stand before him. the puppy was barking and snapping at his boots. coppinger let go jamie, stooped and caught the dog by the neck. "look at me," said the smuggler sternly, addressing the frightened boy. then he swung the dog above his head and dashed it down the cliffs; it caught, then rolled, and fell out of sight--certainly with the life beaten out of it. "this will be done to you," said he; "i do not say that i would do it. she"--he waved his hand toward judith--"stands between us. but if any of the fifteen to twenty men who know this place and come here should chance to meet you as i have met you, he would treat you without compunction as i have treated that dog. and if he were to catch you below--you have heard of wyvill, the preventive man?--you would fare as did he. thank your sister that you are alive now. go on--that way--up the cliff." he pointed with a telescope he held. jamie fled up the steep path like the wind. "judith," said coppinger, "will you stand surety that he does not tell tales?" "i do not believe he will say anything." "i do not ask you to be silent. i know you will not speak. but if you mistrust his power to hold his tongue, send him away--send him out of the country--as you love him." "he shall never come here again," said judith, earnestly. "that is well; he owes his life to you." judith noticed that cruel coppinger's left arm was no more in a sling, nor in bands. he saw that she observed this, and smiled grimly. "i have my freedom with this arm once more--for the first time to-day." chapter xiii. in the dusk. "kicking along, mr. menaida, old man?" asked mr. scantlebray, in his loud, harsh voice, as he shook himself inside the door of uncle zachie's workshop. "and the little 'uns? late in life to become nurse and keep the bottle and pap-bowl going, eh, old man? how's the orphings? eating their own weight of victuals at twopence-ha'penny a head, eh? my experience of orphings isn't such as would make a man hilarious, and feel that he was filling his pockets." "sit you down, sir; you'll find a chair. not that one, there's a dab of arsenical paste got on to that. sit you down, sir, over against me. glad to see you and have some one to talk to. here am i slaving all day, worn to fiddlestrings. there's squire rashleigh, of menabilly, must have a glaucous gull stuffed at once that he has shot; and there's sir john st. aubyn, of clowance, must have a case of kittiwakes by a certain day; and an institution in london wants a genuine specimen of a cornish chough. do they think i'm a tradesman to be ordered about? that i've not an income of my own, and that i am dependent on my customers? i'll do no more. i'll smoke and play the piano. i've no time to exchange a word with any one. come, sit down. what's the news?" "it's a bad world," said mr. scantlebray, setting himself into a chair. "that's to say, the world is well enough if it warn't for there being too many rascals in it. i consider it's a duty on all right-thinking men to clear them off." "well, the world would be better if we had the making of it," acquiesced mr. menaida. "bless you! i've no time for anything. i like to do a bit of bird-stuffing just as a sort of relaxation after smoking, but to be forced to work more than one cares--i won't do it! besides, it is not wholesome. i shall be poisoned with arsenic. i must have some antidote. so will you, sir--eh? a drop of real first-rate cognac?" "thank you, sir--old man--i don't mind dipping a feather and drawing it across my lips." jamie had been so frightened by the encounter with cruel coppinger that he was thoroughly upset. he was a timid, nervous child, and judith had persuaded him to go to bed. she sat by him, holding his hand, comforting him as best she might, when he sobbed over the loss of his pup, and cheering him when he clung to her in terror at the reminiscence of the threats of the captain to deal with him as he had with tib. judith was under no apprehension of his revisiting the cave; he had been too thoroughly frightened ever to venture there again. she said nothing to impress this on him; all her efforts were directed toward allaying his alarms. just as she hoped that he was dropping off into unconsciousness, he suddenly opened his eyes, and said, "ju." "yes, dear." "i've lost the chain." "what chain, my pretty?" "tib's chain." the pup had been a trouble when jamie went with the creature through the village or through a farm-yard. he would run after and nip the throats of chickens. tib and his master had got into trouble on this account; accordingly judith had turned out a light steel chain, somewhat rusty, and a dog collar from among the sundries that encumbered the drawers and closets of the rectory. this she had given to her brother, and whenever the little dog was near civilization he was obliged to submit to the chain. judith, to console jamie for his loss, had told him that in all probability another little dog might be procured to be his companion. alas! the collar was on poor tib, but she represented to him that if another dog were obtained it would be possible to buy or beg a collar for him, supposing a collar to be needful. this had satisfied jamie, and he was about to doze off, when suddenly he woke to say that the chain was lost. "where did you lose the chain, jamie?" "i threw it down." "why did you do that?" "i thought i shouldn't want it when tib was gone." "and where did you throw it? perhaps it may be found again." "i won't go and look for it--indeed i won't." he shivered and clung to his sister. "where was it? perhaps i can find it." "i dropped it at the top--on the down when i came up the steps from--from that man, when he had killed tib." "you did not throw it over the cliff?" "no--i threw it down. i did not think i wanted it any more." "i dare say it may be found. i will go and see." "no--no! don't, ju. you might meet that man." judith smiled. she felt that she was not afraid of that man--he would not hurt her. as soon as the boy was asleep, judith descended the stairs, leaving the door ajar, that she might hear should he wake in a fright, and entering the little sitting-room, took up her needles and wool, and seated herself quietly by the window, where the last glimmer of twilight shone, to continue her work at a jersey she was knitting for jamie's use in the winter. the atmosphere was charged with tobacco-smoke, almost as much as that of the adjoining workshop. there was no door between the rooms; none had been needed formerly, and mr. menaida did not think of supplying one now. it was questionable whether one would have been an advantage, as jamie ran to and fro, and would be certain either to leave the door open or to slam it, should one be erected. moreover, a door meant payment to a carpenter for timber and labor. there was no carpenter in the village, and mr. menaida spent no more money than he was absolutely obliged to spend, and how could he on an annuity of fifty pounds. judith dropped her woolwork in her lap and fell into meditation. she reviewed what had just taken place: she saw before her again coppinger, strongly built, with his dark face, and eyes that glared into the soul to its lowest depths, illumining all, not as the sun, but as the lightning, and suffering not a thought, not a feeling to remain obscure. a second time had jamie done what angered him, but on this occasion he had curbed his passion and had contented himself with a threat--nay, not even that--with a caution. he had expressly told jamie, that he himself would not hurt him, but that he ran into danger from others. she was again looking at coppinger as he spoke; she saw the changes in his face, the alterations of expression in his eyes, in his intonation. she recalled the stern, menacing tone in which he had spoken to jamie, and then the inflexion of voice as he referred to her. a dim surmise--a surmise she was ashamed to allow could be true--rose in her mind and thrilled her with alarm. was it possible that he _liked_ her--liked--she could, she would give even in thought no other term to describe that feeling which she feared might possibly have sprung up in his breast. that he liked her--after all she had done? was that why he had come to the cottage the day after his accident? was that what had prompted the strange note sent to her along with the keg of spirits to uncle zachie? was that the meaning of the offer of the choice of all his treasures?--of the vehemence with which he had seized her hand and had kissed it? was that the interpretation of those words of excuse in which he had declared her his queen? if this were so, then much that had been enigmatical in his conduct was explained--his interference with the valuers for dilapidations, the strange manner in which he came across her path almost whenever she went to the rectory. and this was the signification of the glow in his eyes, the quaver in his voice, when he addressed her. was it so?--could it be so?--that he liked her?--he--cruel coppinger--_cruel_ coppinger--the terror of the country round--liked _her_, the weakest creature that could be found? the thought of such a possibility frightened her. that the wild smuggler-captain should hate her she could have borne with better than that he should like her. that she was conscious of a sense of pleased surprise, intermixed with fear, was inevitable, for judith was a woman, and there was something calculated to gratify feminine pride in the presumption that the most lawless and headstrong man on the cornish coast should have meant what he said when he declared himself her subject. these thoughts, flushing and paling her cheek, quickening and staying her pulse, so engrossed judith that, though she heard the voices in the adjoining apartment, she paid no heed to what was said. the wind, which had been fresh all day, was blowing stronger. it battered at the window where judith sat, as though a hand struck and brushed over the panes. "hot or cold?" asked uncle zachie. "thanky', neither. water can be got everywhere, but such brandy as this, old man--only here." "you are good to say so. it is coppinger's present to me." "coppinger!--his very good health, and may he lie in clover to-morrow night. he's had one arm bound, i've seen; perhaps he may have two before the night grows much older." mr. menaida raised his brows. "i do not understand you." "i daresay not," said scantlebray. "it's the duty of all right-minded men to clear the world of rascals. i will do my duty, please the pigs. would you mind--just another drop?" after his glass had been refilled, mr. scantlebray leaned back in his chair and said: "it's a wicked world, and, between you and me and the sugar dissolving at the bottom of my glass, you won't find more rascality anywhere than in my profession, and one of the biggest rascals in it is mr. cargreen. he's on the side against the orphings. if you've the faculty of pity in you, pity them--first, because they've him agin' 'em, and, secondly, because they've lost me as their protector. you know whom they got in place of me? i wish them joy of him. but they won't have his wing over them long, i can tell you." "you think not?" "sure of it." "you think he'll throw it up?" "i rather suspect he won't be at liberty to attend to it. he'll want his full attention to his own consarns." mr. scantlebray tipped off his glass. "it's going to be a dirty night," said he. "you won't mind my spending an hour or two with you, will you?" "i shall be delighted. have you any business in the place?" "business--no. a little pleasure, maybe." after a pause, he said, "but, old man, i don't mind telling you what it is. you are mum, i know. it is this--the trap will shut to-night. snap it goes, and the rats are fast. you haven't been out on the cliffs to-day, have you?" "no--bless me!--no, i have not." "the black prince is in the offing." "the black prince?" "ay, and she will run her cargo ashore to-night. now, i'm one who knows a little more than most. i'm one o' your straightfor'ard 'uns, always ready to give a neighbor a lift in my buggy, and a helping hand to the man that is down, and a frank, outspoken fellow am i to every one i meet--so that, knocking about as i do, i come to know and to hear more than do most, and i happen to have learnt into what cove the black prince will run her goods. i've a bone to pick with captain cruel, so i've let the preventive men have the contents of my information-pottle, and they will be ready to-night for coppinger and the whole party of them. the cutter will slip in between them and the sea, and a party will be prepared to give them the kindliest welcome by land. that is the long and short of it--and, old man, i shall dearly love to be there and see the sport. that is why i wish to be with you for an hour or two. will you come as well?" "bless me!" exclaimed mr. menaida, "not i! you don't suppose coppinger and his men will allow themselves to be taken easily? there'll be a fight." "and pistols go off," said scantlebray. "i shall not be surprised or sorry if captain cruel be washed up one of these next tides with a bullet through his head. ebenezer wyvill is one of the guards, and he has his brother's death to avenge." "do you really believe that coppinger killed him?" mr. scantlebray shrugged his shoulders. "it don't matter much what _i_ think, to-night, but what the impression is that ebenezer wyvill carries about with him. i imagine that if ebenezer comes across the captain he won't speak to him by word of mouth, nor trouble himself to feel for a pair of handcuffs. so--fill my glass again, old man, and we'll drink to a cold bed and an indigestible lump--somewhere--in his head or in his gizzard--to cruel coppinger, and the wiping off of old scores--always a satisfaction to honest men." scantlebray rubbed his hands. "it is a satisfaction to the conscience--to ferret out the rats sometimes." chapter xiv. warning of danger. judith, lost for awhile in her dreams, had been brought to a sense of what was the subject of conversation in the adjoining room by the mention of coppinger's name more than once. she heard the desultory talk for awhile without giving it much attention, but scantlebray's voice was of that harsh and penetrating nature that to exclude it the ears must be treated as ulysses treated the ears of his mariners as he passed the rock of the sirens. presently she became alive to the danger in which coppinger stood. scantlebray spoke plainly, and she understood. there could be no doubt about it. the black prince belonged to the captain, and his dealings with and through that vessel were betrayed. not only was coppinger, as the head of a gang of smugglers, an object worth capture to the preventive men, but the belief that he had caused the death of at least one of their number had embittered them against him to such an extent that, when the opportunity presented itself to them of capturing him red-handed engaged in his smuggling transactions, they were certain to deal with him in a way much more summary than the processes of a court of a justice. the brother of the man who had been murdered was among the coast-guard, and he would not willingly let slip a chance of avenging the death of jonas wyvill. coppinger was not in a condition to defend himself effectively. on that day for the first time, had he left off his bandages, and his muscles were stiff and the newly set bones still weak. what was to be done? could judith go to bed and let coppinger run into the net prepared for his feet--go to his death? no sooner, however, had judith realized the danger that menaced coppinger than she resolved on doing her utmost to avert it. she, and she alone, could deliver him from the disgrace, if not the death, that menaced him. she stole lightly from the room and got her cloak, drew the hood over her head, and sallied forth into the night. heavy clouds rolled over the sky, driven before a strong gale. now and then they opened and disclosed the twilight sky, in which faintly twinkled a few stars, and at such times a dim light fell over the road, but in another moment lumbering masses of vapor were carried forward, blotting out the clear tract of sky, and at the same time blurring all objects on earth with one enveloping shadow. judith's heart beat furiously, and timidity came over her spirit as she left the cottage, for she was unaccustomed to be outside the house at such an hour; but the purpose she had before her eyes gave her strength and courage. it seemed to her that providence had suddenly constituted her the guardian angel of coppinger, and she flattered herself that, were she to be the means of delivering him from the threatened danger, she might try to exact of him a promise to discontinue so dangerous and so questionable a business. if this night she were able to give him warning in time, it would be some return made for his kindness to her, and some reparation made for the injury she had done him. when for an instant there was a rift in the clouds, and she could look up and see the pure stars, it seemed to her that they shone down on her like angels' eyes, watching, encouraging, and promising her protection. she thought of her father--of how his mind had been set against coppinger; now, she felt convinced, he saw that his judgment had been warped, and that he would bless her for doing that which she had set her mind to accomplish. her father had been ever ready frankly to acknowledge himself in the wrong when he had been convinced that he was mistaken, and now in the light of eternity, with eyes undarkened by prejudice, he must know that he was in error in his condemnation of coppinger, and be glad that his daughter was doing something to save that man from an untimely and bloody death. not a soul did judith meet or pass on her way. she had determined in the first case to go to pentyre glaze. she would see if captain cruel were there. she trusted he was at his house. if so, her course was simple; she would warn him and return to mr. menaida's cottage as quickly as her feet would bear her. the wind caught her cloak, and she turned in alarm, fancying that it was plucked by a human hand. no one, however, was behind her. in pentyre lane it was dark, very dark. the rude half-walls, half-hedges stood up high, walled toward the lane hedged with earth and planted with thorns toward the field. the wind hissed through the bushes; there was an ash tree by a gate. one branch sawed against another, producing a weird, even shrill sound like a cry. the way led past a farm, and she stole along before it with the utmost fear as she heard the dog in the yard begin to bark furiously, and as she believed that it was not chained up, might rush forth at her. it might fall upon her, and hold her there till the farmer came forth and found her, and inquired into the reason of her being there at night. if found and recognized, what excuse could she give? what explanation could satisfy the inquisitive? she did not breathe freely till she had come out on the down; the dog was still barking, but, as he had not pursued her, she was satisfied that he was not at large. her way now lay for a while over open common, and then again entered a lane between the hedges that enclosed the fields and meadows of the glaze. a dense darkness fell over the down, and judith for a while was uncertain of her way, the track being undistinguishable from the short turf on either side. suddenly she saw some flashes of light that ran along the ground and then disappeared. "this is the road," said a voice. judith's heart stood still, and her blood curdled in her veins. if the cloud were to roll away--and she could see far off its silvery fringe, she would become visible. the voice was that of a man, but whether that of a smuggler or of a coast-guard she could not guess. by neither did she care to be discovered. by the dim, uncertain light she stole off the path, and sank upon the ground among some masses of gorse that stood on the common. between the prickly tufts she might lie, and in her dark cloak be mistaken for a patch of furze. she drew her feet under the skirt, that the white stockings might not betray her, and plucked the hood of her cloak closely round her face. the gorse was sharp, and the spikes entered her hands and feet, and pricked her as she turned herself about between the bushes to bring herself deeper among them. from where she lay she could see the faintly illumined horizon, and against that horizon figures were visible, one--then another--a third--she could not count accurately, for there came several together; but she was convinced there must have been over a dozen men. "it's a'most too rough to-night, i reckon," said one of the men. "no, it is not--the wind is not direct on shore. they'll try it." "coppinger and his chaps are down in the cove already," said a third. "they wouldn't go out if they wasn't expecting the boats from the black prince." "you are sure they're down, wyvill?" "sure and sartain. i seed 'em pass, and mighty little i liked to let 'em go by--without a pop from my pistol. but i'd my orders. no orders against the pistol going off of itself, captain, if i have a chance presently?" no answer was given to this; but he who had been addressed as captain asked-- "are the asses out?" "yes; a whole score, i reckon." "then they'll come up the mule path. we must watch that. lieutenant hanson will be ready with the cutter to run out and stop their way back by water to the prince. the prince's men will take to the sea, and he'll settle with them; but coppinger's men will run up the cliffs, and we must tackle them. go on." several now disappeared into the darkness, moving toward the sea. "here, a word with you, wyvill," said the captain. "right, sir--here i be." "dash it!--it is so dark! here, step back--a word in your ear." "right you are, sir." they came on to the turf close to where judith crouched. "what is that?" said the captain, hastily. "what, sir?" "i thought i trod on something like cloth. have you a light?" "no, sir! home has the dark lantern." "i suppose it is nothing. what is all that dark stuff there?" "i'll see, sir," said wyvill, stooping, and with his hand. "by george, sir! it's naught but fuzz." "very well, wyvill--a word between us. i know that if you have the chance you intend to send a bullet into coppinger. i don't blame you. i won't say i wouldn't do it--unofficially--but looky' here, man, if you can manage without a bullet--say a blow with the butt-end on his forehead and a roll over the cliffs--i'd prefer it. in self-defence of course we must use fire-arms. but there's some squeamish stomachs, you understand; and if it can come about accidentally, as it were--as if he'd missed his footing--i'd prefer it. make it pleasant all around, if you can." "yes, sir; leave it to me." "it oughtn't to be difficult, you know, wyvill. i hear he's broke one arm, so is like to be insecure in his hold climbing the cliffs. then no questions asked, and more pleasant, you know. you understand me?" "yes, sir; thank you, sir." then they went on, and were lost to sight and to hearing. for some minutes judith did not stir. she lay, recovering her breath; she had hardly ventured to breathe while the two men were by her, the captain with his foot on her skirt. now she remained motionless, to consider what was to be done. it was of no further use her going on to pentyre glaze. coppinger had left it. wyvill, who had been planted as spy, had seen him with his carriers defile out of the lane with the asses that were to bring up the smuggled goods from the shore. she dare not take the path by which on the preceding afternoon she had descended with jamie to the beach, for it was guarded by the preventive men. there was but one way by which she could reach the shore and warn coppinger, and that was by the chimney of the cave--a way dangerous in daylight, one, moreover, not easy to find at night. the mouth of the chimney opened upon a ledge that overhung the sea half-way down the face of the precipice, and this ledge could only be reached by a narrow track--a track apparently traced by sheep. judith thought that she might find her way to that part of the down from which the descent was to be made; for she had noticed that what is locally called a "new-take" wall came near it, and if she could hit this wall, she believed she could trace it up to where it approached the cliff: and the track descended somewhere thereabouts. she waited where she lay till the heavy clouds rolled by, and for a brief space the sky was comparatively clear. then she rose, and took the direction in which she ought to go to reach the "new-take" wall. as she went over the down, she heard the sea roaring threateningly; on her left hand the glint of the light-house on trevose head gave her the direction she must pursue. but, on a down like that, with a precipice on one hand, in a light, uncertain at best, often in complete darkness, it was dangerous to advance except by thrusting the foot forward tentatively before taking a step. the sea and the gnawing winds caused the cliffs to crumble; bits were eaten out of the surface, and in places there were fissures in the turf where a rent had formed, and where shortly a mass would fall. it is said that the duties on customs were originally instituted in order to enable the crown to afford protection to trade against pirates. the pirates ceased to infest the seas, but the duties were not only taken off, but were increased, and became a branch of the public revenue. perhaps some consciousness that the profits were not devoted to the purpose originally intended, bred in the people on the coast a feeling of resentment against the imposition of duties. there certainly existed an impression, a conviction rather, that the violation of a positive law of this nature was in no respect criminal. adventurers embarked in the illicit traffic without scruple, as they did in poaching. the profit was great, and the danger run enhanced the excitement of the pursuit, and gave a sort of heroic splendor to the achievements of the successful smuggler. the government, to stop a traffic that injured legitimate trade and affected the revenue, imposed severe penalties. smuggling was classed among the felonies, "without benefit of clergy," the punishment for which was death and confiscation of goods. the consciousness that they would be dealt with with severity did not deter bold men from engaging in the traffic, but made them desperate in self-defence when caught. conflicts with revenue officers were not uncommon, and lives were lost on both sides. the smugglers were not bound together by any link, and sometimes one gang was betrayed by another, so as to divert suspicion and attention from their own misdeeds, or out of jealousy, or on account of a quarrel. it was so on this occasion: the success of coppinger, the ingenuity with which he had carried on his defiance of the law, caused envy of him, because he was a foreigner--was, at all events, not a cornishman; this had induced a rival to give notice to the revenue officers, through scantlebray--a convenient go-between in a good many questionable negotiations. the man who betrayed coppinger dared not be seen entering into communication with the officers of the law. he, therefore, employed scantlebray as the vehicle through whom, without suspicion resting on himself, his rival might be fallen upon and his proceedings brought to an end. it was now very dark. judith had reached and touched a wall; but in the darkness lost her bearings. the trevose light was no longer visible, and directly she left the wall to strike outward she became confused as direction, and in the darkness groped along with her feet, stretching her hands before her. then the rain came down, lashing in her face. the wind had shifted somewhat during the evening, and it was no guidance to judith to feel from what quarter the rain drove against her. moreover, the cove formed a great curve in the coast-line, and was indented deeply in some places, so that to grope round the edge without light in quest of a point only seen or noticed once, seemed a desperate venture. suddenly judith's foot caught. it was entangled, and she could not disengage it. she stooped, and put her hand on a chain. it was jamie's steel dog-chain, one link of which had caught in a tuft of rest-harrow. she had found the spot she wanted, and now waited only till the rain had rushed further inland, and a fringe of light appeared in the sky, to advance to the very edge of the cliff. she found it expedient to stoop as she proceeded, so as to discover some indications of the track. there were depressions where feet had worn the turf, and she set hers therein, and sought the next. thus, creeping and groping, she neared the edge. and now came the moment of supreme peril, when, trusting that she had found the right path, she must go over the brink. if she were mistaken, the next step would send her down two hundred feet, to where she heard the roar, and felt the breath of the sea stream up to her from the abyss. here she could distinguish nothing; she must trust to providence to guide her steps. she uttered a short and earnest prayer, and then boldly descended. she could not stoop now. to stoop was to dive headlong down. she felt her way, however, with her feet, reached one firm station, then another. her hands touched the grass and earth of the ragged margin, then with another step she was below it, and held to the rain-splashed fangs of rock. clinging, with her face inward, feeling with her feet, and never sure but that the next moment might see her launched into air, she stole onward, slowly, cautiously, and ever with the gnawing dread in her heart lest she should be too late. one intense point of consciousness stood out in her brain--it told her that if, while thus creeping down, there should come the flash and explosion of fire-arms, her courage would fail, her head would spin, and she would be lost. how long she was descending she could not tell, how many steps she took was unknown to her--she had not counted--but it seemed to her an entire night that passed, with every change of position an hour was marked; then, at last, she was conscious that she stood on more level ground. she had reached the terrace. a little further, and on her left hand, would open the mouth of the shaft, and she must descend that, in profoundest darkness. a cry! a light flashed into her eyes and dazzled her. a hand at the same moment clutched her, or she would have reeled back and gone over the cliff. the light was held to pour over her face. who held it and who grasped her she could not see; but she knew the moment she heard a voice exclaim-- "judith!" in her terror and exhaustion she could but gasp for breath for a few moments. by degrees her firmness and resolution returned, and she exclaimed, in broken tones, panting between every few words-- "captain cruel!--you are betrayed--they are after you!" he did not press her. he waited till she could speak again, lowering the lantern. then, without the glare in her eyes, she was able to speak more freely. "there is a boat--a revenue cutter--waiting in the bay--and--above--are the preventive men--and they will kill you." "indeed," said he. "and you have come to warn me?" "yes." "tell me--are there any above, where you came down!" "none; they are on the ass-path." "can you ascend as you came down?" "yes." he extinguished his lantern, or covered it. "i must no more show light. i must warn those below." he paused, then said-- "dare you mount alone." "i came down alone." "then do this one thing more for me. mount, and go to pentyre. tell your aunt--three lights--red, white, red; then ten minutes, and then, red, red, white. can you remember? repeat after me: 'three lights--red, white, red; then, ten minutes, and next, red, red, and white.'" judith repeated the words. "that is right. lose no time. i dare not give you a light. none must now be shown. the boat from the black prince is not in--this lantern was her guide. now it is out she will go back. you will remember the signals? i thank you for what you have done. there is but one woman would have done it, and that judith." he stepped inside the shaft to descend. when hidden, he allowed his light again to show, to assist him in his way down. judith only waited till her eyes, that had been dazzled by the light, were recovered, and then she braced herself to resume her climb; but now it was to be up the cliff. chapter xv. chained. to ascend is easier than to go down. judith was no longer alarmed. there was danger still, that was inevitable; but the danger was as nothing now to what it had been. it is one thing to descend in total darkness into an abyss where one knows that below are sharp rocks, and a drop of two hundred feet to a thundering, raging sea, racing up the sand, pouring over the shelves of rock, foaming where divided waves clash. when judith had been on the beach in the afternoon the tide was out; now it was flowing, and had swept over all that tract of white sand and pebble where she had walked. she could not indeed now see the water, but she heard the thud of a billow as it smote a rock, the boil and the hiss of the waves and spray. to step downward, groping the way, with a depth and a wild-throbbing sea beneath, demanded courage, and courage of no mean order; but it was other to mount, to be able to feel with the foot the ascent in the track, and to grope upward with the hand from one point of clutch to another, to know that every step upward was lessening the peril, and bringing nearer to the sward and to safety. without great anxiety, therefore, judith turned to climb. cruel coppinger had allowed her to essay it unaided. would he have done that had he thought it involved danger, or, rather, serious danger? judith was sure he would not. his confidence that she could climb to the summit unassisted made her confident. as she had descended she had felt an interior qualm and sinking at every step she took; there was no such sensation now as she mounted. she was not much inconvenienced by the wind, for the wind was not directly on shore; but it soughed about her, and eddies caught her cloak and jerked it. it would have been better had she left her cloak above on the turf. it incommoded her in her climb; it caught in the prongs of rock. the rain, the water running off the rock, had wet her shoes, soaked them, and every step was in moisture that oozed out of them. she was glad now to rest on her right hand. in descending, the left had felt and held the rock, and it had been rubbed and cut. probably it was bleeding. surely there was a little more light in the sky where the sky showed between the dense masses of vapor. judith did not observe this, for she did not look aloft; but she could see a steely tract of sea, fretted into foam, reflecting an illumination from above, greater than the twilight could cast. then she remembered that there had been a moon a few nights before, and thought that it was probably risen by this time. something chill and wet brushed her face. it startled her for a moment, and then she knew by the scent that it was a bunch of samphire growing out of the side of the crag. shrill in her ear came the scream of a gull that rushed by in the darkness, and she felt, or believed she felt, the fan from the wings. again it screamed, and near the ear it pierced her brain like an awl, and then again, still nearer, unnerving her. in the darkness she fancied that this gull was about to attack her with beak and claws, and she put up her left arm as a protection to her eyes. then there broke out a jabber of sea-birds' voices, laughing mockingly, at a little distance. whither had she got! the way was no longer easy--one step before another--there was a break of continuity in the path, if path the track could be called. judith stood still, and put forward her foot to test the rock in front. there was no place where it could rest. had she, bewildered by that gull, diverged from the track? it would be well to retreat a few steps. she endeavored to do this, and found that she encountered a difficulty in finding the place where she had just planted her foot. it was but too certain that she was off the track line. how to recover it she knew not. with the utmost difficulty she did reach a point in her rear where she could stand, clinging to the rock; but she clung now with both hands. there was no tuft of samphire to brush her face as she descended. she must have got wrong before she touched that. but where was the samphire? she cautiously felt along the surface of the crag in quest of it, but could not find it. there was, however, a little above her shoulder, a something that felt like a ledge, and which might be the track. if she had incautiously crept forward at a level without ascending rapidly enough, she was probably below the track. could she climb to this point--climb up the bare rock, with sheer precipice below her? and, supposing that the shelf she felt with her hand were not the track, could she descend again to the place where she had been? her brain spun. she lost all notion as to where she might be--perhaps she was below the path, perhaps she was above it. she could not tell. she stood with arms extended, clinging to the rock, and her heart beat in bounds against the flinty surface. the clasp of her cloak was pressing on her throat, and strangling her. the wind had caught the garment, and was playing with the folds, carrying it out and flapping it behind her over the gulf. it was irksome; it was a danger to her. she cautiously slid one hand to her neck, unhasped the mantle, and it was snatched from her shoulders and carried away. she was lighter without it, could move with greater facility; cold she was not, wet she might become, but what mattered that if she could reach the top of the cliff? not only on her own account was judith alarmed. she had undertaken a commission. she had promised to bear a message to her aunt from coppinger that concerned the safety of his men. what the signal meant she did not know, but suspected that it conveyed a message of danger. she placed both her hands on the ledge, and felt with her knee for some point on which to rest it, to assist her in lifting herself from where she stood to the higher elevation. there was a small projection, and after a moment's hesitation she drew her foot from the shelf whereon it had rested and leaned the left knee on this hunch. then she clung with both hands, and with them and her knee endeavored to heave herself up about four feet, that is, to the height of her shoulders. a convulsive quiver seized on her muscles. she was sustained by a knee and her hands only. if they gave way she could not trust to recover her previous lodgement place. one desperate strain, and she was on the ledge, on both knees, and was feeling with her hands to ascertain if she had found the track. her fingers touched thrift and passed over turf. she had not reached what she sought. she was probably farther from it than before. as all her members were quivering after the effort, she seated herself on the shelf she had reached, leaned back against the wet rock, and waited till her racing pulses had recovered evenness of flow, and her muscles had overcome the first effects of their tension. her position was desperate. rain and perspiration mingled dripped from her brow, ran over and blinded her eyes. her breath came in sobs between her parted lips. her ears were full of the booming of the surge far below, and the scarcely less noisy throb of her blood in her pulses. when she had started on her adventurous expedition she had seen some stars that had twinkled down on her, and had appeared to encourage her. now, not a star was visible, only, far off on the sea, a wan light that fell through a rent in the black canopy over an angry deep. beyond that all was darkness, between her and that all was darkness. as she recovered her self-possession, with the abatement of the tumult in her blood she was able to review her position, and calculate her chances of escape from it. up the track from the cave the smugglers would almost certainly escape, because that was the only way, unwatched, by which they could leave the beach without falling into the hands of the preventive men. if they came by the path--that path could not be far off, though in which direction it lay she could not guess. she would call, and then coppinger or some of his men would come to her assistance. by this means alone could she escape. there was nothing for her to do but to wait. she bent forward and looked down. she might have been looking into a well; but a little way out she could see, or imagine she saw, the white fringes of surf stealing in. there was not sufficient light for her to be certain whether she really saw foam, or whether her fancy, excited by the thunder of the tide, made her suppose she saw it. the shelf she occupied was narrow and inclined; if she slipped from it she could not trust to maintain herself on the lower shelf, certainly not if she slid down in a condition of unconsciousness. and now reaction after the strain was setting in, and she feared lest she might faint. in her pocket was the dog-chain that had caught her foot. she extracted that now, and groping along the wall of rock behind her, caught a stout tuft of coarse heather, wiry, well rooted; and she took the little steel chain and wound it about the branches and stem of the plant, and also about her wrist--her right wrist--so as to fasten her to the wall. that was some relief to her to know that in the event of her dropping out of consciousness there was something to hold her up, though that was only the stem of an erica, and her whole weight would rest on its rootlets. would they suffice to sustain her? it was doubtful; but there was nothing else on which she could depend. suddenly a stone whizzed past, struck the ledge, and rebounded. then came a shower of earth and pebbles. they did not touch her, but she heard them clatter down. surely they had been displaced by a foot, and that a foot passing above. then she heard a shot--also overhead, and a cry. she looked aloft, and saw against the half-translucent vapors a black struggling figure on the edge of the cliff. she saw it but for an instant, and then was struck on the face by an open hand, and a body crashed on to the shelf at her side, rolled over the edge, and plunged into the gulf below. she tried to cry, but her voice failed her. she felt her cheek stung by the blow she had received. a feeling as though all the rock were sinking under her came on, as though she were sliding--not shooting--but sliding down, down, and the sky went up higher, higher--and she knew no more. chapter xvi. on the shingle. the smugglers, warned by coppinger, had crept up the path in silence, and singly, at considerable intervals between each, and on reaching the summit of the cliffs had dispersed to their own homes, using the precaution to strike inland first, over the "new-take" wall. as the last of the party reached the top he encountered one of the coast-guards, who, by the orders of his superior, was patrolling the down to watch that the smugglers did not leave the cove by any other path than the one known--that up and down which donkeys were driven. this donkey-driving to the beach was not pursued solely for the sake of contraband; the beasts brought up loads of sand, which the farmers professed they found valuable as manure on their stiff soil, and also the masses of seaweed cast on the strand after a gale, and which was considered to be possessed of rare fertilizing qualities. no sooner did the coast-guard see a man ascend the cliff, or rather come up over the edge before him, than he fired his pistol to give the signal to his fellows, whereupon the smuggler turned, seized him by the throat, and precipitated him over the edge. of this coppinger knew nothing. he had led the procession, and had made his way to pentyre glaze by a roundabout route, so as to evade a guard set to watch for him approaching from the cliffs, should one have been so planted. on reaching his door, his first query was whether the signals had been made. "what signals?" asked miss trevisa. "i sent a messenger here with instructions." "no messenger has been here." "what, no one--not--" he hesitated, and said, "not a woman?" "not a soul has been here--man, woman, or child--since you left." "no one to see you?" "no one at all, captain." coppinger did not remove his hat; he stood in the doorway biting his thumb. was it possible that judith had shrunk from coming to his house to bear the message? yet she had promised to do so. had she been intercepted by the preventive men? had--had she reached the top of the cliff? had she, after reaching the top, lost her way in the dark, taken a false direction, and--coppinger did not allow the thought to find full expression in his brain. he turned, without another word, and hastened to the cottage of mr. menaida. he must ascertain whether she had reached home. uncle zachie had not retired to bed; scantlebray had been gone an hour; zachie had drunk with scantlebray, and he had drunk after the departure of that individual to indemnify himself for the loss of his company. consequently mr. menaida was confused in mind and thick in talk. "where is judith?" asked coppinger, bursting in on him. "in bed, i suppose," answered uncle zachie, after a while, when he comprehended the question, and had had time to get over his surprise at seeing the captain. "are you sure? when did she come in?" "come in?" said the old man, scratching his forehead with his pipe. "come in--bless you, i don't know; some time in the afternoon. yes, to be sure it was, some time in the afternoon." "but she has been out to-night?" "no--no--no," said uncle zachie, "it was scantlebray." "i say she has--she has been to--" he paused, then said--"to see her aunt." "aunt dunes! bless my heart, when?" "to-night." "impossible!" "but i say she has. come, mr. menaida. go up to her room, knock at the door, and ascertain if she be back. her aunt is alarmed--there are rough folks about." "why, bless me!" exclaimed mr. menaida, "so there are. and--well, wonders'll never cease. how came you here! i thought the guard were after you. scantlebray said so." "will you go at once and see if judith trevisa is home?" coppinger spoke with such vehemence, and looked so threateningly at the old man, that he staggered out of his chair, and, still holding his pipe, went to the stairs. "bless me!" said he, "whatever am i about? i've forgot a candle. would you oblige me with lighting one? my hand shakes, and i might light my fingers by mistake." after what seemed to coppinger to be an intolerable length of time, uncle zachie stumbled down the stairs again. "i say," said mr. menaida, standing on the steps, "captain--did you ever hear about tincombe lane?-- 'tincombe lane is all up-hill, or down hill, as you take it; you tumble up and crack your crown, or tumble down and break it.' --it's the same with these blessed stairs. would you mind lending me a hand? by the powers, the banister is not firm! do you know how it goes on?-- 'tincombe lane is crooked and straight as pot-hook or as arrow. 'tis smooth to foot, 'tis full of rut, 'tis wide and then 'tis narrow.' --thank you, sir, thank you. now take the candle. bah! i've broke my pipe--and then comes the moral-- 'tincombe lane is just like life from when you leave your mother, 'tis sometimes this, 'tis sometimes that, 'tis one thing or the other.'" in vain had coppinger endeavored to interrupt the flow of words, and to extract from thick zachie the information he needed, till the old gentleman was back in his chair. then uncle zachie observed--"blessy'--i said so--i said so a thousand times. no--she's not there. tell aunt dunes so. will you sit down and have a drop? the night is rough, and it will do you good--take the chill out of your stomach and the damp out of your chest." but coppinger did not wait to decline the offer. he turned at once, left the house, and dashed the door back as he stepped out into the night. he had not gone a hundred paces along the road before he heard voices, and recognized that of mr. scantlebray-- "i tell you the vessel is the black prince, and i know he was to have unloaded her to-night." "anyhow he is not doing so. not a sign of him." "the night is too dirty." "wyvill--" coppinger knew that the captain at the head of the coast-guard was speaking. "wyvill, i heard a pistol-shot. where is jenkyns? if you had not been by me i should have said you had acted wide of your orders. has any one seen jenkyns?" "no, sir." "who is that?" suddenly a light flashed forth, and glared upon coppinger. the captain in command of the coast-guard uttered an oath. "you out to-night, mr. coppinger! where do you come from?" "as you see--from polzeath." "humph! from no other direction?" "i'll trouble you to let me pass." coppinger thrust the preventive man aside, and went on his way. when he was beyond earshot, scantlebray said--"i trust he did not notice me along with you. you see, the night is too dirty. let him bless his stars, it has saved him." "i should like to see jenkyns," said the officer. "i am almost certain i heard a pistol-shot; but when i sent in the direction whence it came, there was no one to be seen. it's a confounded dark night." "i hope they've not give us the slip, captain?" said wyvill. "impossible," answered the officer. "impossible. i took every precaution. they did not go out to-night. as mr. scantlebray says, the night was too dirty." then they went on. in the meantime coppinger was making the best of his way to the downs. he knew his direction even in the dark--he had the "new-take" wall as a guide. what the coast-guard did not suspect was that this "new-take" had been made for the very purpose of serving as a guide by which the smugglers could find their course in the blackest of winter's nights; moreover, in the fiercest storm the wall served as a shelter, under lea of which they might approach their cave. coppinger was without a lantern. he doubted if one would avail him, in his quest; moreover, the night was lightening, as the moon rode higher. the smuggler captain stood for a moment on the edge of the cliffs to consider what course he should adopt to find judith. if she had reached the summit, it was possible enough that she had lost her way and had rambled inland among lanes and across fields, pixy-led. in that case it was a hopeless task to search for her; moreover, there would be no particular necessity for him to do so, as, sooner or later, she must reach a cottage or a farm, where she could learn her direction. but if she had gone too near the edge, or if, in her ascent, her foot had slipped, then he must search the shore. the tide was ebbing now, and left a margin on which he could walk. this was the course he must adopt. he did not descend by the track to the chimney, as the creeping down of the latter could be effected in absolute darkness only with extreme risk; but he bent his way over the down skirting the crescent indentation of the cove to the donkey-path, which was now, as he knew, unwatched. by that he swiftly and easily descended to the beach. along the shore he crept carefully toward that portion which was overhung by the precipice along which the way ran from the mouth of the shaft. the night was mending, or at all events seemed better. the moon, as it mounted, cast a glimmer through the least opaque portions of the driving clouds. coppinger looked up, and could see the ragged fringe of down torn with gullies, and thrust up into prongs, black as ink against the gray of the half-translucent vapors. and near at hand was the long dorsal ridge that concealed the entrance to the cave, sloping rapidly upward and stretching away before him into shadow. coppinger mused. if one were to fall from above, would he drop between the cliff and this curtain, or would he strike and be projected over it on to the shelving sand up which stole the waves? he knew that the water eddying against friable sandstone strata that came to the surface had eaten them out with the wash, and that the hard flakes of slate and ribs of quartz stood forth, overhanging the cave. most certainly, therefore, had judith fallen, her body must be sought on the sea-face of the masking ridge. the smuggler stood at the very point where in the preceding afternoon jamie and the dog had scrambled up that fin-like blade of rock and disappeared from the astonished gaze of judith. the moon, smothered behind clouds, and yet, in a measure self-assertive, cast sufficient light down into the cove to glitter on, and transmute into steel, the sea-washed and smoothed, and still wet, ridge, sloping inland as a seawall. as coppinger stood looking upward he saw in the uncertain light something caught on the fangs of this saw-ridge, moving uneasily this way, then that, something dark, obscuring the glossed surface of the rock, as it might be a mass of gigantic sea-tangles. "judith!" he cried. "is that you?" and he plunged through the pool that intervened, and scrambled up the rock. he caught something. it was cloth. "judith! judith!" he almost shrieked in anxiety. that which he had laid hold of yielded, and he gathered to him a garment of some sort, and with it he slid back into the pool, and waded on to the pebbles. then he examined his capture by the uncertain light, and by feel, and convinced himself that it was a cloak--a cloak with clasp and hood--just such as he had seen judith wearing when he flashed his lantern over her on the platform at the mouth of the shaft. he stood for a moment, numbed as though he had been struck on the head with a mallet, and irresolute. he had feared that judith had fallen over the edge, but he had hoped that it was not so. this discovery seemed to confirm his worst fears. if the cloak were there--she also would probably be there also, a broken heap. she who had thrown him down and broken him, had been thrown down herself, and broken also--thrown down and broken because she had come to rescue him from danger. coppinger put his hand to his head. his veins were beating as though they would burst the vessels in his temples, and suffuse his face with blood. as he stood thus clasping his brow with his right hand, the clouds were swept for an instant aside, and for an instant the moon sent down a weird glare that ran like a wave along the sand, leaped impediments, scrambled up rocks, and flashed in the pools. for one moment only--but that sufficed to reveal to him a few paces ahead a black heap: there was no mistaking it. the rounded outlines were not those of a rock. it was a human body lying on the shingle half immersed in the pool at the foot of the reef! a cry of intensest, keenest anguish burst from the heart of coppinger. prepared though he was for what he must see by the finding of the cloak, the sight of that motionless and wrecked body was more than he could endure with composure. in the darkness that ensued after the moon-gleam he stepped forward, slowly, even timidly, to where that human wreck lay, and knelt on both knees beside it on the wet sand. he waited. would the moon shine out again and show him what he dreaded seeing? he would not put down a hand to touch it. one still clasped his brow, the other he could not raise so high, and he held it against his breast where it had lately been strapped. he tried to hold his breath, to hear if any sound issued from what lay before him. he strained his eyes to see if there were any, the slightest movement in it. yet he knew there could be none. a fall from these cliffs above must dash every spark of life out of a body that reeled down them. he turned his eyes upward to see if the cloud would pass; but no--it seemed to be one that was all-enveloping, unwilling to grant him that glimpse which must be had, but which would cause him acutest anguish. he could not remain kneeling there in suspense any longer. in uncertainty he was not. the horror was before him--and must be faced. he thrust his hand into his pocket and drew forth tinder-box and flint. with a hand that had never trembled before, but now shaking as with an ague, he struck a light. the sparks flew about, and were long in igniting the touchwood. but finally it was kindled, and glowed red. the wind fanned it into fitful flashes, as coppinger, stooping, held the lurid spark over the prostrate form, and passed it up and down on the face. then suddenly it fell from his hand, and he drew a gasp. the dead face was that of a bearded man. a laugh--a wild, boisterous laugh--rang out into the night, and was re-echoed by the cliff, as coppinger leaped to his feet. there was hope still. judith had not fallen. chapter xvii. for life or death. coppinger did not hesitate a moment now to leave the corpse on the beach where he had found it, and to hasten to the cave. there was a third alternative to which hitherto he had given no attention. judith, in ascending the cliff, might have strayed from the track, and be in such a position that she could neither advance nor draw back. he would, therefore, explore the path from the chimney mouth, and see if any token could be found of her having so done. he again held his smouldering tinder and by this feeble glimmer made his way up the inclined beach within the cave, passed under the arch of the rock where low, and found himself in that portion where was the boat. here he knew of a receptacle for sundries, such as might be useful in an emergency, and to that he made his way, and drew from it a piece of candle and a lantern. he speedily lighted the candle, set it in the lantern, and then ascended the chimney. on reaching the platform at the orifice in the face of the rock, it occurred to him that he had forgotten to bring rope with him. he would not return for that, unless he found a need for it. rope there was below, of many yards length. till he knew that it was required, it seemed hardly worth his while to encumber himself with a coil that might be too long or too short for use. he did not even know that he would find judith. it was a chance, that was all. it was more probable that she had strayed on the down, and was now back at polzeath, and safe and warm in bed. from the ledge in front of the shaft coppinger proceeded with caution and leisure, exploring every portion of the ascent with lowered lantern. there were plenty of impressions of feet wherever the soft and crumbly beds had been traversed, and where the dissolved stone had been converted into clay or mud, but these were the impressions of the smugglers escaping from their den. step by step he mounted, till he had got about half-way up, when he noticed, what he had not previously observed, that there was a point at which the track left the ledge of stratified vertical rock that had inclined its broken edge upward, and by a series of slips mounted to another fractured stratum, a leaf of the story-book turned up with the record of infinite ages sealed up in it. it was possible that one unacquainted with the course might grope onward, following the ledge instead of deserting it for a direct upward climb. as coppinger now perceived, one ignorant of the way and unprovided with a light would naturally follow the shelf. he accordingly deserted the track, and advanced along the ledge. there was a little turf in one place, in the next a tuft of armeria, then mud or clay, and there--assuredly a foot had trodden. there was a mark of a sole that was too small to have belonged to a man. the shelf at first was tolerably broad, and could be followed without risk by one whose head was steady; but for how long would it so continue? these rough edges, these laminæ of upheaved slate were treacherous--they were sometimes completely broken down, forming gaps, in places stridable, in others discontinuous for many yards. the footprints satisfied coppinger that judith had crept along this terrace, and so had missed the right course. it was impossible that she could reach the summit by this way--she must have fallen or be clinging at some point farther ahead, a point from which she could not advance, and feared to retreat. he held the lantern above his head, and peered before him, but could see nothing. the glare of the artificial light made the darkness beyond its radius the deeper and more impervious to the eye. he called, but received no answer. he called again, with as little success. he listened, but heard no other sound than the mutter of the sea, and the wail of the wind. there was nothing for him to do but to go forward; and he did that slowly, searchingly, with the light near the ground, seeking for some further trace of judith. he was obliged to use caution, as the ledge of rock narrowed. here it was hard, and the foot passing over it made no impression. then ensued a rift and a slide of shale, and here he thought he observed indications of recent dislodgement. now the foot-hold was reduced, he could no longer stoop to examine the soil; he must stand upright and hold to the rock with his right hand, and move with precaution lest he should be precipitated below. was it conceivable that she had passed there?--there in the dark? and yet--if she had not, she must have been hurled below. coppinger, clinging with his fingers, and thrusting one foot before the other, then drawing forward that foot, with every faculty on the alert, passed to where, for a short space, the ledge of rock expanded, and there he stooped once more with the light to explore. beyond was a sheer fall, and the dull glare from his lantern showed him no continuance of the shelf. as he arose from his bent position, suddenly the light fell on a hand--a delicate, childish hand--hanging down. he raised the lantern, and saw her whom he sought. at this point she had climbed upward to a higher ledge, and on that she lay, one arm raised, fastened by a chain to a tuft of heather--her head fallen against the rock, and feet and one arm over the edge of the cliff. she was unconscious, sustained by a dog-chain and a little bunch of ling. coppinger passed the candle over her face. it was white, and the eyes did not close before the light. his position was vastly difficult. she hung there chained to the cliff, and he doubted whether he could sustain her weight if he attempted to carry her back while she was unconscious, along the way he and she had come. it was perilous for one alone to move along that strip of surface; it seemed impossible for one to effect it bearing in his arms a human burden. moreover, coppinger was well aware that his left arm had not recovered its strength. he could not trust her weight on that. he dare not trust it on his right arm, for to return by the way he came the right hand would be that which was toward the void. the principal weight must be thrown inward. what was to be done? this, primarily: to release the insensible girl from her present position, in which the agony of the strain on her shoulder perhaps prolonged her unconsciousness. coppinger mounted to the shelf on which she lay, and bowing himself over her, while holding her, so that she should not slip over the edge, he disentangled the chain from her wrist and the stems of the heather. then he seated himself beside her, drew her toward him, with his right arm about her, and laid her head on his shoulder. and the chain? that he took and deliberately passed it round her waist and his own body, fastened it, and muttered, "for life or for death!" there, for a while, he sat. he had set the lantern beside him. his hand was on judith's heart, and he held his breath, and waited to feel if there was pulsation there; but his own arteries were in such agitation, the throb in his finger ends prevented his being able to satisfy himself as to what he desired to know. he could not remain longer in his present position. judith might never revive. she had swooned through over-exhaustion, and nothing could restore her to life but the warmth and care she would receive in a house; he cursed his folly, his thoughtlessness, in having brought with him no flask of brandy. he dared remain no longer where he was, the ebbing powers in the feeble life might sink beyond recall. he thrust his right arm under her, and adjusted the chain about him so as to throw some of her weight off the arm, and then cautiously slid to the step below, and, holding her, set his back to the rocky wall. so, facing the atlantic ocean, facing the wild night sky, torn here and there into flakes of light, otherwise cloaked in storm-gloom, with the abyss below, an abyss of jagged rock and shingle shore, he began to make his way along the track by which he had gained that point. he was at that part where the shelf narrowed to a foot, and his safety and hers depended largely on the power that remained to him in his left arm. with the hand of that arm he felt along and clutched every projecting point of rock, and held to it with every sinew strained and starting. he drew a long breath. was judith stirring on his arm? the critical minute had come. the slightest movement, the least displacement of the balance, and both would be precipitated below. "judith!" said he, hoarsely, turning his head toward her ear. "judith!" there was no reply. "judith! for heaven's sake--if you hear me--do not lift a finger. do not move a muscle." the same heavy weight on him without motion. "judith! for life--or death!" then suddenly from off the ocean flashed a tiny spark--far, far away. it was a signal from the black prince. he saw it, fixed his eyes steadily on it, and began to move sideways, facing the sea, his back to the rock, reaching forward with his left arm, holding judith in the right. "for life!" he took one step sideways, holding with the disengaged hand to the rock. the bone of that arm was but just knit. not only so, but that of the collar was also recently sealed up after fracture. yet the salvation of two lives hung on these two infirm joints. the arm was stiff; the muscles had not recovered flexibility, nor the sinews their strength. "for death!" a second sidelong step, and the projected foot slid in greasy marl. he dug his heel into the wet and yielding soil, he stamped in it; then, throwing all his weight on the left heel, aided by the left arm, he drew himself along and planted the right beside the left. he sucked the air in between his teeth with a hiss. the soft soil was sinking--it would break away. the light from the black prince seemed to rise. with a wrench he planted his left foot on rock--and drew up the right to it. "judith! for life!" that star on the black sea--what did it mean? he knew. his mind was clear, and though in intense concentration of all his powers on the effort to pass this strip of perilous path, he could reason of other things, and knew why the black prince had exposed her light. the lantern that he had borne, and left on the shelf, had been seen by her, and she supposed it to be a signal from the terrace over the cave. the next step was full of peril. with his left foot advanced, coppinger felt he had reached the shale. he kicked into it, and kicked away an avalanche of loose flakes that slid over the edge. but he drove his foot deep into the slope, and rammed a dent into which he could fix the right foot when drawn after it. "for death!" then he crept along upon the shale. he could not see the star now. his sweat, rolling off his brow, had run over his eyelids and charged the lashes with tears. in partial blindness he essayed the next step. "for life!" then he breathed more freely. his foot was on the grass. the passage of extreme danger was over. from the point now reached the ledge widened, and coppinger was able to creep onward with less stress laid on the fractured bones. the anguish of expectation of death was lightened; and as it lightened nature began to assert herself. his teeth chattered as in an ague fit, and his breath came in sobs. in ten minutes he had attained the summit--he was on the down above the cliffs. "judith," said he, and he kissed her cheeks and brow and hair. "for life--for death--mine, only mine." chapter xviii. una. when judith opened her eyes, she found herself in a strange room, but as she looked about her she saw aunt dionysia with her hands behind her back looking out of the window. "oh, aunt! where am i!" miss trevisa turned. "so you have come round at last, or pleased to pretend to come round. it is hard to tell whether or not dissimulation was here." "dissimulation, aunt?" "there's no saying. young folks are not what they were in my day. they have neither the straightforwardness nor the consideration for their elders and betters." "but--where am i?" "at the glaze; not where i put you, but where you have put yourself." "i did not come here, auntie, dear." "don't auntie dear me, and deprive me of my natural sleep." "have i?" "have you not? three nights have i had to sit up. and natural sleep is as necessary to me at my age as is stays. i fall abroad without one or the other. give me my choice--whether i'd have nephews and nieces crawling about me or erysipelas, and i'd choose the latter." "but, aunt--i'm sorry if i am a trouble to you." "of course you are a trouble. how can you be other? don't burs stick? but that is neither here nor there." "aunt, how came i to pentyre glaze!" "i didn't invite you, and i didn't bring you--you may be sure of that. captain coppinger found you somewhere on the down at night, when you ought to have been at home. you were insensible, or pretended to be so--it's not for me to say which." "oh, aunt, i don't want to be here." "nor do i want you here--and in my room, too. hoity-toity! nephews and nieces are just like pigs--you want them to go one way and they run the other." "but i should like to know where captain coppinger found me, and all about it. i don't remember anything." "then you must ask him yourself." "i should like to get up; may i?" "i can't say till the doctor comes. there's no telling--i might be blamed. i shall be pleased enough when you are shifted to your own room," and she pointed to a door. "my room, auntie?" "i suppose so; i don't know whose else it is." then miss trevisa whisked out of the room. judith lay quietly in bed trying to collect her thoughts and recall something of what had happened. she could recollect fastening her wrist to the shrub by her brother's dog-chain; then, with all the vividness of a recurrence of the scene--the fall of the man, the stroke on her cheek, his roll over and plunge down the precipice. the recollection made a film come over her eyes and her heart stand still. after that she remembered nothing. she tried hard to bring to mind one single twinkle of remembrance, but in vain. it was like looking at a wall and straining the eyes to see through it. then she raised herself in bed to look about her. she was in her aunt's room, and in her aunt's bed. she had been brought there by captain coppinger. he, therefore, had rescued her from the position of peril in which she had been. so far she could understand. she would have liked to know more, but more, probably, her aunt could not tell her, even if inclined to do so. where was jamie? was he at uncle zachie's? had he been anxious and unhappy about her? she hoped he had got into no trouble during the time he had been free from her supervision. judith felt that she must go back to mr. menaida's and to jamie. she could not stay at the glaze. she could not be happy with her ever-grumbling, ill-tempered aunt. besides, her father would not have wished her to be there. what did aunt dunes mean when she pointed to a door and spoke of her room? judith could not judge whether she were strong till she tried her strength. she slipped her feet to the floor, stood up and stole over the floor to that door which her aunt had indicated. she timidly raised the latch, after listening at it, opened and peeped into a small apartment. to her surprise she saw the little bed she had occupied at her dear home, the rectory, her old wash-stand, her mirror, the old chairs, the framed pictures that had adorned her walls, the common and trifling ornaments that had been arranged on her chimney-piece. every object with which she had been familiar at the parsonage for many years, and to which she had said good-by, never expecting to have a right to them any more--all these were there, furnishing the room that adjoined her aunt's apartment. she stood looking around in surprise, till she heard a step on the stair outside, and, supposing it was that of aunt dionysia, she ran back to bed, and dived under the clothes and pulled the sheets over her golden head. aunt dunes entered the room, bringing with her a bowl of soup. her eye at once caught the opened door into the little adjoining chamber. "you have been out of bed!" judith thrust her head out of its hiding-place, and said, frankly, "yes, auntie! i could not help myself. i want to see. how have you managed to get all my things together?" "i? i have had nothing to do with it." "but--who did it, auntie?" "captain coppinger; he was at the sale." "is the sale over, aunt?" "yes, whilst you have been ill." "oh, i am so glad it is over, and i knew nothing about it." "oh, exactly! not a thought of the worry you have been to me; deprived of my sleep--of my bed--of my bed," repeated aunt dunes, grimly. "how can you expect a bulb to flower if you take it out of the earth and stick it on a bedroom chair stirring broth? i have no patience with you young people. you are consumed with selfishness." "but, auntie! don't be cross. why did captain coppinger buy all my dear crinkum-crankums?" aunt dionysia snorted and tossed her head. judith suddenly flushed; she did not repeat the question, but said hastily, "auntie, i want to go back to mr. menaida." "you cannot desire it more than i do," said miss trevisa, sharply. "but whether _he_ will let you go is another matter." "aunt dunes, if i want to go, i will go!" "indeed!" "i will go back as soon as ever i can." "well, that can't be to-day, for one thing." the evening of that same day judith was removed into the adjoining room, "her room," as miss trevisa designated it. "and mind you sleep soundly, and don't trouble me in the night. natural sleep is as suitable to me as green peas to duck." when, next morning, the girl awoke, her eyes ranged round and lighted everywhere on familiar objects. the two mezzotints of happy and deserted auburn, the old and battered pieces of dresden ware, vases with flowers encrusted round them, but with most of the petals broken off--vases too injured to be of value to a purchaser, valuable to her because full of reminiscences--the tapestry firescreen, the painted fans with butterflies on them, the mirror blotched with damp, the inlaid wafer-box and ruler, the old snuffer-tray. her eyes filled with tears. a gathering together into one room of old trifles did not make that strange room to be home. it was the father, the dear father, who, now that he was taken away, made home an impossibility, and the whole world, however crowded with old familiar odds and ends, to be desert and strange. the sight of all her old "crinkum-crankums," as she had called them, made judith's heart smart. it was kindly meant by coppinger to purchase all these things and collect them there; but it was a mistake of judgment. grateful she was, not gratified. in the little room there was an ottoman with a woolwork cover representing a cluster of dark red, pink, and white roses; and at each corner of the ottoman was a tassel, which had been a constant source of trouble to judith, as the tassels would come off, sometimes because the cat played with them, sometimes because jamie pulled them off in mischief, sometimes because they caught in her dress. her father had embroidered those dreadful roses on a buff ground one winter when confined to the house by a heavy cold and cough. she valued that ottoman for his sake, and would not have suffered it to go into the sale had she possessed any place she could regard as her own where to put it. she needed no such article to remind her of the dear father--the thought of him would be forever present to her without the assistance of ottomans to refresh her memory. on this ottoman, when dressed, judith seated herself, and let her hands rest in her lap. she was better; she would soon be well; and when well would take the first opportunity to depart. the door was suddenly thrown open by her aunt, and in the doorway stood coppinger looking at her. he raised his hand to his hat in salutation, but said nothing. she was startled and unable to speak. in another moment the door was shut again. that day she resolved that nothing should detain her longer than she was forced. jamie--her own dear jamie--came to see her, and the twins were locked in each other's arms. "oh, ju! darling ju! you are quite well, are you not! and captain coppinger has given me a gray donkey instead of tib; and i'm to ride it about whenever i choose!" "but, dear, mr. menaida has no stable, and no paddock." "oh, ju! that's nothing. i'm coming up here, and we shall be together--the donkey and you and me and aunt dunes!" "no, jamie. nothing of the sort. listen to me. you remain at mr. menaida's. i am coming back." "but i've already brought up my clothes." "you take them back. attend to me. you do not come here. i go back to mr. menaida's immediately." "but, ju! you've got all your pretty things from the parsonage here!" "they are not mine. mr. coppinger bought them for himself." "but--the donkey?" "leave the donkey here. pay attention to my words. i lay a strict command on you. as you love me, jamie, do not leave mr. menaida's; remain there till my return." that night there was a good deal of noise in the house. judith's room lay in a wing, nevertheless she heard the riot, for the house was not large, and the sounds from the hall penetrated every portion of it. she was frightened, and went into miss trevisa's room. "aunt! what is this dreadful racket about?" "go to sleep--you cannot have every one shut his mouth because of you." "but what is it, auntie!" "it is nothing but the master has folk with him, if you wish particularly to know. the whole cargo of the black prince has been run, and not a finger has been laid by the coast-guard on a single barrel or bale. so they are celebrating their success. go to bed and sleep. it is naught to you." "i cannot sleep, aunt. they are singing now." "why should they not; have you aught against it? you are not mistress here, that i am aware of." "but, auntie, are there many down-stairs?" "i do not know. it is no concern of mine--and certainly none of yours." judith was silenced for a while by her aunt's ill-humor; but she did not return to her room. presently she asked-- "are you sure, aunt, that jamie is gone back to polzeath?" miss trevisa kicked the stool from under her feet, in her impatience. "really! you drive me desperate. i did not bargain for this. am i to tear over the country on post-horses to seek a nephew here and a niece there? i can't tell where jamie is, and what is more, i do not care. i'll do my duty by you both. i'll do no more; and that has been forced on me, it was not sought by me. heaven be my witness." judith returned to her room. the hard and sour woman would afford her no information. in her room she threw herself on her bed and began to think. she was in the very home and head-quarters of contrabandism. but was smuggling a sin? surely not that, or her father would have condemned it decidedly. she remembered his hesitation relative to it, in the last conversation they had together. perhaps it was not actually a sin--she could recall no text in scripture that denounced it--but it was a thing forbidden, and though she did not understand why it was forbidden, she considered that it could not be an altogether honorable and righteous traffic. judith was unable to rest. it was not the noise that disturbed her so much as her uneasiness about jamie. had he obeyed her and gone back to uncle zachie? or had he neglected her injunction, and was he in the house, was he below along with the revellers? she opened the door gently, and stole along the passage to the head of the stairs, and listened. she could smell the fumes of tobacco; but to these she was familiar. the atmosphere of mr. menaida's cottage was redolent of the virginian weed. the noise was, however, something to which she was utterly unaccustomed: the boisterous merriment, the shouts, and occasional oaths. then a fiddle was played. there was disputation, a pause, then the fiddle recommenced; it played a jig; there was a clatter of feet, then a roar of laughter--and then--she was almost sure she heard the voice of her brother. regardless of herself, thinking only of him, without a moment's consideration, she ran down the stairs and threw open the door into the great kitchen or hall. it was full of men--wild, rough fellows--drinking and smoking; there were lights and a fire. the atmosphere was rank with spirits and tobacco; on a chair sat a sailor fiddling, and in the midst of the room, on a table, was jamie dancing a jig, to the laughter and applause of the revellers. the moment judith appeared silence ensued--the men were surprised to see a pale and delicate girl stand before them, with a crown of gold like a halo round her ivory-white face. but judith took no notice of anyone there--her eyes were on her brother, and her hand raised to attract his attention. judith had been in bed, but, disturbed by the uproar, had risen and drawn on her gown; her feet, however, were bare, and her magnificent hair poured over her shoulders unbound. her whole mind, her whole care, was for jamie; on herself not a thought rested; she had forgotten that she was but half clothed. "jamie! jamie!" she cried. "my brother! my brother!" the fiddler ceased, lowered his violin, and stared at her. "ju, let me alone! it is such fun," said the boy. "jamie! this instant you shall come with me. get down off the table!" as he hesitated, and looked round to the men who had been applauding him for support against his sister, she went to the table, and caught him by the feet. "jamie! in pity to me! jamie! think--papa is but just dead." then tears of sorrow, shame, and entreaty filled her eyes. "no, ju! i'm not tied to your apron-strings," said the lad, disengaging himself. but in an instant he was caught from the table by the strong arm of coppinger, and thrust toward the door. "judith, you should not have come here." "oh, mr. coppinger--and jamie! why did you let him--" coppinger drew the girl from the room into the passage. "judith, not for the world would i have had you here," said he, in an agitated voice. "i'll kill your aunt for letting you come down." "mr. coppinger, she knew nothing of my coming. come i must--i heard jamie's voice." "go," said the captain, shaking the boy. he was ashamed of himself and angry. "beware how you disobey your sister again." coppinger's face was red as fire. he turned to judith-- "your feet are bare. let me carry you up-stairs--carry you once more." she shook her head. "as i came down so i can return." "will you forgive me?" he said, in a low tone. "heaven forgive you," she answered, and burst into tears. "you will break my heart, i foresee it." chapter xix. a goldfish. next day--just in the same way as the day before--when judith was risen and dressed, the door was thrown open, and again coppinger was revealed, standing outside, looking at her with a strange expression, and saying no word. but judith started up from her chair and went to him in the passage, put forth her delicate white hand, laid it on his cuff, and said: "mr. coppinger, may i speak to you?" "where?" "where you like--down-stairs will be best, in the hall if no one be there." "it is empty." he stood aside and allowed her to precede him. the staircase was narrow, and it would have been dark but for a small dormer-window through which light came from a squally sky covered with driving white vapors. but such light as entered from a white and wan sun fell on her head as she descended--that head of hair was like the splendor of a beech-tree touched by frost before the leaves fall. coppinger descended after her. when they were both in the hall, he indicated his arm-chair by the hearth for her to sit in, and she obeyed. she was weak, and now also nervous. she must speak to the smuggler firmly, and that required all her courage. the room was tidy; all traces of the debauch of the preceding night had disappeared. coppinger stood a few paces from her. he seemed to know that what she was going to say would displease him, and he did not meet her clear eyes, but looked with a sombre frown upon the floor. judith put the fingers of her right hand to her heart to bid it cease beating so fast, and then rushed into what she had to say, fearing lest delay should heighten the difficulty of saying it. "i am so--so thankful to you, sir, for what you have done for me. my aunt tells me that you found and carried me here. i had lost my way on the rocks, and but for you i would have died." "yes," he said, raising his eyes suddenly and looking piercingly into hers, "but for me you would have died." "i must tell you how deeply grateful i am for this and for other kindnesses. i shall never forget that this foolish, silly, little life of mine i owe to you." again her heart was leaping so furiously as to need the pressure of her fingers on it to check it. "we are quits," said coppinger, slowly. "you came--you ran a great risk to save me. but for you i might be dead. so this rude and worthless--this evil life of mine," he held out his hands, both palms before her, and spoke with quivering voice--"i owe to you." "then," said judith, "as you say, we are quits. yet no. if one account is cancelled, another remains unclosed. i threw you down and broke your bones. so there still remains a score against me." "that i have forgiven long ago," said he. "throw me down, break me, kill me, do with me what you will--and--i will kiss your hand." "i do not wish to have my hand kissed," said judith, hastily, "i let you understand that before." he put his elbow against the mantel-shelf, and leaned his brow against his open hand, looking down at her, so she could not see his face without raising her eyes, but he could rest his on her and study her, note her distress, the timidity with which she spoke, the wince when he said a word that implied his attachment to her. "i have not only to thank you, captain coppinger, but i have to say good-by." "what--go?" "yes--i shall go back to mr. menaida to-day." he stamped, and his face became blood-red. "you shall not. i will it--here you stay." "it cannot be," said judith, after a moment's pause to let his passion subside. "you are not my guardian, though very generously you have undertaken to be valuer for me in dilapidations. i must go, i and jamie." he shook his head. he feared to speak, his anger choked him. "i cannot remain here myself, and certainly i will not let jamie be here." "is it because of last night's foolery you say that?" "i am responsible for my brother. he is not very clever; he is easily led astray. there is no one to think for him, to care for him, but myself. i could never let him run the risk of such a thing happening again." "confound the boy!" burst forth coppinger. "are you going to bring him up as a milk-sop? you are wrong altogether in the way you manage him." "i can but follow my conscience." "and is it because of him that you go?" "not because of him only." "but i have spoken to your aunt; she consents." "but i do not," said judith. he stamped again, passionately. "i am not the man who will bear to be disobeyed and my will crossed. i say--here you shall stay." judith waited a moment, looking at him steadily out of her clear, glittering iridescent eyes, and said slowly, "i am not the girl to be obliged to stay where my common-sense and my heart say stay not." he folded his arms, lowered his chin on his breast, and strode up and down the room. then, suddenly, he stood still opposite her and asked, in a threatening tone: "do you not like your room? does that not please your humor?" "it has been most kind of you to collect all my little bits of rubbish there. i feel how good you have been, how full of thought for me; but, for all that, i cannot stay." "why not?" "i have said, on one account, because of jamie." he bit his lips--"i hate that boy." "then most certainly he cannot be here. he must be with those who love him." "then stay." "i cannot--i will not. i have a will as well as you. my dear papa always said that my will was strong." "you are the only person who has ever dared to resist me." "that may be; i am daring--because you have been kind." "kind to you. yes--to you only." "it may be so, and because kind to me, and me only, i, and i only, presume to say no when you say yes." he came again to the fireplace and again leaned against the mantel-shelf. he was trembling with passion. "and what if i say that, if you go, i will turn old dunes--i mean your aunt--out of the house?" "you will not say it, mr. coppinger; you are too noble, too generous, to take a mean revenge." "oh! you allow there is some good in me?" "i thankfully and cheerfully protest there is a great deal of good in you--and i would there were more." "come--stay here and teach me to be good--be my crutch; i will lean on you, and you shall help me along the right way." "you are too great a weight, mr. coppinger," said she, smiling--but it was a frightened and a forced smile. "you would bend and break the little crutch." he heaved a long breath. he was looking at her from under his hand and his bent brows. "you are cruel--to deny me a chance. and what if i were to say that i am hungry, sick at heart, and faint. would you turn your back and leave me?" "no, assuredly not." "i am hungry." she looked up at him, and was frightened by the glitter in his eyes. "i am hungry for the sight of you, for the sound of your voice." she did not say anything to this, but sat, with her hands on her lap, musing, uncertain how to deal with this man, so strange, impulsive, and yet so submissive to her, and even appealing to her pity. "mr. coppinger, i have to think of and care for jamie, and he takes up all my thoughts and engrosses all my time." "jamie, again!" "so that i cannot feed and teach another orphan." "put off your departure--a week. grant me that. then you will have time to get quite strong, and also you will be able to see whether it is not possible for you to live here. here is your aunt--it is natural and right that you should be with her. she has been made your guardian by your father. do you not bow to his directions." "mr. coppinger, i cannot stay here." "i am at a disadvantage," he exclaimed. "man always is when carrying on a contest with a woman. stay--stay here and listen to me." he put out his hand and pressed her back into the chair, for she was about to rise. "listen to what i say. you do not know--you cannot know--how near death you and i--yes, you and i were, chained together." his deep voice shook. "you and i were on the face of the cliff. there was but one little strip, the width of my hand"--he held out his palm before her--"and that was not secure. it was sliding away under my feet. below was death, certain death--a wretched death. i held you. that little chain tied us two--us two together. all your life and mine hung on was my broken arm and broken collar-bone. i held you to me with my right arm and the chain. i did not think we should live. i thought that together--chained together, i holding you--so we would die--so we would be found--and my only care, my only prayer was, if so, that so we might be washed to sea and sink together, i holding you and chained to you, and you to me. i prayed that we might never be found; for i thought if rude hands were laid on us that the chain would be unloosed, my arm unlocked from about you, and that we should be carried to separate graves. i could not endure that thought. let us go down together--bound, clasped together--into the depths of the deep sea, and there rest. but it was not to be so. i carried you over that stage of infinite danger. an angel or a devil--i cannot say which--held me up. and then i swore that never in life should you be loosed from me, as i trusted that in death we should have remained bound together. see!" he put his hand to her head and drew a lock of her golden hair and wound it about his hand and arm. "you have me fast now--fast in a chain of gold--of gold infinitely precious to me--infinitely strong--and you will cast me off, who never thought to cast you off when tied to you with a chain of iron. what say you? will you stand in safety on your cliff of pride and integrity and unloose the golden band and say, 'go down--down. i know nothing in you to love. you are naught to me but a robber, a wrecker, a drunkard, a murderer--go down into hell?'" in his quivering excitement he acted the whole scene, unconscious that he was so doing, and the drops of agony stood on his brow and rolled--drip--drip--drip from it. man does not weep; his tears exude more bitter than those that flow from the eyes, and they distil from his pores. judith was awed by the intensity of passion in the man, but not changed in her purpose. his vehemence reacted on her, calming her, giving her determination to finish the scene decisively and finally. "mr. coppinger," she said, looking up to him, who still held her by the hair wound about his hand and arm, "it is you who hold me in chains, not i you. and so i--your prisoner--must address a gaoler. am i to speak in chains, or will you release me?" he shook his head, and clenched his hand on the gold hair. "very well," said she, "so it must be; i, bound, plead my cause with you--at a disadvantage. this is what i must say at the risk of hurting you; and, heaven be my witness, i would not wound one who has been so good to me--one to whom i owe my life, my power now to speak and entreat." she paused a minute to gain breath and strengthen herself for what she had to say. "mr. coppinger--do you not yourself see that it is quite impossible that i should remain in this house--that i should have anything more to do with you? consider how i have been brought up--what my thoughts have been. i have had, from earliest childhood, my dear papa's example and teachings, sinking into my heart till they have colored my very life-blood. my little world and your great one are quite different. what i love and care for is folly to you, and your pursuits and pleasures are repugnant to me. you are an eagle--a bird of prey." "a bird of prey," repeated coppinger. "and you soar and fight, and dive, and rend in your own element; whereas i am a little silver trout----" "no"--he drew up his arm wound round with her hair--"no--a goldfish." "well, so be it; a goldfish swimming in my own crystal element, and happy in it. you would not take me out of it to gasp and die. trust me, captain coppinger, i could not--even if i would--live in your world." she put up her hands to his arm and drew some of the hair through his fingers, and unwound it from his sleeve. he made no resistance. he watched her, in a dream. he had heard every word she had said, and he knew that she spoke the truth. they belonged to different realms of thought and sensation. he could not breathe--he would stifle--in hers, and it was possible--it was certain--that she could not endure the strong, rough quality of his. her delicate fingers touched his hand, and sent a spasm to his heart. she was drawing away another strand of hair, and untwisting it from about his arm, passing the wavy, fire-gold from one hand to the other. and as every strand was taken off, so went light and hope from him, and despair settled down on his dark spirit. he was thinking whether it would not have been better to have thrown himself down when he had her in his arms, and bound to him by the chain. then he laughed. she looked up, and caught his wild eye. there was a timid inquiry in her look, and he answered it. "you may unwind your hair from my arm, but it is woven round and round my heart, and you cannot loose it thence." she drew another strand away, and released that also from his arm. there remained now but one red-gold band of hair fastening her to him. he looked entreatingly at her, and then at the hair. "it must indeed be so," she said, and released herself wholly. then she stood up, a little timidly, for she could not trust him in his passion and his despair. but he did not stir; he looked at her with fixed, dreamy eyes. she left her place, and moved toward the door. she had gone forth from mr. menaida's without hat or other cover for her head than the cloak with its hood, and that she had lost. she must return bare-headed. she had reached the door; and there she waved him a farewell. "goldfish!" he cried. she halted. "goldfish, come here; one--one word only." she hesitated whether to yield. the man was dangerous. but she considered that with a few strides he might overtake her if she tried to escape. therefore she returned toward him, but came not near enough for him to touch her. "hearken to me," said he. "it may be as you say. it is as you say. you have your world; i have mine. you could not live in mine, nor i in yours." but his voice thrilled. "swear to me--swear to me now--that while i live no other shall hold you, as i would have held you, to his side; that no other shall take your hair and wind it round him, as i have--i could not endure that. will you swear to me that?--and you shall go." "indeed i will; indeed, indeed i will." "beware how you break this oath. let him beware who dares to seek you." he was silent, looking on the ground, his arms folded. so he stood for some minutes, lost in thought. then suddenly he cried out, "goldfish!" he had found a single hair, long--a yard long--of the most intense red-gold, lustrous as a cloud in the west over the sunken sun. it had been left about his arm and hand. "goldfish!" but she was gone. chapter xx. bought and sold. cruel coppinger remained brooding in the place where he had been standing, and as he stood there his face darkened. he was a man of imperious will and violent passions; a man unwont to curb himself; accustomed to sweep out of his path whoever or whatever stood between him and the accomplishment of his purpose; a man who never asked himself whether that purpose were good or bad. he had succumbed, in a manner strange and surprising to himself, to the influence of judith--a sort of witchery over him that subdued his violence and awed him into gentleness and modesty. but when her presence was withdrawn the revolt of the man's lawless nature began. who was this who had dared to oppose her will to his? a mere child of eighteen. women were ever said to be a perverse generation, and loved to domineer over men; and man was weak to suffer it. so thinking, chafing, he had worked himself into a simmering rage when miss trevisa entered the hall, believing it to be empty. seeing him, she was about to withdraw, when he shouted to her to stay. "i beg your pardon for intruding, sir; i am in quest of my niece. those children keep me in a whirl like a teetotum." "your niece is gone." "gone! where to?" "back--i suppose to that old fool, menaida. he is meet to be a companion for her and that idiot, her brother; not i--i am to be spurned from her presence." miss trevisa was surprised, but she said nothing. she knew his moods. "stand there, mother dunes!" said coppinger, in his anger and humiliation, glad to have some one on whom he could pour out the lava that boiled up in his burning breast. "listen to me. she has told me that we belong to different worlds--she and i--and to different races, kinds of being, and that there can be no fellowship betwixt us. where i am she will not be. between me and you there is a great gulf fixed--see you? and i am as dives tormented in my flame, and she stands yonder, serene, in cold and complacent blessedness, and will not cross to me with her finger dipped in cold water to cool my tongue; and as for my coming near to her"--he laughed fiercely--"that can never be." "did she say all that?" asked miss trevisa. "she looked it; she implied it, if she did not say it in these naked words. and, what is more," shouted he, coming before aunt dionysia, threateningly, so that she recoiled, "it is true. when she sat there in yonder chair, and i stood here by this hearthstone, and she spoke, i knew it was true; i saw it all--the great gulf unspanned by any bridge. i knew that none could ever bridge it, and there we were, apart for ever, i in my fire burning, she in blessedness--indifferent." "i am very sorry," said miss trevisa, "that judith should so have misconducted herself. my brother brought her up in a manner to my mind, most improper for a young girl. he made her read rollin's 'ancient history,' and blair's 'chronological tables,' and really upon my word, i cannot say what else." "i do not care how it was," said coppinger. "but here stands the gulf." "rollin is in sixteen octavo volumes," said aunt dionysia; "and they are thick also." coppinger strode about the room, with his hands in his deep coat pockets, his head down. "my dear brother," continued miss trevisa, apologetically, "made of judith his daily companion, told her all he thought, asked her opinion, as though she were a full-grown woman, and one whose opinion was worth having, whereas he never consulted me, never cared to talk to me about anything, and the consequence is the child has grown up without that respect for her elders and betters, and that deference for the male sex which the male sex expects. i am sure when i was a girl, and of her age, i was very different, very different indeed." "of that i have not the smallest doubt," sneered coppinger. "but never mind about yourself. it is of her i am speaking. she is gone, has left me, and i cannot endure it. i cannot endure it," he repeated. "i beg your pardon," said aunt dionysia, "you must excuse me saying it, captain coppinger, but you place me in a difficult position. i am the guardian of my niece, though, goodness knows, i never desired it, and i don't know what to think. it is very flattering and kind, and i esteem it great goodness in you to speak of judith with such warmth, but----" "goodness! kindness!" exclaimed coppinger. "i am good and kind to her! she forced me to it. i can be nothing else, and she throws me at her feet and tramples on me." "i am sure your sentiments, sir, are--are estimable; but, feeling as you seem to imply toward judith, i hardly know what to say. bless me! what a scourge to my shoulders these children are: nettles stinging and blistering my skin, and not allowing me a moment's peace!" "i imply nothing," said coppinger. "i speak out direct and plain what i mean. i love her. she has taken me, she turns me about, she gets my heart between her little hands and tortures it." "then surely, captain, you cannot ask me to let her be here. you are most kind to express yourself in this manner about the pert hussy, but, as she is my niece, and i am responsible for her, i must do my duty by her, and not expose her to be--talked about. bless me!" gasped aunt dunes, "when i was her age i never would have put myself into such a position as to worry my aunt out of her seven senses, and bring her nigh to distraction." "i will marry her, and make her mistress of my house and all i have," said coppinger. miss trevisa slightly courtesied, then said, "i am sure you are over-indulgent, but what is to become of me? i have no doubt it will be very comfortable and acceptable to judith to hear this, but--what is to become of me? it would not be very delightful for me to be housekeeper here under my own niece, a pert, insolent, capricious hussy. you can see at once, captain coppinger, that i cannot consent to that." the woman had the shrewdness to know that she could be useful to coppinger, and the selfishness that induced her to make terms with him to secure her own future, and to show him that she could stand in his way till he yielded to them. "i never asked to have these children thrust down my throat, like the fish-bone that strangled lady godiva--no, who was it? earl godiva; but i thank my stars i never waded through rollin, and most certainly kept my hands off blair. of course, captain coppinger, it is right and proper of you to address yourself to me, as the guardian of my niece, before speaking to her." "i have spoken to her and she spurns me." "naturally, because you spoke to her before addressing me on the subject. my dear brother--i will do him this justice--was very emphatic on this point. but you see, sir, my consent can never be given." "i do not ask your consent." "judith will never take you without it." "consent or no consent," said coppinger, "that is a secondary matter. the first is, she does not like me, whereas i--i love her. i never loved a woman before. i knew not what love was. i laughed at the fools, as i took them to be, who sold themselves into the hands of women; but now, i cannot live without her. i can think of nothing but her all day. i am in a fever, and cannot sleep at night--all because she is tormenting me." all at once, exhausted by his passion, desperate at seeing no chance of success, angry at being flouted by a child, he threw himself into the chair, and settled his chin on his breast, and folded his arms. "go on," said he. "tell me what is my way out of this." "you cannot expect my help or my advice, captain, so as to forward what would be most unsatisfactory to me." "what! do you grudge her to me?" "not that; but, if she were here, what would become of me? should i be turned out into the cold at my age by this red-headed hussy, to find a home for myself with strangers? here i never would abide with her as mistress, never." "i care naught about you." "no, of that i am aware, to my regret, sir; but that makes it all the more necessary for me to take care for myself." "i see," said coppinger, "i must buy you. is your aid worth it? will she listen to you?" "i can make her listen to me," said aunt dunes, "if it be worth my while. at my age, having roughed it, having no friends, i must think of myself and provide for the future, when i shall be too old to work." "name your price." miss trevisa did not answer for a while; she was considering the terms she would make. to her coarse and soured mind there was nothing to scruple at in aiding coppinger in his suit. the trevisas were of a fine old cornish stock, but then judith took after her mother, the poor scottish governess, and aunt dunes did not feel toward her as though she were of her own kin. the girl looked like her mother. she had no right, in miss trevisa's eyes, to bear the name of her father, for her father ought to have known better than stoop to marry a beggarly, outlandish governess. not very logical reasoning, but what woman, where her feelings are engaged, does reason logically? aunt dunes had never loved her niece; she felt an inner repulsion, such as sprang from encountering a nature superior, purer, more refined than her own, and the mortification of being forced to admit to herself that it was so. judith, moreover, was costing her money, and miss trevisa parted with her hard-earned savings as reluctantly as with her heart's blood. she begrudged the girl and her brother every penny she was forced, or believed she would be forced, to expend upon them. and was she doing the girl an injury in helping her to a marriage that would assure her a home and a comfortable income? aunt dionysia knew well enough that things went on in pentyre glaze that were not to be justified, that coppinger's mode of life was not one calculated to make a girl of judith's temperament happy, but--"hoity-toity!" said miss trevisa to herself, "if girls marry, they must take men as they find them. beggars must not be choosers. you must not look a gift horse in the mouth. no trout can be eaten apart from its bones, nor a rose plucked that is free from thorns." she herself had accommodated herself to the ways of the house, to the moods and manners of coppinger; and if she could do that, so could a mongrel trevisa. what was good enough for herself was over-good for judith. she had been saddled with these children, much against her wishes, and if she shifted the saddle to the shoulders of one willing to bear it, why not? she had duties to perform to her own self as well as to those thrust on her by the dead hand of that weak, that inconsiderate brother of hers, peter trevisa. would her brother have approved of her forwarding this union? that was a question that did not trouble her much. peter did what he thought best for his daughter when he was alive, stuffing her head with rollin and blair, and now that he was gone, she must do the best she could for her, and here was a chance offered that she would be a fool not to snap at. nor did she concern herself greatly whether judith's happiness were at stake. hoity-toity! girls' happiness! they are bound to make themselves happy when they find themselves. the world was not made to fit them, but they to accommodate themselves to the places in which they found themselves in the world. miss trevisa had for some days seen the direction matters were taking, she had seen clearly enough the infatuation--yes, infatuation she said it was--that had possessed coppinger. what he could see in the girl passed her wits to discover. to her, judith was an odious little minx--very like her mother. miss trevisa, therefore, had had time to weigh the advantages and the disadvantages that might spring to her, should coppinger persist in his suit and succeed; and she had considered whether it would be worth her while to help or to hinder his suit. "you put things," said aunt dionysia, "in a blunt and a discourteous manner, such as might offend a lady of delicacy, like myself, who am in delicacy a perfect guava jelly; but, captain, i know your ways, as i ought to, having been an inmate of this house for many years. it is no case of buying and selling, as you insinuate, but the case is plainly this: i know the advantage it will be to my niece to be comfortably provided for. she and jamie have between them but about a thousand pounds, a sum to starve, and not to live, upon. they have no home and no relative in the world but myself, who am incapable of giving them a home and of doing anything for them except at an excruciating sacrifice. if judith be found, through your offer, a home, then jamie also is provided for." he said nothing to this, but moved his feet impatiently. she went on: "the boy _must_ be provided for. and if judith become your wife, not only will it be proper for you to see that he is so, but judith will give neither you nor me our natural rest until the boy is comfortable and happy." "confound the boy!" "it is all very well to say that, but he who would have anything to say to judith must reckon to have to consider jamie also. they are inseparable. now, i assume that by judith's marriage jamie is cared for. but how about myself? is every one to lie in clover and i in stubble? am i to rack my brains to find a home for my nephew and niece, only that i may be thrust out myself? to find for them places at your table, that i may be deprived of a crust and a bone under it? if no one else will consider me, i must consider myself. i am the last representative of an ancient and honorable family--" she saw coppinger move his hand, and thought he expressed dissent. she added hastily, "as to judith and jamie, they take after their scotch mother. i do not reckon them as trevisas." "come--tell me what you want," said coppinger, impatiently. "i want to be secure for my old age, that i do not spend it in the poor-house." "what do you ask?" "give me an annuity of fifty pounds for my life, and othello cottage that is on your land." "you ask enough." "you will never get judith without granting me that." "well--get judith to be mine, and you shall have it." "will you swear to it?" "yes." "and give me--i desire that--the promise in writing." "you shall have it." "then i will help you." "how?" "leave that to me. i am her guardian." "but not of her heart?" "leave her to me. you shall win her." "how!" "through jamie." chapter xxi. othello cottage. to revert to the old life as far as possible under changed circumstances, to pass a sponge over a terrible succession of pictures, to brush out the vision of horrors from her eyes, and shake the burden of the past off her head--if for a while only--was a joy to judith. she had been oppressed with nightmare, and now the night was over, her brain clear, and should forget its dreams. she and jamie were together, and were children once more; her anxiety for her brother was allayed, and she had broken finally with cruel coppinger. her heart bounded with relief. jamie was simple and docile as of old; and she rambled with him through the lanes, along the shore, upon the downs, avoiding only one tract of common and one cove. a child's heart is elastic; eternal droopings it cannot bear. beaten down, bruised and draggled by the storm, it springs up when the sun shines, and laughs into flower. it is no eucalyptus that ever hangs its leaves; it is a sensitive plant, wincing, closing, at a trifle, feeling acutely, but not for long. and now judith had got an idea into her head, that she communicated to jamie, and her sanguine anticipations kindled his torpid mind. she had resolved to make little shell baskets and other chimney ornaments, not out of the marine shells cast up by the sea, for on that coast none came ashore whole, but out of the myriad snail-shells that strew the downs. they were of all sizes, from a pin's head to a gooseberry, and of various colors--salmon-pink, sulphur-yellow, rich brown and pure white. by judicious arrangement of sizes and of colors, with a little gum on cardboard, what wonderful erections might be made, certain to charm the money out of the pocket, and bring in a little fortune to the twins. "and then," said jamie, "i can build a linney, and rent a paddock, and keep my neddy at polzeath." "and," said judith, "we need be no longer a burden to auntie." the climax of constructive genius would be exhibited in the formation of a shepherd and shepherdess, for which judith was to paint faces and hands; but their hats, their garments, their shoes, were to be made of shells. the shepherdess was to have a basket on her arm, and in this basket were to be flowers, not made out of complete shells, but out of particles of sea-shells of rainbow colors. what laughter, what exultation there was over the shepherd and shepherdess! how in imagination they surpassed the fascinations of dresden china figures. and the price at which they were to be sold was settled. nothing under a pound would be accepted, and that would be inadequate to represent the value of such a monument of skill and patience! the shepherd and shepherdess would have to be kept under glass bells, on a drawing-room mantel-shelf. judith's life had hitherto been passed between her thoughtful, cultured father and her thoughtless, infantile brother. in some particulars she was old for her age, but in others she was younger than her years. as the companion of her father, she had gained powers of reasoning, a calmness in judging, and a shrewdness of sense which is unusual in a girl of eighteen. but as also the associate of jamie in his play, she had a childish delight in the simplest amusements, and a readiness to shake off all serious thought and fretting care in an instant, and to accommodate herself to the simplicity of her brother. thus--a child with a child--judith and jamie were on the common one windy, showery day, collecting shells, laughing, chattering, rejoicing over choice snail-shells, as though neither had passed through a wave of trouble, as though life lay serene before them. judith had no experience of the world. with her natural wit and feminine instinct she had discovered that cruel coppinger loved her. she had also no hesitation in deciding that he must be repulsed. should he seek her, she must avoid him. they could not possibly unite their lives. she had told him this, and there the matter ended. he must swallow his disappointment, and think no more about her. no one could have everything he wanted. other people had to put up with rejection, why not coppinger? it might be salutary to him to find that he could not have his way in all things. so she argued, and then she put aside from her all thought of the captain, and gave herself up to consideration of snail-shell boxes, baskets, and shepherds and shepherdesses. jamie was developing a marvellous aptitude for bird-stuffing. mr. menaida had told judith repeatedly that if the boy would stick to it, he might become as skilful as himself. he would be most happy, thankful to be able to pass over to him some of the work that accumulated, and which he could not execute. "i am not a professional; i am an amateur. i only stuff birds to amuse my leisure moments. provokingly enough, gentlemen do not believe this. they write to me as if i were a tradesman, laying their commands upon me, and i resent it. i have a small income of my own, and am not forced to slave for my bread and 'baccy. now, if jamie will work with me and help me, i will cheerfully share profits with him. i must be director--that is understood." but it was very doubtful whether poor jamie could be taught to apply himself regularly to the work, and that under a desultory master, who could not himself remain at a task many minutes without becoming exhausted and abandoning it. jamie could be induced to work only by being humored. he loved praise. he must be coaxed and flattered to undertake any task that gave trouble. fortunately, taxidermy did not require any mental effort, and it was the straining of his imperfect mental powers that irritated and exhausted the boy. with a little cajolery he might be got to do as much as did uncle zachie, and if mr. menaida were as good as his word--and there could be little doubt that so kind, amiable, and honorable a man would be that--jamie would really earn a good deal of money. judith also hoped to earn more with her shell-work, and together she trusted they would be able to support themselves without further tax on miss trevisa. and what a childish pleasure they found in scheming their future, what they would do with their money, where they would take a house, how furnish it! they laughed over their schemes, and their pulses fluttered at the delightful pictures they conjured up. and all their rosy paradise was to rise out of the proceeds of stuffed birds and snail-shell chimney ornaments. "ju! come here, ju!" cried jamie. then again impatiently, "ju! come here, ju!" "what is it, dear?" "here is the very house for us. do come and see." on the down, nestled against a wall that had once enclosed a garden, but was now ruinous, stood a cottage. it was built of wreck-timber, thatched with heather and bracken, and with stones laid on the thatching, which was bound with ropes, as protection against the wind. a quaint, small house, with little windows under the low eaves; one story high, the window-frames painted white; the glass frosted with salt blown from the sea, so that it was impossible to look through the small panes, and discover what was within. the door had a gable over it, and the centre of the gable was occupied by a figure-head of othello. the moor of venice was black and well battered by storm, so that the paint was washed and bitten off him. there was a strong brick chimney in the midst of the roof, but no smoke issued from it, nor had the house the appearance of being inhabited. there were no blinds to the windows, there were no crocks, no drying linen about the house; it had a deserted look, and yet was in good repair. "oh, ju!" said jamie, "we will live here. will it not be fun? and i shall have a gun and shoot birds." "whose house can it be?" asked judith. "i don't know. ju, the door is open; shall we go in?" "no, jamie, we have no right there." a little gate was in the wall, and judith looked through. there had at one time certainly been a garden there, but it had been neglected, and allowed to be overrun with weeds. roses, escallonica, and lavender had grown in untrimmed luxuriance. marigolds rioted over the space like a weed. pinks flourished, loving the sandy soil, but here and there the rude blue thistle had intruded and asserted its right to the sea-border land as its indigenous home. down came the rain, so lashing that judith was constrained to seek shelter, and, in spite of her protest that she had no right to enter othello cottage, she passed the threshold. no one was within but jamie, who had not attended to her objection; led by curiosity, and excusing himself by the rain, he had opened the door and gone inside. the house was unoccupied, and yet was not in a condition of neglect and decay. if no one lived there, yet certainly some one visited it, for it had not that mouldy atmosphere that pervades a house long shut up, nor were dust and sand deep on floor and table. there was furniture, though scanty. the hearth showed traces of having had a fire in it at no very distant period. there were benches. there were even tinder-box and candle on the mantle-shelf. jamie was in high excitement and delight. this was the ogre's cottage to which jack had climbed up the bean-stalk. he was sure to find somewhere the hen that laid golden eggs, and the harp that played of itself. judith seated herself on one of the benches and sorted her shells, leaving jamie to amuse himself. as the house was uninhabited, it did not seem to her that any gross impropriety existed in allowing him to run in and out and peep round the rooms, and into the corners. "judith," he exclaimed, coming to her from an adjoining room, "there is a bed in here, and there are crooks in the wall!" "what are the crooks for, dear?" "for climbing, i think." then he ran back, and she saw no more of him for a while, but heard him scrambling. she rose and went to the door into the adjoining apartment to see that he was after no mischief. she found that this apartment was intended for sleeping in. there was a bedstead with a mattress on it, but no clothes. jamie had found some crooks in the wall, and was scrambling up these, with hands and feet, toward the ceiling, where she perceived an opening, apparently into the attic. "oh, jamie! what are you doing there?" "ju, i want to see whether there is anything between the roof and the ceiling. there may be the harp there, or the hen that lays golden eggs." "the shower is nearly over; i shall not wait for you." she seated herself on the bed and watched him. he thrust open a sliding board, and crawled through into the attic. he would soon tire of exploring among the rafters, and would return dirty, and have to be cleared of cobwebs and dust. but it amused the boy. he was ever restless, and she would find it difficult to keep him occupied sitting by her below till the rain ceased, so she allowed him to scramble and search as he pleased. very few minutes had passed before judith heard a short cough in the main room, and she at once rose and stepped back into it to apologize for her intrusion. to her great surprise she found her aunt there, at the little window, measuring it. "a couple of yards will do--double width," said miss trevisa. "auntie!" exclaimed judith. "who ever would have thought of seeing you here?" miss trevisa turned sharply round, and her lips tightened. "and who would have thought of seeing you here," she answered, curtly. "auntie, the rain came on; i ran in here so as not to be wet through. to whom does this house belong?" "to the master--to whom else? captain coppinger." "are you measuring the window for blinds for him?" "i am measuring for blinds, but not for him." "but--who lives here?" "no one as yet." "is any one coming to live here?" "yes--i am." "oh, auntie! and are we to come here with you?" miss trevisa snorted, and stiffened her back. "are you out of your senses, like jamie, to ask such a question? what is the accommodation here? two little bedrooms, one large kitchen, and a lean-to for scullery--that is all--a fine roomy mansion for three people indeed!" "but, auntie, are you leaving the glaze?" "yes, i am. have you any objection to that?" "no, aunt, only i am surprised. and captain cruel lets you have this dear little cottage?" "as to its being dear, i don't know, i am to have it; and that is how you have found it open to poke and pry into. i came up to look round and about me, and then found i had not brought my measuring tape with me, so i returned home for that, and you found the door open and thrust yourself in." "i am very sorry if i have given you annoyance." "oh, it's no annoyance to me. the place is not mine yet." "but when do you come here, aunt dunes?" "when?" miss trevisa looked at her niece with a peculiar expression in her hard face that judith noticed, but could not interpret. "that," said miss trevisa, "i do not know yet." "i suppose you will do up that dear little garden," said judith. miss trevisa did not vouchsafe an answer; she grunted, and resumed her measuring. "has this cottage been vacant for long, auntie?" "yes." "but, auntie, some one comes here. it is not quite deserted." miss trevisa said to herself, "four times two and one breadth torn in half to allow for folds will do it. four times two is eight, and one breadth more is ten." just then jamie appeared, shyly peeping through the door. he had heard his aunt's voice, and was afraid to show himself. her eye, however, observed him, and in a peremptory tone she ordered him to come forward. but jamie would not obey her willingly, and he deemed it best for him to make a dash through the kitchen to the open front door. "that boy!" growled miss trevisa, "i'll be bound he has been at mischief." "auntie, i think the rain has ceased, i will say good-by." then judith left the cottage. "ju," said jamie, when he was with his sister beyond earshot of the aunt, "such fun--i have something to tell you." "what is it, jamie?" "i won't tell you till we get home." "oh, jamie, not till we get back to polzeath?" "well, not till we get half-way home--to the white gate. then i will tell you." chapter xxii. jamie's ride. "now, jamie! the white gate." "the white gate!--what about that?" he had forgotten his promise. "you have a secret to tell me." then the boy began to laugh and to tap his pockets. "what do you think, ju! look what i have found. do you know what is in the loft of the cottage we were in? there are piles of tobacco, all up hidden away in the dark under the rafters. i have got my pockets stuffed as full as they will hold. it is for uncle zachie. won't he be pleased?" "oh, jamie! you should not have done that." "why not? don't scold, ju!" "it is stealing." "no, it is not. no one lives there." "nevertheless it belongs to some one, by whatever means it was got, and for whatever purpose stowed away there. you had no right to touch it." "then why do you take snail-shells?" "they belong to no one, no one values them. it is other with this tobacco. give it up. take it back again." "what--to aunt dunes? i daren't, she's so cross." "well, give it to me, and i will take it to her. she is now at the cottage, and the tobacco can be replaced." "oh, ju, i should like to see her scramble up the wall!" "i do not think she will do that; but she will contrive somehow to have the tobacco restored. it is not yours, and i believe it belongs to captain cruel. if it be not given back now he may hear of it and be very angry." "he would beat me," said the boy, hastily emptying his pockets. "i'd rather have aunt dunes' jaw than captain cruel's stick." he gave the tobacco to his sister, but he was not in a good humor. he did not see the necessity for restoring it. but jamie never disobeyed his sister, when they were alone, and she was determined with him. before others he tried to display his independence, by feeble defiances never long maintained, and ending in a reconciliation with tears and kisses, and promises of submission without demur for the future. with all, even the most docile children, there occur epochs when they try their wings, strut and ruffle their plumes, and crow very loud--epochs of petulance or boisterous outbreak of self-assertion in the face of their guides and teachers. if the latter be firm, the trouble passes away to be renewed at a future period till manhood or womanhood is reached, and then guide and teacher who is wise falls back, lays down control, and lets the pupils have their own way. but if at the first attempts at mastery, those in authority, through indifference or feebleness or folly, give way, then the fate of the children is sealed, they are spoiled for ever. jamie had his rebellious fits, and they were distressing to judith, but she never allowed herself to be conquered. she evaded provoking them whenever possible; and as much as possible led him by his affection. he had a very tender heart, was devotedly attached to his sister, and appeals to his better nature were usually successful, not always immediately, but in the long run. her association with jamie had been of benefit to judith; it had strengthened her character. she had been forced from earliest childhood to be strong where he was weak, to rule because he was incapable of ruling himself. this had nurtured in her a decision of mind, a coolness of judgment, and an inflexibility of purpose unusual in a girl of her years. judith walked to othello cottage, carrying the tobacco in her skirt, held up by both hands; and jamie sauntered back to polzeath, carrying his sister's basket of shells, stopping at intervals to add to the collection, then ensconcing himself in a nook of the hedge to watch a finch, a goldhammer, or a blackbird, then stopped to observe and follow a beetle of gorgeous metallic hues that was running across the path. presently he emerged into the highway, the parish road; there was no main road in those parts maintained by toll-gates, and then observed a gig approach in which sat two men, one long and narrow-faced, the other tall, but stout and round-faced. he recognized the former at once as mr. scantlebray, the appraiser. mr. scantlebray, who was driving, nudged his companion, and with the butt-end of the whip pointed to the boy. "heigh! hi-up! gaffer!" called mr. scantlebray, flapping his arms against his sides, much as does a cock with his wings. "come along; i have something of urgent importance to say to you--something so good that it will make you squeak; something so delicious that it will make your mouth water." this was addressed to jamie, as the white mare leisurely trotted up to where the boy stood. then scantlebray drew up, with his elbows at right angles to his trunk. "here's my brother thirsting, ravening to make your acquaintance--and, by george! you are in luck's way, young hopeful, to make his. obadiah! this here infant is an orphing. orphing! this is obadiah scantlebray, whom i call scanty because he is fat. jump up, will y', into the gig." jamie looked vacantly about him. he had an idea that he ought to wait for judith or go directly home. but she had not forbidden him to have a ride, and a ride was what he dearly loved. "are you coming?" asked scantlebray; "or do you need a more ceremonious introduction to mr. obadiah, eh?" "i've got a basket of shells," said jamie. "they belong to ju." "well, put ju's basket in--the shells won't hurt--and then in with you. there's a nice little portmantle in front, on which you can sit and look us in the face, and if you don't tumble off with laughing, it will be because i strap you in. my brother is the very comicalest fellow in cornwall. it's a wonder i haven't died of laughter. i should have, but our paths diverged; he took up the medical line, and i the valuation and all that, so my life was saved. are you comfortable there?" "yes, sir," said jamie, seated himself where advised. "now for the strap round ye," said scantlebray. "don't be alarmed; it's to hold you together, lest you split your sides with merriment, and to hold you in, lest you tumble overboard convulsed with laughter. that brother of mine is the killingest man in great britain. look at his face. bless me! in church i should explode when i saw him, but that i am engrossed in my devotions. on with you, juno!" that to the gray mare, and a whip applied to make the gray mare trot along, which she did, with her head down lost in thought, or as if smelling the road, to make sure that she was on the right track. "'tisn't what he says," remarked mr. scantlebray, seeing a questioning expression on jamie's innocent face, "it's the looks of him. and when he speaks--well, it's the way he says it more than what he says. i was at a charity trust dinner, and obadiah said to the waiter, 'cutlets, please!' the fellow dropped the dish, and i stuffed my napkin into my mouth, ran out, and went into a fit. now, scanty, show the young gentleman how to make a rabbit." then mr. scantlebray tickled up the mare with the lash of his whip, cast some objurgations at a horse-fly that was hovering and then darting at juno. mr. obadiah drew forth a white but very crumpled kerchief from his pocket, and proceeded to fold it on his lap. "just look at him," said the agent, "doing it in spite of the motion of the gig. it's wonderful. but his face is the butchery. i can't look at it for fear of letting go the reins." the roads were unfrequented; not a person was passing as the party jogged along. mr. scantlebray hissed to the mare between his front teeth, which were wide apart; then, turning his eye sideways, observed what his brother was about. "that's his carcase," said he, in reference to the immature rabbit. then a man was sighted coming along the road, humming a tune. it was mr. menaida. "how are you? compliments to the young lady orphing, and say we're jolly--all three," shouted scantlebray, urging his mare to a faster pace, and keeping her up to it till they had turned a corner, and menaida was no more in sight. "just look at his face, as he's a folding of that there pockyhandkercher," said the appraiser. "it's exploding work." jamie looked into the stolid features of mr. obadiah, and laughed--laughed heartily, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. not that he saw aught humorous there, but that he was told it was there, he ought to see it, and would be a fool if he were not convulsed by it. precisely the same thing happens with us. we look at and go into raptures over a picture, because it is by a royal academician who has been knighted on account of his brilliant successes. we are charmed at a cantata, stifling our yawns, because we are told by the art critics who are paid to puff it, that we are fools, and have no ears if we do not feel charmed by it. we rush to read a new novel, and find it vastly clever, because an eminent statesman has said on a postcard it has pleased him. we laugh when told to laugh, condemn when told to condemn, and would stand on our heads if informed that it was bad for us to walk on our feet. "there!" said mr. scantlebray, the valuer. "them's ears." "crrrh!" went mr. obadiah, and the handkerchief, converted into a white bunny, shot from his hand up his sleeve. "i can't drive, 'pon my honor; i'm too ill. you have done me for to-day," said scantlebray the elder, the valuer. "now, young hopeful, what say you? will you make a rabbit, also? i'll give you a shilling if you will." thereupon jamie took the kerchief and spread it out, and began to fold it. whenever he went wrong mr. obadiah made signs, either by elevation of his brows and a little shake of his head, or by pointing, and his elder brother caught him at it and protested. obadiah was the drollest fellow, he was incorrigible, as full of mischief as an egg is full of meat. there was no trusting him for a minute when the eye was off him. "come, scanty! i'll put you on your honor. look the other way." but a moment after--"ah, for shame! there you are at it again. young hopeful, you see what a vicious brother i have; perfectly untrustworthy, but such a comical dog. full of tricks up to the ears. you should see him make shadows on the wall. he can represent a pig eating out of a trough. you see the ears flap, the jaws move, the eye twinkle in appreciation of the barley-meal. it is to the life, and all done by the two hands--by one, i may say, for the other serves as trough. what! done the rabbit! first rate! splendid! here is the shilling. but, honor bright, you don't deserve it; that naughty scanty helped you." "please," said jamie, timidly, "may i get out now and go home?" "go home! what for?" "i want to show ju my shilling." "by ginger! that is too rich. not a bit of it. do you know mistress polgrean's sweetie shop?" "but that's at wadebridge." "at wadebridge; and why not? you will spend your shilling there. but look at my brother. it is distressing; his eyes are alight at the thoughts of the tartlets, and the sticks of peppermint sugar, and the almond rock. are you partial to almond rock, orphin?" jamie's mind was at once engaged. "which is it to be? gingerbreads or tartlets, almond rock or barley-sugar?" "i think i'll have the peppermint," said jamie. "then peppermint it shall be. and you will give me a little bit, and scanty a bit, and take a little bit home to ju, eh?" "yes, sir." "he'll take a little bit home to ju, obadiah, old man." the funny brother nodded. "and the basket of shells?" asked the elder. "yes, she is making little boxes with them to sell," said jamie. "i suppose i may have the privilege of buying some," said mr. scantlebray, senior. "oh, look at that brother of mine! how he is screwing his nose about! i say, old man, are you ill? upon my life, i believe he is laughing." presently jamie got restless. "please, mr. scantlebray, may i get out? ju will be frightened at my being away so long." "poor ju!" said scantlebray, the elder. "but no--don't you worry your mind about that. we passed uncle zachie, and he will tell her where you are, in good hands, or rather, nipped between most reliable knees--my brother's and mine. sit still. i can't stop juno; we're going down-hill now, and if i stopped juno she would fall. you must wait--wait till we get to mrs. polgrean's." then, after chuckling-to himself, scantlebray, senior, said: "obadiah, old man, i wonder what missie ju is thinking? i wonder what she will say, eh?" again he chuckled. "no place in your establishment for that party, eh?" the outskirts of wadebridge were reached. "now may i get out?" said jamie. "bless my heart! not yet. wait for mrs. polgrean's." but presently mrs. polgrean's shop-window was passed. "oh, stop! stop!" cried jamie. "we have gone by the sweetie shop." "of course we have," answered scantlebray, senior. "i daren't trust that brother of mine in there; he has such a terrible sweet tooth. besides, i want you to see the pig eating out of the trough. it will kill you. if it don't i'll give you another shilling." presently he drew up at the door of a stiff, square-built house, with a rambling wing thrown out on one side. it was stuccoed and painted drab--drab walls, drab windows, and drab door. "now, then, young man," said scantlebray, cheerily, "i'll unbuckle the strap and let you out. you come in with me. this is my brother's mansion, roomy, pleasant, and comprehensive. you shall have a dish of tea." "and then i may go home?" "and then--we shall see; shan't we, obadiah, old man?" they entered the hall, and the door was shut and fastened behind them; then into a somewhat dreary room, with red flock paper on the walls, no pictures, leather-covered, old, mahogany chairs, and a book or two on the table--one of these a bible. jamie looked wonderingly about him, a little disposed to cry. he was a long way from polzeath, and judith would be waiting for him and anxious, and the place into which he was ushered was not cheery, not inviting. "now, then," said mr. scantlebray, "young hopeful, give me my shilling." "please, i'm going to buy some peppermint and burnt almonds for ju and me as i go back." "oh, indeed! but suppose you do not have the chance?" jamie looked vacantly in his face, then into that of the stolid brother, who was not preparing to show him the pig feeding out of a trough, nor was he calling for tea. "come," said scantlebray, the elder; "suppose i take charge of that shilling till you have the chance of spending it, young man." "please, i'll spend it now." "not a bit. you won't have the chance. do you know where you are!" jamie looked round in distress. he was becoming frightened at the altered tone of the valuer. "my dear," said mr. scantlebray, "you're now an honorable inmate of my brother's establishment for idiots, which you don't leave till cured of imbecility. that shilling, if you please?" chapter xxiii. all is for the best in the best of worlds. judith returned to the cottage of mr. menaida, troubled in mind, for aunt dunes had been greatly incensed at the taking of the tobacco by jamie, and not correspondingly gratified by the return of it so promptly by judith. miss trevisa was a woman who magnified and resented any wrong done, but minimized and passed over as unworthy of notice whatever was generous, and every attempt made to repay an evil. such attempts not only met with no favor from her, but were perverted in her crabbed mind into fresh affronts or injuries. that the theft of jamie would not have been discovered had not judith spoken of it and brought back what had been taken, was made of no account by aunt dionysia; she attacked judith with sharp reproach for allowing the boy to be mischievous, for indulging him and suffering him to run into danger through his inquisitiveness and thoughtlessness. "for," said aunt dionysia, "had the master or any of his men found out what jamie had done there is no telling how he might have been served." then she had muttered: "if you will not take precautions, other folk must, and the boy must be put where he can be properly looked after and kept from interfering with the affairs of others." on reaching mr. menaida's cottage, judith called her brother, but as she did not receive an answer, she went in quest of him, and was met by the servant, jump. "if you please, miss," said jump, "there's been two gen'lemen here, as said they was come from mrs. trevisa, and said they was to pack and take off master jamie's clothes. and please miss, i didn't know what to do--they was gen'lemen, and the master--he was out, and you was out, miss--and master jamie, he wasn't to home n'other." "taken jamie's clothes!" repeated judith, in amazement. "yes, miss, they brought a portmantle a-purpose; and they'd a gig at the door; and they spoke uncommon pleasant, leastwise one o' them did." "and where is jamie? has he not come home?" "no, miss." at that moment mr. menaida came in. "what is it, judith? jamie? where jamie is?--why, having a ride, seated between the two scantlebrays, in their gig. that is where he is." "oh, mr. menaida, but they have taken his clothes!" "whose clothes?" "jamie's." "i do not understand." "the two gentlemen came to this house when you and i were out, and told jump that they were empowered by my aunt to pack up and carry off all jamie's clothing, which they put into a portmanteau they had brought with them." "and then picked up jamie. he was sitting on the portmanteau," said uncle zachie; then his face became grave. "they said that they acted under authority from mrs. trevisa?" "so jump says." "it can surely not be that he has been moved to the asylum." "asylum, mr. menaida?" "the idiot asylum." judith uttered a cry, and staggered back against the wall. "jamie! my brother jamie!" "mr. obadiah scantlebray has such a place at wadebridge." "but jamie is not an idiot." "your aunt authorized them--," mused uncle zachie. "humph! you should see her about it. that is the first step, and ascertain whether she has done it, or whether they are acting with a high hand for themselves. i'll look at my law-books--if the latter it would be actionable." judith did not hesitate for a moment. she hastened to pentyre. that her aunt had left othello cottage she was pretty sure, as she was preparing to leave it when judith returned with the tobacco. accordingly she took the road to pentyre at once. tears of shame and pain welled up in her eyes at the thought of her darling brother being beguiled away to be locked up among the imbecile in a private establishment for the insane. then her heart was contracted with anger and resentment at the scurvy trick played on her and him: she did not know that the scantlebrays had been favored by pure accident. she conceived that men base enough to carry off her brother would watch and wait for the opportunity when to do it unobserved and unopposed. she hardly walked. she ran till her breath failed her, and the rapid throbbing of her heart would no longer allow her to run. her dread of approaching the glaze after the declaration made by captain cruel was overwhelmed in her immediate desire to know something about jamie, in her anguish of fear for him. on coppinger she did not cast a thought--her mind was so fully engrossed in her brother. she saw nothing of the captain. she entered the house, and proceeded at once to her aunt's apartment. she found miss trevisa there, seated near the window, engaged on some chintz that she thought would do for the window at othello cottage, when she took possession of it. she had measured the piece, found that it was suitable, and was turning down a hem and tacking it. it was a pretty chintz, covered with sprigs of nondescript pink and blue flowers. judith burst in on her, breathless, her brow covered with dew, her bosom heaving, her face white with distress, and tears standing on her eyelashes. she threw herself on her knees before miss trevisa, half crying out and half sobbing: "oh, aunt! they have taken him!" "who have taken whom?" asked the elderly lady, coldly. she raised her eyes and cast a look full of malevolence at judith. she never had, did not, never would feel toward that girl as a niece. she hated her for her mother's sake, and now she felt an unreasonable bitterness against her, because she had fascinated coppinger--perhaps, also, because in a dim fashion she was aware that she herself was acting toward the child in an unworthy, unmerciful manner, and we all hate those whom we wrong. "auntie! tell me it is not so. mr. scantlebray and his brother have carried my darling jamie away." "well, and what of that!" "but--will they let me have him back?" miss trevisa pulled at the chintz. "i will trouble you not to crumple this," she said. "aunt! dear aunt! you did not tell mr. scantlebray to take jamie away from me?" the old lady did not answer, she proceeded to release the material at which she was engaged from under the knees of judith. the girl, in her vehemence, put her hands to her aunt's arms, between the elbows and shoulders, and held and pressed them back, and with imploring eyes looked into her hard face. "oh, auntie! you never sent jamie to an asylum?" "i must beg you to let go my arms," said miss trevisa. "this conduct strikes me as most indecorous toward one of my age and relationship." she avoided judith's eye, her brow wrinkled, and her lips contracted. the gall in her heart rose and overflowed. "i am not ashamed of what i have done." "auntie!" with a cry of pain. then judith let go the old lady's arms, and clasped her hands over her eyes. "really," said miss trevisa, with asperity, "you are a most exasperating person. i shall do with the boy what i see fit. you know very well that he is a thief." "he never took anything before to-day--never--and you had settled this before you knew about the tobacco!" burst from judith, in anger and with floods of tears. "i knew that he has always been troublesome and mischievous, and he must be placed where he can be properly managed by those accustomed to such cases." "there is nothing the matter with jamie." "you have humored and spoiled him. if he is such a plague to all who know him, it is because he has been treated injudiciously. he is now with men who are experienced, and able to deal with the like of jamie." "aunt, he must not be there. i promised my papa to be ever with him, and to look after him." "then it is a pity your father did not set this down in writing. please to remember that i, and not you, am constituted his guardian, by the terms of the will." "oh, aunt! aunt! let him come back to me!" miss trevisa shook her head. "then let me go to him!" "hoity-toity! here's airs and nonsense. really, judith, you are almost imbecile enough to qualify for the asylum. but i cannot afford the cost of you both. jamie's cost in that establishment will be £ in the year, and how much do you suppose that you possess?" judith remained kneeling upright, with her hands clasped, looking earnestly through her tears at her aunt. "you have in all, between you, but £ or £ . when the dilapidations are paid, and the expenses of the funeral, and the will-proving, and all that, i do not suppose you will be found to have a thousand pounds between you, and that put out to interest will not bring you more than i have said; so i shall have to make up the deficiency. that is not pleasing to me, you may well suppose. but i had rather pay £ out of my poor income, than have the name of the family disgraced by jamie." "jamie will never, never disgrace the name. he is too good. and--it is wicked, it is cruel to put him where you have. he is not an idiot." "i am perhaps a better judge than you; so also is mr. obadiah scantlebray, who has devoted his life to the care and study of the imbecile. your brother has weak intellects." "he is not clever; that is all. with application----" "he cannot apply his mind. he has no mind that can be got to be applied." "aunt, he's no idiot. he must not be kept in that place." "you had best go back to polzeath. i have decided on what i considered right. i have done my duty." "it cannot be just. i will see what mr. menaida says. he must be released; if you will not let him out, i will." miss trevisa looked up at her quickly between her half-closed lids; a bitter, cruel smile quivered about her lips. "if any one can deliver him, it will be you." judith did not understand her meaning, and aunt dionysia did not care at that time to further enlighten her thereon. finding her aunt inflexible, the unhappy girl left pentyre glaze and hurried back to polzeath, where she implored mr. menaida to accompany her to wadebridge. go there she would--she must--that same evening. if he would not attend her, she would go alone. she could not rest, she could not remain in the house, till she had been to the place where jamie was, and seen whether she could not release him thence by her entreaties, her urgency. mr. menaida shook his head. but he was a kind-hearted old man, and was distressed at the misery of the girl, and would not hear of her making the expedition alone, as she could not well return before dark. so he assumed his rough and shabby beaver hat, put on his best cravat, and sallied forth with judith upon her journey to wadebridge, one that he assured her must be fruitless, and had better be postponed till the morrow. "i cannot! i cannot!" she cried. "i cannot sleep, thinking of my darling brother in that dreadful place, with such people about him, he crying, frightened, driven mad by the strangeness of it all, and being away from me. i must go. if i cannot save him and bring him back with me, i can see him and console him, and bid him wait in patience and hope." mr. menaida with a soft heart and a weak will, was hung about with scraps of old-world polish, scraps only. in him nothing was complete--here and there a bare place of rustic uncouthness, there patches of velvet courtesy of the queen anne age; so, also, was he made up of fine culture, of classic learning alternating with boorish ignorance--here high principle, there none at all--a picture worked to a miniature in points, and in others rudely roughed in and neglected. now he was moved as he had not been moved for years by the manifest unhappiness of the girl, and he was willing to do his utmost to assist her, but that utmost consisted in little more than accompanying her to wadebridge and ringing at the house-bell of mr. obadiah scantlebray's establishment. when it came to the interview that ensued with the proprietor of the establishment and jailer of jamie, he failed altogether. judith and uncle zachie were shown into the dreary parlor without ornaments, and presently to them entered mr. obadiah. "oh, sir, is he here?--have you got jamie here?" mr. scantlebray nodded his head, then went to the door and knocked with his fists against the wall. a servant maid appeared. "send missus," said he, and returned to the parlor. again judith entreated to be told if her brother were there with all the vehemence and fervor of her tattered heart. mr. obadiah listened with stolid face and vacant eyes that turned from her to mr. menaida, and then back to her again. presently an idea occurred to him and his face brightened. he went to a sideboard, opened a long drawer, brought out a large book, thrust it before judith, and said, "pictures." then, as she took no notice of the book, he opened it. "oh, please sir," pleaded judith, "i don't want that. i want to know about jamie. i want to see him." then in at the door came a lady in black silk, with small curls about her brow. she was stout, but not florid. "what!" said she, "my dear, are you the young lady whose brother is here? don't you fret yourself. he is as comfortable as a chick in a feathered nest. don't you worry your little self about him now. now your good days have begun. he will not be a trouble and anxiety to you any more. he is well cared for. i dare be sworn he has given you many an hour of anxiety. now, o be joyful! that is over, and you can dance and play with a light heart. i have lifted the load off you, i and mr. scantlebray. here he will be very comfortable and perfectly happy. i spare no pains to make my pets snug, and scantlebray is inexhaustible in his ability to amuse them. he has a way with these innocents that is quite marvellous. wait a while--give him and me a trial, and see what the result is. you may believe me as one of long and tried experience. it never does for amateurs--for relations--to undertake these cases; they don't know when to be firm, or when to yield. we do--it is our profession. we have studied the half-witted." "but my brother is _not_ half-witted." "so you say, and so it becomes you to say. never admit that there is imbecility or insanity in the family. you are quite right, my dear; you look forward to being married some day, and you know very well it might stand in the way of an engagement, were it supposed that you had idiocy in the family blood. it is quite right. i understand all that sort of thing. we call it nervous debility, and insanity we term nervous excitement. scantlebray, my poppet, isn't it so!" mr. obadiah nodded. "you leave all care to us; thrust it upon our shoulders. they will bear it; and never doubt that your brother will be cared for in body and in soul. in body--always something nice and light for supper, tapioca, rice-pudding, batter; to-night, rolly-poly. after that, prayers. we don't feed high, but we feed suitably. if you like to pay a little extra, we will feed higher. now, my dear, you take all as for the best, and rely on it everything is right." "but jamie ought not to be locked up." "my dear, he is at school under the wisest and most experienced of teachers. you have mismanaged him. now he will be treated professionally; and mr. scantlebray superintends not the studies only, but the amusements of the pupils. he has such a fund of humor in him." obadiah at once produced his pocket-handkerchief and began to fold it. "no, dear, no ducky, no rabbit now! you fond thing, you! always thinking of giving entertainment to some one. no, nor the parson preaching either." he was rolling his hands together and thrusting up his thumb as the representative of a sacred orator in his pulpit. "no, ducky darling! another time. my husband is quite a godsend to the nervously prostrate. he can amuse them by the hour; he never wearies of it; he is never so happy as when he is entertaining them. you cannot doubt that your brother will be content in the house of such a man. take my word for it; there is nothing like believing that all is for the best as it is. our pupils will soon be going to bed. rolly-poly and prayers, and then to bed--that is the order." "oh, let me see jamie now." "no, my dear. it would be injudicious. he is settling in; he is becoming reconciled, and it would disturb him, and undo what has already been done. don't you say so, poppet?" the poppet nodded his head. "you see, this great authority agrees with me. now, this evening jamie and the others shall have an extra treat. they shall have the pig eating out of the trough. there--what more can you desire? as soon as lights are brought in, then rolly-poly, prayers, and the pig and the trough. another time you shall see him. not to-night. it is inadvisable. take my word for it, your brother is as happy as a boy can be. he has found plenty of companions of the same condition as himself." "but he is _not_ an idiot." "my dear, we know all about that; very nice and sweet for you to say so--isn't it duckie?" the duckie agreed it was so. "there is the bell. my dear, another time. you will promise to come and see me again? i have had such a delightful talk with you. good-night, good-night. 'all is for the best in the best of worlds.' put that maxim under your head and sleep upon it." chapter xxiv. a night excursion. some people are ever satisfied with what is certain to give themselves least trouble, especially if that something concerns other persons. mr. menaida was won over by the volubility of mrs. scantlebray and the placidity of mr. scantlebray to the conviction that jamie was in the very best place he could possibly be in. a lady who called judith "my dear" and her husband "duckie" must have a kindly heart, and a gentleman like mr. obadiah, so full of resources, could not fail to divert and gratify the minds of those under his charge, and banish care and sorrow. and as mr. menaida perceived that it would be a difficult matter to liberate jamie from the establishment where he was, and as it was an easy matter to conclude that the establishment was admirably adapted to jamie, he was content that aunt dionysia had chosen the wisest course in putting him there, and that it would be to the general advantage to cherish this opinion. for, in the first place, it would pacify judith, and then, by pacifying her, would give himself none of that inconvenience, that running to and fro between polzeath and wadebridge, that consultation of law-books, that correspondence, that getting of toes and fingers into hot water, likely to result from the impatience, the unflagging eagerness of judith to liberate her brother. accordingly uncle zachie used his best endeavors to assure judith that jamie certainly was happy, had never been so happy in his life before, and that, under the treatment of so kind and experienced a man as mr. obadiah scantlebray, there was reason to believe that in a short time jamie would issue from under his tuition a light so brilliant as to outshine the beacon on trevose head. judith was unconvinced. love is jealous and timorous. she feared lest all should not be as was represented. there was an indefinable something in mrs. scantlebray that roused her suspicion. she could not endure that others should step into the place of responsibility toward jamie she had occupied so long, and which she had so solemnly assured her father she would never abandon. supposing that scantlebray and his wife were amiable and considerate persons, might they not so influence the fickle jamie as to displace her from his affections and insinuate themselves in her room? but it was not this mainly that troubled her. she was tormented with the thought of the lonely, nervous child in the strange house, among strange people, in desolation of heart and deadly fear. whenever he had become excited during the day he was sleepless at night, and had to be soothed and coaxed into slumber. on such occasions she had been wont, with the infinite, inexhaustible patience of true love, to sit by his bed, pacifying his alarms, allaying his agitation, singing to him, stroking his hair, holding his hand, till his eyes closed. and how often, just as he seemed about to drop asleep, had he become again suddenly awake, through some terror, or some imagined discomfort? then all the soothing process had to be gone through again, and it had always been gone through without a murmur or an impatient word. now jamie was alone--or perhaps worse than alone--in a dormitory of idiots, whose strange ways filled him with terror, and his dull mind would be working to discover how he came to be there, how it was that his ju was not with him. who would lull his fears, who sing to him old familiar strains? would any other hand rest on the hot brow and hold it down on the pillow? judith looked up to heaven, to the stars already glimmering there. she was not hearkening to the talk of uncle zachie: she was thinking her own thoughts. she was indeed walking back to polzeath; but her mind was nailed to that dull drab house in the suburbs of wadebridge with the brass plate on the door, inscribed, "mr. scantlebray, surgeon." as her eyes were raised to the stars, she thought of her father. he was above, looking down on her, and it seemed to her that in the flicker of the stars she saw the trouble in her father's face at the knowledge that his children were parted, and his poor little half-bright boy was fallen among those who had no love for him, might have no patience with his waywardness, would not make allowance for his infirmities. she sobbed, and would not be comforted by mr. menaida's assurances. tired, foot-weary, but more tired and weary in heart and mind, she reached the cottage. she could not sleep; she was restless. she sought jamie's room, and seated herself on the chair by his little bed, and sobbed far on into the night. her head ached, as did her burning and blistered feet; and as she sat she dozed off, then awoke with a start, so distinctly did she seem to hear jamie's voice--his familiar tone when in distress--crying, "ju! come to me, ju!" so vividly did the voice sound to her that she could not for a moment or two shake off the conviction that she had in reality heard him. she thought that he must have called her. he must be unhappy. what were those people doing to him? were they tormenting the poor little frightened creature? were they putting him into a dark room by himself, and was he nearly mad with terror? were they beating him, because he cried out in the night and disturbed the house? she imagined him sitting up on a hard bed, shivering with fear, looking round him in the dark, and screaming for her--and she could not help him. "oh, jamie!" she cried, and threw herself on her knees and put her hands over her eyes to shut out the horrible sight, over her ears to close them to the piercing cry. "they will drive him mad! oh, papa! my papa! what will you say to me? oh, my jamie! what can i do for you?" she was half mad herself, mad with fancies, conjured up by the fever of distress into which she had worked herself. what could she do? she could not breathe in that room. she could not breathe in the house. she could not remain so far from jamie--and he crying for her. his voice rang still in her ears. it sounded in her heart, it drew her irresistibly away. if she could but be outside that drab establishment in the still night, to listen, and hear if all were quiet within, or whether jamie were calling, shrieking for her. he would cry himself into fits. he would become really deranged, unless he were pacified. oh! those people!--she imagined they were up, not knowing what to do with the boy, unable to soothe him, and were now wishing that she were there, wishing they had not sent her away. judith was in that condition which is one of half craze through brooding on her fears, through intense sympathy with the unhappy boy so ruthlessly spirited away, through fever of the blood, caused by long-protracted nervous strain, through over-weariness of mind and body. jamie's distress, his need for her became an idea that laid hold of her, that could not be dispelled, that tortured her into recklessness. she could not lie on her bed, she could not rest her head for one moment. she ran to the window, panting, and smoked the glass with her burning breath, so that she could not see through it. the night was still, the sky clear, and there were stars in it. who would be abroad at that time? what danger would ensue to her if she went out and ran back to wadebridge? if any foot were to be heard on the road, she could hide. she had gone out at night in storm to save cruel coppinger--should she not go out in still starlight to aid her own twin-brother, if he needed her? providence had shielded her before--it would shield her now. the house was quiet. mr. menaida had long ago gone to bed, and was asleep. his snores were usually audible at night through the cottage. jump was asleep, sound in sleep as any hard-worked sewing-wench. judith had not undressed, had not taken off her shoes; she had wandered, consumed by restlessness, between her own room and that of her brother. it was impossible for her to remain there. she felt that she would die of imaginings of evil unless she were near jamie, unless there were naught but a wall between him and her. judith descended the stairs and once again went forth alone into the night, not now to set her face seaward, but landward; before she had gone with a defined aim in view, to warn coppinger of his danger, now she was moved by a vague suspicion of evil. the night was calm, but there was summer lightning on the horizon, attended by no thunder, a constant flicker, sometimes a flare, as though some bonfire were kindled beyond the margin of the world, that was being stirred and added to. the air was close. judith had no one to look to in the world to help her and jamie--not her aunt, her sole relative, it was she who had sent her brother to this place of restraint; not mr. menaida, he had not the moral courage and energy of purpose to succor her in her effort to release jamie; not captain coppinger--him she dare not ask, lest he should expect too much in return. the hand of misfortune was heavy on the girl; if anything was to be done to relieve the pressure, she must do it herself. as she was going hastily along the lane she suddenly halted. she heard some one a little way before her. there was no gate near by which she could escape. the lane was narrow, and the hedges low, so as not to afford sufficient shadow to conceal her. by the red summer flashes she saw a man reeling toward her round the corner. his hat was on one side of his head, and he lurched first to one side of the lane, then to the other. "there went three trav'llers over the moor-- ri-tiddle-riddle-rol, huph! said he. three trav'llers over the moor so green, the one sang high, the third sang low, ri-tiddle-riddle-rol, huph! said he, and the second he trolled between." then he stood still. "huph! huph!" he shouted. "some one else go on, i'm done for--'ri-tiddle-de.'" he saw judith by the starlight and by the flicker of the lightning, and put his head on one side and capered toward her with arms extended, chirping--"'ri-tiddle-riddle-rol, huph! said he.'" judith started on one side, and the drunken man pursued her, but in so doing, stumbled, and fell sprawling on the ground. he scrambled to his feet again, and began to swear at her and sent after her a volley of foul and profane words. had he contented himself with this it would have been bad enough, but he also picked up a stone and threw it. judith felt a blow on her head, and the lightning flashes seemed to be on all sides of her, and then great black clouds to be rising like smoke out of the earth about her. she staggered into the hedge, and sank on her knees. but fear lest the tipsy ruffian should pursue her nerved her to make an effort to escape. she quickly rose and ran along the lane, turned the corner, and ran on till her feet would no longer bear her, and her breath failed. then, looking back, and seeing that she was not followed, she seated herself, breathless, and feeling sick, in the hedge, where a glow-worm was shining, with a calm, steady light, very different from the flicker of the stars above. as she there sat, she was conscious of something warm on her neck, and putting her hand up, felt that it was moist. she held her fingers to the faint glow of the worm in the grass; there was a dark stain on her hand, and she was sure that it was blood. she felt her head swim, and knew that in another moment she would lose consciousness, unless she made an effort to resist. hastily she bound a white handkerchief about her head where wounded by the stone, to stay the flow, and walked resolutely forward. there was now a shadow stealing up the sky to the south, and obscuring the stars, a shadow behind which danced and wavered the electrical light, but judith heard no thunder, she had not the leisure to listen for it; all her anxiety was to reach wadebridge. but the air, the oppressively sultry air, was charged with sound, the mutter and growl of the atlantic. the ocean, never at rest, ever gives forth a voice, but the volume of its tone varies. now it was loud and threatening, loud and threatening as it had been on that afternoon when judith sat with her father in the rectory garden, tossing guelder-roses. then, the air had been still, but burdened with the menace of the sea. so it was now at midnight; the ocean felt the influence of the distant storm that was playing far away to the south. judith could not run now. her feet were too sore, her strength had given way. resolute though her will might be, it could not inspire with masculine strength the fragile little body, recently recovered from sickness. but it carried her into the suburbs of wadebridge, and in the starlight she reached the house of mr. obadiah scantlebray, and stood before it, looking up at it despairingly. it was not drab in color now, it was lampblack against a sky that flashed in the russet-light. the kerchief she had tied about her head had become loose. still looking at the ugly, gloomy house, she put up her arms and rebound it, knotting the ends more tightly, using care not to cover her ears, as she was intent to hear the least sound, that issued from the asylum. but for some time she could hear nothing save the rush of her blood in her ears, foaming, hissing, like the tide entering a bay over reefs. with this was mingled the mutter of the atlantic, beyond the hills--and now--yes, certainly now--the rumble of remote thunder. judith had stood on the opposite side of the street looking up at scantlebray's establishment; she saw no light anywhere. now she drew near and crept along the walls. there was a long wing, with its back to the street, without a window in the wall, and she thought it probable that the inmates of the asylum were accommodated therein, a dormitory up-stairs, play or school-rooms below. there jamie must be. the only windows to this wing opened into the garden; and consequently judith stole along the garden wall, turned the angle, down a little lane, and stood listening. the wall was high, and the summit encrusted with broken glass. she could see the glass prongs by the flicker of the lightning. she could not possibly see over the wall; the lane was too narrow for her to go back far, and the wall on the further side too high to climb. not a sound from within reached her ears. in the still night she stood holding her breath. then a scream startled her. it was the cry of a gull flying inland. if a gull's cry could be heard, then surely that of her brother, were he awake and unhappy, and wanting her. she went further down the wall, and came on a small garden gate in it, fastened, locked from within. it had a stone step. on that she sank, and laid her head in her hands. chapter xxv. found. strange mystery of human sympathy! inexplicable, yet very real. irrational, yet very potent. the young mother has accepted an invitation to a garden-party. she knows that she never looked better than at present, with a shade of delicacy about her. she has got a new bonnet that is particularly becoming, and which she desires to wear in public. she has been secluded from society for several months, and she longs to meet her friends again. she knows that she is interesting, and believes herself to be more interesting than she really is. so she goes. she is talking, laughing, a little flushed with pleasure, when suddenly she becomes grave, the hand that holds the plate of raspberries and cream trembles. all her pleasure is gone. she knows that baby is crying. her eye wanders in quest of her husband, she runs to him, touches his arm, says-- "do order the carriage; baby is crying." it is all fiddle-de-dee. baby has the best of nurses, the snuggest, daintiest little cot; has a fresh-opened tin of condensed swiss milk. reason tells her that; but no! and nurse cannot do anything to pacify the child, baby is crying, nurse is in despair. in like manner now did judith argue with herself, without being able to convince her heart. her reason spoke and said to her-- no sound of cries comes from the asylum. there is no light in any window. every inmate is asleep, jamie among them. he does not need you. he is travelling in dreamland. the scantlebrays have been kind to him. the lady is a good, motherly body; the gentleman's whole soul is devoted to finding amusement and entertainment for the afflicted creatures under his care. he has played tricks before jamie, made shadow-pictures on the wall, told funny stories, made jacks-in-the-box with his hands, and jamie has laughed till he was tired, and his heavy eyes closed with a laugh not fully laughed out on his lips. the scantlebrays are paid £ for taking care of jamie, and £ in judith's estimation was a very princely sum. the £ per annum mr. scantlebray would corruscate into his richest fun, and mrs. scantlebray's heart overflowed with warmest maternal affection. but it was in vain that judith thus reasoned, her heart would not be convinced. an indescribable unrest was in her, and would not be laid. she knew by instinct that jamie wanted her, was crying for her, was stretching out his hands in the dark for her. as she sat on the step not only did reason speak, but judgment also. she could do nothing there. she had acted a foolish part in coming all that way in the dark, and without a chance of effecting any deliverance to jamie now she had reached her destination. she had committed an egregious error in going such a distance from home, from anyone who might serve as protector to her in the event of danger, and there were other dangers she might encounter than having stones thrown at her by drunken men. if the watch were to find her there, what explanation of her presence could she give? would they take her away and lock her up for the rest of the night? they could not leave her there. large, warm drops, like tears from angels' eyes, fell out of heaven upon her folded hands, and on her bowed neck. she began to feel chilled after having been heated by her walk, so she rose, and found that she had become stiff. she must move about, however sore and weary her feet might be. she had explored the lane as far as was needful. she could not see from it into the house, the garden, and playground. was it possible that there was a lane on the further side of the house which would give her the desired opportunity? judith resolved to return by the way she had come, down the lane into the main street, then to walk along the front of the house, and explore the other side. as she was descending the lane she noticed, about twenty paces from the door, on the further side, a dense mass of portugal laurel that hung over the opposite wall, casting a shadow of inky blackness into the lane. this she considered might serve her as shelter when the threatening storm broke and the rain poured down. she walked through this shadow, and would have entered the street, but that she perceived certain dark objects passing noiselessly along it. by the flashes of lightning she could distinguish men with laden asses, and one she saw turn to enter the lane where she was. she drew back hastily into the blot cast by the bush that swung its luxuriance over the wall, and drew as closely back to the wall as was possible. thus she could not be seen, for the reflection of the lightning would not fall on her; every glare made the shadow seem the deeper. though concealed herself, and wholly invisible, she was able to distinguish a man with an ass passing by, and then halting at the door in the wall that surrounded mr. obadiah's tenement. there the man knocked, and uttered a peculiar whistle. as there ensued no immediate answer he knocked and whistled again, whereupon the door was opened; and a word or two was passed. "how many do you want, sir?" "four." "any to help to carry the half-ankers!" "no." "well, no odds. i'll carry one and you the t'other. we'll make two journeys, that's all. i can't leave neddy for long, but i'll go with you to your house-door." probably the person addressed nodded a reply in the darkness; he made no audible answer. "which is it, mr. obadiah, rum or brandy?" "brandy." "right you are, then. these are brandy. you won't take three brandies and one rum?" "yes." "all right, sir; lead the way. it's deuced dark." judith knew what this signified. some of the householders of wadebridge were taking in their supplies of spirits from the smugglers. owing to the inconvenience of it being unlawful to deal with these men for such goods, they had to receive their purchases at night, and with much secrecy. there were watchmen at wadebridge, but on such nights they judiciously patrolled another quarter of the town than that which received its supplies. the watchmen were municipal officials, and were not connected with the excise, had no particular regard for the inland revenue, anyhow, owed no duties to the officers of the coast-guard. their superior was the mayor, and the mayor was fond of buying his spirits at the cheapest market. both men disappeared. the door was left open behind them. the opportunity judith had desired had come. dare she seize it? for a moment she questioned her heart, then she resolutely stepped out of the shadow of the portugal laurel, brushed past the patient ass, entered the grounds of mr. scantlebray's establishment through the open garden-door, and drew behind a syringa bush to consider what further step she should take. in another moment both men were back. "you are sure you don't mind one rum?" "no." "right you are, then; i'll have it for you direct. the other kegs are at t'other end of the lane. you come with me, and we'll have 'em down in a jiffy." judith heard both men pass out of the door. she looked toward the house. there was a light low down in a door opening into the garden or yard where she was. not a moment was to be lost. as soon as the last kegs were brought in the house-door would be locked, and though she had entered the garden she would be unable to penetrate to the interior of the asylum. without hesitation, strong in her earnest purpose to help jamie to the utmost of her power, and grasping at every chance that offered, she hastened, cautiously indeed, but swiftly, to the door whence the light proceeded. the light was but a feeble one, and cast but a fluttering ray upon the gravel. judith was careful to walk where it could not fall on her dress. the whole garden front of the house was now before her. she was in a sort of gravelled yard, with some bushes against the walls. the main block of the house lay to her right, and the view of it was intercepted by a wall. clearly the garden space was divided, one portion for the house, and another, that into which she had entered, for the wing. that long wing rose before her with its windows all dark above, and the lower or ground floor also dark. only from the door issued the light, and she saw that a guttering tallow candle was set there on the floor. hastily she drew back. she heard feet on the gravel. the men were returning, mr. obadiah scantlebray and the smuggler, each laden with a small cask of spirits. "right you are," said the man, as he set his keg down in the passage, "that's yours, and i could drink your health, sir." "you wouldn't--prefer?--" mr. scantlebray made contortions with his hands between the candle and the wall, and threw a shadow on the surface of plaster. "no, thanks sir, i'd prefer a shilling." mr. scantlebray fumbled in his pockets, grunted "humph! purse up-stairs." felt again, "no," groped inside the breast of his waistcoat, "another time--not forget." the man muttered something not complimentary, and turned to go through the yard. "must lock door," said mr. obadiah, and went after him. now was judith's last chance. she took it at once; the moment the backs of the two men were turned she darted into the passage and stood back against the door out of the flare of the candle. the passage was a sort of hall with slated floor, the walls plastered and whitewashed at one time, but the wash and plaster had been picked off to about five feet from the floor wherever not strongly adhesive, giving a diseased and sore look to the wall. the slates of the floor were dirty and broken. judith looked along the hall for a place to which she could retreat on the return of the proprietor of the establishment. she had entered that portion of the building tenanted by the unhappy patients. the meanness of the passage, the picked walls, the situation on one side of the comfortable residence showed her this. a door there was on the right, ajar, that led into the private dwelling-house, but into that judith did not care to enter. one further down on the left probably gave access to some apartment devoted to the "pupils," as mrs. scantlebray called the patients. there was, however, another door that was open, and from it descended a flight of brick steps to what judith conjectured to be the cellars. at the bottom a second candle, in a tin candlestick, was guttering and flickering in the draught that blew in at the yard door, and descended to this underground story. it was obvious to the girl that mr. scantlebray was about to carry or roll his kegs just acquired down the brick steps to his cellar. for that purpose he had set a candle there. it would not therefore do for her, to attempt to avoid him, to descend to this lower region. she must pass the door that gave access to the cellars, a door usually locked, as she judged, for a large iron key stood in the lock, and enter the room, the door of which opened further down the passage. she was drawing her skirts together, so as to slip past the candle on the passage floor for this purpose, when her heart stood still as though she had received a blow on it. she heard--proceeding from somewhere beneath down those steps--a moan, then a feeble cry of "ju! where are you? ju! ju! ju!" she all but did cry out herself. a gasp of pain and horror did escape her, and then, without a thought of how she could conceal herself, how avoid scantlebray, she ran down the steps to the cellar. on reaching the bottom she found that there were four doors, two of which had square holes cut in them, but with iron bars before these openings. the door of one of the others, one on the left, was open, and she could see casks and bottles. it was a wine and spirit cellar, and the smell of wine issued from it. she stood panting, frightened, fearing what she might discover, doubting whether she had heard her brother's voice or whether she was a prey to fancy. then again she heard a cry and a moan. it issued from the nearest cell on her right hand. "jamie! my jamie!" she cried. "ju! ju!" the door was hasped, with a crook let into a staple so that it might, if necessary, be padlocked. but now it was simply shut and a wooden peg was thrust through the eye of the crook. she caught up the candle, and with trembling hand endeavored to unfasten the door, but so agitated was she, so blinded with horror, that she could not do so till she had put down the candle again. then she forced the peg from its place and raised the crook. she stooped and took up the candle once more, and then, with a short breath and a contraction of the breast, threw open the door, stepped in, and held up the light. the candle flame irradiated what was but a cellar compartment vaulted with brick, once whitewashed, now dirty with cobwebs and accumulated dust and damp stains. it had a stone shelf on one side, on which lay a broken plate and some scraps of food. against the further wall was a low truckle bed, with a mattress on it and some rags of blanket. huddled on this lay jamie, his eyes dilated with terror, and yet red with weeping. his clothes had been removed, except his shirt. his long red-gold hair had lost all its gloss and beauty, it was wet with sweat and knotted. the boy's face was ghastly in the flickering light. judith dropped the candle on the floor, and rushed with outstretched arms, and a cry--piercing, but beaten back on her by the walls and vault of the cell--and caught the frightened boy to her heart. "jamie! o my jamie! my jamie!" she swayed herself, crying, in the bed, holding him to her, with no thought, her whole being absorbed in a spasm of intensest, most harrowing pain. the tallow candle was on the slate floor, fallen, melting, spluttering, flaming. and in the door, holding the brandy keg upon his shoulders, stood, with open eyes and mouth, mr. obadiah scantlebray. chapter xxvi. an unwilling prisoner. mr. obadiah stood open-mouthed staring at the twins clasped in each other's arms, unable at first to understand what he saw. then a suspicion entered his dull brain, he uttered a growl, put down the keg, his heavy brows contracted, he shut his mouth, drawing in his lips so that they disappeared, and he clenched his hands. "wait--i'll beat you!" he said. the upset candle was on the floor, now half molten, with a pond of tallow burning with a lambent blue flicker trembling on extinction, then shooting up in a yellow flame. in that uncertain, changeful, upward light the face of the man looked threatening, remorseless, so that judith, in a paroxysm of fear for her brother and herself dropped, on her knee, and caught at the tin candlestick as the only weapon of defence accessible. it was hot and burnt her fingers, but she did not let go; and as she stood up the dissolved candle fell from it among some straw that littered the pavement. this at once kindled and blazed up into golden flame. for a moment the cell was full of light. mr. obadiah at once saw the danger. his casks of brandy were hard by--the fume of alcohol was in the air--if the fire spread and caught his stores a volume of flame would sweep up the cellar stair and set his house on fire. he hastily sprang in, and danced about the cell stamping furiously at the ignited wisps. judith, who saw him rush forward, thought he was about to strike her and jamie, and raised the tin candlestick in self-defence; but when she saw him engaged in trampling out the fire, tearing at the bed to drag away the blankets with which to smother the embers, she drew jamie aside from his reach, sidled, with him clinging to her, along the wall, and by a sudden spring reached the passage, slammed the door, fastened the hasp, and had the gaoler secured in his own gaol. for a moment mr. scantlebray was unaware that he was a prisoner, so busily engaged was he in trampling out the fire, but the moment he did realize the fact he slung himself with all his force against the door. judith looked round her. there was now no light in the cellar but the feeble glimmer that descended the stair from the candle above. the flame of that was now burning steadily, for the door opening into the yard was shut, and the draught excluded. in dragging jamie along with her, judith had drawn forth a scanty blanket that was about his shoulders. she wrapped it round the boy. "let me out!" roared scantlebray. "don't understand. fun--rollicking fun." judith paid no attention to his bellow. she was concerned only to escape with jamie. she was well aware that her only chance was by retaining mr. obadiah where he was. "let me out!" again shouted the prisoner; and he threw himself furiously against the door. but though it jarred on its hinges and made the hasp leap, he could not break it down. nevertheless, so big and strong was the man that it was by no means improbable that his repeated efforts might start a staple or snap a hinge band, and he and the door might come together crashing down into the passage between the cells. judith drew jamie up the steps, and on reaching the top shut the cellar door. below, mr. scantlebray roared, swore, shouted, and beat against the door; but now his voice, and the sound of his blows were muffled, and would almost certainly be inaudible in the dwelling-house. no wonder that judith had not heard the cries of her brother. it had never occurred to her that the hapless victim of the keeper of the asylum might be chastised, imprisoned, variously maltreated in regions underground, whence no sounds of distress might reach the street, and apprise the passers-by that all was not laughter within. standing in the passage or hall above, judith said: "oh, jamie! where are your clothes?" the boy looked into her face with a vacant and distressed expression. he could not answer, he did not even understand her question, so stupefied was he by his terrors, and the treatment he had undergone. judith took the candle from the floor and searched the hall. nothing was there save mr. scantlebray's coat, which he had removed and cast across one of the kegs when he prepared to convey them down to his cellar. should she take that? she shook her head at the thought. she would not have it said that she had taken anything out of the house, except only--as that was an extreme necessity, the blanket wrapped about jamie. she looked into the room that opened beyond the cellar door. it was a great bare apartment, containing only a table and some forms. "jamie!" she said, "we must get away from this place as we are. there is no help for it. do you not know where your clothes were put?" he shook his head. he clung to her with both arms, as though afraid, if he held by but one that she would slip away and vanish, as one drowning, clinging to the only support that sustained him from sinking. "come, jamie! it cannot be otherwise!" she set down the candle, opened the door into the yard, and issued forth into the night along with the boy. the clouds had broken, and poured down their deluge of warm thunder rain. in the dark judith was unable to find her direction at once, she reached the boundary wall where was no door. jamie uttered a cry of pain. "what is it, dear?" "the stones cut my feet." she felt along the wall with one hand till she touched the jamb, then pressed against the door itself. it was shut. she groped for the lock. no key was in it. she could as little escape from that enclosure as she could enter into it from without. the door was very solid, and the lock big and secure. what was to be done? judith considered for a moment, standing in the pouring rain through which the lightning flashed obscurely, illumining nothing. it seemed to her that there was but one course open to her, to return and obtain the key from mr. obadiah scantlebray. but it would be no easy matter to induce him to surrender it. "jamie! will you remain at the door? here under the wall is some shelter. i must go back." but the boy was frightened at the prospect of being deserted. "then--jamie, will you come back with me to the house?" no, he would not do that. "i must go for the key, dearest," she said, coaxingly. "i cannot open the door, so that we can escape, unless i have the key. will you do something for ju? sit here, on the steps, where you are somewhat screened from the rain, and sing to me something, one of our old songs--a jolly hawk and his wings were gray? sing that, that i may hear your voice and find my way back to you. oh--and here, jamie, your feet are just the size of mine, and so you shall pull on my shoes. then you will be able to run alongside of me and not hurt your soles." with a little persuasion she induced him to do as she asked. she took off her own shoes and gave them to him, then went across the yard to where was the house, she discovered the door by a little streak of light below it and the well trampled and worn threshold stone. she opened the door, took up the candle and again descended the steps to the cellar floor. on reaching the bottom, she held up the light and saw that the door was still sound; at the square barred opening was the red face of mr. scantlebray. "let me out," he roared. "give me the key of the garden door." "will you let me out if i do?" "no; but this i promise, as soon as i have escaped from your premises i will knock and ring at your front door till i have roused the house, and then you will be found and released. by that time we shall have got well away." "i will not give you the key." "then here you remain," said judith, and began to reascend the steps. it had occurred to her, suddenly, that very possibly the key she desired was in the pocket of the coat mr. scantlebray had cast off before descending to the cellar. she would hold no further communication with him till she had ascertained this. he yelled after her "let me out, and you shall have the key." but she paid no attention to his promise. on reaching the top of the stairs, she again shut the door, and took up his coat. she searched the pockets. no key was within. she must go to him once more. he began to shout as he saw the flicker of the candle approach. "here is the key, take it, and do as you said." his hand, a great coarse hand, was thrust through the opening in the door, and in it was the key she required. "very well," said she, "i will do as i undertook." she put her hand, the right hand, up to receive the key. in her left was the candlestick. suddenly he let go the key that clinked down on the floor outside, and made a clutch at her hand and caught her by the wrist. she grasped the bar in the little window, or he would have drawn her hand in, dragged her by the arm up against the door, and broken it. he now held her wrist and with his strong hand strove to wrench her fingers from their clutch. "unhasp the door!" he howled at her. she did not answer other than with a cry of pain, as he worked with his hand at her wrist, and verily it seemed as though the fragile bones must snap under his drag. "unhasp the door!" he roared again. with his great fingers and thick nails he began to thrust at and ploughed her knuckles; he had her by the wrist with one hand, and he was striving to loosen her hold of the bar with the other. "unhasp the door!" he yelled a third time, "or i'll break every bone in your fingers!" and he brought his fist down on the side of the door to show how he would pound them by a blow. if he did not do this at once it was because he dreaded by too heavy a blow to strike the bar and wound himself while crushing her hand. she could not hold the iron stanchion for more than another instant--and then he would drag her arm in, as a lion in its cage when it had laid hold of the incautious visitor, tears him to itself through the bars. then she brought the candle-flame up against his hand that grasped her wrist, and it played round it. he uttered a scream of pain, and let go for a moment. but that moment sufficed. she was free. the key was on the floor. she stooped to pick it up; but her fingers were as though paralyzed, she was forced to take it with the left hand and leave the candle on the floor. then, holding the key she ran up the steps, ran out into the yard, and heard her brother wailing, "ju! i want you! where are you, ju?" guided by his cries she reached the door. the key she put into the lock, and with a little effort turned it. the door opened, she and jamie were free. the door shut behind them. they were in the dark lane, under a pouring rain. but judith thought nothing of the darkness, nothing of the rain. she threw her arms round her brother, put her wet cheek against his, and burst into tears. "my jamie! o my jamie!" but the deliverance of her brother was not complete; she must bring him back to polzeath. she could allow herself but a moment for the relief of her heart, and then she caught him to her side, and pushed on with him along the lane till they entered the street. here she stood for a moment in uncertainty. was she bound to fulfil her engagement to mr. obadiah? she had obtained the key, but he had behaved to her with treachery. he had not intended the key to be other than a bait to draw her within his clutch, that he might torture her into opening the door of his cell. nevertheless, she had the key, and judith was too honorable to take advantage of him. with jamie still clinging to her she went up the pair of steps to the front door, rang the night-bell, and knocked long and loud. then, all at once her strength that had lasted gave way, and she sank on the doorsteps, without indeed losing consciousness, but losing in an instant all power of doing or thinking, of striving any more for jamie or for herself. chapter xxvii. a rescue. a window overhead was thrown open, and a voice that judith recognized as that of mrs. obadiah scantlebray, called: "who is there?--what is wanted?" the girl could not answer. the power to speak was gone from her. it was as though all her faculties, exerted to the full, had at once given way. she could not rise from the steps on which she had sunk: the will to make the effort was gone. her head was fallen against the jamb of the door and the knot of the kerchief was between her head and the wood, and hurt her, but even the will to lift her hands and shift the bandage one inch was not present. the mill-wheel revolves briskly, throwing the foaming water out of its buckets, with a lively rattle, then its movement slackens, it strains, the buckets fill and even spill, but the wheel seems to be reduced to statuariness. that stress point is but for a moment, then the weight of the water overbalances the strain, and whirr! round plunges the wheel, and the bright foaming water is whisked about, and the buckets disgorge their contents. it is the same with the wheel of human life. it has its periods of rapid and glad revolutions, and also its moments of supreme tension, when it is all but overstrung--when its movement is hardly perceptible. the strain put on judith's faculties had been excessive, and now those faculties failed her, failed her absolutely. the prostration might not last long--it might last forever. it is so sometimes when there has been overexertion; thought stops, will ceases to act, sensation dies into numbness, the heart beats slow, slower, then perhaps stops finally. it was not quite come to that with judith. she knew that she had rushed into danger again, the very danger from which she had just escaped, she knew it, but she was incapable of acting on the knowledge. "who is below?" was again called from an upper window. judith, with open eyes, heard that the rain was still falling heavily, heard the shoot of water from the roof plash down into the runnel of the street, felt the heavy drops come down on her from the architrave over the door, and she saw something in the roadway: shadows stealing along the same as she had seen before, but passing in a reversed direction. these were again men and beasts, but their feet and hoofs were no longer inaudible, they trod in the puddles and splashed and squelched the water and mud about, at each step. the smugglers had delivered the supplies agreed on, at the houses of those who dealt with them, and were now returning, the asses no longer laden. and judith heard the door behind her unbarred and unchained and unlocked. then it was opened, and a ray of light was cast into the street, turning falling rain-drops into drops of liquid gold, and revealing, ghostly, a passing ass and its driver. "who is there? _is_ anyone there?" then the blaze of light was turned on judith, and her eyes shut with a spasm of pain. in the doorway stood mrs. scantlebray half-garmented, that is to say with a gown on, the folds of which fell in very straight lines from the waist to her feet, and with a night-cap on her head, and her curls in papers. she held a lamp in her hand, and this was now directed upon the girl, lying, or half-sitting in the doorway, her bandaged head leaning against the jamb, one hand in her lap, the fingers open, the other falling at her side, hanging down the steps, the fingers in the running current of the gutter, in which also was one shoeless foot. "why--goodness! mercy on us!" exclaimed mrs. scantlebray, inconsiderately thrusting the lamp close into the girl's face. "it can never be--yet--surely it is----" "judith!" exclaimed a deep voice, the sound of which sent a sudden flutter through the girl's nerves and pulses. "judith!" and from out the darkness and falling rain plunged a man in full mantle wrapped about him and overhanging broad-brimmed hat. without a word of excuse he snatched the light from mrs. scantlebray and raised it above judith's head. "merciful powers!" he cried, "what is the meaning of this! what has happened? there is blood here--blood! judith--speak. for heaven's sake, speak!" the light fell on his face, his glittering eyes--and she slightly turned her head and looked at him. she opened her mouth to speak, but could form no words, but the appeal in those dim eyes went to his heart, he thrust the lamp roughly back into mrs. scantlebray's hand, knelt on the steps, passed an arm under the girl, the other about her waist, lifted and carried her without a word inside the house. there was a leather-covered ottoman in the hall, and he laid her on that, hastily throwing off his cloak, folding it, and placing it as a pillow beneath her head. then, on one knee at her side, he drew a flask from his breast pocket, and poured some drops of spirit down her throat. the strength of the brandy made her catch her breath, and brought a flash of red to her cheek. it had served its purpose, helped the wheel of life to turn beyond the stress point at which it threatened to stay wholly. she moved her head, and looked eagerly about her for jamie. he was not there. she drew a long breath, a sigh of relief. "are you better?" he asked, stooping over her, and she could read the intensity of his anxiety in his face. she tried to smile a reply, but the muscles of her lips were too stiff for more than a flutter. "run!" ordered captain coppinger, standing up, "you woman, are you a fool? where is your husband? he is a doctor, fetch him. the girl might die." "he--captain--he is engaged, i believe, taking in his stores." "fetch him! leave the lamp here." mrs. scantlebray groped about for a candle, and having found one, proceeded to light it. "i'm really shocked to appear before you, captain, in this state of undress." "fetch your husband!" said coppinger, impatiently. then she withdrew. the draught of spirits had acted on judith and revived her. her breath came more evenly, her heart beat regularly, and the blood began to circulate again. as her bodily powers returned, her mind began to work once more, and again anxiously she looked about her. "what is it you want?" asked captain cruel. "where is jamie?" he muttered a low oath. always jamie. she could think of no one but that silly boy. then suddenly she recalled her position--in scantlebray's house, and the wife was on the way to the cellars, would find him, release him--and though she knew that coppinger would not suffer obadiah to injure her, she feared, in her present weakness, a violent scene. she sat up, dropped her feet on the floor, and stretched both her hands to the smuggler. "oh, take me! take me from here." "no, judith," he answered. "you must have the doctor to see you--after that----" "no! no! take me before he comes. he will kill me." coppinger laughed. he would like to see the man who would dare to lay a finger on judith while he stood by. now they heard a noise from the wings of the house at the side that communicated with the dwelling by a door that mrs. scantlebray had left ajar. there were exclamations, oaths, a loud, angry voice, and the shrill tones of the woman mingled with the bass notes of her husband. the color that had risen to the girl's cheeks left them; she put her hands on coppinger's breast and looking him entreatingly in the eyes, said: "i pray you! i pray you!" he snatched her up in his arms, drew her close to him, went to the door, cast it open with his foot, and bore her out into the rain. there stood his mare, black bess, with a lad holding her. "judith, can you ride?" he lifted her into the saddle. "boy," said he, "lead on gently; i will stay her lest she fall." then they moved away, and saw through the sheet of falling rain the lighted door, and scantlebray in it, in his shirt sleeves shaking his fists, and his wife behind him, endeavoring to draw him back by the buckle and strap of his waistcoat. "oh, where is jamie? i wonder where jamie is?" said judith, looking round her in the dark, but could see no sign of her brother. there were straggling houses for half a mile--a little gap of garden or paddock, then a cottage, then a cluster of trees, and an alehouse, then hedges and no more houses. a cooler wind was blowing, dispelling the close, warm atmosphere, and the rain fell less heavily. there was a faint light among the clouds like a watering of satin. it showed that the storm was passing away. the lightning flashes were, moreover, at longer intervals, fainter, and the thunder rumbled distantly. with the fresher air, some strength and life came back to judith. the wheel though on the turn was not yet revolving rapidly. coppinger walked by the horse, he had his arm up, holding judith, for he feared lest in her weakness she might fall, and indeed, by her weight upon his hand, he was aware that her power to sustain herself unassisted was not come. he looked up at her; he could hardly fail to do so, standing, striding so close to her, her wet garments brushing his face; but he could not see her, or saw her indistinctly. he had thrust her little foot into the leather of his stirrup, as the strap was too long for her to use, and he did not tarry to shorten it. coppinger was much puzzled to learn how judith had come at such an hour to the door of mrs. obadiah scantlebray, shoeless, and with wounded head, but he asked no questions. he was aware that she was not in a condition to answer them. he held her up with his right hand in the saddle, and with his left he held her foot in the leather. were she to fall she might drag by the foot, and he must be on his guard against that. pacing in the darkness, holding her, his heart beat, and his thoughts tossed and boiled within him. this girl so feeble, so childish, he was coming across incessantly, thrown in her way to help her, and he was bound to her by ties invisible, impalpable, and yet of such strength that he could not break through them and free himself. he was a man of indomitable will, of iron strength, staying up this girl, who had flickered out of unconsciousness and might slide back into it again at any moment, and yet he felt, he knew that he was powerless before her--that if she said to him, "lie down that i may trample on you," he would throw himself in the foul road without a word to be trodden under by these shoeless feet. there was but one command she could lay on him that he would not perform, and that was "let me go by myself! never come near me!" that he could not obey. the rugged moon revolves about the earth. could the moon fly away into space were the terrestrial orb to bid it cease to be a satellite? and if it did, whither would it go? into far off space, into outer darkness and deathly cold, to split and shiver into fragments in the inconceivable frost in the abyss of blackness. and judith threw a sort of light and heat over this fierce, undisciplined man, that trembled in his veins and bathed his heart, and was to him a spring of beauty, a summer of light. could he leave her? to leave her would be to be lost to everything that had now begun to transform his existence. the thought came over him now, as he walked along in silence--that she might bid him let go, and he felt that he could not obey. he must hold her, he must hold her not _from_ him on the saddle, not as merely staying her up, but to himself, to his heart, as his own, his own forever. suddenly an exclamation from judith: "jamie! jamie!" something was visible in the darkness, something whitish in the hedge. in another moment it came bounding up. "ju! oh, ju! i ran away!" "you did well," she said. "now i am happy. you are saved." coppinger looked impatiently round and saw by the feeble light that the boy had come close to him, and that he was wrapped up in a blanket. "he has nothing on him," said judith. "oh, poor jamie!" she had revived; she was almost herself again. she held herself more firmly in the saddle and did not lean so heavily on coppinger's hand. coppinger was vexed at the appearance of the boy, jamie; he would fain have paced along in silence by the side of judith. if she could not speak it mattered not so long as he held her. but that this fool should spring out of the darkness and join company with him and her, and at once awake her interest and loosen her tongue, irritated him. but as she was able to speak he would address her, and not allow her to talk over his head with jamie. "how have you been hurt?" he asked. "why have you tied that bandage about your head?" "i have been cut by a stone." "how came that?" "a drunken man threw it at me." "what was his name?" "i do not know." "that is well for him." then, after a short pause, he asked further, "and your unshod feet?" "oh! i gave my shoes to jamie." coppinger turned sharply round on the boy. "take off those shoes instantly and give them back to your sister." "no--indeed, no," said judith. "he is running and will cut his poor feet--and i, through your kindness, am riding." coppinger did not insist. he asked: "but how comes the boy to be without clothes?" "because i rescued him, as he was, from the asylum." "you--! is that why you are out at night?" "yes. i knew he had been taken by the two mr. scantlebrays at wadebridge, and i could not rest. i felt sure he was miserable, and was dying for me." "so--in the night you went to him?" "yes." "but how did you get him his freedom?" "i found him locked in the black-hole, in the cellar." "and did scantlebray look on passively while you released him?" "oh, no, i let jamie out, and locked him in, in his place." "you--scantlebray in the black-hole!" "yes." then coppinger laughed, laughed long and boisterously. his hand that held judith's foot and the stirrup leather shook with his laughter. "by heaven!--you are wonderful, very wonderful. any one who opposes you is ill-treated, knocked down and broken, or locked into a black hole in the dead of night." judith, in spite of her exhaustion, was obliged to smile. "you see, i must do what i can for jamie." "always jamie." "yes, captain coppinger, always jamie. he is helpless and must be thought for. i am mother, nurse, sister to him." "his providence," sneered coppinger. "the means under providence of preserving him," said judith. "and me--would you do aught for me?" "did i not come down the cliffs for you?" asked the girl. "heaven forgive me that i forgot that for one moment," he answered, with vehemence. "happy--happy--happiest of any in this vile world is the man for whom you will think, and scheme and care and dare--as you do for jamie." "there is none such," said judith. "no--i know that," he answered, gloomily, and strode forward with his head down. ten minutes had elapsed in silence, and polzeath was approached. then suddenly coppinger let go his hold of judith, caught the rein of black bess, and arrested her. standing beside judith, he said, in a peevish, low tone: "i touched your hand, and said i was subject to a queen." he bent, took her foot and kissed it. "you repulsed me as subject; you are my mistress!--accept me as your slave." chapter xxviii. an examination. some days had elapsed. judith had not suffered from her second night expedition as she had from the first, but the intellectual abilities of jamie had deteriorated. the fright he had undergone had shaken his nerves, and had made him more restless, timid, and helpless than heretofore, exacting more of judith's attention and more trying her endurance. but she trusted these ill effects would pass away in time. from his rambling talk she had been able to gather some particulars, which to a degree modified her opinion relative to the behavior of mr. obadiah scantlebray. it appeared from the boy's own account that he had been very troublesome. after he had been taken into the wing of the establishment that was occupied by the imbeciles, his alarm and bewilderment had grown. he had begun to cry and to clamor for his release, or for the presence of his sister. as night came on, paroxysms of impotent rage had alternated with fits of whining. the appearance of his companions in confinement, some of them complete idiots, with half-human gestures and faces, had enhanced his terrors. he would eat no supper, and when put to bed in the common dormitory had thrown off his clothes, torn his sheets, and refused to lie down; had sat up and screamed at the top of his voice. nothing that could be done, no representations would pacify him. he prevented his fellow inmates of the asylum from sleeping, and he made it not at all improbable that his cries would be overheard by passers-by in the street, or those occupying neighboring houses, and thus give rise to unpleasant surmises, and perhaps inquiry. finally, scantlebray had removed the boy to the place of punishment, the black hole, a compartment of the cellars, there to keep him till his lungs were exhausted, or his reason gained the upper hand, and judith supposed, with some justice, that scantlebray had done this only, or chiefly, because he himself would be up, and about the cellars, engaged in housing his supplies of brandy, and that he had no intention of locking the unhappy boy up for the entire night, in solitude, in his cellars. he had not left him in complete darkness, for a candle had been placed on the ground outside the black hole door. as judith saw the matter now, it seemed to her that though scantlebray had acted with harshness and lack of judgment there was some palliation for his conduct. that jamie could be most exasperating, she knew full well by experience. when he went into one of his fits of temper and crying, it took many hours and much patience to pacify him. she had spent long time and exhausted her efforts to bring him to a subdued frame of mind on the most irrational and trifling occasions, when he had been angered. nothing answered with him then save infinite forbearance and exuberant love. on this occasion there was good excuse for jamie's fit, he had been frightened, and frightened out of his few wits. as judith said to herself--had she been treated in the same manner, spirited off, without preparation, to a strange house, confined among afflicted beings, deprived of every familiar companion--she would have been filled with terror, and reasonably so. she would not have exhibited it, however, in the same manner as jamie. scantlebray had not acted with gentleness, but he had not, on the other hand, exhibited wanton cruelty. that he was a man of coarse nature, likely on provocation to break through the superficial veneer of amiability, she concluded from her own experience, and she did not doubt that those of the unfortunate inmates of the asylum who overstrained his forbearance met with very rough handling. but that he took a malignant pleasure in harassing and torturing them, that she did not believe. on the day following the escape from the asylum, judith sent mr. menaida to wadebridge with the blanket that had been carried off round the shoulders of her brother, and with a request to have jamie's clothes surrendered. uncle zachie returned with the garments, they were not refused him, and judith and her brother settled down into the routine of employment and amusement as before. the lad assisted mr. menaida with his bird skins, talking a little more childishly than before, and sticking less assiduously to his task; and judith did her needlework and occasionally played on the piano the pieces of music at which uncle zachie had hammered ineffectually for many years, and she played them to the old man's satisfaction. at last the girl ventured to induce jamie to recommence his lessons. he resisted at first, and when she did, on a rainy day, persuade him to set to his school tasks, she was careful not to hold him to them for more than a few minutes, and to select those lessons which made him least impatient. there was a "goldsmith's geography," illustrated with copper-plates of indians attacking captain cook, the geysers, esquimaux fishing, etc., that always amused the boy. accordingly, more geography was done during these first days of resumption of work than history, arithmetic, or reading. latin had not yet been attempted, as that was jamie's particular aversion. however, the eton latin grammar was produced, and placed on the table, to familiarize his mind with the idea that it had to be tackled some day. judith had spread the table with lesson-books, ink, slate, and writing-copies, one morning, when she was surprised at the entry of four gentlemen, two of whom she recognized immediately as the brothers scantlebray. the other two she did not know. one was thin faced, with red hair, a high forehead extending to the crown, with the hair drawn over it, and well pomatumed, to keep it in place, and conceal the baldness; the other a short man, in knee-breeches and tan-boots, with a red face, and with breath that perfumed the whole room with spirits. mr. scantlebray, senior, came up with both hands extended. "this is splendid! how are you? never more charmed in my life, and ready to impart knowledge, as the sun diffuses light. obadiah, old man, look at your pupil--better already for having passed through your hands. i can see it at a glance; there's a brightness, a _je ne sais quoi_ about him that was not there before. old man, i congratulate you. you have a gift--shake hands." the gentlemen seated themselves without invitation. surprise and alarm made judith forget her usual courtesy. she feared lest the sight of his gaolers might excite jamie. but it was not so. whether, in his confused mind, he did not associate mr. obadiah with his troubles on that night of distress, or whether his attention was distracted by the sight of so many, was doubtful, but jamie did not seem to be disconcerted; rather, on the contrary, he was glad of some excuse for escape from lessons. "we are come," said the red-headed man, "at miss trevisa's desire--but really, mr. scantlebray, for shame of you. where are your manners? introduce me." "mr. vokins," said scantlebray, "and the accomplished and charming miss judith trevisa, orphing." "and now, dear young lady," said the red-headed man, "now, positively, it is my turn--my friend, mr. jukes. jukes, man! miss judith trevisa." then mr. vokins coughed into his thin white hand, and said, "we are come, naturally--and i am sure you wish what miss trevisa wishes--to just look at your brother, and give our opinion on his health." "oh, he is quite well," said judith. "ah! you think so, naturally, but we would decide for ourselves, dearest young lady, though--not for the world would we willingly differ from you. but, you know, there are questions on which varieties of opinions are allowable, and yet do not disturb the most heartfelt friendship. it is so, is it not, jukes?" the rubicund man in knee-breeches nodded. "shall i begin, jukes? why, my fine little man! what an array of books! what scholarship! and at your age, too--astounding! what age did you say you were?" this to jamie in an insinuating tone. jamie stared, looked appealingly at judith, and said nothing. "we are the same age, we are twins," said judith. "oh! it is not the right thing to appear anxious to know a lady's age. we will put it another way, eh, jukes?" the red-faced man leaned his hands on his stick, his chin on his hands, and winked, as in that position he could not nod. "now, my fine little man! when is your birthday? when you have your cake--raisin-cake, eh?" jamie looked questioningly at his sister. "ah! come, not the day of the month--but the month, eh?" jamie could not answer. "come now," said the red-headed levy man, stretching his legs before him, legs vested in white trousers, strapped down tight. "come now, my splendid specimen of humanity! in which quarter of the year? between sickle and scythe, eh?" he waited, and receiving no answer, pulled out a pocket-book and made a note, after having first wetted the end of his pencil. "don't know when he was born. what do you say to that, jukes? will you take your turn?" the man with an inflamed face was gradually becoming purple, as he leaned forward on his stick, and said, "humph! a latin grammar. propria quæ maribus. i remember it, but it was a long time ago i learned it. now, whipper-snapper! how do you get on? propria quæ maribus--go on." he waited. jamie looked at him in astonishment. "come! tribu--" again he waited. "come! _tribuntur mascula dicas._ go on." again a pause. then with an impatient growl. "ut sunt divorum, mars, bacchus, apollo. this will never do. go on with the scaramouch, vokins. i'll make my annotations." "he's too hard on my little chap, ain't he?" asked the thin man in ducks. "we won't be done. we are not old enough----" "he is but eighteen," said judith. "he is but eighteen," repeated the red-headed man. "of course he has not got so far as that, but musa, musæ." jamie turned sulky. "not musa, musæ--and eighteen years! jukes, this is serious, jukes; eh, jukes?" "now look here, you fellows," said scantlebray, senior. "you are too exacting. it's holiday time, ain't it, orphing? we won't be put upon, not we. we'll sport, and frolic, and be joyful. look here, scanty, old man, take the slate and draw a pictur' to my describing. now then, jamie, look at him and hearken to me. he's the funniest old man that ever was, and he'll surprise you. are you ready, scanty?" mr. obadiah drew the slate before him, and signed with the pencil to jamie to observe him. the boy was quite ready to see him draw. "there was once upon a time," began mr. scantlebray, senior, "a man that lived in a round tower. look at him, draw it, there you are. that is the tower. go on. and in the tower was a round winder. do you see the winder, orphing? this man every morning put his hand out of the winder to ascertain which way the wind blew. he put it in thus, and drew it out thus. no! don't look at me, look at the slate and then you'll see it all. now this man had a large pond, preserved full of fish." scratch, scratch went the pencil on the slate. "them's the fish," said scantlebray, senior. "now below the situation of that pond, in two huts, lived a pair of thieves. you see them pokey things my brother has drawn? them's the 'uts. when night set in, these wicked thieves came walking up to the pond, see my brother drawing their respective courses! and on reaching the pond, they opened the sluice, and whish! whish! out poured the water." scratch, scratch, squeak, squeak, went the pencil on the slate. "there now! the naughty robbers went after fish, and got a goose! look! a goo-oose." "where's the goose?" asked jamie. "where? before your eyes--under your nose. that brilliant brother of mine has drawn one. hold the slate up, scanty." "that's not a goose," said jamie. "not a goose! you don't know what geese are." "yes, i do," retorted the boy, resentfully, "i know the wild goose and the tame one--which do you call that?" "oh, wild goose, of course." "it's not one. a goose hasn't a tail like that, nor such legs," said jamie, contemptuously. mr. scantlebray, senior, looked at messrs. vokins and jukes and shook his head. "a bad case. don't know a goose when he sees it--and he is eighteen." both vokins and jukes made an entry in their pocket-books. "now jukes," said vokins, "will you take a turn, or shall i?" "oh, you, vokins," answered jukes, "i haven't recovered _propria quæ maribus_, yet." "very well, my interesting young friend. suppose now we change the subject and try arithmetic." "i don't want any arithmetic," said jamie, sulkily. "no--come--now we won't call it by that name; suppose some one were to give you a shilling." jamie looked up interested. "and suppose he were to say. there--go and buy sweeties with this shilling. tartlets at three for two pence, and barley-sugar at three farthings a stick, and----" "i want my shilling back," said jamie, looking straight into the face of mr. scantlebray, senior. "and that there were burnt almonds at two pence an ounce." "i want my shilling," exclaimed the boy, angrily. "your shilling, puff! puff!" said the red-headed man. "this is ideal, an ideal shilling, and ideal jam-tarts, almond rock, burnt almonds or what you like." "give me back my shilling. i won it fair," persisted jamie. then judith, distressed, interfered. "jamie, dear! what do you mean? you have no shilling owing to you." "i have! i have!" screamed the boy. "i won it fair of that man there, because i made a rabbit, and he took it from me again." "hallucinations," said jukes. "quite so," said vokins. "give me my shilling. it is a cheat!" cried jamie, now suddenly roused into one of his fits of passion. judith caught him by the arm, and endeavored to pacify him. "let go, ju! i will have my shilling. that man took it away. he is a cheat, a thief. give me my shilling." "i am afraid he is excitable," said vokins. "like all irrational beings," answered jukes. "i'll make a note. rising out of hallucinations." "i will have my shilling," persisted jamie. "give me my shilling or i'll throw the ink at you." he caught up the ink-pot, and before judith had time to interfere had flung it across the table, intending to hit mr. scantlebray, senior, but not hurt him, and the black fluid was scattered over mr. vokins's white trousers. "bless my life!" exclaimed this gentleman, springing to his feet, pulling out his handkerchief to wipe away the ink, and only smearing it the more over his "ducks" and discoloring as well, his kerchief. "bless my life--jukes! a dangerous lunatic. note at once. clearly comes within the act. clearly." in a few minutes all had left, and judith was endeavoring to pacify her irritated brother. his fingers were blackened, and finally she persuaded him to go up-stairs and wash his hands clear of the ink. then she ran into the adjoining room to mr. menaida. "oh, dear mr. menaida!" she said, "what does this mean? why have they been here?" uncle zachie looked grave and discomposed. "my dear," said he. "those were doctors, and they have been here, sent by your aunt, to examine into the condition of jamie's intellect, and to report on what they have observed. there was a little going beyond the law, perhaps, at first. that is why they took it so easily when you carried jamie off. they knew you were with an old lawyer; they knew that you or i could sue for a writ of habeas corpus." "but do you really think--that aunt dionysia is going to have jamie sent back to that man at wadebridge?" "i am certain of it. that is why they came here to-day." "can i not prevent it?" "i do not think so. if you go to law----" "but if they once get him, they will make an idiot or a madman of him." "then you must see your aunt and persuade her not to send him there." chapter xxix. on a peacock's feather. as mr. menaida spoke, miss dionysia trevisa entered, stiff, hard, and when her eyes fell on judith, they contracted with an expression of antipathy. in the eyes alone was this observable, for her face was immovable. "auntie!" exclaimed judith, drawing her into the sitting-room, and pressing her to take the arm chair. "oh, auntie! i have so longed to see you--there have been some dreadful men here--doctors i think--and they have been teasing jamie, till they had worked him into one of his temper fits." "i sent them here, and for good reasons. jamie is to go back to wadebridge." "no--indeed no! auntie! do not say that. you would not say it if you knew all." "i know quite enough. more than is pleasing to me. i have heard of your outrageous and unbecoming conduct. hoity! toity! to think that a trevisa--but there you are one only in name--should go out at night, about the streets and lanes, like a common stray. bless me! you might have knocked me down with a touch, when i was told of it." "i did nothing outrageous and unbecoming, aunt. you may be sure of that. i am quite aware that i am a trevisa, and a gentlewoman, and something higher than that, aunt--a christian. my father never let me forget that." "your conduct was--well i will give it no expletive." "aunt, i did what was right. i was sure that jamie was unhappy and wanted me. i cannot tell you how i knew it, but i was certain of it, and i had no peace till i went; and, as i found the garden door open, i went in, and as i went in i found jamie locked up in the cellars, and i freed him. had you found him there, you would have done the same." "i have heard all about it. i want no repetition of a very scandalous story. against my will i am burdened with an intolerable obligation, to look after an idiot nephew and a niece that is a self-willed and perverse miss." "jamie is no idiot," answered judith, firmly. "jamie is what those pronounce him to be, who by their age, their profession, and their inquiries are calculated to judge better than an ignorant girl, not out of her teens." "auntie i believe you have been misinformed. listen to me, and i will tell you what happened. as for those men----" "those men were doctors. perhaps they were misinformed when they went through the college of surgeons, were misinformed by all the medical books they have read, were misdirected by all the study of the mental and bodily maladies of men they have made, in their professional course." "i wish, dear aunt dionysia, you would take jamie to be with you a few weeks, talk to him, play with him, go walks with him, and you will never say that he is an idiot. he needs careful management, and also a little application----" "enough of that theme," interrupted miss trevisa, "i have not come here to be drawn into an argument, or to listen to your ideas of the condition of that unhappy, troublesome, that provoking boy. i wish to heaven i had not the responsibility for him, that has been thrust on me, but as i have to exercise it, and there is no one to relieve me of it, i must do my best, though it is a great expense to me. seventy pounds is not seventy shillings, nor is it seventy pence." "aunt, he is not to go back to the asylum. he _must not_ go." "hoity-toity! _must not_ indeed. you, a minx of eighteen to dictate to me! must not, indeed! you seem to think that you, and not i, are jamie's guardian." "papa entrusted him to me with his last words." "i know nothing about last words. in his will i am constituted his guardian and yours, and as such i shall act as my convenience--conscience i mean, dictates." "but, aunt! jamie is not to go back to wadebridge. aunt! i entreat you! i know what that place is. i have been inside it, you have not. and just think of jamie on the very first night being locked up there." "he richly deserved it, i will be bound." "oh, aunt! how could he? how could he?" "of that mr. obadiah scantlebray was the best judge. why he had to be punished you do not know." "indeed i do. he cried because the place was strange, and he was among strange faces. aunt--if you were whipped off to timbuctoo, and suddenly found yourself among savages, and in a rush apron, as the squaw of a black chief, or whatever they call their wives in timbuctoo land, would you not scream?" "judith," said miss trevisa, bridling up. "you forget yourself." "no, aunt! i am only pleading for jamie, trying to make you feel for him, when he was locked up in an asylum. how would you like it, aunt, if you were snatched away to barthelmy fair, and suddenly found yourself among tight-rope dancers, and jack puddings?" "judith, i insist on you holding your tongue. i object to being associated even in fancy, with such creatures." "well--but jamie was associated, not in fancy, but in horrible reality, with idiots." "jamie goes to scantlebray's asylum to-day." "auntie!" "he is already in the hands of the brothers scantlebray." "oh, auntie--no--no!" "it is no pleasure to me to have to find the money, you may well believe. seventy pounds is not, as i said, seventy pence, it is not seventy farthings. but duty is duty, and however painful and unpleasant and costly, it must be performed." then from the adjoining room, "the shop," came mr. menaida. "i beg pardon for an interruption and for interference," said he. "i happen to have overheard what has passed, as i was engaged in the next room, and i believe that i can make a proposal which will perhaps be acceptable to you, miss trevisa, and grateful to miss judith." "i am ready to listen to you," said aunt dionysia, haughtily. "it is this," said uncle zachie. "i understand that pecuniary matters concerning jamie are a little irksome. now the boy, if he puts his mind to it, can be useful to me. he has a remarkable aptitude for taxidermy. i have more orders on my hands than i can attend to. i am a gentleman, not a tradesman, and i object to be oppressed--flattened out--with the orders piled on top of me. but if the boy will help, he can earn sufficient to pay for his living here with me." "oh, mr. menaida, dear mr. menaida! thank you so much," exclaimed judith. "perhaps you will allow me to speak," said miss trevisa, with asperity. "i am guardian, and not you, whatever you may think from certain vague expressions breathed casually from my poor brother's lips, and to which you have attached an importance he never gave to them." "aunt, i assure you, my dear papa----" "that question is closed. we will not reopen it. i am a trevisa. i can't for a moment imagine where you got those ideas. not from your father's family, i am sure. tight-rope dancers and timbuctoos, indeed!" then she turned to mr. menaida, and said, in her hard, constrained voice, as though she were exercising great moral control to prevent herself from snapping at him with her teeth. "your proposal is kind and well intentioned, but i cannot accept it." "oh, aunt! why not?" "that you shall hear. i must beg you not to interrupt me. you are so familiar with the manners of timbuctoo and of barthelmy fair, that you forget those pertaining to england and polished society." then, turning to mr. menaida, she said: "i thank you for your well-intentioned proposal, which, however, it is not possible for me to close with. i must consider the boy's ulterior advantage, not the immediate relief to my sorely-taxed purse. i have thought proper to place jamie with a person, a gentleman of experience, and highly qualified to deal with those mentally afflicted. however much i may value you, mr. menaida, you must excuse me for saying that firmness is not a quality you have cultivated with assiduity. judith, my niece, has almost ruined the boy by humoring him. you cannot stiffen a jelly by setting it in the sun, or in a chair before the fire, and that is what my niece has been doing. the boy must be isinglassed into solidity by those who know how to treat him. mr. obadiah scantlebray is the man----" "to manufacture idiots, madam, out of simple innocents, it is worth his while at seventy pounds a year," said uncle zachie, petulantly. miss trevisa looked at him stonily, and said: "sir! i suppose you know best. but it strikes me that such a statement, relative to mr. obadiah scantlebray, is actionable. but you know best, being a solicitor." mr. menaida winced and drew back. judith leaned against the mantel-shelf, trembling with anxiety and some anger. she thought that her aunt was acting in a heartless manner toward jamie, that there was no good reason for refusing the generous offer of uncle zachie. in her agitation, unable to keep her fingers at rest, the girl played with the little chimney ornaments. she must occupy her nervous, twitching hands about something; tears of distressed mortification were swelling in her heart, and a fire was burning in two flames in her cheeks. what could she do to save jamie? what would become of the boy at the asylum? it seemed to her that he would be driven out of his few wits, by terror and ill-treatment, and distress at leaving her and losing his liberty to ramble about the cliffs where he liked. in a vase on the chimney-piece was a bunch of peacock's feathers, and in her agitation, not thinking what she was about, desirous only of having something to pick at and play with in her hands, to disguise the trembling of the fingers, she took out one of the plumes and trifled with it, waving it and letting the light undulate over its wondrous surface of gold and green and blue. "as long as i have responsibility for the urchin----" said miss dionysia. "urchin!" muttered judith. "as long as i have the charge i shall do my duty according to my lights, though they may not be those of a rush-aproned squaw in timbuctoo, nor of a jack pudding balancing a feather on his nose." there was here a spiteful glance at judith. "when my niece has a home of her own--is settled into a position of security and comfort--then i wash my hands of the responsibility; she may do what she likes then--bring her brother to live with her if she chooses and her husband consents--that will be naught to me." "and in the mean time," said judith, holding the peacock's feather very still before her, "in the mean time jamie's mind is withered and stunted--his whole life is spoiled. now--now alone can he be given a turn aright and toward growth." "that entirely depends on you," said miss trevisa, coldly. "you know best what opportunities have offered----" "aunt, what do you mean?" "wait," said uncle zachie, rubbing his hands. "my boy oliver is coming home. he has written his situation is a good one now." miss trevisa turned on him with a face of marble. "i entirely fail to see what your son oliver has to do with the matter, more than the man in the moon. may i trouble you, as you so deeply interest yourself in our concerns, to step outside to messrs. scantlebray and that boy, and ask them to bring him in here. i have told them what the circumstances are, and they are prepared." mr. menaida left the room, not altogether unwilling to escape. "now," said aunt dionysia, "i am relieved to find that for a minute, we are by ourselves, not subjected to the prying and eavesdropping of the impertinent and meddlesome. mr. menaida is a man who never did good to himself or to anyone else in his life, though a man with the best intentions under the sun. now, judith, i am a plain woman--that is to say--not plain, but straightforward--and i like to have everything above board. the case stands thus. i, in my capacity as guardian to that boy, am resolved to consign him immediately to the asylum, and to retain him there as long as my authority lasts, though it will cost me a pretty sum. you do not desire that he should go there. well and good. there is but one way, but that is effectual, by means of which you can free jamie from restraint. let me tell you he is now in the hands of mr. obadiah, and gagged that he may not rouse the neighborhood with his screams." miss trevisa fixed her hard eyes on judith. "as soon as you take the responsibility off me, and on to yourself, you do with the boy what you like." "i will relieve you at once." "you are not in a condition to do so. as soon as i am satisfied that your future is secure, that you will have a house to call your own, and a certainty of subsistence for you both--then i will lay down my charge." "and you mean----" "i mean that you must first accept captain coppinger, who has been good enough to find you not intolerable. he is--in this one particular--unreasonable, however, he is what he is, in this matter. he makes you the offer, gives you the chance. take it, and you provide jamie and yourself with a home, he has his freedom, and you can manage or mismanage him as you list. refuse the chance and jamie is lodged in mr. scantlebray's establishment within an hour." "i cannot decide this on the spur of the moment." "very well. you can let jamie go provisionally to the asylum--and stay there till you have made up your mind." "no--no--no--aunt! never, never!" "as you will." miss trevisa shrugged her shoulders, and cast a glance at her niece like a dagger-stab. "auntie--i am but a child." "that may be. but there are times when even children must decide momentous questions. a boy as a child decides on his profession, a girl--may be--on her marriage." "oh, dear auntie! do leave jamie here for, say a fortnight, and in a fortnight from to-day you shall have my answer." "no," answered miss trevisa, "i also must decide as to my future, for your decision affects not jamie only but me also." judith had listened in great self-restraint, holding the feather before her. she held it between thumb and forefinger of both hands, not concerning herself about it, and yet with her eyes watching the undulations from the end of the quill to the deep blue eye set in a halo of gold at the further end, and the feather undulated with every rise and fall of her bosom. "surely, auntie! you cannot wish me to marry cruel coppinger?" "i have no wishes one way or the other. please yourself." "but, auntie----" "you profess to be ready to do all you can for jamie and yet hesitate about relieving me of an irksome charge, and jamie of what you consider barbarous treatment." "you cannot be serious--_i_ to marry captain cruel!" "it is a serious offer." "but papa!--what would he say?" "i never was in a position to tell his thoughts and guess what his words would be." "but, auntie--he is such a bad man." "you know a great deal more about him than i do, of course." "but--he is a smuggler, i do know that." "well--and what of that. there is no crime in that." "it is not an honest profession. they say, too, that he is a wrecker." "they say!--who say? what do you know?" "nothing, but i am not likely to trust my future to a man of whom such tales are told. auntie! would you, supposing that you were----" "i will have none of your suppositions, i never did wear a rush apron, nor act as jack pudding." "i cannot--captain cruel of all men." "is he so hateful to you?" "hateful--no; but i cannot like him. he has been kind, but--somehow i can't think of him as--as--as a man of our class and thoughts and ways, as one worthy of my own, own papa. no--it is impossible, i am still a child." she took the end of the peacock's feather, the splendid eye lustrous with metallic beauty, and bowed the plume without breaking it, and, unconscious of what she was doing, stroked her lips with it. what a fragile fine quill that was on which hung so much beauty? and how worthless the feather would be when that quill was broken. and so with her--her fine, elastic, strong spirit, that when bowed sprang to its uprightness the moment the pressure was withdrawn; that on which all her charm, her beauty hung. "captain coppinger has, surely, never asked you to put this alternative to me?" "no--i do it myself. as you are a child, you are unfit to take charge of your brother. when you are engaged to be married you are a woman; i shift my load on you then." "and you wish it?" "i repeat i have no wishes in the matter." "give me time to consider." "no. it must be decided now--that is to say if you do not wish jamie to be taken away. don't fancy i want to persuade you; but i want to be satisfied about my own future. i shall not remain in pentyre with you. as you enter by the front door, i leave by the back." "where will you go?" "that is my affair." then in at the door came the two scantlebrays and jamie between them, gagged and with his hands bound behind his back. he had run out, directly his examination was over, and had been secured, almost without resistance, so taken by surprise was he, and reduced to a condition of helplessness. judith leaned against the mantel-shelf, with every tinge of color gone out of her cheeks. jamie's frightened eyes met hers, and he made a slight struggle to speak, and to escape to her. "you have a close conveyance ready for your patient?" asked aunt dionysia of the brothers. "oh, yes, a very snug little box on wheels. scanty and i will sit with our young man, to prevent his feeling dull, you know." "you understand, gentlemen, what i told you, that in the deciding whether the boy is to go with you or not, i am not the only one to be considered. if i have my will, go he shall, as i am convinced that your establishment is the very place for him; but my niece, miss judith, has at her option the chance of taking the responsibility for the boy off my shoulders, and if she chooses to do that, why then, i fear she will continue to spoil him, as she has done heretofore." "it has cost us time and money," said scantlebray, senior. "and you shall be paid, whichever way is decided," said miss trevisa. "every thing now rests with my niece." judith seemed as one petrified. one hand was on her bosom, staying her heart, the other held the peacock's feather before her, horizontally. every particle of color had deserted, not her face only, but her hands as well. her eyes were sunless, her lips contracted and livid. she was motionless as a parian statue, she hardly seemed to breathe. she perfectly understood what her aunt had laid upon her, her bodily sensations were dead whilst a conflict of ideas raged in her brain. she was the arbiter of jamie's fate. she did not disguise from herself that if consigned to the keeper of the asylum, though only for a week or two, he would not leave his charge the same as he entered. and what would it avail her or him to postpone the decision a week or a fortnight. the brothers scantlebray knew nothing of the question agitating her, but they saw that the determination at which she was resolving was one that cost her all her powers. mr. obadiah's heavy mind did not exert itself to probe the secret, but the more eager intellect of his elder brother was alert, and wondering what might be the matter that so affected the girl, and made it so difficult for her to pronounce the decision. the hard eyes of miss trevisa were fixed on her. judith's answer would decide her future--on it depended othello cottage, and an annuity of fifty pounds. jamie looked through a veil of tears at his sister, and never for a moment turned them from her, from the moment of his entry into the room. instinctively the boy felt that his freedom and happiness depended on her. one or the other must be sacrificed. that judith saw jamie was dull of mind, but there were possibilities of development in it. and, even if he remained where he was, he was happy, happy and really harmless, if a little mischievous; an offer had been made which was likely to lead him on into industrious ways, and to teach him application. he loved his liberty, loved it as does the gull. in an asylum he would pine, his mind become more enfeebled, and he would die. but then--what a price must be paid to save him? oh, if she could have put the question to her father. but she had none to appeal to for advice. if she gave to jamie liberty and happiness, it was at the certain sacrifice of her own. but there was no evading the decision, one or the other must go. she stretched forth the peacock's feather, laid the great indigo blue eye on the bands that held jamie, on his gagged lips, and said: "let him go." "you agree!" exclaimed miss trevisa. judith doubled the peacock's feather and broke it. chapter xxx. through the tamarisks. for some time after judith had given her consent, and had released jamie from the hands of the scantlebrays, she remained still and white. uncle zachie missed the music to which he had become used, and complained. she then seated herself at the piano, but was distraught, played badly, and the old bird-stuffer went away grumbling to his shop. jamie was happy, delighted not to be afflicted with lessons, and forgot past troubles in present pleasures. that the recovery of his liberty had been bought at a heavy price, he did not know, and would not have appreciated it had he been told the sacrifice judith had been ready to make for his sake. in the garden behind the cottage was an arbor, composed of half a boat set up, that is to say, an old boat sawn in half, and erected so that it served as a shelter to a seat, which was fixed into the earth on posts. from one side of this boat a trellis had been drawn, and covered with eschalonia, and a seat placed here as well, so that in this rude arbor it was possible for more than one to find accommodation. here judith and jamie often sat; the back of the boat was set against the prevailing wind from the sea, and on this coast the air is unusually soft at the same time that it is bracing, enjoyable wherever a little shelter is provided against its violence. for violent it can be, and can buffet severely, yet its blows are those of a pillow. here judith was sitting one afternoon, alone, lost in a dream, when uncle zachie came into the garden with his pipe in his mouth, to stretch his legs, after a few minutes' work at stuffing a cormorant. in her lap lay a stocking judith was knitting for her brother, but she had made few stitches, and yet had been an hour in the summer-house. the garden of mr. menaida was hedged off from a neighbor's grounds by a low wall of stone and clay and sand, in and out of which grew roughly strong tamarisks now in their full pale pink blossom. the eyes of judith had been on these tamarisks, waving like plumes in the sea-air, when she was startled from her reverie by the voice of uncle zachie. "why, miss judith! what is the matter with you? dull, eh? ah--wait a bit, when oliver comes home we shall have mirth. he is full of merriment. a bright boy and a good son; altogether a fellow to be proud of, though i say it. he will return at the fall." "i am glad to hear it, mr. menaida. you have not seen him for many years." "not for ten." "it will be a veritable feast to you. does he remain long in england?" "i cannot say. if his employers find work for him at home, then at home he will tarry, but if they consider themselves best served by him at oporto, then to portugal must he return." "will you honor me by taking a seat near me--under the trellis?" asked judith. "it will indeed be a pleasure to me to have a talk with you; and i do need it very sore. my heart is so full that i feel i must spill some of it before a friend." "then indeed i will hold out both hands to catch the sweetness." "nay--it is bitter, not sweet, bitter as gall, and briny as the ocean." "not possible; a little salt gives savor." she shook her head, took up the stocking, did a couple of stitches, and put it down again. the sea-breeze that tossed the pink bunches of tamarisk waved stray tresses of her red-gold hair, but somehow the brilliancy, the burnish, seemed gone from it. her eyes were sunken, and there was a greenish tinge about the ivory white surrounding her mouth. "i cannot work, dear mr. menaida; i am so sorry that i should have played badly that sonata last night. i knew it fretted you, but i could not help myself, my mind is so selfishly directed that i cannot attend to anything even of beethoven's in music, nor to stocking-knitting even for jamie." "and what are the bitter--briny thoughts?" judith did not answer at once, she looked down into her lap, and mr. menaida, whose pipe was choked, went to the tamarisks and plucked a little piece, stripped off the flower and proceeded to clear the tube with it. presently, while uncle zachie's eyes were engaged on the pipe, judith looked up, and said hastily, "i am very young, mr. menaida." "a fault in process of rectification every day," said he, blowing through the stem of his pipe. "i think it is clear now." "i mean--young to be married." "to be married! zounds!" he turned his eyes on her in surprise, holding the tamarisk spill in one hand and the pipe in the other, poised in the air. "you have not understood that i got jamie off the other day only by taking full charge of him upon myself and relieving my aunt." "but--good gracious, you are not going to marry your brother." "my aunt would not transfer the guardianship to me unless i were qualified to undertake and exercise it properly, according to her ideas, and that could be only by my becoming engaged to be married to a man of substance." "goodness help me! what a startlement! and who is the happy man to be? not scantlebray, senior, i trust, whose wife is dying." "no--captain coppinger." "cruel coppinger!" uncle zachie put down his pipe so suddenly on the bench by him that he broke it. "cruel coppinger! never!" she said nothing to this, but rose and walked, with her head down, along the bank, and put her hands among the waving pink bunches of tamarisk bloom, sweeping the heads with her own delicate hand as she passed. then she came back to the boat arbor and reseated herself. "dear me! bless my heart! i could not have credited it," gasped mr. menaida, "and i had such different plans in my head--but there, no more about them." "i had to make my election whether to take him and qualify to become jamie's guardian, or refrain, and then he would have been snatched away and imprisoned in that odious place again." "but, my dear miss judith--" the old man was so agitated that he did not know what he was about; he put the stick of tamarisk into his mouth in place of his pipe, and took it out to speak, put down his hand, picked up the bowl of his pipe, and tapped the end of the tamarisk spill with that; "mercy save me! what a world we do live in. and i had been building for you a castle--not in spain, but in a contiguous country--who'd have thought it? and cruel coppinger, too! upon my soul i don't want to say i am sorry for it, and i can't find in my heart to say i'm glad." "i do not expect that you will be glad--not if you have any love for me." the old man turned round, his eyes were watering and his face twitching. "i have, heaven knows! i have--yes--i mean miss judith." "mr. menaida," said the girl, "you have been so kind, so considerate, that i should like to call you what every one else does--when speaking of you to one another--not to your face--uncle zachie." he put out his hand, it was shaking, and caught hers. he put the ends of the fingers to his lips; but he kept his face averted, and the water that had formed in his eyes ran down his cheeks. he did not venture to speak. he had lost command over his voice. "you see, uncle, i have no one of whom to ask counsel. i have only aunt, and she--somehow--i feel that i cannot go to her, and get from her the advice best suited to me. now papa is dead i am entirely alone, and i have to decide on matters most affecting my own life, and that of jamie. i do so crave for a friend who could give me an opinion--but i have no one, if you refuse." he pressed her hand. "not that now i can go back from my word. i have passed that to aunt dionysia, and draw back i may not; but somehow, as i sit and think, and think, and try to screw myself up to the resolution that must be reached of giving up my hand and my whole life into the power of--of that man, i cannot attain to it. i feel like one who is condemned to cast himself down a precipice and shrinks from it, cannot make up his mind to spring, but draws back after every run made to the edge. tell me--uncle--tell me truly, what do you think about captain coppinger? what do you know about him? is he a very wicked man?" "you ask me what i think, and also what i know," said mr. menaida, releasing her hand. "i know nothing, but i have my thoughts." "then tell me what you think." "as i have said, i know nothing. i do not know whence he comes. some say he is a dane, some that he is an irishman. i cannot tell, i know nothing, but i think his intonation is irish, and i have heard that there is a family of that name in ireland. but this is all guesswork. one thing i do know, he speaks french like a native. then, as to his character, i believe him to be a man of ungovernable temper, who, when his blood is roused will stick at nothing. i think him a man of very few scruples. but he has done liberal things--he is open-handed, that all say. a hard liver, and with a rough tongue, and yet with some of the polish of a gentleman; a man with the passions of a devil, but not without in him some sparks of divine light. that is what i think him to be. and if you ask me further, whether i think him a man calculated to make you happy--i say decidedly that he is not." rarely before in his life had mr. menaida spoken with such decision. "he has been kind to me," said judith. "very kind." "because he is in love with you." "and gentle--" "have you ever done aught to anger him!" "yes. i threw him down and broke his arm and collar-bone." "and won his heart by so doing." "uncle zachie, he is a smuggler." "yes--there is no doubt about that." "do you suppose if i were to entreat him that he would abandon smuggling? i have already had it in my heart to ask him this, but i could not bring the request over my lips." "i have no doubt if you asked him to throw up his smuggling that he would promise to do so. whether he would keep his promise is another matter. many a girl has made her lover swear to give up gambling, and on that understanding has married him; but i reckon none have been able to keep their husbands to the engagement. gambling, smuggling, and poaching, my dear, are in the blood. a man brings the love of adventure, the love of running a risk, into the world with him. if i had been made by my wife to swear when i married never to touch a musical instrument, i might out of love for her have sworn, but i could not have kept my oath. and you--if you vowed to keep your fingers from needle and thread, and saw your gown in rags, or your husband's linen frayed--would find an irresistible itch in the finger ends to mend and hem, and you would do it, in spite of your vows. so with a gambler, a poacher, and a smuggler, the instinct, the passion is in them and is irresistible. don't impose any promise on captain cruel, it will not influence him." "they tell me he is a wrecker." "what do you mean by a wrecker! we are all wreckers, after a storm, when a merchantman has gone to pieces on the rocks, and the shore is strewn with prizes. i have taken what i could, and i see no harm in it. when the sea throws treasures here and there, it is a sin not to take them up and use them and be thankful." "i do not mean that. i mean that he has been the means of luring ships to their destruction." "of that i know nothing. stories circulate whenever there is a wreck not in foul weather or with a wind on shore. but who can say whether they be true or false?" "and about that man, wyvill. did he kill him?" "there also i can say nothing, because i know nothing. all that can be said about the matter is that the preventive man wyvill was found at sea--or washed ashore without his head. a shark may have done it, and sharks have been found off our coast. i cannot tell. there is not a shadow of evidence that could justify an indictment. all that can be stated that makes against coppinger is that the one is a smuggler, the other was a preventive man, and that the latter was found dead and with his head off, an unusual circumstance, but not sufficient to show that he had been decapitated by any man, nor that the man who decapitated him was coppinger." then mr. menaida started up: "and--you sell yourself to this man for jamie?" "yes, uncle, to make a man of jamie." "on the chance, judith, on the very doubtful chance of making a man of jamie, you rush on the certainty of making a ruin of yourself. that man--that coppinger to be trusted with you! a fair little vessel, richly laden, with silken sail, and cedar sides, comes skimmering over the sea, and--heaven forgive me if i judge wrongly--but i think he is a wrecker, enticing, constraining you on to the reefs where you will break up, and all your treasures will--not fall to him--but sink; and all that will remain of you will be a battered and broken hull, and a draggled discolored sail. i cannot--i cannot endure the thought." "yet it must be endured, faced and endured by me," said judith. "you are a cruel comforter, uncle zachie. i called you to encourage me, and you cast me down; to lighten my load, and you heap more on." "i can do no other," gasped mr. menaida. then he sprang back, with open mouth, aghast. he saw cruel coppinger on the other side of the hedge, he had put his hands to the tamarisk bushes, and thrust them apart and was looking through. "goldfish!" called captain coppinger, "goldfish, come!" judith knew the voice and looked in the direction whence it came, and saw the large hands of coppinger holding back the boughs of tamarisk, his dark face in the gap. she rose at once and stepped toward him. "you are ill," he said, fixing his sombre eyes on her. "i am not ill in body. i have had much to harass my mind." "yes, that wadebridge business." "what has sprung out of it?" "shall i come to you, or will you to me!--through the tamarisks?" "as you will, captain coppinger." "come, then--up on to the hedge and jump--i will catch you in my arms. i have held you there ere this." "yes, you have taken me up, now must i throw----" she did not finish the sentence; she meant, must she voluntarily throw herself into his arms? she caught hold of the bushes and raised herself to the top of the hedge. "by heaven!" said he. "the tamarisk flowers have more color in them than your face." she stood on the summit of the bank, the tamarisks rising to her knees, waving in the wind about her. must she resign herself to that man of whom she knew so little, whom she feared so greatly? there was no help for it. she must. he held out his arms. she sprang, and he caught her. "i have you now," he said, with a laugh of triumph. "you have come to me, and i will never give you up." chapter xxxi. among the sand-heaps. coppinger held her in his arms, shook her hair out that it streamed over his arm, and looked into her upturned face. "indeed you are light, lighter than when i bore you in my arms before; and you are thin and white, and the eyes, how red. you have been crying. what! this spirit, strong as a steel spring, so subdued that it gives way to weeping!" judith's eyes were closed against the strong light from the sky above, and against the sight of his face bent over hers, and the fire glint of his eyes, dark as a thundercloud and as charged with lightnings. and now there was a flashing of fire from them, of love and pride and admiration. the strong man trembled beneath his burden in the vehemence of his emotion. the boiling and paining of his heart within him, as he held the frail child in his arms, and knew she was to be his own, his own wholly, in a short space. it was for the moment to him as though all earth and sea and heaven were dissolved with nebulous chaos, and the only life--the only pulses in the universe--were in him and the little creature he held to his breast. he looked into her face, down on her as vesuvius must have looked down on lovely, marble, white pompeii, with its gilded roofs and incense-scented temples, and restrained itself, as long as restrain its molten heart it could, before it poured forth its fires and consumed the pearly city lying in its arms. he looked at her closed eyelids with the long golden lashes resting on the dark sunken dip beneath, at the delicate mouth drawn as with pain, at the white temples in which slowly throbbed the blue veins, at the profusion of red-gold hair streaming over his arm and almost touching the ground. she knew that his eyes--on fire--were on her, and she dared not meet them, for there would be a shrinking--from him, no responsive leap of flame from hers. "shall i carry you about like this!" he asked. "i could and i would, to the world's end, and leap with you thence into the unfathomed abyss." her head, leaning back on his arm, with the gold rain falling from it, exposed her long and delicate throat of exquisite purity of tint and beauty of modelling, and as it lay a little tuft of pink tamarisk blossom, brushed off in her lap into his arms, and then caught in the light edging of her dress, at the neck. "and you come to me of your own will?" he said. then judith slightly turned her head to avoid his eyes, and said, "i have come--it was unavoidable. let me down, that we may speak together." he obeyed with reluctance. then, standing before him, she bound up and fastened her hair. "look!" said he, and threw open his collar. a ribbon was tied about his throat. "do you see this?" he loosed the band and held it to her. one delicate line of gold ran along the silk, fastened to it by threads at intervals. "your own hair. the one left with me when you first heard me speak of my heart's wish, and you disdained me and went your way. you left me that one hair, and that one hair i have kept wound round my neck ever since, and it has seemed to me that i might still have caught my goldfish, my saucy goldfish that swam away from my hook at first." judith said calmly; "let us walk together somewhere--to st. enodoc, to my father's grave, and there, over that sand-heap we will settle what must be settled." "i will go with you where you will. you are my queen, i your subject--it is my place to obey." "the subject has sometimes risen and destroyed the queen; it has been so in france." "yes, when the subject has been too hardly treated, too down-trodden, not allowed to look on and adore the queen." "and," said judith further, "let us walk in silence, allow me the little space between here and my father's grave to collect my thoughts, bear with me for that short distance." "as you will. i am your slave, as i have told you, and you my mistress have but to command." "yes, but the slave sometimes becomes the master, and then is all the more tyrannous because of his former servitude." so they walked together, yet apart, from polzeath to st. enodoc, neither speaking, and it might have been a mourner's walk at a funeral. she held her head down, and did not raise her eyes from the ground, but he continued to gaze on her with a glow of triumph and exultation in his face. they reached at length the deserted church, sunken in the sands; it had a hole broken in the wall under the eaves in the south, rudely barricaded, through which the sacred building might be entered for such functions as a marriage, or the first part of the funeral office that must be performed in a church. the roof was of pale gray slate, much broken, folding over the rafters like the skins on the ribs of an old horse past work. the church-yard was covered with plain sand. gravestones were in process of being buried like those whom they commemorated. some peeped above the sand, with a fat cherub's head peering above the surface. others stood high on the land side, but were banked up by sand toward the sea. here the church-yard surface was smooth, there it was tossed with undulations, according as the sand had been swept over portions tenanted by the poor who were uncommemorated with head-stones, or over those where the well-to-do lay with their titles and virtues registered above them. there was as yet no monument erected over the grave of the reverend peter trevisa, sometime rector of st. enodoc. the mound had been turfed over and bound down with withes. the loving hands of his daughter had planted some of the old favorite flowers from the long walk at the rectory above where he lay, but they had not as yet taken to the soil, the sand ill agreed with them, and the season of the year when their translation had taken place dissatisfied them, and they looked forlorn, drooping, and doubted whether they would make the struggle to live. below the church lay the mouths of the camel, blue between sand-hills, with the doom bar, a long and treacherous band of shifting sands in the midst. on reaching the graveyard judith signed to captain coppinger to seat himself on a flat tombstone on the south side of her father's grave, and she herself leaned against the headstone that marked her mother's tomb. "i think we should come to a thorough understanding," she said, with composure, "that you may not expect of me what i cannot give, and know the reason why i give you anything. you call me goldfish. why?" "because of your golden hair." "no--that was not what sprung the idea in your brain, it was something i said to you, that you and i stood to each other in the relation of bird of prey to fish, belonging to distinct modes of life and manner of thinking, and that we could never be to one another in any other relation than that, the falcon and his prey, the flame and its fuel, the wreckers and the wrecked." coppinger started up and became red as blood. "these are strange words," he said. "it is the same that i said before." "then why have you given yourself to me?" "i have resigned myself to you, as i cannot help myself any more than the fish can that is pounced on by the sea-bird, or the fuel that is enveloped by the flame, or the ship that is boarded by the wrecker." she looked at him steadily; he was quivering with excitement, anger, and disappointment. "it is quite right that you should know what to expect, and make no more demands on me that i am capable of answering. you cannot ask of me that i should become like you, and i do not entertain the foolish thought that you could be brought to be like me--to see through my eyes, feel with my heart. my dead father lies between us now, and he will ever be between us--he a man of pure life, noble aspirations, a man of books, of high principle, fearing god and loving men. what he was he tried to make me. imperfectly, faultily, i follow him, but though unable to be like him, i strive after what he showed me should be my ideal." "you are a child. you will be a woman, and new thoughts will come to you." "will they be good and honorable and contented thoughts? shall i find those in your house?" coppinger did not reply, his brows were drawn together and his face became dark. "why, then, have you promised to come to me?" "because of jamie." he uttered an oath, and with his hands clenched the upper stone of the tomb. "i have promised my aunt that i will accept you, if you will suffer my poor brother to live where i live, and suffer me to be his protector. he is helpless and must have someone to think and watch for him. my aunt would have sent him to mr. obadiah scantlebray's asylum, and that would have been fatal to him. to save him from that i said that i would be yours, on the condition that my home should be his home. i have passed my word to my aunt, and i will not go from it, but that does not mean that i have changed my belief that we are unfitted for each other, because we belong to different orders of being." "this is cold comfort." "it is cold as ice, but it is all that i have to give to you. i wish to put everything plainly before you now, that there may be no misapprehension later, and you may be asking of me what i cannot give, and be angry at not receiving what i never promised to surrender." "so! i am only accepted for the sake of that boy, jamie." "it is painful for me to say what i do--as painful as it must be for you to hear it, but i cannot help myself. i wish to put all boldly and hardly before you before an irrevocable step is taken such as might make us both wretched. i take you for jamie's sake. were his happiness, his well-being not in the scale, i would not take you. i would remain free." "that is plain enough," exclaimed coppinger, setting his teeth, and he broke off a piece of the tombstone on which he was half sitting. "you will ask of me love, honor, and obedience. i will do my best to love you--like you i do now, for you have been kind and good to me, and i can never forget what you have done for me. but it is a long leap from liking to loving, still i will try my best, and if i fail it will not be for lack of effort. honor is another matter. that lies in your own power to give. if you behave as a good and worthy man to your fellows, and justly toward me, of course i shall honor you. i must honor what is deserving of honor, and where i honor there i may come to love. i cannot love where i do not honor, so perhaps i may say that my heart is in your hands, and that if those hands are clean and righteous in their dealings it may become yours some time. as to obedience--that you shall command. that i will render to you frankly and fully in all things lawful." "you offer me an orange from which all the juice has been squeezed, a nut without a kernel." "i offer you all i have to offer. is it worth your while having this?" "yes!" said he angrily, starting up, "i will have what i can and wring the rest out of you, when once you are mine." "you never will wring anything out of me. i give what i may, but nothing will i yield to force." he looked at her sullenly and said, "a child in years with an old head and a stony heart." "i have always lived with my father, and so have come to think like one that is old," said judith, "and now, alone in the world, i must think with ripened wits." "i do not want that precocious, wise soul, if that be the kernel. i will have the shell--the glorious shell. keep your wisdom and righteousness and piety for yourself. i do not value them a rush. but your love i will have." "i have told you there is but one way by which that may be won. but indeed, captain coppinger, you have made a great mistake in thinking of me. i am not suited to you to make you happy and content; any more than you are suited to me. look out for some girl more fit to be your mate." "of what sort? come, tell me!" said coppinger scornfully. "a fine, well-built girl, dark-haired, dark-eyed, with cheeks like apricots, lively in mood, with nimble tongue, good-natured, not bookish, not caring for brush or piano, but who can take a rough word and return it; who will not wince at an oath, and shrink away at coarse words flung about where she is. all these things you know very well must be encountered by your wife, in your house. did you ever read 'hamlet,' captain coppinger?" he made no answer, he was plucking at the slab-cover of the tomb and grinding his heels into the sand. "in 'hamlet,' we read of a king poisoned by his queen, who dipped the juice of cursed hebenon into his ears, and it curdled all his blood. it is the same with the sort of language that is found in your house when your seamen are there. i cannot endure it, it curdles my heart--choose a girl who is indifferent." "you shall not be subjected to it," said coppinger, "and as to the girl you have sketched--i care not for her--such as you describe are to be found thick as whortle-berries on a moor. do you not know that man seeks in marriage not his counterpart but his contrast? it is because you are in all things different from me that i love you." "then will naught that i have said make you desist?" "naught." "i have told you that i take you only so as to be able to make a home for jamie." "yes." "and that i do not love you and hardly think i can ever." "yes." "and still you will have me?" "yes." "and that by taking me you wreck my life--spoil my happiness." he raised his head, then dropped it again and said, "yes." she remained silent, also looking on the ground. presently she raised her head and said: "i gave you a chance, and you have cast it from you. i am sorry." "a chance? what chance?" "the chance of taking a first step up the ladder in my esteem." "i do not understand you." "therefore i am sorry." "what is your meaning?" "captain coppinger," said judith, firmly, looking straight into his dark face and flickering eyes, "i am very, very sorry. when i told you that i accepted your offer only because i could not help myself, because i was a poor, feeble orphan, with a great responsibility laid on me, the charge of my unfortunate brother; that i only accepted you for his sake when i told you that i did not love you, that our characters, our feelings were so different that it would be misery to me to become your wife--that it would be the ruin of my life, then--had you been a man of generous soul, you would have said--i will not force myself upon you, but i will do one thing for you, assist you in protecting jamie from the evil that menaces him. had you said that i would have honored you, and as i said just now, where i honor, there i may love. but you could not think such a thought, no such generous feeling stirred you. you held me to my bond." "i hold you to your bond," exclaimed coppinger, in loud rage. "i hold you, indeed. even though you can neither love nor honor me, you shall be mine. you likened me to a bird of prey that must have its prey or die, to a fire--and that must have its fuel--to a wrecker, and he must have his wreck, i care not. i will have you as mine, whether you love me or not." "so be it, then," said judith, sadly. "you had your opportunity and have put it from you. we understand each other. the slave is master--and a tyrant." chapter xxxii. a dangerous gift. "i do love a proper muddle, cruel bad, i do," said jump, and had what she loved, for the preparations for judith's marriage threw mr. menaida's trim cottage into a "proper muddle." there were the cakes to be baked, and for a while the interior of the house was pervaded by that most delicious aroma of baking bread superior to frangipani, jockey club, and wood violet. then came the dusting, and after that the shaking and beating of the rugs and sofa and chairs. then it was discovered that the ceilings and walls would be the better for white and color-wash. this entailed the turning out of every thing previously dusted and tidied and arranged. neither mr. menaida nor jump had any other idea of getting things into order than throwing all into a muddle in the hopes that out of chaos, exactness and order might spring. a dressmaker had been engaged and material purchased, for the fabrication of a trousseau. this naturally interested jamie vastly, and jump paid repeated visits to the dressmaker, whilst engaged on her work. on one such occasion she neglected the kitchen and allowed some jam to become burnt. on another she so interested the needlewoman and diverted her attention from her work, whilst cutting out that the latter cut out two right arms to the wedding gown. this involved a difficulty, as it was not practicable either to turn the one sleeve, and convert it into a left arm, nor to remove judith's left arm and attach it to the right side of her body, and so accommodate her to the gown. the mercer at camelford was communicated with, from whom the material had been procured, but he was out of it, he however was in daily expectation of a consignment of more of the same stuff. a fortnight later he was able to supply the material, sufficient for a left sleeve, but unfortunately of a different color. the gown had to be laid aside till some one could be found of judith's size and figure with two right arms, and also who wanted a wedding dress, and also would be disposed to take this particular one at half the cost of the material, or else to let the gown stand over till after the lapse of a century or thereabouts, when the fashion would prevail for ladies to wear sleeves of a different substance and color from their bodies and skirts. "'taint a sort o' a courtin' as i'd give a thankee for," said jump. "there was camelford goose fair, and whether he axed her to go wi' him and pick a goose i can't tell, but i know her never went. then o' sundays they don't walk one another out. and he doesn't come arter her to the back garden, and she go to him, and no whisperings and kissings. i've listened a score o' times a hoping and a wishing to see and hear the likes, and never once as i'm a christian and a female. there were my sister jane, when she was going to be married, her got that hot and blazin' red that i thought it were scarletine, but it was naught but excitement. but the young mistress, bless 'ee, her gets whiter and colder every day, and i'd say, if such a thing were possible, that her'd rather her never was a going to be married. but you see that ain't in natur', leastways wi' us females. i tell 'ee i never seed him once put his arm round her waist. if this be courtin' among gentlefolks, all i say is preserve and deliver me from being a lady." it was as jump, in her vulgar way, put it. judith alone in the house appeared to take no interest in the preparations. it was only after a struggle with her aunt that she had yielded to have the wedding in november. she had wished it postponed till the spring, but cruel coppinger and aunt dionysia were each for their several ends desirous to have it in the late autumn. coppinger had the impatience of a lover; and miss trevisa the desire to be free from a menial position and lodged in her new house before winter set in. she had amused herself over othello cottage ever since judith had yielded her consent, and her niece saw little of her accordingly. it suited coppinger's interest to have a tenant for the solitary cottage, and that a tenant who would excite no suspicions, as the house was employed as a store for various run goods, and it was understood between him and miss trevisa, that he was still to employ the garret for the purposes that suited him. had othello cottage remained long unoccupied, it was almost certain to attract the attention of the preventive men, awake their suspicions, and be subjected to a visit. its position was convenient, it was on the cliff of that cove where was the cave in which the smugglers' boats were concealed. coppinger visited polzeath and saw judith whenever he came to mr. menaida's house, but his wooing met with no response. she endured his attentions, shrinking from the slightest approach to familiarity, and though studiously courteous was never affectionate. it would take a heavy charge of self-conceit to have made the captain blind to the fact that she did not love him, that in truth she viewed her approaching marriage with repugnance. coppinger was a proud, but not a conceited man, and her coldness and aversion aroused his anger, for it galled his pride. had he been a man of noble impulse, he would have released her, as she had already told him, but he was too selfish, too bent on carrying out his own will to think of abandoning his suit. her lack of reciprocation did not abate his passion, it aggravated it. it enlisted his self-esteem in the cause, and he would not give her up, because he had set his mind upon obtaining her, and to confess his defeat would have been a humiliation insufferable to his haughty spirit. but it was not merely that he would not, it was also that he could not. coppinger was a man who had, all his life long, done what he willed, till his will had become in him the mainspring of his existence, and drove him to execute his purposes in disregard of reason, safety, justice, and opposition. he would eat out his own furious heart in impotent rage, if his will were encountered by impossibility of execution. and he was of a sanguine temperament. hitherto every opposition had been overthrown before him, therefore he could not conceive that the heart of a young girl, a mere child, could stand out against him permanently. for a while it might resist, but ultimately it must yield, and then the surrender would be absolute, unconditional. every time he came to see her, he came with hopes, almost with confidence, that the icy barrier would dissolve, but when in her presence the chill from it struck him, numbed his heart, silenced his tongue, deadened his thoughts. yet no sooner was he gone from the house, than his pulses leaped, his brain whirled, and he was consumed with mortified pride and disappointed love. he could not be rough, passionate or imperious with her. a something he could not understand, certainly not define, streamed from her that kept him at a distance and quelled his insolence. it was to him at moments as if he hated her; but this hate was but the splutter of frustrated love. he recalled the words she had spoken to him, and the terms she had employed in speaking of the relation in which they stood to each other, the only relations to her conceivable in which they could stand to each other, and each such word was a spark of fire, a drop of flaming phosphorus on his heart, torturing it with pain, and unquenchable. a word once spoken can never be recalled, and these words had been thrown red hot at him, had sunk in and continued to consume where they had fallen. he was but a rapacious bird and she the prey, he the fire and she the fuel, he the wrecker and she the wreck. there could be no reciprocity between them, the bird in the talons of the hawk, rent by his beak could do no other than shiver and shriek and struggle to be free. the fuel could but expect to be consumed to ashes in the flames; and the wrecked must submit to the wrecker. he brooded over these similes, he chafed under the conviction that there was truth in them, he fought against the idea that a return of his love was impossible--and then his passion raged and roared up in a fury that was no other than hatred of the woman who could not be his in heart. then, in another moment, he cooled down, and trusted that what he dreaded would not be. he saw before him the child, white as a lily, with hair as the anthers of the lily--so small, so fragile, so weak; and he laughed to think that one such, with no experience of life, one who had never tasted love, could prove insensible to his devouring passion. the white asbestos in the flame glows, and never loses its delicacy and its whiteness. and judith was, as jump observed, becoming paler and more silent as her marriage drew on. the repugnance with which she had viewed it instead of abating intensified with every day. she woke in the night with a start of horror, and a cold sweat poured from her. she clasped her hands over her eyes and buried her face in her pillow and trembled, so that the bed rattled. she lost all appetite. her throat was contracted when she touched food. she found it impossible to turn her mind to the preparations that were being made for her wedding, she suffered her aunt to order for her what she liked, she was indifferent when told of the blunder made by the dressmaker in her wedding-gown. she could not speak at meals. when mr. menaida began to talk, she seemed to listen, but her mind was elsewhere. she resumed lessons with jamie, but was too abstracted to be able to teach effectually. a restlessness took hold of her and impelled her to be out of doors and alone. any society was painful to her, she could endure only to be alone; and when alone, she did nothing save pluck at her dress, or rub her fingers one over the other--the tricks and convulsive movements of one on the point of death. but she did not yield to her aversion without an effort to accustom herself to the inevitable. she rehearsed to herself the good traits she had observed in coppinger, his kindness, his forbearance toward herself, she took cognizance of his efforts to win her regard, to afford her pleasure, his avoidance of everything that he thought might displease her. and when she knew he was coming to visit her, she strove with herself; and formed the resolution to break down the coldness, and to show him some of that semblance of affection which he might justly expect. but it was in vain. no sooner did she hear his step, or the first words he uttered, no sooner did she see him, than she turned to stone, and the power to even feign an affection she did not possess left her. and when coppinger had departed, there was stamped red hot on her brain the conviction that she could not possibly endure life with him. she prayed long and often, sometimes by her father's grave, always in bed when lying wakeful, tossing from side to side in anguish of mind; often, very often when on the cliffs looking out to sea, to the dark, leaden, sullen sea, that had lost all the laughter and color of summer. but prayer afforded her no consolation. the thought of marriage to such a man, whom she could not respect, whose whole nature was inferior to her own, was a thought of horror. she could have nerved herself to death by the most excruciating of torments, but for this, not all the grace of heaven could fortify her. to be his mate, to be capable of loving him, she must descend to his level, and that she neither could nor would do. his prey, his fuel, his wreck--that she must become, but she could be nothing else--nothing else. as the day of her marriage approached her nervous trepidation became so acute that she could hardly endure the least noise. a strange footfall startled her and threw her into a paroxysm of trembling. the sudden opening of a door made her heart stand still. when her father had died, poignant though her sorrow had been, she had enjoyed the full powers of her mind. she had thought about the necessary preparations for the funeral, she had given orders to the servants, she had talked over the dear father to jamie, she had wept his loss till her eyes were red. not so now; she could not turn her thoughts from the all-absorbing terror; she could not endure an allusion to it from anyone, least of all to speak of it to her brother, and the power to weep was taken from her. her eyes were dry; they burnt, but were unfilled by tears. when her father was dead she could look forward, think of him in paradise, and hope to rejoin him after having trustily executed the charge imposed on her by him. but now she could not look ahead. a shadow of horror lay before her, an impenetrable curtain. her father was covering his face, was sunk in grief in his celestial abode; he could not help her. she could not go to him with the same open brow and childish smile as before. she must creep to his feet, and lay her head there, sullied by association with one against whom he had warned her, one whom he had regarded as the man that had marred his sacred utility, one who stood far below the stage of virtue and culture that belonged to his family and on which he had firmly planted his child. what was in her heart judith could pour out before none; certainly not before aunt dionysia, devoid of a particle of sympathy with her niece. nor could she speak her trouble to uncle zachie, a man void of resources, kind, able for a minute or two to sympathize, but never to go deeply into any trouble and understand more of a wound than the fester on the surface. besides, of what avail to communicate the anguish of her heart to anyone, when nothing could be done to alter the circumstances. she could not now draw back. indeed it never occurred to her to be possible to go back from her undertaking. to save jamie from an idiot asylum she had passed her word to give her hand at the altar to cruel coppinger, and her word was sacred. aunt dionysia trusted her word. coppinger held to it, knowing that she gave it on compulsion and reluctantly, yet he showed his perfect confidence in its security. "my dear judith," said mr. menaida, "i am so sorry about losing you, and what is more, losing jamie, for i know very well that when he is at the glaze he will find plenty to amuse him without coming to see me, or anyhow, coming to work with me." "i hope not, dear uncle." "yes, i lose a promising pupil." then turning to the boy, he said: "jamie, i hope you will not give up stuffing birds, or, if you have not the patience to do that, that you will secure the skins and prepare them for me." "yes, i will," said jamie. "yes, yes, my dear boy," said menaida, "but don't you fancy i am going to trust you with arsenic for preparing the skins. i shall give that to your sister and she will keep the supply, eh, will you not, judith?" "yes. i will take charge of it." "and let him have it as needed; never more than is needed." "why not?" asked jamie. "because it is a dangerous thing to have lying about." menaida ran into the workshop, and came back with a small tin box of the poison. "look here! here is a little bone spoon. don't get the powder over your fingers. why, a spoonful would make a man very ill, and two would kill him. so, judith, i trust this to you. when jamie has a skin to prepare he will go to you, and you will let him have only so much as he requires." "yes, uncle." she took the little tin of arsenic and put it in her workbox, under the tray that contained reels and needles. chapter xxxiii. half a marriage. one request judith had made, relative to her marriage, and one only, after she had given way about the time when it was to take place, and this request concerned the place. she desired to be married, not in the parish church of s. minver, but in that of s. enodoc, in the yard of which lay her father and mother, and in which her father had occasionally ministered. it was true that no great display could be made in a building half-filled with sand, but neither judith nor coppinger, nor aunt dionysia desired display, and jump, the sole person who wished that the wedding should be in full gala, was not consulted in the matter. november scowled over sea and land, perverting the former into lead and blighting the latter to a dingy brown. the wedding-day was sad. mist enveloped the coast, wreathed the cliffs, drifted like smoke over the glebe, and lay upon the ocean, dense and motionless, like a mass of cotton-wool. not a smile of sun, not a glimmer of sky, not a trace of outline in the haze overhead. the air was full of minute particles of moisture flying aimlessly, lost to all sense of gravity, in every direction. the mist had a fringe but no seams, and looked as if it were as unrendable as felt. it trailed over the soil, here lifting a ragged flock or tag of fog a few feet above the earth, there dropping it again and smearing water over all it touched. vapor condensed on every twig and leaf, but only leisurely, and slowly dripped from the ends of thorns and leaves; but the weight of the water on some of the frosted and sickly foliage brought the leaves down with it. every stone in every wall was lined with trickles of water like snail crawls. the vapor penetrated within doors, and made all articles damp, of whatever sort they were. fires were reluctant to kindle, chimneys smoked. the grates and irons broke out into eruptions of rust, mildew appeared on walls, leaks in roofs. the slate floors became dark and moist. forks and spoons adhered to the hands of those who touched them, and on the keys of mr. menaida's piano drops formed. what smoke did escape from a chimney trailed down the roof. decomposed leaves exhaled the scent of decay. from every stack-yard came a musty odor of wet straw and hay. stable yards emitted their most fetid exudations that oozed through the gates and stained the roads. the cabbages in the kail-yards touched by frost announced that they were in decomposition, and the turnips that they were in rampant degeneration and rottenness. the very seaweed washed ashore impregnated the mist with a flavor of degeneration. the new rector, the reverend desiderius mules had been in residence at st. enodoc for three months. he had received but a hundred and twenty-seven pounds four and ninepence farthing for dilapidations, and was angry, declared himself cheated, and vowed he would never employ the agent cargreen any more. and a hundred and twenty-seven pounds four and ninepence farthing went a very little way in repairing and altering the rectory to make it habitable to the liking of the reverend desiderius. the reverend peter trevisa and his predecessors had been west country men, and as such loved the sun, and chose to have the best rooms of the house with a southern aspect. but the reverend desiderius mules had been reared in barbadoes, and hated the sun, and elected to have the best rooms of the house to look north. this entailed great alterations. the kitchen had to be converted into parlor, and the parlor into kitchen, the dining-room into scullery, and the scullery into study, and the library enlarged to serve as dining-room. all the down-stairs windows had to be altered. mr. desiderius mules liked to have french windows opening to the ground. in the same manner great transformations were made in the garden. where mr. peter trevisa had built up and planted a hedge there mr. desiderius mules opened a gate, and where the late rector had laid down a drive there the new rector made garden beds. in the same manner shrubberies were converted into lawns, and lawns into shrubberies. the pump was now of no service outside the drawing-room window; it had to be removed to the other side of the house, and to serve the pump with water a new well had to be dug, and the old well that had furnished limpid and wholesome water was filled up. the site of the conservatory was considered the proper one for the well, and this entailed the destruction of the conservatory. removal was intended, with a new aspect to the north, as a frigidarium, but when touched it fell to pieces, and in so doing furnished mr. desiderius mules with much comment on the imposition to which he had been subjected, for he had taken this conservatory at a valuation, and that valuation had been for three pounds seven and fourpence ha'penny, whereas its real value was, so he declared, three pounds seven and fourpence without the ha'penny at the end or the three pounds before. when the reverend desiderius mules heard that captain coppinger and judith trevisa were to be married in his church, "by jove," said he, "they shall pay me double fees as extra parochial. i shall get that out of them at all events. i have been choused sufficiently." a post-chaise from wadebridge conveyed judith, miss trevisa, uncle zachie, and jamie from polzeath. the bride was restless. at one moment she leaned back, then forward; her eyes turned resolutely through the window at the fog. her hands plucked at her veil or at her gloves; she spoke not a word throughout the drive. aunt dionysia was also silent. opposite her sat mr. menaida in blue coat with brass buttons, white waistcoat outside a colored one, and white trousers tightly strapped. though inclined to talk, he was unable to resist the depressing influence of his vis-a-vis, miss trevisa, who sat scowling at him with her thin lips closed. jamie was excited, but as no one answered him when he spoke he also lapsed into silence. when the church-yard gate of st. enodoc was reached, mr. menaida jumped out of the chaise with a sigh of relief, and muttered to himself that, had he known what to expect, he would have brought his pocket-flask with him, and have had a nip of cognac on the way. a good number of sight-seers had assembled from polzeath and st. enodoc, and stood in the church-yard, magnified by the mist to gigantic size. over the graves of drowned sailors were planted the figure-heads of wrecked vessels, and these in the mist might have been taken as the dead risen and mingling with the living to view this dreary marriage. the bride herself looked ghostlike, or as a waft of the fog, but little condensed, blown through the graveyard toward the gap in the church wall, and blown through that also within. that gap was usually blocked with planks from a wreck, supported by beams; when the church was to be put in requisition, then the beams were knocked away, whereupon down clattered the boards and they were tossed aside. it had been so done on this occasion, and the fragments were heaped untidily among the graves under the church wall. the clerk-sexton had, indeed, considered that morning, with his hands in his pockets, whether it would be worth his while, assisted by the five bell-ringers, to take this accumulation of wreckage and pile it together out of sight, but he had thought that, owing to the fog, a veil would be drawn over the disorder, and he might be saved this extra trouble. within the sacred building, over his boots in sand, stamped, and frowned, and paced, and growled the reverend desiderius mules, in surplice, hood, and stole, very ill at ease and out of humor because the wedding-party arrived unpunctually, and he feared he might catch cold from the wind and fog that drifted in through the hole in the wall serving as door. the sand within was level with the sills of the windows; it cut the tables of commandments in half; had blotted away the majority of inhibitions against marriage within blood relationship and marriage kinship. the altar-rails were below the surface. the altar-table had been fished up and set against the east wall, not on this day for the marriage, but at some previous occasion. then the sexton had placed two pieces of slate under the feet on one side, and not having found handy any other pieces, had thought that perhaps it did not matter. consequently the two legs one side had sunk in the sand, and the altar-table formed an incline. a vast number of bats occupied the church, and by day hung like little moleskin purses from the roof. complaints had been made of the disagreeableness of having these creatures suspended immediately over the head of the officiant, accordingly the sexton had knocked away such as were suspended immediately above the altar and step--a place where the step was, beneath the sand; but he did not think it necessary to disturb those in other parts of the church. if they inconvenienced others, it was the penalty of curiosity, coming to see a wedding there. toward the west end of the church some wooden pew-tops stood above the sand, and stuck into a gimlet-hole in the top rail of one was a piece of holly, dry and brown as a chip. it had been put there as a christmas decoration the last year that the church was used for divine worship, at the feast of noel; _when_ that was, only the oldest men could remember. the sexton had looked at it several times with his hands in his pockets and considered whether it were worth while pulling his hands out and removing the withered fragment, and carrying it outside the church, but had arrived at the conclusion that it injured no one, and might therefore just as well remain. there were fragments of stained glass in the windows, in the upper light of the perpendicular windows saints and angels in white and gold on ruby and blue grounds. in one window a fragment of a christ on the cross. but all were much obscured by cobwebs. the cobwebs, after having entangled many flies, caught and retained many particles of sand, became impervious to light and obscured the figures in the painted glass. the sexton had looked at these cobwebs occasionally and mused whether it would be worth his while to sweep them down, but as he knew that the church was rarely used for divine offices, and never for regular divine worship, he deemed that there was no crying necessity for their destruction. life was short, and time might be better employed--to whit in talking to a neighbor, in smoking a pipe, in drinking a pint of ale, in larruping his wife, in reading the paper. consequently the cobwebs remained. had mr. desiderius mules been possessed of antiquarian tastes, he might have occupied the time he was kept waiting in studying the bosses of carved oak that adorned the wagon-roof of the church, which were in some cases quaint, in the majority beautiful, and no two the same. and he might have puzzled out the meaning of three rabbits with only three ears between them forming a triangle, or three heads united in one neck, a king, a queen, a bishop and a monk, or of a sow suckling a dozen little pigs. but mr. desiderius mules had no artistic or archaeological faculty developed in him. his one object on the present occasion was to keep draught and damp from the crown of his head, where the hair was so scanty as hardly to exist at all. he did not like to assume his hat in the consecrated building, so he stamped about in the sand holding a red bandanna handkerchief on the top of his head, and grumbling at the time he was kept waiting, at the cornish climate, at the way in which he had been "choused" in the matter of dilapidations for the chancel of the church, at the unintelligible dialect of the people, and at a good many other causes of irritation, notably at a bat which had not reverenced his bald pate, when he ventured beyond the range of the sexton's sweeping. presently the clerk, who was outside, thrust in his head through the gap in the wall, and in a stage whisper announced, "they's a-coming." the reverend mules growled, "there ought to be a right to charge extra when the parson is kept waiting--sixpence a minute, not a penny less. but we are choused in this confounded corner of the world in every way. ha! there is a mildew-spot on my stole--all come of this villainous damp." in the tower stood five men, ready to pull the ropes and sound a merry peal when the service was over, and earn a guinea. they had a firkin of ale in a corner, with which to moisten their inner clay between each round. now that they heard that the wedding party had arrived they spat on their hands and heaved their legs out of the sand. through the aperture in the wall entered the bridal party, a cloud of fog blowing in with them and enveloping them. they stepped laboriously through the fine sand, at this place less firm than elsewhere, having been dug into daily by the late rector in his futile efforts to clear the church. mr. mules cast a suspicious look into the rafters above him to see that no profane bat was there, and opened his book. mr. menaida was to act as father to the bride, and there was no other bride's-maid than miss trevisa. as they waded toward the alter, judith's strength failed, and she stood still. then uncle zachie put his arm round her and half carried her over the sand toward the place where she must stand to give herself away. she turned her head and thanked him with her eyes, she could not speak. so deathly was her whiteness, so deficient in life did she seem, that miss trevisa looked at her with some anxiety, and a little doubt whether she would be able to go through the service. when judith reached her place, her eyes rested on the sand. she did not look to her left side, she could hear no steps, for the sand muffled all sound of feet, but she knew by the cold shudder that thrilled through her, that captain coppinger was at her side. "dearly beloved, we are gathered together here--now then order, if you please, and quiet, we are twenty-five minutes after time," said mr. desiderius mules. the first few words, seven in all were addressed to the wedding party, the rest to a number of men and women and children who were stumbling and plunging into the church through the improvised door, thrusting each other forward, with a "get along," and "out of the road," all eager to secure a good sight of the ceremony, and none able to hurry to a suitable place because of the sand that impeded every step. "now then--i can't stay here all day!" mr. mules sniffed and applied the bandanna to his nose, as an indication that he was chilled, and that this rheum would be on the heads of the congregation, were he made ill by this delay. "dearly beloved, we are gathered," he began again, and he was now able to proceed. "cruel," said he in loud and emphatic tones, "wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after god's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her so long as ye both shall live?" the response of coppinger went through the heart of judith like a knife. then the rector addressed her. for answer she looked up at him and moved her lips. he took her hand and placed it in that of coppinger. it was cold as ice and quivering like an aspen leaf. as captain coppinger held it, it seemed to drag and become heavy in his hand, whilst he pronounced the words after the rector, making oath to take judith as his own. then the same words were recited to her, for her to repeat in order after the priest. she began, she moved her lips, looked him pleadingly in the face, her head swam, the fog filled the whole church and settled between her and the rector. she felt nothing save the grip of coppinger's hand, and sank unconscious to the ground. "go forward," said cruel. mr. menaida and aunt dionysia caught judith and held her up. she could neither speak nor stir. her lips were unclosed, she seemed to be gasping for breath like one drowning. "go on," persisted cruel, and holding her left hand he thrust the ring on her fourth finger, repeating the words of the formula. "i cannot proceed," said the reverend desiderius. "then you will have to come again to-morrow." "she is unconscious," objected the rector. "it is momentary only," said aunt dionysia; "be quick and finish." mr. mules hesitated a moment. he had no wish to return in like weather on another day; no wish again to be kept waiting five and twenty minutes. he rushed at the remainder of the office and concluded it at a hand gallop. "now," said he, "the registers are at the rectory. come there." coppinger looked at judith. "not to-day. it is not possible. she is ill--faint. to-morrow. neither she nor i nor the witnesses will run away. we will come to you to-morrow." uncle zachie offered to assist judith from the church. "no," said cruel, peremptorily, "she is mine now." she was able with assistance to walk, she seemed to recover for a moment in the air outside, but again lapsed into faintness on being placed in the chaise. "to pentyre glaze," ordered coppinger; "our home." chapter xxxiv. a breakfast. "she has been over-exerted, over-excited," said miss trevisa. "leave her to recover; in a few days she will be herself again. remember, her father died of heart complaint, and though judith resembles her mother rather than a trevisa, she may have inherited from my brother just that one thing she had better have let him carry to his grave with him." so judith was given the little room that adjoined her aunt's, and miss trevisa postponed for a week her migration to othello cottage. aunt dionysia was uneasy about her niece; perhaps her conscience did suffer from some qualms when she saw how judith shrank from the union she had driven her into for her own selfish convenience. she treated her in the wisest manner, now she had brought her to the glaze, for she placed her in her old room next her own, and left her there to herself. judith could hear her aunt walking about and muttering in the adjoining chamber, and was content to be left alone to recover her composure and strength. uncle zachie and jump were, however, in sore distress; they had made the trim cottage ready, had prepared a wedding breakfast, engaged a helping hand or two, and no one had come to partake. nor was mr. desiderius mules in a cheerful mood. he had been invited to the breakfast, and was hungry and cold. he had to wait while mr. menaida ran up to pentyre to know whether any one was going to honor his board. while he was away the rector stamped about the parlor, growling that he believed he was about to be "choused out of his breakfast. there was really no knowing what these people in this out-of-the-world corner might do." then he pulled off his boots and shook the sand out, rang for jump, and asked at what hour precisely the breakfast was to be eaten, and whether it was put on table to be looked at only. from pentyre glaze mr. menaida was not greatly successful in obtaining guests. he found some wild-looking men there in converse with coppinger, men whom he knew by rumor to belong to a class that had no ostensible profession and means of living. mr. menaida had ordered in clotted cream, which would not keep sweet many days. it ought to be eaten at once. he wanted to know whether coppinger, the bride, miss trevisa, anyone was coming to his house to consume the clotted cream. as jamie was drifting about purposeless, and he alone seemed disposed to accompany uncle zachie, the old gentleman carried him off. "i s'pose i can't on the spur of the moment go in and ask over st. minver parson?" asked menaida, dubiously, of the st. enodoc parson. "you see i daresay he's hurt not to have had the coupling of 'em himself." "most certainly not," said mr. mules; "an appetite is likely to go into faintness unless attended to at once. i know that the coats of my stomach are honeycombed with gastric juice. shall i say grace? another half-hour of delay will finish me." consequently but three persons sat down to a plentiful meal; but some goose, cold, had hardly been served, when in came mr. scantlebray, the agent, with a cheery salutation of "hulloa, menaida, old man! what, eating and drinking? i'll handle a knife and fork with you, unasked. beg pardon, mr. mules. i'm a rough man, and an old acquaintance of our good friend here. hope i see you in the enjoyment of robust health, sir. oh, menaida, old man! i didn't expect such a thing as this. now i begin to see daylight, and understand why i was turned out of the valuership, and why my brother lost this promising young pupil. ah, ha! my man, you have been deprived of fun, such fun, roaring fun, by not being with my brother scanty. well, sir," to mr. mules, "what was the figure of the valuation? you had a queer man on your side. i pity you. a man i wouldn't trust myself. i name no names. now tell me, what did you get?" "a hundred and twenty-seven pounds four and ninepence farthing. monstrous--a chouse." "as you say, monstrous. why that chancel, show me the builder who will contract to do that alone at a hundred and twenty-seven pounds? and the repairs of the vestry--are they to be reckoned at four and ninepence farthing? it is a swindle. i'd appeal. i'd refuse. you made a mistake, sir, let me tell you, in falling into certain hands. yes--i'll have some goose, thank you." mr. scantlebray ate heartily, so did the reverend desiderius, who had the honeycomb cells of his stomach coats to fill. both, moreover, did justice to mr. menaida's wine, they did not spare it; why should they? those for whom the board was spread had not troubled to come to it, and they must make amends for their neglect. "horrible weather," said the rector. "i suppose this detestable sort of stuff of which the atmosphere is composed is the prevailing abomination one has to inhale throughout three-quarters of the year. one cannot see three yards before one." "it's bad for some and good for others," answered scantlebray. "there'll be wrecks, certainly, after this, especially if we get, as we are pretty sure to get, a wind ashore." "wrecks!" exclaimed the rector, "and pray who pays the fees for drowned men i may be expected to bury?" "the parish," answered uncle zachie. "oh, half-a-crown a head," said mr. mules, contemptuously. "there are other things to be had besides burial fees out of a wreck," said scantlebray; "but you must be down early before the coast-guard are there. have you donkeys?" "donkeys! what for?" "i have one, a gray beauty," exclaimed jamie; "captain coppinger gave her to me." "well, young man, then you pick up what you can, when you have the chance, and lade her with your findings. you'll pick up something better than corpses, and make something more than burial half-crowns." "but why do you suppose there will be wrecks?" inquired the rector of st. enodoc. "there is no storm." "no storm, certainly, but there is fog, and in the fog vessels coming up the channel to bristol get lost as to their bearings, get near our cliffs without knowing it, and then--if a wind from the west spring up and blows rough--they are done for, they can't escape to the open. that's it, old man. i beg your reverence's pardon, i mean, sir. when i said that such weather was bad for some and good for others you can understand me now--bad for the wrecked, good for the wreckers." "but surely you have no wreckers here?" mr. scantlebray laughed. "go and tell the bridegroom that you think so. i'll let you into the knowledge of one thing"--he winked over his glass--"there's a fine merchantman on her way to bristol." "how do you know?" "know! because she was sighted off st. ives, and the tidings has run up the coast like fire among heather. i don't doubt it that it has reached hartland by this; and with a thick fog like to-day there are a thousand hearts beating with expectation. who can say? she may be laden with gold-dust from africa, or with tin from barca, or with port from oporto." "my boy oliver is coming home," said mr. menaida. "then let's hope he is not in this vessel, for, old man, she stands a bad chance in such weather as this. there is porth-quin, and there is hayle bay ready to receive her, or doom bar on which she may run, all handy for our people. are you anything of a sportsman, sir?" "a little--but i don't fancy there is much in this precious country--no cover." "what is fox-hunting when you come to consider--or going after a snipe or a partridge? a fox! it's naught, the brush stinks, and a snipe is but a mouthful. my dear sir, if you come to live among us, you must seek your sport not on the land but at sea. you'll find the sport worth something when you get a haul of a barrel of first-rate sherry, or a load of silver ingots. why, that's how penwarden bought his farm. he got the money after a storm--found it on the shore out of the pocket of a dead man. do you know why the bells of st. enodoc are so sweet? because, so folks say, melted into them are ingots of peruvian silver from a ship wrecked on doom bar." "i should like to get some silver or gold," said jamie. "i daresay you would, and so perhaps you may if you look out for it. go to your good friend, captain coppinger, and tell him what you want. he has made his pickings before now on shore and off wrecks, and has not given up the practice." "but," said mr. mules, "do you mean to tell me that you people in this benighted corner of the world live like sharks, upon whatever is cast overboard?" "no, i do not," answered scantlebray. "we have too much energy and intelligence for that. we don't always wait till it is cast overboard, we go aboard and take what we want." "what, steal!" "i don't call that stealing when providence and a southwest wind throws a ship into our laps, when we put in our fingers and pick out the articles we want. what are porth-quin and hayle bay but our laps, in which lie the wrecks heaven sends us? and doom bar, what is that but a counter on which the good things are spread, and those first there get the first share?" "and pray," said mr. desiderius mules, "have the owners of the vessels, the passengers, the captains, no objections to make?" "they are not there. don't wait for our people. if they do--so much the worse for them." then scantlebray laughed. "there's a good story told of the zenobia, lost four years ago. there was a lady on board. when she knew the vessel was on doom bar she put on all her jewelry, to escape with it. but some of our people got to the wreck before she got off it, and one lobe of her ears got torn off." "torn off?" "yes--in pulling the earrings off her." "but who pulled the earrings off her?" "our people." "gracious heavens! were they not brought to justice?" "who did it? no one knew. what became of the jewelry? no one knew. all that was known was that lady knighton--that was her name--lost her diamonds and the lobe of her right ear as well." "and it was never recovered?" "what! the lobe of her ear?" "no, the jewelry." "never." "upon my word i have got among a parcel of scoundrels. it is high time that i should come and reform them. i'll set to work at once. i'll have st. enodoc dug out and restored, and i'll soon put an end to this sort of thing." "you think so?" "you don't know me. i'll have a bazaar. i'll have a ball in the assembly rooms at wadebridge. the church shall be excavated. i'm not going in there again with the bats, to have my boots filled with sand, i can tell you--everything shall be renovated and put to rights. i'll see to it at once. i'll have a pigeon shooting for the sake of my chancel--i daresay i shall raise twenty pounds by that alone--and a raffle for the font, and an aunt sally for the pulpit. but the ball will be the main thing, i'll send and get the county people to patronize. i'll do it, and you barbarians in this benighted corner of the world shall see there is a man of energy among you." "you'd best try your hand on a wreck. you'll get more off that." "and i'll have a bran pie for an altar-table." "you won't get the parishioners to do anything for the restoration of the church. they don't want to have it restored." "the decalogue is rotten. i ran my umbrella through the ten commandments this morning. i'll have a gypsy camp and fortune-telling to furnish me with new commandments." "i've heard tell," said scantlebray, "that at ponghill, near stratton, is a four-post bed of pure gold came off a wreck in bude bay."[c] [c] an exaggeration. the bed of seventeenth century italian work, is gilt. it is now in a small farmhouse. "when i was in the north," said the rector of st. enodoc, "we had a savage who bit off the heads of rats, snap, skinned them and ate them raw, and charged sixpence entrance; but that was for the missionaries. i should hardly advocate that for the restoration of a church; besides, where is the savage to be got? we made twenty-seven pounds by that man, but expenses were heavy and swallowed up twenty-five; we sent two pounds to the missionaries." mr. menaida stood up and went to the window. "i believe the wind has shifted to the north, and we shall have a lightening of the fog after sunset." "shall we not have a wreck! i hope there'll be one," said jamie. "what is the law about wreckage, menaida, old man?" asked scantlebray, also coming to the window. "the law is plain enough. no one has a right to goods come to land; he who finds may claim salvage--naught else; and any persons taking goods cast ashore, which are not legal wreck, may be punished." "and," said scantlebray, "what if certain persons give occasion to a ship being wrecked, and then plundering the wreck?" "there the law is also plain. the invading and robbing of a vessel, either in distress or wrecked, and the putting forth of false lights in order to bring a vessel into danger, are capital felonies." scantlebray went to the table, took up a napkin, twisted it and then flung it round his neck, and hung his head on one side. "what--this, menaida, old man?" uncle zachie nodded. "come here, jim, my boy, a word with you outside." scantlebray led jamie into the road. "there's been a shilling owing you for some time. we had roaring fun about it once. here it is. now listen to me. go to pentyre, you want to find gold-dust on the shore, don't you?" "yes." "or bars of silver?" "yes." "well, beg captain coppinger, if he is going to have a jack o' lantern to-night, to let you be the jack. do you understand? and mind--not a word about me. then gold-dust and bars of silver and purses of shillings. mind you ask to be jack o' lantern. it is fun. such fun. roaring fun." chapter xxxv. jack o' lantern. evening closed in; judith had been left entirely to herself. she sat in the window, looking out into the mist and watching the failing of the light. sometimes she opened the casement and allowed the vapor to blow in like cold steam, then became chilled, shivered, and closed it again. the wind was rising and piped about the house, piped at her window. judith, sitting there, tried with her hand to find the crevice through which the blast drove, and then amused herself with playing with her finger-tops on the openings and regulating the whistle so as to form a tune. she heard frequently coppinger's voice in conversation, sometimes in the hall, sometimes in the court-yard, but could not catch what was spoken. she listened, with childish curiosity, to the voice that was now that of her lord and husband, and endeavored to riddle out of it some answer to her questions as to what sort of a master he would prove. she could not comprehend him. she had heard stories told of him that made her deem him the worst of men, remorseless and regardless of others, yet toward her he had proved gentle and considerate. what, for instance, could be more delicate and thoughtful than his behavior to her at this very time! feeling that she had married him with reluctance, he had kept away from her and suffered her to recover her composure without affording her additional struggle. a reaction after the strain on her nerves set in; the step she had dreaded had been taken, and she was the wife of the man she feared and did not love. the suspense of expectation was exchanged for the calmer grief of retrospect. the fog all day had been white as wool, and she had noticed how parcels of vapor had been caught and entangled in the thorn bushes as the fog swept by, very much as sheep left flocks of their fleece in the bushes when they broke out of a field. now that the day set, the vapor lost its whiteness and became ash gray, but it was not as dense as it had been, or rather it was compacted in places into thick masses with clear tracts between. the sea was not visible, nor the cliffs, but she could distinguish out-buildings, tufts of furze and hedges. the wind blew much stronger, and she could hear the boom of the waves against the rocks, like the throbbing of the unseen heart of the world. it was louder than it had been. the sound did not come upon the wind, for the fog that muffled all objects from sight, muffled also all sounds to the ear, but the boom came from the vibration of the land. the sea flung against the coast-line shook the rocks, and they quivered for a long distance inland, making every wall and tree quiver also, and the sound of the sea was heard not through the ears but through the soles of the feet. miss trevisa came in. "shall i light you a pair of candles, judith?" "i thank you, hardly yet." "and will you not eat?" "yes, presently, when supper is served." "you will come down-stairs?" "yes." "i am glad to hear that." "aunt, i thought you were going to othello cottage the day i came here." "captain coppinger will not suffer me to leave at once till you have settled down to your duties as mistress of the house." "oh, auntie! i shall never be able to manage this large establishment." "why not! you managed that at the rectory." "yes, but it was so different." "how so?" "my dear papa's requirements were so simple, and so few, and there were no men about except old balhachet, and he was a dear, good old humbug. here, i don't know how many men there are, and who belong to the house, and who do not. they are in one day and out the next--and then captain coppinger is not like my own darling papa." "no, indeed, he is not. shall i light the candles? i have something to show you." "as you will, aunt." miss trevisa went into her room and fetched a light, and kindled the two candles that stood on judith's dressing-table. "oh, aunt! not three candles." "why not? we shall need light." "but three candles together bring ill-luck; and we have had enough already." "pshaw! don't be a fool. i want light, for i have something to show you." she opened a small box and drew forth a brooch and earrings that flashed in the rays of the candle. "look, child! they are yours. captain coppinger has given them to you. they are diamonds. see--a butterfly for the breast, and two little butterflies for the ears." "oh, auntie! not for me. i do not want them." "this is ungracious. i daresay they cost many hundreds of pounds. they are diamonds." judith took the brooch and earrings in her hand; they sparkled. the diamonds were far from being brilliants, they were of good size and purest water. "i really do not want to have them. persuade captain coppinger to return them to the jeweller, it is far too costly a gift for me, far--far--i should be happier without them." then, suddenly--"i do not know that they have been bought? oh, aunt dunes, tell me truly. have they been bought? i think jewellers always send out their goods in leather cases, and there is none such for these. and see--this earring--the gold is bent, as if pulled out of shape. i am sure they have not been bought. take them back again, i pray you." "you little fool!" said miss trevisa, angrily. "i will do nothing of the kind. if you refuse them--then take them back yourself. captain coppinger performs a generous and kind act that costs him much money, and you throw his gift in his face, you insult him. insult him yourself with your suspicions and refusals--you have already behaved to him outrageously. i will do nothing for you that you ask. your father put on me a task that is hateful, and i wish i were clear of it." then she bounced out of the room, leaving her candle burning along with the other two. a moment later she came back hastily and closed judith's shutters. "oh, leave them open," pleaded judith. "i shall like to see how the night goes--if the fog clears away." "no--i will not," answered miss trevisa, roughly. "and mind you. these shutters remain shut, or your candles go out. your window commands the sea, and the light of your window must not show." "why not?" "because should the fog lift, it would be seen by vessels." "why should they not see it?" "you are a fool. obey, and ask no questions." miss trevisa put up the bar and then retired with her candle, leaving judith to her own thoughts, with the diamonds on the table before her. and her thoughts were reproachful of herself. she was ungracious and perhaps unjust. her husband had sent her a present of rare value, and she was disposed to reject it, and charge him with not having come by the diamonds honestly. they were not new from a jeweller, but what of that? could he afford to buy her a set at the price of some hundreds of pounds? and because he had not obtained them from a jeweller, did it follow that he had taken them unlawfully? he might have picked them up on the shore, or have bought them from a man who had. he might have obtained them at a sale in the neighborhood. they might be family jewels, that had belonged to his mother, and he was showing her the highest honor a man could show a woman in asking her to wear the ornaments that had belonged to his mother. he had exhibited to her a store-room full of beautiful things, but these might be legitimately his, brought from foreign countries by his ship the black prince. it was possible that they were not contraband articles. judith opened her door and went down-stairs. in the hall she found coppinger with two or three men, but the moment he saw her he started up, came to meet her, and drew her aside into a parlor, then went back into the hall and fetched candles. a fire was burning in this room, ready for her, should she condescend to use it. "i hope i have not interrupted you," she said, timidly. "an agreeable interruption. at any time you have only to show yourself and i will at once come to you, and never ask to be dismissed." she knew that this was no empty compliment, that he meant it from the depth of his heart, and was sorry that she could not respond to an affection so deep and so sincere. "you have been very good to me--more good than i deserve," she said, standing by the fire with lowered eyes, "i must thank you now for a splendid and beautiful present, and i really do not know how to find words in which fittingly to acknowledge it." "you cannot thank and gratify me better than by wearing what i have given you." "but when? surely not on an ordinary evening?" "no--certainly. the rector has been up this afternoon and desired to see you, he is hot on a scheme for a public ball to be given at wadebridge for the restoration of his church, and he has asked that you will be a patroness." "i--oh--i!--after my father's death?" "that was in the late spring, and now it is the early winter, besides, now you are a married lady--and was not the digging out and restoring of the church your father's strong desire?" "yes--but he would never have had a ball for such a purpose." "the money must be raised somehow. so i promised for you. you could not well refuse--he was impatient to be off to wadebridge and secure the assembly rooms." "but--captain coppinger--" "captain coppinger?" judith colored. "i beg your pardon--i forgot. and now--i do not recollect what i was going to say. it matters nothing. if you wish me to go i will go. if you wish me to wear diamond butterflies i will wear them." "i thank you." he held out his hands to her. she drew back slightly and folded her palms as though praying. "i will do much to please you, but do not press me too greatly. i am strange in this house, strange in my new situation; give me time to breathe and look round and recover my confidence. besides, we are only half-married so far." "how so?" "i have not signed the register." "no, but that shall be done to-morrow." "yes, to-morrow--but that gives me breathing time. you will be patient and forbearing with me." she put forward her hands folded and he put his outside them and pressed them. the flicker of the fire lent a little color to her cheeks and surrounded her head with an aureole of spun gold. "judith, i will do anything you ask. i love you with all my soul, past speaking. i am your slave. but do not hold me too long in chains, do not tread me too ruthlessly under foot." "give me time," she pleaded. "i will give you a little time," he answered. then she withdrew her hands from between his and sped up stairs, leaving him looking into the fire with troubled face. when she returned to her room the candles were still burning, and the diamonds lay on the dressing-table where she had left them. she took the brooch and earrings to return them to their box, and then noticed for the first time that they were wrapped in paper, not in cotton-wool. she tapped at her aunt's door, and entering asked if she had any cotton-wool that she could spare her. "no, i have not. what do you want it for?" "for the jewelry. it cannot have come from a shop, as it was wrapped in paper only." "it will take no hurt. wrap it in paper again." "i had rather not, auntie. besides, i have some cotton-wool in my workbox." "then use it." "but my workbox has not been brought here. it is at mr. menaida's." "you can fetch it to-morrow." "but i am lost without my needles and thread. besides, i do not like to leave my workbox about. i will go for it. the walk will do me good." "nonsense, it is falling dark." "i will get uncle zachie to walk back with me. i must have my workbox. besides, the fresh air will do me good, and the fog has lifted." "as you will, then." so judith put on her cloak and drew a hood over her head and went back to polzeath. she knew the way perfectly, there was no danger, night had not closed in. it would be a pleasure to her to see the old bird-stuffer's face again, and she wanted to find jamie. she had not seen him nor heard his voice, and she supposed he must be at polzeath. on her arrival at the double cottage, the old fellow was delighted to see her, and to see that she had recovered from the distress and faintness of the morning sufficiently to be able to walk back to his house from her new home. her first question was after jamie. uncle zachie told her that jamie had breakfasted at his table, but he had gone away in the afternoon and he had seen no more of him. the fire was lighted, and uncle zachie insisted on judith sitting by it with him and talking over the events of the day, and on telling him that she was content with her position, reconciled to the change of her state. she sat longer with him than she had intended, listening to his disconnected chatter, and then nothing would suffice him but she must sit at the piano and play through his favorite pieces. "remember, judith, it is the last time i shall have you here to give me this pleasure." she could not refuse him his request, especially as he was to walk back to pentyre with her. thus time passed, and it was with alarm and self-reproach that she started up on hearing the clock strike the half-past, and learned that it was half-past nine, and not half-past eight, as she supposed. as she now insisted on departing, mr. menaida put on his hat. "shall we take a light?" he asked, and then said: "no, we had better not. on such a night as this a moving light is dangerous." "how can it be dangerous?" asked judith. "not to us, my dear child, but to ships at sea. a stationary light might serve as a warning, but a moving light misleads. the captain of a vessel, if he has lost his bearings, as is like enough in the fog, as soon as the mist rises, would see a light gliding along and think it was that of a vessel at sea, and so make in the direction of the light in the belief that there was open water, and so run directly on his destruction." "oh, no, no, uncle, we will not take a light." mr. menaida and judith went out together, she with her workbox under her arm, he with his stick, and her hand resting on his arm. the night was dark, very dark, but the way led for the most part over down, and there was just sufficient light in the sky for the road to be distinguishable. it would be in the lane, between the walls and where overhung by thorns, that the darkness would be most profound. the wind was blowing strongly and the sound of the breakers came on it now, for the cloud had lifted off land and sea, though still hanging low. very dense overhead it could not be, or no light would have pierced the vaporous canopy. uncle zachie and judith walked on talking together, and she felt cheered by his presence, when all at once she stopped, pressed his arm, and said: "oh, do look, uncle! what is that light?" in the direction of the cliffs a light was distinctly visible, now rising, now falling, observing an unevenly undulating motion. "oh, uncle? it is too dreadful. some foolish person is on the downs going home with a lantern, and it may lead to a dreadful error, and a wreck." "i hope to heaven it is only what you say." "what do you mean?" "that it is not done wilfully." "wilfully!" "yes, with the purpose to mislead. look. the movement of the light is exactly that of a ship on a rolling sea." "uncle, let us go there at once and stop it." "i don't know, my dear; if it be done by some unprincipled ruffian he would not be stopped by us." "it must be stopped. and, oh, think! you told me that your oliver is coming home. think of him." "we will go." mr. menaida was drawn along by judith in her eagerness. they left the road to pentyre, and struck out over the downs, keeping their eyes on the light. the distance was deceptive. it seemed to have been much nearer than they found it actually to be. "look! it is coming back!" exclaimed judith. "yes, it is done wilfully. that is to give the appearance of a vessel tacking up channel. stay behind, judith. i will go on." "no. i will go with you. you would not find me again in the darkness if we parted." "the light is coming this way. stand still. it will come directly on us." they drew up. judith clung to uncle zachie's side, her heart beating with excitement, indignation, and anger. "the lantern is fastened to an ass's head," said uncle zachie; "do you see how as the creature moves his head the light is swayed, and that with the rise and fall in the land it looks as though the rise and fall were on the sea. i have my stick. stand behind me, judith." but a voice was heard that made her gasp and clasp the arm of uncle zachie the tighter. neither spoke. the light approached. they could distinguish the lantern, though they could not see what bore it; only--next moment something caught the light--the ear of a donkey thrust forward. again a voice, that of some one urging on the ass. judith let go menaida's arm, sprang forward with a cry: "jamie! jamie! what are you doing!" in a moment she had wrenched the lantern from the head of the ass, and the creature, startled, dashed away and disappeared in the darkness. judith put the light under her cloak. "oh, jamie! jamie! why have you done this! who ever set you to this wicked task?" "i am jack o' lantern," answered the boy. "ju! now my neddy is gone." "jamie, who sent you out to do this? answer me." "captain coppinger!" judith walked on in silence. neither she nor uncle zachie spoke, only jamie whimpered and muttered. suddenly they were surrounded, and a harsh voice exclaimed: "in the king's name. we have you now--showing false lights." judith hastily slung the lantern from beneath her cloak, and saw that there were several men about her, and that the speaker was mr. scantlebray. the latter was surprised when he recognized her. "what!" he said, "i did not expect this--pretty quickly into your apprenticeship. what brings you here! and you, too, menaida, old man?" "nothing simpler," answered uncle zachie. "i am accompanying mrs. coppinger back to the glaze." "what, married in the morning and roving the downs at night?" "i have been to polzeath after my workbox--here it is," said judith. "oh, you are out of your road to pentyre--i suppose you know that," sneered scantlebray. "naturally," replied mr. menaida. "it is dark enough for any one to stray. why! you don't suspect me, do you, of showing false lights and endeavoring to wreck vessels! that would be too good a joke--and the offence, as i told you--capital." scantlebray uttered an oath and turned to the men and said: "captain cruel is too deep for us this time. i thought he had sent the boy out with the ass--instead he has sent his wife--a wife of a few hours, and never told her the mischief she was to do with the lantern--hark!" from the sea the boom of a gun. all stood still as if rooted to the spot. then again the boom of a gun. "there is a wreck!" exclaimed scantlebray. "i thought so--and you, mistress orphing, you're guilty." he turned to the men. "we can make nothing of this affair with the lantern. let us catch the sea-wolves falling on their prey." chapter xxxvi. the sea-wolves. on the doom bar. that very merchantman was wrecked, over which so many cornish mouths had watered, ay, and devonian mouths also, from the moment she had been sighted at st. ives. she had been entangled in the fog, not knowing where she was, all her bearings lost. the wind had risen, and when the day darkened into night the mist had lifted in cruel kindness to show a false glimmer, that was at once taken as the light of a ship beating up the channel. the head of the merchantman was put about, a half-reefed topsail spread, and she ran on her destruction. with a crash she was on the bar. the great bowlers that roll without a break from labrador rushed on behind, beat her, hammered her farther and farther into the sand, surged up at each stroke, swept the decks with mingled foam and water and spray. the main-mast went down with a snap. bent with the sail, at the jerk, as the vessel ran aground, it broke and came down--top-mast, rigging, and sail, in an enveloping, draggled mass. from that moment the captain's voice was no more heard. had he been struck by the falling mast and stunned or beaten overboard? or did he lie on deck enveloped and smothered in wet sail, or had he been caught and strangled by the cordage? none knew, none inquired. a wild panic seized crew and passengers alike. the chief mate had the presence of mind to order the discharge of signals of distress--but the order was imperfectly carried out. a flash, illuminating for a second the glittering froth and heaving sea, then a boom--almost stunned by the roar of the sea, and the screams of women and oaths of sailors, and then panic laid hold of the gunner also and he deserted his post. the word had gone round, none knew from whom, that the vessel had been lured to her destruction by wreckers, and that in a few minutes she would be boarded by these wolves of the sea. the captain, who should have kept order, had disappeared, the mate was disregarded, there was a general _sauve qui peut_. a few women were on board. at the shock they had come on deck, some with children, and the latter were wailing and shrieking with terror. the women implored that they might be saved. men passengers ran about asking what was to be done, and were beaten aside and cursed by the frantic sailors. a portuguese nun was ill with sea-sickness, and sank on the deck like a log, crying to st. joseph between her paroxysms. one man alone seemed to maintain his self-possession, a young man, and he did his utmost to soothe the excited women and abate their terrors. he raised the prostrate nun and insisted on her laying hold of a rope, lest in the swash of the water she should be carried overboard. he entreated the mate to exert his authority and bring the sailors to a sense of their duty, to save the women instead of escaping in the boat, regardful of themselves only. suddenly a steady star, red in color, glared out of the darkness, and between it and the wreck heaved and tossed a welter of waves and foam. "there is land," shouted the mate. "and that shines just where that light was that led us here," retorted a sailor. the vessel heeled to one side, and shipped water fore and aft, over either rail, with a hiss and heave. she plunged, staggered, and sank deeper into the sand. a boat had been lowered and three men were in it, and called to the women to be sharp and join them. but this was no easy matter, for the boat at one moment leaped up on the comb of a black wave, and then sank in its yawning trough, now was close to the side of the ship, and then separated from it by a rift of water. the frightened women were let down by ropes, but in their bewilderment missed their opportunity when the boat was under them, and some fell into the water, and had to be dragged out, others refused to leave the wreck and risk a leap into the little boat. nothing would induce the sick nun to venture overboard. she could not understand english; the young passenger addressed her in portuguese, and finally, losing all patience and finding that precious time was wasted in arguing with a poor creature incapable of reasoning in her present condition, he ordered a sailor to help him, caught her up in his arms, and proceeded to swing himself over, that he might carry her into the boat. but at that moment dark figures occupied the deck, and a man arrested him with his hand, while in a loud and authoritative voice he called, "no one leaves the vessel without my orders. number five, down into the boat and secure that. number seven, go with him. now, one by one, and before each leaves, give over your purses and valuables that you are trying to save. no harm shall be done you, only make no resistance." the ship was in the hands of the wreckers. the men in the boat would have cast off at once, but the two men sent into it, numbers five and seven, prevented them. the presence of the wreckers produced order where there had been confusion before. the man who had laid his hand on the portuguese nun, and had given orders, was obeyed not only by his own men, but by the crew of the merchant vessel, and by the passengers, from whom all thoughts of resistance, if they ever rose, vanished at once. all alike, cowed and docile, obeyed without a murmur, and began to produce from their pockets whatever they had secured and hoped to carry ashore with them. "nudding! me nudding!" gasped the nun. "let her pass down," ordered the man who acted as captain. "now the next--you!" he turned on the young passenger who had assisted the nun. "you scoundrel," shouted the young man, "you shall not have a penny of mine." "we shall see," answered the wrecker, and levelled a pistol at his head. "what answer do you make to this?" the young man struck up the pistol, and it was discharged into the air. then he sprang on the captain, struck him in the chest, and grappled with him. in a moment a furious contest was engaged in between the two on the wet, sloping deck, sloping, for the cargo had shifted. "hah!" shouted the wrecker, "a cornishman." "yes, a cornishman," answered the youth. the wrecker knew whence he came by his method of wrestling. if there had been light, crew, invaders, and passengers would have gathered in a circle and watched the contest; but in the dark, lashed by foam, in the roar of the waves and the pipe of the wind, only one or two that were near were aware of the conflict. some of the crew were below. they had got at the spirits and were drinking. one drunken sailor rushed forth swearing and blaspheming and striking about him. he was knocked down by a wrecker, and a wave that heaved over the deck lifted him and swept him over the bulwarks. the wrestle between the two men in the dark taxed the full nerves and the skill of each. the young passenger was strong and nimble, but he had found his match in the wrecker. the latter was skilful and of great muscular power. first one went down on the knee, then the other, but each was up again in a moment. a blinding whiff of foam and water slashed between them, stinging their eyes, swashing into their mouths, forcing them momentarily to relax their hold of each other, but next moment they had leaped at each other again. now they held each other, breast to breast, and sought, with their arms bowed like the legs of grasshoppers, to strangle or break each other's necks. then, like a clap of thunder, beat a huge billow against the stern, and rolled in a liquid heap over the deck, enveloping the wrestlers, and lifted them from their feet and cast them, writhing, pounding each other, on the deck. there were screams and gasps from the women as they escaped from the water; the nun shrieked to st. joseph--she had lost her hold and fell overboard, but was caught and placed in the boat. "now another," was the shout. "hand me your money," demanded one of the wreckers. "madam, have no fear. we do not hurt women. i will help you into the boat." "i have nothing--nothing but this! what shall i do if you take my money?" "i am sorry--you must either remain and drown when the ship breaks up or give me the purse." she gave up the purse and was safely lodged below. "who are you?" gasped the captain of the wreckers in a moment of relaxation from the desperate struggle. "an honest man--and you a villain," retorted the young passenger, and the contest was recommenced. "let go," said the wrecker, "and you shall be allowed to depart--and carry your money with you." "i ask no man's leave to carry what is my own," answered the youth. he put his hand to his waist and unbuckled a belt, to this belt was attached a pouch well weighted with metal. "there is all i have in the world--and with it i will beat your brains out." he whirled the belt and money bag round his head and brought it down with a crash upon his adversary, who staggered back. the young man struck at him again, but in the dark missed him, and with the violence of the blow and weight of the purse was carried forward, and on the slippery inclined planks fell. "now i have you," shouted the other; he flung himself on the prostrate man and planted his knee on his back. but, assisted by the inclination of the deck, the young man slipped from beneath his antagonist, and half-rising caught him and dashed him against the rail. the wrecker was staggered for a moment, and had the passenger seized the occasion he might have finished the conflict; but his purse had slipped from his hand, and he groped for the belt till he found one end at his feet, and now he twisted the belt round and about his right arm and weighted his fist with the pouch. the captain recovered from the blow, and flung himself on his adversary, grasped his arms between the shoulder and elbow, and bore him back against the bulwark, drove him against it, and cast himself upon him. "i've spared your life so far. now i'll spare you no more," said he, and the young man felt one of his arms released. he could not tell at the time, he never could decide after how he knew it, but he was certain that his enemy was groping at his side for his knife. then the hand of the wrecker closed on his throat, and the young man's head was driven back over the rail, almost dislocating the neck. it was then as though the young man saw into the mind of him who had cast himself against him, and who was strangling him. he knew that he could not find his knife, but he saw nothing, only a fire and blood before his eyes that looked up into the black heavens, and he felt naught save agony at the nape of his neck, where his spine was turned back on the bulwarks. "number seven! any of you! an axe!" roared the wrecker. "by heaven you shall be as wyvill! and float headless on the waves." "coppinger!" cried the young man, by a desperate effort liberating his hand. he threw his arms round the wrecker. a dash and a boil of froth, and both went overboard, fighting as they fell into the surf. "in the king's name!" shouted a harsh voice. "surround--secure them all. now we have them and they shall not escape." the wreck was boarded by, and in the hands of, the coast-guard. chapter xxxvii. bruised not broken. "come with me, uncle!" said judith. "my dear, i will follow you like a dog, everywhere." "i want to go to the rectory." "to the rectory! at this time of night!" "at once." when the down was left there was no longer necessity for hiding the lantern, as they were within lanes, and the light would not be seen at sea. the distance to the parsonage was not great, and the little party were soon there, but were somewhat puzzled how to find the door, owing to the radical transformations of the approaches effected by the new rector. mr. desiderius mules was not in bed. he was in his study, without his collar and necktie, smoking, and composing a sermon. it is not only _lucus_ which is derived from _non lucendo_. a study in many a house is equally misnamed. in that of mr. mules's house it had some claim, perhaps, to its title, for in it, once a week, mr. desiderius cudgelled his brains how to impart form to an inchoate mass of notes; but it hardly deserved its name as a place where the brain was exercised in absorption of information. the present study was the old pantry. the old study had been occupied by a man of reading and of thought. perhaps it was not unsuitable that the pantry should become mr. mules's study, and where the maid had emptied her slop-water after cleaning forks and plates should be the place for the making of the theological slop-water that was to be poured forth on the sunday. but--what a word has been here used--theological--another _lucus a non lucendo_, for there was nothing of theology proper in the stuff compounded by mr. mules. we shall best be able to judge by observing him engaged on his sermon for sunday. in his mouth was a pipe, on the table a jar of bird's-eye; _item_, a tumbler of weak brandy and water to moisten his lips with occasionally. it was weak. mr. mules never took a drop more than was good for him. before him were arranged in a circle his materials for composition. on his extreme left was what he termed his treacle-pot. that was a volume of unctuous piety. then came his dish of flummery. that was a volume of ornate discourses by a crack ladies' preacher. next his spice-box. that was a little store of anecdotes, illustrations, and pungent sayings. pearson on the creed, bishop andrews, or any work of solid divinity was not to be found either on his table or on his shelves. a commentary was outspread, and a concordance. the reverend desiderius mules sipped his brandy and water, took a long whiff of his pipe, and then wrote his text. then he turned to his commentary and extracted from it junks of moralization upon his text and on other texts which his concordance told him had more or less to do with his head text. then he peppered his paper well over with quotations, those in six lines preferred to those in three. "now," said the manufacturer of the sermon, "i must have a little treacle. i suppose those bumpkins will like it, but not much, i hate it myself. it is ridiculous. and i can dish up a trifle of flummery in here and there conveniently, and--let me see. i'll work up to a story near the tail somehow. but what heading shall i give my discourse? 'pon my word i don't know what its subject is--we'll call it general piety. that will do admirably. yes, general piety. come in! who's there?" a servant entered and said that there were mr. menaida and the lady that was married that morning, at the door, wanting to speak with him. should she show them into the study? mr. mules looked at his brandy and water, then at his array of material for composition, and then at his neckerchief on the floor, and said: "no, into the drawing-room." the maid was to light the candles. he would put on his collar and be with them shortly. so the sermon had to be laid aside. presently mr. desiderius mules entered his drawing-room, where judith, uncle zachie, and jamie were awaiting him. "a late visit, but always welcome," said the rector. "sorry i kept you waiting, but i was _en deshabille_. what can i do for you now, eh?" judith was composed, she had formed her resolution. she said, "you married me this morning when i was unconscious. i answered but one of your questions. will you get your prayer-book and i will make my responses to all those questions you put to me when i was in a dead faint." "oh, not necessary. sign the register and it is all right. silence gives consent, you know." "i wish it otherwise, particularly, and then you can judge for yourself whether silence gives consent." mr. desiderius mules ran back into his study, pulled a whiff at his pipe to prevent the fire from going out, moistened his untempered clay with brandy and water, and came back again with a book of common prayer. "here we are," said he. "'wilt thou have this man,' and so on--you answered to that, i believe. then comes 'i, judith, take thee, curll, to my wedded husband'--you were indistinct over that, i believe." "i remember nothing about it. now i will say distinctly my meaning. i will _not_ take curll coppinger to my wedded husband, and thereto i will never give my troth--so help me, god." "goodness gracious!" exclaimed the rector. "you put me in a queer position. i married you, and you can't undo what is done. you have the ring on your finger." "no, here it is. i return it." "i refuse to take it. i have nothing whatever to do with the ring. captain coppinger put it on your hand." "when i was unconscious." "but am i to be choused out of my fee--as out of other things!" "you shall have your fee. do not concern yourself about that. i refuse to consider myself married. i refuse to sign the register, no man shall force me to it, and if it comes to law, here are witnesses, you yourself are a witness, that i was unconscious when you married me." "i shall get into trouble! this is a very unpleasant state of affairs." "it is more unpleasant for me than for you," said judith. "it is a most awkward complication. never heard of such a case before. don't you think that after a good night's rest and a good supper--and let me advise a stiff glass of something warm, taken medicinally, you understand--that you will come round to a better mind." "to another mind i shall not come round. i suppose i am half married--never by my will shall that half be made into a whole." "and what do you want me to do?" asked mr. mules, thoroughly put out of his self-possession by this extraordinary scene. "nothing," answered judith, "save to bear testimony that i utterly and entirely refuse to complete the marriage which was half done--by answering to those questions with a consent, which i failed to answer in church because i fainted, and to wear the ring which was forced on me when i was insensible, and to sign the register now i am in full possession of my wits. we will detain you no longer." judith left along with jamie and mr. menaida, and mr. mules returned to his sermon. he pulled at his pipe till the almost expired fire was rekindled into glow, and he mixed himself a little more brandy and water. then with his pipe in the corner of his mouth he looked at his discourse. it did not quite please him, it was undigested. "dear me!" said mr. desiderius. "my mind is all of a whirl, and i can do nothing to this now. it must go as it is--yet stay, i'll change the title. general piety is rather pointless. i'll call it practical piety." judith returned to pentyre glaze. she was satisfied with what she had done; anger and indignation were in her heart. the man to whom she had given her hand had enlisted her poor brother in the wicked work of luring unfortunate sailors to their destruction. she could hardly conceive of anything more diabolical than this form of wrecking: her jamie was involved in the crime of drawing men to their death. a ship had been wrecked, she knew that by the minute guns, and if lives were lost from it, the guilt in a measure rested on the head of jamie. but for her intervention he would have been taken in the act of showing light to mislead mariners, and would certainly have been brought before magistrates and most probably have been imprisoned. the thought that her brother, the son of such a father, should have escaped this disgrace through an accident only, and that he had been subjected to the risk by coppinger, filled her veins with liquid fire. thenceforth there could be nothing between her and captain cruel, save antipathy, resentment, and contempt on her part. his passion for her must cool or chase itself away. she would never yield to him a hair's breadth. judith threw herself on her bed, in her clothes. she could not sleep. wrath against coppinger seethed in her young heart. concerned she was for the wrecked, but concern for them was over-lapped by fiery indignation against the wrecker. there was also in her breast self-reproach. she had not accepted as final her father's judgment on the man. she had allowed coppinger's admiration of herself to move her from a position of uncompromising hostility, and to awake in her suspicions that her dear, dear father might have been mistaken, and that the man he condemned might not be guilty as he supposed. as she lay tossing on her bed, turning from side to side, her face now flaming, then white, she heard a noise in the house. she sat up on her bed and listened. there was now no light in the room, and she would not go into that of her aunt to borrow one. miss trevisa might be asleep, and would be vexed to be disturbed. moreover resentment against her aunt for having forced her into the marriage was strong in the girl's heart, and she had no wish to enter into any communications with her. so she sat on her bed, listening. there was certainly disturbance below. what was the meaning of it? presently she heard her aunt's voice down-stairs. she was therefore not asleep in her room. thereupon judith descended the stairs to the hall. there she found captain coppinger being carried to his bedroom by two men, while miss trevisa held a light. he was streaming with water that made pools on the floor. "what is the matter? is he hurt? is he hurt seriously?" she asked, her woman's sympathy at once aroused by the sight of suffering. "he has had a bad fall," replied her aunt. "he went to a wreck that has been cast on doom bar, to help to save the unfortunate, and save what they value equally with their lives--their goods, and he was washed overboard. fell into the sea, and was dashed against that boat. yes--he is injured. no bones broken _this_ time. this time he had to do with the sea and with men. but he is badly bruised. go on," she said to those who were conveying coppinger. "he is in pain, do you not see this as you stand here? lay him on his bed, and remove his clothes. he is drenched to the skin. i will brew him a posset." "may i help you, aunt?" "i can do it myself." judith remained with miss trevisa. she said nothing to her till the posset was ready. then she offered to carry it to her husband. "as you will--here it is," said aunt dionysia. thereupon judith took the draught, and went with it to captain coppinger's room. he was in his bed. no one was with him, but a candle burned on the table. "you have come to me, judith?" he said with glad surprise. "yes--i have brought you the posset. drink it out to the last drop." she handed it to him; and he took the hot caudle. "i need not finish the bowl?" he asked. "yes--to the last drop." he complied, and then suddenly withdrew the vessel from his lips. "what is this--at the bottom?--a ring?" he extracted a plain gold ring from the bowl. "what is the meaning of this? it is a wedding-ring." "yes--mine." "it is early to lose it." "i threw it in." "you--judith--why?" "i return it to you." he raised himself on one elbow and looked at her fixedly with threatening eyes. "what is the meaning of this?" "that ring was put on my finger when i was unconscious. wait till i accept it freely." "but--judith--the wedding is over." "only a half wedding." "well--well--it shall soon be a whole one. we will have the register signed to-morrow." judith shook her head. "you are acting strangely to-night," said he. "answer me," said judith. "did you not send out jamie with a light to mislead the sailors, and draw them on to doom bar?" "jamie, again!" exclaimed coppinger, impatiently. "yes, i have to consider for jamie. answer me, did you not send him----" he burst in angrily, "if you will--yes--he took the light to the shore. i knew there was a wreck. when a ship is in distress she must have a light." "you are not speaking the truth. answer me, did you go on board the wrecked vessel to save those who were cast away?" "they would not have been saved without me. they had lost their heads--every one." "captain coppinger," said judith, "i have lost all trust in you. i return you the ring which i will never wear. i have been to see the rector and told him that i refuse you, and i will never sign the register." "i will force the ring on to your finger," said coppinger. "you are a man, stronger than i--but i can defend myself, as you know to your cost. half married we are--and so must remain, and never, never shall we be more than that." then she left the room, and coppinger dashed his posset cup to the ground, but held the ring and turned it in his fingers, and the light flickered on it, a red gold ring like that red gold hair that was about his throat. chapter xxxviii. a change of wind. after many years of separation, father and son were together once more. early in the morning after the wreck in dover bar, oliver menaida appeared at his father's cottage, bruised and wet through, but in health and with his purse in his hand. when he had gone overboard with the wrecker, the tide was falling and he had been left on the sands of the bar, where he had spent a cold and miserable night, with only the satisfaction to warm him that his life and his money were his. he was not floating, like wyvill, a headless trunk, nor was he without his pouch that contained his gold and valuable papers. mr. menaida was roused from sleep very early to admit oliver. the young man had recognized where he was, as soon as sufficient light was in the sky, and he had been carried across the estuary of the camel by one of the boats that was engaged in clearing the wreck, under the direction of the captain of the coast-guard. but three men had been arrested on the wrecked vessel, three of those who had boarded her for plunder, all the rest had effected their escape, and it was questionable whether these three could be brought to justice, as they protested they had come from shore as salvers. they had heard the signals of distress and had put off to do what they could for those who were in jeopardy. no law forbad men coming to the assistance of the wrecked. it could not be proved that they had laid their hands on and kept for their own use any of the goods of the passengers or any of the cargo of the vessel. it was true that from some of the women their purses had been exacted, but the men taken professed their innocence of having done this, and the man who had made the demand--there was but one--had disappeared. unhappily he had not been secured. it was a question also whether proceedings could be taken relative to the exhibition of lights that had misguided the merchantman. the coast-guard had come on mr. menaida and judith on the downs with a light, but he was conducting her to her new house, and there could be entertained against them no suspicion of having acted with evil intent. "do you know, father," said oliver, after he was rested, had slept and fed, "i am pretty sure that the scoundrel who attacked me was captain coppinger. i cannot swear. it is many years now since i heard his voice, and when i did hear it, it was but very occasionally. what made me suspect at the time that i was struggling with captain cruel was that he had my head back over the gunwale and called for an axe, swearing that he would treat me like wyvill. that story was new when i left home, and folk said that coppinger had killed the man." mr. menaida fidgeted. "that was the man who was at the head of the entire gang. he it was who issued the orders which the rest obeyed; and he, moreover, was the man who required the passengers to deliver up their purses and valuables before he allowed them to enter the boat." "between ourselves," said uncle zachie, rubbing his chin and screwing up his mouth, "between you and me and the poker, i have no doubt about it, and i could bring his neck into the halter if i chose." "then why do you not, father? the ruffian would not have scrupled to hack off my head had an axe been handy, or had i waited till he had got hold of one." mr. menaida shook his head. "there are a deal of things that belong to all things," he said. "i was on the down with my little pet and idol, judith, and we had the lantern, and it was that lantern that proved fatal to your vessel." "what, father! we owe our wreck to you?" "no, and yet it must be suffered to be so supposed, i must allow many hard words to be rapped out against me, my want of consideration, my scatterbrainedness. i admit that i am not a solomon, but i should not be such an ass, such a criminal, as on a night like the last to walk over the downs above the cliffs with a lantern. nevertheless i cannot clear myself." "why not?" "because of judith." "i do not understand." "i was escorting her home, to her husband's----" "is she married?" "'pon my word, i can't say; half and half----" "i do not understand you." "i will explain, later," said mr. menaida. "it's a perplexing question, and though i was brought up at the law, upon my word i can't say how the law would stand in the matter." "but how about the false lights?" "i am coming to that. when the preventive men came on us, led by scantlebray--and why he was with them, and what concern it was of his, i don't know--when the guard found us, it is true judith had the lantern, but it was under her cloak." "we, however, saw the light for some time." "yes, but neither she nor i showed it. we had not brought a light with us. we knew that it would be wrong to do so, but we came on someone driving an ass with a lantern affixed to the head of the brute." "then say so." "i cannot--that person was judith's brother." "but he is an idiot." "he was sent out with the light." "well, then, that person who sent him will be punished and the silly boy will come off scot free." "i cannot--he who sent the boy was judith's husband." "judith's husband! who is that?" "captain coppinger." "well, what of that? the man is a double-dyed villain. he ought to be brought to justice. consider the crimes of which he has been guilty. consider what he has done this past night. i cannot see, father, that merely because you esteem a young person, who may be very estimable, we should let a consummate scoundrel go free, solely because he is her husband. he has brought a fine ship to wreck, he has produced much wretchedness and alarm. indeed, he has been the occasion of some lives being lost, for one or two of the sailors, thinking we were going to davy jones's locker, got drunk and were carried overboard. then, consider, he robbed some of the unhappy, frightened women as they were escaping. bless me!" oliver sprang up and paced the room. "it makes my blood seethe. the fellow deserves no consideration. give him up to justice; let him be hung or transported." mr. menaida passed his hand through his hair, and lit his pipe. "'pon my word," said he, "there's a good deal to be said on your side--and yet----" "there is everything to be said on my side," urged oliver, with vehemence. "the man is engaged on his nefarious traffic. winter is setting in. he will wreck other vessels as well, and if you spare him now, then the guilt of causing the destruction of other vessels and the loss of more lives will rest in a measure on you." "and yet," pleaded menaida, senior, "i don't know--i don't like--you see----" "you are moved by a little sentiment for miss judith trevisa, or--i beg her pardon--mrs. cruel coppinger. but it is a mistake, father. if you had had this sentimental regard for her, and value for her, you should not have suffered her to marry such a scoundrel, past redemption." "i could not help it. i told her that the man was bad--that is to say--i believed he was a smuggler, and that he was generally credited with being a wrecker as well. but there were other influences--other forces at work--i could not help it." "the sooner we can rid her of this villain the better," persisted oliver. "i cannot share your scruples, father." then the door opened and judith entered. oliver stood up. he had reseated himself on the opposite side of the fire to his father, after the ebullition of wrath that had made him pace the room. he saw before him a delicate, girlish figure--a child in size and in innocence of face, but with a woman's force of character in the brow, clear eyes, and set mouth. she was ivory white; her golden hair was spread out about her face--blown by the wind, it was a veritable halo, such as is worn by an angel of la fiesole in cimabue. her long, slender, white throat was bare; she had short sleeves, to the elbows, and bare arms. her stockings were white, under the dark-blue gown. oliver menaida had spent a good many years in portugal, and had seen flat faces, sallow complexions, and dark hair--women without delicacy of bone and grace of figure--and, on his return to england, the first woman he saw was judith--this little, pale, red-gold-headed creature, with eyes iridescent and full of a soul that made them sparkle and change color with every change of emotion in the heart and of thought in the busy brain. oliver was a fine man, tall, with a bright and honest face, fair hair, and blue eyes. he started back from his seat and looked at this child-bride who entered his father's cottage. he knew at once who she was, from the descriptions he had received of her from his father in letters from home. he did not understand how she had become the wife of cruel coppinger. he had not heard the story from his father, still less could he comprehend the enigmatical words of his father relative to her half-and-half marriage. as now he looked on this little figure, that breathed an atmosphere of perfect purity, of untouched innocence, and yet not mixed with that weakness which so often characterizes innocence--on the contrary blended with a strength and force beyond her years--oliver's heart rose with a bound and smote against his ribs. he was overcome with a qualm of infinite pity for this poor, little, fragile being, whose life was linked with that of one so ruthless as coppinger. looking at that anxious face, at those lustrous eyes, set in lids that were reddened with weeping, he knew that the iron had entered into her soul, that she had suffered and was suffering then; nay, more, that the life opening before her would be one of almost unrelieved contrariety and sorrow. at once he understood his father's hesitation when he urged him to increase the load of shame and trouble that lay on her. he could not withdraw his eyes from judith. she was to him a vision so wonderful, so strange, so thrilling, so full of appeal to his admiration and to his chivalry. "here, ju! here is my oliver, of whom i have told you so much!" said menaida, running up to judith. "oliver, boy! she has read your letters, and i believe they gave her almost as great pleasure as they did me. she was always interested in you. i mean ever since she came into my house, and we have talked together about you, and upon my word it really seemed as if you were to her as a brother." a faint smile came on judith's face; she held out her hand and said: "yes, i have come to love your dear father, who has been to me so kind, and to jamie also; he has been full of thought--i mean kindness. what has interested him has interested me. i call him uncle, so i will call you cousin. may it be so?" he touched her hand; he did not dare to grasp the frail, slender white hand. but as he touched it, there boiled up in his heart a rage against coppinger, that he--this man steeped in iniquity--should have obtained possession of a pearl set in ruddy gold--a pearl that he was, so thought oliver, incapable of appreciating. "how came you here?" asked judith. "your father has been expecting you some time, but not so soon." "i am come off the wreck." she started back and looked fixedly on him. "what--you were wrecked?--in that ship last night?" "yes. after the fog lifted we were quite lost as to where we were, and ran aground." "what led you astray?" "our own bewilderment and ignorance as to where we were." "and you got ashore?" "yes. i was put across by the preventive men. i spent half the night on doom bar." "were any lives lost?" "only those lost their lives who threw them away. some tipsy sailors, who got at the spirits, and drank themselves drunk." "and--did any others--i mean did any wreckers come to your ship?" "salvors? yes; salvors came to save what could be saved. that is always so." judith drew a long breath of relief; but she could not forget jamie and the ass. "you were not led astray by false lights?" "any lights we might have seen were sure to lead us astray, as we did not in the least know where we were." "thank you," said judith. then she turned to uncle zachie. "i have a favor to ask of you." "anything you ask i will do." "it is to let jamie live here, he is more likely to be well employed, less likely to get in wrong courses, than at the glaze. alas! i cannot be with him always and everywhere, and i cannot trust him there. here he has his occupation; he can help you with the birds. there he has nothing, and the men he meets are not such as i desire that he should associate with. besides, you know, uncle, what occurred last night, and why i am anxious to get him away." "yes," answered the old man; "i'll do my best. he shall be welcome here." "moreover, captain coppinger dislikes him. he might in a fit of anger maltreat him; i cannot say that he _would_, but he makes no concealment of his dislike." "send jamie here." "and then i can come every day and see him, how he is getting on, and can encourage him with his work, and give him his lessons as usual." "it will always be a delight to me to have you here." "and to me--to come." she might have said, "to be away from pentyre," but she refrained from saying that. with a faint smile--a smile that was but the twinkle of a tear--she held out her hand to say farewell. uncle zachie clasped it, and then, suddenly, she bent and kissed his hand. "you must not do that," said he, hastily. she looked piteously into his eyes, and said, in a whisper that he alone could hear--"i am so lonely." when she was gone the old man returned to the ingle nook and resumed his pipe. he did not speak, but every now and then he put one finger furtively to his cheek, wiped off something, and drew very vigorous whiffs of tobacco. nor was oliver inclined to speak; he gazed dreamily into the fire, with contracted brows, and hands that were clenched. a quarter of an hour thus passed. then oliver looked up at his father, and said: "there is worse wrecking than that of ships. can nothing be done for this poor little craft, drifting in fog--aimless!--and going on to the rocks?" uncle zachie again wiped his cheek, and in his thoughtlessness wiped it with the bowl of his pipe and burnt himself. he shook his head. "now tell me what you meant when you said she was but half married," said oliver. then his father related to him the circumstances of judith's forced engagement, and of the incomplete marriage of the day before. "by my soul!" exclaimed oliver. "he must--he shall not treat her as he did our vessel." "oh, oliver! if i had had my way--i had designed her for you." "for me!" oliver bent his head and looked hard into the fire, where strange forms of light were dancing--dancing and disappearing. then mr. menaida said, between his whiffs: "surely a change of wind, oliver. a little while ago, and she was not to be considered; justice above all, and judith sacrificed, if need be--now it is judith above all." "yes," musingly, "above all." chapter xxxix. a first lie. as a faithful, as a loving wife almost, did judith attend to coppinger for the day or two before he was himself again. he had been bruised, that was all. the waves had driven him against the boat, and he had been struck by an oar; but the very fact that he was driven against the boat had proved his salvation, for he was drawn on board, and his own men carried him swiftly to the bank, and, finding him unable to walk, conveyed him home. on reaching home a worse blow than that of the oar had struck him, and struck him on the heart, and it was dealt him by his wife. she bade him put away from him for ever the expectation, the hope, of her becoming his in more than name. pain and disappointment made him irritable. he broke out into angry complaint, and judith had much to endure. she did not answer him. she had told him her purpose, and she would neither be bullied nor cajoled to alter it. judith had much time to herself; she wandered through the rooms of pentyre during the day without encountering anyone, and then strolled on the cliffs; wherever she went she carried her trouble with her, gnawing at her heart. there was no deliverance for her, and she did not turn her mind in that direction. she would remain what she was--coppinger's half-wife, a wife without a wedding-ring, united to him by a most dubiously legal ceremony. she bore his name, she was content to do that; she must bear with his love turned to fury by disappointment. she would do that till it died away before her firm and unchangeable opposition. "what will be said," growled coppinger, "when it is seen that you wear no ring?" "i will wear my mother's, and turn the stone within," answered judith, "then it will be like our marriage, a semblance, nothing more." she did appear next day with a ring. when the hand was closed, it looked like a plain gold wedding hoop. when she opened and turned her hand, it was apparent that within was a small brilliant. a modest ring, a very inexpensive one, that her father had given to her mother as a guard. modest and inexpensive because his purse could afford no better; not because he would not have given her the best diamonds available, had he possessed the means to purchase them. this ring had been removed from the dead finger of her mother, and mr. peter trevisa had preserved it as a present for the daughter. almost every day judith went to polzeath to give lessons to jamie, and to see how the boy was going on. jamie was happy with mr. menaida, he liked a little desultory work, and oliver was kind to him, took him walks, and talked to him of scenes in portugal. very often, indeed, did judith, when she arrived, find oliver at his father's. he would sometimes sit through the lesson, often attend her back to the gate of pentyre. his conduct toward her was deferential, tinged with pity. she could see in his eyes, read in his manner of address, that he knew her story, and grieved for her, and would do anything he could to release her from her place of torment, if he knew how. but he never spoke to her of coppinger, never of her marriage, and the peculiar features that attended it. she often ventured on the topic of the wreck, and he saw that she was probing him to discover the truth concerning it, but he on no occasion allowed himself to say anything that could give her reason to believe her husband was the cause of the ship being lost, nor did he tell her of his own desperate conflict with the wrecker captain on board the vessel. he was a pleasant companion, cheerful and entertaining. having been abroad, though not having travelled widely, he could tell much about portugal, and something about spain. judith's eager mind was greedy after information, and it diverted her thoughts from painful topics to hear and talk about orange and lemon groves, the vineyards, the flower-gardens, the manners and customs of the people of portugal, to see sketches of interesting places, and of the costumes of the peasantry. what drew her to oliver specially was, however, his consideration for jamie, to whom he was always kind, and whom he was disposed to amuse. the wreck of the merchantman on doom bar had caused a great commotion among the inhabitants of cornwall. all the gentry, clergy, and the farmers and yeomen not immediately on the coast, felt that wrecking was not only a monstrous act of inhumanity, but was a scandal to the county, and ought to be peremptorily suppressed, and those guilty of it brought to justice. it was currently reported that the merchantman from oporto was wilfully wrecked, and that an attempt had been made to rob and plunder the passengers and the vessel. but the evidence in support of this view was of little force. the only persons who had been found with a light on the cliffs were mr. menaida, whom every one respected for his integrity, and judith, the daughter of the late rector of st. enodoc, the most strenuous and uncompromising denouncer of wrecking. no one, however malicious, could believe either to be guilty of more than imprudence. the evidence as to the attempt of wreckers to invade the ship, and plunder it and the passengers also broke down. one lady alone could swear that her purse had been forcibly taken from her. the portuguese men could hardly understand english, and though she asserted that she had been asked for money, she could not say that anything had been taken from her. it was quite possible that she had misunderstood an order given her to descend into the boat. the night had been dark, the lady who had been robbed could not swear to the identity of the man who had taken her purse, she could not even say that it was one of those who had come to the vessel, and was not one of the crew. the crew had behaved notoriously badly, some had been drunk, and it was possible that one of these fellows, flushed with spirits, had demanded and taken her money. there were two or three st. enodoc men arrested because found on the ship at the time, but they persisted in the declaration that, hearing signals of distress, they had kindled a light and set it in the tower window of the church as a guide to the shipwrecked, and had gone to the vessel aground on doom bar, with the intention of offering every assistance in their power to the castaways. they asserted that they had found the deck in confusion. the seamen drunk and lost to discipline, the passengers helpless and frightened, and that it was only owing to them that some sort of order was brought about, or attempted. the arrival of the coast-guard interfered with their efforts to be useful. the magistrates were constrained to dismiss the case, although possessed with the moral conviction that the matter was not as the accused represented. the only person who could have given evidence that might have consigned them to prison was oliver, and he was not called upon to give witness. but, although the case had broken down completely, an uneasy and angry feeling prevailed. people were not convinced that the wreck was accidental, and they believed that but for the arrival of the guard, the passengers would have been robbed and the ship looted. it was true enough that a light had been exhibited from st. enodoc tower, but that served as a guide to those who rushed upon the wreck, and was every whit as much to their advantage as to that of the shipwrecked men. for, suppose that the crew and passengers had got off in their boats, they would have made, naturally, for the light, and who could say but that a gang of ruffians was not waiting on the shore to plunder them as they landed. the general feeling in the county was one of vexation that more prompt action had not been taken, or that the action taken had not been more successful. no man showed this feeling more fully than mr. scantlebray, who hunted with the coast-guard for his own ends, and who had felt sanguine that in this case coppinger would be caught. that coppinger was at the bottom of the attempt, which had been partly successful, few doubted, and yet there was not a shadow of proof against him. but that, according to common opinion, only showed how deep was his craft. the state of judith's mind was also one of unrest. she had a conviction seated in her heart that all was not right, and yet she had no sound cause for charging her husband with being a deliberate wrecker. jamie had gone out with his ass and the lantern, that was true, but was jamie's account of the affair to be relied on? when questioned he became confused. he never could be trusted to recall, twenty-four hours after an event, the particulars exactly as they occurred. any suggestive queries drew him aside, and without an intent to deceive he would tell what was a lie, simply because he could not distinguish between realities and fleeting impressions. she knew that if she asked him whether coppinger had fastened the lantern to the head of his donkey, and had bidden him drive the creature slowly up and down the inequalities of the surface of the cliffs, he would assent, and say it was so; but, then, if she were to say to him, "now, jamie, did not captain coppinger tell you on no account to show the light till you reached the shore at st. enodoc, and then to fix it steadily," that his face would for a moment assume a vacant, then a distressed expression, and he would finally say that he believed it really was so. no reliance was to be placed on anything he said, except at the moment, and not always then. he was liable to misunderstand directions, and by a stupid perversity to act exactly contrary to the instructions given him. judith heard nothing of the surmises that floated in the neighborhood, but she knew enough to be uneasy. she had been somewhat reassured by oliver menaida; she could see no reason why he should withhold the truth from her. was it, then, possible after all that captain coppinger had gone to the rescue of the wrecked people, that he had sent the light not to mislead, but to direct them aright? it was judith's fate--so it seemed--to be never certain whether to think the worst of coppinger, or to hold that he had been misjudged by her. he had been badly hurt in his attempt to rescue the crew and passengers--according to aunt dionysia's account. if she were to believe this story, then he was deserving of respect. judith began to recover some of her cheerfulness, some of her freshness of looks. this was due to the abatement of her fears. coppinger had angrily, sullenly, accepted the relation which she had assured him must subsist between them, and which could never be altered. aunt dionysia was peevish and morose indeed. she had been disappointed in her hope of getting into othello cottage before christmas; but she had apparently received a caution from coppinger not to exhibit ill-will toward his wife by word or token, and she restrained herself, though with manifest effort. that sufficed judith. she no longer looked for, cared for love from her aunt. it satisfied her if miss trevisa left her unmolested. moreover, judith enjoyed the walk to polzeath every day, and, somehow, the lessons to jamie gave her an interest that she had never found in them before. oliver was so helpful. when jamie was stubborn, he persuaded him with a joke or a promise to laugh and put aside his ill-humor, and attack the task once more. the little gossiping talk after the lesson with oliver, or with oliver and his father, was a delight to her. she looked forward to it, from day to day, naturally, reasonably, for at the glaze she had no one with whom to converse, no one with the same general interests as herself, the same knowledge of books, and pleasure in the acquisition of information. on mountain sides there are floral zones. the rhododendron and the gentian luxuriate at a certain level, above is the zone of the blue hippatica, the soldanella, and white crocus; below is the belt of mealy primula and lilac clematis. so is it in the world of minds--they have their levels, and can only live on those levels. transplant them to a higher or to a lower zone and they suffer, and die. judith found no one at pentyre with whom she could associate with pleasure. it was only when she was at polzeath with uncle zachie and oliver that she could talk freely and feel in her element. one day oliver said to her, "judith"--for, on the understanding that they were cousins, they called each other by their christian names--"judith! are you going to the ball at wadebridge after christmas?" "ball, oliver, what ball?" "that which mr. mules is giving for the restoration of his church." "i do not know. i--yes, i have heard of it; but i had clean forgotten all about it. i had rather not." "but you must, and promise me three dances, at least." "i do not know what to say. captain coppinger"--she never spoke of her husband by his christian name, never thought of him as other than captain coppinger. did she think of oliver as mr. menaida, junior? "captain coppinger has not said anything to me about it of late. i do not wish to go. my dear father's death----" "but the dance is after christmas. and, you know, it is for a sacred purpose. think, every whirl you take puts a new stone on the foundations, and every setting to your partner in quadrille adds a pane of glass to the battered windows." "i do not know," again said judith, and became grave. her heart fluttered. she would like to be at the ball--and dance three dances with oliver--but would captain coppinger suffer her? would he expect to dance with her all the evening? if that were so, she would not like to go. "i really do not know," again she said, clasped her hands on her knees, and sighed. "why that sigh, judith?" she looked up, dropped her eyes in confusion, and said faintly, "i do not know," and that was her first lie. chapter xl. the diamond butterfly. poor little fool! shrewd in maintaining her conflict with cruel coppinger--always on the defensive, ever on guard, she was sliding unconsciously, without the smallest suspicion of danger, into a state that must eventually make her position more desperate and intolerable. in her inexperience she had never supposed that her own heart could be a traitor within the city walls. she took pleasure in the society of oliver, and thought no wrong in so doing. she liked him, and would have reproached herself had she not done so. her relations with coppinger remained strained. he was a good deal from home; indeed, he went on a cruise in his vessel, the black prince, and was absent for a month. he hoped that in his absence she might come to a better mind. they met, when he was at home, at meals; at other times not at all. he went his way, she went hers. whether the agitation of men's minds relative to the loss of the merchantman, and the rumors concerning the manner of its loss, had made captain cruel think it were well for him to absent himself for a while, till they had blown away, or whether he thought that his business required his attention elsewhere, or that by being away from home his wife might be the readier to welcome him, and come out of her vantage castle, and lay down her arms, cannot be said for certain; probably all these motives combined to induce him to leave pentyre for five or six weeks. while he was away judith was lighter in heart. he returned shortly before christmas, and was glad to see her more like her old self, with cheeks rounder, less livid, eyes less sunken, less like those of a hunted beast, and with a step that had resumed its elasticity. but he did not find her more disposed to receive him with affection as a husband. he thought that probably some change in the monotony of life at pentyre might be of advantage, and he somewhat eagerly entered into the scheme for the ball at wadebridge. she had been kept to books and to the society of her father too much, in days gone by, and had become whimsical and prudish. she must learn some of the enjoyments of life, and then she would cling to the man who opened to her a new sphere of happiness. "judith," said he, "we will certainly go to this ball. it will be a pleasant one. as it is for a charitable purpose, all the neighborhood will be there. squire humphrey prideaux of prideaux place, the matthews of roscarrock, the molesworths of pencarrow, and every one worth knowing in the country round for twelve miles. but you will be the queen of the ball." judith at first thought of appearing at the dance in her simplest evening dress; she was shy and did not desire to attract attention. her own position was anomalous, because that of coppinger was anomalous. he passed as a gentleman in a part of the country not very exacting that the highest culture should prevail in the upper region of society. he had means, and he owned a small estate. but no one knew whence he came, or what was the real source whence he derived his income. suspicion attached to him as engaged in both smuggling and wrecking, neither of which were regarded as professions consonant with gentility. the result of this uncertainty relative to coppinger was that he was not received into the best society. the gentlemen knew him and greeted him in the hunting-field, and would dine with him at his house. the ladies, of course, had never been invited, because he was an unmarried man. the gentlemen probably had dealings with him about which they said nothing to their wives. it is certain that the bodmin wine-merchant grumbled that the great houses of the north of cornwall did not patronize him as they ought, and that no wine-merchant was ever able to pick up a subsistence at wadebridge. yet the country gentry were by no means given to temperance, and their cellars were being continually refilled. it was not their interest to be on bad terms with coppinger, one must conjecture, for they went somewhat out of their way to be civil to him. coppinger knew this, and thought that now he was married an opportunity had come in this charity ball for the introduction of judith to society, and that to the best society, and he trusted to her merits and beauty, and to his own influence with the gentlemen, to obtain for her admission to the houses of the neighborhood. as the daughter of the rev. peter trevisa, who had been universally respected, not only as a gentleman and a scholar, but also as a representative of an ancient cornish family of untold antiquity, she had a perfect right to be received into the highest society of cornwall, but her father had been a reserved and poor man. he did not himself care for associating with fox-hunting and sporting squires, nor would he accept invitations when he was unable to return them. consequently judith had gone about very little when at st. enodoc rectory. moreover, she had been but a child, and was known only by name to those who lived in the neighborhood. she was personally acquainted with none of the county people. captain cruel had small doubt but that, the ice once broken, judith would make friends, and would be warmly received. the neighborhood was scantily peppered over with county family-seats, and the families found the winters tedious, and were glad of any accession to their acquaintance, and of another house opened to them for entertainment. if judith were received well, and found distraction from her morbid and fantastic thoughts, then she would be grateful to him--so thought coppinger--grateful for having brought her into a more cheerful and bright condition of life than that in which she had been reared. following thereon, her aversion for him, or shyness toward him, would give way. and judith--what were her thoughts? her mind was a little fluttered, she had to consider what to wear. at first she would go simply clad, then her aunt insisted that, as a bride, she must appear in suitable garb, that in which she had been married, not that with the two sleeves for one side, which had been laid by. then the question of the jewellery arose. judith did not wish to wear it, but yielded to her aunt's advice. miss trevisa represented to her that, having the diamonds, she ought to wear them, and that not to wear them would hurt and offend captain coppinger, who had given them to her. this she was reluctant to do. however, she consented to oblige and humor him in such a small matter. the night arrived, and judith was dressed for the ball. never before had coppinger seen her in evening costume, and his face beamed with pride as he looked on her in her white silk dress, with ornaments of white satiny bugles in sprigs edging throat and sleeves, and forming a rich belt about the waist. she wore the diamond butterfly in her bosom, and the two earrings to match. a little color was in her delicately pure cheeks, brought there by excitement. she had never been at a ball before, and with an innocent, childish simplicity she wondered what oliver menaida would think of her in her ball-dress. judith and coppinger arrived somewhat late, and most of those who had taken tickets were already there. sir william and lady molesworth were there, and the half-brother of sir william, john molesworth, rector of st. breock, and his wife, the daughter of sir john s. aubyn. with the baronet and his lady had come a friend, staying with them at pencarrow, and lady knighton, wife of an indian judge. the matthews were there; the tremaynes came all the way from heligan, as owning property in st. enodoc, and so, in duty bound to support the charity; the prideauxs were there from place; and many, if not all, of the gentry of various degrees who resided within twelve to fifteen miles of wadebridge were also there. the room was not one of any interest, it was long, had a good floor, which is the main thing considered by dancers, a gallery at one end for the instrumentalists, and a draught which circulated round the walls, and cut the throats of the old ladies who acted as wall-fruit. there was, however, a room to which they could adjourn to play cards. and many of the dowagers and old maids had brought with them little silver linked purses in which was as much money as they had made up their minds to lose that evening. the dowager lady molesworth in a red turban was talking to lady knighton, a lady who had been pretty, but whose complexion had been spoiled by indian suns, and to her sir william was offering a cup of tea. "you see," said lady knighton, "how tremulous my hand is. i have been like this for some years--indeed ever since i was in this neighborhood before." "i did not know you had honored us with a visit on a previous occasion," said sir william. "it was very different from the present, i can assure you," answered the lady. "now it is voluntarily--then it was much the contrary. now i have come among very dear and kind friends, then--i fell among thieves." "indeed!" "it was on my return from india," said lady knighton. "look at my hand!" she held forth her arm, and showed how it shook as with palsy. "this hand was firm then. i even played several games of spellikins on board ship on the voyage home, and, sir william, i won invariably, so steady was my hold of the crook, so evenly did i raise each of the little sticks. but ever since then i have had this nervous tremor that makes me dread holding anything." "but how came it about?" asked the baronet. "i will tell you, but--who is that just entered the room?" she pointed with trembling finger. judith had come in along with captain coppinger, and stood near the door, the light of the wax candles twinkling in her bugles, glancing in flashes from her radiant hair. she was looking about her, and her bosom heaved, she sought oliver, and he was near at hand. a flush of pleasure sprang into her cheeks as she caught his eye, and held out her hand. "i demand my dance!" said he. "no, not the first, oliver," she answered. coppinger's brows knit. "who is this?" he asked. "oh! do you not know? mr. menaida's son, mr. oliver." the two men's eyes met, their irises contracted. "i think we have met before," said oliver. "that is possible," answered captain cruel, contemptuously, looking in another direction. "when we met i knew you without your knowing me," pursued the young man, in a voice that shook with anger. he had recognized the tone of the voice that had spoken on the wreck. "of that i, neither, have any doubt as to its possibility. i do not recollect every jack i encounter." a moment after an idea struck him, and he turned his head sharply, fixed his eyes on young menaida, and said, "where did we meet?" "'encounter' was your word." "very well--encounter!" "on doom bar." coppinger's color changed. a sinister flicker came into his sombre eyes. "then," said he slowly, in low vibrating tones, "we shall meet again." "certainly, we shall meet again, and conclude our--i use your term--'encounter.'" judith did not hear the conversation. she had been pounced upon by mr. desiderius mules. "now--positively i must walk through a quadrille with you," said the rector. "this is all my affair; it all springs from me, i arranged everything. i beat up patrons and patronesses. i stirred up the neighborhood. it all turns as a wheel about me as the axle. come along, the band is beginning to play. you shall positively walk through a quadrille with me." mr. mules was not the man to be put on one side, not one to accept a refusal; he carried off the bride to the head of the room and set her in one square. "look at the decorations," said mr. mules, "i designed them. i hope you will like the supper. i drew up the _menu_. i chose the wines, and i know they are good. the candles i got at wholesale price--because for a charity. what beautiful diamonds you are wearing. they are not paste, i suppose?" "i believe not." "yet good old paste is just as iridescent as real diamonds. where did you get them? are they family jewels? i have heard that the trevisas were great people at one time. well, so were the mules. we are really de moels. we came in with the conqueror. that is why i have such a remarkable christian name. desiderius is the french désiré, and a norman christian name. look at the wreaths of laurel and holly. how do you like them?" "the decorations are charming." "i am so pleased that you have come," pursued mr. mules. "it is your first appearance in public as mrs. captain coppinger. i have been horribly uncomfortable about--you remember what. i have been afraid i had put my foot into it, and might get into hot water. but now you have come here, it is all right; it shows me that you are coming round to a sensible view, and that to-morrow you will be at the rectory and sign the register. if inconvenient, i will run up with it under my arm to the glaze. at what time am i likely to catch you both in? the witnesses, miss trevisa and mr. menaida, one can always get at. perhaps you will speak to your aunt and see that she is on the spot, and i'll take the old fellow on my way home." "mr. mules, we will not talk of that now." "come! you must see, and be introduced to, lady molesworth." in the meanwhile lady knighton was telling her story to a party round her. "i was returning with my two children from india; it is now some years ago. it is so sad, in the case of indians, either the parents must part from their children, or the mother must take her children to england and be parted from her husband. i brought my little ones back to be with my husband's sister, who kindly undertook to see to them. we encountered a terrible gale as we approached this coast; do you recollect the loss of the andromeda?" "perfectly," answered sir william molesworth; "were you in that?" "yes, to my cost. one of my darlings so suffered from the exposure that she died. but, really, i do not think it was the wreck of the vessel which was worst. it was not that, not that alone, which brought this nervous tremor on me." "i remember that case," said sir william. "it was a very bad one, and disgraceful to our county. we have recently had an ugly story of a wreck on doom bar, with suspicion of evil practices; but nothing could be proved, nothing brought home to anyone. in the case of the andromeda there was something of the same sort." "yes, indeed, there were evil practices. i was robbed." "you! surely, lady knighton, it was not of you that the story was told?" "if you mean the story of the diamonds, it was," answered the indian lady. "we had to leave the wreck, and carry all our portable valuables with us. i had a set of jewellery of indian work, given me by sir james--well, he was only plain mr. knighton then. it was rather quaint in design: there was a brooch representing a butterfly, and two emeralds formed the----" "excuse me one moment, lady knighton," said sir william. "here comes the new rector of st. enodoc, with the bride, to introduce her to my wife. i am ashamed to say we have not made her acquaintance before." "bride! what--his bride?" "oh, no; the bride of a certain captain coppinger, who lives near here." "she is pretty, very pretty; but how delicate!" suddenly lady knighton sprang to her feet, with an exclamation so shrill and startling that the dancers ceased, and the conductor of the band, thinking an accident had occurred, with his baton stopped the music. all attention was drawn to lady knighton, who, erect, trembling from head to foot, stood pointing with shaking finger to judith. "see! see! my jewels, that were torn from me! look!" she lifted the hair, worn low over her cheeks, and displayed one ear; the lobe was torn away. no one stirred in the ball-room; no one spoke. the fiddler stood with bow suspended over the strings, the flutist with fingers on all stops. every eye was fixed on judith. it was still in that room as though a ghost had passed through in winding-sheet. in this hush, lady knighton approached judith, pointing still with trembling hand. "i demand, whence comes that brooch? where--from whom did you get those earrings? they are mine; given me in india by my husband. they are indian work, and not to be mistaken. they were plucked from me one awful night of wreck by a monster in human form, who came to our vessel, as we sought to leave it, and robbed us of our treasures. answer me--who gave you those jewels?" judith was speechless. the lights in the room died to feeble stars. the floor rolled like a sea under her feet; the ceiling was coming down on her. she heard whispers, murmurs--a humming as of a swarm of bees approaching ready to settle on her and sting her. she looked round her. every one had withdrawn from her. mr. desiderius mules had released her arm, and stood back. she tried to speak, but could not. should she make the confession which would incriminate her husband? then she heard a man's deep voice, heard a step on the floor. in a moment an arm was round her, sustaining her, as she tottered. "i gave her the jewels. i, curll coppinger, of pentyre. if you ask where i got them--i will tell you. i bought them of willy mann, the pedlar. i will give you any further information you require to-morrow. make room; my wife is frightened." then, holding her, looking haughtily, threateningly, from side to side, coppinger helped judith along--the whole length of the ball-room--between rows of astonished, open-eyed, mute dancers. near the door was a knot of gentlemen. they sprang apart, and coppinger conveyed judith through the door, out of the light, down the stairs, into the open air. chapter xli. a dead-lock. the incident of the jewellery of lady knighton occasioned much talk. on the evening of the ball it occupied the whole conversation, as the sole topic on which tongues could run and brains work. i say tongues run and brains work and not brains work and tongues run, for the former is the natural order in chatter. it was a subject that was thrashed by a hundred tongues of the dancers. then it was turned over and rethrashed. then it was winnowed. the chaff of the tale was blown into the kitchens and servants' halls, it drifted into tap-rooms, where the coachmen and grooms congregated and drank; and there it was rethrashed and rewinnowed. on the day following the ball, the jewels were returned to lady knighton, with a courteous letter from captain coppinger, to say that he had obtained them through the well-known willy mann, a pedlar who did commissions for the neighborhood, who travelled from exeter along the south coast of devon and cornwall, and returned along the north coast of both counties. everyone had made use of this fellow to do commissions, and trustworthy he had always proved. that was not a time when there was a parcels' post, and few could afford the time and the money to run at every requirement to the great cities, where were important shops when they required what could not be obtained in small country towns. he had been employed to match silks, to choose carpets, to bring medicines, to select jewellery, to convey love-letters. but willy mann had, unfortunately, died a month ago, having fallen off a wagon and broken his neck. consequently it was not possible to follow up any further the traces of the diamond butterflies. willy mann, as was well known, had been a vehicle for conveying sundry valuables from ladies who had lost money at cards, and wanted to recoup by parting with bracelets and brooches. that he may have received stolen goods and valuables obtained from wrecks was also probable. so, after all the thrashing and winnowing, folks were no wiser than before, and no nearer the solution of the mystery. some thought that coppinger was guilty, others thought not, and others maintained a neutral position. some again thought one thing one day and the opposite the next, and some always agreed with the last speaker's views. whereas others again always took a contrary opinion to those who discussed the matter with them. moreover, the matter went through a course much like a fever. it blazed out, was furious, then died away; languor ensued--and it gave symptoms of disappearing. the general mistrust against coppinger was deepened, certainly, and the men who had wine and spirits and tobacco through him, resolved to have wine and spirits and tobacco from him, but nothing more. they would deal with him as a trader, and not acknowledge him as their social fellow. the ladies pitied judith, they professed their respect for her; but as beds are made so must they be lain on, and as is cooked so must be eaten. she had married a man whom all mistrusted, and must suffer accordingly; one who is associated with an infected patient is certain to be shunned as much as the patient. such is the way of the world, and we cannot alter it, as the making of that way has not been intrusted to us. on the day following the ball, judith did not appear at polzeath, nor again on the day after that. oliver became restless. the cheerful humor, the merry mood that his father had professed were his, had deserted him. he could not endure the thought that one so innocent, so child-like as judith, should have her fortunes linked to those of a man of whom he knew the worst. he could not, indeed, swear to his identity with the man on the wreck who had attempted to rob the passengers, and who had fought with him. he had no doubt whatever in his own mind that his adversary and assailant had been coppinger, but he was led to this identification by nothing more tangible than the allusion made to wyvill's death, and a certain tone of voice which he believed he recognized. the evidence was insufficient to convict him, of that oliver was well aware. he was confident, moreover, that coppinger was the man who had taken the jewels from lady knighton; but here again he was wholly unsupported by any sound basis of fact on which his conviction could maintain itself. toward coppinger he felt an implacable anger, and a keen desire for revenge. he would like to punish him for that assault on the wreck, but chiefly for the wrongs done to judith. she had no champion, no protector. his father, as he acknowledged to himself, was a broken reed for one to lean on, a man of good intentions, but of a confused mind, of weakness of purpose, and lack of energy. the situation of judith was a pitiful one, and if she was to be rescued from it, he must rescue her. but when he came to consider the way and means, he found himself beset with difficulties. she was married after a fashion. it was very questionable whether the marriage was legal, but, nevertheless, it was known through the county that a marriage had taken place, judith had gone to coppinger's house, and had appeared at the ball as his wife. if he established before the world that the marriage was invalid, what would she do? how would the world regard her? was it possible for him to bring coppinger to justice? oliver went about instituting inquiries. he endeavored to trace to their source, the rumors that circulated relative to coppinger, but always without finding anything on which he could lay hold. it was made plain to him that captain cruel was but the head of a great association of men, all involved in illegal practices; men engaged in smuggling, and ready to make their profit of a wreck, when a wreck fell in their way. they hung together like bees. touch one, and the whole hive swarmed out. they screened one another, were ready to give testimony before magistrates that would exculpate whoever of the gang was accused. they evaded every attempt of the coast-guard to catch them; they laughed at the constables and magistrates. information was passed from one to another with incredible rapidity; they had their spies and their agents along the coast. the magistrates and country gentry, though strongly reprobating wrecking, and bitterly opposed to poaching, were of broad and generous views regarding smuggling, and the preventive officer complained that he did not receive that support from the squirearchy which he expected and had a right to demand. there were caves along the whole coast, from land's end to hartland, and there were, unquestionably, stores of smuggled goods in a vast number of places, centres whence they were distributed. when a vessel engaged in the contraband trade appeared off the coast, and the guard were on the alert in one place, she ran a few miles up or down, signalled to shore, and landed her cargo before the coast-guard knew where she was. they were being constantly deceived by false information, and led away in one direction while the contraband goods were being conveyed ashore in an opposite quarter. oliver learned much concerning this during the ensuing few days. he made acquaintance with the officer in command of the nearest station, and resolved to keep a close watch on coppinger, and to do his utmost to effect his arrest. when captain cruel was got out of the way, then something could be done for judith. an opportunity came in oliver's way of learning tidings of importance, and that when he least expected it. as already said, he was wont to go about on the cliffs with jamie, and after judith ceased to appear at mr. menaida's cottage, in his unrest he took jamie much with him, out of consideration for judith, who, as he was well aware, would be content to have her brother with him, and kept thereby out of mischief. on one of these occasions he found the boy lag behind, become uneasy, and at last refuse to go farther. he inquired the reason, and jamie, in evident alarm, replied that he dare not--he had been forbidden. "by whom?" "he said he would throw me over, as he did my doggie, if i came here again." "who did?" "captain coppinger." "but why?" jamie was frightened, and looked round. "i mustn't say," he answered, in a whisper. "must not say what, jamie?" "i was to let no one know about it." "about what?" "i am afraid to say. he would throw me over. i found it out and showed it to ju. i have never been down there since." "captain coppinger found you somewhere, and forbade your ever going to that place again?" "yes," in a faltering voice. "and threatened to fling you over the cliffs if you did!" "yes," again timidly. oliver said quietly, "now run home and leave me here." "i daren't go by myself. i did not mean to come here." "very well. no one has seen you. let me see, this wall marks the spot. i will go back with you." oliver was unusually silent as he walked to polzeath with jamie. he was unwilling further to press the boy. he would probably confuse him, by throwing him into a paroxysm of alarm. he had gained sufficient information for his purpose from the few words he let drop. "i have never been down there since," jamie had said. there was, then, something that coppinger desired should not be generally known concealed between the point on the cliff where the "new-take" wall ended and the beach immediately beneath. he took jamie to his father, and got the old man to give him some setting up of birds to amuse and occupy him, and then returned to the cliff. it did not take him long to discover the entrance to the cave beneath, behind the curtain of slate reef, and as he penetrated this to the farthest point, he was placed in possession of one of the secrets of coppinger and his band. he did not tarry there, but returned home another way, musing over what he had learned, and considering what advantage he was to take of it. a very little thought satisfied him that his wisest course was to say nothing about what he had learned, and to await the turns of fortune, and the incautiousness of the smugglers. from this time, moreover, he discontinued his visits to the coast-guard station, which was on the farther side of the estuary of the camel, and which could not well be crossed without attracting attention. there was no trusting anyone, oliver felt--the boatman who put him across was very possibly in league with the smugglers, and was a spy on those who were in communication with the officers of the revenue. another reason for his cessation of visits was that, on his return to his father's house, after having explored the cave, and the track in the face of the cliff leading to it, he heard that jamie had been taken away by coppinger. the captain had been there during his absence, and had told mr. menaida that judith was distressed at being separated from her brother, and that, as there were reasons which made him desire that she should forego her walks to polzeath, he, captain coppinger, deemed it advisable to bring jamie back to pentyre. oliver asked himself, when he heard this, with some unease, whether this was due to his having been observed with the boy on the downs near the place from which access to the cave was had. also, whether the boy would be frightened at the appearance of captain cruel so soon after he had approached the forbidden spot, and, in his fear, reveal that he had been there with oliver and had partially betrayed the secret. there was another question he was also constrained to ask himself, and it was one that made the color flash into his cheek. what was the particular reason why captain coppinger objected to the visits of his wife to polzeath at that time? was he jealous? he recalled the flare in his eyes at the ball, when judith turned to him, held out her hand, and called him by his christian name. from this time all communication with pentyre glaze was cut off; tidings relative to judith and jamie were not to be had. judith was not seen, aunt dionysia rarely, and from her nothing was to be learned. it would hardly comport with discretion for inquiries to be made by oliver of the servants of the glaze; but his father, moved by oliver and by his own anxiety, did venture to go to the house and ask after judith. he was coldly received by miss trevisa, who took the opportunity to insult him by asking if he had come to have his bill settled--there being a small account in his favor for jamie. she paid him, and sent the old fellow fuming, stamping, even swearing, home, and as ignorant of the condition of judith as when he went. he had not seen judith, nor had he met captain coppinger. he had caught a glimpse of jamie in the yard with his donkey, but the moment the boy saw him he dived into the stable, and did not emerge from it till uncle zachie was gone. then mr. menaida, still urged by his son and by his own feelings, incapable of action unless goaded by these double spurs, went to the rectory to ask mr. mules if he had seen judith, and whether anything had been done about the signatures in the register. mr. desiderius was communicative. he had been to pentyre about the matter. he was, as he said, "in a stew over it" himself. it was most awkward; he had filled in as much as he could of the register, and all that lacked were the signatures--he might say all but that of the bride and mr. menaida, for there had been a scene. mrs. coppinger had come down, and, in the presence of the captain and her aunt, he had expostulated with her, had pointed out to her the awkward position in which it placed himself, the scruple he felt at retaining the fee, when the work was only half done; how, that by appearing at the ball, she had shown to the whole neighborhood that she was the wife of captain coppinger, and that, having done this, she might as well append her name to the entry in the register. then captain coppinger and miss trevisa had made the requisite entries, but judith had again calmly, but resolutely, refused. mr. mules admitted there had been a scene. mr. coppinger became angry, and used somewhat violent words. but nothing that he himself could say, no representations made by her aunt, no urgency on the part of her husband could move the resolution of judith, "which was a bit of arrant tomfoolery," said mr. desiderius, "and i told her so. even that--the knowledge that she went down a peg in my estimation--even that did not move her." "and how was she?" asked mr. menaida. "obstinate," answered the rector, "obstinate as a--i mean as a donkey, that is the position of affairs. we are at a dead-lock." chapter xlii. two letters. oliver menaida was summoned to bristol by the heads of the firm which he served, and he was there detained for ten days. whilst he was away, uncle zachie felt his solitude greatly. had he had even jamie with him he might have been content, but to be left completely alone was a trial to him, especially since he had become accustomed to having the young trevisa in his house. he missed his music. judith's playing had been to him an inexpressibly great delight. the old man for many years had gone on strumming and fumbling at music by great masters, incapable of executing it, and unwilling to hear it performed by incompetent instrumentalists. at length judith had seated herself at his piano, and had brought into life all that wondrous world of melody and harmony which he had guessed at, believed in, yearned for, but never reached. and now that he was left without her to play to him, he felt like one deprived of a necessary of life. but his unrest did not spring solely from a selfish motive. he was not at ease in his mind about her. why did he not see her anymore? why was she confined to pentyre! was she ill? was she restrained there against her will from visiting her old friends? mr. menaida was very unhappy because of judith. he knew that she was resolved never to acknowledge coppinger as her real husband; she did not love him, she shrank from him. and knowing what he did--the story of the invasion of the wreck, the fight with oliver--he felt that there was no brutality, no crime which coppinger was not capable of committing, and he trembled for the happiness of the poor little creature who was in his hands. weak and irresolute though mr. menaida was, he was peppery and impulsive when irritated, and his temper had been roused by the manner of his reception at the glaze, when he went there to inquire after judith. whilst engaged on his birds, his hand shook, so that he could not shape them aright. when he smoked his pipe, he pulled it from between his lips every moment to growl out some remark. when he sipped his grog, he could not enjoy it. he had a tender heart, and he had become warmly attached to judith. he firmly believed in identification of the ruffian with whom oliver had fought on the deck, and it was horrible to think that the poor child was at his mercy; and that she had no one to counsel and to help her. at length he could endure the suspense no longer. one evening, after he had drank a good many glasses of rum and water, he jumped up, put on his hat, and went off to pentyre, determined to insist on seeing judith. as he approached the house he saw that the hall windows were lighted up. he knew which was judith's room, from what she had told him of its position. there was a light in that window also. uncle zachie, flushed with anger against coppinger, and with the spirits he had drank, anxious about judith, and resenting the way in which he had been treated, went boldly up to the front door and knocked. a maid answered his knock, and he asked to see mrs. coppinger. the woman hesitated, and bade him be seated in the porch. she would go and see. presently miss trevisa came, and shut the door behind her, as she emerged into the porch. "i should like to see mrs. coppinger," said the old man. "i am sorry--you cannot," answered miss trevisa. "but why not?" "this is not a fit hour at which to call." "may i see her if i come at any other hour?" "i cannot say." "why may i not see her?" "she is unwell." "if she is unwell, then i am very certain she would be glad to see uncle zachie." "of that i am no judge, but you cannot be admitted now." "name the day, the hour, when i may." "that i am not at liberty to do." "what ails her? where is jamie?" "jamie is here--in good hands." "and judith." "she is in good hands." "in good hands!" exclaimed mr. menaida, "i should like to see the good, clean hands worn by anyone in this house, except my dear, innocent little judith. i must and will see her. i must know from her own lips how she is. i must see that she is happy--or at least not maltreated." "your words are an insult to me, her aunt, and to captain coppinger, her husband," said miss trevisa, haughtily. "let me have a word with captain coppinger." "he is not at home." "not at home!--i hear a great deal of noise. there must be a number of guests in the hall. who is entertaining them, you or judith!" "that is no concern of yours, mr. menaida." "i do not believe that captain coppinger is not at home. i insist on seeing him." "were you to see him--you would regret it afterwards. he is not a person to receive impertinences and pass them over. you have already behaved in a most indecent manner, in encouraging my niece to visit your house, and sit, and talk, and walk with, and call by his christian name, that young fellow, your son." "oliver!" mr. menaida was staggered. it had never occurred to his fuddled, yet simple mind, that the intimacy that had sprung up between the young people was capable of misinterpretation. the sense that he had laid himself open to this charge made him very angry, not with himself, but with coppinger and with miss trevisa. "i'll tell you what," said the old man, "if you will not let me in i suppose you will not object to my writing a line to judith?" "i have received orders to allow of no communication of any kind whatsoever between my niece and you or your house." "you have received orders--from coppinger?" the old man flamed with anger. "wait a bit! there is no command issued that you are not to take a message from me to your master?" he put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a note-book, and tore out of it a page. then, by the light from the hall window, he scribbled on it a few lines in pencil. "sir!--you are a scoundrel. you bully your wife. you rob, and attempt to murder those who are shipwrecked.--zachary menaida." "there," said the old man, "that will draw him, and i shall see him, and have it out with him." he had wafers in his pocket-book. he wetted and sealed the note. then he considered that he had not said enough, so he opened the page again, and added: "i shall tell all the world what i know about you." then he fastened the note again, and directed it. but as it suddenly occurred to him that captain coppinger might refuse to open the letter, he added on the outside, "the contents i know by heart, and shall proclaim them on the house-tops." he thrust the note into miss trevisa's hand, and turned his back on the house, and walked home snorting and muttering. on reaching polzeath, however, he had cooled, and thought that possibly he had done a very foolish thing, and that most certainly he had in no way helped himself to what he desired, to see judith again. moreover, with a qualm, he became aware that oliver, on his return from bristol, would in all probability greatly disapprove of this fiery outburst of temper. to what would it lead? _could_ he fight captain coppinger? if it came to that, he was ready. with all his faults mr. menaida was no coward. on entering his house he found oliver there, just arrived from camelford. he at once told him what he had done. oliver did not reproach him; he merely said, "a declaration of war, father! and a declaration before we are quite prepared." "well--i suppose so. i could not help myself. i was so incensed." "the thing we have to consider," said oliver, "is what judith wishes, and how it is to be carried out. some communication must be opened with her. if she desires to leave the house of that fellow, we must get her away. if, however, she elects to remain, our hands are tied: we can do nothing." "it is very unfortunate that jamie is no longer here; we could have sent her a letter through him." "he has been removed to prevent anything of the sort taking place." then oliver started up. "i will go and reconnoitre, myself." "no," said the father. "leave all to me. you must on no account meddle in this matter." "why not?" "because"--the old man coughed. "do you not understand--you are a young man." oliver colored, and said no more. he had not great confidence in his father's being able to do anything effectual for judith. the step he had recently taken was injudicious and dangerous, and could further the end in view in no way. he said no more to old mr. menaida, but he resolved to act himself, in spite of the remonstrance made and the objection raised by his father. no sooner was the elder man gone to bed, than he sallied forth and took the direction of pentyre. it was a moonlight night. clouds indeed rolled over the sky, and for awhile obscured the moon, but a moment after it flared forth again. a little snow had fallen and frosted the ground, making everything unburied by the white flakes to seem inky black. a cold wind whistled mournfully over the country. oliver walked on, not feeling the cold, so glowing were his thoughts, and came within sight of the glaze. his father had informed him that there were guests in the hall; but when he approached the house, he could see no lights from the windows. indeed, the whole house was dark, as though everyone in it were asleep, or it were an uninhabited ruin. that most of the windows had shutters he was aware, and that these might be shut so as to exclude the chance of any ray issuing he also knew. he could not therefore conclude that all the household had retired for the night. the moon was near its full. it hung high aloft in an almost cloudless sky. the air was comparatively still--still it never is on that coast, nor is it ever unthrilled by sound. now, above the throb of the ocean, could be heard the shrill clatter and cry of the gulls. they were not asleep; they were about, fishing or quarrelling in the silver light. oliver rather wondered at the house being so hushed--wondered that the guests were all dismissed. he knew in which wing of the mansion was judith's room, and also which was judith's window. the pure white light shone on the face of the house and glittered in the window-panes. as oliver looked, thinking and wondering, he saw the casement opened, and judith appeared at it, leaned with her elbow on the sill, and rested her face in her hand, looking up at the moon. the light air just lifted her fine hair. oliver noticed how delicately pale and fragile she seemed--white as a gull, fragile as porcelain. he would not disturb her for a moment or two; he stood watching, with an oppression on his heart, and with a film forming over his eyes. could nothing be done for the little creature? she was moped up in her room. she was imprisoned in this house, and she was wasting, dying in confinement. and now he stole noiselessly nearer. there was an old cattle-shed adjoining the house, that had lost its roof. coppinger concerned himself little about agriculture, and the shed that had once housed cows had been suffered to fall to ruin, the slates had been blown off, then the rain had wetted and rotted the rafters, and finally the decayed rafters had fallen with their remaining load of slates, leaving the walls alone standing. up one of the sides of this ruinous shed oliver climbed, and then mounted to the gable, whence he could speak to judith. but she must have heard him, and been alarmed, for she hastily closed the casement. oliver, however, did not abandon his purpose. he broke off particles of mortar from the gable of the cow-house and threw them cautiously against the window. no notice was taken of the first or the second particle that clickered against a pane; but at the third a shadow appeared at the window, as though judith had come to the casement to look out. oliver was convinced that he could be seen; as he was on the very summit of the gable, and he raised his hands and arms to ensure attention. suddenly the shadow was withdrawn. then hastily he drew forth a scrap of paper, on which he had written a few words before he left his father's house, in the hopes of obtaining a chance of passing it to judith, through jamie, or by bribing a servant. this he now wrapped round a bit of stone and fastened it with a thread. next moment the casement was opened and the shadow reappeared. "back!" whispered oliver, sufficiently loud to be heard, and he dexterously threw the stone and the letter through the open window. next moment the casement was shut and the curtains were drawn. he waited for full a quarter of an hour but no answer was returned. chapter xliii. the second time. no sooner had oliver thrown the stone with note tied round it into judith's room through the window, than he descended from a position which he esteemed too conspicuous should anyone happen to be about in the night near the house. he ensconced himself beneath the cow-shed wall in the shadow, where concealed, but was ready should the casement open to step forth and show himself. he had not been there many minutes before he heard steps and voices, one of which he immediately recognized as that of cruel coppinger. oliver had not been sufficiently long in the neighborhood to know the men in it by their voices, but looking round the corner of the wall he saw two figures against the horizon, one with hands in his pockets, and by the general slouch, he thought that he recognized the sexton of s. enodoc. "the black prince will be in before long," said coppinger. "i mean next week or fortnight, and i must have the goods shored here, this time. she will stand off porth-leze, and mind you get information conveyed to the captain of the coast-guard that she will run her cargo there. remember that. we must have a clear coast here. the stores are empty and must be refilled." "yes, your honor." "you have furnished him with the key to the signals?" "yes, cap'n." "and from porth-leze there are to be signals to the black prince to come on here--but so that they may be read the other way--you understand?" "yes, cap'n." "and what do they give you every time you carry them a bit of information?" "a shilling." "a munificent government payment! and what did they give you for the false code of signals?" "half a crown." "then here is half a guinea--and a crown for every lie you impose on them." then coppinger and the sexton went further. as soon as oliver thought he could escape unobserved he withdrew and returned to polzeath. next day he had a talk with his father. "i have had opinions, in bristol," said he, "relative to the position of judith." "from whom?" "from lawyers." "well--and what did they say?" "one said one thing and one another. i stated the case of her marriage, its incompletion, the unsigned register, and one opinion was that nevertheless she was mrs. coppinger. but another opinion was that, in consequence of the incompleteness of the marriage, it was none--she was miss trevisa. father, before i went to the barristers and obtained their opinions, i was as wise as i am now, for i knew then, what i know now, that she is either mrs. coppinger, or else that she is miss trevisa." "i could have told you as much." "it seems to me--but i may be uncharitable," said oliver, grimly, "that the opinion given was this way or that way according as i showed myself interested for the legality or against the legality of the marriage. both of those to whom i applied regarded the case as interesting and deserving of being thrashed out in a court of law, and gave their opinions so as to induce me to embark in a suit. you understand what i mean, father? when i seemed urgent that the marriage should be pronounced none at all, then the verdict of the consulting barrister was that it was no marriage at all, and very good reasons he was able to produce to show that. but when i let it be supposed that my object was to get this marriage established against certain parties keenly interested in disputing it, i got an opinion that it was a good and legal marriage, and very good reasons were produced to sustain this conclusion." "i could have told you as much--and this has cost you money?" "yes--naturally." "and left you without any satisfaction?" "yes." "no satisfaction is to be got out of law--that is why i took to stuffing birds." "what is that noise at the door?" asked oliver. "there is some one trying to come in, and fumbling at the hasp," said his father. oliver went to the door and opened it--to find jamie there, trembling, white, and apparently about to faint. he could not speak, but he held out a note to oliver. "what is the matter with you?" asked the young man. the boy, however, did not answer, but ran to mr. menaida, and crouched behind him. "he has been frightened," said the old man. "leave him alone. he will come round presently and i will give him a drop of spirits to rouse him up. what letter is that?" oliver looked at the little note given him. it had been sealed, but torn open afterward. it was addressed to him, and across the address was written in bold, coarse letters with a pencil, "seen and passed. c. c." oliver opened the letter and read as follows: "i pray you leave me. do not trouble yourself about me. nothing can now be done for me. my great concern is for jamie. but i entreat you to be very cautious about yourself where you go. you are in danger. your life is threatened, and you do not know it. i must not explain myself, but i warn you. go out of the country--that would be best. go back to portugal. i shall not be at ease in my mind till i know that you are gone, and gone unhurt. my dear love to mr. menaida--judith." the hand that had written this letter had shaken, the letters were hastily and imperfectly formed. was this the hand of judith who had taught jamie caligraphy, had written out his copies as neatly and beautifully as copper-plate? judith had sent him this answer by her brother, and jamie had been stopped, forced to deliver up the missive, which coppinger had opened and read. oliver did not for a moment doubt _whence_ the danger sprang with which he was menaced. coppinger had suffered the warning to be conveyed to him with contemptuous indifference--it was as though he had scored across the letter--"be forewarned, take what precautions you will--you shall not escape me." the first challenge had come from old menaida, but coppinger passed over that as undeserving of attention, but he proclaimed his readiness to cross swords with the young man. and oliver could not deny that he had given occasion for this. without counting the cost, without considering the risk; nay, further, without weighing the right and wrong in the matter, oliver had allowed himself to slip into terms of some familiarity with judith, harmless enough were she unmarried, but hardly calculated to be so regarded by a husband. they had come to consider each other as cousins, or they had pretended so to consider each other, so as to justify a half-affectionate, half-intimate association, and before he was aware of it oliver had lost his heart. he could not and he would not regard judith as the wife of coppinger, because he knew that she absolutely refused to be so regarded by him, by herself, by his father, though by appearing at the ball with coppinger, by living in his house, she allowed the world to so consider her. was she his wife? he could not suppose it when she had refused to conclude the marriage ceremony, when there was no documentary evidence for the marriage. let the question be mooted in a court of law; what could the witnesses say, but that she had fainted, and that all the latter portion of the ceremony had been performed over her when unconscious, and that on her recovery of her faculties she had resolutely persisted in resistance to the affixing of her signature to the register. with respect to judith's feelings toward himself oliver was ignorant. she had taken pleasure in his society, because he had made himself agreeable to her, and his company was a relief to her after the solitude of pentyre and the association there with persons with whom she was wholly out of sympathy. his quarrel with coppinger had shifted ground. at first he had resolved, should occasion offer, to conclude with him the contest begun on the wreck, and to chastise him for his conduct on that night. now, he thought little of that cause of resentment, he desired to punish him for having been the occasion of so much misery to judith. he could not now drive from his head the scene of the girl's wan face at the window, looking up at the moon. oliver would shrink from doing anything dishonorable, but it did not seem to him that there could be aught wrong and unbecoming a gentleman in endeavoring to snatch this hapless child from the claws of the wild beast that had struck it down. "no, father," said he hastily, as the old fellow was pouring out a pretty strong dose of his great specific and about to administer it to jamie, "no father, it is not that the boy wants; and remember how strongly judith objects to his being given spirits." "dear, dear!" exclaimed uncle zachie, "to be sure she does, and she made me promise not to give him any. but this is an exceptional case." "let him come to me, i will soothe him. the child is frightened, or stay, get him to help you with that kittiwake. jamie, father can't get the bird to look natural; his head does not seem to me to be right. did you ever see a kittiwake turn his neck in that fashion? i wish you would put your fingers to the throat, and bend it about, and set the wadding where it ought to be. father and i can't agree about it." "it is wrong," said jamie. "look, this is the way." his mind was diverted. always volatile, always ready to be turned from one thing to another, oliver had succeeded in interesting him, and had made him forget for a moment the terrors that had shaken him. after jamie had been in the house for half an hour, oliver advised him to return to the glaze. he would give him no message, verbal or written. but the thought of having to return renewed the poor child's fears, and oliver could hardly allay them by promising to accompany him part of the way. oliver was careful not to speak to him on the subject of his alarm, but he gathered from his disjointed talk that judith had given him the note and impressed on him that it was to be delivered as secretly as possible; that coppinger had intercepted him, and suspecting something, had threatened and frightened him into divulging the truth. then captain cruel had read the letter, scored over it some words in pencil, given it back to him, and ordered him to fulfil his commission, to deliver the note. "look you here, jamie," was mr. menaida's parting injunction to the lad as he left the house, "there's no reason for you to be idle when at pentyre. you can make friends with some of the men and get birds shot. i don't advise your having a gun, you are not careful enough. but if they shoot birds you may amuse your leisure in skinning them, and i gave judith arsenic for you. she keeps it in her workbox, and will let you have sufficient for your purpose as you need it. i would not give it to you, as it might be dangerous in your hands as a gun. it is a deadly poison, and with carelessness you might kill a man. but go to judith when you have a skin ready to dress and she will see that you have sufficient for the dressing. there, good-by, and bring me some skins shortly." oliver accompanied the boy as far as the gate that led into the lane between the walls enclosing the fields of the pentyre estate. jamie pressed him to come farther, but this the young man would not do. he bade the poor lad farewell, bid him divert himself as his father had advised, with bird stuffing, and remained at the gate watching him depart. the boy's face and feebleness touched and stirred the heart of oliver. the face reminded him so strongly of his twin sister, but it was the shadow, the pale shadow of judith only, without the intelligence, the character, and the force. and the helplessness of the child, his desolation, his condition of nervous alarm roused the young man's pity. he was startled by a shot, that struck his gray hat simultaneously with the report. in a moment he sprang over the hedge in the direction whence the smoke rose, and came upon cruel coppinger with a gun. "oh, you!" said the latter, with a sneer, "i thought i was shooting a rabbit." "this is the second time," said oliver. "the first," was coppinger's correction. "not so--the second time you have levelled at me. the first was on the wreck when i struck up your hand." coppinger shrugged his shoulders. "it is immaterial. the third time is lucky, folks say." the two men looked at each other with hostility. "your father has insulted me," said coppinger. "are you ready to take up his cause? i will not fight an old fool." "i am ready to take up his cause, mine also, and that of----" oliver checked himself. "and that of whom?" asked coppinger, white with rage, and in a quivering voice. "the cause of my father and mine own will suffice," said oliver. "and when shall we meet?" asked captain cruel, leaning on his gun and glaring at his young antagonist over it. "when and where suits me," answered oliver, coldly. "and when and where may that be?" "when and where!--when and where i can come suddenly on you as you came on me upon the wreck. with such as you--one does not observe the ordinary rules." "very well," shouted coppinger. "when and where suits you, and when and where suits me--that is, whenever we meet again--we meet finally." then each turned and strode away. chapter xliv. the whip falls. for many days judith had been as a prisoner in the house, in her room. some one had spoken to coppinger and had roused his suspicions, excited his jealousy. he had forbidden her visits to polzeath; and to prevent communication between her and the menaidas, father and son, he had removed jamie to pentyre glaze. angry and jealous he was. time had passed, and still he had not advanced a step, rather he had lost ground. judith's hopes that he was not what he had been represented, were dashed. however plausible might be his story to account for the jewels, she did not believe it. why was judith not submissive? coppinger could now only conclude that she had formed an attachment for oliver menaida--for that young man whom she singled out, greeted with a smile, and called by his christian name. he had heard of how she had made daily visits to the house of his father, how oliver had been seen attending her home, and his heart foamed with rage and jealousy. she had no desire to go anywhere, now that she was forbidden to go to polzeath, and when she knew that she was watched. she would not descend to the hall and mix with the company often assembled there, and though she occasionally went there when coppinger was alone, took her knitting and sat by the fire, and attempted to make conversation about ordinary matters, yet his temper, his outbursts of rancor, his impatience of every other topic save their relations to each other, and his hatred of the menaidas, made it intolerable for her to be with him alone, and she desisted from seeking the hall. this incensed him, and he occasionally went up-stairs, sought her out and insisted on her coming down. she would obey, but some outbreak would speedily drive her from his presence again. their relations were more strained than ever. his love for her had lost the complexion of love and had assumed that of jealousy. his tenderness and gentleness toward her had been fed by hope, and when hope died they vanished. even that reverence for her innocence and the respect for her character that he had shown was dissipated by the stormy gusts of jealousy. miss trevisa was no more a help and stay to the poor girl than she had been previously. she was soured and embittered, for her ambition to be out of the house and in othello cottage had been frustrated. coppinger would not let her go till he and his wife had come to more friendly terms. on her chimney-piece were two bunches of lavender, old lavender from the rectory garden of the preceding year. they had become so dry that the seeds fell out, and they no longer exhaled scent unless pressed. judith stood at her chimney-piece pressing her finger on the dropped seeds, and picking them up by this means to throw them into the small fire that smouldered in the grate. at first she went on listlessly picking up a seed and casting it into the fire, actuated by her innate love of order, without much thought--rather without any thought--for her mind was engaged over the letter of oliver and his visit the previous night outside. but after a while, while thus gathering the grains of lavender, she came to associate them with her trouble, and as she thought--"is there any escape for me, any happiness in store?"--she picked up a seed and cast it into the fire. then she asked: "is there any other escape for me than to die--to die and be with dear papa again, now not in s. enodoc rectory garden, but in the garden of paradise?" and again she picked up and cast away a grain. then, as she touched her fingertip with her tongue and applied it to another lavender seed, she said: "or must this go on--this nightmare of wretchedness, of persecution, of weariness to death without dying, for years?" and she cast away the seed shudderingly. "or"--and again, now without touching her finger with her tongue, as though the last thought had contaminated it--"or will he finally break and subdue me, destroy me and jamie, soul and body?" shivering at the thought she hardly dare to touch a seed, but forced herself to do so, raised one, and hastily shook it from her. thus she continued ringing the change, never formulating any scheme of happiness for herself--certainly, in her white, guileless mind, not in any way associating oliver with happiness, save as one who might by some means effect her discharge from this bondage--but he was not linked, not woven up with any thought of the future. the wind clickered at the casement. she had a window toward the sea; another, opposite, toward the land. hers was a transparent chamber, and her mind had been transparent. only now, timidly, doubtfully, not knowing herself why, did she draw a blind down over her soul, as though there were something there that she would not have all the world see, and yet which was in itself innocent. then a new fear woke up in her, lest she should go mad. day after day, night after night, was spent in the same revolution of distressing thought, in the same bringing up and reconsidering of old difficulties, questions concerning coppinger, questions concerning jamie, questions concerning her own power of endurance and resistance. was it possible that this could go on without driving her mad? "one thing i see," murmured she; "all steps are broken away under me on the stair, and one thing alone remains for me to cling to--one only thing--my understanding. that"--she put her hands to her head--"that is all i have left. my name is gone from me. my friends i am separated from. my brother may not be with me. my happiness is all gone. my health may break down, but to a clear understanding i must hold; if that fails me i am lost--lost indeed." "lost indeed!" exclaimed coppinger, entering abruptly. he had caught her last words. he came in in white rage, blinded and forgetful in his passion, and with his hat on. there was a day when he entered the boudoir with his head covered, and judith, without a word, by the mere force of her character shining out of her clear eyes, had made him retreat and uncover. it was not so now. she was careless whether he wore the hat or not when he entered her room. "so!" said he, in a voice that foamed out of his mouth, "letters pass between you! letters--i have read that you sent. i stayed your messenger." "well," answered judith, with such composure as she could muster. she had already passed through several stormy scenes with him, and knew that her only security lay in self-restraint. "there was naught in it that you might not read. what did i say? that my condition was fixed--that none could alter it; that is true. that my great care and sorrow of heart is for jamie; that is true. that oliver menaida has been threatened; that also is true. i have heard you speak words against him of no good." "i will make good my words." "i wrote, and hoped to save him from a danger, and you from a crime." coppinger laughed. "i have sent on the letter. let him take what precautions he will. i will chastise him. no man ever crossed me yet but was brought to bite the dust." "he has not harmed you, captain coppinger." "he! can i endure that you should call him by his christian name, while i am but captain coppinger? that you should seek him out, laugh, and talk, and flirt with him--" "captain coppinger!" "yes," raged he, "always captain coppinger, or captain cruel, and he is dear oliver! sweet oliver!" he well-nigh suffocated in his fury. judith drew herself up and folded her arms. she had in one hand a sprig of lavender from which she had been shaking the over-ripe grains. she turned deadly white. "give me up his letter. yours was an answer!" "i will give it to you," answered judith, and she went to her workbox, raised the lid, then the little tray containing reels, and from beneath it extracted a crumpled scrap of paper. she handed it calmly, haughtily to coppinger, then folded her arms again, one hand still holding the bunch of lavender. the letter was short. coppinger's hand shook with passion so that he could hardly hold it with sufficient steadiness to read it. it ran as follows: "i must know your wishes, dear judith. do you intend to remain in that den of wreckers and cut-throats? or do you desire that your friends should bestir themselves to obtain your release? tell us, in one word, what to do, or rather what are your wishes, and we will do what we can." "well!" said coppinger, looking up. "and your answer is to the point--you wish to stay." "i did not answer thus. i said--leave me." "and never intended that he should leave you," raged coppinger. he came close up to her with his eyes glittering, his nostrils distended and snorting and his hands clinched. judith loosened her arms, and with her right hand swept a space before her with the bunch of lavender. he should not approach her within arm's length; the lavender marked the limit beyond which he might not draw near. "now, hear me!" said coppinger. "i have been too indulgent. i have humored you as a spoilt child. because you willed this or that, i have submitted. but the time for humoring is over. i can endure this suspense no longer. either you are my wife or you are not. i will suffer no trifling over this any longer. you have as it were put your lips to mine, and then sharply drawn them away--and now offer them to another." "silence!" exclaimed judith. "you insult me." "you insult and outrage me!" said coppinger, "when you run from your home to chatter with and walk with this oliver, and never deign to speak to me. when he is your dear oliver, and i am only captain coppinger; when you have smiles for him you have black looks for me. is not that insulting, galling, stinging, maddening?" judith was silent. her throat swelled. there was some truth in what he said; but, in the sight of heaven, she was guiltless of ever having thought of wrong, of having supposed for a moment that what she had allowed herself had not been harmless. "you are silent," said coppinger. "now hearken! with this moment i turn over the page of humoring your fancies and yielding to your follies. i have never pressed you to sign that register--i have trusted to your good sense and good feeling. you cannot go back. even if you desire it, you cannot undo what has been done. mine you are, mine you shall be--mine wholly and always. do you hear?" "yes." "and agree?" "no." he was silent a moment, with clinched teeth and hands looking at her, with eyes that smote her, as though they were bullets. "very well," said he. "your answer is no." "my answer is no, so help me god." "very well," said he, between his teeth. "then we open a new chapter." "what chapter is that?" "it is that of compulsion. that of solicitation is closed." "you cannot, whilst i have my senses. what!" she saw that he had a great riding-whip in his hand. "what--the old story again! you will strike me?" "no--not you. i will lash you into submission--through jamie." she uttered a cry, dropped the lavender, that became scattered before her, and held up her hands in mute entreaty. "i owe him chastisement. i have owed it him for many a day--and to-day above all--as a go-between." judith could not speak. she remained as one frozen--in one attitude, in one spot, speechless. she could not stir, she could not utter a word of entreaty, as coppinger left the room. in another minute a loud and shrill cry reached her ears from the court into which one of her windows looked. she knew the cry. it was that of her twin brother, and it thrilled through her heart, quivered in every nerve of her whole frame. she could hear what followed; but she could not stir. she was rooted by her feet to the floor, but she writhed there. it was as though every blow dealt the boy outside fell on her: she bent, she quivered, her lips parted, but cry she could not, the sweat rolled off her brow; she beat with her hands in the air. now she thrilled up with uplifted arms, on tip-toe, then sank--it was like a flame flickering in a socket before it expires: it dances, it curls, it shoots up in a tongue, it sinks into a bead of light, it rolls on one side, it sways to the other, it leaps from the wick high into the air, and drops again. it was so with judith--every stroke dealt, every scream of the tortured boy, every toss of his suffering frame, was repeated in her room, by her--in supreme, unspeaking anguish, too intense for sound to issue from her contracted throat. then all was still, and judith had sunk to her knees on the scattered lavender, extending her arms, clasping her hands, spreading them again, again beating her palms together, in a vague, unconscious way, as if in breathing she could not gain breath enough without this expansion and stretching forth of her arms. but, all at once, before her stood coppinger, the whip in his hands. "well! what now is your answer?" she breathed fast for some moments, laboring for expression. then she reared herself up and tried to speak, but could not. before her, threshed out on the floor, were the lavender seeds. they lay thick in a film over the boards in one place. she put her finger among them and drew no. chapter xlv. gone from its place. there are persons, they are not many, on whom luck smiles and showers gold. not a steady daily downpour of money but, whenever a little cloud darkens their sky, that same little cloud, which to others would be mere gloom, opens and discharges on them a sprinkling of gold pieces. it is not always the case that those who have rich relatives come in for good things from them. in many cases there are such on whom luck turns her back, but to those of whom we speak the rain of gold, and the snow of scrip and bonds come unexpectedly, but inevitably. just as pilatus catches every cloud that drifts over switzerland, so do they by some fatality catch something out of every trouble, that tends materially to solace their feelings, lacerated by that trouble. but not so only. these little showers fall to them from relatives they have taken no trouble to keep on good terms with, from acquaintances whom they have cut, admirers whose good opinion they have not concerned themselves to cultivate, friends with whom they have quarrelled. gideon's fleece, on one occasion, gathered to itself all the dew that fell, and left the grass of the field around quite dry. so do these fortunate persons concentrate on themselves, fortuitively it seems, the dew of richness that descends and might have, ought to have, dropped elsewhere; at all events, ought to have been more evenly and impartially distributed. gideon's fleece, on another occasion was dry, when all the glebe was dripping. so is it with certain unfortunates, luck never favors them. what they have expected and counted on they do not get, it is diverted, it drops round about them on every side, only on them it never falls. now, miss trevisa cannot be said to have belonged to either of these classes. to the latter she had pertained till suddenly, from a quarter quite unregarded, there came down on her a very satisfactory little splash. of relatives that were rich she had none, because she had no relatives at all. of bosom friends she had none, for her bosom was of that unyielding nature, that no one would like to be taken to it. but, before the marriage of her brother, and before he became rector of s. enodoc, when he was but a poor curate, she had been companion to a spinster lady, miss ceely, near s. austell. now the companion is supposed to be a person without an opinion of her own, always standing in a cringing position to receive the opinion of her mistress, then to turn it over and give it forth as her own. she is, if she be a proper companion, a mere echo of the sentiments of her employer. moreover, she is expected to be amiable, never to resent a rude word, never to take umbrage at neglect, always to be ready to dance attendance on her mistress, and with enthusiasm of devotion, real or simulated, to carry out her most absurd wishes, unreasoningly. but miss trevisa had been, as a companion, all that a companion ought not to be. she had argued with miss ceely, invariably, had crossed her opinions, had grumbled at her when she asked that anything might be done, raised difficulties, piled up objections, blocked the way to whatever miss ceely particularly set the heart on having executed. the two ladies were always quarrelling, always calling each other names, and it was a marvel to the relatives of miss ceely that she and her companion hung together for longer than a month. nevertheless they did. miss trevisa left the old lady when mr. peter trevisa became rector of s. enodoc, and then miss ceely obtained in her place quite an ideal companion, a very mirror--she had but to look on her face, smile, and a smile was repeated, weep, and tears came in the mirror. the new companion grovelled at her feet, licked the dust off her shoes, fawned on her hand, ran herself off her legs to serve her, grew gray under the misery of enduring miss ceely's jibes and sneers and insults, finally sacrificed her health in nursing her. when miss ceely's will was opened it was found that she had left nothing--not a farthing to this obsequious attendant, but had bequeathed fifteen hundred pounds, free of legacy duty, and all her furniture and her house to miss trevisa, with whom she had not kept up correspondence for twenty-three years. it really seemed as if leathery, rusty aunt dionysia, from being a dry gideon's fleece, were about to be turned into a wet and wringable fleece. no one was more astounded than herself. it was now necessary that miss trevisa should go to s. austell and see after what had come to her thus unsolicited and unexpectedly. all need for her to remain at pentyre was at an end. before she departed--not finally, but to see about the furniture that was now hers, and to make up her mind whether to keep or to sell it--she called judith to her. that day, the events of which were given in last chapter, had produced a profound impression on jamie. he had become gloomy, timid, and silent. his old idle chatter ceased. he clung to his sister, and accompanied her wherever she went; he could not endure to be with coppinger. when he heard his voice, caught a glimpse of him, he ran away and hid. jamie had been humored as a child, never beaten, scolded, put in a corner, sent to bed, cut off his pudding, but the rod had now been applied to his back and his first experience of corporal punishment was the cruel and vindictive hiding administered, not for any fault he had committed but because he had done his sister's bidding. he was filled with hatred of coppinger, mingled with fear, and when alone with judith would break out into exclamations of entreaty that she would run away with him, and of detestation of the man who held them there, as it were prisoners. "ju," said he, "i wish he were dead. i hate him. why doesn't god kill him and set us free!" at another time he said, "ju, dear! you do not love him. i wish i were a big strong man like oliver, and i would do what captain cruel did." "what do you mean?" "captain cruel shot at oliver." this was the first tidings judith had heard of the attempt on oliver's life. "he is a mean coward," said jamie. "he hid behind a hedge and shot at him. but he did not hurt him." "god preserved him," said judith. "why does not god preserve us! why did god let that beast----" "hush, jamie!" "i will not--that wretch--beat me? why did he not send lightning and strike him dead?" "i cannot tell you, darling. we must wait and trust." "i am tired of waiting and trusting. if i had a gun i would not shoot birds, i would go behind a hedge and shoot captain coppinger. there would be nothing wrong in that, ju?" "yes there would. it would be a sin." "not after he did that to oliver." "i would never--never love you, if you did that." "you would always love me whatever i did," said jamie. he spoke the truth, judith knew it. her eyes filled, she drew the boy to her passionately and kissed his golden head. then came aunt dionysia and summoned her into her own room. jamie followed. "judith," began aunt dunes, in her usual hard tones, and with the same frozen face, "i wish you particularly to understand. look here! you have caused me annoyance enough while i have been here. now i shall have a house of my own at s. austell, and if i choose to live in it i can. if i do not, i can let it, and live at othello cottage. i have not made up my mind what to do. fifteen hundred pounds is a dirty little sum, and not half as much as ought to have been left me for all i had to bear from that old woman. i am glad for one thing that she has left me something, though not much. i should have despaired of her salvation had she not. however her heart was touched at the last, though not touched enough. now what i want you to understand is this--it entirely depends on your conduct whether after my death this sum of fifteen hundred pounds and a beggarly sum of about five hundred i have of my own, comes to you or not. as long as this nonsense goes on between you and captain coppinger--you pretending you are not married, when you are, there is no security for me that you and jamie may not come tumbling in upon me and become a burden to me. captain coppinger will not endure this fooling much longer. _he_ can take advantage of your mistake. _he_ can say--i am not married. where is the evidence? produce proof of the marriage having been solemnized--and then he may send you out of his house upon the downs in the cold. what would you be then, eh? all the world holds you to be mrs. coppinger. a nice state of affairs, if it wakes up one morning to hear that mrs. coppinger has been kicked out of the glaze, that she never was the wife. what will the world say, eh? what sort of name will the world give you, when you have lived here as his wife." "that i have not." "lived here, gone to balls as his wife when you were not. what will the world call you, eh?" judith was silent, holding both her hands, open against her bosom. jamie beside her, looking up in her face, not understanding what his aunt was saying. "very well--or rather very ill!" continued miss trevisa. "and then you and this boy here will come to me to take you in, come and saddle yourselves on me, and eat up my little fund. that is what will be the end of it, if you remain in your folly. go at once to the rector, and put your name where it should have been two months ago, and your position is secure, he cannot drive you away, disgusted at your stubbornness, and you will relieve me of a constant source of uneasiness. it is not that only, but i must care for the good name of trevisa, which you happen to bear, that that name may not be trailed in the dust. the common sense of the matter is precisely what you cannot see. if you are not coppinger's wife you should not be here. if you are coppinger's wife, then your name should be in the register. now here you have come. you have appeared in public with him. you have but one course open to you, and that is to secure your position and your name and honor. you cannot undo what is done, but you can complete what is done insufficiently. the choice between alternatives is no longer before you. if you had purposed to withdraw from marriage, break off the engagement, then you should not have come on to pentyre, and remained here. as, however, you did this, there is absolutely nothing else to be done, but to sign the register. do you hear me?" "yes." "and you will obey?" "no." "pig-headed fool," said miss trevisa. "not one penny will i leave you. that i swear, if you remain obstinate." "do not let us say anything more about that, aunt. now you are going away, is there anything connected with the house you wish me to attend to? that i will do readily." "yes, there are several things," growled miss trevisa, "and, first of all, are you disposed to do anything, any common little kindness for the man whose bread you eat, whose roof covers you?" "yes, aunt." "very well, then. captain coppinger has his bowl of porridge every morning. i suppose he was accustomed to it before he came into these parts, and he cannot breakfast without it. he says that our cornish maids cannot make porridge properly, and i have been accustomed to see to it. either it is lumpy, or it is watery, or it is saltless. will you see to that?" "yes, aunt, willingly." "you ought to know how to make porridge, as you are more than half scottish." "i certainly can make it. dear papa always liked it." "then you will attend to that. if you are too high and too great a lady to put your hand to it yourself, you can see that the cook manages it aright. there is a new girl in now, who is a fool." "i will make it myself. i will do all i can do." "then take the keys. now that i go, you must be mistress of the house. but for your folly, i might have been from here, and in my own house, or rather in that given me for my use, othello cottage. i was to have gone there directly after your marriage, i had furnished it, and made it comfortable, and then you took to your fantastic notions, and hung back, and refused to allow that you were married, and so i had to stick on here two months. here, take the keys." miss trevisa almost flung them at her niece. "now i have two thousand pounds of my own, and a house at s. austell, it does not become me to be doing menial service. take the keys. i will never have them back." when miss trevisa was gone, and judith was by herself at night, jamie being asleep, she was able to think over calmly what her aunt had said. she concerned herself not the least, relative to the promise her aunt had made of leaving her two thousand pounds, were she submissive, and her threat of disinheriting her, should she continue recalcitrant, but she did feel that there was truth in her aunt's words when she said that she, judith, had placed herself in a wrong position--but it was a wrong position into which she had been forced, she had not voluntarily entered it. she had, indeed, consented to become coppinger's wife, but when she found that coppinger had employed jamie to give signals that might mislead a vessel to its ruin she could not go further to meet him. although he had endeavored to clear himself in her eyes, she did not believe him. she was convinced that he was guilty, though at moments she hoped, and tried to persuade herself that he was not. then came the matter of the diamonds. there, again, the gravest suspicion rested on him. again he had endeavored to exculpate himself, yet she could not believe that he was innocent. till full confidence that he was blameless in these matters was restored, an insuperable wall divided them. never would she belong to a man who was a wrecker, who belonged to that class of criminals her father had regarded with the utmost horror. before she retired to bed, she picked up from under the fender the scrap of paper on which oliver's message had been written. it had lain there unobserved where coppinger had flung it, now, as she tidied her room, and arranged the fire-rug, she observed it. she smoothed it out, folded it, and went to her workbox to replace it where it had been before. she raised the lid, and was about to put the note among some other papers she had there, a letter of her mother's, a piece of her father's writing, some little accounts she had kept, when she was startled to see that the packet of arsenic mr. menaida had given her was missing. she turned out the contents of her workbox. it was nowhere to be found, either there, or in her drawers. her aunt must have been prying into the box, have found and removed it, so judith thought, and with this thought appeased her alarm. perhaps, considering the danger of having arsenic about, aunt dionysia had done right in removing it. she had done wrong in doing so without speaking to judith. chapter xlvi. a second lie. next day, miss trevisa being gone, judith had to attend to the work of the house. it was her manifest duty to do so. hitherto she had shrunk from the responsibility, because she shrank from assuming a position in the house to which she refused to consider that she had a right. judith was perfectly competent to manage an establishment, she had a clear head, a love of order, and a power of exacting obedience of servants without incessant reproof. moreover, she had that faculty possessed by few of directing others in their work so that each moved along his or her own line and fulfilled the allotted work with ease. she had managed her father's house, and managed it admirably. she knew that, as the king's government must be carried on, so the routine of a household must be kept going. judith had sufficient acquaintance also with servants to be aware that the wheel would stop or move spasmodically, unless an authoritative hand were applied to it to keep it in even revolution. she knew also that whatever happened in a house--a birth, a death, a wedding, an uproar--the round of common duties must be discharged, the meals prepared, the bread baked, the milk skimmed, the beds made, the carpets swept, the furniture dusted, the windows opened, the blinds drawn down, the table laid, the silver and glass burnished. nothing save a fire which gutted a house must interfere with all this routine. miss trevisa was one of those ladies who, in their own opinion, are condemned by providence never to have good servants. a benign providence sheds good domestics into every other house, save that which she rules. she is born under a star which inexorably sends the scum and dregs of servantdom under her sceptre. miss trevisa regarded a servant as a cat regards a mouse, a dog regards a fox, and a dolphin a flying-fish, as something to be run after, snapped at, clawed, leaped upon, worried perpetually. she was incapable of believing that there could be any good in a servant, that there was any other side to a domestic save a seamy side. she could make no allowance for ignorance, for weakness, for lightheartedness. a servant in her eyes must be a drudge ever working, never speaking, smiling, taking a hand off the duster, without a mind above flue and tea-leaves, and unable to soar above a cobweb; with a temper perfect in endurance of daily, hourly fault-finding, nagging, grumbling, a mind unambitious also of commendation. miss trevisa held that every servant that a malign providence had sent her was clumsy, insolent, slatternly, unmethodical, idle, wasteful, a gossip, a gadabout, a liar, a thief, was dainty, greedy, one of a cursed generation; and when in the psalms, david launched out in denunciation of the enemies of the lord, miss trevisa, when she heard or read these psalms, thought of servantdom. servants were referred to when david said, "hide me from the insurrection of the wicked doers, who have whet their tongues like a sword, that they may privily shoot at him that is perfect," _i.e._, me, was miss trevisa's comment. "they encourage themselves in mischief; and commune among themselves how they may lay snares, and say, that no man shall see them." "and how," said miss trevisa, "can men be so blind as not to believe that the bible is inspired when david hits the character of servants off to the life!" and not the psalms only, but the prophets were full of servants' delinquencies. what were tyre and egypt but figures of servantdom shadowed before. what else did isaiah lift up his testimony about, and jeremiah lament over, but the iniquities of the kitchen and the servants' hall. miss trevisa read her bible, and great comfort did it afford her, because it did denounce the servant maids so unsparingly and prepared brimstone and outer darkness for them. now judith had seen and heard much of the way in which miss trevisa managed captain coppinger's house. her room adjoined that of her aunt, and she knew that if her aunt were engaged on--it mattered not what absorbing work, embroidery, darning a stocking, reading a novel, saying her prayers, studying the cookery book--if a servant sneezed within a hundred yards, or upset a drop of water, or clanked a dust-pan, or clicked a door-handle, miss trevisa would be distracted from her work and rush out of her room, just as a spider darts from its recess, and sweep down on the luckless servant to worry and abuse her. judith, knowing this, knew also that the day of miss trevisa's departure would be marked with white chalk, and lead to a general relaxation of discipline, to an inhaling of long breaths, and a general stretching and taking of ease. it was necessary, therefore, that she should go round and see that the wheel was kept turning. to her surprise, on entering the hall, she found captain coppinger there. "i beg your pardon," she said, "i thought you were out." she looked at him and was struck with his appearance, the clay-like color of his face, the dark lines in it, the faded look in his eyes. "are you unwell?" she asked; "you really look ill." "i am ill." "ill--what is the matter?" "a burning in my throat. cramp and pains--but what is that to you?" "when did it come on?" "but recently." "will you not have a doctor to see you?" "a doctor!--no." "was the porridge as you liked it this morning? i made it." "it was good enough." "would you like more now?" "no." "and to-morrow morning, will you have the same?" "yes--the same." "i will make it again. aunt said the new cook did not understand how to mix and boil it to your liking." coppinger nodded. judith remained standing and observing him. some faces when touched by pain and sickness are softened and sweetened. the hand of suffering passes over the countenance and brushes away all that is frivolous, sordid, vulgar; it gives dignity, purity, refinement, and shows what the inner soul might be were it not entangled and degraded by base association and pursuit. it is different with other faces, the hand of suffering films away the assumed expression of good nature, honesty, straightforwardness, and unmasks the evil inner man. the touch of pain had not improved the expression of cruel coppinger. it cannot, however, with justice be said that the gentler aspect of the man, which judith had at one time seen, was an assumption. he was a man in whom there was a certain element of good, but it was mixed up with headlong wilfulness, utter selfishness, and resolution to have his own way at any cost. judith could see, now that his face was pain-struck, how much of evil there was in the soul that had been disguised by a certain dash of masculine overbearing and brusqueness. "what are you looking at?" asked coppinger, glancing up. "i was thinking," answered judith. "of what?" "of you--of wyvill, of the wreck on doom bar, of the jewels of lady knighton, and last of all of jamie's maltreatment." "and what of all that?" he said in irritable scorn. "that i need not say. i have drawn my own conclusions." "you torment me, you--when i am ill? they call me cruel, but it is you who are cruel." judith did not wish to be drawn into discussion that must be fruitless. she said, quietly, in altered tone, "can i get you anything to comfort you?" "no--go your way. this will pass. besides, it is naught to you. go; i would be left alone." judith obeyed, but she was uneasy. she had never seen coppinger look as he looked now. it was other, altogether, after he had broken his arm. other, also, when for a day he was crippled with bruises, after the wreck. she looked into the hall several times during the day. in the afternoon he was easier, and went out; his mouth had been parched and burning, and he had been drinking milk. the empty glass was on the table. he would eat nothing at mid-day. he turned from food, and left the room for his own chamber. judith was anxious. she more than once endeavored to draw coppinger into conversation relative to himself, but he would not speak of what affected him. he was annoyed and ashamed at being out of his usual rude health. "it is naught," he said, "but a bilious attack, and will pass. leave me alone." she had been so busy all day, that she had seen little of jamie. he had taken advantage of captain coppinger not being about, to give himself more license to roam than he had of late, and to go with his donkey on the cliffs. anyhow judith on this day did not have him hanging to her skirts. she was glad of it, for, though she loved him, he would have been an encumbrance when she was so busy. the last thing at night she did was to go to coppinger to inquire what he would take. he desired nothing but spirits and milk. he thought that a milk-punch would give him ease and make him sleep. that he was weak and had suffered pain she saw, and she was full of pity for him. but this she did not like to exhibit, partly because he might misunderstand her feelings, and partly because he seemed irritated at being unwell, and at loss of power; irritated, at all events, at it being observed that he was not in his usual plenitude of strength and health. that night the atlantic was troubled, and the wind carried the billows against the cliffs in a succession of rhythmic roars that filled the air with sound and made the earth quiver. judith could not sleep, she listened to the thud of the water-heaps flung against the rocks; there was a clock on the stairs and in her wakefulness she listened to the tick of the clock, and the boom of the waves, now coming together, then one behind the other, now the wave-beat catching up the clock-tick, then falling in arrear, the ocean getting angry and making up its pace by a double beat. moreover flakes of foam were carried on the wind and came, like snow, against her window that looked seaward striking the glass and adhering to it. as judith lay watchful in the night her mind again recurred to the packet of arsenic that had been abstracted from her workbox. it was inconsiderate of her to have left it there; she ought to have locked her box. but who could have supposed that anyone would have gone to the box, raised the tray and searched the contents of the compartment beneath? judith had been unaccustomed to lock up anything, because she had never had any secrets to hide from any eye. she again considered the probability of her aunt having removed it, and then it occurred to her that perhaps miss trevisa might have supposed that she--judith--in a fit of revolt against the wretchedness of her life might be induced to take the poison herself and finish her miseries. "it was absurd if aunt dunes thought that," said judith to herself; "she can little have known how my dear papa's teaching has sunk into my heart, to suppose me capable of such a thing--and then--to run away like a coward and leave jamie unprotected. it was too absurd." next morning judith was in her room getting a large needle with which to hem a bit of carpet edge that had been fraying for the last five years, and which no one had thought of putting a thread to, and so arresting the disintegration. jamie was in the room. judith said to him: "my dear, you have not been skinning and stuffing any birds lately, have you?" "no, ju." "because i have missed--but, jamie, i hope you have not been at my workbox?" "what about your workbox, ju?" she knew the boy so well, that her suspicions were at once aroused by this answer. when he had nothing to hide he replied with a direct negative or affirmative, but when he had done what his conscience would not quite allow was right, he fell into equivocation, and shuffled awkwardly. "jamie," said judith, looking him straight in the face, "have you been to my box?" "only just looked in." then he ran to the window. "oh, do see, ju, how patched the glass is with foam!--and is it not dirty?" "jamie, come back. i want an answer." he had opened the casement and put his hand out and was wiping off the patches of froth. "what a lot of it there is, ju." "come here, instantly, jamie, and shut the window." the boy obeyed, creeping toward her sideways, with his head down. "jamie, did you lift the tray?" "only on one side, just a little bit." "did you take anything from under the tray?" he did not answer immediately. she looked at him searchingly and in suspense. he never could endure this questioning look of hers, and he ran to her, put his arms round her waist, and clasped to her side, hid his face in her gown. "only a little." "a little what?" "i don't know." "jamie, no lies. there was a blue paper there containing poison, that you were not to have unless there were occasion for it--some bird skin to be preserved and dressed with it. now, did you take that?" "yes." "go and bring it back to me immediately." "i can't." "why not? where is it?" the boy fidgeted, looked up in his sister's face to see what expression it bore, buried his head again, and said: "ju! he is rightly called cruel. i hate him, and so do you, don't you, ju? i have put the arsenic into his oatmeal, and we will get rid of him and be free and go away. it will be jolly." "jamie!" with a cry of horror. "he won't whip me and scold you any more." "jamie! oh, my lord, have pity on him! have pity on us!" she clasped her hands to her head, rushed from the room, and flew down the stairs. but ten minutes before that judith had given coppinger his bowl of porridge. he had risen late that morning. he was better, he said, and he looked more himself than the preceding day. he was now seated at the table in the hall, and had poured the fresh milk into the bowl, had dipped the spoon, put some of the porridge to his mouth, tasted, and was looking curiously into the spoon, when the door was flung open, judith entered, and without a word of explanation, caught the bowl from him and dashed it on the floor. coppinger looked at her with his boring, dark eyes intently, and said: "what is the meaning of this?" "it is poisoned." judith was breathless. she drew back relieved at having cast away the fatal mess. coppinger rose to his feet, and glared at her across the table, leaning with his knuckles on the board. he did not speak for a moment, his face became livid, and his hands resting on the table shook as though he were shivering in an ague. "there is arsenic in the porridge," gasped judith. she had not time to weigh what she should say, how explain her conduct; but one thought had held her--to save coppinger's life while there was yet time. the captain's dog that had been lying at his master's feet rose, went to the spilt porridge, and began to lap the milk and devour the paste. neither judith nor coppinger regarded him. "it was an accident," faltered judith. "you lie," said coppinger, in thrilling tones, "you lie, you murderess! you sought to kill me." judith did not answer for a moment. she also was trembling. she had to resolve what course to pursue. she could not, she would not, betray her brother, and subject him to the worst brutality of treatment from the infuriated man whose life he had sought. it were better for her to take the blame on herself. "i made the porridge--i and no one else." "you told me so, yesterday." he maintained his composure marvellously, but he was stunned by the sudden discovery of treachery in the woman he had loved and worshipped. "you maddened me by your treatment, but i did not desire that you should die. i repented and have saved your life." as judith spoke she felt as though the flesh of her face stiffened, and the skin became as parchment. she could hardly open her mouth to speak and stir her tongue. "go!" said coppinger, pointing to the door. "go, you and your brother. othello cottage is empty. go, murderess, poisoner of your husband, there and wait till you hear from me. under one roof, to eat off one board, is henceforth impossible. go!" he remained pointing, and a sulphurous fire flickered in his eyes. then the hound began to howl, threw itself down, its limbs were contracted, it foamed at the mouth, and howled again. to the howlings of the poisoned and dying dog judith and jamie left pentyre. chapter xlvii. fast in his hands. judith and jamie were together in othello cottage--banished from pentyre with a dark and threatening shadow over them, but this, however, gave the boy but little concern; he was delighted to be away from a house where he had been in incessant terror, and where he was under restraint; moreover, it was joy to him to be now where he need not meet coppinger at every turn. judith forbade his going to polzeath to see uncle zachie and oliver menaida, as she thought it advisable, under the circumstances, to keep themselves to themselves, and above all not to give further occasion for the suspicions and jealousy of coppinger. this was to her, under the present condition of affairs, specially distressing, as she needed some counsel as to what she should do. uncle zachie at his best was a poor adviser, but on no account now would she appeal to his son. she was embarrassed and alarmed. and she had excuse for embarrassment and alarm. she had taken upon herself the attempt that had been made on the life of coppinger, and he would, she supposed, believe her to be guilty. what would he do? would he proceed against her for attempted murder? if so, the case against her was very complete. it could be shown that mr. menaida had given her this arsenic, that she had kept it by her in her workbox while at the glaze, that she had been on the most unsatisfactory terms with captain coppinger, and that she had refused to complete her marriage with him by appending her signature to the register. she was now aware--and the thought made her feel sick at heart and faint--that her association with the menaidas had been most injudicious and had been capable of misinterpretation. it had been misinterpreted by coppinger, and probably also by the gossips of polzeath. it could be shown that a secret correspondence had been carried on between her and oliver, which had been intercepted by her husband. this was followed immediately by the attempt to poison coppinger. the arsenic had been given him in the porridge her own hands had mixed, and which had been touched by no one else. it was natural to conclude that she had deliberately purposed to destroy her husband, that she might be free to marry oliver menaida. if she were prosecuted on the criminal charge of attempted murder, the case could be made so conclusive against her that her conviction was certain. her only chance of escape lay in two directions--one that she should tell the truth, and allow jamie to suffer the consequences of what he had done, which would be prison or a lunatic asylum. the other was that she should continue to screen him and trust that coppinger would not prosecute her. he might hesitate about proceeding with such a case, which would attract attention to himself, to his household, and lay bare to the public eye much that he would reasonably be supposed to wish to keep concealed. if, for instance, the case were brought into court the story of the enforced marriage must come out, and that would rake up once more the mystery of the wreckers on doom bar, and of lady knighton's jewels. coppinger might and probably would grasp at the other alternative--take advantage of the incompletion of the marriage, repudiate her, and let the matter of the poisoned porridge remain untouched. the more judith turned the matter over in her head the more sure she became that the best course, indeed the only one in which safety lay, was for her to continue to assume to herself the guilt of the attempt on coppinger's life. he would see by her interference the second time, and prevention of his taking a second portion of the arsenic, that she did not really seek his life, but sought to force him, through personal fear, to drive her from his house and break the bond by which he bound her to him. for the sake of this going back from a purpose of murder, or from thinking that she had never intended to do more than drive him to a separation by alarm for his own safety; for the sake of the old love he had borne her, he might forbear pressing this matter to its bitter consequences, and accept what she desired--their separation. but if judith allowed the truth to come out, then her husband would have no such compunction. it would be an opportunity for him to get rid of the boy he detested, and even if he did not have him consigned to jail, then it would be only because he would send him to an asylum. judith went out on the cliffs. the sea was troubled, far as the horizon, strewn with white horses shaking their manes, pawing and prancing in their gallop landward. there was no blue, no greenness in the ocean now. the dull tinctures of winter were in it. the atlantic wore its scowl, was leaden and impatient. the foam on the rocks was driven up in spouts into the air and carried over the downs, it caught in the thorn bushes like flocks of wool, and was no cleaner. it lay with the thin melting snow and melted with it into a dirty slush. it plastered the face of othello cottage as though, in brutal insolence, ocean had been spitting at the house that was built of the wreck he had failed to gulp down, though he had chewed the life out of it. the foam rested in flakes on the rushes where it hung and fluttered like tufts of cotton-grass. it was dropped about by the wind for miles inland as though the wind were running in a paper chase. it was as though sky and sea were contending in a game of pelting the land, the one with snow, the other with foam, the one sweet, the other salt. judith walked where, near the edge of the cliffs, there was no snow, and looked out at the angry ocean. all without was cold, rugged, ruffled, wretched; and within her heart burned a fire of apprehension, distress, almost of despair. all at once she came upon mr. desiderius mules, walking in an opposite direction, engaged in wiping the foam-flakes out of his eyes. "halloo! you here mrs. coppinger?" exclaimed the rector; "glad to see you. i'm not here like s. anthony preaching to the fishes, because i am a practical man. in the first place, in such a disturbed sea the fishes would have enough to do to look after themselves and would be ill-disposed to lend me an ear. in the next place the wind is on shore, and they would not hear me were i to lift up my voice. so i don't waste words and over-strain my larynx. if the bishop were a mile or a mile and a half inland, it might be different, he might admire my zeal. and what brings you here?" "oh, mr. mules!" exclaimed judith, with a leap of hope in her heart--here was someone who might if he would be a help to her. she had indeed made up her own mind as to what was the safest road on which to set her feet, but she was timid, shrank from falsehood, and earnestly craved for someone to whom she could speak, and from whom she could obtain advice. "oh, mr. mules! will you give me some advice and assistance?" "advice, by all means," said the rector. "i'll turn and walk your way, the froth is blown into my face and stings it. my skin is sensitive, so are my eyes. upon my word, when i get home my face will be as salt as if i had flooded it with tears--fancy me crying. what did you say you wanted--advice?" "advice and assistance." "advice you shall have, it is my profession to give it. i mix it with pepper and salt and serve it out in soup plates every week--am ready with it every day, mrs. coppinger. i have buckets of it at your disposal, bring your tureen and i'll tip in as much of the broth as you want, and may you like it. as to assistance, that is another matter. pecuniary assistance i never give. i am unable to do so. my principles stand in the way. i have set up a high standard for myself and i stick to it. i never render pecuniary assistance to any one, as it demoralizes the receiver. i hope and trust it was not pecuniary assistance you wanted." "no, mr. mules--not that, only guidance." "oh, guidance! i'm your sign-post, where do you want to go!" "it is this, sir. i have given poison to mr. coppinger." "mercy on me!" the rector jumped back and turned much the tinge of the foam plasters that were on his face. "that is to say, i gave him arsenic mixed with his porridge the day before yesterday, and it made him very ill. yesterday----" "hush, hush!" said mr. mules, "no more of this. this is ghastly. let us say it is hallucination on your part. you are either not right in your head or are very wicked. if you please--don't come nearer to me. i can hear you quite well, hear a great deal more than pleases me. you ask my advice, and i give it: sign the register, that will set me square, and put me in an unassailable position with the public, and also, secondarily, it will be to your advantage. you are now a nondescript, and a nondescript is objectionable. if you please--you will excuse me--i should prefer _not_ standing between you and the cliff. there is no knowing what a person who confesses to poisoning her husband might do. if it be a case of lunacy--well, more reason that i should use precautions. my life is valuable. come, there is only one thing you can do to make me comfortable--sign the register." "you will not mention what i have told you to anyone?" "save and defend us! i speak of it!--i! come, come, be rational. sign the register and set my mind at ease, that is all i want and ask for, and then i wash my hands of you." then away went mr. desiderius mules, with the wind catching his coat tails, twisting them, throwing them up against his back, parting them, and driving them one on each of him, taking and cutting them and sending them between his legs. judith stood mournfully looking after him. the sign-post, as he had called himself was flying from the traveller whom it was his duty to direct. then a hand was laid on her arm. she started, turned and saw oliver menaida, flushed with rapid walking and with the fresh air he had encountered. "i have come to see you," he said. "i have come to offer you my father's and my assistance. we have just heard----" "what?" "that captain coppinger has turned you and jamie out of his house." "have you heard any reason assigned?" "because--so it is said--he had beaten the boy, and you were incensed, angry words passed--and it ended in a rupture." "that, then, is the common explanation?" "everyone is talking about it. everyone says that. and now, what will you do?" "thank you. jamie and i are at othello cottage, where we are comfortable. my aunt had furnished it intending to reside in it herself. as for our food, we receive that from the glaze." "but this cannot continue." "it must continue for a while." "and then?" "the future is not open to my eyes." "judith, that has taken place at length which i have been long expecting." "what do you mean?" "this miserable condition of affairs has reached its climax, and there has been a turn." judith sighed. "it has taken a turn, indeed." "now that captain coppinger has been brought to his senses, and he sees that your resolve is not to be shaken, and he releases you, or you have released yourself from the thraldom you have been in. i do not suppose the popular account of the matter is true, wholly." "it is not at all true." "that matters not. the fact remains that you are out of pentyre glaze and your own mistress. the snare is broken and you are delivered." again judith sighed, and she shook her head despondingly. "you are free," persisted oliver, "just consider. you were hurried through a marriage when insensible, and when you came to consciousness you did what was the only thing you could do--you absolutely refused your signature that would validate what had taken place. that was conclusive. that ceremony was as worthless as this sea-foam that blows by. no court in the world would hold that you were bound by it. the consent, the free consent, of each party in such a convention is essential. as to your being at pentyre, nothing against that can be alleged; miss trevisa was your aunt and constituted your guardian by your father. your place was by her. to her you went when my father's house was no longer at your service through my return. at pentyre you remained as long as miss trevisa was there. she went, and at once you left the house." "you do not understand." "excuse me, i think i do. but no matter as to details. when your aunt went, you went also--as was proper under the circumstances. we have heard, i do not know whether it be true, that your aunt has come in for a good property." "for a little something." "then, shall you go to her and reside with her?" "no; she will not have jamie and me." "so we supposed. now my father has a proposal to make. the firm to which i belong has been good enough to take me into partnership, esteeming my services far higher than they deserve, and i am to live at oporto, and act for them there. as my income will now be far larger than my humble requirements, i have resolved to allow my dear father sufficient for him to live upon comfortably where he wills, and he has elected to follow me, and take up his abode in portugal. now what he has commissioned me to say is--will you go with him? will you continue to regard him as uncle zachie, and be to him as his dear little niece, and keep house for him in the sunny southern land?" judith's eyes filled with tears. "and jamie is included in the invitation. he is to come also, and help my father to stuff the birds of portugal. a new ornithological field is opening before him, he says and he must have help in it." "i cannot," said judith, in a low tone, with her head sunk on her breast. "i cannot leave here till captain coppinger gives me leave." "but, surely, you are no longer bound to him?" "he holds me faster than before." "i cannot understand this." "no; because you do not know all." "tell me the whole truth. let me help you. let my father help you. you little know how we both have our hearts in your service." "well, i will tell you." but she hesitated and trembled. she fixed her eyes on the wild, foaming, leaden sea, and pressed her bosom with both hands. "i poisoned him." "judith!" "it is true, i gave him arsenic, once; that your father had let me have for jamie. if he had taken it the second time, when i offered it him in his bowl of porridge, he would be dead now. do you see--he holds me in his hands and i cannot stir. i could not escape till i know what he intends to do with me. now go--leave me to my fate." "judith--it is not true! though i hear this from your lips i will not believe it. no; you need my father's, you need my help more than ever." he put her hand to his lips. "it is white--innocent. i _know_ it, in spite of your words." chapter xlviii. two alternatives. when judith returned to othello cottage, she was surprised to see a man promenading around it, flattening his nose at the window, so as to bring his eyes against the glass, then, finding that the breath from his nostrils dimmed the pane, wiping the glass and again flattening his nose. at first he held his hands on the window-ledge, but being incommoded by the refraction of the light, put his open hands against the pane, one on each side of his face. having satisfied himself at one casement, he went to another, and made the same desperate efforts to see in at that. judith coming up to the door, and putting the key in, disturbed him, he started, turned, and with a nose much like putty, but rapidly purpling with returned circulation, disclosed the features of mr. scantlebray, senior. "ah, ha!" said that gentleman, in no way disconcerted; "here i have you, after having been looking for my orphing charmer in every direction but the right one. with your favor i will come inside and have a chat." "excuse me," said judith, "but i do not desire to admit visitors." "but i am an exception. i'm the man who should have looked after your interests, and would have done it a deal better than others. and so there has been a rumpus, eh? what about?" "i really beg your pardon, mr. scantlebray, but i am engaged and cannot ask you to enter, nor delay conversing with you on the doorstep." "oh, jimminy! don't consider me. i'll stand on the doorstep and talk with you inside. don't consider me; go on with what you have to do and let me amuse you. it must be dull and solitary here, but i will enliven you, though i have not my brother's gifts. now, obadiah is a man with a genius for entertaining people. he missed his way when he started in life; he would have made a comic actor. bless your simple heart, had that man appeared on the boards, he would have brought the house down--" "i have no doubt whatever he missed his way when he took to keeping an asylum," said judith. "we have all our gifts," said scantlebray. "mine is architecture, and 'pon my honor as a gentleman, i do admire the structure of othello cottage, uncommon. you won't object to my pulling out my tape and taking the plan of the edifice, will you?" "the house belongs to captain coppinger; consult him." "my dear orphing, not a bit. i'm not on the best terms with that gent. there lies a tract of ruffled water between us. not that i have given him cause for offence, but that he is not sweet upon me. he took off my hands the management of your affairs in the valuation business, and let me tell you--between me and you and that post yonder"--he walked in and laid his hand on a beam--"that he mismanaged it confoundedly. he is your husband, i am well aware, and i ought not to say this to you. he took the job into his hands because he had an eye to you, i knew that well enough. but he hadn't the gift--the faculty. now i have made all that sort of thing my specialty. how many rooms have you in this house? what does that door lead to?" "really, mr. scantlebray, you must excuse me; i am busy." "o, yes--vastly busy. walking on the cliffs, eh! alone, eh? well, mum is the word. come, make me your friend and tell me all about it. how came you here? there are all kind of stories afloat about the quarrel between you and your husband, and he is an eolus, a blustering boreas, all the winds in one box. not surprised. he blew up a gale against me once. domestic felicity is a fable of the poets. home is a region of cyclones, tornadoes, hurricanes--what you like; anything but a pacific ocean. now, you won't mind my throwing an eye round this house, will you--a scientific eye? architecture is my passion." "mr. scantlebray, that is my bedroom; i forbid you touching the handle. excuse me--but i must request you to leave me in peace." "my dear creature," said scantlebray, "scientific thirst before all. it is unslakable save by the acquisition of what it desires. the structure of this house, as well as its object, has always been a puzzle to me. so your aunt was to have lived here--the divine, the fascinating dionysia, as i remember her years ago. it wasn't built for the lovely dionysia, was it? no. then for what object was it built? and why so long untenanted? these are nuts for you to crack." "i do not trouble myself about these questions. i must pray you to depart." "in half the twinkle of an eye," said scantlebray. then he seated himself. "come, you haven't a superabundance of friends. make me one and unburden your soul to me. what is it all about? why are you here? what has caused this squabble? i have a brother a solicitor at bodmin. let me jot down the items, and we'll get a case out of it. trust me as a friend, and i'll have you righted. i hear miss trevisa has come in for a fortune. be a good girl, set your back against her and show fight." "i will thank you to leave the house," said judith, haughtily. "a moment ago you made reference to your honor as a gentleman. i must appeal to that same honor which you pride yourself on possessing, and, by virtue of that, request you to depart." "i'll go, i'll go. but, my dear child, why are you in such a hurry to get rid of me? are you expecting some one? it is an odd thing, but as i came along i was overtaken by mr. oliver menaida, making his way to the downs--to look at the sea, which is rough, and inhale the breeze of the ocean, of course. at one time, i am informed, you made daily visits to polzeath, daily visits while captain coppinger was on the sea. since his return, i am informed, these visits have been discontinued. is it possible that instead of your visiting mr. oliver, mr. oliver is now visiting you--here, in this cottage?" a sudden slash across the back and shoulders made mr. scantlebray jump and bound aside. coppinger had entered, and was armed with a stout walking-stick. "what brings you here?" he asked. "i came to pay my respects to the grass-widow," sneered scantlebray, as he sidled to the door and bolted, but not till, with a face full of malignity, he had shaken his fist at coppinger, behind his back. "what brings this man here?" asked the captain. "impertinence--nothing else," answered judith. "what was that he said about oliver menaida?" "his insolence will not bear reporting." "you are right. he is a cur, and deserves to be kicked, not spoken to or spoken of. i heed him not. there is in him a grudge against me. he thought at one time that i would have taken his daughter--do you recall speaking to me once about the girl that you supposed was a fit mate for me! i laughed--i thought you had heard the chatter about polly scantlebray and me. a bold, fine girl, full of blood as a cherry is full of juice--one of the stock--but with better looks than the men, yet with the assurance, the effrontery of her father. a girl to laugh and talk with, not to take to one's heart. i care for polly scantlebray! not i! that man has never forgiven me the disappointment because i did not take her. i never intended to. i despised her. now you know all. now you see why he hates me. i do not care. i am his match. but i will not have him insolent to you. what did he say?" it was a relief to judith that captain coppinger had not heard the words that mr. scantlebray had used. they would have inflamed his jealousy, and fired him into fury against the speaker. "he told me that he had been passed, on his way hither, by mr. oliver menaida, coming to the cliffs to inhale the sea air and look at the angry ocean." captain coppinger was satisfied, or pretended to be so. he went to the door and shut it, but not till he had gone outside and looked round to see, so judith thought, whether oliver menaida were coming that way, quite as much as to satisfy himself that mr. scantlebray was not lurking round a corner listening. no! oliver menaida would not come there. of that judith was quite sure. he had the delicacy of mind and the good sense not to risk her reputation by approaching othello cottage. when he had made that offer to her she had known that his own heart spoke, but he had veiled its speech and had made the offer as from his father, and in such a way as not to offend her. only when she had accused herself of attempted murder did he break through his reserve to show her his rooted confidence in her innocence, in spite of her confession. when the door was fast, coppinger came over to judith, and, standing at a little distance from her, said: "judith, look at me." she raised her eyes to him. he was pale and his face lined, but he had recovered greatly since that day when she had seen him suffering from the effects of the poison. "judith," said he, "i know all." "what do you know?" "you did not poison me." "i mixed and prepared the bowl for you." "yes--but the poison had been put into the oatmeal before, not by you, not with your knowledge." she was silent. she was no adept at lying; she could not invent another falsehood to convince him of her guilt. "i know how it all came about," pursued captain coppinger. "the cook, jane, has told me. jamie came into the kitchen with a blue paper in his hand, asked for the oatmeal, and put in the contents of the paper so openly as not in the least to arouse suspicion. not till i was taken ill and made inquiries did the woman connect his act with what followed. i have found the blue paper, and on it it is written, in mr. menaida's handwriting, which i know, 'arsenic. poison: for jamie, only to be used for the dressing of bird-skins, and a limited amount to be served to him at a time.' now i am satisfied, because i know your character, and because i saw innocence in your manner when you came down to me on the second occasion, and dashed the bowl from my lips--i saw then that you were innocent." judith said nothing. her eyes rested on the ground. "i had angered that fool of a boy, i had beaten him. in a fit of sullen revenge, and without calculating either how best to do it, or what the consequences would be, he went to the place where he knew the arsenic was--mr. menaida had impressed on him the danger of playing with the poison--and he abstracted it. but he had not the wit or cunning generally present in idiots----" "he is no idiot," said judith. "no, in fools," said coppinger, "to put the poison into the oatmeal secretly when no one was in the kitchen. he asked the cook for the meal and mingled the contents of the paper into it so openly as to disarm suspicion." he paused for judith to speak, but she did not. he went on: "then you, in utter guilelessness, prepared my breakfast for me, as instructed by miss trevisa. next morning you did the same, but were either suspicious of evil through missing the paper from your cabinet, or drawer, or wherever you kept it, or else jamie confessed to you what he had done. thereupon you rushed to me to save me from taking another portion. i do not know that i would have taken it; i had formed a half-suspicion from the burning sensation in my throat, and from what i saw in the spoon--but there was no doubt in my mind after the first discovery that you were guiltless. i sought the whole matter out, as far as i was able. jamie is guilty--not you." "and," said judith, drawing a long breath, "what about jamie?" "there are two alternatives," said coppinger; "the boy is dangerous. never again shall he come under my roof." "no," spoke judith, "no, he must not go to the glaze again. let him remain here with me. i will take care of him that he does mischief to no one. he would never have hurt you had not you hurt him. forgive him, because he was aggravated to it by the unjust and cruel treatment he received." "the boy is a mischievous idiot," said coppinger; "he must not be allowed to be at large." "what, then, are your alternatives?" "in the first place, i propose to send him back to that establishment whence he should never have been released, to scantlebray's asylum." "no--no--no!" gasped judith. "you do not know what that place is. i do. i got into it. i saw how jamie had been treated." "he cannot be treated too severely. he is dangerous. you refuse this alternative?" "yes, indeed, i do." "very well. then i put the matter in the hands of justice, and he is proceeded against and convicted as having attempted my life with poison. to jail he will go." it was as judith had feared. there were but two destinations for jamie, her dear, dear brother, the son of that blameless father--jail or an asylum. "oh, no! no--no! not that!" cried judith. "one or the other. i give you six hours to choose," said coppinger. then he went to the door, opened it, and stood looking seaward. suddenly he started, "ha! the black prince." he turned in the door and said to judith: "one hour after sunset come to pentyre glaze. come alone, and tell me your decision. i will wait for that." chapter xlix. nothing like grog. the black prince had been observed by oliver menaida. he did not know for certain that the vessel he saw in the offing was the smuggler's ship, but he suspected it, as he knew that coppinger was in daily expectation of her arrival. he brought his father to the cliffs, and the old man at once identified her. oliver considered what was to be done. a feint was to be made at a point lower down the coast so as to attract the coast-guard in that direction; whereas, she was to run for pentyre as soon as night fell, with all lights hidden, and to discharge her cargo in the little cove. oliver knew pretty well who was confederate with coppinger, or were in his employ. his father was able to furnish him with a good deal of information, not perhaps very well authenticated, all resting on gossip. he resolved to have a look at these men, and observe whether they were making preparations to assist coppinger in clearing the black prince the moment she arrived off the cove. but he found that he had not far to look. they were drawn to the cliffs one after another to observe the distant vessel. oliver now made his way to the coast-guard station, and to reach it went round by wadebridge, and this he did because he wished to avoid being noticed going to the preventive station across the estuary at the doom bar above st. enodoc. on reaching his destination he was shown into an ante-room, where he had to wait some minutes, because the captain happened to be engaged. he had plenty to occupy his mind. there was that mysterious confession of judith that she had tried to poison the man who persisted in considering himself as her husband, in spite of her resistance, and who was holding her in a condition of bondage in his house. oliver did not for a moment believe that she had intentionally sought his life. he had seen enough of her to gauge her character, and he knew that she was incapable of committing a crime. that she might have given poison in ignorance and by accident was possible; how this had happened it was in vain for him to attempt to conjecture; he could, however, quite believe that an innocent and sensitive conscience like that of judith might feel the pangs of self-reproach when hurt had come to coppinger through her negligence. oliver could also believe that the smuggler captain attributed her act to an evil motive. he was not the man to believe in guilelessness, and when he found that he had been partly poisoned by the woman whom he daily tortured almost to madness, he would at once conclude that a premeditated attempt had been made on his life. what course would he pursue? would he make this wretched business public and bring a criminal action against the unfortunate and unhappy girl who was linked to him against her will? oliver saw that if he could obtain coppinger's arrest on some such a charge as smuggling, he might prevent this scandal, and save judith from much humiliation and misery. he was therefore most desirous to effect the capture of coppinger at once and _flagrante delicto_. as he waited in the ante-room a harsh voice within was audible which he recognized as that of mr. scantlebray. presently the door was half opened, and he heard the coast-guard captain say: "i trust you rewarded the fellow for his information. you may apply to me----" "o royally, royally." "and for furnishing you with the code of signals?" "imperially--imperially." "that is well--never underpay in these matters." "do not fear! i emptied my pockets. and as to the information you have received through me--rely on it as you would on the bank of england." "you have been deceived and befooled," said oliver, unable to resist the chance of delivering a slap at a man for whom he entertained a peculiar aversion, having heard much concerning him from his father. "what do you mean?" "that the shilling you gave the clerk for his information, and the half-crown for his signal table were worth what you got--the information was false, and was intended to mislead." scantlebray colored purple. "what do you know? you know nothing. you are in league with them." "take care what you say," said oliver. "i maintain," said scantlebray, somewhat cowed by his demeanor, "that what i have said to the captain here is something of which you know nothing--and which is of importance to him to know." "and i maintain that you have been hoodwinked," answered oliver. "but it matters not. the event will prove which of us is on the right track." "yes," laughed scantlebray, "so be it; and let me bet you, captain, and you mr. oliver menaida--that i am on the scent of something else. i believe i know where coppinger keeps his stores, and--but you shall see, and captain cruel also, ha, ha!" rubbing his hands he went out. then oliver begged a word with the preventive captain, and told him what he had overheard, and also that he knew where was the cave in which the smugglers had their boat and to which they ran the cargo first, before removing it to their inland stores. "i'm not so certain the black prince dare venture nigh the coast to-night," said the captain, "because of the sea and the on-shore wind. but the glass is rising and the wind may change. then she'll risk it for certain. now, look you here. i can't go with you myself to-night, because i must be here; and i can only let you have six men." "that will suffice." "under wyvill. i cannot, of course, put them under you, but wyvill shall command. he bears a grudge against coppinger, and will be rejoiced to have the chance of paying it out. but, mind you, it is possible that the black prince dare not run in, because of the weather, at pentyre cove, she may run somewhere else, either down the coast or higher up. coppinger has other ovens than one. you know the term. his store-places are ovens. we can't find them, but we know that there are several of them along the coast, just as there are a score of landing-places. when one is watched, then another is used, and that is how we are thrown out. there are plenty of folk interested in defrauding the revenue in every parish between hartland and land's end, and let the black prince, or any other smuggling vessel appear where she will, there she has ready helpers to shore her cargo, and convey it to the ovens. when we appear it is signalled at once to the vessel, and she runs away up or down the coast, and discharges somewhere else, before we can reach the point. now, i do not say that what you tell me is not true, and that it is not coppinger's intent to land the goods in the pentyre cove, but if we are smelt, or if the wind or sea forbid a landing there, away goes the black prince and runs her cargo somewhere else. that is why i cannot accompany you, nor can i send you with more than half a dozen men. i must be on the look out, and i must be prepared in the event of her coming suddenly back and attempting to land her goods at porth-leze, or constantine, or harlyn. what you shall do is--remain here with me till near dusk, and then you shall have a boat and my men and get round pentyre, and you shall take possession of that cave. you shall take with you provisions for twenty-four hours. if the black prince intends to make that bay and discharge there, then she will wait her opportunity. if she cannot to-night, she will to-morrow night. now, seize every man who comes into that cave, and don't let him out. you see?" "perfectly." "very well. wyvill shall be in command, and you shall be the guide, and i will speak to him to pay proper attention to what you recommend. you see?" "exactly." "very well--now we shall have something to eat and to drink, which is better, and drink that is worth the drinking, which is best of all. here is some cognac, it was run goods that we captured and confiscated. look at it. i wish there were artificial light and you would see, it is liquid amber--a liqueur. when you've tasted that, ah-ha! you will say, 'glad i lived to this moment.' there is all the difference, my boy, between your best cognac and common brandy--the one, the condensed sunshine in the queen of fruit sublimed to an essence; the other, coarse, raw fire--all the difference that there is between a princess of blood royal and a gypsy wench. drink and do not fear. this is not the stuff to smoke the head and clog the stomach." when oliver menaida finally started, he left the first officer of the coast-guard, in spite of his assurances, somewhat smoky in brain, and not in the condition to form the clearest estimate of what should be done in a contingency. the boat was laden with provisions for twenty-four hours, and placed under the command of wyvill. the crew had not rowed far before one of them sang out: "gearge!" "aye, aye, mate!" responded wyvill. "i say, gearge. be us a going round pentyre?" "i reckon we be." "and wet to the marrowbone we shall be." "i reckon we shall." then a pause in the conversation. presently from another, "gearge!" "aye, aye, will!" "i say gearge! where be the spirits to? there's a keg o' water, but sure alive the spirits be forgotten." "bless my body!" exclaimed wyvill, "i reckon you're right. here's a go." "it will never do for us to be twenty-four hours wi' salt water outside of us and fresh wi'in," said will. "what's a hat wi'out a head in it, or boots wi'out feet in 'em, or a man wi'out spirits in his in'ard parts?" "dear, alive! 'tis a nuisance," said wyvill. "who's been the idiot to forget the spirits?" "gearge!" "aye, aye, samson!" "i say, gearge! hadn't us better run over to the rock and get a little anker there?" "i reckon it wouldn't be amiss, mate," responded wyvill. to oliver's astonishment and annoyance, the boat was turned to run across to a little tavern, at what was called "the rock." he remonstrated. this was injudicious and unnecessary. "onnecessary," said wyvill. "why, you don't suppose fire-arms will go off wi'out a charge? it's the same wi' men. what's the good of a human being unless he be loaded--and what's his proper load but a drop o' spirits." then one of the rowers sang out: "water-drinkers are dull asses when they're met together. milk is meat for infancy; ladies like to sip bohea; not such stuff for you and me, when we're met together." oliver was not surprised that so few captures were effected on the coast, when those set to watch it loved so dearly the very goods they were to watch against being imported untaxed. on reaching the shore, the man samson and another were left in charge of the boat, while wyvill, will, and the rest went up to the rock inn to have a glass for the good of the house, and to lade themselves with an anker of brandy which, during their wait in the cave, was to be distributed among them. oliver thought it well to go to the tavern as well. he was impatient and thought they would dawdle there, and, perhaps, take more than the nip to which they professed themselves content to limit themselves. pentyre point had to be rounded in rough water, and they must be primed to enable them to round pentyre. "you see," said wyvill, who seemed to suppose that some sort of an explanation of his conduct was due. "when ropes be dry they be terrible slack. wet 'em and they are taut. it is the same wi' men's muscles. we've pentyre point to get round. very strainin' to the arms, and i reckon it couldn't be done unless we wetted the muscles. that's reason. that's convincin'." at the rock tavern the preventive men found the clerk of s. enodoc, with his hands in his pockets, on the settle, his legs stretched out before him, considering one of his knees that was threadbare, and trying to make up his mind whether the trouser would hold out another day without a thread being run through the thin portion, and whether if a day, then perhaps two days, and if perchance for two days, then for three. but if for three, then why not for four! and if for four, then possibly for five--anyhow, as far as he could judge, there was no immediate call for him to have the right knee of his trouser repaired that day. the sexton-clerk looked up when the party entered, and greeted them each man by name, and a conversation ensued relative to the weather. each described his own impressions as to what the weather had been, and his anticipations as to what it would be. "and how's your missus?" "middlin'--and yours?" "same, thanky'. a little troubled wi' the rheumatics." "tell her to take a lump o' sugar wi' five drops o' turpentine." "i will, thanky"--and so on for half an hour, at the end of which time the party thought it time to rise, wipe their mouths, shoulder the anker, and return to the boat. no sooner were they in it, and had thrust off from shore, and prepared to make a second start, than oliver touched wyvill and said, pointing to the land, "look yonder." "what!" "there is that clerk. running, actually running." "i reckon he be." "and in the direction of pentyre." "so he be, i reckon." "and what do you think of that?" "nothing," answered wyvill, confusedly. "why should i? he can't say nothing about where we be going. not a word of that was said while us was there. i don't put no store on his running." "i do," said oliver, unable to smother his annoyance. "this folly will spoil our game." wyvill muttered, "i reckon i'm head of the consarn and not you." oliver deemed it advisable, as the words were said low, to pretend that he did not hear them. the wind had somewhat abated, but the sea was running furiously round pentyre. happily the tide was going out, so that tide and wind were conflicting, and this enabled the rowers to get round pentyre between the point and the newland isle, that broke the force of the seas. but when past the shelter of newland, doubling a spur of pentyre that ran to the north, the rowers had to use their utmost endeavors, and had not their muscles been moistened they might possibly have declared it impossible to proceed. it was advisable to run into the cove just after dark, and before the turn of the tide, as, in the event of the black prince attempting to land her cargo there, it would be made with the flow of the tide, and in the darkness. the cove was reached and found to be deserted. oliver showed the way, and the boat was driven up on the shingle and conveyed into the smugglers' cave behind the rock curtain. no one was there. evidently, from the preparations made, the smugglers were ready for the run of the cargo that night. "now," said will, one of the preventive men, "us hev' a' labored uncommon. what say you, mates? does us desarve a drop of refreshment or does us not? every man as does his dooty by his country and his king should be paid for 't, is my doctrine. what do y' say, gearge? sarve out the grog?" "i reckon yes. sarve out the grog. there's nothing like grog--i think it was solomon said that, and he was the wisest of men." "for sure; he made a song about it," said one of the coast-guard. "it begins: "'a plague of those musty old lubbers, who tell us to fast and to think. and patient fall in with life's rubbers, with nothing but water to drink.'" "to be sure," responded wyvill, "never was a truer word said than when solomon was called the wisest o' men." chapter l. playing forfeits. "here am i once more," said mr. scantlebray, walking into othello cottage with a rap at the door but without waiting for an invitation to enter. "come back like the golden summer, but at a quicker rate. how are you all? i left you rather curtly--without having had time to pay my proper _congé_." judith and jamie were sitting over the fire. no candle had been lighted, for, though a good many things had been brought over to othello cottage for their use, candles had been forgotten, and judith did not desire to ask for more than was furnished her, certainly not to go to the glaze for the things needed. they had a fire, but not one that blazed. it was of drift-wood, that smouldered and would not flame, and as it burned emitted a peculiar odor. jamie was in good spirits, he chattered and laughed, and judith made pretence that she listened, but her mind was absent, she had cares that had demands on every faculty of her mind. moreover, now and then her thoughts drifted off to a picture that busy fancy painted and dangled before them--of portugal, with its woods of oranges, golden among the burnished leaves, and its vines hung with purple grapes--with its glowing sun, its blue glittering sea--and, above all, she mused on the rest from fears, the cessation from troubles which would have ensued, had there been a chance for her to accept the offer made, and to have left the cornish coast for ever. looking into the glowing ashes, listening to her thoughts as they spoke, and seeming to attend to the prattle of the boy, judith was surprised by the entry of mr. scantlebray. "there--disengaged, that is capital," said the agent. "the very thing i hoped. and now we can have a talk. you have never understood that i was your sincere friend. you have turned from me and looked elsewhere, and now you suffer for it. but i am like all the best metal--strong and bright to the last; and see--i have come to you now to forewarn you, because i thought that if it came on you all at once there would be trouble and bother." "thank you, mr. scantlebray. it is true that we are not busy just now, but it does not follow that we are disposed for a talk. it is growing dark, and we shall lock up the cottage and go to bed." "oh, i will not detain you long. besides i'll take the wish out of your heart for bed in one jiffy. look here--read this. do you know the handwriting?" he held out a letter. judith reluctantly took it. she had risen; she had not asked scantlebray to take a seat. "yes," she said, "that is the writing of captain coppinger." "a good bold hand," said the agent, "and see here is his seal with his motto, _thorough_. you know that?" "yes--it is his seal." "now read it." judith knelt at the hearth. "blow, blow the fire up, my beauty," called scantlebray to jamie. "don't you see that your sister wants light, and is running the risk of blinding her sweet pretty eyes." jamie puffed vigorously and sent out sparks snapping and blinking, and brought the wood to a white glow, by which judith was able to decipher the letter. it was a formal order from cruel coppinger to mr. obadiah scantlebray to remove james trevisa that evening, after dark, from othello cottage to his idiot asylum, to remain there in custody till further notice. judith remained kneeling, with her eyes on the letter, after she had read it. she was considering. it was clear to her that directly after leaving her captain coppinger had formed his own resolve, either impatient of waiting the six hours he had allowed her, or because he thought the alternative of the asylum the only one that could be accepted by her, and it was one that would content himself, as the only one that avoided exposure of a scandal. but there were other asylums than that of scantlebray, and others were presumably better managed, and those in charge less severe in their dealings. she had considered this, as she looked into the fire. but a new idea had also at the same time lightened in her mind, and she had a third alternative to propose. she had been waiting for the moment when to go to the glaze and see coppinger, and just at the moment when she was about to send jamie to bed and leave the house scantlebray came in. "now then," said the agent, "what do you think of me--that i am a real friend?" "i thank you for having told me this," answered judith, "and now i will go to pentyre. i beg that you will not allow my brother to be conveyed away during my absence. wait till i return. perhaps captain coppinger may not insist on the removal at once. if you are a real friend, as you profess, you will do this for me." "i will do it willingly. that i am a real friend i have shown you by my conduct. i have come beforehand to break news to you which might have been too great and too overwhelming had it come on you suddenly. my brother and a man or two will be here in an hour. go by all means to captain cruel, but," scantlebray winked an eye, "i don't myself think you will prevail with him." "i will thank you to remain here for half an hour with jamie," said judith, coldly. "and to stay all proceedings till my return. if i succeed--well. if not, then only a few minutes have been lost. i have that to say to captain coppinger which may, and i trust will, lead him to withdraw that order." "rely on me. i am a rock on which you may build," said scantlebray. "i will do my best to entertain your brother, though, alas! i have not the abilities of obadiah, who is a genius, and can keep folks hour by hour going from one roar of laughter into another." no sooner was judith gone than scantlebray put his tongue into one side of his cheek, clicked, pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, and seated himself opposite jamie on the stool beside the fire which had been vacated by judith. jamie had understood nothing of the conversation that had taken place, his name had not been mentioned, and consequently his attention had not been drawn to it away from some chestnuts he had found, or which had been given to him, that he was baking in the ashes on the hearth. "fond of hunting, eh?" asked scantlebray, stretching his legs and rubbing his hands. "you are like me--like to be in at the death. what do you suppose i have in my pocket? why, a fox with a fiery tail. shall we run him to earth? shall we make an end of him? tally-ho! tally-ho! here he is. oh, sly reynard, i have you by the ears." and forth from the tail-pocket of his coat scantlebray produced a bottle of brandy. "what say you, corporal, shall we drink his blood? bring me a couple of glasses and i'll pour out his gore." "i haven't any," said jamie. "ju and i have two mugs, that is all." "and they will do famously. here goes--off with the mask!" and with a blow he knocked away the head and cork of the bottle. "no more running away for you, my beauty, except down our throats. mugs! that is famous. come, shall we play at army and navy, and the forfeit be a drink of reynard's blood?" jamie pricked up his ears; he was always ready for a game of play. "look here," said scantlebray. "you are in the military, i am in the nautical line. each must address the other by some title in accordance with the profession each professes, and the forfeit of failure is a pull at the bottle. what do you say! i will begin. set the bottle there between us. now then, sergeant, they tell me your aunt has come in for a fortune. how much? what is the figure, eh?" "i don't know," responded jamie, and was at once caught up with "forfeit! forfeit!" "oh, by jimminy, there am i, too, in the same box. take your swig, commander, and pass to me." "but what am i to call you?" asked the puzzle-headed boy. "mate, or captain, or boatswain, or admiral." "i can't remember all that." "mate will do. always say mate, whatever you ask or answer. do you understand, general!" "yes." "forfeit! forfeit! you should have said 'yes, mate.'" mr. scantlebray put his hands to his sides and laughed. "oh, jimminy! there am i again. the instructor as bad as the pupil. i'm a bad fellow as instructor, that i am, field-marshal. so--your aunt dionysia has come in for some thousands of pounds--how many do you think! have you heard?" "i think i've heard----" "mate! mate!" "i think i've heard, mate." "now, how many do you remember to have heard named? was it five thousand? that is what i heard named--eh, captain?" "oh, more than that," said jamie, in his small mind catching at a chance of talking-big, "a great lot more than that." "what, ten thousand?" "i dare say; yes, i think so." "forfeit! forfeit! pull again, centurion." "yes, mate, i'm sure." "ten thousand--why, at five per cent. that's a nice little sum for you and ju to look forward to when the old hull springs a leak and goes to the bottom." "yes," answered jamie, vaguely. he could not look beyond the day, moreover he did not understand the figurative speech of his comrade. "forfeit again, general! but i'll forgive you this time, or you'll get so drunk you'll not be able to answer me a question. bless my legs and arms! on that pretty little sum one could afford one's self a new tie every sunday. you will prove a beau and buck indeed some day, captain of thousands! and then you won't live in this little hole. by the way, i hear old dunes trevisa, i beg pardon, field-marshal sir james, i mean your much respected aunt, miss trevisa, has got a charming box down by s. austell. you'll ask me down for the shooting, won't you, commander-in-chief?" "yes, i will," answered jamie. "and you'll give me the best bedroom, and will have choice dinners, and the best old tawny port, eh?" "yes, to be sure," said the boy, flattered. "mate! mate! forfeit! and i suppose you'll keep a hunter?" "i shall have two--three," said jamie. "and if i were you, i'd keep a pack of fox-hounds." "i will." "that's for the winter, and other hounds for the summer." "i am sure i will, and wear a red coat." "famous! but--there i spare you this time--you forfeited again." "no, i won't be spared," protested the boy. "as for a wretched little hole like this othello cottage----" said scantlebray. "but, by the bye, you have never shown me over the house. how many rooms are there in it, generalissimo of his majesty's forces!" "there's my bedroom there," said jamie. "yes; and that door leads to your sister's?" "yes. and there's the kitchen." "and up-stairs!" "there's no up-stairs." "now, you are very clever--clever. by ginger, you must be to be commander-in-chief; but 'pon my word, i can't believe that. no up-stairs. there must be up-stairs." "no, there's not." "but by jimminy! with such a roof as this house has got, and a little round window in the gable. there must be an up-stairs." "no there's not." "how do you make that out?" "because there are no stairs at all." then jamie jumped up, but rolled on one side, the brandy he had drunk had made him unsteady. "i'll show you mate--mate--yes, mate. there three times now will do for times i haven't said it. there--in my room. the floor is rolling; it won't stay steady. there are cramps in the wall, no stairs, and so you get up to where it all is." "all what is?" "forfeit, forfeit!" shouted jamie. "say general or something military. i don't know. ju won't let me go up there; but there's tobacco, for one thing." "where's a candle, corporal?" "there is none. we have no light but the fire." then jamie dropped back on his stool, unable to keep his legs. "i am more provident than you. i have a lantern outside, unlighted, as i thought i might need it on my return. the nights close in very fast and very dark now, eh, commander?" mr. scantlebray went outside the cottage, looked about him, specially directing his eyes toward the glaze. then he chuckled and said: "sent miss judith on a wild goose chase, have i? ah ha! captain coppinger, i'll have a little entertainment for you to-night. the preventives will snatch your goods at porth-leze or constantine, and here--behind your back--i'll attend to your store of tobacco and whatever else i may find." then he returned and going to the fire extracted the candle from the lantern and lighted it at a burning log. "halloa, captain of thousands! going to sleep? there's the bottle. you must make up forfeits. you've been dishonest i fear and not paid half. that door did you say?" but jamie was past understanding a question, and mr. scantlebray could find out for himself now what he wanted to know. that this house had been used by coppinger as a store for some of the smuggled cargoes he had long suspected, but he had never been able to obtain any evidence which would justify the coast-guard in applying to the justices for a search-warrant. now he would be able to look about it at his leisure, while judith was absent. he did not suppose coppinger was at the glaze. he assumed that an attempt would be made, as the clerk of st. enodoc had informed him, to land the cargo of the black prince to the west of the estuary of the camel, and he supposed that coppinger would be there to superintend. he had used the letter sent to his brother to induce the girl to go to pentyre, and so leave the cottage clear for him to search it. now, holding the candle, he entered the bedroom of jamie, and soon perceived the cramps the boy had spoken of that served in place of stairs. above was a door into the attic, whitewashed over, like the walls. mr. scantlebray climbed, thrust open the door and crept into the garret. "ah, ha!" said the valuer. "so, so, captain! i have come on one of your lairs at last. and i reckon i will make it warm for you. but, by ginger, it is a pity i can't remove some of what is here." he prowled about in the roomy loft, searching every corner. there were a few small kegs of spirit, but the stores were mostly of tobacco. in about ten minutes mr. scantlebray reappeared in the room where was jamie. he was without his candle. the poor boy, overcome by what he had drunk, had fallen on the floor and was in a tipsy sleep. scantlebray went to him. "come along with me," he said. "come, there is no time to be lost. come, you fool!" he shook him, but jamie would not be roused, he kicked and struck out with his fists. "you won't come? i'll make you." then scantlebray caught the boy by the shoulders to drag him to the door. the child began to struggle and resist. "oh! i'm not concerned for you, fool," said scantlebray. "if you like to stay and take your chance--my brother will be here to carry you off presently. will you come?" scantlebray caught the boy by the feet and tried to drag him, but jamie clung to the table-legs. scantlebray uttered an oath--"stay, you fool, and be smothered! the world will get on very well without you." and he strode forth from the cottage. chapter li. surrender. scantlebray was mistaken. coppinger had not crossed the estuary of the camel. he was at pentyre glaze awaiting the time when the tide suited for landing the cargo of the black prince. in the kitchen were a number of men having their supper and drinking, waiting also for the proper moment when to issue forth. at the turn of the tide the black prince would approach in the gathering darkness and would come as near in as she dare venture. the wind had fallen, but the sea was running, and with the tide setting in she would approach the cove. judith hastened toward the glaze. darkness had set in, but in the north were auroral lights, first a great, white halo, then rays that shot up to the zenith, and then a mackerel sky of rosy light. the growl and mutter of the sea filled the air with threat like an angry multitude surging on with blood and destruction in their hearts. the flicker overhead gave judith light for her cause; the snow had melted except in ditches and under hedges, and there it glared red or white in response to the changing, luminous tinges of the heavens. when she reached the house she at once entered the hall; there coppinger was awaiting her. he knew she would come to him when her mind was made up on the alternatives he had offered her, and he believed he knew pretty surely which she would choose. it was because he expected her that he had not suffered the men collected for the work of the night to invade the hall. "you are here," he said. he was seated by the fire; he looked up, but did not rise. "almost too late." "almost, maybe, but not altogether," answered judith. "and yet it seems unnecessary, as you have already acted without awaiting my decision." "what makes you say that?" "i have been shown your letter." "oh! obadiah scantlebray is premature." "he is not at othello cottage yet. his brother came beforehand to prepare me." "how considerate of your feelings," sneered captain cruel. "i would not have expected that of scantlebray." "you have not awaited my decision," said judith. "that is true," answered coppinger, carelessly. "i knew you would shrink from the exposure, the disgrace of publication of what has occurred here. i knew you so well that i could reckon beforehand on what you would elect." "but, why to scantlebray? are there not other asylums?" "yes: so long as that boy is placed where he can do no mischief, i care not." "then, if that be so, i have another proposal to make." "what is that?" coppinger stood up. "if you have any regard for my feelings, any care for my happiness, you will grant my request." "let me hear it." "mr. menaida is going to portugal." "what!"--in a tone of concentrated rage--"oliver?" "oliver and his father. but the proposal concerns the father." "go on." coppinger strode once across the room, then back again. "go on," he said, savagely. "old mr. menaida offers to take jamie with him. he intends to settle at oporto, near his son, who has been appointed to a good situation there. he will gladly undertake the charge of jamie. let jamie go with them. there he can do no harm." "what, go--without you! did they not want you to go, also?" judith hesitated and flushed. there was a single tallow candle on the table. coppinger took it up, snuffed it, and held the flame to her face to study its expression. "i thought so," he said, and put down the light again. "jamie is useful to mr. menaida," pleaded judith, in some confusion, and with a voice of tremulous apology. "he stuffs birds so beautifully, and uncle zachie--i mean mr. menaida--has set his heart on making a collection of the spanish and portuguese birds." "oh, yes; he understands the properties of arsenic," said coppinger, with a scoff. judith's eyes fell. captain cruel's tone was not reassuring. "you say that you care not where jamie be, so long as he is where he cannot hurt you," said judith. "i did not say that," answered coppinger. "i said that he must be placed where he can injure no one." "he can injure no one if he is with mr. menaida, who will well watch him, and keep him employed." coppinger laughed bitterly. "and you? will you be satisfied to have the idolized brother with the deep seas rolling between you?" "i must endure it. it is the least of evils." "but you would be pining to have wings and fly over the sea to him." "if i have not wings i cannot go." "now hearken," said coppinger. he clinched his fist and laid it on the table. "i know very well what this means. oliver menaida is at the bottom of this. it is not the fool jamie who is wanted in portugal, but the clever judith. they have offered to take the boy, that through him they may attract you, unless," his voice thrilled, "they have already dared to propose that you should go with them." judith was silent. coppinger clinched his second hand and laid that also on the table. "i swear to heaven," said he, "that if i and that oliver menaida meet again, it is for the last time for one or other of us. we have met twice already. it is an understood thing between us, when we meet again, one wets his boots in the other's blood. do you hear? the world will not hold us two any longer. portugal may be far off, but it is too near cornwall for me." judith made no answer. she looked fixedly into the gloomy eyes of coppinger, and said-- "you have strange thoughts. suppose--if you will--that the invitation included me, i could not have accepted it." "why not! you refuse to regard yourself as married, and if unmarried, you are free--and if free, ready to elope with----" he would not utter the name in his quivering fury. "i pray you," said judith, offended, "do not insult me." "i--insult you? it is a daily insult to me to be treated as i have been. it is driving me mad." "but, do you not see," urged judith, "you have offered me two alternatives and i ask for a third, yours are jail or an asylum, mine is exile. both yours are to me intolerable. conceive of my state were jamie either in jail or with mr. scantlebray. in jail--and i should be thinking of him all day and all night in his prison garb, tramping the tread-mill, beaten, driven on, associated with the vilest of men, an indelible stain put, not on him only, but on the name of our dear, dear father. do you think i could bear that? or take the other alternative? i know the scantlebrays. i should have the thoughts of jamie distressed, frightened, solitary, ill-treated, ever before me. i had it for a few hours once and it drove me frantic. it would make me mad in a week. i know that i could not endure it. either alternative would madden or kill me. and i offer another--if he were in exile, i could at least think of him as happy among the orange groves, in the vineyards, among kind friends, happy, innocent--at worst, forgetting me. _that_ i could bear. but the other--no, not for a week--they would be torture insufferable." she spoke full of feverish vehemence, with her hands outspread before her. "and this smiling vision of jamie happy in portugal would draw your heart from me." "you never had my heart," said judith. coppinger clinched his teeth. "i will hear no more of this," said he. then judith threw herself on her knees, and caught him and held him, lifting her entreating face toward his. "i have undergone it--for some hours. i know it will madden or kill me. i cannot--i cannot--i cannot," she could scarce breathe, she spoke in gasps. "you cannot what?" he asked, sullenly. "i cannot live on the terms you offer. you take from me even the very wish to live. take away the arsenic from me--lest in madness i give it to myself. take me far inland from these cliffs--lest in my madness i throw myself over--i could not bear it. will nothing move you?" "nothing." he stood before her, his feet apart, his arms folded, his chin on his breast, looking into her uplifted, imploring face. "yes--one thing. one thing only." he paused, raking her face with his eyes. "yes--one thing. be mine wholly--unconditionally. then i will consent. be mine; add your name where it is wanting. resume your ring--and jamie shall go with the menaidas. now, choose." he drew back. judith remained kneeling, upright, on the floor with arms extended--she had heard and at first hardly comprehended him. then she staggered to her feet. "well," said coppinger, "what answer do you make?" still she could not speak. she went to the table with uncertain steps. there was a wooden form by it. she seated herself on this, placed her arms on the board, joining her hands, and laid her head, face downward, between them on the table. coppinger remained where he was, watching and waiting. he knew what her action implied--that she was to be left alone with her thoughts, to form her resolve undisturbed. he remained, accordingly, motionless, but with his eyes fixed on the golden hair that flickered in the dim light of the one candle. the wick had a great fungus in it--so large and glaring that in another moment it must fall, and fall on judith's hand. coppinger saw this and he thrust forth his arm to snuff the candle with his fingers, but his hand shook, and the light was extinguished. it mattered not. there were glowing coals on the hearth, and through the window flared and throbbed the auroral lights. a step sounded outside. then a hand was on the door. coppinger at once strode across the hall, and arrested the intruder from entering. "who is that?" "hender pendarvis"--the clerk of st. enodoc. "i have some'ut partickler i must say." coppinger looked at judith; she lay motionless, her head between her arms on the board. he partly opened the door and stepped forth into the porch. when he had heard what the clerk of st. enodoc had to say, he answered with an order, "round to the kitchen--bid the men arm and go by the beach." he returned into the hall, went to the fireplace and took down a pair of pistols, tried them that they were charged, and thrust them into his belt. next he went up to judith, and laid his hand on her shoulder. "time presses," he said; "i have to be off. your answer." she looked up. the board was studded with drops of water. she had not wept, these stains were not her tears, they were the sweat of anguish off her brow that had run over the board. "well, judith, our answer." "i accept." "unreservedly?" "unreservedly." "stay," said he. he spoke low, indistinctly articulated sentences. "let there be no holding back between us. you shall know all. you have wondered concerning the death of wyvill--i know you have asked questions about it. i killed him." he paused. "you heard of the wreckers on that vessel cast on doom bar. i was their leader." again he paused. "you thought i had sent jamie out with a light to mislead the vessel. you thought right. i did have her drawn to her destruction, and by your brother." he paused again. he saw judith's hand twitch: that was the only sign of emotion in her. "and lady knighton's jewels. i took them off her--it was i who tore her ear." again a stillness. the sky outside shone in at the window, a lurid red. from the kitchen could be heard the voice of a man singing. "now you know all," said coppinger. "i would not have you take me finally, fully, unreservedly without knowing the truth. give me your resolve." she slightly lifted her hands; she looked steadily into his face with a stony expression in hers. "what is it!" "i cannot help myself--unreservedly yours." then he caught her to him, pressed her to his heart and kissed her wet face--wet as though she had plunged it into the sea. "to-morrow," said he, "to-morrow shall be our true wedding." and he dashed out of the house. chapter lii. to judith. in the smugglers' cave were oliver menaida and the party of preventive men, not under his charge, but under that of wyvill. this man, though zealous in the execution of his duty, and not averse, should the opportunity offer, of paying off a debt in full with a bullet, instead of committing his adversary to the more lenient hands of the law, shared in that failing, if it were a failing, of being unable to do anything without being primed with spirits, a failing that was common at that period, to coast-guards and smugglers alike. the latter had to be primed in order to run a cargo, and the former must be in like condition to catch them at it. it was thought, not unjustly, that the magistrates before whom, if caught, the smugglers were brought, needed priming in order to ripen their intellects for pronouncing judgment. but it was not often that a capture was effected. when it was, priming was allowed for the due solemnization of the fact by the captors; failure always entitled them to priming in order to sustain their disappointment with fortitude. wyvill had lost a brother in the cause, and his feelings often overcame him when he considered his loss, and their poignancy had to be slaked with the usual priming. it served, as its advocates alleged, as a great stimulant to courage; but it served also, as its deprecators asserted, as a solvent to discipline. now that the party were in possession of the den of their adversaries, such a success needed, in their eyes, commemoration. they were likely, speedily, to have a tussle with the smugglers, and to prepare themselves for that required the priming of their nerves and sinews. they had had a sharp struggle with the sea in rounding pentyre point, and their unstrung muscles and joints demanded screwing up again by the same means. the black prince had been discerned through the falling darkness drawing shoreward with the rising tide; but it was certain that for another hour or two the men would have to wait before she dropped anchor, and those ashore came down to the unloading. a lantern was lighted, and the cave was explored. certainly coppinger's men from the land would arrive before the boats from the black prince, and it was determined to at once arrest them, and then await the contingent in the boats, and fall on them as they landed. the party was small, it consisted of but seven men, and it was advisable to deal with the smugglers piecemeal. the men, having leisure, brought out their food, and tapped the keg they had procured at the rock. it was satisfactory to them that the black prince was apparently bent on discharging the cargo that night and in that place, thus they would not have to wait in the cave twenty-four hours, and not, after all, be disappointed. "all your pistols charged?" asked wyvill. "aye, aye, sir." "then take your suppers while you may. we shall have hot work presently. should a step be heard below, throw a bit o' sailcloth over the lantern, samson." oliver was neither hungry nor thirsty. he had both eaten and drunk sufficient when at the station. he therefore left the men to make their collation, prime their spirits, pluck up their courage, screw up their nerves, polish their wits, all with the same instrument, and descended the slope of shingle, stooped under the brow of rock that divided the lower from the upper cave, and made his way to the entrance, and thence out over the sands of the cove. he knew that the shore could be reached only by the donkey-path, or by the dangerous track down the chimney--a track he had not discovered till he had made a third exploration of the cave. down this tortuous and perilous descent he was convinced the smugglers would not come. it was, he saw, but rarely used, and designed as a way of escape only on an emergency. a too-frequent employment of this path would have led to a treading of the turf on the cliff above, and to a marking of the line of descent, that would have attracted the attention of the curious, and revealed to the explorer the place of retreat. oliver, therefore, went forward toward the point where the donkey-path reached the sands, deeming it advisable that a watch should be kept on this point, so that his party might be forewarned in time of the approach of the smugglers. there was much light in the sky, a fantastic, mysterious glow, as though some great conflagration were taking place and the clouds over head reflected its flicker. there passed throbs of shadow from side to side, and as oliver looked he could almost believe that the light he saw proceeded from a great bonfire, such as was kindled on the cornish moors on midsummer's eve, and that the shadows were produced by men and women dancing round the flames and momentarily intercepting the light. then ensued a change. the rose hue vanished suddenly, and in its place shot up three broad ribbons of silver light; and so bright and clear was the light that the edge of the cliff against it was cut as sharp as a black silhouette on white paper, and he could see every bush of gorse there, and a sheep--a solitary sheep. suddenly he was startled by seeing a man before him, coming over the sand. "who goes there?" "what--oliver! i have found you!" the answer was in his father's voice. "oh, well, i got fidgeted, and i thought i would come and see if you had arrived." "for heaven's sake, you have told no one of our plans?" "i--bless you, boy--not i. you know you told me yourself, before going to the station, what you intended, and i was troubled and anxious, and i came to see how things were turning out. the black prince is coming in; she will anchor shortly. she can't come beyond the point yonder. i was sure you would be here. how many have you brought with you?" "but six." "too few. however, now i am with you, that makes eight." "i wish you had not come, father." "my boy, i did not come only on your account. i have my poor little ju so near my heart that i long to put out if only a finger to liberate her from that ruffian, whom by the way i have challenged." "yes--but i have stepped in as your substitute. i shall, i trust, try conclusions with coppinger to-night. come with me to the cave i told you of. we will send a man to keep guard at the foot of the donkey path." oliver led the way; the sands reflected the illumination of the sky, and the foam that swept up the beach had a rosy tinge. the waves hissed as they rushed up the shore, as though impatient at men speaking and not listening to the voice of the ocean, that should subdue all human tongues, and command mute attention. and yet that roar is inarticulate, it is like the foaming fury of the dumb, that strives with noise and gesticulation to explain the thoughts that are working within. in the cave it was dark, and oliver lighted a piece of touchwood as a means of observing the shelving ground, and taking his direction, till he passed under the brow of rock and entered the upper cavern. after a short scramble, the dim yellow glow of light from this inner recess was visible, when oliver extinguished his touchwood and pushed on, guided by this light. on entering the upper cave he was surprised to find the guards lying about asleep, and snoring. he went at once to wyvill, seized him by the arm and shook him, but none of his efforts could rouse him. he lay as a log, or as one stunned. "father! help me with the others," said oliver in great concern. mr. menaida went from one to the other, spoke to each, shook him, held the lantern to his eyes; he raised their heads; when he let go his hold, they fell back. "what is the meaning of this?" asked oliver. "humph!" said old menaida, "i'll tell you what this means. there is a rogue among them, and their drink has been drugged with deadly night-shade. you might be sure of this--that among six coast-guards one would be in the pay of coppinger. which is it? whoever it is, he is pretending to be as dead drunk and stupefied as the others, and which is the man, noll?" "i cannot tell. this keg of brandy was got at the rock inn." "it was got there and there drugged, but by one of this company. who is it?" "yes," said oliver, waxing wrathful, "and what is more, notice was sent to coppinger to be on his guard. i saw the sexton going in the direction of pentyre." "that man is a rascal." "and now we shall not encounter coppinger. he will be warned and not come." "trust him to come. he has heard of this. he will come and murder them all as he did wyvill." oliver felt as though a frost had fallen on him. "hah!" said old menaida. "never trust anyone in this neighborhood; you cannot tell who is not in the pay or under the control of coppinger, from the magistrate on the bench to the huckster who goes round the country. among these six men, one is a spy and a traitor. which it is we cannot tell. there is nothing else to be done but to bind them all, hand and foot. there is plenty of cord here." "plenty. but surely not wyvill." "wyvill and all. how can you say that he is not the man who has done it? many a fellow has carried his brother in his pocket. what if he has been bought?" old menaida was right. he had not lived so many years in the midst of smugglers without having learned something of their ways. his advice must be taken, for the danger was imminent. if, as he supposed, full information had been sent to captain cruel, then he and his men would be upon them shortly. oliver hastily brought together all the cord of a suitable thickness he could find, and the old father raised and held each preventive man, while oliver firmly bound him hand and foot. as he did not know which was shamming sleep, he must bind all. of the six, five were wholly unconscious what was being done to them, and the sixth thought it advisable to pretend to be as the rest, for he was quite aware that neither oliver nor his father would scruple to silence him effectually did he show signs of animation. when all were made fast, old mr. menaida said: "now, noll, my boy, are you armed?" "no, father. when i went from home i expected to return. i did not know i should want weapons. but these fellows have their pistols and cutlasses." "try the pistols. there, take that of the man wyvill. are you sure they are loaded?" "i know they are." "well, try." oliver took wyvill's pistol, and put in the ramrod. "oh yes, it is loaded." "make sure. draw the loading. you don't know what it is to have to do with coppinger." oliver drew the charge, and then, as is usual, when the powder has been removed, blew down the barrel. then he observed that there was a choke somewhere. he took the pistol to the lantern, opened the side of the lantern and examined it. the touch-hole was plugged with wax. "humph!" said mr. menaida. "the man who drugged the liquor waxed the touch-holes of the pistols. try the rest." oliver did not now trouble himself to draw the charges; he cocked each man's pistol and drew the trigger. not one would discharge. all had been treated in like manner. oliver thought for a moment what was to be done. he dared not leave the sleeping men unprotected, and he and his father alone were insufficient to defend them. "father," said he, "there is but one thing that can be done now: you must go at once, fly to the nearest farmhouses and collect men, and, if possible, hold the donkey path before coppinger and his men arrive. if you are too late, pursue them. i will choke the narrow entrance, and will light a fire. perhaps they may be afraid when they see a blaze here, and may hold off. anyhow, i can defend this place for a while. but i don't expect that they will attack it." mr. menaida at once saw that his son's judgment was right, and he hurried out of the cave, oliver holding the light to assist him to descend, and then he made his way over the sands to the path, and up that to the downs. no sooner was he gone than oliver collected what wood and straw were there, sailcloth, oilcloth, everything that was combustible, and piled them up into a heap, then applied the candle to them, and produced a flame. the wood was damp and did not burn freely, but he was able to awake a good fire that filled the cavern with light. he trusted that when the smugglers saw that their den was in the possession of the enemy they would not risk the attempt to enter and recover it. they might not, they probably did not, know to what condition the holders of the cave were reduced. the light of the fire roused countless bats that had made the roof of the cave their resting-place, and they flew wildly to and fro with whirr of wings and shrill screams. oliver set to work with all haste to heap stones so as to choke the entrance from the lower cave, by which he anticipated that the smugglers would enter, should they resolve on so desperate a course. but owing to the rapid inclination, the pebbles yielded, and what he piled up rolled down. he then, with great effort, got the boat thrust down to the opening, and by main force drew it partly across. it was not possible for him completely to block the entrance, but by planting the boat athwart it, he could prevent several men from entering at once, and whoever did enter must scramble over the bulwarks of the boat. all this took some time, and he was thus engaged, when his attention was suddenly arrested by the click of a pistol brought to the cock. he looked hastily about him, and saw coppinger, who, unobserved, had descended by the chimney, and now by the light of the fire was taking deliberate aim at him. oliver drew back behind a rock. "you coward!" shouted captain cruel. "come out and be shot." "i am no coward," answered oliver. "let us meet with equal arms. i have a cutlass." he had taken one from the side of a sleep-drunk coast-guard. "i prefer to shoot you down as a dog," said coppinger. then holding his pistol levelled in the direction of oliver, he approached the sleeping men. oliver saw at once his object: he would liberate the confederate. he stepped out from behind the rock, and immediately the pistol was discharged. a bat fell at the feet of oliver. had not that bat at the moment whizzed past his head and received the ball in its soft and yielding body, the young man would have fallen shot through his head. coppinger uttered a curse, and put his hand to his belt and drew forth his second pistol. but oliver sprang forward, and with a sweep of his cutlass caught him on the wrist with the blade as he was about to touch the trigger. the pistol fell from his hand, and a rush of blood overflowed the back of the hand. coppinger remained for one minute motionless. so did oliver, who did not again raise his cutlass. but at that moment a harsh voice was heard crying, "there he is, my men, at him; beat his brains out. a guinea for the first man who knocks him over," and from the further side of the boat, illumined by the glare from the fire, were seen the faces of mr. scantlebray, his brother, and several men, who began to scramble over the obstruction. then, and then only in his life, did coppinger's heart fail him. his right hand was powerless; the sharp blade had severed the tendons, and blood was flowing from his wrist in streams. one pistol was discharged, the other had fallen. in a minute he would be in the hands of his deadly enemies. he turned and fled. the light from the fire, the illumined smoke, rose through the chimney, and by that he could run up the familiar track, reach the platform in the face of the cliff, thence make his way by the path up which he had formerly borne judith. he did not hesitate, he fled, and oliver, also without hesitation, pursued him. as he went up the narrow track, his feet trod in and were stained with the blood that had fallen from coppinger's wounded arm, but he did not notice it--he was unaware of it till the morrow. coppinger reached the summit of the cliffs. his feet were on the down. he ran at once in the direction of othello cottage. his only chance of safety lay there. there he could hide in the attic, and judith would never betray him. in his desperate condition, wounded, his blood flowing from him in streams, hunted by his foes, that one thought was in him--judith--he must go to judith. she would never betray him, she would be hacked to death rather than give him up. to judith as his last refuge! chapter liii. in the smoke. judith left pentyre glaze when she had somewhat recovered herself after the interview with coppinger and her surrender. she had fought a brave battle, but had been defeated and must lay down her arms. resistance was no longer possible if jamie was to be saved from a miserable fate. now by the sacrifice of herself she had assured to, him a future of calm and innocent happiness. she knew that with uncle zachie and oliver he would be cared for, kindly treated, and employed. uncle zachie himself was not to be trusted; whatever he might promise, his good nature was greater than his judgment. but she had confidence in oliver, who would prove a check on the over-indulgence which his father would allow. but jamie would forget her. his light and unretentive mind was not one to harbor deep feeling. he would forget her when on board ship in his pleasure at running about the vessel chattering with the sailors, and would only think of her if he wanted aught or was ill. rapidly the recollection of her, love for her, would die out of his mind and heart; and as it died out of his, her thought and love for him would deepen and become more fixed, for she would have no one, nothing in the world to think of and love save her twin-brother. she walked on in the dark winter night, lighted only by the auroral glow overhead, and was conscious of a smell of tobacco-smoke that so persistently seemed to follow her that she was forced to notice it. she became uneasy, thinking that someone was walking behind the hedge with a pipe, watching her, perhaps waiting to spring out upon her when distant from the house, where her cries for help might not be heard. she stood still. the smell was strong. she climbed the hedge on one side and looked over; as far as she could discern in the red glimmer from the flushed sky there was no one there. she listened, she could hear no step. she walked hastily on to a gate in the hedge on the opposite side and went through that. the smell of burning tobacco was as strong there. judith turned in the lane and walked back in the direction of the house. the smell pursued her. it was strange. could she carry the odor in her clothes? she turned again and resumed her walk toward othello cottage. now she was distinctly aware that the scent came to her on the wind. her perplexity on this subject served as a diversion of her mind from her own troubles. she emerged upon the downs, and made her way across them toward the cottage that lay in a dip, not to be observed except by one close to it. the wind when it brushed up from the sea was odorless. presently she came in sight of othello cottage, and in spite of the darkness could see that a strange, dense, white fog surrounded it, especially the roof, which seemed to be wearing a white wig. in a moment she understood what this signified. othello cottage was on fire, and the stores of tobacco in the attic were burning. judith ran. her own troubles were forgotten in her alarm for jamie. no fire as yet had broken through the roof. she reached the door, which was open. mr. scantlebray in leaving had not shut the door, so as to allow the boy to crawl out should he recover sufficient intelligence to see that he was in danger. it is probable that scantlebray, senior, would have made further efforts to save jamie, but that he believed he would meet with his brother, and two or three men he was bringing with him, near the house, and then it would be easy unitedly to drag the boy forth. he did, indeed, meet with obadiah, but also at the same time with uncle zachie menaida and a small party of farm-laborers, and when he heard that mr. menaida desired help to secure coppinger and the smugglers, he thought no more of the boy and joined heartily in the attempt to rescue the preventive men and take coppinger. through the open door dashed judith, crying out to jamie whom she could not see. there was a dense, white cloud in the room, let down from above, and curling out at the top of the door, whence it issued as steam from a boiler. it was impossible to breathe in this fog of tobacco-smoke, and judith knew that if she allowed it to surround her she would be stupefied. she therefore stooped and entered, calling jamie. although the thick mattress of white smoke had not as yet descended to the floor, and had left comparatively clear air beneath it--the in-draught from the door--yet the odor of the burning tobacco impregnated the atmosphere. here and there curls of smoke descended, dropped capriciously from the bed of vapor above, and wantonly played about. judith saw her brother lying at full length near the fire. scantlebray had drawn him partly to the door, but he had rolled back to his former position near the hearth, perhaps from feeling the cold wind that blew in on him. there was no time to be lost. judith knew that flame must burst forth directly--directly the burning tobacco had charred through the rafters and flooring of the attic and allowed the fresh air from below to rush in and, acting as a bellows, blow the whole mass of glowing tobacco into flame. it was obvious that the fire had originated above in the attic. there was nothing burning in the room, and the smoke drove downward in strips through the joints of the boards overhead. "jamie, come, come with me!" she shook the boy, she knelt by him and raised him on her knee. he was stupefied with cognac, and with the fumes of the burning tobacco he had inhaled. she must drag him forth. he was no longer half-conscious as he had been when mr. scantlebray made the same attempt; the power to resist was now gone from him. judith was delicately made, and was not strong, but she put her arms under the shoulders of jamie and herself on her knees and dragged him along the floor. he was as heavy as a corpse. she drew him a little way and desisted, overcome, panting, giddy, faint. but time must not be lost. every moment was precious. judith knew that overhead in the loft was something that would not smoulder and glow, but burst into furious flame--spirits. not, indeed, many kegs, but there were some. when this became ignited their escape would be impossible. she drew jamie further up; she was behind him. she thrust him forward as she moved on upon her knees, driving him a step further at every advance. it was slow and laborious work. she could not maintain this effort for long and fell forward on her hands, and he fell also at the same time on the floor. then she heard a sound, a roar, an angry growl. the shock of the fall, and striking his head against the slate pavement, roused jamie momentarily and he also heard the noise. "ju! the roar of the sea!" "a sea of fire, jamie! oh, do push to the door." he raised himself on his hands, looked vacantly round, and fell again into stupid unconsciousness. now still on her knees, but with a brain becoming bewildered with the fumes, she crept to his head, placed herself between him and the door, and holding his shoulders, dragged him toward her, she moving backward. even thus she could make but little way with him; his boot-tops caught in the edge of a slate slab ill fitted in the floor and held him, so that she could not pull him to her with the additional resistance thus caused. then an idea struck her. staggering to her feet, holding her breath, she plunged in the direction of the window, beat it open, and panted in the inrush of pure air. with this new current wafted in behind her she returned amid the smoke, and for a moment it dissipated the density of the cloud about her. the window had faced the wind, and the rush of air through it was more strong than that which entered by the door. and yet this expedient did not answer as she had expected, for the column of strong, cold air pouring in from a higher level threw the cloud into confusion, stirred it up as it were, and lessened the space of uninvaded atmosphere below the descending bed of vapor. again she went to jamie. the roar overhead had increased, some vent had been found, and the attic was in full flagrance. now, drawing a long breath at the door, near the level of the ground, she returned to her brother and disengaged his foot from the slate, then dragged, then thrust, sometimes at his head, sometimes at his side; then again she had her arms round him, and swung herself forward to the right knee sideways; then brought up the other knee, and swung herself with the dead weight in her arms again to the right, and thus was able to work her way nearer to the door, and, as she got nearer to the door, the air was clearer, and she was able to breathe freer. at length she laid hold of the jamb with one hand, and with the other she caught the lappel of the boy's coat, and assisted by the support she had gained, was able to drag him over the doorstep. at that moment passed her rushed a man. she looked, saw and knew coppinger. as he rushed passed, the blood squirting from his maimed right hand fell on the girl lying prostrate at the jamb to which she had clung. and now within a red light appeared, glowing through the mist as a fiery eye, not only so, but every now and then a fiery rain descended. the burning tobacco had consumed the boards and was falling through in red masses. judith had but just brought her brother into safety, or comparative safety, and now another, coppinger, had plunged into the burning cottage, rushed to almost certain death. she cried to him as well as she could with her short breath. she could not leave him within. why had he run there? she saw on her dress the blood that had fallen from him. she went outside the hut and dragged jamie forth and laid him on the grass. then, without hesitation, inhaling all the pure air she could, she darted once more into the burning cottage. her eyes were stung with the smoke, but she pushed on, and found coppinger under the open window, fallen on the floor, his back and head against the wall, his arms at his side, and the blood streaming over the slate pavement from his right gashed wrist. accident or instinct--it could not have been judgment--had carried him to the only spot in the room where pure air was to be found, and there it descended like a rushing waterfall, blowing about the prostrate man's wild long hair. "judith!" said he, looking at her, and he raised his left hand. "judith, this is the end." "oh, captain coppinger, do come out. the house is burning. quick, or it will be too late." "it is too late for me," he said. "i am wounded." he held up his half-severed hand. "i gave this to you and you rejected it." "come--oh, do come--or you and i will be burnt." in the inrushing sweep of air both were clear of the smoke and could breathe. he shook his head. "i am followed. i will not be taken. i am no good now--without my right hand. i will not go to jail." she caught his arm, and tearing the kerchief from her neck, bound it round and round where the veins were severed. "it is in vain," he said. "i have lost most of my blood. ju!"--he held her with his left hand--"ju, if you live, swear to me, swear you will sign the register." she was looking into his face--it was ghastly, partly through loss of blood, partly because lighted by the glare of the burning tobacco that dropped from above. then a sense of vast pity came surging over her along with the thought of how he had loved her. into her burning eyes tears came. "judith!" he said, "i made my confession to you--i told you my sins. give me also my release. say you forgive me." she had forgotten her peril, forgotten about the fire that was above and around, as she looked at his eyes, and, holding the maimed right arm, felt the hot blood welling through her kerchief and running over her hand. "i pray you, oh, i pray you, come outside. there is still time." again he shook his head. "my time is up. i do not want to live. i have not your love. i could never win it, and if i went outside i should be captured and sent to prison. will you give me my absolution?" "what do you mean?" and in her trembling concern for him--in the intensity of her pity, sorrow, care for him--she drew his wounded hand to her and pressed it against her heaving bosom. "what i mean is, can you forgive me?" "indeed--indeed i do." "what--all i have done?" "all." she saw only a dying man before her, a man who might be saved if he would, but would not because her love was everything to him, and _that_ he never, never could gain. would she make no concession to him? could she not draw a few steps nearer? as she looked into his face and held his bleeding arm to her bosom, pity overpowered her--pity, when she saw how strong had been this wild and wicked man's love. now she truly realized its depth, its intensity, and its tenderness alternating with stormy blasts of passion, as he wavered between hope and fear, and the despair that was his when he knew he must lose her. then she stooped, and, the tears streaming over her face, she kissed him on his brow, and then on his lips, and then drew back, still holding his maimed hand, with both of hers crossed over it, to her heaving bosom. kneeling, she had her eyes on his, and his were on hers--steady, searching, but with a gentle light in them. and as she thus looked she became unconscious, and sank, still holding his hand, on the floor. at that instant, through the smoke and raining masses of burning tobacco, plunged oliver menaida. he saw judith, bent, caught her in his arms, and rushed back through the door. a moment after and he was at the entrance again, to plunge through and rescue his wounded adversary; but the moment when this could be done was past. there was an explosion above, followed by a fall as of a sheet of blue light, a curtain of fire through the mist of white smoke. no living man could pass that. oliver went round to the window, and strove to enter by that way; the man who had taken refuge there was still in the same position, but he had torn the kerchief of judith from the bleeding arm, and he held it to his mouth, looking with fixed eyes into the falling red and blue fires and the swirling flocks of white smoke. there were iron bars at the window. oliver tore at these to displace them. "coppinger!" he shouted, "stand up--help me to break these bars!" but coppinger would not move, or, possibly, the power was gone from him. the bars were firmly set. they had been placed in the windows by coppinger's orders and under his own supervision, to secure othello cottage, his store-place, against invasion by the inquisitive. at length oliver succeeded in wrenching one bar away, and now a gap was made through which he might reach coppinger and draw him forth through the window. he was scrambling in when the captain staggered to his feet. "let me alone," said he. "you have won what i have lost. let me alone. i am defeated." then he stepped into the mass of smoke and falling liquid blue fire and dropping masses of red glowing tobacco. a moment more, and the whole of the attic floor, with all the burning contents of the garret, fell in. chapter liv. squab pie. next morning, at an early hour, judith, attended by mr. zachary menaida, appeared at the rectory of st. enodoc. she was deadly pale, but there was decision in her face. she asked to see mr. desiderius mules in his study, and was shown into what had, in her father's days, been the pantry. mr. menaida had a puzzled look in his watery eyes. he had been up all night, and indeed it had been a night in which few in the neighborhood had slept, excepting mr. mules, who knew nothing of what had happened. the smugglers, alarmed by the fire at othello cottage, and by the party collected by mr. menaida to guard the descent to the beach, had not ventured to force their way to the cave. the black prince, finding that no signal was made from the ledge above the cave, suspected mischief, heaved anchor and bore away. the stupefied members of the preventive service were conveyed to the nearest cottages, and there left to recover. as for othello cottage, it was a blazing and smoking mass of fire, and till late on the following day could not be searched. there was no fire-engine anywhere near; nor would a fire-engine have availed to save either the building or its contents. when mr. mules appeared, judith said in a quiet but firm tone, "i have come to sign the register. mr. menaida is here. i do it willingly, and with no constraint." "thank you. this is most considerate to my feelings. i wish all my flock would obey my advice as you are now doing," said the rector, and produced the book, which judith signed with trembling hand. mr. desiderius was quite ignorant of the events of the night. he had no idea that at that time captain coppinger was dead. it was not till some days later that judith understood why, at the last moment, with death before his eyes, coppinger had urged on her this ratification of her marriage. it was not till his will was found, that she understood his meaning. he had left to her, as his wife, everything that he possessed. no one knew of any relatives that he had, for no one knew whence he came. no one ever appeared to put in a claim against the widow. on the second day the remains of the burnt cottage were cleared away, and then the body of cruel coppinger was found, fearfully charred, and disfigured past recognition. there were but two persons who knew that this blackened corpse belonged to the long dreaded captain, and these were judith and oliver. when the burnt body was cleared from the charred fragments of clothing that were about it one article was discovered uninjured. about his throat coppinger had worn a silk handkerchief, and this as well as the collar of his coat had preserved his neck and the upper portion of his chest from injury such as had befallen the rest of his person. and when the burnt kerchief was removed, and the singed cloth of the coat-collar, there was discovered round the throat a narrow black band, and sewn into this band, one golden thread of hair, encircling the neck. * * * * * are our readers acquainted with that local delicacy entitled, in cornwall and devon, squab pie? to enlighten the ignorant, it shall be described. first, however, we premise that of squab pies there are two sorts: devonian squab and cornish squab. the cornish squab differs from the devonian squab in one particular; that shall be specified presently. _how to make a squab pie._--take half a pound of veal, cut into nice square pieces, and put a layer of them at the bottom of a pie-dish. sprinkle over these a portion of herbs, spices, seasoning, lemon-peel, and the yolks of eggs cut in slices; cut a quarter of a pound of boiled ham very thin, and put in a layer of this. take half a pound of mutton cut into nice pieces, and put a layer of them on the top of the veal. sprinkle as before with herbs and spices. take half a pound of beef, cut into nice pieces, and put a layer of them on top of the mutton. sprinkle as before with herbs and spices. cut up half a dozen apples very fine, also half a dozen onions, mix, and proceed to ram the onions and apples into every perceivable crevice. take half a dozen pilchards, remove the bones, chop up and strew the whole pie with pilchards. then fill up with clotted cream, till the pie-dish will hold no more. (for cornish squab add, treated in like manner, a cormorant.) proceed to lay a puff paste on the edge of the dish. then insert a tablespoon and stir the contents, till your arm aches. cover with crust or ornament it with leaves, brush it over with the yolk of an egg, and bake in a well-heated oven for one or one and a half hour, or longer, should the pie be very large (two in the case of a cornish squab, and the cormorant very tough). in one word, a squab pie is a scrap pie. so is the final chapter of a three-volume novel. it is made up, from the first word to the last, of scraps of all kinds, toothsome and the reverse. now let the reader observe--he has been already supplied with scraps. he has learned the result of mr. menaida's collecting men to assist him against the smugglers. also of his expedition along with judith to the rectory of st. enodoc. also he has heard the provisions of captain coppinger's will; also that this will was not contested. he has also heard of the recovery of the captain's body from the burnt cottage. is not this a collection of scraps cut very small? but there are more, of a different character, with which this chapter will be made up, before the pie-crust closes over it with a flourishing "finis" to ornament it. mr. scantlebray had lost his wife, who had been an ailing woman for some years, and being a widower, cast about his eyes for a second wife, after the way of widowers. there was not the excuse of a young family needing a prudent housewife to manage the children, for mr. scantlebray had only one daughter, who had been allotted by her father and by popular opinion to captain coppinger, but had failed to secure him. mr. scantlebray, though an active man, had not amassed much money, and if he could add to his comforts, provide himself with good eating and good drinking, by marrying a woman with money, he was not averse to so doing. now, mr. scantlebray had lent a ready ear to the voice of rumor which made miss dionysia trevisa the heiress who had come in for all the leavings of that rich old spinster, miss ceely, of st. austell, and mr. scantlebray gave credit to this rumor, and acting on it, proposed to and was accepted by miss dionysia. now when, after marriage, mr. scantlebray found out that the sweet creature he had taken to his side was worth under a quarter of the sum he had set down at the lowest figure, at which he could endure her, and when the late miss trevisa, now the second mrs. scantlebray, learned from her husband's lips that he had married her only for her money, and not for her good looks or for any good quality she was supposed to be endowed with, the reader, knowing something of the characters of these two persons, may conjecture, if he please, what sort of scenes ensued daily between them, and it may be safely asserted that the bitterest enemies of either could not have desired for each a more unenviable lot than was theirs. very shortly after the death of captain coppinger, judith and jamie left bristol in a vessel, with uncle zachie, bound for lisbon. oliver menaida had gone to oporto before, to make arrangements for his father. it was settled that judith and her brother should live with the old man, and that the girl should keep house for him. oliver would occupy his old quarters, that belonged to the firm in which he was a partner. it is a strange thing--but after the loss of coppinger judith's mind reverted much to him, she thought long and tenderly of his considerations for her, his patience with her, his forbearance, his gentleness toward her, and of his intense and enduring love. his violence she forgot, and she put down the crimes he had committed to evil association, or to an irregulated, undisciplined conscience, excusable in a measure in one who had not the advantages she had enjoyed, of growing up under the eye of a blameless, honorable, and right-minded father. in the consistory court of canterbury is a book of the marriages performed at the oporto factory, by the english chaplain resident there. it begins in the year and ends in . the author has searched this volume in vain for a marriage between oliver menaida and judith coppinger. if such a marriage did take place, it must have been after , but the book of register of marriages later than this date is not to be found in the consistory court. were they married? on inquiry at st. enodoc no information has been obtained, for neither judith nor the menaidas had any relatives there with whom they communicated. if mrs. scantlebray ever heard, she said nothing, or, at all events, nothing she said concerning them has been remembered. were they ever married? that question the reader must decide as he likes. finis. transcriber's note a table of contents has been added by the transcriber for the convenience of the reader. saint is abbreviated to both s. and st. in this book. the author refers to plants by the names of escallonica and eschalonia. it's likely that both are errors for escallonia, but they are preserved as printed. instances of archaic spelling (e.g. taught meaning taut) are preserved as printed. variant spelling (e.g. jewelry and jewellery) is preserved as printed except where there was a clear prevalence of one form over another, as follows: page --wyvell amended to wyvill--"... on one occasion a preventive man named ewan wyvill, ..." page --wyvell amended to wyvill--"wyvill had disappeared, and the body was recovered ..." page --jassamine amended to jessamine--"... a-smelling to the jessamine is the surveyor ..." page --stupified amended to stupefied--"... so stupefied was he by his terrors, ..." hyphenation usage has been made consistent. minor punctuation errors have been repaired. the following printer errors have been fixed: page --contion amended to condition--"the chancel of the church was in that condition ..." page --omitted 'a' added for sense--"... was to be anticipated from a broken-hearted widow and helpless children ..." page --repeated 'the' deleted--"... who occupied a double cottage at the little hamlet of polzeath." page --she amended to he--"... with a jerk of the rein and a set of the brow he showed ..." page --bluet amended to blue--"... boy blue blew his horn, ..." page --companian amended to companion--"... the friend and companion of judith." page --it amended to in--"... the voice summoned her to come in, ..." page --repeated 'had' deleted--"... had seen him with his carriers defile out of the lane ..." page --keenist amended to keenest--"a cry of intensest, keenest anguish ..." page --repeated 'the' deleted--"that star on the black sea--what did it mean?" page --aught amended to ought--"... but that he was told it was there, he ought to see it, ..." page --hime amended to home--"... "may i get out now and go home?"" page --springs amended to sprigs--"... covered with sprigs of nondescript pink and blue flowers." page --repeated 'and' deleted--"... and never once as i'm a christian ..." page --coldnesss amended to coldness--"... formed the resolution to break down the coldness ..." page --or amended to of--"... to take this accumulation of wreckage ..." page --officient amended to officiant--"... immediately over the head of the officiant, ..." page --remorselesss amended to remorseless--"... remorseless and regardless of others, ..." page --judiah amended to judith--""nothing," answered judith, ..." page --travisa amended to trevisa--"... by a little sentiment for miss judith trevisa, ..." page --chose amended to choose--"... and if i choose to live in it i can." page --superfluous 'where' deleted before 'there'--"judith walked where, near the edge of the cliffs, there was no snow, ..." page --breakfeast amended to breakfast--"... in utter guilelessness, prepared my breakfast for me, ..." page --kness amended to knees--"... and herself on her knees and dragged him ..." miss primrose a novel by roy rolfe gilson author of "the flower of youth" "in the morning glow" etc. [illustration] new york and london harper & brothers publishers :: mcmvi copyright, , by harper & brothers. all rights reserved. published march, . _contents_ part i _a devonshire lad_ i. letitia ii. little rugby iii. a poet of grassy ford iv. the seventh slice v. the handmaiden vi. cousin dove vii. of hamadryads and their spells part ii _the school-mistress_ i. the older letitia ii. on a corner shelf iii. a younger robin iv. hiram ptolemy v. a. p. a. vi. truants in arcady vii. peggy neal viii. new eden ix. a serious matter part iii _rosemary_ i. the home-keeper ii. johnny keats iii. the fortune-teller iv. an unexpected letter v. surprises vi. an old friend of ours vii. suzanne viii. in a devon lane part i _a devonshire lad_ _miss primrose_ i letitia all little, white-haired, smiling ladies remind me of letitia--letitia primrose, whom you saw just now in a corner of our garden among the petunias. you thought her odd, no doubt, not knowing her as i or as the children do who find her dough-nuts sweet after school is done, or their english cousins, those little brown-feathered beggars waiting on winter mornings in the snow-drifts at her sill. as for myself, i must own to a certain kinship, as it were, not of blood but of propinquity, a long next-doorhood in our youth, a tenderer, nameless tie in after years, and always a fond partiality which began one day by our old green fence. there, on its primrose side, it seems, she had parted the grape-vines, looking for fruit, and found instead-- "why! whose little boy is this?" now, it happened to be bertram, jonathan weatherby's little boy--it being a holiday, and two pickets off, and the concords purple in a witchery of september sheen--though at first he could make no sign to her of his parentage, so surprised he was, and his mouth so crammed. "will i die?" he asked, when he had gulped down all but his tongue. "die!" she replied, laughing at his grave, round eyes and pinching his nearer cheek. "do i look like an ogress?" "no," he said; "but i've gone and swallowed 'em." "the grapes?" "no--yes--but i mean the pits," whereat she laughed so that his brow darkened. "well, a man _did_ once." "did what?" "died--from swallowin' 'em." "who told you that?" "maggie did." "and who is maggie?" "why, you know maggie. she's our hired girl." "how many did you swallow?" "five." "five!" "or six, i guess. i'm not quite sure." "what made you do it?" "i didn't. _you_ did." "_i_ made you swallow them?" "why, yes, 'cause, now, i had 'em in my mouth--" "six all at once!" "yes, and you went and scared me. i forgot to think." "mercy! i'm sorry, darling." "my name isn't darling. it's bertram." "i'm sorry, bertram." "oh, that's all right," he forgave her, cheerfully, "as long as i don't die like the man did; you'll know pretty soon, i guess." "how shall i know?" "well, the man, he hollered. you could hear him 'cross lots, maggie says. so, if you listen, why, pretty soon you'll know." and it is due partly to the fact that letitia primrose, listening, heard no hollering across lots, that i am able here to record the very day and hour when i first met her; partly that, and partly because letitia has a better memory than jonathan weatherby's little boy, for i do not remember the thing at all and must take her word for it. she was not gray then, of course. it must have been a pink, sweet, merry face that peered at me through the grape-vines, and a ringing laugh in those days, and two plump fingers that pinched my cheek. her hair was brown and hung in braids, she tells me. she may have been fourteen. i do not remember her so young. i do remember hugging some one and being hugged, next door--once in the bay-window by the red geraniums, whose scent still bears to me some faint, sweet airs of summers gone. it was not a relative who hugged me; i know by the feeling--the remembered feeling--for i was dutiful but not o'er keen in the matter of kissing our kith and kin. no, it was some one who took me by surprise and rumpled me, some one who seemed, somehow, to have the right to me, though not by blood--some one too who was nearer my age than most of our relatives, who were not so young and round and luring as i recall them. it was some one kneeling, so that our heads were even. the carpet was red, i remember. i had run in from play, i suppose, and she was there, and i--i may have been irresistible in those days. at least i know it was not i, but eve who-- _that_ must have been letitia. i have never asked, but it was not cousin julia, or the potter girl, or sammy's sister. excluding the rest of the world, i infer letitia. and why not kiss me? she kissed sammy, that fat, little, pudding-head sammy mcsomething, who played the mouth-organ. since of all the tunes in the world he knew but one (you know which one), it may seem foolish that i cared; but, remember, i played none! and she kissed him _for_ playing--kissed him, pudgy and vulgar as he was with the fetty-bag tied to his neck by a dirty string to ward off contagions! ugh! i swore a green, green oath to learn the accordion. that night in bed--night of the day she kissed him--with only the moon-lamp burning outside my window, i felt that my cheeks were wet. i had been thinking. it had come to me awfully as i tossed, that i had been born too late--for letitia. always i should be too young for her. dear letitia, white and kneeling even then, perhaps, at your whiter prayers, or reading after them, before you slept, in the _jane eyre_ which lay for years beneath your pillow, you did not dream that you also were a heroine of romance. you did not dream of the plot then hatching in the night: plot with a villain in it--oh, beware, letitia, of a pudgy, vulgar, superstitious villain wearing a charmed necklace of assafoetida to ward off evils, but powerless, even quite odorless against that green-eyed one! for, lo! letitia: thy hero standing beneath thy chamber-window in the moonbeams, is singing soprano to the gentle bellowsings of early love! no, i do not play the accordion, nor did i ever. i never even owned one, so i never practised secretly in the barn-loft, nor did i ever, after all my plotting, lure young sammy to play "sweet home" to our dear lady in the moonshine, only to be eclipsed, to his dire confusion and everlasting shame, by me. it may have been that i had no pocket-money, or that santa claus was short that year in his stock of wind-instruments, or that jonathan weatherby had no ear for melody about the house, but it is far more likely that letitia primrose never again offended, to my knowledge, in the matter of pudgy little vulgar boys. now, as i muse the longer of that fair young lady who lived next door to us, as i see myself crawling through the place with the pickets off, and recall beyond it the smell and taste of the warm concords in my petty larcenies of a dozen autumns, then other things come back to me, of letitia's youth, of its cares and sacrifice and its motherlessness. the rev. david primrose, superannuate divine, bard and scholar, lived mostly in a chair, as i recall him, and it was letitia who wheeled him on sunny days when other girls were larking, who sat beside it in the bay-window, half-screened by her geraniums, reading to him when his eyes were weary, writing for him, when his hand trembled, those fine fancies that helped him to forget his sad and premature decay. she was his only child, his only housemaid, gardener, errand-boy, and "angel," as mother said, and the mater went sometimes to sit evenings with him lest letitia should never know joys of straw-rides and taffy-pulls and church-sociable ice-cream and cake. he had a fine, white, haggard face, too stern for a little child to care for, but less forbidding to a growing school-boy who had found by chance that it softened wonderfully with memories of that rugby where tom brown went to school; for dr. primrose had conned his xenophon within those very ivied-walls, and, what was more to bertram weatherby, under those very skies had fled like tom, a hunted hare, working fleet wonders in the fields of warwickshire. "a mad march hare i was, bertram," he would tell me, the light of his eyes blazing in that little wind of a happy memory, only to sink and go out again. smoothing then with his fine, white hands the plaid shawl which had been his wife's and was now a coverlet for his wasted knees, he would say, sadly: "broomsticks, bertram--but in their day there were no fleeter limbs in rugby." there on my upper shelf is an old, worn, dusty copy of the _odes of horace_, which i cannot read, but it bears on its title-page, in a school-boy's scrawl, the name and date for which i prize it: "david buckleton primrose, rugby, _a.d._ --." he laughed as he gave it to me. "mark, bertram," said he, "the 'a.d.'" "thank you, sir," i replied, tremulously. "you bet i'll always keep it, mr. primrose." "_dr._ primrose," he reproved me, gently. "doctor, i mean. maybe tom had one like it." "likely," he replied. "you must learn to read it." "oh, i will, sir--and greek." "that's right, my boy. remember always what dr. primrose said when he gave you horace: that no gentleman could have pretensions to sound culture who was not well-grounded in the classics. can you remember that?" twice he made me repeat it. "oh yes, sir, i can remember it," i told him. "do you suppose tom put in his name like that?" "doubtless," said dr. primrose, "minus the a.d." "i didn't know you had a middle name," i said. "buckleton was my mother's maiden name," he explained. "she was of the wiltshire buckletons, and a very good family, too." "david buckleton primrose," i read aloud. "lineal descendant of dr. charles primrose, vicar of wakefield," added the minister, so solemnly that i fairly caught my breath. i had no notion then of whom he spoke, but there was that in the chant of his deep voice and the pleasant, pompous sound he gave the title, which awed me so i could only stare at him, and then at horace, and then at him again, as he lay back solemnly in his chair, regarding me with half-shut eyes. slowly a smile overspread his features. "i was only jesting. did you never hear of the _vicar of wakefield_?" "no," i said. "there: that little yellow book on the third shelf, between the green ones. he was its hero, a famous character of oliver goldsmith's. he also was a clergyman, and his name was primrose." "oh," i said, "and did he go to rugby, sir?" now, though the doctor laughed and shook his head, somehow i got that notion in my noddle, and to this very day must stop to remember that the vicar was not a rugby boy. i have even caught myself imagining that i had read somewhere, or perhaps been told, that his middle name was buckleton. one thing, of course, was true of both primroses: they lived a.d. ii little rugby hunting fox-grapes on a saturday in fall, or rambling truantly on a fair spring morning, and chuckling to hear the school-bells calling in vain to us across the meadows, it was fine to say: "gee! if there was only a game-keeper to get into a row with!" and then hear peter's answer: "gee, yes! remember how velveteens caught tom up a tree?" it was fine, i say, because it proved that peter, too, knew _tom brown's school days_, and all about slogger williams and tom's fight with him, all about east and arthur and dr. arnold, and tom in the last chapter standing alone in the rugby chapel by the doctor's grave. one night in winter i remember keeping watch--hard-pressed was cæsar by the hordes of gaul--a merest stripling from among the legions, stealthily deserted post, braving the morrow's reckoning to linger in delicious idleness by his father's shelves. there, in a tattered copy of an old _harper's_, whose cover fluttered to the hearth-rug, his eyes fell upon a set of drawings of a gate, a quadrangle, a tower door with ivy over it, a cricket-field with boys playing and scattering a flock of sheep, a shop (at this his eyes grew wider)--a mere little englishy village-shop, to be sure, but not like others, for this, indeed, was sallie harrowell's, where tom bought baked potatoes and a pennyworth of tea! and out of one full, dark page looked dr. arnold--a face as fine and wise and tender as bertram weatherby had fancied it, so that he turned from it but to turn back again, thinking how tom had looked upon its living presence in more wondrous days. cæsar's deserter read and looked, and looked and read again, beside the hearth, forgetting the legions in the gallic wilds, forgetting the roman sentry calls for the cries of cricketers, and seeing naught but the guarded wickets on an english green and how the sheep browsed peacefully under the windows in the vines. schoolward next morning rugby and cæsar nestled together beneath his arm. he found his little rugby on a hill--a red brick school-house standing awkwardly and solemn-eyed in its threadbare playground, for all the world like a poor school-master, impoverished without, well stocked within. it was an ugly, mathematical-looking rugby, austere and angular, and without a shred of vine or arching bough for birds or dreams to nest in, yet bertram weatherby hailed it joyfully, ran lightly up its painted steps, and flung wide open its great hall-door. a flood of sound gushed forth--laughter, boisterous voices, chatter of girls, and the movement of restless feet. across the threshold familiar faces turned, smiling, familiar voices rose from the tumult, his shoulders tingled with the buffets of familiar hands. "hello, bildad!" "hello, old saw-horse!" "hello, yourself! take _that_!" but suddenly, in the midst of these savage greetings, that gentle pressure of an arm about him, and peter's voice: "hello, old man!" bertram would whirl at that, his face beaming; they had met but yesterday--it was as years ago--"hello, old man! look, peter!" but a gong clanged. then all about them was the hurry and tramp of feet upon the stairs. lost in the precious pages, they climbed together, arm in arm, drifting upward with the noisy current and through the doors of the assembly-hall. "see, bertram--the cricket-bats on the wall!" "yes; and the high street--and sallie harrowell's!" "and the doctor's door!" through another door just then their own masters were slowly filing, their own doctor last and weightiest of all, his smooth, strong face busy with some chapel reverie. "the professor's like arnold," bertram told peter as they slipped together into their double seat. the last gong clanged. there was a last bang of seats turned down, a last clatter of books upon the desks, the last belated, breathless ones fluttered down aisles with reddened cheeks, while the professor waited with the bible open in his hand. "let us read this morning the one-hundred-and-seventh psalm--psalm one hundred seven." peter was in rugby, hidden by the girl in front. the boy named bertram fixed his gaze upon the desk before him. fair and smooth it was--too smooth with newness to please a rugbeian eye. during the psalm, with his pocket-knife he cut his initials in the yellow wood, and smiled at them. in days to come other boys would sit where he was sitting, and gaze and puzzle over that rude legacy, and, if dreams came true, might be proud enough to sprawl their elbows where a famous man had lolled. they might even hang the old seat-top upon the wall, that all who ran might read the glory of an _alma mater_ in the disobedience of a mighty son. bertram weatherby gazed fondly upon his handiwork and closed his knife. time and destiny must do the rest. "let us pray." for a moment the professor stood there silently with lowered eyes. bertram and peter, their shoulders touching, bowed their heads. "_our father in heaven...._" there was no altar--only a flat-topped desk; no stained-glass windows--only the sunshine on the panes; and there a man's voice, deep and trembling, and here a school-boy's beating heart. "_ ... help us, o father, to be kinder...._" how you loved peter, the professor, and your ugly rugby on its hill! "_ ... lead us, o father, to a nobler youth...._" ay, they should know you for the man you were, deep down in your hidden soul. "_ ... give us, o father, courage for the battle...._" wait till the next time murphy bumped you on the stairs! "_ ... to put behind us all indolence of flesh and soul...._" you would study hard that term. "_ ... all heedlessness and disobedience...._" you would keep the rules. "_ ... for jesus' sake--amen._" "peter, did you see the sheep...." "if the two young gentlemen _whispering_ on the back seat--" you flushed angrily. other fellows whispered on back seats. why, always, did the whole school turn so knowingly to you? * * * * * sitting, one study-hour, in the assembly-hall, bertram's eyes wandered to the top of the _commentaries_, strayed over the book to the braids of the potter girl beyond, and on to the long, brown benches. the hum of recitations there, whispering behind him, giggling half suppressed, and the sharp rat-tat of the teacher's warning pencil came to him vaguely as in a dream. through the tall windows he saw the spotless blue of the sky, the bright-green, swaying tips of the maples, and the flight of wings. out there it was spring. two more months of cæsar--eight more dreary weeks of legions marching and barbarians bending beneath the yoke--then summer and the long vacation, knights jousting in the orchard, indians scalping on the hill. eight weeks--forty days of school. behind a sheltering grammar peter was reading hughes. over his shoulder bertram could make out tom, just come to rugby, watching the football, and that cool crab jones, fresh from a scrimmage, with the famous straw still hanging from his teeth. he read to the line of peter's shoulder, then his eyes wandered again to the school-room window. it was spring in grassy ford--it was spring in warwickshire.... "if the young _gentleman_ gazing out of the window--" "_tertia vigilia eruptionem fecerunt_"--third watch--eruption--they made. _eruptionem_--eruption--pimples--break out--sally. they made a sally at the third watch. _tertia vigilia_, ablative case. ablative of what? ablative of time. why ablative of time? because a noun denoting--oh, hang their _eruptionem_! they were dead and buried long ago. why does a fellow learn such stuff? help his english--huh! english helps his latin--that's what. _how_ does a fellow know _eruptionem_? because he's seen pimples--that's how. no sense learning latin. dead language--dead as a door-nail.... bertram weatherby drew a picture on the margin of his book--a head, shoulders, two arms, a trunk--and trousered legs. carefully, then, he dotted in the eyes--the nose--the mouth--the ears beneath the tousled hair. he rolled the shirt-sleeves to the elbows--drew the trousers-belt--the shoes. then delicately, smiling to himself the while, his head tilted, his eyes squinted like a connoisseur, he drew a straw pendent from the figure's lips. "peter, who's that?" "sh! not so loud. she'll hear you." "who's that, peter?" "hm--crab jones." "now, if the idle young gentleman drawing _pictures_--" "_tertia vigilia eruptionem fecerunt_"--oh, they did, did they? what of that?... * * * * * "rugby," said the professor, who had a way of enlivening his classes with matters of the outer world--"rugby, as i have heard my friend dr. primrose say, who was a rugby boy himself, is very different from our public schools. only the other day he was telling me of a school-mate, a professor now, who had returned to england, and who had spent a day there rambling about the ivied buildings, and searching, i suppose, for the ancient form where he had carved his name. dr. primrose told me how, as this old friend lingered on the greensward where the boys played cricket, as he himself had done on that very spot--fine, manly fellows in their white flannels--he heard not a single oath or vulgar word in all that hour he loitered there. one young player called to another who ran too languidly after the ball. '_aren't_ you playing, brown?' he cried, with a touch of irony in his voice." the professor paused. "i have heard stronger language on our playground here." he paused again, adding, impressively: "we might do well to _imitate_ our english cousins." "just what _i_ say," whispered young bertram weatherby. "the prof.'s all right," peter whispered back. and so, down-town, after school that day, behold!--sitting on stools at billy's palace lunch counter, in the odd fellow's block--two fine, manly chaps, not in white cricket flannels, to be sure, but-- "it's _some_ like sallie harrowell's," one mumbled, joyously, crunching his buttered toast, and the other nodded, taking his swig of tea. * * * * * so it came to pass that they looked reverently upon the professor with rugbeian eyes, and more admiringly as they noted new likenesses between him and the great head-master. there was a certain resemblance of glowing countenance, they told themselves, a certain ardor of voice, as they imagined, and over all a sympathy for boys. "well," he would say, stopping them as they walked together arm in arm, "if you seek peter, look for bertram--eh?" giving their shoulders a bantering shake which pleased them greatly as they sauntered on. listening to his prayers in chapel, hearing at least the murmur of them as they bowed their heads, their minds swayed by the earnestness of the great man's voice rather than by the words he uttered, they felt that glow which comes sometimes to boys who read and dream. then bertram loved the touch of peter's shoulder, and, with the memory of another doctor and another school-boy, he loved his rugby, little and meagre and vineless though it was upon its threadbare hill. when he had left it he would return some day, he thought; he would stand like tom in the last chapter; he would sit again at his old brown desk, alone, musing--missing his mate, and finding silence where happy whisperings and secret play had been--but still in the pine before him he would trace the letters he had cut, and, seeing them, he would be again the boy who cut them there. one morning, such was the fervor of the professor's voice, there was some such dream, and when it ended, prayer and dream together-- "after these exercises--" it was the professor's voice. "--i wish to see in my office bertram weatherby and peter wynne." they heard aghast. the whole school turned to them. the past rose dreadfully before their startled vision, yet for once, it seems, they could find no blemish there. down-stairs, quaking, they slipped together through the office door. the professor had not arrived. they took their stations farthest from his chair, and leaned, wondering, for support against the wall. there was a murmur of assembling classes overhead, a hurry of belated feet, and then--that well-known, awful tread. peter gulped; bertram shifted his feet, his heart thumping against his ribs, but they squared their shoulders as the door flew open and the professor, his face grave, his eyes flashing, swooped down upon them in the little room. "bertram!" "yes, sir." "peter!" "yes, sir." "i have sent for you to answer a most serious charge--most serious, indeed. i am surprised. i am astonished. two of my best pupils, two whom i have praised, not once but many times, here in this very room--two, i may say, of my favorite boys found violating, wilfully violating, the rules of this school. i could not believe the charge till i saw the evidence with my own eyes. i could not believe that boys like you--boys of good families, boys with minds far above the average of their age, would despoil, openly despoil--yes, i may say, ruthlessly despoil--the property of this school, descending--" "why, sir, what prop--" "descending," cried the professor, "to vandalism--to a vandalism which i have again and again proscribed. over and over i have said, and within your hearing, that i _would not countenance the defacing of desks_!" bertram weatherby glanced furtively at peter wynne. peter had sighed. "over and over," said the professor, "i have told you that they were not your property or mine, but the property of the people whose representative i am. yet here i find you marring their tops with jack-knives, carving great, sprawling letters--" "but, sir, at rug--" "great, ugly letters, i say, sprawling and slashed so deeply that the polished surface can never be restored." "at rug--" "what will visitors say? what will your parents say if they come, as parents should, to see the property for which they pay a tribute to the state?" "but, sir, at rug--" "bertram, i am grieved. i am grieved, peter, that boys reared to care for the neatness of their persons should prove so slovenly in the matter of the property a great republic intrusts to their use and care." "but, sir, at rug--" "i am astonished." "at rug--" "i am astounded." "at rug--" "astounded, i repeat." "at rugby, sir--" "_rugby!_" thundered the professor. "_rugby!_ and what of rugby?" "why, at rugby, sir--" "and what, pray, has rugby, or a thousand rugbys, to do with your wilful disobedience?" "they cut, sir--" "_cut_, sir!" repeated the professor. "_cut_, sir!" "yes, sir--their desks, sir." "and if they do--what then?" "well, sir, you said, you know--". "said? what did i say? i asked you to imitate the manliness of rugby cricketers. i did not ask you to carve your desks like the totem-poles of savage tribes!" his face was pale, his eyes dark, his words ground fine. "young gentlemen, i will have you know that rules must be obeyed. i will have you know that i am here not only as a teacher, but as a guardian of the public property intrusted to my care. under the rules which i am placed here to enforce, i can suspend you both--dismiss you from the privileges of the school. this once i will act with lenience. this once, young gentlemen, you may think yourselves lucky to escape with demerit marks, but if i hear again of conduct so unbecoming, so disgraceful, of vandalism so ruthless and absurd, i shall punish you as you deserve. now go." softly they shut the office door behind them. arm in arm they went together, tiptoe, down the empty hall. "well?" the gloom of a great disappointment was in their voices. "he's not an arnold, after all," they said. iii a poet of grassy ford the lesser primrose was a poet. it was believed in grassy ford, though the grounds seem vague enough now that i come to think of them, that he published widely in the literary journals of the day. letitia was seen to post large envelopes, and anon to draw large envelopes from the post-office and hasten home with them. the former were supposed to contain poems; the latter, checks. be that as it may, i never saw the primrose name in print save in our _grassy ford weekly gazette_. there, when gossip lagged, you would find it frequently in a quiet upper corner, set "solid," under the caption "gems"--a terse distinction from the other bright matters with which our journal shone, and further emphasized by the gothic capitals set in a scroll of stars. thus modestly, i believe, were published for the first time--and i fear the last--david buckleton primrose's "agamemnon," "ode to jupiter," "ulysses's farewell," "lines on rereading dante," "november: an elegy written in the autumn of life," as well as those stirring bugle-calls, "to arms!" "john brown," and "the guns of sumter," and those souvenirs of more playful tender moods, "to a lady," "when i was a rugby lad," "thanksgiving pies," and "lines written in a young lady's album on her fifteenth birthday." now that young lady was letitia, i chance to know, for i have seen the verses in her school-girl album, a little leathern christmas thing stamped with forget-me-nots now faded, and there they stand just opposite some school-mate's doggerel of "roses red and violets blue" signed johnny gray. the lines begin, i remember: "virtue is in thy modest glance, sweet child," and they are written in a flourished, old-fashioned hand. these and every other line her father dreamed there in his chair letitia treasures in a yellow scrap-book made of an odd volume of rhode island statutes for --. there, one by one, as he wrote them, or cut them with trembling fingers from the fresh, ink-scented _gazette_--"gems," scroll and all, and with date attached--she set them neatly in with home-made paste, pressing flat each precious flower of his muse with her loving fingers. editor butters used to tell me of the soft-eyed girl, "with virtue in her modest glance," slipping suddenly into his print-shop, preferably after dusk had fallen, and of the well-known envelope rising from some sacred folds, he never quite knew where, to be laid tremblingly upon his desk. "something from father, sir." it was a faint voice, often a little husky, and then a smile, a bow, and she had fled. editor nathaniel butters had a weakness of the heart for all tender things--a weakness "under oath," however, as he once replied when i charged him with it, and as i knew, for i myself heard him one summer afternoon, as he sat, shirt-sleeved and pipe in mouth, perched on a stool, and setting type hard by a window where i stood beneath fishing with a dogwood wand. "the-oc-ri-tus! humpf! now, who in thunder cares a tinker's damn for theocritus, in grassy ford? some old greek god, i suppose, who died and went to the devil; and here's a parson--a christian parson who ought to know better--writing an ode to him, for hank myers to read, and jim gowdy, and old man flynn. and i don't get a cent for it, not a blank cent, sam--well, he doesn't either, for that matter--but it's all tommy-rot, and here i've got to sweat, putting in capitals where they don't belong and hopping down to the darned old dictionary every five minutes to see if he's right--sam [turning to his printer] there's some folks think it's just heaven to be a country editor, but i'll be--" he was a rough, white-bearded, little, round, fat man, who showed me type-lice, i remember (the first and only time i ever saw the vermin), and roared when i wiped my eyes, though i've forgiven him. he was good to letitia in an hour of need. dr. primrose, it seems, had written his masterpiece, a solemn, dr. johnsonian thing which he named "jerusalem," and reaching, so old man butters told me once, chuckling, "from friday evening to saturday night." the muse had granted him a longer candle than it was her wont to lend, and letitia trembled for that sacred fire. "print it, child? of course he'll print it. it's the finest thing i ever did!" "true, father, but its length--" "not longer than milton's 'lycidas,' my dear." "i know, but--he's so--he looks so fierce, father." she laughed nervously. "who? butters?" "yes." "tut! butters has brains enough--" "it isn't his brains," replied letitia. "it's his whiskers, father." "whiskers?" "yes; they bristle so." "don't be foolish, child. butters has brains enough to know it is worth the printing. worth the printing!" he cried, with irony. "yes, even though it isn't dialect." dialect was then in vogue; no grassy ford, however small, in those days, but had its rhyming robin who fondly imagined that he might be another burns. "dialect!" the doctor repeated, scornfully, his eyes roving to the shabby ancients on his shelves. "bring me horace--that's a good girl. no--yes." his hand lingered over hers that offered him the book. "child," he said, looking her keenly in the eyes, "do you find it so hard to brave that lion?" "oh no, father. i didn't mean i was afraid, only he's so--woolly. you can hardly make out his eyes, and fire sputters through his old spectacles. i think he never combs his hair." "does he ever grumble at you?" "oh no"--and here she laughed--"that is, i never give him time; i run away." the old poet made no reply to her, but went on holding that soft little hand with the horace in it, and gazing thoughtfully at his daughter's face. "we can send it by mail," he said at last. that roused letitia. "oh, not at all!" she cried. "why, i'm proud to take it, father. mr. butters isn't so dreadful--if he _is_ fuzzy. i'm sure he'll print it. there was that letter from mr. banks last week, a column long, on carrots." he smiled dryly at her over his opened book. "if only my 'jerusalem' were artichokes instead of saracens!" he said. the fuzzy one was in his lair, proof-reading at his unkempt desk. the floor was littered at his feet. he was smoking a black tobacco in a blacker pipe. he wore no coat, no cuffs, and his sleeves were--um; it does not matter. he glared ("carnivorously," letitia tells me) at the opening door. "evening," he said, and waited; but the envelope did not arise. so he rose himself, offering a seat in the midst of his clutter, a plain, pine, rope-mended chair, from which he pawed soiled sheets of copy and tattered exchanges that she might sit. "looks some like snow," he said. "yes," she assented. "i called, mr. butters--" she paused uncertainly. it was her own voice that had disconcerted her, it was so tremulous. "another poem, i suppose," he said, fondly imagining that he had softened his voice to a tone of gallantry, but succeeding no better than might be expected of speech so hedged, so beset and baffled, so veritably bearded in its earward flight. "you--you mentioned snow, i think," stammered letitia. he had frightened her away, or she may have drawn back, half-divining, even in embarrassment, that the other, the more round-about, the snowy path, was the better way to approach her theme. "snow and east winds are the predictions, i believe, miss primrose." "i dread the winter--don't you?" she ventured. "no," he replied. "i like it." "that's because you are--" "because i'm so fat, you mean." "oh no, mr. butters, i didn't even think of that; i meant so--" and then--heavens!--it flashed across her that she had meant "woolly"! to save her soul she could think of no synonyme. her cheeks turned red. "i meant--why, of course, i meant--you're so well prepared." "well prepared," he grumbled. "why, yes, you--men can wear beards, you know." "egad! you're right," he roared. "you're right, miss primrose. i _am_ well mufflered, that's a fact." "but, really, it must be a great assistance, mr. butters." "oh yes; it is--and it saves neckties." and this, mark you, was the way to poetry! poor letitia, with the manuscript hidden beneath her cloak, was all astray. the image of the poet with horace in his lap rose before her and rebuked her. she was tempted to disclose her mission, dutifully, there and then. "how is mrs. butters?" she inquired instead. "about as well as common, which is to say, poorly--very poorly, thank you." "oh, i'm sorry." editor butters seemed downcast. "she's tried everything," he said. "even had a pocket made in her gown to hold a potato and a horse-chestnut--but this rheumatism does beat all, i tell you. how's the old gentleman?" "the doctor says he will never walk." "yes, so i heard," muttered the editor. "it's a damned shame." he was fumbling with his proofs and did not see her face--yet, after all, she could feel the sympathy even in his rudeness. "still hatching poems, i suppose?" her heart, which had warmed even as her cheeks had colored at his other words, grew cold at these. what manner of toil it was that brought forth things so pure and beautiful in her sight, what labor of love and travail of spirit it was to him, she alone would ever know who watched beside him, seeing his life thus ebbing, dream by dream. she sat silent, crumpling those precious pages in her hands. "well," butters went on, gruffly, clearing his throat, "he's a good hand at it." he was not looking at letitia, but kept his eyes upon a ring of keys with which he played nervously; and now when he spoke it was more spasmodically, as if reluctant to broach some matter for which, however, he felt the time had come. "yes, he's a good hand at it. used to be even better than he is now--but that's natural. i wish, though--you'd just suggest when it comes handy--just in a quiet sort of way, you know--some day when you get the chance--that he's getting just a leetle bit--you can say it better than i can--but i mean long-winded for the _gazette_. it's natural, of course, but you see--you see, miss primrose, if we print one long-winded piece, you know--you can see for yourself--why, every other poet in grassy ford starts firing epics at us, which is natural, of course, but--hard on me. and if i refuse 'em, why, then, they just naturally up and say, 'well, you printed primrose's; why not mine?' and there they have you--there they have you right by the--yes, sir, there they have you; and there's the devil to pay. like as not they get mad then and stop their papers, which they don't pay for--and that's natural, too, only it causes feeling and doesn't do me any good, or your father either." "but, mr. butters, you printed mr. banks's letter on carrots, and that was--" the editor fairly leaped in his chair. "there, you have it!" he cried. "just what i said! there's that confounded letter of jim banks's, column-long on carrots, a-staring me in the face from now till kingdom come when any other idiot wants to print something a column long. just what i say, miss primrose; but you must remember that the readers of the _gazette_ do raise carrots, and they _don't_ raise--well, now, for instance, and not to be mean or personal at all, miss primrose--not at all--they _don't_ raise agamemnons or theocrituses. i suppose i should say theocriti--singular, theocritus; plural, theocriti. no, sir, they don't raise theocriti--which is natural, of course, and reminds me--while we are _on_ the subject--reminds me, miss primrose, that i've been thinking--or wondering--in fact, i've been going to ask you for some time back, only i never just got the chance--ask you if you wouldn't--just kind of speak to your father, to kind of induce him, you know, to--to write on--about--well, about _livelier_ things. you see, miss primrose, it's natural, of course, for scholars to write about things that are dead and gone. they wouldn't _be_ scholars if they wrote what other people knew about. that's only natural. still--still, miss primrose, if the old gentleman _could_ just give us a poem or two on the--well, the issues of the day, you know--oh, he's a good writer, miss primrose! mind, i'm not saying a word--not a word--against that. i'd be the last--good god, what's the matter, girl! what have i done? oh, i say now, that's too bad--that's too bad, girlie. come, don't do that--don't--why, if i'd a-known--" letitia, "jerusalem" crushed in her right hand, had buried her face among the proof-sheets on his desk. woolier than ever in his bewilderment, the editor rose--sat--rose again--patted gingerly (he had never had a daughter), patted letitia's shaking shoulders and strove to soothe her with the only words at his command: "oh, now, i say--i--why, say, if i'd a-known"--till letitia raised her dripping face. "you m-mustn't mind, mr. b-butters," she said, smiling through her tears. "why, say, miss primrose, if i'd a-dreamed--" "it's all my f-fault, mr. b-butters." "damn it, no! it's mine. it's mine, i tell you. i might a-known you'd think i was criticising your father." "oh, it's not that exactly, mr. butters, but you see--" she put her hair out of her eyes and smoothed the manuscript. "egad! i see; you had one of the old gentleman's--" letitia nodded. "egad!" he cried again. "let's see, miss primrose." "oh, there isn't the slightest use," she said. "it's too long, mr. butters." "no, no. let's have a look at it." "no," she answered. "no, it's _altogether_ too long, mr. butters." "but let's have a look at it." she hesitated. his hand was waiting; but she shook her head. "no. it's the longest poem he ever wrote, mr. butters. it's his masterpiece." "by george! let's see it, then. let's see it." "why, it's as long, mr. butters--it's as long as 'lycidas.'" "long as--hm!" he replied. "still--still, miss primrose," he added, cheerfully, "that isn't so long when you come to think of it." "but that's not all," letitia said. "it's about--it's called--oh, you'll _never_ print it, mr. butters!" she rose with the poem in her hand. "print it!" cried butters. "why, of course i'll print it. i'll print it if every cussed poet in grassy--" "oh, _will_ you, mr. butters?" "will i? of course i will." he took it from her unresisting fingers. "je-ru-sa-lem!" he cried, fluttering the twenty pages. "yes," she said, "that's--that's the name of it, mr. butters," and straightway set herself to rights again. iv the seventh slice it was the editor himself who told me the story years afterwards--butters of "the pide bull," as he ever afterwards called his shop, for in her gratitude letitia had pointed out to him how natural it was that he of all men should be the patron of poets, since beyond a doubt, she averred, he was descended from that very nathaniel butter for whom was printed the first quarto edition of _king lear_. indeed, with the proofs of "jerusalem" she brought him the doctor's shakespeare, and showed him in the preface to the tragedy the record of an antique title-page bearing these very words: "printed for _nathaniel butter_, and are to be sold at his shop in _paul's_ churchyard at the signe of the pide bull neere st. austin's gate, ." "egad!" said butters, "i never heard that before. well, well, well, well." "i think there is no doubt, mr. butters," said letitia, "that he was your ancestor." "you don't say so," mumbled the delighted editor. "shouldn't wonder. shouldn't wonder now at all. i believe there was an 's' tacked on our name, some time or other, now that i come to think of it, and printer's ink always did run in the butters blood, by george!" he even meditated hanging up a sign with a pied bull upon it--or so he said--but rejected the plan as too old english for grassy ford. he never ceased, however, to refer to "my old cousin--shakespeare's publisher, you know," and in the occasional dramatic criticisms that embellished the columns of the _gazette_, all plays presented at our grand opera-house in the odd fellow's block were compared, somehow, willy-nilly, to _king lear_. butters of "the pide bull," i say, first told me how that young crusader with the tear-wet face had delivered "jerusalem," saving it from the stern fate which had awaited it and setting it proudly among the immortal "gems." then i sought letitia, whose briefer, more reluctant version filled in wide chinks in the butters narrative, while my knowledge of them both, of their modesty and their tender-heartedness, filled in the others, making the tale complete. i was too young when the poet wrote his masterpiece to know or care about it, or how it found its way to the wondering world of grassy ford--nay, to the whole round world as well, "two hemispheres," as old man butters used to remind me with offended pride in his voice, which had grown gruffer with his years. did he not send _gazettes_ weekly, he would ask, to mrs. ann bowers's eldest son, a methodist missionary in the congo wilds, and to "that woman in asia"? he referred to a grassy ford belle of other days who had married a tea-merchant and lived in chong-chong. who knows what befell the edition of that memorable _gazette_ which contained "jerusalem," set solid, a mighty column of alexandrine lines? one summer's afternoon, tramping in an adirondack wilderness, i came by chance upon the blackened ashes of a fire, and sitting meditatively upon a near-by log, poking the leaf-strewn earth with my stick, i unearthed a yellow, half-burned corner of an old newspaper, and, idly lifting it to read, found it a fragment of some australian _times_. still more recently, when my aunt matilda, waxing wroth at the settling floors of her witch-colonial house in bedfordtown, had them torn up to lay down new ones, the carpenters unearthed an old rat's nest built partially of a new york _tribune_ with despatches from the field of gettysburg. "sneer not at the power of the press," old man butters used to say, stuffing the bowl of his black pipe from my tobacco-jar and casting the match into my wife's card-tray. "who knows, my boy? davy primrose's 'jerusalem' may turn up yet." it is something to ponder now how all those years that i played away, letitia, of whom i thought then only as the young lady who lived next door and occasional confidante of my idle hours, was slaving with pretty hands and puzzling her fair young mind to bring both ends together in decent comfort for that poor dependent one. yet she does not sigh, this gray letitia among the petunias, when she talks of those by-gone days, but is always smiling back with me some happy memory. "you were the funniest boy, bertram," she tells me, "always making believe that it was old england in grassy ford, and that you were robin hood or lord somebody or earl somebody else. how father used to laugh at you! he said it was a pity you would never be knighted, and once he drew for you your escutcheon--you don't remember? well, it had three books upon it--_tom brown's school-days_, _tales of a grandfather_, and the _morte d'arthur_." then i remind her that robin saxeholm was half to blame for my early failure as an american. he was a devonshire lad; he had been a harrow boy, and was a cambridge man when he came, one summer of my boyhood, to grassy ford to visit the primroses. his father had been the doctor's dearest friend when they were boys together in devonshire, and when young robin's five-feet-eleven filled up the poet's doorway, letitia tells me, the tears ran down the doctor's cheeks and he held out both his arms to him: "robin saxeholm!--you young devon oak, you--tell me, does the dart still run?" "_he_ does, sir!" cried the young englishman, speaking, letitia says, quite in the devon manner, for those who dwell upon the banks of that famous river find, it seems, something too human in its temper and changeful moods to speak of it in the neuter way. they sat an hour together, the poet and his old friend's son, before letitia could show the guest to the room she had prepared for him. _that_ was a summer! robin taught me a kind of back-yard, two-old-cat cricket with a bat fashioned by his own big hands. sometimes letitia joined us, and the doctor watched us from his chair rolled out upon the garden walk, applauding each mighty play decorously, in the english fashion, with clapping hands. robin goodfellow, the doctor called our captain, "though a precious large one, i'll be bound," he said. letitia called him mr. saxeholm, first--then mr. robin, and sometimes, laughingly, mr. bobbin--then robin. i called him mr. bob. i made up my mind to one thing then and there: i should be happier when i grew old enough to wear white cricket flannels and a white hat like mr. bob's, and i hoped, and prayed too on my knees, that _my_ skin would be as clear and pinkish--yes, and my hair as red. alas! i had begun all wrong: i was a little beast of a brunette. i taught mr. bob baseball, showed him each hill and dale, each whimpering brook of grassy ford, and fished with him among the lilies in shady pools while he smoked his pipe and told me of cambridge and harrow-on-the-hill and the vales of devon. he had lived once, so he told me, next door to a castle, though it did not resemble warwick or kenilworth in the least. "it was just a _cah-sle_," said mr. bob, in his funny way. "with a moat, mr. bob?" "oh yes, a moat, i dare say--but dry, you know." "and a drawbridge, mr. bob?" "well, no--not precisely; at any rate, you couldn't draw it up." "but a portcullis, i'll bet, mr. bob?" "well--i _cahn't_ say as to that, i'm sure, bertram." he had lived next door to a castle, mind you, and did not know if it had a portcullis! he had never even looked to see! he had never even asked! still, mr. bob was a languid fellow, bertram weatherby was bound to admit, even in speech, and drawled out the oddest words sometimes, talking of "trams" and "guards" and "luggage-vans," which did seem queer in a college man, though bertram remembered he was not a senior and doubtless would improve his english in due time. indeed, he helped him, according to his light, and the credit is the boy's that the young britisher, after a single summer in grassy ford, could write from cambridge to letitia: "i guess i will never forget the folks in grassy ford! remember me to the little kid, my quondam guide, philosopher, and friend." robin was always pleasant with letitia, helping her with her housework, i remember, wiping her dishes for her, tending her fires, and weeding her kitchen-garden. there never had been so many holidays, she declared, gratefully, and she used to marvel that he had come so far, all that watery way from devon, yet could be content with such poor fare and such humble work and quiet pleasures in an alien land so full of wonders. yet it must have been cheerful loitering, for he stayed on, week after week. he had come intending, he confessed, to "stop" but one, but somehow had small hankering thereafter to see, he said, "what is left of america, liking your grassy fordshire, bertram, so very well." perhaps secretly he was touched by the obvious penury and helplessness of his father's friend, as well as by the daughter's loving and heavy service, so that he stayed on but to aid them in the only unobtrusive way, overpaying them, letitia says, for what he whimsically called "tuition in the quiet life," as he gently closed her fingers over the money which she blushed to take. then he would quote for her those lines from pope: "... quiet by day, sound sleep by night; study and ease together mixt, sweet recreation, and innocence, which most doth please with meditation." he read greek and latin with dr. primrose, and many an argument of ancient loves and wars i listened to, knowing by the keen-edged feeling of my teeth when the fray was over that my mouth had been wide open all the while. letitia, too, could hear from the kitchen where she made her pies, for it was a conversational little house, just big enough for a tête-à-tête, as dr. primrose used to say, and when debate waxed high, she would stand sometimes in the kitchen doorway, in her gingham apron, wiping the same cup twenty times. "young devon oak," the doctor called him, sometimes half vexed to find how ribbed and knotty the young tree was. "we'll look it up, then," he would cry, "but i know i'm right." "you'll find you are mistaken, i think, doctor." "well, now, we'll see. we'll see. you're fresh from the schools and i'm a bit rusty, i'll confess, but i'm sure i'm--here, now--hm, let's see--why, can that be possible?--i didn't think so, but--by george! you're right. you're right, sir. you're right, my boy." he said it so sadly sometimes and shut the book with an air so beaten, lying back feebly in his chair, that robin, letitia says, would lead the talk into other channels, merely to contend for ground he knew he could never hold, to let the doctor win. it was fine to see him then, the roused old gentleman, his eyes shining, sitting bolt upright in his chair waving away the young man's arguments with his feeble hand. "i think you are right, doctor, after all. i see it now. you make it clear to me. yes, sir, i'm groggy. i'm down, sir. count me out." and you should have seen the poet then in his triumph, if victory so gracious may be called by such a name. there was no passing under the yoke--no, no! he would gaze far out of the open window, literally overlooking his vanquished foe, and delicately conveying thus a hint that it was of no utter consequence which had conquered; and so smoothing the young man's rout, he would fall to expatiating, soothingly, remarking how natural it was to go astray on a point so difficult, so many-sided, so subtle and profound--in short, speaking so eloquently for his prone antagonist, expounding so many likely arguments in defence of that lost cause, one listening would wonder sometimes who had won. evenings, when letitia's work was done, she would come and sit with us, robin and me, upon the steps. there in the summer moonlight we would listen to his tales, lore of the dartmoor and exmoor wilds, until my heart beat strangely at the shadows darkening my homeward way when the clock struck ten. grape-vines, i noted then, were the very place for an ambush by the doones, of whom they talked so much, robin and letitia! later, when the grapes were ripe, a doone could regale himself, leisurely waiting to step out, giant-wise, upon his prey! there were innumerable suspicious rustlings as i passed, and in particular a certain strange--a dreadful _brushing_ sound as of ghostly wings when i squeezed, helpless, through the worn pickets!--and then i would strike out manfully across the lawn. one day in august--it was august, i know, for it was my birthday and robin had given me a rod and line--we took letitia with us to the top of sun dial, a bald-crowned hill from which you see all grassy fordshire green and golden at your feet. leaving the village, we crossed a brook by a ford of stones and plunged at once into the wild wood, forest and ancient orchard that clothed the slope. i was leading--to show the way. robin followed with letitia--to help her over the rocks and brambles and steeper places of the long ascent, which was far more arduous than one might think, looking up at it from the town below. i strode on proudly, threading the narrow hunter's trail i knew by heart, a remnant of an old wagon-lane long overgrown. i strode on swiftly, i remember, breaking the cob-webs, parting the fragrant tangle that beset the way--vines below, branches above me--keeping in touch the while, vocally, when the thickets intervened, with the pair that followed. i could hear them laughing together over the green barriers which closed behind me, and i was pleased at their troubles among the briers. i had led them purposely by the roughest way. robin, stalking across the ford, had made himself merry with my short legs, and i had vowed secretly that before the day was out he should feel how long those legs could be. "i'll show you, mr. bob," i muttered, plunging through the brushwood, and setting so fast a pace it was no great while before i realized how faintly their voices came to me. "hello-o!" i cried. "h'lo-o!" came back to me, but from so far behind me i deemed it wiser to stop awhile, awaiting their approach. the day was glorious, but quiet for a boy. the world was nodding in its long, midsummer nap, and no birds sang, no squirrels chattered. i looked in vain for one; but there were berries and the mottled fruit of an antique apple-tree to while the time away--and so i waited. i remember chuckling as i nibbled there, wondering what mr. bob would say of those short legs which had outstripped him. i fancied him coming up red and breathless to find me calmly eating and whistling between bites--and i did whistle when i thought them near enough. i whistled "dixie" till i lost the pucker, thinking what fun it was, and tried again, but could not keep the tune for chuckling. and so i waited--and then i listened--but all the wood was still. "hello-o!" i cried. there was no answer. "hello-o!" i called again, but still heard nothing in reply save my own echo. "_hello-o!_" i shouted. "_hello-o!_" till the wood rang, and then they answered: "h'lo-o!" but as faint and distant as before. they had lost their way! "_wait!_" i shouted, plunging pell-mell through the bushes. "wait where you are! i'm coming!" and so, hallooing all the way, while robin answered, i made my way to them--and found them resting on a wall. "hello," i said. "hello," said robin. "we aren't mountain-goats, you know, bertram." i grinned gleefully. "i thought my legs were so short?" i said. "and so they are," he replied, calmly, "but you go a bit too fast, my lad--for letty." i had forgotten letitia! revenging myself on robin, it was she alone who had suffered, and my heart smote me as i saw how pale she was, and weary, sitting beside him on the wall. yet she did not chide me; she said nothing, but sat there resting, with her eyes upon the wild-flower which she plucked to pieces in her hand. we climbed more slowly and together after that. i was chagrined and angry with myself, and a little jealous that robin saxeholm, friend of but a summer-time, should teach me thoughtfulness of dear letitia. all that steep ascent i felt a strange resentment in my soul, not that robin was so kind and mindful of her welfare, guiding her gently to where the slope was mildest, but that it was not i who helped her steps. i feigned indifference, but i knew each time he spoke to her and i saw how trustingly she gave her hand. and i was envious--yes, i confess it--envious of robin for himself, he was so stalwart; and besides, his coat and trousers set so rarely! they were of some rough, brownish, scotchy stuff, and interwoven with a fine red stripe just faintly showing through--oh, wondrous fetching! such ever since has been my ideal pattern, vaguely in mind when i enter tailor-shops, but i never find it. it was woven, i suppose, on some by-gone loom; perhaps at thrums. reaching the summit and drinking in the sweet, clear, skyey airs, with grassy fordshire smiling from all its hills and vales for miles about us, i forgot my pique. "what about water?" letitia asked. i knew a spring. "i'll go," said robin. "where is it, bertram?" "oh no, you won't!" i cried, fiercely. "that's my work, mr. bob. you're not the only one who can help letitia." he looked astonished for a moment, but laughed good-naturedly and handed me his flask. letitia smiled at me, and i whistled "dixie" as i disappeared. i hurried desperately till i lost my breath; i skinned both knees; i wellnigh slipped from a rocky ledge, yet with all my haste i was a full half-hour gone, and got back red and panting. they had waited patiently. famished as they were, neither had touched a single mouthful. letitia said, "thank you, bertram," and handed me a slice of the bread and jam. she seemed wondrous busy in our service. robin was silent--and i guessed why. "i didn't mean to be rough," i said. "rough?" he asked. "when were you rough, bertie?" "about the water." "oh," he said, putting his hand upon my shoulder. "i never thought of it, old fellow," and my heart smote me for the second time that day, seeing how much he loved me. letitia, weary with our hard climbing, ate so little that robin chided her, very gently, and i tried banter. "wake up! this is a picnic." but they did not rally, so i sprang up restlessly, crying, "it's not like our other good times at all." "what!" said robin, striving to be playful. "only six slices, bertram? this is our last holiday. eat another, lad." then i understood that gloom on sun dial: he was going to leave us. boylike, i had taken it for granted, i suppose, that we would go on climbing and fishing and playing cricket in grassy ford indefinitely. he was to go, he said, on monday. "news from home, mr. bob?" he was silent a moment. "well, no, bertie." "then why not stay?" i urged. "stay till september." he shook his head. "eat one more slice for me," i can hear him drawling. "i'll cut it--and a jolly fat one it shall be, bertram--and letty here, she'll spread it for you." here mr. bob began to cut--wellnigh a quarter of the loaf he made it. "lots of the jam, letty," he said to her. "and you'll eat it, bertram--and we'll call it--we'll call it the covenant of the seventh slice--never to forget each other. eh? how's that?" now, i did not want the covenant at all, but he was so earnest; and besides, i was afraid letitia might think that i refused the slice because of the tears she had dropped upon it, spreading the jam. v the handmaiden robin gone, i saw but little of letitia, i was so busy, i suppose, with youth, and she with age. the poet's lamp had burned up bravely all that summer-time, its flame renewed by robin's coming--or, rather, it was the brief return of his own young english manhood which he lived again in that fine, clean devon lad. robin gone, he felt more keenly how far he was from youth and devonshire, what a long journey he had come to age and helplessness, and his feeble life burned dimmer than before. two or three years slipped by. the charm was gone which had drawn me daily through the hole in our picket-fence. even the doctor's rugby tales no longer held me, i knew them so by heart. when he began some old beginning, my mind recited so much more glibly than his faltering tongue, i had leaped to the end before he reached the middle of his story. he was given now to wandering in his narratives, and while he droned there in his chair, my own mind wandered where it listed, or i played restlessly with my cap and tried hard not to yawn, longing to be out-of-doors again. many a time has my conscience winced, remembering that eagerness to desert one who had been so kind to me, who had led my fancies into pure-aired ways and primrose paths--a little too english and hawthorn-scented, some may think, for a good american, but we meant no treason. he, before robin, had given my mind an old-world bent never to be altered. only last evening, with master shallow and a certain well-known portly one of windsor fame, i drank right merrily and ate a last year's pippin with a dish of caraways in an orchard of ancient gloucestershire. before me as i write there hangs a drawing of pretty sally of the alley and the song. between the poet and that other younger devonshire lad, they wellnigh made me an english boy. we heard from robin--rather, letitia did. he never wrote to me, but sent me his love in letitia's letters and a book from london, _lorna doone_, for the christmas following his return. letitia told me of him now and then. she knew when he left cambridge and we sent him a present--or, rather, letitia did--_essays of emerson_, which she bought with money that could be ill-spared, and she wrote an inscription in it, "from grassy fordshire, in memory of the seventh slice." she knew when he went back home to devon, and then, soon afterwards, i believe, when he left england and went out to india. now, she did not tell me that wonderful piece of news till it was old to her, which was strange, i thought. i remember my surprise. i had been wondering where robin was and saying to her that he must be in london--perhaps in parliament!--making his way upward in the world, for i never doubted that he would be an earl some day. "oh no," letitia said, when i mentioned london. "he is in india." "india! mr. bob in india?" "yes. he went--why, he went last autumn! didn't you know?" no, i did not know. why, i asked, and as reproachfully as i could make the question--why had she never told me? she must have forgotten, she replied, penitent--there were so many things to remember. true, i argued, but she ought at least to have charged her mind with what was to me such important news. mr. bob and i were dear, dear friends, i reminded her. he had gone to india, and i had not known! she knew it, she said, humbly. she would never forgive herself. i did not go near her for days, i remember, and long afterwards her offence still rankled in my mind. had she not spread that slice on sun dial, never to forget? when next i saw her i made a rebuking point of it, asking her if she had heard from robin. she shook her head. months passed and no letter came. "we don't see you often any more, bertram," her father said to me one day. "no," i stammered. "i'm--" "busy studying, i suppose," he said. "yes, sir; and ball-games," i replied. "how do you get on with your latin?" he inquired, feebly. "we're still in virgil, sir." "ah," he said, but without a trace of the old vigor the classics had been wont to rouse in him. "that's good--won'erful writer--up--" he was pointing with his bony fore-finger. "yes?" i answered, wondering what he meant to say. he roused himself, and pointed again over my shoulder. "up there--on the--s'elf." he was so ghastly white i thought him dying and called letitia. "'s all right, bertram," he reassured me, patting my hand. i suppose he had seen the terror in my face. he smiled faintly. "'m all right, bertram." outside the apple-trees were blooming, i remember, and he lived, somehow, to see them bloom again. my conscience winces, as i say, to think how i twirled my cap by my old friend's bedside, longing to be gone; yet i comfort myself with the hope that he did not note my eagerness, or that if he did he remembered his own boyhood and the witchery of bat and ball. not only was the poet's life-lamp waning, not only was letitia burdened with increasing cares, fast aging her, the mater said, but i was a child no longer; a youth, now, mindful of all about me, and seeing that neighbor household with new and comprehending eyes. the very house grew dismal to me. the boughs outside were creeping closer--not to shelter it, not to cool it and make a breathing nook for a lad flushed with his games in the summer sun. it was damp there; the air seemed mouldy under the lindens; there was no invitation in the unkempt grass; toads hopped from beneath your feet, bird-songs came to you, but always, or so it seemed to me, they came from distance, from the yards beyond. there within, across that foot-worn threshold which had been a goal for me in former years, there was now a--not a poet any longer, or rugby boy, but only a sick old man. upon a table at his side his goblets stood, covered with saucers, and a spoon in each. his drugs were watery; there was no warmth in them, no sparkle even when the sun came straggling in, no wine of life to be quaffed thirstily--only a tepid, hourly spoonful to be feebly sipped, a sop to death. even with windows open to the breeze the air seemed stifling to the lad i was. the sunlight falling on the faded carpet seemed always ebbing to a kind of shadow of a glow. the clock, that ugly box upon the shelf, ticked dreadfully as if it never would strike a smiling hour again. the china ornaments at its side stood ghastly mute, and hideous flowers--_ffff!_ those waxen faces under glass! if not quite dead, why were they kept so long a-dying there? would no kind, sunny soul in mercy free them from their pallid misery? i was a prince of youth! what had i to do with tombs? i fled. even letitia, kind as ever to me, seemed always busy and preoccupied--sweeping, dusting, baking, cleansing those everlasting pots and pans, or reading to her father, who listened dreamily, dozing often, but always waking if she stopped. content to have her at his side because discontent to have her absent, even for the little while her duties or the doctor's orders led her, though quite unwillingly, away. impatience for her return would make him querulous, which caused her tears, not for its failing consciousness of her devotion, but for its warning to her of his gentle spirit's slow decline despite her care. "where have you been so long, letitia?" "so long, father? only an hour gone." "only an hour? i thought you would never come." "see, father, i've brought you a softer pillow," she would say, smiling his plaints into oblivion. it was the smile with which she had caught the grape-thief by the fence, the one with which she had charmed a devonshire lad, now gone three years and more--the tenderest smile i ever saw, save one, and the saddest, though not mournful, it was so genuine, so gentle, and so unselfish, and her eyes shone lovingly the while. its sadness, as i think now of it, lay not so much in the smile itself as in the wonder of it that she smiled at all. the mater--was she not always mother to the motherless?--was letitia's angel in those weary days, carried fresh loaves of good brown bread to her, a pot of beans, or a pie, perhaps, passing with them through the hole in the picket-fence. i can see her now standing on letitia's kitchen doorstep with the swathed dish in her hands. "the good fairy," letitia called her; and when she was for crying--for cry she must sometimes, though not for the world before her father's eyes--she shed her tears in the kitchen in the mater's arms. so it was that while i was yet a school-boy an elder sister was born unto our house and became forever one of the weatherbys by a tie--not of blood, i have said before, yet it was of blood, now that i come to think of it--it was of gentle, gentle human blood. there was an old nurse now to share letitia's vigils, but only the daughter's tender hands knew how to please. she scarcely left him. doctor or friends met the same answer, smiling but unalterable: she would rather stay. not a night passed that she did not waken of her own anxiety to slip softly to his bedside. he smiled her welcome, and she sat beside him with his poor, thin hand in hers, sometimes till the dawn of day. day by day like that, all through the silent watches of the darkened world, that gentle handmaiden laid her sacrifice upon the altar of her duty, without a murmur, without one bitter word. it was her youth she laid there; it was her girlhood and her bloom of womanhood, her first, her very last young years--sparkle of eyes, rose and fulness of maiden cheeks, the golden moments of that flower-time when love goes choosing, playtime's silvery laughter and blithe, untrammelled song. "'titia," he said to her, "there's no poem--'alf so beaut'ful--'s your love, m' dear." the words were a crown to her. he set it on her bowed head with his trembling fingers. "soft--brown 'air," he murmured. he could not see how the gray was coming there. spring came, scenting his room with apple blooms; summer, filling it with orient airs--but he was gone. vi cousin dove up in the attic of the primrose house one day, i was helping letitia with those family treasures which were too antiquated for future usage, but far too precious with memories to cast out utterly--discarded laces, broken fans, pencilled school-books, dolls and toys that had been letitia's, the very cradle in which she had been rocked by the mother she could not remember, even the little home-made pieced and quilted coverlet they had tucked about her while she slept. she folded it, and i laid it carefully in a wooden box. "how shall we fill it?" i asked her, gazing at the odds and ends about my feet. "with these," she said, bringing me packages of old newspapers, each bundle tied neatly with a red ribbon, too new and bright ever to have been worn. i glanced carelessly at the foolish packages, as i thought them--then suddenly with a new interest. "why," i said, "they're papers from bombay!" "yes," she answered. "where robin is?" i asked. there was no reply from the garret gloom. "did mr. bob send them?" she was busy in a chest. "what did you ask, bertram?" she inquired, absently. "did mr. bob send these bombay papers?" "oh," she answered, "those?" she paused a moment. "no," she told me. "oh," said i, much disappointed, "i thought he might. they're last year's papers, too, some of them." "do they fill the box?" she asked. "yes," i said. "shall i nail the cover on?" "oh, don't _nail_ it," she protested, shuddering. "we won't put any cover on, i think; at least--not yet." long before dr. primrose died he had planned with letitia what she should do without him. his home then would be hers, and she was to sell it and become a school-mistress, the one vocation for which his classical companionship had seemed to fit her and to which her own book-loving mind inclined. left alone then she tried vainly to dispose of her little property, living meanwhile with us next door to it, and gradually, chiefly with my own assistance and the mater's, packing and storing the few possessions from which she could not bring herself to part. to editor butters she presented an old edition of _king lear_; to me, not one, but many of her father's best-loved books, which she fancied might be of charm and use to me. of relatives across the sea letitia knew little beyond a few strange names she had heard her father speak, and in her native and his adopted land she had no kinsfolk she had ever seen save a distant cousin as far removed from her in miles as blood, and remembered chiefly as a marvellously brocaded waistcoat with pearl buttons, to which she had raised her timorous eyes on his only visit to her father years ago. apparently, this little girl had gone no farther up. she could never remember a face above that saffron vest, and, what was still more remarkable, considering her shyness, was never certain even of the knees and boots that must have been somewhere below. now the yellow waistcoat, whose name was george--cousin george mclean--had a daughter dove, or cousin dove, as letitia called her, concerning whom we always used to smile and wonder, so that in course of time myths had grown up about the girl whom none of us had ever seen and of whom we had no notions save the idle fancies suggested by her odd, sweet, unforgettable little name. the mater had always said that she must be a quaint and demure little thing--in short, dovelike. that, my father argued, was quite unlikely, since he had never known a child to mature in keeping with a foolish, flowery, or pious christian name. he had never known a human lily to grow up tall and pale and slender, or a violet to be shy and modest and petite, or a faith or hope or patience to be singularly spiritual and mild. for example, there was charity b----, of grassy ford, who hinted that heaven was presbyterian, and that she knew folks, not a thousand miles off, either, who would never be--presbyterians, my father said; and so, he added, it was dollars to dough-nuts that cousin dove was not at all dovelike, but a freckled and red-haired, roistering, tomboy little thing. letitia had a notion, she scarce knew how or why, that cousin dove was not birdlike, but like a flower, she said--a white-and-pink-cheeked british type with fluffy yellow hair and a fondness for candy, trinkets, and even boys. as for myself, i had two notions as a boy--one for the forum, the other for my cell. the first was simply that cousin dove was pale and tall and frigid beyond endurance. i could see her, i declared, going to church somewhere with two little black-and-gilt books held limply in her hand--and she had green eyes, i said. on the other hand, privately, i kept a far different portrait in mind--a gilded one, rather a golden vision by way of analogy, i suppose, for was not dove the veritable daughter of a gorgeous, saffron-hued brocade? from yellow waistcoat to cloth of gold is but a step for a bookish boy. she was tall and stately, i told myself; and as i saw her then, her mediæval robe clung lovingly about her, plain but edged with pearls (seed-pearls i think they called them in the old romances), and she had a necklace of larger pearls, loops of them hanging a golden cross upon her bosom. her face was radiant, her eyes blue, her hair golden, and she wore a coronal of meadow flowers. i do not mean that i really fancied cousin dove was so in flesh and blood, but such to me was the spirit of her gentle name, the spell of which had conjured up for me in some rare moment of youthful fancy this lady of the marigolds, this christmas-card st. dove. in the midst of letitia's sad uprooting of her old garden, as she called the only home she had ever known, a letter came from the yellow waistcoat conveying surprising news. dove herself was leaving for grassy ford to persuade her cousin to return with her and dwell henceforth with the mcleans. a thrill ran through our little household at the thought of that approaching maid of dreams. now we should know, the mater said, that the girl was dovelike. "humpf!" was my father's comment. letitia trembled, she said, with a return of her childish awe of the yellow waistcoat. i myself was stirred--i was still in teens, and dreaded girls i had never met. on the july morning that was to bring her, i rose early, i remember, and took down my fishing-rod. "not a bad idea, either," remarked my father, as he stood watching me. "still," he added, "there's no hurry, bertram. she'll want to change her dress first, you know." i made no answer. "it's a bit selfish though," he continued, "to be carrying her off this way the very first morning." "mother," i said, coolly, "will you put up some sandwiches? i may not be back till dark." "why, bertram! going fishing on the day--" "i don't really see what that's got to do with it," i interrupted. "must i give up all my fun because a mere girl's coming?" "no, bertram," said my father, in his kindest tones. "go, by all means, and here [he was rummaging in the bookcase drawer]--here, my son, take these along, these old field-glasses. they may come handy. you can see our yard, you know, from the top of sun dial--and the front porch. splendid fishing up on sun dial--" but i was off. "bertram! bertram!" called my mother, but i did not heed her. i stopped at a grocery for cheese and crackers, and strode off to the farthest brook--farthest, i mean, from sun dial. troublesome brook, it was called, not so much for the spring freshets that spread it over the lower meadows as for the law-suits it had flowed through in its fickle course between two town-ships and good farm-lands. under its willows i cooled my wrath and disentangled my knotted tackle. the stream flowed silently. there was no wind, no sound, indeed, but the drone of insects; all about me was a world in reverie, mid-summer-green save for the white and blue above and the yellow wings of vagrant butterflies and the sun golden on the meadows. many a time i have fished in that very spot. it is a likely one for idleness and for larger fish than any i ever caught there, and waiting for them as a boy i used to read in the little pocket-fitting books i dote on to this day--they fit the hand so warmly, unlike their bigger brethren, who at the most give you three-fingers' courtesy. there on that same moist bank i have sounded deeper pools than troublesome's, and have come home laden with unlooked-for spoil that glistens still in a certain time-worn upper creel of mine. but i had no book that day, having forgotten one in my hurried parting, and i had not yet mastered that other tranquil art of packing little bowls with minced brown meditation--so i was restless. the world seemed but half awake. i chafed at the stillness. before, i had found it pleasant; now it nettled me. i frowned impatiently at my cork dozing on the waters. i roused it savagely, and gazed up at the sun. "queer," i said to myself. "queer it should be so late this morning"--but i did not mean the sun. trains from the west glide into grassy ford on a long curve following the trend of troublesome and the pastoral valley through which it runs. it is a descending grade down which the cars plunge roaring as though they had gathered speed rather than slackened it, and as though they would run the gantlet of the ugly buildings and red freight-cars that, from the windows of the train, are all one sees of our lovely town. now the black arrow was the pride of the x., y. & z., and all that summer had arrived in the nick of its schedule time. "funny," said i to myself, looking at the sun. "funny it should be late this morning." i pulled up my hook and cast it in again. my cork shook itself--yawned, i was about to say, and settled down again as complacently as before. leisurely the ripples widened and were effaced among the shadows. what right had any one to assume that i had not long planned to go a-fishing that very morning? i pulled up my line again. even a father should not presume on the kinship of his son. i dropped my bait into a likelier hole. besides, i was not a child any longer, to be bullyragged by older people. had i not gone fishing a hundred times?--yet no one had ever deemed it odd before. my float drifted against a snag. i jerked it back. it was the only unpleasant trait my father had. again i squinted at the sun. "queer," said i, "it should be so late this morning." i pulled up my-- hark! _that_ was a whistle! there would be just time to reach the open if i ran! i ran. breathless, i made the meadow fence and clambered up--and saw her train go by. yes, i--i waved to it. suppose she had seen me! i was only some truant farm-boy on a rail. her train ran by me in a cloud of dust and clattered on among the freight-cars. i heard the rumble die away, but the bell kept ringing. the brakeman, doubtless, would help her off--letitia would be waiting with out-stretched arms--girls are such fools for kissing--and then father would take her bag, and the surrey would whisk her off to the mater, bareheaded at the gate. rails are sharp sitting; let us look at the cork again. it was calm as ever and nestling against a snag. i pulled up my line till the bait emerged, limp, unnibbled. savagely i swished it back--it caught in the willows. i pulled. it would not budge. in a sudden rage i whipped out my pocket-knife, severed the cord as high above me as i could reach, and wrapping the remnant about my rod, turned townward. a dozen yards from the faithless stream, i remembered my cheese and crackers, and went back for them, and started off again, purposeless. never before had vagabondage on a golden morning seemed irksome to me. it was not that i wished to see cousin dove, but merely that i had no desire to do anything else--a different matter. only one way was really barred to me, since in point of pride i could not go homeward till the sun sank, yet all other ways seemed shorn somehow of their old delights, i knew so well every stick and stone of them. while i was dallying thus, irresolute, i thought of "the pide bull" and my old friend butters. it was inspiration. in twenty minutes (mindful of my father's eyes meanwhile) i had reached the shop. "hello," he growled, as i appeared. "you here again?" "yep." "what do you want?" "nothing." "humpf! help yourself, then." "mr. butters, what kind of type is this?" "what type?" "this type." "what good ' it do to tell you? you won't remember it, if i do." "yes, i will." "you won't know ten minutes after i tell you." "go on, mr. butters. tell me." "well, if you must know, it's b'geois." "b-what?" "b'geois, i tell you, and i won't tell you again, either." "how do you spell it, mr. butters?" "say, what do you think i am? i haven't got time to sit here all day and answer questions." "but how do you spell it, mr. butters?" "dictionary's handy, isn't it?" "you ought to know how to spell it," i remarked, fluttering the dictionary. "who said i didn't know how to spell it?" "you told me to look it up." "did, hey? and what d' i do it for? d' you think i've got time to be talking to every young sprig like you?" "here it is, mr. butters. it's spelled b-o-u-r-g-e-o-i-s." "precisely," said the editor--"b-o-u-r-g-o-i-s, bur-joyce." "no--g-_e_-o-i-s, mr. butters." "just what i said." "you left out the 'e.'" "why, confound you, what do you mean by telling me i don't know my own business?" "i was only fooling, mr. butters. you did say the 'e,' of course." "you're a liar!" he promptly answered. "i didn't say the 'e,' and you know it!" he broke off into a roar of triumphant laughter, but well i knew who had won the day. he was mine--he and "the pide bull," and the story of his wife's uncle's old yellow rooster, and the twenty legends of tommy rice, the sexton, who "stuttered in his walk, by george!"--yes, and the famous narrative of how mr. butters thrashed the barkeep--all, all his darling memories were mine till sunset if i chose to listen. he took me to luncheon at the palace hotel near by his shop, and afterwards mellowed perceptibly over his pipe, as we sat together in the clutter of paper about his desk waiting for the one-o'clock whistle to blow him to work again. "how old are you?" he asked. "eighteen," said i, half ashamed i was no more. "beautiful age," he mused, nodding his head and stroking his warm, black bowl. "beautiful age, my boy." he spoke so mildly that i waited, silent and a little awed to have come so near him unawares, and feeling the presence of some story he had never told before. but the whistle blew one o'clock and he rose and put on his apron, and went back to his case again, talking some nonsense about the weather; and though i lingered all afternoon, he was nothing but the old, gruff printer, and never afterwards did i catch him nooning and thinking of the age he said was beautiful. it was six when i took up my fishing-tackle and went home to supper, whistling. i found the mater in the kitchen. "ah," she said. "what luck, bertram?" "none," i replied. "the fish weren't biting." "_oh_, that's too bad. you must be tired." "i am, and hungry. is father home?" "not yet. come, you must meet--" but i ran up the kitchen staircase to the hall above. safe in my room, i could hear a murmuring from letitia's. hers was a front room, mine a rear one, and a long hall intervened, so i made nothing of the voices. i scrubbed and lathered till my nose was red and shining beautifully. then i drew on my sunday suit, in which i always stood the straighter, and my best black shoes, in which i always stamped the louder, and my highest, whitest collar, and my best light silk cravat--a christmas present from letitia, a wondrous thing of pale, sweet lavender, 'in which not solomon--though it _would_ hike up behind. it was not like other ties, and while i was struggling there i heard the supper knell. i pulled fiercely. the soft silk crumpled taut--and the bow stuck up seven ways for sunday. so i unravelled it again--looped it once more with trembling fingers, for i heard the voices on the stairs, and jerked it into place--but what a jumble! "bertram! bertram!" it was father's voice. "supper, bertram." "in a minute." the face in the glass was red as a sunset in harvest-time. the eyes i saw there popped wildly. "bertram!" "yes; i hear you! [confound it.]" "supper, bertram. we are all waiting." i deigned no answer. then father rang. oh, i knew it was father. i looped desperately and hauled again like a sailor at his cordage, and so, muttering, wrung out a bow-knot. then in the mirror i took a last despairing look, leaped for the doorway, slipped, stumbled, and almost fell upon the stairs, hearing below me a lusty warning--"here he comes!"--and so emerged, rosy, a youth-illumined, with something lavender, they tell me, fluttering in my teeth (and something blood-red, i could tell them, trembling in my heart). and there she was! there she stood in the smiling midst of them, smiling herself and giving me her hand--cousin dove--cousin dove mclean, at the first sight of whom my shyness vanished. "your tie, my son, seems a trifle--" so _this_ was cousin dove?--this was the daughter of the golden waistcoat--this brown-eyed school-girl with brown--no, as i lived!--red hair. vii of hamadryads and their spells it was a golden summer that last of my youth at home, with cousin dove to keep us forever smiling. she was just eighteen and of that blessed temperament which loves each day for its gray or its sunny self. she coaxed letitia out-of-doors where they walked much in the mater's garden with their arms about each other's waist. letitia's pace was always deliberate, while dove had the manner of a child restrained, as if some blithe and skipping step would have been more pleasant, would have matched better her restless buoyancy, her ever upturned beaming face as she confided in the elder woman--what? what do girls talk so long about? i used to marvel at them, wondering what dove could find so merry among our currant-vines. she was a child beside letitia. she had no memories to modulate that laughing voice of hers, no tears to quench the twin flames dancing in her eyes, and never an anxious thought in those days to cast its shadow there where her hair--red, i first called it; it was pure chestnut--brown, i mean, with the red just showing through, and wondrous soft and pretty on the margin of her fair white forehead, where it clung like tendrils of young scampering vine reddening in the april sun. even letitia, whose present seemed always twilit, was tempted by-and-by into claiming something of that heritage of youth of which she had been so long deprived. from mere smiling upon her gay young cousin she fell to making little joyous venturings herself into our frolics, repartees, and harmless badinage--"midsummer madness," father called it--a sort of scarlet rash, he said, which affected persons loitering on starlit evenings on the porch or wandering under trees. he was the soul of our table banter, and after supper sat with us on the steps smoking his cigar and "devilling," as he said, "you younger caps and bells." whom he loved he teased, after the fashion of older men, and dove was the chief butt of that rude fondness. it was not his habit to caress, but his eyes twinkled at his fair victim. "and to think, dove," he was wont to say-when she had charmed him, "that bertram here swore that you carried prayer-books and had green eyes!" "and what did you prophesy, uncle weatherby?" "i? the truth." "and what was that?" "why, _i_ said you were an angel, though a little frolicsome perhaps, and with beautiful auburn hair. did i not, my son?" "no, sir. you thought she would be a tomboy with red--" "precisely," he would interrupt. "you see, my dear, how in every particular i am corroborated by my son." into these quiet family tournaments, letitia, as i have said, was slowly drawn, but it was a new world to her and she was timid in it. doctor primrose had been endowed with wit, even with a quiet, subtle humor in which his daughter shared, but beneath their lighter moments there had flowed always an undercurrent of that sad gravity which tinged their lives together. if they were playful in each other's company, it was out of pity for each other's lot, his in his chair, hers by its side, rather than because they could not help the jest. it was meant to cheer each other--that kind of tender gayety which, however fanciful, however smiling, ends where it begins--in tears unshed. waters in silent woodland fountains, all untouched by a single gleam from the sky above the boughs, lose sometimes their darker hues and turn to amber beneath the fallen leaves--but they are never golden like the meadow pools; they never flash and sparkle in the sun. letitia was not yet thirty; life stretched years before her yet; so, coaxed by cousin dove and me, she gave her hands to us, half-delighted, half-afraid. here now, at last, were holidays, games, tricks, revels, the mummery and masque, the pipe and tabor--all the rosy carnival of youth. her eyes kindled, her heart beat faster as we led her on--but at the first romp failed her. it was beautiful, she pleaded--only let her smile upon it as from a balcony--she could not dance--she had never learned our songs. we did not urge her. she sat with the mater and smiled gladly upon our mirth. in all the frolics of that happy summer her eyes were always on cousin dove, as if, watching, she were thinking to herself--enviously, often sadly, i have no doubt, but through it all lovingly and with a kind of pride in that grace and flowerness-- "there is the girl i might have been." dove, even when she seemed the very spirit of our effervescence, kept always a certain letter of that lovely quaintness which her name implied. she _was_ a dove, the mater said, reminding us for the hundredth time of her old prediction--a dove always, even among the magpies; meaning, i suppose, father and myself. it was not all play that summer. i was to enter college in the fall, and i labored at exercises, helped not a little by a voice still saying: "that's right, my boy. remember what dr. primrose said when he gave you horace." now was i under the spell of that ancient life which had held him thralled to his very end. mine were but meagre vistas, it is true, but i caught such glimpses of marble beauty through the pergola of time, as made me a little proud of my far-sightedness. seated with dove and letitia beneath a favorite oak, half-way up sun dial, i discoursed learnedly, as i supposed, only to find that in classic lore the poet's daughter was better versed than i. she brightened visibly at the sound of ancient names; they had been the music of her father's world, and from earliest childhood she had listened to it. seated upon the grass, i, the school-boy, expounded text-book notes. she, the daughter of "old david homer," as butters called him, told us bright tales of gods and heroes, nymphs and flowers and the sailing clouds shell-pink in the setting sun. they had been to her what _mother goose_ and _robinson crusoe_ had been to me; they had been her fairy stories, told her at eve ere she went to bed; and now as she told them, an eager winsomeness crept upon her, her voice was sweeter, her face was glorified with something of that roseate light in which her scenes were laid; she was a child again, and dove and i, listening, were children with her, asking more. she sat bolt-upright while she romanced for us. i lay prone before her with my chin upon my hands, nibbling grass-stalks. dove, like letitia, sat upon the turf, now gazing raptly with her round brown eyes at the story-teller's face, now gazing off at the purple woodland distance or at grassy ford's white spires among the elms below. "why, letty, you're a poetess," dove once said, so breathlessly that letitia laughed. "and i," dove added, "why, i don't know a single story." "why should you know one?" replied letitia, pinching dove's rueful face. "why tell an idyl, when you can live one, little chloe, little wild olive? you yourself shall be a heroine, my dear." idling there under distant trees for refuge from the august sun, which burns and browns our grassy fordshire, crumbling our roads to a gray powder and veiling with it the green of way-side hedge and vine--idling there, dove was a creature i had never seen before and but half-divined in visions new to me. fair as she seemed under our roof-tree, there in the woodland she was far the lovelier. young things flowered about us, their fragrance scenting the summer air. like them her presence wore a no less subtle spell. it was an ancient glamour, though i did not know it then, it seemed so new to me--one which young shepherds felt, wondering at it, in the world's morning; and since earth's daughters, then as now, with all their fairness, could scarce be credited with such wondrous witchery, those young swains came home breathless from the woodland with tales of dryads and their spells. maiden mine, in the market-place, you are only one among many women, though you be beautiful as a dream, but under boughs the birds still sing those songs the first birds sang--there it is always eden, and thou art the only woman there. on my nineteenth birthday three climbed sun dial as three had climbed it once before. leaving the village we crossed the brook by that self-same ford of stones, and plunged at once into the forest and ancient orchard that clothed the slope. i was not leading now, but helping them, dove and letitia, over the rocks and brambles and steeper places of the ascent. threading as before that narrow trail i knew by heart, i broke the cob-webs and parted the fragrant tangle that beset our way, vines below, branches above us. it was just such another august noon, and the world was nodding; no birds sang, no squirrels chattered. we stopped for breath, resting upon a wall shaded by an ancient oak. "the very spot!" i cried. "do you remember, letitia, how you and robin rested here?" "yes," she answered. "do you remember how i called to you, and came running back?" "yes." "i'd been waiting for you under an apple-tree. how i should like to see old robin now!" "who was robin?" asked cousin dove, and so i told her of the devonshire lad. during my story letitia wandered, as she liked to do, searching for odd, half-hidden flowers among the grasses. soon she was nowhere to be seen, nor could we hear her near us. "letitia was fond of robin, was she not?" asked cousin dove. "oh yes," i said. "so were we all." "but i mean--don't you think she may have loved him?" "oh," i said, "i never thought of that; besides, letitia never had time for--" dove opened wide her eyes. "must you have time for--" "i mean," i stammered, "she was never free like--you or me; we--" "i see," she replied, coloring. "he must have been a splendid fellow." "he was," i said. "dear letitia!" murmured cousin dove, gazing thoughtfully at the wilted flower she held. the wood which had been musical with voices was strangely silent now. it was something more than a mere stillness. it was like a spell, for i could not break it, though i tried. dove, too, was helpless. there was no wind--i should have known had one been blowing--yet the boughs parted above her head, and a crown fell shining on her hair!--her hair, those straying tendrils of it, warm and ruddy and now fired golden at that magic touch--her brow, pure as a nun's, beneath that veiling--the long, curved lashes of her hidden eyes--her cheeks still flushed--her lips red-ripe and waiting motionless. she raised her eyes to me!--a moment only, but my heart leaped, for in that instant it dawned upon me how all that vision there--flesh, blood, and soul--was just arm's-length from me! it was--i know. part ii _the school-mistress_ i the older letitia precisely at half-past seven there was a faint rustling on our staircase and a moment later letitia primrose appeared at our breakfast-table smiling "good-morning." she was dressed invariably in the plainest of black gowns with the whitest of ruching about her wrists and throat, and at the collar a pin which had been her mother's, a cameo minerva in an antique setting of vine leaves wrought in gold. the gown itself--i scarcely know how to style it, for no frill or foible of the day was ever visible in its homely contour, or if existing there, had been so curbed by the wearer's modesty as to be quite null and void to the naked eye. every tress of her early whitening hair lay smoothly back about her forehead, and behind was caught so neatly beneath her comb, it might be doubted how or if she ever slept upon it. just so immaculate, virginal, irreproachable did the older letitia come softly down to us every week-day morning of her life, and taking her chair between dove's seat and mine, she would adjust her gold-rimmed glasses to better see how the night had dealt with us, and beaming upon us with one of the pleasantest of inquiring smiles, would murmur-- "well?" she ate little, and that so unobtrusively, i used to wonder if she ate at all. i can remember her lifting her cup, but do not recall that it ever reached her lips. she had, i think, some trick of magnetism, some power of the eye that held yours at the crucial moment, so that you never really saw her sip or bite, and she never chewed, i swear, yet i never heard of her bad digestion. eating in her was a chaste indulgence common only, i believe, to spinsterhood--a rite, communionlike, rather than a feast. when the clock struck eight, we would rise together--i for my office, dove for farewells, letitia for the school-room; i with a clattering chair, dove demurely, letitia noiselessly, to put on a hat as vague and unassuming as that decorous garment in which she cloaked herself from the outer world--a kind of cape and jacket, i think it was, in winter, but am not quite sure. in summer it was a cashmere shawl. then slipping on a pair of gloves, black always and always whole, however faded, she would take up her small pearl-handled parasol, storm or shine, and that linen bag of hers, a marvellous reticule for books and manuscripts with a separate pocket in the cover-flap for a comb and mirror and extra handkerchief--though not to my knowledge; i am merely telling what was told. nor am i telling all that was said of letitia's panoply and raiment, the manner of which at every season, at every hour of the night and day, was characterized--if i have understood the matter--not so much by a charm of style as of precaution, a modest providence, a truly exquisite foresight and readiness for all emergencies, however perilous, so that fire nor flood nor war's alarms nor death itself, however sudden, should find her unprepared. fire at night would merely have illumined a slender, unobtrusive figure descending a stair or ladder unabashed, decently, even gracefully arrayed in a silk kimono which hung nightly on the foot-board of her bed; and since for other purposes it was never worn, it remains unscorched, and, indeed, unblemished, to this very day. but for that grim hand the moment of whose clutch can never be foretold with certainty, nothing could exceed letitia's watchfulness and care. she dressed invariably, i have said, in the plainest black, but i have heard, and on authority i could not question, that however simple and inexpensive those outer garments were, the inner vestments were of finest linen superimposing the softest silk. thus--for a tendency to some heart-affection was hereditary in the primrose family--thus could no sudden dissolution or surrender, such as might occur in an absence from home and the ministration of loving friends, be attended ever by any _post-mortem_ embarrassment or chagrin, but rather would disclose a pride and delicacy of taste and consideration, the more remarkable and worthy of approval and regret, because it could never otherwise have been revealed. nothing i know of in the way of gifts was more acceptable to letitia primrose than those black silk ones which she took such pains to purchase and secrete. it was a wondrous reticule, that linen pouch of which i spoke, bearing "l. p." embroidered on its outer side. i say its outer, for so she carried it always; and in years, so many i will not count them, i never knew that monogram turned in, or down. she met me with it in the doorway from which dove watched us till we had left the gate. mornings, for years, we went to our work together, save when an urgent matter summoned me earlier or compelled me, against my will and exercise, to drive. morn after morn we walked together to the red brick school-house, talking of village news and the varying moods of our fickle northern weather, or perhaps of books, old ones and new ones, or of those golden memories that we shared. they were not perfunctory as i recall them, those morning dialogues. there was no abstraction about letitia, no cursory, unweighed chattering of things so obvious as to need no comment. every topic might be a theme for her mild eloquence. it might be of keats that she discoursed to me, or browning or alfred tennyson or perhaps the corsican, whom she hated, partly for tyranny, partly because he made her "look at him," she said; it might be the early church, whose records she had read and read again, though not one-half so much for cuthbert's holiness, i told her, as for fuller's quaintness, which she loved; or it might be a march morning that we walked together, while she spoke like a poet's daughter of the first pink arbutus some grinning farm-boy had laid but yesterday upon her desk. why no one ever wooed and won such fervor seemed passing strange to dove and me. with all the grace of goodness and gentle courage in which she faced the world alone, in all those years which had followed her father's death, she had never, to dove's ken or mine, won a single suitor. those burdens of care and sacrifice laid too soon upon her frail, young shoulders had borne early fruit--patience, wisdom, and a sweet endurance beyond her years--but on such harvest young men set small store. a taste for it comes late. it made her pleasing to her elders, but those of her own years shrank instinctively from its very perfectness. she had matured too soon. how then should any one so coolly virtuous know trial or passion? surely so young a saint could have no warm impetuous hours to remember, no sweet abandonment, no pretty idyls--had she even a spring-time to recall? men admired her for her mind and heart, but in her presence secretly were ill at ease. her self-dependence rendered useless their stronger arms accustomed to being leaned upon. she smiled upon them, it is true, but not as men like to be smiled upon--neither as a child, trustingly, nor as a queen, confident of their homage and gallant service. she appealed neither to their protection nor to their pride. she awoke the friend, but not the lover, in them; and so the years slipped by and she won no chivalry, because she claimed none. she had but asked and but received respect. our raillery, harmlessly meant, was not always kind, as i look back at it. it is scarcely pleasant to be reminded that among one's kind one is not preferred, yet letitia bore all our jesting with steadfast pleasantry. "do i look forlorn? do i look so helpless?" she would ask. her very smile, her voice, her step, seemed in themselves an answer. "what do i want with a husband then?" "why," dove would say, "to make you happy, letitia." "you child: i am perfectly happy." "well," dove would answer, stubbornly, "to make you happier, then." i have forgotten letitia's answers--all but one of them: "i lived so long with my scholar-love," she once said, sweetly, of her father, "i fear i never should be content with an ordinary man." dove declared that no one in grassy fordshire was half worthy of her cousin; at least, she said, she knew but one, and he was already wedded--and to a woman, she added, humbly, not half so good or wise or wonderful as letitia. dove stoutly held that letitia could have married, had she wished it, and whom she would. father would shake his head at that. "no," he would say, "letty is one of those women men never think of as a bride." "but why?" dove would demand then, loyally. "she is the very woman to find real happiness in loving and self-sacrifice. adversity would never daunt her, and yet," my wife would say with scorn rising in her voice, "the very men who need such help and comprehension and comradeship in their careers, would pass her by, and for a chit of girl who would never be happy sharing their struggles--but only their success!" "my dear," father would reply, sagely, "a man glories in his power to hand a woman something she cannot reach herself. letty primrose has too long an arm." "but if a man once married letitia--" dove would protest, and father would chuckle then. "ah, yes, my dear, if one only would! but there's the rub. doubtless he would find letitia much like other women, quite willing he should reach things down to her from the highest shelf. but he must be a wise man to suspect just that--to guess what lies beneath our letty's apparent self-sufficiency." "an older man might," dove once suggested. "a general, or a great professor, or a minister plenipotentiary." "doubtless," he answered, "but our grassy ford is a narrow world, my dear. the young sprigs in it are only silly lads, and the elder bachelors are very musty ones, i fear--and not an ambassador among them. i doubt very much if letitia will ever meet him--that man you mean, who might choose letty's love through wisdom, and whose wisdom she might choose through love." dove's answer was a sigh. "bertram," she said, "you must make some real nice, elderly bachelor doctor friends, and we'll ask them to visit us." it seemed a likely plan, but nothing came of it, and the silly lads and the musty ones alike left our letitia more and more to friendships beyond her years. from being so much in the company of her elders, she grew in time to be more like them. her modesty became reserve; reserve, in turn, a certain awkwardness or shy aloofness in the presence of the other sex--primness, it was called. she had not forgotten how to smile; her talk was blithe enough with those she knew, and was still colored by her love for poetry, but it fast grew quainter and less colloquial; there was a certain old-fashioned care and subtlety about it, a rare completeness in its phrases not at all like the crude, half-finished ones with which our grassy ford belles were content. it added to her charm, i think, but to the evidence as well of that maturity and self-complacency which all men seemed to fear and shun, not one suspecting that the glow beneath meant youth--youth preserved through time and trial to be a light to her, or to love belated. her brown hair turned to gray, her gray to white, and she still came down to us smiling good-morning; still worshipped keats, still scorned the upstart who made her look; taught on, year after year, in the red brick school-house, wearing the wild flowers farm-boys gathered in the hills. her life flowed on like a stream in summer, softly in shadow and in sun. she seemed content--no bitter note in her low voice, no glance of envy, malice, or chagrin in those kind gray eyes of hers, which beamed so gently upon others' loves; we used to wonder how they might have shone upon her own. one day in august--it was again that anniversary birthday around which half my memories of her seem to cling--she gave me a copy of _in memoriam_, and bought for herself the linen for another reticule. neatly, and in the fashion of our grandmothers' day, she worked upon it her initials, l. and p., in old-english letters, old-rose and gold. "what," i asked, "is the figure meant for?" "the figure? where?" "in the background there--the figure seven, in the lighter gold." she bent to study it. "there _is_ a seven there," she said. "i must have used a lighter silk." "then shall you alter it?" i asked. "no," she answered. "it is now too late." "she means the figure," i explained to dove. "the letters also," dove murmured, softly, as we turned away. ii on a corner shelf at five minutes to four o'clock the red school-house gave no sign of the redder life beating within its walls. the grounds about it, worn brown by hundreds of restless feet and marked in strange diagrams, the mystic symbols of hop-scotch, marbles, and three-old-cat, were quite deserted save for sparrows busy with crumbs from the mid-day luncheon-pails. five minutes later, one listening by the picket-fence might have heard faintly the tinkling of little bells, and a rising murmur that with the opening of doors burst suddenly into a tramping of myriad feet, while from the lower hallway two marching lines came down the outer stair, primly in step, till at the foot they sprang into wild disorder, a riot of legs and skirts, with the shouts and shrieks and shrill whistlings of children loosed from bondage. when the noisy tide had swept down the broad walk into the street, letitia might be seen following smilingly, her skirts surrounded by little girls struggling for the honor of being nearest and bearing her reticule. at the end of happy days letitia's face bore the imprint of a sweet contentment, as if the love she had given had been returned twofold, not only in the awkward caresses of her little ones, but in the sight of such tender buds opening day by day through her patient care into fuller knowledge of a great bright world about them. she strove earnestly to show them more of it than the school-books told; she aimed higher than mere correctness in the exercises, those anxious, careful, or heedless scribblings with which her reticule was crammed. in the geography she taught there were deeper colorings than the pale tints of those twenty maps the text-book held; greater currents flowed through those green and pink and yellow lands than the principal rivers there, and in the plains between them greater harvests had been garnered, according to her stories, than the principal products, principal exports--principal paragraphs learned by rote and recited senselessly. drawing, in letitia's room, it was charged against her by one named shears, who had the interests of the school at heart and jaw, had become a subterfuge for teaching botany as well. "for draggin' in a study," as he told a group on the corner of main and clingstone streets, "not _in_cluded in the grammar-grade curriculum!" he paused to let the word have full effect. "for wastin' the scholars' time and gettin' their feet wet pokin' around in bogs and marshy places, a-pullin' weeds! and for what?--why, by gum, to _draw_ 'em!" his auditors chuckled. "what," he asked, "are drawin'-books _for_?" his fellow-citizens nodded intelligently. "and even when she _does_ use the books," cried mr. samuel shears, "she won't let 'em draw a consarned circle or cross or square, without they tell her some fool story of michael the angelo!" the crowd laughed hoarsely. "and who _was_ michael the angelo?" asked mr. shears, screwing his face up in fine derision and stamping one foot, rabbit-like, by way of emphasis to his scorn. "who _was_ this here michael the angelo?" four men spat and the others shuffled. "a _dago_!" roared shears, and the crowd was too much relieved to do more than gurgle. "what does my son care about michael the angelo?" letitia admitted, i believe, that _his_ son didn't. "and further_more_," said mr. shears, insinuatingly, "what i want to know is: why has she got them pitchers a-hanging around the school-room walls? pitchers of dago churches and dago statures--and i guess _you_ know what dago statures are--i guess you know whether they're dressed like you and me!--i guess you fellows know all right--and if you don't, there's them that do. and, in conclusion, i want to ask right here: who's a-payin' for them there decorations?" mr. shears spat, the crowd spat, and they adjourned. now, there may have been a dozen prints relieving the ugliness and concealing the cracks in the school-room walls, but all quite innocent, as i recall them: "socrates in the market-place," "the parthenon," "the battle of salamis," "christian martyrs," a tragic moment in the arena of ancient rome, "st. peter's," i suppose, "st. mark's by moonlight," and of statues only one and irreproachable, the "moses" of michael angelo. his "david" was letitia's joy, but she never dreamed, i am sure, of its exhibition in a grammar-school, though i have heard her declare (shamelessly, mr. shears would say) that were it not for a puritan weakness of eyesight hereditary in grassy ford, that lithe jew's ideal figure would be a far better lesson to her boys than all the text-books in physiology. "might it not incite them to sling-shots?" queried dove, softly. "i don't agree with you," said letitia, lost in her theme, and noting only the fact, and not the nature, of the opposition. "i don't agree with you at all. it would teach them the beauty of manly--why do you laugh?" if shears could have heard her! his information, such as it was, had been derived from his only son, a youth named david, "not by angelo," letitia said, and hopelessly indolent, whose only fondness was for sticking pins into smaller boys. he was useful, however, as a barometer in which the rise or fall of his surly impudence registered the parental feeling against her rule. shears and his kind held that the proper study of mankind was arithmetic. what would he not have said at the corner of main and clingstone streets, had he known that letitia was trifling with robinson's complete?--that between its lines, she was teaching (surreptitiously would have been his word), an original, elementary course in ethics, a moral law of honesty, fair-dealing, and full-measure, so that all examples, however intricate, were worked out rigidly to the seventh decimal, by the golden rule! red geraniums bloomed in her school-room window, and on a corner-shelf, set so low that the children easily might have leaned upon it, lay webster and another book--always one other; though sometimes large and sometimes small, now green, now red, now blue, now yellow, but always seeming to have been left there carelessly. every volume bore on its fly-leaf two names--"david buckleton primrose," written in a bold, old-fashioned script in fading ink, and below it "letitia primrose," in a smaller, finer but no less quaint a hand. that book, whatever its name and matter, had been left there purposely, you may be sure. letitia remembered how young keats drank his first sweet draught of homer and became a greek; how little lame walter poured over border legends to become the last of the scottish minstrels; and how that other, that english boy, swam the hellespont in a london street, to climb on its farther side, that flowery bank called poesy. it was her dream that among her foster-children, as she fondly called them, there might be one, perhaps, some day--some rare soul waiting rose-like for the sun, who would find it shining on her school-room shelf. so she dropped there weekly in the children's way, as if by accident, and without a word to them unless they asked, books which had been her father's pride or her own young world of dreams--books of all times and mental seasons, but each one chosen with her end in mind. they were beyond young years, she admitted frankly, as school years go, but when her keats came, she would say, smiling, they would be bread-and-wine to him; milk and wild-honey they had been to her. "suppose," said dove, "it should be a girl who bears away sacred fire from your shelf, letitia?" "yes, it might be a girl," replied the school-mistress. "perhaps--who knows?--another 'shakespeare's daughter'!" and yet, she added, and with the faintest color in her cheeks, knowing well that we knew her preference, she rather hoped it would be a boy. few could resist that book waiting by the dictionary; at least they would open it, spell out its title-page, flutter its yellowing leaves, looking for pictures, and, disappointed, close it and turn away. but sometimes one more curious would stop to read a little, and now and then, to letitia's joy, a lad more serious than the rest would turn inquiringly to ask the meaning of what he found there; then she would tell its story and loan the volume, hoping that johnny keats had come at last. no one will ever know how many subtle lures she set to tempt her pupils into pleasant paths, but men and women in grassy ford today remember that it was miss primrose who first said this, or told them that, and while her discipline is sometimes smiled at--she was far too trusting at times, they tell me--doubtless, no one is the worse for it, since whatever evil she may have failed to nip, may be balanced now by the good of some lovely memory. bad boys grown tall remembering their hookey-days do not forget the woman they cajoled with their forged excuses; and it is a fair question, i maintain, boldly, as one of that guilty clan, whether the one who put them on an honor they did not have, or, let us say, had mislaid temporarily--whether the recollection of letitia primrose and her innocence is not more potent now for good than the crimes she overlooked, for evil. sometimes i wonder if she was half so blind as she appeared to be, for as we walked one sabbath by the water-side, with the sun golden on the marshes, and birds and flowers and caressing breezes beguiling our steps farther and farther from the drowsy town, i remember her saying: "it is for this my boys play truant in the spring-time. do you wonder, bertram?" for the best of reasons i did not. i was thinking of how the springs came northward to grassy fordshire when i was a runaway; and then suddenly as we turned a bend in troublesome, there was a splash, and two bare feet sank modestly into the troubled waters. there was a bubbling, and then a head emerged dripping from all its hairs. young david shears had dived in the nick of time. iii a younger robin when our boy was born we named him robin weatherby, after that elder robin who had charmed my youth. if his babyhood lacked aught of love or discipline, it was neither dove's fault nor letitia's, for robin's mother had ideas and a book on childhood, and dear letitia did not need a book. in fact, she clashed with dove's. i, as physician-in-ordinary to my child--for in dire emergencies in my own family i always employ an old-fogy, rival--was naturally of some little service in consultation with the two ladies and the book. of the characters of these associates of mine, i need only say that dove was ever an anxious soul, the book a truthful but at times a vague one, while letitia was all that could be desired as guide, philosopher, and friend. alarming symptoms might puzzle others, but never her; they might, even to myself, even to the book, bode any one of twenty kinds of evil; to her they pointed solely, solemnly to one--that one, alas! which had carried off some dear child of her school. dove, i am sure, had never been impatient with letitia, but now, such was the tension of these family conferences and such the gravity of the case involved, there were times, i noted, when the cousins addressed each other with the most exquisite and elaborate courtesy, lest either should think the other in the least disturbed. for example, there was that little affair of consolation--a sort of rubber make-believe with which young robin curbed and soothed his appetite and invited pensiveness. microbes, letitia said, were-- dove interposed to remind her that the things were boiled just seven-- germs, letitia argued, were not to be trifled with. "just seven times a week, my dear," said dove, triumphantly. "and besides," letitia continued, undismayed, "they will ruin the shape of the child's mouth." "but how?" cried dove. "pray tell me how, my love, when they are made in the very identical im--" "and modern doctors," letitia stated with some severity, "are doing away with so many foolish notions of our grandmothers." "yet our fathers and mothers," dove replied, "were very fair specimens of the race, my dear. shakespeare, doubtless, was rocked in a cradle, and his brains survived. they were quite intact, i think you will admit. _he_ wasn't joggled into--" "yet who knows what he might have written, dear love," answered letitia, "if he had been permitted to lie quite--" "_you_ try to make a child go to sleep, my darling, without _something_!" my wife suggested. "just try it once, my dear." "cradles," said letitia--but at this juncture i stepped in, authoritatively, as the father of my child. it is due to dove, i confess gladly, and partly to letitia also, that this fatherhood has been so pleasant to look back upon. robin's mouth is very normal, as even letitia will admit, i know, as she would be the last person in the world to say that his brains had suffered any in the joggling. somehow, by dint of boiling the consolation i suppose, and by what-not formulæ, we got him up at last on two of the sturdiest, little, round, brown legs that ever splashed in mud-puddle--dove's darling, my old fellow, and letitia's love. love she called him in their private moments, and other names as fond, i have no doubt; publicly he was her archer, her bowman, her robin hood. she, it was, who purchased him bow-and-arrows, and replaced for him without a murmur, three panes in the library windows and a precious little wedding vase. the latter cost her a pretty penny, but she reminded us that a boy, after all, will be a boy! she took great pride in his better marksmanship and sought a suit for him, a costume that should be traditional of archers bold. "have you cloth," she asked, "of the shade called lincoln green?" the clerk was doubtful. "i'll see," she said. "oh, mr. peabody! mr. peabody!" "well?" asked a man's voice hidden behind a wall of calicoes. "well? what is it?" "mr. peabody, have we any cloth called abraham--" "not abraham lincoln," letitia interposed, mildly. "you misunderstood me. i said lincoln green." "same thing," said the clerk, tartly. mr. peabody then emerged smilingly from behind his wall. "how do you do, miss primrose," said he. "what can we do for you this morning?" letitia carefully repeated her request. he shook his head, while the young clerk smiled triumphantly. "no," he said. "you must be mistaken. i have never even heard of such a color--and if there was one of that name," he added, with evident pride in his even tones, "i should certainly know of it. we have other greens--" letitia flushed. "why," she explained, "the english archers were accustomed to wearing a cloth called lincoln green." mr. peabody smiled deprecatingly. "i never heard of it," he replied, stiffly; "and, as i say, i have been in the business for thirty years." "but don't you remember robin hood and his merry men?" "oh!" exclaimed the merchant, a great light breaking in upon him. "you mean the fairy stories! ha, ha! very good. very good, indeed. well, no, miss primrose, i'm afraid we can hardly provide you with the cloth that fairies--" "show me your green cloths--all of them," said letitia, her cheeks burning. "certainly, miss primrose. miss baggs, show miss primrose all of our green cloths--_all_ of them." "light green or dark green?" queried miss baggs, who had been delighted with the whole affair. letitia pondered. there had been some reason, she reflected, for robin hood's choice of gear. "something," she said, at last--"something as near to the shade of foliage as you can give me." "i beg pardon?" inquired miss baggs. "the color of leaves," explained letitia. "well," miss baggs retorted, smartly, "some leaves are light, and some are dark, and some leaves are in-between." there was a dangerous gleam in letitia's eyes. "show me _all_ your green cloths," she requested, curtly--"all of them." miss baggs obeyed. "i suppose it really isn't lincoln green, you know," letitia said, when she had brought the parcel home with her and had spread its contents upon the sofa, "but i hope you'll like it, dove. it is the nearest to tree-green i could find." it was, indeed. now, dove had never heard of a boy in green, and had grave doubts, which it would not do, however, to even hint to dear letitia; so made it was, that archer-suit, though by some strange freak of fancy that caused letitia keen regret, robin, dressed in it, could seldom be induced to play at archery, always insisting, to her discomfiture, that he was grass! "when you grow up, my bowman," she once told him, "i'll buy you a white suit, all of flannel, and father shall teach you to play at cricket in the orchard." "but crickets are black," cried robin, whose eye for color, or the absence of it, i told letitia, was bound to ruin her best-laid english plans. it was good to see them, the archer bold and the gray lady walking together, hand-in-hand--the one beaming up, the other down; the one so subject to sudden leaps and bounds and one-legged hoppings to avoid the cracks, the other flurried lest those wild friskings should disturb the balance she had kept so perfectly all those years till then. in their walks and talks lay many stories, i am sure--things which never will be written unless letitia turns to authorship, for which it is a little late, i fear; but even then she would never dream of putting such simple matters down. she does not know at all the delicious lady of the linen reticule, who, to herself, is commonplace enough. she might, perhaps, make a tale or two of the archer in lincoln green, but what is the romance of an archer without the lady in it? one drowsy afternoon on a sunday in summer-time i stretched myself in my easy-chair with another for my slippered feet. my dinner had ended pleasantly with a love-in-a-cottage pudding which had dripped blissfully with a heavenly cataract of golden sauce. dove had gone out on a sabbath mission, rustling away in a gown sprinkled with rose-buds--one of those summer things in which it is not quite safe for any woman to risk herself in this wicked world. such shallow thoughts were passing through my mind as dove departed, and when the front gate clicked behind her, i opened a charming novel and went to sleep. i know i slept, for i walked in a path i have never seen. i should like to see it, for it must be beautiful in the spring-time. it was a kind of autumn when i was there. i was dragging my feet about in the yellow leaves, when a senile hollyhock leaned over quietly and tickled me on the ear. as i brushed it away i heard it giggling. then a twig of pear-tree bent and trifled with my nose, which is a thing no gentleman permits, even in dreams, and i brushed it smartly. then i heard a voice--i suppose the gardener's--telling something to behave itself. then i swished again among the leaves. how long i swished there i have no notion, but i heard more voices by-and-by, and i remember saying to myself, "they are behind the gooseberries." they did not know, of course, that i was there, else they had talked more softly. "no," said he, "you be the horsey." "oh no," said the other, "i'd rather drive." "no, _you_ be the horsey." "sh! let me drive." "i said _you_ be the horsey." "i be the horsey?" "yes. whoa, horsey! d'up! whoa! d'up!" then all was confusion behind the gooseberries and the horsey d'upped and whoaed, and whoaed and d'upped, till i all but d'upped. i _did_ move, and the noise stopped. how long i slept there i do not know, but i heard again those voices behind the vines, though more subdued now, mere tender undertones like lovers in a garden seat. lovers i supposed them, and, keeping still, i listened: "but i'm not your little boy," said one, "because you haven't any." "oh yes, you are," replied the other, confidently. "you're my little boy because i love you." "but why don't you ask god to send you a little boy all your own, just four years old like me, so we could play together? why don't you?" "because," the reply was, "you're all the little boy i need." "but if you _did_ ask god and the angel brought you a little boy, then his name would be billie." "oh, would it?" "yes, his name would be billie, because now billie is the next name to robin." "what do you mean by the next name to robin?" "why, 'cause now, first comes robin, and then comes billie, and then comes tommy, or else muffins, if you turn the corner--unless he's a girl--and then he's annie." "what?" gasped the second voice. "i don't understand." "well, then," the first voice answered, wearily, "call him johnny." i know at the time the explanation seemed quite clear to me, as it must have been to the second speaker, for the colloquy ended then and there. i might have peeked through the gooseberries and not been discovered, i suppose, but just then i went out shooting flamingoes with a friend of mine, and when i got back, some time that day, the gooseberry-vines were thick with rose-buds. and while i was gone a brook had come--you could hear it plainly on the other side--and i was surprised, i remember, and angry with my aunt jemima (i never had an aunt jemima) for not telling me. i listened awhile to the tinkle-tinkling till presently the burden changed to a "tra, la, la, tra, la, la," over and over, till i said to myself, "these are the singing waters the poets hear!" so i tiptoed nearer through the crackling leaves, and touching the rose-vines very deftly for fear of thorns, again i listened. my heart beat faster. "it is an english linn!" i said, astonished, for there were words to it, english words to that singing rivulet! i could make out "gold" and "rue" and "youth." "some woodland secret!" i told myself; so i listened eagerly, scarcely breathing, and little by little, as my ears grew more accustomed to the sounds, i heard the song, not once, but often, each time more clearly than before: "many seek a coronet, many sigh for gold, some there are a-seeking yet-- (never thought of you, my pet!) --now they're passing old. "many yearn for lovers true, some for sleep from pain, seeking laurel, some find rue-- (oh, they never dreamed of you!) --now want youth again. "crown and treasure, love like wine, peace and laurel-tree, have i all, oh! world of mine-- (soft little world my arms entwine) --youth thou art to me." it seemed familiar, yet i could not place the song, till at last it came to me that dr. primrose wrote it for his only child, a kind of lullaby which he used to chant to her. then i remembered how all that while i had been listening with my eyes shut, and so i opened them to find the singer--and saw letitia with robin sleeping in her arms. iv hiram ptolemy one afternoon in a spring i am thinking of, passing from my office to the waiting-room beyond it, i found alone there a little old gentleman seated patiently on the very edge of an old-fashioned sofa which occupied one corner of the room. he rose politely at my entrance, and, standing before me, hat in hand, cleared his throat and managed to articulate: "dr. weatherby, i believe." i bowed and asked him to be seated, but he continued erect, peering up at me with eyes that watered behind his steel-bowed spectacles. he was an odd, unkempt figure of a man; his scraggly beard barely managed to screen his collar-button, for he wore no tie; his sparse, gray locks fell quite to the greasy collar of his coat, an antique frock, once black but now of a greenish hue; and his inner collar was of celluloid like his dickey and like the cuffs which rattled about his lean wrists as he shook my hand. "my name is percival--hiram de lancey percival," he said. "de lancey was my mother's name." "will you come into my office, mr. percival?" i asked. "no--no, thank you--that is, i am not a patient," he explained. "i just called on my way to--" he wet his lips, and as he said "new york" i fancied i could detect beneath the casual manner he assumed, no inconsiderable self-satisfaction, accompanied by a straightening of the bent shoulders, while at the same moment he touched with one finger the tip of his collar and thrust up his chin as if the former were too tight for him. with that he laid his old felt hat among the magazines on my table and took a chair. "the fact is," he continued, "i am a former protégé of the late rev. david primrose, of whom you may--" he paused significantly. "indeed!" i said. "i knew dr. primrose very well. he was a neighbor of ours. his daughter--" my visitor's face brightened visibly and he hitched his chair nearer to my own. "i was about to ask you concerning the--the daughter," he said. "is she--?" "she lives with my family," i replied. "letitia--" "ah, yes," he said; "letitia! that is the name--letitia primrose--well, well, well, well. now, that's nice, isn't it? she lives with you, you say." "yes," i explained, "she has lived with my family since her father's death." "he was a remarkable man, sir," mr. percival declared. "yes, sir, he was a remarkable man. dr. primrose was a pulpit orator of unusual power, sir--of unusual power. and something of a poet, sir, i believe." "yes," i assented. "i never read his verse," said the little old gentleman, "but i have heard it said that he was a fine hand at it--a fine hand at it. in fact, i--" he paused modestly. "i am something of a writer myself." "indeed!" i said. "oh yes; oh yes, i--but in a different line, sir, i--" again he hesitated, apparently through humility, so that i encouraged him to proceed. "yes?" i said. "i--er--in fact, i--" he continued, shyly. "something philosophical," i ventured. "yes; oh yes," he ejaculated. "well, no; not that exactly." "scientific then, mr. percival." he beamed upon me. "well, now, how did you guess it? how did you guess it?" he exclaimed. "oh, i merely took a chance at it," i replied, modestly. "well, now, that's remarkable. say--you seem to be a clever young fellow. are you--are you interested--in science?" he inquired, sitting forward on the very edge of his chair. "well, as a doctor, of course," i began. "of course, of course," he interposed, "but did you ever take up ancient matters to any extent?" "well, no, i cannot say that i have." "latin and greek, of course?" suggested mr. percival. "oh yes, at college--latin and greek." "dr. weatherby," said my visitor, his eyes shining, "i don't mind telling you: i am a--" he wetted his lips and glanced nervously about him. "we are quite alone," i said. "dr. weatherby, i am an egyptologist!" "you are?" i answered. "yes," he replied! "yes, sir, i am an egyptologist." "that," i remarked, "is a very abstruse department of knowledge." "it is, sir," replied the little old gentleman, hitching his chair still nearer, so that leaning forward he could pluck my sleeve. "i am the only man who has ever successfully deciphered the inscriptions on the great stone of iris-iris!" "you don't say so!" i exclaimed. "i do, dr. weatherby. i am stating facts, sir. others have attempted it, men eminent in the learned world, sir, but i alone--here in my bosom--" he tapped the region of his heart, where a lump suggested a roll of manuscript. "i alone, dr. weatherby, have succeeded in translating those time-worn symbols. dr. weatherby"--he lowered his voice almost to a whisper--"it has been the patient toil of seven years!" he sprang back suddenly in his chair, and drawing a red bandanna from his coat-tails proceeded to mop his brow. "mr. percival," i said, cordially, looking at my watch, "won't you come to dinner?" his eyes sparkled. "well, now, that's good of you," he said. "that's very good of you. i _was_ intending to go on to new york to-night by the evening-train, but since you insist, i might wait over till tomorrow." "do so," i urged. "you shall spend the night with us. letitia will be delighted to see an old friend of her father, and my wife will be equally pleased, i know. have you your grip with you?" "it is just here--behind the lounge," said mr. percival, springing forward with the agility of a boy and drawing from beneath the flounce of the sofa-cover a small valise of a kind now seldom seen except in garrets or in the hands of such little, old-fashioned gentlemen as my guest. it had been glossy black in its day, but now was sadly bruised and a little mildewed with over-much lying in attic dust. in the very centre of the outer flap, which buckled down over a shallow pocket, intended, i suppose, for comb and brush, was a small round mirror, dollar-sized, which by some miracle had escaped the hand of time. "by-the-way," i said, as we entered my buggy, "you haven't told me--" he interrupted me, smiling delightedly. "why i am going to new york?" "yes," i said. "well, sir, i'll tell you. i'll tell you, doctor, and it's quite a story." "where is your home, mr. percival?" "sand ridge," he said, "has _been_ my home, but i expect to reside hereafter in--" he wetted his lips and pulled at his collar again-- "in new york, sir." on our drive homeward he told his story. early in manhood he had been a carpenter by day, by night a student of the ancient languages, which he acquired by dint of such zeal and sacrifice that dr. primrose, then in the zenith of his own career, discovering the talents of the poor young artisan, urged and aided him to obtain a pulpit in a country town. he proved, i imagine, an indifferent preacher, drifting from place to place, and from denomination to denomination, to become at last a teacher of greek and latin in the sand ridge normal and collegiate institute. whatever moments he could spare from his academic duties, he had devoted eagerly to egyptian monuments, and more particularly to that one of iris-iris which had baffled full half a century of learned men. "but how did you do it?" i inquired. he wriggled delightedly in the carriage-seat. "doctor," he said, "how does a man perform some marvellous surgical feat, which no one had ever done, or dreamed of doing, before? eh?" "i see," i replied, nodding sagely. "such things are beyond our ken." "i did it," he chuckled. "i did it, doctor. and now, sir--" he paused significantly. "you are going to new york," i said. "exactly. to--" "publish," i suggested. "the very word!" he cried. "doctor, i am going to give my discovery to the world--to the world, sir!--not merely for the edification of savants, but for the enlightenment of my fellow-men." "by george!" i said, "that's what i call philanthropy, mr. percival." "well, sir," he replied, modestly, "all i ask--all i ask in return, sir, is that i may be permitted to spend the remainder of my days, rent free and bread free, in some hall of learning, that i may edit my books and devote myself to further research undismayed by the--the--" "wolf at the door," i suggested. "exactly," he replied. "that's all i ask." "it is little enough," i remarked. "doctor," he said, solemnly, "it is enough, sir, for any learned man." when i reached home with my unexpected guest, dove and letitia smilingly welcomed him; i say smilingly, for there was that about the little old gentleman which defied ill-humor. he seemed shy at first, as might be expected of a bachelor-egyptologist, but the simple manners he encountered soon reassured him. i led him to our best front bedroom, where he stood, dazzled apparently by the whiteness and ruffles all about him, and could not be induced to set down his valise till he had spread a paper carefully upon the rug beneath it. "now, i guess i'll just wash up," he said, "if you'll permit me," looking doubtfully at the spotless towels and the china bowl decorated with roses, which he called a basin. i assured him that they were there to use. it was not long before we heard him wandering in the upper halls, and hastening to his rescue i found him muttering apologies before a door through which apparently he had blundered, looking for the staircase. safe on the lower floor again, letitia put him at his ease with her kind questions about egyptology, and the delighted scientist was in the midst of a glowing narrative of the great stone of iris-iris when dinner was announced. it was evident that dove's table quite disconcerted him with its superfluity of glass and silver, and dropping his meat-fork on the floor, he strenuously resisted all dove's orders to replace it from the pantry. "no, no, dear madam," he exclaimed, pointing to the shining row beside his plate, "do not disturb yourself, i pray. one of these extras here will do quite as well." during the dinner letitia plied him with further questions till he wellnigh forgot his plate in his elation at finding such sympathetic auditors. dove considerately delayed the courses while he talked on, bobbing forward and backward in his chair, his slight frame swayed by his agitation, his face glowing, and his beard bristling with its contortions. "never," he told me afterwards, as we passed from the dining-room arm-in-arm--"never have i enjoyed more charming and intelligent conversation--never, sir!" i offered him cigars, but he declined them, observing that while he never used "the weed," he had up-stairs in his valise, if we would permit him-- we did so, though none the wiser as to what he meant, for he did not complete his sentence, but, bowing acknowledgment, he briskly disappeared, to return at once without further mishap in our deceitful upper hallway--reappearing with a paper bag which he untwisted and offered gallantly to the ladies. "lemon-drops," he said. "permit me, mrs. weatherby. oh, take more, miss letitia--do, i beg; they are quite inexpensive, i assure you--quite harmless and inexpensive. help yourself liberally, mrs. weatherby. lemon-drops, as you are doubtless aware, doctor, are the most healthful of sweets, and as a--have another, miss primrose, do!--as a relaxation after the day's toil are much to be preferred, if you will pardon my saying so, dr. weatherby--much to be preferred to that poisonous cigar you are smoking there." "quite right, mr. percival," i assented. "they are very nice," dove said. "oh, they are delicious!" cried letitia. "are they not?" said the little man, delighted with his hospitality, and so i left them--two ladies and an egyptologist sucking lemon-drops and talking amiably of the great stone of iris-iris--while i attended on more modern matters, but with regret. i returned, however, in time to escort the scientist to his bedroom, where he opened his valise and took from it a faded cotton night-gown, which with a few papers and a testament seemed its sole contents. his books, he explained, had gone on by freight. as i turned to leave him he said, earnestly: "doctor, my old friend's daughter is a most remarkable woman, sir--a most remarkable woman." "she is, indeed," i assented. "why," said he, "she evinced an interest in the smallest detail of my work! nothing was too trivial, or too profound for her. i was astonished, sir." "she is a scholar's daughter, you must remember, mr. percival." "ah!" said he. "that's it. that's it, doctor. and what an ideal companion she would make for another scholar, sir!--or any man." next morning i was called into the country before our guest had risen, and when i returned at noon he had gone, leaving me regretful messages. i heard then what had happened in my absence. hiram ptolemy--it is the name we gave to our egyptologist--had awakened soon after my departure and was found by dove walking meditatively in the garden. after breakfast, while my wife was busy with little robin, letitia listened attentively to a further discourse on the iris-iris, which, she was told, bore on its surface a glorious message from the ancient to the modern world. "it will cause, dear madam," said the scientist, his eyes dilating and his voice trembling with emotion, "a revolution in our retrospective vision; it will bring us, as it were, face to face with a civilization that will shame our own!" letitia told dove there was a wondrous dignity in the little man as he spoke those words. then he paused in his eloquence. "miss primrose," he said, "permit me to pay you a great compliment: i have never in my life had the privilege--of meeting a woman--of such understanding as your own. you are remarkably--remarkably like your learned and lamented father." "oh, mr. percival," letitia said, flushing, "you could not say a kinder thing." "and yet," said the scientist, "you--you are quite unattached, are you not?" "quite--what, mr. percival?" "unattached," he repeated, "by ties of--the affections?" "oh, quite," she answered, "quite unattached, mr. percival." "but surely," he said, "you still have--" he paused awkwardly. "oh," said letitia, "i shall never marry, mr. percival--if you mean that." he bowed gravely. "doubtless, dear madam--you know best." v a. p. a. one spring a strange infection spread through the land and appeared suddenly in our corner of it. first a rash became a matter of discussion in our public places, but was not thought serious until the journals of the larger cities brought us news that set our town aflame with apprehension. half our citizens broke out at once in a kind of measles, not, however, of the common or school-boy sort--that speckled cloud with a silver lining of no-more-school-till-it's-over--nor yet that more malignant type called german measles. it was, in fact, quite irish in its nature, generally speaking, and in particular it was what might be termed anti-papistical--for, hark you! it had been discovered that the catholics were arming secretly to take the world by storm! there are many romanists in grassy ford. st. peter's steeple, tipped with its gilded cross, towers higher than our protestant spires, and on the sabbath a hundred farmers tie their horses beneath its sheds and follow their womenfolk and flocks of children in to mass. in those days father flynn was the priest, a youngish, round-faced man, who chanted his latin with a rich accent derived from donegal, and who was not what is called militant in his manner, but was, in fact, the mildest-spoken of our grassy ford divines. he held aloof from those theological disputes which sometimes set his protestant brethren by the ears, declining politely all invitations to attend the famous set debates between our presbyterian and universalist ministers, which ended, i remember, in a splendid god-given victory for--the one whose flock you happened to be in. father flynn only smiled at such encounters; he was not belligerent, and while his parish might with some good reason be described as coming from fine old fighting stock, it had never given evidence, so far as i am aware, of any desire to use cold steel, its warm, red, hairy fists having proven equal to those little emergencies which sometimes arise--more particularly on a saturday night, at riley's. but when it was whispered, then spoken aloud, and finally charged openly on the street corners and even in letters to the _gazette_, then edited by butters's son, that father flynn was training a military company in the basement of st. peter's church, that the young romanists had been armed with rifles, and that ammunition was being stored stealthily and by night under the very altar!--and this by order from the vatican, where a gigantic plot was brewing to seize the new world for the pope!--then it was shrewdly observed by those who held the rumors to be truth that father flynn _did_ have the look of a conspirator and that he walked with a military ease and swing. the priest and his flock denied the charges with indignant eloquence, but without convincing men like shears, who argued that the guilty were ever eager to deny. shears himself was of no persuasion, religious or otherwise, but belonged by nature to the great party of the opposition, whose village champion he was, whether the issue was the paving of a street or a weightier matter like the one in hand, of protecting the nation, as he said, from the treason of its citizens and the machinations of a decaying power eager to regain its ancient sway! he was a lawyer by profession, but one whose time hung heavily on his hands, and, frequenting village shops where others like him gathered daily to argue and expound, he would hold forth glibly on any theme, the chief and awe-inspiring quality of his eloquence being an array of formidable statistics, culled heaven knows where, but which few who listened had the knowledge or temerity to oppose. he was now brimming with figures concerning rome--ancient, mediæval, or modern rome: "gentlemen, you may take your choice; i'm your man." he was armed also, by way of climax and reserve, should statistics fail to convince his auditors, with some strange stories having a spicy flavor of boccaccio, which he told in a lowered voice as illustrations of what had been and what might be again should priests prevail. to hear him pronounce the eternal city's name was itself ominous. his mouth, always a large one, expanded visibly as he boomed out "r-rome!" discharging it as from a cannon's muzzle, and with such significance and effect that many otherwise sanguine men began to suspect that there might be truth in his solemn warnings. lights _had_ been seen in st. peter's church at night! catholic youths _did_ hold some kind of drill there on certain week-day evenings! and, lastly, it was pointed out, father flynn himself had ceased denials! "and why?" shears asked. "why, gentlemen? i'll tell ye!--_i'll_ tell ye!--orders from r-rome! you mark my words--orders from rome!" apprehension grew. a society was formed, with shears at its head, to protect the village, and assist, if need be, the state itself. meetings were held--secret and extraordinary sessions--in the odd fellow's block. watches were set on the priest's house and on st. peter's. resolute men stood nightly in the shrubbery near the church lest guns and cartridges should be added to the stores already there. zealous protestant matrons of the neighborhood supplied hot coffee to the midnight sentinels. all emergencies had been provided for. at a given signal--three pistol-shots in quick succession, and the same repeated at certain intervals--the guards of liberty would assemble, armed, and march at once in two divisions, a line of skirmishers under tommy morgan, the light-weight champion of grassy fordshire, followed by the main body in command of shears. no one, however, was to fire a shot, shears said--"not a shot, gentlemen, till you can see the whites of their eyes. remember your forefathers!" every night now half the town pulled down its curtains and opened doors with the gravest caution. "who's there?" "peters, you fool." "oh, come in, peters. i thought it might be--" "i know: you thought it might be the pope." it was considered wise to take no chances. assassination, it was widely known, had ever been a favorite method with conspirators, especially at rome, and shears made it plain, in the light of history, that "the vast fabric," as he loved to call the romish world, was composed of men who, certain of absolution, would murder their dearest friends if so commanded by cipher orders from the holy see! meanwhile, in grassy ford, friendships of years were crumbling. neighbors passed each other without a word; some sneered, some jeered, some quarrelled openly in the street, and there were fisticuffs at riley's, and in the midst of this civil strife some one remembered--shears himself, no doubt--that dago pictures hung shamelessly on the walls of a public school-room! "michael the angelo" had been a catholic! _what if letitia primrose were the secret ally of the pope!..._ "but she's not a catholic," said one. "she's episcopalian," said another. "what's the difference?" inquired a third. "mighty little, i can tell ye," said colonel shears. "the thing's worth seein' to." a knock on letitia's door that afternoon was so peremptory that she answered it in haste and some trepidation, yet was not more surprised by the sudden summons than by the man who stepped impressively into the school-room. the pupils turned smilingly to david shears. "your father!" they whispered. it was, indeed, colonel samuel shears, of the guards of liberty. he declined the chair letitia offered him. "no," he said, majestically, "i thank you. i prefer"--and here he thrust up his chin by way of emphasis--"to stand." the school giggled. "silence!" said letitia. "i am ashamed." colonel shears coolly surveyed the array of impudent youths before him, or perhaps not so much surveyed it as turned upon it, slowly and from side to side, the calm defiance of his massive jowls. he was well content with that splendid mug of his, which he carried habitually at an angle and elevation well calculated to spread dismay. upon occasion he could render it the more remarkable by a firm compression of the under-lip, pulled gravely down at the corners into what old butters used to say was a plain attempt "to out-daniel webster." the resemblance ended, however, in the regions before described. his brow, it should be stated, did not attest the majesty below them, nor did his small eyes glower with any brooding, owl-like light of wisdom, as he supposed, but bulged rather with a kind of fierce bravado, as if perpetually he were saying to the world: "did i hear a snicker?" colonel shears surveyed the school, and then, more slowly, the pictures on the walls about him, turning sharply and fixing his gaze upon letitia. [point one: she was clearly ill at ease.] [point two: a guilty flush had overspread her features.] "these pictures--" said colonel shears, with a wave of his hand in their direction. "who--if i may be so bold"--and here he raised his voice to the insinuating higher register--"who, may i inquire, paid for them?" "i did, mr. shears," letitia answered. "a-ah! _you_ paid for them?" "i did." "very good," he replied. "and now, if i may take the liberty to--" "pray don't apologize, mr. shears." the colonel's crest rose superior to the interruption. "if i may be permitted," he said, "to repeat my humble question--may i ask, was it your money--that bought--the pictures?" "it was." "your own?" "my own." "you are remarkably generous, miss primrose." "i think not," said letitia, with increasing dignity. "you will pardon me, mr. shears, if i continue with my classes. after school i shall be at liberty to discuss the matter. meanwhile, won't you be seated?" colonel shears for the second time declined, but asked permission, humbly he said, to examine the works of art upon the walls. his request was granted, and letitia proceeded with her class. when the inspector had made a critical circuit of the room, and not without certain significant clearings of his throat and some sharp glances intended to catch letitia unawares, he sniffed the geraniums in the window and picked up a book lying on the corner shelf. he glanced idly at its title and--started!--gasped!--and then, horrified, and as if he could not believe his bulging eyes, which fairly pierced the covers of the little volume, he read aloud, in a voice that echoed through the school-room: "_the lays of ancient rome_--by thomas--babington--macaulay!" letitia, whose back was turned, jumped at the unexpected roar behind her, and the colonel, perceiving that evidence of what he had suspected, now strode forward with an air of triumph, tapping the _lays_ with his heavy fore-finger. "pardon me," he said, his countenance illumined by a truly terrible smile of accusation, "but when, may i ask, did these here heathen tales become a part of the school curriculum?" "they are not a part of it," replied letitia. "ah! they are _not_ part of it! you admit it, then? then may i ask when you _made_ them a part of it, miss primrose?" "the stories of roman heroes--" letitia began. "that is not my question. that is not my humble question. _when_ did these here romish--" "mr. shears," letitia interposed, flushed, but speaking in a quiet tone she sometimes used, and which the colonel might well have heeded had he known her, "i observe that you are not familiar with macaulay. i shall be pleased to loan you the volume, to take home with you and read at leisure. you will find it charming." she turned abruptly to the class behind her. "we will take for to-morrow's lesson the examples on page one hundred and thirty-three." the colonel glared a moment at the stiff little back before him, and then at the book, which he slipped resolutely into his pocket. a dozen strides brought him to the door, where he turned grandly with his hand upon the knob. "i bid you," he said, with a fine, ironical lowering of the under-lip, and bowing slightly, "good-day, ma'am," and the door closed noisily behind him. there was a tittering among the desks. young david shears, red-faced and scowling, dropped his eyes before his school-mates' gaze. letitia tapped sharply on her bell. * * * * * that evening the president of the school-board called and talked long and earnestly with letitia in our parlor. mr. roach was a furniture dealer by trade, a leading citizen by profession--a tight, little, sparrow-like man, who had risen by dint of much careful eying of the social and political weather to a place of honor in the village councils. he was considered safe and conservative, which was merely another way of saying that he never committed himself on any question, public or private, till he had learned which way the wind was blowing. he smiled a good deal, said nothing that anybody could remember, and voted with the majority. out of gratitude the majority had rewarded him, and he was now the custodian of our youth--the sentinel, alert and fearful of the slightest shadow, starting even at the sound of his own footfall on the ramparts of the republic, as colonel shears once called our public schools. he had come, therefore, under the shadow of the night, but out of kindness, as he himself explained, to advise the daughter of an old friend--and in a voice so low and cautious that dove, seated in the room beyond, heard nothing but a soothing murmur in response to letitia's spirited but respectful tones. in departing, however, he was heard to say: "oh, by-the-way--er--i think you had better not mention my calling, miss primrose. better not mention it, i guess. it--er--hum--might do harm, you know. you understand." "perfectly," replied letitia. "good-night." when the door was closed she turned to dove. "what do you think that little--that man wants?" she asked. "don't know, i'm sure." "wants me to take down all my pictures--" "your pictures!" "yes--and remove all books but text-books from the school-room. and listen: he says my geraniums--fancy! my poor little red geraniums!--are 'not provided for in the curriculum.'" "the curriculum!" cried dove, hysterically. "the curriculum," replied letitia, without a smile. "do you know what i asked him?" she leaned her chin upon her hands and gazed at dove's laughing face across the table. "do you know what i asked that man?" "no." "i asked him if samuel luther shears was provided for in the curriculum." "you didn't say _luther_, letitia!" "i did--i said luther." "darling! and what did he say to that?" letitia smiled. "what could he say, my love?" vi truants in arcady the excitement vanished as it had come, in our tranquil air. a few keen april nights had been sufficient for the sentinels in the lilac-bushes, who wearied of yawning at st. peter's silent and gloomy walls. their ardor and the matrons' midnight coffee cooling together, they were withdrawn, and the guards themselves, though they had no formal mustering-out, forgot their fears and countersigns and met no more. friendships were renewed. neighbors nodded again across their fences. protestant housewives dropped catholic-vended sugar into their tea, and while there were men like shears, who still in dreams saw candles burning, st. peter's arsenal became a quiet parish church again. untouched by the whirlwind's passing, letitia's window-garden went on blooming red, her pictures still hung defiantly on the walls, and classic fiction tempted our youth to her corner shelf. colonel shears, however, in that single visit to the school-room, had found new texts for his loquacity, and, our courts failing as usual to furnish him with sufficient cases to engross his mind, he devoted himself with new ardor to our public welfare, and recalled eloquently, to those who had time to listen, the little, old, red school-house of their youth, the simpler methods of the old school-masters, who had no fads or foibles beyond the birch, and who achieved, he said--witness his hearers, to say nothing of his humble self--results to which the world might point with satisfaction if not with pride. had the modern schools produced an abraham lincoln, he wished to know? "not by a jugful," was his own reply. "you may talk about your kindergartens, and your special courses, and your froebel, and your delsarte, and you may hang up your eyetalian pictures on the wall, and stick up geraniums in your windows--but where is your abraham? that's what i ask, gentlemen. i tell you, the schools they had when you and i were boys--gentlemen, they were ragged--they were ragged, as we were--but they turned out men! and you mark my words: there ain't any old maid in grassy ford, with all her ancient classics, and her new methods, and her gimcracks and flower-pots, that'll ever--produce--an honest--abe!" i am told that the crowd agreed with him so heartily and with such congratulatory delight that he was emboldened to announce himself then and there as a candidate for the school-board. though he failed of election, there was always a party in grassy ford opposed to new-fangled methods in the schools. letitia herself was quite aware that even among her fellow-teachers there were those who smiled at her geraniums, and there had been some criticism of her manner of conducting classes. shears was fond of relating how a visitor to her room had found a class in fractions discussing robins' eggs! letitia explained the matter simply enough, but the fact remained for the colonel to enlarge upon. "a lesson," he said, "in robinson's _complete arithmetic_, page twenty-seven, may end in somebody's apple-tree, or the top of sun dial, or popocatapetl, or peru! gentlemen, i maintain that such dilly-dallying is a subversion of the--" "subversion!" growled old man butters, who still came out on sunny days with the aid of his cane. "i calculate you mean it's not right." "that," said the orator, suavely, "is the meaning i intended to convey, mr. butters." "well, then, you're wrong," grumbled the old man. "why, that there girl"--he called her so till the day he died, this side of ninety--"that there girl's a trump, sam shears, i tell ye. she teaches robinson and god a'mighty, too!" letitia was often now in the public eye; her teaching was made a campaign issue, though all her nature shrank from such contests. it was easy to attack her manner of instruction, and sometimes difficult to defend it--it had been so subtle in its plan, and so unusual in its execution, and, moreover, time alone could disclose what fruits would ripen from its flowery care. old mr. butters had put roughly what dr. primrose himself had taught: "dearly beloved, in the fountains of learning, no less than in the water-brooks, his lilies blow." "wouldst thou love god?" he asked, in the last sermon that he ever wrote. "first, love his handiwork." it was his daughter's motto. it hung on the walls of her simple chamber, with others from her "other poets," as she used to call them--little rubrics printed for her in red and gold at the "pide bull." that handiwork of god which she still called grassy fordshire was so full of marvels to this poet's daughter, there were so many flowers in it, the birds there sang so blithely, its waters ran with such tremulous messages echoed by woods and whispered by meadow-grasses, its skies, melting into glowing promises in the west, shone thereafter with such jewelled truths, she could hold no text-books higher than her lord's. it was not mere duty that drew her morn after morn, year after year, to the red-brick school-house. all the tenderness, all those eager hopes and fears which she lavished so upon her labor, meant life and love to her, for she truly loved them--those troops of laughing, heedless children, passing like flocks of birds, stopping with her for a little twittering season to seize her bounty and, as it seemed to her, fly on gayly and forget. it may be that i write prejudiced in her favor, but i write as one knowing the dream of a woman's lifetime to set those young feet straight in pleasant paths, to open those wondering eyes to the beauty of an ancient world about them, in every leaf of it, and wing--in the earth below and the sky above it, and there not only in the flawless azure, but in the rain-clouds' gloom. "dark days are also beautiful," she used to tell them. "had you thought of that?" they had not thought of it. it was one of those subtler things which text-books do not say; but letitia taught them, and a woman of grassy ford, when sore bereft, once said to me: "dark days, doctor, are also beautiful. miss primrose told us that, when we went to school to her. it was of clouds she spoke, but i remembered it--and now i know." "oh, miss primrose," johnny murray used to say. "do you remember when i went to school to you? do you remember where i sat--there by the window? well, it's awfully funny, but do you know, i never add or multiply or subtract but i smell geraniums." perhaps, the colonel would reply, that was why johnny murray deserted the ledgers he was set to keep--the scent of the flowers in them proved too strong for him. it may be so, for little things count so surely; it may be the reason he is today a sun-browned farmer instead of a lily-white clerk in his father's store. from the geraniums in a school-room window to a thousand peach-trees blooming in a valley is a long journey, but it was for just such journeys that letitia taught, and not merely for that shorter one which led through her petty school-room to the grade above. letitia tells me that sitting there at her higher desk above those rows of heads, she used to think of them as flowers, and of her school-room as a garden. often then it would come to her how pleasant a task it was to tend the roses there--golden-haired laura vane, and alice bishop, and isabel walton, and handsome, black-eyed tommy willis, whose pranks are famous in grassy fordshire still; then, at the doting thought of them, her heart would smite her, and she would turn to those other homelier flowers. it must have been in some such moment of repentance that susan leary, chancing to raise her eyes to her adored school-mistress, found letitia smiling so amiably upon her that the girl blushed, and from that hour grew more mindful of her scolding looks; her freckled face was scrubbed quite glossy after that, her dress was neater, her ribbons tied, till by-and-by, to letitia's wonder and reward, she found in that beaming irish face upturned to her, color and fragrance for her very soul. young peter bauer was a german sprout transplanted steeragewise to a corner of the garden, and slow in budding, his face as blank as the blackboard-wall he grew beside; but one fine morning, at a single question in the b geography, it burst into roseate bloom. "teacher, teacher, i know dot! suabia ist in deutschland. mein vater ist in deutschland! ich bin--" and after that peter was a poppy on friday afternoons, reading essays on his fatherland. thus, honest gardener that letitia was, she trained and pruned, disdaining nothing because of weediness, believing that what would bear a leaf would bear a flower as well. to leave at four o'clock, to return at nine and find one open which had been shut before!--is it not the gardener's morning joy? it was not alone the plants which refused to grow for her that caused her pain. these at least she had never loved, however patiently she had cared for them. there were wayward beauties in her garden who on tenderer stalks bore longer thorns. she learned, in her way, the lesson mothers learn in theirs, who sometimes love and toil and sacrifice unceasingly, and wait, years or forever, for reward. "remember, miss primrose, you are not a mother," snapped a certain sharp-tongued matron of our town who had disagreed with her. "oh," said letitia, "but i have loved so many children. i am a kind of mother." "mother!" cried the matron. "yes," letitia answered. "i am a mother--without a child." had they been her children, it had been easier to forgive their thoughtlessness. offended sometimes by her discipline, they said plain things of her lack of pretty youth; they whispered lies of her; she shed some tears, i know, over those scribblings which she intercepted or found forgotten on the school-room floor. then her garden was the abode of shadows, her efforts vain there. sometimes, for solace, she sought out dove, but the habit of lonely thinking had grown upon her; it had been enforced by her maidenhood. while i am not a herb-doctor by diploma, i am one by faith, simples have wrought such speedy cures in my own gray hours, and grassy-fordshire is so green with them that a walk by troublesome or a climb on sun dial is in itself a marvellous remedy, aromatic and anodyne. in my drives to patients beyond the town, i have been seized suddenly by a kind of fever. there are no pills for it, or powders, or any drugs in all the bottles on my shelves--but a jointed fishing-rod and line kept in the bottom of a doctor's buggy is efficacious if applied in time. often when that spell was on me i have turned pegasus towards the nearest stream, and while he nibbled, one hour on a scented bank, fish or not--sixty drops from the grass-green phial of a summer's day--has restored my soul. clattering home again at double-quick, pegasus's ears on end, his nostrils quivering, my buggy thumping over thank-you-ma'ams, i would not be a city leech for a brown-stone front and a brass name-plate upon my door. in some such pleasant hooky-hour in spring i had cast, sullenly enough, but was now humming to myself, in tune with troublesome, when a twig snapped behind the willows. some cow, thought i, and kept my eyes upon the stream. another twig: i turned inquiringly. there, by the water-side, and all unmindful of my presence, was letitia primrose. i bit my pipe clean through. i would have called at once, but something stopped me. she stood quietly by the brook, gazing at the stones on which it played and sang. her shoulders drooped a little, her face seemed tired and pale. she turned and saw me. "bertram!" her face was guilty. "hello!" i said, lighting my pipe. "you here, bertram?" "yes," i replied, casting again. "how is it you're here? no school, letitia?" she hesitated. "no patients, doctor?" she asked, softly. "no patients dying," i retorted. we eyed each other. "i had a headache," she said, meekly, seating herself upon a log. "and i have a substitute." "there are other doctors," i remarked. suddenly she rose. "i think," she said, "i'll just stroll that way, if you don't mind, bertram." "not at all," i replied. "i know how you feel, letitia. that's why i come here." "do you?" she asked. "then this isn't your first--" "nor my twentieth offence," i replied, laughing. she sighed. "i'm glad of that. it's my first--really. i feel like a criminal." i pointed with my broken pipe-stem. "you'll find the best path there," i said. "i think i'll stay, if you don't mind, bertram." "stay, by all means," i replied, and went on fishing. letitia was the first to speak. "it's hard always trying to be--dominant," she remarked, "isn't it?" "why, i rather like it," i replied. "you are a man," she said. "men do, i believe. but i, i get so tired sometimes"--she bit her lip--"of being master." she laughed nervously. "that's why i ran away." presently she went on speaking. "if we could only be surrounded by such things as these, always, how serene our lives might be. don't smile. it's my old sermon of environment, i know; but why are you here?--and why am i? i try my best to keep the beautiful before my children's eyes, to tempt them into lovely thinking. bertram, i believe, heart and soul, in the power of beauty. i am so sure of it, i know i should be a stronger teacher if i were young and beautiful myself--or even pretty, like helen white." "she is a mere wax doll," i said. "but children like pretty faces," she replied. "look! you have a fish!" it was a snag, but while i was busy with it she rose. "wait," i said, "i'll drive you home." "no, thank you, bertram. i'd rather walk. my head is better now. good-bye." i did not urge her. when she had gone i picked up a slip of paper from the path where she had passed. it was a crumpled half of a blue-ruled leaf torn from some pupil's tablet, and, scrawled upon it in a school-girl's hand, i read: "dear edna,--don't mind the homely old thing. everybody says she's fifty if she's a day. no one would marry her, so she had to teach school." it was written, dove told me afterwards, by one of the rose-girls in letitia's garden. vii peggy neal my aunt miranda, who was wise in many things, used to maintain that a woman ceased to be charming only when she thought she had ceased to be so; that age had nothing whatever to do with the matter--and so saying, she would smile so bewitchingly upon me that i was forced inevitably to the conclusion that she bore her fifty years much better than many women their paltry score. letitia was not so sanguine; she laid more stress upon the spring-time. i have heard her say that there was nothing lovelier in the world than a fair young girl full of pure spirits as a rose-cup full of dew. she would turn in the street to look at one; she liked them to be about her; her own face grew more winning in such comradeship, and when she was given a higher school-room, where the girls wore skirts to their shoe-tops and put up their hair, it was an almost childish pleasure which she displayed. it was this very preference for exquisite maidenhood that explained her fondness for peggy neal. it was not scholarship which had won the teacher's heart, for peggy was an indifferent student, as letitia herself confessed, but she was a plump and brown-eyed, pink-cheeked country girl who always smiled and who had that grace of innocence and bloom of health which are the witchery of youth. she was a favorite with school-boys, a belle of theirs at straw-rides, dances, and taffy-pulls, and other diversions of our grassy fordshire teens, where, however, her gentle ways, her readiness to follow rather than to lead, her utter incapability of envy or spiteful speech made her beloved of girls as well. she was the amiable maiden whom men look twice at, yet whose sisters are never quite jealous, holding her charm to be mere pinkish prettiness and beneath the envy of superior minds like theirs. peggy was the sort of girl letitia had never been, roseate with the kind of youth letitia had never known, and it enchanted her as a joy and beauty which had been denied. neal, the father, was a drunken farmer, whose wife was chiefly responsible for the crops they planted, and who, being strong and abler than her shiftless spouse, was usually to be seen in the field and garden directing and aiding the hired man. peggy was the only child. she helped her mother in the kitchen, fed the chickens, skimmed the milk, sold the butter, and let her father in o' nights. he was a by-word in the village. occasional revivalists prayed for him publicly upon their knees, but without effect. his wife could have told them how futile that method was; she had tried it herself in more hopeful years. she had tried rage also, but it left her bitter and sick of life, and pat the drunker; so wisely she had fallen back upon resignation, though not of the apathetic sort, and had made herself mistress of the farm, where her husband was suffered to spend his nights if he chose, or was able to walk so far from the tavern where he spent his days. for peggy the mother had better dreams. she knew that the girl was beautiful, and she knew also what beauty, however born, might win for itself in a wider world than her own had been. peggy, therefore, was to finish school, however the farm might suffer by her absence and the expense of such simple dress as her village friendships would require. nature might marry thrift or money, thought the hard-faced woman in the faded sunbonnet; silk and lace and a new environment might make a queen of this beggar-maid, her last hope in a life of hopelessness. proudly she watched her daughter flower into village fame, guarding that fairness with jealous eyes. "daughter," she would say, "where is your hat?" "mamma, i like the sun." "nonsense. go straight and fetch it and put it on. do you want to be speckled like your ugly old mother-hen?" it was a care and pride that would have turned another and far less lovely head than peggy's, yet in spite of it this country school-girl ripened sweetly. driving on country visits i used to meet her by the way, walking easily and humming to herself the while, her books and luncheon swinging at her side--a perfect model for romantic painters who run to milk-maids, or, as letitia used to say, the veritable phyllis of old english song. the mother rose at dawn; she toiled by sunlight and by lamplight; her face grew haggard, her figure gaunter, her voice sharper with bitter irony, her heart harder save in that one lone corner which was kept soft--solely for her child. peggy, i believe, was the only living thing she smiled upon. neighbors dreaded her cutting tongue; her husband was too dazed to care. time went by. in spite of that stern resolve in the woman's nature, and all her labor and frugal scheming, what with the failure of crops and her lack of knowledge of their better care, and an old encumbrance whose interest could be barely met on the quarter-days that cast their shadows on the whole round year, the farm declined. letitia's gifts from her own wardrobe were all that kept peggy neal in school. it was a word from letitia also that raised the cloud on the mother's face when despair was darkest there. might not summer-boarders, letitia asked, bear a surer, more golden harvest than those worn-out fields? "summer-boarders!" cried mrs. neal, with a grim irony in her voice. but she repeated it--"summer-boarders," in a milder tone, and the plan was tried. the first ones came in june. they descended noisily from the fast express, lugging bags and fishing-rods and guns. some of them stared; some young ones whistled softly at the fair driver of that old two-seated buckboard waiting to bear them to the farm. they greeted effusively--for the daughter's sake--the hard-mouthed woman who met them at the door, striving her best to smile a welcome. she it was who showed them their plain but well-scrubbed chambers, while their minds were at the barn. pastures and orchards bore strange fruit that summer: white-faced city clerks in soft, pink shirts smoked cigarettes and browned in the sun; freckled ladies set up their easels in the cow-lot; high-school professors asked one another puzzling questions, balanced cannily on the topmost rail of the virginia fence, and all--all, that is, to a man--helped peggy carry in the milk, helped peggy churn, helped peggy bake, helped peggy set the table, and clear it, and wipe the dishes, and set them safely away again in the dim pantry--helped peggy to market, and peggy to church: so rose her star. the mother watched, remembering her own girlhood. its romance, seen through a mist of gloomy years, seemed foolish now. there might be happiness in human life--she had never known any. there was a deal of nonsense in the world called love, she knew, and there was a surer thing called money. peggy should wait for it. the mother watched, smiling to herself sardonically, secretly well-pleased--smiling because she knew quite well that these callow sprigs had far less money than negligées; well-pleased because she guessed that soon enough a man with both would be hovering about sweet peggy's dairy. it was a humorous thing to her that all these city men should think it beautiful--that dampish, sunless spot where the milk-cans stood waist-deep in cresses. she kept sharp eyes upon her daughter, and farm-house duties filled peggy's days to their very brim. there must be no loitering by star-light, either. mother and daughter now slept together in the attic store-room, for the new farming had proved a prosperous thing. the summer was not like other summers. there was life and gayety up at neal's: strumming of banjos and the sound of laughter and singing on the porch, much lingering in hammocks under the pine-trees, moonlit jaunts in the old hay-rick, lanterns moving about the barn and dairy, empty bowls on the buttery table when mrs. neal came down at dawn, and half-cut loaves in the covered crocks. september came and the harvest had been gathered in. the last boarder had returned cityward. peggy was in school again. one day, however, she was missing from her classes, and letitia, fearing that she might be ill, walked to the farm after school was over. it was a pleasant road with a narrow path beside it among the grasses, and the day was cool with premonitions of the year's decline. the farm seemed silent and deserted. she knocked at doors, she tapped lightly on the kitchen-windows, but no one was at home. at the barn, however, the horses were in their stalls, turning their heads to her and whinneying of their empty mangers. surely, she thought, the neals could not be gone. she stood awhile by the well-curb from which she could better survey the farm: it lay before her, field and orchard, bright with sunshine and golden-rod, yet she saw no moving thing but the crows in the corn-stubble and the cows waiting by the meadow-bars. then she tried the dairy, and there heard nothing but the brook whimpering among the cans and cresses, and she turned away. now a lane runs, grassy and strewn with the wild blackberry-vines, through the neal farm to a back road into town, and letitia chose it to vary her homeward way. it passes first the brook, over a little hoof-worn, trembling bridge, and then the vineyard, where the grapes were purple that autumn evening. there, pausing to regale herself, letitia heard a strange sound among the trellises. it was a child crying, moaning and sobbing as if its heart would break. for a moment only letitia listened there; then she ran, fearfully, stumbling in the heavy loam between the rows of vines, to the spot from which the moaning came. she found a girl crouching on the earth. "peggy!" she cried, kneeling beside her. "peggy! are you hurt? peggy! answer me!" the girl shook her head and shrank away among the lower leaves. "oh, what is the matter?" letitia begged, terrified, and gathered peggy into her arms. "tell me! tell me, sweet!" "nothing," was the wretched answer. "please--please go away!" but letitia stayed, brushing the dirt from the girl's dark hair, kissing her, petting her, murmuring the tenderest names, and gently urging her to tell. peggy raised herself upon her knees, putting both hands to her temples and staring wildly with swollen eyes. "mamma's gone in, miss primrose," she said, brokenly. "she'll--she'll tell you. please--please go away!" she begged so piteously, letitia rose. "i'd rather stay, peggy; but if you wish it--" "yes. please go!" "i'd rather stay." "no. please--" slowly, and with many misgivings, letitia went. she knocked again at the farm-house, but got no answer, as before. she tried the doors--they were locked, all of them. then her heart reproached her and she hurried back again to the lane. it was growing dusk, and in the vineyard the rows confused her. "peggy!" she called, softly. her foot touched a basket half-filled with grapes. "peggy! where are you?" she could hear nothing but the rustling leaves. "peggy!" she called. "peggy!" there was no answer, but as she listened with a throbbing heart, she heard cows lowing at the pasture-bars--and the click of the farmyard gate. viii new eden letitia's church, the last her father ever preached in, is a little stone st. paul's, pine-shaded and ivy-grown, upon a hill-side. there are graves about it in the lawn, scattered, not huddled there, and no paths between them, only the soft grass touching the very stones. above them in the untrimmed boughs swaying with every wind, the wild birds nest and sing, so that death where dr. primrose lies seems a pleasant dreaming. "our service," he used to say, "is the ancient poetry of reverence;" and every verse of it brings to letitia memories of her father standing at the lecturn, while she was a child listening in the pews. "i was very proud of him," she used to tell us. "his sermons were wonderful, i think. you will say that i could not judge them as a girl and daughter, but i have read them since. i have them all in a box up-stairs, and now and then i take one out and read it to myself, and all that while i can hear his voice. they are better than any i listen to nowadays; they are far more thoughtful, fuller of life and fire and the flower of eloquence. our ministers are not so brimming any more." she told us a story i had never heard, of his earnestness and how hard it was for him to find words fervent enough to express his meaning; how when a rich old merchant of grassy ford confessed to him a doubt that there was a god, dear dr. primrose turned upon him in the village street where they walked together and said, with the tears springing to his eyes: "gabriel bond, not as a clergyman but as a man, i say to you, consider for a moment that apple-bloom you are treading on!" it was spring and a bough from the merchant's garden overhung the walk where they had paused. "hold it in your hand, and look at it, and think, man, _think_! use the same reason which tells you two and two make four--the same reason that made you rich, gabriel--and tell me, if you can, there is no god! why, sir--" and here dr. primrose's heart quite overcame him, and his voice broke. "gabriel, you are not such a damned--" and the merchant, letitia said, for it was bond himself who told her the story long after dr. primrose's voice was stilled--the merchant, astounded to find a clergyman so like another man struggling for stressful words for his emotion, picked up the bruised twig from beneath his feet and stuck it in her father's coat. "doctor," he said, quietly, "there's force, sir, in what you say," and left dr. primrose wondering on the walk. but the next sunday he appeared at church, and every sunday for many years thereafter, merely explaining to those who marvelled, that he had found a man. it was not likely that the daughter of such a man would be much troubled with doubts of what he had taught so positively or what she had come to believe herself; if led astray it would be like her sex in general, through too much faith. while not obtrusive in her views of life in her younger years, letitia, as she reached her prime, and through the habit of self-dependence and her daily duty of instructing undeveloped minds, grew more decisive in her manner, more impatient of opposition to what she held was truth, especially when it seemed to her the fruit of ignorance or that spirit of bantering argument so common to the humorously inclined. she liked humor to know its place, she said; it was the favorite subterfuge of persons championing a losing cause. in such discussions, finding her earnestness useless to convince, and scorning to belittle a theme dear to her with resort to jest or personalities, she would sit silenced, but with a flush upon her cheeks, and if the enemy had pressed too sharply on her orderly retreat, one would always know it by the tapping of her foot upon the floor. she was no mean antagonist. for she read not only those volumes her father loved, but the books and journals of the day as well. reading and theorizing of the greater world outside her little one, she was not troubled by those paradoxes which men meet there, which cause them to falter, doubt, and see two sides of questions where they had seen but one, till they fall back lazily, taking their ease on that neutral ground where humor is the host, welcoming all and favoring none. we used to smile sometimes at letitia's fervency; we had our little jests at its expense, but we knew it was her father in her, poet and preacher not dead but living still. in his youth and prime dr. primrose was ever the champion of needy causes, whose name is legion, so that his zeal found vent, and left him in his decline the mild old poet i remember. would letitia be as mild, i wondered? "a few more needy causes," i used to say, "would soften that tireless spirit--say, stockings to darn and children to dress for school, and a husband to keep in order." "yet in lieu of these," dove once replied, "she has her day's work and her church and books--" "but are they enough for a woman, do you think?" i asked my wife. we were standing together by robin's bedside, watching him as he slept. dove said nothing, but laid her hand against his rose-red cheek. little by little we became aware of some subtle change in our letitia. she took less interest in the mild adventures of our household world. she smiled more faintly at my jests, a serious matter, for i have at home, like other men, some reputation for a pretty wit upon occasion. it was a mild estrangement and recluseness. she sat more often in her room up-stairs. she was absent frequently on lonely walks, sometimes at evening, and brought home a face so rapt, and eyes with a look in them so far away from our humble circle about the reading-lamp, we deemed it wiser to ask no questions. for years it had been an old country custom of ours, when we sat late, to seek the pantry before retiring, but now when invited to join us in these childish spreads, "no, thank you," letitia would reply, and in a tone so scrupulously courteous i used to feel like the man old butters told about--a poor, inadvertent wight, he was, who had offered a sandwich to an angel. i forget now how the story runs, but the man grumbled at his rebuff, and so did i. "i know, my dear," dove reproved me, "but you ought not to do such things when you see she's thinking." "thinking!" i cried, cooling my temper in bread-and-milk. "is it thinking, then?" "i don't know what it is," dove sighed. "she isn't letitia any more, yet for the life of me i can't tell why. i never dream now of disturbing her when she looks that way, and i cannot even talk to her as i used to do." "she isn't well," i said. "she says she was never better." "she may be troubled." "she says she was never happier." "well, then," i decided, sagely, "it must be thinking, as you say." we agreed to take no notice of what might be only moody crotchets after all; they would soon pass. we no longer pressed her to join our diversions about the lamp, but welcomed her in the old spirit when she came willingly or of her own accord. yet even then it was not the same: there was some mute, mysterious barrier to the old, free, happy intercourse. some word of dove's or mine, mere foolery, perhaps, but meant in cheerfulness, would dance out gayly across the table where we sat at cards, but slink back home again, disgraced. what could this discord be? we asked ourselves--this strange impassiveness, this disapproval, as it seemed to us--negative, but no less obvious for that? there was a heaviness in the air. we breathed more freely in letitia's absence. we grew self-conscious in that mute, accusing presence, which i resented and my wife deplored. dove even confessed to a feeling of guiltiness, yet could remember no offence. "what have i done?" i asked my wife. "what have _i_ done?" asked she. at meals, especially, we were ill at ease. the very viands, even those famous dishes of dove's own loving handiwork, met with disfavor instead of praise. letitia had abandoned meats; now she declined dove's pies! pastry was innutritious, she declared, meats not intended for man at all, and even of green things she ate so mincingly that my little housewife was in despair. "what can i get for you, dear?" she would ask, anxiously. "what would you like?" "my love," letitia would reply, flushing with annoyance, "i am perfectly satisfied." "but i'll get you anything, letitia." "i eat quite enough, my dear," was the usual answer--"quite enough," she would add, firmly, "for any one." then dove would sink back ruefully, and i, pitying my wife--i, rebuked but unabashed and shameless in my gluttony, would pass my plate again. "give me," i would say, cheerfully, "a _third_ piece of that excellent, that altogether heavenly cherry-pie, my dear." it may sound like triumph, but was not--for letitia primrose would ignore me utterly. "have you read," she would ask, sipping a little water from her glass, "_new eden_, by mrs. lord?" we still walked mornings to the school-house, still talked together as we walked, but not as formerly--not of the old subjects, which was less to be wondered at, nor yet of new ones with the old eloquence. i felt constrained. there was a new note in letitia's comments on the way the world was going, though i could not define its pitch. she spoke, i thought, less frankly than of old, but much more carelessly. she seemed more listless in her attitude towards matters that had roused her, heart and soul, in other days. me she ignored at pleasure; could it be possible, i wondered, that she was determined to renounce the whole round world as well? it was i who had first resented this alienation, but it was dove who could not be reconciled to a change so inscrutable and unkind. time, i argued, was sufficient reason; age, i reminded her, cast strange shadows before its coming; our friend was growing old--perhaps like her father--before her time. but dove was alarmed: letitia was pale, she said; her face was wan--there was a drawn look in the lines of the mouth and eyes; even her walk had lost its buoyancy. "true," i replied, "but even that is not unnatural, my dear. besides, she eats nothing; she starves herself." my wife rose suddenly. "bertram," she said, earnestly, "you must stop this folly. i have tried my best to tempt her out of it, but i have failed. it is you she is fondest of. it is you who must speak." "i fear it will do no good," i answered, "but i will try." i have had use for courage in my lifetime, both as doctor and man, but i here confess to a trembling of the heart-strings, a childish faintness, a lily cowardice in these encounters, these trifling domestic sallies and ambuscades. nor have i strategy; i know but one method of attack, and its sole merit is the little time it wastes. "letitia," i said, next morning, as we walked townward, "you are ill." "nonsense, bertram," she replied. "you are ill," i replied, firmly. "you are pale as a ghost. your hands tremble. your walk--" "i was never stronger in my life," she interposed, and as if she had long expected this little crisis and was prepared for it. "never, i think, have i felt so tranquil, so serene. my mind--" "i am not speaking of your mind," i said. "i am talking of your body." "bertram," she said, excitedly, "that is just your error--not yours alone, but the whole world's error. this thinking always of earthly--" "now, letitia," i protested, "i have been a doctor--" "illness," she continued, "is a state of mind. to think one is ill, is to be ill, of course, but to think one is well, is to be well, as i am--well, i mean, in a way i never dreamed of!--a way so sure, so beautiful, that i think sometimes i never knew health before." "letitia," i said, sharply, "what nonsense is this?" "it is not nonsense," she retorted. "it is living truth. oh, how can we be so blind! the body, bertram--why, the body is nothing!" "nothing!" i cried. "nothing!" she answered, her face glowing. "the body is nothing; the mind is everything! it is god's great precious gift! with my mind i can control my body--my life--yes, my very destiny!--if i use god's gift of will. it is divine." "letitia," i said, sternly, "those are fine words, and well enough in their time and place. i am not a physician of souls. i mend worn bodies, when i can. it is yours i am thinking of--the frail, white, half-starved flesh and blood where your soul is kept." "stop!" she cried. "you have no right to speak that way. you mean well, bertram, but you are wrong. you are mistaken--terribly mistaken," she repeated, earnestly--"terribly mistaken. i am quite, quite able to care for myself. i only ask to be let alone." she had grown hysterical. tears were in her eyes. "see," she said, in a calmer tone, wiping them away, "i have had perfect control till now. this is not weakness merely; it is worse: it is sin. but i shall show you. i shall show you a great truth, bertram, if you will let me. only have patience, that is all." she smiled and paused in a little common near the school-house where none might hear us. "i learned it only recently," she told me. "i cannot see how i never thought of it before: this great power mind has over matter--how just by the will which god has given us in his goodness, we may rise above these petty, earthly things which chain us down. we can rise _here_, bertram--here on earth, i mean--and when we do, even though our feet be on grassy fordshire ground, we walk in a higher sphere. ah, can't you see then that nothing can ever touch us?--nothing earthly, however bitter, can ever sadden us or spoil our lives! there will be no such thing as disappointment; no regret, no death--and earth will be eden come again." her eyes were shining. "letitia," i said, "it is of another world that you are dreaming." "no, it is all quite possible here," she said. "it is possible to you, if you only think so. it is possible for me, because i do." "it seems," i said, "a monstrous selfishness." "selfishness!" she said, aghast. "as long as you have human eyes," i said, "you will see things to make you weep, letitia." "but if i shut them--if i rise above these petty--" "the sound of crying will reach your ears," i said. "how then shall you escape sadness and regret? what right have you to avoid the burdens your fellows bear?--to be in bliss, while they are suffering? it would be monstrous, letitia primrose. you would not be woman: you would be a fiend." she shook her head. "you don't understand," she said. "at least," i answered, "i will send you something from the office." she shut her lips. "i shall not take it." "it will make you stronger," i insisted. "you can do nothing," she answered, coldly, "to make me stronger than i am." ix a serious matter if ever woman had a tender heart, that heart was dove's. i used to say, to her confusion, that a south sea cannibal might find confessional in her gentle ear, were his voice but low enough; that she might draw back, shuddering at his tales of the bones he had picked, but if only his tears were real ones, i could imagine her, when he had done, putting her hand upon his swarthy shoulder and saying, earnestly: "i know just how you feel!" such was the woman letitia confided in, now that her tongue was loosened and the mystery solved, for her soul was brimming with those new visions--dreams so roseate as she painted them that my wife listened with their wonder mirrored in her round brown eyes, and dumb before that eloquence. dove loved letitia as a greater woman than herself, she said, worshipped her for her wider knowledge and more fluent speech, just as she wondered at it ruefully as a girl on sun dial listening to letitia's tales of dryads and their spells. in return for all this rapt attention and modest reverence, letitia formerly had been grace itself. it was a tender tyranny she had exercised; but now?--how should my simple, earthly dove, mother and housewife, confide any longer her favorite cares, her gentle fears, her innocent regrets? with what balm of sympathy and cheer would the new letitia heal those wounds? would not their very existence be denied; or worse, be held as evidence of sin?--iniquity in my poor girl's soul, hidden there like a worm i' the bud, and to be chastened in no wise save by taking invisible white wings of thought, and soaring--god knows where? the new letitia was not unamiable, nor yet unkind, knowingly, for she smiled consistently upon all about her--a strange, aloof, unloving smile though, at which we sighed. we should have liked her to be heart and soul again in our old-time common pleasures, even to have joined us now and then in a fault or two--to have looked less icily, for example, upon our occasional petty gossip of our neighbors, or to have added one wrathful word to our little rages at the way the world was straying from the golden mist we had seen it turn in, in our youth. as we watched her, wondering, laughing sometimes, sometimes half-angry at this new and awful guise she had assumed, it would come to us, not so much how sadly earthen we must seem to her, nor yet how strange and daft and airy her new views seemed to us in our duller sight--but how the old letitia whom we had loved was gone forever. "bertram," said my wife one evening as we sat together by the lamp, "what do you think letitia says?" "i am prepared for anything, my dear." dove, who was sewing, laid down her work and said, gravely: "she does not believe in marriage any more." i raised my eyebrows. there was really nothing to be said. "at least," my wife went on, resuming her sewing, "she says that the time will come when the race will have"--dove paused thoughtfully--"risen above such things, i think she said. i really don't remember the words she used, but i believe--yes, there _will_ be marriage--in a way--that is"--dove knitted her brows--"a union of kindred souls, if i understand her." "ah!" i replied. "i see. but what about the perpetuation--" my wife shook her head. "oh, all that will be done away with, i believe," she said, gravely. "done away with!" i cried. "at least," dove explained, "it will not be necessary." my face, i suppose, may have looked incredulous. "i don't quite comprehend what letitia says sometimes," my wife explained, "but today she was telling me--" dove laughed quaintly. "oh, i forget what comes next," she said, "but letitia told me all about it this morning." i returned to my quarterly. presently my wife resumed: "she has four books about it." "only four!" i said. "i should think one would need a dozen at least to explain such mysteries." "she says herself she is only at the beginning," dove replied. "she's now in the first circle--or cycle, i've forgotten which--but the more she reads and the more she thinks about it, the more wonderful it grows. oh, there was something else--what was it now she called it?--something about the--cosmos, i think she said, but i didn't quite grasp the thing at all." "i'm surprised," i replied. "it's very simple." "i suppose it is," dove answered, quickly, and so humbly that i laughed, but she looked up at me with such a quivering smile, i checked myself. "i suppose it _is_ simple," she replied. "i guess my mind--is not very strong, bertram. i--i find it so hard to understand some--" i saw the tears were coming. "don't trouble yourself about such things, my dear," i said, cheerfully. "it's a bonny mind you have, you take my word for it." dove wiped her eyes. "no," she said; "when i listen to letitia, i feel like a--" "there, there, my dear," i said, "you have things a thousand times more vital and useful and beautiful than this cosmos letitia talks about. it's only another word for the universe, my love, if i remember rightly--i'm not quite sure myself, but it doesn't matter. it's easy to pronounce, and it may mean something, or it may mean nothing, but we needn't trouble ourselves about it, little one. you have work to do. you must remember letitia has no such ties to bind her to the simple things, which are enough for most of us to battle with. i am tired of theories myself, dear heart. work--everyday, humble, loving service is all that keeps life normal and people pleasant to have about. i see so much of this other side, it is always good to come home to you." i went back to my medical journal--i forgot to say i had come around to my wife's side of our reading-table in settling this perplexing matter; i went back to my work, and she to hers, and we finished the evening very quietly, and in as good health and unruffled spirits as the cosmos itself must enjoy, i think, judging from the easy way it has run on, year after year, age after age, since the dark beginning. part iii _rosemary_ i the home-keeper the years slip by so quietly in grassy ford that men and women born here find themselves old, they scarce know how, for are they not still within sound of the brooks they fished in, and in the shadow of the very hill-sides they climbed for butternuts, when they were young? the brooks run on so gayly as before, and why not they as well? "butters," shears used to grumble, "never could learn that he was old enough to stop his jawing and meddling around the town, till they dug his grave for him; then he shut up fast enough." "well, then," said caleb kane, another character, "we'll sure enough have to send for the sexton." colonel shears eyed caleb with suspicion. "what for?" he asked. "why, to get a word in edgewise, sam'l," caleb replied, and the colonel rose, shifted his cigar, and sauntered homeward. "mostly comedies," said the one we call johnny keats, when i urged him to write the stories of his native town; yet, as i told him, there are tragedies a-plenty too in grassy fordshire, though the dagger in them is a slower torture than the short swift stab men die of in a literary way. our heroic deaths are done by inches, as a rule, so imperceptibly, so often with jests and smiles in lieu of fine soliloquies, that our own neighbors do not always know how rare a play the curtain falls on sometimes among our hills. if i do not die in harness, if, as i often dream of doing, i turn my practice over to some younger man--perhaps to robin, who shows some signs of following in his father's steps--i shall write the story of my native town; not in the old way, embellished, as butters would have termed it, with family photographs of the leading citizens and their houses and cow-sheds, and their wooden churches, and their corner stores with the clerks and pumpkins in array before them--not in that old, time-honored, country manner, but in the way it comes to me as i look backward and think of the heroes and heroines and the clowns and villains i have known. i shall need something to keep me from "jawing and meddling around the town"; why not white paper and a good stub pen, while i smoke and muse of my former usefulness. i suppose i shall never write the chronicle; johnny keats could, if he would; and i would, if i could--thus the matter rests, while the town and its tales and i myself grow old together. even johnny keats, who was a boy when letitia taught in the red brick school-house, has a thin spot in his hair. had dove but lived--it is idle, i know, to say what might have been, had our grassy fordshire been the same sweet place it was, before she went like other white birds--"southward," she said, "but only for a winter, bertram--surely spring comes again." this i do know: that i should have had far less to tell of letitia primrose, who might have gone on mooning of a better world had dove not gone to one, leaving no theories but a son and husband to letitia's care. it was not to the oracle that she intrusted us, but to the woman--not to the new letitia but to the old, who had come back to us in those vigils at my wife's bedside. "this is not sin, letitia," dove said to her. "oh, my dear!" replied letitia. "you must not dream that i could call it so." "still," dove answered, "if i had your mind, perhaps--" "hush, dear love," letitia whispered. "my sweet, my sweet--oh, if i had your soul!" from such chastening moments letitia primrose was the mother she might have been. a tenderer, humbler heart, save only dove's, i never knew, nor a gentler voice, nor a stronger hand, than those she gave us, man and boy bereft--not only in those first blank days, but through the years that followed. so easily that i marvelled did the school-mistress become the home-keeper, nor can i look upon a spinster now, however whimsical, that i do not think of her as the elder sister of that wife and mother in her soul. a new dream possessed letitia: it was to be like dove. she could never be youthful save in spirit; she could never be lovely with that subtle poise and grace which cannot be feigned or purchased at any price, neither with gold nor patience nor purest prayer nor any precious thing whatever, but comes only as a gift to the true young mother at her cradle-side. she could not be one-half so perfect, she confessed humbly to herself, but she could keep the fire blazing on a lonely hearth, where a man sat silent with his child. my girl's housewifeliness had seemed a simple matter when letitia's mind was on her school and sky; it was now a marvel as she learned what dove had done--those thousand little things, and all so easily, so placidly, that at the day's fag-end letitia, weary with unaccustomed cares, wondered what secret system of philosophy dove's had been. what were the rules and their exceptions? what were the formulæ? here were sums to do, old as the hills, but strange, new answers! there must be a grammar for all that fluency, that daily smoothness in every clause and phrase--a kind of eloquence, as letitia saw it now, marvelling at it as dove had marvelled at her own. when she had solved it, as she thought, the steak went wrong, or the pudding failed her, or the laundry came home torn or incomplete, moths perhaps got into closets, ants stormed the pantry, or a pipe got stopped; and then, discomfited, she would have dove's magic and good-humored mastery to seek again. she had kept house once herself, it is true, but years ago, for her simple father, and not in dove's larger way. the primrose household as she saw it now had been a meagre one, for here in the years of dove's gentle rule, a wondrous domestic ritual had been established, which it was now her duty to perform. that she did it faithfully, so that the windows shone and the curtains hung like snowy veils behind them, so that the searching light of day disclosed no film upon the walnut, who could doubt, knowing that conscience and its history? she kept our linen neatly stitched; she set the table as dove had set it; she poured out tea for us more primly, to be sure, but cheerfully as dove had poured it, smiling upon us from dove's chair. robin grew straight of limb and wholesome of soul as dove had dreamed. letitia helped him with his lessons, told him the legends of king arthur's court, and read with him those _tales of a grandfather_, which i had loved as just such another romping boy--though not so handsome and debonair as dove's son was, for he had her eyes and her milder, her more poetic face, and was more patrician in his bearing; he is like his mother to this day. his temper, which is not maternal, i confess--those sudden gusts when, as i before him, he chafed in bonds and cried out bitter things, rose hotly sometimes at letitia's discipline, though he loved her doubly now. "you are not my mother!" he would shout, clinching his fists. "you are not my mother!" then her heart would fail her, for she loved him fondly, even in his rage, and her penalty would be mild indeed. often she blamed herself for his petty waywardness, and feeling her slackening hand he would take the bit between his teeth, coltlike; but he was a good lad, robin was, and, like his mother, tender-hearted, for all his spirit, and as quick to be sorry as to be wrong. when they had made it up, crying in each other's arms, letitia would say to him: "i'm not your mother, but i love you, and i've got no other little boy." it was thus letitia kept our home for us, tranquil and spotless as of old; and if at first i chose more often than was kind to sit rather among my bottles and my books and instruments, leaving her robin and the evening-lamp, it was through no fault or negligence of hers i did it, for, however bright my hearth might glow, however tended by her gentle hands, its flame was but the ruddy symbol to me of a past whose spirit never could return. "who _is_ miss primrose?" strangers in grassy ford would ask. "she's a sort of relative," the reply would be, "and the doctor's house-keeper." for the woman who keeps still sacred and beautiful another woman's home, in all the language, in all our wordiness, there is no other name. ii johnny keats the one we call johnny keats is well enough known as karl st. john. he was a grassy fordshire boy and letitia's pupil, as i have said, till he left us, only to like us better, as he once told me, by seeing the world beyond our hills. he went gladly, i should say, judged by the shining in his eyes. he was a homely, slender, quiet lad, except when roused, when he was vehement and obstinate enough, and somewhat given, i am told, to rhapsody and moonshine. he read much rather than studied as a school-boy, and was seen a good deal on sun dial and along troublesome where he never was known to fish, but wandered aimlessly, wasting, it was said, a deal of precious time which might have been bettered in his father's shop. letitia liked him for a certain brightness in his face when she talked of books, or of other things outside the lessons; otherwise he was not what is termed in grassy ford a remarkable boy. we have lads who "speak pieces" and "accept," as we say it, "lucrative" positions in our stores. karl drifted off when barely twenty, and as time went by was half forgotten by the town, when suddenly the news came home to us that he had written, and what is sometimes considered more, had published, and with his own name on the title-page, a novel!--_sleepington fair_, the thing was called. there are those who say sleepington fair means grassy ford, and that the river which the hero loved, and where he rescued a maid named hilda from an april flood, is really our own little winding troublesome, widened and deepened to permit the wellnigh tragic ending of the tale. you can wade troublesome; hilda went in neck-deep. they say also that the man mcbride, who talks so much, is our old friend colonel shears; the fanciful mcbride is tall in fact, and the actual shears is tall in fancy. be that as it may, the book was excellent, considering that it was written by a grassy fordshire boy, and it set at least two others of our lads, and a lady, i believe, to scribbling--further deponent sayeth not. _sleepington fair_ was read by the ladies of the longfellow circle, our leading literary club. our mrs. buhl, acknowledged by all but envious persons to be the most cultured woman in grassy ford, pronounced it safely "one of the most pleasing and promising novels of the past decade," and, in concluding her critical review before the club, she said, smilingly: "from mr. st. john--_our_ mr. st. john, for let me call him so, since surely he is ours to claim--from our mr. st. john we may expect much, and i feel that i am only voicing the sentiments of the longfellow circle when i wish for him every blessing of happiness and health, that his facile pen may through the years to come trace only what is pure and noble, and that when, as they will, the shadows lengthen, and his sun descends in the glowing west, he may say with the poet--" what the poet said i have forgotten, but the words of mrs. buhl brought tears to the eyes of many of her auditors, who, at the meeting's close, pressed about her with out-stretched hands, assuring her that she had quite outdone herself and that never in their lives had they heard anything more scholarly, anything more thoughtfully thought or more touchingly said. would she not publish it, she was asked, pleadingly? no? it was declared a pity. it was a shame, they said, that she had never written a book herself, she who could write so charmingly of another's. "ladies! ladies!" murmured mrs. buhl, much affected by this ovation, but her modest protest was drowned utterly in a chorus of-- "yes, indeed!" _sleepington fair_ aroused much speculation as to its author's rise in the outer world, chiefly with reference to the money he must be making, the sum being variously estimated at from five to twenty-five thousand a year. "too low," said shears. "suppose he makes half a dollar on every book, and suppose he sells--well, say he sells one hundred thousand--" "one hundred thousand!" cried caleb kane. "go wan!" "why, darn your skin," said colonel shears, "why not? _the old red barn_ sold _five_ hundred thousand, and only out two years. saw it myself in the paper, the other day." "no!" "i say _yes_! five hundred thousand, by cracky!" "oh, well," said caleb, "that thing was written by a different cuss." when it was learned one morning that karl had returned under cover of night for a visit to grassy ford, those who had known the boy looked curiously to see what manner of man he had become. and, lo! he was scarcely a man at all, but a beardless youth, no laurel upon his head, no tragic shadow on his brow!--a shy figure flitting down the long main street, darting into stores and out again, and nodding quickly, and hurrying home again as fast as his legs would take him--to dodge a caller even there and wander, thankful for escape, on the banks of troublesome. "well, you 'ain't changed much," said colonel shears, when he met the author. "no," said karl. "look just as peaked as ever," was the cheerful greeting of caleb kane. "yes," said karl. "don't seem a day older," said grandma smith. "no?" said karl. "why, karl," said shears, "i thought you'd change; thought you'd look different, somehow! yes, sir, i thought you'd look different--but, i swan, you don't!" "no," said karl, and there was such honest chagrin in the faces of those old-time friends, he was discomfited. what had they expected, he asked at home? "why," said his mother, "don't you know? can't you guess, my dear? they looked at least for a prince-albert and a stove-pipe hat." "silk hat! prince-albert!" "why, yes," said his father. "the outward and visible sign of the soul within." karl's clothes, it is true, were scarcely the garb to be hoped for in so marked a man. the dandies of grassy ford noted complacently that his plain, gray, wrinkled suit did not compare for style and newness with their own, while they wore at their throats the latest cravats of emerald and purple loveliness. karl's tie was black, and a plain and pinless bow which drooped dejectedly. his hat was a mere soft, weather-beaten, shapeless thing, and he walked on sunday with gloveless hands. miss johnson, a reigning belle, tells how he once escorted her from the post-office to her father's gate, talking of wordsworth all the way, and all unconscious of the sun dial burrs still clinging to his coat! letitia, for one, declared that she was not disappointed in the author of _sleepington fair_. in honor of her old pupil she gave a dinner, and spent such thought upon its menu and took such pains with its service, lest it should offend a new-yorker's epicurean eye, it is remembered still, and not merely because it was the only literary dinner grassy ford has known. there was some agitation among the invited guests as to the formality involved in a dinner to a lion--even though that lion might be seen commonly with burrs in his tail. the pride and honor of grassy ford was at stake, and the matter was the more important as the worthy fathers of the town seldom owned dress-suits in those days. for a time, i believe, when i was a boy, mr. jewell, the banker, was the sole possessor, and became thereby, no less than by virtue of the manners which accompany the occasional wearing of so suave a garment in so small a town--our first real gentleman. in his case, however, the ownership was the less surprising in that he was known to enjoy new york connections, on his mother's side. now, to those who consulted letitia as to the precise demands of the approaching feast, she explained, gracefully, that they would be welcome in any dress--adding, however, for the gentlemen's benefit, and hopefully no doubt, for she had the occasion in heart and hand, that the conventional garb after six o'clock was a coat with tails. as a result of the conference two guests-to-be might have been seen through a tailor's window, standing coatless and erect upon a soap-box, much straighter than it was their wont to stand, much fuller of chest, robin-like, and with hips thrown neatly back--to match, as the colonel said. two other gentlemen of the dinner-party told their wives bluntly that they would go "_as_ usual," or they would be--not go at all, before which edicts their dames salaamed. letitia counted on five dress-suits, at least, including the author's and my own. mine i must wear, she said, or she would be shamed forever; so i put it on when the night arrived, wormed my way cautiously into its outgrown folds, only to find then, to my pain, that an upright posture alone could preserve its dignity and mine. the hour arrived, and with it the buxtons, old friends and neighbors; dr. jamieson, homoeopathic but otherwise beyond reproach, and miss jamieson, his daughter, who could read browning before breakfast, much, i suppose, as some robust men on empty stomachs smoke strong cigars; the gallowses, not wanted over-much, but asked to keep the white wings of peace hovering in our hills; the jewells, and some one i've forgotten, and then the buhls--mr. buhl smiling, but unobtrusive to the ear, mrs. buhl radiant and gracious, and pervading the assemblage with a dowagerial rustling of lavender silk. to my mind the quieter woman in the plain black gown adorned only by an old-lace collar and antique pin, her hair the whiter for her cheeks now rosy with agitation, her eyes shining with the joy of the first great function she had ever given, was the loveliest figure among them all. last came two plain, unassuming folk, though proud enough of that only son of theirs, and then-- "_oh!_" cries mrs. buhl, so suddenly, so ecstatically that the hum ceases and every head is turned. "_mister_ st. john!" it is indeed the author of _sleepington fair_. and behold the lion!--a slight and faltering figure, pausing upon the threshold, burrless indeed, but oh!--in that old sack suit of gray! letitia bore the shock much better than might be expected. she changed color, it is true, but the flush came back at once, and, standing loyally at his side, she led the lion into the room. it was a trying moment. he was an author--he had written a book--but we were thirteen to his one, and four dress-suits besides! thirteen to one, if you omit his parents, and four dress-shirts, remember, bulging and crackling before his dazzled eyes! new york wavered and fell back, and the first skirmish was grassy ford's. at the same instant it was whispered anxiously in my ear that the ices had not arrived, but i counselled patience, and dinner was proclaimed without delay. the lion and letitia led the procession to the feast, and i have good reason for the statement that he was a happier lion when we were seated and he had put his legs away. still, even then he could scarcely be called at ease. once only did he talk as if he loved his theme, and then it was solely with letitia, who had mentioned troublesome, out of the goodness of her heart, as i believe. his face lighted at the name, and he talked so gladly that all other converse ceased. what was the lion roaring of so gently there? startled to hear no other voices, he stopped abruptly, and, seeing our curious faces all about him, dropped his eyes, abashed, and kept them on his plate. then mrs. buhl, famous in such emergencies, came to the rescue. "oh, mr. st. john," she said, while we all sat listening, "i've wanted to ask you: how did you come to write _sleepington fair_?" "oh," he replied, reddening, "i--i wanted to--that was all." "i see," she replied. "do you like 'sordello'?" asked miss jamieson, in the awkward silence that ensued. "well, really--i cannot say; i have never read it," was his confession. "not read 'sordello'!" "no." "let's see, that's poe, isn't it?" asked a young dress-shirt, swelling visibly, emboldened to the guess by the lion's discomfiture. "robert browning," replied the lady, with a look of scorn, and the dress-shirt sank again. "new york is a great place, isn't it?" volunteered jimmy gallows. "yes," said the lion. "been up the statue of liberty, i suppose?" jimmy went on. "no," said the lion. "what!" cried the chorus. "never been up the--" "what did he say?" asked mrs. jewell, who was deaf. mr. buxton solemnly inclined his lips to her anxious ear and shouted: "_he has never been up the statue of liberty._" "oh!" said the lady. the silence was profound. "what, _never_?" piped jimmy gallows. "never," said the lion, shaking his mane a little ominously. "i have never been a tourist." letitia mentioned sun dial, and would have saved the day, i think, had not mrs. buhl leaned forward with the sweetest of alluring smiles. "oh, mr. st. john," she said, "i've been going to ask you--in fact, for a long, long time i have wanted to know, and i wonder now if you won't tell me: how do authors"--she paused significantly--"how do authors get their books accepted?" a dress-shirt crackled, but was frowned upon. "what did he say?" asked the lady who was deaf. "_he hasn't said anything yet_," roared mr. buxton. "oh!" "do tell us," urged mrs. buhl. "do, mr. st. john. i almost called you karl." "was it a conundrum?" inquired the deaf lady, perceiving that it had been a poser. "_no. question: how do authors get their books accepted?_" "yes--how do they?" urged mrs. buhl. "why," said the lion at last, for all the table hung upon his answer, "by writing them well enough--i suppose." it was a weak answer. there was no satisfaction in it, no meat, no pith at all, nothing to carry home with you. mrs. buhl said, "oh!" "to what, then," piped jimmy gallows, "do you attribute your success?" he was a goaded lion, one could see quite plainly; the strain was telling on his self-control. "it is not worth mentioning, mr. gallows," he replied, stiffly. "mr. st. john," letitia interposed, in a quiet voice, "was just now telling me that there is no music in all new york to compare with troublesome's. shall we go into the other room?" that night, when the last guest had departed, i asked letitia, "well, what do you think of the author?" "_i_ am not disappointed," she replied. "not much of a talker, though?" i suggested. "he does not pretend to be a talker," she replied, warmly. "he is a writer. no," she repeated, "i am not disappointed in my johnny keats." next day, i think it was, in the afternoon, he asked letitia to walk with him to the banks of troublesome, to a spot which she had praised the night before. his heart was full, and as they lingered together by those singing waters he told her of his struggles in the city whose statue he had never climbed. he told her of his black days there, of his failure and despondency, of his plans to leave it and desert his dreams, but how that mighty, roaring, dragon creature had held him pinioned in its claws till he had won. "and then," he told her, "when i saw my book, i looked again, and it was not a dragon which had held me--it was an angel!" seeing that her eyes were full of tears, he added, earnestly: "miss primrose, i wanted you to know. you had a part in that little triumph." "i?" "you. don't you remember? don't you remember those books you left for us?--in our old school-room?--on the shelf?" iii the fortune-teller autumn comes early in grassy fordshire. in late september the nights are chill and a white mist hovers ghostly in the moonlight among our hills. the sun dispels it and warms our noons to a summer fervor, but there is no permanence any longer in heat or cold, or leaf or flower--all is change and passing and premonition, so that the singing poet in you must turn philosopher and hush his voice, seeing about him the last sad rites of those little lives once blithe and green as his own was in the spring. ere october comes there are crimson stains upon the woodlands. "god's plums, father!" robin cried, standing as a little boy on sun dial and pointing to the distant hills. a spell is over them, a purple and enchanted sleep, though all about them the winds are wakeful, and the sumac fire which blazed up crimson in the sun but a moment gone, burns low in the shadow of white clouds scudding before the gale. here beneath them the bloom of the golden-rod is upon the land; fieldsful and lanesful, it bars your way, or brushes your shoulders as you pass. only the asters, white and purple and all hues between, vie here and there with the mightier host, but its yellow plumes nod triumph on every crest, banks and hedgerows glow with its soldiery, it beards the forest, and even where the plough has passed posts its tall sentries at the furrow's brim. in the lower meadows there is still a coverlet of summer green, but half hidden in the taller, rusting grasses, whose feathery tops ripple in the faintest wind, till suddenly it rises and whips them into waves, now ruddy, now flashing silver, while a foam of daisies beats against the gray stone hedges like waters tumbling on a quay. there is cheerful fiddling in these dying grasses, and crickets scuttle from beneath your feet; there is other music too--a shrill snoring as of elder fairies oversleeping; startled insects leap upon you, flocks of sparrows flee from interrupted feasts, squirrels berate you, crows spread horrid tales of murder stalking in the fields. then leave the uplands--tripping on its hidden creepers; part the briers of the farthest hedgerow, and descend. down in the valley there is a smell of apples in the air, pumpkins glow among the wigwams of the indian-corn, and deeper still runs troublesome among the willows, shining silver in the waning sun. there in the sopping lowlands they are harvesting the last marsh hay. a road leads townward, the vines scarlet on its tumbling walls; the air grows cooler-- "oh, it is beautiful!" says letitia, sadly--"but it is fall." i observe in her always at this season an unusual quietness. she is in the garden as early as in the summer-time, and while it is still dripping with heavy dew, for she clings tenderly to its last flowers--to her nasturtiums, to the morning-glories on the trellis, and the geraniums and dahlias and phlox and verbenas along the path; but she gives her heart to her petunias, and because, she says, they are a homely, old-fashioned flower, whom no one loves any more. as she caresses them, brushing the drops from their plain, sweet faces, she seems, like them, to belong to some by-gone, simpler time. some think her an odd, quaint figure in her sober gown, but they never knew the girl letitia, or they would see her still, even in this elder woman with the snow-white hair. every fall gypsies camp in the fields near troublesome on their way southward. it is the same band, letitia tells me, that has stopped there year after year, and letitia knows: she used to visit them when she was younger and still had a fortune to be told. it was a weakness we had not suspected. she had never acknowledged a belief in omens or horoscopes, or prophecies by palms or dreams, though she used to say fairies were far more likely than people thought. she had seen glades, she told us, lawn or meadow among encircling trees, where, long after sundown, the daylight lingered in a fairy gloaming; and there, she said, when the fire-flies danced, she had caught such glimpses of that elf-land dear to childhood, she had come to believe in it again. there was such a spot among our maples, and from the steps where we used to sit, we would watch the afterglow pale there to the starlit dusk, or that golden glory of the rising moon break upon the shadowy world, crowning the tree-tops and quenching the eastern stars. then, sometimes, dove and letitia would talk of oracles and divination and other strange inexplicable things which they had heard of, or had known themselves; but letitia never spoke of the gypsy band till three giggling village maids, half-fearful and half-ashamed of their stealthy quest, found their school-mistress among the vans! she flushed, i suppose, and made the best of a curious matter, for she said, simply, when we charged her with the story that had spread abroad: "they are english gypsies, and wanderers like the primroses from their ancient home. that is why they fascinate me, i suppose." how often she consulted them, or when she began or ceased to do so, i do not know, but when i showed her the vans by the willows and the smoke rising from the fire, last fall, she smiled and said it was like old times to her--but she added, quaintly, that palms did not itch when the veins showed blue. "nonsense," i said, "we are both of us young, letitia. let us find the crone and hear her croak. i am not afraid of a little sorcery." paying no heed to her protestations i turned pegasus--i have always a pegasus, whatever my horse's other name--through the meadow-gate. a ragged, brown-faced boy ran out to us and held the bridle while i alighted, and then i turned and offered letitia a helping hand. she shook her head. "no, i'll wait here." "come," i said, "have you no faith, letitia?" "not any more," she replied. "this is foolishness, bertram. will you never grow up?" "it's only my second-childhood," i explained. "come, we'll see the vans." "some one will see us," she protested. "there is not a soul on the road," i said. shamefacedly she took my hand, glancing uneasily at the highway we had left behind us, and her face flushed as we approached the fire. an ugly old woman with a dirty kerchief about her head, was stirring broth for the evening meal. "tripod and kettle," i said. "do you remember this ancient dame?" "yes," said letitia, "it is--" "sibyl," i said. "her name is sibyl." letitia smiled. "do you remember me?" she asked, offering her hand. the old witch peered cunningly into her face, grinning and nodding as if in answer. two or three scraggy, evil-eyed vagabonds were currying horses and idling about the camp, watching us, but at a glance from the fortune-teller, they slouched streamward. the crone's entreaties and my own were of no avail. letitia put her hands behind her--but we saw the vans and patted the horses and crossed the woman's palm so that she followed us, beaming and babbling, to the carriage-side. there we were scarcely seated when, stepping forward--so suddenly that i glanced, startled, towards the camp--the gypsy laid a brown hand, strong as a man's, upon the reins; and turning then upon letitia with a look so grim and mysterious that she grew quite pale beneath those tragic eyes, muttered a jargon of which we made out nothing but the words: "you are going on a long journey," at which the woman stopped, and taking a backward step, stood there silently and without a smile, gazing upon us till we were gone. letitia laughed uneasily as we drove away. "did she really remember you?" i asked. "no, i don't think so--which makes it the more surprising." "surprising?" "yes; that she should have said again what she always told me." "and what was that?" "that i was going on a long journey." "did she always tell you that?" "always, from the very first." "perhaps she tells every one so," i suggested. "no, for i used to ask, and very particularly, as to that." why, i wondered, had she been so curious about long journeys? i had never known travel to absorb her thoughts. why had she inquired, and always so very particularly, as she confessed, about that single item of gypsy prophecy, and the very one which would seem least likely to be verified? never in my knowledge of letitia's lifetime had there been any other promise than that of the fortune-teller that she would ever wander from grassy ford. i might have asked her, but she seemed silent and depressed as we drove homeward, which was due, i fancied, to the gypsy's rude alarm. for some days after she continued to remark how strangely that repetition of the old augury had sounded in her ears, and smiling at it, she confessed how in former years she had laid more stress upon it, and had even planned what her gowns would be. "did you guess where you were going?" i ventured to inquire. "well, i rather hoped--" "yes?" i said. "you know my fondness for history," she continued. "i rather hoped i should see some day what i had read about so long--castles and things--and then, too, there were the novels i was fond of, like _lorna doone_. i always wanted to see the moors and the doone valley, and the water-slide that little john ridd had found so slippery, when he first saw lorna." "you wanted to see england then," i said. "yes, england," she replied. "england, you know, was my father's country." "the doone valley," i remarked, "would be devon, wouldn't it?" "yes," she replied, "and it was devon where father was a boy." "and our old friend robin saxeholm came from devon, you know," i said. "so he did," she answered. then we talked of robin and his visit to grassy fordshire years ago, and what letitia had forgotten of it i recalled to her, and what i could not remember, she supplied, so that it all came back to us like a story or a summer dream. when she had gone up-stairs i sat for a long time smoking by the dying fire, and musing of some old-time matters which now came back to me in a clearer light. from thinking of my own youth, little by little, i came to robin's--i mean the younger, who was now so soon to be a man. tall and fair like the youth he was named for, though not red-haired, he had all but completed that little learning which is a "dangerous thing": he was a high-school senior now, and overwhelmed sometimes with the wonder of it, but a manly fellow for all that, one whom my eyes dwelt fondly on more often than he knew. in the spring-time he would have his parchment; college would follow in the fall--college! what could i do to give my son a broader vision of the universe, lest with only grassy ford behind him, he should think the outside world lay mostly within his college walls? "you are going on a long journey." the gypsy's words came back unbidden as i rose by the embers of the fire. "a long journey," i repeated; "and why not?" iv an unexpected letter during the winter a great piece of news stirred grassy ford, and in spite of the snow-drifts on our walks and porches furnished an excuse for a dozen calls that otherwise would never have been made so soon. old mrs. luton was discovered in a state of apoplexy on our steps, but on being brought in and divested of her husband's coon-skin cap, a plush collar, a scarf, a shawl, a knitted jacket, and a newspaper folded across her chest, recovered her breath and told her story. mrs. neal, so mrs. luton said, had been heard to say, according to mrs. withers, who had it from mrs. lowell, who lived next door to mrs. bell--who, as the world knows, called more often than anybody else at the neal farm-house, feeling a pity for the lonely woman there, as who did not?--mrs. neal had been heard to say, what mrs. luton would not have repeated for the world to any one but her dear miss primrose, who could be trusted implicitly, as she knew, and she had said it in the most casual way--mrs. neal, that is--but secretly very well pleased, though, heaven knows, she, mrs. luton-- "won't you have some coffee?" asked letitia, for the breakfast was not yet cold. "yes, thank you, i _will_, for i'm as cold as can be," exclaimed her visitor, laughing hysterically, and she was profuse in her praise of letitia's beverage, and inquired the brand. her manner of sipping it as she sat in an easy-chair before the fire did away with all necessity for a spoon, but was a little trying to a delicate sense of hearing like letitia's, and was responsible beside for what was wellnigh a disastrous deluge when in the midst of a copious ingurgitation she suddenly remembered what she had come to tell: "_ffff_--peggy neal's a-living in new york!" she splashed, her eyes popping. it would be impossible to relate the story as mrs. luton told it, for its ramifications and parentheses involved the history of grassy ford and the manifold relationships of its inhabitants, past and present, to say nothing of the time to come, for in speculations mrs. luton was profound. mrs. neal, it seems, had broken her long silence and had been heard to allude to "my daughter peggy in new york." some years had passed since the farm-gate clicked behind that forlorn and outcast girl, and in all that time the mother had never spoken the daughter's name, nor had any one dared more than once to question her. letitia had tried once, but once only, to intercede for the pupil she had loved, the manner of whose departure was well enough understood in the town and country-side, though where she had gone remained a mystery. on leaving the farm that september evening, peggy, with a desperate and tear-stained face, had been met by a neighbor girl, who as a confidant in happier hours, was intrusted with the story. it was not a long one. the mother had pointed to the gate. "look there!" she cried. "_he_ went that way. i guess you'll find him, if you try, you--" then her mother struck her, peggy said. she did not know it was the name which felled her. now after silence which had seemed like death to the lonely woman in the hills, peggy had written home to her, to beg forgiveness, to say that in a life of ease and luxury in a great city, she could not help thinking of the farm, which seemed a dream to her; she could never return to it, she said, but she wondered if her father was living, and if her mother had still some heart for her wayward daughter, and would write sometimes. she said nothing of a child. that she was still unmarried seemed evident from the signature--"your loving, loving peggy neal." that some good-fortune had befallen her in spite of that sad beginning in her native fields, was quite as clear, for the paper on which she had scrawled her message was of finest texture and delicately perfumed; and, what was more, between its pages the mother had found a sum of money, how much or little no one knew. it was observed that the mother's face had relaxed a little. that she had answered her daughter's message was asserted positively by mrs. bell, though what that answer was, and whether forgiveness or not, she did not know. it was assumed, however, to have been a pardon, for the mother seemed pleased with the daughter's progress in the world, which must have seemed to her the realization, however ironical, of her discarded hopes; and it was she herself who had divulged the contents of the letter. to the cautious curiosity manifested by elderly ladies of grassy ford, who called upon her now more often than had been their wont, as she took some pleasure in reminding them, to their obvious discomfiture, and to all other hints and allusions she turned her deafer ear, while to direct questions she contented herself with the simple answer: "peggy's well." "you hear from her often, i suppose?" some caller ventured. the reply was puzzling: "oh, a mother's apt to." she said it so sadly, looking away across the farm, that letitia's informant as she told the story burst into tears. "she's a miserable woman, miss letitia, depend upon it. she's a miserable, broken-down, heart-sick creature for what she's done. 'you hear often, i suppose?' said i. 'a mother's apt to,' says she, and turned away from me with a face so lonesome as would break your heart." for myself, as letitia told me, i had my own notion of the mother's sad and evasive answer, but i held my peace. it was the coldest winter we had known in years. for weeks at a time our valley was a bowl of snow, roads were impassable, and stock was frozen on the upland farms. suddenly there came a thaw: the sun shone brightly, the great drifts sank and melted into muddy streams, and early one morning farmer bell, his shaggy mare and old top-buggy splashed with mire and his white face spattered, stopped at the post-office and called loudly to the passers-by. "old neal's dead and i want the coroner." to the crowd that gathered he told the story. neal's wife, waiting up for him christmas night, had made an effort to reach the bells to ask for tidings, but the wind was frightful and the drifts already beyond her depth. she had gone back hoping that he was safe by his tavern fire, but she sat by her own all night, listening to the roaring of the wind and the rattling windows through which the snow came drifting in. at dawn, from an upper chamber, she peered out upon a sight that is seldom seen even in these northern hills. the storm was over, but the world was buried white; roads and fences and even the smaller trees were no longer visible, and the barn and a neighbor's cottage were unfamiliar in their uncouth hoods. for days she remained imprisoned on the lonely farm. she cut paths from the woodshed to the near-by barn and saved the cattle in their stalls. then the thaw came, and she reached the bells. hitching his mare to his lightest buggy, for the roads were rivers, the farmer drove through the slush and the remnant drifts to the corner tavern where neal had been. the bartender stared blankly at his first question. "neal?" he stammered out at last. "yes, neal! _john_ neal, confound you! can't you speak?" the man laid the glass he was wiping upon the bar. "neal left here christmas day--along about four in the afternoon, when the storm began." as bell drove homeward he saw two figures at the neal farm-gate--that gate which peggy had closed behind her--and, coming nearer, he made out his own man tom and the widow, lifting the body from the melting snow. peggy neal did not come to her father's funeral. letitia herself would have written the news to her, for the woman, dry-eyed and dumb and sitting by the coffin-side, had aged in a day and was now as helpless as a child. "shall i write to peggy?" letitia asked her, but she did not hear. twice the question was repeated, but they got no answer, so letitia wrote, and laid the letter on the casket, open and unaddressed. it was never sent. v surprises jogging homeward from a country call one afternoon in may, i was admiring the apple-orchards and the new-ploughed fields between them, when i chanced upon my son robin with a handful of columbine, gathered among the sun dial rocks. "oh," said he, "is that you, father?" it is an innocent way of his when he has anything in particular to conceal. "at any rate," i replied, "you are my son." he smiled amiably and i cranked the wheel, making room for him beside me. "columbine," i remarked. "yes." "letitia will be pleased," i said. now i knew it was for the parker girl--rita parker, who blushes so when i chance to meet her that i know now how it feels to be an ogre, a much-maligned being, too, for whom i never had any sympathy before. "i just saw a redstart," remarked my son. "so?" i replied. "did you notice any bobolinks?" "_did_ i?" he answered. "i saw a million of them." "you did?" "down in the meadows there." "a million of them?" "almost a million," he replied. "every grass-stalk had one on it, teetering and singing away like anything." "why, i didn't know rita was with you." "rita!" he exclaimed, reddening. "why, yes," i said. "you saw so many birds, you know." it was a little hard upon the boy, but i broke the ensuing silence with some comments on the weather, and having him wholly at my mercy then, i chose a subject which so long had charmed me, i had been on the point of telling him time and again, yet had refrained. "robin," said i, "you will be a graduate in a day or two. what do you say to a summer in england, boy?" he caught my hand--so violently that the rein was drawn and pegasus turned obediently into the ditch and stopped. "england, father!" "if we are spared," i said, getting the buggy into the road again. "all of us!" he cried. "no." "but you'll come, father?" he said it so anxiously that i was touched. it isn't always that a boy cares to lug his father. "i should like to," i said, "but--no." "why not?" "i cannot leave," i replied. "jamieson's going. we can't both go." "oh, bother jamieson!" robin exclaimed. "what does he want to choose _our_ year for? why can't he wait till next?" "it's his wife," i explained. "she's ill again. but you go, robin, and take letitia." "when do we start?" "in june." "_this_ june?" "next month. i've laid out the journey for you on a map, and i've got the names of the inns to stop at, and what it will cost you, and everything else." "but when did you think of it?" asked my son. "last fall." "last fall! does aunt letty know?" "partly," i said. "she knows you're going, but not herself. it's a little surprise for her. you may tell her yourself, now, while i stop at the office." he scrambled out and hitched my horse for me, so i held the flowers. he flushed a little as he took them. "father, you're a trump," he said. i bowed slightly: it is wise to be courteous even to a son. i had stopped at the office to get the map, and an hour later letitia met me in our doorway. "bertram!" she said, taking my hand. "robin told you?" "yes. oh, it's beautiful, bertram, but i cannot go." "nonsense," i said. "but you?" "i shall do very nicely." "but the cost?" "will be nothing," i said. "the boy must not go alone." "that's not the reason you are sending me, bertram." "it's a good one," i replied. "no," she insisted, shaking her head. "you have been good to the boy, letitia," i explained. "this is only a way of saying that i know." "you do not need to say it," she replied. "i have done nothing." "you have done everything, letitia--for us both." the tears ran down her cheeks. my own eyes-- "you have loved dove's husband and son," i told her. "we shall not forget it." her face was radiant. "it has been nothing for me to do," she said. "loving no one in particular, i have had the time to love every one, don't you see? why, all my life, bertram, i've loved other people's dogs, and other people's children"--she paused a moment and added, smiling through her tears--"and other people's husbands, i suppose." "you will go?" i asked. "i should love to go." "you will go, letitia?" "i will go," she said. that evening i took from my pocket a brand-new map of the british isles--i mean brand-new last fall. many a pleasant hour i had spent that winter at the office with a red guide-book and the map before me on my desk. with no little pride i spread it now on the sitting-room table which letitia had cleared for me. "what are the red lines, father?" asked my son. he had returned breathless from telling the parker girl. "those in red ink," i replied, "i drew myself. it is your route. there's southampton--where you land--and there's london--and there's windsor and oxford and stratford and warwick and kenilworth--and here," i cried, sweeping my hand suddenly downward to the left--"here's devonshire!" "where father was a boy," letitia murmured, touching the pinkish county tenderly with her hand. ah, i was primed for them! there was not a question they could ask that i could not answer. there was not a village they could name, i could not instantly put my finger on. those winter hours had not been spent in vain. i knew the inns--the king's arms, the golden lion, the white hart, the star and anchor, the george and dragon, the ring o' bells! i knew where the castles were--i had marked them blue. i knew the battle-fields--i had made them crimson. for each cathedral--a purple cross. each famous school--a golden star. never, i believe, was there such a map before--for convenience, for ready reference: one look at the margin where i made the notes--a glance at the map--and there you were! "oh, it is beautiful!" exclaimed letitia. "isn't it?" i cried. "you should have it patented," said my son. "suppose," i suggested, "you ask me something--something hard now. ask me something hard." i took a turn with my cigar. robin knitted his brows, but could think of nothing. letitia pondered. "where's--" she hesitated. "out with it!" i urged. "where's tavistock?" she asked. i thought a moment. "is it a castle?" she shook her head. "is it a battle-field?" "no." "is it just a town, then?" "yes, just a town." "did anything famous happen there?" she hesitated. "well," she said, "perhaps nothing very famous--but it's an old little town--one that i've heard of, that is all." well, she did have me. it was not very famous, and only a--an idea came to me. "oh," i said, shutting my eyes a moment, "that town's in devon." letitia nodded. "see," i said. adjusting my glasses, and peering a moment at the pinkish patch, i tapped it, tavistock, with my finger-nail. "right here," i said. we made a night of it--that is, it was midnight when i folded my map and locked it away with the guide-book and the table of english money i had made myself. there was one in the book, it is true, but for ready reference, for convenience in emergencies, it did not compare with mine--mine worked three ways. a fortnight later i had the tickets in my hand--ss. _atlantis_, date of sailing, the tenth of june. i myself was to steal a day or two and wave farewell to them from the pier. robin already had packed his grip; indeed, he repacked it daily, to get the hang of it, he said. it was a new one which i had kept all winter at the office in the bottom of a cupboard, and it bore the initials, r. w., stamped on the end. and he had a housewife--a kind of cousin to a needle-book--stuffed full of handy mending-things, presented by the parker girl. the boy was radiant, but as june drew nigh i saw he had something heavy on his mind. a dozen times he had begun to speak to me, privately, but had changed the subject or had walked away. i could not imagine what ailed the fellow. he seemed restless; even, as i fancied, a little sad at times, which troubled me. i made opportunities for him to speak, but he failed to do so, either through neglect or fear. i saw him often at the office, where he was always bursting in upon me with some new plan or handy matter for his precious bag. he had bought a razor and a brush and strop. "but what are they for?" i asked, amazed. a blush mantled his beardless cheeks. "those? oh--just to be sure," he said. now what could be troubling the lad, i wondered? it was something not always on his mind, for he seemed to forget it in preparations, but it lurked near by to spring out upon his blithest moments. his face would be shining; an instant later it would fall, and he would walk to the window and gaze out thoughtfully into the street, in a way that touched me to the heart, for, remember, this was to be my first parting with the boy. the more i thought of it, the more perplexed i was; and the more i wondered, the more i felt it might be my duty to speak myself. "robin," i said one day, and as casually as i could make my tone, "did you want to tell me anything? what is it? speak, my boy." we were alone together in my inner office and the door was shut. he walked resolutely to the desk where i was sitting. "father," he said, "i have." my heart was beating, he looked so grave. "well," i remarked, "you have nothing to fear, you know." "father," he said, doggedly, "it's about--it's about--" "yes?" i encouraged him. "it's about this trip." "this trip?" "yes. it's about--father, _you'll_ tell her--" "tell her?" i repeated. "yes. you tell her." "tell whom? tell what?" "why, aunt letty." "aunt letty! tell aunt letty what?" he blurted it fiercely: "about her hat." "her hat! her hat! good lord, what hat?" "why, her sunday hat!" "you mean her--" "why, yes, father! you know that hat." i knew that hat. "do you object," i asked, "to your aunt's best sunday hat?" his scowl vanished and his face broke into smiles. "that's it," he said. "don't be alarmed," i assured him, keeping my own face steady--no easy matter, for, as i say, i knew the hat. "don't be alarmed, my son. she shall have a new one, if that will please you." his smiles vanished. he seemed suspicious. his tone was cautiousness itself. "but who will buy it?" he asked. "why, you!" i said. he leaped to my side. "_i?_" "you," i repeated. he laughed hysterically--whooped is the better word. "you wait!" he cried, and, fairly dancing, he seized his cap and rushed madly for the door. it shut behind him, but as swiftly opened again. "oh, dad," he said, beaming upon me from the crack, "it'll be a stunner! you'll see." it was. vi an old friend of ours "oh, i know the town," i had told them confidently--had i not been there in --? but no, it was not my town. it was not my new york at all that we found at our journey's end, but belonged apparently to the mob we fell among, bags and bundles, by the station steps, till from our cabman's manner, when i mildly marvelled at the fare he charged us, the place, i suspected, belonged to him. four days and nights we heard it rumbling about us. robin got a mote in his eye, letitia lost her brand-new parasol, and i broke my glasses--but we saw the parks and the squares and the tall buildings and the statue which johnny keats never climbed. reluctantly, for the day was waning as we stood on the battery looking out at it across the bay, we followed his example. on the third afternoon letitia proposed a change of plans. her eyes, she confessed, were a little tired with our much looking. why not hunt old friends? "old friends?" i asked. "whom do we know in new york, letitia?" "why, don't you remember hiram ptolemy and peggy neal?" "to be sure," i said--"the egyptologist! but the addresses?" "i have them both," she replied. "mrs. neal came to the house crying, and gave me peggy's, and begged me to find her if i could. and mr. ptolemy--why can i never remember the name of his hotel?" "you have heard from him then?" she blushed. "yes," she replied. "it's a famous hotel, i'm sure. the name was familiar." "hotel," i remarked. "hiram must be getting on then?" "oh yes," she said, fumbling with her address-book. "it's the mills hotel." "and a famous place," i observed, smiling. "so he lives at a mills hotel?" "i forgot to tell you," she continued, "i have been so busy. he wrote me only the other day, that, after all these years--mercy! how long it has been since he fed us lemon-drops!--after all these years of tramping from publisher to publisher, footsore and weary, as he said, he had found at last a grand, good man." "one," i inferred, "who will give his discovery to the world." "oh, more than that," explained letitia, "this dear, old, white-haired--" "egyptologist," i broke in. "publisher," she said, with spirit, "has promised him to start a magazine and make him editor--a scientific magazine devoted solely to egyptology, and called _the obelisk_." "well, well, well, well," i said. "we must congratulate the little man. perhaps you may even be impelled to recon--" "now, bertram," began letitia, in that tone and manner i knew of old--so i put on my hat, and, freeing robin to likelier pleasures, we drove at once to "the" mills hotel. letitia's address-book had named the street, which she thought unkempt and cluttered and noisy for an editor to live in, though doubtless he had wished to be near his desk. "is mr. hiram ptolemy in?" inquired letitia. "i'll see," said the clerk, consulting his ledgers. he returned at once. "there is no one here of that name, madam." "strange!" she replied. "he was here--let me see--but two weeks ago." "no madam," he said. "you must mean the other mills hotel." "is there another mills hotel?" she asked. "yes," he replied. "hotel number--" "i _thought_," said letitia, "this place seemed--" she glanced about her. "but," said i, "the address is of this one." "true," she replied. "did you look in the p's?" she inquired, sweetly. "why, no; in the t's. you said--" "but it's spelled with a p," she explained. "p-t-o-l--" then her face reddened. "never mind," she said. "you are right--quite right. it _is_ the other hotel. but can you tell me, please, if mr. hiram de lancey percival lives here?" the clerk smiled broadly. "oh yes," he said. "mr. percival does, but he's out at present. you will find him, however, at this address." he wrote it down for her and she took it nervously. "thank you," she said, glancing at it. "don't be silly, bertram. yes, it's the publisher's. let us go. good-day, sir." it was not a large publisher's, we discovered, for the place was a single and dingy store-room in a small side street. its walls were shelved, filled from the floor to the very ceiling--volume after volume, sets upon sets, most of them shopworn and bearing the imprints of by-gone years. between the shelves other books, equally old and faded, and offered for sale at trifling prices, lay on tables in that tempting disarray and dust which hints of treasures overlooked and waiting only for recognition--always on the higher shelf, or at the bottom of the other pile. the window was filled with encyclopædias long outgrown by a wiser world, and standing beside them, and looking back towards the store-room's farther end, was a melancholy vista of discarded and forgotten literature. "who buys them?" asked letitia. "who wrote them?" i replied. a bell had tinkled at our entrance, but no one came to us, so we wandered down one narrow aisle till we reached the end. and there, at the right, in an alcove hitherto undiscernable, and at an old, worm-eaten desk dimly lighted by an alley window, sat our old friend ptolemy, writing, and unaware of our approach. it was the same hiram, we observed, though a little shabbier, perhaps, and scraggier-bearded than of old, but the same little, blinking scientist we had known, in steel-bowed spectacles, scratching away in a rickety office-chair. he was quite oblivious of the eyes upon him, lost, doubtless, in some shadowy passage of egyptian lore. i coughed slightly, and he turned about, peering in amazement. "miss primrose! dr. weatherby! i do believe!" he exclaimed, and, dropping his pen, staggered up to us and shook our hands, his celluloid cuffs rattling about his meagre wrists and his eyes watering with agitation behind his spectacles. "_you_--in new york!" he piped. "i--why, i'm astounded--i'm astounded--but delighted, too--de_light_ed to see you both! but you mustn't stand." i looked curiously at letitia as he brought us chairs, setting them beside his desk. she was a little flushed, but very gracious to the little man. "miss primrose," he said, fidgeting about her, "allow me--allow me," offering what seemed to be the stabler of the wooden seats. she had accepted it and was about to sit, when he stopped her anxiously with a cry, "wait!--wait, i beg of you!" and replaced it with his own. his was an elbow chair whose sagging leathern seat had been reinforced with an old green atlas, its pasteboard cover still faintly decorated with a pictured globe. seating himself again beside his desk, he turned to us beaming with an air of host, and listened with many nervous twitchings and furtive glances at letitia, while i explained our presence there. "it's a grand journey--a grand journey, miss primrose," he declared. "i only wish i were going, too." "tell us," said letitia, kindly, "about _the obelisk_. is the first number ready yet?" he sat up blithely, wetting his lips, and with that odd mannerism which recalled his visit to grassy ford, he touched with one finger the tip of his celluloid collar, and thrust out his chin. "almost," he said. "it's almost ready. it'll be out soon--very soon now--it'll be out soon. i've got it here--right here--right here on the desk." he touched fondly the very manuscript we had surprised him writing. "that's it," he said. "_the obelisk_, volume one, number one." "and the great stone of iris-iris?" queried letitia. he half rose from his chair, and exclaimed, excitedly, pointing to a drawer in the paper-buried desk: "right there! the cut is there!--cut of the inscription, you know. it's to be the frontispiece. here: page one--my story--story of the translation and how i made it, and what it means to the civilized world. don't fail to read it!" he wiped his glasses. "when," i asked, "will it be out?" "soon," he replied. "soon, i hope. not later than the fall." "that's some time off yet," i remarked. "you do not understand," he replied, anxiously. "you do not understand, dr. weatherby. a magazine requires great preparation--great preparation, sir--and particularly a scientific magazine, dr. weatherby." "ah," i said. "i see." "_great_ preparation, sir," the little man went on, leaning forward and tapping me on the knee. "there must be subscribers, sir." "to be sure," i assented. "they are quite essential, i believe." "very," said hiram ptolemy. "very, sir. we must have fifty at the fewest before we go to press. my publisher is obdurate--fifty, he says, or he will not invest a penny--not a penny, sir." "and you have already--?" i inquired. i was sorry afterwards to have asked the question. it was not delicate. i asked it thoughtlessly, intending only to evince my interest in the cause. coloring slightly, he wet his lips and cleared his throat before replying. "one, sir; only one, as yet." "then put me down number two," i said, eager to retrieve my blunder. his face lighted, but only for a moment, and turning an embarrassed countenance upon letitia, and then on me, he stammered: "but i--" "oh, by all means, bertram," said letitia, "we must subscribe." the egyptologist swallowed hard. "i think--" he began. "bertram weatherby is the name, mr. percival," said letitia, in a clear, insistent tone, and at her bidding the little man scrawled it down, but so tremulously at first that he tore up the sheet and tried again. "and the subscription price?" i inquired, opening my pocket-book. "you--you needn't pay now, doctor," he replied. "is one dollar a year," said letitia, promptly, and i laid the bill upon the desk. hiram ptolemy touched it gingerly, fumbled it, dropped it by his chair, and, still preserving his embarrassed silence, fished it up again from the cluttered floor. ten minutes later, when we said farewell to him, he still held it in his hand. "what was the matter with him?" i asked letitia, as we drove away, glancing back at that odd and shamefaced figure standing wistfully in the doorway. "the other subscriber," she replied. "didn't you guess?" "what!" i said. "you, letitia?" she smiled sadly. "poor little man!" vii suzanne it was evening when we set out, not without trepidation, to find peggy neal. we had dined--over-dined--in a room of gilt and mirrors and shining silver, watching the other tables with their smiling groups or puzzling pairs; some so ill-assorted that we strove vainly to solve their mystery, others so oddly mannered for a public place, we thought--the men so brazen in their attentions, the women so prinked and absurdly gowned and unabashed, letitia at first was not quite sure we were rightly there. "still," she said, "there _are_ nice people here--why, even children!" "the place is famous," i protested. "i suppose it must be respectable," she replied, "but i never saw such a _mixture_!" she gazed wonderingly about her. "i suppose it must be new york," she said. it was half-past eight when we entered the street again. we drove at once to the number mrs. neal had given, riding silently and a little nervously, but still marvelling at the scene we had left behind us, a strange setting for two such elder village-folk as we, making us wonder if we had missed much or little by living our lives so greenly and far away. "i hope she will be at home," said letitia. "every one seemed to be going to the theatre." "for my part," i confessed, "i rather hope we shall not find her." "but why, bertram?" i could not say. the cab stopped. there were lights in the house, and, leaving letitia, i went up the steps and pulled the bell. the household was at home, apparently, for i heard voices and the music of a piano as i stood waiting at the door. it was one of the older streets, ill-lighted and lined monotonously by those red-brick fronts so fashionable in a former day. the door was opened by a colored maid, and there was a gush of laughter and the voices of men and women, with the tinkling undercurrent of a waltz. "is miss neal at home?" i asked. "miss who?" "miss neal." "miss neal?" "miss peggy neal." she hesitated. "i'll see," she said. "will you come in, suh?" "no," i replied. "i'll wait out here." she returned presently. "did you say miss peggy neal, suh?" "yes," i replied, "miss peggy neal." "don't any such lady live heah, suh." "strange," i murmured, and was about to turn away when a woman clad in a floating light-blue robe, her face indefinite in the dimly illumined hallway, but apparently young and pretty, or even beautiful, perhaps, and with an amazing quantity of golden hair, slipped through the portières and pushed aside the maid. "i am peggy neal," she said, in a low voice. "what is wanted?" "you!" i gasped, but letitia had left the carriage and was at my shoulder. "peggy!" she said. "miss primrose! and this is--dr. weatherby!" "dear peggy," letitia murmured, kissing the astonished girl on both powdered cheeks. "but how you've changed! you're so pale, peggy--and your eyes--and your hair--peggy, what _have_ you done to your hair?" "yes, my hair," murmured peggy. "why, it used to be jet," letitia said. "but you don't ask us in, my dear--and here we've come all the long way from grassy ford to see you." "hush!" said peggy, and letitia paused, for the first time noting the voices in the inner rooms. "oh," she whispered, "i see: you have a party." "yes," peggy answered. "we--we have a party." "i think we should go, letitia," i interposed, but she did not hear me. "i can't get over your hair," she murmured, holding peggy at arm's-length from her and then turning her head a little to look about her. "do they smoke at your parties?" she asked. "oh yes," laughed peggy, "all the men smoke, you know." "but i thought," said letitia, "i saw a woman with a cigarette." "it may have been a--candy cigarette," peggy answered. "that's true," said letitia, "for i've seen them at marvin's in grassy ford." the portières before which peggy stood, one hand grasping them, parted suddenly behind her head, and the face of another girl was thrust out rudely behind her own and staring into mine. it was a rouged and powdered face, with hard-set eyes that did not flinch as she gazed mockingly upon me, crying in a voice that filled the hall with its harsh discords: "aha! which one to-night, suzanne?" then she saw letitia, and with a smothered oath, withdrew laughingly. the music and talking ceased within. it was not in the room behind the curtains, but seemingly just beyond it, and i could hear her there relating her discovery as i supposed, though the words were indistinct. "how i hate that girl!" hissed peggy, her eyes black with anger. "then i wouldn't have her, my dear," said letitia, soothingly. "i should not invite her." there was a burst of laughter within, followed by subdued voices, and i heard footsteps stealthily approaching. peggy heard them too, no doubt, though she was answering letitia's questions, for she grasped the curtains more tightly than before, one hand behind her and the other above her head. as she did so the loose sleeves of her robe slipped down her arm, disclosing a spot upon its whiteness. "peggy, dear," letitia said, anxiously, "you have hurt yourself." "yes," was the answer, "i know. it's a bruise." it was a heart, tattooed. she hid it in her hair. "we must go, letitia," i urged. "we must not keep peggy from her friends." "yes," she assented. "but i had so much to ask you, peggy, and so much to tell." the curtains parted again, this time far above peggy's head, and i saw a man's eyes peering through. she appeared to be disengaging the flounces about her slippered feet, but i saw her strike back savagely with her little heel, and he disappeared. but other faces came, one by one, though letitia did not see them. her eyes were all for her darling peggy whom she plied with questions. how had her health been? how did she like new york? did she never yearn for little old grassy ford again? was she quite happy? "yes," peggy murmured, "quite; quite happy." she spoke in a hurried, staccato voice, in an odd, cold monotone. there was no kindness in her eyes. the door-bell rang, and we stepped aside as the maid answered it. two young men swaggered in, flushed and garrulous, nodding, not more familiarly to the servant than to peggy herself, who parted the curtains to let them pass. they gazed curiously at her guests. "why, they kept on their hats!" letitia said, in a shocked undertone. "is it customary here, peggy?" "everything," was the bitter answer, "is customary here. how is my mother?" "it was your mother, peggy, who asked me to find you." letitia spoke, gently. "she wants to see you. she is not very strong since your father's--" she paused. "is my father dead?" "didn't you know?" "no; but i thought as much; he was such a boozer." letitia stared. "peggy!" she said. "oh, i know what you think," the girl replied, wearily, seating herself upon the stairs, and putting her chin upon her hands. she did not ask us to be seated. "letitia," i said, firmly, "come; we must go." i put my hand upon the door-knob. "doctor," said peggy neal, rising again, "you won't mind waiting outside a moment? i have something to say to dear miss primrose." "certainly," i replied. "good-bye, miss--neal." she gave her hand to me. "good-bye, doctor." then she looked me strangely in the eyes, saying, in an undertone, "mind, i shall tell her nothing"--and paused significantly, adding in a clearer tone again--"but the truth." i waited anxiously upon the steps. five minutes passed--ten--twenty--thirty--and i grew impatient. then the door opened, and letitia appeared with peggy, and radiant though in tears. "good-bye," she said, kissing her, "dear, _dear_ peggy. oh, bertram, i have heard such a wonderful story!" "indeed?" "yes," peggy said from the doorway, "miss primrose is the same enthusiast she used to be when i went to school to her." "it is like a novel," declared letitia; "but we must go. you must forgive me for keeping you so long away--from your newer friends." "it is nothing," was the answer. "i'm so glad you came." "remember your promise, peggy!" "oh yes--my promise," peggy murmured. "good-bye, miss primrose. good-bye, doctor. good-bye. good-bye." the carriage-door had scarcely closed upon us when letitia seized my arm. "bertram," she said, "it _is_ a story! i thought it was only in books that such things happened. i would not have missed this visit for the world!" "but," i said, "do you trust--" "trust her? yes. a woman never cries like that when she's lying, bertram. listen: she came to new york from grassy ford. he was nowhere to be found. he had given her a false address. then a little girl was born--dead. oh, you can't imagine what that child's been through, bertram--the disgrace, the sorrow, the rags and poverty, hunger even--and only think how _we_ were eating and sleeping soundly in grassy ford, all that time she was starving here! then temptations came in this miserable, this wicked, wicked place! oh, how can man--well--she did not dare to come home, but stayed on here. it was then she took the name suzanne, to hide her real one. twice--twice, bertram--she went down to the river--" letitia's voice was breaking. "oh, i can't tell you all she told me. but just when it all seemed darkest, she met this good, kind woman with whom she lives." "what!" i said. "did she tell you that?" "bertram, that woman saved her!--saved her from worse than death--took her from the very street--clothed her, fed her, and nursed her to health again. did you see her dress? it was finest silk and lace. did you see the rings on her fingers? one was a diamond, bertram, as large as the pearl you wear; one was an opal, set in pearls; another, a ruby--and she told me she had a dozen more up-stairs." "who is this woman?" "she did not tell me. i forgot to ask." "what was the promise she made you?" "to visit us--to come next summer to grassy ford." "_us_, letitia?" "yes; i made her promise it. she refused at first, but i told her there were hearts as loving in grassy ford as in new york--oh, i hope there are, bertram; i hope there are! she will go first to the farm, of course, to see her mother, and then, before she comes back to this new mother, who makes me burn, bertram, when i ask myself if any woman in grassy ford would have done as much--then she will visit us. it will mean so much to her. it will set that poor, spoiled life right again before our petty, little, self-righteous world. oh, i shall _make_ them receive her, bertram! i shall make them _take her in their arms_!" she paused breathlessly, but i was silent. "i thought you wouldn't mind," she said. still i could not speak. "tell me," she urged, "did i presume too much? was i wrong to ask her without consulting you?" "no," i answered--but not through kindness as letitia thought, let me confess it; not through having the tenderest man's heart in the world, as she said, gratefully, but because i knew--how, she will always wonder--that peggy would never come. viii in a devon lane i have never seen an english lane, but i have a picture of one above the fireplace, and i once smelled hawthorn blooming. a pleasant, hedgerow scent, it seemed to me, with a faint suggestion of primroses on the other side--i say primroses, but letitia smiles when i declare i can smell them still, or laughs with robin: they have been in england. "are you quite sure about it, bertram?" "they do have primroses," i reply, defiantly. "but are you sure they are primroses?" she demands. "smell again, father!" cries my son. "yes," i retort; "or violets; they may be violets beyond the hedge." it is then they laugh at me, and they make a great point of their puzzling questions: am i certain--for example, that the primrose is fragrant enough to be smelled so far, and is it in flower when the hawthorn blooms? that is important, they insist. it is not important, i reply--in _my_ england. "_your_ england!" they cry. "to be sure," i say. "in my england--and i see it as plainly as you do yours--the hawthorn and primrose is always flowering. in my england it is always spring." it is summer in theirs. it is always cool and fragrant and wholly charming in my devonshire. it was rather hot when they got to theirs--that is, the sunny coast of it they brag of was a little trying, sometimes, i suspect, in midsummer, though neither will confess. "but not the moors!" they say. "oh, well--the moors--no; i should think not," i answer. "i am not such a fool as to think that moors are hot." "how cool _are_ the moors?" they then inquire, innocently, but i see the trick; i hear the plot in their very voices, and am wary. "oh," i reply, "as cool as usual." "but there are dense forests on the moors," robin suggests. "regular jungles--eh, father?" i am not to be taken without a struggle. "hm," i reply. "hm--what, father?" "well, i prefer the coast myself." "the dear white coast," says letitia, slyly. "the dear _red_ coast!" i cry in triumph, but they only sigh: "ah, it was a wonderful, wonderful journey! one could never imagine it--or even tell it. one must have been there." it was a wonderful journey, i then admit, and i do not blame them for their pridefulness, but what, i ask, would they have done without my map? i am bound by honesty to confess, however, that fair as my devon is with the vales and moorlands i have never seen, letitia's devon must be fairer. she found it lovelier far than she had thought, she tells me, and she smiles so happily at the mere sound of its magic name--what, i ask, must a shire be made of to stand the test of that woman's dreams? "here we have hills," i tell her. "but not those hills, bertram." "have we not sun dial?" i protest. "yes, we have sun dial," she admits. "we have winds," i say, "and singing waters, in grassy fordshire." she shakes her head. "you never heard the dart or tamar or the tavy. you never stood on the abbey bridge." "and where," i ask, "was that?" "that was at tavistock," she replies, "at dear little tavistock after a rain, with the brown water rushing through the arches where the moss and fern and ivy clings--rushing over bowlders and swirling and foaming and falling beyond over a weir; then racing away under elm-trees and out into meadows--oh, you never heard the tavy, bertram." "we have troublesome," i insist. "yes," she replies, but her mind is absent. "we have troublesome, to be sure." then i rouse myself. i fairly menace her with her treason. "surely," i cry, "you do not prefer old devon to grassy fordshire!" it is a question she never answers. "grassy fordshire is your native heath," i remind her, jealously. "devon was my father's," she replies, "and mother's, too." "still," i insist, "you do not prefer it to your own?" "it is beautiful," is her answer. had ever man so exasperating an antagonist? she declines utterly to be convinced; she talks of nothing but that ruddy land as if it always had been hers to boast of, is forever telling of ancient villages cuddled down in the softest corners of its hills and headlands to doze and dream in the english cloud-shadows and the sun--some of them lulled, she says, by the moorland music of winds among the granite tors, and waters falling down, down through those pastoral valleys to the sea; some lapped by the salt waves rippling into coves blue and tranquil as the sky above them, and others still in a sterner setting, clinging to edges in the very clefts of a wild and rugged coast, like weed and sea-shells left there by the fury of the autumn storms. so, she tells me, her devon is; so i picture it as we sit together by the winter fire, while for the thousandth time she tells her story: how she and robin, with my map between them, made that long journey which, years before it, the gypsy had found forewritten in her hand. it was the very pilgrimage that as a boy i planned and promised for myself when i should come to be a man, but have found no time for--yet my son has seen it, that land of the youth whose name he bears, so that, listening, i take his glowing word, as i took that of the youth before him, for its moorland heather and its flashing streams. robin, it seems, preferred north devon--lynton and lynmouth and their crags and glens. letitia, i note, while yet agreeing with his wildest adjectives, leans rather towards the south. "but think," he says, "of watersmeet and the valley of rocks, aunt letty!" "i do think of them," she answers, "but think of dartmoor, my dear." "and so i do," is his reply. "that day the wind blew so," she calls to mind, "that morning when we rode to tavistock." "tavistock?" i always ask. "tavistock? where have i heard that name? do all devonshire roads lead up to tavistock?" she only smiles. "you should see tavistock," she says, and resumes her memories. i sit quite helpless between the combatants. they differ widely, one might think, to hear their voices rising and falling in warm debate, yet listening to their words i detect nothing but a rivalry of praise, an effort on the part of each to outdo the other, as i tell them, in pæans and benisons on what i am led inevitably to believe is the fairest of earthly dwelling-places. when robin withdraws his youthful vigor and goes off to bed, or if he is away at school, from which he writes such letters as i wish dove could but see, the talk is tranquil by our hearth, or little by little drops quite away. "such lands breed men," observes letitia for the hundredth time. it is her old, loved theory, the worth and grace of a rare environment, of which she speaks, sewing in the fire-light. "the race must be hardy to wring its living from such shores and heights." "true," i answer, thinking of the wreckers and smugglers who haunted those creeks and coves in years gone by--more lawless summers than the quiet one which found a woman on the very sands their heels had furrowed, or choosing flowers to press on the very cliffs they climbed with their spray-wet booty. i think vaguely of the soldiers and sailors who fought the battles whose dates and meanings it was letitia's joy to teach in the red-brick school-house. i think more vividly of great john ridd and amyas leigh, and then--a clearer vision--i remember that other, that later devonshire lad who was flesh and blood to me; and sitting here by my grassy fordshire fire, a man grown gray who was once a boy eating the slice two lovers spread for him, i keep their covenant. you go up from plymouth, letitia tells me, and by-and-by you are on the moors, marvelling; and you like everything, but you love tavistock. it is in a valley, with the tavy running beneath that bridge of which she is forever dreaming, for, as she stood there watching the waters playing, and listening to their song, she said: "here robert saxeholm was a boy. how often he must have stood here!" "robin saxeholm?" asked a clear voice almost at her side; and letitia turned. a pretty english lady stood there smiling and offering her hand. "yes," said letitia, "did you know him, too?" the lady smiled--a sad little smile it was. she was in black. "he was my husband," she replied, "and this"--turning to the blue-eyed, fair-haired girl beside her "is letitia saxeholm." "why," my robin cried--"why, that's--" letitia primrose stopped him with a glance, and turning swiftly to that little english maid-- "_letitia?_" she said, taking those pink cheeks gently between her hands, and kissing them wellnigh with every word she uttered. "letitia--what a sweet--sweet name!" * * * * * transcriber's note: there were a few unnecessary quotation marks within the text that have been removed. the spelling of two words has been changed: apent is now spent and valeys is now valleys. the oe ligature has been expanded. hathercourt by mrs molesworth published by henry holt and company, new york. this edition dated . hathercourt, by mrs molesworth. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ hathercourt, by mrs molesworth. chapter one. "twoe sisters." "the haunted aisles, the gathering gloom, by some stray shaft of eve made fair; the stillness of the neighbouring air, the faded legends of the tomb. i loved them all..." _songs of two worlds_. hathercourt church is not beautiful, though the internal evidence in favour of its having at one time been so is considerable. it has suffered sorely at the hands of plasterers and white-washers; yet the utmost efforts of these misguided people have not altogether succeeded in effacing the traces of a better state of things--there is still grandeur in the sweep of the lofty roof, oak-raftered behind its dingy white covering; still "meaning and mystery" in the quaintly varying windows; much satisfaction for the learned in such matters, and indeed for the unlearned too, in the unmistakable beauty of the carved screen, the one object untampered with since the days when it gladdened the eyes of the ancient men who fashioned it, long, long ago. a _very_ long "long ago" that time used to seem to mary western when, in the intervals of her attention to the service, she sometimes dreamed of those far-away days. she was not much given to dreaming, but in hathercourt church there were circumstances under which the temptation became irresistible. after a course of years the words of the morning service, especially when read, sunday after sunday, by the same familiar voice with precisely the same intonations, are apt to grow monotonous; and had mary not occasionally allowed her thoughts to go wool-gathering, the chances are that her brown straw hat would have been seen to nod, and she might have fallen asleep altogether. for that part of sunday morning which preceded their appearance in church was a tiring and trying ordeal to the elder daughters of the western household. there was the early class at the school, there were "the boys" at home to keep peace among, there were the very little children in the nursery to coax into unwonted quiet, for on sunday mornings "papa" really must not be disturbed, and mamma, "poor mamma," looked to her girls to do their part in helping her. hathercourt rectory offered in every particular a contrast to its neighbour, the church. the one was old, very old, the other comparatively new; the rectory was full to overflowing of life and noise and bustle, the church, even when its whole congregation was assembled, seemed empty and bare and strangely silent. "it is thinking about all the people that used to be here--the air is too full of their voices for outs to be heard much," mary said to herself sometimes, and her girlish eyes would see strange scenes, and strange murmurs would sound in her ears. there was the leper window in the chancel, which alone, she had been told, testified to a date not more recent than that of the reign of king john. mary's glance never fell upon it without a shudder, as in imagination--imagination in this case no doubt falling far short of reality--she saw huddled together the crowd of accursed beings, old world pariahs, gazing up with bleared yet longing eyes at the priestly forms about to dispense the mystery to them, doubtless with little meaning but that of a charm. then there were the tablets on the walls, many of them very old, telling in a few simple words a whole life history, or in some cases that of an entire family, whose members had either died out or left the neighbourhood so long that these chronicles of death were all that remained to tell of their ever having lived. there was one tablet in particular on which mary, sitting in her own corner of the wide bare pew, had for so many years, sunday after sunday, allowed her eyes to rest that it had grown to seem to her a part of her own life. the service would not have been the same to her without it; her father, she almost fancied, could not have got through his morning's work had the tablet been removed from its place, a little to the left of the reading-desk. mary knew its burden by heart as well as, or better than, "the creed, the ten commandments, and the lord's prayer," yet she could no more help reading it afresh every time she came into church than one can help counting the tantalising telegraph-wires, as they slowly rise up, up, then down again, from the window of a railway-carriage. of a time far remote from railways and telegraphs told the old tablet in hathercourt church. "here lieth," so ran the inscription, headed in the first place by an imposing coat-of-arms, the date , and the initials m.b.--"here lieth the bodi of mawde, the elder sister of the twoe dovghters of arthur mayne, late of southcotte, and the late wife of john beverley of hathercourt, who departed this worlde the sixt day of november, , whiche john and mawde had issve five soones and five dovghters, whiche mawde, the wife of the seid john beverley, esqvier, and dovghter of the seid arthur mayne, esqvier, was yeres oolde at the time of her deathe." mary's meditations on "whiche mawde" represented various stages in her own history. long ago, in the days of little girlhood, the era of brown straw hats and tendency to nod, it was not mawde herself, so much as the great army of "soones and dovghters" she had left behind, on which her imagination dwelt. they must have been quite tiny things, she calculated, some of these beverley boys and girls, when their mother died. how they must have missed her! how, beyond words, terrible would be _their_ plight, that of the nineteenth century western children, that is to say, in such a case! mary trembled at the mere dream of such a possibility. poor little beverley boys and girls! what had become of them all? had they grown up into good men and women, and married and had children of their own, and died, and in their turn, perhaps, had tablets put up about them in far-away churches? what a great many stories might be told of all that had happened to poor mawde's children and children's children since that dreary "sixt of november" when they were left motherless! but as time passed on, and mary grew into womanhood, mawde herself engaged her sympathy. thirty-seven when she died, that was not so _very_ old. she must have been married young, probably, and had a busy life of it. was her husband kind and good, and did she love him and look up to him? they could not have been poor, that was one comfort to think of; life, even with the ten "soones and dovghters," could not have been quite so hard upon john beverley's wife as, mary thought with a little sigh, "mamma" found it sometimes. and then her fancy would wander to the sister dimly alluded to in the inscription, the _younger_ daughter of arthur mayne. what was her name, what had become of her, and did she and mawde love each other very much? mary used to wonder, as her glance strayed to _her_ sister at the other corner of the old pew--her own especial sister, for somehow alexa and josephine, being much the younger for one thing, never seemed _quite_ as much her sisters as lilias. how strange and sad that the record of affection should die, and only the bare fact of the old relationships exist! mary could hardly picture to herself a tablet even three hundred years hence bearing _her_ name, on which there should be no mention of lilias too. the congregation at hathercourt church was never, under the most favourable circumstances, those even of "weather permitting" to the extent of cloudless skies and clean roads, anything but a scanty one. and on rainy days, or very cold days, or very hot days, it was apt to dwindle down to a depressing extent. of an afternoon it was seldom quite so poor, for, unlike the denizens of the manufacturing regions, who would consider it very hard lines to have to hurry over their sunday hot joint for the sake of so-called evening service three or four hours before its time, the agriculturalists, employers, and employed of meadshire and its neighbouring counties, much prefer the half-past two o'clock service to any other. so, as a rule, mr western reserved his _new_ sermon for the afternoon, contenting himself with choosing for the morning one of the neatly tacked together manuscripts which for many years had lain in a dusty pile in a corner of his study. sometimes, when they compared notes on the subject, lilias and mary agreed that they preferred the old sermons to the new. "papa must have been clever when he was young," mary would observe, thoughtfully. "he is clever _now_," lilias would rejoin, with some little show of indignation. "yes--but--i suppose anxieties, and cares, and growing older, cloud it over in a way," was the best solution mary could arrive at as to why greater things had not come of her father's talents. perhaps the truth was that they were not very remarkable--not so remarkable, certainly, as to have forced for themselves a way through the adverse circumstances of being united to a somewhat easy-going, kindly, and contented nature such as that of the rector of hathercourt, whose worldly needs had never been pressing enough to force him to great exertion, who loved the place he had lived in for a quarter of a century, and was not hard upon his people, even though they were averse to morning service, and now and then indulged in forty winks, even of an afternoon. "we have got into each other's ways," he would say sometimes, with a mixture of deprecation and self-congratulation, when, even to hathercourt, echoes of the strange noises beginning to be heard in the ecclesiastical "great world" would find their way. "we understand each other, and know each other's good points. i don't pretend to go along with all these changes, though i am far from saying no good may come out of them. but they are not in our way--they are not in our way; and, after all, there is something in letting well alone. it is something to feel, as i hope to do when i die, that at least i haven't left my people _worse_ men and women than i found them--eh, polly?" for on his second daughter's face there came sometimes a look her father hardly understood--a look of questioning and consideration, of less readiness to take things just as she found them, than altogether tallied with his philosophy. yet mary was his favourite child. lilias disagreed with him openly in her sweet-tempered way, grumbling with a sunny face at their monotonous and secluded life, and openly avowed her determination to change it for a different one, should she ever get a chance of doing so to advantage. "what _would_ you do with five old maids, papa?" she would say sometimes. "just fancy us all in a doleful row--the _five_ miss westerns! in ten years hence even francie will be grown up, remember." "ten years may bring--indeed, are sure to bring many changes, lily dear," her mother would say--"some, perhaps, that it would take half the heart out of us could we foresee." "mamma is so sensible and reasonable always, i sometimes think she has forgotten what it was to be a girl," said the elder to the younger sister one october sunday morning as they were crossing the pretty little bit of inclosed meadow land which was all that separated the church from the rectory. "no," said mary, "it isn't that; she knows and remembers quite well. it is that she knows _too_ well, i fancy." "how do you mean, polly? i'm stupid at understanding things, unless people say them plainly. stay a minute, we are in plenty of time-- nobody is coming to church yet, and it is so nice here under the trees." lilias leaned against one of a beautiful cluster of horse-chestnuts growing in the middle of the church paddock, and as she spoke looked up through the already fast baring branches to the cold, grey, blue sky overhead. "dear me, how very quickly the leaves are falling this year!" she said, "it was that stormy weather in september that shook them, and, once they begin to fall, winter seems to come with a rush." mary smiled, and her lips moved as if she was going to speak, but she stopped and said nothing. "what were you going to say, mary?" asked lilias, whose eyes had idly journeyed down from the sky to her sister's face. "why did you stop?" "on second thoughts i thought it not worth saying," replied mary, "but i'll tell you if you like. it was only what you said about the leaves-- it made me think that was what mother feels. _she_ knows how fast they fall once they begin, and it makes her afraid for us in a way. _she_ doesn't want to hurry us out into the storms; we have always been so well sheltered." lilias looked at her sister for a minute without speaking. "how prettily you see things," she said, admiringly. "you think of things that would never come into my head, yet people fancy you are the practical and prosaic one of us all. i believe it is all because you are called mary." "but mary was just _not_ the practical and prosaic one. you mean martha." "no; no, i don't. marys nowadays are practical and prosaic, any way. i don't mean to say that you are, except sometimes, perhaps. i think you must be very like what mamma was at your age, but i fancy you are cleverer and--" "and what?" "and wiser--at least, in some ways. you would not be satisfied to marry just such a person as my father must have been; you would want some one more energetic and stronger altogether." "perhaps," said mary. "but i do not think we need speculate about that sort of thing for me, lilias; there's plenty of time to think what sort of a person i would marry, if ever i do, which very likely i won't." "don't speak like mrs gamp, and please don't be so sensible, mary. if you only would be silly sometimes, you would be perfect--quite perfect," said lilias. mary smiled. "but indeed," continued lilias, "i am not at all sure that it _is_ sensible to look at things as you do. if none of us marry, or do anything for ourselves, it will come to be rather hard upon papa in a few years." "but why suppose none of us will marry?" said mary. "it is unlikely, to say the least, that we shall _all_ be old maids." "i don't know that it is," replied lilias, seriously. "i am three-and-twenty, remember, and you not two years younger, and things go on just the same year after year; we never make a new acquaintance or go anywhere." "except to the brocklehurst ball," put in mary. "oh, that brocklehurst ball," said lilias, laughing. "many and many a time, when it comes round again, i have been tempted to give up going, just that i might be able to say i had not been, when every one shakes it at me reproachfully if ever i grumble. what good is the brocklehurst ball, mary? it is so crowded, and the people come all in great parties; we never get to know any one. i suppose our beauty is not of that striking order to shine out through country made dresses, and crowds of finer people! i enjoy it, of course--even dancing with frank bury is better than not dancing at all." "or with one of mr greville's curates," said mary, mischievously. "don't," said lilias. "i cannot bear the subject. i told you some time ago--and i shall always say so--the bane of our life has been curates. because papa is a poor clergyman, with lots of daughters, every one seems to think there can be, and should be, nothing before us but curates. it almost makes me dislike papa, to think he ever was one!" "lilias," said mary, suddenly, "we shall be late. the school-children have gone in, and there are the smithson girls coming up the lane, and they are always late. do come!" it felt chilly in church that morning. there was a decidedly autumn "feel" in the air, and the ancient building always seemed ready to meet winter, with its gloom and cold, more than half way. with corresponding reluctance to admit warmth and sunshine, it shrank from the genial spring-time--summer had to be undeniably summer before its presence could be realised within the aged walls. and this morning the congregation was even unusually small, which made the bareness and chilliness more obtrusive. mary was busy in a calculation as to how many years would have passed since mawde beverley's death "come" the next "sixt of november," a date fast approaching, for it was now late in october, when there fell on her ears a sound--the mere shadow of a sound it seemed at first--which almost made her think she was dreaming. such a sound had _never_ before been heard in hathercourt church on a sunday morning; the sensation it produced in her, as gradually it grew louder and clearer, and more unmistakable, was so overpowering that she was positively afraid to look up. had she done so she would have expected to see the whole congregation turning to the door in awestruck anticipation of some portentous event. for the sound was that of carriage wheels--coming nearer, nearer, till at last--yes, there could now be no mistake, they stopped at the church gate. then, after a little pause, came the creaking of the heavy oaken door, opened cautiously--the intruders evidently expecting themselves to be late comers--and seeming, as is the manner of doors, on that account to make all the more noise. again a little hesitation, then the sound of footsteps, several footsteps, coming along the aisle, the rustle of dresses, a faint, indescribable stir in the air, the result, probably, of the heads of nearly all the congregation present being turned in the direction of the persons approaching. mary's curiosity overcame her at last. she glanced up, first at lilias, whose eye she caught for an instant, an instant in which it spoke volumes. "you _must_ look at what is coming up the aisle," it said, "it is worth looking at. see how discreetly i manage to do so--my prayer-book a little to one side. no one would guess i was not attending to the service." but from where mary sat so much diplomacy was hardly called for. another moment brought the new-comers full in her view, as they filed in, one after the other, two ladies, then two gentlemen, to a pew some little way in front. the first lady was middle-aged, if not elderly, well-dressed and rather fat; the second was tall and thin, and seemingly very young, well-dressed too, and--an accidental turn of her head brought the face full in sight--yes, there was no doubt of it, very, _very_ pretty. pretty with the prettiness that is almost, but not _quite_, beauty, that might, perhaps, grow to be such in a few years, for just now she could not, thought mary, be more than sixteen or seventeen--the rounded cheek and white forehead, on which the dark, soft hair lay so nestlingly, had no lines or suspicions of furrows such as are seldom altogether escaped even at twenty; the nose, the mouth, the lovely, happy-looking eyes, showing bright blue through the long black lashes, all told of the very first spring-time of life; the poise of the graceful little head on the shoulders, the flutter of unconcealed interest with which she looked about her, put her extreme youth beyond a doubt. "how pretty she is!" thought mary. "how bright and sweet and happy she looks!" and for a moment or two the girl personally so interested her that she forgot to ask herself the question at which lilias had long ago aimed, "who can she be?" or rather, "who can they be?" for the "they" was made up by more interesting objects than the well-dressed, rather fat lady at the top of the pew. the rest of the "they" consisted of two gentlemen, who next fell under mary's investigation. neither of them was old, yet one was decidedly older than the other; both were good-looking, but one was better than good-looking, he was undoubtedly handsome, and his expression was almost as attractive in its way as that of the young girl beside him. could they be brother and sister? thought mary to herself. there was no striking likeness between them, certainly, but neither was there any decided _unlikeness_, and she fancied there was something brother and sister-like in the way they sat together, sharing a hymn-book when the time came for the anthem's substitute, hathercourt church being supposed to be "a place where they sing," though the way in which the singing was performed was sometimes a matter of mortification to the western girls, considering the time and labour they bestowed on the "choir." it seemed unusually bad to mary to-day, listening, as she caught herself doing, with "other people's ears;" and once, when she fancied that she detected the ghost of a smile pass between the two young people on whom she was bestowing so much attention, she felt her cheeks grow hot, and she turned her eyes away from them with a little feeling of irritation. "i wish strangers would stay away, if they come to criticise," she said to herself. just then for the first time she caught distinct sight of the face of the other gentleman, the elder of the two. it was grave and serious enough to please her, surely! too grave and serious by far, she decided. it was like turning from sunshine into gloom to watch his dark, quiet face after the two beside him. he looked older, a great deal older, than his companions. "thirty-three or four, at least," was the age with which many credited him, but when she looked at his face again, she doubted the correctness of her opinion. it was more grave than old, after all, and after all, too, there was something rather nice about it. what fun it would be to talk them all over with lilias afterwards! what--suddenly a little pause in her father's voice startled her wandering thoughts back to the present; the sermon was just coming to an end, and with considerable compunction mary confessed the truth to herself--she had not heard a word of it! certainly these strangers had a great deal to answer for. there was a little delay in the coming out of church. the smithson girls, and old mrs bedell, and even the school-children and the clerk seemed to be stupefied by the presence of the unexpected visitors; they all hung back and stared at the strangers, and at each other, as if they did not know what to do, till at last lilias western, waxing impatient, touched her mother with the end of her parasol, and leaning across little francie and brooke, whispered something which resulted in the rector's wife, contrary to the usual order of procedure, leading the way down the aisle, followed by her goodly array of sons and daughters. thus encouraged, the rest of the congregation followed with a rush, and when lilias looked back from the door, there was no one to be seen in the church but the two gentlemen and two ladies, gazing about them in dignified desertion. "what a set of boors all the people make themselves look," exclaimed lilias, almost before the rectory party was out of ear-shot of the other members of the congregation. "hush, lilias, some of them will hear you," said her mother. "they don't mean to be rude, poor people. you must remember how unaccustomed they are to strangers." "mamma," interrupted george, the second western boy, hurrying up--"mamma, who can those people be? they've come out of church, and they're standing staring about as if they didn't know what to do. where can they be going to? their carriage hasn't come back." lilias's fair face flushed--a very small amount of excitement was enough to deepen the soft pink colour of her cheeks at any time. "we should do something, mamma," she said, appealingly. "shouldn't basil or george run back and ask them if they would like to wait at the rectory till their carriage comes? you, basil, run back, do, and ask them if they wouldn't like to come in and rest a little." (basil was much the best-looking of "the boys.") "rest--rubbish!" he said, contemptuously. "haven't they been resting in church all this time? i'm not going with such a nonsensical message," and he turned away. "george, you go, as basil seems afraid of behaving like a gentleman," said mrs western. but george, too, hesitated. "i wouldn't mind if it wasn't for those ladies. mother, they are so _awfully_ grand," he said, beseechingly. lilias's face grew scarlet. "i will go myself, then," she exclaimed, and turning quickly, she had gone some way across the grass before the others quite understood her intention. mrs western looked distressed. "lilias excites herself so," she said. "i'll ran after her, mother," said mary, quickly, and in another moment she was by her sister's side. lilias was still flushed and breathless to boot. "did you ever know such ill-mannered, rude--" she was beginning, but mary interrupted her. "they are just _boys_," she said, philosophically. "but, lilias, you have put yourself quite into a fever. let me go and speak to these ladies--yes, do, i would rather--it is better for me than for you." "but why?" said lilias, doubtfully, though visibly relaxing her speed. mary laughed. "i can't say exactly, but somehow it's not dignified for you to go hurrying back in that sort of way, and for me--well, i don't think it matters." lilias still hesitated. "it isn't that," she said; "i wouldn't have you do anything i would not do myself, only--mary, you will laugh at me--i do feel _so_ shabbily dressed." mary did not laugh. she looked at her sister with real sympathy and concern. there are some of the trials of poverty whose stings are even more acutely felt at three-and-twenty than at seventeen, and mary pitied lilias where she might have laughed at alexa. "let me speak to them, then," she repeated. "do, lilias; i will hurry on, and you may follow slowly and see how i comport myself," and lilias made no further objection. "how lilias under-estimates herself," she thought. "who, with eyes in their heads, would think of her dress when they see her face?" she was close to the little group of strangers by this time. they were standing just outside the porch, "staring about them," george had said-- rather, it seemed to mary, examining with some interest the outside appearance of the ancient church. three of them did not see her approach, the two ladies and the handsome, fair-haired man were at a little distance and looking the other way; only the elder of the two gentlemen was standing so as to face her, and he appeared sublimely unconscious of her errand having anything to do with himself or his friends. he moved aside a little as she drew near, evidently with the idea that she was going into the church again. mary's heart beat a little faster; this was by no means what she had bargained for, but there was no retreat possible now. there was lilias slowly advancing in the background, her grey alpaca skirt trailing behind her on the grass with all the elegance of silk or cashmere--somehow lilias _never_ looked shabbily dressed!--her very observant blue eyes doubtless taking in the situation fully. mary felt that the credit of the family was in her hands; she must prove herself equal to the occasion. "i--i beg your pardon--excuse me," she began, but the gentleman did not seem to understand that she was speaking to him; half mechanically he raised his hat, under the impression that the young woman, or lady, he had scarcely observed which, was about to pass by him into the porch, when again she spoke, and this time more distinctly. "excuse me," she said again; "mamma--my mother, i mean--thinks perhaps the ladies will be tired. do you think they would like to come over to the rectory and rest a little?" chapter two. who--whence and why? joan.--"... she with the green kirtle too. ah, but they are bravely clad!" isabel.--"and see, sister, he in the crimson doublet. save me, but they are a pretty pair!" dame winnifrith.--"fie on ye, damsels! call ye that a saying of your prayers? fie on ye!" old play. she had stopped just in front of him. this time her voice could not fail to attract his attention, and with a slight start--for his thoughts had been busied with matters far away from the present--he turned a little and looked at her. this was what he saw: a girl with a face still slightly tanned by last summer's sun--or was the brown tinge, growing rosier on the cheeks, her normal complexion? afterwards he thought of it, and could not decide--very bright, _very_ wavy chestnut-coloured hair, ruffled a little about the temples, and growing low on the forehead; pleasant, hearty eyes, looking up at him with something of embarrassment, but more of amusement, eyes of no particular colour, but good, nice eyes all the same--a girl whom it is difficult to describe, but whose face, nevertheless, once learned, could not easily be forgotten. there was something about it which softened the seriousness of the man looking at her; his own face relaxed, and when he spoke it was with a smile, which, beginning in the grave, dark eyes before it journeyed down to the mouth, so transformed the whole face that mary mentally improved upon her former dictum; there was certainly something not "rather" only, but "very nice" about the elder of the strangers "when he smiled." mary had yet to learn the rarity of these pleasant gleams of sunshine. "i beg your pardon," he said--for notwithstanding that mary's alpaca was several degrees shabbier than her sister's and that her little white bonnet was of the plainest "home-make," he felt not an instant's doubt as to her being that which even in the narrowest conventional sense is termed "a lady"--"i am so sorry. i had no idea you were speaking to me. i shall tell my aunt and sister what you say; it is very kind of your-- i beg your pardon again. i did not quite catch what you said." he had been on the point of turning to speak to his companions, but stopped for a moment, looking at mary inquiringly as he did so. "my message was from my mother, mrs western--i should have explained," mary replied. "i am--my father is the clergyman; we live at the rectory opposite." she bent her head in the direction of her home. the stranger's brow cleared. "of course," he said, "i understand. thank you very much.--alys," he called, hastening a step or two in the direction of the two ladies--"alys, tell your aunt that this young lady has come to ask if you would like to wait at the rectory till the carriage comes." the girl caught the sound of her own name in a moment; she had quick ears. "how kind of you--how very kind of you!" she exclaimed, running up to where mary still stood. "laurence, please ask aunt to say yes. i _would_ like to go across to the rectory." she was close beside the gentleman now. "laurence," she continued, giving him a little pull to make him listen to what she went on to say in a whisper, "i want to see those girls, the clergyman's daughters; i noticed them coming out of church. one is _so_ pretty. ah, yes, there she is!" as she descried lilias standing a little way off. "is that your sister?" she went on, turning again to mary. "do you think she would mind if i went to speak to her? i do so want to see her quite close--she is so very, very pretty." the gentleman looked annoyed. "alys," he was beginning, "you really should--" but at this juncture up came the fair-haired man and the elderly lady, and from another direction lilias, her curiosity overpowering her misgivings, moved slowly towards the group. mary's position was growing a little uncomfortable; she was glad to take refuge by her sister's side. again mrs western's message of hospitality was repeated, this time to the elderly lady, whose name mary thus discovered to be winstanley; she, too, was profuse in her expression of thanks. "so very kind of you," she said to lilias, who, feeling extremely conscious of her grey alpaca, replied by a bow of extra dignity. "i really do not know what we had best do," continued miss winstanley; "the carriage should have been back by this time." "if you and alys like to wait at the rectory, cheviott and i can walk on to see if it is coming," said the fair-haired young man, speaking for the first time. at the sound of his voice lilias looked up, and an expression of surprise crossed her face. "captain beverley!" she exclaimed, impulsively, instantly, however, appearing to regret the avowal of recognition, for she grew scarlet and glanced at mary in real distress. "i am sure he will not know me again," she was thinking. "what a horrid, stupid thing of me to have done!--a man i only met once in my life, and that at a ball nearly two years ago! what _will_ he think of me?" mary felt perplexed. she could not understand her sister's embarrassment, and was therefore unable to help her. but the awkwardness lasted for a moment only. with a flush of evident gratification, captain beverley stepped forward. "miss west!" he said, eagerly. "i was almost sure it was you, but i scarcely hoped you would remember me. i had no idea you lived at hathercourt. is it your home?" "yes," replied lilias, though still with a shade of constraint in her manner, "my father--our father," turning to mary with a pretty sisterly air, "mr western, is the rector." "dear me, how curious i did not know it," said captain beverley. "cheviott," he continued, turning to his companion, "you remember our meeting miss west--western, i mean--at the ball at brocklehurst the year before last?" mr cheviott bowed, somewhat stiffly, it seemed to mary. "i fear you are mistaken, arthur," he said, "i do not think i ever had the honour of being introduced to miss western." "arthur" looked annoyed, and as if he hardly knew what to do; lilias's face flushed again, and miss winstanley began talking to mr cheviott in a hurried, fussy manner, with so palpably evident an anxiety to set every one at ease that she only succeeded in making them all more uncomfortable. mary, animated by a sudden consciousness of antagonism to mr cheviott, came quietly to the rescue. "i think, lilias," she said to her sister, speaking distinctly, so that they all heard her, "i think mamma will be wondering why we are so long. if these ladies, miss winstanley and miss--" "cheviott," put in captain beverley, hastily. "miss cheviott, do not think it worth while to rest at the rectory, perhaps we had better not interrupt them any longer. of course," she went on, turning to miss winstanley with a smile that showed she meant what she said, "if your carriage does not come soon, and we can do anything to help you, we shall be very glad. one of the boys can go to the village to see about it, if you like; we have no carriage, otherwise i am sure--" "thank you, thank you," interrupted miss winstanley, nervously glancing at her silent nephew, and, without his permission, not daring to commit herself to anything but generalities, "you are, really, so very kind, but i think the carriage is sure to come soon. don't you think so, laurence?" "it's here now," exclaimed alys cheviott, in a disappointed tone; "and laurence," she added, in a lower tone, but not low enough to prevent mary's hearing the words, "you are very, _very_ cross." mary was quite inclined to agree with her, but, looking up at the moment, she caught a smile on mr cheviott's face as he made some little answer to his sister, a smile which so altered his expression that she felt puzzled. "i don't like him," she said to herself, "he is haughty and disagreeable, but still i fancy he could be nice if he liked." another minute or two and the strangers were driven away--with smiles and thanks from pretty alys and her aunt, and bows of equal deference, but differing in cordiality, from the two gentlemen. lilias and mary walked slowly homewards across the grass, lilias unusually silent. "well, lilias," said the younger sister, after waiting a little to see if lilias was not going to speak, "well, we have had quite an adventure for once." "yes," said lilias, absently, "quite an adventure. but, oh, mary," she went on, with a sudden change of voice, "don't speak of it; i am _so_ disgusted with myself." "what for?" said mary. "i didn't understand. was it about recognising that gentleman, captain beverley, you called him, i think? and some one called him arthur--how curious!" she added to herself. "yes," said lilias, "it is about that. i met him two years ago, and danced with him twice, i think. i thought he was very nice-looking and danced well, but, _of course_, that was all i thought about him. i think i must have told you about him at the time; it was the year you did not go to the ball--brooke was ill, don't you remember, with the measles, and you were nursing him because you had had it--but i had nearly forgotten him, and then seeing him so unexpectedly again his name came into my head and i said it! it must have looked as if i had never seen a gentleman before to have remembered him so distinctly--oh, i am so ashamed of myself!" "i don't think you need to be. i think it was perfectly natural," said mary. "oh, yes, in one way, i know it was. i am not really ashamed of _myself_, i did nothing wrong. it is what those people must have thought of me," said lilias. "i wish you would not care what people think of you," answered mary. "what does it matter? we shall probably never see any of them again. how pretty the girl was! by-the-bye, captain beverley's name is arthur, he may be a descendant of `mawde' in the tablet, lilias. her name was beverley, and her father's `arthur.' very likely one of her sons would be called after her father. i wonder if that has anything to do with their coming here," she went on, growing more interested in captain beverley than she had hitherto appeared. "how do you mean?" asked lilias. "why, supposing he is a great grandson, a great, great, great grandson-- oh, more than that--there has been time for six or seven generations-- supposing he is a descendant of mawde's, he may have something to do with this neighbourhood, and that may have brought him here." "we should have heard of him before this," objected lilias. "papa knows every land-owner of any consequence in the country by name, and i never heard of any one called beverley." "here is papa," said mary, looking back just as mr western emerged from the church, where he had been detained later than usual by some little official discussion, "let us wait for him and ask him. papa," she continued, as her father came up to them, "do you know that one of those gentlemen who came to church is called beverley?" "and mary is making up quite a romance about his being descended from the old woman on the tablet," said lilias, laughing, but yet not without interest. "there are no people of the name hereabouts now?" "beverley," repeated mr western, "how do you know that is his name?" the girls explained. "no, there are no gentle-people of that name hereabouts nowadays," said mr western. "the old hathercourt beverleys have quite died out, except, by-the-bye,--i was told the other day that old john birley, who died at hathercourt edge last year, was a lineal descendant of theirs." "that rough old farmer!" exclaimed mary, her thoughts flying back to "mawde." "yes, you remember him? it was greville, i think, that was telling me about it. the name `birley' he said was only a corruption of beverley. the old man was very proud of his descent. he left the farm and what money he had saved to a mr beverley, whom he believed to be of the same family--no one in this neighbourhood. by-the-bye, that may be the young man you are telling me about, mary, which was he--the fair or the dark one?" "the fair one," replied mary, "the other was a mr cheviott." "cheviott--ah, indeed," said mr western, with a tone of faintly discernible satisfaction. "i fancy that must be mr cheviott of romary. you remember romary, girls, that beautiful old place near withenden. we went there picnicking once, several years ago." "yes, i remember," said lilias, "but i thought the people living there were called romary, not cheviott." "well, this mr cheviott was a nephew or grandson--all the male romarys had died out, i suppose," said mr western. they were at the rectory door by this time. an unmistakable odour of roast mutton greeted them as it opened. "it must be dinner-time," said lilias, going in. "dear me," she added to herself, as she slowly made her way up-stairs to the plainly furnished but neat little bedroom that she shared with her sister, "dear me, how nice it would be to be rich, and have nice pretty luncheons instead of these terrible early dinners, so hot and fussy, and all the children crowding round the table! dear me--" but she took off her bonnet and shawl and went down with a cheerful face to help in the distribution of the roast mutton, bright and merry and very fair to look upon, as was her wont. mary had waited a moment at the hall door with her father. they stood looking out at the autumn landscape; there came a sudden gleam of sunshine through the trees, lighting up the grass with a yellow radiance, and lingering gently on the many-coloured stones of the venerable church. "it's a nice old place, after all, child, is it not?" said mr western. "yes, indeed, father," replied the girl. "i, for my part, am very content to think that i shall spend my life here, and rest peacefully over there in the shadow of my old church, when the time comes," continued the rector; "but for you young people i suppose it's different somehow," and he sighed a little. "how do you mean, father dear?" said mary, softly, and she came closer to him and slid her hand into his arm. "what makes you speak that way to-day?" "i don't exactly know, my dear," he replied. "possibly the sight of those strangers in church set me considering things. i should like you girls to have a few more--well, advantages i suppose they are in a sense, after all--i should like to see lilias and you as nicely dressed as that pretty girl this morning, eh, mary?" "dear father?" said mary, affectionately. "but we're very happy, papa. i am, at least, and lilias tries to be anyway. but i dare say it's harder for her than for me--she _might_ get so very much admiration, and all that sort of thing, you know." mr western smiled--there _were_ people in the world, he thought to himself, who would see something to admire in the eager face beside him too; but he said nothing, and just then the dinner-bell rang, and a hurry of approaching footsteps told that to some at least of the rectory party it was not an unwelcome sound. mary fled up-stairs, her father followed the hungry flock into the dining-room. and the sunday meal that day was considerably enlivened by discussions about the mysterious strangers. who were they?--whence had they come, and wherefore?--and, "will they come again next sunday?" said little frances, a question which her eldest sister very summarily answered in the negative. "they have given you all something to talk about, children, anyway," said mrs western. "yes," said basil, who, on the strength of having left school three months ago, considered himself a man of the world, "it's ridiculous how people get excited about nothing at all, when they live such shut-up lives. i bet you the whole neighbourhood's full of it. all the old women will be discussing these unfortunate people over their tea-tables at this very moment." "not over their _tea_, basil," said little brooke. "they don't have tea till four o'clock." chapter three. the colour of the spectacles. "mais, il faut bien le reconnaitre, tout est relatif en ce monde, et les choses nous affectent toujours dans la mesure de l'education que nous avons recue et du milieu social ou nous avons ete eleves." enault. mrs western's views of life differed considerably from those of her husband--she had quite another stand-point. she was not ambitious, nothing in her experience had ever tended to make her so, and though by nature she was far less "easy-going" than the rector, yet her thoughts concerning the future of her children were not by any means so harassing and dissatisfied as his. had she seen anything to worry about, she _would_ have worried about it, but she did not see that there was. her boys and girls were infinitely better off, better cared for, better educated than she had been, and happier far than she ever remembered herself before her marriage, and she saw no reason why, if they turned out good and sensible, as they mostly promised to do, they should not all get on fairly well in life, without feeling that their start in the great race had been weighted with undue disadvantages. yet the rector's wife was not a _peculiarly_ reasonable woman; circumstances mainly had made her appear so, or rather, perhaps, had never called forth the latent _unreasonableness_ which we are told, by authority we dare not question, is a part of every feminine character. when she married mr western, she was only a governess in a family where she was not unkindly treated, but where no special thought was bestowed upon her. she was not discontented, however; for the kindness she received she was sincerely grateful, and considered herself, on the whole, a fortunate girl. she was not remarkably pretty, but pleasing and gentle, and with a certain sedateness of air and manner not without a charm of its own. people spoke of her, when they did speak of her, which was not often, as "a very sensible girl;" in point of fact, she was more than sensible; she had both intellect and originality, neither of which was ever fully developed--in one sense, indeed, hardly developed at all. for her youth had been a depressing one; from her earliest years she had been familiar with poverty and privation, and she only was not altogether crushed by them because personally she had had experience of nothing else. her father had been one of the several younger sons of a rich and well-born man. but neither the riches nor the good birth had helped him on in life. he quarrelled with his parents by refusing to enter the profession designed for him; he made bad worse by a hasty and imprudent marriage; he hopelessly widened the breach by choosing to resent on his own people his young wife's speedy death, and declining to accept any help in the bringing up of his motherless little daughter. and then his old parents died, and the brothers and sisters, married and scattered, and absorbed in their individual interests, learned to forget, or to remember but with a sore reproach worse than forgetting, this hot-headed, ungrateful "basil," who had not condoned by success in his self-sought career the follies of his youth. and before many more years had passed, poor basil brooke died himself, nursed, and comforted, and sorrowed for by but one little solitary being, his thirteen-years-old margaret, for whom at the last he had managed to scrape, together a tiny sum that left her not absolutely destitute, but was enough to pay for her schooling till, at eighteen, she went out into the world on her own small account as one of the vast army of half-educated girls who call themselves governesses. but if margaret brooke's pupils obtained no very great amount of so-called "book-learning" from their young teacher, at least they learned no harm, and indirectly no small amount of good. for she herself was good--good, and true, and healthy-minded, perfectly free from self-consciousness, or morbid repining after what had not fallen to her lot. once in her governess life she came across some members of her dead father's family. being really gentlefolks, though self-absorbed and narrow-minded, it did not occur to them to ignore their poor relations. they even went out of their way to show her some little kindness, which the girl accepted pleasantly and without bitterness; for, young as she was at the time of her father's death, she had yet been able to discern that the family estrangement had been mainly, if not altogether, of his own causing. so the rich brookes spoke favourably of poor margaret, and though it was taken for granted among them that the fact of her existence was a mistake, she was, on the whole, regarded with approval as doing her part towards making the best of an unfortunate business. and when, two or three years later, margaret, to her own inexpressible astonishment, found herself actually fallen in love with by the most charming and unexceptionable of young curates, a curate too with every prospect of before long becoming a rector, and when this prospect was ere long fulfilled, and margaret, in consequence, became mrs western, her brooke cousins approved of her still more highly, to the extent even of sending her a tea-pot, cream-jug, and sugar-basin of the best electro-plate as a wedding present. but all that was now nearly a quarter of a century ago--the generation of brookes who had seen margaret in her youth, who had some of them been contemporaries of her father, had mostly died out--they were not a long-lived race--and the old relationship had grown to seem more of a legend than a fact. a legend, however, which, little as the young westerns knew of the far-off cousins who now represented their mother's people, was not likely to be allowed by them to sink into oblivion. they were too well-bred and right-minded to be ashamed of their mother's position when their father wooed and won her, but, nevertheless, half unconsciously to themselves, perhaps, the knowledge of this fact made it all the more agreeable to be able to say to each other, with dignity and satisfaction, "though mamma was poor when she was a girl, her family was quite as good, if not, indeed, better than papa's." and "papa" himself was the first always, on the rare occasions when such subjects came under discussion, to remind his girls and boys of the fact, but mrs western herself thought little about it. she lived in the present, even her lookings forward to the future were but a sort of transference of her own life and experience to others. she hoped that her daughters, if they married at all, would marry as happily as she had done, and beyond this she was not ambitious for them, and conscientiously tried to check lilias's good-tempered murmurings at the monotony of their life by platitudes, in which she herself so entirely believed that they sometimes carried with them a certain weight. mrs western was less interested than the rest of the rectory party in the mysterious strangers who had so disturbed the hathercourt devotions this sunday morning. she did not like strangers; she had a vague fear of them--not from shyness, but from a sort of apprehensiveness which her early life, probably, had caused to become chronic with her. when lilias snubbed little frances's inquiry as to whether these ladies and gentlemen would come to church again next sunday, in her heart the mother hoped the elder sister's "no, of course not," would be justified by the event, and, secretly, she chafed at the talk that went on round the table, talk in which even mr western was interested, as she could see. "you remember romary, margaret?" he said, across the table, "that splendid place near withenden?" "yes, i remember it," replied mrs western, "but i don't like splendid places," she added, with a little smile. "nor splendid people?" said lilias, half mischievously. "isn't mother funny--odd i mean, in some ways--difficult to understand?" she said afterwards to mary, "she seems so afraid of our ever going the least out of the jog-trot, stupid way." "she is over-anxious, perhaps," said mary. "no, i don't think it is that exactly," said lilias. "i think papa is the more anxious of the two. i sometimes wish mamma were a little more, not anxious exactly--i don't know what to call it--a _little_ more worldly, perhaps." mary laughed. "you would have liked her to invite those fine people to luncheon last sunday, and then, perhaps, they would have taken a fancy to us, and invited us to go to see them?" she said, inquiringly. "nonsense, mary! do leave off talking about those people. i am tired to death hearing about them," replied lilias, impatiently. "invite them to luncheon--to roast mutton and rice pudding, and a dozen children round the table!--mary, i wish you wouldn't say such silly things." "you are difficult to please, lilias. only the other day you told me, if i would be silly sometimes i should be almost perfect," said mary, dryly. and then lilias kissed her, and called herself "cross," and there was peace again. but somehow, after this, the subject of the strangers was scarcely alluded to. and "next sunday" came and went, and if mary descried some little attempt at extra self-adornment on lilias's part, she was wise enough not to take notice of it; and if mr western preached his new sermon in the morning instead of the afternoon, i question if any one discovered the fact. for, with these possible exceptions, the day was not a marked one in any way, and with a little sigh, and a smile too at her own folly, lilias decided, as she fell asleep, that as yet there was little prospect of a turning-point in her life being at hand. the week that followed this uneventful sunday was a date to be remembered, and that had been tremulously anticipated by one heart, at least, among those of the rectory party. it was to see the eldest son started on his career in life, and calm enough though she kept herself to outward appearance, to the mother this parting was a painful crisis. her "boy basil" was leaving her forever, for "boy" she could not expect him to return. he was going up to town for a few months in the first place, having been lucky enough to obtain a junior clerkship in a great mercantile firm, with a prospect--the few months over--of being transferred to the branch house abroad, where his chances of success, said the authorities, "if he behaved himself," were pretty certain in the long run, though not, in the mean time, bewilderingly brilliant. he was a good sort of a boy in his way, and family affection among the westerns was fairly and steadily developed; but nevertheless, with the exception of his mother, none of the household lost a night's rest on account of his approaching departure, and lilias openly avowed her conviction that basil was greatly to be envied, and that it would be far pleasanter for him to pay home visits now and then, when he knew something of the world, and could make himself entertaining, than to have a great hulking hobbledehoy always hanging about, and getting into mischief. mary, too, agreed that "it was a very good thing for basil," and nobody cried when he said good-bye except poor francie, whose seven years were innocent of philosophy or common sense, and who only realised that her big brother was going "far, far away." but still, when he was fairly gone, there fell over them all a certain depression--a sort of blank and flatness, which every one was conscious of, though no one would own it to another. it was a dull afternoon, too, threatening to rain, if not actually doing so, and, to suit basil's convenience, they had had dinner at half-past twelve, a whole hour earlier than usual, so that by four o'clock lilias declared she felt ready to go to bed. "you are suffering from suppressed excitement, after all, i suspect," said mary, looking up from alexa's german translation, which she was correcting. "there is a sort of excitement in thinking poor basil is really started, though we are glad of it." "i am not excited; i wish i were," said lilias, listlessly. "i am only idle and stupid!" "get something to do then," replied mary. "there, i have finished the school-room affairs for to-day. i wonder if mamma has anything she would like us to do--i can't ask her; she is up in her own room, and i don't like to disturb her yet. it is too dull to go out. supposing we practice that duet, lilias?" "supposing in the first place we make this room tidy," said lilias, looking round her reflectively. "supposing now, mary--just _supposing_ any one were to come to call, what would they think of this room?" "they wouldn't think ill of the poor room," answered mary, laughing, and setting to work energetically as she spoke to "tidy up;" "they would probably reserve their thoughts for the careless people who lived in it. there now, that looks better; let us poke up the fire a little, and draw the sofa near it for poor mother when she comes down, and i'll tell you what--i've got a thought, lilias. supposing we make the children have tea by themselves in the dining-room for once, and we have it in here for mother on a little table?" "yes, do," said lilias, heartily; "it would be quite a treat for her." "and i know the children will be good," said mary; "they understand that mother is dull about basil's going. we are to have a light supper at eight, you know, as papa will be back by then, so we can have tea earlier than usual." "if there is any meal i dislike more than an early dinner," said lilias, as she stood on the hearth-rug surveying the room, which, thanks to her own and her sister's efforts, now looked neat and comfortable, "it is `a light supper.' the room doesn't look so bad now, mary; somebody may come to call if he or she likes." it was really a pretty room; it was prettily shaped, and the look-out upon the old church through a long, rather narrow window at one end, evidently purposely designed, was striking and picturesque. pretty and graceful, too, was the wide, low bow-window at the other end with a cushioned seat running all round, and in summer a pleasant view of the best kept bit of the rectory garden. even now in late autumn there was a bright, fresh look about the room, notwithstanding the extreme simplicity of the furniture and its unmistakable evidences of age; and when mary had stirred up the fire into a brisk little blaze, and with her own hands arranged the tea-things on a small table beside the sofa, she felt very fairly satisfied with the aspect of the whole. "won't mamma be pleased, lilias, when she comes down?" she exclaimed. "i have made the tea; it's all ready. will you go up-stairs and ask her to come down, or shall i?" "you deserve to go; it was your idea," lilias was beginning, when an unexpected sound made her suddenly stop short "mary," she exclaimed, "that's the front door bell! what a bother--just as we have got all so comfortable for mamma! it must be old miss bury--nobody else would come to call on such a day; it seems like a judgment upon me for joking about visitors." "we can't help it," said mary. "i only hope ann will hear the bell and answer it quickly. she is sometimes so slow, and miss bury doesn't like to be kept waiting." "there she is," exclaimed lilias, as the sound of feet crossing the hall was heard. "who can it be, mary? it doesn't seem like miss bury's voice." "some one for papa, perhaps," replied mary; but almost as she spoke the door was thrown open, and ann, muttering something too indistinct to be understood, ushered a gentleman into the quickly gathering darkness of the room. he came in quietly, evidently not expecting to find any one in the room, for in fact he believed himself to be entering mr western's study, there to await the result of ann's inquiries as to the hour at which her master was expected home. nevertheless, in one respect he had the advantage of the two girls, for the hall whence he emerged was even darker than the drawing-room, whereas the sisters, standing together on the hearth-rug in the full light of the newly-stirred fire, were by him at once and easily recognised. "i am afraid i am disturbing you--i must really apologise," he began, his face, had they been able to see it, lighting up with pleasure as he spoke. "i only asked for mr western, and i am sorry--" he hesitated. "papa is out," said mary, though quite in the dark physically and mentally as to whom she was addressing; "but if it is anything we can tell him--" she turned to her sister, surprised at her silence, but her appeal was disregarded--"if it is anything we can tell him--or--or would you like to see mamma? won't you sit down, and i will get a light?" she went on, without giving him time to answer. "thank you," said the gentleman, coming forward a little; "but i am really ashamed--" he was repeating, with increased hesitation, when mary again interrupted him. "it is captain beverley," she exclaimed. "i had not the least idea who you were, for i did not recognise your voice. lilias," she continued, turning to her sister, this time so pointedly that miss western was obliged to come to her assistance, "you generally recognise voices more quickly than i do--did you not know that it was captain beverley?" "you give me credit for greater acuteness than i possess, mary," said lilias calmly, bowing with dignified ease to the intruder; "it is not easy to recognise a voice one has not heard more than once or twice. but if you will come nearer the fire, captain beverley, we shall feel less mystified; and, mary, do ring for lights." the calmness, and the dignity, and the ease were all lost upon the young man, and lilias, had she been able to read his thoughts, would have been saved a good deal of constraint. he was only thinking how very pretty, how beautiful she was--this tall, fair, lily-like girl, as she stood in the firelight, her face and bright hair thrown into strong relief by the dusk of the rest of the room; and had she allowed herself simply at once to acknowledge her recognition, he would have been conscious of nothing but honest gratification. as it was, he really did feel awkward and uncomfortable; it seemed to him he had intruded without proper justification, and somehow this disagreeable sensation was increased by all he saw about him. it was not in the least what he had expected; the pretty, graceful-looking room, whose deficiencies the friendly gloom concealed, and whose best points were shown to advantage by the flickering, dancing light, the little tea-table so neatly set out, and the two girls themselves--the one with the bearing of a princess, and the other with a sort of straightforward unconsciousness worth all the "manners" ever taught or talked about--it was not in the least what he had expected, and he felt that he had been guilty of gross presumption in thus making his way into mrs western's drawing-room. once he had seen lilias before, and admired her more than he had ever admired any one in his life, and when he had suddenly decided that, for the local information he was in quest of, there was no one to whom he could so fitly apply as to the rector of hathercourt, he had been conscious in the very bottom of his heart that, if he went over to see mr western, there would be a chance of seeing his daughter too. but he had not fancied he would see her in this sort of way--so he felt all his former ideas confused and unsettled. still it was very pleasant to find himself in the rectory drawing-room; the outside chill and dreariness made the cheerful indoors all the more attractive, and, though feeling by no means sure that he had any business to be where he was, he had not the strength of mind to tear himself away, to get up from his low chair by the fire and the prospect of a cup of tea, and, with a proper amount of apology for his intrusion, to leave a message with the girls for their father and set off on his solitary, uncomfortable walk back again to hathercourt edge. so he sat still, and by thus doing, little though he knew it, passed the rubicon. mary had disappeared, to return in a minute with a lighted lamp which she placed on a little table, her way of obeying her sister's injunction to "ring for lights." then she stopped for a moment, hesitating, and captain beverley half rose from his chair. "shall i tell mamma tea is ready, lilias?" she said, "and that captain beverley is here?" "yes, please do," replied her sister, graciously. "my mother is not very well to-day," she continued, turning to the young man, and almost for the first time directly addressing him, "at least, she has been rather upset by my brother's going away, but i have no doubt she will come down, if you would like to see her." "thank you," said captain beverley, growing uncomfortable again, and yet feeling increasingly reluctant to take his departure. "i should be very sorry to disturb mrs western, but if she is coming down in any case," he glanced at the tea-table, "perhaps--i should like to explain to her what i wanted to see mr western about.--i should like you to understand that i did not mean to come forcing my way here without a proper reason," was the real thought in his mind, and somehow lilias instinctively half divined it, and her dignity abated a little. "mary, please go and ask mamma to come down, if she can," she said to her sister, and mary went off on her errand. "i have been leading a very lonely life the last few days," said captain beverley, when he found that miss western was in no hurry to start a subject of conversation. "indeed," said lilias. "yes," he continued, "very lonely and not particularly comfortable, as you can fancy, when i tell you where my present quarters are. i am living in the farm-house at hathercourt edge, with an old woman to `do for me,' and she does `do for me' i can assure you," he added, with a hearty, boyish laugh. in spite of her grand resolutions, lilias could not help laughing too. "i know that old woman, i think," she said; "we often see her when we pass that way. she was old john birley's housekeeper, wasn't she?--at least, she `did for him.' i do pity you, but i wonder you stay there." "needs must," replied captain beverley, "and there is good in everything, they say. my uncomfortable life makes me appreciate civilisation doubly when i return to it. you don't know what a treat it is to find myself in this cheery room, and how much i shall enjoy--" he stopped short. "what?" said lilias. "a cup of good tea, if you will give it me, i was going to say, only it suddenly struck me it was a very impertinent suggestion to be made by a stranger who has no business to be in your drawing-room at all, miss western. the fact of the matter is, i find it difficult to recollect i am a stranger, for ever since i met you that evening two years ago, i have remembered you so distinctly that i could fancy i have seen you often since. it was your first ball, was it not?" "no," said lilias, "i had been at two before." "ah, well," he replied, "that's much the same thing,"--little understanding that to poor lilias a ball counted for a year, and that therefore, having made her _debut_ at brocklehurst at nineteen, she already numbered twenty-one summers, or winters, when he first met her. "it's much the same thing," he went on, without giving her time for the explanation which her honesty was on the point of volunteering; "it has always seemed like my first ball to me, for i had only returned from india the week before, and i wasn't much in the way of balls there." "yes, i remember your speaking of india," said lilias, "but i think you said you were going back there again, did you not?" "i did think so then," he replied, "but things have changed. i sold out a few months ago, otherwise i should not be here now. and an unexpected piece of good luck befell me just then. you may have heard of old john birley's strange will?" before lilias could reply, the door opened, and mrs western and mary made their appearance. chapter four. a cup of tea. "i have no ambition to see a goodlier man." _tempest_. "i am so very much obliged to you for seeing me. i am afraid it is very inconvenient and uncomfortable for you--in fact, as i have been telling your daughters, i am altogether ashamed of myself," was the apology with which captain beverley met mrs western. "but you need not be so, i assure you," she answered, quietly, as she sat down on the sofa by the fire. "i have been a clergyman's wife too many years not to be quite accustomed to act as my husband's deputy when he is out of the way; and mary--my daughter, i mean," she added, glancing towards the girls, "tells me you wanted particularly to see mr western. is it anything in which i can do instead of him, or will you leave a message? i fear he will not be home till late." notwithstanding the perfect courtesy of this speech, there was something in it which made captain beverley regret again what he had done. he grew hot when he remembered that not two minutes ago he had been making interest with the beautiful miss western for a cup of tea, and now her mother made him feel that he was expected to give his message and take his departure--the sooner the better. "how completely cheviott has been mistaken about these people!" he thought to himself; but though mary, who was standing nearest him, could not read this reflection, she perceived the quick change of expression in his open, good-tempered face, and she felt sorry--sorry for him, and a little tiny bit vexed with her mother. "mamma," she broke in, before mrs western had time to say any more, "you must really have tea at once; it will be getting cold. shall i pour it out, lilias, or will you?" "i will, thank you," said lilias, not quite sure if she appreciated her sister's tactics, but seating herself before the tea-table as she spoke. "mother, dear, stay where you are, do," seeing that mrs western was getting up from her seat. "i was only looking to see if there were cups enough, my dear. captain beverley, you will have a cup of tea?" said mrs western, her natural instinct of hospitality asserting itself in defiance of her dislike to strangers. "thank you," he replied, gratefully; "i really cannot resist the chance of a cup of _good_ tea. my old woman has been giving me such a horrible decoction. what do people do to tea to make it taste so fearful, i wonder?" he continued, seriously. "it seems the simplest thing in the world just to pour hot water over a spoonful or two, and let it stand for a few minutes." the girls laughed, and mrs western smiled. "it is evident you are a bachelor, captain beverley," she said. "there is nothing that depend more on _how_ it is made than tea. for instance, hot water is not necessarily _boiling_ water as it should be, and the `standing a few minutes' should not mean brewing by the fire for half an hour or more." "i see," said captain beverley. "i wonder if it would be any use trying to teach old mrs bowker how to make tea properly." "mrs bowker!" repeated mrs western in surprise. lilias laughed again at the bewilderment in her mother's face. "how prettily she laughs," thought captain beverley, "i wish laurence could see her. he declares not one woman in a hundred can laugh becomingly." "captain beverley is staying at old mrs bowker's, mamma," she exclaimed--"at least, at john birley's farm." "or, to be perfectly correct," said captain beverley, "old mrs bowker is staying with _me_, though i am quite sure she does not see the arrangement in that light at all. i was just telling miss western," he continued, turning to the mother, "that hathercourt edge--that is to say, the old farm-house and, what is of more importance, a considerable amount of land--has just become my property; the last owner, john birley, left it to me as the oldest lineal descendant of the _name_--of the beverleys of hathercourt. he had no near relations, and had always been proud of his own descent from the beverleys; he came straight down from a john beverley who owned all the land about here early in the seventeenth century, i believe, but whose eldest son sold a lot of it, so that in process of time they came to be only farmers." "that john beverley must have been `mawde's' husband, lilias," said mary. captain beverley looked up with interest. "do you mean the `mawde' about whom there is a tablet in the church here?" he said. "yes," replied mary. "mawde mayne, who married john beverley of hathercourt." "ah! yes, that's the same mawde," said captain beverley. "she is our common ancestress--poor old john birley's and mine, i mean. i come from another of her sons, who left these parts and married an heiress, i believe, but his descendants have had nothing to do with this place from that time to this. isn't it strange that hathercourt, a part of it at least, should come back to me after all these generations?" "it is very nice, i think," said mary. "i should be so proud of it, if i were you." her eyes sparkled, and her face brightened up eagerly. for the first time it struck captain beverley that there was something very "taking" about the second miss western. but his glance did not rest on her; it travelled on to where lilias sat behind the tea-tray, with a half-unconscious appeal to her for sympathy in what he was telling. lilias, looking up, smiled. "yes," she said, softly, "it is very strange." "then," began mrs western, with some little hesitation, "are you, may i ask, captain beverley, going to live altogether at hathercourt edge? you can hardly do so, though, in the house as it is at present. it is barely habitable, is it?" "very barely," replied the young man. "you never saw such a place. but i must not grumble; poor old john kept the land up to the mark, though he spent nothing on the house. i don't mean to settle here," (mrs western breathed a sigh of relief), "i have another place which is let just now, but will soon be free again, and my cousin advises me to live there and farm it myself. all i mean to do here is to build a good farm-house, and establish some trusty man as bailiff, and then i can easily run down now and then--i am often at romary--and see how things are going on. and this brings me to what i wanted to see mr western about. i want to ask his opinion of a young man here who has been recommended to me for my situation." "mr western will be very glad to tell you all he can, i am sure," said the rector's wife. "i dare say he will be able to walk over to hathercourt edge to-morrow to see you, for about such a matter it would be better for you to speak to himself." "thank you," said captain beverley. "but i couldn't think of giving mr western so much trouble. i can easily come over again, and if he is out it doesn't matter--it is only a pleasant walk--and--and if i am not a great trouble, i shall be only too grateful to have some one to speak to, for i am dreadfully tired of the old farm-house, and i must be here alone another fortnight. by then my cousins will be back at romary, and i can take up my quarters there. you know romary, of course?" "no," said lilias, to whom the question seemed to be addressed, her colour rising a little; "at least, i have only been there once." "it is some miles from here, and we have no carriage," said mrs western, simply. "old mrs romary called on me when we first came here, but i never saw any more of them. we know very few of our neighbours, captain beverley, for we are not rich, and we live very quietly." mary looked up at her mother admiringly. lilias glanced at captain beverley. his colour, too, had deepened a little. "then i must thank you all the more for being so kind to me," he said, impulsively. "and, mrs western, if, as i shall really be your very nearest neighbour, you will let me be to some extent an exception to the rule, i shall thank you still more," he added, with a sort of boyish heartiness which it was difficult to resist. he had got up to go, and stood looking down at his hostess as he spoke with such a kindly expression in his honest blue eyes, and--he was so undeniably handsome and gentlemanlike that mrs western's cold manner thawed. "the thanks will, i think, be due from us to you if you come to see us now and then when you are in the neighbourhood; that is to say, at hathercourt edge. romary is too far off for us to consider its inhabitants neighbours," she replied. "and i don't quite understand, but romary is not your home, is it?" "oh dear, no," he replied, evidently a little surprised at the question. "romary belongs now to my cousin, mr cheviott. it has been his ever since his uncle's death, but he has only lately come to live there. he was my guardian, and the best and wisest friend i have ever known, though not more than ten years older than myself," he added, warmly. "and that young lady--we thought her _so_ pretty," said lilias--"she is miss cheviott, then, i suppose?" "yes, she is his sister. i am glad you think her pretty. she is a dear little thing," he replied, looking pleased and gratified. "but i am really detaining you too long. will you be so kind as to tell mr western that i shall hope to see him in a day or two? good-bye, and thank you very much," he said, as he shook hands with mrs western and her daughters, lilias last. "for a cup of tea?" she said, laughing. "yes, miss western, for a cup of tea," he repeated. "i like him," said mary, when the door had closed on their visitor; "he is honest, and unaffected, and kindly." "he is very boyish," said lilias; "somehow he seems more boyish than when i saw him two years ago." "when you saw him two years ago?" repeated mrs western. "i did not know you had ever seen him before." "yes, mamma. i met him at my second brocklehurst ball. mary remembers my mentioning him," replied lilias, meekly enough. "i did not know where he had come from, or whom he was staying with, or anything about him, and indeed i had forgotten all about him till the other day when he came to church." "he is a pleasant-looking young man," said mrs western. "pleasant-looking, mother?" exclaimed mary. "i call him _very_ handsome." lilias smiled, but her mother looked grave. "well, well," she said, "i dare say he is handsome; but in my opinion, my dears, there is great truth in the old saying, `handsome is that handsome does,' and we do not know anything at all about this captain beverley's doings, remember." "at least we know nothing `_un_handsome' about them," said mary, who seemed in an unusually argumentative mood. "oh dear, no. i have no reason to say anything against him. i know nothing whatever about him," said mrs western, calmly; "but i do not like making acquaintance too quickly with young men. one cannot be too careful. and you know, my dears, i have always said if ever you do marry i hope and trust it will be some one quite in your own sphere." "mamma!" exclaimed lilias, growing scarlet, and with a touch of indignation in her tone, "why should you allude to such a thing? just because a gentleman happens to have called to see papa on business--as if we could not have spoken two words to him without thinking if we should like to marry him." "you need not fire up so, lilias," replied her mother. "you very often speak about marrying, or not marrying, and i have heard you maintain it was gross affectation of girls to pretend they never thought about their future lives." "yes," said lilias, "i know i have said so, and i think so, but still there is a difference between that and--well, never mind. but, mother," she went on, with returning playfulness, "i must warn you of one thing. if by `our own sphere' you mean _curates_, then the sooner, as far as i am concerned, i can get out of my own sphere the better." mrs western did not laugh. "lilias," she began, gravely, but the rest of her remonstrance was lost, for at that moment the drawing-room door opened softly, and a pair of bright eyes, surmounted by a shag of fair hair, peeped in, cautiously at first, then, their owner gathering courage, the door opened more widely, and a tall thin girl, in a brown stuff skirt and scarlet flannel bodice, made her appearance. "josey, what do you want? don't you know it is very rude to come peeping in like that? how did you know we were alone?" said mary, somewhat peremptorily. "then he's gone?--i thought he was," answered josephine, composedly. "all right, alexa, you can come in," she turned to call to some one behind her, and, thus encouraged, a fourth miss western--the third as to age, in point of fact--followed josephine into the room. "is mamma better? i have really done my best, mary, to keep them all quiet," she began, plaintively, "but george and josey do _so_ squabble. they wanted to find out who was calling, and i could hardly prevent them coming to peep in at the door. yes, josey, you needn't make faces at me like that. it's quite true--you know it is." "i didn't say it wasn't," said josey, "but there are more ways than one of telling the truth. somebody else was just as inquisitive as `george and josey,' but _she_ was far too lady-like to do such a thing as peep. she would let other people peep for her--that is _her_ way of doing things she shouldn't," the last words uttered with withering contempt. alexa was a pretty, frightened-looking little creature of sixteen. she had soft, wistful-looking dark eyes, which filled with tears on the smallest provocation. "mamma," she exclaimed, "it isn't true! i only said i would like--" "i do not want to hear any more about it, alexa," interrupted mrs western with decision. "i do think you and josephine might have some little consideration for me to-day, instead of quarrelling in this way." the culprits looked ashamed of themselves; but in two minutes josephine's irrepressible spirits had risen again. "you might tell me if it really was captain beverley," she said to her elder sisters. "what did he come for?--why did he stay such a time?" "don't answer her, mary," said lilias, hastily. "josephine, i can't understand how you can be so unladylike." "come up-stairs with me, josey," whispered mary, who saw the storm-clouds gathering again on her young sister's handsome face. "do remember that mamma is tired and dull to-night, and we should all try to comfort her. i will read aloud to you all for half an hour, if you like, and leave mother and lilias in peace." but lilias's spirits seemed to have received a check. she remained unusually quiet and depressed all the evening, and mary felt puzzled. "she cannot really have taken to heart what mother said," she thought to herself. "mamma has often said things of that sort without lilias minding." and when bed-time came and she was alone with her sister, she set to work to find out what was wrong. "what has made you so dull this evening, lilias?" she asked, gently. "nothing, or rather, perhaps, i should say everything," replied lilias. "mary," she went on; she was sitting in front of the looking-glass, her beautiful fair hair loosened and falling about her shoulders, and as she spoke she put her hands up to her face, and leaning with her elbows on the table gazed into the mirror before her--"mary, don't think me conceited for what i am going to say--i wouldn't say it to any one but you. do you know, i think i wish i wasn't pretty." "why?" said mary, without, however, testifying any great astonishment. "if i could tell you exactly why, i should understand myself better than i do," she replied. "i fancy somehow being pretty has helped to put me out of conceit of my life; and after all, what a poor, stupid thing it is! a very few years more, i shall be quite _passee_--indeed, i see signs of it coming already. i want to be good and sensible, and sober, and contented like you, mary, and i can't manage it. oh, it does makes me so angry when mamma talks that way--about our own sphere and all that!" "you shouldn't be angry at it, it does not really make any difference," said mary, philosophically; "poor mamma thinks it is for our good." "but it isn't only that; it is _everything_. mary, people talk great nonsense about poverty not necessarily lowering one; it does lower us-- that i think is the reason why i dislike mamma's saying those things so. there is truth in them. we are rapidly becoming unfit for anything but a low sphere, and it is all poverty. did you ever see anything more disgraceful than the younger girls' manners sometimes?--alexa's silly babyishness, and josephine's vulgar noisiness? they should both be sent to a good school, or have a proper governess." "yes," said mary, looking distressed, "i know they should." "i can't bear shamming and keeping up appearances," continued lilias, "it is not _that_ i want, that would be worse than anything, but i do feel so depressed about things sometimes, mary. it is a sore feeling to be, in one sense, ashamed of one's home. i hope captain beverley will not come again." "he is almost sure to do so," said mary. "i wish you would not feel things quite as you do, lilias; i can sympathise with you to a certain extent, but, after all, there is nothing to be really ashamed of. and if captain beverley, or any one, judges us by these trifling outside things, then i don't think their regard is worth considering." "but it is just by these things that people _are_ judged, and that is where the real sting of poverty like ours lies," persisted lilias. and mary, who sympathised with her more than she thought it wise to own to, allowed that there was a great deal of truth in what she said. "but must it not be harder on papa and mamma than on us?" she suggested. "i don't know," said lilias, "not in the same way i fancy. papa feels it more than mamma, i sometimes think, only he is naturally so easy-going. and poor mamma, even if she does feel it, she would not show it. she is so unselfish; and how hard she works for us all! i don't think she could work so hard if she felt as depressed as i do sometimes--especially about the younger ones." "but you do work hard also, lilias," said mary, "and you are nearly always cheerful. you are unselfish too. oh! lilias, i should so like to see you very, very happy!" chapter five. in the balner woods. "and so at length with the fading year; there comes a tender time once more, and the year clings more fondly to life and light, now that its labour is over and done. and the woods grow glorious with purple and red, as bright as the flowers of spring." _songs of two worlds_. the next morning was dull and rainy. it was dull enough at hathercourt rectory, but far worse at hathercourt edge, and even arthur beverley's unfailing good spirits felt the influence of the outside dreariness. "i wish i hadn't gone over to the rectory yesterday," he said to himself, "it would have been something to do to-day. i can't go again till to-morrow, at soonest, and it is so horribly dull here. i wonder what those girls do with themselves on such a day as this. their life must be very monotonous, though they look happy enough. i can't understand why laurence doesn't like them. i wonder if that old fool is going to give me any breakfast?" he turned from the window to look at the table; it was covered with a very crumpled and coarse cloth, the forks and spoons, etc, were of the homeliest description, there was nothing in the shape of eatables but the half of a stale loaf, and an uninviting-looking lump of evidently salt butter, on a cracked plate. captain beverley eyed it all rather disconsolately. then he went to the door--he had to stoop to avoid knocking his head on the lintel--and called down the narrow, red-tiled passage leading to the kitchen. "mrs bowker, i say. aren't you going to give me any breakfast this morning?" no mrs bowker appeared in answer to his summons, but out of the depths of the kitchen a voice replied: "i'm a-bringin' it, sir." "and what is it? bacon?" "no, sir--heggs," was the reply. "heggs," he repeated, as he turned back again into the parlour, "of course. i might have known, by this time, if it wasn't bacon it would be `heggs.' i declare, if i were that mrs western, and she i, i wouldn't be so inhospitable. she might have asked me to go to breakfast, or luncheon, or something. i am sure those nice girls would if they could. ah! well, here comes the heggs, and letters, too!-- what's going to happen, mrs bowker? the postman's not above half an hour late this morning!" "may be he walks fast to get out of the wet," mrs bowker suggested, composedly, as she left the room. there were three letters, two manifestly uninteresting, and captain beverley tossed them aside. the third had the postmark "paris." it was from mr cheviott, and his cousin opened and read it eagerly. it was rather a long letter, once or twice he smiled, and once, when he came to a passage close to the end, a slight frown contracted his good-humoured face. "laurence takes up such unreasonable prejudices," he said to himself, with some irritation. "what can he know about it?" this was the passage that annoyed him: "i hardly think the man you mention would be experienced enough for your situation--in any case i would not, if i were you, consult the hathercourt clergyman about him, for by all accounts _he_ is far from a practical person as to such matters, and i rather fancy there is nothing superior about the rectory family. they are desperately poor for one thing, but, of course, you will not need to make friends with them; it is not as if hathercourt were to be your head-quarters." captain beverley ate his breakfast and pondered over his letter. then he got up and went to the window, and looked out at the rain. "it is very annoying of cheviott to have taken up this prejudice against owen," he thought. "i believe he is the very man for me, and, at any rate, it is necessary to hear all i can about him. and as for what cheviott says about the westerns i think nothing of it whatever, and he himself would be the first to own he had been mistaken if he saw the sort of people they really are. i can understand their not being popular well enough; they are proud and won't stand being patronised." his meditations ended in his deciding to walk over again to hathercourt that very afternoon--it would not do to put off hearing about owen and settling the matter, and this he could easily explain to mr western, as an excuse for troubling him about it. and, having arrived at this decision, things in general began to look considerably less gloomy--he got out the plans for the new farm-house, and examined them critically, rolling them neatly up again, when the idea struck him that it would be well to take them with him to the rectory, in the afternoon. "mr western may like to see them," he thought, "and, as he is the clergyman of the parish, it will gratify him to be consulted." then he answered mr cheviott's letter, saying nothing about his visit to hathercourt, and merely mentioning that he was making further inquiries about the man owen, ending with a description of mrs bowker for alys's benefit, and a hearty wish that they were all back at romary. this important task accomplished, he looked at his watch and saw that it was eleven o'clock, so he sauntered out for a stroll round the farm and a talk with his head man. the rain was ceasing, and there was no sort of reason why he should not walk over to the rectory in the afternoon; besides, to-morrow would be saturday, a day on which clergymen, proverbially, dislike to be interrupted. so, having dispatched a couple of rather tough mutton chops, which was all mrs bowker condescended to allow him in the way of luncheon, by half-past two o'clock captain beverley found himself more than ready for his second expedition to hathercourt. it was really too early to call, however, but the day had grown pleasant out of doors, and inside the old farm-house he felt it impossible to kill any more time. a "happy thought" occurred to him-- why not go round by the balner woods? it was a long walk and he might probably lose his way, but if he did he could but try to find it again-- anything was better than hanging about hathercourt edge doing nothing. it was november now, but who that has really _lived_ in the country-- lived in it "all the year round," and learned every change in the seasons, every look of the sky, all the subtle combinations of air, and light, and colour, and scent, which give to outdoor life its indescribable variety and unflagging interest, who of such initiated ones does not know how marvellously delicious november can sometimes be? how tender the clear, thin, yellow tone of the struggling sunbeams, the half frosty streaks of red on the pale blue-green sky, the haze of approaching winter over all! how soft, and subdued, and tired the world seems--all the bustle over, ready to fall asleep, but first to whisper gently good-night! and to _feel_ november to perfection, for, after all, this shy autumnal charm is not so much a matter of sight, as of every sense combined, sound and scent and sight together, lapsing into one vague consciousness of harmony and repose--the place of places is a wood. a wood where the light, faint at the best, comes quivering and brokenly through the not yet altogether unclothed branches, where the fragrance of the rich leafy soil mingles with that of the breezes from the not far distant sea, where the dear rabbits scud about in the most unexpected places, and the squirrels are up aloft making arrangements for the winter--oh! a wood in late autumn has a strange glamour of its own, that comes over me, in spirit, even as i write of it, far, far away from country sights and sounds, further away still from the long-ago days of youth and leisure, and friends to wander with, in the novembers that then were never gloomy. arthur beverley was by no means sentimental--he whistled cheerily as he went along, and thought more of the probable amount of shooting in the balner woods than of the beauty around him, yet he was not insensible to it. "how jolly it seems after the rain," he said to himself. "after all, there's nowhere like england, fogs and all--it's fresh, and wholesome, and invigorating, even in murky weather, like what we've had lately," and he stood still and looked round him approvingly. suddenly a sound, a faint sound only, caught his ear. he listened. it came again. this time he distinguished it to be that of cheerful voices approaching him, then a merry laugh, a little exclamation, and the laugh again. arthur beverley's face lighted up with interest; he felt sure he knew that laugh. he hastened on and, after a few moments' quick walking, a little turn in the path brought him in sight of a group of figures just in front of him; they were the western girls, the western girls in great force, for, besides the two he knew already, there were the younger ones, alexa and josephine, and little francie. and the laugh had been lilias's--he was not mistaken. she was standing with her back towards him, and so was mary, but the tiny girl beside them drew their attention to his approach. "a gentleman, sister," she exclaimed, pulling miss western's skirt. and lilias, turning round, met his hearty look of pleasure. "i thought it was you," he said, as he shook hands, "i heard you laugh." "how do you know it _was_ my laugh?" said lilias, smiling. "i recognised it," he said, quietly. and mary glanced up at him brightly. "yes," she said, "it was lilias. she was laughing at alexa, who screamed because a rabbit ran across the path. that's not like a country girl, is it, captain beverley?" "alexa screams if a butterfly settles on her," said josephine, disdainfully, trying to balance herself on the hooked handle of her umbrella, which she was holding upside-down for the purpose. captain beverley looked at her and at alexa with good-humoured curiosity. alexa looked pretty and frightened, but josey, her long thin legs emerging from a shabby waterproof, her "touzled" fair hair tumbling out from under a still shabbier hat, was rather a remarkable object. "these are your younger sisters, i suppose?" he said, turning to lilias. "yes," she answered, rather shortly; "we all came out for a ramble as soon as the rain cleared off. it is so miserable to be shut up in the house all day." "just what i have been feeling," he replied. "not that i mind the rain, but still one can't exactly set off for a walk in it unless one has something to do or somewhere to go. it is very lucky for me that i met you; i was just making up my mind to losing my way." "i dare say we can direct you," said lilias, "but we are not going your way. we are going home; it must be about half-past three now, and we have been out ever since dinner-time. mary, don't you think we should be going home?--it is a good walk from here, you know. you can direct captain beverley to hathercourt edge better than i, i think." "but i don't want to be directed to hathercourt edge," said captain beverley, with a very slight touch of annoyance in his tone. "i have just come from there. of course, if you won't let me walk with you, i must submit; but i _was_ bound for hathercourt rectory. i am very anxious to see mr western, and thought i might again take my chance of finding him at home. that is to say, if he will not think me very troublesome." "of course he will not," answered mary, heartily; "he was very sorry to have missed you yesterday, and i know he will be at home all this afternoon. which way shall we go back, lilias--by the southmore road, or all the way through the wood?" "by the wood decidedly, _i_ should say," answered captain beverley. "miss western," he went on, quickly, "you have got _such_ a bramble on your skirt--there, now, i have got him--step forward, please--yes, that's it." by this manoeuvre he had managed to get lilias and himself a little in front of the others, and he maintained his ground by walking on beside her. francie was at her other side, so the arrangement into threes seemed to come about quite naturally, mary following with alexa and josephine. by degrees lilias lost the slight constraint which her manner had shown at first, and became her usual happy, winning self. the sound of her voice, and now and then of her laugh, was enough to make mary happy too, and well content to keep behind at a reasonable distance, so that lilias should not be annoyed by the exhibition before a stranger of alexa's foolish shyness or josey's uncalled-for remarks. the sun came out more brightly, and gleamed and quivered down the wood alleys before them. what did they talk of, those two, as they walked on quietly, little francie beside them, trotting along, lost in her own pretty baby dreams of fairies and brownies and the like, with which her small head was filled, all unconscious of the old, old drama beginning once more to be re-enacted in the old, old way that is ever new? what did they talk of? could they have told, or did it matter? all about everythings and nothings, no doubt, so-called "small talk," which yet seemed full of interest, nothing very wise or weighty--so much, at least, is certain--but certain too that the walk through the balner woods that sweet november afternoon was neither wearisome nor long to lilias western and the new owner of the old edge farm. the sunshine had tempted mr western out too. he was walking about the garden when his five daughters, escorted by captain beverley, reached the rectory. a momentary expression of surprise crossed his face as he came forward to meet them, at first sight of the stranger, but it was succeeded by a look of gratification and pleasure, which quickly set the young man's mind quite at rest, and left him no doubt of being welcome. "i was quite intending to walk over to hathercourt edge to see you, to thank you for the friendly visit yesterday, which i was sorry to have missed," said the rector, with a slight touch of old-fashioned formality, not unbecoming to his tall, thin, refined-looking figure and gentle face, as he shook hands with captain beverley, "and now i see i must thank you also for taking care of my girls." "we don't need to be taken care of that way, papa," said josephine, "we were only in the balner woods, and captain beverley was coming here, anyhow." "he only tookened care of lily and me," said francie, importantly, but the observation was a happy one. it was impossible not to laugh at it, and josey's abruptness passed unrebuked. "i certainly deserve no thanks," said captain beverley. "my visit yesterday was a selfish one, and as for to-day--why, all my thanks are due to you, francie! i should have been lost in the woods, and perhaps eaten up by red riding-hood's wolf if i had not met you, and been shown the way here." "but that wolf was killed long ago, lily says," said francie, staring up with great bewilderment in her blue eyes. "it couldn't have eatened you up when it was killed itself." "indeed. i am very glad to hear it," replied captain beverley, gravely, "then i needn't be afraid of coming through the balner woods; it is a good thing to know that. it is a much pleasanter walk than by the road," he went on, turning again to mr western. "i really was on my way here when i met your daughters. i am afraid you will think me very troublesome." his manner was certainly boyish, but not in the least awkward. that mr western was "taken" with him was quickly evident. "indeed, no," he said, heartily. "living here so completely out of the world, as you see, it is very seldom that we have the pleasure of showing even the little hospitality we have in our power. but, such as it is, i hope you will accept it. lilias, mary," he continued, turning to his daughters, the younger ones having by this time disappeared, "tell your mother that captain beverley is here." "i will," said mary, hastening away with a great excitement in her thoughts, "i do believe papa is going to ask him to stay to tea. what will mamma say?" and not knowing whether she was pleased or distressed, she hurried in to break the momentous tidings to her mother, and to consult the cook. lilias was following her, but her father called her back. "you need not both go, my dears," he said with sudden remembrance of unwritten letters awaiting him in his study, which must be seen to before four o'clock post-time. "perhaps captain beverley would like to have a look at the church again, if you will take him to see it. i will follow you in a few minutes, but i have a letter or two i must finish, which i was forgetting." "_pray_ don't let me interrupt you," exclaimed captain beverley, with anxiety almost disproportionate to the occasion. "i should very much like to look at the church, for there are some tablets there i want to examine. and if miss western will explain them a little, i shall be very much obliged." lilias hesitated. "mary understands them better than i do," she began, but her father interrupted her. "i will send her after you, if you go on, and i will finish my letters as quickly as i can, and then, captain beverley, i shall be at your service. mrs western tells me you want to hear about joseph owen. you will stay and--i can't say _dine_ with us--we are very uncivilised, you see; we have a mongrel meal at six!" he spoke with a slight nervousness, which made lilias's cheek grow hot. "poor dear father!" she ejaculated, mentally. but the guest seemed blissfully unconscious of his host's hesitation. "you are very kind indeed," he said, eagerly. "i should very much like to stay, if i shall not be a trouble. it is so wretchedly dull and uncomfortable at the edge, i don't think i could have stood it much longer, unless--if you had not taken pity on me," he added, laughingly, as lilias led the way across the grass to the old church. mary joined them there in a few minutes, and while captain beverley was examining the old coat-of-arms on the tablet in memory of his ancestress, she found time to whisper to her sister,-- "mamma knows that papa has asked him to stay to tea. i don't think she minds much." "but what will there be for tea?" said lilias, in consternation. "oh! that will be all right," replied mary, re-assuringly. and, somewhat to lilias's surprise, her mother showed herself far more amiably disposed for captain beverley, on further acquaintance, than might have been anticipated. "though, indeed," said mary, when, at night, they were talking over in their own room the pleasant evening they had had, "it would be difficult _not_ to feel amiably disposed to him! he is so unaffected and hearty, and yet not by any means a goose. he liked talking to papa about sensible things, i could see." "he talked sensibly to me, too," said lilias, dryly, "though, of course, i cannot answer for what he may have said to you." "lilias!" exclaimed mary, "don't be so silly. you know--" "what do i know?" "that i am not the sort of girl likely to have anything but sensible things said to me, especially when _you_ are there." lilias laughed merrily. "really, mary, you are very complimentary. you trust to me to absorb all the nonsense, and leave the sense for you! i think i shall keep out of the way, if captain beverley comes here again." "then he wouldn't come any more," said mary. "lily, i'm sleepy, say good-night, please." "good-night, though i am not sleepy at all," said lilias, cheerfully. what had become of all her low spirits? thought mary, with a little bewilderment lilias was not usually so changeable. the evening had certainly been a very pleasant one; even the younger girls had somehow shown to advantage; and captain beverley had not merely ignored, he had seemed perfectly unconscious of the homeliness of their way of living-- the crowded tea-table, the little countrified waiting-maid, the absence of the hundred and one small luxuries which to him could not but be matters of course. and his unconsciousness had reached favourably on his entertainers; mr western lost his nervousness, mrs western her gentle coldness, and every one seemed at ease and happy. any stranger glancing in would have thought them all old friends, instead of new acquaintances, of the handsome young man who was the life and soul of the party. "mary," said lilias again, just as mary was falling asleep, "captain beverley will be at the brocklehurst ball this year. he is to be staying at romary." "i thought you said you were never going again," said mary, who had her wits about her, sleepy though she was. "but you would hot like to go without me, i know," replied lilias, meekly. "oh, mary, i do wish we could have new dresses for once!" mary did not consider this observation worth waking up to answer. but her dreams were a strange medley--captain beverley dancing at a ball with his great grandmother mawde, dressed all in scarlet, as if she were red riding-hood, but with a face like lilias's. and what lilias's dreams were, who can say? but the brocklehurst ball was three weeks off as yet, and there was no lack of opportunities of discussing it with captain beverley. surely november this year must have been an exceptionally fine one, for there seemed few days on which arthur beverley did not find his way through the woods, or by the road, to the rectory, with some excuse in the shape of further plans to be shown to mr western, or a book to lend to the girls or their mother, or without any, save the sight of his own bright face, and an eager proposal that they should all set off on a long ramble somewhere or other, instead of wasting one of the few fine days of late autumn, moping in the house. and by degrees it came to be a matter of course that, if the owner of hathercourt edge chose to drop in at any or every meal, he should be welcome, and that if he stayed away he should be missed, and mrs western's fears and vague apprehensions gradually softened, now that this terrible wolf had actually taken up his quarters in the midst of her flock without, so far, any of them being the worse! "he seems like a sort of elder brother among them all," she said to her husband. "i wish basil had been at home--contact with such a man would have done him good." mr western agreed with her, for he, too, had greatly "taken" to the young stranger. it was pleasant to him to find that he had not altogether fallen out of the ways of his class, that cares, and small means, and living out of the world had not crusted over his former self past recognition. arthur beverley had not been at college, but he, as well as his host, had been an eton boy, and poor george, to whom the name of eton was that of a forbidden paradise, listened with delight to the many reminiscences in common of his father and his guest, notwithstanding the quarter of a century which divided their experiences. so everybody in his or her own way felt pleased with captain beverley, and his coming seemed to have brought new life and sunshine into the rectory. lilias alone spoke little of him, and mary sometimes lay awake at night "thinking." chapter six. marrying or giving in marriage. "if there's no meaning in it," said the king, "that saves a world of trouble, as we needn't try to find any. and yet i don't know." _alice in wonderland_. november was not bright everywhere, however. in paris everything, out of doors, that is to say, was looking extremely dull, and alys cheviott many times, during the four weeks her brother had arranged to stay there, wished herself at home again at romary. for paris, though people who have only visited it in spring or summer (when the sunshine, and the heat, and the crowds, and the holiday aspect of everything are almost overwhelming) can hardly perhaps realise the fact, _can_ be exceedingly dull, and hotel life at all times requires bright weather, and plenty of outside interests, to make it endurable. alys did not care particularly about balls or parties; she was too young to have acquired much taste for such amusements, though young enough to enjoy heartily the two or three receptions at which mr cheviott had allowed her to "assist." but it was the day-time she found so long and dreary. she wanted to go out, to shop and to look about her, and to take long walks in the bois de boulogne in the morning, and drives with her brother in the afternoon, and every day the weather put all expeditions of the kind out of the question. it rained incessantly, or, at least, as she complained piteously, "when it didn't rain it did worse--it looked so black and gloomy that no one had the heart to do anything." alys had been in paris several times before, she had seen all the orthodox lions, and had not, therefore, the interest and excitement of the perfect novelty of her surroundings to support her, and as day after day passed, with no improvement to speak of, she began sorely to regret having teased her brother into allowing her to accompany him on this visit, in this case necessitated by the business arrangements of a friend. "i'll never come with you again, laurence, _anywhere_, when it has anything to do with business," she declared. "who is `it'?" inquired mr cheviott, calmly. "laurence, you are not to tease me. i am too worried to stand it, i am, really," she replied. "`it' again! alys, you are growing incorrigible. i really think my best plan would be to send you to a good school for a year or two--the sort of place where `young ladies of neglected education' are taken in hand." he spoke so seriously that for a quarter of a second alys wondered if he could be in earnest. she turned sharply round from the window against which she had been pressing her pretty face in a sort of affectation of babyish discontent, staring out at the leaden sky, and the wet street, and the dreary-looking gardens in the distance. "laurence!" she exclaimed. but laurence's next remark undeceived her. "you should not flatten your face against the window-pane. you will spoil the shape of your nose, and you have made it look so red," he observed, gravely. "would you care to live, alys, do you think, if you had a red nose?" alys gently stroked the ill-treated member as she answered, thoughtfully: "i hardly think i should. laurence, do you know there _have_ been times when i have been afraid they might run in the family." "what?" asked laurence, philosophically. "red noses," answered alys, calmly. "aunt winstanley has one, you know. she says its neuralgia, but _i_ feel sure it is indigestion." laurence looked up at her with a smile, which broke into a laugh as he observed the preternatural gravity of her expression. "come and sit down and have some breakfast, you absurd child," he said. he was already seated at the table. alys walked slowly across the room, and took her place opposite him. she looked blooming enough notwithstanding all the trials she had had to endure. as the western girls had pronounced her, such she was, very, _very_ pretty--as pretty a girl as one could wish to see. her soft dark hair grew low, but not too low, on the white, well-shaped forehead; her features were all good, and gave promise of maturing into even greater beauty than that of eighteen; her blue eyes could look up tenderly as well as brightly from under their long black eyelashes, for their colour was not of the cold steel-like shade that is often the peculiarity of blue eyes in such juxtaposition. but the tenderness was more a matter of the future than the present, for hitherto there had been little in her life to call forth the deeper tones of her character; she was happy, trustful and winning, full of life and vigour; incapable of a mean thought or action herself, incapable of suspecting such in others. mr cheviott looked at her critically as she sat opposite him. "alys," he said at last, "i am afraid i have not brought you up well." "what makes you think so all of a sudden, laurence?" "i am afraid you are spoiled. you are such a baby." alys's eyes flashed a little. "are you in earnest, laurence?" "a little, not quite." "i think you have got into the habit of thinking other people babies, and it's a very bad habit. you like them to do just exactly what you tell them, and yet you laugh at them for being babies. you think arthur is a baby too." "there are babies and babies," mr cheviott replied. "some do credit to those who bring them up, and some don't." "well, _he_ does, whether i do or not," said alys, "he is as kind, and good, and nice, and sensible as he can be. and do you know what i think, laurence? if there are different kinds of babies, there are different ways of being spoiled, and i sometimes think _you_ are spoiled! i do," she continued, shaking her head solemnly. "arthur spoils you, and aunt of course does. i believe i am the only person that does not." "and how do you manage to steer clear of so fatal an error?" "you are not nice, indeed you are extremely disagreeable when you speak like that," said alys, "but still i think i will tell you. i don't spoil you because i don't think you _quite_ perfect as everybody else does," and she glanced up at him defiantly. mr cheviott laughed. he was just going to answer, when there came an interruption in the shape of his man-servant. "letters!" exclaimed alys, "i do hope there are some for me; they will give me something to do. are there any for me, laurence?" "yes, two, and only one for me." "from aunt and from arthur," said alys. "i will read aunt's first, there is never anything in hers. she just tells me over again what i told her, and makes little comments upon it. yes, `so sorry, dearest alys, that the weather in paris has so spoiled the pleasure of your visit, and that during the last week you have scarcely been able to get out, except in a close carriage, for a miserable attempt at shopping. and so you enjoyed madame de briancourt's ball on the whole, very much, and your pink and white grenadine looked lovely, and clotilde did your hair the new way.' did you ever hear anything so absurd, laurence? it is like reading all i have written over again in a looking-glass, only then the letters would be all the wrong way, wouldn't they?" but mr cheviott did not answer, and alys, looking up, saw that he had not heard her; he was busily reading his own letter, and its contents did not seem to be satisfactory, for a frown had gathered on his brow, and, as he turned the first page, a half-smothered exclamation of annoyance escaped him. "what is the matter, laurence?" said alys. "you don't seem any better pleased with your letter than i am with mine?" "how do you mean? what does he say to you?" inquired her brother, quickly. "who? oh, arthur, you mean. i haven't opened his yet. i was saying how stupid aunt's letters are. so yours is from arthur, too, is it?" said alys, pricking up her ears, "what's the matter? is he going to be married? i do wish he were." "alys!" exclaimed mr cheviott, with real annoyance in his tone, "do be careful what you say. you are too old to talk so foolishly. it is unbecoming and unladylike." "why? what _do_ you mean?" said alys, opening wide her blue eyes in astonishment. "why shouldn't i talk of arthur's being married? i have noticed before that you seem quite indignant at the thought of such a thing, and i don't think you have any right to dictate to him. it's just what i was saying, he has spoiled you by giving in so, and the more inches he gives you the more ells you want to take." "i have spoiled _you_, alys, by allowing you to speak to me as you do. it is most unjustifiable; and the way you express yourself is worse than unladylike, it is vulgar and coarse." he got up and left the room. never in all her life had alys been so reproved before, and by him of all people, her dear, dear, laurence--her father and mother and brother in one, as she often called him. she could not bear it; she threw aside the unlucky letters which in some way or other she felt to have been the cause of her distress, and burst into tears. she cried away quietly for some time, till it occurred to her to wonder more definitely in what way she had really displeased her brother, and the more she thought it over the more convinced she became that arthur's letter had been the primary cause of his annoyance, and her own remarks nothing worse than ill-timed and unwise. "for i _very_ often say much more impertinent things, and he only laughs," she reflected. there was some comfort in this. she dried her eyes and resolved to try to make peace on the first opportunity. "laurence is very seldom angry or unreasonable," she thought; "but, of course, as i was saying just now, he is not _perfect_. but i am sure he does not really think me `coarse and unladylike.' what horrible words!" and the tears came back again. just then her glance fell on captain beverley's unopened letter. "i wonder if i shall find out, from what he says to me, how he has managed to vex laurence so," she thought to herself, tearing open the letter, and quickly running through its contents. it was a pleasant, cousinly letter, amusing and hearty, but with nothing that would, to alys, have distinguished it from others she had, from time to time, received from arthur, had not her eyes been sharpened by her brother's strange annoyance. instinctively she hit upon the cause of offence; two or three times in the course of the letter allusion was made to the western family, to their "kindness and hospitality," their general "likeableness," and a far less quick-witted person than miss cheviott would have been at no loss to discern captain beverley's growing intimacy with the rectory household, and to suspect the existence of some special attraction, though possibly as yet unsuspected by the young man himself. "i am sure it is about the westerns that laurence is annoyed," said alys to herself. "i have noticed that he does not like them, and he is afraid of arthur falling in love with one of them. but why shouldn't he? i can't understand laurence sometimes. i am sure if ever _he_ marries it will be to please himself, and nobody else. what is the good of a man's being rich if he can't do that? and arthur is rich enough! yes, the more i think of it the more sure i am that it was something about the westerns that made laurence angry." she was not long left in doubt. the door opened and mr cheviott made his appearance again. he looked grave and preoccupied, but as calm as usual. when, however, his glance fell on alys's flushed cheeks and tearful eyes, his expression grew troubled. he came behind her chair and putting his hand on her head, turned her face gently towards him. "do you think me very harsh, alys?" he said, kindly. "i did not mean to be so, but i was annoyed, and, besides that, i cannot bear that habit of joking about marrying, and so on, especially the sort of way girls do so nowadays. it is very offensive." "but i wasn't joking, laurence. i had no thought of it," replied alys. "i will never speak about anything of the kind at all, if you dislike it; but truly you misunderstood me. i don't think what i said would have annoyed you if you had not been vexed about something else." "perhaps not," said mr cheviott, kindly. "well, dear, i am sorry for making you cry, but you will forgive me, won't you?" alys smiled up through the remains of her tears. "of course," she replied. "you know you could make me think it all my own fault, if you liked, laurence. and i understand what you mean about disliking joking about marrying, and so on, but indeed i was quite in earnest. i should very much like arthur to marry, and i cannot imagine why you should so dislike the idea of it." she glanced at her brother questioningly as she spoke--her curiosity strengthening as her courage revived--but his expression baffled her. "why do you so much wish arthur to marry?" he inquired. "you have never seemed to dislike him, alys." "dislike him!" she repeated, innocently. "dislike arthur! _of course_ not. i like him more than i can tell; indeed, i think i love him next best to you of everybody in the world. how could i dislike him? and if i did, how could that possibly have anything to do with my wishing him to marry? why, i want _you_ to marry, but i have given it up in despair." mr cheviott looked slightly self-conscious at his sister's cross-questioning, but turned it off as lightly as he could. "you might want to get rid of him," he said, carelessly. "of course, if he were married, we should not see so much of him. why do you want him to marry?" "just because it would be nice, that is to say, if his _wife_ were nice, and i don't think arthur would marry any one that wasn't," said alys. "she would be in a sort of way like a sister to me, you know, laurence." "those dreams are seldom realised," observed mr cheviott, cynically. "as nature did not give you a sister, i would advise you to be content with what she did give you, even though it is only a very cross old brother. but what has put all this of arthur's marrying into your head just now, alys? has he been taking you into his confidence about any nonsense--falling in love, or that kind of thing, i mean?" and he eyed arthur's letter suspiciously. "oh! dear no. read his letter for yourself, and you will see there is nothing of the kind," replied alys. but she watched her brother's face rather curiously, as she added, "he seems to like the family at hathercourt rectory very much--those pretty girls, you know, that we saw that sunday. he says they have been very civil to him." "very probably," said mr cheviott, dryly, as he took up the letter. "pretty girls, do you call them, alys? one was handsome, but the other wasn't." "i liked them both," persisted alys. "one was beautiful, and the other had a sort of noble, good look in her face, better than beauty." "what a physiognomist you are becoming, child!" said her brother, from the depths of arthur's letter. he read it quickly, and threw it aside; then he went to the window, and stood looking out for a minute or two without speaking. "alys," he said at last, so suddenly that alys started, "you said just now that it was very dull here; so it is, i dare say, for no doubt the weather is horrible. you would not mind, i suppose, if i arranged to go home rather sooner than i intended?" "oh, no, i wouldn't mind at all," replied alys, looking surprised; "but, laurence, i thought you couldn't possibly get your business finished sooner than you said." "i think i might manage it," he said. "indeed, i fancy i am needed on the other side of the water quite as much as here. i may have to come back again before long, but that's easily done. i'm going out now, alys, but i shall be in by one, and if it's at all fine this afternoon, we might pay the calls we owe, especially if we are leaving sooner. i can tell you certainly what i fix by luncheon-time." "very well," replied alys. "i shall not be sorry to go home, and for one thing, laurence, i should like to be at home in time for the brocklehurst ball." "_what_ a reason!" exclaimed laurence, as he left the room. "now that you have reminded me of it, it is almost enough to tempt me to stay away to escape it." at luncheon-time he returned, telling her that he had fixed to leave in two days. "and just out of contradiction," said alys, "i believe it is going to be bright and fine;" for a gleam of positive sunshine, as she spoke, made its way into the room. "all the better for our calls," said laurence. the gleam strengthened into steady brightness, and when alys found herself, wrapped in the most becoming of attires, velvet and furs, seated beside her brother in a very luxurious carriage, behind two very respectable horses, the young lady began to feel that it might have been very possible to enjoy herself, if only the fine weather had been quicker of coming. it was a little--just the very least little bit in the world--provoking that now, just as it _had_ come, laurence should make up his mind that they must go. she looked at him doubtfully as the thought crossed her mind. the sunshine did not seem to have any exhilarating effect upon him; he looked dull and more careworn than since they had been in paris. "laurence," she said, hesitatingly, "i suppose you have _quite_ made up your mind to leave on friday?" "quite," he said, gently. "are you beginning to regret it?" "a little; it is nice when it is fine, isn't it? paris forgets the rain so quickly." "paris forgets all disagreeable experiences far too quickly." alys gave a little shiver. "oh, please don't put revolutions, and barricades, and guillotines in my head, laurence," she said, beseechingly. "even the names of the streets are associated with them, if one begins thinking of such things. one must do at rome as the romans do, so let me be thoughtless in paris." "still, on the whole, you prefer england. you would not like to marry a frenchman, would you, alys?" "_of course_ not," replied alys, "and of all things i would not like to be married in the french way, hardly knowing anything about the man i was to marry. ermengarde de tarannes, laurence, that pretty girl whom we saw at the embassy, is to be married to a marquis something or other, mrs brabazon told me, whom she has _really_ only seen three times, for he is now in italy, and will only return the week before the marriage. fancy how horrible!" mr cheviott smiled. "you are a regular little john bull, child," he said; "still i understand your feeling. there is something to be said, however, in favour of the french way of arranging such things, where the parents or guardians of a girl are sensible people, that is to say. perhaps a union of both ways would be perfection." "how do you mean?" asked alys. "supposing a case where a girl had known a man nearly all her life, and had got to care for him unconsciously almost, and that at the same time he was the very man of all others whom, for every reason, her parents, or whoever stood in their place, wished her to marry, would not such a case be pretty near perfection?" "rather too perfect," said alys. "the chances are that the hero would spoil it all by not wanting to marry _her_." mr cheviott looked annoyed. "don't be flippant, alys," he said; "of course that part of it i was taking for granted." "i didn't mean to be flippant," said alys, penitently; "i never want to vex you, laurence. i'd do anything to please you. i'm not sure that i would not even marry to please you, if you want to try an experiment of the french way." she looked up in her brother's face with a smile, and he could not help returning it. "if you promise never to marry to _dis_please me, i shall be satisfied," he answered. "but, after all, it's a difficult question. i have known some english marriages turn out quite--ah, surely _more_ miserable than ever a french one could." "but what has put marrying so much into your head to-day? this morning you were distressing yourself about arthur's prospects, and now you are worrying yourself about mine?" "not _worrying_ myself. it is only natural i should think about your future sometimes. and if your memory is not very capricious, alys, i think it will tell you that it was yourself, not i, who first began talking about marriage this morning, when arthur's letters came. do you remember?" "yes; but still--" "here we are at madame de briancourt's," interrupted mr cheviott. "madame" was at home, and the brother and sister made their way across the spacious entrance, along a corridor, then through a suite of rooms, hardly so beautiful by daylight as when alys had last seen them on the evening of a grand reception, to a small boudoir at the very end of all. as she passed along, alys's thoughts continued in the same direction. "but still," she repeated to herself, "i don't understand laurence. i am sure he has got something in his head--about arthur--or about me; still _perhaps_ it is not that: he may have been annoyed about something quite different, and arthur's letter may not have anything to do with our going away in such a hurry. anyway, i can leave it to laurence; i am not going to bother my head about it, for there may be nothing in it, after all." and, two minutes afterwards, her head was full of other things, for there was what, to alys's eyes, looked quite a crowd of gayly dressed ladies and gentlemen when the door at the end of the long suite was thrown open, and the brother and sister found themselves, for the moment, the observed of all observers. chapter seven. this very little world. alonzo.--what is this maid with whom thou wast at play? your eldest acquaintance cannot be three hours. _tempest_. for the beautiful miss cheviott, little though she had been seen in paris, had been seen enough to make a considerable sensation, especially as rumour, in this case with somewhat more foundation than usual, added the epithet _heritiere_ to the rest of alys's charms. parisian papas and mammas sighed at the perversity of the british customs, which forbade their entering the lists on behalf of their eligible adolphes and gustaves, and the representatives of the english upper ten thousand, then in paris, would have been very ready to make great friends with the brother and sister. but their advances were hardly reciprocated; alys's inexperience failed to appreciate them, and mr cheviott's somewhat "stand-off" manner was not encouraging. ill-natured people made fun of him for "mounting guard over his sister," more amiably inclined observers pronounced such brotherly devotion to be really touching, but one and all fell short of attaining to anything like intimacy with the owner of romary or the reputed heiress. so some amount of curiosity, added to the interest inspired by the two cheviotts and the buzz of conversation in madame de briancourt's boudoir, perceptibly subsided for a minute or two on their first appearing. alys, in her simplicity, hardly observed this, or, if she did so, was not struck by it as anything unusual, but mr cheviott noticed and was a little annoyed by it. "i would not have called here this afternoon, if i had known we should find madame de briancourt `at home' in such force," he said to an english lady of his acquaintance after paying his respects to his hostess. "ah, you have not been long enough in paris to be quite _au fait_ of everything," said mrs brabazon, good-naturedly. "there is always a great crowd here on thursdays. but why should you object to it? it is all the more amusing." "i am not fond of crowds, and, as for my sister, she is quite unaccustomed to anything of the kind. she is hardly `out'," he added, with a smile. mrs brabazon smiled too. "i can quite believe it," she replied, "and i can, too, prophesy very certainly that, in her present character as your sister, she will not be `out' _long_." she looked up at mr cheviott expecting to see that the inferred compliment had pleased him. but, to her surprise, far from testifying any gratification the expression of his face seemed rather to tell of annoyance, and, being a good-natured woman, mrs brabazon felt sorry, and began wondering what there could have been in her harmless little speech so evidently to "rub him the wrong way." alys, sitting at a little distance talking to a young lady to whom madame de briancourt had introduced her, happened at this moment to look round and caught sight of her brother's face. "laurence is vexed at something," she thought, and, moving her chair a little so as to bring herself within speaking distance of her brother and mrs brabazon, she tried to think how she could give a turn to the conversation which so evidently was not to mr cheviott's taste. the "turn" came from another direction. a tall, thin boy of sixteen, or thereabouts, a boy with a somewhat anxious and almost girlishly sweet expression of face, came softly and half timidly across the room in mrs brabazon's direction. "aunt," he said, hesitatingly, "i think it is getting rather late--that is to say, if you are still thinking of a drive." "i was just thinking so myself, anselm. just you find out, my dear boy, if the carriage has come; it was to follow us here, you know, and i shall be ready in a moment." the boy turned away to do as she asked. "that is my _other_ nephew--anselm brooke," she explained to mr cheviott. "basil you know?" "oh, yes," said alys's brother, with evident interest. "how is he, poor fellow? i was just going to ask you. better, i hope?" mrs brabazon shook her head, and the tears filled her eyes. "there will be no real `better' for him, i feel sure," she said, sadly. "yet my brother will not believe it, or rather persists in saying he does not. i can understand it; i remember how obstinately incredulous i was when colonel brabazon's illness became hopeless. but it is sad, is it not? you remember what a fine young fellow basil was only last year?" "yes," said mr cheviott, kindly. "it is very sad." "and poor anselm, it is really piteous to see his devotion to basil. he has always looked up to him as to a sort of superior being, and indeed basil has been treated as such by us all. anselm has always been so delicate and backward--a frail staff to lean upon, but my mind misgives me that before long his father will have no other." "do the doctors think as you do?" "they do not _say_ so, but i feel sure they think so." "i should like to see basil again before i leave. may i call, do you think?" "by all means; it would please him very much. are you going straight home when you leave paris--to meadshire, i mean, for that is `home' now to you, i suppose." "yes," replied mr cheviott, "we go straight to romary. you must come and see us there some time or other, mrs brabazon." "thank you," she said, with a sigh, "i must make no plans just now. my time belongs entirely to my brother and the boys. but talking of meadshire reminds me--is it anywhere near withenden that you live?" "very near--within a mile or two." "have you ever heard of a place called hathercourt near there?" inquired mrs brabazon, with interest. "you don't happen to know anything of the clergyman of hathercourt, or rather of his family? west, i think, is the name." "western," interrupted alys close by. "oh, yes, they are such pretty girls. i am sure they are nice." "how can you possibly judge, alys?" said her brother, coldly. "you only saw them once in your life, and just for a mere instant." but alys's eager, flushed face, and warmly-expressed admiration of the western sisters, had absorbed mrs brabazon's attention; she hardly heard what mr cheviott said, or, if she did, she gave no heed to it. "so you know them, then, miss cheviott?" she said, cordially, smiling at alys as she spoke. "do tell me all you know about them. `girls,' you say--are they all girls, then--no sons?" "oh, yes," said alys, "i think there are sons--indeed, i feel sure there are. but it was the girls i noticed, one was _so_ pretty." the eagerness died out of her voice, for the expression of her brother's face told her that again she had managed to displease him. "how unlucky i am to-day," she said to herself, and the change in her manner was so complete that mr cheviott was afraid mrs brabazon would notice it. "it is a case of `all kinds' in the western household," he said, with a slight laugh. "alys and i only saw them once in church--there seemed to be girls and boys, of every size, down to little mites--a regular poor parson's family." "but what sort of people are they?" asked mrs brabazon. "being such near neighbours, you must hear something about them." "they are not such very near neighbours of ours. withenden is the nearest railway station to hathercourt, and we are only three miles from withenden, but hathercourt again is four miles the other way. of course i take some interest in hathercourt now, on arthur beverley's account. you heard of his romantic legacy?" "oh! yes," said mrs brabazon. "he wrote all about it to basil. but i wish you would tell me anything you do know or have heard about these westerns." "which is very little. they are not in any sort of society." "how could they be, if they are so very poor?" mr cheviott slightly shrugged his shoulders. "i did not say they could be," he answered, with a smile. "i was only, at your bidding, telling the very little i know about them. they are not in any society, not only because they are very poor, but because people know nothing about them. the father is not a man who has distinguished himself in any way, and i believe he married beneath him-- a poor governess, or something of that kind--so what can you expect?" mrs brabazon gave a curious smile. "oh! indeed," she said, dryly. "so the _on dit_ of meadshire is that the rector, or vicar--which is he?--of hathercourt married beneath him. thank you; i am glad to know it. here comes anselm, i must go! you said these western girls were pretty, did you not, miss cheviott?" she went on, turning to alys. "their beauty must be of the dairy-maid order, i suppose?" alys felt that her brother's eyes were fixed upon her, but she answered sturdily nevertheless. "on the contrary, they are particularly refined-looking girls. the eldest one especially has the sort of look that--that--" she hesitated. "that a princess of the blood royal might have," suggested mrs brabazon, laughingly. alys smiled, and so, to her relief, did her brother. then mrs brabazon and the boy anselm took their departure, and not long after, madame de briancourt having overwhelmed them with her pretty regrets and desolations at their leaving paris so abruptly, the brother and sister bade their hostess farewell, and drove off again on their round of calls. "laurence cheviott is evidently prejudiced against these westerns. i wonder why, for i think him a reasonable sort of man, on the whole," said mrs brabazon to herself. "can it be possible that he has fallen in love with this very magnificent miss western, whom his sister admires so much, and that she has snubbed him? _that_ i can quite believe he would find it hard to forgive. but, oh! no, that is quite impossible. i remember he said he had only seen them once. i think i shall get basil, poor fellow, to write to arthur beverley; he may know something of them. i would like to see them, and it would be a satisfaction to basil too." "what possible reason can mrs brabazon have for wanting to know anything about those westerns? i am afraid she is something of a busybody after all. surely arthur cannot have been writing anything about them to basil brooke? oh, no, it can't be that, for if he had written anything of consequence, it would have been confidentially, and he would hardly be likely to trouble brooke about anything of _that_ kind now," thought mr cheviott, when he found himself in the carriage again beside his sister, driving rapidly away from madame de briancourt's. alys noticed his abstraction. "what are you thinking of, laurence?" "only what a very little world this is!" "i know," exclaimed alys, not sorry to draw the conversation round to a point where her mind was not at rest. "you are thinking how strange it was that we should twice in one day hear hathercourt rectory spoken of-- at least, not twice spoken of, but i mean mentioned, in arthur's letter, and again by mrs brabazon. laurence, were you vexed with what i said of the westerns? did it seem like contradicting you?" "oh, no, you could not help saying what you thought--nor could i," he added, after a little pause. "i did think those girls _so_ pretty, especially the eldest one, and not only pretty, but something more--good and nice." "i don't see how they _can_ be superior, however, considering their disadvantages," said mr cheviott, musingly. "i don't agree with you in admiring the elder one more than the other. there was something not commonplace about that younger girl," and a curious feeling shot across his mind as he recalled the young face with the kindly honest eyes and half shy smile that had met his glance that sunday morning in the porch of the old church--a feeling almost of disloyalty in the words and tones with which he had replied to mrs brabazon's inquiries--a ridiculous feeling altogether to have in connection with a girl he had only seen once in his life, and that for not more than five minutes. but the vision of mary western's face had imprinted itself on his memory, and refused to be effaced. alys fancied that the prejudice she had suspected was passing away; it could not have been very deep after all. she determined to take a bold step, and one that she had been meditating for some time. "laurence," she said, "when we go back to romary i wish you would let me know those girls. i can't tell you why i have taken such a fancy to them, but i _have_. you could soon judge by seeing a little more of them if they are nice girls, and i am _sure_ you would find they are. i have never had many companions, and it is dull sometimes--rather dull, i mean." she looked up in his face appealingly. it was very grave. "surely," he was saying to himself, "the fates are dead against me. what can have put it into the child's head to want to set up a romantic friendship with these westerns? can arthur have to do with it? can he possibly have written anything to alys besides what i saw?" "you are vexed with me, laurence," she said, deprecatingly, as he did not speak. then he looked at her and felt ashamed of his suspicions, and his tone was gentle when he answered: "no, i am not vexed with you, but a little disappointed, perhaps, at your asking anything so foolish. just reflect, dear, what _can_ you know of those girls to make you wish to choose them for friends--" "they have such nice faces." "and what i know of the family is not to their advantage," pursued mr cheviott, without noticing the interruption. "none of the withenden people speak cordially of them, or indeed seem to know anything about them." "and you call that to their disadvantage, laurence!" exclaimed alys--"you who have so often said what a set of snobs the withenden people are. of course it is very easy to see why the westerns are disliked; they won't be patronised by the county people, and they are too refined for the withenden set, and so they keep to themselves, and the girls' beauty makes everybody jealous of them." she looked up in her brother's face triumphantly, feeling that she had the best of it, and so, too, in his heart, felt mr cheviott. but he could not afford to own himself vanquished, and took refuge in being aggrieved. "very well, alys," he said, coldly, "i cannot argue with you; you will be of age in three years, and then you can choose your own friends, but while you are under my guardianship, i can but direct you to the best of my judgment, however you may dislike it." alys's eyes filled with tears. "oh, laurence, don't speak to me like that; i am so unlucky to-day. i did not--indeed i did not mean to vex you; i should never want to go against your wishes--_never_, not if i live to be a hundred instead of twenty-one. laurence, do forgive me!" and laurence smiled and "forgave," though wishing she were convinced as well as submissive, for somewhere down in the secret recesses of his consciousness, there lurked a misgiving which shrank from boldly facing daylight as to whether his arguments had altogether succeeded in convincing himself. "i am very sorry to hear of basil brooke being so ill," he said by way of changing the conversation. "is that one of mrs brabazon's nephews?" "yes, the elder; they have come to paris to try some new doctor, but it is no use. i thought so when he first got ill; and now what his aunt says shows it is true. poor fellow!" "have you known him long? i don't think i ever heard you speak of him before," said alys. "he was more a friend of arthur's than mine; they were in the same regiment. but here we are at mrs feston's." on the whole, alys enjoyed these few last days in paris much more than the weeks which had preceded them. she was touched by her brother's evident anxiety that she should do so. never had she known him more indulgent and considerate, but yet he was less cheerful than usual--at times unmistakably anxious and uneasy. there came no more letters from captain beverley, but alys was not sorry. "it was something in that letter of arthur's that annoyed laurence so the other day," she thought to herself; "and fond as i am of arthur, i couldn't let him or any one come between laurence and me." and she was not quite sure if she felt pleased or the reverse when her brother told her that, in all probability captain beverley would be their guest almost as soon as they reached romary. "you haven't written to tell him when we are going home, have you, alys?" alys looked up from her letter to miss winstanley in surprise at the inquiry. "i?" she said; "oh dear, no. i leave all that to you of course. i have not answered arthur's letter at all; there seems to have been so much to do this last day or two." her brother seemed pleased and yet not pleased. "it is just as well. i don't think i shall tell him either. we'll take him by surprise--drive over to see him in his bachelor quarters at the farm-house the day after we get home, eh?" "oh, yes, do," exclaimed alys, eagerly. "we'll say we have come to luncheon! what fun it will be; for arthur has about as much notion of housekeeping as the man in the moon, and he will look so foolish if he has to tell us he has nothing in the house but eggs!" "you don't suppose he has been living on nothing but eggs all this time, do you?" "he may have had a chop now and then for a change," observed alys; "but from what he said in his letter, i don't fancy he has had to depend much on himself. he seems to have been a great deal with his friends at the rectory." there was intention in the allusion. alys stole a look at her brother's face to see if the effect was what she half anticipated. yes; the amusement had all died put of his expression, to be replaced by annoyance and anxiety. alys's conscience smote her for trying experiments at the cost of her brother's equanimity. "poor laurence!" she reflected. "i wish he would not worry himself so much about other people's affairs. arthur is quite able to take care of himself. but evidently it _is_ about him and the westerns that laurence is in such a state of mind. i really do wonder why he should care so much." and the next morning the cheviotts left paris. chapter eight. plans. "se'l sol mi splende, non curo la luna." _italian proverb_. "_man proposes, but the weather interposes_," is a travesty of the well-known old saying, which few people would dispute the truth of. directly the delay in the cheviotts' return home was traceable to other agencies, but indirectly the weather was at the bottom of it after all. the journey to london was accomplished without let or hindrance by the way; the let and the hindrance met the brother and sister on their arrival at miss winstanley's house, where they were to spend the night, in the shape of a letter for one thing, and of a bad sore throat of their hostess for another. and all that was wrong was the fault of the weather! miss winstanley had caught cold through getting her feet wet the sunday before, when the morning had promised well and turned out a base deceiver by noon; and the letter was from the housekeeper at romary, written in abject distress at the prospect of her master and mistress's return home sooner than she had expected them. more than distress, indeed; the letter closed an absolute entreaty that they would not come for ten days or so. it was "a terrible upset with the pipes," she wrote, that was the cause of her difficulty--an upset caused by a complete overhauling of these mysterious modern inventions of household torture, the necessity for which had been revealed by some days of unusually heavy rains, by which "the pipes" had been tested and found wanting, and the withenden plumbers being no exception to their class, long celebrated as the most civil and procrastinating of "work-people," had already exceeded by several days the date at which the business was to have been concluded. "pipes is things as can't be hurried," wrote mrs golding, pathetically, "and, as everybody knows, it's easy getting work-people into a house to getting them out again; but what with the pipes and the men, the house is in that state i cannot take upon myself to say what my feelings would be for you and miss alys to see it." now mrs golding was an excellent servant; she had been alys's nurse, and though her grammar was far from irreproachable, and her general appearance not more than respectable and old-fashioned, she was thoroughly well qualified for the somewhat onerous post to which, on her master's accession to romary, he had at once promoted her. but she had two faults--she had feelings and she had nerves. the letter came at breakfast-time. alys and her brother were by themselves, miss winstanley's sore throat preventing her coming down as early as usual. mr cheviott read it, and tossed it across the table to his sister. "so provoking!" he exclaimed. "yes," said alys, "it is tiresome just when you were so particularly anxious to go home. but i see no help for it; when nurse takes to her `feelings,' what can we do? no doubt the house is in a terrible mess, and if we persisted in going down at once, i really believe she would have a fit. if we wait a few days, as she suggests, you may trust her to have everything ready for us; and indeed, laurence, i was thinking just before nurse's letter came that it seemed hardly kind of me to go away when aunt is ill and all alone. she will be able to come with us to romary in a week, she says, if we can wait till then." mr cheviott did not at once answer. "it is unlucky," he said at last; "but, as far as i am concerned, i must not put off going home, and mrs golding's feelings must just make the best of it. but you had better stay here a week or so, alys, i see that, so you can tell my aunt so." "thank you," said alys; "but i wish you could stay too." but "no, it is really impossible," was her brother's reply, and soon after he went out. alys did not see him again till about an hour before dinner-time. "is my aunt up yet?" he inquired, as he came in, and even in the tone with which he uttered the two or three words she could perceive a cheerfulness which had not been his in the morning. "no," she replied, "but she says she will come into the drawing-room after dinner. she is much better." "ah, well, then, if i am not to see her till after dinner, you must tell her from me that i have taken the liberty of inviting a friend to dinner in her name. fancy, alys, almost the first person i ran against this morning was arthur. he only came up to town yesterday for a few days to settle something about this new farm-house that his head's running upon--so lucky we met!" "yes, very. i shall be so glad to see him," said alys, heartily. "but what a pity, laurence, that you have to go just as he has come. it would have been so nice for all of us to go home together." mr cheviott hesitated. "i am not, after all, perfectly certain that i shall go down to romary quite so soon as i said. part--in fact, the chief part--of my business was with arthur, and if he stays in town a few days too, we may all go down to romary together, as you wish." "that's very nice of you, laurence. i really think my training is beginning to do you good. aunt, of course, will be delighted to see arthur, but i will go and tell her about it now." she was leaving the room when her brother called her back. "remember," he said, "i haven't _promised_," but alys laughed and shook her head, and ran off. "i can manage arthur," she thought, "if it depends on him. but i am sure there is something laurence has not told me that has annoyed him lately, though he looks happier to-night--i wonder what it is all about." captain beverley was a great favourite with miss winstanley, whose affection for her nephew--her half-brother's son--laurence cheviott, was considerably tempered with awe. but with arthur she always felt at ease. "it is not that i mind being laughed at, now and then," she would confide to alys, pathetically, "but with laurence i really never feel sure if he is laughing at me or not. of course he is never wanting in real respect, and he is the best of nephews in every way, but i can't deny that i am frightened of him, and, however _you_ laugh at me, my dear, you can't laugh me out of it. i always have been afraid of laurence, ever since he was a baby, i believe. he has had such a dreadfully _superior_ sort of way of looking at one, and saying, `what for does you do that?'" "what a dreadful baby he must have been! i always tell him he was never snubbed as much as would have been for his good," alys would reply, upon which her aunt would observe, with a sigh, that it was "far too late in the day to think of anything of the kind _now_." her spirits rose greatly when she heard that arthur was coming to dinner. "i really think i feel well enough to dine with you, after all," she said to alys. "it would certainly seem more hospitable, as arthur is coming, and i don't like to get the character of exaggerating my ailments," and alys agreed with her that if she were "well wrapped up," the exertion of going down two flights of stairs to the dining-room was not likely to do her any harm. "but you know, aunt, you mustn't eat too much at dinner," said alys, gravely, "for if you feed a cold you'll have to starve a fever. a little soup and a spoonful of jelly--anything more might be very dangerous." "naughty girl, _you_ are laughing at me now," remonstrated poor miss winstanley, but alys assured her solely that she was "quite, quite in earnest." and the _partie carree_ was a very cheerful one. laurence seemed more light of heart than he had been for some time; arthur, whose state of spirits was, to give him his due, seldom such as to cause his friends much anxiety, was even gayer and merrier than usual, almost feverishly so, it seemed to alys once or twice, and yet again, when she caught his eyes fixed upon her with a sort of appealing anxiety in their expression that she never remembered to have seen in them before, she could have fancied, were such a fancy possible in connection with so light-hearted and thoughtless a being, that he, in his turn, had something on his mind. could the mantle of laurence's recent anxiety have fallen upon him? she asked herself. it seemed so strange to associate anxiety of any kind with arthur that she tried to dismiss the idea, and told herself that she must have grown morbid from being so much alone with laurence, and fancying he was vexed or annoyed whenever he looked dull. "then it is all nicely settled about our staying in town, and going down to romary together. it all depends on you, arthur." captain beverley looked surprised. "on _me_!" he exclaimed, "how do you mean? i thought it all depended on miss winstanley's sore throat." "oh! no. laurence's staying has nothing to do with aunt. he said he had business with you, but that you could settle it in town as well as at romary, if you could stay--and so you will stay, won't you? it would be so much nicer to go down all together." captain beverley looked increasingly mystified. "i don't understand--" he was beginning, but mr cheviott, whose attention had been caught by the sound of his own name, interrupted him. "it is alys herself who does not understand," he said, good-humouredly, but not without a little constraint. "if you had been still at that delightful farm-house of yours, arthur, i would have joined you there, and talked over these improvements. but that can wait, i dare say, and if you care to go into the financial part of it, we can do that in town as well. you are not in a hurry to go back to your new quarters, are you? you will wait and go back with us to romary, as alys wishes, won't you?" captain beverley looked a little surprised, and a little disconcerted. he was not prepared for his cousin's sudden interest in his improvements at hathercourt, and hardly understood it, for hitherto mr cheviott had looked somewhat coldly on the schemes arthur was full of, and he was still less prepared to be cross-questioned as to his length of stay in town, which in his own mind he had decided was to be a very short one. "thank you," he said, with a little hesitation. "i should like to go over the plans for the edge with you very much. but as to my staying in town another week, i really can't say. i only ran up for a couple of days, and there are lots of things waiting for me to settle about at hathercourt." "you are becoming quite a man of business, i see," and alys fancied that arthur winced a little. she felt sorry that she had said anything about their plans till she could have seen arthur alone, for somehow she had managed to cause an uncomfortable feeling--the cheerfulness of the little party seemed to have flown; laurence grew silent and abstracted; alys tried nervously to hit upon a safe subject of conversation. fortune favoured her. "by-the-bye, arthur," she said, suddenly, "have you heard anything about the brocklehurst ball? when it is to be, i mean. some one said something about its being earlier than usual, and i shall be rather glad, for it will be less likely to interfere with other things than when it is so near christmas time." captain beverley looked up in surprise. "it is to be in a fortnight--in less than a fortnight, indeed, on the fourth, and to-day is the twenty-third," he replied. "did you not know? i supposed you had made all your arrangements." "oh! i am so sorry!" exclaimed alys. "i had all sorts of plans in my head, and now it will be too late." "what will be too late? what are you talking about?" said mr cheviott; and when alys explained, he looked rather ashamed of himself. "i should have told you, alys, but i completely forgot about it. i found a letter here last night when we arrived, asking us to go to cleavelands on the twenty-second, and go to brocklehurst with a party from there. you would like that, wouldn't you?" but alys's face did not brighten up as he expected. "i thought you liked the cleaves so much," he said. "yes, i do. i like young mrs cleave very much. it isn't that. it is only that i had set my heart on going from romary, and asking nice people to go with us." "so we might have done, but for this visit to paris," said mr cheviott. "but it can't be helped. there will be more balls in the neighbourhood before the winter is over." "arthur," said alys, suddenly, but in a low voice, when, later in the evening, she had got captain beverley to herself in a corner of the drawing-room--"arthur, do you know what i had set my heart on for the brocklehurst ball." "what sort of dress, do you mean?" said her cousin. "no, i certainly do not know, and i am perfectly sure i couldn't possibly guess. so you had better tell me." "i don't mean a _dress_," said alys, contemptuously, "i meant a _plan_." captain beverley did not at once answer. "a _plan_, i say, arthur, don't you hear?" repeated alys, impatiently. "i beg your pardon," exclaimed arthur, rallying his attention. "a plan to show me, did you say? for my new farm-house? it is very good of you to trouble about it." "oh! arthur, how provoking you are! what is the matter with you?" exclaimed alys. "of course it wasn't that sort of plan i was talking of. it was a plan of mine--one that i had made in my head, don't you understand? it was about the brocklehurst ball. i wanted to coax laurence into letting me call on the westerns, arthur, the westerns at hathercourt, you know, and then i would have got him to let me ask them--the girls, of course, i mean--to come to stay at romary for two or three days, and go to the ball with us. wouldn't it have been nice, arthur? it would have been a treat for them, as the children say. they are such pretty, nice girls, and i am sure they don't have many `treats'." she looked up in arthur's face with eager, sparkling eyes, and this time she had no need to recall his attention. his eyes were sparkling too, his colour rose, his voice even seemed to her to shake a little with suppressed excitement as he replied to her: "alys, you are the best and nicest girl in the world. it was just like you, you dear good child, to think of such a thing, and i thank you--i always shall thank you for it with all my heart. i felt sure," he went on, more quietly--"i felt sure i should find i might count upon you, and now i know it. i have a great deal to tell you, alys, and i--" but at this moment mr cheviott's voice was heard. "alys," he was saying, "are you not going to play a little? what mischief are arthur and you concocting over there?" he came towards them as he spoke. captain beverley had laid his hand on alys's in his eagerness, his face was flushed, his whole manner and air might easily have been mistaken for those of an accepted or would-be lover, and the start with which he threw himself back on his own chair as his cousin approached, increased the apparent awkwardness of the situation. but alys, though her cheeks were rosier, her eyes brighter than their wont, answered quietly and without confusion: "we are not concocting mischief, laurence," she said; "we are too wise and sensible for anything of the kind, as you might know by this time. we'll have another talk about our _plans_ to-morrow, arthur. come and sing something now to please aunt, as she made an effort to do you honour by coming down to dinner." and the _tete-a-tete_ between the cousins was not renewed that evening, nor, as alys had proposed, "to-morrow," for arthur did not make his appearance at miss winstanley's the next day at all. mr cheviott saw him and went with him to the architect's, and brought back word that he was over head and ears in model pig-sties and shippons. "and in farm-houses too," he said. "i think it very foolish of him to lay out money on doing much to the house itself. it is quite good enough as it is for the sort of bailiff he should get." "oh, then, he does not intend to live at hathercourt edge himself," remarked miss winstanley. mr cheviott turned upon her rather sharply. "live there himself!" he exclaimed, "of course not. what could have put such an idea in your head, my dear aunt? at the most, all the income he can possibly hope to make out of hathercourt will be within three hundred a year, and he has quite three thousand a year independent of that; he could have no possible motive for settling at hathercourt." "but is there not some condition attached to arthur's fortune?" said miss winstanley, vaguely. "i remember something about it, and he said the other day that he would not be of age for two years." "no; by his father's will he is not to be considered of age till he is twenty-seven." "then i should say it would be a very good thing for him to settle down at hathercourt for two years and learn farming before he has to manage lydon for himself," said alys. "_nonsense_, alys," said her brother, severely. "what can you possibly know about anything of the kind?" but alys did not appear snubbed. "i rather suspect arthur has some plan of the kind in his head, whether laurence thinks it nonsense or not," she remarked to her aunt, when they were by themselves in the drawing-room. "by-the-bye, aunt, what did you mean about there being some sort of condition attached to arthur's getting his property? i never heard of it." "oh, i don't know, my dear. i dare say i have got hold of the wrong end of the story--i very often do," said miss winstanley, nervously, for something in mr cheviott's manner had made her suspect she was trenching on forbidden ground. "and besides, if you have never been told anything about it, it shows that, if there is anything to hear, laurence did not wish you to hear it." "laurence forgets sometimes that i am no longer a child," retorted alys, drawing herself up. "however, it doesn't matter. if arthur looks upon me as a sister, it is best i should hear all about his affairs from himself. but, aunt fanny," she continued, in a softer tone, "was there not something unhappy about arthur's parents? laurence has alluded to it sometimes before me, and i have often wondered what it was." "it was just everything," replied miss winstanley, sadly, "the marriage was a most foolish one. they were utterly unsuited to each other, and it was just misery from beginning to end." "was arthur's mother not a lady?" asked alys. "oh, yes; you could not have called her unladylike," replied miss winstanley. "it was not that--she married mr beverley without any affection for him, entirely for the sake of his position. she was older than he, and her people were very poor, and scheming, i suppose, and he was infatuated." "and then he found out what a mistake he had made?" "oh, it was most miserable. and edward, arthur's father, you know, was no one to make the best of such a state of things. he was always so hot-headed and impulsive, and he had offended all his friends by his marriage. your mother, alys, poor dear, was the only one who stood by him. and he was grateful to her; yes, he certainly was." "but she died," said alys. "how sad it all sounds!" "yes, she died, but edward did not long survive her. he was never a strong man, and he was utterly disappointed and broken down. the last time i saw him, alys, was with you in his arms--a tiny trot you were-- and arthur playing about. poor edward was trying to see some likeness to your mother in you, and he was impressing upon arthur that he must take care of you, and be very good to you always." "and so he has been--always," replied alys. "next to laurence, aunt, i do not think there is any one in the world i care for more than for arthur. i would do anything for him, _anything_, just as i would for laurence." "what are you saying about me, eh, alys?" said mr cheviott, catching her last words as he entered the room. "no harm," said alys. "we have not been speaking about you at all till just this minute. i was asking aunt fanny about arthur's father and mother, and why they did not get on happily together." an expression of surprise and some annoyance crossed mr cheviott's face. "it is not a pleasant subject," he said, coldly. "i dare say not," said alys, fearlessly, "but one must come across unpleasant subjects sometimes in life. and, i think, laurence, you forget now and then that i am no longer a child. all the same you needn't look daggers at poor aunt. she hasn't told me anything, hardly--and it is natural i should wish to hear; for whatever concerns arthur must interest me." mr cheviott's brow relaxed. "i did not mean `to look daggers,' as you say, at aunt fanny or you either. of course it is natural, and some day i shall probably tell you more about it," he said, kindly. "it's a queer thing," he added, with apparent irrelevance, almost as if speaking to himself, "that people who make mistakes in life are punished more severely than actually unprincipled people.--i have written to mrs cleave, accepting her invitation," he continued, with a sudden change of tone. "don't you want some new dresses, alys? you had not much opportunity for shopping in paris, after all, you know." "but i made the best use of what i had. i am very well stocked for the present. if i remember anything i want i'll get arthur to go shopping with me to-morrow." to-morrow came and went, and no arthur made his appearance. nor was anything seen of him the next day, or the day after that either. it was not till the tuesday following that he called again, two days only before that fixed for their journey home. "we thought you had gone back to hathercourt without waiting for us," said mr cheviott, eyeing his cousin somewhat curiously as he spoke. but alys, whom arthur's absence had hurt and disappointed more than she would have cared to confess, said nothing; only she, too, looked at him, and so looking, it seemed to her that his colour changed a little, and forthwith her indignation melted away, to be replaced by anxiety and concern. and these feelings were not decreased by his manner of excusing himself. "i was afraid you would be thinking me very rude," he said, with a sort of nervous deprecation new to him, "but i have really been very busy." "then i don't think being very busy can agree with you," remarked mr cheviott, "you look thoroughly done up." "_have_ you been ill, arthur?" said alys, kindly. arthur started. "ill; oh dear, no," he exclaimed; "never was better in my life;" but he smiled at alys in his old way as he spoke, and seemed grateful for her cordiality. but alys was not satisfied about him. she determined to have "a good talk" with him, and did her best to make an opportunity for it; but somehow the opportunity never came. neither that day nor the next, nor the day on which they all travelled down to withenden together could she succeed in executing her intention. and at last it suddenly dawned upon her that arthur was purposely avoiding ever being alone with her, and, hurt and perplexed, she determined to take his hint, and interfere no more in his affairs. girl-like, she went at once to the extreme, till, in his turn, captain beverley was wounded by the marked change in her behaviour. "what have i done to offend you, alys?" he asked, one or two mornings after their arrival at romary, when miss cheviott and he happened to be by themselves in the breakfast-room before the others had made their appearance. "nothing," said alys; "you have done nothing, only you seem to have changed to me, arthur. i used to think you looked upon me quite as a sister, and now when i see you have something on your mind, something you should be glad to consult a sister about--and you did tell me a little, you know, arthur, that evening in town--you repel my sympathy, and tell me, your _sister_, arthur, nothing." she looked at him reproachfully, but his answer was scarcely what she had expected. "how i wish you _were_ my sister, alys," was all he said. all, perhaps, that he had time to say, for just then mr cheviott's step was heard in the hall. "that would not make it any better," said alys, with a sigh, in a low voice; "if i were your sister i could not care for you more, and you don't care for me now." "it isn't that," said arthur, hastily. "i do care for you just the same as ever, alys, but--" he stopped abruptly as his cousin came in. chapter nine. "what made the ball so fine?" "but come; our dance, i pray: she dances featly." _a winter's tale_. the ball at brocklehurst was this year anticipated with more than ordinary interest. it was to be an unusually good one, said the local authorities; all the "best" houses in the neighbourhood were to be filled for it; the regiment at the nearest garrison town was a deservedly popular one, and at least three recognised beauties were expected to be present. all these facts were discussed with eagerness by the young people round about brocklehurst, to whom a ball of any kind was an event, to whom this special ball was _the_ event of the year. and in few family circles was it more talked about than in the isolated rectory at hathercourt, by few girls was it looked forward to with more anticipation of enjoyment than by the western sisters. yet it was not the first, nor the second, nor, in the case of lilias, the third brocklehurst ball even, at which they had "assisted," and only a few weeks previous miss western had been seriously talking of declining for the future to take part in the great annual festivity. and here she was now, the week before, as interested in the question of the pretty fresh dresses, which, by an extra turn or two of the screw of economy, the mother had managed to provide for her girls, as if she were again a _debutante_ of seventeen; and, more wonderful still, the excitement had proved infectious, for mary, sober-minded mary, was full of it too. she could think of little else than what lilias was to wear, how lilias was to look--but for lilias, the consideration of what _mary_ was to wear, how _mary_ was to look, would have been very summarily dismissed. it is not easy, even with the most unselfish and "managing" of mothers, with the most--theoretically, at least--indulgent of fathers; with two pair of fairly clever hands, and two or three numbers of the latest fashion books, it is not _easy_, out of what a girl like alys cheviott would have thought a not extravagant price for a garden-hat, or a new parasol, to devise for one's self a ball-dress, in which to appear with credit to one's self and one's belongings, on such an occasion as a brocklehurst ball. and at first the difficulties had appeared so insuperable that mary had proposed that the whole of the funds should be appropriated to the purchase of a dress for lilias only. "you could get one really handsome dress--handsome of its kind, that is to say--for what will only provide two barely wearable ones," she said, appealingly, "and, lilias, you should be nicely dressed for once." "and you?" said lilias, aghast. mary blushed, and stumbled over a proposal that she should wear some mythical attire which "really might be made to look decent," out of the remains of the tarletans which had already done good duty on two, if not three previous occasions, "or," she added, still more timidly, "if you don't think i _could_ go in that, lilias, i don't see why i should go at all this time. you know my pleasure, even selfishly speaking, would be far greater if you alone were to go, _comfortably_, than if we both went, feeling half ashamed of our clothes! it would spoil the enjoyment--there is no use denying it, however weak-minded it sounds to say so." "of course it would," said lilias, promptly. "i am not at all ashamed of saying so. but i don't despair yet, mary--only listen to me. i will not go without you--do you hear, child?--i _won't_ go without you, and we shall be dressed exactly alike. your dress must be precisely and exactly the same as mine, or i won't go. there, now you know my decision, and you know that you'll have to give in." she sat down as she spoke on the side of the bed in her room, on which was displayed such modest finery as was in their possession, and in presence of which the weighty discussion was taking place--she sat down on the side of the little bed, and looked mary resolutely in the face. "mary," she repeated, "you know you will have to give in." and mary gave in on the spot. that had been three weeks ago. now it was within two or three days of the ball. how they had managed it, i cannot tell; what good fairy had helped them, i cannot say--none, i suspect, but their own light hearts and youthful energy, and love for each other--but lilias's prophesy had proved correct. the two dresses were ready, simple, but not shabby, perfectly suited to their wearers. "a dress," thought lilias, "which must make every one see how really pretty mary is." "a dress," thought mary, "which captain beverley need not be afraid of his grand friends criticising, if, as they must, they notice him dancing with lilias." they were in the midst of their admiration of the successful achievement, when there came an interruption--a noisy knock at the door, and josey's noisy voice. "lilias! mary! let me in!" she exclaimed. "mamma says you are to come down at once. captain beverley's here; he has come back from london, and has walked over all the way from romary. come quick!" mary turned to lilias. lilias had grown scarlet. "i don't know that i shall go down," she said. "i must put away all these things, and i wanted you to help me to fold these dresses, mary. but mother will be vexed if one of us does not go. josey, send alexa up to help me--tell mother mary is just coming, but that i am very busy." "i'll tell captain beverley so," said josephine, maliciously. mary said nothing, but set to work at folding the dresses, and lilias assisting her, they were all carefully disposed of before alexa made her appearance. "now, lilias, be sensible, and come down with me," said the younger sister. "he has walked all the way from romary, you hear, and i think its very nice of him. he hardly expected to be able to see us again before the ball, and it looks like affectation not to give him a cordial reception." but still lilias hesitated. "it isn't affectation," she said at last, "but--mary," she went on, suddenly breaking off her sentence, "i think it is horrid to talk of such things before there is actually anything to talk of, but to you i don't mind. i cannot understand captain beverley quite; that is why i said i was not sure that i should go down. i don't understand why--why he has never yet said anything definite. he has been on the verge of it a dozen times at least, and then he has seemed to hesitate." mary looked at her sister anxiously. "perhaps he is not sure of _you_," she said. "you know, lilias, what a way you have of turning things into jest very often." lilias shook her head. "no," she said, "it isn't that. he _knows_," she hesitated, and again her fair face grew rosy, "he _knows_ i like him. no, it is as if there were, some difficulty on his side--his friends perhaps." "it can't be that," said mary, decidedly. "he has no parents, no very near friends. he must be free to act for himself, lilias. i think too highly of him to doubt it, for it has been all so entirely his own doing--from the very first--and if he were in any way not free, it would have been shameful;" her face darkened, and a look came into her eyes which told that mary western would not be one to stand by silently and see another wronged, whatever powers of endurance she might have on her own account. but it cleared off again quickly, and she smiled at her sister re-assuringly. "i am fanciful where you are concerned, lilias," she said. "there is no reason for misgiving, i feel sure. i think captain beverley is good and true, and it will all be right. come down-stairs now--mother will not like our leaving her so long alone." lilias made no further objection, and they went down together to the drawing-room, where it would be difficult to say which of the two, mrs western or captain beverley, was the more eagerly expecting them. it was only three or four days since the young man had been at the rectory, for the period of his mysterious absence from miss winstanley's house had really, little as the cheviotts suspected it, been spent at hathercourt. but during those three or four days he had been to town and back again, and now he had left the edge and taken up his quarters at romary. a great deal seemed to have happened in these few days, and, in her secret heart, lilias western had looked forward to them as to a sort of crisis. "he will, probably, have been talking over things with his cousin, mr cheviott," she said to herself, "and, naturally, he wishes to have some points settled before speaking to papa or me." and it was, therefore, with a sort of expectancy, half hope, half timidity, that added an indefinable charm to her whole bearing and expression, that lilias met her all but declared lover this afternoon. he felt that she was more attractive than ever, "she grows lovelier every time i see her," he said to himself, with a sigh, and then tried to forget that he had anything to sigh about, and gave himself up to the pleasure of being again beside her--to the consciousness that his presence was not distasteful to her, and smothered all misgivings with a vague, boyish confidence that, somehow or other, things would all come right in the end. there could be no doubt about it--he was more devoted than ever--what nineteenth century _preux chevalier_ could give greater proof of his devotion than a ten miles' walk on a dull december day, for the sake of an hour's enjoyment of his lady-love's company, and a cup of tea from her fair hands? yet when their guest rose to go--he had arranged, he told them, for a dog-cart from romary to meet him at the edge farm-- lilias was conscious of a chill of disappointment. true, he had not been alone with her, but had he sought any opportunity of being so? and mr western was at home, sitting reading, as usual, in his study; nothing could have been more easily managed than an interview with him, had captain beverley wished it. but a word or two that passed, as he was saying good-bye, again put her but half-acknowledged misgivings to flight. "then when shall i see you again?" he said, as he held her hand in his for an instant, unobserved in the little bustle of taking leave. lilias glanced round hastily; her mother and mary were hardly within hearing. "i really cannot say," she replied, somewhat coldly, drawing her hand away as she spoke. "i _suppose_ mary and i will go to the ball on thursday, with mrs greville, but--" "suppose," repeated captain beverley, hastily interrupting her. "are not you _sure_ of going? i should not have promised to go had i not thought you were certain to be there." "are you going to the ball from romary?" asked mary, coming up to where they were standing, before lilias had time to reply. "i don't know exactly," replied captain beverley. "i am not sure what i shall do." mary looked up in surprise, and lilias saw the look. "mary and i will have a very long drive," she said. "you know we are going with mrs greville from uxley." captain beverley's face cleared. "i shall get there somehow," he said, brightly, "and you must not forget the dances you have promised me, miss western." and then he said good-bye again, and really took his departure. lilias's good spirits did not desert her through the evening, and mary was glad to see it, and tried to banish the misgivings that had been left in her own mind by her conversation with her sister. but she did not succeed in doing so quite effectually. "i wonder," she said to herself--"i wonder why captain beverley did not order the dog-cart to come _here_ to meet him. and i wonder, too, why he says so little about the cheviotts. under the circumstances, it would be only natural that we should know something of them--he has so often said miss cheviott was just like a sister to him." "miss cheviott is to be at the ball, i suppose," she said to lilias the next day. "does she count as one of the three beauties we heard about, do you think?" "i suppose so," said lilias, rather shortly. "did captain beverley not say anything about her going?" persisted mary. lilias turned round sharply. "you heard all he said," she exclaimed. "he was speaking to you quite as much as to me. i don't think he mentioned the cheviotts at all, and i don't care to hear about them. it is not as if they were captain beverley's brother and sister." "i didn't mean to vex you, lilias," said mary, and then the subject dropped. mrs greville was a very good sort of person to be a _chaperon_. she was her husband's second wife, a good many years his junior, and she had no daughters of her own. she was pretty well off, but owing to mr greville's delicate health, her allowance of amusement was, even for a clergyman's wife, moderate in the extreme, and she had very little occupation of any kind; there were no poor people in the very well-to-do parish of uxley, and her two boys were at school. she liked chaperoning the western girls, lilias especially, as her beauty was sure of receiving attention, and both she and mary were quickly grateful for a little kindness, unexacting, and ready to be pleased. so, all things considered, she looked forward to the brocklehurst ball with scarcely less eagerness then the sisters themselves. "i am so pleased that you have got such pretty dresses this year," said mrs greville, when she and her charges found themselves fairly launched on the eventful evening. she had chartered the roomiest of the withenden flys, as much less damaging to their attire during a seven miles' drive than her own little pill-box, in which, carefully wrapped in innumerable mufflers and overcoats, mr greville followed meekly behind. "yes, i am particularly pleased you have got such pretty dresses, for i quite think it is going to be a very brilliant ball. you have heard that there are to be three beauties--_noted_ beauties, have you not? there's young mrs heron-wyvern, the bride, you know; she is of spanish origin; her father was a general monte something or other, and they say she is lovely; and sir thomas fforde's niece, miss--oh, i always forget names, but she is very pretty--handsome, rather--she is not so very young; and then there is miss cheviott of romary. i have not seen her since she was quite a little girl, but she was pretty then, even." "are the cheviotts at romary now?" asked mary, when she got a chance of speaking. "oh, yes, i believe so, and very much liked, i hear," replied mrs greville. "there was an impression that mr cheviott was stiff and `stuck up,' but i believe it's not at all the case when you know him. i hear romary is likely to be one of the pleasantest houses in the county. i dare say miss cheviott will be making some grand match before long, though i _have_ heard--" but just at this moment the sudden rattle of the wheels upon the unmistakable cobble stones of brocklehurst high street distracted mrs greville's attention. "here we are, i declare!" she exclaimed, "how quickly we seem to have come! i do hope the brougham is close behind, for mr greville has all the tickets;" and, in the bustle that ensued, what she had heard as to miss cheviott's prospects or intentions was never revealed. they were very early. mrs greville liked to be early, "to see all the people come in." hitherto, on such occasions, this weakness of her friend had been a sore trial to lilias, but this year, for reasons of her own, she had made no objections to it, and had not, as formerly, exhausted her energies in search of some cleverly-laid scheme for making mrs greville late in spite of herself. and if lilias was content, it never occurred to mary to be anything else; so they all sat down together "in a nice corner out of the draught," and listened to the discordant preliminaries of the band, and watched the gradually filling of the bare, chilly rooms, two hearts among the four caring for little but the confidently looked-for approach of a tall, manly figure, with a bright fair face, to claim his partner for the first two dances. but time wore on; the first quadrille was a thing of the past, and still lilias and mary sat decorously beside their _chaperon_, each thinking to herself that "surely the romary party was very late." but when the second dance, a waltt, had also come to an end, lilias's air changed; a proud flush of colour overspread her cheeks, and when frank bury, a withenden curate of rather unclerical tastes, but decided in his admiration for miss western, begged for "the honour of the third dance," she accepted at once--so much more amiably, and with so much sweeter smiles than usual, that the poor young man grew crimson with astonishment and delight. mary longed, yet dared not, to interfere; there was "a look" in lilias's face as she walked away on frank bury's arm that made mary's heart burn with anxiety for the possible issues of this evening. "oh," said she, to herself, "if he were to come just now and think she would not wait for him!" and she sat still in fear and trembling, longing for, yet dreading captain beverley's appearance. the dance was not half over when there came a little bustle at the principal door-way. those nearest it stood back, and even through the music one discerned a slight hush of expectancy. some new-comers were at hand; new-comers, too, of evident importance. mrs greville's ears and eyes were equally wide awake. "the cleavelands party," she whispered to mary, "and i hear all the three beauties come with them! the heron-wyverns are staying there, and so are the ffordes, and the cheviotts. it looks as if it had been arranged on purpose to make a sensation." mary would have cared little but for one thought. "then there has been no party at romary?" she asked. "i suppose not--evidently not, for see, there is mr cheviott coming into the room with sir thomas's niece on his arm--what a handsome couple! but he has a forbidding expression. then that must be the bride, i suppose--oh, yes, look, mary, she is going to dance with her husband, young heron-wyvern--he has reddish hair--and how, i wonder what has become of the third beauty, miss cheviott." but at this moment an acquaintance of mrs greville happening to take the vacant seat on her other side, her attention was distracted, and mary's eyes were left free to roam in search of one familiar figure. her heart was beating fast with excitement and anxiety, her sight surely was growing confused, for could _that_ be he? over on the other side, through a bewilderment of faces, she espied the one she was in search of, gazing about in quest of lilias, or disconsolately observing her defalcation. ah no, captain beverley's face was bent to meet the upturned glance of a beautiful woman on his arm she was smiling up at him; he, down upon her, "just," thought mary, with a thrill of something very nearly approaching agony, "_just_ as i have seen him look at lilias hundreds of times." never had he appeared to greater advantage, never had his fair, handsome face looked brighter or more attractive--and the lady--yes, in another instant, mary was sure of it, recognised fully the slight, graceful figure, the peculiar "set" of the haughty little head, and the glance of the pretty violet eyes. yes, they were nearer her now, the young lady was his cousin, the beautiful miss cheviott! in another instant his arm was round her waist, they were dancing together. and mary, for the first time in her life, felt as if it might be possible to _hate_ good-natured mrs greville, when a succession of lady-like nudges having compelled her attention, her _chaperon_ whispered, triumphantly, "look, mary, quick, child, or you won't see them--_there_ is miss cheviott, isn't she lovely? and she is dancing with her cousin, captain beverley. and mr knox tells me--he has just heard it on the best authority--they are _engaged_ to each other." "you forget that i know captain beverley," mary could not help rejoining, coldly; "he has called at the rectory several times when he has been staying at the edge farm." "ah, yes, to be sure. i wish he would come and ask you to dance," said mrs greville, carelessly. but mary felt as if "the dance had all gone out of her." her mental tremors now took a new form--dread of her sister's return, and, more in cowardice than because she had the slightest wish to move, she accepted mr greville's offer of a convoy across the room "for a change; mr knox will look after my wife till your sister comes back," he said, good-naturedly. "across the room," mary met with an unexpected invitation to "join the dance." the major of the th was an old friend of mr greville's, and being a quiet, retiring man, the number of his acquaintances at brocklehurst was not large. he did not care much about dancing, but after chatting to mr greville for a minute or two, he discovered that the girl on his friend's arm had a nice face and an undoubtedly beautiful pair of eyes, and, before mary knew what she was about, she was dancing with major throckmorton, and engaged to him for the quadrille to follow. between the dances her partner proposed that they should walk up and down the long corridor into which the ball-room opened, and mary, caring little--so completely were her thoughts absorbed with lilias--where she went, absently agreed. major throckmorton was so shy himself that he naturally attributed to the same cause the peculiarity of the young lady's manner, and liked her none the less on account of it. but before the quadrille had reached the end of its first figure, his theory had received a shock. for suddenly his partner's whole manner changed. she smiled, and talked, and laughed, and seemed interested; where before he had only succeeded in extracting the most indistinct of monosyllables, she now answered with intelligence and perfect self-possession, hazarding observations of her own in a way which proved her to be by no means the timid, ill-assured country maiden he had imagined her. "what a curiously changeable girl!" he said to himself. "five minutes ago i did not feel sure that she took in the sense of a word i said to her, and now she is as composed and rational as possible, and evidently a well-educated girl. what queer creatures women are!" his glance ran down the lines of faces opposite them. among them one arrested his attention. "what a beautiful girl," he exclaimed; "the most beautiful in the room, in my opinion. do you happen to know who she is, miss western?" mary's eyes followed willingly in the direction he pointed out--whither, indeed, they had already been frequently wandering--and her whole face lighted up with a happy smile. "_do_ you think her the most beautiful girl in the room?" she said. "i am so glad, for she is my sister. do you know the gentleman she is dancing with?" major throckmorton glanced at lilias's partner. "no," he said, "i don't think i do. i know so few people here. he is a good-looking fellow, and," he hesitated, and glanced again in miss western's direction, then added with a kindly smile, "it is evident _he_ would agree with my opinion as to who is the most beautiful girl in the room." mary smiled too, and blushed a little, and decided that her partner was one of the pleasantest men she had ever met. and poor major throckmorton thought how pretty she looked when she blushed, and said to himself that before long, very probably, some other fellow would be appropriating her, as her beautiful sister evidently was already appropriated, and he sighed to think that, not withstanding his eighteen years' service, such good luck had never yet come in _his_ way! for it was a case of "uncommonly little besides his pay," and beautiful girls were not for such as he. chapter ten. throwing down the gauntlet. "the marvel dies, and leaves me fool'd and trick'd. and only wondering wherefore play'd upon! and doubtful whether i and mine be scorn'd." _gareth and lynette_. major throckmorton took mary back to mrs greville, and after engaging her for another dance, later in the evening, strolled away again, considerably to her satisfaction, for she was now as anxious to see lilias, and hear the explanation of captain beverley's inconsistent behaviour, as she had before been to avoid her. "have you seen lilias?" she asked mrs greville, eagerly, for no lilias was as yet at the rendezvous. "she was near us in that last quadrille, but then, somehow, i lost sight of her in the crowd." "she is very content, wherever she is, i can assure you," said mrs greville, significantly. "i don't fancy either you or i will see much more of her for the rest of the evening. it is as clear as daylight," she went on. "why didn't you tell me, mary?" "tell you what, dear mrs greville?" said mary, opening her eyes, and rather taken aback. "of course you know. don't pretend you do not," said mrs greville, good-humouredly. "of course i mean about captain beverley's unmistakable admiration for lilias. no one could have doubted it who saw the way he came up after that dance with frank bury. she looked cold and haughty enough at first, but he whispered something that put it all right, i could see. and only fancy mr knox telling me he was engaged to miss cheviott!" "but," said mary, hesitatingly, and blushing a little as she spoke, "lilias isn't--there is nothing settled; they are not _engaged_." "oh! i dare say not publicly, at present, but of course such attention as he is paying her to-night will soon make it public. i am so delighted--such a capital thing it will be for you all--i cannot tell you how pleased--but, hush! here they come," said mrs greville, stopping abruptly. and mary, looking round, saw lilias close at hand, and what a lilias! sunshine seemed to be playing about her, so bright and sweet and happy did she look--flushed not merely with her own inner consciousness of happiness, but with an innocent sense of triumph that her lover had been tested, and not found wanting; that in the eyes of all the assembled "somebodies" of meadshire he was eager to do her homage; she felt that she had reason to be proud of him! he only stayed to shake hands with mary, and then hurried off, with a parting reminder to lilias of her promise for the next dance but one. for the very next she was already engaged to a brother in arms of major throckmorton, and there was little time for any conversation between the sisters. only lilias whispered it was "all right." "he" had explained why he was so late, and she was engaged to him for two more dances. mary might feel quite happy about her. but was mary enjoying herself too? she inquired, anxiously, as her partner appeared to carry her off. and in the sight of that radiant young face mary could indeed with all honesty reply that she was. she would have thought and believed it the most charming ball in the world, even if she had spent the whole evening on the bench in the corner of the room beside mrs greville; and this would have been far more amusing than having to dance with mr bury, which she was now obliged to do. for the poor young man's high spirits had suddenly deserted him; he was extremely depressed, not to say cross, and mary, knowing the cause of the change, could not but find it in her heart to pity him, though her relief was great when her penance was over. she danced next with frank's elder brother, an occasional visitor only to the brocklehurst part of the world, and a fairly amusing partner, and as lilias and captain beverley were their _vis-a-vis_, mary enjoyed the quadrille exceedingly. a little further down the room a set composed entirely of the cleavelands party attracted her attention. there stood the "three beauties" in close proximity. mary glanced at them again and again, and once or twice it seemed to her that she and her sister were the objects of attention to some members of the party. that miss cheviott gazed admiringly at lilias, and made some remark about her to her partner, mary felt sure, and thought it not surprising; but, besides this, she two or three times caught mr cheviott's observant eyes fixed on her sister and herself with a curious expression, which half annoyed her. and once, in turning suddenly, she fancied that captain beverley, too, noticed this peculiar expression with which his cousin was regarding them, and, mary felt by instinct, resented it. "you should by rights be dancing over there, should you not?" a sudden impulse urged her to say to her sister's partner, when one of the figures in the dance brought them for an instant into juxtaposition. "over where?" he asked, the next time they met. mary bent her head slightly in the direction of the cleavelands "set," but she had not time to see how captain beverley liked her explanation. his answer was reserved for the next round.--it was quite ready. "what could have put such an idea into your head?" he said, not without a touch of haughtiness in his tone. "i am perfectly free to dance where and with whom i choose." mary smiled, but in her heart she felt a slight uneasiness. the bloom seemed by this little incident to have been rubbed off her satisfaction. "it will be disagreeable for lilias," she said to herself, "if his friends are in any way prejudiced against her. she is so proud, too; she would never go out of her way to win them." thus thought mary when she again found herself in her corner by mrs greville. her dances, so far as she knew, were over for the evening, but lilias had not yet returned to her _chaperon's_ wing. mrs greville was beginning to wonder what o'clock it was. "not that i am in the least tired," she said. "as long as lilias is enjoying herself i am quite pleased to stay, and you, too, my dear. are you not going to dance any more?" "i think not," mary was replying when a voice behind her made her start. "miss western," it said, "if you are not engaged for this dance, may i have the honour of it?" the voice was not altogether unfamiliar, when had she heard it before? it was not an unpleasing voice, though its tone was cold and very formal. mary looked up; there, before her, stood mr cheviott. in utter amazement, mary partially lost her head. she rose mechanically, and, murmuring something in the shape of an assent, took mr cheviott's arm, and had passed some little way down the room before she quite realised what she was doing. then it all flashed upon her; the extreme oddness of the whole proceeding, and she grew confused and uneasy in trying to think how otherwise she should have done. mr cheviott had never been introduced to her! those two or three words in the church porch two months ago were all that had ever passed between them. yet his manner had been perfectly, even formally respectful, and the glow of indignation that had mounted to mary's cheeks at the mere notion of anything but respect being shown to her father's daughter, faded as quickly away. one glance at mr cheviott's grave, preoccupied face was enough completely to dispel it, and she, thereupon, solved the enigma in another manner. it was all on lilias's account! mr cheviott, doubtless in his cousin's confidence, wished, naturally enough, to know something of her relations, and had, with almost unconscious disregard of conventionality, chosen this way of making friends. on second thoughts, mary quite decided that she liked him all the better for it, and congratulated herself that her instincts had been in the right, that she had not, with misplaced prudery, chilled and repelled his first overtures of kindliness and interest. it was a round dance, but mr cheviott marched on down the room as if perfectly oblivious that dancing of any kind was in question. suddenly he stopped. "do you like balls?" he asked, abruptly. "i don't _dis_like them," answered mary, quietly. mr cheviott, in spite of himself, smiled, and mary, looking up, was again struck, as she had been the first time she saw him, by the effect of a smile on his somewhat sombre countenance. "that is, and isn't, an answer to my question," he said. "perhaps i should have worded it differently, and said, `do you like dancing?'" "sometimes," said mary, quietly still. mr cheviott smiled again. "one thing, i see, you do _not_ like," he said, "and that is, being catechised. i asked you if you liked dancing because, i fear, i do not dance well, and if you were _fanatica_ on the subject i should be afraid of displeasing you. however, suppose we try?" he did not dance badly, but with a certain indifference which mary found provoking. this, and a suspicion of patronising in his last words, inspirited her to take a different tone. "i do not think you dance ill," she said, when they stopped, "but any one could tell that you do not care about it." "how?" he said, if truth be told, ever so slightly nettled--for what man likes to be "damned with faint praise," by a girl in her teens, whoever she may be? "oh i can't tell you. it would be quite different if you liked it. there is no _verve_ in your dancing," she replied. she could see he was annoyed, and somehow she was not sorry for it. he took refuge again in a patronising tone. "do you speak french?" he inquired, with a slight air of surprise. "do you speak italian?" she retorted. "why do you ask?" he said, coolly. "are you offended by my inferring a possibility of your _not_ speaking french?" "no," she replied; "but i thought it an uncalled-for question. you used an italian word just now for the same reason, probably, that i used a french one--that we could not find an english word to express our meaning equally well--" "the only reason," interrupted mr cheviott, eagerly, "that can ever excuse one's doing so." "but," continued mary, "you did not give me the credit of this good reason, as i did you. i did not suppose you used an italian word for the sake of showing off that you knew italian." "and i said nothing to lead you to suppose that i thought you were wanting to show off your french," retorted mr cheviott, laughing a little in spite of himself, and yet manifestly annoyed. "i was only--a little--surprised, perhaps." "why?" asked mary. "is it so unusual nowadays to find people who have learned french?" "oh dear, no, of course not; but i understood you had been brought up very quietly, and had always lived in the country, and all that sort of thing. i don't want to offend you, but very probably you would be more offended if i did not answer you plainly." "very probably," said mary, smiling. "but don't you see that just because we have lived so quietly as you say, we have had the more time for `lessons'? and there were grave reasons why, in our case, we should learn all we could--practical reasons, i mean." mr cheviott did not at once reply; he seemed as if reflecting over what she had said. "i wonder what he is thinking about," thought mary. "he must know we are poor. we have made no secret of it to captain beverley." "shall we try again?" said mr cheviott, suddenly. "if i do my best, there is no saying but that, in time, i may catch a little of your _verve_, miss western." "you think i have a superabundance of it," said mary, good-humouredly; and, "yes," she added, when they stopped again, "that is better, decidedly." but again the look of preoccupation had come over mr cheviott's face; he did not seem elated by her praise. "your sister likes dancing too, i suppose?" he said, after a little pause. "yes," replied mary, "she is very fond of it, and she dances very well." "i dare say she does," said mr cheviott, "but she is too tall to dance with most men. i see," he added, slowly, as if he had some little difficulty in going on with what he had to say--"i see she has been dancing a good deal with my cousin, captain beverley. _he_ dances very well, in fact, better than he does anything else, i was going to say." something in the words and tone roused mary's ire. "i don't see that dancing well need prevent a man's doing other things well too," she observed, coldly. mr cheviott raised his eyebrows; he was quite his usual self again now, cool and collected, and satisfied that he was going to have the best of it. "i quite agree with you," he replied, dryly. "then," said mary, getting more angry, "why should you praise captain beverley's dancing in that sort of way, as if you were _dis_praising everything else he does? i think he has it in him to do many things well--more, probably, than have as yet come in his way." "i dare say you are quite right," said mr cheviott. "for a man," pursued mary, somewhat mollified, "he is still very young." "peculiarly so," said mr cheviott; "he is very young for his actual years. you must have seen a good deal of him, miss western, to judge him so correctly." "i have said very little about him," said mary, bluntly, looking up in her companion's face with a questioning expression in her eyes, before which mr cheviott quailed a little--yet what pretty, gentle, brown eyes they were!--"but i _have_ seen a good deal of him," she went on, frankly. "he has been a great deal with us lately, while he was staying at the edge farm, you know." almost as she pronounced the words, she became conscious of the annoyance they were causing her companion, and she felt that her worst misgivings were realised. "why did i dance with him?" was the first form in which her hot indignation expressed itself in her thoughts. "yes," replied mr cheviott, coldly, "i heard that mr and mrs western had been very hospitable to my cousin, and no doubt he is very grateful to them. he is an extremely sociable person--cannot bear being alone. as you have seen so much of him, miss western, i dare say you have discovered that he is very impulsive and impressionable, very ready to amuse himself, without the least thought of the after consequences." mary remained perfectly silent. "you agree with me?" said mr cheviott. "i am very glad of it, for i see you will not misunderstand me. there are some kinds of knowledge not so easily acquired as french," he added, with an attempt at carrying off what he had been saying lightly, "but i see your good sense stands you in lieu of what is commonly called knowledge of the world, and--and, for your sister's sake especially, i am very glad indeed that you have so much perception." he did not look at mary as he spoke, but now she suddenly turned towards him, and he was obliged to face her. every ray of their usually pretty colour had faded out of her cheeks; she looked so very pale that for an instant he thought she was going to faint, and a quick rush of pity for the poor child momentarily obliterated all other considerations. but mary saw the softening expression that came over his face, and smiled slightly, but bitterly. and then mr cheviott saw that her paleness was not that of timidity or ordinary agitation, but of intense, wrathful indignation, and he thereupon hardened his heart. "why," said mary, after a little pause, and her voice, though low, was distinct and clear--"why, may i ask, do you say that it is especially on my sister's account that you are glad to find that i possess what you so kindly call so much power of perception?" her words, to herself even, sounded stilted and almost absurd, but, had she tried to speak easily and naturally, she felt that in some way she would have broken down. and mr cheviott did not notice the stiltedness of her tone and speech; cool as he looked he was feeling intensely uncomfortable, and little inclined to see any humorous side to the situation. "i would rather not say why," he replied, "and, besides, it's unnecessary. you would, afterwards, regret asking me to say more than i have done." "but having said so much, supposing i _insist_ on your saying more," said mary, unwisely. "supposing i tell my father, and that he asks you to explain why you have spoken to me this way--supposing--" she stopped, for her voice failed her. anger inclines some women to tears more readily than grief! mr cheviott smiled; it was, in reality, a nervous, uneasy smile, but mary thought it insulting and insufferable. "miss western," he said, "you are really exciting yourself about nothing at all. i do not think that any reasonable person would see cause of offence in the two or three remarks i have made about my cousin, and, fortunate as he is in possessing so eager an advocate as yourself, it is impossible you can know him as well as i do. but i think we have discussed him quite sufficiently, and, in _my_ opinion at least, the less said the better." he looked at her with a sort of veiled inquiry. mary stood perfectly silent. it was true; she had been _very_ foolish, very undignified to have expressed herself as vehemently as she had done; she had no right to resent mr cheviott's hinted warnings, for arthur beverley had _not_ committed himself in such a way as to give her any. "oh," she thought, "if i could but look up in his face and say, `your cousin is engaged to my sister, and i decline to hear anything you have to say about him; your opinion has not, and never will be asked,' oh, how different it all would be! how different it _will_ be when it is all settled, and no one can interfere!" but in the mean time; yes, certainly, the less said the better. she felt that she trusted captain beverley, even now; already she felt that mr cheviott's opinion was of no _real_ consequence, and she could afford to despise it, much as, for lilias's sake she regretted that the connection was not likely to find favour in the eyes of arthur's proud relations. "but that will not _really_ matter," she repeated to herself, and, fortified with this reflection, she turned quietly to reply to mr cheviott's last speech. "yes," she said, "i was very foolish to take up your remarks about your cousin so hotly. for, though i have known him such a short time, i think, in some ways, i already know him far better than you do. and now i shall be obliged if you will take me back to my friends." she looked up in mr cheviott's face with fearless eyes, and no trace of agitation, but a somewhat deeper colour than usual in her cheeks, and the shadow of a quiver on her lips. but mr cheviott read her rightly; the gauntlet of defiance was thrown down, and her resolution staggered him. "_can_ they be already really engaged?" he said to himself. "i could almost find it in my heart to wish they were, to get rid of all this! how unbearable it is--how horribly i am, and must be, misunderstood, even by this girl!" and as he escorted mary across the room, and, with a formal bow, deposited her in her old corner beside mrs greville, he made no effort to hide his gloom and annoyance. for the moment a species of recklessness seemed to have taken possession of him; he felt as if he cared little what was said or thought of him. "even alys," he thought to himself, "when, or if, she comes to hear of my attempt at interference, will find no words hard enough for me. why can't a man start clear in life, i wonder, without being weighted with the follies of those before him?" mrs greville was all excitement and curiosity. "my goodness, mary," she exclaimed, "wonders will never cease! lilias's conquest is nothing to yours. mr cheviott of romary himself! you are very cunning, you naughty child; you never even told me you knew him." "i hardly do know him. i would not have danced with him if he had not asked me so suddenly that i had not presence of mind enough to refuse," explained mary. "and why should you have refused? of course, as i say, you have made a conquest. why should you be ashamed of it?" said mrs greville. "it is not that, it is nothing of the kind, i _assure_ you, mrs greville," said mary, deeply annoyed. "dear mrs greville," she went on, beseechingly, "i do beg you not to say any more about it. there is lilias coming, _please_ don't say anything about it." mrs greville saw she was in earnest, and gave in. "but you are the strangest girl i ever came across," she added, with a tone of good-natured annoyance. then lilias came up, on captain beverley's arm, and mrs greville's attention was distracted. "i am not going to dance any more," she said, smiling. "i am quite ready to go home now, mrs greville, if you like, and poor mary looks tired to death." "and poor mrs greville must be tireder still, as francie says," said mary, trying to laugh, and look as usual. "yes, i think we should be going." "good-night, captain beverley," said lilias, disengaging her hand from his arm. but he would not allow it. "you will let me see you to your carriage," he said, in a low voice. "you have no other gentleman with you." and lilias made no further objection. and mary, as they crossed the room, thus escorted, said to herself that she hoped mr cheviott's eyes were edified by the spectacle. yet she was conscious of a sudden tremor when, close to the door, hemmed in for a moment or two by the stream of departing guests, which had already begun to flow, they came upon the object of her thoughts. he was standing looking the other way, with a lady on his arm, and as she approached them nearly, mary saw that the lady was his sister. she happened to turn at this moment, and her glance fell on the advancing group. instantly a smile lit up her beautiful face, a smile, there could be no manner of doubt, of hearty, pleased recognition. mary happened to be the nearest to her, and miss cheviott leaned slightly forward. "how do you do, miss western?" she said, brightly. "i have been seeing you and your sister in the distance all the evening, but never near enough to speak to you. have you enjoyed the ball? i think it has been such a nice one." mary murmured something in the way of answer, but her words were all but inaudible. the grateful glance of her brown eyes, however, was not lost upon alys. "what nice good eyes that second miss western has?" she observed to her brother, when they were out of hearing. "but she does not look as well as she did; she was quite pale, and her eyes had a troubled look." "what did you speak to her for?" said mr cheviott, gruffly, "there was no reason for it, and--you cannot have forgotten what i said about the westerns, alys?" "forgotten; no. of course, i remember your saying i was not to call on them and make friends with them, but as for not speaking to them when we were jammed up close together in a door-way no, i certainly _had_ forgotten that you wished me to be unkind and uncivil, laurence," replied alys, with considerable indignation. and mr cheviott thought it wisest to hold his peace. his sister was evidently in ignorance of the apparently glaring inconsistency of which he himself had been guilty in not only speaking to, but actually dancing with the younger miss western, and devoutly he hoped that in this desirable ignorance she might remain. but there was no saying how she might come to hear of it, and, therefore, the less said on the disputed subject the better. there was silence for some time in the fly containing mrs greville and her two young friends, as it wended its slow way back to hathercourt. mrs greville was tired, and a little anxious about the effects of the cold night air on her husband; lilias was absorbed in a content which asked not for words; mary--poor mary, was suffering from a strange complication of discomfort. indignation, mortification, fear, hope, defiance, and intense anxiety chased each other round, her brain. it was a relief when lilias spoke. "we are very selfish, dear mrs greville," she said, suddenly--"at least, i am; mary is never selfish. i have never thanked you for taking us to-night and being so kind; i have enjoyed it so much, and i do thank you so sincerely." notwithstanding the heartiness and cordiality, there was an indefinable something in the tones of the pretty voice which effectually stifled any expression of curiosity on mrs greville's part. whether or not lilias had anything to tell, there and then it was evident she had no intention of telling it, so mrs greville just answered, kindly: "i am very glad you have had a pleasant evening. it is always a pleasure to me to take you." and in a few minutes more the fly stopped at the rectory gate. there was no one sitting up for them. that had been a proviso of lilias's, and, in spite of alexa's entreaties and "mother's" misgivings, lilias had carried the day. "we are sure to come home sleepy, and cross, and dilapidated-looking after a seven miles' drive. do all go to bed comfortably and wait to hear our adventures till the morning," she said; and mary, as they let themselves quietly in with a latch-key, felt what a comfort it was that there were no anxious questioning eyes to meet. since basil's departure, mary had taken possession of his little room, leaving lilias sole mistress of what had formerly been their joint quarters. but to-night she lingered long beside her sister, making one excuse after another for not leaving her room. "but mary, dear, you must really go to bed now," said lilias, at last; "don't trouble about putting away anything till the morning." "yes," agreed mary, "i'm going now. good-night, lilias. you said you had enjoyed the ball very much--i'm so glad you did. but, lilias," she added, wistfully, "i wish you would tell me--you don't mind my asking, do you?--is--is anything _settled_--explained, i mean?" lilias's cheeks flushed. "it is all right," she said, hastily--"i am _sure_ it is all right. there is nothing to explain; i trust him thoroughly, and--and i don't mind its not being what you call `settled' just yet. it is nice keeping it just to ourselves." "only," said mary, with some reluctance, "it _isn't_ being kept to yourselves. every one must have noticed him to-night, and that was why i was so anxious to hear if it was all understood and settled." "then _don't_ be anxious any more," said lilias, re-assuringly, as she kissed her--"_i_ am not; i could not be happier than i am. but i understand your feeling--i would have it for you, i dare say. just set your mind at rest; you may ask me about it again--let me see--yes, this time to-morrow, if you like, and i think i shall be able to satisfy you." "`in to-day already walks to-morrow,'" said mary, laughing. "_my_ `spirit' is `striding on before the event,' anyway, and the best thing i can do is to let you go to sleep. kiss me again, lilias; it's to-morrow already, you know." "i wish lilias hadn't said that about this time to-morrow," she thought to herself. "i wish she were not so confident, and yet how can she be less so if she trusts him? how could i _bear_ to see her trust broken?" chapter eleven. a cul-de-sac. "... it became a proverb, when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say, `hobson's choice.'" _spectator, number _. there was silence in the romary carriage too as it made its way home, with considerably more speed than the withenden fly, after the ball. it had been arranged that mr cheviott and his sister were not to return to cleavelands that evening, but to drive straight back to romary, and it had been arranged, too, that captain beverley should accompany them. arthur would not, on the whole, have been sorry to upset this plan, but there was no help for it. as to how much, or how little of his conduct in the ball-room, had been observed by his cousins, he was in ignorance, and he fancied that he did not care. he told himself that he had acted with deliberate intention, that it was best to bring matters to a crisis, and have done at all costs with the restraint which of late he had found so unendurable; but in so speaking to himself he was not stating the real facts of the case. from first to last his behaviour to lilias western had been the result of no reflection or consideration; he had never fairly looked his position in the face, and made up his mind as to what he was justified in doing, or how far he had a right to go; he had simply yielded to the charm of her society, and thrown care to the winds, trusting, like a child, that somehow or other things would come right--something would "turn up." and it was the secret consciousness of the defencelessness of such conduct that made him uneasy in mr cheviott's presence, and made him dread the explanation which he now fully realised must shortly take place between them. alys's mood, as respects the western sisters, was, as has been seen, verging on the defiant. yet a quick sensitiveness to the unexpressed state of feelings of her two companions warned her that, at present, any allusion to the subject was best avoided. "i will stand by arthur if he is in earnest," she said to herself, resolutely, "and were laurence twenty times over my elder brother i would _not_ support him in any narrow-minded piece of class-prejudice, or interference with arthur's right to please himself. but if i am to do any good i must first be sure that arthur _is_ in earnest, and, till then, i had better take care how i irritate laurence by meddling." so alys cogitated, lying back in her corner of the carriage, and saying nothing. suddenly mr cheviott's voice roused her; to her surprise he spoke very cheerfully. "well, alys, are you very tired? i think it was a mistake of the cleaves to have that carpet dance last night. it prevented our feeling as fresh as might have been the case to-night." "yes," said alys, "i think it was. but i did not feel tired, except just at first, and then i was all right again." "carpet dances are _always_ a mistake," observed captain beverley, rousing himself with some effort to join in the conversation. "people talk rubbish about their being more `enjoyable'--what an odious word `enjoyable' is!--than any others, but it's all nonsense. they take more out of one than twenty balls." "i don't think last night could have taken much out of you, arthur. you danced so little--not half as much as to-night," said alys, thoughtlessly. "no," said mr cheviott, markedly, "not a quarter as much, i should say." arthur said nothing, and alys, feeling rather guilty, tried to lead the conversation into safer channels. in this she might not have succeeded had not her brother done his best to help her. but arthur remained silent, and all three were glad when at last the long drive was over and the carriage turned in at the romary gates. "good-night, alys," said mr cheviott at once, and alys obediently kissed him and said good-night. "good-night, arthur," she said, lingeringly. she felt so sorry for arthur somehow; she would so have liked to have seen him by himself for a few minutes. "good-night, dear," he replied, but without any of his usual sunny brightness. and alys felt sure she heard him sigh, as, in accordance with mr cheviott's suggestion that they might as well have a cigar before going to bed, he followed his cousin into the library. "laurence is going to give him a `talking to,' as the boys say," thought alys, as she went slowly up-stairs. "and what has he done to deserve it, and why should he submit to it? unless, indeed, he is _not_ in earnest, and only amusing himself, and that laurence knows it--but i'm sure it is not that. i cannot understand arthur. i never before thought him wanting in spirit." but the more she reflected, the more puzzled she grew, so alys, not being deficient in common sense, decided that she could do no good by sitting up and tiring herself. she undressed and went to bed, and to sleep; but, though not a principal in the drama which was being enacted in her sight, her dreams that night were scarcely less disturbed and troubled than those of another even more intensely interested spectator, eight or nine miles off. on the whole, _lilias's_ sleep that night was far more peaceful than that of her sister mary, or of alys cheviott. for lilias's heart was full of faith and hope, and to such dreamers there come no uneasy visions. mr cheviott led the way through the library into his own private sitting-room beyond. the fire had been carefully attended to, and was blazing brightly; the room looked a picture of comfort. many and many a time arthur would have liked nothing better than an hour's _tete-a-tete_ over their pipes with his cousin--the cousin who, to him, represented father and brother in one--to whom he owed all that he had ever known of "home" and its saving associations, "all the good that was in him," as he himself had often expressed it, for laurence's care and affection for the boy had been great, and he had exerted them wisely. he had won arthur's confidence and respect; he had never so acted as to cause him to fret and chafe under what, in less judicious hands, he might have been made to feel an unnatural authority. and not a small part of captain beverley's present discomfort arose from the consciousness of having deeply disappointed his cousin. he told himself he had done no wrong, but he knew he had, thoughtlessly and impulsively, done that, or been on the point of doing that, which would greatly add to the difficulties and perplexities of a life much of which had been devoted to his welfare. and acknowledging even thus much, where was the gratitude he had so often expressed? he made no effort to conceal his gloom. he sat down on the first chair that came in his way, he muttered something about his pipe being up-stairs, "not unpacked," and declined the cigar which his cousin hospitably offered him in its stead. mr cheviott quietly, filled and lighted his own pipe, drew his chair to the fire, with even more deliberation than usual, for his cousin's demeanour somewhat disconcerted him. he would have found it easier to go on with what he had to do, had arthur continued indifferent or even defiant. but it is hard to strike a man that is down; it is extremely difficult to "lecture" or remonstrate with a man who is evidently more disgusted with himself than you can possibly be with him. for laurence knew that arthur was genuinely distressed and suffering; he knew his cousin to be as incapable of sulky or resentful temper as of dissimulation or intentional treachery. "arthur," he said, at last, after smoking for a minute or two in silence, "i wish you wouldn't look so unlike yourself; it makes it harder for me. you must have known that this sort of thing couldn't go on--that you were running willfully into an entanglement which, sooner or later, must necessitate an explanation with me. you have no right to punish _me_ for your own acts by looking as you are doing. now the time has come to have it out with me, there is only one thing to do--face it." "i am perfectly ready to face it," said arthur, coldly, but with a decided and sudden increase of colour in his cheeks, and sitting up erectly on his chair. "so much the better," said laurence, dryly, adding to himself, "i am glad i have roused him; we shall understand each other now.--i was going," he continued, aloud--"i was _going_ to have prefaced what i have to say by asking you whether you are losing your senses or your honour and high principle, for except by supposing one or the other i cannot, considering all, explain the way you have been going on. i was _going_ to say so, i say, but i don't now think i need, for i see you think as badly of yourself as i could do." "i do nothing of the kind," replied arthur, firing up. "i don't ask you to tell me how badly you think of me--you could hardly infer worse than you have already expressed--but i altogether deny that i am either mad or bad, to put it shortly. and, what's more, i have done nothing to justify you, or any one, in speaking of me as you have done." "you can't mention `me' and `any one' together," said mr cheviott, coolly. "i am the only person living, except a lawyer or two, who understands your position, therefore i am the only person who can judge whether you are doing right or wrong in making love to a girl without letting her perfectly comprehend what you have to offer her." "and how do you know that i have not put it all before her?" exclaimed arthur, fiercely still. "because you could not do so without breaking your word," said mr cheviott, "and because, too, no girl who understood your position would encourage your suit. if she were a high-principled, unselfish girl, she would not allow you to ruin yourself for her sake, and if she were a calculating, selfish girl, she would have no wish to share your ruin." "yes," said arthur, bitterly, "you put it very neatly. i am regularly caught in a net, i know. whichever way i turn, it is equally ruinous." "then what on earth did you run your head into the net for?" said mr cheviott, impatiently. "you had your eyes open, you knew what you were about." "i did _not_," said arthur, "i never, till now, realised how unnatural and unbearable my position was. but you misunderstand me--i mean that my father's absurd will entangles me hopelessly--i was not alluding to my--my acquaintance with miss western--that is to be blamed for nothing but causing me to realise the truth." "well, then, i wish you had not realised the truth," said mr cheviott. "i think, arthur, you forget strangely that in all this you are not the only sufferer. do you think _my_ position is a pleasant one?" "no," said captain beverley, "i don't, but i think you exaggerate matters. in any case, there is no question of my _ruining_ myself, or any one else." "how do you make that out? for by `any case' i suppose you mean in the case of your proposing to miss western and her accepting you (you may have done so already, for all i know), and your marriage following. i don't think ruin is much too strong a word to use for what this would bring upon you." "you forget hathercourt," said captain beverley, with some hesitation. "hathercourt," repeated mr cheviott, looking puzzled, "i don't know what you mean." "the edge. hathercourt edge--my farm, i mean," explained arthur, still with a sort of hesitation in his manner. mr cheviott turned upon him with more asperity than he had yet shown. "really, arthur, you are too foolish," he exclaimed. "do you mean to say that you could live at the edge on about fifty pounds a year-- certainly not more--for the interest of the money that was raised to pay your debts three years ago would fully take the rest of the two or three hundred a year that is the most you could make out of the farm, even if you managed it far better than you are likely to do. and i have no power to clear you from these debts out of what should be, what surely will be, your own before very long?" he looked at arthur anxiously as he spoke. "if it's ever becoming mine depends upon the marriage that my father set his heart on taking place, it never will be mine--" "but--" began mr cheviott. "yes, yes, i know what you are going to say. i may change, you think, as i have changed before, but i never shall, laurence. i never was really in earnest before--my flirtations, even you must allow, were very harmless; _this_ is very different, and i cannot give it up. and--and even if i have to go away for two years--till alys is of age--and take my chance of _her_ remembering me, i could not owe my inheritance to a legal quibble--i could not go through the farce of asking alys to marry me, even though _sure_ of her refusal, when i was heart and soul devoted to another. and even if she--miss western--were married to some other fellow by that time, it would be no better. i could not marry any one else; and even if i could, as far as my feelings went, i could not, in honour, refrain from telling alys all, and--" he stopped to take breath. "well, what then?" said mr cheviott. "could i insult alys by asking her to accept me _without_ my caring for her as she should be cared for? as i now know, i never could care for her, for she is just like the dearest of sisters to me, but _only_ that." mr cheviott smiled. "why in the world did you not see all this two years ago, when you persuaded me into agreeing to your selling out and setting you straight again? do you not remember how confident you were about never wanting to marry any one else?" "any one at all, you should say. i never realised the marrying alys. i was sure _she_ would not wish it, and that seemed to make it all safe; but i never, in the faintest degree, imagined my caring for any one in _this_ way--a way which makes it simply impossible to think of ever marrying any one else." "you think so just now," observed mr cheviott, cynically, "but--" "no, it is no passing feeling--you misjudge me altogether, laurence; you seem quite unable to understand me, and therefore there's no more to be said." "i don't see that--even supposing i am incapable of understanding your present frame of mind--though being in love, you must allow, is not such a very uncommon condition as you seem to think it; taking for granted, however, that i cannot understand you, still the practical side of the question has to be considered, and you have no one to consult but me. in two words, what do you mean to do?" arthur turned his face away for a moment; then he set his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his hands, staring gloomily into the fire. at last, "laurence," he broke out, "i don't know _what_ to do. there, now you have it all; you may despise and sneer at me as you like, i can't help it. i deserve it, and yet i _don't_ deserve it, but that's the long and the short of it. i do not, in the very least, know what to do, or what is right to do." to his surprise, mr cheviott suddenly leaned forward, took his pipe out of his mouth, and held out his hand. half mechanically arthur took it, and laurence grasped his cousin's hand warmly. "we shall understand each other now," he said, heartily. "when it comes to wishing to do right _now_, whatever mistakes you have made before, we come upon firm ground. shall i tell you, arthur, what seems to me the only thing for you to do?" "what?" said arthur, listlessly. "go away--quite away, for two years at least, if not more." "but not without explaining the reason to--to the westerns?" said captain beverley, looking up quickly. "explaining!" repeated mr cheviott, with a shade of contempt in his tone, "what in this world could you explain? think of the position you would put the girl in by letting her understand the real state of the case! what _could_ she say or do? her promising to wait for you would be ruin to you, and her throwing you over, should you distinctly propose to her, would seem to her--if she be what you believe her--shameful. i suppose you have _not_ done anything definite? you are not engaged to her?" "no," said arthur, reluctantly. "she couldn't exactly bring me up for breach of promise, if that's what you think her capable of," he went on, with a half-bitter laugh; "but i consider myself _more_ bound to her than if we were engaged. then i should have given her a right to assert herself, then she could insist on my explaining myself. my going away, as you propose, laurence, seems to me the meanest, most dishonourable attempt at sneaking out of the whole affair--and, good heavens, what will they think of me?" "hardly so badly as they will think of _me_," thought mr cheviott, while a vision of the pale indignation of mary western's honest face flashed before his eyes. but he said nothing. "laurence, i say, what _will_ they think of me?" repeated arthur, impatiently. mr cheviott took his pipe out of his mouth again, and, in his turn, stared into the fire. "it can't be helped; it's the only thing to do," he replied, decidedly. captain beverley got up and walked excitedly up and down the room. "what will alys, even, think of me?" he exclaimed. "she knows enough to suspect more. laurence, is there nothing--are you certain there is nothing that can be done to get me out of this cursed complication? would there be no use in getting another opinion upon the will?" mr cheviott shook his head. "none whatever. you know that as well as i do," he replied. "there is only one thing that would free you." "what?" exclaimed captain beverley, eagerly, stopping short and facing his cousin. "alys's death," said mr cheviott. arthur shuddered. "for shame, laurence," he said, angrily. "do you think it's good taste, or good feeling either, to sneer in that way when you must--when you cannot but see what all this is to me?" "it is not _pleasant_ to myself," observed mr cheviott, "which never seems to occur to you, as i said before. my allusion to alys's death should remind you of this. as things are, nothing--really nothing else than the death of the creature dearest to me on earth can clear _me_ from the odious position i am placed in." arthur looked at his cousin, first with surprise--it was so seldom laurence talked of himself or of his own feelings--then gradually with a dawning of sympathy in his kindly eyes. "laurence," he exclaimed, softly. that was all, and for a few moments there was silence. "did no one know of what my father was doing when he made that insane codicil? could no one have prevented it--he was with your father at the time?" said arthur, presently. "no one knew of it," replied mr cheviott, "not even his own lawyer; he must have had a consciousness that it would be disapproved of. i think the idea of saving you from the sort of marriage he had made himself had become a monomania with him--that, and the wish to repay to his sister's child, in some way, what she had done for him. he knew little alys would not be rich (her coming into aunt bethune's money was never thought of then), and he was so extraordinarily fond of the child." "couldn't he have left her half his money unconditionally?" "i wish he had--_now_," said laurence. "but what do you mean by a wish to repay to his sister what she had done for him?" "you know surely that my mother made over nearly all she had to him? long ago, before your uncle's death gave him lydon and all his money. he was foolish as a young man, foolish and desperately extravagant, and but for what my mother did to save him, i don't believe lydon would ever have been his. his brother was just the sort of man to have passed him over, had there been any sort of disgrace." "what an unlucky set we have been!" said arthur. "and then he finished up by that wretched marriage," pursued laurence, without noticing his cousin's remark, "and in that again my mother was the only one to stand by him. he had reason enough for gratitude to her, if only he had taken a different way of showing it." "does alys know _anything_ of all this?" asked arthur. "_nothing_; and she never must. it has been my great aim to prevent it. _however_ things turn out, she must never know. you see that, arthur, surely? i can depend upon you?" said mr cheviott, speaking more eagerly and vehemently than he had yet done. "you have my promise; what more would you have?" replied arthur, regretfully. "yes," he continued, after a pause, "i suppose it would never do for her to know, but it is frightful to think how she will misjudge me--almost as bad as to think of the others. laurence," he went on, "i must do one thing--i must write to say good-bye to mrs western; they have been awfully kind to me--at least, i may say i am _obliged_ to go away." mr cheviott smiled grimly. "i am to have my full share of the credit of this nice piece of work, i see," he said to himself. "well, so best, perhaps."--"oh, yes, i suppose you must say something of the kind," he added, aloud, and at these words arthur felt a slight sensation of relief. what might he not contrive to say by _not_ saying, in this note he had obtained permission to write? what might not lilias, as clearheaded as she was true-hearted, lilias, clairvoyant with "the eyes of the mind," read between the lines of this poor little note on which so much was to hang; yes, for a minute or two arthur felt a shade less hopelessly wretched. "laurence," he said, after a little pause, and with some energy in his tone, "you will not, at least, coerce me in any way as to where or how i spend these two years?" "how do you mean?" said mr cheviott, cautiously, with perhaps even a shade of suspiciousness in his tone. but arthur did not resent, if he perceived it; he looked up into his cousin's face, and somehow the sight of his own plead more in his favour than any words. all the comeliness and colour, all the boyish heartiness, seemed to have faded away out of his features as if by magic; in their stead there was a pale, almost haggard look of anxiety which touched mr cheviott inexpressibly. he turned away uneasily. "it's altogether too bad," he muttered to himself; "it is altogether wrong. here am i made to feel almost as if it were all _my_ doing, and arthur with all the heart and spirit crushed out of him, poor fellow! and, after all, he has not done anything wrong--all the result of his father's folly; it is altogether too bad. far better have left him penniless from the beginning." but mr cheviott was not in the habit of allowing his feelings, however righteous, to run away with him. in a moment or two he replied quietly to his cousin's question. "i have no wish to coerce you about anything," he said, weariedly; "i only want to decide how to make the best of a bad business. where would you like to go?" "_like_ to go? nowhere," said arthur, bitterly. "where i would have a chance of doing any good is the question. i was thinking i might do worse than take to studying farming, and that sort of thing, systematically--go to cirencester or one of those agricultural colleges, eh?" "with a view to settling down at the edge?" said laurence, maliciously. "no, but with a view to getting an agency--the agency of an estate, i mean, once alys is of age. i don't see anything unreasonable in that. if alys doesn't sell lydon, perhaps she will take me into consideration." "don't sneer, arthur; it is not alys's fault," said mr cheviott. "i don't think your idea _is_ an unreasonable one," and relieved to find his cousin so practically inclined, he went on to discuss the rival merits of the various agricultural colleges. it was daylight, or dawn, at least, before the cousins separated, but, tired as he was, captain beverley did not go to bed till he had written and rewritten half a dozen times the conceded note of farewell to mrs western. and in the end he, in despair, copied over the first and decided to send it. "it is merely catching at a straw," he said to himself. "far better give up every hope of her at once, but i _cannot_." he left romary the following afternoon, but his note was not sent to hathercourt rectory till late that evening. chapter twelve. "have i made it worse?" "give me good fortune, i could strike him dead, for this discomfort he hath done the house!" _elaine_. so it was not really for from "this time to-morrow" that lilias had so confidently anticipated, when mrs western opened the envelope, addressed to her by captain beverley, and read its contents. "what can it mean? i cannot understand," she said to herself, tremulously, for she was alone at the time. then a second thought struck her, and the tremulousness gave place to hot indignation. "can he have been playing with her only? my child--my poor lilias, is it _possible_?" she exclaimed aloud in her agitation. "what shall i do? how can i tell her?" just then a light, firm step sounded along the passage. mrs western shivered. "if it is lilias!" she whispered. but it was not lilias. "oh, mary, my dearest, how thankful i am it is you!" she cried, as her second daughter entered the room. "mary, what does this mean? read it. how can we ever tell lilias?" and as she spoke she held out the paper that trembled in her hands. mary trembled too, for an instant only, however. then she drew herself together, as it were, by a vigorous effort, and read: "_romary_, february . "my dear mrs western,-- "i hardly know how to find words in which to apologise sufficiently for the ingratitude and discourtesy of which i shall _appear_ guilty when i tell you that this note is to bid you all good-bye. for a time only, i trust and believe, but a time which seems terribly long for me to look forward to--for i am absolutely obliged to leave this neighbourhood at once, and for _two years_. i do not know how to thank you for all your goodness. i have never, in all my life, been so happy as under your roof, yet i have no choice but to go, without even bidding you all farewell in person. "will you think of me as kindly as you can, and will you _allow_ me to send, through you, my farewell to miss western and her sisters, and the rest of the family? and believe me,-- "yours most gratefully and truly,-- "arthur kenneth beverley." mary stood motionless. her face grew pale, her lips compressed, but she did not speak. "what does it mean? mary, speak, child, tell me what it means," said mrs western, with the petulance born of extreme anxiety. "it cannot be that lilias has refused him?" "no, mother, it is not that," said mary, "i wish it were." "what is it, then? _can_ he be so utterly base and dishonourable?" "not of himself," replied mary, bitterly; "weak fool that he is, he is not so bad as that. no, mother, he is not, or has been made to think he is not, his own master; it is all that man--that _bad_ man's doing." "_whose_ doing?" said mrs western, bewilderedly. "that mr cheviott-- mr cheviott of romary. don't you see the note is dated from there? i see it all; he found it out at the ball. very likely he went there for the purpose of finding it out, having heard rumours of it, and at once used all his influence, whatever it is, to make that poor fool give it up. and yet he _isn't_ a poor fool! that is the worst of it; there is so much good in him, and lilias cares for him--yes, _that_ is the worst of it. mother, she does care for him. will it break her heart?" and mary, in her innocence and ignorance, looked up to her mother who had gone through life, who must know how it would be, and repeated, wistfully, "mother, will it break her heart?" mrs western shook her head. "i do not know--i cannot say; she is so proud. either it will harden or break her utterly. oh, mary, my dear, my instincts were right. do you remember how i dreaded it from the first?" "yes, mother, you were right; nowadays if people are poor, they must forget they are gentle-people. it would be well to bring up alexa and josey not to `look high,' as the servants say; a respectable tradesman-- mr brunt, the withenden draper's eldest son, for instance, is the sort of man that girls like us should be taught to encourage--eh, mother?" "mary, don't; you pain me. it is not like you to talk so. if what you say _were_ true, it would make me go back upon it all and think i was wrong to marry your father. he might have done so much better--he, so attractive and popular as he was; he might have married some one rich and--" "hush, mother--_dear_ mother, hush," said mary, kissing her; "it is wicked of me to pain you," and in saying these words she determined to tell her mother nothing of her own personal part of the affair, her bitter indignation at the way in which mr cheviott had tried to win her over to take part against her sister; and for this reticence she had another, as yet hardly understood, motive--a terrible misgiving was creeping upon her. was _she_ to blame? had her plainly expressed defiance and indignation raised mr cheviott to more decisive action than he had before contemplated? she could not tell. "but so mean as he has shown himself, it is perfectly possible that it is so," she reflected. "he is small-minded enough to be stung into doing what he has by even my contempt, yet how could i have spoken otherwise? though for lilias's sake i could _almost_ have made a hypocrite of myself." but as yet she was not at leisure to think this over; she only felt instinctively that it was better it should not be told, and thus deciding, her mother's voice recalled her to the present. "mary," she repeated again, "how are we to tell lilias?" "leave it to me, mother dear," she replied, for a moment's consideration satisfied her that nothing in the shape of sympathy or pity--not even her mother's--was likely to be acceptable to her sister at the first. "she may soften afterwards, but she is sure to be hard at first," mary said to herself, "and, dear mother," she went on, aloud, "the less notice we seem to take of his going, to the others, the better, don't you think? not even to papa. if he sees lily looking much the same as usual--and you may trust her to do that--he will not think anything about it, and alexa and josey must just be well snubbed if they begin any silly chatter. and you will leave lilias to me?" "yes, dear; but can i do nothing? if we could arrange for her to go away somewhere for a while, for instance?" "after a time, perhaps, but not at first. mother, you will try not to take _any_ notice of it at first, won't you? just allude to it in a commonplace way; it will be far the best and easiest for lilias." "yes, i understand." "it is so horrible!" said mary, with a little shudder, "so utterly _horrible_ that a girl should be exposed to this--that even you and i, mother--mother and sister though we are to her, should be discussing her feelings as if we were doctors and she a patient! oh, it is _horrible_!" lilias was not in her room; she was down-stairs in the drawing-room practising duets with alexa, while josey hovered about chattering, and interrupting, and trying to extract gossip from her elder sister on the subject of last night's ball. "josey," said mary, as she came in, "it is past your bed-time, and you, too, alexa, had better go i think. mamma is in the study, so go and say good-night to her there." "is mother not coming in here again?" asked lilias. "i hate the evenings papa has to go out; we all seem so unsettled and straggling. yes, do go to bed, children. i am beginning to feel a little tired, mary; aren't you?" "no--yes, a little. i really don't know," said mary. lilias laughed merrily. "why, i believe you are half asleep, child!" she exclaimed. "we are evidently not intended to be fine ladies, if one ball knocks us up so. i wonder what all the people who were there last night are doing with themselves now? very likely they are having carpet dances to-night, and all sorts of fun. the cleavelands party is broken up, though. the cheviotts were going back to romary last night." "yes," said mary. "no note has come for me, i suppose?" asked lilias, with a little hesitation. "i did not like to ask you before the girls, but one of them said something about a groom on horseback having been at the stable door a little while ago." "there was no note for you," said mary, her voice sounding even to herself set and hard, "but there was one for mamma. she told me to bring it to you. here it is." lilias took it, but something in mary's manner startled her. "what is it?" she said, hastily. "why do you look so strange, mary?" "read the note, lily, please," said mary. "i'm going back to mamma--i won't be a minute," and as she spoke she turned to leave the room. "don't go, mary!" cried lilias, but mary had already gone. ten minutes after she returned to the drawing-room, but no lilias was there. mary's heart failed her. "was i wrong to leave her?" she said to herself. "i thought it would be so horrid for me to seem to be watching how she took it." she flew up-stairs to her sister's bedroom. the door was shut, but not locked. mary knocked. "come in," said lilias's voice, and hardly knowing what she was going to see, mary entered. there stood lilias in the centre of the room, her beautiful fair hair all loosened, hanging about her like a cloud, her face pale, but eyes very bright--brighter than usual it seemed to mary. "lily!" she exclaimed. "why do you say `lily,' and look at me like that?" replied her sister, sharply. "there's nothing the matter. i'm tired, and going to bed early, that's all. please tell mamma so, and do ask her not to come to say good-night to me. no, don't kiss me, please, mary. i'm cross, i suppose, just say good-night." "very well," said mary, submissively. she turned sadly to go, but had not reached the door when her sister's voice recalled her. "oh! mary," it cried, and the sharp accent of pain which rang through the two little words went straight to mary's heart, "don't misunderstand me. i want to be unselfish and brave, and just now it seemed to me that, if any one seemed to feel for me, i could not manage to get on. but i don't want to _make you_ unhappy, and you may talk to me if you like." mary gently closed the door, then she came back to her sister, and drew her down on to a seat. "what am i to say lily? i wish i knew." "anything," replied lilias; "you may say _anything_, mary, except one thing." "and what is that?" "blame of _him_," said lilias, her eyes sparkling, "that, mary, is the one thing i could not bear. i have made up my mind absolutely about this--if--if it is _never_ explained, i will still keep to it, he is, in some way, not his own master." "but if it is so, lilias, it still does not free him from blame, though it alters the kind. if he is not his own master, he should not have let himself got to care for you, and, still worse, have taught you to care for him." "oh! yes, i dare say that is true enough--at least, it sounds so," said lilias; "but in some way or other it isn't true, though i can't explain it, and can't argue about it. besides, mary," she went on, with some hesitation, her pale face flushing crimson as she spoke, "it isn't as if he had said good-bye for ever. he says distinctly, `two years'." "ah! yes, and that is _the_ mean bit of it," said mary, indignantly; "he had no right to allude to any future at all. he should leave you absolutely free, if he cannot claim you openly--leave you, i mean, absolutely free for those two years, even if he really expects to be able to return at their end. what right has he to expect you to waste your youth and happiness for him? if you were engaged a separation of two years would be nothing, or if even he had said that at the end of the time he would be free to ask you to marry him." "but that would have been binding me unfairly, most people would say," replied lilias, softly. "i believe he means to leave me quite free, but that he could not help catching at a straw, as it were, and therefore said that about two years." "i don't believe in the two years," persisted mary; "even if he does not come into his property for two years, you might have been engaged, though not marrying for that time. no, i see no sense in it--it is some clever pretext of that--" "that scheming mr cheviott's," she was going to have said, but she stopped in time. "mary," said lilias, drawing away the hand which her sister had held in hers, "i told you i would not let you speak against him." "forgive me. i won't," said mary, penitently. "whatever the future brings--if he marry some one else within the two years," said lilias, "i shall still always believe in the arthur beverley i have known. he may change--circumstances and other influences may change him, but the man _i_ have known is true and honourable, and has wished and tried to act rightly. this i shall always believe--till i am quite an old woman--an old maid," she added with an attempt at a smile. "lily," exclaimed mary, with a touch of actual passion in her tone--"lily, don't. you are so beautiful, my own lily, why should you be so tried? so beautiful and so good!" and mary, mary the calm, mary the wise, ended up her attempt at strengthening and consoling her sister by bursting into tears herself. it did lilias good. now it was her turn to comfort and support. "i am not an old woman yet, mary," she said, caressingly, "and i don't intend to become one any sooner than i can help. my hair isn't going to turn grey by to-morrow morning. to-morrow, oh! mary, do you remember what i said yesterday about `this time to-morrow'? i was so happy this time yesterday, and he said he would be here to-day--it was the very last thing he said to me. what _can_ have happened to change it all?" again the misgiving shot through mary's heart. had she done harm? she said nothing, and after a moment's pause lilias spoke again: "the great thing you can do to help me just now, mary, is to prevent any of the others thinking there is anything the matter. outside people may say what they like--i don't care for that--but it is at home i couldn't stand it. besides, we have so few neighbours and friends, we are not likely to be troubled with many remarks. except mrs greville, perhaps, i don't suppose any one has heard anything about captain beverley's knowing us." "only at the ball," said mary, hesitatingly; "he picked you out so." "yes," said lilias, smiling sarcastically, "no doubt all the great people said i was behaving most unbecomingly; but they may say what they like. i know i don't care for that part of it. mary, you will say something to mother to prevent her asking me about it." "yes," said mary. "lilias, would you like to go away from home for a while?" "i don't know. how could i? there is nowhere i could go, unless you mean that i should be a governess, after all, and--" she stopped, and her face flushed again. "and what?" "i don't like to say it; you will not enter into my feelings--i don't like to do anything _he_ would not like." mary looked at her sadly. "poor lilias!" she thought, "is `he' worthy of it all?"--"i was not thinking of that," she said aloud. "i meant, if it could be arranged, for you to go away for a visit for a little. mrs greville's sister asked you once." "yes, but ever so long ago, and i wouldn't on any account propose such a thing to mrs greville just now." "very well," said mary. then they kissed each other, and said good-night. "two years--two long years!" were the words that lilias said to herself over and over again that night--words that mingled themselves in the dreams that disturbed such sleep as came to her. "two years!--what can it all mean? but i will trust you, arthur--i _will_ trust you!" "two years!" thought mary. "that part of it _can_ be nothing but a pretext. and if lilias goes on trusting and hoping, it will make it all the worse for her in the end. she has never had any real trouble, and she thinks herself stronger to bear it than she really is. i have always heard that that terrible sort of waiting is worse for a girl than anything. oh! lily, what can i do for you? and _have_ i made it worse? if i had been gentler, perhaps, to that hard, proud man--there was a kind look in his eyes once or twice; he cannot know that it is no piece of idle flirtation--he cannot know how lilias cares. if i could see him again! i feel as if i could say burning words that would make him realise the wretchedness of separating those two." chapter thirteen. a tempting opportunity. "thou troublest me; i am not in the vein." _richard iii_. the days went on, and things at hathercourt rectory looked much the same as usual. but not many had passed before, to mary's watching eyes, it seemed that lilias was flagging. she had kept up, as she said she would, she had seemed as cheerful, _almost_, as usual, she had not overacted her part either, there had been no excitement or affectation about her in any way. but, all the more, it had been hard work, very hard work, and mary's heart ached when she saw the first signs of physical prostration beginning to show themselves. "she looks so pale and so thin, and her eyes haven't the least of their old sparkle," said mary to herself, "if it goes on, she will get really ill, i know." and, in truth, lilias was beginning herself to lose faith in her own strength and self-control. she had been buoyed up by a hope she had not liked to allude to to mary. a hope which, long deferred, has made many a heart sick besides lilias western's--the hope of a letter! there was no reason, which she knew of, why arthur should not write to her. "he might say in a letter what, perhaps, he would have shrunk from saying directly," she thought, forgetting that the same strong influence which had sent arthur away would have foreseen and guarded against his writing to her. and as day by day came and went, and every morning the post-bag was opened without her hopes being fulfilled, lilias's heart grew very weary. "if i had known him anywhere but _here_," she said to mary one day, "i don't think it would have been quite so hard. but here, at home, he seemed to have grown already so associated with everything. and, mary," she went on, with a sort of little sob, "it wasn't all only about myself i was thinking. he is rich, you know; and i couldn't help fancying sometimes it might be a good thing for us all--for you and the younger girls, and for mother. _he_ even encouraged this, for he more than once made little allusions to the sort of things he would like to do if he dared. one day, i remember, when mother was tired, he said to me `how he would like to choose a pony-carriage for her that she could get about in, and have more variety without fatigue.' we were walking up and down the terrace--it was late in the afternoon, and there was red in the sky that shone through the branches of the group of old oaks at the end--do you remember that afternoon, mary? the sky looks something the same to-day, but not so bright--it was that that reminded me of it." "no," said mary, "i don't remember that particular afternoon. but i do know that he was always kind and considerate, especially to mother, and i cannot believe that it was not sincere." she gave a little sigh as she spoke; they were standing together at the window, and as lilias leaned against the panes, gazing out, her attitude so languid and hopeless, the sharpened lines of her profile, all struck mary with a chill misgiving. "lilias," she said, suddenly, "you must go away from home for a while. what you have said just now about the associations here strengthens my feeling about it. you must have some change." "i don't think it is possible, and i would much, very much rather stay at home," said lilias. and till she had some definite scheme to propose, mary thought it no use to contradict her. but morning, noon, and night she was thinking of lilias, always of lilias and her troubles, and revolving in her head over and over again every possible and impossible means of making her happy again. two mornings after the conversation in the window the postboy brought a note for lilias from mrs greville. it was at breakfast-time that it came. they were all together at the table. "a letter for you, lilias," said her father, as he handed it to her. now letters for the western girls were a rarity. they had few relations and almost fewer friends, for they had never been at school, and seldom left home. so when mr western's apparently most commonplace announcement was made, six pair of eyes turned with interest, not to say curiosity, in lilias's direction, and even her mother and mary glanced towards her with involuntary anxiety. "a letter for lily," cried josey, darting up from her seat. "do let's see it. who's it from?" "_josephine_!" exclaimed mary, severely, "how _can_ you be so unladylike? mother, do speak to her," and the little bustle of reproof of josey that ensued effectually diverted the general attention. mary's little ruse had succeeded, and her mother understood it. but for this, even little francie could hardly have failed to notice the deathly paleness which, at her father's words, overspread poor lilias's face. for an instant only; one glance at the envelope, and the intensity passed out of her eyes. "a note from mrs greville," she said, carelessly, as soon as she felt able to control the trembling in her voice. "she wants mary and me to go to stay there for two nights--she expects one or two young friends from somewhere or other, and wants us to help to entertain them, i suppose." "it is very kind of her to think of the variety for you, _i_ think," said mr western. "why should you be so ungracious about it, lilias?" the girl's face flushed painfully. "i don't mean to be ungracious, father dear," she said, gently, "but i don't care about going." mr western was beginning to look, mystified, when mary's voice diverted his attention. "_i_ shall go," she said, abruptly, "that is to say," she added, colouring a little in her turn, "i should like to go, if i can." "dear me," said her father, "how the tables are turned! it used to be always lilias who was eager to go, and mary to stay at home." "but there is no objection to mary's going, if she likes," interposed mrs western, hastily. "objection, of course not. there is no objection to their both going that i can see," said mr western. "well, we'll talk about it afterwards," said mrs western. "girls, you had better go to the school-room. we are later than usual this morning." they all rose, and lilias was thankful to get away; but as mary and she left the room together, they overheard a remark of their father to the effect that lilias was not looking well, had not her mother observed it? "i dare say she would be the better for a thorough change," replied mrs western. "it is so long since she left home." "oh, yes!" said her father, with a sigh. "they would _all_ enjoy a change, and no one needs it more than yourself, margaret. it makes me very anxious when i think about these girls sometimes." "but, at the worst, they are far better off in every other way than i was at their age," said mrs western, "and see how happy i have been." "ideas of happiness differ so," said her husband. "i fear a quiet life in a country parsonage on limited means would hardly satisfy lilias. as to mary, i somehow feel less anxiety. she takes things so placidly." "not always," said mrs western, under her breath; but she was glad that her husband did not catch the words, and that little brooke's running in with some inquiry about his lessons interrupted the conversation--for it was trenching on dangerous ground. "i am afraid papa thinks there is something vexing me," said lilias, when mary and she were alone together for a little. "you have yourself to blame for it," said mary, with some asperity; "why did you speak so indifferently of mrs greville's invitation? usually you would have been very pleased to go." "oh, mary, don't scold me," said lilias, pathetically. "i _couldn't_ go to uxley--you forget how near romary it is--i should be sure to hear gossip about him--perhaps that he was going to be married, or some falsehood of the kind. i could not bear it. i almost wondered at your saying you would like to go." "it will only be for a couple of days," said mary. "but you are not intending to make any plan with mrs greville for my leaving home, i hope, mary?" said lilias, anxiously. "it may be better for me to go away after a while, but not yet. and if you came upon the subject with mrs greville _in the very least_, she would suspect something. promise me you will not do anything without telling me." "of course not," said mary. "i would not dream of doing such a thing without telling you." but her conscience smote her slightly as she spoke. why? a design was slowly but steadily taking shape in her mind, and mrs greville's note this morning had strangely forwarded and confirmed it. practically speaking, indeed, it had done more than confirm it--it had rendered feasible what had before floated in mary's brain as an act of devotion scarcely more possible of achievement than poor prascovia's journey across siberia. and though mary was sensible and reasonable, there lay below this quiet surface stormy possibilities and an impressionability little suspected by those who knew her best. her mind, too, from dwelling of late so incessantly on her sister's affairs, had grown morbidly imaginative on the point, though to this she herself was hardly alive. "i am not superstitious or fanciful--i know i am not. i never have been," she argued, "yet it does seem as if this invitation to uxley had come on purpose. if i _were_ superstitious i should think it a `sign.'" and who is not superstitious?--only for no other human weakness have we so many names, so many or such skilfully contrived disguises! two days later, "the day after to-morrow," found mary on her way to uxley vicarage. mrs greville had sent her pony-carriage to fetch her. the old man who drove it was very deaf and hopelessly irresponsive, therefore, to the young lady's kindly-meant civilities in the shape of inquiries about the road and commendation of the fat pony, so before long she felt herself free to lapse into perfect silence, and as they jogged along the pretty country lanes--pretty to-day, though only february, for the sky was clear and the air mild with a faint odour of coming spring about it--mary had plenty of time to think over her plan of action. but thinking it over, after all, was not much good, till she knew more of her ground. "i must to some extent be guided by circumstances," she said to herself, but with a strong sense of confidence in her own ability to prevent circumstances being too much for her. she had never before felt so certain of herself as now, when about, for the first time in her life, to act entirely on her own responsibility, and the sensation brought with it a curious excitement and invigoration. she had not felt so hopeful or light-hearted since the day of the brocklehurst bail, and she was thankful to feel so, and to be told by mrs greville, when she jumped out of the pony-carriage and was met by her hospitable hostess at the gate, that she had never seen her looking so well in her life. "there is no fear of her suspecting anything about lilias," thought mary, with relief, "if she thinks me in such good spirits." "and how are you all at home, my dear?" said mrs greville, as she led mary into her comfortable drawing-room, and bade her "toast" herself a little before unfastening her wraps. "your poor dear mother and all?" "they are all very well, thank you," mary replied. "mamma is quite well, and so pleased at basil's getting on so well--we have such good news of him." she always felt inclined to make the _very_ best of the family chronicle in answer to mrs greville's inquiries, for though unmistakably prompted by the purest kindness her want of tact often invested them with a slight tone of patronage which lilias herself could scarcely have resented more keenly than her less impulsive sister. the "poor dear mother," especially grated on mary's ears. "mamma," so pretty and young-looking, was no fit object for the "poor dears" of any one but themselves, thought mrs western's tall sons and daughters. but of course it would have been no less ungrateful than senseless to have taken amiss mrs greville's well-meant interest and sympathy, even when they directed themselves to more delicate ground. "and what about lilias, mary dear?" she inquired next. "i had been longing to hear all about it, and _wishing_ so i had authority to contradict the absurd rumours that i have heard about captain beverley. i was dreadfully disappointed at lilias's not coming, but consoled myself by thinking you would tell me all about it." "but what are the rumours, and what have they to do with lilias?" asked mary. "that's just what i want to know," replied mrs greville. "captain beverley has left romary suddenly--of course you know that--and some people say he has made a vow never to return there because miss cheviott refused him the night of the brocklehurst ball. that story _i_ don't believe, of course. others say it was not miss cheviott, but another young lady, whose name no one about here seems to know, but whom he was seen to dance with tremendously that night, who refused him." mrs greville stopped and looked curiously at mary, who smiled quietly, but said nothing, and felt increasingly thankful that lilias had not accompanied her to uxley. "and there are stranger stories than these even," pursued mrs greville. "you will think me a terrible gossip, mary, but in a general way i really don't listen to idle talk, only i felt so interested in captain beverley after what i saw, and i can't believe any harm of him." "who can have said any harm of him?" inquired mary. "i should have thought him quite a general favourite; he is so bright, and kindly, and unaffected." "yes, i thought him very nice," said mrs greville. "but there are dreadful stories about, as to the reason of his leaving romary so suddenly. one is that he has been gambling so furiously that he is embarrassed past redemption, and that he will only come into his property for it to be sold; and another is that mr cheviott found out that he had secretly made some low marriage, and turned him out of the house on that account, it having been always intended that he should marry miss cheviott." mary was standing by the fire looking down on it as mrs greville spoke--the reflection of its ruddy glow hid the intense paleness which came over her face, and explained, too, the burning flush which almost instantly succeeded it. she felt obliged to speak, for silence might have seemed suspicious. "what a shame of people to say such things!" she exclaimed, looking up indignantly. "no, i certainly don't believe them, but i am glad to know about it all, for it shows what disagreeable gossip there might have been about lilias had her name been mixed up with it." "yes, indeed, but my dear child, you are scorching your face to cinders--you should not play such pranks with your complexion, though that brawny pink skin of yours is a very good kind to wear, and quite as pretty in my opinion, as lilias's lilies and roses--but what was i saying? oh, yes, by-the-bye, i do wish you would tell me--i shall be as discreet as possible--_is_ lilias engaged to him?" mary hesitated a moment, then she said, gently: "dear mrs greville, i wish you wouldn't ask me, for i _can't_ tell you." "ah, well, never mind," said her hostess, good-naturedly. "you'll tell me whenever you can, no doubt, and i hope it will all come right in the end, however it stands at present." "thank you," said mary, with sincerity. then they went on to talk of other things. mrs greville described to mary the "young people" who were staying with her, two girls and their brother, cousins of mr greville's first wife, and counselled her to make herself as pretty and charming as possible, to fascinate young morpeth, who would be a conquest by no means to be despised. "he is nothing at present," she said; "he has a thousand a year, and his sisters the same between them. they are orphans and have had no settled home since their mother's death. vance morpeth is talking of going into the cavalry for a few years, but his elder sister is against it, and he will be too old if he isn't quick about it. they have been abroad all the winter. now remember, mary, you are to do your best to captivate him, unless, indeed," she went on, as mary was turning to her with some smiling rejoinder--"unless _you_ have some little secret of your own too, with that haughty-looking mr cheviott for its hero." the smile died out of mary's face. "don't joke about that man, _please_, mrs greville," she said, beseechingly. "you do not know how i dislike him. i have never regretted anything more in my whole life than dancing with him that night." and just then the time-piece striking five, she was glad to make the excuse that she would be late for dinner unless she hurried up-stairs to get her things unpacked, for fashionable hours had not yet penetrated to uxley. "yes, go, my dear," said mrs greville. "fancy, we have been a whole hour talking over the fire. i hear the morpeths coming in--they must have been a very long walk, and it's quite dark outside. i cannot understand why people can't go walks in the morning instead of putting off till late in the afternoon, and then catching colds and all sorts of disagreeables. run off, mary. i dare say you would rather not see them till you are dressed." which mary, who cared very little for seeing "them" at all, rightly interpreted as meaning, "i don't want mr morpeth to see you till you are nicely dressed, and looking to the best advantage." her powers of looking her best depended much more on herself than on her clothes, for her choice of attire was limited enough. but the suppressed excitement under which she was labouring had given unusual brilliance to mary's at all times beautiful brown eyes, and a certain vivacity to her manner, in general somewhat too staid and sober for her age. so she looked more than "pretty" this evening, though her dress was nothing but a many-times-washed white muslin, brightened up here and there by a little rose-coloured ribbon. "i thought you told me that it was not the _pretty_ miss western that you expected?" said mr morpeth to mrs greville in a low voice, after the introductions had been accomplished. mrs greville glanced up to the young man as she answered. there was a puzzled expression in his innocent-looking eyes; she saw that he was quite in earnest, and, indeed, she felt sure he was too little, of a man of the world to have intended his inquiry for a compliment. "does that mean that you think this one pretty?" she asked. "of course it does. i think she's awfully pretty, don't you?" he said, frankly. mrs greville felt well pleased, but the announcement of dinner interrupted any more talk between them. mr morpeth had to take mrs greville, but _she_ took care that mary should sit at his other side. "how would you define `awfully pretty,' mary?" she said, mischievously, when they were all seated at table, and the grace had been said, and nobody seemed to have anything particular to talk about. "awfully pretty," repeated mary. "awfully pretty what?" "an `awfully pretty' girl was the `what' in question," said mr morpeth, shielding himself by taking the bull by the horns, with more alertness than mrs greville had given him credit for. mary smiled. "i could easily define, or point out to you rather, what, if i were a man, _i_ should call an awfully pretty girl in this very neighbourhood," she said, turning to mrs greville. "i know whom you mean," replied her hostess. "miss cheviott, is it not? yes, she is _exceedingly_ pretty. you have not seen her, frances," she went on to the eldest miss morpeth. "i wish you could." "shall we not see her at church on sunday?" said miss morpeth. "are not the cheviotts the principal people here, now?" "yes," said mrs greville, "but they are a good deal away from home." here mary's heart almost stopped beating--this was what she had been longing yet dreaded to inquire about--what would become of all her plans should mr cheviott be away? but it was not so. "they are a good deal away from home," mrs greville went on, "and there is another church nearer romary than ours, where they go in the morning. but they _very_ often--indeed, almost always the last few weeks, come to uxley in the afternoon--mr cheviott likes mr greville's preaching better than the old man's at romary moor." "that's not much of a compliment, my dear," said mr greville from the end of the table, "considering that poor old wells is so asthmatic that you can hardly catch a word he says now." a little laugh went round, and under cover of it mary managed to say gently to mr greville: "then mr cheviott is at romary now?" "oh, yes; saw him this morning riding past," was the reply. mary gave a little sigh of relief, yet her heart beat faster for the rest of the evening. "i wonder if i must do it to-morrow," she said to herself, "or not till the day after. i have only the two days to count upon, and supposing he is out and i have to go again! i must try for to-morrow, i think." "romary is just two miles from here, is it not?" she said, in a commonplace tone. "not so much," replied mr greville. "have you never seen it? it is quite a show place." "i was there once--some years ago," said mary. "it is very much improved of late. if the family had been away we might easily have driven you over to see it," said mr greville, good-naturedly. "however, some other time, perhaps, when your sister is here too. you must come over oftener this summer," he added, utterly forgetting, if ever he had quite taken in, all his wife's confidences about the western girls' wonderful successes at the brocklehurst ball, and her more recent misgiving that something had "come between" lilias and "that handsome captain beverley." "thank you," said mary; and after this no more was said about romary or the cheviotts. chapter fourteen. mr cheviott's ultimatum. "`but methinks,' quoth i, under my breath, `'twas but cowardly work.'" _songs of two worlds_. the next morning gave promise of a fine day, and mary felt that she must be in readiness to seize any favourable opportunity for her meditated expedition. "for to-morrow," she said to herself, while she was dressing, "may be wet and stormy, and i must not weaken my position by making myself look ridiculous, if i can help it. and i certainly should look the reverse of dignified if i trudged over to romary in a waterproof and goloshes! i very much doubt if i should get a sight of mr cheviott at all in such a case." she was trying to laugh at herself, by way of keeping up her spirits, but of real laughter there was very little in her heart. even yesterday's excitement seemed to have deserted her, and but for a curious kind of self-reliance, self-trust rather, which mary possessed a good deal of, the chances are that she would have given up her intention and returned to hathercourt and to lilias, feeling that the attempt to interfere had been impossible for her. "but i foresaw this," she said to herself, re-assuringly. "i knew i should lose heart and courage when it came to close quarters--but close quarters is not the best position for deciding such an action as this. i must remember that i resolved upon what i am going to do deliberately and coolly. it seemed to me a right thing to do, and i must have faith in my own decision. at the worst, at the _very_ worst, all that can happen to me will be that that man will think i am mad, or something like it, to take such a step--perhaps he will make a good story of it, and laugh me over with his friends--though i must say he hasn't the look of being given to laugh at anything! but why need i care if he does? i care nothing, _less_ than nothing, what he thinks of me. i can keep my own self-respect, and that is all i need to care about." and so speaking to herself, in all sincerity, with no bravado or exaggeration, mary more firmly riveted her own decision, and determined to go back upon it no more. but she was paler than usual this, morning when she made her appearance at mrs greville's breakfast-table, and her eyes had an unmistakable look of anxiety and weariness. "have you not slept well, my dear mary?" asked mrs greville, kindly. "you look so tired, and last night you looked so _very_ well." mary's colour rose quickly at these words and under the consciousness of a somewhat searching glance from mr morpeth, who was seated opposite her. "i am _perfectly_ well, thank you," she replied, to her hostess, "but somehow i don't think i did sleep quite as soundly as usual." "miss western's room is not haunted, surely?" said mr morpeth, laughing. "all this sounds so like the preamble to some ghostly revelation." "no, indeed. there is no corner of this house that we could possibly flatter ourselves was haunted. i wish there were--it is all so _very_ modern," said mrs greville. "at romary, now, there is such an exquisite haunted room--or suite of rooms rather. they are never used, but i think them the prettiest rooms in the house. it _is_ so provoking that the cheviotts are at home just now. i should so have liked you and cecilia to see the house, frances--and you, too, mary, as you had never been there, and we can get an order from the agent any time." "i think the outside of the house as well worth seeing as any part of it," said mr greville. "it is so well situated, and seen from the high road it looks very well indeed. by-the-bye, i shall be driving that way this afternoon if any of you young ladies care to come with me in the dog-cart? i am going on to little bexton, but if you don't care to come so far, i could drop you about romary, and you could walk back. the country is not pretty after that. would you like to come, frances? cecilia has a cold, i hear." "yes," said cecilia, "but not a very bad one. but i don't think either of us can go, mr greville, for miss bentley is coming to see us this afternoon, and we must not be out." "mary, then?" said mr greville. mary's heart was beating fast, and she was almost afraid that the tremble in her voice was perceptible as she replied that she would enjoy the drive very much, she was sure. "but i will not go all the way to little bexton, i think, if you don't mind dropping me on the road. i should like the walk home," she said to mr greville, and so it was decided. and for a wonder nothing came in the way. it was years and years since mary had been at romary. when mr greville "dropped her" on the road, at a point about half a mile beyond the lodge gates, all about her seemed so strange and unfamiliar that she could scarcely believe she had ever been there before. strange and unfamiliar, even though she was not more than ten miles from her own home, and though the general features of the landscape were the same. for to a real dweller in the country, differences and variations, which by a casual visitor are unobservable, are extraordinarily obtrusive. mary had lived all her life at hathercourt, and knew its fields and its trees, its cottages and lanes, as accurately as the furniture of her mother's drawing-room. it was strange to her to meet even a dog on the road whose ownership she was unacquainted with, and when a countryman or two passed her with half a stare of curiosity instead of the familiar "good-day to you, miss mary," she felt herself "very far west" indeed, and instinctively hastened her steps. "it is a good thing no one does know me about here," she said to herself; "but how strange it seems! what a different life we have led from most people nowadays! i dare say it would never occur to miss cheviott, for instance, to think it at all strange to meet people on the road whose names and histories she knew nothing of. young as she is, i dare say she has more friends and acquaintances than she can remember. how different from lilias and me--ah, yes, it is _that_ that makes what her brother has done so awfully wrong--so _mean_--but will he understand? shall i be able to show it him?" mary stopped short--she was close to the lodge gates now. she stood still for a moment in a sort of silence of excitement and determination--then resolutely walked on again and hesitated no more. these romary lodge gates had become to her a rubicon. it was a quarter of a mile at least from the gates to the house, but to mary it seemed scarcely half a dozen yards. as in a dream she walked on steadily, heedless of the scene around her, that at another time would have roused her keen admiration--the beautiful old trees, beautiful even in leafless february; the wide stretching park with its gentle ups and downs and far-off boundary of forestland; the wistful-eyed deer, too tame to be scared by her approach; the sudden vision of a rabbit scuttering across her path--mary saw none of them. only once as she stood still for an instant to unlatch a gate in the wire fence inclosing the grounds close to the house, she looked round her and her gaze rested on a cluster of oaks at a little distance. "when i see that clump of trees next," she said to herself, "it will be over, and i shall know lilias's fate." then she walked on again. the bell clanged loudly as she pulled it at the hall door--to mary, at least, it sounded so, and the interval was very short between its tones fading away into silence and the door's being flung open by a footman, who gave a little start of astonishment when mary's unfamiliar voice caught his ear. "i thought it was miss cheviott; i beg your pardon, ma'am," he said, civilly enough, and the civility was a relief to mary. "is it miss cheviott you wish to see?" "no, thank you," said mary, quietly. "i want to see _mr_ cheviott, if he is at home--on a matter of business, perhaps you will be good enough to say." the man looked puzzled, and, for a moment, hesitated. "if it is anything i could say, perhaps," he began. "unless it was anything very particular. my master is very busy to-day, and gave orders not to be disturbed." "it is something particular--that is to say, i wish to see mr cheviott himself. perhaps you will _inquire_ if he is to be seen," said mary, more coldly. the man looked at her again, and mary felt glad she had not her old waterproof cloak on. as it was, she was prettily, at least not unbecomingly, dressed in a thick, rough tweed and small, close-fitting felt hat. her boots were neat, and her gloves--the only new pair she had had this winter--fitted well. there was nothing about her attire plainer or poorer than what would be worn by many a girl of her age, "regardless of expense," for a country ramble. and mr cheviott's servant was not to know it was all her sunday best! then she was tall! an immense advantage, now and then, in life. "certainly, ma'am, i will inquire at once," said the man. he was a new-comer who had served a town apprenticeship to the dangers of indiscriminate admittance, and felt, despite appearances, he must be on his guard against a young woman who so resolutely demanded a personal interview with a gentleman. a man in disguise--what might she not be? but something in mary's low-toned "thank you" re-assured him. "will you step into the library while i ask?" he said, amiably, and mary judged it best to do as he proposed. there was no one in the library, and one of mary's but half-acknowledged wild hopes faded away as she entered the empty room. she had had a dream of perhaps meeting with alys in the first place--the girl with the beautiful face and bewitching smile--of her guessing her errand, and pleading on her side. "she looked so sympathisingly at me that night at brocklehurst," thought mary--"almost as if she suspected my anxiety. oh! if only i could talk to _her_, instead of that proud, cold brother of hers!" but there was no alys in the library, and an instant's thought reminded mary that of course she, a stranger calling on "business," would not have been ushered except by mistake into miss cheviott's presence, and she gave a little sigh as she mechanically crossed the room and stood gazing out of the window. the servant's voice recalled her thoughts. "your name, if you please, ma'am?" he was asking. mary was prepared for this. "it would be no use giving my name," she said quietly. "if you will be so good as to say to mr cheviott that i am only in this neighbourhood for a day or two, and have called to see him purely on a matter of business, i shall be much obliged to you." the man left the room. he went into mr cheviott's study by another door than the one by which it communicated with the library, but through this last, firmly closed though it was, in a moment or two the murmur of voices caught mary's quick ears, then some words, spoken loudly enough for her to distinguish their sense. "_where_, do you say--in the library? a lady! nonsense, it must be some mistake." then the servant's voice again in explanation. mary moved away from the vicinity of the treacherous door. a minute or two passed. then the man appeared again. "i am sorry, ma'am," he began, apologetically, "but particularly obliged by your sending my master your name. he is so much engaged to-day-- would like to understand if it is anything very particular, and--" he hesitated, not liking to repeat his own suggestion to mr cheviott that very likely the young lady was collecting for the foreign missions, or a school treat, and might just as well as not send her message by him. "it _is_ something particular," said mary, chafing inwardly not a little at the difficulty of obtaining an audience of mr cheviott--"as if he were a royal personage almost," she said to herself. "you can tell mr cheviott that the business on which i wish to see him is something particular; and my name is miss western." again the envoy disappeared. again the murmuring voices through the door, then a hasty sound as of some one pushing back a chair in impatience, and in another moment the door between the rooms opened, and some one came into the library. not the man-servant this time, nor did he, lingering behind his master in the study in hopes of quenching his curiosity, obtain much satisfaction, for mr cheviott, advancing but one step into the library, and catching sight of its occupant, turned sharply and closed the door in the man's face before giving any sign of recognition of his visitor--before, in fact, seeming to have perceived her at all. then he came forward slowly. mary was still standing; as mr cheviott came nearer her, she bowed slightly, and began at once to speak. "i can hardly expect you to recognise me," she said, calmly. "i am miss western, the _second_ miss western, from hathercourt." mr cheviott bowed. "i had the pleasure of being intro--i had the honour of meeting you at one of the brocklehurst balls," he said, inquiringly. "yes," said mary, "and once before--at hathercourt church one sunday when you and your friends came over to the morning service. before that day i do not think i ever heard your name, and yet i have come to your house to-day to say to you what it would be hard to say to an old friend--to ask you to listen while i try to make you see that you have been interfering unwarrantably in other people's affairs; that what you have done is a cruel and bad thing, a thing you may sorely repent, that i believe you _will_ repent, mr cheviott, if you are not already doing so?" she raised her voice slightly to a tone of inquiry as she stopped, and, for the first time, looked up, straight into mr cheviott's face. she had been speaking in a low tone, but with great distinctness and without hurry, yet when she left off it seemed as if her breath had failed her, as if her intense nervous resolution could carry her no further. now she waited anxiously to see the effect of her words; she had determined beforehand to plunge at once, without preamble, into what she had to say, yet even now she was dissatisfied with what she had done. it seemed to her that she had made her appeal in an exaggerated and theatrical fashion; she wished she had waited for mr cheviott to speak first. she looked at him, and for an instant there was silence. his countenance was not so stern and impassive as she had once before seen it, but its expression was even more unpromising. it bespoke extreme annoyance and surprise, "disgusted surprise," said mary to herself; "he thinks me lost to all sense of propriety, i can see." she could _not_ see her own face; she was unconscious of the pale anxiety which overspread it, of the wistful questioning in the brown eyes which mr cheviott remembered so bright and sunny; she could not know that it would have needed a more than hard heart, an actually cruel one, not to be touched by the intensity in her young face--by the pathos of her position of appeal. at first some instinct--a not unchivalrous instinct either--urged mr cheviott to refrain from a direct reply to mary's unmistakably direct attack. "will she not regret this fearfully afterwards?" he said to himself. "when she finds that i remain quite untouched, when she decides, as she _must_, that i am a brute! i will give her time to draw back by showing her the uselessness of all this before she commits herself further." but mary saw his hesitation, and it deepened the resentment with which she heard his reply. "miss western," he said, "you must be under some extraordinary delusion. i will not pretend entire ignorance of what your words--words that, of course, from a lady i cannot resent--of what your words refer to, but pray stop before you say more. i ventured once before to try to warn you--or rather another through you, and this, i suppose, has led to your taking this--this very unusual step," ("what a mean brute i am making of myself," he said to himself, "but it is the kindest in the end to show her the hopelessness at once")--"under, i must repeat, some delusion, or rather complete misapprehension of my possible influence in the matter." mary was silent. "you must allow me to remind you," continued mr cheviott, hating himself, or the self he was obliged to make himself appear, more and more with each word he uttered, "that you are very young and inexperienced, and little attentions--passing trivialities, in fact, which more worldly-wise young ladies would attach no significance to, may have acquired a mistaken importance with you and your sister. i am very sorry--_very_ sorry that any one connected with me should have acted so thoughtlessly; but you must allow, miss western, that i warned you--went out of my way to warn you, as delicately as i knew how, when i saw the danger of--of--any mistake being made." mary heard him out. then she looked up again, with no appeal this time in her eyes, but in its stead righteous wrath and indignation. "you are not speaking the truth," she said, "at least, what you are _inferring_ is not the truth. if it were the case that captain beverley's `attentions' to my sister were so trifling and meaningless-- such as he may have paid to other girls scores of times--_why_ did you go out of your way to warn us? it could not possibly have been out of respect for us; you knew and cared as little about us as we about you, and if you had said it was out of any care for us, the saying so would have been an unwarrantable freedom. no, mr cheviott, you knew captain beverley was in earnest, and your pride took fright lest he should make so poor a marriage. that is the truth, but i wish you had not made matters worse by denying it." the blood mounted to mr cheviott's forehead; his dark face looked darker. that last speech of his had been a false move, and mary knew it, and he knew it; still his presence of mind did not desert him. "believing what you do, then, miss western--i shall not again trouble you to believe anything _i_ say--may i ask how, supposing my cousin to have been, as you express it, in earnest, you explain his not having gone further?" "how i explain it?" exclaimed mary. "you ask me that? i explain it by the fact that brought me here; _you_ stopped his going further." "influenced, no doubt, by the pride you alluded to just now." "yes, i suppose so," said mary, dejectedly. "influenced, at least, by some motive that blinded you to what you were doing. a girl's broken heart is a trifle, i know, but the loss of a good influence over a man's life is not a trifle, even you will allow. captain beverley thinks he owes you a great deal; i strongly suspect he owes you a great deal more than he at present realises. mr cheviott, do you not _know_ that what you have done is a wrong and bad thing?" again her eyes took the pleading expression. mr cheviott turned away to avoid it. then he said, very coldly: "it is extremely unpleasant to have to say unpleasant things, but you force me to it. supposing, for argument's sake--supposing things were as you believe, i should certainly act as you believe i have acted. i should by every means in my power, endeavour to prevent my cousin's making a marriage which would be utterly ill-advised and unsuitable, which would destroy his happiness, and which i cannot believe would be for the happiness of any one concerned." mary's face grew white as death. it was all over, then. she had lowered herself to this man for nothing. in the misery of thoroughly realising her defeat--the downthrow of all the hopes which unconsciously she had been cherishing more fondly than she had had any idea of--she, for the moment, forgot to be angry--she lost sight, as it were, of mr cheviott; in the depth of her disappointment, he became simply the incarnation of a cruel fate. but he, at this juncture, was very far from losing sight of mary. her silent pallor frightened him, he thought she was going to faint, and he felt as if he were a murderer. a rush of pity and compunction roused his instinct of hospitality. "miss western," he said, gently, and with a look in his eyes of which mary, when she afterwards recalled it, could not altogether deny the kindness and sympathy, "i fear you have overtired yourself. this wretched business has been too much for you. will you allow me to get you a glass of wine?" mary hastily shook her head, and the effort to recover her self-control--for she felt herself on the point of bursting into tears-- brought back the colour to her cheeks. "i will go now," she said, turning towards the door. mr cheviott interrupted her. "will you not allow me to say one word of regret for the pain i have caused you?" he said, anxiously, humbly almost, "will you not allow me to say how deeply i admire and--and respect your courage and sisterly devotion?" mary shook her head. "no," she said. "i could not believe you if you said anything of the kind, knowing you now as i do. and i earnestly hope i may never see you and never speak to you again." the words were childish, but the tone and manner gave them force, and their force went home. mr cheviott winced visibly. yet once again he spoke. "you may resent my saying so at present," he said, "but afterwards you may be glad to recall my assurance that no one shall ever hear from me one word of what has been said just now." mary turned upon him with ineffable contempt. "i dare say not," she said. "for your own sake you will do well to keep silence. for _mine_ you may tell it where and to whom you choose." again mr cheviott's face flushed. "you are a foolish child," he said, under his breath. whether mary caught the words or not he could not tell, but in a gentler tone she added, as she was passing through the door-way, "i think, however, i should tell you that no one--my sister, of course not--_no one_ knows of my coming here to-day." mr cheviott bowed. "i am glad to hear it," he said, with what mary imagined to be extreme irony. he crossed the hall with her, and opened the large door himself. but mary did not look at him as she passed out. and, when she had got some way down the carriage-drive in sight of the dump of oak trees, she burst into a flood of bitter tears. tears that mr cheviott suspected, though he did not see them. "poor child," he said, as he returned to his study, "i trust she will meet no one in the park. those gossiping servants--well, _surely_ i can never have a more wretched piece of work to go through than this! what a mean, despicable snob she thinks me!" he laughed, bitterly. "why, i wonder, is it the fate of some people to be constantly doing other people's dirty work? i have had my share of it, heaven knows; but i think i am growing quite reckless to what people think of me. what eyes that child has--and how she must love that sister of hers! if it had been _she_ that arthur had made a fool of himself about--" chapter fifteen. "doing" romary. "she told the tale with bated breath-- `a sad old story; is it true?'" there was no good, there seldom is any, in crying about it. and mary's tears were those rather of anger and indignation than of sorrow. the sorrow was there, but it lay a good deal lower down, and she had no intention of letting any one suspect its existence, nor that of her present discomfort, in any way. so she soon left off crying, and tried to rally again the temporarily scattered forces of her philosophy. "well," she reflected, "it has been a failure, and perhaps it was a mistake. i must put it away among the good intentions that had better have remained such. i must try to think i have at worst done lilias's cause no harm--honestly i don't think i have--nothing that i could say would move that man one way or the other. and any way i meant well--my darling!--i would do it all over again for you, would i not? my poor lily--to think how happy she might have been but for _him_. as for what he thinks of me i do not care, deliberately and decidedly i do not care, though just now it makes me feel hot,"--for the colour had mounted in her face even while she was asserting her indifference--"or perhaps, to be quite truthful, i should say i shall not care, very soon i shall not, i know. i shall not even care what he says of me--except--it would be rather dreadful if lilias ever heard of it! but i do not think he will ever speak of it--he has what people call the instincts of a gentleman, i suppose." mary walked on, she was close to the lodge gates now. suddenly a quick clatter behind her made her look round--a girl on horseback followed by a groom was passing her, and as mary glanced up she caught sight of the bright, sweet face of alys cheviott. one instant she turned in mary's direction, and, it _seemed_ to mary--conscious of red eyes and a half guilty sensation of having no business within the gates--eyed her curiously. but she did not stop, or even slacken her pace. "she cannot have recognised me," said mary. "and to-morrow," she thought, with a sigh, half of relief, half of despair, "i shall be home again, and lilias will be asking me if i came across any of the romary people, or heard anything about arthur beverley." and when she got back to uxley and mrs greville's afternoon tea, she had to say how very much she had enjoyed her walk, and how pretty romary park looked from the road. "only," repeated mrs greville, "i do so wish the cheviotts had been away, and that i could have taken you all to see through the house and gardens and everything," and mary agreed that it was a great pity the cheviotts had not been away, thinking in her heart that it was perhaps a greater pity than mrs greville had any idea of. how seldom to-morrow fulfills the predictions of to-day! on wednesday evening mary was so sure she was going back to hathercourt on thursday morning, and on thursday morning a letter from lilias upset all her plans. it had been arranged that mr western should walk over to uxley on thursday to lunch there, and be driven home with mary in mrs greville's pony-carriage; but wednesday had brought news to hathercourt of the visit of a school inspector, and mr western's absence was not to be thought of. "so," wrote lilias, "mother and i have persuaded him to go on friday instead, if it will suit mrs greville equally well. if not, we shall expect you home to-morrow, but do stay till friday, if you can, mary, for i can see that poor papa has been rather looking forward to the little change of a day at uxley, and he has so few changes." mary was longing to be home again, but her longings were not the question, and as friday proved to be equally convenient to mrs greville, the matter was decided as lilias wished. "but you look rather melancholy about it, mary," said mrs greville. "are you homesick already?" mary smiled. mr morpeth was looking at her with some curiosity. "not exactly," she said, honestly. she glanced up and saw a smile pass round the table. "what are you all laughing at me for?" she said, smiling herself. "you are so dreadfully honest," said mrs greville. "and unsophisticated, i suppose," said mary, "to own to the possibility of anything so old-fashioned as homesickness." "it must be rather a nice feeling, i think," said mr morpeth. "i mean to say it must be nice to have one place in the world one really longs for. i have never known what that was--we were all at school for so many years after our father's death--and since we have been together we have been knocking about so, there was no chance of feeling anywhere at home." "it must be dreadful to be homesick when one is very ill and has small chance of ever seeing home again," said cecilia morpeth. "we used to see so much of that at mentone and those places. invalids who had not many days to live, just praying for home. do you remember that poor young brooke, last winter, frances?" "_that's_ it," exclaimed the elder miss morpeth, emphatically. everybody stared at her. "what _is_ the matter? what are you talking about, frances?" asked her brother and sister. miss morpeth laughed. "you must have thought i was going out of my mind," she said, "but it has bothered me so, and when cecilia mentioned the brookes, it flashed before me in a moment." "_what_?" repeated cecilia. "the likeness--don't you remember we were talking about it, last night, in our own room? a curious likeness in miss western's face to some one--i could not tell who. don't you see it, cecilia? not to basil brooke, but to the younger brother, anselm--the one that used to ride with us." "yes," said cecilia, "i see what you mean. it is especially when miss western looks at all anxious or thoughtful." "it is curious," said mary. "if we had any cousins, i should fancy these brookes you are talking of must be relations. my eldest brother's name is basil, and the second one is george anselm, and my mother's name was brooke. but i think she told me all her family had died out-- anyway, your friends can only be very distant relations." "but the likeness," said miss morpeth. "it is quite romantic isn't it? i suppose you are like your mother, miss western?" "yes," said mary. "it is to be hoped the likeness goes no further than the face," said cecilia, thoughtlessly. "these brookes are frightfully consumptive. i beg your pardon," she added, seeing that mary looked grave, "i should not have said that." "i was not thinking of ourselves," said mary. "i know _we_ are not consumptive. i was trying to remember if i had ever heard mother speak of any such cousins." "the consumption comes from their mother's side," said miss morpeth. "i remember their aunt, mrs brabazon, telling me so. she was a brooke, and she was as strong as possible." "basil brooke is dead," said mr morpeth. "i saw his death in the _times_ last week, poor fellow!" "i will tell mother about them," said mary, and then the conversation went off to other subjects. an hour or two later, when mary and the morpeths were sitting in the drawing-room together, and mrs greville was attending to her housekeeping for the day, she suddenly re-appeared, with a beaming face. "frances, mary, cecilia," she exclaimed, "_such_ a piece of good luck! mr petre, mr cheviott's agent, has just been calling here to see mr greville about some parish business, and i happened to say to him that i had friends with me here who had such a wish to see romary. and what _do_ you think? mr cheviott and his sister _are_ away! they went yesterday evening to pay a visit, somewhere in the neighbourhood, for three days. and mr petre was so nice about it--he says he has perfect _carte blanche_ about showing the house when they are away, and mrs golding is always delighted to do the honours. so it is all fixed--we are to go this afternoon--we must have luncheon a little earlier than usual. so glad you are not going home to-day, mary." mary _felt_--afterwards she trusted she had not _looked_--aghast. what evil genii have conspired to bring about such a scheme? to go to see romary--of all places on earth, the last she ever wished to re-enter--to go to admire the possessions of the man who had done her more injury and caused her deeper mortification than she had ever endured before! "oh, mrs greville," she exclaimed, hastily. "it is very good of you, but i don't think i care about going--you won't mind if i stay at home?" "if you stay at home!" said mrs greville, in amazement. "of _course_ i should mind. i made the plan quite as much for you as for frances and cecilia; and only yesterday--or day before, was it?--you seemed so interested in romary, and so anxious to see it, you were asking ever so many questions about it. i did not think you were so changeable." mary's face flushed. "i did not mean to be changeable or to vex you, dear mrs greville," she began, "only--" "only what?" mary had left her seat and come over to where mrs greville was standing. "it is a very silly reason i was going to give," she said in a low voice, trying to smile. "you remember my saying before how _very_ much i dislike that mr cheviott." mrs greville could not help laughing. "is that all?" she said. "come now, mary, i had no idea you could be so silly. i have always looked upon you as such a model of good sense. i began to think there must be some mystery you had not explained to me about lilias's affairs, of course, i mean," she added, in a whisper, glancing at mary with re-awakened curiosity in her eyes. mary kept her countenance. "it is just as i said," she replied. "i can't give you any better reason for not wanting to go than my dislike to that man." "very well, then, you _must_ come. that might prevent your liking to see _him_; it need not prevent your liking to see his house. your not coming would quite spoil our pleasure." mary hesitated. suddenly there flashed into her mind some of lilias's last words of warning. "whatever you do, mary," she had said, "don't let mrs greville get it into her head that there has been anything mortifying to us--that arthur has behaved ill, i mean. i couldn't stand that being said." and mary turned to mrs greville with a smile. "very well," she said. "i won't be silly, and i will go." "that's all right," said mrs greville, and mary wished she could have said so too. after all, why not? it was entirely a matter of personal feeling on her part; there was nothing unladylike or unusual in her going with the others to see the show house of the neighbourhood; and yet the bare thought of her doing so by any possibility coming to mr cheviott's ears made her cheeks burn. "that horrible man-servant!" she said to herself--"supposing he recognises me!" but there was no good in "supposings." she determined to make the best of the unavoidable, though it was impossible altogether to refrain from fruitless regrets that her return home had been delayed. nothing came in the way of the expedition. the afternoon turned out very fine, remarkably fine and mild for february, and the little party that set out from the vicarage would have struck any casual observer as cheerful and light-hearted in the extreme. "do you care about this sort of thing?" said mr morpeth to mary, when in the course of the walk they happened to fall a little behind the others. "about what?" said mary, absently. her thoughts had been far away from her companions; she now recalled them with some effort. "going to see other people's houses," replied the young man. "i hate it, though i have had more than my share of it, knocking about from place to place, as we have been doing for so long." "why do you hate it?" inquired mary, with more interest. the mere fact of mr morpeth's aversion to such expeditions in general seemed congenial, smarting as she was with her own sore repugnance to this one in particular. and even a shadow of sympathy in her present discomfort was attractive to mary to-day. mr morpeth kicked a pebble or two out of his path with a sort of boyish impatience which made mary smile. "oh, i don't know," he replied, vaguely, "i always think it is a snobbish sort of thing to do, going poking about people's rooms, and all that. and if it's a pretty house, it makes one envious, and if it's ugly, what's the good of seeing it?" mary laughed. "i like seeing old houses--really old houses," she said. "not ruins, but an old house still habitable enough to enable one to fancy what it must have really been like `once upon a time.'" "yes," said mr morpeth, "i know how you mean. but even that interest goes off very quickly. we once lived near an old place that nearly took my breath away with awe and admiration the first time i went through it. but very soon it became as commonplace as anything, and i hated to hear people go off into rhapsodies about it." "what a pity!" said mary. "i don't know that i envy you people who have travelled everywhere and seen everything. you don't enjoy little things as we do who have seen nothing." "but you don't enjoy going to see this stupid place to-day," persisted mr morpeth. "i know you don't, for i was in the drawing-room this morning when you were all talking about it; i came in behind mrs greville, and sat down in the corner, though you didn't see me." "then if you heard all that was said you must have heard my reason for disliking to go to see romary," said mary, in a tone of some annoyance. "yes," said mr morpeth, coolly, "_i_ did. i wonder why you dislike that unfortunate mr what's-his-name so? for before you came mrs greville entertained us with a wonderful story about a ball and a very grand gentleman who never looks at young ladies at all, having quite succumbed to--" "mr morpeth," exclaimed mary, stopping short and turning round on her companion with scarlet cheeks, "i shall be _very_ angry if you speak like that, and i don't think mrs greville should have--" "please don't be angry. i didn't mean to vex you, and mrs greville was not telling any secrets," said mr morpeth. "only i have been wondering ever since why you should have taken such a dislike to the poor man. you must be very unlike other girls, miss western?" he looked at her with a sort of half innocent, half mischievous curiosity, and somehow mary could not keep up her indignation. "well, perhaps i am," she said, good-naturedly. "all the same, mr morpeth, you have got _quite_ a wrong idea about why i dislike mr cheviott. don't let us talk about him any more." "_i_ don't want to talk about him, i'm sure," said mr morpeth. "i only wish he didn't live here, or hadn't a house which people insist on dragging me to see. _i_ have no other ill-will at the unfortunate man." "only you won't leave off talking about him," said mary, "and we are close to romary now. see, that is the lodge gate--on there just past the bend in the road." "oh, you have been here before. i forgot," said her companion, simply. but innocently as he spoke, his remark sent the blood flying again to mary's cheeks. "what shall i do if that horrible footman opens the door?" she said to herself. but things seldom turn out as bad as we picture them--or, rather, they seldom turn out as we picture them at all. the horrible footman did not make his appearance--men-servants of no kind were visible--the house seemed already in a half state of _deshabille_; only old mrs golding, the housekeeper, came forward, with many apologies and regrets that she had not known before of mrs greville's and her friends' coming. "mr petre had only just sent word," and the carpets were up in the morning-room and library! so sorry, she chatted on, but she was thankful to take advantage of her master's and miss cheviott's absence, even for a day of two, to get some cleaning done. "for a house like this takes a dell," she added, pathetically, appealing to mrs greville, who answered good-humouredly that to be sure it must. "but the best rooms are not dismantled, i suppose?" she inquired. "the great round drawing-room and the picture-gallery with the arched roof? just like a church," she observed, parenthetically, to her companions; "that is what i want you so much to see. and the old part of the house, we are sure to see that, and it is really so curious." there was no "cleaning" going on in the great drawing-room, and mrs golding led the way to its splendours with unconcealed satisfaction. it was much like other big drawing-rooms, with an even greater air of formality and unusedness than is often seen. mary, who was not learned in old china, its chief attraction, turned away with little interest, and wished mrs greville would hasten her movements. "what splendid old damask these curtains are," she was saying to mrs golding. "one could not buy stuff like this nowadays." "no, indeed, ma'am," said the housekeeper, shaking her head. "they must have been made many a long year ago. but they're getting to look very dingy--miss alys's always asking mr cheviott to refurnish this room. but it must have been handsome in its day--i remember being here once when i was a girl and seeing it all lighted up. i did think it splendid." "there are some _very_ old rooms, are there not?" said mary. "yes, miss, the tapestry rooms," said mrs golding. "there's a stair leading up to them that opens out of the picture-gallery--the only other way to them is through mr cheviott's own rooms, and he always keeps that way locked, as no one else uses it. the stair runs right down to the side-door on the terrace, so it's a convenient way of getting in from the garden," continued the communicative housekeeper. "but there's not many in the house cares to go near those rooms, for they say the middle one's haunted." "dear me, this is getting interesting," said mr morpeth. "what or whom is it haunted by, pray?" mrs golding looked up at him sharply, then with a slight smile she shook her head. "you would only make fun of it if i told you, sir," she said, "and somehow one doesn't care to have old stories made fun of, silly though they may be." "no," said mary, "one doesn't. i think you are quite right," and the old woman looked pleased. "you won't prevent my seeing the haunted room, though you won't tell me its story?" said mr morpeth, good-naturedly. so mrs golding led the way. they passed along the arched picture-gallery, which in itself merited mrs greville's praises, though the pictures it contained were neither many nor remarkable. "i like this room," said mary, approvingly. "it is much less commonplace than the drawing-room--not that i have seen many great houses," she added, with a smile, to mr morpeth, who was walking beside her, "but this is a room one would remember wherever one went." "yes," said mr morpeth. "it is a room with a character of its own, certainly. frances will be calling it romantic and picturesque and all the rest of it. i am so tired of all those words." "i am afraid you are tired of most things," said mary. "see what an advantage we dwellers at home have over you travelled people!" her spirits were rising. so far there had been nothing at all in the expedition to arouse her fears, and she began to think they had been exaggerated. "which is the way to the haunted room?" asked mr morpeth, when they were all tired of admiring the picture-gallery. mrs golding replied by opening a door at the further end of the room from that at which they had entered. it led into a little vestibule up one side of which ran a narrow staircase. "up that stair, sir," she said to mr morpeth, "you get into a passage with two doors, one of them leads into the new part of the house and one into the old tapestry rooms--it is one of those rooms that is haunted." "let us see if we can guess which it is," exclaimed mr morpeth, springing up the staircase. his sister and mrs greville followed him, but mary lingered a little behind. "what is the story of the haunted room?" she said, in a low voice, to the housekeeper. mrs golding smiled. she had somehow taken a liking to this quietly-dressed, quietly-spoken young lady, with the pretty eyes and pleasant voice. "to tell you the truth, miss," she answered, "i do not very rightly know, it myself. it was something about a lady from foreign parts that was brought here sorely against her will by one of the old lords--i think i have heard said they were once lords--of romary. he wanted her to marry him, but she would not. whether he forced her to give in or not i can't tell, but the end of it was she killed herself--i fancy she threw herself out of the window of the room where he had imprisoned her. and since then they say she is to be seen there now and then." "was it very long ago?" "i couldn't say. it was at the time, i know, when there was wars in foreign parts, and that was how the squire of romary had found the lady. miss alys knows all the story--that's our young lady. miss cheviott i should say. it is a sad enough story anyway." "yes," said mary, "ghost stories always are, i think. it is queer that the people who have been the most miserable in this world are always the ones who are supposed not to be able to rest without returning to it." but just then a voice from above interrupted them. "miss western," it said, "do come up. this is the jolliest place of the whole house." so mary ran up the staircase. mr morpeth was waiting for her at the top. chapter sixteen. the haunted room. "startled by her own thoughts, she looked around: there was no fair fiend near her." _shelley_. it was really a very respectable attempt at a haunted room. "something like, isn't it?" said mr morpeth, looking round him with approval, while miss morpeth shivered and declared she would not care to spend a night in it, and miss cecilia laughed at her and said she would like nothing better than to stay there till to-morrow morning, to see what was to be seen. "nonsense, my dear," said mrs greville. "you would be as frightened as possible long before it got dark." "she would be in hysterics in half an hour," said her brother, politely. "i am _sure_ i wouldn't," protested cecilia. "miss western, you wouldn't be afraid to spend the night here, would you?" "i don't know," said mary, doubtfully. "i almost think i should be. those faces in the tapestry are so ghostly. i suppose," she went on, simply, "if i _had_ to stay here--i mean if there were any good reason for it, i should not be frightened--but i shouldn't feel inclined to try it just as a test of bravery." "as a piece of foolish bravado, _i_ should call it," said mrs greville. "it would be an awkward place to be shut up in," said mrs golding, "for the door is in the tapestry, you see, ladies,"--she closed it as she spoke--"and it opens with a spring, and unless one knows the exact spot to press, it would be very difficult to find. the other door, which leads into the new part of the house, is hidden in the same way." she crossed the room, and, almost without hesitation, pressed a spot in the wall, and a door flew open. it led into another room, something like the first, but rather more modern in its furniture. all the party pressed forward. "there is nothing particular to see here," said mrs golding, "but this room opens again into the white corridor, where my master's own rooms are. there is a very pretty view from the window at the end, if you would come this way, and we can get round to the front of the house again." a sudden impulse seized mary. "mrs greville," she said, "i would like to go out into the garden by the door at the foot of the stair we tame up. mayn't i go back? i will meet you at the front of the house." "very well," said mrs greville. "you are such an odd girl, mary," she added, in a lower voice, "i suppose your dislike to mr cheviott prevents your liking to see his rooms!" mary laughed, but coloured a little too. "then i'll meet you at the front of the house," she said, as she turned away. "let me go with you," put in mr morpeth--the others, under mrs golding's guidance, had already passed on--"it wouldn't do for you to go prowling about those ghostly rooms all by yourself, miss western. who knows what might happen to you?" mary laughed again--this time more heartily. "it's not dark enough yet to be frightened," she said, as they re-entered the haunted chamber, where already the heavy old hangings had toned down the afternoon light into dimness. "hardly," said mr morpeth, carelessly, stepping forward to the window as he spoke. mary was following him when a slight sound arrested her. "mr morpeth," she exclaimed, "it is to be hoped we can get out by the other door, for the one we have just come in by was shut behind us; i heard it click; it is my fault. i never thought about its being a spring door, and i let it swing to." she looked startled and a little pale. mr morpeth was surprised at her seeming to take it so seriously, and felt half inclined to banter her. "we never meant to go back by the door we came in by," he said. "what would have been the good of that? we'll find the other in a minute-- sure to; don't look so aghast, miss western. at the worst we can ring the bells and alarm the house till some one comes to let us out. you are surely not afraid that we shall have to get out by the window?" as he spoke he crossed over to the side of the room where, to their knowledge, the second door _was_, if only they could find it! mr morpeth, at first, began feeling about in a vague way, as if expecting to light upon the spring by a happy accident. but no such result followed; he began to look a little more thoughtful. "let's see," he said, consideringly, "whereabouts was it we first came into the room?" mary stepped backwards close to the wall, and then moved slowly along, keeping her back to it. "it must have been about here, i think," she said, stopping short. "i remember the first thing i caught sight of was that cabinet, and it seemed just opposite me; and mrs greville standing in front of it seemed to shut out that narrow pane of the window. yes," as mr morpeth put himself in the position she described--"yes, she was standing just there; the door _must_ be hereabouts." they turned to search more systematically, but in vain. peer as they would into every square inch of the musty tapestry hangings within a certain radius, feel as they would, up and down, right and left, higher up than mrs golding could possibly have reached, lower down than any door within the memory of man ever locked; it was all in vain. then they looked at each other. "it must be a spring pressing inwards--flat on the surface," said mr morpeth. "i thought there would have been a little knob of some kind. however, let's try again." he moved his hand slowly around the wall, pressing carefully, anxiously endeavouring to detect the slightest inequality or indentation, and mary followed his example till their patience was exhausted. then again they stopped and looked at each other. "would it be any good trying to find the spring of the other door?" said mary, at last. "i don't fancy it would," said mr morpeth. "you see, we're quite in the dark as to what sort of spring it is; we may have touched it twenty times, but not pushed or pressed it the right way. don't you think we'd better just not bother for a little? they're sure to miss us before long, and then that old party will hunt us up." but mary looked by no means disposed to take things so philosophically. "i don't know that they _will_ miss us so quickly," she said. "it will take them some time to go all over the front of the house, and if they don't find us in the grounds they are sure just to think we have walked on. i am sure mrs greville will think so, any way; she always takes things so comfortably," she added, with an uneasy reflection that mrs greville would probably be rejoicing at the success of her amiable scheme for throwing herself and "young morpeth" together. "i _wish_ i had not left the others." mr morpeth smiled. "i really think you are wasting a great deal of unnecessary energy on our misadventure," he said. "_i_ don't see anything so very desperate about it. if we were in a box now, like that girl at modena, guinevere--no, genevieve--no, bless me, i can't remember. you know whom i mean--we _might_ be rather uneasy. but at the _very_ worst we cannot be left here more than an hour or two. i dare say the housekeeper will be coming back to look for us immediately, for she will know how awkward these doors are." "yes," said mary, "i do think that is not unlikely. she did not hear us speak of going back to the gardens though, did she? she had gone on in front." "but she is pretty sure to miss us, and ask what had become of us--she's not a stupid old lady by any means. just let's wait here comfortably a few minutes, and see if she doesn't come." mary tried to take his advice, but as the minutes passed she grew more and more uncomfortable. "i say," exclaimed mr morpeth, "supposing we try to make ourselves heard somehow. i never thought of that. very likely there are offices--pantries, or kitchens, and so on under these rooms. there's no bell, but supposing we jump on the floor and scream--i'll jump, if you will be so good as to scream--some one will be sure to hear us and rush up to see what's happening in the haunted room." but at this proposal mary grew literally white with anxiety. "oh, _please_ don't, mr morpeth," she said, so beseechingly that the young man looked at her with more concern than he had yet shown. "what a queer girl she must be to take it to heart so!" he said to himself. "_please_ don't," she repeated. "it would make such a to-do. i should be so dreadfully annoyed--oh, _please_ don't." "that horrible footman" was the great terror in her mind; "if he came up and saw me he would be sure to tell his master. what would mr cheviott think of me if he heard of my being here, prying about his house the very day after?" "very well. _i'm_ very comfortable. i'm quite content to wait till some one comes to let us out," said mr morpeth. "it was you, miss western, that was in such a hurry." which was true enough. mary did not know what to say--only her uneasiness increased. it began to grow dusk too--outside among the trees it was getting to look decidedly dusk. "what shall we do?" she exclaimed at last, in a sort of desperation. "evidently they are not missing us, and will not do so till they get home, and then there will be _such_ a fuss! oh, mr morpeth," she went on, as a new idea struck her, "do you think you could possibly get out of the window?" she said it so simply, and was evidently so much in earnest, that mr morpeth gave up for once his habit of looking at the ludicrous side, and set to work to discover how this last suggestion could be carried out. the window was much more easy to deal with than the doors. it opened at once, and, leaning over, mr morpeth descried a little ledge below it, leading to the top of the porch above the side-door into the shrubbery. "i can easily get out," he said, turning back to mary, "but once i am out what do you want me to do? you don't want any fuss, but i must tell somebody to come and get you out." "oh, yes, of course--if you could find mrs greville and ask her to tell the housekeeper of the door's having shut to, she would come and open it," said mary. "if you could just tell her in a matter-of-fact way, you know. what i don't want is a great rush of all the servants and people about the place to see me locked up here; it would be so uncomfortable. i'll wait here quite patiently once i know you've gone, for you'll be sure to find them." "i'll do my best," said mr morpeth, quietly, "and of course if i _should_ break my neck or my arms or anything, there will be the satisfaction of knowing it was in a good cause." mary started forward. "you don't mean that there is really any risk for you," she exclaimed. "no, i am sure there isn't," she continued, after looking out of the window, and examining it for herself, "of course, if there was, i shouldn't want you to go. you are laughing at me because you think me very silly--i am very sorry, but i can't help it. i do _so_ wish i hadn't come here--i wish i could get out of the window too!" "no, indeed, it would not be safe for you at all," said mr morpeth, hastily, concealing his private opinion that the feat was not so easy as it looked. "i am a good climber and i've had plenty of practice. it is nothing for me, but it would be quite different for you--promise me, miss western, you will not try to get out of the window while i am away. i shall be as quick as i can, but i may not be able to find the others all at once." "very well," said mary. "i do promise. not that i ever meant to get out of the window, i assure you." mr morpeth clambered out successfully. mary watched him groping along the ledge, holding on first by a projecting window sash, then by a water-pipe, then by what she could not tell--somehow or other he had made his way to the roof of the door porch, and was hidden from her sight. but, in a minute, a whistle and a low call of "all right" satisfied her as to his safety. "he is very good-natured," thought mary. "he called out softly on purpose not to attract attention. what a silly girl he must think me, to make such a fuss about such a simple thing! but i can't help it." she drew back from the window and sat down on one of the straight-backed, tapestry-cushioned chairs, and began to calculate how long she would probably have to wait. ten minutes at most--it could not take longer to run round to the front of the house and find mrs golding. "they will come back by that door," said mary, to herself, directing her eyes towards the invisible entrance by which she and mr morpeth had returned to the haunted room. "how glad i shall be when i see it open! how i wish i had a watch! it would pass the time to count the minutes till they come--but i could hardly see the minute hand on a watch even now. how dark it is getting! it is those great trees outside--in summer, no light at all can get in here i should think." she got up and turned again to the window, fancying that looking out would be a little less gloomy than sitting staring at the old furniture and the shadowy figures on the walls, growing more and more weird and gruesome as the light faded. but, standing there at the window, there returned to her mind the tragic story of which mrs golding had given, her the outlines, and, despite her endeavours to think of something else, her imagination persisted in filling in the details. "she had thrown herself out of the window in despair," mrs golding had told of the unhappy prisoner, and mary recalled it with a slight shudder. was it much to be wondered at? any one would grow desperate shut up within these four gloomy walls--gloomy now, and gloomy then, no doubt, for the tapestry was _very_ old--older, probably, than the date of the story--and the room had ever since been left much as it was at that time. it was a ghastly story, as much for what had preceded the final tragedy as for the catastrophe itself. "it is so _very_ horrible to think of any one's having been shut up in this very room for days, and weeks, and months, perhaps," thought mary. "and to think that her only way out of it was to many a man she hated! still, whoever she was, she must have been brave; the only inconsistent part of the story is her being supposed to haunt the place she must have had such a horror of. dear me, how dark it is getting!--how i do wish they would come, and how i wish i had not heard that story!" mary left the window again, and sat down on one of the hard, high-backed chairs. in spite of her anxiety and excitement, she was growing very tired, and once or twice she almost felt as if she were getting sleepy. but she was determined not to yield to this. "it would be far worse if i fell asleep, and woke to find myself all in the dark," she said to herself. "if i have to stay all night, i must keep awake, and, indeed, it begins to look very like having to stay all night. what can have become of mr morpeth? i am sure he has been gone half an hour." she listened till her ears were strained, but there was no sound. then again the confused, sleepy feeling came over her; she dozed unconsciously for a minute or two, to be awakened suddenly by what in her sleep had seemed a loud noise. mary started up, her heart beating violently, but she heard nothing for a moment or two. then there came a faint creaking sound, as of some one coming up the staircase and along the passage outside. it was not the side from which she was looking for assistance, and, besides, whoever it was was approaching in perfect silence. "mr morpeth would be sure to call out if it was he," she reflected; "besides, mrs golding would be with him, and they would come the other way. who can it be? oh! supposing--just _supposing_ the ghost were to come in, what should i do? i should always be told it was a dream; but i am not dreaming. and _something_ must have been seen, otherwise there would not be the story about it." all this flashed through her mind in an instant. she got up from her chair with a vague intention of escaping, hiding herself somewhere, anywhere, but sat down again, as the steps came nearer and nearer, with a feeling of hopelessness. how could she escape? where could she hide herself? there was no cupboard or recess, not even a curtain, in the bare, half-furnished room; she must just wait where she was, whatever happened, and, as if fascinated, poor mary sat gazing on that part of the wall where she knew the door to be. another moment--it seemed to her hours--and she heard the slight click of the concealed spring, and, thank heavens, it was no ghost in flowing white, but a gentleman in a great-coat! thus much mary could discern, dusk though it was, even at the first glance, to her inexpressible relief. "mr morpeth," she exclaimed, "is it you? oh, i am so thankful! but why--" the voice that interrupted her was not mr morpeth's. "who is there? is it you, mrs golding? what is the matter?" exclaimed the some one whose approach had so terrified her. an instant's pause; mary's wits, beginning to recover themselves, were all but scattered again as a frightful suspicion dawned upon her. was she dreaming, _could_ it be that her very worst misgiving was realised? who was it standing in frowning bewilderment before her? ghost, indeed--at that moment it seemed to her she would rather have faced twenty ghosts than the living man before her. "mr cheviott!" she ejaculated, feebly, hardly conscious of speaking. mr cheviott came forward a little, but cautiously, and in evident astonishment and perplexity. something in the tone of the half whisper struck him as familiar, though it was too dark for him to distinguish at once anything but the general outline of poor mary's figure. "who is it? i don't understand; does mrs golding know of your being here?" he asked, confusedly, with a vague idea that possibly the mysterious visitor was some friend of the housekeeper. "no--oh, yes, i mean," replied mary; "i got locked in by mistake, and-- and--" there was an end for the time of all explanation; mary burst into unheroic tears; but not before an exclamation, to her ears fraught with inexpressible meaning, had reached her from mr cheviott. "miss western, _you_ here!" was all he said, but it was enough. though from the first of his entrance she had had no hope of escaping unperceived, yet the hearing his recognition expressed in words seemed to make things worse, and for the moment exaggerated almost beyond endurance the consciousness of her ignominious position. she cried as much from a sort of indignation at circumstances as from nervousness or timidity. mr cheviott stood silent and motionless. wild ideas were hurrying through his brain to the exclusion for the time of all reasonable conjecture. had she been locked up here since the day before? had she come with a frantic idea of winning him over even now to approve of an engagement between arthur and her sister? if not, what _was_ she doing here? and now that he had discovered her, what could he do or say that would not add to her distress? suddenly mary looked up. her tears somehow or other, had restored her self-control; the very shame she felt at mr cheviott's hearing her sobs reacted so as to give her confidence. "why should i be ashamed? it is very natural i should cry after all the worry i have had the last few days; and who has caused it all? who has broken lily's heart and made us all miserable? why should i care what such a man as that thinks of me?" she left off crying, and got up from the chair on which she had sunk down at the climax of her terror. she turned to mr cheviott, and said calmly, though not without the remains of an uncontrollable quaver in her voice: "if you will be so good as to open the door, i should very much like to go." mr cheviott took up the cue with considerable relief. any amount of formality was better than tears. "certainly," he said, quietly. then, almost to his own astonishment, the ludicrous side of the position suddenly presenting itself to him, a spirit of mischief incited him to add, "you must allow, miss western, _i_ am in no way to blame for this disagreeable adventure of yours. and, if you will pardon my asking you, i must confess before i let you out i should very much like to know how you got in." mary flamed up instantly. "you have no right," she began,--"no right," she was going to say, "to ask me anything i have not chosen to tell you," but she stopped short. she was in mr cheviott's own house--how could she possibly refuse to tell him how she had got there? "i beg your pardon," she said instead. "i--i came here with mrs greville and some people who wanted to see the house. _i_ did not want to come," she could not resist adding, with a curious little flash of defiance, "but i could not help it." "ah! indeed, i understand," said mr cheviott, turning to open the door, but to which part of her speech his observation was addressed, mary was left in ignorance. mr cheviott stopped. "which way do you wish to go out?" he asked. "out to the garden, if you please," said mary, eagerly. "that is the way mr morpeth--the gentleman that was with me, i mean--will be coming back. at least, i don't know," she went on, growing confused; "it depends on where he finds the housekeeper. but anyway, i would rather meet them all outside." "how on earth did `the gentleman that was with her' get out?" thought mr cheviott--"or was it through some foolery of his that she got locked in?" but he was determined to ask no more questions. he turned again to the wall, pressed the concealed spring without an instant's hesitation, and the door flew open--flew open, and mary, without a glance behind her, flew out. chapter seventeen. mary tells stories. florizel--"fortune speed us!-- thus we set on, camillo, to the sea-side." camillo.--"the swifter speed the better." _winter's tale_. she flew out of the room, across the passage, down the little stair, and out at the door, still standing slightly ajar, for a moment thinking of nothing but the delight of being liberated at last. but it was dusk outside among the trees, and her hesitation which way to go recalled her to herself. she stopped short, and then turned back again. "i should have thanked him. he really must think me mad," she said to herself, with a hot flush of shame, hardly knowing what she ought to do. but she was not long left in doubt. mr cheviott had followed her down-stairs; he was standing at the door. "i am ashamed of not thanking you for letting me out," she said, hastily. "i hardly see that i could have done less," he replied, dryly. "i merely followed you now to direct you how to get round to the front, as i believe you wish. you must keep that path to the left till it meets a wider one, which will bring you out at the foot of a flight of stone steps. these will take you up to the side terrace, and you can then easily see your way to the front of the house. it is not really dark yet; it is only the trees here which make it seem so, even in winter. they are so thick." "thank you," said mary. "i am very much obliged to you, and i should have said so before, but--i did not think i was so silly--the feeling of being shut up in that room must have made me forget, it was so horrible," and she gave a little shiver. mr cheviott stepped forward a little, but it was too dark for mary to see the concern in his eyes. "would you like me to go with you till you meet your friends," he said, very gently. "oh, _no_, thank you," exclaimed mary, with great vehemence. mr cheviott drew back. "i see," he said, with the slightly satirical tone mary seemed to know so well and hated so devoutly. "it is bad enough to be still in the precincts of the ogre's castle, but the presence of the ogre himself is quite too much for your nerves. good-evening miss western." he raised his hat and re-entered the house before mary had time to reply. she stood still for a second. "have i been rude to him again?" she said to herself, with a little compunction. "however, it really does not matter. no two people could dislike and despise each other more thoroughly than he and i do. i could never, in any circumstances, have liked him; but still, for lily's sake, i could have been civil to him. but _now_! i only hope, oh, ever so earnestly, that i shall never see him again--and what he thinks or does not think of me really is of less than no consequence." nevertheless, the thought of the afternoon's adventure made her cheeks tingle hotly, and she hurried on as fast as she could in the uncertain light. mary western seemed strangely unlike her usual philosophical self. she even seemed to find a relief to her irritation in trampling unnecessarily on the dry brushwood lying about here and there--the "scrunch" worked off her disgust a little. once, after jumping on the top of a small raked-up heap, she stood still and laughed at herself. "what a baby i am! i need never laugh at poor josey's `tantrums' again," she said to herself. "but the truth is that man has thoroughly mortified me, and i can't stand mortification. it is my thorn in the flesh." just then it seemed to her that she heard a faint sound in the path behind her. it was too dark to see anything, but mary's heart began to beat faster, and jumping down from the heap she hurried on more quickly than before. "i dare say it's only a rabbit," she thought; "but still all round here has a sort of haunted feeling to me." she was glad when at last she came upon the flight of steps mr cheviott had described. running up them, the first object that met her sight was mr morpeth hastening towards her. "miss western! did you get out of the window? it was frightfully rash," he exclaimed. "i did _not_ get out of the window," replied mary, shortly. "but that i did not try to do so is no thanks to you, mr morpeth." "why, what's the matter? i have done my very best, i can assure you," he replied good-naturedly. "i was as quick as i could be, considering all your directions--i don't think it can be more than half an hour since i left you." "half an hour," repeated mary, indignantly. "you talk coolly of not much more than half an hour, but just fancy what that seemed to me. shut up alone in that horrible room, and in the dark, too!" "i'm very sorry, but i couldn't help it." "it would not have taken _me_ half an hour, i know," pursued mary, "to have run round to the front of the house and find the housekeeper." "yes," replied mr morpeth, "it certainly would, if, when you had run round to the front of the house, you had _not_ found the housekeeper, and had been told instead that she had had to hurry off to her master, who had arrived unexpectedly--and if you had had to explain all to mrs greville, and beg her not to rouse an alarm and so on--all this in deference to the special commands of a certain young lady, whom i mistakenly imagined i was trying to serve." mary felt rather ashamed of herself. "did you not find the housekeeper after all?" she inquired, meekly. "yes, mrs greville managed it, but i would not let her go back through the house to let you out, as i knew you would so dislike possibly meeting that fellow--what's his name?--the man himself, i mean, whom you hate so. so i got a key; look what a queer one," holding out a quaint looking object, which mary could, however, hardly distinguish, till she took it in her own hands, "it opens the spring door from the outside, you see." "but did _you_ see mr cheviott?" asked mary. "oh, no! he stopped at his bailiff's, or somewhere, and sent on his groom to say he had come back about some business, and would stay all night. then off flies mrs silver, or whatever her name is--and nobody thinks any more of us two unfortunate wretches." "yes, i see. i understand it all now," said mary, "and--" "you do, but i don't," interrupted mr morpeth. "i want to know how you got out of the room. you could never have found the spring, after all, and in the dark too." mary did not answer. "_did_ you?" persisted her companion. "come now, miss western, i do think i deserve a civil answer." "well, then, i _didn't_," replied mary. "do you call that a civil answer?" inquired mr morpeth. "no," said mary, half laughing, "i don't know that i do, but--" "but what?" "the truth is, i don't want to tell you how i got out of the room, and i shall be exceedingly, infinitely obliged to you if you will say no more about the affair." "a short time ago you said you would be exceedingly obliged, or eternally grateful, or something of the kind if i would climb out of that window and find the housekeeper." "and so i was--so i am," said mary. "looks like it," observed mr morpeth. then they walked on a few steps in silence, mary feeling still uneasy, and somewhat conscience-smitten. "mr morpeth," she said at last, "what are you thinking?" "would you really like to know?" "yes." "well, then, i was thinking that girls are all the same--very little satisfaction to be got out of any of them." "that means me, i suppose," said mary, slightly nettled. "perhaps," replied mr morpeth, coolly. "you see, miss western, i did think you such a particularly sensible girl." "i dislike being considered a sensible girl more than anything you could say to me," interrupted mary. "there you go!" said mr morpeth. "as i was saying, i thought you, till to-day, a very sensible girl--not like my sisters, who are forever flying out about something or other--and this afternoon you have really been so very uncertain and queer-tempered--" "i know i have," interrupted mary again, stopping short as she spoke. "mr morpeth," she went on, "we shall be meeting the others again directly. will you be really so _very_ kind as to say nothing more about this afternoon and all the trouble i have given you? i don't think i am generally uncertain and queer-tempered, but i have really been a good deal worried and troubled lately, and--and i think if i could explain all you would say there was a little excuse for me." there was something very like the glistening of tears in the brown eyes; it was almost too dark to see, but the voice suggested enough to soften mr morpeth's heart--far more boyish and impressionable than he would have liked to own to. a new idea struck him. "perhaps, after all, she had some reason for disliking that fellow," he thought--"perhaps she knows more of him than she allows, and he has fallen in love with her--she is really awfully pretty--and is pestering her to marry him though she hates him. and her people are so poor, mrs greville says--" he turned to mary with a change of tone. "miss western," he said, earnestly, "i promise you to say no more about it, and i will do my best to prevent mrs greville or any one bothering you--i really will, and i'm sorry i said you were bad-tempered." "thank you, thank you very much," said mary, cordially. and in a few minutes they rejoined mrs greville and the misses morpeth, the former fortunately too much taken up with a more recent occurrence to have any thought to spare for mary's misadventures. "fancy, my dear," she began, "what an escape you have had! mr cheviott has just left us; he has been showing us the pictures himself. so _very_ kind and attentive! you have only just missed him." "how fortunate for me!" said mary, dryly. it was quite dark when they got back to uxley, and the next morning mr western came over as arranged, and took mary home again the same afternoon. it seemed to her as if she had been away weeks or months instead of days. she was glad to be home again, and yet now, if she could have deferred her return, she would. lilias asked her no questions, but still, either in mary's imagination or in fact, there was a tacit disappointment in her manner when she found mary had nothing to tell. "_i_ was hopeful of some good result from what i had in my head," thought mary, "and lily is so quick, though she had not the least idea of my doing such a wild thing. i fancy she knew by instinct that i _was_ hopeful." "you did not hear anything of those people--the romary people, i mean?" asked lilias, at last, timidly, but with a sudden rush of colour into her face, which made mary feel inclined to cry. it was about two days after she had come back. "yes," she replied, "i did. i could not help hearing a good deal about them; they seem the staple subject of conversation in the neighbourhood." "about captain beverley--did you hear anything about him?" said lilias, hastily. "mary, you are concealing something from me--he is going to be married?" "no, indeed. i heard nothing of that sort, lily, i assure you. if i had, i would have told you about it at once; you know it is not my way to shirk such things--i am rather over-hasty the other way, i fear," said mary, with a little sigh. "and, indeed, i think i should almost have been _glad_ to hear it. it would have been a stab and done with." "mary, you are awfully hard," said lilias. her voice was low and quivering. "hard!" repeated mary, with amazement in her tone. _she_ hard to _lilias_! what fearful injustice--for a moment she felt too staggered to speak--how _could_ lilias misjudge her so? what a world it must be where such near friends could make such mistakes! had _she_ ever so misjudged any one? and, by an association of ideas which she herself could not have explained, her mind suddenly reverted to that never-to-be-forgotten scene in the romary library, and the look on mr cheviott's face which she had determined _not_ to recognise as one of pain. was it possible that in the cruel, almost insulting things she had said to him she had been influenced by some utter misjudgment of _his_ motives?--was it possible that they were good and pure and unselfish?--could his cousin be a bad man, from whom he was chivalrously protecting lilias's innocence and inexperience? no, that was impossible. no man with arthur's honest eyes _could_ be a bad man; but, if not this, what other motive could mr cheviott have that was not a mean and selfish one? mary felt faint and giddy as these thoughts crowded upon her; the mere far-off suggestion of the tremendous injustice she might have done him, a suggestion born of the sharp pain of lilias's words to herself, seemed to confuse and stun her; all her ideas lost their proportion; all the data upon which her late actions and train of thought had been based suddenly failed her. and so swiftly had her mind travelled away from what had first started these misgivings that lilias had spoken once or twice, in reply to her ejaculation, before the sense of her words reached her brain. "mary, mary, listen to me. don't look so white and miserable," lilias was beseeching her. "i didn't mean hard to _me_--i don't even exactly mean hard to _him_--i mean hard about the whole, about the way it affects me. you don't understand, and i don't want you to think me a sentimental fool, but can't you understand a little? nothing would be so frightful to me as to have my faith in him destroyed, and, don't you see, if it could be proved to me that he had been trifling with me, deceiving me, in fact--that all the time he had been caring for some one else more than for me--don't you see how frightful it would be for me? it would be a stab indeed, but a stab that would kill the best part of me--all my faith and trust, mary, do you see?" "yes," said mary, sadly, "i see." and she saw more--she saw that, for the sake of lilias's health and peace of mind, it was time that something should be done. "she will grow morbid about it, and it will kill her youth and happiness, if not herself," thought mary. "i suppose it is on account of the isolated life we have had that this has taken such a terribly deep hold of her. for, after all, perhaps it is _possible_ that, without being actually a bad, cruel man, captain beverley was not so much in earnest as she thought. _i_ should call him a bad, cruel man, but i suppose the world would not--the world of which we know so little, as mr cheviott kindly reminded me! but what can i do for lily?" "mary," said lilias, "what are you thinking about?" "i am thinking that something must be done for you," said mary. "lilias, i think it would be better for you to go away from home for a while." "yes," said lilias. "i am almost beginning to think so myself. but i don't see how to manage it, unless i advertise as a governess. we seem to have no friends." "by-the-bye," said mary, "that reminds me. those miss morpeths at uxley were talking about some brookes who they think must be cousins of mother. i meant to have asked her about them, but i forgot." "they're not likely to be much good to us, even if they are cousins of ours," said lilias, half bitterly. "none of mother's rich relations have troubled themselves about her." and no more was said about the possible cousins just then. a few days passed. mary got back into home ways, from which even so short an absence as that of her visit to uxley seemed to have separated her, and all was much as it had been before--much as it had been before that sunday, now more than six months ago, when the little party of strangers had disturbed the equanimity of the hathercourt congregation-- before the still more fatal afternoon when arthur beverley had come over to see the rector on business, and in his absence had stayed to tea with his wife and daughters in the rectory drawing-room--much the same, but oh, how different! thought lilias, wearily, as she tried her best to look as cheerful as of old--to take the same interest in daily life and its occurrences, which to a healthy mind is never wanting, however monotonous the daily life may be. she succeeded to some extent; she made herself believe that, at least, her trials were kept to herself, and allowed to shadow no other's horizon. but she was mistaken. her mother began to hope her child was "getting over it;" her father, who had but dimly suspected that anything was wrong, felt dimly relieved to hear her laugh, and joke, and tease as usual again; alexa and josey had their own private confabulations on the subject, deciding that either their eldest sister was a heartless flirt, or that, "between themselves, you know," everything was satisfactorily arranged, though for some mysterious reason for a time to be kept secret, as any way it was clearly to be seen "that lily was not in low spirits." only mary, ignorant as she was and professed herself to be of all such misfortunes as are involved by falling in or out of love, was undeceived. "lilias is trying her best, but she is breaking her heart all the same," she said to herself. "if only i could get her away for a while among new people and new scenes, there might be a chance for her." in the end it was kind mrs greville again who came to the rescue, and that, to mary's great relief, without any intervention of hers. her one piece of concealment from lilias had cost her dear; she had no wish to try again any independent action. what mrs greville did or did not suspect, mary could not tell, but had their kindly friend known all, she could not have acted with greater consideration and tact. she was going to town for a fortnight, she wrote, most unexpectedly, to consult a famous doctor about some new symptoms in her husband's chronic complaint. she was hopeful, yet fearful of the result. should it be unfavourable, she would find it hard to "keep up" before her husband, away from home and all her friends. would mrs western spare one of the girls to go with them and not exactly limit the time of her absence, as _in case_ the doctor thought well of mr greville they might go on to hastings, or somewhere for a month? lilias, or mary either, would be of the greatest comfort to her, but if she might venture to say so--mary was too sensible to be offended--she would, _if anything_, prefer lilias. she was such a special favourite of mr greville, and it was he, of course, who was to be the one most considered just now. "well, girls?" said mrs western, inquiringly, for there was silence when mrs greville's note was first read in the conclave of three. silence on lilias's part of mingled relief and repugnance. on mary's part the silence of caution, of fear lest her intense anxiety that lilias should fall in with mrs greville's proposal should injure its own cause by impulsive advocacy. "well girls?" "i think mary had better go," said lilias. "but you see what mrs greville says about preferring you," suggested mrs western, gently, with some faint, instinctive notion of what was passing in her second daughter's heart. "yes, but that's rubbish," said lilias, the colour rising slightly in her cheeks. "mr greville likes us both. it is only that i chatter more than mary, and, like all quiet, indolent men, he likes to be amused with the least possible trouble to himself. mary is not so amusing, perhaps, because there is generally a large sprinkling of sense in her remarks, and even when, on rare occasions, she mixes it up with nonsense it is more fatiguing to separate the two than to take it all in comfortably, as pure, unadulterated nonsense like mine." "you are certainly giving us a specimen of it just now," said mary, parenthetically. "but seriously, mamma," she went on, "i think we should consider what mrs greville says about preferring lilias. i am speaking _partly_ selfishly, for though i should have liked it well enough at another time, just now i should not like it at all. it would unsettle me altogether--i have just got all the things i want to do before the summer nicely arranged. don't be vexed with me or think me very selfish, lilias," for her sister was regarding her with an expression she did not quite understand. to her surprise, lilias, by way of answer, threw her arms around her and hugged her violently. "think you selfish! mother just listen to her," she exclaimed. "fancy me thinking mary selfish." then she hugged her again, and mary _felt_ there were tears in her eyes. "selfish indeed! no, but i wouldn't say as much for your truthfulness, you little humbug! do you think i don't see through all your unselfish story-telling," she added in a lower voice. "then don't disappoint me," whispered mary, and when at last she disengaged herself from lilias's embrace, she said aloud, quietly indeed, but firmly enough to carry her purpose, "it is not story-telling, it is _true_. i should not, in the very least degree, enjoy leaving home just now. and, what is more, i just _won't_ go, so, dear friends, you see my mind's made up." and so it was settled, to be followed as was inevitable with these girls when any scheme of the kind was in prospect, by a solemn and momentous discussion as to ways and means--in other words, as to dresses and bonnets and ribbons! but lilias brightened up wonderfully under the impetus of this discussion, and seemed, for the time, so like her old self that mary began to take heart about her, and to hope everything from the change in prospect. chapter eighteen. what happened in the primrose lane. "wee mortal wights whose lives and fortunes bee to common accidents still open layd, are bownd with commun bond of frailtee to succour wretched wights..." _faery queen_. it was within a few days of lilian's going. the bustle of preparation-- of "doing up" the two white muslin evening dresses, the joint property of herself and mary, but which mary insisted on resigning to her sister; of "turning" the black silk skirt which had already done good service; and--most important of all--the cutting out and making the one new dress which the family finances had been able to afford--all was over. everything was ready, and only not packed because it was a pity to crush the garments prematurely. lilias's temporary excitement, now that there was nothing more to do, was already on the wane. she was gentleness and sweetness itself, but with a look in her eyes that mary did not like to see, and a clingingness in her manner which made both mother and sister wish that the day for her going were actually come and the parting, such as it was, fairly over. it was a lovely afternoon--spring was really coming, or thinking of it anyway. "the birds are talking about their new houses, aren't they, mary?" said little francie, as she trotted along beside her sister. they had walked part of the way to withenden with lilias and josey, who were bent on an expedition to the one village shop in quest of some wool for their father's next winter socks, the knitting of which was to be lilias's "fancy work" while away from home. mary had been glad when the idea struck lilias, as her practical belief in the efficacy of a good long walk for low spirits of every kind was great. "i wish i could go with you," she had said to lily, "but some one must take francie out, and alexa and josey always get into scrapes unless one of us is with them. you had better take josey, she is always ready for a long walk, and alexa may potter about the garden with mother, just what she likes." "very well," said lilias, "but you and francie might come part of the way with us. josey is considerably more agreeable out of doors than in the house, but two hours and a half of her, unalloyed, is about as much as i can stand. i am tired, mary, horribly tired--`not in my feet,' as francie says, but in my own self; and oh, i'm so sorry to have been such a plague to you all this time--it makes me feel as if i _couldn't_ go away." her voice was dangerously tremulous, and of all things mary dreaded a break-down, now at the last. "now, lilias," she said, in what lilias sometimes called her "make-up-your-mind-to-it" tone, "you are not to begin talking rubbish. do you hear, child? if you want to please me, there's just one thing to do--go away with mrs greville and try to enjoy yourself. this will be the most unselfish thing you can do; and even if you feel at first as if you couldn't enjoy yourself, it will come--you'll see if it doesn't. now let us set off at once, or you and josey will not be back by tea-time." they skirted the balner woods in going, but coming home, mary, not being pressed for time, yielded to francie's entreaty that they might choose the primrose lane, thereby saving herself a good deal of future discussion, as nothing but "ocular demonstration" would convince the child that there might not be a few primroses out, "just two or three, perhaps, as it was such a werry fine day." "but it is six weeks from now, at least, before they ever come out, francie, dear," said mary, for the twentieth time; "they are not like little boys and girls, you see, who are there in the house all ready to come out the minute the sun shines and the fine weather comes. the primroses have all their growing to do first, and they need the sun and the spring rain to help them to grow, every year." "but is them never the same primroses?" said francie, in some perplexity. "is them new every year--never the same?" "no," said mary, "they are never the same." but as she said the words their sound struck her. "never the same," nay, indeed, say rather, "ever the same," she thought. "`pale primroses,' as pretty perdita called them three hundred years ago! they must have looked up in our great-great-_great_-grandmothers' faces just as they do in ours now--just as they will, centuries hence, smile at the francies that will be looking for them then. what a strange world it is! ever the same and never the same, over and over again." "what are you thinking about, mary? tell me," said francie. "nothing you would understand, dear," mary was saying, when the child interrupted her. "mary," she said, "i hear such a funny noise, don't you? it's like something going _very_ fast--oh! mary, couldn't it be one of the wild bulls running after us?" francie grew white with fear. mary, hastily assuring her it could not be a wild bull, stood still to listen. yes, francie was right--there certainly was a sound to be heard of something rapidly nearing them, and the sound somehow made mary's heart beat faster. "it can only be a horse," she said; "i dare say its nothing wrong." but her face and actions belied her words. there was a gate close by the spot where they stood. mary unlatched it, and drew francie within its shelter. not a minute too soon--the rushing, tearing sound grew nearer and nearer, but a turn in the lane hid the cause of it till close upon them. then--"oh! mary," cried francie, "it's a horse that's runned away--and look, mary, there's a lady on it. oh! i'm sure she will be tumbled off," and francie burst out sobbing with mingled fear, pity, and excitement. it was too true--though it all seemed to mary to pass in an instantaneous flash--the horse dashed past the gate--how glad mary afterwards felt that she had placed herself and her little sister too far out of sight for their presence to have been the cause of what happened--flew down the lane till an open gate and a cart just coming out of a field seemed to bring its terror to a climax. it swerved suddenly, how or why exactly no one could tell, and the slight, swaying figure in the saddle was seen to fall--heavily, lifelessly to the ground--but, thank heaven, thought mary, clear of the stirrup. there was not added to the spectacle, terrible enough as it was, the unspeakable horror of a prostrate figure dragged along the ground--of a fair face battered beyond recognition upon the stones. no one seemed to be at hand to give any assistance--the horse continued for a while his headlong course down the lane; then, after the manner of its kind, having done all the mischief it could, stopped short, and in a few minutes was quietly nibbling the grass as if nothing had happened. but mary gave little attention to the horse, her whole thoughts flew to the motionless figure lying there in a dark heap, where it had been thrown--so still, so dreadfully still--that was all that mary could distinguish, as, overcoming the first natural but selfish instinct which would have made her shrink away from a sight possibly of horror, certainly of sadness, she ran down the lane, closely followed by little francie, who would not be left behind. "is the poor lady killed, mary, does you think?" she said, when her sister had stooped to examine the face half hidden by the long habit skirt which had dropped over it in the fall. "run back, francie. stay over there by the gate, and be sure to tell me if you see any one coming. no, i don't think she's killed, but she's very badly hurt, i fear," said mary, "and, oh, francie, i know who she is. she's that pretty lady that came to church that sunday--do you remember? mr cheviott's sister," she murmured to herself. "how strange!" francie had already run off to her post of observation. mary, afraid though she was of further complicating the unknown injury by anything she might ignorantly do to help poor alys, yet could not bear to see the fair head lying on the careless ground. slowly and cautiously she raised it on to her own knee, supporting the girl's shoulder with one arm, while with the other she tenderly wiped away the dust and grass stains disfiguring the pallid cheek. the girl's eyes were closed, to all appearances she was still perfectly unconscious, but in the moving, carefully though it was done, a slight spasm of pain contracted her features for a moment. mary shivered at the sight. "it may be her spine that is injured," she thought to herself, "her arms are not broken, and i don't think her head is hurt. oh dear, oh dear, if only some one would come! if i had some water, or some _eau de cologne_, or anything--i don't think i shall ever again laugh at alexa for carrying about a scent-bottle in her pocket. francie," she called, softly. francie was beside her in a moment. "nobody's coming," she whispered. "oh, mary, couldn't i run home and fetch somebody? the horse wouldn't run after me, would it?" with a little shudder of fright. "you good little girl," said mary, approvingly. "no, dear, i don't think you could run home. it is too far for you to go alone. but let me see--there must be some cottage or farm-house close to--hilyar's cottages are quite half a mile off--" "captain bebberly lived near here, 'afore he wented away," suggested francie. "i came this way to his house once." "of course," exclaimed mary, in a tone of relief, "the back way to the edge farm cannot be a quarter of a mile off. look, francie, dear, run back to the lane, and run on about as far as you can see from this gate. then you'll see another gate on your left--the other side from this-- that gate will take you into a field which you must cross, and go through a stile, and _then_ you'll see captain beverley's,"--even now she seemed to shrink a little from pronouncing the name--"captain beverley's house. go in and tell the first person you meet to come as quick as he can, and bring some water. tell him it is miss cheviott that is hurt, and tell him where we are. quick, darling, as quick as ever you can." francie lingered for one instant. "there won't be none dogs, will there, mary?" she said, her voice trembling a little. "i think not," said mary. "and if there are, francie, you must ask god not to let them hurt you. that's what being brave means, dear." she said it, feeling that all her own nerve and bravery were being called for. if only she could have run across the fields with francie-- but to sit here, able to do nothing, watching the terrible stillness of the girl's face-- it seemed hours before there came any change. at last a faint, gasping sigh reached mary's ears--a slight, very slight quiver ran through the form she held so tenderly, and alys cheviott opened her eyes--opened them, alas! but to close them again with a quick consciousness of pain. "my back," she whispered--"oh, my back! what have i done to it? oh!" then she lay quiet for a minute or two, mary not daring to move or speak--scarcely to breathe, till again miss cheviott opened her eyes. "where am i?" she said. "what has happened? who is holding me? laurence, is it you? i cannot move; it hurts me so. where is gypsy?" "gypsy is eating grass very comfortably in the lane," said mary, trying to speak in a cheerful, matter-of-fact tone. "it is i that am holding you, miss cheviott--i, mary western. gypsy was very naughty; she threw you off, and i was just a little way behind and saw you." "gypsy threw me off," repeated alys, slowly. "oh, yes, i remember; she ran away." a little shudder ran through her. "it is my own fault. laurence said she was too fresh for me to-day. and you are miss western--how strange!" "_mary_ western," the girl corrected. "yes, i know; i know your voice. how strange it should be you! i am very thankful. how long might i not have lain here without any one knowing? but my back--oh! mary, what can i have done to my back?" "i hope it is only strained, or bruised, perhaps," said mary, very gently, touched by miss cheviott's unconscious use of her first name. "i have sent to the farm--edge farm--your cousin's house, you know, for help; we are close to it." "oh, yes, i know. i wanted to see it, and i thought a long ride would take it out of gypsy. poor arthur, how sorry he will be if i am badly hurt!" something in her words struck mary. could it be true, then, that captain beverley was engaged to this girl? but what a time for such speculations! mary checked herself, with a feeling almost of horror. "what can have become of thwaites? my groom, i mean," said alys, suddenly. "he was close behind me when gypsy started off." "he must have taken a wrong turn," said mary. "most likely he dared not follow too close, and must have lost sight of you. i wish some one would come. do you think i could hold you more easily anyhow?" "oh, no; no, thank you, i mean," said alys, nervously. "don't move; that's the only thing you can do for me. don't move the very least, _please_. miss western." "i won't, dear, not the very least," said mary, soothingly. "and she is seven miles from home," she added to herself, in consternation. alys's eyes closed again, and she grew so white that mary feared she was going to faint. "what _shall_ i do?" she thought, almost in despair, when, to her indescribable relief, a sound of approaching footsteps made itself heard. she dared not even turn her head to see whose they were, but soon the new-comers stood before her. they were two men from the farm, one, the bailiff, the choice of whom had led to arthur's first introduction at the rectory, a kindly middle-aged man, who looked down on the sad little group before him with fatherly concern. "shall i try to lift the young lady, do you think, miss?" he whispered to mary, but alys caught the words. "no, no," she moaned, "don't move me. whatever you do, don't move me." it seemed to mary that her head was beginning to wander. she glanced up at the bailiff in perplexity. "she must be moved, miss," he replied, with decision, in answer to her unspoken question, "and the longer we wait the fainter-like she'll get. not to speak of catching rheumatics from the damp, which would be making a bad job a worser, for sure." mary bent her face over alys's. "dear miss cheviott--alys," she whispered, "i fear we _must_ move you." alys shivered, but resisted no longer. "hold my hand, then--all the way," she murmured, without opening her eyes. "i can carry her quite as easy as on a shutter, and it's less moving in the end. my missus'll have the down-stairs bed all ready," said the bailiff, encouragingly. "but first, miss, we brought a drop of brandy, as the captain left, and some water. will you please try for to get her to swallow a spoonful before we move her, poor lamb?" with some difficulty mary succeeded. then came the lifting her, a terrible business, notwithstanding the infinite tenderness of the stalwart bailiff. and all along the lane, many times mary would have thought her unconscious of all that was passing, but for the convulsive pressure of the little hand that clung to hers so helplessly. half way up the lane the sad little _cortege_ was reinforced by francie, still out of breath, and with great pity shining out of her big blue eyes, and further on still by. thwaites, leading his own horse and naughty gypsy, now perfectly subdued and serene. "he must go for a doctor," said mary, at once, when she caught sight of him. "tell him so," she added, turning to the young farm servant who had accompanied the bailiff. "let me see--yes, mr brandreth at withenden is the nearest." "that's him as we always have at the hall," said thwaites, catching the words; and apparently thankful to be told what to do, he gave over gypsy to the young man's charge, and mounting his own horse, was off in a moment. the "down-stairs bed" was ready, and clean and comfortable enough to make mary rejoice that the accident had not happened in a still more isolated part of the country. "you are very brave," she whispered, when at last the agony of the movement was over, and alys, with death-white cheeks and quivering lips, was laid in the easiest position their ignorance could achieve. a faint smile flickered over the poor girl's face. "am i?" she whispered. "i am so glad. please tell laurence--and--mary, kiss me, please. somehow i have always wanted to love you both--her too--she is so pretty," she murmured, softly. "and fancy my being in arthur's house like this." then for a while she lay silent, and mary's thoughts turned to her own position. what should she do? she was most anxious to get home as soon as possible; it was already past francie's tea-time, and before long her mother would be getting alarmed. besides, how more than disagreeable it would be for her to meet mr cheviott again! how could she tell how he might look upon her presence beside his sister, and what she had done to help poor alys? she got up from her seat by the bed-side, and with soft steps moved towards the door. but, faint as it was, the sound roused alys. "where are you going, miss western?" she said.--"oh, you are not going away from me are you? you will not leave me alone here--oh, do at least wait till the doctor comes, and hear what he says." mary felt that it would be barbarous to refuse. "no," she replied, "i won't go away if you would like me to stay; i will only just send a note to my mother to tell her where i am, otherwise she will wonder what has become of us. i will get mrs wills to send a man with my little sister and the note to mamma." "oh, yes, your little sister--i remember seeing her standing by," said alys, dreamily; "i am so sorry to trouble you so. how good you are! please come and sit beside me. couldn't mrs wills get you some tea?" "would _you_ like some?" said mary, eagerly catching at anything to break the weary suspense of waiting for the doctor's arrival. "i am very thirsty--yes, i think i should," said alys, faintly; so mary hurried off to write her note, and bespeak some tea, though when ready, it was hard work to get alys to swallow it. she seemed to shrink from the slightest movement with increasing and indescribable terror. "it will be impossible to move her to romary," thought mary with dismay. "what will be done? i wonder if the groom will have the sense to fetch mr cheviott as well as the doctor? i almost wish he _would_ come now-- it seems such a responsibility. and if only the doctor would come!" after all, dr brandreth came much sooner than could reasonably have been expected, long as the hour and a half or so of waiting seemed to mary, for thwaites met him on the way to withenden. mary had just gone, at the doctor's request, to borrow a pair of scissors from mrs wills, to cut off poor alys's riding habit, so as to save her all possible suffering, when, passing the open front door on her return, the sound of wheels suddenly stopping at the gate made her pause. yes, it was mr cheviott. mary hesitated. what should she do? she had no time to decide. mr cheviott was at the door before she had thoroughly taken in his arrival. whether he was prepared to find her there or not, she could not tell. his face certainly expressed no surprise, but then, again, it expressed nothing, and her first quick instinct of pity and concern for the terrible anxiety he must be enduring died suddenly away. never had she seen his face harder or colder--"more insolently arrogant," she said to herself, "as if he were indignant that accidents should happen to any one belonging to _him_ as well as to other poor human beings." her indignation calmed her trepidation, and she stood her ground coolly. mr cheviott raised his hat. mary bowed. "may i ask--" he began. "i suppose," he went on, "it is here miss cheviott is?" "yes," said mary, but not moving aside so as to let him pass. "she is here. the doctor is with her?" "but i can go in?" he exclaimed, with unmistakable eagerness and anxiety in his tone now. "she is surely not very seriously injured--not--not--" his lips grew white, and then instantly a dark red flush rose to his brow, as if ashamed of any signs of agitation. mary was somewhat mollified. "i think," she said, gently, "i had better tell her first that you have come, to prevent her being startled. she is quite conscious," she added, "and i _hope_ it is nothing very serious, but the doctor has not said anything yet. there are no bones broken--it is her back she complains of." "her back," repeated mr cheviott, the red flush fading away to a sallow whiteness--"her back! good god, i trust not!" "it may be only severely bruised," said mary, finding herself, despite her determination, already assuming the _role_ of comforter. "i will tell her you are here if you will wait a moment." and when, in a minute or two, mr cheviott was summoned to his sister, to his astonishment it was to find her supported in mary's arms, while dr brandreth was skilfully disentangling the wisps of muddy cloth from the poor girl's form. "that will do--beautifully," he was saying. "now, miss mary, lift her the least atom on the right side--_that_ won't hurt you, my dear. good-day, mr cheviott," for the first time noticing his presence. "a nice piece of work this, isn't it? still not so bad as it might have been, by a long way." "laurence," said alys, faintly, "it was all my own fault. you said gypsy was too fresh." "hush, my darling. never say any more about that part of it," said mr cheviott, in tones that mary could scarcely have believed were his. "kiss me, and say you forgive me, then, and i won't," entreated alys. he could not refuse, even though in stooping to kiss her he could not avoid his head's brushing the sleeve of mary's dress. but motionless as she sat, he was conscious, through the thick grey tweed, of a sort of thrill of shrinking--an instinctive withdrawal from his slightest touch. "how that girl must hate me," he could not help thinking, even then. "she has been _so_ good and kind," whispered alys. "laurence, you will thank her, won't you?" chapter nineteen. coals of fire. benedick.--"fair beatrice, i thank you for your pains." beatrice.--"i took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me." _much ado about nothing_. an hour or so later on this eventful afternoon--or evening, rather, it was fast growing dark--a cloaked and hooded figure was to be seen hastening along the lane which was the shortest way from hathercourt rectory to the edge farm. the figure had good need to be cloaked and hooded, in the waterproof sense of the term, and goloshed too, for the beautiful spring day had ended in, superficially speaking, very unbeautiful rain. it came pouring down--the foot-path was a mass of mud already, and before long threatened to be indistinguishable from the road. lilias--for it was she--had begun by picking her steps, but soon gave this up in despair. it was all she could do to get on at all, laden as she was with a rather cumbersome parcel under her cloak. but her step nevertheless was light and buoyant, and her face and eyes, had there been any one there to see them, or any light to see them by, would have told of eagerness and some excitement, instead of fatigue and depression, as, taking into consideration her seven miles' walk to withenden and back, and her present uncomfortable surroundings, might not unreasonably have been expected. "it is horrible of me--i don't understand myself," she said, suddenly, aloud. then she hurried on faster than before, pursuing, nevertheless, the same train of thought. "why should i feel more buoyant and hopeful than i have done for long, just when such a terrible thing--or what may prove such a terrible thing--has happened to that poor girl? i _know_ i am sorry for her--and even if i were not, i should be sorry to think how it will grieve arthur; but yet--ah, yes, it is just the feeling of having, as it were, something to do with him again--of perhaps hearing him spoken of and of seeing the house where he was so lately. his own house?" she had never been inside the farm-house. often they had passed it in their walks with arthur, and more than once he had tried to persuade the rectory family to organise some sort of picnic party to his bachelor quarters; but to this mrs western had so decidedly objected that the project had never been fulfilled. so lilias was rather in the dark, mentally as well as physically, as to the exact approach to the front door, if front door there was to a house whose three entrances were all much on a par, and in the end she hit upon the one which mrs wills decidedly considered the back door. it had the advantage, however, in the present state of the weather, of being near the kitchen, so her rap was answered without delay. "my sister is still here, is she not? miss western--miss mary western, i mean," she explained, in reply to mrs wills's mute look of bewildered inquiry. "oh, yes, miss, to be sure she is, and what we should have done without her i don't know, and what we shall do now if she--" she was interrupted. "shut that door, if you please, mrs wills," a man's voice called out, "it sets all the other doors in the house rattling," and from an inner room mr cheviott came out to enforce his directions. he had almost shut the door in lilias's face before he perceived her. then--"i beg your pardon," he said instinctively, but, dim as the light was, lilias felt certain he had recognised her. "he will think he is going to have the whole western family down upon him," she thought, with a smile. then she came forward a little. "i am miss western," she said, calmly, and something in the voice, a certain cheery yet half-defiant ring, reminded her hearer of mary--he had never come into personal contact with lilias before. "i have come for my sister--it was too stormy for my mother to come out, but she was getting uneasy, and my little sister could not quite explain. i hope miss cheviott is not seriously hurt?" "thank you," he replied, "we can hardly tell. will you be so good as to come in, and i will tell your sister you are here." lilias came in, and depositing her parcel--bundle, rather--on the table, stood, nothing loth, beside the welcome blaze of the kitchen fire. "how queer it is," she thought, "mary seems quite established here! in the very heart of the enemy's camp, according to _her_ opinion, at least, for she has always persisted that mr cheviott's interference was to be blamed for it all. i don't think it was. arthur would not be so fond of him if he were that sort of man, and besides," with an unconscious slight elevation of her pretty head, "_he_ is not the sort of man to be interfered with." then she glanced round the kitchen--a pleasant, old-fashioned farm-house kitchen, not unpicturesque as seen in the flickering firelight, alternately lighting up and hiding the dark rafters and the quaintly-carved oak settle, where for so many years old john birley had sat and smoked his pipe, and mused on the fallen fortunes of his house. the last of the hathercourt beverleys, mawde's great-great-grandson, to have come down to the bent, blue-stockinged old farmer, whose figure, hobbling into church, lilias had been familiar with ever since she could remember. "fancy mawde beverley, beautiful and refined as she almost certainly was--the maynes of southcote are said to have been very beautiful--_fancy_ her looking forward along the centuries to that old rough man as one of her great-grandchildren!" thought lilias. "if she could have looked forward to _arthur_--what a difference! life is a very queer thing--queer and sad too, i suppose. still i am glad to be alive, and to take my chance of the goods and bads." unconsciously to herself, hope was re-asserting itself in lilias's heart; she could not have spoken or felt thus a few days previously. her soliloquy was soon interrupted. "lily," exclaimed a voice behind her, and turning round lilias saw mary entering the kitchen. "i could hardly believe mr cheviott when he said you were here," mary went on. "and all alone, too! lily, i do believe he thinks us all half mad!" she gave a little laugh, but checked it suddenly. lilias looked at her in surprise. "why should he?" she said, quickly. "i don't see anything particularly mad in my coming down to look after you. i am your elder sister. mother could not come. i don't think you are quite fair on that man, mary." "long may you think so," said mary, sarcastically. lilias's face flushed. "mary," she said, nervously, "you don't mean that--that there is anything indelicate in my coming here, to this house? it did not strike me so, or--" "indelicate!--no, of course not. it is very, very good of you to have come," said mary, warmly; "only you see, i was so astonished." "but what were you intending?--what were you going to do?" said lilias. "you can't stay here all night without clothes, and you sent no message. we didn't know what to think." "no," said mary, "i was just beginning to wonder what i _should_ do. at first, you see, i was so taken up about that poor girl i could think of nothing else." "but she is not badly hurt," interrupted lilias; "you were laughing a minute ago; you don't seem in bad spirits." "i don't know," said mary, her voice saddening. "i think i was laughing out of a sort of nervousness. i really do not know whether she is much hurt or not, and the doctor either would not or could not say. i suppose to-morrow will show. but, lilias, what am i to do? she cannot bear the idea of my leaving her." "has she no maid with her?" asked lilias. "yes, but she is a mere girl who has not been long with her. and the old housekeeper, mrs golding," continued mary, with a curious tone in her voice, "has sprained her ankle or something and cannot leave romary. it would seem almost barbarous for me to leave her--alys--miss cheviott, i mean--to-night, any way." "don't then; there is no objection to your staying under the circumstances. why do you look so unhappy about it?" said lilias. "is it all your dislike to her brother?" "no," said mary with some hesitation, "i don't think that would affect me one way or the other, and _as_ her brother, he is some degrees less odious than i could have expected. no, my feeling is, _under the circumstances_, lilias, an intense dislike to putting them--him, i should say, in a position of obligation to us. it is like forcing him to be civil to us." "and why shouldn't he be?" said lilias, "it is much better than forcing him to be uncivil to us, anyway." "i don't know that it is," said mary, smiling faintly. "i can't altogether explain my feeling, but it is most uncomfortable altogether. he hates my staying as much as i do, and yet i can't do a cruel thing. why, i stayed up three nights in bevan's cottage when jessie broke her leg, without a second thought?" "of course you did," said lilias, "and that's the right way to put it. forget all about her being mr cheviott's sister, and just think of doing a kind thing. mary, it's very queer, but somehow it seems as if my troubles had, in a sense, done you more harm than me. your sympathy for me has made you morbid." "perhaps so," replied mary. "and i dare say you are right. but all the same," she added, "i am not fond of `coals of fire;' there always seems to me something mean in heaping them on." "but suppose you have no choice between that and letting your enemy hunger?" asked lilias. "but `enemy' and `coals of fire'--what absurdly strong expressions--only you _will_ have it poor mr cheviott is the cause of it all." "poor mr cheviott!" repeated mary. "i must be going," said lilias. "george is coming to meet me; he was to start just half an hour after me, so i cannot miss him, and i don't want your friend to offer to see me home, so good-night, dear. you'll find all you want in that bundle, and a good deal you won't want, for mother would put in all manner of things she thought might be useful for miss cheviott--from cotton-wool to a hop pillow, and no doubt you have got all you want from romary." "no," said mary, "that maid has no sense, and forgot nearly everything she should have remembered. i am very glad of your _olla podrida_, lily. good-night, and thank you." they kissed each other, and lilias went out again into the rain and the darkness. mary came back again into the kitchen, wishing, "dreadfully," as the children say, that she could have gone with her sister. she stood by the fire feeling dull and lonely, and, to tell the truth, though the rectory was only a mile away, rather homesick! she was tired, too, which state of things has more to do with our moods of depression than we, in youth anyway, take into sufficient account. "i must go back to miss cheviott," she said to herself; "how i do hope the doctor will think her better to-morrow. i may as well see what lily has brought. how kind poor mother is!" she was turning to examine the bundle when the half-closed door was pushed open and mr cheviott came in. "my sister seems to be falling asleep," he said. "perhaps it will be as well if we leave her for a little. i promised her you would go back in half an hour, and in the mean time--why, has your sister gone, and alone?" "my brother was to meet her, thank you," said mary. "and you? can you--are you really going to stay with alys all night?" "yes," replied mary. "my sister is going to explain to my mother." "it is exceedingly kind of you," said mr cheviott; "but really--i feel ashamed." "you need not feel so," said mary, quietly. "i have--well not _often_, perhaps, but certainly several times--done far more for the poor people about here, and would do so again at any moment for _any_ one in trouble." mr cheviott was silent. then his glance happening to fall on a basket standing unopened on a side table, he started and crossed the room to where it stood. "i am forgetting," he said; and then, taking a small knife out of his pocket, he proceeded to cut the strings which fastened it, and to lift out its contents. it had all been a pious fiction of alys's about fancying she would go to sleep better if left alone. she had been making herself unhappy about mary's having had nothing to eat all the evening, and a basket of provisions having been sent from romary by mrs golding, she had begged her brother to do the honours of the farm-house by unpacking them for miss western's benefit. she was full, too, of a secret wish that somehow or other a better understanding might be brought about between her brother and this girl, to whom from the first she had felt so strongly attracted. "they are both so good," said alys to herself, as she lay, far from sleeping, alas! poor girl, on mrs wills's best bed. "laurence, of course, i do believe to be the noblest man in the world, except for his prejudices, and mary, i can _feel_, is as good as gold. why should they dislike each other so? for, though she tries to hide it from me, i can see that she dislikes him quite as much as he does her. and i am almost sure it was she whom i saw the other day coming down our avenue and crying. what can it all be? there is something i don't know about-- that i'm sure of." then her thoughts took another flight. "i wish laurence would marry," she said to herself. "i wish he would marry just such a girl as mary western. how nice it would be for me! or--supposing i don't get better from this accident--supposing i get worse and die--how dreadfully lonely laurence will be! poor laurence--" and alys's eyes filled with tears at the very thought. in the mean time mr cheviott was unpacking the basket, and handily enough, as mary, watching him with some curiosity, was forced to allow. all sorts of good things made their appearance--a cold ham, two chickens, a packet of tea, fine bread, wine, etc, etc. mr cheviott looked about him in perplexity. "are there no dishes of any kind to be had, i wonder?" he said, at last. "i don't like to disturb mrs wills--she is giving her husband his supper in the back kitchen, i see. poor people, we have put them about quite enough already." mary could no longer stand aloof. she had felt half inclined to be nettled by mr cheviott's calm manner of ignoring what she could not but own to herself had been, in its inference at least, a rude speech. "he still feels he _is_ under an obligation to me," she had said to herself, hotly, "and therefore he won't resent anything i say. i don't agree with lilias. i would much prefer his being uncivil, to civility of that patronising `i couldn't-do-otherwise' kind." but the quiet good-nature with which he now turned to her for assistance appealed to something in mary which could not but respond; the mixture of comicality too in the whole position was not without its attraction for her. "you are not accustomed to kitchen arrangements," she said, smiling a little; "there are the dishes--lots of real willow pattern, `all in a row'--just above your head. stay, don't you see? i can reach them." she stepped forward, put her foot lightly on a three-legged stool standing just under the shelf of dishes. but three-legged stools are cantankerous articles--they require to be treated with a certain consideration mysterious to the uninitiated. mary, perhaps for the first time in her life, suffering from some amount of self-consciousness, gave no thought to the three-leggedness of the stool, and, light as was her spring upon it, it proved too much for its equilibrium; the stool tilted forward, and mary would have fallen ignominiously--perhaps worse than ignominiously, for the kitchen floor was tiled with hard bricks--to the ground, had not mr cheviott darted forward just in time to catch her. mary was exceedingly, ridiculously annoyed--she flushed scarlet, but before she had time to do more than spring back from mr cheviott's supporting arms, he said with a smile, in which, notwithstanding her mortification, mary _could_ not detect any approach to a sneer: "_you_ are not accustomed to three-legged stools, it is very evident, miss western. thank you all the same for your kind intentions, however. i think _i_ can reach the dishes--" he stretched upwards and got down two or three. mary, to hide her discomfort, was glad to help in the "dishing up" that ensued, till between them a very appetising sort of picnic supper was spread out on the table, and mary, to tell the truth, being really hungry, did not refuse her host's invitation to fall to. he was hungry too, notwithstanding his anxiety, and for a few minutes the repast went on in silence. then the ludicrousness of the scene struck mary anew, more forcibly than ever. she could not restrain a smile, and mr cheviott, looking up at the moment, caught sight of it. he smiled too. "what is it that amuses you so, miss western?" he asked. "i don't know. everything i think," she replied. mr cheviott glanced round--then his eyes returned to the table. "mrs golding has certainly sent us provisions enough to stand a siege," he said. "i suppose she thinks you and miss cheviott would starve outright without her to take care of you," said mary. "just exactly what she does think," he replied. "how do you--have you ever seen her?" mary wished her remark had remained unspoken, but judged it best to put a good face upon it. "yes," she said, bravely, her traitorous cheeks flaming again, nevertheless; "i saw her that--that ill-starred day when i got locked up in your haunted room." "ah, yes, of course," said mr cheviott. then he hesitated. "why do you call it `that ill-starred day'?" he asked, with some curiosity. "it did not do you any harm, did it? you were not so very frightened, surely?" "i was _very_ frightened--ridiculously frightened," replied mary; "but i suppose my nerves, though i hate to speak or think of such things as nerves, were hardly in their usual order that day. i had had a good deal to try me. yes, i was _very_ frightened. when i heard your step approaching the door, i was nearly beside myself with fright." here a half-smothered exclamation from mr cheviott, which, had it been from any one else, would have sounded to mary marvellously like "poor child!" caused her to hesitate. she looked up at him--no, he was calmly filling his wine glass--she must have been mistaken. still she hesitated, but only for a moment. could she ever hope for such an opportunity again? be brave, mary, and make the most of it! "it was not on account of my fright that i so dislike the remembrance of that day," she went on, hurriedly. "it was because for the first--no, for the _second_ time in my life, i felt that i had put myself into an utterly false, a most lowering position." "how?" said mr cheviott, quickly. but there was nothing impertinent in the question--his tone of interest was too genuine. "how?" repeated mary; "don't you see how? if you do not, i am increasingly thankful to be able to tell you how--to show you how horrible it was for me to be forced into such a position. how? why, of course, by re-entering a house where, only the day before, i had been so so--" mr cheviott looked up, and again mary saw the dark flush, not often seen there, rise to his forehead. "so--so what? do not speak hastily," he said. "yet perhaps it is best to know the worst. you are not going to say `so _insulted_'?" "no," said mary, "i was not. so _misjudged_, i think, was the word on my lips." mr cheviott smiled--a bitter, sarcastic smile, it seemed to mary, and perhaps she was right. it roused her to go on. "i don't know why i should care--the matter can have less than no interest for you, as little as your opinion of it _ought_ to have for me, and yet i do care--care exceedingly that you, mr cheviott, should, know that i was actually _forced_ into going to your house that day-- that nothing but the risk of possible disloyalty to others, to another, at least, made me give in to do so. but of course i never dreamed of my going there coming to your knowledge. i may be blunt and plain-spoken, but i am not capable of such coarse, obtrusive defiance as that would have been." mr cheviott got up from his chair and walked about for a minute or two. "she thinks her position painful," he said to himself, "and to such a sensitive girl it must be so, i suppose. nothing that i could say would ever make her believe the light in which what she did really appears to me. and still less can she know how infinitely, unspeakably more painful than hers _my_ position is!" then he came back to the table, and standing opposite mary, he said, earnestly: "i am glad you have told me what you have felt about it," he said; "but will you believe me, miss western, when i tell you that your coming again to romary _never_ struck me as you think. if i thought about it at all, it was to feel sure that, as you say was the case, you had been forced to come. it was not likely, was it," he went on, with considerable bitterness in his tone, "that i should imagine you would _wish_ to come in my way after--well, never mind. it is enough for me to say," his voice resuming its earnest kindliness, "that nothing you could do would ever appear to me `coarse, or obtrusive, or defiant,' or anything but brave and true and _womanly_." mary was mollified in spite of herself. but her prejudices and prepossessions were far too deep-rooted to have received more than a very passing shake. and alas! in her moment of triumph she forgot to be generous. "i am unaccustomed to compliments," she said, coldly. "and i did not mean to ask you to _make allowance_ for me. no doubt my disadvantages incline you to do so--just as you would have excused my ignorance of french the first time i spoke to you. you have misunderstood me, mr cheviott. i am not _ashamed_ of what i did, i only regret the ignorance of the world which made me trust to not being misunderstood." again mr cheviott got up from his seat--this time more hastily. "i wonder," he said, in a low, constrained voice,--"i wonder, miss western, if you are anxious to make me unsay some of the words i just now, in all honesty, applied to you?" mary did not reply. "i have my wish," she said to herself, "i have succeeded in forcing him to be _un_civil." and when her conscience smote her a little she silenced it by the old reflection that it was lilias's enemy with whom she was doing battle. what question could there be of hurting the feelings of the man who had done his best to break her darling's heart?--who had even _avowed_ his deliberate intention of destroying the happy prospects that might have been hers? chapter twenty. an enforced armistice. "... yet he talks well but what care i for words? yet words do well when he that speaks them pleases those that hear. ... but for my part i love him not, nor hate him not; and yet i have more cause to hate him than to love him." _as you like it_. there was not, however, much appearance of enmity by the following morning between these two thus strangely thrown together. all other feelings were for the time merged in increasing anxiety about poor alys. for the night that followed her accident was a sadly restless and suffering one, and on the doctor's early visit the next day he detected feverish symptoms which clouded his usually cheery face. "i can say no more as to what lasting--or, comparatively speaking, lasting--injuries she may have received," he said, in reply to mr cheviott's anxious inquiries. "what we have to do at present is to try to get her over the immediate effects of the shock. an attack of fever would certainly only complicate matters, and i cannot see that she _need_ have it if only we can keep her perfectly quiet." "then there is no chance of moving her at present?" said her brother. "it would be most unwise--bringing on the very risk i speak of," replied mr brandreth, decidedly. "she is comfortable enough--thanks to miss western." "yes," said mr cheviott, "thanks to miss western--but that is just the point." "what?" "i cannot expect miss western to turn into a sick-nurse to oblige absolute strangers--people who have no sort of claim upon her," replied mr cheviott, haughtily. mr brandreth glanced at him with some curiosity. ("i wonder how much truth there was in those reports about captain beverley and lilias western," he said to himself.) "she must be required at home--her time must be valuable--i cannot offer to _pay_ her," continued mr cheviott, with increasing annoyance in his tone. "they _might_ be able to spare her. i believe they do keep a servant," said mr brandreth, dryly. "nonsense, brandreth, don't joke about it," said mr cheviott, irritably. "you must understand what i mean--the extreme annoyance of having to put one's self under such an obligation to--to--" "to people you know exceedingly little about, it is clear," said mr brandreth, severely. "if it be a right and christian thing to do, mr and mrs western will spare their daughter to nurse your sister, mr cheviott, just as readily as they spared her to nurse jessie bevan when she broke her leg." "so miss western herself told me," observed mr cheviott. "ah, then you have come upon the subject?" said the doctor. "and evidently miss mary has rubbed his high mightiness the wrong way," he added to himself, with an inward chuckle. "not exactly. i never thought of having to ask her to stay longer than to-day. all that was said was when i was thanking, or trying to thank, her last night for what she had done, and i suppose i made a mess of it," said mr cheviott, with a shrug of his shoulders. "well, i must be going," said mr brandreth, rising as he spoke. "and what is to be done?" asked mr cheviott, helplessly. "am _i_ to ask her to stay?" "you are certainly not to send her away," replied mr brandreth, greatly enjoying the situation; till, pitying mr cheviott's discomfort, he added, "i'll tell you what i'll do for you. i will tell mary she is not to leave miss cheviott on any account till i see her again in the afternoon, and in the mean time i will see mrs western and explain it all to her, and let you know the result. i'll take it all on myself, if that will comfort you." "you are very good," said mr cheviott, fervently. "i am sure they will spare her for a fortnight or so--" "a fortnight!" ejaculated alys's brother, ruefully. "_at least_," said mr brandreth, pitilessly, "and be thankful if the fortnight sees you out of the wood. lilias western is going away to-morrow, or the day after, but the mother's quite capable of managing without her daughters for once, and it will do miss alexa, the only fine lady of the family, no harm to have to exert herself a little more than usual." "_another_ daughter," exclaimed mr cheviott. "good heavens! how many are there?" "five--and three sons. i've known them all ever since they were born." "and the eldest one--miss western--the one here is the second, is she not?--the eldest is going away, you say?" inquired mr cheviott, indifferently, imagining he had quite succeeded in concealing the real curiosity he felt as to this new move in the enemy's camp. "yes," said mr brandreth, mischievously, "she is certainly going away, but where to i don't know. she is a beautiful girl--you have seen her?--i should not be surprised to hear of her marriage any day. there has been some amount of mystery about her of late--they are rather reserved people at all times--and i could not help wondering if there could be anything on the tapis. she seems in very good spirits, anyway." "ah, indeed!" said mr cheviott, carelessly. he hated gossip so devoutly that not even to satisfy the very great misgivings mr brandreth's chatter had aroused, would he encourage it further. "then we shall see you again in the afternoon, and till then i am to do nothing about these arrangements?" he added, and mr brandreth felt himself dismissed. it was not afternoon, however, but very decidedly evening before the doctor paid his second visit to the farm. in the mean time he had seen mrs western and explained to her the whole situation, and the result had been a note to mary from her mother desiring her not to think of coming home that afternoon, as she had intended, and promising a visit from lilias the following morning, when all should be discussed and settled. concerning this note, however, mary, not feeling it incumbent on her to do so, had made no communication to mr cheviott. "it will be time enough to tell him what my mother says if he mentions the subject," she thought. "there is not much fear of his thinking i am staying here for the pleasure of his society." and in her absorbing care of poor alys, and anxious watching for abatement in the unfavourable symptoms of the morning, she really forgot, feeling satisfied that she was acting in accordance with her parents' wishes, any personal association of annoyance in her present surroundings. mr cheviott marvelled somewhat at her calm taking-for-granted that she was to stay where she was; but, true to his agreement with mr brandreth, he said nothing. and the long, dull, rainy day passed, with no conversation between the two watchers but the matter-of-fact remarks or inquiries called forth by their occupation. by evening alys's feverishness and excitability decreased, yielding evidently to mary's scrupulous, fulfillment of the directions left with her. "she has fallen asleep beautifully--she is as calm and comfortable as possible," the young nurse announced triumphantly to mr cheviott, as she came into the kitchen where he, manlike, sat smoking by way of soothing his anxiety. he looked up. mary stood in the door-way, her eyes sparkling, a bright smile on her face. just then there could not have been two opinions about her beauty. mr cheviott rose quickly. "you are a born sick-nurse, miss western," he said, heartily, speaking to her for almost the first time without a shadow of constraint in his voice. but, as he uttered the words, the smile faded out of mary's face and a white, wearied look crept over it. she half made a step forward, and then caught at a chair standing close by, as if to save herself from falling. "it's nothing," she exclaimed, recovering herself instantaneously. "don't think i was going to faint. i _never_ do such a thing. i was only giddy for an instant. i had been stooping over al--miss cheviott's bed to see if she was really asleep." "you have been doing a great deal too much, and i can never thank you enough--the truth is, i don't know how to thank you without annoying you by my clumsiness," said mr cheviott, remorsefully. but so genuinely cordial--almost boyish--was his way of speaking that mary, even had she felt equal to warfare, could have found no cause of offence in his words. "_don't_ thank me, then," she said with a smile, as she sat down in the old wooden arm-chair--the most comfortable the kitchen contained--which mr cheviott had drawn round for her to the side of the fire. "i am too tired to discuss whether your `clumsiness' or my `touchiness'"--a slight cloud overspread her face at the word, but only for an instant--"is to blame for my ungraciousness yesterday. if mr brandreth pronounces your sister decidedly better when he comes to-morrow i shall be well thanked." mr cheviott sat down without speaking, and looked at her. he could do so for the moment without risk of offence, for mary's eyes were fixed on the fire, which danced and crackled up the chimney with fascinating loveliness. her face, seen now in profile and without the distracting light of her brown eyes, whiter too than its wont, struck him newly by its unusual refinement of lines and features. "where have those girls got their looks from?" he said to himself. "alys was right that day that i was so cross to her in paris, poor child; these western girls might, as far as looks go, be _anybody_, to speak like a dressmaker! and where, too, have they learned such perfect self-possession and power of expressing themselves, brought up in the wilds of hathercourt?" "the fire looks as if it were bewitched," said mary, glancing up at last. "when we were children we always believed when it darted and crackled and _laughed_, as it were--just as it is now--we always thought fairies were playing at hide and seek in the flames." "was it your own idea?" said mr cheviott. "not mine," said mary. "_my_ fairies were all out-of-doors ones. wood fairies were my favourites. oh, dear! how dreadful it would be to live in a town?" "alys doesn't think so," observed her brother. "she often complains of the country being dreadfully dull." "ah, yes--in _her_ case i could fancy so," said mary, complacently. "no brothers or sisters, and a huge empty house. to enjoy the country thoroughly, it seems to me one must be one of a good large family." a faint remembrance flitted across mr cheviott's mind of the half-contemptuous pity with which he had alluded to mrs brabazon to the overflowing numbers in hathercourt rectory. _now_, mary's allusion slightly nettled him. "alys is not quite alone in the world," he said, stiffly, hardly realising the fact that miss cheviott of romary could be an object of commiseration to one of the poor clergyman's numerous daughters. "she has a brother." "oh, yes, of course," allowed mary. "but so much older than herself, you see. i can fancy her being dull sometimes." mr cheviott gave a slight sigh. mary's quick conscience pricked her. "i should not have said that," she thought. "poor man, it would be dreadful for him just now, when she is lying ill, to think he has not made her life as happy as possible." she leaned her head on her hand and tried to think of some safe topic of conversation. these enforced _tete-a-tetes_ she felt to be far the most trying part of her life at the farm. mr cheviott, looking up, observed her attitude. "you are _very_ tired, i fear, miss western," he said, with the unconstrained kindliness in his voice which so softened and mellowed its tones. mary roused herself at once. "oh, no," she said, "i am really not _very_ tired. i am waiting rather anxiously for mr brandreth. i thought he would have been here before this. i must get something to do," she went on, looking round. "i wish i had asked lilias to send a few books." "please don't get anything to do," said mr cheviott, eagerly. "you don't know what a satisfaction it is to me to see you resting, and how glad i should be to do anything for you. would you like--might i," he went on, with a sort of timidity which made mary smile inwardly at the idea of the unapproachable mr cheviott feeling any want of assurance in addressing _her_! "might i read aloud to you? i sent home for some books to-day. alys is rather fond of my reading aloud," he added, with a smile. "i should like it very much indeed, thank you," said mary. "and if-- just _supposing_ the sound of your voice sent me sleep, you would not be very much offended, would you?" mr cheviott laughed--he was already looking over some magazines which mary had not before observed on the dresser. "what will you have?" he said. "poetry, science, fiction? stay, here is a good review of h.'s last novel that i wanted to see. the german author, you know. have you read it?" he made the inquiry rather gingerly, being not without remembrance of the snub he had received _a propos_ of the misses western's knowledge of french. "no," said mary, "i have not. but i have heard a good deal about it, and should like to hear more, so please read that review." it was a well written notice, and the subject of it one worthy of such writing. mr cheviott grew interested, and so did mary. he read well, and she listened well; till some remark of the writer's drawing forth from mr cheviott an expression of disagreement, mary took up the argument, and they were both in the midst of an amicably eager discussion when the door opened and mr brandreth appeared on the threshold. an amused smile stole over his face. "good news awaits me, i see," he said, with some pomposity. "miss cheviott must be better, or her faithful nurse would not be chattering so merrily--eh, miss western?" mary looked up with a glimmer of fun in her eyes. "yes," she said, "she _is_ better. that is to say, she is fast asleep, and has been for two hours. she is sleeping as quietly as a baby, quite differently from last night, and, as far as i could judge before she fell asleep, the feverish symptoms had subsided wonderfully." mr brandreth rubbed his hands and came nearer the fire, where mr cheviott, having risen from his chair, was standing in an attitude of some slight constraint. "i expected you earlier," he said, in a low voice _not_ intended for mary's quick ears, which, as might naturally be expected, it reached with marvellous celerity. "ah, yes--sorry to have disappointed you," said mr brandreth, still rubbing his hands, but by this time with less energy and more enjoyment, as they gradually thawed in front of the blazing fire. "i could not help it, however, and my mind felt more at ease about things here after i had seen mrs western. but i am sorry to have kept you here waiting for me all day, mr cheviott. it must be very tiresome for you." "i did not intend returning to romary to-day," said mr cheviott, speaking now in his ordinary voice. "of course it would have been impossible." "i don't know that," replied mr brandreth. "there is not much that you can do for your sister, and it must be dreadfully wearisome work for you hanging about here all day, particularly in the evenings," he added, in a tone of special commiseration, "when you cannot even get out for a stroll." mary glanced up quickly. "how i wish he would go back to romary?" she had been thinking to herself while mr brandreth was speaking. "i would not mind staying here at all, in that case." but something indefinable in mr brandreth's voice just now roused her suspicions. was he laughing at mr cheviott? if so, he was, in a sense, laughing at her too. mary began to feel rather indignant. lilias was right; there was a touch of coarseness about mr brandreth notwithstanding his real goodness and kindness, which hitherto had always prevailed with mary to take his friendly bantering in good part. something, she knew not what, she was on the verge of replying, when mr cheviott anticipated her. "the _evenings_?" he said, simply, yet with a sort of dignity not lost upon either of his hearers--"this evening, at least, has been anything but wearisome, as miss western has kindly allowed me to read to her, and i fortunately lighted upon an article which interested us both. i may ride over to romary to-morrow to see if i am wanted for anything; but i could not feel content to leave this, with alys still in so critical a state. i have not been _very_ troublesome, i hope, have i, miss western?" he added, turning to mary with a smile. there was not a shade of constraint in his manner now, yet no "clara vere de vere" could have desired to be addressed with more absolute deference and respect. for the first time mary experienced a sensation of real friendliness towards her host for the time being. hitherto her most cordial feeling with regard to him had been a sort of pity--a slightly pleasurable consciousness of meriting his gratitude; and in such one-sided sentiments, no root of actual _friendliness_--of which the "give and take" element is the very essence--could exist. now, for the first time, a flash of something like gratitude to him, of quick appreciation of his instinctive chivalry, lent a softness to her voice and a light to her eyes which mr cheviott, without taking credit to himself for the change, was agreeably conscious of, as she replied, gravely: "you have been very considerate indeed, mr cheviott. and it seems to me that till your sister is decidedly better, it would not be well for you to go away." "thank you," said mr cheviott, simply, while in his own mind mr brandreth whistled. how the wind lay was beginning to puzzle him. "you saw mamma?" said mary, interrogatively, turning to mr brandreth. "i had a note from her this afternoon, telling me not to go home to-day, and that you would see me again." mr cheviott heard her with some surprise. this, then, supplied the key of her quietly remaining at the farm all day with no talk of quitting her post. what a more and more interestingly unusual study this girl's character was becoming to him! so brave, yet so shrinkingly sensitive, so wise, yet so unsophisticated, so self-reliant and coolly determined, yet yielding in an instant to the slightest expression of parental authority! "yes," said mr brandreth, oracularly, "i saw your mamma, miss mary, and explained the whole to her. her views of the situation, as i felt sure would be the case, entirely coincide with mine. she will not hear of your leaving miss cheviott at any risk to her, for i fully explained that your remaining might do what we doctors seldom are called in time enough for--it may _save_ your patient an illness instead of curing her of one. the greatest triumph of the two, in my opinion! furthermore, your mother desires you not to worry about things at home. miss alexa and master josephine," (reverting to a very threadbare joke on poor josey's hobbledehoyism) "are developing undreamed-of capabilities--josey was very nearly packing herself into your sister's box in her anxiety to take your place as her assistant--yes, you are not to worry about things at home, and--let me see--oh, yes, you are to take good care of yourself and not get knocked up, and--and--miss lilias will be here in the morning and tell you all that has happened since you left home--let me see, how many hours ago?" mary laughed cordially. this kind of banter she could take in the best part. and she really was glad to hear all about home. how well she could fancy poor josey's ineffectual attempts at helping lilias to pack, and lilias's good-humoured despair at the results!--it seemed ages since she had seen them all. "then i am to wait here till further orders," said mary, "and those orders, in the first place, i suppose, will be yours, mr brandreth?" "probably," the doctor replied. "and i? whose orders am i to be under?" inquired mr cheviott. "miss western's," said mr brandreth. "in my absence miss western is commander-in-chief." but his little pleasantry fell harmless this time. mr cheviott and mary only smiled. and then mary took the doctor into the next room to see unconscious alys sleeping, as her friend had said, as sweetly as a baby. chapter twenty one. pledged. "love, when 'tis true, needs not the aid of sighs, or oaths, to make it known." _sir c. sedley_. "to-morrow" was a fine day at last. and lilias was up betimes. it was the day before that of her leaving home, and, notwithstanding the great preliminary preparations, there were still innumerable last packings to do, arrangements to be made, and directions given--all complicated by mary's absence. then there was mary to see, and not wishing to be hurried in the long talk with her, without which lilias felt it would really be impossible to start on her journey, she set off pretty early for the farm. it was a great bore certainly, as josey expressed it, that mary should be away just at this particular juncture. lilias missed her at every turn, and felt far from happy at leaving her mother without either of her "capable" daughters at hand, especially as mr brandreth had plainly given mrs western to understand that mary's stay at the edge, if it were to do real and lasting good, might have to be prolonged over two or three weeks. "that poor girl will not know how she is till she gets over the first shock of her accident," he had said; "and if, as i much fear, there is any actual injury, she may be thrown back into a brain fever if there is no sensible, cheerful person beside her to help her over the first brunt of such a discovery." "but do you think her _badly_ hurt--crippled, perhaps, for life?" lilias had asked, with infinite sympathy in her face. "what a fate!" she was saying to herself; "far better, in _my_ opinion, to have been killed outright than to live to be an object of pity, and even, perhaps, shrinking, on the part of others. fancy such a thing befalling me, and my being afraid of arthur ever seeing me again!" she gave an involuntary shiver as she made her inquiry of mr brandreth, who looked surprised. "why, miss lilias," he said, "you've not half your sister's nerve! what have you been doing to yourself, you don't look half so strong and vigorous as you used to." "that is why she is going away," said her mother, quietly. "she has not been well lately. but tell us about poor miss cheviott, please." "i do not think she will be crippled for life--nothing so bad as that-- but she will probably have to lie and rest for a long time. the great point is to get her well over the first of it, and that is why i am so anxious for mary to stay." and so it had been decided, and somehow, in spite of her regret at its happening just at this time, lilias could not bring herself to feel altogether distressed at mary's remaining at the farm; and though she did not exactly express this to her sister, mary did not remain unconscious of it. "i wish i were not going away, then it would be all right," she said, when they were sitting together in the farm-house kitchen. "i am most particularly glad you are going away," mary replied. "i hardly know that i could have agreed to stay here, had you not been going away." "why?" asked lilias, opening wide her blue eyes. "because--because--oh! i can't exactly put it into words," replied mary. "you might understand without my saying." but seeing that lilias still looked inquiringly, she went on: "don't you see--i don't want these people--_him_, i mean," (mr cheviott had ridden over to romary),--"to think we would take advantage of this accident--this wholly fortuitous circumstance, not of their seeking, and assuredly not of ours, of my being thrown into their society, to bring about any intimacy, any possible endeavour to recall--you know whom i mean--to--to what we had begun to think might be." "your powers of expressing yourself are certainly not increasing, my dear mary," said lilias, with a smile, though the quick colour mounted to her cheeks. "i really do think you worry yourself quite unnecessarily about what mr cheviott thinks or doesn't think. i cannot believe, as i have always said--i cannot believe he has been to blame as much as you imagine. don't you like him any better now that you have seen more of him?" "i don't _want_ to like him better," said mary, honestly. "he is, of course, most courteous and civil to me--more than that, he is really considerate and kind, and certainly he is a cultivated and intelligent man, and not, in some ways, so narrow-minded as might have been expected. but i don't _want_ to like him, or think better of him; whenever i seem to be tempted to do so it all rises before me--selfish, cold, _cruel_ man, to interfere with your happiness, my lily." mary gave herself a sort of shake of indignation. "you are a queer girl, mary," said lilias, putting a hand on each of her sister's shoulders, and looking down--lilias was the taller of the two-- deep down into her eyes--blue into brown. the brown eyes were unfathomable in their mingled expression--into the blue ones there crept slowly two or three tears. but lilias dashed them away before they fell, and soon after the sisters kissed each other and said good-bye. "i wonder," said lilias to herself, as she stood still for a moment at the juncture of the two ways home, debating whether or not she might indulge herself by choosing the pleasanter but more circuitous path through the woods. "i wonder if anything will have happened--anything of consequence, i mean--before i see mary again, six weeks or so hence." an idle, childish sort of speculation, but one not without its charm for even the wiser ones among us sometimes, when the prize that would make life so perfect a thing is tantalisingly withheld from us, or, alas! when, in darker, less hopeful days, there is _no_ break in the clouds about our path, and in the weariness of long-continued gloom we would almost cry to fate itself to help us!--fate which, in those seasons, we dare not call god, for no way of deliverance that our human judgment can call divine seems open to us. will nothing _happen_?--something we dare not _wish_ for, to deliver us from the ruggedness of the appointed road from which, in faint-hearted cowardice, we shrink, short-sightedly forgetting that, to the brave and faithful, "strength as their days" shall be given. but in no such weariness of spirit did lilias western "wonder" to herself; she was young and vigorous; there was a definite goal for her hopefulness; her visions of the future could take actual shape and clothing--and how much of human happiness does such an admission not involve? she "wondered" only because, notwithstanding the disappointment and trial she had to bear, life was still to her so full of joyful possibilities, of golden pictures, in the ultimate realisation of which she could not as yet but believe. "yes," she repeated, as, deciding that a delay of ten minutes was the worst risk involved, she climbed the narrow stile into the wood--"yes, i _wonder_ how things will be when dear mary and i are together again? such queer things have happened already among us. who _could_ have imagined such a thing as mary's being `domesticated' with the cheviotts? i wonder if arthur beverley will hear of it? oh, i do, do wish i was not going away to-morrow!" she stopped short again for a moment, and looked about her. how well she remembered the spot where she was standing! it was not far from the place where she and her sisters had met captain beverley that day when he had walked back with them to the rectory. how they had all laughed and chattered!--how very long ago it seemed now! lilias gazed all round her, and then hastened on again, and as she did so, somewhat to her surprise, far in front of her, at the end apparently of the wood alley which she was facing, she distinguished a figure approaching her. it was at some distance off when she first saw it, but the leafless branches intercepted but little of the light, which to-day was clear and undeceptive. "it must be papa," she said to herself, when she was able to distinguish that the figure was that of a man--"papa coming to meet me, or possibly he may be going on to see mary at the farm." she hurried on eagerly, but when nearer the approaching intruder, again she suddenly relaxed her pace. were her eyes deceiving her? had her fancy played her false, and conjured up some extraordinary illusion to mislead her, or was it--could it be arthur beverley himself who was hastening towards her? hastening?--yes, hastening so quickly that in another moment there was no possibility of any longer doubting that it was indeed he, and that he recognised her. but no smile lit up his face as he drew near; he looked strangely pale and anxious, and a vague misgiving seized lilias; her heart began to beat so fast that she could scarcely hear the first words he addressed to her--she hardly noticed that he did not make any attempt to shake hands with her. "miss western," he said, in a low, constrained, and yet agitated tone, "i do not know whether i am glad or sorry to meet you. i do not know whether i _dare_ say i am glad to meet you." he glanced up at her for an instant with such appeal and wistfulness in his eyes that lilias turned her face away to prevent his seeing the quick rush of tears that _would_ come. "what you must have thought of me, i cannot let myself think," he went on, speaking more hurriedly and nervously. "but you will let me ask you something, will you not? you seem to be coming from the farm--tell me, i implore you, have you by any chance heard how my poor cousin is? is she still alive? she cannot--she _must_ not be dead!" his wildness startled lilias. a rush of mingled feelings for an instant made it impossible for her to reply. what could be the meaning of it all? why this exaggerated anxiety about alys cheviott, and at the same time this tone of almost abject self-blame? lilias felt giddy, and almost sick with apprehension--was her faith about to be uprooted? her trust flung back into her face? were mary's misgivings about to be realised? was it true that arthur, influenced by motives she could but guess at, had deserted her for his cousin? captain beverley misinterpreted her silence. his face grew still paler. "i see what you mean," he said, excitedly. "she _is_ dead, and you shrink from telling me. good god, what an ending to it all!" a new sensation seized lilias--a strange rush of indignation against this man, so false, yet so wanting in self-control and delicacy as to parade his grief for the girl he imagined he had lost, to the girl whose heart he had gained, but to toss it aside! she turned upon him fierily. "no," she said, "she is not dead, nor the least likely to die. i have nothing more to say to you, captain beverley. be so good as to let me pass." for he was standing right in front of her, blocking up the path. at her first words he drew a deep breath of relief and was on the point of interrupting her, but her last sentences seemed to stagger, and then to petrify him. he did not speak, he only stood and looked at her as if stupefied. "why are you so indignant?" he said at last. "why should i not ask you how alys is?" "why should you?" lilias replied. "she is your own cousin. _i_ scarcely know her by sight--we are not even acquaintances. captain beverley, i must again ask you to let me pass on." half mechanically the young man stood aside, but as lilias was about to pass him he again made a step forward. "miss western--lilias," he exclaimed, "i shall go mad if you leave me like this. i had been thinking, hoping wildly and presumptuously, you may say, that, in spite of all, in spite of the frightful way appearances have been against me, you--you were still," he dropped his voice so low that lilias could scarcely catch the words, "still _trusting_ me." lilias looked up bravely. "so i was," she said. "and why not `so i _am_'?" he said, eagerly, his fair fare flushing painfully. lilias hesitated. "i don't know," she said at last. "i cannot understand you and--and your manner to-day." captain beverley sighed deeply. "and i--i cannot, dare not explain," he said, sorrowfully. "don't misunderstand me," he added, hastily, seeing a quick, questioning glance from lilias at the word "dare." "i mean i am bound for the sake of others not to explain. i have, indeed, i now see, been bound hand and foot by the folly of others almost ever since i was born! there is nothing i would not wish to explain to you, nothing that i should not be thankful for you to know-- but i cannot tell it you! was ever man placed in such a position before?" he stopped and appeared to be considering deeply. "lilias," he went on, earnestly, "it seems to me that i am so placed that i must do one or other of two wrong things. i must break my pledged word, or i must behave dishonourably to you--which shall it be? decide for me." "neither," said lilias, without an instant's hesitation. "you shall not break your word, arthur, for my sake. and you shall not behave dishonourably to me, for, whatever you do or don't do, i promise you to believe that you have done the best you could; i have trusted you, hitherto, against everybody. shall i, may i, go on trusting you?" arthur looked at her--looked straight into her eyes, and that look was enough. "yes," he said, "you may." there was silence for a moment or two. then arthur added: "lilias," he said, "i have not in the past behaved unselfishly--hardly, some would say, honourably to you. but it was out of thoughtlessness and ignorance; till i knew you, i did not know myself. i had no idea how i could care for any woman, and i had ignorantly fancied i never should. i cannot explain, but i may say one thing. should you be afraid of marrying a poor man--a really poor man?" lilias smiled. "i half fancied there was something of that kind," she said. "no," she went on, "i should not be afraid of marrying _you_ as a poor man. i have no special love for poverty in the abstract. i know too much of it. and i am no longer, you know, what people call `a mere girl.' i am two-and-twenty, and have had time to become practical." "it looks like it," said arthur, smiling too. "but my practicalness _makes_ me not afraid of poverty on the other hand," pursued lilias. "i have seen how much happiness can co-exist with it. my only misgiving is," she hesitated--"you would like me to speak frankly?" "whatever you do i entreat you to be frank," said arthur, earnestly. "i don't deserve it, i know, but heaven knows i would be frank to you if i could." "i was only going to say--my people--my parents and mary, perhaps, might be more mercenary _for_ me--because they have all spoiled me, and i have been horribly selfish, and they might think me less fit for a struggling life than i believe i really am." "yes, i can fancy _their_ feelings for you by my own," said arthur, sighing. "and how i would have enjoyed enabling you to be a comfort to them--to your mother, for instance. lilias, i am cruelly placed." "poor fellow!" said lilias, mischievously. "yes," said arthur, "i am indeed. will you now," he went on, "tell me about alys? how is she, and where?" lilias told him all she knew. "and your sister nursing her," said arthur. "how extraordinary!" notwithstanding his surprise, however, lilias could see that the idea of the thing was not unpleasing to him. "but for that--but for mary's being with her, you and i would not have met this morning," she said. "you may go further and say that but for alys's accident i should not have been here," said arthur, while a shade fell over his sunny countenance. "it is too cold for you standing here. let us walk on a little." "are you not going to the farm?" lilias asked. "no. now that i have seen you i shall hurry back the way i came. you have told me all there is to hear. poor alys! lilias, i _wish_ i could explain to you why i felt so horribly, so unbearably anxious about her. i am _very_ fond of her; but once lately when i was nearly beside myself with perplexity and misery, laurence--her brother, you know--to bring me to what _he_ would call my senses, i suppose, said something which has haunted me ever since i heard of her accident yesterday morning. if she had been killed i should have felt as if i had killed her." he looked at lilias, with a self-reproach and distress in his open boyish face which touched her greatly--the more as, now that the brightness had for the moment faded out of his countenance, she could see how much changed he was, how thin and pale and worn he looked. "i think i can understand--a very little," she said, gently, "without your explaining. but you have grown morbid, arthur. you _know_ you would suffer anything yourself rather than wish injury to any one." "i suppose i have grown morbid," he said. "morbid for want of hope, and still more from the constant horrible dread of what you must be thinking of me. i shall not know myself when i get back to c. i may have dark fits of blaming myself for involving you in my misfortunes--but then to know that you trust me again! surely, whatever the world might say, i have _not_ done wrong, lilias? to you, i mean?" "you have given me back my life, and youth, and faith and everything good," she replied. "can that be doing me wrong?" they walked on a little way in silence. then arthur stopped. "i must go, i fear," he said, reluctantly. "and i suppose we must not write to each other. no, it would not be fair to you to ask it." "i should not like to write to you without my father and mother's knowledge," said lilias. "no, of course not. and, as i am placed--my difficulties involve others, that is the worst of it--i do not see that i can avoid asking you not to mention what has passed to your people, _at present_. does that make you uncomfortable?" lilias considered. "no," she said, "i do not see that it alters my position. hitherto i have gone on trusting you, without saying anything about it to any one. till i met you this afternoon, and your own manner and words misled me, i have never left off trusting you, arthur, _never_. and so i shall go on the same way. but i couldn't write to you without them all knowing. i mean i should not feel happy in doing so. besides, it would not be very much good. you see you cannot explain things to me yet, so we could not consult together." "not yet," said arthur. "but as you trust me, trust me in this. if _any_ effort of mine can hasten the explanation, you shall not long be left in this position. you are doing for me what few girls would do for a man--do not think i do not know that, and believe that i shall never forget it. two years," he went on, in a lower voice, almost as if speaking to himself, but lilias caught the words--"two years at longest, but two years are a long time. and if i take my fate in my own hands, there is no need for waiting two years." "do nothing rash or hasty," said lilias, earnestly. "do nothing for _my_ sake that might injure you. arthur," she exclaimed, hastily, as a new light burst upon her, and her face grew pale with anxiety--"arthur, _i_ am surely not to be the cause of misfortune to you? your pledging yourself to me is surely not going to ruin you? if i thought so! oh! arthur, what would--what _could_ i do?" arthur was startled. he felt that already he had all but gone too far, and mr cheviott's words recurred to him. "if the girl be what you think her, would she accept you if she knew it would be to ruin you?" recurred to him, however, but to be rejected as a plausible piece of special pleading. "ruin him," yes, indeed, if she, the only woman he had ever cared for, threw him over, then they _might_ talk of ruining him. and were there no lilias in the world, could he have asked alys to marry him--alys, his little sister--now that he knew what it was to love with a man's whole love? "lilias," he said, with earnestness almost approaching solemnity in his voice, "you must never say such words as those, _never_; whatever happens, you are the best of life to me. and even if i had returned to find you married to some one else, my position would have remained the same. that is all i _can_ say to you. no, i will do nothing rash or hasty. for your sake i will be careful and deliberate where i would not be, or might not have been so, for myself." "can you not tell me where you are going, or what you are doing?" said lilias, with some hesitation. "oh, dear, yes! somehow i fancied you knew. i am at c, studying at the agricultural college, studying hard for the first time in my life. my idea is," he added, speaking more slowly, "to fit myself, if need be, for employment of a kind i fancy i could get on in--something like becoming agent to a property--that sort of thing." lilias looked up at him with surprise and admiration. this, then, was what he had been busy about all these weary months, during which everybody had been speaking or hinting ill of him. working hard--with what object was only too clear--to make a home for _her_, should the mysterious ill-fortune to which he alluded leave him a poor and homeless man! lilias's eyes filled with tears--was he _not_ a man to trust? then at last they parted--each feeling too deeply for words--but yet what a happy parting it was! "to think," said lilias to herself as she hurried home, "to think how i was wondering what might happen in the next six weeks--to think what has happened in the last half hour!" and arthur, all the way back to c, his heart filled with the energy and hopefulness born of a great happiness, could not refrain from going over and over again the old ground as to whether _something_ could not be done--could not the court of chancery be appealed to? he wished he could talk it over with laurence--laurence who was just as anxious as he to undo the cruel complication in which they were both placed. "only then again," thought arthur, "that foolish, ridiculous prejudice of his against the westerns comes in and prevents his helping me if he could. and to think of mary being there as alys's nurse! how he will hate the obligation--if it were not so serious for poor alys, i really could laugh when i think of laurence's ruffled dignity in such a position!" chapter twenty two. alys's brother. "in that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts bring sad thoughts to the mind." _wordsworth_. days passed--a week, ten days of mr brandreth's fortnight were over, but still he would say nothing definite as to the possibility of moving alys to romary. and alys herself seemed marvellously contented--the reason of which she made no secret of to mary. "you see i have never had a really close friend of near my own age--and you are only two years older," she said one day. "and i never could have got to know you so well in any other circumstances--could i? you do understand me so well, mary. it is perfectly wonderful. if i were never to see you again, i could not regret my accident since it has made me know you." mary was silent. "why don't you answer?" said alys, anxiously. "am i horribly selfish to speak so, when this time you have given up to me has kept you away from your dear home and all of them, and interfered with your regular duties?" "no, dear," said mary, "it isn't that at all. my being away from home has not mattered in the least; besides, i am near enough to hear at once if they really needed me. no, i was only thinking i could not say i did not regret your accident, because, though i am thankful you are so far better, i feel so anxious about you afterwards. even though mr brandreth does not anticipate seriously-lasting injury, you may have a good deal of weariness and endurance before you. he told you?" "yes," said alys, composedly. "i know i shall not feel strong and well, as i used, for a long time, if ever. i shall have to rest a great deal, hanging about sofas, and all that--just what i hate. but i don't mind. i am still glad it happened. it has done me good, and it has done some one else good too. was that all you hesitated about, mary?" "not quite." "well, say the rest--_do_!" "i was only thinking that i could not respond as heartily as i would like to your affection, alys, because i hardly see that my friendship _can_ be much good to you in the future." "why?" "our lives are so differently placed--we are in such totally different spheres--" "oh! mary," exclaimed alys, reproachfully, "you are not going to be proud, and refuse to know us because we are rich and you are--" "poor," added mary, smiling. "no, not on that account exactly." "why, then? is it because you suspect that at one time laurence discouraged my knowing you? you can afford to forgive that, surely, _now_. and it was his duty, i suppose, to be very careful about whom i knew, having no mother or sister, you know; and at that time he did not know you." "no, he did not; and it _was_ his duty, as you say, to be very careful. he did not know us, true, but at least he knew no harm of us, except that we were out of the charmed circle. and did _that_ justify him in-- oh! alys, dear, don't make me speak about it. let us be happy this little while we are together." "mary, do you dislike laurence?" "i do not like unfounded prejudices," replied mary, evasively. "that means laurence, i suppose. but, mary, people can outgrow their prejudices. i am not sure that you yourself are not at present partly affected by prejudice." "no," said mary, in a firm but somewhat low voice. "i am not, indeed. i cannot defend myself from the appearance of being so, but it is not the case, truly." alys sighed. "don't make yourself unhappy about it, dear," said mary. "i can't help it," said alys, dejectedly. "there is something i don't understand. i don't ask you to tell me anything you would rather not, but i am so disappointed. i wanted you to get to like laurence. i know--i can see he likes you, and that was why i thought it had all happened so well. i did not mind the idea of being a sort of invalid for some time when i thought of your coming to see me often at romary, and staying with us there. mary, won't you come? i was speaking to laurence about it last night, and he said, if i could persuade you to come, he would be most grateful to you." "i don't want him to be grateful to me," said mary, lightly. "how can he help being so? what he meant was, of course, that if you came it would be out of goodness to me. you _must_ know that he would consider it a favour." "yes, i do. mr cheviott is not the least inclined to patronise people, i will say that for him," said mary, laughing. "then you _will_ come to romary?" said alys, coaxingly. mary shook her head. "i must be honest, alys dear," she said, "and to tell you the truth, i can't imagine myself going to romary ag--ever going to romary, i mean, under any circumstances whatever." "how you must dislike laurence!" said alys. "has he displeased you since you have been here?" "oh dear, no," said mary, eagerly. "he has been as kind and considerate as possible. i wish i could help hurting you, alys. i can say one thing, i do like mr cheviott _as your brother_, more than i could have believed it possible i could ever like him." "faint praise," said alys. "but not of the `damning' kind. i mean what i say," persisted mary. "and--perhaps you will think this worse than `faint praise'--since i have seen him in this way--as your brother--i cannot help thinking that circumstances, the way he has been brought up, have a good deal to answer for in his case." alys's face flushed a little, yet she was not offended. "and why not in mine?" she said. "i have had more reason to be spoiled than poor laurence. his youth was anything but a very smooth or happy one. my father was not rich always, you know." "was he not? still `rich' is a comparative word. mr cheviott has always `moved in a certain sphere,' as newspapers say, and he cannot have had much chance of seeing outside that sphere," said mary, with the calm philosophy of her twenty years' thorough knowledge of the world in all its phases. "as for you, alys, you are not spoiled, just because you are not. you are a duck--at least you have a duck's back--it has run off you." and both girls were laughing at this when mr cheviott, just returned from his daily expedition to romary, entered the room. "you are very merry," he said, questioningly. "by-the-bye, miss western," he went on, with some constraint but, nevertheless, resolution in his voice, "i hope you have good news of your sister?" "excellent, thank you," replied mary, looking up bravely into his face. "she is as happy and well as possible." there was a ring of truth in her voice, and, indeed, mr cheviott would have found it hard to doubt the truth of anything that voice of hers said. "there is no bravado in that statement," he said to himself. "i cannot understand it." "and what were you laughing at when i came in?" he said, turning to alys, as if to change the subject. alys looked at mary. "mary," she said, mischievously, "shall i tell?" "if you like," said mary, quietly. "oh, mary, was just giving me her opinion of us--of you and me, laurence--the result of her observations during the last ten days," said alys. mary looked up quickly. "alys," was all she said; but alys understood her. mr cheviott was listening attentively. "well," alys went on, "perhaps that is not putting it quite fairly. i must confess, laurence, i forced the opinion out of her, and it took a good deal of forcing, too." "and what was the opinion--favourable or the reverse? may i not hear that?" asked mr cheviott. "it was _pretty_ favourable," alys replied. "on the whole, taking everything into consideration, the enormous disadvantages of our up-bringing, etc, etc, miss western is disposed to think that, on the whole, mind you, laurence, _only_ `on the whole,' we are neither of us quite so bad as might have been expected. but then we must remember, for fear of this verdict making us too conceited, you see, laurence-- upsetting our ill-balanced minds, or anything of that sort--we must remember that it is not every day we can hope to meet with a judge so wide-minded, and philosophical, and unprejudiced, _absolutely_ unprejudiced, as miss western." during this long tirade mary remained perfectly silent, only towards its close her face flushed a little. "alys," she said, when alys at last left off speaking, the colour deepening in her face--"alys, i don't think that is quite fair." "nor do i," said mr cheviott, suddenly, for he too had been sitting silent, in apparent consideration. "but, miss western, i know alys's style pretty well. i can pick out with great precision the grains of fact from amongst her bewildering flowers of rhetoric, so, on the whole, mind you, miss western, _only_ `on the whole,' i feel rather gratified than the reverse by what she rails your verdict." "i am sorry for it," said mary, dryly. "why so?" "i should think poorly of myself were i to feel any gratification at being told that, on the whole, i was not as bad as i might have been. there is no one hardly, i suppose, so bad but that it might be possible to conceive him worse." "that was not quite alys's wording of your opinion," said mr cheviott. "nor, i venture to say, quite the sentiment of the opinion itself. but in another sense i agree with you; there is hardly any one--no one, in fact--of whom we might not say, if we knew all the circumstances of his or her history--of his or her existence, in fact--that it was a wonder he or she was so good--not so bad." "that is taking the purely--i don't know what to call it--the purely human view of it all," said mary, growing interested and losing her feeling of discomfort. "my father would say we are forgetting what should be and may be the most powerful influences of all, in whatever guise they come, on every life--the spiritual influences, i mean. and these can never be reduced to calculation and estimate, however wise men become." "yes, but think of the terrible forest of ill-growing weeds, the awful barrier of evil, individual and inherited, these influences have to make their way through!" he rose from his chair and went across the room to the fire-place, where he stood contemplating the two girls. mary, in her plain grey tweed, unrelieved by any colour, except a blue knot at the throat, but fitting her tall figure to perfection. her "browny-pink" complexion, hazel eyes, and bright chestnut hair, all speaking of youth and strength and healthfulness, contrasting with alys, who lay loosely wrapped in the invalid shawls and mantles mary had carefully arranged about her-- prettier, more really lovely, perhaps, than her brother had ever seen her, her dark hair and eyes seeming darker than their wont, from the unusual whiteness of her face. she looked too lovely, thought mr cheviott, with a sigh, her fragility striking him sharply, in comparison with the firmness and yet elasticity of mary's movements, as she leaned over alys to raise her a little. how natural, how strangely natural it all seemed! mr cheviott sighed. "laurence," exclaimed alys, "what in the world is the matter?" her brother smiled. "nothing--that is to say, i can't say what makes me sigh. i was thinking just then what a strange power of adaptation we human beings have. it seems to me so natural to be living here in this queer sort of way. you ill, alys, and miss western nursing you. i could fancy it had always been so--in a dreamy, vague sort of way." "i know how you mean," said mary. "shall you be sorry when it is over, laurence," said alys, "and we are back again at romary, without our guardian angel?" "one is always sorry, in a sense, when anything is over, at least, i am. i suppose i have the power of settling myself in a groove to an unusual degree," said mr cheviott, evasively. "you certainly have not the power of making pretty speeches," said alys. "_i_ called mary `our guardian angel,' and _you_ call her a `groove'." just then mrs wills put her head in at the door with an inquiry for miss western, and mary went out of the room. "i wanted you to say something about mary's perhaps coming to romary," said alys. "why? do you think she would come?" asked mr cheviott, doubtfully. "no, i do not think she would," alys replied, "but i wanted her to see that _you_ would like her to come." "did she _say_ that she would never come to see you at romary?" mr cheviott said. "yes, decidedly. her words were, `i cannot fancy myself, under _any_ circumstances whatever, going to romary,' and i thought i heard her half say `again'--`going to romary again.' but she has never been there?" mr cheviott did not reply; he turned to the fire and began poking it vigorously. "laurence," said alys, feebly. "what, dear?" "please don't poke the fire so. it seems to hurt me." "i am so sorry," said her brother, penitently. "it's the same with everything," he added to himself. "i seem fated to make a mess of everything i have to do with.--i wish i were not so clumsy," he went on aloud to his sister. "what shall i do with you at romary? how shall we ever get on without miss western?" "i shall have to make the best of mrs golding, i suppose," said alys, in a melancholy voice. "but she fusses so! oh, laurence, isn't it a pity? just as i have found a girl who could be to me the friend i have wished for and needed all my life, a friend whom even you, now that you know her, approve of for me, that she should have this prejudice against knowing us. indeed, it must be more than prejudice. she is too sensible and right-minded to be influenced by that." "does she know that i, at one time, objected to your knowing her?" said mr cheviott. "she knows something of it--not, of course, that i ever said so to her-- but she is very quick, and gathered the impression somehow. but it is not that. she said you were quite right to be careful whom i knew, and that, of course, she and her people were strangers to you. i don't think mary would resent anything that she felt any one had a _right_ to do. no, it is not that," said alys. "what can it be, then? is it her horror of putting herself under any obligation?" "obligation, laurence! as if all the obligation were not on our side!" "well, yes. i don't think i meant that exactly. i mean that, perhaps, she may feel that, owing her so much, we could not do less than invite her to romary. she may have an exaggerated horror of any approach to being patronised." "no, she is not so silly. she knows we should be _grateful_ to her for coming. she is neither so silly, nor, i must say, so vulgar-minded, as you imagine. laurence, even though you own to liking and admiring her now, it seems as if you could not throw off that inveterate prejudice of yours," said alys, rather hotly. mr cheviott, under his breath, gave vent to a slight exclamation. "good heavens, alys," he said, aloud, "i think the prejudice is on your side. you cannot believe that i _can_ act or feel unprejudicedly." "i do not know what to believe," said alys, dejectedly. "i am bewildered and disappointed. there is something that has been concealed from me, that much i am sure of. and i do think you might trust me, laurence." it sounded to laurence as if there were tears in her voice. he went over to her bed-side, and kissed her tenderly. "my poor little alys," he said, "indeed i do trust you, and, indeed, i would gladly tell you anything you want to know, if i could. but there are times in one's life when one cannot do what one would like. can't _you_ trust _me_, alys?" alys stroked his hand. "could i ever leave off trusting you, laurence?" she said, fondly. "i do not mind so much when you tell me there is something you can't tell-- that is treating me like a sensible person, and not like a baby." that was all she said, but, like the owl, "she thought the more." and mr cheviott too--his thoughts had no lack of material on which to exert themselves just then. he was sorry for alys--very sorry--and not a little uneasy and ready to do anything in his power to please and gratify her. but how to do it? "she cannot, under any circumstances whatever, imagine herself ever coming to romary again," he said to himself, over and over, as if there were a fascination in the words. "ah, well, it is a part of the whole," he added, bitterly, "and alys must try to content herself with something else." a slight cloud seemed, for a day or two, to come over the comfort and cheerfulness of the little party at the farm. mary was conscious of it without being able, exactly, to explain it. "but for alys," she felt satisfied that she would not care in the least. "mr cheviott may `glower' at me if he likes," she said to herself. "i really don't mind. i am not likely ever to see him again, so what does it matter? he is offended, i suppose, because i did not at once accept with delight the invitation which he condescended, grudgingly enough, no doubt, to allow poor alys to give me." so in her own thoughts, as was her way, she made fun of the whole situation and imagined that mr cheviott's decrease of cordiality and friendliness had not the slightest power to disturb her equanimity. yet somehow in her honest conscience there lurked a faint misgiving. it was difficult to call his evident dejection haughtiness or temper, difficult to accuse of offensive condescension the man whose every word and tone was full of the gentlest, almost deprecating, deference and respect-- most difficult of all to hold loyally to her old position of contempt for and repugnance to a man so unmistakably unselfish, so almost woman-like in his tender devotion to the sister dependent on his care. "yet he _must_ be heartless," persisted mary, valiantly, "he _must_ be narrow-minded and cruel, and he _must_ be what any straightforward, honourable person would call unprincipled and intriguing, wherever the carrying out of his own designs is in question." "i shall be so glad to be home again, mamma," she said to her mother one afternoon when she had left alys for an hour or two, to go home to see how the rectory was getting on without her. "yes, dear, i can well fancy it," replied mrs western, sympathisingly. "you must just remember, you know, mary, that your present task, however distasteful, is just as much a _duty_ as if that poor girl were one of the cottagers about here. indeed, almost more so. i dare say, in spite of their wealth and position, she is far more really friendless than any other of our poor neighbours. but she is a sweet girl, you say?" "_very_," said mary, warmly. "it is a pleasure to do anything for her." "poor child! and with such a brother! a _most_ disagreeable, cold, haughty man, i hear. but he surely cannot be anything but courteous to you, mary? under the circumstances, anything else would be too outrageous." "oh dear, no," said mary, hastily, startled a little somehow by her mother's tone. "he is perfectly civil to me--most considerate, and i suppose i should say `kind.' only i shall be glad to be at home--they are talking now of moving miss cheviott to romary on thursday--and back into my regular ways. mother, i'm an awful old maid already, i get into a groove and like to stay there." the words recurred to her on her way back to the edge. would she really be so glad to be home again? she had used mr cheviott's expression, and it led her into the train of thought which had suggested it to him. yes, there was truth in what he said. in almost every kind of life, in almost any circumstances, even if painful in themselves, there grows up secretly, as the days pass on, a curious, undefinable charm--a something it hurts us to break, though, till the necessity for so doing is upon us, we had been unconscious of its existence. "it must be that," said mary. "i have got into the groove of my present life, and now that it is coming to an end, disagreeable though it has been, i feel it strangely painful to leave it. of course it is natural i should feel pain in parting from alys, whom i can _never_ be with again; but, besides that, i am sorry to have done with the whole affair--the queer incongruous life, the old kitchen in the evenings, and mr cheviott and his books in the corner, the feeling i am of use to her, to them both, that they would have been wretchedly uncomfortable without me, and that even now that i am away for an hour they will be missing me. what queer, inconsistent complications we human beings are! it is just the coming to an end of it all, the beginning to see it in the haze of the past, that gives it a charm." she stood still and gazed across over the bare, long stretch of meadow land before her to the far distant horizon, radiant already in the colours of the fast setting sun. suddenly a voice behind her made her start. "are you bidding the sun good-night?" it said. mary turned round and saw mr cheviott. "yes," she replied. "i suppose i was. there, is something rather melancholy about a sunset, is there not?" she added after a little pause. "there is something not rather, but very melancholy about all farewells. and sunset is good-bye forever to a day, though not to the sun," said mr cheviott. "`out of eternity this new day is born; into eternity at night will return.'" "yes," said mary again. "it is like what my little sister francie once said, `what a sad thing _pastness_ is.'" "how pretty!" said mr cheviott. "pastness! yes, it is a sad thing, but fortunately not an ugly thing. distance in time as well as in space, `lends enchantment to the view.' how strangely little things affect us sometimes," he went on. "there are occasions, little events of my life, that i cannot recall without an indescribable thrill, neither of pleasure nor pain, but a strange, acute mixture of both. and yet they are so trifling in themselves that i cannot explain why they should so affect me." "i think i have felt what you mean," said mary. "and in the same way i have felt extraordinarily affected by a far-off view sometimes," pursued mr cheviott. "when i was a boy, from my nursery window we had, on clear days, a view of the shire hills, and on the top, or nearly on the top of one of them, we could, on _very_ clear days, distinguish a little white cottage. do you know, i could never look at it without the tears coming into my eyes, and yet, if it had been near enough to see it plainly, most likely it was the most prosaic of white cottages." "i have had the same feeling about things _not_ `enchanted' by distance," said mary. "once, on a journey, driving rapidly, we suddenly passed a cottage with two girls sitting on the door-step. a ray of rather faint evening sunlight fell across them as they sat, otherwise everything about the scene was commonplace in the extreme. but yet _something_ made me feel as if i were going to cry. i had to turn my head away and shut my eyes." "that's just what i mean," said mr cheviott, and then for a minute or two they both stood silent, gazing at the sunset. "miss western," said mr cheviott, at last, "when you are back at the rectory again, and the present little phase of your life is past and done with, i trust its `pastness' may soften all the annoyance you have had to put up with. even i, i would fain hope, may come in for a little of the benefit of the mellowing haze of distance and bygoneness?" "i do not feel that i have had _any_ annoyances to bear," said mary, cordially. "alys has been only too unselfish, and--and--you, yourself, mr cheviott, have been most considerate of my comfort. my associations with the edge can never be unpleasant." "thank you--thank you, so very much," said mr cheviott, so earnestly that mary forthwith began to call hereof a humbug. would it not have been honest to have said a little more--to have told him that, while she really did thank him for his courtesy and thoughtfulness, nothing that had happened had, in the least, shaken her real opinion of his character? of the other side of his character, so she mentally worded it in instinctive self-defence of her constancy. for, indeed, to her there had come to be two mr cheviotts--alys's brother, and, alas! arthur beverley's cousin! chapter twenty three. arthur's cousin. "i loved him not, and yet, now he is gone, i checked him when he spoke; yet could he speak--" _w.s. landor_. the evening that followed this little conversation was one of the--if not the--pleasantest of those mary had spent at the farm. alys seemed wonderfully stronger and better, or else she had caught the infection of her brother's unusually good spirits, and, till considerably past her ordinary hour of settling for the night, mr cheviott and mary stayed in her room, laughing, chattering, and joking till mrs wills began to think more experienced nurses would be better fitted to take care of the young lady. "not that miss mary has not an old head on young shoulders, if ever such could be," she remarked to her husband, "but miss cheviott, for all that she's a-lying there so weakly-like, and many a month, it's my opinion, when they get her home again, will have to lie; she do have a sperrit of her own. and the master, as i'm always a-going to call him, thinking of our captain beverley it must be, he has a deal of fun in him, has mr cheviott, for all his quiet ways, as no one would fancy was there." but, by and by, mary exerted her authority. alys must go to sleep. what would mr brandreth say if he found her knocked up and wearied the next day--wednesday, too, the day before the move to romary, for which all her strength would be required? so whether sleepy or not, alys had to obey orders, and, as mary had a long letter to lilias to write, mr cheviott volunteered to read his sister to sleep, for which mary sincerely thanked him. he came into the kitchen an hour or so later, while she was still busy with her letter. he had a book in his hand, and sat down quietly to read it beside the fire. after a while the kitchen clock struck ten. "miss western," said mr cheviott, "i think if i had any authority over you, as you have over alys, i would exert it to make you go to bed. you were up very early, you have been on your feet, about one thing and another, nearly all day, besides a good long walk; and now you are writing i should be afraid to say _how_ many sheets full. don't you intend to take any rest? i feel responsible, remember, for the condition in which you go back to the rectory, and i don't want your father and mother to think alys and i have no conscience about overworking you." mary left off writing, and looked up with a smile. her wavy brown hair was somewhat disarranged, and she pushed it back off her temples with a slight gesture of weariness. her face was a little flushed, but her eyes were bright and happy-looking. those dear, good, honest eyes of hers, ready to tell of pleasure and content, as of, it must be confessed, disapproval or indignation! she made a pleasant picture, tumbled hair notwithstanding--she reminded mr cheviott, somehow, of the day he had first seen her under the porch of the old church, when she had looked up in his face with that peculiarly attractive expression of hers of hearty, fearless good-will. "i do believe, now that i leave off writing and can think about it," she said, "i do believe i _am_ a little tired. not that i have done anything unusual to-day by any means. i suppose i must go to bed," looking regretfully at her not yet completed letter; "but writing to lilias is such a temptation." "she is enjoying herself very much, you say," observed mr cheviott, in so natural and unconstrained a manner that, for the moment, mary actually forgot that he was the speaker, forgot her ordinarily quick rising indignation whenever he ventured to name lilias at all. "exceedingly," she replied, warmly. "i have never had such cheerful, almost merry, letters from her before when she has been away. i am delighted; but a little astonished all the same," she added, in a lower voice, almost as if speaking to herself. "i am so _very_ glad of it," said mr cheviott, fervently, yet with a sort of hesitation which recalled mary to herself. quick as thought the blood mounted to her temple--she turned sharply, the whole expression of her being, even to the pretty curves of her slight firm figure, seeming to her observer to change and harden. she gathered up the loose sheets of her letter and made a step or two towards the door. then her habitual instincts of consideration and courtesy asserting themselves, she stopped short. "i think i had better go to bed," she said. "good-night, mr cheviott." hitherto, latterly that is to say, in the prevalence of a tacit truce between these two, the usual amenities of intimate and friendly social relations had half unconsciously crept in. "for alys's sake," mary had decided, when for the first time she found herself shaking hands with the man she had prayed she might "never see again," "for alys's sake it is necessary to make no fuss, and perhaps for my own, too, it is on the whole more dignified to behave in an ordinary way." but to-night, dignity or no dignity, her indignation was again too fully aroused to allow anything to interfere with its expression, and she was proceeding in queenly fashion to the door, when, to her amazement, mr cheviott stepped forward and stood in her way. "miss western," he said, quietly, "won't you say good-night? won't you shake hands with me as usual?" mary hesitated. she did not want to make herself ridiculous--for lilias's sake even, she shrank from the slightest appearance of petulance or small resentment. she hesitated; then looking up bravely, said, honestly: "i would rather not, but--" a pair of dark eyes were gazing down upon her--gazing as if they would read her very soul, so earnest, so _true_ in their expression that mary could not but own to herself that it was difficult to realise that they belonged to an unprincipled and dishonourable man. "but?" he said, gravely. "i was only going to say, if you think so much of shaking hands, i don't mind," said mary, with a curious mixture of deprecation and defiance in her tone. "i don't want to be uncourteous or exaggerated--besides, what is there in shaking hands? we do so half a dozen times a day with people we do not care the least for." "yes," said mr cheviott, gravely still, "we do. but people one doesn't care the least for are different from people one positively dislikes, or worse still, _distrusts_." "can't you leave all that?" said mary, sadly. "_i_ cannot help what-- what happened, and, indeed"--her voice trembling a little--"towards the mr cheviott i have known _here_ i should be most wrong to have any but friendly feelings." she held out her hand. mr cheviott took it in his, holding it for one little moment longer than was really necessary. "is it always to be war between us, miss western?" as if the words could not be kept back. "heaven knows how glad _i_ should be to leave forever all the painful part of the past." mary slowly shook her head. then looking up suddenly again, she said, gently: "we have got on very well here without fighting. why should not the truce last till the end of the time here? there is only another day." "yes," repeated mr cheviott. "only one other day." then mary went off to bed, but not, for much longer than her wont, to sleep. her mind seemed strangely bewildered and perplexed. "i have lost all my mile-stones," she said to herself. "i feel as if i were being forced to think black white in the strangest way. but i won't--no, i won't, _won't_, won't!" and with this laudable determination she went to sleep. it was late before mr cheviott left the kitchen fire-side that night. "will the truce last," he was saying to himself, "even through another day? twenty times in an hour i have been on the point of saying what, indeed, _would_ end it one way or another. and arthur thought i could not sympathise with him! i wonder on which of the two of us that idiotic will has entailed the greater suffering?" his good spirits seemed all to have deserted him by the next morning. he was grave and almost stern, and, so said alys, "objectionably _affaire_ about some stupid letters sent on from romary." alys was unusually talkative and obtrusively cheerful, but mary understood her through it all. a cloud of real sorrow was over both girls, more heavily on mary, for she knew what alys was still silently determined to hope against, that this was far more than the "last day" of their queer life at the farm, that it was the end of the strange but strong friendship that, despite all obstacles, had sprung up between them. for though alys had almost pointedly refrained from any recurrence to the question of their meeting again at romary, and mary had been only too ready to second her in all avoidance of the subject, this absence of discussion had in no wise softened the girl's resolution. "never," she repeated to herself, "never under _any_ circumstances can i imagine myself entering that house again." and the day wore on without any allusion being made to the when or the where of their ever meeting again. late in the afternoon mary had gone at alys's request to pick some of the pretty spring flowers to be found in profusion in the balner woods hard by, when, as she was returning homewards, laden with primroses and violets, looking up she saw mr cheviott coming quickly along the path to meet her. "alys?" she exclaimed, quickly, with just the slightest shade of anxiety in her voice. "does she want me?" "oh, no," replied mr cheviott, with a smile. "alys is all right. what an anxious nurse you are, miss western!" "yes," said mary, "it is silly. i must get accustomed to the idea of her doing without me. but i could not help having a feeling to-day of a different kind of anxiety--a feeling of almost superstitious fear lest anything should go wrong with her to-day--the last day. it would be so hard to leave her less well than she is, and--of course," she went on, looking up with a slight flush on her face, "i own to being a little proud of her! it is a great satisfaction to hear mr brandreth say that, considering all, she could not have got on better than she has done." "of course it is," said mr cheviott, warmly. "and i am more glad than i can say that you feel it so. it is a little bit of a reward for you." mary did not reply, and they walked on slowly for a few moments in silence. "how pretty your flowers are," said mr cheviott, at last. "lovely, are they not?" replied mary, half burying her face, as she spoke, in a great rich cluster of primroses that she had tied up together into a sort of ball. "they are the best flowers of all--these spring ones--there can be no doubt about it." "or is it that they _are_ the spring ones," suggested mr cheviott. "a little perhaps," allowed mary. "have i not got a quantity? alys took a fancy for some to take home to romary." "poor child, she will not be able to gather any for herself this year," said mr cheviott. "no," said mary. "and she will not have you to gather them for her after to-day." "no," said mary again, this time more dryly. mr cheviott stopped short, and as they were placed in the path, mary, without positive rudeness, could not help stopping too. "miss western," said mr cheviott, abruptly, "is your decision quite unshaken?" "what decision?" said mary, quietly. "about coming to see us at romary, about, in fact, continuing to honour us with your acquaintanceship--i would _like_ to say friendship, but i am afraid of vexing you--or the reverse." mary pulled a poor primrose to pieces, petal by petal, before she replied. "i wish," she said, at last, with an appeal almost approaching to pathos in her tones, "i wish you had done as i begged you last night--let this last day end peacefully without rousing anything discordant. mr cheviott," she went on, with an attempt at a smile, "you don't know me. there are certain directions in which i feel so intensely that it would not take much to make me actually fierce--there is something of the tartar underlying what you think cool self-possession--and one of those directions is my sister lilias." her voice faltered a little. "now won't you be warned," she added, speaking more lightly, "won't you be warned, and let our pleasant truce last to the end?" "to the end," he repeated, with some bitterness. "a matter of a few hours, and, for the sake of keeping those peaceful, i am to relinquish my only chance of--of ever coming to a better understanding with you? no, miss western, i cannot let the subject drop thus." "then what do you want to know?" she said, facing round upon him. "i want to know if you keep to your determination never to come to see my sister at romary, never to enter my house again, never, in fact, to have anything more to say to alys, who is attached to you, and whom i know you care for? you may say she might come to see you, but at present, at any rate, that is impossible--besides, in such forced intercourse there could be no real enjoyment." "no," said mary, "there could not be. it is best to call things by their right names. i do care for alys, deeply and truly, but i do not wish or intend to go on knowing her. i would not ask her to come to my home to see me, because i cannot go to her home to see her." "and why not?" "because she is your sister," replied mary, calmly. "and because i could not receive the hospitality of a man who has behaved as i believe you to have behaved." mr cheviott drew a step nearer her, and mary, impelled, in spite of herself, to look up in his face, saw that it had grown to a deadly whiteness. she saw, too, something which she was half puzzled, half frightened at--something which in her short, peaceful experience of life, she had never come into close contact with--a strong man's overwhelming indignation at unjust accusation. she stood silent. what could she say? "this is _fearfully_ hard to bear," he said, at last. "i thought i was prepared for it, but--in spite of myself, i suppose--i had cherished hopes that recently your opinion of me had begun to soften. miss western, has it never occurred to you as possible that you have misjudged me?" mary hesitated. "yes," she said, at last. "i may own to you that--lately--i have tried to think if it _was_ possible." "you have _wished_ to find it possible?" said mr cheviott, eagerly. "sometimes," said mary. "god bless you for that," he exclaimed, "and--" "no, do not say that," she interrupted. "i have more often wished _not_ to find it so, for i--i gave you every chance--i put it all so plainly to you that horrible day at romary--no, it is impossible that i have done you injustice. were i to begin to think so, i should feel that i was losing my judgment, my right estimate of things altogether. but i do not wish to continue thinking worse of you than you deserve--you may have learned to see things differently--is it that you were going to tell me? heaven knows if your interference has done what can never be undone, or not; but, however this is, i do not want to refuse to hear that you have changed." mr cheviott's face grew sterner and darker. "i have not changed," he said. "what i did was for the best, and i could not but do the same again in similar circumstances." "then," said mary, hardening at once, "i really have nothing more to say or to hear. please let me pass." "no," he replied. "not yet. miss western, i value your good opinion more than that of any one living. i cannot let you go like this. it is my last chance. do you not know what i feel for you--can you not see what you are making me suffer? i have never loved any woman before--am i to give up all hope on account of this terrible prejudice of yours? but for that i could have made you care for me--i know i could--could i not? mary, tell me." his voice softened into a tenderness, compared with which the gentlest tones he had ever addressed to his sister were hard. but little heard mary of tenderness or softness in his words. she stood aghast, literally aghast with astonishment--amazement rather--so intense that at first she could scarcely believe that her ears were not deceiving her. then, as the full meaning of his words came home to her, indignation, overwhelming indignation, took the place of every other feeling, and burning words rose to her lips. for the moment "the tartar" was, indeed, uppermost. "you say this to me!" she exclaimed. "you _dare_ to say this to me. you, the man who, in deference to contemptible class-prejudice and to gratify some selfish schemes, did not hesitate to trample a woman's heart under foot, and to spoil the best chance for good that ever came to a man you profess to care for--_you_, selfish, heartless, unprincipled man, dare to tell me, mary western, that you love me! are you going out of your senses, mr cheviott? do you forget that i am lilias's sister?" "no," he said, in atone which somehow compelled her attention. "i do not forget it, and i am not ashamed to say so. i do not offer you--for it would but be thrown at my feet with scorn--but i would have offered you a man's honest, disinterested devotion, were you able to believe in such a thing as coming from me. but _you_ are blinded by prejudice--you will take into account nothing but your own preconceived interpretation. you will not allow the _possibility_ of my being innocent of what you accuse me of. so be it. but there _have_ been women who have known an honest man when they found such a one, and have not found their trust misplaced." some answering chord was touched for the instant in mary's heart. her tone was less hard, less cruelly contemptuous when she spoke again. "i am not doubting your sincerity as regards myself," she said, her voice trembling a little. "i suppose you do mean what you say, however extraordinarily incomprehensible it appears to me. but _that_ makes things no better--oh! if you had but left me under the delusion that there was something to respect in you! i thought you narrow-minded and prejudiced to a degree, but i had grown to think you had some principle--that in what you did you were actuated by what you believed to be right. but what am i to think now? where are all the well-considered reasons for interfering between your cousin and my sister that you would have had me believe in, now that--that--you find the case your own, or fancy it is so? what can i, too, think of your principle and disinterestedness?" "what you choose," said mr cheviott, bitterly. "it can matter little. but you make one mistake. i never gave you _any_ reasons for my interference. i told you i had acted for the best, and i madly imagined it possible that having come to know me, _you_ might have begun to believe it possible that my conduct was honest and disinterested. i had not intended to confess to you what i have done. my object in speaking to you again was purely--believe me or not, as you like--to try to gain for my sister the hope of sometimes seeing you. i was going on to volunteer to absent myself from romary, if personal repugnance to me was the obstacle, if only you would sometimes come. but i am only human; your words and your tone drove me into what i little intended--into what i must have been mad to say to _you_." he stopped; he had spoken in a strangely low tone, but he had spoken very fast, and mary's first sensation when his voice ceased was of bewilderment approaching almost to a kind of mental chaos, and of vague but galling self-reproach. but for a moment she said nothing, and mr cheviott was already turning away, when she called him back, faintly and irresolutely, but he heard her still. "i don't know what to say," she said, brokenly. "i suppose i have said what i should not. i suppose i let my anger get the better of me. but i have never learned to dissimulate. your words seemed to me, remembering what i did, an insult. i suppose i _should_ have thanked you for--for the honour. but it has all been a mistake. you must see i could never have cared for you--_never_; were i ten times satisfied you had done lilias no wrong, your conduct to her remains the same. but i wish to be reasonable. let us forget all this, and, so far as can be, let us part friends." she held out her hand, this time in vain. "no," said mr cheviott. "i cannot shake hands on such terms. i run no risk of hurting your feelings by saying so; you, i know, do not attach much consequence to so empty a ceremony, but unfortunately i do. good-bye, miss western." he raised his hat and turned away. when he was fairly out of sight, mary sat down on the short grass that bordered the wood-path, leaned her head against the stump of an old tree standing close by and burst into tears. then she took her flowers, the pretty, winsome things she had plucked so carefully, gathered them all into one heap, and, rising from her seat, moved by some sudden instinct of remorse, threw them--threw them, with all the strength of her vigorous young arms, away, back among the underwood and grassy tangle where they had grown. "primroses and violets," she said as she did so, "i shall never be able to endure the sight of you again." chapter twenty four. et tu, brute! "... how strange the tangle is! what old perplexity is this?" _songs of two worlds_. and alys did not get her flowers, poor girl. nor was she told the reason why. but late that last evening, when the packing was done, and the various little personalities that, even in an enforced sojourn of the kind, are sure to collect about people, above all about people of individuality and refinement, were all collected together and put away, and the farm-house rooms had resumed their ordinary consistent bareness, mary sat down by alys's bed and put her arms round the girl's neck and kissed her with a clinging tenderness that brought the tears to alys's eyes. "dear alys," she said, softly, "i want to thank you." "to thank _me_," replied alys, in astonishment. "oh, no, mary, all the thanks are, _must_ be, on one side." "no," said mary, "i have many things to thank you for. you have been so patient and sweet, and so grateful for the little i have been able to do for you. and one thing i may thank you for certainly." "what?" whispered alys. "for loving me," said mary. "you have done me good, alys. i was growing, not perhaps exactly selfish, but self-centred. i put my own home and my own people before everything else, in a narrow-minded way, and i fancied that people who were different from us externally--people who had had fewer struggles and more luxuries than my parents--must of necessity be narrow-minded and self-absorbed and unsympathising. alys, it is absurd, but do you know i do believe i have myself been growing into the very thing i so detested--i do believe, in a sense, i was encouraging a kind of class prejudice?" alys listened attentively. "i see what you mean," she said. "mary, you are awfully honest." "i don't know," replied mary, vaguely. "self-deception must be a kind of dishonesty." alys hardly heard her. she was watching eagerly for the upshot of this confession, yet afraid of startling away the concession she was hoping for by any premature congratulation on her friend's altered views. so she lay, without speaking, till at last mary's silence roused her to new misgiving. "won't you go on with what you were saying?" she ventured at last. "what was it?" said mary. "oh! about your being glad you had got to know us, and--" "nay," exclaimed mary, "i am sure i did not say _that_, alys. what i said was that i thanked _you_ for showing me how loving and sympathising you are, and that being prosperous and rich and courted and all that, as you are, need not necessarily make one narrow-minded and selfish." "well," said alys, "it comes to much the same thing. i don't see why you need have flown up so at my way of putting it." "because," said mary, with vehemence, disproportionate to the occasion, "i was speaking of and to you, alys--you alone." "i am sorry to hear it," said alys, "i would like _my_ praise far, far more, mary, if you would give poor laurence a little bit of it too. he deserves it, while i--" "never mind," said mary, uneasily. "don't let us get into a discussion, dear alys." "i am sure i don't want to discuss anything except the end of your sentence. do finish, mary. now that you have got to know _me_, or like _me_ a little, you are not going to keep to your horrible resolution?" mary's face clouded. "i see, what you mean," she said. "oh! alys, i am sorry to pain you, and very, very sorry not to be able to look forward to seeing you again, but i cannot change. i cannot--" alys leaned forward and put her hand over mary's mouth. "no," she said, "i won't let you repeat that. i know what is coming, `i cannot under any circumstances whatever imagine myself, etc.' no, mary, you are not to say that. it is a sort of tempting providence to be obstinate. fancy now what might happen. suppose i get much worse, mary,--suppose that great london doctor that laurence is going to have down to see me, says i can't get better--that i am going to die-- wouldn't you come to romary then, to say good-bye, mary?" mary turned away her head and sighed deeply. "i was not going to say what you thought, alys," she said, at length. "i was only going to say that i cannot see any probability of my ever going to you at romary. if you ever marry, alys--i should not say that; you are sure to marry--_when_ you do, i shall go to see you in your own home, if you still care to have me, and if your husband has no objection." "but yours, mary? what about his objections or non-objections?" said alys. "they will never exist, for there will never be such a person," said mary, calmly. "it was settled--oh, i can't tell you how long ago, always, i think--in all our family conclaves there was never a dissentient voice on the subject--that i was to be an old maid. i am thoroughly cut out for it. any one can see that. `dans mon coeur il n'y a point d'amour' of _that_ kind, certainly," she hummed, lightly. "but, but, mary," said alys, "finish the verse." "how do _you_ know it?" said mary. "it's an old norman or breton song. mother sang it when she was a girl." "i _do_ know the second line, and that is all that matters," said alys, sagely. "well, good-night, mary. you are not quite as naughty as you have been, but that is the best i can say for you. however, i shall live in hope. but i am awfully dull, mary. and how merry we were last night! it is too bad of laurence to have gone over to romary so late to-night, just when he might have known our--at least my spirits would need cheering. you, of course, have the getting back to your beloved people to look forward to." and, two mornings after this, mary woke to find herself in her own familiar room at the rectory. what a dream the last fortnight seemed! and what a long time ago appeared now the day of alys cheviott's accident! spring had come on fast since then. the leaves of the creeper round mary's window were beginning to peep in and to be visible as she lay in bed, the birds' busy twitter and the early sunlight told that the world was waking up once more to approaching summer. how home-like and peaceful it seemed! yet mary could not feel as delighted to be at home again as she had expected. "i am anxious about alys, i suppose," she said to herself, "and sorry to have been obliged to disappoint her. if she knew, what _would_ she think or feel? would she ever wish to see me again? i hardly think so, and i could never be at ease in her presence. another reason in favour of my decision. yet i wish i could have avoided saying some of the things i did--even to _him_. oh, if only i could forget all about it!" for, notwithstanding all the strength of mind she brought to bear on the subject, that scene in the wood mary could not succeed in banishing from her thoughts. over and over again it rose up before her, leaving behind it each time, it seemed to her, a sharper sting of pain, a more humiliating sense of self-reproach. yet how and where had she been wrong? was it not better to be honest at all costs? over and over again she determined to banish it finally from her memory, but no sooner had she done so than some trifle--the sight of a primrose in francie's hat, or some apparently entirely disconnected allusion, would bring it back again as vividly as ever, and, with a certain fascination that mary could not explain to herself, every word that mr cheviott had said, every change of expression that had come over his face, would repeat themselves to her imagination. was it true? she asked herself, was it true what he had said to her?--but for her previous knowledge of his real character, but for the deep-dyed "prejudice," as he had called it, against him in her mind, could she ever have grown to care for this man? _surely_ not--yet why did this assertion of his recur to her so often, and not altogether in the sense of re-arousing her indignation? "he is like two people in one," she said to herself, "but as to which is the real one, facts, fortunately, leave me in no doubt. and _yet_ i am sorry to have wounded him so deeply, little as he cared for the feelings of others." "you look tired, mary dear," said her mother, when, after the early rectory breakfast, mary was preparing as usual to collect her sisters and little brooke for lessons in the school-room. "don't you think you might leave the children to manage for themselves one other day? you need rest, i am sure, after all you have gone through." "no, mother dear, i am really not tired," said mary. "i only feel rather--i don't know how--dissipated, i suppose, unsettled, or whatever you like to call it." "that only means tired, dear," repeated her mother, fondly, so fondly-- for mrs western was not, as a rule, demonstrative with her children-- that mary felt angry with herself for not being able to respond more gratefully to her solicitude, for, in fact, feeling rather irritated than soothed by it. "but i have _really_ had nothing to tire me, mother," she persisted. "alys cheviott was as considerate as possible, and, except the first two nights, i had no watching or anxiety. it was hardly to be called `nursing'." "perhaps not," allowed mrs western, "but there was the constraint and discomfort of the life--above all, the enforced intercourse with that disagreeable man--that mr cheviott, whom you dislike so. i really cannot tell you, mary dear, how much i have admired your unselfishness and moral courage during this trying time. but you will never regret it. who knows how much good you may have done that poor girl for all her life--poor i cannot but call her, notwithstanding her riches and position, and everything--fatherless and motherless, and with such a cold, selfish brother as her only protector." "he is a very good brother to her, mother. i cannot but confess that i was astonished at his devotion and tenderness to her, and they are deeply attached to each other," said mary, her colour rising a little as she spoke. "i am afraid, mother, i sometimes am too wholesale in my opinion of people. once i take a dislike to them it is difficult for me to see any good in them. i want to correct this in myself." "you are so honest, dear," said her mother. "and as for my doing good to alys cheviott," continued mary, "it seems to me rather that she might do _me_ good. she is so simple, so unselfish and unspoiled." "anyway, i am glad they were considerate, and, i suppose, grateful," said mrs western. "how, indeed, could they be otherwise?" and mary went off to her pupils. but lessons seemed rather heavy work this morning. the fortnight's interregnum had been far from salutary in its effects. alexa was languid and uninterested, josey pert and self-willed, brooke and francie quarrelsome and careless. and, lessons over, there was no lilias to whom to resort for ever ready sympathy. mary felt strangely dull and dispirited. she missed alys's bright yet gentle companionship, mr cheviott's constant watchful attention, of which at the time she had hardly been conscious. she missed the quiet and refinement which had of late surrounded her even in the homely farm-house. not that "home" was unrefined in the coarser sense of the word, but it seemed strangely full of small worries and irksomenesses and "fuss," and mary hated herself for feeling less heartily ready than usual to take her share in them. she looked round her with vague dissatisfaction and misgiving. how hard a thing it was, after all, to be poor! how difficult, increasingly difficult, it appeared to bring up these younger girls as could be desired! the boys must make their own way in the world; but with regard to alexa and josey, there was no doubt that they stood at a disadvantage both as to the present and the future. "lilias and i had our own places in the family even at their ages," thought mary; "but the third and fourth daughters of a poor clergyman-- what are they to do? if it were possible to give them a couple of years' training at some first-rate school they might be fitted to be governesses. but such a thing is not to be thought of," and, with a sigh, she turned to the letter to lilias which was costing her unusual pains from her excessive anxiety not to let it seem less cheerful in tone than usual. "what _would_ lilias say if she knew?" she said to herself as she wrote. "i do not think i need ever tell her, or any one, that is one comfort, and--oh, if only i could forget all about it myself!" the next morning brought a letter from lilias. it came, as the letters generally did, at breakfast-time, an hour at which there was but little possibility of privacy for any of the rectory party. mary opened, but merely glanced at it, and put it in her pocket to read when alone. "from lilias," she said, calmly. "it is a long letter. i will read it afterwards. she begins by saying she is quite well, and sends her love to everybody, so no one need feel anxious about her." "you _might_ read it now, mary," said josey. "it would be something to talk about. you forget how dull it is for alexa and me--never any change from year's end to year's end--while lilias and you go about paying visits. the least you can do is to amuse us when you return, and you haven't told us a _thing_ about the cheviotts." "josephine, be quiet at once," said mr western, severely, and to every one's surprise. "that shrill voice of yours seems to stab my head through and through." "have you a headache, father dear?" said mary, with concern. such an occurrence was a rare one. "not exactly, but my head seems oppressed and uneasy. i long for quiet," said the rector, nervously passing his hand across his forehead. "lilias--did you say there was a letter from her? how is she? when does she return?" "return?" repeated mary, in surprise. "why, dear papa, she has not been away a fortnight yet! the london doctors cannot yet say how soon mr greville is to go to hastings, and they mean to stay there a month at least." "ah, yes, to be sure. i am glad she is enjoying herself, poor child, but i shall be glad to have her back again," said mr western, vaguely, but with a slight confusion of manner which struck mary as unlike his usual clear way of expressing himself. she put it all down to the "headache," however, as her mother said he had been suffering a little from something of the kind lately. and by the afternoon he seemed quite like himself again. it was not till after morning school hours that conscientious mary felt herself free to read the precious letter. she had looked forward to it as a treat all the morning, and had, from the thoughts of it, gathered extra patience with which to deal with her somewhat unruly pupils. they got on rather better this morning, however. "i shall get them into shape again in a little," said mary, to herself, as at last she sat down on the low window-seat in her own room at leisure to read all that lilias had to say; "but it certainly does not do for me to leave home even for a few days. even if _i_ could have agreed to go to romary sometimes, that is another reason against it. and, besides, the life there would spoil me for my home duties." a vision, a tempting vision, came over her for a moment of how pleasant a thing "the life there" must be. the quiet and regularity of a well-trained and well-managed household were in themselves a delightful thing to one of mary's naturally methodical and orderly nature; then the _prettiness_ of the surroundings, the gardens, and the flowers, and the tastefully furnished rooms, the pictures, and the books, and the pleasant voices whose tones seemed still to ring in her ears. what pleasant talks they could have had, they three together; how kind and attentive to every wish or fancy of hers they would have been; how they would have feted and made much of her in return for her easy task of nursing alys, had she but "given in" and agreed to forsake her colours! mary was by no means indifferent, in her own way, to the agreeableness of much that would have surrounded her position as a guest at romary; she was a perfectly healthy-natured girl, well able to enjoy when enjoyment came in her way, and a girl too of barely one-and-twenty. she gave a little sigh as she re-opened her letter, hoping, in some vague, half-unconscious way, therein to find consolation and support and tacit approval--ignorant though lilias was of all details of the sturdy stand she had made. but she was disappointed. the letter was a nice letter, a very nice letter, as affectionate, sympathising, and sister-like as a letter could be. written too in very good spirits, it was evident to see; the very result that mary had so hoped for from lilias's visit seemed already to be accomplished _a merveille_. why was not mary pleased? "what an inconsistent, selfish creature i must be," she said to herself, when she had finished it. "why am i not glad, delighted, to see that lilias is happy again? if she did _not_ care much for captain beverley, if i was mistaken in imagining her whole heart to be given to him, should i not rejoice? it does not alter _my_ position, it does not in the least condone the cruel interference that might have ruined her life." she turned again to a passage in which lilias spoke of the cheviotts. "now that you are at home again," wrote miss western, "you will have more time--at least, you will feel freer to tell me all about the cheviotts. for it always seems to me a mean sort of thing to sit down and write elaborate pulling to pieces of people whose hospitality one is in the act of receiving, even though in your case the receiving it was certainly enforced and not voluntary. i cannot help thinking miss cheviott an unusually lovable girl, and i shall not be at all sorry to hear that you have got rid of your terrible prejudice against the brother; i feel so sure that it is to a great extent undeserved." mary turned over the page impatiently. "i wish people would not write about what they don't understand," she said to herself. "how can lilias's `feeling sure' affect the question one way or the other?" then glancing again at the letter, she saw that there was a long postscript on a separate sheet yet unread. "i am forgetting to tell you," it said, "that i do believe i have come across those cousins of mother of whom you heard something from those miss morpeths when you were staying at the grevilles. it was at the doctor's. i had gone there with mr greville, as he hated going alone, and mrs greville had a cold. while we were in the waiting-room, an elderly, very nice-looking lady came in with a tall, thin, _dreadfully_ delicate-looking boy of about seventeen. as mr greville was first summoned to the doctor, he happened to say as he left the room, `i shall only be a very few minutes this morning, miss western.' immediately the lady turned to me and asked me very nicely if i happened to be any relation of the westerns of hathercourt, and did i know miss cheviott of romary? i was so astonished, but, of course, answered civilly. she seemed so pleased, and so did the boy, poor fellow, when i told them who i was. mr greville was back before there was time for any more explanation. but she gave me her card--`mrs brabazon'--and asked where i was staying, and said she would hope to see me before we left town. the boy's name she said was _anselm brooke_, and her own maiden name was brooke, so they must be mamma's people. use your own discretion as to telling mother or not. it may only revive painful associations with her if nothing more comes of it." "it is curious," thought mary. "i think i may as well tell mother about it. it will give them all something else to talk of besides my adventures at the farm." mrs western was interested, in her quiet way, in lilias's news. mr western, somewhat to mary's surprise, took it up much more eagerly. "i should be very thankful, relieved i may say, if some renewal of intercourse could take place with your mother's relations," he said when alone with mary, the subject happening to be alluded to. "would you, papa?" said mary. "i don't feel as if i cared to know them in the least. we have been very happy and content without them all our lives." "ah, yes! ah, yes!" said her father. "but who knows, my dear, how long the present state of things may last? were anything happening to me, i should leave you all strangely friendless and unprotected. the thought of it comes over me very grievously sometimes, and yet i hardly see what i could have done. basil is so young--a few years hence i trust he may be beginning to get on--but it will be up-hill work." "but lilias and i are strong and `capable,' father," said mary, encouragingly. "_we_ could work if needs were, for mother and the younger ones. besides, you are not an old, or even an elderly man yet, papa." "i am not as young and by no means as strong as i have been," said mr western with a sigh. "i don't like this feeling in my head. i have never had anything like it before, and it makes me fidgety, though i have not said anything to make your mother uneasy. perhaps it will be better now that i have spoken of it; it may be more nervousness than anything else." "i trust so, dear father," said mary, anxiously. "are you not glad to have me back again? didn't you miss me dreadfully?" she added, trying to speak more lightly. "very much indeed, my dear. i dare say it affected my spirits more than i realised at the time. yet i could wish, as i was saying, that all of you, you and lilias especially, had more friends, more outside interests. i hope we have not been selfish and short-sighted in the way we have brought you up--keeping you too much to ourselves, as it were;" again mr western sighed. "it is possible, i suppose, to be _too_ devoid of social ambition. by the way," he went on, "i think that mr cheviott must be a very fine fellow. people took up an unreasonable prejudice against him in the country at first from his manner, which, i believe, is cold and stiff. but they are finding themselves mistaken. he must be exceeding clever, and, what is better, thoroughly right-minded. i have been very much pleased by some things i have heard of him lately; he has shown himself so liberal and yet sensible in his dealings with his tenantry." "indeed," said mary. she was pleased to see her father roused to his usual healthy interest in such matters, yet wished devoutly the model proprietor in question had not been the master of romary. "that place has been grossly mismanaged in the old days," continued mr western. "but it will be a very different story now. how i wish we had a squire of that kind here, there would be some hope then of doing practical and lasting good." "still no squire is better than a bad one," said mary. "true, very true. how did you like mr cheviott, mary? i was just thinking i should be rather pleased to make friends with him. he might be a good friend to the boys some day, and no one could say we had _courted_ the acquaintance in the way your mother and i have always so deprecated." "no," said mary, feebly. "coming in such an altogether unexpected way, you see," pursued mr western, who seemed "by the rule of contrary," thought mary, to be working himself up to increasing interest on the subject she was so anxious to avoid, "i should not have, by any means, the objection i have always had to such an acquaintance. they are sure to call--in fact, they cannot possibly avoid doing so." "i don't know," mary moved herself to say, "i _hardly_ think they will." "it will be exceedingly, strangely uncourteous if they do not," said her father, with unusual warmth. "surely, my dear, you were not so ill-advised as to say anything to discourage their doing so," he added, in a tone of most unwonted irritability. "i am afraid what i said may have _indirectly_ tended to do so," said poor mary, feeling as if she were ready on the spot to run all the way to romary and back to beg mr cheviott to call on her father at once. "you were very foolish, very foolish indeed," said mr western, severely. "it is pride, and very false pride, that is at the root of such things, and i warn you that much future suffering is in store for you if you encourage such a spirit." "i can't imagine any future suffering much worse than the present one of having displeased you," said mary, struggling hard to keep back the tears that would come. "but indeed, father, i thought i was doing what you and mamma would like." "your mother has been mistaken before now in such matters," said mr western. "however, there is no more to be said about it. i confess i should have enjoyed seeing more of a man of mr cheviott's character and talents, and it is mortifying at my age to be placed in the position of being unable to receive a friendly call from a neighbour." "but i did not put it in that way, papa, indeed i did not," said mary. "oh, papa, cannot you trust me? if there is anything i have thoroughly at heart it is that you should receive all the respect and consideration you so entirely deserve." "ah, well, ah, well, my dear, say no more about it. you have made a mistake, that is all. do not distress yourself any more about it," said mr western, with some return to his ordinary equanimity. but he pressed his hand wearily against his head as he spoke with the action that was becoming habitual to him, and mary's heart felt very heavy. on all sides nothing but reproach. where or how had she done wrong? _was_ it all personal pride and offended feeling that had actuated her conduct, under the guise of unselfish devotion? no, take herself to task sharply as she would, her conscience would not say so. "though there must have been a mingling of personal feeling and wounded pride, far more than i was conscious of," she said, regretfully. "and now it is too late. i have myself placed a far more hopeless barrier between us by the scornful way i rejected what--what he said to me, what, indeed, i do not believe he ever would have said had i not in a way goaded him to it. oh, yes, i must have been wrong--if only i could clearly see how!" she was too young to have had much experience of that terrible longing, that anguish of yearning "to see how" we have been wrong; too young to understand that, were that cry answered at our entreaty, half our hard battle would be over; too young to have any but the vaguest conception of the bewildering complication of motive in ourselves, as in others, which at times makes "right and wrong" seem but meaningless jargon in our ears, idle words to be presumptuously discarded with other worn-out childishness. as if our childhood were ever over in this world!--as if the existence of eternal truth depended on our understanding of it! mr western's headache increased to severity that afternoon, and mary took all the blame of it on to herself, notwithstanding her mother's consolations and assurances that it would pass off again as it had done before. chapter twenty five. a turn of the wheel. "this changing, and great variance of earthly states, up and down, is _not but_ casualty and chance (as some men say is without _ressown_)." _robert henrysoun_. it did "pass off" again. the next day mr western seemed nearly as well as usual, though to mary's eyes there was a tired and unrestful expression on his face with which she could not feel familiar. "he is _not_ looking well. he does not seem like his old self, i am certain," she said in her own mind over and over again. but what could be done? he declared there was nothing really wrong; the very mention of sending for mr brandreth irritated him unaccountably, and he was most urgent with mary to say nothing to arouse her mother's anxiety. so the utmost mary could do was to please him in all the small ways ready affection can always suggest, to exert herself to be even more cheerful and entertaining than her wont. she wrote to lilias, begging her to let most of her letters be to her father, and urging upon her the desirability of meeting with all possible cordiality mrs brabazon's friendly overtures. but for some days lilias had nothing more to tell of the new-found cousins. a week passed, a week of pretty hard work for mary. what with "the children's" extra calls upon her patience and attention, her anxiety about her father, and unusual efforts to seem cheerful and light-hearted, its close found her really tired and dispirited. "far more tired than with nursing alys," she said to herself, when on saturday afternoon she was taking brooke and francie a walk, thankful to know that the more troublesome members of her charge were safely disposed of for the rest of the day in a holiday expedition to old mr halkin's farm. "that was play compared with the worry and fret of the last few days. and why should i feel it so? there is something not right about me just now. _i_ am changed, though i blame the children. i have grown captious and discontented. i do believe that fortnight at the farm spoiled me--the being thanked and praised for everything i did. what a silly goose i am, after all! how i do wish i could hear how alys is--i do think she might write again, but i suppose it is my own doing," with a little sigh. for two or three pencilled words from miss cheviott, saying merely that they had got safe to romary, that she had borne the drive pretty well, but was woefully dull without mary, were all the news mary had had of her late patient. her thoughts were interrupted by little francie. she had been running on in front of her brother, but turning suddenly, fled back to mary in alarm. "what's the matter, dear?" her sister exclaimed, for the child was white and trembling. "a horse," whispered francie, "another naughty horse coming so fast, mary, and it makes me think of that dedful day." francie's fears had exaggerated facts. the horse, coming up behind them on the soft turf at the side of the path, which deadened the sound of its approach, was proceeding at an ordinary pace, which slackened somewhat when its rider caught sight of the little party in front of him. slackened, but that was all. mr cheviott, for it was he, passed them at a gentle trot, just lifting his hat to mary as he did so. mary's face flushed as she bowed in return. "i do think," she said to herself, "as we are _not_ to be friends, it would be much better taste for him not to come our way at all. it will annoy poor father exceedingly, in his nervous state, to hear of mr cheviott almost, as it were, passing our door. but, of course, he may have business at the farm." and she called to brooke and francie, volunteering to tell them a story, and tried her best bravely to force her mind away from the sore subject. but a surprise was in store for her. more than an hour later, when she and the children were close to the rectory gate on their return home, little brooke, who was of an observant turn of mind, called her attention to some fresh hoof marks on the gravel drive. "see, mary," he said, "some one's been here since we came out. i wonder if it was that horse we met, that the gentleman belonged to that bowed to you?" "that belonged to the gentleman, you mean," said mary, laughing in spite of herself. "oh! no, i am sure it has not been he, brooke dear." but mary was wrong. her mother met her at the door, her face bright and interested, her hands filled with some lovely flowers. "mr cheviott has been here," she said, eagerly, "and it has done your father so much good. he stayed fully half an hour with him, and talked so pleasantly, your father says, and he brought these flowers for you from his sister with a note. what a pity you were out!" "i dare say it was quite as well," said mary, calmly. "papa has had him all to himself, and he enjoys a quiet talk with one person alone just now. i am really very glad mr cheviott called, as it has pleased papa." and in her heart she could not deny that this was behaving with "something like" generosity! alys's note was but a few words--she was not yet allowed to write more, she said--but few as they were, the words were full of affection and gratitude. the london doctor had not yet been, but was expected next week. in the mean time she had to lie perfectly still, and it _was_ rather dull, though "poor laurence" did his best. and she ended by hoping that mary would think of her while arranging the flowers. mary certainly did so--and with feelings of increased affection, not unmingled however with the pain of the old vague self-reproach. for some days mr western seemed quite to have recovered his usual strength and spirits, and mary was glad to be able to write cheerfully to lilias, who had been threatening a premature return home, had the news thence not improved. "papa is better," she announced to mrs greville, two days after their arrival at hastings, when the afternoon post brought mary's letter. "it seems to me," she went on, after receiving mrs greville's congratulations on the good accounts,--"it seems to me that it is far more his spirits than anything else that are affected." "but at his age that is not a good sign," said mrs greville. "i suppose not," said lilias, thoughtfully. "mary says he has begun to think and speak so anxiously about our future in case of anything happening to him." "ah, yes," said mr greville, complacently, "that's the worst of a large family." "the worst and the best too," said lilias. "if papa's health did break down he would have us all to work for him." mr greville smiled--a not unkindly but somewhat dubious smile. "easier said than done, my dear girl," he said. he rather liked to provoke lilias into a battle of words, she grew so eager and looked so pretty when she got excited; he would not have objected to a daughter, or even a couple of daughters like her, though the bare thought of all the younger westerns in the overflowing rectory made him shiver. but before lilias had time to take up her weapons there occurred a sudden diversion. a ring at the front door bell, which, while talking they had not noticed, was followed by the announcement, by mrs greville's maid, that a lady was asking for miss western. "a lady for miss western," repeated mrs greville. "show her in then, miller, at once." but the lady, it appeared, declined to be "shown in." she had begged that miss western would speak to her for a moment in the hall, not feeling sure that there might not be some mistake. "what a queer message," said mrs greville. "take care, lilias; it is probably some begging person." "no," said lilias, with a sudden inspiration, as she turned to leave the room, "i don't think it is. i do believe it is mrs brabazon." her intuition was correct. mrs brabazon it proved to be. mrs brabazon on foot, with none of the _apanage_ of the brooke wealth about her except her richly comfortable attire and general air of prosperity and well-being. only her kindly eyes had a somewhat careworn expression, and there were lines in her face which told of past and present anxiety. she received lilias with cordiality almost approaching affection. "i am so glad it is you," she said as she shook hands with lilias. "i was so afraid it might be some other miss western, though the name is uncommon, not like _weston_. do you know what i did? fancy anything so stupid! i lost your address, which you remember i noted down on a bit of paper in dr --'s waiting-room. i could not remember the name of the friends you were staying with, and of course hunting for you in all the hotels in london would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack. and i have so little time, i am always so hurried to get back to anselm when i am out. it was not till the day before we left town that it occurred to me to try to trace you through dr --, and when i went to his house for the purpose, he was off to the country! oh! you don't know how vexed i was." "and how did you find me out here?" asked lilias, a little bewildered by mrs brabazon's unconcealed eagerness to prosecute the acquaintance so unexpectedly begun. "by the local paper--the visitor's guide, or whatever they call it. of course i was not looking for _you_, i had no reason to suppose you were here; but the moment i saw the name western i felt sure it must be you, and anselm felt sure that greville was the name of your friends. it really seems quite--what people call providential, though, somehow, i never like using the expression in that way." "and how is your nephew--young mr brooke?" said lilias. mrs brabazon shook her head. "it is basil over again--ah, it is heart-breaking work," she said, sadly. "but i forget, i am speaking to you as if you knew all about us." "somehow i feel as if i did," said lilias, "the familiar names--one of my brothers is basil, and another anselm brooke, but we call him brooke always." "and which is basil?" "the eldest," said lilias. "he has got a berth, as he calls it, in an office in the city. it is a good opening, i believe, and he will probably be sent out to india in a year or two. but in the mean time, of course, he gets very little, and--and it keeps us very strait at home," she added, with a smile. mrs brabazon listened with unfeigned interest. "i must hear all about them," she said. "but not to-day. and i am keeping you out here in the passage all this time." "that is my fault," said lilias. "won't you come in? i _know_ mrs greville would be pleased to see you." (a thoroughly true assertion, as mrs greville was already on the verge of that peculiar phase of _ennui_ so apt to seize on active practical people when away from "home" and its duties, stranded in a strange place where they know no one, and never go out without the consciousness of the terrible word "visitors" branded on their foreheads.) "not to-day, thank you, my dear. i _must_ run home," said mrs brabazon. "but tell me what day will you spend with us? can you come to-morrow? we are at the --." lilias might have hesitated to accept _too_ readily the invitation, however cordial, of the rich relations who for so many long years had ignored margaret western and her children; but the influence of mary's earnest advice was too strong upon her to make her dream of holding back. besides, it was impossible to look in mrs brabazon's face and doubt her good intentions. "thank you," the girl replied. "i should like to come very much. but i think i must return here early, the evenings are so dull for mr and mrs greville." "of course," said mrs brabazon. "and anselm is always so tired in the evening. the day-time is the best for us. i will send the carriage for you at half-past twelve--will that do?--and it shall bring you back again at four or five, or any time you like. possibly anselm may be going a drive, and would come round this way for you. and pray apologise to mrs greville for my unceremonious behaviour." "thank you," said lilias. "yes, that will suit me perfectly. i shall be ready at half-past twelve." "good-bye, then, for the present. i shall have a great deal to talk to you about to-morrow. i want to hear _everything_ about your brothers and sisters and everybody," said mrs brabazon, as she shook hands in farewell. lilias went back to the drawing-room to tell her surprising news to her friends. mrs greville was full of interest and excitement, mr greville somewhat inclined to question the advisability of this sudden friendship. "have you ever heard your mother speak of this mrs brabazon? are you quite sure she is what she represents herself to be?" he said, doubtfully. lilias smiled. "oh, yes," she replied. "i am quite sure of that. mamma remembered mrs brabazon by name. she was a miss brooke, and her father and my grandfather were first cousins. these brookes are the elder branch." "but who are they?--i mean, how many are there of them?" asked mrs greville. "why is mrs brabazon always with them?" "the mother is dead, i am sure of that," said lilias, "and i _think_ mrs brabazon has kept house for mr brooke since her death. it was mary that told us all we knew, and she heard it from some ladies she met at your house." "of course," exclaimed mrs greville, in a tone of relief, "the morpeths--you remember, charles? oh, yes, of course, it is all right. frances morpeth was always saying how nice mrs brabazon was. i am sure you are quite right to cultivate the acquaintance, lilias. don't you agree with me, mr greville?" "i suppose so," said mr greville, lazily. "but i hope the cultivation of it will not absorb you altogether, lilias. it would be wretchedly dull in these stupid lodgings without you, my dear, to argue with and contradict, and look at." "you need not be afraid. i am not going to desert you," said lilias, laughing, as she left the room. "that girl really grows prettier and prettier," said mr greville. "she is much more amusing, too, than her sister mary. i fancy mary is something of a prig; there was no getting a smile out of her the last time she was over with us. lilias is brighter than ever i knew her, full of fun and pleased with everything." "she is very nice," agreed mrs greville. "but they are both very nice. i am not at all sure but that it is mary who has the lion's share of the work at home. how pleased i shall be if anything comes of these new relations." "umph," said mr greville. "mr brooke's carriage" came for miss western at half-past twelve. whether "mr brooke" referred to the young man she had already seen, or to a father whom she had as yet heard nothing of, lilias felt in some doubt. but before the day was over mrs brabazon's extreme communicativeness had put her in full possession of the family history past and present, and had, besides, suggested hints which made the poor girl giddy with surprise and bewilderment, and an utterly novel sense of perplexity. "i must consult some one," she said to herself, when she got back to mrs greville's lodgings. "i feel too confused and amazed to decide what to do. i had better tell the grevilles, they are sensible and kind and really interested in us, and they will advise me as to whether i should write home about what i have heard." so to mrs greville's inquiries as to how she had got on, what she had heard, etc, etc, lilias was very ready to give most comprehensive answers. "i got on very well indeed, thank you," she said. "they were as cordial and kind as possible. mr brooke, anselm's father, is to be down here on friday, and mrs brabazon wants me to spend saturday with them to see him, and what's more, she made me write from the hotel to basil, to ask him to come to them from saturday to monday if he can get off, which i am sure he can. she told me to tell him she would `frank' him both ways. wasn't that considerate, mrs greville?" "_very_," replied mrs greville, heartily. "i am exceedingly glad to hear it." "i am sure basil will come," continued lilias, "for i told him papa and mamma would wish it. but, oh! mrs greville, you will really think i am dreaming when i tell you what else mrs brabazon told me." she looked up in mrs greville's face, her blue eyes bright with excitement, her cheeks glowing with eagerness. even lazy mr greville's curiosity was aroused. "why, let us guess," he said, jokingly. "is old mr brooke going to adopt you and make you his heiress? why, you _would_ be irresistible then, lilias! but, by-the-bye, he has a son and heir, so it can't be that." "no," said lilias, "not exactly. but it's something quite as wonderful. what _do_ you think mrs greville--mrs brabazon gave me to understand--in fact, she said so plainly--that after anselm, mr brooke's only remaining child, _mamma_ is heir to all, or, at least, to a great part of their property." "your mother!" exclaimed mrs greville, apparently too astonished to say more. mrs western, she knew, had been a governess when her husband fell in love with and married her, and though she had always known her to be what is vaguely termed "well-connected," she had somehow never associated her with possible riches or "position;" she had, on the contrary, often annoyed the western girls by a slight shade of patronage in her tone of speaking of their mother, whom she looked upon as an amiable, decidedly unsophisticated and unworldly woman--"sair hauden doun" by the small means and large family at the rectory. "your mother!" she repeated. but mr greville's worldly wisdom prevented his losing his head at the news. "_after_ mr brooke's son, you say," he observed. "but that makes all the difference. lots of people are next heir _but one_ to a fortune without ever coming any nearer it. what's to prevent this mr anselm marrying and having half a dozen sons and daughters of his own?" "that is the thing," said lilias, "that--anselm, i mean, is, of course, what the whole depends upon. had he been strong and well we should probably never have heard or known of our--of mamma's position. but--it seems so horrid to talk about it so coolly--anselm will never grow up and marry, mr greville--he is only sixteen now--for he is dying." "dear me, dear me," said mr greville, "how very, very sad!" but underneath his not altogether conventional expression of sympathy, lilias could plainly detect the reflection--"that very decidedly alters the state of the case." "yes," she agreed, "it is terribly sad." "and under these circumstances--for you speak of this son as an only child, and he has probably long been delicate," pursued mr greville--"how is it, may i ask, that these brookes have never before looked up your mother? their meeting with you now is purely accidental, and more mrs brabazon's doing than mr brooke's, it seems to me." "she explained all that," said lilias. "it is only very lately that anselm has been an only child. there was quite a large family of them, and five, i think, lived to grow up. but one by one they have dropped off--all died of consumption like their mother. basil, the second son, and apparently the strongest, lived to be six-and-twenty, and only died last year, having caught cold at some races--regimental races, i mean; he was in the dragoons," her colour rising unaccountably as she mentioned the regiment. "before his death, mrs brabazon says, he was very anxious to look us up, for he never expected that anselm would live long. but his father has been in such a broken-down state that mrs brabazon could never get him to take any interest in the matter. _she_ does; it is wonderful how she can do so, i think, when one remembers how she has seen her own nephews and nieces die one by one." "there is no chance, i suppose, of old mr brooke's marrying again," said mr greville, consideringly. "none whatever. he is nearly seventy, fifteen years older than his sister, and thoroughly aged by trouble, she says." "then the estates are entailed?" "principally, not altogether. but they have never been separated, and that was why basil brooke wanted his father to look us up. he was anxious that the alienable--is that the word?--part of the property should go with the entailed if the next heir were a desirable sort of person. for i must explain _basil_ is the real heir; mamma would only have a certain life-rent, a very ample one though, she could provide for all her other children out of it. the entail is somehow rather peculiar. mrs brabazon comes in for nothing, though so much nearer than mamma, because she has no son." "and has your mother no idea of all this?" inquired mr greville. "none whatever," said lilias, decidedly. "she knew there had been an unprecedented number of deaths among the brookes, but she has always had a vague idea there were scores of them left still. then she never associated herself, being a woman, with the possibility of succession. there _were_ several female brookes only a few years ago, but of the three now left not one has a son, and they are all old, mrs brabazon the youngest. now, dear mr greville, the question is this--what, or how much should i write home of all that i have heard?" "why not all?" said mrs greville. "i don't know," said lilias. "i suppose it is from a vague fear of rousing hopes that may possibly be--no, not disappointed, there hardly seems any chance of that--but deferred, _long_ deferred, possibly. anselm may live some months, but there can be no question of his recovery. he spoke to me about it himself; he is nearly as anxious for his father to recognise us and settle things as his brother basil was, mrs brabazon says. but mr brooke may live a good many years, may quite possibly outlive papa," the girl added, with a sad little drop in her voice. "it is of that i am thinking," said mr greville, turning to lilias with a kind earnestness of manner contrasting strongly with his usual easy indifference. "by `that' i mean your father's state of health and spirits. it seems to me it would be cruel to keep all this from him for fear of possible delay in its coming to pass. the relief to him of knowing you all would have something to look to in case of his death would be great enough to be almost like a new lease of life. and surely, if things were turning out as mrs brabazon says,--surely if any such need were to arise, mr brooke would do something for your mother at once." "i _think_ so," said lilias. "mrs brabazon did not say so exactly, but she certainly inferred it. when speaking of basil, and hearing of his being in an office in the city, she and anselm looked at each other. `that is just what we heard,' mrs brabazon said, and anselm asked if he did not dislike the life very much. i said, `no, not so very much--he was glad to be doing anything, though his great wish _had_ been to go into the army,' and poor anselm said he did not see why that might not still be arranged." "curious unselfishness, surely, to take such an interest in the one who, he believes, will eventually take his place," observed mr greville. "yes," said lilias, "it struck me as strangely unselfish. but mrs brabazon says anselm has never cared to live since his brother's death. basil was the strong one, and anselm leaned on him for everything, he has always been so delicate, `living with a doom over him ever since he was born,' mrs brabazon called it." "consumption, i suppose?" said mr greville. "but your mother does not look as if she came from a consumptive family." "no, it is not from the brookes, but from their mothers side that they are consumptive," said lilias. "the deaths among the other brookes have been in many cases from accidental causes." there fell a little pause; lilias, eager for decision, was just about to break it with a repeated request for advice, when mr greville intercepted her intention. "i'll tell you what i'd do in your place, my dear," he said, suddenly. "write the whole to your sister mary. she's as sensible a girl as one often meets with, and, being on the spot, can judge as to the effect the news is likely to have on your father." "yes," said lilias, "i think i shall. she is on the spot, as you say, and could tell it less startlingly than i could write it. besides," she added, with a slight touch of filial jealousy, "she can consult _mamma_." "oh, yes, of course," said mrs greville, in a conventionally proper tone. "and, after all," said mr greville, a little maliciously, "`mamma' is really the chief person concerned." he was shrewd enough to suspect that notwithstanding his wife's honest pleasure in good fortune coming to her old friends, she would have preferred its not coming to them through their mother, the quiet, reserved woman whom she had somehow never been able quite to understand, who met her good-natured patronage with an unruffled dignity which always prevented hearty mrs greville from feeling quite at ease in her presence, though mentally considering her as rather a poor creature than otherwise. it was late that night, or early, rather, the next morning, before lilias went to bed. for, till her letter to mary was written, she felt she could not rest. if only she could have written one other letter too! "oh, arthur," she said to herself, "what good fortune your love seems to have brought us already! and should you become poor for my sake, what happiness if it should ever be in my power to restore to you any of what you may have sacrificed! my sisters and i would have daughters' portions, mrs brabazon said; and mine could not, at the worst, but be enough for us to live on. how strange that the brookes should know him!" for in the course of conversation that day, it had been mentioned, _a propos_ of the cheviotts' meeting with mrs brabazon in paris, that arthur beverley and basil brooke had been brother officers and great friends. chapter twenty six. sir ingram de romary. "raged the loud storm... the lightning o'er his path flashed horribly--the thunder pealed--the winds mournfully blew; yet still his desperate course he held; and fierce he urged his gallant steed for many a mile. the torrent lifted high its voice." _lydford bridge_. hathercourt letters _sometimes_ came of an evening. when any thoughtful or good-natured neighbour happened to pass the withenden post-office at or after three o'clock in the afternoon, it was a favourite attention to call for the rectory letters. and sometimes it happened that the owners of the letters were not sorry to receive them in private, for even among the least reserved or secretive natures it is not always pleasant to have one's affairs discussed or guessed at by half a dozen inquisitive young people round a breakfast-table. lilias had not written quite as much to mary as usual of late, finding it difficult to make time for more than the almost daily lengthy and amusing letters she sent to her father. so when mr wills from the edge, who, since her residence under his roof, had taken "miss mary" into special favour, called with a thick budget addressed in lilias's hand, mary felt surprised as well as delighted. but her pleasure was somewhat tinged with alarm when she read the few words which, at the top of the sheet, first met her glance: "read this when you are alone, and likely to be uninterrupted. it is nothing wrong. don't be frightened." but frightened of course she was, and thankful to be able at once to satisfy herself. "nothing wrong!" it would have been difficult to judge from mary's face, when she looked up after finishing the letter, what had been the nature of its contents. like lilias, her first impression was one of such utter bewilderment that it seemed as if her brain were refusing to take in the facts before her. she got up from her seat, pushed her hair back from her forehead, and tried to think reasonably and rationally. but it was difficult. "can i be dreaming?" she said to herself. "mamma heir to all the brookes' property! _can_ it be true? oh, papa, poor papa--he must be told. only last night again he was talking to me of his racking anxiety about our future; it is so impressed on him that he is not going to live long. and, as lilias says, this news may be fresh life to him." she sat down again, and for some minutes allowed her fancy to run riot in the new world so suddenly opened before her. to be rich! how extraordinary the idea seemed to her--no more furrows on her father's face of anxiety as to the future, no more daily worries for her mother about butchers' and grocers' books and servants' wages and everlasting new boots for the boys; plenty of books and music, and pretty dresses even, which in her heart mary was by no means given to despise, for herself and lilias; a first-rate governess for the girls--unlimited power as well as will to help their poorer neighbours--a pretty and luxurious home, something like romary, perhaps! a flush rose to mary's cheek at the thought--what would the cheviotts think of this marvellous news? would it increase or diminish the separation between them? was it possible that even yet all might come right between lilias and arthur beverley, or had lilias quite left off caring for him? was it--? her speculations were suddenly brought to a close--a tap at the door reminded her of the present, and recalled her to the consideration of how and when she should first break this astonishing revelation to her parents. "consult with mamma," lilias had said. yes, of course, that was the first thing to be done. but to get hold of her mother alone for an uninterrupted talk was by no means so easy as it seemed, just now especially, since mr western's failing health had rendered him _exigeant_ and capricious in a way quite foreign to his ordinary character. the tap at the door was repeated. "come in," cried mary, starting up as she spoke. "how can i when the door is locked?" said her mother's voice. mary hastened to unlock it. "i am so sorry for keeping you waiting," she said, penitently, as she did so. "i had no idea it was you, mother." "i have been looking for you all over the house, and began to think you must have gone out," said her mother, in a slightly aggrieved tone. "it is nearly tea-time, and i want to hasten it, for possibly a cup of tea may do your father good. it is about him i wanted you, mary. he seems to me decidedly less well this evening, and i have just been wondering if we should not ask dr brandreth to come to see him to-morrow. the postman will be here directly. what do you think?" "would papa not mind?" said mary, consideringly. "i don't know--that is the difficulty. he is always pleased to see dr brandreth, and often enjoys a talk with him; but whenever i have proposed it lately, he has begun worrying about the expense. dr brandreth is very kind--to do any good to your father i know he would gladly come for nothing at all; but your father would not have that. he has always paid our doctor's charges to the full, and would be miserable not to do so. but it _can't_ be helped; we are certainly unusually short of money just now, but where your father is concerned, mary dear, i seem to grow reckless." mary had drawn her mother within the threshold of her room. they stood talking near the door-way in low tones. "if _that_ is the only hesitation," the girl replied, eagerly, with a suppressed excitement in her voice which, had she been a whit less preoccupied, her mother could not but have noticed, "if that is the only difficulty, oh! mother dear, don't hesitate an instant." mrs western sighed. her heart only too thoroughly agreed with mary, but, alas! to her life experience of poverty it seemed no longer unendurable and inconceivable, no longer anything but sadly inevitable that, even in such a matter as a question of health or sickness, possibly even of life or death, considerations of pounds, shillings, and pence should force themselves to the front. she only sighed and hesitated. "mother dear," persisted mary, "let me write to dr brandreth at once. i _know_ it is right. and oh, mother, i have such wonderful news to tell you. i have a letter from lilias--it was to read it quietly i had locked myself into my room. mother i don't know how to tell you what she has written about." mrs western's mind was still running on the fors and againsts of sending for dr brandreth. she hardly took in the sense of mary's words. "a letter from lilias!" she repeated. "poor lily, i am glad she is enjoying herself. but, mary, if you really think we should send for dr brandreth, there is no time to lose. josey called out as i came up-stairs that she heard jacob's `make-ready' whistle at the end of the lane, and when he whistles so far off it's always a sign that he is in a hurry." "then he must just not be in a hurry," said mary; "but all the same, mother, i'll write the note at once. and, in the mean time, can't you try to guess what lilias's letter is about?" "it surely isn't that she has met captain beverley again," said mrs western, anxiously, "or _surely_ not that any one else has taken a fancy to her? i never thought lilias anything of a flirt, but--" "oh, no, mother dear, it is _nothing_ of that sort," said mary, as she ran down-stairs before her mother. "don't make yourself uneasy. i will tell you all as soon as i have sent off the note to dr brandreth." "we must have tea as soon as possible," replied her mother. "i will be getting it ready, mary, and when you have sent the note, go into your father's study and try to get him to come into the dining-room. it will be better for him than sitting alone in the study when he is feeling ill." "very well," said mary. she could not bring herself to share her mother's apprehensions, she was in a state of such excitement that the whole world seemed to have changed to her. her father could not but get better and stronger now; mental anxiety, she felt certain, had far more to do with his failing health than any one imagined. still when the note--less urgently worded, it must be owned, than had it been written to her mother's dictation--was dispatched, and she went to the study to seek her father, she felt a little startled. he was sitting in his chair by the fire, half dozing, it seemed to mary, but when he looked up in answer to her greeting, she saw that his face looked changed somehow, its expression told of pain and oppression greater than he had yet endured. "is your head so bad, dear father?" she said, anxiously. "very, very bad indeed. i feel perfectly stupid with that sense of oppression, and my sight is so strangely hazy. i could not conceal it from your mother," he went on, half apologetically, "though you know, my dear, how i always shrink from making her uneasy." "yes," said mary, half absently, "i know. will you come into the dining-room to tea, papa? mamma sent me to fetch you." "very well. if she wishes it, though i feel as if i would rather stay here. i hope the children will be quiet, poor things. i can't stand any noise or excitement to-night." mary looked at him as he spoke, and dismissed the half-formed idea-- that, since she had been alone with her father, had seized her with sudden temptation--of telling him the contents of the letter in her pocket, now, at once. she saw he spoke the truth. he was unfit to bear any great excitement. tea passed over with unwonted quiet. the "children" were impressed by their father's weary looks, and conversation was carried on in unusually amicable whispers. after tea mr western went back to his study, and mary at last succeeded in getting her mother to herself. "for a quarter of an hour only, dear," said mrs western. "then i must take my work into the study and sit with your father. and i want to persuade him to go early to bed." "it is barely seven yet, mother," said mary. "now listen--first of all, do you remember lilias writing--of course you do--about having met a cousin of yours, a mrs brabazon, in town?" "at the doctor's, wasn't it? waiting for mr greville at the doctor's, and your father was so pleased at it, and thought something might come of it--of course, i remember," replied mrs western, growing interested. "well, mary?" "well, mother," continued mary, "lilias's letter is all about these relations of yours. she has met them again, they are at hastings just now, and she has been to spend a day with them. and, mother," she proceeded cautiously, "it does indeed seem as if something were going to come of it. do you happen to know, did you ever hear how the brooke property is left--entailed, i suppose i should say?" "in the usual way, entailed on to the eldest son. i have always known that," said mrs western, in some surprise. "but _failing_ an eldest son, mother, failing any direct male heir at all, do you--?" her question was never completed. at that moment a bell rang sharply and violently through the house. mary and her mother stared at each other for a moment in silence. bells were at no time in great request at the rectory, and the sound of the special bell now heard seemed strange and unfamiliar. "what can that be?" said mary. "some trick of the children's i am afraid. wait here, mother; i'll go and see." she ran to the door, but before she had more than opened it her mother had overtaken her. "let me pass," she whispered, in a hoarse, breathless voice--"let me go first, mary. i know what it is. it is the study bell. mary, your father--" they rushed across the hall and down the study passage together. which first reached the door mary never knew. but between them it was thrown open and--ah, yes!--mrs western's instinct was correct; the blow that for so long had threatened them had fallen at last--the rector lay unconscious on the floor, and at the first glance mary thought her mother was right when in agony she wailed out--"he is dead! oh, mary, he is dead!" but he was not dead. they did what in their ignorance they could, poor things! and then, a quarter of an hour or so after the first alarm, mary came rushing into the school-room, where the frightened children were all collected together. "george, where is george?" she said. "he must go, or find some one to go, for the doctor. simmons is out--it is always the way. but where _is_ george? can none of you tell me?" "oh, mary, i am so sorry," said poor alexa. "i am afraid george has gone to bed. have you forgotten about his sore knee? i don't think he _could_ go for the doctor. couldn't josey and i go? oh, dear! what shall we do?" mary for an instant wrung her hands in perplexity. it all came back to her memory about george's having hurt his knee by a fall from a tree the day before, hurt it badly too. what was to be done? the nearest possibility of a man and horse was a mile off, and even then _only_ a possibility, hardly worth wasting precious time on the chance of. simmons, their own factotum, was out for the evening--what was to be done? mary's quick mind glanced it all over and decided. "get my cloak and hat, quick, josey--any of you," she said. "i know what i'll do. i'll run myself to the edge and get wills to go. he has a good horse, and has often had to bring dr brandreth when al--miss cheviott was there. yes, that will be best, better than running a mile the other way on the mere chance of giles swanwick being able to go." she was off before any one could stop her. but indeed it was the best thing to do. it was terrible to have to leave her mother alone with the silent, already in a strange sense, _unfamiliar_ figure that mary found it hard to believe could be "papa," but what might not delay or a bungled message result in? she only glanced in again to impress upon martha, a fairly intelligent woman of her class, on no account to leave her mistress alone; if anything were wanted to call to miss alexa, or miss josephine, who would remain within ear-shot. at the front door mary was stopped by alexa, trembling and pale with repressed anxiety, yet, mary was glad to see, crying but little. "tell me, mary, dear mary--forgive me for stopping you," she said, breathlessly, "but do tell me, do you _think_ he is going to die?" "i don't know--oh! alexa, how can i tell?" said mary. "let me go, dear, and try all of you to be good. that's the only thing you can do just now." "i will, indeed i will," said alexa, bravely, "and, mary, you shall see a difference in me from this time, see if you don't." mary kissed her and hurried out. "perhaps there is really more strength and sense in alexa than we have given her credit for," she said to herself. it was a very tiny drop of comfort, still there was _some_ in her young sister's sympathy and evident desire to be of use. "for," thought mary, "it is impossible not to recall all dear papa's forebodings--he has spoken so much of them lately, as to what would become of them all, and alexa and josey seemed as much on his mind as any--in case--" she stopped suddenly as there flashed across her mind the recollection of lilias's letter, which by some strange brain freak the new excitement of the last half hour had completely banished from her memory. could it still be true--this wonderful news which so short a time ago had seemed to illumine the dark future so brilliantly and scatter every cloud? _could_ it be true? "and what if it be?" thought mary, recklessly, a sob rising in her throat. "what shall we care for money or comfort without _him_! what a mockery it seems coming _now_ when the greatest sorrow of our lives is upon us! what madness it seems ever to have murmured at our small means or privations or difficulties or anything while we were all together and well! oh, to think that only the last time i walked down this lane i was grumbling to myself at the home worries and the children's troublesomeness and the monotonous commonplaceness of my life! if only we were back to all that--if only--would i _ever_ grumble again?" the tears _would_ come. mary ran faster in hopes of driving them away and preserving the self-possession which she felt she dare not lose, and another ten minutes brought her to the edge. she knew the ins and outs of the place so well that without knocking she quickly found her way into the kitchen, where mrs wills was busy ironing. the familiar kitchen--how little she had thought the last time she saw it, on what an errand she would next be there! this errand was soon told, and mrs wills was full of sympathy. but sympathy, alas! was all she had to give, and mary was in sore need of something more. it was terribly disappointing to find that wills himself was not at home, nor likely to be for some hours to come. on his return from withenden he had ridden on to bewley, a village some miles the other way, about a horse buying or selling, or some business of the kind, which, rendered diffusive by her excitement, mrs wills would have given mary the whole details of, had not the girl cut her short with an anguished exclamation: "what am i to do? what _can_ i do?" she cried. "they are all depending on me to find some way--mamma and all--and even now he may be dying. oh, mrs wills!" mrs wills wiped away her tears with one corner of her apron, while she stopped to consider. "there's neither man nor boy about this blessed place to-night, as ill luck would have it," she said. "i would offer to run myself, and gladly, but i'm not as quick as when i was younger, miss mary. but stay--there's farmer bartlemoor's not more than a mile and a quarter away, where there's sure to be one of the sons at home and plenty of horses. to be sure it's not exactly on the way to withenden, but not so far about neither. do you know it, miss?--bartle's farm, i mean? bartles we calls them mostly for shorter." "no," said mary, "i don't. but tell me and i am sure i can find it." mrs wills's description recalled the place to mary's recollection. the bartlemoors were not her father's parishioners, but she remembered noticing the house, a rather picturesque old-fashioned one, in some of the long summer rambles the rectory children were so fond of. it was not yet quite dark when again she set out. but had it been the blackest of midnights, little, save for the increased difficulty and delay, would mary have cared. she hurried on, trying hard not to think, nor to distract herself by picturing what might at that moment be happening at the rectory. it seemed to her that she had implicitly followed mrs wills's directions, yet the landmarks she was on the look-out for were strangely long of coming. it was all but dark now-- the road, hardly indeed worthy of the name, along which she was hastening was perfectly bare of any sign of human habitation; she had met no one since she left the edge, not a single belated market-cart even had passed her, and now, as mary stood still in despair, she noticed that the clouds, which all the evening had been gathering ominously together, had joined their phalanxes--there was no longer a break in the sky--the rain began slowly but steadily, in five minutes it was a perfect pour. mechanically almost, poor mary crept under a tree and stood still to think what she should do. where indeed was the use of hurrying on, when every step, for all she knew, might but be taking her further and further in the wrong direction? it was too evident she had lost her way. what she would have done she often afterwards asked herself, if, at that moment, the sound of wheels approaching rapidly in her direction had not caught her ears. _too_ rapidly indeed was her next fear--how, amidst the pouring rain and the darkness, could she attract the driver's attention? she ran forward--yes, to her delight the vehicle, whatever it was, had lamps! could it possibly, by any blessed chance, be dr brandreth himself returning from a country round? anyway, whoever and whatever it was, she must do her utmost to attract attention. and as mary said this to herself there flashed across her memory a gruesome legend of the neighbourhood, which many a night, when a child, had made her put her fingers in her ears for terror of what she might hear--a legend of a certain sir ingram de romary who, maddened by wine and some wild quarrel, had driven himself and his horse to destruction over the chaldron water-fall, a mile or more the other side of hathercourt. all the way from romary dene, an old ruin now long given up to the owls and bats, the mad race had been run, and still on wild, dark, stormy nights "folks said 'twas to be heard again." mary, standing in the road, shivered as the story rushed through her brain--shivered with strange nervous terror, for which, at the same moment, she vigorously despised herself. "papa dying," she said to herself, "and i to be frightened of a ridiculous ghost story! what can i be made of? have i no heart?" afterwards she did herself more justice. a strong excitement may, indeed, override every other sensation, but it may also, by some slightest variation, kindle every perception, every nerve, every feeler, so to speak, of our briareus-like imagination into abnormal acuteness. who cannot but recall with astonishing minuteness the trifling outside details of any scene morbidly impressed on our memory--the pattern on the walls above the bed where our best beloved lay dying, the details of the dress of the indifferent messenger who brought us that news we can never forget? who cannot but remember the wild, even ludicrous, vagaries that flashed through our fancy at some "supreme moment" of our lives? but, shiver as she might, mary had already committed herself to action. she stood some little way forward on the road, and, as the gig, dog-cart, whatever it was, came within hail, she called out as loudly as she could the first thing that came into her head to say: "is that you, dr brandreth?" she could not at first have been heard. there was no visible abatement of the driver's speed. again, and yet again, mary repeated her cry, but apparently with no effect. on flew the wheels, down poured the rain. mary was obliged, to save herself the risk of being knocked down as it passed her, to draw back a little. "it surely must be sir ingram, after all," she said to herself, but with no terror this time, with rather a wild, incomprehensible desire to laugh. but as the vehicle actually drew near her, as the lamps flashed into her face, common sense and self-possession returned. "oh, stop--stop!" she cried, "for mercy's sake, whoever you are, stop!" this last appeal, though she knew it not, was unneeded. already the pace had been slackening, but it was not so easy, as might appear, suddenly to pull up a powerful, fast-trotting horse instinctively sharing its master's desire to get home and out of the storm of rain as fast as possible. but two or three yards beyond the spot where mary stood it was achieved. there were two men on the dog-cart, one driving, the other sitting behind. almost before the horse stopped, the latter jumped down and was at its head. "what can it be?" said the driver, as the man ran past him. "yes, stay you by madge, andrew, or we shall have her getting excited. i'll get down." andrew, to tell the truth, was by no means averse to do as he was told. madge's kicks and plunges impressed him infinitely less than a hand-to-hand or face-to-face encounter with a ghost, or, failing a ghost, a lunatic escaped from the county asylum, which was the next idea presented to his bucolic brain. and, to do him justice, mary might reasonably enough have been mistaken for the latter, if not for the former, as she stood in the pouring rain, umbrellaless, hatless even, at first sight; for, habitually careful, she had, when the rain first came on, half unconsciously drawn over her head the hood of the large waterproof cloak with which, most fortunately, she had enveloped herself for her run to the edge. and from under this curious head-dress gleamed out her white face and brown eyes, unnaturally bright with anxiety and excitement, looking almost black in the flashing light of the lamps-- different, how different, from the sunny hazel eyes that had looked up in mr cheviott's face, half shyly, but all frankly, that sunday morning in the old church porch! they looked up now with a wild yet most piteous beseeching in their gaze. there was no need for madge's master to get down from his seat to question this strange suppliant. before he could move she had run up to the side of the wheel, and before he could speak she had, so far, told her story: "i have lost my way," she said, "and, oh! i shall be so grateful if you can help me. can you tell me if i am anywhere near farmer bartlemoor's? you must forgive my stopping you. i did not know _what_ to do." and for all answer, the man she was addressing sprang down at one bound to her side, exclaiming: "mary! you here? you poor child, what is--what can be the matter?" chapter twenty seven. an act of common humanity. "... and now thy pardon, friend, for thou hast ever answered courteously, and wholly bold thou art, and meek withal as any of arthur's best ... i marvel what thou art." "damsel," he said, "ye be not all to blame, ... ye said your say; mine answer was my deed. good sooth! i hold he scarce is knight, yea but half man ... ... he, who lets his heart be stirred with any foolish heat at any gentle damsel's waywardness." _gareth and lynette_. her eyes gleamed up into his face. but for a moment or two she did not speak. the inclination was so desperately strong upon her to burst into tears that she felt if she attempted to answer him, if she even moved her gaze or allowed a muscle of her face to quiver, it would have been all over with her self-control. he, on his side, stood watching her closely; he did not like the strained, unnatural expression, and thought for a moment that when it relaxed it would be into something worse--he thought she was going to faint, and half stretched out his arms as if to catch her. mary saw the action, and it restored her self-possession. "i _won't_ be a fool," she murmured to herself, "wasting all this precious time with my nonsense," though in reality barely three minutes had passed since the sound of the wheels had first reached her. then she gave herself a sort of little admonitory shake, and, turning again to mr cheviott, spoke in a more natural, but yet evidently excited tone. "i will explain it all," she said, and so she did. her father's symptoms of increasing weakness and the note to dr brandreth, then the sudden seizure and the difficulty of obtaining a messenger, ending with her own failure at the edge and mrs wills's suggestion. "and now," she said, "if only you can tell me where i am, or if your man knows farmer bartlemoor's, it will be all right, and i shall be so very grateful to you." but to her surprise mr cheviott did not at once reply, nor did he turn to "andrew" for information. instead of this, he took out his watch, and, examining it by the light of the lamp, murmured something to himself. "five miles--twenty minutes," he said, "yes, that would be far the quickest." then he turned to mary. "miss western," he said, gravely, "you are getting as wet as you possibly can. i must drive you to some shelter. shall i take you back to the edge, or home?" "oh, no, no!" cried mary. "_don't_ mind me. i entreat you not to mind me. if you have time to drive anywhere, if i dare ask you such an unheard-of thing, drive me to the nearest point to dr brandreth's. i feel as if i could not go to the bartlemoors, they don't know me, and my head is growing so confused i am not sure that i should know what to say when i got there." he had half expected this--it hardly seemed possible to oppose her--and the risk to herself, if greater in one way seemed less in another. "well, then," he said, "will you do exactly as i tell you?" "yes," she replied, meekly, "exactly." "your cloak is waterproof, i see," he continued, "is your dress dry underneath it?" "quite," she answered, "and my boots are thick, and it has not been raining long." mr cheviott turned to the carriage, from which he extracted a large, soft, woolly rug. "loosen your cloak for a moment," he said, "and put this thing on under it, then your cloak again. now can you climb up to the front beside me? i am driving." mary managed it, almost without assistance, and mr cheviott followed her. but, just as the groom was about to leave the horse's head, a sudden giddiness came over her, and she swayed forward for a second. mr cheviott caught her with his left arm, and called to the man to stay where he was for a moment. "miss western," he said, in a low voice, "you are perfectly exhausted. it is not right of me to let you go farther." she placed both hands on his arm. "oh, yes, yes," she pleaded. "anything rather than losing more time by taking me home first. it was only for a moment--i am better now." "andrew," called out mr cheviott, "where is my flask?" "in the left-hand inside pocket, sir," was the reply, "the pocket of your light top-coat, sir--not of the ulster." in a moment the flask was forthcoming, a small quantity poured into the silver cup and held to mary's lips. "no, thank you," she said, calmly. "i never take wine." mr cheviott felt almost inclined to laugh. "it is not wine, as it happens," he replied. "it is brandy and water. but, if it were wine, it wouldn't matter. you promised to do as you were told." "brandy," repeated mary, "i _cannot_ take that. it will go to my head." "it will not," said mr cheviott. "now, miss western, don't be silly. drink it." she did so. "was there ever such a girl before?" said mr cheviott, speaking audibly enough though as if to himself. "such a mixture of strength and childishness, common sense and uncommon fancifulness! oh, miss western?" mary, in turn, could hardly help laughing. "now," he went on, "if you feel giddy you very likely will when we start--don't say it's the brandy. i cannot keep my arm round you," mary started up indignantly, she had forgotten that all this time, through the episode of the flask and all, the arm had been there,--"i cannot keep my arm round you," he continued, coolly, though perfectly aware of the start, "because i am going to drive. i cannot trust my man to drive this mare, and i cannot let you sit behind with him. so promise me, if you feel giddy, to take hold of my arm for yourself. it will not interfere with my driving, and a very light hold will keep you firm." "very well," said mary, meekly enough to outward hearing, though, in her heart, a vow was registered that, short of feeling herself falling bodily out of the carriage, nothing should induce her to resort to such assistance. "i shall drive slowly, at first," said mr cheviott, "as the mare is already a little excited. but it will not really lose any time to speak of. i was driving foolishly fast when i met you, but then i had only my own neck to think of." "and andrew's," suggested mary. "and andrew's," he repeated. "but andrew is experienced in the art of taking care of his neck. i never saw any one with a greater knack of keeping out of damage than he has." was he talking for talking's sake, or with the intention of setting her at her ease by showing her how completely so he was himself? mary felt a little puzzled. thoroughly at ease he certainly was, and, more than this, he seemed to her to be in remarkably good spirits, yet his next observation showed her how far from indifferent he was feeling to the anxiety that she was suffering. "i fancy we shall just catch brandreth," he said, "and you will find no time has been lost. this is his whist club night, and it was to be at old admiral maxton's. they break up at nine, i know--the admiral is so very old--so the doctor will be just about getting home." "are you going to take me all the way to withenden?" said mary, half timidly. "_certainly_," replied mr cheviott, decidedly. "now, andrew, let her go. all right." but just at first it seemed to mary more like "all wrong." with a plunge and a dash that nearly took her breath away, the impatient animal darted forward. how andrew managed to scramble into his seat was a mystery to mary. it was all she could do to keep hers; the same giddy feeling came over her, her head reeled, and, with a vague remembrance of mr cheviott's injunction, she caught hold of his arm to steady herself. he was prepared for the movement, and by no means discomposed by it. in a minute or two the mare settled down into a steady pace, and mary's head grew steady. she quietly withdrew her hand. "i beg your pardon," she said, somewhat stiffly. "not at all," replied mr cheviott, "it's what i told you to do. but don't be frightened of madge--it's only a little show-off; we quite understand each other." "thank you," said mary, imagining a patronising shade in his tone. "i was not the least frightened; i am not nervous." "no, you are not, but you are _human_, miss western, and what you have gone through to-night has been enough to try any one's nerves," said mr cheviott, gravely. mary did not reply, though she felt herself ungracious for not doing so. in a minute he went on again. "i have been thinking," he said, "of what you told me about your father. of course i am no doctor, but i believe i can give you a little comfort. this sort of seizure is not so alarming when it comes on, as in his case, gradually; it is not like a man in too good health--a great full-blooded fellow like squire cleave, for instance--do you know him?-- being struck down suddenly. your father, as a rule, is so equable, is he not? and lives so quietly and regularly. i _fancy_ he will get over it, and be much the same as usual again. of course it is serious, but i have a friend at this moment who had an attack of this kind ten years ago, and is now fairly well and able to enjoy life; of course he is obliged to be careful." what a load was lifted from mary's heart! to be allowed to _hope_--what a relief! the tears rushed to her eyes, they were in her voice as she replied: "oh, how good you are! thank you, thank you for telling me that," and in _his_ turn mr cheviott made no reply. "freedom from anxiety, from daily worry--he has had too much of that-- would be greatly in his favour, would it not?" mary added, after a little pause. "undoubtedly, i should say," said mr cheviott, recalling as he spoke the careworn expression of the rector's face as he had last seen him. "peculiarly so in his case, i should say. he is a very sensitive man, is he not?" "very," said mary, "but not in the sense of being irritable. he is very sweet-tempered. poor father," she went on, with a sudden burst of confidence which amazed herself, "he has had far too much anxiety; but if only he gets well, i think and believe that that can be, is going to be, cured." "what can she mean?" thought mr cheviott, one or two possible solutions of her words darting through his mind. but what she did not tell he of course could not ask, only just then a sudden and unnecessary touch of the whip made madge start again. they were close to withenden by now. dr brandreth's house stood a little out of the town on the side by which they were entering it. mr cheviott drew up. "suppose we wait here," he said. "andrew can be thoroughly trusted to deliver exactly any message you give him, and it might be--perhaps you would not care about clambering up and down again from that high seat?" mary's cheeks grew hot, dark as it was. she did not know whether to be angry or grateful, whether indignantly to declare her indifference to withenden gossip or to choose, as her conductor evidently wished to suggest, "discretion as the better part of valour." a moment's reflection decided her that, considering all he had done and was doing, she had no right to reject the suggestion. "thank you," she said, and, turning to the groom, gave a distinct message, short and to the point. "my letter will be at dr brandreth's before now," she added to mr cheviott, "and that will explain a little. it was asking him to come early to-morrow." "that message is all you have to give," said andrew's master as the man was hastening off. "you need not say who brought it, or anything." "but, mr cheviott," said mary, half timidly, half indignantly, "i would not mind all withenden knowing i had brought it. and--and your driving me here was really an act of pure humanity; no one could say i had done anything in the least not--not nice." her voice quivered a little. "certainly not. but don't you think sometimes--we must take the world as we find it, you know--sometimes it is just as well to give `no one' the power to say good, bad, or indifferent about what we do?" said mr cheviott, very gently. "perhaps," said mary, more humbly than was usual with her. then she added, "it was not nice of me to say that--about your kindness being an act of pure humanity. i didn't mean--i only meant--i don't know what i meant, but i am very, very much obliged to you." "but you have no reason to be. it was, as you said, just an act of common humanity," said mr cheviott, with slight bitterness. "`pure,' i said, not `common'," corrected mary. "well, it's all the same. how can i think you will consider it even an act of friendliness? you won't have us for your friends. and even if i were ten times the unmitigated ruffian you believe me to be," he added, with a slight laugh, "would it not be an immense pleasure to me to return in the slightest degree your goodness to alys? you do believe i care for her, i think? i am grateful, most grateful, to you and to the dark night, and to the chance that made me choose that way home, for making it possible for me to be of the least service to you." "mr cheviott," said mary, impulsively, "whatever you are, you have behaved most generously to _me_. it was very good of you to come to papa--after--after all i said." "thank you," he said in a low voice. "i wish," she added, as if speaking to herself, "i _wish_ i could understand you. i hate to do any one injustice." "and what if you found that you had done such to me?" he asked, eagerly. "_of course_ i would own myself in the wrong, if i saw that i had been," she replied, proudly, and mr cheviott could _feel_ that her head was thrown back with the gesture peculiar to her at times. "and then?" "you would--you would forgive me, i suppose," she said, lightly, but with a slight nervousness in her voice. mr cheviott was silent. mary seemed impelled to go on speaking. "on the whole," she said, "i think i shall register your kindness to-night as an act of great generosity. will that do better?" "as you please," mr cheviott replied, dryly, but, it seemed to mary, sadly too. and she was right. "how _can_ she ever see that she did me injustice?" he was saying to himself. "i can never explain things--it is madness to imagine i can ever be cleared." andrew's report was most satisfactory. dr brandreth had just come in and would start at once. the order for his dog-cart had been sent out while the man stood at the door. "then," said mr cheviott, "the faster we get back to hathercourt the better. you would like to be there before brandreth arrives?" "very much," said mary. "will not your mother have been very uneasy about you?" he added. "i hope not. i _think_ not," said mary, anxiously. "she may have been too absorbed about papa to think of me. and she knows the difficulty. very likely she thought i was waiting at the edge till wills came back again. but, mr cheviott, you are not meaning to take me home all the way?" "what else, what less could i possibly do?" he replied, bluntly. "will not your sister be dreadfully uneasy at your being so late?" she asked. "no, she does not expect me to-night at all--at least, i left it uncertain," mr cheviott replied. "i have been hunting over near farkingham to-day. it is nearly the last meet of the season, and alys begged me not to miss it. then i dined at cleavelands, half intending to sleep there. but i found there was going to be a dance after dinner, and--somehow i don't care for that sort of thing, especially without alys. so i came away." no one certainly could have to-night accused mr cheviott of stiffness or uncommunicativeness. "how is alys?" asked mary. "better, on the whole, better, but it is slow work," said mr cheviott, with a little sigh. a sigh partly of brotherly anxiety, partly of regret for the additional complications this accident of his sister's had brought into his own and others' lives. "it may be years before she is thoroughly well again," he added, and mary, feeling that there was little she could say in the way of comfort, was silent. "can your horse take you all the way home again to-night?" she said, presently. "i think so. if not, i dare say i can put up for the night at beverley's farm," he said, carelessly, adding, with a slight change of tone, "our old quarters." the allusion, somehow, made mary feel nervous again. in her eagerness to change the subject she flung herself off scylla into charybdis--in homelier terms, "out of the frying-pan into the fire." "do you know what came into my head when i first saw you driving so fast up that lane?" she said with a slight laugh. "no," he replied. "you did not know who it was. i think you first fancied i was dr brandreth, did you not?" "i thought it just possible. but that is not what i meant. i could not help having a foolish wild sort of fancy that perhaps you were sir ingram de romary--you know the story?" "the fellow that pitched himself over the chaldron falls," said mr cheviott. "yes, i remember. your fancies about me are the reverse of complimentary, do you know, miss western? the last time you had any such, if i remember right, you took me for the ghost of that other still more disreputable romary, the fellow that forced an unfortunate `heathen chinee' girl to marry him, and then abused her so that she threw herself out of the window of the haunted room." "mr cheviott!" said mary, reproachfully, her cheeks glowing at the remembrance of that day. and mr cheviott was merciful enough to say no more. they drove back to hathercourt very fast. so fast that when they drew up at the rectory gates there was as yet no sound of dr brandreth's wheels in the distance. "will you let me get down here, please?" said mary. "i don't want to make them think it is the doctor, as they would only feel disappointed." mr cheviott got down and helped mary out of the carriage. "would you mind _my_ waiting here an instant?" he said with some hesitation. "dr brandreth cannot be here for five or ten minutes yet, and i should be so glad to hear how your father is, and if i can be of any more use." "i will run back and tell you--in a moment," said mary. there was no need for her to ring or knock at the hall door. it was on the latch as she had left it, and in a moment, at the sound of her opening it, alexa, george, and josey appeared. "oh! mary, we have been so frightened about you," they began. "but first tell me how papa is," she interrupted. "better, a little better. he opened his eyes and smiled at mamma, and now he seems to be sleeping, really sleeping, not in that dreadful sort of way," said alexa. mary gave a sigh of thankfulness. "run in and tell mamma dr brandreth will be here in five minutes. has she been very frightened about me?" "no, dear, we wouldn't let her," said alexa, re-assuringly. "we told her you might have to wait at the edge till wills came back, it was raining so." "that was _very_ good and sensible of you," said mary, at which commendation poor alexa's white face grew rosy with pleasure. "but aren't you coming in to mamma, mary?" she said, seeing that her sister, after disentangling herself from a mysterious fluffy shawl in which she was wrapped, was turning away to the door. "immediately," said mary. "i am only running back to the gate with this rug, to return it to the--the person that lent it me, and who drove me to withenden." "all the way? how very good-natured! what a way you have been! and what a lovely rug. is that mrs wills's? surely not," they all said at once. but mary wisely paid no heed, she ran to the gate and back again almost before she was missed. "this is your rug, mr cheviott," she said, breathlessly, "and thank you for it so much, and thank you for everything. and papa is already a very little better, they think." "i am so glad," he said, cordially. "but, miss western, how exceedingly foolish of you to have taken off the rug and run out again into the cold without it!" mary laughed. "i am very hardy," she said, as she ran off again. "good-night, and thank you again." but mr cheviott stopped her for an instant. "is there nothing i can do to help you?" he asked. "nothing--nothing _more_, i should say," she replied. "and--miss western, you are not going to sit up all night," he went on--"promise me you will not; you are not fit for it, and that is not the way to prepare yourself for, perhaps, weeks of nursing." "i am truly _quite_ rested and fresh," she said. "it is very kind of you to think of it. i shall not do anything foolish. good-night again." he did not and had not attempted to shake hands, nor had mary offered to do so. "he refused my hand the last time i offered it," she said to herself. "but on the whole, perhaps, what wonder?" dr brandreth, approaching hathercourt some ten minutes later, was surprised to meet a dog-cart driving off in an opposite direction. but it passed too quickly for even his quick eyes to identify it. "whose trap can that be?" he said to his boy. "dunno, sir. not so very onlike the romary dog-cart neither," was the reply. "impossible!" said the doctor. and in his own mind he wondered why mary western had not prosecuted the acquaintanceship with the cheviotts, so strangely begun. "it would be a good thing for those girls to make some friends for themselves," he thought to himself. "nice as they are, i don't altogether understand them; they don't give themselves airs--the very reverse, yet for all that i suspect they are too proud for their own advantage. and if poor western is really breaking up, goodness only knows what is to become of them!" early, very early the next morning, mr cheviott's groom made his appearance at the rectory to make inquiry, with his master's compliments, for mr western. at the door he was met by "the young lady herself," coming out for the refreshment of a breath of the sweet spring air, all the sweeter for the last night's heavy rains. "and she told me to tell you, sir, with mrs western's compliments, as how the rector was better than might have been expected, and as how the doctor gives good hopes." so "sir ingram de romary" drove home again, and sympathising alys heard with eager interest of her friend's new troubles, and longed more than ever to see mary western again. chapter twenty eight. alys puts two and two together. "i shall as now do more for you than longeth to womanhede." _the nut-brown mayd_. "mr western is not so well, i hear," said mr cheviott to his sister one afternoon, a fortnight or so after the rector of hathercourt's first seizure. alys started up from the invalid couch on which she was lying. the brother and sister were in a small morning-room which alys sometimes called her "boudoir," though its rather heterogeneous furniture and contents hardly realised the ideas suggested by the word. "i am so dreadfully sorry," she exclaimed. "i had a note from mary yesterday saying he was so much better." "these cases are sadly deceptive," said miss winstanley, who was knitting by the window, consolingly. "at mr western's age i should think it extremely doubtful if he recovers. i know two or three almost similar cases that ended fatally, though just at first the doctors thought hopefully of them." "how did you hear it, laurence?" said alys. "you didn't send over to-day to inquire, did you?" "no. arthur told me. he said that he had met brandreth on the road somewhere on his way back from the edge," said mr cheviott, strolling to the window, where he remained standing, looking out. "i wish you would ask him to come and tell me _exactly_ what dr brandreth says," alys asked. "he is not in--he went over to the stables a few minutes ago. i'll tell him to come and speak to you when he comes back. but i feel sure that was all he heard," replied mr cheviott, without manifesting any surprise at alys's extreme interest in the matter. "i wonder if they have sent for miss western--lilias, the eldest one, i mean," soliloquised alys. "mary said they hoped not to need to do so, as there was some difficulty about her coming home sooner than had been fixed. poor mary, how much she must have had to do, and she _never_ thinks of herself or takes any rest. i _wish_ i could do anything to help her!" mr cheviott turned from the window to the fire, and began poking it vigorously. "excuse me, laurence," said miss winstanley, plaintively. "i think the fire's quite hot enough; it is such a very close evening for april." mr cheviott laughed and desisted. "i am out of place in this room," he said. "i am always doing something clumsy. i'll send arthur instead--he's a much better tame cat than i." he turned to leave the room. "by-the-bye, alys," he said, putting his head in at the door again, "you had better make much of arthur while you have him. he says he must leave the day after to-morrow." "and he only came yesterday," said alys, regretfully. "it's too bad-- only two days." "three, my dear," corrected her aunt. "we arrived the day before yesterday. arthur left cirencester on tuesday, and slept tuesday night in my house, and this is friday." "well, it's much the same," said alys. "he might stay a little longer. he's always so busy now. why should he have such a craze for hard work? it doesn't suit him at all." "my dear!" said miss winstanley, reprovingly. "how can you say such a thing? in his circumstances his friends cannot be too thankful that he has taken to some useful employment, which will do him no harm either way, however things turn out." alys pricked up her ears. "how do you mean `in his circumstances,' aunt? how are his circumstances different from laurence's, or any other man's who has a place and a good income?" "oh! i don't know, my dear," said miss winstanley, evasively. "i told you once before, i don't know all about arthur's affairs. one, two, three--i am so afraid i have got a row too much--by-the-bye, my dear, i wish you wouldn't talk so much about those westerns. i warned you of it last year. laurence does not like them, and the mention of them always irritates him." "it was laurence himself who first mentioned them, as it happens," said alys, not too respectfully, it must be confessed. "ah, yes, but you said a great deal more, and, as i said last year--" "last year and this are very different, aunt," said alys. "have you forgotten all that mary western did for me? no one has recognised it more fully than laurence." "ah, well, perhaps so. but still he does not _like_ them. did you not see how he made some excuse for going away, when you would go on talking about them?" "it was no such thing. it was you fidgeting him about the fire when he was really concerned about mr western," muttered alys, but too low for her aunt to catch the words. and miss winstanley relapsed into her "one, two, three, four," and for a few minutes there was silence. then alys returned to the charge. "by what you said just now about arthur's uncertain circumstances, did you mean the peculiar terms of his father's will?" she said, demurely. "oh, yes, of course, i suppose so, but i wish you would not ask me. i am very stupid about wills and all sorts of law things," said miss winstanley, floundering about helplessly beneath her niece's diplomatic cross-questioning. "i only meant that for a man who can't marry and settle down it is an excellent thing to have some employment." "and why shouldn't he marry and settle down?" said alys. "he will come into his property in two years, when i am twenty-one--i always remember it by that--and till that he could have a good allowance to live on. why shouldn't he marry, poor fellow? i think it very hard lines that he shouldn't." "but--" began miss winstanley. "but, aunt," said alys, who was "working herself up" on a subject she was at all times inclined to grow rather hot about, "i really mean what i say. it is the only one thing i have ever really felt inclined to quarrel with laurence for _i_ can tell you that arthur has been much nearer marrying than you have any idea of, and--" it was miss winstanley's turn to interrupt. "my dear!" she exclaimed, letting her knitting-needles fall on her lap in her excitement, "you don't mean to say that he--that you--you won't be twenty-one for two years." "what _do_ you mean, aunt?" said alys. "what has my being or not being twenty-one to do with arthur's marrying?" miss winstanley looked as if she were going to cry. "why will you always begin about this subject, alys?" she said, pathetically. "i thought you meant--" "well, tell me that, any way," said alys. "you must tell me what you thought i meant." "oh, nothing. i must have mistaken you. it was only when you said that about his having thought of marrying--before your accident, of course-- and i knew he took it so much to heart, but of course that was natural on all accounts," said miss winstanley, confusedly. alys sat bolt up on her couch, thereby setting all her doctor's orders at defiance. a red spot glowed on each cheek, her eyes were sparkling. miss winstanley could see that she was growing very excited--the thing of all others to be avoided for her!--and the poor lady's alarm and distress added to her nervousness and confusion. "now, aunt," said alys, calmly, "you _must_ tell me what i want to know. i am not so blind and childish as you have all imagined. i have known for a good while that there was some strange complication which was putting everything wrong, in which, somehow, _i_ was concerned. don't make yourself unhappy by thinking it has been all your doing that i have come to know anything about it. it has been no one person's doing; it has just been that i have `put two and two together' for myself." "alys," ejaculated her aunt, "what an expression for you to use!" "it expresses what i mean," said alys, pushing back the hair off her throbbing temples. "and since i have been ill i have had so much time for thinking and wondering and puzzling out things--and i think i have become quicker, cleverer, in a way than i used to be. i seem as if i could almost guess at things by magic, sometimes. now, aunt, what i want to know is _this_--is arthur's future in any way dependent on _me_, or anything i may or may not do?" "had you not better ask laurence?" said miss winstanley, tremulously, driven at last hopelessly into a corner. "no, it would be no use. there is something that he is, in some way, debarred from telling me, i am sure, otherwise he would have told me, for he has no love of mystery or secrecy. and _yet_ i feel equally sure that it is something that can only be put straight by my knowing it." miss winstanley sat silent, a picture of bewildered distress. "aunt," said alys again, after a short pause, her cheeks and brow flushing to the roots of her hair, "what i am going to ask you i don't like to put in words--it seems to me such an altogether repulsive, unnatural idea, but, as you won't speak without, i _must_ ask you. has all this trouble anything to do with my marrying some one, any one in particular? you told me once that uncle beverley, arthur's father, was extraordinarily fond of me when i was a baby, and that he would have done anything to show his gratitude to my mother for what she had done for him. now, aunt, has this anything to do with the peculiar terms of his will, which i have very often heard alluded to?" "i have never seen the will; believe me, alys, i do not know its exact terms," miss winstanley pleaded. "well, i dare say you don't, aunt. but you know enough to throw a little daylight on _my_ part of it. aunt, is it, _can_ it be that arthur's inheriting his father's property--his _own_ property--depends on his marrying _me_?" her voice quivered and fell--a whole army of contending feelings were at war within her as she waited breathlessly for miss winstanley's reply. "no, not exactly," she said, trying, as usual, to shelter herself behind vague and indefinite answers, "if _you_ did not want to many _him_, he would not be punished for that. now, alys, this is all i can say. i am going away up-stairs to my own room, to avoid any more talk of this kind." miss winstanley rose from her seat, nervously tugging at her shawl which, as usual, had dropped far below her waist as she got up. alys took no notice of her last sentence. "if _i_ don't want to marry _him_, he will be none the worse," she repeated, slowly, "but if he doesn't want to marry me--what then? that would be a different story! thank you, aunt; on the whole, i think you have told me enough, so you may stay down-stairs without fear. i am not going to ask any more questions." her tone was cool and composed enough, yet, on the whole, miss winstanley would rather have had her more visibly angry. there was a gleam in her eyes and a scorching spot on each cheek which her aunt had not for long seen there. "alys was very hot-tempered as a child," she was wont to say of her, "but of late years she had calmed down wonderfully." "no, alys, i don't want to stay down-stairs, thank you," she replied, reprovingly, tugging harder than ever at the front of the recalcitrant shawl, her efforts in some mysterious way only resulting in a more tantalising descent behind. alys made no reply. "to think," she was muttering to herself, "to think how all this time i have been kept in the dark! how like a fool i have behaved! laurence might have warned me _somehow_--however he was bound down not to tell me. he had better have tried to upset the will on the ground of uncle beverley's being mad, which he certainly must have been!" two minutes after miss winstanley left the room captain beverley entered it. "alys," he said, as he came in, "laurence said you wanted me, so here i am. why, what's the matter, child?" he added, with a quick change of tone as he caught sight of her face. she was not crying, but her cheeks were burning and her eyes gleaming, and as she looked up to answer her cousin, he saw that she was biting her lips in a quick nervous way to keep back the tears--a gesture peculiar to her from childhood. "_everything_ is the matter," she said, bitterly. "i feel as if i should never trust any one again. i have something to say to you, arthur, something very particular, and i want to say it very distinctly, so please to listen." "i'm all attention," said arthur, lightly still, though in reality not a little apprehensive as to what was coming. what could it be? could alys have found out about the understanding that now existed between himself and lilias--she had been so intimate with mary western at the edge? but a moment's reflection dismissed the idea. lilias was too true to have told any one, even her sister, without his sanction. besides, even had the fact come to alys's knowledge, she would have been pleased and sympathising, not discomposed and indignant, as she evidently was. "listen," she repeated. "i want to tell you, arthur beverley, that supposing anything so altogether impossible and unnatural, and--and absurd and ridiculous as that you, my cousin, almost brother, should have thought of wanting to marry me--_me_, alys!--well, supposing such a thing, i want to tell you that nothing you or any one could ever have said or ever could say would make me ever, even for half an instant, take such a thing into consideration. i _could_ not do so. i tell you distinctly that i would not marry you for _anything_, arthur, not if my life depended upon it." captain beverley stared at her--stared as if he hardly believed his own ears. "does he think i am going out of my mind?" thought alys, while across her brain there darted a horrible misgiving--could she in any way have misunderstood miss winstanley's confused replies?--could this impulsive act of hers, instead of being, as it had seemed to her, a positive inspiration, be after all a mistake, a terribly unwomanly mistake, which, to the last day of her life, she would blush to think of? afterwards it seemed to alys as if in waiting for her cousin to speak she had lived through years of agonised suspense. "alys," he said at last, hoarsely, it sounded to her. "alys," and oh! the relief of the next few words, strangely chosen and almost ludicrously matter-of-fact as they sounded! "would you mind putting that in writing?" "certainly not. i will do so this moment," she replied, recovering her self-possession and presence of mind on the spot. "here, give me my writing things--just push my davenport over here." arthur did so, his hands trembling, his face pale with anxiety. all alys's nervousness and agitation seemed to have passed to him. "it is best to do it at once," he murmured, more as if speaking to himself than to her, "before i am tempted to say anything, so that my conscience may be clear that it is entirely voluntary, entirely her own doing." "yes," said alys, looking up from the paper on which she had already traced some lines, "that it _certainly_ is." then she went on writing. "there, now, will that do?" she exclaimed, holding the sheet towards him. "read it, please," said arthur, and alys read: "of my own free will, uninfluenced by any one whatsoever, i wish to declare that no conceivable consideration would, at this or any other time, make me agree to marry my cousin, arthur beverley. "alys madelene cheviott." "yes," said arthur, slowly, "that will do. shall i thank you, alys, or would you rather not?" she looked up with a sparkle of her old mischievousness in her eyes. "i don't know, i'm sure," she said; "i don't quite see it, i confess. i have simply stated a fact." then suddenly she held up her hands before her face, which was growing hot again. "no, no, arthur, don't thank me," she exclaimed; "i could not bear it. it is altogether too--too bad that anything like this should come between you and me. go away, please, and send laurence." arthur looked at her with earnest, regretful tenderness. but he saw that she was right. she would be better without him, and he went. five minutes afterwards her brother entered the room. "alys," he said, sternly, but any one that knew him could have seen that it was a sternness born of anxiety, "what is all this? what have you been doing? i cannot understand what arthur says, or rather he won't explain, but refers me to you. what have you been doing?" "only enacting the part of miss jane baxter," said alys, with an attempt at indifference. "alys, what do you mean?" "who refused all the men before they axed her," continued alys, in the same tone. "alys!" said her brother again, and something in his tone arrested her. she looked up. "laurence," she said, "don't misunderstand me; i am not really flippant and horrid like that, but it is true all the same. i have told arthur, deliberately and seriously, that, if he were ever to ask me to marry him, _nothing_ would ever make me take such a thing even into momentary consideration. i would not marry him for _anything_." "had he asked you to do so?" said mr cheviott, in a tone half of amaze, half of bewilderment. "_no_," said alys, "i told you he had not, and most certainly after what i have said, he never will." "do you think he had any intention of the kind?" again questioned her brother. alys hesitated. her quick wits told her that she must be careful what admissions she made. were she to reply what she believed to be the truth--that her cousin never had had, never would have any such feelings with regard to her as could lead to his asking her to many him--the effect on him might, she felt vaguely, be disastrous. so she hesitated, and meanwhile her brother watched her narrowly. "i don't see," she said at last, "i don't see that i need answer that, laurence. all i want you to know is that, after what i have said, arthur could never think of me in that way. i have made it impossible for him to do so." "and what made you do this? what has put all this into your head? was it aunt winstanley?" asked mr cheviott. "no," replied alys. "that is to say, aunt winstanley did not put anything in my head, though i forced her to answer one or two questions i asked her. she did so very confusedly, i assure you, and but for my own ideas i should have been little the better for her information. no one is to blame. i have not been as blind and unconscious as you thought--that is all." that _was_ all in one sense. it was plain to mr cheviott that alys would say no more, and on reflection he could not see that any more explanation on her part would do any good. he stood silent, hardly able as yet to see clearly the effect of this extraordinary turn of affairs. "i am going up to my own room, laurence," said alys, rising slowly as she spoke. "i am very tired. i think i won't come down to dinner. i don't want you just now to say whether you think i have done rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely--some time or other i dare say you will explain all that has puzzled me. but in the mean time some instinct tells me, told me while i was doing it, that you, laurence, would be glad for me to do it. kiss me, dear, and say good-night." he bent down and kissed her tenderly, still without speaking. but when alys was up in her own room, safe for the night from all curious or anxious eyes, she lay down on her sofa, burying her face in its cushions, and sobbed as if her heart would break. chapter twenty nine. cutting the knot. "let's take the instant by the forward top; ... on our quick'st decrees the inaudible and noiseless foot of time steals ere we can effect them." _all's well that ends well_. dinner passed very silently at romary that evening. mr cheviott was preoccupied, captain beverley labouring evidently under some suppressed excitement, miss winstanley nervous and depressed. "have you seen alys, laurence?" she said, as the butler came with a discreet inquiry as to what miss cheviott would be likely to "fancy." she had told her maid that she did not want any dinner, but had been so far influenced by mathilde's remonstrance as to say she would take anything her aunt liked to send her. "i really don't know what to send up to her," miss winstanley went on, helplessly. "what do you think, laurence? i went to her room on my way down-stairs, but mathilde said she had begged not to be disturbed." "i saw her half an hour ago," said mr cheviott. "i think she is only tired. i will send her up something." he got up from his chair and himself superintended the arrangement of a tempting little tray. "is alys ill?" said captain beverley, in a low voice, and with a slight guiltiness of manner which did not escape his cousin. "i think not," mr cheviott replied, dryly, as he sat down. "she has been over-excited, and nowadays she can't stand that sort of thing." arthur said no more, but he was evidently glad when dinner was over, and miss winstanley had left the cousins by themselves. "laurence," he began, eagerly, when the last servant had closed the door and they were really alone, "i am anxious to tell you everything that passed between alys and me this afternoon. i only thought it fair to her that she should tell you what she chose to tell, first." "that was not very much," said mr cheviott, "she evidently is afraid of damaging you by saying much." "god bless her," said arthur, fervently, "of course she does not know the whole state of the case. but _i_ am perfectly willing to tell you everything, laurence; in fact, as things are, i should be a fool not to do so. but, in the first place, read this." he held out the paper that alys had written and signed. in spite of his intense anxiety--an anxiety but very partially understood by captain beverley, who little knew the personal complications the charge of his affairs had brought upon his cousin--mr cheviott could not restrain a smile as he read the words before him. "an extraordinary document, i must confess," he said, as he returned it to arthur. "upon my word, beverley, alys and you are just a couple of children. if only such serious results were not involved, the whole thing would be most laughable. what can have put all this into her head?" "her own intentions and her own observations principally, i believe," said arthur. "she knew something of--of my admiration for miss western, and she suspected that you had exerted your influence to prevent its coming to anything. she knows you to be too honourable and right-minded to interfere in such a matter without good reason--through mere prejudice, for instance." mr cheviott winced a little. "i cannot say of myself, arthur, that i _was_ always quite free from prejudice in this matter," he interrupted, speaking in a low and somewhat constrained voice, "but i am, i believe i am, ready to own myself in the wrong if i have been so." arthur's face beamed with pleasure. "thank you for that, laurence," he said, "a hundred thanks. but i keep to what i said. whatever your personal prejudices may have been, you did not act upon _them_. your conduct was based entirely upon regard, unselfish regard for my welfare, and this alys felt instinctively and set her wits to work to puzzle it out. but what has first to be considered is this--the statement on that paper is alys's own voluntary declaration--" "did she write it of her own accord?" "she first _said_ it to me, in stronger and plainer words even than those she wrote; and when i asked her if she would put it on paper, she did so in an instant--with the greatest eagerness and readiness. now, laurence, what is now my position? supposing i wished to do such a thing, _could_ i ask alys to marry me after what she has said--it would be a perfect farce and mockery." "it certainly would," said mr cheviott. "i'll tell you what we must do, arthur. we must go up to town and lay the present state of the case before old maudsley, and see what he says. he is as anxious as any of us to get the thing settled, and he must see that it would be perfect nonsense now to look forward to any possibility of the terms of the will being fulfilled. and i do not see that their non-fulfillment can possibly rest upon _you_. it is a strong point in your favour that you have done nothing premature in any other direction. no doubt we shall have to go to law about it--carry it before the court of chancery, i mean to say--but as all the beneficiaries, you and alys, or myself as her guardian, are of one mind as to what we _wish_, i cannot now anticipate much difficulty." "but, laurence," began arthur, and then he hesitated. "at all costs," he went on again, "i must be open with you. i _have_ done what you call something `premature' in another direction. i am as good as--in fact, i _am_ engaged to lilias western." mr cheviott's brow contracted. "since when?" he said, shortly, while a sudden painful misgiving darted through his brain. had _mary_ known this?--had she, in a sense, deceived him? true, she was under no sort of bond not to oppose him-- rather the other way; from the first she had openly defied him on this point, but still she must be different from what he had believed her, capable of something more like dissimulation and calculation than he liked to associate with that candid brow, those honest eyes, were it the case that she had known this actual state of things all through that time at the edge farm--so lately even as during their strange drive to withenden and back. with keen anxiety he awaited his cousin's reply. "since about the time of alys's accident i came down here then one day-- you did not know--i was so uneasy about alys--and i met lilias close to the edge, and heard from her how alys was. and then somehow--i felt i could not go on like that, at the worst i could work for her, and i have been learning how to do so, you must allow--somehow we came to an understanding." "and her people know, of course--her sister does, any way, i suppose?" said mr cheviott, with an unmistakable accent of pain in his voice which made captain beverley look up in surprise. "her sister--mary, do you mean? no, indeed she does not. none of them do. there was, indeed, very little to know--simply an understanding, i might almost call it a tacit understanding, between our two selves that we would wait for each other till brighter days came. we have not written to each other or met again. i would do nothing to compromise lilias till i could openly claim her. i did not, of course, explain my position; had i done so, she would not, as you once said, have agreed to my ruining myself for her sake. all she knows is that i may very probably be a very poor man. and _because_ i could not explain my position, i saw no harm in keeping it all to our two selves for the present. but, you see, i have looked upon it as settled--till to-day i have considered myself virtually disinherited, and i have been working hard at c--to fit myself for an agency or so on at the end of the two years." mr cheviott listened attentively, without again interrupting his cousin. but captain beverley could see that it was with a lightened countenance he turned towards him again. "_alys_ knows nothing of this?" he said. "you are perfectly certain that her eccentric behaviour to-day was not caused by her believing she in any way stood between you and miss western? don't you see, if it were so, this would injure you altogether; it might then seem as if she had done what she has out of pique, or self-sacrifice, or some feeling of that kind that, in a sense, you were to blame for?" mr cheviott watched his cousin closely as he said this, but arthur stood the scrutiny well. for a moment or two he stared as if he hardly understood; then a light suddenly breaking upon him, he flushed slightly, but there was no hesitation in his honest blue eyes as he looked up in his cousin's face. "i see what you mean," he said, "but i didn't at first. no, laurence, alys thinks of me as a brother; she did know and warmly approved of my admiration for miss western, but she never knew of its going further. i rather think she fancies it shared the fate of my other admirations, and that she thinks no better of me in consequence. what she did to-day had nothing to do with that. she has got into her dear little head that she comes between me and my fortune, and knowing that she never could possibly have cared for me, except as a brother, whether i had cared for her in another way or not, she has, for my sake, nobly taken the bull by the horns. and so far i feel all right. had i proposed to her twenty times, she would never have accepted me." mr cheviott was silent. whether or not he agreed with his cousin was not the question. that arthur honestly believed what he said was enough. "and what is to be done then?" said arthur. "what i said," replied mr cheviott. "we must lay it all before maudsley as soon as possible. and in the mean time, arthur, do nothing more--let things remain as they are with miss western. in any case you cannot come into your property for two years." "but whatever happens, i am not going to let `things remain as they are,' as you say, for two years," said arthur, aghast. "you can continue my present income for that time, anyway, now that my future is likely to be all right. at the worst, even if my engagement was publicly announced, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other as regards alys and me. i should have shown i did not want to marry her, but she most certainly has shown she does not want to marry me." he touched alys's paper as he spoke. "yes," said mr cheviott, "that is true." "perhaps," said arthur, laughingly, "if we appeal to the court of chancery, it will divide the estate between us. i shouldn't mind. lilias and i could live on what there would be well enough." "i don't think that's likely," said mr cheviott. "however, the first thing to be done is to see maudsley." and it was settled that they should go up to town the following day. but when the cousins had separated for the night, and arthur was alone with his own thoughts, a certain feeling of dissatisfaction with his own conduct came over him. "i can't make it out exactly," he said to himself, as he sat over the smoking-room fire with his pipe, "but somehow i've a feeling that i'm not acting quite straightforwardly. how is it? is it that i am claiming my property on false pretences--knowing in my heart that i never did intend to propose to alys; or is it that i am not behaving rightly to lilias--keeping her, or our engagement rather, dark till i feel my way? laurence is as honest a fellow as ever lived, but then his intense anxiety that i should get my own blinds him a little, perhaps, to the other sides of the question. what a muddle it all is, to be sure!" he sat still for a few moments longer, then suddenly rose from his seat. "i'll do it," he said; "right or wrong, it seems the honestest thing. i'll do it." he hunted about for writing materials, and, having found them, set to work at once on a letter. he did not hesitate in writing it; he seemed at no loss what to say, and in less than half an hour it was completed, signed, sealed and addressed to _mrs western, hathercourt rectory_. then the young man gave a deep sigh of relief, went to bed, and slept soundly till morning. but very early he was astir again; before many members of the romary household even--for it was, compared with many, an early one--were about, captain beverley had crossed the park, and traversed on foot the two miles to the nearest post-office, that of uxley, where he deposited his letter, and was at home again before mr cheviott made his appearance for the eight o'clock breakfast, necessitated by their intended journey. a couple of hours later found the two young men in the train. "laurence," began captain beverley, but his cousin interrupted him. "excuse me, arthur. i want to say something to you before i forget. you must let _me_ be the spokesman with maudsley; if he proposes, as i expect, to carry your affairs to the court of chancery, i think it will be best for his mind to be perfectly unprejudiced, and to let his instructions, in the first place anyway, come from me. you, i am certain, would not tell the story impartially--you would tell it against your own interests." "i must tell it as it is, laurence," said arthur, "and, no doubt facts will show that i am, at least, as much to blame as alys for the non-fulfillment of my father's wishes. for, laurence, i was just going to tell you when you interrupted me--i've _done_ it, out and out. i couldn't stand leaving things as they were; it wasn't fair to her, nor honest to any one, somehow. i have written and sent a formal proposal for lilias to her parents. i sent it to her mother, because her father is ill." "and what did you say?" "i told them that my prospects were most uncertain--i might be poor, i might be rich, and probably should not know which for two years, but that, at the worst, i could work for my livelihood, and was preparing myself for such a possibility." mr cheviott was silent. "are you awfully annoyed with me, laurence?" a half smile broke over mr cheviott's face at the question. "upon my soul," he said, "i don't know. if a fellow _will_ cut his own throat--" "complimentary to miss western," said arthur. "well, well, you know what i mean. i allow that, in your case, there was strong temptation, and, of course, arthur, i respect you for your straightforwardness and downrightness. _personally_, i have certainly no reason to be annoyed. what the relief to me will be of having this horrible concealment at an end, you can hardly imagine--the misconception it has exposed me to--good god!" he stopped abruptly. arthur stared at him in amazement. "i had no idea you felt so strongly about it, laurence," he said. "it makes me all the more thankful i have done what i have. you refer to alys, of course? i know she must have been puzzled, but _nothing_ would shake her confidence in you, old fellow, and now she will understand everything." "yes, it would, of course, be an absurdity to carry out the directions about not telling her, once you are openly engaged to miss western," replied mr cheviott. "and, i suppose, you have not much misgiving as to what the answer will be to your letter?" "i don't know," said arthur. "it will all come right in the end, but i expect her people to hesitate, at first, on account of the uncertainty. but you don't think there will be any question of stopping my allowance, in the mean time, if i marry before the stated period is out?" "i think not. i can take that upon me--for alys. but if we appeal to the court at once it will probably confirm your income till things are settled." that same evening the cousins returned home. some light, but not much satisfaction, was the result of their journey. mr maudsley approved of the course proposed by mr cheviott, but was decidedly of opinion that no decision could be arrived at till the date fixed by arthur's father for his son's coming of age. "and then?" eagerly inquired both men. he could not say--it was an unusual, in fact, an extraordinary case, but, on the whole, seeing that the non-fulfillment of the testator's wishes was at least as much the lady's doing as the gentleman's--a contingency which never seemed to have dawned upon mr beverley--on the whole it seemed improbable that captain beverley should be declared the sufferer. "but it was a most extraordinary complication, no doubt," repeated mr maudsley, and he was glad to feel that neither he nor any one connected with him had had anything to do with the drawing up of so short-sighted a document as the late mr beverley's last will and testament. "who did draw it up?" said arthur, turning to his cousin. "a stranger," was the reply. "you know he consulted no one about it. he knew my father would altogether have opposed it. but it is perfectly legal. mr maudsley and i have tried often enough to find some flaw in it," he added, with a slight smile. "and what about telling alys?" said arthur, with some little hesitation, as the dog-cart was entering the romary gates. "i think," said laurence, "i think, as she knows, or has guessed so much, it is best to tell her all. it is to some extent left to my discretion to explain the whole to her should it be evident that the conditions cannot be fulfilled, which i have always interpreted to mean in case of her or your marriage, or engagement to some one else. of course there are people who would say that you are not yet married, hardly engaged, and that i should wait, to be sure. but honestly i confess, after what has happened, it would be repulsive to me, in fact, _impossible_ to go on dreaming that your father's wishes ever could be fulfilled. the worst of such a deed as your father's will is that all i can do is to act up to the _letter_ of his instructions--as for the _spirit_ of it--!" "you've done your best," said arthur, re-assuringly; "far better than any other fellow in the same position could have done. just you see if alys doesn't say so. it's been a horrid sell for you altogether, and--" "not the _not_ getting your patrimony. you don't mean that?" interrupted laurence. "heaven only knows what the relief will be to me if, as i am beginning to hope, it is decidedly the right way." "no, i didn't mean that exactly," said arthur. "i know you and alys are less selfish and grasping than any two people _i_ have ever come across--_cela va sans dire_--i meant the bother and worry and all the rest of it. i wish somehow _something_ might go to alys. i can't help wishing that, you see, knowing it all and feeling just as if she were my own sister." "_don't_ wish it," said laurence, shortly. "alys will have enough. married or single she need never be dependent on any one." "ah, yes!" returned arthur; "but still--she wouldn't be the worse of a home of her own. downham now--it's a nice little place, and what on earth should i do with two--_three_, there's the edge," he added, with a merry, boyish laugh--"if downham, now, could be settled on alys, for, you see, laurence," he added, seriously, and as hesitating to allude to anything so completely out of the range of probabilities, "after all, it's just possible you may marry." "i suppose so," said laurence, with a touch of bitterness in his tone which arthur, had he perceived, would have been at a loss to explain, "i suppose so, but so _highly_ unlikely, it is no use taking it into consideration one way or another. confess now, arthur, you hardly could, could you, _imagine_ such a thing as any girl's caring for me?" arthur looked up at his cousin with some surprise. was laurence joking? he could not tell. "i don't know why one shouldn't," he said, meditatively. "a girl, i mean--i don't see why you need fancy yourself so unattractive. you're good-looking enough, and--come now, laurence, that's not fair; you're leading me out to laugh at me," for so only could he interpret the slight smile that flickered over his cousin's face. "i was in earnest, i assure you," said mr cheviott. "however, never mind. we'll postpone the discussion of my charms to a more convenient season. here we are at home." "shall you have your talk with alys to-night?" said arthur. "probably--unless, that is to say, you would rather i should wait till-- till--how shall i put it?--till you get a reply to your letter to hathercourt." "no," said arthur, decidedly, "don't put it off on that account. whatever disappointment in the shape of delay or hesitation may be in store for me, i've no misgiving as far as lilias herself is concerned. she's as true as steel. and in any case alys deserves my confidence. no sister could have been stauncher to me through all than she has been." and so it was decided, though, glad as laurence felt to put an end once and for always to the only misconception that had ever existed between his sister and himself, a strange indefinable reluctance to tell her all clung to him. "she will hate so to hear the idea of a marriage with arthur discussed or alluded to," he said to himself. "girls are such queer creatures. however, the more reason to get it over. will she ever tell it to mary western, i wonder? i shall lay no embargo upon her, for sooner or later arthur is sure to tell the elder sister the whole story. but even if it were all explained, what then? i said in my fury that day what i wish i could forget--i said to her that i _could_ have made her care for me. _could_ i? ah, no--such deep prejudice and aversion could never be overcome. as arthur could not conceal in his honesty, i am very far from an attractive man--not one likely to `find favour in my lady's eyes.' i am certainly not `a pretty fellow.' ah, well, so be it!" chapter thirty. "amendes honourables." "... but what avails it now to speak more words? we're parting, let it be in kindness, give me good-bye, tell me you understand, or else forgive." "i've nothing to forgive; you love me not, and that you cannot help, i fancy." hon. mrs willoughby.--_euphemia_. but, as not unfrequently happens, mr cheviott found the anticipation worse than the reality. alys was up-stairs in her own room when they got to the house, and she begged her brother not to ask her to come down that evening. "i am not ill," she said, "only tired and nervous, somehow. come up to me after dinner, laurence, and let us have a good talk--that will do me more good than anything." she looked up at him with a curious questioning in her eyes that struck him as strangely pathetic. "yes," he said to himself, "she _must_ be told all." so the way was paved for his revelations. and alys was sufficiently prepared for them to manifest no very overwhelming surprise. she listened in silence till laurence had told her all. then she just said quietly: "laurence, it was a _cruel_ will." "yes," said her brother, "however intended, so it has indeed proved." "going near," pursued alys, softly, almost as if speaking to herself, "going near to spoil two, four, nay, i may say _five_ lives," she whispered. "oh, thank god, laurence, it is at an end!" she clasped her thin little hands nervously. how changed she was--alys, poor alys, who used to ignore the very existence of nerves! her next remark struck mr cheviott unexpectedly. "laurence," she said, "i wonder if mary western will ever know all this!" he had it on his lips to answer, "the sooner so, the better," but he _could_ not. instead thereof his reply sounded cool and unconcerned in the extreme. "possibly she may, some time or other. arthur is sure to tell lilias western whom it _does_ concern. but why should you care about her sister's knowing it?" "because i _do_," alys replied, oracularly. there was a large allowance of letters in the romary post-bag the next morning. several for captain beverley--all of which, but one, he put hastily aside. and his heightened colour and evident anxiety could not but have betrayed to his companions whence came that one, had not both mr cheviott and miss winstanley been absorbed by news of unusual interest in their respective letters. "laurence," said arthur, at last, when for the time letters were put down, and breakfast began to receive some attention, "is that yesterday's _times_? have you looked at it? i wonder if there is a death in it of some one i know--you know who i mean--the last of those poor brookes, basil's brother, i mean anselm, a boy of eighteen. i hear he died at hastings, two days ago." "i don't know about its being in the _times_," replied mr cheviott, "but, curiously enough, i have just heard of it in a letter from an old friend of mine, mrs brabazon, an aunt of the poor fellow's, and--" "and?" said arthur, eagerly. mr cheviott glanced at miss winstanley. "afterwards," he formed with his lips, rather than by pronouncing the word, in reply to his cousin. but miss winstanley had caught something of what they were saying. "the brookes," she exclaimed, "are you talking of the brookes of marshover?" and when both her companions answered affirmatively, "how very odd!" she went on, growing quite excited. "my letter is all about them too. it is from my old friend, miss mashiter, who has been staying at the same hotel at hastings as the brookes are at, and she is quite upset about the poor young fellow's death--it was so sudden at the last, and there is such a romantic story about. it appears that a cousin of the young man's came to hastings lately, a most exquisitely beautiful creature, with whom he had been in love since early boyhood, though somewhat older than himself, and she has been devoting herself to him, and now the report is that, just before he died, he got his poor father to promise to leave everything to her--he has no child left, and the brookes are enormously rich. what a catch the young lady will be!" "aunt winstanley, i am ashamed of you!" said mr cheviott. "i had no idea you were so worldly-minded. you don't mean to say you ever heard of such a thing as a girl's losing a lover and consoling herself with another--especially when the first had, as you say in this case, left her a fortune?" "it _is_ very sad," agreed miss winstanley, quite deceived by mr cheviott's tone--"very sad, but such is the way of the world, laurence. of course, i would not say such a thing before alys." "_of course_ not," said her nephew, approvingly. arthur looked up with relief; for the instant, miss winstanley's story had startled him a little--for to whom could the episode of the beautiful cousin refer but to lilias, still, as her mother's letter informed him, at hastings, "doing what she can for our poor friends there." but there must be great nonsense mixed up with miss mashiter's gossip, arthur decided, seeing that laurence, who had the correct version of the whole in his hands, could afford to tease miss winstanley about it. the poor boy--anselm brooke--was dead, but still--the idea of lilias's name being coupled with that of any man, or boy even, was not altogether palatable, and still less that of her being an heiress! "what a mercy i yielded to my inspiration and wrote to mrs western yesterday!" he replied. "to-day, after hearing that report, nonsensical though it probably is, i should hardly have liked to write." he was thankful when miss winstanley at length got up from her seat--her breakfast seemed to have been an interminable affair that morning--and saying that she must go and ask what sort of a night alys had had, left the cousins to themselves. "what is your news? what does mrs brabazon write about?" exclaimed arthur, eagerly, almost before the door had closed on miss winstanley. "rather," said laurence, "what is _yours_? mine will keep, but you, i see, have a letter from hathercourt which, i am sure, you are dying to tell me all about." "to show you, if you like," said arthur, holding it out to his cousin. "you have guessed, i see, that it is all i could wish." it was a thoroughly kind and sensible reply from mrs western. she made no pretence of astonishment at the nature of captain beverley's letter to her; she said that she and her husband would be glad to see him again, and to talk over what he had wished to say to them. lilias was at hastings, but expected home in a few days. mr western was continuing better. any afternoon of the present week would find them both at home and disengaged, and she ended by thanking arthur for his consideration in writing to her instead of lilias's father, as he was still far from able to meet any sudden agitation without risk of injury. "should i go over this afternoon, do you think?" said arthur. "yes, i should say so," replied mr cheviott. "and what will you tell them?" "everything. i have no choice," said arthur. "that is to say, i shall tell them all about my father's will and the present state of the case, and what maudsley thinks and what _you_ think. of course i need not go into particulars as to what passed between alys and me the other day, but i will just tell them that anything of the kind, as regards both her and myself, never has been, never _could_ have been possible--that we are, and always have been, and always shall be, i trust, brother and sister to each other." mr cheviott had been listening attentively. "yes," he said, when his cousin left off speaking, and looked up for his approval, "i don't think you can do better." "and now for your news--mrs brabazon's, i mean," said arthur, eagerly. but mr cheviott showed no corresponding eagerness to reply. "she says," he answered, quietly, "that miss western is with them and quite well. of course they are all sadly depressed by young brooke's death, though they knew it must come before long--she writes as if poor old brooke had got his death-blow, but she says that `lilias' has been the greatest comfort to them." "and what more?" asked arthur, "there is something more, i know. there is nothing in all that to have been a reason for mrs brabazon's writing to you." "i didn't say there was. women constantly write letters without any reason," observed mr cheviott. arthur got up from his seat and walked impatiently up and down the room. "laurence," he said at length, "i think that sort of chaffing of yours is ill-timed." "i don't mean to chaff you--upon my word, i don't," said mr cheviott, looking up innocently. "all i mean is that, whatever my news is, i am not going to tell you any more of it at present. it is much better not, and you will see so yourself afterwards." "you meant to tell me all when you first got the letter?" said arthur. "well, yes, i don't know but that i did. but i have changed my mind." "is it--no, it cannot be--that there is any truth in that absurd nonsense that miss winstanley was telling us?" "why should you ask? it bore on the face of it that it _was_ absurd nonsense," replied mr cheviott. "do, arthur, trust me. you have done so in important things. can't you leave me to tell you about mrs brabazon's letter after you have been at hathercourt?" "very well. needs must, i suppose," said arthur, lightly. but he was not without misgivings during his long ride to the rectory. "i wish that idiotic old maid had kept her gossip to herself instead of writing it off to miss winstanley," he said to himself more than once, and when he got close to hathercourt he felt so nervously apprehensive of what he might be going to hear, that the relief of meeting, or rather overtaking mary within a few yards of the house was very great. mary had no hat or bonnet on--she had just run out to gather some fresh green for the simple nosegays her father liked to see from his sofa. she was already in mourning for her young cousin, and as she looked up with a bright flush of pleasure to return captain beverley's greeting, he could not help thinking that, though "not lilias," she was certainly very pretty. "that black dress surely shows her off to advantage," he said to himself, "or else she has grown prettier than she used to be. what a queer fellow laurence is--fancy being shut up at the edge for three weeks with a girl like that, and emerging as great a misogynist as before!" her mother was at home and disengaged, or would, no doubt, speedily be so, when she heard of his visit, mary told him. then he got off his horse, and she led him into the drawing-room. "mamma is in the study, i think," she said, lingering a little. then with some hesitation and rising colour, "i had a letter from lilias this morning. she is coming home the day after to-morrow." "so soon?" exclaimed captain beverley, delightedly. "that is better than i hoped for. mary," he went on, impulsively, holding out both his hands and taking hers into their clasp, "mary--you will forgive my calling you so?--you know what i have come about, don't you? you will wish me joy--you have always been our friend, i fancy, somehow." "_our_ friend," repeated mary, inquiringly. "you are sure, then," she went on, "that--that it will be all right with lilias? yes, mamma told me of your letter--you don't mind?--it is quite safe with me." "mind, of course not. but how do you mean about lilias?" he asked, with a quick return of his misgiving. "nothing has happened that i have not been told of?" his bright face grew pale. mary, with quick sympathy, hastened to re-assure him. "oh, no, no," she said, "i don't know what you have heard--but it isn't that. nothing of _that_ kind could make lilias change _of course_. i only mean--it is a long time since you have seen her, and--and--you went away so suddenly, you know. lilias has never said anything to me, but i have been at a loss what to think about her." "as to what she has been thinking about me, do you mean?" "yes," said mary, bluntly. arthur's face cleared. "if that is all, i am not afraid," he said, gently. "you are sure that is all, mary?" "quite sure," she replied. then after a moment's pause, "how is miss cheviott?" "pretty well--at least, so i am told," he replied; "but to me she seems terribly changed. laurence, her brother, i mean, won't say much about her. he can't bear to own it, i fancy. and it is so dull for her. i think that keeps her back--she should have some companionship." mary's face grew very grave. she gave a little sigh. "i wish--" she was beginning to say, when the door opened and her mother came in. alys was alone in her room that afternoon, when a tap and the request, "may i come in?" announced her cousin's return. she knew where he had been, for laurence had told her everything; but she had not been alone with arthur since their strange interview two days ago, and the remembrance of it set her heart beating as she called out, "come in by all means." to her surprise, arthur came quickly up to her sofa, bent down and kissed her on the forehead before he spoke. "dear alys," he said, "i have come straight to you. it is all thanks to you, and i wanted to tell you, before any one, that everything's going to be all right." for half a second there seemed a catch in alys's breath. then she looked up with a smile, though there were tears in her eyes too. "i am so glad, so very glad," she said, softly. "then has lilias come back?" she asked. "no, she is coming the day after to-morrow," he replied, "and that reminds me--i have a great deal to tell you, alys, and i am sure it will interest you--on mary's account as well as on lilias's." "i think i know--part of it anyway," said alys. "laurence has been telling me of his letter from mrs brabazon--he would not tell you because he thought it would be so much pleasanter for you to know nothing about it till the westerns told you themselves." "yes," said arthur, "i see." "how strange it all seems!" said alys. "how well i remember meeting mrs brabazon in paris last year, and how she cross-questioned me about the westerns, at the time, you know, that laurence was so prejudiced against them." "and you spoke up for them?" "a little," said alys, blushing slightly, "i mean, as much as i could." "good girl!" said arthur, approvingly. "and since then, you know, laurence has quite changed. how could he help it? you have no idea of mary's goodness to me that time at your farm, arthur, and knowing _her_ showed what they all were, so single-minded and refined, and so well brought up though they have been so poor. you mustn't mind, arthur,--it is no disparagement to lilias when i say i cannot help counting mary my special friend." "and now i hope you will see her often," said arthur. "she would do you good." alys shook her head. "i know she would," she said, "but she won't come here." "_now_ she will," said arthur. "she can have no more of that exaggerated terror of being patronised, if that has been her motive. the county will all find out the westerns' delightful qualities now, you'll see, alys. by-the-bye, i wonder what made mrs brabazon write to laurence." "just that some one in the neighbourhood might know the real facts of the case," alys replied. "there is sure to be so much gossip and exaggeration. i fancy, too, she wrote with a sort of wish to disabuse laurence of his prejudice against her cousins--i am sure she noticed it that day in paris--did the westerns tell you all about their affairs, arthur?" "a great deal, they are so frank and, as you say, single-minded, alys. they have known something about it for some time, ever since lilias met the brookes at hastings." "and has it been all owing to that?" "oh, no--a great part of the property _must_ have come to mrs western; no, to the eldest son, basil, i should say, at mr brooke's death. but the westerns might not have _known_ this, and as the father said to me, in his invalid state, the release from anxiety is a priceless boon." "but it isn't only basil that is to benefit," said alys, eagerly. "mrs brabazon said--" "of course not," her cousin interrupted. "everything is to go to him eventually--old brooke not having any one to provide for, and not wishing to cut up the property--but mrs western will, for life, be very well off indeed, and so will the whole family. each daughter and younger son will have what is really a comfortable little fortune. the marshover brookes are _very_ rich, you know." "and to think _how_ poor the westerns have been!" said alys, regretfully. "yes; but a few years ago nothing could have seemed more remote than their chance of succession. and, after all, even very rich people can't look after all their poor relations." "no, i suppose not," said alys, with a sigh. "will they leave hathercourt?" "sure to, i should think. mr brooke wants them to go to marshover, mrs western says, and keep it up for him, as he will be most of the year abroad. he is not obliged to do anything for them during his life, you see, but he has already settled an ample income on mrs western, and basil is to go into the army, and george to college." "i shall never see mary again, all the same." "why not?" "i don't know, but i am certain she will never come here. arthur, i think she dislikes laurence too much ever to come here." arthur opened his eyes. "dislikes laurence!" he repeated. "why should she?" "she does," persisted alys, "and laurence knows it." "well, we'll see. perhaps lilias may help us to overcome mary's prejudice," said arthur, with a smile. "and failing mary, alys, you won't be sorry to have lilias for--for a _sister_--will you, alys?" alys smiled, and her smile was enough. all this happened in spring. early in the autumn of that same year lilias and arthur were married. they were married at hathercourt--in the old church which had seen the bride grow up from a child into a woman, and had been associated with all the joys and sorrows of her life--the old church beneath whose walls had lain for many long years the mortal remains of arthur beverley's far-back ancestress, the "mawde" who had once been a fair young bride herself. "as fair perhaps, as happy and hopeful as lilias," thought mary, as her eyes once more wandered to the well-known tablet on the wall, with a vague wonder as to what "mawde" would think of it all could she see the group now standing before the altar. then there came before her memory, like a dream, the thought of the sunday morning, not, after all, so very long ago, when the little party of strangers had invaded the quiet church, and so disturbed her own and her sister's devotions. and again she seemed to see herself looking up into mr cheviott's face in the porch, while she asked him to come into the rectory to rest. "he smiled so kindly, i remember," thought mary, "and there was something in his face that made me feel as if i could trust him. and so i might have done--ah! how hasty and prejudiced i have been--thank heaven, i have injured no one else by my folly, however!" and then she repeated to herself a determination she had come to--there was one thing, be the cost to her pride what it might, that she would do, and to-day, she said to herself should, if possible, see it done. it was a very quiet marriage--for every reason it had seemed best to have it so. there were the considerations of mr western's still uncertain health, of the mourning in the brooke family with which that of lilias was now identified, of alys cheviott's invalid condition, and even of captain beverley's own anomalous position, as still, by his father's will, a minor, and at present, therefore, far from a wealthy man, though every hope was now entertained that before long he would be in legal possession of his own. there were no strangers present--only the grevilles and mrs brabazon, besides the large group of brothers and sisters, and mr cheviott as "best man," and lilias and her husband drove off in no coach and four, but in the quiet little brougham now added to the rectory establishment, for mr western's benefit principally, when he was at hathercourt. for hathercourt was not to be deserted, though only a part of the year was now spent there by the rector's family, and to the curate, whose services he now could well afford, was deputed the more active part of the work. they had all been at marshover for some months past, and had only returned to hathercourt a few weeks before the marriage. "i could hardly believe in any family event of great importance happening to us anywhere else--we seem so identified with our old home. i like to think i shall end my days here, after all," mr western was saying, with inoffensive egotism, to mr cheviott, as they stood together in the window after the hero and heroine of the day had gone, when mary came up and joined them. "yes, father," she said, gently. "i remember your saying so, ever so long ago. i think," she added, turning to mr cheviott, "it was the afternoon of that sunday you all drove over to church here--do you remember?" mr cheviott smiled slightly. "i remember," he said, quietly. "i have never been inside the church since, till to-day. if it is still open i would like to look round it, if i may?" turning to mr western for permission. "it is not open," said mary, answering for her father, "but i can get the key in an instant, and, if you like," she went on, considerably to mr cheviott's surprise, "i will go with you." he thanked her, and they went. but, before fitting the great key into the old lock, as they stood once again by themselves in the church porch, mary turned to her companion. "mr cheviott," she said, "i offered to come with you because i wanted an opportunity for saying something to you that i did not wish any one else to hear. i have never seen you alone since--since a day several months ago, when lilias, by arthur's wish, explained _everything_ to me, and i want just to tell you simply, once for all, that i am honestly ashamed of having misjudged you as i did, and--and--i hope you will forgive me." mr cheviott looked at her for a moment without speaking--her face was slightly flushed, her eyes bright and with a touch of appeal in them-- half shy, half confident, which carried his thoughts, too, back to the last time they had stood there together. she looked not unlike what she had done then, but he--there was no smile in his face as he replied. "thank you," he said. "it is kind and brave of you to say this, but i cannot say i forgive you. i have nothing to forgive. if i were not afraid of reviving what to you must be a most unpleasant memory, i would rather ask if _you_ can forgive _me_ for my much graver offences against you?" "how? what do you mean?" said mary, startled and chilled a little by his tone. "my inconsideration and presumption are what i refer to," he said. "i cannot now imagine what came over me to make me say what i did--but you will forgive and forget, will you not, miss western? we are connections now, you see--it would never do for us to quarrel. i once said--you remember--that speech is the one which i think i must have been mad to utter--that in other circumstances, had i had fair play, i _could_ have succeeded in what i was then insane enough to dream of. _now_ my aspirations are surely reasonable enough to deserve success--all i ask is that you will forget all that passed at that time, and believe that, in a general way, i am not an infatuated fool." mary had grown deadly pale. she drew herself back against the wall, as if for support. "no," she said, in a hard, constrained tone, "no, that i cannot do. you ask too much. i can never _forget_." mr cheviott gazed at her in astonishment. for one instant, for the shadow of an instant, a gleam darted across his face--_could_ it be?--_could_ she mean?--he asked himself, but, before his thought had taken form, mary dashed it to the ground. "i am ashamed of myself for being so easily upset," she said, almost in her ordinary tone, "but i have had a good deal to tire me lately. we needn't say any more, mr cheviott, about forgiving and forgetting, and all such sentimental matters. i have made my _amende_, and you have made yours, and it's all right." mr cheviott's voice was at its coldest and hardest when he spoke again. "as you please," was all he said, and mary, foolish mary, turned from him to hide the scorching tears that were beginning to come, and fumbled with the key till she succeeded in opening the door. "there now," she said, lightly. "i must run home. i don't think you will require a cicerone for this church, mr cheviott," and before he could reply, she was gone. gone--to try to smile when she thought her heart was breaking, to seem cheerful and merry when over and over again there rang through her brain the cruel words--"he never cared for me, he says himself it was an infatuation. he is ashamed to remember it; oh no, he never really cared for me, or else my own words turned his love into contempt and dislike--and what wonder!" two or three days after lilias's marriage mary heard from alys cheviott. she and her brother were leaving england almost immediately, she said, for several months. the letter was kind and affectionate, but it did not even allude to the possibility of her seeing mary before they left. "good-bye, alys," said mary, as she folded it up and one or two hot tears fell in the envelope. "good-bye, dear alys; and good-bye to the prize i threw from me, when it might have been mine--surely the best chance of happiness that ever woman was offered!" chapter thirty one. a farewell visit to romary. "he desired in a wife an intellect that, if not equal to his own, could become so by sympathy--a union of high culture and noble aspiration, and yet of loving womanly sweetness which a man seldom finds out of books; and when he does find it perhaps it does not wear the sort of face that he fancies." _the parisians_. the westerns were not to spend this winter at marshover. it was too cold for mr western, and so was hathercourt. a house, therefore, for the worst of the season had been taken at bournemouth, and there old mr brooke had promised to spend with them his otherwise solitary christmas. "i'm so glad you are going to bournemouth," said mrs greville one day, a few weeks after lilias's marriage, when she had driven over to say good-bye to her old friends before they left; "it is such a nice cheerful place, and plenty going on there. quite a pleasant little society. it will be an advantage for the girls if, as mrs brabazon tells me, they are to be in town next year." "but alexa and josephine will not be at bournemouth except for a week at christmas," said mary. "they will be at school." "and alexa is too young to go out at least for another year," said mrs western. "but there is mary. _you_ are not going to school again, are you, mary?" said mrs greville, laughingly, turning to her. "i almost wish i were!" she replied, "excepting that i should not like to leave mother. but i shall not go out at all, dear mrs greville, either at bournemouth or in town. i don't care for society." "how can you tell till you have tried?" said her friend. "that's just it. i don't know anything at all about it, and i feel too old to get into the way of it." "mary!" exclaimed mrs greville; "what an idea! at one-and-twenty," and even mrs western looked slightly surprised. "i can understand your thinking you will never care for things of the kind _much_, and i dare say you never will," mary's mother observed. "but if not for your own, it _may_ for others' sakes--for your younger sisters'--be necessary for you to go a little into society." "ah, well--not at present, any way, and possibly never," said mary. "alexa would make a much better miss western than i." mrs greville smiled. "are you tired of your honours already, mary?" she said. "well, who knows!" "i didn't mea--" began mary, flushing slightly, "besides, it has _always_ been settled that i was the old maid of the family." "nonsense," said mrs greville. "that reminds me, you will find some old friends at bournemouth--the morpeths; you don't know, mary, what an impression you made on vance morpeth." mary looked annoyed. "that boy!" she exclaimed, hastily, "my dear mrs greville--" "he isn't a boy--he is five-and-twenty," interrupted mrs greville, slightly ruffled. "of course i don't mean to say that _now_, with your present prospects you might not be justified in--well, to use a common phrase, though not a very refined one, in `looking higher'." "dear mrs greville!" exclaimed both mary and her mother together. "_don't_ say things like that, _please_," mary went on. "you don't really think that i would be influenced by that kind of consideration?-- you don't think so poorly of me?" "no, my dear, i do not. i think you and all of you a great deal too unworldly; i wish, for your own sakes, you _were_ a little more influenced by considerations of that kind," said mrs greville, nodding her head sagaciously, and just then, some one calling mrs western from the room, she went on in a lower voice, "why are you so desperately cold to mr cheviott, my dear? do you really dislike him so hopelessly?" "who said i disliked him?" exclaimed mary, sharply, and the slight extra colour on her cheeks deepened now into hot, angry crimson. "my dear! don't be so fierce. surely you can't have forgotten all the things you _yourself_ said against him. why, you would not even go to see through romary till i coaxed you into it--just because it was _his_ house. i assure you your aversion to him became quite a joke among us-- vance morpeth always speaks of him as your _bete noire_." mary was silent. what else could she be? "i only wish you had _not_ expressed your dislike to or before me," continued mrs greville. "i should have been only too glad to have been able to say that _i_ had never heard of it when alys cheviott told me how it had distressed and disappointed her." "did _alys_ speak of it?" said mary, surprised and a little annoyed. "yes, to me--not to any one else. you need not be indignant at it, mary. it came about quite naturally. you know i have seen a good deal of her this summer while you were all at marshover. she seemed to like my going over there, and she has been very lonely, poor girl. that aunt of hers is such a goose! and one day she was asking me all about you, and she added quite naturally how much she wished you would sometimes go to see her." "but i was away," pleaded mary, not quite honestly. "yes, just then; but you had been at home quite long enough to go if you had wished, and that was alys's disappointment. she told me that almost her first thought, when everything was cleared up between lilias and captain beverley, was, `and now i shall be able to see mary,' thinking, of course, that when you understood that mr cheviott's dread had been altogether unselfish--fear of arthur's ruining himself by disobeying the will--you would at once lose your dislike to him." "and what does she now think?" asked mary. "she doesn't know what to think. she fears that in some way mr cheviott has so deeply offended you that your dislike--prejudice-- whatever it is--to him, is incurable." again, for a moment, mary was silent. then she said, hesitatingly. "has she--do you think, mrs greville--said anything of this to mr cheviott?" "i don't know," said mrs greville. "but of course, my dear mary, you cannot pretend to be so modest as to fancy that your staying away from them--from alys, at least--in this marked way, cannot have attracted attention. after the service you did them--the great obligation you put them under to you, and alys's constantly expressed affection and gratitude--your refusing to go to her, when she _couldn't_ come to you, was a very strong measure. and, to speak plainly, unless you had the very strongest reasons for it, i think it was very unkind to that poor girl." mary, for some little time past, had been believing her punishment complete. now, as mrs greville spoke, she realised that it had not been so. she _had_ been cruel to alys; she had allowed her own feelings--her mortification at the past, her proud terror of possible misapprehension in the future--to override what was the clearest and plainest of duties. "i am not worthy to be called a friend," she said to herself, and tears filled her eyes as she turned to mrs greville. "thank you," she said, gently, "for what you have said. it will not have been in vain." and mrs greville kissed and told her if she were proud and prejudiced, she was also honest and magnanimous. and then the good lady drove herself home in her pony-carriage with a comfortable feeling of self-satisfaction, and a vague, not unpleasing suspicion that she _might_ turn out to have been a sort of "_deus ex machina_," or "benevolent fairy god-mother, we'll say," she added to herself, not feeling quite sure of the latin of the first phrase, or that it did not savour a little of profanity, "just to give a little shove to affairs at the right moment." all day mary thought and thought over what she should do. could she get to see alys, now at the eleventh hour, for the cheviotts, if they had not already done so, must be on the eve of quitting romary for the winter? should she write to mrs greville and ask her to convey some message? should she--so many months had passed since she had seen alys that a little further delay could be of small consequence--should she wait for an opportunity of seeing lilias, and asking _her_ to explain? to explain what, and how? ah! no. explanation of any kind was impossible, and the necessity for it she had nothing but her own foolish conduct to thank for. at last--"i will attempt no explanation, no excuse, or palliation," she decided, "alys is generosity itself. i will trust her by asking her to trust me." and that same evening she wrote to her a few simple words, which she felt to be all she _could_ say. "my dear alys," she said, "will you forgive me? i see now that i have made a grievous mistake, done a wrong and cruel thing in never going to see you all this time. this knowledge has come to me suddenly and startlingly, and i cannot rest till i write to you. i cannot explain to you what has distorted my way of seeing things, but i ask you to forgive me, and to believe that, selfishly and unkindly as i have acted, there has not been a day, scarcely an hour, since we were together in which i have not thought of you. "yours affectionately,-- "mary western." and when this letter was written and sent, mary felt happier than she had done for a long time. was it all "the reward of a good conscience?" was there not deep down, unrecognised, in a corner of her "inner consciousness," wherever that debatable land may be, a hope, a possibility of a hope rather, that mrs greville's statement, to some extent, explained the change in mr cheviott's manner? what if alys, after all, had been the innocent marplot--suggesting to her brother in her disappointment that the "all coming right" of lilias's affairs had not resulted in a complete change of attitude on mary's part; that her dislike to him must be even deeper founded than could be explained by her misjudgment of his conduct towards her sister? what if they had both been at cross-purposes--each attributing to the other a prejudice that no longer existed--which, indeed, mary had done nothing to remove his belief in on her part--which, as existing on his side towards her, she had imagined to have yielded temporarily to what he himself had described as an "infatuation," but to return with tenfold strength? all this she did not say to herself in distinct words, but the suggestion had taken root in her heart, and was not to be dislodged. and though days grew into weeks before there came from alys an answer to her letter, mary went about through those weeks with lightened steps and hopeful eyes. she could not distrust alys, she told herself; and her mother, seeing her so cheerful, congratulated herself that mary was "getting over" the loss of lilias, which she had been beginning to fear had greatly depressed her. alys's letter, when it did come, was all that mary had expected and more, much more than she felt herself to have deserved. "i will not ask you to explain anything," wrote alys, "i am more than satisfied. i cannot tell you what a change it makes in my life to be able to look forward to seeing you as much and as often as you can be spared to me. it will help me to be patient, and to try to get strong again. i am likely to be much alone when we return to england, for laurence is thinking of letting romary and taking a house for me somewhere not very far from town. he seems to have taken a dislike to a country life, and says he thinks he would be better if he had `more to do.' i cannot agree with him that such a thing is possible, for i have never known him idle for half an hour." mary gave a little sigh as she folded up the letter--that was all. and soon after came on the time for the family move to bournemouth, and with a strange feeling of regret she again said good-bye to hathercourt. the winter passed, uneventfully enough on the whole. there was a flying visit from lilias and her husband on their way back from italy to the small country-house that was to be their home for the next two years; there were old mr brooke and mrs brabazon and the two schoolgirls, alexa and josey, for christmas; there were, for mary, very occasional glimpses of bournemouth society; but with these exceptions her daily life was what many girls of her age would have considered very monotonous. she did not seem to find it so, however; she appeared, indeed, what lilias called so "aggravatingly contented" that she owned to arthur, with a sigh, that, after all, she greatly feared that the family prophecy about mary was going to turn out true. "at one-and-twenty," she said, lugubriously, "she really seems to be steadily developing into an old maid." "wait a little," said arthur. "mrs brabazon is determined to have her in town for some weeks. there is still hope of mary's proving to be not altogether superior to youthful vanities and frivolities." "very little, i fear," said lilias, half smiling, half provoked. mrs brabazon had her way--mary did go to town, and, after her own fashion, enjoyed herself. she was generally liked, in some cases specially admired, but that was all. she gently repulsed all approach to anything more, and, though grateful to mrs brabazon, perplexed her by her calm equability in the midst of a life novel and exciting enough to have turned a less philosophical young head. if, indeed, it were "all philosophy," thought mary's shrewd cousin, and not, to some extent, preoccupation? one day towards the end of april--mary had been six weeks in town--there came a letter from bournemouth, asking her, if possible, to go to hathercourt for a day or two, to make some arrangements preparatory to mr and mrs western's return there, "which," wrote her mother, "no one but you, dear mary, can see to satisfactorily, sorry as i am to interrupt your pleasant visit." mrs brabazon was somewhat put out. she had two or three specially desirable engagements for the next few days; but, though mary heartily expressed her regret at the summons being, from her hostess's point of view, thus ill-timed, she owned to herself rather enjoying the prospect than otherwise. "i am an incurable _country_ cousin, dear mrs brabazon," she said; "you will have more satisfaction in every way with alexa, if you are kind enough to take charge of her next year." "and where do _you_ intend to be then?" said mrs brabazon, amused, in spite of herself, at mary's tone. "i shall have retired to my own corner. i have always been told i should be an old maid," said mary, laughingly. and two days later found her at uxley. she was not to stay at hathercourt, the rectory being just released from the hands of painters and decorators, and unfit for habitation, and mrs greville delighted to seize the chance of a visit from one of her old favourites. the day before that fixed for mary's return to town mrs greville came into the drawing-room with a note in her hand. "you have quite finished at hathercourt, you are sure?" she said, "you don't need to go over again?" "oh, no, thank you," said mary, "there is nothing more for me to do. i am _quite_ at your disposal for the rest of my time. is there anything you want to do this afternoon?" "nothing much--only to drive over to romary," said mrs greville. "i have a note from poor old mrs golding, saying that she would be so thankful to see me. she is really ill, and quite upset with the idea of leaving romary. she has only just heard definitely from mr cheviott about it, as she kept hoping he would change his mind." "shall i not be in the way if i come with you? i don't in the least mind staying alone," said mary, diplomatically. "oh dear, no!" replied mrs greville, who had not perceived the slight shadow that had stolen across mary's face at the mention of romary, "the fact is i _want_ you, for the boy cannot come this afternoon, and i don't like driving quite so far alone." mary resigned herself with outside cheerfulness, but some inward misgiving. "i would rather never have gone near romary again," she said to herself; "however, i need not go into the house, and it will be a sort of good-bye to the place, and with it a great deal besides." for of late she had grown less hopeful. alys had written once again, and to this second letter mary had replied. but that was months ago, and she had heard no more; and, though nothing could make her distrust alys's affection, she was beginning to fear that their gradually drifting apart was unavoidable. "thinking of me as her brother does," said mary to herself, "it is not possible that she and i can have much intercourse. it was insane of me to hope for it." when mrs greville's pony-carriage drove up to the house, mary asked leave to stay outside. "i shall be quite happy wandering about by myself," she said, "and mrs golding will prefer seeing you without a stranger. how long shall you be--an hour?" "possibly two," replied mrs greville, laughing, "there is no getting away from the old body sometimes. and as i shall not see her many more times i should like to pay her a good long visit." "don't hurry, then," said mary. "i shall be all right." it was a very lovely day. romary looked to much greater advantage than the last time mary had been there. it had then been mid-winter to all intents and purposes, at least as far as the trees and the grass were concerned. now it was the most suggestively beautiful season of the year--spring-time far enough advanced to have much perfection of loveliness of its own, besides the rich promise of greater things yet to come. mary had not before realised how pretty romary was. "i wonder they can think of leaving it," she said to herself, half sadly. she had sauntered round the west front of the house, along a terrace overlooking a sort of italian garden, when, turning suddenly another corner, she came upon a well-remembered scene--the thick-growing shrubbery through which ran the foot-path leading to the private entrance near the haunted room. with a curious mixture of feelings mary stood still for a moment, recalling with a strange fascination the sensations with which she had last hurried along the little path. then she slowly walked on. bright as the day was, it seemed dusk in the shrubbery. "it is really a rather creepy place," thought mary, "one might expect to meet any kind of ghost hereabouts." and as if the thought had conjured up some corroboration of her words, at that moment in the narrow vista of the path before her there appeared a figure approaching in her direction. for one instant mary started with a half-thrill of nervous apprehension--was she really the victim of some delusion of her own fancy?--then she looked again to feel but increased bewilderment as she more clearly recognised the figure. how _could_ it be mr cheviott? was he not most certainly still at hyeres? had not mrs greville told her so that very morning? there was just this one flaw in her argument--the person now rapidly nearing her _was_ mr cheviott! and when mary became convinced of this her first sensation of amazement gave way to scarcely less perplexing annoyance and vexation at being again met by him as an uninvited intruder on his own domain. "_was_ there _ever_ anything so awkward?" thought mary, "was ever any one so unlucky as i?" she repeated, proudly stifling the quick flash of gladness at meeting him again anywhere, under any circumstances. and so overwhelmed was she by her own exaggerated self-consciousness that when in another moment with outstretched hand he stood before her, she did not even notice the bright look of pleasure that lighted up his face, or hear the one word, "_mary_!" with which he met her. whether she shook hands or not she did not know. she felt only that her heart was beating to suffocation, and her face crimson as she exclaimed confusedly: "mr cheviott! i had not the least idea you were here--in england even. i only came over with mrs greville--i am so vexed--so ashamed--if i had had any idea--" then she stopped, feeling as if she had only made bad worse. mr cheviott looked at her. "if you had had any idea i was anywhere near here you would have flown to the land's end or john o' groat's house to avoid me--is that it?" he said, and whether he spoke bitterly or in half jest to cover some underlying feeling, mary really could not tell. she turned away her head and did not speak. "if he takes that tone," she said to herself, "i shall--i don't know what i shall do." "won't you answer me? mary you _must_," he said, passionately, facing round upon her--half unconsciously she had walked on, and he had kept abreast of her--and taking both her hands in his--"do you hate me, mary, or do you not?" he said. "i am not a proud man, you see, or else my love for you has cast out my pride; perhaps you will despise me for it, for a _second_ time daring to--but i made up my mind to it. i came back to england on purpose to be _sure_. at least, you must see that my love is no light matter, and--oh! child, tell me--_do_ you hate me? look up and tell me." he had changed his tone to one of such earnest appeal that mary trembled as he spoke. but when she tried to look up her eyes filled with tears, and the words she wanted would not come. "_hate_ you?" was all she could say. but it was enough. he looked at her as if he could hardly believe his eyes. "do you mean to say--_mary_--do you mean that you _love_ me? and all this time--" a smile broke through her tears. "can't you believe it?" she said. "at least, you may absolve me from having ever told you anything but the plain truth as to my feelings towards you," she added. then he, too, smiled. "but," she added, "the last time we met, you yourself called it an `infatuation.' i thought you had grown ashamed of it." "ashamed of it," he repeated, "ashamed of loving you? my darling! ashamed of my reckless inconsideration for your feelings?--yes, i had reason to be _that_. and an infatuation it certainly did seem, to believe that there was any possibility of your ever learning to care for me, for there were all those months of disappointment after my conduct in that wretched complication had been cleared up, and day by day alys hoped, and i hoped, for some sign from you. and then what you said to me the day of the marriage i looked upon as merely wrung from you by your brave conscientiousness--that made you feel your acknowledgment of mistake was due even to me. do you see?" "yes," said mary; "but," she added, shyly, "what made you change?" "your letter to alys partly; by-the-bye, you have to tell me how _you_ came to change so as to write it? and then--i don't know how it was--i felt my case so desperate; i had nothing to lose, and oh, mary, what an inestimable possibility to gain! i made up my mind to try once more, and as soon as i could leave alys i came home, never hoping, however, to see you here--in the very lion's den!" "does alys know why you came?" "no, i would never have told her, or any one, had i failed. but to think that i have won!--mary, i never before in all my life dreamed of such happiness. i have everything that makes life worth having given to me in you. and, do you know," he added, with a sort of boyish _naivete_, "i don't think i ever realised how wonderfully pretty you are? what have you been doing to yourself?" mary laughed--a happy, heartful laugh that fully vindicated the youthfulness she had begun to believe a thing of the past. she was not above feeling delight at _his_ thinking her pretty. "it is your eyes, i think," he said. "they were always nice, sweet, honest eyes, but now something else has come into them. what is it?" "guess," whispered mary. "i don't think it was there this morning." "it wasn't your beauty i ever thought the most of," he said. "it reminds me of something i read the other day, that when a man _does_ and his ideal it is sure `not to wear the face he fancies.' but i have got it _all_, face too!" "and now," said mary, "please go away. i am sure mrs greville is ready, and i don't want to keep her waiting." mr cheviott's countenance fell. "mayn't i come with you to meet her? won't you tell her?" he said. "not before _you_!" said mary, laughing. "but i will tell her--i should like to tell some one," she added, girlishly. "and when can i see you?" "to-morrow morning. come to uxley early if you can. i am not leaving till the afternoon. and then we can fix about--about your going to see them at bournemouth, and all that." "but _i_ would like to tell some one, too, this very minute, at once, and i have no one. what shall i do?" he said, ruefully. "tell mrs golding," said mary, mischievously, and before he could stop her, she had turned and was running at full speed along the shrubbery path, back to the front of the house, where, sure enough, mrs greville and the pony-carriage were waiting. ten minutes after, mr cheviott entered the old housekeeper's room. "mrs golding," he said, "i am not so sure that i _shall_ let romary after all!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the end.