"Master will be glad to see you, miss, in the library, if you please."
"Very good, Wilson. Is Mr. Creswell alone?"
"Mr. Radford, the agent from Brocksopp, have been with him for the last half-hour, miss; but he's on the point to go. I saw him getting on his gloves as I left the room."
"Very good; tell Mr. Creswell I will be with him at once."
The servant retired, closing the door behind her, and Marian was left alone with her mother. They were in what they had become accustomed to call "their own" sitting-room, with its bright chintz furniture and tasteful appointments, as Marian had described them in her letter to Walter. It was tolerably early morning, just after ten o'clock, and the sun lit up the garden and the grass-plot, from which the slight frost had not yet disappeared, though the snowdrops and the crocuses were already showing their heads in the flower-borders, while the ditch-banks of the neighbourhood were thick with promised crops of violets and primroses. Mrs. Ashurst, whose infirmities seemed greatly to have increased within the past six months, was sitting by the fire with her face turned towards the window, enjoying the brightness of the morning; but her back was turned to the door, and she had not caught the servant's message.
"What was that Martha said, my dear?" she asked. "My hearing's getting worse, I think. I miss almost everything that's said now."
"You had your back towards her, dear mother; and you were too pleasantly occupied looking at the bright weather outside, and thinking that we should soon be able to get you out for a turn up and down the long walk, in the sun. Martha came to say that Mr. Creswell wanted to see me in the library."
"Again, Marian? Why, you were with him for hours--when was it?--the day before yesterday."
"Yes, mother; you're quite right. I was there, helping him with his accounts. But there was some information which had to be supplied before we could finish them. I suppose he has obtained that now, and we can go on with our work."
"You're a clever child, my dear," said the old lady, fondly stroking her daughter's shining hair.
"There's more use than cleverness in what I'm doing for Mr. Creswell, darling mother. Don't you remember how I used to make out the boarders' bills for poor papa, and the 'general running account' to be submitted half-yearly to the governors? These are larger and more intricate matters, of course, dealing as they do with the amount and sources of Mr. Creswell's income; but I think I have mastered the method of dealing with them, and Mr. Creswell, I imagine, thinks so too."
"It must be a very large income, my dear, to keep up all this place, and----"
"Large! You have no conception of it, mother. I had no conception of it, nor of how it came in, and grew, and is for ever growing, until it was before me in black and white. Original funds, speculations, mortgages, investments in this and that, in ships and wharves and breweries, in foreign railroads, and---- Ah! good heavens, it's enough to turn one's brain to think of."
And the girl pressed her forehead with her hands, and stood motionless.
"Yes, my dear," said the old lady, stretching out her hand, and, drawing her daughter gently towards her. "I've thought more than once that this house with its surroundings was scarcely the best school for a young girl who had to face poverty, and battle for her livelihood. And, indeed, I'm far from thinking that, even so far as I'm concerned, it was wise that we should originally have come here, or that we should have stayed so long. I wish you would propose about Mrs. Swainson's lodgings again, Marian, for----"
"For Heaven's sake, don't mention Mrs. Swainson's horrid lodgings again, mother. Are you tired of your visit here?"
"No, my dear, not in the least; I'm very happy, as happy as I ever expect to be again in this world; but I know there's such a thing as outstaying your welcome, and----"
"Who has been putting such ideas into your head? Not those horrible girls! They have nothing to do with the arrangements of the house, they--there, I always lose my head when I think or speak of them!"
"You do indeed, Marian; I cannot imagine how it is that you and Maude and Gertrude don't get on together. You always seem to blaze up like I don't know what, especially you and Maude! No, my dear, the young ladies have always hoped we should stay on, but that of course is impossible, and----"
"Perhaps not impossible, mother!"
"Why not, my dear? Do you think that---- Oh no, thank you! I guess what you mean; I'm an old woman, I know, but I've still my faculties left, and I can see through a millstone as well as most people of my age, and though I'm not apt to be--I forget the word, but you know what I mean--I declare once for all I won't do it!"
"Won't do what, mother? I declare I have no notion what you mean."
"Oh yes, you have, Marian. You heard what Dr. Osborne, whom I never could abide, but that's neither here nor there, suggested about my becoming Mrs. Caddy, or rather Mrs. Caddy's successor, when she went. I'm sure you, who talk of having a spirit and a proper pride, ought to see that I couldn't do that! Your poor father wouldn't rest in his grave if he knew it! You remember he never would let me do anything with the boys' clothes, or hair-brushes, or that--always would have a wardrobe woman; and now to think of my becoming a housekeeper----"
"But, mother--there! you shall not worry yourself with that idea any more, and still we won't think just yet of Mrs. Swainson's nasty lodging! Kiss me now, and let me go! I've been keeping Mr. Creswell waiting full ten minutes."
What change had come over Marian Ashurst to cause her to speak in this way to her mother with flushed cheek, and kindling eye, and elated look? What hope was dawning over the deep of that black blank sunless future, which she had seen before her in all its miserable intensity, its unavoidable dead level gloom, when first she arrived on a visit at Woolgreaves? What was the vision which during all that period, but especially since Tom Creswell's death, had haunted her waking and sleeping, in company and in solitude, had been ever present to her thoughts, and had wrung her heart and disturbed her mental peace more keenly even than the thought of poverty, the desire for wealth? Dare she do it? She could, she had but little doubt of that, but little doubt of Mr. Creswell's daily increasing dependence on her and regard for her. There was no one else in the world now in whom he seemed to take the slightest interest. He had been deeply grieved at his son's death, laid up for weeks afterwards--one would have thought that life for him had lost all its zest and flavour; but lately, in going through his business details with Marian, he had referred to the dead lad almost calmly, and had spoken of him almost as he used to speak of him in the days when hisbrusquerieand bad style and consequent unpopularity were gall and wormwood to his father's heart. She was thoroughly and entirely essential to him. He had told her so. He had said plainly enough that with no one else, no paid hirelings, no clerk, however trustworthy or confidentially employed, could he have gone through the private accounts, which showed the sources of his revenue and its investment, and which had dropped into almost hopeless confusion and arrear, from which they were only rescued by her quick apprehension, clear business knowledge, and indefatigable industry. He sat by in mute wonder, as she seized upon each point as it was laid before her, and stopped him in the midst of his verbose and clumsy explanation, to show how clearly she comprehended him, and how lightly she undertook the unravelment of matters which seemed to him almost hopeless in their chaotic disarrangement.
What a wonderful girl she was, Mr. Creswell thought, as he looked at her poring over the items of account as he read them out to her, and marked the sudden manner in which her cheek flushed and her bosom heaved and her eye dilated, while that ready pen never ceased in its noiseless course over the paper. How thoroughly natural to be able to throw herself so entirely into the work before her, to take evident interest in what would be to others the driest detail, mere husk and draff of soulless business! He knew nothing of Marian Ashurst, less than nothing. That dry detail and those soulless figures were to her more interesting than the finest fiction, the most soul-stirring poetry. For they meant something much better than fiction; they meant fact--wealth, position, everything. She remembered, even as she jotted down from Mr. Creswell's loose memoranda or vague recollections of sums invested here or securities lying there, or interest payable at such and such dates--she remembered how, as a child, she had read of Sinbad's visit to the Valley of Diamonds, and how, in one of the few novels she had come across in later life, she had been breathlessly interested in the account of the treasure in Monte Christo's grotto. Those delights were fictional, but the wealth recorded in her own handwriting before her own eyes was real--real, and, if she mistook not, if the golden dreams had not warped her intellect and dazzled her brain, enjoyable by her. Thoroughly enjoyable, not as a miserable dependent permitted to bask in the rays of prosperity, but as the originator of the prosperity itself, the mistress of the fortune--the---- No wonder her cheek flushed; she felt her brain throb and her head whirl; the magnitude of the stakes, the chances of success appalled her. She had never realised them before, and, while they were beginning to dawn on her, the desperate effect of her proposed end upon one who had hitherto been loved by her she had steadfastly contrived to ignore.
If she dared to do it? Why should she not dare; what was it to dare, after all? Was she to lose her chance in life, and such a chance, simply because as a girl she had agreed to a foolish contract, which, as it seemed, it was impossible could ever be fulfilled? Was her youth to be sacrificed to a preposterous engagement, which, if it was ratified at all, could only be ratified in grim middle age, when all power of enjoying life would have fled, even if the hope of anything to enjoy were then vouchsafed her? She knew too well that people would be ready enough to bring accusations against her, but of what could they accuse her? Of selfishness? but it would not be merely for her own self-advancement that she would take advantage of the opportunity that offered for bettering her position in life. Her mother was thoroughly dependent upon her, and the past few months had made a wonderful difference in her mother's physical condition. With plenty of comfort and attention, with a command of certain luxuries and the power of remaining perfectly quiescent, knowing that there was not the smallest occasion for mental disquietude, Mrs. Ashurst's life might last for some time, but the smallest mental worry would probably be fatal. This Dr. Osborne had said, and it behoved Marian to think of her mother before any one else in the world.
And yet--and yet? Was it all to be forgotten and stamped out, that one halcyon time of her existence, that one period in which she had ceased to think of the struggle for living, and to love life for being as it was? Was that one green oasis where she had rested so pleasantly, forgetful of the annoyances past, not caring for the dangers to come, as she lay beside the bubbling fountain of Hope, and drank of its pure waters--was that to be swallowed up in the world's simoom, and to vanish with every trace obliterated? Or was it but a mere mirage, unsubstantial and unreal? As she battled with herself she pressed her eyes tightly with her hands, and endeavoured to recall those scenes of her life. She would see her lover, modest, earnest, hopeful, delighted at his so-far success, sanguine as to that which was to come. She would remember the cheery manner in which he would meet her doubts, the calm self-reliance, never degenerating into bravado, with which he spoke of their future as perfected by his efforts. Reminiscences, looks, tones, each had their effect upon her. Then she would think of that future, even when painted as glowingly as in Walter's fervent expectation. And what was it? Genteel poverty at its best. The coming together of two hearts in a cheap lodging, with a necessity for watching the outlay of every sixpence, and a short career of starved gentility as the coming result of a long life of labour and waiting. And to give up all she had in prospect, all she had in command, she might almost say, for this---- Poor Walter, poor Walter what would he do? All his whole life was bound up in her, in her his every thought centred. How would he---- Wait, though! She was not so sure of what she was saying. Who was this Lady Caroline Somebody of whom he wrote so strongly? Two or three times he had mentioned her in his letters. Marian recollected having smiled at Walter's first description of this great lady, who, though he tried to disguise it, had evidently been struck with him; but now she seized on the idea with quite a different object in view. Suppose she should carry out what she had in her mind, it would be expedient for her to show to the world--to such portion of the world as chose to be inquisitive or indignant about her proceedings--that all shame, so far as breaking off the original engagement was concerned, did not rest with her, that Walter himself had not kept faith with---- She broke off the thread of her thought abruptly, she could not battle with herself, she knew how vain and ridiculous the accusation would be, how the object of it would shake it from him with scorn; but it had a certain semblance of truth and likelihood, and it would do to bring forward, in case any such defence was ever needed.
"Well, missy," said Mr. Creswell, looking up from the papers on which he was engaged, "you see I've been compelled to send for my assistant; I couldn't get on without her."
"Your assistant is only too glad to come when she finds she can be of use to you, sir. Has the pass-book come from the bank, and did you get those returns you asked for from the Wharfdale Company?"
"What a memory you have, child! I declare I had forgotten what had stopped our work the other morning. I remembered only that you would have gone on until you dropped, but for want of material. Yes, they are both here."
"I see; and the totals both approximate to the sums you mentioned. There will be no difficulty now in preparing the rough balance-sheet. Shall I begin that at once?"
"No, no, missy; that is too large an undertaking for you. I'll have that done down at the office. I'm only too thankful to you for the assistance you've rendered me in getting the items into order, and in checking matters which I could not possibly have submitted to an uninterested person, and which I'm--well, I'm afraid I must say it--too old to go into myself!"
"Since you praise me, I have a right to claim a reward, and I demand to be allowed to carry out my work to the end. I shall be proud of it, proud to think that, when next these accounts are gone through, you will be able to look at mine, and see that they do no discredit to your book-keeping pupil."
There was a slight change in Mr. Creswell's voice as he said--
"My child, I don't suppose this task will occur again, in my lifetime. It would have stood over well until my poor boy came of age, had it pleased God to spare him; but I have only done it now from a renewal of the old stock-taking habit, a desire to see how my worldly affairs stood before----"
But the voice broke, and the sentence was left unfinished.
"But surely, sir, it must be a source of pride, and of pleasure too, to you, being, as you have often pointed out to me, the architect of your own fortunes, to have this convincing proof of their stability and your success?"
"Success! my dear child; pride! pleasure! Ah, missy, a man must have lived but a small life, if towards the end of it he looks for pride and pleasure in the amount of his balance at his bankers', or for his success in having heaped up more money than his fellows!"
"No; not in that entirely, of course; but in having carried out the main idea of his life, and----"
"The main idea of my life that was in existence but a very little while, missy! The main idea of my life was to make my poor Jenny a good husband, and afterwards--when the boy was born--to leave him a good and honoured name. Both those hopes are extinguished now, Marian. The first went years ago, the last--you know when. And this," pointing with his pen to the bankbook in front of him--"this has no power to fill their place."
Both were silent for some minutes; then Marian said, "You have shown me how silly I was to speak as I spoke just now."
"My child, you spoke as a child; as one who has never known--who, please God, never will know--the vanity of such resources as those in time of trouble."
"I spoke as one who has known sorrow, Mr. Creswell, but who also has known, and who never can too gratefully acknowledge, the kindness of friends who were willing and able to help her. I think, I am sure, it will be a source of satisfaction to you to remember that your position enabled you to soften, very much to soften, the severity of the blow which so recently fell upon my mother and myself."
"There, indeed, you show me some use in what you are pleased to call my 'position.' It is long since I have experienced such gratification as in being enabled to show some neighbourly civility to the wife and daughter of my old friend. Even if you had been personally very different from what you are, I should have been pleased to do it in remembrance of him; but your mother is the gentlest and the most amiable creature in the world, while as for you----"
He paused for an instant, and her heart beat high. Only for an instant; she resumed her normal respiration as he laid his hand softly on her head, and said, "If I had had a daughter, child, I could have wished her not one whit different from you."
She was quite calm again, as she said, "I am so pleased to hear you say that, sir; for as you know, there are few to give me that affection which you truly describe as being the only thing worth living for. And I am so glad that I have been able to be of use to you, and to have shown you, in a very poor way indeed, how grateful I am to you for all your kindness to us before we leave you."
"Leave me, Marian? What are you talking of, child?"
"The fact," she replied, with a sad smile--"the dire hated fact. We must go, sooner or later; and it is the best for me--for us, I mean--that now it should be sooner. We have remained here longer than we intended, many weeks longer, owing to--to circumstances; and we have been, oh, so happy! Now we must go, and it will be better for us to look the fact in the face, and settle down in Mrs. Swainson's lodgings, and begin our new life."
Mr. Creswell's face had grown very white, and his hands were plucking nervously at his chin. Suddenly a light seemed to break in upon him, and he said, "You won't go until you've finished the balance-sheet? Promise me that."
"No," said Marian, looking him straight in the face, "I'll finish that--I promise you."
"Very good. Now leave me, my dear. This unexpected news has rather upset me. I must be alone for a little. Good-bye! God bless you!" And he bent, and for the first time in his life kissed her forehead. "You--you won't forget your promise?"
"You may depend on me," said Marian as she left the room.
Outside the door, in the bay-window where she had held her colloquy with Dr. Osborne on the night of Tom's death, were Maude and Gertrude, seated on the ottoman, one at work, the other reading. Neither of them spoke as Marian passed; but she thought she saw a significant look pass between them, and as she descended the stairs she heard them whispering, and caught Maude's words: "I shouldn't wonder if poor Tom was right about her, after all."
Of course Walter Joyce was a hero of heroes for days after the ice-accident. Lady Hetherington for the time being threw off every semblance of insolence and patronage, complimented him in the highest terms on his bravery and presence of mind, and assured him that he had established a claim upon their gratitude which they could never repay. Lord Hetherington was visibly affected, and had great difficulty in thanking his sister's preserver in anything like a coherent manner, lapsing into wild outbursts of "Don't you know!" and explaining that it would be impossible for him to express the feelings and that kind of thing under which he laboured. The gentlemen from the barracks, who had hitherto regarded "old Hetherington's secretary-fellow" as a person utterly unworthy of notice, began to think that they had been mistaken. Young Patey sent a short account of the incident to the sporting paper of which he was an esteemed correspondent, and made a mental note to ask Joyce to play in a football-match which was about to come off, and of which he had the direction. Colonel Tapp not merely assisted in carrying Joyce's senseless body to the tent, whereby he became much damped with drippings, which he nobly ignored, but sent off one of the men for the surgeon of the depôt and evinced an amount of interest and attention very rare in the self-sustained old warrior. Mr. Biscoe said very little indeed; he had been the only person close to the ridge of the broken ice, and he might have heard what Lady Caroline whispered in Joyce's ear, and he might have formed his own opinion of how matters stood from what he saw of them then. But he said nothing. His lips wreathed into a peculiar smile two or three times in the course of the evening, but nothing escaped them; and as he was smoking his after-dinner cigar in his study, he chuckled in a manner which was not to be accounted for by the perusal of anything in theGuardian,which he was supposed to be reading, more especially as he dropped his eyeglass, lay down the paper, and rubbed his hands with intense enjoyment. Just before he dropped asleep, he said--
"It's a thousand pities Joyce is not in orders! He'd have had Chudleigh Rectory when old Whiting goes, as safe as possible; old Whiting can't live long, and Chudleigh must be worth twelve hundred a year."
"Mr. Joyce have Chudleigh? Why should he have had Chudleigh? What makes you think that, Robert?" asked the partner of his joys, from the neighbouring pillow.
"Ah! what indeed?" was all the answer Robert made, and was snoring in an instant.
What did Lady Caroline herself say? Very little. She had a slight access of fever for three days, and kept her room for a week. The first time Joyce saw her was in the library, where he was at work. She came across the room with outstretched hand, and in a few very simple words told him she owed her life to him, and had come to tell him so, and to thank him for it. She was looking wonderfully beautiful; Joyce thought he had never seen her to such advantage. The usual pallor of her cheeks was relieved by a deep rose flush, her violet eyes were more than ever luminous, and she had departed from her usual style of coiffure, her chestnut hair being taken off her forehead, and gathered up in a huge plait at the back of her head.
"You recollect my first mention to you of the intention of having that dreadful ice-party, Mr. Joyce?" said Lady Caroline, after the first speeches of acknowledgment.
"Perfectly; it was in this room, almost where we are sitting now."
"Don't you remember--I hope you don't, and if you don't, it's silly in me to remind you, though I can't help it--that I had been quizzing you about the way in which you remained devoted to your writing, and assured you that we should only attempt to tear you away from it, and to get you to join us on one other occasion before we went to town, and that was to this skating affair? It would have been but a poor look-out for one of the party if you hadn't been there."
"You're giving me much greater credit than I deserve, Lady Caroline; and indeed during all the past week I've felt that I've been placed in a false position in the hero-worship I've received. It certainly happened that I got to the lake before Mr. Biscoe, and I was in quicker than he, but that was because I was a little younger, and had longer limbs. But what I've done to be made so much of, I really don't know!"
"You've saved my life, Mr. Joyce--and won my eternal gratitude!"
And again she stretched out her hand.
"The last is ample reward for the first, Lady Caroline! No other recognition is necessary!"
And he took her hand, but he merely held it for an instant, and bowed over it and let it go. Did not even press it, never thought of attempting to raise it to his lips. Lady Caroline withdrew it quietly with a half laugh. He was the coldest, most insensate, impassible man in the world, she thought; clever, and with a great amount of odd indescribable fascination, but a perfect stone.
He was not. He was a simple, single-minded man, unaccustomed to the ways of flirtation, and utterly uncomprehending any of the mysteries of the craft. He had felt naturally proud of the notice which Lady Caroline had taken of him, had written of it to Marian, attributing it, as he honestly thought it was due, to Lady Caroline's superior education and greater love of books attracting her to him for companionship. He was by no means an observant man, as but few students are, but he had noticed, as he thought, a certain amount of freedom in manners generally at Westhope, which was very different from anything he had previously seen. He ascribed it to the different grade of society, and took but little notice of it. He must, however, have been more than blind not to have seen that in Lady Caroline's conduct towards him at the time of the accident there was something more than this; that in that whispered word, "Walter!" and the tone in which it was whispered, there was an unmistakable admission of a sentiment which he had hitherto chosen to ignore, and which he determined to ignore still.
Walter Joyce was but human, and it would be absurd to deny that his vanity was flattered. He had a sufficient feeling for Lady Caroline, based on gratitude, and nurtured by general liking, to experience a certain compunction for her, placed as she must inevitably find herself by his mode of treatment of her; but regarding that mode of treatment he had never an instant's doubt. He had been brought up in far too strict a school of honour ever to palter with himself for a moment, much less with any one else. His heart was in Marian Ashurst's keeping, his liege love, and in not one single pulsation should it be false to her. All this he had thought out before the interview with Lady Caroline, and his conduct then was exactly as he had prescribed to himself it should be. He took no credit to himself for his coldness and reserve, nor indeed did he deserve any, for he felt as calmly and coldly as he acted. There was but one person in the world with power to make his heart leap, his pulses fill, to rouse his energy with a look, to cloud his hopes with a word. Why was she silent, then? She could not know how critical the time might have been, she should never know it, but he felt that he wanted her advice, advice on the general questions of his life, and he determined to write to her in a way that should elicit it.
Thus he wrote:
"Westhope, Friday.
"MY DEAREST MARIAN,
"I am still without any news of you, although this is the third letter I have written since I received your last. I know that you must have been very much and very specially engaged. I know, as you will have gathered from my last hasty few lines, that poor Tom Creswell is dead, and I feel that you must have been called upon to your utmost to play the part of comforter, and to bring your keen sympathies and busy brains into active use to restore something like a semblance of ordinary comfort to that disordered and desolate household. That you are the mainstay of the family in their trouble, as of course few would be, I happen to know. Did I tell you how? Mr. Gould, who is Lord Hetherington's principal business agent, showed me a letter he had had from you, written in Mr. Creswell's behalf, about the impossibility of the poor old gentleman's carrying out some sale of land, about which he had been previously negotiating, under the existing melancholy circumstances. It seemed so strange to see the handwriting, so familiar, and so dear to me, addressed to another; treating of business topics, and yet conveying information, which was surely interesting to me, but of which I was yet ignorant. However, you had your duty to do to the people who had been so kind to you, and who had done much more than their duty by you during the time of your trials, and I, who know you so well, have no doubt that you have done it, not merely in the letter but in the spirit.
"I suppose that by this time the first shock of grief will have passed away, and that the household at Woolgreaves will be assuming something like its normal state, and I presume, therefore, that you and Mrs. Ashurst will be soon thinking of bringing your visit to an end, even if by this time you have not already entered upon the lodgings which you told me you had in view. I have no doubt that if this be so now, or whenever it comes, both you and Mrs. Ashurst will much miss the material comfort which you have enjoyed during the last few months. It is impossible that it should be otherwise, but you, at all events, have long had a clear idea of your future, and so long as you are with her I do not fear Mrs. Ashurst's becoming a prey to despair. The woman who battled so bravely by your dear father's side is not likely to give way now that the heat of the contest is over, and a retreat, humble indeed, but sufficient for existence, is provided for her. I should almost rather fear the effect of the change upon you. I should very much fear it if I laid much stress upon the opinions with which the last letter I received from you was rife, opinions breathing the very essence of worldly philosophy, but scarcely such as one would expect to find in a young girl's letter to her lover. However, I do not lay much stress on these opinions; I know that it is the fashion just now to affect a cynicism which is not really felt, and to ascribe to one's self faults and follies which have no substantial basis. I am sure that you must have become infected with this idea, and that you wrote under its influence, for nothing could be more opposite than your new doctrine to the teachings of your youth and the example of your parents.
"It is time, however, my dear Marian, that we should each shake ourselves free from any little affectations or delusions which have hitherto possessed us, and make up our minds to look our position resolutely in the face. I say both of us, because I am perfectly conscious of having permitted myself to start in life as the victim of a delusion of a very different kind from yours. I was as sanguine as you were depressed, and when, on the day we parted, you had a notion that there was an end to all happiness to be enjoyed mutually by us, I bad a feeling that I was taking my first step towards the premiership, or the governorship of the Bank of England. I pray God that your idea was as baseless as mine. Iknowthat my position can never be a great or a wealthy one, that all I ever get I must earn by my handwork, and I am perfectly content, so long as I have your approval of my steps, and you yourself as my reward.
"But we must not dream any more, Marian, either of us, and you, especially, must not suffer yourself again, for whatever reason, to be tempted out of your regular sphere. All your attention henceforth must be given to the joint interests which must be paramount in your heart. Life progresses, dear. How the months have slipped away since we parted! and we must not let youth and health and all that is best pass out of it, and leave us still pursuing a flying shadow, and waiting for better days till we shall come together. Not now, or ever, will I take any step as regards my future without your counsel and consent, considering as I do that that future is yours as much as mine. But I want to be assured of your hearty interest and desire for co-operation in my affairs, Marian. I feel sure I have it; I know it is almost absurd in me to doubt its existence, but I have been so long away from you, and you have been so long without writing to me, that I long to read the assurance in your own hand. What would I not give--if I had anything, poor wretch!--to hear it from your lips! but that is impossible just yet.
"Now, what we have to think of is definite and pressing. I must give a decisive answer within a week, and you will see the bearing and importance of that decisive answer on our future. I believe I could stay on here for any time I chose. The big history-book, though I work hard at it every day, is as yet only in its commencement, and I am told that when the family goes to town next week I am to accompany them, and to devote my time in London to purely secretarial work, correcting my lord in his speeches, writing his letters, etc., while the history of the Wests is to remain in abeyance until the autumn. Everybody is particularly kind to me, and had I never 'lifted my eyes to my master's daughter,' like the 'prentice of old, I might have been very happy here. But I have other hopes in view, and a married private secretary would be impossible. It's lucky, then, that there is another opening--yes, Marian, a new chance, which, I think, promises, splendidly promises, to realise all we have hoped--all I have hoped for, all you can have justly anticipated--speedy union for us both, under decent competence when united. Listen.
"My old friend Byrne, of whom you heard so much when I was in London, wrote to me some time since, telling me that my name had been suggested as the correspondent then required for a London newspaper in Berlin. I thought but little of it at the moment, for though, thanks to old Dr. Breitmann, in the dear old days at Helmingham, I knew myself to be a tolerable German scholar, I doubted whether I had sufficient 'nous' and experience of the world for the post. I wrote this to Byrne, and I think he was rather of my opinion; but the man with whom the recommendation rested, and who knew me from having met me constantly during those weeks I was living with Byrne, and knew also some of my qualifications, as it was through him I obtained those odd jobs on the press, declared that I would be the very man for their purpose, and has so pressed the matter that I have agreed to let them have their answer with my decision in a week's time. For that decision I come to you. They offer me a year's engagement to start with, with the certainty of renewal if I fulfil their expectations, and four hundred a year, with the prospect of a rise. Four hundred a year, Marian, and in a country where money goes much further than in England! Four hundred a year, and we united for ever, and dear Mrs. Ashurst for, of course, she will be with us--with a son as well as a daughter to tend and care for her! Now you see why I made the commencement of my letter rather sombre and gloomy, in order to heighten the brilliancy of the finish. Now you see why I talked about the lodgings and the privations--because there is no need to submit to any of them.
"Marian darling, you must answer this instantly! I have no doubt as to the tone of your reply, but I can do nothing until I get it, and time presses. Don't be afraid of any ill-feeling on the part of Lord Hetherington or any one here. I have been able to render them something of a service--I will tell you about it when we meet--and they will all be delighted at anything which brings good fortune to me. And now good-bye! Think how little time now before I shall hold you in my arms! Write at once. God bless you, now and ever.
"Your WALTER."
Sunday morning at Woolgreaves; bright splendid sunshine, the frost all gone, and Nature, renovated by her six months' sleep, asserting herself in green bud and lovely almond blossom, and fresh sprouting herbage on every side. Far away on the horizon lay Brocksopp, the week-day smoke cloud, which no wind dispelled, yet hovering like a heavy pall over its sabbath stillness; but the intervening landscape was fresh and fine, and calculated to inspire peaceful thoughts and hopeful aspirations in all who looked on it. Such thoughts and such aspirations the contemplation of the scene inspired in old Mrs. Ashurst, who sat propped up by pillows in a large easy-chair in her sitting-room, gazing out of the window, looking at nothing, but enjoying everything with the tranquil serenity of old age. For several years past there had not been much life in the old lady, and there was very little now; her vital powers, never very strong, had been decaying slowly but surely, and Dr. Osborne knew that the time was not far distant when the widow of his old friend would be called away to rejoin the husband she had so dearly loved in the Silent Land.
"A case of gradual decay, my dear sir," said the little doctor, who had been up all night, bringing the heir of a neighbouring squire into the world, and who had stopped at Woolgreaves on his way home, and asked for breakfast--a meal which he was then taking in company with his host; "what we call thevis vitaequietly giving way."
"And by what I gather from you, doctor, I fear our old friend will not be much longer with us?"
"It is impossible to say, but I should think not. Sad thing for the daughter; she's very much attached to her mother, and will feel the loss very much. Wonderful girl that, sir!"
"Miss Ashurst? She is, indeed!" said Mr. Creswell abstractedly.
"Such a clever head, such individuality, such dominant will! Let her make up her mind to a thing and you may consider it done! Charming girl, too; simple, unaffected, affectionate. Dear me! I think I can see her now, in frilled trousers, bowling a hoop round the schoolhouse garden, and poor Ashurst pointing her out to me through the window! Poor Ashurst! dear me!"
Dr. Osborne pulled out a green silk pocket-handkerchief ornamented with orange spots, buried his face in it, and blew a loud and long note of defiance to the feelings which were very nearly making themselves manifest. When he reappeared to public gaze, Maude and Gertrude had entered the room, and the conversation took a different turn. The young ladies thought it a lovely morning, so fresh and nice, and they hoped they would have no more of that horrid winter, which they detested. Yes, they had seen dear Mrs. Ashurst, and she seemed much the same, if anything a little brighter than last night, but then she always was brighter in the mornings. Miss Ashurst had gone for a turn round the garden, her mother had said. And did uncle remember that they must go to Helmingham Church that morning? Oh! Dr. Osborne didn't know that Hooton Church was going to be repaired, and that there would not be service there for three or four Sundays. The snow had come through on to the organ, and when they went to repair the place they found that the roof was all rotten, and so they would have to have a new roof. And it was a pity, one of the young ladies thought, that while they were about it they didn't have a new clergyman instead of that deaf old Mr. Coulson, who mumbled so you couldn't hear him. And then Dr. Osborne told them they would be pleased at Helmingham Church, for they had a new organist, Mr. Hall, and he had organised a new choir, in which Miss Gill's soprano and Mr. Drake's bass were heard to the greatest effect. Time to start, was it not? Uncle must not forget the distance they had to walk. Yes, Maude would drive with Dr. Osborne with pleasure. She liked that dear old pony so much. She would be ready in an instant.
Marian went with the rest of the party to church, and sat with them immediately opposite the head-master's seat, where she had sat for so many years, and which, was directly in front of the big school pew. What memories came over her as she looked across the aisle! Her eyes rested on the manly figure and the M.B. waistcoat of Mr. Benthall, who sat in the place of honour; but after an instant he seemed to disappear as in a dissolving view, and there came in his place a bowed and shrunken elderly man, with small white hands nestling under his ample cuffs, all his clothes seemingly too large for him, big lustrous eyes, pale complexion, and iron-gray hair. No other change in the whole church, save in that pew. The lame man who acted as a kind of verger still stumped up the pulpit-stairs, and arranged the cushion, greatly to the horror of the preacher of the day, Mr. Trollope, who, being a little man, could hardly be seen in the deep pulpit, and whose soft little voice could scarcely be heard out of the mass of wood and cotton velvet in which he was steeped to the ears. The butcher, who was also churchwarden and a leading member of the congregation, still applied to himself all the self-accusatory passages in the responses in the Psalms, and gave them out, looking round at his fellow-parishioners, in a tone of voice which seemed to say, "See what an infernal scoundrel I am, and how I delight in letting you know it!" The boys in the school were in the same places--many of them were the same boys; and the bigger ones, who had been in love with Marian when she lived among them, nudged each other as she came in, and then became scarlet from their clean collars to the roots of their freshly pomatumed hair. Fresh faces nowhere but there. Change in no life but hers. Yes, as her eye rested on Mr. Creswell's solemn suit of black she remembered that life had changed also for him. And somehow, she could scarcely tell how, she felt comforted by the thought.
They left the church when the service was ended, but it was some time before they were able to start on their way home. Mr. Creswell came so seldom into Helmingham, that many of his old acquaintances saw him there for the first time since his wife's death, and came to offer their long-deferred condolence, and to chat over matters of local gossip. Marian, too, was always a welcome sight to the Helmingham people, and the women gathered round her and asked her about her mother's health, and of their prospects, and when they were going to leave Woolgreaves; to all of which questions Marian replied with perfect self-possession and without giving her querists any real information.
At last they set out homeward. Maude and Gertrude started off at a rapid rate, and were soon out of sight. Mr. Creswell and Marian walked quietly on together, talking on various subjects. Mr. Creswell was the principal speaker, Marian merely answering or commenting on what he said, and, contrary to her usual custom, never originating a subject. Her companion looked at her curiously two or three times during their walk; her eyes were downcast, her forehead knit, and there was a generally troubled expression in her face. At length, when they had nearly reached their destination, and had turned from the high-road into the Woolgreaves grounds through a private gate, he said----
"You are strangely silent to-day, missy. Has anything happened to vex you?"
"To vex me? Nothing in the world. And it had not even struck me that I was particularly silent. It seems to me as though we had been talking ever since we left Helmingham."
"We? I, you mean. You have been almost monosyllabic in your replies."
"Have I? That was scarcely polite when you take the trouble to talk to me, my kind friend. The fact is that I have been in a kind of day-dream, I believe."
"About the future, Marian?" Mr. Creswell said this so earnestly that the girl looked up into his face. His eyes fell before hers as she said, steadily----
"No; about the past. The sight of the school pew, and of another person there in papa's place, called up all sorts of recollections, which I was revolving instead of listening to you. Oh no!" she added, after a pause; "I love dreaming of the past, because, though it has here and there its dim hues and its one great and ineffaceable shadow of papa's loss, it was, on the whole, a happy time. But the future----" and she stopped suddenly, and shuddered.
"You have no pleasant anticipations of the future, Marian?" asked Mr. Creswell in a lower tone than he had hitherto spoken in.
"Can you ask me--you who know me and know how we are circumstanced? I declare I---- There! I'm always apt to forget myself when this subject is broached, and I speak out without thinking how uncalled for and ridiculous it is. Shall we walk on?"
"Not for an instant. I wanted to say a few words to you. I was talking to Dr. Osborne this morning about Mrs. Ashurst."
"About mamma?"
"The doctor said what cannot fail to have struck you, Marian, who are so devotedly attached to your mother and so constantly in attendance on her--that a great change has recently come over her, and that she is much more feeble and more helpless than she used to be. You have noticed this?"
"I have indeed. Dr. Osborne is perfectly right. Mamma is very much changed."
"It is obviously necessary that she should not feel the loss of any little comfort to which she may have been accustomed. It is most essential that her mind should not be disturbed by any harassing fears as to what might become of you after she was gone."
Marian was silent. Her face was deadly pale, and her eyes were downcast.
"There is only one way of securing our first object," continued Mr. Creswell, "and that is by your continuing in this house."
"That is impossible, Mr. Creswell. I have already explained to you the reason."
"Not impossible in one way, Marian--a way too that will secure the other object we have in view--your mother's peace of mind about you. Marian, will you remain in this house as its mistress--as my wife?"
It had come at last, the golden chance! She knew that he understood she had accepted him, and that was all. Mr. Creswell went on rapturously, telling her how his love had grown as he had watched her beauty, her charming intelligence, her discretion, and her worth; how he had been afraid she might think he was too old for her; how she should prove the warmth of his affection and the depth of his gratitude. All this he said, but she heard none of it. Her brain was running on her having at last achieved the position and the wealth so long a source of bitter misery and despair to her. The end was gained; now life would indeed be something to her.
When they reached the house, Mr. Creswell wanted to go with her at once to Mrs. Ashurst's room; but Marian begged to be alone for a few moments, and parted with him at the door. As she passed through the hall she saw a letter lying on the table addressed to her. It was the letter from Walter Joyce.