Marian held the letter in her hand for a moment, irresolute whether to open it and read it at once, or to defer its perusal until another opportunity, when her mind might be less perturbed, and the feeling of conscious guilt then uppermost in her soul might have become quieted and soothed down. She was fully alive to the knowledge that she had behaved with the blackest treachery to Walter Joyce, had dealt him the severest stab, the deadliest blow, of which she was capable, had--for the time at least--completely blackened his future prospects; and yet, although he had done nothing to deserve this base treatment--on the contrary, had been for ever loyal and devoted to her under the most adverse circumstances--her feeling for him was not one of pity, of regret, or even of contempt, but of downright hatred. She knew that she had been seriously to blame in neglecting all correspondence with her lover of late, and she imagined that the letter, which she still held unopened in her hand, was doubtless one of remonstrance or complaint. He had no right now to address her after such fashion, or indeed after any fashion whatever. This last thought struck her for an instant with a touch of tenderness, but she quickly put it aside as she thrust the letter into the bosom of her dress, and made her way to her mother's room.
She found Mrs. Ashurst seated in the bay-window, at the little round table, on which lay her large-printed Bible, her bottle of smelling-salts, and her spectacle-case. Mrs. Ashurst had always been a small-framed, delicate-featured woman, but in these last few months she seemed to have shrunk away almost to nothing. The light steel frame of her spectacles looked disproportionately heavy on her thin nose, and her sunk pallid face, with the complexion of that dead white colour so often seen in old women, was almost lost in the plaits and frills of her neat cap. Though the day was fine and bright outside, the old lady evidently felt the cold; she wore a thick twilled woollen shawl thrown over her shoulders, and her cosy armchair was in the full view of the fire. She looked up as Marian entered, and, when she recognised the visitor, gave a little smile of welcome, took off her spectacles, closed her book, and put up her face for her daughter's kiss.
"What a long time you have been away, dear!" she said, in the softest little voice. "I thought you were never coming back! I was wondering what had become of you!"
"Did you think Dr. Osborne had run off with me in the four-wheeler, mother?" said Marian, smiling. "The knight and his means of flight are about equally romantic! We're later than usual, dear, because Hooton Church is closed for repairs, and we've been to Helmingham!"
"Yes, I know that; but Maude and Gertrude went to Helmingham too, didn't they? And I'm sure I've heard their voices about the house this half-hour!"
"There were all sorts of Helmingham people to speak to in the churchyard after service--Mrs. Simmons, who is growing quite gray; and old Mrs. Peak, whose feet are very bad again, so bad that she can hardly get about now, poor soul; and young Freeman and young Ball, who have taken Mr. Smyth's corn-chandlery business at Brocksopp, and go over there next week; and Sam Baker, who is very much grown, and of whom Mr. Benthall speaks very highly. They all asked very kindly after you, mother!"
"I'm very much obliged to them, my dear. I shan't trouble them long, and----"
"Now, don't you remember your promise never to talk in that way again?"
"Well, my dear, I won't if you don't like it. As for myself--however, no matter! And did you walk back with Mr. Creswell?"
"Yes, mother. Maude and Gertrude hurried on, and Mr. Creswell and I came leisurely after."
"You'll become quite old-fashioned if you're so much with Mr. Creswell, Marian. Though why I say 'become,' I'm sure I don't know. You've always been old-fashioned from a child up."
"And am likely to remain so, dear, to all appearances!" said Marian, with a soft smile, bending down and kissing her mother's forehead. "Have you taken your medicine? No! then let me give it to you!" She went to a small cabinet, and brought out a tumbler and a spoon.
"I'm very glad you thought of the medicine, Marian," said the old lady; "not that it does me the least good, let Dr. Osborne say what he may, but because your fetching those things from that place reminded me of something I wanted to say to you. I've been all this morning--ever since I finished reading the lessons--I've been going through the furniture in that parlour of Mrs. Swainson's in my mind, and I'm perfectly certain there's nothing, not even a common cupboard, to lock up anything!"
"Isn't there, mother?" said Marian wearily.
"Isn't there? No, indeed there is nothing, dear! Though you don't seem to think much about it, it's a very serious thing. Of course, one would keep the tea and sugar in the caddy, but there are many little odds and ends that ought to be locked up, and---- Are you listening to me, Marian?"
"Yes, mother," she said, but her looks belied her words. She was leaning against the mantelpiece, her head resting on her hand, and her thoughts were evidently far away.
"I wonder you had not noticed that, Marian, when we went over the lodgings," pursued Mrs. Ashurst. "You're generally such a one to notice these kind of things, and I've been used to depend upon you, so that I think nothing about them. What shall we do about that? I suppose Mrs. Swainson would not be inclined to buy a cabinet--a second-hand one would do perfectly----"
"I don't think we need go into the question. We shall never go to Mrs. Swainson's lodgings!"
"No? What shall we do, then?"
"Remain here!"
"Well, my dear," said the old lady, "if you change your plans so often, how am I possibly to know where we're going, or what we're going to do? Not that I want to be consulted, but I really might as well be a chair or a table for the manner in which I am treated. I thought you said, not more than a fortnight ago, that it was impossible we could stop here any longer!"
"So I did, mother; but circumstances have changed since then. This morning, as we walked from church, Mr. Creswell asked me to become his wife."
"His wife! Mr. Creswell! you to--and you accepted him?"
"I did!"
The old lady fell back in her chair, her eyes closed, her hands fluttering nervously before her. Marian ran to her mother and knelt by her side, but Mrs. Ashurst revived almost immediately--revived sufficiently to place her hand round her daughter's neck and to whisper in her ear, "For my sake?"
"I don't understand you, dearest mother."
"For my sake? You've done this for my sake that I may be comfortable and happy for the rest of my life, that I may have these things, luxuries"--pointing with her hand round the room. "You've sacrificed yourself! It must not be; listen, Marian--it must not be!"
"Darling mother, you're all wrong, indeed you are--you're quite mistaken."
"Marian, it must not be! I'm a weakly woman, I know, but what answer should I make to your dear father when I meet him again--soon now, very soon, please God!--if I permitted this thing! What would he say if he learned that I was selfish enough to permit you to sacrifice yourself, you whom he so worshipped, to become the wife of an old man, in order that I might profit by it? What would he think of Mr. Creswell, who pretended to be his friend, and who would----"
"Mother, dearest mother, you must not speak against Mr. Creswell, please! Recollect he is to be my husband!"
"Very well, my dear," said the old lady quietly; "I'll ask you one question, and after that you'll never hear me open my lips on the matter. Do you love Mr. Creswell?"
"Yes, mother."
"Better than any other man living?"
"Ye-yes, mother." She hesitated for an instant, but the answer came round and firm at last.
"You swear that to me?"
"Yes, mother."
"That's enough, my dear! I shall be ready to face your father now." Mrs. Ashurst then removed her arm from her daughter's neck and lay back in her chair. After a minute or two she told Marian she had heard the luncheon-gong sound, and that she would prefer being left alone for a little. When Marian came up to kiss her before leaving the room, the little old lady's white face became suffused with a glow of colour, and the voice in which she prayed God to bless her child, and keep her happy throughout her life, was broken with emotion, and weaker and fainter than ever.
When she was alone Mrs. Ashurst pondered long and earnestly over what she had just heard. Of course, the question of Marian's future--and to her parents as well as herself the future of every girl means her marriage--had been often thought of by her mother. She and her dead husband had talked of it in the summer evenings after supper and before retiring to rest, the only time which the school-work left for James Ashurst to devote to himself, and even then he was generally rather fatigued with past, or preoccupied with growing work. It was very general, the talk between them, and principally carried on by Mrs. Ashurst; she had wondered when Marian would marry, and whom; she had gone through the list of eligible young men in the neighbourhood, and had speculated on their incomes and their chances of being thrown with Marian in such little company as they kept. She had wondered how they at home would be able to get on without her; whether she herself would be able to undertake the domestic superintendence, as she had done in the old days before Marian was of an age to be useful; whether Marian would not settle somewhere near, where she might still take an interest in her old work, and many other odd and profitless speculations, to which the dominie would give an affirmative or negative grunt or comment, wondering all the while how he was to meet that acceptance which he had given to Barlow, and which became due on the twenty-seventh, or whether his old college chum Smith, now a flourishing physician in Cheltenham, would lend him the fifty pounds for which he had made so earnest an appeal. But all this seemed years ago to Mrs. Ashurst as she thought of it. For many months before her husband's death the subject had not been mooted between them; the cold calm external impassibility, and the firm determination of Marian's character, seemed to her mother to mark her for one of those women destined by nature to be single, and therefore somewhat fitted for the condition. A weak woman herself, and with scarcely any perception of character, believing that nearly all women were made in the same mould and after the same type, Mrs. Ashurst could not understand the existence of the volcano under the placid surface. Only gushing, giggling, blushing girls fulfilled her idea of loving women, or women lovable by men. Marian was so "odd" and "strange," so determined, so strong-minded, that she never seemed to think of love-making, nor indeed, her mother thought, had she been ever so much that way disposed, would she have had any time for it.
And now Marian was going to be married! Years rolled away, and the old lady saw herself in the same condition, but how differently circumstanced! Her James was young and strong and handsome. How splendid he looked in his flannel boating-dress, when he came to spend a hurried holiday at her father's river-side cottage! How all the people in the church admired him on their wedding-day It was impossible that Marian could love this man, who was quite old enough to be her father,--love him, that is, in the proper way, in the way that a husband should be loved. She could look up to him, and respect and reverence him, and so on; but that was not the way in which she had loved her James. She had not the least respect for him, but used to laugh at him for his awkwardness, and great strong clumsy ways, never knowing what to do with his long legs and his great feet, and used to call him "a great goose;" she recollected that, and the recollection brought the colour to her face, and made her smile in spite of herself. Marian could never call Mr. Creswell "a great goose," could never think of him so familiarly, no matter how long they might be married. What could have brought it about? She had very good eyes, she thought, and yet she had never suspected Mr. Creswell of any partiality for Marian; any, at least, beyond that which a man in his position and of his age might be expected to feel for a bright intelligent girl with whom he was thrown into frequent contact. And as for Marian, it was the last thing she should have expected of her. If she were to think of marriage, which Mrs. Ashurst never contemplated, she would not have suffered herself to be thrown away on a man so much older than herself; she would have looked for some one whom she could love. No; it was what had first struck her, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she grew. Marian had sacrificed herself on the shrine of filial duty; she had accepted the position of Mr. Creswell's wife in order that her mother might be able to continue in the house where all possible comforts and luxuries were at her command. It was a good motive, a noble affectionate resolve, but it would never turn out well, she was sure of that. There had been a baronet once under James's tuition--what was his name? Attride, Sir Joseph Attride, a young man of rather weak intellect--who had been sent by his friends to be what James called "coached for something," and who had a very large fortune; why did not Marian take him, or Mr. Lawrence, the miller and churchwarden, who was very rich, and took so much snuff? Either of them would have been much more suited to her than Mr. Creswell. And so the old lady sat--chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, but always coming back to her proposition that Marian had sacrificed herself for her mother's sake--throughout the afternoon.
When Marian left her mother she did not take the hint about the luncheon-gong--the pretence under which Mrs. Ashurst had asked to be left to herself. She knew that if her absence from the table were remarked, it would be attributed to the fact of her being engaged in attendance on her mother. She knew further that Mr. Creswell would not expect to see her just then, and she calculated on having two or three hours to herself free from all interruption. So she went straight to her own room, turned the key in the lock, sat herself down in a low chair opposite the fire--fires are kept constantly alive in that north-midland county, where coals are cheap, and the clay soil cold and damp--took Walter Joyce's letter from the bosom of her dress, opened, and began to read it. It was a task-work which she had to go through, and she nerved herself as for a task-work. Her face was cold and composed, her lower jaw set and rigid. As she read on the rigidity of her muscles seemed to increase. She uttered no sound, but read carefully every word. A slight expression of scorn crossed her face for a moment at Walter's insisting on the necessity of their good faith towards each other, but the next instant it vanished, and the set rigidity returned--returned but to be equally fleeting, to be swept away in a storm of weeping, in a hurricane of tears, in a wild outburst of genuine womanly feeling, showing itself in heaving bosom, in tear-blistered face, in passionate rocking to and fro, in frenzied claspings of the hands and tossing of the head, and in low moaning cries of, "Oh, my love! my love!"
It was the perusal of the end of Joyce's letter that had brought Marian Ashurst into this state; it was the realisation of the joy which, in his utter devotion to her, must have filled his heart as he was enabled to offer to share what he imagined great prosperity with her, that wrung her conscience and showed her treatment of him in its worst light. It was of her alone that he thought when this offer was made to him. He spoke of it simply as a means to an end--that end their marriage and the comfort of her mother, whose burden he also proposed to undertake. He said nothing of what hard work, what hitherto unaccustomed responsibility, it would entail upon him; he thought but of the peace of mind, the freedom from worry, the happiness which he imagined it would bring to her. How noble he was how selfless and single-minded! This was a man to live and die for and with indeed! Was it too late? Should she go bravely and tell Mr. Creswell all? He was sensible and kind-hearted, would see the position, and appreciate her motives, though the blow would be a heavy one for him. He would let her retract her consent, he would---- Impossible! It might have been possible if she had read the letter before she had told her mother of Mr. Creswell's proposal, but now impossible. Even to her mother she could not lay bare the secrets of her heart, disclose the slavery in which she was held by that one ruling passion under whose control she had broken her own plighted word, and run the risk of breaking one of the truest and noblest hearts that ever beat.
No; she could not do that. She was growing calmer now; her tears had ceased to flow, and she was walking about the room, thinking the matter out. No; even suppose--well, this proposal had not been made: it would have been impossible to move Mrs. Ashurst in her then state to Berlin, and she could not have gone without her; so that Walter must either have gone alone, or the marriage must have been deferred. And then the income--four hundred a year. It was very good, no doubt, in comparison to what they had been existing on since papa's death--very superior to anything they could have expected, quite a sufficiency for one or two young people to begin life upon; but for three, and the third one an invalid, in a foreign country? No; it was quite impossible. Marian looked round the room as she said these words; her eyes lighted on the bright furniture, the pretty prints that adorned the walls, the elegant ornaments and nick-nacks scattered about, the hundred evidences of wealth and taste which were henceforth to be at her entire command, and repeated, "Quite impossible!" more decisively than before. By this time she was quite herself again, had removed every trace of her recent discomposure, and had made up her mind definitively as to her future. Only one thing troubled her,--what should be her immediate treatment of Walter Joyce? Should she ignore the receipt of his letter, leave it unanswered, take the chance of his understanding from her silence that all was over between them? Or should she write to him, telling him exactly what had happened--putting it, of course, in the least objectionable way for herself? Or should she temporise, giving her mother's delicate state of health and impossibility of removal abroad as the ground of her declining to be married at once, as he required, and beginning by various hints, which she thought she could manage cleverly enough, to pave the way for the announcement, to be delayed as long as practicable, that their engagement was over, and that she was going to marry some one else? At first she was strongly inclined to act upon the last of these three motives, thinking that it would be easier to screen herself, or at all events to bear the brunt of Joyce's anger when he was abroad. But after a little consideration, a better spirit came over her. She had to do what was a bad thing at best; she would do it in the least offensive manner possible,--she would write to him.
She sat down at the little ink-bespattered, old-fashioned writing-desk which she had had for so many years, on which she had written so often to her lover, and which contained a little packet of his letters, breathing of hope and trust and deep-rooted affection in every line, and wrote--
"Woolgreaves, Sunday.
"MY DEAR WALTER,
"I have something to tell you which you must know at once. I can approach the subject in no roundabout fashion, because I know it will cause you a great shock, and it is better for you to know it at once. I do not pretend to any doubt about the pain and grief which I am sure it will cause you. I will tell you my reasons for the step I am about to take when I tell you what I have already done. Walter, I have broken my engagement with you. I have promised to marry Mr. Creswell.
"I write this to you at once, almost directly after he proposed to me, and I have accepted him. Does it seem harsh and coarse in me to announce this to you so immediately? Believe me, the announcement is made from far different motives. I could not bear to be deceiving you. You will sneer at this, and say I have been deceiving you all along. I swear I have not. You will think that the very silence for which you reproached me in the letter just received has been owing to my dislike to tell you of the change in affairs. I swear it has not. I had no idea until this morning that Mr. Creswell liked me in any especial way; certainly none that he would ever ask me to become his wife.
"When he asked me, I had not had your letter. If I had, it would have made no difference in the answer I made to Mr. Creswell, but it deepens the pain with which I now write to you, showing me as it does, to an extent which I did not before quite realise, the store which you set by what is now lost to us for ever. I do not say this in excuse of myself or my deeds; I have no excuse to make. I have tried, and tried hard, to live in the position of life in which I have been placed. I have struggled with poverty, and tried to face the future--which would have been worse than poverty, penury, misery, want perhaps--with calmness. I have failed. I cannot help it, it is my nature to love money and all that money brings, to love comforts and luxuries, to shrink from privation. Had I gone straight from my father's deathbed to your house as your wife, I might perhaps have battled on; but we came here, and--I cannot go back. You will be far happier without me when your first shock is over. I should have been an impossible wife for a poor man, I know I should--complaining, peevish, irritable; ever repining at my poverty, ever envying the wealth of others. You are better without me, Walter, you are indeed! Our ways of life will be very different, and we shall never come across each other in any probability. If we should, I hope we shall meet as friends. I am sure it will not be very long before you recognise the wisdom of the course I am now taking, and are grateful to me for having taken it. You are full of talent, which you will now doubtless turn to good account, and of worthy aspirations, which you will find some one to sympathise with, and share the upward career which I am sure is before you. I thought I could have done as much at one time, but I know now that I could not, and I should be only acting basely and wickedly towards you, though you will not think it more basely and wickedly than I am now acting with you, if I had gone on pretending that I could, and had burdened you for life with a soured and discontented woman. I have no more to say.
"MARIAN."
"You do not repent of what you said to me this morning, Marian?" said Mr. Creswell in a whisper, as he took her in to dinner.
"On the contrary," she replied in the same tone, "I am too happy to have been able to gratify you by saying it."
"What has happened with Miss A.?" whispered Gertrude to Maude, at the same time; "I don't like the look in her eyes."
And certainly they did look triumphant, almost insolently so, when their glance fell on the girls.
Saturday morning, the day after that on which Joyce had sent off the eventful letter to Marian. Twelve o'clock, and no appearance as yet of Lady Caroline Mansergh, who had sent word that she had a slight headache, and would take her breakfast in her room. Lady Hetherington hated people having breakfast in their rooms: it did not, of course, inconvenience her in the least; she herself was never particularly lively in the morning, and spoke very little, and disliked being spoken to, so that it was not the loss of companionship that she regretted; it was merely what people called a "fad" of hers, that the household generally should assemble at the breakfast-table, and she was annoyed when anything occurred to prevent it.
Her ladyship was generally out of temper that morning, several things having conspired to disturb her equanimity. They were about to move the establishment to London, which was always a sore trial for her at the best of times; but now that they were going up before Easter, it was specially hard to bear. She had told Lord Hetherington, as she pathetically narrated both orally and by letter to all her friends, that it was useless their going to Hetherington House at that time of the year, when they would find no one in town but members' wives who had come up for the session, and the wretched people who live there all their lives; there wouldn't be a soul they knew, and the draughts at Hetherington House were perfectly awful; and yet Lord Hetherington would go. She could not imagine what had come to him. The last morning's post had brought her a letter from her milliner, asking for money; and even the greatest ladies sometimes not merely dislike being asked for money, but have difficulty in finding it; and the countess's stock of ready cash happened to be very low at that moment. And the new housekeeper who had come from Lady Rundell Glasse's, and who was so highly recommended, had turned out a complete failure, and must be got rid of before they go to town; and old Mrs. Mason, the town housekeeper, must be telegraphed to to look out for some one else; and altogether her ladyship was thoroughly upset, and, wanting some one to vent her ill-humour on, and having lost her judgment as well as her temper, thought she would find that some one in Lady Caroline. So, when twelve o'clock arrived, and her sister-in-law had not put in an appearance, the countess went to her room, entered upon her knock, and found Lady Caroline buried in a huge chair in front of the fire reading a book, while her maid was combing her hair. There was scarcely anything which Lady Caroline liked better than having her hair combed--not dressed, that she hated--but quietly combed and brushed alternately. She almost purred under the sensation, like a cat whose fur is smoothed the right way; it was pleasant, it was refreshing, it soothed her, and put her on good terms with the world; so that when she looked up and saw Lady Hetherington, to whom she was not very partial, she received her with a smile, and expressed her delight at the visit.
"It is really immensely good of you to come and see me, Margaret, especially when I know you're not fond of taking trouble in a general way," she said, putting her book on to her lap and looking up languidly.
"They told me you were ill, or I don't know that I should have come," retorted Lady Hetherington with some asperity.
"Ah, that was quite right of them; I told them to say that.--You can go, Phillips"--to the maid--"I'll ring when I want you.--I don't suppose there's any harm in sending mendacious messages by the servants; do you? It would be far more demoralising to them if one were to tell the truth and say one was lazy, and that kind of thing, because it would provoke their contempt instead of their pity, and fill them with horrible revolutionary ideas that there was no reason why they shouldn't be lazy as well as we, and all sorts of dreadful things."
"If I had thought it was mere laziness that kept you to your room this morning, Caroline, I think my dislike 'of taking trouble in a general way' would have influenced me in this particular instance, and saved you the bore of my interrupting you."
"That's where you're so ungenerous, Margaret. Not the smallest bore in the world; the stupidity of this book, and Phillips's action with the hair-brush combined, were sending me off to sleep, and you interfered at an opportune moment to rescue me. How is West this morning?"
"Very much as he was last night. Intent on distinguishing himself on this--what do you call it?--irrigation scheme."
"Oh dear, still harping on those channels and pipes, and all the rest of it! Poor Mr. Joyce! there is plenty of work in store for him, poor fellow."
"Dreadful, will it not be, for that charming young man to be compelled to work to earn his wages?" said Lady Hetherington with a sneer.
Lady Caroline looked up, half astonished, half defiant. "Salary, not wages, Margaret," she said, after a moment's pause.
"Salary, then," said her ladyship shortly; "it's all the same thing."
"No, dear, it isn't. Salary isn't wages; just as the pin-money which West allows you isn't hire. You see the difference, dear?"
"I see that you're making a perfect fool of yourself with regard to this man!" exclaimed Lady Hetherington, thoroughly roused.
"What man?" asked Lady Caroline in all apparent simplicity.
"What man? Why, this Mr. Joyce! And I think, Caroline, that if you choose to forget your own position, you ought to think of us, and have some little regard for decency; at all events, so long as you're staying in our house!"
"All right, dear," said Lady Caroline with perfect coolness. "I'm sorry that my conduct gives you offence, but the remedy is easy. I'll tell West how you feel about it at luncheon, and I'll leave your house before dinner!"
A home-thrust, as Lady Caroline well knew. The only time that Lord Hetherington during his life had managed to pluck up a spirit was on the occasion of some real or fancied slight offered by his wife to his sister. Tail-lashings and roarings, and a display of fangs are expected from the tiger, if, as the poet finely puts it, "it is his nature to." But when the mild and inoffensive sheep paws the ground, and makes ready for an onslaught with his head, it is the more terrible because it is so unexpected. Lord Hetherington's assertion of his dignity and his rights on the one occasion in question was so tremendous that her ladyship never forgot it, and she was extremely unwilling to go through such another scene. So her manner was considerably modified, and her voice considerably lowered in tone as she said----
"No, but really, Caroline, you provoke me into saying things which you know I don't mean. You are so thoughtless and headstrong----"
"I never was cooler or calmer in my life! You complain of my conduct in your house. It would be utterly beneath me to defend that conduct, it requires no defence, so I take the only alternative left, and quit your house."
"No; but, Caroline, can't you see----"
"I can see this, Lady Hetherington, and I shall mention it once for all. You have never treated that gentleman, Mr. Joyce, as he ought to be treated. He is a gentleman, in mind and thought and education, and he comes here and does for poor dear stupid West what West is totally unable to do himself, and yet is most anxious to have the credit of. The position which Mr. Joyce holds is a most delicate one, one which he fills most delicately, but one which any man with a less acute sense of honour and right might use to his own advantage, and to bring ridicule on his employer. Don't fancy I'm hard on dear old West in saying this; if he's your husband he's my brother, and you can't be more jealous of his name than I am. But it's best to be plainspoken about the matter now, it may save some serious difficulties hereafter. And how do you treat this gentleman? Until I spoke to you some months since you ignored his presence; although he was domesticated in your house you scarcely knew his personal appearance. Since then you bow, and give him an occasional word, but you're not half so polite to him as you are to the quadrille-bandsman when he is in much request, or to the Bond Street librarian when stalls for some particular performance are scarce. I am different; I am sick to death of 'us' and our 'set,' and our insipidfadeways, and our frightful conventionality and awful dulness! Our men are even more odious than our women, and that's saying a good deal; their conversation varies between insolence and inanity, and as they dare not talk the first to me, they're compelled to fall back on the second. When I meet this gentleman, I find him perfectly well-bred, perfectly at his ease, with a modest assurance which is totally different from the billiard-table swagger of the men of the day; perfectly respectful, full of talk on interesting topics, never for an instant pressing himself unduly forward, or forgetting that he is what he is--a gentleman! I find a charm in his society; I acknowledge it; I have never sought to disguise it. The fact that he saved my life at the hazard of his own does not tend to depreciate him in my eyes. And then, because I like him and have the honesty to say so, I am bid to 'think of' my relations, and 'have regard for decency!' A little too much, upon my word!"
People used to admire Lady Caroline's flashing eyes, but her sister-in-law had never seen them flash so brilliantly before, nor had her voice, even when singing its best, ever rung so keenly clear. For once in her life, Lady Hetherington was completely put down and extinguished; she muttered something about "not having meant anything," as she made her way to the door, and immediately afterwards she disappeared.
"That woman is quite too rude!" said Lady Caroline to herself, ringing the bell as soon as the door closed behind her sister-in-law. "If she thinks to try her tempers on me, she will find herself horribly mistaken. One sufferer is quite enough in a family, and poor West must have the entire monopoly of my lady's airs!--Now, Phillips, please to go on brushing my hair!"
Meantime, the cause of all this commotion and outbreak between these two ladies, Walter Joyce, utterly unconscious of the excitement he was creating, was pursuing the even tenor of his way as calmly as the novel circumstances of his position would admit. Of course, with the chance of an entire change in his life hanging over him--a change involving marriage, residence in a foreign country, and an occupation which was almost entirely strange to him--it was not possible for him to apply his mind unreservedly to the work before him. Marian's face would keep floating before him instead of the lovely countenance of Eleanor de Sackville, erst maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, who had this in common with Marmion's friend, Lady Heron, that fame "whispered light tales" of her. Instead of Westhope, as it was in the old days, with its fosse, drawbridge, portcullis, ramparts, and all the mediaevalisms which it is in duty bound to have, Walter's fancy was endeavouring to realise to itself the modern city of Berlin, on the river Spree, while his brain was busied in conjecturing the nature of his forthcoming duties, and in wondering whether he possessed the requisite ability for executing them. Yes! he could get through them, and not merely that, but do them well, do anything well with Marian by his side. Brightened in every possible way by the prospect before him, better even in health and certainly in spirits, he looked back with wonder on his past few months' career; he could not understand how he had been so calm, so unexpectant, so unimpassioned. He could not understand how the only real hopes and fears of his life, those with which Marian was connected, had fallen into a kind of quiescent state, which he had borne with and accepted. He could not understand that now, when the hopes had been aroused and sent springing within him, and the fears had been banished, at least for a while. For a while?--for ever! The mere existence of any fear was an injustice to Marian. She had been true and steadfast, and good and loving. She had proved it nobly enough. The one weakness which formed part of her character, an inability to contend with poverty--a venial failing enough, Walter Joyce thought, especially in a girl who must have known, more particularly in one notable instance, the sad results of the want of means--would never now be tried. There would be no need for her to struggle, no necessity for pinching and screwing. Accustomed since his childhood to live on the poorest pittance, Joyce looked at the salary now offered to him as real wealth, position-giving, and commanding all comforts, if not luxuries. The thought of this, and the knowledge that she would be able to take her mother with her to share her new home, would give Marian the greatest pleasure. He pictured her in that new home, bright, sunny, and cheerful; the look of care and anxiety, the two deep brow-lines which her face had worn during the last year of their residence at Helmingham quite obliterated; the old, cheerful, ringing tone restored to her voice, and the earnest, steadfast, loving gaze in her quiet eyes; and the thought almost unmanned him. He pulled out his watch-chain, took from it the locket containing Marian's portrait (but a very poor specimen of photography, taken by an "arteeste" who had visited Helmingham in a green van on wheels, and who both orally and in his printed bills laid immense stress on the fact that not merely the portrait, but a frame and hook to hang it up by, were in certain cases "given in"), and kissed it tenderly. "In a very little time now, my darling!" he murmured--"in a very little time we shall be happy."
Pondering on his coming meeting with Marian actively suggested the thought of the severance of existing ties, and the parting with the people with whom he was then domesticated. He had been very happy, he thought, all things considered. He was in a bright pleasant mood, and thus indisposed to think harshly of anything, even of Lady Hetherington's occasional fits of temper or insolence. Certainly Lady Hetherington had always treated him with perfect courtesy, and since the great day of the ice-accident had evinced towards him a marked partiality. As for Lady Caroline--he did not know why his cheek should flush as he thought of her, he felt it flush, but he did not know why--as for Lady Caroline, she had been a true friend; nothing could, exceed the kindness which she had shown him from the day of his arrival among the family, and he should always think of her with interest and regard. It was clearly his duty to tell Lord Hetherington of the offer he had received, and of the chance of his leaving his secretaryship. Or, as Lord Hetherington was scarcely a man of business, and as Lady Hetherington cared but little about such matters, and might not be pleased at having them thrust under her notice, it would be better to mention it to Lady Caroline. She would be most interested, and, he thought, with the flush again rising in his face, most annoyed at the news; though he felt sure that it was plainly a rise in life for him, and his proper course to pursue, and would eventually give her pleasure. He would not wait for the receipt of Marian's reply--there was no need for that, his bounding heart told him--but he would take the first opportunity that offered of telling Lady Caroline how matters stood, and asking her advice as to how he should mention the fact to her brother. That opportunity came speedily. As Joyce was sitting in the library, his desk an island in a sea of deeds and papers and pedigrees, memorials of bygone Wests, his pen idly resting in his hand, his eyes looking steadfastly at nothing, and his brains busy with the future, the door opened, and Lady Caroline entered. Joyce looked up, and for the third time within an hour the flush mounted to his face.
"I'm very sorry to disturb you, Mr. Joyce," said her ladyship, "but I have two or three notes for to-night's post, and the house is so upset with this coming departure for London, that there's not a quiet place where one can write a line but here. I'll sit down at West's writing-table and be as mute as a mouse."
"There's no occasion for silence, Lady Caroline," replied Joyce. "I am not specially busy just now, and indeed I was going to ask the favour of a little conversation with you."
"Conversation with me?" And Lady Caroline's voice, unconsciously perhaps, became a little harder, her manner a little less familiar as she spoke.
"With you, if you please. I have some news to tell, and some advice to ask."
"I'm sure I shall be delighted to hear the first and to give the second--that is, if advice from me would be of any use to you, which I very much doubt." Neither voice nor manner were in the least relaxed, and Lady Caroline's face was very pale, and rather hard and stern. "However," she added, after a moment's pause, finding he did not speak, and in a different tone, "under present circumstances I ought to feel very little compunction in disturbing you, for you go to town on Wednesday, and you know you prophesied for yourself the strictest seclusion when once you arrived at Hetherington House."
"That is the very matter on which I wanted to speak to you, Lady Caroline!"
"Indeed!" said Lady Caroline, with a rather disappointed air.
"I don't suppose that I shall ever set foot inside Hetherington House."
"Why, you don't mean to say you have gone back to that originally preposterous notion of remaining here after we have all gone? Do you remember the man who was going to play Othello and blacked himself all over, Mr. Joyce? There is such a thing as overdoing one's devotion to one's duty; or rather, what one imagines one's duty."
"No, I certainly do not intend to remain at Westhope."
"You are pleased to speak in enigmas to-day, Mr. Joyce, and as I am horridly stupid at such things, and never guessed one of them in my life, I must be content to wait until you are further pleased to explain." There was an impertinence about her ladyship sometimes in look and tone which became her immensely, and was extraordinarily provoking.
"Seriously, then, Lady Caroline, I am thinking of leaving my present occupation----"
"Of leaving us--I mean Lord Hetherington?" interrupted Lady Caroline.
"Yes. Not that I am not, as I ought to be, thoroughly grateful to his lordship and to everybody of his family for their kindness and consideration to me, but the fact is that I have received an offer of employment which, perhaps, will suit me better, and----"
"You would be very foolish not to avail yourself of it, then, Mr. Joyce," again interrupted Lady Caroline, the chilling tone coming back to her voice and the stern look to her face.
"Will you kindly hear me out?" said Joyce. "I am not exaggerating when I say that I am so grateful for all the kindness which I have received in this house, that nothing would tempt me to leave it that did not give me the chance of being enabled to gratify the one wish of my life. The offer which has been made to me will, I think, do this. You have been good enough, Lady Caroline, to admit me to sufficient intimacy to talk of my private affairs, and when I mention the one wish of my life, you will know that I mean my marriage with Miss Ashurst."
"Certainly," said Lady Caroline, full of attention; "and the proposition which is under your consideration--or, rather, which I suppose you have accepted--will enable you to carry out this plan?"
"It will. There shall be no disguise with you. I am offered the post of Berlin correspondent to a London newspaper. The salary would not be considered large by you, or any one of your--you know what I mean," he said, in answer to an impatient movement of her head. "But it is sufficient to enable me to offer Marian the comforts which she ought to have, and to receive her mother to live with us."
"That will be very nice--very nice indeed," said Lady Caroline reflectively. "I'm sure I congratulate you very heartily, Mr. Joyce--very heartily. I think you said, when that man--what's his name?--Lord Hetherington's agent--said something about a boy whom you knew being killed--I think you said you had not heard from Miss Ashurst for some time."
"Yee; I did say so."
"Have you heard since?"
"No, I have not. But I can perfectly understand her silence, and you would if you knew her. Marian is one of those persons who, on occasions like this--of illness and death, I mean--are the mainstay of the place wherever they may happen to be, and have to take the whole burden of management on to their own shoulders."
"Of course--certainly--no doubt," said Lady Caroline. "And she has not written since the boy's death?"
"No, not since."
"It must have been a sad blow for the old father to bear. I don't know why I call him old, though. What age is he?"
"Mr. Creswell? About fifty-five, I should think."
"Ah, poor man! poor man!" said Lady Caroline, with much greater expression of pity for Mr. Creswell than when she first heard of Tom's death. "You have written to Miss Ashurst, informing her of this proposition, you say, Mr. Joyce?"
"Yes, I wrote directly the offer assumed a tangible form."
"And as yet you have not had her reply?"
"No; there has not been time. I only wrote yesterday; she will not get the letter until to-morrow."
"True, a two days' post from here to--where she is staying. Then you will look for her answer on Wednesday. Are you entirely depending on Miss Ashurst's reply?"
"I scarcely understand you, Lady Caroline."
"I mean, you are waiting until you hear from Miss Ashurst before you send your acceptance of this offer? Exactly so! But--suppose Miss Ashurst thought it unadvisable for her to leave this place where she is staying just now----"
"That is an impossible supposition."
"Well, then, put it that her mother's health--which you told me was ailing--was such as to prevent her from undertaking so long and serious a journey, and that she thought it her duty to remain by her mother----"
"'Forsaking all other, and cleaving only unto him,'" quoted Joyce with gravity.
"Yes, yes, my dear Mr. Joyce, very proper; but not the way of the world nowadays; besides, I'm sure you would not be selfish enough to have the old lady left behind amongst strangers. However, grant it hypothetically--would you still take up this appointment?"
"I cannot possibly say," replied Joyce, after a moment's pause. "The idea is quite new to me. I have never given it consideration."
"I think I should, under any circumstances, if I were you," said Lady Caroline earnestly, and looking hard at him. "You have talent, energy, and patience, the three great requisites for success, and you are, or I am very much mistaken, intended for a life of action. I do not advise you to continue in the course now opening to you. Even if you start for it, it should be made but a steppingstone to a higher and a nobler career."
"And that is----"
"Politics! Plunged in them you forget all smaller things, forget the petty disappointments and discouragements which we all have equally to contend with, whatever may be our lot in life, and wonder that such trivial matters ever caused you annoyance! Wedded to them, you want no other tie; ambition takes the place of love, is a thousand times more absorbing, and in most cases offers a far more satisfactory reward. You seem to me eminently suited for such a career, and if you were to take my advice, you will seek an opportunity for embracing it."
"You would not have me throw away the substance for the shadow? You forget that the chance of my life is now before me!"
"I am by no means so certain that it is the chance of your life, Mr. Joyce! I am by no means certain that it is for the best that this offer has been made to you, or that the result will prove as you imagine. But in any case you should think seriously of entering on a political career. Your constant cry has been on a matter on which we have always quarrelled, and a reference to which on your part very nearly sent me off just now--you will harp upon the difference of social position. Now, distinction in politics levels all ranks. The two leaders of political parties in the present day, who really havepasand precedence over the highest in the land, who are the dispensers of patronage, and the cynosures of the world, are men sprung from the people. There is no height to which the successful politician may not attain."
"Perhaps not," said Joyce. "But I confess I am entirely devoid of ambition!"
"You think so now, but you will think differently some day, perhaps. It is a wonderfully useful substitute."
"Would you advise me to speak to Lord Hetherington about my intentions?"
"I think not just yet, seeing that you scarcely know what your intentions are. I think I would wait until after Wednesday. Good-bye, Mr. Joyce; I have gossiped away all my spare time, and my letters must wait till to-morrow. You will not fail to let me know when you receive your reply. I shall be most anxious to know."
"This country beauty is playing fast and loose with him," said Lady Caroline to herself, as the door closed behind her. "She is angling for a bigger fish, and he is so innocent, or so much in love--the same thing--as not to perceive it. Poor fellow it will be an awful blow for him, but it will come, I feel certain."