Marcella Part 101

One of the things that most tormented him indeed in this recent existence was a perpetual p.r.i.c.king sense of the contrast between this small world of his ancestral possessions and traditions, with all its ceremonial and feudal usage, and the great rushing world outside it of action and of thought. Do what he would, he could not un-king himself within the limits of the Maxwell estate. To the people living upon it he was the man of most importance within their ken, was inevitably their potentate and earthly providence. He confessed that there was a real need of him, if he did his duty. But on this need the cla.s.s-practice of generations had built up a deference, a sharpness of cla.s.s-distinction, which any modern must find more and more irksome in proportion to his modernness. What was in Aldous's mind, as he stood with drawn brows looking out over the view which showed him most of his domain, was a sort of hot impatience of being made day by day, in a hundred foolish ways, to play at greatness.

Yet, as we know, he was no democrat by conviction, had no comforting faith in what seemed to him the rule of a mult.i.tudinous ignorance. Still every sane man of to-day knows, at any rate, that the world has taken the road of democracy, and that the key to the future, for good or ill, lies not in the revolts and speculations of the cultivated few, but in the men and movements that can seize the many. Aldous's temper was despondently critical towards the majority of these, perhaps; he had, const.i.tutionally, little of that poet's sympathy with the crowd, as such, which had given Hallin his power. But, at any rate, they filled the human stage--these men and movements--and his mind as a beholder.

Beside the great world-spectacle perpetually in his eye and thought, the small old-world pomps and feudalisms of his own existence had a way of looking ridiculous to him. He constantly felt himself absurd. It was ludicrously clear to him, for instance, that in this kingdom he had inherited it would be thought a huge condescension on his part if he were to ask the secretary of a trades union to dine with him at the Court. Whereas, in his own honest opinion, the secretary had a far more important and interesting post in the universe than he.

So that, in spite of a strong love of family, rigidly kept to himself, he had very few of the illusions which make rank and wealth delightful.

On the other hand, he had a tyrannous sense of obligation, which kept him tied to his place and his work--to such work as he had been spending the morning on. This sense of obligation had for the present withdrawn him from any very active share in politics. He had come to the conclusion early in the year, just about the time when, owing to some rearrangements in the _personnel_ of the Government, the Premier had made him some extremely flattering overtures, that he must for the present devote himself to the Court. There were extensive changes and reforms going on in different parts of the estate: some of the schools which he owned and mainly supported were being rebuilt and enlarged; and he had a somewhat original scheme for the extension of adult education throughout the property very much on his mind--a scheme which must be organised and carried through by himself apparently, if it was to thrive at all.

Much of this business was very dreary to him, some of it altogether distasteful. Since the day of his parting with Marcella Boyce his only real _pleasures_ had lain in politics or books. Politics, just as they were growing absorbing to him, must, for a while at any rate, be put aside; and even books had not fared as well as they might have been expected to do in the country quiet. Day after day he walked or rode about the muddy lanes of the estate, doing the work that seemed to him to be his, as best he could, yet never very certain of its value; rather, spending his thoughts more and more, with regard to his own place and function in the world, on a sort of mental apologetic which was far from stimulating; sorely conscious the while of the unmatched charm and effectiveness with which his grandfather had gone about the same business; and as lonely at heart as a man can well be--the wound of love unhealed, the wound of friendship still deep and unconsoled. To bring social peace and progress, as he understood them, to this bit of Midland England a man of first-rate capacities was perhaps sacrificing what ambition would have called his opportunities. Yet neither was he a hero to himself nor to the Buckinghamshire farmers and yokels who depended on him. They had liked the grandfather better, and had become stolidly accustomed to the grandson's virtues.

The only gleam in the grey of his life since he had determined about Christmas-time to settle down at the Court had come from Mr. French's letter. That letter, together with Mr. Boyce's posthumous note, which contained nothing, indeed, but a skilful appeal to neighbourliness and old family friendship, written in the best style of the ex-Balkan Commissioner, had naturally astonished him greatly. He saw at once what _she_ would perceive in it, and turned impatiently from speculation as to what Mr. Boyce might actually have meant, to the infinitely more important matter, how she would take her father's act. Never had he written anything with greater anxiety than he devoted to his letter to Mrs. Boyce. There was in him now a craving he could not stay, to be brought near to her again, to know how her life was going. It had first raised its head in him since he knew that her existence and Wharton's were finally parted, and had but gathered strength from the self-critical loneliness and tedium of these later months.

Mrs. Boyce's reply couched in terms at once stately and grateful, which accepted his offer of service on her own and her daughter's behalf, had given him extraordinary pleasure. He turned it over again and again, wondering what part or lot Marcella might have had in it, attributing to her this cordiality or that reticence; picturing the two women together in their black dresses--the hotel, the _pergola_, the cliff--all of which he himself knew well. Finally, he went up to town, saw Mr. French, and acquainted himself with the position and prospects of the Mellor estate, feeling himself a sort of intruder, yet curiously happy in the business. It was wonderful what that poor sickly fellow had been able to do in the last two years; yet his thoughts fell rather into amused surmise as to what _she_ would find it in her restless mind to do in the _next_ two years.

Nevertheless, all the time, the resolution of which he had spoken to Hallin seemed to himself unshaken. He recognised and adored the womanly growth and deepening which had taken place in her; he saw that she wished to show him kindness. But he thought he could trust himself now and henceforward not to force upon her a renewed suit for which there was in his eyes no real or abiding promise of happiness.

Marcella and her mother had now been at home some three or four days, and he was just about to walk over to Mellor for his first interview with them. A great deal of the merely formal business consequent on Mr.

Boyce's death had been already arranged by himself and Mr. French. Yet he had to consult Marcella as to certain investments, and in a pleasant though quite formal little note he had that morning received from her she had spoken of asking his advice as to some new plans for the estate.

It was the first letter she herself had as yet written to him; hitherto all his correspondence had been carried on with Mrs. Boyce. It had struck him, by the way, as remarkable that there was no mention of the wife in the will. He could only suppose that she was otherwise provided for. But there had been some curious expressions in her letters.

Where was Frank? Aldous looked impatiently at the clock, as Roberts did not reappear. He had invited Leven to walk with him to Mellor, and the tiresome boy was apparently not to be found. Aldous vowed he would not wait a minute, and going into the hall, put on coat and hat with most business-like rapidity.

He was just equipped when Roberts, somewhat breathless with long searching, arrived in time to say that Sir Frank was on the front terrace.

And there Aldous caught sight of the straight though somewhat heavily built figure, in its grey suit with the broad band of black across the arm.

"Hullo, Frank! I thought you were to look me up in the library. Roberts has been searching the house for you."

"You said nothing about the library," said the boy, rather sulkily, "and Roberts hadn't far to search. I have been in the smoking-room till this minute."

Aldous did not argue the point, and they set out. It was presently clear to the elder man that his companion was not in the best of tempers. The widowed Lady Leven had sent her firstborn over to the Court for a few days that Aldous might have some discussion as to his immediate future with the young man. She was a silly, frivolous woman; but it was clear, even to her, that Frank was not doing very well for himself in the world; and advice she would not have taken from her son's Oxford tutor seemed cogent to her when it came from a Raeburn. "Do at least, for goodness' sake, get him to give up his absurd plan of going to America!" she wrote to Aldous; "if he can't take his degree at Oxford, I suppose he must get on without it, and certainly his dons seem very unpleasant. But at least he might stay at home and do his duty to me and his sisters till he marries, instead of going off to the 'Rockies' or some other ridiculous place. He really never seems to think of f.a.n.n.y and Rachel, or what he might do to help me to get them settled now that his poor father is gone."

No; certainly the young man was not much occupied with "f.a.n.n.y and Rachel!" He spoke with ill-concealed impatience, indeed, of both his sisters and his mother. If his people would get in the way of everything he wanted to do, they needn't wonder if he cut up rough at home. For the present it was settled that he should at any rate go back to Oxford till the end of the summer term--Aldous heartily pitying the unfortunate dons who might have to do with him--but after that he entirely declined to be bound. He swore he would not be tied at home like a girl; he must and would see the world. This in itself, from a lad who had been accustomed to regard his home as the centre of all delights, and had on two occasions stoutly refused to go with his family to Rome, lest he should miss the best month for his father's trout-stream, was sufficiently surprising.

However, of late some tardy light had been dawning upon Aldous! The night after Frank's arrival at the Court Betty Macdonald came down to spend a few weeks with Miss Raeburn, being for the moment that lady's particular pet and _protegee_. Frank, whose sulkiness during the twenty-four hours before she appeared had been the despair of both his host and hostess, brightened up spasmodically when he heard she was expected, and went fishing with one of the keepers, on the morning before her arrival, with a fair imitation of his usual spirits. But somehow, since that first evening, though Betty had chattered, and danced, and frolicked her best, though her little figure running up and down the big house gave a new zest to life in it, Frank's manners had gone from bad to worse. And at last Aldous, who had not as yet seen the two much together, and was never an observant man in such matters, had begun to have an inkling. Was it _possible_ that the boy was in love, and with Betty? He sounded Miss Raeburn; found that she did not rise to his suggestion at all--was, in fact, annoyed by it--and with the usual stupidity of the clever man failed to draw any reasonable inference from the queerness of his aunt's looks and sighs.

As to the little minx herself, she was inscrutable. She teased them all in turns, Frank, perhaps, less than the others. Aldous, as usual, found her a delightful companion. She would walk all over the estate with him in the most mannish garments and boots conceivable, which only made her childish grace more feminine and more provocative than ever. She took an interest in all his tenants; she dived into all his affairs; she insisted on copying his letters. And meanwhile, on either side were Miss Raeburn, visibly recovering day by day her old cheeriness and bustle, and Frank--Frank, who ate nothing, or nothing commensurate to his bulk, and, if possible, said less.

Aldous had begun to feel that the situation must be probed somehow, and had devised this walk, indeed, with some vague intention of plying remonstrances and enquiries. He had an old affection for the boy, which Lady Leven had reckoned upon.

The first difficulty, of course, was to make him talk at all. Aldous tried various sporting "gambits" with very small success. At last, by good-luck, the boy rose to something like animation in describing an encounter he had had the week before with a piebald weasel in the course of a morning's ferreting.

"All at once we saw the creature's head poke out of the hole--_pure white_, with a brown patch on it. When it saw us, back it scooted!--and we sent in another ferret after the one that was there already. My goodness! there _was_ a shindy down in the earth--you could hear them rolling and kicking like anything. We had our guns ready,--but all of a sudden everything stopped--not a sound or a sign of anything! We threw down our guns and dug away like blazes. Presently we came on the two ferrets gorging away at a dead rabbit,--nasty little beasts!--that accounted for _them_; but where on earth was the weasel? I really began to think we had imagined the creature, when, whish! came a flash of white lightning, and out the thing bolted--pure white with a splash of brown--its winter coat, of course. I shot at it, but it was no go. If I'd only put a bag over the hole, and not been an idiot, I should have caught it."

The boy swung along, busily ruminating for a minute or two, and forgetting his trouble.

"I've seen one something like it before," he went on--"ages ago, when I was a little chap, and Harry Wharton and I were out rabbiting. By the way--" he stopped short--"do you see that that fellow's come back?"

"I saw the paragraph in the _Times_ this morning," said Aldous, drily.

"And I've got a letter from f.a.n.n.y this morning, to say that he and Lady Selina are to be married in July, and that she's going about making a martyr and a saint of him, talking of the 'persecution' he's had to put up with, and the vulgar fellows who couldn't appreciate him, and generally making an a.s.s of herself. Oh! he won't ask any of us to his wedding--trust him. It is a rum business. You know Willie Ffolliot--that queer dark fellow--that used to be in the 10th Hussars--did all those wild things in the Soudan?"

"Yes--slightly."

"I heard all about it from him. He was one of that gambling set at Harry's club there's been all that talk about you know, since Harry came to grief. Well!--he was going along Piccadilly one night last summer, quite late, between eleven and twelve, when Harry caught hold of him from behind. Willie thought he was out of his mind, or drunk. He told me he never saw anybody in such a queer state in his life. 'You come along with me,' said Harry, 'come and talk to me, or I shall shoot myself!' So Willie asked him what was up. 'I'm engaged to be married,' said Harry.

Whereupon Willie remarked that, considering his manner and his appearance, he was sorry for the young lady. '_Young_!' said Harry as though he would have knocked him down. And then it came out that he had just--that moment!--engaged himself to Lady Selina. And it was the very same day that he got into that precious mess in the House--the _very same night_! I suppose he went to her to be comforted, and thought he'd pull something off, anyway! Why she took him! But of course she's no chicken, and old Alresford may die any day. And about the bribery business--I suppose he made her think him an injured innocent. Anyway, he talked to Willie, when they got to his rooms, like a raving lunatic, and you know he was always such a cool hand. 'Ffolliot,' he said, 'can you come with me to Siam next week?' 'How much?' said Will. 'I thought you were engaged to Lady Selina.' Then he swore little oaths, and vowed he had told her he must have a year. 'We'll go and explore those temples in Siam,' he said, and then he muttered something about 'Why should I ever come back?' Presently he began to talk of the strike--and the paper--and the bribe, and all the rest of it, making out a long rigmarole story. Oh! of course he'd done everything for the best--trust him!--and everybody else was a cur and a slanderer. And Ffolliot declared he felt quite pulpy--the man was such a wreck; and he said he'd go with him to Siam, or anywhere else, if he'd only cheer up. And they got out the maps, and Harry began to quiet down, and at last Will got him to bed. f.a.n.n.y says Ffolliot reports he had great difficulty in dragging him home. However, Lady Selina has no luck!--there he is."

"Oh! he will be one of the shining lights of our side before long," said Aldous, with resignation. "Since he gave up his seat here, there has been some talk of finding him one in the Alresfords' neighbourhood, I believe. But I don't suppose anybody's very anxious for him. He is to address a meeting, I see, on the Tory Labour Programme next week. The _Clarion_, I suppose, will go round with him."

"Beastly rag!" said Frank, fervently. "It's rather a queer thing, isn't it, that such a clever chap as that should have made such a mess of his chances. It almost makes one not mind being a fool."

He laughed, but bitterly, and at the same moment the cloud that for some twenty minutes or so seemed to have completely rolled away descended again on eye and expression.

"Well, there are worse things than being a fool," said Aldous, with insidious emphasis--"sulking, and shutting up with your best friends, for instance."

Frank flushed deeply, and turned upon him with a sort of uncertain fury.

"I don't know what you mean."

Whereupon Aldous slipped his arm inside the boy's, and prepared himself with resignation for the scene that had to be got through somehow, when Frank suddenly exclaimed:

"I say, there's Miss Boyce!"

Never was a man more quickly and completely recalled from altruism to his own affairs. Aldous dropped his companion's arm, straightened himself with a thrill of the whole being, and saw Marcella some distance ahead of them in the Mellor drive, which they had just entered. She was stooping over something on the ground, and was not apparently aware of their approach. A ray of cold sun came out at the moment, touched the bending figure and the gra.s.s at her feet--gra.s.s starred with primroses, which she was gathering.

"I didn't know you were going to call," said Frank, bewildered. "Isn't it too soon?"

And he looked at his companion in astonishment.

"I came to speak to Miss Boyce and her mother on business," said Aldous, with all his habitual reserve. "I thought you wouldn't mind the walk back by yourself."

"Business?" the boy echoed involuntarily.

Aldous hesitated, then said quietly:

"Mr. Boyce appointed me executor under his will."

Frank lifted his eyebrows, and allowed himself at least an inward "By Jove!"

By this time Marcella had caught sight of them, and was advancing. She was in deep mourning, but her hands were full of primroses, which shone against the black; and the sun, penetrating the thin green of some larches to her left, danced in her eyes and on a face full of sensitive and beautiful expression.

They had not met since they stood together beside Hallin's grave. This fact was in both their minds. Aldous felt it, as it were, in the touch of her hand. What he could not know was, that she was thinking quite as much of his letter to her mother and its phrases.

They stood talking a little in the sunshine. Then, as Frank was taking his leave, Marcella said:

"Won't you wait for--for Lord Maxwell, in the old library? We can get at it from the garden, and I have made it quite habitable. My mother, of course, does not wish to see anybody."

Frank hesitated, then, pushed by a certain boyish curiosity, and by the angry belief that Betty had been carried off by Miss Raeburn, and was out of his reach till luncheon-time, said he would wait. Marcella led the way, opened the garden-door of the lower corridor, close to the spot where she had seen Wharton standing in the moonlight on a never-to-be-forgotten night, and then ushered them into the library. The beautiful old place had been decently repaired, though in no sense modernised. The roof had no holes, and its delicate stucco-work, formerly stained and defaced by damp, had been whitened, so that the brown and golden tones of the books in the latticed cases told against it with delightful effect. The floor was covered with a cheap matting, and there were a few simple chairs and tables. A wood fire burnt on the old hearth. Marcella's books and work lay about, and some shallow earthenware pans filled with home-grown hyacinths scented the air. What with the lovely architecture of the room itself, its size, its books and old portraits, and the signs it bore of simple yet refined use, it would have been difficult to find a gentler, mellower place. Aldous looked round him with delight.