Marcella Part 23

Marcella went away, and Mrs. Boyce was left a few minutes alone. Her thin hands lay idle a moment on her lap, and leaning towards the window beside her, she looked out an instant into the snowy twilight. Her mind was full of its usual calm scorn for those--her daughter included--who supposed that the human lot was to be mended by a rise in weekly wages, or that suffering has any necessary dependence on the amount of commodities of which a man disposes. What hardship is there in starving and scrubbing and toiling? Had she ever seen a labourer's wife scrubbing her cottage floor without envy, without moral thirst? Is it these things that kill, or any of the great simple griefs and burdens? Doth man live by bread alone? The whole language of social and charitable enthusiasm often raised in her a kind of exasperation.

So Marcella would be rich, excessively rich, even now. Outside the amount settled upon her, the figures of Aldous Raeburn's present income, irrespective of the inheritance which would come to him on his grandfather's death, were a good deal beyond what even Mr. Boyce--upon whom the daily spectacle of the Maxwell wealth exercised a certain angering effect--had supposed.

Mrs. Boyce had received the news of the engagement with astonishment, but her after-acceptance of the situation had been marked by all her usual philosophy. Probably behind the philosophy there was much secret relief. Marcella was provided for. Not the fondest or most contriving mother could have done more for her than she had at one stroke done for herself. During the early autumn Mrs. Boyce had experienced some moments of sharp prevision as to what her future relations might be towards this strong and restless daughter, so determined to conquer a world her mother had renounced. Now all was clear, and a very shrewd observer could allow her mind to play freely with the ironies of the situation.

As to Aldous Raeburn, she had barely spoken to him before the day when Marcella announced the engagement, and the lover a few hours later had claimed her daughter at the mother's hands with an emotion to which Mrs.

Boyce found her usual difficulty in responding. She had done her best, however, to be gracious and to mask her surprise that he should have proposed, that Lord Maxwell should have consented, and that Marcella should have so lightly fallen a victim. One surprise, however, had to be confessed, at least to herself. After her interview with her future son-in-law, Mrs. Boyce realised that for the first time for fifteen years she was likely to admit a new friend. The impression made upon him by her own singular personality had translated itself in feelings and language which, against her will as it were, established an understanding, an affinity. That she had involuntarily aroused in him the profoundest and most chivalrous pity was plain to her. Yet for the first time in her life she did not resent it; and Marcella watched her mother's att.i.tude with a mixture of curiosity and relief.

Then followed talk of an early wedding, communications from Lord Maxwell to Mr. Boyce of a civil and formal kind, a good deal more notice from the "county," and finally this definite statement from Aldous Raeburn as to the settlement he proposed to make upon his wife, and the joint income which he and she would have immediately at their disposal.

Under all these growing and palpable evidences of Marcella's future wealth and position, Mrs. Boyce had shown her usual restless and ironic spirit. But of late, and especially to-day, restlessness had become oppression. While Marcella was so speedily to become the rich and independent woman, they themselves, Marcella's mother and father, were very poor, in difficulties even, and likely to remain so. She gathered from her husband's grumbling that the provision of a suitable trousseau for Marcella would tax his resources to their utmost. How long would it be before they were dipping in Marcella's purse? Mrs. Boyce's self-tormenting soul was possessed by one of those nightmares her pride had brought upon her in grim succession during these fifteen years. And this pride, strong towards all the world, was nowhere so strong or so indomitable, at this moment, as towards her own daughter. They were practically strangers to each other; and they jarred. To inquire where the fault lay would have seemed to Mrs. Boyce futile.

Darkness had come on fast, and Mrs. Boyce was in the act of ringing for lights when her husband entered.

"Where's Marcella?" he asked as he threw himself into a chair with the air of irritable fatigue which was now habitual to him.

"Only gone to take off her things and tell William about tea. She will be down directly."

"Does she know about that settlement?"

"Yes, I told her. She thought it generous, but not--I think--unsuitable.

The world cannot be reformed on nothing."

"Reformed!--fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Boyce, angrily. "I never saw a girl with a head so full of nonsense in my life. Where does she get it from?

Why did you let her go about in London with those people? She may be spoilt for good. Ten to one she'll make a laughing stock of herself and everybody belonging to her, before she's done."

"Well, that is Mr. Raeburn's affair. I think I should take him into account more than Marcella does, if I were she. But probably she knows best."

"Of course she does. He has lost his head; any one can see that. While she is in the room, he is like a man possessed. It doesn't sit well on that kind of fellow. It makes him ridiculous. I told him half the settlement would be ample. She would only spend the rest on nonsense."

"You told him that?"

"Yes, I did. Oh!"--with an angry look at her--"I suppose you thought I should want to sponge upon her? I am as much obliged to you as usual!"

A red spot rose in his wife's thin cheek. But she turned and answered him gently, so gently that he had the rare sensation of having triumphed over her. He allowed himself to be mollified, and she stood there over the fire, chatting with him for some time, a friendly natural note in her voice which was rare and, insensibly, soothed him like an opiate.

She chatted about Marcella's trousseau gowns, detailing her own contrivances for economy; about the probable day of the wedding, the latest gossip of the election, and so on. He sat shading his eyes from the firelight, and now and then throwing in a word or two. The inmost soul of him was very piteous, harrowed often by a new dread--the dread of dying. The woman beside him held him in the hollow of her hand. In the long wrestle between her nature and his, she had conquered. His fear of her and his need of her had even come to supply the place of a dozen ethical instincts he was naturally without.

Some discomfort, probably physical, seemed at last to break up his moment of rest.

"Well, I tell you, I often wish it were the other man," he said, with some impatience. "Raeburn 's so d----d superior. I suppose I offended him by what I said of Marcella's whims, and the risk of letting her control so much money at her age, and with her ideas. You never saw such an air!--all very quiet, of course. He b.u.t.toned his coat and got up to go, as though I were no more worth considering than the table. Neither he nor his precious grandfather need alarm themselves: I shan't trouble them as a visitor. If I shock them, they bore me--so we're quits.

Marcella'll have to come here if she wants to see her father. But owing to your charming system of keeping her away from us all her childhood, she's not likely to want."

"You mean Mr. Wharton by the other man?" said Mrs. Boyce, not defending herself or Aldous.

"Yes, of course. But he came on the scene just too late, worse luck! Why wouldn't he have done just as well? He's as mad as she--madder. He believes all the rubbish she does--talks such _rot_, the people tell me, in his meetings. But then he's good company--he amuses you--you don't need to be on your p's and q's with _him_. Why wouldn't she have taken up with him? As far as money goes they could have rubbed along. _He's_ not the man to starve when there are game-pies going. It's just bad luck."

Mrs. Boyce smiled a little.

"What there is to make you suppose that she would have inclined to him, I don't exactly see. She has been taken up with Mr. Raeburn, really, from the first week of her arrival here."

"Well, I dare say--there was no one else," said her husband, testily.

"That's natural enough. It's just what I say. All I know is, Wharton shall be free to use this house just as he pleases during his canva.s.sing, whatever the Raeburns may say."

He bent forward and poked the somewhat sluggish fire with a violence which hindered rather than helped it. Mrs. Boyce's smile had quite vanished. She perfectly understood all that was implied, whether in his instinctive dislike of Aldous Raeburn, or in his cordiality towards young Wharton.

After a minute's silence, he got up again and left the room, walking, as she observed, with difficulty. She stopped a minute or so in the same place after he had gone, turning her rings absently on her thin fingers.

She was thinking of some remarks which Dr. Clarke, the excellent and experienced local doctor, had made to her on the occasion of his last visit. With all the force of her strong will she had set herself to disbelieve them. But they had had subtle effects already. Finally she too went upstairs, bidding Marcella, whom she met coming down, hurry William with the tea, as Mr. Wharton might arrive any moment.

Marcella saw the room shut up--the large, shabby, beautiful room--the lamps brought in, fresh wood thrown on the fire to make it blaze, and the tea-table set out. Then she sat herself down on a low chair by the fire, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped in front of her. Her black dress revealed her fine full throat and her white wrists, for she had an impatience of restraint anywhere, and wore frills and falls of black lace where other people would have followed the fashion in high collars and close wristbands. What must have struck any one with an observant eye, as she sat thus, thrown into beautiful light and shade by the blaze of the wood fire, was the ma.s.siveness of the head compared with the nervous delicacy of much of the face, the thinness of the wrist, and of the long and slender foot raised on the fender. It was perhaps the great thickness and full wave of the hair which gave the head its breadth; but the effect was singular, and would have been heavy but for the glow of the eyes, which balanced it.

She was thinking, as a _fiancee_ should, of Aldous and their marriage, which had been fixed for the end of February. Yet not apparently with any rapturous absorption. There was a great deal to plan, and her mind was full of business. Who was to look after her various village schemes while she and Lady Winterbourne were away in London? Mary Harden had hardly brains enough, dear little thing as she was. They must find some capable woman and pay her. The Cravens would tell her, of course, that she was on the high road to the most degrading of _roles_--the _role_ of Lady Bountiful. But there were Lady Bountifuls and Lady Bountifuls. And the _role_ itself was inevitable. It all depended upon how it was managed--in the interest of what ideas.

She must somehow renew her relations with the Cravens in town. It would certainly be in her power now to help them and their projects forward a little. Of course they would distrust her, but that she would get over.

All the time she was listening mechanically for the hall door bell, which, however, across the distances of the great rambling house it was not easy to hear. Their coming guest was not much in her mind. She tacitly a.s.sumed that her father would look after him. On the two or three occasions when they had met during the last three months, including his luncheon at Mellor on the day after her engagement, her thoughts had been too full to allow her to take much notice of him--picturesque and amusing as he seemed to be. Of late he had not been much in the neighbourhood. There had been a slack time for both candidates, which was now to give way to a fresh period of hard canva.s.sing in view of the election which everybody expected at the end of February.

But Aldous was to bring Edward Hallin! That interested her. She felt an intense curiosity to see and know Hallin, coupled with a certain nervousness. The impression she might be able to make on him would be in some sense an earnest of her future.

Suddenly, something undefinable--a slight sound, a current of air--made her turn her head. To her amazement she saw a young man in the doorway looking at her with smiling eyes, and quietly drawing off his gloves.

She sprang up with a feeling of annoyance.

"Mr. Wharton!"

"Oh!--must you?"--he said, with a movement of one hand, as though to stop her. "Couldn't you stay like that? At first I thought there was n.o.body in the room. Your servant is grappling with my bags, which are as the sand of the sea for mult.i.tude, so I wandered in by myself. Then I saw you--and the fire--and the room. It was like a bit of music. It was mere wanton waste to interrupt it."

Marcella flushed, as she very stiffly shook hands with him.

"I did not hear the front door," she said coldly. "My mother will be here directly. May I give you some tea?"

"Thanks. No, I knew you did not hear me. That delighted me. It showed what charming things there are in the world that have no spectators!

What a _delicious_ place this is!--what a heavenly old place--especially in these half lights! There was a raw sun when I was here before, but now--"

He stood in front of the fire, looking round the great room, and at the few small lamps making their scanty light amid the flame-lit darkness.

His hands were loosely crossed behind his back, and his boyish face, in its setting of curls, shone with content and self-possession.

"Well," said Marcella, bluntly, "I should prefer a little more light to live by. Perhaps, when you have fallen downstairs here in the dark as often as I have, you may too."

He laughed.

"But how much better, after all--don't you think so?--to have too little of anything than too much!"

He flung himself into a chair beside the tea-table, looking up with gay interrogation as Marcella handed him his cup. She was a good deal surprised by him. On the few occasions of their previous meetings, these bright eyes, and this p.r.o.nounced manner, had been--at any rate as towards herself--much less free and evident. She began to recover the start he had given her, and to study him with a half-unwilling curiosity.

"Then Mellor will please you," she said drily, in answer to his remark, carrying her own tea meanwhile to a chair on the other side of the fire.