Marcella Part 32

"Respect!" cried Mary, with a sudden scorn, which was startling from a creature so soft.

"There, she could tear me in pieces!" said Marcella, laughing, though her lip was not steady. "I wonder what you would be like, Mary, if you were engaged."

Mary ran her needle in and out with lightning speed for a second or two, then she said almost under her breath--

"I shouldn't be engaged unless I were in love. And if I were in love, why, I would go anywhere--do anything--believe anything--if _he_ told me!"

"Believe anything?--Mary--you wouldn't!"

"I don't mean as to religion," said Mary, hastily. "But everything else--I would give it all up!--governing one's self, thinking for one's self. He should do it, and I would _bless_ him!"

She looked up crimson, drawing a very long breath, as though from some deep centre of painful, pa.s.sionate feeling. It was Marcella's turn to stare. Never had Mary so revealed herself before.

"Did you ever love any one like that, Mary?" she asked quickly.

Mary dropped her head again over her work and did not answer immediately.

"Do you see--" she said at last, with a change of tone, "do you see that we have got our invitation?"

Marcella, about to give the rein to an eager curiosity Mary's manner had excited in her, felt herself pulled up sharply. When she chose, this little meek creature could put on the same unapproachableness as her brother. Marcella submitted.

"Yes, I see," she said, taking up a card on the mantelpiece. "It will be a great crush. I suppose you know. They have asked the whole county, it seems to me."

The card bore an invitation in Miss Raeburn's name for the Rector and his sister to a dance at Maxwell Court--the date given was the twenty-fifth of January.

"What fun!" said Mary, her eye sparkling. "You needn't suppose that I know enough of b.a.l.l.s to be particular. I have only been to one before in my life--ever. That was at Cheltenham. An aunt took me--I didn't dance.

There were hardly any men, but I enjoyed it."

"Well, you shall dance this time," said Marcella, "for I will make Mr.

Raeburn introduce you."

"Nonsense, you won't have any time to think about me. You will be the queen--everybody will want to speak to you. I shall sit in a corner and look at you--that will be enough for me."

Marcella went up to her quickly and kissed her, then she said, still holding her--

"I know you think I ought to be very happy, Mary!"

"I should think I do!" said Mary, with astonished emphasis, when the voice paused--"I should think I do!"

"I _am_ happy--and I want to make him happy. But there are so many things, so many different aims and motives, that complicate life, that puzzle one. One doesn't know how much to give of one's self, to each--"

She stood with her hand on Mary's shoulder, looking away towards the window and the snowy garden, her brow frowning and distressed.

"Well, I don't understand," said Mary, after a pause. "As I said before, it seems to me so plain and easy--to be in love, and give one's self _all_--to that. But you are so much cleverer than I, Marcella, you know so much more. That makes the difference. I can't be like you. Perhaps I don't want to be!"--and she laughed. "But I can admire you and love you, and think about you. There, now, tell me what you are going to wear?"

"White satin, and Mr. Raeburn wants me to wear some pearls he is going to give me, some old pearls of his mother's. I believe I shall find them at Mellor when I get back."

There was little girlish pleasure in the tone. It was as though Marcella thought her friend would be more interested in her bit of news than she was herself, and was handing it on to her to please her.

"Isn't there a superst.i.tion against doing that--before you're married?"

said Mary, doubtfully.

"As if I should mind if there was! But I don't believe there is, or Miss Raeburn would have heard of it. She's a ma.s.s of such things. Well! I hope I shall behave myself to please her at this function. There are not many things I do to her satisfaction; it's a mercy we're not going to live with her. Lord Maxwell is a dear; but she and I would never get on. Every way of thinking she has, rubs me up the wrong way; and as for her view of me, I am just a tare sown among her wheat. Perhaps she is right enough!"

Marcella leant her cheek pensively on one hand, and with the other played with the things on the mantelpiece.

Mary looked at her, and then half smiled, half sighed.

"I think it is a very good thing you are to be married soon," she said, with her little air of wisdom, which offended n.o.body. "Then you'll know your own mind. When is it to be?"

"The end of February--after the election."

"Two months," mused Mary.

"Time enough to throw it all up in, you think?" said Marcella, recklessly, putting on her gloves for departure. "Perhaps you'll be pleased to hear that I _am_ going to a meeting of Mr. Raeburn's next week?"

"I _am_ glad. You ought to go to them all."

"Really, Mary! How am I to lift you out of this squaw theory of matrimony? Allow me to inform you that the following evening I am going to one of Mr. Wharton's--here in the schoolroom!"

She enjoyed her friend's disapproval.

"By yourself, Marcella? It isn't seemly!"

"I shall take a maid. Mr. Wharton is going to tell us how the people can--get the land, and how, when they have got it, all the money that used to go in rent will go in taking off taxes and making life comfortable for the poor." She looked at Mary with a teasing smile.

"Oh! I dare say he will make his stealing sound very pretty," said Mary, with unwonted scorn, as she opened the front door for her friend.

Marcella flashed out.

"I know you are a saint, Mary," she said, turning back on the path outside to deliver her last shaft. "I am often not so sure whether you are a Christian!"

Then she hurried off without another word, leaving the flushed and shaken Mary to ponder this strange dictum.

Marcella was just turning into the straight drive which led past the church on the left to Mellor House, when she heard footsteps behind her, and, looking round, she saw Edward Hallin.

"Will you give me some lunch, Miss Boyce, in return for a message? I am here instead of Aldous, who is very sorry for himself, and will be over later. I am to tell you that he went down to the station to meet a certain box. The box did not come, but will come this afternoon; so he waits for it, and will bring it over."

Marcella flushed, smiled, and said she understood. Hallin moved on beside her, evidently glad of the opportunity of a talk with her.

"We are all going together to the Gairsley meeting next week, aren't we?

I am so glad you are coming. Aldous will do his best."

There was something very winning in his tone to her. It implied both his old and peculiar friendship for Aldous, and his eager wish to find a new friend in her--to adopt her into their comradeship. Something very winning, too, in his whole personality--in the loosely knit, nervous figure, the irregular charm of feature, the benignant eyes and brow--even in the suggestions of physical delicacy, cheerfully concealed, yet none the less evident. The whole balance of Marcella's temper changed in some sort as she talked to him. She found herself wanting to please, instead of wanting to conquer, to make an effect.

"You have just come from the village, I think?" said Hallin. "Aldous tells me you take a great interest in the people?"