Marion Fay Part 76

Her ladyship cannot intend that I should be turned out of your lordship's house with only two hundred a year, after what has pa.s.sed between me and her ladyship."

"What pa.s.sed?" said the Marquis, absolutely rousing himself so as to stand erect before the other man.

"I had rather, my lord, you should hear it from her ladyship."

"What pa.s.sed?"

"There was all that about Lady Frances."

"What about Lady Frances?"

"Of course I was employed to do all that I could to prevent the marriage. You employed me yourself, my lord. It was you sent me down to see the young man, and explain to him how impertinent he was. It isn't my fault, Lord Kingsbury, if things have got themselves changed since then."

"You think you ought to make a demand upon me because as my Chaplain you were asked to see a gentleman who called here on a delicate matter?"

"It isn't that I am thinking about. If it had been only that I should have said nothing. You asked me what it was about, and I was obliged to remind you of one thing. What took place between me and her ladyship was, of course, much more particular; but it all began with your lordship. If you hadn't commissioned me I don't suppose her ladyship would ever have spoken to me about Lady Frances."

"What is it all? Sit down;--won't you?--and tell it all like a man if you have got anything to tell." The Marquis, fatigued with his exertion, was forced to go back to his chair. Mr. Greenwood also sat down,--but whether or no like a man may be doubted. "Remember this, Mr. Greenwood, it does not become a gentleman to repeat what has been said to him in confidence,--especially not to repeat it to him or to them from whom it was intended to be kept secret. And it does not become a Christian to endeavour to make ill-blood between a husband and his wife. Now, if you have got anything to say, say it." Mr.

Greenwood shook his head. "If you have got nothing to say, go away.

I tell you fairly that I don't want to have you here. You have begun something like a threat, and if you choose to go on with it, you may.

I am not afraid to hear you, but you must say it or go."

Mr. Greenwood again shook his head. "I suppose you won't deny that her ladyship honoured me with a very close confidence."

"I don't know anything about it."

"Your lordship didn't know that her ladyship down at Trafford used to be talking to me pretty freely about Lord Hampstead and Lady Frances?"

"If you have got anything to say, say it," screamed the Marquis.

"Of course his lordship and her ladyship are not her ladyship's own children."

"What has that got to do with it?"

"Of course there was a bitterness."

"What is that to you? I will hear nothing from you about Lady Kingsbury, unless you have to tell me of some claim to be made upon her. If there has been money promised you, and she acknowledges it, it shall be paid. Has there been any such promise?"

Mr. Greenwood found it very difficult,--nay, quite impossible,--to say in accurate language that which he was desirous of explaining by dark hints. There had, he thought, been something of a compact between himself and the Marchioness. The Marchioness had desired something which she ought not to have desired, and had called upon the Chaplain for more than his sympathy. The Chaplain had been willing to give her more than his sympathy,--had at one time been almost willing to give her very much more. He might possibly, as he now felt, have misinterpreted her wishes. But he had certainly heard from her language so strong, in reference to her husband's children, that he had been justified in considering that it was intended to be secret. As a consequence of this he had been compelled to choose between the Marquis and the Marchioness. By becoming the confidential friend of the one he had necessarily become the enemy of the other.

Then, as a further consequence, he was turned out of the house,--and, as he declared to himself, utterly ruined. Now in this there had certainly been much hardship, and who was to compensate him if not the Marquis?

There certainly had been some talk about Appleslocombe during those moments of hot pa.s.sion in which Lady Kingsbury had allowed herself to say such evil things of Lady Frances and Lord Hampstead. Whether any absolute promise had been given she would probably not now remember.

There certainly had been a moment in which she had thought that her husband's life might possibly pa.s.s away before that of the old rector; and reference may have been made to the fact that had her own darling been the heir, the gift of the living would then have fallen into her own hands. Mr. Greenwood had probably thought more of some possible compensation for the living than of the living itself. He had no doubt endeavoured to frighten her ladyship into thinking that some mysterious debt was due to him, if not for services actually rendered, at any rate for extraordinary confidences. But before he had forced upon her the acknowledgment of the debt, he was turned out of the house! Now this he felt to be hard.

What were two hundred a-year as a pension for a gentleman after such a life-long service? Was it to be endured that he should have listened for so many years to all the abominable politics of the Marquis, and to the anger and disappointment of the Marchioness, that he should have been so closely connected, and for so many years, with luxury, wealth, and rank, and then arrive at so poor an evening of his day? As he thought of this he felt the more ashamed of his misfortune, because he believed himself to be in all respects a stronger man than the Marquis. He had flattered himself that he could lead the Marquis, and had thought that he had been fairly successful in doing so. His life had been idle, luxurious, and full of comfort.

The Marquis had allowed him to do pretty well what he pleased until in an evil hour he had taken the side of the Marchioness in a family quarrel. Then the Marquis, though weak in health,--almost to his death,--had suddenly become strong in purpose, and had turned him abruptly out of the house with a miserable stipend hardly fit for more than a butler! Could it be that he should put up with such usage, and allow the Marquis to escape unscathed out of his hand?

In this condition of mind, he had determined that he owed it to himself to do or say something that should frighten his lordship into a more generous final arrangement. There had been, he said to himself again and again, such a confidence with a lady of so high a rank, that the owner of it ought not to be allowed to languish upon two or even upon three hundred a-year. If the whole thing could really be explained to the Marquis, the Marquis would probably see it himself.

And to all this was to be added the fact that no harm had been done.

The Marchioness owed him very much for having wished to a.s.sist her in getting rid of an heir that was disagreeable to her. The Marquis owed him more for not having done it. And they both owed him very much in that he had never said a word of it all to anybody else. He had thought that he might be clever enough to make the Marquis understand something of this without actually explaining it. That some mysterious promise had been made, and that, as the promise could not be kept, some compensation should be awarded,--this was what he had desired to bring home to the mind of the Marquis. He had betrayed no confidence. He intended to betray none. He was very anxious that the Marquis should be aware, that as he, Mr. Greenwood, was a gentleman, all confidences would be safe in his hands; but then the Marquis ought to do his part of the business, and not turn his confidential Chaplain out of the house after a quarter of a century with a beggarly annuity of two hundred a-year!

But the Marquis seemed to have acquired unusual strength of character; and Mr. Greenwood found that words were very difficult to be found. He had declared that there had been "a bitterness,"

and beyond that he could not go. It was impossible to hint that her ladyship had wished to have Lord Hampstead--removed. The horrid thoughts of a few days had become so vague to himself that he doubted whether there had been any real intention as to the young lord's removal even in his own mind. There was nothing more that he could say than this,--that during the period of this close intimacy her ladyship had promised to him the living of Appleslocombe, and that, as that promise could not be kept, some compensation should be made to him. "Was any sum of money named?" asked the Marquis.

"Nothing of the kind. Her ladyship thought that I ought to have the living."

"You can't have it; and there's an end of it."

"And you think that nothing should be done for me?"

"I think that nothing should be done for you more than has been done."

"Very well. I am not going to tell secrets that have been intrusted to me as a gentleman, even though I am so badly used by those who have confided them to me. Her ladyship is safe with me. Because I sympathized with her ladyship your lordship turned me out of the house."

"No; I didn't."

"Should I have been treated like this had I not taken her ladyship's part? I am too n.o.ble to betray a secret, or, no doubt, I could compel your lordship to behave to me in a very different manner. Yes, my lord, I am quite ready to go now. I have made my appeal, and I have made it in vain. I have no wish to call upon her ladyship. As a gentleman I am bound to give her ladyship no unnecessary trouble."

While this last speech was going on a servant had come into the room, and had told the Marquis that the "Duca di Crinola" was desirous of seeing him. The servants in the establishment were of course anxious to recognize Lady Frances' lover as an Italian Duke. The Marquis would probably have made some excuse for not receiving the lover at this moment, had he not felt that he might in this way best insure the immediate retreat of Mr. Greenwood. Mr. Greenwood went, and Roden was summoned to Lord Kingsbury's presence; but the meeting took place under circ.u.mstances which naturally made the Marquis incapable of entering at the moment with much spirit on the great "Duca" question.

CHAPTER XII.

LORD HAMPSTEAD AGAIN WITH MRS. RODEN.

Weeks had pa.s.sed by since Lord Hampstead had walked up and down Broad Street with Mr. Fay,--weeks which were to him a period of terrible woe. His pa.s.sion for Marion had so seized upon him, that it had in all respects changed his life. The sorrow of her alleged ill-health had fallen upon him before the hunting had been over, but from that moment he had altogether forgotten his horses. The time had now come in which he was wont to be on board his yacht, but of his yacht he took no notice whatever. "I can tell you nothing about it as yet,"

he said in the only line which he wrote to his skipper in answer to piteous applications made to him. None of those who were near and dear to him knew how he pa.s.sed his time. His sister left him and went up to the house in London, and he felt that her going was a relief to him. He would not even admit his friend Roden to come to him in his trouble. He spent his days all alone at Hendon, occasionally going across to Holloway in order that he might talk of his sorrow to Mrs.

Roden. Midsummer had come upon him before he again saw the Quaker.

Marion's father had left a feeling almost of hostility in his mind in consequence of that conversation in Broad Street. "I no longer want anything on your behalf," the Quaker had seemed to say. "I care nothing now for your name, or your happiness. I am anxious only for my child, and as I am told that it will be better that you should not see her, you must stay away." That the father should be anxious for his daughter was natural enough. Lord Hampstead could not quarrel with Zachary Fay. But he taught himself to think that their interests were at variance with each other. As for Marion, whether she were ill or whether she were well, he would have had her altogether to himself.

Gradually there had come upon him the conviction that there was a real barrier existing between himself and the thing that he desired.

To Marion's own words, while they had been spoken only to himself, he had given no absolute credit. He had been able to declare to her that her fears were vain, and that whether she were weak or whether she were strong, it was her duty to come to him. When they two had been together his arguments and a.s.surances had convinced at any rate himself. The love which he had seen in her eyes and had heard from her lips had been so sweet to him, that their savour had overcome whatever strength her words possessed. But these protestations, these a.s.surances that no marriage could be possible, when they reached him second-hand, as they had done through his sister and through the Quaker, almost crushed him. He did not dare to tell them that he would fain marry the girl though she were dying,--that he would accept any chance or no chance, if he might only be allowed to hold her in his arms, and tell her that she was all his own. There had come a blow, he would say to himself, again and again, as he walked about the grounds at Hendon, there had come a blow, a fatal blow, a blow from which there could be no recovery,--but, still, it should, it ought, to be borne together. He would not admit to himself that because of this verdict there ought to be a separation between them two. It might be that the verdict had been uttered by a Judge against whom there could be no appeal; but even the Judge should not be allowed to say that Marion Fay was not his own. Let her come and die in his arms if she must die. Let her come and have what of life there might be left to her, warmed and comforted and perhaps extended by his love. It seemed to him to be certainly a fact, that because of his great love, and of hers, she did already belong to him; and yet he was told that he might not see her;--that it would be better that she should not be disturbed by his presence,--as though he were no more than a stranger to her. Every day he almost resolved to disregard them, and go down to the little cottage in which she was living. But then he remembered the warnings which were given to him, and was aware that he had in truth no right to intrude upon the Quaker's household. It is not to be supposed that during this time he had no intercourse with Marion. At first there came to be a few lines, written perhaps once a week from her, in answer to many lines written by him; but by degrees the feeling of awe which at first attached itself to the act of writing to him wore off, and she did not let a day pa.s.s without sending him some little record of herself and her doings. It had come to be quite understood by the Quaker that Marion was to do exactly as she pleased with her lover. No one dreamed of hinting to her that this correspondence was improper or injurious. Had she herself expressed a wish to see him, neither would the Quaker nor Mrs. Roden have made strong objection. To whatever might have been her wish or her decision they would have acceded. It was by her word that the marriage had been declared to be impossible.

It was in obedience to her that he was to keep aloof. She had failed to prevail with her own soft words, and had therefore been driven to use the authority of others.

But at this period, though she did become weaker and weaker from day to day, and though the doctor's attendance was constant at the cottage, Marion herself was hardly unhappy. She grieved indeed for his grief; but, only for that, there would have been triumph and joy to her rather than grief. The daily writing of these little notes was a privilege to her and a happiness, of which she had hitherto known nothing. To have a lover, and such a lover, was a delight to her, a delight to which there was now hardly any drawback, as there was nothing now of which she need be afraid. To have him with her as other girls may have their lovers, she knew was impossible to her.

But to read his words, and to write loving words to him, to talk to him of his future life, and bid him think of her, his poor Marion, without allowing his great manly heart to be filled too full with vain memories, was in truth happiness to her. "Why should you want to come?" she said. "It is infinitely better that you should not come.

We understand it all now, and acknowledge what it is that the Lord has done for us. It would not have been good for me to be your wife.

It would not have been good for you to have become my husband. But it will I think be good for me to have loved you; and if you will learn to think of it as I do, it will not have been bad for you. It has given a beauty to my life," she said, "which makes me feel that I ought to be contented to die early. If I could have had a choice I would have chosen it so."

But these teachings from her had no effect whatever upon him. It was her idea that she would pa.s.s away, and that there would remain with him no more than a fair sweet shade which would have but little effect upon his future life beyond that of creating for him occasionally a gentle melancholy. It could not be, she thought, that for a man such as he,--for one so powerful and so great,--such a memory should cause a lasting sorrow. But with him, to his thinking, to his feeling, the lasting biting sorrow was there already. There could be no other love, no other marriage, no other Marion. He had heard that his stepmother was anxious for her boy. The way should be open for the child. It did seem to him that a life, long continued, would be impossible to him when Marion should have been taken away from him.

"Oh yes;--he's there again," said Miss Demijohn to her aunt. "He comes mostly on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sat.u.r.days. What he can be coming about is more than I can guess. Crocker says it's all true love. Crocker says that the Duca says--"

"Bother the Duca," exclaimed the old woman. "I don't believe that Crocker and George Roden ever exchange a word together."

"Why shouldn't they exchange words, and they fast friends of five years' standing? Crocker says as Lord Hampstead is to be at Lady Amaldina's wedding in August. His lordship has promised. And Crocker thinks--"