Marion Fay Part 86

And then he uttered phrases which were almost fantastic in their woe, but which declared what was and had been the condition of his mind towards her since she had become so inexpressibly dear to him. "My wife," he said, "my own one! Mother of my children. My woman; my countess; my princess. They should have seen. They should have acknowledged. They should have known whom it was that I had brought among them;--of what nature should be the woman whom a man should set in a high place. I had made my choice;--and then that it should come to this!" "There is no good to be done," he said again. "It all turns to ashes and to dust. The low things of the world are those which prevail." "Oh, Marion, that I could be with you! Though it were to be nowhere,--though the great story should have no pathetic ending, though the last long eternal chapter should be a blank,--still to have wandered away with you would have been something." As soon as he reached his house he walked straight into the drawing-room, and having carefully closed the door, he took the poker in his hand and held it clasped there as something precious. "It is the only thing of mine," he said, "that she has touched. Even then I swore to myself that this hearth should be her hearth; that here we would sit together, and be one flesh and one bone." Then surrept.i.tiously he took the bit of iron away with him, and hid it among his treasures,--to the subsequent dismay of the housemaid.

There came to him a summons from the Quaker to the funeral, and on the day named, without saying a word to any one, he took the train and went down to Pegwell Bay. From the moment on which the messenger had come from Mrs. Roden he had dressed himself in black, and he now made no difference in his garments. Poor Zachary said but little to him; but that little was very bitter. "It has been so with all of them," he said. "They have all been taken. The Lord cannot strike me again now." Of the highly-born stranger's grief, or of the cause which brought him there, he had not a word to say; nor did Lord Hampstead speak of his own sorrow. "I sympathize and condole with you," he said to the old man. The Quaker shook his head, and after that there was silence between them till they parted. To the few others who were there Lord Hampstead did not address himself, nor did they to him. From the grave, when the clod of earth had been thrown on it, he walked slowly away, without a sign on his face of that agony which was rending his heart. There was a carriage there to take him to the railway, but he only shook his head when he was invited to enter it. He walked off and wandered about for hours, till he thought that the graveyard would be deserted. Then he returned, and when he found himself alone he stood over the newly heaped-up soil. "Marion,"

he said to himself over and over again, whispering as he stood there.

"Marion,--Marion; my wife; my woman." As he stood by the grave side, one came softly stealing up to him, and laid a hand upon his shoulder. He turned round quickly, and saw that it was the bereaved father. "Mr. Fay," he said, "we have both lost the only thing that either of us valued."

"What is it to thee, who are young, and hardly knew her twelve months since?"

"Months make no difference, I think."

"But old age, my lord, and childishness, and solitude--"

"I, too, am alone."

"She was my daughter, my own. Thou hadst seen a pretty face, and that was all. She had remained with me when those others died. Had thou not come--"

"Did my coming kill her, Mr. Fay'?"

"I do not say that. Thou hast been good to her, and I would not say a hard word to thee."

"I did think that nothing could have added to my sorrow."

"No, my lord; no, no. She would have died. She was her dear mother's child, and she was doomed. Go away, and be thankful that thou, too, hast not become the father of children born only to perish in your sight. I will not say an unkind word, but I would wish to have my girl's grave to myself." Upon this Lord Hampstead walked off, and went back to his own home, hardly knowing how he reached it.

It was a month after this that he returned to the churchyard, and might have been seen sitting on the small stone slab which the Quaker had already caused to be laid over the grave. It was a fine October evening, and the sombre gloom of the hours was already darkening everything around. He had crept into the enclosure silently, almost slily, so as to insure himself that his presence should not be noted; and now, made confident by the coming darkness, he had seated himself on the stone. During the long hours that he sat there no word was formed within his lips, but he surrendered himself entirely to thoughts of what his life might have been had she been spared to him.

He had come there for a purpose, the very opposite of that; but how often does it come to pa.s.s that we are unable to drive our thoughts into that channel in which we wish them to flow? He had thought much of her last words, and was minded to attempt to do something as she would have had him do it;--not that he might enjoy his life, but that he might make it useful. But as he sat there, he could not think of the real future,--not of the future as it might be made to take this or that form by his own efforts; but of the future as it would have been had she been with him, of the glorious, bright, beautiful future which her love, her goodness, her beauty, her tenderness would have illuminated.

Till he had seen her his heart had never been struck. Ideas, sufficiently pleasant in themselves, though tinged with a certain irony and sarcasm, had been frequent with him as to his future career. He would leave that building up of a future family of Marquises,--if future Marquises there were to be,--to one of those young darlings whose bringing-up would manifestly fit them for the work. For himself he would perhaps philosophize, perhaps do something that might be of service,--would indulge at any rate his own views as to humanity;--but he would not burden himself with a Countess and a nursery full of young lords and ladies. He had often said to Roden, had often said to Vivian, that her ladyship, his stepmother, need not trouble herself. He certainly would not be guilty of making either a Countess or a Marchioness. They, of course, had laughed at him, and had bid him bide his time. He had bided his time,--as they had said,--and Marion Fay had been the result.

Yes;--life would have been worth the having if Marion Fay had remained to him. It was thus he communed with himself as he sat there on the tomb. From the moment in which he had first seen her in Mrs.

Roden's house he had felt that things were changed with him. There had come a vision before him which filled him full of delight. As he learned to know the tones of her voice, and the motion of her limbs, and to succ.u.mb to the feminine charms with which she enveloped him, all the world was brightened up to his view. Here there was no pretence of special blood, no a.s.sumption of fantastic t.i.tles, no claim to superiority because of fathers and mothers who were in themselves by no means superior to their neighbours. And yet there had been all the grace, all the loveliness, all the tenderness, without which his senses would not have been captivated. He had never known his want;--but he had in truth wanted one who should be at all points a lady, and yet not insist on a right to be so esteemed on the strength of inherited privileges. Chance, good fortune, providence had sent her to him,--or more probably the eternal fitness of things, as he had allowed himself to argue when things had fallen out so well to his liking. Then there had arisen difficulties, which had seemed to him to be vain and absurd,--though they would not allow themselves to be at once swept away. They had talked to him of his station and of hers, making that an obstacle which to him had been a strong argument in favour of her love. Against this he had done battle with the resolute purpose which a man has who is sure of his cause. He would have none of their sophistries, none of their fears, none of their old-fashioned absurdities. Did she love him? Was her heart to him as was his to her? That was the one question on which it must all depend. As he thought of it all, sitting there on the tombstone, he put out his arm as though to fold her form to his bosom when he thought of the moment in which he became sure that it was so. There had been no doubt of the full-flowing current of her love. Then he had aroused himself, and had shaken his mane like a lion, and had sworn aloud that this vain obstacle should be no obstacle, even though it was pleaded by herself. Nature had been strong enough within him to a.s.sure him that he would overcome the obstacle.

And he had overcome it,--or was overcoming it,--when that other barrier gradually presented itself, and loomed day by day terribly large before his affrighted eyes. Even to that he would not yield,--not only as regarded her but himself also. Had there been no such barrier, the possession of Marion would have been to him an a.s.surance of perfect bliss which the prospect of far-distant death would not have effected. When he began to perceive that her condition was not as that of other young women, he became aware of a great danger,--of a danger to himself as well as to her, to himself rather than to her. This increased rather than diminished his desire for the possession. As the ardent rider will be more intent to take the fence when it looms before him large and difficult, so with him the resolution to make Marion his wife became the stronger when he knew that there were reasons of prudence, reasons of caution, reasons of worldly wisdom, why he should not do so. It had become a religion to him that she should be his one. Then gradually her strength had become known to him, and slowly he was made aware that he must bow to her decision. All that he wanted in all the world he must not have,--not that the love which he craved was wanting, but because she knew that her own doom was fixed.

She had bade him retrick his beams, and take the light and the splendour of his sun elsewhere. The light and the splendour of his sun had all pa.s.sed from him. She had absorbed them altogether. He, while he had been boasting to himself of his power and his manliness, in that he would certainly overcome all the barriers, had found himself to be weak as water in her hands. She, in her soft feminine tones, had told him what duty had required of her, and, as she had said so she had done. Then he had stood on one side, and had remained looking on, till she had--gone away and left him. She had never been his. It had not been allowed to him even to write his name, as belonging also to her, on the gravestone.

But she had loved him. There was nothing in it all but this to which his mind could revert with any feeling of satisfaction. She had certainly loved him. If such love might be continued between a disembodied spirit and one still upon the earth,--if there were any spirit capable of love after that divorce between the soul and the body,--her love certainly would still be true to him. Most a.s.suredly his should be true to her. Whatever he might do towards obeying her in striving to form some manly purpose for his life, he would never ask another woman to be his wife, he would never look for other love.

The black coat should be laid aside as soon as might be, so that the world around him should not have cause for remark; but the mourning should never be taken from his heart.

Then, when the darkness of night had quite come upon him, he arose from his seat, and flinging himself on his knees, stretched his arms wildly across the grave. "Marion," he said; "Marion; oh, Marion, will you hear me? Though gone from me, art thou not mine?" He looked up into the night, and there, before his eyes, was her figure, beautiful as ever, with all her loveliness of half-developed form, with her soft hair upon her shoulders; and her eyes beamed on him, and a heavenly smile came across her face, and her lips moved as though she would encourage him. "My Marion;--my wife!"

Very late that night the servants heard him as he opened the door and walked across the hall, and made his way up to his own room.

CHAPTER XX.

MR. GREENWOOD'S LAST BATTLE.

During the whole of that long summer nothing was absolutely arranged as to Roden and Lady Frances, though it was known to all London, and to a great many persons outside of London, that they were certainly to become man and wife. The summer was very long to Lord and Lady Trafford because of the necessity inc.u.mbent on them of remaining through the last dregs of the season on account of Lady Amaldina's marriage. Had Lady Amaldina thrown herself away on another Roden the aunt would have no doubt gone to the country; but her niece had done her duty in life with so much propriety and success that it would have been indecent to desert her. Lady Kingsbury therefore remained in Park Lane, and was driven to endure frequently the sight of the Post Office clerk.

For George Roden was admitted to the house even though it was at last acknowledged that he must be George Roden, and nothing more. And it was found also that he must be a Post Office clerk, and nothing more. Lord Persiflage, on whom Lady Kingsbury chiefly depended for seeing that her own darlings should not be disgraced by being made brothers-in-law to anything so low as a clerk in the Post Office, was angry at last, and declared that it was impossible to help a man who would not help himself. "It is no use trying to pick a man up who will lie in the gutter." It was thus he spoke of Roden in his anger; and then the Marchioness would wring her hands and abuse her stepdaughter. Lord Persiflage did think that something might be done for the young man if the young man would only allow himself to be called a Duke. But the young man would not allow it, and Lord Persiflage did not see what could be done. Nevertheless there was a general idea abroad in the world that something would be done. Even the mysterious savour of high rank which attached itself to the young man would do something for him.

It may be remembered that the Marquis himself, when first the fact had come to his ears that his daughter loved the young man, had been almost as ferociously angry as his wife. He had a.s.sented to the carrying of her away to the Saxon castle. He had frowned upon her.

He had been a party to the expelling her from his own house. But gradually his heart had become softened towards her; in his illness he had repented of his harshness; he had not borne her continued absence easily, and had of late looked about for an excuse for accepting her lover. When the man was discovered to be a Duke, though it was only an Italian Duke, of course he accepted him. Now his wife told him daily that Roden was not a Duke, because he would not accept his Dukedom,--and ought therefore again to be rejected. Lord Persiflage had declared that nothing could be done for him, and therefore he ought to be rejected. But the Marquis clung to his daughter. As the man was absolutely a Duke, according to the laws of all the Heralds, and all the Courts, and all the tables of precedency and usages of peerage in Christendom, he could not de-grade himself even by any motion of his own. He was the eldest and the legitimate son of the last Duca di Crinola,--so the Marquis said,--and as such was a fitting aspirant for the hand of the daughter of an English peer. "But he hasn't got a shilling," said Lady Kingsbury weeping.

The Marquis felt that it was within his own power to produce some remedy for this evil, but he did not care to say as much to his wife, who was tender on that point in regard to the interest of her three darlings. Roden continued his visits to Park Lane very frequently all through the summer, and had already arranged for an autumn visit to Castle Hautboy,--in spite of that angry word spoken by Lord Persiflage. Everybody knew he was to marry Lady Frances. But when the season was over, and all the world had flitted from London, nothing was settled.

Lady Kingsbury was of course very unhappy during all this time; but there was a source of misery deeper, more pressing, more crushing than even the Post Office clerk. Mr. Greenwood, the late chaplain, had, during his last interview with the Marquis, expressed some n.o.ble sentiments. He would betray nothing that had been said to him in confidence. He would do nothing that could annoy the Marchioness, because the Marchioness was a lady, and as such, ent.i.tled to all courtesy from him as a gentleman. There were grounds no doubt on which he could found a claim, but he would not insist on them, as his doing so would be distasteful to her ladyship. He felt that he was being ill-treated, almost robbed; but he would put up with that rather than say a word which would come against his own conscience as a gentleman. With these high a.s.surances he took his leave of the Marquis as though he intended to put up with the beggarly stipend of 200 a year which the Marquis had promised him. Perhaps that had been his intention;--but before two days were over he had remembered that though it might be base to tell her ladyship's secrets, the penny-post was still open to him.

It certainly was the case that Lady Kingsbury had spoken to him with strong hopes of the death of the heir to the t.i.tle. Mr. Greenwood, in discussing the matter with himself, went beyond that, and declared to himself that she had done so with expectation as well as hope.

Fearful words had been said. So he a.s.sured himself. He thanked his G.o.d that nothing had come of it. Only for him something,--he a.s.sured himself,--would have come of it. The whisperings in that up-stairs sitting-room at Trafford had been dreadful. He had divulged nothing.

He had held his tongue,--like a gentleman. But ought he not to be paid for holding his tongue? There are so many who act honestly from n.o.ble motives, and then feel that their honesty should be rewarded by all those gains which dishonesty might have procured for them! About a fortnight after the visit which Mr. Greenwood made to the Marquis he did write a letter to the Marchioness. "I am not anxious," he said, "to do more than remind your ladyship of those peculiarly confidential discussions which took place between yourself and me at Trafford during the last winter; but I think you will acknowledge that they were of a nature to make me feel that I should not be discarded like an old glove. If you would tell his lordship that something should be done for me, something would be done." Her ladyship when she received this was very much frightened. She remembered the expressions she had allowed herself to use, and did say a hesitating, halting word to her husband, suggesting that Mr.

Greenwood's pension should be increased. The Marquis turned upon her in anger. "Did you ever promise him anything?" he asked. No;--she had promised him nothing. "I am giving him more than he deserves, and will do no more," said the Marquis. There was something in his voice which forbade her to speak another word.

Mr. Greenwood's letter having remained for ten days without an answer, there came another. "I cannot but think that you will acknowledge my right to expect an answer," he said, "considering the many years through which I have enjoyed the privilege of your ladyship's friendship, and the _very confidential terms_ on which we have been used to discuss matters of the highest interest to us both." The "matters" had no doubt been the probability of the accession to the t.i.tle of her own son through the demise of his elder brother! She understood now all her own folly, and something of her own wickedness. To this second appeal she wrote a short answer, having laid awake over it one entire night.

DEAR MR. GREENWOOD--I have spoken to the Marquis, and he will do nothing.

Yours truly,

C. KINGSBURY.

This she did without saying a word to her husband.

Then, after the interval of a few days, there came a third letter.

MY DEAR LADY KINGSBURY,--

I cannot allow myself to think that this should be the end of it all, after so many years of social intimacy and confidential intercourse. Can you yourself imagine the condition of a gentleman of my age reduced after a life of ease and comfort to exist on a miserable pension of 200 a year? It simply means death,--death! Have I not a right to expect something better after the devotion of a life?

Who has known as well as I the stumbling-blocks to your ladyship's ambition which have been found in the existences of Lord Hampstead and Lady Frances Trafford?

I have sympathized with you no doubt,--partly because of their peculiarities, partly from sincere affection for your ladyship. It cannot surely be that your ladyship should now treat me as an enemy because I could do no more than sympathize!

Dig I cannot. To beg I am ashamed. You will hardly wish that I should perish from want. I have not as yet been driven to open out my sad case to any one but yourself.

Do not force me to it,--for the sake of those darling children for whose welfare I have ever been so anxious.

Believe me to be, Your ladyship's most devoted and faithful friend,

THOMAS GREENWOOD.

This epistle so frightened her that she began to consider how she might best collect together a sufficient sum of money to satisfy the man. She did succeed in sending him a note for 50. But this he was too wary to take. He returned it, saying that he could not, though steeped in poverty, accept chance eleemosynary aid. What he required.--and had he thought a right to ask,--was an increase to the fixed stipend allowed him. He must, he thought, again force himself upon the presence of the Marquis, and explain the nature of the demand more explicitly.

Upon this Lady Kingsbury showed all the letters to her husband. "What does he mean by stumbling-blocks?" asked the Marquis in his wrath.

Then there was a scene which was sad enough. She had to confess that she had spoken very freely to the chaplain respecting her step-children. "Freely! What does freely mean? Do you want them out of the way?" What a question for a husband to have to ask his wife!