The Irrational Knot Part 6

"Mr. Marmaduke Lind."

Marmaduke became very red as they both waited for him to explain.

"I thought that you would perhaps join us at supper," he said to Susanna.

"Did you?" she said, threateningly. Then she turned her back on him and went to her dressing-room.

"Well, Mr. Lind," said Conolly, "what do you think of Mademoiselle Lalage now?"

"I think her annoyance is very natural," said Marmaduke, gloomily. "No doubt you are right to take care of your sister, but you are very much mistaken if you think I meant to act badly toward her."

"It is no part of my duty to take care of her," said Conolly, seriously. "She is her own guardian, and she has never been encouraged to suppose that her responsibility lies with any one but herself."

"It doesnt matter now," said Marmaduke; "for I intend never to speak to her again."

Conolly laughed. "However that may turn out," he said, "we are evidently not in the mood for further conviviality, so let us postpone the supper to some other occasion. May I advise you not to wait until Susanna returns. There is no chance of a reconciliation to-night."

"I dont want any reconciliation."

"Of course not; I had forgotten," replied Conolly, placably. "Then I suppose you will go before she has finished dressing."

"I shall go now," said Marmaduke, b.u.t.toning his overcoat, and turning away.

"Good-night," said Conolly.

"Good-night," muttered Marmaduke, petulantly, and disappeared.

Conolly waited a moment, so that he might not overtake Lind. He then went for a cab, and waited at the stage door until his sister came down, frowning. She got into the hansom without a word.

"Why dont you have a brougham, instead of going about in cabs?" he said, as they drove away.

"Because I like a hansom better than a brougham; and I had rather pay four shillings a night and travel comfortably, than thirteen and be half suffocated."

"I thought the appearance of----"

"There is no use in your talking to me. I cant hear a word you say going over these stones."

When they were alone together in their drawing-room in Lambeth, he, after walking up and down the room a few times, and laughing softly to himself, began to sing the couplets from the burlesque.

"Are you aware," she inquired, "that it is half past twelve, and that the people of the house are trying to sleep."

"True," said he, desisting. "By the bye, I, too, have had my triumphs this evening. I shared the honors of the concert with Master Lind, who was so delighted that he insisted on bringing me off to the Bijou. He loves you to distraction, poor devil!"

"Yes: you made a nice piece of mischief there. Where is he?"

"Gone away in a rage, swearing never to speak to you again."

"Hm! And so his name is Lind, is it?"

"Didnt you know?"

"No, or I should have told you when I read the program this evening. The young villain pretended that his name was Marmaduke Sharp."

"Ah! The name reminds me of one of his cousins, a little spitfire that snaps at every one who presumes to talk to her."

"His cousins! Oh, of course; you met them at the concert. What are they like? Are they swells?"

"Yes, they seem to be. There were only two cousins, Miss McQuinch and a young woman named Marian, blonde and rather good looking. There was a brother of hers there, but he is only a parson, and a tall fellow named Douglas, who made rather a fool of himself. I could not make him out exactly."

"Did they snub you?"

"I dont know. Probably they tried. Are you intimate with many of our young n.o.bility under a.s.sumed names?"

"Steal a few more marches to the Bijou, and perhaps you will find out."

"Good-night! Pardon my abrupt departure, but you are not the very sweetest of Susannas to-night."

"Oh, _good_-night."

"By the bye," said Conolly, returning, "this must be the Mr. Duke Lind who is going to marry Lady Constance Carbury, my n.o.ble pupil's sister."

"I am sure it matters very little whom he marries."

"If he will pay us a visit here, and witness the working of perfect frankness without affection, and perfect liberty without refinement, he may find reason to conclude that it matters a good deal. Good-night."

CHAPTER II

Marian Lind lived at Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, with her father, the fourth son of a younger brother of the Earl of Carbury. Mr. Reginald Harrington Lind, at the outset of his career, had no object in life except that of getting through it as easily as possible; and this he understood so little how to achieve that he suffered himself to be married at the age of nineteen to a Lancashire cotton spinner's heiress.

She bore him three children, and then eloped with a professor of spiritualism, who deserted her on the eve of her fourth confinement, in the course of which she caught scarlet fever and died. Her child survived, but was sent to a baby farm and starved to death in the usual manner. Her husband, disgusted by her behavior (for she had been introduced by him to many n.o.blemen and gentlemen, his personal friends, some one at least of whom, on the slightest encouragement, would, he felt sure, have taken the place of the foreign charlatan she had disgraced him by preferring), consoled himself for her bad taste by entering into her possessions, which comprised a quant.i.ty of new jewellery, new lace, and feminine apparel, and an income of nearly seven thousand pounds a year. After this, he became so welcome in society that he could have boasted with truth at the end of any July that there were few marriageable gentlewomen of twenty-six and upward in London who had not been submitted to his inspection with a view to matrimony. But finding it easy to delegate the care of his children to school princ.i.p.als and hospitable friends, he concluded that he had nothing to gain and much comfort to lose by adding a stepmother to his establishment; and, after some time, it became the custom to say of Mr.

Lind that the memory of his first wife kept him single. Thus, whilst his sons were drifting to manhood through Harrow and Cambridge, and his daughter pa.s.sing from one relative's house to another's on a continual round of visits, sharing such private tuition as the cousins with whom she happened to be staying happened to be receiving just then, he lived at his club and pursued the usual routine of a gentleman-bachelor in London.

In the course of time, Reginald Lind, the eldest child, entered the army, and went to India with his regiment. His brother George, less stolid, weaker, and more studious, preferred the Church. Marian, the youngest, from being constantly in the position of a guest, had early acquired habits of self-control and consideration for others, and escaped the effects, good and evil, of the subjection in which children are held by the direct authority of their parents.

Of the numerous domestic circles of her father's kin, that with which she was the least familiar, because it was the poorest, had sprung from the marriage of one of her father's sisters with a Wiltshire gentleman named Hardy McQuinch, who had a small patrimony, a habit of farming, and a love of hunting. In the estimation of the peasantry, who would not a.s.sociate lands, horses, and a carriage, with want of money, he was a rich man; but Mrs. McQuinch found it hard to live like a lady on their income, and had worn many lines into her face by constantly and vainly wishing that she could afford to give a ball every season, to get a new carriage, and to appear at church with her daughters in new dresses oftener than twice a year. Her two eldest girls were plump and pleasant, good riders and hearty eaters; and she had reasonable hopes of marrying them to prosperous country gentlemen.

Elinor, her third and only other child, was one of her troubles. At an early age it was her practice, once a week or thereabouts, to disappear in the forenoon; be searched anxiously for all day; and return with a torn frock and dirty face at about six o'clock in the afternoon. She was stubborn, rebellious, and pa.s.sionate under reproof or chastis.e.m.e.nt: governesses had left the house because of her; and from one school she had run away, from another eloped with a choir boy who wrote verses. Him she deserted in a fit of jealousy, quarter of an hour after her escape from school. The only one of her tastes that conduced to the peace of the house was for reading; and even this made her mother uneasy; for the books she liked best were fit, in Mrs. McQuinch's opinion, for the bookcase only. Elinor read openly what she could obtain by asking, such as Lamb's Tales from Shakespear, and The Pilgrim's Progress. The Arabian Nights Entertainments were sternly refused her; so she read them by stealth; and from that day there was always a collection of books, borrowed from friends, or filched from the upper shelf in the library, beneath her mattress. n.o.body thought of looking there for them; and even if they had, they might have paused to reflect on the consequences of betraying her. Her eldest sister having given her a small workbox on her eleventh birthday, had the present thrown at her head two days later for reporting to her parents that Nelly's fondness for sitting in a certain secluded summer-house was due to her desire to read Lord Byron's poetry un.o.bserved. Miss Lydia's forehead was severely cut; and Elinor, though bitterly remorseful, not only refused to beg pardon for her fault, but shattered every brittle article in the room to which she was confined for her contumacy. The vicar, on being consulted, recommended that she should be well whipped. This counsel was repugnant to Hardy McQuinch, but he gave his wife leave to use her discretion in the matter. The mother thought that the child ought to be beaten into submission; but she was afraid to undertake the task, and only uttered a threat, which was received with stubborn defiance. This was forgotten next day when Elinor, exhausted by a week of remorse, terror, rage, and suspense, became dangerously ill. When she recovered, her parents were more indulgent to her, and were gratified by finding her former pa.s.sionate resistance replaced by sulky obedience. Five years elapsed, and Elinor began to write fiction. The beginning of a novel, and many incoherent verses imitated from Lara, were discovered by her mother, and burnt by her father. This outrage she never forgave. She was unable to make her resentment felt, for she no longer cared to break gla.s.s and china. She feared even to remonstrate lest she should humiliate herself by bursting into tears, as, since her illness, she had been p.r.o.ne to do in the least agitation. So she kept silence, and ceased to speak to either of her parents except when they addressed questions to her. Her father would neither complain of this nor confess the regret he felt for his hasty destruction of her ma.n.u.scripts; but, whilst he proclaimed that he would burn every sc.r.a.p of her nonsense that might come into his hands, he took care to be blind when he surprised her with suspicious bundles of foolscap, and snubbed his wife for hinting that Elinor was secretly disobeying him. Meanwhile her silent resentment never softened, and the life of the family was embittered by their consciousness of it. It never occurred to Mrs. McQuinch, an excellent mother to her two eldest daughters, that she was no more fit to have charge of the youngest than a turtle is to rear a young eagle. The discomfort of their relations never shook her faith in their "naturalness." Like her husband and the vicar, she believed that when G.o.d sent children he made their parents fit to rule them. And Elinor resented her parents' tyranny, as she felt it to be, without dreaming of making any allowances for their being in a false position towards her.

One morning a letter from London announced that Mr. Lind had taken a house in Westbourne Terrace, and intended to live there permanently with his daughter. Elinor had not come down to breakfast when the post came.

"Yes," said Mrs. McQuinch, when she had communicated the news: "I knew there was something the matter when I saw Reginald's handwriting. It must be fully eighteen months since I heard from him last. I am very glad he has settled Marian in a proper home, instead of living like a bachelor and leaving her to wander about from one house to another. I wish we could have afforded to ask her down here oftener."

"Here is a note from Marian, addressed to Nelly," said Lydia, who had been examining the envelope.

"To Nelly!" said Mrs. McQuinch, vexed. "I think she should have invited one of you first."