We may assume, for the present, that Mr. Grant’s object in calling upon
Sir Francis Bendibow was to make arrangements whereby the bank might
charge itself with the investment and care of his property. Meanwhile we
shall have time to review what had been happening during the previous
week at Mrs. Lockhart’s. Philip Lancaster and Mr. Grant, having passed
their first night at the “Plough and Harrow,” returned to the widow’s
with their luggage the next morning. Their reception on this occasion
was much more cordial and confident than it had been the day before. The
chance which had brought Lancaster into relations with the family of the
gallant old soldier, whose body he had rescued from an unmarked grave,
gave him a lien upon the interest and gratitude of the two women such as
he might not otherwise have acquired at all. The whole history of his
acquaintance with Major Lockhart had to be told many times over to
listeners who could never hear it often enough; and the narrator
ransacked his memory to reproduce each trifling word and event that had
belonged to their intercourse. The hearers, for their part, commented on
and discussed the story with a minuteness so loving and unweariable as
to move Lancaster to say privately to Mr. Grant, “Damme, sir, if it
doesn’t make me wish that I had been the Major, and the Major me. I
shall never have a widow and daughter to mourn me so!”
“It is one of the ills of this life,” Mr. Grant returned with a smile,
“that while your mourners are your only honest flatterers, their
flattery always comes a day too late. If you had been the Major you
would have missed hearing his praises. Being yourself, you miss the
praises themselves; but upon the whole I think you have the best of it.
The love of these good women for their departed father and husband is
like yonder ray of sunshine which falls upon his portrait. It falls only
there, but see how it brightens and warms the whole room--and your own
countenance, I fancy, especially. In some measure, sir, you are heir of
that wealth of affection which was the Major’s while he lived. Your news
of him has partly made you his substitute in the eyes of those who loved
him. _Non omnis moriatur._”
“I wish you would take my poem in hand and put some poetry into it. ’Tis
true the wreath of fame, as well as the brand of infamy, is laid only on
dead brows. If a man could but return to life long enough to admire his
own statue, or read his damnation in the _Quarterly_!”
“The damnation is swifter of foot than the statue, and sometimes
overtakes us on this side of the grave,” said Mr. Grant. “But your
aspiration may be realized. I have known the dead to come to life.”
“To find, probably, that the reality of dead features is less comely
than the remembrance?”
“As for that, the dead man, if he be wise, will so disguise himself as
to avoid recognition. He will renew his life only so far as to be a
spectator, not a participant. So that, after all, he is not himself
again, nor any other man either, and that is the same as to say that he
is nobody, which is as much as a dead body has any right to be.”
“I’m not sure of that,” said Lancaster, folding his arms and leaning
back his head. “There is a fellow in Weimar by the name of Goethe--you
may have heard of him--who has written a poem called ‘Faust.’ Faust
comes back to life, or to youth, which amounts to the same thing, and
proves to be anything but a mere spectator. He gets caught in a
love-scrape, and there is the devil to pay. There is something
attractive in this human life which grapples us whether we will or no,
and makes us dance to one tune or another. On second thoughts I withdraw
my aspiration; one life is enough for me, and may be too much. To live
again would be to wear the same old cap and bells, only jingling them to
another measure. No man with any self-respect or sense of the ridiculous
would do it.”
“I apprehend you may be familiar with an earlier work of M. Goethe’s,
which I also have read, called the ‘Sorrows of Werther.’ But I question
seriously whether mankind are really the poor puppet-show that you speak
of. Life is unreal and bootless only so long as you make yourself the
centre and hero of it. As soon as you begin to help on the others with
their parts, both they and you cease to be puppets. For no man can live
in himself, but only in his acts; and if his acts are just, so much the
more fragrantly will they survive him.”
“I believe that theoretically; but practically I am persuaded that to
fall passionately in love is the only way to become alive: and
selfishness is the very essence of love.”
“Ha!” ejaculated Mr. Grant stroking his chin. “You have been in love no
doubt?”
“I have been like other men, or as much worse than the average as my
intellectual capacity may be superior to theirs. But--no; I have never
been alive in the sense I speak of.”
“Too unselfish, eh?”
“Well--not quite selfish enough, I suppose; or too cautious to venture
on a final plunge into the abyss. The puppet business is less arduous,
and gives a man a better opinion of himself, by lowering his opinion of
his fellow-actors.”
“Ha! and it’s too late to expect you to lose your caution, now, of
course?”
“I have experimented too much!” replied Lancaster, getting up and going
to the window.
Mr. Grant took a pinch of snuff and said nothing.
Things went on very quietly in the old brick house. Both the older and
the younger man were regular in their habits, and gave their hostesses
no trouble. In the mornings after breakfast, Lancaster, who was of an
athletic complexion, took a walk of an hour or two along the London
road, returning toward noon, and shutting himself up in his room, where
he occupied himself in writing. Mr. Grant commonly spent the forenoon
in-doors, either busying himself about his private affairs, or reading,
or chatting intermittently with Mrs. Lockhart or Marion, as they passed
in and out of the sitting-room. In the afternoon he sometimes walked out
to get the air, and may occasionally have ridden a horse as far as
London. But the after-dinner hours were the pleasantest of the day, from
a social point of view. Neither Mr. Grant nor Lancaster were heavy
drinkers, and seldom remained at table more than a quarter of an hour
after the ladies had left it. Then the four remained together in the
sitting-room till bed-time; sometimes playing cards, as was the custom
of the time; sometimes content to entertain one another with
conversation; sometimes having music, when Lancaster would second
Marion’s soprano with his baritone. Mrs. Lockhart and Mr. Grant had most
of the conversation between themselves; Lancaster, save upon the special
topic of the Major, seldom doing more than to throw in an occasional
remark or comment, generally of a witty or good-humoredly cynical
tendency; Marion being the most uniformly silent of the four, though she
possessed rare eloquence as a listener. At cards, Mrs. Lockhart and
Lancaster were apt to be partners against Marion and Mr. Grant. The
latter would then display a polished and charming gallantry toward his
young _vis-à-vis_, of a kind that belonged rather to the best fashion
of the last century than to this; and which was all the pleasanter
because it was more the reticence of a sincere and kindly disposition
than the pretense of a cold and unsympathetic one. Marion reciprocated
his advances with a certain arch cordiality which characterized her when
her mind was at ease and her surroundings agreeable; and thus a species
of chivalrous-playful courtship was established between the elderly
gentleman and the young gentlewoman, which was a source of mild
entertainment to everybody. The widow and Philip Lancaster, on the other
hand, were unscrupulously romantic and informal in their intercourse;
Philip paying rosy compliments to Mrs. Lockhart, with earnest gravity,
and she expressing her affectionate admiration of him in a manner worthy
of simple-hearted Fanny Pell. In a certain sense, this pairing-off was
grounded upon a natural and genuine attraction between the respective
partners. For there was a child-like element in Mrs. Lockhart which was
absent from her daughter; and Mr. Grant had a boyish straightforwardness
which was not apparent in Lancaster; and thus the balance was better
preserved than had the two younger people contended against the two
elder. The former were old where the latter were young. In another point
of view, the normal sympathy of youth with youth, conditioned upon the
lack of actual experience and the anticipation of an indefinite future,
was not to be denied; so that what Lancaster said to Mrs. Lockhart may
have had an oblique significance for Marion; and Marion’s replies to Mr.
Grant could be construed as veiled rejoinders to Lancaster. At the same
time it need not be inferred that anything serious was intended on the
part of any of the four.
As regards success in card-playing, it commonly fell to Mrs. Lockhart
and Lancaster. “And yet I may say, without vanity, that I was accounted
a fair hand at it in
[Illustration: PULLING THEMSELVES TOGETHER AND DISCUSSING THE MAGNITUDE
OF THEIR DISASTER.]
my earlier days,” Mr. Grant once remarked apologetically to his partner.
“Cards are not played where you have been living?” Marion suggested.
“No; at least I devoted myself to other games, and my Hoyle was
forgotten.”
“I think cards are less popular in society than they used to be
five-and-twenty years ago,” remarked Mrs. Lockhart.
“Oh, it is in many ways a different England from that old one,” Mr.
Grant said, stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “A great
rage for balloons at that time, I recollect. And for boxing--there was
the Prince of Wales boxing with Lord Hervey one night after the opera.
Dueling, too; why, in 1786 ’twas almost a distinction for a man not to
have fought a duel; the point of honor was much oftener vindicated than
the point of the argument. No wonder; to be drunk at a certain hour of
the day was accounted a mark of breeding among gentlemen. Charles Fox
was a terrible fellow for drinking and dicing; used to see him at
Watthier’s.”
“Watthier’s? Mr. Tom Grantley used to go there a great deal,” said Mrs.
Lockhart, blushing a little after she had spoken.
“Aye, so he was; I have seen him, too--a very handsome man. But I was
still quite young when he died. You knew him, madam?”
“I believe mamma knew him very well,” put in Marion, with a touch of
mischief. “He was to have danced at your wedding, was he not, mamma?”
“He was very kind to me when I was very young and foolish,” replied her
mother, with quiet simplicity. “He was not in England when I married.”
“Grantley was a relative of mine--or would have been, if he had lived
ten years longer,” Lancaster remarked. “My father and he both married
daughters of old Seabridge. By-the-by, didn’t he have a daughter who
disappeared, or something of that sort?”
“It was a son. I believe he was a very promising young gentleman, but he
came to a sad end. Probably you may have met him, Mr. Grant?”
“Never, madam.”
“What end was that?” Lancaster demanded.
“He was discovered in some crime about money--embezzlement, I think. He
was a junior partner in the bank; Sir Francis Bendibow trusted him
entirely. It almost broke his heart when Charles ran away. But Sir
Francis behaved very nobly about it.”
“Ah! he had been recently ennobled, had he not?” inquired Mr. Grant in a
dry tone. But if he intended any innuendo, Mrs. Lockhart did not
perceive it.
“He made good the loss out of his own private property,” she went on;
“and he supported Mrs. Grantley as long as she lived. Poor woman, she
was his sister, and of course knew nothing about her husband’s
wickedness.”
“ ’Tis indeed a romantic story,” said Mr. Grant thoughtfully. “Sir
Francis, I presume, took all means to trace the fugitive?”
“I think he did all that he honestly could to let him escape. They had
been such friends, you know. Besides, if the unfortunate young man had
any feeling left, he must have been punished enough in losing his honor
and his family.”
“Ha! no doubt. He has never been heard from since?”
“No; except that Sir Francis gave me to know that he died a few years
afterwards.”
“I don’t believe that Sir Francis Bendibow was so wonderfully generous,”
exclaimed Marion, who had been manifesting some signs of restiveness.
“You always think a person is good if they say they are. I dare say the
Bendibows were very grateful to Charles Grantley for marrying into
their family; he had earls and barons for his kinsmen, and the Bendibows
have always courted the great. As to Sir Francis, ’tis true his manners
are very soft and courteous; but my father has told me he was very
unsteady in his youth, and I think my father meant more than he said.”
“Yet, admitting that, still the defaulter would not be excused,”
observed Mr. Grant.
“Since he was not brought to his trial, it cannot be said how much or
how little he was a criminal,” returned Marion, turning her eyes upon
the speaker and kindling with her cause. “He was the son of a man who
had nothing ignoble in him, whatever else he may have had. You have told
me that yourself, mother. And his mother was noble of birth, and I have
heard, noble of nature, too.”
“I can confirm you in that,” said Lancaster. “My father used to say that
if Edith Seabridge had been born a man instead of a woman, she would
have made herself the foremost man in England. But it showed no less
nobleness in her to give up everything to the love and service of her
husband.”
“And the son of such a father and mother should not be judged a thief
and coward except upon clear evidence,” Marion continued, acknowledging
Lancaster’s support only by a heightened color. “He died before I was
born, I suppose, but I have always thought that perhaps he was not so
much to blame--not in any dastardly way, I mean. He was not a rake and a
gambler as Sir Francis was; but a man who cared for learning, and for
freedom, and the thoughts that make people better. ’Tis not that kind of
man that would steal money for himself: if he committed a crime, I can
only think it must have been for the good of some one he loved--not for
his own good. You say he and Sir Francis were dear friends; perhaps it
was for Sir Francis’ own sake that he did it--to help him through some
strait. And then it would be no wonder that Sir Francis let him escape
so easily!”
“But,” said Mr. Grant, who had listened with attention to Marion’s
advocacy, with a curious smile occasionally glimmering across his face,
“but, my dear, that is a doubtful cause that can be maintained only on
the discredit of the other side. How could this man have embezzled for
the benefit of Sir Francis if, as I am given to understand, he absconded
with the proceeds of his robbery?”
“No one knows whether he had the money with him,” answered Marion,
driven to bay. “All that is known is, that he disappeared, and that Sir
Francis said the bank was robbed. You say that Sir Francis replaced the
loss from his private purse; but perhaps his purse had first been filled
for him by the very man he denounced as a defaulter!”
At this audacious hypothesis Mr. Grant laughed, though with so kindly an
expression that Marion could not feel she was being ridiculed. “You go
near to make me wish, my dear,” he said, “that I might be unjustly
accused, if I might hope to have you for my defender.”
“How fortunate, then, was this questionable cousin of mine, to have made
good his embezzlement and his escape, and withal to have found such a
defender!” said Lancaster. “You see, Miss Lockhart, my cousinhood with
him allows me the liberty of reviling him quietly if I choose. Whatever
your cousin has done, you are liable to do yourself; so I am only
whipping myself across my cousin’s back.”
“If you need whipping at all, why don’t you whip yourself directly?”
Marion demanded, quick to resent whatever seemed to her patronizing or
artificial in another’s tone.
“Oh, Marion!” exclaimed Mrs. Lockhart, under her breath.
“I only meant,” said Lancaster smiling, “that whenever I hear of a man
committing a crime, I have a fellow-feeling for him: I believe there is
the making of a capital criminal in me, if I am only given fair
opportunities.”
It was not the first time Lancaster had spoken in this way, and Marion
had not made up her mind how to understand him. She looked away and made
no reply.
After a moment Mr. Grant said, “You spoke of Charles Grantley having
left a family behind him; is one to infer from that there were
children?”
“There was a daughter, I think,” said Mrs. Lockhart, relieved at the
change of subject; “didn’t you know her, Marion?”
“She was at the same school with me for a little while; but she was much
older than I; she was just leaving when I began. She was very pretty and
very genteel; much more genteel than I ever thought of being. She never
spoke to me but once, and then she told me to go up-stairs and fetch her
slippers.”
“Did you obey?” asked Lancaster.
“No. At first she looked at me very indignantly; but soon she laughed
and said, ‘You don’t mind me, because I am a woman; but the day will
come when you will fetch a man’s slippers for him, and kiss them after
he has put them on.’ She was not like any other girl I ever saw; but
almost every one was fond of her; she could do so much--and yet she was
always waited on.”
“I should like to know how she turned out. She evidently had a
character,” remarked Lancaster.
“She married very well, I believe,” said Mrs. Lockhart.
“Yes; he was three times her age, and very rich, and so fond of her that
he didn’t care whether her name was Bendibow or Grantley,” rejoined
Marion, rather harshly. “She was always called Miss Bendibow, by the
way, and she may have been Sir Francis’ real daughter for aught I know;
she seemed to think so herself, and she certainly didn’t speak of any
other father. I suppose she didn’t much care who her father was. At any
rate she became the Marquise Desmoines.”
Lancaster moved suddenly in his chair, and seemed about to speak, but
checked himself.
Mr. Grant took snuff, and asked, after a pause, “You say he was very
fond of her?”
“Yes, I am sure he was,” said Mrs. Lockhart; “he often talked to me
about her--for he was a friend of ours, and used to visit us often;
because my husband saved his life in France, when the Marquis could not
have escaped but for his assistance and protection; and after that he
lived in London, and was sometimes so poor as to be forced to give
lessons in French and in music; for all this time his estates in France
were in jeopardy, and he did not know whether he would ever recover
them. But he did, at last; and then he entered society, though he was no
longer a young man; and it was then that he met Perdita Bendibow, as she
was called. He proposed to her and she accepted him; she could scarce
have helped but like him, I am sure. After their marriage they went to
France, but I have heard nothing of her since.”
“There is one thing you have forgotten, mamma,” said Marion; “it is
another proof how much the Marquis cared for her. Sir Francis gave her
no dowry. I suppose he thought it no more than just to save the money
out of what her father had cost him.”
“It is not charitable to say so, Marion; and I am sure one could not
expect that Sir Francis would give her a dowry, when her husband was so
wealthy.”
“So the girl never knew her real father? Well, doubtless it was better
so; doubtless he would have wished it so himself, if he retained any
unselfish and noble feelings--as you, my dear child, have been
charitable enough to imagine may have been the case. And perhaps
Perdita’s lot was the one best suited to her--she being as you have
described her. For my part, having once had a child of my own, I may
hope that she is happy--and that she deserves to be.” Mr. Grant uttered
all this in a musing tone, as though his mind was dwelling upon other
things than those immediately under discussion; but there was much grave
tenderness in the sort of benediction with which he concluded. It made
Marion’s heart go out toward him. She felt sure that he had known some
deep love, and grievous sorrow, in his day. Now he was a lonely old man,
but she resolved to be in the place of a daughter to him. She leaned her
cheek upon her hand, and fell into a revery, in the midst of which the
clock struck eleven.
“Bless me! how late we are keeping you up, Mrs. Lockhart,” exclaimed Mr.
Grant, shutting up his snuff-box and putting it in his pocket. “The
truth is, I have been so long deprived of ladies’ society, that now I am
prone to presume too much on my good fortune. In future, you must help
me to keep myself within bounds. Good-night, madam--I am your most
obedient servant. Good-night, my dear Miss Marion; your father must have
been a good man; I wish I might have known him. Mr. Lancaster, do you go
with me?” The old gentleman was always thus ceremonious in his
leave-takings.
“Yes, I’m with you,” said Lancaster, breaking out of a brown study into
which he had subsided, and getting briskly to his feet. “I have to thank
you for a strange story--an interesting one, I mean.”
“Is there so much in it?” said Marion, as she gave him her hand.
“I fancy I see a good deal in it,” answered he; adding with a smile,
“but then, you know, I call myself a poet!”
The ladies courtseyed; the gentlemen bowed, and went up-stairs
together.