TAKING IT QUIETLY.
All the county, or at least all that part of the county within a
certain radius of Marchmont Towers, waited very anxiously for Mr. Paul
Marchmont to make some move. The horsewhipping business had given quite
a pleasant zest, a flavour of excitement, a dash of what it is the
fashion nowadays to call "sensation," to the wind-up of the hunting
breakfast. Poor Paul's thrashing had been more racy and appetising than
the finest olives that ever grew, and his late guests looked forward to
a great deal more excitement and "sensation" before the business was
done with. Of course Paul Marchmont would do something. He _must_ make
a stir; and the sooner he made it the better. Matters would have to be
explained. People expected to know the _cause_ of Edward Arundel's
enmity; and of course the new master of the Towers would see the
propriety of setting himself right in the eyes of his influential
acquaintance, his tenantry, and retainers; especially if he
contemplated standing for Swampington at the next general election.
This was what people said to each other. The scene at the
hunting-breakfast was a most fertile topic of conversation. It was
almost as good as a popular murder, and furnished scandalous paragraphs
_ad infinitum_ for the provincial papers, most of them beginning, "It
is understood--," or "It has been whispered in our hearing that--," or
"Rochefoucault has observed that--." Everybody expected that Paul
Marchmont would write to the papers, and that Edward Arundel would
answer him in the papers; and that a brisk and stirring warfare would
be carried on in printer's-ink--at least. But no line written by either
of the gentlemen appeared in any one of the county journals; and by
slow degrees it dawned upon people that there was no further amusement
to be got out of Paul's chastisement, and that the master of the Towers
meant to take the thing quietly, and to swallow the horrible outrage,
taking care to hide any wry faces he made during that operation.
Yes; Paul Marchmont let the matter drop. The report was circulated that
he was very ill, and had suffered from a touch of brain-fever, which
kept him a victim to incessant delirium until after Mr. Arundel had
left the county. This rumour was set afloat by Mr. Weston the surgeon;
and as he was the only person admitted to his brother-in-law's
apartment, it was impossible for any one to contradict his assertion.
The fox-hunting squires shrugged their shoulders; and I am sorry to say
that the epithets, "hound," "cur," "sneak," and "mongrel," were more
often applied to Mr. Marchmont than was consistent with Christian
feeling on the part of the gentlemen who uttered them. But a man who
can swallow a sound thrashing, administered upon his own door-step, has
to contend with the prejudices of society, and must take the
consequences of being in advance of his age.
So, while his new neighbours talked about him, Paul Marchmont lay in
his splendid chamber, with the frisking youths and maidens staring at
him all day long, and simpering at him with their unchanging faces,
until he grew sick at heart, and began to loathe all this new grandeur,
which had so delighted him a little time ago. He no longer laughed at
the recollection of shabby Charlotte Street. He dreamt one night that
he was back again in the old bedroom, with the painted deal furniture,
and the hideous paper on the walls, and that the Marchmont-Towers
magnificence had been only a feverish vision; and he was glad to be
back in that familiar place, and was sorry on awaking to find that
Marchmont Towers was a splendid reality.
There was only one faint red streak upon his shoulders, for the
thrashing had not been a brutal one. It was _disgrace_ Edward Arundel
had wanted to inflict, not physical pain, the commonplace punishment
with which a man corrects his refractory horse. The lash of the
hunting-whip had done very little damage to the artist's flesh; but it
had slashed away his manhood, as the sickle sweeps the flowers amidst
the corn.
He could never look up again. The thought of going out of this house
for the first time, and the horror of confronting the altered faces of
his neighbours, was as dreadful to him as the anticipation of that
awful exit from the Debtor's Door, which is the last step but one into
eternity, must be to the condemned criminal.
"I shall go abroad," he said to his mother, when he made his appearance
in the western drawing-room, a week after Edward's departure. "I shall
go on the Continent, mother; I have taken a dislike to this place,
since that savage attacked me the other day."
Mrs. Marchmont sighed.
"It will seem hard to lose you, Paul, now that you are rich. You were
so constant to us through all our poverty; and we might be so happy
together now."
The artist was walking up and down the room, with his hands in the
pockets of his braided velvet coat. He knew that in the conventional
costume of a well-bred gentleman he showed to a disadvantage amongst
other men; and he affected a picturesque and artistic style of dress,
whose brighter hues and looser outlines lighted up his pale face, and
gave a grace to his spare figure.
"You think it worth something, then, mother?" he said presently, half
kneeling, half lounging in a deep-cushioned easy chair near the table
at which his mother sat. "You think our money is worth something to us?
All these chairs and tables, this great rambling house, the servants
who wait upon us, and the carriages we ride in, are worth something,
are they not? they make us happier, I suppose. I know I always thought
such things made up the sum of happiness when I was poor. I have seen a
hearse going away from a rich man's door, carrying his cherished wife,
or his only son, perhaps; and I've thought, 'Ah, but he has forty
thousand a year!' You are happier here than you were in Charlotte
Street, eh, mother?"
Mrs. Marchmont was a Frenchwoman by birth, though she had lived so long
in London as to become Anglicised. She only retained a slight accent of
her native tongue, and a good deal more vivacity of look and gesture
than is common to Englishwomen. Her elder daughter was sitting on the
other side of the broad fireplace. She was only a quieter and older
likeness of Lavinia Weston.
"_Am_ I happier?" exclaimed Mrs. Marchmont. "Need you ask me the
question, Paul? But it is not so much for myself as for your sake that
I value all this grandeur."
She held out her long thin hand, which was covered with rings, some
old-fashioned and comparatively valueless, others lately purchased by
her devoted son, and very precious. The artist took the shrunken
fingers in his own, and raised them to his lips.
"I'm very glad that I've made you happy, mother," he said; "that's
something gained, at any rate."
He left the fireplace, and walked slowly up and down the room, stopping
now and then to look out at the wintry sky, or the flat expanse of turf
below it; but he was quite a different creature to that which he had
been before his encounter with Edward Arundel. The chairs and tables
palled upon him. The mossy velvet pile of the new carpets seemed to him
like the swampy ground of a morass. The dark-green draperies of Genoa
velvet deepened into black with the growing twilight, and seemed as if
they had been fashioned out of palls.
What was it worth, this fine house, with the broad flat before it?
Nothing, if he had lost the respect and consideration of his
neighbours. He wanted to be a great man as well as a rich one. He
wanted admiration and flattery, reverence and esteem; not from poor
people, whose esteem and admiration were scarcely worth having, but
from wealthy squires, his equals or his superiors by birth and fortune.
He ground his teeth at the thought of his disgrace. He had drunk of the
cup of triumph, and had tasted the very wine of life; and at the moment
when that cup was fullest, it had been snatched away from him by the
ruthless hand of his enemy.
Christmas came, and gave Paul Marchmont a good opportunity of playing
the country gentleman of the olden time. What was the cost of a couple
of bullocks, a few hogsheads of ale, and a waggon-load of coals, if by
such a sacrifice the master of the Towers could secure for himself the
admiration due to a public benefactor? Paul gave _carte blanche_ to the
old servants; and tents were erected on the lawn, and monstrous
bonfires blazed briskly in the frosty air; while the populace, who
would have accepted the bounties of a new Nero fresh from the burning
of a modern Rome, drank to the health of their benefactor, and warmed
themselves by the unlimited consumption of strong beer.
Mrs. Marchmont and her invalid daughter assisted Paul in his attempt to
regain the popularity he had lost upon the steps of the western
terrace. The two women distributed square miles of flannel and
blanketing amongst greedy claimants; they gave scarlet cloaks and
poke-bonnets to old women; they gave an insipid feast, upon temperance
principles, to the children of the National Schools. And they had their
reward; for people began to say that this Paul Marchmont was a very
noble fellow, after all, by Jove, sir and that fellow Arundel must have
been in the wrong, sir; and no doubt Marchmont had his own reasons for
not resenting the outrage, sir; and a great deal more to the like
effect.
After this roasting of the two bullocks the wind changed altogether.
Mr. Marchmont gave a great dinner-party upon New-Year's Day. He sent
out thirty invitations, and had only two refusals. So the long
dining-room was filled with all the notabilities of the district, and
Paul held his head up once more, and rejoiced in his own grandeur.
After all, one horsewhipping cannot annihilate a man with a fine estate
and eleven thousand a year, if he knows how to make a splash with his
money.
Olivia Marchmont shared in none of the festivals that were held. Her
father was very ill this winter; and she spent a good deal of her time
at Swampington Rectory, sitting in Hubert Arundel's room, and reading
to him. But her presence brought very little comfort to the sick man;
for there was something in his daughter's manner that filled him with
inexpressible terror; and he would lie for hours together watching her
blank face, and wondering at its horrible rigidity. What was it? What
was the dreadful secret which had transformed this woman? He tormented
himself perpetually with this question, but he could imagine no answer
to it. He did not know the power which a master-passion has upon these
strong-minded women, whose minds are strong because of their
narrowness, and who are the bonden slaves of one idea. He did not know
that in a breast which holds no pure affection the master-fiend Passion
rages like an all-devouring flame, perpetually consuming its victim. He
did not know that in these violent and concentrative natures the line
that separates reason from madness is so feeble a demarcation, that
very few can perceive the hour in which it is passed.
Olivia Marchmont had never been the most lively or delightful of
companions. The tenderness which is the common attribute of a woman's
nature had not been given to her. She ought to have been a great man.
Nature makes these mistakes now and then, and the victim expiates the
error. Hence comes such imperfect histories as that of English
Elizabeth and Swedish Christina. The fetters that had bound Olivia's
narrow life had eaten into her very soul, and cankered there. If she
could have been Edward Arundel's wife, she would have been the noblest
and truest wife that ever merged her identity into that of another, and
lived upon the refracted glory of her husband's triumphs. She would
have been a Rachel Russell, a Mrs. Hutchinson, a Lady Nithisdale, a
Madame de Lavalette. She would have been great by reason of her power
of self-abnegation; and there would have been a strange charm in the
aspect of this fierce nature attuned to harmonise with its master's
soul, all the barbaric discords melting into melody, all the harsh
combinations softening into perfect music; just as in Mr. Buckstone's
most poetic drama we are bewitched by the wild huntress sitting at the
feet of her lord, and admire her chiefly because we know that only that
one man upon all the earth could have had power to tame her. To any one
who had known Olivia's secret, there could have been no sadder
spectacle than this of her decay. The mind and body decayed together,
bound by a mysterious sympathy. All womanly roundness disappeared from
the spare figure, and Mrs. Marchmont's black dresses hung about her in
loose folds. Her long, dead, black hair was pushed away from her thin
face, and twisted into a heavy knot at the back of her head. Every
charm that she had ever possessed was gone. The oldest women generally
retain some traits of their lost beauty, some faint reflection of the
sun that has gone down, to light up the soft twilight of age, and even
glimmer through the gloom of death. But this woman's face retained no
token of the past. No empty hull, with shattered bulwarks crumbled by
the fury of fierce seas, cast on a desert shore to rot and perish
there, was ever more complete a wreck than she was. Upon her face and
figure, in every look and gesture, in the tone of every word she spoke,
there was an awful something, worse than the seal of death. Little by
little the miserable truth dawned upon Hubert Arundel. His daughter was
mad! He knew this; but he kept the dreadful knowledge hidden in his own
breast,--a hideous secret, whose weight oppressed him like an actual
burden. He kept the secret; for it would have seemed to him the most
cruel treason against his daughter to have confessed his discovery to
any living creature, unless it should be absolutely necessary to do so.
Meanwhile he set himself to watch Olivia, detaining her at the Rectory
for a week together, in order that he might see her in all moods, under
all phases.
He found that there were no violent or outrageous evidences of this
mental decay. The mind had given way under the perpetual pressure of
one set of thoughts. Hubert Arundel, in his ignorance of his daughter's
secrets, could not discover the cause of her decadence; but that cause
was very simple. If the body is a wonderful and complex machine which
must not be tampered with, surely that still more complex machine the
mind must need careful treatment. If such and such a course of diet is
fatal to the body's health, may not some thoughts be equally fatal to
the health of the brain? may not a monotonous recurrence of the same
ideas be above all injurious? If by reason of the peculiar nature of a
man's labour, he uses one limb or one muscle more than the rest,
strange bosses rise up to testify to that ill usage, the idle limbs
wither, and the harmonious perfection of Nature gives place to
deformity. So the brain, perpetually pressed upon, for ever strained to
its utmost tension by the wearisome succession of thoughts, becomes
crooked and one-sided, always leaning one way, continually tripping up
the wretched thinker.
John Marchmont's widow had only one set of ideas. On every subject but
that one which involved Edward Arundel and his fortunes her memory had
decayed. She asked her father the same questions--commonplace questions
relating to his own comfort, or to simple household matters, twenty
times a day, always forgetting that he had answered her. She had that
impatience as to the passage of time which is one of the most painful
signs of madness. She looked at her watch ten times an hour, and would
wander out into the cheerless garden, indifferent to the bitter
weather, in order to look at the clock in the church-steeple, under the
impression that her own watch, and her father's, and all the
time-keepers in the house, were slow.
She was sometimes restless, taking up one occupation after another, to
throw all aside with equal impatience, and sometimes immobile for hours
together. But as she was never violent, never in any way unreasonable,
Hubert Arundel had not the heart to call science to his aid, and to
betray her secret. The thought that his daughter's malady might be
cured never entered his mind as within the range of possibility. There
was nothing to cure; no delusions to be exorcised by medical treatment;
no violent vagaries to be held in check by drugs and nostrums. The
powerful intellect had decayed; its force and clearness were gone. No
drugs that ever grew upon this earth could restore that which was lost.
This was the conviction which kept the Rector silent. It would have
given him unutterable anguish to have told his daughter's secret to any
living being; but he would have endured that misery if she could have
been benefitted thereby. He most firmly believed that she could not,
and that her state was irremediable.
"My poor girl!" he thought to himself; "how proud I was of her ten
years ago! I can do nothing for her; nothing except to love and cherish
her, and hide her humiliation from the world."
But Hubert Arundel was not allowed to do even this much for the
daughter he loved; for when Olivia had been with him a little more than
a week, Paul Marchmont and his mother drove over to Swampington Rectory
one morning and carried her away with them. The Rector then saw for the
first time that his once strong-minded daughter was completely under
the dominion of these two people, and that they knew the nature of her
malady quite as well as he did. He resisted her return to the Towers;
but his resistance was useless. She submitted herself willingly to her
new friends, declaring that she was better in their house than anywhere
else. So she went back to her old suite of apartments, and her old
servant Barbara waited upon her; and she sat alone in dead John
Marchmont's study, listening to the January winds shrieking in the
quadrangle, the distant rooks calling to each other amongst the bare
branches of the poplars, the banging of the doors in the corridor, and
occasional gusts of laughter from the open door of the
dining-room,--while Paul Marchmont and his guests gave a jovial welcome
to the new year.
While the master of the Towers re-asserted his grandeur, and made
stupendous efforts to regain the ground he had lost, Edward Arundel
wandered far away in the depths of Brittany, travelling on foot, and
making himself familiar with the simple peasants, who were ignorant of
his troubles. He had sent Mr. Morrison down to Dangerfield with the
greater part of his luggage; but he had not the heart to go back
himself--yet awhile. He was afraid of his mother's sympathy, and he
went away into the lonely Breton villages, to try and cure himself of
his great grief, before he began life again as a soldier. It was
useless for him to strive against his vocation. Nature had made him a
soldier, and nothing else; and wherever there was a good cause to be
fought for, his place was on the battle-field.