MR. WESTON REFUSES TO BE TRAMPLED UPON.
Upon the 31st of June, the eve of Edward Arundel's wedding-day, Olivia
Marchmont sat in her own room,--the room that she had chiefly occupied
ever since her husband's death,--the study looking out into the
quadrangle. She sat alone in that dismal chamber, dimly lighted by a
pair of wax-candles, in tall tarnished silver candlesticks. There could
be no greater contrast than that between this desolate woman and the
master of the house. All about him was bright and fresh, and glittering
and splendid; around her there was only ruin and decay, thickening dust
and gathering cobwebs,--outward evidences of an inner wreck. John
Marchmont's widow was of no importance in that household. The servants
did not care to trouble themselves about her whims or wishes, nor to
put her rooms in order. They no longer curtseyed to her when they met
her, wandering--with a purposeless step and listless feet that dragged
along the ground--up and down the corridor, or out in the dreary
quadrangle. What was to be gained by any show of respect to her, whose
brain was too weak to hold the memory of their conduct for five minutes
together?
Barbara Simmons only was faithful to her mistress with an unvarying
fidelity. She made no boast of her devotion; she expected neither fee
nor reward for her self-abnegation. That rigid religion of discipline
which had not been strong enough to preserve Olivia's stormy soul from
danger and ruin was at least all-sufficient for this lower type of
woman. Barbara Simmons had been taught to do her duty, and she did it
without question or complaint. As she went through rain, snow, hail, or
sunshine twice every Sunday to Kemberling church,--as she sat upon a
cushionless seat in an uncomfortable angle of the servants' pew, with
the sharp edges of the woodwork cutting her thin shoulders, to listen
patiently to dull rambling sermons upon the hardest texts of St.
Paul,--so she attended upon her mistress, submitting to every caprice,
putting up with every hardship; because it was her duty so to do. The
only relief she allowed herself was an hour's gossip now and then in
the housekeeper's room; but she never alluded to her mistress's
infirmities, nor would it have been safe for any other servant to have
spoken lightly of Mrs. John Marchmont in stern Barbara's presence.
Upon this summer evening, when happy people were still lingering
amongst the wild flowers in shady lanes, or in the dusky pathways by
the quiet river, Olivia sat alone, staring at the candles.
Was there anything in her mind; or was she only a human automaton,
slowly decaying into dust? There was no speculation in those large
lustreless eyes, fixed upon the dim light of the candles. But, for all
that, the mind was not a blank. The pictures of the past, for ever
changing like the scenes in some magic panorama, revolved before her.
She had no memory of that which had happened a quarter of an hour ago;
but she could remember every word that Edward Arundel had said to her
in the Rectory-garden at Swampington,--every intonation of the voice in
which those words had been spoken.
There was a tea-service on the table: an attenuated little silver
teapot; a lopsided cream-jug, with thin worn edges and one dumpy little
foot missing; and an antique dragon china cup and saucer with the
gilding washed off. That meal, which is generally called social, has
but a dismal aspect when it is only prepared for one. The solitary
teacup, half filled with cold, stagnant tea, with a leaf or two
floating upon the top, like weeds on the surface of a tideless pond;
the teaspoon, thrown askew across a little pool of spilt milk in the
tea-tray,--looked as dreary as the ruins of a deserted city.
In the western drawing-room Paul was strolling backwards and forwards,
talking to his mother and sisters, and admiring his pictures. He had
spent a great deal of money upon art since taking possession of the
Towers, and the western drawing-room was quite a different place to
what it had been in John Marchmont's lifetime.
Etty's divinities smiled through hazy draperies, more transparent than
the summer vapours that float before the moon. Pearly-complexioned
nymphs, with faces archly peeping round the corner of soft rosy
shoulders, frolicked amidst the silver spray of classic fountains.
Turner's Grecian temples glimmered through sultry summer mists; while
glimpses of ocean sparkled here and there, and were as beautiful as if
the artist's brush had been dipped in melted opals. Stanfield's breezy
beaches made cool spots of freshness on the wall, and sturdy
sailor-boys, with their hands up to their mouths and their loose hair
blowing in the wind, shouted to their comrades upon the decks of
brown-sailed fishing-smacks. Panting deer upon dizzy crags, amid the
misty Highlands, testified to the hand of Landseer. Low down, in the
corners of the room, there lurked quaint cottage-scenes by Faed and
Nichol. Ward's patched and powdered beaux and beauties,--a Rochester,
in a light perriwig; a Nell Gwynne, showing her white teeth across a
basket of oranges; a group of _Incroyables_, with bunches of ribbons
hanging from their low topboots, and two sets of dangling seals at
their waists--made a blaze of colour upon the walls: and amongst all
these glories of to-day there were prim Madonnas and stiff-necked
angels by Raphael and Tintoretto; a brown-faced grinning boy by Murillo
(no collection ever was complete without that inevitable brown-faced
boy); an obese Venus, by the great Peter Paul; and a pale Charles the
First, with martyrdom foreshadowed in his pensive face, by Vandyke.
Paul Marchmont contemplated his treasures complacently, as he strolled
about the room, with his coffee-cup in his hand; while his mother
watched him admiringly from her comfortable cushioned nest at one end
of a luxurious sofa.
"Well, mother," Mr. Marchmont said presently, "let people say what they
may of me, they can never say that I have used my money badly. When I
am dead and gone, these pictures will remain to speak for me; posterity
will say, 'At any rate the fellow was a man of taste.' Now what, in
Heaven's name, could that miserable little Mary have done with eleven
thousand a year, if--if she had lived to enjoy it?"
* * * * *
The minute-hand of the little clock in Mrs. John Marchmont's study was
creeping slowly towards the quarter before eleven, when Olivia was
aroused suddenly from that long reverie, in which the images of the
past had shone upon her across the dull stagnation of the present like
the domes and minarets in a Phantasm City gleaming athwart the barren
desert-sands.
She was aroused by a cautious tap upon the outside of her window. She
got up, opened the window, and looked out. The night was dark and
starless, and there was a faint whisper of wind among the trees.
"Don't be frightened," whispered a timid voice; "it's only me, George
Weston. I want to talk to you, Mrs. John. I've got something particular
to tell you--awful particular; but _they_ mustn't hear it; _they_
mustn't know I'm here. I came round this way on purpose. You can let me
in at the little door in the lobby, can't you, Mrs. John? I tell you, I
must tell you what I've got to tell you," cried Mr. Weston, indifferent
to tautology in his excitement. "Do let me in, there's a dear good
soul. The little door in the lobby, you know; it's locked, you know,
but I dessay the key's there."
"The door in the lobby?" repeated Olivia, in a dreamy voice.
"Yes, _you_ know. Do let me in now, that's a good creature. It's awful
particular, I tell you. It's about Edward Arundel."
Edward Arundel! The sound of that name seemed to act upon the woman's
shattered nerves like a stroke of electricity. The drooping head reared
itself erect. The eyes, so lustreless before, flashed fire from their
sombre depths. Comprehension, animation, energy returned; as suddenly
as if the wand of an enchanter had summoned the dead back to life.
"Edward Arundel!" she cried, in a clear voice, which was utterly unlike
the dull deadness of her usual tones.
"Hush," whispered Mr. Weston; "don't speak loud, for goodness gracious
sake. I dessay there's all manner of spies about. Let me in, and I'll
tell you everything."
"Yes, yes; I'll let you in. The door by the lobby--I understand; come,
come."
Olivia disappeared from the window. The lobby of which the surgeon had
spoken was close to her own apartment. She found the key in the lock of
the door. The place was dark; she opened the door almost noiselessly,
and Mr. Weston crept in on tiptoe. He followed Olivia into the study,
closed the door behind him, and drew a long breath.
"I've got in," he said; "and now I am in, wild horses shouldn't hold me
from speaking my mind, much less Paul Marchmont."
He turned the key in the door as he spoke, and even as he did so
glanced rather suspiciously towards the window. To his mind the very
atmosphere of that house was pervaded by the presence of his
brother-in-law.
"O Mrs. John!" exclaimed the surgeon, in piteous accents, "the way that
I've been trampled upon. _You've_ been trampled upon, Mrs. John, but
you don't seem to mind it; and perhaps it's better to bring oneself to
that, if one can; but I can't. I've tried to bring myself to it; I've
even taken to drinking, Mrs. John, much as it goes against me; and I've
tried to drown my feelings as a man in rum-and-water. But the more
spirits I consume, Mrs. John, the more of a man I feel."
Mr. Weston struck the top of his hat with his clenched fist, and stared
fiercely at Olivia, breathing very hard, and breathing rum-and-water
with a faint odour of lemon-peel.
"Edward Arundel!--what about Edward Arundel?" said Olivia, in a low
eager voice.
"I'm coming to that, Mrs. John, in due c'course," returned Mr. Weston,
with an air of dignity that was superior even to hiccough. "What I say,
Mrs. John," he added, in a confidential and argumentative tone, "is
this: _I won't be trampled upon!_" Here his voice sank to an awful
whisper. "Of course it's pleasant enough to have one's rent provided
for, and not to be kept awake by poor's-rates, Mrs. John; but, good
gracious me! I'd rather have the Queen's taxes and the poor-rates
following me up day and night, and a man in possession to provide for
at every meal--and you don't know how contemptuous a man in possession
can look at you if you offer him salt butter, or your table in a
general way don't meet his views--than the conscience I've had since
Paul Marchmont came into Lincolnshire. I feel, Mrs. John, as if I'd
committed oceans of murders. It's a miracle to me that my hair hasn't
turned white before this; and it would have done it, Mrs. J., if it
wasn't of that stubborn nature which is too wiry to give expression to
a man's sufferings. O Mrs. John, when I think how my pangs of
conscience have been made game of,--when I remember the insulting names
I have been called, because my heart didn't happen to be made of
adamant,--my blood boils; it boils, Mrs. John, to that degree, that I
feel the time has come for action. I have been put upon until the
spirit of manliness within me blazes up like a fiery furnace. I have
been trodden upon, Mrs. John; but I'm not the worm they took me for.
To-day they've put the finisher upon it." The surgeon paused to take
breath. His mild and rather sheep-like countenance was flushed; his
fluffy eyebrows twitched convulsively in his endeavours to give
expression to the violence of his feelings. "To-day they've put the
finisher upon it," he repeated. "I'm to go to Australia, am I? Ha! ha!
we'll see about that. There's a nice opening in the medical line, is
there? and dear Paul will provide the funds to start me! Ha! ha! two
can play at that game. It's all brotherly kindness, of course, and
friendly interest in my welfare--that's what it's _called_, Mrs. J.
Shall I tell you what it _is_? I'm to be got rid of, at any price, for
fear my conscience should get the better of me, and I should speak.
I've been made a tool of, and I've been trampled upon; but they've been
_obliged_ to trust me. I've got a conscience, and I don't suit their
views. If I hadn't got a conscience, I might stop here and have my rent
and taxes provided for, and riot in rum-and-water to the end of my
days. But I've a conscience that all the pineapple rum in Jamaica
wouldn't drown, and they're frightened of me."
Olivia listened to all this with an impatient frown upon her face. I
doubt if she knew the meaning of Mr. Weston's complaints. She had been
listening only for the one name that had power to transform her from a
breathing automaton into a living, thinking, reasoning woman. She
grasped the surgeon's wrist fiercely.
"You told me you came here to speak about Edward Arundel," she said.
"Have you been only trying to make a fool of me."
"No, Mrs. John; I have come to speak about him, and I come to you,
because I think you're not so bad as Paul Marchmont. I think that
you've been a tool, like myself; and they've led you on, step by step,
from bad to worse, pretty much as they have led me. You're Edward
Arundel's blood-relation, and it's your business to look to any wrong
that's done him, more than it is mine. But if you don't speak, Mrs.
John, I will. Edward Arundel is going to be married."
"Going to be married!" The words burst from Olivia's lips in a kind of
shriek, and she stood glaring hideously at the surgeon, with her lips
apart and her eyes dilated. Mr. Weston was fascinated by the horror of
that gaze, and stared at her in silence for some moments. "You are a
madman!" she exclaimed, after a pause; "you are a madman! Why do you
come here with your idiotic fancies? Surely my life is miserable enough
without this!"
"I ain't mad, Mrs. John, any more than"--Mr. Weston was going to say,
"than you are;" but it struck him that, under existing circumstances,
the comparison might be ill-advised--"I ain't any madder than other
people," he said, presently. "Edward Arundel is going to be married. I
have seen the young lady in Kemberling with her pa; and she's a very
sweet young woman to look at; and her name is Belinda Lawford; and the
wedding is to be at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning at Hillingsworth
church."
Olivia slowly lifted her hands to her head, and swept the loose hair
away from her brow. All the mists that had obscured her brain melted
slowly away, and showed her the past as it had really been in all its
naked horror. Yes; step by step the cruel hand had urged her on from
bad to worse; from bad to worse; until it had driven her _here_.
It was for _this_ that she had sold her soul to the powers of hell. It
was for _this_ that she had helped to torture that innocent girl whom a
dying father had given into her pitiless hand. For this! for this! To
find at last that all her iniquity had been wasted, and that Edward
Arundel had chosen another bride--fairer, perhaps, than the first. The
mad, unholy jealousy of her nature awoke from the obscurity of mental
decay, a fierce ungovernable spirit. But another spirit arose in the
next moment. CONSCIENCE, which so long had slumbered, awoke and cried
to her, in an awful voice, "Sinner, whose sin has been wasted, repent!
restore! It is not yet too late."
The stern precepts of her religion came back to her. She had rebelled
against those rigid laws, she had cast off those iron fetters, only to
fall into a worse bondage; only to submit to a stronger tyranny. She
had been a servant of the God of Sacrifice, and had rebelled when an
offering was demanded of her. She had cast off the yoke of her Master,
and had yielded herself up the slave of sin. And now, when she
discovered whither her chains had dragged her, she was seized with a
sudden panic, and wanted to go back to her old master.
She stood for some minutes with her open palms pressed upon her
forehead, and her chest heaving as if a stormy sea had raged in her
bosom.
"This marriage must not take place," she cried, at last.
"Of course it mustn't," answered Mr. Weston; "didn't I say so just now?
And if you don't speak to Paul and prevent it, I will. I'd rather you
spoke to him, though," added the surgeon thoughtfully, "because, you
see, it would come better from you, wouldn't it now?"
Olivia Marchmont did not answer. Her hands had dropped from her head,
and she was standing looking at the floor.
"There shall be no marriage," she muttered, with a wild laugh. "There's
another heart to be broken--that's all. Stand aside, man," she cried;
"stand aside, and let me go to _him_; let me go to him."
She pushed the terrified surgeon out of her pathway, and locked the
door, hurried along the passage and across the hall. She opened the
door of the western drawing-room, and went in.
Mr. Weston stood in the corridor looking after her. He waited for a few
minutes, listening for any sound that might come from the western
drawing-room. But the wide stone hall was between him and that
apartment; and however loudly the voices might have been uplifted, no
breath of them could have reached the surgeon's ear. He waited for
about five minutes, and then crept into the lobby and let himself out
into the quadrangle.
"At any rate, nobody can say that I'm a coward," he thought
complacently, as he went under a stone archway that led into the park.
"But what a whirlwind that woman is! O my gracious, what a perfect
whirlwind she is!"