HALCYON DAYS.
It was still quite early in September when Gilbert Fenton went back to
Lidford and took up his quarters once more in the airy chintz-curtained
bedchamber set apart for him in his sister's house. He had devoted
himself very resolutely to business during the interval that had gone by
since his last visit to that quiet country house; but the time had seemed
very long to him, and he fancied himself a kind of martyr to the
necessities of commerce. The aspect of his affairs of late had not been
quite free from unpleasantness. There were difficulties in the conduct of
business in the Melbourne branch of the house, that branch which was
under the charge of a cousin of Gilbert's, about whose business
capacities the late Mr. Fenton had entertained the most exalted opinion.
The Melbourne trading had not of late done much credit to this
gentleman's commercial genius. He had put his trust in firms that had
crumbled to pieces before the bills drawn upon them came due, involving
his cousin in considerable losses. Gilbert was rich enough to stand these
losses, however; and he reconciled himself to them as best he might,
taking care to send his Australian partner imperative instructions for a
more prudent system of trading in the future.
The uneasiness and vexation produced by this business was still upon him
when he went down to Lidford; but he relied upon Marian Nowell's presence
to dissipate all his care.
He did find himself perfectly happy in her society. He was troubled by no
doubts as to her affection for him, no uncertainty as to the brightness
of the days that were to come. Her manner seemed to him all that a man
could wish in the future partner of his life. An innocent trustfulness in
his superior judgment, a childlike submission to his will which Marian
displayed upon all occasions, were alike flattering and delightful. Nor
did she ever appear to grow tired of that talk of their future which was
so pleasant to her lover. There was no shadow of doubt upon her face when
he spoke of the serene happiness which they two were to find in an
existence spent together. He was the first who had ever spoken to her of
these things, and she listened to him with an utter simplicity and
freshness of mind.
Time had reconciled Isabella Lister to her brother's choice, and she now
deigned to smile upon the lovers, very much to Gilbert's satisfaction. He
had been too proud to supplicate her good graces; but he was pleased that
his only sister should show herself gracious and affectionate to the girl
he loved so fondly. During this second visit of his, therefore, Marian
came very often to Lidford House; sometimes accompanied by her uncle,
sometimes alone; and there was perfect harmony between the elder and
younger lady.
The partridges upon Martin Lister's estate did not suffer much damage
from his brother-in-law's gun that autumn. Gilbert found it a great deal
pleasanter to spend his mornings dawdling in the little cottage
drawing-room or under the walnut-trees with Marian, than to waste his
noontide hours in the endeavour to fill a creditable game-bag. There is
not very much to tell of the hours which those two spent together so
happily. It was an innocent, frivolous, useless employment of time, and
left little trace behind it, except in the heart of one of those two.
Gilbert wondered at himself when, in some sober interval of reflection,
he happened to consider those idle mornings, those tranquil uneventful
afternoons and evenings, remembering what a devoted man of business he
had once been, and how a few months ago he would have denounced such a
life in another.
"Well," he said to himself, with a happy laugh, "a man can take this
fever but once in his life, and it is only wise in him to surrender
himself utterly to the divine delirium. I shall have no excuse for
neglecting business by-and-by, when my little wife and I are settled down
together for the rest of our days. Let me be her lover while I may. Can I
ever be less than her lover, I wonder? Will marriage, or custom, or the
assurance that we belong to each other for the rest of our days, take the
poetry out of our lives? I think not; I think Marian must always be to me
what she has seemed to me from the very first--something better and
brighter than the common things of this life."
Custom, which made Marian Nowell dearer to Gilbert Fenton every day, had
by this time familiarised her with his position as her future husband.
She was no longer surprised or distressed when he pleaded for a short
engagement, and a speedy realization of that Utopian home which they were
to inhabit together. The knowledge of her uncle's delight in this
engagement of hers might have reconciled her to it, even if she had not
loved Gilbert Fenton. And she told herself that she did love him; or,
more often putting the matter in the form of a question, asked herself
whether she could be so basely ungrateful as not to love one who regarded
her with such disinterested affection?
It was settled finally, after a good deal of pleasant discussion, that
the wedding should take place early in the coming spring--at latest in
April. Even this seemed a long delay to Gilbert; but he submitted to it
as an inevitable concession to the superior instinct of his betrothed,
which harmonised so well with Mrs. Lister's ideas of wisdom and
propriety. There was the house to be secured, too, so that he might have
a fitting home to which to take his darling when their honeymoon was
over; and as he had no female relation in London who could take the care
of furnishing this earthly paradise off his hands, he felt that the whole
business must devolve upon himself, and could not be done without time.
Captain Sedgewick promised to bring Marian to town for a fortnight in
October, in order that she might assist her lover in that delightful duty
of house-hunting. She looked forward to this visit with quite a childlike
pleasure. Her life at Lidford had been completely happy; but it was a
monotonous kind of happiness; and the notion of going about London, even
at the dullest time of the year, was very delightful to her.
The weather happened to be especially fine that September. It was the
brightest month of the year, and the lovers took long rambles together in
the woodland roads and lanes about Lidford, sometimes alone, more often
with the Captain, who was a very fair pedestrian, in spite of having had
a bullet or two through his legs in the days gone by. When the weather
was too warm for walking, Gilbert borrowed Martin Lister's dog-cart, and
drove them on long journeys of exploration to remote villages, or to the
cheery little market-town ten miles away.
They all three set out for a walk one afternoon, when Gilbert had been
about a fortnight at Lidford, with no particular destination, only bent
on enjoying the lovely weather and the rustic beauty of woodland and
meadow. The Captain chose their route, as he always did on these
occasions, and under his guidance they followed the river-bank for some
distance, and then turned aside into a wood in which Gilbert Fenton had
never been before. He said so, with an expression of surprise at the
beauty of the place, where the fern grew deep under giant oaks and
beeches, and where the mossy ground dipped suddenly down to a deep still
pool which reflected the sunlit sky through a break in the dark foliage
that sheltered it.
"What, have you never been here?" exclaimed the Captain; "then you have
never seen Heatherly, I suppose?"
"Never. By the way, is not that Sir David Forster's place?" asked
Gilbert, remembering John Saltram's promise.
He had seen very little more of his friend after that visit to
Rivercombe, and had half forgotten Mr. Saltram's talk of coming down to
this neighbourhood on purpose to be presented to Marian.
"Yes. It is something of a show-place, too; and we think a good deal of
it in these parts. There are some fine Sir Joshuas among the family
portraits, painted in the days when the Forsters were better off and of
more importance in the county than they are now. And there are a few
other good pictures--Dutch interiors, and some seascapes by Bakhuysen.
Decidedly you ought to see Heatherly. Shall we push on there this
afternoon?"
"Is it far from here?"
"Not much more than a mile. This wood joins the park, and there is a
public right of way across the park to the Lidford road, so the gate is
always open. We can't waste our walk, and I know Sir David quite well
enough to ask him to let you see the pictures, if he should happen to be
at home."
"I should like it of all things," said Gilbert eagerly. "My friend John
Saltram knows this Sir David Forster, and he talked of being down here at
this time: I forgot all about it till you spoke of Heatherly just now. I
have a knack of forgetting things now-a-days."
"I wonder that you should forget anything connected with Mr. Saltram,
Gilbert," said Marian; "that Mr. Saltram of whom you think so much. I
cannot tell you how anxious I am to see what kind of person he is; not
handsome--you have confessed as much as that."
"Yes, Marian, I admit the painful fact. There are people who call John
Saltram ugly. But his face is not a common one; it is a very picturesque
kind of ugliness--a face that Velasquez would have loved to paint, I
think. It is a rugged, strongly-marked countenance with a villanously
dark complexion; but the eyes are very fine, the mouth perfection; and
there is a look of power in the face that, to my mind, is better than
beauty."
"And I think you owned that Mr. Saltram is hardly the most agreeable
person in the world."
"Well, no, he is not what one could well call an eminently agreeable
person. And yet he exercises a good deal of influence over the men he
knows, without admitting many of them to his friendship. He is very
clever; not a brilliant talker by any means, except on rare occasions,
when he chooses to give full swing to his powers; he does not lay himself
out for social successes; but he is a man who seems to know more of every
subject than the men about him. I doubt if he will ever succeed at the
Bar. He has so little perseverance or steadiness, and indulges in such an
erratic, desultory mode of life; but he has made his mark in literature
already, and I think he might become a great man if he chose. Whether he
ever will choose is a doubtful question."
"I am afraid he must be rather a dissipated, dangerous kind of person,"
said Marian.
"Well, yes, he is subject to occasional outbreaks of dissipation. They
don't last long, and they seem to leave not the faintest impression upon
his herculean constitution; but of course that sort of thing does more or
less injury to a man's mind, however comparatively harmless the form of
his dissipation may be. There are very few men whom John Saltram cannot
drink under the table, and rise with a steady brain himself when the
wassail is ended; yet I believe, in a general way, few men drink less
than he does. At cards he is equally strong; a past-master in all games
of skill; and the play is apt to be rather high at one or two of the
clubs he belongs to. He has a wonderful power of self-restraint when he
cares to exert it; will play six or seven hours every night for three
weeks at a stretch, and then not touch a card for six months. Poor old
John," said Gilbert Fenton, with a half-regretful sigh; "under happy
circumstances, he might be such a good man."
"But I fear he is a dangerous friend for you, Gilbert," exclaimed Marian,
horrified by this glimpse of bachelor life.
"No, darling, I have never shared his wilder pleasures. There are a few
chosen spirits with whom he consorts at such times. I believe this Sir
David Forster is one of them."
"Sir David has the reputation of leading rather a wild life in London,"
said the Captain, "and of bringing a dissipated set down here every
autumn. Things have not gone well with him. His wife, who was a very
beautiful girl, and whom he passionately loved, was killed by a fall from
her horse a few months after the birth of her first child. The child died
too, and the double loss ruined Sir David. He used to spend the greater
part of his life at Heatherly, and was a general favourite among the
county people; but since that time he has avoided the place, except
during the shooting season. He has a hunting-box in the shires, and is a
regular daredevil over a big country they tell me."
They had reached the little gate opening from the wood into the park by
this time. There was not much difference in the aspect of the sylvan
scene upon the other side of the fence. Sir David's domain had been a
good deal neglected of late years, and the brushwood and brambles grew
thick under the noble old trees. The timber had not yet suffered by its
owner's improvidence. The end of all things must have come for Sir David
before he would have consented to the spoliation of a place he fondly
loved, little as he had cared to inhabit it since the day that shattered
all that was brightest and best in his life.
For some time Captain Sedgewick and his companions went along a footpath
under the shelter of the trees, and then emerged upon a wide stretch of
smooth turf, across which they commanded a perfect view of the principal
front of the old house. It was a quadrangular building of the Elizabethan
period, very plainly built, and with no special beauty to recommend it to
the lover of the picturesque. Whatever charm of form it may have
possessed in the past had been ruthlessly extirpated by the modernisation
of the windows, which were now all of one size and form--a long gaunt
range of unsheltered casements staring blankly out upon the spectator.
There were no flower-beds, no terraced walks, or graceful flights of
steps before the house; only a bare grassplot, with a stiff line of tall
elms on each side, and a wide dry moat dividing it from the turf in the
park. Two lodges--ponderous square brick buildings with very small
windows, each the exact counterpart of the other, and a marvel of
substantial ugliness--kept guard over a pair of tall iron gates, about
six hundred yards apart, approached by stone bridges that spanned the
moat.
Captain Sedgewick rang a bell hanging by the side of one of these gates,
whereat there arose a shrill peal that set the rooks screaming in the
tall elms overhead. An elderly female appeared in answer to this summons,
and opened the gate in a slow mechanical way, without the faintest show
of interest in the people about to enter, and looking as if she would
have admitted a gang of obvious burglars with equal indifference.
"Rather a hideous style of place," said Gilbert, as they walked towards
the house; "but I think show-places, as a general rule, excel in
ugliness. I daresay the owners of them find a dismal kind of satisfaction
in considering the depressing influence their dreary piles of
bricks-and-mortar must exercise on the minds of strangers; may be a sort
of compensation for being obliged to live in such a gaol of a place."
There was a clumsy low stone portico over the door, wide enough to admit
a carriage; and lounging upon a bench under this stony shelter they found
a sleepy-looking man-servant, who informed Captain Sedgewick that Sir
David was at Heatherly, but that he was out shooting with his friends at
this present moment. In his absence the man would be very happy to show
the house to Captain Sedgewick and his party.
Gilbert Fenton asked about John Saltram.
Yes, Mr. Saltram had arrived at Heatherly on Tuesday evening, two nights
ago.
They went over the state-rooms, and looked at the pictures, which were
really as good as the Captain had represented them. The inspection
occupied a little more than an hour, and they were ready to take their
departure, when the sound of masculine voices resounded loudly in the
hall, and their conductor announced that Sir David and his friends had
come in.
There were only two gentlemen in the hall when they went into that
spacious marble-paved chamber, where there were great logs burning on the
wide open hearth, in spite of the warmth of the September day. One of
these two was Sir David Forster, a big man, with a light-brown beard and
a florid complexion. The other was John Saltram, who sat in a lounging
attitude on one of the deep window-seats examining his breech-loader. His
back was turned towards the window, and the glare of the blazing logs
shone full upon his dark face with a strange Rembrandt-like effect.
One glance told Marian Nowell who this man was. That powerful face, with
its unfathomable eyes and thoughtful mouth, was not the countenance she
had conjured up from the depths of her imagination when Gilbert Fenton
had described his friend; yet she felt that this stranger lounging in the
window was John Saltram, and no other. He rose, and set down his gun very
quietly, and stood by the window waiting while Captain Sedgewick
introduced Gilbert to Sir David. Then he came forward, shook hands with
his friend, and was thereupon presented to Marian and her uncle by
Gilbert, who made these introductions with a kind of happy eagerness.
Sir David was full of friendliness and hospitality, and insisted on
keeping them to show Gilbert and Miss Nowell some pictures in the
billiard-room and in his own private snuggery, apartments which were not
shown to ordinary visitors.
They strolled through these rooms in a leisurely way, Sir David making
considerable pains to show Gilbert Fenton the gems of his collection,
John Saltram acting as cicerone to Marian. He was curious to discover
what this girl was like, whether she had indeed only her beauty to
recommend her, or whether she was in sober reality the perfect being
Gilbert Fenton believed her to be.
She was very beautiful. The first brief look convinced Mr. Saltram that
upon this point at least her lover had indulged in no loverlike
exaggeration. There was a singular charm in the face; a higher, more
penetrating loveliness than mere perfection of feature; a kind of beauty
that would have been at once the delight and desperation of a painter--so
fitting a subject for his brush, so utterly beyond the power of perfect
reproduction, unless by one of those happy, almost accidental successes
which make the triumphs of genius.
John Saltram watched Marian Nowell's face thoughtfully as he talked to
her, for the most part, about the pictures which they were looking at
together. Before their inspection of these art-treasures was ended, he
was fain to confess to himself that she was intelligent as well as
beautiful. It was not that she had said anything particularly brilliant,
or had shown herself learned in the qualities of the old Dutch masters;
but she possessed that charming childlike capacity for receiving
information from a superior mind, and that perfect and rapid power of
appreciating a clever man's conversation, which are apt to seem so
delightful to the sterner sex when exhibited by a pretty woman. At first
she had been just a little shy and constrained in her talk with John
Saltram. Her lover's account of this man had not inspired her with any
exalted opinion of his character. She was rather inclined to look upon
him as a person to be dreaded, a friend whose influence was dangerous at
best, and who might prove the evil genius of Gilbert Fenton's life. But
whatever her opinion on this point might remain, her reserve soon melted
before John Saltram's clever talk and kindly conciliating manner. He laid
himself out to please on this occasion, and it was very rarely he did
that without succeeding.
"I want you to think of me as a kind of brother, Miss Nowell," he said in
the course of their talk. "Gilbert and I have been something like
brothers for the last twelve years of our lives, and it would be a hard
thing, for one of us at least, if our friendship should ever be lessened.
You shall find me discretion itself by-and-by, and you shall see that I
can respect Gilbert's altered position; but I shouldn't like to lose him,
and I don't think you look capable of setting your face against your
husband's old friend."
Marian blushed a little at this, remembering that only an hour or two ago
she had been thinking that this friendship was a perilous one for
Gilbert, and that it would be well if John Saltram's influence over him
could be lessened somehow in the future.
"I don't believe I should ever have the power to diminish Gilbert's
regard for you, Mr. Saltram, even were I inclined to do so," she said.
"O yes, you would; your power over him will be illimitable, depend upon
it. But now I have seen you, I think you will only use it wisely."
Marian shook her head, laughing gaily.
"I am much more fitted to be ruled than to rule, Mr. Saltram," she said.
"I am utterly inexperienced in the world, you know, and Mr. Fenton is my
superior in every way."
"Your superior in years, I know, but in what else?"
"In everything else. In intellect and judgment, as well as in knowledge
of the world. You could never imagine what a quiet changeless life I have
led."
"Your intellect is so much the clearer for that, I think. It has not been
disturbed by all the narrow petty influences of a life spent in what is
called 'society.'"
Before they left the house, Gilbert and the Captain were obliged to
promise to dine at Heatherly next day, very much to the secret distaste
of the former, who must thus lose an evening with Marian, but who was
ashamed to reveal his hopeless condition by a persistent refusal.
Captain Sedgewick begged John Saltram to choose an early day for dining
at the cottage, and Gilbert gave him a general invitation to Lidford
House.
These matters being settled, they departed, accompanied by Mr. Saltram,
who proposed to walk as far as the wood with them, and who extended his
walk still farther, only leaving them at the gate of the Captain's modest
domain. The conversation was general throughout the way back; and they
all found plenty to talk about, as they loitered slowly on among the
waving shadows of the trees flickering darkly on the winding path by
which they went. Gilbert lingered outside the gate after Marian and her
uncle had gone into the cottage--he was so eager to hear his friend
praise the girl he loved.
"Well, John?" he asked.
"Well, dear old boy, she is all that is beautiful and charming, and I can
only congratulate you upon your choice. Miss Nowell's perfection is a
subject about which there cannot be two opinions."
"And you think she loves me, Jack?"
"Do I think she loves you? Why, surely, Gil, that is not a question upon
which you want another man's judgment?"
"No, of course not, but one is never tired of receiving the assurance of
that fact. And you could see by her way of speaking about me----"
"She spoke of you in the prettiest manner possible. She seems to consider
you quite a superior being."
"Dear girl, she is so good and simple-hearted. Do you know, Jack, I feel
as if I could never be sufficiently grateful to Providence for my
happiness in having won such an angel."
"Well, you certainly have reason to consider yourself a very lucky
fellow; but I doubt if any man ever deserved good fortune better than you
do, Gilbert. And now, good-bye. It's getting unconscionably late, and I
shall scarcely get back in time to change my clothes for dinner. We spend
all our evenings in pious devotion to billiards, with a rubber or two, or
a little lansquenet towards the small hours. Don't forget your engagement
to-morrow; good-bye."
They had a very pleasant evening at Heatherly. Sir David's guests at this
time consisted of a Major Foljambe, an elderly man who had seen a good
deal of service in India; a Mr. Harker, who had been in the church, and
had left it in disgust as alike unsuited to his tastes and capacity; Mr.
Windus Carr, a prosperous West-end solicitor, who had inherited a
first-rate practice from his father, and who devoted his talents to the
enjoyment of life, leaving his clients to the care of his partner, a
steady-going stout gentleman, with a bald head, and an inexhaustible
capacity for business; and last, but by no means least, John Saltram,
who possessed more influence over David Forster than any one else in the
world.