do what I like with her."
But Olivia turned to him again while he was thinking this.
"Do you imagine that _I_ will let this marriage take place?" she asked.
"I do not think that you will be so mad as to prevent it. That little
mystery which you and I have arranged between us is not exactly child's
play, Mrs. John. We can neither of us afford to betray the other. Let
Edward Arundel marry, and work for his wife, and be happy; nothing
could be better for us than his marriage. Indeed, we have every reason
to be thankful to Providence for the turn that affairs have taken," Mr.
Marchmont concluded, piously.
"Indeed!" said Olivia; "and Edward Arundel is to have another bride. He
is to be happy with another wife; and I am to hear of their happiness,
to see him some day, perhaps, sitting by her side and smiling at her,
as I have seen him smile at Mary Marchmont. He is to be happy, and I am
to know of his happiness. Another baby-faced girl is to glory in the
knowledge of his love; and I am to be quiet--I am to be quiet. Is it
for this that I have sold my soul to you, Paul Marchmont? Is it for
this I have shared your guilty secrets? Is it for this I have heard
_her_ feeble wailing sounding in my wretched feverish slumbers, as I
have heard it every night, since the day she left this house? Do you
remember what you said to me? Do you remember _how_ you tempted me? Do
you remember how you played upon my misery, and traded on the tortures
of my jealous heart? 'He has despised your love,' you said: 'will you
consent to see him happy with another woman?' That was your argument,
Paul Marchmont. You allied yourself with the devil that held possession
of my breast, and together you were too strong for me. I was set apart
to be damned, and you were the chosen instrument of my damnation. You
bought my soul, Paul Marchmont. You shall not cheat me of the price for
which I sold it. You shall hinder this marriage!"
"You are a madwoman, Mrs. John Marchmont, or you would not propose any
such thing."
"Go," she said, pointing to the door; "go to Edward Arundel, and do
something, no matter what, to prevent this marriage."
"I shall do nothing of the kind."
He had heard that a monomaniac was always to be subdued by indomitable
resolution, and he looked at Olivia, thinking to tame her by his
unfaltering glance. He might as well have tried to look the raging sea
into calmness.
"I am not a fool, Mrs. John Marchmont," he said, "and I shall do
nothing of the kind."
He had risen, and stood by the lamp-lit table, trifling rather
nervously with its elegant litter of delicately-bound books,
jewel-handled paper-knives, newly-cut periodicals, and pretty
fantastical toys collected by the women of the household.
The faces of the two were nearly upon a level as they stood opposite to
each other, with only the table between them.
"Then _I_ will prevent it!" Olivia cried, turning towards the door.
Paul Marchmont saw the resolution stamped upon her face. She would do
what she threatened. He ran to the door and had his hand upon the lock
before she could reach it.
"No, Mrs. John," he said, standing at the door, with his back turned to
Olivia, and his fingers busy with the bolts and key. In spite of
himself, this woman had made him a little nervous, and it was as much
as he could do to find the handle of the key. "No, no, my dear Mrs.
John; you shall not leave this house, nor this room, in your present
state of mind. If you choose to be violent and unmanageable, we will
give you the full benefit of your violence, and we will give you a
better sphere of action. A padded room will be more suitable to your
present temper, my dear madam. If you favour us with this sort of
conduct, we will find people more fitted to restrain you."
He said all this in a sneering tone that had a trifling tremulousness
in it, while he locked the door and assured himself that it was safely
secured. Then he turned, prepared to fight out the battle somehow or
other.
At the very moment of his turning there was a sudden crash, a shiver of
broken glass, and the cold night-wind blew into the room. One of the
long French windows was wide open, and Olivia Marchmont was gone.
He was out upon the terrace in the next moment; but even then he was
too late, for he could not see her right or left of him upon the long
stone platform. There were three separate flights of steps, three
different paths, widely diverging across the broad grassy flat before
Marchmont Towers. How could he tell which of these ways Olivia might
have chosen? There was the great porch, and there were all manner of
stone abutments along the grim facade of the house. She might have
concealed herself behind any one of them. The night was hopelessly
dark. A pair of ponderous bronze lamps, which Paul had placed before
the principal doorway, only made two spots of light in the gloom. He
ran along the terrace, looking into every nook and corner which might
have served as a hiding-place; but he did not find Olivia.
She had left the house with the avowed intention of doing something to
prevent the marriage. What would she do? What course would this
desperate woman take in her jealous rage? Would she go straight to
Edward Arundel and tell him----?
Yes, this was most likely; for how else could she hope to prevent the
marriage?
Paul stood quite still upon the terrace for a few minutes, thinking.
There was only one course for him. To try and find Olivia would be next
to hopeless. There were half-a-dozen outlets from the park. There were
ever so many different pathways through the woody labyrinth at the back
of the Towers. This woman might have taken any one of them. To waste
the night in searching for her would be worse than useless.
There was only one thing to be done. He must countercheck this
desperate creature's movements.
He went back to the drawing-room, shut the window, and then rang the
bell.
There were not many of the old servants who had waited upon John
Marchmont at the Towers now. The man who answered the bell was a person
whom Paul had brought down from London.
"Get the chesnut saddled for me, Peterson," said Mr. Marchmont. "My
poor cousin's widow has left the house, and I am going after her. She
has given me very great alarm to-night by her conduct. I tell you this
in confidence; but you can say as much to Mrs. Simmons, who knows more
about her mistress than I do. See that there's no time lost in saddling
the chesnut. I want to overtake this unhappy woman, if I can. Go and
give the order, and then bring me my hat."
The man went away to obey his master. Paul walked to the chimneypiece
and looked at the clock.
"They'll be gone to bed at the Grange," he thought to himself. "Will
she go there and knock them up, I wonder? Does she know that Edward's
there? I doubt that; and yet Weston may have told her. At any rate, I
can be there before her. It would take her a long time to get there on
foot. I think I did the right thing in saying what I said to Peterson.
I must have the report of her madness spread everywhere. I must face it
out. But how--but how? So long as she was quiet, I could manage
everything. But with her against me, and George Weston--oh, the cur,
the white-hearted villain, after all that I've done for him and
Lavinia! But what can a man expect when he's obliged to put his trust
in a fool?"
He went to the window, and stood there looking out until he saw the
groom coming along the gravel roadway below the terrace, leading a
horse by the bridle. Then he put on the hat that the servant had
brought him, ran down the steps, and got into the saddle.
"All right, Jeffreys," he said; "tell them not to expect me back till
to-morrow morning. Let Mrs. Simmons sit up for her mistress. Mrs. John
may return at any hour in the night."
He galloped away along the smooth carriage-drive. At the lodge he
stopped to inquire if any one had been through that way. No, the woman
said; she had opened the gates for no one. Paul had expected no other
answer. There was a footpath that led to a little wicket-gate opening
on the high-road; and of course Olivia had chosen that way, which was a
good deal shorter than the carriage-drive.
CHAPTER X.
THE TURNING OF THE TIDE.
It was past two o'clock in the morning of the day which had been
appointed for Edward Arundel's wedding, when Paul Marchmont drew rein
before the white gate that divided Major Lawford's garden from the
high-road. There was no lodge, no pretence of grandeur here. An
old-fashioned garden surrounded an old-fashioned red-brick house. There
was an apple-orchard upon one side of the low white gate, and a
flower-garden, with a lawn and fish-pond, upon the other. The
carriage-drive wound sharply round to a shallow flight of steps, and a
broad door with a narrow window upon each side of it.
Paul got off his horse at the gate, and went in, leading the animal by
the bridle. He was a Cockney, heart and soul, and had no sense of any
enjoyments that were not of a Cockney nature. So the horse he had
selected for himself was anything but a fiery creature. He liked plenty
of bone and very little blood in the steed he rode, and was contented
to go at a comfortable, jog-trot, seven-miles-an-hour pace, along the
wretched country roads.
There was a row of old-fashioned wooden posts, with iron chains
swinging between them, upon both sides of the doorway. Paul fastened
the horse's bridle to one of these, and went up the steps. He rang a
bell that went clanging and jangling through the house in the stillness
of the summer night. All the way along the road he had looked right and
left, expecting to pass Olivia; but he had seen no sign of her. This
was nothing, however; for there were byways by which she might come
from Marchmont Towers to Lawford Grange.
"I must be before her, at any rate," Paul thought to himself, as he
waited patiently for an answer to his summons.
The time seemed very long to him, of course; but at last he saw a light
glimmering through the mansion windows, and heard a shuffling foot in
the hall. Then the door was opened very cautiously, and a woman's
scared face peered out at Mr. Marchmont through the opening.
"What is it?" the woman asked, in a frightened voice.
"It is I, Mr. Marchmont, of Marchmont Towers. Your master knows me. Mr.
Arundel is here, is he not?"
"Yes, and Mrs. Arundel too; but they're all abed."
"Never mind that; I must see Major Lawford immediately."
"But they're all abed."
"Never mind that, my good woman; I tell you I must see him."
"But won't to-morrow mornin' do? It's near three o'clock, and
to-morrow's our eldest miss's weddin'-day; and they're all abed."
"I _must_ see your master. For mercy's sake, my good woman, do what I
tell you! Go and call up Major Lawford,--you can do it quietly,--and
tell him I must speak to him at once."
The woman, with the chain of the door still between her and Mr.
Marchmont, took a timid survey of Paul's face. She had heard of him
often enough, but had never seen him before, and she was rather
doubtful as to his identity. She knew that thieves and robbers resorted
to all sorts of tricks in the course of their evil vocation. Mightn't
this application for admittance in the dead of the night be only a part
of some burglarious plot against the spoons and forks, and that
hereditary silver urn with lions' heads holding rings in their mouths
for handles, the fame of which had no doubt circulated throughout all
Lincolnshire? Mr. Marchmont had neither a black mask nor a
dark-lantern, and to Martha Philpot's mind these were essential
attributes of the legitimate burglar; but he might be burglariously
disposed, nevertheless, and it would be well to be on the safe side.
"I'll go and tell 'em," the discreet Martha said civilly; "but perhaps
you won't mind my leaving the chain oop. It ain't like as if it was
winter," she added apologetically.
"You may shut the door, if you like," answered Paul; "only be quick and
wake your master. You can tell him that I want to see him upon a matter
of life and death."
Martha hurried away, and Paul stood upon the broad stone steps waiting
for her return. Every moment was precious to him, for he wanted to be
beforehand with Olivia. He had no thought except that she would come
straight to the Grange to see Edward Arundel; unless, indeed, she was
by any chance ignorant of his whereabouts.
Presently the light appeared again in the narrow windows, and this time
a man's foot sounded upon the stone-flagged hall. This time, too,
Martha let down the chain, and opened the door wide enough for Mr.
Marchmont to enter. She had no fear of burglarious marauders now that
the valiant Major was at her elbow.
"Mr. Marchmont," exclaimed the old soldier, opening a door leading into
a little study, "you will excuse me if I seem rather bewildered by your
visit. When an old fellow like me is called up in the middle of the
night, he can't be expected to have his wits about him just at first.
(Martha, bring us a light.) Sit down, Mr. Marchmont; there's a chair at
your elbow. And now may I ask the reason----?"
"The reason I have disturbed you in this abrupt manner. The occasion
that brings me here is a very painful one; but I believe that my coming
may save you and yours from much annoyance."
"Save us from annoyance! Really, my dear sir, you----"
"I mystify you for the moment, no doubt," Paul interposed blandly; "but
if you will have a little patience with me, Major Lawford, I think I
can make everything very clear,--only too painfully clear. You have
heard of my relative, Mrs. John Marchmont,--my cousin's widow?"
"I have," answered the Major, gravely.
The dark scandals that had been current about wretched Olivia Marchmont
came into his mind with the mention of her name, and the memory of
those miserable slanders overshadowed his frank face.
Paul waited while Martha brought in a smoky lamp, with the half-lighted
wick sputtering and struggling in its oily socket. Then he went on, in
a calm, dispassionate voice, which seemed the voice of a benevolent
Christian, sublimely remote from other people's sorrows, but tenderly
pitiful of suffering humanity, nevertheless.
"You have heard of my unhappy cousin. You have no doubt heard that she
is--mad?"
He dropped his voice into so low a whisper, that he only seemed to
shape this last word with his thin flexible lips.
"I have heard some rumour to that effect," the Major answered; "that is
to say, I have heard that Mrs. John Marchmont has lately become
eccentric in her habits."
"It has been my dismal task to watch the slow decay of a very powerful
intellect," continued Paul. "When I first came to Marchmont Towers,
about the time of my cousin Mary's unfortunate elopement with Mr.
Arundel, that mental decay had already set in. Already the compass of
Olivia Marchmont's mind had become reduced to a monotone, and the one
dominant thought was doing its ruinous work. It was my fate to find the
clue to that sad decay; it was my fate very speedily to discover the
nature of that all-absorbing thought which, little by little, had grown
into monomania."
Major Lawford stared at his visitor's face. He was a plain-spoken man,
and could scarcely see his way clearly through all this obscurity of
fine words.
"You mean to say you found out what had driven your cousin's widow
mad?" he said bluntly.
"You put the question very plainly, Major Lawford. Yes; I discovered
the secret of my unhappy relative's morbid state of mind. That secret
lies in the fact, that for the last ten years Olivia Marchmont has
cherished a hopeless affection for her cousin, Mr. Edward Arundel."
The Major almost bounded off his chair in horrified surprise.
"Good gracious!" he exclaimed; "you surprise me, Mr. Marchmont,
and--and--rather unpleasantly."
"I should never have revealed this secret to you or to any other living
creature, Major Lawford, had not circumstances compelled me to do so.
As far as Mr. Arundel is concerned, I can set your mind quite at ease.
He has chosen to insult me very grossly; but let that pass. I must do
him the justice to state that I believe him to have been from first to
last utterly ignorant of the state of his cousin's mind."
"I hope so, sir; egad, I hope so!" exclaimed the Major, rather
fiercely. "If I thought that this young man had trifled with the lady's
affection; if I thought----"
"You need think nothing to the detriment of Mr. Arundel," answered
Paul, with placid politeness, "except that he is hot-headed, obstinate,
and foolish. He is a young man of excellent principles, and has never
fathomed the secret of his cousin's conduct towards him. I am rather a
close observer,--something of a student of human nature,--and I have
watched this unhappy woman. She loves, and has loved, her cousin Edward
Arundel; and hers is one of those concentrative natures in which a
great passion is nearly akin to a monomania. It was this hopeless,
unreturned affection that embittered her character, and made her a
harsh stepmother to my poor cousin Mary. For a long time this wretched
woman has been very quiet; but her tranquillity has been only a
deceitful calm. To-night the storm broke. Olivia Marchmont heard of the
marriage that is to take place to-morrow; and, for the first time, a
state of melancholy mania developed into absolute violence. She came to
me, and attacked me upon the subject of this intended marriage. She
accused me of having plotted to give Edward Arundel another bride; and
then, after exhausting herself by a torrent of passionate invective
against me, against her cousin Edward, your daughter,--every one
concerned in to-morrow's event,--this wretched woman rushed out of the
house in a jealous fury, declaring that she would do something--no
matter what--to hinder the celebration of Edward Arundel's second
marriage."
"Good Heavens!" gasped the Major. "And you mean to say----"
"I mean to say, that there is no knowing what may be attempted by a
madwoman, driven mad by a jealousy in itself almost as terrible as
madness. Olivia Marchmont has sworn to hinder your daughter's marriage.
What has not been done by unhappy creatures in this woman's state of
mind? Every day we read of such things in the newspapers--deeds of
horror at which the blood grows cold in our veins; and we wonder that
Heaven can permit such misery. It is not any frivolous motive that
brings me here in the dead of the night, Major Lawford. I come to tell
you that a desperate woman has sworn to hinder to-morrow's marriage.
Heaven knows what she may do in her jealous frenzy! She _may_ attack
your daughter."
The father's face grew pale. His Linda, his darling, exposed to the
fury of a madwoman! He could conjure up the scene: the fair girl
clinging to her lover's breast, and desperate Olivia Marchmont swooping
down upon her like an angry tigress.
"For mercy's sake, tell me what I am to do, Mr. Marchmont!" cried the
Major. "God bless you, sir, for bringing me this warning! But what am I
to do? What do you advise? Shall we postpone the wedding?"
"On no account. All you have to do is to keep this wretched woman at
bay. Shut your doors upon her. Do not let her be admitted to this house
upon any pretence whatever. Get the wedding over an hour earlier than
has been intended, if it is possible for you to do so, and hurry the
bride and bridegroom away upon the first stage of their wedding-tour.
If you wish to escape all the wretchedness of a public scandal, avoid
seeing this woman."
"I will, I will," answered the bewildered Major. "It's a most awful
situation. My poor Belinda! Her wedding-day! And a mad woman to
attempt--Upon my word, Mr. Marchmont, I don't know how to thank you for
the trouble you have taken."
"Don't speak of that. This woman is my cousin's widow: any shame of
hers is disgrace to me. Avoid seeing her. If by any chance she does
contrive to force herself upon you, turn a deaf ear to all she may say.
She horrified me to-night by her mad assertions. Be prepared for
anything she may declare. She is possessed by all manner of delusions,
remember, and may make the most ridiculous assertions. There is no
limit to her hallucinations. She may offer to bring Edward Arundel's
dead wife from the grave, perhaps. But you will not, on any account,
allow her to obtain access to your daughter."
"No, no--on no account. My poor Belinda! I am very grateful to you, Mr.
Marchmont, for this warning. You'll stop here for the rest of the
night? Martha's beds are always aired. You'll accept the shelter of our
spare room until to-morrow morning?"
"You are very good, Major Lawford; but I must hurry away directly.
Remember that I am quite ignorant as to where my unhappy relative may
be wandering at this hour of the night. She may have returned to the
Towers. Her jealous fury may have exhausted itself; and in that case I
have exaggerated the danger. But, at any rate I thought it best to give
you this warning."
"Most decidedly, my dear sir; I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
But you'll take something--wine, tea, brandy-and-water--eh?"
Paul had put on his hat and made his way into the hall by this time.
There was no affectation in his eagerness to be away. He glanced
uneasily towards the door every now and then while the Major was
offering hospitable hindrance to his departure. He was very pale, with
a haggard, ashen pallor that betrayed his anxiety, in spite of his
bland calmness of manner.
"You are very kind. No; I will get away at once. I have done my duty
here; I must now try and do what I can for this wretched woman. Good
night. Remember; shut your doors upon her."
He unfastened the bridle of his horse, mounted, and rode away slowly,
so long as there was any chance of the horse's tread being heard at the
Grange. But when he was a quarter of a mile away from Major Lawford's
house, he urged the horse into a gallop. He had no spurs; but he used
his whip with a ruthless hand, and went off at a tearing pace along a
narrow lane, where the ruts were deep.
He rode for fifteen miles; and it was grey morning when he drew rein at
a dilapidated five-barred gate leading into the great, tenantless yard
of an uninhabited farmhouse. The place had been unlet for some years;
and the land was in the charge of a hind in Mr. Marchmont's service.
The hind lived in a cottage at the other extremity of the farm; and
Paul had erected new buildings, with engine-houses and complicated
machinery for pumping the water off the low-lying lands. Thus it was
that the old farmhouse and the old farmyard were suffered to fall into
decay. The empty sties, the ruined barns and outhouses, the rotting
straw, and pools of rank corruption, made this tenantless farmyard the
very abomination of desolation. Paul Marchmont opened the gate and went
in. He picked his way very cautiously through the mud and filth,
leading his horse by the bridle till he came to an outhouse, where he
secured the animal. Then he crossed the yard, lifted the rusty latch of
a narrow wooden door set in a plastered wall, and went into a dismal
stone court, where one lonely hen was moulting in miserable solitude.
Long rank grass grew in the interstices of the flags. The lonely hen
set up a roopy cackle, and fluttered into a corner at sight of Paul
Marchmont. There were some rabbit-hutches, tenantless; a dovecote,
empty; a dog-kennel, and a broken chain rusting slowly in a pool of
water, but no dog. The courtyard was at the back of the house, looked
down upon by a range of latticed windows, some with closed shutters,
others with shutters swinging in the wind, as if they had been fain to
beat themselves to death in very desolation of spirit.
Mr. Marchmont opened a door and went into the house. There were empty
cellars and pantries, dairies and sculleries, right and left of him.
The rats and mice scuttled away at sound of the intruder's footfall.
The spiders ran upon the damp-stained walls, and the disturbed cobwebs
floated slowly down from the cracked ceilings and tickled Mr.
Marchmont's face.
Farther on in the interior of the gloomy habitation Paul found a great
stone-paved kitchen, at the darkest end of which there was a rusty
grate, in which a minimum of flame struggled feebly with a maximum of
smoke. An open oven-door revealed a dreary black cavern; and the very
manner of the rusty door, and loose, half-broken handle, was an
advertisement of incapacity for any homely hospitable use. Pale, sickly
fungi had sprung up in clusters at the corners of the damp hearthstone.
Spiders and rats, damp and cobwebs, every sign by which Decay writes
its name upon the dwelling man has deserted, had set its separate mark
upon this ruined place.
Paul Marchmont looked round him with a contemptuous shudder. He called
"Mrs. Brown! Mrs. Brown!" two or three times, each time waiting for an
answer; but none came, and Mr. Marchmont passed on into another room.
Here at least there was some poor pretence of comfort. The room was in
the front of the house, and the low latticed window looked out upon a
neglected garden, where some tall foxgloves reared their gaudy heads
amongst the weeds. At the end of the garden there was a high brick
wall, with pear-trees trained against it, and dragon's-mouth and
wallflower waving in the morning-breeze.
There was a bed in this room, empty; an easy-chair near the window;
near that a little table, and a _set of Indian chessmen_. Upon the bed
there were some garments scattered, as if but lately flung there; and
on the floor, near the fireplace, there were the fragments of a child's
first toys--a tiny trumpet, bought at some village fair, a baby's
rattle, and a broken horse.
Paul Marchmont looked about him--a little puzzled at first; then with a
vague dread in his haggard face.
"Mrs. Brown!" he cried, in a loud voice, hurrying across the room
towards an inner door as he spoke.
The inner door was opened before Paul could reach it, and a woman
appeared; a tall, gaunt-looking woman, with a hard face and bare,
brawny arms.
"Where, in Heaven's name, have you been hiding yourself, woman?" Paul
cried impatiently. "And where's--your patient?"
"Gone, sir."
"Gone! Where?"
"With her stepmamma, Mrs. Marchmont--not half an hour ago. As it was
your wish I should stop behind to clear up, I've done so, sir; but I
did think it would have been better for me to have gone with----"
Paul clutched the woman by the arm, and dragged her towards him.
"Are you mad?" he cried, with an oath. "Are you mad, or drunk? Who gave
you leave to let that woman go? Who----?"
He couldn't finish the sentence. His throat grew dry, and he gasped for
breath; while all the blood in his body seemed to rush into his swollen
forehead.
"You sent Mrs. Marchmont to fetch my patient away, sir," exclaimed the
woman, looking frightened. "You did, didn't you? She said so!"
"She is a liar; and you are a fool or a cheat. She paid you, I dare
say! Can't you speak, woman? Has the person I left in your care, whom
you were paid, and paid well, to take care of,--have you let her go?
Answer me that."
"I have, sir," the woman faltered,--she was big and brawny, but there
was that in Paul Marchmont's face that frightened her
notwithstanding,--"seeing as it was your orders."
"That will do," cried Paul Marchmont, holding up his hand and looking
at the woman with a ghastly smile; "that will do. You have ruined me;
do you hear? You have undone a work that has cost me--O my God! why do
I waste my breath in talking to such a creature as this? All my plots,
my difficulties, my struggles and victories, my long sleepless nights,
my bad dreams,--has it all come to this? Ruin, unutterable ruin,
brought upon me by a madwoman!"
He sat down in the chair by the window, and leaned upon the table,
scattering the Indian chessmen with his elbow. He did not weep. That
relief--terrible relief though it be for a man's breast--was denied
him. He sat there with his face covered, moaning aloud. That helpless
moan was scarcely like the complaint of a man; it was rather like the
hopeless, dreary utterance of a brute's anguish; it sounded like the
miserable howling of a beaten cur.
CHAPTER XI.
BELINDA'S WEDDING-DAY.
The sun shone upon Belinda Lawford's wedding-day. The birds were
singing in the garden under her window as she opened her lattice and
looked out. The word lattice is not a poetical license in this case;
for Miss Lawford's chamber was a roomy, old-fashioned apartment at the
back of the house, with deep window-seats and diamond-paned casements.
The sun shone, and the roses bloomed in all their summer glory. "'Twas
in the time of roses," as gentle-minded Thomas Hood so sweetly sang;
surely the time of all others for a bridal morning. The girl looked out
into the sunshine with her loose hair falling about her shoulders, and
lingered a little looking at the familiar garden, with a half-pensive
smile.
"Oh, how often, how often," she said, "I have walked up and down by
those laburnums, Letty!" There were two pretty white-curtained
bedsteads in the old-fashioned room, and Miss Arundel had shared her
friend's apartment for the last week. "How often mamma and I have sat
under the dear old cedar, making our poor children's frocks! People say
monotonous lives are not happy: mine has been the same thing over and
over again; and yet how happy, how happy! And to think that we"--she
paused a moment, and the rosy colour in her cheeks deepened by just one
shade; it was so sweet to use that simple monosyllable "we" when Edward
Arundel was the other half of the pronoun,--"to think that we shall be
in Paris to-morrow!"
"Driving in the Bois," exclaimed Miss Arundel; "and dining at the
Maison Doree, or the Cafe de Paris. Don't dine at Meurice's, Linda;
it's dreadfully slow dining at one's hotel. And you'll be a young
married woman, and can do anything, you know. If I were a young married
woman, I'd ask my husband to take me to the Mabille, just for half an
hour, with an old bonnet and a thick veil. I knew a girl whose
first-cousin married a cornet in the Guards, and they went to the
Mabille one night. Come, Belinda, if you mean to have your back-hair
done at all, you'd better sit down at once and let me commence
operations."
Miss Arundel had stipulated that, upon this particular morning, she was
to dress her friend's hair; and she turned up the frilled sleeves of
her white dressing-gown, and set to work in the orthodox manner,
spreading a network of shining tresses about Miss Lawford's shoulders,
prior to the weaving of elaborate plaits that were to make a crown for
the fair young bride. Letitia's tongue went as fast as her fingers; but
Belinda was very silent.
She was thinking of the bounteous Providence that had given her the man
she loved for her husband. She had been on her knees in the early
morning, long before Letitia's awakening, breathing out innocent
thanksgiving for the happiness that overflowed her fresh young heart. A
woman had need to be country-bred, and to have been reared in the
narrow circle of a happy home, to feel as Belinda Lawford felt. Such
love as hers is only given to bright and innocent spirits, untarnished
even by the knowledge of sin.
Downstairs Edward Arundel was making a wretched pretence of
breakfasting _tete-a-tete_ with his future father-in-law.
The Major had held his peace as to the unlooked-for visitant of the
past night. He had given particular orders that no stranger should be
admitted to the house, and that was all. But being of a naturally
frank, not to say loquacious disposition, the weight of this secret was
a very terrible burden to the honest half-pay soldier. He ate his dry
toast uneasily, looking at the door every now and then, in the
perpetual expectation of beholding that barrier burst open by mad
Olivia Marchmont.
The breakfast was not a very cheerful meal, therefore. I don't suppose
any ante-nuptial breakfast ever is very jovial. There was the state
banquet--_the_ wedding breakfast--to be eaten by-and-by; and Mrs.
Lawford, attended by all the females of the establishment, was engaged
in putting the last touches to the groups of fruit and confectionery,
the pyramids of flowers, and that crowning glory, the wedding-cake.
"Remember the Madeira and still Hock are to go round first, and then
the sparkling; and tell Gogram to be particular about the corks,
Martha," Mrs. Lawford said to her confidential maid, as she gave a
nervous last look at the table. "I was at a breakfast once where a
champagne-cork hit the bridegroom on the bridge of his nose at the very
moment he rose to return thanks; and being a nervous man, poor
fellow,--in point of fact, he was a curate, and the bride was the
rector's daughter, with two hundred a year of her own,--it quite
overcame him, and he didn't get over it all through the breakfast. And
now I must run and put on my bonnet."
There was nothing but putting on bonnets, and pinning lace-shawls, and
wild outcries for hair-pins, and interchanging of little feminine
services, upon the bedroom floor for the next half-hour.
Major Lawford walked up and down the hall, putting on his white gloves,
which were too large for him,--elderly men's white gloves always are
too large for them,--and watching the door of the citadel. Olivia must
pass over a father's body, the old soldier thought, before she should
annoy Belinda on her bridal morning.
By-and-by the carriages came round to the door. The girl bridesmaids
came crowding down the stairs, hustling each other's crisped garments,
and disputing a little in a sisterly fashion; then Letitia Arundel,
with nine rustling flounces of white silk ebbing and flowing and
surging about her, and with a pleased simper upon her face; and then
followed Mrs. Arundel, stately in silver-grey moire, and Mrs. Lawford,
in violet silk--until the hall was a show of bonnets and bouquets and
muslin.
And last of all, Belinda Lawford, robed in cloudlike garments of
spotless lace, with bridal flowers trembling round her hair, came
slowly down the broad old-fashioned staircase, to see her lover
loitering in the hall below.
He looked very grave; but he greeted his bride with a tender smile. He
loved her, but he could not forget. Even upon this, his wedding-day,
the haunting shadow of the past was with him: not to be shaken off.
He did not wait till Belinda reached the bottom of the staircase. There
was a sort of ceremonial law to be observed, and he was not to speak to
Miss Lawford upon this special morning until he met her in the vestry
at Hillingsworth church; so Letitia and Mrs. Arundel hustled the young
man into one of the carriages, while Major Lawford ran to receive his
daughter at the foot of the stairs.
The Arundel carriage drove off about five minutes before the vehicle
that was to convey Major Lawford, Belinda, and as many of the girl
bridesmaids as could be squeezed into it without detriment to lace and
muslin. The rest went with Mrs. Lawford in the third and last carriage.
Hillingsworth church was about three-quarters of a mile from the
Grange. It was a pretty irregular old place, lying in a little nook
under the shadow of a great yew-tree. Behind the square Norman tower
there was a row of poplars, black against the blue summer sky; and
between the low gate of the churchyard and the grey, moss-grown porch,
there was an avenue of good old elms. The rooks were calling to each
other in the topmost branches of the trees as Major Lawford's carriage
drew up at the churchyard gate.
Belinda was a great favourite amongst the poor of Hillingsworth parish,
and the place had put on a gala-day aspect in honour of her wedding.
Garlands of honeysuckle and wild clematis were twined about the stout
oaken gate-posts. The school-children were gathered in clusters in the
churchyard, with their pinafores full of fresh flowers from shadowy
lanes and from prim cottage-gardens,--bright homely blossoms, with the
morning dew still upon them.
The rector and his curate were standing in the porch waiting for the
coming of the bride; and there were groups of well-dressed people
dotted about here and there in the drowsy-sheltered pews near the
altar. There were humbler spectators clustered under the low ceiling of
the gallery--tradesmen's wives and daughters, radiant with new ribbons,
and whispering to one another in delighted anticipation of the show.
Everybody round about the Grange loved pretty, genial Belinda Lawford,
and there was universal rejoicing because of her happiness.
The wedding party came out of the vestry presently in appointed order:
the bride with her head drooping, and her face hidden by her veil; the
bridesmaids' garments making a fluttering noise as they came up the
aisle, like the sound of a field of corn faintly stirred by summer
breezes.
Then the grave voice of the rector began the service with the brief
preliminary exordium; and then, in a tone that grew more solemn with
the increasing solemnity of the words, he went on to that awful charge
which is addressed especially to the bridegroom and the bride:
"I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day
of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if
either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined
together in matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well
assured----"
The rector read no further; for a woman's voice from out the dusky
shadows at the further end of the church cried "Stop!"
There was a sudden silence; people stared at each other with scared
faces, and then turned in the direction whence the voice had come. The
bride lifted her head for the first time since leaving the vestry, and
looked round about her, ashy pale and trembling.
"O Edward, Edward!" she cried, "what is it?"
The rector waited, with his hand still upon the open book. He waited,
looking towards the other end of the chancel. He had no need to wait
long: a woman, with a black veil thrown back from a white, haggard
face, and with dusty garments dragging upon the church-floor, came
slowly up the aisle.
Her two hands were clasped upon her breast, and her breath came in
gasps, as if she had been running.
"Olivia!" cried Edward Arundel, "what, in Heaven's name--"
But Major Lawford stepped forward, and spoke to the rector.
"Pray let her be got out of the way," he said, in a low voice. "I was
warned of this. I was quite prepared for some such disturbance." He
sank his voice to a whisper. "_She is mad!_" he said, close in the
rector's ear.
The whisper was like whispering in general,--more distinctly audible
than the rest of the speech. Olivia Marchmont heard it.
"Mad until to-day," she cried; "but not mad to-day. O Edward Arundel! a
hideous wrong has been done by me and through me. Your wife--your
wife--"
"My wife! what of her? She--"
"She is alive!" gasped Olivia; "an hour's walk from here. I came on
foot. I was tired, and I have been long coming. I thought that I should
be in time to stop you before you got to the church; but I am very
weak. I ran the last part of the way--"
She dropped her hands upon the altar-rails, and seemed as if she would
have fallen. The rector put his arm about her to support her, and she
went on:
"I thought I should have spared her this," she said, pointing to
Belinda; "but I can't help it. _She_ must bear her misery as well as
others. It can't be worse for her than it has been for others. She must
bear--"
"My wife!" said Edward Arundel; "Mary, my poor sorrowful
darling--alive?"
Belinda turned away, and buried her face upon her mother's shoulder.
She could have borne anything better than this.
His heart--that supreme treasure, for which she had rendered up thanks
to her God--had never been hers after all. A word, a breath, and she
was forgotten; his thoughts went back to that other one. There was
unutterable joy, there was unspeakable tenderness in his tone, as he
spoke of Mary Marchmont, though _she_ stood by his side, in all her
foolish bridal finery, with her heart newly broken.
"O mother," she cried, "take me away! take me away, before I die!"
Olivia flung herself upon her knees by the altar-rails. Where the pure
young bride was to have knelt by her lover's side this wretched sinner
cast herself down, sunk far below all common thoughts in the black
depth of her despair.
"O my sin, my sin!" she cried, with clasped hands lifted up above her
head. "Will God ever forgive my sin? will God ever have pity upon me?
Can He pity, can He forgive, such guilt as mine? Even this work of
to-day is no atonement to be reckoned against my wickedness. I was
jealous of this other woman; I was jealous! Earthly passion was still
predominant in this miserable breast."
She rose suddenly, as if this outburst had never been, and laid her
hand upon Edward Arundel's arm.
"Come!" she said; "come!"
"To her--to Mary--my wife?"
They had taken Belinda away by this time; but Major Lawford stood
looking on. He tried to draw Edward aside; but Olivia's hand upon the
young man's arm held him like a vice.
"She is mad," whispered the Major. "Mr. Marchmont came to me last
night, and warned me of all this. He told me to be prepared for
anything; she has all sorts of delusions. Get her away, if you can,
while I go and explain matters to Belinda. Edward, if you have a spark
of manly feeling, get this woman away."
But Olivia held the bridegroom's arm with a tightening grasp.
"Come!" she said; "come! Are you turned to stone, Edward Arundel? Is
your love worth no more than this? I tell you, your wife, Mary
Marchmont, is alive. Let those who doubt me come and see for
themselves."
The eager spectators, standing up in the pews or crowding in the narrow
aisle, were only too ready to respond to this invitation.
Olivia led her cousin out into the churchyard; she led him to the gate
where the carriages were waiting. The crowd flocked after them; and the
people outside began to cheer as they came out. That cheer was the
signal for which the school-children had waited; and they set to work
scattering flowers upon the narrow pathway, before they looked up to
see who was coming to trample upon the rosebuds and jessamine, the
woodbine and seringa. But they drew back, scared and wondering, as
Olivia came along the pathway, sweeping those tender blossoms after her
with her trailing black garments, and leading the pale bridegroom by
his arm.
She led him to the door of the carriage beside which Major Lawford's
gray-haired groom was waiting, with a big white satin favour pinned
upon his breast, and a bunch of roses in his button hole. There were
favours in the horses' ears, and favours upon the breasts of the
Hillingsworth tradespeople who supplied bread and butcher's meat and
grocery to the family at the Grange. The bell-ringers up in the
church-tower saw the crowd flock out of the porch, and thought the
marriage ceremony was over. The jangling bells pealed out upon the hot
summer air as Edward stood by the churchyard-gate, with Olivia
Marchmont by his side.
"Lend me your carriage," he said to Major Lawford, "and come with me. I
must see the end of this. It may be all a delusion; but I must see the
end of it. If there is any truth in instinct, I believe that I shall
see my wife--alive."
He got into the carriage without further ceremony, and Olivia and Major
Lawford followed him.
"Where is my wife?" the young man asked, letting down the front window
as he spoke.
"At Kemberling, at Hester Jobson's."
"Drive to Kemberling," Edward said to the coachman,--"to Kemberling
High Street, as fast as you can go."
The man drove away from the churchyard-gate. The humbler spectators,
who were restrained by no niceties of social etiquette, hurried after
the vehicle, raising white clouds of dust upon the high road with their
eager feet. The higher classes lingered about the churchyard, talking
to each other and wondering.
Very few people stopped to think of Belinda Lawford. "Let the stricken
deer go weep." A stricken deer is a very uninteresting object when
there are hounds in full cry hard by, and another deer to be hunted.
"Since when has my wife been at Kemberling?" Edward Arundel asked
Olivia, as the carriage drove along the high road between the two
villages.
"Since daybreak this morning."
"Where was she before then?"
"At Stony-Stringford Farm."
"And before then?"
"In the pavilion over the boat-house at Marchmont."
"My God! And--"
The young man did not finish his sentence. He put his head out of the
window, looking towards Kemberling, and straining his eyes to catch the
earliest sight of the straggling village street.
"Faster!" he cried every now and then to the coachman; "faster!"
In little more than half an hour from the time at which it had left the
churchyard-gate, the carriage stopped before the little carpenter's
shop. Mr. Jobson's doorway was adorned by a painted representation of
two very doleful-looking mutes standing at a door; for Hester's husband
combined the more aristocratic avocation of undertaker with the homely
trade of carpenter and joiner.
Olivia Marchmont got out of the carriage before either of the two men
could alight to assist her. Power was the supreme attribute of this
woman's mind. Her purpose never faltered; from the moment she had left
Marchmont Towers until now, she had known neither rest of body nor
wavering of intention.
"Come," she said to Edward Arundel, looking back as she stood upon the
threshold of Mr. Jobson's door; "and you too," she added, turning to
Major Lawford,--"follow us, and _see_ whether I am MAD."
She passed through the shop, and into that prim, smart parlour in which
Edward Arundel had lamented his lost wife.
The latticed windows were wide open, and the warm summer sunshine
filled the room.
A girl, with loose tresses of hazel-brown hair falling about her face,
was sitting on the floor, looking down at a beautiful fair-haired
nursling of a twelvemonth old.
The girl was John Marchmont's daughter; the child was Edward Arundel's
son. It was _his_ childish cry that the young man had heard upon that
October night in the pavilion by the water.
"Mary Arundel," said Olivia, in a hard voice, "I give you back your
husband."
The young mother got up from the ground with a low cry, tottered
forward, and fell into her husband's arms.
"They told me you were dead! They made me believe that you were dead!"
she said, and then fainted on the young man's breast. Edward carried
her to a sofa and laid her down, white and senseless; and then knelt
down beside her, crying over her, and sobbing out inarticulate
thanksgiving to the God who had given his lost wife back to him.
"Poor sweet lamb!" murmured Hester Jobson; "she's as weak as a baby;
and she's gone through so much a'ready this morning."
It was some time before Edward Arundel raised his head from the pillow
upon which his wife's pale face lay, half hidden amid the tangled hair.
But when he did look up, he turned to Major Lawford and stretched out
his hand.
"Have pity upon me," he said. "I have been the dupe of a villain. Tell
your poor child how much I esteem her, how much I regret that--that--we
should have loved each other as we have. The instinct of my heart would
have kept me true to the past; but it was impossible to know your
daughter and not love her. The villain who has brought this sorrow upon
us shall pay dearly for his infamy. Go back to your daughter; tell her
everything. Tell her what you have seen here. I know her heart, and I
know that she will open her arms to this poor ill-used child."
The Major went away very downcast. Hester Jobson bustled about bringing
restoratives and pillows, stopping every now and then in an outburst of
affection by the slippery horsehair couch on which Mary lay.
Mrs. Jobson had prepared her best bedroom for her beloved visitor, and
Edward carried his young wife up to the clean, airy chamber. He went
back to the parlour to fetch the child. He carried the fair-haired
little one up-stairs in his own arms; but I regret to say that the
infant showed an inclination to whimper in his newly-found father's
embrace. It is only in the British Drama that newly discovered fathers
are greeted with an outburst of ready-made affection. Edward Arundel
went back to the sitting-room presently, and sat down, waiting till
Hester should bring him fresh tidings of his wife. Olivia Marchmont
stood by the window, with her eyes fixed upon Edward.
"Why don't you speak to me?" she said presently. "Can you find no words
that are vile enough to express your hatred of me? Is that why you are
silent?"
"No, Olivia," answered the young man, calmly. "I am silent, because I
have nothing to say to you. Why you have acted as you have acted,--why
you have chosen to be the tool of a black-hearted villain,--is an
unfathomable mystery to me. I thank God that your conscience was
aroused this day, and that you have at least hindered the misery of an
innocent girl. But why you have kept my wife hidden from me,--why you
have been the accomplice of Paul Marchmont's crime,--is more than I can
even attempt to guess."
"Not yet?" said Olivia, looking at him with a strange smile. "Even yet
I am a mystery to you?"
"You are, indeed, Olivia."
She turned away from him with a laugh.
"Then I had better remain so till the end," she said, looking out into
the garden. But after a moment's silence she turned her head once more
towards the young man. "I will speak," she said; "I _will_ speak,
Edward Arundel. I hope and believe that I have not long to live, and
that all my shame and misery, my obstinate wickedness, my guilty
passion, will come to an end, like a long feverish dream. O God, have
mercy on my waking, and make it brighter than this dreadful sleep! I
loved you, Edward Arundel. Ah! you start. Thank God at least for that.
I kept my secret well. You don't know what that word 'love' means, do
you? You think you love that childish girl yonder, perhaps; but I can
tell you that you don't know what love is. _I_ know what it is. I have
loved. For ten years,--for ten long, dreary, desolate, miserable years,
fifty-two weeks in every year, fifty-two Sundays, with long idle hours
between the two church services--I have loved you, Edward. Shall I tell
you what it is to love? It is to suffer, to hate, yes, to hate even the
object of your love, when that love is hopeless; to hate him for the
very attributes that have made you love him; to grudge the gifts and
graces that have made him dear. It is to hate every creature on whom
his eyes look with greater tenderness than they look on you; to watch
one face until its familiar lines become a perpetual torment to you,
and you cannot sleep because of its eternal presence staring at you in
all your dreams. It is to be like some wretched drunkard, who loathes
the fiery spirit that is destroying him, body and soul, and yet goes
on, madly drinking, till he dies. Love! How many people upon this great
earth know the real meaning of that hideous word! I have learnt it
until my soul loathes the lesson. They will tell you that I am mad,
Edward, and they will tell you something near the truth; but not quite
the truth. My madness has been my love. From long ago, when you were
little more than a boy--you remember, don't you, the long days at the
Rectory? _I_ remember every word you ever spoke to me, every sentiment
you ever expressed, every look of your changing face--you were the
first bright thing that came across my barren life; and I loved you. I
married John Marchmont--why, do you think?--because I wanted to make a
barrier between you and me. I wanted to make my love for you impossible
by making it a sin. So long as my husband lived, I shut your image out
of my mind as I would have shut out the Prince of Darkness, if he had
come to me in a palpable shape. But since then--oh, I hope I have been
mad since then; I hope that God may forgive my sins because I have been
mad!"
Her thoughts wandered away to that awful question which had been so
lately revived in her mind--Could she be forgiven? Was it within the
compass of heavenly mercy to forgive such a sin as hers?
CHAPTER XII.
MARY'S STORY.
One of the minor effects of any great shock, any revolution, natural or
political, social or domestic, is a singular unconsciousness, or an
exaggerated estimate, of the passage of time. Sometimes we fancy that
the common functions of the universe have come to a dead stop during
the tempest which has shaken our being to its remotest depths.
Sometimes, on the other hand, it seems to us that, because we have
endured an age of suffering, or half a lifetime of bewildered joy, the
terrestrial globe has spun round in time to the quickened throbbing of
our passionate hearts, and that all the clocks upon earth have been
standing still.
When the sun sank upon the summer's day that was to have been the day
of Belinda's bridal, Edward Arundel thought that it was still early in
the morning. He wondered at the rosy light all over the western sky,
and that great ball of molten gold dropping down below the horizon. He
was fain to look at his watch, in order to convince himself that the
low light was really the familiar sun, and not some unnatural
appearance in the heavens.
And yet, although he wondered at the closing of the day, with a strange
inconsistency his mind could scarcely grapple with the idea that only
last night he had sat by Belinda Lawford's side, her betrothed husband,
and had pondered, Heaven only knows with what sorrowful regret, upon
the unknown grave in which his dead wife lay.
"I only knew it this morning," he thought; "I only knew this morning
that my young wife still lives, and that I have a son."
He was sitting by the open window in Hester Jobson's best bedroom. He
was sitting in an old-fashioned easy-chair, placed between the head of
the bed and the open window,--a pure cottage window, with diamond panes
of thin greenish glass, and a broad painted ledge, with a great jug of
homely garden-flowers standing on it. The young man was sitting by the
side of the bed upon which his newly-found wife and son lay asleep; the
child's head nestled on his mother's breast, one flushed cheek peeping
out of a tangled confusion of hazel-brown and babyish flaxen hair.
The white dimity curtains overshadowed the loving sleepers. The pretty
fluffy knotted fringe--neat Hester's handiwork--made fantastical
tracery upon the sunlit counterpane. Mary slept with one arm folded
round her child, and with her face turned to her husband. She had
fallen asleep with her hand clasped in his, after a succession of
fainting-fits that had left her terribly prostrate.
Edward Arundel watched that tender picture with a smile of ineffable
affection.
"I can understand now why Roman Catholics worship the Virgin Mary," he
thought. "I can comprehend the inspiration that guided Raphael's hand
when he painted the Madonna de la Chaise. In all the world there is no
picture so beautiful. From all the universe he could have chosen no
subject more sublime. O my darling wife, given back to me out of the
grave, restored to me,--and not alone restored! My little son! my
baby-son! whose feeble voice I heard that dark October night. To think
that I was so wretched a dupe! to think that my dull ears could hear
that sound, and no instinct rise up in my heart to reveal the presence
of my child! I was so near them, not once, but several times,--so near,
and I never knew--I never guessed!"
He clenched his fists involuntarily at the remembrance of those
purposeless visits to the lonely boat-house. His young wife was
restored to him. But nothing could wipe away the long interval of agony
in which he and she had been the dupe of a villanous trickster and a
jealous woman. Nothing could give back the first year of that baby's
life,--that year which should have been one long holiday of love and
rejoicing. Upon what a dreary world those innocent eyes had opened,
when they should have looked only upon sunshine and flowers, and the
tender light of a loving father's smile!
"O my darling, my darling!" the young husband thought, as he looked at
his wife's wan face, upon which the evidence of all that past agony was
only too painfully visible,--"how bitterly we two have suffered! But
how much more terrible must have been your suffering than mine, my poor
gentle darling, my broken lily!"
In his rapture at finding the wife he had mourned as dead, the young
man had for a time almost forgotten the villanous plotter who had kept
her hidden from him. But now, as he sat quietly by the bed upon which
Mary and her baby lay, he had leisure to think of Paul Marchmont.
What was he to do with that man? What vengeance could he wreak upon the
head of that wretch who, for nearly two years, had condemned an
innocent girl to cruel suffering and shame? To shame; for Edward knew
now that one of the most bitter tortures which Paul Marchmont had
inflicted upon his cousin had been his pretended disbelief in her
marriage.
"What can I do to him?" the young man asked himself. "_What_ can I do
to him? There is no personal chastisement worse than that which he has
endured already at my hands. The scoundrel! the heartless villain! the
false, cold-blooded cur! What can I do to him? I can only repeat that
shameful degradation, and I _will_ repeat it. This time he shall howl
under the lash like some beaten hound. This time I will drag him
through the village-street, and let every idle gossip in Kemberling see
how a scoundrel writhes under an honest man's whip. I will--"
Edward Arundel's wife woke while he was thinking what chastisement he
should inflict upon her deadly foe; and the baby opened his round
innocent blue eyes in the next moment, and sat up, staring at his new
parent.
Mr. Arundel took the child in his arms, and held him very tenderly,
though perhaps rather awkwardly. The baby's round eyes opened wider at
sight of those golden absurdities dangling at his father's watch-chain,
and the little pudgy hands began to play with the big man's lockets and
seals.
"He comes to me, you see, Mary!" Edward said, with naive wonder.
And then he turned the baby's face towards him, and tenderly
contemplated the bright surprised blue eyes, the tiny dimples, the soft
moulded chin. I don't know whether fatherly vanity prompted the fancy,
but Edward Arundel certainly did believe that he saw some faint
reflection of his own features in that pink and white baby-face; a
shadowy resemblance, like a tremulous image looking up out of a river.
But while Edward was half-thinking this, half-wondering whether there
could be any likeness to him in that infant countenance, Mary settled
the question with womanly decision.
"Isn't he like you, Edward?" she whispered. "It was only for his sake
that I bore my life all through that miserable time; and I don't think
I could have lived even for him, if he hadn't been so like you. I used
to look at his face sometimes for hours and hours together, crying over
him, and thinking of you. I don't think I ever cried except when he was
in my arms. Then something seemed to soften my heart, and the tears
came to my eyes. I was very, very, very ill, for a long time before my
baby was born; and I didn't know how the time went, or where I was. I
used to fancy sometimes I was back in Oakley Street, and that papa was
alive again, and that we were quite happy together, except for some
heavy hammer that was always beating, beating, beating upon both our
heads, and the dreadful sound of the river rushing down the street
under our windows. I heard Mr. Weston tell his wife that it was a
miracle I lived through that time."
Hester Jobson came in presently with a tea-tray, that made itself
heard, by a jingling of teaspoons and rattling of cups and saucers, all
the way up the narrow staircase.
The friendly carpenter's wife had produced her best china and her
silver teapot,--an heirloom inherited from a wealthy maiden aunt of her
husband's. She had been busy all the afternoon, preparing that elegant
little collation of cake and fruit which accompanied the tea-tray; and
she spread the lavender-scented table-cloth, and arranged the cups and
saucers, the plates and dishes, with mingled pride and delight.
But she had to endure a terrible disappointment by-and-by; for neither
of her guests was in a condition to do justice to her hospitality. Mary
got up and sat in the roomy easy-chair, propped up with pillows. Her
pensive eyes kept a loving watch upon the face of her husband, turned
towards her own, and slightly crimsoned by that rosy flush fading out
in the western sky. She sat up and sipped a cup of tea; and in that
lovely summer twilight, with the scent of the flowers blowing in
through the open window, and a stupid moth doing his best to beat out
his brains against one of the diamond panes in the lattice, the
tortured heart, for the first time since the ruthless close of that
brief honeymoon, felt the heavenly delight of repose.
"O Edward!" murmured the young wife, "how strange it seems to be
happy!"
He was at her feet, half-kneeling, half-sitting on a hassock of
Hester's handiwork, with both his wife's hands clasped in his, and his
head leaning upon the arm of her chair. Hester Jobson had carried off
the baby, and these two were quite alone, all in all to each other,
with a cruel gap of two years to be bridged over by sorrowful memories,
by tender words of consolation. They were alone, and they could talk
quite freely now, without fear of interruption; for although in purity
and beauty an infant is first cousin to the angels, and although I most
heartily concur in all that Mr. Bennett and Mr. Buchanan can say or
sing about the species, still it must be owned that a baby _is_ rather
a hindrance to conversation, and that a man's eloquence does not flow
quite so smoothly when he has to stop every now and then to rescue his
infant son from the imminent peril of strangulation, caused by a futile
attempt at swallowing one of his own fists.
Mary and Edward were alone; they were together once more, as they had
been by the trout-stream in the Winchester meadows. A curtain had
fallen upon all the wreck and ruin of the past, and they could hear the
soft, mysterious music that was to be the prelude of a new act in
life's drama.
"I shall try to forget all that time," Mary said presently; "I shall
try to forget it, Edward. I think the very memory of it would kill me,
if it was to come back perpetually in the midst of my joy, as it does
now, even now, when I am so happy--so happy that I dare not speak of my
happiness."
She stopped, and her face drooped upon her husband's clustering hair.
"You are crying, Mary!"
"Yes, dear. There is something painful in happiness when it comes after
such suffering."
The young man lifted his head, and looked in his wife's face. How
deathly pale it was, even in that shadowy twilight; how worn and
haggard and wasted since it had smiled at him in his brief honeymoon.
Yes, joy is painful when it comes after a long continuance of
suffering; it is painful because we have become sceptical by reason of
the endurance of such anguish. We have lost the power to believe in
happiness. It comes, the bright stranger; but we shrink appalled from
its beauty, lest, after all, it should be nothing but a phantom.
Heaven knows how anxiously Edward Arundel looked at his wife's altered
face. Her eyes shone upon him with the holy light of love. She smiled
at him with a tender, reassuring smile; but it seemed to him that there
was something almost supernal in the brightness of that white, wasted
face; something that reminded him of the countenance of a martyr who
has ceased to suffer the anguish of death in a foretaste of the joys of
Heaven.
"Mary," he said, presently, "tell me every cruelty that Paul Marchmont
or his tools inflicted upon you; tell me everything, and I will never
speak of our miserable separation again. I will only punish the cause
of it," he added, in an undertone. "Tell me, dear. It will be painful
for you to speak of it; but it will be only once. There are some things
I must know. Remember, darling, that you are in my arms now, and that
nothing but death can ever again part us."
The young man had his arms round his wife. He felt, rather than heard,
a low plaintive sigh as he spoke those last words.
"Nothing but death, Edward; nothing but death," Mary said, in a solemn
whisper. "Death would not come to me when I was very miserable. I used
to pray that I might die, and the baby too; for I could not have borne
to leave him behind. I thought that we might both be buried with you,
Edward. I have dreamt sometimes that I was lying by your side in a
tomb, and I have stretched out my dead hand to clasp yours. I used to
beg and entreat them to let me be buried with you when I died; for I
believed that you were dead, Edward. I believed it most firmly. I had
not even one lingering hope that you were alive. If I had felt such a
hope, no power upon earth would have kept me prisoner."
"The wretches!" muttered Edward between his set teeth; "the dastardly
wretches! the foul liars!"
"Don't, Edward; don't, darling. There is a pain in my heart when I hear
you speak like that. I know how wicked they have been; how cruel--how
cruel. I look back at all my suffering as if it were some one else who
suffered; for now that you are with me I cannot believe that miserable,
lonely, despairing creature was really me, the same creature whose head
now rests upon your shoulder, whose breath is mixed with yours. I look
back and see all my past misery, and I cannot forgive them, Edward; I
am very wicked, for I cannot forgive my cousin Paul and his
sister--yet. But I don't want you to speak of them; I only want you to
love me; I only want you to smile at me, and tell me again and again
and again that nothing can part us now--but death."
She paused for a few moments, exhausted by having spoken so long. Her
head lay upon her husband's shoulder, and she clung a little closer to
him, with a slight shiver.
"What is the matter, darling?"
"I feel as if it couldn't be real."
"What, dear?"
"The present--all this joy. Edward, is it real? Is it--is it? Or am I
only dreaming? Shall I wake presently and feel the cold air blowing in
at the window, and see the moonlight on the wainscot at Stony
Stringford? Is it all real?"
"It is, my precious one. As real as the mercy of God, who will give you
compensation for all you have suffered; as real as God's vengeance,
which will fall most heavily upon your persecutors. And now, darling,
tell me,--tell me all. I must know the story of these two miserable
years during which I have mourned for my lost love."
Mr. Arundel forgot to mention that during those two miserable years he
had engaged himself to become the husband of another woman. But
perhaps, even when he is best and truest, a man is always just a shade
behind a woman in the matter of constancy.
"When you left me in Hampshire, Edward, I was very, very miserable,"
Mary began, in a low voice; "but I knew that it was selfish and wicked
of me to think only of myself. I tried to think of your poor father,
who was ill and suffering; and I prayed for him, and hoped that he
would recover, and that you would come back to me very soon. The people
at the inn were very kind to me. I sat at the window from morning till
night upon the day after you left me, and upon the day after that; for
I was so foolish as to fancy, every time I heard the sound of horses'
hoofs or carriage-wheels upon the high-road, that you were coming back
to me, and that all my grief was over. I sat at the window and watched
the road till I knew the shape of every tree and housetop, every ragged
branch of the hawthorn-bushes in the hedge. At last--it was the third
day after you went away--I heard carriage-wheels, that slackened as
they came to the inn. A fly stopped at the door, and oh, Edward, I did
not wait to see who was in it,--I never imagined the possibility of its
bringing anybody but you. I ran down-stairs, with my heart beating so
that I could hardly breathe; and I scarcely felt the stairs under my
feet. But when I got to the door--O my love, my love!--I cannot bear to
think of it; I cannot endure the recollection of it--"
She stopped, gasping for breath, and clinging to her husband; and then,
with an effort, went on again:
"Yes; I will tell you, dear; I must tell you. My cousin Paul and my
stepmother were standing in the little hall at the foot of the stairs.
I think I fainted in my stepmother's arms; and when my consciousness
came back, I was in our sitting-room,--the pretty rustic room, Edward,
in which you and I had been so happy together.
"I must not stop to tell you everything. It would take me so long to
speak of all that happened in that miserable time. I knew that
something must be wrong, from my cousin Paul's manner; but neither he
nor my stepmother would tell me what it was. I asked them if you were
dead; but they said, 'No, you were not dead.' Still I could see that
something dreadful had happened. But by-and-by, by accident, I saw your
name in a newspaper that was lying on the table with Paul's hat and
gloves. I saw the description of an accident on the railway, by which I
knew you had travelled. My heart sank at once, and I think I guessed
all that had happened. I read your name amongst those of the people who
had been dangerously hurt. Paul shook his head when I asked him if
there was any hope.
"They brought me back here. I scarcely know how I came, how I endured
all that misery. I implored them to let me come to you, again and
again, on my knees at their feet. But neither of them would listen to
me. It was impossible, Paul said. He always seemed very, very kind to
me; always spoke softly; always told me that he pitied me, and was
sorry for me. But though my stepmother looked sternly at me, and spoke,
as she always used to speak, in a harsh, cold voice, I sometimes think
she might have given way at last and let me come to you, but for
him--but for my cousin Paul. He could look at me with a smile upon his
face when I was almost mad with my misery; and he never wavered; he
never hesitated.
"So they took me back to the Towers. I let them take me; for I scarcely
felt my sorrow any longer. I only felt tired; oh, so dreadfully tired;
and I wanted to lie down upon the ground in some quiet place, where no
one could come near me. I thought that I was dying. I believe I was
very ill when we got back to the Towers. My stepmother and Barbara
Simmons watched by my bedside, day after day, night after night.
Sometimes I knew them; sometimes I had all sorts of fancies. And
often--ah, how often, darling!--I thought that you were with me. My
cousin Paul came every day, and stood by my bedside. I can't tell you
how hateful it was to me to have him there. He used to come into the
room as silently as if he had been walking upon snow; but however
noiselessly he came, however fast asleep I was when he entered the
room, I always knew that he was there, standing by my bedside, smiling
at me. I always woke with a shuddering horror thrilling through my
veins, as if a rat had run across my face.
"By-and-by, when the delirium was quite gone, I felt ashamed of myself
for this. It seemed so wicked to feel this unreasonable antipathy to my
dear father's cousin; but he had brought me bad news of you, Edward,
and it was scarcely strange that I should hate him. One day he sat down
by my bedside, when I was getting better, and was strong enough to
talk. There was no one besides ourselves in the room, except my
stepmother, and she was standing at the window, with her head turned
away from us, looking out. My cousin Paul sat down by the bedside, and
began to talk to me in that gentle, compassionate way that used to
torture me and irritate me in spite of myself.
"He asked me what had happened to me after my leaving the Towers on the
day after the ball.
"I told him everything, Edward--about your coming to me in Oakley
Street; about our marriage. But, oh, my darling, my husband, he
wouldn't believe me; he wouldn't believe. Nothing that I could say
would make him believe me. Though I swore to him again and again--by my
dead father in heaven, as I hoped for the mercy of my God--that I had
spoken the truth, and the truth only, he wouldn't believe me; he
wouldn't believe. He shook his head, and said he scarcely wondered I
should try to deceive him; that it was a very sad story, a very
miserable and shameful story, and my attempted falsehood was little
more than natural.
"And then he spoke against you, Edward--against you. He talked of my
childish ignorance, my confiding love, and your villany. O Edward, he
said such shameful things; such shameful, horrible things! You had
plotted to become master of my fortune; to get me into your power,
because of my money; and you had not married me. You had _not_ married
me; he persisted in saying that.
"I was delirious again after this; almost mad, I think. All through the
delirium I kept telling my cousin Paul of our marriage. Though he was
very seldom in the room, I constantly thought that he was there, and
told him the same thing--the same thing--till my brain was on fire. I
don't know how long it lasted. I know that, once in the middle of the
night, I saw my stepmother lying upon the ground, sobbing aloud and
crying out about her wickedness; crying out that God would never
forgive her sin.
"I got better at last, and then I went downstairs; and I used to sit
sometimes in poor papa's study. The blind was always down, and none of
the servants, except Barbara Simmons, ever came into the room. My
cousin Paul did not live at the Towers; but he came there every day,
and often stayed there all day. He seemed the master of the house. My
stepmother obeyed him in everything, and consulted him about
everything.
"Sometimes Mrs. Weston came. She was like her brother. She always
smiled at me with a grave compassionate smile, just like his; and she
always seemed to pity me. But she wouldn't believe in my marriage. She
spoke cruelly about you, Edward; cruelly, but in soft words, that
seemed only spoken out of compassion for me. No one would believe in my
marriage.
"No stranger was allowed to see me. I was never suffered to go out.
They treated me as if I was some shameful creature, who must be hidden
away from the sight of the world.
"One day I entreated my cousin Paul to go to London and see Mrs.
Pimpernel. She would be able to tell him of our marriage. I had
forgotten the name of the clergyman who married us, and the church at
which we were married. And I could not tell Paul those; but I gave him
Mrs. Pimpernel's address. And I wrote to her, begging her to tell my
cousin, all about my marriage; and I gave him the note unsealed.
"He went to London about a week afterwards; and when he came back, he
brought me my note. He had been to Oakley Street, he said; but Mrs.
Pimpernel had left the neighbourhood, and no one knew where she was
gone."
"A lie! a villanous lie!" muttered Edward Arundel. "Oh, the scoundrel!
the infernal scoundrel!"
"No words would ever tell the misery of that time; the bitter anguish;
the unendurable suspense. When I asked them about you, they would tell
me nothing. Sometimes I thought that you had forgotten me; that you had
only married me out of pity for my loneliness; and that you were glad
to be freed from me. Oh, forgive me, Edward, for that wicked thought;
but I was so very miserable, so utterly desolate. At other times I
fancied that you were very ill, helpless, and unable to come to me. I
dared not think that you were dead. I put away that thought from me
with all my might; but it haunted me day and night. It was with me
always like a ghost. I tried to shut it away from my sight; but I knew
that it was there.
"The days were all alike,--long, dreary, and desolate; so I scarcely
know how the time went. My stepmother brought me religious books, and
told me to read them; but they were hard, difficult books, and I
couldn't find one word of comfort in them. They must have been written
to frighten very obstinate and wicked people, I think. The only book
that ever gave me any comfort, was that dear Book I used to read to
papa on a Sunday evening in Oakley Street. I read that, Edward, in
those miserable days; I read the story of the widow's only son who was
raised up from the dead because his mother was so wretched without him.
I read that sweet, tender story again and again, until I used to see
the funeral train, the pale, still face upon the bier, the white,
uplifted hand, and that sublime and lovely countenance, whose image
always comes to us when we are most miserable, the tremulous light upon
the golden hair, and in the distance the glimmering columns of white
temples, the palm-trees standing out against the purple Eastern sky. I
thought that He who raised up a miserable woman's son chiefly because
he was her only son, and she was desolate without him, would have more
pity upon me than the God in Olivia's books: and I prayed to Him,
Edward, night and day, imploring Him to bring you back to me.
"I don't know what day it was, except that it was autumn, and the dead
leaves were blowing about in the quadrangle, when my stepmother sent
for me one afternoon to my room, where I was sitting, not reading, not
even thinking--only sitting with my head upon my hands, staring
stupidly out at the drifting leaves and the gray, cold sky. My
stepmother was in papa's study; and I was to go to her there. I went,
and found her standing there, with a letter crumpled up in her clenched
hand, and a slip of newspaper lying on the table before her. She was as
white as death, and she was trembling violently from head to foot.
"'See,' she said, pointing to the paper; 'your lover is dead. But for
you he would have received the letter that told him of his father's
illness upon an earlier day; he would have gone to Devonshire by a
different train. It was by your doing that he travelled when he did. If
this is true, and he is dead, his blood be upon your head; his blood be
upon your head!'
"I think her cruel words were almost exactly those. I did not hope for
a minute that those horrible lines in the newspaper were false. I
thought they must be true, and I was mad, Edward--I was mad; for utter
despair came to me with the knowledge of your death. I went to my own
room, and put on my bonnet and shawl; and then I went out of the house,
down into that dreary wood, and along the narrow pathway by the
river-side. I wanted to drown myself; but the sight of the black water
filled me with a shuddering horror. I was frightened, Edward; and I
went on by the river, scarcely knowing where I was going, until it was
quite dark; and I was tired, and sat down upon the damp ground by the
brink of the river, all amongst the broad green flags and the wet
rushes. I sat there for hours, and I saw the stars shining feebly in a
dark sky. I think I was delirious, for sometimes I knew that I was
there by the water side, and then the next minute I thought that I was
in my bedroom at the Towers; sometimes I fancied that I was with you in
the meadows near Winchester, and the sun was shining, and you were
sitting by my side, and I could see your float dancing up and down in
the sunlit water. At last, after I had been there a very, very long
time, two people came with a lantern, a man and a woman; and I heard a
startled voice say, 'Here she is; here, lying on the ground!' And then
another voice, a woman's voice, very low and frightened, said, 'Alive!'
And then two people lifted me up; the man carried me in his arms, and
the woman took the lantern. I couldn't speak to them; but I knew that
they were my cousin Paul and his sister, Mrs. Weston. I remember being
carried some distance in Paul's arms; and then I think I must have
fainted away, for I can recollect nothing more until I woke up one day
and found myself lying in a bed in the pavilion over the boat-house,
with Mr. Weston watching by my bedside.
"I don't know how the time passed; I only know that it seemed endless.
I think my illness was rheumatic fever, caught by lying on the damp
ground nearly all that night when I ran away from the Towers. A long
time went by--there was frost and snow. I saw the river once out of the
window when I was lifted out of bed for an hour or two, and it was
frozen; and once at midnight I heard the Kemberling church-bells
ringing in the New Year. I was very ill, but I had no doctor; and all
that time I saw no one but my cousin Paul, and Lavinia Weston, and a
servant called Betsy, a rough country girl, who took care of me when my
cousins were away. They were kind to me, and took great care of me."
"You did not see Olivia, then, all this time?" Edward asked eagerly.
"No; I did not see my stepmother till some time after the New Year
began. She came in suddenly one evening, when Mrs. Weston was with me,
and at first she seemed frightened at seeing me. She spoke to me kindly
afterwards, but in a strange, terror-stricken voice; and she laid her
head down upon the counterpane of the bed, and sobbed aloud; and then
Paul took her away, and spoke to her cruelly, very cruelly--taunting
her with her love for you. I never understood till then why she hated
me: but I pitied her after that; yes, Edward, miserable as I was, I
pitied her, because you had never loved her. In all my wretchedness I
was happier than her; for you had loved me, Edward--you had loved me!"
Mary lifted her face to her husband's lips, and those dear lips were
pressed tenderly upon her pale forehead.
"O my love, my love!" the young man murmured; "my poor suffering angel!
Can God ever forgive these people for their cruelty to you? But, my
darling, why did you make no effort to escape?"
"I was too ill to move; I believed that I was dying."
"But afterwards, darling, when you were better, stronger,--did you make
no effort then to escape from your persecutors?"
Mary shook her head mournfully.
"Why should I try to escape from them?" she said. "What was there for
me beyond that place? It was as well for me to be there as anywhere
else. I thought you were dead, Edward; I thought you were dead, and
life held nothing more for me. I could do nothing but wait till He who
raised the widow's son should have pity upon me, and take me to the
heaven where I thought you and papa had gone before me. I didn't want
to go away from those dreary rooms over the boat-house. What did it
matter to me whether I was there or at Marchmont Towers? I thought you
were dead, and all the glories and grandeurs of the world were nothing
to me. Nobody ill-treated me; I was let alone. Mrs. Weston told me that
it was for my own sake they kept me hidden from everybody about the
Towers. I was a poor disgraced girl, she told me; and it was best for
me to stop quietly in the pavilion till people had got tired of talking
of me, and then my cousin Paul would take me away to the Continent,
where no one would know who I was. She told me that the honour of my
father's name, and of my family altogether, would be saved by this
means. I replied that I had brought no dishonour on my dear father's
name; but she only shook her head mournfully, and I was too weak to
dispute with her. What did it matter? I thought you were dead, and that
the world was finished for me. I sat day after day by the window; not
looking out, for there was a Venetian blind that my cousin Paul had
nailed down to the window-sill, and I could only see glimpses of the
water through the long, narrow openings between the laths. I used to
sit there listening to the moaning of the wind amongst the trees, or
the sounds of horses' feet upon the towing-path, or the rain dripping
into the river upon wet days. I think that even in my deepest misery
God was good to me, for my mind sank into a dull apathy, and I seemed
to lose even the capacity of suffering.
"One day,--one day in March, when the wind was howling, and the smoke
blew down the narrow chimney and filled the room,--Mrs. Weston brought
her husband, and he talked to me a little, and then talked to his wife
in whispers. He seemed terribly frightened, and he trembled all the
time, and kept saying, 'Poor thing; poor young woman!' but his wife was
cross to him, and wouldn't let him stop long in the room. After that,
Mr. Weston came very often, always with Lavinia, who seemed cleverer
than he was, even as a doctor; for she dictated to him, and ordered him
about in everything. Then, by-and-by, when the birds were singing, and
the warm sunshine came into the room, my baby was born, Edward; my baby
was born. I thought that God, who raised the widow's son, had heard my
prayer, and had raised you up from the dead; for the baby's eyes were
like yours, and I used to think sometimes that your soul was looking
out of them and comforting me.
"Do you remember that poor foolish German woman who believed that the
spirit of a dead king came to her in the shape of a blackbird? She was
not a good woman, I know, dear; but she must have loved the king very
truly, or she never could have believed anything so foolish. I don't
believe in people's love when they love 'wisely,' Edward: the truest
love is that which loves 'too well.'
"From the time of my baby's birth everything was changed. I was more
miserable, perhaps, because that dull, dead apathy cleared away, and my
memory came back, and I thought of you, dear, and cried over my little
angel's face as he slept. But I wasn't alone any longer. The world
seemed narrowed into the little circle round my darling's cradle. I
don't think he is like other babies, Edward. I think he has known of my
sorrow from the very first, and has tried in his mute way to comfort
me. The God who worked so many miracles, all separate tokens of His
love and tenderness and pity for the sorrows of mankind, could easily
make my baby different from other children, for a wretched mother's
consolation.
"In the autumn after my darling's birth, Paul and his sister came for
me one night, and took me away from the pavilion by the water to a
deserted farmhouse, where there was a woman to wait upon me and take
care of me. She was not unkind to me, but she was rather neglectful of
me. I did not mind that, for I wanted nothing except to be alone with
my precious boy--your son, Edward; your son. The woman let me walk in
the garden sometimes. It was a neglected garden, but there were bright
flowers growing wild, and when the spring came again my pet used to lie
on the grass and play with the buttercups and daisies that I threw into
his lap; and I think we were both of us happier and better than we had
been in those two close rooms over the boat-house.
"I have told you all now, Edward, all except what happened this
morning, when my stepmother and Hester Jobson came into my room in the
early daybreak, and told me that I had been deceived, and that you were
alive. My stepmother threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and asked
me to forgive her, for she was a miserable sinner, she said, who had
been abandoned by God; and I forgave her, Edward, and kissed her; and
you must forgive her too, dear, for I know that she has been very, very
wretched. And she took the baby in her arms, and kissed him,--oh, so
passionately!--and cried over him. And then they brought me here in Mr.
Jobson's cart, for Mr. Jobson was with them, and Hester held me in her
arms all the time. And then, darling, then after a long time you came
to me."
Edward put his arms round his wife, and kissed her once more. "We will
never speak of this again, darling," he said. "I know all now; I
understand it all. I will never again distress you by speaking of your
cruel wrongs."
"And you will forgive Olivia, dear?"
"Yes, my pet, I will forgive--Olivia."
He said no more, for there was a footstep on the stair, and a glimmer
of light shone through the crevices of the door. Hester Jobson came
into the room with a pair of lighted wax-candles, in white
crockery-ware candlesticks. But Hester was not alone; close behind her
came a lady in a rustling silk gown, a tall matronly lady, who cried
out,--
"Where is she, Edward? Where is she? Let me see this poor ill-used
child."
It was Mrs. Arundel, who had come to Kemberling to see her newly-found
daughter-in-law.
"Oh, my dear mother," cried the young man, "how good of you to come!
Now, Mary, you need never again know what it is to want a protector, a
tender womanly protector, who will shelter you from every harm."
Mary got up and went to Mrs. Arundel, who opened her arms to receive
her son's young wife. But before she folded Mary to her friendly
breast, she took the girl's two hands in hers, and looked earnestly at
her pale, wasted face.
She gave a long sigh as she contemplated those wan features, the
shining light in the eyes, that looked unnaturally large by reason of
the girl's hollow cheeks.
"Oh, my dear," cried Mrs. Arundel, "my poor long-suffering child, how
cruelly they have treated you!"
Edward looked at his mother, frightened by the earnestness of her
manner; but she smiled at him with a bright, reassuring look.
"I shall take you home to Dangerfield with me, my poor love," she said
to Mary; "and I shall nurse you, and make you as plump as a partridge,
my poor wasted pet. And I'll be a mother to you, my motherless child.
Oh, to think that there should be any wretch vile enough to--But I
won't agitate you, my dear. I'll take you away from this bleak horrid
county by the first train to-morrow morning, and you shall sleep
to-morrow night in the blue bedroom at Dangerfield, with the roses and
myrtles waving against your window; and Edward shall go with us, and
you shan't come back here till you are well and strong; and you'll try
and love me, won't you, dear? And, oh, Edward, I've seen the boy! and
he's a _superb_ creature, the very _image_ of what you were at a
twelvemonth old; and he came to me, and smiled at me, almost as if he
knew I was his grandmother; and he has got FIVE teeth, but I'm _sorry_
to tell you he's cutting them crossways, the top first instead of the
bottom, Hester says."
"And Belinda, mother dear?" Edward said presently, in a grave
undertone.
"Belinda is an angel," Mrs. Arundel answered, quite as gravely. "She
has been in her own room all day, and no one has seen her but her
mother; but she came down to the hall as I was leaving the house this
evening, and said to me, 'Dear Mrs. Arundel, tell him that he must not
think I am so selfish as to be sorry for what has happened. Tell him
that I am very glad to think his young wife has been saved.' She put
her hand up to my lips to stop my speaking, and then went back again to
her room; and if that isn't acting like an angel, I don't know what
is."
CHAPTER XIII.
"ALL WITHIN IS DARK AS NIGHT."