Markland was a much more important place than the Warren. It was one
of the chief places in the county in which the family had for many
generations held so great a position. It was a large building, with all
that irregularity of architecture which is dear to the English mind,--a
record of the generations which had passed through it and added to it,
in itself a noble historical monument, full of indications of the
past. But it lost much of its effect upon the mind from the fact that
it was in much less good order than is usual with houses of similar
pretensions; and above all because the wood around it had been wantonly
and wastefully cut, and it stood almost unsheltered upon its little
eminence, with only a few seedling trees, weedy and long, like boys who
had outgrown their strength, straggling about the heights. The house
itself was thus left bare to all the winds. An old cedar, very large but
very feeble, in the tottering condition of old age to which some trees,
like men, come, with two or three of its longest branches torn off by
storm and decay, interposed its dark foliage over the lower roof of the
west wing, and gave a little appearance of shelter, and a few Lombardy
poplars and light-leaved young birches made a thin and interrupted
screen to the east; but the house stood clear of these light and
frivolous young attendants in a nakedness which made the spectator
shiver. The wood in the long avenue had been thinned in almost the same
ruthless way, but here and there were shady corners, where old trees,
not worth much in the market, but very valuable to the landscape, laid
their heads together like ancient retainers, and rustled and nodded
their disapproval of the devastation around.
Young Lady Markland, with her boy, on the afternoon of the June day on
which Mr. Warrender was buried, walked up and down for some time in
front of the house, casting many anxious looks down the avenue, by
which, in its present denuded state, every approaching visitor was so
easily visible. She was still very young, though her child was about
eight; she having been married, so to speak, out of the nursery, a young
creature of sixteen, a motherless girl, with no one to investigate too
closely into the character of the young lover, who was not much more
than a boy himself, and between whom and his girlish bride a hot,
foolish young love had sprung up like a mushroom, in a week or two of
acquaintance. She was twenty-five, but did not look her age. She was
small in stature,--one of those exquisitely neat little women whose
perfection of costume and appearance no external accident disturbs. Her
dress had the look of being moulded on her light little figure; her hair
was like brown satin, smooth as a mirror and reflecting the light. She
did not possess the large grace of abstract beauty. There was nothing
statuesque, nothing majestic, about her, but a kind of mild perfection,
a fitness and harmony which called forth the approval of the more
serious-minded portion of humanity as well as the admiration of the
younger and more frivolous.
It was generally known in the county that this young lady had far from
a happy life. She had been married in haste and over-confidence by
guardians who, if not glad to be rid of her, were at least pleased to
feel that their responsibility was over, and the orphan safe in her
husband's care, without taking too much pains to prove that the husband
was worthy of that charge, or that there was much reasonable prospect of
his devotion to it. Young Markland, it was understood, had sown his wild
oats somewhat plentifully at Oxford and elsewhere; and it was therefore
supposed, with very little logic, that there were no more to sow. But
this had not proved to be the case, and almost before his young wife
had reached the age of understanding, and was able to put two and two
together, he had run through the fortune she brought him--not a very
large one--and made her heart ache, which was worse, as hearts under
twenty ought never to learn how to ache. She was not a happy wife. The
country all about, the servants, and every villager near knew it, but
not from Lady Markland. She was very loyal, which is a noble quality,
and very proud, which in some cases does duty as a noble quality, and is
accepted as such. What were the secrets of her married life no one ever
heard from her; and fortunately those griefs which were open to all the
world never reached her, at least in detail. She did not know, save
vaguely, in what society her husband spent the frequent absences which
separated him from her. She did not know what kind of friends he made,
what houses he frequented, even in his own neighbourhood; and she was
still under the impression that many of her wrongs were known by herself
alone, and that his character had suffered but little in the eyes of the
world.
There was one person, however, from whom she had not been able to hide
these wrongs, and that was her child;--her only child. There had been
two other babies, dead at their birth or immediately after, but Geoff
was the only one who had lived, her constant companion, counsellor, and
aid. At eight years old! Those who had never known what a child can be
at that age, when thus entrusted with the perilous deposit of the family
secrets, and elevated to the post which his father ought but did not
care to fill, were apt to think little Geoff's development unnatural;
and others thought, with reason, that it was bad for the little fellow
to be so constantly with his mother, and it was said among the Markland
relations that as he was now growing a great boy he ought to be sent
to school Poor little Geoff! He was not a great boy, nor ever would
be. He was small, _chetif_, unbeautiful; a little sandy-haired,
sandy-complexioned, insignificant boy, with no features to speak of and
no stamina, short for his age and of uncertain health, which had indeed
been the first reason of that constant association with his mother which
was supposed to be so bad for him. During the first years of his life,
which had been broken by continual illness, it was only her perpetual
care that kept him alive at all. She had never left him, never given up
the charge of him to any one; watched him by night and lived with him
by day. His careless father would sometimes say, in one of those brags
which show a heart of shame even in the breast of the vicious, that if
he had not left her so much to herself, if he had dragged her about into
society, as so many men did their wives, she never would have kept her
boy; and perhaps there was some truth in it. While he pursued his
pleasures in regions where no wife could accompany him, she was free to
devote all her life, and to find out every new expedient that skill or
science had thought of to lengthen out the child's feeble days, and to
gain time to make a cure possible. He would never be very strong was the
verdict now, but with care he would live: and it was she who had over
again breathed life into him. This made the tie a double one; not out of
gratitude, for the child knew of no such secondary sentiment, but out of
the redoubled love which their constant association called forth. They
did not talk together of any family sorrows. It was never intimated
between them that anything wrong happened when papa was late and mamma
anxious, or when there were people at Markland who were not _nice_,--oh,
not a word; but the child was anxious as well as mamma. He too got the
habit of watching, listening for the hurried step, the wild rattle of
the phaeton with those two wild horses, which Lord Markland insisted
on driving, up the avenue. He knew everything, partly by observation,
partly by instinct. He walked with his mother now, clinging with both
hands to her arm, his head nearly on a level with her shoulder, and
close, close to it, almost touching, his little person confused in
the outline of her dress. The sunshine lay full along the line of the
avenue, just broken in two or three places by the shadow of those old
and useless trees, but without a speck upon it or a sound.
"I don't think papa can be coming, Geoff, and it is time you had your
tea."
"Never mind me. I'll go and take it by myself, if you want me to, and
you can wait here."
"Why?" she said. "It will not bring him home a moment sooner, as you and
I know."
"No, but it feels as if it made him come; and you can see as far as the
gate. It takes a long time to drive up the avenue. Oh yes, stop here;
you will like that best."
"I am so silly," she said, which was her constant excuse. "When you are
grown up, Geoff, I shall always be watching for you."
"That you shan't," said the boy. "I'll never leave you. You have had
enough of that."
"Oh yes, my darling, you will leave me. I shall want you to leave me.
A boy cannot be always with his mother. Come, now, I am going to be
strong-minded. Let us go in. I am a little tired, I think."
"Perhaps the funeral was later than he thought," said the boy.
"Perhaps. It was very kind of papa to go. He does not like things of that
kind; and he was not over-fond of Mr. Warrender, who, though he was very
good, was a little dull. Papa doesn't like dull people."
"No. Do you like Theo Warrender, mamma?"
"Well enough," said Lady Markland. "I don't know him very much."
"I like him," said the child. "He knows a lot: he told me how to do that
Latin. He is the sort of man I should like for my tutor."
"But he is a gentleman, Geoff. I mean, he would never be a tutor. He is
as well off as we are,--perhaps better."
"Are men tutors only when they are not well off?"
"Well, dear, generally when they require the money. You could not expect
young Mr. Warrender to come here and take a great deal of trouble,
merely for the pleasure of teaching you."
"Why not?" said Geoff. "Isn't it a fine thing to teach children? It was
you that said so, mamma."
"For me, dear, that am your mother; but not for a gentleman who is not
even a relation."
"Gentlemen, to be sure, are different," said Geoff, with an air of
deliberation. "There's papa, for instance----"
His mother threw up her hand suddenly. "Hark, Geoff! Do you hear
anything?"
They had come indoors while this talk was going on, and were now seated
in a large but rather shabby sitting-room, which was full of Geoff's
toys and books. The windows were wide open, but the sounds from without
came in subdued; for this room was at the back of the house, and at
some distance from the avenue. They were both silent for some moments,
listening, and then Lady Markland said, with an air of relief, "Papa is
coming. I hear the sound of the phaeton."
"That is not the phaeton, mamma; that is only one horse," said Geoff,
whose senses were very keen. When Lady Markland had listened a little
longer, she acquiesced in this opinion.
"It will be some one coming to call," she said, with an air of
resignation; and then they went on with their talk.
"Gentlemen are different; they don't take the charge of the children
like you. However, in books," said Geoff, "the fathers very often are a
great deal of good; they tell you all sorts of things. But books are not
very like real life; do you think they are? Even Frank, in Miss Edgeworth,
though you say he is so good, doesn't do things like me. I mean, I should
never think of doing things like him; and no little girl would ever be
so silly. Now, mamma, say true, what do you think? Would any little girl
ever be so silly as to want the big bottle out of a physic shop? Girls
may be silly, but not so bad as that."
"Perhaps, let us hope, she didn't know so much about physic shops, as
you call them, as you do, my poor boy. I wonder who can be calling
to-day, Geoff! I should have thought that everybody near would be
thinking of the Warrenders, and---- It is coming very fast, don't you
think? But it does not sound like the phaeton."
"Oh no, it is not the phaeton. I'll go and look," said Geoff. He came
back in a moment, crying, "I told you--it's a brougham! Coming at such a
pace!"
"I wonder who it can be!" Lady Markland said.
And when the boy resumed his talk she listened with inattention, trying
in vain to keep her interest fixed on what he was saying, making vague
replies, turning over a hundred possibilities in her mind, but by some
strange dulness, such as is usual enough in similar circumstances, never
thinking of the real cause. What danger could there be to Markland in a
drive of half a dozen miles, in the daylight; what risk in Mr. Warrender's
funeral? The sense that something which was not an ordinary visit was
coming grew stronger and stronger upon her, but of the news which was
about to reach her she never thought at all.
At last the door opened. She rose hastily, unable to control herself, to
meet it, whatever it was. It was not a ceremonious servant announcing a
visit, but Theo Warrender, pale as death itself, with a whole tragic
volume in his face, but speechless, not knowing, now that he stood
before her, what to say, who appeared in the doorway. He had hurried
off, bringing his mother's little brougham to carry the young wife to
her husband's bedside; but it was not until he looked into her face and
heard the low cry that burst from her that he realised what he had to
tell. He had forgotten that a man requires all his skill and no small
preparation to enable him to tell a young woman that her husband, who
left her in perfect health a few hours before, was now on the brink of
death. He stopped short on the threshold, awed by this thought, and only
stared at her, not knowing what to say.
"Mr. Warrender!" she said, with the utmost surprise; then, with growing
wonder and alarm, "You have come---- Something has happened!"
"Lady Markland--yes, there has been an accident. My mother--sent me with
the brougham. I came off at once. Will you go back with me? The horse is
very fast, and you can be there in half an hour."
This was all he could find to say. She went up to him, holding out her
hands in an almost speechless appeal. "Why for me? Why for me? What has
it got to do with me?"
He did not know how to answer her question. "Lady Markland!" he cried,
"your husband----" and said no more.
She was at the door of the brougham in a moment. She had not taken off
her garden hat, and she wanted no preparation. The child sprang to her
side, caught her arm, and went with her without a word or question, as
if that were undeniably his place. Everybody knew and remarked upon the
singular union between the neglected young wife and her only child, but
Warrender felt, he could scarcely tell why, that it annoyed and irritated
him at this moment. When he put her into the carriage, and the boy
clambered after her, he was unaccountably vexed by it,--so much vexed
that his profound sympathy for the poor lady seemed somehow checked.
Instead of following them into the carriage, which was not a very roomy
one, he shut the door upon them sharply. "I will walk," he said. "I am
not needed. Right, Jarvis, as fast as you can go." He stood by to see
them dash off, Lady Markland giving him a surprised yet half-relieved
look, in the paleness of her anxiety and misery. Then it suddenly became
apparent to him that he had done what was best and most delicate, though
without meaning it, out of the sudden annoyance which had risen within
him. It was the best thing he could have done: but to walk six miles at
the end of a fatiguing and trying day was not agreeable, and the sense
of irritation was strong in him. "If ever I have anything to do with
that boy----" he said involuntarily within himself. But what could he
ever have to do with the boy, who probably by this time, little puny
thing that he was, was Lord Markland, and the owner of all this great,
bare, unhappy-looking place, eaten up by the locusts of waste and ruin.
The butler, an old servant, had been anxiously trying all this time to
catch his eye. He came up now, as Warrender turned to follow on foot the
carriage, which was already almost out of sight. "I beg your pardon,
sir," he said, with the servant's usual formula, "but I've sent round
for the dogcart, if you'll be so kind as to wait a few minutes. None
of us, sir, but feels your kindness, coming yourself for my lady, and
leaving her alone in her trouble, poor dear. Mr. Warrender, sir, if I
may make so bold, what is the fact about my lord? Yes, sir, I heard what
you told my lady; but I thought you would nat'rally say the best, not to
frighten her. Is there any hope?"
"Not much, I fear. He was thrown out violently, and struck against a
tree; they are afraid that his spine is injured."
"Oh, sir, so young! and oh, so careless! God help us, Mr. Warrender, we
never know a step before us, do we, sir? If it's the spine, it will be
no pain; and him so joky, more than his usual, going off them very steps
this morning, though he was going to a funeral. Oh, Mr. Warrender, that
I should speak so light, forgetting---- God bless us, what an awful
thing, sir, after what has happened already, to happen in your house!"
Warrender answered with a nod,--he had no heart to speak; and, refusing
the dogcart, he set out on his walk home. An exquisite summer night:
everything harsh stilled out of the atmosphere; the sounds of labour
ceasing; a calm as of profoundest peace stealing over everything. The
soft and subdued pain of his natural grief, hushed by that fatigue and
exhaustion of both body and mind which a long strain produces, was not
out of accord with the calm of nature. But very different was the harsh
note of the new calamity, which had struck not the house in which the
tragedy was being enacted, but this one, which lay bare and naked in the
last light of the sinking sun. So young and so careless! So young, so
wasteful of life and all that life had to give, and now parted from it,
taken from it at a blow!