ONE MORE CHANCE.
Sir Harry came home, and met me more affectionately and kindly than
ever. I soon perceived that there was something of more than usual
gravity under discussion between him and Mr. Blount. I knew, of course,
very well what was the question they were debating. I was very
uncomfortable while this matter was being discussed; Mr. Blount seemed
nervous and uneasy; and it was plain that the decision was not only
suspended but uncertain. I don't suppose there was a more perturbed
little family in all England at that moment, over whom, at the same
time, there hung apparently no cloud of disaster.
At last I could perceive that something was settled; for the discussions
between Mr. Blount and Sir Harry seemed to have lost the character of
debate and remonstrance, and to have become more like a gloomy
confidence and consultation between them. I can only speak of what I may
call the external appearance of these conversations, for I was not
permitted to hear one word of their substance.
In a little while Sir Harry went away again. This time his journey, I
afterwards learned, was to one of the quietest little towns in North
Wales, where his chaise drew up at the Bull Inn. The tall northern
baronet got out of the chaise, and strode to the bar of that rural
hostelry.
"Is there a gentleman named Marston staying here?" he asked of the plump
elderly lady who sat within the bow-window of the bar.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Marston, Number Seven, up one pair of stairs."
"Upstairs now?" asked Sir Harry.
"He'll be gone out to take his walk, sir, by this time," answered the
lady.
"Can I talk to you for a few minutes, anywhere, madam, in private?"
asked Sir Harry.
The old lady looked at him, a little surprised.
"Yes, sir," she said. "Is it anything very particular, please?"
"Yes, ma'am, very particular," answered the baronet.
She called to her handmaid, and installed her quickly in her seat, and
so led the baronet to an occupied room on the ground-floor. Sir Harry
closed the door, and told her who he was. The landlady recognised his
baronetage with a little courtesy.
"I'm a relation of Mr. Marston's, and I've come down here to make an
inquiry; I want to know whether he has been leading an orderly, quiet
life since he came to your house."
"No one more so, please, sir; a very nice regular gentleman, and goes to
church every Sunday he's been here, and that is true. We have no
complaint to make of him, please, sir; and he has paid his bill twice
since he came here."
The woman looked honest, with frank, round eyes.
"Thank you, ma'am," said Sir Harry; "that will do."
An hour later it was twilight, and Mr. Marston, on entering his
sitting-room after his walk, saw the baronet, who got up from his chair
before the fire as he came in.
The young man instantly took off his hat, and stood near the door, the
very image of humility. Sir Harry did not advance, or offer him his
hand; he gave him a nod. Nothing could be colder than this reception.
"So, Richard, you have returned to England, as you have done most other
things, without consulting me," said the cold, deep voice of Sir Harry.
"I've acted rashly sir, I fear. I acted on an impulse. I could not
resist it. It was only twelve hours before the ship left New York when
the thought struck me. I ought to have waited, I ought to have thought
it over. It seemed to me my only chance, and I'm afraid it has but sunk
me lower in your esteem."
"It is clear you should have asked my leave first, all things
considered," said Sir Harry, in the same tone.
The young man bowed his head.
"I see that very clearly now, sir; but I have been so miserable under
your displeasure, and I do not always see things as my calmer reason
would view them. I thought of nothing but my chance of obtaining your
forgiveness, and, at so great a distance, I despaired."
"So it was to please me you set my authority at naught? By Jea! that's
logic."
Sir Harry spoke this with a scornful and angry smile.
"I am the only near kinsman you have left, sir, of your blood and name."
"My name, sir!" challenged Sir Harry, fiercely.
"My second name is Rokestone--called after you," pleaded Mr. Marston.
"By my sang, young man, if you and I had borne the same name, I'd have
got the Queen's letter, and changed mine to Smith."
To this the young gentleman made no reply. His uncle broke the silence
that followed.
"We'll talk at present, if you please, as little as need be; there's
nothing pleasant to say between us. But I'll give you a chance; I'll see
if you are a changed man, as your letter says. I'll try what work is in
you, or what good. You said you'd like farming. Well, we'll see what
sort of farmer you'll make. You'll do well to remember 'tis but a trial.
In two or three days Mr. Blount will give you particulars by letter.
Good evening. Don't come down; stay here. I'll go alone. Say no more;
I'll have no thanks or professions. Your conduct, steadiness, integrity,
shall guide me. That's all. Farewell."
Mr. Marston, during this colloquy, had gradually advanced a little, and
now stood near the window. Sir Harry accompanied his farewell with a
short nod, and stalked down the stairs. Mr. Marston knew he meant what
he said, and therefore did not attempt to accompany him downstairs. And
so, with a fresh pair of horses, Sir Harry immediately started on his
homeward journey.
I, who knew at the time nothing of what I afterwards learned, was still
in a suspense which nobody suspected. It was ended one evening by Sir
Harry Rokestone, who said:
"To-morrow my nephew, Richard Marston, will be here to stay, I have not
yet determined for how long. He is a dull young man. You'll not like
him; he has not a word to throw at a dog."
So, whatever his description was worth, his announcement was conclusive,
and Richard Marston was to become an inmate of Dorracleugh next day. I
find my diary says, under date of the next day:
"I have been looking forward, with a trepidation I can hardly account
for, to the arrival which Sir Harry announced yesterday. The event of
the day occurred at three o'clock. I was thinking of going out for a
walk, and had my hat and jacket on, and was standing in the hall. I
wished to postpone, as long as I could, the meeting with Mr. Marston,
which I dreaded. At that critical moment his double knock at the
hall-door, and the distant peal of our rather deep-mouthed bell,
startled me. I guessed it was he, and turned to run up to my room, but
met Sir Harry, who said, laying his hand gently on my shoulder:
"'Wait, dear--this is my nephew. I saw him from the window. I want to
introduce him.'
"Of course I had to submit. The door was opened. There he was, the
veritable Mr. Marston, of Malory, the hero of the Conway Castle, of the
duel, and likewise of so many evil stories--the man who had once talked
so romantically and so madly to me. I felt myself growing pale, and then
blushing. Sir Harry received him coldly enough, and introduced me,
simply mentioning my name and his; and then I ran down the steps, with
two of the dogs as my companions, while the servants were getting in Mr.
Marston's luggage.
"I met him again at dinner. He is very little changed, except that he is
much more sun-burnt. He has got a look, too, of command and melancholy.
I am sure he has suffered, and suffering, they say, makes people better.
He talked very little during dinner, and rather justified Sir Harry's
description. Sir Harry talked about the farm he intends for him--they
are to look at it to-morrow together. Mr. Blount seems to have got a
load off his mind.
"The farm is not so far away as I had imagined--it is only at the other
side of the lake, about five hundred acres at Clusted, which came to Sir
Harry, Mr. Blount says, through the Mardykes family. I wonder whether
there is a house upon it--if so, he will probably live at the other side
of the lake, and his arrival will have made very little difference to
us. So much the better, perhaps.
"I saw him and Sir Harry, at about eight o'clock this morning, set out
together in the big boat, with two men, to cross the lake.
"Farming is, I believe, a very absorbing pursuit. He won't feel his
solitude much; and Mr. Blount says he will have to go to fairs and
markets. It is altogether a grazing farm."
The reader will perceive that I am still quoting my diary.
"To-day, old Miss Goulding, of Wrybiggins, the old lady whom the gossips
of Golden Friars once assigned to Sir Harry as a wife, called with a
niece who is with her on a visit, so I suppose they had heard of Mr.
Marston's arrival, and came to see what kind of person he is. I'm rather
glad they were disappointed. I ordered luncheon for them, and I saw them
look toward the door every time it opened, expecting, I am sure, to see
Mr. Marston. I maliciously postponed telling them, until the very last
moment, that he was at the other side of the mere, as they call the
lake, although I suffered for my cruelty, for they dawdled on here
almost interminably.
"Sir Harry and Mr. Marston did not return till tea-time, when it was
quite dark; they had dined at a farm-house at the other side. Sir Harry
seems, I think a little more friendly with him. They talked, it is true,
of nothing but farming and live stock; and Mr. Blount joined. I took,
therefore, in solitude, to my piano, and, when I was tired of that, to
my novel.
"A very dull evening--the dullest, I think, I've passed since we came to
Dorracleugh. I daresay Mr. Marston will make a very good farmer. I hope
very much there may be a suitable residence found for him at the other
side of the lake."
Next my diary contains the following entry:
"Mr. Marston off again at eight o'clock to his farm. Mr. Blount and I
took a sail to-day, with Sir Harry's leave, in the small boat. He tells
me that there is no necessity for Mr. Marston's going every day to the
farm--that Sir Harry has promised him a third of whatever the farm,
under his management, makes. He seems very anxious to please Sir Harry.
I can't conceive what can have made me so nervous about the arrival of
this very humdrum squire, whose sole object appears to be the prosperity
of his colony of cows and sheep.
"Sunday.--Of course to-day he has taken a holiday, but he has not given
us the benefit of it. He chose to walk all day, instead of going to
church with us to Golden Friars. It is not far from Haworth. So he
prefers a march of four and twenty miles to the fatigue of our society!"
On the Tuesday following I find, by the same record, Sir Harry went to
visit his estate of Tarlton, about forty miles from Golden Friars, to
remain away for three or four days. That day I find also Mr. Marston
was, as usual, at his farm at Clusted, and did not come home till about
nine o'clock.
I went to my room immediately after his arrival, so that he had an
uninterrupted _tete-a-tete_ with Mr. Blount.
Next day he went away at his usual early hour, and returned not so late.
I made an excuse of having some letters to write, and left the two
gentlemen to themselves a good deal earlier than the night before.
"Mr. Marston certainly is very little in my way; I have not spoken
twenty words to him since his arrival. I begin to think him extremely
impertinent."
The foregoing is a very brief note of the day, considering how diffuse
and particular I often was when we were more alone. I make up for it on
the following day. The text runs thus:
"Mr. Marston has come off his high horse, and broken silence at last. It
was blowing furiously in the morning, and I suppose, however melancholy
he may be, he has no intention of drowning himself. At all events, there
has been no crossing the mere this morning.
"He has appeared, for the first time since his arrival, at breakfast.
Sir Harry's absence seems to have removed a great constraint. He talked
very agreeably, and seemed totally to have forgotten the subject of
farming; he told us a great deal of his semi-military life in Spain,
which was very amusing. I know he made me laugh heartily. Old Mr. Blount
laughed also. Our breakfast was a very pleasant meal. Mr. Blount was
himself in Spain for more than a year when he was young, and got up and
gave us a representation of his host, an eccentric fan-maker, walking
with his toes pointed and his chest thrown out, and speaking sonorous
Spanish with pompous gesture. I had no idea he had so much fun in him.
The good-natured old man seemed quite elated at our applause and very
real laughter.
"Mr. Marston suddenly looked across the lake, and recollected his farm.
"'How suddenly that storm went down!' he said. 'I can't say I'm glad of
it, for I suppose I must make my usual trip, and visit my four-footed
friends over the way.'
"'No,' said Mr. Blount; 'let them shift for themselves to-day; I'll take
it on myself. There's no necessity for you going every day as you do.'
"'But how will it be received by the authorities? Will my uncle think it
an omission? I should not like him to suppose that, under any
temptation, I had forgotten my understanding with him.'
"He glanced at me. Whether he thought me the temptation, or only wished
to include me in the question, I don't know.
"'Oh! no,' said Mr. Blount; 'stay at home for this once--I'll explain it
all; and we can go out and have a sail, if the day continues as fine as
it promises.'
"Mr. Marston hesitated; he looked at me as if for an opinion, but I said
nothing.
"'Well,' he said, 'I can't resist. I'll take your advice, Mr. Blount,
and make this a holiday.'
"I think Mr. Marston very much improved in some respects. His manners
and conversation are not less spirited, but gentler; and he is so very
agreeable! I think he has led an unhappy life, and no doubt was often
very much in the wrong. But I have remarked that we condemn people not
in proportion to their moral guilt, but in proportion to the
inconvenience their faults inflict on us. I wonder very much what those
stories were which caused Mr. Carmel and Laura Grey to speak of him so
bitterly and sternly? They were both so good that things which other
people would have thought lightly enough of, would seem to them
enormous. I dare say it is all about debt, or very likely play; and
people who have possibly lost money by his extravagance have been
exaggerating matters, and telling stories their own way. He seems very
much sobered now, at all events. One can't help pitying him.
"He went down to the jetty before luncheon. I found afterwards that it
was to get cloaks and rugs arranged for me.
"He lunched with us, and we were all very talkative. He certainly will
prevent our all falling asleep in this drowsy place. We had such a
pleasant sail. I gave him the tiller; but his duties as helmsman did not
prevent his talking. We could hear one another very well, in spite of
the breeze, which was rather more than Sir Harry would have quite
approved of.
"Mr. Marston had many opportunities to-day of talking to me without any
risk of being overheard. He did not, however, say a single word in his
old vein. I am very glad of this; it would be provoking to lose his
conversation, which is amusing, and, I confess, a great resource in this
solitude.
"He is always on the watch to find if I want anything, and gets or does
it instantly. I wish his farm was at this side of the lake. I dare say
when Sir Harry comes back we shall see as little as ever of him. It will
end by his being drowned in that dangerous lake. It seems odd that Sir
Harry, who is so tender of my life and Mr. Blount's, should have
apparently no feeling whatever about his. But it is their affair. I'm
not likely to be consulted; so I need not trouble my head about it.
"I write in my room, the day now over, and dear old Rebecca Torkill is
fussing about from table to wardrobe, and from wardrobe to drawers,
pottering, and fidgeting, and whispering to herself. She has just told
me that Mrs. Shackleton, the housekeeper here at Dorracleugh, talked to
her a good deal this evening about Mr. Marston. She gives a very good
account of him. When he went to school, and to Oxford, she saw him only
at intervals, but he was a manly, good-natured boy she said, 'and never,
that she knew, any harm in him, only a bit wild, like other young men at
such places.' I write, as nearly as I can, Rebecca's words.
"The subject of the quarrel with Sir Harry Rokestone, Mrs. Shackleton
says, was simply that Mr. Marston positively refused to marry some one
whom his uncle had selected for a niece-in-law. That is exactly the kind
of disobedience that old people are sometimes most severe upon. She told
Rebecca to be very careful not to say a word of it to the other
servants, as it was a great secret.
"After all there may be two sides to this case, as to others, and Mr.
Marston's chief mutiny may have been of that kind which writers of
romance and tragedy elevate into heroism.
"He certainly is very much improved."
Here my diary for that day left Mr. Marston, and turned to half-a-dozen
trifles, treated, I must admit, with much comparative brevity.