"They made a famous procession
My good little women and men;
Such a sight was never seen before
And never will again."
SOUTHEY.
A division of a first-class carriage, occupied only by Gerald, received
Marian at the station, and first she had to be shown the hat, cloak, and
umbrella with which he had constructed an effigy, which, as he firmly
believed, had frightened away all who had thought of taking a seat in
it.
"Thinking you a mad monkey, and that your keeper," said Marian, looking
proudly at the handsome face and dancing black eyes of her beautiful
brother. "Why! how you are grown, Gerald! Do stand up, and let me see if
you are not taller than I am."
"No, not quite so tall, unless it is your bonnet," said Gerald, after
craning up his neck in vain.
"At any rate, you are taller than Lionel. He only comes up to my ear,"
said Marian.
"Poor Lionel! How are his eyes?"
"O Gerald, it is very sad. He has very little sight left. I believe he
finds his way about quite by feeling now. It has grown worse so much
faster in these last three weeks."
"Poor fellow! What can he do all day?"
A long description followed, and then Gerald wanted to hear all about
Caroline, and what Marian thought fit to tell him, together with his
comments, lasted till, in spite of his effigy, a lady made an entrance,
and for some time Gerald was reduced to silence, and as he sat on the
same side, to making horrible sidelong scowls at her, out of her sight,
which sorely tried his sister's propriety of countenance.
The tongues of two such happy people could not long, however, continue
tied, and presently Gerald rattled off into a history of his sporting
adventures in Scotland, as if he would detail every shot. The narration
was endless, and very tiresome it would have been to any woman but a
sister, and a sister who had so much of the hunter spirit in her as
Marian; but she listened and sympathised with all her heart and soul,
and understood why such a shot was a good one, and why such another
failed, and was absorbed in the interest of the attempt to recover a
wounded bird when the retriever was stupid, long after the intruder had
made her exit, and they might have returned to matters touching her more
closely, though regarded by Gerald as hardly equal in importance to roe
deer, salmon, and grouse.
They were on Devonshire ground before they ever began to rejoice over
Edmund's engagement, and from thence to talk of Edmund himself. Gerald
pronounced many an eulogium on him, in which praises of his excellence
as a fisherman and sportsman were strangely mixed with a real genuine
appreciation of his goodness and superiority.
"'Tis a capital thing that he is come home to stay," said Gerald,
heartily.
"Isn't it?"
"I like him specially," said Gerald. "Do you know he showed me some of
my father's letters."
"Did he indeed?"
"That he did. It was before I was born, when he thought he was going to
have Fern Torr and all, he had rather an idle fit, and these were what
papa wrote to him."
"Was Edmund ever idle?" exclaimed Marian, falling into a reverie of
wonder whether this did not make it more hopeful for Gerald.
"I am very glad he has got this money," proceeded Gerald. "I only wish
it was more. One letter he showed me that was best of all. It was from
my father when I was born. You can't think what a nice letter it was.
There was something about its being a disappointment to him--to Edmund,
I mean, but how papa cared for him as much as ever, and thought after
all it might be better for him in the end. And then, Marian, papa said
he could hardly expect to live till I was grown up, and he asked Edmund
to be my godfather, and said he trusted to him to be like an elder
brother to us."
"That he is!" murmured Marian.
"Edmund said he wished me to read it that I might not think him
interfering."
"You never could have thought so!"
"I don't know. I could not have stood it from some people, but I could
see the sense of what Edmund said."
Without entering into particulars, Gerald was now all freedom and
openness, casting quite away the restraint that had so long grieved his
sister. How happy she was!
Mr. Wortley himself met them at Exeter, and in spite of the early
darkness of the winter day, Charles and James met them at the foot of
Blackstone hill, and Edmund and Agnes were a little further on.
What a happy greeting it was! Marian and Gerald would jump out and walk
home with them, the boys ran and called in the dark, the stars came out
overhead, the tall hedges kept out all the glimmering light, splashes
alone made them aware of the puddles; but on the happy party tramped,
all talking an unmitigated flow of merry nonsense, laughing and enjoying
it, all the more the darker and stranger it grew, and merrier than all,
when they got home, at Mrs. Wortley's dismay at their having dragged
Marian a mile and a half, in the dark and dirt, after her long journey.
"Pretty guardians to have the care of her!"
All the evening again there was nothing but fun and joyousness, fun of
the brightest, happiest kind, positively wild in the three boys, and
Edmund not much less so, the girls weary with laughing, and contributing
their share to the sport. A person must have lived like Marian, pent up
by formalities and the certainty of being disliked, to know what was
the enjoyment of the perfect liberty and absence from constraint, the
thorough home-like feeling of every one loving and understanding each
other, which existed at Fern Torr. How delightful it was to have no
heart achings for Gerald, to see Edmund just like his old self, and the
dear Agnes, so very lovely and bright! so very unlike her only former
experience of betrothed lovers. It was no small happiness to the Fern
Torr party to have one so prized and loved as Marian to rejoice with
them, indeed, all this evening every one was too joyous to dwell on any
of the causes of their felicity, it was nothing but high spirits, and
unreflective mirth.
When they had bidden each other good night, and were gone up stairs,
there was more of gravity and thought. Marian and Agnes could have sat
up talking half the night, if Mrs. Wortley would have allowed them, but
she said Marian must have time to rest, and ruthlessly condemned her to
bed.
Never did Marian spend so happy a Christmas. There was plenty of depth
and earnestness in her _tête-à-têtes_ with Agnes, when they talked
over the wonders that had happened to them both, and always ended by
returning to recollections of happy old days before Marian left
Fern Torr, when Edmund had been the prime mover of every delightful
adventure. Marian was as good as a sister to each of the lovers, so
heartily did she help each one to admire the other. Or when they were
"lovering," as the boys chose to call their interminable wanderings in
the manor gardens, Marian used to be extremely happy with Mrs. Wortley,
talking over the history of the engagement, and settling how and when
the love began. Mr. Wortley suggested that the first attraction had been
Agnes' unmitigated horror of the Lyddells, which he declared had won Mr.
Arundel's heart, though he never owned how much he participated in it.
It needs not to be stated how Edmund's noble behaviour was appreciated,
more especially after the new lights which Marian was able to throw upon
it.
Then came the discussion of the plans for the house which Edmund was to
build, on a farm, which had come into the market at the very nick of
time, just on the other side of the hill, and in Fern Torr parish.
Marian and Gerald were taken the first day to look and advise whether
the new house should be on the old site, or under the shelter of a great
old slate quarry, crested with a wood, a beautiful view spread before
it, and capacities for making the loveliest garden that was ever seen.
Edmund sketched house and garden in every possible point of view, each
prettier than the other, and all the young gave their voices eagerly for
the quarry, while the old protested on the difficulty of getting so far
up the hill, and suggested damp. But the young carried the day, and the
plans were drawn and debated on a dozen times in twenty-four hours,
always including the prettiest of little sitting-rooms for Marian, with
a window opening into the garden, and a door into the drawing-room, and
then came letters to architects and calculations with builders, and
reckonings that the house should be habitable by next September, and Mr.
Wortley laughing at their credulity for expecting it.
Marian was surprised to find how far away and secondary seemed the
thoughts that had of late engrossed her entirely. She wondered to
discover how little her mind had been occupied with Caroline and Lionel,
fond as she was of them and very anxious about them. This was so very
different a world! and she felt so much more as if she belonged to it.
She obtained from Agnes some admiration for Caroline's conduct, though
in somewhat of the "better late than never" style, and at the price of
warm abuse of the parents, in which Marian was not indisposed to join.
Caroline wrote nearly every day, saying that she missed Marian
dreadfully, and that her letters were the only comfort she had; she
would not wish her back again, for that would be selfish, but it would
be a joyful day when she returned. These constant letters, which Marian
always kept to herself, rather surprised the Wortleys, but Edmund could
better guess at her position. "Depend upon it," he said to Agnes, "it is
she who has saved Miss Lyddell."
"O, Edmund! do you think so? I wanted to have thought so, but she says
it was the brother."
"He took the steps which would not have become Marian, but Walter
Lyddell could never have moved without his sister, and where could she
have found the principle but in Marian? I see now that her perseverance
in right is beginning to tell on those around her, in spite of all
untoward circumstances."
"I don't know anything like Marian!" said Agnes. "How very fine her
countenance is!"
"That steadfast brow and lip."
"I saw her yesterday standing on the edge of a rock looking out on the
view, and she was like some statue of Fortitude."
"Yes, Marian is a grand creature," said Edmund; "so strong and firm, yet
with such feminine, retiring strength. There are still prejudices
and little roughnesses, but I doubt whether they have not been her
safeguard, outworks to secure the building, and I think they are
disappearing with the occasion."
"Ah! papa and mamma think her very much softened down."
"She has had a very hard part to act, and her shyness and rigidity have
been great helps to her, but I am glad to see them wearing away, and
especially pleasant it is to see her expand and show her true self
here."
"And to know she may soon be free of them all for ever!" said Agnes.
The time when Marian was to be free of them for ever, as Agnes said,
was to be the next summer. Edmund and Agnes were to be married in July,
Marian would then come to Fern Torr, and comfort Mrs. Wortley for losing
her daughter, till the holidays began, when Edmund and Agnes would
return, and some undefined scheme of delight was to be settled on for
Gerald's holidays, until the house should be ready. Gerald was in the
meantime very agreeable and satisfactory on the whole. He was too busy
drawing varieties of stables for Edmund, to talk about his own, and
marvellous were the portraits of the inhabitants with which he would
decorate Edmund's elevations, whenever he found them straying about
the room. Very mischievous indeed was the young gentleman, and Marian
considered him to have been "a great deal too bad" when on a neat,
finished plan, just prepared to be sent to the builder, she found
unmistakeable likenesses of the whole Wortley family, herself and
Gerald, assembled round a great bowl of punch, large enough to drown
them all, drinking to the health of Edmund and Agnes, who were riding in
at the gate, pillion fashion, supposed to be returning after the honey
moon, which in one corner of the picture was represented in a most
waning state, but the man in the moon squinting down at them with a
peculiarly benignant expression of countenance.
Marian was very angry, but Edmund and Agnes would do nothing but laugh,
though the whole plan had to be drawn over again, and Edmund was kept at
work with ruler, scale, and compasses the whole evening, Marian scolding
Gerald all the time, and Edmund too, for spoiling him, thinking her
cousin the most heroically good natured and good tempered man in the
world to bear with such an idle monkey, and laugh at the waste of time
and trouble; and getting at last a glimmering perception that these
tricks, thus met, were the greatest proof of good understanding and
friendship. It ended in Gerald's inking in the plan, of his own free
will, and very neatly, and getting up at six, the next morning, to ride
to Exeter, in the dark cold misty December twilight, to take it to the
builder, that no time might be lost; indeed, as he boasted, it was there
a quarter of an hour before it would have come by post, as it would have
done had it gone yesterday.
Gerald's studies were not extensive, but Edmund, by some magic secret,
unknown to Marian, made him read history to himself for a short space
every morning. The sporting paper had disappeared, and nothing was heard
of Elliot or of Queen Pomare, while though he could not yet go the
length of talking to the poor people himself, he stood by very civilly
while Edmund talked to them.
The first ten days of Marian's stay had thus passed, when Caroline one
day mentioned in her letter that mamma had a regularly bad influenza
cold, and was quite laid up. It was aggravated, Caroline said, by the
distress they were all in about Elliot. "But you will hear enough of
this when you come back," wrote she, "so I will not grieve you with
it now; though it is an additional load upon my mind--an additional
offence, I fear, in poor mamma's eyes, since all this would not have
come to light had I persisted. But you must not think I am repenting,
for I never was further from regretting what I have done. The different
spirit in which I could come to this Christmas feast, is a blessing to
be purchased at any price, even at such wretchedness as it has been this
autumn; and most earnestly do I thank you, dearest Marian. I can thank
you by letter, though we never can speak of such things. Yes, I thank
you. I regret nothing but my previous folly and weakness, and bitterly
do I suffer for them; though all is better now, and Christmas has
brought me peace and calm. It is as if the storm was lulled at last, and
nothing left but dreariness, and the longing to be at rest. How bright
the world was before me not a year ago! and now how worn out it
seems,--only three comforts left in it, you, and Walter, and poor
Lionel. For Lionel is a comfort; he is very kind and considerate, and, I
do believe, softens mamma towards me. I suppose it is best for us that
our hearts should have no home but one above; and if I was sure it was
not disgust and disappointment, I should hope I was seeking one there;
for I know the only feeling of rest and refreshment is in turning
thither, and surely that must come from the FATHER, Who is ready to
receive me. But I must leave off, for mamma is too unwell to be long
left.
"Your most affectionate
"CAROLINE LYDDELL."
After this, the letters, hitherto constant, ceased entirely, and Marian
grew very uneasy. Her mother had died of influenza, so that the name
gave her a fatal impression; and she dreaded to hear that Mrs. Lyddell
was very ill, or that Caroline was ill herself. Another week, and at
length she heard from Clara, in answer to a letter of inquiry, and to
fix the day of her return.
"Oakworthy, Jan. 7th.
"MY DEAR MARIAN,--Caroline desires me to write to
tell you, with her love, that she has this horrid influenza, and
has been in bed since Monday. She is very feverish, and
her throat so sore that she can hardly speak or swallow.
Sarah sat up with her last night, and I think she is a little
better this morning. Mamma is better, but only gets up for
a little while in the evening, and cannot leave her room. I
wish you were at home, for I don't know what to do: I am
running backwards and forwards between the two rooms all
day, and poor Lionel is so forlorn and solitary down stairs,
with only papa. There!--that great blot was a tear, for I
am so worn out with fatigue and nursing, that I am almost
overcome. This winter I was to have come out,--how very
different! I forgot to tell you, after all, that the carriage
shall meet you, as you mention, on the 15th. I wish it was
directly; they will be all well by the time you come. But
it is so very forlorn, and I am so nervous; so excuse this
scrawl.
"Your affectionate cousin,
"CLARA LYDDELL."
As soon as Marian read this letter, she gave it to Edmund, saying, "I
think I had better go home."
"O, Marian, you must not cheat us!" cried Agnes.
"I think they would be very glad of you," said Edmund, and withal
Marian's mind was made up, and she withstood all the persuasions
of Gerald and Agnes that it was nothing--nonsense--only Clara's
dismality--they would laugh at her for coming for nothing. No; Marian
knew she was no nurse, but she could not bear to think of Lionel left to
his blindness and helplessness, still less of Caroline, ill, and with no
one to cheer her. She was sure she was wanted by those two at least, and
she resolved that she would be at Oakworthy to-morrow evening, wrote
notice of her intention to Clara, and prepared for her journey, giving
up that precious last week, so prized because it was the last. She could
go alone with her maid; there was no use in spoiling Gerald's holidays;
so he would stay for all the delights that she gave up, ruining all by
her absence, as every one declared.
Agnes grumbled and scolded her to her face, but made up for it out of
hearing, by admiring her more than ever. Mr. and Mrs. Wortley gave her
silent approval, and the boys would not wish her a pleasant journey. She
was ready early the next morning, and once more left Fern Torr, bright
with the promise that, when she was there next, it would be no more a
guest.
She prosperously arrived at the station nearest Oakworthy, and soon saw
the servant waiting for her. "Is Miss Lyddell better?"
"A little better than last night, ma'am. Mr. Lionel is in the carriage."
Marian had not at all expected any one to meet her, especially Lionel,
coming all this distance in silence and darkness. She hastened to the
carriage, and saw him leaning forward, listening for her. His face
lighted up at her, "Well, Lionel," and he fairly hurt her, by the
tightness of his grasp, when once he had met her hand. "So, you're come!
What a time it has been since you went! Now you are come, I don't care."
"And how are you?" she asked anxiously.
"Bad enough to be going back to the oculist next week," he answered; "I
can't even see the light."
A long silence; then, "How is Caroline?"
"Pretty much the same; it is a bad, feverish cold, and shocking throat.
She breathes as if she was half stifled, and can hardly speak."
"I suppose she has Mr. Wells?"
"Yes, two or three times a day,"
"And Mrs. Lyddell is better?"
"Better, but not out of her room. It has been a tolerable state of
things of late. Not a creature to speak to, except, now and then, Clara
coming down to maunder and sigh over all she has to do, and my father,
who has been thoroughly in a rage about Elliot. Do you know about all
that, Marian?"
"No," she answered.
"It is out now, why he was so set upon Caroline's marriage, he had got
Faulkner to back a bill for him; you don't know what that means, I
suppose," said Lionel, with his old superior manner;--"made him engage
that the money Elliot borrowed should be paid. There was to be some
shuffle between them about her fortune it seems; so after the engagement
was off, when the bill became due, Faulkner sent the holder of it to
my father for the money and the news of this set on all the other
creditors. No end of bills coming in, and he has been pretty nearly
crazy among them; says we shall be beggars, and I don't know what all! I
vow, it is my old plan coming right!" cried Lionel vehemently. "If the
man in London can but set my eyes to rights, I'd be off to Australia
to-morrow, instead of staying here to make all worse. Well, it's no use
thinking of it: if ever I make my fortune now, it will be with a dog in
a string, and a hat in his mouth."
"But go on, Lionel; are the debts so very bad?"
"I believe they are indeed, and no one knows the worst of them yet. No
wonder Elliot was off to Paris in such a hurry, like a coward as he is,
no one knows how he is ever to come back! And worst of all is to have
mamma going about saying 'tis Caroline's fault! Hadn't I rather come to
the hat and dog in good earnest than to see her marry that man? Why,
Marian, he is actually engaged to Miss Dashwood! What do you say to
that? To the Radical Dashwood's daughter that behaved so shamefully to
papa!"
"The daughter?"
"No, the man. Fit company for the apostate, isn't it? He had better have
begun with her. Fine love his must have been. Only six weeks. Should not
that cure Caroline?"
"Has she heard it?"
"No, we have only known it since she was ill, and Clara thought she had
better not tell her."
"Very right of Clara," said Marian; "but I think she will be glad, when
she is well enough to be told."
Fast and eagerly did Marian and Lionel talk all the way, sometimes
gravely and sorrowfully about Elliot and Caroline, sometimes cheerfully
about Fern Torr, Edmund, and Gerald, of whom Lionel wanted much to hear.
He clapped his hands, and danced himself up and down with ecstasy at the
history of Gerald's embellishments of the plans, vowed that Gerald was a
Trojan, and that it was as good as Beauty and the Beast, and seemed to
be enjoying a perfect holiday in having some one to speak to again.
"But," he said, "what a horrid bore it must have been to you to come
away!"
"I thought I might be some help to Clara."
"Did she make you think Caroline so very ill? Mr. Wells says it is only
a very bad cold. But I am very glad you are come."
Clara met Marian in the hall. "O Marian, I am glad you are come, but
I am sorry you came home in such a hurry. Mamma says there was no
occasion, and that I need not have frightened you, for it is only a bad
attack of influenza."
"Then I hope Caroline Is better."
"Yes, rather, and she will be so glad to see you. Come to her at once,
won't you? she heard the carriage, and is watching for you."
Marian hastily followed Clara to Caroline's room. In a few seconds both
Caroline's arms were thrown round her neck, and a burning feverish face
pressed to hers, then as she raised herself again, one of her hands
still held fast, and Caroline lay looking up to her with an expression
of relief and comfort. "Thank you," she murmured, in a hoarse low
painful whisper, the sound of which gave an impression of dismay to
Marian. Caroline was far worse than she had been prepared to sec her.
That loud, oppressed, gasping breathing, the burning fever of hands and
cheek, the parched lips,--this was far more than ordinary influenza.
Marian stood watching her a little while; speaking now and then, until
she closed her eyes in weariness, not for sleep, when she was about to
leave the room, but Caroline looked up again anxiously and restlessly,
and tried to say, "Come back."
"Yes, I'll come in a moment," said Marian, "I'll only just take off my
bonnet, and go and see Mrs. Lyddell, if I may."
"O, yes, she is up, she knows you are come," said Clara, and Marian was
presently knocking at Mrs. Lyddell's door.
She found her sitting by the fire in a large easy chair, in her
dressing-gown and shawl, and was surprised at the first sight of her
too, for that very weakening complaint, the influenza, had made a great
change in her, perhaps assisted by all that she had gone through during
the last summer and autumn, beginning with the parting with John, the
grief and anxiety for Lionel, the disappointment and warfare with
Caroline, and worse than all, the discoveries respecting her eldest and
favourite son. She looked a dozen years older, all the clearness of her
complexion was gone, and the colouring that remained, as if ingrained,
was worse than paleness; her hand shook with weakness, and the only
trace of her prompt, decided activity was in the nervous agitation of
her movements, and the querulous sharpness of her tones, as if her
weakness was irritating to her.
"Marian, how are you? I am sorry you have cut short your visit to
come back to a sick house. I am afraid Clara has been alarming you
needlessly."
"I am very sorry to find you so unwell," said Marian; "I thought Clara
would want some help."
"Thank you, it was very kind," said Mrs. Lyddell, rather sharply, as if
her thanks were only for form's sake. "Have you seen Caroline?"
"Yes, and I am afraid she is very ill. Such a terrible oppression on her
breath."
"Ah! so Clara says. Mr. Wells has been applying mustard poultices."
"Have you had no further advice?" said Marian.
"No. He managed me very well; he is perfectly competent to attend an
influenza such as this--a very simple affair."
Mrs. Lyddell was evidently under the unreasonable infatuation that so
many people are subject to, who will go on trusting their favourite
apothecary, in spite of proofs that he is not to be trusted; but Marian,
in her short life, had heard a good deal of doctors, and whether
reasonably or not, had imbibed a distrust of country practitioners,
which Lionel's misfortune had not tended to remove in Mr. Wells' case.
Indeed, she had a particular dislike to the man, with his soft manner,
love of set speeches and fine words, and resolution not to own that
anything was the matter. There were stories abroad in the neighbourhood
of his treating cases wrongly because he would not own they were beyond
his skill.
"Mrs. Lyddell," said she, very earnestly, "I do believe that Caroline is
very ill. I think her throat is in a very alarming state, and I should
not be at all satisfied to go on with no further advice."
Mrs. Lyddell made some answer about girls being easily frightened, and
Marian went back to Caroline, very unhappy and anxious, and trying to
find comfort by telling herself that the cure does not depend alone on
the physician.
However, the words she had spoken were not without effect. Mrs.
Lyddell's answer had been prompted by her first impulse of dislike and
opposition, as if Marian was taking still further upon her; but she
became very anxious when left alone. She thought that Marian's fresh eye
might be better able to judge of the degree of Caroline's illness; she
remembered how she had reproached herself about Lionel, and at last
worked herself into such a state of alarm and anxiety, that though she
had not yet walked further than to the window, she rose, left her room,
and presently was by her daughter's bed-side.
There needed no more to convince her that Caroline was excessively ill,
and quick and prompt as ever, her first measure was to send Clara for
her father, and hold a consultation with him outside the door; a message
was despatched to hasten Mr. Wells, and the result was that a physician
was sent for. Marian, who had all this time been watching the severe
suffering, unable to do the least thing to alleviate it, was almost as
glad as if she had been told of Caroline's certain recovery. She had
again to tell herself not to put her trust in physicians.