RIDING AT ANCHOR.
The intention, one of the first which Marian Creswell had expressed
after her marriage, and one which had so incensed Gertrude, of
converting the girls' music-room into a boudoir, had long since been
carried out. Almost immediately after he had returned from his wedding
trip, Mr. Creswell had sent to London for decorators and upholsterers.
An army of foreign artists, much given to beard and pantomimical
gesture, to humming scraps of operas over their work, and to furtively
smoking cigarettes in the shrubberies whenever they could evade the
stern eye of the overseer, had arrived upon the scene; and when they
returned to town they left the music-room, which had been a bleak,
gaunt, cheerless apartment enough, a miracle of brightness and
cosiness, elegance and comfort. Everybody was astonished at the
change, and the young ladies themselves were compelled to confess that
the boudoir, as it then appeared, was perfectly charming, and that
really, perhaps, after all, Mrs. Creswell might have been actuated,
apart from mere malevolence and spite, by some sense and appreciation
of the capabilities of the room in the selection she had made. There
was a good deal of actual truth in this judgment; Marian had
determined to take the earliest opportunity of asserting herself
against the girls and letting them know the superiority of her
position; she had also intended, if ever she were able, to gratify
the wish to have a room of her own, where she might be absolute
mistress, surrounded by her books, pictures, and other belongings; and
by the acquisition of the music-room she was able to accomplish both
these intentions. Moreover, the windows of the music-room looked out
towards Helmingham. Half-way towards the dim distance stood the old
schoolhouse, where she had been born, where all her childhood had
been spent, and where she had been comparatively innocent and
unworldly; for though the worship of wealth had probably been innate
in her, and had grown with her growth and strengthened with her
strength, she had not then sacrificed others to her own avarice, nor
forfeited her self-respect for the gratification of her overwhelming
passion. In a person differently constituted, the constant
contemplation of such views might have had an irritating or a
depressing effect, but Marian's strength of mind rendered her
independent of any such feeling. She never thought with regret of the
step she had taken; she never had the remotest twinge of conscience as
to the manner in which she had behaved to Walter Joyce; she was
frequently in the habit of passing all the circumstances in review in
her mind, and invariably came to the conclusion that she had acted
wisely, and that, were she placed in a similar position again, she
should do exactly the same. No; she was able to think over all the
passages of her first and only love--that love which she bad
deliberately cast from the pedestal of her heart, and trampled under
foot--without an extra pulsation of excitement or regret. She would
pass hour after hour in gazing from her window on distant places
where, far removed from the chance of intrusion by the prying
villagers--who, however, were profoundly ignorant of what was going
on--she would have stolen interviews with her lover, listening to his
fond words, and experiencing a kind of pleasure such as she had
hitherto thought nothing but the acquisition of money could create.
Very tranquilly she thought of the bygone time, and looked across the
landscape at the well-known places. She had slipped so easily into her
present position, and settled herself so firmly there, that she could
scarcely believe there had been a time when she had been poor and
dependent, when she had been unable to exercise her every whim and
fancy, and when she had been without an elderly gray-haired gentleman
in constant attendance upon her, and eager to anticipate her very
slightest wish.
One afternoon, about eight months after her mother's death, Marian was
sitting at the window of her boudoir, gazing vacantly at the landscape
before her. She did not see the trees, erst so glorious in their
russet garments, now half-stripped and shivering in the bitter
autumnal wind that came booming over the distant hills, and moaned
wearily over the plain; she did not see the little stream that lately
flashed so merrily in the summer sunlight, but had now become a brown
and swollen foaming torrent, roaring where it had softly sung, and
bursting over its broad banks instead of coyly slipping through its
pebbly shallows; she did not see the birds now skimming over the
surface of the ground, now rising, but with no lofty flight, the
harbingers of coming storm; she did not see the dun clouds banking up
to windward; nor did she note any of the outward characteristics of
the scene. She was dull and bored, and it was a relief when she heard
the handle of the door turned, and, looking round, saw her husband in
the room.
There was nothing of palpable uxoriousness--that most unpleasant of
displayed qualities, especially in elderly people--in the manner in
which Mr. Creswell advanced and, bending over his wife, took her face
in his hands and kissed her cheek; nor in the way in which he sat down
beside her and passed his hands over her shining hair; nor in the
words of tenderness with which he addressed her. All was relieved by a
touch of dignity, by an evidence of earnest sincerity, and the veriest
cynic and scoffer at the domesticity and what Charles Lamb called the
"behaviour of married people," would have found nothing to ridicule in
the undisguised love and admiration of the old man for his young wife,
so quietly were they exhibited.
"What made you fly away in that hurry from the library just now,
darling?" said he. "You just peeped in, and were off again, never
heeding my calling to you to remain."
"I had no notion you were engaged, or that anybody was here!" said
Marian.
"I am never engaged when you want me, and there is never anybody here
whose business is of equal importance with your pleasure."
"When did you cultivate the art of saying pretty things?" asked
Marian, smiling. "Is it a recent acquisition, or one of old standing,
which had only rusted from disuse?"
"I never had occasion to try whether I possessed the power until you
came to me," said Mr. Creswell, with an old-fashioned bow. "There,
oddly enough, I was talking about speaking in public, and the trick of
pleasing people by public speaking, to those two men when you looked
into the room."
"Indeed. Who were your visitors?"
"I thought you would have recognised old Croke, of Brocksopp; he
seemed a little hurt at your running away without speaking to him; but
I put him right. The other gentleman has corresponded with you, but
never seen you before--Mr. Gould, of London. You wrote to him just
after poor Tom's death, you recollect, about that sale."
"I recollect perfectly," said Marian. (She remembered In an instant
Joyce's allusion to the man in his first memorable letter.) "But what
brought him here at this time? There is no question of the sale now?"
"No, dearest; but Mr. Gould has a very large practice as a
parliamentary agent and lawyer, and he has come down here about the
election."
"The election? I thought that was all put off!"
"Put off?" repeated Mr. Creswell. "Indefinitely? For ever?"
"I'm sure you told me so."
"Now, that is so like a woman The idea of an election being quietly
put aside in that way! No, child, no; it was postponed merely; it is
expected to come off very shortly."
"And what have these two men to do with it?"
"These two men, as you call them, have a great deal to do with it. Mr.
Croke is a leading man amongst the Conservative party--that is my
party, you understand, child--in Brocksopp, and Mr. Gould is to be my
London agent, having Mr. Teesdale, whom you know, as his lieutenant,
on the spot."
"You speak of 'my party,' and 'my agent,' as though you had fully made
up your mind to go in for the election. Is it so?"
"I had promised to do so," said Mr. Creswell, again with the
old-fashioned bow, "before you did me the honour to accept the
position which you so worthily fill; and I fear, even had you
objected, that I should scarcely have been able to retract. But when I
mentioned it to you, you said nothing to lead me to believe that you
did object."
"Nor do I in the very smallest degree. On the contrary, I think it
most advisable and most important. What are your chances of success?"
"Well, on the whole, good; though it struck me that our friends who
have just gone were a little too sanguine, and--at least, so far as
Mr. Croke was concerned--a little too much disposed to underrate the
strength of the enemy."
"The enemy? Ah!--I forgot. Who is our opponent?" Mr. Creswell heard
the change in the pronoun, and was delighted.
"A certain young Mr. Bokenham, son of an old friend and contemporary
of mine, who was launched in life about the same time that I was, and
seemed to progress step by step with me. I am the younger man by some
years, I believe; but," continued the old gentleman, with an odd,
half-sheepish look, "it seems curious to find myself running a tilt
with Tommy Bokenham, who was not born when I was a grown man!"
"The position is one with which age has very little to do," said
Marian, with a slight hardening of her voice. "No, if anything, I
should imagine that a man of experience and knowledge of the world had
a better chance than a young and necessarily unformed man, such as Mr.
Bokenham. You say that your friends seemed confident?"
"A little too confident. Old Croke is a Tory to the backbone, and will
not believe in the possibility of a Liberal being returned for the
borough; and Mr. Gould seems to depend very much on the local reports
which he has had from men of the Croke stamp, and which are all of the
most roseate hue."
"Over-certainty is the almost infallible precursor of failure. And we
must not fail in this matter. Don't you think you yourself had better
look into it more closely than you have done?"
"My darling one, you give me an interest in the matter which
previously
it never possessed to me! I will turn my attention to it at once, go
into the details as a matter of business, and take care that, if
winning is possible, we shall win. No trouble or expense shall be
spared about it, child, you may depend; though what has given you this
sudden start I cannot imagine. I should have thought that the ambition
of being a member's wife was one which had never entered your head."
"My head is always ready to serve as a receptacle for schemes for my
husband's advancement, whether they be of my own, or his, or other
people's prompting," said Marian, demurely. And the old gentleman bent
over her again, and kissed her on the forehead.
What was this sudden interest in these election proceedings on
Marian's part, and whence did it arise? Was it mere verbiage, pleasant
talk to flatter her husband, showing feigned excitement about his
prospects to hide the real carelessness and insouciance which she
could not choose but feel? Was she tired of his perpetual presence in
waiting upon her, and did she long to be rid of her patient slave,
untiring both in eye and ear in attention to her wants, almost before
they were expressed? There are many women who weary very speedily of
suit and service perpetually paid them, who sicken of compliments and
attentions, as the pastry-cooks' boys are said to do, after the
unrestricted gratification of their tart-appetites, in the early days
of their apprenticeship. Did she talk at random with the mere idea of
making things pleasant to her husband, and with the knowledge that the
mere fact of any expression of interest on her part in any action of
his would be more than appreciated? Not one whit. Marian never talked
at random, and knew her power sufficiently to be aware that there was
no need for the expression of any forced feeling where Mr. Creswell
was concerned. The fact was--and it was not the first time she had
acknowledged it to herself, though she had never before seen her way
clearly to effect any alteration--the fact was that she was bored out
of her life. The golden apples of the Hesperides, gained after so much
trouble, so much lulling of the dragon of conscience, had a smack of
the Dead Sea fruit in them, after all! The money had been obtained,
and the position had been compassed, it was true; but what were they?
What good had she gathered from the money, beyond the fact of the mere
material comforts of house, and dress, and equipage? What was the
position, but that of wife of the leading man in the very narrow
circle in which she had always lived? She was the centre of the
circle, truly; but the circle itself had not enlarged. The elegant
carriage, and the champing horses, and the obsequious servants, were
gratifying in their way; but there was but little satisfaction in
thinking that the sight of her enjoyment of them was confined to Jack
Forman, sunning himself at the ale-house door, and vacantly doffing
his cap as homage to her as she swept by, or to the villagers amongst
whom she had been reared, who ran to their doors as they heard the
rumbling of the wheels, and returned to their back parlours, envying
her her state, it is true, but congratulating themselves with the
recollection of the ultimate fate of Dives in the parable, and
assuring each other that the difference of sex would have no material
effect on the great result. Dull, cruelly dull, that was all she could
make of it, look at it how she would. To people of their social status
society in that neighbourhood was infinitely more limited than to
those in lower grades. An occasional visit from, and an occasional
dinner with, Sir Thomas and Lady Churchill at the Park, or some of the
richer and more influential Brocksopp commercial magnates, comprised
all their attempts at society. The rector of Helmingham was a studious
man, who cared little for heavy dinner-parties, and a proud man, who
would accept no hospitality which he could not return in an equal way;
and as for Dr. Osborne, he had been remarkably sparing of his visits
to Woolgreaves since his passage-of-arms with Mrs. Creswell. When he
did call he invariably addressed himself to Mr. Creswell, and did not
in the least attempt to conceal that his feelings had been wounded by
Marian in a manner which no lapse of time could heal.
No! the fact was there: the money had been gained, but what it had
brought was utterly insufficient to Marian's requirements. The evil
passion of ambition, which had always been dormant in her, overpowered
by the evil passion of avarice, began, now that the cravings of its
sister vice were appeased, to clamour aloud and make itself heard.
What good to a savage is the possession of the gem of purest ray
serene, when by his comrades a bit of glass or tinsel would be equally
prized and appreciated? What good was the possession of wealth among
the inhabitants of Helmingham and Brocksopp, by whom the Churchills of
the Park were held in far greater honour, as being--a statement which,
though religiously believed, was utterly devoid of foundation--of the
"real owd stock"? The notion of her husband's election to Parliament
gave Marian new hopes and new ideas. Unconsciously throughout her life
she had lived upon excitement, and she required it still. In what she
had imagined wore merely humdrum days in the bygone times she had had
her excitement of plotting and scheming how to make both ends meet,
and of dreaming of the possible riches; then she had her love affair,
and there had flashed into her mind the great idea of her life, the
intention of establishing herself as mistress of Woolgreaves. All
these things were now played out; the riches had come, the old love
was buried beneath them, the position was attained. But the necessity
for excitement remained, and there was a chance for gratifying it.
Marian was pining for society. What was the use of her being clever,
as she had always been considered, if the candle of her talent were
always to be hidden under the Brocksopp bushel? She longed to mix with
clever people, amongst whom she would be able to hold her own by her
natural gifts, and more than her own by her wealth. To be known in the
London world, with the entry into it which her husband's position
would secure to her, and then to distinguish herself there, that was
the new excitement which Marian Creswell craved, and day by day she
recurred to the subject of the election, and discussed its details
with her husband, delighting him with the interest which she showed in
the scheme, and by the shrewd practical common sense which she brought
to bear upon it.
Meanwhile the relations existing between Mrs. Creswell and her
recently acquired connections, Maude and Gertrude, had not been placed
on any more satisfactory footing. They lived together under an armed
truce rather than a state of peace, seeing as little of each other as
possible, Marian ignoring the girls in every possible way, except when
they were perforce brought under her notice, and the girls studiously
acting without reference to any supposed wishes or ideas of Mrs.
Creswell's. Mr. Creswell followed his wife's lead exactly; he was so
entirely wrapped up in her and her doings that he had no eye nor ear
for any one else, and he would probably have been very much astonished
if he had been told that a complete estrangement had taken place
between him and the other members of his family, and would positively
have denied it. Such, however, was the case. The girls, beyond seeing
their uncle at meals, were left entirely to their own devices; and it
was, under the circumstances, fortunate for their future that their
past training had been such as it had been. Gertrude, indeed, was
perfectly happy; for although Mr. Benthall had not actually proposed
to her, there was a tacit understanding of engagement between them. He
occasionally visited at Woolgreaves, and during the summer they had
met frequently at various garden-parties in the neighbourhood; and
Maude was as quiet and earnest and self-contained as ever, busied in
her work, delighting in her music, and, oddly enough, having one thing
in common with Mrs. Creswell--an interest in the forthcoming election,
of which she had heard from Mr. Benthall, who was a violent politician
of the Liberal school.
One day the girls were sitting in the room which had been assigned to
them on the establishment of the boudoir, and which was a huge, lofty,
and by no means uncomfortable room, rendered additionally bright and
cheerful by Gertrude's tasty handiwork and clever arrangement. It was
one of those close warm days which come upon us suddenly sometimes,
when the autumn has been deepening into winter, and the reign of fires
has commenced. The sun had been shining with much of his old summer
power, and the girls had been enjoying his warmth, and had let the
fire out, and left the door open, and had just suspended their
occupations--Maude had been copying music, and Gertrude
letter-writing--owing to the want of light, and were chatting previous
to the summons of the dressing bell.
"Where is madam this afternoon, Maude?" asked Gertrude, after a little
silence.
"Shut up in the library with uncle and Mr. Gould--that man who comes
from London about the election. I heard uncle send for her."
"Lor', now, how odd!" said unsophisticated Gertrude; "she seems all of
a sudden to have taken great interest in this election thing."
"Naturally enough, Gerty," said Maude. "Mrs. Creswell is one of the
most ambitious women in the world, and this 'election thing,' as you
call it, is to do her more good, and gain her higher position, than
she ever dreamed of until she heard of it."
"What a curious girl you are, Maude! How you do think of things! What
makes you think that?"
"Think it--I'm sure of it. I've noticed the difference in her manner,
and the way in which she has thrown herself into this question more
than any other since her marriage, and brought all her brains--and she
has plenty--to uncle's help. Poor dear uncle!"
"Ah, poor dear uncle! Do you think madam really cares for him?"
"Cares for him? Yes, as a stepping-stone for herself, as a means to
the end she requires."
"Ah, Maude, how dreadful! But you know what I mean; do you think she
loves him--you know?"
"My dear Gerty, Marian Ashurst never loved anybody but one, and--"
"Ah, I know who you mean; that man who kept the school--no, not kept
the school, was usher to Mr. Ashurst--Mr.--Joyce: that was it. She was
fond of him, wasn't she?"
"She was engaged to him, if the report we heard was true; but as to
fond of him--the only person Marian Ashurst ever cared for was--Marian
Ashurst!--Who's there?"
A figure glided past the open door, dimly seen in the waning
light. But there was no response, and Gertrude's remark of "Only one
of the servants" was almost drowned in the clanging summons of the
dinner-bell.