THE CHILD'S VOICE IN THE PAVILION BY THE WATER.
The year wore slowly on. Letitia Arundel wrote very long letters to her
friend and confidante, Belinda Lawford, and in each letter demanded
particular intelligence of her brother's doings. Had he been to the
Grange? how had he looked? what had he talked about? &c., &c. But to
these questions Miss Lawford could only return one monotonous reply:
Mr. Arundel had not been to the Grange; or Mr. Arundel had called on
papa one morning, but had only stayed a quarter of an hour, and had not
been seen by any female member of the family.
The year wore slowly on. Edward endured his self-appointed solitude,
and waited, waited, with a vengeful hatred for ever brooding in his
breast, for the day of retribution. The year wore on, and the
anniversary of the day upon which Mary ran away from the Towers, the
17th of October, came at last.
Paul Marchmont had declared his intention of taking possession of the
Towers upon the day following this. The twelvemonth's probation which
he had imposed upon himself had expired; every voice was loud in praise
of his conscientious and honourable conduct. He had grown very popular
during his residence at Kemberling. Tenant farmers looked forward to
halcyon days under his dominion; to leases renewed on favourable terms;
to repairs liberally executed; to everything that is delightful between
landlord and tenant. Edward Arundel heard all this through his faithful
servitor, Mr. Morrison, and chafed bitterly at the news. This traitor
was to be happy and prosperous, and to have the good word of honest
men; while Mary lay in her unhallowed grave, and people shrugged their
shoulders, half compassionately, half contemptuously, as they spoke of
the mad heiress who had committed suicide.
Mr. Morrison brought his master tidings of all Paul Marchmont's doings
about this time. He was to take possession of the Towers on the 19th.
He had already made several alterations in the arrangement of the
different rooms. He had ordered new furniture from
Swampington,--another man would have ordered it from London; but Mr.
Marchmont was bent upon being popular, and did not despise even the
good opinion of a local tradesman,--and by several other acts,
insignificant enough in themselves, had asserted his ownership of the
mansion which had been the airy castle of Mary Marchmont's day-dreams
ten years before.
The coming-in of the new master of Marchmont Towers was to be, take it
altogether, a very grand affair. The Chorley-Castle foxhounds were to
meet at eleven o'clock, upon the great grass-flat, or lawn, as it was
popularly called, before the western front. The county gentry from far
and near had been invited to a hunting breakfast. Open house was to be
kept all day for rich and poor. Every male inhabitant of the district
who could muster anything in the way of a mount was likely to join the
friendly gathering. Poor Reynard is decidedly England's most powerful
leveller. All differences of rank and station, all distinctions which
Mammon raises in every other quarter, melt away before the friendly
contact of the hunting-field. The man who rides best is the best man;
and the young butcher who makes light of sunk fences, and skims,
bird-like, over bullfinches and timber, may hold his own with the dandy
heir to half the country-side. The cook at Marchmont Towers had enough
to do to prepare for this great day. It was the first meet of the
season, and in itself a solemn festival. Paul Marchmont knew this; and
though the Cockney artist of Fitzroy Square knew about as much of
fox-hunting as he did of the source of the Nile, he seized upon the
opportunity of making himself popular, and determined to give such a
hunting-breakfast as had never been given within the walls of Marchmont
Towers since the time of a certain rackety Hugh Marchmont, who had
drunk himself to death early in the reign of George III. He spent the
morning of the 17th in the steward's room, looking through the
cellar-book with the old butler, selecting the wines that were to be
drunk the following day, and planning the arrangements for the mass of
visitors, who were to be entertained in the great stone entrance-hall,
in the kitchens, in the housekeeper's room, in the servants' hall, in
almost every chamber that afforded accommodation for a guest.
"You will take care that people get placed according to their rank,"
Paul said to the grey-haired servant. "You know everybody about here, I
dare say, and will be able to manage so that we may give no offence."
The gentry were to breakfast in the long dining-room and in the western
drawing-room. Sparkling hocks and Burgundies, fragrant Moselles,
champagnes of choicest brand and rarest bouquet, were to flow like
water for the benefit of the country gentlemen who should come to do
honour to Paul Marchmont's installation. Great cases of comestibles had
been sent by rail from Fortnum and Mason's; and the science of the cook
at the Towers had been taxed to the utmost, in the struggles which she
made to prove herself equal to the occasion. Twenty-one casks of ale,
every cask containing twenty-one gallons, had been brewed long ago, at
the birth of Arthur Marchmont, and had been laid in the cellar ever
since, waiting for the majority of the young heir who was never to come
of age. This very ale, with a certain sense of triumph, Paul Marchmont
ordered to be brought forth for the refreshment of the commoners.
"Poor young Arthur!" he thought, after he had given this order. "I saw
him once when he was a pretty boy with fair ringlets, dressed in a suit
of black velvet. His father brought him to my studio one day, when he
came to patronise me and buy a picture of me,--out of sheer charity, of
course, for he cared as much for pictures as I care for foxhounds. _I_
was a poor relation then, and never thought to see the inside of
Marchmont Towers. It was a lucky September morning that swept that
bright-faced boy out of my pathway, and left only sickly John Marchmont
and his daughter between me and fortune."
Yes; Mr. Paul Marchmont's year of probation was past. He had asserted
himself to Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson, and before the
face of all Lincolnshire, in the character of an honourable and
high-minded man; slow to seize upon the fortune that had fallen to him,
conscientious, punctilious, generous, and unselfish. He had done all
this; and now the trial was over, and the day of triumph had come.
There has been a race of villains of late years very popular with the
novel-writer and the dramatist, but not, I think, quite indigenous to
this honest British soil; a race of pale-faced, dark-eyed, and
all-accomplished scoundrels, whose chiefest attribute is
imperturbability. The imperturbable villain has been guilty of every
iniquity in the black catalogue of crimes; but he has never been guilty
of an emotion. He wins a million of money at _trente et quarante_, to
the terror and astonishment of all Homburg; and by not so much as one
twinkle of his eye or one quiver of his lip does that imperturbable
creature betray a sentiment of satisfaction. Ruin or glory, shame or
triumph, defeat, disgrace, or death,--all are alike to the callous
ruffian of the Anglo-Gallic novel. He smiles, and murders while he
smiles, and smiles while he murders. He kills his adversary, unfairly,
in a duel, and wipes his sword on a cambric handkerchief; and withal he
is so elegant, so fascinating, and so handsome, that the young hero of
the novel has a very poor chance against him; and the reader can
scarcely help being sorry when retribution comes with the last chapter,
and some crushing catastrophe annihilates the well-bred scoundrel.
Paul Marchmont was not this sort of man. He was a hypocrite when it was
essential to his own safety to practice hypocrisy; but he did not
accept life as a drama, in which he was for ever to be acting a part.
Life would scarcely be worth the having to any man upon such terms. It
is all very well to wear heavy plate armour, and a casque that weighs
fourteen pounds or so, when we go into the thick of the fight. But to
wear the armour always, to live in it, to sleep in it, to carry the
ponderous protection about us for ever and ever! Safety would be too
dear if purchased by such a sacrifice of all personal ease. Paul
Marchmont, therefore, being a selfish and self-indulgent man, only wore
his armour of hypocrisy occasionally, and when it was vitally necessary
for his preservation. He had imposed upon himself a penance, and acted
a part in holding back for a year from the enjoyment of a splendid
fortune; and he had made this one great sacrifice in order to give the
lie to Edward Arundel's vague accusations, which might have had an
awkward effect upon the minds of other people, had the artist grasped
too eagerly at his missing cousin's wealth. Paul Marchmont had made
this sacrifice; but he did not intend to act a part all his life. He
meant to enjoy himself, and to get the fullest possible benefit out of
his good fortune. He meant to do this; and upon the 17th of October he
made no effort to restrain his spirits, but laughed and talked joyously
with whoever came in his way, winning golden opinions from all sorts of
men; for happiness is contagious, and everybody likes happy people.
Forty years of poverty is a long apprenticeship to the very hardest of
masters,--an apprenticeship calculated to give the keenest possible
zest to newly-acquired wealth. Paul Marchmont rejoiced in his wealth
with an almost delirious sense of delight. It was his at last. At last!
He had waited, and waited patiently; and at last, while his powers of
enjoyment were still in their zenith, it had come. How often he had
dreamed of this; how often he had dreamed of that which was to take
place to-morrow! How often in his dreams he had seen the stone-built
mansion, and heard the voices of the crowd doing him honour. He had
felt all the pride and delight of possession, to awake suddenly in the
midst of his triumph, and gnash his teeth at the remembrance of his
poverty. And now the poverty was a thing to be dreamt about, and the
wealth was his. He had always been a good son and a kind brother; and
his mother and sister were to arrive upon the eve of his installation,
and were to witness his triumph. The rooms that had been altered were
those chosen by Paul for his mother and maiden sister, and the new
furniture had been ordered for their comfort. It was one of his many
pleasures upon this day to inspect these apartments, to see that all
his directions had been faithfully carried out, and to speculate upon
the effect which these spacious and luxurious chambers would have upon
the minds of Mrs. Marchmont and her daughter, newly come from shabby
lodgings in Charlotte Street.
"My poor mother!" thought the artist, as he looked round the pretty
sitting-room. This sitting-room opened into a noble bedchamber, beyond
which there was a dressing-room. "My poor mother!" he thought; "she has
suffered a long time, and she has been patient. She has never ceased to
believe in me; and she will see now that there was some reason for that
belief. I told her long ago, when our fortunes were at the lowest ebb,
when I was painting landscapes for the furniture-brokers at a pound
a-piece,--I told her I was meant for something better than a
tradesman's hack; and I have proved it--I have proved it."
He walked about the room, arranging the furniture with his own hands;
walking a few paces backwards now and then to contemplate such and such
an effect from an artistic point of view; flinging the rich stuff of
the curtains into graceful folds; admiring and examining everything,
always with a smile on his face. He seemed thoroughly happy. If he had
done any wrong; if by any act of treachery he had hastened Mary
Arundel's death, no recollection of that foul work arose in his breast
to disturb the pleasant current of his thoughts. Selfish and
self-indulgent, only attached to those who were necessary to his own
happiness, his thoughts rarely wandered beyond the narrow circle of his
own cares or his own pleasures. He was thoroughly selfish. He could
have sat at a Lord Mayor's feast with a famine-stricken population
clamouring at the door of the banquet-chamber. He believed in himself
as his mother and sister had believed; and he considered that he had a
right to be happy and prosperous, whosoever suffered sorrow or
adversity.
Upon this 17th of October Olivia Marchmont sat in the little study
looking out upon the quadrangle, while the household was busied with
the preparations for the festival of the following day. She was to
remain at Marchmont Towers as a guest of the new master of the mansion.
She would be protected from all scandal, Paul had said, by the presence
of his mother and sister. She could retain the apartments she had been
accustomed to occupy; she could pursue her old mode of life. He himself
was not likely to be very much at the Towers. He was going to travel
and to enjoy life now that he was a rich man.
These were the arguments which Mr. Marchmont used when openly
discussing the widow's residence in his house. But in a private
conversation between Olivia and himself he had only said a very few
words upon the subject.
"You _must_ remain," he said; and Olivia submitted, obeying him with a
sullen indifference that was almost like the mechanical submission of
an irresponsible being.
John Marchmont's widow seemed entirely under the dominion of the new
master of the Towers. It was as if the stormy passions which had arisen
out of a slighted love had worn out this woman's mind, and had left her
helpless to stand against the force of Paul Marchmont's keen and
vigorous intellect. A remarkable change had come over Olivia's
character. A dull apathy had succeeded that fiery energy of soul which
had enfeebled and well-nigh worn out her body. There were no outbursts
of passion now. She bore the miserable monotony of her life
uncomplainingly. Day after day, week after week, month after month,
idle and apathetic, she sat in her lonely room, or wandered slowly in
the grounds about the Towers. She very rarely went beyond those
grounds. She was seldom seen now in her old pew at Kemberling Church;
and when her father went to her and remonstrated with her for her
non-attendance, she told him sullenly that she was too ill to go. She
_was_ ill. George Weston attended her constantly; but he found it very
difficult to administer to such a sickness as hers, and he could only
shake his head despondently when he felt her feeble pulse, or listened
to the slow beating of her heart. Sometimes she would shut herself up
in her room for a month at a time, and see no one but her faithful
servant Barbara, and Mr. Weston--whom, in her utter indifference, she
seemed to regard as a kind of domestic animal, whose going or coming
were alike unimportant.
This stolid, silent Barbara waited upon her mistress with untiring
patience. She bore with every change of Olivia's gloomy temper; she was
a perpetual shield and protection to her. Even upon this day of
preparation and disorder Mrs. Simmons kept guard over the passage
leading to the study, and took care that no one intruded upon her
mistress. At about four o'clock all Paul Marchmont's orders had been
given, and the new master of the house dined for the first time by
himself at the head of the long carved-oak dining-table, waited upon in
solemn state by the old butler. His mother and sister were to arrive by
a train that would reach Swampington at ten o'clock, and one of the
carriages from the Towers was to meet them at the station. The artist
had leisure in the meantime for any other business he might have to
transact.
He ate his dinner slowly, thinking deeply all the time. He did not stop
to drink any wine after dinner; but, as soon as the cloth was removed,
rose from the table, and went straight to Olivia's room.
"I am going down to the painting-room," he said. "Will you come there
presently? I want very much to say a few words to you."
Olivia was sitting near the window, with her hands lying idle in her
lap. She rarely opened a book now, rarely wrote a letter, or occupied
herself in any manner. She scarcely raised her eyes as she answered
him.
"Yes," she said; "I will come."
"Don't be long, then. It will be dark very soon. I am not going down
there to paint; I am going to fetch a landscape that I want to hang in
my mother's room, and to say a few words about--"
He closed the door without stopping to finish the sentence, and went
out into the quadrangle.
Ten minutes afterwards Olivia Marchmont rose, and taking a heavy
woollen shawl from a chair near her, wrapped it loosely about her head
and shoulders.
"I am his slave and his prisoner," she muttered to herself. "I must do
as he bids me."
A cold wind was blowing in the quadrangle, and the stone pavement was
wet with a drizzling rain. The sun had just gone down, and the dull
autumn sky was darkening. The fallen leaves in the wood were sodden
with damp, and rotted slowly on the swampy ground.
Olivia took her way mechanically along the narrow pathway leading to
the river. Half-way between Marchmont Towers and the boat-house she
came suddenly upon the figure of a man walking towards her through the
dusk. This man was Edward Arundel.
The two cousins had not met since the March evening upon which Edward
had gone to seek the widow in Paul Marchmont's painting-room. Olivia's
pale face grew whiter as she recognised the soldier.
"I was coming to the house to speak to you, Mrs. Marchmont," Edward
said sternly. "I am lucky in meeting you here, for I don't want any one
to overhear what I've got to say."
He had turned in the direction in which Olivia had been walking; but
she made a dead stop, and stood looking at him.
"You were going to the boat-house," he said. "I will go there with
you."
She looked at him for a moment, as if doubtful what to do, and then
said,
"Very well. You can say what you have to say to me, and then leave me.
There is no sympathy between us, there is no regard between us; we are
only antagonists."
"I hope not, Olivia. I hope there is some spark of regard still, in
spite of all. I separate you in my own mind from Paul Marchmont. I pity
you; for I believe you to be his tool."
"Is this what you have to say to me?"
"No; I came here, as your kinsman, to ask you what you mean to do now
that Paul Marchmont has taken possession of the Towers?"
"I mean to stay there."
"In spite of the gossip that your remaining will give rise to amongst
these country-people!"
"In spite of everything. Mr. Marchmont wishes me to stay. It suits me
to stay. What does it matter what people say of me? What do I care for
any one's opinion--now?"
"Olivia," cried the young man, "are you mad?"
"Perhaps I am," she answered, coldly.
"Why is it that you shut yourself from the sympathy of those who have a
right to care for you? What is the mystery of your life?"
His cousin laughed bitterly.
"Would you like to know, Edward Arundel?" she said. "You _shall_ know,
perhaps, some day. You have despised me all my life; you will despise
me more then."
They had reached Paul Marchmont's painting-room by this time. Olivia
opened the door and walked in, followed by Edward. Paul was not there.
There was a picture covered with green-baize upon the easel, and the
artist's hat stood upon the table amidst the litter of brushes and
palettes; but the room was empty. The door at the top of the stone
steps leading to the pavilion was ajar.
"Have you anything more to say to me?" Olivia asked, turning upon her
cousin as if she would have demanded why he had followed her.
"Only this: I want to know your determination; whether you will be
advised by me--and by your father,--I saw my uncle Hubert this morning,
and his opinion exactly coincides with mine,--or whether you mean
obstinately to take your own course in defiance of everybody?"
"I do," Olivia answered. "I shall take my own course. I defy everybody.
I have not been gifted with the power of winning people's affection.
Other women possess that power, and trifle with it, and turn it to bad
account. I have prayed, Edward Arundel,--yes, I have prayed upon my
knees to the God who made me, that He would give me some poor measure
of that gift which Nature has lavished upon other women; but He would
not hear me, He would not hear me! I was not made to be loved. Why,
then, should I make myself a slave for the sake of winning people's
esteem? If they have despised me, I can despise them."
"Who has despised you, Olivia?" Edward asked, perplexed by his cousin's
manner.
"YOU HAVE!" she cried, with flashing eyes; "you have! From first to
last--from first to last!" She turned away from him impatiently. "Go,"
she said; "why should we keep up a mockery of friendliness and
cousinship? We are nothing to each other."
Edward walked towards the door; but he paused upon the threshold, with
his hat in his hand, undecided as to what he ought to do.
As he stood thus, perplexed and irresolute, a cry, the feeble cry of a
child, sounded within the pavilion.
The young man started, and looked at his cousin. Even in the dusk he
could see that her face had suddenly grown livid.
"There is a child in that place," he said pointing to the door at the
top of the steps.
The cry was repeated as he spoke,--the low, complaining wail of a
child. There was no other voice to be heard,--no mother's voice
soothing a helpless little one. The cry of the child was followed by a
dead silence.
"There is a child in that pavilion," Edward Arundel repeated.
"There is," Olivia answered.
"Whose child?"
"What does it matter to you?"
"Whose child?"
"I cannot tell you, Edward Arundel."
The soldier strode towards the steps, but before he could reach them,
Olivia flung herself across his pathway.
"I will see whose child is hidden in that place," he said. "Scandalous
things have been said of you, Olivia. I will know the reason of your
visits to this place."
She clung about his knees, and hindered him from moving; half kneeling,
half crouching on the lowest of the stone steps, she blocked his
pathway, and prevented him from reaching the door of the pavilion. It
had been ajar a few minutes ago; it was shut now. But Edward had not
noticed this.
"No, no, no!" shrieked Olivia; "you shall trample me to death before
you enter that place. You shall walk over my corpse before you cross
that threshold."
The young man struggled with her for a few moments; then he suddenly
flung her from him; not violently, but with a contemptuous gesture.
"You are a wicked woman, Olivia Marchmont," he said; "and it matters
very little to me what you do, or what becomes of you. I know now the
secret of the mystery between you and Paul Marchmont. I can guess your
motive for perpetually haunting this place."
He left the solitary building by the river, and walked slowly back
through the wood.
His mind--predisposed to think ill of Olivia by the dark rumours he had
heard through his servant, and which had had a certain amount of
influence upon him, as all scandals have, however baseless--could
imagine only one solution to the mystery of a child's presence in the
lonely building by the river. Outraged and indignant at the discovery
he had made, he turned his back upon Marchmont Towers.
"I will stay in this hateful place no longer," he thought, as he went
back to his solitary home; "but before I leave Lincolnshire the whole
county shall know what I think of Paul Marchmont."
END OF VOL. II.