CAPTAIN MARRABLE AND HIS FATHER.
Only that it is generally conceived that in such a history as is this
the writer of the tale should be able to make his points so clear
by words that no further assistance should be needed, I should be
tempted here to insert a properly illustrated pedigree tree of the
Marrable family. The Marrable family is of very old standing in
England, the first baronet having been created by James I., and there
having been Marrables,--as is well known by all attentive readers of
English history,--engaged in the Wars of the Roses, and again others
very conspicuous in the religious persecutions of the children of
Henry VIII. I do not know that they always behaved with consistency;
but they held their heads up after a fashion, and got themselves
talked of, and were people of note in the country. They were
cavaliers in the time of Charles I. and of Cromwell,--as became men
of blood and gentlemen,--but it is not recorded of them that they
sacrificed much in the cause; and when William III. became king they
submitted with a good grace to the new order of things. A certain Sir
Thomas Marrable was member for his county in the reigns of George I.
and George II., and enjoyed a lucrative confidence with Walpole. Then
there came a blustering, roystering Sir Thomas, who, together with a
fine man and gambler as a heir, brought the property to rather a low
ebb; so that when Sir Gregory, the grandfather of our Miss Marrable,
came to the title in the early days of George III. he was not a rich
man. His two sons, another Sir Gregory and a General Marrable, died
long before the days of which we are writing,--Sir Gregory in 1815,
and the General in 1820. That Sir Gregory was the second of the
name,--the second at least as mentioned in these pages. He had been
our Miss Marrable's uncle, and the General had been her father, and
the father of Mrs. Lowther,--Mary's mother. A third Sir Gregory
was reigning at the time of our story, a very old gentleman with
one single son,--a fourth Gregory. Now the residence of Sir
Gregory was at Dunripple Park, just on the borders of Warwickshire
and Worcestershire, but in the latter county. The property was
small,--for a country gentleman with a title,--not much exceeding
£3000 a year; and there was no longer any sitting in Parliament, or
keeping of race-horses, or indeed any season in town for the present
race of Marrables. The existing Sir Gregory was a very quiet man, and
his son and only child, a man now about forty years of age, lived
mostly at home, and occupied himself with things of antiquity. He
was remarkably well read in the history of his own country, and it
had been understood for the last twenty years by the Antiquarian,
Archæological, and other societies that he was the projector of a new
theory about Stonehenge, and that his book on the subject was almost
ready. Such were the two surviving members of the present senior
branch of the family. But Sir Gregory had two brothers,--the younger
of the two being Parson John Marrable, the present rector of St.
Peter's Lowtown and the occupier of the house within the heavy
slate-coloured gates, where he lived a bachelor life, as had done
before him his cousin the late rector;--the elder being a certain
Colonel Marrable. The Colonel Marrable again had a son, who was a
Captain Walter Marrable,--and after him the confused reader shall be
introduced to no more of the Marrable family. The enlightened reader
will have by this time perceived that Miss Mary Lowther and Captain
Walter Marrable were second cousins; and he will also have perceived,
if he has given his mind fully to the study, that the present Parson
John Marrable had come into the living after the death of a cousin of
the same generation as himself,--but of lower standing in the family.
It was so; and by this may be seen how little the Sir Gregory of the
present day had been able to do for his brother, and perhaps it may
also be imagined from this that the present clergyman at Loring
Lowtown had been able to do very little for himself. Nevertheless,
he was a kindly-hearted, good, sincere old man,--not very bright,
indeed, nor peculiarly fitted for preaching the gospel, but he was
much liked, and he kept a curate, though his income out of the
living was small. Now it so happened that Captain Marrable,--Walter
Marrable,--came to stay with his uncle the parson about the same time
that Mary Lowther returned to Loring.
"You remember Walter, do you not?" said Miss Marrable to her niece.
"Not the least in the world. I remember there was a Walter when I was
at Dunripple. But that was ten years ago, and boy cousins and girl
cousins never fraternise."
"I suppose he was nearly a young man then, and you were a child?"
"He was still at school, though just leaving it. He is seven years
older than I am."
"He is coming to stay with Parson John."
"You don't say so, aunt Sarah? What will such a man as Captain
Marrable do at Loring?"
Then aunt Sarah explained all that she knew, and perhaps suggested
more than she knew. Walter Marrable had quarrelled with his father,
the Colonel,--with whom, indeed, everybody of the name of Marrable
had always been quarrelling, and who was believed by Miss Marrable to
be the very--mischief himself. He was a man always in debt, who had
broken his wife's heart, who lived with low company and disgraced the
family, who had been more than once arrested, on whose behalf all
the family interest had been expended, so that nobody else could get
anything, and who gambled and drank and did whatever wicked things
a wicked old colonel living at Portsmouth could do. And indeed,
hitherto, Miss Marrable had entertained opinions hardly more
charitable respecting the son than she had done in regard to
the father. She had disbelieved in this branch of the Marrables
altogether. Captain Marrable had lived with his father a good
deal,--at least, so she had understood,--and therefore could not but
be bad. And, moreover, our Miss Sarah Marrable had, throughout her
whole life, been somewhat estranged from the elder branches of the
family. Her father, Walter, had been,--so she thought,--injured by
his brother Sir Gregory, and there had been some law proceedings, not
quite amicable, between her brother the parson, and the present Sir
Gregory. She respected Sir Gregory as the head of the family, but she
never went now to Dunripple, and knew nothing of Sir Gregory's heir.
Of the present Parson John she had thought very little before he had
come to Loring. Since he had been living there she had found that
blood was thicker than water,--as she would say,--and they two were
intimate. When she heard that Captain Marrable was coming, because
he had quarrelled with his father, she began to think that perhaps
it might be as well that she should allow herself to meet this new
cousin.
"What do you think of your cousin, Walter?" the old clergyman said to
his nephew, one evening, after the two ladies, who had been dining at
the Rectory, had left them. It was the first occasion on which Walter
Marrable had met Mary since his coming to Loring.
"I remember her as well as if it were yesterday, at Dunripple. She
was a little girl then, and I thought her the most beautiful little
girl in the world."
"We all think her very beautiful still."
"So she is; as lovely as ever she can stand. But she does not seem to
have much to say for herself. I remember when she was a little girl
she never would speak."
"I fancy she can talk when she pleases, Walter. But you mustn't fall
in love with her."
"I won't, if I can help it."
"In the first place I think she is as good as engaged to a fellow
with a very pretty property in Wiltshire, and in the next place she
hasn't got--one shilling."
"There is not much danger. I am not inclined to trouble myself about
any girl in my present mood, even if she had the pretty property
herself, and wasn't engaged to anybody. I suppose I shall get over it
some day, but I feel just at present as though I couldn't say a kind
word to a human being."
"Psha! psha! that's nonsense, Walter. Take things coolly. They're
more likely to come right, and they won't be so troublesome, even if
they don't." Such was the philosophy of Parson John,--for the sake
of digesting which the captain lit a cigar, and went out to smoke it,
standing at one of the open slate-coloured gates.
It was said in the first chapter of this story that Mr. Gilmore was
one of the heroes whose deeds the story undertakes to narrate, and
a hint was perhaps expressed that of all the heroes he was the
favourite. Captain Marrable is, however, another hero, and, as such,
some word or two must be said of him. He was a better-looking man,
certainly, than Mr. Gilmore, though perhaps his personal appearance
did not at first sight give to the observer so favourable an idea of
his character as did that of the other gentleman. Mr. Gilmore was
to be read at a glance as an honest, straightforward, well-behaved
country squire, whose word might be taken for anything, who might,
perhaps, like to have his own way, but who could hardly do a cruel
or an unfair thing. He was just such a man to look at as a prudent
mother would select as one to whom she might entrust her daughter
with safety. Now Walter Marrable's countenance was of a very
different die. He had served in India, and the naturally dark colour
of his face had thus become very swarthy. His black hair curled round
his head, but the curls on his brow were becoming very thin, as
though age were already telling on them, and yet he was four or five
years younger than Mr. Gilmore. His eyebrows were thick and heavy,
and his eyes seemed to be black. They were eyes which were used
without much motion; and when they were dead set, as they were not
unfrequently, it would seem as though he were defying those on whom
he looked. Thus he made many afraid of him, and many who were not
afraid of him, disliked him because of a certain ferocity which
seemed to characterise his face. He wore no beard beyond a heavy
black moustache, which quite covered his upper lip. His nose was long
and straight, his mouth large, and his chin square. No doubt he was
a handsome man. And he looked to be a tall man, though in truth he
lacked two full inches of the normal six feet. He was broad across
the chest, strong on his legs, and was altogether such a man to look
at that few would care to quarrel with him, and many would think that
he was disposed to quarrel. Of his nature he was not quarrelsome; but
he was a man who certainly had received much injury. It need not be
explained at length how his money affairs had gone wrong with him. He
should have inherited, and, indeed, did inherit, a fortune from his
mother's family, of which his father had contrived absolutely to rob
him. It was only within the last month that he had discovered that
his father had succeeded in laying his hands on certainly the bulk of
his money, and it might be upon all. Words between them had been very
bitter. The father, with a cigar between his teeth, had told his son
that this was the fortune of war, that if justice had been done him
at his marriage, the money would have been his own, and that by G----
he was very sorry, and couldn't say anything more. The son had called
the father a liar and a swindler,--as, indeed, was the truth, though
the son was doubtless wrong to say so to the author of his being. The
father had threatened the son with his horsewhip; and so they had
parted, within ten days of Walter Marrable's return from India.
Walter had written to his two uncles, asking their advice as to
saving the wreck, if anything might be saved. Sir Gregory had written
back to say that he was an old man, that he was greatly grieved at
the misunderstanding, and that Messrs. Block and Curling were the
family lawyers. Parson John invited his nephew to come down to Loring
Lowtown. Captain Marrable went to Block and Curling, who were by no
means consolatory, and accepted his uncle's invitation.
It was but three days after the first meeting between the two
cousins, that they were to be seen one evening walking together along
the banks of the Lurwell, a little river which at Loring sometimes
takes the appearance of a canal, and sometimes of a natural stream.
But it is commercial, having connection with the Kennet and Avon
navigation; and long, slow, ponderous barges, with heavy, dirty,
sleepy bargemen, and rickety, ill-used barge-horses, are common in
the neighbourhood. In parts it is very pretty, as it runs under the
chalky downs, and there are a multiplicity of locks, and the turf
of the sheep-walks comes up to the towing path; but in the close
neighbourhood of the town the canal is straight and uninteresting;
the ground is level, and there is a scattered community of small,
straight-built light-brick houses, which are in themselves so ugly
that they are incompatible with anything that is pretty in landscape.
Parson John, always so called to distinguish him from the late
parson, his cousin, who had been the Rev. James Marrable, had taken
occasion, on behalf of his nephew, to tell the story of his wrong to
Miss Marrable, and by Miss Marrable it had been told to Mary. To both
these ladies the thing seemed to be so horrible,--the idea that a
father should have robbed his son,--that the stern ferocity of the
slow-moving eyes was forgiven, and they took him to their hearts, if
not for love, at least for pity. Twenty thousand pounds ought to have
become the property of Walter Marrable, when some maternal relative
had died. It had seemed hard that the father should have none of it,
and, on the receipt in India of representations from the Colonel,
Walter had signed certain fatal papers, the effect of which was that
the father had laid his hands on pretty nearly the whole, if not on
the whole, of the money, and had caused it to vanish. There was now a
question whether some five thousand pounds might not be saved. If so,
Walter would stay in England; if not, he would exchange and go back
to India; "or," as he said himself, "to the Devil."
"Don't speak of it in that way," said Mary.
"The worst of it is," said he "that I am ashamed of myself for being
so absolutely cut up about money. A man should be able to bear that
kind of thing; but this hits one all round."
"I think you bear it very well."
"No, I don't. I didn't bear it well when I called my father a
swindler. I didn't bear it well when I swore that I would put him in
prison for robbing me. I don't bear it well now, when I think of it
every moment. But I do so hate India, and I had so absolutely made
up my mind never to return. If it hadn't been that I knew that this
fortune was to be mine, I could have saved money, hand over hand."
"Can't you live on your pay here?"
"No!" He answered her almost as though he were angry with her. "If I
had been used all my life to the strictest economies, perhaps I might
do so. Some men do, no doubt; but I am too old to begin it. There is
the choice of two things,--to blow my brains out, or go back."
"You are not such a coward as that."
"I don't know. I ain't sure that it would be cowardice. If there were
anybody I could injure by doing it, it would be cowardly."
"The family," suggested Mary.
"What does Sir Gregory care for me? I'll show you his letter to me
some day. I don't think it would be cowardly at all to get away from
such a lot."
"I am sure you won't do that, Captain Marrable."
"Think what it is to know that your father is a swindler. Perhaps
that is the worst of it all. Fancy talking or thinking of one's
family after that. I like my uncle John. He is very kind, and has
offered to lend me £150, which I'm sure he can't afford to lose, and
which I am too honest to take. But even he hardly sees it. He calls
it a misfortune, and I've no doubt would shake hands with his brother
to-morrow."
"So would you, if he were really sorry."
"No, Mary; nothing on earth shall ever induce me to set my eyes on
him again willingly. He has destroyed all the world for me. He should
have had half of it without a word. When he used to whine to me in
his letters, and say how cruelly he had been treated, I always made
up my mind that he should have half the income for life. It was
because he should not want till I came home that I enabled him to do
what he has done. And now he has robbed me of every cursed shilling!
I wonder whether I shall ever get my mind free from it."
"Of course you will."
"It seems now that my heart is wrapped in lead." As they were coming
home she put her hand upon his arm, and asked him to promise her to
withdraw that threat.
"Why should I withdraw it? Who cares for me?"
"We all care. My aunt cares. I care."
"The threat means nothing, Mary. People who make such threats don't
carry them out. Of course I shall go on and endure it. The worst of
all is, that the whole thing makes me so unmanly,--makes such a beast
of me. But I'll try to get over it."
Mary Lowther thought that, upon the whole, he bore his misfortune
very well.