"Traversons gravement cette méchante mascarade qu'on appelle le monde"
The houses in Skernford--the houses of "the gentry," that is to say--lay
almost all on one side an old-fashioned, sleepy-looking "green" toward
which their entrances lay; but their real front, their pleasantest
aspect, was on their other side, facing the river which ran below, and
down to which their gardens sloped in terraces. Our house, the vicarage,
lay nearest the church; Miss Hallam's house, the Grange, furthest from
the church. Between these, larger and more imposing, in grounds beside
which ours seemed to dwindle down to a few flower-beds, lay Deeplish
Hall, whose owner, Sir Peter Le Marchant, had lately come to live there,
at least for a time.
It was many years since Sir Peter Le Marchant, whose image at this time
was fated to enter so largely and so much against my will into all my
calculations, had lived at or even visited his estate at Skernford. He
was a man of immense property, and report said that Deeplish Hall, which
we innocent villagers looked upon as such an imposing mansion, was but
one and not the grandest of his several country houses. All that I knew
of his history--or rather, all that I had heard of it, whether truly or
not, I was in no position to say--was but a vague and misty account; yet
that little had given me a dislike to him before I ever met him.
Miss Hallam, our neighbor, who lived in such solitude and retirement,
was credited with having a history--if report had only been able to fix
upon what it was. She was popularly supposed to be of a grim and
decidedly eccentric disposition. Eccentric she was, as I afterward
found--as I thought when I first saw her. She seldom appeared either in
church or upon any other public occasion, and was said to be the deadly
enemy of Sir Peter Le Marchant and all pertaining to him. There was some
old, far-back romance connected with it--a romance which I did not
understand, for up to now I had never known either her or Sir Peter
sufficiently to take any interest in the story, but the report ran that
in days gone by--how far gone by, too, they must have been!--Miss
Hallam, a young and handsome heiress, loved very devotedly her one
sister, and that sister--so much was known as a fact--had become Lady Le
Marchant: was not her monument in the church between the Deeplish Hall
and the Hallam Grange pews? Was not the tale of her virtues and her
years--seven-and-twenty only did she count of the latter--there
recorded? That Barbara Hallam had been married to Sir Peter was matter
of history: what was not matter of history, but of tradition which was
believed in quite as firmly, was that the baronet had ill-treated his
wife--in what way was not distinctly specified, but I have since learned
that it was true; she was a gentle creature, and he made her life
miserable unto her. She was idolized by her elder sister, who, burning
with indignation at the treatment to which her darling had been
subjected, had become, even in disposition, an altered woman. From a
cheerful, open-hearted, generous, somewhat brusque young person, she had
grown into a prematurely old, soured, revengeful woman. It was to her
that the weak and injured sister had fled; it was in her arms that she
had died. Since her sister's death, Miss Hallam had withdrawn entirely
from society, cherishing a perpetual grudge against Sir Peter Le
Marchant. Whether she had relations or none, friends or acquaintance
outside the small village in which she lived, none knew. If so, they
limited their intercourse with her to correspondence, for no visitor
ever penetrated to her damp old Grange, nor had she ever been known to
leave it with the purpose of making any journey abroad. If perfect
silence and perfect retirement could hush the tongues of tradition and
report, then Miss Hallam's story should have been forgotten. But it was
not forgotten. Such things never do become forgotten.
It was only since Sir Peter had appeared suddenly some six weeks ago at
Deeplish Hall, that these dry bones of tradition had for me quickened
into something like life, and had acquired a kind of interest for me.
Our father, as vicar of the parish, had naturally called upon Sir Peter,
and as naturally invited him to his house. His visits had begun by his
coming to lunch one day, and we had speculated about him a little in
advance, half jestingly, raking up old stories, and attributing to him
various evil qualities of a hard and loveless old age. But after he had
gone, the verdict of Stella and myself was, "Much worse than we
expected." He was different from what we had expected. Perhaps that
annoyed us. Instead of being able to laugh at him, we found something
oppressive, chilling, to me frightful, in the cold, sneering smile which
seemed perpetually hovering about his thin lips--in the fixed, snaky
glitter of his still, intent gray eyes. His face was pale, his manners
were polished, but to meet his eye was a thing I hated, and the touch of
his hand made me shudder. While speaking in the politest possible
manner, he had eyed over Adelaide and me in a manner which I do not
think either of us had ever experienced before. I hated him from the
moment in which I saw him looking at me with expression of approval. To
be approved by Sir Peter Le Marchant, could fate devise anything more
horrible? Yes, I knew now that it could; one might have to submit to the
approval, to live in the approval. I had expressed my opinion on the
subject with freedom to Adelaide, who to my surprise had not agreed
with me, and had told me coldly that I had no business to speak
disrespectfully of my father's visitors. I was silenced, but unhappy.
From the first moment of seeing Sir Peter, I had felt an uncomfortable,
uneasy feeling, which, had I been sentimental, I might have called a
presentiment, but I was not sentimental. I was a healthy young girl of
seventeen, believing in true love, and goodness, and gentleness very
earnestly; "fancy free," having read few novels, and heard no gossip--a
very baby in many respects. Our home might be a quiet one, a poor one, a
dull one--our circle of acquaintance small, our distractions of the most
limited description imaginable, but at least we knew no evil, and--I
speak for Stella and myself--thought none. Our father and mother were
persons with nothing whatever remarkable about them. Both had been
handsome. My mother was pretty, my father good-looking yet. I loved them
both dearly. It had never entered my head to do otherwise than love
them, but the love which made the star and the poetry of my quiet and
unromantic life was that I bore to Adelaide, my eldest sister. I
believed in her devotedly, and accepted her judgment, given in her own
peculiar proud, decided way, upon every topic on which she chose to
express it. She was one-and-twenty, and I used to think I could lay down
my life for her.
It was consequently a shock to me to hear her speak in praise--yes, in
praise of Sir Peter Le Marchant. My first impulse was to distrust my own
judgment, but no; I could not long do so. He was repulsive; he was
stealthy, hard, cruel, in appearance. I could not account for Adelaide's
perversity in liking him, and passed puzzled days and racked my brain in
conjecture as to why when Sir Peter came Adelaide should be always at
home, always neat and fresh--not like me. Why was Adelaide, who found it
too much trouble to join Stella and me in our homely concerts, always
ready to indulge Sir Peter's taste for music, to entertain him with
conversation?--and she _could_ talk. She was unlike me in that respect.
I never had a brilliant gift of conversation. She was witty about the
things she did know, and never committed the fatal mistake of pretending
to be up in the things she did not know. These gifts of mind, these
social powers, were always ready for the edification of Sir Peter. By
degrees the truth forced itself upon me. Some one said--I overheard
it--that "that handsome Miss Wedderburn was undoubtedly setting her cap
at Sir Peter Le Marchant." Never shall I forget the fury which at first
possessed me, the conviction which gradually stole over me that it was
true. My sister Adelaide, beautiful, proud, clever--and, I had always
thought, good,--had distinctly in view the purpose of becoming Lady Le
Marchant. I shed countless tears over the miserable discovery, and dared
not speak to her of it. But that was not the worst. My horizon darkened.
One horrible day I discovered that it was I, and not Adelaide, who had
attracted Sir Peter's attentions. It was not a scene, not a set
declaration. It was a word in that smooth voice, a glance from that
hated and chilling eye, which suddenly aroused me to the truth.
Shuddering, dismayed, I locked the matter up within my own breast, and
wished with a longing that sometimes made me quite wretched that I could
quit Skernford, my home, my life, which had lost zest for me, and was
become a burden to me. The knowledge that Sir Peter admired me
absolutely degraded me in my own eyes. I felt as if I could not hold up
my head. I had spoken to no one of what had passed within me, and I
trusted it had not been noticed; but all my joy was gone. It was as if I
stood helpless while a noisome reptile coiled its folds around me.
To-day, after Miss Hallam's departure, I dropped into my now chronic
state of listlessness and sadness. They all came back; my father from
the church; my mother and Adelaide from Darton, whither they had been on
a shopping expedition; Stella from a stroll by the river. We had tea,
and they dispersed quite cheerfully to their various occupations. I,
seeing the gloaming gently and dim falling over the earth, walked out of
the house into the garden, and took my way toward the river. I passed an
arbor in which Stella and I had loved to sit and watch the stream, and
talk and read Miss Austen's novels. Stella was there now, with a
well-thumbed copy of "Pride and Prejudice" in her hand.
"Come and sit down, May," she apostrophized me. "Do listen to this about
Bingley and Wickham."
"No, thank you," said I, abstractedly, and feeling that Stella was not
the person to whom I could confide my woe. Indeed, on scanning mentally
the list of my acquaintance, I found that there was not one in whom I
could confide. It gave me a strange sense of loneliness and aloofness,
and hardened me more than the reading of a hundred satires on the
meannesses of society.
I went along the terrace by the river-side, and looked up to the
left--traces of Sir Peter again. There was the terrace of Deeplish Hall,
which stood on a height just above a bend in the river. It was a fine
old place. The sheen of the glass houses caught the rays of the sun and
glanced in them. It looked rich, old, and peaceful. I had been many a
time through its gardens, and thought them beautiful, and wished they
belonged to me. Now I felt that they lay in a manner at my feet, and my
strongest feeling respecting them was an earnest wish that I might never
see them again.
Thus agreeably meditating, I insensibly left our own garden and wandered
on in the now quickly falling twilight into a narrow path leading across
a sort of No-Man's-Land into the demesne of Sir Peter Le Marchant. In my
trouble I scarcely remarked where I was going, and with my eyes cast
upon the ground was wishing that I could feel again as I once had felt,
when
"I nothing had, and yet enough;"
and was sadly wondering what I could do to escape from the net in which
I felt myself caught, when a shadow darkened the twilight in which I
stood, and looking up I saw Sir Peter, and heard these words:
"Good-evening, Miss Wedderburn. Are you enjoying a little stroll?"
By, as it seemed to me, some strange miracle all my inward fears and
tremblings vanished. I did not feel afraid of Sir Peter in the least. I
felt that here was a crisis. This meeting would show me whether my fears
had been groundless, and my own vanity and self-consciousness of
unparalleled proportions, or whether I had judged truly, and had good
reason for my qualms and anticipations.
It came. The alarm had not been a false one. Sir Peter, after conversing
with me for a short time, did, in clear and unmistakable terms, inform
me that he loved me, and asked me to marry him.
"I thank you," said I, mastering my impulse to cover my face with my
hands, and run shuddering away from him. "I thank you for the honor you
offer me, and beg to decline it."
He looked surprised, and still continued to urge me in a manner which
roused a deep inner feeling of indignation within me, for it seemed to
say that he understood me to be overwhelmed with the honor he proposed
to confer upon me, and humored my timidity about accepting it. There was
no doubt in his manner; not the shadow of a suspicion that I could be in
earnest. There was something that turned my heart cold within me--a
cool, sneering tone, which not all his professions of affection could
disguise. Since that time I have heard Sir Peter explicitly state his
conception of the sphere of woman in the world; it was not an exalted
one. He could not even now quite conceal that while he told me he wished
to make me his wife and the partner of his heart and possessions, yet he
knew that such professions were but words--that he did not sue for my
love (poor Sir Peter! I doubt if ever in his long life he was blessed
with even a momentary glimpse of the divine countenance of pure Love),
but offered to buy my youth, and such poor beauty as I might have, with
his money and his other worldly advantages.
Sir Peter was a blank, utter skeptic with regard to the worth of woman.
He did not believe in their virtue nor their self-respect; he believed
them to be clever actresses, and, taken all in all, the best kind of
amusement to be had for money. The kind of opinion was then new to me;
the effect of it upon my mind such as might be expected. I was
seventeen, and an ardent believer in all things pure and of good report.
Nevertheless, I remained composed, sedate, even courteous to the
last--till I had fairly made Sir Peter understand that no earthly power
should induce me to marry him; till I had let him see that I fully
comprehended the advantages of the position he offered me, and declined
them.
"Miss Wedderburn," said he, at last--and his voice was as unruffled as
my own; had it been more angry I should have feared it less--"do you
fear opposition? I do not think your parents would refuse their consent
to our union."
I closed my eyes for a moment, and a hand seemed to tighten about my
heart. Then I said:
"I speak without reference to my parents. In such a matter I judge for
myself."
"Always the same answer?"
"Always the same, Sir Peter."
"It would be most ungentlemanly to press the subject any further." His
eyes were fixed upon me with the same cold, snake-like smile. "I will
not be guilty of such a solecism. Your family affections, my dear young
lady, are strong, I should suppose. Which--whom do you love best?"
Surprised at the blunt straightforwardness of the question, as coming
from him, I replied thoughtlessly, "Oh, my sister Adelaide."
"Indeed! I should imagine she was in every way worthy the esteem of so
disinterested a person as yourself. A different disposition,
though--quite. Will you allow me to touch your hand before I retire?"
Trembling with uneasy forebodings roused by his continual sneering
smile, and the peculiar evil light in his eyes, I yet went through with
my duty to the end. He took the hand I extended, and raised it to his
lips with a low bow.
"Good-evening, Miss Wedderburn."
Faintly returning his valediction, I saw him go away, and then in a
dream, a maze, a bewilderment, I too turned slowly away and walked to
the house again. I felt, I knew I had behaved well and discreetly, but I
had no confidence whatever that the matter was at an end.