FAME.
The little household in Knightsbridge, where Marion Durrant lived with
her invalid aunt, Miss Traynor, did not breakfast early. It was very
rarely the teapot found its way to the table until ten o'clock. Miss
Traynor was one of those invalids who suffer from sleeplessness,
together with other maladies; and it was often three, four, or five
o'clock in the morning before she closed her eyes.
Miss Traynor was old-fashioned and kindly, with none of the
irritability or exactingness of the invalid about her. She was often
in great pain; but at such times she wished to be alone. She was never
irritable or capricious. She always behaved in her own house as though
she were a guest, as far as herself was concerned. She hated ringing
bells for the servant, and tried to prevent Marion doing a number of
little services which many women in health exact of those around them.
But she was most decidedly old-fashioned. She had a great number of
settled notions, notions acquired long ago, and which nothing in the
world could shake. All the eloquence or argument in the world would
not move her on any subject she had made up her mind about twenty or
thirty years ago. She had an antipathy to new theories, new places,
new people. She was an enthusiastic admirer of Church and State. She
considered all Liberals murderers and regicides at heart, not that she
had even a dim idea of what a Liberal was. Personally she would not
have hurt the meanest of God's creatures, but she could have read with
lively satisfaction that all the Liberals and Radicals had been
drowned, provided all detail were omitted, and a bishop had something
to do with the matter.
She looked on clergymen of the Church of England with the greatest
respect, and she considered bishops infallible and impeccable. She did
not put the least faith in missions to savages. She had a mean opinion
of savages, and did not think them worth the trouble taken with them
by pious folk of a certain way of thinking.
Her father before her had taken in _The Times_, and she took it in
too; not that she read much of it, but that she thought every staid
respectable house ought to have _The Times_; and that, after the
Church and State, _The Times_ was the most important institution in
the country. She had no comprehensive notion of what the Church was,
and her idea of the State was _The Court Circular_. But in what way
_The Times_ contributed to the welfare of the country, she had no
conception whatever. She was always quite sure that whatever _The
Times_ said must infallibly be right. Any suggestion that, possibly, a
conflict or difference of any kind could arise between these three,
she would have treated with merciless scorn. There were the Church,
State, and _Times_; and as long as they went on, England must continue
to be the greatest, most pious, and most successful country under the
sun.
After the Church, State, and _Times_ the institution which claimed her
greatest respect was the Peerage of England. She would cheerfully have
allowed art and commerce to die if we might only retain our old
nobility. She had no social ambition for herself. She knew she was not
of the metal peers are made of. If a lord had spoken to her, she would
have felt he was doing something derogatory to his order. She was a
firm believer in caste, and did not wish those above her to come down
any more than she wished herself to go up.
"We ought all to keep in our own places, my dear," she would say. "It
pleases Heaven that we shall be born in a certain state of life. If
Heaven intended we should fill any other, there is no doubt we should
have been born in that state. We ought not to try and change these
things. We are not in our own hands, but in the hands of those above.
If a king is wanted, one is sent; if a lord is wanted, one is sent;
and so on. And we ought not to try and alter these laws of Nature any
more than any other laws of Nature."
Upon being reminded that great generals and lawyers and statesmen are
often made lords of, she would say:
"These, my dear, were intended by Nature to be lords, but there was no
vacancy for them at the time. But you see, in the end, Nature found a
vacancy, and they became lords. If a man is intended by Nature to be a
lord, nothing in the world will keep him from being one."
The morning after the wreck of the yacht _Seabird_, Miss Traynor was
later than usual for breakfast. She came down looking white and worn.
She had been more sleepless than usual that night. But on mornings
after such nights she was more gentle and considerate than at other
times.
"How are you this morning, Marion?" she asked as she kissed the girl
and sank into her elbow-chair.
"Pretty well, aunt, only I slept badly. How are you? You look as if
you had had one of your bad nights," said Marion, as she began pouring
out the tea.
"So I had, my child, so I had. I heard every hour till four; and I did
not go to sleep even soon after that. What kept you awake?"
"Oh, I don't know, aunt," said the girl wearily.
"Well, if you don't know, I do, Marion; and you are a little goose to
fret about the matter. I know him, dear, better than you do."
Marion smiled. As though anyone, or all the world together, could know
her Charlie as she knew him.
"And he's a noble-hearted splendid fellow any girl might rely on and
be proud of!"
Marion pouted. As though any human being could be more proud of any
other than she was of him!
"And, Marion, you ought not to be a goose and go fidget your life out
because you have not heard from him for two or three days. Now, if it
were weeks or months, you might have cause to be uneasy."
Marion looked at her aunt in horror. As though it would be possible
for her to live if she were months without hearing from him!
"You know very well, child, there is not a more loyal or gentle-minded
man in all London."
Marion looked and smiled. As though anyone knew anything of Charlie's
gentle-mindedness compared with what she knew of it!
"I'll take another cup of tea, and I'll engage you hear from him
before the week is out."
"Before the week is out, aunt!" said Marion, speaking aloud for the
first time on the subject. "Before the week is out! If I don't hear
before then, I shall _know_ something dreadful has happened."
"But I tell you you shall. I have a presentiment, a very strong
presentiment, you will have a letter from him the morning after
to-morrow, saying he is in town, and will be out to see you that
afternoon."
"But why could he not come out, aunt, if he was in London the night
before, instead of writing?" Even talking of the chance of his being
in London was so much better than thinking of him as far away.
"I did not say he would be in London the night before. Might he not
post his letter in Wales, or Cornwall, or Scotland, or Ireland?"
"Yes; but then, aunt, he ought to be here as soon as his letter."
"Now you are an impatient girl. Business might prevent his coming on
by the mail. He might come by a late train. My presentiments are
always right, or nearly always; and this is one of the very strongest
I ever had in all my life."
Marion shook her head in despair rather than incredulity. Whatever was
the matter, Charlie might have written. What business had he anywhere?
In the ordinary sense of the word, he had no business. What he had to
do with editors and proprietors of papers and publishers, was all done
in London, not in that hateful place to which he had gone, wherever it
was.
She did not care for her breakfast that morning. She drank a cup of
tea, ate a mouthful of dry bread, but left the eggs and bacon
untouched.
Miss Traynor having done all she could to cheer her niece, and being
one of those gentle natures which cannot endure the sight of
unhappiness in others when she was powerless to lessen it, took up
_The Times_, partly to try and distract herself, and partly to shut
out from her eyes the painful sight of the young girl's saddened face.
The gale of the night and day before had been general in England, and
London had got its share of it. But a whole gale on the coast never
seems more than a stiff breeze in London. Nevertheless, the gale of
yesterday had not passed over London without inflicting injury; and
among the other things which it had done within the ten-mile radius
was to fling a chimney-pot into the street, just opposite Miss
Traynor's front-door.
This had been a terrible event in the mind of Miss Traynor.
She had been fascinated at the time, and anticipated nothing short of
the destruction of her own house and of everyone in it. She had
eventually congratulated herself a dozen times on the fact that her
will was made, and that Marion should have all she had the power to
bequeath, in complete forgetfulness that according to her own theory,
Marion would be included among the slain.
However, as afternoon passed into evening, the gale subsided, and Miss
Traynor's apprehensions declined. But as she ceased to fear, she began
to feel an interest in the perils she had passed. Therefore when, this
morning, she saw a column of _The Times_ headed "Yesterday's Gale," it
instantly attracted her interest, and settling her spectacles on her
nose, she began to read.
"Oh dear!" she cried suddenly.
"What is it, aunt?" said Marion, with little interest.
"There has been a dreadful wreck of a yacht; and the owner of it, the
great Duke of Shropshire, is drowned."
"Good gracious!" said Marion, somewhat roused from the contemplation
of her own unhappiness.
The old woman read on, but did not say anything further.
Marion had raised her eyes in expectation of more news, and was now
looking with awakened interest at her aunt.
Gradually Miss Traynor's face lengthened with astonishment. The mouth
opened, the eyebrows went up, the eyes grew round, and the plump
cheeks became almost hollow.
"What _is_ it?" said Marion, now thoroughly alert.
At last Miss Traynor put down the paper, and looked speechlessly at
her niece for awhile.
"Aunt, _do_ tell me what it is!"
"What did I say about your being proud?"
"I'm sure I don't think I'm very proud," said the girl, in uneasy
perplexity.
"Of him?"
"Of whom, aunt? Do tell me!"
"Of Charles?"
"Well, I'm sure I'm very proud of him. But what has he to do with the
storm, and the wreck, and a duke, and the paper?" asked the girl
almost piteously.
From her aunt's manner one might assume anything, so long as the thing
was very violent and unusual.
"There, read for yourself!" cried the aunt, handing the paper across
the table to her niece.
With sparkling eyes and trembling hands, Marion caught the paper and
began to read.
The comment on the rescue wound up with these words:
"For endurance and gallantry we may search in vain for a case parallel
to this of Mr. Charles Augustus Cheyne. He will receive the medal of
the Royal Humane Society, as a matter of course. But in a case of this
kind it is to be regretted that some even higher distinction cannot be
awarded for endurance and courage inferior to nothing which has gained
for a handful of our boldest soldiers the Victoria Cross."
When Marion had finished reading she put the paper down on the table
before her, looked feebly at her aunt for a moment, and then fell
fainting back in her chair.