WHAT THEY ALL THOUGHT AS THEY WENT HOME.
Lord Hampstead had come to the door to help them into the carriage.
"Lord Hampstead," said Mrs. Roden, "you will catch your death of
cold. It is freezing, and you have nothing on your head."
"I am quite indifferent about those things," he said, as for a moment
he held Marion's hand while he helped her into the carriage.
"Do go in," she whispered. Her lips as she spoke were close to his
ear,--but that simply came from the position in which chance had
placed her. Her hand was still in his,--but that, too, was the
accident of the situation. But there is, I think, an involuntary
tendency among women to make more than necessary use of assistance
when the person tendering it has made himself really welcome. Marion
had certainly no such intention. Had the idea come to her at the
moment she would have shrank from his touch. It was only when his
fingers were withdrawn, when the feeling of the warmth of this
proximity had passed away, that she became aware that he had been so
close to her, and that now they were separated.
Then her father entered the carriage, and Roden.
"Good-night, my lord," said the Quaker. "I have passed my evening
very pleasantly. I doubt whether I may not feel the less disposed for
my day's work to-morrow."
"Not at all, Mr. Fay; not at all. You will be like a giant refreshed.
There is nothing like a little friendly conversation for bracing
up the mind. I hope it will not be long before you come and try it
again." Then the carriage was driven off, and Lord Hampstead went in
to warm himself before the fire which Marion Fay had poked.
He had not intended to fall in love with her. Was there ever a young
man who, when he first found a girl to be pleasant to him, has
intended to fall in love with her? Girls will intend to fall in love,
or, more frequently perhaps, to avoid it; but men in such matters
rarely have a purpose. Lord Hampstead had found her, as he thought,
to be an admirable specimen of excellence in that class of mankind
which his convictions and theories induced him to extol. He thought
that good could be done by mixing the racers and plough-horses,--and
as regarded the present experiment, Marion Fay was a plough-horse. No
doubt he would not have made this special attempt had she not pleased
his eye, and his ear, and his senses generally. He certainly was not
a philosopher to whom in his search after wisdom an old man such as
Zachary Fay could make himself as acceptable as his daughter. It may
be acknowledged of him that he was susceptible to female influences.
But it had not at first occurred to him that it would be a good thing
to fall in love with Marion Fay. Why should he not be on friendly
terms with an excellent and lovely girl without loving her? Such
had been his ideas after first meeting Marion at Mrs. Roden's house.
Then he had determined that friends could not become friends without
seeing each other, and he had concocted his scheme without being
aware of the feelings which she had excited. The scheme had been
carried out; he had had his dinner-party; Marion Fay had poked his
fire; there had been one little pressure of the hand as he helped her
into the carriage, one little whispered word, which had it not been
whispered would have been as nothing; one moment of consciousness
that his lips were close to her cheek; and then he returned to the
warmth of his fire, quite conscious that he was in love.
What was to come of it? When he had argued both with his sister and
with Roden that their marriage would be unsuitable because of their
difference in social position, and had justified his opinion by
declaring it to be impossible that any two persons could, by their
own doing, break through the conventions of the world without
ultimate damage to themselves and to others, he had silently
acknowledged to himself that he also was bound by the law which he
was teaching. That such conventions should gradually cease to be,
would be good; but no man is strong enough to make a new law for his
own governing at the spur of the moment;--and certainly no woman.
The existing distances between man and man were radically bad. This
was the very gist of his doctrine; but the instant abolition of such
distances had been proved by many experiments to be a vain dream, and
the diminution of them must be gradual and slow. That such diminution
would go on till the distances should ultimately disappear in some
future millennium was to him a certainty. The distances were being
diminished by the increasing wisdom and philanthropy of mankind. To
him, born to high rank and great wealth, it had been given to do more
perhaps than another. In surrendering there is more efficacy, as
there is also more grace, than in seizing. What of his grandeur he
might surrender without injury to others to whom he was bound, he
would surrender. Of what exact nature or kind should be the woman
whom it might please him to select as his wife, he had formed no
accurate idea; but he would endeavour so to marry that he would make
no step down in the world that might be offensive to his family, but
would yet satisfy his own convictions by drawing himself somewhat
away from aristocratic blood. His father had done the same when
choosing his first wife, and the happiness of his choice would have
been perfect had not death interfered. Actuated by such reasoning as
this, he had endeavoured in a mild way to separate his sister from
her lover, thinking that they who were in love should be bound by the
arguments which seemed good to him who was not in love. But now he
also was in love, and the arguments as they applied to himself fell
into shreds and tatters as he sat gazing at his fire, holding the
poker in his hand.
Had there ever been anything more graceful than the mock violence
with which she had pretended to strike heartily at the coals?--had
there ever anything been more lovely than that mingled glance of
doubt, of fear, and of friendliness with which she had looked into
his face as she did it? She had quite understood his feeling when
he made his little request. There had been heart enough in her,
spirit enough, intelligence enough, to tell her at once the purport
of his demand. Or rather she had not seen it all at once, but had
only understood when her hand had gone too far to be withdrawn that
something of love as well as friendship had been intended. Before
long she should know how much of love had been intended! Whether his
purpose was or was not compatible with the wisdom of his theory as to
a gradual diminution of distances, his heart had gone too far now for
any retracting. As he sat there he at once began to teach himself
that the arguments he had used were only good in reference to
high-born females, and that they need not necessarily affect himself.
Whomever he might marry he would raise to his own rank. For his rank
he did not care a straw himself. It was of the prejudices of others
he was thinking when he assured himself that Marion would make as
good a Countess and as good a Marchioness as any lady in the land. In
regard to his sister it was otherwise. She must follow the rank of
her husband. It might be that the sores which she would cause to many
by becoming the wife of a Post Office clerk ought to be avoided. But
there need be no sores in regard to his marriage with Marion Fay.
His present reasoning was, no doubt, bad, but such as it was it was
allowed to prevail absolutely. It did not even occur to him that he
would make an attempt to enfranchise himself from Marion's charms.
Whatever might occur, whatever details there might be which would
require his attention in regard to his father or others of the
family, everything must give way to his present passion. She had
poked his fire, and she must be made to sit at his hearth for the
remainder of their joint existence. She must be made to sit there if
he could so plead his cause that his love should prevail with her.
As to the Quaker father, he thought altogether well of him too,--an
industrious, useful, intelligent man, of whose quaint manners and
manly bearing he would not be ashamed in any society. She, too, was
a Quaker, but that to him was little or nothing. He also had his
religious convictions, but they were not of a nature to be affronted
or shocked by those of any one who believed that the increasing
civilization of the world had come from Christ's teaching. The
simple, earnest purity of the girl's faith would be an attraction to
him rather than otherwise. Indeed, there was nothing in his Marion,
as he saw her, that was not conducive to feminine excellence.
His Marion! How many words had he spoken to her? How many thoughts
had he extracted from her? How many of her daily doings had he ever
witnessed? But what did it matter? It is not the girl that the man
loves, but the image which imagination has built up for him to fill
the outside covering which has pleased his senses. He was quite as
sure that the Ten Commandments were as safe in Marion's hands as
though she were already a saint, canonized for the perfection of all
virtues. He was quite ready to take that for granted; and having so
convinced himself, was now only anxious as to the means by which he
might make this priceless pearl his own.
There must be some other scheme. He sat, thinking of this, cudgelling
his brains for some contrivance by which he and Marion Fay might be
brought together again with the least possible delay. His idea of a
dinner-party had succeeded beyond all hope. But he could not have
another dinner-party next week. Nor could he bring together the
guests whom he had to-day entertained after his sister's return.
He was bound not to admit George Roden to his house as long as she
should be with him. Without George he could hardly hope that Mrs.
Roden would come to him, and without Mrs. Roden how could he entice
the Quaker and his daughter? His sister would be with him on the
following day, and would, no doubt, be willing to assist him with
Marion if it were possible. But the giving of such assistance on
her part would tacitly demand assistance also from him in her
difficulties. Such assistance, he knew, he could not give, having
pledged himself to his father in regard to George Roden. He could at
the present moment devise no other scheme than the very simple one of
going to Mrs. Roden, and declaring his love for the girl.
* * * * * *
The four guests in the carriage were silent throughout their drive
home. They all had thoughts of their own sufficient to occupy them.
George Roden told himself that this, for a long day, must be his last
visit to Hendon Hall. He knew that Lady Frances would arrive on the
morrow, and that then his presence was forbidden. He had refused to
make any promise as to his assured absence, not caring to subject
himself to an absolute bond; but he was quite aware that he was
bound in honour not to enter the house in which he could not be made
welcome. He felt himself to be safe, with a great security. The girl
whom he loved would certainly be true. He was not impatient, as was
Hampstead. He did not trouble his mind with schemes which were to
be brought to bear within the next few days. He could bide his time,
comforting himself with his faith. But still a lover can hardly be
satisfied with the world unless he can see some point in his heaven
from which light may be expected to break through the clouds. He
could not see the point from which the light might be expected.
The Quaker was asking himself many questions. Had he done well to
take his girl to this young nobleman's house? Had he done well to
take himself there? It had been as it were a sudden disruption in
the settled purposes of his life. What had he or his girl to do with
lords? And yet he had been pleased. Courtesy always flatters, and
flattery is always pleasant. A certain sense of softness had been
grateful to him. There came upon him a painful question,--as there
does on so many of us, when for a time we make a successful struggle
against the world's allurements,--whether in abandoning the delights
of life we do in truth get any compensation for them. Would it not
after all be better to do as others use? Phoebus as he touches our
trembling ear encourages us but with a faint voice. It had been very
pleasant,--the soft chairs, the quiet attendance, the well-cooked
dinner, the good wines, the bright glasses, the white linen,--and
pleasanter than all that silvery tone of conversation to which he was
so little accustomed either in King's Court or Paradise Row. Marion
indeed was always gentle to him as a dove cooing; but he was aware
of himself that he was not gentle in return. Stern truth, expressed
shortly in strong language, was the staple of his conversation at
home. He had declared to himself all through his life that stern
truth and strong language were better for mankind than soft phrases.
But in his own parlour in Paradise Row he had rarely seen his Marion
bright as she had been at this lord's table. Was it good for his
Marion that she should be encouraged to such brightness; and if so,
had he been cruel to her to suffuse her entire life with a colour so
dark as to admit of no light? Why had her beauty shone so brightly in
the lord's presence? He too knew something of love, and had it always
present to his mind that the time would come when his Marion's heart
would be given to some stranger. He did not think, he would not
think, that the stranger had now come;--but would it be well that his
girl's future should be affected even as was his own? He argued the
points much within himself, and told himself that it could not be
well.
Mrs. Roden had read it nearly all,--though she could not quite read
the simple honesty of the young lord's purpose. The symptoms of love
had been plain enough to her eyes, and she had soon told herself that
she had done wrong in taking the girl to the young lord's house. She
had seen that Hampstead had admired Marion, but she had not dreamed
that it would be carried to such a length as this. But when he had
knelt on the rug between them, leaning just a little towards the
girl, and had looked up into the girl's face, smiling at his own
little joke, but with his face full of love;--then she had known.
And when Marion had whispered the one word, with her little fingers
lingering within the young lord's touch, then she had known. It was
not the young lord only who had given way to the softness of the
moment. If evil had been done, she had done it; and it seemed as
though evil had certainly been done. If much evil had been done, how
could she forgive herself?
And what were Marion's thoughts? Did she feel that an evil had been
done, an evil for which there could never be a cure found? She would
have so assured herself, had she as yet become aware of the full
power and depth and mortal nature of the wound she had received. For
such a wound, for such a hurt, there is but one cure, and of that she
certainly would have entertained no hope. But, as it will sometimes
be that a man shall in his flesh receive a fatal injury, of which
he shall for awhile think that only some bruise has pained him,
some scratch annoyed him; that a little time, with ointment and a
plaister, will give him back his body as sound as ever; but then
after a short space it becomes known to him that a deadly gangrene is
affecting his very life; so will it be with a girl's heart. She did
not yet,--not yet,--tell herself that half-a-dozen gentle words, that
two or three soft glances, that a touch of a hand, the mere presence
of a youth whose comeliness was endearing to the eye, had mastered
and subdued all that there was of Marion Fay. But it was so. Not for
a moment did her mind run away, as they were taken homewards, from
the object of her unconscious idolatry. Had she behaved ill?--that
was her regret! He had been so gracious;--that was her joy! Then
there came a pang from the wound, though it was not as yet a pang as
of death. What right had such a one as she to receive even an idle
word of compliment from a man such as was Lord Hampstead? What could
he be to her, or she to him? He had his high mission to complete, his
great duties to perform, and doubtless would find some noble lady
as a fit mother for his children. He had come across her path for
a moment, and she could not but remember him for ever! There was
something of an idea present to her that love would now be beyond her
reach. But the pain necessarily attached to such an idea had not as
yet reached her. There came something of a regret that fortune had
placed her so utterly beyond his notice;--but she was sure of this,
sure of this, that if the chance were offered to her, she would not
mar his greatness by accepting the priceless boon of his love. But
why,--why had he been so tender to her? Then she thought of what were
the ways of men, and of what she had heard of them. It had been bad
for her to go abroad thus with her poor foolish softness, with her
girl's untried tenderness,--that thus she should be affected by the
first chance smile that had been thrown to her by one of those petted
darlings of Fortune! And then she was brought round to that same
resolution which was at the moment forming itself in her father's
mind;--that it would have been better for her had she not allowed
herself to be taken to Hendon Hall. Then they were in Paradise Row,
and were put down at their separate doors with but few words of
farewell to each other.
"They have just come home," said Clara Demijohn, rushing into her
mother's bedroom. "You'll find it is quite true. They have been
dining with the lord!"