CHAPTER XIX.
"MY MARION."
The blow came very suddenly at last. About the middle of Septemberthe spirit of Marion Fay flitted away from all its earthly joys andall its earthly troubles. Lord Hampstead saw her alive for the lasttime at that interview which was described a few pages back. Wheneverhe proposed to go down again to Pegwell Bay some objection was made,either by the Quaker or by Mrs. Roden on the Quaker's behalf. Thedoctor, it was alleged, had declared that such visits were injuriousto his patient,--or perhaps it was that Marion had herself said thatshe was unable to bear the excitement. There was, no doubt, sometruth in this. And Marion had seen that though she herself couldenjoy the boundless love which her lover tendered to her, tellingherself that though it was only for a while, it was very sweet tohave it so, yet for him these meetings were full of agony. But inaddition to this there was, I think, a jealousy on the part ofZachary Fay as to his daughter. When there was still a questionwhether the young lord should be his son-in-law, he had been willingto give way and to subordinate himself, even though his girl were theone thing left to him in all the world. While there was an idea thatshe should be married, there had accompanied that idea a hope, almostan expectation, that she might live. But when it was brought hometo him as a fact that her marriage was out of the question becauseher life was waning, then unconsciously there grew up in his hearta feeling that the young lord ought not to rob him of what was left.Had Marion insisted, he would have yielded. Had Mrs. Roden told himthat it was cruel to separate them, he would have groaned and givenway. As it was, he simply leaned to that view of the matter whichgave him the greatest preponderance with his own child. It may bethat she saw it too, and would not wound him by asking for herlover's presence.
About the middle of September she died, having written to Hampsteadthe very day before her death. Her letters lately had become but afew words each, which Mrs. Roden would put into an envelope and sendto their destination. He wrote daily, assuring her that he would notleave his home for a day in order that he might go to her instantlywhen she would send for him. To the last she never gave up the ideaof seeing him again;--but at last the little light flickered outquicker than had been expected.
Mrs. Roden was at Pegwell Bay when the end came; and to her fellthe duty of making it known to Lord Hampstead. She went up to townimmediately, leaving the Quaker in the desolate cottage, and sentdown a note from Holloway to Hendon Hall. "I must see you as soon aspossible. Shall I go to you, or will you come to me?" When she wrotethe words she was sure that he would understand their purport, andyet it was easier to write so than to tell the cruel truth plainly.The note was sent down by a messenger, but Lord Hampstead in personwas the answer.
There was no need of any telling. When he stood before her dressedfrom head to foot in black, she took him by the two hands and lookedinto his face. "It is all over for her," he said,--"the trouble andthe anguish, and the sense of long dull days to come. My Marion! Howinfinitely she has the best of it! How glad I ought to be that it isso."
"You must wait, Lord Hampstead," she said.
"Pray, pray, let me have no consolation. Waiting in the sense youmean there will be none. For the one relief which will finally cometo me I must of course wait. Did she say any word that you would wishto tell me!"
"Many, many."
"Were they for my ears?"
"What other words should she have spoken to me? They were prayers foryour health."
"My health needs not her prayers."
"Prayers for your soul's health."
"Such praying will be efficacious there,--or would be were anythingneeded to make her fit for those angels among whom she has gone. Forme they can do nothing,--unless it be that in knowing how much sheloved me I may strive to be as she was."
"And for your happiness."
"Psha!" he exclaimed.
"You must let me do her commission, Lord Hampstead. I was to bid youremember that God in His goodness has ordained that the dead afterawhile shall be remembered only with a softened sorrow. I was to tellyou that as a man you should give your thoughts to other things. Itis not from myself;--it is from her."
"She did not know. She did not understand. As regards good and evilshe was, to my eyes, perfect;--perfect as she was in beauty, ingrace, and feminine tenderness. But the character of others she hadnot learned to read. But I need not trouble you as to that, Mrs.Roden. You have been good to her as though you were her mother, andI will love you for it while I live." Then he was going away; buthe turned again to ask some question as to the funeral. Might he doit. Mrs. Roden shook her head. "But I shall be there?" To this sheassented, but explained to him that Zachary Fay would admit of nointerference with that which he considered to be his own privilegeand his own duty.
Lord Hampstead had driven himself over from Hendon Hall, and haddriven fast. When he left Mrs. Roden's house the groom was drivingthe dog-cart up and down Paradise Row, waiting for his master. Butthe master walked on out of the Row, forgetting altogether the horseand the cart and the man, not knowing whither he was going.
The blow had come, and though it had been fully expected, though hehad known well that it was coming, it struck him now as hard, almostharder than if it had not been expected. It seemed to himself thathe was unable to endure his sorrow now because he had been alreadyweakened by such a load of sorrow. Because he had grieved so much, hecould not now bear this further grief. As he walked on he beat hishands about, unconscious that he was in the midst of men and womenwho were gazing at him in the streets. There was nothing left tohim,--nothing, nothing, nothing! He felt that if he could rid himselfof his titles, rid himself of his wealth, rid himself of the veryclothes upon his back, it would be better for him, so that hemight not seem to himself to think that comfort could be foundin externals. "Marion," he said, over and over again, in littlewhispered words, but loud enough for his own ears to hear the sound.And then he uttered phrases which were almost fantastic in their woe,but which declared what was and had been the condition of his mindtowards her since she had become so inexpressibly dear to him. "Mywife," he said, "my own one! Mother of my children. My woman; mycountess; my princess. They should have seen. They should haveacknowledged. They should have known whom it was that I had broughtamong them;--of what nature should be the woman whom a man should setin a high place. I had made my choice;--and then that it should cometo this!" "There is no good to be done," he said again. "It all turnsto ashes and to dust. The low things of the world are those whichprevail." "Oh, Marion, that I could be with you! Though it were tobe nowhere,--though the great story should have no pathetic ending,though the last long eternal chapter should be a blank,--still tohave wandered away with you would have been something." As soon ashe reached his house he walked straight into the drawing-room, andhaving carefully closed the door, he took the poker in his hand andheld it clasped there as something precious. "It is the only thingof mine," he said, "that she has touched. Even then I swore tomyself that this hearth should be her hearth; that here we wouldsit together, and be one flesh and one bone." Then surreptitiouslyhe took the bit of iron away with him, and hid it among histreasures,--to the subsequent dismay of the housemaid.
There came to him a summons from the Quaker to the funeral, and onthe day named, without saying a word to any one, he took the trainand went down to Pegwell Bay. From the moment on which the messengerhad come from Mrs. Roden he had dressed himself in black, and he nowmade no difference in his garments. Poor Zachary said but little tohim; but that little was very bitter. "It has been so with all ofthem," he said. "They have all been taken. The Lord cannot strikeme again now." Of the highly-born stranger's grief, or of the causewhich brought him there, he had not a word to say; nor did LordHampstead speak of his own sorrow. "I sympathize and condole withyou," he said to the old man. The Quaker shook his head, and afterthat there was silence between them till they parted. To the fewothers who were there Lord Hampstead did not address himself, nor didthey to him. From the grave, when the clod of earth had bee
n thrownon it, he walked slowly away, without a sign on his face of thatagony which was rending his heart. There was a carriage there to takehim to the railway, but he only shook his head when he was invited toenter it. He walked off and wandered about for hours, till he thoughtthat the graveyard would be deserted. Then he returned, and when hefound himself alone he stood over the newly heaped-up soil. "Marion,"he said to himself over and over again, whispering as he stood there."Marion,--Marion; my wife; my woman." As he stood by the graveside, one came softly stealing up to him, and laid a hand upon hisshoulder. He turned round quickly, and saw that it was the bereavedfather. "Mr. Fay," he said, "we have both lost the only thing thateither of us valued."
"What is it to thee, who are young, and hardly knew her twelve monthssince?"
"Months make no difference, I think."
"But old age, my lord, and childishness, and solitude--"
"I, too, am alone."
"She was my daughter, my own. Thou hadst seen a pretty face, and thatwas all. She had remained with me when those others died. Had thounot come--"
"Did my coming kill her, Mr. Fay'?"
"I do not say that. Thou hast been good to her, and I would not say ahard word to thee."
"I did think that nothing could have added to my sorrow."
"No, my lord; no, no. She would have died. She was her dear mother'schild, and she was doomed. Go away, and be thankful that thou, too,hast not become the father of children born only to perish in yoursight. I will not say an unkind word, but I would wish to have mygirl's grave to myself." Upon this Lord Hampstead walked off, andwent back to his own home, hardly knowing how he reached it.
It was a month after this that he returned to the churchyard, andmight have been seen sitting on the small stone slab which the Quakerhad already caused to be laid over the grave. It was a fine Octoberevening, and the sombre gloom of the hours was already darkeningeverything around. He had crept into the enclosure silently, almostslily, so as to insure himself that his presence should not be noted;and now, made confident by the coming darkness, he had seated himselfon the stone. During the long hours that he sat there no word wasformed within his lips, but he surrendered himself entirely tothoughts of what his life might have been had she been spared to him.He had come there for a purpose, the very opposite of that; but howoften does it come to pass that we are unable to drive our thoughtsinto that channel in which we wish them to flow? He had thought muchof her last words, and was minded to attempt to do something as shewould have had him do it;--not that he might enjoy his life, but thathe might make it useful. But as he sat there, he could not think ofthe real future,--not of the future as it might be made to take thisor that form by his own efforts; but of the future as it would havebeen had she been with him, of the glorious, bright, beautiful futurewhich her love, her goodness, her beauty, her tenderness would haveilluminated.
Till he had seen her his heart had never been struck. Ideas,sufficiently pleasant in themselves, though tinged with a certainirony and sarcasm, had been frequent with him as to his futurecareer. He would leave that building up of a future family ofMarquises,--if future Marquises there were to be,--to one of thoseyoung darlings whose bringing-up would manifestly fit them for thework. For himself he would perhaps philosophize, perhaps do somethingthat might be of service,--would indulge at any rate his own views asto humanity;--but he would not burden himself with a Countess and anursery full of young lords and ladies. He had often said to Roden,had often said to Vivian, that her ladyship, his stepmother, need nottrouble herself. He certainly would not be guilty of making eithera Countess or a Marchioness. They, of course, had laughed at him,and had bid him bide his time. He had bided his time,--as they hadsaid,--and Marion Fay had been the result.
Yes;--life would have been worth the having if Marion Fay hadremained to him. It was thus he communed with himself as he sat thereon the tomb. From the moment in which he had first seen her in Mrs.Roden's house he had felt that things were changed with him. Therehad come a vision before him which filled him full of delight. As helearned to know the tones of her voice, and the motion of her limbs,and to succumb to the feminine charms with which she enveloped him,all the world was brightened up to his view. Here there was nopretence of special blood, no assumption of fantastic titles, noclaim to superiority because of fathers and mothers who were inthemselves by no means superior to their neighbours. And yet therehad been all the grace, all the loveliness, all the tenderness,without which his senses would not have been captivated. He had neverknown his want;--but he had in truth wanted one who should be at allpoints a lady, and yet not insist on a right to be so esteemed on thestrength of inherited privileges. Chance, good fortune, providencehad sent her to him,--or more probably the eternal fitness of things,as he had allowed himself to argue when things had fallen out so wellto his liking. Then there had arisen difficulties, which had seemedto him to be vain and absurd,--though they would not allow themselvesto be at once swept away. They had talked to him of his station andof hers, making that an obstacle which to him had been a strongargument in favour of her love. Against this he had done battle withthe resolute purpose which a man has who is sure of his cause. Hewould have none of their sophistries, none of their fears, none oftheir old-fashioned absurdities. Did she love him? Was her heart tohim as was his to her? That was the one question on which it mustall depend. As he thought of it all, sitting there on the tombstone,he put out his arm as though to fold her form to his bosom when hethought of the moment in which he became sure that it was so. Therehad been no doubt of the full-flowing current of her love. Then hehad aroused himself, and had shaken his mane like a lion, and hadsworn aloud that this vain obstacle should be no obstacle, eventhough it was pleaded by herself. Nature had been strong enoughwithin him to assure him that he would overcome the obstacle.
And he had overcome it,--or was overcoming it,--when that otherbarrier gradually presented itself, and loomed day by day terriblylarge before his affrighted eyes. Even to that he would notyield,--not only as regarded her but himself also. Had there beenno such barrier, the possession of Marion would have been to him anassurance of perfect bliss which the prospect of far-distant deathwould not have effected. When he began to perceive that her conditionwas not as that of other young women, he became aware of a greatdanger,--of a danger to himself as well as to her, to himself ratherthan to her. This increased rather than diminished his desire forthe possession. As the ardent rider will be more intent to take thefence when it looms before him large and difficult, so with him theresolution to make Marion his wife became the stronger when he knewthat there were reasons of prudence, reasons of caution, reasons ofworldly wisdom, why he should not do so. It had become a religionto him that she should be his one. Then gradually her strength hadbecome known to him, and slowly he was made aware that he must bowto her decision. All that he wanted in all the world he must nothave,--not that the love which he craved was wanting, but because sheknew that her own doom was fixed.
She had bade him retrick his beams, and take the light and thesplendour of his sun elsewhere. The light and the splendour of hissun had all passed from him. She had absorbed them altogether. He,while he had been boasting to himself of his power and his manliness,in that he would certainly overcome all the barriers, had foundhimself to be weak as water in her hands. She, in her soft femininetones, had told him what duty had required of her, and, as she hadsaid so she had done. Then he had stood on one side, and had remainedlooking on, till she had--gone away and left him. She had neverbeen his. It had not been allowed to him even to write his name, asbelonging also to her, on the gravestone.
But she had loved him. There was nothing in it all but this to whichhis mind could revert with any feeling of satisfaction. She hadcertainly loved him. If such love might be continued between adisembodied spirit and one still upon the earth,--if there were anyspirit capable of love after that divorce between the soul and thebody,--her love certainly would still be true to him. Most assuredlyhis should be true to her. Wh
atever he might do towards obeying herin striving to form some manly purpose for his life, he would neverask another woman to be his wife, he would never look for other love.The black coat should be laid aside as soon as might be, so that theworld around him should not have cause for remark; but the mourningshould never be taken from his heart.
Then, when the darkness of night had quite come upon him, he arosefrom his seat, and flinging himself on his knees, stretched his armswildly across the grave. "Marion," he said; "Marion; oh, Marion, willyou hear me? Though gone from me, art thou not mine?" He looked upinto the night, and there, before his eyes, was her figure, beautifulas ever, with all her loveliness of half-developed form, with hersoft hair upon her shoulders; and her eyes beamed on him, and aheavenly smile came across her face, and her lips moved as though shewould encourage him. "My Marion;--my wife!"
Very late that night the servants heard him as he opened the door andwalked across the hall, and made his way up to his own room.