John Marchmont's Legacy. Volumes 1-3

"It's joost loike a story–book to hear her," the man would say to his wife; "and yet she brings it all hoame, too, loike. If she reads about Abraham, she'll say, maybe, 'That's joost how you gave your only son to be a soldier, you know, Muster Moggins;'–she allus says Muster Moggins;–'you gave un into God's hands, and you troosted God would take care of un; and whatever cam' to un would be the best, even if it was death.' That's what she'll say, bless her little heart! so gentle and tender loike. The wust o' chaps couldn't but listen to her."

Mary Marchmont's morbidly sensitive nature adapted her to all charitable offices. No chance word in her simple talk ever inflicted a wound upon the listener. She had a subtle and intuitive comprehension of other people's feelings, derived from the extreme susceptibility of her own. She had never been vulgarised by the associations of poverty; for her self–contained nature took no colour from the things that surrounded her, and she was only at Marchmont Towers that which she had been from the age of six–a little lady, grave and gentle, dignified, discreet, and wise.

There was one bright figure missing out of the picture which Mary had been wont of late years to make of the Lincolnshire mansion, and that was the figure of the yellow–haired boy who had breakfasted upon haddocks and hot rolls in Oakley Street. She had imagined Edward Arundel an inhabitant of that fair Utopia. He would live with them; or, if he could not live with them, he would be with them as a visitor,–often–almost always. He would leave off being a soldier, for of course her papa could give him more money than he could get by being a soldier–(you see that Mary's experience of poverty had taught her to take a mercantile and sordid view of military life)–and he would come to Marchmont Towers, and ride, and drive, and play tennis (what was tennis? she wondered), and read three–volume novels all day long. But that part of the dream was at least broken. Marchmont Towers was Mary's home, but the young soldier was far away; in the Pass of Bolan, perhaps,–Mary had a picture of that cruel rocky pass almost always in her mind,–or cutting his way through a black jungle, with the yellow eyes of hungry tigers glaring out at him through the rank tropical foliage; or dying of thirst and fever under a scorching sun, with no better pillow than the neck of a dead camel, with no more tender watcher than the impatient vulture flapping her wings above his head, and waiting till he, too, should be carrion. What was the good of wealth, if it could not bring this young soldier home to a safe shelter in his native land? John Marchmont smiled when his daughter asked this question, and implored her father to write to Edward Arundel, recalling him to England.

"God knows how glad I should be to have the boy here, Polly!" John said, as he drew his little girl closer to his breast,–she sat on his knee still, though she was thirteen years of age. "But Edward has a career before him, my dear, and could not give it up for an inglorious life in this rambling old house. It isn't as if I could hold out any inducement to him: you know, Polly, I can't; for I mustn't leave any money away from my little girl."

"But he might have half my money, papa, or all of it," Mary added piteously. "What could I do with money, if–"

She didn't finish the sentence; she never could complete any such sentence as this; but her father knew what she meant.

So six months had passed since a dreary January day upon which John Marchmont had read, in the second column of the "Times," that he could hear of something greatly to his advantage by applying to a certain solicitor, whose offices were next door but one to those of Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson's. His heart began to beat very violently when he read that advertisement in the supplement, which it was one of his duties to air before the fire in the clerks' office; but he showed no other sign of emotion. He waited until he took the papers to his employer; and as he laid them at Mr. Mathewson's elbow, murmured a respectful request to be allowed to go out for half–an–hour, upon his own business.

"Good gracious me, Marchmont!" cried the lawyer; "what can you want to go out for at this time in the morning? You've only just come; and there's that agreement between Higgs and Sandyman must be copied before–"

"Yes, I know, sir. I'll be back in time to attend to it; but I–I think I've come into a fortune, sir; and I should like to go and see about it."

The solicitor turned in his revolving library–chair, and looked aghast at his clerk. Had this Marchmont–always rather unnaturally reserved and eccentric–gone suddenly mad? No; the copying–clerk stood by his employer's side, grave, self–possessed as ever, with his forefinger upon the advertisement.

"Marchmont–John–call–Messrs. Tindal and Trollam–" gasped Mr. Mathewson. "Do you mean to tell me it's you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Egad, I'll go with you!" cried the solicitor, hooking his arm through that of his clerk, snatching his hat from an adjacent stand, and dashing through the outer office, down the great staircase, and into the next door but one before John Marchmont knew where he was.

John had not deceived his employer. Marchmont Towers was his, with all its appurtenances. Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson took him in hand, much to the chagrin of Messrs. Tindal and Trollam, and proved his identity in less than a week. On a shelf above the high wooden desk at which John had sat, copying law–papers, with a weary hand and an aching spine, appeared two bran–new deed–boxes, inscribed, in white letters, with the name and address of JOHN MARCHMONT, ESQ., MARCHMONT TOWERS. The copying–clerk's sudden accession to fortune was the talk of all the employés in "The Fields." Marchmont Towers was exaggerated into half Lincolnshire, and a tidy slice of Yorkshire; eleven thousand a year was expanded into an annual million. Everybody expected largesse from the legatee. How fond people had been of the quiet clerk, and how magnanimously they had concealed their sentiments during his poverty, lest they should wound him, as they urged, "which" they knew he was sensitive; and how expansively they now dilated on their long–suppressed emotions! Of course, under these circumstances, it is hardly likely that everybody could be satisfied; so it is a small thing to say that the dinner which John gave–by his late employers' suggestion (he was about the last man to think of giving a dinner)–at the "Albion Tavern," to the legal staff of Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson, and such acquaintance of the legal profession as they should choose to invite, was a failure; and that gentlemen who were pretty well used to dine upon liver and bacon, or beefsteak and onions, or the joint, vegetables, bread, cheese, and celery for a shilling, turned up their noses at the turbot, murmured at the paucity of green fat in the soup, made light of red mullet and ortolans, objected to the flavour of the truffles, and were contemptuous about the wines.

John knew nothing of this. He had lived a separate and secluded existence; and his only thought now was of getting away to Marchmont Towers, which had been familiar to him in his boyhood, when he had been wont to go there on occasional visits to his grandfather. He wanted to get away from the turmoil and confusion of the big, heartless city, in which he had endured so much; he wanted to carry away his little girl to a quiet country home, and live and die there in peace. He liberally rewarded all the good people about Oakley Street who had been kind to little Mary; and there was weeping in the regions of the Ladies' Wardrobe when Mr. Marchmont and his daughter went away one bitter winter's morning in a cab, which was to carry them to the hostelry whence the coach started for Lincoln.

It is strange to think how far those Oakley–street days of privation and endurance seem to have receded in the memories of both father and daughter. The impalpable past fades away, and it is difficult for John and his little girl to believe that they were once so poor and desolate. It is Oakley Street now that is visionary and unreal. The stately county families bear down upon Marchmont Towers in great lumbering chariots, with brazen crests upon the hammer–cloths, and sulky coachmen in Brown–George wigs. The county mammas patronise and caress Miss Marchmont–what a match she will be for one of the county sons by–and–by!–the county daughters discourse with Mary about her poor, and her fancy–work, and her piano. She is getting on slowly enough with her piano, poor little girl! under the tuition of the organist of Swampington, who gives lessons to that part of the county. And there are solemn dinners now and then at Marchmont Towers–dinners at which Miss Mary appears when the cloth has been removed, and reflects in silent wonder upon the change that has come to her father and herself. Can it be true that she has ever lived in Oakley Street, whither came no more aristocratic visitors than her Aunt Sophia, who was the wife of a Berkshire farmer, and always brought hogs' puddings, and butter, and home–made bread, and other rustic delicacies to her brother–in–law; or Mrs. Brigsome, the washer–woman, who made a morning–call every Monday, to fetch John Marchmont's shabby shirts? The shirts were not shabby now; and it was no longer Mary's duty to watch them day by day, and manipulate them tenderly when the linen grew frayed at the sharp edges of the folds, or the buttonholes gave signs of weakness. Corson, Mr. Marchmont's own–man, had care of the shirts now: and John wore diamond–studs and a black–satin waistcoat, when he gave a dinner–party. They were not very lively, those Lincolnshire dinner–parties; though the dessert was a sight to look upon, in Mary's eyes. The long shining table, the red and gold and purple Indian china, the fluffy woollen d'oyleys, the sparkling cut–glass, the sticky preserved ginger and guava–jelly, and dried orange rings and chips, and all the stereotyped sweetmeats, were very grand and beautiful, no doubt; but Mary had seen livelier desserts in Oakley Street, though there had been nothing better than a brown–paper bag of oranges from the Westminster Road, and a bottle of two–and–twopenny Marsala from a licensed victualler's in the Borough, to promote conviviality.

CHAPTER VI. THE YOUNG SOLDIER'S RETURN

The rain beats down upon the battlemented roof of Marchmont Towers this July day, as if it had a mind to flood the old mansion. The flat waste of grass, and the lonely clumps of trees, are almost blotted out by the falling rain. The low grey sky shuts out the distance. This part of Lincolnshire–fenny, misty, and flat always–seems flatter and mistier than usual to–day. The rain beats hopelessly upon the leaves in the wood behind Marchmont Towers, and splashes into great pools beneath the trees, until the ground is almost hidden by the fallen water, and the trees seem to be growing out of a black lake. The land is lower behind Marchmont Towers, and slopes down gradually to the bank of a dismal river, which straggles through the Marchmont property at a snail's pace, to gain an impetus farther on, until it hurries into the sea somewhere northward of Grimsby. The wood is not held in any great favour by the household at the Towers; and it has been a pet project of several Marchmonts to level and drain it, but a project not very easily to be carried out. Marchmont Towers is said to be unhealthy, as a dwelling–house, by reason of this wood, from which miasmas rise in certain states of the weather; and it is on this account that the back of the house–the eastern front, at least, as it is called–looking to the wood is very little used.

Mary Marchmont sits at a window in the western drawing–room, watching the ceaseless falling of the rain upon this dreary summer afternoon. She is little changed since the day upon which Edward Arundel saw her in Oakley Street. She is taller, of course, but her figure is as slender and childish as ever: it is only her face in which the earnestness of premature womanhood reveals itself in a grave and sweet serenity very beautiful to contemplate. Her soft brown eyes have a pensive shadow in their gentle light; her mouth is even more pensive. It has been said of Jane Grey, of Mary Stuart, of Marie Antoinette, Charlotte Corday, and other fated women, that in the gayest hours of their youth they bore upon some feature, or in some expression, the shadow of the End–an impalpable, indescribable presage of an awful future, vaguely felt by those who looked upon them.

Is it thus with Mary Marchmont? Has the solemn hand of Destiny set that shadowy brand upon the face of this child, that even in her prosperity, as in her adversity, she should be so utterly different from all other children? Is she already marked out for some womanly martyrdom–already set apart for more than common suffering?

She sits alone this afternoon, for her father is busy with his agent. Wealth does not mean immunity from all care and trouble; and Mr. Marchmont has plenty of work to get through, in conjunction with his land–steward, a hard–headed Yorkshireman, who lives at Kemberling, and insists on doing his duty with pertinacious honesty.

The large brown eyes looked wistfully out at the dismal waste and the falling rain. There was a wretched equestrian making his way along the carriage–drive.

"Who can come to see us on such a day?" Mary thought. "It must be Mr. Gormby, I suppose;"–the agent's name was Gormby. "Mr. Gormby never cares about the wet; but then I thought he was with papa. Oh, I hope it isn't anybody coming to call."

But Mary forgot all about the struggling equestrian the next moment. She had some morsel of fancy–work upon her lap, and picked it up and went on with it, setting slow stitches, and letting her thoughts wander far away from Marchmont Towers–to India, I am afraid; or to that imaginary India which she had created for herself out of such images as were to be picked up in the "Arabian Nights." She was roused suddenly by the opening of a door at the farther end of the room, and by the voice of a servant, who mumbled a name which sounded something like Mr. Armenger.

She rose, blushing a little, to do honour to one of her father's county acquaintance, as she thought; when a fair–haired gentleman dashed in, very much excited and very wet, and made his way towards her.

"I would come, Miss Marchmont," he said,–"I would come, though the day was so wet. Everybody vowed I was mad to think of it, and it was as much as my poor brute of a horse could do to get over the ten miles of swamp between this and my uncle's house; but I would come! Where's John? I want to see John. Didn't I always tell him he'd come into the Lincolnshire property? Didn't I always say so, now? You should have seen Martin Mostyn's face–he's got a capital berth in the War Office, and he's such a snob!–when I told him the news: it was as long as my arm! But I must see John, dear old fellow! I long to congratulate him."

Mary stood with her hands clasped, and her breath coming quickly. The blush had quite faded out, and left her unusually pale. But Edward Arundel did not see this: young gentlemen of four–and–twenty are not very attentive to every change of expression in little girls of thirteen.

"Oh, is it you, Mr. Arundel? Is it really you?"

She spoke in a low voice, and it was almost difficult to keep the rushing tears back while she did so. She had pictured him so often in peril, in famine, in sickness, in death, that to see him here, well, happy, light–hearted, cordial, handsome, and brave, as she had seen him four–and–a–half years before in the two–pair back in Oakley Street, was almost too much for her to bear without the relief of tears. But she controlled her emotion as bravely as if she had been a woman of twenty.

"I am so glad to see you," she said quietly; "and papa will be so glad too! It is the only thing we want, now we are rich; to have you with us. We have talked of you so often; and I–we–have been so unhappy sometimes, thinking that–"

"That I should be killed, I suppose?"

"Yes; or wounded very, very badly. The battles in India have been dreadful, have they not?"

Mr. Arundel smiled at her earnestness.

"They have not been exactly child's play," he said, shaking back his chesnut hair and smoothing his thick moustache. He was a man now, and a very handsome one; something of that type which is known in this year of grace as "swell"; but brave and chivalrous withal, and not afflicted with any impediment in his speech. "The men who talk of the Affghans as a chicken–hearted set of fellows are rather out of their reckoning. The Indians can fight, Miss Mary, and fight like the devil; but we can lick 'em!"

He walked over to the fireplace, where–upon this chilly wet day, there was a fire burning–and began to shake himself dry. Mary, following him with her eyes, wondered if there was such another soldier in all Her Majesty's dominions, and how soon he would be made General–in–Chief of the Army of the Indus.

"Then you've not been wounded at all, Mr. Arundel?" she said, after a pause.

"Oh, yes, I've been wounded; I got a bullet in my shoulder from an Affghan musket, and I'm home on sick–leave."

This time he saw the expression of her face, and interpreted her look of alarm.

"But I'm not ill, you know, Miss Marchmont," he said, laughing. "Our fellows are very glad of a wound when they feel home–sick. The 8th come home before long, all of 'em; and I've a twelvemonth's leave of absence; and we're pretty sure to be ordered out again by the end of that time, as I don't believe there's much chance of quiet over there."

"You will go out again!–"

Edward Arundel smiled at her mournful tone.

"To be sure, Miss Mary. I have my captaincy to win, you know; I'm only a lieutenant, as yet."

It was only a twelvemonth's reprieve, after all, then, Mary thought. He would go back again–to suffer, and to be wounded, and to die, perhaps. But then, on the other hand, there was a twelvemonth's respite; and her father might in that time prevail upon the young soldier to stay at Marchmont Towers. It was such inexpressible happiness to see him once more, to know that he was safe and well, that Mary could scarcely do otherwise than see all things in a sunny light just now.

She ran to John Marchmont's study to tell him of the coming of this welcome visitor; but she wept upon her father's shoulder before she could explain who it was whose coming had made her so glad. Very few friendships had broken the monotony of her solitary existence; and Edward Arundel was the only chivalrous image she had ever known, out of her books.

John Marchmont was scarcely less pleased than his child to see the man who had befriended him in his poverty. Never has more heartfelt welcome been given than that which greeted Edward Arundel at Marchmont Towers.

"You will stay with us, of course, my dear Arundel," John said; "you will stop for September and the shooting. You know you promised you'd make this your shooting–box; and we'll build the tennis–court. Heaven knows, there's room enough for it in the great quadrangle; and there's a billiard–room over this, though I'm afraid the table is out of order. But we can soon set that right, can't we, Polly?"

"Yes, yes, papa; out of my pocket–money, if you like."

Mary Marchmont said this in all good faith. It was sometimes difficult for her to remember that her father was really rich, and had no need of help out of her pocket–money. The slender savings in her little purse had often given him some luxury that he would not otherwise have had, in the time gone by.

"You got my letter, then?" John said; "the letter in which I told you–"

"That Marchmont Towers was yours. Yes, my dear old boy. That letter was amongst a packet my agent brought me half–an–hour before I left Calcutta. God bless you, dear old fellow; how glad I was to hear of it! I've only been in England a fortnight. I went straight from Southampton to Dangerfield to see my father and mother, stayed there little over ten days, and then offended them all by running away. I reached Swampington yesterday, slept at my uncle Hubert's, paid my respects to my cousin Olivia, who is,–well, I've told you what she is,–and rode over here this morning, much to the annoyance of the inhabitants of the Rectory. So, you see, I've been doing nothing but offending people for your sake, John; and for yours, Miss Mary. By–the–by, I've brought you such a doll!"

A doll! Mary's pale face flushed a faint crimson. Did he think her still a child, then, this soldier; did he think her only a silly child, with no thought above a doll, when she would have gone out to India, and braved every peril of that cruel country, to be his nurse and comfort in fever and sickness, like the brave Sisters of Mercy she had read of in some of her novels?

Edward Arundel saw that faint crimson glow lighting up in her face.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Marchmont," he said. "I was only joking; of course you are a young lady now, almost grown up, you know. Can you play chess?"

"No, Mr. Arundel."

"I am sorry for that; for I have brought you a set of chessmen that once belonged to Dost Mahommed Khan. But I'll teach you the game, if you like?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Arundel; I should like it very, very much."

The young soldier could not help being amused by the little girl's earnestness. She was about the same age as his sister Letitia; but, oh, how widely different to that bouncing and rather wayward young lady, who tore the pillow–lace upon her muslin frocks, rumpled her long ringlets, rasped the skin off the sharp points of her elbows, by repeated falls upon the gravel–paths at Dangerfield, and tormented a long–suffering Swiss attendant, half–lady's–maid, half–governess, from morning till night. No fold was awry in Mary Marchmont's simple black–silk frock; no plait disarranged in the neat cambric tucker that encircled the slender white throat. Intellect here reigned supreme. Instead of the animal spirits of a thoughtless child, there was a woman's loving carefulness for others, a woman's unselfishness and devotion.

Edward Arundel did not understand all this, but I think he had a dim comprehension of the greater part of it.

"She is a dear little thing," he thought, as he watched her clinging to her father's arm; and then he began to talk about Marchmont Towers, and insisted upon being shown over the house; and, perhaps for the first time since the young heir had shot himself to death upon a bright September morning in a stubble–field within earshot of the park, the sound of merry laughter echoed through the long corridors, and resounded in the unoccupied rooms.

Edward Arundel was in raptures with everything. "There never was such a dear old place," he said. "'Gloomy?' 'dreary?' 'draughty?' pshaw! Cut a few logs out of that wood at the back there, pile 'em up in the wide chimneys, and set a light to 'em, and Marchmont Towers would be like a baronial mansion at Christmas–time." He declared that every dingy portrait he looked at was a Rubens or a Velasquez, or a Vandyke, a Holbein, or a Lely.

"Look at that fur border to the old woman's black–velvet gown, John; look at the colouring of the hands! Do you think anybody but Peter Paul could have painted that? Do you see that girl with the blue–satin stomacher and the flaxen ringlets?–one of your ancestresses, Miss Mary, and very like you. If that isn't in Sir Peter Lely's best style,–his earlier style, you know, before he was spoiled by royal patronage, and got lazy,–I know nothing of painting."

The young soldier ran on in this manner, as he hurried his host from room to room; now throwing open windows to look out at the wet prospect; now rapping against the wainscot to find secret hiding–places behind sliding panels; now stamping on the oak–flooring in the hope of discovering a trap–door. He pointed out at least ten eligible sites for the building of the tennis–court; he suggested more alterations and improvements than a builder could have completed in a lifetime. The place brightened under the influence of his presence, as a landscape lights up under a burst of sudden sunshine breaking through a dull grey sky.

Mary Marchmont did not wait for the removal of the table–cloth that evening, but dined with her father and his friend in a snug oak–panelled chamber, half–breakfast–room, half–library, which opened out of the western drawing–room. How different Edward Arundel was to all the rest of the world, Miss Marchmont thought; how gay, how bright, how genial, how happy! The county families, mustered in their fullest force, couldn't make such mirth amongst them as this young soldier created in his single person.