Chapter Thirteen.
“He that wrongs his friend
Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about
A silent court of justice in his breast.”
Tennyson.
Marmaduke came down in April, and it was evident enough to any one that he wanted change, or rest, or some other means of renewing health. His face was thin, his eyes unquiet; there was a sort of suspicious watchfulness in his manner unlike his old languor, which nobody could make out, but which they all noticed, except the Vicar and Marion. It made Winifred so uncomfortable that she could not help asking Marion whether anything were the matter.
“Everything is the matter,” said the girl in her eager way. She could not get out of her head that each day that passed was defrauding them of that perfect bliss for which she waited impatiently. She looked with a little contempt at Winifred, who seemed not to understand this impetuous demand for happiness. Poor Winifred! It was impossible for her not to contrast Marion’s position with her own, and to wonder that it should bring so little contentment. Once when Marion was pouring forth her complaints and longings, she said gravely,—“You don’t know what worse than nonsense you are talking;” and yet, as she said it, her eyes were full of tender depth. Her moods were not very settled at this time, sometimes she was resentful, abrupt; but she said these words so strangely that they startled Marion, who was accustomed on the strength of her engagement to look down upon her friend as from a height of experience. She did not know that there were other springs of experience of which she could not fathom the depths, nay, that there is something far more divine and profound than experience itself, out of the strength of which came Winifred’s quiet words. Yet something in them made her wonder. It was a spring afternoon, one of those days in which sudden surprises of shade and brightness alternate with each other. Now and then an intensity of light flashed out from a break in the grey hurrying clouds, and the young green of the larches and the tender pink blossoms of the elms grew vivid and sparkling under its touch; now and then it all faded into sober tints. A line of heavy blue marked the distant moorland; between a thinly clothed network of branches might be traced a crowd of small fields, patches of red soil crossed by sombre lines of hedges, brown nests in the rookery swaying in the wind, a pear-tree standing up in ghostly whiteness before the rent clouds. Winifred was leaning against a window of the Vicarage drawing-room, and looking out, her steadfast eyes grave with a sweet seriousness. Marion, who was watching her, said suddenly,—
“Winifred, you have grown older!”
She smiled, but gave no answer.
“But it is you who do not know. Wait until you are engaged yourself,” continued Marion, falling back upon her old point of superiority, and yet anxious to induce Winifred to agree.
“It is possible to see, although one is outside,—besides, it has nothing to do with feelings.”
This was said slowly, and Marion cried out at once,—
“Nothing to do with feelings!”
“The right or the wrong can’t be affected by them, I mean,” Winifred went on, still slowly, turning her face towards the grey clouds broken with white depths that were driven from the west. “There is something more secure for us to rest upon than even the love you hold to be so strong, Marion, or else—”
“Else what?” said Marion impatiently. But Winifred would not answer. She came from the window, and took up her hat which was lying on the sofa.
“I must go, or I shall be caught in the rain. Take care of your cold.”
“O, I am taking care!” said Marion discontentedly. “Marmaduke was obliged to go into Underham on some stupid business of Miss Philippa’s. Old people are so selfish. Anthony comes back to-morrow. Ask Bessie to bring the last magazines. But you don’t know what you were talking about, Winifred, really.”
Winifred laughed and went away.
Marmaduke had gone to Underham, as she said, doing what he had done a hundred times before, walking in through the narrow lanes, white with the blossom of the blackthorn, and past the farm orchards to the little ugly improving town, with its bustle, its grimy coal-wharves, and its rows of stiff houses run up quickly by the sides of the street. Marmaduke transacted Miss Philippa’s business, and stood talking for a while to Mr Featherly. He particularly disliked meeting Mr Featherly, because the old clergyman had a fashion of inquiring whether he were still at work in the north, with an expression which Marmaduke chose to interpret as astonishment, although his questioner only intended to prove his interest in the little lad whom he remembered running about with the Miles children in the days when he was a younger man, and rode out to Thorpe now and then when ordered forth by Mrs Featherly to take a constitutional Marmaduke, however, imagined that his words implied that wonder from which we are inclined to wince when it professes to be excited in our behalf, a wonder that Mr Tregennas had not done more for the nephew who was popularly looked upon as his heir, and he was careful to avoid the old clergyman whenever it was practicable. On this day his efforts had been in vain, and Mr Featherly kept him for an unusual length of time to tell him the story of some local event, which his wife permitted no one but herself to relate in her presence, and which Mr Featherly therefore hailed the opportunity of producing. Afterwards, Marmaduke, who had not Anthony’s many-sided interests, and found time a wearisome weight, sauntered round by the canal, watched a coal-barge dragged up to her moorings, and then strolled towards the post-office, it being the custom at Thorpe for any responsible inhabitant who happened to be at Underham after the arrival of the mail train, to call for the letters due by the second delivery to the Vicarage, the Red House, and Hardlands. He was not, however, sure whether the train had come in, and stopped David Stephens, who was passing him, to ask the question.
His own feelings towards David were rather favourable than otherwise; not that his nature was sufficiently large to have a more just view of the real intensity of the man’s longings, or, indeed, that he could have sympathised with any desires which were merely spiritual, and therefore to his mind unreal, but that he knew that Anthony was opposing David with all his might, and something within him inclined him to rank himself in every matter on the side against Anthony. He had not a very clear idea of what position David held amongst the dissenters, or of the points at variance between him and Anthony, and he was not sorry for the opportunity of putting one or two leading questions, which should at all events let David see that he was not offending all the family by his open warfare. He said in a conciliatory tone,—
“I heard something of your trying to get into the post-office, Stephens. Have you succeeded?”
“I hardly know as yet, sir. I have not many friends among those who have the disposal of the place; a dissenter seems necessarily to bring a large amount of ill-will about his head.”
“Not necessarily, I should suppose. It is hard to believe that any man could be persecuted in these days for holding his own religious opinions.”
“There are many hard things that are true,” said David bitterly. “One would say that it is hard that so much as standing room should be denied to those who would worship God as they believe right, and yet you know, Mr Lee, whether that is true or not, and who has done it.”
“Mr Anthony does not think much of the feelings of those who oppose him,” said Marmaduke, slowly lighting a cigar. “I am afraid it is of no use for me to say anything, Stephens. You had better give it up, unless you really see a chance of succeeding in spite of him.”
“Until to-day I had hopes, sir, but I find he has been more inveterate than I could have supposed. Mr Maddox has gone back from his word altogether; the fear of man has been too strong for him to battle against, even with the fear of another world before him. I thank you, sir, however, for your kindness.”
He went on quickly, as if he were afraid of adding more, and Marmaduke strolled leisurely after him to the post-office, where the clerk handed him three letters for Mr Mannering, one for Hardlands, and none for the Vicarage. Setting off to walk homewards, however, he heard steps behind, and Stephens, overtaking him, said,—
“Mr Tucker overlooked one letter, sir.”
“Thank you, Stephens. Are you going this way?”
“I am making haste to a cottage where they want me, and I have to be back at the office by an hour’s time. Good day, sir.”
For the second time they parted, and Marmaduke looked at the letter. He saw at a glance that it was for the Vicarage, and for Anthony, but he saw at the same moment something which brought a red flush into his face. The letter was for Anthony, and it came from Mr Tregennas.
To ordinary persons it might have seemed a not unnatural thing for Mr Tregennas to have written to Anthony, who had once or twice been his guest; but to Marmaduke the sight of the handwriting broke down the barriers which had hitherto stemmed in his slowly accumulating suspicions, and let loose a very torrent. The thoughts could not have leapt to life in that moment, but they leapt from their hiding-places. In those few feebly written words he saw revealed a very network of treachery, and walked on mechanically, looking at the letter as he walked with a kind of dumb rage. What did it conceal from him? What plot was weaving round him its web of ruin? How had Anthony toiled and dug, and how much had he gained? Gained away from him,—his own as he had thought it, and called it, and counted upon it! How had he been so blind? Jealousies that hitherto had been vague and unacknowledged took shape and rose up in fierce array. He said to himself that Anthony had seemed abstracted of late, and called himself a fool as he recollected that just before he went to London a week ago he had noticed a letter in his hand, the address upon which stirred him with a half-memory. As he walked quickly on, shut in by green lanes, he lashed himself by a hundred evidences into the conviction that Anthony was a traitor, and that in his hand he carried the letter which held the key to this treachery.
In his hand.
It was a strange power. To his excited imagination the thought dawned like the beginning of retribution. How many chances were there not against its thus coming into his possession! Had justice so guided it that he, of all others, should be the one to whose care it was delivered? Had Anthony’s absence and Miss Philippa’s fancies all worked for this end? He looked at the letter as if there, hidden only by a slender cover, lay the means of confounding his enemies, at first with a kind of angry triumph that so much at least had been gained. The letter was in his hands, and that was the first step.
After all, however, he became soon aware that it was only a step. To himself it might be conclusive proof, but that was not sufficient, and he felt irritated and baffled. In what shape did the danger threaten, and would it be yet impossible for him to turn its tide? He had thought of giving Anthony Miles the letter, and so openly accusing him as to force from him a confession of his shamelessness; but, with a passionate impotence, he acknowledged this to be a vain manner of confronting the blow. He was not in the position to make good his claim. He must meet his enemy with all the subtlety of self-defence. But what had he to meet? How should he know what lay before him, from which side the thrusts should be parried, in what shape grew the threat? The questions beat in his brain with recurrent strokes, as if a hammer were smiting dull iron. All the keenness of suspicion could do no more than bring a shadowy uncertainty before him; nothing could solve the problem except the letter, with its poor feeble failing writing, which he held in his hand.
For there, to be sure, lay the certainty; there was hid the proof or the acquittal, as the case might be. He began to look at it as though Anthony were the prisoner on trial before him, while he himself was the person who possessed the clew, and could determine the guilt. To his distorted reasoning it became almost a sin against Anthony not at once to decide the question, when, after all, he might be innocent, and surely it would be better that this innocence should be placed beyond the power of doubt, than that so cruel a suspicion should divide two friends. For Anthony’s own sake it seemed to Marmaduke a duty to determine the truth forever. The letter had been given to him for some purpose, he argued, as a man will argue, himself clothing the temptation in the strong armour with which it comes to meet him at last, mighty and irresistible. It needed only one look to convince himself, a look which could not harm Anthony Miles in any way, only put Marmaduke on his guard, and show him how to defend his rights. One look—nothing more—at the letter which was in his hands.
He opened it. And as he did so, out of some background of old associations, there rushed upon him such an intolerable loathing for his own action that for a few moments his eyes refused to see its contents. The false pleading with which he had covered it was no longer to be called up, could never any more be called up. It was with a sense of desperate degradation that he forced himself to master the writing, pathetic in its feebleness, confused and indistinct. “I think it is all coming to an end at last,” it said, with a forlornness which might have touched him at another time, “and that my successor will soon be free of my shoes, such as they are. I don’t talk about repenting, but somehow my girl’s face comes before me night and day,—I might have been more patient with her, though I did no more than I told her to look for. Your father seems a just man; people call me a hard old fellow, but I have still a feeble belief in human nature, and I believe in him. If you choose you may place a decision in his hands, and if he tells me the thing should be done, I will make an alteration in my will, half the money shall go as it is now settled, and half to Ellen Harford, Margaret’s child. But should he think the change unnecessary, I do not wish to be pestered by replies or arguments. Silence will answer me fully. I shall understand that he thinks my proposal unadvisable, and I shall never break it by an allusion.”
And this was the letter which Marmaduke must deliver.
For a quarter of an hour he stood motionless with it in his hand. Over his head was the sweet changeable April sky, and on either side of the road a little green copse in which the birds were chirping and twittering. He looked up at last, with a fierce gesture of impatience at their glad piping, at the tender sunshine; a sudden storm, a wild rending of all these pretty gentle things, would have been more congenial to him just then than the burden of their joy. Two men jogged by him in a cart, and looked at him curiously as he stood by the roadside. It raised a quick fear that they might discover his secret, and he began to walk slowly on again, reading and rereading the letter in obedience to some mechanical impulse, for the first sight had burned the words into his brain. It was remarkable that he had no longer any fear of Anthony as a rival, probably from his own frame of mind being such that it was impossible for him to realise a sane man putting such a choice into the hands of his heir, and conceiving the idea of his exercising it in any way but one. It was only a robbery of himself which was revealed to him; an iniquitous deprival of half of his inheritance. For he needed no assurance of what Mr Miles’s decision would be. He had a half-uncomfortable, half-slighting contempt for the Vicar’s notions, which he classed with other antiquated forms of thought belonging to the old world. Anthony’s words came back to him with a sting which they had not at the time they were spoken, when he believed them to be powerless, and he knew that half of those good things on which he had so long counted would go out of his grasp forever as soon as this letter was delivered. As soon as it was delivered,—but the question immediately forced itself on his thought of why such a letter should exist at all to harrow them with its sentence of deprivation. Was not the Vicar himself concerned, Marion’s interests being equally involved with his own? And it was for the sake of a girl who knew nothing, hoped nothing, and whose father was as equally averse to a reconciliation as Mr Tregennas had been. Then he thought angrily that the decision, if there were one, should have been offered to himself. Indeed, fate said the same thing, and, resenting the injustice, gave him the needed opportunity. If he did not embrace it, he was yielding his own property, and sealing a gross injustice. The thought grew, it rang in his brain as he walked along,—alas, no song of birds could drown it!
He tore the letter across and across without a renewal of those accusing feelings which had rushed upon him when first he opened it, having wrought himself into a condition in which right and wrong became mere accidents dependent on his own will. He set his teeth and tore it into a hundred fragments, dropping them, as he walked, upon the grass by the side of the lane, and almost taking a pleasure, as it seemed, in their symmetrical destruction. No sense of pity touched him for the failing life that had there made its last vain effort, and the notion that he was baffling an act of injustice he was able by a strong and concentrated pressure of conscience to keep uppermost in the place it had usurped.
A little farther along the lane he once more met David Stephens, letting him pass this time without comment, and congratulating himself that the man had not timed his return earlier. It was, however, noticeable that, having delivered himself from his previous haunting suspicions of Anthony’s rivalship, he should, nevertheless, immediately decide that he would in some hidden manner assist Stephens, thinking that the fortune which was to come into his hands would enable him to do this, and siding more strongly than even an hour ago with any attempt to oppose Anthony’s influence.
David himself, accustomed to observe keenly, was aware of some disturbance in Marmaduke’s face as he passed him, wondering, too, at his having gone so short a distance since they parted. It is possible that the surprise made him quick to notice trifles, for the tiny atoms which had fluttered on the grass would naturally have escaped his observation. As it was, he stooped and gathered some of them into his hand. They were torn so closely as to make it almost a matter of impossibility to fit one piece with another, unless he had bestowed long attention upon the work, and no impulse moved him to do this. But a scrap of the envelope, which Marmaduke had destroyed with less care, showed enough of the postmark for Polmear to be distinguishable, and Polmear had been stamped on the letter which Stephens had handed to Mr Lee. One or two other half-words there were, which, his curiosity being a little excited, he tried to put together as he went along, but for the most part they were illegible. Something, however, gave him an uneasy feeling as he hurried on to the post-office to hear whether his application had been successful.