Marion Fay: A Novel

by Anthony Trollope

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? Phœbus 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!"

CHAPTER XXII.

AGAIN AT TRAFFORD.

The meeting between Hampstead and his sister was affectionate and, upon the whole, satisfactory, though it was necessary that a few words should be spoken which could hardly be pleasant in themselves. "I had a dinner-party here last night," he said laughing, desirous of telling her something of George Roden,—and something also of Marion Fay.

"Who were the guests?"