Marion Fay: A Novel

by Anthony Trollope

She had bade him retrick his beams, and take the light and the splendour of his sun elsewhere. The light and the splendour of his sun 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 found himself to be weak as water in her hands. She, in her soft feminine tones, had told him what duty had required of her, and, as she had said so she had done. Then he had stood on one side, and had remained looking on, till she had—gone away and left him. She had never been his. It had not been allowed to him even to write his name, as belonging also to her, on the gravestone.

But she had loved him. There was nothing in it all but this to which his mind could revert with any feeling of satisfaction. She had certainly loved him. If such love might be continued between a disembodied spirit and one still upon the earth,—if there were any spirit capable of love after that divorce between the soul and the body,—her love certainly would still be true to him. Most assuredly his should be true to her. Whatever he might do towards obeying her in striving to form some manly purpose for his life, he would never ask 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 the world around him should not have cause for remark; but the mourning should never be taken from his heart.

Then, when the darkness of night had quite come upon him, he arose from his seat, and flinging himself on his knees, stretched his arms wildly across the grave. "Marion," he said; "Marion; oh, Marion, will you hear me? Though gone from me, art thou not mine?" He looked up into the night, and there, before his eyes, was her figure, beautiful as ever, with all her loveliness of half-developed form, with her soft hair upon her shoulders; and her eyes beamed on him, and a heavenly smile came across her face, and her lips moved as though she would encourage him. "My Marion;—my wife!"

Very late that night the servants heard him as he opened the door and walked across the hall, and made his way up to his own room.

CHAPTER XX.

MR. GREENWOOD'S LAST BATTLE.

During the whole of that long summer nothing was absolutely arranged as to Roden and Lady Frances, though it was known to all London, and to a great many persons outside of London, that they were certainly to become man and wife. The summer was very long to Lord and Lady Trafford because of the necessity incumbent on them of remaining through the last dregs of the season on account of Lady Amaldina's marriage. Had Lady Amaldina thrown herself away on another Roden the aunt would have no doubt gone to the country; but her niece had done her duty in life with so much propriety and success that it would have been indecent to desert her. Lady Kingsbury therefore remained in Park Lane, and was driven to endure frequently the sight of the Post Office clerk.

For George Roden was admitted to the house even though it was at last acknowledged that he must be George Roden, and nothing more. And it was found also that he must be a Post Office clerk, and nothing more. Lord Persiflage, on whom Lady Kingsbury chiefly depended for seeing that her own darlings should not be disgraced by being made brothers-in-law to anything so low as a clerk in the Post Office, was angry at last, and declared that it was impossible to help a man who would not help himself. "It is no use trying to pick a man up who will lie in the gutter." It was thus he spoke of Roden in his anger; and then the Marchioness would wring her hands and abuse her stepdaughter. Lord Persiflage did think that something might be done for the young man if the young man would only allow himself to be called a Duke. But the young man would not allow it, and Lord Persiflage did not see what could be done. Nevertheless there was a general idea abroad in the world that something would be done. Even the mysterious savour of high rank which attached itself to the young man would do something for him.

It may be remembered that the Marquis himself, when first the fact had come to his ears that his daughter loved the young man, had been almost as ferociously angry as his wife. He had assented to the carrying of her away to the Saxon castle. He had frowned upon her. He had been a party to the expelling her from his own house. But gradually his heart had become softened towards her; in his illness he had repented of his harshness; he had not borne her continued absence easily, and had of late looked about for an excuse for accepting her lover. When the man was discovered to be a Duke, though it was only an Italian Duke, of course he accepted him. Now his wife told him daily that Roden was not a Duke, because he would not accept his Dukedom,—and ought therefore again to be rejected. Lord Persiflage had declared that nothing could be done for him, and therefore he ought to be rejected. But the Marquis clung to his daughter. As the man was absolutely a Duke, according to the laws of all the Heralds, and all the Courts, and all the tables of precedency and usages of peerage in Christendom, he could not de-grade himself even by any motion of his own. He was the eldest and the legitimate son of the last Duca di Crinola,—so the Marquis said,—and as such was a fitting aspirant for the hand of the daughter of an English peer. "But he hasn't got a shilling," said Lady Kingsbury weeping. The Marquis felt that it was within his own power to produce some remedy for this evil, but he did not care to say as much to his wife, who was tender on that point in regard to the interest of her three darlings. Roden continued his visits to Park Lane very frequently all through the summer, and had already arranged for an autumn visit to Castle Hautboy,—in spite of that angry word spoken by Lord Persiflage. Everybody knew he was to marry Lady Frances. But when the season was over, and all the world had flitted from London, nothing was settled.