Wrecked in Port: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

But when the door had shut behind the retreating figure of the Mercury in plush, Walter Joyce threw down his pen and took up the letter, and pressed it to his lips. Then he opened it, not eagerly indeed, but with a bright light in his eyes, and a happy smile upon his lips. And then he read it.

He started at the first line, astonished at the cold tone in which Marian addressed him, but after that he read the letter straight through, without evincing any outward sign of emotion. When he had finished it he paused, and shook his head quickly, as one who has received some stunning blow, and passed his hand rapidly across his brow, then set to work to read the letter again. He had been through it hurriedly before, but this time he read every word, then he pushed the paper from him, and flung himself forward on the desk, burying his face in his hands. Thus he remained during some ten minutes; when he raised himself, his face was very white save round the eyes, where the skin was flushed and strained, and his hands trembled very much. He reeled, too, a little when he first stood up, but he soon conquered that, and began silently pacing the room to and fro. Some time afterwards, when asked to explain what he had felt at that crisis in his life, Joyce declared he could not tell. Not anger against Marian, certainly, no vindictive rage against her who had treated him so basely. His life was spoiled, he felt that; it had never been very brilliant, or very much worth having, but the one ray which had illumined it had been suddenly extinguished, and the future was in utter darkness. He was in the condition of a man who has been stunned, or has fainted, and to whom the recollection of the events immediately engrossing his attention when, as it were, he was last in life, came but slowly. He had but a confused idea of the contents of Marian's letter. Its general tenor of course he knew, but he had to think over the details. The letter was there, lying before him on the desk where he had thrown it, but he seemed to have an odd but invincible repugnance to reading it again. After a somewhat laborious process of thought he remembered it all. She was going to be married to Mr. Creswell--that was it. She could not face a life of poverty, she said; the comforts and luxuries which she had enjoyed for the last few months had become necessary to her happiness, and she had chosen between him and them. She did not pretend to care for the man she was about to marry; she merely intended to make use of him as the means to an end. Poor Marian! that was a bad state for her to be in--poor Marian! She had jilted him, but she had sacrificed herself: he did not know which was the more forlorn out-look.

Yes, it was all over for him! Nothing mattered much now! Copy out anecdotes from the family chronicles, hunt up antiquities and statistics for those speeches with which Lord Hetherington intended to astonish the world in the forthcoming session, settle down as librarian and secretary for as long as this noble family would have him, and when they kicked him out, live by literary hack work until he found another noble family ready to receive him in the old capacity for a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Why not? He smiled grimly to himself as he thought of the Berlin proposition, and how astonished old Byrne would be when he wrote to decline it--for he should decline it at once. He had thought about it so often and so much, he had allowed his imagination to feast him with such pictures of himself established there with Marian by his side, that he felt utterly unable to face the dark blank reality, heartbroken and alone. Besides, what motive had he for work now? Experience had taught him that he could always find sufficient press-work in London to keep body and soul together, and what more did he want! What more did---- Was it all real, or was he dreaming? Marian! was it all over between him and her? was she no longer his Marian? was he never to see her, to touch her hand, to hold her in his arms, to live in the light of those loving eyes again? He thought of their last conversation and their parting, he thought of his last letter to her, so full of hope and love; so tender of the past, so full of the future; and there, to that, was the reply lying before him announcing her marriage. Her marriage?--her sale! She had bartered herself away for fine houses, horses, carriages, dresses; she, daughter of James Ashurst, who had loved her as the apple of his eye, and would as soon have thought of her renouncing her religion as of her breaking her plighted word.

It was odd he could not explain it; but his thoughts ran more upon her than upon himself. He found himself picturing her as the squire's lady, taking up her position in society, seated at the head of her table, receiving her guests, at church in the pew which he recollected so well. He recollected the back of her head, and the kneeling figure as he had noticed it Sunday after Sunday when he sat amongst the boys in the school pew immediately behind her, recollected the little grave bow she would give him as she passed to her seat, and the warm hand-pressure with which she always met him after morning service. His love had lived on that warm hand-pressure for days; hers, it seems, was not so easily nourished. He wondered at himself for the way in which he found himself thinking of her. Had the mere notion of such treatment ever entered his mind, he should have been raving; now when the actual fact had occurred, he was quiet. He ran through the whole matter in his mind again, pointed out to himself the deception that she had practised on him, the gross breach of faith of which she had been guilty, showed himself plainly how her desertion of him had sprung from the basest motives, not from lack of love for him, not from overweening fancy for another--those were human motives and might be pardoned her--but from mere avarice and mammon-worship. And, after cogitating over all this, he felt that he pitied rather than hated her, and that as to himself he had not the remotest care what became of him.

A knock at the door, and before he could answer Lady Caroline had entered the room. Joyce was rather pleased than otherwise at the interruption. He had taken her ladyship so far into his confidence that it was impossible to hide from her this last act in the drama, and it was infinitely pleasanter that the explanation should come about here--accidentally, as it were--than that he should have to seek her with his story.

"Good morning, Mr. Joyce."

"Good morning, Lady Caroline."

"Mr. Joyce, a triumphal procession, consisting of Lady Hetherington and the new housekeeper, is marching round the house, settling what's to be done in each room between this and the autumn. I confess I have not sufficient strength of mind to be present at those solemn rites, and as this is the only room in the house in which no change ever takes place--save the increase of dust, and lately the acquisition of a bonâ-fide student--I have taken refuge here, and have brought the Times in order that I may be sure not to disturb you by chattering."

"You will not disturb me in the least, I assure you."

"Why, what a dreadfully hollow voice! and--Mr. Joyce," continued Lady Caroline, changing her tone, "how very unwell you look--so strangely pale and drawn! Is anything the matter?"