A bright flush suffused her face, but she answered steadily, "We were."
"And what made you break with him? Why did you quarrel? You don't answer. Is the letter right? Did you give him up for me? Did you let my position, my money, weigh more with you than his love and his heart? Did you do this?"
"And suppose I did--what then?" said Marian, with flashing eyes--"are you here to plead his cause? Have I not been a dutiful and a proper wife to you? You yourself have just spoken of this vile slander with the scorn it deserves Of what then do you complain?"
"Of nothing. I complain of nothing, save perhaps of your ignorance of me! Ah, good heavens did you know me so little as to think that your happiness was not my aim, not so much my own? Did you not know that my love for you was so little selfish, that if I had had the least dream of your engagement to this young man, I should have taken such delight in forwarding it and providing for you both? You would have been near me still, you would have been a daughter to me, and---- Lift me up the cordial--quick!" and he fell back in a faint.
Dr. Osborne was sent for, and came at once, but it was plain to all that Mr. Creswell's end was at hand. He had two severe paroxysms of pain, and then lay perfectly still and tranquil. Marian was sitting by his bedside, and in the middle of the night she felt his hand plucking at the sleeve of her gown. She roused herself and looked at him. His eyes were open, and there was a bright, happy expression on his thin face. His mind was wandering far away, back to the early days of his poverty and his struggles, and she who had shared both was with him. He pulled Marian to him, and she leaned eagerly forward; but it was not of her he was thinking. "Jenny!" he said, and his tongue reverted to the old familiar dialect which it had not used for so many years--"Jenny! coom away, lass! Taim's oop!--that's t' mill bell ringin'! Thou'rt a brave lass, and we've had hard taim of it; but we're near t' end now! Kiss me, Jenny! Always good and brave, lass--always----" And so he died.
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
FOR ONCE GERTRUDE TAKES THE LEAD.
The lives of the two girls at Lady Caroline's were so completely happy, that they were induced to doubt whether they had ever really lived before. The difference between their rackety, disorderly, Bohemian existence while their father was alive, the pinched and poverty-stricken home which they shared with their mother until her death, and the refined comforts and luxuries which awaited them at their uncle's, was, of course, very great. But they were too young to feel it at the time, and they had come to look upon Woolgreaves as their home, and until Marian Ashurst entered upon it as its mistress, as an epitome of everything that was charming. Lady Caroline's house was much smaller than Woolgreaves; her income, probably, was nothing like their uncle's; and yet about her house and her servants, her carriage, and everything she had, there was a stamp of refinement and of good taste, springing from high breeding, such as they had never witnessed, even under Mrs. Creswell's régime;and whatever other fault the girls found with Mrs. Creswell, they invariably allowed her the possession of good taste. And Lady Caroline herself was so different, so immeasurably superior to any woman they had ever seen. With the exception of Lady Churchill, they had known no one save the village people and the wives of the principal manufacturers at Brocksopp, who had been daughters of other principal manufacturers at Shuttleworth and Combcardingham, and might have been made in one mould, or punched out of one piece; and Lady Churchill was a stupid old woman in a brown front, who, as Gertrude knew, said "obleege," and "apurn" for apron, and "know-ledge," and nearly drove you mad by the way in which she stared at you, and rubbed her nose with a knitting-needle, while you were attempting to find conversation for her. But, in the girls' eyes, Lady Caroline was perfection; and it would have been indeed odd had they not thought her so, as, for reasons best known to herself, she went in more determinedly to make herself agreeable to them than she had done to any one for some years previous.
One reason was that she liked the girls, and was agreeably disappointed in them; had expected to find them provincial parvenues,thrown upon her by their quarrel with a person of similar position and disposition with themselves, and had found them quiet lady-like young women, unpretentious, unobtrusive, and thoroughly grateful to her for the home which she had offered them in their time of need. From the step which she had taken so chivalrously Lady Caroline never shrank, but she told the girls plainly, in the presence of Mr. Joyce, that she thought it highly desirable that the fact of their being there as her guests should be officially made known to Mr. Creswell, to whom every consideration was due. As to Mrs. Creswell, there was no necessity to acknowledge her in the matter; but Mr. Creswell was not merely their nearest blood relation, but, until adverse influences had been brought to bear upon him, he had proved himself their most excellent friend; and even at the last, so far as Lady Caroline could gather from Gertrude, had made some feeble kind of fight against their leaving his house. Mr. Joyce and the girls themselves were also of this opinion, Gertrude jumping at the prospect of any reconciliation with "dear old uncle," but avowing her determination to have nothing more to do with "that horrid madam;" and it was on Maude's suggestion, backed by Walter, that the services of Mr. Gould were employed for mediatory purposes. This was just before the election, and Mr. Gould declared it was utterly impossible for him to attend to anything that did not relate to blue and yellow topics; but a little later he wrote a very kind letter, announcing Mr. Creswell's illness, and deploring the strict necessity for keeping from the old gentleman any subjects of an exciting nature.
The corroboration of this bad news was brought to the little household in Chesterfield Street by Mr. Benthall, who, about that time, ran up to London for a week, and, it is needless to say, lost very little time in presenting himself to Miss Gertrude. The relations between the Helmingham schoolmaster and Gertrude Creswell were, of course, perfectly well known to Lady Caroline through Walter Joyce, who had explained to her ladyship that the causeless exclusion of Mr. Benthall from Woolgreaves had been the means of bringing about the final domestic catastrophe, and had led more immediately than anything else to the departure of the young ladies from their uncle's house. So that Lady Caroline was predisposed in the clergyman's favour, and the predisposition was by no means decreased when she made his acquaintance, and found him to be one of the Shropshire Benthalls, people of excellent family (a fact which always has immense weight with other people who can make the same boast), and essentially a man of the world and of society. A girl like Gertrude Creswell, who, charming though she was, was clearly nobody, might think herself lucky in getting a man of family to marry her. Of course, Mrs. Creswell could not understand that kind of thing, and took a mere pounds, shillings, and pence view of the question; but Mrs. Creswell had no real dominion over her husband's nieces, and as that husband was now too ill to be appealed to, and the girls were staying under her chaperonage, she should, in the exercise of her discretion, give Mr. Benthall full opportunity for seeing as much of Gertrude as he chose.