"That's enough, my dear! I shall be ready to face your father now." Mrs. Ashurst then removed her arm from her daughter's neck and lay back in her chair. After a minute or two she told Marian she had heard the luncheon-gong sound, and that she would prefer being left alone for a little. When Marian came up to kiss her before leaving the room, the little old lady's white face became suffused with a glow of colour, and the voice in which she prayed God to bless her child, and keep her happy throughout her life, was broken with emotion, and weaker and fainter than ever.
When she was alone Mrs. Ashurst pondered long and earnestly over what she had just heard. Of course, the question of Marian's future--and to her parents as well as herself the future of every girl means her marriage--had been often thought of by her mother. She and her dead husband had talked of it in the summer evenings after supper and before retiring to rest, the only time which the school-work left for James Ashurst to devote to himself, and even then he was generally rather fatigued with past, or preoccupied with growing work. It was very general, the talk between them, and principally carried on by Mrs. Ashurst; she had wondered when Marian would marry, and whom; she had gone through the list of eligible young men in the neighbourhood, and had speculated on their incomes and their chances of being thrown with Marian in such little company as they kept. She had wondered how they at home would be able to get on without her; whether she herself would be able to undertake the domestic superintendence, as she had done in the old days before Marian was of an age to be useful; whether Marian would not settle somewhere near, where she might still take an interest in her old work, and many other odd and profitless speculations, to which the dominie would give an affirmative or negative grunt or comment, wondering all the while how he was to meet that acceptance which he had given to Barlow, and which became due on the twenty-seventh, or whether his old college chum Smith, now a flourishing physician in Cheltenham, would lend him the fifty pounds for which he had made so earnest an appeal. But all this seemed years ago to Mrs. Ashurst as she thought of it. For many months before her husband's death the subject had not been mooted between them; the cold calm external impassibility, and the firm determination of Marian's character, seemed to her mother to mark her for one of those women destined by nature to be single, and therefore somewhat fitted for the condition. A weak woman herself, and with scarcely any perception of character, believing that nearly all women were made in the same mould and after the same type, Mrs. Ashurst could not understand the existence of the volcano under the placid surface. Only gushing, giggling, blushing girls fulfilled her idea of loving women, or women lovable by men. Marian was so "odd" and "strange," so determined, so strong-minded, that she never seemed to think of love-making, nor indeed, her mother thought, had she been ever so much that way disposed, would she have had any time for it.
And now Marian was going to be married! Years rolled away, and the old lady saw herself in the same condition, but how differently circumstanced! Her James was young and strong and handsome. How splendid he looked in his flannel boating-dress, when he came to spend a hurried holiday at her father's river-side cottage! How all the people in the church admired him on their wedding-day It was impossible that Marian could love this man, who was quite old enough to be her father,--love him, that is, in the proper way, in the way that a husband should be loved. She could look up to him, and respect and reverence him, and so on; but that was not the way in which she had loved her James. She had not the least respect for him, but used to laugh at him for his awkwardness, and great strong clumsy ways, never knowing what to do with his long legs and his great feet, and used to call him "a great goose;" she recollected that, and the recollection brought the colour to her face, and made her smile in spite of herself. Marian could never call Mr. Creswell "a great goose," could never think of him so familiarly, no matter how long they might be married. What could have brought it about? She had very good eyes, she thought, and yet she had never suspected Mr. Creswell of any partiality for Marian; any, at least, beyond that which a man in his position and of his age might be expected to feel for a bright intelligent girl with whom he was thrown into frequent contact. And as for Marian, it was the last thing she should have expected of her. If she were to think of marriage, which Mrs. Ashurst never contemplated, she would not have suffered herself to be thrown away on a man so much older than herself; she would have looked for some one whom she could love. No; it was what had first struck her, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she grew. Marian had sacrificed herself on the shrine of filial duty; she had accepted the position of Mr. Creswell's wife in order that her mother might be able to continue in the house where all possible comforts and luxuries were at her command. It was a good motive, a noble affectionate resolve, but it would never turn out well, she was sure of that. There had been a baronet once under James's tuition--what was his name? Attride, Sir Joseph Attride, a young man of rather weak intellect--who had been sent by his friends to be what James called "coached for something," and who had a very large fortune; why did not Marian take him, or Mr. Lawrence, the miller and churchwarden, who was very rich, and took so much snuff? Either of them would have been much more suited to her than Mr. Creswell. And so the old lady sat--chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, but always coming back to her proposition that Marian had sacrificed herself for her mother's sake--throughout the afternoon.
When Marian left her mother she did not take the hint about the luncheon-gong--the pretence under which Mrs. Ashurst had asked to be left to herself. She knew that if her absence from the table were remarked, it would be attributed to the fact of her being engaged in attendance on her mother. She knew further that Mr. Creswell would not expect to see her just then, and she calculated on having two or three hours to herself free from all interruption. So she went straight to her own room, turned the key in the lock, sat herself down in a low chair opposite the fire--fires are kept constantly alive in that north-midland county, where coals are cheap, and the clay soil cold and damp--took Walter Joyce's letter from the bosom of her dress, opened, and began to read it. It was a task-work which she had to go through, and she nerved herself as for a task-work. Her face was cold and composed, her lower jaw set and rigid. As she read on the rigidity of her muscles seemed to increase. She uttered no sound, but read carefully every word. A slight expression of scorn crossed her face for a moment at Walter's insisting on the necessity of their good faith towards each other, but the next instant it vanished, and the set rigidity returned--returned but to be equally fleeting, to be swept away in a storm of weeping, in a hurricane of tears, in a wild outburst of genuine womanly feeling, showing itself in heaving bosom, in tear-blistered face, in passionate rocking to and fro, in frenzied claspings of the hands and tossing of the head, and in low moaning cries of, "Oh, my love! my love!"
It was the perusal of the end of Joyce's letter that had brought Marian Ashurst into this state; it was the realisation of the joy which, in his utter devotion to her, must have filled his heart as he was enabled to offer to share what he imagined great prosperity with her, that wrung her conscience and showed her treatment of him in its worst light. It was of her alone that he thought when this offer was made to him. He spoke of it simply as a means to an end--that end their marriage and the comfort of her mother, whose burden he also proposed to undertake. He said nothing of what hard work, what hitherto unaccustomed responsibility, it would entail upon him; he thought but of the peace of mind, the freedom from worry, the happiness which he imagined it would bring to her. How noble he was how selfless and single-minded! This was a man to live and die for and with indeed! Was it too late? Should she go bravely and tell Mr. Creswell all? He was sensible and kind-hearted, would see the position, and appreciate her motives, though the blow would be a heavy one for him. He would let her retract her consent, he would---- Impossible! It might have been possible if she had read the letter before she had told her mother of Mr. Creswell's proposal, but now impossible. Even to her mother she could not lay bare the secrets of her heart, disclose the slavery in which she was held by that one ruling passion under whose control she had broken her own plighted word, and run the risk of breaking one of the truest and noblest hearts that ever beat.
No; she could not do that. She was growing calmer now; her tears had ceased to flow, and she was walking about the room, thinking the matter out. No; even suppose--well, this proposal had not been made: it would have been impossible to move Mrs. Ashurst in her then state to Berlin, and she could not have gone without her; so that Walter must either have gone alone, or the marriage must have been deferred. And then the income--four hundred a year. It was very good, no doubt, in comparison to what they had been existing on since papa's death--very superior to anything they could have expected, quite a sufficiency for one or two young people to begin life upon; but for three, and the third one an invalid, in a foreign country? No; it was quite impossible. Marian looked round the room as she said these words; her eyes lighted on the bright furniture, the pretty prints that adorned the walls, the elegant ornaments and nick-nacks scattered about, the hundred evidences of wealth and taste which were henceforth to be at her entire command, and repeated, "Quite impossible!" more decisively than before. By this time she was quite herself again, had removed every trace of her recent discomposure, and had made up her mind definitively as to her future. Only one thing troubled her,--what should be her immediate treatment of Walter Joyce? Should she ignore the receipt of his letter, leave it unanswered, take the chance of his understanding from her silence that all was over between them? Or should she write to him, telling him exactly what had happened--putting it, of course, in the least objectionable way for herself? Or should she temporise, giving her mother's delicate state of health and impossibility of removal abroad as the ground of her declining to be married at once, as he required, and beginning by various hints, which she thought she could manage cleverly enough, to pave the way for the announcement, to be delayed as long as practicable, that their engagement was over, and that she was going to marry some one else? At first she was strongly inclined to act upon the last of these three motives, thinking that it would be easier to screen herself, or at all events to bear the brunt of Joyce's anger when he was abroad. But after a little consideration, a better spirit came over her. She had to do what was a bad thing at best; she would do it in the least offensive manner possible,--she would write to him.
She sat down at the little ink-bespattered, old-fashioned writing-desk which she had had for so many years, on which she had written so often to her lover, and which contained a little packet of his letters, breathing of hope and trust and deep-rooted affection in every line, and wrote--
"Woolgreaves, Sunday.
"MY DEAR WALTER,
"I have something to tell you which you must know at once. I can approach the subject in no roundabout fashion, because I know it will cause you a great shock, and it is better for you to know it at once. I do not pretend to any doubt about the pain and grief which I am sure it will cause you. I will tell you my reasons for the step I am about to take when I tell you what I have already done. Walter, I have broken my engagement with you. I have promised to marry Mr. Creswell.