"People have called her a good girl," he thought; "but how could they ever know her goodness, unless they had seen, as I have, the deprivations she has borne so uncomplainingly?"
John Marchmont, being newly instructed by his lawyer, was able to give Mr. Arundel a very clear statement of the provision he could make for his wife's future. He could settle upon her the nine thousand pounds left him by Philip Marchmont. He would allow her five hundred a year pin–money during his lifetime; he would leave her his savings at his death; and he would effect an insurance upon his life for her benefit. The amount of these savings would, of course, depend upon the length of John's life; but the money would accumulate very quickly, as his income was eleven thousand a year, and his expenditure was not likely to exceed three.
The Swampington living was worth little more than three hundred and fifty pounds a year; and out of that sum Hubert Arundel and his daughter had done treble as much good for the numerous poor of the parish as ever had been achieved by any previous Rector or his family. Hubert and his daughter had patiently endured the most grinding poverty, the burden ever falling heavier on Olivia, who had the heroic faculty of endurance as regards all physical discomfort. Can it be wondered, then, that the Rector of Swampington thought the prospect offered to his child a very brilliant one? Can it be wondered that he urged his daughter to accept this altered lot?
He did urge her, pleading John Marchmont's cause a great deal more warmly than the widower had himself pleaded.
"My darling," he said, "my darling girl! if I can live to see you mistress of Marchmont Towers, I shall go to my grave contented and happy. Think, my dear, of the misery from which this marriage will save you. Oh, my dear girl, I can tell you now what I never dared tell you before; I can tell you of the long, sleepless nights I have passed thinking of you, and of the wicked wrongs I have done you. Not wilful wrongs, my love," the Rector added, with the tears gathering in his eyes; "for you know how dearly I have always loved you. But a father's responsibility towards his children is a very heavy burden. I have only looked at it in this light lately, my dear,––now that I've let the time slip by, and it is too late to redeem the past. I've suffered very much, Olivia; and all this has seemed to separate us, somehow. But that's past now, isn't it, my dear? and you'll marry this Mr. Marchmont. He appears to be a very good, conscientious man, and I think he'll make you happy."
The father and daughter were sitting together after dinner in the dusky November twilight, the room only lighted by the fire, which was low and dim. Hubert Arundel could not see his daughter's face as he talked to her; he could only see the black outline of her figure sharply defined against the grey window behind her, as she sat opposite to him. He could see by her attitude that she was listening to him, with her head drooping and her hands lying idle in her lap.
She was silent for some little time after he had finished speaking; so silent that he feared his words might have touched her too painfully, and that she was crying.
Heaven help this simple–hearted father! She had scarcely heard three consecutive words that he had spoken, but had only gathered dimly from his speech that he wanted her to accept John Marchmont's offer.
Every great passion is a supreme egotism. It is not the object which we hug so determinedly; it is not the object which coils itself about our weak hearts: it is our own madness we worship and cleave to, our own pitiable folly which we refuse to put away from us. What is Bill Sykes' broken nose or bull–dog visage to Nancy? The creature she loves and will not part from is not Bill, but her own love for Bill,––the one delusion of a barren life; the one grand selfishness of a feeble nature.
Olivia Arundel's thoughts had wandered far away while her father had spoken so piteously to her. She had been thinking of her cousin Edward, and had been asking herself the same question over and over again. Would he be sorry? would he be sorry if she married John Marchmont?