Nothing but despair? Yes; perhaps something further,––revenge.
But this last idea took no tangible shape. She only knew that, in the black darkness of the gulf into which her soul had gone down, there was, far away somewhere, one ray of lurid light. She only knew this as yet, and that she hated Mary Marchmont with a mad and wicked hatred. If she could have thought meanly of Edward Arundel,––if she could have believed him to be actuated by mercenary motives in his choice of the orphan girl,––she might have taken some comfort from the thought of his unworthiness, and of Mary's probable sorrow in the days to come. But she could not think this. Little as the young soldier had said in the summer twilight beside the river, there had been that in his tones and looks which had convinced the wretched watcher of his truth. Mary might have been deceived by the shallowest pretender; but Olivia's eyes devoured every glance; Olivia's greedy ears drank in every tone; and she knew that Edward Arundel loved her stepdaughter.
She knew this, and she hated Mary Marchmont. What had she done, this girl, who had never known what it was to fight a battle with her own rebellious heart? what had she done, that all this wealth of love and happiness should drop into her lap unsought,––comparatively unvalued, perhaps?
John Marchmont's widow lay in her darkened chamber thinking over these things; no longer fighting the battle with her own heart, but utterly abandoning herself to her desperation,––reckless, hardened, impenitent.
Edward Arundel could not very well remain at the Towers while the reputed illness of his hostess kept her to her room. He went over to Swampington, therefore, upon a dutiful visit to his uncle; but rode to the Towers every day to inquire very particularly after his cousin's progress, and to dawdle on the sunny western terrace with Mary Marchmont.
Their innocent happiness needs little description. Edward Arundel retained a good deal of that boyish chivalry which had made him so eager to become the little girl's champion in the days gone by. Contact with the world had not much sullied the freshness of the young man's spirit. He loved his innocent, childish companion with the purest and truest devotion; and he was proud of the recollection that in the day of his poverty John Marchmont had chosen him as the future shelterer of this tender blossom.
"You must never grow any older or more womanly, Polly," he said sometimes to the young mistress of Marchmont Towers. "Remember that I always love you best when I think of you as the little girl in the shabby pinafore, who poured out my tea for me one bleak December morning in Oakley Street."
They talked a great deal of John Marchmont. It was such a happiness to Mary to be able to talk unreservedly of her father to some one who had loved and comprehended him.
"My stepmamma was very good to poor papa, you know, Edward," she said, "and of course he was very grateful to her; but I don't think he ever loved her quite as he loved you. You were the friend of his poverty, Edward; he never forgot that."
Once, as they strolled side by side together upon the terrace in the warm summer noontide, Mary Marchmont put her little hand through her lover's arm, and looked up shyly in his face.