The charges against Colonel Marchant, as Vansittart had heard them, were manifold. He had begun life in a marching regiment, without expectations, had married a lovely girl of low birth, or supposed to be of low birth, since her pedigree was unknown to Sussex, and her antecedents and uprising had never been explained or expounded to the curious in the neighbourhood of the Colonel’s present abode. Within two years of this marriage he had succeeded, most unexpectedly, by the death of a young cousin, to a fine estate in Yorkshire, considerably dipped by previous owners, but still a fine estate, and had immediately begun a career of extravagance, horse-racing, betting, and disreputable company, which had ultimately forced him to sell mansion and manor, farms and homesteads, that had belonged to his family since the Commonwealth, when the lands of East Grinley were bestowed by Cromwell on one of his finest soldiers, Major Fear-the-Lord Marchant, an officer who had helped to turn the fortunes of the day at Marston Moor, and who had been left for dead on the field of Dunbar.
Colonel Marchant had kept race-horses, and in his latter and worst days—when ruin was close at hand—had been suspected of shady dealings in the management of his stud, and had been the subject of a Jockey Club inquiry, which, albeit not important enough to become a cause célèbre, had left the Colonel with a tarnished reputation on the Turf, and the dark suspicion of having made a good deal of money by in and out running. He withdrew from the racing world under a cloud, not quite cleaned out, for the money he had won in the previous autumn served to buy the cottage near Fernhurst, and to carry his family from Yorkshire to Sussex. Here he began life anew, a ruined man, with five young daughters and an invalid wife.
Of Colonel Marchant’s existence at the Homestead local society had very little to say, except in a general way that he was not “nice.” He neglected his daughters, he never went to church, and he was always in debt. Maiden ladies and old women of the masculine gender used to speculate upon how long he would be able to go on before his creditors took desperate measures. How long would Midhurst and Haslemere bear and forbear with a man who was known to be deep in debt in both towns? All this and much more had John Vansittart heard from various people since the night of the hunt ball, for he had laid himself out with considerable artfulness to hear all he could about the Marchant family. In the beginning of things, albeit Eve appeared to him in all the innocent loveliness of Titania, he had told himself that he could not marry into such a family. Such an alliance would blight his life. He would have those four sisters upon his shoulders. He would be disgraced by a disreputable father-in-law.
And now in the night watches he told himself a very different story. He told himself that he should be a craven and a cur if he allowed Eve Marchant to suffer for her father’s sins. What was it to him that the Colonel had squandered his money on third-rate racers, and had been suspected of in and out running on second-rate racecourses? He loved the Colonel’s daughter; and as an honest man it was his duty to take her away from unworthy surroundings. Inclination and honesty pointing the same way, he was determined to do his duty—yes, even at the risk of disappointing the mother he loved.
So much for the night watches. He saw before him a fierce battle between love and prejudice, but he was determined to fight that battle.
The war began while this resolve was yet a new thing.
“So you have been calling at the Homestead, Jack,” said his sister at luncheon next day.
“Who told you that?” he asked curtly, reddening a little.
“One of those little birds of which we have a whole aviary. I drove into Midhurst this morning to talk to the fishmonger, and met the two Miss Etheringtons. They saw you going in at Colonel Marchant’s gate yesterday afternoon.”
“I wonder they didn’t wait outside to see when I came out again,” said Vansittart.