Without a word Marion left the room. Her self-control only lasted till she was safely ensconced in her own little bedroom, and then, poor child, after her usual fashion when in sore distress, she threw herself on the bed and hid her face on the pillows, sobbing with excitement and weeping the hot, quick rushing tears that came more from anger than grief.
She felt very much ashamed of herself. This was, indeed, a sad beginning of her Mallingford experiences. How foolish she had been to take fire at the old lady’s sneers! She knew of old that there had been bitter feud between her silly, pretty young mother and her father’s family, and it was worse than foolish to rake up these old sores. Now, when the two principals in the melancholy story of mistake and disappointment were laid to rest, passed away into the silent land where to us, at least, it is not given to judge them, how much better to let the whole fade gently out of mind! Her aunt was old, and old age should be sacred. She had no right to resent her crabbedness of temper, her self-absorption, her ungenial asperity, and small snappishness.
A loveless life, with few exceptions, had been Miss Tremlett’s. “Heaven only knows,” thought poor Marion, “if in similar circumstances my nature would prove any more amiable! Certainly, I am not at present going the way to make it so.”
And with a sore heart, sore, but gentle and humble, the orphan fell asleep, in the strange, unloving home, which was the only shelter at present open to her.
Morning, somehow, made things look brighter. For one thing, there was the tantalising post-hour to watch for; Marion not having yet given up hopes of “some day” bringing the long-looked-for explanation of Ralph’s mysterious silence. The whole affair changed its aspect to her constantly, according to the mood she was in. She had taken good care that there should be no miscarriage of letters owing to her change of residence, and so here at Mallingford, as in London, the arrival of the letters became the great interest of her day. Truly, there was little else to distract or occupy her! She determined, however, from this first morning to profit by her disagreeable experience of the preceding evening, and, at all costs, avoid any sort of word-warfare with her aunt. Miss Tremlett, at the bottom of her heart, was not a little disappointed when, on her making her appearance for the day, in the drawing-room about noon, her niece, instead of receiving her with sulky silence or indignant remonstrance, greeted her with a few gentle words of apology for her want of self-control the previous night, and offers of her ready services in any way the old lady might wish to make her useful.
“Would you like me to read aloud sometimes, Aunt?” said she. “I think I can do so pleasantly. Or is there any work I can do for you?”
“I am glad, Marion, to see that you have come back to your senses this morning,” was all the thanks she got. But she did not care. All she asked was peace and quiet; in which to muse over her own secret hopes and fears, to perplex herself endlessly with vain guesses to what was beyond her power to fathom. And for some little time she felt almost contented. The perfect monotony of her life did not pall upon her just at first. It seemed rather a sort of rest to her after the violent excitement through which she had lately passed. But it was not a healthy state of things.
Her days were very like each other. The morning hours were the pleasantest, for Miss Tremlett always breakfasted in her bedroom, and till noon Marion was her own mistress. After that her aunt expected her to be in attendance upon her till the hour of her after noon siesta, which came to be the girl’s favourite time for a stroll. Even in the dull autumn days she felt it a relief to get out into the open air by herself and ramble along the country roads leading out of Mallingford—thinking of what? Of “this time last year.” How much is told by those few commonplace words!
Now and then her aunt had visitors. Very uninteresting people they seemed to Marion. Mostly elderly, still, and formal, of her aunt’s own standing. Not many of the younger denizens of the little town found their way to the Cross House. Had they done so, I question if they would have been much to my heroine’s taste! Her deep mourning, of course, put her partaking in any Mallingford festivities quite out of the question at present. They were not of an attractive kind, and even had she been in perfect health and spirits she would have cared little about them.
Still, after a time, there came a sort of reaction. A protest of youth against the unnatural torpidity of her present life. Her only friend, Geoffrey Baldwin, she saw but once during the first two months of her Mallingford life, for, much to his regret, within a week of Miss Vere’s arrival in the neighbourhood, he was called away on business connected with his own affairs—the disposal of a small property of his father’s in a distant county—and it was late in November before he found himself free to return home.