The Coryston Family by Mrs. Humphry Ward (best free e book reader TXT) 📕

his brother; "we'll come back to it. But meeting or no meeting, I don't see any way out for you, Arthur--upon my soul, I don't!"

"No one ever supposed you would!" cried Arthur.

"Here's your dilemma," pursued Coryston, good-humoredly. "If you engage yourself to her, mother will cut off the supplies. And if mother cuts off the supplies, Miss Glenwilliam won't have you."

"You think everybody but yourself, Corry, mercenary pigs!"

"What do _you_ think? Do you see Miss Glenwilliam pursuing love in a garret--a genteel garret--on a thousand a year? For her father, perhaps!--but for nobody else! Her clothes alone would cost a third of it."

No reply, except a furious glance. Coryston began to look perturbed. He descended from his perch, and approaching the still pacing Arthur, he took his arm--an attention to which the younger brother barely submitted.

"Look here, old boy? Am I becoming a beast? Are you sure of her? Is it serious?"

"Sure of her? Good God--if I were!"

He walked to a window near, and stood looking out, so that his face could not be seen by his companions, his hands in his pockets.

Coryston's eyebrows went up; the eyes beneath them showed a genuine concern. Refusing a further pull at Lester's cigarettes, he took a pipe out of his pocket, lit it, and puffed away in a brown study. The figure at the window remained motionless. Lester felt the situation too delicate for an outsider's interference, and made a feint of returning to his work. Presently it seemed that Coryston made up his mind.

"Well," he said, slowly, "all right. I'll cut my meeting. I can get Atherstone to take the chair, and make some excuse. But I really don't know that it'll help you much. There's already an announcement of your meeting in the Martover paper yesterday--"

"_No_!" Arthur faced round upon his brother, his cheeks blazing.

"Perfectly true. Mother's taken time by the forelock. I have no doubt she has already written your speech."

"What on earth can I do?" He stood in helpless despair.

"Have a row!" said Coryston, laughing. "A good row and stick to it! Tell mother you won't be treated so--that you're a man, not a school-boy--that you prefer, with many thanks, to write your own speeches--_et cetera_. Play the independence card for all you're worth. It _may_ get you out of the mess."

Arthur's countenance began to clear.

"I'm to make it appear a bargain--between you and me? I asked you to give up your show, and you--"

"Oh, any lies you like," said Coryston, placidly. "But as I've already warned you, it won't help you long."

"One gains a bit of time," said the young lover, in a tone of depression.

"What's the good of it? In a year's time Glenwilliam will still be Glenwilliam--and mother mother. Of course you know you'll break her heart--and that kind of thing. Marcia made me promise to put that before you. So I do. It's perfectly true; though I don't know that I am the person to press it! But then mother and I have always disagreed--whereas _you_ have been the model son."

Angry melancholy swooped once more upon Arthur.

"What the deuce have women to do with politics! Why can't they leave the rotten things to us? Life won't be worth living if they go on like this!"

"'_Life_,'" echoed Coryston, with amused contempt. "Your life? Just try offering your billet--with all its little worries thrown in--to the next fellow you meet in the street--and see what happens!"

But the man in Arthur rebelled. He faced his brother.

"If you think that I wouldn't give up this whole show to-morrow"--he waved his hand toward the marble forecourt outside, now glistening in the sun--"for--for Enid--you never made a greater mistake in your life, Corry!"

There was a bitter and passionate accent in the voice which carried conviction. Coryston's expression changed.

"Unfortunately, it wouldn't help you with--with Enid--to give it up," he said, quietly. "Miss Glenwilliam, as I read her--I don't mean anything in the least offensive--has a very just and accurate idea of the value of money."

A sort of impatient groan was the only reply.

But Lester raised his head from his book.

"Why don't you see what Miss Coryston can do?" he asked, looking from one to the other.

"Marcia?" cried Coryston, springing up. "By the way, what are mother and Marcia after, this Sunday? Do you suppose that business is all settled by now?"

He flung out a finger vaguely in the direction of Hoddon Grey. And as he spoke all the softness which had gradually penetrated his conversation with Arthur through all his banter, disappeared. His aspect became in a moment hard and threatening.

"Don't discuss it with me, Coryston," said Lester, rather sharply. "Your sister wouldn't like it. I only mentioned her name to suggest that she might influence your mother in Arthur's case." He rose, and began to put up his papers as he spoke.

"I know that! All the same, why shouldn't we talk about her? Aren't you a friend?--her friend?--our friend?--everybody's friend?" said Coryston, peremptorily. "Look here!--if Marcia's really going to marry Newbury!"--he brought his hand down vehemently on Lester's table--"there'll be another family row. Nothing in the world will prevent my putting the Betts' case before Marcia! I have already warned her that I mean to have it out with her, and I have advised Mrs. Betts to write to her. If she can make Newbury hear reason--well and good. If she can't--or if she doesn't see the thing as she ought, herself--well!--we shall know where we are!"

"Look here, Corry," said Arthur, remonstrating, "Edward Newbury's an awfully good chap. Don't you go making mischief!"

"Rather hard on your sister, isn't it?"--the voice was Lester's--"to plunge her into such a business, at such a time!"

"If she's happy, let her make a thank-offering!" said the inexorable Coryston. "Life won't spare her its facts--why should we? Arthur!--come and walk home with me!"

Arthur demurred, stipulated that he should not be expected to be civil to any of Coryston's Socialist lodgers--and finally let himself be carried off.

Lester was left once more to the quiet of the library.

"'I have advised Mrs. Betts to write to her!'"

What a shame! Why should a girl in her first love-dream be harassed with such a problem--be brought face to face with such "old, unhappy, far-off things"? He felt a fierce indignation with Coryston. And as he again sat solitary by the window, he lost himself in visualizations of what was or might be going on that summer afternoon at Hoddon Grey. He knew the old house--for Lord William had once or twice courteously invited the Coryston librarian to examine such small treasures as he himself possessed. He could see Marcia in its paneled rooms and on its old lawns--Marcia and Newbury.

Gradually his head dropped on his hands. The sun crept along the library floor in patches of orange and purple, as it struck through the lozenges of old painted glass which bordered the windows. No sound except the cooing of doves, and the note of a distant cuckoo from the river meadows.

He did his best to play the cynic with himself. He told himself that such painful longings and jealous revolts as he was conscious of are among the growing-pains of life, and must be borne, and gradually forgotten. He had his career to think of--and his mother and sister, whom he loved. Some day he too would marry and set up house and beget children, framing his life on the simple strenuous lines made necessary by the family misfortunes. It would have been easier, perhaps, to despise wealth, if he and his had never possessed it, and if his lack of it were not the first and sufficient barrier which divided him from Marcia Coryston. But his nature was sound and sane; it looked life in the face--its gifts and its denials, and those stern joys which the mere wrestle with experience brings to the fighting spirit. He had soon reconquered cheerfulness; and when Arthur returned, he submitted to be talked to for hours on that young man's tangled affairs, handling the youth with that mixture of sympathy and satire which both soothed and teased the sentimentalists who chose to confide in him.

* * * * *

Next morning Marcia and her mother returned from Hoddon Grey in excellent time. Lady Coryston never lingered over week-ends. Generally the first train on Monday morning saw her depart. In this case she was obliged to give an hour to business talk--as to settlements and so forth--with Lord William, on Monday morning. But when that was over she stepped into her motor with all possible speed.

"What a Sunday!" she said, languidly throwing herself back, with half-closed eyes, as they emerged from the park. Then remembering herself: "But you, my dear, have been happy! And of course they are excellent people--quite excellent."

Marcia sat beside her flushed and rather constrained. She had of course never expected her mother to behave like ordinary mothers on the occasion of a daughter's betrothal. She took her insignificance, the absence of any soft emotion, quite calmly. All the same she had her grievance.

"If only Edward and you--and everybody would not be in such a dreadful hurry!" she said, protesting.

"Seven weeks, my dear child, is enough for any trousseau. And what have you to wait for? It will suit me too, much best. If we put it off till the autumn I should be terribly busy--absolutely taken up--with Arthur's election. Sir Louis Ford tells me they cannot possibly stave off going to the country longer than November. And of course this time I shall have not only the usual Liberal gang--I shall have Coryston to fight!"

"I know. It's appalling!" cried Marcia. "Can't we get him to go away?" Then she looked at her mother uneasily. "I do wish, mother, you hadn't put that notice of Arthur's meeting into the _Witness_ without consulting him. Why, you didn't even ask him, before you settled it all! Aren't you afraid of his cutting up rough?"

"Not in the least! Arthur always expects me to settle those things for him. As soon as Coryston had taken that outrageous step, it was imperative that Arthur should speak in his own village. We can't have people's minds in doubt as to what _he_ thinks of Glenwilliam, with an election only five months off. I have written to him, of course, fully--without a word of reply! What he has been doing these last weeks I can't imagine!"

Marcia fell into a frowning silence. She knew, alack! a great deal more than she wished to know of what Arthur had been doing. Oh, she hoped Coryston had been able to talk to him--to persuade him! Edward too had promised to see him--immediately. Surely between them they would make him hear reason, before any suspicion reached their mother?

The usual pile of letters awaited Lady Coryston and Marcia on their arrival at home. But before opening hers, Lady Coryston turned to the butler.

"Is Mr. Arthur here?"

"Yes, my lady. He is out now, but he left word he would be in for luncheon."

Lady Coryston's face lit up. Marcia did not hear the question or the answer. She was absorbed in a letter which she happened to have opened first. She read it hastily, with