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

/> "Haven't I good reason?" Her hands clenched at the words. "It's that which has come between us, as well as the farm. Since he's been back here, it's the old ideas that have got hold of him again. He thinks he's in mortal sin--he thinks he's damned--and yet he won't--he can't give me up. My poor old John!--We were so happy those few weeks!--why couldn't they leave us alone!--That hard old man, Lord William!--and Mr. Edward--who's got you--and everything he wants besides in the world! There--now I suppose you'll turn against me too!"

She stood superbly at bay, her little body drawn up against the wall, her head thrown back. To her own dismay, Marcia found herself sobbing--against her will.

"I'm not against you. Indeed--indeed--I'm not against you! You'll see. I'll go again to Mr. Newbury--I promise you! He's not hard--he's not cruel--he's not!..."

"Hush!" said Mrs. Berts, suddenly, springing forward--"there he is!" And trembling all over, she pointed to the figure of her husband, standing just outside the window and looking in upon them. Thunder had been rumbling round the house during the whole of this scene, and now the rain had begun. It beat on the bare grizzled head of John Betts, and upon his weather-beaten cheeks and short beard.

His expression sent a shudder through Marcia. He seemed to be looking at them--and yet not conscious of them; his tired eyes met hers, and made no sign. With a slight puzzled gesture he turned away, back into the pelting rain, his shoulders bent, his step faltering and slow.

"Oh! go after him!" said Marcia, imploringly. "Don't trouble about me! I'll find the motor. Go! Take my cloak!" She would have wrapped it round Mrs. Betts and pushed her to the door. But the woman stopped her.

"No good. He wouldn't listen to me. I'll get one of the men to bring him in. And the servant'll go for your motor." She went out of the room to give the order, and came back. Then as she saw Marcia under the storm light, standing in the middle of the room, and struggling with her tears, she suddenly fell on her knees beside the girl, embracing her dress, with stifled sobs and inarticulate words of thanks.

"Make them do something for John. It doesn't matter about me. Let them comfort John. Then I'll forgive them."


CHAPTER XIII

Marion Atherstone sat sewing in the cottage garden. Uncertain weather had left the grass wet, and she had carried her work-table into the shelter of a small summer-house, whence the whole plain, drawn in purple and blue on the pale grounding of its chalk soil, could be seen--east, west, and north. Serried ranks, line above line, of purplish cloud girded the horizon, each circle of the great amphitheater rising from its shadowy foundations into pearly white and shining gray, while the topmost series of all soared in snowy majesty upon a sea of blue, above the far-spread woods and fields. From these hills, the Dane in his high clearings had looked out upon the unbroken forests below, and John Hampden had ridden down with his yeomen to find death at Chalgrove Field.

Marion was an Englishwoman to the core; and not ill-read. From this post of hers, she knew a hundred landmarks, churches, towns, hills, which spoke significantly of Englishmen and their doings. But one white patch, in particular, on an upland not three miles from the base of the hills, drew back her eyes and thoughts perpetually.

The patch was Knatchett, and she was thinking of Lord Coryston. She had not seen him for a fortnight; though a stout packet of his letters lay within, in a drawer reserved to things she valued; but she was much afraid that, as usual, he had been the center of stormy scenes in the north, and had come back embittered in spirit. And now, since he had returned, there had been this defiance of Lady Coryston, and this planting of the Baptist flag under the very tower of the old church of Coryston Major. Marion Atherstone shook her head over it, in spite of the humorous account of the defeat of Lady Coryston which her father had given to the Chancellor, at their little dinner of the night before; and those deep laughs which had shaken the ample girth of Glenwilliam.

... Ah!--the blind was going up. Marion had her eyes on a particular window in the little house to her right. It was the window of Enid Glenwilliam's room. Though the church clock below had struck eleven, and the bell for morning service had ceased to ring, Miss Glenwilliam was not yet out of bed. Marion had stayed at home from church that she might enjoy her friend's society, and the friend had only just been called. Well, it was Enid's way; and after all, who could wonder? The excitement of that huge meeting of the night before was still tingling even in Marion's quiet Conservative veins. She had not been carried away by Glenwilliam's eloquence at all; she had thought him a wonderful, tawdry, false man of genius, not unlikely to bring himself and England to ruin. All the same, he must be an exhausting man for a daughter to live with; and a daughter who adored him. She did not grudge Enid her rest.

Ah, there was the little gate opening! Somehow she had expected the opener--though he had disappeared abruptly from the meeting the night before, and had given no promise that he would come.

Coryston walked up the garden path, looking about him suspiciously. At sight of Marion he took off his cap; she gave him her hand, and he sat down beside her.

"Nobody else about? What a blessing!"

She looked at him with mild reproach.

"My father and the Chancellor are gone for a walk. Enid is not yet down."

"Why? She is perfectly well. If she were a workman's wife and had to get up at six o'clock, get his breakfast and wash the children, it would do her a world of good."

"How do you know? You are always judging people, and it helps nothing."

"Yes, it does. One must form opinions--or burst. I can tell you, I judged Glenwilliam last night, as I sat listening to him."

"Father thought it hardly one of his best speeches," said Marion, cautiously.

"Sheer wallowing claptrap, wasn't it! I was ashamed of him, and sick of Liberalism, as I sat there. I'll go and join the Primrose League."

Marion lifted her blue eyes and laughed--with her finger on her lip.

"Hush! She might hear." She pointed to the half-open window on the first floor.

"And a good thing too," growled Coryston. "She adores him--and makes him worse. Why can't he _work_ at these things--or why can't his secretaries prime him decently! He makes blunders that would disgrace an undergraduate--and doesn't care a rap--so long as a hall-full of fools cheer him."

"You usen't to talk like this!"

"No--because I had illusions," was the sharp reply. "Glenwilliam was one of them. Land!--what does he know about land?--what does a miner--who won't learn!--know about farming? Why, that man--that fellow, John Betts"--he pointed to the Hoddon Grey woods on the edge of the plain--"whom the Newburys are driving out of his job, because he picked a woman out of the dirt--just like these Christians!--John Betts knows more about land in his little finger than Glenwilliam's whole body! Yet, if you saw them together, you'd see Glenwilliam patronizing and browbeating him, and Betts not allowed a look in. I'm sick of it! I'm off to Canada with Betts."

Marion looked up.

"I thought it was to be the Primrose League."

"You like catching me out," said Coryston, grimly. "But I assure you I'm pretty downhearted."

"You expect too much," said Marion, softly, distressed as she spoke, to notice his frayed collar and cuffs, and the tear in his coat pocket. "And," she added, firmly, "you should make Mrs. Potifer mend your coat."

"She's another disillusion. She's idle and dirty. And Potifer never does a stroke of work if he can help it. Moral--don't bother your head about martyrs. There's generally some excellent reason for martyrizing them."

He broke off--looking at her with a clouded brow.

"Marion!"

She turned with a start, the color flooding her plain, pleasant face.

"Yes, Lord Coryston!"

"If you're so critical of my clothes, why don't you come and look after them and me?"

She gasped--then recovered herself.

"I've never been asked," she said, quietly.

"Asked! Haven't you been scolding and advising me for weeks? Is there a detail of my private or public life that you don't meddle with--as it pleases you? Half a dozen times a day when I'm with you, you make me feel myself a fool or a brute. And then I go home and write you abject letters--and apologize--and explain. Do you think I'd do it for any other woman in the world? Do you dare to say you don't know what it means?"

He brought his threatening face closer to hers, his blue eyes one fiery accusation. Marion resumed her work, her lip twitching.

"I didn't know I was both a busybody--and a Pharisee!"

"Hypocrite!" he said, with energy. His hand leaped out and captured hers. But she withdrew it.

"My dear friend--if you wish to resume this conversation--it must be at another time. I haven't been able to tell you before, I didn't know it myself till late last night, when Enid told me. Your mother--Lady Coryston--will be here in half an hour--to see Enid."

He stared.

"My mother! So _that's_ what she's been up to!"

"She seems to have asked Enid some days ago for an interview. My father's taken Mr. Glenwilliam out of the way, and I shall disappear shortly."

"And what the deuce is going to happen?"

Marion replied that she had no idea. Enid had certainly been seeing a great deal of Arthur Coryston; London, her father reported, was full of talk; and Miss Atherstone thought that from his manner the Chancellor knew very well what was going on.

"And can't stick it?" cried Coryston, his eyes shining. "Glenwilliam has his faults, but I don't believe he'll want Arthur for a son-in-law--even with the estates. And of course he has no chance of getting both Arthur and the estates."

"Because of your mother?"

Coryston nodded. "So there's another strong man--a real big 'un!--dependent, like Arthur and me--on the whim of a woman. It'll do Glenwilliam nothing but good. He belongs to a class that's too fond of beating its wives. Well, well--so my mother's coming!" He glanced round the little house and garden. "Look here!" He bent forward peremptorily. "You'll see that Miss Glenwilliam treats her decently?"

Marion's expression showed a certain bewilderment.

"I wouldn't trust that girl!" Coryston went on, with vehemence. "She's got something cruel in her eyes."

"Cruel! Why, Lady Coryston's coming--"

"To trample on her? Of course. I know that. But any fool can see that the game will be Miss Glenwilliam's. She'll have my mother in a cleft stick. I'm not sure I oughtn't to be somewhere about. Well, well. I'll march. When shall we 'resume the conversation,' as you put it?"

He looked at her, smiling. Marion colored again, and her nervous movement upset the work-basket; balls of cotton and wool rolled upon the grass.

"Oh!" She bent to pick them up.

"Don't touch them!" cried Coryston. She obeyed instantly, while, on hands and knees, he gathered them up and placed them in her hand.

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