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

for the time nerve and self-respect. Lady Coryston felt as if she had been physically as well as morally beaten, and could not get over it. She sat, white and shaken, in the darkness of a closed motor, the prey to strange terrors. She would not see Arthur that night! He was only to return late, and she would not risk it. She must have a night's rest, indeed, before grappling with him. She was not herself, and the violence of that extraordinary girl had upset her. Conscious of a very rapid pulse, she remembered for a moment, unwillingly, certain warnings that her doctor had given her before she left town--"You are overtaxing yourself, Lady Coryston--and you badly want a rest." Pure nonsense! She came of a long-lived stock, persons of sound hearts and lungs, who never coddled themselves. All the same, she shrank physically, instinctively, from the thought of any further emotion or excitement that day--till she had had a good night. She now remembered that she had had practically no sleep the preceding night. Indeed, ever since the angry scene with Arthur a fortnight before, she had been conscious of bodily and mental strain.

Which perhaps accounted for the feeling of irritation with which she perceived the figure of her daughter standing on the steps of Coryston House beside Sir Wilfrid Bury. Marcia had come to her that morning with some tiresome story about the Newburys and the divorced woman Mrs. Betts. How could she think of such things, when her mind was full of Arthur? Girls really should be more considerate.

The car drew up at the steps, and Marcia and Sir Wilfrid awaited it. Even preoccupied as she was, Lady Coryston could not help noticing that Marcia was subdued and silent. She asked her mother no questions, and after helping Lady Coryston to alight, she went quickly into the house. It vaguely crossed the mother's mind that her daughter was depressed or annoyed--perhaps with her? But she could not stop to think about it.

Sir Wilfrid, however, followed Lady Coryston into the drawing-room.

"What have you been doing?" he asked her, smiling, taking the liberty of an old friend and co-executor. "I think I guess!"

She looked at him somberly.

"She won't marry him! But not a word to Arthur, please--not a word!--till I give you leave. I have gone through--a great deal."

Her look of weakness and exhaustion did indeed strike him painfully. He put out his hand and pressed hers.

"Well, so far, so good," he said, gravely. "It must be a great relief to your mind." Then in another and a lower tone he added, "Poor old boy!"

Lady Coryston made no reply except to say that she must get ready for luncheon. She left the room just as Sir Wilfrid perceived a rider on a bay horse approaching through the park, and recognized Edward Newbury.

"Handsome fellow!" he thought, as he watched him from the window; "and sits his horse uncommonly well. Why doesn't that girl fly to meet him? They used to in my days."

But Newbury dismounted with only a footman to receive him, and Marcia did not appear till the gong had rung for luncheon.

Sir Wilfrid's social powers were severely taxed to keep that meal going. Lady Coryston sat almost entirely silent and ate nothing. Marcia too ate little and talked less. Newbury indeed had arrived in radiant spirits, bringing a flamboyant account of Marcia's trousseau which he had extracted from a weekly paper, and prepared to tease her thereon. But he could scarcely get the smallest rise out of her, and presently he, too, fell silent, throwing uneasy glances at her from time to time. Her black hair and eyes were more than usually striking, by contrast with a very simple and unadorned white dress; but for beauty, her face required animation; it could be all but plain in moments of languor or abstraction; and Sir Wilfrid marveled that a girl's secret instinct did not save her from presenting herself so unattractively to her lover.

Newbury, it appeared, had spent the preceding night in what Sir Wilfrid obstinately called a "monkery"--_alias_ the house of an Anglican brotherhood or Community--the Community of the Ascension, of which Newbury's great friend, Father Brierly, was Superior. In requital for Newbury's teasing of Marcia, Sir Wilfrid would have liked to tease Newbury a little on the subject of the "monkery." But Newbury most dexterously evaded him. He would laugh, but not at the hosts he had just quitted; and through all his bantering good temper there could be felt the throb of some deep feeling which was not allowed to express itself. "Damned queer eyes!" was Bury's inward comment, as he happened once to observe Newbury's face during a pause of silence. "Half in a dream all the time--even when the fellow's looking at his sweetheart."

After luncheon Marcia made a sign, and she and Newbury slipped away. They wandered out beyond the lake into a big wood, where great pools of pink willow-herb, in its open spaces, caught the light as it struck through the gray trunks of the beeches. Newbury found a seat for Marcia on a fallen trunk, and threw himself beside her. The world seemed to have been all washed by the thunder-storm of the night before; the odors of grass, earth, and fern were steaming out into the summer air. The wood was alive with the hum of innumerable insects, which had become audible and dominant with the gradual silencing of the birds. In the half-cut hay-fields the machines stood at rest; rarely, an interlaced couple could be dimly seen for a moment on some distant footpath of the park; sometimes a partridge called or a jay screamed; otherwise a Sabbath stillness--as it seemed to Marcia, a Sabbath dreariness--held the scene.

Newbury put up his arms, drew her down to him, and kissed her passionately. She yielded; but it was more yielding than response; and again he was conscious of misgiving as at luncheon.

"Darling!--is there anything wrong--anything that troubles you?" he said, anxiously. "Do you think I've forgotten you for one moment, while I've been away?"

"Yes; while you were asleep." She smiled shyly, while her fingers caressed his.

"Wrong--quite wrong! I dreamed of you both nights. And oh, dearest, I thought of you last night."

"Where--when?" Her voice was low--a little embarrassed. "In chapel--the chapel at Blackmount--at Benediction."

She looked puzzled.

"What is Benediction?"

"A most beautiful service, though of late origin--which, like fools, we have let the Romans monopolize. The Bishops bar it, but in private chapels like our own, or Blackmount, they can't interfere. To me, yesterday evening"--his voice fell--"it was like the gate of heaven. I longed to have you there."

She made no reply. Her brow knitted a little. He went on:

"Of course a great deal of what is done at places like Blackmount is not recognized--yet. To some of the services--to Benediction for instance--the public is not admitted. But the brothers keep every rule--of the strictest observance. I was present last night at the recitation of the Night Office--most touching--most solemn! And--my darling!"--he pressed her hand while his face lit up--"I want to ask you--though I hardly dare. Would you give me--would you give me the greatest joy you could give me, before our marriage? Father Brierly--my old friend--would give us both Communion, on the morning of our wedding--in the little chapel of the Brotherhood, in Red Street, Soho--just us two alone. Would it be too much for you, too tiring?" His voice was tenderness itself. "I would come for you at half past seven--nobody but your mother would know. And then afterward--afterward!--we will go through with the great ceremony--and the crowds--and the bridesmaids. Your mother tells me it's to be Henry the Seventh's chapel--isn't it? But first, we shall have received our Lord, we two alone, into our hearts--to feed upon Him, forever!"

There was silence. He had spoken with an imploring gentleness and humility, yet nevertheless with a tender confidence which did not escape the listener. And again a sudden terror seized on Marcia--as though behind the lover, she perceived something priestly, directive, compelling--something that threatened her very self. She drew herself back.

"Edward!--ought you--to take things for granted about me--like this?"

His face, with its "illuminated," exalted look, scarcely changed.

"I don't take anything for granted, dearest. I only put it before you. I talked it over with Brierly--he sent you a message--"

"But I don't know him!" cried Marcia. "And I don't know that I want to know him. I'm not sure I think as you do, Edward. You assume that I do--but indeed--indeed--my mind is often in confusion--great confusion--I don't know what to think--about many things."

"The Church decides for us, darling--that is the great comfort--the great strength."

"But what Church? Everybody chooses his own, it seems to me! And you know that that Roman priest who was at Hoddon Grey the other day thinks you just as much in the wrong as--well, as he'd think me!--_me_, even!" She gave a little tremulous laugh. Then, with a quick movement she sat erect. Her great, dark eyes fixed him eagerly. "And Edward, I've got something so different, so very different to talk to you about! I've been so unhappy--all night, all to-day. I've been pining for you to come--and then afraid what you'd say--"

She broke off, her lips parting eagerly, her look searching his.

And this time, as she watched him, she saw his features stiffen, as though a suspicion, a foreboding ran through him. She hurried on.

"I went over to see Mrs. Betts, yesterday, Edward. She sent for me. And I found her half mad--in despair! I just persuaded her to wait till I'd seen you. But perhaps you've seen her--to-day?" She hung on his answer.

"Indeed, no." The chill, the alteration in his tone were evident. "I left Blackmount this morning, after matins, motored home, just saw my father and mother for a moment--heard nothing--and rode on here as fast as I could. What is there fresh, dearest? I thought that painful business was settled. And I confess I feel very indignant with Mrs. Betts for dragging you--insisting upon dragging you--into it!"

"How could she help it? She's no friends, Edward! People are very sorry for him--but they fight shy of her. I dare say it's right--I dare say she's deserved it--I don't want to know. But oh it's so miserable--so pitiable! She's _going_!--she's made up her mind to that--she's going. That's what she wanted to tell me--and asked that I should tell you."

"She could do nothing better for herself, or him," said Newbury, firmly.

"But she's not going, in the way you proposed! Oh no. She's going to slip away--to hide! He's not to know where she is--and she implores you to keep him here--to comfort him--and watch over him."

"Which of course we should do."

The quiet, determined voice sent a shiver through Marcia. She caught Newbury's hand in hers, and held it close.

"Yes, but Edward!--listen!--it would kill them both. His mind seems to be giving way. I got a letter from her again this morning, inclosing one from their doctor. And she--she says if she does go, if decent people turn her out, she'll just go back to people like herself--who'll be kind to her. Nothing will induce her to go to the Cloan Sisters."

"She must, of course, be the judge of that," said Newbury, coldly.

"But you can't allow it!--you _can't_!--the poor, poor things!" cried Marcia. "I saw him too, Edward--I shall never forget it!" And with a growing excitement she gave a full account of her visit to the