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

throw her arms round him, and comfort him. Yet there was no passion in her longing. All that young rising of the blood seemed to have been killed in her. But she would never draw back from what she had offered him--never. She would go to him, and stand by him--as Sir Wilfrid had said--if he wanted her.

The gong rang for luncheon. Marcia rose unwillingly; but she was still more unwilling to make her feelings the talk of the household. As she neared the dining-room she saw her mother approaching from the opposite side of the house. Lady Coryston walked feebly, and her appearance shocked her daughter.

"Mother!--do let me send for Bryan!" she pleaded, as they met--blaming herself sharply the while for her own absorption and inaction during the morning hours. "You don't look a bit fit to be up."

Lady Coryston replied in a tone which forbade discussion that she was quite well, and had no need whatever of Dr. Bryan's attendance. Then she turned to the butler, and inquired if Mr. Arthur was in the house.

"His motor came round, my lady, about twelve o'clock. I have not seen him since."

The lunch passed almost in complete silence between the two ladies. Lady Coryston was informed that Sir Wilfrid and Lester had gone to Martover in connection with Marcia's share in the events at Redcross Farm. "They hope I needn't appear," said Marcia, dully.

"I should rather think not!"

Lady Coryston's indignant tone seemed to assume that English legal institutions were made merely to suit the convenience of the Coryston family. Marcia had enough of Coryston in her to perceive it. But she said nothing.

As they entered the drawing-room after luncheon she remembered--with a start.

"Mother--I forgot!--I'm so sorry--I dare say it was nothing. But I think a letter came for Arthur just before twelve--a letter he was expecting. At least I saw a messenger-boy come down the avenue. Arthur ran out to meet him. Then I went up-stairs, and I haven't seen him since."

Lady Coryston had turned whiter than before. She groped for a chair near and seated herself, before she recovered sufficient self-possession to question her daughter as to the precise moment of the messenger's appearance, the direction from which he arrived, and so forth.

But Marcia knew no more, and could tell no more. Nor could she summon up any curiosity about her brother, possessed and absorbed as her mind was by other thoughts and images. But in a vague, anxious way she felt for her mother; and if Lady Coryston had spoken Marcia would have responded.

And Lady Coryston would have liked to speak, first of all to scold Marcia for forgetting her message, and then to confide in her--insignificant as the daughter's part in the mother's real life and thoughts had always been. But she felt physically incapable of bearing the emotion which might spring out upon her from such a conversation. It was as though she possessed--and knew she possessed--a certain measured strength; just enough--and no more--to enable her to go through a conversation which _must_ be faced. She had better not waste it beforehand. Sometimes it occurred to her that her feeling toward this coming interview was wholly morbid and unnatural. How many worse things had she faced in her time!

But reasoning on it did not help her--only silence and endurance. After resting a little in the drawing-room she went up to her sitting-room again, refusing Marcia's company.

"Won't you let me come and make you comfortable?--if you're going to rest, you'll want a shawl and some pillows," said the girl, as she stood at the foot of the staircase, wistfully looking after her.

But Lady Coryston shook her head.

"Thank you--I don't want anything."

* * * * *

So--for Marcia--there was nothing to be done with these weary hours--but wait and think and weep! She went back to her own sitting-room, and lingeringly put Newbury's letters together, in a packet, which she sealed; in case--well, in case--nothing came of her letter of the morning. They had been engaged not quite a month. Although they had met almost every day, yet there were many letters from him; letters of which she felt anew the power and beauty as she reread them. Yet from that power and beauty, the natural expression of his character, she stood further off now than when she had first known him. The mystery indeed in which her nascent love had wrapped him had dropped away. She knew him better, she respected him infinitely; and all the time--strangely, inexplicably--love had been, not growing, but withering.

Meanwhile, into all her thoughts about herself and Newbury there rushed at recurrent intervals the memory, the overwhelming memory, of her last sight of John and Alice Betts. That gray face in the summer dusk, beyond the window, haunted her; and the memory of those arms which had clung about her waist.

Was there a beyond?--where were they?--those poor ghosts! All the riddles of the eternal Sphinx leaped upon Marcia--riddles at last made real. Twenty-four hours ago, two brains, two hearts, alive, furiously alive, with human sorrow and human revolt. And now? Had that infinitely pitiful Christ in whom Newbury believed, received the two tormented souls?--were they comforted--purged--absolved? Had they simply ceased to be--to feel--to suffer? Or did some stern doom await them--still--after all the suffering here? A shudder ran through the girl, evoking by reaction the memory of immortal words--"_Her sins which are many are forgiven; for she loved much_." She fed herself on the divine saying; repressing with all her strength the skeptical, pessimistic impulses that were perhaps natural to her temperament, forcing herself, as it were, for their sakes, to hope and to believe.

Again, as the afternoon wore away, she was weighed down by the surrounding silence. No one in the main pile of building but her mother and herself. Not a sound, but the striking of the great gilt clock outside. From her own room she could see the side windows of her mother's sitting-room; and once she thought she perceived the stately figure passing across them. But otherwise Lady Coryston made no sign; and her daughter dared not go to her without permission.

Why did no letter come for her, no reply? She sat at her open windows for a time, watching the front approaches, and looking out into a drizzling rain which veiled the afternoon. When it ceased she went out--restlessly--to the East Wood--the wood where they had broken it off. She lay down with her face against the log--a prone white figure, among the fern. The buried ring--almost within reach of her hand--seemed to call to her like a living thing. No!--let it rest.

If it was God's will that she should go back to Edward, she would make him a good wife. But her fear, her shrinking, was all there still. She prayed; but she did not know for what.

Meanwhile at Redcross Farm, the Coroner was holding his inquiry. The facts were simple, the public sympathy and horror profound. Newbury and Lord William had given their evidence amid a deep and, in many quarters, hostile silence. The old man, parchment-pale, but of an unshaken dignity, gave a full account of the efforts--many and vain--that had been made both by himself and his son to find Betts congenial work in another sphere and to persuade him to accept it.

"We had nothing to do with his conscience, or with his private affairs--in themselves. All we asked was that we should not be called on to recognize a marriage which in our eyes was not a marriage. Everything that we could have done consistently with that position, my son and I may honestly say we have done."

Sir Wilfrid Bury was called, to verify Marcia's written statement, and Mrs. Betts's letter was handed to the Coroner, who broke down in reading it. Coryston, who was sitting on the opposite side of the room, watched the countenances of the two Newburys while it was being read, with a frowning attention.

When the evidence was over, and the jury had retired, Edward Newbury took his father to the carriage which was waiting. The old man, so thin and straight, from his small head and narrow shoulders to his childishly small feet, leaned upon his son's arm, and apparently saw nothing around him. A mostly silent throng lined the lane leading to the farm. Half-way stood the man who had come down to lecture on "Rational Marriage," surrounded by a group of Martover Socialists. From them rose a few hisses and groans as the Newburys passed. But other groups represented the Church Confraternities and clubs of the Newbury estate. Among them heads were quietly bared as the old man went by, or hands were silently held out. Even a stranger would have realized that the scene represented the meeting of two opposing currents of thought and life.

Newbury placed his father in the carriage, which drove off. He then went back himself to wait for the verdict.

As he approached the door of the laboratory in which the inquiry had been held, Coryston emerged.

Newbury flushed and stopped him. Coryston received it as though it had been the challenge of an enemy. He stepped back, straightening himself fiercely. Newbury began:

"Will you take a message from me to your sister?"

A man opened the door in front a little way.

"Mr. Edward, the jury are coming back."

The two men went in; Coryston listened with a sarcastic mouth to the conventional verdict of "unsound mind" which drapes impartially so many forms of human ill. And again he found himself in the lane with Newbury beside him.

"One more lie," he said, violently, "to a jury's credit!"

Newbury looked up. It was astonishing what a mask he could make of his face, normally so charged--over-charged--with expression.

"What else could it have been? But this is no time or place for us to discuss our differences, Coryston--"

"Why not!" cried Coryston, who had turned a dead white. "'Our differences,' as you call them, have led to _that_!" He turned and flung out a thin arm toward the annex to the laboratory, where the bodies were lying. "It is time, I think, that reasonable men should come to some understanding about 'differences' that can slay and madden a pair of poor hunted souls, as these have been slain!"

"'Hunted?' What do you mean?" said Newbury, sternly, while his dark eyes took fire.

"Hunted by the Christian conscience!--that it might lie comfortable o' nights," was the scornful reply.

Newbury said nothing for a few moments. They emerged on the main road, crossed it, and entered the Hoddon Grey park. Here they were alone, out of sight of the crowd returning from the inquest to the neighboring village. As they stepped into one of the green rides of the park they perceived a motorcar descending the private road which crossed it a hundred yards away. A man was driving it at a furious pace, and Coryston clearly recognized his brother Arthur. He was driving toward Coryston. Up to the moment when the news of the farm tragedy had reached him that morning, Coryston's mind had been very full of what seemed to him the impending storm between his mother and Arthur. Since then he had never thought of it, and the sight of his brother rushing past, making for Coryston, no doubt, from some unknown point, excited but a moment's recollection, lost at once in