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

from the shadows of the landing overhead. It was Marcia, carrying a book.

She came to the balustrade and looked over into the hall below. Nothing to be heard or seen. Her brothers, she perceived, had not left the house from the drawing-room. They must have adjourned to the library, the large ground-floor room at the back.

"Then Mr. Lester knows," she thought, indignantly. "Just like Corry!" And her pride revolted against the notion of her brothers discussing her mother's actions, her mother's decisions, with this stranger in the house. It was quite true that Mr. Lester had been a friend both of Arthur and of Coryston at Oxford, and that Arthur in particular was devoted to him. But that did not excuse the indiscretion, the disloyalty, of bringing him into the family counsels at such a juncture. Should she go down? She was certain she would never get to sleep after these excitements, and she wanted the second volume of _Diana of the Crossways_. Why not? It was only just eleven. None of the lights had yet been put out. Probably Mr. Lester had gone to bed.

She ran down lightly, and along the passage leading to the library. As she opened the door, what had been light just before became suddenly darkness, and she heard some one moving about.

"Who is that?" said a voice. "Wait a moment."

A little fumbling; and then a powerful reading-lamp, standing on a desk heaped with books midway down the large room, was relit. The light flashed toward the figure at the door.

"Miss Coryston! I beg your pardon! I was just knocking off work. Can I do anything for you?"

The young librarian came toward her. In the illumination from the passage behind her she saw his dark Cornish face, its red-brown color, broad brow, and blue eyes.

"I came for a book," said Marcia, rather hurriedly, as she entered. "I know where to find it. Please don't trouble." She went to the shelves, found her volume, and turned abruptly. The temptation which possessed her proved too strong.

"I suppose my brothers have been here?"

Lester's pleasant face showed a certain embarrassment.

"They have only just gone--at least, Arthur and Lord Coryston. James went some time ago."

Marcia threw her head back defiantly against the latticed bookcase.

"I suppose Corry has been attacking my mother?"

Lester hesitated; then spoke with grave sincerity: "I assure you, he did nothing of the kind. I should not have let him." He smiled.

"But they've told you--he and Arthur--they've told you what's happened?"

"Yes," he said, reluctantly. "I tried to stop them."

"As if anything could stop Corry!" cried Marcia--"when he wants to do something he knows he oughtn't to do. And he's told you his precious plan?--of coming to settle down at Coryston--in our very pockets--in order to make mother's life a burden to her?"

"A perfectly mad whim!" said Lester, smiling again. "I don't believe he'll do it."

"Oh yes, he will," said Marcia; "he'll do anything that suits his ideas. He calls it following his conscience. Other people's ideas and other people's consciences don't matter a bit."

Lester made no answer. His eyes were on the ground. She broke out impetuously:

"You think he's been badly treated?"

"I had rather not express an opinion. I have no right to one."

"Mayn't women care for politics just as strongly as men?" cried the girl, as though arguing the question with herself. "I think it's _splendid_ my mother should care as she does! Corry ought to respect her for it."

Lester made a pretense of gathering up some papers on his desk, by way of covering his silence. Marcia observed him, with red cheeks.

"But of course you don't, you can't, feel with us, Mr. Lester. You're a Liberal."

"No!" he protested mildly, raising his eyes in surprise. "I really don't agree with Coryston at all. I don't intend to label myself just yet, but if I'm anything I think I'm a Conservative."

"But you think other things matter more than politics?"

"Ah yes," he said, smiling, "that I do. Especially--" He stopped.

"Especially--for women?" The breaking of Marcia's delightful smile answered his. "You see, I guessed what you meant to say. What things? I think I know."

"Beauty--poetry--sympathy. Wouldn't you put those first?"

He spoke the words shyly, looking down upon her.

There was something in the mere sound of them that thrilled, that made a music in the girl's ears. She drew a long breath, and suddenly, as he raised his eyes, he saw her as a white vision, lit up, Rembrandt-like, in the darkness, by the solitary light--the lines of her young form, the delicate softness of cheek and brow, the eager eyes.

She held out her hand.

"Good night. I shall see what Meredith has to say about it!"

She held up her volume, ran to the door, and disappeared.


CHAPTER III

"Her ladyship says she would like to see you, Miss, before you go."

The speaker was Lady Coryston's maid. She stood just within the doorway of the room where Marcia was dressing for the Opera, delivering her message mechanically, but really absorbed in the spectacle presented by the young girl before her. Sewell was an artist in her own sphere, and secretly envious of the greater range of combination which Marcia's youth and beauty made possible for the persons who dressed her, as compared with Lady Coryston. There are all kinds of subtle variants, no doubt, in "black," such as Lady Coryston habitually wore; and the costliness of them left nothing to be desired. But when she saw Marcia clothed in a new Worth or Paquin, Sewell was sorely tempted to desert her elderly mistress and go in search of a young one.

"Come in, Sewell," cried Marcia. "What do you think of it?"

The woman eagerly obeyed her. Marcia's little maid, Bellows, did the honors, and the two experts, in an ecstasy, chattered the language of their craft, while Marcia, amid her shimmering white and pink, submitted good-humoredly to being pulled about and twisted round, till after endless final touches, she was at last pronounced the perfect thing.

Then she ran across the passage to her mother's sitting-room. Lady Coryston had complained of illness during the day and had not been down-stairs. But Marcia's experience was that when her mother was ill she was not less, but more active than usual, and that withdrawal to her sitting-room generally meant a concentration of energy.

Lady Coryston was sitting with a writing-board on her knee, and a reading-lamp beside her, lighting a table covered with correspondence. Within her reach was a deep cupboard in the wall containing estate and business letters, elaborately labeled and subdivided. A revolving bookcase near carried a number of books of reference, and at her elbow, with the paper-knife inside it, lay a copy of the _Quarterly Review_. The walls of the room were covered with books--a fine collection of county histories, and a large number of historical memoirs and biographies. In a corner, specially lit, a large bust of the late Lord Coryston conveyed to a younger generation the troubled, interrogative look which in later life had been the normal look of the original. His portrait by Holl hung over the mantelpiece, flanked on either side by water-color pictures of his sons and daughter in their childhood.

There was only one comfortable chair in the room, and Lady Coryston never sat in it. She objected to flowers as being in the way; and there was not a sign anywhere of the photographs and small knick-knacks which generally belitter a woman's sitting--room. Altogether, an ugly room, but characteristic, businesslike, and not without a dignity of its own.

"Mother!--why don't you rest a little?" cried Marcia, eying the black-robed figure and the long pale face, marked by very evident fatigue. "You've been writing letters or seeing people all day. How long did James stay?"

"About an hour."

"And Mr. Page?" Mr. Page was the agent of the main Coryston estate.

"Some time. There was a great deal to settle."

"Did you"--the girl fidgeted--"did you tell him about Coryston?"

"Certainly. He says there is only one house in the neighborhood he could take--"

"He has taken it." Marcia opened her right hand, in which she crushed a telegram. "Bellows has just brought me this."

Lady Coryston opened and read it.

"Have taken Knatchett for three years. Tell mother." Lady Coryston's lips stiffened.

"He has lost no time. He can vex and distress us, of course. We shall have to bear it."

"Vex and distress us! I should think he can!" cried Marcia. "Has James been talking to him?"

"I dare say," said Lady Coryston, adding, with a slight, sarcastic laugh, "James is a little too sure of being always in the right."

From which Marcia guessed that James had not only been talking to Coryston, but also remonstrating with his mother, which no doubt accounted for Lady Coryston's worn-out looks. James had more effect upon her than most people; though never quite effect enough.

Marcia stood with one foot on the fender, her gaze fixed on her mother in a frowning abstraction. And suddenly Lady Coryston, lifting her eyes, realized her daughter, and the vision that she made.

"You look very well, Marcia. Have I seen that dress before?"

"No. I designed it last week. Ah!"--the sound of a distant gong made itself heard--"there's the motor. Well, good night, mother. Take care of yourself and do go to bed soon."

She stooped to kiss her mother.

"Who's going with you?"

"Waggin and James. Arthur may come in. He thinks the House will be up early. And I asked Mr. Lester. But he can't come for the first part."

Her mother held her sleeve and looked up, smiling. Lady Coryston's smiles were scarcely less formidable than her frowns.

"You expect to see Edward Newbury?"

"I dare say. They have their box, as usual."

"Well!--run off and enjoy yourself. Give my love to Miss Wagstaffe."

"Waggin" was waiting in the hall for Marcia. She had been Miss Coryston's governess for five years, and was now in retirement on a small income, partly supplied by a pension from Lady Coryston. It was understood that when she was wanted to act duenna, she came--at a moment's notice. And she was very willing to come. She lived in an Earl's Court lodging, and these occasional expeditions with Marcia represented for her the gilt on her modest gingerbread. She was a small, refined woman, with a figure still slender, gray hair, and a quiet face. Her dresses were years old, but she had a wonderful knack of bringing them up-to-date, and she never did Marcia any discredit. She adored Marcia, and indeed all the family. Lady Coryston called her "Miss Wagstaffe"--but to the others, sons and daughter, she was only "Waggin." There were very few things about the Coryston family she did not know; but her discretion was absolute.

As she saw Marcia running down-stairs her face lit up.

"My dear, what a lovely gown!--and how sweet you look!"

"Don't talk nonsense, Waggin!--and put on this rose I've brought for you!"

Waggin submitted while Marcia adorned her and gave various pats and pulls to her hair.

"There!--you look ten years younger," said the girl, with her bright look, stepping back. "But where is James?"

The butler stepped forward.

"Mr. James will meet you at the Opera."

"Oh, good!" murmured Marcia in her companion's ear. "Now