Marian held the letter in her hand for a moment, irresolute whether to open it and read it at once, or to defer its perusal until another opportunity, when her mind might be less perturbed, and the feeling of conscious guilt then uppermost in her soul might have become quieted and soothed down. She was fully alive to the knowledge that she had behaved with the blackest treachery to Walter Joyce, had dealt him the severest stab, the deadliest blow, of which she was capable, had--for the time at least--completely blackened his future prospects; and yet, although he had done nothing to deserve this base treatment--on the contrary, had been for ever loyal and devoted to her under the most adverse circumstances--her feeling for him was not one of pity, of regret, or even of contempt, but of downright hatred. She knew that she had been seriously to blame in neglecting all correspondence with her lover of late, and she imagined that the letter, which she still held unopened in her hand, was doubtless one of remonstrance or complaint. He had no right now to address her after such fashion, or indeed after any fashion whatever. This last thought struck her for an instant with a touch of tenderness, but she quickly put it aside as she thrust the letter into the bosom of her dress, and made her way to her mother's room.
She found Mrs. Ashurst seated in the bay-window, at the little round table, on which lay her large-printed Bible, her bottle of smelling-salts, and her spectacle-case. Mrs. Ashurst had always been a small-framed, delicate-featured woman, but in these last few months she seemed to have shrunk away almost to nothing. The light steel frame of her spectacles looked disproportionately heavy on her thin nose, and her sunk pallid face, with the complexion of that dead white colour so often seen in old women, was almost lost in the plaits and frills of her neat cap. Though the day was fine and bright outside, the old lady evidently felt the cold; she wore a thick twilled woollen shawl thrown over her shoulders, and her cosy armchair was in the full view of the fire. She looked up as Marian entered, and, when she recognised the visitor, gave a little smile of welcome, took off her spectacles, closed her book, and put up her face for her daughter's kiss.
"What a long time you have been away, dear!" she said, in the softest little voice. "I thought you were never coming back! I was wondering what had become of you!"
"Did you think Dr. Osborne had run off with me in the four-wheeler, mother?" said Marian, smiling. "The knight and his means of flight are about equally romantic! We're later than usual, dear, because Hooton Church is closed for repairs, and we've been to Helmingham!"
"Yes, I know that; but Maude and Gertrude went to Helmingham too, didn't they? And I'm sure I've heard their voices about the house this half-hour!"
"There were all sorts of Helmingham people to speak to in the churchyard after service--Mrs. Simmons, who is growing quite gray; and old Mrs. Peak, whose feet are very bad again, so bad that she can hardly get about now, poor soul; and young Freeman and young Ball, who have taken Mr. Smyth's corn-chandlery business at Brocksopp, and go over there next week; and Sam Baker, who is very much grown, and of whom Mr. Benthall speaks very highly. They all asked very kindly after you, mother!"
"I'm very much obliged to them, my dear. I shan't trouble them long, and----"
"Now, don't you remember your promise never to talk in that way again?"
"Well, my dear, I won't if you don't like it. As for myself--however, no matter! And did you walk back with Mr. Creswell?"
"Yes, mother. Maude and Gertrude hurried on, and Mr. Creswell and I came leisurely after."
"You'll become quite old-fashioned if you're so much with Mr. Creswell, Marian. Though why I say 'become,' I'm sure I don't know. You've always been old-fashioned from a child up."
"And am likely to remain so, dear, to all appearances!" said Marian, with a soft smile, bending down and kissing her mother's forehead. "Have you taken your medicine? No! then let me give it to you!" She went to a small cabinet, and brought out a tumbler and a spoon.
"I'm very glad you thought of the medicine, Marian," said the old lady; "not that it does me the least good, let Dr. Osborne say what he may, but because your fetching those things from that place reminded me of something I wanted to say to you. I've been all this morning--ever since I finished reading the lessons--I've been going through the furniture in that parlour of Mrs. Swainson's in my mind, and I'm perfectly certain there's nothing, not even a common cupboard, to lock up anything!"
"Isn't there, mother?" said Marian wearily.
"Isn't there? No, indeed there is nothing, dear! Though you don't seem to think much about it, it's a very serious thing. Of course, one would keep the tea and sugar in the caddy, but there are many little odds and ends that ought to be locked up, and---- Are you listening to me, Marian?"
"Yes, mother," she said, but her looks belied her words. She was leaning against the mantelpiece, her head resting on her hand, and her thoughts were evidently far away.
"I wonder you had not noticed that, Marian, when we went over the lodgings," pursued Mrs. Ashurst. "You're generally such a one to notice these kind of things, and I've been used to depend upon you, so that I think nothing about them. What shall we do about that? I suppose Mrs. Swainson would not be inclined to buy a cabinet--a second-hand one would do perfectly----"
"I don't think we need go into the question. We shall never go to Mrs. Swainson's lodgings!"
"No? What shall we do, then?"
"Remain here!"
"Well, my dear," said the old lady, "if you change your plans so often, how am I possibly to know where we're going, or what we're going to do? Not that I want to be consulted, but I really might as well be a chair or a table for the manner in which I am treated. I thought you said, not more than a fortnight ago, that it was impossible we could stop here any longer!"
"So I did, mother; but circumstances have changed since then. This morning, as we walked from church, Mr. Creswell asked me to become his wife."
"His wife! Mr. Creswell! you to--and you accepted him?"
"I did!"
The old lady fell back in her chair, her eyes closed, her hands fluttering nervously before her. Marian ran to her mother and knelt by her side, but Mrs. Ashurst revived almost immediately--revived sufficiently to place her hand round her daughter's neck and to whisper in her ear, "For my sake?"
"I don't understand you, dearest mother."
"For my sake? You've done this for my sake that I may be comfortable and happy for the rest of my life, that I may have these things, luxuries"--pointing with her hand round the room. "You've sacrificed yourself! It must not be; listen, Marian--it must not be!"
"Darling mother, you're all wrong, indeed you are--you're quite mistaken."
"Marian, it must not be! I'm a weakly woman, I know, but what answer should I make to your dear father when I meet him again--soon now, very soon, please God!--if I permitted this thing! What would he say if he learned that I was selfish enough to permit you to sacrifice yourself, you whom he so worshipped, to become the wife of an old man, in order that I might profit by it? What would he think of Mr. Creswell, who pretended to be his friend, and who would----"
"Mother, dearest mother, you must not speak against Mr. Creswell, please! Recollect he is to be my husband!"
"Very well, my dear," said the old lady quietly; "I'll ask you one question, and after that you'll never hear me open my lips on the matter. Do you love Mr. Creswell?"
"Yes, mother."
"Better than any other man living?"
"Ye-yes, mother." She hesitated for an instant, but the answer came round and firm at last.
"You swear that to me?"
"Yes, mother."
"That's enough, my dear! I shall be ready to face your father now." Mrs. Ashurst then removed her arm from her daughter's neck and lay back in her chair. After a minute or two she told Marian she had heard the luncheon-gong sound, and that she would prefer being left alone for a little. When Marian came up to kiss her before leaving the room, the little old lady's white face became suffused with a glow of colour, and the voice in which she prayed God to bless her child, and keep her happy throughout her life, was broken with emotion, and weaker and fainter than ever.
When she was alone Mrs. Ashurst pondered long and earnestly over what she had just heard. Of course, the question of Marian's future--and to her parents as well as herself the future of every girl means her marriage--had been often thought of by her mother. She and her dead husband had talked of it in the summer evenings after supper and before retiring to rest, the only time which the school-work left for James Ashurst to devote to himself, and even then he was generally rather fatigued with past, or preoccupied with growing work. It was very general, the talk between them, and principally carried on by Mrs. Ashurst; she had wondered when Marian would marry, and whom; she had gone through the list of eligible young men in the neighbourhood, and had speculated on their incomes and their chances of being thrown with Marian in such little company as they kept. She had wondered how they at home would be able to get on without her; whether she herself would be able to undertake the domestic superintendence, as she had done in the old days before Marian was of an age to be useful; whether Marian would not settle somewhere near, where she might still take an interest in her old work, and many other odd and profitless speculations, to which the dominie would give an affirmative or negative grunt or comment, wondering all the while how he was to meet that acceptance which he had given to Barlow, and which became due on the twenty-seventh, or whether his old college chum Smith, now a flourishing physician in Cheltenham, would lend him the fifty pounds for which he had made so earnest an appeal. But all this seemed years ago to Mrs. Ashurst as she thought of it. For many months before her husband's death the subject had not been mooted between them; the cold calm external impassibility, and the firm determination of Marian's character, seemed to her mother to mark her for one of those women destined by nature to be single, and therefore somewhat fitted for the condition. A weak woman herself, and with scarcely any perception of character, believing that nearly all women were made in the same mould and after the same type, Mrs. Ashurst could not understand the existence of the volcano under the placid surface. Only gushing, giggling, blushing girls fulfilled her idea of loving women, or women lovable by men. Marian was so "odd" and "strange," so determined, so strong-minded, that she never seemed to think of love-making, nor indeed, her mother thought, had she been ever so much that way disposed, would she have had any time for it.
And now Marian was going to be married! Years rolled away, and the old lady saw herself in the same condition, but how differently circumstanced! Her James was young and strong and handsome. How splendid he looked in his flannel boating-dress, when he came to spend a hurried holiday at her father's river-side cottage! How all the people in the church admired him on their wedding-day It was impossible that Marian could lov............