by Ellen Wood
On Christmas-eve he returned to Saxonbury. After dinner, his two daughters only being at table, he told them of the expected death of the artist Raby. Mrs. Ashton expressed sorrow and surprise. Maria said nothing, but her face drooped, and a burning colour overspread it. Sir Arthur looked sternly at her. Her head only drooped the lower.
“It has been hinted to me that you tampered with his feelings,” he said, in a severely reproachful tone. “Let me tell you, Maria, that the vain habit of encouraging admiration whence it cannot legally be received, always tends to ill. No right-minded girl would condescend to it.”
“I thought Maria talked a great deal with young Raby,” remarked Mrs. Ashton. “Had he been of our own order, I should have interfered; but I knew she could not be serious. He was only a painter.”
“She killed him,” was the significant answer of Sir Arthur. And Maria Saxonbury burst into tears.
Sir Arthur said no more. He may have thought it was the province of women to inflict such wounds, and of men to bear them. He knew not how far Raby’s own impressionable nature might have been in fault, or whether Maria, in the exercise of coquetry, of vanity, had unwarrantably drawn him on. It booted not to inquire now; the past could not be undone; neither could Raby be brought back to life. One thing was indisputable, that beautiful as Maria Raby had been in the old days, beautiful was Maria Saxonbury now. It is impossible for some men to be near such beauty and not suffer from it once in their lives.
Maria, vexed and angry with herself for the outburst of feeling, had dried away her tears as hastily as they came, and was going on with her dinner with what appetite she might. Sir Arthur went on with his, glancing at her now and then between his eyelashes.
“When did Mr. Raby die?” asked Mrs. Ashton.
“I do not know yet that he is dead,” replied Sir Arthur. “He was alive when I quitted London, a week ago; but it was certain he could not last long.”
“Did you see him, papa?” continued Mrs. Ashton.
“I saw him several times. I” —
“You seemed to be very much interested in that young man, papa,” was Mrs. Ashton’s interruption.
“I was so,” quietly replied Sir Arthur. “I looked up to him as one of a superior order.”
“Superior!” somewhat slightingly remarked Mrs. Ashton.
“Yes; in my opinion. I bow to genius; I respect misfortune: Raby Raby was rich in both. Had he lived, I should have done something for him: as it is, all I could do was to render his deathbed a little more comfortable than it might otherwise have been.”
“Does he suffer much?”
“I hope not. The doubt was, that he might towards the last. I invited Mr. Janson to come down for a day or two when all was over, and bring the account of his last hours.”
“Who is Mr. Janson, papa?”
“A friend of Mr. Raby’s. A young surgeon, who has been much with him in his illness; very kind and attentive to him. A gay, gentlemanly, pleasant young fellow as ever I came across,” somewhat warmly added Sir Arthur.
“Papa, I think you evince a great liking for young men!”
“Possibly I do, Louisa. The having no sons of my own may have induced it. It is not often, though, one meets with so charming a young man as Mr. Janson.”
“Is he a gentleman!”
“By birth do you mean! I never asked him the question. He is one in mind and manners, and that is sufficient for me. You were always overfastidious, Louisa.”
Maria, meanwhile, said not a word. After the rebuff administered by her father, she could but shew some sense of it: though, indeed, her thoughts were too busy to admit of her joining lightly in the conversation. Heartily sorry was she to hear of the death of Raby Raby; and certain qualms of conscience were reproaching her. In the midst of all her vanity and her flirting, her laying her charms out for admiration, and her lingering interviews with Mr. Raby, she had not lost her heart to him. In point of fact, that vulnerable portion of the human frame was as yet intact in Maria Saxonbury. But she had liked him much. She had admired his beauty of face; she had reverenced his great gift, genius; she had sat most complacently to listen to his softly-breathed words, and their scarcely-disguised theme, love. It had been very reprehensible. Maria had conveniently ignored that fact at the time; but she was feeling it deeply now. Putting aside her vanity, her consciousness of beauty, her love of admiration, she was a noble-hearted girl; and she was wishing just now that she could recall Raby Raby to life, almost at the sacrifice of her own. That she had wrecked his happiness, she had had some cause to believe; but to have wrecked his life — Maria turned all over in a hot glow, and wondered whether she might yet dare to ask God to forgive her.
“Why should some people’s nature be so sensitive?” she somewhat peevishly asked herself. “They are not fit to be in the world.”
No, they are not. And many a one has had cause to know that truth besides Maria Saxonbury. She sat in her dainty dress of white, the jewels shining on her fair neck and arms — sat in her old favourite attitude, after she went into the drawingroom — leaning back in a fauteuil, her black satin slipper tapping petulantly the carpet. Not so much in petulance, possibly, as in sorrow, was that pretty foot moving. Life seemed to her particularly gloomy that evening: as if it were to have no future.
For one thing, she had been vexed by the non arrival of Arthur Yorke. He was to have spent Christmas at Saxonbury, to have been with them that day, but a letter, telling of the serious illness of his mother, had come instead. Maria liked Arthur Yorke very well; quite sufficiently well to be grieved at his non arrival, and to feel it as a disappointment. And yet she did not love him. She did not love Arthur Yorke any more than she had loved Mr. Raby. It is a capricious passion, one that will not come for the bidding; and, perhaps, the very fact of Maria’s having gathered hints that she was destined to be Mr. Yorke’s wife, had kept the love away.
Sir Arthur Saxonbury had never said to Maria, “All going well, I wish you to be the wife of Arthur Yorke.” Lady Saxonbury had never said it. More than all, Mr. Yorke himself had never said it. And yet, that Maria knew such was her projected destiny, was certain. Sir Arthur Saxonbury wished it; there was not the slightest doubt that Mr. Yorke wished it; but neither of them had spoken directly to Maria. She was very young, and Sir Arthur, who would not for the world have pushed on such a project against her inclination, had desired of Mr. Yorke that he should not speak at present. “Give her time to get a liking for you first,” he said. And the advice was good. But the project had, in some way, oozed out, and Maria knew it as well as they did. In fact, there was a tacit understanding that she did, between herself and Mr. Yorke. She was contented to contemplate the prospect, and to believe that some time or other she should be Mrs. Yorke. At present she was pleased to shew off her caprices and her coquetries to him, as she did to others, secure in her own power.
Lady Saxonbury, a confirmed invalid, suffering under an inward complaint, reclined in a fauteuil opposite Maria. Mrs. Ashton, who had always some work in hand for one or other of her children, sat at the table between them, doing something to the lace of a little cap, and grumbling at her unconscious nursemaids for having allowed it to get torn.
“Have you heard the news about Mr. Raby, mamma?” she suddenly asked.
“Your papa told me,” replied Lady Saxonbury. “What a sad thing that consumption is! But it must have attacked Mr. Raby suddenly. He was not ill when he was here.”
“Very suddenly,” returned Mrs. Ashton, in a marked tone, made tart for the benefit of Maria.
“He never looked strong,” resumed Lady Saxonbury. “He had a remarkably fragile appearance. I used to say so to Maria. Who can that be?”
The “Who can that be?” referred to the signs of an arrival. Wheels had sounded on the gravel, and the hall bell was now ringing. But no one appeared, and the occurrence passed from their minds.
The time went on to tea-time, and the tea waited on the table for Sir Arthur. Never given to take much wi
ne, Lady Saxonbury openly wondered what could be keeping him in the dining-room.
“It is possible that, tired with his journey, he may have dropped asleep,” she suddenly said. “Go and see, Maria.”
Maria rose listlessly, and proceeded to the diningroom, speaking as she entered it: —
“Papa, you don’t come to tea. We have been wondering” —
And there she stopped. Seated by Sir Arthur was a gentleman, a stranger to Maria. He rose as she spoke, and stood facing her, a beaming smile on his countenance. A gentlemanly-looking man, young, with a remarkably winning expression of face, and frank manners. Sir Arthur rose also.
“My daughter, Mr. Janson, Miss Saxonbury.”
Maria remembered the name Janson in connexion with Raby Raby; and not possessing a perfectly easy conscience on that score altogether, left the room again as quickly as she could. Sir Arthur followed her, bringing his guest to the drawing-room.
Raby had died the day following the departure of Sir Arthur Saxonbury from London. He, Sir Arthur, had paid a visit of nearly a week upon the road. Mr. Janson waited to bury his friend, and then availed himself of the invitation to Saxonbury.
“Did he die hard — in much pain?” inquired Lady Saxonbury, when they had been speaking of him some little time.
“Quite easy in all ways,” replied Mr. Janson. “He appeared to think he was going to his rest.”
CHAPTER V.
Rivals at Saxonbury.
A WEEK passed over; a fortnight passed over; a month passed over; and still Mr. Janson was located at Saxonbury. It may appear curious that the stranger, come down for only a day or two’s visit, should remain so long, but the explanation is easy. A medical student, nearly qualified, and clever in his profession, Lady Saxonbury, who felt a liking for him the first moment she saw him, naturally confided to him her ailments. Mr. Janson took quite a new view of her case, and recommended remedies which had never been tried. It may be, that they did not do her any permanent good; indeed, he acknowledged the doubt himself; but they considerably alleviated her daily sufferings, and it rendered her unwilling to part with him. She besought him to remain with almost impassioned fervour; she pressed Sir Arthur to keep him. Mr. Janson frankly assured Lady Saxonbury that he did not require pressing; that he would remain as long as she liked, in reason. His course of studies in London was over for the present; he was about to pass some months in Paris, and pursue them there; and, whether he went a few weeks later or earlier, was of no consequence.
So he stayed on. Indispensable to Lady Saxonbury, winning every day on the esteem of Sir Arthur, rendering himself agreeable to Mrs. Ashton, and — falling in love with Maria.
It was the old story over again of Raby Raby. With one exception. There were morning meetings in the picture-gallery, and afternoon roamings in the fair grounds of Saxonbury, and evening lingerings in the deep bay-windows, gazing out on the Folly, on the lovely scenery by moonlight. Just as it had been in Raby’s time. But, what Raby had not done with all his poetry and passion, had been effected by the less poetical, far less impassioned Mr. Janson — he had gained the heart of Maria Saxonbury.
Does a woman ever love a man of a timid nature? Poor Raby, with his innate refinement, his sensitive reticence, his consciousness of his present fallen fortunes, contrived to impart to Maria a knowledge of his self-conscious inferiority. Mr. Janson, whose birth was far inferior to Raby’s, whose position and prospects in point of fact, were little, if any, better than Raby’s fallen ones, gave to her an idea of his being superior. Not purposely: few men thought less about setting forth his own merits, or making himself appear what he was not, than Edward Janson. His frank, open words, his thoroughly easy and gentlemanly bearing, his somewhat off-hand manner to the servants, contributed to the impression. Who or what he was, Maria Saxonbury did not ask; she had never been in the habit of troubling herself with such questions where a companion was attractive: she gave herself up to the full charm of the intercourse, and — before she was aware of it, before she had cast so much as a thought to the danger, she had learnt to love Mr. Janson.
Not before he had learnt to love her. Every tone of his voice, every glance of his eye, every pressure of his hand, given in common intercourse, told of the secret. Not a word was spoken between them; not a word perhaps would be spoken; but the heart has a language of its own, unneedful of common words, and they had found the way to use it. Did either give a thought to the future? Probably not. The present happiness was all-sufficient for the present hour. Had Mr. Janson soberly set himself to contemplate that inevitable future, it would have looked unpromising enough. To imagine a union with Miss Saxonbury would have been in the highest degree preposterous: and on Miss Saxonbury’s part, she would have deemed it a great calamity — nay, a disgrace — to wed one so far beneath her. So the love, though it had come, was but am unsatisfactory good, take it for all in all.
And the pleasant intercourse was soon to have an ending. They were in the picture-gallery one wet day in February, Louisa and Fanny Ashton making a great noise with a ball at the other end of it. Maria sat on one of the crimson benches, and Mr. Janson stood near her. She was toying with the blue ribbons that tied her lace sleeve at the wrist, her eyes and eyelids drooping.
“Why need you go so soon?” she asked, in reply to a remark from him that the end of the week would see his departure.
“So soon!” echoed Mr. Janson. “I came here for less than one week, and I have stayed more than six. I wish I could stay,” he added in a lower and more impassioned tone. “I wish I could stay on for ever.”
“You have been able to do mamma so much good,” returned Maria, after a pause.
“Could I have done her permanent good, I should be better satisfied, Miss Saxonbury.”
“Do you think, as others do, that the illness will last for years — that she may never, even, get well?”
“I have given my opinion to Sir Arthur,” was Mr. Janson’s reply, after an almost imperceptible hesitation. He could not say to Maria, “Far from getting well, I fear that a very few weeks will see the ending.”
“It will be a marked change, my hard work in Paris after this delightful time of — of idleness,” he resumed.
Maria played more abstractedly than ever with her blue ribbons. “Do you go on to Paris direct, on leaving Saxonbury?”
“I shall stay a week on the road with my mother.”
Maria lifted her eyes. “Your mother? I don’t think I have heard you mention her. Where does she live?”
“On the coast of France. One of the quiet seaport towns in direct steam communication with England. She has lived there since my father died. Being a Roman Catholic, and her income small, the place suits her.”
The words somewhat surprised Maria. “You are not a Roman Catholic?” she said, recalling the fact that he had attended church with them on Sundays.
“No, I was reared in my father’s faith. Had there been daughters, they would have been brought up in my mother’s.”
“Your father was a soldier, I have heard you say?”
“A soldier and a gentleman,” somewhat pointedly replied Mr. Janson. “But a poor one, and one of whom promotion seemed shy. He had not so much as gained his majority when he was killed.”
“Why did you not go into the army?”
“My mother set her face against it: scared, no doubt, by my father’s fate.”
“I think I would have been anything, rather than a doctor,” remarked Maria, pulling more vehemently at her ribbons.
“Would you? I like it. I chose it. My mother wished me to read for the bar, but I did not fall in with the idea. I have neither talent nor liking that way.”
“I would have chosen it,” said Maria. “Look at the honours open to a barrister.”
“Some few in our profession attain to honour also,” he said; “to honour and to fame. I may: though I do not think I am very ambitious. The chances are,” he added, laughing, “that I shall settle down into a jog-trot countr
y surgeon, keeping my one-horse gig, and doctoring the parish.”
“There; it’s untied now!”
Miss Saxonbury had pulled the ribbons of her sleeve a little too far: a slight accident, and one scarcely sufficient to account for her tone of vexation. She began to twist the ribbons impatiently round her wrist.
“Will you accept of my clumsy tying?”
She laughed, and held out her arm towards him. He was in the act of tying the bow, his eyes fixed on her face at the same time, as he whispered some gallant nonsense connected with the occasion, and Maria was listening with a half-raised face and a self-conscious flush, when some one moved towards them from the entrance of the gallery.
It was Mr. Yorke. And he had time to take in full view of signs and appearances before they saw him. The bent head of the handsome man, and his whispered words; the employment, bringing their hands into so close a contact; and the crimson cheeks, the downcast lashes of Maria. Something very like an ill word burst from his lips.
They looked round; and Maria, scarlet now, but not losing self-possession, advanced a few steps to welcome him. He came on, and the gentlemen stood face to face. —
Rivals from that moment; and they both saw it. Never destined to be open ones, perhaps; but rivals beyond dispute in their secret hearts.
“Mr. Janson, Mr. Yorke.”
A gaze from the one to the other went out as Miss Saxonbury spoke. Mr. Janson saw a tall, powerful man, whose very height and strength gave him beauty. A fine countenance, too; though, when angered, he had a habit of shewing too much of his white teeth. Mr. Yorke, on his part, saw a frank, open, generous-looking man, whose personal attractions, if brought into play, might render him a dangerous rival.