<h4><SPAN name="CHAPTER15" id="CHAPTER15">CHAPTER III.<br/>
PAUL'S SISTER.</SPAN></h4>
<p></p>
<p>Olivia Marchmont shut herself once more in her desolate chamber, making no
effort to find the runaway mistress of the Towers; indifferent as to what the
slanderous tongues of her neighbours might say of her; hardened, callous,
desperate.</p>
<p>To her father, and to any one else who questioned her about Mary's
absence,––for the story of the girl's flight was soon whispered
abroad, the servants at the Towers having received no injunctions to keep the
matter secret,––Mrs. Marchmont replied with such an air of cold and
determined reserve as kept the questioners at bay ever afterwards.</p>
<p>So the Kemberling people, and the Swampington people, and all the country
gentry within reach of Marchmont Towers, had a mystery and a scandal provided
for them, which afforded ample scope for repeated discussion, and considerably
relieved the dull monotony of their lives. But there were some questioners whom
Mrs. Marchmont found it rather difficult to keep at a distance; there were some
intruders who dared to force themselves upon the gloomy woman's solitude, and
who <em>would</em> not understand that their presence was abhorrent to her.</p>
<p>These people were a surgeon and his wife, who had newly settled at
Kemberling; the best practice in the village falling into the market by reason
of the death of a steady–going, gray–headed old practitioner, who
for many years had shared with one opponent the responsibility of watching over
the health of the Lincolnshire village.</p>
<p>It was about three weeks after Mary Marchmont's flight when these unwelcome
guests first came to the Towers.</p>
<p>Olivia sat alone in her dead husband's study,––the same room in
which she had sat upon the morning of John Marchmont's funeral,––a
dark and gloomy chamber, wainscoted with blackened oak, and lighted only by a
massive stone–framed Tudor window looking out into the quadrangle, and
overshadowed by that cloistered colonnade beneath whose shelter Edward and Mary
had walked upon the morning of the girl's flight. This wainscoted study was an
apartment which most women, having all the rooms in Marchmont Towers at their
disposal, would have been likely to avoid; but the gloom of the chamber
harmonised with that horrible gloom which had taken possession of Olivia's
soul, and the widow turned from the sunny western front, as she turned from all
the sunlight and gladness in the universe, to come here, where the summer
radiance rarely crept through the diamond–panes of the window, where the
shadow of the cloister shut out the glory of the blue sky.</p>
<p>She was sitting in this room,––sitting near the open window, in
a high–backed chair of carved and polished oak, with her head resting
against the angle of the embayed window, and her handsome profile thrown into
sharp relief by the dark green–cloth curtain, which hung in straight
folds from the low ceiling to the ground, and made a sombre background to the
widow's figure. Mrs. Marchmont had put away all the miserable gew–gaws
and vanities which she had ordered from London in a sudden excess of folly or
caprice, and had reassumed her mourning–robes of lustreless black. She
had a book in her hand,––some new and popular fiction, which all
Lincolnshire was eager to read; but although her eyes were fixed upon the pages
before her, and her hand mechanically turned over leaf after leaf at regular
intervals of time, the fashionable romance was only a weary repetition of
phrases, a dull current of words, always intermingled with the images of Edward
Arundel and Mary Marchmont, which arose out of every page to mock the hopeless
reader.</p>
<p>Olivia flung the book away from her at last, with a smothered cry of
rage.</p>
<p>"Is there no cure for this disease?" she muttered. "Is there no relief
except madness or death?"</p>
<p>But in the infidelity which had arisen out of her despair this woman had
grown to doubt if either death or madness could bring her oblivion of her
anguish. She doubted the quiet of the grave; and half–believed that the
torture of jealous rage and slighted love might mingle even with that silent
rest, haunting her in her coffin, shutting her out of heaven, and following her
into a darker world, there to be her torment everlastingly. There were times
when she thought madness must mean forgetfulness; but there were other moments
when she shuddered, horror–stricken, at the thought that, in the
wandering brain of a mad woman, the image of that grief which had caused the
shipwreck of her senses might still hold its place, distorted and
exaggerated,––a gigantic unreality, ten thousand times more
terrible than the truth. Remembering the dreams which disturbed her broken
sleep,––those dreams which, in their feverish horror, were little
better than intervals of delirium,––it is scarcely strange if
Olivia Marchmont thought thus.</p>
<p>She had not succumbed without many struggles to her sin and despair. Again
and again she had abandoned herself to the devils at watch to destroy her, and
again and again she had tried to extricate her soul from their dreadful power;
but her most passionate endeavours were in vain. Perhaps it was that she did
not strive aright; it was for this reason, surely, that she failed so utterly
to arise superior to her despair; for otherwise that terrible belief attributed
to the Calvinists, that some souls are foredoomed to damnation, would be
exemplified by this woman's experience. She could not forget. She could not put
away the vengeful hatred that raged like an all–devouring fire in her
breast, and she cried in her agony, "There is no cure for this disease!"</p>
<p>I think her mistake was in this, that she did not go to the right Physician.
She practised quackery with her soul, as some people do with their bodies;
trying their own remedies, rather than the simple prescriptions of the Divine
Healer of all woes. Self–reliant, and scornful of the weakness against
which her pride revolted, she trusted to her intellect and her will to lift her
out of the moral slough into which her soul had gone down. She said:</p>
<p>"I am not a woman to go mad for the love of a boyish face; I am not a woman
to die for a foolish fancy, which the veriest schoolgirl might be ashamed to
confess to her companion. I am not a woman to do this, and I <em>will</em> cure
myself of my folly."</p>
<p>Mrs. Marchmont made an effort to take up her old life, with its dull round
of ceaseless duty, its perpetual self–denial. If she had been a Roman
Catholic, she would have gone to the nearest convent, and prayed to be
permitted to take such vows as might soonest set a barrier between herself and
the world; she would have spent the long weary days in perpetual and secret
prayer; she would have worn deeper indentations upon the stones already
hollowed by faithful knees. As it was, she made a routine of penance for
herself, after her own fashion: going long distances on foot to visit her poor,
when she might have ridden in her carriage; courting exposure to rain and foul
weather; wearing herself out with unnecessary fatigue, and returning footsore
to her desolate home, to fall fainting into the strong arms of her grim
attendant, Barbara.</p>
<p>But this self–appointed penance could not shut Edward Arundel and Mary
Marchmont from the widow's mind. Walking through a fiery furnace their images
would have haunted her still, vivid and palpable even in the agony of death.
The fatigue of the long weary walks made Mrs. Marchmont wan and pale; the
exposure to storm and rain brought on a tiresome, hacking cough, which worried
her by day and disturbed her fitful slumbers by night. No good whatever seemed
to come of her endeavours; and the devils who rejoiced at her weakness and her
failure claimed her as their own. They claimed her as their own; and they were
not without terrestrial agents, working patiently in their service, and ready
to help in securing their bargain.</p>
<p>The great clock in the quadrangle had struck the half–hour after
three; the atmosphere of the August afternoon was sultry and oppressive. Mrs.
Marchmont had closed her eyes after flinging aside her book, and had fallen
into a doze: her nights were broken and wakeful, and the hot stillness of the
day had made her drowsy.</p>
<p>She was aroused from this half–slumber by Barbara Simmons, who came
into the room carrying two cards upon a salver,––the same
old–fashioned and emblazoned salver upon which Paul Marchmont's card had
been brought to the widow nearly three years before. The Abigail stood halfway
between the door and the window by which the widow sat, looking at her
mistress's face with a glance of sharp scrutiny.</p>
<p>"She's changed since he came back, and changed again since he went away,"
the woman thought; "just as she always changed at the Rectory at his coming and
going. Why didn't he take to her, I wonder? He might have known her fancy for
him, if he'd had eyes to watch her face, or ears to listen to her voice. She's
handsomer than the other one, and cleverer in book–learning; but she
keeps 'em off––she seems allers to keep 'em off."</p>
<p>I think Olivia Marchmont would have torn the very heart out of this
waiting–woman's breast, had she known the thoughts that held a place in
it: had she known that the servant who attended upon her, and took wages from
her, dared to pluck out her secret, and to speculate upon her suffering.</p>
<p>The widow awoke suddenly, and looked up with an impatient frown. She had not
been awakened by the opening of the door, but by that unpleasant sensation
which almost always reveals the presence of a stranger to a sleeper of nervous
temperament.</p>
<p>"What is it, Barbara?" she asked; and then, as her eyes rested on the cards,
she added, angrily, "Haven't I told you that I would not see any callers
to–day? I am worn out with my cough, and feel too ill to see any one."</p>
<p>"Yes, Miss Livy," the woman answered;––she called her mistress
by this name still, now and then, so familiar had it grown to her during the
childhood and youth of the Rector's daughter;––"I didn't forget
that, Miss Livy: I told Richardson you was not to be disturbed. But the lady
and gentleman said, if you saw what was wrote upon the back of one of the
cards, you'd be sure to make an exception in their favour. I think that was
what the lady said. She's a middle–aged lady, very talkative and
pleasant–mannered," added the grim Barbara, in nowise relaxing the stolid
gravity of her own manner as she spoke.</p>
<p>Olivia snatched the cards from the salver.</p>
<p>"Why do people worry me so?" she cried, impatiently. "Am I not to be allowed
even five minutes' sleep without being broken in upon by some intruder or
other?"</p>
<p>Barbara Simmons looked at her mistress's face. Anxiety and sadness dimly
showed themselves in the stolid countenance of the lady's–maid. A close
observer, penetrating below that aspect of wooden solemnity which was Barbara's
normal expression, might have discovered a secret: the quiet
waiting–woman loved her mistress with a jealous and watchful affection,
that took heed of every change in its object.</p>
<p>Mrs. Marchmont examined the two cards, which bore the names of Mr. and Mrs.
Weston, Kemberling. On the back of the lady's card these words were written in
pencil:</p>
<p>"Will Mrs. Marchmont be so good as to see Lavinia Weston, Paul Marchmont's
younger sister, and a connection of Mrs. M.'s?"</p>
<p>Olivia shrugged her shoulders, as she threw down the card.</p>
<p>"Paul Marchmont! Lavinia Weston!" she muttered; "yes, I remember he said
something about a sister married to a surgeon at Stanfield. Let these people
come to me, Barbara."</p>
<p>The waiting–woman looked doubtfully at her mistress.</p>
<p>"You'll maybe smooth your hair, and freshen yourself up a bit, before ye see
the folks, Miss Livy," she said, in a tone of mingled suggestion and entreaty.
"Ye've had a deal of worry lately, and it's made ye look a little fagged and
haggard–like. I'd not like the Kemberling folks to say as you was
ill."</p>
<p>Mrs. Marchmont turned fiercely upon the Abigail.</p>
<p>"Let me alone!" she cried. "What is it to you, or to any one, how I look?
What good have my looks done me, that I should worry myself about them?" she
added, under her breath. "Show these people in here, if they want to see
me."</p>
<p>"They've been shown into the western drawing–room,
ma'am;––Richardson took 'em in there."</p>
<p>Barbara Simmons fought hard for the preservation of appearances. She wanted
the Rector's daughter to receive these strange people, who had dared to intrude
upon her, in a manner befitting the dignity of John Marchmont's widow. She
glanced furtively at the disorder of the gloomy chamber. Books and papers were
scattered here and there; the hearth and low fender were littered with heaps of
torn letters,––for Olivia Marchmont had no tenderness for the
memorials of the past, and indeed took a fierce delight in sweeping away the
unsanctified records of her joyless, loveless life. The high–backed oaken
chairs had been pushed out of their places; the green–cloth cover had
been drawn half off the massive table, and hung in trailing folds upon the
ground. A book flung here; a shawl there; a handkerchief in another place; an
open secretaire, with scattered documents and uncovered
inkstand,––littered the room, and bore mute witness of the
restlessness of its occupant. It needed no very subtle psychologist to read
aright those separate tokens of a disordered mind; of a weary spirit which had
sought distraction in a dozen occupations, and had found relief in none. It was
some vague sense of this that caused Barbara Simmons's anxiety. She wished to
keep strangers out of this room, in which her mistress, wan, haggard, and
weary–looking, revealed her secret by so many signs and tokens. But
before Olivia could make any answer to her servant's suggestion, the door,
which Barbara had left ajar, was pushed open by a very gentle hand, and a sweet
voice said, in cheery chirping accents,</p>
<p>"I am sure I may come in; may I not, Mrs. Marchmont? The impression my
brother Paul's description gave me of you is such a very pleasant one, that I
venture to intrude uninvited, almost forbidden, perhaps."</p>
<p>The voice and manner of the speaker were so airy and self–possessed,
there was such a world of cheerfulness and amiability in every tone, that, as
Olivia Marchmont rose from her chair, she put her hand to her head, dazed and
confounded, as if by the too boisterous carolling of some caged bird. What did
they mean, these accents of gladness, these clear and untroubled tones, which
sounded shrill, and almost discordant, in the despairing woman's ears? She
stood, pale and worn, the very picture of all gloom and misery, staring
hopelessly at her visitor; too much abandoned to her grief to remember, in that
first moment, the stern demands of pride. She stood still; revealing, by her
look, her attitude, her silence, her abstraction, a whole history to the
watchful eyes that were looking at her.</p>
<p>Mrs. Weston lingered on the threshold of the chamber in a pretty
half–fluttering manner; which was charmingly expressive of a struggle
between a modest poor–relation–like diffidence and an earnest
desire to rush into Olivia's arms. The surgeon's wife was a
delicate–looking little woman, with features that seemed a miniature and
feminine reproduction of her brother Paul's, and with very light
hair,––hair so light and pale that, had it turned as white as the
artist's in a single night, very few people would have been likely to take heed
of the change. Lavinia Weston was eminently what is generally called a
<em>lady–like</em> woman. She always conducted herself in that especial
and particular manner which was exactly fitted to the occasion. She adjusted
her behaviour by the nicest shades of colour and hair–breadth scale of
measurement. She had, as it were, made for herself a homoeopathic system of
good manners, and could mete out politeness and courtesy in the veriest
globules, never administering either too much or too little. To her husband she
was a treasure beyond all price; and if the Lincolnshire surgeon, who was a
fat, solemn–faced man, with a character as level and monotonous as the
flats and fens of his native county, was henpecked, the feminine autocrat held
the reins of government so lightly, that her obedient subject was scarcely
aware how very irresponsible his wife's authority had become.</p>
<p>As Olivia Marchmont stood confronting the timid hesitating figure of the
intruder, with the width of the chamber between them, Lavinia Weston, in her
crisp muslin–dress and scarf, her neat bonnet and bright ribbons and
primly–adjusted gloves, looked something like an adventurous canary who
had a mind to intrude upon the den of a hungry lioness. The difference,
physical and moral, between the timid bird and the savage forest–queen
could be scarcely wider than that between the two women.</p>
<p>But Olivia did not stand for ever embarrassed and silent in her visitor's
presence. Her pride came to her rescue. She turned sternly upon the polite
intruder.</p>
<p>"Walk in, if you please, Mrs. Weston," she said, "and sit down. I was denied
to you just now because I have been ill, and have ordered my servants to deny
me to every one."</p>
<p>"But, my dear Mrs. Marchmont," murmured Lavinia Weston in soft, almost
dove–like accents, "if you have been ill, is not your illness another
reason for seeing us, rather than for keeping us away from you? I would not, of
course, say a word which could in any way be calculated to give offence to your
regular medical attendant,––you have a regular medical attendant,
no doubt; from Swampington, I dare say,––but a doctor's wife may
often be useful when a doctor is himself out of place. There are little nervous
ailments––depression of spirits, mental
uneasiness––from which women, and sensitive women, suffer acutely,
and which perhaps a woman's more refined nature alone can thoroughly
comprehend. You are not looking well, my dear Mrs. Marchmont. I left my husband
in the drawing–room, for I was so anxious that our first meeting should
take place without witnesses. Men think women sentimental when they are only
impulsive. Weston is a good simple–hearted creature, but he knows as much
about a woman's mind as he does of an �olian harp. When the strings vibrate, he
hears the low plaintive notes, but he has no idea whence the melody comes. It
is thus with us, Mrs. Marchmont. These medical men watch us in the agonies of
hysteria; they hear our sighs, they see our tears, and in their awkwardness and
ignorance they prescribe commonplace remedies out of the pharmacopoeia. No,
dear Mrs. Marchmont, you do not look well. I fear it is the mind, the mind,
which has been over–strained. Is it not so?"</p>
<p>Mrs. Weston put her head on one side as she asked this question, and smiled
at Olivia with an air of gentle insinuation. If the doctor's wife wished to
plumb the depths of the widow's gloomy soul, she had an advantage here; for
Mrs. Marchmont was thrown off her guard by the question, which had been perhaps
asked hap–hazard, or it may be with a deeply considered design. Olivia
turned fiercely upon the polite questioner.</p>
<p>"I have been suffering from nothing but a cold which I caught the other
day," she said; "I am not subject to any fine–ladylike hysteria, I can
assure you, Mrs. Weston."</p>
<p>The doctor's wife pursed up her lips into a sympathetic smile, not at all
abashed by this rebuff. She had seated herself in one of the high–backed
chairs, with her muslin skirt spread out about her. She looked a living
exemplification of all that is neat and prim and commonplace, in contrast with
the pale, stern–faced woman, standing rigid and defiant in her long black
robes.</p>
<p>"How very chy–arming!" exclaimed Mrs. Weston. "You are really
<em>not</em> nervous. Dee–ar me; and from what my brother Paul said, I
should have imagined that any one so highly organised must be rather nervous.
But I really fear I am impertinent, and that I presume upon our very slight
relationship. It <em>is</em> a relationship, is it not, although such a very
slight one?"</p>
<p>"I have never thought of the subject," Mrs. Marchmont replied coldly. "I
suppose, however, that my marriage with your brother's cousin––"</p>
<p>"And <em>my</em> cousin––"</p>
<p>"Made a kind of connexion between us. But Mr. Marchmont gave me to
understand that you lived at Stanfield, Mrs. Weston."</p>
<p>"Until last week, positively until last week," answered the surgeon's wife.
"I see you take very little interest in village gossip, Mrs. Marchmont, or you
would have heard of the change at Kemberling."</p>
<p>"What change?"</p>
<p>"My husband's purchase of poor old Mr. Dawnfield's practice. The dear old
man died a month ago,––you heard of his death, of
course,––and Mr. Weston negotiated the purchase with Mrs. Dawnfield
in less than a fortnight. We came here early last week, and already we are
making friends in the neighbourhood. How strange that you should not have heard
of our coming!"</p>
<p>"I do not see much society," Olivia answered indifferently, "and I hear
nothing of the Kemberling people."</p>
<p>"Indeed!" cried Mrs. Weston; "and we hear so much of Marchmont Towers at
Kemberling."</p>
<p>She looked full in the widow's face as she spoke, her stereotyped smile
subsiding into a look of greedy curiosity; a look whose intense eagerness could
not be concealed.</p>
<p>That look, and the tone in which her last sentence had been spoken, said as
plainly as the plainest words could have done, "I have heard of Mary
Marchmont's flight."</p>
<p>Olivia understood this; but in the passionate depth of her own madness she
had no power to fathom the meanings or the motives of other people. She
revolted against this Mrs. Weston, and disliked her because the woman intruded
upon her in her desolation; but she never once thought of Lavinia Weston's
interest in Mary's movements; she never once remembered that the frail life of
that orphan girl only stood between this woman's brother and the rich heritage
of Marchmont Towers.</p>
<p>Blind and forgetful of everything in the hideous egotism of her despair,
what was Olivia Marchmont but a fitting tool, a plastic and
easily–moulded instrument, in the hands of unscrupulous people, whose
hard intellects had never been beaten into confused shapelessness in the fiery
furnace of passion?</p>
<p>Mrs. Weston had heard of Mary Marchmont's flight; but she had heard half a
dozen different reports of that event, as widely diversified in their details
as if half a dozen heiresses had fled from Marchmont Towers. Every gossip in
the place had a separate story as to the circumstances which had led to the
girl's running away from her home. The accounts vied with each other in graphic
force and minute elaboration; the conversations that had taken place between
Mary and her stepmother, between Edward Arundel and Mrs. Marchmont, between the
Rector of Swampington and nobody in particular, would have filled a volume, as
related by the gossips of Kemberling; but as everybody assigned a different
cause for the terrible misunderstanding at the Towers, and a different
direction for Mary's flight,––and as the railway official at the
station, who could have thrown some light on the subject, was a stern and moody
man, who had little sympathy with his kind, and held his tongue
persistently,––it was not easy to get very near the truth. Under
these circumstances, then, Mrs. Weston determined upon seeking information at
the fountain–head, and approaching the cruel stepmother, who, according
to some of the reports, had starved and beaten her dead husband's child.</p>
<p>"Yes, dear Mrs. Marchmont," said Lavinia Weston, seeing that it was
necessary to come direct to the point if she wished to wring the truth from
Olivia; "yes, we hear of everything at Kemberling; and I need scarcely tell
you, that we heard of the sad trouble which you have had to endure since your
ball––the ball that is spoken of as the most chy–arming
entertainment remembered in the neighbourhood for a long time. We heard of this
sad girl's flight."</p>
<p>Mrs. Marchmont looked up with a dark frown, but made no answer.</p>
<p>"Was she––it really is such a very painful question, that I
almost shrink from––but was Miss Marchmont at
all––eccentric––a little mentally deficient? Pray
pardon me, if I have given you pain by such a question;
but––––"</p>
<p>Olivia started, and looked sharply at her visitor. "Mentally deficient? No!"
she said. But as she spoke her eyes dilated, her pale cheeks grew paler, her
upper lip quivered with a faint convulsive movement. It seemed as if some idea
presented itself to her with a sudden force that almost took away her
breath.</p>
<p>"<em>Not</em> mentally deficient!" repeated Lavinia Weston; "dee–ar
me! It's a great comfort to hear that. Of course Paul saw very little of his
cousin, and he was not therefore in a position to judge,––though
his opinions, however rapidly arrived at, are generally so <em>very</em>
accurate;––but he gave me to understand that he thought Miss
Marchmont appeared a little––just a little––weak in her
intellect. I am very glad to find he was mistaken."</p>
<p>Olivia made no reply to this speech. She had seated herself in her chair by
the window; she looked straight before her into the flagged quadrangle, with
her hands lying idle in her lap. It seemed as if she were actually unconscious
of her visitor's presence, or as if, in her scornful indifference, she did not
even care to affect any interest in that visitor's conversation.</p>
<p>Lavinia Weston returned again to the attack.</p>
<p>"Pray, Mrs. Marchmont, do not think me intrusive or impertinent," she said
pleadingly, "if I ask you to favour me with the true particulars of this sad
event. I am sure you will be good enough to remember that my brother Paul, my
sister, and myself are Mary Marchmont's nearest relatives on her father's side,
and that we have therefore some right to feel interested in her?"</p>
<p>By this very polite speech Lavinia Weston plainly reminded the widow of the
insignificance of her own position at Marchmont Towers. In her ordinary frame
of mind Olivia would have resented the ladylike slight, but to–day she
neither heard nor heeded it; she was brooding with a stupid, unreasonable
persistency over the words "mental deficiency," "weak intellect." She only
roused herself by a great effort to answer Mrs. Weston's question, when that
lady had repeated it in very plain words.</p>
<p>"I can tell you nothing about Miss Marchmont's flight," she said, coldly,
"except that she chose to run away from her home. I found reason to object to
her conduct upon the night of the ball; and the next morning she left the
house, assigning no reason––to me, at any rate––for her
absurd and improper behaviour."</p>
<p>"She assigned no reason to <em>you</em>, my dear Mrs. Marchmont; but she
assigned a reason to somebody, I infer, from what you say?"</p>
<p>"Yes; she wrote a letter to my cousin, Captain Arundel."</p>
<p>"Telling him the reason of her departure?"</p>
<p>"I don't know––I forget. The letter told nothing clearly; it was
wild and incoherent."</p>
<p>Mrs. Weston sighed,––a long–drawn, desponding sigh.</p>
<p>"Wild and incoherent!" she murmured, in a pensive tone. "How grieved Paul
will be to hear of this! He took such an interest in his cousin––a
delicate and fragile–looking young creature, he told me. Yes, he took a
very great interest in her, Mrs. Marchmont, though you may perhaps scarcely
believe me when I say so. He kept himself purposely aloof from this place; his
sensitive nature led him to abstain from even revealing his interest in Miss
Marchmont. His position, you must remember, with regard to this poor dear girl,
is a very delicate––I may say a very painful––one."</p>
<p>Olivia remembered nothing of the kind. The value of the Marchmont estates;
the sordid worth of those wide–stretching farms, spreading far–away
into Yorkshire; the pitiful, closely–calculated revenue, which made Mary
a wealthy heiress,––were so far from the dark thoughts of this
woman's desperate heart, that she no more suspected Mrs. Weston of any
mercenary design in coming to the Towers, than of burglarious intentions with
regard to the silver spoons in the plate–room. She only thought that the
surgeon's wife was a tiresome woman, against whose pertinacious civility her
angry spirit chafed and rebelled, until she was almost driven to order her from
the room.</p>
<p>In this cruel weariness of spirit Mrs. Marchmont gave a short impatient
sigh, which afforded a sufficient hint to such an accomplished tactician as her
visitor.</p>
<p>"I know I have tired you, my dear Mrs. Marchmont," the doctor's wife said,
rising and arranging her muslin scarf as she spoke, in token of her immediate
departure. "I am so sorry to find you a sufferer from that nasty hacking cough;
but of course you have the best advice,––Mr. Barlow from
Swampington, I think you said?"––Olivia had said nothing of the
kind;––"and I trust the warm weather will prevent the cough taking
any hold of your chest. If I might venture to suggest flannels––so
many young women quite ridicule the idea of flannels––but, as the
wife of a humble provincial practitioner, I have learned their value.
Good–bye, dear Mrs. Marchmont. I may come again, may I not, now that the
ice is broken, and we are so well acquainted with each other?
Good–bye."</p>
<p>Olivia could not refuse to take at least <em>one</em> of the two plump and
tightly–gloved hands which were held out to her with an air of frank
cordiality; but the widow's grasp was loose and nerveless, and, inasmuch as two
consentient parties are required to the shaking of hands as well as to the
getting up of a quarrel, the salutation was not a very hearty one.</p>
<p>The surgeon's pony must have been weary of standing before the flight of
shallow steps leading to the western portico, when Mrs. Weston took her seat by
her husband's side in the gig, which had been newly painted and varnished since
the worthy couple's hegira from Stanfield.</p>
<p>The surgeon was not an ambitious man, nor a designing man; he was simply
stupid and lazy––lazy although, in spite of himself, he led an
active and hard–working life; but there are many square men whose sides
are cruelly tortured by the pressure of the round holes into which they are
ill–advisedly thrust, and if our destinies were meted out to us in strict
accordance with our temperaments, Mr. Weston should have been a
lotus–eater. As it was, he was content to drudge on, mildly complying
with every desire of his wife; doing what she told him, because it was less
trouble to do the hardest work at her bidding than to oppose her. It would have
been surely less painful for Macbeth to have finished that ugly business of the
murder than to have endured my lady's black contemptuous scowl, and the bitter
scorn and contumely concentrated in those four words, "Give <em>me</em> the
daggers."</p>
<p>Mr. Weston asked one or two commonplace questions about his wife's interview
with John Marchmont's widow; but, slowly apprehending that Lavinia did not care
to discuss the matter, he relapsed into meek silence, and devoted all his
intellectual powers to the task of keeping the pony out of the deeper ruts in
the rugged road between Marchmont Towers and Kemberling High Street.</p>
<p>"What is the secret of that woman's life?" thought Lavinia Weston during
that homeward drive. "Has she ill–treated the girl, or is she plotting in
some way or other to get hold of the Marchmont fortune? Pshaw! that's
impossible. And yet she may be making a purse, somehow or other, out of the
estate. Anyhow, there is bad blood between the two women."</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
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