the reverend septimus marvin had lost his wife five years earlier. it was commonly said that he had never been the same man since. which was untrue. much that is commonly said will, on investigation, be found to be far from the truth. septimus marvin had, so to speak, been the same man since infancy. he had always looked vaguely at the world through spectacles; had always been at a loss among his contemporaries—a generation already tainted by that shallow spirit of haste which is known to-day as modernity—at a loss for a word; at a loss for a companion soul.
he was a scholar and a learned historian. his companions were books, and he communed in spirit with writers who were dead and gone.
had he ever been a different man his circumstances would assuredly have been other. his wife, for instance, would in all human probability have been alive. his avocation might have been more suited to his capabilities. he was not intended for a country parish, and that practical human comprehension of the ultimate value of little daily details, without which a pastor never yet understood his flock, was not vouchsafed to him.
“passen takes no account o' churchyard,” river andrew had said, and neither he nor any other in farlingford could account for the special neglect to which was abandoned that particular corner of the burial ground where the late mrs. marvin reposed beneath an early victorian headstone of singular hideousness.
mr. marvin always went round the other way.
“seems as he has forgotten her wonderful quick,” commented the women of farlingford. but perhaps they were wrong. if he had forgotten, he might be expected to go round by the south side of the church by accident occasionally, especially as it was the shorter way from the rectory to the porch. he was an absent-minded man, but he always remembered, as river andrew himself admitted, to go north about. and his wife's grave was overgrown by salted grass as were the rest.
farlingford had accepted him, when his college, having no use for such a dreamer elsewhere, gave him the living, not only with resignation, but with equanimity. this remote parish, cut off from the busier mainland by wide heaths and marshes, sparsely provided with ill-kept roads, had never looked for a bustling activity in its rectors. their forefathers had been content with a gentleman, given to sport and the pursuits of a country squire, marked on the seventh day by a hearty and robust godliness. they would have preferred parson marvin to have handled a boat and carried a gun. but he had his good qualities. he left them alone. and they are the most independent people in the world.
when his wife died, his sister, the widow of an indian officer, bustled eastward, from a fashionable welsh watering-place, just to satisfy herself, as she explained to her west-country friends, that he would not marry his cook before six months elapsed. after that period she proposed to wash her hands of him. she was accompanied by her only child, miriam, who had just left school.
six months later septimus marvin was called upon to give away his sister to a youthful brother officer of her late husband, which ceremony he performed with a sigh of relief audible in the farthest recess of the organ loft. while the wedding-bells were still ringing, the bride, who was not dreamy or vague like her brother, gave septimus to understand that he had promised to provide miriam with a home—that he really needed a woman to keep things going at the rectory and to watch over the tender years of little sep—and that miriam's boxes were packed.
septimus had no recollection of the promise. and his sister was quite hurt that he should say such a thing as that on her wedding day and spoil everything. he had no business to make the suggestion if he had not intended to carry it out. so the bride and bridegroom went away in a shower of good wishes and rice to the life of organized idleness, for which the gentleman's education and talents eminently befitted him, and miriam returned to farlingford with septimus.
in those days the railway passed no nearer to farlingford than ipswich, and before the arrival of their train at that station miriam had thoroughly elucidated the situation. she had discovered that she was not expected at the rectory, and that septimus had never offered of his own free will the home which he now kindly pressed upon her—two truths which the learned historian fondly imagined to be for ever locked up in his own heart, which was a kind one and the heart of a gentleman.
miriam also learned that septimus was very poor. she did not need to be informed that he was helpless. her instinct had told her that long ago. she was only nineteen, but she looked at men and women with those discerning grey eyes, in which there seemed to lurk a quiet light like the light of stars, and saw right through them. she was woman enough—despite the apparent inconsequence of the schoolroom, which still lent a vagueness to her thoughts and movements—to fall an easy victim to the appeal of helplessness. years, it would appear, are of no account in certain feminine instincts. miriam had probably been woman enough at ten years of age to fly to the rescue of the helpless.
she did not live permanently at the rectory, but visited her mother from time to time, either in england, or at one of the foreign resorts of idle people. but the visits, as years went by, became shorter and rarer. at twenty-one miriam came into a small fortune of her own, left by her father in the hands of executors, one of whom was that john turner, the paris banker, who had given dormer colville a letter of introduction to septimus marvin. the money was sorely needed at the rectory, and miriam drew freely enough on john turner.
“you are an extravagant girl,” said that astute financier to her, when they met at the house of mrs. st. pierre lawrence, at royan, in france. “i wonder what you spend it on! but i don't trouble my head about it. you need not explain, you understand. but you can come to me when you want advice or help. you will find me—in the background. i am a fat old man, in the background. useful enough in my way, perhaps, even to a pretty girl with a sound judgment.”
there were many, who, like loo barebone, reflected that there were other worlds open to miriam liston. at first she went into those other worlds, under the flighty wing of her mother, and looked about her there. captain and mrs. duncan belonged to the anglo-french society, which had sprung into existence since the downfall of napoleon i., and was in some degree the outcome of the part played by great britain in the comedy of the bourbon and orleanist collapse. captain duncan had retired from the army, changing career from one of a chartered to an unchartered uselessness, and he herded with tarnished aristocracy and half-pay failures in the smoking-rooms of continental clubs.
miriam returned, after a short experience of this world, to farlingford, as to the better part. at first she accepted invitations to some of the country houses open to her by her connection with certain great families. but after a time she seemed to fall under the spell of that quiet life which is still understood and lived in a few remote places.
“what can you find to do all day and to think about at night at that bleak corner of england?” inquired her friends, themselves restless by day and sleepless by night by reason of the heat of their pursuit of that which is called pleasure.
“if he wants to marry his cook let him do it and be done with us,” wrote her mother from the south of france. “come and join us at biarritz. the prince president will be here this winter. we shall be very gay.... p.s. we shall not ask you to stay with us as we are hard up this quarter; but to share expenses. mind come.”
but miriam remained at farlingford, and there is nothing to be gained by seeking to define her motive. there are two arguments against seeking a woman's motive. firstly, she probably has none. secondly, should she have one she will certainly have a counterfeit, which she will dangle before your eyes, and you will seize it.
dormer colville might almost be considered to belong to the world of which captain and mrs. duncan were such brilliant ornaments. but he did not so consider himself. for their world was essentially british, savoured here and there by a french count or so, at whose person and title the french aristocracy of undoubted genuineness looked askance. dormer colville counted his friends among these latter. in fact, he moved in those royalist circles who thought that there was little to choose between the napoleonic and the orleanist regime. he carefully avoided intimacy with englishmen whose residence in foreign parts was continuous and in constant need of explanation. indeed, if a man's life needs explanation, he must sooner or later find himself face to face with some one who will not listen to him.
colville, however, knew all about captain duncan, and knew what was ignored by many, namely, that he was nothing worse than foolish. he knew all about miriam, for he was in the confidence of mrs. st. pierre lawrence. he knew that that lady wondered why miriam preferred farlingford to the high-bred society of her own circle at royan and in paris.
he thought he knew why loo barebone showed so little enterprise. and he was, as madame de chantonnay had frequently told him, more than half a frenchman in the quickness of his intuitions. he picked a flower for his buttonhole from the garden of the “black sailor,” and set forth the morning after his interview with captain clubbe toward the rectory. it was a cool july morning, with the sun half obscured by a fog-bank driven in from the sea. through the dazzling white of that which is known on these coasts as the water-smoke the sky shone a cloudless blue. the air was light and thin. it is the lightest and thinnest air in england. dormer colville hummed a song under his breath as he walked on the top of the dyke. he was a light-hearted man, full of hope and optimism.
“am i disturbing your studies?” he asked, with his easy laugh, as he came rather suddenly on miriam and little sep in the turf-shelter at the corner of the rectory garden. “you must say so if i am.”
they had, indeed, their books, and the boy's face wore that abstracted look which comes from a very earnest desire not to see the many interesting things on earth and sea, which always force themselves upon the attention of the young at the wrong time. colville had already secured sep's friendship by the display of a frank ignorance of natural history only equalled by his desire to be taught.
“we're doing history,” replied sep, frankly, jumping up and shaking hands.
“ah, yes. william the conqueror, ten hundred and sixty-six, and all the rest of it. i know. at least i knew once, but i have forgotten.”
“no. we're doing french history. miriam likes that best, but i hate it.”
“french history,” said colville, thoughtfully. “yes. that is interesting. miss liston likes that best, does she? or, perhaps, she thinks that it is best for you to know it. do you know all about louis xvi. and marie antoinette?”
“pretty well,” admitted sep, doubtfully.
“when i was a little chap like you, i knew many people who had seen louis xvi. and marie antoinette. that was long, long ago,” he added, turning to miriam to make the admission. “but those are not the things that one forgets, are they, miss liston?”
“then i wish sep could know somebody who would make him remember,” answered miriam, half closing the book in her hand; for she was very quick and had seen colville's affable glance take it in in passing, as it took in everything within sight.
“a king, for instance,” he said, slowly. “a king of france. others—prophets and righteous men—have desired to see that, miss liston.”
it seemed, however, that he had seen enough to know the period which they were studying.
“i suppose,” he said, after a pause, “that in this studious house you talk and think history, and more especially french history. it must be very quiet and peaceful. much more restful than acting in it as my friend de gemosac has done all his life, as i myself have done in a small way. for france takes her history so much more violently than you do in england. france is tossed about by it, while england stands and is hammered on the anvil of time, as it were, and remains just the same shape as before.”
he broke off and turned to sep.
“do you know the story of the little boy who was a king?” he asked, abruptly. “they put him in prison and he escaped. he was carried out in a clothes-basket. funny, is it not? and he escaped from his enemies and reached another country, where he became a sailor. he grew to be a man and he married a woman of that country, and she died, leaving him with a little boy. and then he died himself and left the little boy, who was taken care of by his english relations, who never knew that he was a king. but he was; for his father was a king before him, and his grandfathers—far, far back. back to the beginning of the book that miss liston holds in her hand. the little boy—he was an orphan, you see—became a sailor. he never knew that he was a king—the hope of his country, of all the old men and the wise men in it—the holder of the fate of nations. think of that.”
the story pleased sep, who sat with open lips and eager eyes, listening to it.
“do you think it is an interesting story? what do you think is the end of it?”
“i don't know,” answered sep, gravely.
“neither do i. no one knows the end of that story yet. but if you were a king—if you were that boy—what would you do? would you go and be a king, or would you be afraid?”
“no. i should go and be a king. and fight battles.”
“but you would have to leave everybody. you would have to leave your father.”
“i should not mind that,” answered sep, brutally.
“you would leave miss liston?”
“i should have to,” was the reply, with conviction.
“ah, yes,” said colville, with a grave nod of the head. “yes. i suppose you would have to if you were anything of a man at all. there would be no alternative—for a real man.”
“besides,” put in sep, jumping from side to side on his seat with eagerness, “she would make me—wouldn't you, miriam?”
colville had turned away and was looking northward toward the creek, known as maiden's grave, running through the marshes to the river. a large lug-sail broke the flat line of the horizon, though the boat to which it belonged was hidden by the raised dyke.
“would she?” inquired colville, absent-mindedly, without taking his eyes from the sail which was creeping slowly toward them. “well—you know miss liston's character better than i do, sep. and no doubt you are right. and you are not that little boy, so it doesn't matter; does it?”
after a pause he turned and glanced sideways at miriam, who was looking straight in front of her with steady eyes and white cheeks.
they could hear loo barebone singing gaily in the boat, which was hidden below the level of the dyke. and they watched, in a sudden silence, the sail pass down the river toward the quay.
