the blow came very suddenly at last. about the middle of september the spirit of marion fay flitted away from all its earthly joys and all its earthly troubles. lord hampstead saw her alive for the last time at that interview which was described a few pages back. whenever he proposed to go down again to pegwell bay some objection was made, either by the quaker or by mrs. roden on the quaker's behalf. the doctor, it was alleged, had declared that such visits were injurious to his patient,—or perhaps it was that marion had herself said that she was unable to bear the excitement. there was, no doubt, some truth in this. and marion had seen that though she herself could enjoy the boundless love which her lover tendered to her, telling herself that though it was only for a while, it was very sweet to have it so, yet for him these meetings were full of agony. but in addition to this there was, i think, a jealousy on the part of zachary fay as to his daughter. when there was still a question whether the young lord should be his son-in-law, he had been willing to give way and to subordinate himself, even though his girl were the one thing left to him in all the world. while there was an idea that she should be married, there had accompanied that idea a hope, almost an expectation, that she might live. but when it was brought home to him as a fact that her marriage was out of the question because her life was waning, then unconsciously there grew up in his heart a feeling that the young lord ought not to rob him of what was left. had marion insisted, he would have yielded. had mrs. roden told him that it was cruel to separate them, he would have groaned and given way. as it was, he simply leaned to that view of the matter which gave him the greatest preponderance with his own child. it may be that she saw it too, and would not wound him by asking for her lover's presence.
about the middle of september she died, having written to hampstead the very day before her death. her letters lately had become but a few words each, which mrs. roden would put into an envelope and send to their destination. he wrote daily, assuring her that he would not leave his home for a day in order that he might go to her instantly when she would send for him. to the last she never gave up the idea of seeing him again;—but at last the little light flickered out quicker than had been expected.
mrs. roden was at pegwell bay when the end came; and to her fell the duty of making it known to lord hampstead. she went up to town immediately, leaving the quaker in the desolate cottage, and sent down a note from holloway to hendon hall. "i must see you as soon as possible. shall i go to you, or will you come to me?" when she wrote the words she was sure that he would understand their purport, and yet it was easier to write so than to tell the cruel truth plainly. the note was sent down by a messenger, but lord hampstead in person was the answer.
there was no need of any telling. when he stood before her dressed from head to foot in black, she took him by the two hands and looked into his face. "it is all over for her," he said,—"the trouble and the anguish, and the sense of long dull days to come. my marion! how infinitely she has the best of it! how glad i ought to be that it is so."
"you must wait, lord hampstead," she said.
"pray, pray, let me have no consolation. waiting in the sense you mean there will be none. for the one relief which will finally come to me i must of course wait. did she say any word that you would wish to tell me!"
"many, many."
"were they for my ears?"
"what other words should she have spoken to me? they were prayers for your health."
"my health needs not her prayers."
"prayers for your soul's health."
"such praying will be efficacious there,—or would be were anything needed to make her fit for those angels among whom she has gone. for me they can do nothing,—unless it be that in knowing how much she loved me i may strive to be as she was."
"and for your happiness."
"psha!" he exclaimed.
"you must let me do her commission, lord hampstead. i was to bid you remember that god in his goodness has ordained that the dead after awhile shall be remembered only with a softened sorrow. i was to tell you that as a man you should give your thoughts to other things. it is not from myself;—it is from her."
"she did not know. she did not understand. as regards good and evil she was, to my eyes, perfect;—perfect as she was in beauty, in grace, and feminine tenderness. but the character of others she had not learned to read. but i need not trouble you as to that, mrs. roden. you have been good to her as though you were her mother, and i will love you for it while i live." then he was going away; but he turned again to ask some question as to the funeral. might he do it. mrs. roden shook her head. "but i shall be there?" to this she assented, but explained to him that zachary fay would admit of no interference with that which he considered to be his own privilege and his own duty.
lord hampstead had driven himself over from hendon hall, and had driven fast. when he left mrs. roden's house the groom was driving the dog-cart up and down paradise row, waiting for his master. but the master walked on out of the row, forgetting altogether the horse and the cart and the man, not knowing whither he was going.
the blow had come, and though it had been fully expected, though he had known well that it was coming, it struck him now as hard, almost harder than if it had not been expected. it seemed to himself that he was unable to endure his sorrow now because he had been already weakened by such a load of sorrow. because he had grieved so much, he could not now bear this further grief. as he walked on he beat his hands about, unconscious that he was in the midst of men and women who were gazing at him in the streets. there was nothing left to him,—nothing, nothing, nothing! he felt that if he could rid himself of his titles, rid himself of his wealth, rid himself of the very clothes upon his back, it would be better for him, so that he might not seem to himself to think that comfort could be found in externals. "marion," he said, over and over again, in little whispered words, but loud enough for his own ears to hear the sound. and then he uttered phrases which were almost fantastic in their woe, but which declared what was and had been the condition of his mind towards her since she had become so inexpressibly dear to him. "my wife," he said, "my own one! mother of my children. my woman; my countess; my princess. they should have seen. they should have acknowledged. they should have known whom it was that i had brought among them;—of what nature should be the woman whom a man should set in a high place. i had made my choice;—and then that it should come to this!" "there is no good to be done," he said again. "it all turns to ashes and to dust. the low things of the world are those which prevail." "oh, marion, that i could be with you! though it were to be nowhere,—though the great story should have no pathetic ending, though the last long eternal chapter should be a blank,—still to have wandered away with you would have been something." as soon as he reached his house he walked straight into the drawing-room, and having carefully closed the door, he took the poker in his hand and held it clasped there as something precious. "it is the only thing of mine," he said, "that she has touched. even then i swore to myself that this hearth should be her hearth; that here we would sit together, and be one flesh and one bone." then surreptitiously he took the bit of iron away with him, and hid it among his treasures,—to the subsequent dismay of the housemaid.
there came to him a summons from the quaker to the funeral, and on the day named, without saying a word to any one, he took the train and went down to pegwell bay. from the moment on which the messenger had come from mrs. roden he had dressed himself in black, and he now made no difference in his garments. poor zachary said but little to him; but that little was very bitter. "it has been so with all of them," he said. "they have all been taken. the lord cannot strike me again now." of the highly-born stranger's grief, or of the cause which brought him there, he had not a word to say; nor did lord hampstead speak of his own sorrow. "i sympathize and condole with you," he said to the old man. the quaker shook his head, and after that there was silence between them till they parted. to the few others who were there lord hampstead did not address himself, nor did they to him. from the grave, when the clod of earth had been thrown on it, he walked slowly away, without a sign on his face of that agony which was rending his heart. there was a carriage there to take him to the railway, but he only shook his head when he was invited to enter it. he walked off and wandered about for hours, till he thought that the graveyard would be deserted. then he returned, and when he found himself alone he stood over the newly heaped-up soil. "marion," he said to himself over and over again, whispering as he stood there. "marion,—marion; my wife; my woman." as he stood by the grave side, one came softly stealing up to him, and laid a hand upon his shoulder. he turned round quickly, and saw that it was the bereaved father. "mr. fay," he said, "we have both lost the only thing that either of us valued."
"what is it to thee, who are young, and hardly knew her twelve months since?"
"months make no difference, i think."
"but old age, my lord, and childishness, and solitude—"
"i, too, am alone."
"she was my daughter, my own. thou hadst seen a pretty face, and that was all. she had remained with me when those others died. had thou not come—"
"did my coming kill her, mr. fay'?"
"i do not say that. thou hast been good to her, and i would not say a hard word to thee."
"i did think that nothing could have added to my sorrow."
"no, my lord; no, no. she would have died. she was her dear mother's child, and she was doomed. go away, and be thankful that thou, too, hast not become the father of children born only to perish in your sight. i will not say an unkind word, but i would wish to have my girl's grave to myself." upon this lord hampstead walked off, and went back to his own home, hardly knowing how he reached it.
it was a month after this that he returned to the churchyard, and might have been seen sitting on the small stone slab which the quaker had already caused to be laid over the grave. it was a fine october evening, and the sombre gloom of the hours was already darkening everything around. he had crept into the enclosure silently, almost slily, so as to insure himself that his presence should not be noted; and now, made confident by the coming darkness, he had seated himself on the stone. during the long hours that he sat there no word was formed within his lips, but he surrendered himself entirely to thoughts of what his life might have been had she been spared to him. he had come there for a purpose, the very opposite of that; but how often does it come to pass that we are unable to drive our thoughts into that channel in which we wish them to flow? he had thought much of her last words, and was minded to attempt to do something as she would have had him do it;—not that he might enjoy his life, but that he might make it useful. but as he sat there, he could not think of the real future,—not of the future as it might be made to take this or that form by his own efforts; but of the future as it would have been had she been with him, of the glorious, bright, beautiful future which her love, her goodness, her beauty, her tenderness would have illuminated.
till he had seen her his heart had never been struck. ideas, sufficiently pleasant in themselves, though tinged with a certain irony and sarcasm, had been frequent with him as to his future career. he would leave that building up of a future family of marquises,—if future marquises there were to be,—to one of those young darlings whose bringing-up would manifestly fit them for the work. for himself he would perhaps philosophize, perhaps do something that might be of service,—would indulge at any rate his own views as to humanity;—but he would not burden himself with a countess and a nursery full of young lords and ladies. he had often said to roden, had often said to vivian, that her ladyship, his stepmother, need not trouble herself. he certainly would not be guilty of making either a countess or a marchioness. they, of course, had laughed at him, and had bid him bide his time. he had bided his time,—as they had said,—and marion fay had been the result.
yes;—life would have been worth the having if marion fay had remained to him. it was thus he communed with himself as he sat there on the tomb. from the moment in which he had first seen her in mrs. roden's house he had felt that things were changed with him. there had come a vision before him which filled him full of delight. as he learned to know the tones of her voice, and the motion of her limbs, and to succumb to the feminine charms with which she enveloped him, all the world was brightened up to his view. here there was no pretence of special blood, no assumption of fantastic titles, no claim to superiority because of fathers and mothers who were in themselves by no means superior to their neighbours. and yet there had been all the grace, all the loveliness, all the tenderness, without which his senses would not have been captivated. he had never known his want;—but he had in truth wanted one who should be at all points a lady, and yet not insist on a right to be so esteemed on the strength of inherited privileges. chance, good fortune, providence had sent her to him,—or more probably the eternal fitness of things, as he had allowed himself to argue when things had fallen out so well to his liking. then there had arisen difficulties, which had seemed to him to be vain and absurd,—though they would not allow themselves to be at once swept away. they had talked to him of his station and of hers, making that an obstacle which to him had been a strong argument in favour of her love. against this he had done battle with the resolute purpose which a man has who is sure of his cause. he would have none of their sophistries, none of their fears, none of their old-fashioned absurdities. did she love him? was her heart to him as was his to her? that was the one question on which it must all depend. as he thought of it all, sitting there on the tombstone, he put out his arm as though to fold her form to his bosom when he thought of the moment in which he became sure that it was so. there had been no doubt of the full-flowing current of her love. then he had aroused himself, and had shaken his mane like a lion, and had sworn aloud that this vain obstacle should be no obstacle, even though it was pleaded by herself. nature had been strong enough within him to assure him that he would overcome the obstacle.
and he had overcome it,—or was overcoming it,—when that other barrier gradually presented itself, and loomed day by day terribly large before his affrighted eyes. even to that he would not yield,—not only as regarded her but himself also. had there been no such barrier, the possession of marion would have been to him an assurance of perfect bliss which the prospect of far-distant death would not have effected. when he began to perceive that her condition was not as that of other young women, he became aware of a great danger,—of a danger to himself as well as to her, to himself rather than to her. this increased rather than diminished his desire for the possession. as the ardent rider will be more intent to take the fence when it looms before him large and difficult, so with him the resolution to make marion his wife became the stronger when he knew that there were reasons of prudence, reasons of caution, reasons of worldly wisdom, why he should not do so. it had become a religion to him that she should be his one. then gradually her strength had become known to him, and slowly he was made aware that he must bow to her decision. all that he wanted in all the world he must not have,—not that the love which he craved was wanting, but because she knew that her own doom was fixed.
she had bade him retrick his beams, and take the light and the splendour of his sun elsewhere. the light and the splendour of his sun had all passed from him. she had absorbed them altogether. he, while he had been boasting to himself of his power and his manliness, in that he would certainly overcome all the barriers, had found himself to be weak as water in her hands. she, in her soft feminine tones, had told him what duty had required of her, and, as she had said so she had done. then he had stood on one side, and had remained looking on, till she had—gone away and left him. she had never been his. it had not been allowed to him even to write his name, as belonging also to her, on the gravestone.
but she had loved him. there was nothing in it all but this to which his mind could revert with any feeling of satisfaction. she had certainly loved him. if such love might be continued between a disembodied spirit and one still upon the earth,—if there were any spirit capable of love after that divorce between the soul and the body,—her love certainly would still be true to him. most assuredly his should be true to her. whatever he might do towards obeying her in striving to form some manly purpose for his life, he would never ask another woman to be his wife, he would never look for other love. the black coat should be laid aside as soon as might be, so that the world around him should not have cause for remark; but the mourning should never be taken from his heart.
then, when the darkness of night had quite come upon him, he arose from his seat, and flinging himself on his knees, stretched his arms wildly across the grave. "marion," he said; "marion; oh, marion, will you hear me? though gone from me, art thou not mine?" he looked up into the night, and there, before his eyes, was her figure, beautiful as ever, with all her loveliness of half-developed form, with her soft hair upon her shoulders; and her eyes beamed on him, and a heavenly smile came across her face, and her lips moved as though she would encourage him. "my marion;—my wife!"
very late that night the servants heard him as he opened the door and walked across the hall, and made his way up to his own room.
