The Evil Guest
Page 23
farm-roads, penetrated towards his melancholyand guilty home.
Two years had now passed since the decisive event which had foreverseparated Marston from her who had loved him so devotedly and so fatally;two years to him of disappointment, abasement, and secret rage; two yearsto her of gentle and heart-broken submission to the chastening hand ofheaven. At the end of this time she died. Marston read the letter thatannounced the event with a stern look, and silently, but the shock hefelt was terrific. No man is so self-abandoned to despair anddegradation, that at some casual moment thoughts of amendment--somegleams of hope, however faint and transient, from the distantfuture--will not visit him. With Marston, those thoughts had somehow everbeen associated with vague ideas of a reconciliation with the being whomhe had forsaken--good and pure, and looking at her from the darkness anddistance of his own fallen state, almost angelic as she seemed. But shewas now dead; he could make her no atonement; she could never smileforgiveness upon him. This long-familiar image--the last that hadreflected for him one ray of the lost peace and love of happiertimes--had vanished, and henceforward there was before him nothing butstorm and fear.
Marston's embarrassed fortunes made it to him an object to resume theportion of his income heretofore devoted to the separate maintenance ofhis wife and daughter. In order to effect this it became, of course,necessary to recall his daughter, Rhoda, and fix her residence once moreat Gray Forest. No more dreadful penalty could have been inflicted uponthe poor girl--no more agonizing ordeal than that she was thus doomed toundergo. She had idolized her mother, and now adored her memory. She knewthat Mademoiselle de Barras had betrayed and indirectly murdered theparent she had so devotedly loved; she knew that that woman had been thecurse, the fate of her family, and she regarded her naturally withfeelings of mingled terror and abhorrence, the intensity of which wasindescribable.
The few scattered friends and relatives, whose sympathies had been movedby the melancholy fate of poor Mrs. Marston, were unanimously agreed thatthe intended removal of the young and innocent daughter to the pollutedmansion of sin and shame, was too intolerably revolting to be permitted.But each of these virtuous individuals unhappily thought it the duty ofthe others to interpose; and with a running commentary of wonder andreprobation, and much virtuous criticism, events were suffereduninterruptedly to take their sinister and melancholy course.
It was about two months after the death of Mrs. Marston, and on a bleakand ominous night at the wintry end of autumn, that poor Rhoda, in deepmourning, and pale with grief and agitation, descended from a chaise atthe well-known door of the mansion of Gray Forest. Whether fromconsideration for her feelings, or, as was more probable, from pureindifference, Rhoda was conducted, on her arrival, direct to her ownchamber, and it was not until the next morning that she saw her father.He entered her room unexpectedly, he was very pale, and as she thought,greatly altered, but he seemed perfectly collected, and free fromagitation. The marked and even shocking change in his appearance, andperhaps even the trifling though painful circumstance that he wore nomourning for the beloved being who was gone, caused her, after a moment'smute gazing in his face, to burst into an irrepressible flood of tears.Marston waited stoically until the paroxysm had subsided, and then takingher hand, with a look in which a dogged sternness was contending withsomething like shame, he said:--
"There, there; you can weep when I am gone. I shan't say very much to youat present, Rhoda, and only wish you to attend to me for one minute.Listen, Rhoda; the lady whom you have been in the habit (here he slightlyaverted his eyes) of calling Mademoiselle de Barras, is no longer so; sheis married; she is my wife, and consequently you will treat her with therespect due to"--he would have said "a mother," but could not, andsupplied the phrase by adding, "to that relation."
Rhoda was unable to speak, but almost unconsciously bowed her head intoken of attention and submission, and her father pressed her hand morekindly, as he continued:--
"I have always found you a dutiful and obedient child, Rhoda, andexpected no other conduct from you. Mrs. Marston will treat you withproper kindness and consideration, and desires me to say that you can,whenever you please, keep strictly to yourself, and need not, unlessyou feel so disposed, attend the regular meals of the family. Thisprivilege may suit your present depressed spirits, and you must notscruple to use it."
After a few words more, Marston withdrew, leaving his daughter to herreflections, and bleak and bitter enough they were.
Some weeks passed away, and perhaps we shall best consult our readers'ease by substituting for the formal precision of narrative, a fewextracts from the letters which Rhoda wrote to her brother, still atCambridge. These will convey her own impressions respecting the scenesand personages among whom she was now to move.
"The house and place are much neglected, and the former in some partssuffered almost to go to decay. The windows broken in the last storm,nearly eight months ago, they tell me, are still unmended, and the roof,too, unrepaired. The pretty garden, near the well, among the lime trees,that our darling mother was so fond of, is all but obliterated with weedsand grass, and since my first visit I have not had heart to go near itagain. All the old servants are gone; new faces everywhere.
"I have been obliged several times, through fear of offending my father,to join the party in the drawing room. You may conceive what I felt atseeing mademoiselle in the place once filled by our dear mamma, I was sochoked with sorrow, bitterness, and indignation, and my heart sopalpitated, that I could not speak, and I believe they thought I wasgoing to faint. Mademoiselle looked very angry, but my father pretendingto show me, heaven knows what, from the window, led me to it, and theair revived me a little. Mademoiselle (for I cannot call her by her newname) is altered a good deal--more, however, in the character than in thecontour of her face and figure. Certainly, however, she has grown a gooddeal fuller, and her color is higher; and whether it is fancy or not, Icannot say, but certainly to me it seems that the expression of her facehas acquired something habitually lowering and malicious, and which, Iknow not how, inspires me with an undefinable dread. She has, however,been tolerably civil to me, but seems contemptuous and rude to my father,and I am afraid he is very wretched, I have seen them exchange suchlooks, and overheard such intemperate and even appalling altercationsbetween them, as indicate something worse and deeper than ordinaryill-will. This makes me additionally wretched, especially as I cannothelp thinking that some mysterious cause enables her to frighten andtyrannise over my poor father. I sometimes think he absolutely detestsher; yet, though fiery altercations ensue, he ultimately submits to thisbad and cruel woman. Oh, my dear Charles, you have no idea of theshocking, or rather the terrifying, reproaches I have heard interchangedbetween them, as I accidently passed the room where they weresitting--such terms as have sent me to my room, feeling as if I werein a horrid dream, and made me cry and tremble for hours after I gotthere.... I see my father very seldom, and when I do, he takes but littlenotice of me.... Poor Willett, you know, returned with me. Sheaccompanies me in my walks, and is constantly dropping hints aboutmademoiselle, from which I know not what to gather....
"I often fear that my father has some secret and mortal ailment. Hegenerally looks ill, and sometimes quite wretchedly. He came twice latelyto my room, I think to speak to me on some matter of importance; but hesaid only a sentence or two, and even these broken and incoherent. Heseemed unable to command spirits for the interview; and, indeed, he grewso agitated and strange, that I was alarmed, and felt greatly relievedwhen he left me....
"I do not, you see, disguise my feelings, dear Charles; I do not concealfrom you the melancholy and anguish of my present situation. Howintensely I long for your promised arrival. I have not a creature to whomI can say one word in confidence, except poor Willett; who, though verygood-natured, and really dear to me, is yet far from being a companion. Isometimes think my intense anxiety to see you here is almost selfish; forI know you will feel as acutely as I do, the terrible change observableeverywhere. But I cannot help longing
for your return, dear Charles, andcounting the days and the very hours till you arrive....
"Be cautious, in writing to me, not to say anything which you would notwish mademoiselle to see; for Willett tells me that she knows that sheoften examines, and even intercepts the letters that arrive; and, thoughWillett may be mistaken, and I hope she is, yet it is better that youshould be upon your guard. Ever since I heard this, I have brought myletters to the post office myself, instead of leaving them with the restupon the hall table; and you know it is a long walk for me....
"I go to church every Sunday, and take Willett along with me. No one fromthis seems to think of doing so but ourselves. I see the Mervyns there.Mrs. Mervyn is particularly kind; and I know that she wishes to offer mean asylum at Newton Park; and you cannot think with how much tendernessand delicacy she conveys the wish. But I dare not hint the subject to myfather; and, earnestly as