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”‘Yet what is love, good shepherd, sayn?’

‘It is a sunshine mixt with rain.’ ”

Sir Walter Raleigh.

Places like Underham offer peculiar attractions to maiden ladies, who find in them equal protection from the solitude of the country and relief from the somewhat dreary desolateness of a great town. It might have been an old friendship for Mrs. Miles which first brought Miss Philippa Lee into the neighbourhood, but she firmly resisted all attempts to decoy her nearer to Thorpe. She took a small house not far from the Featherlys, and there devoted herself to the care of her orphan nephew with that pathetic self-renunciation which we see in not a few women’s lives. She pinched herself to send him to a public school, and would gladly have supported him at college, but even had this been practicable for such straitened means, there were circumstances which prevented more than a secret sighing on her part. Marmaduke had, on his mother’s side, a great-uncle who was the one rich man in a poor family, and who if not actually childless was so by his own assertion to all intents and purposes, his daughter having mortally offended him by a marriage against his will. She was the Margaret Hare of whom we have heard Mr. Mannering speak, for it was not until after her marriage that her father, upon an access of fortune, changed his name to “Tregennas,” and a little later, perhaps in a fit of desolation, took for his second wife and made miserable until her death an aunt of Mr. Miles, the Vicar of Thorpe. The connection, although scarcely deserving of the name, was sufficient to form an additional link between the families, and Marmaduke read with the Vicar, and won Marion’s love while they were little more than girl or boy.

To Mr. Tregennas—who, it must be allowed, took a certain interest in his great-nephew, if interest is proved by occasional gifts of sovereigns and somewhat arbitrary advice on the subject of his education—Marmaduke meanwhile looked as the maker of his fortunes. He was careful from the first to withhold Miss Philippa from contradicting him, as, to tell the truth, she was not disinclined to do. Odd little shoots of jealousy crop up even in the most loving. Add to this that Mr. Tregennas strongly opposed her favourite college scheme, and it will not be surprising that more than once Miss Philippa would very willingly, as she expressed it, have put her foot to the ground, if only Marmaduke had not knocked that very ground from under her, by adopting his uncle’s views. And he was possessed of a certain languid self-will with which he invariably carried his point, even at the time when he appeared to yield, so that people were sometimes puzzled to reconcile cause and effect. Nevertheless, it was no doubt a severe disappointment when Mr. Tregennas, instead of assisting him to enter a profession, advised his seeking employment in one of the great manufacturing firms of the north, and indeed actually applied to the heads before he had received an answer to his suggestion. Whether his will was the strongest, or his nephew’s philosophy overcame dislike, his plan was carried out, and Marmaduke had been for two years engaged in the most distasteful occupation that could have been provided for him. It was, perhaps, this very sense of ill-usage which rooted the more firmly his belief that he was to be his uncle’s heir. A grievance quickly excites the idea of compensation, and Marmaduke welded the two together so persistently that the one stood on nearly the same level as the other. The force, however, which prevented his throwing up his work had never proved sufficient to conquer his repugnance towards it, and the fact of feeling himself a victim, while it seemed to give him a right to feed upon future hopes, made it also a duty to seek alleviations in the present; so that a trifling vexation, or other change of mood, not infrequently brought about a flying visit to Thorpe and a drain upon Miss Lee’s slender resources.

He had told Marion at the dinner-party that he must see her alone the next day, and, accordingly, when he walked to the Vicarage, at a time when Mr. Miles and John were likely to be absent, Marion was waiting eagerly for him. Mrs. Miles, who was in the room, was made more uneasy by his increasing thinness than by her daughter’s determination to go out with him, for although no open engagement existed between the two, it was one of those events which might be expected to fell into shape at some future time, and which, if it were connected with Marion’s will, it was hopeless for her mother to resist, even had she been disinclined towards it. But Marmaduke had a gentle ease of manner pleasant to those with whom he was thrown into contact, and Mrs. Miles really loved and pitied him, and was grieved at his looks.

“Does your Aunt Philippa give you porter jelly, Marmaduke?” she asked anxiously. “I wish she would. I am sure it is the very best thing. Sarah shall heat some beef-tea for you in a moment, if you will only take it.”

“Nothing will do me good while I have to work in that hole,” said Marmaduke, with a dreary intonation in his voice. “Life is simply existence. And to think that I have had two years of it already!”

Marion, who had looked at him as he spoke, did not say a word until they were out of the house, and in the deep lane, fresh with a cool beauty of water and shining cresses. Then, as they walked on, Sniff paddling beside them, she asked quietly—“Is anything the matter?”

There was noticeable in her manner to him—at all times—a difference from her usual fashion of speaking. The abruptness, something even of the brightness, was gone, and in its place seemed to have grown a soft care, a tenderness almost like protection. And at this moment their natures might have been transposed, for Marmaduke turned upon her with an impetuosity unlike himself.

“Anything! I tell you, Marion, that what I go through is unendurable. You might know better than to ask such a question as that.”

“But why—what is it?” she persisted, with a vague trouble lest something more than she had heard was to be unfolded to her. Her loyalty to Marmaduke made her always ready to feed his self-pity, but she was afraid that he had taken some rash step.

“What good can a man do with work that he loathes?”

“You must remember to what the work will lead,” she said, relieved.

“When?—how? It is absolute folly to dream that matters going on as they are going now can ever lead to anything satisfactory. How much do you suppose that I can squeeze out of a paltry hundred and fifty a year? Even Anthony acknowledges it to be absurd, and Anthony is Utopian enough to believe that everything grows out of nothing. That may do very well for him, who will never need to prove it,” added Marmaduke, bitterly.

They were both leaning against a stile, and looking towards the cloudy distance of the moors. Marion slipped her hand softly into his.

“Surely we all heard when you went there that it would bring better things in a few years?”

“You talk of years as if they were days,” he said in the same tone. “Nobody denies it. When I have drudged at that disgustingly low business for half a dozen years, I shall probably be fifty pounds a year better off than I am now, and by the time we are both too old to take pleasure in life we shall be able to marry, and this seems to content you perfectly.”

Marion caught away her hand with a sudden movement. It made him turn to look at her, and the hurt anger in her eyes brought back his usual gentleness of manner at once. He was desirous to bind all her feelings on his side, and he knew her well enough to be aware that his shortest means of doing this was to revert to the wretchedness of his position.

“Forgive me, dearest,” he said; “you don’t know what a poor wretch a man becomes when he grinds along in one eternal round of small miseries. It is such a horrible separation from you all. And what is the good of being old Tregennas’s heir, if he can’t put his hand into his pocket and let me live like a gentleman?”

“He promised that, did he not, Marmaduke?”

“It depends upon what you call promising. He is not the man to say out honestly, ‘Marmaduke Lee, you’re my heir, and I’ll give you a fit allowance till you come into the property.’ If he had, I should not be as I am. But he said quite enough. Of course I am his heir. There isn’t a Jew in the country but would lend me a few thousands on the chance. Of course I am his heir. I wish you would make your father understand, and then he might allow us to consider ourselves engaged; at present it’s like dropping a poor wretch into a pit, and blocking up his one glimpse of blue sky. I tell you, Marion, again, I cannot endure this state of things any longer. I’ve not got it in me to toil on in that dirty hole without so much as an atom of hope to cheer one.”

They were both silent for an instant, and then Marion cried out passionately, “Toil! I would toil day and night for the joy of earning a sixpence which I could lay aside and say, ‘This is ours.’ ” There was such a swift leaping out of the love of her heart in word and eyes, that it seemed fire which must needs kindle whatever it touched, if only for a moment. But no answering glow passed across his pale face. He looked away again as if what she said had not any relation to his thoughts, and she presently continued more timidly. “Surely it would be the height of imprudence to give up your work? And you know that if you did so my father would be less than ever likely to consent to our engagement, than now when you are at least on the road to independence.”

“I can’t go on as I am,” he said, a little doggedly. “Mr. Miles must give me something to hold by, or I shall throw up the whole concern. I have nearly done so a dozen times already.”

“Is there no way of influencing Mr. Tregennas?” asked Marion, after a minute’s troubled thought.

“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about. As I said before, it isn’t fair that he should leave me in such a position. It’s not as if I should have to work for my bread all the days of my life, like some poor devils. By and by I shall step into as pretty a place as you’ll find anywhere, and why I should have to do compensation now by sitting on a high stool and addling my brain over ledgers is more than I can see. If he’d only say something definite one would know what one had to go upon. But—”

“But what?”

“O, you must understand, Marion, that I can’t very well go to him and say this sort of thing!”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Well, women are queer about such matters, but I should think you might guess it’s not the way to make yourself agreeable to an old fellow who has you in his power.”

“It is only justice,” said Marion, whose cheek had flushed under the presence of an absorbing pity for Marmaduke which swept her away like a flood. “I wish I could tell him what I think.”

“You can do something better,” said Marmaduke, seeing she had reached the point to which he had been leading.

“What? Only tell me.”

“Get your father to interfere.”

She shook her head, moving her hands nervously. “You know he will not. He is so scrupulous about such matters. Over and over again I have heard him say he would never ask a favour of his uncle.”

“A favour! But I am not demanding an allowance of a thousand a year. All I want to know is how I stand. And if Mr. Miles sees in black and white that I am his heir, he will no longer object to an engagement. I tell you plainly, I can’t work unless I see some end before me. Besides, one must go step by step, and if he would acknowledge my position straightforwardly, by and by other things would follow. No one is so well entitled to ask as your father. Marion, you don’t want to keep me in this misery?”

She was at no time insensible to these appeals, and perhaps less than ever on such a morning as this, when things about her were shining, dancing, singing in a burst of happy life, could she endure any weight of gloom for the man she loved best in the world. To some of us every echo of a happiness which does not at the same time fill our own souls with its music seems only discord. We cry out against it with voices that clash and jar and sadden themselves with the dissonance, when if we would be but content to listen in patience, some tender vibrations of an eternal harmony should reach us from afar, and satisfy us with their beauty. To Marion it was a positive wrong that the skylark high in the air was singing joyously; that the fresh breeze stirred into brightness the little stream which ran along the meadows; that the sound of the scythe and the chatter of the hay-making folk rose now and then with cheerful distinctness above lesser summer sounds; that Sniff was yelping with delight after the birds he was vainly chasing. Marion told him sharply to be quiet, but he only stopped for a moment, and looked at her with his head on one side at an angle of consideration, before he was off again, his little red tongue hanging out, his brown eyes on fire with excitement. Marmaduke, who was leaning moodily against the gate, waiting for Marion to speak, said at last—

“Anthony is a lucky dog, with the world before him, and no one to please but himself. But I don’t know that such sharp contrasts are the most encouraging reflections in the world.”

The languor and depression of his voice pierced the girl’s heart like a thorn. She exclaimed impetuously—

“Something must be done—my father shall write—nothing can be so bad as that you should suffer in this way.”

She put out her hand again, and he took it in his, and began to thank her in the gently caressing tones which fell easily from his lips. Her resolution, indeed, carried a greater relief to him than seemed to be contained in it. It was not only that he wanted to escape from the irksomeness of his duly toil, and believed the acknowledgment of his position the first step towards it, but he was also fretted by a wearing anxiety lest the position might never be his, and the very assumption of a certain claim on his part by Mr. Miles might have a good effect, and remove a vague uneasiness, for which he could not account, of Anthony as a possible rival. Poor Marion thought it to be love for her which urged him; but although he did love her after a fashion, she was only one of the pleasant things he wanted to sweep into his net. He was full of satisfaction at the promise she had given.

“Who are these—by the watercourse?” he said. “One of them looks like Anthony.”

“And the other is Mr. Chester,” said Marion, abstractedly. “Come.”

“Yes, it is the Squire. I can see his red face, and that little flourish of his stick which he gives when he is angry. They see us by this time, and we may as well hear the battle-royal, if there is one. Listen.”

Mr. Chester’s loud voice came up well before him.

“I tell you, sir, I tell you your father will live to see you a carping radical yet. When a young fellow gets this sort of notions into his head, we all know what’ll be the end of it. Everything respectable goes out by the heels, and he makes a fool of himself over balloting and universal suffrage, and a heap of rascally French republicanisms. How d’ye do, Marion, how d’ye do? Glad to see you, Marmaduke. Hope you’re not infected with any of this modern rubbish?”

“No, sir, I’m a Conservative. A Liberal-Conservative,” added the young man under his breath, not expecting to be heard. But the Squire’s quick ears caught the word.

“Don’t be half anything. There’s nothing I think so poorly of as a man that can’t make up his mind. He says this on one side and that on another, till he knows no more than a teetotum where his spinning will lead him. I should have twice the opinion of Anthony if he could say straight out what he means, instead of calling himself one thing and talking himself into another.” There was a good deal of truth in the Squire’s accusation, and the clash was not one for which he had any sympathy. Anthony himself was too young not to be sore upon the charge of inconsistency. He said hotly—

“Really, sir, I don’t know what hedges and draining have to do with the ballot. I have not been the one to say anything about it.”

“I’m only showing what these ideas lead to,” said Mr. Chester, enjoying his adversary’s irritation. “I’m content to take my land as it came to me. That’s good theology, ain’t it, Marion? By the way, I forgot to tell you that young Frank Orde comes to-morrow. Come up to dinner, all of you, will you? I dare say he’s as bad as the rest, but you’ll not make me believe my father hadn’t as good common-sense as the young fellows that find fault with his farming.”

Sometimes, by talking loudly enough, a man becomes impressed with so confident a sense of triumph, that the sound of his own voice is like the salvo of guns over a victory. It was so now with the Squire, who remained in high good-humour during the rest of the walk, and gave Anthony to understand that he looked upon him as crushed and annihilated by an overwhelming weight of argument.