"I hope to make a village drawing-room of it in time," she said casually to Frank as she stooped to put a log on the fire. "I think we shall get them to come, as it has a separate door, and sc.r.a.per, and mat all to itself."
"Goodness!" said Frank, "they won"t come. It"s too far from the village."
"Don"t you be so sure," said Marcella, laughing. "Mr. Craven has all sorts of ideas."
"Who"s Mr. Craven?"
"Didn"t you meet him at my rooms?"
"Oh! I remember," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the boy--"a frightful Socialist!"
"And his wife"s worse," said Marcella, merrily. "They"ve come down to settle here. They"re going to help me."
"Then for mercy"s sake keep them to yourself," cried Frank, "and don"t let them go loose over the county. We don"t want them at our place."
"Oh! your turn will come. Lord Maxwell"--her tone changed--became shy and a little grave. "Shall we go into the Stone Parlour? My mother will come down if you wish to see her, but she thought that--that--perhaps we could settle things."
Aldous had been standing by, hat in hand, watching her as she chattered to Frank. As she addressed him he gave a little start.
"Oh! I think we can settle everything," he said.
"Well, this is rum!" said Frank to himself, as the door closed behind them, and instead of betaking himself to the chair and the newspaper with which Marcella had provided him, he began to walk excitedly up and down. "Her father makes him executor--he manages her property for her--and they behave nicely to each other, as though nothing had ever happened at all. What the deuce does it mean? And all the time Betty--why, Betty"s devoted to him!--and it"s as plain as a pikestaff what that old cat, Miss Raeburn, is thinking of from morning till night!
Well, I"m beat!"
And throwing himself down on a stool by the fire, his chin between his hands, he stared dejectedly at the burning logs.
CHAPTER V.
Meanwhile Marcella and her companion were sitting in the Stone Parlour side by side, save for a small table between them, which held the various papers Aldous had brought with him. At first, there had been on her side--as soon as they were alone--a feeling of stifling embarra.s.sment. All the painful, proud sensations with which she had received the news of her father"s action returned upon her; she would have liked to escape; she shrank from what once more seemed an encroachment, a situation as strange as it was embarra.s.sing.
But his manner very soon made it impossible, indeed ridiculous, to maintain such an att.i.tude of mind. He ran through his business with his usual clearness and rapidity. It was not complicated; her views proved to be the same as his; and she was empowered to decide for her mother.
Aldous took notes of one or two of her wishes, left some papers with her for her mother"s signature, and then his work was practically done.
Nothing, throughout, could have been more rea.s.suring or more everyday than his demeanour.
Then, indeed, when the end of their business interview approached, and with it the opportunity for conversation of a different kind, both were conscious of a certain tremor. To him this old parlour was torturingly full of memories. In this very place where they sat he had given her his mother"s pearls, and taken a kiss in return from the cheek that was once more so near to him. With what free and exquisite curves the hair set about the white brow! How beautiful was the neck--the hand! What ripened, softened charm in every movement! The touching and rebuking thought rose in his mind that from her nursing experience, and its frank contact with the ugliest realities of the physical life--a contact he had often shrunk from realising--there had come to her, not so much added strength, as a new subtlety and sweetness, some delicate, vibrating quality, that had been entirely lacking to her first splendid youth.
Suddenly she said to him, with a certain hesitation:
"There was one more point I wanted to speak to you about. Can you advise me about selling some of those railway shares?"
She pointed to an item in a short list of investments that lay beside them.
"But why?" said Aldous, surprised. "They are excellent property already, and are going up in value."
"Yes, I know. But I want some ready money immediately--more than we have--to spend on cottage-building in the village. I saw a builder yesterday and came to a first understanding with him. We are altering the water-supply too. They have begun upon it already, and it will cost a good deal."
Aldous was still puzzled.
"I see," he said. "But--don"t you suppose that the income of the estate, now that your father has done so much to free it, will be enough to meet expenses of that kind, without trenching on investments? A certain amount, of course, should be systematically laid aside every year for rebuilding, and estate improvements generally."
"Yes; but you see I only regard half of the income as mine."
She looked up with a little smile.
He was now standing in front of her, against the fire, his grey eyes, which could be, as she well knew, so cold and inexpressive, bent upon her with eager interest.
"Only half the income?" he repeated. "Ah!"--he smiled kindly--"is that an arrangement between you and your mother?"
Marcella let her hand fall with a little despairing gesture.
"Oh no!" she said--"oh no! Mamma--mamma will take nothing from me or from the estate. She has her own money, and she will live with me part of the year."
The intonation in the words touched Aldous profoundly.
"Part of the year?" he said, astonished, yet not knowing how to question her. "Mrs. Boyce will not make Mellor her home?"
"She would be thankful if she had never seen it," said Marcella, quickly--"and she would never see it again if it weren"t for me. It"s dreadful what she went through last year, when--when I was in London."
Her voice fell. Glancing up at him involuntarily, her eye looked with dread for some chill, some stiffening in him. Probably he condemned her, had always condemned her for deserting her home and her parents. But instead she saw nothing but sympathy.
"Mrs. Boyce has had a hard life," he said, with grave feeling.
Marcella felt a tear leap, and furtively raised her handkerchief to brush it away. Then, with a natural selfishness, her quick thought took another turn. A wild yearning rose in her mind to tell him much more than she had ever done in old days of the miserable home-circ.u.mstances of her early youth; to lay stress on the mean unhappiness which had depressed her own child-nature whenever she was with her parents, and had withered her mother"s character. Secretly, pa.s.sionately, she often made the past an excuse. Excuse for what? For the lack of delicacy and loyalty, of the best sort of breeding, which had marked the days of her engagement?
Never--_never_ to speak of it with him!--to pour out everything--to ask him to judge, to understand, to forgive!--
She pulled herself together by a strong effort, reminding herself in a flash of all that divided them:--of womanly pride--of Betty Macdonald"s presence at the Court--of that vain confidence to Hallin, of which her inmost being must have been ashamed, but that something calming and sacred stole upon her whenever she thought of Hallin, lifting everything concerned with him into a category of its own.
No; let her selfish weakness make no fettering claim upon the man before her. Let her be content with the friendship she had, after all, achieved, that was now doing its kindly best for her.
All these images, like a tumultuous procession, ran through the mind in a moment. He thought, as she sat there with her bent head, the hands clasped round the knee in the way he knew so well, that she was full of her mother, and found it difficult to put what she felt into words.
"But tell me about your plan," he said gently, "if you will."
"Oh! it is nothing," she said hurriedly. "I am afraid you will think it impracticable--perhaps wrong. It"s only this: you see, as there is no one depending on me--as I am practically alone--it seemed to me I might make an experiment. Four thousand a year is a great deal more than I need ever spend--than I _ought_, of course, to spend on myself. I don"t think altogether what I used to think. I mean to keep up this house--to make it beautiful, to hand it on, perhaps _more_ beautiful than I found it, to those that come after. And I mean to maintain enough service in it both to keep it in order and to make it a social centre for all the people about--for everybody of all cla.s.ses, so far as I can. I want it to be a place of amus.e.m.e.nt and delight and talk to us all--especially to the very poor. After all"--her cheek flushed under the quickening of her thought--"_everybody_ on the estate, in their different degree, has contributed to this house, in some sense, for generations. I want it to come into their lives--to make it _their_ possession, _their_ pride,--as well as mine. But then that isn"t all. The people here can enjoy nothing, use nothing, till they have a worthier life of their own. Wages here, you know, are terribly low, much lower"--she added timidly--"than with you. They are, as a rule, eleven or twelve shillings a week. Now there seem to be about one hundred and sixty labourers on the estate altogether, in the farmers" employment and in our own. Some, of course, are boys, and some old men earning a half-wage. Mr. Craven and I have worked it out, and we find that an average weekly increase of five shillings per head--which would give the men of full age and in full work about a pound a week--would work out at about two thousand a year."
She paused a moment, trying to put her further statement into its best order.
"Your farmers, you know," he said, smiling, after a pause, "will be your chief difficulty."
"Of course! But I thought of calling a meeting of them. I have discussed it with Mr. French--of course he thinks me mad!--but he gave me some advice. I should propose to them all fresh leases, with certain small advantages that Louis Craven thinks would tempt them, at a reduced rental exactly answering to the rise in wages. Then, in return they must accept a sort of fair-wage clause, binding them to pay henceforward the standard wage of the estate."
She looked up, her face expressing urgent though silent interrogation.
"You must remember," he said quickly, "that though the estate is recovering, and rents have been fairly paid about here during the last eighteen months, you may be called upon at any moment to make the reductions which hampered your uncle. These reductions will, of course, fall upon you as before, seeing that the farmers, in a different way, will be paying as much as before. Have you left margin enough?"