Fenton's Quest Part 32

"I cannot agree with that way of looking at things, Sir David. The world is made up of people who take their own pleasure at any cost to others, and then throw the onus of their misdoings upon Providence. I have long ago forgiven the girl who jilted me, and have sworn to be her faithful and watchful friend in all the days to come. I want to be sure that her future is a bright one--much brighter than it seemed when I saw her in your lonely old house near Crosber. She has had money left her since then; so poverty can no longer be a reason for her being hidden from the world."

"I am very glad to hear that; my friend is not a rich man."

"So Marian told me. But I want to learn something more than that about him. Up to this moment he has been the most intangible being I ever heard of. Will you tell me who and what he is--his position in the world, and so on?"

"Humph!" muttered Sir David meditatively; "I don't know that I can tell you much about him. His position is like that of a good many others of my acquaintance--rather vague and intangible, to use the word you employed just now. He is not well off; he is a gentleman by birth, with some small means of his own, and he 'lives, sir, lives.' That is about all I can say of him--from a worldly point of view. With regard to his affection for Miss Nowell, I know that he loved her pa.s.sionately, devotedly, desperately--the strongest expression you can supply to describe a man's folly. I never saw any fellow so far gone. Heaven knows, I did my best to argue him out of his fancy--urged your claim, the girl's poverty, every reason against the marriage; but friendly argumentation of that kind goes very little way in such a case. He took his own course. It was only when I found the business was decided upon, that I offered him my house in Hamps.h.i.+re; a place to which I never go myself, but which brings me in a decent income in the hands of a clever bailiff. I knew that Holbrook had no home ready for his wife, and I thought it would give them a pleasant retreat enough for a few months, while the honey and rose-leaves still sweetened the wine-cup of their wedded life. They have stayed there ever since, as you seem to know; so I conclude they have found the place agreeable. Confoundedly dreary, I should fancy it myself; but then I'm not a newly married man."

The Baronet gave a brief sigh, and his thoughts went back for a moment to the time when he too was in Arcadia; when a fair young wife was by his side, and when no hour of his existence seemed ever dull or weary to him.

It was all changed now! He had billiards and whist, and horses and hounds, and a vast collection of gunnery, and great stores of wine in the gloomy arched vaults beneath the house, where a hundred prisoners had been kept under lock and key when Heatherly had fallen into the hands of the Cromwellian soldiery, and the faithful retainers of the household were fain to lay down their arms. He had all things that make up the common pleasures and delights of a man's existence; but he had lost the love which had given these things a new charm, and without which all life seemed to him flat, stale, and unprofitable. He could sympathise with Gilbert Fenton much more keenly than that gentleman would have supposed possible; for a man suffering from this kind of affliction is apt to imagine that he has a copyright in that species of grief, and that no other man ever did or ever can experience a like calamity. The same manner of trouble may come to others, of course, but not with a similar intensity. Others will suffer and recover, and find a balm elsewhere. He alone is constant until death!

"And you can tell me nothing more about Mr. Holbrook?" he asked after a pause.

"Upon my honour, nothing. I think you will do wisely to leave these two people to take their own way in the future without any interference on your part. You speak of watchful friends.h.i.+p and all that kind of thing, and I can quite appreciate your disinterested desire to befriend the woman whom you once hoped to make your wife. But, believe me, my dear Fenton, no manner of good can possibly come of your intervention. Those two have chosen their road in life, and must travel along it, side by side, through good or evil fortune. Holbrook would naturally be jealous of any friends.h.i.+p between his wife and you; while such a friends.h.i.+p could not fail to keep alive bitter thoughts in your mind--could not fail to sharpen the regret which you fancy just now is to be life-long. I have no doubt I seem to speak in a hard worldly spirit."

"You speak like a man of the world, Sir David," the other answered quietly; "and I cannot deny that there is a certain amount of wisdom in your advice. No, my friends.h.i.+p is not wanted by either of those two, supposing even that I were generous enough to be able to give it to both.

I have learnt that lesson already from Marian herself. But you must remember that I promised her poor old grandfather--the man who died a few days ago--that I would watch over her interests with patient fidelity, that I would be her friend and protector, if ever the hour should come in which she would need friends.h.i.+p and protection. I am not going to forget this promise, or to neglect its performance; and in order to be true to my word, I am bound to make myself acquainted with the circ.u.mstances of her married life, and the character of her husband."

"Cannot you be satisfied with knowing that she is happy?"

"I have seen her, Sir David, and am by no means a.s.sured of her happiness."

"And yet it was a love-match on both sides. Holbrook, as I have told you, loved her pa.s.sionately."

"That pa.s.sionate kind of love is apt to wear itself out very quickly with some men. Your bailiff's daughter complained bitterly of Mr. Holbrook's frequent absence from the Grange, of the dulness and loneliness of my poor girl's life."

"Women are apt to be exacting," Sir David answered with a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. "My friend Holbrook has the battle of life to fight, and could not spend all his days playing the lover. If his wife has had money left her, that will make some difference in their position.

A man is never at his best when he is worried by debts and financial difficulties."

"And Mr. Holbrook was in debt when he married, I suppose?"

"He was. I must confess that I find that complaint a very common one among my acquaintance," the Baronet added with a laugh.

"Will you tell me what this Holbrook is like in person, Sir David? I have questioned several people about him, and have never obtained anything beyond the vaguest kind of description."

Sir David Forster laughed aloud at this request.

"What! you want to know whether your rival is handsome, I suppose? like a woman, who always commences her inquiries about another woman by asking whether she is pretty. My dear Fenton, all personal descriptions are vague. It is almost impossible to furnish a correct catalogue of any man's features. Holbrook is just one of those men whom it is most difficult to describe--not particularly good-looking, nor especially ill-looking; very clever, and with plenty of expression and character in his face. Older than you by some years, and looking older than he really is."

"Thanks; but there is not one precise statement in your description. Is the man dark or fair--short or tall?"

"Rather dark than fair; rather tall than short."

"That will do, Sir David," Gilbert said, starting suddenly to his feet, and looking the Baronet in the face intently. "The man who robbed me of my promised wife is the man whom I introduced to her; the man who has come between me and all my hopes, who hides himself from my just anger, and skulks in the background under a feigned name, is the one friend whom I have loved above all other men--John Saltram!"

Sir David faced him without flinching. If it was acted surprise which appeared upon his countenance at the sound of John Saltram's name, the acting was perfect. Gilbert could discover nothing from that broad stare of blank amazement.

"In heaven's name, what can have put such a preposterous notion into your head?" Sir David asked coolly.

"I cannot tell you. The conviction has grown upon me, against my own will. Yes, I have hated myself for being able to suspect my friend. You do not know how I have loved that man, or how our friends.h.i.+p began at Oxford long ago with something like hero-wors.h.i.+p on my side. I thought that he was born to be great and n.o.ble; and heaven knows I have felt the disappointments and shortcomings of his career more keenly than he has felt them himself. No, Sir David, I don't think it is possible for any man to comprehend how I have loved John Saltram."

"And yet, without a shred of evidence, you believe him guilty of betraying you."

"Will you give me your word of honour that Marian's husband and John Saltram are not one and the same person?"

"No," answered Sir David impatiently; "I am tired of the whole business.

You have questioned and cross-questioned me quite long enough, Mr.

Fenton, and I have answered you to the best of my ability, and have given you rational advice, which you will of course decline to take. If you think your friend has wronged you, go to him, and tax him with that wrong. I wash my hands of the affair altogether, from this moment; but, without wis.h.i.+ng to be offensive, I cannot help telling you, that to my mind you are acting very foolishly in this business."

"I daresay it may seem so to you. You would think better of me if I could play the stoic, and say, 'She has jilted me, and is dead to me henceforward.' But I cannot do that. I have the memory of her peaceful girlhood--the happy days in which I knew her first--the generous protector who sheltered her life. I am pledged to the dead, Sir David."

He left Heatherly soon after this, though the Baronet pressed him to stay to dinner.

CHAPTER XXIV.

TORMENTED BY DOUBT.

The long homeward walk gave Gilbert ample leisure for reflection upon his interview with Sir David; a very unsatisfactory interview at the best.

Yes, the conviction that the man who had wronged him was no other than his own familiar friend, had flashed upon him with a new force as the Baronet answered his questions about John Holbrook. The suspicion which had entered his mind after he left the lonely farm-house near Crosber, and which he had done his uttermost to banish, as if it had been a suggestion of the evil one, came back to him to-day with a form and reality which it had lacked before. It seemed no longer a vague fancy, a dark unwelcome thought that bordered on folly. It had taken a new shape altogether, and appeared to him almost a certainty.

Sir David's refusal to make any direct denial of the fact seemed to confirm his suspicion. Yet it was, on the other hand, just possible that Sir David, finding him on a false scent, should have been willing to let him follow it, and that the real offender should be screened by this suspicion of John Saltram. But then there arose in his mind a doubt that had perplexed him sorely for a long time. If his successful rival had been indeed a stranger to him, what reason could there be for so much mystery in the circ.u.mstances of the marriage? and why should Marian have so carefully avoided telling him anything about her husband? That his friend, having betrayed him, should shrink from the revelation of his falsehood, should adopt any underhand course to avoid discovery, seemed natural enough. Yet to believe this was to think meanly of the man whom he had loved so well, whom he had confided in so implicitly until the arising of this cruel doubt.

He had known long ago, when the first freshness of his boyish delusions faded away before the penetrating clear daylight of reality, he had known long ago that his friend was not faultless; that except in that one faithful alliance with himself, John Saltram had been fickle, wayward, vacillating, unstable, and inconstant, true to no dream of his youth, no ambition of his early manhood content to drop one purpose after another, until his life was left without any exalted aim. But Gilbert had fancied his friend's nature was still a n.o.ble one in spite of the comparative failure of his life. It was very difficult for him to imagine it possible that this friend could act falsely and ungenerously, could steal his betrothed from him, and keep the secret of his guilt, pretending to sympathise with the jilted lover all the while.

But though Mr. Fenton told himself at one moment that this was impossible, his thoughts travelled back to the same point immediately afterwards, and the image of John Saltram arose before him as that of his hidden foe. He remembered the long autumn days which he and his friend had spent with Marian--those unclouded utterly happy days, which he looked back upon now with a kind of wonder. They had been so much together, Marian so bright and fascinating in her innocent enjoyment of the present, brighter and happier just then than she had ever seemed to him before, Gilbert remembered with a bitter pang. He had been completely unsuspicious at the time, untroubled by one doubtful thought; but it appeared to him now that there had been a change in Marian from the time of his friend's coming--a new joyousness and vivacity, a keener delight in the simple pleasures of their daily life, and withal a fitfulness, a tendency to change from gaiety to thoughtful silence, that he had not remarked in her before.

Was it strange if John Saltram had fallen in love with her? was it possible to see her daily in all the glory of her girlish loveliness, made doubly bewitching by the sweetness of her nature, the indescribable charm of her manner--was it possible to be with her often, as John Saltram had been, and not love her? Gilbert Fenton had thought of his friend as utterly impregnable to any such danger; as a man who had spent all his stock of tender emotion long ago, and who looked upon matrimony as a transaction by which he might mend his broken fortunes. That this man should fall a victim to the same subtle charm which had subjugated himself, was a possibility that never occurred to Gilbert's mind, in this happy period of his existence. He wanted his friend's approval of his choice; he wished to see his pa.s.sion justified in the eyes of the man whom it was his habit to regard in somewise as a superior creature; and it had been a real delight to him to hear Mr. Saltram's warm praises of Marian.

Looking back at the past to-day from a new point of view, he wondered at his own folly. What was more natural than that John Saltram should have found his doom, as he had found it, unthought of, undreamed of, swift, and fatal? Nor was it difficult for him to believe that Marian--who had perhaps never really loved him, who had been induced to accept him by his own pertinacity and her uncle's eager desire for the match--should find a charm and a power in John Saltram that had been wanting in himself. He had seen too many instances of his friend's influence over men and women, to doubt his ability to win this innocent inexperienced girl, had he set himself to win her. He recalled with a bitter smile how his informants had all described his rival in a disparaging tone, as unworthy of so fair a bride; and he knew that it was precisely those qualities which these common people were unable to appreciate that const.i.tuted the subtle charm by which John Saltram influenced others. The rugged power and grandeur of that dark face, which vulgar critics denounced as plain and unattractive, the rare fascination of a manner that varied from an extreme reserve to a wild reckless vivacity, the magic of the deep full voice, with its capacity for the expression of every shade of emotion--these were attributes to be pa.s.sed over and ignored by the vulgar, yet to exercise a potent influence upon sensitive sympathetic natures.

"How that poor little Anglo-Indian widow loves him, without any effort to win or hold her affection on his side!" Gilbert said to himself, as he walked back to Lidford in the darkening November afternoon, brooding always on the one subject which occupied all his thoughts; "and can I doubt his power to supersede me if he cared to do so--if he really loved Marian, as he never has loved Mrs. Branston? What shall I do? Go to him at once, and tell him my suspicion, tax him broadly with treachery, and force him to a direct confession or denial? Shall I do this? Or shall I bide my time, wait and watch with dull dogged patience, till I can collect some evidence of his guilt? Yes, let it be so. If he has been base enough to do me this great wrong--mean enough to steal my betrothed under a false name, and to keep the secret of his wrong-doing at any cost of lies and deceit--let him go on to the end, let him act out the play to the last; and when I bring his falsehood home to him, as I must surely do, sooner or later,--yes, if he is capable of deceiving me, he shall continue the lie to the last, he shall endure all the infamy of his false position."

And then, after a pause, he said to himself,--

"And at the end, if my suspicions are confirmed, I shall have lost all I have ever valued in life since my mother died--my plighted wife, and the one chosen friend whose companions.h.i.+p could make existence pleasant to me. G.o.d grant that this fancy of mine is as baseless as Sir David Forster declared it to be! G.o.d grant that I may never find a secret enemy in John Saltram!"

Tossed about thus upon a sea of doubts, Mr. Fenton returned to Lidford House, where he was expected to be bright and cheerful, and entertain his host and hostess with the freshest gossip of the London world. He did make a great effort to keep up a show of cheerfulness at the dinner-table; but he felt that his sister's eyes were watching him with a pitiless scrutiny, and he knew that the attempt was an ignominious failure.

When honest Martin was snoring in his easy-chair before the drawing-room fire, with the red light s.h.i.+ning full upon his round healthy countenance, Mrs. Lister beckoned her brother over to her side of the hearth, where she had an embroidery-frame, whereon was stretched some grand design in Berlin wool-work, to which she devoted herself every now and then with a great show of industry. She had been absorbed in a profound calculation of the st.i.tches upon the canvas and on the coloured pattern before her until this moment; but she laid aside her work with a solemn air when Gilbert went over to her, and he knew at once what was coming.

"Sit down, Gilbert," she said; and her brother dropped into a chair by her side with a faint sigh of resignation. "I want to talk to you seriously, as a sister ought to talk to a brother, without any fear of offending. I'm very sorry to see you have not yet forgotten that wicked ungrateful girl Marian Nowell."

"Who told you that I have not forgotten her?"

"Your own face, Gilbert. It's no use for you to put on a pretence of being cheerful and light-hearted with me. I know you too well to be deceived by that kind of thing--I could see how absent-minded you were all dinner-time, in spite of your talk. You can't hoodwink an affectionate sister."