Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/493

Charles Dickens] reality, heartbroken and alone. Besides, what motive had he for work now? Experience had taught him that he could always find sufficient press-work in London to keep body and soul together, and what more did he want? What more didWas it all real, or was he dreaming? Marian! was it all over between him and her? was she no longer his Marian? was he never to see her, to touch her hand, to hold her in his arms, to live in the light of those loving eyes again? He thought of their last conversation and their parting, he thought of his last letter to her, so full of hope and love; so tender of the past, so full of the future; and there, to that, was the reply lying before him announcing her marriage. Her marriage—her sale! She had bartered herself away for fine houses, horses, carriages, dresses; she, daughter of James Ashurst, who had loved her as the apple of his eye, and would as soon have thought of her renouncing her religion as of her breaking her plighted word.

It was odd, he could not explain it; but his thoughts ran more upon her than upon himself. He found himself picturing her as the squire's lady, taking up her position in society, seated at the head of her table receiving her guests, at church in the pew which he recollected so well. He recollected the back of her head and the kneeling figure as he had noticed it Sunday after Sunday when he sat amongst the boys in the school-pew immediately behind her, recollected the little grave bow she would give him as she passed to her seat, and the warm hand-pressure with which she always met him after morning service. His love had lived on that warm hand-pressure for days; hers, it seems, was not so easily nourished. He wondered at himself for the way in which he found himself thinking of her. Had the mere notion of such treatment ever entered his mind he should have been raving, now when the actual fact had occurred he was quiet. He ran through the whole matter in his mind again, pointed out to himself the deception that she had practised on him, the gross breach of faith of which she had been guilty, showed himself plainly how her desertion of him had sprung from the basest motives, not from lack of love for him, not from overweening fancy for another—those were human motives and might be pardoned her—but from mere avarice and mammonworship. And, after cogitating over all this he felt that he pitied rather than hated her, and that as to himself, he had not the remotest care what became of him.

A knock at the door, and before he could answer Lady Caroline had entered the room. Joyce was rather pleased than otherwise at the interruption. He had taken her ladyship so far into his confidence that it was impossible to hide from her this last act in the drama, and it was infinitely pleasanter that the explanation should come about here—accidentally, as it were—than that he should have to seek her with his story.

"Good morning, Mr. Joyce!"

"Good morning, Lady Caroline!"

"Mr. Joyce, a triumphal procession, consisting of Lady Hetherington and the new housekeeper, is marching round the house, settling what's to be done in each room between this and the autumn. I confess I have not sufficient strength of mind to be present at those solemn rites, and as this is the only room in the house in which no change ever takes place—save the increase of dust, and lately the acquisition of a bonâ fide student—I have taken refuge here, and have brought the Times in order that I may be sure not to disturb you by chattering."

"You will not disturb me in the least, I assure you."

"Why what a dreadfully hollow voice, andMr. Joyce!" continued Lady Caroline, changing her tone, "how very unwell you look—so strangely pale and drawn! Is anything the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing in the least!" he replied. "You have been good enough to let me talk to you about myself and my hopes and aspirations, Lady Caroline Mansergh. You have probably forgotten"—Ah, man, devoid of the merest accidence of worldly grammar—"you have probably forgotten that this is the morning on which I was to expect my answer from Miss Ashurst. It has come! It is here!" and he stooped forward, picked from the table the letter, and handed it to her.

Lady Caroline seemed rather surprised at this mode of proceeding. She took the letter from Walter's hand, but held it unopened before her, and said, "You wish me to read it?"

"If you please," he replied. "There is no other way by which you could exactly comprehend the situation, and I wish you to be made aware of it—and—and to advise me in it."

Lady Caroline blushed slightly as she heard these last words, but she said nothing,