Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/588

 she had hitherto thought nothing but the acquisition of money could create. Very tranquilly she thought of the bygone time, and looked across the landscape at the well-known places. She had slipped so easily into her present position, and settled herself so firmly there, that she could scarcely believe there had been a time when she had been poor and dependent, when she had been unable to exercise her every whim and fancy, and when she had been without an elderly grey-haired gentleman in constant attendance upon her, and eager to anticipate her very slightest wish.

One afternoon, about eight months after her mother's death, Marian was sitting at the window of her boudoir, gazing vacantly at the landscape before her. She did not see the trees, erst so glorious in their russet garments, now half- stripped and shivering in the bitter autumnal wind that came booming over the distant hills, and moaned wearily over the plain; she did not see the little stream that lately flashed so merrily in the summer sunlight, but had now become a brown and swollen foaming torrent, roaring where it had softly sung, and bursting over its broad banks instead of coyly slipping through its pebbly shallows; she did not see the birds now skimming over the surface of the ground, now rising, but with no lofty flight, the harbingers of coming storm; she did not see the dun clouds banking up to windward; nor did she note any of the outward characteristics of the scene. She was feeling dull and bored, and it was a relief when she heard the handle of the door turned, and, looking round, saw her husband in the room.

There was nothing of palpable uxoriousness—that most unpleasant of displayed qualities, especially in elderly people—in the manner in which Mr. Creswell advanced and, bending over his wife, took her face in his hands and kissed her cheek; nor in the way in which he sat down beside her and passed his hands over her shining hair; nor in the words of tenderness with which he addressed her. All was relieved by a touch of dignity, by an evidence of earnest sincerity, and the veriest cynic and scoffer at the domesticity and what Charles Lamb called the "behaviour of married people," would have found nothing to ridicule in the undisguised love and admiration of the old man for his young wife, so quietly were they exhibited.

"What made you fly away in that hurry from the library just now, darling?" said he. "You just peeped in, and were off again, never heeding my calling to you to remain."

"I had no notion you were engaged, or that anybody was here!" said Marian.

"I am never engaged when you want me, and there is never anybody here whose business is of equal importance with your pleasure."

"When did you cultivate the art of saying pretty things?" asked Marian, smiling. "Is it a recent acquisition, or one of old standing, which had only rusted from disuse?"

"I never had occasion to try whether I possessed the power until you came to me," said Mr. Creswell, with an old-fashioned bow. "There, oddly enough, I was talking about speaking in public, and the trick of pleasing people by public speaking, to those two men when you looked into the room."

"Indeed. Who were your visitors?"

"I thought you would have recognised old Croke, of Brocksopp; he seemed a little hurt at your running away without speaking to him; but I put him right. The other gentleman has corresponded with you, but never seen you before—Mr. Gould, of London. You wrote to him just after poor Tom's death, you recollect, about that sale."

"I recollect perfectly," said Marian. (She remembered in an instant Joyce's allusion to the man in his first memorable letter.) "But what brought him here at this time? There is no question of the sale now?"

"No, dearest; but Mr. Gould has a very large practice as a parliamentary agent and lawyer, and he has come down here about the election."

"The election? I thought that was all put off!"

"Put off?" repeated Mr. Creswell."Indefinitely? For ever?"

"I'm sure you told me so."

"Now that is so like a woman! The idea of an election being quietly put aside in that way! No, child, no; it was postponed merely; it is expected to come off very shortly."

"And what have these two men to do with it?"

"These two men, as you call them, have a great deal to do with it. Mr. Croke is a leading man amongst the Conservative party—that is my party, you understand, child—in Brocksopp, and Mr. Gould is to