Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/545

 . 8, 1862.] for a time from spreading shallow in too wide a bed.

The daughter had her father’s sympathy in all her pursuits and pleasures. Her warm response to his love called forth all the best qualities of his heart, whilst her grace and talent gratified not only his paternal affection but his pride. Yet there was one topic on which she soon learned to dread his chilling coldness. Any allusion to Marston Howard was met by a short reply or depreciatory comment. She owed him much; she was grateful and generous; the cause of the absent was sacred to her, and her heart rebelled against her father’s injustice. So she spoke of Marston less often; and, as a natural consequence, thought of him more.

It was the cloud, “no bigger than a man’s hand,” heralding the storm that was to wrench and strain, but root the young tree. Amid antiquities, arts, balls, and operas the winter passed away. To the motley revel of the Carnival succeeded the ecclesiastical gaieties of Lent. Easter fell early. The season was unusually severe. On Easter-eve General Maitland received a telegram announcing his sister’s sudden death, and summoning him to the funeral. To leave Rome at that moment was impossible. The Campagna was flooded—the communication by sea perilous and uncertain. A week’s delay made the journey useless.

The blow fell heavily on Marion. It was the first time she had come to close quarters with Death—heard the twang of the bowstring and felt the shriek of the air as the bolt sped to its mark.

She drooped. The usual remedy was prescribed—change of air and scene: in other words, mental excitement and bodily fatigue, till exhaustion of both moral and physical powers supervenes. The case becomes complicated: more doctors are called in, and if one of them happens to be a man of discernment, he orders “letting the patient alone;” if not, decline solves the difficulty.

It was May. The Maitlands occupied one of the lovely villas of Sorrento. Marion rested from the mid-day heat on the piazza, shaded by umber-striped curtains from the ultramarine sky. Her gaze travelled over the orange-gardens and the bay, and rested on the unseen. Her father paused beside her sofa.

“Papa, when shall we go home?”

“Next week, if it please the signorina,” he said, kindly; “but I thought you liked this place?”

“Who would not, papa? But we have been so long away from home.”

“And where in England shall we pitch our tent? Come, let us sit in council—you know more about it than I do.”

She smiled—a more animated smile than had gladdened her father’s heart for weeks.

“You want to turn shepherdess?”

“I am very fond of country life; but you would never live out of London.”

“I’ll try—I can run up and down by train, you know.”

“I do believe, papa, you are as eager to try the Great Western express as a boy to try a new kite.”

“Yes, and to see machinery at work in the great manufactories.”

“Ah! you are to take me to Manchester. We must ask Marston to go with us, he understands all about manufactures and factories and such things.”

The General took snuff.

“I think we need not trouble Mr. Howard.”

“Does Marston never write, papa?”

She spoke with an effort that brought the rose to her cheeks; she was determined to break the spell that seemed to stifle his name on her lips.

“Aye; he writes. What’s that fool Jacopo doing with the watering-pot?”

“Does he never send a word to me?”

“He sends his—kind regards.”

“Kind regards! I should as soon have expected him to—”

She stood, indignation and perplexity blended in her expression.

“His compliments would be too formal to one he has known from a child,” resumed the General. “He is overwhelmed with business—I wonder he recollects polite messages at all.” And he entered the house.

Marion looked ill and weak next morning. Her father felt guilty, but said to himself that she would get over it; so he ordered his horse and set off for a long day’s ride, to be out of sight of her pale sad face.

The longing to be “at home” gave her strength and energy. In three weeks’ time they were at home—if that term can be applied to an hotel in Piccadilly.

On the fourth day Miss Maitland was alone in the drawing-room when the servant announced “Mr. Howard.” Sadness and a slight reproach were in her voice as she greeted him.

“So long before you came!”

“This is my third visit—”

“You are very good to call so early, Mr. Howard,” said General Maitland, entering at the moment. “I am at your service at once.”

And with something about “military dispatch,” he carried the visitor off to his business room.

One evening her father placed a lithograph, such as land-agents have in their offices, on Marion’s desk.

“Tremawr? is it not, papa?”

“You like it?”

“I used to think it a lovely place when the Ks lived there.”

“I am glad you like it; I have taken it on a long lease.”

There was much to do; furniture to be bought; an establishment to be formed. General Maitland was indefatigable in attending his daughter from warehouse to warehouse. He gave her carte blanche for the exercise of her taste, and her recollections of Tremawr guided her choice. Marston sometimes was of the shopping party, and Marion would soon have fallen into her old happy intercourse with him, but she was conscious of a formality in his manner that checked the ease of her own.

In due time all was ready for departure, and,