Marcella. Mrs. Humphry Ward
so delicate, however, as to prevent his being present at the reading of the will! I have never forgiven him that cruelty to the old man, and never will!"
And Lord Maxwell began to pace the library again, by way of working off memory and indignation.
Aldous watched him rather gloomily. They had now been discussing Boyce's criminalities in great detail for a considerable time, and nothing else seemed to have any power to touch—or, at any rate, to hold—Lord Maxwell's attention. A certain deep pride in Aldous—the pride of intimate affection—felt itself wounded.
"I see that you have grave cause to think badly of her father," he said at last, rising as he spoke. "I must think how it concerns me. And to-morrow you must let me tell you something about her. After all, she has done none of these things. But I ought not to keep you up like this. You will remember Clarke was very emphatic about your not exhausting yourself at night, last time he was here."
Lord Maxwell turned and stared.
"Why—why, what is the matter with you, Aldous? Offended?
Well—well—There—I am an old fool!"
And, walking up to his grandson, he laid an affectionate and rather shaking hand on the younger's shoulder.
"You have a great charge upon you, Aldous—a charge for the future. It has upset me—I shall be calmer to-morrow. But as to any quarrel between us! Are you a youth, or am I a three-tailed bashaw? As to money, you know, I care nothing. But it goes against me, my boy, it goes against me, that your wife should bring such a story as that with her into this house!"
"I understand," said Aldous, wincing. "But you must see her, grandfather. Only, let me say it again—don't for one moment take it for granted that she will marry me. I never saw any one so free, so unspoilt, so unconventional."
His eyes glowed with the pleasure of remembering her looks, her tones.
Lord Maxwell withdrew his hand and shook his head slowly.
"You have a great deal to offer. No woman, unless she were either foolish or totally unexperienced, could overlook that. Is she about twenty?"
"About twenty."
Lord Maxwell waited a moment, then, bending over the fire, shrugged his shoulders in mock despair.
"It is evident you are out of love with me, Aldous. Why, I don't know yet whether she is dark or fair!"
The conversation jarred on both sides. Aldous made an effort.
"She is very dark," he said; "like her mother in many ways, only quite different in colour. To me she seems the most beautiful—the only beautiful woman I have ever seen. I should think she was very clever in some ways—and very unformed—childish almost—in others. The Hardens say she has done everything she could—of course it isn't much—for that miserable village in the time she has been there. Oh! by the way, she is a Socialist. She thinks that all we landowners should be done away with."
Aldous looked round at his grandfather, so soon probably to be one of the lights of a Tory Cabinet, and laughed. So, to his relief, did Lord Maxwell.
"Well, don't let her fall into young Wharton's clutches, Aldous, or he will be setting her to canvas. So, she is beautiful and she is clever—and good, my boy? If she comes here, she will have to fill your mother's and your grandmother's place."
Aldous tried to reply once or twice, but failed.
"If I did not feel that she were everything in herself to be loved and respected"—he said at last with some formality—"I should not long, as I do, to bring you and her together."
Silence fell again. But instinctively Aldous felt that his grandfather's mood had grown gentler—his own task easier. He seized on the moment at once.
"In the whole business," he said, half smiling, "there is only one thing clear, grandfather, and that is, that, if you will, you can do me a great service with Miss Boyce."
Lord Maxwell turned quickly and was all sharp attention, the keen commanding eyes under their fine brows absorbing, as it were, expression and life from the rest of the blanched and wrinkled face.
"You could, if you would, make matters easy for her and her mother in the county," said Aldous, anxious to carry it off lightly. "You could, if you would, without committing yourself to any personal contact with Boyce himself, make it possible for me to bring her here, so that you and my aunt might see her and judge."
The old man's expression darkened.
"What, take back that note, Aldous! I never wrote anything with greater satisfaction in my life!"
"Well—more or less," said Aldous, quietly. "A very little would do it. A man in Richard Boyce's position will naturally not claim very much—will take what he can get."
"And you mean besides," said his grandfather, interrupting him, "that I must send your aunt to call?"
"It will hardly be possible to ask Miss Boyce here unless she does!" said Aldous.
"And you reckon that I am not likely to go to Mellor, even to see her? And you want me to say a word to other people—to the Winterbournes and the Levens, for instance?"
"Precisely," said Aldous.
Lord Maxwell meditated; then rose.
"Let me now appease the memory of Clarke by going to bed!" (Clarke was his lordship's medical attendant and autocrat.) "I must sleep upon this, Aldous."
"I only hope I shall not have tired you out."
Aldous moved to extinguish a lamp standing on a table near.
Suddenly his grandfather called him.
"Aldous!"
"Yes."
But, as no words followed, Aldous turned. He saw his grandfather standing erect before the fire, and was startled by the emotion he instantly perceived in eye and mouth.
"You understand, Aldous, that for twenty years—it is twenty years last month since your father died—you have been the blessing of my life? Oh! don't say anything, my boy; I don't want any more agitation. I have spoken strongly; it was hardly possible but that on such a matter I should feel strongly. But don't go away misunderstanding me—don't imagine for one instant that there is anything in the world that really matters to me in comparison with your happiness and your future!"
The venerable old man wrung the hand he held, walked quickly to the door, and shut it behind him.
* * * * *
An hour later, Aldous was writing in his own sitting-room, a room on the first floor, at the western corner of the house, and commanding by daylight the falling slopes of wood below the Court, and all the wide expanses of the plain. To-night, too, the blinds were up, and the great view drawn in black and pearl, streaked with white mists in the ground hollows and overarched by a wide sky holding a haloed moon, lay spread before the windows. On a clear night Aldous felt himself stifled by blinds and curtains, and would often sit late, reading and writing, with a lamp so screened that it threw light upon his book or paper, while not interfering with the full range of his eye over the night-world without. He secretly believed that human beings see far too little of the night, and so lose a host of august or beautiful impressions, which might be honestly theirs if they pleased, without borrowing or stealing from anybody, poet or painter.
The room was lined with books, partly temporary visitors from the great library downstairs, partly his old college books and prizes, and partly representing small collections for special studies. Here were a large number of volumes, blue books, and pamphlets, bearing on the condition of agriculture and the rural poor in England and abroad; there were some shelves devoted to general economics, and on a little table by the fire lay the recent numbers of various economic journals, English and foreign. Between the windows stood a small philosophical bookcase, the volumes of it full of small reference slips, and marked from end to end;