M. E. Braddon

“ I am just the kind of man to go down to my grave a bachelor."
"Why so, Gilbert?"
"Well, I can hardly tell you, my dear. Perhaps I am rather difficult to please—just a little stony-hearted and invulnerable. I know that since I was a boy, and got over my schoolboy love affairs, I have never seen the woman who could touch my heart. I have met plenty of pretty women, and plenty of brilliant women, of course, in society; and have admired them, and there an end. I have never seen a woman whose face impressed me so much at first sight as the face of your friend, Miss Nowell." ”

“ You'll be rich when I'm dead, Marian; yes, what most people would count rich. You won't squander the money, will you, my dear, as your father would, if it were left to him?"
"No, grandfather. But tell me about my father. Is he still living?" the girl asked eagerly.
"Never mind him, child," answered Jacob Nowell. "He hasn't troubled himself about you, and you can't do better than keep clear of him. No good ever came of anything he did yet, and no good ever will come. Don't you have anything to do with him, Marian. ”

“ Every life has its own mystery—its peculiar perplexities. When I married my husband, I was prepared to share all his troubles. I have been obedient to him in everything."
"And has your marriage brought you happiness, Marian?"
"I love my husband," she answered with a plaintive reproachful look, as if there had been a kind of cruelty in his straight question. "I do not suppose that there is such a thing as perfect happiness in the world."
The answer was enough for Gilbert Fenton. It told him that this girl's life was not all sunshine.
He had not the heart to push his inquiries farther. ”

“ Believe me, there is nothing like work to make a man forget any foolish trouble of this kind. And you will forget it, Gilbert, be assured of that. If I were not certain it would be so, I should——"
He stopped suddenly, staring absently at the fire with a darkening brow.
"You would do what, John?"
"Hate this man Holbrook almost as savagely as you hate him, for having come between you and your happiness. Yet, if Marian Nowell did not love you—as a wife should love her husband, with all her heart and soul—it was ten thousand times better that the knot should be cut in time, however roughly. ”

“ No, it is by no means a mad notion. I want to see you cured, Gilbert. I do like you, dear boy, you know, as much as it is possible for a selfish worthless fellow like me to like any man. I would give a great deal to see you happy; and I am sure that you might be so as Adela Branston's husband. I grant you that I am the favourite at present; but she is just the sort of woman to be won by any man who would really prove himself worthy of her. Her liking for me is a mere idle fancy, which would soon die out for want of fuel. You are my superior in every way—younger, handsomer, better. ”

“ Ellen said earnestly. "And you will make it your business to look for her, sir?"
"The chief object of my life, from this hour."
"And you will try to discover whether her husband is really true, or whether the search that he has made for her has been a blind to hide his own guilt?"
"What grounds have you for supposing his guilt possible?" asked Gilbert. "There are crimes too detestable for credibility; and this would be such a one. You may imagine that I have no friendly feeling towards this man, yet I cannot for an instant conceive him capable of harming a hair of his wife's head." ”

“ 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!" ”

“ Gilbert felt the charm of the hour; the air still and mild, the silence only broken by the cawing of palatial rooks; and whatever tenderness towards John Saltram there was lurking in his breast seemed to grow upon him as he drew nearer to their lodgings; so that his mood was of the softest when he opened the little garden-gate and went in.
"I will make no further pretence of enmity," he said to himself; "I will not keep up this farce of estrangement. We two will be friends once more. Life is not long enough for the rupture of such a friendship." ”

“ That Christmas-day came to an end at last, after a long evening in the oak parlour enlivened by a solemn game at whist and a ponderous supper of cold sirloin and mince pies; and looking out at the wintry moonlight, and the shadowy garden and flat waste of farm-land from the narrow casement in her own room. Ellen Carley wondered what those she loved best in the world were doing and thinking of under that moonlit sky. Where was Marian Holbrook, that new-found friend whom she had loved so well, and whose fate remained so profound a mystery? ”

“ A man in my position, who had a spark of generosity or honour, would have strangled his miserable passion in its birth, would have gone away directly he discovered his folly, and never looked upon Marian Nowell's face again. I did try to do that, Gilbert. You remember that last night we ever spent together at Lidford—what a feverishly-happy night it was; only a cottage-parlour with a girl's bright face shining in the lamplight, and a man over head and ears in love, but a glimpse of paradise to that man. ”

“ You must have a very bad opinion of human nature, Mr. Fenton, to conceive anything so horrible."
"My suspicions do not go quite so far as that," said Gilbert. "God forbid that it should be so. I have a firm belief that Marian Holbrook lives. But it is possible to get a person out of the way without the last worst crime of which mankind is capable."
"It would seem more natural to suspect the husband than the father, I should imagine," Mr. Medler answered, after a thoughtful pause.
"I cannot see that. The husband had nothing to gain by his wife's disappearance, and everything to lose." ”

“ Let me be her lover while I may. Can I ever be less than her lover, I wonder? Will marriage, or custom, or the assurance that we belong to each other for the rest of our days, take the poetry out of our lives? I think not; I think Marian must always be to me what she has seemed to me from the very first—something better and brighter than the common things of this life."
Custom, which made Marian Nowell dearer to Gilbert Fenton every day, had by this time familiarised her with his position as her future husband. ”

“ I will never forgive this."
John Saltram shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating air.
"It is a mistake, my dear fellow," he said. "Life is not long enough for these strong passions. There is nothing in the world worth the price these bitter hatreds and stormy angers cost us. You have thrown away a great deal of deep feeling on a lady, whose misfortune it was not to be able to return your affection as she might have done—as you most fully deserved at her hands. Why waste any further emotion in regrets that are as useless as they are foolish?" ”

“ If Ellen Whitelaw's life had been as the lives of happier women, full of small daily cares and all-engrossing domestic interests, the memory of that unearthly scream would no doubt have faded out of her mind ere long, instead of remaining, as it did, a source of constant perplexity to her. But there was no interest, no single charm in her life. There was nothing in the world left for her to care for. The fertile flats around Wyncomb Farmhouse bounded her universe. Day by day she rose to perform the same monotonous duties, sustained by no lofty aim, cheered by neither friendship nor affection ”

“ Ellen Carley exclaimed admiringly; "and how you must have loved her! I guessed when you were here last that it was you to whom she was engaged before her marriage, and told her as much; but she would not acknowledge that I was right. O, how I wish she had kept faith with you! how much happier she might have been as your wife!"
"People have different notions of happiness, you see, Miss Carley," Gilbert answered with a bitter smile. "Yes, you were right; it was I who was to have been Marian Nowell's husband, whose every hope of the future was bound up in her. ”

“ She may be the shallowest of living creatures—the most selfish, the falsest, the basest. No; I do not believe she could ever be false or unworthy. There is something noble in her face—something more than mere beauty. Heaven knows, I have seen enough of that in my time. I could scarcely be so childish as to be bewitched by a pair of gray eyes and a rosy mouth; there must be something more. And, after all, this is most likely a passing fancy, born out of the utter idleness and dulness of this place. I shall go back to London in a week or two, and forget Marian Nowell. Marian Nowell! ”

“ I never borrowed a sixpence from Gilbert Fenton in my life, though I know that his purse is always open to me. But friendship is apt to end when money transactions begin. Believe me, I feel your goodness, Mrs. Branston, your womanly generosity; but it is my own unworthiness that comes between me and your kindness. I can accept nothing from you but the sympathy which it is your nature to give to all who need it. ”

“ She has suffered enough at your hands, and is only too glad to be released from you."
"She has suffered—she is glad to be released! Why, you most consummate scoundrel!" cried John Saltram, "there never was an unkind word spoken between my wife and me! She was the best, most devoted of women; and nothing but the vilest treachery could have separated us. I know not what villanous slander you have made her believe, or by what means you lured her away from me; but I know that a few words between us would let in the light upon your plot. You had better make the best of a bad position, Mr. Nowell. ”

“ He could not complain of his wife's conduct in any one respect. She was obedient to his will in all things, providing for his comfort with scrupulous regularity, industrious, indefatigable even. As a housekeeper and partner of his fortunes, no man could have desired a better wife. Yet dimly, in that sluggish soul, there was the consciousness that he had married a woman who hated him, that he had bought her with a price; and, being a man prone to think the worst of his fellow-creatures, Mr. Whitelaw believed that, sooner or later, his wife meant to have her revenge upon him somehow. ”

“ And, O God!' she cried, with a look of anguish that went to my heart, 'what will become of her when I am dead, and she is left to the care of a selfish dissipated man?'
"'You need never fear that she will be without one friend while I live,' I said. 'Little Marian is very dear to me, and I shall make it my business to watch over her career as well as I can.'
"The poor soul clasped my hand, and pressed her feverish lips to it in a transport of gratitude. What a brute a man must have been who could neglect such a woman! ”

“ That particular devil who tempts men to their dishonour contrived that the business should be made fatally easy for me. You were away, and the coast was clear, you know. I loved you, Gilbert; but there is a passion stronger than the love which a man feels for his dearest friend. I meant most steadfastly to keep my faith with you; but you were away, and that fellow Forster plagued me to come to him. I refused at first—yes, I held out for a couple of months; but the fever was strong upon me—a restless demon not to be exorcised by hard work, or dissipation even, for I tried both. ”

“ It seems contemptible for a man to talk about a broken heart; but I shall carry an empty one to my grave unless I win Marian Nowell for my wife."
"You shall win her!" cried the Captain energetically. "You are a noble fellow, sir, and will make her an excellent husband. She will not be so foolish as to reject such a disinterested affection. Besides," he added, hesitating a little, "I have a very shrewd notion that all this apparent indifference is only shyness on my little girl's part, and that she loves you." ”

“ If I had to choose between the workhouse and marrying Stephen Whitelaw, I'd choose the workhouse; yes, and scrub, and wash, and drudge, and toil there all my days, rather than be mistress of Wyncomb Farm."
"Well, upon my word," exclaimed the father, taking the pipe from his mouth, and staring aghast at his daughter in a stupor of indignant surprise, "you're a pretty article; you're a nice piece of goods for a man to bring up and waste his substance upon—a piece of goods that will turn round upon one and refuse a man who farms his own land. ”

“ Gilbert said carelessly. "Believe me, I do not mean to let this matter drop."
"My dear sir, if I might venture upon a word of friendly advice—not in a professional spirit, but as between man and man—I should warn you against wasting your time and fortune upon a useless pursuit. If Mrs. Holbrook has vanished from the world of her own free will—a thing that often happens, eccentric as it may be—she will reappear in good time of her own free will. If she has been the victim of a crime, that crime will no doubt come to light in due course, without any efforts of yours." ”

“ Holbrook is now Miss Nowell's husband? and you want to know who he is? With what end?"
"I want to find the man who has done me the deadliest wrong one man can do another."
"My dear fellow, don't you see that it is fate, and not Mr. Holbrook, that has done you this wrong? If Miss Nowell had really loved you as she ought to have loved you, it would have been quite impossible for her to be tempted away from you. It was her destiny to marry this Holbrook, rely upon it; and had you been on the spot to protect your own interests, the result would have been just the same. ”

“ Tadman stood at the open door, peering out and listening, and still without result. Then, with a shrill sudden sound through the long empty passages, there came a shriek, a prolonged piercing cry of terror or of pain, which turned Mrs. Tadman's blood to ice, and brought Ellen to her side, pale and breathless.
"What was that?"
"What was that?"
Both uttered the same question simultaneously, looking at each other aghast, and then both fled in the direction from which that shrill cry had come.
A woman's voice surely; no masculine cry ever sounded with such piercing treble. ”

“ She must know that she might trust me. Of her own free will she would never do this cruel thing. There must have been some secret influence at work upon my darling's mind. It shall be my business to discover what that influence was; or, in plainer words still, to discover the man who has robbed me of Marian Nowell's heart."
"It comes to that, then," said John Saltram. "You suspect some unknown rival?"
"Yes; that is the most natural conclusion to arrive at. And yet heaven knows how unwillingly I take that into consideration."
"There is no particular person whom you suspect?" ”

“ Her life had been a hard one of late, very lonely since Mrs. Holbrook's disappearance, and haunted with a presence which was most hateful to her. Stephen Whitelaw had taken to coming to the Grange much oftener than of old. There was seldom an evening now on which his insignificant figure was not to be seen planted by the hearth in the snug little oak-parlour, smoking his pipe in that dull silent way of his, which was calculated to aggravate a lively person like Ellen Carley into some open expression of disgust or dislike. ”

“ No word of his, in all their intercourse to come, should ever remind her of that hidden devotion; no shadow of the past should ever cloud the calm brightness of the present. It was a romantic fancy, perhaps, for a man of business, whose days were spent in the very press and tumult of commercial life; but it had lifted Gilbert Fenton out of that slough of despond into which he had fallen when Marian seemed utterly lost to him—vanished altogether out of his existence. ”

“ I know all about the marriage now, but I don't know who or what the man is," Gilbert answered; and then went on to give his friend a detailed account of his experience at Wygrove, and his visit to Sir David Forster.
"My dear foolish Gilbert," said John Saltram, "how much useless trouble you have given yourself! Was it not enough to know that this girl had broken faith with you? I think, were I in your place, that would be the end of the story for me. And now you know more than that—you know that she is another man's wife. If you find her, nothing can come of it." ”

“ I have promised Marian that, should I and her husband meet, as we must do, I believe, sooner or later, she need apprehend no violence on my part. He has won the prize; any open resentment would seem mere schoolboy folly. But you cannot suppose that I feel very kindly towards him, or ever shall."
"Upon my soul, I think men are hardly responsible for their actions where a woman is concerned," Sir David exclaimed after a pause. "We are the veriest slaves of destiny in these matters. A man sees the only woman in the world he can love too late to win her with honour. ”