Marcella

“ Marcella went up to her quickly and kissed her, then she said, still holding her—
"I know you think I ought to be very happy, Mary!"
"I should think I do!" said Mary, with astonished emphasis, when the voice paused—"I should think I do!"
"I am happy—and I want to make him happy. But there are so many things, so many different aims and motives, that complicate life, that puzzle one. One doesn't know how much to give of one's self, to each—"
She stood with her hand on Mary's shoulder, looking away towards the window and the snowy garden, her brow frowning and distressed. ”

“ Boyce, just catching the words from where she sat with her work, at the further side of the room, looked up with a double wonder—wonder at Marcella's folly, wonder still more at the deference with which men like Aldous Raeburn and Hallin treated her. It was inevitable, of course—youth and beauty rule the world. ”

“ The poor victim would go scarred and maimed through what remained to her of existence. But she lived; and—as Marcella and Lady Winterbourne and Raeburn had abundantly made up their minds—would be permanently cared for and comforted in the future.
Alas! there were many things that stood between Marcella and true rest. She had been woefully disappointed, nay wounded, as to the results of that tragic half-hour which for the moment had seemed to throw a bridge of friendship over those painful, estranging memories lying between her and Aldous Raeburn. ”

“ She chatted about Marcella's trousseau gowns, detailing her own contrivances for economy; about the probable day of the wedding, the latest gossip of the election, and so on. He sat shading his eyes from the firelight, and now and then throwing in a word or two. The inmost soul of him was very piteous, harrowed often by a new dread—the dread of dying. The woman beside him held him in the hollow of her hand. In the long wrestle between her nature and his, she had conquered. ”

“ To Wharton would belong not only the popular kudos of the matter, but much more, and above all, Marcella's gratitude.
Aldous pulled up his horse an instant, recognising that spot in the road, that downward stretching glade among the beeches, where he had asked Marcella to be his wife. The pale February sunlight was spreading from his left hand through the bare grey trunks, and over the distant shoulders of the woods, far into the white and purple of the chalk plain. Sounds of labour came from the distant fields; sounds of winter birds from the branches round him. ”

“ Marcella's lip quivered. She could not speak, apparently. Waving her hand to her mother, she joined the maid waiting for her, and the two disappeared into the blackness.
"But does it do any good?" Mrs. Boyce repeated to herself as she went back to the drawing-room. "Sympathy! who was ever yet fed, warmed, comforted by sympathy? Marcella robs that woman of the only thing that the human being should want at such a moment—solitude. Why should we force on the poor what to us would be an outrage?" ”

“ Marcella was lashing herself up by thoughts of the deformed man in his cell, looking forward after the wretched, unsatisfied life, which was all society had allowed him, to the violent death by which society would get rid of him—of the wife yearning her heart away—of the boy, whom other human beings, under the name of law, were about to separate from his father for ever. ”

“ A tall slender woman with brown, grey-besprinkled hair falling in light curls after the fashion of our grandmothers on either cheek, and braided into a classic knot behind—the face of a saint, an enthusiast—eyes overflowing with feeling above a thin firm mouth—the mouth of the obstinate saint, yet sweet also: this delicate significant picture was stamped on Marcella's heart. ”

“ But at the same moment, with the very extremity of her own emotion, a cloud of impotence fell upon Marcella. She suddenly felt that she could do nothing—that there was nothing in her adequate to such an appeal—nothing strong enough to lift the weight of a human life thus flung upon her. ”

“ Bygones of his youth had come back to him.
"Oh, I know! I know!" cried Marcella, with an accent half of indignation, half of despair. "It's the whole wretched system. It spoils those who've got, and those who haven't got. And there'll be no mending it till the people get the land back again, and till the rights on it are common to all."
"My! she do speak up, don't she?" said Mrs. Jellison, grinning again at her companions. Then, stooping forward with one of her wild movements, she caught Marcella's arm—"I'd like to hear yer tell that to Lord Maxwell, miss. I likes a roompus, I do." ”

“ Under all these growing and palpable evidences of Marcella's future wealth and position, Mrs. Boyce had shown her usual restless and ironic spirit. But of late, and especially to-day, restlessness had become oppression. While Marcella was so speedily to become the rich and independent woman, they themselves, Marcella's mother and father, were very poor, in difficulties even, and likely to remain so. She gathered from her husband's grumbling that the provision of a suitable trousseau for Marcella would tax his resources to their utmost. ”

“ Marcella's eyes danced with amusement, but she looked away from him to the fire, and would not answer.
"You don't help me out. You don't console me. It's unkind of-you. Don't you think it a melancholy fate to be always admiring the people who detest you?"
"Don't admire them!" she said merrily.
His eyebrows lifted. "That," he said drily, "is disloyal. I call—I call your ancestor over the mantelpiece"—he waved his hand towards a blackened portrait in front of him—"to witness, that I am all for admiring Mr. Raeburn, and you discourage it. ”

“ Marcella sank on a chair by an open glass door, her eyes wandering, through the straggling roses growing against the wall of the stone balcony outside, to the laughing purples and greens of the sea.
"Of course," she said unhappily, "it is most probable he will consent. It would not be like him to refuse. But, mamma, you must write. I must write and beg him not to do it. It is quite simple. We can manage everything for ourselves. Oh! how could papa?" she broke out again in a low wail, "how could he?"
Mrs. Boyce's lips tightened sharply. ”

“ Just emerged, as she was, from the long gloom of nursing, she already wished to throw it all behind her—to travel, to read, to make acquaintances—she who had lived as a recluse for twenty years! There was in it a last clutch at youth, at life. And she had no desire to enter upon this new existence—in comradeship with Marcella. They were independent and very different human beings. ”

“ They laughed, and then Aldous looked round with a start—"Ah, here is my grandfather!"
Then he stood back, watching the look with which Lord Maxwell, after greeting Lady Winterbourne, approached Miss Boyce. He saw the old man's somewhat formal approach, the sudden kindle in the blue eyes which marked the first effect of Marcella's form and presence, the bow, the stately shake of the hand. The lover hearing his own heart beat, realised that his beautiful lady had so far done well. ”

“ But then the mere snowy whiteness of the muslin and freshness of the ribbons, and the burning curiosity to see herself decked therein, overcame a nature which, in the midst of its penury, had been always really possessed by a more than common hunger for sensuous beauty and seemliness. Marcella wore it, was stormily happy in it, and kissed Mademoiselle Rénier for it at night with an effusion, nay, some tears, which no one at Cliff House had ever witnessed in her before except with the accompaniments of rage and fury. ”

“ I shall give you beauty for ashes, Marcella. You and I together, we can go marching on in seven-league boots! There's a kingliness about you. Listen to the things I say to you unconsciously! I can't say the pretty, graceful, soft things we say to women! There's a kingliness, Marcella—not only about you, but about me too. We're not the common ruck. ”

“ She was conscious of a quickening in the blood, a momentary blurring of the vision. A whirlwind of fancies swept across her. She thought of herself as the young peeress—Lord Maxwell after all was over seventy—her own white neck blazing with diamonds, the historic jewels of a great family—her will making law in this splendid house—in the great domain surrounding it. What power—what a position—what a romance! She, the out-at-elbows Marcella, the Socialist, the friend of the people. What new lines of social action and endeavour she might strike out! Miss Raeburn should not stop her. ”

“ Warmly grateful as both she and the Rector had been from the beginning to Marcella for the passionate interest she took in the place and the people, the sister was sometimes now a trifle jealous—divinely jealous—for her brother. Marcella's unbounded confidence in her own power and right over Mellor, her growing tendency to ignore anybody else's right or power, sometimes set Mary aflame, for Charles's sake, heartily and humbly as she admired her beautiful friend. ”

“ Marcella looked at her mother indignantly. It seemed to her often that she said the most heartless things imaginable.
"Cheerful!" she said—"in a village like this—with all the young men drifting off to London, and all the well-to-do people dissenters—no one to stand by him—no money and no helpers—the people always ill—wages eleven and twelve shillings a week—and only the old wrecks of men left to do the work! He might, I think, expect the people in this house to back him up a little. ”

“ Jellison had this small belief in the powers of the new mistress of Mellor over matters which, according to her, had been settled generations ago by "the Lord and natur'," Marcella certainly was in no mood to contradict her. She walked through the village on her return scanning everything about her—the slatternly girls plaiting on the doorsteps, the children in the lane, the loungers round the various "publics," the labourers, old and young, who touched their caps to her—with a moody and passionate eye. ”

“ She felt in him the old life and daring, the old imperious claim to confidence, to intimacy—on the other hand a new atmosphere, a new gravity, which suggested growing responsibilities, the difficulties of power, a great position—everything fitted to touch such an imagination as Marcella's, which, whatever its faults, was noble, both in quality and range. The brow beneath the bright chestnut curls had gained lines that pleased her—lines that a woman marks, because she thinks they mean experience an I mastery. ”

“ Lady Selina, bending suavely across the tea-table to Marcella.
"It was very interesting," said Marcella, stiffly—perfectly conscious that the name had pricked the attention of everybody in the room, and angry with her cheeks for reddening.
"Wasn't it?" said Lady Selina, heartily. "You can't do those things, of course! But you should show every sympathy to the clever enthusiastic young men—the men like that—shouldn't you? That's what my father says. He says we've got to win them. We've got somehow to make them feel us their friends—or we shall all go to ruin! ”

“ One might as well be ashamed of being strong rather than a cripple, or having two eyes rather than one!"
"Oh, but, my dear!" cried Lady Winterbourne, piteous and bewildered, "when one has all the beauty and the freedom—and other people must die without any—"
"Oh, I know, I know!" said Marcella, with a quick gesture of despair; "that's what makes the world the world. ”

“ The habit of obedience to a "lady," established long ago in years of domestic service, held. The miserable wife submitted to be fed, looked with forlorn wonder at the children round the fire, and then sank back with a groan. In her tension of feeling Marcella for an impatient moment thought her a poor creature. Then with quick remorse she put her arms tenderly round her, raised the dishevelled grey-streaked head on her shoulder, and stooping, kissed the marred face, her own lips quivering.
"You are not alone," said the girl with her whole soul. "You shall never be alone while I live. ”

“ I suppose it teaches a person to be content—and not to cry for the moon!"
"You think," said Marcella, slowly, "that to live among the poor can teach any one—any one that's human—to be content!"
Her manner had the unconscious intensity of emphasis, the dramatic force that came to her from another blood than ours. Another woman could hardly have fallen into such a tone without affectation—without pose. At this moment certainly Betty, who was watching her, acquitted her of either, and warmly thought her a magnificent creature. ”

“ But sometimes when Marcella stood beside her, unconscious, talking pleasantly of London folk or Ancoats, or trying to inform herself as to Letty's life at Ferth, a half-desolate intuition would flash across the younger woman of what it might be to be admitted to the intimate friendship of such a nature, to feel those long, slender arms pressed about her once more, not in pity or remonstrance, as of one trying to exorcise an evil spirit, but in mere love, as of one asking as well as giving. ”

“ The sight of her delicate blanched face had in some respects a more and more poignant power with him as the years went on. His anger sank into moroseness.
"Then why do you let Marcella go? What good will it do her to go about without her parents? People will only despise her for a girl of no spirit—as they ought." ”

“ Once set thinking of bygones by the stimulus of Mellor and its novelty, Marcella must needs think, too, of her London life, of all that it had opened to her, and meant for her. Fresh agitations!—fresh passions!—but this time impersonal, passions of the mind and sympathies. ”

“ His ears were full of the comments made upon her to-night by the little world on the terrace. If it were not for money—hateful money!—what more brilliant wife could be desired for any rising man?
So the five minutes lengthened into ten, and by the time the division was called, and Wharton hurried off, Marcella, soothed, taken out of herself, rescued from the emptiness and forlornness of a tragic moment, had given him more conscious cause than she had ever given him yet to think her kind and fair. ”