CAPTAIN MORRISON had unfolded his tale—or rather, those bits and pieces of it which Maggie was forced to take in lieu of a more complete narration—only after some little prodding from the young lady. He seemed at first reluctant to cast any aspersions upon her relative, showing thereby a delicacy of feeling which directly increased her esteem of him, even as it diminished her regard for Lord Ramblay. But at last, when she had told him the extent of her own knowledge of her cousin and the history of her family’s quarrel with his father, he consented to tell her a little. From the expression in his eyes and the restraint of his manner, Maggie was sure he did not tell her all—and yet it was enough to strengthen her own misgivings about the Viscount.
The Viscount had been known for some time to the naval officer, without, as the Captain said, any of that intimacy which might have attended their relations had they been born into the same rank. Lord Ramblay was not one of your democratic aristocrats, it seemed; he could not feel easy with the acquaintance of one from a humbler background, and though they had frequented the same balls and clubs in the years before Morrison’s induction, they had not shared more than a passing acquaintance. Yet it had been enough to show the younger man a little of the other’s style.
“Yes, yes,” Captain Morrison had muttered, when he heard Maggie’s description of the letter which had been written to her father, “I can well credit it. Ramblay never cared for any comfort but his own, and if, in doing his duty, he makes himself easier, his duty he’ll do. But I don’t think it springs from any love of duty. Do not misapprehend me: there never was a more dutiful man on earth—but neither, I think, one with a colder sense of how to perform it. I only tell you this because you are to depend so much upon his company, and though I have but known you this last hour, I cannot help believing you are as ill-disposed to coolness as I am.”
Maggie nodded eagerly at this, not without a certain satisfaction at hearing the Captain join their two natures under one description.
“Ah! I think there is nothing more distasteful, unless it is a really cruel heart; and I cannot help but suspect that where there is a nature given to iciness, it has not far to go to outright malice.”
Captain Morrison gave her a deep look on hearing these words.
“Just so,” he murmured, so softly that Maggie barely heard him. He stared out for a moment at the scene before them, the muddy, trammeled grass of the yard, the stamping of a post horse not ten yards from where they stood, and the aquamarine sky floating over the distant meadows beyond. He wore a moody look, and his clear eyes were clouded. Gazing at him, Maggie was struck afresh by the amiability of his countenance, even at this moment when he seemed lost in thought. His was a fairness born less out of golden curls and pink flesh (for his hair was a pleasant disarrangement of curly chestnut waves, and his complexion tanned from months at sea) than from a particular disposition of features. His brow was high and broad and clear, his mouth nearly as full as a woman’s, and a deep cleft in his chin prevented the long lashes of his eyes and the dimple on one cheek from making him seem feminine. There was strength in his look, but it was a strength of harmony and good humor, rather than fierceness. His face was made for laughter, just as his shapely legs in their well-worn Hessians, and the neat waist and shoulders in the heather-brown tweed riding coat, seemed formed for dancing.
“I suppose,” he said, after a moment, “you are acquainted with the story of your cousin’s marriage?”
Maggie replied that, so far from knowing the story, she had not even known Lord Ramblay was married.
“Ah!” The Captain gave her another look, and looked away. “He ain’t married any more. He was, however, for nearly two years—if you call it a marriage where the partners are bound only by vows, and where all the intimacy of thought and feeling which, to my mind, is the very heart and soul of the state, is lacking.”
“I am exactly of your mind!” she exclaimed warmly, pleased beyond everything at this declaration of Morrison’s, which exactly matched her own view. “A husband and wife ought to be as a two-headed beast, each with his own mind and thoughts, which enrich the other’s, but sharing one heart, and one attitude toward the great issues of life. Without such a kind of unity, there is nothing to keep them together but a promise.”
“And a promise without any deeper intent is worse than none at all.”
Again he paused, and again Maggie attempted to draw him out.
“But were they then so ill-suited to each other? Why marry at all, if there was no love between them?”
“Oh, there was love—love enough, at least, on the lady’s part,” replied Captain Morrison cryptically. “She was born to love. A sweeter, more devoted nature I have never known, nor one with a greater capacity for feeling, though her physical strength was as tiny as a kitten’s.”
Maggie would liked to have inquired into all the particulars, to have asked the officer what his knowledge was of the match, and what had ensued, for by his look he knew a great deal. But she contented herself by saying, “I suppose it was a marriage of convenience. From what I know of my cousin’s father, he cared nothing for anyone’s feelings, and a more heartless custom than the arrangement of marriages I cannot conceive.”
Morrison surprised her by saying in reply, “But it was not arranged by the old Viscount. As to convenience, I suppose it was convenient for Ramblay. I cannot conceive why else he might have taken a wife he neither loved nor liked. He treated her as one might treat a rare china vase which one has paid a great deal for, and thereby knows the value of, but which one does not like half so well as the guinea jug by the wash basin. It is kept locked up in a cupboard, along with the family heirlooms, and brought out upon occasion to be showed about to one’s friends. Suddenly, on hearing it admired and coveted, it becomes prettier in the eyes of its owner; but the instant it has ceased to be admired, when the friends go away and no further compliments are heard upon its beauty, it ceases to be liked again. And so it is stowed away till such a time as its owner may again take satisfaction in knowing he owns it. Such was the kind of convenience Ramblay took from his marriage. But she—ah! She worshiped him, and I cannot believe it was more the coldness she received from him, than a lung fever, which carried her away so soon.”
They had been standing in the shadow of the tethering wall while they talked, and now the arrival of a team of horses made them move out into the sunlight. It was warm for the time of year, but even as they had been talking the sun had crept lower in the west, and the shadows in the yard had begun to lengthen. Now a chilly breeze sprung up, fluttering the molten cape about Maggie’s shoulders and sweeping her skirt against her legs. She would like to have gone inside, but feared interrupting this narration. Already her interest was so keen in the tale that she could have ignored the cold without any discomfort. She was shocked by this picture of her cousin, for though she might formerly have suspected him of egotism, of a pride born out of wealth and rank and a love of his own importance, she had not thought of crediting him with so much hardness of heart as this story showed him to possess. The tale brought up in her mind a most pathetic picture, and being of a warm nature herself, she could not help but cry out inwardly against the injustice it displayed.
“Why did he marry her, then?” she cried eagerly, when they had found a place in a sheltered corner of the yard, away from stamping horses and yelling black-stockings.
Captain Morrison shrugged. “Who knows what moves men to do half of what they do? We are a strange lot. I suppose in part he was stunned by her beauty—as nearly everyone was—and then, too, perhaps there was really some part of the collector’s spirit in him. Anna—the lady’s name—was coveted by every man with half a heart in London. She came to England, you know, from the West Indies, where her father owned half the fertile lands in the territory. She had an immense fortune, and was as sweet and unassuming as you please.”
Maggie could not resist inquiring, with a smile, if Captain Morrison had not been in love with her himself, but the question, which had been meant in a lighthearted kind of way, was met with a sudden frown.
“I loved her, it is true,” he replied instantly, “but not in that fashion. I met her when she dearly needed friends, and I was to her a kind of brother. At least—” and here the Captain paused—“so long as I was able to see her. Your cousin could not bear her having any friends beside himself, and though he so rarely availed himself of her company, he detested the notion that anyone else should enjoy it!”
Morrison had spoken with an intensity altogether unlike his former manner. He seemed to have forgotten himself, and for a moment, Maggie saw a dark look come into his eyes. But as quickly as the mood came, it passed, and the officer, seeming to remember himself, smiled quickly, and turned the conversation to other matters. He appeared reluctant to continue in the vein, and Maggie would not force him to, although her curiosity was now at such a peak that it took all her self-control to keep from questioning him further. For a few moments they talked of London, and Maggie was soon caught up in her companion’s descriptions of life in Town. His interests were so entirely her own, their tastes and affinities so similar, that she was more and more hopeful of a continuance of their friendship. Suddenly the prospect of a visit to the capital became attractive. If she was destined to be confined chiefly to the society of her haughty cousins, the promise of one friend who shared her own attitudes made the picture a little brighter. Her pleasure was very great, therefore, when, upon being informed that her carriage was ready, and when she had been handed into the luxurious equipage with her maid and the satin pillows disposed behind her shoulders by an attentive male servant, the Captain leaned in at the window and said, “I hope I may count upon seeing you in London?”
Nothing could have suited her better, and Maggie replied she would be glad of receiving him at any time. But at these words Captain Morrison looked doubtful.
“I think I shall not wait upon you, Miss Trevor, if you are to be with your cousin. He dislikes me so much for having been a favorite of his wife’s that he would be enraged to hear I was acquainted with his cousin. However, if you are to be at Almack’s, I shall certainly see you, and if you allow it, I shall claim the pleasure of your very first set of country dances.”
So it was agreed, with a deep, interested look on the face of one, and a pleasurable flush on the cheeks of the other, that they should continue their acquaintance as soon as possible. The outriders and postillions were now arranged about the chaise, the coachman in his perch, and with a crack of the whip the carriage started off. Maggie had now as much time as she liked to contemplate her new acquaintance, and to recollect the story he had told her of her cousin’s marriage. The former she liked better the more she thought of him, and the latter, contemplated with some animation of feeling, served to prepare her for the meeting she had dreaded all day. If this new aspect of her cousin did little to make her comfortable, at least it lighted the way for her, and what had begun as uncertainty as to his character, was pretty well formed into a determination to dislike him by the time the chaise turned in to a long elm-lined drive bounded on one side by a vast deer park and on the other by a stretch of ornamental waterways and wooded land. If her vanity had been soothed a little by the luxury of the carriage and the great attentiveness of her cousin’s servants, her heart was more than ever set against the nobleman whose ancestors had devised this elegant pleasure ground.