THE MASTER AND THE SECRETARY.
So BEWITCHING, indeed, he thought her, that he paused for some seconds, gazing on the beautiful picture.
She still looked down, standing at the study door. Whatever the cause, there certainly was a bright flush at her cheek, a short, slight, quick breathing he had observed, and her attitude somehow indicated suspense, and had, he fancied, an indescribable alarm and prettiness.
“Miss Marlyn,” he began, “you made me a kind of promise last night, didn’t you? — when I by good fortune met you for a moment and told you my distresses — that you would be so really good as to give me a little help, don’t you remember? so I want to know — I’m afraid it’s very unreasonable — whether you could now and then copy a paper or write a letter for me? You have no idea what a real kindness you’d confer upon a very tired and overworked poor devil.”
Miss Marlyn had grown a little pale, and drew a long breath — or sighed. I know not whether the deep and sudden respiration was due to a sentiment or only to a sense of relief.
With a faint tumult at his heart, that yet half-vexed him, the morose -recluse of Raby witnessed these evidences of a confusion, so flattering to the vanities of a man no longer young.
“Perhaps I am too unreasonable,” said Mark Shadwell, in a lower tone; “and, perhaps, you forget all about it?”
“No, indeed, I do not forget,” answered Miss Marlyn, in tones as low, and raising for a moment her eyes to his; “I ought to have said at once I should be most happy; it will be a great pleasure to me to undertake, always, any service where my duty is owed.”
“That’s very good of you, very kind, Miss Marlyn. I’m quite serious. I am really very much obliged. I’ve a paper here; I must send a copy of it to Dolby and Keane, and I’m afraid it is an awful bore, but really I don’t know how to find time, sometimes — you’ve no idea.”
“I’m only afraid I shan’t do it well, sir — I’ll try — I’ll do my best, and you won’t be vexed, please, if I fail.”
The young lady spoke so deprecatingly that Mark Shadwell felt obliged to encourage her.
“I promise you, whatever you do, I shan’t be angry, in fact, child, I couldn’t. I call you child because you are really a second daughter here, and I am bound to cake care of you, you know, and to make you as happy as I can; so, don’t fancy I’ll blow you up if you make a mistake; and I’ve a theory that mistakes are made by ugly people, and nearly all the mischief in the world is due to them; and, you know very well, you don’t belong to that order of beings. I dare say many a poor fellow will have reason to wish you did before all’s over.”
The lady still looked down. You could not have told from her face whether these speeches pleased or vexed her, only she looked embarrassed, and that look was very becoming.
“I think you’re impatient to go,” said he.
“Miss Shadwell is waiting, sir,” she answered.
“Call her Rachel, why don’t you? and pray don’t say sir quite so often. I wish you to feel at home here, quite at home — I really do, and shall feel myself very much complimented if you will consent to drop that odious term. You know your dear father was a very dear friend of mine (Mark improved this bygone intimacy for the occasion). One of my very dearest friends, and it really is quite ridiculous your calling me sir as you do. This is the paper, not very long, you see — thanks; and you know you are my secretary now; and you shan’t call me sir any more — and now good-bye — and I’m really very much obliged.”
And he took her hand before she saw it, and pressed it for a moment to indicate how much obliged he was.
And now she was gone, the door closed, and he was alone in the room, where it seemed to his dazzled eyes the tinted glow and outline of that beautiful girl still remained where she had been standing. How was it that she seemed so much more beautiful than ever? How was it that this soured and sullen man of the world, a blasé rake — a stoic — a sceptic, quite philosophically regenerate, as he boasted — past the age of illusion and impulse — felt on a sudden so strangely? Are we ever past the age of impulse and romance? Is not the insensibility of age in this respect but the resignation of despair? Once persuade a man, no matter whether he be fifty or sixty years old, that he is regarded for any reason, say his wit or his fame, by a young and beautiful woman with the sort of interest he has long despaired of inspiring, and what boy so romantically wild as that old fellow?
Here was Mark Shadwell, some nine-and-forty years a wonderfully preserved man, not without remains of his early beauty; a man, indeed, early hardened in the ways of pleasure; and yet a new and fresher interest had visited him; a sentiment long-forgotten, curious, absorbing now and then.
He leaned on the chimney-piece, looking towards the door, not thinking, hardly dreaming, the state was too still — as gods are painted reposing on rose-tinted and soft golden clouds, in self-satisfying contemplation. So, leaning on the cold and polished stone which he felt not, Mark Shadwell, in entire mental inaction, in the luxury of one vague idea, reposed in serene beatitude and elation.
But this state is transitory as the glow of sunset, and the chill and twilight of Mark Shadwell’s customary depression stole over him.
The discovery of the real state of his account with Sir Roke Wycherly was an immense relief. His spirits had expanded for a time, but quickly the vague sense of danger with which Sir Roke’s meditated visit had before been associated returned.
He had known Roke Wycherly well and long, better than he knew himself — always selfish, a cold, hard heart. What on earth did he care if the inhabitants of Raby were one and all dead and buried? Nothing. Why, then, did he propose this visit to Raby, forlorn and dull? This troubled him. There was some little question, he could not recollect what, he had never understood it, about his title. There had been a correspondence about it in his father’s time, reserved, laconic, and defiant. It had subsided, and nothing came of it. But he remembered well how transformed his father was pending that unpleasant controversy, that he grew gloomy, fidgety, and silent; that he shut himself up a great deal in the library, and addicted himself to solitary walks, that his temper was short and dangerous, and that no one liked to go near him unnecessarily.
The whole thing had made an impression on his childish imagination as a picture of great suffering — a shadow of that outer darkness — an inkling of the worm and the fire — with which the bilious old Rector of Wynderfel, in his loud and hollow tones, used to threaten so awfully on Sundays.
The alarm had passed away; his father had emerged from the horror of great darkness; and he heard no more of the debate of title-deeds, fines, and recoveries. But he had once since then looked into the correspondence in the chambers of Messrs. Dolby and Keane. It left an unpleasant impression. There was that kind of dipping and drawing together which is seen between cloud and sea when a water-spout threatens. It did not actually form, but cloud and sea were there; and here again was a menace: what else could it mean?
“He’ll come, and he’ll go; he doesn’t know what to do with himself — used up; so he runs down here, as fellows descend into a lead mine, or go to Norway, for want of something new — just for the chance of a new idea. Too much ease, too much money, too much pleasure — life grows tiresome — ha! ha! It’s but a choice between life and death. Death, of the two, I should say, is the most tiresome. And they say he has been tapping at your chest.”
Vaguely, but substantially, as this soliloquy runs, flowed the current of Mark Shadwell’s reasonings, as he strove to shake off the unaccountable uneasiness that returned as often as he thought of Roke Wycherly’s visit.
There was an old quarrel. Sir Roke, when they were both young, had outwitted his kinsman in an affair of the heart. It had nearly taken a tragic turn, but friends interposed, and an unnatural duel was prevented. So years had passed away. Mark Shadwell, proud and vindictive as he was, had, in his way, forgiven this and many other trespasses; and they had “buried the hatchet,” which might yet be disinterred.