The Marstons. A novel. Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine

Chapter I. An Evening Party

The Caerlavrock and Dumberly clans were to be gathered together, at the sounding of Mrs. Pomfret's clarion, on the Thursday evening to which she had referred. It was to begin with a great banquet, after which Mrs. Pomfret was " to receive" a large, but chosen circle, composed of all her new acquaintances, and none of her old friends. Nor had these any right to complain ; the Yel lowlys, and Miss Turkaine, and the Bagshots, and aU that set, had been duly fed; and would have been quite "out oftheir element on this occasion," as Mrs. Pomfret expressed it, when Mary pleaded VOL. III. B for some old playmate of hers, whose lines had not fallen in fashionable places. Olivia was the only exception to this ; and her, Mrs. Pomfret begged as a favour to leave her solitude up-stairs and be present. For Lady Caer lavrock had talked so much of her beauty when she saw her one morning, and Lady Helena had conceived such a girlish enthusiasm about her, and Lord Dumberly himself had asked with such curiosity to see this Miss Marston, and had even invited her (through Mrs. Pomfret) to his concert, that there was every reason for having Olivia to add an eclat to the evening.

People who meet night after night are grateful for a new face to discuss ; it is very small talk, perhaps, but it is universal ; from the highest to the lowest, from the profound politician to the shallowest fool, it is the one subject upon which all have an opinion, and none are afraid to give it. The banquet was not nearly such a solemn and awful business as Olivia had expected from Mrs. Pomfret's condition beforehand. They were aU naturally well-bred people ; at least, they appeared so on this occasion. Olivia detected now and then a smile, which got no further than the eyes, upon one or two faces when poor Mrs. Pomfret gave vent to some of her inflated common-places, and strove to suit her company by being very grand ; but old Pomfret himself was so entirely without pretension, so simple and kindly, that it was impossible that any one, even in his sleeve, could laugh at him.

Lord Dumberly had his little jests with Kate and Mary across the table (the wit would not bear transporting any further, but by the girls' mirth you would have supposed it was Sydney Smith himself) ; in short, aU these great people were at their ease, and laughed and talked pleasantly, not at all as if they were assisting at an appalling function. It was this being at their ease which struck Olivia as the chief point of dif ference between the guests round Mr. Pomfret's board to-day, and most of those whom she remembered in the old Fordingham clays. Tlie women had not that intense consciousness of wearing smart gowns which paralyses all power of being pleasant ; and the men, who were probably not a whit cleverer than the YeUowly and Bagshot race, had a light-in-hand way of discussing every topic under the sun, which contrasted pleasantly with the ponderous manner in which, at those Fording ham dinners, a subject used to be boarded, and never abandoned, tiU it was left a wreck.

Julian's plastic powers of conversation, even his free-and easy style in general society, which chafed Rupert so much, had shone agreeably in Olivia's eyes for merly beside the starched dulness of the other men ; b2 and now, by an odd accident, she found herself seated next to a young clerk in the Foreign Office, whose general tone reminded her not a little of Westbrook. He observed, after dinner, to his cousin, Lord Dumberly's second son, before they joined the ladies, that the girl in black — the new beauty — was unlike any woman he had ever met ; twice during dinner, when ho had spoken to her, she had not heard him. There was a weariness, too, about her expression, every now and then, very strange in a girl of two or three and twenty, who had never been out in London before. Poor Olivia !

Her thoughts, at those moments, were far distant, and with a very different sort of person ; moved, perhaps, by the force of some half-unconscious comparison between the pleasure to be derived from the fashionable youth's conversation, and that of a man beside whom she had never felt ono single moment's weariness. Yet the attache had the good taste not to talk of people and entertainments about which Olivia knew no thing : he spoke glibly of Italy and Spain, of the opera, and the last new novel, much as Westbrook might have done ; and she remembered with astonishment how pleasant she had once thought him. But she did not know that had her neighbour been twice as agreeable, she would not have found him so ; for her heart and mind were too heavy wdth other matters. The ladies had scarcely reached the drawing room, when some of those who were probably bound to two or three balls further on in the evening began to arrive.

Olivia got into a corner of the back drawing-room behind the grand piano, the tail of which was turned out into the room in honour of the musical entertainment which Mrs. Pomfret had provided. From this post OUvia could see every one who entered, and nearly all that went on in the two rooms, without being herself conspicuous ; Lady Helena presently joined her. The plot thickened : then arrived a sprinkling of men. Mrs. Pomfret, the more onerous duties of the banquet being over, became lighter-hearted, and smiled with less of anxiety and of crushing importance as she greeted her guests. Then came in a bearded beauty — such a beauty that, Lady Helena said, women were supposed to have looked at him, and died straightway. This was the famous baritone, Degl' Occhi, now a little dyed aud gene rally the worse for wear, and, consequently, less dangerous to introduce into the bosom of a family than he was some fifteen years back, when he used to sigh and say, " E mia disgrazia di esser cosi bello."

Now he could with more safety be per mitted to teach young ladies, and to sing at even ing parties ; and he was to sing to-night with Madame SteUino, who had not yet come, but " made herself to be desired," as the Itahans ex pressively phrase it. Tlie men now sauntered up from the dining room. Some of them stuck on the landing or in the doorway, after the manner of Englishmen; but Lord Dumberly, as befitted his position, came handsomely to the front, with the wig and double eye-glass so famdiar about town, and stood by Mrs. Pomfret while she received; Mr. Pomfret sneaking behind on the stairs, I am grieved to say, with some of the recusants. Henry, how ever, was of course not among' them ; he quickly found out his Helena's corner, and persuaded her to give him a small bit of her ottoman, whereby the beautiful sweep of her dress was destroyed, and Olivia was deprived of her bright, amusing little companion, who now became engrossed by her other neighbour.

Presently there was a little stir at the door ; the crowd round it was too great for Olivia to see who entered, but a footman laid a roll of music on the piano, and Lord Dumberly's voice was heard crying out, " Ah ! we've been looking anxiously for you." Then Olivia knew it must be Madame Stellino. The crowd parted to enable the singer to make her way to the piano, and Olivia saw before her Clara EUiston. She was, if possible, prettier than a year ago : but before her piercing eyes had traveUed to the obscure corner behind the piano — for she was still talking to Lord Dumberly, who had followed her — Olivia had time to notice an important change in the singer's general appearance and manner. She was neatly but inexpensively dressed in half mourning, without ornaments of any kind, and her demeanour was that of the most subdued, modest, and shrinking widow whom stern neces sity ever drove to sing before an enthusiastic public.

She acted the part to such perfection, that had Olivia known her less well she would have been deceived. Her eyes shyly drooped at his lordship's flowery compliments, her deprecating smile, her sweet fluttering little answers, and half-sad, half-frightened glances round her every now and then — here was a contrast to the childish audacity, garrulity, and unconcealed vanity of the Clara whom Olivia had known ! What, together with her change of name, did it all mean ? Olivia could scarcely help smiling at the little comedy before her; but it was a smile that had no pleasure in it. Suddenly Clara's eye caught hers. She coloured up to the roots of her hair, and sprang forward, leaving Lord Dumberly standing, a good deal surprised, and not altogether pleased, at being left thus, after his marked condescension.

"My dear, dear Olivia! How delighted I am to see you once more ! What an age it is since we parted ! And to meet with a real, true friend in the midst of the cold and heartless throng, who know nothing of all one's troubles, and only care for the amusement one can give them — oh ! what a real joy it is !" She seized both her hands; and had she not been in society, I think the ready tears would have come. Lady Helena looked up in astonishment, and so did Henry. All the response which Olivia could persuade herself to make to this effusion was : " Thank you, Clara, I am as much surprised as you are ; not the least expecting, when I heard of Madame Stellino, to see you." " It never occurred to you, then, that it was but a transposition of the letters of my name ? I found that as long as I stuck to the English arrangement of those letters, I should never get on.

Oh ! I've got so much to teU you, dear. You know that poor Aunt Crosbie is gone ?" " No, indeed I did not. I am very sorry, Clara. How do you get on alone ? I hope you have some one " " Ah ! I know what you mean. No, I have no one to take care of me ; but then, you know, I am so much changed, dear ! and I have given up the stage entirely." " I'm very glad to hear it, but how came that about ? You were so devoted to it a year ago." " It was Aunt Crosbie's dying request, to begin with, that unless I married again (which it is very unlikely that I shall ever do)" — here she looked down, and sighed — " I should never sing again on the stage. It was a great deprivation to me, but I suppose it was best. People ivill talk so. And I find now I shall make much more by concerts and lessons, than I did by opera singing at smaU theatres.

Since Lord Dumberly's party, I have had more engagements offered me than I can accept." " He met you in the country, I think ? You have not been long in London ?" " Only two or three weeks. I was singing at Bath, when Lord Dumberly heard me, and told me to come to London, and that he could get me engagements, he thought. And two or three families promised me lessons, and so I came. Before that, I had been staying about in country houses, teaching for a fortnight or three weeks' at a time in different families, ever since Aunt Crosbie's death, last December. Oh ! I am very much changed, dear ! I am become such a sober, sedate person, you woiddn't know me." Olivia thought she did. Dcgl' Occhi came up, and touching Clara on the arm wdth a roll of music, told her they were waiting for her to begin.

She squeezed Olivia's hand, took the music from him, and turned to the piano. It was one of those long boisterous duets, which may be indicative of anything under the sun, except love and tranquillity ; and it was very en ergetically sung. The first movement was like a succession of loud thunder claps, as the anta gonistic forces roUed up, and met each other with repeated shocks ; the second movement resembled the rush and scurry of the pitiless storm that fol lows. It was not the sort of music that Olivia cared for ; and it seemed to her that Clara's voice had lost something of its roundness; but then a whole year's singing, at full stretch, must impair the most beautiful organ, and Clara had not yet learnt the cunning mastery of resources wliich enables the artist to spare himself : she was always at full stretch.

In other respects, her singing was much improved ; and intense as ever was her pas sionate earnestness, infusing a vitality even into this trashy music. Tho applause was enthusiastic, led by Lord Dumberly, and followed up by youn<r and old alike. " Quite carries one away !" " There's something in her high notes !" w And then, so charming to watch her ! She is so pretty, and so modest, and sweet-looking ! No thing flaunty or bold, like many of those sort of people." " It's my opinion that Patti can't hold a candle to her." This came from a young life-guardsman, who in virtue of a stall at Covent Garden twice a week, considered himself an authority. A languid lady near him looked up from her seat in the door way, and murmured — " Quite the music of the spheres, don't you think?" Whether the life-guardsman committed himself to an opinion on this point, I am not sure; but one thing was clear, that the verdict of the room upon the new singer was unanimous.

After that, Degl' Occhi might roar out " 11 Balen," with all the conventional spasmodic expression proper to the villain of an opera, but hardly any one listened to him. They had looked upon his stony beauty, and listened to his brassy voice for many seasons, now ; and the voice was no longer " the voice of the charmer." Poor fellow : this fair little woman, who was new, and whose face was as lovely as her voice, occupied all eyes and aU tongues. She sat very quietly by the piano, looking up into the baritone's face, while he sang, apparently absorbed, and unconscious that she was the subject of general enthusiasm. A little more elation would have better pleased Olivia. She could not believe in either the diffidence, or the indifference. It all seemed to her overdone ; but then, she acknow ledged that she was prejudiced.

After all, why should there not be that genuine change in Clara, which Olivia had tried so often to effect ? Ought she not to rejoice in the subdued demeanour which seemed to imply that Madame Stellino was, in fact, quite another person to Mrs. EUiston ? Olivia felt that perhaps she was uncharitable : but her con victions as to Clara were not easily to be shakeu. Madame Stellino was now to sing a solo. She turned over the roll of music in her hand, still sitting, and leaning across to the accompanyist at the piano, to discuss which of two songs she should choose. Half the eyes in the room, Olivia's in cluded, were fixed on her; and her own never betrayed that she knew it by so much as a furtive glance round. Suddenly — her eyes were still upon the music — she started, and turned pale. Sho bent her head still lower, so that her face was almost hidden, but Olivia saw that the roll in her hand shook.

" I am afraid she is ill," said Lady Helena to Olivia. Olivia did not reply. Clara had raised her head, and, save that her fingers twitched nervously at the music, all trace of emotion was gone. Some one was talking and laughing rather above the rest of the voices in the doorway between the two rooms. Almost unconsciously, Olivia looked up ; and she needed not then to be told what had moved Clara. There, talking to Lord Dumberly, stood Julian Westbrook. Clara never once turned her eyes in that direc tion. The voice which smote upon her singularly sharp ears was enough. No doubt she had long foreseen the probability of such meeting, and was, in a measure, prepared. But it needed, neverthe less, some courage wdien it came with a hundred eyes upon her. Olivia's compassion was once more roused, heightened, I think, by indignation against the man towards whom, when they last met, she had felt so very differently.

Her own cheek went red and white, she knew, as she looked at him. The handsome face had lost all attraction for her. How could she ever have liked it ? she asked herself, almost with disgust. He did not see her yet, and she had time to think in what way she should meet him. To a consummate actress, like Clara, it might be easy enough, but not to Olivia. How could she endure any return to the tone of intimacy which had existed two years ago ? And if she received him as her own feelings prompted, how was she, whose lips were sealed, to justify this change to Mrs. Pomfret ? In this house, above all, the position was a difficult one. The prelude to Clara's song was now being played, and she rose, fixing her eyes steadily, as she did so, upon the folding-doors opposite. They never quivered, nor turned aside.

In excitement, the pupils always contracted, and they burnt now, like specks of green fire, wonderful in radiance and intensity. Against the siU of that doorway West brook leant, examining her with a cool, scruti nising curiosity, much as he would have clone by any other new star who had sprung up. To Olivia, who alone of aU present knew the link that bound those two, it was a strange sight to watch. The song was from the Traviata ; the air which the wretched woman sings after she has con summated her sacrifice and is insulted by her lover. The room applauded Clara's effective sing ing of this ; Olivia alone knew how much the woman's own heart probably went along with the passionate utterance of these words. It was over; and Westbrook edged his way dexterously through chairs and crinolines to Olivia's corner.

He passed close to Clara; his sleeve brushed her elbow. She shivered, and half turned round ; whereupon, he murmured the apo logy which good breeding demanded of a stranger, and passed on. " I hope Miss Marston has not forgotten me, though it is nearly two years since we met ?" It was said in the peculiarly low soft voice he could use with such effect on occasion. He looked that she should hold out hfir hand : she only bowed. " No, I have not forgotten you, Mr. West brook." But he was not disconcerted; it was very natural she should think he had forgotten her, and resent it. " I can assure you it has not been my fault that I have not seen you in the interval, Miss Marston. Every one seems to have conspired to keep your residence a mystery. At Fordingham they could only give me your brother's address.

Your brother, when I met him, dechned telling me whether you were in London or not. Miss Pringle was equally mysterious, though I went to an evening party at her house, in the fallacious hope of meeting you. The Pomfrets when I saw them in Paris really knew nothing of you; so you see every clue I had faded me ; and I came to the conclusion — very unwiUingly, I assure you — that you did not wish your retirement to be invaded." "You were right in that conclusion." She hesitated whether she should say more ; but thought it better to add : " There were circum stances which made it desirable that in our seclu sion we should not be subject to visitors." " I am sincerely sorry," he said, gravely, " to find the sad cause which has freed you from this necessity to exclude your friends ; and I hope now that " It angered her to hear him even allude to her clear father.

She cut him short with the words : " My friends, Mr. Westbrook, are few. Of course, as long as I am in this house I must see aU Mrs. Pomfret's visitors. I expect none, my self." There was a pause ; Westbrook leant a little forwarder, and said : " I am distressed to find that you receive me in so hostile a spirit. I was in hopes that you wouldn't have allowed your brother's prejudices to influence you so completely as I see they do." " My brother has been in the West Indies and in California for the last sixteen months. I think your name was never mentioned between us but once since I last saw you. He then told me he had met you in the street." " But some one has been prejudicing you, Miss Marston ; I see it in your manner. Do you re member the last conversation we had at that dance of the Pomfrets' ?

I do not know that you thought well of me then ; I believe even then you'd been listening to aU sorts of stories about me ; but, at least, your manner was very different to what it now is." " I am two years older, and I hopeless foolish than I then was. At all events, I know more of the world, Mr. Westbrook." " I must regret that knowledge if it makes you harder, less indulgent than you used to be. Do you know," he added, in a yet lower voice, "that I left Paris by a mid-day train, to-day, in conse quence of a letter from Henry, in which he men tioned that you were staying here ?" Olivia's grey eyes looked at him, and through him, with an expression he found it impossible to translate. " I am sorry for it," she said. " Has Henry been telling you any nonsense about " he began quickly, and stopped short.

" About whom?" He now felt certain that she had heard of his Paris flirtation. That accounted for it all. The only course was to take the bull by the horns. " About Lady Harriet Tower. Really and truly it is the greatest nonsense in the world. I VOL. III. c can assure you there's nothing in it ; only you know how people gossip and exaggerate. But I'm wrong. You clo not know that it's next to impossible for a man mixing much in the world to escape scandal. If he is friends with a married woman, aU sorts of things are immediately said. I'm a great friend of General Tower's, and Lady Harriet is a nice little thing — very insignificant — but a good little woman, and I was a great deal there ; whereupon, all my good-natured friends set afloat stories which have actuaUy no foundation." " I don't suppose that if they had any you woidd exactly confide in me, Mr. Westbrook," said Olivia, with infinite scorn in her manner.

" And as I never heard of Lady Harriet before, it is quite superfluous to rebut any stories about her to me." He could have bitten his tongue out ; the posi tion, however, was lost ; there was no recovering it. They were beginning a duet. Olivia leaned back against the wall. Julian took a vacant chair near her. She felt immensely relieved when, at the close of the music, Henry called out, " Julian, I want to introduce you to Lady Helena ; my cousin, Mr. Westbrook ;" and Olivia saw herself freed for at least some time to come. Lady Helena was fond of talking, and she soon engaged Julian in an animated conversation. AN EVENING RARTY, 19 "What do you think of the new singer?" Olivia heard her ask. " A very pretty woman, and sings with a great deal of expression — almost too much so ; a little tire par les cheveux, all that passion."

Clara, who had been watching Olivia for some time without appearing even to glance that way, now approached once more. Not only had she completely regained her self-command ; she looked flushed and triumphant ; probably in a great mea sure with the consciousness that he witnessed the enthusiasm of all these great people about her. But even now she was true to her part ; the triumph was only betrayed by the eye and the cheek ; the manner was still diffident and pleading rather than that of a successful prima donna. " Dearest Olivia !" she exclaimed, raising her voice into that clear silvery distinctness wliich penetrated much further than louder voices, " I am so delighted to think we shall see each other constantly now. Mrs. Pomfret has just told me that I am to give her youngest daughter lessons twice a week."

Julian heard every word of this — as he was meant to clo. He stared and frowned at the speaker, and lost the thread of what Lady Helena was saying. " How came it," whispered Clara to Olivia, c2 later in the evening, as she was wishing her good night, " how came it that you never told me you knew him?" " You never asked me," replied Olivia. As Westbrook strolled along Piccadilly to the Albany that night he murmured to himself, " So they are intimate, are they ? Confound it. That is a disagreeable coincidence. Not that she can have told her anything. She couldn't be such a fool ; when she has everything in the world to lose, and nothing to gain by peaching against her self. But it is awkward, and may disconcert my plans. She is such a spiteful, unforgiving little devil, that Clara. Deuced pretty she looked, to be sure ; and the modest, unassuming dodge be comes her very well. She has managed her affairs very cleverly. I shouldn't wonder if she catches old Dumberly. I suppose that's her game."

Chapter II

A DISCOVERY. "Everything has gone off most satisfactorily," said Mrs. Pomfret, sitting down with a sigh of satisfaction, and the consciousness of well-merited repose, as the last carriage drove from the door. " That Madame Stellino was really everything to us. She is a dear little woman ; so very un assuming and modest, and her singing quite makes one feel — all over, you know. Every one was talking about her, and as she is sure to become the fashion it was quite providential getting her before she becomes too common. And I've secured her to give you lessons, Mary; I want you to learn to sing in that — what you call parlant sort of style ; it is so very telling. All the gentlemen were quite ravingabout her. As to Prince Pickle orwhiski, he could really hardly contain himself. It was very gratifying.

By-the-by, my dear Olivia, I was so surprised to see that you and she were old friends. Did you know her abroad, my dear?" " No, in London. We lived in the same house for some months." " Dear me ! how curious ! But you didn't say so the other dav when we talked about her ?" " Because I didn't know her present Italianised name. She was plain Mrs. Elliston then. She tells me she could not get on she found without Italianising it." " Ah !" said Kate, yawning ; " now I remember all about her. I thought I'd seen her before. Of course ! She was the Mrs. Elliston we heard two or three years ago at a concert, and whom Julian was so very odd about ; pretended not to admire her, when I know he did all the time. By-the-by, he was in one of his odd tempers this evening. What put him out, I wonder ? He was in such high spirits wheu he came in, and so dreadfully cross before he went away !"

Mrs. Pomfret looked at Olivia and then at her daughter. I think she had a shrewd suspicion that he had not been received as he expected by the former; and she was sorry for it. Hor opinions upon this, as upon many other subjects, had undergone a change. Julian's constant inquiries after Miss Marston during the last eighteen months had proved to his aunt that the impression Olivia had made upon him was not worn away. She used to think he was not a marrying man : she knew of so many flirtations and scrapes he had been in, that it took a long time to persuade her that he was ever likely to bind himself irrevocably to one woman. But he was no longer very young now, and if he could be brought so to bind himself she believed it would be a very blessed thing for him. Lionel, alas ! no longer stood between Olivia and her nephew, and Olivia was clearly the only woman for whom he was ever likely to sacrifice his independence.

It was not, indeed, a brilliant mar riage, such as the handsome and popular Julian Westbrook might no doubt make if he chose. In taking a penniless wife he would even have to curtail many of his luxuries and extravagancies. But Mrs. Pomfret, who, with all her foUies, had curious instincts of good sense, and with whose warp of vulgarity was closely knit the woof of right feeling, had made up her mind that these drawbacks were as nothing when weighed in the scale with such a wife as Olivia would make. She had resolved, therefore, to encourage the idea as much as possible, and she could not help feeling, from both Olivia's manner and Julian's, that the first meeting had not been propitious. " It was so very nice of Julian coming over from Paris for my party." (Oh, the sinner ! he had told her this with an unblushing face.)