Love or Marriage? A novel

Chapter I. The Missing Daughter

/"\NE morning James Glencairn lay in a long dreamlike doze, apparently thinking of many things. His breakfast was brought in to him ; he did not touch it. By-and-by he murmured, as if he was speaking to his own spirit — " No, I have not done my duty to my family. I have not aided God's gracious mercy to us by my own poor efforts. To day I will turn over a new leaf." For one or two evenings previous he had sat up, partially dressed, in that small room ii. B of his ; and had devoted these first hours of his recovery to a minute examination of his beloved Salicaceœ. This morning, pale and emaciated, he rose, dressed himself, and then hastily swallowed his cold breakfast. AVhen he opened the door of his room, and passed into the parlour, his wife turned, with a little scream, to him, almost fancying that he was the victim of a delirious attack.

" "What do you mean ? " she asked. " I am going to my business," he said, with a kindly smile lighting up the sad face and the deep grey eyes. " You are mad, James. You cannot go. You are not able to go. What good will you do ? " "We must all do our best, my dear,' he said, gently. She replied, with a slight sneer, " You should have said that when you were well and able to do something — not now. It seems to me that we are hope lessly ruined — hopelessly." " There is no such thing as hopeless ruin so long as God's care is over our heads," said her husband, gravely. " That's all very well for the next world," replied the proud, cold woman; " but it does not prevent our starving in this." " Our troubles are indeed bitter, Flora," he said, with that rare forbearance of his, " when they force you to talk in that way.

And Fanny, where is she ? She cannot be always so busy as she has been during the past few days. I am going to town, and I want her to go with me." " She can't go with you." " Why ? " Mrs. Glencairn saw there was no help for it ; an explanation was necessary. She turned to her husband, as if to brave his possible indignation, and said, in a cold, clear voice — " Fanny is no longer in this house. She was dissatisfied with it, I suppose, and so she left. You need not look surprised, James ; it is not the sort of house which could be very agreeable to a young girl, especially when she found her poverty becoming so marked as to attract the notice of those whom she had most to study — that is, the young men who wanted to marry her." Perhaps this was the cruellest blow that the old man had yet received.

The very idea that his daughter — the bright, warm hearted, puzzling little creature who had wormed herself into his love, and was the very sunshine of his life — had been forced by his fatal negligence to leave her father's home, fell upon him with a painful horror. For the moment he regarded his botanical studies as some species of horrible devil that had seduced him into crime. He did not for a moment seek to question the righteousness of her desertion. He was in fault ; and he accepted his punishment meekly, sorrowfully, and silently. " Where is she ? " he said, in a broken voice. Mrs. Glencairn saw that her disin genuous suggestion had told. " Well," she said, carelessly, " she is not far off. The little hussy thought she would torment me at the same time, as she was leaving anyway. And so she left without saying a word."

" And you do not know where she is ? And you have allowed her to remain away without making inquiry ? " he asked, with a touch of indignation in his voice. " I certainly know where she is. She had not left two hours when Kate * saw her at the window of Mrs. Cleveland's house in Stockwell Road, and ran back to tell me. I suppose it was a part of her ill-temper to go to the house of a woman whom I hate, whom I haven't spoken to for a year, whom I wouldn't baugh ! I do not choose to speak of the creatures with whom I have been compelled to associate since I came to this neighbourhood." " It was no ill-temper took the poor girl from her father's house to find refuge with a stranger," said Glencairn. "Ask Kate to fetch me my hat." " What do you mean to do ? " " I will go and bring her back." His wife did not accompany him.

Pro bably she might have gone under other circumstances, and assisted him on this his first venture out of doors ; but her spirit re- * The maid-servant. belled against the idea of appearing before Mrs. Cleveland as a supplicant for her daughter. On the other hand, she fancied that her husband would be only too ready to admit to her rival neighbour that this domestic shame had been caused entirely by himself; and so James Glencairn de parted alone. When he stepped out into the street, and saw the thin, wintry sunlight of October shimmering along the misty grey thoroughfares, and on the scantily-leaved poplars and birches of the gardens, a gleam of pleasure passed across his heart. He drew a long breath, as if to inhale the sweetness of this outside atmosphere, from which he had been so long debarred.

The next moment, however, as he tried to walk along the pavement, he felt his whole frame tremble with weakness, and his legs were hardly able to support him. He struggled on, however, with the help of the large brown staff that had been his companion in many a long ramble ; although the cold wind pierced his thin clothes, and there grew a hectic warmth in his sallow, sad face. As he came near Clapham Road, he paused for a moment, and rested one of his hands on the railing beside him. A young man came up — a frank young fellow — and said, " You seem weak, sir ; let me give you my arm, since we are going the same way. " I thank you, sir — I thank you," said the old man, accepting the proffered kind ness; " it is my first walk after some weeks' confinement to bed." " But you know," said the young man, who spoke with all the confidence of a medical student, "you should not have ventured out in a cold wind like this.

Did your doctor give you liberty ? " " I have not asked the doctor to visit me these past few days ; I was getting so rapidly well." " You don't seem very well yet, sir," said the young man, who knew perfectly what was meant by ' not asking ' a doctor to visit one; "and at any rate you should not have come out alone. I speak frankly, you know " " I thank you, sir," said James Glen cairn. " We maun e'en do our best, though we make many mistakes. I had no pre vision of this cold wind, or I might not have come. And I now thank you again for your kindness, for here we part com pany. I must go along that road there." " But I will accompany you, if I can be of any service to you." " Nay, nay, sir ; a young man's time is n. c too valuable to be spent lightly ; an old man s time is matter of concern to nobody.

I bid ye a good morning, sir." The house he sought was fortunately but a short distance off, and in course of time he managed to reach it. Frailly and slowly he made his way up the front steps, and knocked at the door. A very small girl appeared, carrying a baby in her arms. " Is this Mrs. Cleveland's house ? " " Yes, sir." " Then say to your mistress, my girl, that I want to see my daughter." " What is your name, please, sir? " " Glencairn." The girl retired into the house for a few moments, and then returned. In the in terval he had heard a woman talk very loudly and hotly ; and, indeed, the message now delivered to him by the small girl was considerably tempered and softened by that wise and practical young person. " Missis says, sir, she don't know any think — not anythink — about your daughter, and hasn't seen her for never so long."

Glencairn seemed scarcely to know the meaning of the words. " My daughter has not been here ? She has not been living here since she left our house ? Where is she, then ? " "How should I know, sir? But she isn't here." Therewith the little girl, considering her mission complete, shut the door ; and Glencairn was left staring blankly along the mistily yellow street. He made his way back to his home ; and more than one passer-by turned to look at the man with the unutterably sad face, the stooping shoulders, and the feeble gait. c There was that in his very eyes which awoke sympathy. " Fanny is not there, and has not been there," he said to his wife. For the moment Mrs. Glencairn changed colour with absolute fright ; her first thought being that Fanny had drowned herself in order to vex her with remorse.

But the next moment she was up on her feet, proud, erect, and stern. " The ungrateful girl will suffer for this when we find her ; she shall repent her wickeduess for many a day." " Nay," said Glencairn, mildly, " that would be unfair. If her home has been made unbearable to her, the least we can do is to make it more comfortable, and be kind to her when she returns. It was not without much provocation that the poor girl left her father's house. But I have been most to blame, I know. It has been my fault ; and it will therefore lie wi' me to win her back by kindness." " When you find her," said Mrs. Glen cairn, sneeringly ; though she was more alarmed than she chose to show. " If you get me my top-coat, I will make my way into Oxford Street, and consult Mr. Morrison as to what we should do.

I wanted to go there in any case ; for, if God gives me health, I will try to improve our condition, Flora." She went away to fetch the top-coat, but she did not reply with a single word to these faint entreaties for forgiveness which her husband was trying to make. She assisted him to put on his coat. Then he stood for a moment, as if scarcely wishing to ask for that which he hoped she would offer. " Couldn't you come with me?" at last he ventured to hint. She pointed with a weak smile to her dress. " Is it my fault that I have been unable to quit the house for months in daylight ? Would you have me go into town with a dress like that ? " He said nothing, but turned away, and went sadly and feebly down the narrow stair. Then he got into a 'bus, for he dreaded the expense of a cab ; and so he reached his place of business in Oxford Street, where his presence was so much needed.

Chapter II

A SUPPER PARTY. /^vN the evening on which Helstone had met with his strange adventure by the seaside, Major Von Kirschenfeld had received his periodical batch of German correspondence. There was a letter from a member of the Fortschritt party in Berlin, which he and Marie discussed for some time ; there were some papers regarding his estates in Westphalia, Pome rania, and elsewhere ; and, finally, there was a collection of official and non-official Berlin journals, which gave more or less intelligible hints as to the method in which Prussia was now dealing with her inveigled ally, Austria. The latter, of course, awoke all Kirschenfeld's patriotism ; and he was soon marching up and down the apartment, wroth at a compli cation of circumstances which he dared not even hint to Marie when Charlie was present in the room.

Indeed the Major's pet scheme had not progressed so satisfactorily as he had anticipated from the first evening of Charlie's visit. The longer the young man remained with him, the more melancholy did he be come — the longer grew the pauses between his efforts at work, in which he sat and dreamed, his back resolutely bent on the sea, his face turned wistfully towards London. " That accursed city ! " growled the Major -to himself, in guttural German ; " and the folly of modern life within it ! Life ? It is not life. He knows no more of life than the ridiculous old fool in that play of Goethe's that was written to ter rify children. Look at him, moonstruck, absent, eager to get back again to his wretchedness, and his poverty, and his love for that painted doll ; while at hand, waiting for him, is all that a man requires to make his life manly and well.

If he would only go out for a little soldiering, and discover what good meat and wine and a beautiful girl were ! But bah ! this Canarienvogel will be the death of me!" " Herr Major," said Marie, " I want you to sing ' Der Schweizer,' since you've been humming bits of it all day." But the Major would not sing. He was in no humour for singing; besides, this ballad of the poor soldier who bids fare well to his comrades just before being shot for deserting, always brought un soldier-like tears to the old warrior's eyes. " Bythe -bye," said Marie, "Lord Cheveley says there is a similar ballad in French, in a story of Henri Mi'trger's ; only in it, the poor soldier deserts to see his sweetheart, meets his captain on the way, fights a duel for his liberty, kills the captain, and then gives himself up to be shot.

Isn't our ballad much finer? " " Our ballad ? So you are turned Ger man girl, Marie ? Yes, it is finer ; and you shall sing it for me." So she sat down, and sang the simple and plaintive music of the Switzer's story : — " Zu Strasburg aus der Schanz, Da ging mein Trauern an, Das Alphorn hort ich driiben wohl anstimraen, In's Vaterland rousst' ich hiniiber schwimmen, Das ging nicht an." " He was a brave fellow," said the Major warmly, striding up and down the room, with as much agitation as if he had been reading the tale out of the history of the '59 campaign. " He could not help swimming across the river when he heard the alpen-horn ; but when they caught him, and took him back, he made no resistance ; he knew he had to die, and I know that he died like a brave soldier." He turned suddenly to his daughter.

" Marie, you shall never marry a man who has not been a soldier. There is no man knows the value of a wife who has not been a soldier — do you hear ? " " Yes, Herr Major." " But you pay no attention. You do not believe me. I say you deserve to be a soldier's wife — you have the heart of a soldier's wife. You would be the same to him when he was away as when he was with you ; and if they bring him to you dead, you go forward, you take his hand and kiss it, and you say only, ' He was my husband; and he died a brave man.' Your mother could have said that, Marie : you too." " You might speak of something that would interest Charlie, papa," said Marie, simply. Kirschenfeld turned with an impatient look, which had almost a touch of scorn in it. " He is an artist. Who can interest an artist without being a tree or a rock ?

" " An artist is more useful than a soldier, Herr Major," said Marie. " Charlie could be a soldier if he liked; but how many soldiers did you ever know, papa, who could be an artist?" " Charlie become a soldier ? He has the strength for it, and the figure for it ; but he has not the heart for it. He would rather handle a — wie heiszt das ? — a hair pencil than a rifle." Charlie said nothing ; but, with a smile on his face, he pointed to a silver cup which stood on a small table in the corner of the drawing-room. He had won the trophy about eight months before at a competition of the volunteer company to which he belonged ; and his name was written with profuse scrawls on the oval side of the glittering prize. Kirschenfeld turned to it, and joined in the laugh with which Marie greeted his discomfiture.

" Listen to me, Junge," he said, gravely, to Charlie. " You know your English drill. You may change your mind of what I said to you about going with Preussen ; and I will tell you now, in a short moment, all the difference there A SUPPER TARTY. is between that drill and yours, and the words of command, and how you know a first from a second lieutenant, and a uhlan from a jiiger, and a guard-corps man from the ordinary regiments, and so further And you, Marie, you talked of the limelight this evening ; now you go and pre pare it, and by-and-by we come to you when we are ready." Kirschenfeld' s military lecture lasted longer than he had anticipated ; but when he had finished, Charlie and he went up to the tower. As the reader already knows, they had only been cast ing about the glare of the limelight for a few minutes when it fell upon the prostrate figure of Helstone.

It was Charlie who first perceived the ghastly white face gleaming up out of the darkness. "My God! what is that?" he ex- A SUPPEE PARTY. claimed, in a tone which startled the Major and Marie. " Was gibt es da ? " cried the former, who always broke into German when he was particularly excited. " 'S ist un glaublich ! Ein Mann — und todt ? Was soil geschehen ? Komm mit ! " He rushed downstairs and into the open air, bearing in his hand a lamp, the light of wdlich was immediately blown out. Charlie, begging Marie to remain within doors, followed ; and as he overtook the Major, who had stumbled on in the faint starlight, they arrived about the same moment by the side of Helstone. He by this time had partially come to himself; and as he was about to rise, bewildered and trembling, he confronted the two men who were now regarding him.

The moment he caught sight of them, he uttered a slight cry, and tried to draw himself back, as if he feared that they, too, were spirits. But now Charlie's eyes, grown accustomed to the darkness, recognised the known face. " Helstone ! " he cried, in amazement, as he put out his hand, and assisted him to rise. Helstone took the proffered hand, and involuntarily gripped it with a firm, nervous, clasp as though to make sure it was real flesh and blood ; and then, without letting go his hold, he looked shudderingly around into the darkness. "What's the matter with you?" said Charlie. " Were you ill ? Why are you here?" Helstone brought all his energy of will to bear him up and restore his composure; but his strong mental agitation was visible in the deadly pallor of his face and in the trembling of his hands.

He tried to laugh. " Nothing but an attack of my old malady," he said. " Don't you remember ? But don't let us speak of that. What are you doing here ? " " I am living here — with this gentle man, Major von Kirschenfeld." The Major and Helstone bowed; and the latter took advantage of the mo mentary pause to steal a quick glance along the edge of the cliff. " That is my house there," said Kirs chenfeld to Helstone. " If you are yet not quite well, wTill you come in ? " " Gladly— gladly," said Helstone. " The night has become suddenly cold — change in the atmosphere ; — something of that sort, I dare say, has provoked the faint ness that overcame me. But — but I feel much better." II. D " Are you living down here, then ? " said Charlie. " Yes ; at the house along the road there. I was returning home when I — when I was seized with this ridiculous faintness.

Who would have thought to meet you here ! " " Have you been long away from London ? " " Some days." " And we have been living almost with in a stone's throw of each other without knowing it." Helstone thought of the horrible volcano on the edge of which Fanny had during that time been standing, and said nothing. He resolved that she should not pass another day in such a dangerous neigh bourhood. He would rather not have gone into the house, for he was unwilling to show the paleness which he knew would be visible on his face ; but he dreaded Charlie's offering to accompany him home, if he returned at once. So he passed into Kirschenfeld' s drawing-room. He was introduced to Marie, who could scarcely help regarding him with a super stitious fear. " But for my cousin here," said Charlie, " we should not have seen you.

It was her limelight apparatus which discovered you ; and, to tell you the truth, we thought you were dead." " I am doubly ashamed of this absurd malady of mine," said Helstone to Marie, " since it must have frightened you so much." " Faith, I don't see the absurdity of it," said Charlie. " It looks to me rather a serious thing." " Not at all, not at all," said Helstone, d who seemed to deprecate any further talk on the subject. " It is not an injurious bodily weakness, but a stupid habit of the imagination, which is very rightly punished by physical suffering." Kirschenfeld could not understand these nice distinctions ; and seemed to regard as a semi-lunatic a man who could be thankful that one part of his nature was punished for the faults of the other part. They played a little whist, and Hel stone endeavoured to become deeply in terested in the game, though his hands yet trembled so that he could scarcely hold the cards, and though he made the most atrocious blunders in playing.

Fortunately for the peace of the party, he had Marie for his partner; and in stead of becoming savage at his mistakes, she endeavoured to palliate them, and suggest theories to atone for them. At the end of the rubber, he said to her, " Now, Miss Kirschenfeld, confess that I played very badly." " Well, you did," she said, with a smile. " And that you were vexed with me." " Not at all. You have not been able to play your best to-night ; but another time we may beat our opponents." "You are very charitable," he said, looking towards her with a smile which Charlie did not like. Kirschenfeld now pressed his guest to remain to supper ; but Helstone was evi dently unwilling to stay. " Have you any friends staying with you over there, or live you alone ? " he asked. " I live quite alone," said Helstone.

" Then why not have supper with us ? You can remain here all night, if you have displeasure at going across in the dark." " I will stay to supper, then," said Helstone ; " but I must go home to-night all the same." The genial influence of a little wine, of the bright lights, and cheerful conversation reanimated Helstone. He had far more pleasure in such a pleasant little supper party than Charlie ; for, in the first place, he had no clouded future hanging before him ; and, in the second, he knew and appreciated the quality of Kirschenfeld's wine. But the Major and he were at once thrown into a vehement discussion : that is to say, all the discussion was on Hel stone's side, and all the vehemence on the Major's. " Patriotism is a barbaric sentiment," said the former, when the Major had been preaching about his beloved Prussia.

" A Frenchman is as much my brother as a man who lives in the next street to me. Why should I espouse the cause of the one against the other ? I would just as soon have been born in France, or in Bavaria, as in England ; and why should I hate people who have been born there, or become possessed with the absurd notion that it is better for the world that England should rule the world ? Why " And here the Major broke in furiously, tumbling about his English and German indiscriminately, and appealing to Charlie about the principles concerned in the war between the Cavaliers and the Round heads. " Why," said Helstone, " that is true enough ; but if the hard toasts which the Cavaliers drank had been half as hard as the Roundheads' pikes, Charles need not have been beheaded." "My father," said Marie to Helstone, "will have Charlie to go to the war against Austria.

But Prussia and England might be enemies; and how can my cousin, if he has patriotism, go with the possible enemy of his country ? " " Little traitor ! " said Kirschenfeld, " you give him an excuse for staying at home,- because you know he wishes to stay at home." "It is a fine profession, that of a soldier," said Helstone, "if it were not so very barbaric. They have a quick death and a merry one ; and if they die on the field, they have all the sympathy of their fellow-men. Yet why should they have it ? All the men who fought at Jena are now dead : why should we pity only those who died at Jena ? " " Why ? " said Kirschenfeld ; " because they had to leave their wives and children before old age made them indifferent to them." " So much the better," said Helstone. " But no soldier should have a wife."

Kirschenfeld shook his bushy white hair, and pulled his moustache with anger. " Mir miissen Sie das nicht sagen ! I say it is only a soldier deserves to have a fine wife, a noble wife. Such a woman deserves to have a husband who is alive, who knows her value ; who is not half a woman himself with living on novels-reading, and sentiment, and town-life " " Herr Major," said Marie, " that is Mr. Helstone' s glass you hold in your hand." "I ask you a thousand pardons, sir," said Kirschenfeld ; " but you must not speak so of the soldiers." " Oh, I only mentioned a theory," said Helstone, laughing. "I never knew any soldiers, except a young ensign whom I used to meet occasionally at a friend's house in London. Our acquaintanceship was broken off through an inadvertent saying of mine, for which I am now heartily sorry.

He was once, at this friend's table, very angry with me for suggesting a reason why so many military men lisped. ' Why,' he said, ' you'll be able to explain to me, also, why my head is round ? ' ' Certainly,' said I, ' for every thing soft naturally takes a spherical form ! ' He never forgave me." " Then he was a fool," said Kirschen feld; adding, as he stroked his white moustache and beard, " you cannot say anything of me which shall offend me." "My dear sir," said Helstone, "if I continued experimenting in this way on every man whose acquaintanceship I made, I should be like the children who are con stantly pulling up the seeds they have sown to see if they've taken root." During this short meal, and after it, Charlie could not forbear noticing the striking resemblance borne by Helstone's manner on this occasion to that which he had shown on being introduced to the Glencairns.

He could not help remark ing, also, the great dissimilarity between the behaviour of Fanny and Marie when exposed to the brilliant fire of Helstone's pleasantries and attention. Fanny had pretended not to hear ; but had stolen sly glances at the hero of the evening. Marie sat grave and courteous, replying frankly to any observation of Helstone's, but maintaining towards him an indif ference which was only revealed by her politeness. A SUTPER TARTY. At length Helstone bade good-night to his entertainers ; and Charlie accompanied him home — now that he knew there was no fear of Fanny being visible. He pro mised to see Charlie the next morning ; but he inwardly resolved to hurry Fanny out of the neighbourhood at the earliest possible hour.