Charles Godfrey Leland - "The Algonquin Legends of New England"

Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe - "The American Woman's Home"

Rafael Sabatini - "The Lion's Skin"

Julian Hawthorne - "Hawthorne and His Circle"

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Books: Mary Marston

G >> George MacDonald >> Mary Marston



Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks,
Juliet Sutherland and the DP Team




MARY MARSTON

A NOVEL.

BY

GEORGE MACDONALD

AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD," "ROBERT FALCONER,"
ETC., ETC.




CONTENTS.

I.-THE SHOP
II.-CUSTOMERS
III.-THE ARBOR AT THORNWICK
IV.-GODFREY WARDOUR
V.-GODFREY AND LETTY
VI.-TOM HELMER
VII.-DURNMELLING
VIII.-THE OAK
IX.-CONFUSION
X.-THE HEATH AND THE HUT
XI.-WILLIAM MARSTON
XII.-MARY'S DREAM
XIII.-THE HUMAN SACRIFICE
XIV.-UNGENEROUS BENEVOLENCE
XV.-THE MOONLIGHT
XVI.-THE MORNING
XVII.-THE RESULT
XVIII.-MARY AND GODFREY
XIX.-MARY IN THE SHOP
XX.-THE WEDDING-DRESS
XXI.-MR. REDMAIN
XXII.-MRS. REDMAIN
XXIII.-THE MENIAL
XXIV.-MRS. REDMAIN'S DRAWING-ROOM
XXV.-MARY'S RECEPTION
XXVI.-HER POSITION
XXVII.-MR. AND MRS. HELMER
XXVIII.-MARY AND LETTY
XXIX.-THE EVENING STAR
XXX.-A SCOLDING
XXXI.-SEPIA
XXXII.-HONOR
XXXIII.-TUB INVITATION
XXXIV.-A STRAY SOUND
XXXV.-THE MUSICIAN
XXXVI.-A CHANGE
XXXVII.-LYDGATE STREET
XXXVIII.-GODFREY AND LETTY
XXXIX.-RELIEF
XL.-GODFREY AND SEPIA
XLI-THE HELPER
XLII-THE LEPER
XLIII.-MARY AND MR. REDMAIN
XLIV.-JOSEPH JASPER
XLV.-THE SAPPHIRE
XLVL-REPARATION
XLVII.-ANOTHER CHANGE
XLVIIL-DISSOLUTION
XLIX.-THORNWICK
L.-WILLIAM AND MARY MARSTON
LI.-A HARD TASK
LII.-A SUMMONS
LIII.-A FRIEND IN NEED
LIV.-THE NEXT NIGHT
LV.-DISAPPEARANCE
LVI.-A CATASTROPHE
LVII.-THE END OF THE BEGINNING




CHAPTER I

THE SHOP


It was an evening early in May. The sun was low, and the street
was mottled with the shadows of its paving-stones--smooth enough,
but far from evenly set. The sky was clear, except for a few
clouds in the west, hardly visible in the dazzle of the huge
light, which lay among them like a liquid that had broken its
vessel, and was pouring over the fragments. The street was almost
empty, and the air was chill. The spring was busy, and the summer
was at hand; but the wind was blowing from the north.

The street was not a common one; there was interest, that is
feature, in the shadowy front of almost each of its old houses.
Not a few of them wore, indeed, something like a human
expression, the look of having both known and suffered. From many
a porch, and many a latticed oriel, a long shadow stretched
eastward, like a death flag streaming in a wind unfelt of the
body--or a fluttering leaf, ready to yield, and flit away, and
add one more to the mound of blackness gathering on the horizon's
edge. It was the main street of an old country town, dwindled by
the rise of larger and more prosperous places, but holding and
exercising a charm none of them would ever gain.

Some of the oldest of its houses, most of them with more than one
projecting story, stood about the middle of the street. The
central and oldest of these was a draper's shop. The windows of
the ground-floor encroached a little on the pavement, to which
they descended very close, for the floor of the shop was lower
than the street. But, although they had glass on three oriel
sides, they were little used for the advertising of the stores
within. A few ribbons and gay handkerchiefs, mostly of cotton,
for the eyes of the country people on market-days, formed the
chief part of their humble show. The door was wide and very low,
the upper half of it of glass--old, and bottle-colored; and its
threshold was a deep step down into the shop. As a place for
purchases it might not to some eyes look promising, but both the
ladies and the housekeepers of Testbridge knew that rarely could
they do better in London itself than at the shop of Turnbull and
Marston, whether variety, quality, or price, was the point in
consideration. And, whatever the first impression concerning it,
the moment the eyes of a stranger began to grow accustomed to its
gloom, the evident size and plenitude of the shop might well
suggest a large hope. It was low, indeed, and the walls could
therefore accommodate few shelves; but the ceiling was therefore
so near as to be itself available for stowage by means of well-
contrived slides and shelves attached to the great beams crossing
it in several directions. During the shop-day, many an article,
light as lace, and heavy as broadcloth, was taken from overhead
to lay upon the counter. The shop had a special reputation for
all kinds of linen goods, from cambric handkerchiefs to towels,
and from table-napkins to sheets; but almost everything was to be
found in it, from Manchester moleskins for the navy's trousers,
to Genoa velvet for the dowager's gown, and from Horrocks's
prints to Lyons silks. It had been enlarged at the back, by
building beyond the original plan, and that part of it was a
little higher, and a little better lighted than the front; but
the whole place was still dark enough to have awaked the envy of
any swindling London shopkeeper. Its owners, however, had so long
enjoyed the confidence of the neighborhood, that faith readily
took the place of sight with their customers--so far at least as
quality was concerned; and seldom, except in a question of color
or shade, was an article carried to the door to be confronted
with the day. It had been just such a shop, untouched of even
legendary change, as far back as the memory of the sexton
reached; and he, because of his age and his occupation, was the
chief authority in the local history of the place.

As, on this evening, there were few people in the street, so were
there few in the shop, and it was on the point of being closed:
they were not particular there to a good many minutes either way.
Behind the counter, on the left hand, stood a youth of about
twenty, young George Turnbull, the son of the principal partner,
occupied in leisurely folding and putting aside a number of
things he had been showing to a farmer's wife, who was just gone.
He was an ordinary-looking lad, with little more than business in
his high forehead, fresh-colored, good-humored, self-satisfied
cheeks, and keen hazel eyes. These last kept wandering from his
not very pressing occupation to the other side of the shop, where
stood, behind the opposing counter, a young woman, in attendance
upon the wants of a well-dressed youth in front of it, who had
just made choice of a pair of driving-gloves. His air and
carriage were conventionally those of a gentleman--a gentleman,
however, more than ordinarily desirous of pleasing a young woman
behind a counter. She answered him with politeness, and even
friendliness, nor seemed aware of anything unusual in his
attentions.

"They're splendid gloves," he said, making talk; "but don't you
think it a great price for a pair of gloves, Miss Marston?"

"It is a good deal of money," she answered, in a sweet, quiet
voice, whose very tone suggested simplicity and
straightforwardness; "but they will last you a long time. Just
look at the work, Mr. Helmer. You see how they are made? It is
much more difficult to stitch them like that, one edge over the
other, than to sew the two edges together, as they do with
ladies' gloves. But I'll just ask my father whether he marked
them himself."

"He did mark those, I know," said young Turnbull, who had been
listening to all that went on, "for I heard my father say they
ought to be sixpence more."

"Ah, then!" she returned, assentingly, and laid the gloves on the
box before her, the question settled.

Helmer took them, and began to put them on.

"They certainly are the only glove where there is much handling
of reins," he said.

"That is what Mr. Wardour says of them," rejoined Miss Marston.

"By the by," said Helmer, lowering his voice, "when did you see
anybody from Thornwick?"

"Their old man was in the town yesterday with the dog-cart."

"Nobody with him?"

"Miss Letty. She came in for just two minutes or so."

"How was she looking?"

"Very well," answered Miss Marston, with what to Helmer seemed
indifference.

"Ah!" he said, with a look of knowingness, "you girls don't see
each other with the same eyes as we. I grant Letty is not very
tall, and I grant she has not much of a complexion; but where did
you ever see such eyes?"

"You must excuse me, Mr. Helmer," returned Mary, with a smile,
"if I don't choose to discuss Letty's merits with you; she is my
friend."

"Where would be the harm?" rejoined Helmer, looking puzzled. "I
am not likely to say anything against her. You know perfectly
well I admire her beyond any woman in the world. I don't care who
knows it."

"Your mother?" suggested Mary, in the tone of one who makes a
venture.

"Ah, come now, Miss Marston! Don't you turn my mother loose upon
me. I shall be of age in a few months, and then my mother may--
think as she pleases. I know, of course, with her notions, she
would never consent to my making love to Letty--"

"I should think not!" exclaimed Mary. "Who ever thought of such
an absurdity? Not you, surely, Mr. Helmer? What would your mother
say to hear you? I mention her in earnest now."

"Let mothers mind their own business!" retorted the youth
angrily. "I shall mind mine. My mother ought to know that by this
time."

Mary said no more. She knew Mrs. Helmer was not a mother to
deserve her boy's confidence, any more than to gain it; for she
treated him as if she had made him, and was not satisfied with
her work.

"When are you going to see Letty, Miss Marston?" resumed Helmer,
after a brief pause of angry feeling.

"Next Sunday evening probably."

"Take me with you."

"Take you with me! What are you dreaming of, Mr. Helmer?"

"I would give my bay mare for a good talk with Letty Lovel," he
returned.

Mary made no reply.

"You won't?" he said petulantly, after a vain pause of
expectation.

"Won't what?" rejoined Miss Marston, as if she could not believe
him in earnest.

"Take me with you on Sunday?"

"No," she answered quietly, but with sober decision.

"Where would be the harm?" pleaded the youth, in a tone mingled
of expostulation, entreaty, and mortification.

"One is not bound to do everything there would be no harm in
doing," answered Miss Marston. "Besides, Mr. Helmer, I don't
choose to go out walking with you of a Sunday evening."

"Why not?"

"For one thing, your mother would not like it. You know she would
not."

"Never mind my mother. She's nothing to you. She can't bite you.
--Ask the dentist. Come, come! that's all nonsense. I shall be at
the stile beyond the turnpike-gate all the afternoon--waiting
till you come."

"The moment I see you--anywhere upon the road--that moment I
shall turn back.--Do you think," she added with half-amused
indignation, "I would put up with having all the gossips of
Testbridge talk of my going out on a Sunday evening with a boy
like you?"

Tom Helmer's face flushed. He caught up the gloves, threw the
price of them on the counter, and walked from the shop, without
even a good night.

"Hullo!" cried George Turnbull, vaulting over the counter, and
taking the place Helmer had just left opposite Mary; "what did
you say to the fellow to send him off like that? If you do hate
the business, you needn't scare the customers, Mary."

"I don't hate the business, you know quite well, George. And if I
did scare a customer," she added, laughing, as she dropped the
money in the till, "it was not before he had done buying."

"That may be; but we must look to to-morrow as well as to-day.
When is Mr. Helmer likely to come near us again, after such a
wipe as you must have given him to make him go off like that?"

"Just to-morrow, George, I fancy," answered Mary. "He won't be
able to bear the thought of having left a bad impression on me,
and so he'll come again to remove it. After all, there's
something about him I can't help liking. I said nothing that
ought to have put him out of temper like that, though; I only
called him a boy."

"Let me tell you, Mary, you could not have called him a worse
name."

"Why, what else is he?"

"A more offensive word a man could not hear from the lips of a
woman," said George loftily.

"A man, I dare say! But Mr. Helmer can't be nineteen yet."

"How can you say so, when he told you himself he would be of age
in a few months? The fellow is older than I am. You'll be calling
me a boy next."

"What else are you? You at least are not one-and-twenty."

"And how old do you call yourself, pray, miss?"

"Three-and-twenty last birthday."

"A mighty difference indeed!"

"Not much--only all the difference, it seems, between sense and
absurdity, George."

"That may be all very true of a fine gentleman, like Helmer, that
does nothing from morning to night but run away from his mother;
but you don't think it applies to me, Mary, I hope!"

"That's as you behave yourself, George. If you do not make it
apply, it won't apply of itself. But if young women had not more
sense than most of the young men I see in the shop--on both sides
of the counter, George--things would soon be at a fine pass.
Nothing better in your head than in a peacock's!--only that a
peacock _has_ the fine feathers he's so proud of."

"If it were Mr. Wardour now, Mary, that was spreading his tail
for you to see, you would not complain of that peacock!"

A vivid rose blossomed instantly in Mary's cheek. Mr. Wardour was
not even an acquaintance of hers. He was cousin and friend to
Letty Lovel, indeed, but she had never spoken to him, except in
the shop.

"It would not be quite out of place if you were to learn a little
respect for your superiors, George," she returned. "Mr. Wardour
is not to be thought of in the same moment with the young men
that were in my mind. Mr. Wardour is not a young man; and he is a
gentleman."

She took the glove-box, and turning placed it on a shelf behind
her.

"Just so!" remarked George, bitterly. "Any man you don't choose
to count a gentleman, you look down upon! What have you got to do
with gentlemen, I should like to know?"

"To admire one when I see him," answered Mary. "Why shouldn't I?
It is very seldom, and it does me good."

"Oh, yes!" rejoined George, contemptuously. "You _call_
yourself a lady, but--"

"I do nothing of the kind," interrupted Mary, sharply. "I should
_like_ to be a lady; and inside of me, please God, I
_will_ be a lady; but I leave it to other people to call me
this or that. It matters little what any one is _called_."

"All right," returned George, a little cowed; "I don't mean to
contradict you. Only just tell me why a well-to-do tradesman
shouldn't be a gentleman as well as a small yeoman like Wardour."

"Why don't you say--as well as a squire, or an earl, or a duke?"
said Mary.

"There you are, chaffing me again! It's hard enough to have every
fool of a lawyer's clerk, or a doctor's boy, looking down upon a
fellow, and calling him a counter-jumper; but, upon my soul, it's
too bad when a girl in the same shop hasn't a civil word for him,
because he isn't what she counts a gentleman! Isn't my father a
gentleman? Answer me that, Mary."

It was one of George's few good things that he had a great
opinion of his father, though the grounds of it were hardly such
as to enable Mary to answer his appeal in a way he would have
counted satisfactory. She thought of her own father, and was
silent.

"Everything depends on what a man is in himself, George," she
answered. "Mr. Wardour would be a gentleman all the same if he
were a shopkeeper or a blacksmith."

"And shouldn't I be as good a gentleman as Mr. Wardour, if I had
been born with an old tumble-down house on my back, and a few
acres of land I could do with as I liked? Come, answer me that."

"If it be the house and the land that makes the difference, you
would, of course," answered Mary.

Her tone implied, even to George's rough perceptions, that there
was a good deal more of a difference between them than therein
lay. But common people, whether lords or shopkeepers, are slow to
understand that possession, whether in the shape of birth, or
lands, or money, or intellect, is a small affair in the
difference between men.

"I know you don't think me fit to hold a candle to him," he said.
"But I happen to know, for all he rides such a good horse, he's
not above doing the work of a wretched menial, for he polishes
his own stirrup-irons."

"I'm very glad to hear it," rejoined Mary. "He must be more of a
gentleman yet than I thought him."

"Then why should you count him a better gentleman than me?"

"I'm afraid for one thing, you would go with your stirrup-irons
rusty, rather than clean them yourself, George. But I will tell
you one thing Mr. Wardour would not do if he were a shopkeeper:
he would not, like you, talk one way to the rich, and another way
to the poor--all submission and politeness to the one, and
familiarity, even to rudeness, with the other! If you go on like
that, you'll never come within sight of being a gentleman,
George--not if you live to the age of Methuselah."

"Thank you, Miss Mary! It's a fine thing to have a lady in the
shop! Shouldn't I just like my father to hear you! I'm blowed if
I know how a fellow is to get on with you! Certain sure I am that
it ain't _my_ fault if we're not friends."

Mary made no reply. She could not help understanding what George
meant, and she flushed, with honest anger, from brow to chin.
But, while her dark-blue eyes flamed with indignation, her anger
was not such as to render her face less pleasant to look upon.
There are as many kinds of anger as there are of the sunsets with
which they ought to end: Mary's anger had no hate in it.

I must now hope my readers sufficiently interested in my
narrative to care that I should tell them something of what she
was like. Plainly as I see her, I can not do more for them than
that. I can not give a portrait of her; I can but cast her shadow
on my page. It was a dainty half-length, neither tall nor short,
in a plain, well-fitting dress of black silk, with linen collar
and cuffs, that rose above the counter, standing, in spite of
displeasure, calm and motionless. Her hair was dark, and dressed
in the simplest manner, without even a reminder of the hideous
occipital structure then in favor--especially with shop women,
who in general choose for imitation and exorbitant development
whatever is ugliest and least lady-like in the fashion of the
hour. It had a natural wave in it, which broke the too straight
lines it would otherwise have made across a forehead of sweet and
composing proportions. Her features were regular--her nose
straight--perhaps a little thin; the curve of her upper lip
carefully drawn, as if with design to express a certain firmness
of modesty; and her chin well shaped, perhaps a little too
sharply defined for her years, and rather large. Everything about
her suggested the repose of order satisfied, of unconstrained
obedience to the laws of harmonious relation. The only fault
honest criticism could have suggested, merely suggested, was the
presence of just a possible _nuance_ of primness. Her boots,
at this moment unseen of any, fitted her feet, as her feet fitted
her body. Her hands were especially good. There are not many
ladies, interested in their own graces, who would not have envied
her such seals to her natural patent of ladyhood. Her speech and
manners corresponded with her person and dress; they were direct
and simple, in tone and inflection, those of one at peace with
herself. Neatness was more notable in her than grace, but grace
was not absent; good breeding was more evident than delicacy, yet
delicacy was there; and unity was plain throughout.

George went back to his own side of the shop, jumped the
counter, put the cover on the box he had left open with a bang,
and shoved it into its place as if it had been the backboard of a
cart, shouting as he did so to a boy invisible, to make haste and
put up the shutters. Mary left the shop by a door on the inside
of the counter, for she and her father lived in the house; and,
as soon as the shop was closed, George went home to the villa his
father had built in the suburbs.




CHAPTER II.

CUSTOMERS.


The next day was Saturday, a busy one at the shop. From the
neighboring villages and farms came customers not a few; and
ladies, from the country-seats around, began to arrive as the
hours went on. The whole strength of the establishment was early
called out. Busiest in serving was the senior partner, Mr.
Turnbull. He was a stout, florid man, with a bald crown, a heavy
watch-chain of the best gold festooned across the wide space
between waistcoat-button-hole and pocket, and a large
hemispheroidal carbuncle on a huge fat finger, which yet was his
little one. He was close-shaved, double-chinned, and had
cultivated an ordinary smile to such an extraordinary degree
that, to use the common hyperbole, it reached from ear to ear. By
nature he was good-tempered and genial; but, having devoted every
mental as well as physical endowment to the making of money, what
few drops of spiritual water were in him had to go with the rest
to the turning of the mill-wheel that ground the universe into
coin. In his own eyes he was a strong churchman, but the only
sign of it visible to others was the strength of his contempt for
dissenters--which, however, excepting his partner and Mary, he
showed only to church-people; a dissenter's money being, as he
often remarked, when once in his till, as good as the best
churchman's.

To the receptive eye he was a sight not soon to be forgotten, as
he bent over a piece of goods outspread before a customer, one
hand resting on the stuff, the other on the yard-measure, his
chest as nearly touching the counter as the protesting adjacent
parts would permit, his broad smooth face turned up at right
angles, and his mouth, eloquent even to solemnity on the merits
of the article, now hiding, now disclosing a gulf of white teeth.
No sooner was anything admitted into stock, than he bent his soul
to the selling of it, doing everything that could be done, saying
everything he could think of saying, short of plain lying as to
its quality: that he was not guilty of. To buy well was a care to
him, to sell well was a greater, but to make money, and that as
speedily as possible, was his greatest care, and his whole
ambition.

John Turnbull in his gig, as he drove along the road to the town,
and through the street approached his shop-door, showed to the
chance observer a man who knew himself of importance, a man who
might have a soul somewhere inside that broad waistcoat; as he
drew up, threw the reins to his stable-boy, and descended upon
the pavement--as he stepped down into the shop even, he looked a
being in whom son or daughter or friend might feel some honest
pride; but, the moment he was behind the counter and in front of
a customer, he changed to a creature whose appearance and
carriage were painfully contemptible to any beholder who loved
his kind; he had lost the upright bearing of a man, and cringed
like an ape. But I fear it was thus he had gained a portion at
least of his favor with the country-folk, many of whom much
preferred his ministrations to those of his partner. A glance,
indeed, from the one to the other, was enough to reveal which
must be the better salesman--and to some eyes which the better
man.

In the narrow walk of his commerce--behind the counter, I mean--
Mr. Marston stood up tall and straight, lank and lean, seldom
bending more than his long neck in the direction of the counter,
but doing everything needful upon it notwithstanding, from the
unusual length of his arms and his bony hands. His forehead was
high and narrow, his face pale and thin, his hair long and thin,
his nose aquiline and thin, his eyes large, his mouth and chin
small. He seldom spoke a syllable more than was needful, but his
words breathed calm respect to every customer. His conversation
with one was commonly all but over as he laid something for
approval or rejection on the counter: he had already taken every
pains to learn the precise nature of the necessity or desire; and
what he then offered he submitted without comment; if the thing
was not judged satisfactory, he removed it and brought another.
Many did not like this mode of service; they would be helped to
buy; unequal to the task of making up their minds, they welcomed
any aid toward it; and therefore preferred Mr. Turnbull, who gave
them every imaginable and unimaginable assistance, groveling
before them like a man whose many gods came to him one after the
other to be worshiped; while Mr. Marston, the moment the thing he
presented was on the counter, shot straight up like a poplar in a
sudden calm, his visage bearing witness that his thought was
already far away--in heavenly places with his wife, or hovering
like a perplexed bee over some difficult passage in the New
Testament; Mary could have told which, for she knew the meaning
of every shadow that passed or lingered on his countenance.

His partner and his like-minded son despised him, as a matter of
course; his unbusiness-like habits, as they counted them, were
the constantly recurring theme of their scorn; and some of these
would doubtless have brought him the disapprobation of many a
business man of a moral development beyond that of Turnbull; but
Mary saw nothing in them which did not stamp her father the
superior of all other men she knew.