The Coryston Family - Mrs. Humphry Ward (best biographies to read TXT) 📗

stock ruined--by the elder generation! They're in our way everywhere! Why don't they withdraw--and let _us_ take the stage? We know more than they. We're further evolved--we're better informed. And they will insist on pitting their years against our brains all over the field. I tell you the world can't get on like this. Something will have to be done. We're choked up with the older generation."

"Yes, for those who have no reverence--and no pity!" said Marcia.

The low intensity of her voice brought the looks of all three brothers upon her in some evident surprise. None of them had yet ceased to regard their sister as a child, with opinions not worth speculating about. Coryston flushed, involuntarily.

"My withers are unwrung," he said, not without bravado. "You don't understand, my dear. Do I want to do the elder generation any damage? Not at all! But it is time the elder generation withdrew to the chimney-corner and gave us our rights! You think that ungrateful--disrespectful? Good heavens! What do we _care_ about the people, our contemporaries, with whom we are always fighting and scuffling in what we are pleased to call _action_? The people who matter to us are the people who rest us--and calm us--and bind up our wounds. If instead of finding a woman to argue and wrestle with I had found just a mother here, knitting by the fire"--he threw out a hand toward Lady Coryston's empty chair--"with time to smile and think and jest--with no ax to grind--and no opinions to push--do you think I shouldn't have been at her feet--her slave, her adorer? Besides, the older generation have ground their axes, and pushed their opinions, long enough--they have had thirty years of it! We should be the dancers now, and they the wall-flowers. And they won't play the game!"

"Don't pretend that you and your mother could ever have played any game--together--Corry," said Sir Wilfrid, sharply.

Coryston looked at him queerly, good-humoredly.

"One might argue till doomsday--I agree--as to which of us said 'won't play' first. But there it is. It's our turn. And you elders won't give it us. Now mother's going to try a little tyranny on Arthur--having made a mess of me. What's the sense of it? It's _we_ who have the youth--_we_ who have the power--_we_ who know more than our elders simply because we were born thirty years later! Let the old submit, and we'll cushion the world for them, and play them out of it with march-music! But they _will_ fight us--and they can't win!"

His hands on his sides, Coryston stood confronting them all, his eyes glittering.

"What stuff you do talk, Coryston!" said Arthur, half angrily, half contemptuously. "What good does it do to anybody?" And he resumed his restless walk.

"All flung, too, at a man of peace like me," said the white-haired Sir Wilfrid, with his quiet smile. "It takes all sorts, my dear Corry, to play the game of a generation--old and young. However, the situation is too acute for moralizing. Arthur, are you open to any sort of advice from an old friend?"

"Yes," said Arthur, unwillingly, "if I weren't so jolly sure what it would be."

"Don't be so sure. Come and take me a turn in the lime avenue before lunch."

The two disappeared. James followed them. Marcia, full of disquiet, was going off to find Lady Coryston when Coryston stopped her.

"I say, Marcia--it's true--isn't it? You're engaged to Newbury?"

She turned proudly, confronting him.

"I am."

"I'm not going to congratulate you!" he said, vehemently. "I've got a deal to say to you. Will you allow me to say it?"

"Whenever you like," said Marcia, indifferently.

Coryston perched himself on the edge of a table beside her, looking down upon her, his hands thrust into his pockets.

"How much do you know of this Betts business?" he asked her, abruptly.

"A good deal--considering you sent Mrs. Betts to see me this morning!"

"Oh, she came, did she? Well, do you see any common sense, any justice, any Christianity in forcing that woman to leave her husband--in flinging her out to the wolves again, just as she has got into shelter?"

"In Edward's view, Mr. Betts is not her husband," said Marcia, defiantly. "You seem to forget that fact."

"'Edward's view'?" repeated Coryston, impatiently. "My dear, what's Edward got to do with it? He's not the law of the land. Let him follow his own law if he likes. But to tear up other people's lives by the roots, in the name of some private particular species of law that you believe in and they don't, is really too much--at this time of day. You ought to stop it, Marcia!--and you must!"

"Who's tyrannizing now?" said Marcia. "Haven't other people as good a right to live their beliefs as you?"

"Yes, so long as they don't destroy other people in the process. Even I am not anarchist enough for that."

"Well," said Marcia, coolly, "the Newburys are making it disagreeable for Mr. and Mrs. Betts because they disapprove of them. And what else are you doing with mamma?"

She threw a triumphant look at her brother.

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Coryston, jumping up. "The weakest 'score' I ever heard. Don't you know the difference between the things that are vital and the things that are superficial--between fighting opinions, and _destroying a life_, between tilting and boxing, however roughly--and _murdering_?"

He looked at her fiercely.

"Who talks of murdering!" The tone was scornful.

"I do! If the Newburys drive those two apart they will have a murder of souls on their conscience. And if you talked to that woman this morning you know it as well as I!"

Marcia faltered a little.

"They could still meet as friends."

"Yes, under the eyes of holy women!--spying lest any impropriety occur! That's the proposal, I understand. Of all the vile and cold-blooded suggestions!--"

And restraining himself with the utmost difficulty, as one might hang on to the curb of a bolting horse, Coryston stamped up and down the room, till speech was once more possible. Then he came to an abrupt pause before his sister.

"Are you really in love with this man, Marcia?"

So challenged, Marcia did not deign to answer. She merely looked up at Coryston, motionless, faintly smiling. He took his answer, dazzled at the same time by her emerging and developing beauty.

"Well, if you do love him," he said, slowly, "and he loves you, _make_ him have pity! Those two, also, love each other. That woman is a poor common little thing. She was a poor common little actress with no talent, before her first husband married her--she's a common little actress now, even when she feels most deeply. You probably saw it, and it repelled you. _You_ can afford, you see, to keep a fine taste, and fastidious feelings! But if you tear her from that man, you kill all that's good in her--you ruin all her miserable chances. That man's raising her. Bit by bit he'll stamp his own character into hers--because she loves him. And Betts himself, a great, silent, hard man, who has once in his life done a splendid thing!--forgotten himself head over ears for a woman--and is now doing his level best to make a good job of her--you Christians are going to reward him first by breaking his heart, and tearing his life-work to pieces!--God!--I wish your Master were here to tell you what He'd think of it!"

"You're not His only interpreter!" cried Marcia, breathing quickly. "It's in His name that Edward and his father are acting. You daren't say--you daren't _think_--that it's for mere authority's sake--mere domination's sake!"

Coryston eyed her in silence a little.

"No use in arguing this thing on its merits," he said, curtly, at last. "You don't know enough about it, and Newbury and I shouldn't have a single premise in common. But I just warn you and him--it's a ticklish game playing with a pair of human lives like these. They are sensitive, excitable people--I don't threaten--I only say--_take care_!"

"'Game,' 'play'--what silly words to use about such men as Edward and his father, in such a matter!" said Marcia as she rose, breathing contempt. "I shall talk to Edward--I promised Mrs. Betts. But I suppose, Corry, it's no good saying, to begin with, that when you talk of tyranny, you seem to _me_ at any rate, the best tyrant of the lot."

The girl stood with her head thrown back, challenging her brother, her whole slender form poised for battle.

Coryston shook his head.

"Nonsense! I play the gadfly--to all the tyrants." "_A tyrant_," repeated his sister, steadily. "And an unkind wretch into the bargain! I was engaged--yesterday--and have you said one nice, brotherly word to me?"

Her lips trembled. Coryston turned away. "You are giving yourself to the forces of reaction," he said, between his teeth, "the forces that are everywhere fighting liberty--whether in the individual--or the State. Only, unfortunately "--he turned with a smile, the sudden gaiety of which fairly startled his sister--"as far as matrimony is concerned, I seem to be doing precisely the same thing myself."

"Corry! what on earth do you mean?"

"Ah! wouldn't you like to know? Perhaps you will some day," said Coryston, with a provoking look. "Where's my hat?" He looked round him for the battered article that served him for head-gear. "Well, good-by, Marcia. If you can pull this thing off with your young man, I'm your servant and his. I'd even grovel to Lord William. The letter I wrote him was a pretty stiff document, I admit. If not--"

"Well, if not?"

"War!" was the short reply, as her brother made for the door.

Then suddenly he came back to say:

"Keep an eye on mother. As far as Arthur's concerned--she's dangerous. She hasn't the smallest intention of letting him marry that girl. And here too it'll be a case of meddling with forces you don't understand. Keep me informed."

"Yes--if you promise to help him--and her--to break it off," said Marcia, firmly.

Coryston slowly shook his head; and went.

Meanwhile Lady Coryston, having shaken off all companions, had betaken herself for greater privacy to a solitary walk. She desired to see neither children nor friends nor servants till she had made up her mind what she was going to do. As generally happened with her in the bad moments of life, the revelation of what threatened her had steeled and nerved her to a surprising degree. Her stately indoor dress had been exchanged for a short tweed gown, and, as she walked briskly along, her white hair framed in the drawn hood of black silk which she wore habitually on country walks, she had still a wonderful air of youth, and indeed she had never felt herself more vigorous, more alert. Occasionally a strange sense of subterranean peril made itself felt in the upper regions of the mind, caused by something she never stopped to analyze. It was not without kinship with the feeling of the gambler who has been lucky too long, and knows that the next stroke may--probably will--end it, and bring down the poised ruin. But it made no difference whatever to the gradual forging of her plan and the clearness of her resolve.

So now she understood all that during the two preceding months had increasingly perplexed her. Arthur had been laid hands on by the temptress just before his maiden speech in Parliament, and had done no good ever since. At the time when his mother had inflicted a