第145章 CATASTROPHE(3)

It seemed as if the effect of these conflicts with her father were to develop in Marian a vehemence of temper which at length matched that of which Yule was the victim. Her face, outlined to express a gentle gravity, was now haughtily passionate; nostrils and lips thrilled with wrath, and her eyes were magnificent in their dark fieriness.

'You shall not need to tell me that again,' she answered, and immediately left him.

She went into the sitting-room, where Mrs Yule was awaiting the result of the interview.

'Mother,' she said, with stern gentleness, 'this house can no longer be a home for me. I shall go away to-morrow, and live in lodgings until the time of my marriage.'

Mrs Yule uttered a cry of pain, and started up.

'Oh, don't do that, Marian! What has he said to you? Come and talk to me, darling--tell me what he's said--don't look like that!'

She clung to the girl despairingly, terrified by a transformation she would have thought impossible.

'He says that if I marry Mr Milvain he hopes never to see my face again. I can't stay here. You shall come and see me, and we will be the same to each other as always. But father has treated me too unjustly. I can't live near him after this.'

'He doesn't mean it,' sobbed her mother. 'He says what he's sorry for as soon as the words are spoken. He loves you too much, my darling, to drive you away like that. It's his disappointment, Marian; that's all it is. He counted on it so much. I've heard him talk of it in his sleep; he made so sure that he was going to have that new magazine, and the disappointment makes him that he doesn't know what he's saying. Only wait and see; he'll tell you he didn't mean it, I know he will. Only leave him alone till he's had time to get over it. Do forgive him this once.'

'It's like a madman to talk in that way,' said the girl, releasing herself. 'Whatever his disappointment, I can't endure it. I have worked hard for him, very hard, ever since I was old enough, and he owes me some kindness, some respect. It would be different if he had the least reason for his hatred of Jasper. It is nothing but insensate prejudice, the result of his quarrels with other people. What right has he to insult me by representing my future husband as a scheming hypocrite?'

'My love, he has had so much to bear--it's made him so quick-tempered.'

'Then I am quick-tempered too, and the sooner we are apart the better, as he said himself'

'Oh, but you have always been such a patient girl.'

'My patience is at an end when I am treated as if I had neither rights nor feelings. However wrong the choice I had made, this was not the way to behave to me. His disappointment? Is there a natural law, then, that a daughter must be sacrificed to her father? My husband will have as much need of that money as my father has, and he will be able to make far better use of it. It was wrong even to ask me to give my money away like that. I have a right to happiness, as well as other women.'

She was shaken with hysterical passion, the natural consequence of this outbreak in a nature such as hers. Her mother, in the meantime, grew stronger by force of profound love that at length had found its opportunity of expression. Presently she persuaded Marian to come upstairs with her, and before long the overburdened breast was relieved by a flow of tears. But Marian's purpose remained unshaken.

'It is impossible for us to see each other day after day,' she said when calmer. 'He can't control his anger against me, and Isuffer too much when I am made to feel like this. I shall take a lodging not far off where you can see me often.'

'But you have no money, Marian,' replied Mrs Yule, miserably.

'No money? As if I couldn't borrow a few pounds until all my own comes to me! Dora Milvain can lend me all I shall want; it won't make the least difference to her. I must have my money very soon now.'

At about half-past eleven Mrs Yule went downstairs, and entered the study.

'If you are coming to speak about Marian,' said her husband, turning upon her with savage eyes, 'you can save your breath. Iwon't hear her name mentioned.'

She faltered, but overcame her weakness.

'You are driving her away from us, Alfred. It isn't right! Oh, it isn't right!'

'If she didn't go I should, so understand that! And if I go, you have seen the last of me. Make your choice, make your choice!'

He had yielded himself to that perverse frenzy which impels a man to acts and utterances most wildly at conflict with reason. His sense of the monstrous irrationality to which he was committed completed what was begun in him by the bitterness of a great frustration.

'If I wasn't a poor, helpless woman,' replied his wife, sinking upon a chair and crying without raising her hands to her face, 'I'd go and live with her till she was married, and then make a home for myself. But I haven't a penny, and I'm too old to earn my own living; I should only be a burden to her.'

'That shall be no hindrance,' cried Yule. 'Go, by all means; you shall have a sufficient allowance as long as I can continue to work, and when I'm past that, your lot will be no harder than mine. Your daughter had the chance of making provision for my old age, at no expense to herself. But that was asking too much of her. Go, by all means, and leave me to make what I can of the rest of my life; perhaps I may save a few years still from the curse brought upon me by my own folly.'

It was idle to address him. Mrs Yule went into the sitting-room, and there sat weeping for an hour. Then she extinguished the lights, and crept upstairs in silence.

Yule passed the night in the study. Towards morning he slept for an hour or two, just long enough to let the fire go out and to get thoroughly chilled. When he opened his eyes a muddy twilight had begun to show at the window; the sounds of a clapping door within the house, which had probably awakened him, made him aware that the servant was already up.