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 http://www.archive.org/details/evelynmarston01mars
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOK OF 
 
 EMILIA WYNDHAM," "TWO OLD MEN'S TALES," 
 I &c. &c. 
 
 " For we, most blest, even when to heaven we turn 
 Eyes bright with thanks for all that makes life dear, 
 Even then our trembling hearts have not to learn 
 
 Of sorrows that are here — 
 Of griefs that dimmed our dearest hours with tears— 
 Of bitter memories, that seem shadowing years." 
 
 W. C. Bknnett, 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1856.
 
 >=r 
 
 ^23 
 
 EVELYN MAESTON. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 " I stood, 
 And homeless, 'mid ten thousand homes, 
 And 'mid ten thousand tables pined, and wanted food." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 - It was a fearful night ! 
 
 The depth of a most severe winter in the 
 depths of a vast city. The neglected wilder- 
 nesses of a great metropolis ; forgotten in the 
 ;, busy hurry of an impatient, progressing world 
 ? " — regions from whence the tide is gradually 
 I ebbing, to visit more favoured shores — ^leaving, 
 alas ! how many stranded upon the forsaken 
 beach ! 
 
 I stood in one of the narrowest streets of 
 Spital Fields — that, once industrious, crowded, 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 and prospering bee-hive. — It was in this quarter 
 that a httle more than a century before the 
 time of which I write, the victims of the most 
 preposterous fanaticism, the basest breach of 
 faith, and most extravagant impoUcy that ever 
 disgraced the annals of man — had taken refuge — 
 Driven there by injustice and persecution re- 
 ceived from the hands of, perhaps, the most 
 accomplished, the most refined, and possibly, 
 one of the most really loving-hearted and God- 
 fearing monarchs that ever sat upon the throne 
 of France. 
 
 They came, an energetic, strong-minded, 
 sturdy, obstinate race of martyrs — martyrs to 
 opinion, perhaps, as well as to piety ; a race 
 of vigorous, persevering labourers, whether in 
 God's vineyard or their own — to recover, 
 by their indefatigable exertions, a portion of 
 that prosperity which such qualities had ob- 
 tained for them in the country of their 
 birth — The envy excited by these had been 
 a prime moving cause of the animosity of an 
 idle, ill-discipUned, unprincipled Catholic popu- 
 lation.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 3 
 
 As ants, when their hillock city has been 
 destroyed, may be seen, without hesitation or 
 despondency, instantly setting about to repair 
 the ruins — so it was with these brave Hugonots. 
 Wherever they settled — in Prussia, Germany, 
 Holland, England, it was all the same. They 
 have everywhere left their indelible traces, by 
 ineffaceable advantages bequeathed to the 
 hospitable societies, which, in spite of all the 
 threatenings of a most formidable power, held 
 out the arms of refuge to these homeless mul- 
 titudes. 
 
 Here, gardens and fruit trees are intro- 
 duced — there, some other invention or in- 
 dustry — in England, among many other valuable 
 sources of wealth, that of the silk- weaving in 
 Spital Fields. The storm had been thickening 
 in the horizon many years before it finally broke 
 over their heads ; and it would appear that 
 numerous members of the rich and provident 
 body of the French Protestants had been before- 
 hand with disaster, and had already lodged con- 
 siderable funds in foreign countries. Of course 
 this was not, and could not be done to any 
 
 B 2
 
 4 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 extent by the less afiuent among them ; and 
 this will account for what we find to have 
 been the case. They seem to have possessed 
 sufficient capital amid themselves to establish 
 new industries among the nations where they 
 took refuge, whilst at the same time we fre- 
 quently hear tales of the greatest distress as 
 prevailing among them, which the charity of the 
 people and government under whose protection 
 they have taken shelter is perpetually called 
 upon to reheve — It is easy to understand that 
 those of the French Protestants who possessed 
 funds had immediately embarked them in com- 
 mercial or manufacturing enterprises, as the best 
 means of assisting the shipwrecked community ; 
 but that it was impossible for them, unassisted 
 bv those in more prosperous circumstances, to 
 provide for the ruined multitudes who fell upon 
 their hands. 
 
 Altogether, however, the state of the French 
 colony in Spital Fields must have been pros- 
 perous. We read of six churches established 
 to minister to the spiritual needs of the flock. 
 Needs which they had been taught to consider
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 5 
 
 as the most urgent in human existence. The 
 bread of life — the true bread for which their 
 soul hungered, must be supplied, let what would 
 be wanting. This was the essential thing. To 
 seek it their forefathers had assembled at the 
 risk of their lives in woods and amid savage 
 rocks; to administer it, their pastors had, in 
 the last tremendous years that preceded the re- 
 vocation of the Edict of Nantes, defied the 
 gallows, the scaffold, the wheel. Nor did these 
 exiles degenerate from the spirit of their fore- 
 fathers. They were made of the same sterling 
 stuff- 
 So we hear of six churches as established from 
 the first in the French colony of Spital Fields. 
 
 Those churches have now dwindled to two. 
 The French Hugonot population has gradually 
 merged into that of the country to which they 
 now belong. Many have translated their very 
 names into English equivalents — numbers have 
 conformed to the church of England. The 
 most part seem scarcely ^to have retained a 
 tradition of the noble and pathetic story of a 
 century and a half ago. The more the pity — it
 
 6 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 was a tale never to be forgotten. A few, how- 
 ever, retain their names, their genealogies, their ^ 
 family records and papers, as is testified by the 
 publication, only yesterday, of the letters of 
 Chamier, as preserved by his descendants in 
 England. 
 
 What the situation of the colony was during 
 the first sixty or seventy years after its establish- 
 ment, it is difficult to trace. The history of 
 trades and manufactures at that time seems to 
 have excited Httle interest. People appear to 
 have thought battles and sieges, and succes- 
 sions and political parties, interspersed with 
 a little scandal about the love-doings of the 
 great ones of the world — the only subjects that 
 would not disgrace " the dignity of history." 
 The goings on of the swarming multitudes — the 
 busy working bees — the labouring thousands of 
 the body politic, were not supposed worthy even 
 of a thought. 
 
 We have volumes upon volumes of court 
 scandal, political intrjjues, of the proceedings 
 of ministers, corrupt and corrupting ; fine ladies, 
 very questionable kings, not very amiable
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 7 
 
 princesses and queens ; but of the Spital Fields 
 weavers — not a syllable. As to the effects 
 produced by this important importation and 
 settlement upon the wealth and industry of 
 England and France, a few brief notices are all 
 that is to be found, and those merely when 
 the subject seems actually forced upon the 
 historian. 
 
 Even in the pages of Rapin, a refugee him- 
 self, scarcely anything upon the subject is re- 
 corded ; his continuator Tindal is equally 
 silent; Hume and Smollett lie open to the 
 same reproach. We must wait for an historian 
 like Macaulay, to learn — what, their peculiar reli- 
 gious opinions and strict moral code, what their 
 long habits of resistance against persecution, of 
 self-defence against oppression, of self-depend- 
 ance and persevering industry had made of this 
 people ; and to trace the advancement or the 
 progressive decline of their community, under 
 the new influences to which they were exposed. 
 That it was, upon the yvhole, a decline, ap- 
 pears to be too certain. Many still living can 
 remember seasons of great distress among the
 
 8 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 Spital Fields weavers, as recurring from time to 
 time amid the struggles and difficulties of the 
 early part of the century. The distress having 
 its rise from causes that never were clearly traced 
 or ascertained, and in spite of a protection 
 to their trade, which to us of the present day 
 seems as ludicrous as it is almost incredible. 
 Whether these kind of periodical spasms in 
 their trade, which occasioned such deep misery, 
 were conditional to its system, or the result of 
 these well-intended laws for their protection; 
 whether they occurred at the beginning of the 
 last century as commonly as at its close, I am 
 ignorant. 
 
 This night of which I speak was at the 
 latter end of the last century, when the winters 
 seem to have been more severe than they are 
 now, as well as the pressure of external circum- 
 stances upon society. 
 
 The poverty of the poor, the privations of 
 the middle, the mingled extravagance and 
 difficulties of the higher classes, in those dark, 
 struggling, mistaken, confused, yet energetic 
 and glorious times, would scarcely be believed
 
 EVELYN MARSTON, 9 
 
 by the easy, luxurious, comfortable, well-in- 
 structed, enlightened, but yet perhaps somewhat 
 superficial race of the present day. 
 
 We want great men, is the general cry : per- 
 haps great men, like robust children, must be 
 brought up, not in luxurious nurseries and per- 
 fectly-appointed school-rooms, but under the 
 influences of brave March winds and boisterous 
 skies. 
 
 But to my story. 
 
 Such a night ! 
 
 The snow lies heavy upon the whitened, 
 black roofs ; and the inky gutters which run 
 down upon each side of the paved, not flagged 
 foot-way, are frozen over. The wind howls low 
 and mournfully around the chimneys and between 
 the high-peaked roofs of these slender houses 
 of three stories, which look, as now seen from 
 the railroad, almost like baby houses ; the upper 
 floor of most of them being distinguished by 
 the long undivided window stretching the full 
 length of the dwelling, and lighting the apart- 
 ment where the silk-weaver is, or desires to be, 
 at work.
 
 10 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 Alas ! most of the looms were silent at that 
 time. 
 
 A court mourning — court mournings were 
 long, tedious things in those days — has added its 
 stagnating effect to the general embarrassment 
 of trade ; a fearful winter and a deficient harvest 
 have done the rest. The state of things in 
 Spital Fields is dreadful. 
 
 In this little narrow street in which I stood, 
 looking sadly up and down it, scarcely a light 
 was to be seen glimmering through the nicks 
 in the closed shutters, all was dark, dismal, 
 silent — yet it was only eight o'clock at night, and 
 there is no curfew now. Not a sound was there 
 but the moaning voice of the wind, except that 
 now and then I heard, or fancied that I heard, 
 a wail, a low voice of lamentation here and 
 there — but perhaps I was mistaken. In general, 
 the patience of these sufferers has equalled their 
 miseries, though there have been instances, no 
 doubt, when hunger and despair had driven 
 them into fierce outbreaks. 
 
 I had been sent by a benevolent lady, whose 
 name I need not mention, upon an errand of
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 11 
 
 mercy to a poor weaver of the name of Cor- 
 nelly, whose wife was, it was said, dying of con- 
 sumption. I carried a little tea and arrowroot 
 in my pocket and a little money, which was still 
 better, perhaps. It was all very well — but what 
 was it ? 
 
 The good lady lived in purple and fine linen, 
 kept a most delicate table, and opened her house 
 to the has bleuSj philosophers, and philanthro- 
 pists of those days. But, in spite of the company 
 she kept, it is but justice to say that her heart 
 remained simple and true, and she helped the 
 poor much more than, according to the fashion 
 of the time, she declaimed about them. How 
 she became acquainted with Cornelly I do not 
 exactly know, nor does it matter ; she knew he 
 was in grievous distress, so she sent me to him. 
 Ah me ! his was no solitary case ! 
 
 I had not the exact address, and I had relied 
 upon learning it at some shop or other in the 
 neighbourhood ; but there seemed to be no 
 shops hereabouts — at least, if there were, they 
 had been shut up early, as if it were for want of 
 custom.
 
 12 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 I knocked at several doors in succession. 
 Sometimes it would be a man, sometimes a 
 woman, sometimes a child that came to open it ; 
 but never shall I forget the haggard misery im- 
 pressed upon all. Famine was written in their 
 looks — ghoul-hunger in their bloodshot, staring 
 eyes. Among the men, a certain wolfish ex- 
 pression of savage misery ; in the women, one 
 of uncomplaining despair ; in the children, a 
 sharp, hungry, expectant sort of look, as if they 
 hoped some one was coming to bring them 
 bread. Poor little things ! how my heart bled 
 as I turned away and the door shut after me. 
 The few shillings I had in my pocket — I never 
 was master of many at one time — had soon 
 been spent ; there was nothing left with which 
 to atone for the momentary disappointment I 
 had inflicted. 
 
 One room which I happened to enter by mis- 
 take, I shall never forget. It was up one pair 
 of narrow, winding stairs, a small room in which 
 a widow woman and her son, a boy, lived. " The 
 silent loom" stood against the window, and be- 
 tween it and the fire-place obstructing a good
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 13 
 
 deal of the light. It had been silent two months, 
 and she expected it would remain silent two 
 more. Her face was haggard with hunger ; she 
 had not, I beheve, tasted bread that day. Her 
 dress was squahd in the extreme ; her thick black 
 hair turned up from her face, but without a cap, 
 and nothing could equal the misery of the room, 
 or indeed the dirt and squalor of the staircase 
 which led to it. It was plain the landlord of 
 this wretched lodging, though exacting a rent 
 of above five pounds a-year for this one room, 
 had not for an unknown length of time done 
 anything in the way of cleansing or repairing 
 it. A few old chairs and an old table, two or 
 three very antiquated, time-smeared prints, in 
 black frames, against the walls, telling of once 
 better days, and a large rather handsome press- 
 bed, now dilapidated, were the only furniture. 
 The bed was let down ; it seemed so broken that 
 I doubt whether it could be put up. There was 
 neither sheet, blanket, counterpane, nor covering 
 of any kind upon it ; all gone to the pawn- 
 broker's to procure a morsel of bread ! One 
 little article of pride first, then of comfort, then
 
 14 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 of necessity had followed — all gone the same 
 way. I apologized for my mistake, slipped my 
 little alms into the woman's hand, and turned 
 away heart-hroken. The account I received of 
 her upon inquiry was, that far from wishing to 
 beg or depend upon others, she concealed her 
 poverty even from my informant, who was in 
 the habit of visiting her to give spiritual 
 comfort. He was too poor himself to offer 
 more than a mite to any one individual of this 
 famishing multitude. The woman never com- 
 plained, but he had reason to feel sure that she 
 had eaten nothing that day. He said she was 
 a pious, godly woman, and respectable in all her 
 habits. I spoke of the dirtiness of her person 
 and room. " Alas !" said he, " in such distress 
 they have not the heart, if they had the means to 
 be cleaner, which they have not." This is what 
 we mean by abject misery. 
 
 But I weary you with my o'er true tale — if 
 rightly placed, belonging to October, one thou- 
 sand ei^ht hundred and fifty -jive. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 At last I found Comelly's door.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 15 
 
 It was opened by a tall, thin, ghastly-looking 
 man, literally almost skin and bone. Once it 
 appeared that he might have been handsome, 
 and he had a courtesy of manner in which still 
 lingered something of the old French way. 
 
 " I believe your name is Corneily ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; that is my name." 
 
 " Mrs. Corneily is very ill, I fear." 
 
 ^' My wife, sir, if you mean ? It has pleased 
 God to visit her heavily." 
 
 " Consumption ?" 
 
 " So they tell me." 
 
 " You are the person I was in search of. Mrs. 
 G. v., a friend of mine, whose name I think 
 is not unknown to you, has desired me to call." 
 
 " The night is very cold, sir," shivering as if 
 the sharp wind entered the very marrow of his 
 scarcely-covered bones. " Will you not please 
 to come in ?" opening the door a little wider. 
 
 " Thank you. We will not keep the door 
 open ; it is very cold." 
 
 My nose was blue, my hands quite numbed. 
 I could scai-ccly keep my teeth from chattering. 
 I longed to come to the fire and warm myself.
 
 16 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 But there was no fire. 
 
 The room was spacious enough, and furnished 
 according to the fashion which still obtains in 
 France. A large and somewhat handsome four- 
 post bed, with red and white curtains, of a thick 
 sort of calico, common to those days, covered 
 with a representation of forest scenery, with 
 trees, wild plants, wild boars, and wild hunters, 
 stood in the farther corner of it. Around the 
 room were one or two handsome and very an- 
 tique chairs of carved oak, very heavy, and very 
 uncomfortable to sit upon. They would have 
 been the rapture of the present day — but such 
 things were not to the taste of those times. A 
 curious-looking old chest, very large and very 
 heavy, stood against one of the walls, a walnut 
 sloping desk or secretary, with drawers beneath, 
 elaborately ornamented wath brass handles and 
 shields, was opposite to it, all of no value 
 then. The very pawnbroker would not lumber 
 his shop with them. The floor was bare, and 
 had once been highly polished, but it was 
 now stained and dirty ; and the large, open 
 fire-place stood, with an exception I shall no-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 17 
 
 tice by and by, empty and cold this dreadful 
 night. 
 
 All the little ornaments which had once 
 adorned the mantel-piece — the quaint brass 
 candlesticks, the handsome sea-shells, the old 
 wooden and ivory specimens of carving- work in 
 figures of men and animals, relics of ancientFrench 
 industry — had disappeared. A single candle- 
 stick containing a farthing rushlight, stood upon 
 the mantel-piece, and threw so faint and flicker- 
 ing a light round the room, that it was difficult 
 to distinguish objects close to it. And as for 
 the remoter corners of the chamber, they lay in 
 impenetrable darkness. A cough — the dreadful, 
 racking, agonizing cough of consumption — was 
 heard from the bed. Cornelly hastened to lift 
 up the sufferer, signing to me to keep still. 
 
 This gave me the opportunity to examine the 
 room and its contents, and likewise its inhabit- 
 ants, for the man and his wife were not alone. 
 
 By the imperfect light I could distinguish the 
 dark figure of a man of middle age, seated at 
 a table at no great distance from the bed, and 
 that of a youth just entering into manhood, 
 
 VOL. L c
 
 18 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 kneeling before the fire-place, endeavouring to 
 light a small heap of wood upon the hearth, by 
 means of a match he held in his hand ; but the 
 wood seemed damp, and as if it would not burn. 
 He looked towards the gentleman at the table — 
 for a gentleman it was — as much as to say, 
 " What is to be done ?" 
 
 His father — for it was his father — shrugged his 
 shoulders and shook his head, in a sort of pity- 
 ing despair. Then he rose from his seat, and 
 carried a glass in which was the potion he had 
 been preparing, to the side of the bed. He ad- 
 ministered the medicine to the sick woman ; his 
 son, who had risen from the hearth, assisting to 
 raise her. After she had taken it, the cough 
 abated, and she seemed relieved, and sank into 
 a slumber, rather the result of exhaustion than 
 of anything else. The two gentlemen remained 
 standing by the side of the bed, watching her, 
 and I had time to observe them by the light 
 of the rushlight, which, in their present position, 
 fell full upon their features. 
 
 The elder of the two was a man rather 
 above than below the common size, well, not to
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 19 
 
 say exactly, dressed, and with that distinguished 
 air which shows that such habits were a second 
 nature with him ; for there was a serious, not to 
 say melancholy earnestness in his countenance 
 and manner, which spoke of one not hkely to 
 trouble himself much with the " wherewith he 
 should be clothed." His figure was nervous and 
 well made, with a slightly military air about it ; 
 his features high and handsome ; his hair a 
 sable silvered ; his eye large, grave, thoughtful, 
 yet tender — the eye of one who had thought 
 and felt deeply. 
 
 The youth who stood by him was of a slen- 
 derer make — his figure slight, his face delicate, 
 but both of remarkable beauty ; that tender and 
 graceful beauty, which the antique figures re- 
 present in so lovely a manner. But what added 
 greatly to the interest of his charming coun- 
 tenance, was a something of force, of pas- 
 sion, of genius expressed in it, even though 
 the features now were fixed in quiet attention 
 upon the scene before him. 
 
 Most of aU, however, was this remarkable
 
 20 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 cast of countenance observable, when he glanced 
 up at his father ; and the reverence, the pas- 
 sionate admiration that was written in that 
 look, betrayed an intense sensibihty of nature. 
 The father, however, did not seem to see this ; 
 he was thinking of other things. 
 
 For a few minutes he seemed lost in the 
 most painful rumination ; then he sighed and 
 turned away from the bed. 
 
 "You must have fire this dreadful night," 
 he said, turning to Cornelly. " How came you 
 to be without it? — Nay," correcting himself, 
 *' I know how you came to be without it — but 
 why did you not send to me ? '* 
 
 "Your lordship has done so much and 
 
 there are so many." A slightly sarcastic smile 
 passed over the gentleman's face when addressed 
 by this title. 
 
 " Nay, Cornelly, no lordships here. I am a 
 poor silk weaver like the rest of you; but as 
 long as I have two loaves and you but one — 
 why " 
 
 " I know it — I know it : but liow long will
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 21 
 
 the Seigneur du Chastel have two loaves?" 
 was Cornelly's reply. 
 
 " So long as God pleases, and not a day 
 longer, my good friend. But at present it is 
 not a matter of bread, but of fire, which in this 
 weather is almost more needful than bread. Say, 
 where is the nearest place one can get wood and 
 coal?" 
 
 " There is a coal-seller in the court at the 
 back of the house," said Cornelly, " if he has 
 any provision by him — but I doubt it ; the small 
 vendors, like the small purchasers, are m.ostly 
 in the same case." 
 
 I now stepped forward. 
 
 " I am sent by an excellent lady, Mrs. G. V.," 
 I said, " to examine into your most pressing 
 wants, and supply them. The night is bitterly 
 cold, and you are but thinly clad. If you will 
 direct me to the place, T will myself go to the 
 coal-man's, and send in what you may want. 
 With the remainder of the money I have in 
 charge — shall I order meat or bread ?" 
 
 " You are very kind, sir. But do not let me 
 give you trouble."
 
 22 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " Perhaps you would better like to have the 
 mone}^ at once ?" said I. 
 
 " Not that — and yet . . ." and his eyes glanced 
 almost ravenously, if 1 may use the expression, 
 at the few shillings I had in my hand — I saw 
 that money was more to him than food or fire. 
 
 "Is it so ?" I said, looking significantly at 
 him. 
 
 " It is." 
 
 " But," put in Mr. du Chastel, " your wife 
 is perishing with cold and hunger." 
 
 " Better die here, than upon the stones of 
 the street." 
 
 " How ?" 
 
 " My landlord, sir — he is impatient — he is 
 not cruel," he added, gently, " he is very poor ; 
 poverty makes a man raven like a wolf, unless 
 the grace of God prevent him. It is not so 
 much that I fear him — perhaps my prayers and 
 my wife's tears might prevail — but I know he 
 is in want, and what is he to do ? — All are in the 
 same case — he gets nothing from any of us. 
 It is a sore temptation ; his children are crying 
 for bread and fire, hke the rest. He thinks,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 23 
 
 perhaps, if he turns a wretched family into the 
 street, somehow or other somebody will make 
 up the rent. This which I hold in my hand," 
 shewing the shillings which I had given him, 
 " will provide him for the present. It is his — 
 I owe it him. I have no right to what is not 
 mine. Thank you, sir — thank you ; and may 
 God's blessing reward that excellent lady, for 
 she has done a deed that is twice blessed this 
 night." 
 
 *' Cornelly," said Mr. du Chastel, with some 
 severity, " why has all this been hidden from 
 me?" 
 
 " Because you shall not, for you cannot — pay 
 the rents of the whole street ; and why me more 
 than the rest ?" was Cornelly's reply. " No, 
 Monseigneur, I will not be the accursed one 
 to dry up the spring which keeps so many 
 wretches from perishing !" 
 
 " You might, at least, suppose me sufficiently 
 acquainted with my own affairs, to be the best 
 judge of what I ought and ought not to do ; 
 and trust to my prudence and discretion not 
 to dry up the sources of that spring, as you call
 
 24 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 it, from which, perhaps, some little refreshment 
 has flowed. You should have come to me, Cor- 
 iielly ; I would have told you frankly whether I 
 could or could not help you." 
 
 "Would you then? — I know hetter/* mut- 
 tered Cornelly. 
 
 " However," Mr. Du Chastel went on, " as 
 this difficulty is relieved through the charity of 
 this worthy lady — through the mercy of God, 
 which never forsakes us, ministered hy her hand, 
 I should more rightly say — there remains my 
 little mite to he expended in coal and meat — 
 for we must have a fire, and a bit of meat to 
 make your poor wife a drop of broth, and a 
 hunch of bread for you, my poor fellow ! for I 
 believe you are literally famishing." 
 
 The gaunt features, the sharp, hungry eyes 
 of the man, when the mention of food roused 
 the animal within the human creature, were 
 shocking. 
 
 " Armand," said Mr. Du Chastel, turning to 
 his son, " step to the coal dealer's, and bring a 
 box of coals — here is a tin coal-box. If it had 
 been of wood, it would not have been there.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 25 
 
 Get it filled, and a few morsels of dry bread, 
 and let me see a good fire against I return 
 with a bit of meat. I am a capital market 
 man," he went on, turning to me ; " and it re- 
 quires all the ability a man can muster, to deal 
 with your knowing butchers at such a time as 
 this, and get one's pennyw^orth for one's penny. 
 An art the poor man understands as ill as he 
 does most things not connected with his parti- 
 cular calling." 
 
 " May I go with you, and take a lesson ?" 
 
 " Much pleasure in giving one. It is a 
 matter upon which I pique myself — this buying 
 meat and such things," he said, as the door 
 closed after us, and wrapping ourselves in our 
 cloaks, we breasted a cutting wind, which drove 
 sleet and snow into our faces. 
 
 " What a night !" I said — ** and what a 
 scene !" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Ah, sir ! could the satirist's tale be realized, 
 and the eye penetrate through these miserable 
 walls, and beneath these miserable roofs, scarcely 
 sufficing to shelter the wretched inhabitants
 
 26 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 from the cold — but quite sufficient to screen 
 their calamity from the eye of pity — what 
 heart-rending pictures would be disclosed ! — 
 Scenes, indeed ! Scenes, ' such as eye hath not 
 seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the 
 heart of man to conceive.' Could this but be 
 done — this great, affluent, luxury -loving city 
 would be awakened with a cry of horror. Man is 
 hard, selfish, covetous — but man is not a fiend. 
 No, God has given a heart of flesh to all. It 
 is because he does not see — because he does not 
 know — because he is not careful to see — is not 
 solicitous to know — that these dreadful contrasts 
 prevail wherever human beings are brought to- 
 gether in large masses. Under no circumstances 
 is misery so hidden from view, as in the narrow 
 streets of a vast metropolis like this — more 
 especially in a quarter like this — this Spital 
 Fields — inhabited by aliens, by strangers, or the 
 children of aliens and strangers — with their own 
 peculiar industry, their own peculiar modes of 
 life, habits, and ideas. Who comes to visit them ? 
 Who enquires after them ? No one — and why 
 should they ? Ought not their own people to
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 27 
 
 provide for their own people ? What has Eng- 
 land to do with French refugees ? She gave 
 them shelter — nay, more ; in the hours of their 
 first need, she gave them her alms. Now, she 
 leaves them to themselves. Nay, not even that — 
 her purse is still open to the cry of their great 
 want ; but what can that do ? A drop on the 
 ocean ! or rather the efforts of a child to fill a 
 vessel that is leaky. Where is the leak ? What 
 causes these paroxysms of intense distress 
 in our community ? That is the question. It 
 was not so with our fore-fathers — they were wise, 
 industrious, prudent, and under circumstances 
 the most adverse. Why can we do so no more ? 
 Is it that the spirit of our fathers has departed 
 from among us, and that God has deserted us 
 because we have first departed from him ?" 
 
 " To discover the cause of this often-recurring 
 period of distress among the Spital Fields wea- 
 vers has puzzled the wisest heads," I answered. 
 " They are protected by all the means a govern- 
 ment can employ — never was industry fostered 
 as theirs has been ; and yet the result is most 
 disheartening."
 
 28 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " They deal in articles of fashion and luxury, 
 for one thing — their trade is as capricious as the 
 caprices of mankind. The mushns of Man- 
 chester are starving us ; and it might be well 
 if Manchester amid all her prosperity, were not 
 still more miserable than we are." 
 
 " How so ? — what do you mean to imply, sir?" 
 
 "I speak from hearsay only — We are ar- 
 rived." 
 
 It was a miserable little shop, filled, or rather 
 not filled — for there was little in it — with most 
 inferior meat — meat one would hardly have 
 given to a favourite dog ; but times were hard 
 then, prices excessively high, and the poorer 
 people in general, most wretchedly provided in 
 the matters of provision. 
 
 Mr. du Chastel entered the shop, lighted by 
 a thin dip candle — for gas was not — 
 
 The girl in the shop no sooner recognized him, 
 than she hurried to the room behind, exclaiming, 
 but in a subdued voice, 
 
 " Father ! Father ! there's Mr. du Chastel." 
 
 The butcher hastened in, bowing with every 
 appearance of the deepest respect. He seemed
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 29 
 
 proud and ashamed at once, to see Mr. Du Chas- 
 tel in his wretched little shop. 
 
 " You would be pleased to want something, 
 Monseigneur ?" 
 
 " Is this the best meat you have ?" 
 
 *' The best we have left — we have sold the 
 most part — Monseigneur, times are hard." 
 
 " I know it ; but is this meat fit to.be given 
 to Christian men ?" 
 
 " It is the best my customers can afford to 
 buy." 
 
 " The best you find it for your interest to 
 provide for starving men without money or 
 credit — I understand. Is there no other butcher's 
 shop near ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir — two doors off." 
 
 " And his ?— Is no better ?" 
 
 " Only go and look, sir, if you please. Satisfy 
 yourself. Indeed the fault is not ours — we buy 
 the best we can afford ; but every one must live, 
 and what are we to do ?" 
 
 "Too true — give me three pounds of the 
 best you have. It is to make broth for a poor 
 starving soul — there, from this " — pointing to a
 
 30 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 joint that looked somewhat less dreadfully bad 
 than the rest. 
 
 The butcher obeyed him with the most ob- 
 sequious alacrity — I should have said — if his 
 customer had been a rich man giving a large 
 order ; but there was so httle to be got by M. 
 Du Chastel, that I could not help attributing 
 this extreme respect to a better cause than self- 
 interest — to the influence that this evidently 
 very superior man exercised in the society to 
 which he belonged. 
 
 " Where may I carry the meat to, Monseig- 
 neur ?" asked Mr. Noir, the butcher. 
 
 " Nowhere : you have done your day's w^ork, 
 and were at supper with your family. I will 
 take it — give the meat to me ; I am going again 
 to Cornelly's, and will carry it with me." 
 
 " Is it for Cornelly ?" 
 
 *' For his wife." 
 
 ''Then, Monseigneur, excuseme the liberty — 
 but there's a little sweet-bread here, just hot and 
 hot. We were going to have it for supper — 
 perhaps poor Mrs. Cornelly might fancy it. If 
 you'd please to wait a moment, just till I put on
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 31 
 
 my great coat, I'd carry it there with the 
 greatest pleasure. Poor fellow ! he's struggled 
 hard, has Cornelly — these are awful times." 
 
 " Give me the sweet-bread, and don't trouble 
 yourself about the carrying it — I'll carry it to 
 the poor woman with the greatest pleasure. 
 You seem a right good-hearted fellow, butcher," 
 said Mr. Du Chastel, cheerfully ; and his whole 
 face brightened up with approbation. 
 
 " This is comfortable," he said, turning to 
 me. 
 
 " You, sir, carry it ! — as if I would let you do 
 such a thing !" said Mr. Noir. 
 
 " Oh ! friend, I have borne heavier burdens 
 than that, in my day," said Du Chastel, with a 
 laugh ; " the only danger is, that I shall eat 
 your sweet-bread by the road ; hut, foi d'honneur, 
 it shall get safe to its destination. There's for 
 your meat," — offering money. 
 
 The butcher gazed at him wistfully. Such 
 love, such admiration, such devotion, it was 
 strange that his red face and vulgar features 
 could express ; — but they did. He hesitated. 
 
 " Monseigneur— Sir—Mr. Du Chastel— it's httle
 
 32 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 I can do Excuse my liberty — they say you do 
 
 too much — greatly too much. It's but a few 
 pence — a mere mite — but you must excuse me — 
 I won't be paid for the meat, sir." 
 
 "Right," said Mr. Du Chastel; "right in 
 you, and right in me. At this rate I shall go 
 far," smihng. " My good fellow ! you w^ill be 
 the first of us to stop, it seems." 
 
 " No, sir, I shan't hurt myself — I am not one 
 of that sort — I take too much care of number 
 one. Never fear for me, it's not many men in 
 this world that's like Mr. Du Chastel." 
 
 " Not many men in this world," he replied, 
 cheerfully, " whose neighbours are so busy in- 
 teresting themselves in his affairs." 
 
 " That's true, sir," said tlie butcher, " not 
 many indeed ; but you won't be angry ?" 
 
 " Angry ! that would be a good joke." 
 
 And so saying, with a look at the butcher 
 which evidently made the good fellow's heart 
 dance, as if he had received the cordon of the 
 Legion of Honour — which did not, in fact, exist 
 at that time — he turned to leave the shop, I fol- 
 lowing.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 33 
 
 I was struck with this fear again expressed, 
 lest Mr. Du Chastel should ruin himself. I 
 confess, in the frugal way in which he set ahout 
 dispensing his liberalities, there seemed no very 
 imminent danger of it. 
 
 When we returned to the house, the aspect 
 of things was changed, as they are by the 
 magic of a blazing fire. Cornelly and young Du 
 Chastel were sitting upon each side of the hearth, 
 enjoying the cheerful brightness, and stretch- 
 ing out their pale hands before it. The half- 
 famished man seemed ahuost as much invigo- 
 rated by the warmth as he would have been 
 by a good meal. 
 
 On our way home we had stopped at a little 
 greengrocer's stall and purchased a pennyworth 
 of roots and pot-herbs, and had there begged 
 the loan of a little salt, for most of the shops 
 were shut ; and at a baker's we bought a loaf of 
 bread, which I insisted upon carrying home. 
 
 No sooner was the door opened than young 
 Du Chastel rose and hastened towards us, to 
 take the httle bundle from his father. A sauce- 
 pan with water was already upon the fire ; with 
 
 VOL. 1. D
 
 34 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 the handiness of an experienced cook the young 
 gentleman washed the meat, cut it in small 
 pieces, put it to boil, washed and prepared the 
 vegetables, cut them into bits, bound up the 
 sweet herbs into what they call a bouquet garniy 
 all with a neatness and dexterity which told 
 more than even his name, what blood it was 
 that flowed in his veins ; and to my eyes 
 affbrded almost a laughable contrast to the ex- 
 treme elegance of his appearance, and the pe- 
 culiar delicacy of hands white as those of a 
 princess, and modelled like those of an Antinous 
 or an Apollo.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 35 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 *' The heavenly faith of affection ! to hope, to forgive, 
 
 and to suffer. 
 
 God more than all things earthly, and every man as a 
 
 brother." 
 
 Longfellow, 
 
 When we opened the door to leave Cornelly's 
 house, such a hourasque of sleet and snow, 
 driven by a furious and cutting wind, met us, 
 that we were almost bhnded. 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel breasted the tempest like one 
 used to storms, physical and moral — inured to 
 meet hardships of every description w-ithout 
 flinching; but the delicate form of his son ap- 
 peared incapable of standing the blast ; and as 
 for myself, I really felt as if I should lose my 
 breath, and was half- smothered. I observed 
 Mr. Du Chastel take his son's arm under his 
 own, saying, " Cover your mouth, Armand." 
 He seemed uneasy about the young man, but 
 
 D 2
 
 36 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 quite insensible to the tempest himself. As 
 for me, I followed them, not knowing well how 
 I was to get home, for it w^as now midnight ; 
 every shop and every door in this part of the 
 town were closed ; there were no lamps in the 
 utterly deserted streets, and not a single hackney- 
 coach w^as to be seen. Every one seemed to 
 have taken shelter this dismal night, and I had 
 half the town to cross before I should reach 
 my lodgings. 
 
 I kept following in the track of the two 
 muffled figures that preceded me, using them 
 as a sort of guide — for I did not very well know 
 where I was — and their presence as a kind of 
 comfort and protection, till I should come across 
 some old decrepit watchman or other, making 
 his rounds ; though the probability was that not 
 one of these helpless guardians of a sleeping 
 city would be stirring at such an hour as this. 
 
 Thus we proceeded for some time, threading 
 these narrow lanes rather than streets. At last 
 we arrived at a more open and considerable 
 jHace, for it could hardly be called a square, and 
 was too wide to be called a street. The houses
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 37 
 
 had small gardens before them, but there was 
 no general garden in the centre ; the trees in 
 front of the windows, however, though now 
 laden with snow, gave a somewhat pleasant 
 appearance to things ; — especially so to me, who 
 abhor streets and love trees. This I could not 
 well distinguish at that time, for the night was 
 very dark ; and by the light of the dim oil 
 lamps which hung over each gate of entrance to 
 these garden courts, the black masses powdered 
 over with snow could be dimly seen with a sort 
 of spectral vision of what appeared to be tall, 
 handsome houses beyond them, looming darkly 
 against the winter sky. 
 
 At one of these iron gates Mr. Du Chastel 
 and his son stopped, and applying a pass-key, 
 opened it ; but before entering, Mr. Du Chastel 
 turned to me. He had not forgotten me in 
 the storm ; I had observed him several times 
 turning back to see whether I followed ; but to 
 speak was almost impossible, and as useless as 
 impossible, for it was difficult to articulate, and 
 equally so to hear in the pother. 
 
 " Have you far to go ?" he asked. 
 
 " To C— Street."
 
 38 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " That is quite at the other end of the town — 
 towards Mary-le-bone,I think — two miles — three 
 miles at the very least. The city to-night is 
 like a city of the dead — a mountain among the 
 Cevennes could scarcely be more dreary. If 
 you would accept such shelter as I can offer, it 
 would give me great pleasure. Come in, will 
 you not ?" 
 
 I hesitated. 
 
 "So late at night... fear to be an incon- 
 venience..." 
 
 " Not in the least. There is sure to be a 
 bed at your service ; and if not, Armand will 
 give you his." 
 
 " With all the pleasure in the world," said 
 the young man. " Pray, sir, accept my father's 
 offer ; it is impossible to endure this cold any 
 longer." He looked quite blue with it himself 
 — half dead. 
 
 I still hesitated. 
 
 " You will not make any ceremony with us, I 
 hope, sir," said Mr. Du Chastel, making way 
 for me to follow his son, who had already 
 hurried through the garden, and was ringing 
 and knocking vigorously at the house- door.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 39 
 
 And as he did so, the storm, which had 
 somewhat abated, recommenced with so much 
 fury, that I was fain to accept without further 
 parley, and actually driven before him into the 
 house. 
 
 The door was already opened : a very ancient 
 servant stood holding it. Armand had already 
 taken shelter in the hall, which was imperfectly 
 lighted by one pendant lamp. 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel and I stood stamping upon 
 the mat, shaking off the snow which had gathered 
 round our feet, and I thought I never felt more 
 comfortable in my life, than when the old ser- 
 vant shut the door and shut out the storm, 
 which was raving and shrieking on the out- 
 side. 
 
 " Well, sir," said Mr. Du Chastel, cheerfully. 
 " I do not think you have made a bad exchange 
 for once. Ambrose, have you any supper for 
 us?" 
 
 " Yes, Monseigneur — yes. Sir ; Madame is in 
 the dining-room, and has kept up a noble fire, 
 and supper will be ready in two minutes."
 
 40 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " She is not up !" said Mr. Du Chastel, 
 hastily. 
 
 The old man smiled, and shook his head. 
 
 *' Madame is not used to be on down when 
 others are in the desert," he said. 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel, with a brief apology, and 
 consigning me to the care of his son, ran hastily 
 up stairs. The young man and I followed more 
 at leisure, and I had a little time to observe the 
 appearances of things. 
 
 The hall — for it was a hall — was lined with 
 carved oak, the headings and other hues of 
 which had once been gilded. When I say 
 carved oak, it must not be supposed that there 
 was any superfluous or elaborate flourish of 
 ornament, such as at that date was not uncom- 
 mon ; all was simple and plain, yet handsome 
 and costly to a certain degree. The feeble rays 
 of the one pendant lamp threw a dim and un- 
 certain light upon these wainscotted walls, leaving 
 the remoter corners in deep shadow, and throw- 
 ing the principal illumination upon a noble flight 
 of shallow stairs, made of chestnut wood, with 
 a rich and heavy balustrade banister of carved
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 41 
 
 oak-work. A very elaborate and very fine piece 
 this was, where the artist had indulged in all that 
 exuberance of fancy in flowers, branches of 
 trees, birds, insects, animals, with a rich abun- 
 dance and superfluity of ornament, which may 
 be seen in great perfection in many churches in 
 Planders and elsewhere on the continent, and the 
 vestiges of which still exist in ancient mansion- 
 houses of our own country. It is an art which 
 seems to defy the rules of all art, but pleases, as 
 nature pleases, by a sort of unstudied profusion 
 of creation. 
 
 The loud clicking of a very ancient, and it 
 might be almost called grand clock, sounded 
 through the hall, the face of which was adorned 
 with a representation of the sun, moon, and 
 deep blue heavens, all bespangled over with 
 golden stars. It stood at the foot of the stairs, 
 the fingers now marking half-past twelve ; before 
 it, a ponderous table of heavy carved wood, upon 
 enormous richly-ornamented legs, was placed 
 between two magnificent carved high-backed 
 chairs, of the most rich and elaborate descrip- 
 tion ; against the opposite wall, a sort of trophy.
 
 42 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 consisting of cuirass, back-piece, gloves, steel 
 cap, and, in short, such armour and such arms 
 as were in use in the wars of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, reflected glistening the rays of the lamp ; 
 upon each side hung two sheathed swords, 
 both of which, by the rich gilding and ormolu 
 of the hilts, shewed that they had belonged 
 to personages of distinction. Beneath these 
 there was another table, and upon each side 
 very ancient cabinets, or rather wardrobes, of 
 rich marqueterie, were standing, with the doors 
 closed. More of the same carved high-backed 
 chairs, of which I have spoken, completed a 
 furnishing, the details of which faded into ob- 
 scurity as they receded from the somewhat faint 
 light of the lamp. 
 
 This lamp itself was not unworthy of notice. 
 It was of bronze, and in the finest, though the 
 severest, style of Italian art. The hall was paved 
 with black and white marble. The stairs, of 
 dark polished wood, had no carpet. There was 
 not, in fact, a single object to give the relief of 
 a brighter colouring to the grave and somewhat 
 gloomy simplicity of the whole.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 4$ 
 
 It appeared to me that Armand purposely 
 delayed and lingered whilst he got rid of his 
 cloak, whilst the old servant was helping me off 
 with my w^et great-coat. He carried it to the 
 other end of the hall, as though he would hang 
 it up ; yet hesitated, and came back again, and 
 gave it to Ambrose at last, with — 
 
 *' It must be dried first." Then he pulled 
 down his sleeves, slightly arranged his hair, all 
 which operations took up about five minutes, 
 which seemed to me unnecessarily long, then 
 with — 
 
 "Now, if you please to follow me, sir,'* 
 he mounted the stairs two or three at a time, 
 light as a gazelle, and unclosing a rich and lofty 
 door of gilded oak, which opened into the short 
 gallery terminating the staircase, I was ushered 
 into the apartment within. 
 
 It was lofty and handsome, but of the 
 same severe character as the hall ; very high, 
 narrow windows were surmounted by dark cor- 
 nices from which depended curtains of rich silk 
 brocade of a deep sombre purple brown. A 
 noble mantel-piece of equally dark wood sur-
 
 44 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 mounted an ample fire-place, where, supported 
 by gilded cMnets, a huge fire of logs was burn- 
 ing. Opposite to the huge fire-place, where, in 
 gentlemen's houses, we are accustomed to look 
 for a fine mirror, another large cabinet wardrobe 
 or book-case, which you will — for it was all in 
 one — heavily but richly carved and ornamented, 
 extended the whole breadth of the wall. The 
 sides of the apartment were occupied by chairs, 
 settees, and tables, in the taste of a century 
 before, all rich, but all plain, and the principal 
 distinction being the magnificent silk brocade 
 with which they were covered. 
 
 The room was lighted by four large wax can- 
 dles, that was all. The only article of luxury 
 to be seen was a large and very wide sofa, with 
 many cushions upon it, which stood at right 
 angles with the chimney-piece, and upon this, 
 what appeared to me, by that bright and beauti- 
 ful light of the fire and candles, as something 
 scarcely belonging to this world, lay. 
 
 A woman of extraordinary beauty, but pale, 
 with a complexion of that transparent delicacy 
 which looks like the petal of a lily flower, was
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 4o 
 
 lying upon the sofa, supported in a half-recum- 
 bent posture l)y cushions and by the arm of Mr. 
 Du Chastel v/ho kneeled upon one knee beside 
 her. 
 
 She was dressed in white, without the least 
 colour about her dress, which was only re- 
 lieved by a plain black scarf, and by the masses of 
 her raven hair drawn simply round her face, 
 and in which threads of silver, ill in accordance 
 with the youthful delicacy and beauty of her 
 appearance, were to be, upon a near approach, 
 discerned. Upon her right arm she wore a 
 large velvet band or bracelet, fastened by a 
 clasp, in which was a miniature; this was her 
 only ornament. She had her hand clasped in 
 that of Mr. Du Chastel, and her eyes — the most 
 beautiful I had ever beheld, literally heavenly 
 eyes, such were the pure light of loveliness, the 
 depths of holy feeling and goodness that were in 
 them — were fixed upon her husband with a 
 sweet half-playful, half- melancholy smile, as she 
 listened to the serious and earnest remonstrances 
 that he seemed to be makina:. 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel rose up as we entered, and
 
 46 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 saying, " Allow me," brought me up to the sofa, 
 and presented me to his wife. 
 
 She held out the fairest, but, alas ! the most 
 emaciated of hands, upon which one circlet of 
 small diamonds just guarded the narrow wedding 
 ring, and said — 
 
 " I need not say how welcome your company 
 is to us to-night, sir. Your kindness in coming 
 so far to visit our poor people is great. They 
 lie out of the reach of ordinary charity." 
 
 I answered something as little to the purpose 
 as one usually does upon such occasions. Mr. 
 Du Chastel placed a chair near the sofa, and 
 signed to me to sit down. 
 
 " You have scolded me," she said, lifting up 
 her soft eyes to him ; " now it is my turn. 
 Your coat is quite wet — go and change it. How 
 is yours, sir ?" 
 
 " My dreadnought has kept me quite dry, I 
 thank you." 
 
 " And Armand — naughty boy ! — how are 
 you?" 
 
 " All right, dear mamma," said he, coming 
 up and kissing her hand playfully ; " but what
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 4? 
 
 right has mamma to talk, who sits up till past 
 midnight, when she ought to be in bed at ten ?" 
 
 ** How was it possible to rest, my Armand ? 
 Only listen to the storm against the windows, 
 and your father out in it !" 
 
 " Oh, I know, I know !" kissing her hand 
 again as he stood at the back of the sofa holding 
 it in his, and looking at her with a something 
 between love and admiration. I now remarked 
 the striking resemblance there was between the 
 mother and son. A beauty in both, rendered 
 the more peculiar by a sort of enthusiastic 
 brightness, which illuminated, not to say glorified, 
 the features. *' But you are naughty — you are 
 naughty — and we are hungry, and want our 
 supper," he went on, breaking off abruptly and 
 dropping her hand, as if in a small degree 
 ashamed of this little scene before a stranger. 
 
 "All is ready — do you not see? 1 have 
 ordered it up here. Draw that table before the 
 fire, and ring for Ambrose ; he will give you 
 something to eat in a moment." 
 
 The heavy table, with its immense claws of 
 dark carving, was with some little difficulty rolled
 
 48 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 by Arm and, with my assistance, nearer to the 
 fire. He shook up the ashes and arranged the 
 logs till the blaze was magnificent ; glittering 
 upon the gilding which sparingly relieved the 
 sombre hue of the furniture, and lighting up 
 the dark polished oak with a thousand miniature 
 reflections. 
 
 The table was covered with a snow-white 
 cloth of the very finest damask from the looms 
 of Flanders, but it was sparingly furnished with 
 plate. Two elaborately-carved silver salt-cellars 
 stood upon it, and the three covers which had 
 been laid were each furnished with a most rich, 
 almost to say splendidly-ornamented silver spoon. 
 Three more of these spoons were placed in the 
 centre of the table, forming a sort of star ; steel 
 knives and forks with heavy, very antique-looking 
 silver hafts, and napkins costly from their ex- 
 traordinary fineness, completed the furnishing of 
 the supper table ; at one corner of which stood 
 one of tliose old things of tray above tray, which 
 our forefathers denominated a dumb-waiter, 
 and upon which half-a-dozen glasses, as many
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 49 
 
 rummers, a bottle of wine not decanted, and a 
 jug of water, stood. 
 
 I had time to observe this somewhat singular 
 mixture of magnificence and parsimony, before 
 Mr. Du Chastel returned. The character of the 
 scene excited my interest and curiosity ; I, who 
 loved romance so dearly, and who never could 
 stumble upon any, in the most homely and 
 prosaic of cities as London was then ; and the 
 most humdrum and uninteresting of periods, as 
 history stood at then ! — I was not a little pleased 
 and excited, by falling, in this unexpected manner, 
 upon something so totally unlike anything I had 
 ever met with in my life before. 
 
 The elegance, the dignity, the absence of 
 parade — the noble simplicity, bordering upon 
 poverty, that surrounded me — were totally unlike 
 anything I had ever seen, though I was a 
 privileged frequenter of many an aristocratical 
 mansion at the other end of the town. 
 
 I had been accustomed to much grave pomp, 
 and a certain severe grandeur in many of the 
 highest of these ; but there was a something 
 altogether different here — an air of self-deninl, 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 not to say of parsimony, in some of the arrange- 
 ments, which contrasted in a curious manner 
 with a magnificence in some respects, that few 
 of the mansions I have alluded to could have 
 rivalled. 
 
 But now the door opens, and Mr. Du Chastel 
 re-enters. He had thrown off his wettest suit, 
 and now appeared dressed in black with jabot 
 and ruffles, not of rich lace, as generally worn 
 by gentlemen, but of white lawn, perfectly plain. 
 Not the slightest embroidery, or the least edging 
 of point upon them ; the silver buckles of his 
 stock and of his shoes, however, showed that he 
 was not in mourning. These ornaments, if 
 ornaments they may be called, were of the 
 simplest description, rendering them remark- 
 able at a time when men were so elaborate 
 in articles of this nature ; and when those who 
 had not buckles of diamonds, usually supplied 
 their place by very showy ones of paste, which 
 shone and sparkled to eyes unlearned in such 
 things, nearly as brightly as what they imitated, 
 and set off the rich point ruffles and shirt frill, 
 which almost every gentleman of the least pre-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 5 I 
 
 tension wore, to much advantage. Mr. Du 
 Chastel's hair was arranged also with more sim- 
 plicity than was usually seen ; but be the dress 
 what it might, one thing was not to be mistaken 
 — the high-bred and polished air with which it 
 was worn, and which bespoke the finished French 
 gentleman of that time of day, when high breed- 
 ing was carried to so much perfection. 
 
 The son was a beautiful and distinguished 
 being, but he wanted something of that air 
 which was so remarkable in his father. He was 
 rather what a well-educated, well-born Enghsh 
 youth might have been ; and I afterwards found 
 he had been entirely brought up in England. 
 Yet he was, perhaps, as charming in his refined 
 and unaffected simplicity as his father with all 
 his courtly elegance, and most highly-polished 
 plainness. 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel came up to me, and very 
 
 kindly again enquired, whether I had escaped 
 
 being wetted by the storm. My dress had 
 
 been altogether shielded by my large cloak, but 
 
 my nether man, as regarded my shoes, showed 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY ^-^ . 
 
 UNIVERSITY 0^ iniwni^
 
 62 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 plainly enough that I had been plodding through 
 mud and snow. 
 
 I had stretched my limbs out, and was drying 
 my feet before the fire. 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel apologised for his negligence, 
 in not having provided me with the means of 
 changing this part of my dress. 
 
 " The fire in the room preparing for you, will 
 not yet have burned up. Armand," turning to 
 his son, '* show our friend " 
 
 " D. v.," I said, giving my name. 
 
 " Show Mr. D. V. to my dressing-room, and 
 provide him with what is needful. I am shocked 
 this has been overlooked." 
 
 "Ohl" I said, "I really had forgotten it 
 myself. My shoes are pretty stout, but a pair 
 of dry slippers, if Madame Du Chastel will 
 excuse them, will be very acceptable." 
 
 " This way, sir," said Armand, rising 
 and opening the door, and at the same time 
 taking the candlestick his father had set down, 
 and which was merely a brass one, such as one 
 still sometimes sees in old houses. I followed 
 him up a fresh flight of stairs, somewhat nar-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 53 
 
 rower and steeper than these from the hall, and 
 not lighted by either lamp or candle, so that 
 they were pitch dark, and the little star of the 
 candle Armand carried before me, scarcely did 
 more than suffice to make the darkness visible. 
 
 He opened the door of a small apartment, 
 almost entirely lined with book-shelves, scantily 
 lighted by a half- expiring fire ; and setting the 
 candle upon a small round table of mahogany, 
 black with age — proceeded to open a wardrobe 
 in one corner of the room ; he produced stock- 
 ings and slippers, of a sort of black cloth, very 
 thick and warm, but quite plain — not the slightest 
 morsel of gimp or embroidery upon them. In- 
 deed, the room, as displayed by the light of the 
 fire, which Armand shook up into a blaze, shewed 
 still more severely than the rest, the absence of 
 the slightest ornament or superfluity. There 
 was no carpet — the floor, it was true, w^as 
 slightly adorned by a few lines of black wood 
 inlaid upon the polished oak — but that was all. 
 The book-shelves were perfectly plain, there was 
 not even a cornice at top — and far from bright- 
 ening the aspect of the room by an array of
 
 54 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 gilded volumes, were mostly filled with books in 
 plain black bindings, which only added to the 
 sombre appearance of the apartment. 
 
 In a recess behind a moreen curtain whose 
 greenness was very nearly approaching to black, 
 the washing-stand and its accompaniments was 
 placed — not the slightest approach to luxury 
 being here visible. A huge jug, of the most or- 
 dinary brown ware, held a plentiful supply of 
 water ; a smaller one, of the same cheap and 
 rough material, was filled with the drinking 
 water; but by it stood two glasses, rather, I should 
 say, goblets, carved like jewels, and their stems 
 with the well-known milk-white thread which we 
 admire in ancient vessels of this description ; 
 the same contrast prevailing here, but in a 
 greater degree than below. A candlestick of 
 the richest, choicest silver, stood upon a large 
 writing-desk of common white wood, placed 
 upon one side of the room, evidently intended 
 for use not shew, and upon which numerous 
 packets of papers were placed. An arm- 
 chair of carved ebony, that Horace Walpole 
 might have raved after, was without a cushion
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 55 
 
 — a tall-backed, uncomfortable chair, such as 
 Cowper has immortalised, was standing opposite 
 to it — but a low wooden bench, and nothing 
 more, was placed near the fire, for the occupa- 
 tion of the master of the apartment ; and, indeed^ 
 the traces of his having sat there to change his 
 clothes were visible, by sundry things being left 
 about. The clothes he had taken off being 
 heaped upon the larger chair, after the fashion 
 of a man who has no valet, and is in haste to 
 finish his toilet. 
 
 The only things that approached to ornament 
 in this room, were the pictures. A large battle- 
 piece hung over the chimney-piece, and above 
 the book-cases were a good many portraits. 
 They were mostly, however, framed in black 
 frames, and treated in a severe and dark man- 
 ner, so that they took little or nothing from the 
 gravity, approaching to gloom, of the apartment. 
 
 I lifted the candle to examine the picture over 
 the chimney-piece. 
 
 " The battle of Jarnac, and the death of 
 Conde," said Armand. 
 
 "The great Conde?" I. asked.
 
 56 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " No, sir," said he, smiling a little — " it is the 
 battle of Jarnac." 
 
 " I am not very strong in French history," 
 I said. " 1 am ashamed to say I don't just now 
 recollect when that battle took place ; and as 
 for the Condes, we in England are not much 
 acquainted with any but the great Conde. 
 Everybody here knows him. But this battle 
 seems to have been an important one, if one 
 may judge by the picture which has been 
 painted to celebrate it. Is it a very ancient 
 picture ?" 
 
 " Yes, very. The picture tells its own story. 
 It is not, as you will perceive, in the first style 
 of art, yet there is a certain heartiness and sim- 
 pHcity in the way the hurry of a fight is repre- 
 sented, which please me — but I am, of course, 
 no judge. I probably love the picture, because I 
 have known it from a child. I cannot recollect 
 a time when it was not hanging there." 
 
 " The principal group, however, can hardly 
 claim the merit of shewing the hurry of a great 
 battle. A man dressed Hke a nobleman, with 
 a white casaque — I think you call it — is fallen.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 67 
 
 and a circle of splendidly-dressed naen in scarlet 
 casaques seem gathering round him — pity and 
 horror are well delineated upon some of those 
 faces. There is one fleeing away, as if he were 
 afraid of a dead man." 
 
 " It is Maulevrier ; he has just discharged his 
 pistol and murdered Conde. That is Conde — 
 he in the white casaque. He was leaning against 
 that tree, for his leg had been broken by the kick 
 of a friend's horse, as he entered the battle ; in- 
 sensible to his condition, merely exhorting his 
 followers * To remember in what state Louis 
 De Bourbon entered the combat — pour Dieu 
 et pour sa patrie.* He had surrendered him- 
 self a prisoner, when the battle went against us ; 
 and he, with his usual impetuosity, plunging 
 into the thickest of the fight, had been sur- 
 rounded. They had seated him, for he was un- 
 able to stand, leaning against that tree. He 
 was chatting with his usual frankness and 
 gaiety with the oflicers of the Royal army — 
 those in the crimson casaques, you will observe — 
 we always wore white — when Maulevrier, know- 
 ing well how best to please the Duke of Anjou,
 
 58 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 the man he called master, came behind our 
 prince, and crying ' Tue ! tue I ' basely and 
 treacherously shot a defenceless man, con- 
 fiding in the honour of his enemy ! But it is of 
 a piece with the rest," he added, turning away ; 
 " few people care to know the old story. It is 
 a monotonous tale — a repetition of the same 
 thing, from first to last." 
 
 I continued to gaze at the picture, beginning 
 now to recollect a little of this passage of his- 
 tory, though imperfectly enough — for who 
 knows it, and who cares for it ? What are the 
 unsuccessful struggles of a brave religious party, 
 strongly tinctured too with Calvinism, and with- 
 out bishops, to any one ? They struggled and 
 they were overcome, and there was a dreadful 
 massacre on Saint Bartholomew's day ; that, at 
 least, everybody knows — not much more. 
 
 Seeing I still kept my eyes fixed upon the 
 painting, Armand came up to it again. 
 
 " It seems to interest you — but it is not, after 
 all, a good picture. There is one thing, how- 
 ever, that gives it value — the faces are, or pro- 
 fess to be, portraits. That retreating figure is
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 59 
 
 the Admiral ; but, perhaps," with a bitter mean- 
 ing smile, " you do not know, or care to know, 
 our Admiral, from any other admiral." 
 
 " Coligny, no doubt." 
 
 He seemed pleased with the eagerness with 
 which I stepped forward to examine the figure to 
 which he pointed. 
 
 " There is some neglect of historical exact- 
 ness," he said, " The Admiral could not very 
 well have been in that place at the time Cond^ 
 was lying in this. The painter's principal aim 
 seems to have been to introduce as many por- 
 traits of the leading characters as possible, with- 
 out much regard to other things. That is 
 
 Dandelot retiring with his infantry But will 
 
 you give me leave ? — Your slippers are warmed 
 now." 
 
 " Thank you. 1 am ashamed to have kept 
 you waiting." 
 
 I had soon made my change — he seemed 
 about to leave the room. 
 
 " One moment," I said, taking up the candle 
 and glancing at the portraits.
 
 60 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " These seem curious — most of them, not por- 
 traits of warriors, however." 
 
 " Of martyrs, sir, and confessors." 
 
 " That is Rochette, that is Galas, that is 
 Chamier, that is Morel, that is Duplessis Morney, 
 that is — " 
 
 " There are others besides. That is Sully?" 
 I asked. 
 
 " Pardon, sir ! No Sully here." 
 
 " Why ? I thought he was one of your most 
 shining characters." 
 
 " With the world in general ; not among our- 
 selves. Are you comfortable ? Shall we go 
 down stairs ? Supper will be upon the table, I 
 believe." 
 
 " I can hardly bear to leave this most interest- 
 ing room. I am longing to look into some of 
 the books." ^ 
 
 " I do not know that they would interest you 
 much ; but 1 am sure that my father would 
 have pleasure in giving you the opportunity of 
 looking into any of them. If you love obscure 
 history, or rather history obscure because gene- 
 rally neglected, you w^ould find much here that
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 61 
 
 is curious, I believe. But perhaps it seems to 
 me worth more than it is. I have lived with 
 these books from a child : a boy loves chro- 
 nicles of dangers and heroism, of suffering and 
 death. It pleases a child, and it pleases men 
 who sympathize with a cause generally little re- 
 garded. I do not know whether these registers 
 of imprisonments, tortures, and martyrdoms 
 would interest any but ourselves." 
 
 And opening the door for me, and lighting 
 me by the candle he had now taken from my 
 hand, he led the way down- stairs.
 
 62 EVELYN MAESTON. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 *' My lands are taken and my castles razed ; 
 My gold and silver have found wings and fled." 
 
 Mks. Acton Tindal. 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel was alone in the drawing- 
 room when we entered it ; the sofa was unoccu- 
 pied, and the lady gone. 
 
 He was sitting b}^ the fire, with the fire-tongs 
 in his hand, as if intending to re-arrange the 
 logs upon the hearth, for they were fast sinking 
 into that state of inanition peculiar to wood fires. 
 But the fire-tongs were idle in his grasp, and he 
 seemed lost in a fit of deep and painful musing. 
 He started, however, from it as we entered the 
 room, and turned round towards the table. 
 
 " No supper yet ?" said Armand. 
 
 " It waits for you, I suppose," putting his 
 hand upon the bell ; then turning to me with a 
 courteous, not to say courtly, smile — " We must
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 63 
 
 not deceive you by these delays into the expec- 
 tation of anything Hke gastronomic preparation. 
 It is impossible to exceed the simplicity with 
 which we are accustomed to live." 
 
 I said what is usual upon such occasions, and 
 he let the subject drop. Presently the door 
 opened, and Ambrose appeared, carrying in a 
 handsome silver tureen, which he set upon the 
 table. This was speedily followed by a small 
 piece of beef, arranged with vegetables, upon a 
 dish of the most ordinary earthenware ; a few 
 Maintenon cutlets, and a dish of lentils with 
 white sauce, all served upon the same cheap 
 material, completed the entertainment. The 
 singular incongruity of which could not escape 
 attention ; for, to say nothing of the rich spoons 
 and silver-hafted knives with which the table 
 was laid, the tureen was so large and so highly 
 ornamented, that it might have been called mag- 
 nificent anywhere. It had a coat of arms with 
 rich work embossed upon one side — a large ladle, 
 silver-gilt, was laid on it. 
 
 We sat down ; Mr. Du Chastel and his son 
 opposite each other, I on the side next the fire. 
 
 " Soup ?'' asked the master of the house,
 
 64 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 plunging his splendid ladle into his splendid 
 tureen, and ladling the soup into a common 
 white soup-plate. " Soup is not, I believe, so 
 indispensable a preface to your meals as to ours ; 
 but in the present case you will find, I am 
 afraid, that it forms the best part of the supper. 
 Why, Ambrose, could you not even afford us 
 an omelette ?" 
 
 " Monsieur forgets, he had sent the last eggs 
 to Mrs. Souleau," said Ambrose ; " and it was 
 vain to try for more. All the shops are shut 
 —it is past midnight.'* 
 
 " You would rather they were with Mrs. 
 Souleau then, I am sure ; but I am sorry there 
 is so little to be had. Ambrose's Maintenon 
 cutlets are, however, celebrated; when we have 
 finished our soup, we must fall back upon them." 
 
 And we proceeded to eat our soup. 
 
 "Master will send everything out of the 
 house," put in Ambrose, as if ashamed of his 
 bill of fare. " Et que voulez vous — the people 
 are starving." 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel smiled. 
 
 " You see," he said, " Ambrose is more 
 ashamed of our lesinerie than we are ourselves ;
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 65 
 
 but, my good fellow, you need fear nothing. 
 This gentleman will be at least as well pleased 
 to know where the contents of your larder are 
 gone, as you were yourself to distribute them ; 
 so say no more about it." And turning to me 
 — " You will not mind hard fare for once in 
 your life, Englishman though you be, and given 
 to consider what we think luxuries as the in- 
 dispensable necessaries of life — for us, this is 
 luxury." 
 
 " You have served," I said, *' no doubt. A 
 soldier's life is exposed to great privations at 
 times. It is a good school for that." 
 
 Armand smiled, and shook his head. 
 
 " My father has learned in a yet harder school," 
 he said. 
 
 " I should think that there are passages in the 
 military life than which nothing could be harder," 
 was my reply. 
 
 *' Do you think so ? — What do you say to the 
 galleys?" said Mr. Du Chastel carelesslv, hold- 
 ing out his plate for some lentils. 
 
 I involuntarily shrank back at the name. 
 
 VOL. L F
 
 65 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed," he went on, playfully. 
 *' The galley slave is not always a criminal." 
 
 " Oh ! it was from no fear of that sort," said 
 I, colouring all over; "but the name is so 
 dreadful ! — so repulsive !" 
 
 " Very," said he. 
 
 " If you had known my father to be a for gat, 
 and I the son of a forcat," put in Armand gaily, 
 " perhaps you would not have been ready to sit 
 down with us. A galley slave ! We get thrown 
 at times into strange company !" 
 
 Ambrose looked angrily, I thought. 
 
 " Too great an honour for a prince to be 
 allowed to sit down with Azm," he muttered. 
 *'What is Master Armand thinking of?" 
 
 I held out my plate for some more soup ; but 
 he eyed me askance, and would not take it. 
 
 "Why, Ambrose," said Mr. duChastel," what's 
 the matter? Galley slaves were at no time 
 esteemed the best of company ; and since the 
 days when Don Quixote paid So dear for his 
 sympathy with Gines de Passamontes — it has 
 been agreed upon all hands to distrust and avoid 
 them. Perhaps," he added, looking with a smile
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 67 
 
 at me, " you feel as if you had fallen into the 
 hands of brigands, and regard these poor relics 
 of a fallen house," — glancing at his tureen, — 
 " as the reward of some nefarious enterprise, for 
 which I was justly condemned to the chain. 
 Nothing of the sort, give me leave to assure you. 
 I was simply sent to the oar for the crime of lis- 
 tening to a very indifferent sermon, and trying 
 to save the life of the very harmless and some- 
 what incompetent preacher ; that was all, I give 
 you my honour. So pray let Armand provide 
 you with a cutlet, and eat your supper, such as 
 it is, in peace." 
 
 I was greatly shocked, and for some moments 
 silent, with that sort of sad surprise with which 
 one finds something realised in actual life, which 
 one had heard and read of, but some way only 
 believed as one believes in history — as one be- 
 lieves in a novel. 
 
 Ambrose looked sourer than ever at this ; but 
 Mr. du Chastel and his son at once understood 
 me. 
 
 " It sounds incredible — does it not ? But in 
 France, it has, till very lately, been an every-day 
 
 F 2
 
 68 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 tale ; — a tale nobody heeds, nobody listens to, 
 nobody troubles themselves about, except those 
 few whose hearts are wrung and tortured to an 
 ecstacy of grief, by the experience of its truth — 
 the fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, wives, of 
 the galley slaves chained, half naked, in the 
 burning sun or pinching frost, to the oar." 
 
 " I have heard of it ; and my heart has burned 
 with indignation at the time. But what wretches ! 
 what monsters of inditference ! what stocks and 
 stones we are 1 Who cares, indeed ? — who eats 
 one morsel the less, or sleeps one degree the 
 less soundly, because of the execrable tyranny 
 and injustice that are perpetrated a few hun- 
 dred leagues from him ? It makes one abhor 
 oneself and human nature — " 
 
 " It is human nature, though — and there is 
 an end of it," replied my host ; " and Avell it is, 
 perhaps, that man realises with so much diffi- 
 culty, or does not realise at ail, the sufferings of 
 those at a distance from him ; life would be 
 insupportable otherwise. — See ! your supper is 
 untouched — the mere presence of one victim 
 disorders you so much. You could not live if you
 
 EVELYN MAUSTON. 69t 
 
 knew, if you could divine, the truth in its full 
 extent, of what has been — what is !" 
 
 " If all men felt as sick with impotent rage 
 as I do at this moment, when an example of 
 tyranny is presented to them, there would be 
 fewer examples of tyranny. Pardon me. Sir, I 
 in toto disagree with you. If men realised what 
 other men endured — if this barbarous, this savage 
 indifference were exchanged for a sincere sym- 
 pathy with suffering which we hioiu exists, 
 though we do not witness it — if men would not 
 lay their heads contentedly on their pillows, 
 when execrable wrongs were being done — a voice 
 would be heard — there would be a public opinion 
 — there would be a universal execration which 
 no tyrant upon earth could be bold enough to 
 defy !" 
 
 " Men would go mad with rage and horror," 
 persisted Du Chastel. 
 
 " Let them. — Am I not right, Armand ?" 
 
 The young man's cheek was flushed, and his 
 eye sparkling. 
 
 " Let them, indeed," he cried. " Sick ! mad ! 
 anything ! — only let this monstrous wickedness
 
 70 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 be brought to an end. Oh, sir ! if you knew 
 it all— My mother " 
 
 " Nay, Armand," interrupted his father ; 
 "spare me now." Then, turning to where I 
 sat : " It is natural — We feel more for others 
 than we do for ourselves. She can forgive, has 
 forgiven — her son cannot. — Take away the sup- 
 per, Ambrose, for I see we have all had enough 
 of it ; bring wine and biscuits, and make up 
 the fire. It gets cold. We will have a cheering 
 blaze to send us to bed. 
 
 " These little luxuries of life — and you see we 
 cannot afford very much of them — have a charm 
 to me," he said, as he seated himself in the 
 arm-chair by the hearth — I having positively re- 
 fused to occupy it — " which, I sometimes think, 
 more than compensates for all I have had to go 
 through. As regards myself, certainly so. It 
 gives a relish to life, which no one but those who 
 have experienced such things can understand. 
 There are compensations most often provided, 
 of which the cruelty of man cannot altogether 
 deprive us. There are cases, however, where, 
 on the contrary, his utmost barbarity of intention
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 71 
 
 falls short of the misery he inflicts. If man 
 could but picture to himself what some agonies 
 amount to, the most iron-hearted of oppressors 
 would shrink from inflicting them ; but they 
 don't know — they don't know — and w^io shall 
 tell them ? My wife 1— " 
 
 "Yes — I understand — your suff*erings through 
 her 1 I liave heard shocking accounts of what 
 women have been made to endure, and have 
 endured heroically, for conscience-sake; but 
 I hope nothing very terrible befell you in that 
 quarter." 
 
 " It eould scarcely be worse," he replied ; and 
 his face took that ashy hue which it sometimes 
 assumes at the mere recollection of intense pain. 
 
 I was shocked that I had said even this much. 
 
 " Armand," Mr. du Chaste! said, " steal to 
 your mother's door, and find out, if you can, 
 whether she is asleep ; if not, I will come to 
 her. But if she is quiet, I would not be sorry to 
 remain here by the fire a little longer — I don't 
 feel inclined, just at present, for rest. But do 
 not let me keep you up, sir, I beg." 
 
 " I would much rather remain here bv the
 
 72 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 fire a little longer, if I was not in his way," I 
 said. 
 
 " Far from it," he replied ; adding, that the 
 interest he believed I took in the condition of 
 the population about him, made it quite a relief 
 to talk the matter over with me. 
 
 " I have not been very long in England," he 
 went on, " and feel myself, in great measure, a 
 stranger here. I have few personal acquaint- 
 ance ; for, during several years, I was as a sort 
 of outlaw from my people. Circumstances had 
 rendered my very name odious. So odious ! that 
 nothing my poor uncle could do — whose place 
 in this house I now occupy — had been sufficient 
 to redeem it. My sufferings at last spoke for 
 me, and I have been restored to my standing in 
 the Refuge ; but of late years things are so 
 much changed, that it is no longer what it was. 
 The evils of an emigration such as ours are not 
 to be calculated. An act of enormous wickedness 
 and folly carries its consequences not only to 
 the perpetrator, but to the victims. Yet, who 
 knows? Had we continued to prosper as we were 
 prospering, when this desolation feU upon us.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 73 
 
 what we might have become? Our wealth 
 might have undone us. Who knows ? God — 
 and he only. What I see about me here is 
 discouraging ; our very industry and ingenuity 
 are become a snare. Mammon is usurping what 
 belonged to God. Our churches are falling to 
 decay; our well-ordered and well-conducted 
 working classes sinking gradually into the vices 
 common to others of their calhng. The Spital 
 Fields weaver will soon, almost is now, become 
 no better than the rest who are crowded toge- 
 ther by great industries in great cities ; — im- 
 provident, intemperate, insubordinate, and un- 
 godly ! No longer distinguished by those 
 qualities which once adorned the French Protes- 
 tant, the despised Hugonot, the present distress 
 of these wretched beings that surround us is too 
 much to be attributed to their own fault — their 
 habits are become terribly demoralized. Would 
 this have been so, had they remained linked 
 together in the peaceful society of their churches ? 
 Not to the same extent, I must beheve. Why 
 are such evils permitted? Awful question! 
 Mystery of iniquity ! impenetrable mystery T*
 
 74 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " It had astonished me," 1 said, when re- 
 « fleeting upon the subject, which, I confessed, 
 very rarely had been the case, " that the mon- 
 strous iniquity in the conduct of the French 
 monarch and government towards this portion 
 of their subjects had not excited a more univer- 
 sal and vehement burst of indignation through- 
 out the whole of Protestant Europe. That the 
 gigantic wrong, the audacious defiance of all 
 good faith and honour, of every law that binds 
 individuals to individuals, communities to com- 
 munities, and gives the slightest security, or 
 basis, to human society, had not been met with 
 an abhorrence too universal for perseverance in 
 such a course to be possible. It seems to me," 
 I continued, *' that the inviolable maintenance 
 of these common, ordinary — I might almost say 
 brute — laws of good faith, is so necessary 
 to the very existence of society, that the 
 mere selfish sense of his own interest ought 
 to rouse every individual man to exert himself 
 for their protection ; — to support them by his 
 voice, his writings, nay, by his arms, if needful !
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 75 
 
 Common justice, common respect for pledges 
 and promises is everybody's affair." 
 
 " Or, nobody's," said Du Chastel, with a sort 
 of smile. " But to return to what more im- 
 mediately concerns us — the state of the people 
 around here. Trade is in a fearful state, and 
 appearances threaten us with a worse. The de- 
 mand for silks is, I understand, diminishing 
 every day. That capricious divinity — Fashion, 
 upon whom, unfortunately, our trade almost en- 
 tirely depends, is forsaking us, I am told. The 
 muslins of Manchester are rapidly superseding 
 the brocades of Spital Fields, and Coventry is 
 rivalling us in ribands. These things will ar- 
 range themselves in time, no doubt — at least 
 so your new science of political economy, I think 
 you call it, assures us ; but what is to be done 
 until they hav^e ? The prices of provisions, too, 
 are rising rapidly." 
 
 " One feels ashamed to be plentifully fed as 
 we have been, or might have been, this night, 
 when one's fellow- creatures are starving," said I, 
 
 " So I feel it, and think our supper had a
 
 76 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 taste of that sentiment," he replied, quietly — 
 " Armand, your mother is asleep ?" 
 
 " Fast and sweetly," said Armand, and took 
 his place by me at the fire. 
 
 " Can the government do anything for us, 
 think you ?" proceeded Mr. Du Chastel. 
 
 " What can government do for trade ? Pro- 
 tect it ? Yours is already protected in every 
 way that the invention of man can devise." 
 
 " There is nothing more to be done in that 
 line." 
 
 " It would be rather too late in the day to 
 issue sumptuary laws, and insist upon every one 
 wearing very expensive silks, instead of rather 
 inexpensive muslins ; besides, what has Man- 
 chester done ? — And Arkwright ?" 
 
 "There it lies too. This hand- weaving 
 against machinery ! It must go !" he said 
 with a sigh. " Sooner or later, down it must 
 come, I see. There is nothing left but to break 
 the fall as well as we can. Armand, we must 
 give up Italy." 
 
 *' Be it so," was all Armand answered ; but
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 77 
 
 he rose suddenly from his chair and left the 
 room. 
 
 "How-wide spreading are evils such as 
 these !" remarked his father. " Yet, what are 
 personal disappointments of this nature in times 
 of misery so extreme? And perhaps... yet, I 
 can never believe the gifts of God were intended 
 to be buried in a napkin... and yet... what busi- 
 ness has genius among us ? Genius for the 
 fine arts, in a community which not only does 
 not appreciate art, but almost condemns it. Dis- 
 trusting art, as something leading to a deviation 
 from the one grand purpose for which man was 
 created. That boy," — he still went on, for he 
 seemed in the humour to be communicative ; 
 something about me perhaps, the hour, the 
 time, inclined him to it — " That boy unques- 
 tionably has, I cannot disguise it from myself, 
 genius ; and as it appears to me, of the highest 
 order. Alas ! how misplaced at such a period, 
 and in such a society as ours. Our imagina- 
 tions are yet filled with past horrors — prisons, 
 galleys, executions, tortures ; or else they are oc- 
 cupied in the pursuits of an industry which is
 
 78 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 fast becoming sordid. What has a child of 
 genius to do among us ? Yet, the attempt 
 to stifle it were to commit a crime worse than 
 child -murder." 
 
 " A genius for poetry ? — for eloquence ?" 
 
 " I wish it were. That would find its voca- 
 tion among us. Such men we greatly need. 
 ...Yet the great masters of the imitative arts 
 have been eloquent — have been poets ; but 
 it was but a secondary object in their lives. 
 No, sir, the boy's genius lies in the arts of de- 
 sign. And," looking round the room " you 
 may guess," with a dry laugh, " what encou- 
 ragement there is for such in our houses." 
 
 " But," I said, " there is a greater obstacle 
 in my opinion, than that. In England the social 
 position of an artist is not what it ought to he. 
 Your son would certainly find himself out of 
 place as one, by profession ; and of what value 
 are amateur artists ? what scope for genius is 
 there among such ?" 
 
 " That observation I have made, and it partly 
 consoles me. Not that Armand's circumstances 
 are ever likely to be such as to entail upon him
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 79 
 
 the necessity of pursuing art for a maintenance. 
 But your remark is just. Art which is not fol- 
 lowed under the serious obligation of supplying 
 a man with his bread, rarely reaches to any 
 perfection. It is not, it cannot be, pursued 
 with that unflinching perseverance which 
 every important success demands, be it in 
 what Hne it will. Poetry alone perhaps may 
 be excepted. Yet the finest poets have been 
 stimulated by the grand necessity imposed upon 
 man at the Fall, his blessing and security, as 
 much as his curse. It is quite true, a mere 
 amateur artist is rarely more — I believe— than 
 a mere amateur artist. But the passion, for 
 indeed it merits the name, with which my son 
 pursues his art, the invincible perseverance with 
 which he contends against almost insurmount- 
 able obstacles, deserves a better fate than to 
 sink into mediocrity. I little speak the senti- 
 ments of my people in expressing myself thus. 
 I have told you the small account they set by 
 such things. Nay, that the majority hold them 
 in worse than contempt — in fear and abhor-
 
 80 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 rence, as ministering, in spite of all their graces 
 and beauties, to the worst moral evils." 
 
 " I have understood, that a certain narrow- 
 ness of sentiment — if you will excuse the ex- 
 pression — upon subjects of this nature distin- 
 guishes the French, as well as the Swiss reformed 
 churches; inspired, no doubt, by the dark, 
 rigid nature of their great founder's character." 
 
 " His character has, perhaps, been misun- 
 derstood, Uke many other characters and cir- 
 cumstances belonging to the ill-fated story of 
 the French reformation. No doubt, it is one of 
 the smaller evils of persecution compared with 
 its terrors, struggles, and agonies — but still an 
 evil — that it tends to stifle in the bud the germs 
 of the softer enjoyments. Men who are con- 
 tending for all they hold dear, not only in this 
 life, but in the next — whose hopes and aspir- 
 ations are fixed upon that better life between, 
 which and them a scene of death and horror 
 lies. Men, taking up the cross daily, agonizing 
 for their wives, their children, their con- 
 sciences. They " — stopping himself, for like 
 the impetuous rushing of a torrent, the flood-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 81 
 
 gates once opened, his words seemed streaming 
 from him. " They, have Httle inclination to in- 
 dulge in the imaginative, when horror in all its 
 terrific reality is pressing close upon them on 
 every side." 
 
 " But now, at least — here, at least — every one 
 is at peace ; and there is no reason why what 
 adorns and refines life, should not be culti- 
 vated." 
 
 " So I think. Though even I hesitate upon 
 the subject ; for who shall say what evils — what 
 vices — what gradually relaxing and corrupting 
 influences, may be introduced under that specious 
 name ? Yet I incline to your opinion, and, wrong 
 or right, have gone so far as to encourage my 
 son in his passionate desire to visit Italy, and 
 cultivate his art, where alone it is perfectly to be 
 cultivated. To aim at a true perfection in what- 
 ever we undertake, I have said to myself, is 
 laudable. Base is it in any matter to be content 
 to do well by halves. Yet, possibly, I may be 
 acting under a false view of the relative value 
 of things myself — and certain it is, there are 
 many around me who think so." 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " I doubt it not ; the majority are mostly in- 
 capable of enlarged views. And those who 
 have a more confined horizon, usually see the 
 objects presented to their minds with a distinct- 
 ness and individuality which encourages their 
 obstinacy, and inclines them to indulge in a very 
 irrational contempt for those who look farther, 
 but whose wide-extended landscape is frequently 
 rendered somewhat indistinct through multiplicity 
 of objects, and the distance at which they 
 stand." 
 
 There was the silence of a few seconds. 
 Then Mr. Du Chastel said, half as if speaking 
 to himself: 
 
 " True — and especially true of women ?" 
 " Especially so of the majority of women. 
 Their views are necessarily more confined than 
 ours, and what they do see, it is with so much 
 passion that they look upon it, that — but I lose 
 myself in an absurd attempt at expressing my 
 thoughts very confusedly by metaphors ; briefly, I 
 think women who reflect and observe at all, are 
 more absolute in their views than men — as chil- 
 dren are than grown persons. They take fewer
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 83 
 
 circumstances into consideration ; circumstances 
 which, if allowed their due weight, would greatly 
 modify the judgment, perhaps — and they al- 
 ways mingle a certain dose of feeling with their 
 conclusions, which is an ingredient the most 
 illogical, hut at the same time the most positive 
 in the world." 
 
 Silence again ; and Mr. Du Chastel fell into a 
 fit of musing, which lasted some time ; then, as 
 if suddenly awakened from his reverie, he started 
 up, and said : 
 
 " I beg your pardon — it grows late, and you 
 must be fatigued. Shall I shew you the way to 
 your room ? You must excuse two pair of stairs," 
 he added, as he lighted the candle ; " the floor 
 above is entirely occupied with my wife's apart- 
 ments, if I may include my own dressing-room 
 in that category." 
 
 The house was still — every one seemed to have 
 retired to rest. Mr. Du Chastel led me up the 
 steep staircase which conducted to the attic, and 
 opening the first door upon the landing, ushered 
 me into a small apartment, neatly furnished, 
 but with extreme simplicity. The fire was low, 
 
 G 2
 
 84 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 and almost extinguished, but the room felt warm 
 and comfortable ; and the roaring of the storm 
 which still continued without, seemed excluded 
 by the heavy curtains of dark green which 
 hung over the one window. 
 
 We parted for the night, and I heard Mr. Du 
 Chastel descend the stairs; after which there 
 would have been unbroken silence, save, that as 
 I stood musing before the fire-place, my candle 
 still in my hand, I could hear the footsteps of 
 some person yet up, and who seemed pacing to 
 and fro in the next room. 
 
 After standing a short time looking round at 
 the different objects in the room, and listening 
 to the blasts of wind that roared and rushed 
 about the house, I was intending to set down 
 my candle, and proceed to undress, when stu- 
 pidly missing the place, I let it fall, and it was 
 extinguished against the floor. The fire was so 
 low that I found myself nearly in darkness. 
 
 First I tried to coax the fire ; but it was of 
 wood, and a few sparks and a shower of white 
 ashes, were all I could get out of it. Next, I 
 tried to light my candle ; but it was obstinate,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 85 
 
 and would not be lighted. To go to bed in the 
 dark, in a place so new to me, was not agree- 
 able. I still heard the footsteps pacing in the 
 next chamber; and thinking it was probably one 
 of the servants, who was still up, I took courage, 
 and groping my way to the door, knocked, and 
 asked whether the inmate would be so good as 
 to light my candle for me. 
 
 The door opened immediately ; but it was 
 not a servant, it was Armand that appeared. 
 
 '* I beg your pardon," said 1 ; '' I have stu- 
 pidly put out my candle, and I should be glad 
 to light it again." 
 
 " Come in, pray," said he : " my candle is 
 also out ; but I have matches, and the fire is 
 still alive, I will light yours for you imme- 
 diately." 
 
 I entered the low but large apartment — 
 large at least, in comparison to mine. Armand 
 broke up his fire, which blazed out, and the 
 flickering and uncertain light shewed the room 
 in strong light and shadow, which only made 
 its contents the more interesting. 
 
 It was an artist's room — his studio, his library,
 
 86 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 his bed-room, his dressing-room, all in one ! — • 
 But it was evident on the most cursory view, 
 that the objects of material comfort were held 
 in the utmost indifference, everything being 
 given to art. A sordid little pallet bed stood in 
 one corner, by it a bath, washing-stand, and deal 
 dressing-table and chair. Upon every side, 
 torsos, casts, fragments of marble statues, frag- 
 ments of oil-painting on wood — and some 
 almost defaced, upon copper — portfolios of 
 prints, sketches by the hands of the great mas- 
 ters ; attempts of the young artist in every 
 style and manner, but all shewing a prodigality 
 of invention, and a facility of execution that were 
 really wonderful. These lay scattered about pell 
 mell upon all sides. Some few^ master- pieces, 
 or copies of master-pieces, were suspended to 
 the w^alls, mostly without frames, and surrounded 
 by every variety of sketch, original or not, that 
 can be imagined, all fastened up merely with 
 pins, or small nails. 
 
 Armand smiled at my look of astonishment. 
 
 " You little expected to see such a mass of 
 half-forbidden things in this house ?" he said.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 87 
 
 " Not just up here, and as I see them. You 
 must want light for study in this place." 
 
 " Not exactly. With my father's connivance, 
 I have contrived a sort of skylight. Do you 
 see it there ? — It is covered with a shutter now ; 
 but the rain drops from it — do you see ? It is 
 impossible to keep that out. No matter ; with 
 that skylight and my window, I get light enough, 
 as I want it." 
 
 " Mr. Du Chastel seems very much inclined 
 to assist and encourage you in every way," was 
 my insignificant remark. 
 
 " Ah, sir ! my father 1 what a father !" 
 
 " You are fortunate in having to do with such 
 a man. We do not choose our own fathers, 
 and chance furnishes some men with rather 
 difficult ones." 
 
 " Chance !" he repeated. " We are not taught 
 to look upon it exactly in that way." 
 
 " Providence, you would have said." 
 
 " When we receive a great blessing, we want 
 some one to be thankful to. — Are you a lover 
 of art yourself?" 
 
 " A most unworthy one, for I know nothing
 
 88 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 whatever about it. But I suppose we are all of 
 us, more or less, sensible to beauty." 
 
 " More or less — yes, more or less — I sup- 
 pose we are." 
 
 " Suppose ! Do you not feel sure of it?" 
 
 " I sometimes find it hard to believe so." 
 
 " By what Mr. Du Chastel has been telling 
 me down stairs, I imagine you do not find your- 
 self under particularly favourable circumstances 
 in that respect. Art seems little understood 
 or appreciated, I should infer, in your com- 
 munity." 
 
 " Understood I appreciated ! Sir- — they ex- 
 ecrate it !" 
 
 I stared. 
 
 " They look upon it," he went on impetu- ijl| 
 ously, " as an invention of the Demon to betray^^ 
 the souls of men. No wonder ! no wonder ! when 
 the gorgeous temples of those who have so 
 cruelly trampled upon them are filled, are 
 loaded to satiety, by all that is finest, and purest, 
 and highest in art. They confound it all in one 
 anathema — no wonder ! no wonder ! They 
 who have passed years surrounded by the bare
 
 EVEL\N MARSTON. 89 
 
 walls of loathsome prisons ; they who have sat 
 chained to the oar, bareheaded, under a fierce 
 burning sun ; they who have taken refuge in 
 the barren desert, and there, amid arid rocks 
 and utter desolation, have assembled to worship 
 God ; — to them these things seem toys, and 
 worse than toys ; they associate them with all 
 that is bloody and bad. No wonder ! no won- 
 der ! But why was I made as I am ? 
 
 " Oh, why ?" looking round his room. 
 " Why do these things appear to me so divine ? 
 — Why does this beauty, this loveliness, eat 
 into my soul, press upon, absorb me ? Why 
 cannot I see God as they do ? Everywhere find 
 him ? In the bare walls of a conventicle as well 
 ■ as in the noble arches of a matchless cathedral ? 
 vjR^hy cannot I love man, his image— sordid, dege- 
 nerated, vulgarised, and in rags, as well as when 
 shining forth in immortal beauty ? Why can- 
 not I be as the rest of them are? Why this 
 inextinguishable thirst of the soul ? Not only 
 to see and adore, but to produce, to create ? 
 Why ? why am I alone forbidden to adorn the
 
 90 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 temple of God with the images of those by his 
 highest gift and power created ?" 
 
 I looked at his flashing eye and countenance, 
 beaming as with a glory of inspiration, trans- 
 figured — if without irreverence I may use the 
 expression — by the divine light from within. 
 I could make no answer — I could only utter a 
 heavy sigh, which I did from my soul. 
 
 I understood the situation, and pitied him 
 from my heart. 
 
 The glow of enthusiasm had already subsided. 
 He seemed a little ashamed of having given 
 way to it ; he coloured, looked down, and was 
 silent ; but, as I did not speak, he presently 
 raised his head and held out the candle which 
 he had lighted — but I was in no humour to go. 
 I longed to hear more — I was much interested. 
 
 " I should be sorry you mistook me," he 
 said, still presenting the candle. " I would 
 not for the universe appear ungrateful to my 
 father. You have seen what a man he is. 
 His large heart can sympathise with all — with 
 everything — even with me. Do you know, 
 sir, in spite of obstacles and difficulties, which
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 91 
 
 to most men would have proved insurmount- 
 able, and which he, of all men, one should 
 have imagined would have found insurmount- 
 able, such is his justice, such his comprehen- 
 sion, such his indulgence, to wants of the 
 soul which he never felt, to sufferings of which 
 he can have little imagination, and certainly has 
 never had the slightest experience — such the 
 noble conduct of that great man, that at the 
 expense of sacrifices which are to him beyond 
 calculation — he has been content to satisfy this 
 burning thirst within me, I accepted those sacri- 
 fices, great as they were, — for, after all, they were 
 but the sacrifices, however painful, of opinion. 
 But there are sacrifices he cannot make, any 
 more than I accept ; — whilst our fellow- creatures 
 are starving, we must not think of art." 
 
 " Then he had consented that you should go 
 to Italy ?" said I, in a tone that expressed some 
 surprise. 
 
 " He had — at what expense of feeling I dared 
 not think. There was something in me that so 
 imperiously demanded what there I should find' 
 that it took the form of a duty — the strongest
 
 92 EVELYN MAKSTON. 
 
 of duties. It seemed to force me to accept 
 what others would have thought it their first 
 duty to refuse. Yes, at this cost I had accepted 
 it ; but now — " we must pluck out the right eye, 
 we must cut off the right hand" — v/e must muti- 
 late the very noblest powers and gifts from God, 
 when He calls upon us so to do ; and I think — 
 I think — oh ! I cannot hide it from myself — 
 that to this sacrifice He calls me now." 
 
 He cast a look of despair around him. 
 
 " When I reflect that if it had but been last 
 year that consent was given, and that now I 
 should have been there, and should already have 
 satiated myself with Italy — that I should have 
 been safely landed there, and it would have been 
 useless to recall me — that I should there have 
 learned that which, if not learned, what is art? 
 That I should have become what I feel I might, 
 and now never can become ; for time, inexorable 
 time, the golden years of my youth, are escaping, 
 and it will be too late ... Oh ! when I think of 
 this ! . . . But I beg your pardon, sir. It is the 
 first time in my life that I have met with a man
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 93 
 
 who, I feel, could understand me. You do un- 
 derstand me — I see you do." 
 
 " I think I thoroughly understand you. But 
 I hope you mistake in thus giving up that as 
 lost which is only delayed. A year or two 
 earlier or later will not decide the matter. Times 
 will mend, and you will get to Italy, fear it not. 
 Where there is a will there is a way, says our 
 homely proverh, and men of resolution expe- 
 rience the truth of it."
 
 94 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "Demon elements in human hearts impregnated, 
 Fanaticism blind in her intents." 
 
 John Edmund Reade. 
 
 The large city in which Armand's lot seemed 
 cast, was abhorrent to him ; yet there, much of 
 his childhood had been spent. He had been 
 reared by the uncle of Mr. Du Chastel, who 
 had received him after his father and mother 
 had been torn away from their child, under cir- 
 cumstances of the most barbarous cruelty. 
 
 This great uncle, Jean Du Chastel, was him- 
 self a son of the Refuge, and had been carried 
 away from France an infant, when his father 
 and mother made their escape after the Revo- 
 cation of the Edict of Nantes. He was, how- 
 ever, the younger son of the house. 
 
 His elder brother had remained in the country ;
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 95 
 
 it SO happening, that under the perilous cir- 
 cumstances of their escape, it had been im- 
 possible for the parents to rescue both their 
 children. And the elder one happening at that 
 time to be at the home of some connections 
 living at a considerable distance from the father's 
 chateau, had been left behind in security, as it 
 was thought, till some opportunity should arise 
 of sending him across the frontier. 
 
 This occasion never presented itself. Indeed 
 that branch of the family with whom the child 
 had remained, was not of a sort particularly in- 
 clined to martyrdom. Their religion had been 
 considered a very proper and respectable thing, 
 so long as it was the distinguishing mark of a 
 numerous and powerful party in the state ; but 
 as it gradually sank in importance under the 
 efforts of Richelieu, and began to assume an 
 aspect sufficiently mortifying to the factious and 
 ambitious among the religionists, the zeal of this 
 portion of the family, like that of many others, 
 had begun to cool. Accordingly, when the 
 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes shattered the 
 last hopes of the Protestants, and apparently 
 ruined their cause for ever, these people thought
 
 96 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 it advisable to conform. This being done, 
 and they having the infant heir of the Du 
 Chastels in their hands, it was not difficult for 
 them to obtain the guardianship of the child and 
 the management of the large estates of the 
 family to which he was heir, upon the condition 
 of pledging themselves to bring up the boy in the 
 religion of his king. — 
 
 The result of conversions, either through 
 terror or sense of interest, is usually much the 
 same. Incredulity, as regards all religion, and 
 indifference as regards all causes — except, in- 
 deed, when still worse ensues, namely, where the 
 fanaticism and bigotry of the new convert ex- 
 ceeds that even of the party he has been forced, 
 or bribed, to espouse. 
 
 In the family where the young Du Chastel 
 of whom we speak was reared, the first 
 consequence had been the result of the change. 
 Perhaps neither young nor old among its mem- 
 bers had been sorry to throw off a yoke which 
 is so gaUing to avarice, ambition, or love of 
 pleasure ; but, be that as it may, one thing is 
 certain, that a mere religion of form succeeded 
 to that which had, with their fathers, been so
 
 EVELYN MAHSTON. 97 
 
 vital ; and the daily mass, the rosary, and the 
 litanies of the Virgin, were found a comfortable 
 substitute for that earnest and conscientious 
 devotion of the heart and life to God, which 
 their earlier teachers had demanded. 
 
 A religion of forms is a very easy sort of 
 thing for those who love the world, and yet 
 cannot altogether shake off a certain fear 
 of the devil. But, perhaps, even an utter dis- 
 regard of all religious observances, is less 
 dangerous to the health of the soul, than the 
 habitual self-satisfaction which arises from dwell- 
 ing in external performances of this nature. 
 In one state of mind, a man in most cases is 
 secretly ill satisfied with himself, in the other 
 his self-satisfaction is complete. A task is set, 
 and a task is done — and there is an end of it. 
 And therefore it must be, that the publicans and 
 sinners press into the kingdom of Heaven, whilst 
 the Scribes and Pharisees are shut out. 
 
 But to return. Charles Du Chastel, the 
 brother of Jean, was reared a Catholic — and was 
 an infidel ; but his son was the Du Chastel we 
 have found in Spital Fields, where at last, after 
 
 V0[.. I. H
 
 98 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 having suffered every extremity of misery in the 
 cause of the old faith, he had found refuge. He 
 had early adopted the religion of his fathers, and 
 no power upon earth was found strong enough 
 to persuade him to abandon it. 
 
 Anthoine, the father of Jean Du Chastel, grand- 
 father of the present man, with what money he 
 had been able to save from the ruins of his 
 fortune, had taken shelter in England, and had, 
 in partnership with a friend, estabhshed himself 
 in Spital Fields as a silk weaver. 
 
 There, like most of his brothers of the Refuge, 
 he had succeeded almost beyond hope. The 
 sound, and somewhat severe education which 
 the children of the French Reformation re- 
 ceived ; their serious and self-denying habits, 
 taught as they were to despise luxury and idle- 
 ness, and to look upon life as a talent for the 
 employment of which a strict account must be 
 rendered ; and upon strenuous devotion to duty, 
 be your vocation what it might, as the prime ob- 
 ject of existence ; had trained them to those W'ays 
 of life which secure success in the industrial 
 career. Indeed the prosperity which almost
 
 EVELYN MARS TON. 99 
 
 without exception crowned their efforts, and en- 
 riched every country where they were received, 
 forms a striking contrast with the fate of that 
 amiable but frivolous race, which succeeded them 
 in the next great emigration, at the end of the 
 last century. 
 
 Ambroise Du Chastel established a large 
 and lucrative business in England, and was suc- 
 ceeded by his second son, Jean Du Chastel, who 
 carried it on to the day of his death. He had 
 married an English lady, but died leaving no 
 children. 
 
 In the horrible circumstances under which our 
 present Du Chastel and his young and beautiful 
 wife found themselves, through a persecution 
 which was rendered doubly severe because the 
 young man was considered an apostate — as 
 having forsaken the religion in which he had been 
 educated ; — in these horrible circumstances the 
 young parents had contrived, at the risk of their 
 lives, to get their infant son conveyed to England, 
 where Jean Du Chastel had received and sheltered 
 him. 
 
 Our M. Du Chastel, the nephew of Jean, 
 
 H 2
 
 100 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 having been at length relieved from the galleys 
 under the more lenient system adopted by the 
 young, good-hearted king, Louis the Sixteenth, 
 — and his wife, Madame Du Chastel, having at 
 the same time been set free from the dismal 
 prison of Aigues Mortes — they had, upon the 
 invitation of Jean, come over to England. The 
 estates of the family had descended to a collateral 
 relation, and been lost to them upon occasion of 
 Charles adopting the Reform ; and they had been 
 therefore invited by Jean to settle in Spital 
 Fields, and succeed him in his simple but 
 honourable career. This proposal they had most 
 thankfully accepted, and they had now been 
 living in this country for some years. 
 
 The ardent and energetic mind of Du Chastel 
 found full occupation in the pursuit in which he 
 had engaged. He took it up as, according to 
 his idea of the Christian man, pursuits of this 
 nature ought to be embraced. Not merely 
 with reference to his own individual success and 
 gain, but with an eye to the welfare of every 
 workman connected with him. 
 
 He was not versed in political economy — a
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 101 
 
 science at that time in its infancy — he had not 
 learned to look upon men as pure abstract 
 numbers, and the science of human life as one 
 merely of supply and demand ; he had learned 
 to regard his fellow-men as fellow-men, and 
 every one with whom he came into connection 
 as his neighbour. How much more, then, 
 those whose daily labour fed his fortune ! They 
 were to him not his *' hands," but his people, 
 his dependants, his children. They had heads, 
 and hearts, and stomachs as well as ** hands ;" 
 and he took care to remember this, and, as far 
 as in him lay, to act accordingly. 
 
 His large charity was but another form of 
 his severe self- discipline and self-denial. He 
 loved this grave and serious view of life ; he 
 hated luxury, he despised pleasure. God was 
 ever before him. His Great Master, who died 
 upon the cross for mankind, and who had 
 bade him take up his cross and follow in that 
 path, was ever before his eyes ; and the martyr 
 spirit which had supported him, chained to the 
 bench of a galley under the burning sun of 
 Languedoc, lived yet, where it is perhaps more
 
 102 EVELYN MARS TON. 
 
 difficult to preserve it. The daily sacrifice of 
 his ease, of his tastes, of his time, to the good 
 of others was still maintained ; and his son, ar- 
 dent and generous, though in constitution so 
 unlike himself, adored him for it. 
 
 There was nothing Armand would not have 
 done for his father's sake, even to the sacrifice 
 — the greatest he could be called upon to offer — 
 the sacrifice of his genius. To give up that — 
 to abandon the cultivation of that soul of his 
 soul — that light within, which was all he cared 
 for in existence — was more, far more, than the 
 sacrifice of life itself ; — but he was ready to make 
 it, if demanded by his father. 
 
 But it was not demanded. Du Chastel was 
 a beautiful example — unhappily too rare — of the 
 most perfect indulgence for, and sympathy with, 
 natures totally unlike his own. To live for duty, 
 to love God, and labour for mankind, had been 
 enough for him ; but he could understand that 
 others might be constituted diff^erently, and he 
 could enter into, and sympathize with, that 
 burning thirst for art which agitated his son. 
 He believed that, if it were not for good, the
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 103 
 
 Creator of Man would not have endowed hu- 
 man beings with such different faculties, wants, 
 and aspirations. The sort of imperious neces- 
 sity which x\rmand felt to become an artist, he 
 might regret — I believe he did regret it — but he 
 would not have the presumption to interfere. 
 He felt that it would be presumption to inter- 
 fere between the gift of God and the receiver. 
 
 He had admitted the justice of what his 
 son so ardently desired, namely, the opportunity 
 for cultivating his genius, by that instruction, 
 without which, he knew, genius in the arts 
 of design is dwarfed and mutilated, and never 
 can reach to its due perfection. There is a 
 something mechanical and rudimental which must 
 be acquired before anything of real merit in art 
 can be produced ; and life, without the assist- 
 ance of others, is wasted in vain attempts at 
 discovering that for a man's self, which fre- 
 quently could be taught him in a week, in an 
 hour. For the individual to have to go through 
 what has been the work of ages, and bring him- 
 self unaided up to the mark of his time, is the 
 destruction of all rational aspiring.
 
 104 EVJiLYN MARSTON. 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel had, therefore, consented 
 that his son should visit Italy, and in the mean- 
 time had determined upon giving him the 
 means of obtaining such instruction as England 
 at that time could offer. Scanty and imper- 
 fect at best — for art at that period was at a 
 very low ebb in this country : he had done 
 this, however, at very great expense of feeling. 
 
 There was one whom he loved with all the 
 passion of his heart, as the beauteous being 
 who had sacrificed her life for him, and wor- 
 shipped as the sainted one, who had opened to 
 him the way to heaven. With her, every thought 
 was in common, every feeling shared but this — 
 his wife could not endure the idea of an artist 
 ^in her son. 
 
 Women, as I had in conversation with Du 
 Chastel remarked, are more rigid in their ideas 
 than men, because it is impossible for them to 
 have equally enlarged views. Nature seems to 
 have denied to them as a faculty that wide 
 comprehension of a subject in all its bearings, 
 which is the crowning distinction among men. 
 
 Claire Du Chastel had belonged to one of the
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 105 
 
 oldest and most eminent families attached to the 
 reform. Through the female line she claimed 
 descent from Du Plessis Mornay, and the blood 
 of the Colignys mingled with it in her veins. 
 She had been brought up in the strictest re- 
 ligious principles, and in the strictest reformed 
 principles — principles of the ancient, strong, 
 stern, but somewhat narrow, school, which per- 
 mitted no tampering with truth, and believed 
 that there was but one form of religious truth, 
 and that it was their's. In this respect these 
 old Puritans and Protestants differed little from 
 the corrupted and tyrannous church they so ab- 
 horred ; and had it not been that no man can 
 conscientiously study his Bible, and imbue him- 
 self with the spirit of his Divine Master, with- 
 out having every principle of his nature softened 
 and modified, often insensibly to himself, by such 
 influence, — it is possible only a fresh form of reli- 
 gious intolerance might have succeeded to the 
 one they so ardently struggled to overthrow. 
 
 It must be recollected, too, that these early 
 and more intolerant Protestants, as children and 
 youths, had been brought up by these very Ca-
 
 106 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 tholics; and the religion in which a man has been 
 educated modifies and influences him to the end 
 of his days. 
 
 As the generations lengthened and receded, 
 this principle of intolerance gradually de- 
 clined ; and it is now long since any Protestant 
 has been found daring enough to maintain 
 the right of one man to inflict death upon 
 another, for obeying the dictates of his con- 
 science. 
 
 Too much of the spirit, however, alas ! still 
 remains among us all. We cannot enter a com- 
 pany of our fellow-men without detecting, 
 wherever the question of religion is propounded, 
 some prejudice of this description still hngering 
 in the heart. It seems the last to be laid down, 
 monstrous and unreasonable as it is. But 
 while the world lasts, I fear, according to the 
 old saying, it will be — " Orthodoxy, mine ; he- 
 terodoxy, yours." 
 
 Claire Du Chastel — Claire de St. Arvennes 
 was her maiden name — was one of those ardent, 
 enthusiastic natures which peculiarly dispose wo- 
 men to devotion, and self-sacrifice. Self-sacri-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 107 
 
 fice seemed, indeed, the very moving principle of 
 her existence. It is that of most remarkable 
 women, whether in love or in religion. Nothing 
 is more beautiful than the purity from all 
 double motive, from all self-seeking, whether of 
 glory, ease, or pleasure, that animates such 
 women. In rehgion they are saints or seraphs ; 
 in love they are angels. 
 
 Such was Claire. Her childhood had early 
 been given to God — to His service and to His 
 cause her life had been from infancy devoted. 
 " It is notable," D'Aubigne remarks, in his fear- 
 ful times — and the same spirit prevailed in the 
 almost equally fearful times of the last century — 
 " how early the idea of martyrdom entered into 
 the daily life and thoughts of the children in his 
 day. Quite little ones might be heard de- 
 scribing its nature, speaking upon its probability, 
 and preparing for it, as for one of the most 
 likely events to happen in their lives." 
 
 In the middle of the last century, when 
 Claire Du Chastel was a child, the persecutions 
 of which we in England have heard and known 
 so little, were perhaps still more really dreadful
 
 108 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 than in the days of the St. Bartholomew. At 
 least, in those, the last-mentioned times, the 
 Protestants were a formidable party in the state, 
 and, however much detested and oppressed, 
 knew how to provide themselves with places of 
 refuge, and to a ceftain degree make themselves 
 respected ; but the Revocation of the Edict de- 
 prived them of, at once, every security. It 
 pleased the authorities to decree them to be non- 
 existent — and they were exposed without de- 
 fence, without the possibility of appeal, to all 
 those details of oppression and misery, which man 
 meets too certainly at the hand of man, when 
 he is entrusted with irresponsible power. Of 
 course, the lower the class to which this fearful 
 authority is given, the more vile and cruel will 
 be its uses. 
 
 Claire had seen every detail of vexation, ty- 
 ranny, and suffering in her own family, or those 
 of her family friends. Her imagination was 
 filled with the dire, yet noble traditions, of all 
 that had been endured by her suffering church. 
 Her church ! her suffering church ! became the 
 idol of her soul — if such a feeling may be called
 
 EVELYN MARSTON, 109 
 
 idolatry — and perhaps it approaches to it. In 
 times of persecution, this passionate devotion to 
 an oppressed and afflicted church, may be found 
 almost to supersede the love of the Divine Head 
 and Master of that church. It is one of the 
 innumerable evils of religious persecution to 
 excite this feeling. 
 
 It v^ras in the full ardour of youthful enthusi- 
 asm that Claire de St. Arvennes met with 
 Charles Du Chastel ; and one of those sudden, 
 unaccountable passions sprung up between them, 
 which we call love at first sight. An expression 
 which faintly indicates the deep, mysterious, 
 inexplicable sympathy which thus binds one 
 human being to another, stronger than death, 
 and deeper than the grave. 
 
 But he was a Catholic and she a Protestant. 
 That they must and would become of one faith, 
 was a necessary consequence of their devotion to 
 each other ; but which shall be the faith that 
 must triumph ? That was not long in being de- 
 cided : the religion of Charles Du Chastel could 
 scarcely be called a religion at all. Much fer- 
 vour of temper, and much devotional sentiment
 
 110 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 were in his nature ; but positive religious faith 
 was hardly to be acquired under the circum- 
 stances of his bringing up. His father a pro- 
 fessing Catholic, but secret infidel, had confided 
 his education to the ignorant priest of his parish 
 — a worthy man enough, as most of the 
 cures in country places were — but ignorant and 
 narrow-minded to a degree that exceeds be- 
 lief — " d'une ignorance crasse" as the French 
 would say. 
 
 Charles Du Chastel, therefore, at least es- 
 caped the prejudices and pre-judgments which 
 might have been instilled into him by a Jesuit 
 preceptor. His mind was left uncultivated but 
 unoccupied ; and in this rich virgin soil, the 
 good seed once sown sprang up in spontaneous 
 vigour, and there were no ill weeds to choke it. 
 Claire taught her lover the principles she had 
 herself been taught — he imbibed their truths — 
 he adopted them with all the intensity of his 
 soul ; but in the consequences she drew from 
 them, he did not always coincide. His large 
 heart could not be narrowed to that close 
 field of duty in which she loved to dwell.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 1 1 I 
 
 Hedged in on every side, it was her nature to 
 desire to be ; but his soul was expansive as the 
 heavens. Claire sighed and trembled, yet loved 
 him only the more for the perils of his soul, in 
 these its daring flights of self-assertion — liberty 
 of conscience carried out into all its consequences. 
 She never cast a thought upon the personal dan- 
 gers to which the apostacy, as it was called, 
 which was her work, might expose him. 
 
 He smiled indulgently at her fears for his salva- 
 tion — he had none for himself. He felt a brave 
 confidence in the singleness of his heart, and 
 the all-seeing Saviour to whom it was devoted. 
 He, who knew what was in man, would know 
 the honesty of purpose with which he dared to 
 be free in his faithfulness. 
 
 They neither of them troubled themselves, as 
 I have said, about the worldly dangers that sur- 
 rounded them, till the bolt fell. 
 
 It would take me too long to enter into de- 
 tails. Suffice it to say, that having secretly 
 married, they had suffered persecution in all its 
 most frightful forms ; — endured by the young 
 and delicate woman for her husband's sake, with
 
 112 EVELYN MAKSTON. 
 
 a heroism that enshrined her in his heart, as 
 saint and martyr, a holy reverence for whom, 
 henceforward formed the ruhng passion of 
 his life. He suffered upon the galleys all 
 that the man of soft and elegant habits, refined 
 tastes, and exquisite moral and physical sensi- 
 bility — has to suffer under that execrable form 
 of penal infliction. Yet to him it was as no- 
 thing. His thoughts were ever in that prison 
 of Aigues-Mortes, into which his wife had been 
 thrown, after having been tortured by the infu- 
 riated soldiers, because she would not betray 
 the place of her husband's concealment, and 
 thus enable them to obtain the price put upon 
 his head. Her nerves shattered, her health and 
 spirits destroyed, long did she expiate, in that 
 dismal prison, her love and fidelity to him. 
 
 The tow^er of Constance at Aigues-Mortes, 
 into which Claire was cast, and where she lan- 
 guished ten years, is thus described by Bun- 
 gener, in his interesting work Trois Sei^mons 
 sous Louis Quinze, 
 
 " Two large round chambers situated one above 
 the other, and filling up the whole of the tower —
 
 EVELYN MARS TON. 113 
 
 The one below only receives light through the 
 upper one, by means of a hole of about six feet 
 in diameter ; the one above is only lighted by a 
 similar hole, placed in the centre of the vaulted 
 roof. Through this hole above, the smoke 
 finds issue, and the air entrance, and with the 
 air rain, wind, snow, and cold, as the case may 
 be." 
 
 In this place, so late as the middle of the 
 very last century — (within five-and-thirty years 
 indeed of the beginning of the present — not a 
 century ago !) — ^lived and died within the royal 
 prison — locked in by the holy Catholic church — 
 a number of poor women, guilty of no fault in 
 the w^orld but this, that they had gone to offer 
 prayers to God in the desert with their brothers 
 in the faith, or might have sent their children 
 there, or else had refused to betray the men 
 who ministered to their spiritual need. Many 
 have been here fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years. 
 Marie Durand, thirty; Anne Gaussaint, thirty- 
 eight. 
 
 In vain were petitions made in their behalf 
 by Protestants and Catholics, Frenchmen and 
 
 VOL, L I
 
 114 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 foreigners. The more innocent they were, the 
 less their chance of redress. To release them 
 would have been in a manner to acknowledge 
 that they had been unjustly incarcerated ! 
 
 At last the lovers, the severed husband and 
 the devoted wife, were suffered to meet again 
 — but how ? 
 
 He, an aged man, bronzed with toil, his hair 
 grizzled, his figure bent with the intensity of 
 labour; but he was of a strong constitution, 
 and he recovered this in time. She, trembling, 
 wasted, attenuated, with scarcely breath or spirits 
 left to enjoy the air and sun to which she was 
 at last restored. The air chilled, the light of 
 the sun amazed and dazzled her ; the cheerful 
 sounds of life startled and made her shiver 
 from head to foot with inexplicable terrors ! 
 
 The intensity of these symptoms gradually 
 wore away ; but her constitution never rallied. 
 It had received too severe a shock — some mys- 
 terious internal injury, it is probable there was
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 115 
 
 — but, however, that might be, she continued 
 in languishing health from that time to the 
 day of her death — though she lived many 
 years. 
 
 She lay there as I had seen her ; a sufferer 
 incapable of action, patiently enduring the con- 
 sequences of her long and horrible martyrdom. 
 Cheered by the intense devotion of her husband, 
 and by the love and attentions of her son ; 
 occupied more than ever with the interests of 
 her religion, and still more earnest, if possible, 
 in her sense of its demands. It had been the 
 secret hope and wish of her heart, that her son 
 should become a minister in the church of the 
 Refuge in London ; her distress, therefore, may 
 be imagined, when she discovered how different 
 an object he had proposed to himself in Hfe ; and 
 how totally alien to all hopes of this sort was 
 the turn of his disposition and talents. 
 
 So thoughtful, so gentle, yet so enthusiastic, 
 eloquent, and imaginative, what might he not 
 have been in the pulpit ? Were all these fine 
 talents to be wasted — worse than wasted — in 
 the mere cultivation of an art ? An art which 
 
 I 2
 
 116 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 she could hardly call evil ; yet which it was im- 
 possible for her to look upon as altogether 
 blameless. 
 
 Persecution has a tendency to narrow the 
 views of the sufferers, as well as to harden the 
 hearts of the inflictors. It must be a fine and 
 strong intellect which can resist this, and come 
 forth from suffering in the cause of God, into 
 his bright, beautiful, multitudinous creation, 
 and believe that everything in it which is good 
 — is good. A dark shadow had fallen upon 
 Claire's imagination, and all the more festive 
 part of this world's Ufe, however innocent, was 
 as much in discord with the tenor of her 
 thoughts and feehngs, as gay music in the house 
 of death. 
 
 Du Chastel had endeavoured long and vainly 
 to overcome these scruples upon the part of 
 his wife ; all he could obtain in return for his 
 arguments, was submission, perfectly gentle and 
 uncomplaining, but w^iich evidently cost her so 
 much, that he felt it, for some time, impossible 
 to accept it from the saintly sufferer and martyr ; 
 and Armand had acquiesced in the sentiment.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 117 
 
 His education, therefore, in art, had till now 
 been almost entirely linaited to what he could 
 do unassisted for himself, and he was now in 
 his eighteenth year ; but his persevering in- 
 dustry and self-denial, which it could not be 
 concealed from her, cost her son so much, 
 began, by degrees, to produce its effect upon the 
 mother's heart. 
 
 She was beginning to yield to the repre- 
 sentations of her husband, and her direct oppo- 
 sition had been lately withdrawn ; so that Ar- 
 mand was making preparations to visit Italy, 
 — when events of the period in which I 
 first became acquainted with them had altered, 
 for the present, all their ideas upon the subject. 
 The misery which had swept like a flood over 
 their little community, absorbed every other 
 consideration.
 
 118 EVELYN MAESTON. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 '* For these, I felt the sickness and the weariness of 
 
 heart 
 Of him who feels the hollow shows in which he bore no 
 
 part; 
 
 The heaviness and languor of the hope that he hath tried, 
 
 Conventions lie. . , . " 
 
 John Edmund Reade. 
 
 " What are my ' hands ' to me ?" said Mr. 
 Marston to Du Chastel ; " I pay them the mar- 
 ket price for their labour, and so we are quits. 
 It's their own fault — the improvident rascals ! 
 Why don't they lay by against a rainy day ? 
 Why, Mr. Du Chastel, you astonish me — with 
 such notions as yours, we should all be in the 
 Gazette in six months — (as you will be some of 
 these days, my fine fellow);" added he to himself, 
 but he did not say this aloud. Mr. Du Chasters 
 character and manner imposed even upon Mr. 
 Marston, hard, and gross, and self-opinionated, as 
 he was.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 119 
 
 " I cannot see the matter in that light'' — 
 was all Mr. Du Chastel said in reply ; but he 
 also had a reserve in his own mind ; and thus 
 as the two parted, and Du Chastel slowly 
 turned his steps homeward, did they form 
 themselves into mental words — if the expres- 
 sion may be permitted. 
 
 " Certainly, not in his light do I see it — 
 and God grant that I never may. I cannot 
 separate the interests of those on whose labour 
 I exist, from my own. There is, and ought 
 to be, reciprocation. God did not send us into 
 this world for the mere purposes of selfish 
 acquisition. It is base and monstrous to ima- 
 gine so. He whom I maintain, and who 
 contributes to maintain me, becomes a relation — 
 Relation — What is relation ? Not merely a con- 
 nectiuii of blood, but of contiguity also. The 
 immutable, indefeasible laws of civil justice, of 
 the mere debtor and creditor account of jus- 
 tice it may be, acquits me from further obli- 
 gation when the wage contracted for is paid ; 
 but is such the law of Christ ? Nay, are such 
 the dictates of the most ordinary feeUngs of 
 a heart of flesh! They do greatly err who
 
 120 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 teach such doctrines — a strange, unnatural pro- 
 duction of an age professing universal brother- 
 hood and philanthropy. This cold severance 
 between the interests of the employer and the 
 employed ! Marston is a hard man by nature, 
 that is evident ; but his principles carried out 
 into habitual action, would harden the softest 
 heart ; and the fatal habit of turning the eye 
 from suffering, having once adopted the princi- 
 ple that it is no concern of ours, renders sym- 
 pathy or pity alike impossible." 
 
 So he mused for a short time : but the mis- 
 takes of others seldom occupied his thoughts 
 long ; his own life and purpose lay clear and 
 distinct before him — there should be no sorrow 
 or suffering that it was within his power by any 
 exertion or any sacrifice to prevent. 
 
 Mr. Marston walked homewards meditating 
 upon the immense advantage he should receive 
 from a bargain he had just concluded in raw 
 cotton. He was himself in possession of cer- 
 tain private intelligence, by which he was as- 
 sured there would speedily be a great fall in the 
 market. He had managed to dispose of a very 
 large quantity of the above merchandise at the
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 121 
 
 present price, assured that a heavy depreciation 
 would take place in the course of a few days. 
 It proved as he anticipated. The man with 
 whom he had concluded the bargain was ruined, 
 Mr. Marston pocketted tens of thousands, and 
 proposed adding a new wing to his cotton factory 
 in Lancashire. 
 
 After having exhausted the self-congratulation 
 upon the topic above-mentioned, his thoughts 
 wandered on to the subject of wages and periods 
 of labour ; and he was not long in calculating 
 the great loss which arose from the time, small 
 as it then was, allotted to recreation and rest. 
 Would it not be possible to abridge this ? 
 And yet it was true his hands laboured night 
 and day. The wheel of that mighty machine 
 for calico-making — that machine composed of 
 so many human heads and palpitating hearts, and 
 so many whizzing, ever-circhng wheels-^never 
 stood still, except, indeed, upon the Sabbath ; for 
 that, God, not man, had taken care. But upon 
 week days, or rather nights, the long line of 
 light from the windows of his factory — of all 
 factories in those days — might be seen, so soon 
 as twilight closed, gleaming from end to end ;
 
 122 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 and within, weary little children pining for sleep, 
 were being kept awake by the strap, and youths 
 and young maidens, labouring through the fever- 
 ish hours of night, were laying the foundation 
 in their exhausted frames of that fearful scrofula, 
 which was the normal condition of a cotton 
 girl or boy in those days. 
 
 Those things are past now — but they have 
 left a lesson behind them. We look with horror 
 upon them, at this time of day ; but let us re- 
 member how long they were suffered to exist 
 in a society of men, I suppose, upon the whole, 
 pretty nearly as good as ourselves, and let us 
 beware of use, beware of being used to evil and 
 wrongs; let us remember the opposition that 
 was made in that day to the making night-work 
 illegal, just as it has been in ours, to the reason- 
 able limitation of day labour. How the enact- 
 ment was to be the ruin of trade, and with it, 
 forsooth, the miserable victims who were half, 
 and only half, fed by that trade. Let us not 
 forget the difficulties with which the Ten Hours* 
 Bill had to contend. The opposition made to 
 it by men neither unprincipled nor hard-hearted ; 
 and let us beware — beware of the insensibility
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 123 
 
 of custom, and refuse to rest, till the monstrous 
 ills yet remaining in our system are swept 
 away. 
 
 And one of the greater magnitude surely is, 
 this indifference professed and practised by ma- 
 nufacturers for their " hands,^' whether working 
 in factories or in their own chambers. Were 
 the real relation which exists between employer 
 and employed thoroughly understood, and con- 
 scientiously acted upon — as it is, thank God ! in 
 some of our largest establishments in London*" — 
 the evils of our vast industrial system would be 
 almost at an end. 
 
 Little thought or cared Mr. Marston for 
 general questions of this nature. Little thought 
 or cared he how many little children drooped 
 and died, how many young women lay tor- 
 tured with consumptive scrofula ; how many 
 young men drooped and dwindled, fell into 
 crippled premature old age, in consequence of 
 the unnatural system of night-work ; he thought 
 no more of them than of the wheels and 
 
 * Some of the great breweries, and Price's Candle 
 Factory, for instance.
 
 124 EVELYN MAKSTON. 
 
 shafts for ever turning, and of the wear and 
 tear resulting from their rapid motion. 
 
 The scarcity was general ; the sufferings of 
 the working classes were not confined to Spital 
 Fields, though there, from the present decHne 
 in trade, they were more especially severe. 
 Did Mr. Marston trouble himself with think- 
 ing how to feed his famishing " hands ?" Oh, 
 no; the minimum of wages at which they 
 could possibly be kept alive, in the present 
 scarcity, so that their diminution might not 
 upset the labour market — ay, he called it the 
 market — was what he looked after. 
 
 The thoughts of Du Chastel, as he continued 
 his walk homewards, had, like those of Mr. 
 Marston, returned from general speculations to 
 matterc nearer home — his starving fellow la- 
 bourers in Spital Fields. What was it possible 
 to do ? He had already reduced his own ex- 
 penses to the lowest conceivable degree ; but 
 how fill that yawning gulf of every day increas- 
 ing famine, and every day diminished resources ? 
 He had purchased their silks, and kept his own 
 weavers at work, as long as his resources lasted ;
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 125 
 
 but they were now beginning to fail. Fashion 
 had, as I have said, suddenly changed ; and the 
 rich brocades and satins once universally called 
 for, lay in neglected bales in the warehouses. 
 Muslins, light Manchester chintzes, were the 
 only wear. They robed themselves, hke nymphs 
 in all the simplicity of the antique — those fair 
 leaders of ton — and talked of the sufferings of 
 beetles and worms, and their fellow -creatures 
 a few hundred yards off, were perishing in an ut- 
 terness of destitution and misery, that the poor 
 of large towns only know. Yet we must not be 
 severe upon these fair votaries of fashion ; they 
 really knew nothing about this misery — hard- 
 heartedness is mostly but a form of ignorance. 
 
 Armand entered into all his father's feehngs. 
 Of course the journey to Italy was for the pre- 
 sent given up. The sole object which they, 
 living in the heart of all this misery, could attend 
 to, was the relief of it. 
 
 At length, in the very midst of that fearful 
 winter, light sprang up. 
 
 Mr. Du Chastel's warehouses were, as I have 
 said, weighed down with bales of rich silks, for
 
 126 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 which he could find no demand whatever. As 
 long as there was a possibility of finding the 
 means, he had still persisted in giving work to 
 his people — that is, the raw material of silk, and 
 the patterns which the master-weaver supplies 
 to the looms that are worked in the private 
 houses. He thought — whether wrongly or 
 rightly, let wiser than myself decide — that, at all 
 events, it was better to supply work as long as 
 possible, than endeavour to maintain the weavers 
 in idleness. The consequence was, that he had 
 an immense stock of manufactured goods upon 
 his hands, and the deficiency in the demand had 
 far exceeded his worst anticipations. Just as 
 he beheld with dismay his resources altogether 
 about to fail him, from the impossibility of dis- 
 posing of the vast amount of dead stock thus ac- 
 cumulated, hope sprung up from an unexpected 
 quarter. An opening appeared in the East. A 
 large order was ^ offered him from the Levant 
 market. From some cause or other not worth 
 explaining, there was a sudden demand for 
 goods of the description above-mentioned ; and 
 the proposal was made to Du Chastel — not
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 127 
 
 only to purchase the goods already in his hands, 
 but to furnish a large additional supply. There 
 were, however, some considerable drawbacks to 
 this apparently advantageous proposal. Long 
 credit was demanded ; and Du Chastel's resources 
 were already exhausted. 
 
 His advances had been so large, to keep his 
 workmen in employment, that the stock accu- 
 mulated had absorbed almost the whole of the 
 capital he could command. 
 
 Upon the other hand, the credit of the par- 
 ties who desired to enter into this contract ap- 
 peared to be unquestionable, were it but possible 
 to keep things going till the returns should 
 come in. This, so far as the stock in hand 
 was concerned, w^as not a matter of much mo- 
 ment ; the capital lay locked up in it now, and 
 for how much longer it might so remain, was 
 impossible to say. This present offer would, 
 though at the end of a considerable period, re- 
 lease it ; but how find the means of completing 
 the order — of continuing to furnish goods not 
 yet in existence, and the means to produce which, 
 in the first instance, it was so difficult to obtain.
 
 128 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 And yet to relinquish the plan — to lose so 
 fair an opportunity, not only for rescuing the 
 weavers from their present almost intolerable 
 distress, but, by opening a new branch of 
 commerce, when trade, in some fresh quarter, 
 was so greatly wanted ; and which, if re- 
 jected, would in all probability be carried else- 
 where, to Derby and other northern manufac- 
 turing towns, which were starting up in fear- 
 ful competition with the old industry of Spital 
 Fields, was — a thought not to be endured. 
 
 Du Chastel was thrown into a state of the 
 most anxious deliberation. 
 
 He met his brothers in the trade upon the 
 subject of this important affair ; but he found 
 them cautious and cold. Few of them retained 
 those ideas of Christian duty, and strong Chris- 
 tian reliance, which had distinguished their an- 
 cestors of old. The scoffing, incredulous spirit 
 of the day, had found its way among these 
 descendants of those brave old men of God, 
 who had risked every possession upon earth in 
 the cause of their religion. Nay, it would seem 
 not only here, but in Scotland and elsewhere in
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 129 
 
 England, the very families whose ancestors had 
 been most distinguished for the austerity of their 
 religious opinions, were among the most nume- 
 rous of those who fell into apostacy. 
 
 Du Chastel found no responsive feeling 
 among his fellow master-weavers. They were 
 most of them as indifferent to any duties con- 
 nected with their " hands," as Mr. Marston him- 
 self could be. They were moreover, in general, 
 in considerable embarrassment themselves, owing 
 to the unfortunate competition of trade. They 
 were discontented and turbulent, inclined to the 
 loose social principles then beginning to prevail 
 upon the other side the water — restless, impa- 
 tient for change — any change seeming as if it 
 must benefit them. Mr. Du Chastel's repre- 
 sentations were met with indifference, or civil 
 contempt. The most part had far other schemes 
 in their head, for the relief of the present 
 misery. He talked of work and a market — they 
 of the rights of man, and the oppressions of the 
 great. He inquired whether it would be pos- 
 sible, by united capital, to open a fresh branch 
 of trade — they of new restrictions, duties, and 
 
 VOL. 1. K
 
 1 30 . EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 sumptuary laws. They would have women 
 forced to wear satins and velvets, as the liberty 
 boys in Birmingham half murdered men who 
 wore shoe ties. In brief, there was nothing to 
 be done with them. 
 
 Du Chastel found himself standing alone, and 
 a sort of stranger, with his chivalric Christianity, 
 in this dawn of other days. He saw there was 
 nothing to be hoped for, but from his own per- 
 sonal exertions ; and he turned to himself, and 
 cast himself upon Him who is Lord and Master 
 of all. 
 
 Long and seriously did he ponder the matter 
 before he took advice of any one but of that 
 secret Counsellor, who speaks through the pure, 
 honest dictates of the conscience and under- 
 standing, to those who stand still and listen. 
 
 The good to be hoped for was really enor- 
 mous. 
 
 So many silent looms at once restored to 
 activity, and the cheerful sound of the treddles 
 substituted for the mute despair of unbroken 
 stillness ! Bread and fire, and clothing, in every 
 home ! The pinched features, the staring,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 131 
 
 wolfish eye of famine, exchanged for cheerful 
 smiles and healthy action — life for death — joy 
 for woe unutterable — hope ! sunshine ! peace ! 
 
 Was it an argument against this, that the 
 good would, after all, be only partial ? — that the 
 order, large as it was, would only employ a few ? 
 
 A few ! One, two, three, twenty, thirty, 
 forty, a hundred families, snatched from this ex- 
 tremity of misery, and restored to comfort and 
 happiness ! Was that nothing, because it could 
 not be all ? 
 
 That a good will be limited, is that an ar- 
 gument for feeble man to use? When shall 
 we do good, if not content to do it partially ? 
 
 Du Chastel considered the subject in all its 
 bearings. 
 
 It was the habit of his mind to do this — 
 but, in fact, in this instance it was more in 
 obedience to what he thought right, that he had 
 paused, than to any uncertainty. His mind 
 might be said to have been made up from the 
 first moment the proposal was made to him ; 
 and that was to dare the venture. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 When he had finally taken his determination, 
 he opened himself to his wife and son. 
 
 With Claire there was not the hesitation 
 of a moment. She saw the good in view, 
 and paused not a second to calculate the cost. 
 
 Armand seemed to view the matter differently. 
 
 They sat over the fire in that room I have de- 
 scribed. Claire, as usual, was extended upon her 
 sofa ; Mr. Du Chastel in his large arm-chair by 
 her side, at one corner of the hearth ; Armand 
 upon a low stool opposite. Du Chastel had just 
 finished an exposition of the proposal ; of the ad- 
 vantages it presented, the difficulties to be over- 
 come, and the risks to be incurred. 
 
 He was answered by enthusiastic exclamations 
 of thankfulness upon the part of Claire, who, 
 half rising from her bed of pain, her hands 
 clasped, her colour mounting high, her eyes 
 hfted up in an ecstacy of gratitude; saw no- 
 thing, heard nothing, thought of nothing, but 
 that help for the miserable was at hand. 
 
 Armand sat quite still ; his eyes were fixed 
 upon his father. There was a grave sadness in
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 133 
 
 his face, which ill responded to his mother's 
 ecstacy. 
 
 She was too much occupied with her own 
 delight to think of him ; but Du Chastel, whilst 
 one hand clasped that of his wife, pleased w^ith 
 a passionate warmth and undoubting confidence, 
 in which he could not perhaps altogether share, 
 turned to his son, whose silence had attracted 
 his attention, and was struck with the expres- 
 sion of his face. 
 
 " Well, my son, what then ? Do you not 
 feel with your mother ?" 
 
 " I feel with both— for both. Oh, father !" 
 
 " What then ?" 
 
 " This — I cannot see it in the light my mo- 
 ther does." 
 
 '* How !'* cried Claire, vehemently ; " you 
 would hesitate ? — You would hesitate one single 
 instant to banish every other consideration, 
 when the wretches about you are starving? — 
 Starving ! Possibly you do not know what it is 
 to be starving — but your father and I c?o." 
 
 And she cast a look of inexpressible feeling 
 upon her husband.
 
 134 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " Mother," said Armand, rising from his seat, 
 coming up to her, and endeavouring to take her 
 hand, " don't be displeased with me." 
 
 She looked at him strangely, with a sad look 
 of surprise ; the look seemed to say, are you Jns 
 son ? He took it patiently, as he was accus- 
 tomed to take such misconceptions on her part, 
 which would occur at times on some subject or 
 other where there was little sympathy between 
 them. 
 
 " I merely intend to say, my dear mother, 
 that I think my father is about to run a very 
 great risk — a risk, perhaps, we ought neither of 
 us, be the motive what it may, to wish him to 
 run." 
 
 " You are very full of prudential considera- 
 tions," said she, coldly, dropping his hand. 
 " We used to look upon things differently w^hen 
 we were at your age." 
 
 *' Nay, nay," put in Du Chastel, " my Claire, 
 be not unjust. I think — is it not so, Armand ? 
 — you would be as ready to peril all you love in 
 life, and life itself, for a good cause as any of
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 135 
 
 US. He is doing it now, Claire. Every hour 
 of that boy's day is a sacrifice." 
 
 She looked uncertainly, pressing her husband's 
 hand, and gazing into his face — that face from 
 which she drew confidence, truth, assurance, 
 opinion, everything. 
 
 " You know, my Claire," he said, " that your 
 son has already offered up all that was dearest 
 to him, for the sake of these wretched, starving 
 men. He has cut off his right hand and cast 
 out his right eye, rather than divert to his own 
 uses one sixpence of the scanty means we pos- 
 sess, to help them. You do not seem to under- 
 stand — sympathising as you are to every form 
 of suffering or self-denial — how much he gives 
 up, in abandoning the plan to which you had at 
 last brought yourself to consent. The extent of 
 the self-devotion he shows is a hidden thing 
 from you." 
 
 "The sacrifice is, after all, but that of an 
 idol of the fancy," she said. " I think him happy 
 that he has done with such things." 
 
 " But having done with them — having made 
 the sacrifice of what is dearest to him, I feel.
 
 136 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 Claire/* Mr. Du Chastel went on, and the man 
 of unswerving justice spoke to this idol of his 
 soul with something of that severity, or, at least, 
 seriousness of voice, which proved that he thought 
 her wrong — " I feel, Claire, that your son has 
 a right to be heard. He has proved himself, at 
 least, as ready to help his fellow-creatures as 
 any of us. Speak, Armand ; tell us what is on 
 your mind." 
 
 " I have not much to say," said Armand, 
 gently, and looking down. " I don't feel as if I 
 had a right even to offer an opinion upon this 
 subject. You looked at me, sir, and asked me 
 what I was thinking of. My face, I believe, 
 told more than I intended." 
 
 " It seemed to me to say that you did not 
 share in your mother's anticipations. You have 
 a right to be consulted. I will not risk the 
 whole of what would eventually be yours, with- 
 out, at least, giving you a voice upon the 
 matter." 
 
 " I was not thinking of myself, but of you," 
 Armand might have most truly said. But he 
 was of a nature to shrink most sensitively from
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 13? 
 
 the slightest self-assertion of this nature. A 
 slightly impatient motion of the head when his 
 father alluded to his own prospects, was, however, 
 sufficient to make Du Chastel understand him. 
 
 " I am doing you injustice myself at this 
 moment," he said. " Your own interest was the 
 last thing you were thinking of." 
 
 " Indeed it was." ' 
 
 " Then you were anxious upon my account ?" 
 
 " I could not help it. My mother has a 
 braver spint — I am cowardly. I do not wonder 
 she despises me," he said, with a slight tinge of 
 bitterness in his tone. 
 
 " Despise you, Armand ! — Oh, no !" 
 
 " Never mind it, mother dear," recovering 
 his temper at once ; " I cannot wonder that you 
 are disappointed in me. The son of my father 
 ought to have been different, I feel ; but such 
 as I am, I am. The prospect of my father, a 
 broken-hearted bankrupt, struggling with po- 
 verty and shame, is a picture, I own, that appals 
 me." 
 
 " Who talks of any such thing ?" said Claire.
 
 138 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " Your father assures me this speculation is as 
 safe as it is opportune." 
 
 " I did not quite say that ; but I believe it to 
 be reasonably safe," said Du Chastel. ** Why 
 do not you, Armand, regard it in the same way ? 
 Have you any reason, of which I am ignorant, 
 for doubting the stability of Bonnivetta's house ?" 
 
 " No, sir ; but the credit to be granted is 
 unusually long, — is it not ?" 
 
 *' Certainly ; but there will be a difficulty, 
 not to say risk, in disposing of the goods. 
 They look a good deal to the great eastern fairs, 
 that of Nishni Novogorod, more especially. 
 Long credits are, I understand, granted there. 
 I think I comprehend the absolute necessity of 
 the condition, so it creates no distrust in my 
 mind." 
 
 " That is not exactly the difficulty I think I 
 see. How are the weavers to be paid whilst 
 executing the fresh orders ? We have no funds 
 — will Bonnivetta's house make advances?" 
 
 " Child," said the mother, with some disgust, 
 " how you talk ! One would think you were a
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 139 
 
 mere scheming tradesman. I thought you were 
 an artist, not a dealer." 
 
 " Let him be, Claire — he speaks sense. But 
 how all these things came . into your head, Ar- 
 mand, I am at a loss to divine. This calcu- 
 lating talent of yours has started up, no one 
 knows how, or why." 
 
 But Armand knew how and why. 
 
 It was intense love for his father, intense 
 anxiety for the interests of one who never 
 thought of his own, that had suddenly called to 
 life in the son thoughts and powers which the 
 poetic dreams of art had, till then, concealed. 
 
 He thought he saw his father, from a gene- 
 rous benevolence which he could have fallen 
 down prostrate and adored, running the risk of 
 overwhelming ruin. It seemed to be revealed 
 to him, by a species of intuition, that the plan 
 was not a safe one, and that through it Du 
 Chastel would, sooner or later, be shipwrecked. 
 And yet what could he say ? Did he feel less 
 acutely for the horrible distress that surrounded 
 him than his father or mother did ? Oh, no ! 
 perhaps he felt it stiU more. The exquisite
 
 140 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 sensibility of his temperament, the almost mor- 
 bid acuteness of his perceptions, either for pain 
 or pleasure, made him, with a heart at least as 
 kind and generous as theirs, still more alive 
 than even they were, to the horrors that sur- 
 rounded them. 
 
 Should he interfere to divert the warm cur- 
 rent of his father and mother's sympathy from 
 these pitiable objects, and throw obstructions in 
 the way of any plan which held out the hope of 
 relief? 
 
 Better they should all perish together. 
 
 But his heart kept yearning to his father — 
 lie would and he would not. The idea of the 
 scheme which would effect this great rescue 
 from misery being abandoned, was insupport- 
 able ; yet his heart melted to his father. Oh ! 
 that he could have incurred this risk alone, and 
 left that toil and pain-worn hero to rest in the 
 harbour where he was at peace ! That he 
 should venture forth again — again be exposed 
 to all the buffets of outrageous fortune, he who 
 had already suffered so much ! Oh ! that he 
 could bear this cross for him ! How gladly,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 141 
 
 thankfully, would he have taken it up — but that 
 was impossible. One more glance he cast at 
 Du Chastel, sighed, and was silent. 
 
 " Well, my boy, have you nothing more to 
 say ?" Mr. Du Chastel went on, playfully. 
 
 " Nothing. What ought I to have to say ? 
 A child, a mere raw boy, as I am. Only this, 
 sir ! — father 1 do what you will, what you think 
 right and best, but promise me that I shall be 
 allowed to stand by you. Where you go, I will 
 go; where you risk all, I will risk all. My 
 uncle left me a trifle of my own, as you have 
 told me. You will take that, and everything I 
 have besides ; every hour of my day, every thought 
 of my heart. You will not -refuse me this co- 
 partnership, father ?" 
 
 "No, Armand, I will not; and God bless 
 you in yours, as he has blessed me in you. 
 You see, mother, you have yet to learn to un- 
 derstand your son." 
 
 " He is a good boy," said Claire. 
 
 And so the matter was settled. 
 
 No more was said upon the subject. It 
 seemed to be understood amons: them that the
 
 142 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 proposal should be accepted ; the small fortune 
 settled upon Armand being employed to furnish 
 capital for the production of the new articles 
 that were called for. Once more the pleasant 
 sound of the clicking loom was heard through 
 the long-lined windows. Health and plenty, 
 cheerfulness, cleanliness, the voice of joy were in 
 their dwellings once more. The advantage was 
 more generally diffused than even Du Chaste! 
 had ventured to hope. It seemed as if a gene- 
 ral stimulus had been given to trade by his 
 courageous venture. Everything appeared to 
 be going on well. 
 
 The change, as I went down those identical 
 streets which 1 had visited with so much pain 
 but a few months before, was scarcely to be 
 believed. 
 
 They did not seem the same places. 
 
 Spring had succeeded to winter, and the 
 pleasant sun glistened upon the httle panes 
 of the long windows and upon the pointed 
 roofs of the houses ; casements were thrown 
 open, larks and thrushes were whistling in cages,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 143 
 
 and telling of primrose and violet banks, hazel 
 and beech copses. Geraniums, and lilacs, and 
 rose-trees, and other favourite plants and flowers 
 were in the windows, through which pleasant, 
 healthy faces of young women, with their braided 
 hair, or of little merry children, might be seen 
 peeping, and the loom went merrily on above. 
 
 All was busy, honest industry. 
 
 Du Chastel tasted the full reward of what he 
 had done. The risk seemed diminishing every 
 day. Some money had begun already to turn 
 in. Bonnivettas reported that their sales had 
 exceeded expectation. Fresh orders were sent, 
 and, what was better, the capital necessary for 
 executing them was provided. 
 
 Du Chastel was employed from morning till 
 night. He was an indefatigable labourer ; be his 
 employment what it would, congenial or not, it 
 mattered little to him. That which he had to 
 do, was what God had called upon him to do. 
 His servant he was^ labouring in His vineyard 
 in the place appointed, whatever that might be 
 — sweeping the streets, chained to the oar, or
 
 144 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 buried among account-books in the counting- 
 house of a close, narrow street in Spital Fields — 
 it was the same man. 
 
 The same great, good, brave, generous war- 
 rior.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 145 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " No need of witcheries such as these 
 My fancy to enthrall, 
 When in her smile my snared heart sees 
 A lure beyond them all." 
 
 W. C. Bennett. 
 
 The father's way lay straight before him. 
 
 He had received that earnest, sober, severe 
 rehgious bias, which well prepared him, as it 
 did so many of his brethren of the Reform, to 
 walk on upright, unflinching, in the plain, direct 
 road of duty. 
 
 The task appointed for the son was more 
 difficult. 
 
 He could not be as his father was. 
 
 As well may the coursing antelope be com- 
 pared with the noble bull. 
 
 Genius ! noble, glorious, dangerous, often 
 fatal gift, was inborn in him. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 His mind was one bright, glowing, sunshiny 
 garden of beauteous and delicate flowers. 
 Flowers that could ill have abided those storms 
 and struggles, which had strengthened the more 
 robust temperament of the father's mind into 
 such rare perfection. 
 
 Much there was of intellectual pre-eminence, 
 as well as of moral force, in Du Chastel himself; 
 but his endowments perhaps scarcely equalled 
 those of his son. 
 
 True genius is as remarkable for the powers of 
 the understanding as for those of the imagina- 
 tion — for those of the pure reason, as for the ex- 
 quisite perception of external objects. Generally, 
 but not always, the moral perfection equals these 
 glorious treasures of intelligence, and the heart 
 is as tender and generous as the intellect is true. 
 And such was pre-eminently the case with Ar- 
 mand Du Chastel ; his heart was as noble, 
 honest, and good, as his genius was great. 
 
 Armand happened, once upon a time, to be 
 walking down the Haymarket on full Opera 
 night, not with design to visit the Opera, but
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 147 
 
 merely taking this way on his return from a 
 late ramble in Hyde Park. 
 
 The Opera, like other entertainments of that 
 description, was a forbidden indulgence to the 
 stricter children of the Reform ; though in the 
 present generation — whether wisely or not — they 
 were beginning to relax considerably as respected 
 this, and other indulgences of the same nature. 
 
 Armand had been brought up according to 
 the principles of what may be called the old 
 school ; though his father's confidence in him 
 and natural indulgence of temper was such, that 
 he was left much more to the guidance of his 
 own inclinations than most young men of his 
 age around him. 
 
 He had made use of this liberty in cultivating 
 his sense of beauty and of art, by spending much 
 time visiting such collections of pictures as were 
 at that period open to the public: — few they were, 
 and but scantily provided with master-pieces. 
 Yet th?k^ was enough to kindle his enthusiasm, 
 and develope that taste for the really excellent, 
 which was at once the distinction of his genius, 
 and yet a difficulty in the exercise of his talent. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 For, perhaps, I may be allowed to remark 
 by the way, that a somewhat low standard of 
 excellence, and considerable self- estimation, very 
 much assist the exercise of mere talent ; whilst 
 they are inconsistent with the possession of the 
 finer order of genius. Genius, which lives in 
 despair from the impossibility of giving a re- 
 altity to its highest conceptions, and from in- 
 tense and hopeless admiration of what the giants 
 in art have effected. 
 
 Much of Armand's time also was spent 
 wandering in the secluded and beautiful scenery 
 which at that period, upon so many sides, sur- 
 rounded London ; for his thirst after natural 
 beauty was insatiable. 
 
 He had passed, then, this afternoon in Hyde 
 Park and Kensington Gardens ; filling his eye 
 with the noble groups and subjects presented to 
 it, and his soul with all those high thoughts and 
 feelings which Nature as he viewed her — ever 
 spiritualized and glorified by the life and light 
 within — excited. But after he had left these 
 scenes, entering the town by Piccadilly, and 
 mingling in the busy world that was thronging
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 149 
 
 St. James* Street, these thoughts in his excitable 
 imagination gave way to others of a different 
 description ; equally interesting to that artist 
 spirit of his, though as opposite as possible in 
 their character. 
 
 There had been a drawing-room at St. James's, 
 and the carriages proceeding to the Opera 
 were filled with ladies in the rich court dresses, 
 high plumes, and splendid array of diamonds 
 and other jewels which they had worn upon the 
 occasion, who were now making their way to the 
 Opera House. 
 
 The carriages hurried by. The beauty of the 
 women, the splendour of the dresses, the mag- 
 nificence of the equipages and richly caparisoned 
 horses, as displayed by the flashing flambeaux 
 of the running footmen, called up a new train 
 of ideas. 
 
 Magnificence is in itself an eminently poetic 
 thing, and he felt the beauty of this splendid 
 scene of artificial life with the same intensity as 
 he had given to the wild solitudes and nightin- 
 gales of the Kensington Gardens an hour before. 
 
 The stream of carriag-es took the direction 
 of King Street, and so through St. James's
 
 150 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 Square ; and Armand followed it, and turned 
 into the Haymarket, intending so to make 
 his way home ; but, at the door of the Opera 
 House, he was stopped by the crowd assem- 
 bled to look on. And as he stood thus, and 
 watched carriage after carriage stopping, and 
 creatures, as it appeared by the flashing and 
 uncertain lights, more beautiful than houris de- 
 scending from them, and his eye drank in with 
 delight the rich colouring of the dresses, the 
 beauty of the floating plumes, and brightness of 
 the jewels, a sudden intoxication came over him 
 — a sort of passion of delighted admiration, as 
 he drank it all in. And, as the bustle of carriages 
 gradually gave way, and the crowd of spectators 
 began to disperse, just as the last party, consist- 
 ing of a very beautiful splendidly-attired woman, 
 apparently of middle age, a young and rather 
 dark and awkward-looking man, and a sweet, 
 simply-dressed young girl, passed him and en- 
 tered the Opera House — he felt an invincible 
 desire to follow them. 
 
 A moment he hesitated. It was as the hesi- 
 tation of Caesar on the banks of the Rubicon ;
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 151 
 
 and the sudden resolution with which he plunged 
 in and crossed the fatal threshold, was perhaps 
 as big with consequences in the narrow circle of 
 his individual life as that of the conqueror him- 
 self, to the world. 
 
 The threshold is crossed, and through doors 
 opening and shutting, the sound of the band 
 giving passionate voice to the overture to the 
 " Orfeo" of Gluck was at intervals heard. 
 
 He would not pause to consider. The 
 thought of his mother with her scruples and 
 terrors was thrust aside — even some doubts as 
 to the approbation of his father, were overruled. 
 With something of the dogged determination 
 which might be detected in him upon subjects 
 where his artistic nature impelled him, he went 
 up to the man who was dehvering pit tickets, 
 elbowed aside one or two persons that were 
 coming up for the same purpose as himself, paid 
 his money with a hand trembling with impatience, 
 rather seized than took his ticket, and entered 
 the house. 
 
 The last notes of the orchestra, in one over- 
 whelming burst of sound, filled as with a sort of
 
 152 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 atmosphere of harmony the vast crowded and 
 brilliant hall, which opened upon his astonished 
 sight. 
 
 To his unaccustomed senses, what a blaze of 
 brightness and magnificence ! — of light — colour 
 — splendour ! 
 
 The tiers of boxes, with their gilded panels 
 and rich crimson curtains, w^ere filled to over- 
 flowing, from the floor to the ceiling, with a 
 perfect galaxy, as he thought, of female beauty, 
 which the darker crowd in the pit seemed only 
 to throw into more brilliant relief. And as he 
 turned his bewildered and dazzled eyes to the 
 stage, the curtain drew up, and all the witchery 
 of the scene was added to this world of enchant- 
 ment, as, with a voice exquisite beyond descrip- 
 tion, Signor Melico began his recitative. 
 
 To describe what he felt is impossible ; and 
 to make it understood by those familiar and 
 accustomed from infancy to such scenes, it 
 would be vain to attempt. It was the first time 
 Armand had entered a theatre of any descrip- 
 tion whatsoever. 
 
 The effect was transcendant.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 153 
 
 His head swam, his eyes dazzled ; the very 
 powers of perception seemed about to leave him. 
 It was a considerable time before he could 
 recover himself sufficiently to realise exactly 
 where he was. 
 
 He found himself placed nearly opposite to the 
 centre of the stage, and leaning against the 
 lower tier of boxes — for, indeed, he could scarcely 
 stand, his emotion was so great. 
 
 He remained there for some time immovable, 
 devouring with eye and ear the dazzling sights 
 and delicious sounds presented to him ; and it 
 was not until the first act having terminated, 
 there was the usual pause — that he found him- 
 self sufficiently recovered from his excitement 
 to look around and begin to distinguish objects. 
 
 His eye travelled from tier to tier — from box 
 to box ; to the royal box, which was filled with 
 princely personages, dressed with unusual mag- 
 nificence, and thence around the house, crowded 
 with women of wondrous beauty. 
 
 At last it was arrested. 
 
 Upon the ground tier, a little distance from
 
 154 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 where he stood, he discovered the group which 
 had enticed him into the Opera House. 
 
 There was the richly-dressed lady, whose 
 heauty, now seen in repose, exceeded very much 
 what he had thought it before ; his eye was for 
 a moment fixed and magnetised by it — but it 
 was only for a moment. This lady sat in front 
 of her box, and behind her was a gentleman 
 very finely dressed, as was the fashion of the 
 day ; and this splendid display seemed to be 
 enhanced and set off by the simple figure of the 
 young girl, dressed with the most perfect sim- 
 phcity in white, who sat in front upon the oppo- 
 site side. She wore no ornament but her large 
 flowing curls of the finest hair, which fell abun- 
 dantly round her almost infantine head and 
 shoulders. 
 
 The dark youth, whom he had seen enter 
 the Opera House in her company, stood behind 
 her, and to him she addressed herself when she 
 spoke at all — for the first- described couple were 
 far too much absorbed with their own conversa- 
 tion to appear to trouble themselves about their 
 companions.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 155 
 
 But the young girl said little ; she seemed, like 
 Armand himself, dazzled and almost bewildered 
 with the scene before her ; at which she continued 
 to gaze with a pretty expression of wonder and 
 admiration, which had in it almost a touch of 
 terror. 
 
 Nothing could be more charming than her 
 countenance — than the wild fawn-like expression 
 of her eyes, the ever-changing mobility of her fea- 
 tures, and the ever-varying play of expressions 
 which chased each other over her face, like the 
 flying clouds in a summer's sky. 
 
 He felt sure that she, like himself, was en- 
 joying this splendid scene for the first time; 
 and he thought it a delightful link of sympathy, 
 which' seemed to draw them together — poor, 
 imaginative, foolish boy that he was ! 
 
 The dark and forbidding-looking young man, 
 who stood behind the young lady's chair, stooped 
 down from time to time to address her; and 
 then she would lift up a countenance which, in 
 every change, he thought only more and more 
 charming, and would answer him with a light, 
 girlish, animated look, turning to the scene again,
 
 156 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 however, as soon as she had done speaking, as if 
 unwilling to lose the smallest part of what was 
 going on before her. 
 
 He, on his side, did not seem to care to speak 
 much. He, too, seemed to be occupied in look- 
 ing — but it was not upon the stage. His eyes 
 were rivetted upon her. Never once were they 
 taken away. She, however, appeared perfectly 
 unconscious of this, and answered him when he 
 spoke with a playful ease and simplicity, which 
 proved she was either unobservant of, or indif- 
 ferent to, this apparently deep devotion. 
 
 Armand felt himself already vexed and irri- 
 tated at it. 'Yet something in the manner of 
 the young lady pacified him, and he continued 
 to watch her with almost undiminished pleasure. 
 
 And now, the curtain draws up again, and a 
 sort of grotesque Chinese dance, the subject of 
 the entree between the acts, is performed. And 
 then he listened with a new delight to the young 
 creature's childish bursts of mirth, throwing her- 
 self back and laughing like a fool — as some 
 people would have it. 
 
 She had the laughter all to herself, however.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 157 
 
 Her beautiful chaperon having cast one glance 
 at the stage, returned to her conversation ; and 
 as to the young man who stood behind herself, 
 not all the comical antics of the performers could 
 move one muscle of his face. 
 
 At a fresh burst of her ringing laughter, he 
 condescended to cast one glance at the stage, 
 but, shrugging his shoulders, turned away again, 
 with a look of cool contempt — a contempt in 
 which, to a certain degree, he seemed to include 
 his companion. He looked as if he wondered 
 what there could be found to laugh at. Perhaps, 
 that anything could ever be found to laugh at — 
 certainly, as if he had never laughed in his life ; 
 and there ran a tradition, I believe, in the family, 
 that he never had. 
 
 The young lady seemed to observe, at last, 
 that she was the only merry person in the box ; 
 so gathering herself up with a look of assumed 
 gravity, hke a child that must be good, which 
 the ready dimples at the corners of a mouth 
 disclaimed, and the sweet merriment of eyes that 
 would laugh, rendered irresistibly delightful, she 
 sat quiet. But all this charming variety was lost
 
 )58 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 upon every one but Armand — the dark young 
 man evidently did not enter into it. He 
 seemed not given to enjoy mirth himself, or like 
 it in others. 
 
 And now that scene passes away. 
 
 And the second act of " Orfeo " is performed. 
 
 That simple and most beautiful air, which 
 once heard can never be forgotten, is sung by 
 Melico, with a delicious sweetness that defies 
 description — and Eurydice is lost ; and all the 
 anguish of the bereaved one expressed ; and 
 eyes that a little before were brilliant with sup- 
 pressed gaiety are streaming with tears ; and she 
 is sobbing and weeping, and drying her eyes 
 with her handkerchief, and weeping and sobbing 
 again like a baby. 
 
 And the chaperon heeds not, and the dark 
 young man understands not. 
 
 He looks not sympathizing but wondering — 
 wondering as one does at some inexplicable 
 phenomenon. The expression of his face seems 
 to say — what on earth can there be to cry about 
 in a painted scene ?
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 159 
 
 But the heart of Armand is thrilling through 
 and through. 
 
 The curtain drops. 
 
 The magic scene is at an end. 
 
 From some unforeseen cause or other, there 
 happened to be no ballet that night, so that the 
 effect of the opera was not diminished when 
 they rose to go. 
 
 The house was rapidly emptying. People 
 were streaming down to the crush room. He 
 knew nothing of crush rooms, and remained 
 where he was. 
 
 How could he be better ? All he did, was 
 to creep a little nearer to the box, but not so as 
 to lose his view of what was passing within. 
 
 He saw her rise. A cloak of the most 
 charming tint of scarlet or crimson, with soft 
 plush border of the same rich warm hue, was 
 thrown over her white dress and pretty shoulders, 
 and over it fell the volumes of curls of her fine 
 hair.
 
 160 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 Bewildered as he was, he was too much of a 
 painter, even in that moment of strange excite- 
 ment, to be insensible to the beauty of the 
 effect of colour thus produced. But it did not 
 signify — he only added his admiration as an 
 artist to the new sentiment which moved him 
 as a man. Painter or man, it was a sort of 
 ecstacy to look upon her. 
 
 And the dark young man offered his arm ; 
 the lady having already quitted the box with 
 her own companion. She put her slender, 
 pretty white arm through his, as if it was a 
 brother's that she took. Could it, after all, be 
 only a brother ? 
 
 Her ways were just like a sister's — but what 
 were his ? Those eyes that he fixed upon her 
 were anything but a brother's. 
 
 But they are gone ; and if he is to see her 
 again, he must lose no time, for she will be 
 coming out. 
 
 He hurried to the door of the Opera House, 
 and planted himself just outside, to see her 
 pass.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 161 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " Mysteries of mysteries. 
 Faintly-breathing Adeline, 
 Scarce of earth nor all divine, 
 But beyond expression fair, 
 "With thy floating nut-brown hair." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 The crowd v»^as unusually great that night, 
 and the hurry, noise, and confusion in propor- 
 tion. 
 
 A large fashionable party was being given 
 late, and people were hastening away from the 
 Opera to attend it. Footmen in gaudy liveries, 
 according to the fashion of the day, were 
 rushing about, shouting, calling up carriages. 
 Horses were rearing and prancing; coachmen 
 swearing, and cutting at each other, as wheels 
 got entangled, and poles smashed against panels. 
 The hubbub and confusion being increased by 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 the unsteadiness and uncertainty of the lights, 
 which at that time were only furnished by the 
 casual flashes from flambeaux, or the glimmer- 
 ing lanthorns of the link-boys, running about 
 here and there. 
 
 Armand kept his place, taking a strange 
 pleasure in the scene ; watching party after 
 party of gaily-dressed women, who, attended 
 by men almost as briUiant in their attire as 
 themselves, followed each other out, and were 
 thrown rather than placed by their cavaliers in 
 their coaches, the doors of which are hurriedly 
 banged to ; footmen, two or three at once, spring 
 up behind ; and the horses dashing forward, ac- 
 companied by the running footmen with their 
 flaming flambeaux, ofl^ goes the brilhant equipage. 
 
 Jostled, hustled, pushed on one side or the 
 other, still Armand kept his ground. Amused in 
 spite of the preoccupation of his mind by the bustle 
 of the scene, and interested by the various efl'ects 
 of this dazzling confusion of forms and colours, 
 and the flashes of Hght which broke the 
 darkness, as flambeaux after flambeaux glanced 
 by, exhibiting, for a moment, the passionate 
 struggles of the restless and impatient steeds ;
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 163 
 
 the gorgeous panels of the carriages, with their 
 elaborate mantled coats of arms ; the stately 
 hammer-cloths in all their dignity, where sat 
 the pompous coachman, in his grave periwig 
 and three-cornered hat ; whilst footmen, in 
 liveries of every colour of the rainbow, and 
 covered with gold or silver lace, their heads 
 powdered white as snow, and adorned with 
 tiers of sausage curls, hung in twos, threes, and 
 even fours, upon the foot-boards. 
 
 Many were the bright, beautiful creatures that 
 hurried past him ; many the cavaliers, in coats 
 of silk or velvet of the gayest colours, diamond 
 solitaires, and shoe buckles ; and the eye of the 
 young man, accustomed to the sober hue adopted 
 in the dress of those with whom he was best 
 acquainted, was, as it were, fascinated by this 
 splendid and ever-changing variety. 
 
 Party after party thus passed by. But the 
 party whose exit he was resolved to witness, be 
 the pushings and pommellings what they might, 
 came not. 
 
 At last he saw the beautiful face of the lady 
 
 appear amid the press. She was leaning upon 
 
 11 '2
 
 164 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 the arm of the gentleman who had attended 
 her during the evening, and laughing and 
 strugghng, was making her way as best she 
 could, uttering sundry rather coquettish shrieks 
 and exclamations ; whilst he, with the utmost 
 devotion of manner, was endeavouring to make 
 a way for her ; in which his height, his acti- 
 vity, and his evident usage in such matters, as- 
 sisted him very much. 
 
 They passed, and the crowd closed after them, 
 and it was perhaps a minute or two before the 
 young girl who belonged to the party appeared. 
 
 She was clinging to the arm of the young 
 man who had attended her out of the box, 
 looking very red and hurried. And he, any- 
 thing in the world rather than a good pioneer 
 in such places. They were struggling along as 
 well as they could ; she, every now and then, 
 almost pulled off his arm by the press, and he 
 blundering on, and bidding her mind, and 
 hold fast, in tones so angry and impatient, 
 as proved that to take care of one was as much 
 as he was up to in crowds of this description ; 
 and that he was rather bothered than pleased 
 by having the present charge in hand.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 165 
 
 And so struggling, and the young thing look- 
 ing excessively frightened, and half-suffocated, 
 they at last made their way to the steps outside 
 the door, passing close by the place where Ar- 
 mand was standing. 
 
 A powdered footman forces his way to 
 them, and informs the young man, that it is 
 impossible for his lady's coach to draw up ; but 
 that she has made her way between the car- 
 riages, and begs they will try to do the same, 
 for that she is in the greatest possible haste to 
 be gone. 
 
 ?^rmand observed the young man glance 
 doubtfully and hesitatingly at his companion. 
 
 *' Oh dear ! oh dear ! we can't ! It's impos- 
 sible ! we can't ! I dare not !" 
 
 " Oh, yes, miss ; if Mr. ," he lost the 
 
 name, " will please to follow me. Quite safe. 
 This way, sir, please. My lady says she can't 
 wait." 
 
 And the footman precedes them in the 
 perilous attempt, ducking under the pole of the 
 next carriage ; and is followed in a sort of ner- 
 vous, awkward manner by the young gentleman,
 
 166 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 and by his evidently much terrified and reluc- 
 tant charge. 
 
 She glanced back ; she glanced up. Her 
 eye caught that of Armand. He thought she 
 coloured. Be that as it naight, there seemed a 
 sort of mute appeal in it. He pressed after 
 her. They are in the midst of a confusion of 
 carriages. Horses, looking spectral by the 
 changing and uncertain lights, are rearing ; 
 poles and wheels passing and entangling. 
 
 Suddenly there is a rush — and a crowd, frantic 
 with terror, is tearing down before a carriage 
 in which a pair of horses, who have taken fri^t, 
 are furiously dashing down the street. 
 
 He never could distinctly remember how it 
 aU happened. All he could ever recollect was, 
 an indistinct vision of shrieking women, be- 
 wildered link-boys, running and shouting ; 
 horses prancing and tearing ; a white figure 
 falling before a furious steed, and himself, like 
 one frantic, passionately pushing back the horse 
 with one hand, and with the other dragging her 
 from the ground. 
 
 His distracted cries for help were heard even in 
 the midst of the disorder. Such agony makes it-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 167 
 
 self felt even in the uttermost confusion. People 
 crowded to his help — like shadows he recollects 
 them. — Some holding back horses ; others 
 forcing aside the poles of carriages. One thing 
 alone is neither like a shadow nor vision. He 
 holds her in his arms against his heart ; and 
 struggUng desperately with his burden, finds 
 himself panting for breath in one of the narrow 
 adjoining streets. 
 
 The street was perfectly dark, except when a 
 gleam was thrown into it from the lights of 
 a passing carriage, for there were no permanent 
 lanrps in London then. 
 
 He was breathless and exhausted. She lay 
 insensible in his arms. He sank down upon a 
 door-step in this obscure street, still holding 
 her ; but she moved not. 
 
 He gazed upon her face as a sudden flash of 
 light gleamed upon it. Ah ! how beautiful, but 
 how pale ! 
 
 A few minutes — he knew not how many 
 — elapsed before he had recollected himself 
 sufficiently even to reflect upon the strange per- 
 plexity of his situation. 
 
 Had she been seriously hurt ? Had she been
 
 168 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 trampled upon, or suffocated ? There was no 
 external appearance of injury. Her garments 
 were scarcely soiled ; her lovely hair still flowed 
 but little dishevelled over the unstained whiteness 
 of her muslin dress. As thus she lay in his 
 arms, pale as death, and with the tender hue 
 of the fading primrose round her eyes... Surely 
 never anything earthly looked like this ! Was 
 she living? or had she received some fatal, 
 though unseen injury ? and was it but a lifeless 
 marble that he held ? 
 
 The distress which, as he recovered recollection, 
 began now to usurp the place of every other 
 feeling, was most painfully increased by the utter 
 darkness in which he found himself, as the last 
 carriages rolled away, and obscurity and silence 
 succeeded. 
 
 People who have lived all their lives in lamp- 
 lighted streets, and to whom a state of things 
 such as then was universal, would appear almost 
 as contrary to possibility as an extinguished sun, 
 can form little idea of what a wilderness a large 
 unlighted city is. How awfully desolate it 
 appears ! Not only awful, but actually dan- 
 gerous. People have been stopped and robbed,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 169^ 
 
 nay murdered, in the very streets, that by day- 
 light were among the most frequented — Albe- 
 marle Street, the Haymarket, for instance. 
 
 Armand had no fears of this nature, but his 
 perplexity was insupportable. What could he 
 do ? Was ever situation like his ? 
 
 But help was near. 
 
 A small, twinkling light was seen advancing. 
 Armand hailed it; and a man, carrying a. link, 
 came up. 
 
 He was a strong, brawny, rough-looking fel- 
 low, such as at that time used to frequent the 
 doors of theatres, to light such of the company 
 coming out into the darkness, as had not ser- 
 vants of their own to do it. 
 
 " Why, what have we got here ?" he cried, as 
 he stopped when hailed ; " be that your sister, 
 young sir ? An odd time of night to be carrying 
 a babby about the streets." 
 
 *' The young lady has narrowly escaped being 
 trampled to death. I am afraid she is very 
 much hurt. See ! see ! stand a little back — 
 give her air, and hold your light so — that's a 
 good fellow. She's coming to herself."
 
 170 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 The eyelids began languidly to unclose^ 
 a heavy sigh, an effort to spring up and look 
 round, a faint cry, and then she fainted away 
 again. 
 
 " Why, this is an odd business, young master," 
 said the Borachio, who luckily was not a bad 
 sort of fellow, in spite of his coarse features, 
 matted locks, and untrimmed beard. " Be that 
 young lady your sister ?" 
 
 " To be sure, or how should I have the care 
 of her ?" 
 
 " And mighty good care you seem to have 
 taken of her. Why she's been trampled to 
 death — under the horses' feet, I take it ; but 
 you're but a lad yourself, to have the charge 
 of such. No, no, you must not raise her 
 head ; she's not dead, only in a faint. Keep 
 her quiet a bit — she'll come round. Lor ! but 
 she is a pretty creature, ain't she ? and so for 
 that matter be you — babes in the wood — all 
 alone in London great town. Poor creatures ! 
 but ye'd be worse off, to my mind, than them 
 babes ; only ye've met with a robin, as will do 
 better than cover ye with strawberry leaves.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 171 
 
 Patience, patience, she's a coming round — or 
 would I be a talking of strawberry leaves and 
 robins ? Ay, but ain't she a pretty creature ? 
 and ain't they as like as two peas, bless 'em ? 
 
 " Well, Missy, are you better? don't be 
 scared — here's your brother close by. She's 
 coming round — bide a bit, she'll all be right ; 
 and now, what had you best do, think you ? for 
 you're sadly to seek, to my mind, in this bad 
 town at this time o' night, sitting here all alone 
 on the door step ; and the coaches will all be 
 gone off the stands, I am afraid. It's a mercy 
 of my link. 
 
 " Yes, yes, look up, my pretty lass ; don't be 
 frightened now, and go off again ; there's your 
 brother has you safe, and as for me, I'm a rough 
 one to look on, sure and certain ; but would I 
 hurt a hair of your head ? Why, I've got.three 
 little childer at home, bless you." 
 
 But suddenly opening her eyes, she gave one 
 wild, agonised stare into Armand's face, and 
 uttering a loud shriek, endeavoured to spring 
 up. She could not ; she sank down upon the 
 step again.
 
 172 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 "Don't now, don't now," went on the good- 
 natured link-man, as Armand vainly endeavoured 
 to soothe her. 
 
 " Surely now ain't it your own brother ? don't 
 you see?" 
 
 " My brother ! my brother !" with a fresh 
 scream of terror. " My brother ! oh no, no, 
 no. Where am I ? where am I ?" 
 
 " Why, not in a very comfortable place, for 
 sure, seeing it's hard lying on the flags of the 
 doorstep, and it past midnight ; but don't take 
 on so — you've got your brother with you, and 
 we'll manage to get you safe home, now you're 
 come to yourself. 
 
 " Where is it, sir ?" turning 4o Armand, who 
 was by this time dreadfully agitated, not daring 
 to speak, lest he should alarm the young girl 
 still more, and provoke some exclamation which 
 might enlighten the good link-man as to the 
 real state of the case — a thing he was most 
 anxious to avoid. 
 
 ** Where is it ?" replied Armand ; " tell him, 
 sister. Where will you go ? What . . ." 
 
 " Am I dreaming ?" she cried, trying again
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 173 
 
 to start up ; but sinking down again, for her 
 brain was whirling ; " who ? what ? where am 
 I ? Oh, good heaven ! good heaven ! what is 
 all this ? Where am I ? where am I ?" looking 
 round upon the lofty houses, now all shut up, 
 not a light glancing from a single window, and 
 only made dimly visible by the flickering of the 
 link-light. 
 
 " Why, miss, don't take on so. You're at the 
 corner of the Haymarket, and how you got here 
 goodness knows ; but I doubt you've been near 
 trampled to death. But don't take on ; for 
 here's your brother close by. So don't be so 
 frightened." 
 
 But she looked strangely at him, and then 
 uttering a second cry, again endeavoured to 
 spring up. She fell down a third time, and 
 fainted away again. 
 
 " She's not rightly come to herself," said the 
 link-lighter, compassionately ; " you'd best let 
 me go and knock up a coach, and get her home. 
 She's but a light little thing, though ; and if as 
 how your house is near, I think I could carry 
 her in my arms, if as how she wouldn't be too
 
 174 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 scared to let me — Fm such a rough-looking 
 un." 
 
 " My father's house is a couple of miles at 
 least from this ; it is in the neighbourhood of 
 Spital Fields," said Armand. " We must hire a 
 coach, and carry her thither — can you get one?" 
 
 " Why, I reckon they're all off their stands by 
 this time, but a body might knock one up ; shall 
 I go to the next place, where I know some of 
 'em put up ?" ^ 
 
 " Pray do — it is the only thing." 
 
 " You stay here then ; 111 make all the haste 
 1 can." 
 
 "You must leave me your light." 
 
 " Nay, but how then am I to find my way 
 through the streets ? for it is black as pitch." 
 
 *' But you must not leave me so." 
 
 " As you like, but 1 think there's no time to 
 lose." 
 
 " Hark ! it's striking one at St. Martin's. 
 You bide here ; it's but a little way to go. I 
 know a fellow lives back of St. Martin's Lane ; 
 I'll get a coach there." 
 
 " Wait till she comes to herself, at least."
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 175 
 
 " She'll never come to herself, I think ; we 
 must get her to a doctor." 
 
 But she began to move. 
 
 He raised her up, speaking to her in the 
 gentlest of tones. 
 
 " Don't be so terrified, pray don't ; you are 
 perfectly safe. I would defend you with my 
 life's blood, if need were. Do you not feel that 
 I would ? but there is no danger ; this is a 
 worthy fellow ; we must let him take the light. 
 He will find us a coach, and you will be carried 
 safe home. Pray don't tremble so. I swear by 
 all that is sacred, you are as safe as in your 
 mother's arms." 
 
 At this the poor trembling creature looked 
 up again into Armand's face ; something seemed 
 to encourage her in it. She gazed a few mo- 
 ments wistfully at him ; then cast a bewildered 
 look round her, and burst into tears. 
 
 '* Let her cry, let her cry," said the good- 
 hearted link-bearer ; " it'll help her. Now be a 
 good girl, will ye — and stay quietly, while I take 
 the link, and get you a coach. It's not far^ and 
 I'll soon be back, and nobody '11 harm you. Hark !
 
 176 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 there's th' old watchman coming on his beat. 
 You stay where you are, and I'll bid him bring 
 his lanthorn, and have an eye to you till I come 
 back. I won't be long ; and I'll get a coach, 
 and take you safe to your mother, poor lamb !" 
 
 " Mother ! brother ! Am I dreaming ?" 
 
 " Something very like it, my pretty lady ; but 
 here's its brother close by ; don't be scared out 
 of your wits like. Why do not you say some- 
 thing, Master ?" to Armand, who was speechless 
 from distress and embarrassment. 
 
 " Will you trust yourself with me, whilst that 
 good man goes for a coach, to carry you home ? 
 See, the watchman is coming down the street ; 
 he will stay by us till this good fellow returns." 
 
 '* Where am I? where am I? — dreaming? 
 dreaming ? Oh ! that I could wake ! Where 
 am 1 ? Oh ! oh 1" 
 
 She seemed to be actually as she imagined 
 herself: struggling with the oppression of some 
 horrid night-mare. 
 
 " You are awake," said Armand, gently; " you 
 h^ve been very nearly trampled to death under 
 the horses' feet, but you are quite safe. Let this
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 177 
 
 good fellow get a coach, and we will take you 
 safely home. Go now," said he to the man, 
 '* and come back as soon as possible." For the 
 watchman now came up. 
 
 The man departed. As soon as he was out 
 of hearing, Armand said — 
 
 " He thinks I am your brother ; and it is 
 better that he should. Don't tremble so ; for 
 these next few quarters of an hour, imagine me 
 your brother. I will soon take you safely 
 to your mother. Trust me — trust me — I beg 
 of you. Do you think I would hurt a hair of 
 your head ? — Heaven strike me dead upon this 
 stone first." 
 
 The tone and look seemed to reassure her a 
 little, but she was still " far wide ;" her brain 
 appeared to have received a shock, which it could 
 not recover. In vain he anxiously questioned 
 her, as to her home — her father's house — her 
 mother. 
 
 " No mother — no mother !" was all he could 
 get out of her. It was impossible to rouse her 
 from the state in which she was, or get anything 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 the least like a rational answer to the inquiries 
 he kept pressing upon her. 
 
 She only replied in incoherent sentences, 
 passing her hands from time to time across her 
 brow, as if endeavouring to recover her recollec- 
 tion — but in vain. His questions seemed only to 
 increase the confusion of her thoughts. At last 
 he ceased, and determined to wait the return of 
 the link- man with a carriage, carry her home to 
 his own mother, and endeavour in the morning 
 to make out her friends. 
 
 So he sat supporting her on the steps as well 
 as he could, and soothing her by repeating the 
 words " home — home." 
 
 At last a coach was heard rumbling down the 
 street, the faint glimmer of the link light ap- 
 peared again, and soon the carriage stopped where 
 they were. 
 
 " There is the coach," said Armand ; " let 
 me put you into it." 
 
 " I want home — am I going home ?" 
 
 " Yes, my pretty lady. She's quite mazed- 
 like still," said the Hnk-lighter ; " get her 
 to her mother, sir — and a doctor to her ; she's
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 179 
 
 got a something — I forget what they call it — 
 cushion of the brain, I think ; I once knew a 
 lad fall from a scaffold like, and he'd a cushion 
 of the brain, and he died next day, poor fellow ! 
 You must lift her up. Ay, in that way — keep 
 her as quiet as you can — but them coaches do 
 rattle so." 
 
 " Thank you, that will do," as he having first 
 entered the carriage, received her from the hands 
 of the good fellow, and placing his arm round 
 her, laid her head tenderly upon his shoulder. 
 " Thank you very much," giving him money. 
 
 " But, master," said the man, " you're not a 
 going to get rid of me in this fashion. I've 
 taken quite a fancy to you both, 'specially to 
 that pretty sister of yours ; and some way, I 
 sha'n't sleep to night if I don't know as how she 
 has got safe home — so, by your leave, I'll just 
 get on the box with Jarvey here, and then I 
 shall be ready to help you to heave her out when 
 you get to your own door, for I reckon most of 
 your folks wiU be gone to bed." 
 
 " By aU means," said Armand, feehng a kind 
 of relief to have the responsibility in some de- 
 
 N 2
 
 180 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 gree divided, and a* certain propriety in the at- 
 tendance of this rude chaperon, even though 
 only upon the coach-box. 
 
 And so, giving the direction to his father's 
 house, they started without farther preamble, 
 for the slight motion of lifting her into the 
 carriage, seemed to have deprived her again of 
 sensibility, and she lay without resistance sup- 
 ported by Armand. From time to time she 
 uttered faint cries and ejaculations, opening her 
 eyes, looking round, then closing them and re- 
 lapsing into insensibility -, at others she struggled 
 painfully. 
 
 As for him, his feelings were singular indeed. 
 
 He was very young. It was the first time in 
 his life that he had experienced anything like 
 what he now felt. It was the awakening of the 
 heart, and under circumstances to him the most 
 touching. 
 
 Her helpless dependence — her faint cries — 
 her bewildered accents — the slight, delicate, 
 girlish form— the childlike face, the abundance 
 of soft hair tumbhng about all in disorder —
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 181 
 
 those slender, girlish arms, so frail and delicate, 
 like the first tender shoots of a young vine ! 
 
 It seenied to him as if his arm which sup- 
 ported her, was the shrine of something more 
 holy, sacred, and precious, than creation had 
 ever presented before, as thus he made, as 
 best he could, a cradle round her to soften as 
 far as possible the rough jolting of the carriage. 
 And never did saintly image inspire more deep, 
 more intense devotion. 
 
 To be allowed thus to hold this pure, this most 
 lovely image of all dear and sacred upon earth ! 
 
 His heart beat with a calm solemn feeling, 
 that pervaded and ennobled his whole being. — 
 That he was in a species of ecstacy was most 
 true — but it was the ecstacy of the pure and 
 angel heart, in the first dawn and paradise of 
 love. 
 
 Forgive the extravagance of expression in 
 which I indulge, but the subject runs away with 
 me. A young man's first love is indeed a holy, 
 and most lovely thing ; in its passionate respect 
 — its shy and trembling tenderness — its wild 
 poetry of beauty.
 
 182 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 He felt it all. He was most truly formed to 
 feel it in its full force and purity. 
 
 And so he knelt and gazed, as he supported 
 her, looking down upon that white young face : 
 
 " Even such a look as the mother ostrich fixes on her 
 young. 
 Till that intense affection wakens the breath of life." 
 
 Steele says, speaking of a young lady, " Only 
 to love her, was in itself a liberal education/' 
 
 It might be said of Armand, only to love her 
 had called to life every power which lay dormant 
 within him, till then unknown and unperceived. 
 
 But the coach, after having jumbled along for 
 something more than an hour, stopped before 
 Du Chastel's door. She had fallen at length 
 into what seemed a deep sleep, and he was most 
 anxious not to disturb her. When the coach 
 stopped she moved a little and sighed faintly, 
 but fell as it were to sleep again. 
 
 The door of the house was opened by Am- 
 brose, looking as cross as an old faithful, rather 
 spoiled servant thinks himself entitled to do, 
 when he has been kept out of his bed till two
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 183 
 
 o'clock in the morning, waiting for young master, 
 who ought to have been home at ten. 
 
 He stood at the entrance holding it open, and 
 frowning awfully, but would not condescend to 
 come down the steps or open the door of the 
 coach. 
 
 " Tell him to come here," said Arraand to 
 the link-man, who had descended. 
 
 " You must come and help the young gen- 
 tleman, sir, if you please. His sister's lying 
 in dead faint there i'th the coach." 
 
 " Sister ! What do you mean ? Sister ! he 
 haVt sure got a woman there in the coach ?" 
 
 " Woman ! what are you talking of? No, a 
 pretty young girl, and his sister. What is the 
 man dreaming of ?" 
 
 But the ill-humour of Ambrose was not proof 
 any longer against his curiosity ; he was soon 
 hobbling down the steps. 
 
 " Madame has been in a pretty pucker, you 
 may be sure," he reproachfully began ; " you'll 
 go hard to kill her, if you give her many such 
 
 evenings as this ; but mercy on us ! what 
 
 have we got here ?"
 
 184 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " Silence ! speak softly — help me to carry her 
 into the house. She seems asleep, but I am 
 afraid she is very ill." 
 
 " What have you got here ? What can you 
 have brought home ? — but bless me, she does 
 look very ill ; and, poor innocent I it is but a 
 child, after all. Master Armand, how could you 
 come by her ?" 
 
 The good link-man began to look very un- 
 easy. 
 
 " I thought it was his sister. Isn't it his sis- 
 ter ? — I thought it was his sister," he kept re- 
 peating, anxiously. 
 
 But nobody appeared to regard him. 
 
 " Where are you taking her to ? Whose house 
 is this ? I thought it was his sister ! sir ! young 
 man !" pushing forward, as, assisted by Ambrose, 
 Armand was preparing to carry in the still sleeping 
 girl up the steps. " Whose house is this ? Sir ! 
 you shan't, you mustn't " — growing more earn- 
 est and imperative, as he found himself the less 
 attended to. 
 
 Armand turned round with a smile, that 
 would have reassured suspicion itself.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 185 
 
 " The house is Mr. Du Chastel's," he said, 
 '* the great master- weaver, in Spital Fields — Who 
 does not know him ? Don't hinder us — she is 
 very ill — but she is safe here — it is my father's 
 house. But you are a good honest fellow— come 
 in, if you like." 
 
 And so, as a mother carries a dying infant, or 
 as a miser his most precious treasure, or as the 
 humblest of devotees his most reverenced saint, 
 assisted by Ambrose — or rather followed, for she 
 being so light he wanted no help — he carried his 
 beauteous burden up stairs, and laid her on his 
 mother's couch in the drawing-room, the good 
 link- man steadily making his way after him. 
 
 The air of the house, the venerable, stern old 
 servant man — above all, the aspect so severe, 
 yet so handsome, of that drawing-room, had 
 already almost re-assured him. He came up to 
 Armand with a countenance in which goodness, 
 respect, and satisfaction, were mingled, and 
 said, — 
 
 " If you please, sir, I think as how I had 
 best go fetch a doctor ?" 
 
 " Thank you, by all means — go to Dr. Du-
 
 186 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 glas ; he lives only five doors off, in this row — 
 the left-hand side as you go out." 
 
 And the good fellow, much relieved, though 
 sadly puzzled to make out how it all was — 
 hurried away. 
 
 He had laid her upon his mother's couch, — 
 her fair head bent Hke a drooping lily — common, 
 but never-exhausted comparison— had fallen upon 
 her small delicate shoulder, the cheek was ashy 
 pale, the eyes heavily dim, her slender arms 
 hung helpless down. She was not dead — but 
 this was something more than a sleep. 
 
 ** My father ! Call my father, Ambrose — 
 what are you hesitating about? Not my mo- 
 ther — but my mother's maid, old Marguerite — 
 the young lady is very ill." 
 
 ** Young lady !" muttered the old man ; " and 
 where in the world did you pick her up ? Your 
 mother will think these queer doings. Never 
 saw such a thing in this house, boy or man, 
 before ; but the world's all topsy turvy, now- 
 a*days, I think." 
 
 " Call my father, I say." 
 
 But Du Chastel was already entering the
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 187 
 
 room — he did not desire to exercise too close 
 aa inquisition over his son's proceedings, still 
 less did he distrust him ; and last of all, would 
 he have wished Armand to feel that he was 
 either distrusted or watched : but Du Chastel 
 was an anxious parent ; and someway, when 
 Armand was abroad, he was always to be found 
 sitting reading in his dressing-room, till he heard 
 his son return. This night the young man had 
 been most unusually late ; and Du Chastel had 
 intended to deviate from his ordinary practice, 
 and to make some little enquiry as he came up 
 to his room ; but Armand stopped, as we 
 have seen, in the drawing-room. Du Chastel 
 listened a short time, then came down. 
 
 " What have we here ?" was his exclama- 
 tion at the scene which presented itself. A 
 young girl extended, apparently asleep, upon 
 the sofa — his son kneeling by her side, watch- 
 ing her with intense anxiety. 
 
 Armand turned half round, 
 
 " Oh, father !" 
 
 All was right ; the " Oh, father !" the perfect
 
 188 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 confidence with which the appeal to his sympathy 
 and assistance was made, was enough. 
 .," An accident ?" he asked. " Who is she?" 
 
 " I don't in the least know. Yes, an acci- 
 dent. Is she in danger, do you think ? — this 
 sleep seems most unnatural." 
 
 " Poor young creature !" 
 
 " She is not very ill ? She is not in danger ?'* 
 
 " Have you sent for Dr. Duglas ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Keep her quiet till he comes. Do not tell 
 me how it happened just at present," as Armand 
 was ahout to speak. " Keep all quiet till we 
 know how it will be with her. What a lovely 
 creature ! Ah ! poor young thing ! some father's 
 and mother's heart is just now in sore travail 
 about thee." 
 
 But the doctor soon appeared, and with him 
 the link-man, who, in spite of all Ambrose could 
 urge, would make his way up stairs. 
 
 " Let me, let me," he said, sturdily ; " she's 
 half my find, and I shall see how it goes with 
 her." 
 
 The physician pronounced the patient to be in
 
 ' EVELYN MARSTON. 189 
 
 a most dangerous state. There had heen a slight 
 concussion of the brain. Perfect quiet was in- 
 dispensable. She must be undressed and laid 
 upon a bed, with as little disturbance as possible. 
 The doctor looked round with some anxiety — 
 there was nobody but Marguerite, and Margue- 
 rite was no very gentle hand. 
 
 " Be quiet, be quiet," he said. " No, no, 
 Armand, you must not disturb your mother ; 
 besides, she is too helpless herself to be of any 
 use. I will send to my sister — she'll come 
 and do it for us ; we must not move her till 
 then. Anne will do it all for us." 
 
 He sat down and wrote a note, and dis- 
 patched it by the link-man, who had still re- 
 mained hovering anxiously near the drawing- 
 room door, with a certain instinctiv^e modesty 
 in contradiction of his rough exterior, ah'aid to 
 intrude, yet feeling that he had a sort of right 
 as well as a great desire to see the end of it. 
 
 Armand knew Anne Duglas well; and she 
 knew him well, and they loved each other 
 dearly. This plain woman — for her face 
 was what the French call thoroughly dis-
 
 190 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 grade — by nature or accident — yet gifted, or, 
 shall we say, cursed — Oh, no ! — with a heart 
 overflowing with the softest and tenderest af- 
 fections, had early attached herself to the little 
 boy, when Armand, a motherless child, forlorn 
 and solitary, in his great uncle's house, would 
 have been well nigh shipwrecked, if it had not 
 been for the gentle cares of this most kind and 
 generous- hearted woman.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 191 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " My spirit, opening unconsciously, 
 Doth feel the harmonies around me now." 
 John Edmund Reade. 
 
 Anne Duglas entered the room, with one of 
 the most astonishing edifices in the way of 
 night-caps upon her head that ever was seen 
 upon woman, under which her face, disfigured 
 with the small-pox, and without the slightest 
 redeeming circumstance, but that of a skin of 
 inexpressible delicacy, peeped forth among frills 
 and bows. 
 
 She had dressed herself hastily, and thrown 
 on as a surtout, a white dressing, or, as they 
 were then called, bed gown of dimity, and over 
 that a large square shawl ; but there was that in 
 her every gesture and expression, and more es- 
 pecially in her tone of voice, that won respect 
 and interest at the first moment.
 
 192 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 Armand hastened to her as soon as she 
 opened the door. He loved her, confided in 
 her, rested on this most indulgent and affec- 
 tionate of female friends — more almost to 
 him than mother — if it be possible for any one 
 to be more to a man than his mother ; but 
 Armand's mother, as we have seen, wanted the 
 right touch and sympathy — in a certain sense she 
 was no mother. 
 
 " She was in danger of being trampled upon 
 in the press of carriages — among the crowd at 
 the door of the Opera House. She fell under 
 the very feet of the horses. I snatched her up 
 and dragged her away. I can recollect nothing 
 more ; it is all confusion. The carriage for 
 which she was making, dashed on, I think — 
 but I can scarcely remember anything. I found 
 myself at last, in one of the by-streets, and she 
 insensible in my arms. She has not yet been 
 able to return a rational answer — see how she 
 lies." Thus he ran on. 
 
 " What is the matter, brother ?" 
 
 " A slight concussion of the brain ; but ex- 
 treme quiet and care will save her, I believe."
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 193 
 
 " Must we move her to a bed ?" 
 
 " On consideration, I would rather let her be. 
 Can you contrive to undress her — that is to say, 
 merely loose her sash and ligaments ?" 
 
 ** Strings !" smiling. 
 
 " Well, well, strings, then. Let her remain 
 on this couch till she has been really asleep, and 
 this unnatural drowsiness has subsided — she 
 will do then." 
 
 Anne Duglas only had to look up at Du 
 Chastel. 
 
 " Of course — of course — I am extremely 
 grateful to you for coming. Shall we leave her 
 to you?" 
 
 " If you will be so good ; and let one of your 
 maids be called, and make a small fire — I shall 
 sit up with her myself all night — and with the 
 materials to make her a cup of tea when she 
 wakens ; she'll want nothing more. Yes, dear 
 Armand ; trust her to me, I will take care of 
 her, and we shall make out who she is in the 
 morning." 
 
 Still he lingered. He seemed as if he could 
 not tear himself away. He stood gazing, gazing, 
 
 VOL. 1. o
 
 194 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 with an expression on his countenance not to be 
 mistaken — at least by Anne Duglas — I don't 
 think any of the others perceived it. 
 
 " You must go," she said ; " indeed you 
 must." 
 
 " But will she live ? Only assure me she 
 will live." 
 
 " Yes, yes, she will live. See, the blueness 
 about the lips and the general expression of 
 distress are gradually subsiding. Pretty young 
 creature ! One may see in everything about 
 her, that she has been some fond mother's 
 pride and darhng. Poor mother ! what ago- 
 nies she is in at this moment. Perhaps I may 
 find some clue, so that we may send notice to 
 her home immediately, that she is safe. One 
 is so grieved for her poor mother 1" 
 
 " She said she had no mother." 
 
 " For pity's sake don't keep whispering here. 
 Go along, and let me look to the needful," said 
 Anne, almost forcing him out of the room. 
 
 He went up stairs, and entered his beloved 
 sanctum, consecrated by so many memories 
 of fervent wishes, disappointed hopes, and
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 195 
 
 honest purposes, and hung round with all 
 those various expressions of thought, either by 
 himself or others, which seemed to him a sort 
 of atmosphere in which to breathe freely, buried 
 though he was in that remote corner of a 
 crowded city, where he lived. But what 
 were all these imperfect images of imagination 
 and feelings now ? Nothing. 
 
 All seemed pale and faded, as if the light 
 which gave them warmth and colour was alto- 
 gether gone — extinguished, as is the flame of 
 some poor candle, before the brightness of the 
 sun. 
 
 A new sense — a sentiment unknown till 
 now — something sweeter, dearer, holier, was 
 possessing his soul, and throbbing with a feeling, 
 how exquisite ! in the pulses of his young, 
 unhackneyed heart. 
 
 He did not attempt to lie down. He kept 
 walking up and down his room, in a tumult, to 
 his young inexperience, of inexplicable feelings. 
 All he understood, was the ineffable charm which 
 bound him to her ; further than this he did not 
 go. He thought not of consequences — of a 
 
 o 2
 
 196 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 future ; the present was ecstacy, and it was all 
 one now. 
 
 And so he paced up and down his room. 
 
 At last, he softly opened his door, and stole 
 down stairs to listen outside the drawing-room. 
 He thought he heard faint whispers from time 
 to time. The good doctor must be there with 
 his sister. This comforted him. He had the 
 greatest faith in both. They would not let 
 her die. No, she would not be suffered to 
 die. A better faith than that in any earthly 
 physician, seemed within, to assure him that she 
 should not die. He who gave her, would not 
 let her die. She was too precious, too lovely, 
 thus to be lost. 
 
 And then he went up stairs again, and in 
 doing so met his father. 
 
 " I was coming to your room, Armand. I 
 knew you would not be asleep. I have, as yet, 
 heard nothing of this strange affair: where 
 you have been this night, or where you found 
 this young creature. She has all the appear- 
 ance of one too tenderly nurtured, to form one 
 in an adventure like this; for if ever I saw
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 197 
 
 purity and innocence written upon a face, it is 
 upon her's." 
 
 " Father, will you come into my room for a 
 moment ?" 
 
 Du Chastel accepted the invitation, and sat 
 down in the chair his son presented. 
 
 The young man remained standing. 
 
 '* Father, I have done wrongs perhaps — but 
 do not be alarmed. I have no very criminal con- 
 fession to make. As I passed down the Hay- 
 market to-night, I was seized with a sudden, 
 almost invincible desire, to see for once what was 
 inside a theatre — inside the Opera House more 
 especially. I did not stop to consider whether 
 you or my mother would approve of what I was 
 doing, or perhaps I should never have gone in. 
 It did not seem to me that there was any great 
 harm in it." 
 
 "No great harm certainly in i7," was all Du 
 Chastel said. 
 
 " I should be sorry to pain my mother by 
 offending her scruples ; yet forgive me, sir, there 
 is something within me which seems to refuse 
 assent to those scruples — a something which
 
 198 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 refuses obedience to opinions I cannot make 
 my own." 
 
 " I understand you. I regret that it is so ; 
 but the time has arrived, when such opinions 
 will no longer govern even us, as they have 
 hitherto done." 
 
 Armand related how all had happened. 
 
 " What strange incidents occur in life," was 
 his father's remark; "it is almost incredible, 
 unaccountable — that a girl so surrounded and so 
 guarded, could, under any circumstances, fall 
 into such extreme and varied dangers. The 
 extraordinary part of it is, that the loss was not 
 instantly discovered, and that the carriage drove 
 away without her. One must have perfect con- 
 fidence in you, Armand," he added, smiling, 
 " to credit your story as I do ; and I would 
 advise you never to repeat it to unworthy ears, 
 for it would inevitably be voted an ill-conceived 
 and preposterous invention." 
 
 "All passed in such confusion, that I can 
 account for nothing," was Armand's reply. " I 
 found her thrown upon me for protection, with-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 199 
 
 out the slightest clue to discover her friends. 
 I thought the best thing was to bring her home 
 to you and my mother. I do not know whe- 
 ther I did right or wrong." 
 
 " I do not well see how you could have done 
 better." 
 
 " Yet the idea of what her friends must be 
 suffering is most annoying." 
 
 "But it is impossible to do anything to- 
 night." 
 
 " She will not be able to be moved to-mor- 
 row ?" asked Armand, nervously. 
 
 His father glanced suddenly up — one glance 
 was enough. Du Chastel remembered the 
 days of his own youth. Sweet visions fleeted 
 for a moment past. He gave one sigh of re- 
 gret to the years which never return — 
 
 One sigh of satisfaction was added, as he 
 looked at his son. In that faith which when 
 well placed, truthful and strong, is the guiding 
 star of a young man's destiny. 
 
 But he kept his thoughts to himself. He 
 would not mar the first delicate unfoldins: of
 
 200 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 passion by his interference. He would not tear 
 open that timidly-expanding bud, and deprive his 
 son, in those first holy moments of bashful 
 feeling, of the comfort of believing that a secret 
 so precious was hidden from every eye. 
 
 He shook hands with him and went away. 
 And Armand, who seemed to understand, and 
 not to understand ; faintly to perceive, and not to 
 perceive his father's sympathy ; loved him more 
 warmly than ever, and returned to his own 
 meditations. 
 
 The morning broke upon him, and he had 
 scarcely rested. He had passed the night in 
 nervous, broken slumbers ; every now and then, 
 starting up and stealing down, to listen at the 
 drawing-room door. Long the faint whisper- 
 ings might be heard ; at last there was silence, 
 only interrupted by a very audible snore. 
 
 Armand recognised it for the good doctor's. 
 It was thus he had seen him once or twice fall
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 201 
 
 asleep by the bed-side of a patient, when his 
 anxiety had been relieved by a change for the 
 better — so he knew by this symptom that all 
 must be going on well ; and ascending the 
 stairs with a lighter heart, relieved from the 
 most pressing of his anxieties, he threw himself, 
 dressed as he was, on his bed, and fell soundly 
 asleep. 
 
 The beams of the early sun played upon his 
 face and wakened him. He sprang up, opened 
 his door, and listened. All in the house was 
 profoundly still, though it was not earlier than 
 people were usually stirring ; but the disturbance 
 of the preceding night had kept everybody 
 late. 
 
 Once more down stairs he crept; but the 
 doctor was still snoring, so he again wxnt 
 back, and waited with all the impatience of a 
 fooHsh child, to whom time appears ac- 
 tually to stand still, until at last people began 
 to stir. 
 
 Then he suddenly bethought himself what a 
 wretched figure he should make after his night's 
 watching, and he began in haste to re -dress ;
 
 202 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 but all was done in a most hurried man- 
 ner, so impatient was he to get down. His 
 fingers trembled so with haste, that he could 
 hardly manage them. 
 
 As he left his room, he met his father on the 
 landing. Du Chastel looked at him and smiled, 
 and thought that Rosalind might be sometimes 
 mistaken in her symptoms of true love. Ar- 
 mand made anything rather than the neglected 
 appearance she attributes to the lover. 
 
 The drawing-room door was just being gently 
 opened as they reached the foot of the stairs, 
 and the doctor, with a stealing, cat's pace, his 
 boots all the time creaking in the most pro- 
 voking manner, came out, looking more than 
 usually authoritative as regarded that silence, 
 which he always required to be observed in his 
 sick rooms. 
 
 " Hist — hist ! don't be so impatient," whis- 
 pered he, in reply to the anxiously enquiring 
 looks of the young man, who pressed forward 
 to meet him, but did not speak. " She'll live 
 — everybody always does live. — Nobody dies — 
 not one in a hundred. — People make such a
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 203 
 
 fuss with their terrors. — I tell you nobody dies 
 — not one in a thousand ; and I'll be bound 
 you young gentleman — simpleton, I mean — 
 have been fidgeting yourself out of your senses 
 all night ; and my good friend, your father, has 
 been ill enough at ease, I warrant. Pooh — 
 pooh ! only keep people quiet, and nobody dies. 
 The worst is, they will make a fuss, and don't 
 keep people quiet." 
 
 He indulged the impatience of the young 
 man, however, by opening the door about a 
 quarter of an inch, so that Armand could just 
 see the couch, and Anne Duglas sitting by it. 
 More than that, strain his eyes as he would, it 
 was impossible to distinguish. 
 
 " I wish to speak with you, doctor," said 
 Du Chastel ; and the doctor went out, most pro- 
 vokingly shutting the door after him, and shew- 
 ing by his manner that nobody was to presume 
 to open it. 
 
 " Is she better ?" began Du Chastel ; whilst 
 Armand, leaning against the banister, in silence 
 devoured every word that was said. 
 
 " Yes — yes, she'll do now ; but it's been a
 
 204 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 near thing. Very strange story, now isn't it ? 
 Who could be such a fool and blockhead as to 
 have the care of her and let her fall ? Can't 
 understand it in the least !" 
 
 " Has she recovered her recollection ? Can 
 she tell us where to send to her friends ?" 
 
 "Why, she has — and she has not. She is 
 still confused — but I think she was a Httle 
 daunted at the sight of me. Best leave her to 
 Anne — everybody tells everything to Anne." 
 
 The poor young girl did in truth look sadly 
 scared and bewildered, when she awoke from 
 her heavy sleep to a perception of where she 
 was. She stared round her with a wild look of 
 terror ; but her eyes fell upon the face of Anne 
 Duglas, and the terror subsided as by a charm. 
 
 " Where am I ? and what has happened ?" 
 she again asked. 
 
 " You are among friends, deeply anxious to 
 restore you to your own. You can tell me now 
 where they are to be found. Your poor mother ! 
 she will be very anxious about you. Just give 
 me her address, and we will send to her in-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 205 
 
 stantly ; and then set your mind at ease, and lie 
 quiet till she comes." 
 
 " My mother !" and the colour flew to her 
 face — " I have no mother." 
 
 " Your friends — your father then." 
 
 " My father is not in town. It's my aunt." 
 
 " Whoever it is, she will be miserable till 
 you are found." 
 
 " Yes — I suppose so." 
 
 " And where must we send ?" 
 
 " To twenty-five, Lower Grosvenor Street." 
 
 " And your aunt's name is — " 
 
 " Mrs. Fitzroy." 
 
 Accordingly to Mrs. Fitzroy, Lower Grosvenor 
 Street, a messenger was immediately sent. 
 
 There was a back-drawing room m Du 
 Chastel's house, which did not, according to the 
 fashion of more modern times, open by folding- 
 doors into the front one. Here the party, 
 exiled from ^he front room, took refuge. A
 
 206 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 couch was arranged for Claire, and the father 
 and son breakfasted with her., 
 
 Du Chastel was gone to his counting-house ; 
 but Armand Hngered after him ; for, in 
 truth, he found it impossible to tear himself 
 away. 
 
 His mother, indeed, made very nervous by 
 the idea of receiving a stranger lady all alone, 
 had begged of him not to leave her. 
 
 So he sat down by the fire, and took up a 
 book, and pretended to read ; but if you had 
 looked over his shoulder, you would have found 
 that the book was upside down. 
 
 It was almost as soon as it well could be 
 after the time had elapsed that was required for 
 a messenger to reach the neighbourhood of 
 Grosvenor Square, that a carriage drove rapidly 
 up to the door. Not, however, with that head- 
 long haste that marks a mother flying to her 
 rescued child ; but still with proper rapidity. 
 
 The knocker had been tied up, so that the 
 thundering announcement which would other- 
 wise have duly signified the importance of her
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 207 
 
 who was about to come up stairs, had been 
 prevented. 
 
 Yet there was a bustle in the hall, quite un- 
 usual in that sober house, and Ambrose looked 
 very cross and rather frightened, as he half- 
 opened the back drawing-room door, and in his 
 usual unceremonious manner, announced Mrs. 
 Fitzroy. 
 
 The lady entered, accompanied by a young 
 man ; and Armand recognized at once the in- 
 habitant of the opera box of the preceding 
 evening. 
 
 * The beauty which distinguished Mrs. Fitzroy 
 was little diminished by the terrible inquisition 
 of day-light, though her age was approaching 
 to that period when daylight is apt to reveal 
 very unpleasant truths. 
 
 She was exceedingly fair. Her features were 
 delicate and beautiful; her eyes of a lovely 
 blue, beamed with a most persuasive sweetness. 
 There was an air of innocence difficult to de- 
 scribe pervading her coiintenance, wliich even 
 at the more advanced age she had attained, gave 
 it an irresistible charm.
 
 208 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 All that was left to desire in this perfection 
 of face and form was, that the figure should 
 have been a little less full. Yet this very defect 
 — if defect it were — set off by the rare delicacy 
 of her complexion, seemed only to render her 
 whole appearance more soft and winning. In enu- 
 merating her perfections, movements the most 
 graceful, and a voice of music, should not be 
 forgotten. 
 
 A strange contrast to all this softness and 
 loveliness was presented by the young man 
 who followed her. His appearance I have al- 
 ready described ; and I cannot say that further* 
 acquaintance diminished the unpleasing, not to 
 say repulsive character of his. hard countenance. 
 
 As now seen, his figure looked short, thick 
 and heavy ; his forehead, it is true, was splendidly 
 developed ; but the brow was ponderous and 
 lowering; overshadowing eyes, deep set, and of 
 the darkest black. These eyes, when at rest, were 
 cold, passionless, and thoughtful, yet burning 
 with a sort of deep, concentrated fire ; but 
 when excited, they flashed with an almost 
 unearthly brightness. The features were coarse
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 209 
 
 and ill cast ; the complexion dark and sallow ; 
 the hair harsh, and the colour of the raven ; the 
 mouth — that feature in which we read, or fancy 
 we read, the characters of the heart — was thick- 
 lipped and coarse, yet nevertheless had a strange 
 union of strength, and a kind of bitter sweet- 
 ness in it. 
 
 The gestures and motions of this remarkable 
 being were as inconsistent as the rest of his ap- 
 pearance ; a nervous awkwardness being com- 
 bined with that sort of self-assertion, which 
 arises from conscious strength. Shyness and 
 timidity alternated with a blunt abruptness al- 
 most amounting to brutality of manner. 
 
 We were little prejudiced in his favour when 
 we saw him at the Opera ; he appears to much 
 great(T disadvantage this morning. 
 
 VOL I.
 
 210 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " In stern mountain forms repellent, in rock strength 
 
 that mocks control, 
 
 Dwells a spirit and a feeling, that doth concentrate the 
 
 soul/' 
 
 John Edmund Reade. 
 
 Claire half rose from her couch to greet 
 Mrs. Fitzroy, but sank back again, in a spasm 
 of nervous oppression. It was terrible work for 
 her to receive a perfect stranger — but Mrs. Fitz- 
 roy's manner soon set her at ease. 
 
 " My mother is an invalid," Armand had 
 said ; " excuse her rising." 
 
 And Mrs. Fitzroy had swam rather than 
 walked to- the sofa, so smooth and undulating 
 was her gait, and taking Madame Du Chastel's 
 hand, had expressed her thanks in a manner 
 which savoured, as Armand thought, more of 
 politeness, dashed with a good deal of hauteur,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 211 
 
 rather than of softer feeling — indeed, of any 
 feeling there was not much evidence — but then, 
 everything was so gracefully done and uttered. 
 
 It was very different with her companion. 
 
 The dark, heavy-featured face was working 
 strongly. 
 
 " I only wonder I am alive," was all he said, 
 in reply to Armand's remark of how extremely 
 he must have suffered. 
 
 " I cannot conceive how it all came about," 
 young Du Chastel went on, for he felt, he could 
 not divine why, attracted towards this repulsive- 
 looking being ; " but, thank heaven ! all is right 
 now ; and we must try to forget last night." 
 
 A shudder, which might be said rather to 
 convulse than pass through the frame of 
 the other, was the only answer to this ; the face 
 was expressing at the same time exquisite pain. 
 
 Armand went on, endeavouring to relieve 
 him, for he understood what he must be suf- 
 fering. 
 
 " Your sister—" 
 
 Why did he say, "your sister?" He did 
 not know it was the young man's sister ; but 
 
 p 2
 
 212 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 it seemed as if he would have it so — force it to 
 be so — they should be brother and sister. 
 
 " Your sister, they assure me, is going on as 
 well as possible ; all danger is over ; quiet alone 
 is necessary. My mother will have the plea- 
 sure of keeping the young lady prisoner for a 
 few days. It will be a great happiness to us. 
 
 " She is not my sister," was the blunt reply ; 
 and the stranger relapsed into silence. 
 
 He did not, however, turn away ; his eyes, 
 glancing under those heavy lowering brows, 
 fixed themselves upon Armand. There was a 
 strange fascination in them ; Armand felt un- 
 comfortable — he knew not why. 
 
 The colloquy, however, if it would have pro- 
 ceeded further, which seemed doubtful, was 
 broken into, by Madame Du Chastel requesting 
 her son to inform Miss Duglas that Miss Fitz- 
 roy's aunt was waiting to see her. 
 
 Upon this, Armand left the room. The 
 eyes of the young man followed him to the 
 door, then a sort of unnatural sigh, more of a 
 convulsion than a sigh it seemed, was uttered. 
 And he turned to his mother, who addressed 
 him with —
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 213 
 
 " You see, my dear Leonard, that you need 
 not have made yourself so excessively wretched. 
 I told you so ail the time. Very bad accidents 
 rarely happen, except in romances ; things come 
 right some way or other. Poor fellow !" turn- 
 ing to Madame Du Chastel, " you cannot con- 
 ceive how miserable he has been — he took so 
 much blame to himself. It was in vain to tell 
 him that, in accidents such as these, nobody 
 ought to be blamed — such things will occur 
 now and then ; but some people love to in- 
 dulge in such worlds of useless pain. You can 
 have no idea what a night I have had with 
 him." 
 
 But Leonard answered not. 
 
 He persevered in a silence which it was 
 difficult to know whether to ascribe to obsti- 
 nacy, shyness, or to feelings too deep for ut- 
 terance. One glance he gave to his mother — 
 for this lovely creature actually was his mother 
 — then turned away, as if accustomed to find 
 no sympathy either of thought or feeUng there. 
 
 " Strange being !" muttered Mrs. Eitzroy, 
 and then went on talking over the details of the
 
 214 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 accident with much apparent ease and indif- 
 ference — though she was, in fact, anything 
 but at ease or indifferent. On the contrary, she 
 was excessively fidgetted and annoyed at what 
 had happened, and most impatient to get her 
 young charge safely home ; so that this provok- 
 ing and unfortunate business might, by some 
 contrivance or other, be hushed up, and, so far 
 as possible, remain a secret to the young lady's 
 father. 
 
 " He is so unreasonable and violent," thought 
 Mrs. Fitzroy to herself, " that if he once takes 
 it into his head to be angry, there is no know- 
 ing what may come of it." 
 
 But it was her usual practice to hide every 
 annoyance under a soft and polished manner. 
 
 But now the door opened, and, followed by 
 young Du Chastel, Anne Duglas entered. 
 
 '* Miss Duglas, my mother's friend, who has 
 watched Miss Fitzroy through last night," said 
 Armand, presenting the small, pale, plain, but 
 interesting-looking woman to the splendid Mrs. 
 Fitzroy. 
 
 " 1 thought, madam," began Anne Duglas,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 215 
 
 " I had better acquaint you myself with the state 
 in which the young lady lies. It is still neces- 
 sary that she should remain perfectly quiet. I 
 
 could almost my brother could almost have 
 
 begged that a few more hours another day 
 
 and night, indeed — might elapse before she went 
 through the little agitation of seeing even you. 
 If you could trust her to my care a short 
 time longer — " 
 
 But Mrs. Fitzroy had already risen from her 
 chair. 
 
 " I am most impatient to see her. I am 
 sure, dear madam, you will excuse me, but I 
 must see her. I consider myself as standing 
 in her mother's place. As for remaining here, 
 I am sure you are excessively good ; but I am 
 most impatient to get her home." 
 
 Miss Duglas looked uneasy. 
 
 *' It is natural that you should feel impatient, 
 madam, to see her. I know not that I can 
 venture to oppose it. Yet my brother, who has 
 left the house but about a quarter of an hour 
 ago, was very urgent with me upon the subject. 
 There was so much natural agitation excited
 
 216 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 when she heard that you were immediately ex- 
 pected, that he was of opinion if you could he 
 persuaded to delay the interview until to-morrow 
 morning, it would be better for all parties." 
 
 " Impossible ! my dear madam — utterly im- 
 possible ! Surely it can do her nothing but 
 good to see me — and when I have come, too, 
 for the express purpose of conveying her home ! 
 To go back without seeing her is not to be 
 thought of !" 
 
 There was a slight touch of temper in the 
 tone with which the last few words were uttered. 
 
 Anne Duglas looked as if she knew not 
 exactly what to say. It seemed so natural that 
 Mrs. Fitzroy should insist upon seeing her niece, 
 that it was impossible, if she persisted, to oppose 
 it. And yet the young lady, at mention of the 
 interview, had looked as if it would not produce 
 that soothing effect which, from the softness of 
 Mrs. Fitzroy's manner, might have been anti- 
 cipated. 
 
 Leonard had stood a silent, but not unob- 
 servant spectator of what was passing. 
 
 And as his mother was proceeding to cross 
 the room for the purpose of seeing the patient,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 217 
 
 he started abruptly forward, and laying his dark 
 sinewy hand upon that soft arm of hers, said — 
 
 " No ! Not if it may hurt her — " 
 
 " Hurt her ! Nonsense 1 — Indeed," resum- 
 ing her usual sweetness of tone and expression, 
 and turning to Anne Duglas — " you will ex- 
 cuse me, but I must see her." 
 
 Still Anne hesitated. 
 
 "You think... I understood it to be your opi- 
 nion — the medical man's opinion — that to dis- 
 turb her now might be injurious," said Leonard 
 Fitzroy. 
 
 " I fear so, indeed." 
 
 " Then, mother, we will return again to- 
 morrow morning." 
 
 " How absurd you are !" said she, quite 
 angrily, nature at last getting the better of con- 
 ventional smoothness. Mrs. Fitzroy was one 
 who never could brook opposition. " How 
 absurd you are ! Here have you been raving 
 about all night like a wild wood-demon, rather 
 than a man ; and now, when she is close at 
 hand, you don't care to see her. But I choose 
 to see her. It is new to me that young ladies
 
 218 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 should be too ill to receive their best friends. / 
 can understand nothing of all this." 
 
 She was preparing to leave the room. 
 
 But he put himself before her. 
 
 " No, mother, this must not be, shall not 
 be," he added, with decision. 
 
 " Well, well, of course it must be as you 
 please," was the reply, and to the astonishment 
 of every one, Mrs. Fitzroy returned to her seat ; 
 and after making a few more inquiries from 
 Anne Duglas, and having ascertained that it 
 would really be much better to defer the inter- 
 view, at least for a few hours, she returned to 
 her carriage followed by her son, and took her 
 departure. He put her into the carriage, but 
 he did not enter it : he shut to the door, and 
 ordered the coachman to drive on. 
 
 But his mother interfered. 
 
 " You are not going home with me ?" 
 
 " No, I shall stay here." 
 
 *' Absurd \ and what are these people to do 
 with you, or you with them, I wonder ? You 
 do not intend to ask to see her when I am 
 gone — that would be too excessively childish even
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 219 
 
 for you. Promise me you will not. If she is 
 kept quiet, I shall be able to move her much the 
 sooner, and I am sure it will do her no good to 
 see you" 
 
 His face darkened at this — he shook his 
 head. 
 
 " Then you will promise me not to attempt 
 it?" 
 
 He looked determined not to give this pro- 
 mise. 
 
 " Nay, nay, if that's it, I shall insist upon 
 seeing her myself." 
 
 " Well, well, I promise." 
 
 " And how long do you intend to stay, bother- 
 ing these good people here ?" 
 
 " I must be at the Society's rooms, if possible, 
 by two." 
 
 " To be sure. Well, promise me you will be 
 a good boy, and I promise you we will have her 
 safe at home again in much less time than you 
 expect." 
 
 And so they, mother and son, parted. 
 
 Leonard Fitzroy re-entered Du Chastel's 
 house.
 
 220 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 But he did not immediately go up stairs ; the 
 door of a small library behind the dining-room 
 was standing open ; the apartment was unoccu- 
 pied, and he went in. 
 
 He was endeavouring to master his agitation, 
 but he shook and trembled so, that he could 
 scarcely stand. He sat down, he leaned his 
 face against the side of the book-case — his heart 
 was throbbing violently. They were the sub- 
 siding throbs of one of those agonies of existence 
 which he had been enduring for the last hours. 
 
 He was struggling hard to master his emotion, 
 as he had struggled, and with better success, to 
 conceal it. 
 
 The revulsion of feeling, from the extremity 
 of distress to almost perfect security, was too 
 much for him ; for he was one made up of those 
 contradictions in character which almost ensure 
 a suffering life. 
 
 To leave the house at present seemed impos- 
 sible, for she was in it ; and yet he had pro- 
 mised not to attempt to see her. But he must 
 hear more of her. Why had he suffered his 
 mother to extort that promise from him ? The 
 patient might have been allowed to see him ; it
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 221 
 
 would have been a very different thing from 
 seeing his mother. 
 
 He sat there till he grew calmer, and began 
 to wish to go up stairs again and hear more ; 
 but then his old enemy, intense nervous shyness, 
 which had vanished in a considerable degree 
 before the horrible excitements of the last few 
 hours, began to torment him. He listened, and 
 all was so perfectly still, that not the least sound 
 was to be heard. He wanted courage to break it, 
 and present himself unexpectedly. It was plain 
 every one imagined he had departed with his 
 mother. Oh ! that the dear, gentle-looking 
 Miss Duglas would come down ! 
 
 There was something in her face which had 
 already excited a feeling rare with him, for he 
 lived almost like one forbid, an alien and a 
 stranger among his fellow-creatures, so ex- 
 ceptional was his nature. He felt drawn to her 
 he knew not why. If he could but see her 
 again ! And at this moment, through the half- 
 opened door, he beheld her descending the stairs. 
 She looked so gently and kindly, that it was 
 impossible to be afraid of her.
 
 222 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 She started and seemed surprised to find 
 him still in the house. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," she s^id, approaching 
 him, " but perhaps you are wanting something. 
 Can I do anything for you ?" 
 
 " I can't go away," he answered, bluntly. 
 
 " That is so natural — it is so painful," she 
 repKed, " to have a friend under circumstances 
 like these, and not be allowed to see her. I 
 was very sorry, but it is unwise to run risks." 
 
 " Ay, my mother ! — You were quite right — 
 but do you think"- — hesitating — *' do you think 
 she would see me ?" 
 
 *' I do not know, indeed. Would you very 
 much wish it ? — Would you like me to try ?" 
 
 " I feel as if I would give half my remaining 
 existence to see her but for a moment — yet " 
 
 " It may agitate her, you mean." 
 
 " No," gloomily, " I don't mean that ; /—it 
 won't agitate her^ and it shall not agitate me. 
 It would be kind of you to ask her whether 
 she would like to see me — perhaps she might — 
 I don't know — she has a great deal of good 
 nature. She may not dislike to say that she
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 223 
 
 forgives me the injury my stupid awkwardness 
 has done her." 
 
 " She has just fallen into a doze, and must 
 not be disturbed at present. When she awakens, 
 I will let you know." 
 
 Anne Duglas felt much interested in this sin- 
 gular being ; there was an instinctive sympathy 
 in her for every one who suffered from intense 
 feeling, and more especially from unreturned 
 love. 
 
 "No, thank you. After all, I am under a 
 promise not to attempt to see her till my mo- 
 ther returns ; and besides, I am engaged else- 
 where. Good morning." 
 
 He was going, but he suddenly stopped and 
 turned back. It was only to stammer forth — 
 
 " We are deeply, deeply indebted to you." 
 
 And so he went away. 
 
 He took his way towards the west end of the 
 town, through those narrow lanes, rather than 
 streets, of Spital Fields. He looked round with 
 a mingled feeHng of surprise and sympathy. 
 
 He was, of course, aware of the existence of 
 this population, associated with so melancholy a
 
 224 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 story of human perversity ; but, like most of the 
 rest of the world, he had troubled himself little 
 with the fate of the victims. 
 
 The picture of obscure and humble industry 
 presented by the scene around him, at that time 
 far more peculiar and characteristic than it is 
 now, interested him much. But he had been 
 yet more struck by the view, slight and passing 
 as it had been, afforded by the interior of Du 
 Chastel's house. 
 
 It was so unlike what he had been accus- 
 tomed to. 
 
 The glare of ostentatious wealth, which sur- 
 rounded him in his own family, was odious to 
 him. He was of a deep reflective nature, that 
 loved to dwell among the most abstracted re- 
 cesses of scientific lore. One of those singular 
 and exceptional intellects which appear to have 
 been created to penetrate far into the hidden se- 
 crets of things, and employ itself in those specula- 
 tions of the pure rl^ason, so little acceptable to the 
 ordinary run of mankind. For that he was born, 
 and for little else. 
 
 Consider how, as child, boy, man, he must 
 have found himself isolated among the showy,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 225 
 
 superficial people, by whom he was surrounded. 
 What cared they for his peculiar gifts, the value of 
 which they were quite incapable of understanding. 
 To those who could discern httle beyond mere 
 externals, he had appeared nothing better than 
 an awkward, heavy, rather stupid boy ; for, like 
 many others possessing similar gifts, nature with 
 these high endowments had united an exterior 
 more than commonly deficient in every-day ac- 
 compHshments. 
 
 The dung-hill cock when he found a gem, 
 could scarcely be at a greater loss to know what 
 to do with it, than were Leonard Fitzroy's pa- 
 rents with this remarkable boy. 
 
 After sundry endeavours upon the part of his 
 mother to make him like other people, she aban- 
 doned the attempt, surrendering him, in utter 
 despair, to the inspirations of one of the most 
 remarkable intellects of his day. 
 
 This story reminds one of Ampere, with his 
 amazing intellect, yet so dull as n^garded com- 
 mon things ; a helpless inaptitude, which at 
 once excites the wonder and the contempt of 
 triumphant mediocrity. 
 
 VOL. I. Q,
 
 226 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 So he had lived, and his would have been a 
 joyless existence enough, but for those gleams 
 of exultation which attend the successful exer- 
 tions of the intellect. And such gleams were 
 rare. Long nights and days of painful exertion 
 of thought, despondency, and wearisome, un- 
 assisted toil, would be passed before he could cry 
 Eureka. 
 
 And even success gave but a momentary hap- 
 piness. These gleams were like those of a frosty 
 winter, shining yet cold. 
 
 Nobody sympathized, nobody cared, nobody 
 knew — he had, as yet, no one with whom to share 
 the triumph, for he still lived quite out of the 
 scientific world, which was not then accessible 
 as it is now. Yet, under this ungracious 
 exterior there was a heart yearning for love — 
 
 susceptible, passionate but that heart had 
 
 been denied a voice. A strange and fatal dumb- 
 ness, far worse than the mute and speechless 
 tongue it is, when the countenance, the gesture, 
 the very tone, conceal rather than transmit the 
 feelings. 
 
 From a child he had felt that nobody loved
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 227 
 
 him ; and this belief seemed to have destroyed all 
 natural piety. His father a mere man of expense, 
 his mother now a widow, and a showy, fashion- 
 able elder brother, had become equally indiffer- 
 ent to him. Yet, feeling was not altogether 
 extinguished, and only burnt with a greater in- 
 tensity in one solitary instance. 
 
 The young girl of the Opera-box was his 
 cousin ; she was younger than he was by some 
 four or five years — a large difference in childhood 
 and early youth. She, like himself, had been a 
 good deal left to her own guidance ; her mother 
 had died early, and her father, who valued her 
 highly as the very beautiful heiress — for ex- 
 tremely beautiful she promised to be — of his 
 fortunes, contented himself with spoihng her in 
 every posible way, wherever they came in con- 
 tact. This was not very frequently, for he was 
 absorbed in the pursuits of wealth and am- 
 bition. 
 
 Of course, this idol, the source of so much 
 pride and self-gratulation to a rich and coarse- 
 natured father, ran a fair chance of being 
 ruined, body and soul. The little girl was left to 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 nurses and governesses, and the chapter of acci- 
 dents — a chapter that sometimes marvellously 
 befriends those who have no other friend, though 
 woe to him who voluntarily exposes his child 
 to it. 
 
 The little girl and Leonard Fitzroy being 
 cousins, of course had met, though not very 
 frequently — but it had been enough. His heart 
 had fixed itself, and for ever. The attachment 
 had began when she was quite a little thing ; it 
 had grown with his growth, and strengthened 
 with his strength, unobserved by any one. 
 
 And so this love of his had grown up the 
 secret treasure of his existence. And silently 
 and quietly, as leaf after leaf expands, had feeling 
 after feeling unfolded and been strengthened by 
 imperceptible degrees, till at length, with advanc- 
 ing years, a deeper and more passionate intensity 
 of ripened love, hidden under all his apparent 
 apathy, had began to reveal its existence 
 by deep, convulsive, startling throbs, which 
 were little understood, even by himself, until the 
 agony of the last night had done that which 
 years, perhaps, of the usual peaceful devotion
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 229 
 
 might not have effected ; in the agony of his 
 grief his heart had been revealed to him, 
 and he knew that he loved her to distrac- 
 tion.
 
 230 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The fine lady had left everything unsettled ; 
 they did not know how soon she intended to 
 return. 
 
 The patient dozed and slumbered, and her 
 gentle nurse would not disturb her. So no 
 questions were asked, and no further discoveries 
 made. 
 
 Armand found it impossible to leave the house 
 that morning. He kept hovering about the 
 stairs and back drawing-room, beguiling the 
 time by at intervals going up to his own snug- 
 gery, and endeavouring to sketch from memory 
 the figure of their guest — now as he watched 
 her prattling at the Opera — now as she lay 
 helpless before him. 
 
 His facility was remarkable, but he could not
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 231 
 
 succeed to his own satisfaction. That^ indeed, 
 was impossible ; the image in his fancy mocked 
 his pencil. 
 
 So stole the tedious hours away, and still he 
 was not allowed a glance at her ; but Anne 
 Duglas, who divined his feelings — alas ! hers 
 was the divination of cruel self-experience — en- 
 deavoured to comfort him with the assurance 
 that the young lady would be well enough that 
 evening to be carried up-stairs, and that he should 
 lend a helping hand in the operation ; adding, 
 that she hoped she would be able to join 
 the family party in the course of the following 
 day. 
 
 So passed the morning. 
 
 Two — three — four — struck upon the neigh- 
 bouring church clock. 
 
 A quarter past four — was there ever so tedious 
 a day? 
 
 Half-past four ; but the sound of a carriage 
 thundering down the street is heard, and it stops 
 at Du Chastel's garden-gate. 
 
 Ambrose opens the hall door, and in comes
 
 232 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 the lady. Mrs. Eitzroy was no longer accom- 
 panied by her son. In his place appeared a gen- 
 tleman in black, looking extremely professional. 
 
 She is shewn up-stairs ; and with her accus- 
 tomed soft smile, but in a manner that will not 
 be refused, enquires for Miss Duglas. 
 
 Madame Du Chastel, fatigued by the agitation 
 of the preceding night and the morning's exer- 
 tion, had already retired to her room. 
 
 Anne Duglas answers to the summons. 
 
 " My dear madam, how can I thank you suf- 
 ficiently for your kind attentions to the dear 
 child ? but I am come with the hope to reUeve 
 you from further trouble. Dr. Armitage — Miss 
 Duglas. He will examine your patient; and 
 under the sanction of his authority, which I hope 
 to obtain, I intend to carry her home." 
 
 Anne Duglas looked distressed. 
 
 Armand turned pale. 
 
 " Do you think it safe to move her so soon ?" 
 began Miss Duglas. " I beg... Mr. Du Chastel 
 will assure you — that his family only esteem 
 themselves privileged in being allowed to detain
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 233 
 
 the young lady until she can be moved without 
 the least risk. Indeed, you must allow me to say 
 — I think it would be highly imprudent to expose 
 her to the motion of a carriage at present." 
 
 On this, Armand thought himself bound to 
 speak. 
 
 He came forward. 
 
 " My mother, I am certain, would be most 
 distressed at the idea of the young lady being 
 moved one hour before it can be done with per- 
 fect security. Dr. Duglas, I believe, still recom- 
 mends absolute quiet." 
 
 Mrs. Fitzroy looked up at the very handsome 
 young gentleman who addressed her. He was 
 colouring, and looking more anxious than she 
 thought there was any occasion for; and her 
 resolution was strengthened. She was a far- 
 seeing woman, this Mrs. Fitzroy, in spite of her 
 air of unsuspecting innocence. 
 
 "Thank you very much," she said, rather 
 coldly. "Dr. Armitage will decide upon all 
 that. Can we see my niece ?" turning to Anne. 
 " I am rather pressed for tinfie."
 
 234 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " She is not asleep ?" — enquired the Doctor. 
 
 " No, she has been dozing, but is now lying 
 with her eyes open. She seems inclined to be 
 very still." 
 
 " We will see the patient, then, if you please." 
 
 Miss Duglas could make no further opposition. 
 The medical man and the lady entered the room 
 together, and alone. They did not seem to 
 think it necessary that Miss Duglas should ac- 
 company them. 
 
 After about a quarter of an hour had elapsed, 
 the door opened, and the Doctor came out. 
 
 " It is decided that the patient is quite in a 
 fit state to be moved ; and Mrs. Fitzroy is natu- 
 rally most anxious to have her niece under her 
 own care. Perhaps, madam, you will be kind 
 enough to assist the lady in the little prepara- 
 tions which may be necessary for her departure ; 
 and with this young gentleman's assistance, I 
 can insure the lifting her in perfect safety to the 
 carriage." 
 
 Anne Duglas still hesitated. 
 
 " There is not the shadow of a cause for ap-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 235 
 
 prehension. I pledge my medical reputation 
 upon getting her safely home," the Doctor re- 
 plied authoritatively ; " and Mrs. Fitzroy is 
 naturally impatient that it should be done." 
 
 There was nothing for it but to obey ; and 
 Anne entered the sick-room. 
 
 The Doctor and Armand were left alone. 
 
 " Are you not afraid ?" Armand broke out, 
 bluntly enough, for he was too anxious for 
 forms. " I understood, from the physician who 
 was first called in, that it was of the utmost im- 
 portance to keep her perfectly at rest for the 
 present." 
 
 " I bow to his authority," said the young 
 gentleman in black, looking half sarcastic, half 
 inclined to be affronted ; "or ought to bow, I 
 should say ; but it is not my practice to pay any 
 very great attention to the notions of medical 
 gentlemen of the old school, and practising — 
 excuse me — in somewhat obscure quarters of 
 this town. With the advantages I have all 
 along possessed, of communicating with the 
 most eminent men of the age, I may be allowed.
 
 236 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 perhaps, to place some leetle reliance on my own 
 judgment. I pronounce, that the young lady 
 may be moved without the slightest danger ; 
 and Mrs. Fitzroy, her aunt, is very desirous that 
 it should be done. I presume you will not re- 
 fuse your assistance ; or we must have recourse 
 to that of the footman." 
 
 " If it is to be so,"I shall be ready to do the 
 best I can." 
 
 The front dining-room door re-opened. Anne 
 Duglas came out again, saying — 
 
 " We are ready. Armand, you may come 
 in." 
 
 And he entered. 
 
 The sufferer was lying upon the sofa, which 
 she had not yet quitted, still in the dress she 
 wore the evening before, but with a large and 
 rich India shawl thrown over it, and over her 
 head. Under this drapery, her slender figure, 
 and the delicate features of her beautiful face, 
 now of a deadly paleness, were visible. Her 
 arms were thrown in a sort of negligent listless- 
 ness before her j her eyes, very large and fine,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 237 
 
 were almost preternaturally open, and had a 
 touching seriousness in them. 
 
 To Armand, it seemed as if she were aware 
 of the danger she was incurring, and felt all the 
 unkindness v^hich exposed her to it. 
 
 But she made not the slightest resistance to 
 her aunt's wishes. She threw a grateful, half- 
 imploring glance towards Miss Duglas, and then 
 she turned her eyes full upon Armand. There 
 was some indignation, and much determination, 
 visihle in them. 
 
 " I will, at least, thank the gentleman who 
 saved my life," she said. 
 
 " Of course we are all greatly indebted to 
 him. I hope, my dear, I have not left it to you 
 to express our gratitude. Don't hurry yourself 
 with speaking, pray." 
 
 " It seems to me like a dream," she said, 
 fixing her eyes again upon Armand, " but I do 
 not forget k all. You saved my life at the risk 
 of your own, and I thank you for it, sir." 
 
 Mrs. Fitzroy looked impatient to be gone. 
 
 As for Armand, the look, the sensibility
 
 238 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 and beauty of those fine but languid eyes, the 
 feehng tone and manner of the words addressed 
 to hirrii struck him so, that he scarcely knew 
 where he was. 
 
 " I will raise the head and shoulders, if you 
 will carry the feet," began Dr. Armitage. '* Stay 
 — not so ; we will carry her to the carriage-door 
 upon the mattrass, where the necessary accom- 
 modation for keeping her in a recumbent position 
 is provided." 
 
 Armand placed himself at the feet. The 
 dreamy eyes were fixed upon him. 
 
 The little exertion she had made seemed to 
 have been too much for her. A faint hectic 
 colour was on her cheek, and the eyes looked 
 uncertain and disturbed; but they rather the 
 more for that seemed to fasten upon him. 
 
 How he managed to perform the part assigned 
 to him he knew not, for he was trembling with 
 agitation ; but he did accomplish it. He assisted 
 to place her in the carriage, into which the lady, 
 with a thousand polite apologies for the trouble 
 given, made her way. The doctor followed.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 239 
 
 The door was shut ; and before Armand could 
 recover from his surprise, disappointment, and 
 anger, the carriage was gone. 
 
 And so, like the vanishing of a vivid dream, 
 which can scarcely be distinguished from reality, 
 the vision of the last night passed from before 
 his eyes ; and he awoke to find himself alone, in 
 a sense in which he had never known himself to 
 be alone before. 
 
 He stood like one stupified upon the steps, 
 watching the departing carriage ; scarcely distin- 
 guishing the real from the unreal, or knowing 
 whether it had not all been a fantastic delusion 
 — so suddenly had it broken upon his life — so 
 suddenly to disappear. 
 
 She was gone, and he had not even learned 
 her name. He could not even give a name to 
 this being, who had made such a wild impression 
 upon him. 
 
 He stood thus upon the steps, long after the 
 carriage had disappeared, and long after Am- 
 brose, tired of waiting, had gone away, leaving 
 the door open.
 
 240 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 At last, he seemed to come to himself, and 
 with a heavy sigh re-entered the house, feeling 
 as if the light of his existence had been at once 
 extinguished ; and going up to his own room, 
 he locked himself in. 
 
 There he fell into a chair, and remained 
 for some time in a sort of insensibility, 
 never looking up, far less touching his pencils, 
 or resuming his usual employments. At last, 
 he suddenly rose, carefully collected all the 
 sketches he had made during the morning, 
 examined them one by one, with a passion- 
 ate sort of avidity ; then collected them hastily, 
 buried them in the depths of a portfolio, and 
 locked the portfolio in a drawer, as if resolved 
 no profane eye should ever gaze upon its con- 
 tents ; then quitting the room, he left the house, 
 got through the streets he knew not how, and 
 reached some most lonely and desolate fields 
 upon the Essex side of the town. He roamed 
 about there till after nightfall. 
 
 It was a damp path which he took, under 
 trees heavy with foliage, and wetted with rain
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 241 
 
 which had fallen during the afternoon ; and as 
 the sun went down, heavy, curling mists rose 
 from the low grounds near the river — but he 
 regarded them not. 
 
 Solitude was what he wanted — to indulge his 
 thoughts undisturbed — if thoughts they could 
 be called, which they scarcely amounted to ! 
 One desire, however, pressed upon him with 
 intensity — he must hear more of her — he must 
 see her again. It was impossible, he thought, 
 after all that had passed, but that some further 
 notice must be taken of his family by her friends 
 — hasty and most ungracious as Mrs. Fitzroy's 
 departure had been. In any event, however, 
 he had got her address, and the very next day 
 he would go to Lower Grosvenor Street, and 
 learn something or other of her family. 
 
 And so he wandered, lost in a young man's 
 now painful, now pleasant musing, till he found 
 himself a considerable way from his father's 
 house, and through the trees and hedgerows saw 
 the sun, with a yellow, watery splendour, going 
 down behind the hills. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 Then he recollected where he was, and turned 
 homewards. But the wind began to rise, and 
 the evening, for that time of year, became ex- 
 tremely chilly. At last rain fell in large drops ; 
 a regular pelting wet evening came on. He 
 had lost his way among these lonely fields, and 
 did not know very well where he was. 
 
 He was at no time a very robust person, and 
 the fatigues and excitements of the last twenty- 
 four hours had exhausted him a good deal. He 
 wandered about, chilled and wetted through with 
 this rain, which soon fell in torrents ; but at 
 last he reached the turnpike- road, and knew his 
 way. 
 
 However, it was nearly ten o'clock before, 
 excessively wet and weary, he reached Du Chas- 
 tel's house. 
 
 He went straight up to the drawing-room, 
 fearful that his mother would be uneasy — which 
 indeed he found her. His father had been from 
 home upon business all the afternoon ; so that 
 Claire was quite alone, and excessively uncom- 
 fortable.
 
 EVELYN MAKSTON. 243 
 
 He remained some time with her, regardless 
 of his wet clothing, accounting to her for his 
 ahsence, and describing where he had wandered, 
 and how he had lost himself. A little more 
 time was spent in enquiry whether anything had 
 been heard of the young lady ; a little more in 
 discussing the manner of her departure. At 
 length, Madame Du Chastel suddenly recol- 
 lected the state of her son's clothes, and insisted 
 upon his going to change them. 
 
 He obeyed her, but soon returned, looking 
 very ill, and speaking hoarsely, and when she 
 questioned him with much anxiety, he confessed 
 to feeling not well, and complained of consider- 
 able oppression and pain at the chest. 
 
 In short, the next morning found Armand 
 delirious with fever, and in immediate danger 
 from severe pleurisy, the result of various causes 
 combined ; so that, far from being able to go, 
 as he intended, to Lower Grosvenor Street, he 
 was obliged to be kept confined to his bed ; and 
 was in such a state, that he was incapable of 
 
 R 2
 
 244 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 even expressing his wishes upon the subject to 
 others. 
 
 He raved of what had passed, but too inco- 
 herently to betray his secret ; and in this state 
 he remained several days. 
 
 The first enquiry, when he was restored to 
 his senses, was as to the young lady. 
 
 His mother had heard nothing of her, and 
 had been far too anxious about her son, to 
 trouble herself upon the subject. 
 
 He felt too shy to express the intense desire 
 he had to know something more — his internal 
 consciousness kept him silent — and his silence 
 so far imposed, not only upon his mother, but 
 upon his father and Anne Duglas, that they suf- 
 fered the subject to pass by. 
 
 It was nearly a month before Armand was 
 well enough to leave the house ; and the first 
 use he made of his liberty was to hasten, with a 
 beating heart, to Lower Grosvenor Street. He 
 had taken a hackney-coach, for he was still quite 
 incapable of walking the distance. 
 
 The coach stopped at the door of a handsome
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 245 
 
 house, and Jarvey descended to knock and to 
 ring. 
 
 Long he knocked, and many times he rang, 
 before any answer was made. At last an old 
 shabbily-dressed, dirty-looking woman responded 
 to the summons. 
 
 " Who am I to ask for, please, sir ?" 
 
 " Let me out !" And Armand ascended the 
 steps with a painful misgiving that the family 
 were no longer there. 
 
 " Does this house belong to Mrs. Fitzroy ?" 
 
 " No, sir ; to Mr. Terry." 
 
 " To Mr. Terry ! I was told a family of the 
 name of Fitzroy lived here." 
 
 '' Lodgers, may be, sir. Mr. Terry lets this 
 house for the season ; he does not live in it him- 
 self." 
 
 " Is there any one living here now ?" 
 
 " Only myself, sir ; but Fve heard say a fa- 
 mily is coming." 
 
 " Who occupied the house last ?" 
 
 " Can't say, sir — never inquired. I have 
 been only put in two or three days ago, as the 
 other woman is dead."
 
 246 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 "Then you know nothing of the family of 
 Fitzroy? Perhaps they did not occupy this 
 house, and there is some mistake — the next 
 possibly." 
 
 It was a faint hope soon destroyed by the 
 woman saying — 
 
 "Yes, sir. Now, I recollect the last occu- 
 piers were named Fitzroy. They took the house 
 for the season, I believe, but went away sooner 
 than was intended. Somebody was ill, I think 
 I heard say. The house has stood empty ever 
 since. I believe it's let again now ; but would 
 you please to look at it ?" 
 
 " Yes ; I should be glad." 
 
 There was a sort of satisfaction in even enter- 
 ing the rooms where she had been, and some- 
 thing more might be elicited from the exa- 
 mination. 
 
 But there was little to be seen. It was a 
 large, rather handsomely-furnished house — such 
 as houses intended to be let for the season are — 
 retaining not a trace of the domestic habits of 
 those who last occupied it.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 247 
 
 He visited every room, but he could make 
 out nothing. The woman was perfectly igno- 
 rant upon the subject. Her only reason for 
 supposing that the house had been occupied by 
 Mrs. Fitzroy was, now he mentioned the name, 
 she thought she recollected it ; and there was 
 the cover of a letter, too, which w^as lying in 
 a drawer of the writing-table. She could not 
 read herself, but as the young gentleman seemed 
 anxious to know something about these people, 
 — why, there it was. 
 
 And there it unquestionably was — an old cover 
 of a note, embossed with flowers and Cupids, 
 and edged with a pink line, according to the 
 taste of that day, and addressed, " Mrs. Fitzroy, 
 25, Lower Grosvenor Street." 
 
 That decided the matter so far. He could 
 learn nothing more. 
 
 Who were these Fitzroys ? From what part 
 of the country had they come, as they were not 
 resident in London ? 
 
 She was sure she knew nothing about it. 
 Even a half-crown failed to elicit any intelligence; 
 she could tell nothing, for she knew nothing.
 
 248 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " Possibly Mr. Terry might know something 
 about them ?" 
 
 She didn't know. Mr. Terry was a gentle- 
 man of property. The house was let by an 
 agent. She didn't know what agent. There were 
 many. Couldn't justly recollect which of them 
 it was ; was herself put in here by Mr, Thomp- 
 son, the green-grocer, who took care of the 
 house, &c. &c. 
 
 Nothing more could be got out of her. 
 
 They were gone, then ; every trace had va- 
 nished. This little episode in his life was to 
 remain as if it had never been. 
 
 A haunch of venison and a basket of fine 
 fruit had one day been left at the door of 
 Du Chastel's house, with Mrs. Fitzroy's com- 
 pliments ; but this had been whilst he was ill, 
 and no inquiries had been made. 
 
 This acknowledgment was the only notice 
 ever taken upon the part of the young lady's 
 family, and no more was heard or seen of any of 
 the party. 
 
 The subject gradually died away.
 
 EVELTN MARSTON. 249 
 
 With Armand it remained as a sweet and 
 beautiful vision, that made his heart beat 
 whenever he thought of it ; but other and 
 deeper interests after a time succeeding, drove 
 the matter ahnost entirely from his mind.
 
 250 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 This little break in Armand's usually unevent- 
 ful life, had happened at least three or four years 
 before I first became acquainted with Du Chastel 
 and his son, upon that fearful night when I met 
 them in Spital Fields. 
 
 We have seen how to the object of assisting the 
 suffering workmen every sacrifice of personal in- 
 dulgence, and even the dearest object of Ar- 
 mand's hearty had been given up ; and how, with 
 the hope of effecting a permanent relief to hun- 
 dreds of starving weavers, by largely extending 
 the trade of the community, Mr. Du Chastel had 
 engaged in an extensive and somewhat perilous 
 speculation. 
 
 For some time things went on prosperously, 
 and there was every reason to hope, not only
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 251 
 
 that a lasting benefit would be conferred upon 
 the silk trade, but that Mr. Du Chastel's pri- 
 vate fortune would be very considerably in- 
 creased. 
 
 The conduct of these important affairs, how- 
 ever, absorbed almost the whole of his time. 
 He was occupied from morning to night in his 
 counting-house — his wife was perforce left very 
 much alone. 
 
 This interfered greatly with Armand's plans 
 and wishes. 
 
 The idea of going to Italy, the subject of 
 such intense desire, had been abandoned. At 
 first, as we have seen, because he could not 
 think it right in days of such extreme distress to 
 divert so considerable a portion of his father's 
 means from the purposes of charity. As dis- 
 tress subsided, and his father's fortune promised 
 to improve, the old desire was naturally revived 
 in his mind. The devotion to his art had only 
 increased with his years, and in a way not usual, 
 I think, with those who do not pursue it as a 
 profession. Few amateurs are found so per-
 
 252 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 severing, so industrious, so devoted to their 
 pursuit as he was. But Armand stood in a 
 peculiar position ; he was not diverted from his 
 object by any of those pleasures and distractions 
 which most young men in easy circumstances 
 are surrounded by — he lived in a remote district 
 of the city, and belonged to a community apart. 
 
 It was, what he thought his duty to his 
 mother which now alone delayed the long-looked- 
 for journey to a land to him so full of hope and 
 promise. Duty to both parents seemed to re- 
 quire that the plan should not be carried into 
 execution until his father was in some degree 
 released from his present cares and exertions. 
 And so time fleeted away. 
 
 And a few more years had elapsed. 
 
 And now they are over, 
 
 I was idly looking over the Gazette as I sat 
 at breakfast in a coffee-house in Edinburgh, 
 when, to my horror and surprise, my eye was
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 553 
 
 arrested by the name of " Du Chastel, master 
 weaver, Spital Fields/' in the list of bankrupts. 
 
 Greatly shocked, but still hoping it might be 
 some other person, I turned to a friend of mine, 
 a man largely engaged in trade, and pointing 
 out the name, inquired if he knew anything 
 about it ? 
 
 " Ah ! — He's gone at last ! It was a tickle 
 business I always understood ; that affair of the 
 Bonnivettis — honest people enough, I believe — 
 but they wanted capital — wanted capital. Poor 
 Du Chastel ! So he's gone at last ! He was 
 an excellent, honourable, high-minded fellow, but 
 had some odd crotchets of his own as regarded 
 trade. As Marston says, ' Crotchets don't fill 
 purses.' It will be some time before we see 
 Marston in the Gazette, I take it." 
 
 ** What was there in this transaction of Mr. 
 Du Chastel's that rendered it so very imprudent ? 
 It is not the first time I have seen people shake 
 their heads at it. I am surprised that a man 
 like him should engage in doubtful speculations 
 of any kind ; he seemed so moderate in his 
 wishes and expectations."
 
 254 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 " Very much so. But he had got it Into his 
 head that this scheme would be a very beneficial 
 one for the Spital Fields weavers. It was not 
 done through greediness of gain I am assured, but 
 through pure, though perhaps somewhat roman- 
 tic, philanthropy. Unluckily, my dear sir, trade 
 and philanthropy have nothing upon earth to do 
 with each other." 
 
 " The more the pity," said I. 
 
 " Why the more the pity ? I think when 
 flourishing traders and honest men break, and in 
 their ruin involve hundreds and hundreds of 
 dependant creatures, the more the pity then. 
 Can you realise what it is for a great house to 
 stop ? The wide-spreading mischief and misery. 
 — Poor fellow ! Du Chastel will, I verily 
 believe, feel all this far more than his own loss. 
 But he should not have indulged in these bene- 
 volent dreams, as I was saying. He could get 
 not one of his brothers in trade to back him, 
 as I understood.... It was a bad business, I'm 
 afraid—" 
 
 " But the weavers were starving, were they 
 not ?"
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 255 
 
 " I am afraid so. But there was no help for 
 it. Time and change of fashions might have 
 done something for them. I know little about the 
 matter. I heard Marston one day talking about 
 it, and that made me acquainted with the little 
 I do. He condemned this Du Chastel without 
 measure. I, in spite of my general principles upon 
 the subject, thought there was a good deal to be 
 said for the Frenchman ; but Marston's a close- 
 handed man." 
 
 " And hard-hearted," thought I. 
 Too true it was, the crash for some time an- 
 ticipated had at length come. 
 
 I need not detail the causes which precipi- 
 tated the disaster ; I think the sudden death of 
 Bonnivetti was one. 
 
 Be Ihat as it may, Du Chastel was ruined. 
 It was impossible for him to meet his en- 
 gagements, and he was obliged to stop pay- 
 ment. 
 
 Everything went. 
 
 There were no marriage-settlements to fall 
 back upon, no property previously secured,
 
 256 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 which could insure a sufficient supply even of 
 daily bread. Nothing whatever remained to him. 
 And it was the work of a few hours ! 
 Such complete destitution is rare. There are 
 usually relations — friends of some sort or other, 
 to fall back upon. 
 
 There was nothing of the sort in this case. 
 Not a penny that was justly his own was left 
 to him. 
 
 And to touch a penny of what belonged to 
 his creditors, would have been to him more ab- 
 horrent than death in tortures. 
 
 His honour as a soldier and a gentleman — 
 his truth and faith as a just and righteous man, 
 forbade him even to lay claim to some little 
 things which might, perhaps with justice, have 
 been considered as belonging to his son." But 
 there was a doubt upon the subject, and Ar- 
 mand would as little hear of endeavouring to 
 secure them as his father. 
 
 A few pictures, painted by Armand's own 
 hand, were all he would take. Every one of his 
 little treasures of art, so carefully accumulated
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 257 
 
 and treasured, were given up to the creditors — 
 for they had been purchased with his father's 
 money. 
 
 A small reversion which, upon his father's 
 death, had been bequeathed to the son, was, I 
 forgot to say, all that was left to them ; but, 
 when realised, it would produce a mere trifle ; 
 yet, trifle as it was, it was received by Du Chastel 
 with intense gratitude. 
 
 He stood there, to use the pathetic expression 
 of Byron, " upon his domestic hearth, with all 
 his household gods shattered around him" — that 
 brave Christian hero ! — and he bowed his head 
 and worshipped — " The Lord gave, and the Lord 
 hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the 
 Lord." 
 
 It is difficult to realise the heaviness of the 
 blow, the greatness of the fall, or the suffer- 
 ing occasioned by that laceration of every hope, 
 sentiment, and old remembrance, which such 
 an event produces. 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 Life violently wrenched in twain — the carefully- 
 erected edifice of social comfort and domestic hap- 
 piness fallen into one confused ruin — the future 
 a blank. 
 
 Every dearest association of home — every ex- 
 ternal claim to respect and honour, self- 
 repose and self-reliance, gone — all most beautiful 
 and dear annihilated 1 Honest pride and native 
 dignity exchanged for humiliation and shame. 
 The very peace of conscience — that peace 
 which usually waits upon and sweetens honest 
 though unsuccessful endeavour, is not for the 
 unhappy man. The cries of the numbers who 
 in such a catastrophe must inevitably suffer, are 
 clamouring at the heart, and cruel questionings 
 and doubts as to the propriety of a course, the 
 result of which has proved so deplorable, dis- 
 tract him — bitter regret, not unmingled with 
 self-reproach ! 
 
 All — all are there ! 
 
 But the son understood it well, and sat 
 by that once-happy fireside, now no longer
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 259 
 
 their own, and shared the bitterness of his 
 father's feelings, and strove to emulate his 
 constancy. 
 
 One look Du Chastel cast upon that couch 
 where his wife, that martyr of so many years, 
 had laid, enjoying the sweetness of every atten- 
 tion which love such as his could give. That 
 glance was the only return upon personal feel- 
 ing that was made. 
 
 He thought only of those he had so unde- 
 signedly injured — his sole anxiety was for his 
 creditors. 
 
 Few words passed between father and son that 
 first evening. 
 
 The day had been spent in harassing busi- 
 ness, and they had now retired to this long- 
 loved room to pause and breathe. 
 
 Armand had been indefatigable in his exer- 
 tions to assist his father, and the devoted energy 
 of his affection even in that dark hour had been 
 a cordial to Du Chastel's heart. 
 
 The father drew strength and solace from the 
 
 s 2
 
 260 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 devotion of the son ; the son felt his moral life 
 expand as he gazed upon his father. 
 
 Full of thoughts — of devoted self-sacri- 
 fice — -"and resolution to live only to help 
 him, so Armand sat ; and the dreams of love, 
 and the visions of art and beauty, sank into 
 nothing. 
 
 " My dear boy," said Du Chastel, rousing 
 himself at last from the deep reverie into which 
 he had fallen ; *' I forgot you — and you forget 
 yourself. This has been a hard day, my son. 
 I am an old battered oak, but you are but 
 a young sapling, yet in all your greenness 
 I am not beginning to dote, I hope ; but I 
 seem to be growing poetical. I mean to 
 speak very simple prose, I assure you, when I 
 ask you to ring the bell and order yourself some 
 cold meat and tea — if there is anything in the 
 house." 
 
 " I had forgotten it, sir. One does not feel 
 very hungry to-day." 
 
 " No ; but tea is, after all, a cheerful coun-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 26 I 
 
 sellor in the worst of cases. We must have a 
 little talk together, and how better than over a 
 cup of tea, which you shall make for me ? I 
 don't know how it is, my boy" — looking at him 
 with great affection — " but I grow old-womanly, 
 
 I think To have anything from that hand 
 
 of yours Well, well; it's very sweet — that's 
 
 all." 
 
 It was as much as Armand could do to re- 
 strain his tears. He was yet so unhacknied, so 
 little used up by life, that the water lay sadly 
 near his eyes ; but he repressed them, and an- 
 swered cheerfully — 
 
 " I am half afraid to ring the bell and summon 
 the old man ; he looks so fearfully out of 
 sorts, not knowing whether to be cross or com- 
 passionate ; besides, I dare say, he's dozing in 
 his chair. Pity to rouse him. I'll just slip 
 down, put the kettle on myself, and bring up 
 tea in two seconds. If there is anything in 
 the house, we'll eat it ; if not, we'll do with - 
 out."
 
 262 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 It did not amount to a smile, but a cheery 
 brightness came over the father's face. He 
 looked at his son, and his heart felt lighter. 
 Yes, he was of the right sort — the genuine old 
 stock. He met disaster as a brave soldier faces 
 the enemy. 
 
 "With sudden glory, as a man inspired," 
 as Wordsworth has it, there was not only cou- 
 rage but cheerfulness about him. More than 
 patience — more even than submission — bright 
 elasticity of spirits, that grappled with adversity 
 almost gaily. The gaiety was a little forced, 
 perhaps, for Armand felt so much for his father 
 — had it been himself only, the task would have 
 been easy — but this Du Chastel did not per- 
 ceive. 
 
 He felt that this day had brought his son's 
 character to the proof. He saw how that proof 
 was met ; and he felt that he had a friend — a 
 staff and right hand, and a loving child in 
 one. 
 
 W^hatever lay before them, together they
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 263 
 
 should struggle through — together they should 
 overcome everything. 
 
 Armand found Ambrose, as he had expected, 
 dozing by the kitchen fire, drowsy through fa- 
 tigue and sadness. He was the only servant 
 left in the house — all the rest had been dis- 
 charged. 
 
 He stepped softly in, not to disturb the old 
 man, who sat there, nodding, and groaning, and 
 grumbling, and sighing, in his doze. 
 
 The kettle, however, had been placed upon 
 the bars, and was simmering cheerfully, just as 
 he had so loved to hear it when a child, as he 
 sat upon the old man's knees, waiting for the 
 grand moment of projection when it would boil 
 over. 
 
 An ancient tabby cat, a privileged favourite, 
 lay comfortably, as cats alone know how to do, 
 in front of the grate, upon a sort of round tablet, 
 in the middle of the old-fashioned fender ; the
 
 264 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 fire glistened and flashed upon the rows of kit- 
 chen utensils, bright in all their homely wealth, 
 which were ranged upon the shelves, and upon 
 the old French and Dutch china plates and dishes, 
 rich with flowers and grotesque patterns, and 
 fine colours. The floor was of whitened stone, 
 carefully sanded over; the dressers of ancient 
 oak or walnut, shining with polish. It was just 
 like one of those old Dutch paintings which one 
 delights in, one hardly knows why. 
 
 How he had loved it ! How he did love it ! 
 How it spoke at once to the artist and the man ! 
 
 So beautiful and dear ! 
 
 He sighed and looked round. 
 
 Sighed again and again, as his eye took in 
 every long-loved object, for truly the household 
 gods were more especially there — when kitchens 
 of old were charming things. In Puritan 
 families especially, who even to my day pre- 
 served these remnants of another form of life. 
 There was a delicate and minute cleanliness 
 and brightness to be observed in them, which
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 265 
 
 gave a quite ideal beauty to this prosaic part of 
 every- day life. 
 
 Armand walked up to the long, ancient oak 
 dresser, with its drawers and their elaborately 
 ornamented handles shining like rich gold, 
 surmounted by those ranges of shelves ascend- 
 ing to the ceiling, and ornamented with a hand- 
 some somewhat heavy cornice at top, and covered 
 over with a wealth of fine old stately china, 
 the beauty of which his artist eye had long 
 learned to appreciate. 
 
 He had loved and treasured it, and had 
 secretly resolved, some time or other, to per- 
 suade his mother to bestow the precious relics 
 upon him. 
 
 Now it must all go. 
 
 But what was he about — indulging weak and 
 regretful feelings of this trivial nature ? 
 
 It was all pain — nothing but pain. He was 
 much tired, and his spirits were foiling fast ; but 
 it would never do to begin the new life in this 
 childish way. He must not weaken his mind 
 by whining about trifles. 
 
 This dear old place ! It was his last look !
 
 266 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 He is carrying up the tea-board — leaving Am- 
 brose still asleep — and he is making tea, and 
 endeavouring, by his own cheerfulness, to cheer 
 his father, whose heart, in spite of all he could 
 do, was still very heavy.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 267 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The attic of a tall and shabby -looking house, 
 at the lower end of one of those streets which 
 run from the Strand to the river, choked up 
 by wharfs and mean buildings upon every side. 
 This attic, owing to its height, commanded a view 
 of the stream ; the Surrey side opposite, with its 
 buildings and wretched church ; and further on, 
 two of the bridges in the distance ; on the west, 
 the looming towers of Westminster Abbey 
 were seen, and upon the other hand, a refreshing 
 glimpse of the green trees of the Temple 
 Gardens. 
 
 It was a poor low room, of which the 
 walls, far from enjoying the luxury of paper, 
 seemed to have forgotten their last white- washing,
 
 268 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 and whose smoke-dried rafters darkened the 
 ceiling, and was, at the time I am writing of, in 
 the occupation of a very young, but most in- 
 defatigable artist. 
 
 He had chosen these apartments, first and 
 foremost, because they were very cheap. They 
 lay much out of everybody's way, and were 
 to be reached by many — so many flights of 
 stairs — that none but the very poor, who must 
 learn to submit to all kinds of inconveni- 
 ence, would have thouo;ht of taking them. 
 But to the present occupier, young and active, 
 and unaccustomed to indulgence, this objection, 
 so formidable to many, was a matter of indif- 
 ference; not so the advantages obtained by 
 mounting so high. The freshness of the air, the 
 wide expanse of the sky, sun-rises and sun- sets, 
 the gleaming fl.ow of the ever-changing river, 
 those grey, beautiful queenlike towers of West- 
 minster Abbey, in all their soft varieties of ex- 
 pression through the mists of morning, in the 
 bright gleam of a July day, or golden-framed 
 in a setting sun, were to him a source of 
 never-failing delight : a delight of which those
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 269 
 
 who revel daily in such things, can form but 
 little idea. 
 
 The trees of the Temple Gardens, especially, 
 their wide-spreading branches rising in domes 
 one behind the other in delicious green, and the 
 glimpse to be caught of the turf and walks, 
 and sometimes of little children running about 
 whilst nurse-maids rested on the benches, was, 
 if possible, still more to be enjoyed. How 
 the heart of poet or painter, immured in a wil- 
 derness of roofs and stone walls, longs and yearns 
 for green ! I have heard one say, even a bit of 
 green railing, all the verdure his window com- 
 manded, was dear to him. 
 
 Our artist had a few additional pleasures 
 thrown by accident into the bargain. 
 
 His window overlooked a small open space 
 at the back of a joiner's workshop, and the 
 joiner chanced to be a poet and a lover of nature 
 in his way. In this miniature court, but a few 
 yards square, he had improvised an apology for 
 a garden. There was a little blackish turf, a 
 sooty laburnum- tree, a vine, and a virginian
 
 270 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 creeper, all growing in boxes, and trained against 
 the work-shop wall. 
 
 In spring, when they first put forth their 
 young leaves, before dust and smoke had de- 
 filed them, there was a pleasant freshness on 
 them, and he loved to look down upon it and 
 watch the advances of the " bella primavera 
 giovenfu de Vanno,^' even in these her most 
 humble developments. Moreover, there was 
 inhabiting that joiner's workshop window another 
 living being, whose heart answered to the ad- 
 vance of spring as his own did, a caged thrush. 
 Who that has lived in London and heard the 
 thrilling notes of the thrush coming up from 
 some back court, or lowly chamber in a mews, 
 but has felt his heart thrill to it ? 
 
 What pictures do those sweet, fresh, gushing 
 notes of bliss awaken ! 
 
 This thrush was our artist's consolation and 
 joy. A kind of sweet, beneficent, fairy spirit, 
 whose tones had power to call up a world of 
 visionary enchantments. 
 
 Sitting at his easel, his pallet on one hand, 
 his brush in the other, his casement window
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 271 
 
 wide open, the air pouring in as it came fresh- 
 ening with the tide up the Thames, the dis- 
 tant hum and roU of the great city, the cries and 
 varied scenes from the river mingled and softened, 
 and this sweet, warbhng, indefatigable> Httle 
 thrush pouring not its voice of melody through 
 all ! there was something not easy to be described 
 in it. He was a happy man at such moments, 
 in spite of everything. His heart swelled and 
 yearned with an ineffable sense of beatitude and 
 good all pervading ; an atmosphere of the beau- 
 tiful and the pure surrounding him ; an over- 
 flowing fountain springing up to the true life, 
 and the green herbs and living waters making 
 glad the wilderness. 
 
 His heart and his imagination were nourished 
 by these things. A Httle suffices to him who 
 carries the best riches in himself — which this 
 young man pre-eminently did. Where the 
 imagination is in itself exceeding rich, a httle 
 suffices to call the visionary ecstacy to life ; and 
 where the heart is most feeling and most loving, 
 most generous, disinterested, and single, to child- 
 likeness, a Httle suffices to make it glad.
 
 27*2 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 He loved the beautiful arch of the sky over- 
 head — he loved the glimpses of fair things 
 which from his lofty window he could descry over 
 that hideous confusion of roofs and chimneys 
 below him. He loved the breath of the spring- 
 wind as it gently passed over his temples. He 
 loved his little room, his easel, his sketches, 
 his copies, and those inarticulate murmurings in 
 art, his own attempts at composition and in- 
 vention. 
 
 He loved even the almost mechanical, and 
 what many would have despised as utterly 
 unworthy, labours by which he subsisted ; but 
 above all, did he love that httle thrush, sing- 
 ing below there to himself. And yet, cheerful, 
 brave, humble, patient, as he was, he had many 
 and many a desponding hour. 
 
 He was an artist labouring for his bread. 
 Every morsel which he put into his mouth was 
 to be earned by the works of his hand. He 
 was, moreover, as we know, a youth of ex- 
 traordinary promise and genius. Nature 
 had endowed him with all those faculties
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 273 
 
 which are indispensable to the constituting 
 of a great painter — splendour of imagination, 
 correct and delicate taste, the instinctive eye for 
 colour, composition, and form, and that singular 
 facility of hand, which is to the stander-by, one 
 of the most incomprehensible gifts with which 
 Nature endows her favourites. All this and 
 more, had been bestowed — but here his advan- 
 tages had ended. 
 
 Born in a station of society which almost 
 forbids the following of art as a profession ; 
 placed under circumstances which would render 
 any profession as a means of gaining subsistence 
 unnecessary — it had not been imperative upon 
 his parents to educate him for one. Whereas 
 had he been obliged to get his livelihood by 
 his pencil, he would then from the beginning 
 have received that regular preparation for the 
 pursuits of art, which the first masters and 
 finest geniuses in the world have felt to be in- 
 dispensable to success, and have sought with 
 the greatest perseverance and assiduity to 
 obtain. 
 
 In consequence, when the utter ruin of his 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 father threw young Du Chastel upon his own 
 resources for subsistence, he found himself in a 
 most distressing situation. 
 
 To endeavour to procure employment by any 
 other means than by his pencil was not to be 
 thought of. And even if the idea could be en- 
 tertained, he did not know where to turn to 
 obtain it, even in the humblest situation. Be- 
 sides, he was as utterly unfitted for the pursuits 
 of trade, as he was wonderfully gifted for his 
 own. And there are things which a man feels 
 it absurd to attempt. To cross a strong natural 
 vocation being one. 
 
 Yet, what was to be done ? 
 
 A trifling reversion which belonged to himself, 
 as we said, he had immediately sold at the time 
 of his father's reverses, and placed the money in 
 the funds, as a resource, at least for the present, 
 which would supply urgent necessities, and espe- 
 cially what in the elder Du Chastel's eyes was the 
 first of necessities, the means of affording those 
 little comforts and conveniences which the state of 
 nis wife's health demanded. These, neither 
 father nor son could endure the idea of her
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 275 
 
 being deprived of — they would have gone with- 
 out bread themselves first. 
 
 This slender fund, it was hoped, might be 
 made to last out till Du Chastel should have so 
 far settled his affairs, as to be able to enter some 
 merchant's house in a dependent situation — such 
 as a man utterly without money and means must 
 be content to fill ; but assuredly there would be 
 nothing left to spare for the exigencies of an 
 artist's training 
 
 This, which appeared to be the indispensable 
 condition of maintaining himself by painting as a 
 profession, was for the present utterly out of the 
 question. And already had Armand arrived at 
 that age when a further delay in this matter 
 threatened to be fatal to all hopes of future excel- 
 lence. The prospect was indeed most disheart- 
 ening. 
 
 Many a proud, many a sanguine, many a brave 
 spirit, would have sunk under it. 
 
 But our Armand was one too noble for de- 
 spair. 
 
 His was no haughty spirit that could not 
 stoop ; he possessed that royal humility which 
 
 T 2
 
 276 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 holds nothing base, or beneath a man's regard, 
 which belongs to duty, honour, or affection. 
 Duty was the voice of God — honour was its 
 reflex in the conscience of man ; affection was 
 with him a something simple, warm, and true, 
 whose strength was the very strength of nature. 
 Nothino; that he could do which would enable 
 him to discharge the obligations thus imposed, 
 was beneath him — nothing too menial or too 
 servile. 
 
 He must maintain himself — that was his first 
 duty. The rest would come, or would not come, 
 as He should decide in whose hands are the 
 courses of men. Whether the talents He had 
 bestowed should ripen to their just perfection, 
 or whether they should perish blighted under 
 the evil influences that surrounded him, was 
 not his to decide. 
 
 The gifts of nature which he had received 
 were singularly great, but their possession gave 
 him no right to claim an equal share in those of 
 fortune. Because he had been endowed above 
 his fellows in some things, did a claim arise to be 
 favoured more than the rest in others, and
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 277 
 
 escape by a sort of miracle from the inevitable 
 consequences of a catastrophe like his father's ? 
 No. What lay before him, that he would accept ; 
 where the path pointed, he would follow cheer- 
 fully and without a murmur — if possible, with- 
 out a vain regret. 
 
 He would achieve all that honest, strenuous 
 endeavour could achieve ; but he would be no 
 dependant upon other men*s charity. Painter 
 or not painter, he would be the son of his own 
 right hand. 
 
 Such were his reflections and resolutions. 
 
 The most painful of his regrets — and I know 
 scarcely any regret more painful to a man on the 
 threshold of active life — was the loss of unre- 
 deemable time. The impossibility, as it appeared, 
 for one who started so late in the race, ever even 
 to approach that goal not easily reached even by 
 those who have the fresh morning of the day 
 before them. It is interesting to mark how 
 certain thoughts and recollections sometimes 
 start into the mind — we know not whence — as 
 if an angel of comfort whispered them. One 
 day, when Armand was battling with little sue-
 
 278 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 cess against despondency, and a sense of difficul- 
 ties not to be overcome by one who so late 
 had started in his career — the remembrance 
 of Claude Lorraine suddenly came into his 
 mind. He knew not by what association — 
 for he had forgotten it — how Claude Lorraine 
 had been a cook and a grinder of colours till he 
 was nearly, if not past, thirty years of age. 
 
 What man has been, man may be. 
 
 And from that hour Armand despaired no 
 more. 
 
 The first occupation he found for himself w^as 
 humble indeed. He applied to a publisher of 
 children's books, and got himself engaged to 
 colour coarsely-executed prints, with which, at that 
 time of day, such books were adorned, and 
 others of the like description, to be made up into 
 children's puzzles. 
 
 What was to be sold so cheap, must be 
 cheaply done; and what every one almost can 
 do, will easily find hands to accept the task at
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 279 
 
 the price required. It took many hours of every 
 day at such work, to produce enough to provide 
 him with the daily half-crown which he made 
 suffice to find food, lodging, and clothing. 
 A small back-room, or rather hole, in which any 
 cultivation of his art seemed impossible, had 
 been all which at first could be thus provided. . 
 
 Scarcely was there light enough through the 
 window, closely surrounded by high buildings 
 on every side, for even this rude work to be 
 executed ; far less, it would appear, for the pro- 
 secution of those studies to which he devoted 
 every instant of time that was left. But he was 
 not to be discouraged. 
 
 He could at least draw, in this obscurity, 
 when days were long, and the sunlight lingered re- 
 flected upon the opposite wall ; drawing, severe, 
 correct drawing, he knew to be the foundation of 
 all permanent excellence in art — draw he would, 
 and he did. With a bit of blackened wood at first, 
 and on the coarsest paper, and from the life — 
 though the models were his own foot and hand. 
 
 He used to go every morning to his employer's 
 shop, receive the large bundle of prints to be
 
 280 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 coloured that day, return to his room, drink his 
 bowl of milk, and eat his crust of dry bread, and 
 proceed to work indefatigably, till the pile was 
 finished. This rarely happened till six or seven 
 o'clock in the evening, when he carried his work 
 back, and at the end of every week received 
 his money. Thus Armand Du Chastel was 
 become a mere day-labourer — a Proletaire. 
 
 His lodging and the necessary food consumed 
 ten shillings, to provide decent clothing the sixth 
 of what remained was laid by ; one shilling and 
 sixpence was the surplus of the whole, which 
 was sacredly hoarded — deposited in a little box, 
 as a fund to provide for the exigencies of art. 
 
 It was a poor beginning; but Armand remem- 
 bered '' the day of small things," and was thank- 
 ful. I believe few men who count their ac- 
 cumulations by tens and hundreds of thousands, 
 experience that sunshine of delight with which, 
 on a Saturday night, this young man dropped 
 his one-and-sixpence through the slit in the 
 lid of his treasury — his strong-box ; — a little 
 childish affair, which had been the gift of his
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 281 
 
 dear old uncle, when he was scarcely out of the 
 nursery. 
 
 Then he would indulge in all the luxury of 
 ablutions, and of a toilette carefully arranged, 
 throwing aside his rough working dress, putting 
 on his best coat, and the various little articles 
 then thought indispensable to the plainest ap- 
 pearance of a gentleman ; arraying himself 
 as scrupulously to please his father's eye, as 
 ever a lover did to meet his mistress ; and, 
 light of heart, cheered by that warm and 
 comfortable thing, an honest conscience, he 
 would sally forth, to drink tea with his father 
 and mother. 
 
 Saturday night was always given to them. 
 It was a sacrifice to spare these few hours from 
 his pencil ; but it was a sacrifice gladly offered 
 at this shrine. 
 
 The elder Du Chastel had taken rooms in a 
 small house, standing in a small row at Islington, 
 where there were strips of grass in front, with a 
 tree or two in each, and slips of kitchen garden 
 behind, where a few peas, greens, pinks, rose- 
 bushes, and gooseberries grew together.
 
 282 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 It was a homely little place, but it was quiet 
 within and without ; and there was fresh air to 
 be had blowing up these strips of gardens ; the 
 row of houses which stood opposite being equally 
 provided in this respect, and a broad road be- 
 tween the two lines. Quiet and fresh air were 
 what poor Claire's nerves found indispensable. 
 They were the very conditions of existence to 
 her — and here they were secured. 
 
 They had but two small rooms — a sitting-room 
 to the front, a bed-room to the back ; the pro- 
 prietor and his wife occupied the remainder of 
 the house. One of those quiet vegetating couples, 
 who live like their own cabbages, and make 
 scarcely more stir. No lovers of noise them- 
 selves, they were happy to receive this quiet pair, 
 and with the assistance of a most demure little 
 maiden of a charity girl, give the necessary 
 attendance to the invalid, and provide the cook- 
 ing for the table. All by the way being done 
 with a scrupulous attention to neatness and 
 nicety, which was common to the good wives of 
 those good old times. I much doubt whether we 
 should have the comfort of finding the same, if
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 283 
 
 we went to look for it, by taking a couple of 
 rooms in a small row of houses at Islington 
 Dow-a-days. 
 
 At first, there had been no bed for Armand, and 
 he had to return after a long fatiguing walk back 
 to his own close little room to sleep ; but the good 
 couple were speedily interested in their lodgers ; 
 that noble-looking man who " surely had seen 
 better days," as the worthy retired breeches- 
 maker had it. 
 
 And that poor sick lady, with those delicate 
 white hands of hers, and that pale fair cheek, her 
 nice ways, and gentle voice, and grateful thanks 
 for every little thing that was done for her ! 
 
 But most of all did the wife, they being a child- 
 less pair, admire " that sweet, beautiful young 
 man, with his bright face and his golden hair, 
 looking like the angels themselves, — as if he 
 gave out light, as IVe seen it in a pictur' — coming 
 to drink tea with his poor parents. I'm afraid 
 they are very poor." 
 
 " I think, Mr. Bradley," she went on one day, 
 after having indulged more than usual in poetry
 
 284 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 of the above description ; for all the poetry in 
 her nature — and we all have it somewhere or 
 other — was called to life by these lodgers of hers : 
 " Fve been thinking, Mr. Bradley, that it's a 
 pity now the days are growing shorter, and bad 
 weather coming on, that the young lad — he's 
 but a lad — on a Saturday night should have to 
 go muddling through the nasty street, I know 
 not how far, to his own lodgings. You know 
 there's the little blue closet has a camp bed in 
 it ; you don't intend to let it ; suppose we give 
 it up to the young gentleman ?" 
 
 " By all manner of means — what must we 
 ask ? Not much, I suppose — It's a small bit of 
 a place, but then it's just new papered, and a 
 white cotton bed costs money, and wants 
 washing." 
 
 " Ask ? You're not going to ask anything for 
 it ? If it could be had for paying for — that is, 
 if they could afford to pay for it — do you think 
 they would not have enquired about it long ago ? 
 John Bradley, it's no use mincing the matter 
 those people are as poor as church mice — not
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 285 
 
 a sixpence to throw away, as in my heart I be- 
 lieve." 
 
 John Bradley gave a sort of discontented 
 grunt. 
 
 " Ay, ay, I know — you're not fond of poor 
 folk — never was. But there's something about 
 what's poor — and not proud — who has had a 
 right to be proud, mind, hut's not proud — that 
 goes to my heart. When one sees them poor 
 souls — the old habit of doing things like gen- 
 tlefolks — coming up, and then a sigh, and the 
 shilling put back into the pocket — I find it 
 very touching. Forgetting it you see for a 
 moment — and then the memory coming back 
 of what he is, John Bradley. I think it more 
 moving than a play." 
 
 " Ay, ay ; and so, if you had not some one 
 nigh you with a better noddle than your own, 
 you'd soon be fooled out of your money." 
 
 The good wife possessed that rarest and best 
 of quahties in a wife. She was not swift to 
 reply. She knew when to hold her peace, and 
 so keep the peace.
 
 286 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 She poured out Mr. Bradley's cup of tea ; 
 sugared and creamed it ; gently put pussy aside, 
 who lay purring before the fender ; lifted from 
 the brass footman the most crisp and delicious 
 of toasted muffins ; and then, and not till then, 
 renewed the attack. 
 
 " I thought John Bradley loved to do a good- 
 natured thing as well as anybody." 
 
 " And so I do ; but not to let my lodgings 
 for nothing." 
 
 " But you don't intend to let that room, you 
 know ; so what's the odds ? If they could pay 
 for it, wouldn't they ? but as they can't, what 
 matters it ? You know you gets nothing, any 
 how. . .He's such a good boy — what our little 
 Johnnie might have been, if the Lord had 
 spared him, I somehow think — So pious and 
 loving to his father. Don't you think our poor 
 little one would have had just that shining golden 
 hair, like threads of sun-beams ?" 
 
 John Bradley gave a sigh. 
 
 " And to think of his a-walking all that 
 weary way of a Saturday night — rain or snow,
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 287 
 
 sleet or hail — because he will pay his duty to 
 his father.^' 
 
 "Have it your own way. Do just as you 
 like." 
 
 "Ay, that's you. — You are the best fellow 
 in the world, John Bradley, when you think 
 of it." 
 
 This was the turning point. 
 
 The first little, agreeable, unexpected event 
 which had greeted them. It was touching to 
 see how all were pleased and cheered by it — 
 they accepted it as an omen. To say nothing 
 of the very real accommodation thus conferred, 
 the pleasure of having their son every week 
 from Saturday evening to Monday morning 
 was very great. There is something so very en- 
 couraging in the first little turn of Fortune to 
 those who have been exposed to all her stings 
 and buffets — something so very sweet to those 
 whom adversity hath made strangers even to a 
 brother, in receiving a token of good will.
 
 288 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 The Du Chastels, however, were uneasy 
 till they could hit upon some means of shewing 
 their sense of the good woman's kindness — but 
 that was not long to seek. 
 
 Armand employed the time thus saved to 
 him on a Saturday night, by making a candle- 
 light study of his landlady's good man, with 
 her cat — her beloved tabby — upon his knee ; 
 and this he presented to her. 
 
 She was delighted with it — as many others, 
 better skilled in such things, far less interested 
 in John Bradley and the cat than she was — 
 might have been. 
 
 Dq Chastel could not help exclaiming, when 
 he saw it — 
 
 " I am no judge of such things ; but it seems 
 to me to have wonderful effect." 
 
 The mother looked at it and sighed. 
 
 " How good it is !" and sighed again. " A 
 painter ! only a painter after all 1" was her re- 
 flection- — but she would not give it w^ords. 
 
 " The light of the candle falls so well — and 
 the old man is his very self—and yet far better
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 289 
 
 than he ever looks. And as for the cat, I think 
 I could put my hand into her long fur." 
 
 And she returned it to her son, and sighed 
 again. 
 
 VOL. T.
 
 290 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 *' I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, 
 Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows ; 
 Quite over- canopied with lush woodbine, 
 With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine." 
 Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 
 Perseverance is, perhaps, of all the virtues 
 of this world, the one that most invaribly in- 
 sures its own reward. It was not very long 
 before this resolute persistence in doing what 
 lay before him, be it what it might, irksome or 
 not, and doing it as well as he could, secured 
 its recompense to Armand. 
 
 The proprietor of the business from which he 
 received employment, was not long in perceiving 
 the merits of the young stranger to whom he 
 was giving work. His punctuality — his in-
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 291 
 
 dustry — the gentleness and softness of his man- 
 ners, first excited his attention. In these qua- 
 lities he far excelled his fellow-labourers, mostly 
 negligent, rough young men, occupied in these 
 lower branches — outer confines, if we may be 
 allowed to call them so — of art. Which they un- 
 dertook, because they were too idle to have made 
 themselves capable of anything better, and w^ere 
 content, so that they earned enough for a few low 
 indulgences, to grovel in the position of un- 
 skilled labourers for the remainder of their 
 lives . 
 
 What they did was just hurried through 
 w^ell enough to escape dismission — but that was 
 all. 
 
 The attention of Mr. Grindly had been from 
 the first excited by the distinguished appearance 
 and manners of the young stranger — so very 
 unlike what he was ordinarily accustomed to 
 meet wdth. This led him to look over a few 
 of the plates he had been employed to colour, 
 and he could not help observing how much better 
 than usual they were done. 
 
 He was led next to entrust some prints of a 
 
 u 2
 
 292 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 somewhat superior description to his hand, and 
 he found equal reason to be satisfied. 
 
 Therefore, one morning, as Armand entered 
 the shop to receive his daily tale of work, he 
 was thus addressed by Mr. Grindly : 
 
 " Young gentleman" — in a friendly voice — 
 " those last prints that you coloured were very 
 well done." 
 
 " I am glad you were pleased, sir," was the 
 reply, the colour mounting to the cheek with 
 pleasure -. so accustomed was he to discourage- 
 ment, that even this little praise pleased him. 
 " The subject interested me, and the colours 
 given me were of a superior description. It 
 was a pleasure for me to work upon it with 
 them." 
 
 " Was it ? — and it's a pleasure to me to have 
 work so well done. And it's a great pleasure 
 also to me to see a young man so steady and 
 well-behaved as I have found you to be ; so, 
 young gentleman, I have been thinking of 
 something to your advantage." 
 
 Rather a strange manner for the heir of the 
 Du Chastels to be addressed by a tradesman in 
 
 i
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 293 
 
 the Strand. One flush of burning crimson 
 mounted to the once proud cheek, but as quickly 
 was it subdued. What was he now ? Where 
 it pleased Him, "who putteth down one and 
 raiseth up another," to place him. What he 
 once had, was bestowed ; what he now luas, im- 
 posed. There is no room for false pride when 
 people think in this way. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you, sir, for your 
 good opinion ; and if it is your intention to 
 favour me by some employment in a rather 
 higher line of art to which I might be found 
 competent, I shall, indeed, be greatly indebted 
 to you." 
 
 " You'd get a good deal better remuneration 
 for your time, you understand." 
 
 " It was not that I was thinking of, but the 
 pleasure in the work ; though the last considera- 
 tion is far from a disagreeable one," said young 
 Du Chastel, with a smile. 
 
 " Well, sir, there is about to come out one of 
 the — I may say the most perfect and beautiful 
 botanical work that has ever yet been published 
 in England. It is by that celebrated botanist,
 
 294 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 Mr. Curtis. It's to be called the ' Flora Lon- 
 dinensis.' Artists of the highest merit have 
 been engaged to make the drawings ; the en- 
 gravings from them are in the first style of ex- 
 cellence, really beautiful things, and we are about 
 to engage the best hands to colour the prints. 
 I think it is a matter you would be fully compe- 
 tent to undertake, and would enjoy. Do you 
 love flowers ? The work is to comprise all the 
 plants found growing in a circuit of twenty 
 miles round London. There is a specimen of 
 the work — well done, ain't it ?" 
 
 And he handed to Armand that beautiful 
 plate of the hawkweed, {Hieracium umbellatum), 
 one of the innumerable examples of perfection 
 in drawing of this description to be found in the 
 " Flora Londinensis" of Curtis. 
 
 The eye of the young painter was ri vetted 
 upon it. 
 
 He could at one glance discern the perfection 
 of the drawing, the delicacy of detail, the grace, 
 and simplicity of the execution. It gave the 
 same, or even, perhaps, more pleasure than 
 the real plant, with all its wild and simple charms, 
 could have done.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 295 
 
 " It is beautiful," he said. " Colour these ! 
 I should scarcely think it a mere mechanical 
 operation to be so employed." 
 
 " Well, neither will it be altogether mechani- 
 cal. It is Mr. Curtis's wish that the colouring 
 of the first sheet should be from nature, as- 
 sisted by reference to the original drawing. 
 He thinks that the exact tints may thus be more 
 perfectly obtained ; — at least, he wishes the ex- 
 periment to be made, wherever it is possible to 
 obtain specimens. I should like you to try 
 your hand at this sort of work ; it will re- 
 quire both taste and skill. If I am not mis- 
 taken, young gentleman, you possess them both. 
 What do you say to it ?" 
 
 The heart of Armand really trembled with 
 pleasure. To colour from nature ! To attempt 
 the transfer to paper of those exquisite tints, 
 and veins, and shades, and lights, over which 
 he often had hung in mute rapture. This to 
 be substituted for the gorgon caricatures, and 
 monsters of hideous deformity and execrable 
 drawing, upon which he had been so long 
 employed.
 
 296 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 He could not thank worthy Mr. Grindly 
 enough. 
 
 The honest man was pleased. Gratitude — 
 sincere, heartfelt gratitude — is sweet to all ; and 
 he must be gross and hard-hearted indeed 
 who does not find pleasure in having bestowed 
 genuine pleasure. 
 
 The good man's eyes twinkled. 
 
 "You'll handle this as if you loved it, I 
 see," said he. 
 
 " Shall I not ? This drawing is quite admir- 
 able ; and are they all equally good ?" 
 
 " Nearly so. And if you give satisfaction in 
 the first attempt, we'll take care you've work 
 enough. But you ask nothing about the terms. 
 Do you mean to do it for the same as your ver- 
 miUon and sap-green hobgoblins ?" 
 
 " I could not do that. This will demand much 
 time and care to do well. — How beautiful ! — 
 how excessively beautiful 1" examining the en- 
 graving and comparing it with a specimen of 
 the flower represented, which stood in a rummer- 
 glass beside the publisher's desk. " One has 
 no idea, until one comes minutely to examine
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 297 
 
 such things, how intrinsically beautiful nature 
 is — how far beyond all the best doings of naan ! 
 These veiny leaves, the exquisite delicacy of 
 texture, and of colour in the flower-petals— I 
 think they call them — the inimitable grace in 
 the flexure of the stem !" 
 
 The publisher let him go on, fixing his some- 
 what hard brown eye upon him, till the eye soft- 
 ened — melted with an expression, strange enough 
 to meet with there ; but the unaffected pleasure 
 of the young man touched him. 
 
 " I see you will do it well, and many things 
 beside this well ; go on and prosper." 
 
 Du Chastel sighed. 
 
 "Ah! if I had but..." 
 
 " But what ? 
 
 " The opportunity to improve." 
 
 " What do you want in order to improve ?" 
 
 "Time, materials, models, teaching — every- 
 thing.'' 
 
 " My dear young sir," said the publisher, 
 " numbers of fellows that I see every day 
 possess all these advantages and make nothing 
 of 'em. Perhaps you'll make something through
 
 298 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 being without them ; and I think you bid fair 
 to do it." 
 
 And this was the amount of worthy Mr. 
 Grindly's encouragement of rising talent. Yet 
 it was something. 
 
 The terms of the new work were settled, and 
 on a very liberal scale in comparison with those 
 obtained before. 
 
 Dm Chastel was most thankful, for it enabled 
 him to change his lodging. The miserable hole 
 he had till then occupied was already telling upon 
 his health ; the noise upon nerves too morbidly 
 delicate, and the darkness, especially in the short 
 days, interfered with study. 
 
 He ventured upon the encouragement of this 
 rise in his profession to please himself by taking 
 his present rooms. 
 
 Their almost inaccessible height, planted at 
 the top of such steep and narrow staircases — 
 things which rendered them unacceptable to 
 lodgers in general — were peculiarly agreeable to 
 him. 
 
 Having no one overhead, or on the same 
 attic, his upper staircase was his own, as well
 
 EVELTN MARSTON. 299 
 
 as the three rooms on the floor. The air in 
 this lofty position was, for a city, fresh and 
 wholesome — the neighbourhood of the river 
 being thus in his pinnacle tower raised above its 
 heavier damps, delightful. And few in the vast 
 multitude around were happier than Armand 
 Du Chastel taking possession of his new home, 
 and arranging his little furniture. This con- 
 sisted of a poor camp bedstead and flock bed, 
 three chairs — one of them without a back, a 
 crippled round table — one foot propped up on a 
 bit of wood, two or three yards of green baize 
 to stand for a carpet, his beloved easel, and, the 
 only luxury of the place, a strong, well-made 
 table, where to sit and colour his plates. 
 
 This indispensable article was the only one 
 he had borrowed money from his friend the 
 publisher to purchase. He had paid the debt by 
 instalments, and the property was now his own. 
 
 Upon this table now lay a very large heap of 
 plates for the *' Flora Londinensis," which had 
 been intrusted to him to colour. They were chiefly 
 of apparently insignificant plants, but upon that
 
 300 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 account demanding especial taste and delicacy 
 in the management. 
 
 Four different plates there were, which went 
 to the formation of that huge pile now lying 
 upon his table, all, as it happened, acquaintances 
 and especial favourites of his own. One was 
 the little pink wood-geranium {Geranium Ro- 
 bert ianum), dear to every child as the familiar 
 robin, with its sweetly-outlined veined pink di- 
 minutive flowers; its beautiful many-scented 
 leaves of rich, warm greens, fading first into 
 the richest crimson, and dying into a soft 
 and melancholy yellow^, as this plant may still 
 be seen in that most delightful work of Curtis. 
 There was the little tender nodding bluebell 
 {Campanula rotundifolia), with its tiny bell of 
 heaven's own blue and its waxen clapper, formed 
 to make a ring of bells for Titania's wedding- 
 day. This likewise being a rare treasure to 
 children, and here represented with a truth that 
 carried you into the fields at once. 
 
 Wonderful specimen of perfection in botanical 
 drawing and colouring.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 301 
 
 He had been out the evening before, exploring 
 secluded lanes and little woods, at that time not 
 so distant from London as they are now, and 
 had collected specimens of the plants he had 
 undertaken, determined to adopt Mr. Grindly's 
 hint, and give a vitaUty to his tints, by a fresh 
 comparison with nature. 
 
 The delight he took in the first print he ex- 
 ecuted, can scarcely be understood except by 
 those who know the ecstacy excited in such 
 minds as his by the contemplation of real ex- 
 cellence. 
 
 It proved a study as well as a delight. 
 
 It was not mute nature that he aspired 
 to draw; but he was one to find lessons in 
 plants, sermons in stones, and good from every- 
 thing. 
 
 There is something in the physiognomy of 
 Nature when she speaks in her endless variety 
 of forms, that has a sort of humanity in 
 it ; telhng of that something which lies under 
 all forms of beauty, be it the modest, loving, 
 little wood-geranium, or the passionate bud of
 
 302 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 the rose. And these charming flower-pictures 
 upon which he was employed, helped the ima- 
 gination in the invention of higher things ; things 
 where what was faintly figured in the flower, 
 found full expression in the form next to divine 
 of man. 
 
 Armand learned also at this time a good deal 
 concerning the management and efl'ects of co- 
 lour, and considerable additional dexterity in the 
 handling of it. 
 
 Everything is a lesson to genius inventive and 
 perceptive as his. No doubt, there are num- 
 bers who spend their whole lives employed in 
 the same manner, and learn really nothing, as 
 there are those who pass a long eventful life of 
 experience, to end it just the noodles they 
 began. 
 
 The work, when it came to a repetition 
 upon the same identical subject for hun- 
 dreds and hundreds of times, was tedious 
 enough ; and many an impatient spirit would 
 have murmured and pitied themselves exces- 
 sively for being condemned to such a drudgery.
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 303 
 
 Not he ; he was thankful and cheerful, whist- 
 ling like a bird in emulation of the piping thrush 
 below, as he coloured away. 
 
 And when the daily task was done, after allow- 
 ing himself an hour for exercise and fresh air — for 
 he began to treasure his health and to know the 
 value of sound nerves and a sound spirit — he 
 would return home with a heart throbbing 
 with pleasure, to labour for the short time re- 
 maining at his real vocation. 
 
 The work in which he w^as engaged brought 
 him now and then into communication with the 
 gentlemen employed upon it. And his in- 
 dustry, the something to be observed in him 
 above the mere mechanical colourer, his in- 
 telhgent countenance, and, above all, his charm- 
 ing manners, interested every one who saw him. 
 
 Some valuable prints from the old masters 
 were lent him to study and to copy. He at 
 times enjoyed the opportunity of seeing some 
 really fine pictures not accessible to the public 
 as they are now. 
 
 He felt his knowledge expanding. He began
 
 304 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 to have glimpses of what he was about, of the 
 proper objects of his aims. He felt himself 
 improving, and he felt himself growing rich ; 
 the little store devoted to the grand pursuit, 
 began to increase into something that really 
 could command the indispensables for study. 
 
 He was happy. 
 
 So happy, that it was a delight to look upon 
 his face, as, faithful to duty, every Saturday 
 evening saw him walking away to Islington. 
 Threading the streets at a cheerful pace, a little 
 basket in his hand, in which was some delicacy, 
 a bit of crimson-gilled and golden fish, a sunny- 
 feathered game bird, or maybe, a bunch of 
 grapes, with their freshest bloom upon them, 
 just delivered from a newly- arrived basket. The 
 handle of his father's door he would turn with- 
 out knocking, and enter, bringing peace and 
 happiness with him. 
 
 There he would find his father resting after 
 his week's work, sitting by the side of his 
 wife's couch, reading or musing, serious, but 
 calm, like one who had done with life, and only
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 305 
 
 awaited his dismissal from a task which this 
 last disaster seemed to have rendered too hard 
 even for his courage. 
 
 He was now past the meridian of life. The 
 galleys had absorbed his youth and middle 
 age. Great and unmitigated suffering of mind, 
 and the most cruel hardships, entailed by 
 excessive labour and want of proper food com- 
 bined, cannot be endured for any length of 
 time, without sapping the strength of a man. 
 
 But it was not until this second catastrophe, 
 this repetition, with some variations of the 
 same tale of utter ruin befel him, that he felt 
 how different was the present man from the 
 one of five-and-twenty years before. 
 
 The spring of life when thus pressed upon 
 was found to be broken. 
 
 All he felt capable of undertaking, was, as I 
 have said, a clerk's place in a merchant's house ; 
 and this he obtained. 
 
 People were ashamed to offer him so humble 
 a situation, but he said it was what he was best 
 fitted for. Of course he was able to command 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 EVELYN MARSTON. 
 
 a tolerable salary — enough for his wants — and 
 he was content. 
 
 With his usual humility he accepted his 
 place, and performed its duties faithfully. 
 
 He never complained, yet cheerfulness he 
 could scarcely be said to be able to command 
 in himself — indeed he did not try for it. 
 A calm seriousness — a gentle, placid dignity, 
 was habitual with him, and inspired a respect 
 which was not without a beneficial influence 
 upon all the young clerks with whom he came 
 into communication. 
 
 It is good to feel moral approbation and re- 
 verence for something that is not grandeur, is 
 not power, is not splendour, is not money. 
 
 Every one was the better for having to asso- 
 ciate with Du Chastel. 
 
 One only source of joy remained for the 
 deadened heart. 
 
 Here he felt no mortification. It was im- 
 possible to do it. 
 
 He had struggled manfully once himself, and 
 he loved to see the generous unbroken strength
 
 EVELYN MARSTON. 307 
 
 of the young spirit — the brave and vigorous 
 swimmer, battling with the waves of life. 
 
 That he would finally conquer, he felt certain ; 
 he could feel no real anxiety for one born to 
 excel. 
 
 Armand possessed the qualities which, ac- 
 cording to Du ChasteFs view of life, invariably 
 succeed. Sooner or later, his son would be a 
 distinguished — he was already a happy — man. 
 
 And thus time passed, not altogether un- 
 pleasantly away. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 X 2
 
 Just published, in 2 vols. 8vo., with Portraits, 30s. bound, 
 MEMOIES OF THE 
 
 COUET OF THE EEGENOY. 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL FAMILY DOCUMENTS. 
 
 By the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, K.G. 
 
 " Here are two more goodly volumes on the Englisli Court ; 
 volumes full of new sayings, pictures, anecdotes, and scenes. The 
 Duke of Buckingham travels over nine years of English history. 
 But what years those were, from 1811 to 1820 ! What events at 
 home and abroad they bore to the great bourne ! — from the 
 accession of the Regent to power to the death of George III. — 
 including the fall of Perceval ; the invasion of Russia, and the war 
 in Spain; the battles of Salamanca and Borodino; the fire of 
 Moscow ; the retreat of Napoleon ; the conquest of Spain ; the 
 surrender of Napoleon ; the return from Elba ; the Congress of 
 Vienna ; the Hundred Days ; the crowning carnage of Waterloo ; 
 the exile to St. Helena ; the return of the Bourbons ; the settle- 
 ment of Europe ; the pubUe scandals at the EngUsh Court ; the 
 popular discontent, and the massacre of Peterloo ! On many 
 parts of this story the documents published by the Duke of Buck- 
 ingham cast new jets of light, clearing up much secret history. 
 Old stories are confirmed — new traits of character are brought 
 out. In short, many new and pleasant additions are made to our 
 knowledge of those times." — Athencpum. 
 
 " Invaluable, as showing the true light in which many of the 
 stirring events of the Regency are to be viewed. The lovers of 
 Court gossip will also find not a little for their edification and 
 amusement." — Literary Gazette. 
 
 " These volumes cover a complete epoch, the period of the 
 Regency — a period of large and stirring English history. To the 
 Duke of Buckingham, who thus, out of his family archives, places 
 within our reach authentic and exceedingly minute pictures of the 
 governors of England in our grandfathers' days, we owe grateful 
 acknowledgments. His papers abound in fresh lights on old 
 topics, and in new illustrations and anecdotes. The intrinsic 
 value of the letters is enhanced by the judicious setting of the ex- 
 planatory comment that accompanies them, which is put together 
 w ith much care and honesty." — Examiner. 
 
 HURST & BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY 
 COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
 
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