The Evil Guest | Page 2

more dearly prized, as the
substantial accessories of wealth have disappeared. The mansion in
which he dwelt was, though old-fashioned, imposing in its aspect, and

upon a scale unequivocally aristocratic; its walls were hung with
ancestral portraits, and he managed to maintain about him a large and
tolerably respectable staff of servants. In addition to these, he had his
extensive demesne, his deer-park, and his unrivalled timber, wherewith
to console himself; and, in the consciousness of these possessions, he
found some imperfect assuagement of those bitter feelings of
suppressed scorn and resentment, which a sense of lost station and
slighted importance engendered. Mr. Marston's early habits had,
unhappily, been of a kind to aggravate, rather than alleviate, the
annoyances incidental to reduced means. He had been a gay man, a
voluptuary, and a gambler. His vicious tastes had survived the means of
their gratification. His love for his wife had been nothing more than
one of those vehement and headstrong fancies, which, in self-indulgent
men, sometimes result in marriage, and which seldom outlive the first
few months of that life-long connection. Mrs. Marston was a gentle,
noble-minded woman. After agonies or disappointment, which none
ever suspected, she had at length learned to submit, in sad and gentle
acquiescence, to her fate. Those feelings, which had been the charm of
her young days, were gone, and, as she bitterly felt, forever. For them
there was no recall they could not return; and, without complaint or
reproach, she yielded to what she felt was inevitable. It was impossible
to look at Mrs. Marston, and not to discern, at a glance, the ruin of a
surpassingly beautiful woman; a good deal wasted, pale, and chastened
with a deep, untold sorrow, but still possessing the outlines, both in
face and form, of that noble beauty and matchless grace, which had
made her, in happier days, the admired of all observers. But equally
impossible was it to converse with her, for even a minute, without
hearing, in the gentle and melancholy music of her voice, the sad
echoes of those griefs to which her early beauty had been sacrificed, an
undying sense of lost love, and happiness departed, never to come
again.
One morning, Mr. Marston had walked, as was his custom when he
expected the messenger who brought from the neighboring post office
his letters, some way down the broad, straight avenue, with its double
rows of lofty trees at each side, when he encountered the nimble
emissary on his return. He took the letter-bag in silence. It contained

but two letters--one addressed to "Mademoiselle de Barras, chez M.
Marston," and the other to himself. He took them both, dismissed the
messenger, and opening that addressed to himself, read as follows,
while he slowly retraced his steps towards the house:--
Dear Richard,
I am a whimsical fellow, as you doubtless remember, and have lately
grown, they tell me, rather hippish besides. I do not know to which
infirmity I am to attribute a sudden fancy that urges me to pay you a
visit, if you will admit me. To say truth, my dear Dick, I wish to see a
little of your part of the world, and, I will confess it, en passant, to see a
little of you too. I really wish to make acquaintance with your family;
and though they tell me my health is very much shaken, I must say, in
self-defense, I am not a troublesome inmate. I can perfectly take care of
myself, and need no nursing or caudling whatever. Will you present
this, my petition, to Mrs. Marston, and report her decision thereon to
me. Seriously, I know that your house may be full, or some other
contretemps may make it impracticable for me just now to invade you.
If it be so, tell me, my dear Richard, frankly, as my movements are
perfectly free, and my time all my own, so that I can arrange my visit to
suit your convenience.
--Yours, &c.,
WYNSTON E. BERKLEY
P.S.--Direct to me at ---- Hotel, in Chester, as I shall probably be there
by the time this reaches you.
"Ill-bred and pushing as ever," quoth Mr. Marston, angrily, as he thrust
the unwelcome letter into his pocket. "This fellow, wallowing in wealth,
without one nearer relative on earth than I, and associated more nearly
still with me the--pshaw! not affection--the recollections of early and
intimate companionship, leaves me unaided, for years of desertion and
suffering, to the buffetings of the world, and the troubles of all but
overwhelming pecuniary difficulties, and now, with the cool
confidence of one entitled to respect and welcome, invites himself to

my house. Coming here," he continued, after a gloomy pause, and still
pacing slowly towards the house, "to collect amusing materials for next
season's gossip--stories about the