It was Mrs Dale's eldest daughter who spoke to her, and they were alone together in the parlour at the Small House. Mrs Dale took the letter and read it very carefully. She then put it back into its envelope and returned it to Bell.
'It is, at any rate, a good letter, and, as I believe, tells the truth.'
'I think it tells a little more than the truth, mamma. As you say, it is a well-written letter. He always writes well when he is in earnest. But yet—'
'Yet what, my dear?'
'There is more head than heart in it.'
'If so, he will suffer the less; that is, if you are quite resolved in the matter.'
'I am quite resolved, and I do not think he will suffer much. He would not, I suppose, have taken the trouble to write like that, if he did not wish this thing.'
'I am quite sure that he does wish it, most earnestly; and that he will be greatly disappointed.'
'As he would be if any other scheme did not turn out to his satisfaction; that is all.'
The letter, of course, was from Bell's cousin Bernard, and containing the strongest plea he was able to make in favour of his suit for her hand. Bernard Dale was better able to press such a plea by letter than by spoken words. He was a man capable of doing anything well in the doing of which a little time for consideration might be given to him; but he had not in him that power of passion which will force a man to eloquence in asking for that which he desires to obtain. His letter on this occasion was long, and well argued. If there was little in it of passionate love, there was much of pleasant flattery. He told Bell how advantageous to both their families their marriage would be; he declared to her that his own feeling in the matter had been rendered stronger by absence; he alluded without boasting to his past career of life as her best guarantee for his future conduct; he explained to her that if this marriage could be arranged there need then, at any rate, be no further question as to his aunt removing with Lily from the Small House; and then he told her that his affection for herself was the absorbing passion of his existence. Had the letter been written with the view of obtaining from a third person a favourable verdict as to his suit, it would have been a very good letter indeed; but there was not a word in it that could stir the heart of such a girl as Bell Dale.
'Answer him kindly,' Mrs Dale said.
'As kindly as I know how,' said Bell. 'I wish you would write the letter, mamma.'
'I fear that would not do. What I should say would only tempt him to try again.'
Mrs Dale knew very well,—had known for some months past,—that Bernard's suit was hopeless. She felt certain, although the matter had not been discussed between them, that whenever Dr Crofts might choose to come again and ask for her daughter's hand he would not be refused. Of the two men she probably liked Dr Crofts the best; but she liked them both, and she could not but remember that the one, in a worldly point of view, would be a very poor match, whereas the other would, in all respects, be excellent. She would not, on any account, say a word to influence her daughter, and knew, moreover, that no word which she could say would influence her; but she could not divest herself of some regret that it should be so.
'I know what you would wish, mamma,' said Bell.
'I have but one wish, dearest, and that is for your happiness. May God preserve you from any such fate as Lily's. When I tell you to write kindly to your cousin, I simply mean that I think him to have deserved a kind reply by his honesty.'
'It shall be as kind as I can make it, mamma; but you know what the lady says in the play,—how hard it is to take the sting from that word 'no.'' Then Bell walked out alone for a while, and on her return got her desk and wrote her letter. It was very firm and decisive. As for that wit which should pluck the sting 'from such a sharp and waspish word as 'no,'' I fear she had it not. 'It will be better to make him understand that I, also, am in earnest,' she said to herself; and in this frame of mind she wrote her letter. 'Pray do not allow yourself to think that what I have said is unfriendly,' she added, in a postscript. 'I know how good you are, and I know the great value of what I refuse; but in this matter it must be my duty to tell you the simple truth.'
It had been decided between the squire and Mrs Dale that the removal from the Small House to Guestwick was not to take place till the first of May. When he had been made to understand that Dr Crofts had thought it injudicious that Lily should be taken out of their present house in March, he had used all the eloquence of which he was master to induce Mrs Dale to consent to abandon her project. He had told her that he had always considered that house as belonging, of right, to
