“That is not unnatural.”
“But I am quite determined, let the result be what it may, that I won’t marry the young lady.”
“That will be unfortunate for her, and the more so if she has a right to expect it. Is the young lady Miss Trefoil?”
“I did not mean to mention any name—till I was sure it might be necessary. But it is Miss Trefoil.”
“Eleanor had told me something of it.”
“Eleanor knows nothing about this, and I do not wish you to tell her. The young lady was here with her mother—and for the matter of that with a gentleman to whom she was certainly engaged;—but nothing particular occurred here. That unfortunate ball was going on when poor Caneback was dying. But I met her since that at Mistletoe.”
“I can hardly advise, you know, unless you tell me everything.”
Then Lord Rufford began. “These kind of things are sometimes deuced hard upon a man. Of course if a man were a saint or a philosopher or a Joseph he wouldn’t get into such scrapes—and perhaps every man ought to be something of that sort. But I don’t know how a man is to do it, unless it’s born with him.”
“A little prudence I should say.”
“You might as well tell a fellow that it is his duty to be six feet high.”
“But what have you said to the young lady—or what has she said to you?”
“There has been a great deal more of the latter than the former. I say so to you, but of course it is not to be said that I have said so. I cannot go forth to the world complaining of a young lady’s conduct to me. It is a matter in which a man must not tell the truth.”
“But what is the truth?”
“She writes me word to say that she has told all her friends that I am engaged to her, and kindly presses me to make good her assurances by becoming so.”
“And what has passed between you?”
“A fainting fit in a carriage and half-a-dozen kisses.”
“Nothing more?”
“Nothing more that is material. Of course one cannot tell it all down to each mawkish word of humbugging sentiment. There are her letters, and what I want you to remember is that I never asked her to be my wife, and that no consideration on earth shall induce me to become her husband. Though all the duchesses in England were to persecute me to the death I mean to stick to that.”
Then Sir George read the letters and handed them back. “She seems to me,” said he, “to have more wit about her than any of the family that I have had the honour of meeting.”
“She has wit enough—and pluck too.”
“You have never said a word to her to encourage these hopes.”
“My dear Penwether, don’t you know that if a man with a large income says to a girl like that that the sun shines he encourages hope. I understand that well enough. I am a rich man with a title, and a big house, and a great command of luxuries. There are so many young ladies who would also like to be rich, and to have a title, and a big house, and a command of luxuries! One sometimes feels oneself like a carcase in the midst of vultures.”
“Marry after a proper fashion, and you’ll get rid of all that.”
“I’ll think about it, but in the meantime what can I say to this young woman? When I acknowledge that I kissed her, of course I encouraged hopes.”
“No doubt.”
“But St. Anthony would have had to kiss this young woman if she had made her attack upon him as she did on me;—and after all a kiss doesn’t go for everything. These are things, Penwether, that must not be inquired into too curiously. But I won’t marry her though it were a score of kisses. And now what must I do?” Sir George said that he would take till the next morning to think about it—meaning to make a draft of the reply which he thought his brother-in-law might best send to the lady.
XLVI
It Cannot Be Arranged
When Reginald Morton received his aunt’s letter he understood from it more than she had intended. Of course the man to whom allusion was made was Mr. Twentyman; and of course the discomfort at home had come from Mrs. Masters’ approval of that suitor’s claim. Reginald, though he had seen but little of the inside of the attorney’s household, thought it very probable that the stepmother would make the girl’s home very uncomfortable for her. Though he knew well all the young farmer’s qualifications as a husband—namely that he was well to do in the world and bore a good character for honesty and general conduct—still he thoroughly, nay heartily approved of Mary’s rejection of the man’s hand. It seemed to him to be sacrilege that such a one should have given to him such a woman. There was, to his thinking, something about Mary Masters that made it altogether unfit that she should pass her life as the mistress of Chowton Farm, and he honoured her for the persistence of her refusal. He took his pipe and went out into the garden in order that he might think of it all as he strolled round his little domain.
But why should he think so much about it? Why should he take so deep an interest in the matter? What was it to him whether Mary Masters married after her kind, or descended into what he felt to be an inferior manner of life? Then he tried to tell himself what were the gifts in the girl’s possession which made her what she was, and he pictured her to himself, running over all her attributes. It was not that she specially excelled in beauty. He had seen Miss Trefoil as she was being driven
