“Watch and chain?”
“Don’t be an idiot. You know I’ve got a watch and chain.”
“Some girls like two. To have the wooden bridge pulled down and a stone one built.”
“If anyone touched a morsel of that sacred timber he should be banished from Bragton forever. I want you to ask Mr. Twentyman to come to our wedding.”
“Who’s to do it? Who’s to bell the cat?”
“You.”
“I would sooner fight a Saracen, or ride such a horse as killed that poor major. Joking apart, I don’t see how it is to be done. Why do you wish it?”
“Because I am so fond of him.”
“Oh;—indeed!”
“If you’re a goose, I’ll hit you. I am fond of him. Next to you and my own people, and Lady Ushant, I like him best in all the world.”
“What a pity you couldn’t have put him up a little higher.”
“I used to think so too;—only I couldn’t. If anybody loved you as he did me—offered you everything he had in the world—thought that you were the best in the world—would have given his life for you, would not you be grateful?”
“I don’t know that I need wish to ask such a person to my wedding.”
“Yes, you would, if in that way you could build a bridge to bring him back to happiness. And, Reg, though you used to despise him—”
“I never despised him.”
“A little I think—before you knew him. But he is not despicable.”
“Not at all, my dear.”
“He is honest and good, and has a real heart of his own.”
“I am afraid he has parted with that.”
“You know what I mean, and if you won’t be serious I shall think there is no seriousness in you. I want you to tell me how it can be done.”
Then he was serious, and tried to explain to her that he could not very well do what she wanted. “He is your friend you know rather than mine;—but if you like to write to him you can do so.”
This seemed to her to be very difficult, and, as she thought more of it, almost impossible. A written letter remains, and may be taken as evidence of so much more than it means. But a word sometimes may be spoken which, if it be well spoken—if assurance of its truth be given by the tone and by the eye of the speaker—shall do so much more than any letter, and shall yet only remain with the hearer as the remembrance of the scent of a flower remains! Nevertheless she did at last write the letter, and brought it to her husband. “Is it necessary that I should see it?” he asked.
“Not absolutely necessary.”
“Then send it without.”
“But I should like you to see what I have said. You know about things, and if it is too much or too little, you can tell me.” Then he read her letter, which ran as follows.
Dear Mr. Twentyman,
Perhaps you have heard that we are to be married on Thursday, May 6th. I do so wish that you would come. It would make me so much happier on that day. We shall be very quiet; and if you would come to the house at eleven you could go across the park with them all to the church. I am to be taken in a carriage because of my finery. Then there will be a little breakfast. Papa and mamma and Dolly and Kate would be so glad;—and so would Mr. Morton. But none of them will be half so glad as your old, old, affectionate friend
“If that don’t fetch him,” said Reginald, “he is a poorer creature than I take him to be.”
“But I may send it?”
“Certainly you may send it.” And so the letter was sent across to Chowton Farm.
But the letter did not “fetch” him; nor am I prepared to agree with Mr. Morton that he was a poor creature for not being “fetched.” There are things which the heart of a man should bear without whimpering, but which it cannot bear in public with that appearance of stoical indifference which the manliness of a man is supposed to require. Were he to go, should he be jovial before the wedding party or should he be sober and saturnine? Should he appear to have forgotten his love, or should he go about lovelorn among the wedding guests? It was impossible—at any rate impossible as yet—that he should fall into that state of almost brotherly regard which it was so natural that she should desire. But as he had determined to forgive her, he went across that afternoon to the house and was the bearer of his own answer. He asked Mrs. Hopkins who came to the door whether she were alone, and was then shown into an empty room where he waited for her. She came to him as quickly as she could, leaving Lady Ushant in the middle of the page she was reading, and feeling as she tripped downstairs that the colour was rushing to her face. “You will come, Larry,” she said.
“No, Miss Masters.”
“Let me be Mary till I am Mrs. Morton,” she said, trying to smile. “I was always Mary.” And then she burst into tears. “Why—why won’t you come?”
“I should only stalk about like a ghost. I couldn’t be merry as a man should be at a wedding. I don’t see how a man is to do such a thing.” She looked up into his face imploring him—not to come, for that she felt now to be impossible—but imploring him to express in some way forgiveness of the sin she had committed against him. “But I shall think of you
