They were alone in the sitting-room for more than an hour, and Lady Rowley was patient upstairs as mothers will be patient in such emergencies. Sophie and Lucy had gone out and left her; and there she remained telling herself, as the weary minutes went by, that as the thing was to be, it was well that the young people should be together. Hugh Stanbury could never be to her what Mr. Glascock would have been—a son-in-law to sit and think about, and dream of, and be proud of—whose existence as her son-in-law would in itself have been a happiness to her out in her banishment at the other side of the world; but nevertheless it was natural to her, as a softhearted loving mother with many daughters, that any son-in-law should be dear to her. Now that she had gradually brought herself round to believe in Nora’s marriage, she was disposed to make the best of Hugh, to remember that he was certainly a clever man, that he was an honest fellow, and that she had heard of him as a good son and a kind brother, and that he had behaved well in reference to her Emily and Trevelyan. She was quite willing now that Hugh should be happy, and she sat there thinking that the time was very long, but still waiting patiently till she should be summoned. “You must let me go for mamma for a moment,” Nora said. “I want you to see her and make yourself a good boy before her. If you are ever to be her son-in-law, you ought to be in her good graces.” Hugh declared that he would do his best, and Nora fetched her mother.
Stanbury found some difficulty in making himself a “good boy” in Lady Rowley’s presence; and Lady Rowley herself, for some time, felt very strongly the awkwardness of the meeting. She had never formally recognised the young man as her daughter’s accepted suitor, and was not yet justified in doing so by any permission from Sir Marmaduke; but, as the young people had been for the last hour or two alone together, with her connivance and sanction, it was indispensable that she should in some way signify her parental adherence to the arrangement. Nora began by talking about Emily, and Trevelyan’s condition and mode of living were discussed. Then Lady Rowley said something about their coming journey, and Hugh, with a lucky blunder, spoke of Nora’s intended return to Italy. “We don’t know how that may be,” said Lady Rowley. “Her papa still wishes her to go back with us.”
“Mamma, you know that that is impossible,” said Nora.
“Not impossible, my love.”
“But she will not go back,” said Hugh. “Lady Rowley, you would not propose to separate us by such a distance as that?”
“It is Sir Marmaduke that you must ask.”
“Mamma, mamma!” exclaimed Nora, rushing to her mother’s side, “it is not papa that we must ask—not now. We want you to be our friend. Don’t we, Hugh? And, mamma, if you will really be our friend, of course, papa will come round.”
“My dear Nora!”
“You know he will, mamma; and you know that you mean to be good and kind to us. Of course I can’t go back to the Islands with you. How could I go so far and leave him behind? He might have half-a-dozen wives before I could get back to him—”
“If you have not more trust in him than that—!”
“Long engagements are awful bores,” said Hugh, finding it to be necessary that he also should press forward his argument.
“I can trust him as far as I can see him,” said Nora, “and therefore I do not want to lose sight of him altogether.”
Lady Rowley of course gave way and embraced her accepted son-in-law. After all it might have been worse. He saw his way clearly, he said, to making six hundred a year, and did not at all doubt that before long he would do better than that. He proposed that they should be married some time in the autumn, but was willing to acknowledge that much must depend on the position of Trevelyan and his wife. He would hold himself ready at any moment, he said, to start to Italy, and would do all that could be done by a brother. Then Lady Rowley gave him her blessing, and kissed him again—and Nora kissed him too, and hung upon him, and did not push him away at all when his arm crept round her waist. And that feeling came upon him which must surely be acknowledged by all engaged young men when they first find themselves encouraged by mammas in the taking of liberties which they have hitherto regarded as mysteries to be hidden, especially from maternal eyes—that feeling of being a fine fat calf decked out with ribbons for a sacrifice.
XCI
Four O’Clock in the Morning
Another week went by and Sir Marmaduke had even yet not surrendered. He quite understood that Nora was not to go back to the Islands. And had visited Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse at St. Diddulph’s in order to secure a home for her there, if it might be possible. Mr. Outhouse did not refuse, but gave the permission in such a fashion as to make it almost equal to a refusal. “He was,” he said, “much attached to his niece Nora, but he had heard that there was a love affair.” Sir Marmaduke, of course, could not deny the love affair. There was certainly a love affair of which he did not personally approve, as the gentleman had no fixed income and as far as he could understand no fixed profession. “Such a love affair,” thought Mr. Outhouse, “was a sort of thing that he didn’t know how to manage at all. If Nora came to him, was the young man to visit at the house, or was he not?” Then Mrs. Outhouse said something as to the
