“Exactly.”
“But if they are both poor, I don’t see how their being young can enable them to live upon nothing.” She intended to imply that Philip probably would have been another major-general, but that he was heir to Launay.
Philip, who had never heard of the major-general, was a little puzzled; nevertheless, he acceded to the proposition, not caring, however, to say anything as to his own circumstances on so very short an acquaintance.
Then Bessy came down with her hat, and they started for their walk. “Now tell me all about it,” she said, in a fever of expectation, as soon as the front door was closed behind them.
“There is nothing more to tell,” said he.
“Nothing more?”
“Unless you want me to say that I love you.”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, then—I love you. There!”
“Philip, you are not half nice to me.”
“Not after coming all the way from Launay to say that?”
“There must be so much to tell me? Why has my aunt sent for me?”
“Because she wants you.”
“And why has she sent you?”
“Because I want you too.”
“But does she want me?”
“Certainly she does.”
“For you?” If he could say this, then everything would have been said. If he could say this truly, then everything would have been done necessary for the perfection of her happiness. “Oh, Philip, do tell me. It is so strange that she should send for me! Do you know what she said to me in her last letter? It was not a letter. It was only a word. She said that I was her enemy.”
“All that is changed.”
“She will be glad to have me again?”
“Very glad. I fancy that she has been miserable without you.”
“I shall be as glad to be with her again, Philip. You do not know how I love her. Think of all she has done for me!”
“She has done something now that I hope will beat everything else.”
“What has she done?”
“She has consented that you and I shall be man and wife. Isn’t that more than all the rest?”
“But has she? Oh, Philip, has she really done that?”
Then at last he told his whole story. Yes; his mother had yielded. From the moment in which she had walked out of the room, having said that he might “go and tell her,” she had never endeavoured to renew the fight. When he had spoken to her, endeavouring to draw from her some warmth of assent, she had generally been very silent. She had never brought herself absolutely to wish him joy. She had not as yet so crucified her own spirit in the matter as to be able to tell him that he had chosen his wife well; but she had shown him in a hundred ways that her anger was at an end, and that if any feeling was left opposed to his own happiness, it was simply one of sorrow. And there were signs which made him think that even that was not deep-seated. She would pat him, stroking his hair, and leaning on his shoulder, administering to his comforts with a nervous accuracy as to little things which was peculiar to her. And then she gave him an infinity of directions as to the way in which it would be proper that Bessy should travel, being anxious at first to send over a maid for her behoof—not Mrs. Knowl, but a younger woman, who would have been at Bessy’s command. Philip, however, objected to the maid. And when Mrs. Miles remarked that if it was Bessy’s fate to become mistress of Launay, Bessy ought to have a maid to attend her, Philip said that that would be very well a month or two hence, when Bessy would have become—not mistress of Launay, which was a place which he trusted might not be vacant for many a long day—but first lieutenant to the mistress, by right of marriage. He refused altogether to take the maid with him, as he explained to Bessy with much laughter. And so they came to understand each other thoroughly, and Bessy knew that the great trouble of her life, which had been as a mountain in her way, had disappeared suddenly, as might some visionary mountain. And then, when they thoroughly understood each other, they started back to England and to Launay together.
XII
How Bessy Pryor Was Brought Back, and What Then, Became of Her
Bessy understood the condition of the old woman much better than did her son. “I am sad a little,” she said, on her way home, “because of her disappointment.”
“Sad, because she is to have you—you yourself—for her daughter-in-law?”
“Yes, indeed, Philip; because I know that she has not wanted me. She will be kind because I shall belong to you, and perhaps partly because she loves me; but she will always regret that that young lady down in Cornwall has not been allowed to add to the honour and greatness of the family. The Launays are everything to her, and what can I do for the Launays?” Of course he said many pretty things to her in answer to this, but he could not eradicate from her mind the feeling that, in regard to the old friend who had been so kind to her, she was returning evil for good.
But even Bessy did not quite understand the old woman. When she found that she had yielded, there was disappointment in the old woman’s heart. Who can have indulged in a certain longing for a lifetime, in a special ambition, and seen that ambition and that longing crushed and trampled on, without such a feeling? And she had brought this failure on herself—by her own weakness, as she told herself. Why had she given way to Bessy and to Bessy’s blandishments? It was because she had not been strong to do
