“You hope not, Major Rossiter?”
“I hope no such mistake was made. It certainly was not made by me. I felt myself much flattered by being received at your house. I wrote the other day a line or two to Lady Wanless and thought I had explained all this.”
Sir Walter opened his eyes when he heard, for the first time, of the letter, but was sharp enough not to exhibit his ignorance at the moment. “I don’t know about explaining,” he said. “There are some things which can’t be so very well explained. My wife assures me that that poor girl has been deceived—cruelly deceived. Now I put it to you, Major Rossiter, what ought you as a gentleman to do?”
“Really, Sir Walter, you are not entitled to ask me any such question.”
“Not on behalf of my own child?”
“I cannot go into the matter from that view of the case. I can only declare that I have said nothing and done nothing for which I can blame myself. I cannot understand how there should have been such a mistake; but it did not, at any rate, arise with me.”
Then the Baronet sat dumb. He had been specially instructed not to give up the interview till he had obtained some sign of weakness from the enemy. If he could only induce the enemy to promise another visit to Brook Park that would be much. If he could obtain some expression of liking or admiration for the young lady that would be something. If he could induce the Major to allude to delay as being necessary, farther operations would be founded on that base. But nothing had been obtained. “It’s the most—the most—the most astonishing thing I ever heard,” he said at last.
“I do not know that I can say anything further.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said the Baronet. “Come down and see Lady Wanless. The women understand these things much better than we do. Come down and talk it over with Lady Wanless. She won’t propose anything that isn’t proper.” In answer to this the Major shook his head. “You won’t?”
“It would do no good, Sir Walter. It would be painful to me, and must, I should say, be distressing to the young lady.”
“Then you won’t do anything!”
“There is nothing to be done.”
“Upon my word, I never heard such a thing in all my life, Major Rossiter. You come down to my house; and then—then—then you won’t—you won’t come again! To be sure he was at Wadham; but I did think your father’s son would have behaved better.” Then he picked up his hat from the floor and shuffled out of the room without another word.
Tidings that Sir Walter had been up to London and had called upon Major Rossiter made their way into Beetham and reached the ears of the Dugdales—but not correct tidings as to the nature of the conversation. “I wonder when it will be,” said Mrs. Dugdale to Alice. “As he has been up to town I suppose it’ll be settled soon.”
“The sooner the better for all parties,” said Alice cheerily. “When a man and a woman have agreed together, I can’t see why they shouldn’t at once walk off to the church arm in arm.”
“The lawyers have so much to do.”
“Bother the lawyers! The parson ought to do all that is necessary, and the sooner the better. Then there would not be such paraphernalia of presents and gowns and eatings and drinkings, all of which is got up for the good of the tradesmen. If I were to be married, I should like to slip out round the corner, just as though I were going to get an extra loaf of bread from Mrs. Bakewell.”
“That wouldn’t do for my lady at Brook Park.”
“I suppose not.”
“Nor yet for the Major.”
Then Alice shook her head and sighed, and took herself out to walk alone for a few minutes among the lanes. How could it be that he should be so different from that which she had taken him to be! It was now September, and she could remember an early evening in May, when the leaves were beginning to be full, and they were walking together with the spring air fresh around them, just where she was now creeping alone with the more perfect and less fresh beauty of the autumn around her. How different a person he seemed to her to be now from that which he had seemed to be then;—not different because he did not love her, but different because he was not fit to be loved! “Alice,” he had then said, “you and I are alike in this, that simple, serviceable things are dear to both of us.” The words had meant so much to her that she had never forgotten them. Was she simple and serviceable, so that she might be dear to him? She had been sure then that he was simple, and that he was serviceable, so that she could love him. It was thus that she had spoken of him to herself, thinking herself to be sure of his character. And now, before the summer was over, he was engaged to marry such a one as Georgiana Wanless and to become the hero of a fashionable wedding!
But she took pride to herself as she walked alone that she had already overcome the bitterness of the malady which, for a day or two, had been so heavy that she had feared for herself that it would oppress her. For a day or two after that farewell at the gate she had with a rigid purpose tied herself to every duty—even to the duty of looking pleasant in her father’s eyes, of joining in the children’s games, of sharing the gossip of her stepmother. But this she had done with an agony that nearly crushed her. Now she had won her way through it, and could see her path before her. She had not cured altogether that wound in her heart; but she had
