“I suppose it’s the same with me, Polly.”
“Not quite. You’re a lady bred and born, and Mr. Hughes is a gentleman. Father tells me that a man who goes about the country selling malt isn’t a gentleman. I suppose father is right. But Jack is a good enough gentleman to my thinking. If he had a share of father’s money he would break out in quite a new place.”
“Mr. Peppercorn won’t give it to him?”
“Well! That’s what I don’t know. I do think the governor loves me. He is the best fellow anywhere for downright kindness. I mean to try him. And if he won’t help me I shall go down as I say. You may be sure of this—that I shall not give up Jack.”
“You wouldn’t marry him against your father’s wishes?”
Here Polly wasn’t quite ready with her answer. “I don’t know that father has a right to destroy all my happiness,” she said at last. “I shall wait a long time first at any rate. Then if I find that Jack can remain constant—I don’t know what I shall do.”
“What does he say?”
“Jack? He’s all sugar and promises. They always are for a time. It takes a deal of learning to know whether a young man can be true. There is not above one in twenty that do come out true when they are tried.”
“I suppose not,” said Emily sorrowfully.
“I shall tell Mr. Jack that he’s got to go through the ordeal. Of course he wants me to say that I’ll marry him right off the reel and that he’ll earn money enough for both of us. I told him only this morning—’
“Did you see him?”
“I wrote him—out quite plainly. And I told him that there were other people had hearts in their bodies besides him and me. I’m not going to break father’s heart—not if I can help it. It would go very hard with him if I were to walk out of this house and marry Jack Hollycombe, quite plain like.”
“I would never do it,” said Emily with energy.
“You are a little different from me, Miss Greenmantle. I suppose my mother didn’t think much about such things, and as long as she got herself married decent, didn’t trouble herself much what her people said.”
“Didn’t she?”
“I fancy not. Those sort of cares and bothers always come with money. Look at the two girls in this house. I take it they only act just like their mothers, and if they’re good girls, which they are, they get their mothers’ consent. But the marriage goes on as a matter of course. It’s where money is wanted that parents become stern and their children become dutiful. I mean to be dutiful for a time. But I’d rather have Jack than father’s money.”
“Dr. Freeborn says that you and I are not to quarrel. I am sure I don’t see why we should.”
“What Dr. Freeborn says is very well.” It was thus that Polly carried on the conversation after thinking over the matter for a moment or two. “Dr. Freeborn is a great man in Plumplington, and has his own way in everything. I’m not saying a word against Dr. Freeborn, and goodness knows I don’t want to quarrel with you, Miss Greenmantle.”
“I hope not.”
“But I do mean to go down if father makes me, and if Jack proves himself a true man.”
“I suppose he’ll do that,” said Miss Greenmantle. “Of course you think he will.”
“Well, upon the whole I do,” said Polly. “And though I think father will have to give up, he won’t do it just at present, and I shall have to remain just as I am for a time.”
“And wear—” Miss Greenmantle had intended to inquire whether it was Polly’s purpose to go about in her second-rate clothes, but had hesitated, not quite liking to ask the question.
“Just that,” said Polly. “I mean to wear such clothes as shall be suitable for Jack’s wife. And I mean to give up all my airs. I’ve been thinking a deal about it, and they’re wrong. Your papa and my father are not the same.”
“They are not the same, of course,” said Emily.
“One is a gentleman, and the other isn’t. That’s the long and the short of it. I oughtn’t to have gone to your house drinking tea and the rest of it; and I oughtn’t to have called you Emily. That’s the long and the short of that,” said she, repeating herself.
“Dr. Freeborn thinks—”
“Dr. Freeborn mustn’t quite have it all his own way. Of course Dr. Freeborn is everything in Plumplington; and when I’m Jack’s wife I’ll do what he tells me again.”
“I suppose you’ll do what Jack tells you then.”
“Well, yes; not exactly. If Jack were to tell me not to go to church—which he won’t—I shouldn’t do what he told me. If he said he’d like to have a leg of mutton boiled, I should boil it. Only legs of mutton wouldn’t be very common with us, unless father comes round.”
“I don’t see why all that should make a difference between you and me.”
“It will have to do so,” said Polly with perfect self-assurance. “Father has told me that he doesn’t mean to find money to buy legs of mutton for Jack Hollycombe. Those were his very words. I’m determined I’ll never ask him. And he said he wasn’t going to find clothes for Jack Hollycombe’s brats. I’ll never go to him to find a pair of shoes for Jack Hollycombe or one of his brats. I’ve told Jack as much, and Jack says that I’m right. But there’s no knowing what’s inside a young man till you’ve tried him. Jack may fall off, and if so there’s an end of him. I shall come round in time, and wear my fine clothes again when I settle down as an old maid. But father will never make me wear them, and
