But then the happiness which might have accrued to him from this source was dashed by his thoughts of Marian Leslie. Why had he thrown himself in the way of that syren? Why had he left Mount Pleasant at all? He knew that on his return to Spanish Town his first work would be to visit Shandy Hall; and yet he felt that of all places in the island, Shandy Hall was the last which he ought to visit.
And then about the beginning of May, when he was hard at work turning the last of his canes into sugar and rum, he received his annual visit from Miss Jack. And whom should Miss Jack bring with her but Mr. Leslie.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Miss Jack; “I have spoken to Mr. Leslie about you and Marian.”
“Then you had no business to do anything of the kind,” said Maurice, blushing up to his ears.
“Nonsense,” replied Miss Jack, “I understand what I am about. Of course Mr. Leslie will want to know something about the estate.”
“Then he may go back as wise as he came, for he’ll learn nothing from me. Not that I have anything to hide.”
“So I told him. Now there are a large family of them, you see; and of course he can’t give Marian much.”
“I don’t care a straw if he doesn’t give her a shilling. If she cared for me, or I for her, I shouldn’t look after her for her money.”
“But a little money is not a bad thing, Maurice,” said Miss Jack, who in her time had had a good deal, and had managed to take care of it.
“It is all one to me.”
“But what I was going to say is this—hum—ha—. I don’t like to pledge myself for fear I should raise hopes which mayn’t be fulfilled.”
“Don’t pledge yourself to anything, aunt, in which Marian Leslie and I are concerned.”
“But what I was going to say is this; my money, what little I have, you know, must go some day either to you or to the Leslies.”
“You may give all to them if you please.”
“Of course I may, and I dare say I shall,” said Miss Jack, who was beginning to be irritated. “But at any rate you might have the civility to listen to me when I am endeavouring to put you on your legs. I am sure I think about nothing else, morning, noon, and night, and yet I never get a decent word from you. Marian is too good for you; that’s the truth.”
But at length Miss Jack was allowed to open her budget, and to make her proposition; which amounted to this—that she had already told Mr. Leslie that she would settle the bulk of her property conjointly on Maurice and Marian if they would make a match of it. Now as Mr. Leslie had long been casting a hankering eye after Miss Jack’s money, with a strong conviction however that Maurice Cumming was her favourite nephew and probable heir, this proposition was not unpalatable. So he agreed to go down to Mount Pleasant and look about him.
“But you may live for the next thirty years, my dear Miss Jack,” Mr. Leslie had said.
“Yes, I may,” Miss Jack replied, looking very dry.
“And I am sure I hope you will,” continued Mr. Leslie. And then the subject was allowed to drop; for Mr. Leslie knew that it was not always easy to talk to Miss Jack on such matters.
Miss Jack was a person in whom I think we may say that the good predominated over the bad. She was often morose, crabbed, and self-opinionated; but then she knew her own imperfections, and forgave those she loved for evincing their dislike of them. Maurice Cumming was often inattentive to her, plainly showing that he was worried by her importunities and ill at ease in her company. But she loved her nephew with all her heart; and though she dearly liked to tyrannise over him, never allowed herself to be really angry with him, though he so frequently refused to bow to her dictation. And she loved Marian Leslie also, though Marian was so sweet and lovely and she herself so harsh and ill-favoured. She loved Marian, though Marian would often be impertinent. She forgave the flirting, the lightheartedness, the love of amusement. Marian, she said to herself, was young and pretty. She, Miss Jack, had never known Marian’s temptation. And so she resolved in her own mind that Marian should be made a good and happy woman;—but always as the wife of Maurice Cumming.
But Maurice turned a deaf ear to all these good tidings—or rather he turned to them an ear that seemed to be deaf. He dearly, ardently loved that little flirt; but seeing that she was a flirt, that she had flirted so grossly when he was by, he would not confess his love to a human being. He would not have it known that he was wasting his heart for a worthless little chit, to whom every man was the same—except that those were
