“I hope I mayn’t have the opportunity, sir.”
“Well;—well;—well; that’s as may be. But I don’t quite know what to say about young John. The farm has gone from father to son, and there’s never been a word of a lease.”
“Is there anything wrong about the young man?”
“He’s a little given to poaching.”
“Oh dear!”
“I’ve always got him off for his father’s sake. They say he’s going to marry Sally Jones. That may take it out of him. I do like the farms to go from father to son, Everett. It’s the way that everything should go. Of course there’s no right.”
“Nothing of that kind, I suppose,” said Everett, who was in his way a reformer, and had Radical notions with which he would not for worlds have disturbed the baronet at present.
“No;—nothing of that kind. God in his mercy forbid that a landlord in England should ever be robbed after that fashion.” Sir Alured, when he was uttering this prayer, was thinking of what he had heard of an Irish Land Bill, the details of which, however, had been altogether incomprehensible to him. “But I have a feeling about it, Everett; and I hope you will share it. It is good that things should go from father to son. I never make a promise; but the tenants know what I think about it, and then the father works for the son. Why should he work for a stranger? Sally Jones is a very good young woman, and perhaps young John will do better.” There was not a field or a fence that he did not show to his heir;—hardly a tree which he left without a word. “That bit of woodland coming in there—they call it Barnton Spinnies—doesn’t belong to the estate at all.” This he said in a melancholy tone.
“Doesn’t it, really?”
“And it comes right in between Lane’s farm and Puddock’s. They’ve always let me have the shooting as a compliment. Not that there’s ever anything in it. It’s only seven acres. But I like the civility.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“It belongs to Benet.”
“What; Corpus Christi?”
“Yes, yes;—they’ve changed the name. It used to be Benet in my days. Walker says the College would certainly sell, but you’d have to pay for the land and the wood separately. I don’t know that you’d get much out of it; but it’s very unsightly—on the survey map, I mean.”
“We’ll buy it, by all means,” said Everett, who was already jingling his £60,000 in his pocket.
“I never had the money, but I think it should be bought.” And Sir Alured rejoiced in the idea that when his ghost should look at the survey map, that hiatus of Barnton Spinnies would not trouble his spectral eyes.
In this way months ran on at Wharton. Our Whartons had come down in the latter half of August, and at the beginning of September Mr. Wharton returned to London. Everett, of course, remained, as he was still learning the lesson of which he was in truth becoming a little weary; and at last Emily had also been persuaded to stay in Herefordshire. Her father promised to return, not mentioning any precise time, but giving her to understand that he would come before the winter. He went, and probably found that his taste for the Eldon and for whist had returned to him. In the middle of November old Mrs. Fletcher arrived. Emily was not aware of what was being done; but, in truth, the Fletchers and Whartons combined were conspiring with the view of bringing her back to her former self. Mrs. Fletcher had not yielded without some difficulty—for it was a part of this conspiracy that Arthur was to be allowed to marry the widow. But John had prevailed. “He’ll do it anyway, mother,” he had said, “whether you and I like it or not. And why on earth shouldn’t he do as he pleases?”
“Think what the man was, John!”
“It’s more to the purpose to think what the woman is. Arthur has made up his mind, and, if I know him, he’s not the man to be talked out of it.” And so the old woman had given in, and had at last consented to go forward as the advanced guard of the Fletchers, and lay siege to the affections of the woman whom she had once so thoroughly discarded from her heart.
“My dear,” she said, when they first met, “if there has been anything wrong between you and me, let it be among the things that are past. You always used to kiss me. Give me a kiss now.” Of course Emily kissed her; and after that Mrs. Fletcher patted her and petted her, and gave her lozenges, which she declared in private to be “the sovereignest thing on earth” for debilitated nerves. And then it came out by degrees that John Fletcher and his wife and all the little Fletchers were coming to Wharton for the Christmas weeks. Everett had gone, but was also to be back for Christmas, and Mr. Wharton’s visit was also postponed. It was absolutely necessary that Everett should be at Wharton for the Christmas festivities, and expedient that Everett’s father should be there to see them. In this way Emily had no means of escape. Her father wrote telling her of his plans, saying that he would bring her back after Christmas. Everett’s heirship had made these Christmas festivities—which were, however, to be confined to the two families—quite a necessity. In all this not a word was said about Arthur, nor did she dare to ask whether he was expected. The younger Mrs. Fletcher, John’s wife, opened her arms to the widow in a manner that almost plainly said that she regarded Emily as her future sister-in-law. John Fletcher talked to her about Longbarns, and the children—complete Fletcher talk—as though she were already one of them, never, however, mentioning Arthur’s name. The old lady got down a fresh supply of the lozenges from London because those she had by
