“I don’t pretend to understand it.”
“And yet it is so easily understood!” said Mary, pleading hard for herself. “I did not love him, and—”
“But you had accepted him, Mary.”
“I know I had. It is so natural that you should think that I have behaved badly.”
“I have not said so, my dear.”
“I know that, Aunt Sarah; but if you think so—and of course you do—write and ask Janet Fenwick. She will tell you everything. You know how devoted she is to Mr. Gilmore. She would have done anything for him. But even she will tell you that at last I could not help it. When I was so very wretched I thought that I would do my best to comply with other people’s wishes. I got a feeling that nothing signified for myself. If they had told me to go into a convent or to be a nurse in a hospital I would have gone. I had nothing to care for, and if I could do what I was told perhaps it might be best.”
“But why did you not go on with it, my dear?”
“It was impossible—after Walter had written to me.”
“But Walter is to marry Edith Brownlow.”
“No, dear aunt; no. Walter is to marry me. Don’t look like that, Aunt Sarah. It is true;—it is, indeed.” She had now dragged her chair close to her aunt’s seat upon the sofa, so that she could put her hands upon her aunt’s knees. “All that about Miss Brownlow has been a fable.”
“Parson John told me that it was fixed.”
“It is not fixed. The other thing is fixed. Parson John tells many fables. He is to come here.”
“Who is to come here?”
“Walter—of course. He is to be here—I don’t know how soon; but I shall hear from him. Dear aunt, you must be good to him;—indeed you must. He is your cousin just as much as mine.”
“I’m not in love with him, Mary.”
“But I am, Aunt Sarah. Oh dear, how much I am in love with him! It never changed in the least, though I struggled, and struggled not to think of him. I broke his picture and burned it;—and I would not have a scrap of his handwriting;—I would not have near me anything that he had even spoken of. But it was no good. I could not get away from him for an hour. Now I shall never want to get away from him again. As for Mr. Gilmore, it would have come to the same thing at last, had I never heard another word from Walter Marrable. I could not have done it.”
“I suppose we must submit to it,” said Aunt Sarah, after a pause. This certainly was not the most exhilarating view which might have been taken of the matter as far as Mary was concerned; but as it did not suggest any open opposition to her scheme, and as there was no refusal to see Walter when he should again appear at Uphill as her lover, she made no complaint. Miss Marrable went on to inquire how Sir Gregory would like these plans, which were so diametrically opposed to his own. As to that, Mary could say nothing. No doubt Walter would make a clean breast of it to Sir Gregory before he left Dunripple, and would be able to tell them what had passed when he came to Loring. Mary, however, did not forget to argue that the ground on which Walter Marrable stood was his own ground. After the death of two men, the youngest of whom was over seventy, the property would be his property, and could not be taken from him. If Sir Gregory chose to quarrel with him—as to the probability of which, Mary and her aunt professed very different opinions—they must wait. Waiting now would be very different from what it had been when their prospects in life had not seemed to depend in any degree upon the succession to the family property. “And I know myself better now than I did then,” said Mary. “Though it were to be for all my life, I would wait.”
On the Monday she got a letter from her cousin. It was very short, and there was not a word in it about Sir Gregory or Edith Brownlow. It only said that he was the happiest man in the world, and that he would be at Loring on the following Saturday. He must return at once to Birmingham, but would certainly be at Loring on Saturday. He had written to his uncle to ask for hospitality. He did not suppose that Parson John would refuse; but should this be the case, he would put up at The Dragon. Mary might be quite sure that she would see him on Saturday.
And on the Saturday he came. The parson had consented to receive him; but, not thinking highly of the wisdom of the proposed visit, had worded his letter rather coldly. But of that Walter in his present circumstances thought but little. He was hardly within the house before he had told his story. “You haven’t heard, I suppose,” he said, “that Mary and I have made it up?”
“How made it up?”
“Well—I mean that you shall make us man and wife some day.”
“But I thought you were to marry Edith Brownlow.”
“Who told you that, sir? I am sure Edith did not, nor yet her mother. But I believe these sort of things are often settled without consulting the principals.”
“And what does my brother say?”
“Sir Gregory, you mean?”
“Of course I mean Sir Gregory. I don’t suppose you’d ask your father.”
“I never had the slightest intention, sir, of asking either one or the other. I don’t suppose that I am to ask his leave to be married, like a young girl; and it isn’t likely that any objection on family grounds could be made to such a woman as Mary Lowther.”
“You needn’t ask
