“So I shall—part of the year; if Sir Gregory likes it.”
“And that you were to have an allowance and all that sort of thing. Now, if you do marry the cook-maid—”
“I am not going to marry the cook-maid—as you know very well.”
“Or if you marry anyone else in opposition to my brother’s wishes, I don’t suppose it likely that he’ll bestow that which he intended to give as a reward to you for following his wishes.”
“He can do as he pleases. The moment that it was settled I told him.”
“And what did he say?”
“He complained of headache. Sir Gregory very often does complain of headache. When I took leave of him, he said I should hear from him.”
“Then it’s all up with Dunripple for you—as long as he lives. I’ve no doubt that since poor Gregory’s death your father’s interest in the property has been disposed of among the Jews to the last farthing.”
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
“And you are—just where you were, my boy.”
“That depends entirely upon Sir Gregory. You may be sure of this, sir—that I shall ask him for nothing. If the worst comes to the worst, I can go to the Jews as well as my father. I won’t, unless I am driven.”
He was with Mary, of course, that evening, walking again along the banks of the Lurwell, as they had first done now nearly twelve months since. Then the autumn had begun, and now the last of the summer months was near its close. How very much had happened to her, or had seemed to happen, during the interval. At that time she had thrice declined Harry Gilmore’s suit; but she had done so without any weight on her own conscience. Her friends had wished her to marry the man, and therefore she had been troubled; but the trouble had lain light upon her, and as she looked back at it all, she felt that at that time there had been something of triumph at her heart. A girl when she is courted knows at any rate that she is thought worthy of courtship, and in this instance she had been at least courted worthily. Since then a whole world of trouble had come upon her from that source. She had been driven hither and thither, first by love, and then by a false idea of duty, till she had come almost to shipwreck. And in her tossing she had gone against another barque which, for aught she knew, might even yet go down from the effects of the collision. She could not be all happy, even though she were again leaning on Walter Marrable’s arm, or again sitting with it round her waist, beneath the shade of the trees on the banks of the Lurwell.
“Then we must wait, and this time we must be patient,” she said, when he told her of poor Sir Gregory’s headache.
“I cannot ask him for anything,” said Walter.
“Of course not. Do not ask anybody for anything—but just wait. I have quite made up my mind that forty-five for the gentleman, and thirty-five for the lady, is quite time enough for marrying.”
“The grapes are sour,” said Walter.
“They are not sour at all, sir,” said Mary.
“I was speaking of my own grapes, as I look at them when I use that argument for my own comfort. The worst of it is that when we know that the grapes are not sour—that they are the sweetest grapes in the world—the argument is of no use. I won’t tell any lies about it, to myself or anybody else. I want my grapes at once.”
“And so do I,” said Mary, eagerly; “of course I do. I am not going to make any pretence with you. Of course I want them at once. But I have learned to know that they are precious enough to be worth the waiting for. I made a fool of myself once; but I shall not do it again, let Sir Gregory make himself ever so disagreeable.”
This was all very pleasant for Captain Marrable. Ah, yes! what other moment in a man’s life is at all equal to that in which he is being flattered to the top of his bent by the love of the woman he loves. To be flattered by the love of a woman whom he does not love is almost equally unpleasant—if the man be anything of a man. But at the present moment our Captain was supremely happy. His Thais was telling him that he was indeed her king, and should he not take the goods with which the gods provided him? To have been robbed of his all by a father, and to have an uncle who would have a headache instead of making settlements—these indeed were drawbacks; but the pleasure was so sweet that even such drawbacks as these could hardly sully his bliss. “If you knew what your letter was to me!” she said, as she leaned against his shoulder. His father and his uncle and all the Marrables on the earth might do their worst, they could not rob the present hour of its joy.
LXVIII
The Squire Is Very Obstinate
Mr. Gilmore left his own home on a Thursday afternoon, and on the Monday when the Vicar again visited the Privets nothing had been heard of him. Money had been left with the bailiff for the Saturday wages of the men working about the place, but no provision for anything had been made beyond that. The Sunday had been wet from morning to night, and nothing could possibly be more disconsolate than the aspect of things round the house, or more disreputable if they were to be left in their present condition. The barrows, and the planks, and the pickaxes had been taken away, which things, though they
