"Come, don't say that! Don't say that, Jos dear! No idea? Why, hasn't it always been this way with us! Since the day that we cut our names on the old pew? Haven't I seen you blush like a rose when you looked at it--many and many a time? And if I haven't dared to make love to you of late, surely you have known what was in my mind? Have we not always been meaning this--you and I?"
She was thunder-struck. Had it been really so? Could he be right? Had she been blind, and had he been feeling all this while she guessed nothing of it? She looked at him in distress, in increasing distress.
"But indeed, indeed," she said, "I have not been meaning it, Arthur, I have not, indeed!"
"Not?" incredulously. "You've not known that I----"
"No!" she protested. "And I don't think that it has always been so with us." Then, collecting herself and in a firmer voice, "No, Arthur, not lately, I am sure. I don't think that it has been so on your side--I don't, indeed. And I'm sure that I have not thought of this myself."
"Jos!"
"No, Arthur, I have not, indeed."
"You haven't seen that I loved you?"
"No. And," looking him steadily in the face, "I am not sure that you do."
"Then let me tell you that I do. I do!" And he tried to possess himself of her other hand, and there was a little struggle between them. "Dear, dear girl, I do love you," he swore. "And I want you, I want you for my wife. And your father permits it. Do you understand--I don't think you do? He sanctions it."
He would have put his arm round her, thinking to overcome her bashfulness, thinking that this was but maidenly pride, waiting to be conquered. But she freed herself with unexpected vigor and slipped from him. "No, I don't wish it!" she said. And her attitude and her tone were so resolute, that he could no longer deceive himself. "No!
Listen, Arthur." She was pale, but there was a surprising firmness in her face. "Listen! I do not believe that you love me. You have given me no cause to think so these many months. Such a boy and girl affection as was once between us might have grown into love in time, had you wished it. But you did not seem to wish it, and it has not.
What you feel is not love."
"You know so much about love!" he scoffed. He was taken aback, but he tried to laugh--tried to pass it off.
But she did not give way. "I know what love is," she answered firmly.
And then, without apparent cause, a burning blush rose to her very hair. Yet, in defiance of this, she repeated her words. "I know what love is, and I do not believe that you feel it for me. And I am sure, quite sure, Arthur," in a lower tone, "that I do not feel it for you.
I could not be your wife."
"Jos!" he pleaded earnestly. "You are joking! Surely you are joking."
"No, I am not joking. I do not wish to hurt you. I am grieved if I do hurt you. But that is the truth. I do not want to marry you."
He stared at her. At last she had compelled him to believe her, and he reddened with anger; only to turn pale, a moment later, as a picture of himself humiliated and rejected, his plans spoiled by the fancy of this foolish girl, rose before him. He could not understand it; it seemed incredible. And there must be some reason? Desperately he clutched at the thought that she was afraid of her father. She had not grasped the fact that the Squire had sanctioned his suit, and, controlling his voice as well as he could, "Are you really in earnest, Jos?" he said. "Do you understand that your father is willing? That it is indeed his wish that we should marry?"
"I cannot help it."
"But--love?" Though he tried to keep his temper his voice was growing sharp. "What, after all, do you know of--love?" And rapidly his mind ran over the possibilities. No, there could be no one else. She knew few, and among them no one who could have courted her without his knowledge. For, strange to say, no inkling of the meetings between Clement and his cousin had reached him. They had all taken place within a few weeks, they had ceased some months back, and though there were probably some in the house who had seen things and drawn their conclusions, the favorers of young love are many, and no one save Thomas had tried to make mischief. No, there could be no one, he decided; it was just a silly girl's romantic notion. "And how can you say," he continued, "that mine is not real love? What do you know of it? Believe me, Jos, you are playing with your happiness. And with mine."
"I do not think so," she answered gravely. "As to my own, I am sure, Arthur. I do not love you and I cannot marry you."
"And that is your answer?"
"Yes, it must be."
He forced a laugh. "Well, it will be news for your father," he said.
"A clever game you have played, Miss Jos! Never tell me that it is not in women's nature to play the coquette after this. Why, if I had treated you as you have treated me--and made a fool of me! Made a fool of me!" he reiterated passionately, unable to control his chagrin--"I should deserve to be whipped!"
And afraid that he would break down before her and disgrace his manhood, he turned about, sprang down the steps and savagely spurning, savagely trampling under foot the shrivelled leaves, he strode across the garden to the house. "The little fool!" he muttered, and he clenched his hands as if he could have crushed her within them. "The little fool!"
He was angry, he was very angry, for hitherto fortune had spoiled him.
He had been successful, as men with a single aim usually are successful. He had attained to most of the things which he had desired. Now to fail where he had deemed himself most sure, to be repulsed where he had fancied that he had only to stoop, to be scorned where he had thought that he had but to throw the handkerchief, to be rejected and rejected by Jos--it was enough to make any man angry, to make any man grind his teeth and swear! And how--how in the world was he to explain the matter to his uncle? How account to him for his confidence in the issue? His cheeks burned as he thought of it.
He was angry. But his wrath was no match for the disappointment that warred with it and presently, as passion waned, overcame it. He had to face and to weigh the consequences. The loss of Jos meant much more than the loss of a mild and biddable wife with a certain charm of her own. It meant the loss of Garth, of the influence that belonged to it, the importance that flowed from it, the position it conferred. It meant the loss of a thing which he had come to consider as his own.
The caprice of this obstinate girl robbed him of that which he had bought by a long servitude, by much patience, by many a tiresome ride between town and country!
There, in that loss, was the true pinch! But he must think of it. He must take time to review the position and consider how he might deal with it. It might be that all was not yet lost--even at Garth.
In the meantime he avoided seeing his uncle, and muttering a word to Miss Peacock, he had his horse saddled. He mounted in the yard and descended the drive at his usual pace. But as soon as he had gained the road, he lashed his nag into a canter, and set his face for town.
At worst the bank remained, and he must see that it did remain. He must not let himself be scared by Ovington's alarms. If a crisis came he must tackle the business as he alone could tackle business, and all would be well. He was sure of it.
Withal he was spared one pang, the pang of disappointed love.
CHAPTER XXIV
Arthur was at the bank by noon, and up to that time nothing had occurred to justify the banker's apprehensions or to alarm the most timid. Business seemed to be a little slack, the bank door had a rest, and there was less coming and going. But in the main things appeared to be moving as usual, and Arthur, standing at his desk in an atmosphere as far removed as possible from that of Garth, had time to review the check that he had received at Josina's hands, and to consider whether, with the Squire's help, it might not still be repaired.
But an hour or two later a thing occurred which might have passed unnoticed at another time, but on that day had a meaning for three out of the five in the bank. The door opened a little more abruptly than usual, a man pushed his way in. He was a publican in a fair way of business in the town, a smug ruddy-gilled man who, in his younger days, had been a pugilist at Birmingham and still ran a cock-pit behind the Spotted Dog, between the Foregate and the river. He stepped to the counter, his small shrewd eyes roving slyly from one to another.
Arthur went forward to attend to him. "What is it, Mr. Brownjohn?" he asked. But already his suspicions were aroused.
"Well, sir," the man answered bluntly, "what we most of us want, sir.
The rhino!"
"Then you've come to the right shop for that," Arthur rejoined, falling into his humor. "How much?"
"How's my account, sir?"
Arthur consulted the book which he took from a ledge below the counter. In our time he would have scribbled the sum on a scrap of paper and passed the paper over in silence. But in those days many customers would have been none the wiser for that, for they could not read. So, "One, four, two, and three and six-pence," he said.
"Well, I'll take it," the publican announced, gazing straight before him.
Arthur understood, but not a muscle of his face betrayed his knowledge. "Brewers' day?" he said lightly. "Mr. Rodd, draw a cheque for Mr. Brownjohn. One four two, three and six. Better leave five pounds to keep the account open?"
"Oh, well!" Mr. Brownjohn was a little taken aback. "Yes, sir, very well."
"One three seven, Rodd, three and six." And while the customer, laboriously and with a crimsoning face, scrawled his signature on the cheque, Arthur opened a drawer and counted out the amount in Ovington's notes. "Twenty-seven fives, and two, three, six," he muttered, pushing it over. "You'll find that right, I think."
Brownjohn had had his lesson from Wolley, who put up at his house, but he had not learnt it perfectly. He took the notes, and thumbed them over, wetting his thumb as he turned each, and he found the tale correct. "Much obliged, gentlemen," he muttered, and with a perspiring brow he effected his retreat. Already he doubted--so willingly had his money been paid--if he had been wise. He was glad that he had left the five pounds.
But the door had hardly closed on him before Arthur asked the cashier how much gold he had in the cash drawer.
"The usual, sir. One hundred and fifty and thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four--one hundred and eighty-four."
"Fetch up two hundred more before Mr. Brownjohn comes back," Arthur said. "Don't lose time."