"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 leave of any one, most noble Hector. That is a matter of course. You can marry the cook-maid to-morrow, if you please. But I thought you meant to live at Dunripple?"
"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 any one 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.