Ravenshoe - Ravenshoe Part 23
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Ravenshoe Part 23

She would like the nursery best, and to keep away from the drawing-room altogether. "Yes," she said, "I will _make_ them love me; I will be so gentle, patient, and obliging. I am not afraid of the children--I know I can win _them_--or of my mistress much; I believe I can win _her_. I am most afraid of the superior servants; but, surely, kindness and submission will win them in time.

"My sheet-anchor is old Lady Ascot. She got very fond of me during that six months I stayed with her; and she is very kind. Surely she will get me a place where I shall be well treated! and, if not, why then--I shall only be in the position of thousands of other girls. I must fight through it. There is another life after this.

"It will be terribly hard parting from all the old friends though! After that, I think I shall have no heart left to suffer with. Yes; I suppose the last details of the break-up will be harder to bear than anything which will follow. That will tear one's heart terribly. That over, I suppose my salary will keep me in drawing materials, and give me the power, at every moment of leisure, of taking myself into fairy land.

"I suppose actual destitution is impossible. I should think so. Yes, yes; Lady Ascot would take care of that. If that were to come though?

They say a girl can always make four-pence a day by her needle. How I would fight, and strive, and toil! And then how sweet death would be!"

She paused, and looked out on the darkened ocean. "And yet," she thought again, "I would follow--follow him to the world's end:--

"'Across the hills, and far away, Beyond their utmost purple rim; Beyond the night, across the day, The happy princess followed him.'"

A door opened into the hall, and a man's step was on the stone-floor; she raised the curtain to see who it was. It was Marston; and he came straight towards her, and stood beside her, looking out over the wild stormy landscape.

"Miss Corby," he said, "I was coming to try and find you."

"You are very lucky in your search," she said, smiling on him. "I was alone here with the storm; and, if I had not raised the curtain, you would never have seen me. How it blows! I am glad you are not out in this. This is one of your lucky days."

"I should be glad to think so. Will you listen to me for a very few minutes, while I tell you something?"

"Surely," she said. "Who is there that I would sooner listen to?"

"I fear I shall tire your patience now, though. I am a comparatively poor man."

"And what of that, my dear Mr. Marston? You are rich in honour, in future prospects. You have a noble future before you."

"Will you share it, Mary?"

"Oh! what do you mean?"

"Will you be my wife? I love you beyond all the riches and honours of the world--I love you as you will never be loved again. It is due to you and to myself to say that, although I call myself poor, I have enough to keep you like a lady, and all my future prospects beside. Don't give me a hasty answer, but tell me, is it possible you can become my wife?"

"Oh, I am so sorry for this!" said poor Mary. "I never dreamt of this.

Oh, no! it is utterly and entirely impossible, Mr. Marston--utterly and hopelessly impossible! You must forgive me, if you can; but you must never, never think about me more."

"Is there no hope?" said Marston.

"No hope, no hope!" said Mary. "Please never think about me any more, till you have forgiven me; and then, with your children on your knee, think of me as a friend who loves you dearly."

"I shall think of you till I die. I was afraid of this: it is just as I thought."

"What did you think?"

"Nothing--nothing! Will you let me kiss your hand?"

"Surely; and God bless you!"

"Are we to say good-bye for ever, then?" said poor Marston.

"I hope not. I should be sorry to think that," said poor Mary, crying.

"But you must never speak to me like this again, dear Mr. Marston. God bless you, once more!"

Charles was dressing while this scene was going on, and was thinking, while brushing his hair, what there was for dinner, and whether there would be a turbot or not, and whether the cook would send in the breast of the venison. The doe, Charles sagely reflected, had been killed five days before, and the weather had been warm: surely That Woman would let them have the breast. He was a fool not to have told her of it in the morning before he went out; but she was such an obstinate old catamaran that she very likely wouldn't have done it. "There was no greater mistake," this young Heliogabalus proceeded to remark, "than hanging your breasts too long. Now your haunch, on the other hand----" but we cannot follow him into such a vast and important field of speculation.

"There would be a couple of cocks, though--pretty high, near about the mark----"

The door opened, and in walked Father Mackworth.

"Hallo, Father!" said Charles. "How are you? Did you hear of our spill to-day? We were deuced near done for, I assure you."

"Charles," said the priest, "your nature is frank and noble. I was in terror to-day lest you should go to your account bearing me malice."

"A Ravenshoe never bears malice, Father," said Charles.

"A Ravenshoe never does, I am aware," said Father Mackworth, with such a dead equality of emphasis, that Charles could not have sworn that he laid any on the word "Ravenshoe."

"But I have got an apology to make to you, Father," said Charles: "I have to apologise to you for losing my temper with you the other day, and breaking out into I can't say what tirade of unjust anger. I pray you to forgive me. We don't love one another, you know. How can we? But I behaved like a blackguard, as I always do when I am in a passion.

Will you forgive me?"

"I had forgotten the circumstance." ("Good heaven!" said Charles to himself, "can't this man help lying!") "But, if I have anything to forgive, I freely do so. I have come to ask for a peace. As long as your father lives, let there be outward peace between us, if no more."

"I swear there shall," said Charles. "I like you to-night, sir, better than ever I did before, for the kindness and consideration you show to my father. When he is gone there will be peace between us, for I shall leave this house, and trouble you no more."

"I suppose you will," said Father Mackworth, with the same deadness of emphasis remarked before. And so he departed.

"That is a manly young fellow, and a gentleman," thought Father Mackworth. "Obstinate and headstrong, without much brains; but with more brains than the other, and more education. The other will be very troublesome and headstrong; but I suppose I shall be able to manage him."

What person do you think Father Mackworth meant by the "other"? He didn't mean Cuthbert.

At dinner Densil was garrulous, and eager to hear of their shipwreck. He had made a great rally the last fortnight, and was his old self again.

Lord Saltire, whose gout had fled before careful living and moderate exercise, informed them, after the soup, that he intended to leave them after four days' time, as he had business in another part of the country. They were rather surprised at his abrupt departure, and he said that he was very sorry to leave such pleasant society, in which he had been happier than he had been for many years.

"There is a pleasant, innocent, domestic sort of atmosphere which radiates from you, my old friend," he said, "such as I seldom or never get away from you or Mainwaring, grim warrior though he be (you remember him at Ranford, Charles?). But the law of the Medes and Persians is not amenable to change, and I go on Thursday."

The post arrived during dinner, and there was a letter for Charles. It was from Ranford. "Welter comes on Thursday, father--the very day Lord Saltire goes. How annoying!"

"I must try to bear up under the affliction!" said that nobleman, taking snuff, and speaking very drily.

"Where is he to go, I wonder?" mused Mary, aloud. "He must go into the west wing, for he always smokes in his bedroom."

Charles expected that Cuthbert would have had a sneer at Welter, whom he cordially disliked; but Cuthbert had given up sneering lately. "Not much more reading for you, Charles!" he said.

"I am afraid not," said Charles. "I almost wish he wasn't coming; we were very happy before."

Charles was surprised to see Marston so silent at dinner. He feared he might have offended him, but couldn't tell how. Then he wondered to see Mary so silent, too, for she generally chirruped away like a lark; but he didn't refer the two similar phenomena to a common cause, and so he arrived at no conclusion.

When Lord Saltire went to bed that night, he dismissed Charles from attendance, and took Marston's arm; and, when they were alone together, he thus began:--

"Does your shrewdness connect my abrupt departure with the arrival of Lord Welter?"