“He evidently don’t know that Nickem has
got round Goarly,” said the landlord.
At Cheltenham
The month at Cheltenham was passed very quietly and
would have been a very happy month with Mary Masters
but that there grew upon her from day to day increasing
fears of what she would have to undergo when she returned
to Dillsborough. At the moment when she was hesitating
with Larry Twentyman, when she begged him to wait six
months and then at last promised to give him an answer
at the end of two, she had worked herself up to think
that it might possibly be her duty to accept her lover
for the sake of her family. At any rate she had
at that moment thought that the question of duty ought
to be further considered, and therefore she had vacillated.
When the two months’ delay was accorded to her,
and within that period the privilege of a long absence
from Dillsborough, she put the trouble aside for a
while with the common feeling that the chapter of
accidents might do something for her. Before she
had reached Cheltenham the chapter of accidents had
done much. When Reginald Morton told her that
he could not have congratulated her on such prospects,
and had explained to her why in truth he had been angry
at the bridge,—how he had been anxious to
be alone with her that he might learn whether she
were really engaged to this man,—then she
had known that her answer to Larry Twentyman at the
end of the two months must be a positive refusal.
But as she became aware of this a new trouble arose
and harassed her very soul. When she had asked
for the six months she had not at the moment been
aware, she had not then felt, that a girl who asks
for time is supposed to have already surrendered.
But since she had made that unhappy request the conviction
had grown upon her. She had read it in every
word her stepmother said to her and in her father’s
manner. The very winks and hints and little jokes
which fell from her younger sisters told her that
it was so. She could see around her the satisfaction
which had come from the settlement of that difficult
question,—a satisfaction which was perhaps
more apparent with her father than even with the others.
Then she knew what she had done, and remembered to
have heard that a girl who expresses a doubt is supposed
to have gone beyond doubting. While she was still
at Dillsborough there was a feeling that no evil would
arise from this if she could at last make up her mind
to be Mrs. Twentyman; but when the settled conviction
came upon her, after hearing Reginald Morton’s
words, then she was much troubled.
He stayed only a couple of days at Cheltenham and
during that time said very little to her. He
certainly spoke no word which would give her a right
to think that he himself was attached to her.
He had been interested about her, as was his aunt,
Lady Ushant, because she had been known and her mother
had been known by the old Mortons. But there
was nothing of love in all that. She had never
supposed that there would be; and yet there was a vague
feeling in her bosom that as he had been strong in
expressing his objection to Mr. Twentyman there might
have been something more to stir him than the memory
of those old days at Bragton!
