Angus Egerton shook his head with a slow sad gesture.
"I am too poor to marry, Mrs. Thatcher," he said. "What could I offer a wife but a gloomy old house, and a perpetual struggle to make hundreds do the work of thousands? I am too proud to ask the woman I love to sacrifice her future to me."
"c.u.mber Priory is good enough for any woman that ever lived," answered Rebecca Thatcher. "You don"t mean what you say, Mr. Egerton. You know that the name you bear is counted better than money in these parts."
He laughed, and changed the conversation.
"I heard you young ladies talking a great deal of the Pensildon fete last night," he said.
"Did you really?" asked Milly; "you did not appear to be much interested in our conversation."
"Did I seem distrait? It is a way I have sometimes, Miss Darrell; but I can a.s.sure you I can hear two or three conversations at once. I think I heard all that you and the Miss Collingwoods were saying."
"You are going to Lady Pensildon"s on the 31st, I suppose?" Milly said.
"I think not. I think of going abroad for the autumn. I have been rather a long time at c.u.mber, you know, and I"m afraid the roving mood is coming upon me again. I shall be sorry to go, too, for I had intended to torment you continually about your art studies. You have really a genius for landscape, you know, Miss Darrell; you only want to be goaded into industry now and then by some severe critic like myself.
Is your cousin, Mr. Stormont, an artist, by the way?"
"Not at all."
"That"s a pity. He seems a clever young man. I suppose he will be a good deal with you, now that Mr. and Mrs. Darrell have returned?"
"He cannot stay very long at a time. He has the chief position in papa"s counting-house."
"Indeed! He looked a little as if the cares of business weighed upon his spirit."
He glanced rather curiously at Milly while he was speaking of Mr.
Stormont. Was he really going away, I wondered, or was that threat of departure only a lover-like ruse?
The rain came presently with all the violence usual to a thunder-shower. We were prisoners in Mrs. Thatcher"s cottage for more than an hour; a happy hour, I think, to Milly, in spite of the closeness of the atmosphere and the medical odour of the herbs. Angus Egerton stood beside her chair all the time, looking down at her bright face and talking to her; while Mrs. Thatcher mumbled a long catalogue of her ailments and troubles into my somewhat inattentive ear.
Once while those two were talking about his intended departure I heard Mr. Egerton say,
"If I thought any one cared about my staying--if I could believe that any one would miss me ever so little--I should be in no hurry to leave Yorkshire."
Of course Milly told him that there were many people who would miss him--Mr. Collingwood for instance, and all the family at the Rectory.
He bent over her, and said something in a very low voice--something that brought vivid blushes to her face; and a few minutes afterwards they went to the door to look at the weather, and stood there talking till I had heard the last of Mrs. Thatcher"s woes, and was free to join them. I had never seen Milly look so lovely as she did just then, with her downcast eyes, and a little tremulous smile upon her perfect mouth.
Mr. Egerton walked all the way home with us. The storm was quite over, the sun shining, and the air full of that cool freshness which comes after rain. We talked of all kinds of things. Mr. Egerton had almost made up his mind to spend the autumn at c.u.mber, he told us; and he would go to the Pensildon fete, and take Milly"s side in the croquet-match. He seemed in almost boyish spirits during that homeward walk.
When we went up-stairs to our rooms that night, Milly followed me into mine. There was nothing new in this; we often wasted half an hour in happy idle talk before going to bed; but I was sure from my darling"s manner she had something to tell me. She went over to an open window, and stood there with her face turned away from me, looking out across the distant moonlit sea.
"Mary," she said, after a very long pause, "do you think people are intended to be quite happy in this world?"
"My dear love, how can I answer such a question as that? I think that many people have their lives in their own hands, and that it rests with themselves to find happiness. And there are many natures that are elevated and purified by sorrow. I cannot tell what is best for us, dear. I cannot pretend to guess what this life was meant to be."
"There is something in perfect happiness that frightens one, Mary. It seems as if it could not last. If it could, if I dared believe in it, I should think that my life was going to be quite happy."
"Why should it be otherwise, my dear Milly? I don"t think you have ever known much sorrow."
"Not since my mother died--and I was only a child then--but that old pain has never quite gone out of my heart; and papa"s marriage has been a greater grief to me than you would believe, Mary. This house has never seemed to be really my home since then. No, dear, it is a new life that is dawning for me--and O, such a bright one!"
She put her arms round my neck, and hid her face upon my shoulder.
"Can you guess what Angus Egerton said to me to-day?" she asked, in a low tremulous voice.
"Was it something very wonderful, dear--or something as old as the world we live in?"
"Not old to me, Mary--new and wonderful beyond all measure. I did not think he cared for me--I had never dared to hope; for I have liked him a little for a long time, dear, though I don"t suppose you ever thought so."
"My dear girl, I have known it from the very beginning. There is nothing in the world more transparent than your thoughts about Angus Egerton have been to me."
"O Mary, how could you! And I have been so careful to say nothing!" she cried reproachfully. "But he loves me, dear. He has loved me for a long time, he says; and he has asked me to be his wife."
"What, after all those protestations about never asking a woman to share his poverty?"
"Yes, Mary; and he meant what he said. He told me that if I had been a penniless girl, he should have proposed to me ever so long ago. And he is to see papa to-morrow."
"Do you think Mr. Darrell will ever consent to such a marriage, Milly?"
I asked gravely.
"Why should he not? He cannot go on thinking badly of Angus when every one else thinks so well of him. You must have seen how he has softened towards him since they met. Mr. Egerton"s old family and position are quite an equivalent for my money, whatever that may be. O Mary, I don"t think papa can refuse his consent."
"I am rather doubtful about that, Milly. It"s one thing to like Mr.
Egerton very well as a visitor--quite another to accept him as a son-in-law. Frankly, my dearest, I fear your father will be against the match."
"Mary," cried Milly reproachfully, "I can see what it is--you are prejudiced against Mr. Egerton."
"I am only anxious for your welfare, darling. I like Mr. Egerton very much. It is difficult for any one to avoid liking him. But I confess that I cannot bring myself to put entire trust in him."
"Why not?"
I did not like to tell her the chief reason for my distrust--that mysterious relation between Angus Egerton and Mrs. Darrell. The subject was a serious--almost a dangerous--one; and I had no positive evidence to bring forward in proof of my fancy. It was a question of looks and words that had been full of significance to me, but which might seem to Milly to mean very little.
"We cannot help our instinctive doubts, dear. But if you can trust Mr.
Egerton, and if your father can trust him, my fancies can matter very little. I cannot stand between you and your love, dear--I know that."
"But you can make me very unhappy by your doubts, Mary," she answered.
I kissed her, and did my best to console her; but she was not easily to be comforted, and left me in a half-sorrowful, half-angry mood. I had disappointed her, she told me--she had felt so sure of my sympathy; and instead of sharing her happiness, I had made her miserable by my fanciful doubts and gloomy forebodings. After she had gone, I sat by the window for a long time, thinking of her disconsolately, and feeling myself very guilty. But I had a fixed conviction that Mr. Darrell would refuse to receive Angus Egerton as his daughter"s suitor, and that the course of this love-affair was not destined to be a smooth one.
The result proved that I had been right. Mr. Egerton had a long interview with Mr. Darrell in the library next morning, during which his proposal was most firmly rejected. Milly and I knew that he was in the house, and my poor girl walked up and down our sitting-room with nervously clasped hands and an ashy pale face all the time those two were together down-stairs.
She turned to me with a little piteous look when she heard Angus Egerton ride away from the front of the house.
"O Mary, what is my fate to be?" she asked. "I think he has been rejected. I do not think he would have gone away without seeing me if the interview had ended happily."
A servant came to summon us both to the library. We went down together, Milly"s cold hand clasped in mine.