He looked at her, but did not take her hand. "I cannot do it," he said.
"I cannot bid you "G.o.d speed." You have ruined me, trampled upon me, destroyed me. I am not angry with him," and he pointed across the room to Harry Annesley; "nor with you; but only with myself." Then, without speaking a word to his aunt, he marched out of the room and left the house, closing the front-door after him with a loud noise, which testified to his anger.
"He has gone!" said Mrs. Mountjoy, with a tone of deep tragedy.
"It is better so," said Florence.
"A man must take his chance in such warfare as this," said Harry. "There is something about Mountjoy Scarborough that, after all, I like. I do not love Augustus, but, with certain faults, Mountjoy is a good fellow."
"He is the head of our family," said Mrs. Mountjoy, "and is the owner of Tretton."
"That is nothing to do with it," said Florence.
"It has much to do with it," said her mother, "though you would never listen to me. I had set my heart upon it, but you have determined to thwart me. And yet there was a time when you preferred him to every one else."
"Never!" said Florence, with energy.
"Yes, you did,--before Mr. Annesley here came in the way."
"It was before I came, at any rate," said Harry.
"I was young, and I did not wish to be disobedient. But I never loved him, and I never told him so. Now it is out of the question."
"He will never come back again," said Mrs. Mountjoy, mournfully.
"I should be very glad to see him back when I and Florence are man and wife. I don"t care how soon we should see him."
"No; he will never come back," said Florence,--"not as he came to-day.
That trouble is at last over, mamma."
"And my trouble is going to begin."
"Why should there be any trouble? Harry will not give you trouble;--will you, Harry?"
"Never, I trust," said Harry.
"He cannot understand," said Mrs. Mountjoy; "he knows nothing of the desire and ambition of my life. I had promised him my child, and my word to him is now broken."
"He will have known, mamma, that you could not promise for me. Now go, Harry, because we are flurried. May I not ask him to come here to-night and to drink tea with us?" This she said, addressing her mother in a tone of sweetest entreaty. To this Mrs. Mountjoy unwillingly yielded, and then Harry also took his departure.
Florence was aware that she had gained much by the interview of the morning. Even to her it began to appear unnecessary that she should keep Harry waiting three years. She had spoken of postponing the time of her servitude and of preserving for herself the masterdom of her own condition. But in that respect the truth of her own desires was well understood by them all. She was anxious enough to submit to her new master, and she felt that the time was coming. Her mother had yielded so much, and Mountjoy had yielded. Harry was saying to himself at this very moment that Mountjoy had thrown up the sponge. She, too, was declaring the same thing for her own comfort in less sporting phraseology, and, what was much more to her, her mother had nearly thrown up the sponge also. In the worse days of her troubles any suitor had made himself welcome to her mother who would rescue her child from the fangs of that roaring lion, Harry Annesley. Mr. Anderson had been received with open arms, and even M. Grascour. Mrs. Mountjoy had then got it into her head that of all lions which were about in those days Harry roared the loudest. His sins in regard to leaving poor Mountjoy speechless and motionless on the pavement had filled her with horror. But Florence now felt that all that had come to an end. Not only had Mountjoy gone away, but no mention would probably be ever again made of Anderson or Grascour. When Florence was preparing herself for tea that evening she sang a little song to herself as to the coming of the conquering hero.
"A man must take his chance in such warfare as this," she said, repeating to herself her lover"s words.
"You can"t expect me to be very bright," her mother said to her before Harry came.
There was a sign of yielding in this also; but Florence in her happiness did not wish to make her mother miserable, "Why not be bright, mamma?
Don"t you know that Harry is good?"
"No. How am I to know anything about him? He may be utterly penniless."
"But his uncle has offered to let us live in the house and to give us an income. Mr. Prosper has abandoned all idea of getting married."
"He can be married any day. And why do you want to live in another man"s house when you may live in your own? Tretton is ready for you,--the finest mansion in the whole county." Here Mrs. Mountjoy exaggerated a little, but some exaggeration may be allowed to a lady in her circ.u.mstances.
"Mamma, you know that I cannot live at Tretton."
"It is the house in which I was born."
"How can that signify? When such things happen they are used as additional grounds for satisfaction. But I cannot marry your nephew because you were born in a certain house. And all that is over now: you know that Mountjoy will not come back again."
"He would," exclaimed the mother, as though with new hopes.
"Oh, mamma! how can you talk like that? I mean to marry Harry Annesley;--you know that I do. Why not make your own girl happy by accepting him?" Then Mrs. Mountjoy left the room and went to her own chamber and cried there, not bitterly, I think, but copiously. Her girl would be the wife of the squire of Buston, who, after all, was not a bad sort of fellow. At any rate he would not gamble. There had always been that terrible drawback. And he was a fellow of his college, in which she would look for, and probably would find, some compensation as to Tretton. When, therefore, she came down to tea, she was able to receive Harry not with joy but at least without rebuke.
Conversation was at first somewhat flat between the two. If the old lady could have been induced to remain up-stairs, Harry felt that the evening would have been much more satisfactory. But, as it was, he found himself enabled to make some progress. He at once began to address Florence as his undoubted future spouse, very slyly using words adapted for that purpose: and she, without any outburst of her intention,--as she had made when discussing the matter with her cousin,--answered him in the same spirit, and by degrees came so to talk as though the matter were entirely settled. And then, at last, that future day was absolutely brought on the tapis as though now to be named.
"Three years!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Mountjoy, as though not even yet surrendering her last hope.
Florence, from the nature of the circ.u.mstances, received this in silence. Had it been ten years she might have expostulated. But a young lady"s bashfulness was bound to appear satisfied with an a.s.surance of marriage within three years. But it was otherwise with Harry. "Good G.o.d, Mrs. Mountjoy, we shall all be dead!" he cried out.
Mrs. Mountjoy showed by her countenance that she was extremely shocked.
"Oh, Harry!" said Florence, "none of us, I hope, will be dead in three years."
"I shall be a great deal too old to be married if I am left alive. Three months, you mean. It will be just the proper time of year, which does go for something. And three months is always supposed to be long enough to allow a girl to get her new frocks."
"You know nothing about it, Harry," said Florence. And so the matter was discussed--in such a manner that when Harry took his departure that evening he was half inclined to sing a song of himself about the conquering hero. "Dear mamma!" said Florence, kissing her mother with all the warm, clinging affection of former years. It was very pleasant,--but still Mrs. Mountjoy went to her room with a sad heart.
When there she sat for a while over the fire, and then drew out her desk. She had been beaten,--absolutely beaten,--and it was necessary that she should own so much in writing to one person. So she wrote her letter, which was as follows:
"Dear Mountjoy,--After all it cannot be as I would have had it. As they say, "Man proposes, but G.o.d disposes." I would have given her to you now, and would even yet have trusted that you would have treated her well, had it not been that Mr. Annesley has gained such a hold upon her affections. She is wilful, as you are, and I cannot bend her. It has been the longing of my heart that you two should live together at Tretton. But such longings are, I think, wicked, and are seldom realized.
"I write now just this one line to tell you that it is all settled. I have not been strong enough to prevent such settling. He talks of three months! But what does it matter? Three months or three years will be the same to you, and nearly the same to me.
"Your affectionate aunt,
"SARAH MOUNTJOY.
"P.S.--May I as your loving aunt add one word of pa.s.sionate entreaty?
All Tretton is yours now, and the honor of Tretton is within your keeping. Do not go back to those wretched tables!"
Mountjoy Scarborough when he received this letter cannot be said to have been made unhappy by it, because he had already known all his unhappiness. But he turned it in his mind as though to think what would now be the best course of life open to him. And he did think that he had better go back to those tables against which his aunt had warned him, and there remain till he had made the acres of Tretton utterly disappear. There was nothing for him which seemed to be better. And here at home in England even that would at present be impossible to him. He could not enter the clubs, and elsewhere Samuel Hart would be ever at his heels. And there was his brother with his lawsuit, though on that matter a compromise had already been offered to him. Augustus had proposed to him by his lawyer to share Tretton. He would never share Tretton. His brother should have an income secured to him, but he would keep Tretton in his own hands,--as long as the gambling-tables would allow him.
He was, in truth, a wretched man, as on that night he did make up his mind, and ringing his bell called his servant out of his bed to bid him prepare everything for a sudden start. He would leave Tretton on the following day, or on the day after, and intended at once to go abroad.
"He is off for that place nigh to Italy where they have the gambling-tables," said the butler, on the following morning, to the valet who declared his master"s intentions.
"I shouldn"t wonder, Mr. Stokes," said the valet. "I"m told it"s a beauteous country and I should like to see a little of that sort of life myself." Alas, alas! Within a week from that time Captain Scarborough might have been seen seated in the Monte Carlo room, without any friendly Samuel Hart to stand over him and guard him.