Harry read the letter standing up in the middle of the room, and in half a minute he had torn off his wet coat and kicked one of his wet boots to the farther corner of the room. Then there was a knock at the door, and his mother entered, "Tell me, Harry, what she says."
He rushed up to his mother, all damp and half-shod as he was, and seized her in his arms. "Oh, mother, mother!"
"What is it, dear?"
"Read that, and tell me whether there ever was a finer human being!"
Mrs. Annesley did read it, and thought that her own daughter Molly was just as fine a creature. Florence was simply doing what any girl of spirit would do. But she saw that her son was as jubilant now as he had been downcast, and she was quite willing to partake of his comfort. "Not write a word to her! Ha, ha! I think I see myself at it!"
"But she seems to be in earnest there."
"In earnest! And so am I in earnest. Would it be possible that a fellow should hold his hand and not write? Yes, my girl; I think that I must write a line. I wonder what she would say if I were not to write?"
"I think she means that you should be silent."
"She has taken a very odd way of a.s.suming it. I am to keep her promise for her,--my darling, my angel, my life! But I cannot do that one thing.
Oh, mother, mother, if you knew how happy I am! What the mischief does it all signify,--Uncle Prosper, Miss Thoroughbung, and the rest of it,--with a girl like that?"
CHAPTER XXV.
HARRY AND HIS UNCLE.
Harry was kissed all round by the girls, and was congratulated warmly on the heavenly excellence of his mistress. They could afford to be generous if he would be good-natured. "Of course you must write to her,"
said Molly, when he came down-stairs with dry clothes.
"I should think so, mother."
"Only she does seem to be so much in earnest about it," said Mrs.
Annesley.
"I think she would rather get just a line to say that he is in earnest too," said f.a.n.n.y.
"Why should not she like a love-letter as much as any one else?" said Kate, who had her own ideas. "Of course she has to tell him about her mamma, but what need he care for that? Of course mamma thinks that Joshua need not write to Molly, but Molly won"t mind."
"I don"t think anything of the kind, miss."
"And besides, Joshua lives in the next parish," said f.a.n.n.y, "and has a horse to ride over on if he has anything to say."
"At any rate, I shall write," said Harry, "even at the risk of making her angry." And he did write as follows:
"BUSTON, _October_, 188--.
"MY OWN DEAR GIRL,--It is impossible that I should not send one line in answer. Put yourself in my place, and consult your own feelings. Think that you have a letter so full of love, so n.o.ble, so true, so certain to fill you with joy, and then say whether you would let it pa.s.s without a word of acknowledgment. It would be absolutely impossible. It is not very probable that I should ask you to break your engagement, which in the midst of my troubles is the only consolation I have. But when a man has a rock to stand upon like that, he does not want anything else. As long as a man has the one person necessary to his happiness to believe in him, he can put up with the ill opinion of all the others. You are to me so much that you outweigh all the world.
"I did not choose to have my secret pumped out of me by Augustus Scarborough. I can tell you the whole truth now. Mountjoy Scarborough had told me that he regarded you as affianced to him, and required me to say that I would--drop you. You know now how probable that was. He was drunk on the occasion,--had made himself purposely drunk, so as to get over all scruples,--and attacked me with his stick. Then came a scrimmage, in which he was upset. A sober man has always the best of it." I am afraid that Harry put in that little word sober for a purpose.
The opportunity of declaring that he was sober was too good too be lost.
"I went away and left him, certainly not dead, nor apparently much hurt.
But if I told all this to Augustus Scarborough, your name must have come out. Now I should not mind. Now I might tell the truth about you,--with great pride, if occasion required it. But I couldn"t do it then. What would the world have said to two men fighting in the streets about a girl, neither of whom had a right to fight about her? That was the reason why I told an untruth,--because I did not choose to fall into the trap which Augustus Scarborough had laid for me.
"If your mother will understand it all, I do not think she will object to me on that score. If she does quarrel with me, she will only be fighting the Scarborough game, in which I am bound to oppose her. I am afraid the fact is that she prefers the Scarborough game,--not because of my sins, but from auld lang syne.
"But Augustus has got hold of my Uncle Prosper, and has done me a terrible injury. My uncle is a weak man, and has been predisposed against me from other circ.u.mstances. He thinks that I have neglected him, and is willing to believe anything against me. He has stopped my income,--two hundred and fifty pounds a year,--and is going to revenge himself on me by marrying a wife. It is too absurd, and the proposed wife is aunt of the man whom my sister is going to marry. It makes such a heap of confusion. Of course, if he becomes the father of a family I shall be nowhere. Had I not better take to some profession? Only what shall I take to? It is almost too late for the Bar. I must see you and talk over it all.
"You have commanded me not to write, and now there is a long letter! It is as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb. But when a man"s character is at stake he feels that he must plead for it. You won"t be angry with me because I have not done all that you told me? It was absolutely necessary that I should tell you that I did not mean to ask you to break your engagement, and one word has led to all the others. There shall be only one other, which means more than all the rest:--that I am yours, dearest, with all my heart,
"HARRY ANNESLEY."
"There," he said to himself, as he put the letter into the envelope, "she may think it too long, but I am sure she would not have been pleased had I not written at all."
That afternoon Joshua was at the rectory, having just trotted over after business hours at the brewery because of some special word which had to be whispered to Molly, and Harry put himself in his way as he went out to get on his horse in the stable-yard. "Joshua," he said, "I know that I owe you an apology."
"What for?"
"You have been awfully good to me about the horses, and I have been very ungracious."
"Not at all."
"But I have. The truth is, I have been made thoroughly miserable by circ.u.mstances, and, when that occurs, a man cannot pick himself up all at once. It isn"t my uncle that has made me wretched. That is a kind of thing that a man has to put up with, and I think that I can bear it as well as another. But an attack has been made upon me which has wounded me."
"I know all about it."
"I don"t mind telling you, as you and Molly are going to hit it off together. There is a girl I love, and they have tried to interfere with her."
"They haven"t succeeded?"
"No, by George! And now I"m as right as a trivet. When it came across me that she might have--might have yielded, you know,--it was as though all had been over. I ought not to have suspected her."
"But she"s all right?"
"Indeed she is. I think you"ll like her when you see her some day. If you don"t, you have the most extraordinary taste I ever knew a man to possess. How about the horse?"
"I have four, you know."
"What a grand thing it is to be a brewer!"
"And there are two of them will carry you. The other two are not quite up to your weight."
"You haven"t been out yet?"
"Well, no;--not exactly out. The governor is the best fellow in the world, but he draws the line at cub-hunting. He says the business should be the business till November. Upon my word, I think he"s right."
"And how many days a week after that?"
"Well, three regular. I do get an odd day with the Ess.e.x sometimes, and the governor winks."