"I think you can hardly expect me to answer that question," she said
"Why not?"
"Our acquaintance has been a very short one, Mr. Hardyman. And, if _you_ are so good as to forget the difference between us, I think _I_ ought to remember it."
"What difference?"
"The difference in rank."
Hardyman suddenly stood still, and emphasized his next words by digging his stick into the gra.s.s.
"If anything I have said has vexed you," he began, "tell me so plainly, Miss Isabel, and I"ll ask your pardon. But don"t throw my rank in my face. I cut adrift from all that nonsense when I took this farm and got my living out of the horses. What has a man"s rank to do with a man"s feelings?" he went on, with another emphatic dig of his stick. "I am quite serious in asking if you like me--for this good reason, that I like you. Yes, I do. You remember that day when I bled the old lady"s dog--well, I have found out since then that there"s a sort of incompleteness in my life which I never suspected before. It"s you who have put that idea into my head. You didn"t mean it, I dare say, but you have done it all the same. I sat alone here yesterday evening smoking my pipe--and I didn"t enjoy it. I breakfasted alone this morning--and I didn"t enjoy _that_. I said to myself, She"s coming to lunch, that"s one comfort--I shall enjoy lunch. That"s what I feel, roughly described. I don"t suppose I"ve been five minutes together without thinking of you, now in one way and now in another, since the day when I first saw you.
When a man comes to my time of life, and has had any experience, he knows what that means. It means, in plain English, that his heart is set on a woman. You"re the woman."
Isabel had thus far made several attempts to interrupt him, without success. But, when Hardyman"s confession attained its culminating point, she insisted on being heard.
"If you will excuse me, sir," she interposed gravely, "I think I had better go back to the cottage. My aunt is a stranger here, and she doesn"t know where to look for us."
"We don"t want your aunt," Hardyman remarked, in his most positive manner.
"We do want her," Isabel rejoined. "I won"t venture to say it"s wrong in you, Mr. Hardyman, to talk to me as you have just done, but I am quite sure it"s very wrong of me to listen."
He looked at her with such unaffected surprise and distress that she stopped, on the point of leaving him, and tried to make herself better understood.
"I had no intention of offending you, sir," she said, a little confusedly. "I only wanted to remind you that there are some things which a gentleman in your position--" She stopped, tried to finish the sentence, failed, and began another. "If I had been a young lady in your own rank of life," she went on, "I might have thanked you for paying me a compliment, and have given you a serious answer. As it is, I am afraid that I must say that you have surprised and disappointed me. I can claim very little for myself, I know. But I did imagine--so long as there was nothing unbecoming in my conduct--that I had some right to your respect."
Listening more and more impatiently, Hardyman took her by the hand, and burst out with another of his abrupt questions.
"What can you possibly be thinking of?" he asked.
She gave him no answer; she only looked at him reproachfully, and tried to release herself.
Hardyman held her hand faster than ever.
"I believe you think me an infernal scoundrel!" he said. "I can stand a good deal, Miss Isabel, but I can"t stand _that_. How have I failed in respect toward you, if you please? I have told you you"re the woman my heart is set on. Well? Isn"t it plain what I want of you, when I say that? Isabel Miller, I want you to be my wife!"
Isabel"s only reply to this extraordinary proposal of marriage was a faint cry of astonishment, followed by a sudden trembling that shook her from head to foot.
Hardyman put his arm round her with a gentleness which his oldest friend would have been surprised to see in him.
"Take your time to think of it," he said, dropping back again into his usual quiet tone. "If you had known me a little better you wouldn"t have mistaken me, and you wouldn"t be looking at me now as if you were afraid to believe your own ears. What is there so very wonderful in my wanting to marry you? I don"t set up for being a saint. When I was a younger man I was no better (and no worse) than other young men. I"m getting on now to middle life. I don"t want romances and adventures--I want an easy existence with a nice lovable woman who will make me a good wife. You"re the woman, I tell you again. I know it by what I"ve seen of you myself, and by what I have heard of you from Lady Lydiard. She said you were prudent, and sweet-tempered, and affectionate; to which I wish to add that you have just the face and figure that I like, and the modest manners and the blessed absence of all slang in your talk, which I don"t find in the young women I meet with in the present day. That"s my view of it: I think for myself. What does it matter to me whether you"re the daughter of a Duke or the daughter of a Dairyman? It isn"t your father I want to marry--it"s you. Listen to reason, there"s a dear! We have only one question to settle before we go back to your aunt. You wouldn"t answer me when I asked it a little while since. Will you answer now?
_Do_ you like me?"
Isabel looked up at him timidly.
"In my position, sir," she asked, "have I any right to like you? What would your relations and friends think, if I said Yes?"
Hardyman gave her waist a little admonitory squeeze with his arm
"What? You"re at it again? A nice way to answer a man, to call him "Sir," and to get behind his rank as if it was a place of refuge from him! I hate talking of myself, but you force me to it. Here is my position in the world--I have got an elder brother; he is married, and he has a son to succeed him, in the t.i.tle and the property. You understand, so far? Very well! Years ago I shifted my share of the rank (whatever it may be) on to my brother"s shoulders. He is a thorough good fellow, and he has carried my dignity for me, without once dropping it, ever since. As for what people may say, they have said it already, from my father and mother downward, in the time when I took to the horses and the farm. If they"re the wise people I take them for, they won"t be at the trouble of saying it all over again. No, no. Twist it how you may, Miss Isabel, whether I"m single or whether I"m married, I"m plain Alfred Hardyman; and everybody who knows me knows that I go on my way, and please myself. If you don"t like me, it will be the bitterest disappointment I ever had in my life; but say so honestly, all the same."
Where is the woman in Isabel"s place whose capacity for resistance would not have yielded a little to such an appeal as this?
"I should be an insensible wretch," she replied warmly, "if I didn"t feel the honor you have done me, and feel it gratefully."
"Does that mean you will have me for a husband?" asked downright Hardyman.
She was fairly driven into a corner; but (being a woman) she tried to slip through his fingers at the last moment.
"Will you forgive me," she said, "if I ask you for a little more time? I am so bewildered, I hardly know what to say or do for the best. You see, Mr. Hardyman, it would be a dreadful thing for me to be the cause of giving offense to your family. I am obliged to think of that. It would be so distressing for you (I will say nothing of myself) if your friends closed their doors on me. They might say I was a designing girl, who had taken advantage of your good opinion to raise herself in the world. Lady Lydiard warned me long since not to be ambitious about myself and not to forget my station in life, because she treated me like her adopted daughter. Indeed--indeed, I can"t tell you how I feel your goodness, and the compliment--the very great compliment, you pay me! My heart is free, and if I followed my own inclinations--" She checked herself, conscious that she was on the brink of saying too much. "Will you give me a few days," she pleaded, "to try if I can think composedly of all this? I am only a girl, and I feel quite dazzled by the prospect that you set before me."
Hardyman seized on those words as offering all the encouragement that he desired to his suit.
"Have your own way in this thing and in everything!" he said, with an unaccustomed fervor of language and manner. "I am so glad to hear that your heart is open to me, and that all your inclinations take my part."
Isabel instantly protested against this misrepresentation of what she had really said, "Oh, Mr. Hardyman, you quite mistake me!"
He answered her very much as he had answered Lady Lydiard, when she had tried to make him understand his proper relations towards Isabel.
"No, no; I don"t mistake you. I agree to every word you say. How can I expect you to marry me, as you very properly remark, unless I give you a day or two to make up your mind? It"s quite enough for me that you like the prospect. If Lady Lydiard treated you as her daughter, why shouldn"t you be my wife? It stands to reason that you"re quite right to marry a man who can raise you in the world. I like you to be ambitious--though Heaven knows it isn"t much I can do for you, except to love you with all my heart. Still, it"s a great encouragement to hear that her Ladyship"s views agree with mine--"
"They don"t agree, Mr. Hardyman!" protested poor Isabel. "You are entirely misrepresenting--"
Hardyman cordially concurred in this view of the matter. "Yes! yes! I can"t pretend to represent her Ladyship"s language, or yours either; I am obliged to take my words as they come to me. Don"t disturb yourself: it"s all right--I understand. You have made me the happiest man living.
I shall ride over to-morrow to your aunt"s house, and hear what you have to say to me. Mind you"re at home! Not a day must pa.s.s now without my seeing you. I do love you, Isabel--I do, indeed!" He stooped, and kissed her heartily. "Only to reward me," he explained, "for giving you time to think."
She drew herself away from him--resolutely, not angrily. Before she could make a third attempt to place the subject in its right light before him, the luncheon bell rang at the cottage--and a servant appeared evidently sent to look for them.
"Don"t forget to-morrow," Hardyman whispered confidentially. "I"ll call early--and then go to London, and get the ring."
CHAPTER XVII.
EVENTS succeeded each other rapidly, after the memorable day to Isabel of the luncheon at the farm.
On the next day (the ninth of the month) Lady Lydiard sent for her steward, and requested him to explain his conduct in repeatedly leaving the house without a.s.signing any reason for his absence. She did not dispute his claims to a freedom of action which would not be permitted to an ordinary servant. Her objection to his present course of proceeding related entirely to the mystery in which it was involved, and to the uncertainty in which the household was left as to the hour of his return. On those grounds, she thought herself ent.i.tled to an explanation. Moody"s habitual reserve--strengthened, on this occasion, by his dread of ridicule, if his efforts to serve Isabel ended in failure--disinclined him to take Lady Lydiard into his confidence, while his inquiries were still beset with obstacles and doubts. He respectfully entreated her Ladyship to grant him a delay of a few weeks before he entered on his explanation. Lady Lydiard"s quick temper resented his request. She told Moody plainly that he was guilty of an act of presumption in making his own conditions with his employer. He received the reproof with exemplary resignation; but he held to his conditions nevertheless. From that moment the result of the interview was no longer in doubt. Moody was directed to send in his accounts. The accounts having been examined, and found to be scrupulously correct, he declined accepting the balance of salary that was offered to him. The next day he left Lady Lydiard"s service.
On the tenth of the month her Ladyship received a letter from her nephew.
The health of Felix had not improved. He had made up his mind to go abroad again towards the end of the month. In the meantime, he had written to his friend in Paris, and he had the pleasure of forwarding an answer. The letter inclosed announced that the lost five-hundred-pound note had been made the subject of careful inquiry in Paris. It had not been traced. The French police offered to send to London one of their best men, well acquainted with the English language, if Lady Lydiard was desirous of employing him. He would be perfectly willing to act with an English officer in conducting the investigation, should it be thought necessary. Mr. Troy being consulted as to the expediency of accepting this proposal, objected to the pecuniary terms demanded as being extravagantly high. He suggested waiting a little before any reply was sent to Paris; and he engaged meanwhile to consult a London solicitor who had great experience in cases of theft, and whose advice might enable them to dispense entirely with the services of the French police.
Being now a free man again, Moody was able to follow his own inclinations in regard to the instructions which he had received from Old Sharon.
The course that had been recommended to him was repellent to the self-respect and the sense of delicacy which were among the inbred virtues of Moody"s character. He shrank from forcing himself as a friend on Hardyman"s valet: he recoiled from the idea of tempting the man to steal a specimen of his master"s handwriting. After some consideration, he decided on applying to the agent who collected the rents at Hardyman"s London chambers. Being an old acquaintance of Moody"s, this person would certainly not hesitate to communicate the address of Hardyman"s bankers, if he knew it. The experiment, tried under these favoring circ.u.mstances, proved perfectly successful. Moody proceeded to Sharon"s lodgings the same day, with the address of the bankers in his pocketbook. The old vagabond, greatly amused by Moody"s scruples, saw plainly enough that, so long as he wrote the supposed letter from Hardyman in the third person, it mattered little what handwriting was employed, seeing that no signature would be necessary. The letter was at once composed, on the model which Sharon had already suggested to Moody, and a respectable messenger (so far as outward appearances went) was employed to take it to the bank. In half an hour the answer came back.
It added one more to the difficulties which beset the inquiry after the lost money. No such sum as five hundred pounds had been paid, within the dates mentioned, to the credit of Hardyman"s account.
Old Sharon was not in the least discomposed by this fresh check. "Give my love to the dear young lady," he said with his customary impudence; "and tell her we are one degree nearer to finding the thief."