"Hold your tongue, mamma," said Arabella jumping up.
"That is all very well, but the truth has to be spoken. You and I cannot go on as we have been doing."
"Certainly not. I would sooner be in a workhouse."
"And here there is provided for you an income on which you can live.
Not a soul will know anything about it. Even your own father need not be told. As for the lawyer, that is nothing. They never talk of things. It would make a man comparatively poor quite a fit match. Or, if you do not marry, it would enable you to live where you pleased independently of me. You had better think twice of it before you refuse it."
"I will not think of it at all. As sure as I am living here I will write to Rufford this very evening and tell him in what light I regard both him and you."
"And what will you do then?"
"Hang myself."
"That is all very well, Arabella, but hanging yourself and jumping off Waterloo Bridge do not mean anything. You must live, and you must pay your debts. I can"t pay them for you. You go into your own room, and think of it all, and be thankful for what Providence has sent you."
"You may as well understand that I am in earnest," the daughter said as she left the room. "I shall write to Lord Rufford to-day and tell him what I think of him and his money. You need not trouble yourself as to what shall be done with it, for I certainly shall not take it."
And she did write to Lord Rufford as follows:
MY LORD,
I have been much astonished by a letter I have received from a gentleman in London, Mr. Shaw, who I presume is your lawyer. When I received it I had not as yet seen mamma. I now understand that you and she between you have determined that I should be compensated by a sum of money for the injury you have done me! I scorn your money. I cannot think where you found the audacity to make such a proposal, or how you have taught yourself to imagine that I should listen to it. As to mamma, she was not commissioned to act for me, and I have nothing to do with anything she may have said. I can hardly believe that she should have agreed to such a proposal. It was very little like a gentleman in you to offer it.
Why did you offer it? You would not have proposed to give me a large sum of money like that without some reason.
I have been shocked to hear that you have denied that you ever engaged yourself to me. You know that you were engaged to me. It would have been more honest and more manly if you had declared at once that you repented of your engagement. But the truth is that till I see you myself and hear what you have to say out of your own mouth I cannot believe what other people tell me. I must ask you to name some place where we can meet. As for this offer of money, it goes for nothing. You must have known that I would not take it.
ARABELLA.
It was now just the end of February, and the visit of the Trefoil ladies to the Connop Greens had to come to an end. They had already overstaid the time at first arranged, and Lady Augustus, when she hinted that another week at Marygold,--"just till this painful affair was finally settled,"--would be beneficial to her, was informed that the Connop Greens themselves were about to leave home. Lady Augustus had reported to Mrs. Connop Green that Lord Rufford was behaving very badly, but that the matter was still in a "transition state." Mrs.
Connop Green was very sorry, but--. So Lady Augustus and Arabella betook themselves to Orchard Street, being at that moment unable to enter in upon better quarters.
What a home it was,--and what a journey up to town! Arabella had told her mother that the letter to Lord Rufford had been written and posted, and since that hardly a word had pa.s.sed between them. When they left Marygold in the Connop Green carriage they smiled, and shook hands, and kissed their friends in unison, and then sank back into silence. At the station they walked up and down the platform together for the sake of appearance, but did not speak. In the train there were others with them and they both feigned to be asleep. Then they were driven to their lodgings in a cab, still speechless. It was the mother who first saw that the horror of this if continued would be too great to be endured. "Arabella," she said in a hoa.r.s.e voice, "why don"t you speak?"
"Because I"ve got nothing to say."
"That"s nonsense. There is always something to say."
"You have ruined me, mamma; just ruined me."
"I did for you the very best I could. If you would have been advised by me, instead of being ruined, you would have had a handsome fortune. I have slaved for you for the last twelve years. No mother ever sacrificed herself for her child more than I have done for you, and now see the return I get. I sometimes think that it will kill me."
"That"s nonsense."
"Everything I say is nonsense,--while you tell me one day that you are going to hang yourself, and another day that you will drown yourself."
"So I would if I dared. What is it that you have brought me to? Who will have me in their houses when they hear that you consented to take Lord Rufford"s money?"
"n.o.body will hear it unless you tell them."
"I shall tell my uncle and my aunt and Mistletoe, in order that they may know how it is that Lord Rufford has been allowed to escape.
I say that you have ruined me. If it had not been for your vulgar bargain with him, he must have been brought to keep his word at last.
Oh, that he should have ever thought it was possible that I was to be bought off for a sum of money!"
Later on in the evening, the mother again implored her daughter to speak to her. "What"s the use, mamma, when you know what we think of each other? What"s the good of pretending? There is n.o.body here to hear us." Later on still she herself began. "I don"t know how much you"ve got, mamma; but whatever it is, we"d better divide it. After what you did in Piccadilly we shall never get on together again."
"There is not enough to divide," said Lady Augustus.
"If I had not you to go about with me I could get taken in pretty nearly all the year round."
"Who"d take you?"
"Leave that to me. I would manage it, and you could join with some other old person. We shall kill each other if we stay like this,"
said Arabella as she took up her candle.
"You have pretty nearly killed me as it is," said the old woman as the other shut the door.
CHAPTER IX.
CHANGES AT BRAGTON.
Day after day old Mrs. Morton urged her purpose with her grandson at Bragton, not quite directly as she had done at first, but by gradual approaches and little soft attempts made in the midst of all the tenderness which, as a nurse, she was able to display. It soon came to pa.s.s that the intruders were banished from the house, or almost banished. Mary"s daily visits were discontinued immediately after that last walk home with Reginald Morton which has been described.
Twice in the course of the next week she went over, but on both occasions she did so early in the day, and returned alone just as he was reaching the house. And then, before a week was over, early in March, Lady Ushant told the invalid that she would be better away.
"Mrs. Morton doesn"t like me," she said, "and I had better go. But I shall stay for a while at Hoppet Hall, and come in and see you from time to time till you get better." John Morton replied that he should never get better; but though he said so then, there was at times evidence that he did not yet quite despond as to himself. He could still talk to Mrs. Morton of buying Chowton Farm, and was very anxious that he should not be forgotten at the Foreign Office.
Lady Ushant had herself driven to Hoppet Hall, and there took up her residence with her nephew. Every other day Mr. Runciman"s fly came for her and carried her backwards and forwards to Bragton. On those occasions she would remain an hour with the invalid, and then would go back again, never even seeing Mrs. Morton, though always seen by her. And twice after this banishment Reginald walked over. But on the second occasion there was a scene. Mrs. Morton to whom he had never spoken since he was a boy, met him in the hall and told him that his visits only disturbed his sick cousin. "I certainly will not disturb him," Reginald had said. "In the condition in which he is now he should not see many people," rejoined the lady. "If you will ask Dr.
Fanning he will tell you the same." Dr. Fanning was the London doctor who came down once a week, whom it was improbable that Reginald should have an opportunity of consulting. But he remembered or thought that he remembered, that his cousin had been fretful and ill-pleased during his last visit, and so turned himself round and went home without another word.
"I am afraid there may be--I don"t know what," said Lady Ushant to him in a whisper the next morning.
"What do you mean?"
"I don"t know what I mean. Perhaps I ought not to say a word. Only so much does depend on it!"
"If you are thinking about the property, aunt, wipe it out of your mind. Let him do what he pleases and don"t think about it. No one should trouble their minds about such things. It is his, to do what he pleases with it."
"It is not him that I fear, Reginald."
"If he chooses to be guided by her, who shall say that he is wrong?
Get it out of your mind. The very thinking about such things is dirtiness!" The poor old lady submitted to the rebuke and did not dare to say another word.
Daily Lady Ushant would send over for Mary Masters, thinking it cruel that her young friend should leave her alone and yet understanding in part the reason why Mary did not come to her constantly at Hoppet Hall. Poor Mary was troubled much by these messages. Of course she went now and again. She had no alternative but to go, and yet, feeling that the house was his house, she was most unwilling to enter it. Then grew within her a feeling, which she could not a.n.a.lyse, that he had ill-used her. Of course she was not ent.i.tled to his love. She would acknowledge to herself over and over again that he had never spoken a word to her which could justify her in expecting his love.