Part 20 (1/2)

She goes slowly down the hall.

CHAPTER XI.

HOW THE LAST DAY COMES, AND HOW SOME STRANGE WORDS ARE SAID BEFORE THE MARRIAGE IS ACCOMPLISHED; AND HOW MARION BETHUNE SCORES A POINT.

The dawn of the wedding-day has broken. Everything has been hurried over as much as possible; with no unseemly haste--just in the most ordinary, kindly way--however. But Lady Rylton's hand was at the helm, and she guided her barque to a safe anchor with all speed. She had kept t.i.ta with her--under her eye, as it were--until the final accomplishment should have taken place.

The wedding, she declared, should be from her house, from The Place, seeing that the poor darling child was motherless! She made herself all things to t.i.ta in those days, although great anger stung her within. She had been bitterly incensed by Maurice's avowal that t.i.ta had declined to live with her at The Place, but she had been mightily pleased, for all that, in the thought that therefore The Place would be left to her without a division of authority.

Sir Maurice has gone to Rickfort to interview ”Uncle George” of unpleasant fame. He had found him a rather strange-looking man, but not so impossible as t.i.ta had led him to imagine. He made no objection of any sort to the marriage, and, indeed, through his cold exterior Maurice could see that the merchant blood in him was flattered at his niece's alliance with some of the oldest blood in England.

He was quite reasonable, too, about his niece's fortune. So much was to go to redeeming the more immediate debts on the property; for the rest, Sir Maurice declared he would have nothing to do with it. The money should be settled on his wife entirely. It was hers; he had no claim to it. He would have something off his own property, a small thing, but sufficient for his requirements. He gave his word to quit the turf finally. He had no desire to amuse himself in that sort of way again--or, indeed, in other ways. He wished to settle down, etc.

It occurred to old Bolton, who was a shrewd man, that Sir Maurice looked like one whose interest in life and its joys was at an end.

Still, he was a baronet, and of very ancient lineage, and it was a triumph for the Boltons. He refused to acknowledge to _himself_ that he was sacrificing his niece. It was not a sacrifice; it was an honour!

For one thing the old man stipulated, or rather bargained. He had managed his niece's affairs so far with great success; some of her money was in land, in Oakdean and Rickfort, for example; the rest he had invested securely, as he hoped and believed. If he might still be acknowledged as her guardian?

Sir Maurice, of course, gave in. Thoroughly ashamed and humiliated by the whole affair--he, the man, without a penny; she, the woman, possessed of all things in that line--it gave him genuine relief to tell her uncle that he would be actually thankful if he would still continue to be the head of her affairs, and manage her money matters, as he had managed them hitherto--and always with such happy results.

Mr. Bolton had bowed to him over his spectacles; his curious gray eyes caught a little addition of light, as it were. He was honoured by Sir Maurice's confidence, but, if he might suggest it, he thought that whilst Sir Maurice's affairs were righting themselves, he ought to allow himself a certain income out of his wife's money.

But Rylton would not hear of it. He had, as he had already told Mr.

Bolton, a small yearly income that he might with honesty call his own. It was specially small on account of his mother's jointure having to be paid out of the estate also. Of course he could not curtail that, nor would he desire to do so. And, seeing how deeply dipped the estates were, he could, of course, only take as much as he could reasonably desire. With his future wife's help, however, he felt the old property could be brought back in time to its former splendid position--to a position that he would be proud to see her the mistress of, etc.

There is always a good deal of humbug talked on these occasions.

Maurice, perhaps, talked very considerably less than most people; and, indeed, when he said he would gladly see her mistress of all he ought to have, he spoke something very near the truth. He was grateful to her beyond all words, and he had sworn to himself to be loyal to her.

Lady Rylton was distinctly annoyed when she heard of the arrangements come to. She would have liked Maurice to have had entire control of his wife's fortune. And, oddly enough, t.i.ta was annoyed too.

”Oh, I _wish_ you had broken away entirely from Uncle George,” she had said to Maurice, when he had come down on one of his flying visits to The Place between his engagement and his marriage.

”But why? He seemed to me quite a nice old gentleman.”

She could not explain why, however, but only clung to her belief that they would be better without Uncle George. She hated him. That seemed to be the sum total of her objection.

Maurice had left The Place the morning after his engagement. He had had time to have an interview with his little _fiancee_, who seemed surprised that he wanted it in private, and who, to his great relief, insisted on making very cool adieux to him in the public hall, where everyone was pa.s.sing to and fro, and where Mr. Gower was making a nuisance of himself by playing ball against the library door. Naturally it was impossible to have an affecting parting there.

Marian had not come down to breakfast. And Sir Maurice was conscious of a pa.s.sionate sense of relief. She had heard. He knew--he felt that! His mother would not spare her; and even if she had not cared as _he_ had cared, still, unless she was the greatest fiend on earth, she must have had some small love for him--how _terribly_ small he knows! He a.s.sures himself of that all day long in the living torture he is enduring, as if by it he can reconcile himself to his marriage with this child, whose money is so hateful, and whose presence is such a bore.

There are a few things, however, always to be thankful for. t.i.ta, in the frankest fas.h.i.+on in all their interviews, has told him that she doesn't care a fig about him, that she was marrying him _only_ to escape from Uncle George!

All their interviews have been but few. Sir Maurice had run down from here, and there, and everywhere, just for a night at a time, arriving barely in time for dinner, and going away before breakfast.

Once, and once only, he had seen Mrs. Bethune. Those other times she had been confined to her room with neuralgia (what should we all do without neuralgia?), or with letters to write, or something, _any_thing else.