Part 50 (1/2)
”And so was I in earnest.”
”Well, Grace;--we shall see.”
”I suppose I may have a will of my own, Lily.”
”Do not be so sure of that. Women are not allowed to have wills of their own on all occasions. Some man comes in a girl's way, and she gets to be fond of him, just because he does come in her way. Well; when that has taken place, she has no alternative but to be taken if he chooses to take her; or to be left, if he chooses to leave her.”
”Lily, don't say that.”
”But I do say it. A man may a.s.sure himself that he will find for himself a wife who shall be learned, or beautiful, or six feet high, if he wishes it, or who has red hair, or red eyes, or red cheeks,--just what he pleases; and he may go about till he finds it, as you can go about and match your worsteds. You are a fool if you buy a colour you don't want. But we can never match our worsteds for that other piece of work, but are obliged to take any colour that comes,--and, therefore, it is that we make such a jumble of it!
Here's mamma. We must not be philosophical before her. Mamma, Major Grantly has--skedaddled.”
”Oh, Lily, what a word!”
”But, oh, mamma, what a thing! Fancy his going away and not saying a word to anybody!”
”If he had anything to say to Grace, I suppose he said it.”
”He asked her to marry him, of course. We none of us had any doubt about that. He swore to her that she and none but she should be his wife,--and all that kind of thing. But he seems to have done it in the most prosaic way;--and now he has gone away without saying a word to any of us. I shall never speak to him again,--unless Grace asks me.”
”Grace, my dear, may I congratulate you?” said Mrs. Dale.
Grace did not answer, as Lily was too quick for her. ”Oh, she has refused him, of course. But Major Grantly is a man of too much sense to expect that he should succeed the first time. Let me see; this is the fourteenth. These clocks run fourteen days, and, therefore, you may expect him again about the twenty-eighth. For myself, I think you are giving him an immense deal of unnecessary trouble, and that if he left you in the lurch it would only serve you right; but you have the world with you, I'm told. A girl is supposed to tell a man two fibs before she may tell him one truth.”
”I told him no fib, Lily. I told him that I would not marry him, and I will not.”
”But why not, dear Grace?” said Mrs. Dale.
”Because the people say that papa is a thief!” Having said this, Grace walked slowly out of the room, and neither Mrs. Dale nor Lily attempted to follow her.
”She's as good as gold,” said Lily, when the door was closed.
”And he;--what of him?”
”I think he is good, too; but she has told me nothing yet of what he has said to her. He must be good, or he would not have come down here after her. But I don't wonder at his coming, because she is so beautiful! Once or twice as we were walking back to-day, I thought her face was the most lovely that I had ever seen. And did you see her just now, as she spoke of her father?”
”Oh, yes;--I saw her.”
”Think what she will be in two or three years' time, when she becomes a woman. She talks French, and Italian, and Hebrew for anything that I know; and she is perfectly beautiful. I never saw a more lovely figure;--and she has spirit enough for a G.o.ddess. I don't think that Major Grantly is such a fool after all.”
”I never took him for a fool.”
”I have no doubt all his own people do;--or they will, when they hear of it. But, mamma, she will grow to be big enough to walk atop of all the Lady Hartletops in England. It will all come right at last.”
”You think it will?”
”Oh, yes. Why should it not? If he is worth having, it will;--and I think he is worth having. He must wait till this horrid trial is over. It is clear to me that Grace thinks that her father will be convicted.”
”But he cannot have taken the money.”