Part 56 (1/2)
”I had better not say anything I suppose?”
Sir Peregrine, in his heart of hearts wished that his daughter-in-law could say it all, but he would not give her such a commission. ”No; perhaps not.” And then Mrs. Orme was going to leave him.
”One word more, Edith. You and I, darling, have known each other so long and loved each other so well, that I should be unhappy if I were to fall in your estimation.”
”There is no fear of that, father.”
”Will you believe me when I a.s.sure you that my great object in doing this is to befriend a good and worthy woman whom I regard as ill used--beyond all ill usage of which I have hitherto known anything?”
She then a.s.sured him that she did so believe, and she a.s.sured him truly; after that she left him and went away to send in Lady Mason for her interview. In the mean time Sir Peregrine got up and stood with his back to the fire. He would have been glad that the coming scene could be over, and yet I should be wronging him to say that he was afraid of it. There would be a pleasure to him in telling her that he loved her so dearly and trusted her with such absolute confidence. There would be a sort of pleasure to him in speaking even of her sorrow, and in repeating his a.s.surance that he would fight the battle for her with all the means at his command. And perhaps also there would be some pleasure in the downcast look of her eye, as she accepted the tender of his love. Something of that pleasure he had known already. And then he remembered the other alternative. It was quite upon the cards that she should decline his offer. He did not by any means shut his eyes to that. Did she do so, his friends.h.i.+p should by no means be withdrawn from her. He would be very careful from the onset that she should understand so much as that. And then he heard the light footsteps in the hall; the gentle hand was raised to the door, and Lady Mason was standing in the room.
”Dear Lady Mason,” he said, meeting her half way across the room, ”it is very kind of you to come to me when I send for you in this way.”
”It would be my duty to come to you, if it were half across the kingdom;--and my pleasure also.”
”Would it?” said he, looking into her face with all the wishfulness of a young lover. From that moment she knew what was coming. Strange as was the destiny which was to be offered to her at this period of her life, yet she foresaw clearly that the offer was to be made. What she did not foresee, what she could not foretell, was the answer which she might make to it!
”It would certainly be my sweetest pleasure to send for you if you were away from us,--to send for you or to follow you,” said he.
”I do not know how to make return for all your kind regard to me;--to you and to dear Mrs. Orme.”
”Call her Edith, will you not? You did so call her once.”
”I call her so often when we are alone together, now; and yet I feel that I have no right.”
”You have every right. You shall have every right if you will accept it. Lady Mason, I am an old man,--some would say a very old man. But I am not too old to love you. Can, you accept the love of an old man like me?”
Lady Mason was, as we are aware, not taken in the least by surprise; but it was quite necessary that she should seem to be so taken. This is a little artifice which is excusable in almost any lady at such a period. ”Sir Peregrine,” she said, ”you do not mean more than the love of a most valued friend?”
”Yes, much more. I mean the love of a husband for his wife; of a wife for her husband.”
”Sir Peregrine! Ah me! You have not thought of this, my friend. You have not remembered the position in which I am placed. Dearest, dearest friend; dearest of all friends,”--and then she knelt before him, leaning on his knees, as he sat in his accustomed large arm-chair. ”It may not be so. Think of the sorrow that would come to you and yours, if my enemies should prevail.”
”By ---- they shall not prevail!” swore Sir Peregrine, roundly; and as he swore the oath he put his two hands upon her shoulders.
”No; we will hope not. I should die here at your feet if I thought that they could prevail. But I should die twenty deaths were I to drag you with me into disgrace. There will be disgrace even in standing at that bar.”
”Who will dare to say so, when I shall stand there with you?” said Sir Peregrine.
There was a feeling expressed in his face as he spoke these words, which made it glorious, and bright, and beautiful. She, with her eyes laden with tears, could not see it; but nevertheless, she knew that it was bright and beautiful. And his voice was full of hot eager a.s.surance,--that a.s.surance which had the power to convey itself from one breast to another. Would it not be so? If he stood there with her as her husband and lord, would it not be the case that no one would dare to impute disgrace to her?
And yet she did not wish it. Even yet, thinking of all this as she did think of it, according to the truth of the argument which he himself put before her, she would still have preferred that it should not be so. If she only knew with what words to tell him so;--to tell him so and yet give no offence! For herself, she would have married him willingly. Why should she not? Nay, she could and would have loved him, and been to him a wife, such as he could have found in no other woman. But she said within her heart that she owed him kindness and grat.i.tude--that she owed them all kindness, and that it would be bad to repay them in such a way as this. She also thought of Sir Peregrine's gray hairs, and of his proud standing in the county, and the respect in which men held him. Would it be well in her to drag him down in his last days from the n.o.ble pedestal on which he stood, and repay him thus for all that he was doing for her?
”Well,” said he, stroking her soft hair with his hands--the hair which appeared in front of the quiet prim cap she wore, ”shall it be so? Will you give me the right to stand there with you and defend you against the tongues of wicked men? We each have our own weakness, and we also have each our own strength. There I may boast that I should be strong.”
She thought again for a moment or two without rising from her knees, and also without speaking. Would such strength suffice? And if it did suffice, would it then be well with him? As for herself, she did love him. If she had not loved him before, she loved him now. Who had ever been to her so n.o.ble, so loving, so gracious as he? In her ears no young lover's vows had ever sounded. In her heart such love as all the world knows had never been known. Her former husband had been kind to her in his way, and she had done her duty by him carefully, painfully, and with full acceptance of her position. But there had been nothing there that was bright, and grand, and n.o.ble. She would have served Sir Peregrine on her knees in the smallest offices, and delighted in such services. It was not for lack of love that she must refuse him. But still she did not answer him, and still he stroked her hair.
”It would be better that you had never seen me,” at last she said; and she spoke with truth the thought of her mind. That she must do his bidding, whatever that bidding might be, she had in a certain way acknowledged to herself. If he would have it so, so it must be. How could she refuse him anything, or be disobedient in aught to one to whom she owed so much? But still it would be wiser otherwise, wiser for all--unless it were for herself alone. ”It would be better that you had never seen me,” she said.
”Nay, not so, dearest. That it would not be better for me,--for me and Edith I am quite sure. And I would fain hope that for you--”