Part 94 (1/2)
”I do not know that Lord Stapledean said anything about the house; but if he did, it could make no difference.”
”Not the least, I should think,” said the lady. ”When he appointed me to the income of the parish, it could hardly be necessary that he should explain that I was to have the house also.”
”Mother, when I accepted the living, I promised him that I would give you three hundred and fifty pounds out of the proceeds; and so I will. Adela and I will be very poor, but I shall endeavour to eke out our income; that is, of course, if she consents to marry me--”
”Psha!”
”--To eke out our income by taking pupils. To do that, I must have the house at my own disposal.”
”And you mean to tell me,” said the female vicaress, rising to her feet in her wrath, ”that I--that I--am to go away?”
”I think it will be better, mother.”
”And the poor girls!”
”For one or two of them there would be room here,” said Arthur, trying to palliate the matter.
”One or two of them! Is that the way you would treat your sisters? I say nothing about myself, for I have long seen that you are tired of me. I know how jealous you are because Lord Stapledean has thought proper to--” she could not exactly remember what phrase would best suit her purpose--”to--to--to place me here, as he placed your poor father before. I have seen it all, Arthur. But I have my duty to do, and I shall do it. What I have undertaken in this parish I shall go through with, and if you oppose me I shall apply to his lords.h.i.+p.”
”I think you have misunderstood Lord Stapledean.”
”I have not misunderstood him at all. I know very well what he meant, and I quite appreciate his motives. I have endeavoured to act up to them, and shall continue to do so. I had thought that I had made the house as comfortable to you as any young man could wish.”
”And so you have.”
”And yet you want to turn me out of it--out of my own house!”
”Not to turn you out, mother. If it suits you to remain here for another year--”
”It will suit me to remain here for another ten years, if I am spared so long. Little viper! I suppose this comes from her. After warming her in my bosom when her father died!”
”It can hardly have come from her, seeing that there has never yet been a word spoken between us on the subject. I fear that you greatly mistake the footing on which we stand together. I have no reasonable ground for hoping for a favourable answer.”
”Psha! viper!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkinson, in dire wrath. Mothers are so angry when other girls, not their own, will get offers; so doubly angry when their own sons make them.
”You will make me very unhappy if you speak ill of her,” said Arthur.
”Has it ever come into your head to think where your mother and sisters are to live when you turn them out?” said she.
”Littlebath,” suggested Arthur.
”Littlebath!” said Mrs. Wilkinson, with all the scorn that she could muster to the service. ”Littlebath! I am to put up with the aunt, I suppose, when you take the niece. But I shall not go to Littlebath at your bidding, sir.” And so saying, she gathered up her spectacles, and stalked out of the room.
Arthur was by no means satisfied with the interview, and yet had he been wise he might have been. The subject had been broached, and that in itself was a great deal. And the victory had by no means been with Mrs. Wilkinson. She had threatened, indeed, to appeal to Lord Stapledean; but that very threat showed how conscious she was that she had no power of her own to hold her place where she was. He ought to have been satisfied; but he was not so.
And now he had to wait for his answer from Adela. Gentlemen who make offers by letter must have a weary time of it, waiting for the return of post, or for the return of two posts, as was the case in this instance. And Arthur had a weary time of it. Two evenings he had to pa.s.s, after the conversation above recounted, before he got his letter; and dreadful evenings they were. His mother was majestic, glum, and cross; his sisters were silent and dignified. It was clear to him that they had all been told; and so told as to be leagued in enmity against him. What account their mother may have given to them of their future poverty, he knew not; but he felt certain that she had explained to them how cruelly he meant to turn them out on the wide world; unnatural ogre that he was.
Mary was his favourite, and to her he did say a few words. ”Mamma has told you what I have done, hasn't she?”
”Yes, Arthur,” said Mary, demurely.