Part 52 (1/2)
”What about Rosie?”
”She watches me--ever since she came. Don't you understand?”
This time he was the dullard. He felt an extra quiver of repugnance for Rosie, but said nothing, while Mary Ann briskly lit the gas, and threw some coals on the decaying fire. He was pleased she was going down; he was suffocating; he did not know what to say to her. And yet, as she was disappearing through the doorway, he had a sudden feeling things couldn't be allowed to remain an instant in this impossible position.
”Mary Ann!” he cried.
”Yessir.”
She turned back--her face wore merely the expectant expression of a summoned servant. The childishness of her behaviour confused him, irritated him.
”Are you foolish?” he cried suddenly; half regretting the phrase the instant he had uttered it.
Her lip twitched.
”No, Mr. Lancelot!” she faltered.
”But you talk as if you were,” he said less roughly. ”You mustn't run away from the vicar just when he is going to take you to the lawyer's to certify who you are, and see that you get your money.”
”But I don't want to go with the vicar--I want to go with you. You said you would take me with you.” She was almost in tears now.
”Yes--but don't you--don't you understand that--that,” he stammered; then, temporising, ”but I can wait.”
”Can't the vicar wait?” said Mary Ann. He had never known her show such initiative.
He saw that it was hopeless--that the money had made no more dint upon her consciousness than some vague dream, that her whole being was set towards the new life with him, and shrank in horror from the menace of the vicar's withdrawal of her in the opposite direction. If joy and redemption had not already lain in the one quarter, the advantages of the other might have been more palpably alluring. As it was, her consciousness was ”full up” in the matter, so to speak. He saw that he must tell her plain and plump, startle her out of her simple confidence.
”Listen to me, Mary Ann.”
”Yessir.”
”You are a young woman--not a baby. Strive to grasp what I am going to tell you.”
”Yessir,” in a half sob, that vibrated with the obstinate resentment of a child that knows it is to be argued out of its instincts by adult sophistry. What had become of her pa.s.sive personality?
”You are now the owner of two and a half million dollars--that is about five hundred thousand pounds. Five--hundred thousand--pounds. Think of ten sovereigns--ten golden sovereigns like that Mrs. Leadbatter gave you.
Then ten times as much as that, and ten times as much as all that”--he spread his arms wider and wider--”and ten times as much as all that, and then”--here his arms were prematurely horizontal, so he concluded hastily but impressively,--”and then FIFTY times as much as all that. Do you understand how rich you are?”
”Yessir.” She was fumbling nervously at her gloves, half drawing them off.
”Now all this money will last forever. For you invest it--if only at three per cent.--never mind what that is--and then you get fifteen thousand a year--fifteen thousand golden sovereigns to spend every--”
”Please, sir, I must go now. Rosie!”
”Oh, but you can't go yet. I have lots more to tell you.”
”Yessir; but can't you ring for me again?”
In the gravity of the crisis, the remark tickled him; he laughed with a strange ring in his laughter.