‘Ah, indeed? That doesn’t surprise me. Business with your sex, my dear, always begins with questions. Go on.’
‘Papa! do you ever intend allowing me to be married?’
Mr Vanstone’s eyes opened wider and wider. The question, to use his own phrase, completely staggered him.
‘This is business with a vengeance!’ he said. ‘Why, Magdalen! what have you got in that harum-scarum head of yours now?’
‘I don’t exactly know, papa. Will you answer my question?’
‘I will if I can, my dear; you rather stagger me. Well, I don’t know. Yes; I suppose I must let you be married, one of these days – if we can find a good husband for you. How hot your face is! Lift it up, and let the air blow over it. You won’t? Well – have your own way. If talking of business means tickling your cheek against my whisker, I’ve nothing to say against it. Go on, my dear. What’s the next question? Come to the point!’
She was far too genuine a woman to do anything of the sort. She skirted round the point, and calculated her distance to the nicety of a hair’s breadth.
‘We were all very much surprised, yesterday – were we not, papa? Frank is wonderfully lucky, isn’t he?’
‘He’s the luckiest dog I ever came across,’ said Mr Vanstone. ‘But what has that got to do with this business of yours? I dare say you see your way, Magdalen. Hang me, if I can see mine!’
She skirted a little nearer.
‘I suppose he will make his fortune in China?’ she said. ‘It’s a long way off, isn’t it? Did you observe, papa, that Frank looked sadly out of spirits yesterday?’
‘I was so surprised by the news,’ said Mr Vanstone, ‘and so staggered by the sight of old Clare’s sharp nose in my house, that I didn’t much notice. Now you remind me of it – yes. I don’t think Frank took kindly to his own good luck; not kindly at all.’
‘Do you wonder at that, papa?’
‘Yes, my dear; I do, rather.’
‘Don’t you think it’s hard to be sent away for five years, to make your fortune among hateful savages, and lose sight of your friends at home for all that long time? Don’t you think Frank will miss us, sadly? Don’t you, papa? – don’t you?’
‘Gently, Magdalen! I’m a little too old for those long arms of yours to throttle me in fun. – You’re right, my love. Nothing in this world, without a drawback. Frank will miss his friends in England: there’s no denying that.’
‘You always liked Frank. And Frank always liked you.’
‘Yes, yes – a good fellow; a quiet, good fellow. Frank and I have always got on smoothly together.’
‘You have got on like father and son, haven’t you?’
‘Certainly, my dear.’
‘Perhaps you will think it harder on him when he has gone, than you think it now?’
‘Likely enough, Magdalen; I don’t say no.’
‘Perhaps you will wish he had stopped in England? Why shouldn’t he stop in England, and do as well as if he went to China?’
‘My dear! he has no prospects in England. I wish he had, for his own sake. I wish the lad well, with all my heart.’
‘May I wish him well, too, papa – with all my heart?’
‘Certainly, my love – your old playfellow – why not? What’s the matter? God bless my soul, what is the girl crying about? One would think Frank was transported for life. You goose! You know, as well as I do, he is going to China to make his fortune.’
‘He doesn’t want to make his fortune – he might do much better.’
‘The deuce he might! How – I should like to know?’
‘I’m afraid to tell you. I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me. Will you promise not to laugh at me?’
‘Anything to please you, my dear. Yes: I promise. Now then, out with it! How might Frank do better?’
‘He might marry Me.’
If the summer-scene which then spread before Mr Vanstone’s eyes, had suddenly changed to a dreary winter view – if the trees had lost all their leaves, and the green fields had turned white with snow, in an instant – his face could hardly have expressed greater amazement than it displayed, when his daughter’s faltering voice spoke those four last words. He tried to look at her – but she steadily refused him the opportunity: she kept her face hidden over his shoulder. Was she in earnest? His cheek, still wet with her tears, answered for her. There was a long pause of silence; she waited – with unaccustomed patience, she waited for him to speak. He roused himself, and spoke these words only: ‘You surprise me, Magdalen; you surprise me, more than I can say.’
At the altered tone of his voice – altered to a quiet fatherly seriousness – Magdalen’s arms clung round him closer than before.
‘Have I disappointed you, papa?’ she asked faintly. ‘Don’t say I have disappointed you! Who am I to tell my secret to, if not to you? Don’t let him go – don’t! don’t! You will break his heart. He is afraid to tell his father; he is even afraid you might be angry with him. There is nobody to speak for us, except – except me. Oh, don’t let him go! Don’t for his sake’ – she whispered the next words in a kiss – ‘Don’t for Mine!’
Her father’s kind face saddened; he sighed, and patted her fair head tenderly. ‘Hush, my love,’ he said, almost in a whisper; ‘hush!’ She little knew what a revelation every word, every action that escaped her, now opened before him. She had made him her grown-up playfellow, from her childhood to that day. She had romped with him in her frocks, she had gone on romping with him in her gowns. He had never been long enough separated from her to have the external changes in his daughter forced on his attention. His artless fatherly experience of her, had taught him that she was a taller child in later years – and had taught him little more. And now, in one breathless instant, the conviction that she was a woman rushed over his mind. He felt it in the trouble of her bosom pressed against his; in the nervous thrill of her arms clasped around his neck. The Magdalen of his innocent experience, a woman – with the master-passion of her sex in possession of her heart already!
‘Have you thought long of this, my dear?’ he asked, as soon as he could speak composedly. ‘Are you sure –?’
She answered the question before he could finish it.
‘Sure I love him?’ she said. ‘Oh what words can say Yes for me as I want to say it! I love him –!’ Her voice faltered softly; and her answer ended in a sigh.
‘You are very young. You and Frank, my love, are both very young.’
She raised her head from his shoulder for the first time. The thought and its expression flashed from her at the same moment.
‘Are we much younger than you and mamma were?’ she asked, smiling through her tears.
She tried to lay her head back in its old position; but as she spoke those words, her father caught her round the waist – forced her, before she was aware of it, to look him in the face – and kissed her, with a sudden outburst of tenderness which brought the tears thronging back thickly into her eyes. ‘Not much younger, my child,’ he said, in low, broken tones – ‘not much younger than your mother and I were.’ He put her away from him, and rose from the seat, and turned his head aside quickly. ‘Wait here, and compose yourself; I will go indoors and speak to your mother.’ His voice trembled over those parting words: and he left her without once looking round again.
She waited – waited a weary time; and he never came back. At last, her growing anxiety urged her to follow him into the house. A new timidity throbbed in her heart, as she doubtingly approached the door. Never had she seen the depths of her father’s simple nature, stirred as they had been stirred by her confession. She almost dreaded her next meeting with him. She wandered softly to and fro in the hall, with a shyness unaccountable to herself; with a terror of being discovered and spoken to by her sister or Miss Garth, which made her nervously susceptible to the slightest noises in the house. The door of the morning-room opened, while her back was turned towards it. She started violently, as she looked round and saw her father in th
e hall: her heart beat faster and faster, and she felt herself turning pale. A second look at him, as he came nearer, reassured her. He was composed again, though not so cheerful as usual. She noticed that he advanced and spoke to her with a forbearing gentleness, which was more like his manner to her mother, than his ordinary manner to herself.
‘Go in, my love,’ he said, opening the door for her which he had just closed. ‘Tell your mother all you have told me – and more, if you have more to say. She is better prepared for you than I was. We will take today to think of it, Magdalen; and to-morrow you shall know, and Frank shall know, what we decide.’
Her eyes brightened, as they looked into his face, and saw the decision there already, with the double penetration of her womanhood and her love. Happy, and beautiful in her happiness, she put his hand to her lips, and went, without hesitation, into the morning-room. There, her father’s words had smoothed the way for her: there, the first shock of the surprise was past and over, and only the pleasure of it remained. Her mother had been her age once; her mother would know how fond she was of Frank. So the coming interview was anticipated in her thoughts; and – except that there was an unaccountable appearance of restraint in Mrs Vanstone’s first reception of her – was anticipated aright. After a little, the mother’s questions came more and more unreservedly from the sweet, unforgotten experience of the mother’s heart. She lived again through her own young days of hope and love in Madgalen’s replies.
The next morning, the all-important decision was announced in words. Mr Vanstone took his daughter upstairs into her mother’s room, and there placed before her the result of the yesterday’s consultation, and of the night’s reflection which had followed it. He spoke with perfect kindness and self-possession of manner – but in fewer and more serious words than usual; and he held his wife’s hand tenderly in his own, all through the interview.
He informed Magdalen that neither he nor her mother felt themselves justified in blaming her attachment to Frank. It had been, in part perhaps, the natural consequence of her childish familiarity with him; in part, also, the result of the closer intimacy between them which the theatrical entertainment had necessarily produced. At the same time, it was now the duty of her parents to put that attachment, on both sides, to a proper test – for her sake, because her happy future was their dearest care; for Frank’s sake, because they were bound to give him the opportunity of showing himself worthy of the trust confided in him. They were both conscious of being strongly prejudiced in Frank’s favour. His father’s eccentric conduct had made the lad the object of their compassion and their care from his earliest years. He (and his younger brothers) had almost filled the places to them of those other children of their own whom they had lost. Although they firmly believed their good opinion of Frank to be well founded – still, in the interest of their daughter’s happiness, it was necessary to put that opinion firmly to the proof, by fixing certain conditions, and by interposing a year of delay between the contemplated marriage and the present time.
During that year, Frank was to remain at the office in London; his employers being informed beforehand that family circumstances prevented his accepting their offer of employment in China. He was to consider this concession as a recognition of the attachment between Magdalen and himself, on certain terms only. If, during the year of probation, he failed to justify the confidence placed in him – a confidence which had led Mr Vanstone to take unreservedly upon himself the whole responsibility of Frank’s future prospects – the marriage scheme was to be considered, from that moment, as at an end. If, on the other hand, the result to which Mr Vanstone confidently looked forward, really occurred – if Frank’s probationary year proved his claim to the most precious trust that could be placed in his hands – then, Magdalen herself should reward him with all that a woman can .bestow; and the future which his present employers had placed before him as the result of a five years’ residence in China, should be realized in one year’s time, by the dowry of his young wife.
As her father drew that picture of the future, the outburst of Magdalen’s gratitude could no longer be restrained. She was deeply touched – she spoke from her inmost heart. Mr Vanstone waited until his daughter and his wife were composed again; and then added the last words of explanation which were now left for him to speak.
‘You understand, my love,’ he said, ‘that I am not anticipating Frank’s living in idleness on his wife’s means? My plan for him is that he should still profit by the interest which his present employers take in him. Their knowledge of affairs in the City, will soon place a good partnership at his disposal – and you will give him the money to buy it out of hand. I shall limit the sum, my dear, to half your fortune; and the other half I shall have settled upon yourself. We shall all be alive and hearty, I hope’ – he looked tenderly at his wife as he said those words – ‘all alive and hearty at the year’s end. But if I am gone, Magdalen, it will make no difference. My will – made long before I ever thought of having a son-in-law – divides my fortune into two equal parts. One part goes to your mother; and the other part is fairly divided between my children. You will have your share on your wedding-day (and Norah will have hers when she marries) from my own hand, if I live; and under my will if I the. There! there! no gloomy faces,’ he said, with a momentary return of his every-day good spirits. ‘Your mother and I mean to live and see Frank a great merchant. I shall leave you, my dear, to enlighten the son on our new projects, while I walk over to the cottage –’
He stopped; his eyebrows contracted a little; and he looked aside hesitatingly at Mrs Vanstone.
‘What must you do at the cottage, papa?’ asked Magdalen, after having vainly waited for him to finish the sentence of his own accord.
‘I must consult Frank’s father,’ he replied. ‘We must not forget that Mr Clare’s consent is still wanting to settle this matter. And as time presses, and we don’t know what difficulties he may not raise, the sooner I see him the better.’
He gave that answer in low, altered tones; and rose from his chair in a half-reluctant, half-resigned manner, which Magdalen observed with secret alarm.
She glanced inquiringly at her mother. To all appearance, Mrs Vanstone had been alarmed by the change in him also. She looked anxious and uneasy; she turned her face away on the sofa pillow – turned it suddenly, as if she was in pain.
‘Are you not well, mamma?’ asked Magdalen.
‘Quite well, my love,’ said Mrs Vanstone, shortly and sharply, without turning round. ‘Leave me a little – I only want rest.’
Magdalen went out with her father.
‘Papa!’ she whispered anxiously, as they descended the stairs. ‘You don’t think Mr Clare will say No?’
‘I can’t tell beforehand,’ answered Mr Vanstone. ‘I hope he will say Yes.’
‘There is no reason why he should say anything else – is there?’
She put the question faintly, while he was getting his hat and stick; and he did not appear to hear her. Doubting whether she should repeat it or not, she accompanied him as far as the garden, on his way to Mr Clare’s cottage. He stopped her on the lawn, and sent her back to the house.
‘You have nothing on your head, my dear,’ he said. ‘If you want to be in the garden, don’t forget how hot the sun is – don’t come out without your hat.’
He walked on towards the cottage.
She waited a moment, and looked after him. She missed the customary flourish of his stick; she saw his little Scotch terrier, who had run out at his heels, barking and capering about him unnoticed. He was out of spirits: he was strangely out of spirits. What did it mean?
Chapter Ten
On returning to the house, Magdalen felt her shoulder suddenly touched from behind, as she crossed the hall. She turned, and confronted her sister. Before she could ask any questions, Norah confusedly addressed her, in these words: ‘I beg your pardon; I beg you to forgive me.’
Magdalen looked at her sister in astonishment. All memo
ry, on her side, of the sharp words which had passed between them in the shrubbery, was lost in the new interests that now absorbed her; lost as completely as if the angry interview had never taken place. ‘Forgive you!’ she repeated, amazedly. ‘What for?’
‘I have heard of your new prospects,’ pursued Norah, speaking with a mechanical submissiveness of manner which seemed almost ungracious; ‘I wished to set things right between us; I wished to say I was sorry for what happened. Will you forget it? Will you forget and forgive what happened in the shrubbery?’ She tried to proceed; but her inveterate reserve – or, perhaps, her obstinate reliance on her own opinions – silenced her at those last words. Her face clouded over on a sudden. Before her sister could answer her, she turned away abruptly and ran upstairs.
The door of the library opened, before Magdalen could follow her; and Miss Garth advanced to express the sentiments proper to the occasion.
They were not the mechanically-submissive sentiments which Magdalen had just heard. Norah had struggled against her rooted distrust of Frank, in deference to the unanswerable decision of both her parents in his favour; and had suppressed the open expression of her antipathy, though the feeling itself remained unconquered. Miss Garth had made no such concession to the master and mistress of the house. She had hitherto held the position of a high authority on all domestic questions; and she flatly declined to get off her pedestal in deference to any change in the family circumstances, no matter how amazing or how unexpected that change might be.
‘Pray accept my congratulations,’ said Miss Garth, bristling all over with implied objections to Frank – ‘my congratulations, and my apologies. When I caught you kissing Mr Francis Clare in the summer-house, I had no idea you were engaged in carrying out the intentions of your parents. I offer no opinion on the subject. I merely regret my own accidental appearance in the character of an Obstacle to the course of true love – which appears to run smooth in summer – houses, whatever Shakespeare may say to the contrary. Consider me for the future, if you please, as an Obstacle removed. May you be happy!’ Miss Garth’s lips closed on that last sentence like a trap; and Miss Garth’s eyes looked ominously prophetic into the matrimonial future.
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