HOW THEY TOOK IT
When Grafton left Maurice's room he went to the Long Gallery, where
Caroline was sitting with Miss Waterhouse. When Caroline went away he
stayed there. Miss Waterhouse had not yet expressed herself to him.
"Well, Dragon, what do you think of it all?" he asked her.
"I think you have been very wise, and very kind," she said.
"It had to be--eh?"
"Yes, I think it had to be, under the circumstances."
"What do you mean by the circumstances?"
"When two young people are brought together in the way they have been, I
think love is likely to come of it."
Her answer made him vaguely uneasy. "That's what the world will say," he
said. "If it were only that, it wouldn't be very satisfactory, would it?
Don't you see a deeper suitability in it than there is on the surface?
It's what I have to look for, to make it bearable."
"I think there is what you call a deeper suitability. I think Caroline
will be happy in her marriage, when the time comes for it."
"You're not very enthusiastic, Dragon. Is _she_ satisfied with your view
of it?"
"I was the only person who knew anything until you came home. I
sympathised with her. I saw how deep her love was. But I couldn't be
enthusiastic until I knew how you would take it. I couldn't have said
that you would have been wrong in asking at least for a term of
probation, as you did in Beatrix's case."
"But I didn't ask for it--because I trusted Caroline to have faced all
the objections she would know I should feel, and just exactly _not_ to
have allowed herself to fall in love owing to what you call the
circumstances. She would know what she wanted, I said to myself. And she
wouldn't change, whatever I did or said. It wouldn't have come to an end
of itself, as Beatrix's affair did. I hope you're not going to say that
my reasoning was wrong. It hasn't been very easy to sink all my own
ideas--of fitness--of what one would expect in marriage for a girl like
Caroline."
"I think you've been entirely right; more right than if you'd stood out,
or even questioned it. It would have made no difference, and you'd have
had to give way in the end. Nothing you could have done or said would
have so added to dear Caroline's happiness as what you have said and
done. She was dreading more than anything a separation in spirit from
you. I know that, though she said little about it. Now that fear is
removed she is blissfully happy. Nothing that anybody else says will
matter to her at all."
"And yet you don't seem to think I reached my conclusions in the right
way."
"What I think is that she couldn't have reasoned it out in the way you
thought she had. A woman doesn't reason like that--or at least she
doesn't. It was just her heart that guided her."
"But she did reason. She told me that if he hadn't been what she has
found out for herself that he is, and she'd been inclined to fall in
love with him--just in the way you say she has, with gratitude, and
pity, working in her--I suppose that's what you mean--she'd have
resisted it."
"I think she couldn't have fallen in love with him, unless he'd shown
himself to her as he has. There wouldn't be anything, for _her_, to fall
in love with. It was her heart prompted her all the time. But of course
she has tried hard to see it all in the light that you have taught her
to follow. She would want to satisfy you that she hadn't given her love
lightly. She wouldn't have wanted to satisfy herself. She would have
known that she was right."
"Do you think she's right, Dragon?"
"Yes, I do."
"And you're not disappointed that this has come about?"
"Not for her sake. I am for yours. You would have expected her to shine
in the world you belong to, and that she has belonged to. You must
suffer somewhat in your just pride in her. But it's a far bigger thing
to be able to sink that, and to want only her happiness, and to trust
her to know where it lies. You'll certainly have your reward, though it
may take some time to get over the disappointment. She'll love and trust
you, as she couldn't have done if you had stood out ever so little."
"Well, you're very comforting, Dragon. Stimulating too. I told Worthing
something of what I'd gone through about it, last night, and said that I
shouldn't say as much to anybody else. But you're different. I shall
have to stick up to Katharine Handsworth and Mary Grafton, and all the
rest of them, when my own feeling will be much the same as theirs. I
want something to support me."
"Yes. But I think it will all die down sooner than you think. All women
are at heart sympathetic with a love match, you know. And they love
Caroline. They won't want to make _her_ feel that she is lowering
herself."
"What about B?"
"Caroline has written to her, and to Barbara and Bunting. Whatever B has
to say will be said to you, not to Caroline."
"B has been more critical of Maurice than anybody, you know."
"She will want that forgotten."
He was silent for a time, and then asked: "What are Caroline's ideas
about getting married? She hasn't said anything to me about that yet."
"She has said very little to me. Having her engagement just on the
right footing has been enough for her."
"Has she said anything at all?"
"She would expect to wait, I think, until he got some sort of place;
then she would not mind in how small a way they began."
"Well, there's no reason why they should begin in such a very small way.
If I accept Maurice as the right husband for her, I should naturally do
for her what I did for B."
He had settled ten thousand pounds on Beatrix. Miss Waterhouse knew
this. So did Caroline.
"They could marry at any time on that," she said. "And he will be
earning something in a few months. Do you want them to marry soon?"
"Well now, I'll make a clean breast of it to you, my dear Dragon. As
long as they are not married, I shan't be able to prevent myself having
a sort of hope that they won't be, after all."
She smiled. "You will have more pleasure of her now," she said, "when
she is settled in her new life."
"That's what I've told myself. She will be very careful, I know, to let
it make as little difference between her and me as possible. But it
can't be quite the same as it has been. She has given her love to him,
and I must be second where I've been first. But when she's once married
he'll have his place and I shall have mine. We shan't clash in any way.
I'm happier about B now than I was for the month or two before she was
married."
It was the first time he had alluded to Beatrix's attitude towards him
at that time.
"I think B was selfish," she said at once. "Caroline won't be like that.
Her love is as deep as B's--deeper, for she has a deeper nature--but it
will not carry her away in the same way. She will never hurt others who
love her."
"I should like to see her happily married, you know. She'll be more than
she's ever been. It will complete her. She's one of the _right_ people,
Dragon. The deeper you go down, the more you find."
"Yes, she's like that, the dear child. And she has gained greatly in
character since we came to live here."
"You've seen that, have you?"
"Oh, yes. It's the good simplicity in her."
"That's what she says she sees in him; it's where they come together.
Well, he'll have his regular job here, next year. It won't be much, but
with what I shall give her they could begin. They could have Stone
Cottage. Do you think Caroline has thought of that at all?"
"She hasn't said anything about it. But it would be just the right
beginning for them; and it would be delightful for us to have her so
near."
"We should have to think of it as having _them_ so near, shouldn't we?
It would mean a lot to me, and to you too, and the children, to have her
here; but--. Well, I've said nothing about it to her or to him yet. They
may have some idea that they ought to wait till he can do it all, or
most of it, for her. I don't want to claim more than is my right in
her, Dragon. I've had a bit of a lesson about that with B, you know."
"I think he would have no right to object to her doing more to support
their home than he can at first. It is just where the difference, that
you can't get over, comes in. Caroline ought not to be kept waiting
because he is not the sort of young man she would have been expected to
marry. What you would give her would help in any case, as it helps with
Beatrix. It is only that in this case it would help much more. It would
be just one of the many things she would bring him that he is very
fortunate to get with her. It would be a test of the large simplicity
she sees in him if he took it gratefully, and without question."
He laughed at her. "Why, Dragon," he said. "I believe, after all, you
take Worthing's view of it--that it's infernal impudence of him to
expect to get Caroline at all."
She smiled in return. "I have every hope that he will prove worthy of
her," was all the answer she made to this charge.
Grafton made his offer to Caroline, and gained all he could have wanted
in return from her glowing grateful expression of happiness. "Darling
old Daddy, you _are_ good to us," she said. "I do want to begin soon,
but I didn't know whether it would be possible. Stone Cottage will be
just perfect for us; we shall be near you, which will be lovely. I must
go and tell Maurice at once."
Maurice thanked Grafton for this extra gift in a way that pleased him.
"You've given me Caroline," he said, "and now you've given us both this.
I have more to thank you for, Mr. Grafton, than I can ever say."
His gratitude showed itself continually in his attitude towards the
older man. Grafton knew that affection and admiration were working in
his mind towards him, and he had only to stretch out his hand and take
it, if he wanted it. The workings of his own mind were contradictory.
Outwardly, and with strong restraint over himself, he had done the
utmost that could have been expected of him. He had sunk all his
grudges, and hidden all his disappointment. But he knew that still more
had to be done if he were to gain the contentment in Caroline's marriage
that for her sake he was simulating. It could only be done by receiving
Maurice as a son, and if he could not do that for Maurice's own sake as
well as for Caroline's, she would find it out sooner or later, and her
happiness would be dimmed. And her love for himself would have received
a hurt.
He set himself to talk to Maurice, to find out what was in him, to make
contact. He found all the boy's simple philosophy of life good and
straight and true, and under the impulse of his great happiness and
gratitude he found expression for it. His whole being was set towards
Caroline. His ambitions were all towards fitting himself to be her
worthy companion in life, and to bringing her the fruit of his gifts.
These could never be to any considerable extent those to be exchanged
for money, and his thoughts did not run on the lines of a successful
career. He would be worth a good position in the limited field to which
he would devote his energies, and he took it for granted that it would
come to him by and bye. For himself he looked upon it only as giving him
further scope for the work for which he was fitting himself. There was
never any hint of increased opportunities for his own pleasure in the
future. He would have the full fruition of his own desires from the
first, and he would owe it to Caroline and in a secondary degree to
Grafton. It was she whom he would work and live for. There was a more
single-minded devotion in his attitude towards her than in Dick's
towards Beatrix. All Dick's life and work would be sweetened by
Beatrix's love, but they would be pursued, as the life and work of most
men are pursued, for their own ends. Caroline would be the end and aim
of Maurice's whole existence.
Grafton was soothed in his spirit by this whole-hearted homage paid to
his girl. She was worth every bit of it, but a lover does not always
honour his mistress for what she is; it is often enough for him if she
is what he wants her to be. Grafton would have been up in arms at once
if Maurice had shown himself merely overjoyed at winning Caroline, and
holding himself as if he had only gained his deserts. He was not
prepared to look upon her as fulfilling her destiny in decorating and
solacing Maurice's unimportant life, however she might think of herself
and her duties towards him. But if Maurice looked upon himself as owing
her life-long devotion and service, his relationship towards her brought
no sense of assumption to her father. It was the right relationship in
his view, and he could rest himself upon it, as the conviction
strengthened itself that it was based upon something stable and sure in
Maurice's character.
Taking pains to find qualities in him that he had not troubled to look
for before, he was inclined to wonder that he had thought him dull and
uninteresting in conversation. When he had something real to talk about
he could talk as well as another, if he were encouraged to do so. The
difference that had always hampered him with Grafton, as a much older
man, most of whose experiences and interests were beyond his reach, was
being solved by the affection that was reaching out for expression. The
most learned of men find pleasure in the conversation of those who are
not learned, if it is natural, and especially if there is affection to
influence it. And Grafton was not learned; his brains were no better
than Maurice's, though expression of them came easier to him.
He knew, by the end of those two days, before he went back to his work
in London, that he had only to open his heart to Maurice, and he would
gain from him all that a man who loved his daughter could want from her
husband. He had Dick's affection and friendship. Maurice's was just as
well worth having, and it would be given him in still greater measure.
As he travelled up to London he smiled to himself as he remembered the
way the Prescotts had received the news. They were the only people,
except Miss Waterhouse and Worthing, who knew of it yet.
They had guessed it, Viola had said in triumph. She had told Gerry it
was bound to happen, and he had said he had seen it before she had, upon
which had followed a fearsome quarrel. The one thing Gerry would _not_
stand was anybody being cleverer than himself, and unless she was
prepared to acknowledge herself a sort of bat-eyed idiot their married
life would be wrecked sooner or later.
Neither of them had seen anything at all unsuitable in an engagement
between Maurice and Caroline. In fact they had seemed to expect Grafton
to be at least as pleased about it as they were themselves. He had not
led them to suppose that he was not pleased, but had given them
opportunities of showing the opinion they held about Maurice.
They had laid stress on his complete unselfishness. "He'll go out of his
way to help anybody," Prescott had said. "And he does it because it's
his nature to, not because he thinks he ought to. He thinks about
himself less than anybody I've ever known. Caroline will have a splendid
husband."
There was the unworldly view. The question of station in life did not
interest the Prescotts. Grafton knew that it would interest the people
he would see in London considerably.