MISTRESS OF HERSELF
It was all working out now exactly as Ralph had hoped and wished for.
Never had he admired Mary quite so much as he did at that moment. And
yet his heart smote him as he realised that after all there was
something akin to harshness in his action. Still, the case would have
been very much the same had he declared his identity and proclaimed
the fact that he was the proper owner of Dashwood Hall.
Mary would in that case have remained in much the same position,
though the situation would have perhaps lacked its present dramatic
features. Mary stood there with a proud look on her face; she was
ready to meet the world and conquer it single-handed. How many bright
strong young lives had set forth with the same cheerfulness and
failed! Still, it was a step in the right direction, Ralph thought.
"Had you not better give the thing further consideration?" he said.
"In the ways of the world you are little better than a child. Of your
courage and resolution there is no doubt. But there are other
qualities needed to make a living today. You must have a good
knowledge of some business or profession."
"I can paint," Mary said. "Many people have told me that I should have
made an artist if I had had to earn my own living."
Ralph nodded grimly. He had seen several of the girl's drawings. There
was no necessity to point out the vast difference between the best
efforts of the amateur and the finished work of the professional,
tricks of the trade learned frequently after years of bitter
struggling.
It seemed a pity to discourage Mary at the outset of her career. And
Ralph was not anxious for the girl's success. He turned the situation
over rapidly in his mind.
"You can try," he said. "There is a friend of mine, the daughter of a
once famous general officer who gets her living by working for the
cheap illustrated papers. She has no great talent, but she manages to
get a living. If you like, I will write to her and ask her to----"
"It will be too late," Mary cried, "I am going tonight. I could not
stay here a day longer after what has happened. The mere sight of the
old house brings the tears to my eyes and makes me feel weak and
irresolute. I have something like thirty pounds in money and a little
jewellery. And my maid has given me the address of a respectable woman
who lets lodgings.
"Oh, I shall be happy enough when I am away from here and have plenty
of hard work to do. Only the other day I was reading a story about a
girl, like myself, who went to London and began to work for the
magazines. It made a different creature of her; for the first time in
her life she was really happy."
"She made a large income from the start," Ralph smiled, "and presently
she had a great hit with an Academy picture. Subsequently she married
the editor--proprietor of a popular paper--and he bought the old home
for her?"
"You have read the story?" Mary asked.
"Indeed I haven't," Ralph replied. "There are so many stories like
that that I had no difficulty in imagining the plot. Oh, if you only
knew how different the real is from the ideal! Still, I would not
dissuade you from your ambition for a moment. It will do you all the
good in the world. But you shall not go alone."
Mary glanced haughtily at the speaker. There was an air of command, a
suggestion of possession, about the speech that the girl resented. Who
was Ralph Darnley that he should adopt this tone towards her? And at
the same time Mary knew that he was the one friend she had, if she did
not count Lady Dashwood.
It was a melancholy confession, but Mary had made no friends. For the
most part members of her own sex did not like her, she was too cold
and self-contained for them. She did not enter into their sentiments
and pleasures. It had not been the girl's own fault so much as the
fault of her environment.
And now she was going out into the world alone with a few pounds in
her possession, and with not a soul to give her a helping hand. There
was something very pathetic about it, Ralph thought. She knew so very
little as to what lay before her.
"I wish you would wait till tomorrow," he murmured.
"No," Mary said with a proud toss of her head. "It is not the
slightest use trying to break my resolution. I tell you I could not
remain here, I could not stay even with Lady Dashwood, knowing that my
father was sponging on the good nature of the man at the Hall. It
seems a dreadful thing to me----"
"That is a most improper observation to make," Dashwood said
peevishly. "A most impertinent remark to address to a father."
"I am very sorry," Mary said penitently, "it seemed the only word to
use. And it does hurt me so dreadfully to see how coolly you have cast
your pride aside. If you will come with me, father, I will work for
both. We should at any rate have the consolation of knowing that we
have done nothing to sully the name of Dashwood."
The girl spoke pleadingly, with a yearning tenderness in her voice
that Ralph had never heard before. He was rejoiced to see the lesson
of adversity working so soon. For his own part, he could not have
resisted that seductive invitation.
"Certainly not," Dashwood replied. "Nothing of the kind. I have no
desire to make the acquaintance of what people call apartments. I went
to see a poor friend of mine in apartments once. I saw his dinner.
Good heavens! what a repulsive mess it was. Served up by a red-headed
maid-of-all-work, with a black smudge on her face. No, no, I prefer
the graceful hospitality of my friend--er--Sir Vincent Dashwood."
Mary turned in the direction of the door as if the discussion were
closed.
"I am disappointed," she said. "But there is nothing to be gained by
standing here talking over my determination. I am going as far as the
Hall to say goodbye to some of the old servants, and hope to catch the
7.05 train to London. As I said before, I know where to go when I
reach my journey's end."
Mary passed out into the peaceful sunshine of the garden. Lady
Dashwood looked imploringly at Ralph, who smiled in reply. From the
bottom of his heart, he was feeling for the girl, but he did not
falter in his purpose. It was very brave of Mary, but at the same time
very pathetic. Ralph stole after the lonely figure; he found her
standing by the old sundial in the garden. Her fingers were tracing
idly over the quaint inscription on the stone. Ralph could see that
her eyes were filled with tears.
"Is there anything I can do to help you?" he asked.
"I'm afraid not," Mary whispered. "And you are the only friend I have,
besides Lady Dashwood. I have not the art of making friends: I never
had sympathy with the pastimes and pleasures of the ordinary girl of
my class; I did not feel lonely here, because it was so lovely a
place. Dashwood Hall was always sufficient for me. And now when I come
to leave it, it breaks my heart to go. You will laugh at me perhaps,
but I have a strange feeling as if I had the whole world to myself and
that there was nobody else in it. It is as if everybody had turned
away from me. There was even something that hurt me today in the way
that Mr. Mayfield let me know that I was free as far as he was
concerned. I dread the thought of living by myself in London, the idea
makes me tremble. I, who have been so cold and proud, will have to
approach people and ask favours at their hands. I hope you understand
me; it is dreadful when nobody understands me."
Ralph made no reply for a moment, he was afraid to trust his own
voice.
"You are a very woman," he said at length. "With your pride and your
coldness there are the same impulses and passions common to yourself
and the meanest of us. As to this pride of yours, I regard it as a
hateful thing. What is a Dashwood living on a fortune that none of you
have ever earned, compared with the man or woman who has risen
superior to circumstances and made an honoured name in the world? The
girl who goes out and gets her own living, or to support a widowed
mother, is far superior to you. But I say these things loving you with
my whole heart and soul and being, and hope that some day I shall call
you my wife. I want to see all that harshness and coldness of yours
cast to the wind, I want to see your face sweet in sympathy with poor
humanity. But you are not going the lonely way as you seem to imagine.
I am going to look after you; I will not be far away. For the present
my work is finished here, and there are powerful calls that take me to
London also in a day or two. You will let me see you, Mary; you will
let me bring you and my young artist friend together?"
"I shall be glad indeed to see you," Mary cried, holding out her hand
with an impulse that she would have found it hard to account for. "Oh,
I am not so strong and self-reliant that I need nobody to confide in.
The more my mind dwells on the future, the more I seem to dread it.
And you have been so good and kind to me, I owe so much to you. I
begin to see that there are gentlemen in the world, though they boast
of no pedigree, and----"
"Well, that is a good lesson learned," Ralph smiled. "Let me walk with
you as far as the Hall, for I have a telegram to send from the
village. And then, if you will allow me, I will return to the dower
house with you. There are one or two things that I have to say before
you go."
Mary smiled through her tears; for a second her soul seemed to show in
her eyes.