He was a bit comical tempered at first, but he thawed out after a drop and
asked me to marry him, and I asked whether it was from the heart, or there
lay anything behind. And then he told me that Rupert had been to see him
and told him that I wanted him cruel and that he must take me; and that if
he didn't, he wouldn't wed Minnie! "Your son's a man," said Arthur, "as I
won't neighbour with, Mary, and you mustn't expect I shall; but there's a
hateful, cold-blooded power about your Rupert. And there's mysteries hid
in him. And he's one too many for me, or any other decent and orderly
spirit. Of course, if I've got to choose between having my darter on my
hands for ever and another wife, only a lunatic would hesitate, and since
it had to be, I'd a lot rather it was you than any other I can call to
mind. And truth's truth, and I hope you'll allow for the queerness, and
take a man who's very addicted to you and can be trusted to serve you as
you deserve."
With that I told him he must court me without any regard to Rupert, and
explained the whole plot was Rupert's, and not mine.
"There's something devious about it," I said, "or it wouldn't be Rupert.
You exercise your manhood, Arthur," I said, "and make up your own mind,
and don't let my son make it up for you. 'Tis past bearing," I said, "and
I won't stand for it. Who be he to drive us?"
"You swear afore your God it wasn't your own idea," ordered Arthur, and he
cheered up when I put my hand on the Book in my parlour and swore most
solemn I'd never thought of no such thing.
"In that case," he said, "I feel a good bit hopefuller, and when you ax if
Rupert looked ahead with his eye to the main chance, of course he did. If
you come to me, mine's yours when I go to ground, or else Minnie's, so
Rupert knows the future's safe either way."
"There's my son John," I said, "but this I tell you, Arthur, I'll come to
you on one condition only, that you leave all to Minnie after I'm gone.
For it shall never be said that I stood between her and her own. Her, or
her childer, must be the gainers."
He laughed at the thought of childer, with Minnie and my Rupert for their
parents; and from that time he warmed up and showed his true nature, and
we was tokened three days later, so as I was able to tell Mr. Sweet about
it, when he'd thought over his mistake and crept on to the warpath again.
And the marriages took place in due course, and me and Arthur was properly
happy; and when old Dowager Lady Martin went home, we found the mystery
solved.
You see, Rupert had been told off one shooting day to look after a young
lawyer and give him some sport, because his Lordship wanted to please the
young man's father, who was his own man of business. This chap took to
Rupert, by reason of his queer nature, and when they was eating their
sandwiches, he must needs talk and chaff my son. He told Rupert about a
will as he'd drawed back along for the Dowager, and how an old butler at
Tudor Manor was down for five hundred, and the cook for two hundred, and a
lady's maid, as served her before she took to her bed and had two nurses,
was down for five hundred. But the lawyer named no names and didn't know
that Rupert knew who that lady's maid was. And in any case the rash youth
never ought to have opened his mouth, of course, on such a secret subject.
But twenty-four hours later, my 'Mother's Misfortune' was tokened to
Minnie Parable, and when the Dowager died, of course the money came
Rupert's way.
Strange to relate, it was a tolerable happy marriage as such things go.
They bore with one another pretty fair, and though you couldn't say it was
a homely pattern of home, and struck shivers into most folk as saw it, it
suited them. She never put no poison in Rupert's tea, and he never cut her
throat nor nothing like that. One child they had and no more; and he'll
get his grandfather's little lot when I don't want it, and John'll get
mine.
Rupert's child weren't one for a Christmas card exactly; but they set a
lot of store by him. Minnie saw through it, of course, when the Dowager
died; but she'd got Rupert which was what mattered to her, and she knew
the money was bound to goody all right in her husband's hands; which it
did do.