MARY'S LETTER.
The silent system in regard to Mary was carried on in the attorney's
house for a week, during which her sufferings were very great. From
the first she made up her mind to oppose her stepmother's cruelty by
sheer obstinacy. She had been told that she must be made to marry
Mr. Twentyman, and the injustice of that threat had at once made
her rebel against her stepmother's authority. She would never allow
her stepmother to make her marry any one. She put herself into a
state of general defiance and said as little as was said to her. But
her father's silence to her nearly broke her heart. On one or two
occasions, as opportunity offered itself to her, she said little soft
words to him in privacy. Then he would partly relent, would kiss her
and bid her be a good girl, and would quickly hurry away from her.
She could understand that he suffered as well as herself, and she
perhaps got some consolation from the conviction. At last, on the
following Saturday she watched her opportunity and brought to him
when he was alone in his office a letter which she had written to
Larry Twentyman. "Papa," she said, "would you read that?" He took and
read the letter, which was as follows:--
MY DEAR MR. TWENTYMAN,
Something was said about two months which are now very
nearly over. I think I ought to save you from the trouble
of coming to me again by telling you in a letter that it
cannot be as you would have it. I have thought of it a
great deal and have of course been anxious to do as my
friends wish. And I am very grateful to you, and know how
good and how kind you are. And I would do anything for
you,--except this. But it never can be. I should not write
like this unless I were quite certain. I hope you won't be
angry with me and think that I should have spared you the
trouble of doubting so long. I know now that I ought not
to have doubted at all; but I was so anxious not to seem
to be obstinate that I became foolish about it when you
asked me. What I say now is quite certain.
Dear Mr. Twentyman, I shall always think of you with
esteem and regard, because I know how good you are; and
I hope you will come to like somebody a great deal better
than me who will always love you with her whole heart.
Yours very truly,
MARY MASTERS.
P.S. I shall show this letter to papa.
Mr. Masters read it as she stood by him,--and then read it again very
slowly rubbing one hand over the other as he did so. He was thinking
what he should do;--or rather what he should say. The idea of
stopping the letter never occurred to him. If she chose to refuse
the man of course she must do so; and perhaps, if she did refuse him,
there was no way better than this. "Must it be so, Mary?" he said at
last.
"Yes, papa."
"But why?"
"Because I do not love him as I should have to love any man that I
wanted to marry. I have tried it, because you wished it, but I cannot
do it."
"What will mamma say?"
"I am thinking more, papa, of you," she said putting her arm over his
shoulder. "You have always been so good to me, and so kind!" Here his
heart misgave him, for he felt that during the last week he had not
been kind to her. "But you would not wish me to give myself to a man
and then not to care for him."
"No, my dear."
"I couldn't do it. I should fall down dead first. I have thought
so much about it,--for your sake; and have tried it with myself. I
couldn't do it."
"Is there anybody else, Mary?" As he asked the question he held her
hand beneath his own on the desk, but he did not dare to look into
her face. He had been told by his wife that there was somebody
else;--that the girl's mind was running upon Mr. Surtees, because
Mr. Surtees was a gentleman. He was thinking of Mr. Surtees, and
certainly not of Reginald Morton.
To her the moment was very solemn and when the question was asked
she felt that she could not tell her father a falsehood. She had
gradually grown bold enough to assure herself that her heart was
occupied with that man who had travelled with her to Cheltenham; and
she felt that that feeling alone must keep her apart from any other
love. And yet, as she had no hope, as she had assured herself that
her love was a burden to be borne and could never become a source
of enjoyment, why should her secret be wrested from her? What good
would such a violation do? But she could not tell the falsehood, and
therefore she held her tongue.
Gradually he looked up into her face, still keeping her hand pressed
on the desk under his. It was his left hand that so guarded her,
while she stood by his right shoulder. Then he gently wound his right
arm round her waist and pressed her to him. "Mary," he said, "if it
is so, had you not better tell me?" But she was sure that she had
better not mention that name even to him. It was impossible that she
should mention it. She would have outraged to herself her own maiden
modesty by doing so. "Is it,"--he asked very softly,--"is it--Mr.
Surtees?"
"Oh no!" she said quickly, almost escaping from the grasp of his arm
in her start.
Then he was absolutely at a loss. Beyond Mr. Surtees or Larry
Twentyman he did not know what possible lover Dillsborough could have
afforded. And yet the very rapidity of her answer when the curate's
name had been mentioned had convinced him that there was some other
person,--had increased the strength of that conviction which her
silence had produced. "Have you nothing that you can tell me, Mary?"
"No, papa." Then he gave her back the letter and she left the room
without another word. Of course his sanction to the letter had now
been given, and it was addressed to Chowton Farm and posted before
half an hour was over. She saw him again in the afternoon of the same
day and asked him to tell her stepmother what she had done. "Mamma
ought to know," she said.
"But you haven't sent it."
"Yes, papa;--it is in the post."
Then it occurred to him that his wife would tell him that he should
have prevented the sending of the letter,--that he should have
destroyed it and altogether taken the matter with a high hand. "You
can't tell her yourself?" he asked.
"I would rather you did. Mamma has been so hard to me since I came
home."
He did tell his wife and she overwhelmed him by the violence of her
reproaches. He could never have been in earnest, or he would not have
allowed such a letter as that to pass through his hands. He must be
afraid of his own child. He did not know his own duty. He had been
deceiving her,--his wife,--from first to last. Then she threw herself
into a torrent of tears declaring that she had been betrayed. There
had been a conspiracy between them, and now everything might go to
the dogs, and she would not lift up her hands again to save them. But
before the evening came round she was again on the alert, and again
resolved that she would not even yet give way. What was there in a
letter more than in a spoken word? She would tell Larry to disregard
the letter. But first she made a futile attempt to clutch the letter
from the guardianship of the Post Office, and she went to the
Postmaster assuring him that there had been a mistake in the family,
that a wrong letter had been put into a wrong envelope, and begging
that the letter addressed to Mr. Twentyman might be given back to
her. The Postmaster, half vacillating in his desire to oblige a
neighbour, produced the letter and Mrs. Masters put out her hand to
grasp it; but the servant of the public,--who had been thoroughly
grounded in his duties by one of those trusty guardians of
our correspondence who inspect and survey our provincial post
offices,--remembered himself at the last moment and expressing the
violence of his regret, replaced the letter in the box. Mrs. Masters,
in her anger and grief, condescended to say very hard things to her
neighbour;--but the man remembered his duty and was firm.
On that evening Larry Twentyman did not attend the Dillsborough
Club,--having in the course of the week notified to the attorney that
he should be a defaulter. Mr. Masters himself went over earlier than
usual, his own house having become very uncomfortable to him. Mrs.
Masters for an hour sat expecting that Larry would come, and when the
evening passed away without his appearance, she was convinced that
the unusual absence was a part of the conspiracy against her.
Larry did not get his letter till the Monday morning. On the last
Thursday and Saturday he had consoled himself for his doubts with the
U. R. U., and was minded to do so on the Monday also. He had not gone
to the club on Saturday and had moped about Chowton all the Sunday
in a feverish state because of his doubts. It seemed to him that the
two months would never be over. On the Monday he was out early on
the farm and then came down in his boots and breeches, and had his
red coat ready at the fire while he sat at breakfast. The meet was
fifteen miles off and he had sent on his hunter, intending to travel
thither in his dog cart. Just as he was cutting himself a slice of
beef the postman came, and of course he read his letter. He read it
with the carving knife in his hand, and then he stood gazing at his
mother. "What is it, Larry?" she asked; "is anything wrong?"
"Wrong,--well; I don't know," he said. "I don't know what you call
wrong. I shan't hunt; that's all." Then he threw aside the knife
and pushed away his plate and marched out of the room with the open
letter in his hand.
Mrs. Twentyman knew very well of his love,--as indeed did nearly all
Dillsborough; but she had heard nothing of the two months and did
not connect the letter with Mary Masters. Surely he must have lost a
large sum of money. That was her idea till she saw him again late in
the afternoon.
He never went near the hounds that day or near his business. He
was not then man enough for either. But he walked about the fields,
keeping out of sight of everybody. It was all over now. It must
be all over when she wrote to him a letter like that. Why had she
tempted him to thoughts of happiness and success by that promise of
two months' grace? He supposed that he was not good enough;--or that
she thought he was not good enough. Then he remembered his acres, and
his material comforts, and tried to console himself by reflecting
that Mary Masters might very well do worse in the world. But there
was no consolation in it. He had tried his best because he had
really loved the girl. He had failed, and all the world,--all his
world,--would know that he had failed. There was not a man in the
club,--hardly a man in the hunt,--who was not aware that he had
offered to Mary Masters. During the last two months he had not been
so reticent as was prudent, and had almost boasted to Fred Botsey of
success. And then how was he to live at Chowton Farm without Mary
Masters as his wife? As he returned home he almost made up his mind
that he would not continue to live at Chowton Farm.
He came back through Dillsborough Wood; and there, prowling about, he
met Goarly. "Well, Mr. Twentyman," said the man, "I am making it all
straight now with his Lordship."
"I don't care what you're doing," said Larry in his misery. "You are
an infernal blackguard and that's the best of you."