THE SQUIRE GIVES HIS CONSENT
Edward Cossey did not come away from the scene of his engagement in a
very happy or triumphant tone of mind. Ida’s bitter words stung like
whips, and he understood, and she clearly meant he should understand,
that it was only in consideration of the money advanced that she had
consented to become his wife. Now, however satisfactory it is to be
rich enough to purchase your heart’s desire in this fashion, it is not
altogether soothing to the pride of a nineteenth-century man to be
continually haunted by the thought that he is a buyer in the market and
nothing but a buyer. Of course, he saw clearly enough that there was an
object in all this—he saw that Ida, by making obvious her dislike,
wished to disgust him with his bargain, and escape from an alliance of
which the prospect was hateful to her. But he had no intention of being
so easily discouraged. In the first place his passion for the woman was
as a devouring flame, eating ever at his heart. In that at any rate he
was sincere; he did love her so far as his nature was capable of love,
or at any rate he had the keenest desire to make her his wife. A
delicate-minded man would probably have shrunken from forcing himself
upon a woman under parallel circumstances; but Edward Cossey did not
happen to fall into that category. As a matter of fact such men are not
as common as they might be.
Another thing which he took into account was that Ida would probably
get over her dislike. He was a close observer of women, in a cynical
and half contemptuous way, and he remarked, or thought that he
remarked, a curious tendency among them to submit with comparative
complacency to the inevitable whenever it happened to coincide with
their material advantage. Women, he argued, have not, as a class,
outgrown the traditions of their primitive condition when their
partners for life were chosen for them by lot or the chance of battle.
They still recognise the claims of the wealthiest or strongest, and
their love of luxury and ease is so keen that if the nest they lie in
is only soft enough, they will not grieve long over the fact that it
was not of their own choosing. Arguing from these untrustworthy
premises, he came to the conclusion that Ida would soon get over her
repugnance to marrying him, when she found how many comforts and good
things marriage with so rich a man would place at her disposal, and
would, if for no other reason, learn to look on him with affection and
gratitude as the author of her gilded ease. And so indeed she might
have done had she been of another and more common stamp. But,
unfortunately for his reasoning, there exist members of her sex who are
by nature of an order of mind superior to these considerations, and who
realise that they have but one life to live, and that the highest form
of happiness is _not_ dependent upon money or money’s worth, but rather
upon the indulgence of mental aspirations and those affections which,
when genuine, draw nearer to holiness than anything else about us. Such
a woman, more especially if she is already possessed with an affection
for another man, does not easily become reconciled to a distasteful
lot, however quietly she may endure it, and such a woman was Ida de la
Molle.
Edward Cossey, when he reached Boisingham on the evening of his
engagement, at once wrote and posted a note to the Squire, saying that
he would call on the following morning about a matter of business.
Accordingly, at half-past ten o’clock, he arrived and was shown into
the vestibule, where he found the old gentleman standing with his back
to the fire and plunged in reflection.
“Well, Mr. de la Molle,” said Edward, rather nervously, so soon as he
had shaken hands, “I do not know if Ida has spoken to you about what
took place between us yesterday.”
“Yes,” he said, “yes, she told me something to the effect that she had
accepted a proposal of marriage from you, subject to my consent, of
course; but really the whole thing is so sudden that I have hardly had
time to consider it.”
“It is very simple,” said Edward; “I am deeply attached to your
daughter, and I have been so fortunate as to be accepted by her. Should
you give your consent to the marriage, I may as well say at once that I
wish to carry out the most liberal money arrangements in my power. I
will make Ida a present of the mortgage that I hold over this property,
and she may put it in the fire. Further, I will covenant on the death
of my father, which cannot now be long delayed, to settle two hundred
thousand pounds upon her absolutely. Also, I am prepared to agree that
if we have a son, and he should wish to do so, he shall take the name
of de la Molle.”
“I am sure,” said the Squire, turning round to hide his natural
gratification at these proposals, “your offers on the subject of
settlements are of a most liberal order, and of course so far as I am
concerned, Ida will have this place, which may one day be again more
valuable than it is now.”
“I am glad that they meet with your approval,” said Edward; “and now
there is one more thing I want to ask you, Mr. de la Molle, and which I
hope, if you give your consent to the marriage, you will not raise any
objection to. It is, that our engagement should not be announced at
present. The fact is,” he went on hurriedly, “my father is a very
peculiar man, and has a great idea of my marrying somebody with a large
fortune. Also his state of health is so uncertain that there is no
possibility of knowing how he will take anything. Indeed he is dying;
the doctors told me that he might go off any day, and that he cannot
last for another three months. If the engagement is announced to him
now, at the best I shall have a great deal of trouble, and at the worst
he might make me suffer in his will, should he happen to take a fancy
against it.”
“Umph,” said the Squire, “I don’t quite like the idea of a projected
marriage with my daughter, Miss de la Molle of Honham Castle, being
hushed up as though there were something discreditable about it, but
still there may be peculiar circumstances in the case which would
justify me in consenting to that course. You are both old enough to
know your own minds, and the match would be as advantageous for you as
it could be to us, for even now-a-days, family, and I may even say
personal appearance, still go for something where matrimony is
concerned. I have reason to know that your father is a peculiar man,
very peculiar. Yes, on the whole, though I don’t like hole and corner
affairs, I shall have no objection to the engagement not being
announced for the next month or two.”
“Thank you for considering me so much,” said Edward with a sigh of
relief. “Then am I to understand that you give your consent to our
engagement?”
The Squire reflected for a moment. Everything seemed quite straight,
and yet he suspected crookedness. His latent distrust of the man, which
had not been decreased by the scene of two nights before—for he never
could bring himself to like Edward Cossey—arose in force and made him
hesitate when there was no visible ground for hesitation. He possessed,
as has been said, an instinctive insight into character that was almost
feminine in its intensity, and it was lifting a warning finger before
him now.
“I don’t quite know what to say,” he replied at length. “The whole
affair is so sudden—and to tell you the truth, I thought that Ida had
bestowed her affections in another direction.”
Edward’s face darkened. “I thought so too,” he answered, “until
yesterday, when I was so happy as to be undeceived. I ought to tell
you, by the way,” he went on, running away from the covert falsehood in
his last words as quickly as he could, “how much I regret I was the
cause of that scene with Colonel Quaritch, more especially as I find
that there is an explanation of the story against him. The fact is, I
was foolish enough to be vexed because he beat me out shooting, and
also because, well I—I was jealous of him.”
“Ah, yes,” said the Squire, rather coldly, “a most unfortunate affair.
Of course, I don’t know what the particulars of the matter were, and it
is no business of mine, but speaking generally, I should say never
bring an accusation of that sort against a man at all unless you are
driven to it, and if you do bring it be quite certain of your ground.
However, that is neither here nor there. Well, about this engagement.
Ida is old enough to judge for herself, and seems to have made up her
mind, so as I know no reason to the contrary, and as the business
arrangements proposed are all that I could wish, I cannot see that I
have any ground for withholding my consent. So all I can say, sir, is
that I hope you will make my daughter a good husband, and that you will
both be happy. Ida is a high-spirited woman; but in my opinion she is
greatly above the average of her sex, as I have known it, and provided
you have her affection, and don’t attempt to drive her, she will go
through thick and thin for you. But I dare say you would like to see
her. Oh, by the way, I forgot, she has got a headache this morning, and
is stopping in bed. It isn’t much in her line, but I daresay that she
is a little upset. Perhaps you would like to come up to dinner
to-night?”
This proposition Edward, knowing full well that Ida’s headache was a
device to rid herself of the necessity of seeing him, accepted with
gratitude and went.
As soon as he had gone, Ida herself came down.
“Well, my dear,” said the Squire cheerfully, “I have just had the
pleasure of seeing Edward Cossey, and I have told him that, as you
seemed to wish it——”
Here Ida made a movement of impatience, but remembered herself and said
nothing.
“That as you seemed to wish that things should be so, I had no ground
of objection to your engagement. I may as well tell you that the
proposals which he makes as regards settlements are of the most liberal
nature.”
“Are they?” answered Ida indifferently. “Is Mr. Cossey coming here to
dinner?”
“Yes, I asked him. I thought that you would like to see him.”
“Well, then, I wish you had not,” she answered with animation, “because
there is nothing to eat except some cold beef. Really, father, it is
very thoughtless of you;” and she stamped her foot and went off in a
huff, leaving the Squire full of reflection.
“I wonder what it all means,” he said to himself. “She can’t care about
the man much or she would not make that fuss about his being asked to
dinner. Ida isn’t the sort of woman to be caught by the money, I should
think. Well, I know nothing about it; it is no affair of mine, and I
can only take things as I find them.”
And then he fell to reflecting that this marriage would be an
extraordinary stroke of luck for the family. Here they were at the last
gasp, mortgaged up the eyes, when suddenly fortune, in the shape of an,
on the whole, perfectly unobjectionable young man, appears, takes up
the mortgages, proposes settlements to the tune of hundreds of
thousands, and even offers to perpetuate the old family name in the
person of his son, should he have one. Such a state of affairs could
not but be gratifying to any man, however unworldly, and the Squire was
not altogether unworldly. That is, he had a keen sense of the dignity
of his social position and his family, and it had all his life been his
chief and laudable desire to be sufficiently provided with the goods of
this world to raise the de la Molles to the position which they had
occupied in former centuries. Hitherto, however, the tendency of events
had been all the other way—the house was a sinking one, and but the
other day its ancient roof had nearly fallen about their ears. But now
the prospect changed as though by magic. On Ida’s marriage all the
mortgages, those heavy accumulations of years of growing expenditure
and narrowing means, would roll off the back of the estate, and the de
la Molles of Honham Castle would once more take the place in the county
to which they were undoubtedly entitled.
It is not wonderful that the prospect proved a pleasing one to him, or
that his head was filled with visions of splendours to come.
As it chanced, on that very morning it was necessary for Mr. Quest to
pay the old gentleman a visit in order to obtain his signature to a
lease of a bakery in Boisingham, which, together with two or three
other houses, belonged to the estate.
He arrived just as the Squire was in the full flow of his meditations,
and it would not have needed a man of Mr. Quest’s penetration and
powers of observation to discover that he had something on his mind
which he was longing for an opportunity to talk about.
The Squire signed the lease without paying the slightest attention to
Mr. Quest’s explanations, and then suddenly asked him when the first
interest on the recently-effected mortgages came due.
The lawyer mentioned a certain date.
“Ah,” said the Squire, “then it will have to be met; but it does not
matter, it will be for the last time.”
Mr. Quest pricked up his ears and looked at him.
“The fact is, Quest,” he went on by way of explanation, “that there
are—well—family arrangements pending which will put an end to these
embarrassments in a natural and a proper way.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Quest, “I am very glad to hear it.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Squire, “unfortunately I am under some restraints
in speaking about the matter at present, or I should like to ask your
opinion, for which as you know I have a great respect. Really, though,
I do not know why I should not consult my lawyer on a matter of
business; I only consented not to trumpet the thing about.”
“Lawyers are confidential agents,” said Mr. Quest quietly.
“Of course they are. Of course, and it is their business to hold their
tongues. I may rely upon your discretion, may I not?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Quest.
“Well, the matter is this: Mr. Edward Cossey is engaged to Miss de la
Molle. He has just been here to obtain my consent, which, of course, I
have not withheld, as I know nothing against the young man—nothing at
all. The only stipulation that he made is, as I think, a reasonable one
under the circumstances, namely, that the engagement is to be kept
quiet for a little while on account of the condition of his father’s
health. He says that he is an unreasonable man, and that he might take
a prejudice against it.”
During this announcement Mr. Quest had remained perfectly quiet, his
face showing no signs of excitement, only his eyes shone with a curious
light.
“Indeed,” he said, “this is very interesting news.”
“Yes,” said the Squire. “That is what I meant by saying that there
would be no necessity to make any arrangements as to the future payment
of interest, for Cossey has informed me that he proposes to put the
mortgage bonds in the fire before his marriage.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Quest; “well, he could hardly do less, could he?
Altogether, I think you ought to be congratulated, Mr. de la Molle. It
is not often that a man gets such a chance of clearing the encumbrances
off a property. And now I am very sorry, but I must be getting home, as
I promised my wife to be back for luncheon. As the thing is to be kept
quiet, I suppose that it would be premature for me to offer my good
wishes to Miss de la Molle.”
“Yes, yes, don’t say anything about it at present. Well, good-bye.”