Prudence insisted upon a long engagement.
That was the first hitch in the amicable relations between her and her
fiance. Mr Morgan could see no reason why they should not marry
immediately. He had less time than she to waste, and he was impatient
of delay. But Prudence remained firm. She held out for a six months'
engagement; and Mr Graynor from purely selfish reasons ranged himself
on her side. He was glad that her choice had fallen so wisely on this
trusty friend of long standing. He could hand her over to the care of
Edward Morgan with no anxiety for her future well-being; but he did not
want to part with her too soon. When she was married the opportunities
for seeing her would be few, and he dreaded the separation.
"Six months is not so very long," he told the exasperated Mr Morgan.
"And Prudence is only twenty."
"If I were twenty," Mr Morgan retorted, "I might see the matter in that
light. Unfortunately I am not that age. But I shall have to exercise
patience, I suppose."
He bought his fiancee a magnificent half hoop of diamonds, and slipped
it on her fingers, where it looked, Prudence considered, oddly out of
place. It was altogether too valuable for constant wear. She did not
tell him so for fear of hurting his feelings; but she wished that he
would buy her less extravagant gifts. Whenever he gave her anything it
was of the costliest description that he could procure. It seemed to
give him peculiar satisfaction to surround her with expensive things.
And he was amazingly kind and considerate for her unexpressed wishes.
Prudence never knew how much it cost him in self-restraint in those
early days of their engagement to keep under the ardour of his love for
her, and school his passionate desire to take her in his arms and kiss
madly her cool unresponding lips. He was wise, this mature lover. He
knew that he had to foster her kindly affection for him; that he would
need to tend and cherish it a long time before he could look to see it
blossom into love. But he did not despair. He believed that she would
give him eventually a full and willing response.
The engagement brought unforeseen consequences in the form of
affectionate and intimate letters from the different members of Mr
Morgan's family. All these people were unknown to Prudence; yet they
wrote to her as though the prospective relationship admitted them to
terms of confidential familiarity.
Old Mrs Morgan wrote approving her son's choice, and congratulating
Prudence on having won so excellent a husband. She was glad, she added,
that Prudence was young; she liked young people about her. She looked
forward to having Prudence on a visit, when she would instruct her in
regard to Edward's likes and dislikes, the care of his health, and other
matters of similar importance.
Mrs Henry Morgan's letter was gushing and insincere in tone. As a
matter of fact Mr Morgan's sister-in-law was not very pleased to hear
of his engagement. She had come to regard him as a confirmed bachelor,
and her two sons, for whom she was very ambitious as quite certain of
inheriting their uncle's immense wealth. She had mapped out a brilliant
future for them in which Morgan Bros, played no part; and she considered
it indelicate on Edward's side to upset her plans by marrying--at his
time of life.
"You are a brave little person," ran one passage in her letter; "a man
past forty is not adaptable. But I'll give you all sorts of wrinkles
how to manage him. And of course his mother will live with you. She
and I don't get on."
"Of course his mother won't live with us," Prudence told herself.
But she learned later that Mrs Henry's statement was correct. Old Mrs
Morgan had managed Edward's house always, and would continue to do so.
"You will love her," he assured Prudence; "and most certainly she will
love you."
An invitation to spend Christmas in Derbyshire followed; but Prudence,
panic-stricken at the thought of meeting these people, insisted on
spending her last Christmas at home; and it was finally settled that the
visit should be deferred till the spring, when Mr Morgan promised
himself the pleasure of fetching her to spend a fortnight with his
mother, and of bringing her home again at the finish of the visit.
There was little likelihood of seeing much of her in the interval; but
she promised to write to him regularly once a week, setting aside his
tentative suggestion that a daily correspondence would be welcome by
frankly admitting that she would find nothing to say. He was
disappointed. The ink on his own pen would not have dried from a dearth
of ideas. At forty-three a man's passion is no whit less ardent than
that of a boy of twenty; but the man knows how to practise restraint.
It was this knowledge which helped Edward Morgan over the difficulties
of his courtship with a girl whose heart he had yet to win, and to whom
passion was an unknown quantity.
Prudence was rather sexless in those days. The realities of love and
marriage were mysteries to her. Marriage meant no more than the
solution of a problem that had occupied her attention on and off for
years. She saw no other way of obtaining her emancipation. And he was
very unexacting in his devotion, and patient and kind.
The kindly attentions of Mr Morgan, the cessation of general
hostilities, and the patronising approval of brother William, effected a
wonderful clearance in the domestic atmosphere. Prudence was once more
in favour, and the indiscretions of the past were tacitly overlooked.
She discovered also that by virtue of her engagement she had achieved a
new importance in Wortheton social life. People called to offer their
congratulations; and the vicar talked affably of the imitative tendency
of marriage, seeming to ascribe Prudence's good fortune to the example
set by her sister. He informed Mr Morgan rather unnecessarily that he
was rich in this world's goods.
Amid the general rejoicings Bobby alone stood aloof, critical and
disapproving and altogether unimpressed with the splendour of the match.
"You don't need to marry money," he wrote. "There's more than enough of
the beastly commodity in the family as it is. And Morgan! ... Of
course he's all right in himself, and a good fellow; but he's more than
double your age. Imagine what you would say if I wanted to marry a
woman old enough to be my mother! Break it off, Prue. I'll be home
shortly, and I'll stand by you."
Prudence shed a few surreptitious tears over this letter, though it
moved her to mirth as well; it was so characteristic of the writer.
But, save for glimpses during the holidays, Bobby had no idea of the
flatness of life at Court Heatherleigh, its repression, its sneaking
pose--there was no other term for it--of pious superiority which crushed
the spirit and the natural honesty of those upon whom its influence was
exerted. She was not marrying Mr Morgan for his wealth; she was not
marrying him for love. Her reasons, when she came to analyse them,
occurred to her singularly inadequate. She felt very doubtful as to the
wisdom of the step she had taken. The idea of a triangular household,
with a mother-in-law in supreme command, seemed to her rather like a
repetition of the unsatisfactory home conditions. She felt that Edward
Morgan owed it to her to set up a separate establishment, and even
ventured to suggest this rearrangement to him. He heard her in pained
surprise.
"My mother will not intrude on us," he said. "Morningside has been her
home always. I could not agree to her living elsewhere."
"Couldn't _we_ live elsewhere?" Prudence insisted. "I should like a
house of my own."
"You don't understand," he said, with his hands on her shoulders, and
his grave eyes looking tenderly down upon her. "Home for my mother is
where I am."
He stooped and kissed her as a sort of act of forgiveness for the want
of consideration she had shown.