These few days of waiting were intolerable to Marion, who hated all
delays, and from her earliest childhood objected to hear reason, as the
old nurse used to say. Whatever was hanging over her head, good, bad,
or indifferent, she would have come down at once, and let the crash be
over. Poor Mrs Miles had too little in common with her daughter to
know what to say or do. Every morning she was sure that a letter would
come by that post, and as sure when the hour had passed that it was more
natural that it should not arrive until the next day. Such little
securities win their triumphs at last. On Saturday morning a few lines
from Anthony announced their intended return in the afternoon.
It struck Marion at once that her father was depressed, although there
was evident gladness at getting back to his home. After he had kissed
her, and before turning to his letters, he looked for a moment into her
face with a touch of the wistfulness which his talk with her in the
study seemed to have brought into his eyes. She determined to find
Anthony, who had gone off to the stables to see the pony nibbed down,
and whose whereabouts were easily discoverable through Sniffs bark of
delight. Hearing his sister's call, he crossed the yard.
"Hallo, Marion, what have you been doing with yourself? You look as if
you wanted fresh air badly. Put on your hat, and come up to Hardlands
with me."
"Hardlands! Anthony, you and papa are as cruel as can be to keep me in
this horrible suspense. O Anthony, dear, do tell me,--what did he
say?--what is Marmaduke to do?"
"I think it's pretty nearly right, or on the way to be right," said
Anthony, digging his hands into his pockets, "though I don't exactly
know what Marmaduke expects."
"To be his heir," said Marion quickly. "It was a promise."
"I think Marmaduke must have made a mistake there," began Anthony, but
she interrupted him at once.
"He did not, indeed."
Anthony was silenced, and began to whistle, not knowing in the least
what to say. His father had begged him to tell Marion no more than was
absolutely necessary, and there was an uncomfortable and unacknowledged
impression upon the two that she would not be satisfied with their
tidings. Mr Tregennas would not admit anything definite. "Sha'n't
forget the lad, I tell you. If you want to know for your daughter's
sake, he'll have enough to live upon, and she, too, unless you've
brought her up in these new-fangled fashions." This was what he had
said, and of course it was something, Mr Miles would have said it was a
good deal, if there had not been that uneasy consciousness of
Marmaduke's expectations, and it was quite certain that it did not
satisfy Marion. It was sufficient, however, to give her a further
ground on which to urge her father to admit of their engagement. If the
Vicar had felt himself as free as usual to follow his own judgment, he
would, probably, for some time yet, have refused his consent; but he was
in the position of a man who, having failed to see what all the time lay
close at hand, feels a nervous distrust of himself, and, moreover, his
life had fallen too completely into a matter of routine for him to meet
an unexpected call for decision as firmly as he would have met it years
ago. He would have willingly let the matter drift to the shore as the
tide of circumstances carried it. But Marion was too well aware of the
advantage she had gained not to push it farther; Mr Tregennas had
rather encouraged than opposed the engagement, and Mrs Miles shook her
head over Marion's loss of colour and brightness. The Vicar was
inclined to believe implicitly in his wife at this moment, Marion had
one of those temperaments which in their many changes act rapidly upon
people's looks, and her father could not meet her heavy eyes and live
his own life any more in peace.
So she had her way; the engagement was allowed, Marmaduke was to spend
his approaching leave at Thorpe, and Anthony and he were to go for a
week to Trenance.
Here again the poor Vicar was aware of perplexity. Mr Tregennas had
shown an inconveniently strong liking for Anthony, whom nobody wanted
him to like. His energy and brightness seemed to have such an
attraction for him, that the old man, now with little more left of his
old nigged self-will than a certain feeble captiousness, would sit and
watch him by the hour from under his big eyebrows. The Vicar, who had
become aware of this, was almost provoked at his son's unconsciousness.
Anthony was at all times disposed to take it for granted that things
would be as he thought best, and it seemed to him that Marmaduke was
really as sure of his inheritance as if it had all been plainly set down
in black and white. Even if the idea of his becoming his friend's rival
had ever entered his head, the prospect of heirship would have had
little fascination for him. He had some money of his own, which made
him independent of his father. Trenance was but a dull country place,
and he was too young and too sanguine to care much for money and
possessions. He wanted power, but not of that sort, and how to gain it
he had not yet resolved, but there was a swing of energy about the young
fellow which made all things seem possible. If his self-confidence were
too buoyant, too ready to rush blindfold, it was a danger which he would
be the last to discover for himself; if, later in life, his character
were likely to develop just a touch of arrogance, it was for the present
concealed by his brightness and boyish gaiety of heart. At any rate he
could never be covetous. Trenance was nothing to him, and thinking of
Marmaduke it was with a little real compassion for a life which was to
be bounded by so many acres, a mine or two, and the little church town.
His own dreams reached far beyond those limits.
Already he had taken a step in one of the paths which lay before him,
and seemed to invite him into smiling depths. He had written a pamphlet
upon certain branches of reform, and it had been noticed with some
commendation by an influential paper, to Mrs Miles's great delight.
The notice was a good deal more dear to her than the pamphlet, and she
would go up to her son's room and read out little bits, although with a
sharp criticism of its shortcomings.
"There are only two quotations, and so much that people would have liked
to read! And why should they say you are a young author? I am sure
there is nothing your father might not have written so far as age is
concerned."
"They must criticise, you know."
"Well," said Mrs Miles, doubtfully, "if they did not find a little
fault, I suppose others would be jealous. But they could not deny that
it is excellent."
She got up as she spoke, and went softly about the room, putting some
tidying touches which Faith had neglected. The summer sun was shining
in and discovering dust in little out-of-the-way corners where things
were heaped. There was a faded sketch of Hardlands by Winifred stuck
over the chimney-piece.
"It is a pity those people don't know who you are," Mrs Miles
continued. "I wish you would write and tell them, Anthony; I am sure
they would be pleased. My dear, you would find a better picture than
this in the portfolio down stairs."
"It does very well," said Anthony sleepily.
Mrs Miles went on with her work, but presently began again.
"My dear, it is a long time since you called at Deanscourt, and Sir
James Milman has always been so civil that it does not seem quite right.
Suppose you were to ride over there this afternoon."
"I don't believe they've come down yet."
"Lady and Miss Milman are at home, I know," asserted Mrs Miles gravely,
"for she wrote the other day to ask for Ellen Harding's character. Miss
Milman seems a very sweet girl."
"Oh!"
"And very pretty, I'm sure."
"She's not my style," said Anthony, with an air of having disposed of
her.
"My dear, I think you would find her so, if only you knew her better,"
interposed Mrs Miles earnestly, "and Mrs Featherly tells me--"
"What?"
"That all those girls have money."
"Well, mother, I'm too shy to venture there by myself, but, if you like,
I'll drive you over in the pony-carriage."
"Thank you, I'm sure, my dear, it would be very nice," said Mrs Miles,
whose pleasure in driving with her son was mixed with several pet
perturbations of her own; "but are you sure the pony is not too fresh?"
"Fresh? He wants a little work, of course, but it's nothing on earth
but play that makes him caper. I'll see he does no harm."
"My dear, I can't help wishing he would play in the stables, where he
really has nothing else to do, but if you think he's quite safe--"
"As safe as any old cart-horse. Come, mother, if he should upset us,
I'll give you leave to call me all the bad names you can think of."
"O dear, but that will not make it any better," said Mrs Miles, shaking
her head. "I don't see how you can help it if he takes it into his head
to play, as you call it. However, my dear, you really ought to go to
Deanscourt, so I will be quite ready by four o'clock, and now I must go
and speak to Faith about the dust in this room."
"You don't mean to say, mother, that you've let Faith engage herself to
that dissenting fellow, Stephens," said Anthony, beginning to speak
energetically.
"I could not prevent it," said Mrs Miles, giving her head a mournful
shake by way of protest. "I don't know what the world is coming to, but
servants are not at all what they were."
"We ought to have stopped it, though. How was he ever allowed to hang
about the house? Faith is too good a little thing for a humbugging
rascal like that. You wouldn't believe how he has worked upon that old
idiot Maddox; if I hadn't gone into it, my father would have had a
meeting-house stuck under his very nose, ay, and he'll have it still,
unless I keep a sharp lookout. But, upon my word, it is a great deal
too bad that he should get hold of Faith."
Anthony was handling a tool as he spoke, and punching a hole in a bit of
wood with as much force as if it had been Stephens's head. Mrs Miles
never liked to see her son "put out;" his face was quick to reflect his
feelings, and he certainly did not look pleasantly upon what galled him.
It was quite true that David was his present bugbear, and that he gave
him credit for no motives except the lowest: his feelings had so much
heat in them, that they deprived him in a great measure of the power of
sympathy with that with which he had no agreement, and were always
easily excited into prejudice.