AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE.
At the lodge-gates of an old-fashioned country mansion, which stands in
a well-wooded park shut in among the Surrey hills, a young girl was
waiting one winter night. Every now and then she would turn and glance
towards the house, as though she expected some one to come from it.
Twice she fancied she heard a footstep and stepped out into the shadow
of the roadway, and twice she found her faney had deceived her.
But the third time it was no fancy. There was a well-known step upon
the broad gravel path, and in the dim light she could see the figure of
a man coming rapidly towards her. She gave a nervous glance towards the
lodge-window, then darted out into the roadway, and, walking in the
shadow of the hedge that skirted the park, reached a spot where the
bend of the road would hide her from the view of any one looking out of
the lodge-gates.
The man, walking rapidly, soon caught her up.
She ran to him, and, looking up into his face, questioned him eagerly
with her eyes.
He shook his head sorrowfully.
‘Failure, Bess,’ he said. ‘I must leave this place to-night.’
The girl gave a little cry, and, taking the man’s arm, clung closely to
him.
‘Yes, Bess; the old man’s as hard as iron. I flung myself on his mercy.
I told him all. He heard what I had to say, and then turned me out like
a dog. Swore I wanted to ruin him. The old miser!’
‘Hush, George—he is your father.’
‘He was, you mean. We’ve parted for ever. He says I’m no son of his. So
be it. He’s no father of mine. A paltry thousand would have put me
straight.’
‘Can nothing be done, George?’
‘Nothing, my girl. I’m what they call dead broke. I must get up to
town, and trust to luck. I’m young and strong, and if I can’t pay my
debts, at any rate I can earn bread-and-cheese.’
The girl let him run on, but his flippant manner distressed her. You
could see that in her face. The dark eyes were filled with tears, and
the red lips trembled. She was a village beauty—a handsome
brunette—this lodge-keeper’s daughter, and many a village swain had
laid his heart at her feet, but she had laughed their love away, and
kept her heart for one who was far above her. The man by her side was
her master’s son, young George Heritage, heir to the house and
lands—‘the young squire’ they called him in the village, but Bess only
called him ‘George.’
Bess Marks was no ordinary rustic beauty, or I question very much if
she would have won George Heritage’s heart. She was a strong-minded,
pure-hearted, clever girl—a girl who exercised a strange fascination
over the young squire.
Their sweethearting was a profound secret from every one. There was
enough romance in it to redeem it from vulgarity, and it was a
perfectly serious affair.
No thought of harm had ever entered the young man’s breast. He had
accepted the fact that he had fallen in love with a lodge-keeper’s
daughter as he accepted the fact that he had got heavily into debt. He
couldn’t help it. That was his answer to himself when he and his
conscience had a quiet quarter of an hour together.
Some day he supposed he would have to pay his debts; some day he
supposed he would marry Bess. ‘Some day’ was a movable feast, and so
George didn’t worry himself about it.
But to-night a crisis had come. To-night he had to begin a new life. He
was no longer Squire Heritage’s heir.
George had not exaggerated the nature of his interview with his father.
The old squire was the last man in the world who should have been
George’s father.
He was as careful of money as his son was prodigal. His notions of what
a young man of three-and-twenty ought to be were founded upon what he
himself had been at that age—a steady young fellow, contented to ride
about his father’s estate, talk with the old men, and spend his days
about the land and his evenings in the library. He was matter of fact,
stern, and uncompromising. He came of Puritan stock, and he had notions
of morality which were scandalized by the fashionable follies of
to-day.
He was bitterly disappointed in his son, in whom he had hoped to find a
companion. When Mrs Heritage died the lad was fifteen and at school,
and he saw but little of his father. In due course he went to Oxford,
and there he developed his ‘fast’ tendencies. He got into a fast set,
went the pace, and ran heavily into debt.
The squire had him home, read him a lesson, paid his debts, and told
him he need not go back to Oxford again; that what he was learning
there wasn’t likely to do him any good.
The old hall was dull for the lad. About a fortnight he grew tired of
dining with his father and going to bed at ten. He looked out for
something to amuse him, and two things happened which influenced the
whole after-course of his life. He fell in love with the lodge-keeper’s
daughter, handsome Bess Marks, and he took to going up to London and
joined a club.
Gradually the club claimed most of his attention, and he broke out into
another gambling fit.
He took to attending race meetings and to card-playing, and once again
came what in sporting language is called a ‘cropper.’ He got his name
on stamped paper which had an awkward habit of coming due, and let
things go on in his easy, happy-go-lucky way, till he found himself in
such a muddle that he was bound to appeal to his father.
A second time the squire drew a cheque and paid his son’s creditors.
But from that moment there was an estrangement. George resented the
severity of the lecture which accompanied the cheque, and took little
pains to conceal his feelings.
The squire was stately and cold. His son avoided his society, and it
was not forced upon him.
But when, after the lapse of a few months, a fresh burden of debt came
upon the scapegrace, and the young man went half-defiantly to his
father for assistance, the storm burst.
The old squire was honestly indignant, and he spoke his mind.
The terrified servants passing to and fro heard high words that evening
in the little library, and the voices of father and son quivered with
passion.
The young man was a favourite with all the people about the place, and
many were the hopes expressed that the squire wouldn’t be too hard on
Master George, as was a bit wild, perhaps, as was but natural, but he’d
settle down when he’d sown his wild oats, bless him, and be a squire as
‘ud do the old hall some credit yet.
The good souls who spoke up for the young scapegrace didn’t know what a
plentiful crop of oats Master George had sown, neither had they had to
draw the cheques to pay for this rather unprofitable agricultural
produce.
George and his father quarrelled fiercely this time. The squire swore
that not one penny more should George have. He was a reprobate and a
vagabond. He was wasting his substance in riotous living and bringing
discredit on an honoured name.
The young man in turn reproached his father. He had made the home dull
and repellent. It was like a monastery more than a gentleman’s house.
Because he was no longer young himself and had had his pleasure and
seen life, he had no sympathy with young men. George wasn’t going to
turn goody-goody and take to psalm-singing and dryasdust books for
anybody. If his father wouldn’t give him any more money, he’d do
without it. He didn’t want money that was grudged him. Let the squire
keep his money, if he was so fond of it.
Taunt succeeded taunt, reproach reproach, and so the wordy warfare was
worked up to its climax.
It ended by the squire denouncing his son as an unprincipled rascal,
and swearing that he would disinherit him.
Then George spoke some bitter words and marched out of his father’s
presence, vowing that he should see his face no more.
‘I’m young and strong, and I’ll be independent of you,’ he said. ‘You
say I’m no son of yours—so be it. From this moment I renounce my name.
I have no father—you have no son. Leave your money to the missionaries,
or do what the deuce you like with it. You can’t take it to heaven with
you when you die.’
With these words the young man strode out of his father’s presence,
bade the servants in a loud voice pack up his things and send them up
to Waterloo Station the next day, as he was going on a journey; and
then he walked hastily down the Avenue, his small travelling-bag in his
hand, and went to the spot where Bess was anxiously awaiting the result
of the interview.
‘Oh, George, what will you do?’ moaned the girl.
‘Do, my darling?’ answered the young man, looking at her lovingly, and
then stooping down and kissing her. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll
marry you, and we’ll settle down into a hardworking young couple, and
perhaps, some day, if we’re good, we shall have a public-house.’
Bess was hot and cold, and the rich blood faded from her olive cheeks
only to rush back again and suffuse them with a burning crimson, for
George’s sudden proposition had turned her first giddy and then faint;
but, confused and troubled as she was, she could not help laughing at
the idea of George keeping a public-house.
In spite of his gay manner, there is no doubt he was in earnest in his
offer to Bess.
‘You’ll keep me steady,’ he went on, in reply to her remonstrances.
‘I’m a ship without a rudder now, and I might drift on to the rocks.
You’ll keep me straight for port. I know you will, little woman.’
‘But, George, think of your friends.’
‘I have no friends. From this day I’m George Smith, and you shall be
Mrs. Smith. I’ll get something to do in the City, and earn my dinner
before I eat it. It’ll be quite a romance.’
George rubbed his hands. He was already in imagination bringing home
his golden salary on Saturday, and flinging it into Bess’s lap.
Many idle words he said that evening, and many serious ones, but the
upshot of it all was that he went off to town to look for quiet
furnished apartments in which they could start housekeeping, and to buy
a licence to marry Bess Marks.
And Bess went back to the lodge, half broken-hearted and half mad with
delight, to cry on her father’s neck and keep the big secret that her
lips were dying to utter.
And all supper-time she sat and looked at him and wondered what he
would do when she was gone, and what he would think of her.
George had told her that her father must not know they were
married—‘Not for a little while, darling,’ he said.
He thought if the lodge-keeper knew it, the faithful old servant would
not be able to keep the news long from his master.
George Heritage had made up his mind to marry Bess Marks, but he
couldn’t quite screw his courage up to the point of having his
_mésalliance_ proclaimed.
That he put off to ‘some day.’
On the following morning, while Bess was sitting by the open window
thinking of her sweetheart and talking to her father, answering at
random, and dropping furtive little tears on to her needlework, George
was roaming about London looking for furnished apartments suitable for
a young couple with limited means.
After trying a few dozen houses where cards were exhibited in the
windows, and finding everything that he did _not_ want, such as musical
societies, religious families, new babies on each floor, and high rents
and low ceilings, he came to a little house in a street at Dalston, in
the front window of which hung a card, and on the card was written
‘First floor to let furnished. Apply within.’
George applied, and the rooms just suited him. Sixteen shillings a week
was not dear, certainly, for a bedroom and sitting-room; and though the
landlady seemed a little starchy and inclined to be acidulated, she was
very clean and respectable-looking.
That evening when Mr. Jabez Duck returned from the City, Miss Georgina
informed him that she’d let the first floor—no references, but rent a
week in advance—to a Mr. and Mrs. George Smith, a newly married couple.
‘What are they like?’
‘I don’t know,’ answered Georgina, tartly; ‘I’ve only seen the
gentleman at present, and he _is_ a gentleman.’
‘Well, my dear, I didn’t expect he was a lady;’ with which remark Mr.
Jabez sat down and had his tea, utterly oblivious of the terrible
contempt which spread itself over the features of his sister, who
despised small jokes of any kind, and her brother’s small jokes most of
all.