"Oh, certainly. I will tell you now why I have come over."

"I can a.s.sure you that such is not my habit," continued Mr. Prosper, who was thinking much more of the unaccustomed oath which he had sworn than of his brother-in-law's visit, strange as it was. "No one, as a rule, is more guarded in his expressions than I am. How it should have come to pa.s.s that I was so stirred I can hardly tell. But Miss Thoroughbung had said certain words which had moved me very much." She had called him "Peter" and "deary," and had spoken of him as "keeping company" with her. All these disgusting terms of endearment he could not repeat to his brother-in-law, but felt it necessary to allude to them.

"I trust that you may be happy with her when she is your wife."

"I can't say. I really don't know. It's a very important step to take at my age, and I'm not quite sure that I should be doing wisely."

"It's not too late," said Mr. Annesley.

"I don't know. I can't quite say." Then Mr. Prosper drew himself up, remembering that it would not become him to discuss the matter of his marriage with the father of his heir.

"I have come over here," said Mr. Annesley, "to say a few words about Harry." Mr. Prosper again drew himself up. "Of course you're aware that Harry is at present living with us." Here Mr. Prosper bowed. "Of course, in his altered circ.u.mstances, it will not do that he shall be idle, and yet he does not like to take a final step without letting you know what it is." Here Mr. Prosper bowed twice. "There is a gentleman of fortune going out to the United States on a mission which will probably occupy him for three or four years. I am not exactly warranted in mentioning his name, but he has taken in hand a political project of much importance." Again Mr. Prosper bowed. "Now he has offered Harry the place of private secretary, on condition that Harry will undertake to stay the entire term. He is to have a salary of three hundred a year, and his travelling expenses will of course be paid for him. If he goes, poor boy! he will in all probability remain in his new home and become a citizen of the United States. Under these circ.u.mstances I have thought it best to step up and tell you in a friendly manner what his plans are." Then he had told his tale, and Mr. Prosper again bowed.

The rector had been very crafty. There was no doubt about the wealthy gentleman with the American project, and the salary had been offered.

But in other respects there had been some exaggeration. It was well known to the rector that Mr. Prosper regarded America and all her inst.i.tutions with a religious hatred. An American was to him an ignorant, impudent, foul-mouthed, fraudulent creature, to have any acquaintance with whom was a disgrace. Could he have had his way, he would have reconst.i.tuted the United States as British Colonies at a moment's notice. Were he to die without having begotten another heir, Buston must become the property of Harry Annesley; and it would be dreadful to him to think that Buston should be owned by an American citizen. "The salary offered is too good to be abandoned," said Mr.

Annesley, when he saw the effect which his story had produced.

"Everything is going against me!" exclaimed Mr. Prosper.

"Well: I will not talk about that. I did not come here to discuss Harry or his sins,--nor, for the matter of that, his virtues. But I felt it would be improper to let him go upon his journey without communicating with you." So saying, he took his departure and walked back to the rectory.

CHAPTER XLV.

A DETERMINED YOUNG LADY.

When this offer had been made to Harry Annesley he found it to be absolutely necessary that he should write a farther letter to Florence.

He was quite aware that he had been forbidden to write. He had written one letter since that order had been given to him, and no reply had come to him. He had not expected a reply; but still her silence had been grievous to him. It might be that she was angry with him, really angry.

But let that be as it might, he could not go to America, and be absent for so long a period, without telling her. She and her mother were still at Brussels when January came. Mrs. Mountjoy had gone there, as he had understood, for a month, and was still at the emba.s.sy when three months had pa.s.sed. "I think I shall stay here the winter," Mrs. Mountjoy had said to Sir Magnus, "but we will take lodgings. I see that very nice sets of apartments are to be let." But Sir Magnus would not hear of this. He said, and said truly, that the ministerial house was large; and at last he declared the honest truth. His sister-in-law had been very kind to him about money, and had said not a word on that troubled subject since her arrival. Mrs. Mountjoy, with that delicacy which still belongs to some English ladies, would have suffered extreme poverty rather than have spoken on such a matter. In truth she suffered nothing, and hardly thought about it. But Sir Magnus was grateful, and told her that if she went to look for lodgings he should go to the lodgings and say that they were not wanted. Therefore Mrs. Mountjoy remained where she was, entertaining a feeling of increased good-will toward Sir Magnus.

Life went on rather sadly with Florence. Anderson was as good as his word. He pleaded his own cause no farther, telling both Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy of the pledge he had made. He did in fact tell two or three other persons, regarding himself as a martyr to chivalry. All this time he went about his business looking very wretched. But though he did not speak for himself, he could not hinder others from speaking for him.

Sir Magnus took occasion to say a word on the subject once daily to his niece. Her mother was constant in her attacks. But Lady Mountjoy was the severest of the three, and was accounted by Florence as her bitterest enemy. The words which pa.s.sed between them were not the most affectionate in the world. Lady Mountjoy would call her 'miss,' to which Florence would reply by addressing her aunt as 'my lady.' "Why do you call me 'my lady?' It isn't usual in common conversation." "Why do you call me 'miss?' If you cease to call me 'miss,' I'll cease to call you 'my lady.'" But no reverence was paid by the girl to the wife of the British Minister. It was this that Lady Mountjoy specially felt,--as she complained to her companion, Miss Abbott. Then another cause for trouble sprang up during the winter, of which mention must be made farther on.

The result was that Florence was instant with her mother to take her back to England.

We will return, however, to Harry Annesley, and give the letter, verbatim, which he wrote to Florence:

"DEAR FLORENCE,--I wonder whether you ever think of me or ever remember that I exist? I know you do. I cannot have been forgotten like that. And you yourself are the truest girl that ever owned to loving a man. But there comes a chill across my heart when I think how long it is since I wrote to you, and that I have not had a line even to acknowledge my letter. You bade me not to write, and you have not even forgiven me for disobeying your order. I cannot but get stupid ideas into my mind, which one word from you would dissipate.

"Now, however, I must write again, order or no order. Between a man and a woman circ.u.mstanced as you and I, things will arise which make it inc.u.mbent on one or the other to write. It is absolutely necessary that you should now know what are my intentions, and understand the reasons which have actuated me. I have found myself left in a most unfortunate condition by my uncle's folly. He is going on with a stupid marriage for the purpose of disinheriting me, and has in the mean time stopped the allowance which he had made me since I left college. Of course I have no absolute claim on him. But I cannot understand how he can reconcile himself to do so, when he himself prevented my going to the Bar, saying that it would be unnecessary.

"But so it is, I am driven to look about for myself. It is very hard at my time of life to find an opening in any profession. I think I told you before that I had ideas of going to Cambridge and endeavoring to get pupils, trusting to my fellowship rather than to my acquirements. But this I have always looked upon with great dislike, and would only have taken to it if nothing else was to be had. Now there has come forward an old college acquaintance, a man who is three or four years my senior, who has offered to take me to America as his private secretary. He proposes to remain there for three years. I of course shall not bind myself to stay as long; but I may not improbably do so. He is to pay my expenses and to give me a salary of three hundred a year. This will, perhaps, lead to nothing else, but will for the present be better than nothing. I am to start in just a month from the present time.

"Now you know it all except that the man's name is Sir William Crook. He is a decent sort of a fellow, and has got a wife who is to go with him.

He is the hardest working man I know, but, between you and me, will never set the Thames on fire. If the Thames is to be illumined at all, I rather think that I shall be expected to do it.

"Now, my own one, what am I to say about you, and of myself, as your husband that is to be? Will you wait, at any rate, for three years with the conviction that the three years will too probably end in your having to wait again?

"I do feel that in my altered position I ought to give you back your troth, and tell you that things shall be as they used to be before that happy night at Mrs. Armitage's party. I do not know but that it is clearly my duty. I almost think that it is. But I am sure of this,--that it is the one thing in the world that I cannot do. I don't think that a man ought to be asked to tear himself altogether in pieces because some one has ill-treated him. At any rate I cannot. If you say that it must be so, you shall say it. I don't suppose it will kill me, but it will go a long way.

"In writing so far I have not said a word of love, because, as far as I understand you, that is a subject on which you expect me to be silent.

When you order me not to write, I suppose you intend that I am to write no love-letters. This, therefore, you will take simply as a matter of business, and as such, I suppose, you will acknowledge it. In this way I shall at any rate see your handwriting.

"Yours affectionately,

"HARRY ANNESLEY."

Harry, when he had written this letter, considered that it had been cold, calm, and philosophical. He could not go to America for three years without telling her of his purpose; nor could he mention that purpose, as he thought, in any language less glowing. But Florence, when she received it, did not regard it in the same light.

To her thinking the letter was full of love, and of love expressed in the warmest possible language. "Sir William Crook!" she said to herself.

"What can he want of Harry in America for three years? I am sure he is a stupid man. Will I wait? Of course I will wait. What are three years?

And why should I not wait? But, for the matter of that--" Then thoughts came into her mind which even to herself she could not express in words.

Sir William Crook had got a wife, and why should not Harry take a wife also? She did not see why a private secretary should not be a married man; and as for money, there would be plenty for such a style of life as they would live. She could not exactly propose this, but she thought that if she were to see Harry just for one short interview before he started, that he might probably then propose it himself.

"Things be as they used to be!" she exclaimed to herself. "Never! Things cannot be as they used to be. I know what is his duty. It is his duty not to think of anything of the kind. Remember that he exists," she said, turning back to the earlier words of the letter. "That of course is his joke. I wonder whether he knows that every moment of my life is devoted to him. Of course I bade him not to write. But I can tell him now that I have never gone to bed without his letter beneath my pillow."

This and much more of the same kind was uttered in soliloquies, but need not be repeated at length to the reader.

But she had to think what steps she must first take. She must tell her mother of Harry's intention. She had never for an instant allowed her mother to think that her affection had dwindled, or her purpose failed her. She was engaged to marry Harry Annesley, and marry him some day she would. That her mother should be sure of that was the immediate purpose of her life. And in carrying out that purpose she must acquaint her mother with the news which this letter had brought to her. "Mamma, I have got something to tell you."

"Well, my dear?"

"Harry Annesley is going to America!" There was something pleasing to Mrs. Mountjoy in the sound of these words. If Harry Annesley went to America he might be drowned, or it might more probably be that he would never come back. America was, to her imagination, a long way off. Lovers did not go to America except with the intention of deserting their ladyloves. Such were her ideas. She felt at the moment that Florence would be more easily approached in reference either to her cousin Mountjoy or to Mr. Anderson. Another lover had sprung up, too, in Brussels, of whom a word shall be said by-and-by. If her Harry, the pernicious Harry, should have taken himself to America, the chances of all these three gentlemen would be improved. Any one of them would now be accepted by Mrs. Mountjoy as a bar fatal to Harry Annesley. Mountjoy was again the favorite with her. She had heard that he had returned to Tretton, and was living amicably with his father. She knew, even, of the income allotted to him for the present,--of the six hundred pounds a year,--and had told Florence that as a preliminary income it was more than double that two hundred and fifty pounds which had been taken away from Harry,--taken away never to be restored. There was not much in this argument, but still she thought well to use it. The captain was living with his father, and she did not believe a word about the entail having been done away with. It was certain that Harry's uncle had quarrelled with him, and she did understand that a baby at Buston would altogether rob Harry of his chance. And then look at the difference in the properties! It was thus that she argued the matter. But in truth her word had been pledged to Mountjoy Scarborough, and Mountjoy Scarborough had ever been a favorite with her. Though she could talk about the money, it was not the money that touched her feelings. "Well;--he may go to America. It is a dreadful destiny for a young man, but in his case it may be the best thing that he can do."

"Of course he intends to come back again."

"That is as it may be."

"I do not understand what you mean by a dreadful destiny, mamma. I don't see that it is a destiny at all. He is getting a very good offer for a year or two, and thinks it best to take it. I might go with him, for that matter."

A thunder-bolt had fallen at Mrs. Mountjoy's feet! Florence go with him to America! Among all the trials which had come upon her with reference to this young man there had been nothing so bad as this proposal. Go with him! The young man was to start in a month! Then she began to think whether it would be within her power to stop her daughter. What would all the world be to her with one daughter, and she in America, married to Harry Annesley? Her quarrel with Florence was not at all as was the quarrel of Lady Mountjoy. Lady Mountjoy would be glad to get rid of the girl, whom she thought to be impertinent and believed to be false. But to her mother Florence was the very apple of her eye. It was because she thought that Mountjoy Scarborough was a grand fellow, and because she thought all manner of evil of Harry Annesley, that she wished Florence to marry her cousin, and to separate herself forever from the other.

When she had heard that Harry was to go to America she had rejoiced, as though he was to be transported to Botany Bay. Her ideas were old-fashioned. But when it was hinted that Florence was to go with him she nearly fell to the ground.

Florence certainly had behaved badly in making the suggestion. She had not intended to make it,--had not, in truth, thought of it. But when her mother talked of Harry's destiny, as though some terrible evil had come upon him,--as though she were speaking of a poor wretch condemned to be hanged, when all chances of a reprieve were over,--then her spirit rose within her. She had not meant to say that she was going. Harry had never asked her to go. "If you talk of his destiny I am quite prepared to share it with him." That was her meaning. But her mother already saw her only child in the hands of those American savages. She threw herself on to a sofa, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears.

"I don't say that I am going, mamma."

"My darling--my dearest--my child!"

"Only that there is no reason why I shouldn't, except that it would not suit him. At least I suppose it would not."

"Has he said so?"

"He has said nothing about it."

"Thank Heaven for that! He does not intend to rob me of my child."