"And has offered to pay his bill for him if he'll carry on the business for Goarly. Whoever heard the like of that?"

"What sort of a man is he?" asked the doctor.

"A great man in his own country everybody says," answered Runciman.

"I wish he'd stayed there. He comes over here and thinks he understands everything just as though he had lived here all his life.

Did you say gin cold, Larry;--and rum for you, Mr. Masters?" Then the landlord gave the orders to the girl who had answered the bell.

"But they say he's actually going to Lord Rufford's," said young Botsey who would have given one of his fingers to be asked to the lord's house.

"They are all going from Bragton," said Runciman.

"The young squire is going to ride one of my horses," said Harry Stubbings.

"That'll be an easy three pounds in your pockets, Harry," said the doctor. In answer to which Harry remarked that he took all that as it came, the heavies and lights together, and that there was not much change to be got out of three sovereigns when some gentlemen had had a horse out for the day,--particularly when a gentleman didn't pay perhaps for twelve months.

"The whole party is going," continued the landlord. "How he is to have the cheek to go into his Lordship's house after what he is doing is more than I can understand."

"What business is it of his?" said Larry angrily. "That's what I want to know. What'd he think if we went and interfered over there? I shouldn't be surprised if he got a little rough usage before he's out of the county. I'm told he came across Bean when he was ferretting about the other day, and that Bean gave him quite as good as he brought."

"I say he's a spy," said Ribbs the butcher from his seat on the sofa.

"I hates a spy."

Soon after that Mr. Masters left the room and Larry Twentyman followed him. There was something almost ridiculous in the way the young man would follow the attorney about on these Sat.u.r.day evenings,--as though he could make love to the girl by talking to the father. But on this occasion he had something special to say. "So Mary's going to Cheltenham, Mr. Masters."

"Yes, she is. You don't see any objection to that, I hope."

"Not in the least, Mr. Masters. I wish she might go anywhere to enjoy herself. And from all I've heard Lady Ushant is a very good sort of lady."

"A very good sort of lady. She won't do Mary any harm, Twentyman."

"I don't suppose she will. But there's one thing I should like to know. Why shouldn't she tell me before she goes that she'll have me?"

"I wish she would with all my heart."

"And Mrs. Masters is all on my side."

"Quite so."

"And the girls have always been my friends."

"I think we are all your friends, Twentyman. I'm sure Mary is. But that isn't marrying;--is it?"

"If you would speak to her, Mr. Masters."

"What would you have me say? I couldn't bid my girl to have one man or another. I could only tell her what I think, and that she knows already."

"If you were to say that you wished it! She thinks so much about you."

"I couldn't tell her that I wished it in a manner that would drive her into it. Of course it would be a very good match. But I have only to think of her happiness and I must leave her to judge what will make her happy."

"I should like to have it fixed some way before she starts," said Larry in an altered tone.

"Of course you are your own master, Twentyman. And you have behaved very well."

"This is a kind of thing that a man can't stand," said the young farmer sulkily. "Good night, Mr. Masters." Then he walked off home to Chowton Farm meditating on his own condition and trying to make up his mind to leave the scornful girl and become a free man. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't even quite make up his mind that he would try to do it. There was a bitterness within as he thought of permanent fixed failure which he could not digest. There was a craving in his heart which he did not himself quite understand, but which made him think that the world would be unfit to be lived in if he were to be altogether separated from Mary Masters. He couldn't separate himself from her. It was all very well thinking of it, talking of it, threatening it; but in truth he couldn't do it. There might of course be an emergency in which he must do it. She might declare that she loved some one else and she might marry that other person. In that event he saw no other alternative but,--as he expressed it to himself,--"to run a mucker." Whether the "mucker"

should be run against Mary, or against the fortunate lover, or against himself, he did not at present resolve.

But he did resolve as he reached his own hall-door that he would make one more pa.s.sionate appeal to Mary herself before she started for Cheltenham, and that he would not make it out on a public path, or in the Masters' family parlour before all the Masters' family;--but that he would have her secluded, by herself, so that he might speak out all that was in him, to the best of his ability.

CHAPTER XX.

THERE ARE CONVENANCES.

Before the Monday came the party to Rufford Hall had become quite a settled thing and had been very much discussed. On the Sat.u.r.day the Senator had been driven to the meet, a distance of about ten miles, on purpose that he might see Lord Rufford and explain his views about Goarly. Lord Rufford had bowed and stared, and laughed, and had then told the Senator that he thought he would "find himself in the wrong box." "That's quite possible, my Lord. I guess, it won't be the first time I've been in the wrong box, my Lord. Sometimes I do get right.

But I thought I would not enter your lordship's house as a guest without telling you what I was doing." Then Lord Rufford a.s.sured him that this little affair about Goarly would make no difference in that respect. Mr. Gotobed again scrutinised the hounds and Tony Tuppett, laughed in his sleeve because a fox wasn't found in the first quarter of an hour, and after that was driven back to Bragton.

The Sunday was a day of preparation for the Trefoils. Of course they didn't go to church. Arabella indeed was never up in time for church and Lady Augustus only went when her going would be duly registered among fashionable people. Mr. Gotobed laughed when he was invited and asked whether anybody was ever known to go to church two Sundays running at Bragton. "People have been known to refuse with less acrimony," said Morton. "I always speak my mind, sir," replied the Senator. Poor John Morton, therefore, went to his parish church alone.

There were many things to be considered by the Trefoils. There was the question of dress. If any good was to be done by Arabella at Rufford it must be done with great despatch. There would be the dinner on Monday, the hunting on Tuesday, the ball, and then the interesting moment of departure. No girl could make better use of her time; but then, think of her difficulties! All that she did would have to be done under the very eyes of the man to whom she was engaged, and to whom she wished to remain engaged,--unless, as she said to herself, she could "pull off the other event." A great deal must depend on appearance. As she and her mother were out on a lengthened cruise among long-suffering acquaintances, going to the De Brownes after the Gores, and the Smijthes after the De Brownes, with as many holes to run to afterwards as a four-year-old fox,--though with the same probability of finding them stopped,--of course she had her wardrobe with her. To see her night after night one would think that it was supplied with all that wealth would give. But there were deficiencies and there were make-shifts, very well known to herself and well understood by her maid. She could generally supply herself with gloves by bets, as to which she had never any scruple in taking either what she did win or did not, and in dunning any who might chance to be defaulters. On occasions too, when not afraid of the bystanders, she would venture on a hat, and though there was difficulty as to the payment, not being able to give her number as she did with gloves, so that the tradesmen could send the article, still she would manage to get the hat,--and the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. It was said of her that she once offered to lay an Ulster to a sealskin jacket, but that the young man had coolly said that a sealskin jacket was beyond a joke and had asked her whether she was ready to "put down" her Ulster. These were little difficulties from which she usually knew how to extricate herself without embarra.s.sment; but she had not expected to have to marshal her forces against such an enemy as Lord Rufford, or to sit down for the besieging of such a city this campaign. There were little things which required to be done, and the lady's-maid certainly had not time to go to church on Sunday.

But there were other things which troubled her even more than her clothes. She did not much like Bragton, and at Bragton, in his own house, she did not very much like her proposed husband. At Washington he had been somebody. She had met him everywhere then, and had heard him much talked about. At Washington he had been a popular man and had had the reputation of being a rich man also;--but here, at home, in the country he seemed to her to fall off in importance, and he certainly had not made himself pleasant. Whether any man could be pleasant to her in the retirement of a country house,--any man whom she would have no interest in running down,--she did not ask herself.

An engagement to her must under any circ.u.mstances be a humdrum thing,--to be brightened only by wealth. But here she saw no signs of wealth. Nevertheless she was not prepared to shove away the plank from below her feet, till she was sure that she had a more substantial board on which to step. Her mother, who perhaps did not see in the character of Morton all the charms which she would wish to find in a son-in-law, was anxious to shake off the Bragton alliance; but Arabella, as she said so often both to herself and to her mother, was sick of the dust of the battle and conscious of fading strength.

She would make this one more attempt, but must make it with great care. When last in town this young lord had whispered a word or two to her, which then had set her hoping for a couple of days; and now, when chance had brought her into his neighbourhood, he had gone out of his way,--very much out of his way,--to renew his acquaintance with her. She would be mad not to give herself the chance;--but yet she could not afford to let the plank go from under her feet.

But the part she had to play was one which even she felt to be almost beyond her powers. She could perceive that Morton was beginning to be jealous,--and that his jealousy was not of that nature which strengthens a tie but which is apt to break it altogether. His jealousy, if fairly aroused, would not be appeased by a final return to himself. She had already given him occasion to declare himself off, and if thoroughly angered he would no doubt use it. Day by day, and almost hour by hour, he was becoming more sombre and hard, and she was well aware that there was reason for it. It did not suit her to walk about alone with him through the shrubberies. It did not suit her to be seen with his arm round her waist. Of course the people of Bragton would talk of the engagement, but she would prefer that they should talk of it with doubt. Even her own maid had declared to Mrs. Hopkins that she did not know whether there was or was not an engagement,--her own maid being at the time almost in her confidence.

Very few of the comforts of a lover had been vouchsafed to John Morton during this sojourn at Bragton and very little had been done in accordance with his wishes. Even this visit to Rufford, as she well knew, was being made in opposition to him. She hoped that her lover would not attempt to ride to hounds on the Tuesday, so that she might be near the lord unseen by him,--and that he would leave Rufford on the Wednesday before herself and her mother. At the ball of course she could dance with Lord Rufford, and could keep her eye on her lover at the same time.

She hardly saw Morton on the Sunday afternoon, and she was again closeted on the Monday till lunch. They were to start at four and there would not be much more than time after lunch for her to put on her travelling gear. Then, as they all felt, there was a difficulty about the carriages. Who was to go with whom? Arabella, after lunch, took the bull by the horns. "I suppose," she said as Morton followed her out into the hall, "mamma and I had better go in the phaeton."

"I was thinking that Lady Augustus might consent to travel with Mr.

Gotobed and that you and I might have the phaeton."

"Of course it would be very pleasant," she answered smiling.

"Then why not let it be so?"

"There are convenances."

"How would it be if you and I were going without anybody else? Do you mean to say that in that case we might not sit in the same carriage?"

"I mean to say that in that case I should not go at all. It isn't done in England. You have been in the States so long that you forget all our old-fashioned ways."

"I do think that is nonsense." She only smiled and shook her head.

"Then the Senator shall go in the phaeton, and I will go with you and your mother."