Chapter 125
Henry's thin cheek flushed. "Did you give it him? Have you already given it him?"
"I gave it him to-day. I drew from him the fact of his attachment to Mary: not telling him in so many words that he should have her, but leaving it for her to decide."
"Then it will be: for I have seen where Miss Mary's love has been. How immeasurably you have relieved me!" continued Henry. "The last half-hour I have been seeing nothing but perplexity and cross-grained guardians."
"Have you?" returned Mr. Ashley. "You should have brought a little common sense to bear upon the subject, Henry."
"But my fear was, sir, that you would not bring the common sense to bear," freely spoke Henry.
"You do not quite understand me. Had I entertained an insuperable objection to Mary's becoming his wife, do you suppose I should have been so wanting in prudence and forethought as to have allowed opportunity for an attachment to ripen? I have long believed that there was no man within the circle of my acquaintance, or without it, so deserving of Mary, except in fortune: therefore I suffered him to come here, with my eyes open as to what might be the result. A very probable result, it has appeared to me. I would forgive any girl who fell in love with William Halliburton."
"And what about ways and means?"
"William's share shall be increased, and Mary will not go to him dowerless. They must live in our house in Helstonleigh; and when we want to go there we must be their guests."
"It will be the working-out of my visions," said Henry in low deep tones. "I have seen them in it in fancy; in that very house; and myself with them, my home when I please. I think you have been planning for me, as much as for them."
"Not exactly, Henry. I have not planned. I have only let things take their course. It will be happier for you, my boy, than if she had gone from us to be Lady Marr."
"Oh! if ever I felt inclined to smother a man, it was that Marr. I never, you know, brought myself to be decently civil to him. There's no answering for the vanity of maidens, and I thought it just possible he might put William's nose out of joint. What will the mother say?"
"The mother will be divided," said Mr. Ashley, a smile crossing his face. "She likes William; but she likes a t.i.tle. We must allow her a day or two to get over it. I will go and give her the tidings now, if Mary has not done so."
"Mary is with her lovier," returned Henry. "She can't have dragged herself away from him yet."
Mary, however, was not with her "lovier." As Mr. Ashley crossed the hall, he met her. She stopped
"Well, Mary, I soon sent you a candidate; though it was in defiance of your express orders. Did I do right?"
Mary burst into tears, and Mr. Ashley drew her face to him. "May G.o.d bless your future and his, my child!"
"I am afraid to tell mamma," she sobbed. "I think she will be angry. I could not help liking him."
"Why, that is the very excuse he made to me! Neither can I help liking him, Mary. I will tell mamma."
Mrs. Ashley received the tidings not altogether with equanimity. As Mr.
Ashley had surmised, she was divided between conflicting opinions. She liked and admired William; but she equally liked and admired a t.i.tle and fortune.
"Such a position to relinquish--the union with Sir Harry!"
"Had she married Sir Harry we should have lost her," said Mr. Ashley.
"Lost her!"
"To be sure we should. She would have gone to her new home, twelve miles on the other side of Helstonleigh, amidst her new connections, and have been lost to us, excepting for a formal visit now and then. As it is, we shall keep her; at her old home."
"Yes, there's a great deal to be said on both sides," acknowledged Mrs.
Ashley. "What does Henry say?"
"That he thinks I have been planning to secure his happiness. Had Mary married away, we--when we quit this scene--must have left him to his lonely self: now, we shall leave him to them. Things are wisely ordered," impressively added Mr. Ashley: "in this, as in all else.
Margaret, let us accept them, and be grateful."
Mrs. Ashley went to seek William. "You will be a loving husband to her,"
she said with agitation. "You will take care of her and cherish her?"
"With the best endeavours of my whole life," he fervently answered, as he took Mrs. Ashley's hands in his.
It was a happy group that evening. Henry lay on his sofa in complacent ease, Mary drawn down beside him, and William leaning over the back of it, while Mr. and Mrs. Ashley sat at a distance, partially out of hearing.
"Have you heard what the master says?" asked Henry. "He thinks you have been getting up your bargain out of complaisance to me. You are aware, I hope, Mr. William, that whoever takes Mary must take me?"
"I am perfectly willing."
"It is well you are! And--do you know where you are to live?"
William shook his head. "You can understand how all these future considerations have weighed me down," he said, glancing at Mary.
"You are to live at the house in Helstonleigh. It's to be converted into yours by some patent process. The master had an eye to this, I know, when he declined to take out any of the furniture, upon our removal here. The house is to be yours, and the run of it is to be mine; and I shall grumble away to my heart's content at you both. What do you answer to that, Mr. William? I don't ask her; she's n.o.body."
"I can only answer that the more you run into it, the better pleased we shall be. And we can stand any extent of grumbling."
"I am glad you can. You ought to by this time, for you have been pretty well seasoned to it. So, in the Helstonleigh house, remember, my old rooms are mine; and I intend to be the plague of your lives. After a time--may it be a long time!--I suppose it will be 'Mr. Halliburton of Deoffam Hall.'"
"What nonsense you talk, Henry!"
"Nonsense? I shall make it over to you. Catch me sticking myself out here in solitary state to the admiration of the peac.o.c.k! What's the matter with you now, you two! Oh, well, if you turn up your noses at Deoffam, it shall never be yours. I'll leave it to the eldest chickabiddy. And mark you, please! I shall have him named 'Ashley,' and stand G.o.dfather to him; and, he'll be mine, and not yours. I shall do just as I like with the whole lot, if they count a score, and spoil them as much as I choose."
"What _is_ the matter there?" exclaimed Mrs. Ashley, perceiving a commotion on the sofa.
Mary succeeded in freeing herself, and went away with a crimsoned face.
"Mamma, I think Henry must be going out of his mind! He is talking so absurdly."
"Absurdly! Was what I said absurd, William?"
William laughed. "It was premature, at any rate."
Henry stretched up his hands and laid hold of William's. "It is true what Mary says--that I must be going out of my mind. So I am: with joy."
But the report of Herbert Dare's death proved to be a false one.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DREAM REALIZED.