Ralph the Heir Part 30

"I know you are in earnest well enough," she answered.

"And you do not doubt that I love you?"

"I doubt very much whether you love father," said Polly. She spoke this so sharp and quickly that he had no reply ready. "If you and I were to be married, where should we live? I should want to have father and mother with me. You'd mean that, I suppose?" The girl had read his thoughts, and he hadn't a word to say for himself. "The truth is, you despise father, Mr. Newton."

"No, indeed."

"Yes, you do. I can see it. And perhaps it's all right that you should. I'm not saying-- Of course, he's not like you and your people. How should he be? Only I'm thinking, like should marry like."

"Polly, you're fit for any position in which a man could place you."

"No, I'm not. I'm not fit for any place as father wouldn't be fit for too. I'd make a better hand at it than father, I dare say,--because I'm younger. But I won't go anywhere where folk is to be ashamed of father. I'd like to be a lady well enough;--but it'd go against the very grain of my heart if I had a house and he wasn't to be made welcome to the best of everything."

"Polly, you're an angel!"

"I'm a young woman who knows who's been good to me. He's to give me pretty nigh everything. You wouldn't be taking me if it wasn't for that. And then, after all, I'm to turn my back on him because he ain't like your people. No; never; Mr. Newton! You're well enough, Mr. Newton; more than good enough for me, no doubt. But I won't do it. I'd cut my heart out if I was turning my back upon father." She had spoken out with a vengeance, and Ralph didn't know that there was any more to be said. He couldn't bring himself to a.s.sure her that Mr. Neefit would be a welcome guest in his house. At this moment the breeches-maker was so personally distasteful to him that he had not force enough in him to tell a lie upon the matter. They were now at the entrance of the pier, at which their ways would separate.

"Good-bye, Mr. Newton," said she. "There had better be an end of it;--hadn't there?" "Goodbye, Polly," he said, pressing her hand as he left her.

Polly, walked up home with a quick step, with a tear in her eye, and with grave thoughts in her heart. It would have been very nice. She could have loved him, and she felt the attraction, and the softness, and the sweet-smelling delicateness of gentle a.s.sociations. It would have been very nice. But she could not sever herself from her father.

She could understand that he must be distasteful to such a man as Ralph Newton. She would not blame Ralph. But the fact that it was so, shut for her the door of that Elysium. She knew that she could not be happy were she to be taken to such a mode of life as would force her to accuse herself of ingrat.i.tude to her father. And so Ralph went back to town without again seeing the breeches-maker.

The first thing he found in his lodgings was a note from his namesake.

DEAR SIR,--

I am up in town, and am very anxious to see you in respect of the arrangements which have been proposed respecting the property. Will you fix a meeting as soon as you are back?

Yours always,

RALPH NEWTON.

Charing Cross Hotel, 2 Oct., 186--.

Of course he would see his namesake. Why not? And why not take his uncle's money, and pay off Neefit, and have done with it? Neefit must be paid off, let the money come from where it would. He called at the hotel, and not finding his cousin, left a note asking him to breakfast on the following morning; and then he spent the remainder of that day in renewed doubt. He was so sick of Neefit,--whose manner of eating shrimps had been a great offence added to other offences!

And yet one of his great sorrows was that he should lose Polly.

Polly in her way was perfect, and he felt almost sure, now, that Polly loved him. Girls had no right to cling to their fathers after marriage. There was Scripture warranty against it. And yet the manner in which she had spoken of her father had greatly added to his admiration.

The two Ralphs breakfasted together, not having met each other since they were children, and having even then scarcely known each other.

Ralph the heir had been brought up a boy at the parsonage of Newton Peele, but the other Ralph had never been taken to Newton till after his grandfather's death. The late parson had died within twelve months of his father,--a wretched year, during which the Squire and the parson had always squabbled,--and then Ralph who was the heir had been transferred to the guardians.h.i.+p of Sir Thomas Underwood. It was only during the holidays of that one year that the two Ralphs had been together. The "Dear Sir" will probably be understood by the discerning reader. The Squire's son had never allowed himself to call even Gregory his cousin. Ralph the heir in writing back had addressed him as "Dear Ralph." The Squire's son thought that that was very well, but chose that any such term of familiarity should come first from him who was in truth a Newton. He felt his condition, though he was accustomed to make so light of it to his father.

The two young men shook hands together cordially, and were soon at work upon their eggs and kidneys. They immediately began about Gregory and the parsonage and the church, and the big house. The heir to the property, though he had not been at Newton for fourteen years, remembered well its slopes, and lawns, and knolls, and little valleys. He asked after this tree and that, of this old man and that old woman, of the game, and the river fishery, and the fox coverts, and the otters of which three or four were reputed to be left when he was there. Otters it seems were gone, but the foxes were there in plenty. "My father would be half mad if they drew the place blank,"

said the Squire's son.

"Does my uncle hunt much?"

"Every Monday and Sat.u.r.day, and very often on the Wednesday."

"And you?"

"I call myself a three-day man, but I often make a fourth. Garth must be very far off if he don't see me. I don't do much with any other pack."

"Does my uncle ride?"

"Yes; he goes pretty well;--he says he don't. If he gets well away I think he rides as hard as ever he did. He don't like a stern chace."

"No more do I," said Ralph the heir. "But I'm often driven to make it. What can a fellow do? An old chap turns round and goes home, and doesn't feel ashamed of himself; but we can't do that. That's the time when one ruins his horses." Then he told all about the Moonbeam and the B. & B., and his own stud. The morning was half gone, and not a word had been said about business.

The Squire's son felt that it was so, and rushed at the subject all in a hurry. "I told you what I have come up to town about."

"Oh, yes; I understand."

"I suppose I may speak plainly," said the Squire's son.

"Why not?" said Ralph the heir.

"Well; I don't know. Of course it's best. You wrote to Carey, you know."

"Yes; I wrote the very moment I had made up my mind."

"You had made up your mind, then?"

Ralph had certainly made up his mind when he wrote the letter of which they were speaking, but he was by no means sure but that his mind was not made up now in another direction. Since he had become so closely intimate with Mr. Neefit, and since Polly had so clearly explained to him her ideas as to paternal duty, his mind had veered round many points. "Yes," said he. "I had made up my mind."

"I don't suppose it can be of any use for you and me to be bargaining together," said the other Ralph.

"Not in the least."

"Of course it's a great thing to be heir to Newton. It's a nice property, and all that. Only my father thought--"

"He thought that I wanted money," said Ralph the heir.

"Just that."

"So I do. G.o.d knows I do. I would tell you everything. I would indeed. As to s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g a hard bargain, I'm the last man in London who would do it. I thought that your father might be willing to buy half the property."

"He won't do that. You see the great thing is the house and park. We should both want that;--shouldn't we? Of course it must be yours; and I feel--I don't know how I feel in asking you whether you want to sell it."

"You needn't mind that, Ralph."

"If you don't think the sum the lawyers and those chaps fixed is enough,--"

Then Ralph the heir, interrupting him, rose from his chair and spoke out. "My uncle has never understood me, and never will. He thinks hardly of me, and if he chooses to do so, I can't help it. He hasn't seen me for fourteen years, and of course he is ent.i.tled to think what he pleases. If he would have seen me the thing might have been easier."

"Don't let us go back to that, Ralph," said the Squire's son.

"I don't want to go back to anything. When it comes to a fellow's parting with such prospects as mine, it does come very hard upon him. Of course it's my own fault. I might have got along well enough;--only I haven't. I am hard up for money,--very hard up. And yet,--if you were in my place, you wouldn't like to part with it."