Ralph the Heir Part 53

"I suppose I can guess it," said Gregory, with still a deeper sound of woe.

"I don't think you can. It is quite possible you may, however. You know Mary Bonner;--don't you?"

The cloud upon the parson's brow was at once lightened. "No," said he. "I have heard of her, of course."

"You have never seen Mary Bonner?"

"I have not been up in town since she came. What should take me up?

And if I were there, I doubt whether I should go out to Fulham. What is the use of going?" But still, though he spoke thus, there was something less of melancholy in his voice than when he had first spoken. Ralph did not immediately go on with his story, and his brother now asked a question. "But what of Mary Bonner? Is she to be the future mistress of the Priory?"

"G.o.d only knows."

"But you mean to ask her?"

"I have asked her."

"And you are engaged?"

"By no means. I wish I were. You haven't seen her, but I suppose you have heard of her?"

"Ralph spoke of her,--and told me that she was very lovely."

"Upon my word, I don't think that even in a picture I ever saw anything approaching to her beauty. You've seen that thing at Dresden. She is more like that than anything I know. She seems almost too grand for a fellow to speak to, and yet she looks as if she didn't know it. I don't think she does know it." Gregory said not a word, but looked at his brother, listening. "But, by George there's a dignity about her, a sort of self-possession, a kind of noli me tangere, you understand, which makes a man almost afraid to come near her. She hasn't sixpence in the world."

"That needn't signify to you now."

"Not in the least. I only just mention it to explain. And her father was n.o.body in particular,--some old general who used to wear a c.o.c.ked hat and keep the n.i.g.g.e.rs down out in one of the colonies. She herself talked of coming home here to be a governess;--by Jove! yes, a governess. Well, to look at her, you'd think she was born a countess in her own right."

"Is she so proud?"

"No;--it's not that. I don't know what it is. It's the way her head is put on. Upon my word, to see her turn her neck is the grandest thing in the world. I never saw anything like it. I don't know that she's proud by nature,--though she has got a dash of that too. Don't you know there are some horses show their breeding at a glance? I don't suppose they feel it themselves; but there it is on them, like the Hall-mark on silver. I don't know whether you can understand a man being proud of his wife."

"Indeed I can."

"I don't mean of her personal qualities, but of the outside get up.

Some men are proud of their wives' clothes, or their jewels, or their false hair. With Mary nothing of that sort could have any effect; but to see her step, or move her head, or lift her arm, is enough to make a man feel,--feel,--feel that she beats every other woman in the world by chalks."

"And she is to be mistress here?"

"Indeed she should,--to-morrow, if she'd come."

"You did ask her?"

"Yes,--I asked her."

"And what did she say?"

"Nothing that I cared to hear. She had just been told all this accursed story about Polly Neefit. I'll never forgive Sir Thomas,--never." The reader will be pleased to remember that Sir Thomas did not mention Miss Neefit's name, or any of the circ.u.mstances of the Neefit contract, to his niece.

"He could hardly have wished to set her against you."

"I don't know; but he must have told her. She threw it in my teeth that I ought to marry Polly."

"Then she did not accept you?"

"By George! no;--anything but that. She is one of those women who, as I fancy, never take a man at the first offer. It isn't that they mean to s.h.i.+lly and shally and make a fuss, but there's a sort of majesty about them which instinctively declines to yield itself.

Unconsciously they feel something like offence at the suggestion that a man should think enough of himself to ask for such a possession.

They come to it, after a time."

"And she will come to it, after a time?"

"I didn't mean to say that. I don't intend, however, to give it up."

Ralph paused in his story, considering whether he would tell his brother what Mary had confessed to him as to her affection for some one else, but he resolved, at last, that he would say nothing of that. He had himself put less of confidence in that a.s.sertion than he did in her rebuke with reference to the other young woman to whom she chose to consider that he owed himself. It was his nature to think rather of what absolutely concerned himself, than of what related simply to her. "I shan't give her up. That's all I can say," he continued. "I'm not the sort of fellow to give things up readily." It did occur to Gregory at that moment that his brother had not shown much self-confidence on that question of giving up the property. "I'm pretty constant when I've set my mind on a thing. I'm not going to let any woman break my heart for me, but I shall stick to it."

He was not going to let any woman break his heart for him! Gregory, as he heard this, knew that his brother regarded him as a man whose heart was broken, and he could not help asking himself whether or not it was good for a man that he should be able to suffer as he suffered, because a woman was fair and yet not fair for him. That his own heart was broken,--broken after the fas.h.i.+on of which his brother was speaking,--he was driven to confess to himself. It was not that he should die, or that his existence would be one long continued hour of misery to him. He could eat and drink, and do his duty and enjoy his life. And yet his heart was broken. He could not piece it so that it should be fit for any other woman. He could not teach himself not to long for that one woman who would not love him. The romance of his life had formed itself there, and there it must remain. In all his solitary walks it was of her that he still thought. Of all the bright castles in the air which he still continued to build, she was ever the mistress. And yet he knew that she would never make him happy.

He had absolutely resolved that he would not torment her by another request. But he gave himself no praise for his constancy, looking on himself as being somewhat weak in that he could not overcome his longing. When Ralph declared that he would not break his heart, but that, nevertheless, he would stick to the girl, Gregory envied him, not doubting of his success, and believing that it was to men of this calibre that success in love is generally given. "I hope with all my heart that you may win her," he said.

"I must run my chance like another. There's no 'Veni, vidi, vici,'

about it, I can tell you; nor is it likely that there should be with such a girl as Mary Bonner. Fill your gla.s.s, old fellow. We needn't sit mumchance because we're thinking of our loves."

"I had thought,--" began Gregory very slowly.

"What did you think?"

"I had thought once that you were thinking of--Clarissa."

"What put that into your head?"

"If you had I should never have said a word, nor fancied any wrong.

Of course she'll marry some one. And I don't know why I should ever wish that it should not be you."

"But what made you think of it?"

"Well; I did. It was just a word that Patience said in one of her letters."

"What sort of word?" asked Ralph, with much interest.

"It was nothing, you know. I just misunderstood her. When one is always thinking of a thing everything turns itself that way. I got it into my head that she meant to hint to me that as you and Clary were fond of each other, I ought to forget it all. I made up my mind that I would;--but it is so much easier to make up one's mind than to do it." There came a tear in each eye as he spoke, and he turned his face towards the fire that his brother might not see them. And there they remained hot and oppressive, because he would not raise his hand to rub them away.

"I wonder what it was she said," asked Ralph.

"Oh, nothing. Don't you know how a fellow has fancies?"

"There wasn't anything in it," said Ralph.

"Oh;--of course not."

"Patience might have imagined it," said Ralph. "That's just like such a sister as Patience."