The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn Part 13

"Stay where you are, I order you," said the father. "I will have no temporizing until the matter grows cold. I will speak now; do you hear.

Now, listen."

She was subdued, and knew what was coming. She sat down, and waited.

Had he looked in her face, instead of in the fire, he would have seen an expression there which he would little have liked--a smile of obstinacy and self-will.

"I am not going to mince matters, and beat about the bush, Mary," he began. "What I say I mean, and will have it attended to. You are very intimate with young Hawker, and that intimacy is very displeasing to me."

"Well?" she said.

"Well," he answered. "I say it is not well. I will not have him here."

"You are rather late, father," she said. "He has had the run of this house these six months. You should have spoken before."

"I speak now, miss," said the Vicar, succeeding in working himself into a pa.s.sion, "and that is enough. I forbid him the house, now!"

"You had better tell him so, father. I won't."

"I daresay you won't," said the Vicar. "But I have told him so already this morning."

"You have!" she cried. "Father, you had no right to do that. You encouraged him here. And now my love is given, you turn round and try to break my heart."

"I never encouraged him. You all throw that in my face. You have no natural affection, girl. I always hated the man. And now I have heard things about him sufficient to bar him from any honest man's house."

"Unjust!" she said. "I will never believe it."

"I daresay you won't," said the Vicar. "Because you don't want to. You are determined to make my life miserable. There was Jim Stockbridge.

Such a n.o.ble, handsome, gentlemanly young fellow, and nothing would please you but to drive him wild, till he left the country. Now, go away, and mind what I have said. You mean to break my heart, I see."

She turned as she was going out. "Father," she said, "is James Stockbridge gone?"

"Yes; gone. Sailed a fortnight ago. And all your doing. Poor boy, I wonder where he is now."

Where is he now? Under the cliffs of Madeira. Standing on the deck of a brave s.h.i.+p, beneath a rustling cloud of canvas, watching awe-struck that n.o.ble island, like an aerial temple, brown in the lights, blue in the shadows, floating between a sapphire sea and an azure sky. Far aloft in the air is Ruivo, five thousand feet overhead, father of the great ridges and sierras that run down jagged and abrupt, till they end in wild surf-washed promontories. He is watching a mighty glen that pierces the mountain, dark with misty shadows. He is watching the waterfalls that stream from among the vineyards into the sea below, and one long white monastery, perched up among the crags above the highway of the world.

Borne upon the full north wind, the manhood and intelligence of Europe goes past, day by day, in white winged s.h.i.+ps. And above all, unheeding, century after century, the old monks have vegetated there, saying their ma.s.ses, and ringing their chapel bells, high on the windy cliff.

Chapter IX

WHEN THE KYE CAME HAME.

And when Mary had left the room, the Vicar sat musing before the fire in his study. "Well," said he to himself, "she took it quieter than I thought she would. Now, I can't blame myself. I think I have shown her that I am determined, and she seems inclined to be dutiful. Poor dear girl, I am very sorry for her. There is no doubt she has taken a fancy to this handsome young scamp. But she must get over it. It can't be so very serious as yet. At all events I have done my duty, though I can't help saying that I wish I had spoken before things went so far."

The maid looked in timidly, and told him that breakfast was ready. He went into the front parlour, and there he found his sister making tea.

She looked rather disturbed, and, as the Vicar kissed her, he asked her "where was Mary?"

"She is not well, brother," she answered. "She is going to stay upstairs; I fear something has gone wrong with her."

"She and I had some words this morning," answered he, "and that happens so seldom, that she is a little upset, that is all."

"I hope there is nothing serious, brother," said Miss Thornton.

"No; I have only been telling her that she must give up receiving George Hawker here. And she seems to have taken a sort of fancy to his society, which might have grown to something more serious. So I am glad I spoke in time."

"My dear brother, do you think you have spoken in time? I have always imagined that you had determined, for some reason which I was not master of, that she should look on Mr. Hawker as her future husband. I am afraid you will have trouble. Mary is selfwilled."

Mary was very self-willed. She refused to come down-stairs all day, and, when he was sitting down to dinner, he sent up for her. She sent him for an answer, that she did not want any dinner, and that she was going to stay where she was.

The Vicar ate his dinner notwithstanding. He was vexed, but, on the whole, felt satisfied with himself. This sort of thing, he said to himself, was to be expected. She would get over it in time. He hoped that the poor girl would not neglect her meals, and get thin. He might have made himself comfortable if he had seen her at the cold chicken in the back kitchen.

She could not quite make the matter out. She rather fancied that her father and Hawker had had some quarrel, the effects of which would wear off, and that all would come back to its old course. She thought it strange too that her father should be so different from his usual self, and this made her uneasy. One thing she was determined on, not to give up her lover, come what would. So far in life she had always had her own way, and she would have it now. All things considered, she thought that sulks would be her game. So sulks it was. To be carried on until the Vicar relented.

She sat up in her room till it was evening. Twice during the day her aunt had come up, and the first time she had got rid of her under pretence of headache, but the second time she was forced in decency to admit her, and listen entirely unedified to a long discourse, proving, beyond power of contradiction, that it was the duty of every young Englishwoman to be guided entirely by her parents in the choice of a partner for life. And how that Lady Kate, as a fearful judgment on her for marrying a captain of artillery against the wishes of her n.o.ble relatives, was now expiating her crimes on 400L. a-year, and when she might have married a duke.

Lady Kate was Miss Thornton's "awful example," her "naughty girl." She served to point many a moral of the old lady's. But Lady f.a.n.n.y, her sister, was always represented as the pattern of all Christian virtues who had crowned the hopes of her family and well-wishers by marrying a gouty marquis of sixty-three, with fifty thousand a-year. On this occasion, Mary struck the old lady dumb--"knocked her cold," our American cousins would say--by announcing that she considered Lady Emily to be a fool, but that Lady Kate seemed to be a girl of some spirit. So Miss Thornton left her to her own evil thoughts, and, as evening began to fall, Mary put on her bonnet, and went out for a walk.

Out by the back door, and round through the shrubbery, so that she gained the front gate unperceived from the windows; but ere she reached it she heard the latch go, and found herself face to face with a man.

He was an immensely tall man, six foot at least. His long heavy limbs loosely hung together, and his immense broad shoulders slightly rounded. In features he was hardly handsome, but a kindly pleasant looking face made ample atonement for want of beauty. He was dressed in knee-breeches, and a great blue coat, with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, too large even for him, was topped by a broad-brimmed beaver hat, with fur on it half-aninch long. In age, this man was about five-and-twenty, and well known he was to all the young fellows round there for skill in all sporting matters, as well as for his kind-heartedness and generosity.

When he saw Mary pop out of the little side walk right upon him, he leaned back against the gate and burst out laughing. No, hardly "burst out." His laughter seemed to begin internally and silently, till, after one or two rounds, it shook the vast fabric of his chest beyond endurance, and broke out into so loud and joyous a peal that the blackbird fled, screeching indignantly, from the ivy-tree behind him.

"What! Thomas Troubridge," said Mary. "My dear cousin, how are you?

Now, don't stand laughing there like a great gaby, but come and shake hands. What on earth do you see to laugh at in me?"

"Nothing, my cousin Poll, nothing," he replied. "You know that is my way of expressing approval. And you look so pretty standing there in the shade, that I would break any man's neck who didn't applaud. Shake hands, says you, I'll shake hands with a vengeance." So saying, he caught her in his arms, and covered her face with kisses.

"You audacious," she exclaimed, when she writhed herself free. "I'll never come within arm's-length of you again. How dare you?"

"Only cousinly affection, I a.s.sure you, Poll. Rather more violent than usual at finding myself back in Drumston. But entirely cousinly."

"Where have you been then, Tom?" she asked.

"Why, to London, to be sure. Give us ano--"

"You keep off, sir, or you'll catch it. What took you there?"

"Went to see Stockbridge and Hamlyn off."

"Then, they are gone?" she asked.

"Gone, sure enough. I was the last friend they'll see for many a long year."

"How did Stockbridge look? Was he pretty brave?"