Dr. Wortle's School Part 27

That, at any rate, was satisfactory. And the more he looked at it the less he thought that it need be altogether impossible. If Lord Bracy liked it, and Lady Bracy liked it,--and young Carstairs, as to whose liking there seemed to be no reason for any doubt,--he did not see why it should be impossible. As to Mary,--he could not conceive that she should make objection if all the others were agreed. How could she possibly fail to love the young man if encouraged to do so? Suitors who are good-looking, rich, of high rank, sweet-tempered, and at the same time thoroughly devoted, are not wont to be discarded. All the difficulty lay in the lad's youth. After all, how many n.o.blemen have done well in the world without taking a degree? Degrees, too, have been taken by married men. And, again, young men have been persistent before now, even to the extent of waiting three years. Long engagements are bad,--no doubt.

Everybody has always said so. But a long engagement may be better than none at all.

He at last made up his mind that he would speak to Mary; but he determined that he would consult his wife first. Consulting Mrs. Wortle, on his part, generally amounted to no more than instructing her. He found it sometimes necessary to talk her over, as he had done in that matter of visiting Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke; but when he set himself to work he rarely failed.

She had nowhere else to go for a certain foundation and support.

Therefore he hardly doubted much when he began his operation about this suggested engagement.

"I have got that letter this morning from Lord Bracy," he said, handing her the doc.u.ment.

"Oh dear! Has he heard about Carstairs?"

"You had better read it."

"He has told it all," she exclaimed, when she had finished the first sentence.

"He has told it all, certainly. But you had better read the letter through."

Then she seated herself and read it, almost trembling, however, as she went on with it. "Oh dear;--that is very nice what he says about you and Mary."

"It is all very nice as far as that goes. There is no reason why it should not be nice."

"It might have made him so angry!"

"Then he would have been very unreasonable."

"He acknowledges that Mary did not encourage him."

"Of course she did not encourage him. He would have been very unlike a gentleman had he thought so. But in truth, my dear, it is a very good letter. Of course there are difficulties."

"Oh;--it is impossible!"

"I do not see that at all. It must rest very much with him, no doubt;--with Carstairs; and I do not like to think that our girl's happiness should depend on any young man's constancy. But such dangers have to be encountered. You and I were engaged for three years before we were married, and we did not find it so very bad."

"It was very good. Oh, I was so happy at the time."

"Happier than you've been since?"

"Well; I don't know. It was very nice to know that you were my lover."

"Why shouldn't Mary think it very nice to have a lover?"

"But I knew that you would be true."

"Why shouldn't Carstairs be true?"

"Remember he is so young. You were in orders."

"I don't know that I was at all more likely to be true on that account. A clergyman can jilt a girl just as well as another. It depends on the nature of the man."

"And you were so good."

"I never came across a better youth than Carstairs. You see what his father says about his having a will of his own. When a young man shows a purpose of that kind he generally sticks to it."

The upshot of it all was, that Mary was to be told, and that her father was to tell her.

"Yes, papa, he did come," she said. "I told mamma all about me."

"And she told me, of course. You did what was quite right, and I should not have thought it necessary to speak to you had not Lord Bracy written to me."

"Lord Bracy has written!" said Mary. It seemed to her, as it had done to her mother, that Lord Bracy must have written angrily; but though she thought so, she plucked up her spirit gallantly, telling herself that though Lord Bracy might be angry with his own son, he could have no cause to be displeased with her.

"Yes; I have a letter, which you shall read. The young man seems to have been very much in earnest."

"I don't know," said Mary, with some little exultation at her heart.

"It seems but the other day that he was a boy, and now he has become suddenly a man." To this Mary said nothing; but she also had come to the conclusion that, in this respect, Lord Carstairs had lately changed,--very much for the better. "Do you like him, Mary?"

"Like him, papa?"

"Well, my darling; how am I to put it? He is so much in earnest that he has got his father to write to me. He was coming over himself again before he went to Oxford; but he told his father what he was going to do, and the Earl stopped him. There's the letter, and you may read it."

Mary read the letter, taking herself apart to a corner of the room, and seemed to her father to take a long time in reading it. But there was very much on which she was called upon to make up her mind during those few minutes. Up to the present time,--up to the moment in which her father had now summoned her into his study, she had resolved that it was "impossible." She had become so clear on the subject that she would not ask herself the question whether she could love the young man. Would it not be wrong to love the young man? Would it not be a longing for the top brick of the chimney, which she ought to know was out of her reach? So she had decided it, and had therefore already taught herself to regard the declaration made to her as the ebullition of a young man's folly. But not the less had she known how great had been the thing suggested to her,--how excellent was this top brick of the chimney; and as to the young man himself, she could not but feel that, had matters been different, she might have loved him. Now there had come a sudden change; but she did not at all know how far she might go to meet the change, nor what the change altogether meant. She had been made sure by her father's question that he had taught himself to hope. He would not have asked her whether she liked him,--would not, at any rate, have asked that question in that voice,--had he not been prepared to be good to her had she answered in the affirmative. But then this matter did not depend upon her father's wishes,--or even on her father's judgment. It was necessary that, before she said another word, she should find out what Lord Bracy said about it.

There she had Lord Bracy's letter in her hand, but her mind was so disturbed that she hardly knew how to read it aright at the spur of the moment.

"You understand what he says, Mary?"

"I think so, papa."

"It is a very kind letter."

"Very kind indeed. I should have thought that he would not have liked it at all."

"He makes no objection of that kind. To tell the truth, Mary, I should have thought it unreasonable had he done so. A gentleman can do no better than marry a lady. And though it is much to be a n.o.bleman, it is more to be a gentleman."

"Some people think so much of it. And then his having been here as a pupil! I was very sorry when he spoke to me."

"All that is past and gone. The danger is that such an engagement would be long."

"Very long."

"You would be afraid of that, Mary?" Mary felt that this was hard upon her, and unfair. Were she to say that the danger of a long engagement did not seem to her to be very terrible, she would at once be giving up everything. She would have declared then that she did love the young man; or, at any rate, that she intended to do so. She would have succ.u.mbed at the first hint that such succ.u.mbing was possible to her. And yet she had not known that she was very much afraid of a long engagement. She would, she thought, have been much more afraid had a speedy marriage been proposed to her. Upon the whole, she did not know whether it would not be nice to go on knowing that the young man loved her, and to rest secure on her faith in him. She was sure of this,--that the reading of Lord Bracy's letter had in some way made her happy, though she was unwilling at once to express her happiness to her father. She was quite sure that she could make no immediate reply to that question, whether she was afraid of a long engagement. "I must answer Lord Bracy's letter, you know," said the Doctor.

"Yes, papa."

"And what shall I say to him?"

"I don't know, papa."

"And yet you must tell me what to say, my darling."