Mr. Scarborough's Family Part 94

"What am I to say, Mr. Anderson?"

"I'll just tell you how it all is. You know what my prospects are." She did not quite remember, but she bowed to him. "You must know, because I told you. There is nothing I kept concealed." Again she bowed. "There can be no possible family reason for my going to Kamtchatka."

"Kamtchatka!"

"Yes, indeed;--the F.O." (The F.O. always meant the Foreign Office.) "The F.O. wants a young man on whom it can thoroughly depend to go to Kamtchatka. The allowances are handsome enough, but the allowances are nothing to me."

"Why should you go?"

"It is for you to decide. Yes, you can detain me. If I go to that bleak and barren desert, it will merely be to court exile from that quarter of the globe in which you and I would have to live together and not separate. That I cannot stand. In Kamtchatka--Well, there is no knowing what may happen to me then."

"But I'm engaged to be married to Mr. Annesley."

"You told me something of that before."

"But it's all fixed. Mamma will tell you. It's to be this day fortnight.

If you'd only stay and come as one of my friends."

Surely such a proposition as this is the unkindest that any young lady can make; but we believe that it is made not unfrequently. In the present case it received no reply.

Mr. Anderson took up his hat and rushed to the door. Then he returned for a moment. "G.o.d bless you, Miss Mountjoy!" he said. "In spite of the cruelty of that suggestion, I must bid G.o.d bless you." And then he was gone. About a week afterward M. Grascour appeared upon the scene with precisely the same intention. He, too, retained in his memory a most vivid recollection of the young lady and her charms. He had heard that Captain Scarborough had inherited Tretton, and had been informed that it was not probable that Miss Florence Mountjoy would marry her cousin. He was somewhat confused in his ideas, and thought, that were he now to re-appear on the scene there might still be a chance for him. There was no lover more unlike Mr. Anderson than M. Grascour. Not even for Florence Mountjoy, not even to own her, would he go to Kamtchatka; and were he not to see her he would simply go back to Brussels. And yet he loved her as well as he knew how to love any one, and, would she have become his wife, would have treated her admirably. He had looked at it all round, and could see no reason why he should not marry her. Like a persevering man, he persevered; but as he did so, no glimmering of an idea of Kamtchatka disturbed him.

But from this farther trouble Mrs. Mountjoy was able to save her daughter. M. Grascour made his way into Mrs. Mountjoy's presence, and there declared his purpose. He had been sent over on some question connected with the literature of commerce, and had ventured to take the opportunity of coming down to Cheltenham. He hoped that the truth of his affection would be evinced by the journey. Mrs. Mountjoy had observed, while he was making his little speech, how extremely well brushed was his hat. She had observed, also, that poor Mr. Anderson's hat was in such a condition as almost to make her try to smooth it down for him.

"If you make objection to my hat, you should brush it yourself," she had heard Harry say to Florence, and Florence had taken the hat, and had brushed it with fond, lingering touches.

"M. Grascour, I can a.s.sure you that she is really engaged," Mrs.

Mountjoy had said. M. Grascour bowed and sighed. "She is to be married this day week."

"Indeed!"

"To Mr. Harry Annesley."

"Oh-h-h! I remember the gentleman's name. I had thought--"

"Well, yes; there were objections, but they have luckily disappeared."

Though Mrs. Mountjoy was only as yet happy in a melancholy manner, rejoicing with but bated joy at her girl's joys, she was too loyal to say a word now against Harry Annesley.

"I should not have troubled you, but--"

"I am sure of that, M. Grascour; and we are both of us grateful to you for your good opinion. I know very well how high is the honor which you are doing Florence, and she will quite understand it. But you see the thing is fixed; it's only a week." Florence was said, at the moment, to be not at home, though she was up-stairs, looking at four dozen new pocket-handkerchiefs which had just come from the pocket-handkerchief merchant, with the letters F.A. upon them. She had much more pleasure in looking at them than she would have had in listening to the congratulations of M. Grascour.

"He's a very good man, no doubt, mamma; a deal better, perhaps, than Harry." That, however, was not her true opinion. "But one can't marry all the good men."

There was almost more trouble taken down at Buston about Harry's marriage than his sister's, though Harry was to be married at Cheltenham; and only his father, and one of his sisters as a bride's maid, were to go down to a.s.sist upon the occasion. His father was to marry them. And his mother had at last consented to postpone the joy of seeing Florence till she was brought home from her travels, a bride three months old. Nevertheless, a great fuss was made, especially at Buston Hall. Mr. Prosper had become comparatively light in heart since the duty of providing a wife for Buston, and a future mother for Buston's heirs, had been taken off his shoulders and thrown upon those of his nephew. The more he looked back upon the days of his own courts.h.i.+p the more did his own deliverance appear to him to be almost a work of Heaven. Where would he have been had Miss Thoroughbung made good her footing in Buston Hall? He used to shut his eyes and gently raise his left hand toward the skies as he told himself that this evil thing had pa.s.sed by him.

But it had pa.s.sed by, and it was expected that there should be a lunch of some sort at Buston; and as, with all his diligent inquiry, he had heard nothing but good of Florence, she should be received with as hearty a welcome as he could give her. There was one point which troubled him more than all others. He was determined to refurnish the drawing-room and also the bedroom in which Florence was destined to sleep. He told his sister in the most solemn manner that he had at last made up his mind thoroughly. The thing should be done. She understood how great a thing it was for him to do. "The two centre rooms!" he said, with an almost tragic air. Then he sent for her the next day, and told her that, on farther considerations, he had determined to add in the dressing-room.

The whole parish felt the effect. It was not so much that the parish was struck by the expenditure proposed,--because the squire was known to be a man who had not for years spent all his income,--but that he had given way so far on behalf of a nephew whom he had lately been so anxious to disinherit. Rumor had already reached Buntingford of what the squire had intended to do on the receipt of his own wife,--rumors which had of course since faded away into nothing. It had been positively notified to Buntingford that there should be really a new carpet and new curtains in the drawing-room. Miss Thoroughbung had been known to have declared at the brewery that the whole thing should be done before she had been there twelve months.

"He shall go the whole hog," she had said. And there had been a little bet about it between her and her brother, who entertained an idea that Mr. Prosper was an obstinate man. And Joe had brought tidings of the bet to the parsonage, so that there had been much commotion on the subject.

When the best room had been included, and then the dressing-room, even Matthew had been alarmed. "It'll come to as much as five hundred pounds!" he had whispered to Mrs. Annesley. Matthew seemed to think that it was quite time that there should be somebody to control his master.

"Why, ma'am, it's only the other day, because I can remember it myself, when that loo-table came into the house new!" Matthew had been in the place over twenty years. When Mrs. Annesley reminded him that fas.h.i.+ons were changed, and that other kinds of table were required, he only shook his head.

But there was a question more vital than that of expense. How was the new furniture to be chosen? The first idea was that Florence should be invited to spend a week at her future home, and go up and down to London with either Mrs. Annesley or her brother, and select the furniture herself. But there were reasons against this. Mr. Prosper would like to surprise her by the munificence of what he did. And the suggestion of one day was sure to wane before the stronger lights of the next. Mr.

Prosper, though he intended to be munificent, was still a little afraid that it should be thrown away as a thing of course, or that it should appear to have been Harry's work. That would be manifestly unjust. "I think I had better do it myself," he said to his sister.

"Perhaps I could help you, Peter." He shuddered; but it was at the memory of the sound of the word "Peter," as it had been blurted out for his express annoyance by Miss Thoroughbung. "I wouldn't mind going up to London with you." He shook his head, demanding still more time for deliberation. Were he to accept his sister's offer he would be bound by his acceptance. "It's the last drawing-room carpet I shall ever buy," he said to himself, with true melancholy, as he walked back home across the park.

Then there had been the other grand question of the journey, or not, down to Cheltenham. In a good-natured way Harry had told him that the wedding would be no wedding without his presence. That had moved him considerably. It was very desirable that the wedding should be more than a merely legal wedding. The world ought to be made aware that the heir to Buston had been married in the presence of the Squire of Buston. But the journey was a tremendous difficulty. If he could have gone from Buston direct to Cheltenham it would have been comparatively easy. But he must pa.s.s through London, and to do this must travel the whole way between the Northern and Western railway-stations. And the trains would not fit. He studied his Bradshaw for an entire morning and found that they would not fit. "Where am I to spend the hour and a quarter?" he asked his sister, mournfully. "And there would be four journeys, going and coming,--four separate journeys!" And these would be irrespective of numerous carriages and cabs. It was absolutely impossible that he should be present in the flesh on that happy day at Cheltenham. He was left at home for three months,--July, August, and September,--in which to buy the furniture; which, however, was at last procured by Mr. Annesley.

The marriage, as far as the wedding was concerned, was not nearly as good fun as that of Joe and Molly. There was no Mr. Crabtree there, and no Miss Thoroughbung. And Mrs. Mountjoy, though she meant to do it all as well as it could be done, was still joyous only with bated joy. Some tinge of melancholy still clung to her. She had for so many years thought of her nephew as the husband destined for her girl, that she could not be as yet demonstrative in her appreciation of Harry Annesley.

"I have no doubt we shall come to be true friends, Mr. Annesley," she had said to him.

"Don't call me Mr. Annesley."

"No, I won't, when you come back again and I am used to you. But at present there--there is a something--"

"A regret, perhaps?"

"Well, not quite a regret. I am an old-fas.h.i.+oned person, and I can't change my manners all at once. You know what it was that I used to hope."

"Oh yes. But Florence was very stupid, and would have a different opinion."

"Of course I am happy now. Her happiness is all the world to me. And things have undergone a change."

"That's true. Mr. Prosper has made over the marrying business to me, and I mean to go through it like a man. Only you must call me Harry." This she promised to do, and did, in the seclusion of her room, give him a kiss. But still her joy was not loud, and the hilarity of her guests was moderated. Mr. Annesley did his best, and the bridesmaids' dresses were pretty,--which is all that is required of a bride's maid. Then at last the father's carriage came, and they were carried away to Gloucester, where they were committed to the untender, commonplace, but much more comfortable mercies of the railway-carriage. There we will part with them, and encounter them again but for a few moments as, after a long day's ramble, they made their way back to a solitary but comfortable hotel among the Bernese Alps. Florence was on a pony, which Harry had insisted on hiring for her, though Florence had declared herself able to walk the whole way. It had been very hot, and she was probably glad of the pony. They both had alpenstocks in their hands, and on the pommel of her saddle hung the light jacket with which he had started, and which had not been so light but that he had been glad to ease himself of the weight. The guide was lagging behind, and they two were close together. "Well, old girl!" he said, "and now what do you think of it all?"

"I'm not so very much older than I was when you took me, pet."

"Oh, yes, you are. Half of your life has gone; you have settled down into the cares and duties of married life, none of which had been so much as thought of when I took you."

"Not thought of! They have been on my mind ever since that night at Mrs.

Armitage's."

"Only in a romantic and therefore untrue sort of manner. Since that time you have always thought of me with a white choker and dress-boots."

"Don't flatter yourself; I never looked at your boots."

"You knew that they were the boots and the clothes of a man making love, didn't you? I don't care personally very much about my own boots: I never shall care about another pair; but I should care about them.

Anything that might give me the slightest a.s.sistance."

"Nothing was wanted; it had all been done, Harry."

"My pet! But still a pair of high-lows heavy with nails would not have been efficacious then. I should think I love him, you might have said to yourself, but he is such an awkward fellow."

"It had gone much beyond that at Mrs. Armitage's."

"But now you have to take my high-lows as part of your duty."