Orley Farm Part 46

"No, nor do I;--not as regards any important result. But may it not be well to be careful? You know what I mean, dearest?"

"Yes--I know. At least I suppose so. And it makes me know also how very cold and shallow and heartless people are! I won't ask any more questions, Isabella; but I can't know that a fellow-creature is suffering in the house,--and a person like him too, so clever, whom we all regard as a friend,--the most intimate friend in the world that Augustus has,--and the best too, as I heard papa himself say--without caring whether he is going to live or die."

"There is no danger now, you know."

"Very well; I am glad to hear it. Though I know very well that there must be danger after such a terrible accident as that."

"The doctor says there is none."

"At any rate I will not--" And then instead of finishing her sentence she turned away her head and put up her handkerchief to wipe away a tear.

"You are not angry with me, dear?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"Oh, no," said Madeline; and then they parted.

For some days after that Madeline asked no question whatever about Felix Graham, but it may be doubted whether this did not make the matter worse. Even Sophia Furnival would ask how he was at any rate twice a day, and Lady Staveley continued to pay him regular visits at stated intervals. As he got better she would sit with him, and brought back reports as to his sayings. But Madeline never discussed any of these; and refrained alike from the conversation, whether his broken bones or his unbroken wit were to be the subject of it.

And then Mrs. Arbuthnot, knowing that she would still be anxious, gave her private bulletins as to the state of the sick man's progress;--all which gave an air of secrecy to the matter, and caused even Madeline to ask herself why this should be so.

On the whole I think that Mrs. Arbuthnot was wrong. Mrs. Arbuthnot and the whole Staveley family would have regarded a mutual attachment between Mr. Graham and Madeline as a great family misfortune. The judge was a considerate father to his children, holding that a father's control should never be brought to bear unnecessarily. In looking forward to the future prospects of his sons and daughters it was his theory that they should be free to choose their life's companions for themselves. But nevertheless it could not be agreeable to him that his daughter should fall in love with a man who had nothing, and whose future success at his own profession seemed to be so very doubtful. On the whole I think that Mrs. Arbuthnot was wrong, and that the feeling that did exist in Madeline's bosom might more possibly have died away, had no word been said about it--even by a sister.

And then another event happened which forced her to look into her own heart. Peregrine Orme did make his proposal. He waited patiently during those two or three days in which the doctor's visits were frequent, feeling that he could not talk about himself while any sense of danger pervaded the house. But then at last a morning came on which the surgeon declared that he need not call again till the morrow; and Felix himself, when the medical back was turned, suggested that it might as well be to-morrow week. He began also to scold his friends, and look bright about the eyes, and drink his gla.s.s of sherry in a pleasant dinner-table fashion, not as if he were swallowing his physic. And Peregrine, when he saw all this, resolved that the moment had come for the doing of his deed of danger. The time would soon come at which he must leave Noningsby, and he would not leave Noningsby till he had learned his fate.

Lady Staveley, who with a mother's eye had seen her daughter's solicitude for Felix Graham's recovery,--had seen it, and animadverted on it to herself,--had seen also, or at any rate had suspected, that Peregrine Orme looked on her daughter with favouring eyes. Now Peregrine Orme would have satisfied Lady Staveley as a son-in-law. She liked his ways and manners of thought--in spite of those rumours as to the rat-catching which had reached her ears. She regarded him as quite clever enough to be a good husband, and no doubt appreciated the fact that he was to inherit his t.i.tle and The Cleeve from an old grandfather instead of a middle-aged father. She therefore had no objection to leave Peregrine alone with her one ewe-lamb, and therefore the opportunity which he sought was at last found.

"I shall be leaving Noningsby to-morrow, Miss Staveley," he said one day, having secured an interview in the back drawing-room--in that happy half-hour which occurs in winter before the world betakes itself to dress. Now I here profess my belief, that out of every ten set offers made by ten young lovers, nine of such offers are commenced with an intimation that the lover is going away. There is a dash of melancholy in such tidings well suited to the occasion. If there be any spark of love on the other side it will be elicited by the idea of a separation. And then, also, it is so frequently the actual fact. This making of an offer is in itself a hard piece of business,--a job to be postponed from day to day. It is so postponed, and thus that dash of melancholy, and that idea of separation are brought in at the important moment with so much appropriate truth.

"I shall be leaving Noningsby to-morrow, Miss Staveley," Peregrine said.

"Oh dear! we shall be so sorry. But why are you going? What will Mr.

Graham and Augustus do without you? You ought to stay at least till Mr. Graham can leave his room."

"Poor Graham!--not that I think he is much to be pitied either; but he won't be about for some weeks to come yet."

"You do not think he is worse; do you?"

"Oh, dear, no; not at all." And Peregrine was unconsciously irritated against his friend by the regard which her tone evinced. "He is quite well; only they will not let him be moved. But, Miss Staveley, it was not of Mr. Graham that I was going to speak."

"No--only I thought he would miss you so much." And then she blushed, though the blush in the dark of the evening was lost upon him. She remembered that she was not to speak about Felix Graham's health, and it almost seemed as though Mr. Orme had rebuked her for doing so in saying that he had not come there to speak of him.

"Lady Staveley's house has been turned up side down since this affair, and it is time now that some part of the trouble should cease."

"Oh! mamma does not mind it at all."

"I know how good she is; but nevertheless, Miss Staveley, I must go to-morrow." And then he paused a moment before he spoke again. "It will depend entirely upon you," he said, "whether I may have the happiness of returning soon to Noningsby."

"On me, Mr. Orme!"

"Yes, on you. I do not know how to speak properly that which I have to say; but I believe I may as well say it out at once. I have come here now to tell you that I love you and to ask you to be my wife."

And then he stopped as though there were nothing more for him to say upon the matter.

It would be hardly extravagant to declare that Madeline's breath was taken away by the very sudden manner in which young Orme had made his proposition. It had never entered her head that she had an admirer in him. Previously to Graham's accident she had thought nothing about him. Since that event she had thought about him a good deal; but altogether as of a friend of Graham's. He had been good and kind to Graham, and therefore she had liked him and had talked to him. He had never said a word to her that had taught her to regard him as a possible lover; and now that he was an actual lover, a declared lover standing before her, waiting for an answer, she was so astonished that she did not know how to speak. All her ideas too, as to love,--such ideas as she had ever formed, were confounded by his abruptness. She would have thought, had she brought herself absolutely to think upon it, that all speech of love should be very delicate; that love should grow slowly, and then be whispered softly, doubtingly, and with infinite care. Even had she loved him, or had she been in the way towards loving him, such violence as this would have frightened her and scared her love away. Poor Peregrine! His intentions had been so good and honest! He was so true and hearty, and free from all conceit in the matter! It was a pity that he should have marred his cause by such ill judgment.

But there he stood waiting an answer,--and expecting it to be as open, definite, and plain as though he had asked her to take a walk with him. "Madeline," he said, stretching out his hand when he perceived that she did not speak to him at once. "There is my hand.

If it be possible give me yours."

"Oh, Mr. Orme!"

"I know that I have not said what I had to say very--very gracefully.

But you will not regard that I think. You are too good, and too true."

She had now seated herself, and he was standing before her. She had retreated to a sofa in order to avoid the hand which he had offered her; but he followed her, and even yet did not know that he had no chance of success. "Mr. Orme," she said at last, speaking hardly above her breath, "what has made you do this?"

"What has made me do it? What has made me tell you that I love you?"

"You cannot be in earnest!"

"Not in earnest! By heavens, Miss Staveley, no man who has said the same words was ever more in earnest. Do you doubt me when I tell you that I love you?"

"Oh, I am so sorry!" And then she hid her face upon the arm of the sofa and burst into tears.

Peregrine stood there, like a prisoner on his trial, waiting for a verdict. He did not know how to plead his cause with any further language; and indeed no further language could have been of any avail. The judge and jury were clear against him, and he should have known the sentence without waiting to have it p.r.o.nounced in set terms. But in plain words he had made his offer, and in plain words he required that an answer should be given to him. "Well," he said, "will you not speak to me? Will you not tell me whether it shall be so?"

"No,--no,--no," she said.

"You mean that you cannot love me." And as he said this the agony of his tone struck her ear and made her feel that he was suffering.

Hitherto she had thought only of herself, and had hardly recognised it as a fact that he could be thoroughly in earnest.

"Mr. Orme, I am very sorry. Do not speak as though you were angry with me. But--"

"But you cannot love me?" And then he stood again silent, for there was no reply. "Is it that, Miss Staveley, that you mean to answer? If you say that with positive a.s.surance, I will trouble you no longer."

Poor Peregrine! He was but an unskilled lover!

"No!" she sobbed forth through her tears; but he had so framed his question that he hardly knew what No meant.

"Do you mean that you cannot love me, or may I hope that a day will come--? May I speak to you again--?"

"Oh, no, no! I can answer you now. It grieves me to the heart. I know you are so good. But, Mr. Orme--"

"Well--"

"It can never, never be."

"And I must take that as answer?"

"I can make no other." He still stood before her,--with gloomy and almost angry brow, could she have seen him; and then he thought he would ask her whether there was any other love which had brought about her scorn for him. It did not occur to him, at the first moment, that in doing so he would insult and injure her.

"At any rate I am not flattered by a reply which is at once so decided," he began by saying.

"Oh! Mr. Orme, do not make me more unhappy--"