Orley Farm Part 52

"No; she would not suit you. I perceive that now."

"So I supposed. Well, my dear fellow, we shall not come to loggerheads about that. She is a very fine girl, and you are welcome to the hatful of money--if you can get it."

"That's nonsense. I'm not thinking of Sophia Furnival any more than you are. But if I did it would be a proper marriage. Now--" And then he went on with some further very sage remarks about Miss Snow.

All this was said as Felix Graham was lying with his broken bones in the comfortable room at Noningsby; and to tell the truth, when it was so said his heart was not quite at ease about Mary Snow. Up to this time, having long since made up his mind that Mary should be his wife, he had never allowed his thoughts to be diverted from that purpose. Nor did he so allow them now,--as long as he could prevent them from wandering.

But, lying there at Noningsby, thinking of those sweet Christmas evenings, how was it possible that they should not wander? His friend had told him that he did not love Mary Snow; and then, when alone, he asked himself whether in truth he did love her. He had pledged himself to marry her, and he must carry out that pledge. But nevertheless did he love her? And if not her, did he love any other?

Mary Snow knew very well what was to be her destiny, and indeed had known it for the last two years. She was now nineteen years old,--and Madeline Staveley was also nineteen; she was nineteen, and at twenty she was to become a wife, as by agreement between Felix Graham and Mr. Snow, the drunken engraver. They knew their destiny,--the future husband and the future wife,--and each relied with perfect faith on the good faith and affection of the other.

Graham, while he was thus being lectured by Staveley, had under his pillow a letter from Mary. He wrote to her regularly--on every Sunday, and on every Tuesday she answered him. Nothing could be more becoming than the way she obeyed all his behests on such matters; and it really did seem that in his case the moulded wife would turn out to have been well moulded. When Staveley left him he again read Mary's letter. Her letters were always of the same length, filling completely the four sides of a sheet of note paper. They were excellently well written; and as no one word in them was ever altered or erased, it was manifest enough to Felix that the original composition was made on a rough draft. As he again read through the four sides of the little sheet of paper, he could not refrain from conjecturing what sort of a letter Madeline Staveley might write.

Mary Snow's letter ran as follows:--

3 Bloomfield Terrace, Peckham, Tuesday, 10 January, 18--.

MY DEAREST FELIX,

--she had so called him for the last twelvemonth by common consent between Graham and the very discreet lady under whose charge she at present lived. Previously to that she had written to him as, My dear Mr. Graham.

MY DEAREST FELIX,

I am very glad to hear that your arm and your two ribs are getting so much better. I received your letter yesterday, and was glad to hear that you are so comfortable in the house of the very kind people with whom you are staying. If I knew them I would send them my respectful remembrances, but as I do not know them I suppose it would not be proper. But I remember them in my prayers.--

This last a.s.surance was inserted under the express instruction of Mrs. Thomas, who however did not read Mary's letters, but occasionally, on some subjects, gave her hints as to what she ought to say. Nor was there hypocrisy in this, for under the instruction of her excellent mentor she had prayed for the kind people.--

I hope you will be well enough to come and pay me a visit before long, but pray do not come before you are well enough to do so without giving yourself any pain. I am glad to hear that you do not mean to go hunting any more, for it seems to me to be a dangerous amus.e.m.e.nt.

And then the first paragraph came to an end.

My papa called here yesterday. He said he was very badly off indeed, and so he looked. I did not know what to say at first, but he asked me so much to give him some money, that I did give him at last all that I had. It was nineteen shillings and sixpence. Mrs. Thomas was angry, and told me I had no right to give away your money, and that I should not have given more than half a crown. I hope you will not be angry with me. I do not want any more at present. But indeed he was very bad, especially about his shoes.

I do not know that I have any more to say except that I put back thirty lines of Telemaque into French every morning before breakfast. It never comes near right, but nevertheless M. Grigaud says it is well done. He says that if it came quite right I should compose French as well as M. Fenelon, which of course I cannot expect.

I will now say good-bye, and I am yours most affectionately,

MARY SNOW.

There was nothing in this letter to give any offence to Felix Graham, and so he acknowledged to himself. He made himself so acknowledge, because on the first reading of it he had felt that he was half angry with the writer. It was clear that there was nothing in the letter which would justify censure;--nothing which did not, almost, demand praise. He would have been angry with her had she limited her filial donation to the half-crown which Mrs. Thomas had thought appropriate.

He was obliged to her for that attention to her French which he had specially enjoined. Nothing could be more proper than her allusion to the Staveleys;--and altogether the letter was just what it ought to be. Nevertheless it made him unhappy and irritated him. Was it well that he should marry a girl whose father was "indeed very bad, but especially about his shoes?" Staveley had told him that connection would be necessary for him, and what sort of a connection would this be? And was there one word in the whole letter that showed a spark of true love? Did not the footfall of Madeline Staveley's step as she pa.s.sed along the pa.s.sage go nearer to his heart than all the outspoken a.s.surance of Mary Snow's letter?

Nevertheless he had undertaken to do this thing, and he would do it,--let the footfall of Madeline Staveley's step be ever so sweet in his ear. And then, lying back in his bed, he began to think whether it would have been as well that he should have broken his neck instead of his ribs in getting out of Monkton Grange covert.

Mrs. Thomas was a lady who kept a school consisting of three little girls and Mary Snow. She had in fact not been altogether successful in the line of life she had chosen for herself, and had hardly been able to keep her modest door-plate on her door, till Graham, in search of some home for his bride, then in the first noviciate of her moulding, had come across her. Her means were now far from plentiful; but as an average number of three children still clung to her, and as Mary Snow's seventy pounds per annum--to include clothes--were punctually paid, the small house at Peckham was maintained. Under these circ.u.mstances Mary Snow was somebody in the eyes of Mrs.

Thomas, and Felix Graham was a very great person indeed.

Graham had received his letter on a Wednesday, and on the following Monday Mary, as usual, received one from him. These letters always came to her in the evening, as she was sitting over her tea with Mrs.

Thomas, the three children having been duly put to bed. Graham's letters were very short, as a man with a broken right arm and two broken ribs is not fluent with his pen. But still a word or two did come to her. "Dearest Mary, I am doing better and better, and I hope I shall see you in about a fortnight. Quite right in giving the money. Stick to the French. Your own F. G." But as he signed himself her own, his mind misgave him that he was lying.

"It is very good of him to write to you while he is in such a state,"

said Mrs. Thomas.

"Indeed it is," said Mary--"very good indeed." And then she went on with the history of "Ra.s.selas" in his happy valley, by which study Mrs. Thomas intended to initiate her into that course of novel-reading which has become necessary for a British lady. But Mrs.

Thomas had a mind to improve the present occasion. It was her duty to inculcate in her pupil love and grat.i.tude towards the beneficent man who was doing so much for her. Grat.i.tude for favours past and love for favours to come; and now, while that sc.r.a.p of a letter was lying on the table, the occasion for doing so was opportune.

"Mary, I do hope you love Mr. Graham with all your heart and all your strength." She would have thought it wicked to say more; but so far she thought she might go, considering the sacred tie which was to exist between her pupil and the gentleman in question.

"Oh, yes, indeed I do;" and then Mary's eyes fell wishfully on the cover of the book which lay in her lap while her finger kept the place. Ra.s.selas is not very exciting, but it was more so than Mrs.

Thomas.

"You would be very wicked if you did not. And I hope you think sometimes of the very responsible duties which a wife owes to her husband. And this will be more especially so with you than with any other woman--almost that I ever heard of."

There was something in this that was almost depressing to poor Mary's spirit, but nevertheless she endeavoured to bear up against it and do her duty. "I shall do all I can to please him, Mrs. Thomas;--and indeed I do try about the French. And he says I was right to give papa that money."

"But there will be many more things than that when you've stood at the altar with him and become his wife;--bone of his bone, Mary." And she spoke these last words in a very solemn tone, shaking her head, and the solemn tone almost ossified poor Mary's heart as she heard it.

"Yes; I know there will. But I shall endeavour to find out what he likes."

"I don't think he is so particular about his eating and drinking as some other gentlemen; though no doubt he will like his things nice."

"I know he is fond of strong tea, and I sha'n't forget that."

"And about dress. He is not very rich you know, Mary; but it will make him unhappy if you are not always tidy. And his own shirts--I fancy he has no one to look after them now, for I so often see the b.u.t.tons off. You should never let one of them go into his drawers without feeling them all to see that they're on tight."

"I'll remember that," said Mary, and then she made another little furtive attempt to open the book.

"And about your own stockings, Mary. Nothing is so useful to a young woman in your position as a habit of darning neat. I'm sometimes almost afraid that you don't like darning."

"Oh yes I do." That was a fib; but what could she do, poor girl, when so pressed?

"Because I thought you would look at Jane Robinson's and Julia Wright's which are lying there in the basket. I did Rebecca's myself before tea, till my old eyes were sore."

"Oh, I didn't know," said Mary, with some slight offence in her tone.

"Why didn't you ask me to do them downright if you wanted?"

"It's only for the practice it will give you."

"Practice! I'm always practising something." But nevertheless she laid down the book, and dragged the basket of work up on to the table. "Why, Mrs. Thomas, it's impossible to mend these; they're all darn."

"Give them to me," said Mrs. Thomas. And then there was silence between them for a quarter of an hour during which Mary's thoughts wandered away to the events of her future life. Would his stockings be so troublesome as these?

But Mrs. Thomas was at heart an honest woman, and as a rule was honest also in practice. Her conscience told her that Mr. Graham might probably not approve of this sort of practice for conjugal duties, and in spite of her failing eyes she resolved to do her duty.

"Never mind them, Mary," said she. "I remember now that you were doing your own before dinner."

"Of course I was," said Mary sulkily. "And as for practice, I don't suppose he'll want me to do more of that than anything else."