Ralph the Heir Part 60

Mary paused a moment, thinking whether it might still be possible that a good turn might be done for her cousin. That Clarissa had loved this man with her whole heart she had herself owned to Mary.

That the man had professed his love for Clary, Clary had also let her know. And Clary's love had endured even after the blow it had received from Ralph's offer to her cousin. All this that cousin knew; but she did not know how that love had now turned to simple soreness.

"I have heard nothing of the man's daughter," said Mary.

"Well then?"

"But I do know that before I came here at all you had striven to gain the affections of my cousin."

"Clarissa!"

"Yes; Clarissa. Is it not so?" Then she paused, and Ralph remembered the scene on the lawn. In very truth it had never been forgotten.

There had always been present with him when he thought of Mary Bonner a sort of remembrance of the hour in which he had played the fool with dear Clary. He had kissed her. Well; yes; and with some girls kisses mean so much,--as Polly Neefit had said to her true lover. But then with others they mean just nothing. "If you want to find a wife in this house you had better ask her. It is certainly useless that you should ask me."

"Do you mean quite useless?" asked Ralph, beginning to be somewhat abashed.

"Absolutely useless. Did I not tell you something else,--something that I would not have hinted to you, had it not been that I desired to prevent the possibility of a renewal of anything so vain? But you think nothing of that! All that can be changed with you at a moment, if other things suit."

"That is meant to be severe, Miss Bonner, and I have not deserved it from you. What has brought me to you but that I admire you above all others?"

"You shouldn't admire me above others. Is a man to change as he likes because he sees a girl whose hair pleases him for the moment better than does hers to whom he has sworn to be true?" Ralph did not forget at this moment to whisper to himself for his own consolation, that he had never sworn to be true to Clarissa. And, indeed, he did feel, that though there had been a kiss, the scene on the lawn was being used unfairly to his prejudice. "I am afraid you are very fickle, Mr.

Newton, and that your love is not worth much."

"I hope we may both live till you learn that you have wronged me."

"I hope so. If my opinion be worth anything with you, go back to her from whom you have allowed yourself to stray in your folly. To me you must not address yourself again. If you do, it will be an insult."

Then she rose up, queenly in her beauty, and slowly left the room.

There must be an end of that. Such was Ralph's feeling as she left the room, in spite of those protestations of constancy and persistence which he had made to himself. "A fellow has to go on with it, and be refused half a dozen times by one of those proud ones," he had said; "but when they do knuckle under, they go in harness better than the others." It was thus that he had thought of Mary Bonner, but he did not so think of her now. No, indeed. There was an end of that.

"There is a sort of way of doing it, which shows that they mean it."

Such was his inward speech; and he did believe that Miss Bonner meant it. "By Jove, yes; if words and looks ever can mean anything." But how about Clarissa? If it was so, as Mary Bonner had told him, would it be the proper kind of thing for him to go back to Clarissa? His heart, too,--for he had a heart,--was very soft. He had always been fond of Clarissa, and would not, for worlds, that she should be unhappy. How pretty she was, and how soft, and how loving! And how proudly happy she would be to be driven about the Newton grounds by him as their mistress. Then he remembered what Gregory had said to him, and how he had encouraged Gregory to persevere. If anything of that kind were to happen, Gregory must put up with it. It was clear that Clarissa couldn't marry Gregory if she were in love with him.

But how would he look Sir Thomas in the face? As he thought of this he laughed. Sir Thomas, however, would be glad enough to give his daughter, not to the heir but to the owner of Newton. Who could be that fellow whom Mary Bonner preferred to him--with all Newton to back his suit? Perhaps Mary Bonner did not know the meaning of being the mistress of Newton Priory.

After a while the servant came to show him to his chamber. Sir Thomas had come and had gone at once to his room. So he went up-stairs and dressed, expecting to see Clarissa when they all a.s.sembled before dinner. When he went down, Sir Thomas was there, and Mary, and Patience,--but not Clarissa. He had summoned back his courage and spoke jauntily to Sir Thomas. Then he turned to Patience and asked after her sister. "Clarissa is spending the day with Mrs. Brownlow,"

said Patience, "and will not be home till quite late."

"Oh, how unfortunate!" exclaimed Ralph. Taking all his difficulties into consideration, we must admit that he did not do it badly.

After dinner Sir Thomas sat longer over his wine than is at present usual, believing, perhaps, that the young ladies would not want to see much more of Ralph on the present occasion. The conversation was almost entirely devoted to the affairs of the late election, as to which Ralph was much interested and very indignant. "They cannot do you any harm, sir, by the investigation," he said.

"No; I don't think they can hurt me."

"And you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have been the means of exposing corruption, and of helping to turn such a man as Griffenbottom out of the House. Upon my word, I think it has been worth while."

"I am not sure that I would do it again at the same cost, and with the same object," said Sir Thomas.

Ralph did have a cup of tea given to him in the drawing-room, and then left the villa before Clarissa's fly had returned.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

MR. MOGGS WALKS TOWARDS EDGEWARE.

The judge's decision in Percycross as to the late election was no sooner known than fresh overtures were made to Ontario Moggs by the Young Men's a.s.sociation. A letter of triumph was addressed to him at the Cheshire Cheese, in which he was informed that Intimidation and Corruption had been trodden under foot in the infamous person of Mr.

Griffenbottom, and that Purity and the Rights of Labour were still the watchwords of that wholesome party in the borough which was determined to send Mr. Moggs to Parliament. Did not Mr. Moggs think it best that he should come down at once to the borough and look after his interests? Now Mr. Moggs junior, when he received this letter, had left the borough no more than three or four days since, having been summoned there as a witness during the trial of the pet.i.tion;--and such continued attendance to the political interests of a small and otherwise uninteresting town, without the advantage of a seat in Parliament, was felt by Mr. Moggs senior to be a nuisance.

The expense in all these matters fell of course upon the shoulders of the father. "I don't believe in them humbugs no longer," said Mr.

Moggs senior. Moggs junior, who had felt the enthusiasm of the young men of Percycross, and who had more to get and less to lose than his father, did believe. Although he had been so lately at Percycross, he went down again, and again made speeches to the young men at the Mechanics' Inst.i.tute. Nothing could be more triumphant than his speeches, nothing more pleasant than his popularity; but he could not fail to become aware, after a further sojourn of three days at Percycross, of two things. The first was this,--that if the borough were spared there would be a compromise between the leading men on the two sides, and Mr. Westmacott would be returned together with a young Griffenbottom. The second conviction forced upon him was that the borough would not be spared. There was no comfort for him at Percycross,--other than what arose from a pure political conscience.

On the very morning on which he left, he besought his friends, the young men,--though they were about to be punished, degraded, and disfranchised for the sins of their elders, though it might never be allowed to them again to stir themselves for the political welfare of their own borough,--still to remember that Purity and the Rights of Labour were the two great wants of the world, and that no man could make an effort, however humble, in a good cause without doing something towards bringing nearer to him that millennium of political virtue which was so much wanted, and which would certainly come sooner or later. He was cheered to the echo, and almost carried down to the station on the shoulders of a chairman, or president, and a secretary; but he left Percycross with the conviction that that borough would never confer upon him the coveted honour of a seat in Parliament.

All this had happened early in March, previous to that Sunday on which Mr. Neefit behaved so rudely to him at the cottage. "I think as perhaps you'd better stick to business now a bit," said old Moggs. At that moment Ontario was sitting up at a high desk behind the ledger which he hated, and was sticking to business as well as he knew how to stick to it. "No more Cheshire Cheeses, if you please, young man,"

said the father. This was felt by the son to be unfair, cruel, and even corrupt. While the election was going on, as long as there was a hope of success at Percycross, Moggs senior had connived at the Cheshire Cheese, had said little or nothing about business, had even consented on one occasion to hear his son make a speech advocating the propriety of combination among workmen. "It ain't my way of thinking," Moggs senior had said; "but then, perhaps, I'm old." To have had a member of the firm in Parliament would have been glorious even to old Moggs, though he hardly knew in what the glory would have consisted. But as soon as he found that his hopes were vain, that the Cheshire Cheese had been no stepping-stone to such honour, and that his money had been spent for nothing, his mind reverted to its old form. Strikes became to him the work of the devil, and unions were once more the bane of trade.

"I suppose," said Ontario, looking up from his ledger, "if I work for my bread by day, I may do as I please with my evenings. At any rate I shall," he continued to say after pausing awhile. "It's best we should understand each other, father." Moggs senior growled. At a word his son would have been off from him, rushing about the country, striving to earn a crust as a political lecturer. Moggs knew his son well, and in truth loved him dearly. There was, too, a Miss Moggs at home, who would give her father no peace if Ontario were turned adrift. There is nothing in the world so cruel as the way in which sons use the natural affections of their fathers, obtaining from these very feelings a power of rebelling against authority! "You must go to the devil if you please, I suppose," said Moggs senior.

"I don't know why you say that. What do I do devilish?"

"Them Unions is devilish."

"I think they're G.o.dlike," said Moggs junior. After that they were silent for a while, during which Moggs senior was cutting his nails with a shoemaker's knife by the fading light of the evening, and Moggs junior was summing up an account against a favoured aristocrat, who seemed to have worn a great many boots, but who was noticeable to Ontario, chiefly from the fact that he represented in Parliament the division of the county in which Percycross was situated. "I thought you was going to make it all straight by marrying that girl," said Moggs senior.

Here was a subject on which the father and the son were in unison;--and as to which the romantic heart of Miss Moggs, at home at Shepherd's Bush, always glowed with enthusiasm. That her brother was in love, was to her, of whom in truth it must be owned that she was very plain, the charm of her life. She was fond of poetry, and would read to her brother aloud the story of Juan and Haidee, and the melancholy condition of the lady who was loved by the veiled prophet.

She sympathised with the false Queen's pa.s.sion for Launcelot, and, being herself in truth an ugly old maid very far removed from things romantic, delighted in the affairs of the heart when they did not run smooth. "O Ontario," she would say, "be true to her;--if it's for twenty years." "So I will;--but I'd like to begin the twenty years by making her Mrs. Moggs," said Ontario. Now Mr. Moggs senior knew to a penny what money old Neefit could give his daughter, and placed not the slightest trust in that threat about the smock in which she stood upright. Polly would certainly get the better of her father as Ontario always got the better of him. Ontario made no immediate reply to his father, but he found himself getting all wrong among the boots and shoes which had been supplied to that aristocratic young member of Parliament. "You don't mean as it's all off?" asked Moggs senior.

"No; it isn't all off."

"Then why don't you go in at it?"

"Why don't I go in at it?" said Ontario, closing the book in hopeless confusion of mind and figures. "I'd give every pair of boots in this place, I'd give all the business, to get a kind word from her."

"Isn't she kind?"

"Kind;--yes, she's kind enough in a way. She's everything just what she ought to be. That's what she is. Don't you go on about it, father. I'm as much in earnest as you can be. I shan't give it up till she calls somebody else her husband; and then,--; why then I shall just cut it, and go off to uncle in Canada. I've got my mind made up about all that." And so he left the shop, somewhat uncourteously perhaps. But he had worked his way back into his father's good graces by his determination to stick to Neefit's girl.

A young man ought to be allowed to attend trades' unions, or any other meetings, if he will marry a girl with twenty thousand pounds.

That evening Ontario Moggs went to the Cheshire Cheese, and was greater than ever.

It has been already told how, on a Sunday subsequent to this, he managed to have himself almost closeted with Polly, and how he was working himself into her good graces, when he was disturbed by Mr.

Neefit and turned out of the house. Polly's heart had been yielding during the whole of that interview. There had come upon her once a dream that it would be a fine thing to be the lady of Newton;--and the chance had been hers. But when she set herself to work to weigh it all, and to find out what it was that young Newton really wanted,--and what he ought to want, she shook off from herself that dream before it had done her any injury. She meant to be married certainly. As to that she had no doubt. But then Ontario Moggs was such a long-legged, awkward, ugly, shambling fellow, and Moggs as a name was certainly not euphonious. The gasfitter was handsome, and was called Yallolegs, which perhaps was better than Moggs. He had proposed to her more than once; but the gasfitter's face meant nothing, and the gasfitter himself hadn't much meaning in him. As to outside appearance, young Newton's was just what he ought to be,--but that was a dream which she had shaken off. Onty Moggs had some meaning in him, and was a man. If there was one thing, too, under the sun of which Polly was quite sure, it was this,--that Onty Moggs did really love her. She knew that in the heart, and mind, and eyes of Onty Moggs she possessed a divinity which made the ground she stood upon holy ground for him. Now that is a conviction very pleasant to a young woman.

Ontario was very near his victory on that Sunday. When he told her that he would compa.s.s the death of Ralph Newton if Ralph Newton was to cause her to break her heart, she believed that he would do it, and she felt obliged to him,--although she laughed at him. When he declared to her that he didn't know what to do because of his love, she was near to telling him what he might do. When he told her that he would sooner have a kiss from her than be Prime Minister, she believed him, and almost longed to make him happy. Then she had tripped, giving him encouragement which she did not intend,--and had retreated, telling him that he was silly. But as she said so she made up her mind that he should be perplexed not much longer. After all, in spite of his ugliness, and awkwardness, and long legs, this was to be her man. She recognised the fact, and was happy. It is so much for a girl to be sure that she is really loved! And there was no word which fell from Ontario's mouth which Polly did not believe. Ralph Newton's speeches were very pretty, but they conveyed no more than his intention to be civil. Ontario's speeches really brought home to her all that the words could mean. When he told her father that he was quite contented to take her just as she was, without a shilling, she knew that he would do so with the utmost joy. Then it was that she resolved that he should have her, and that for the future all doubtings, all flirtations, all coyness, should be over. She had been won, and she lowered her flag. "You stick to it, and you'll do it,"

she said;--and this time she meant it. "I shall," said Ontario;--and he walked all the way back to London, with his head among the clouds, disregarding Percycross utterly, forgetful of all the boots and aristocrats' accounts, regardless almost of the Cheshire Cheese, not even meditating a new speech in defence of the Rights of Labour. He believed that on that day he had gained the great victory. If so, life before him was one vista of triumph. That he himself was what the world calls romantic, he had no idea,--but he had lived now for months on the conviction that the only chance of personal happiness to himself was to come from the smiles and kindness and love of a certain human being whom he had chosen to beatify. To him Polly Neefit was divine, and round him also there would be a halo of divinity if this G.o.ddess would consent to say that she would become his wife.

It was impossible that many days should be allowed to pa.s.s before he made an effort to learn from her own lips, positively, the meaning of those last words which she had spoken to him. But there was a difficulty. Neefit had warned him from the house, and he felt unwilling to knock at the door of a man in that man's absence, who, if present, would have refused to him the privilege of admittance.

That Mrs. Neefit would see him, and afford him opportunity of pleading his cause with Polly, he did not doubt;--but some idea that a man's house, being his castle, should not be invaded in the owner's absence, restrained him. That the man's daughter might be the dearer and the choicer, and the more sacred castle of the two, was true enough; but then Polly was a castle which, as Moggs thought, ought to belong to him rather than to her father. And so he resolved to waylay Polly.

His weekdays, from nine in the morning till seven in the evening, were at this time due to b.o.o.by and Moggs, and he was at present paying that debt religiously, under a conviction that his various absences at Percycross had been hard upon his father. For there was, in truth, no b.o.o.by. Moggs senior, and Moggs junior, const.i.tuted the whole firm;--in which, indeed, up to this moment Moggs junior had no recognised share,--and if one was absent, the other must be present.

But Sunday was his own, and Polly Neefit always went to church.

Nevertheless, on the first Sunday he failed. He failed, though he saw her, walking with two other ladies, and though, to the best of his judgment, she also saw him. On the second Sunday he was at Hendon from ten till three, hanging about in the lanes, sitting on gates, whiling away the time with a treatise on political economy which he had brought down in his pocket, thinking of Polly while he strove to confine his thoughts to the great subject of man's productive industry. Is there any law of Nature,--law of G.o.d, rather,--by which a man has a right to enough of food, enough of raiment, enough of shelter, and enough of recreation, if only he will work? But Polly's cheeks, and Polly's lips, the eager fire of Polly's eye as she would speak, and all the elastic beauty of Polly's gait as she would walk, drove the great question from his mind. Was he ever destined to hold Polly in his arms,--close, close to his breast? If not, then the laws of Nature and the laws of G.o.d, let them be what they might, would not have been sufficient to protect him from the cruellest wrong of all.