Ralph the Heir Part 61

It was as she went to afternoon church that he hoped to intercept her. Morning church with many is a bond. Afternoon church is a virtue of supererogation,--practised often because there is nothing else to do. It would be out of the question that he should induce her to give up the morning service; but if he could only come upon her in the afternoon, a little out of sight of others, just as she would turn down a lane with which he was acquainted, near to a stile leading across the fields towards Edgeware, it might be possible that he should prevail. As the hour came near, he put the useless volume into his pocket, and stationed himself on the spot which he had selected.

Almost at the first moment in which he had ventured to hope for her presence, Polly turned into the lane. It was six months after this occurrence that she confessed to him that she had thought it just possible that he might be there. "Of course you would be there,--you old goose; as if Jemima hadn't told me that you'd been about all day.

But I never should have come, if I hadn't quite made up my mind."

Then Ontario administered to her one of those bear's hugs which were wont to make Polly declare that he was an ogre. It was thus that Polly made her confession after the six months, as they were sitting very close to each other on some remote point of the cliffs down on the Kentish coast. At that time the castle had been altogether transferred out of the keeping of Mr. Neefit.

But Polly's conduct on this occasion was not at all of a nature to make it supposed that Jemima's eyes had been so sharp. "What, Mr.

Moggs!" she said. "Dear me, what a place to find you in! Are you coming to church?"

"I want you just to take a turn with me for a few minutes, Polly."

"But I'm going to church."

"You can go to church afterwards;--that is, if you like. I can't come to the house now, and I have got something that I must say to you."

"Something that you must say to me!" And then Polly followed him over the stile.

They had walked the length of nearly two fields before Ontario had commenced to tell the tale which of necessity must be told; but Polly, though she must have known that her chances of getting back to church were becoming more and more remote, waited without impatience.

"I want to know," he said, at last, "whether you can ever learn to love me."

"What's the use, Mr. Moggs?"

"It will be all the use in the world to me."

"Oh, no it won't. It can't signify so very much to anybody."

"Nothing, I sometimes think, can ever be of any use to me but that."

"As for learning to love a man,--I suppose I could love a man without any learning if I liked him."

"But you don't like me, Polly?"

"I never said I didn't like you. Father and mother always used to like you."

"But you, Polly?"

"Oh, I like you well enough. Don't, Mr. Moggs."

"But do you love me?" Then there was a pause, as they stood leaning upon a gateway. "Come, Polly; tell a fellow. Do you love me?"

"I don't know." Then there was another pause; but he was in a seventh heaven, with his arm round her waist. "I suppose I do; a little,"

whispered Polly.

"But better than anybody else?"

"You don't think I mean to have two lovers;--do you?"

"And I am to be your lover?"

"There's father, you know. I'm not going to be anybody's wife because he tells me; but I wouldn't like to vex him, if we could help it."

"But you'll never belong to any one else?"

"Never," said she solemnly.

"Then I've said what I've got to say, and I'm the happiest man in all the world, and you may go to church now if you like." But his arm was still tight round her waist.

"It's too late," said Polly, in a melancholy tone,--"and it's all your doing."

The walk was prolonged not quite to Edgeware; but so far that Mr.

Neefit was called upon to remark that the parson was preaching a very long sermon. Mrs. Neefit, who perhaps had also had communication with Jemima, remarked that it was not to be expected, but that Polly should take a ramble with some of her friends. "Why can't she ramble where I want her to ramble?" said Mr. Neefit.

Many things were settled during that walk. Within five minutes of the time in which she had declared that it was too late for her to go to church, she had brought herself to talk to him with all the delightful confidence of a completed engagement. She made him understand at once that there was no longer any doubt. "A girl must have time to know," she said, when he half-reproached her with the delay. A girl wasn't like a man, she said, who could just make up his mind at once,--a girl had to wait and see. But she was quite sure of this,--that having once said the word she would never go back from it. She didn't quite know when she had first begun to love him, but she thought it was when she heard that he had made up his mind to stand for Percycross. It seemed to her to be such a fine thing,--his going to Percycross. "Then," said Ontario, gallantly, "Percycross has done ten times more for me than it would have done, had it simply made me a member of Parliament." Once, twice, and oftener he was made happier than he could have been had fortune made him a Prime Minister. For Polly, now that she had given her heart and promised her hand, would not coy her lips to the man she had chosen.

Many things were settled between them. Polly told her lover all her trouble about Ralph Newton, and it was now that she received that advice from her "very particular friend, Mr. Moggs," which she followed in writing to her late suitor. The letter was to be written and posted that afternoon, and then shown to her father. We know already that in making the copy for her father she omitted one clause,--having resolved that she would tell her mother of her engagement, and that her mother should communicate it to her father.

As for naming any day for their marriage, "That was out of the question," she said. She did not wish to delay it; but all that she could do was to swear to her father that she would never marry anybody else. "And he'll believe me too," said Polly. As for eloping, she would not hear of it. "Just that he might have an excuse to give his money to somebody else," she said.

"I don't care for his money," protested Moggs.

"That's all very well; but money's a good thing in its way. I hate a man who'd sell himself; he's a mean fellow;--or a girl either. Money should never be first. But as for pitching it away just because you're in a hurry, I don't believe in that at all. I'm not going to be an old woman yet, and you may wait a few months very well."

She walked with him direct up to the gate leading up to their own house,--so that all the world might see her, if all the world pleased; and then she bade him good-bye. "Some day before very long, no doubt," she said when, as he left her, he asked as to their next meeting.

And so Polly had engaged herself. I do not know that the matter seemed to her to be of so much importance as it does to many girls.

It was a piece of business which had to be done some day, as she had well known for years past; and now that it was done, she was quite contented with the doing of it. But there was not much of that ecstasy in her bosom which was at the present moment sending Ontario Moggs bounding up to town, talking, as he went, to himself,--to the amazement of pa.s.sers by, and a.s.suring himself that he had triumphed like an Alexander or a Caesar. She made some steady resolves to do her duty by him, and told herself again and again that nothing should ever move her now that she had decided. As for beauty in a man;--what did it signify? He was honest. As for awkwardness;--what did it matter? He was clever. And in regard to being a gentleman; she rather thought that she liked him better because he wasn't exactly what some people call a gentleman. Whatever sort of a home he would give her to live in, n.o.body would despise her in it because she was not grand enough for her place. She was by no means sure that a good deal of misery of that kind might not have fallen to her lot had she become the mistress of Newton Priory. "When the beggar woman became a queen, how the servants must have snubbed her," said Polly to herself.

That evening she showed her letter to her father. "You haven't sent it, you minx?" said he.

"Yes, father. It's in the iron box."

"What business had you to write to a young man?"

"Come, father. I had a business."

"I believe you want to break my heart," said old Neefit.

That evening her mother asked her what she had been doing that afternoon. "I just took a walk with Ontario Moggs," said Polly.

"Well?"

"And I've just engaged myself straight off, and you had better tell father. I mean to keep to it, mother, let anybody say anything. I wouldn't go back from my promise if they were to drag me. So father may as well know at once."

CHAPTER XLIX.

AMONG THE PICTURES.

Norfolk is a county by no means devoted to hunting, and Ralph Newton,--the disinherited Ralph as we may call him,--had been advised by some of his friends round Newton to pitch his tent elsewhere,--because of his love of that sport. "You'll get a bit of land just as cheap in the shires," Morris had said to him. "And, if I were you, I wouldn't go among a set of fellows who don't think of anything in the world except partridges." Mr. Morris, who was a very good fellow in his way, devoted a considerable portion of his mental and physical energies to the birth, rearing, education, preservation, and subsequent use of the fox,--thinking that in so doing he employed himself n.o.bly as a country gentleman; but he thoroughly despised a county in which partridges were worshipped.