The World Before Them Volume I Part 5

"The same."

"You mean to accept it?" speaking joyfully, and pressing his arm tenderly.

"Oh, no, no," cried Gilbert, shrinking from the caress, "quite the reverse. I decline it at once, and for ever; and I beg, Nancy, that you will never broach the subject to me, or to father, again. Old folks don't see with our eyes, or feel as we feel; they always forget when they were young themselves. The spring and summer of life is gone with them, and the autumn with its golden fruit is all they care about, and wish us to procure at any cost. What does a young fellow want with money, while he is full of health and warm blood, and has enough to enjoy himself?"

"But why should you refuse a good offer?" said Miss Watling, only half comprehending the meaning of Gilbert's roundabout way of introducing a disagreeable subject.

"Simply, because it is not a good one for me. I don't like it, and will have none of it. I am happy where I am, and don't want to change my situation." He stopped suddenly, and took Miss Watling's hand. "Will you be my friend, Nancy?"

"Can you doubt it, Gilbert?"

"Well, then, I love Dorothy Chance."

Miss Watling dropped her hand, as if it had come in contact with a hot coal.

"Love--Dorothy--Chance!" and the hard mouth writhed convulsively.

Gilbert's eyes were bent upon the ground; he did not see the twitching of the malignant face; and was not even conscious that she had withdrawn the black kidded hand from his own--or the conversation would have come to a sudden stop.

"Yes," he continued, "I love Dorothy Chance with all my heart and soul, and mean to make her my wife as soon as a good opportunity offers.

Father don't like the match, though he likes the girl. He loves money, and he wants me to kneel down with him and worship the golden calf. I won't do it. If I can't have Dolly, I'll have no one else. That's the plain downright truth, Nancy Watling. Do you wish me to take your farm on shares now?"

"Certainly not, Mr. Gilbert Rushmere," drawing herself up, with a withering air of spurious dignity. "If you can forget your good old family, and stoop so low as to marry a girl that your father picked out of the dirt, you may stay at home with her. I don't want to have anything to do with you. I don't wonder at Mr. Rushmere not giving his consent to such a vulgar connection. It is enough to break the honest heart of the poor old man. His only son, too--the last of his name. Mr.

Gilbert Rushmere, you astonish me!"

"I have heard all these arguments before," said Gilbert, sorry for his misplaced confidence, when it was too late. "I consider them mere words, and take them for what they are worth. I thought it would be best to act like a man, and give you my real reasons for rejecting your kind offer.

I have satisfied my conscience, and I leave you to think of me as you like. But here we are at your gate, Nancy, so I will wish you good night."

Nancy Watling deigned no reply to his farewell salutation, but walked indignantly across her moon-lighted lawn. She felt mortified, disappointed, and decidedly belligerent. True, she had not made him an offer of marriage, but it was tantamount to it; and he had despised both her and her money, and all for a penniless black-eyed dairy-maid, who might be his father's daughter for aught he knew to the contrary.

It was a strange story, at any rate, his finding the dead woman and the child out on the heath. She remembered what the village gossips had whispered about it, at the time, and she determined to publish a new edition of the long-forgotten scandal.

She would be revenged on Gilbert, for the insult he had pa.s.sed upon her, let it cost what it might. As for Gilbert, what need she care about him--if he did not accept her and her farm, another would. He was a rude brute, a vulgar, low fellow, to treat any lady as he had that night treated her. If he married that base-born creature Dorothy, no respectable person would ever enter the house.

While such uncharitable thoughts were pa.s.sing through Nancy Watling's small, narrow mind, Gilbert, glad to be rid of his disagreeable charge, took his homeward path across the heath. Sometimes he stopped--not to admire the cloudless beauty of the sky--he was a careless observer of the beauties of nature--but to put his hands to his sides, and laughed with uncontrollable merriment.

He was amused at his own cleverness--rejoicing over the adroit manner in which he had got rid of the odious woman, and her self-interested offers of service.

"I am rid of her at last. I'm thinking she'll come after me no more. I don't approve of women giving such broad hints to us men folk. It was as good as asking me to be her husband. I can tell black Nancy that she's no wife for Gilbert Rushmere. Does she think that I would sell myself to age, ill-temper and ugliness, for all the money in the Bank of England?

I would rather go to church with Dolly in homespun, than ride in a carriage beside that shrivelled piece of tanned leather. How Dolly will laugh when I tell her how affectionately the old thing hugged my arm! A partnership with her, ha, ha! is it not rare fun to disappoint her matrimonial speculations?"

To Dorothy, this visit of Miss Watling's to the farm proved everything but a laughing matter.

CHAPTER III.

A FAMILY QUARREL.

Dorothy found Mr. Rushmere chafing with pa.s.sion, when she returned to the big room to take her simple supper of bread and milk. Gilbert's conduct to Miss Watling had cut him to the quick, and thrown down in a moment the fine castle in the air which he had been for weeks building for his son's especial benefit.

The sight of Dorothy, whom he looked upon as the real cause of his bitter disappointment, stirred his generally sluggish nature to its depths, and his rage burst out with the vehemence of a volcano, caring nothing for the mischief and ruin which might follow its desolating course.

He upbraided her with inveigling the affections of his son, and making him rude and undutiful to his parents--reiterating his threat of sending her off to seek her own living, and cursing the unlucky hour he brought her to the house.

He said so many hard and cruel things, that Dorothy was roused at last.

Leaving her supper untasted upon the table, she went across the room to Mrs. Rushmere, who was standing before the window, with her back to her husband, weeping bitterly. Dorothy put her arm across her shoulder, and spoke in a low voice, meant to be calm, but which trembled with suppressed emotion.

"Mother, I am no longer wanted here. I will go and seek service elsewhere to-morrow."

"Dorothy, my child, you are not in earnest. You cannot mean what you say?"

"Father wishes it. I believe that it will be better for all parties. You are my only friends; the only parents I have ever known. G.o.d, who reads my heart, knows the love I feel for you both, but--but,"--and here poor Dolly broke down, and flinging herself into the kind woman's outstretched arms, they mingled their tears together.

"She is right--quite right," said the old man, too angry to be touched by the grief of the weeping women. "She has been here long enough. It is time she should go."

"And where is the poor child to go?" asked the wife, pressing Dorothy to her warm maternal breast. "Have you the feelings of a man, Lawrence, after she has shared our home for so many years, and been to us a dutiful and loving daughter, to turn her out upon the wide, wide world."

"She shall go," was the dogged reply to his wife's appeal.

"Don't distress yourself, mother, on my account," whispered Dorothy. "I am young and strong. I can work for my living. Never fear. G.o.d will raise me up friends, and find me another home." Then turning to Mr.

Rushmere, she addressed him with the calm dignity which was natural to her.

"Father, after all the benefits I have received from you we must not part in anger. If I have been in fault, G.o.d knows that I have erred through ignorance, that it was wholly unintentional on my part. I acknowledge now, what I did not understand before, that I am not a fit mate for your son. I have given up all idea of being his wife. Speak to me, father. Say that you forgive me, and let us part in peace."

She slid down on her knees before the stern old man, as he sat sullenly in the big arm-chair, and looked imploringly into his face. Her rosy cheeks were deadly pale now, and wet with the tears that flowed unceasingly from her large black eyes.

Rushmere felt rather ashamed of the violent language he had used--he softened a little, and replied in a gentler tone,--

"Dolly, you are a good girl. You know I love and respect you, but you cannot marry my son. I should feel degraded if you were Gilbert's wife."

The blood rushed in a hot tide into the girl's pale wet face, and yet she shivered as if an arrow had pierced her heart. With a low moan her head sunk upon the old man's knee, and she shook and trembled with violent emotion.

"Go," and Rushmere laid his large hand upon the bent head, with all its glossy ebon ringlets--"Go, and G.o.d bless you."

Dorothy rose from her knees.

"Your wishes shall be obeyed, father. I will go, as you desire it. Only let me stay this night beneath the roof that has sheltered me so long.

I will seek a new home to-morrow. And now, good night. Oh," she cried, in a tone of bitter anguish, "how hard it is to part from all we love.

To bid you good night for the last time, in the dear old home."

Their eyes met. The old man drew her down to him and kissed her.

"You must go, Dorothy. I am sorry to part with you, but I do so for Gilbert's sake."

"Who talks of parting? What does all this mean?" cried Gilbert, who had been standing some minutes un.o.bserved in the doorway, hurrying forward.

"Who is going away? What is the matter with mother and Dorothy, that they are crying like babies?"