CHAPTER IX.
[MARIE'S PROMISE TO MRS OSBORNE.]
When the travellers arrived at Stratford they drove to Mrs Osborne's. She was expecting them, and was sitting in the drawing-room with Alice. 'Mother,' said George joyously, 'Miss Gordon.' Mrs Osborne first held out her right hand, then her left, and caught a hand of the girl's in each of her own. Marie smiled and blushed, and tried to bow. Mrs Osborne looked long and steadily at the girl before she spoke. When she broke silence she said,--'Thank you, my dear, for coming. You are most welcome. You and I must be great friends. I and George are great friends.' She let go the girl's hands, and turning up the radiant young face, held it a moment between her hands, looking admiringly at its bright young beauty. Then she kissed the red rounded cheek, and turning to Alice, said,--'Miss Gordon, this is my younger daughter Alice. I am sure you and she will be friends.' Alice approached Marie timidly, and kissed her half fearfully. She had never in all her life seen beauty like this before, and was a little overawed by it. Kate was, she knew, beautiful, but this was as different from Kate as sunshine from moonlight. But although she was timid and strange, she did not feel repelled. 'I don't wonder,' she thought, 'at George falling in love with her. If I was a man I should go crazy over her.' 'And now, Miss Gordon,' said Mrs Osborne, 'if you come with me, I will show you your room.' When his mother and sweetheart had left the room, George went to Kate; and said, in a low voice,--' I never expected my mother to take to Marie so kindly. I am amazed. Can you make it out, Kate? As a rule, mother is so slow to get on with people. Did you ever see mother so amiable before?' he asked, in a tone of proud triumph. 'No; but who can help liking, who can help loving Marie? I know no one who could resist her. Oh, George, I am so glad to see you looking so bright and happy to-day.' 'Oh, I am all right now, Kate. It must have been coming back here with Marie cured me. I have had a terribly hard trial, but it is all over. I cannot tell you how happy I am now. I think this is the happiest day of my life. Here are you and Nevill on the best of terms with mother; and here are Marie and myself a thousand times better received than I had dared to hope.' 'No one can help loving Marie. Mother will think more and more of her every day she knows her. I know little Alice liked her too, though she did look scared. Alice will simply worship her in a week. She is just the kind of girl little Alice will go mad about. I am sure you cannot be more glad than I am mother likes Marie so well. I have been very unhappy of late, George.' 'Very unhappy, very unhappy, Kate! What do you mean? Unhappy about what? Why did you not tell me?' 'Oh, not about myself. About you. Now that--that we have all got back here to the old place, and you are once more in good spirits, I am more than satisfied. I am delighted. But I used to feel very cold and dismal in London when I thought anything might come between you and Marie. It is so good of you to be like your old self again, George.' He put his arm round her and kissed her tenderly. Alice and Nevill had been chatting at the fire. Now they turned round and drew near Kate and George. The brother--went over to the younger sister, and said to her,-- 'Well, little Alice, are you disappointed?' 'I am a good deal disappointed, George. Fearfully disappointed. Kate wrote me to say she was lovely, and I knew you had some taste. I used to think you a good-looking man. But to think of such a beautiful creature as that accepting such a common-place, homely, dull young man as our George, is beyond my patience.' 'Oh, little Alice,' laughed the brother, 'I thought you meant to say you did not think her pretty.' 'Pretty! Pretty isn't the word, George, and a moonstruck poet like you ought to know better. Why, she's simply exquisite. Such a lovely quiet smile for a home as she has! George, is she awfully stuck up?' 'Not at all. She is wickeder than you.' 'Now, George, if there is one thing I hate it's a paragon, and if such a lovely girl as that was as wicked as I, she would be a paragon. Wicked as I! Why, she looks like an angel.' 'And so does little Alice, now,' laughed Nevill. In the meantime Mrs Osborne had led Marie to her room. On the way she had said little nothings, mere commonplaces about the things they passed and the view from the windows. 'This is your room, my dear,' said Mrs Osborne, as they entered. 'I hope you will find it comfortable. If you want anything let me know. That is the Avon, there. This place would be perfect only for the floods.' She shut the door and sat down. 'The house is, as you see, on a little hill. We are not quite enough out of the town for my taste; but Mr Osborne built the place before we were married, and of course I have lived in it all my life quite contented. 'We are a slow-moving people down here, my dear. Mr Osborne was a stanch Conservative, and did not wish to alter the plan of houses in use a hundred years ago. He said what had been good enough for his father was good enough for him. There are other branches of his family that were more lucky than his. But we must not grumble, my dear; we must not grumble. I have had a rough and a smooth time of it. When Mr Osborne died I had my troubles, besides the loss of the best of men. A good deal of our income went with him, as he had only a life interest in a large portion of the property; when he died a good deal of it went back to the head of the family. I am talking to you quite freely, my dear, as if you were a member of the family.' Marie coloured and bowed. 'I am quick in my likings and dislikings, and I like you; and when you are George's wife--' Marie blushed. 'When you are his wife you will know all the family history; but I am an old woman, and old women like best to talk of the past I don't weary you, do I, child?' 'No, Mrs Osborne; it is exceedingly kind of you to speak to me in this way. It puts me quite at my ease. You could not do me a greater kindness.' The girl looked up, and there were tears of gratitude in her dark deep eyes. Mrs Osborne took her hand and stroked the back softly, as she continued,-- 'All the Osbornes have been Tories--Conservatives, you know. Some of the men of the family have been as wild and reckless as any men need be; but they never forgot their principles or struck their flag. Church and State has been their cry for as long as the Osbornes have been settled in Warwickshire; and that goes back to the Conquest, my dear. A young girl cannot, I know, take as much interest in these things as an old woman; but, my dear, I was like you once--I was young, too, and took no interest in politics; but I married into the family, and I was always with my husband in the great elections long ago; and you will come to take an interest in them yourself, when you are married into the family, child. I am not tiring you?' 'Oh no. Please go on. It is very good of you to take such trouble with me.' 'I am taking no trouble with you; and even suppose I was, with whom should I take more trouble than the woman who is to be my George's wife? But it interests me to talk to you in this way. Well, as I was telling you, root and branch of the Osborne family have always stood up for Church and State; and it would be a terrible blow to the name in the county if anything went wrong now with one of the family. I need hardly say it would be an awful blow to me if anything went wrong with anyone of the name belonging to me.' Marie looked up in surprise and fear. Mrs Osborne continued,-- 'I have been in great fear of George. I am greatly afraid he has strayed from the Church. He tells me you are a member of the Church. So ought he to be. Now, my dear child, I have taken you aside the very first opportunity, the very first moment you entered our house, to ask you, who are to be his wife, to do all in your power to bring him back to faith and reason. There is no better-hearted man in all England than George, no more honourable gentleman, no son a mother loves more dearly; but it were better he had never been born than that he should forego religion. I want you, my dear, to do all you can with him. It is natural you should now have more influence with him than anyone else in the world. I want you to do all you can to bring him back again. In the natural course of things, I shall die long before him; and it would embitter all my life to my death, and make my dying moments awful, if I thought my only son, my dear George--' Marie looked up with a bright look, exclaiming-- 'Oh, Mrs Osborne, I am so glad to tell you I think all those foolish doubts are out of his mind. He has not told me in words that they are, but I think I may be as sure as if he had told me in words. 'Thank God!' cried the mother devoutly. She clasped her hands and looked up to heaven. After a pause Mrs Osborne said, 'You are not sure; you only think.' 'I am sure.' Mrs Osborne clasped the girl's hand eagerly, and looked up into her face with beseeching eyes, and spoke rapidly,-- 'I am his mother. You are the woman who is to be his wife. We are more interested in him than all the rest of the world put together. You say he has got rid of those doubts?' 'Yes; I am sure he has.' 'No time is fixed for the marriage?' 'No.' 'Promise me, his mother, one thing. Promise me, should those doubts return, you will never fix a day for your wedding until they have gone away. Promise me you will never marry him while any doubt remains in his mind. I am his mother who asks you to do this.' 'I promise.'