"Oh, pressing her! Good heavens, no! I shouldn't like her to marry him for the reasons that would appeal to us, either. I believe in a love match, for everybody; but there ought to be something behind it too."
Mrs. Eldridge leant over his chair and kissed him on the forehead. "We've never regretted our love match, have we?" she said.
He reached up and took her hand in his. "We hardly thought it was going to bring us to this pass towards the close of our lives," he said. "But it won't part us, so it's not so bad. Crowborough said he might be able to find a house for us. There are several nice little places on his property. If one of them fell vacant, I could carry on here from it. Otherwise, I don't see anything for it but to put in an agent, and only come down now and then. I think now we've made up our minds, the worst is over. I wish William had written, though. He couldn't do anything to help us, perhaps; but I should have thought it must have meant something to him—our having to clear out. Norman must have told him, and there would have been time to hear from him by now."
"If there's nothing he could do," she said, "perhaps it's as well that he should leave it alone. We don't want the contrast between us made plainer than it is."
With that she left him. She could not trust herself to talk with him about his brother, against whom her anger was hot within her. She knew with what a weight the estrangement was lying upon him now; that the irritation he had felt against William had all disappeared; and that he was inclined to blame himself for all that had happened, to the justification of the man who was pursuing his eager successful course without an apparent thought of the troubles from which he had cut himself loose. She had hoped something from William until now. Looking back upon the whole course of the quarrel, she did recognize that he had made efforts to end it, and shown here and there the generosity which had always been a mark of his character. But, after all, his generosity had been easy to exercise. They had all lived in close contact for years, and he had got as good as he had given, in the affection which had prompted his generosity. Now that had fallen into the second place with him; he was in pursuit of associations other than the ties of family, and it was to further them that his openhandedness would be used. What did they matter to him at Hayslope? He had run away from the place in which so many of his interests had been bound up, rather than face the awkwardness of a situation which he could have ended at any time by a little patience and consideration. Even their leaving it was nothing to him now. Four days had gone by since he must have been told of it. He was not away, for Norman had written to Pam only the day before, and mentioned him. It must be accepted now that he didn't care. It would be as well that her husband should come to recognize that, and then he would cease longing for what was over and done with, and rely only upon those who loved him so dearly for his solace in life.
But she couldn't hasten the time. He must be made sadder yet before he could put away his sadness, and accept the new conditions.
She talked to Pamela that night. No pressure was to be put on her, she had said. She put all the pressure of which she was capable, being very careful to disguise the fact that she was putting any pressure at all. She loved Pamela more than her other girls; she was making more and more of a companion of her; she would hate giving her up to the best of husbands. But to please her own husband, to get for him, something that would lift from him some of the weight under which he was drooping, she would have pushed her daughter into a marriage with less prospects of happiness in it than this held out. She was ruthless with her, while talking to her with a sort of cooing tenderness and sympathy, and searching among half confessions and confidences for the point upon which she could concentrate to move her. Her father was mentioned but rarely. There was no plea to sacrifice herself for his sake. But it was inherent in everything that she said that submission on Pamela's part would bring something to him that nothing else could in these shadowed days. She did not place before her any of the advantages that would accrue to her from a marriage that would bring her wealth and station. She mentioned them only to make light of them. They knew, she and Pamela, that those were not the best things in life, though one was better off with them than without them. What were the best things? They seemed to be summed up in Horsham, according to her opinion, though she did not overpraise him.
No disagreement was possible with anything that she said. She put herself apparently into complete accord with Pamela, and made it difficult for her so much as to say that she didn't love Horsham; for that would have been the answer to an invitation that was never made, in so many words. The respect and even affection that Pamela was made to acknowledge as representing her feelings towards Horsham were taken as the most satisfactory with which to start upon married life. That was apparently agreed on all hands, and was hardly worth discussing. The question of "falling in love" was lightly touched upon. It sometimes happened before marriage, sometimes afterwards. The marriages that began with youthful raptures didn't always turn out the most satisfactory. It seemed to be indicated that there was something almost indelicate in a girl's looking out for those raptures; she would have no fear of such a desire in a daughter of hers.
They ended their long talk under the supposition that Pamela wouldn't marry for years to come, and discussed the future hopefully. It would be splendid if Lord Crowborough did find them a nice house, near enough to Hayslope for father to be able to look after things from there. They could furnish a house of three or four sitting-rooms and eight or ten bedrooms beautifully from the Hall, and leave quite enough behind them. They could have a lovely garden, and there would probably be enough land for a little farmery, in which they would all interest themselves. "I'm sure we should be much happier than we are here now," Mrs. Eldridge said. "I think even father has come to see that, and if he gets rid of his worries we shall have him with us for many years to come, just as he used to be. He is more cheerful now than he has been for a long time, though he isn't well. I do think there's a brighter time coming for us at last."