"Well, but we have some claim to them; at all events, we are of uncle's blood, and did not come here designedly, with a view to establish ourselves here, as I'm certain this woman did! And when you talk of our not giving up our present life--look to it!"
"Look, Maude! what do you mean?"
"What do I mean! That we shall have to change our lives very quickly! You don't suppose Marian Ashurst is going to live her life with us as constant reminders to her of what was? You don't suppose that we--that I, at least, am going to waste my life with her as my rock ahead--not I, indeed!"
"Well, Maude," said Gertrude quietly, "I don't suppose anything about anything! I never do. What you propose I shall agree to, and that's all I know, or all I care for!"
It was Marian's wish that the marriage should be delayed for some little time, but Mr. Creswell was of the opposite advice, and thought it would be better to have the ceremony as soon as possible. "Life is very short, Marian," he said, "and I am too old to think of deferring my happiness. I am looking to you as my wife to brighten and soothe the rest of my days, and I am selfish enough to grudge every one of them until you are in that position! It is all very well for young people to have their term of courtship and engagement, and all the rest of it, but you are going to throw yourself away on an old man, dear one"--and he smiled fondly and patted her cheek, "and you must be content to dispense with that, and come to him at once!"
"Content is not the word to express my feelings and wishes in the matter," said Marian; "only I thought that--after Tom's death, so soon, I mean--people might say that it would have been better to have waited till----"
"My dearest child, no waiting would restore my poor boy to me; and I look to you to fill the void in my heart which his loss has made. As for people talking, I have lived too long, child, to pay the slightest heed to what they say. If such gossip moved me one jot, it would rather strengthen my wish to hasten our marriage, as it supplies me with an argument which you evidently have not perceived----"
"And that is----"
"And that is, that you may depend upon it these sticklers for the proprieties and conventionalities, these worshippers of Mrs. Grundy, will be very much interested in our movements, and highly scandalised if, under these fresh circumstances which they have just learned, you remain an inmate of my house. What has been perfectly right and decorous for the last few months would be highly improper for the next few weeks, according to their miserable doctrine. I should not have named this to you, Marian, had not the conversation taken this turn; nor even then, had you been a silly girl and likely to be influenced by such nonsense. However much you might wish to go away and live elsewhere until our marriage, you cannot. Your mother's state of health precludes any possibility of her removal, and therefore the only thing for us to do is to get the marriage over as quickly as possible, and thus effectually silence Mrs. Grundy's disciples."
"Very well," said Marian. "I suppose for the same reason it will be better that the wedding should be here?"