“I am glad that they meet with your approval,” said Edward; “and now there is one more thing I want to ask you, Mr. de la Molle, and which I hope, if you give your consent to the marriage, you will not raise any objection to. It is, that our engagement should not be announced at present. The fact is,” he went on hurriedly, “my father is a very peculiar man, and has a great idea of my marrying somebody with a large fortune. Also his state of health is so uncertain that there is no possibility of knowing how he will take anything. Indeed he is dying; the doctors told me that he might go off any day, and that he cannot last for another three months. If the engagement is announced to him now, at the best I shall have a great deal of trouble, and at the worst he might make me suffer in his will, should he happen to take a fancy against it.”
“Umph,” said the Squire, “I don’t quite like the idea of a projected marriage with my daughter, Miss de la Molle of Honham Castle, being hushed up as though there were something discreditable about it, but still there may be peculiar circumstances in the case which would justify me in consenting to that course. You are both old enough to know your own minds, and the match would be as advantageous for you as it could be to us, for even now-a-days, family, and I may even say personal appearance, still go for something where matrimony is concerned. I have reason to know that your father is a peculiar man, very peculiar. Yes, on the whole, though I don’t like hole and corner affairs, I shall have no objection to the engagement not being announced for the next month or two.”
“Thank you for considering me so much,” said Edward with a sigh of relief. “Then am I to understand that you give your consent to our engagement?”
The Squire reflected for a moment. Everything seemed quite straight, and yet he suspected crookedness. His latent distrust of the man, which had not been decreased by the scene of two nights before—for he never could bring himself to like Edward Cossey—arose in force and made him hesitate when there was no visible ground for hesitation. He possessed, as has been said, an instinctive insight into character that was almost feminine in its intensity, and it was lifting a warning finger before him now.
“I don’t quite know what to say,” he replied at length. “The whole affair is so sudden—and to tell you the truth, I thought that Ida had bestowed her affections in another direction.”
Edward’s face darkened. “I thought so too,” he answered, “until yesterday, when I was so happy as to be undeceived. I ought to tell you, by the way,” he went on, running away from the covert falsehood in his last words as quickly as he could, “how much I regret I was the cause of that scene with Colonel Quaritch, more especially as I find that there is an explanation of the story against him. The fact is, I was foolish enough to be vexed because he beat me out shooting, and also because, well I—I was jealous of him.”
“Ah, yes,” said the Squire, rather coldly, “a most unfortunate affair. Of course, I don’t know what the particulars of the matter were, and it is no business of mine, but speaking generally, I should say never bring an accusation of that sort against a man at all unless you are driven to it, and if you do bring it be quite certain of your ground. However, that is neither here nor there. Well, about this engagement. Ida is old enough to judge for herself, and seems to have made up her mind, so as I know no reason to the contrary, and as the business arrangements proposed are all that I could wish, I cannot see that I have any ground for withholding my consent. So all I can say, sir, is that I hope you will make my daughter a good husband, and that you will both be happy. Ida is a high-spirited woman; but in my opinion she is greatly above the average of her sex, as I have known it, and provided you have her affection, and don’t attempt to drive her, she will go through thick and thin for you. But I dare say you would like to see her. Oh, by the way, I forgot, she has got a headache this morning, and is stopping in bed. It isn’t much in her line, but I daresay that she is a little upset. Perhaps you would like to come up to dinner to-night?”
This proposition Edward, knowing full well that Ida’s headache was a device to rid herself of the necessity of seeing him, accepted with gratitude and went.
As soon as he had gone, Ida herself came down.
“Well, my dear,” said the Squire cheerfully, “I have just had the pleasure of seeing Edward Cossey, and I have told him that, as you seemed to wish it——”