Thus Henry’s first evening at Monk’s Lodge passed very pleasantly, and as his visit began so it went on and ended. In the daytime he would take his gun, and, accompanied by Mr. Levinger on a pony and by an old man, half bailiff and half gamekeeper, would limp through the bracken in search of partridges and rabbits, an occupation in which he took great delight, although he was still too lame to follow it for long at a time.
Failing the shooting, his host organised some expedition to visit a distant church or earthwork, and accompanied by Emma they drove for hours through the mellow September afternoon. Or sometimes they sat upon the beach beneath the cliff, chatting idly on everything under heaven; or, if it chanced to rain, they would take refuge in the study and examine Mr. Levinger’s collection of coins, ancient weapons and other antiquities.
Then at last arrived the dinner-hour, and another delightful evening would be added to the number of those that had gone. Before he had been in the house a week, Henry felt a different man; indeed, had any one told him, when he came to Monk’s Lodge, that he was about to enjoy himself so much, he would not have believed it. He could see also that both Mr. Levinger and his daughter were glad that he should be there. At first Emma was a little stiff in her manner towards him, but by degrees this wore off, and he found himself day by day growing more friendly with her.
The better they became acquainted, the greater grew their mutual liking, and the more complete their understanding of each other. There was now no question of love-making, or even of flirtation between them; their footing was one of friendship, and both of them were glad that it should be so. Soon the sharpest sting of Emma’s shame passed away, since she could not believe that the man who greeted her with such open fellowship had learned the confession which broke from her on that night of her despair, for if it were so, surely he would look down upon her and show it in his manner. Taking this for granted, in some dim and illogical fashion she was grateful to him for not having heard; or if by any chance he had heard, as she was bound to admit was possible, still more was she grateful in that he dissembled his knowledge so completely as to enable her to salve her pride with the thought that he was ignorant. Indeed, in this event, so deeply did she feel upon the point, she was prepared in her own mind to forgive any sins of omission or commission with which he stood charged, setting against them the generosity of his conduct in this particular. Of the future Emma did not think; she was content to live in the present, and to feel that she had never been so happy before. Neither did she think of the past, with its disquieting tales of Joan Haste, and its horrible suggestions that Henry was being driven into marriage with herself for pecuniary reasons. If a day should ever come when he proposed to her, then it would be time enough to take all these matters into consideration, and to decide whether she should please her pride and do violence to her heart, or sacrifice her pride and satisfy her heart. There was no need to come to a decision now, for she could see well that, whatever might be his thoughts with reference to her, Henry had no immediate intention of asking her to be his wife.
Although of course he could not follow all the secret workings of Emma’s mind, Henry grasped the outlines of the situation accurately enough. He knew that this was a time of truce, and that by a tacit agreement all burning questions were postponed to a more convenient season. Mr. Levinger said no word to him of his daughter, of Joan Haste, or even of the financial affairs connected with the Rosham mortgages, for all these subjects were tabooed under the conditions of their armistice. Tormented as he had been, and as he must shortly be again, he also was deeply grateful for this indulgence, and more than content to forget the past and let the future take care of itself. One thing grew clear to him, however; indeed, before he left Monk’s Lodge he admitted it to himself in so many words: it was, that had there been no Joan Haste and no mortgages in the question, he would certainly ask Emma Levinger to be his wife.
The more he saw of this lady, the more attached he grew to her. She attracted him in a hundred ways by her gentleness, her delicacy of thought, her ever-present sympathy with distress and with all that was good and noble, and by the quaintness and culture of her mind. For these and many other reasons he could imagine no woman whom he should prefer to marry were he fortunate enough to win her. But always when he thought of it two spectres seemed to rise and stand before him—one of Joan, passionate, lovely and loving, and the other shaped like a roll of parchment and labelled “Mortgages, Sixty thousand pounds!”
At length the ten days of his stay came to an end, and upon a certain morning the old Rosham coachman appeared at the door of Monk’s Lodge to drive him home again.
“I don’t know how to thank you, Levinger,” he said, “for your kindness and hospitality to me here. I have not had such a good time for many a long day. It has been a rest to me, and I have come to the conclusion that rest is the best thing in the whole world. Now I must go back to face my anxieties.”
“Meaning the eleventh of October?” said Mr. Levinger.
“Yes, meaning the eleventh of October and other things. I am sure I do not know what on earth I am to do about those farms. But I won’t begin to bore you with business now. Good-bye, and again, many thanks.”