He had returned to Melcombe, not without shrewd suspicions that his cousin was soon to be his brother-in-law. A letter following closely on his steps had confirmed them. Some time in September he expected a summons to be present at the wedding; he wished after that to travel for several months, so he allowed Mr. Craik to persuade him that his good intentions ought not to be put off, and he made arrangements for the commencement of the new church at once.
It was to cost about three thousand pounds, a large sum; but the payment was to be spread over three or four years, and Valentine, at present, had few other claims. He had, for instance, no poor relations, at least he thought not; but he had scarcely given his word for the building of the church when he received a letter from Mrs. Peter Melcombe—"an ugly name," thought Valentine. "Mrs. Valentine Melcombe will sound much better. Oh, I suppose the young woman will be Mrs. Melcombe, though." Mrs. Peter Melcombe let Valentine know that she and Laura had returned to England, and would now gladly accept his invitation, given in the spring, to come and stay a few weeks with him whenever this should be the case.
"I have always considered Laura a sacred trust," continued the good lady. "My poor dear Peter, having left her to me—my means are by no means large—and I am just now feeling it my duty to consider a certain very kind and very flattering offer. I am not at all sure that a marriage with one whom I could esteem might not help me to bear better the sorrow of my loss in my dear child; but I have decided nothing. Laura has actually only five hundred pounds of her own, and that, I need not say, leaves her as dependent on me as if she was a daughter."
"Now look here," exclaimed Valentine, laying the letter down flat on the table, and holding it there with his hand—"now look here, this is serious. You are going to bring that simpleton Laura to me, and you would like to leave her here, would you? Preposterous! She cannot live with me! Besides, I am such a fool myself, that if I was shut up with her long, I should certainly marry her. Take a little time, Val, and consider.
"'Wilt them brave?
Or wilt thou bribe?
Or wilt thou cheat the kelpie?'
"Let me see. Laura is my own cousin, and the only Melcombe. Now, if Craik had any sense of gratitude—but he hasn't—it seems so natural, 'I built you a church, you marry my cousin. Do I hear you say you won't? You'd better think twice about that. I'd let you take a large slice of the turnip-field into your back garden. Turnips, I need hardly add, you'd have ad lib. (very wholesome vegetables), and you'd have all that capital substantial furniture now lying useless in these attics, and an excellent family mangle out of the messuage or tenement called the laundry—the wedding breakfast for nothing. I think you give in, Craik?' Yes; we shake hands—he has tears in his eyes. 'Now, Laura, what have you got to say?' 'He has sandy hair.' 'Of course he has, the true Saxon colour. Go down on your knees, miss, and thank heaven fasting for a good man's love (Shakespeare).' 'And he has great red hands.' 'Surely they had better be red than green—celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.' Good gracious! here he is."
"Ah, Craik! is that you? How goes it?"
One of Mr. Craik's gifts was that he could sigh better than almost anybody; whenever he was going to speak of anything as darkly mysterious, his sigh was enough to convince any but the most hardened. He fetched a sigh then (that is the right expression)—he fetched it up from the very bottom of his heart, and then he began to unfold his grievances to Valentine, how some of his best school-girls had tittered at church, how some of his favourite boys had got drunk, how some of the farmers had not attended morning service for a month, and how two women, regular attendants, had, notwithstanding, quarrelled to that degree that they had come to blows, and one of them had given the other a black eye, and old Becky Maddison is ill, he concluded. "I've been reading to her to-day. I don't know what to think about administering the Holy Communion to her while she persists in that lie."
"Do you mean the ghost story?" asked Valentine.
"Yes."