“I will marry you in twelve months from this, if all goes well, but not before. It is waste of time to speak of it, Edward—as I have told you. Were I to marry without papa’s consent—and you know he will not give it—he can take most of the money that came to me from mamma. Only a small income would remain to me. I shall not risk that.”
“As if Sir Dace would exact it! He might go into one of his passions at first, but he’d soon come round; he’d not touch your money, Vera.” And Edward Pym, in saying this, fully believed it.
“You don’t know papa. I have been used to luxuries, Edward, and I could not do without them. What would two hundred pounds a-year be for me—living as I have lived? And for you, also, for you would be my husband? Next May I shall be of age, and my fortune will be safe—all my own.”
“A thousand things may happen in a year,” grumbled Pym, who was wild to lead an idle life, and hated the discipline on board ship. “The Rose of Delhi may go down, and I with it.”
“She has not gone down yet. Why should she go down now?”
“What right had Coralie to intercept your letter?” asked Pym, passing to another phase of his grievances.
“She had no right; but she did it. I asked Esther, our own maid, to run and put it in the post for me. Coralie, coming in from walking, met Esther at the door, saw the letter in her hand, and took it from her, saying she would go back and post it herself. Perhaps Esther suspected something: she did not tell me this. Coralie had the face to tell it me herself yesterday.”
“Well, Vera, you should have managed better,” returned Pym, feeling frightfully cross.
“Oh, Edward, don’t you see how it is?” wailed the girl, in a piteous tone of appeal—“that they are all against me. Or, rather, against you. Papa, Coralie, and Ozias: and I fancy now that Coralie has spoken to Esther. Papa makes them think as he thinks.”
“It is a fearful shame. Is this to be our only interview?”