He gazed at her for a moment with a flash of something like fury in his eyes, and then flung her arm far from him with fierce indignation. ‘Do you think I am a brute beast without understanding?’ he cried.
CHAPTER II
For a week or more after their betrothal these two lovers were very happy. To be sure there was a great deal of remark and some remonstrance addressed to Grace about the antecedents of the man she was going to marry. Various people spoke to her, and some even wrote, which is a strong step, asking her if she was aware that Oliver Wentworth had been supposed to be ‘wild’ or ‘gay,’ or something else of the same meaning. It is generally supposed that a village or a small town is the place for gossip, but I think Society is made up of a succession of villages, and that there is no place, not even London itself—that wilderness, that great Babylon—in which people are not talked about by their Christian names, and everything that can be discussed, with perhaps a little more, is not known about them. Ironborough was a very large town, but the Wentworths and the Goodhearts had both been settled there for a generation or two, and they were known to everybody. And not only was it known universally and much talked of that Oliver Wentworth had been ‘wild,’ and that he was poor, and consequently that he must be marrying solely for money; but it also raised a great ferment in the place that he should intend, instead of settling down (‘and thankful for that’) in Grace’s charming house, which her old uncle, a man very learned in the art of making himself comfortable, had made so perfect—to carry off his wife to London with him, and live there for the advantage of his work, forsooth! as if his work could be of any such consequence in the ménage, or as if he would ever earn enough to pay the house rent. Oliver was like so many other young men, a barrister with very little to do. He had managed to keep himself going by a few briefs and a little literature, as soon as he had fully convinced himself, by the process of spending everything else that he could lay his hands upon, that a man must live upon what he can make. He was not of so fine a fibre as some heroes, who feel themselves humiliated by their future wife’s fortune, and whom the possible suspicion of interested motives pursues everywhere; but at the same time he was not disposed to be his wife’s dependent, and he knew the world well enough to be aware that with the backing of her wealth he would probably make a great deal more of his profession than it had hitherto been possible for him to do. As for Grace herself, she talked of his profession, and of his work, and of the necessity for living where it would be most convenient to him, as if her entire fortune depended upon that, and Oliver’s work was to be the support of the new household. A girl without a penny, whose marriage was to promote her to the delightful charge of a house of her own, and whose every new bonnet was to come from the earnings of her husband, could not have been more completely absorbed in consideration of all that was necessary for his perfect convenience in his work. She bewildered even Mrs. Ford by the way she took up this idea.
‘I honour you for what you say, and I love you for it, Grace; but still you know Oliver’s profession is not what you would call very—lucrative, is it? and he could do his writing anywhere, you know!’
‘Indeed, I don’t know anything of the kind,’ said Grace, indignantly. ‘He has to be constantly in the House when it is sitting. He has to know everything that is going on. Would you think your husband was well treated if he was made to manage his work, say from the seaside or a country house, for your sake and the children’s, instead of being on the spot? You know you would not, Trix.’
‘Oh, well, perhaps that may be so; but then my husband—’ faltered Trix, with a troubled look. She would have said: ‘My husband is the breadwinner, and everything depends on him,’ but she was daunted by the look in Grace’s eyes, and actually did not dare to suggest that Oliver would be in a very different position. Mr. Wilbraham, the solicitor who managed Miss Goodheart’s affairs, interfered in the same way, with similar results. She was in a position of almost unexampled freedom for so young a woman. She had neither guardians nor trustees. There was nobody in the world who had a right to dictate to her or even authoritatively to suggest what she ought to do—for the reason that all she had had come to her as it were inadvertently, accidentally, because her uncle, who always said he intended to leave her nothing, had died without a will. Mr. Wilbraham was the only man in the world who had any right to say a word, and he had no real right, only the right of an old friend who had known her all her life, and knew everything about her. He said, when the settlement was being discussed (in which respect Mr. Wentworth’s behaviour was perfect—for all that he wished was to secure his wife in the undisturbed enjoyment of what was her own), that he hoped Miss Goodheart meant to remain, when she was married, among her own friends.
‘I don’t think you would like London after Ironborough,’ he said, with perfect sincerity; ‘and to get a house like this in town would cost you a fortune, you know.’
‘It is not a question of liking,’ said Grace, with all the calm of faith; ‘of course, we must live where Mr. Wentworth’s work requires him to live. He cannot carry on his profession in the country.’
‘The country!’ said Mr. Wilbraham, with a sneer which his politeness to an excellent client could only soften. ‘Does he call this the country? and Mr. Wentworth’s profession, if you will permit me to say so, has, so far as I know—’
‘It is the country though, you know,’ said Grace, preserving her temper, though with a little difficulty, ‘though not exactly what you could call fresh fields and pastures new.’