‘Sixteen! Of course she is only a child,’ said Mary; ‘and the daughter of Mrs. Severn the painter! Frank, you must be mad.’
‘I think I shall be, unless you help me,’ said the young soldier. ‘Her mother is furious against me, Mary; and so will my own mother be, I suppose. But what does it matter when we are going to India? We shall be able to live on what we have. She has no expensive tastes, nor have I.’
‘You,—no expensive tastes?’ cried Mary. ‘Oh, Frank! do pause and think. I did not care for Nelly Rich, but this is far worse. Nelly Rich was of no family, but she had money; whereas this girl is——’
‘The creature I love best in the world,’ said Frank, interrupting her hastily, with a sudden glow upon his face. ‘It is of no use speaking. If I have to give up mother, and home, and friends, and all I have in the world, I shall still have Alice,—and Alice means everything. It is because you don’t know her. But I tell you there never was any one like her. And, Mary, if you don’t stand by us, I will throw up everything else I care for in the world.’
‘But not her?’ asked his cousin, raising her eyes to his face.
‘Never her!’ cried the young man. ‘Give up my Alice! Not for twenty mothers! I don’t mind what people choose to say. We are going to India, and it will not matter to us,—nor your objections, nor mamma’s objections, nor anything in the world. She shall go with me if I run away with her. You understand me now?’
‘Is she the kind of girl to run away with you?’ said Mary, still looking earnestly in his face.
‘No,’ said Frank, with a little outburst of impatience, ‘I wish she were. You may think how unpleasant it is to me to put myself at that woman’s feet, and plead as if I were a beggar. And she hates me; but Alice stands fast, bless her! And her mother can refuse her nothing,’ he added, with a sudden breath of satisfaction. He was flushed and excited with his story. Mary had never seen him look so manful, so bright, and full of energy. He had made up his mind;—that was something gained, at least.
And then there was another pause. Mary did not know how to reply. Frank was in love, and that was a great, the greatest recommendation in his favour. But this Alice, this creature of sixteen, a girl altogether out of his sphere! It was impossible for his cousin, brought up in the prejudices of her class, not to feel that there must have been some ‘artfulness,’ some design upon the innocent young Guardsman, some triumphant scheme, to lead away so guileless a member of society; and what if it were the same scheme which had wounded Laurie too, and sent him away with, perhaps, a broken heart! Such were Mary’s thoughts as she listened. And what could she do? Make herself a party to this artful plan? Countenance the girl, and help Frank to ruin himself? How could she do it? And there were all the speculations about Nelly Rich which had thus fallen to the ground,—and all her godmother’s hopes of the money Frank was to marry! Her mind was full of perplexity. ‘I do not see what I can do,’ she said, faltering. ‘I don’t understand it at all. There was first Miss Rich, and we had made up our minds to that; and now, all at once, it turns out not to be Miss Rich, but a girl no one ever heard of. I don’t know what to make of it, Frank. How can I stand your friend? You are scarcely one-and-twenty. You don’t want a wife at all, that I can see; and going to India too! And a girl of sixteen! I think you are quite unreasonable. As for poor godmamma, I don’t know how she is to bear it. I see nothing but folly in it myself, and what can I say?’
Frank made no answer. He turned with her towards the house, from which, some time before, they had heard the sound of the breakfast-bell. The old butler stood at the window with his napkin in his hand, looking anxiously about the flower-garden for Miss Mary, and much puzzled to divine whose was the figure which he saw in the distance by her side. Mary had dropped her cousin’s arm, and the two walked onward, side by side, like people who have quarrelled, or between whom, at least, some difficulty has arisen. ‘My mother does not get up to breakfast?’ Frank had said, and Mary had answered ‘No,’ and they had gone on again without further communication. But yet Frank was not so cast down as he might have been supposed to be. He was sure of Mary, though Mary was so doubtful of him. When they sat down together to breakfast in the sunshiny quiet of the great brown dining-room, they went over and over the subject again, and yet again. Frank was not aware that he had any skill in description, but, all unawares, he placed before his cousin such a picture of Alice and her curls as touched Mary Westbury’s heart. ‘If my mother once heard her play, she would never ask another question,’ Frank said, in his simplicity; and he confided to Mary more of his troubles in respect to Nelly Rich than he had ever thought to tell. ‘It is a sneaking sort of thing for a man to say,’ Frank admitted, with a flush on his face, ‘but it wasn’t all my doing. I declare I thought old Rich meant to offer her to me the first hour I was in the house. I should never have thought of it myself. And I met her to-day, Mary, and told her plainly I was going to India. She is sharp enough. You may be sure a fellow would never need to make long explanations to her.’