She was dead.
CHAPTER XVII. THE COUSINS.
Some days passed. Mistress Malvine had been buried. No direct communication had taken place between Anthony and his father. The gentle Bessie, full of distress at the breach, had done what she could to heal it; but ineffectually. Each was too proud and obstinate to make the first advance. Bessie's influence with her father was of the slightest—he had never showed love towards his plain daughter; and Anthony was too much of a man, in his own idea, to allow himself to be guided by a woman. Luke was perplexed more than ever. Urith was now left wholly without proper protection. Her uncle was worse than useless—an element of disorder in the household, and of disintegration in the pecuniary affairs of the family. The estate of Willsworthy did not come to him. It had belonged to his mother, and from his mother had gone to his sister, and now passed to his niece. It was a manor that seemed doomed to follow the spindle. But, though it had not become his property, he was trustee and guardian for his niece till she married; and a more unsatisfactory trustee or improper guardian could hardly have been chosen. He was, indeed, an amiable, well-intentioned man; but was weak, and over-fond of conviviality and the society of his social inferiors, from whom alone he met with deference. He had been brought up to the profession of the law; but, on his father's death, had thrown up what little work had come to him that he might be with his mother and sister, as manager of the estate. When his sister married Richard Malvine he was again thrown on his own resources, and lived mainly on subventions from his sister and friends, and a little law business that he picked up and mismanaged, till his brother-in-law died, when he returned to Willsworthy, to the mismanagement of that property which Richard Malvine had barely recovered from the disorder and deterioration into which it had been brought by Solomon Gibbs's previous rule. The old fellow was unable to stick to any sort of work, to concentrate his thoughts for ten minutes on any object, was irresolute, and swayed by those with whom he associated. His sister lectured and scolded him, and he bore her rebuke with placid amiability, and promises of amendment; promises that were never fulfilled. One great source of annoyance to his sister was his readiness to talk over all family matters at the tavern with his drinking comrades, to explain his views as to what was to be done in every contingency, and dilate on the pecuniary difficulties of his sister, and his schemes for the remedy of the daily deepening impecuniosity. This public discussion of the affairs of the family had done much to bring it into disrepute. Those who heard Mr. Gibbs over his cups retailed what they heard to their friends and wives with developments of their own, and the whole neighbourhood had come to believe that the Malvines were a family irretrievably lost, and that Willsworthy was a poor and intractable estate. Those who used their eyes—as Crymes—did not share in this latter opinion, they saw that the property was deteriorated by mismanagement, but they all readily accepted the opinion that bankruptcy was inevitable to the possessors at that time of Willsworthy.
Luke Cleverdon, knowing all the circumstances, and having gauged the character and abilities of Solomon Gibbs, was anxious concerning the future of Urith. She had tendered a dubious, sullen, and irregular submission to her mother, but was not likely to endure the capricious, unintelligent domination of her uncle. His sister had, moreover, exercised a very considerable restraint on Solomon. He always lived in wholesome dread of her tongue; when relieved of every restraint, there was no reckoning on what he might do with the money scraped together. Urith herself was unaccustomed to managing a house. Her mother had been an admirable disciplinarian in the house, and kept everything there in order, and Urith had run wild. Her mother had not attempted to join her with herself in domestic management, and had driven the girl into a chronic condition of repressed revolt by her unceasing fault-finding. The girl had kept herself outside the house, had spent her time on the moors to escape the irritation and rebellion provoked by her mother's tongue.
The only tolerable solution would have been for Luke to have made Urith his wife, and taken on himself the management of the property, but such a solution was now impossible, for Urith's heart was engaged. It had never been a possibility to Luke's imagination, for he had sufficient cool judgment to be quite sure that he and Urith would never agree. He was quiet, reserved, devoted to his books or to antiquarian researches on the moor, and she had an intractable spirit—at one time sullen, at another frantic—with which he could not cope.
Besides this uncongeniality of temperament, he had no knowledge of or taste for agricultural pursuits, and to recover Willsworthy a man was needed who was a practical farmer and acquainted with business. If he were, moreover, to live at Willsworthy and devote himself to the estate, he must abandon his sacred calling, and this Luke could not justify to his conscience. The choice of Urith, fallen on Anthony, was unobjectionable as far as suitability for the place went. Anthony had been reared on a farm, and was familiar with all that pertained to agriculture. He had energy, spirit, and judgment. But the strong unreasoning opposition of old Squire Cleverdon, and the refusal of Urith's mother to consent to it, made Luke resolve to do nothing to further the union.
Luke spoke to Anthony on the matter, but was met with airy assurance. The old man must come round, it was but a matter of time, and as Mistress Malvine was but recently dead, it could not be that the daughter should marry at once. There must ensue delay, and during this delay old Cleverdon would gradually accustom himself to the prospect, and his anger cool.
Time passed, and no tokens of yielding on the part of the father appeared. Luke spoke again to his cousin. Now Anthony's tone was somewhat altered. His father was holding out because he believed that by so doing he would prevent the marriage, but he was certain to relent as soon as the irrevocable step had been taken. Just as David mourned and wept as long as the child was sick, but washed his face, and ate and accommodated himself to the situation when the child was dead, so would it be with the Squire. He would sulk and threaten so long as Anthony was meditating matrimony, but no sooner was he married than the old man would ask them all to dinner, kiss, and be jolly.
Luke by no means shared his cousin's sanguine views. Mistress Penwarne was in the house, and from her he learnt the circumstances of the marriage and subsequent disagreement of old Anthony and Margaret; and he could to some extent understand the dislike the old Squire had to his son's marrying the daughter of his rival. He knew the hard, relentless, envious nature of the man, he had suffered from it himself, and he doubted whether it would yield as young Anthony anticipated. It was true that Anthony was the Squire's son and heir, that he was the keystone to the great triumphal Cleverdon arch the old man had been rearing in imagination; it was certain that there would be a struggle in his heart between his pride and his love. Luke was by no means confident that old Cleverdon's affection for his son would prove so mastering a passion as to overcome the many combined emotions which were in insurrection within him against this union, and impelling him to maintain his attitude towards his son of alienation and hostility.