Goddard, seeing that the storm was over, smiled at the mixture of shrewdness and selfishness in the old man’s speech. Certain home-truths made him wince a little; but the prospect of Captain Jenkyns not finding a seat at his Sunday dinner-table did not present itself to him as in any way pathetic.
“Well,” he said good-humouredly, “I am not going to marry a duchess, but a girl as sweet as one. Isn’t that true, Liz? And so there’s an end to the matter. I suppose I can count on you to give her away, Captain?”
“Yes, I’ll give her away. Jolly good riddance,” growled the old man.
A short while afterwards he rose, filled his clay pipe with cavendish, which he ground fine between his hands, and excusing himself on the score of business, left the two young people to themselves. His destination, however, was a far-off river-side public, where he spent the rest of the evening with his cronies, and informed them, in speech that grew gradually more marked by thickness and profanity, of the approaching splendour of his daughter’s fortunes.
“Cheer up, Lizzie,” said Goddard, as she began to clear away the tea-things in silence. “We neither of us mind what he says.”
“He makes me so ashamed,” said Lizzie. “I didn’t know where to look. He’s been at it ever since you’ve been away, saying as how you would want to back out; and he made me quite miserable, he did.”
The baby-blue eyes filled with tears. Goddard consoled her as best he could.
“There, there, don’t cry,” he said, patting her shoulder with his great hand. “The banns will be put up next Sunday, as I said; and three weeks won’t be long, you know; and then it will all be over, and we’ll start fair. Leave those things alone for the present, and let us talk about it.”
So they sat, side by side, over the fire, and spoke of the near future. They would live in lodgings until they could find a house to suit them. They discussed the size of the house, its position, the furniture, the question of servants. They came nearer the present, and Goddard counted out into her hand six crisp bank-notes wherewith to buy her trousseau. Lizzie’s mind swam in ecstatic wonderment.
“All this—for me?” she whispered, awestricken.