Amethyst. Christabel R. Coleridge
Leigh’s side of the story did not meet with so favourable a reception. Like Lady Haredale, Mrs. Leigh had not taken warning in time, and, while she was thinking of cautioning her son against the penniless beauty, he stood before her with the tale of his successful wooing, quite unprepared for the displeasure with which she received it.
He was entirely independent of her, and she had no power to prevent him from marrying whom he would; and when she comprehended that the offer had been made and accepted, her consternation was great.
“Lucian! In three weeks! One of those Haredales! Nothing could have grieved me more.”
“I don’t think you can mean that, mother,” said Lucian.
“You don’t know what you are doing.”
Lucian said nothing. The fewness of his words always made it difficult to argue with him. He made no protestations of passionate love, but he did not yield an inch, and only said at last—
“But I’m booked now, mother. I have proposed to her.”
“Will you not at least give in to a delay? Have you no regard to my wishes?”
“Yes,” said Lucian, “I wish you liked it. But I think I ought to settle it for myself. Anyway I have settled it.”
“And have you no misgivings?”
“No,” said Lucian, with a light in his handsome face never seen there before.
Mrs. Leigh felt as if she might as well argue with a statue. She went to bed in distress and uncertainty, and, early the next morning sent over a message to the Rectory, begging Mr. Riddell to come and see her at once. He was an old friend, and his office made her feel it right to consult him besides; and she was a woman who liked sympathy, and always talked freely of her troubles and anxieties.
He came before breakfast was over at Ashfield, and Mrs. Leigh, rising, with an eager squeeze of his hand, dismissed her little girls and their governess, and said tearfully—
“My dear Rector, you know everything I would say. I shall leave you with this foolish boy to persuade him, if possible—”
“I can go, mother, if you want to tell the Rector all your objections,” said Lucian. “Anyway I don’t see why you should go away. I have proposed to Miss Haredale, and she has accepted me. The thing is done.”
Lucian turned scarlet as he spoke, and embarrassment gave a certain coldness to his tone. Mr. Riddell recognised that he would be hard to move.
“My dear boy,” he said, as Mrs. Leigh, in spite of her son’s words, left them alone together, “I think I am sorry that you have been so hasty. Three weeks is a very short time.”
“It’s quite long enough,” said Lucian.
“Yes, she is a beautiful girl, Lucian, and as guileless—as—as Psyche herself; and brought up by a good woman. But she is only eighteen, and no man can say what she will grow up to. There will be a very great deal of her, Lucian. She is a great prize. She is rarely beautiful, and she has brains, and is highly strung. She will expect a great deal of life. She does not know at all, yet, what she will need. She has all her growing and her living to do in the future.”
“So have I,” said Lucian. “But one knows very well what one will come to.”
“Yes, my dear Lucian, that is the very thing. But no one can know what Amethyst Haredale will come to. It’s a very serious thing to marry a girl who comes of so doubtful a stock. And, my dear boy, I am certain that her mother is not a good woman.”
“Of course,” said Lucian, “I know all about her people. I shall take her right away from them. She has never been with Lady Haredale.”
“Your mind is quite made up?”
“Of course,” said Lucian. “It’s quite easy for me to marry early, and I don’t see why I should not. My mother will get used to it.”
Lucian still uttered no expressions of enthusiastic love. He hardly attempted to defend Amethyst. His fair, beautifully formed face was quite still and impassive. He had made up his mind and so had Amethyst, and, with her by his side, he meant to begin at once to lead the life to which he believed himself called; to live on his estate, look after his tenants, keep up his shooting, attend to public business, and set a good example in his own neighbourhood. As he said himself, he knew exactly what he was going to grow to, and he never doubted that his wife would grow in the same direction as himself.
He was a thoroughly good fellow; but Mr. Riddell wondered whether he was quite the mate for the lovely child, in whose face a thousand possibilities were written, and whose nature was all in bud. The Rector was, however, a man who could recognise the inevitable. He saw that the engagement must be, and could only hope that the quick-springing love between the pair was warm enough to fuse these two natures into one. At least, they were still in a soft and malleable stage of existence. He set himself, therefore, not to talk over the young man, but to endeavour to reconcile Mrs. Leigh to her son’s choice; and, what was perhaps equally hard, to the fact of his early marriage, and separation from her family circle.
Lucian set off for Cleverley Hall, looking and feeling much as if he had been about to walk up to a cannon’s mouth. He was an odd mixture of self-confidence and unreadiness, and, though he felt perfectly sure that he was a right choice for Amethyst, he had no words in which to convey as much to her father.
All the trouble, however, was saved him, for he was shown into the morning-room to Lady Haredale.
“Ah, Mr. Leigh,” she said, “what am I to say to you? What have you been doing with my little girl? I don’t think I ought to consent till she has seen a little of the world. I meant her to have such a success in London.”
“But that wouldn’t be much good after we were engaged,” said Lucian. “And I don’t think she would like it.”
“Don’t you?” said Lady Haredale, with a thought in her mind not very unlike her Rector’s, “Ah, you think she is a little nun. Well now, I am going to be quite frank with you. You know we are as poor as rats!”
“I—I—I have understood that—that Lord Haredale was—not wealthy,” stammered Lucian, losing his self-possession entirely.
“As rats—as church mice! Of course now I have no reserves with you. We can’t afford to take her out as we should like. Her grandfather’s will gives her 3,000 pounds on her wedding-day. We can’t give her a farthing more!”
“I know that—I don’t care. I can settle—”
“Ah yes; you will tell Lord Haredale about that. Because we are going to say yes. We think we ought to have our girl settled. And, my dear Mr. Leigh—my dear Lucian, I want her to be happy. Oh, yes, you know about her poor sister.—That came of ambition—and I mean my Amethyst to have her way.”
“I shall take care of her. I’ll make her happy—” said Lucian, touched, and with fervour.
As he spoke, Lord Haredale came in, shook hands with him, heard his carefully prepared speech as to his money matters, and answered it. “Yes, my lady thinks we had better let her get settled at once. It will please her aunt, who brought her up. She is a good little thing, and I’m glad she should do well for herself.”
“Well then,” said Lady Haredale, “we don’t like all these formalities, do we? You will much prefer coming to Amethyst. But your mother? I suppose she doesn’t like it?”
“She does think we are rather young,” said Lucian meekly.
“I shall talk to her. Now wait here, and I will find the child.”
Lady Haredale went off to the school-room, where Amethyst was restlessly trying to look as if nothing was happening, and the younger girls, well aware of a crisis, were secretly watching her.
“Well!”