Cartouche. Frances Mary Peard
Miss Cartwright sat up cheerfully.
“It is nothing at all, Jack; I am quite well again, and your news is the best thing for me, if I really wanted anything. Is it all settled?”
“Yes,” he said with a little restraint again, and pulling a magnolia leaf as he spoke. “Phillis is at Bologna with the Leytons, we all came out together. Yes, it is true; I expected it to astonish you.”
“Don’t tell me anything more for a minute or two,” said his aunt gently, putting up her hands; “it is one thing on another. Phillis at Bologna? I don’t quite understand.”
“But you like the news, don’t you?” said Jack, turning suddenly on her.
“Like it! how could I fail? Such a good girl, and all that money, and your uncle wishing it so much. Nothing could be so desirable, only, my dear boy—”
“What?” sharply.
“Sometimes you get odd touches of perversity, and the very fact of a thing being quite unexceptional sets you against it. I remember it so well when you were a boy. It would have been a sad misfortune in this case, though, of course, it is too momentous a matter for me to have said much about it beforehand. I suppose that is the reason you did not know how anxious I felt, but I assure you I have scarcely thought of anything else. And Phillis is at Bologna! When do they come on?”
“To-morrow—Saturday. I don’t exactly remember. I suppose you know the terms of the agreement?” said Jack, looking at her.
“My dear!”
“Well, it is an agreement,” he said perversely; “what else would you call it? I, Peter Thornton, of Hetherton Grange, in the county of Surrey, Esquire, do hereby declare you, John Francis Ibbetson, barrister—how shall I put the London lodgings, second floor, to best advantage?—to be the heir of all my estates and properties—excluding, let us hope, his gout and his temper—on condition that you take as your wife my step-niece, Mary Phillis Grey, to have and to hold with the timber, freeholds, messuages, and other etceteras of the said estate. If that is not an agreement, I don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Miss Cartwright, leaning forward, tried to look into her nephew’s face.
“My dear,” she said slowly, “of course you are in joke, but I don’t think I like to hear you talk in such a way. I should be miserable if I did not feel sure you were quite happy.”
Jack turned round and took her soft hand very kindly in his own.
“Well, then, don’t be miserable,” he said lightly; “why, you know it stands to reason that every one must be perfectly happy directly he or she is engaged to be married. What shall I do to prove my load of bliss?”
But she shook her head.
“I sometimes fancy it would be better if money were not mixed up with marriages at all. I don’t think it was so much thought about in old days.”
“It is a stronger necessity now.”
“Your father would willingly increase your allowance.”
“I don’t choose to live on that woman’s fortune. Aunt Mary, I thought you would be the first to congratulate me on the splendour of my prospects!”
“My dear, and so I do,” she said quickly, laying her hand on his shoulder; “I do, with all my heart. If I ask these questions it is only that I care so very, very much, that I was afraid, Jack, whether you might have rushed into this without quite thinking enough beforehand. But I dare say that was only my foolish fancy. Tell me one thing: if you had not married Phillis would your uncle have left the estates to her?”
“Not he,” said the young man, flinging a stone into the bushes where Cartouche was still annoying the cat. “He told me in so many words, that unless I married her she would be penniless, and the money would go to some tenth cousin or so.”
“I hope the poor girl did not know this,” said Miss Cartwright uneasily.
“He is not the man to keep that sort of pressure to himself.”
“Jack, you liked her before there was any talk of these estates?”
“Of course I did.”
He spoke impatiently, as if the subject were already exhausted, whereas Miss Cartwright, longing for fuller details, felt as if it were only beginning.
“I wish I had known Phillis before,” she said sighing, and at the sigh the young fellow’s heart reproached him again.
“She said the same,” he said, turning towards her and speaking gravely; “I fancy you’ll get on with her—everybody doesn’t, you know. She’s—but there’s no good in attempting to describe her, I was never good at that sort of thing; the only thing I could say about you was that you weren’t tall or black.”
Miss Cartwright brightened. She had a warm corner ready in her kind heart for the girl who was to be Jack’s wife; no jealousy made the prospect bitter, she was already planning, welcoming, sympathising. Jack himself jumped up; he said he would go to the hotel where he was putting up and come back to dinner. It was a concession, for he would encounter Miss Preston, but he had not the heart to disappoint his aunt that first evening, and afterwards he acknowledged that it had not been so bad. The window was open, the moon was sailing through blue, profound skies, her light fell like silver on the glossy leaves, and there was a sort of happy hum in the air, distant talk and gay laughter. Miss Preston fell asleep, Jack and his aunt sat near the window, sometimes silent, sometimes chatting. As for Cartouche, he pleased himself in his own way, rushing every now and then into the garden in pursuit of a foe who he was quite conscious did not exist, and returning with the proud air of one who has discomfited his enemy.
As Ibbetson strolled home that night he was thinking of many things, half against the grain, as it were, for he would willingly have put them aside. There were enough outer things to interest him if once he could have got them uppermost, but we cannot do that always, try as we will. The Arno was running along, bright with the moonshine, lights were twinkling across the bridges, clambering up the hill opposite; black shadows stood out strongly, and as you looked, all sorts of strange memories seemed to rush towards you. But they took no real hold on Jack, who was only conscious of them in a vague, dreamy way. The people were strolling in all directions, enjoying the evening, as they do in Italy, chatting, whispering, half-a-dozen, perhaps, linked together, taking the whole breadth of the pathway, or coming mysteriously out of the dark shadowy streets. In front of the Ognissanti a little lamp threw its dim radiance upon the beautiful blue and white Luca della Robbia over the door; the grave and sweet figures in their perpetual adoration seemed nearer and yet more delicate than by day. Jack noted this as he passed, but all the while it was not really Florence in which he was living, but a more homely and pastoral country. He was provoked with himself; he had not wanted to go over the old ground; he had said to himself a dozen times, that having taken a certain step, there was no need for mentally retracing it.
Only something seemed always to be carrying him back.
Would he have had it different? He said No, resolutely, when the question took so keen a shape. He had always felt a quiet liking for Phillis Grey, and it moved him deeply when he heard Mr. Thornton’s rough declaration that if he, Jack, did not marry her she would be left with no more than a miserable pittance. His uncle, after all, showed some knowledge of the character of the man with whom he had to deal, for the personal advantages did not really affect Jack half so much, although he took pains to assure himself that they did. He used to go over them to himself with a half-comic, half-serious air of business, as if he were quite convinced of their value—independence, position, idleness—the worst of it was that, try as he would, he found each carrying a sort of contradiction with it, which prevented him from enjoying it comfortably. But poor Phillis, how could she bear the loss of everything? Why should he not marry her? He liked no one better, or so well. It was the course which gave the least trouble to everyone. It offered palpable good, and there was no drawback on which he could