"This is a nice trick of yours," I said, with a careless air and an elderly smile, "to go waltzing about in hot weather with young Earls, as if you thought nothing of your brother hard at work."
"I have not the least idea what you mean, brother George. I am thinking of you, George, wherever I may be. I never see anybody to compare with you."
"Thousands of much better fellows everywhere." True enough that was, although I did not mean it. "Brilliant young men in gorgeous apparel. I am not fit to hold a candle for them."
"Then hold it for yourself, George, as you have the right to do. And for all of us as well. For if ever there was an industrious, simple, unselfish fellow – "
"I never like to hear about that, as you know. The little I can do is altogether useless. I only want to hear about the romantic young Earls."
"Young Earls!" exclaimed Grace, with an innocence so pure that it required a little mantle on her cheeks; "I fear that you have not been looked after properly, while I have been away, dear George; or else you have over-exerted yourself. Coming home also so late at night, several times, they tell me! Continuing your labours for our benefit, nobody seems to know exactly where! Such frightful work makes you quite red in the face."
If that were true, all that I can say is, that the idea of being brought to book by a young girl like this, was enough to annoy the most superior brother. But to let her see that was beneath me.
"I have thriven very tidily, while you have been away. My buttons never come off, when I sew them on myself. But you know well enough what I mean about young Earls, and for you to prevaricate is quite a new thing. What I mean is about that young milksop of a fellow who writes verses, makes sonnets, stuff he calls poems – fytte 1, and fytte 2, enough to give you fifty fits. Lord Honey – something. What the deuce is his name?"
"If you mean the Earl of Melladew, the only thing I regret, dear George, is that you have not a particle of his fine imagination. Not that you need write poems, George; that of course would be wholly beyond you; but that the gift of those higher faculties, those sensitive feelings, if that is the right name, makes a man so much larger in his views, so very superior to coarse language, so capable of perceiving that the universe does not consist of men alone."
"Sensitive feelings! I should rather think so. He has got them, and no mistake, my dear girl. Why the year we licked Eton at Lord's, I happened just to graze him on the funny-bone with a mere lob, nothing of a whack at all for a decent fellow; and what did he do but throw down his bat, and roll about as if he was murdered? What could ever be the good of such a Molly-coddle?"
"It comes to this then. Because you hurt him sadly when he was a boy, you are inclined to look down upon him for life. Nice masculine logic! And you nearly broke his arm, I daresay."
"Scarcely took the bark off. But I'll break something else, if I catch him piping love-ditties down here. I should have hoped that you would have shown a little more self-respect."
"Well, I don't quite understand what my crime is, George. And to fly into a passion with anybody who dares so much as to look at me! That is all Lord Melladew has done. And even that seemed too much for his courage. I believe if he had to say boh to a goose, he would call for pen and paper, and write it down. But your anxiety about me is quite a new thing. Is there any favoured candidate of yours down here?"
How sharp girls are! This was too bad of her, when I was doing my utmost for her good. The twinkle in her eyes was enough to show that she suspected something; and if she found it out, all up thenceforth with the whole of my scheme for her benefit.
"Yes, to be sure there is," I answered in some haste, for if I had said no, it would have been untrue, for I thought more highly every day of Jackson Stoneman, whereas Lord Melladew might be soon pulled down as we were, and through the same ruinous policy; "where will you find a nicer fellow, or one more highly esteemed (at any rate by himself), than my old friend, Tom Erricker? And when the tinning business comes to you, Harold will invent you a new process every day, until we are enabled to buy back all our land. Though that would be a foolish thing to do, unless he could find some new crop to put upon it. I cannot see why you think so little of Tom Erricker."
"Do you think much of him, George, in earnest? Is he a man to lead one's life? Would you like to see your favourite sister the wife of a man she could turn round her finger?"
"Confound it! There is no such thing as pleasing you," I spoke with a sense of what was due to myself, having made the great mistake of reasoning. "All of you girls begin to talk as if you were to rule the universe. No man is good enough for you, unless he is a perfect wonder of intellect. And then if you condescend to accept him, his mind is to be in perfect servitude to yours – yours that are occupied nine minutes out of ten with considerations of the looking-glass."
"Can you say that of me, George? Now with your love of truth, can you find it in your conscience to say such a thing of me?"
"Well, perhaps not. And for excellent reason. You have no need to make a study of it. Whatever you do, or whatever you wear, it makes no difference; for you are always – "
"What? What am I? Come, tell me the worst, while you are so put out with me. What are you going to call me now?"
"The sweetest and the best girl in the world." I should not have put it quite so strongly, except for the way she was looking at me. But it was too late to qualify my words. Before I could think again, Grace was in my arms, and her hair in a golden shower falling on my breast. "After all, this is the best way to reason," she said with a smile that contained a world of logic; and I only answered, "At any rate for women;" because it is not for them to have the last word always.
However I had not changed my opinions, and did not mean to change them. For Jackson Stoneman, whom I had at first repulsed and kept at a very stiff arm's length, was beginning to grow upon me, – as people say, – not through any affection for his money; so far from that indeed, that the true reason was, I could think of him now without thinking of his money. When we first know a man of great wealth, especially if we happen to be very short of cash ourselves, we are apt to feel a certain shyness and desire to keep away from him; not from any dislike of his money, or sense of injustice at his owning such a pile, but rather through uneasiness about ourselves, and want of perfect certainty in the bottom of our hearts, that we may not try – like a man who steals his gas – to tap the "main chance" behind the meter, and fetch a little into our own parlour on the sly. And even if our conscience is too brave to shrink from that, we know that if we walk too much in amity with this man of gold he will want, or at least he ought to want, to pay the piper who besets every path of every kind in England; whereas it hurts our dignity to be paid for, except by our Uncles, or the Government.
But supposing Jackson were to become a member of our family, what could be more inspiring and graceful, as well as delightful, for him, than the privilege which must fall to his share, of endeavouring to please his relatives? And looking at the matter from a point of view even more exalted, I began to perceive the course of duty very clearly staked out for me. And the conversation above recorded made it doubly manifest. My sister had neither admitted, nor denied, that this young Melladew had been attracted by her, while she was staying at her sister's house. She had spoken of his courage with some contempt; and any perception of such a defect would be fatal to his chances with nine girls out of ten. But Grace had her own little pet ideas; and to shoot with swan-shot at a swarm of gnats is better worth the cost than to reason with such girls. They are above reason; and there's an end of it.
To pass from all this to the things one can see, it was either that very same day or the next, that I came away out of the harvest-field, just for a morsel to eat and a pipe, in a snug place under the fringe of a wood, where a very small brook, fit only for minnows and grigs, made a lot of loops and tinkles. Two or three times I had been there before, and in fact was getting fond of it, because I believed, or as good as believed, without knowing every twist of it, that this little water in its own modest way never left off