第99章 The Awakening (17)

On the morning after his arrival, Carraway had a long conversation with the old man in his sitting-room, and when it was over he came out with an anxious frown upon his brow and went upstairs to the library which Maria had fitted up in the spare room next her chamber.It was the pleasantest spot in the house, he had concluded last evening, and the impression returned to him as he entered now and saw the light from the wood fire falling on the shining floor, which reflected the stately old furniture, and the cushions, and the window curtains of faded green.Books were everywhere, and he noticed at once that they were not the kind read by the women whom he knew--big leather volumes on philosophy, yellow-covered French novels, and curled edges of what he took to be the classic poets.It was almost with relief that he noticed a dainty feminine touch here and there--a work-bag of flowered silk upon the sofa, a bowl of crocuses among the papers on the old mahogany desk, and clinging to each bit of well-worn drapery in the room a faint and delicate fragrance.

Maria was lying drowsily in a low chair before the fire, and as he entered she looked up with a smile and motioned to a comfortable seat across the hearth.A book was on her knees, but she had not been reading, for her fingers were playing carelessly with the uncut leaves.Against her soft black dress the whiteness of her face and hands showed almost too intense a contrast, and yet there was no hint of fragility in her appearance.From head to foot she was abounding with energy, throbbing with life, and though Carraway would still, perhaps, have hesitated to call her beautiful, his eyes dwelt with pleasure on the noble lines of her relaxed figure.Better than beauty, he admitted the moment afterward, was the charm that shone for him in her wonderfully expressive face--a face over which the experiences of many lives seemed to ripple faintly in what was hardly more than the shadow of a smile.She had loved and suffered, he thought, with his gaze upon her, and from both love and suffering she had gained that fulness of nature which is the greatest good that either has to yield.

"So it is serious," she said anxiously, as he sat down.

"I fear so--at least, where your brother is concerned.I can't say just what the terms of the will are, of course, but he made no secret at breakfast of his determination to leave half of his property--which the result of recent investments has made very large--to the cause of foreign missions.""Yes, he has told me about it."

"Then there's nothing more to be said, unless you can persuade him for your brother's sake to destroy the will when his anger has blown over.I used every argument I could think of, but he simply wouldn't listen to me--swept my advice aside as if it was so much wasted breath--"He paused as Maria bent her ear attentively.

"He is coming upstairs now!" she exclaimed, amazed.

There was a heavy tread on the staircase, and a little later Fletcher came in and turned to close the door carefully behind him.He had recovered for a moment his air of bluff good-humour, and his face crinkled into a ruddy smile.

"So you're hatching schemes between you, I reckon," he observed, and, crossing to the hearth, pushed back a log with the toe of his heavy boot.

"It looks that way, certainly," replied Carraway, with his pleasant laugh."But I must confess that I was doing nothing more interesting than admiring Mrs.Wyndham's taste in books."Fletcher glanced round indifferently.

"Well, I haven't any secrets," he pursued, still under the pressure of the thought which had urged him upstairs, "and as far as that goes, I can tear up that piece of paper and have it done with any day I please.""So I had the honour to advise," remarked Carraway.

"That's neither here nor thar, I reckon--it's made now, and so it's likely to stand until I die, though I don't doubt you'll twist and split it then as much as you can.However, I reckon the foreign missions will look arter the part that goes to them, and if Maria's got the sense I credit her with she'll look arter hers.""After mine?" exclaimed Maria, lifting her head to return his gaze."Why, I thought you gave me my share when I married.""So I did--so I did, and you let it slip like water through your fingers; but you've grown up, I reckon, sence you were such a fool as to have your head turned by Wyndham, and if you don't hold on to this tighter than you did to the last you deserve to lose it, that's all.You're a good woman--I ain't lived a month in the house with you and not found that out--but if you hadn't had something more than goodness inside your head you wouldn't have got so much as a cent out of me again.Saidie's a good woman and a blamed fool, too, but you're different; you've got a backbone in your body, and I'll be hanged if that ain't why I'm leaving the Hall to you.""The Hall?" echoed Maria, rising impulsively from her chair and facing him upon the hearthrug.

"The Hall and Saidie and the whole lot," returned Fletcher, chuckling, "and I may as well tell you now, that, for all your spendthrift notions about wages, you're the only woman I ever saw who was fit to own a foot of land.But I like the quiet way you manage things, somehow, and, bless my soul, if you were a man I'd leave you the whole business and let the missions hang.""There's time yet," observed Carraway beneath his breath.

"No, no; it's settled now," returned Fletcher, "and she'll have more than she can handle as it is.Most likely she'll marry again, being a woman, and a man will be master here, arter all.

If you do," he added, turning angrily upon his granddaughter, "for heaven's sakes, don't let it be another precious scamp like your first!"With a shiver Maria caught her breath and bent toward him with an appealing gesture of her arms.

"But you must not do it, grandfather; it isn't right.The place was never meant to belong to me.""Well, it belongs to me, I reckon, and confound your silly puritanical fancies, I'll leave it where I please," retorted Fletcher, and strode from the room.