第177章

"I cannot imagine her to be steady -- not as Lucy is steady.

Lucy, if it be necessary, can sit and fill herself with her own thoughts for the hour together.""Which of them was most like their father?""They were both of them like him in their thorough love for things beautiful -- but they are both of them unlike him in this, that he was self-indulgent, while they, like women in general, are always devoting themselves to others." She will not devote herself to me, thought Jonathan Stubbs to himself, but that may be because, like her father, she loves things beautiful. "My poor Lucy", continued Hamel, "would fain devote herself to those around her if they would only permit it.""She would probably prefer devoting herself to you," said the Colonel.

"No doubt she would -- if it were expedient. If I may presume that she loves me, I may presume also that she would wish to live with me.""Is it not expedient?" asked the other.

"It will be so, I trust, before long."

"But it seems to be so necessary just at present." To this the sculptor at the moment made no reply. "If", continued Stubbs, "they treat her among them as you say, she ought at any rate to be relieved from her misery.""She ought to be relieved certainly. She shall be relieved.""But you say that it is not expedient."

"I only meant that there were difficulties -- difficulties which will have to be got over. I think that all difficulties are got over when a man looks at them steadily.""This, I suppose, is an affair of money.""Well, yes. All difficulties seem to me to be an affair of money.

A man, of course, would wish to earn enough before he marries to make his wife comfortable. I would struggle on as I am, and not be impatient, were it not that I fear she is more uncomfortable as she is now than she would be here in the midst of my poverty.""After all, Hamel, what is the extent of the poverty? What are the real circumstances? As you have gone so far you might as well tell me everything." Then after considerable pressure the sculptor did tell him everything. There was an income of less than three hundred a year -- which would probably become about four within the next twelvemonth. There were no funds prepared with which to buy the necessary furniture for the incoming of a wife, and there was that debt demanded by his father.

"Must that be paid?" asked the Colonel.

"I would starve rather than not pay it," said Hamel, "if I alone were to be considered. It would certainly be paid within the next six months if I were alone, even though I should starve."Then his friend told him that the debt should be paid at once.

It amounted to but little more than a hundred pounds. And then, of course, the conversation was carried further. When a friend inquires as to the pecuniary distresses of a friend he feels himself as a matter of course bound to relieve him. He would supply also the means necessary for the incoming of the young wife. With much energy, and for a long time, Hamel refused to accept the assistance offered to him; but the Colonel insisted in the first place on what he considered to be due from himself to Ayala's sister, and then on the fact that he doubted not in the least the ultimate success which would attend the professional industry of his friend. And so before the day was over it was settled among them. The money was to be forthcoming at once, so that the debt might be paid and the preparations made, and Hamel was to write to Lucy and declare that he should be ready to receive her as soon as arrangements should be made for their immediate marriage. Then came the further outrage -- that cruel speech as to intruders, and Lucy wrote to her lover, owning that it would be well for her that she should be relieved.

The news was, of course, declared to the family at Merle Park.

"I never knew anything so hard," said Aunt Emmeline. "Of course you have told him that it was all my fault." When Lucy made no answer to this, she went on with her complaint. "I know that you have told him that I have turned you out -- which is not true.""I told him it was better I should go, as you did not like my being here.""I suppose Lucy was in a little hurry to have the marriage come off," said Augusta -- who would surely have spared her cousin if at the moment she had remembered the haste which had been displayed by her sister.

"I thought it best," said Lucy.

"I'm sure I don't know how it is to be done," said Aunt Emmeline.

"You must tell your uncle yourself. I don't know how you are to be married from here, seeing the trouble we are in.""We shall be up in London before that" said Gertrude.

"Or from Queen's Gate either," continued Aunt Emmeline.

"I don't suppose that will much signify. I shall just go to the church.""Like a servant-maid?" asked Gertrude.

"Yes -- like a servant-maid," said Lucy. "That is to say, a servant-maid would, I suppose, simply walk in and be married; and I shall do the same.""I think you had better tell your uncle," said Aunt Emmeline.

"But I am sure I did not mean that you were to go away like this.

It will be your own doing, and I cannot help it if you will do it."Then Lucy did tell her uncle. "And you mean to live upon three hundred a year!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "You don't know what you are talking about.""I think Mr Hamel knows."

"He is as ignorant as a babe unborn -- I mean about that kind of thing. I don't doubt he can make things in stone as well as anybody.""In marble, Uncle Tom."

"Marble is stone, I suppose -- or in iron.""Bronze, Uncle Tom."