第10章 FOR CONSCIENCE'SAKE(4)

The first meeting with the daughter was a trying ordeal,though he did not feel drawn towards her as he had expected to be;she did not excite his sympathies.Her mother confided to Frances the errand of 'her old friend,'which was viewed by the daughter with strong disfavour.His desire being thus uncongenial to both,for a long time Millborne made not the least impression upon Mrs.Frankland.

His attentions pestered her rather than pleased her.He was surprised at her firmness,and it was only when he hinted at moral reasons for their union that she was ever shaken.'Strictly speaking,'he would say,'we ought,as honest persons,to marry;and that's the truth of it,Leonora.'

'I have looked at it in that light,'she said quickly.'It struck me at the very first.But I don't see the force of the argument.Itotally deny that after this interval of time I am bound to marry you for honour's sake.I would have married you,as you know well enough,at the proper time.But what is the use of remedies now?'

They were standing at the window.A scantly-whiskered young man,in clerical attire,called at the door below.Leonora flushed with interest.

'Who is he?'said Mr.Millborne.

'My Frances's lover.I am so sorry--she is not at home!Ah!they have told him where she is,and he has gone to find her ...I hope that suit will prosper,at any rate!'

'Why shouldn't it?'

'Well,he cannot marry yet;and Frances sees but little of him now he has left Exonbury.He was formerly doing duty here,but now he is curate of St.John's,Ivell,fifty miles up the line.There is a tacit agreement between them,but--there have been friends of his who object,because of our vocation.However,he sees the absurdity of such an objection as that,and is not influenced by it.'

'Your marriage with me would help the match,instead of hindering it,as you have said.'

'Do you think it would?'

'It certainly would,by taking you out of this business altogether.'

By chance he had found the way to move her somewhat,and he followed it up.This view was imparted to Mrs.Frankland's daughter,and it led her to soften her opposition.Millborne,who had given up his lodging in Exonbury,journeyed to and fro regularly,till at last he overcame her negations,and she expressed a reluctant assent.

They were married at the nearest church;and the goodwill--whatever that was--of the music-and-dancing connection was sold to a successor only too ready to jump into the place,the Millbornes having decided to live in London.

CHAPTER III

Millborne was a householder in his old district,though not in his old street,and Mrs.Millborne and their daughter had turned themselves into Londoners.Frances was well reconciled to the removal by her lover's satisfaction at the change.It suited him better to travel from Ivell a hundred miles to see her in London,where he frequently had other engagements,than fifty in the opposite direction where nothing but herself required his presence.So here they were,furnished up to the attics,in one of the small but popular streets of the West district,in a house whose front,till lately of the complexion of a chimney-sweep,had been scraped to show to the surprised wayfarer the bright yellow and red brick that had lain lurking beneath the soot of fifty years.

The social lift that the two women had derived from the alliance was considerable;but when the exhilaration which accompanies a first residence in London,the sensation of standing on a pivot of the world,had passed,their lives promised to be somewhat duller than when,at despised Exonbury,they had enjoyed a nodding acquaintance with three-fourths of the town.Mr.Millborne did not criticise his wife;he could not.Whatever defects of hardness and acidity his original treatment and the lapse of years might have developed in her,his sense of a realized idea,of a re-established self-satisfaction,was always thrown into the scale on her side,and out-weighed all objections.

It was about a month after their settlement in town that the household decided to spend a week at a watering-place in the Isle of Wight,and while there the Reverend Percival Cope (the young curate aforesaid)came to see them,Frances in particular.No formal engagement of the young pair had been announced as yet,but it was clear that their mutual understanding could not end in anything but marriage without grievous disappointment to one of the parties at least.Not that Frances was sentimental.She was rather of the imperious sort,indeed;and,to say all,the young girl had not fulfilled her father's expectations of her.But he hoped and worked for her welfare as sincerely as any father could do.

Mr.Cope was introduced to the new head of the family,and stayed with them in the Island two or three days.On the last day of his visit they decided to venture on a two hours'sail in one of the small yachts which lay there for hire.The trip had not progressed far before all,except the curate,found that sailing in a breeze did not quite agree with them;but as he seemed to enjoy the experience,the other three bore their condition as well as they could without grimace or complaint,till the young man,observing their discomfort,gave immediate directions to tack about.On the way back to port they sat silent,facing each other.

Nausea in such circumstances,like midnight watching,fatigue,trouble,fright,has this marked effect upon the countenance,that it often brings out strongly the divergences of the individual from the norm of his race,accentuating superficial peculiarities to radical distinctions.Unexpected physiognomies will uncover themselves at these times in well-known faces;the aspect becomes invested with the spectral presence of entombed and forgotten ancestors;and family lineaments of special or exclusive cast,which in ordinary moments are masked by a stereotyped expression and mien,start up with crude insistence to the view.