Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/519

Charles Dickens] engagement, if such engagement existed, with Joyce. Whether she had deliberately planned her marriage with old Creswell, and had consequently abandoned the other design, or whether the old gentleman had proposed suddenly to her, and the temptation of riches and position being too great for her to withstand, she had flung her first lover aside on the spur of the moment, and thereby, perhaps, rendered herself wretched for life. Or what was it that the old woman said, about Joyce enlisting as a soldier? Perhaps that step on her lover's part had been the cause of Miss Ashurst's determination. No! on reflection, the enlisting, if he ever did enlist, looked like a desperate act on Joyce's part, done in despair at hearing the news of Marian's intended marriage! Mr. Benthall did not pin much faith to the enlisting part of the story. He had heard a good deal about Joyce from various sources, and he felt confident that he was by no means the kind of man who would be led to the perpetration of any folly of the kind. Mr. Benthall was puzzled. With any other two people he could have understood the hand-in-hand, and the arm-encircled waist, as meaning nothing more than a pleasant means of employing the time, meaning nothing, and to be forgotten by both persons when they might chance to be separated. But Mr. Joyce and Miss Ashurst were so essentially earnest and practical, and so utterly unlikely to disport themselves in the manner described without there had been a sincere attachment between them, that, taking all this into consideration in conjunction with the recent marriage, Mr. Benthall came to the conclusion that either Mrs. Covey must have, unintentionally of course, deceived herself and him, or that there was something remarkably peculiar in the conduct of Miss Ashurst, something more peculiar than pleasant or estimable. He wondered whether Gertrude or Maud had any suspicions on the matter. They had neither of them ever spoken to him on the subject, but then Maud generally left him alone with Gertrude, and when he and Gertrude were together, they had other things than other people's love-affairs to talk about. He had not been up to Woolgreaves since the wedding, had not—which was quite a different matter—seen either of the girls. He would ride over there the next afternoon, and see how matters progressed.

Accordingly the next day, while Maud and Gertrude were walking in the garden and discussing Mrs. Creswell's newly-arrived letter, or rather while Maud was commenting on it, and Gertrude, as usual, was chorusing her assent to all her sister said, they saw Mr. Benthall, at the far end of a long turf walk, making towards them. Immediately on recognising the visitor Maud stopped talking, and looked suddenly round at Gertrude, who, of course, blushed a very lively crimson, and said, "Oh, Maud, I wish you wouldn't!"

"Wish I wouldn't what, Gertrude?"

"Make me so hot and uncomfortable!"

"My dear, I don't make you hot and uncomfortable! We have been talking together for the last half-hour perfectly quietly, when suddenly—why, of course it's impossible for me to say—you blush to the roots of your hair, and accuse me of being the cause!"

"No; but, Maud, you don't mind his coming?"

"No indeed, Gertrude, I like him, if you mean Mr. Benthall, as of course you do, very much; and if you and he are both really in earnest, I think that you wouldHere he is!"

"Good-day, ladies!" said Mr. Benthall, advancing with a bow. "I haven't seen you since you were left deserted and forlorn, so I thought I would come over and ask what news of the happy couple."

"They will be back at the end of the week; we heard from Mrs. Creswell this morning."

"Ah, ha, from the blushing bride! And how is the blushing bride, and what does she say?"

"She makes herself rather more odious and disagreeable than ever!" said Gertrude. "Oh, I don't mind, Maud! Geo—Mr. Benthall knows precisely what I feel about Miss Ashurst and her 'superior' ways and manners and nonsense!"

"What has she done now?"

"Oh, she has—no, Maud, I will speak! She has written to say that Maud must give up her music-room, you know where she always sits and practises, and where she's happier than anywhere else in the house, because my lady wants it for a boudoir, or something, where she can show off her 'superiority,' I suppose."

"Of course," said Maud, "Mrs. Creswell has a perfect right to"

"O, bother!" said Gertrude; "of course it's perfectly disgusting! Don't you think so, Mr. Benthall?"

"That's a home question," said Mr. Benthall, with a laugh; "but it is scarcely in good taste of Mrs. Creswell so soon to"