The Greatest Murder Mysteries - G.A. Henty Edition. G. A. Henty
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without your mother's consent. I will never divide mother and son. Besides which, without her consent, it would be impossible."
"Impossible just at present, Agnes, I admit. My mother has refused to allow me one farthing if I marry you, and I know I cannot ask you to go out to India as a lieutenant's wife, on a lieutenant's pay; but in a short time I am sure to get a staff appointment; and although it will not be such a home as I had hoped to offer you, it will be at least a home in which we could have every necessary comfort; and I know you too well, not to feel sure that you would be content with it."
"Percy," I said, "why do you tempt me? You know well how gladly I would go with you anywhere, that comfort or discomfort would make little difference to me if they were shared by you. But you know Lady Desborough, and you know well that she will not only refuse to assist you now, but that she will utterly disown and cast you off if you act in defiance of her will. You are choosing between wife and mother; if you take the one, you lose the other. Has she not told you, Percy, that if you marry me, you are no longer son of hers?"
Percy hesitated. "She has," he said, "she has; but, Agnes, although in any just exercise of her authority, I, as a son, would yield to her; yet at my age, I have a perfect right, in a matter of this sort, to choose for myself; besides, she has already given her entire approval, and it is not because circumstances have changed that she has any right to withdraw that consent. It was you she approved of, and you are unaltered."
"She is acting, as she believes, for your good, Percy. You think her mistaken and cruel, but she will never change, and I will never marry you without her consent. See, Percy, I have no false pride. I would have come to you, had there been nothing to prevent it, as a penniless wife, although I had hoped it would have been otherwise; but no true woman will drag her husband down; no true woman will marry a man when, instead of bringing him a fortune, she brings him ruin. You are now comparatively well off; some day you will be much better; and I will not be the means of your losing this—losing not only this, but your mother."
"But my happiness, Agnes!—what is money to happiness?" Percy exclaimed, impetuously.
"Nothing, Percy,—I know and feel that; but I also feel that my decision is right, and not wrong. I know that I could not decide otherwise, and that whatever unhappiness it may cause us both, yet that, without your mother's consent, I can never be yours."
"You will make me wish my mother dead, Agnes," Percy said, passionately.
"No, no, Percy, do not say that; I know I am doing right. Do not make it harder for me than I can bear."
Percy strode up and down the room. Once or twice he stopped before me, as if he would speak, but he did not. I was crying freely now, and I could not look up at him.
"Can you not say something for me?" he said to Polly, at last.
Polly got up when he spoke to her—before that she had been sitting on the sofa by me, holding one of my hands in hers—now she went up to him. She put one of her hands on his shoulder, took one of his hands in her other, and looked up into his face.
"Percy, she is right—you know in your own heart she is so. Have pity upon her; she will not do it—she cannot. I love her better than myself, but I could not advise her to do, even for her happiness, what she believes is not right;—she cannot come between you and your mother. Wait, Percy, and be patient—time works wonders. You may be sure she will be yours in heart to the end of her life. Have pity on her, Percy, and go."
"Oh, Polly, have pity on me, too," Percy said, and his lips quivered now; and although he kept the features of his face still rigid and under control, the tears were starting from his eyes. "What shall I do!"
"Go, Percy," I said, getting up. "Go. Let us help each other;" and I took his hands now, and looked up into his face. "Go. I do not say, forget me; I do not say, goodbye for ever; I only say, go, now. I cannot do what you ask me; let us wait—let us wait and hope."
"Agnes," Percy said, solemnly, "I go now; I leave you for a time, but our engagement is not over, and again hear me swear never to marry any woman but you."
"And I no other man, Percy; and now kiss me and go."
For a little while Percy held me strained to his heart, his tears rained down upon my face, his lips pressed mine again and again, then one long, long kiss—I felt it was the last; then he gave me to Polly, who was standing near. I heard the door close behind him, and for a long time I heard no other sound. I had fainted.
Chapter VIII.
Struggles For A Living.
When at Christmas time Robert Gregory heard that one of the springs which were supposed to open the secret door was found, he gave up for a time even the pretence of looking for anything to do; but not very long afterwards he met an old friend, and most unexpectedly went into a business with him, and that perhaps the only one which could have been named for which he was really fitted.
He had one day, as was his usual custom, entered a public-house where he was well known, and had gone into the bar parlour, where he was sitting reading the paper, smoking his pipe, and drinking a glass of spirits and water, when another man entered the room, looked carelessly at Gregory, then more attentively, and finally burst out,—
"Hallo, Robert? is that you? How fares the world with you all this time?"
"By Jove, Fielding! is that you? How are you, my boy?"
They greeted each other warmly, for they had been a great deal together in the time when Gregory was in London, and their satisfaction at meeting was mutual. After a while, they sat down before the fire, ordered fresh glasses of spirits and water, and prepared for a long talk over all that had happened since they had parted some four years ago—Robert to return to his father at Canterbury, Fielding to continue for a short time longer the reckless life they were living about town.
"Now, Gregory," Fielding said, "let me hear what you have been doing first."
Robert, in reply, related pretty accurately the whole of his life since he had left London.
"Well, that is a rum start," his companion said when he had finished his story. "And you really think that you will some day come in for all this money?"
"I do," Robert answered. "As I have told you they are trying down there now, and have a good chance; but if that fails, I mean to try for it myself. And now what have you been doing?"
"The easiest way to answer would be to tell you what I have not been doing. You left us in the winter, and I held on, as I had been doing before, till the next Derby Day; but I dropped so much upon that, that I had to make myself scarce for a bit. Then I came back again, and set to work to earn my living, and very hard work I found it."
"I should think so," Robert Gregory put in. "I have been trying to get something to do for the last three months, and I am no nearer, as far as I can see, than when I began. How did you set about it?"
"To tell you the truth, Robert, I found it rather up-hill work at first. I worked for the papers for a bit,—went to all the fires, and the inquests, and the hospitals, and sent accounts to all the dailies. Of course at first they did not often put them in, still they did sometimes, and after a month or two they came to take them pretty regularly. At last I did what I really very seldom did do; but I was very hard-up, and I sent an account of a fire which only existed in my imagination. Well, it turned out that there was a row about it, and of course that put an end to that line. It was winter then, and I was very hard-up, and was glad to earn a few shillings a week as super at one of the pantomimes. Then I happened to meet with a man with a few pounds, and together we set up a very profitable business—advertising to find situations for clerks and servants. They paid us five shillings to enter their names in our books; then we answered every advertisement that appeared in any of the papers for that sort of thing, and sent them to look after the situations. If they got them, they paid us thirty per cent, on the first year's earnings, down on the nail. There