Ralph the Heir. Anthony Trollope
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up a little under the graciousness of the goddess's demeanour. "My girls are looking forward to your coming with the greatest delight." Then she asked some question as to her cousins, and Sir Thomas thought that there was majesty even in her voice. It was low, soft, and musical; but yet, even in that as in her eye, there was something that indicated a power of command.
He had no servant with him to assist in looking after her luggage. Old Stemm was the only man in his employment, and he could hardly have brought Stemm down to Southampton on such an errand. But he soon found that everybody about the ship was ready to wait upon Miss Bonner. Even the captain came to take a special farewell of her, and the second officer seemed to have nothing to do but to look after her. The doctor was at her elbow to the last;—and all her boxes and trunks seemed to extricate themselves from the general mass with a readiness which is certainly not experienced by ordinary passengers. There are certain favours in life which are very charming—but very unjust to others, and which we may perhaps lump under the name of priority of service. Money will hardly buy it. When money does buy it, there is no injustice. When priority of service is had, like a coach-and-four, by the man who can afford to pay for it, industry, which is the source of wealth, receives its fitting reward. Rank will often procure it; most unjustly—as we, who have no rank, feel sometimes with great soreness. Position other than that of rank, official position or commercial position, will secure it in certain cases. A railway train is stopped at a wrong place for a railway director, or a post-office manager gets his letters taken after time. These, too, are grievances. But priority of service is perhaps more readily accorded to feminine beauty, and especially to unprotected feminine beauty, than to any other form of claim. Whether or no this is ever felt as a grievance, ladies who are not beautiful may perhaps be able to say. There flits across our memory at the present moment some reminiscence of angry glances at the too speedy attendance given by custom-house officers to pretty women. But this priority of service is, we think, if not deserved, at least so natural, as to take it out of the catalogue of evils of which complaint should be made. One might complain with as much avail that men will fall in love with pretty girls instead of with those who are ugly! On the present occasion Sir Thomas was well contented. He was out of the ship, and through the Custom House, and at the railway station, and back at the inn before the struggling mass of passengers had found out whether their longed-for boxes had or had not come with them in the ship. And then Miss Bonner took it all—not arrogantly, as though it were her due; but just as the grass takes rain or the flowers sunshine. These good things came to her from heaven, and no doubt she was thankful. But they came to her so customarily, as does a man's dinner to him, or his bed, that she could not manifest surprise at what was done for her.
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| Even the captain came to take a special farewell of her … Click to ENLARGE |
Sir Thomas hardly spoke to her except about her journey and her luggage till they were down together in the sitting-room at the inn. Then he communicated to her his proposal as to her future life. It was right, he thought, that she should know at once what he intended. Two hours ago, before he had seen her, he had thought of telling her simply where she was to live, and of saying that he would find a home for her. Now he found it expedient to place the matter in a different light. He would offer her the shelter of his roof as though she were a queen who might choose among her various palaces. "Mary," he said, "we hope that you will stay with us altogether."
"To live with you—do you mean?"
"Certainly to live with us."
"I have no right to expect such an offer as that."
"But every right to accept it, my dear, when it is made. That is if it suits you."
"I had not dreamed of that. I thought that perhaps you would let me come to you for a few weeks—till I should know what to do."
"You shall come and be one of us altogether, my dear, if you think that you will like it. My girls have no nearer relative than you. And we are not so barbarous as to turn our backs on a new-found cousin." She again kissed his hand, and then turned away from him and wept. "You feel it all strange now," he said, "but I hope we shall be able to make you comfortable."
"I have been so lonely," she sobbed out amidst her tears.
He had not dared to say a word to her about her father, whose death had taken place not yet three months since. Of his late brother-in-law he had known little or nothing, except that the General had been a man who always found it difficult to make both ends meet, and who had troubled him frequently, not exactly for loans, but in regard to money arrangements which had been disagreeable to him. Whether General Bonner had or had not been an affectionate father he had never heard. There are men who, in Sir Thomas's position, would have known all about such a niece after a few hours' acquaintance; but our lawyer was not such a man. Though the girl seemed to him to be everything that was charming, he did not dare to question her; and when they arrived at the station in London, no word had as yet been said about the General.
As they were having the luggage piled on the top of a cab, the fat cook passed along the platform. "I hope you are more comfortable now, Mrs. Woods," said Mary Bonner, with a smile as sweet as May, while she gave her hand to the woman.
"Thank'ee, Miss; I'm better; but it's only a moil of trouble, one thing as well as t'other." Mrs. Woods was evidently very melancholy at the contemplation of her prospects.
"I hope you'll find yourself comfortable now." Then she whispered to Sir Thomas;—"She is a poor young woman whose husband has ill used her, and she lost her only child, and has now come here to earn her bread. She isn't nice looking, but she is so good!" Sir Thomas did not dare to tell Mary Bonner that he had already noticed Mrs. Wood, and that he had conceived the idea that Mrs. Wood was the niece of whom he had come in search.
They made the journey at once to Fulham in the cab, and Sir Thomas found it to be very long. He was proud of his new niece, but he did not know what to say to her. And he felt that she, though he was sure that she was clever, gave him no encouragement to speak. It was all very well while, with her beautiful eyes full of tears, she had gone through the ceremony of kissing his hand in token of her respect and gratitude;—but that had been done often enough, and could not very well be repeated in the cab. So they sat silent, and he was rejoiced when he saw those offensive words, Popham Villa, on the posts of his gateway. "We have only a humble little house, my dear," he said, as they turned in. She looked at him and smiled. "I believe you West Indians generally are lodged very sumptuously."
"Papa had a large straggling place up in the hills, but it was anything but sumptuous. I do love the idea of an English home, where things are neat and nice. Oh, dear;—how lovely! That is the River Thames;—isn't it? How very beautiful!" Then the two girls were at the door of the cab, and the newcomer was enveloped in the embraces of her cousins.
Sir Thomas, as he walked along the banks of the river while the young ladies prepared each other for dinner, reflected that he had never in his life done such a day's work before as he had just accomplished. When he had married a wife, that indeed had been a great piece of business; but it had been done slowly—for he had been engaged four years—and he had of course been much younger at that period. Now he had brought into his family a new inmate who would force him in his old age to change all his habits of life. He did not think that he would dare to neglect Mary Bonner, and to stay in London while she lived at the villa. He was almost sorry that he had ever heard of Mary Bonner, in spite of her beauty, and although he had as yet been able to find in her no cause of complaint. She was ladylike and quiet;—but yet he was afraid of her. When she came down into the drawing-room with her hand clasped in that of Clarissa, he was still more afraid of her. She was dressed all in black, with the utmost simplicity—with nothing on her by way of ornament beyond a few large black beads; but yet she seemed to him to be splendid. There was a grace of motion about her that was almost majestic. Clary was very pretty—very pretty, indeed; but Clary was just the girl that an old gentleman likes to fetch him his slippers and give him his tea. Sir Thomas