“It is not to be expected she can like it much; but she is a good little woman—she always was a dear little woman,” said the Rector; “and Mary’s jointure will make a great deal of difference in the manor-house, and smooth things down considerably. She has been doing all kinds of upholstery there already.”
“By Jove, I knew how it would be!” said Major Aldborough; “I told you all how it would be. I said they’d kill him. He may think he’s got off very easily, in my opinion—cure him of meddling with other people’s children as long as he lives. What the deuce did he want at Fontanel? a great deal better to make himself snug, as I suppose he means to do now, at Summerhayes.”
“Mary will drive down looking just as bright as ever,” said Miss Amelia Harwood. “I always said she deserved to be happy, poor soul—she always makes the best of everything. Her heart was breaking that night of Charley’s birthday. I heard for a certain fact that she fainted just before the ball—a thing I never heard of Mary doing before. Heaven knows what all she was afraid of; there was something very mysterious about that fire; but now, you know, she has recovered her spirits and her colour, and looks just as she used to look. I shouldn’t wonder a bit if she began life over again, and was quite happy in the manor-house now Tom Summerhayes is coming home.”
“And so she ought to be, Amelia,” said good Miss Harwood. “I am sure she has many a poor woman’s prayers.”
All these good people were walking on the Fontanel road. It was a lovely evening in the early summer, more than a year after Charley Clifford’s birthday. Though it was rather beyond the usual limits of Miss Harwood’s walk, she was here leaning on Miss Amelia’s arm to enjoy the air, and to look for somebody who was expected. The Rector had strolled out on the same errand; and that, or something similar, had also drawn Major Aldborough from his after-dinner repose. The old-fashioned gates of the Manor-house were open, and some expectation was visible within. Miss Laura and Miss Lydia, in very summery muslin dresses, were to be seen promenading before the house, and hastened out, when they saw the Miss Harwoods, to join their friends.
“It is very trying for us,” said Miss Laura. “Oh, Miss Harwood, it is a very trying occasion; not that our new house is not very nice and everything very comfortable; but it is very very trying to us,” said Miss Lydia, joining in; “and oh, on dear Tom’s part, such an unexpected change.”
“Your brother is expected home to-morrow, Miss Laura?” said the Rector.
“Yes, to-morrow,” answered Miss Lydia, whose turn it was. “Poor dear Tom is so fond of travelling on the Continent, it is so good for his health; and Mrs Summerhayes wishes to be at home to receive him. Lydia and I are so glad, and yet we are sorry,” chimed in Miss Laura; “it will be such a change for dear Tom.”
“Not nearly so great a change as for poor Mary,” said Miss Amelia, “leaving her children, poor soul; but I daresay she won’t complain, and it must be better for all parties to have it settled. And so you like your new house? I am told that Mary did all the furnishing herself.”
“Oh yes, she is very kind,” said Miss Laura; “she has made everything very nice; you must come and see it. Indeed, if it were not for thinking what a change it is for dear Tom,” cried the sisters both together, with an evident impression that their brother had been defrauded of something he had a right to, “we should all be very happy; for dear Mary,” said Miss Lydia, with a little sob, “is very kind—and look, here she comes.”
She came driving the pony-carriage, as she had appeared so often at Summerhayes. Poor Mary! if she had been a wiser woman would she have been loved as well? She came, all beaming, with the smile on her lip and the tear in her eye—courageous, affectionate, sweet as ever. Charley and Loo had ridden down with her till they came in sight of Summerhayes, and then had taken leave of their mother. Mary, with little Mary by her side in the pony-carriage, drove on to her separate fate alone. She was going to take possession of the old Manor-house, no longer the mistress of Fontanel but Tom Summerhayes’s wife, to receive him when he came home from his travels, and to make life bright, if he were capable of seeing it, to that imperfect and not very worthy man. The agitation in her face was only enough to heighten a little her sweet colour and brighten her tearful eyes. On the whole had she not great reason to be happy? She had forgotten everything but her husband’s virtues while he had been absent, and her children were safe and prosperous and close at hand. She smothered the little pang in her heart at parting, and said to little Mary, with a smile, that she would have had to part with them all the same when they were married. So the mother and the daughter drove down through the soft twilight and the dews to the Manor, not without brightness and good hope; while Charley and Loo rode away towards the darkening east, with a deeper shadow on their young faces, not quite sure how their home would look when their mother was away.
Mary stopped her ponies when she saw the little procession which had come out to meet her; the tears came into her bright eyes again. “It is so kind of you all,” she said, kissing her hand to good Miss Harwood, “and it is so pleasant to think I can see you oftener now.” “God bless you, my dear!” said the two old ladies who had come for love. And Mary said “Amen, and the children too;” and so drove her ponies cheerfully, with smiles and tears, in through the open gates.
Where, however, we will not follow Mrs Summerhayes. Things had turned out a great deal better than could have been expected. Mr Summerhayes was a man of the world, and knew how to make a virtue of necessity. He had given in gracefully and at once, and gained reputation thereby, nobody knowing what his private feelings were when Courtenay Gateshead’s discovery came first upon his own widely-different plans. The fire in the west wing never was explained—nobody, indeed, inquired very deeply into it—and Mary, for her part, forgot it, or associated it only with old Gateshead’s nightcap, to which, she remained firmly convinced, the old man had set fire on his way to bed. The fire at Fontanel was indeed associated with old Mr Gateshead throughout the county, as was indeed a natural and perhaps correct supposition. Anyhow, nothing but the destruction of the west wing had resulted from it, and that was rather an improvement than otherwise to the old place, in which Loo, till they were both married, was to keep house for her brother. Little Mary, who was easy in her temper and happy as the day was long, went with Mrs Summerhayes to the Manor—and Alf and Harry were to have two homes for their holidays. When Tom Summerhayes came home next day, he thought some fairy change had come over the manor-house, and forgave his wife with magnanimity for all the trouble she had brought upon him. Mary accepted the pardon with gratitude, and Miss Laura and Miss Lydia thought Tom a hero; and so, with a tolerable amount of content on all sides, life began over again for the reunited couple. Mary had her own troubles still, like most people; but perhaps had not been much more happy as Mrs Clifford than she was as Mrs Summerhayes.