CHAPTER XLVI.GODFREY AND HIS FATHER.
The dinner at Schuyler Hill that day was a rather dull affair compared with what the dinners usually were; for Alice and Julia kept their rooms with the headache, while immediately after his interview with Robert, the colonel had gone up the river a few miles on some business, which he told Edith might detain him past the dinner hour, and if so, she was not to wait. As he did not return, they sat down without him, but only Godfrey was inclined to talk. He had heard Robert’s story from Robert himself, and had indorsed him heartily, and teasingly congratulated Emma for having done so much better than he ever thought she could do with her little ankles and milk-and-water face.
It was anything but milk-and-water now, and, with the blushes burning so constantly on her cheeks, and the new light in her eyes, she was very pretty to look at, as she sat at the dinner table, and Godfrey told her so, and said it was a pity she had not been engaged before, it was so great an improvement to her, and all the time he joked and laughed he was thinking of his father, and wondering when he would be home.
Six, seven, eight, and nine, and still he had not come, and the moon would be up at ten, and Gertie waiting for him, and Godfrey paced up and down the long piazza, restless as a caged lion,until the sound of horse’s feet was heard, and the colonel came galloping up to the side door, where Godfrey met him before he had time to dismount.
“Father,” he said, “I have waited for you more than three hours. I must speak with you at once. Come in here, please.”
And he led the way to the same room where Robert had declared his love for Emma, and where Gertie had given her promise not to listen to Godfrey without his father’s consent.
And Godfrey was there to ask that consent, and he plunged at once into the matter, and told his story so rapidly and emphatically that his father had no chance to utter a syllable, even had he wished to do so, but sat motionless and confounded while Godfrey poured out his burning words, and declaring his love for Gertie, asked that his father should remove the ban, and make Gertie free to be his wife. Godfrey could not have chosen a more inopportune time for the success of his suit. The colonel had borne a great deal that day. His pride had been sorely wounded in giving his daughter to a son of the Lyles, and now came Godfrey, telling him of his broken engagement with Alice, and asking his consent to a marriage with Gertie Westbrooke, a girl who, for aught he knew, was connected with a lower family even than the Lyles, and who at least had no money to bring him. This really was the sorest point with Colonel Schuyler. His business that afternoon had been with the agent of a firm which owed him a large sum of money, and which had declared its inability to pay, so that he had returned a poorer man by fifty thousand dollars than he had supposed himself to be. And this was from the portion he had set apart for Godfrey.
Just after the birth of little Arthur, the colonel had made his will, dividing his property about equally, as he thought, between his wife and children, and designating the bonds, or lands, or moneys each should have. Strangely enough, all the losses he had met with since had been from Godfrey’s share. For this, however, the colonel had consoled himself with the fact that Alice Creighton’s fortune would make amends for all, and now he was told that Alice was set aside, and his sonwould wed with poverty. He was confounded, and indignant, and angry, and said many bitter things, and utterly refused to release Gertie from her promise.
“Tell her from me,” he said, “that I will hold her to it as long as I live, and she must beware how she breaks her word, pledged so solemnly.”
And that was all the satisfaction Godfrey got. His father would not listen to his love for Gertie, and insisted upon his returning to his allegiance to Alice:
“Never, while I have my senses. I do not dislike Allie as a friend, but I shall never make her my wife. It is Gertie, or nobody,” Godfrey said.
And so the interview which had lasted a long time ended, and just as the clock was striking half-past ten a white-faced young man, with lips firmly compressed, and a look of determination in his eyes, went rapidly down the avenue, leaving behind a whiter-faced man, who had said to him:
“If Gertie breaks her word and marries you, remember it will be disinheritance.”
Now to one as madly in love as Godfrey, disinheritance did not seem so very dreadful. It was not half as bad as losing Gertie, and as he walked away from the Hill he thought how pleasant it would be to work for Gertie, and deny himself, if need be, that she might live in comfort. There was his cottage; disinheritance could not take that from him, for it was his own, and he had the deed. They could live there for awhile on almost nothing, and should get along somehow.
It was the same old story, always new, of young people with more love in their hearts than money in their purses. “They would get along somehow;” and Godfrey’s spirits were very light, and his cheery whistle sounded through the still night air as he drew near the summer-house, where Gertie was to wait for him.