He was about to say other words: he checked them. "I believe I do not know myself. Anything you will, only give me your hand; give it; trust to me; you shall direct me. If I have faults, help me to obliterate them."
"Will you not expect me to regard them as the virtues of meaner men?"
"You will be my wife!"
Laetitia broke from him, crying: "Your wife, your critic! Oh, I cannot think it possible. Send for the ladies. Let them hear me."
"They are at hand," said Willoughby, opening the door.
They were in one of the upper rooms anxiously on the watch.
"Dear ladies," Laetitia said to them, as they entered. "I am going to wound you, and I grieve to do it: but rather now than later, if I am to be your housemate. He asks me for a hand that cannot carry a heart, because mine is dead. I repeat it. I used to think the heart a woman's marriage portion for her husband. I see now that she may consent, and he accept her, without one. But it is right that you should know what I am when I consent. I was once a foolish, romantic girl; now I am a sickly woman, all illusions vanished. Privation has made me what an abounding fortune usually makes of others--I am an Egoist. I am not deceiving you. That is my real character. My girl's view of him has entirely changed; and I am almost indifferent to the change. I can endeavour to respect him, I cannot venerate."
"Dear child!" the ladies gently remonstrated.
Willoughby motioned to them.
"If we are to live together, and I could very happily live with you," Laetitia continued to address them, "you must not be ignorant of me. And if you, as I imagine, worship him blindly, I do not know how we are to live together. And never shall you quit this house to make way for me. I have a hard detective eye. I see many faults."
"Have we not all of us faults, dear child?"
"Not such as he has; though the excuses of a gentleman nurtured in idolatry may be pleaded. But he should know that they are seen, and seen by her he asks to be his wife, that no misunderstanding may exist, and while it is yet time he may consult his feelings.
He worships himself."
"Willoughby?"
"He is vindictive!"
"Our Willoughby?"
"That is not your opinion, ladies. It is firmly mine. Time has taught it me. So, if you and I are at such variance, how can we live together? It is an impossibility."
They looked at Willoughby. He nodded imperiously.
"We have never affirmed that our dear nephew is devoid of faults. if he is offended ... And supposing he claims to be foremost, is it not his rightful claim, made good by much generosity? Reflect, dear Laetitia. We are your friends too."
She could not chastise the kind ladies any further.
"You have always been my good friends."
"And you have no other charge against him?"
Laetitia was milder in saying, "He is unpardoning."
"Name one instance, Laetitia."
"He has turned Crossjay out of his house, interdicting the poor boy ever to enter it again."
"Crossjay," said Willoughby, "was guilty of a piece of infamous treachery."
"Which is the cause of your persecuting me to become your wife!"
There was a cry of "Persecuting!"
"No young fellow behaving so basely can come to good," said Willoughby, stained about the face with flecks of redness at the lashings he received.
"Honestly," she retorted. "He told of himself: and he must have anticipated the punishment he would meet. He should have been studying with a master for his profession. He has been kept here in comparative idleness to be alternately petted and discarded: no one but Vernon Whitford, a poor gentleman doomed to struggle for a livelihood by literature--I know something of that struggle--too much for me!--no one but Mr. Whitford for his friend."
"Crossjay is forgiven," said Willoughby.
"You promise me that?"
"He shall be packed off to a crammer at once."
"But my home must be Crossjay's home."
"You are mistress of my house, Laetitia."
She hesitated. Her eyelashes grew moist. "You can be generous."
"He is, dear child!" the ladies cried. "He is. Forget his errors, in his generosity, as we do."
"There is that wretched man Flitch."
"That sot has gone about the county for years to get me a bad character," said Willoughby.
"It would have been generous in you to have offered him another chance. He has children."
"Nine. And I am responsible for them?"
"I speak of being generous."
"Dictate." Willoughby spread out his arms.
"Surely now you should be satisfied, Laetitia?" said the ladies.
"Is he?"
Willoughby perceived Mrs. Mountstuart's carriage coming down the avenue.
"To the full." He presented his hand.
She raised hers with the fingers catching back before she ceased to speak and dropped it:--"Ladies. You are witnesses that there is no concealment, there has been no reserve, on my part. May Heaven grant me kinder eyes than I have now. I would not have you change your opinion of him; only that you should see how I read him. For the rest, I vow to do my duty by him. Whatever is of worth in me is at his service. I am very tired. I feel I must yield or break. This is his wish, and I submit."
"And I salute my wife," said Willoughby, making her hand his own, and warming to his possession as he performed the act.
Mrs. Mountstuart's indecent hurry to be at the Hall before the departure of Dr. Middleton and his daughter, afflicted him with visions of the physical contrast which would be sharply perceptible to her this morning of his Laetitia beside Clara.
But he had the lady with brains! He had: and he was to learn the nature of that possession in the woman who is our wife.
