Richard Marsh - Miss Arnott's Marriage

"Exactly; that is very good of you. It is not precisely for that I craved forgiveness. Your servant has ventured to do a bold thing."

"Please don't call yourself my servant. If there is a ridiculous thing which you can say it seems as if you were bound to say it. Nothing you can do would surprise me. Pray, what particular thing have you been doing now? I thought you were going to Southampton on your car?"

"The car's in trouble."

"What's the matter with it?"

"One man says one thing; another says another. I say- since this is the second time it's been in trouble this week-the thing's only fit for a rummage sale."

"I have never concealed my opinion from you."

"You haven't. Your opinion, being unbiassed by facts, is always the same; mine-depends. What, by the way, is just now your opinion of your own one? Lately it never seems to be in going order."

"That's preposterous nonsense, as you are perfectly well aware. But I don't mean to be drawn into a senseless wrangle. I came here hoping to escape that sort of thing."

"And you found me, which is tragic. However, we are wandering from the subject on to breezy heights. As I previously remarked, I have ventured to do a bold thing."

"And I have already inquired, what unusually bold thing is it you have done?"

"This."

They were at some little distance from each other; he on one side of the newly-made fence, she, where freshly-turned sods showed that the old fence used to be. He took a paper from his pocket, and, going close up to his side of the fence, held it out to her in his outstretched hand. She, afar off, observed both it and him distrustfully.

"What is it?"

"This? It's a paper with something written on it. We'll call it a document. Come and look at it. It's harmless. It's not a pistol-or a gun."

"I doubt if it contains anything which is likely to be of the slightest interest to me. Read what is on it."

"I would rather you read it yourself. Come and take it, if you please."

He spoke in that tone of calm assurance which was wont to affect her in a fashion which she herself was at a loss to understand. She resented bitterly its suggestion of authority; yet, before she was able to give adequate expression to her resentment, she was apt to find herself yielding entire obedience, as on the present occasion. In her indignation at the thought that he should issue his orders to her, as if she were his servant, she was more than half disposed to pick up a clod of earth, or a stone, and, like some street boy, hurl it at him and run away. She refrained from doing this, being aware that such a proceeding would not increase her dignity; and, also, because she did what he told her. She marched up to the fence and took the paper from his hand.

"I don't want it; you needn't suppose so. I've not the faintest desire to know what's on it." He simply looked at her with a glint of laughter in his big grey eyes. "I've half a mind to tear it in half and return it to you."

"You won't do that."

"Then I'll take it with me and look at it when I get home, if I look at it at all."

"Read it now."

She opened and read it; or tried to. "I don't understand what it's about; it seems to be so much gibberish. What is the thing?"

"It's a conveyance."

"A conveyance? What do you mean?"

"Being interpreted, it's a legal instrument which conveys to you and to your heirs for ever the fee-simple of-that."

"That?"

"That." He was pointing to the piece of land which lay within the confines of the newly-made fence. "That nook-that dell-that haven in which I saw you first, because you were under the impression it was yours. I was idiot enough to disabuse your mind, not being conscious, then, of what a fool I was. My idiocy has rankled ever since. However, it may have been of aforetime your lying there, cradled on that turf, has made of it consecrated ground. I guessed it then; I know it now. Then you fancied it was your own; now it assuredly is, you hold the conveyance in your hand."

"Mr Morice, what are you talking about? I don't in the least understand.'

"I was only endeavouring to explain what is the nature of the document you hold. Henceforward that rood of land-or thereabouts-is yours. If I set foot on it, you will be entitled to put into me a charge of lead."

"Do you mean to say that you have given it me? Do you expect me to accept a gift-"

"Miss Arnott, the time for saying things is past. The transaction is concluded-past redemption. That land is yours as certainly as you are now standing on it; nothing you can say or do can alter that well-established fact by so much as one jot or tittle. The matter is signed, sealed and settled; entered in the archives of the law. Protest from you will be a mere waste of time."

"I don't believe it."

"As you please. Take that document to your lawyer; lay it before him; he will soon tell you whether or not I speak the truth. By the way, I will take advantage of this opportunity to make a few remarks to you upon another subject. Miss Arnott, I object to you for one reason."

"For one reason only? That is very good of you. I thought you objected to me for a thousand reasons."

"Your irony is justified. Then we will put it that I object to you for one reason chiefly."

"Mr Morice, do you imagine that I care why you object to me? Aren't you aware that you are paying me the highest compliment within your power by letting me know that you do object to me? Do you suppose that, in any case, I will stand here and listen to your impertinent attempts at personal criticism?"

"You will stand there, and you will listen; but I don't propose to criticise you, either impertinently or otherwise, but you will stand and listen to what I have to say." Such a sudden flame came into Mr Hugh Morice's eyes that the girl, half frightened, half she knew not what, remained speechless there in front of him. He seemed all at once to have grown taller, and to be towering above her like some giant against whose irresistible force it was vain to try and struggle. "The chief reason why I object to you, Miss Arnott, is because you are so rich."

"Mr Morice!"

"In my small way, I'm well to do. I can afford to buy myself a motor. I can even afford to pay for its repairs; and, in the case of a car like mine, that means something."

"I can believe that, easily."

"Of course you can. But, relatively, compared to you, I'm a pauper, and I don't like it."

"And yet you think that I'll accept gifts from you- valuable gifts?"

"What I would like is, that a flaw should be found in your uncle's will; or the rightful heir turn up; or something happen which would entail your losing every penny you have in the world."

"What delightful things you say."

"Then, if you were actually and literally a pauper I might feel that you were more on an equality with me.

"Why should you wish to be on an equality with me?"

"Why? Don't you know?" On a sudden she began to tremble so that she could scarcely stand. "I see that you do know. I see it by the way the blood comes and goes in your cheeks; by the light which shines out of your eyes; by the fashion in which, as you see what is in mine, you stand shivering there. You know that I would like to be on an equality with you because I love you; and because it isn't flattering to my pride to know that, in every respect, you are so transcendently above me, and that, compared to you, I am altogether such a thing of clay. I don't want to receive everything and to give nothing. I am one of those sordid animals who like to think that their wives-who-are-to-be will be indebted to them for something besides their bare affection."

"How dare you talk to me like this?"

She felt as if she would have given anything to have been able to turn and flee, instead of seeming to stultify herself by so halting a rejoinder; but her feet were as if they were rooted to the ground.