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CHAPTER VII.

NO arrangements could be come to until Hamlin should hear from Anne Brown’s guardian, and this, even by return of post, was impossible under a week. And during that week, Hamlin determined to keep away from the Perrys’ house: the objurgations of Melton Perry, the congratulations of his wife, the very tittering of the children, all this vulgar prose had best be kept aloof from his romance; besides, he was in the ridiculous position that Anne was, and was not his; that she could no longer be considered the Perrys’ servant, and could not yet be considered as his ward. Accordingly, he betook himself for three days to Siena, deeming it impossible that any answer could come so soon.

But when Hamlin returned to his lodging in Florence, on the fourth day after his proposal to Anne Brown—it seemed to him as if he had proposed to her months ago, nay, as if he had never existed at all before that proposal—he was told that a gentleman had called that morning, and had left word that he would return again later on in the day.

“Some confounded painter or poetaster of my acquaintance,” thought Hamlin, annoyed that any one should call upon him at this point of his adventure.

A little later a card was brought in to him. The name upon it made him start—a large shopman’s card, on which was printed, “Richard Brown, New Cross.”

“Ask him to come in,” cried Hamlin.

The visitor stalked in: a tall, burly man, with bushy black hair and beard.

“An insolent cad,” said Hamlin to himself.

“Mr Walter Hamlin?” asked the newcomer, bowing very slightly, and looking down upon Hamlin from his big, bent shoulders.

“Precisely—and you, I believe, are Miss Anne Brown’s cousin?” answered Hamlin, stiffening at the other’s free‐and‐easy manner. The very look of this man rubbed him the wrong way. “Pray, sit down,” he added, doing his best to be courteous. But the other had already sat down.

“I have come here,” said Richard Brown, in a deep, Scotch voice, which made a certain abruptness of manner even more offensive to his host, “in consequence of a telegram which I received from your friend Mr Melton Perry.”

Hamlin turned pale with anger.

“Perry telegraphed behind my back,” he exclaimed—“however, I had written to you the same day. I presume you know the contents of my letter?”

“I have received no letter from you—I suppose I started before it arrived,” answered Richard Brown. “Mr Perry mentioned no letter from you in his telegram, and as I understood from it that there were plans afoot which concerned my cousin and ward, I page: 171 thought I had best come at once and inquire into them.”

He stopped a moment, and looked Hamlin in the face, as if to find out what sort of man he might be. He himself might be any age between thirty and forty, of the darkest possible Scotch type, sun‐burnt like a bargee, snub of feature, with a huge, overhanging forehead; he was a man such as Hamlin had never dealt with—a type which he recognised as having seen among workmen and Dissenting preachers: ugly, intellectual, contemptuous—the incarnation of what, to the descendants of Cavaliers and Jamaica planters, seemed the aggressive lower classes.

“I see,” said Hamlin, coldly. “I am greatly obliged to you for the trouble you have taken. Your presence here will make it much easier for us to settle all necessary matters.”

“Mr Perry,” went on the visitor, “has given me rather a confused account of the proposal which I understand you to have made to my cousin; and I thought it wiser to see page: 172 you before speaking to her. I must therefore beg you to tell me whether Mr Perry’s account of your proposal is correct, and also whether you are in earnest in making it.”

“Had you waited for my letter, I think you could have had no further doubts,” answered Hamlin, with some irritation. “To recapitulate, then. I proposed to Miss Brown that she should permit me to take charge of her education for the next two years, and, on her becoming of age and deeming her studies complete, to place at her disposal the capital of an income which should enable her to live in a manner corresponding with the education she had received, and to make a suitable marriage.”

While Hamlin was speaking a sneer came over his listener’s face.

“I am to understand, therefore,” he said, “that I was misinformed as to this being a proposal of marriage.”

“Pardon me,” corrected Hamlin, gently. “I told your cousin that I hoped that perhaps, at the end of those two years, or more, she might page: 173 feel inclined to accept me as her husband; but that my particular object was that Miss Brown should, on coming of age, find herself in possession of a fortune corresponding to her education, and which should leave her free to contract whatever marriage she pleased, or to continue single.”

Richard Brown flushed.

“In short,” he said, with a strange irony in his voice, “you offer to provide my cousin with a competence whereon to live, or get married, after she shall have remained for two years in your charge. I fully appreciate the intention of your proposal; and I therefore beg to refuse it.”

The blood rushed to Hamlin’s head. That such an interpretation should be put upon his words had never entered his mind. It was as if a whip had whizzed about his ears and cut into his face. His first impulse was to knock the other down. But the sense of his misunderstood superiority, superiority unintelligible to his visitor, restrained him.

“I quite understand your refusal, Mr Brown,” he answered, “as a result of your interpretation of the case; and I suppose I have no right to ask you to see my proposal, except as you would mean it were you to make it yourself.”

Richard Brown turned pale; but he too mastered his feelings.

“If your intention is to marry my cousin, why not marry her at once?” he asked, with something in his look which expressed that he felt himself not to be outwitted by a vicious fool.

Hamlin hesitated. He felt that he could never make this man understand his dreams, his plans of turning Anne Brown into a realised ideal, of wooing and winning the creature of his own making.

“Because—because,” he hesitated.

“Because,” interrupted Richard Brown, “a man in your position of life cannot marry a girl like my cousin before she has been turned into a lady; and because, even if this be granted, he cannot bind himself to marry her page: 175 until he see whether schooling has succeeded in making a lady of her. I perfectly follow your reasons; but you also can follow mine when I say that my cousin cannot be subjected to the ups and downs of your appreciation.”

In this man there was a hatred of Hamlin, not merely as a fine gentleman, an idler, but as an æsthete; a hatred not merely of class, but of temperament.

“You misunderstand my motives,” answered Hamlin, losing patience. “My reason for not marrying your cousin at once is, that I would not marry a woman who cannot possibly love me as yet; and my reason against a formal engagement between us is, that I cannot consent to bind Miss Brown to marry me when she has no opportunity as yet of choosing a man more to her taste. It seems to me,” added Hamlin, feeling the advantage on his side, “that to take your cousin in marriage now, or to bind her to marry me in the future, would be buying her in exchange for the education and the money which she will re‐ page: 176 ceive receive from me. That education and that money are intended to secure her freedom, to secure her choice of a man whom she may love, not to make her into the chattel of a man whom she could only despise.”

Hamlin’s tone and these sentiments, which seemed to belong to a world west of the sun and east of the moon, evidently impressed Anne’s guardian. He remained silent for a moment, unable to realise Hamlin’s state of mind, while no longer able to disbelieve in it. But the temptation to disbelieve in the sincerity of this handsome, effeminate, æsthetic aristocrat was too strong.

“All this is very noble and chivalric,” he said, “and I doubt not quite natural in a poet like you, Mr Hamlin; but for us practical people, I fear it won’t do. I am fully persuaded of the desirability of giving my cousin some further schooling, and fully persuaded also of the undesirability of leaving her any longer in the care of Mr Perry. So I shall take her back to England with me.”

Hamlin turned pale with anger. It sickened him to see his plans dragged in the mire of this fellow’s suspicions, and at the same time he felt unable ever to make him understand, utterly helpless in defending himself. Suddenly an idea struck him.

“I see,” said Hamlin, rising and leaning against the fireplace, while his guest remained coolly seated—“I see that, in plain words, you suppose that I project settling some money upon your cousin, with a view of making her my mistress for two years—that is it, is it not, Mr Brown?”

The brutal frankness staggered Brown; it was impossible to make any more insinuations now. And he began to feel ashamed of those which he had already made. His own imagination, then, was less clean than the intentions of this womanish fine gentleman?

Perhaps for this very reason he answered calmly, but turning very red—

“Yes, sir; that is exactly the state of the case.”

Hamlin felt a sort of triumph at this humiliation of his visitor.

“In that case,” he said, “I think I can devise a plan which shall satisfy you—which will relieve your apprehensiveness. I offer not merely to settle upon Miss Brown the capital of five hundred a‐year, to be administered by you until her majority; but also to give you my word of honour to marry Miss Brown at any time that she may summon me to do so.”

Richard Brown was taken aback; all this romance, which he had believed to be but a vicious snare, was then real.

“I don’t understand you,” he said. “I don’t understand what you want to do with my cousin.”

“It seems difficult to explain it to you, Mr Brown,” said Hamlin; “still, I may repeat it. I wish Miss Brown to receive all the advantages of education and money which a woman gifted like her has a right to, and which will enable her to freely marry a man worthy of her— page: 179 myself, or any other in the world. I will not hear of binding Miss Brown to me at present, either by marriage or by promise of marriage; she is to remain absolutely independent. But I offer once more to pledge myself to marry her whenever she may wish it.”

Brown did not answer for a moment.

“Are you ready to sign a document to that effect?” he asked.

“I will give Miss Brown my word,” answered Hamlin, contemptuously; “and I will give you, Mr Brown, as many signed documents as may be equivalent thereto in your eyes.”

Brown felt the insult, but he knew he had drawn it upon himself. For a moment he hesitated; his aversion to Hamlin and Hamlin’s plan fighting painfully with his sense of the worldly interests of his ward. At last he said—

“On these conditions I can no longer make any opposition; and it rests with my cousin to accept or refuse your offer. I can only warn her and you—and to do so is my page: 180 duty, I think—that, in my opinion, such an arrangement is utterly undesirable for both parties, and that my strong advice is not to enter upon it.”

“I take your warning to heart,” answered Hamlin, contemptuously; “but I cannot agree with it. May I beg you to meet me at the English Consulate to‐morrow morning, to witness the document which you proposed I should draw out; the matter of her money settlement I shall leave in the hands of my lawyers. What hour will suit you? and may I have the pleasure of receiving you to breakfast with me and Mr Perry, who will doubtless be my witness?”

Richard Brown bowed.

“Thank you,” he said briefly; “I think I should prefer breakfasting at my inn. With regard to the document, I shall be happy to meet you at the Consulate any time convenient to yourself. But,” and his face became as threatening as his voice was studiously courteous, “we must first hear whether, on page: 181 second thoughts, my cousin accepts your proposal. Good afternoon, Mr Hamlin.”

“Good afternoon,” answered Hamlin.

Richard Brown’s visit had left a nauseous taste in his soul.