CHAPTER VIII.
LATER in the afternoon Richard Brown called at the Perrys’ and asked to see his cousin. He was received with effusiveness by Mrs Perry.
“So you have seen our noble, darling Hamlin,” she cried; “and you have felt your heart go out to meet him as we have felt ours.”
“I have seen Mr Hamlin,” answered Brown roughly, not at all appreciating the lady’s winning manners; “and I should like to speak to my cousin, please.”
“Anne—my beautiful Anne”—cried Mrs Perry, opening the door of the next room.
“Poor child!” she added, “how she has been trembling in her heart all day!”
Anne entered. She was paler even than page: 183 usual, and was more than usually self‐possessed. She had seen her guardian for a minute early that morning, and she knew that this visit would seal her fate.
“Good afternoon, Richard,” she said briefly.
Brown looked round at Mrs Perry, waiting for her to withdraw. But such was by no means her intention.
“Don’t be unhappy, darling,” she said to Anne; “I know how one woman always longs for another woman in these moments. I will stay with you while your cousin tells you the result of his visit. ”
“It is very kind of you, madam,” said Brown gruffly, “but I think this matter had better be settled solely between my cousin and myself. Would you permit her to take me into some other room?”
“Oh, I don’t wish to intrude,” sighed Mrs Perry, “I only wished to support this poor child with my presence. But after all, a woman who loves requires support from no one.” Saying which she swept out of the room.
page: 184There was a moment’s silence.
“I have been to Mr Hamlin’s, Anne,” said Brown briefly, seating himself by the fire.
“Well?”
The tone of voice was so resolute and even triumphant that he raised his head and looked up at her where she was standing by the table, a piece of needlework still in her hands.
“Well,” answered Brown quietly, and watching the effect of each of his words on the pale, melancholy, but dispassionate face of the girl, “I have spoken to Mr Hamlin; and I find that you were correct in your judgment, and that I was mistaken in mine. He is in earnest in his proposal, and honest in it.”
“I knew that;” and Anne Brown wondered whether this could be the same cousin Dick who was a big boy, almost a man, when she was a tiny mite at Spezia; who took care of her when her mother was ill and her father was drunk; who used to shoulder his uncle and drag him off to bed when, in a fit of page: 185 intoxication, he would come in and threaten to throw the babies out of the window. She recognised the small features, the dark skin and hair, the heavy intellectual brow; but he seemed to have changed in expression, to have grown hard, and arrogant, and coarse.
“I knew that,” she repeated, “though you would not believe it. So,” she added, with a certain hardness in her manner, “I suppose I am left free to decide, and that you are ready to let Mr Hamlin do what he chooses.”
“You are free to decide,” he answered. “Mr Hamlin, as I have said, is serious and honest, and willing to make every provision which can bind him and leave you free, legally. I cannot, as your guardian, say no. But,” and his voice assumed a threatening tone, “as your kinsman, and as the representative of your father, I most earnestly dissuade you from accepting this proposal.”
Anne reddened. “But you can no longer oppose it,” she said quickly.
“I have told you before that you are free, page: 186 Anne. And because you are free,” continued Brown, a sort of despair coming over him at the sight of the girl’s indifference—“because you are free, I want you to listen to me. This proposal is one which, in the eyes of the world, will change your life for the better: you will be educated, get the manners of a lady, be rich yourself, and marry a rich man. But will you stand higher in your own opinion? Would you stand as high as you should in that of your father, if he were alive? You, having bartered your freedom, having accepted all from this one man?”
Anne did not answer.
“Of course,” went on Richard Brown eagerly, “you will have every worldly advantage. But will you be happy taken out of your own sphere of life, knowing yourself to be bound in gratitude to this man, who will always continue to feel your superior, to look down upon you as a beggar whom he has fed, or a chattel which he has bought? This man is, for his class and ideas, honourable: he wishes to leave you free page: 187 to marry him only if you please; he wishes to marry you really and truly. But in reality he is making you his slave; for how can you refuse him the only thing which you, my poor Nan, can give him in return for his money? And in reality he is making you his mistress; for what sort of marriage is it which is a marriage merely before the world—where the one buys and the other is bought?”
Anne flushed still deeper, and trembled from head to foot as she leaned against the table. A dull pain clawed her at the heart, a lump rose up to her throat. But she did not speak.
Richard Brown misunderstood her silence. He rose and approached the table, and tried to put his arm paternally on her shoulder. She shrank back, but let his heavy hand rest on her shoulder. What did his touch matter when there were his words?
“Annie, dear,” said Brown more gently, “you know I am a rough man, and don’t know how to mince matters and say things to women; but you know that I am fond of page: 188 you. Don’t you recollect when you were a wee lassie, and I used to carry you about on my back, and go into the water to get you the sea‐weeds and the little nautiluses. I suppose you don’t any longer. But still, you know I would not for the world hurt my poor little Nan.”
Anne held on to the table, and as she recognised that familiar intonation, hot tears rolled down her cheeks. Her whole childhood seemed to return to her.
“Don’t cry—don’t cry!” exclaimed Brown, taking her hand. “Poor child! I know it must be very hard for you who are so young; I know what it must be to be tempted with a lady’s education, and money, and a fine gentleman, who’s in love with one, for a husband. But remember what your poor dad used to tell us, that we common folk must make our own way—make the others feel that we’re as good as they, and not accept anything from them. D’you remember how he used to say to me, ‘Work and be proud’? Well, and I page: 189 have worked and have been proud, and it’s that that has enabled me to rest a little. And you, too, must be proud, and work, my little Annie.”
“Look here,” he went on, “you must not think you are never to be anything but a servant. I feel I’ve been to blame, and neglected you too long. You see, I’ve had to work hard for my life, out in England; but now I am quite safely off—indeed much better off than I ever anticipated: my employer is going to take me into partnership next year. Well, since you wish to go to school, I will send you there. You shall come back with me to England, and I will send you to the very best school to be found: you shall be as good as any lady, and you shall owe nothing to any one. Annie, do say yes.”
He spoke, this rough man, almost as one might to a sick child; and as he spoke, he tried to pass his arm round the girl’s waist. But Anne shuddered, and freed herself from his grasp. There was something in this big dark page: 190 man, with his bushy hair and beard, which made her shrink physically, although she felt no suspicion of him morally. The thought of Hamlin passed across her mind—Hamlin, who was everything which Richard Brown was not.
“You are very good, Dick,” she said, feeling ashamed of her ingratitude; “but—but—oh no, no, I can’t, I can’t!” and she hid her tears with her hands.
“Can’t what?” exclaimed Brown, and his voice and face changed; “can’t what? Can’t accept my offer; can’t owe anything to me, to your cousin, to the man to whom your father confided you? No! you won’t be under such an obligation, eh? Nay, don’t humbug me. You can’t give up the money, the land, the house, the fine name—all the things which he can give you and I can’t; for I can only give you an education, and I was such a fool as to think that you wanted that!” and Brown laughed a loud, bitter laugh.
“You want to marry that man,” he went page: 191 on brutally; “well, do so. But remember what marriage means. You are a girl of the people, who has had to take care of herself—not a fine young lady, as yet, thank God, with all the fine names which fine folk have for nasty things. You know what marriage means. It means being a man’s chattel, more than his beast of burden, his plaything, the toy of his caprice and sensuality. It means, also, that you must smother all love for a worthier man, or degrade yourself in your own eyes. Will you be this, sell yourself thus—?”
“Mr Hamlin does not wish me to degrade myself,” cried the girl. “He respects me,—yes, he does; and you—you don’t!”
“He respects you!” sneered Brown. “And he does not want to degrade you. Of course, he’s a respectable, highly moral man. But, upon my soul, I would rather you had been seduced by a man you loved, than that you should have sold yourself coldly in this way.”
Anne felt herself choking. For a moment she could not utter a word. Then suddenly, page: 192 with a strange look in her eyes, she cried, in a tone which smote her cousin on the mouth—
“I love him!”
Brown turned and looked her in the face. She was very flushed, and her slate‐grey eyes gleamed feverishly. But her face was calm, and she returned his taunting gaze, which sought for the proof that she lied, with a look of irrepressible contempt.
“I love him!” she repeated.
Brown took his hat.
“Good‐bye,” he said, stretching out his hand; “I left the choice in your hands, and you have chosen. To‐morrow morning I shall settle everything with Mr Hamlin—the papers, I mean—which shall make him henceforth your sole protector. Then I shall go. Goodbye. I wish you joy of your choice”—he paused—“you mercenary thing!”
Anne did not move.
Richard Brown had already turned the handle of the door when he stopped. “One thing more,” he said, “which I desire you page: 193 to know. You have taken care of yourself hitherto, and you are prudent enough in all conscience, and world‐wise enough, and heartless enough, to do so in future; so this piece of information may be of use to you. To‐morrow he will sign a paper, which I shall keep till you come of age, declaring that, although he leaves you complete freedom in the choice of a husband, he binds himself to marry you whenever you may call upon him to do so. You will doubtless know how to turn this to profit. Good‐bye.”
Anne sank into a chair, excited, exhausted, all her blood in movement, she scarcely knew why—insulted, maligned, and yet with a great sense of joyfulness in her heart.
