第19章 CHAPTER V.(4)

He did this not merely from his reluctance to complete any arrangements which might facilitate Ellinor's marriage.There was a further annoyance connected with the affair.His money matters had been for some time in an involved state;he had been living beyond his income,even reckoning that,as he always did,at the highest point which it ever touched.He kept no regular accounts,reasoning with himself--or,perhaps,I should rather say persuading himself--that there was no great occasion for regular accounts,when he had a steady income arising from his profession,as well as the interest of a good sum of money left him by his father;and when,living in his own house near a country town where provisions were cheap,his expenditure for his small family--only one child--could never amount to anything like his incomings from the above-mentioned sources.But servants and horses,and choice wines and rare fruit-trees,and a habit of purchasing any book or engraving that may take the fancy,irrespective of the price,run away with money,even though there be but one child.A year or two ago,Mr.Wilkins had been startled into a system of exaggerated retrenchment--retrenchment which only lasted about six weeks--by the sudden bursting of a bubble speculation in which he had invested a part of his father's savings.But as soon as the change in his habits,necessitated by his new economies,became irksome,he had comforted himself for his relapse into his former easy extravagance of living by remembering the fact that Ellinor was engaged to the son of a man of large property:and that though Ralph was only the second son,yet his mother's estate must come to him,as Mr.Ness had already mentioned,on first hearing of her engagement.

Mr.Wilkins did not doubt that he could easily make Ellinor a fitting allowance,or even pay down a requisite dowry;but the doing so would involve an examination into the real state of his affairs,and this involved distasteful trouble.He had no idea how much more than mere temporary annoyance would arise out of the investigation.Until it was made,he decided in his own mind that he would not speak to Ellinor on the subject of her lover's letter.So for the next few days she was kept in suspense,seeing little of her father;and during the short times she was with him she was made aware that he was nervously anxious to keep the conversation engaged on general topics rather than on the one which she had at heart.As I have already said,Mr.Corbet had written to her by the same post as that on which he sent the letter to her father,telling her of its contents,and begging her (in all those sweet words which lovers know how to use)to urge her father to compliance for his sake--his,her lover's--who was pining and lonely in all the crowds of London,since her loved presence was not there.He did not care for money,save as a means of hastening their marriage;indeed,if there were only some income fixed,however small--some time for their marriage fixed,however distant--he could be patient.He did not want superfluity of wealth;his habits were simple,as she well knew;and money enough would be theirs in time,both from her share of contingencies,and the certainty of his finally possessing Bromley.

Ellinor delayed replying to this letter until her father should have spoken to her on the subject.But as she perceived that he avoided all such conversation,the young girl's heart failed her.She began to blame herself for wishing to leave him,to reproach herself for being accessory to any step which made him shun being alone with her,and look distressed and full of care as he did now.It was the usual struggle between father and lover for the possession of love,instead of the natural and graceful resignation of the parent to the prescribed course of things;and,as usual,it was the poor girl who bore the suffering for no fault of her own:although she blamed herself for being the cause of the disturbance in the previous order of affairs.Ellinor had no one to speak to confidentially but her father and her lover,and when they were at issue she could talk openly to neither,so she brooded over Mr.Corbet's unanswered letter,and her father's silence,and became pale and dispirited.

Once or twice she looked up suddenly,and caught her father's eye gazing upon her with a certain wistful anxiety;but the instant she saw this he pulled himself up,as it were,and would begin talking gaily about the small topics of the day.

At length Mr.Corbet grew impatient at not hearing either from Mr.

Wilkins or Ellinor,and wrote urgently to the former,making known to him a new proposal suggested to him by his father,which was,that a certain sum should be paid down by Mr.Wilkins to be applied,under the management of trustees,to the improvement of the Bromley estate,out of the profits of which,or other sources in the elder Mr.

Corbet's hands,a heavy rate of interest should be paid on this advance,which would secure an income to the young couple immediately,and considerably increase the value of the estate upon which Ellinor's settlement was to be made.The terms offered for this laying down of ready money were so advantageous,that Mr.