第37章 CHAPTER IX.(2)

Before very long the Corbet family moved en masse to Stokely Castle for the wedding.Of course,Ralph associated on equal terms with the magnates of the county,who were the employers of Ellinor's father,and spoke of him always as "Wilkins,"just as they spoke of the butler as "Simmons."Here,too,among a class of men high above local gossip,and thus unaware of his engagement,he learnt the popular opinion respecting his future father-in-law;an opinion not entirely respectful,though intermingled with a good deal of personal liking."Poor Wilkins,"as they called him,"was sadly extravagant for a man in his position;had no right to spend money,and act as if he were a man of independent fortune."His habits of life were criticised;and pity,not free from blame,was bestowed upon him for the losses he had sustained from his late clerk's disappearance and defalcation.But what could be expected if a man did not choose to attend to his own business?

The wedding went by,as grand weddings do,without let or hindrance,according to the approved pattern.A Cabinet minister honoured it with his presence,and,being a distant relation of the Brabants,remained for a few days after the grand occasion.During this time he became rather intimate with Ralph Corbet;many of their tastes were in common.Ralph took a great interest in the manner of working out political questions;in the balance and state of parties;and had the right appreciation of the exact qualities on which the minister piqued himself.In return,the latter was always on the look-out for promising young men,who,either by their capability of speech-making or article-writing,might advance the views of his party.

Recognising the powers he most valued in Ralph,he spared no pains to attach him to his own political set.When they separated,it was with the full understanding that they were to see a good deal of each other in London.

The holiday Ralph allowed himself was passing rapidly away;but,before he returned to his chambers and his hard work,he had promised to spend a few more days with Ellinor;and it suited him to go straight from the duke's to Ford Bank.He left the castle soon after breakfast--the luxurious,elegant breakfast,served by domestics who performed their work with the accuracy and perfection of machines.

He arrived at Ford Bank before the man-servant had quite finished the dirtier part of his morning's work,and he came to the glass-door in his striped cotton jacket,a little soiled,and rolling up his working apron.Ellinor was not yet strong enough to get up and go out and gather flowers for the rooms,so those left from yesterday were rather faded;in short,the contrast from entire completeness and exquisite freshness of arrangement struck forcibly upon Ralph's perceptions,which were critical rather than appreciative;and,as his affections were always subdued to his intellect,Ellinor's lovely face and graceful figure flying to meet him did not gain his full approval,because her hair was dressed in an old-fashioned way,her waist was either too long or too short,her sleeves too full or too tight for the standard of fashion to which his eye had been accustomed while scanning the bridesmaids and various highborn ladies at Stokely Castle.

But,as he had always piqued himself upon being able to put on one side all superficial worldliness in his chase after power,it did not do for him to shrink from seeing and facing the incompleteness of moderate means.Only marriage upon moderate means was gradually becoming more distasteful to him.

Nor did his subsequent intercourse with Lord Bolton,the Cabinet minister before mentioned,tend to reconcile him to early matrimony.

At Lord Bolton's house he met polished and intellectual society,and all that smoothness in ministering to the lower wants in eating and drinking which seems to provide that the right thing shall always be at the right place at the right time,so that the want of it shall never impede for an instant the feast of wit or reason;while,if he went to the houses of his friends,men of the same college and standing as himself,who had been seduced into early marriages,he was uncomfortably aware of numerous inconsistencies and hitches in their menages.Besides,the idea of the possible disgrace that might befall the family with which he thought of allying himself haunted him with the tenacity and also with the exaggeration of a nightmare,whenever he had overworked himself in his search after available and profitable knowledge,or had a fit of indigestion after the exquisite dinners he was learning so well to appreciate.

Christmas was,of course,to be devoted to his own family;it was an unavoidable necessity,as he told Ellinor,while,in reality,he was beginning to find absence from his betrothed something of a relief.

Yet the wranglings and folly of his home,even blessed by the presence of a Lady Maria,made him look forward to Easter at Ford Bank with something of the old pleasure.

Ellinor,with the fine tact which love gives,had discovered his annoyance at various little incongruities in the household at the time of his second visit in the previous autumn,and had laboured to make all as perfect as she could before his return.But she had much to struggle against.For the first time in her life there was a great want of ready money;she could scarcely obtain the servants'wages;and the bill for the spring seeds was a heavy weight on her conscience.For Miss Monro's methodical habits had taught her pupil great exactitude as to all money matters.