Mrs. Merritt who had been housekeeper to the late Canon Blackrod and now let lodgings in a house of her own, was amiable, and by the possession of that quality was able to keep her curiosity within bounds: but it was her daughter Polly, a Devon maid of apple cheeks and sloe-black eyes, who taught her enthusiasm for her lodger. Polly Merritt adored the quiet and pretty young lady who, though she wore such beautiful clothes, gave herself none of the airs which were clearly within her rights; who would wash her own blouses, trim her own hats, or sit below-stairs chatting affably, while she trimmed one for Polly herself. In such familiar intercourse all the necessary safeguards of landladies were proved to be secure. Miss Middleham, it seemed, was an orphan, by profession a teacher of languages, who had found it necessary to leave her London employment to escape a gentleman’s attentions. Most reasonable, most proper. The gentleman was one indeed, highly connected, in fact, cousin of an Honourable; but impecunious and not very steady. Girls who are orphans must look after themselves: there had been nothing for it but flight. Admirable forethought! Nothing, certainly, but praise could be given to Miss Middleham for conduct so discreet. “It’ll bring him round, Miss, depend upon it,” Mrs. Merritt had considered. “It’ll make him look nine ways. As good as a slap in the face, any day.”
“Better, I hope,” Mary said.
“Some of ’em wants one thing, some another, Miss. Let him know that you’re in earnest, whatever you do.”
“I am quite in earnest, Mrs. Merritt,” Mary told her; “and I think I have made that plain.”
“Did you tell him so, or write it, Miss?” Polly must ask. “Writing’s better—but it’s dull work.”
“I have done both, Polly. He doesn’t know where I am. I made it quite clear to him that he could not.”
Mrs. Merritt, having observed her guest, passed the back of her hand rapidly across her nose. “To be sure you could, Miss. It’s easy to be seen that God Almighty never gave you that pair of eyes for nothing. To call a man, or send him about his business—ah, I’ll warrant you.”
“Poor fellow,” mused the tender Polly. “I pity him.”
In private conversation afterwards Mrs. Merritt assured her daughter that she need not. We should have the young gentleman here before the swallows were away: let Polly mark her words. Our young lady was a snug young lady—that was a certainty. She was not a girl who would go without letters of a morning for long together. Letters! That sort live on ’em, as a man on his eleven o’clock beer. No, no. She was used to company, any one could see. She was meant to be somebody’s darling. How else did she get her pretty ways—and why to goodness wear her pretty frocks, but for that? Meantime, she had been used to the best, you could see; and she should have it here.
What Mrs. Merritt, however, did not know, and Polly did know, was that another gentleman stood in the background. Here lay the root of Polly’s passionate interest in her friend: a constant appeal to her imagination and judgment and wonder. A gentleman was to be expected; there was always a gentleman. But two gentlemen! One more gentleman, and Polly might have felt the responsibilities of Paris. In fact, she did feel them as things were.
Mary had come to Exeter, meaning no more than a passage-bird’s rest there—a night or two, and away. Her cottage at the Land’s End, solitary vigil face to face with the sea and the rocks, tending of the hidden garden there, a waiting and watching—and a great reward: that had been her fixed intent. Nothing seemed to be in the way. She was free as air: why should she wait?
It is very odd, though, how you cannot carry through these hot-blood thoughts in the cold blood. That momentary shyness which had come upon her in the train, when she had caught herself looking out for a remembered village-green and had been abashed, came upon her the moment she began to think of Cornwall with a view to going there. She found herself trembling, found herself delaying, drawing back. Had she been her old self, never sought and never mated, in this tremulous plight she had remained; but she had learned to face such difficulties, and did not shirk it. The more she thought of it the plainer it became that she could not have the cottage, could not sit down there and wait for Senhouse. Virgin as she was, and virginal as she was now become again, the picture of herself in such an attitude, and in such an act, filled her with shame. And if to picture it was dreadful, what would the day-long reality be but unendurable? But where, then, was her sense of comradeship, of perfect amity between him and her? She did not know. It was gone. And what would he—wondrous, clear-seeing friend—say to her for this prudery? That she did know: she could see him appeal for laughter to the skies. Alas, it could not be helped. She was a maiden, therefore might be wooed. She was a maiden, therefore could not go a-wooing. So he and she might never meet again! Better so—oh, infinitely better—than that they should meet by her act.
Thus it was that Polly Merritt came to learn about the other gentleman. Mary’s............