After breakfast on that day Bessy was summoned into her father’s bookroom, and found him there, and her mother also. “Bessy,” said he, “sit down, my dear. You know why Godfrey has left us this morning?” Bessy walked round the room so that in sitting she might be close to her mother, and take her mother’s hand in her own.
“I suppose I do, papa,” she said.
“He was with me late last night, Bessy; and, when he told me what had passed between you, I agreed with him that he had better go.”
“It was better that he should go, papa.”
“But he has left a message for you.”
“A message, papa!”
“Yes, Bessy; and your mother agreed with me that it had better be given to you. It is this, — that, if you will send him word to come again, he will be here by Twelfth Night. He came before on my invitation, but if he returns it must be on yours.”
“Oh, papa, I cannot.”
“I do not say that you can; but you should think of it calmly before you refuse. You shall give me your answer on New Year’s morning.”
“Mamma knows that it would be impossible,” said Bessy.
“Not impossible, dearest. I do know that it would be a hard thing to do.”
“In such a matter you should do what you believe to be right,” said her father.
“If I were to ask him here again it would be telling that I would” —
“Exactly, Bessy; it would be telling him that you would be his wife. He would understand it so, and so would your mother and I. It must be understood altogether.”
“But, papa, when we were at Liverpool” —
“I have told him everything, dearest,” said Mrs. Garrow.
“I think I understand the whole,” said the Major; “and in such a matter as this I will give no advice on either side. But you must remember that, in making up your mind, you must think of him as well as of yourself. If you do love him, — if you feel that as his wife you could not love him, — there is not another word to be said. I need not explain to my daughter that under such circumstances she would be wrong to encourage the visits of a suitor. But your mother says you do love him?”
“Oh, mamma!”
“I will not ask you. But, if you do, — if you have so told him, and allowed him to build up an idea of his life’s happiness on such telling, — you will, I think, sin greatly against him by allowing false feminine pride to mar his happiness. When once a girl has confessed to a man that she loves him, the confession and the love together put upon her the burden of a duty towards him which she cannot with impunity throw aside.” Then he kissed her, and, bidding her give him a reply on the morning of the New Year, left her with her mother.
She had four days for consideration, and they went past with her by no means easily. Could she have been alone with her mother the struggle would not have been so painful, but there was the necessity that she should talk to Isabella Holmes, and the necessity also that she should not neglect the Coverdales. None could have been kinder than Bella. She did not speak on the subject till the morning of the last day, and then only in a very few words. “Bessy,” she said, “as you are great, be merciful!”
“But I am not great, and it would not be mercy,” replied Bessy.
“As to that,” said Bella, “he has surely a right to his own opinion.”
On that evening she was sitting alone in her room when her mother came to her, and her eyes were red with weeping. Pen and paper were before her as though she were resolved to write, but hitherto no word had been written.
“Well, Bessy,” said her mother, sitting down close beside her, “is the deed done?”
“What deed, mamma? Who says that I am to do it?”
“The deed is not the writing, but the resolution to write. Five words will be sufficient, if only those five words may be written.”
“It is for one’s whole life, mamma; for his life as well as my own.”
“True, Bessy; that is quite true. But it is equally true whether you bid him come or allow him to remain away. That task of making up one’s mind for life must always at last be done in some special moment of that life.”
“Mamma, mamma, tell me what I should do.”
But this Mrs. Garrow would not do. “I will write the words for you if you like,” she said; “but it is you who must resolve that they shall be written. I cannot bid my darling go away and leave me for another home. I can only say that in my heart I do believe that home would be a happy one.”
It was morning before the note was written; but when the morning came Bessy had written it and brought it to her mother. “You must take it to papa,” she said. Then she went, and hid herself from all eyes till the noon was passed. “Dear Godfrey,” — the letter ran, — “Papa says that you will return on Wednesday if I write to ask you. Do come back to us, — if you wish it. Yours always, Bessy.”
“It is as good as though she had filled the sheet,” said the Major. But in sending it to Godfrey Holmes he did not omit a few accompanying remarks of his own.
An answer came from Godfrey by return of post, and, on the afternoon of the 6th of January, Frank Garrow drove over to the station at Penrith to meet him. On their way back to Thwaite there grew up a very close confidence between the two future brothers-in-law, and Frank explained with great perspicuity a little plan which he had arranged himself. “As soon as it is dark, so that she won’t see, Harry will hang it up in the dining-room,” he said; “and mind you go in there before you go anywhere else.”
“I am very glad you have come back, Godfrey,” said the Major meeting him in the hall. “God bless you, dear Godfrey,” said Mrs. Garrow. “You will find Bessy in the dining-room,” she whispered; but in so whispering she was quite unconscious of Frank’s mistletoe bough.
And so also was Bessy. Nor do I think that she was much more conscious when that interview was over. Godfrey had made all manner of promises to Frank; but when the moment arrived he had found the crisis too important for any special reference to the little bough above his head. Not so, however, Patty Coverdale. “It’s a shame,” she said, bursting out of the room; “and if I’d known what you had done nothing on earth should have induced me to go in. I will not enter the room again till I know that you have taken it out.” Nevertheless, her sister Kate was bold enough to solve the mystery before the evening was over.