CHAPTER XXV

The Last Days of Mary Masters

The triumph of Mary Masters was something more than a nine days’ wonder to the people of Dillsborough.  They had all known Larry Twentyman’s intentions and aspirations, and had generally condemned the young lady’s obduracy, thinking, and not being slow to say, that she would live to repent her perversity.  Runciman who had a thoroughly warm-hearted friendship for both the attorney and Larry had sometimes been very severe on Mary.  “She wants a touch of hardship,” he would say, “to bring her to.  If Larry would just give her a cold shoulder for six months, she’d be ready to jump into his arms.”  And Dr. Nupper had been heard to remark that she might go farther and fare worse.  “If it were my girl I’d let her know all about it,” Ribbs the butcher had said in the bosom of his own family.  When it was found that Mr. Surtees the curate was not to be the fortunate man, the matter was more inexplicable than ever.  Had it then been declared that the owner of Hoppet Hall had proposed to her, all these tongues would have been silenced, and the refusal even of Larry Twentyman would have been justified.  But what was to be said and what was to be thought when it was known that she was to be the mistress of Bragton?  For a day or two the prosperity of the attorney was hardly to be endured by his neighbours.  When it was first known that the stewardship of the property was to go back into his hands, his rise in the world was for a time slightly prejudicial to his popularity; but this greater stroke of luck, this latter promotion which would place him so much higher in Dillsborough than even his father or his grandfather had ever been, was a great trial of friendship.

Mrs. Masters felt it all very keenly.  All possibility for reproach against either her husband or her step-daughter was of course at an end.  Even she did not pretend to say that Mary ought to refuse the squire.  Nor, as far as Mary was concerned, could she have further recourse to the evils of Ushanting, and the peril of social intercourse with ladies and gentlemen.  It was manifest that Mary was to be a lady with a big house, and many servants, and, no doubt, a carriage and horses.  But still Mrs. Masters was not quite silenced.  She had daughters of her own, and would solace herself by declaring to them, to her husband, and to her specially intimate friends, that of course they would see no more of Mary.  It wasn’t for them to expect to be asked to Bragton, and as for herself she would much rather not.  She knew her own place and what she was born to, and wasn’t going to let her own children spoil themselves and ruin their chances by dining at seven o’clock and being waited upon by servants at every turn.  Thank God her girls could make their own beds, and she hoped they might continue to do so at any rate till they had houses of their own.